- I tried to avoid it. I really did, but I’m still getting a much bigger refund than anticipated. #
- Did 100 pushups this morning–in 1 set. New goal: Perfect form by the end of the month. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: Carnival of Personal Finance is live 🙂 DOLLAR DOODLE theme: http://tinyurl.com/ykldt7q (haha…) #
- Hosting my first carnival tomorrow. Up too late tonight. #
- Woot! My boy won his wreslting match! Proud daddy. #
- The Get Home Card is a prepaid emergency transportation card. http://su.pr/329U6L #
- Real hourly wage calculator. http://su.pr/1jV4W6 #
- Took my envelope budget out in cash, including a stack of $2s. That shouldn’t fluster the bank teller. #
Five Signs You Don’t Need That
Everybody occasionally buys things they don’t need, from DVDs to luxury cars. There are signs that what you’re buy may not be an actual necessity.
Here are five signs you should put that back:
- You’re buying that sweater or video game for the endorphin hit, you’re shopping for the addictive high not to fill an actual need. It’s a habit that’s as hard to break as smoking, if not harder. You can’t, after all, stop shopping altogether.
- You already have one. Or 10. A relative can’t turn down a sale and she buys for life. She regularly buys 3 of whatever useful gadget is available on the shopping channel. Her house has turned into a sad story of compulsive hoarding.
- The rationalizations for your purchase include “It’s cool” or “My friends all have one.” If you are buying something just for the bragging rights, it has become an ego purchase, which is something to avoid. The insidious part of an ego purchase is that you have to keep topping your last purchase and the last purchase of your social circle, or the purchases lose value. It’s a vicious circle.
- It doesn’t have a “place”. Where are you going to put it? Is it going to go in the corner, or is there a drawer or shelf it can live on. If there’s no play to consider “away”, you’re just buying clutter. If you must have it, go home and toss, sell, or donate 2 things to make room. If possible, do that before you actually by the new toy. If it’s important, you’ll come back for it.
- You didn’t know you needed it 10 minutes ago. If you actually need it, it’s on your list, right? Impulse purchases have been the biggest budget-killer in my house. That’s why we use Alice for the household goods. If we don’t see the it, we can’t throw it in the cart at the last minute. We no longer shop with the debit card, so we have to watch what we buy. It’s embarrassing to have to undo a purchase at the checkout because I didn’t bring enough cash.
What did I miss?
Side Hustle: Garage Sale Wrap-Up
We are now to the end of Garage Sale Week here at Live Real, Now. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
After you shut down on the last day, take the evening off. You’ve just been hard at work for 2-3 days and need a break. Deal with the stuff tomorrow. Tomorrow–and probably the next few days–you’ve got work to do. What do you do with everything that didn’t sell? If you’re planning on making garage sales a regular side-hustle, just box it all up and put it to the side until next time. After all, it’s all priced, sorted, and ready-to-go, right? If, like me, your goal was to declutter, then it’s time for some serious downsizing. Let’s dump the crap.
The first thing we did was box up all of the books and movies to bring to the used book store. We dropped the items at the sell table and spent half an hour browsing a bookstore. That’s never a good way for me to save money. The store we went to checks the demand for everything you bring in. If there’s no demand, they donate or recycle the items and you don’t get paid. DVDs bring about $1 each. VHS is demand-based. Paperbacks are something less than half of the retail price. Hardcovers are demand-based. We were offered $28 and pointed to the huge pile of discard/recycle items that we were free to reclaim. I picked out 4-5 books and movies that I thought had value and left the rest. Bringing the clutter back home would defeat the purpose of going there.
The clothes were handled two ways. First, all of the little girl clothes were bagged and set aside for some friends with a little girl. The rest were bagged and loaded in the truck for a run to Goodwill. The clothes filled the box of our pickup.
The random knick-knacks were also boxed up and delivered to Goodwill, along with most of the leftover toys. This was another completely full truck box. We had a lot of stuff in our sale.
The beat-up or low-value furniture that didn’t sell was put on the curb with “FREE” signs. I posted the free items on Craigslist and they were gone in just a few hours. The Craigslist ad said “Please do not contact, I will remove the listing when the items are gone.” Otherwise, there are usually 10-15 emails per hour asking if the items are still available. The ad didn’t even have pictures and it worked quickly.
Some of the furniture–the toddler bed, changing table, china cabinet, and the good computer desk–were hauled back to our garage to post on Craigslist with a price-tag. They are too good to give away. If the camera wouldn’t have died two nights ago, the pictures would already be up. Some of the other items were also reserved for individual sale. The extra router, the 6 inch LCD screen, and a few other toys will go on Ebay.
Finally there was some stuff that we decided we weren’t going to get rid of. We kept a few movies, but only because I didn’t notice them until I got back from the bookstore. My wife kept a box of Partylite stuff–though most of the leftovers were donated. Very little of the things we had ready for sale are being kept in our lives. Almost all of it is gone, or will be soon.
All in all, this was a cathartic end to last month’s 30 Day Project. There was some surprising emotional attachment to some things I didn’t think I cared about. It’s good to see it gone.
Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.
Medical Costs and Choices
- Image via Wikipedia
I’m not a bad father.
Last spring, we noticed my son had a wandering eye. One of his eyes would just drift when he was looking at something. It was happening consistently, so we brought him to the eye doctor. After an exam, we found out that his eyes were 20/100. The doctor said that getting him classes may be enough to fix the wandering eye problem. The theory was that his eye was drifting because his eyes weren’t able to focus. Bringing the world into focus could have let his eyes train themselves to work right.
Nine months with glasses later, the problem hasn’t gone away, so we went back to the eye doctor.
He’s got alternating exotropia. His eyes aren’t working well together. One eye will focus, and the other will drift. So now we’re looking into vision therapists.
A friend went through something similar with his kid, so I asked him for the name of the doctor he used. He gave it to me and told me the clinic was the best in the business, and I would be paying for that. I asked about the cost and was handed the doctor’s spiel about how sad it is that parents focus more on the cost of care than getting the best possible care.
What a load of crap.
First of all, that’s a sales pitch. Of course the doctor is going to defend his prices. If his prices are exorbitant(I don’t have a basis for comparison) and he can’t defend them, people will go elsewhere. $3000 isn’t pocket change. That’s a significant chunk of change. Refusing to look at your options is irresponsible.
Second, price does not equal quality. There are a ton of things that are overpriced garbage. Not only do scam artists abound, but some legitimate things are are horribly overpriced at one location and reasonably priced at others. To stay on the vision theme, my $10 glasses are every bit as high quality as any $400 pair I’ve ever owned. The difference between generic and brand-name drugs? The label and the price. The FDA requires they be chemically identical to be sold. If you insist on the brand name because it’s “better”, you are flushing your money down the toilet. If you live by “you get what you pay for” you are guaranteed to get ripped off.
Third, balancing cost and treatment doesn’t mean I care less. Yes, I am killing my debt as fast as I can right now. Even when I was willing to use a credit card, I wouldn’t drop $3000 without considering my options. I have an entire family to consider, not one problem that my kid doesn’t even notice. Grr. I hate getting told–implicitly or otherwise–that I am a bad parent because I don’t choose to waste my money the way other people do. I’ll check out my options first, thank you.
Now, I will pay for the best when it is warranted. My wife wants Lasik and mentioned some sale some company was having. No. The guy sticking a laser and a scalpel in my eye will not be the lowest bidder. When I left the gene pool, I went to one of the top guys in the state for the procedure. When those things screw up, it’s permanent.
Vision therapy? Not so much. If it comes to surgery, we’ll go with the best. But it’s not there, yet. My kid is going to get a series of eye exercises, no matter where we go. Even if I go to some back alley vision therapist with a degree from a Nigeria U, what’s the worst case scenario? We may have to try someone else. Since I will be doing a bit more research than that, odds are better that my kid will get exactly the same therapy regimen for 1/4 of the cost. That’s the difference between a perfectly competent doctor and a perfectly competent doctor who convinced some trade magazine to write him up as the best in the business.
What do you think? Am I neglecting my kid by wanting to save some money for his braces, too?
Memorial Day
JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt
He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.
And tho’ sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we’ll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world’s a little poorer, for a soldier died today.
He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won’t note his passing, though a soldier died today.
When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.
Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?
A politician’s stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.
It’s so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.
Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?
He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier’s part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.
If we cannot do him honor while he’s here to hear the praise,
Then at least let’s give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.
Happy Father’s Day: The Benefits of Being a Parent Can’t Be Measured
It’s true that the benefits of a parent cannot be measured or quantified in any meaningful way. It’s hard to put a price on the emotional commitment and special experience of raising a child as a parent, some of which may not even be realized by the parents themselves until afterwards. But it is undeniable that the experience of parenthood is a rewarding and special time in someone’s life.
For one thing, being a parent can you relive your childhood through your child. There are very few experiences in the world that are as intimate and vicarious as a parent who is raising their newborn child into an adult. Your child’s experiences become your experiences, their safety and learning becomes your priorities, and their success, ultimately, become your own success as a parent. You can rediscover the parts of your childhood that you may even have forgot as your child experiences them for the first time.
As a parent, you are also the center of the world for your child. This can be a tremendous source of self-confidence as well as incentive for self-improvement, to know that another human being sees you as their ultimate role model and will grow up in your footsteps. Just imagine the sense of wonder and awe with which you regarded your own parents when you were a child, and apply them to your child. That is the way they will see the world for a long time, with a constant sense of amazement and curiosity. The mundane becomes extraordinary and fantastic to a child, and a parent is part of the magic and the child’s discovery of the world.
In addition, parenting is a rewarding experience because you involved in the creation of a life and the raising of your child with your partner. There is a great amount of pressure, but also a sense of pride as your child’s characteristics and worldview will, in a large part, be derived from your interaction and education of them. All the things that you wish you had done in your childhood, or wish you had experienced or learned about earlier. These are all things that you can teach your child. As a parent, you are your child’s most important friend, teacher and role model. That is a tremendous source of empowerment and responsibility. But the reward you can get out of being a great parent is a new life in the world that you shaped with your words and actions. What you teach them becomes their most important life lessons, and your actions as a role model becomes the standard by which they live the rest of their lives.
So yes, the benefits of being a parent cannot be measured in conventional terms. But these benefits can definitely outweigh any worldly possession or unit of valuation. Parenthood is an emotional, spiritual, intellectual and educational experience that very few other experiences in the world can replace or even come close to imitating.
