<$Wednesday, August 29, 2007$>
Eeeeee! Puppies!
| *Sponsored Post* My mom is constantly saying she'd like to get a Yorkie puppy some day, after both of her current dogs have passed on. When the time comes, I intend to point her toward Salt Creek Kennel, a local breeding kennel with a pretty good pedigree. I'm always suspicious of any place that specializes in breeding puppies, but this kennel's web site doesn't raise any Evil Puppy Mill red flags. On the contrary, they're AKC certified, they have a local veterinarian inspect both their parent dogs and puppies on a regular basis, their puppies come with a one-year health warranty, and they post customer feedback on their site. What really impresses me is that they want to get to know their customers so that they can be sure their puppies are going to good homes, and to keep in touch to make sure they can answer any questions that might arise after the puppies get settled in their new homes. They specialize in small, AKC-certified breeds which can be a bit pricey, but with the health guarantees, paying extra for quality breeding might be worth it. I love Fizzgigg with all my heart, and wouldn't trade him for the world, but his health problems this year alone have cost us as much as buying one of these puppies would have. Some vet bills are going to be inevitable no matter what, but getting a dog whose history and parentage you're certain of could really cut down on veterinary costs over the dog's lifetime. Warning: clicking on those links could lead to squealing, intense desire to hold and cuddle puppies, and cuteness overload. We're not in the market for a new dog right now, but I've been thinking I'd like to eventually consider English bulldogs. These French bulldog puppies, however, have me leaning more in their direction. Eee! So cute! Labels: disclosure, pets, PPP |
The Food Problem - Link Roundup
| I'm a bit muzzy-headed this morning. Not sure if I overdid my workout, or didn't get enough sleep, or if the Benadryl I took at bedtime didn't wear off completely, or some combination of the above, but I was pretty woozy there for a while. I'm better now, except for the brain-fog that's refusing to lift. So please forgive any incoherence or errors in this post. At any rate, as you know if you've been reading this space, I'm trying to tighten up our food spending, because we've begun to spend way too much on food for just two people, and we simply can't keep going on that way. I've been doing some online digging for solutions, and in the process I rounded up some links to some pretty good info. But before I share them, here's some background. Our Situation We rent the upstairs half of my mom's house. Our "kitchen" consists of a mini-fridge, a microwave, and the recent addition of an indoor grill. We have access to my mom's kitchen and are able to store a few things in her refrigerator, but a lot of people live in that house; the kitchen is usually pretty crowded and not at all an enjoyable place in which to cook, and real estate in the freezer is at a premium. In short: the standard advice to cook meals and freeze them for later just doesn't work for us. We don't get to do a lot of cooking, which means we rely a lot on pre-packaged meals. Which in turn means that we get really bored and downright depressed with our options and tend to relieve our boredom with fast food. Bad us. Also, buying in bulk is not an option, since we don't have any room to store anything extra. What We're Doing Right A lot of the standard food-budget advice is stuff we already do. I never go grocery shopping without a list, for one thing, and I almost never deviate from it. I usually have a snack before I go so that I'm not tempted by every little yummy-looking thing I see. I rarely splurge on lattes and mainly drink the free drip coffee at my office, and keep a bag of grounds at home for the weekends. We're not snobs, and we already buy generic or store-brands when possible. We do the bulk of our shopping at the Super Wal-Mart, which, much as I loathe going there for many and varied reasons, consistently has the best prices, even if they don't have the greatest selection. What We Could Do Better Planning. We don't do nearly enough of this. Usually, right before I go shopping my husband and I both think of the things we typically eat that we're out of, and make a list. We don't really plan out our week. I keep a stash of convenience foods at my office to eat throughout the week, and when grocery time comes I automatically restock everything. Planning our meals would probably not only force us to think about our spending, but keep us from falling into the rut that leads to boredom and the fast food fix. Communicating. We're really lousy at this part. We're both so determined not to let finances be a source of conflict in our marriage that sometimes I simply avoid the topic with my husband, which is counterproductive, I know. I need to be better at keeping him informed on what our spending limits are, and at pointing out when something on his list is simply too expensive. Keeping track. My current budgeting method is basically to start with the amount of my paycheck, subtract all of the bills that are due that half of the month, subtract a comfortable amount to go into savings, and then divvy up the rest into a blanket "Grocery Fund" and separate-but-equal personal spending allowances for my husband and myself. After that, apart from keeping track of how much money is left in the fund, I don't really track where it goes. Also, the Grocery Fund covers food, drinks, and certain OTC medications that we both take. Personal care products, health supplements and other non-food items that we don't share come out of our allowances. I think I need to start breaking down the grocery budget into categories and include room for these last items. That might mean we have to make due with smaller allowances, but if we're not having to spend them on vitamins and hair product, that shouldn't be a big deal. Now to the links. Advice Like I said, much of the advice in these articles simply doesn't apply to our situation; but that doesn't mean there's not good stuff in there. GRS has a great post on Healthy Food on an Unhealthy Budget. The comment section is chock-full of both good advice and links to more good resources. Yet more can be found at this Lifehacker article that backtracks the original post. Oprah's web site (yeah, I know) has a good article challenging the notion that healthy eating is expensive. This ABC News article is full of pretty standard, but still good, advice, as is this article from ClubMom. Money Savers For those who are able to cook, The Healthy Hillbilly Housewife has a lot of healthy, budget-friendly recipes. Frugal Cuisine is more focused on frugal than on healthy, but her cost-effective Chinese-influenced recipes might be just the thing we need to add some much needed variety to our diet. OrganicCoupons.org gathers up a lot of good health food coupon resources. Grocery Coupon Guide is also a good starting place for finding coupons and other money saving offers for a wide variety of things. We shop a lot (too much) at Wild Oats, so I signed up for their newsletter to receive in-store coupons and be alerted to sales. Mambo Sprouts has a good selection of printable organic grocery coupons. I mentioned this one earlier, but Coupon Mom is another good coupon resource. I like that they have a list specific to Wal-Mart. I haven't seen anything on there yet that covers the things we normally buy, but I'm still keeping my eye on it, just in case. I think I have enough info now to develop a strategy. Hopefully, through better budgeting, planning, and taking advantage of the coupons and resources listed here, beginning next payday I'll be able to reduce our grocery spending while still providing us with a sufficient variety of healthy foods. I'll let you know how it goes. If you have any tips or ideas for us that might be better suited to our situation, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Labels: frugality, healthy living, money management, spending |
<$Tuesday, August 28, 2007$>
When just enough is good enough
| Blogging revenue is starting to trickle in. It's not a huge amount by any means, but it is encouraging. Between that and yesterday's revelation about ING Direct's subaccounts, I now have an action plan in place for tackling my credit card debt, and that plan is this: Every time I get paid via Paypal for ad-blogging, I shall go directly to Paypal and transfer that payment, however small, into my new "Debt Reduction" subaccount at ING. Then, at the end of every week, I shall move whatever amount is in there into my checking account and fire off an e-check to my credit card company. These micropayments will, of course, be on top of the minimum payment, which will still come out of my regular paycheck. But now I don't have to worry about tightening the belt in other areas of my budget in order to make additional payments on the principal, to which I say: Yay! I'm also trying out a new philosophy on debt elimination. We've got the "no more acquiring debt" part down pretty well (at least, we do again since I cut off our Buyer Credit account and linked my Paypal debit card back to my bank account for backup funding). I think the debt snowball is a brilliant plan. I want to be debt-free, and the sooner the better. BUT: Extreme cost-cutting measures will still mean that it will take at least three years to eliminate our credit card balances. Three years of scrimping and foregoing vacations and feeling guilty about every unnecessary purchase. I just can't live that way for a sustained amount of time, and neither can my husband. And you know what? It's okay if it takes another year or two to get rid of those credit cards. It just won't make that much difference in the long run. Sure, it will cost us more in interest, and that bites, but it doesn't really mean that much to us in a practical, day-to-day setting. So my new goal is to find a balance. To find a point of spending vs. saving vs. debt reduction wherein we're comfortable and have a certain amount of enjoyment in life. As long as we're making progress in the latter two areas, we don't have to wrack ourselves with guilt or completely deny ourselves in the former. This isn't to say I'm going to go out and buy us a Wii, or stop trying to reign in our food spending, or anything like that. It just means I'm going to relax a little and stop constantly worrying and wondering what more I could do. I'm doing enough. All I need to do is hang in there. Labels: credit cards, money management |
Major Change
| *Sponsored Post* Husband is a criminal justice major. He chose his major when he first started college, half his lifetime ago (man, that's some depressing math right there), when he had two good legs and ambitions toward law enforcement. When he went back to school this year he pretty much automatically went back into criminal justice, but we've both been wondering what, exactly, he's going to do with that degree now that being any kind of cop is out of the picture (and I can't honestly say I'm sad about that). Since going back, though, he's realized he has a knack for writing, as well as a passion for films and everything that goes into making them. Now we're beginning to wonder if he shouldn't switch his major to film studies, even if it means he has to change schools (his current university is fairly new and doesn't have many arts degree programs in place yet). So I'm searching for college information for him, to find a school with a good film studies program. There are a couple in our state, but of course the best are going to be in New York or California. I don't know how we'd pull that off, but I told him if that's something he'd really like to pursue, we'll find a way. Fortunately, he makes good grades, so scholarships aren't out of the question. Now if we could only get a scholarship that would cover housing, moving costs, all our bills if I need to relocate my job.... It's a scary prospect. At least its not one we have to make a decision on until he finishes his core studies, and that's still at least a couple of semesters away. Labels: disclosure, goals, PPP |
<$Monday, August 27, 2007$>
Hey, kids! It's that time again!
| This week's Carnival of Personal Finance is hosted at Free Money Finance. Once again, I have nothing listed there, but a couple of articles caught my eye. I've Paid For This Twice Already continues his Budgeting for Dummies series that I linked last week, and it continues to speak to the dark reaches of my ADD-farked brain. Savings Explained offers an alternative perspective on the Emergency Fund, and it's one I find myself agreeing with. There needs to be room allowed to save for other things. Speaking of which, that article lead to another post at that same blog that pointed out that ING Direct offers the ability to create sub-accounts. I had no idea this feature existed, and I'm jazzed to know that it does. This is exactly the kind of virtual envelope method I've been looking for, and now I know how to set it up. Yay! Labels: carnivals, saving+investing |
Are loans unavoidable?
| *This post is brought to you by Marks & Spencer* I guess I've been fairly fortunate in that I've never had to apply for a personal loan (unless you count that one time I tried to consolidate my credit cards through Prosper). I can see potential for the need to arise in the future, though. For one thing, I expect it's more a question of "when" than "if" our Discover card will cancel our 0% introductory rate and hike up our interest, and that will be the time to once again look into our options for consolidation loans. There's also the fact that our car isn't that reliable, and we don't even know if we'll be able to get my husband's truck up and running. If we can't, or if my car decides to give up the ghost, we'll most likely be in the market for a car finance loan. Fortunately, there are all kinds of options for us here in the U.S.A., as well as all kinds of loan payment calculators to choose from. If you're in the U.K., though, and need to calculate pounds instead of dollars, you might want to check out Marks and Spencer's personal loan calculator. By the way, did you even know that Marks & Spencer had a financial department? I sure didn't. Apparently there's a lot more to that company than just a place to get classy and comfortable underwear. Who knew? Labels: disclosure, loans |
<$Friday, August 24, 2007$>
Gaming the System
| I took off work yesterday for Husband's birthday. It was a pretty nice day for us both, for being low-key and low-budget. I was originally going to take him out to breakfast before his classes, but he decided he'd rather sleep in and spend the money on pizza that evening, so that's what we did. We couldn't find any specials or coupons to take advantage of, but it was his birthday, so we went ahead and made the splurge. I also picked him up an inexpensive-but-delicious birthday mini-cake from the Wal-Mart bakery. It was the perfect size--enough for us each to have a generous slice, and then it was gone, never to taunt us with its high-calorie numminess again. That's the last food splurge for us until our anniversary next month. We're still trying to get a handle on this food spending thing in a way that will let us both feel satisfied and eat healthfully while not spending a small fortune on food every month. Cutting out fast food is the most obvious answer, but we also spend a LOT on groceries. GRS has an article on The Grocery Game, but according to his commenters, this is best suited to larger families and isn't much good for individuals or couples who, like us, like to eat very specific foods and buy as much organic as possible. There's also Coupon Mom, which, unlike the Grocery Game, is free. I think I'll try her out and see if I can't at least save us some money on our non-food groceries. I actually used to be pretty good at the coupon game, combining online coupon sites with double-coupon days to almost double my grocery budget. But after we changed our eating habits (for the most part), I realized that coupons just tempted me to buy things that I wouldn't have bought otherwise, so I quit using them. There's got to be some kind of compromise. I'll be trying Coupon Mom out, and also looking around for coupons and specials on organics and things we actually buy. I'll keep y'all posted on the results. Labels: frugality, healthy living, money management, spending |
<$Wednesday, August 22, 2007$>
More ING Referral Links Available
| Blogging Away Debt is offering up another set of my ING Referral Links (and once mine are gone, she's sure to have more, so keep checking back there if you're interested but now's not the right time to open an account). If you missed the memo, using one of these links to open an ING Orange Savings Account with a minimum of $250 will earn you a $25 sign-up bonus (and earn ME a $10 kick-back). Tricia has all of the stats and info on the account at her site, but I'll add that I've been pretty happy with them so far. I recently added an Electric Orange Checking account, which makes it pretty easy to access the funds when we need them (without making it too easy). Labels: saving+investing |
Marketing Strategies
| *Sponsored Post* I know that, like me, a lot of pfbloggers are relying on ad revenue as a means of creating extra income that can be applied to debt or savings. That usually means a lot of time and effort goes into marketing our blogs--often more time and effort than what goes into actual blogging. Those whose revenue streams are large enough might consider investing in Apogee Search's Online Media Planning program to increase your marketing efforts and take advantage of Search Engine Marketing to drive traffic to your blog and increase your revenues. They offer Pay Per Click advertising as well as Natural SEO Marketing. If I was in a position to divert my funds away from debt reduction and invest in marketing my blogs, I know it would be terribly tempting to hand over some money to let someone else do all that work for me. Labels: disclosure, marketing, PPP |
Married With Debt
| Speaking of vigorously attacking debts, Get Rich Slowly has an excellent guest article on When a Spender and a Saver Say "I Do". It's pretty inspirational, and also contains some good ideas for going at those debts full-throttle. Husband and I started out pretty much even in the saving/spending department, with neither of us really big on saving. It didn't take long after we got married to realize that at least one of us needed to step up and become a saver if we were ever going to make any financial headway and live a comfortable life. This is all still fairly new to me, and although I suffered a backslide in the last couple of months, I'm ready to pull ahead again. I'm doing my best to drag husband along with me. I think I might print out this article and (try to) get him to read it. Maybe it will inspire him to get in step with me and give us an opportunity to sit down and make a plan together to reach our goals. Labels: credit cards, finance+blogs, goals, money management, personal |
Stupid debt. Smart (er) me.
| *Sponsored Post* Things aren't really quite as bad as I indicated in yesterday's payday report. While it's true (and sucky) that our savings has been cut in half, it's also true that the remainder of Husband's student loans for this semester should be enough (even after we purchase a computer) to replenish our savings and even bump it up to the goal I was aiming for before we had to start dipping into it. What's really frustrating me is the fact that I took our focus off of our debt and have only been making the minimum payments on our credit cards for the last couple of months so that we could beef up our savings, and now it feels like that was all for naught. The good news is, with Husband's SL funds filling in the emergency fund gap, I can get re-focused on debt management and come at my credit cards with renewed vigor. Vigor, I say! *shakes tiny angry fist at creditors* So I'll be going over my options, and reading up on the topic in hopes of lighting an inspirational fire under myself. I've previously considered debt consolidation--either by taking out a loan (I even tried to, through Prosper) or doing a balance transfer--but now that we're down to the two credit cards, with one having 0 interest and a low minimum payment, that seems pretty pointless. Once we get this big one paid off, the other will be a cinch to knock out by comparison. It's hard when things get tight, though, and the bugger about the big card is its huge minimum payment, which makes adding enough to it to make a difference in the balance a challenge. It makes me wish that the US had an equivalent to the UK's IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement), that provided an option for repaying your debts on your own terms that could make life enjoyable while you still meet your obligations. That would probably keep a lot more people from declaring bankruptcy to get out of having to repay their debts at all. So anyway, that's where I stand: getting re-inspired to tackle my debts and re-educated on ways to go about doing so. I'll keep you posted on my progress and any good info I come across. Labels: credit cards, debt consolidation, disclosure, goals, money management, PPP |
<$Tuesday, August 21, 2007$>
Payday Report: 8-21-07
| Finances are squared away. Bills are paid. The stupid Paypal Buyer Credit account that we're no longer allowed to use is paid off. The last medical bill from Husband's Horrible Cancer Aftermath is paid off. The vet bill is paid (Fizzgigg is doing well, btw). Husband's textbook tab is paid. Our savings is back down to under $1,000. If only you could see my face right now. Then you would know what my sad face is like. So, basically, we're back to square one. Well, not really. At square one we had three credit cards and no savings. Now we have two credit cards and some savings. At square one I thought $800 in the bank was HUGE. Now anything under a thousand makes me nervous. So I guess we're just back to square two. At any rate, I'm basically starting over. I zeroed out every outstanding balance I could, and tried a new approach. Instead of my Post-Its I used NCN's Simple Budget Template--which is the first budget template simple enough for my ADD brain to comprehend well enough to make use of--to allocate my funds, and I created a Pocket Mod finance register booklet to track my food budget and my discretionary allowance. Food budget and allowance are both a bit tight. Husband and I really need to get on the same page as far as making food budget last until next payday, because once again, the PayPal Credit account is OFF LIMITS. I'm thinking about setting Tuesday and Friday as regular grocery days, so that we only need to buy for a few days at a time instead of trying to stock up. I tend to think this will help us spend less. I guess we'll just have to try it and see. Oh, and I also updated all of my accounts on Wesabe, which I hadn't done in two months. See what I mean about lazy and complacent? Once I got everything tagged it showed me that we've spent over $350 on food this month, which, considering our total food budget is usually about $450/month (a "month" being two pay periods) and we've still got 16 days to go... yeah. So other than Husband's birthday, we won't be eating out (or eating take-out) any more this month. Hopefully that'll get it all out of our system and then this will no longer be such a challenge for us. *** Speaking of saving money, here's a nifty hack I found for keeping your house cool without air-conditioning. Thankfully, our A/C is included with the rent (one of the few perks of renting from Mom), but I've got this bookmarked for future reference. Labels: money management, personal |
Homemade Cool
| Simply Thrifty, a neat frugality blog I just discovered via Get Rich Slowly, has compiled a couple of nifty-cool lists of 100 Things You Can Make Yourself and 100 MORE Things You Can Make Yourself. There are many things on the list that are just flat-out impractical, or that are too expensive and/or time-consuming to bother with. But there are also plenty of things on there that I have made myself, and several more things I'd like to try. There's enough there to keep my crafty hands busy for a good long while. Labels: frugality |
<$Monday, August 20, 2007$>
Thoof! ... is not the sound a lispy dog makes.
| *Sponsored Post* My internet habits—and limited time in which to indulge them—don't leave me a lot of time for reading the news these days. I have a pretty short attention span when it comes to that stuff, anyway, and I've got my RSS feed reader pared down to only that which can hold my attention, or that which I can breeze through quickly. It doesn't include much in the way of news. I recently discovered Thoof, though, and it's feeding my need to feel more informed and politically aware, what with the election year approaching and all. It's a personalized news aggregator, which means that I can personalize it to show me only headlines covering topics that interest me. Their business tag, for example, brings up a page of finance-related headlines. Nifty. From a marketing standpoint, I really should also start using them as a marketing tool and submitting some of my own posts. Getting my posts out there will do more for my traffic, which will ultimately do more for my bottom line (and for my debt elimination). The Thoof ranking badge could be a great way to track the popularity of my posts. Now all I have to do is come up with something legitimately news-worthy to post about, and I'll be all set. Labels: disclosure, finance+blogs, PPP, self-promotion |
Carnival Time Again
| We're still falling down in the food department. But we finally broke out one of the many Target gift cards we received for our wedding last year (which, I think we'd better hurry up and use these before they start losing value; we've been holding off on spending them until we moved to our new place, but seeing as how that doesn't appear to be happening any time soon...) and bought the indoor grill that Husband has been salivating over since we filled out our gift registry last summer. This increases our cooking abilities and options, which, hopefully, will translate to more cooking real food at home and less eating out. Hopefully. The 114th Carnival of Personal Finance is up at The Simple Dollar. I don't have anything listed this week, but I found a couple of articles there that are appropos to my getting my hinder back in gear in the budgeting and finance department: I've Paid For This Twice Already has started a new Budgeting for Dummies series. Part 1 examines the importance of lists, for which I can confidently vouch. I think my laziness when it comes to lists is partially responsible for my current financial stagnation. No Credit Needed has done a nice Envelope System Video Tutorial. I used a similar envelope system to save money for my wedding and honeymoon, and I still use envelopes to save for short-term goals. The rest of my money is in electronic form, and instead of envelopes I use Post-Its to allocate and track my funds. This worked pretty well for me until, as I mentioned above, I got lazy about writing stuff down. I'm considering going to an envelope system for our food budget. Maybe this would help cut down on our food spending, especially if I don't carry the cash with me and only take it out when there's a legitimate need. I can't be tempted to pick up burgers on the way home from work if I don't have any food money on me, and it would also force my husband to plan ahead and think about what he really needs instead of calling me at work and asking me to stop and grab fast food or groceries for him on the way home. Anyway, back to the carnival: The Digerati Life has a list of the Top 10 Wealth Building Ways of Ordinary People. I must admit, I find #9 an attractive option. It ties in well with my goal to launch a web design business within the next few years, and domains don't really cost that much. A hundred dollars could buy up a handful of domain names, and if just one of them is a jackpot domain (i.e. coveted by a wealthy entity who is willing to shell out big money for it), you could see big returns. Digerati also has a good article on What Low Income Earners Can Do to Get Off Minimum Wage. Thankfully, it's been over a decade since I've been forced to rely on a minimum wage job. It was my basic computer skills that got me out of that trap, and it's been my computer skills, even more than my college degree, that have pulled me up the corporate ladder. The article advises education as the best way to beat minimum wage, but I would emphasize a computer education. Even a single basic computer literacy course will provide someone with the skills they need to get an entry-level office job, often with companies that will pay for additional training and education. Other good links not included in this week's Carnival: We're In Debt asks, Can I Use My Emergency Fund for That? - the temptation to spend our savings on wants instead of needs is another issue Husband and I keep struggling with. Finally, The Budget Fashionista has a $10 Off Old Navy coupon to share. Now I'm off to track our food spending for the last several weeks so I can show Husband just how out-of-control we've gotten. Cheers! Labels: carnivals, finance+blogs, money management, spending |
How (Not) To Sell Gift Baskets
*Sponsored Post* A couple of years ago I started my own gift basket company. I had about $400 in savings—an amount which at the time felt huge to me—and I was working a temp job with only a few months left to go until the gig ended. I also had previous experience putting together gift baskets for charity, and everybody said I had a knack for it. I bought a book on how to start your own gift basket business, read it front to back, made a list of potential clients, another list of basket ideas, sunk the majority of my savings into supplies, and got to work. I sold not a single basket, and my "business" tanked inside a month. Completely sucktastic self-marketing skills aside, looking back I can see that my biggest mistake was spending all of my money on holiday baskets (I launched my business just in time for the Christmas season). At least when Christmas rolled around I had ready-made gifts for the folks on my Christmas shopping list; but if I had gone more generic with my baskets, I could have kept trying to sell them after the holidays were over, and my business would have stood a chance of survival. This was a pretty stupid mistake. The book even told me not to do this, but I did it anyway, believing my baskets would be so adorable that they couldn't NOT sell. I couldn't have been more wrong. Here's a company who got it right. The Fruit Company sells gift baskets that are appropriate for any occasion, and they've been doing it since 1942. Their baskets are elegant and festive without being tied to a specific occasion. They're also healthy and versatile. Even if a recipient hates fruit, any of these baskets can still work as a gorgeous centerpiece. This is how to supply a successful gift basket business. I wish I'd used these folks as a model back when I so obviously had no idea what I was doing. Labels: disclosure, entrepreneurship, PPP |
<$Thursday, August 16, 2007$>
Contest "winner", and more big vet bills
| I only had one commenter who wanted my copy of Bridal Bargains, so she can have it. Congrats, Amy! Just let me know where to send it, and I'll get it in the mail by Monday. In less happy news, Fizzgigg needs surgery. :( Expensive surgery, at that. It's not life-or-death or anything, but he has an open sore on his front leg that (look away now if you're sqeamish) the bone is showing through (it's okay now, you can look back). I took him to the vet weeks ago, and they told me to keep it bandaged and give it more time to heal. A month later, and it hasn't shown any signs of healing on its own, so I took him back yesterday. I thought he would just need some stitches, but the vet gave some fancy word for what's wrong with him and said that he'll need surgery, and a lot of medication afterwards, and gave me an estimate of nearly $200. So tomorrow morning Fizzgigg goes back to finally get his leg fixed, and I get to dip into our savings to pay for it. I'm not going to complain, though, because he's worth it, and I'd pay a lot more than that to keep him from being in pain. This vet's cost estimates tend to run higher than the actual cost, though, so I'm hoping this will be one of those times. Let this serve once again as a reminder that pets can be expensive, and we should all make sure we can afford to give them proper care before committing to be their caretakers. |
<$Wednesday, August 15, 2007$>
Non-news, and news that actually is news: windfalls, computers and out-of-control food spending. Oh my!
| There are things I want to talk about here, things I'm tempted to be very excited about, but I won't let myself yet, on both counts. Sorry to be so enigmatic. There are a couple of things on the horizon, the thought of which have me incredibly jazzed, but they're still only maybes at the moment, and I've learned from harsh experienced that it's not a good idea to go all blog-squee about things that may be. Too often have I had to come back and say "never mind" when it didn't work out. So I'm biting my tongue. But I'm also chomping at the bit. And that ain't easy. In news of things that actually are, Husband got approved for more than enough financial aid to cover his tuition and books both this semester and next, with enough left over (once the university gets around to taking out their share and then cutting him a check) to finally replace our dead computer. Hallelujah and amen! Of course, that won't mean much in terms of getting online from home until we finally move to the city where we can get better-than-dialup access. But considering that I was all gung-ho to take some online web/graphic design courses this year (paid for courtesy of my company's awesome benefits department and their tuition reimbursement program), and had to pass on it this semester because of said lack of home computer, I'm thrilled that at least I'll be able to enroll next semester. Husband starts his classes tomorrow. Yeah, I don't really get starting a term on Thursday, either, but whatever. I'm hoping that his increased activity and workload will translate to us going out less, which will result in spending less and saving more. We really need to get in gear in the "spending less and saving more" department, because we got pretty lazy and complacent about it over the summer. Our biggest downfall, as I've mentioned here before, has been food. With our extremely limited refrigerator space and lack of a stove, we're pretty limited in our options for preparing meals and eating at home, and that makes it hard to have a lot of variety in what we eat. Without variety, we both get to the point where we just can't stand the thought of eating the same stuff one more night, and inevitably we end up either going out to a restaurant or going to get takeout. We spent $60 on deli sushi the other night, which is just inexcusable, and I hated having to account for it (even though it was really yummy sushi). That's about a quarter of our whole grocery budget, for one meal! Clearly, we need to have our asses kicked. That, or I need to poke around this here intertubes and research some more budget-friendly options for preparing a healthy (and, preferably, healthful) variety of foods when you don't have a kitchen. And also, we really, really, REALLY need to stop watching the Food Network and the Travel Channel. Especially that Anthony Bourdain. Labels: extra income, healthy living, loans, money management, spending |
Payday Loan Problems: Who's Responsible?
| Note: the following is a sponsored post. I have a nephew who got himself into a load of trouble--not to mention a load of debt--a few years ago by becoming dependent on advanced check cashing places. I heard a lot at the time from various family members demonizing the entire payday loan industry and painting my nephew as a victim of predators--but let's face it: he wasn't desperately trying to make ends meet. He was using it as a means to finance a lifestyle beyond his means, and doing so completely irresponsibly. I suppose an argument could be made that dumb, irresponsible kids are exactly what this industry relies on, but it could also be argued that my nephew needed a good kick in the pants to learn the lesson that borrowing money comes with consequences and is not something to be done lightly. Mumble-teen years ago, when I was a poor college student, I had a few days to go until payday when I ran out of groceries. Payday loan shops weren't nearly as prevalent then as they are now, but they existed. I found one, signed for a small loan, bought my groceries, and paid back the loan as soon as I got paid a few days later. I paid it back quickly enough to avoid interest (I'm sure the lenders just loved that), and everything worked out just fine. There was nothing in my experience to turn me off of taking out payday loans in the future--although so far, I haven't, because I just haven't had a need for it. Like credit cards, the payday loan industry has a bad reputation and tends to be characterized as predators out to take advantage of the poor; but also like credit cards, payday loans are something that, if used responsibly, can be beneficial to the borrower. My nephew and I represent two opposite extremes. I knew about the high interest rate going in, but I knew I'd be able to pay the loan back quickly enough to keep it from being an issue. My nephew knew about the high interest rate on his loans, too; he just didn't care. I know there is a broad middle ground containing people who don't understand the rates, or who are so desperate for funds that they can't afford to care. I know there are a lot of people out there whose financial lives have been tripped up by payday loans. So where does personal responsibility end and industry responsibility begin? Not too long ago, Lazy Man wrote an article about payday loans in which he looked at them from a lender/investor standpoint and pointed out that with the high loan default rate, these companies really have no choice but to charge really high interest in order to compensate for the money they lose and stay in business. I don't have the statistics, but I do know that my husband used to work for the customer service branch of a major bank, and he was continually astounded at the number of calls he received from customers who requested stop-payment on checks they had written to cover the amount of their payday loans. For all that we hear about people getting taken advantage of by this industry, there are also plenty of people who take criminal advantage of this industry. It's a vicious circle, with their illegal actions driving up the rates and ultimately doing harm to innocents who want to pay back their loans but get trapped by either ignorance or bad choices. It's not a perfect system. Would the world be better off without the payday loan industry? Possibly; but I know I was glad that it was there at a time that I had no other recourse. Labels: disclosure, loans, money management, PPP |
<$Tuesday, August 14, 2007$>
Stepping up my pro-blogging game
This isn't something you're going to see a ton of--my other blog sees maybe three or four paid posts a week, at the most, and that's about what I expect to do here, once I gain momentum. Each one will be clearly identified as a sponsored post, but that won't change the fact that they will contain my honest opinion on the topic at hand, be it positive or negative. NOTE TO ADVERTISERS: If you're not comfortable with those conditions, then please don't bother soliciting posts from me. FWIW, I already paid off my smallest credit card balance (which also happened to have my highest interest rate, thus keeping me comfortably outside of the whole "lowest balance or highest interest rate first?" debate) almost entirely with paid blogging revenue, and I need all the help I can get paying down my remaining cards, so this isn't something I can afford to get squishy about. So consider this fair warning--if paid blogging morally offends you, then now's your chance to remove me from your reading list. Labels: disclosure, PPP |
A review, and a giveaway: Bridal Bargains: Secrets to throwing a fantastic wedding on a realistic budget
| First, the review: Note: I originally wrote this article for Associated Content, but they rejected it on the grounds that they don't accept book reviews "unless they are consumer- or service-related"... which, this book is both consumer- and service-related, so... all righty, then. I'll just post it here instead.  When my husband and I started planning our wedding, I entertained champagne wishes and caviar dreams as big as any other bride's; but once we started pricing our dream wedding, reality bit. If we wanted to have a wedding without amassing mountains of debt, we would either have to push the date back a year or three, or be willing to scale back our expectations. Neither of us being a fan of the waiting, we opted for the latter.Still, I was as determined to have a memorable wedding as I was to save money, and I thought there must be a book out there that would help me do both. I was right. Bridal Bargains* stood out like a bright beacon of hope among the stodgy tomes on wedding etiquette and planning calendars that filled the bookstore shelves. Offering way more than budget-saving DIY tips, Bridal Bargains is a thorough, and thoroughly researched, consumer guide to the wedding industry. If you have ever planned or are currently planning a wedding, then you know that their are few other industries that overwhelm you with as many choices and rules as does the wedding industry. Bridal Bargains is like a best friend who takes you by the hand and guides you through it all step by step, reassuring you along the way that everything is going to be okay. The authors, Denise and Alan Fields, were once themselves a young engaged couple with a wedding to plan who wanted to get through it without spending a fortune or falling prey to industry sharks. When their search for a guidebook to this whole wedding business came up short, they decided to write it themselves. They devoted years to researching the industry, "mystery shopping" stores and services, interviewing real-life couples who've been there as well as wedding planners and industry insiders. The result is a comprehensive survival guide to wedding planning that actually comes with a money back guarantee: if the advice contained therein fails to save you at least $500 on your wedding, the authors promise a full refund on the price of the book. The book is divided into sixteen chapters, each one covering a different aspect of the wedding industry. Each chapter not only lists shopping resources and bargain-hunting ideas, but also weighs the pros and cons of each, and includes consumer warnings and real-world testimonials. There is also a special section covering Canadian vendors, a guide to handling wedding day emergencies, a budget-planning worksheet, and a comprehensive directory of vendors' phone numbers and web addresses. The book even has a companion web site at BridalBargainsBook.com, complete with an active message board where brides-to-be can commune and swap advice. Of course, no book with "bargains" in the title would be complete without creative suggestions for saving money, and this book has plenty. Some of my favorites include: That's just a few of the ideas contained in this book, many of which served as a launching point for brainstorming my own ideas. Combining the advice in this book with my own creativity and DIY skills, I was able to accomplish my goal. We had a beautiful wedding for a mere $3,000, less than one-sixth of the more than $18,000 price tag attached that's typically attached to weddings in my region. Apart from saving me thousands, the best thing this book did for me was to help me relax and focus on what was important. It debunked the myths that bridal magazines and their web counterparts like to promote that had me panicking. This book let me know that various orders didn't have to be placed as far in advance as those sites led me to believe, nor did they have to cost nearly as much. It also helped me to focus my budget on the things that were most important to my husband and me, allowing us to personalize our wedding in a way that made it truly special. Bridal Bargains was my constant companion throughout the planning of my wedding, and I can't imagine putting together a wedding in today's economy without it. Now the giveaway:  I have in my little hand my own copy of the 7th edition of Bridal Bargains, and I'm looking to find it a good home. Despite being my constant companion while I was planning my own wedding last year, it's still in good condition. Not only did it help me save thousands, but it also helped me stay sane. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone who has a wedding to plan or help plan, be they bride, groom, mother-of-the-bride, maid of honor, or bride's second cousin who got roped in to help make favors. If you or anyone you know falls into this category and would find this book helpful and would like a chance to win my copy, just leave a comment here to enter. That's it. A link back here from your own blog will get you two more chances, in addition to your comment here (giving you a maximum total of three chances to win), so be sure to let me know if you linked me; but no linkback is necessary to enter. You have until this Thursday at noon (Central time) to enter. After the deadline, I'll assign a number to each entry, and then I'll use Random.org to randomly select the winner, who will then be notified via a new entry here in this blog. Good luck, and happy commenting. *Affiliate link |
<$Monday, August 13, 2007$>
"Now I'm having a plan."
| This weekend I managed to tackle the small mountain of clutter that had accumulated beside my bed, and ended up tossing out an entire kitchen-size garbage bag's worth of crap (as well as identifying a stack of books that I need to either sell, swap or donate) on the way to unburying my nightstand and making it functional again. 'Twas awesome, and now I'm inspired to do more. Husband and I have been trying to get ourselves motivated to reduce our amount of useless junk for a while now...pretty much since we got married and moved in together to a space that was barely big enough to fit all of my stuff in the first place. Besides being overcrowded, when we move to a bigger place (which I'm sure will happen someday), we both really want to have less to have to deal with packing and moving. With Husband's disability, unless we can afford to hire movers--which seems doubtful--the bulk of the carrying will fall to me, so you can imagine that I'm especially eager to have fewer things to have to carry. With all of those motivating factors, you'd think we'd be living like Spartans by now (except without all the artful slow-motion. Or the togas); but with less than a month to go until our first wedding anniversary (which: whoa), we're just now beginning to make some headway. My two biggest obstacles, it seems, are time and emotional attachment. Husband, on the other hand, has the time, but after his first attempt at ruthless decluttering left me upset with some of his choices for things to throw out, which were oddly weighted toward my side of the bathroom ("You threw out my allergy eye drops?!" "You never use those!" "I use them almost everything morning!" "I never see you use them!" "Because you're still in bed!" "Well... oh yeah. Sorry."), he's wisely decided to leave "my" stuff up to me to deal with. I think with summer winding down and school starting this week, the time problem is about to solve itself. Husband's homework should keep us from going out as often on the weekends, and will also keep him distracted and occupied, leaving me time to myself to deal with said stuff. That leaves the emotional hurdle to overcome, and that's a big one. I know I kept more stuff this weekend than I should have, because I simply couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. So I'm developing a strategy: I'm making a list of my emotional priorities, from greatest to least, and I'm going to refer to that list as I sort through my stuff. If it doesn't relate to one of these priorities in some way, it goes. Of course, each priority will have a limited number of things I'm allowed to associate with it and keep, otherwise I'd be able to shoehorn just about everything in somewhere. I'm still figuring out this system, but basically, it goes something like this: Mementos from my wedding: important. Mementos from the height of my Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanaticism: not so much. Wedding mementos I get to keep: all (for one more year, at the end of which anything I haven't gotten around to either scrapbooking, displaying or otherwise preserving can go). Buffy mementos I get to keep: anything with an autograph, a couple of choice items that were handmade by friends, my comics, and my Spike action figure. Okay, and my Buffy figure, so Spike won't get lonely. But that's all. I know it still sounds like a lot, and like I'm not making progress, but believe me: that leaves a lot of Buffy-related junk that's gonna go. All right, so the system isn't really so much a system yet as it is a vague plan. But it's a step in the right direction. As I hammer out the details and work out the kinks, I'll keep you posted on my progress. On a related note, Get Rich Slowly has a good decluttering tip that I might have to work into my strategy: Purge Clutter with a De-Accumulation Bag Labels: organizing, systems |
<$Thursday, August 9, 2007$>
Zoned Thursday: swimming the fat away (and piling it back on my baked potato)
| My affair with Gym is still going strong. It's the end of the third week (almost), and by now my morning swim routine is pretty, er, routine. I'm in much better shape than when I started, and my waistline is actually continuing to shrink in spite of all of the fast food and deli sushi we indulged in last week. I gotta tell ya, little motivates me to exercise more than being able to eat what I want (within reason) and still be in decent shape. Still, I'm trying to keep it Zone-y. I've done pretty well this week, except for Tuesday night when I took home some deli boxed lunches left over from a meeting. The sandwiches wouldn't have been too far off the mark, but I couldn't resist the chips that came with them. At least I was saved from further temptation by whomever it was who stole the cookies out of both boxes (*glares at Cookie Crook*). I got myself back on track partly by allowing myself the indulgence of a baked potato that I Zonified a |