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Birthdays on the Cheap

Birthdays are expensive. Shoot, I’ve said that before. It’s usually true, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are five ways to cut birthday party costs. Note: If you’re trying to cut costs on an adult party, just replace the word “kid” with “guest of honor”.

1. Location, location, location. The amusement park/pizza place is nice if you like bad pizza, but it’s certainly not cheap. The inflatable playground may be the talk of the school for a day or two, but it’ll flex your debit card in ways it’s just not used to. Why? Kids, being kids, are capable of entertaining themselves. They’ve got imaginations that should make most adults weep with envy. If that fails, make them play a board game or in the worst case, some video games. Lock the wild young’ns in the basement and let ’em go nuts for a couple of hours. It’ll be a blast, I promise.

2. Why invite the world? How many friends does your kid actually have? I’m not talking about all of the kids in school he’s not fighting with or every kid on the block that hasn’t TP’d your house. I mean actual friendship. If they don’t play together regularly, nobody will be offended about missing an invitation. Invite the entire class? That’s just nuts. Thirty ankle-biters smearing cupcakes on the wall? No thank you. You kid will have more fun with 2-3 close friends than 20-30 acquaintances.

3. Toy flood. What was the last toy your kid played with? The last 10? How many toys have been completely neglected for months or years? How many stuffed animals are buried so deep in the pile in the corner that they are wishing for a fluffy Grim Reaper to come put them out of their misery? Don’t buy your kid clutter. It’s a hassle to clean up–and you will–and it trains them into bad habits for a lifetime. One or two things that they will treasure(or, better yet, wear!) will work our much better for everyone than a dozen things to forget in a toy box. Too many toys guarantees that the kid won’t get attached to any of them. Down with kid-clutter!

4. Designer Cake. Who needs a fancy cake? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you going to start a fire on the thing, then cut it up and give it to a dozen little runts to rub in their hair? If you can’t bake it yourself, a quarter sheet is cheap at the big box grocery stores and will guarantee leftovers. Nothing starts the week better than chocolate marble cake for breakfast on Monday.

5. Food. Don’t. That was easy. Scheduling is an important way to keep costs down. Don’t have the party at lunch time. For small children, 1:30 PM is about perfect. The parents won’t stick around once the kids are ready for a nap. For older kids, 4PM means they will need to be home for dinner. That cuts the menu down to kool-aid, light snack food, and cake. It also ensures that the party won’t drag on forever.

It’s possible to have a budget birthday party without being totally lame. Give it a shot. Your kids won’t mind.

This post is a blast from the past.

4 Ways to Change Your Life for the Better

Life, Parenting, Relationships

Everybody has bad days. Everybody has horrible days. That doesn’t matter. The important thing is how you feel about your life as a whole. What can you do to make your life more worth living?

1. Get out of debt. When you’ve got no debt to pay, you have more options and less risk. If you’re paying $1500 just to service your debt, it will be $1500 harder if you lose your job. If you’ve got no debt payments to make, the impact of losing an income stream is far less. On top of that, you’ll have that much more money to do the things you love every month.

2. Find something you love to do…and do it. Everybody has to do things they hate. For some, it’s cleaning up the cat’s litter box, for others, they die inside a little each time they punch a time clock. Life isn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream, but it’s important to have a little ice cream in your life. What do you love doing? Is there anything you love that you can start doing? Start a business, write a book, volunteer for a charity that matches your values, or grow the world’s largest pumpkin. Whatever it is, it’s time to get started.

3. Eliminate the things you hate. Life’s too short to live with the things you hate. If something is destroying the value of your life, get rid of it. Now, I’m not suggesting you off your mother-in-law, but it may be worth ignoring the phone when her number shows up on the caller ID and skipping Sunday dinner with her. If you hate your job, find another. If you can’t find a way to eliminate what you hate, embrace it and learn to love it, or you will eventually hate more of your life than just the bit driving you crazy.

4. Let the ones you love know you do. Do your children know you love them? Does your spouse? Are you sure? If a meteor fell on your head today, would your kids spend the rest of their lives wondering how you felt? If your wife were in a car accident today, would there be anything you wish you would have said? Now, today, this morning, this second is the right time to let your loved ones know you care. Don’t wait. If you haven’t made it a habit, it may feel awkward. Get over it. Your wife and kids will love you more knowing beyond doubt that you love them. A tight bond with your family can’t be bought, it can’t be bribed, and it can’t be faked. It is worth everything.

What’s one thing you could do today to make your life better?

Selling Your Car

Finance

: English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

I recently had an opportunity to read Social Nation: How to harness the power of Social Media to attract customers, motivate employees & grow your business by Barry Libert. Heckuva title.

Libert is the the CEO at Mzinga, which is a company that connects other companies–and their customers–using social media to collaborate and communicate. Social media is, quite simply, using the internet to drive interactive communication. This includes Twitter, Facebook, and forums. Sometimes, it’s just discussion, sometimes, it’s sharing user-generated content.

Social Nation “will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services.” It bills itself as a “complete toolbox” for social media. Does it match the hype? Let’s see.

The book is broken into three sections.

Part 1: The Future of Business is Social

Libert asserts that the future of business is social. That is obviously true, to a degree. A solid viral marketing campaign can drive more eyeball to a product than a full-page spread in the New York Time or a 30-second spot during Super Bowl halftime. However, there are a lot–possibly a majority–of business-to-business companies that will gain no value from a social media campaign. Would a regional supplier with an exclusive distributorship for a top-name line of faucets benefit from being on Twitter? No. On the other hand, 17% of our time online is spent on social applications and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 35 years old or older. There is certainly some value to be gained by have a social media presence in some markets.

This section(all of chapter 3!) also contains a link to a test to determine your social media skills. I haven’t taken the test, mainly because I don’t feel like registering for another site. This struck me as nothing more than lead generation, which is a shame. It could be a useful tool.

Part 2: Seven Principles for Building Your Social Nation

This section has seven chapters, containing 7 case studies that detail the 7 principle of social media, as defined by Libert and Mzinga.

The principles include:

Let the culture lead the way, as demonstrated by Zappos.com.
Involve your fans. The big takeaway from chapter 8 is that, when you create a community, your job is to facilitate involvement, not to control it. If you try to run it with an iron fist, it will choke and die.
Reward others and you will be rewarded. Apple lets developers keep 70% of the money they make in the app store. That encourages developers to develop, making everyone more money. Give. Karma will take care of the rest.
There are 4 other principles, but some are just common sense, and I don’t want to give away the contents of the book.

Part 3: Start Today and Create Your Own Social Nation

aka

Chapter 11: How to Get Started and 10 Pitfalls to Avoid

Section 3 has just one chapter, but it’s a good one. It explains the difference between followers and fans, the value of each and how to bond with each. The difference? Fans are actively involved. Followers are far more passive.

This section/chapter also goes into some things to avoid, like abandoning a social media strategy too early, failing to market your business, underestimating the power(positive and negative) of a social network.

Is it worth getting the book?

Social Nation bills itself as a complete social media toolbox, but it falls a bit short. The book tackles social media from a purely strategic point of view, ignoring the tactical concerns. It’s clearly geared toward helping a company plan its social media strategy from a 10,000 foot perch. For the people in the trenches, or anyone with a grasp of strategy that’s looking for the details on running a social media campaign, it’s not enough. That said, if you are trying to plan a social media strategy, or you have no idea where to start, this is a great book for you. It holds a lot of value, but stops some distance before “complete”. Definitely worth a read if you are involved is social media planning.

Giveaway

I’m giving away Social Nation. If you’d like to have a chance to get it, just leave a comment, telling me how you like to see companies use social media. Fair warning, this is the book I read, so it’s “used”. I take care of books, so you can’t tell that it’s used.

Publishers, Publicists, and Authors

If you have a book you’d like me to review, please contact me.

The best posts of the week:

Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in: