Posts Tagged ‘Saving’

A Valentine’s Day That Your Wallet Will Love

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

The Beatles said that money “can’t buy me love” and while they weren’t relationship experts or financial advisers, you may be wise to follow their advice.  If you’re one of the 55% of Americans who made a New Year’s resolution to pay down their debt this year, Valentine’s Day may present your first real challenge.  Will you be able to communicate your love without getting off-track or blowing your budget?

Traditionally consumers feel obligated to spend money on expensive jewelry, flowers and chocolates to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  Well, money doesn’t buy love and you don’t need to spend it to have a special day with your loved one.  Skip the diamond tennis bracelet or fancy watch this year and instead plan a special day or evening together.  It’s possible to plan a knock-out event that will wow your partner with the depth of your love and romance instead of the width of your wallet.   Here are 7 tips from DebtGoal.com CEO and founder, Scott Crawford, to help make your Valentine’s Day fun, yet frugal so you don’t break the bank.

1.       Plan a cooking night. Skip the reservation at expensive restaurants.  Instead plan for you and your date to complete a meal from a cookbook together. Irrespective of success, this can be entertaining and memorable.

2.       Get Crafty- Surprise your Valentine with something homemade from the heart.  Create a customized Valentine that tells your loved one how you truly feel about them.  List the top 10 things you love most about them, or the 5 fondest memories you have of them.  You can’t buy that at Hallmark!

3. Enjoy a nostalgic night. Pull out all the photos and/or videos of you and your partner and spend an evening remembering the good times you’ve had together.  Too often we go through life so fast that we forget to stop and appreciate it.  Looking back at past vacations together, family events, parties or sports functions is a great way to reminisce on “the good old days”.

4.       Go for a sunset stroll.  Coupled with a bottle of wine from the market, this could make a very romantic Valentine’s evening.

5.       Have a movie night. Why spend money at the theatre when you can enjoy a romantic comedy or drama in the comfort of your own living room.  Light some candles, pick up a box of chocolates or a pint of ice cream, snuggle up with your loved one under a blanket and enjoy.

6.       Get Active. Go star-gazing, bicycle riding, hiking, or beach combing. In other words, doing something outdoors that doesn’t entail traveling far from home or spending a lot of money.  For added entertainment, pack a picnic basket and blanket before you leave home and enjoy an outdoor lunch.  If you live in an area with colder weather, try sledding or snow shoeing and afterwards enjoy some hot cocoa by the fire.

7.       Play board games. Often times people forget how much fun playing board games is.  Timeless classics like Scrabble, Yahtzee, Connect Four and Uno can be played with two players OR invite your friends over for group games like Taboo and Trivial Pursuit.

Scott Crawford is CEO of DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

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Entertainment Options When in Debt

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

 

Entertainment for cheap or free is a matter of creative thinking, just like our other posts this week on vacations, dining, and dating. But in case you struggle to get the creative juices flowing, here are some suggestions.

  • Pub tasting crawl. This is classic bar crawl, except instead of each person buying a drink at each pub beers are shared between multiple people. This approach makes sense since crawls rarely ever cover the intended breadth of bars before participants quit. The emphasis here is squarely on developing a taste of a range of beers and styles. If you prefer to avoid alcohol, then consider a crawl in which you try the funkiest non-alcoholic drink at each location.
  • Scavenger hunts. I participated in one these several years ago at a reunion. Have one or two people come up with a good, long list of tasks to complete ranging from easy to wild. Assign points and teams accordingly, and go for it! This can easily fill a day. Make sure to have digital photos taken to confirm task completion.
  • Performances at colleges. Attend a lively arts event at a local university. The productions put on by students tend to be cheap and range from classical musical demonstrations to acting.
  • S’mores. Pick up the key ingredients at the store for the classic snack and to make a fire and head to the beach, mountains, or local park. Depending on weather conditions, this can work in winter with blankets.
  • Card games. Host a card night at your home, having others bring snacks and drinks. Bet things other than money. This works with games ranging from classic poker and rummy to the uncommon mafia.
  • Host a reunion event. Plan a laid-back get-together at your place for any team, association, or club that you’ve enjoyed in the past. Make it a potluck and skip the food costs.
This is a small list. Brainstorm and come up with more possibilities. Plan ahead, send out electronic invitations, and up the chances of strong attendance.                                                                                                                                                                                    
Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

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Blog Carnivals on Debt: The Best of the Best

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

The blog carnivals this week have published several informative posts out of a large number of submissions on a range of issues in personal finance. Below is a guide to some of the best entries. The lesson that the most valuable posts have in common is the need for a clear, objective perspective on one’s own personal financial status as well as the importance of a plan, no matter how simple or detailed, that reflects expectations sensible enough to be met.

The top posts are:

Simple Steps for a Cash Only Christmas at the Carnival of Personal Finance

Your Financial Network Map at the Carnival of Personal Finance

8 Great Ways to Beat Holiday Debt and Weekly Review at the Carnival of Everything Credit

 

Simple Steps for a Cash-only Christmas was an excellent article included as one of the “Editor’s Picks” in the Carnival of Personal Finance. It explains a straightforward plan towards arriving in December with funds already in place to purchase gifts, thereby eliminating the need for credit card usage for holiday shopping. Added benefits of the plan include having surplus funds available after gifting, which can be applied to outstanding debt, moving one even faster towards debt elimination. Written at Finance and Fat, it includes the following steps:

“How to prepare for Christmas 2009:

  1. Plan how much you will spend in 2009
  2. Divide that number by 11 (assuming you will save from Jan – Nov)
  3. Open a savings account and call it your Christmas Fund
  4. Set up a monthly auto transfer
  5. Your work is done until next December!”
Though a full-year plan cannot be put in place for this year, the basic idea is to decide as soon as possible a total amount to be spent on gifts. Within that lump amount, you can decide how to allocate amounts for different people and presents.                                                                                                                                                                                            
Another top article in the blog carnivals this week was also in the Carnival of Personal Finance. It presents an easy way to gain a good viewpoint on one’s total financial picture by drawing on a piece of paper an individual’s financial network map. The map contains all of the relationships and links between an individual and their accounts. The post also contains an easy to follow step-by-step process for generating the diagram:                                                                                                                                                                                         
“Here’s how I approached drawing my map:
  1. I started by listing our jobs, it’s the “origin” of funds but interacts with little else.
  2. List of my bank accounts on a separate sheet.
  3. Now begin linking them together, indicating what type of link it was. Most of the time I had to log into my account to confirm the links, hopefully this will be the last time you ever have to do that! Since we have our paychecks direct deposited, the paycheck is linked to the checking account.
  4. Now list all the investment related accounts you have, adding the links in as needed. This includes taxable brokerage accounts, IRAs, 401(k).
  5. Now list all the credit cards you have, linking to the banks that are used to pay the bills.
  6. Now list all the service accounts you have (electricity, cable, internet, Netflix, etc.), link them to the proper credit card or bank account bill pay.”
The underlying lesson here is the same as for the cash-only Christmas: making a simple financial plan eases the process of managing one’s accounts as well as discover ways to prioritize, cut costs, save, and ultimately eliminate debt.                                                                                                                                                                               
Credit Shout’s Carnival of Everything Credit has some posts with excellent advice. One in particular identifies 8 things one can do to minimize expenses this holiday season. These tips all revolve around doing part-time jobs that can add to one’s income streams this time of year. Some of the suggested tasks include: offering to be a personal shopper, setting up other’s holiday lights for a fee, create holiday gift baskets (turning them into presents), and shoveling snow. In short, the particular job does not matter, as long as money is made, which can be applied to holiday purchases or paying off debt.

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Saying “No” to Your Children This Holiday

Monday, December 1st, 2008

I read an interesting article in USA Today this morning about Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and their campaign to have marketers cease marketing to children. Their concern is that marketing messages directed to children create “indirect demand” through the kids who then ask (or relentlessly pester) parents for the item. I applaud their efforts, but am skeptical that they will be successful, and certainly not in the short term.

They do bring up a real concern, though. One quote in the article is as follows: “Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don’t have the money,” wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. “By bombarding them with advertisements … you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can’t afford the toys you promote.”

Unenviable or not, it’s a message that many of us will be delivering this year. And although economic concerns may be more acute this year, I’d argue that this is a message that we should all get comfortable delivering. One of the central tenants of economics is that demand will always be positive at a zero price (for most normal goods), which is exactly what our kids perceive as the price-free. Without an understanding of scarcity and tradeoffs, they do what any “rational economic actor” should do: ask and ask and ask. After all, the product is free for them.

So how do we help them understand economic scarcity and tradeoffs?

When my son was very young, he’d ask for just about everything he saw in the store. To explain why I was telling him no, I would tell him: “We don’t have money for that.”. I thought this was a great approach until one day my son asked: “Dad, why are we poor?”

I thought about his question for a long time and decided that I needed to give him a much healthier explanation, so I’ve switched my approach. Now when he asks, I tell him that we have to spend money on things that will make us the happiest. Depending on the item (and my mood), I may give him a chance to argue why Item X will make us happier than buying something else. We’ll talk about tradeoffs such as going skiing or getting something else and sometimes he’ll make the tradeoffs himself. He often has $20 or so that he’s been saving and I’ll ask him if he’d like to spend his money on the item (funny how he understands economic scarcity with his money but not mine). Sometimes I’ll just tell him that I think we can find things to spend our money on that will make us happier and flat out tell him no.

Here’s what I try to convey with this approach:

  • Spending is about tradeoffs
  • Smart choices make us happier than dumb choices
  • We have enough for things that are important, but not enough for things that aren’t
  • We’re in charge of our spending and happiness

Since we’ve started talking in these terms, the discussions go a lot smoother. But sometimes I still just give a quick “no” and walk on past.

How do you tell your kids no?

Scott Crawford is CEO of DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for lowering your interest costs and getting out of debt. DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.

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