- RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
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- Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
- A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
- RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #
Babies Are Expensive
From the comments here. The discussion is on how much it costs to have a baby. Edited for clarity.
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Actual birthing costs vary. We’ve had three kids over ten years and birthing costs have varied from $250 out of pocket to $8500. Our highest and lowest price births were 20 months apart. The highest price birth involved induced labor with an epidural. For the lowest out-of-pocket price, I added my wife to my policy before the birth, so she was double-covered. If one of your policies is less than ideal and there are multiple policies available, I recommend doing this. It saved us thousands. All told, If things go well, you could slide for as little as $1500 total.
For the highest price birth, we threw ourselves on the mercy of the finance department. They have a charity fund to pay the bills of the less fortunate. We qualified…barely. If you have a medical bill you can’t afford, ask if there is a grant or donation you can apply for. Always ask if there is some way the bill could be lowered.
Breast-feeding beats the heck out of formula, financially, but breast-feeding doesn’t always work. Ignore the boob-nazis who insist you are slowly killing your kid by using formula. I’ve got 3 kids, and each had different feeding issues.
Baby formula runs $19 for a big container at Sam’s Club, or a large percentage of your soul at most other big box stores. Formula alone will pay for your membership in under a month. For a big eater, that’s $20-30 per week. For a normal eater, 2-3 weeks. For planning purposes, assume $100/month in formula costs for the first six months, when food starts coming into play heavily. After that, the formula expense goes down, but not away for at least 6 more months.
Diapers are painful. Not just the smell–though that hurts, too, sometimes–but the expense. I currently have 2 in diapers; one is potty-training. Our monthly costs for diapers, now, are about $75. It was easily twice that when they were younger. Figure at least $100 per month in diapers. Unless your baby has irritation problems, go with cheap diapers. Leak-guard is a joke. If you are relying on leak-guard to keep the contents inside the diaper, you aren’t changing your baby often enough.
I couldn’t begin to guess at how much you’ll spend on baby clothes. I have never bought clothes for our kids. Whatever didn’t come free from friends and family walked into the house of it’s own volition, following my wife home from the store.
Toys are an almost purely voluntary expense. You’ll get as much as the kids needs free, as presents. You’ll go overboard and give the kids 10 times that, without realizing it. Don’t. For the first four to five months, its fingers and toes will be entertaining enough. After that, if there are more than about ten toys, it’s too many; the kid will never get attached to any of them. Keep it small. It’s better for the kids and the budget. Little kids prefer boxes to toys, anyway. Give the kid a shoebox instead of a Leapfrog. Really.
Portraits suck, too. If you have to get them done professionally, get a membership that covers sitting fees, and use coupons. I recommend JC Penney’s. Using judicious coupons and the membership, we get portraits for under $20.
Baby food is probably cheaper to make in a food processor, but you can’t beat the convenience of the little jars. If you watch sales, you can stock up affordably. Mix every meal with some rice or oatmeal mush to stretch it, without making it unhealthy. Depending on your kids, and how much you listen to the “experts”, this is a nonexistent expense before six months. Our kids started eating baby food in their second months, at least a little bit.
Babies are expensive. Don’t doubt that for a second, but ignore the polled averages when it comes to expense. Hand-me-downs, thrift stores, and good sales cut the expense a lot.
How do you save money and value with a baby in the house?
A Well-Trained Husband
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
Let me check….
A few days ago, I asked a coworker if she wanted to go out for lunch. She said she’d have to check her bank account before she decided.
What?
If you have to check your bank balance to know if you can afford something, you can’t afford it. It really is that simple.
Now, strict budgets aren’t for everyone, but everyone should know how much money they have available to spend. If you don’t know what you have to spare, you need to set up a budget.
Period.
After you’ve done that, you can ignore it, with the exception of knowing how much you have available to blow on groceries, entertainment, and other discretionary purchases.
If you don’t know where your money needs to go, how can you determine how much you can spend on the things you want?
What Is Your Binary Options Strategy?
When you are just entering the world of binary options trading or investing, you may be on the receiving end of a lot of advice. It is not uncommon to hear people tell you to implement different gambling strategies because binary options are based on chance more than anything else. You will also hear a lot of advice from those who say there are many good ways to develop an effective strategy using indicators and market signals. Some will insist that with proper analysis of market data, a solid strategy can be developed too.
Are they all correct? Interestingly enough, the answer is yes. The reason for this is simple, and as one expert writes, “there is no such thing as a perfect strategy for every trader. There is only a best strategy for each individual trader.” Thus, your strategy has to be shaped around a few things:
- Your willingness and ability to follow your chosen strategy.
- Your personality. For instance, are you restless if you are taking the safe route or a higher risk strategy?
- Your budget and goals,
Identifying the answers to these questions is the first step to formulating a strategy. You should also understand that the winning percentage of most strategies will be somewhat constant, but the total number of successful trades varies on an individual basis and is based entirely on the strategies used.
For instance, some investors want a high percentage of winning trades and are more comfortable with risk averse trading. Others are ready to take more risk and are entirely comfortable winning fewer trades if the returns on winning trades are dramatically higher. This enables them to implement higher risk trades. The interesting thing about strategies and the kinds of trades they generate is that they are all built from the same data.
The Data of Strategy
For example, almost all strategies will look at issues like market trends, trading trends, highs and lows, reversals, and various kinds of indicators. The reason that high and low trends pay off in strategy development is simple: binary options trading applies to whether or not an asset rises above a strike price or doesn’t. It is the proverbial “yes or no” part of the proposition and analysis for either outcome pays off.
As an example, a lot of risk-averse investors will look for breakouts. They use these for trend line investing, which can be as brief as sixty seconds to a day, but can be used to coordinate investing in the direction of a short trend. Although this seems complex, it really is not. The key is that analysis cannot be broad and across all available markets. Instead, focused analysis on a specific area will allow even a novice investor to analyze for a breakout and then invest in binary options accordingly.
Just being able to detect a reversal or a downward trend over the course of a day can yield a very rewarding investment. The key is to understand your strategy based on your budget, personality, and your ability to stick with the strategy, even if it does not yield immediate success. When you do this, and use the right tools for analysis, you can create an effective strategy that brings you closer to your goals.
This is a guest post.
February 30 Day Project #1: Romantic Gestures
For the month of February, I had two 30 Day Projects: Do 100 pushups in a single set and another, that I haven’t posted. Until now.
The reason I haven’t posted anything about the second project is because it would have ruined it. I set a goal to do something nice for my wife every single day. It’s really a much harder goal than it sounds. Between juggling wrestling practice, crabby kids, the usual winter illnesses and deadlines at work, finding time to arrange for anything special presents a challenge, and I wanted it to be a surprise.
This morning, the last day of the month, I made breakfast in bed. While she was eating, I handed her a letter and set a present on the floor next to the bed. The present was one of our wedding invitations, framed, and the closing of our wedding ceremony in a matching frame.
The letter reads:
Dearest,
As you know, I’ve been working on a series of thirty-day projects. In January, I got up at 5 every day and read to the girls almost every day. If February, my project has been to get to 100 pushups in a single set. Almost.
I worked at that and accomplished it, but it was really a cover project. I love you and wanted a way to express that. So, my main project has been you.
In the first week of the month, we had two snowstorms, do you remember? For each one, I made sure to get your truck cleaned off before you were ready to go to work, with fresh coffee. At the beginning of the week, you got a full 30 minute backrub, with absolutely no hidden motive. At the end of the week, I sent you a letter expressing my feelings. Over the weekend, you had no diapers to do–I think you ended up with one–and I let you sleep in as late as you wanted on Sunday. It was a good first week.
The second week, there was another snowstorm on Monday. Combining that with the grocery shopping kept me from having time to do anything on Monday, but Tuesday, you woke up to a clean truck again. Wednesday, there were flowers. Thursday, dinner. Game night at [friend’s house]? That was planned, by me, 3 weeks in advance. Over the weekend, I watched the kids so you could go to [cousin’s] to relax, and you got breakfast in bed on Sunday. I may have missed a day, but the week was still a success, I think.
The following week, while you were getting ready for bed, you saw me go outside and asked about it. Thankfully, the girls woke up, because I had just put a note in your truck telling you 10 things I love about you. I also took all of the kids to wrestling–twice–to give you some sanity time and gave you another long backrub. This was also the week you got sick, which meant a day in bed for you, instead of me being able to plan something nice.
This week, the last week of the month, I took all of the kids to wrestling again, giving you a chance to take a nice, relaxing bath. Those were originally planned to be two separate nights. Instead, it was combined into one night. I also managed to go shopping to buy the components of the present I am giving you, put the present together, and write this letter. Last night, our date was a part of this, and today, so is breakfast.
My goal has been to do something nice for you, every day. So now, for an entire month, you have been the focus of my dedicated attention, nearly every single day. I’ve felt closer to you, than I have in a while. Have you enjoyed the attention?
Happy Valentine’s Month.
The actual expenses were the flowers, the frames, dinner and a movie, and a buy-in for Texas Hold ‘Em at her cousin’s house. Everything else was done with what we have, gifts of time and energy instead of money.
Total cost: $159 for an entire month of romantic gestures. Money well-spent, for sure.
Update: This post has been included in the Money Hacks Carnival.
