- RT @kristinbrianne: You won't believe it… I just entered to win the #KodakSweeps on http://tweetphoto.com/contest Pls RT #
- RT @wilw The single most insulting thing you can tell a creative person is, upon viewing their creation, "you have too much free time." #
- Hmm. I share a birthday with Linus Torvalds. #
- @freefrombroke I'm following you and would love to be followed back. in reply to freefrombroke #
- RT: @SuburbanDollar: New Post: : The Art of Delayed Gratification http://bit.ly/5gsKXy #
- RT @FrugalYankee: #NEWYear's #QUOTE: All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening. ~ Alexander Woollcott #
- Crackberry is certainly accurate. I may be too connected. #
- MIL thinks a Kitchenaid stand mixer will make it easier to remove the snow in the driveway. Bad logic, but she's buying one for us, anyway. #
- What magic is in a saw-palmetto capsule and why does my prostate need the power of 1000 of them? #
- RT: @SuburbanDollar: Sounds like he's asking you to rent him a date. #
- RT @hughdeburgh: "I'd rather die fighting for freedom than live as a slave." ~ Judge Andrew Napolitano #Iran #in2010 #USA #
- Happy New Year, 3 minutes early. #
- Billy Jack vs Chuck Norris. Winner? #
- Getting my hair brushed by an 18 month old while watching Married With Children. It's a good evening. #
- RT @FrugalYankee: #NEWYEARS #QUOTE: The most important political office is that of private citizen. ~ Louis Brandeis #
- RT @ScottATaylor: 40,697 Laws Take Effect Today http://ff.im/-dFXNR #
- 5AM. It'd be so easy to go right back to sleep. #
Optimized to Go, Part 1
Last weekend, we held a garage sale at my mother-in-law’s house. It was technically an estate sale, but we treated it exactly as a garage sale.
A week before we started, a friend’s mother came to buy all of the blankets and most of the dishes, pots, and non-sharp utensils so she could donate them all to a shelter she works with. She took at least 3 dozen comforters and blankets away.
Even after that truckload, we started with two double rows of tables through the living room and dining room. The tops of the tables were as absolutely full as we could get them, and the floor under the tables was also used for displaying merchandise.
Have you ever had to display 75 brand-new pairs of shoes in a minimal about of space? They claimed about 16 feet of under-table space all by themselves. Thankfully, the blankets weren’t there anymore.
We also had half of the driveway full of furniture, toys, and tools.
We had a lot of stuff.
Now, most people hold a sale to make some money. Not us. We held a sale to let other people pay us for the privilege of hauling away our crap. As such, it was all priced to move. The most expensive thing we sold was about $20, but I can’t remember what that was. Most things went for somewhere between 25 cents and $1.
At those prices, we sold at least 2000 items. That isn’t a typo. We ended the day with $1325. After taking out the initial seed cash, lunches we bought for the people helping us, and dinner we bought one night, we had a profit of $975.
At 25 cents per item.
We optimized to sell instead of optimizing for profit. At the end of a long summer of cleaning out a hoarding house, it all needed to go.
In the next part, I’ll explain exactly how we made it work.
The Benefits of Ignorance
For years, we had a sweet deal with day care. We had three kids and we were the only family with three kids, so we got a bulk discount that essentially made my oldest free. Compared to the regular price, I think we were paying about ten dollars a week for him to be in daycare, which was great, since he was only there before and after school.
Then he aged out of daycare, and we lost our sweet, sweet deal.
Then the prices went up across the board.
We lost the sweet deal, and then the price went up and our youngest hit the next age bracket.
On the price sheet, the age brackets went from birth to 1, from 1 to 2, and from 2 to kindergarten. I made the mistake of interpreting that to mean that her fee would change when Baby Brat turned three, not when she turned two. I’ve been making that mistake since December when the price went up.
A few weeks ago, I dropped off the kids and forgot to pay for the week, so my wife paid when she picked up the girls. When my wife picked up the girls, she noticed that we hadn’t paid. She had no idea how much we needed to pay because she has never been the one that’s been responsible for making the payments.
Our provider added up the cost and found it was $15 per week less than we’d been paying.
When I balanced the checkbook the following weekend, I noticed that she paid less than our normal rate. We called daycare and now we’re making up for the last 17 weeks of overpayments by paying less each week. We’re paying about $65 less per week. When we’re caught up, we’ll be paying $60-75 less per month, depending on the month.
All due to sweet, sweet ignorance. Ignorance really can be bliss. Sometimes when you know what’s going on, you just assume that you’re making the right decision and you’re afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid. If you don’t know, and there’s nothing you should have known, and it’s possible to save quite a bit of money by just acknowledging the fact that you don’t know.
Also, lesson learned: If you’re not sure, ask! Don’t assume when there’s a chance your assumption could be costing you money.
Net Worth Update – September 2014
It’s time for my irregular-but-usually-quarterly net worth update. It’s boring, but I like to keep track of how we’re doing. Frankly, I was a bit worried when I started this because we’ve been overspending this summer and Linda was off work for the season.
But, all in all, we didn’t do too bad.
Some highlights:
- Both of our properties lost around $3000 in value. I’m not worried, because we are keeping them both for the long haul. The rental is basically on auto-pilot, so that’s free money every month.
- We sold a boat that appraised for much less I had estimated in the last few updates. I had it listed for $5000, but it was worth $2000.
- I do have a credit card balance at the moment, but that goes away as soon as my expense check clears the bank, which will be in a day or two.
- We’re in the home stretch with the mortgage. There is $11,407 left to go, and we’ve paid down $9105 in the last year. By this time next year, I want that gone, gone, gone.
I can’t say I’m upset with our progress. We’ve paid down $6000 in debt in 2014, including 3 months with 1 income. We aren’t maxing our retirement accounts, yet, but I’d like to be completely debt free before I do that. It’s bad math, but having all of my debt gone will give me such a warm fuzzy feeling, I can’t not do it.
My immediate goal is to hit a $600,000 net worth by my next update in January. I’m only about $7000 off.
Time to hit the casino. Err, I mean, time to up my 401k contribution from 5% to 7%.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-29
- RT @ramseyshow: RT @E_C_S_T_E_R_I_: "Stupid has a gravitational pull." -D Ramsey as heard n NPR. I know many who have not escaped its orbit. #
- @BudgetsAreSexy KISS is playing the MINUTE state fair in August. in reply to BudgetsAreSexy #
- 3 year old is "reading" to her sister: Goldilocks, complete with the voices I use. #
- RT @marcandangel: 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills http://bit.ly/b1tseW #
- Babies bounce! https://liverealnow.net/hKmc #
- While trying to pay for dinner recently, I was asked if other businesses accepted my $2 bills. #
- Lol RT @zappos: Art. on front page of USA Today is titled "Twitter Power". I diligently read the first 140 characters. http://bit.ly/9csCIG #
- Sweet! I am the number 1 hit on Ask.com for "I hate birthday parties" #
- RT @FinEngr: Money Hackers Carnival #117 Wedding & Marriage Edition http://bit.ly/cTO4FU #
- Nobody, but nobody walks sexy wearing flipflops. #
- @MonroeOnABudget Sandals are ok. Flipflops ruin a good sway. 🙂 in reply to MonroeOnABudget #
- RT @untemplater: RT @zappos: "Do one thing every day that scares you." -Eleanor Roosevelt #
Charity
Charitable giving is down. Predictions have been that donations would be up this year, but the reality appears to be otherwise.
I have an admittedly low sample size; I don’t talk to many charities and the 2012 donation amounts aren’t out, yet. The one I do have access to says that donations this year are among the lowest in memory.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a bit busy cleaning out a hoader’s house. Last weekend, we tackled one of the stashes of toiletries. We came out with several cases of soap, shampoo, blankets, towels, and sleeping pads.
For the right charity, an unopened case of bar soap is better than gold.
When our new-found treasures were delivered to Mary’s Place, I’m told the nuns wept. Mary’s Place is a transitional housing complex attached to a homeless shelter. They were totally and completely out of hygiene products for the residents.
Something that means nothing to me meant the world to someone else. I was just looking for a useful place to dump the stuff we can’t use or don’t want to store, and I made a nun cry.*
People need so much, and so much of what they need is trivial to my family. A blanket? A bar of soap? That’s nothing…to me.
As we go through the rest of the stuff, our focus will be different. Instead of, “Can we sell this at a garage sale, or should we donate it?”, it’s going to be “Can someone get more value out of this than we’ll get by selling it?” We can sell a comforter for $5, or give it to someone who needs to stay warm in the winter.
I’ll forgo $5 for that warm fuzzy feeling.
*Check one off the bucket list.
