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My son and I went out and about on Saturday and there it was. A huge neon pink sign with two lovely words…Garage Sale.
We pulled up to the house and my son led the way to the garage. He was pretty excited. I started looking around at everything and it became obvious that someone was selling many of their belongings. Glancing at the pay table, I see that it was a couple in their 70s.
We were there after noon, so many things were probably already sold. There were still older things left like a really neat camera that probably could be collectible but I passed it by. My new garage sale rule is to not buy anything unless it is useful. Last year we had three garage sales to get rid of our clutter so I can’t bring any more into the house!
I have to admit, I look at garage sales a lot differently now. Before, I used to think of the deals I was getting on things we really didn’t need (a nutcracker bowl comes to mind - when do we ever have nuts in the house???). Now I think about how much money the people originally spent on the items and how little they are getting back by selling them.
This particular garage sale had a very large collection of VCR tapes selling for $1.00 each. If they originally cost $10 each new, they easily spent over $1,000 on all of those tapes. Maybe they bought them used for a deal. I’m not sure. But I think about that now.
No matter the price, it helps me a lot to really think about what I am buying. Will I find myself trying to sell it in a few years? If so, even if it’s $1.00 perhaps it isn’t worth buying at all.
My bank has had online bill pay available for a few years now. Even the price tag (free) couldn’t get me to switch over to using it. When it comes to my finances, I am a bit of a control freak and I track my accounts down to the penny. Plus, I had a bill payment system that I was using for over 8 years.
About two months ago, I decided to give online bill pay a try. With stamp prices going up, even if we could save a few bucks a month maybe it was worth it. So I tried it with one bill. The next month I tried it with a few more. This month I am replacing all bill payment checks that I would write with online checks.
What was so special about my previous system? I say this with a little bit of shame…I am a “floater.” Because things were so tight for us financially way back when, I grew accustomed to timing our payments and including float time (I include mail time up until the time the check clears the bank as the float). As a result, our bills were often paid right before they were due.
You can’t do that with online bill pay. You schedule the date that the check is to be cut and mailed and that amount is deducted from your bank account that day. No more 3-5 day float. Even though our finances aren’t as tight as they once were, I still was taking float time into consideration when it came time to mail out payments. It was a very bad habit that needed to be broken.
Now that we are paying the bills we normally pay by check with online bill pay, I had to shift around our finances a little. With some bills I would wait until receiving a certain paycheck before sending. Now I have to do it after the paycheck before. So far the transition has been going well, but I do rest a little easier knowing that our savings account is there in case I goof up a little.
There is only one thing I do not like about online bill pay. With sending a regular check to a vendor you are able to know if and when that payment clears the bank. Not so with online bill pay. The only notice you will receive of a payment not making it to its destination is when you notice a previous balance on your next bill or you receive a late notice. The control freak in me likes to be a little proactive when it comes to payments getting lost in the mail. If I see that something hasn’t cleared a few weeks after sending, I like to call and let them know that payment was sent. I think it shows good faith on my part, and I believe it has helped me avoid late fees.
In hindsight, I should have started using online bill pay a long time ago. I’m breaking my bad floating habit and it is so much easier to pay a bill online than write out a check. We are also saving money on postage. If you have been thinking about giving online bill pay a try, just give it a test run with one payment and see what you think. Don’t be stubborn like me and not even try it once before forming an opinion 
Our utilities have been increasing their rates across the board. While I haven’t looked at the specific increases for our electricity or gas, I can tell it has increased because we are using less but paying more. Our water bill is no exception - the rate has increased by 13%.
It doesn’t bother me too much that the rates increased for electricity or gas. I look at it as a reminder that would should be conserving where we can. There have been times when the TV has been left on even though no one is in the room. Reminders like a price increase help to get us back into conservation mode.
Now for the water bill. This one bothers me because we already conserve water and we are consistently billed for minimum usage. We cannot reduce this bill no matter what we do because it is already as low as it can go. The only thing we can do is pay the increase because we need water.
What about you? Have your utilitity prices increased significantly lately?
Yeah, that’s sort of a weird title for a blog post, but I’m not sure what else to put. I like to keep things rated G on here (so my son can read it and I don’t feel weird about it), but believe me, I felt like writing something else for the title.
It’s been almost two weeks, and the IRS has not cashed our self employment tax check yet. If there is one entity that I want to be completly A-OK with, it’s the IRS. It makes me sick to my stomach and I’m upset to see more money in our account than should be there.
I’m not sure what to do. Should I wait and hope it finally arrives? I’ve never had a payment to the IRS take this long. Should I cut another check? If I did that, I’d have to pull from our savings.
I am 100% certain that it was mailed because we made a special stop to the mail box to mail it. That envelope left my hands and fell into the box. I triple checked to make sure there was stamp on it. I did my part, but it hasn’t been cashed yet.
I guess I will give it a little more time before making a decision on what to do. I think I am going to look into making this payment automatically from now on.
Funks like the one I am in right now are nothing new to me. For clarification, to me, a funk is sort of like being depressed, but not as severe. Being really depressed is also something that is not new to me. Thankfully, I have those episodes a lot less often than I used to.
Funks, although they are less severe, aren’t fun either. They also have a sneaky way of affecting your mood AND your budget.
For me, funks bring about the sweet food like ice cream and candy. The thing about splurging on those? You can’t do it if you do not go near a store. While it can be downright stuffy to stay home during a funk, I know what damage I can do at the store (although…my son loves my funks because I bring all types of goodies into the house!). I did let myself go to the store during this funk and I know I shouldn’t have.
Related to food, I’m also about four times more likely to get fast food than cooking at home when I am in a funk. I normally like cooking a healthy meal for my family. I go all out and even make salads for everyone. That’s one reason I love the weekends. I can cook dinner (normally during the week, I get off work too late to prepare dinner before 7pm). With this latest funk, the $5 subs at Subway called my name and I gave in.
I also get strong urges to go shopping for stuff. Maybe a new pair of shoes or something. The oddest thing about this urge is that I am not normally into fashion. But the minute I go into a funk I must think I need to be a fashionista (not that anything is wrong with that - it’s just totally against the norm for me). Sometimes I budget shop and buy clearance items, but sometimes I don’t. Again, it’s best to stick around the house and not go anywhere. I didn’t do this one (thank goodness - I have enough shoes!).
If you don’t go anywhere, you can’t spend money!
I know that I’m not necessarily dealing with the problem directly, but for now, it’s the best thing I can do to keep our budget intact during a funk. Sometimes I feel like my brain needs to be rewired and I’ve come to accept that it can take some time to turn around years of bad spending habits.
This is a guest post from Nine Circles at Nine Circles of Debt. She’s working to reduce over $32,000 of her debt, so she has “the financial freedom to go after some of my other dreams in life.” If you like what you read here, make sure you stop by her blog, or you can subscribe to her blog here.
Way back when I was in college a very smart American History professor required that my class read a novel by Horatio Alger called Ragged Dick. The story, originally published in 1926, concerns a fourteen-year-old bootblack named Dick living on his own on the streets of New York. He works hard but is a spendthrift so he is always living hand to mouth. When circumstances result in his meeting a wealthy businessman who encourages Dick to go to school, work hard, and save his money, his life begins to turn around. He works diligently, opens a savings account and makes consistent deposits, and as opportunities befall him he is able to move away from his life on the streets and toward a life of productivity and security.
In the early part of the 20th century, Alger wrote many books with tales similar to the one in Ragged Dick—so many, in fact, that Horatio Alger’s name became synonymous with the “rags-to-riches” phenomenon that Americans love. Somewhere along the line, however, that phenomenon seems to have gotten a bit distorted.
These days we tend to equate rags-to-riches success with overnight success. We think of the American success story as winning American Idol at the age of 17, cutting a major deal with Donald Trump, or scoring a multi-million dollar windfall in the lottery. We’ve come to think of wealth and success as something that comes instantly, with little or no effort, or as the result of one big winner-take-all gamble.
But Horatio Alger’s kind of success was anything but instant. Alger’s philosophy, which fueled the incredible productivity of the 20th century, preached the benefits of hard, steady work and consistent saving as a way of being prepared for the incredible opportunities that life sometimes drops in your lap. For the most part, Alger’s heroes didn’t get many breaks, but the few that did come their way were useful only because the heroes had worked hard enough in advance to be able to jump at those opportunities.
Is it possible for Americans to re-embrace a Horatio Alger kind of outlook? Maybe. When I read blogs describing people’s diligent efforts to pay off debts and build savings, I think that perhaps we’re beginning to see the light again, that Americans can turn away from debt and build a future that is secure and ambitious. And with every post I read about snowflakes, e-funds, and debt-free living, I think somewhere Horatio Alger is smiling.
Thanks Nine Circles for the guest post!
This guest post is from Mrs. Micah from Mrs. Micah - Finance for a Freelance Life. She is also the one behind the Finwikian - a resource of financial bloggers and financial information. If you like what you read here, make sure you visit her blog or you can subscribe to her feed here.
A while back, I got an e-mail from a fellow-blogger who was compiling a list of personal finance bloggers’ splurges. He wanted to know what, amid saving money and cutting things out, we felt was worth the money.
It was pretty easy for me to answer that—chocolate. 1 bag of Nestle semi-sweet chips each week. Sets us back less than $5/week. I know that translating that out into the big picture comes to several hundred a year and that should (maybe?) make me uncomfortable. After all, we could put that money towards paying down debt and investing in our futures.
But I don’t care.
I’ve told fellow bloggers that I think similar indulgences are ok. Maybe a latte every day isn’t a good move if you’re looking to cut back, but there’s wiggle room.
What matters is the overall course of your lifestyle. If you’re a debt blogger (or a non-blogger getting out of debt) then hopefully taken steps to start that journey. It’s not always fun. Maybe you work more jobs than necessary to earn snowflakes or maybe you cut out everything but the essentials.
On the one hand, it takes a lot of intensity and if you’re in it for the long run, it may require leniencies or breaks. But then many people also get themselves into debt little by little and pass things off as one-time or as giving themselves a break.
So, how do you tell if something’s an ok indulgence or if you’re slipping into a lifestyle you don’t want?
I came up with some questions to evaluate the situation/indulgence.
First, what are your goals and how are you doing on achieving them?
If you aren’t achieving your goals, then maybe its the big and little things that are getting in the way. 20 purchases of $5 items will cost you $100.
Second, what is the motivation behind your goals?
I think most people trying to get out of debt are motivated by the desire to feel happier (in the long term), to be free, to feel less trapped, etc. Is this thing you’re questioning in line with those goals? Or will it be like cheating on a diet? Feels good at the time but you hate yourself shortly afterwards.
Third, how does it fit in your budget?
I work on planning yummy but frugal menus. We haven’t eaten out since November (and even then it was Chipotle). We stay within our food budget even with the chocolate. I’m sure we could cut back even farther, but I designed the budget to reflect a level that we’re willing to live with for the long-term but to keep us on track.
Fourth, are you going directly against your goals for this?
Wealthy_1 is going on a vacation this summer. She’s saving up for it so that she won’t have to use credit and get any more debt (good good good). She’s slowing down but not stopping her debt repayment (not bad). If this vacation helps her family build good memories and since they haven’t been on vacation in 3 year I think it’s in line with her goals.
It’s ok if you don’t want to be a gazelle 100% of the time. If you’re not getting yourself back into debt, if you’re headed in the right direction, if you’re in line with your goals and motivations, you’re probably doing just fine.
Thanks Mrs. Micah for the guest post!
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