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Meal Plans

Finance

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

When we don’t have a meal plan, food costs more.

Our regular plan is to build a menu for the week and go to the grocery store on Sunday.  This allows planning, instead of scrambling for a a meal after work each night.   It also give us a chance to plan for leftovers so we have something to eat for lunch at work.

We work until about 5 every weekday.   When we don’t have the meal planned, it’s usually chicken nuggets or hamburger helper for dinner.   Not only is that repetitive, but it’s not terribly healthy.  It is, however, convenient.   If we plan for it, we can get the ingredients ready the night before and know what we are doing when we get home, instead of trying to think about it after a long day of work.

If we don’t plan for leftovers, we tend to make the right amount of food for the family.   When this happens, there’s nothing to bring to work the next day, which means I’ll be hungry about lunchtime with nothing I can do about it except buy something. Buying lunch is never cheaper than making it.   I can get a sandwich at Subway for $5, but I could make a sandwich just as tasty and filling for less than half of that, using money that is meant to be used for food.   All during wrestling season, we make 30-inch sandwiches on meet nights for a cost of about $5, feeding ourselves and at least a couple of others who didn’t have time to make their dinner before the 5:30 meet.

No leftovers also means no Free Soup, which is a wonderful low-maintenance meal that leaves everybody full.  Nobody ever gets bored of Free Soup.  (Hint:  Don’t ever put a piece of fish in the Free Soup, or the flavor will take over the entire meal.)

Unhealthy, repetitive food for dinner.  Over-priced, low-to-middle-quality food for lunch.

OR

We plan our meals right and have inexpensive, healthy food that doesn’t get boring for every meal.

It seems to be a no-brainer.   Except, I don’t have lunch today because we didn’t plan our meals and used the last of the leftover hamburger helper for dinner last night.

Update:  This post has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Side Hustle: Garage Sale Tips

Finance

Garage sale week wasn’t enough.    There are so many little things that I did–or meant to do–that I forgot to include them last week.

  1. Advertise everywhere. I do mean everywhere.   Take out an ad in the paper.  Put an ad on Craigslist.   Have fliers in the grocery store, the laundromat, and any place that has a publicly-accessible bulletin board.    Put big, bright signs at every possible turn to get to your sale.  Assume the drivers a dense.  Don’t give them an opportunity to make a wrong turn or–like I did–put conflicting arrows on different sides of a sign.
  2. Use bait. Set out tools and furniture where they are visible.   Lots of people drive past if they only see knick-knacks.   Tools get the men to stop, furniture gets anybody running a household to stop.    If you don’t actually have any tools to sell, put your lawnmower out with an insanely high price on it.   Heck, if someone wants to pay you 125% of retail for your mower, take it!   I had a number of tools and lawn-crafting gear–actually for sale–near the end of the driveway.    If I can get the people out of the car, someone will find something worth buying.
  3. Price it like you’d buy it. People don’t come to garage sales looking for sale prices.  They come looking to pay as little as possible.  They want the crazy deal.   You’ll have to oblige them, at least a bit.  Price some things very low, and everything else almost very low.   Aim for 25% of retail or less, except for a few special items that you won’t mind keeping.
  4. Don’t be afraid to say no. Some hagglers are jerks.  If the offer is insulting, don’t feel obligated to take it.
  5. Bag the little stuff. Instead of pricing every toy 10 cents, put a handful of toys is a zip-lock bag for a dollar.   Mix some of the bad with the good so the crap goes away, too.   Reject every offer to open the bag and sell the stuff separately.
  6. Put the bags of toys on a table in the driveway. Kids stay out of the confined garage and entertain themselves digging.   Kids are clumsy.  They can’t break your lamp if the don’t come near it.   Parents will welcome something to keep their little brats occupied while they shop.  It’s a win for everyone!
  7. Describe anything that isn’t obvious. Make a lot of signs.   To be clear, make a lot of signs.  Describe the furniture.   Show a current ebay auction for the item.  Identify the antiques.  You don’t want to be forced to sell everything yourself.  Let the signs sell for you.
  8. Start early. Price and sort your stuff a month in advance.   The night before the sale, all you want to have to do is set up tables and unbox your stuff.  Don’t try pricing it then.
  9. Multi-day sales are best. It gives people a chance to tell their friends about it, or to come back and buy the thing they passed up.  Don’t lose out on the buzz!
  10. Save your grocery bags. A few weeks before a sale, I go to the grocery store and ask if they mind if a bundle of plastic bags goes home with me.  The manager has always said it’s okay.   If that doesn’t work, just double bag your groceries and save the bags for a few weeks.
  11. Use blankets and tarps to hide anything that isn’t for sale. People will ask about everything they can see.  Save yourself the hassle.
  12. Plan your layout to let people browse and move. You don’t want a traffic jam in the garage.   Give it a clear flow, with enough room for people to pass each other comfortably.   Three people should be able to pass each other in every row.  It’s not always possible, but try.  If two people can’t pass, start over.
  13. Clean your stuff. Clean items sell better.   Dirty stuff will have to be sold for at least 25% less than clean stuff.

That’s it for now.  More to come, I’m sure.

Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.

Update:  This post has been included in the Money Hacks Carnival.

Beat the Check

Finance

Wheel of fortune. Shot wide open using 50mm/f1...
Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever played a game of “Beat the Check”?  Your rent is due tomorrow, but you don’t get paid until Friday, so you write the check today an, on payday, you run to the bank to get your paycheck deposited before it has a chance to clear.  To stretch out the time, you write yourself a check from another account to cover the deficit, knowing that will take a few more days to clear. This is called “floating” a check.

Sound familiar?

I think most people who write checks have tried to rush a deposit in before a check clears.

In 2004, the Check 21 act went into effect, which turned the game on its head. This law gave check recipients an option to make a digital copy of a check, slashing processing time. Instead of boxes of checks being transported around the country, the check began getting scanned and instantly transferred, along with all of the encoding necessary to keep the digital checks organized. This dramatically cut the amount of time it took to clear a check. What was once a week was reduced to as little as 48 hours.

Now, as technology improves and banks update their infrastructure to match, the “float” time has been reduced even further. Many banks are using image control systems to instantly convert all incoming checks to digital format. Within a couple of hours, these images can be transmitted to the Federal Reserve, to be transmitted nearly instantly to the issuing bank. If both the issuing and the receiving banks are using modern image control systems, it is impossible to float a check. “Beat the Check” is a thing of the past. It’s like betting on purple at the roulette wheel.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the funds are instantly available. That would eliminate the banks being able make use of the funds during that time. Don’t expect the banks to make a habit of allowing you the use of your money before the federal regulations demand it.

Work at Home Scams

Finance, Life

The idea of working from home is certainly appealing.  You get to set your own hours, sleep in some days, and be there when the kids get home from school.  You can be there when the packages get delivered and let the dog out before it’s too late.  Who doesn’t see the attraction?

Unfortunately, when something is so enticing, there will always be predators looking to take advantage of the dreams of others.  They dangle the “be your own boss” bait and reel in the people who their wishes overrule their judgment.

The ads are hard to resist.  “Make $2800 per month without leaving your home!” or “Stuff envelopes in your home for $1 per envelopes.”  I cases like these, the old saw tends to hold true: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Common work-at-home scams include:

Medical Billing

For only $499.99, you can purchase a “business opportunity”.  A lot of medical bill is actually done on paper so there is very real market for medical billing and processing.  Unfortunately for the respondents to these ads, the vast majority of this market is already taken by large companies with huge marketing budgets.  Finding enough customer to generate enough revenue to recover your investment is almost impossible, but you’ll never see that in an ad.

Envelope Stuffing

You answer an ad in the paper, sending $29.95 for a packet that will instruct you in the fine art of stuffing envelopes for $1 each.  When you get the information, you find out it is a letter instructing you to place an ad in the papers stating “Stuff Envelopes for $1 Each.  $29.95 for Information.”  This forces you to become the scammer, just to recover your costs.  Bad you.

Assembly or Craft Work

This one actually sounds like a business.  You invest in–for example–a sign-making machine for $1500.  The selling company promises to buy a quota  of signs from you each month.  After you buy the equipment and materials you spend countless hours making the product only to find out that either a) the company has disappeared or b) their undefined “Quality Standards” has rejected the work.  Nothing is ever up to standards.

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate opportunities to make money at home.  Bob at Christian Personal Finance recently listed 24 legitimate home-based businesses, including blogging, eBay selling, wedding planning, car mechanic, and mobile oil changes.

Are you exploring any home-based business opportunities?

Cheap Drugs – How I Saved $25 in 3 Minutes

Finance

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Image by cackhanded via Flickr

Today, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of prescriptions.  I always get the generics, because they are less than half the price of the name-brands, while still being chemically identical. That’s not what I’m talking about, although it did save me about $75 today.

When the pharmacist rang up my medications, the total came up to $35.   That just wasn’t right.

Many chain pharmacies have gone to a cheap pricing model for generic drugs.  That usually means $4-6 per monthly prescription.  Cub Foods doesn’t have that.

So I asked for the price match.

Cub Foods matches prices on generics with whatever large pharmacy is nearby.  In this case, they matched Target’s prices, bringing the price from $35 to $10.   Instant $25 savings. I just had to wait for them to look up my prescriptions in their match-book.

Pharmacies with cheap generics:

K-Mart offers a 3 month supply for $15.

Target and Wal-Mart both have a 30-day supply for $4.

Publix offers a 14-day prescription for some antibiotics for free.  That’s insane! It’s also a heckuva way to get people in the door.  “Why don’t you shop for half an hour while I fill your scrip?”

If your pharmacy is anywhere near any of these stores, call and ask if they’ll match the price for generic drugs.

A few tips:

Before you go get your cheap drugs, call ahead and make sure what you need is on the cheap list.   Don’t assume.

You won’t be able to use your insurance to buy the cheap generics.   The overhead in insurance processing would mean that the pharmacies would be operating at a loss for each prescription.  You can’t make that up in volume.    Between our copays and deductibles, it’s far cheaper to just pay the generic price without involving the insurance company.

Don’t be afraid of generics.  It’s not like Nike.  Generics are chemically identical to the name brands. There are two differences: the price and the letter stamped on the side of the pill.

The stores offering cheap drugs are generally bigger stores hoping to use the drugs as a loss leader.    Places like Walgreens or CVS make up to 70% of their profits from the pharmacy.  They can’t stay open treating that as a loss leader.

How do you save money on prescriptions?