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Setting up a Budget – Avoid more money black holes
April 24th, 2009
I was having a great deal of difficulty coming up with my second entry here (first one is here ), but at hubby’s insistence I decided to work harder so this blog post would come out sooner rather than later. So, here goes!
Keep track of receipts and warranties
- In many stores nowadays, you can’t return things without a receipt. If you can’t return an item you don’t want, it’s a big waste of your money.
- I don’t have the stats for this, but my husband told me he read a study that says that most people who do not try on clothing in the store will end up keeping the stuff. Could it be because they lose their receipt?
- Just as bad – you buy something and it breaks! Warranties can’t be used if you don’t know the terms. And it goes without saying, warranties can’t be used if you don’t have the receipt (because they need proof of the purchase date to know if the warranty is still operative).
- We at vilkri generally recommend against extended warranties, but there are a few exceptions. Let me tell you what happened with our washing machine… It broke, still under warranty for parts. But the labor was not covered. It was an expensive job getting that machine operable again. But the service guy told us that we are likely to need more service soon (and showed me exactly what might be the trouble). He recommended getting the extended warranty, because the price of that was cheaper than the repairs would be. So we did it – we still need to get some work done, but it will cost us less at the time we sign up for the work. So, if you KNOW you’re going to need it, extended warranties make sense. But otherwise, they’re normally a rip off for the consumer and a boon for the vendor.
Care for the car
- Tires must be properly inflated, or you burn more gas than needed for a given trip.
- Keep junk out of your car – otherwise, you’re paying to transport that unnecessary weight around all the time.
- Know about this: the difference between using the AC and rolling down the windows is practically nil – so just do whatever makes you comfortable!
(I’ve heard that) on the highway rolling down your windows is more costly than the A/C because of the tremendous drag added to the car. Not so at slower speeds.