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Quit Smoking: My First Frugal Move…Ever

: Image via Wikipedia

It’s nearly the 5 year anniversary of my last cigarette, so I though I’d bring this post back to the front page.

A bit over three years ago, we found out that my wife was pregnant with baby #3. When we decided to have #2, it took us two years of trying. Naturally, we assumed we’d have the same issues with #3. Imagine our surprise when it only took 2 weeks. At that point, we were getting ready to celebrate brat #2’s first birthday.

That mean’s 2 kids under 2. Two kids in diapers. Three kids in daycare. Baby formula again.

We weren’t making ends meet with two kids, how were we going to manage three? I dropped my pack-or-two-a-day smoking habit.

But, I’ve gone over that before.

This post is about how I actually quit.

Some Facts About Me

I don’t do things by halves; I tend to do things all the way or not at all. For years, my wife would ask me to cut back, to just smoke a little less, but that never worked. If I had cigarettes, I smoked them. I always had cigarettes. When I eat, I eat. I’ve never managed smaller portions. I used to drink a case of soda each week, just because it was there. Moderation has never been my friend.

As a corollary, I don’t cheat. At anything. Ever. Because of the above fact about myself. I don’t moderate myself when I give myself rules either. If I draw a line, I obsessively avoid crossing it.

The problem comes when I try to give myself a “gray area” rule. “Smoke less” always leaves room for “just one more”, which easily leads to “I only cut out one cigarette yesterday, so what’s the use?” I had to be done.

After smoking for fifteen years–more than a pack a day for at least 12 of those–that’s an intimidating thought.

The Plan

The first thing I did was set a day to quit. I chose the day after my Halloween party. Before that would have been setting myself up for failure. Booze, food, and long conversations in a smoking-friendly environment were just 3 of my many triggers. I always smoked more at my parties, so the day after, I didn’t feel up to smoking much, anyway. I’d just ride that wave of “I don’t feel like it” to to holy city of “I quit”.

I didn’t quit smoking the next day, I just quit buying cigarettes. That left me half a pack to curb my cravings.

I also knew that nicotine cravings are about the most distracting thing I’ve ever had to deal with. That doesn’t make for a productive computer programmer, so I bought a box of the generic patch that Target carries. I started with Phase 2, because I wasn’t interested in prolonging the process. I just didn’t want to spend my work days thinking about smoking instead of designing software. I needed something to take the edge off, without actually smoking.

My plan was to have the patch at work, so I’d be able to work and to stretch those last 10 cigarettes out, as long as possible.

The Result

It worked. The pack lasted 4 days, I think. I smoked during my commute and after dinner. I used the patch only when the cravings got to the point that I couldn’t concentrate. After a week, I stopped using it at all. A few days later, I had a particularly stressful day and cheated. I took 3 puffs of that cigarette and threw it away, because it tasted like crap and I wasn’t enjoying it. That’s when I knew I was successfully done smoking. It was a 10 day variation of “cold turkey”. More than 3 years later, I have an occasional cigar, but never due to a craving. The day I experience a nicotine craving is the day I burn my humidor.

That’s how I quite smoking, strictly to try to get my finances in line. That has saved me at least $10,000 over the last 3 years.

Make a Budget

Finance

: Image by r.lovewell via Flickr

In the past, I’ve gone through a detailed series of budget lessons demonstrating how to make a budget and showing my personal budget spreadsheet template. If you weren’t here to see them develop, you probably haven’t seen them at all. I’ve never built an actual index for those posts.

This is the master index of my budget planning resources. As I develop more, this will grow.

Budget Lesson #1 – In this lesson, I go over how we handle discretionary income and I explain our modified envelope system. The discretionary budget contains things like our grocery bill, or the clothes we buy. We have near-total discretion over what is purchased, hence the name.

Budget Lesson #2 – Lesson #2 contains the details of our monthly bills. These are the ones that are consistent, predictable, and actually due each month. Most people take these for granted as the bills they have to pay, but it’s not true. You can get almost all of your regular bills reduced just by asking. You would also be surprised what you can do without, when properly motivated.

Budget Lesson #3 – This is where I explain how we deal with the non-monthly bills. That is, the bills that have to be paid, but are not due on a monthly basis. I also share the personal budget spreadsheet template I developed. I am working on a few sample templates to match various imaginary scenarios. If you’d like to be an anonymous case study, and get free help setting up a budget, let me know, please.

Budget Lesson #4 – In this lesson, I describe our “set-aside” funds for things that will need to be paid eventually, but not on a set schedule. Sometimes, they are never actually due. We set aside money for the parties we throw, for car repairs and for a number of other things. A few of these items are outright optional, but they are part of what makes life fun. You can’t make a budget without including some of the extras.

Budget Lesson #5 – This is the companion piece to lesson 2. Learn how I’ve reduced–or attempted to reduce–each of these bills. For the better part of two years, I called Dish Network every few months to ask for a discount. For almost 2 years, it was granted. Then one, day, they told me they were putting a note on our account to keep us from getting any more discounts, so I canceled. 100% discounts help us save more.

Budget Lesson #6 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 3. These bills are harder to reduce. Have you ever successfully gotten your property taxes lowered?

Budget Lesson #7 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 4. Notice a pattern, yet?

Budget Lesson #8 – Here, completely out of order, is the reduction companion to lesson 1. Watch as I magically reduce–or rationalize–our discretionary budget.

So, dear readers, what part of budgeting should I address next?

4 Ways We Keep Wasting Money

Finance

: Image by Getty Images via @daylife

MSN Money has an article up on common ways money is wasted. Here is my spin.

We(as a species) tend to do a great job of wasting money. Between inertia and the emotional pain of cutting off something we have gotten used to–whether it be Netflix or a 3rd arm–it’s hard to kill wasted costs. As Robert Heinlein said, “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”

MSN listed 4 ways to make your money go bye-bye:

1. Credit cards

According to the article, in the US, the average rate of interest is 15% for a total nation-wide debt of $850 billion-with-a-B. That’s insane. I lucked out and quit using my cards before the CARD act forced all the issuers to send their rates to the moon. I’ve opted out of every agreement change since then, while I pay off the remaining balances. 15%! If you buy something for $1000 and pay it off in a year, that’s $1150. What could you do with an extra $150? It’s time to get out the torches and pitchforks and drop by Mr. Debt’s house.

2. Overdraft fees

I set up an overdraft protection account years ago, because it was a heckuva lot cheaper than bouncing checks. It came with a 25% interest rate and a $2 fee per use. A couple of months ago, they boosted the fee to $10 per use. Jerkface, you’re already cashing in on my interest, do you have to touch me like that at the beginning of the date, too? Thankfully, we haven’t used our overdraft protection since we went on our debt-killing crusade in April of 2009. Oh, Mr. Debt! You’re going to have a really bad day when I get to your house. There will be a smoothie à la Otis when I get there. Side note: If you’ve got a dark sense of humor, rent Otis. Not only will you love it, you’ll get the smoothie joke.

3. Unused memberships, gift cards and rebates

Gym memberships are the big example here. People buy a membership because they set some awesome New Year’s resolution, use it for 2 months, then spend 6 months telling themselves they’ll start using it again soon before they finally cancel. At $30 per month, that’s $180 that could have been spent sending me presents. If you must get a gym membership, wait until spring. That’s when people tell themselves they don’t need a membership because it’s so nice out, they can just exercise outside. When people tell themselves that, the gyms cut membership costs to lure people in to start their own 6 months of denial.

Take a look at your other recurring costs, too. Do you use the cable package you have, or could you be just as happy with the next one down? Do you need the donkeys-and-kneesocks-around-the-world channel? You’ve gotten your 10 CDs for a penny, can you tell Columbia House where to go with their $20 per CD commitment?

4. Airline fees

This one is easy. Forget the 3 hour lines, fees for showing up, Pervo-Scan™, and minimum-wage molestation agents masquerading as cops. Drive whenever possible. If it’s not possible, show up in a kilt, regimental-style(assuming you are a guy!). Don’t check a bag, just ship if overnight to your hotel. Most of the time, that’s cheaper than $50 per bag, anyway. Avoid the fees as much as possible.

What other ways have you wasted money?

Smoking Saved My Life

Life

Rockstar Juice (Photo credit: The Master Shake Signal)

Lately, I’ve been traveling for work about twice per month. The trips have generally been to my company headquarters, about 5 hours east of my house, though at the time this goes live, I will be ending another trip in the Chicago area.

Earlier this month, I was out there to conduct some training webinars and enjoy the company Christmas party. After the party, my insomnia kicked in and I couldn’t sleep. At 6AM, I decided to give it up for a lost cause and pack my stuff for the 5 hour drive home.

On no sleep.

The morning after a nasty ice storm.

I do not have a death wish.

Really.

I got packed, ready to go. Then crawled back in bed with the nap timer on my phone set. Thirty minutes later, I checked out of the hotel and got in my car.

I really don’t want to die, though this trip scared me a bit. It’s a long 5 hours, 4.5 of those hours are on one road, driving across southern Wisconsin. Tedious is one word that comes to mind. Mind-numbing and lullaby-driving are two others.

Instead of getting on the highway, I drove to Wal-mart. I stocked up on cigarettes and Rockstar.

Now, I quit smoking 6 years ago when we found out brat #3 was coming a bit faster than we expected. It was purely a financial decision at that point, but breathing turned out to be a nice change, too.

Nicotine is a stimulant with immediate effects. That means, if I start feeling drowsy, I can smoke a cigarette and I quit feeling drowsy while I chug energy drinks.

Good plan, Jason.

It worked. I made it home, then fell on the couch and didn’t move for 4 hours. Then I ate dinner and went to bed.

Unfortunately, even after quitting for 6 years, by the time I got home, it felt like I’d never quit. So I get the joy of quitting again.

By the time you read this, the craving should be gone and I should just be getting ready to climb in my car for a long drive on not enough sleep.

Medical Costs and Choices

Finance, Parenting

: 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?

Ignore Your Budget

Finance

For the first year of our journey out of debt, we had a strict budget, with all of our discretionary money spent out of an envelope system. We had an envelope for groceries, one for discretionary spending, one for clothes and one for baby crap. At the beginning of the month, we’d divide the money into the envelopes according to our budget spreadsheet. If we used a card for anything, we’d take a matching about of money out of the appropriate envelope and put it in a box to get reconciled the next month.

Ugh. Almost 2 years later, it has turned into too much work and too much nagging about everything either of us put on a card.

We decided to simplify the system a few months ago. Now, we still have a budget. It’s even a zero-based budget, but we ignore it. We only look at it if something changes for the worse. If something changes for the better, the extra money just gets automatically rolled into our debt snowball, so there’s no need to worry about updating the spreadsheet.

Instead of envelopes, we kind of eyeball it. We budget $450 per month for groceries, so we aim to spend $100 on our weekly grocery run. That leaves some room for losing track of how much we are putting in the cart, or a last minute addition to the list. It also leaves room for our secondary grocery trip to buy bread and milk later in the week. We do go through a lot of milk at my house. We budget $55 per month for diapers, but the deal we are currently getting with Amazon Mom is only costing us $30.79 for 6 weeks of diapers. We ignore the difference.

This—and our heavily automated bill pay and savings—lets us keep our finances on track, without stressing over every dollar or fighting over every little thing that comes home unplanned. I used to fire up Quicken and balance the checkbook every week. Now, that happens at the beginning of the month, usually. If I forget, it doesn’t matter. At the beginning of February, I balanced the checkbook for the first time in almost two months and we never came close to exercising our overdraft protection account. In fact, we had some extra, so that got sent directly to our debt.

Overall, it’s been good to test out a new system. We have almost no financial stress and managing our money takes about a couple of hours per month instead of per week. It’s all win.

Search Results for: ignore-your-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/budget-lesson-part-1/subscribe-by-email/contact-me/budget4/INGDirect/medical-costs-and-choices/4-ways-we-keep-wasting-money/quit-smoking-my-first-frugal-move-ever/one-year-later

Some Facts About Me

The Plan

The Result

1. Credit cards

2. Overdraft fees

3. Unused memberships, gift cards and rebates

4. Airline fees