Issue time 8:17 am, by admin
Category:setting up a budget
Save money in your family budget for your summer vacation now
December 14th, 2010You might want to tell us that we must be nuts to think about our vacation now, when many people are in the middle of spending money on gifts for Christmas. (Hanukkah is already behind us.) Don’t get upset too soon! We know that “this the season of giving.” But just like you want to plan for the season of giving in your family budget, you also want to plan for the season of putting your feet up and enjoying the summer.
How do we plan both for the season of giving and summer vacation?
In our budget we have a monthly expense for “gifts” and for “vacation.” It is part of our spending plan, but we don’t go on vacation or buy gifts every month. Still, we allocate money to it every month. We save the money we don’t actually spend on gifts or vacation in our general savings account, from which we take it when it is the season of giving or time to go on vacation.
Saving for gifts and for vacation is a year-round task. If you keep putting money away for the months when you need to spend much more than normal, your family budget will thank you. And you will be much more relaxed facing these unusual bursts of spending which you otherwise probably won’t be able to pay for with your regular monthly income.
.
Get free ideas how to better handle money!
Issue time 8:51 am, by admin
Category:Budget and Expenses
The best 8 dollars and 40 cents you will ever spend
December 2nd, 2010Watches are the most important type of jewelry that a man can display as a status symbol. I am sure some people disagree with me. They say that heavy gold chains or diamond studded wedding bands do a better job telling everybody how loaded you are, but once you graduate from those status symbols you are moving on to watches. Trust me! It is so. And not just because I say so.
What says, “I am mega loaded” better than a Blancpain or a Piaget mechanical timepiece? These things, yes, they are just things, easily run in the 5 digits for an entry-level watch, sort of like a car does for most people.
I am not focusing today on such expensive watches. I don’t own one of these status symbols anyway. I am rather more interested in the digital kind, the ones that run on batteries. I have a few watches and they all run on batteries. The bad news about batteries is that you need to replace them regularly. In the past I have run into jewelry stores in Manhattan who charged me as much as $20 for replacing the battery in my watch. Highway robbery as far as I am concerned!
Recently I have noticed that none of my watches are telling time anymore. My trusted running watch has finally given up all life. It is done monitoring my pace when I go around the track. The last time it recorded was my finishing time at the Boston Marathon in the spring of this year. Now it is time to replace the batteries on my other watch(es). But who wants to pay $20 a piece for replacing a watch battery? I sure don’t.
So, a week ago I went out and bought a 16 piece watch repair kit which includes a wrench that lets me open the back of a watch. This makes it very easy to replace a battery. And guess what – batteries cost between $3 and $4. So, instead of paying $20 to have the battery in my watch replaced, it cost me $12 to do it myself, even after paying for the complete tool kit! But then, I get to keep the tool kit for the next battery replacement. Pretty neat, isn’t it?
When my wife reads this post, I am sure that she will ask me to replace batteries in her watches….. Hey, maybe this could even evolve into a little side business.
What other little deals do you know about that will let you recoup your investment as easily and as quickly?
.
Get free ideas how to better handle money!
Issue time 7:14 am, by admin
Category:Budget and Expenses
Responsible consumption is the new normal
December 1st, 2010Personal finance bloggers should be cheering. Most of them, us included, write about using credit cards responsibly if using them at all. I am sure that personal finance bloggers are not only part of the new fashion but have also influenced the new fashion: credit card use is down as “only” 62 million people have credit cards now which is 8 million fewer people than a year ago.
Some of these people have had their credit cards canceled by their banks, but a good many people have willingly given up their credit cards. This is big, especially now that the gift-giving holidays are coming up. You all know that the day after Thanksgiving is a huge shopping day because many people have the day off and use it to get a jump on their holiday shopping. Stores entice shoppers by offering big sale discounts. Well, all reports are that Black Friday this year was successful, with stores reporting more sales than for Black Friday last year. And you internet-savvy readers know that there are big sales online the Monday after Thanksgiving, right? Cyber Monday has also turned out to show increasing online sales of almost 20% over last year, much better than expected. The US is known as a society based on consumption for nothing, right? We are not going to give up that distinction anytime soon. Consumption still rules.
Interestingly, The New York Times quoted a couple of shoppers on Black Friday who chose not to use credit cards! These shoppers are still out there and shopping. They are just paying for purchases by using cash, or a debit card, instead.
Increased sales combined with lower credit card use tell me that we as a country are turning the corner towards more responsible consumption. This is just as well. There is nothing wrong with spending your hard-earned money whichever way you want. It is a free country. Trouble comes from spending somebody else’s money through credit cards, cash-out mortgages, and other consumption shenanigans that help you to dig yourself into a big hole of debt that can be hard to climb out of.
.
Get free ideas how to better handle money!
