- RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
- @bargainr What weeks do you need a FoF host for? in reply to bargainr #
- Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
- A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
- RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #
Actions Have Consequences
- Image by reidmix via Flickr
Six months ago, my laptop quit charging. This particular model has a history of having the power jack come loose inside the laptop, so I ordered the part and waited. When it came, I disassembled the computer, carefully tracking where each screw went. I installed the part, the put it back together, with only a few extra pieces.
It didn’t work.
After spending the money and doing the work, I tested the external power cord. I could have saved myself a few hours of work if I would have done that first. It was trash, so I ordered a new one. That’s time and money down the drain due to my poor research.
As an adult, I know that I am responsible for my actions, even if the consequences aren’t readily apparent. If I tap another car in a parking lot, I am going to have to pay for the damages, even if I didn’t see the car. This has manifested itself in credit card statements I didn’t read, speed limits signs I didn’t notice(or ignored!), and–on occasion–my wife and I not communicating about how much money we’ve spent.
Kids have a much harder time grasping that concept.
My son enjoys playing games online. Some of the games are multiplayer games he plays online with his friends, others are flash games he plays at home while his friends watch. They like to take the laptop into the dining room where they can play without being in the way. A small herd of 10 and 11 year old kids hopping around expensive electronics can’t be a good idea.
Yesterday, we saw that the power cord was fraying at the computer end from being dragged all over the house and jerked by kids tripping on the cord. We got six months of life out of the cord because of kids who should have known better not acting appropriately around the cord and the computer. Not happy.
My son got grounded for a week and honored with the privilege of replacing the cord. Now he isn’t happy, but he understands that he needs to pay for the damage he causes, even if he didn’t know that what he was doing could cause the damage. If it was something he would have had no way of knowing, there would have been no punishment, but he should have known not to jerk on the cord of leave it where it can be tripped over.
What do you think?
Automatic Everything
In an effort to simplify my finances, I’ve automated every bill I have. For years, I resisted, fearing a lack of control over my money. A few months ago, I re-examined the bill paying options on my bank’s website and changed my mind. This is one thing that USBank has done right.
The first thing I did was set a budget. Without a budget, it’s not possible to let your money take care of itself. I did this months before I decided to automate.
All of the bills that offer a budget plan–a plan that averages your payments to avoid fluctuation–went on the plan. It means I do overpay some months, but it also means I get to underpay some months. Most important, I always know what will be due. These bills were scheduled in the bank’s online bill paying system as is, along with the rest of the bills that do not fluctuate.
All of the bills that do fluctuate went in to the bill paying system at their highest level. For example, I don’t pay for text messaging on my cell phone. Some months, I send and receive text messages. I pay my cell phone bill assuming that there will be a few messages. This is slowly building a credit on my account. If I don’t use all of the credit, I will get to skip a month of payments sometime next year.
I keep track of all of this using Quicken. Every one of these bill is in the calendar. They are all scheduled to be entered into the register on the first of the month, to post of the actual day of payment. This lets me see, at a glance, my cash flow for the entire month.
But wait! What about the non-monthly payments, you ask? They are also in Quicken, broken into monthly line items. There’s a “Set aside for property taxes” item, a “Set aside for web host” item, and a few other items.
My time to maintain this has been reduced to comparing the bills to the bill-paying system every other week. At the same time, I consolidate all of the “set asides” so I don’t have 10 property tax entries when one will do.
I know this is an inefficient method of saving money, but my goal isn’t to save money, it’s automating money and removing one layer of stress from my life. It has transformed bill-paying from an hour or two per week to 20 minutes, twice per month and very little stress.
