Live Real, Now

The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

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Don’t Screw Future-You

Finance, Life

A conversation between me and my temporally displaced self.
Future Me: Excuse me, Jason?
Me: Yes?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: May I ask what that was for?
FMe: Of course.
Me: What was that for, jerk?
FMe: That was payback for all of the hell you have put me through.
Me: What?!?  I’ve never even met you, before.
FMe: Of course you have.  I am future-you, and I’m sick of getting screwed by past-me, that is, you.
Me: Huh?
FMe: Listen close.  You’re not  the sharpest brick in the box and I don’t want to explain this twice.
Me: ???
FMe: A long time ago, when you first met our wife, you were dumb.
Me: I don’t appreciate….
FMe: Shut up.  I was dumb then, too.  Remember?  You…err…we bought a new truck, built an addition on our…err…your…err…whomever’s house, got married in the same year.  On top of many other expensive decisions.  Do your recall?
Me: Yes, I do.  So what?
FMe: If that wasn’t enough, you and your smoking-hot bride are still shopping like you’re rich. You drive a new car.  Your kids wear new clothes.  You’ve got a house full of new furniture.  How did you pay for all of that?
Me: Naturally, I charged it.  Zero payments, zero interest for a year!  Pretty smart, huh?
FMe: What happens in a year?
Me: I don’t know.  I’ve got a full year to figure that out.
FMe: <Slap!>  I’ll tell you what happens!  Future-you, that’s me, gets screwed!   Your raise didn’t come through.  You had a baby. The truck broke down.  Your wife took maternity leave.  A roommate moved out.  You took a loss in the stock market.  You didn’t plan!  You had no savings to cover any of those problems because you were too busy servicing debt to pay for your current life.
Me: How was I to know?
FMe: <Slap!>  Life happens!  You never know what is coming next.  You need to plan and save for what might happen.  Otherwise, you’ll just accumulate more debt to be serviced by yours-truly.  That is not acceptable.
Me:  So?  What are you going to do about it?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: Really?  Again?
FMe: <Slap!>  I’m struggling to pay your debt. Your son starts college next year, but you’ve left me completely unable to help.  Your daughter wants to get married in a couple of years, but the Father-of-the-Bride can’t afford a tux.  My wife, your beatiful bride, wants a vacation that I can’t afford.   You’ve screwed me, dude.
Me: I’m sorry.  What can I do to fix it?
FMe: Buy me dinner, first.
Me: Huh?!?!?
FMe: Stop the excess spending. Spend less than you make, for a change.  No credit.
Me: None?
FMe: None.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Only spend what you can afford. Budget.  Pay off those nasty bills.  Don’t leave me hanging.
Me: So, what you’re saying is that, if I don’t have the money, I shouldn’t buy it?
FMe: Exactly.  That’s the path to wealth, freedom, and financial independence.  Live in the real world.
Me: Gee, thanks, Future-Me!  Now I know.
FMe: And knowing is half the battle.

What would your future-you have to say to you?

 

10 Ways to Secure Your Kids Against Debt

Finance, Parenting

Everybody wants their children to do well.  I want my kids to grow up without making my mistakes.  Here are a few ways to help them avoid debt.

  1. Talk to your kids about money.  Your kids will never learn how to handle their finances if nobody teaches them how.   This is important.    The factor that contributes most to stress, divorce, long hours, and unhappiness can’t be left to chance.
  2. Set a good example. Spend less than you have and let them see you doing it.  No matter what you tell your kids, if they see you doing otherwise, they will learn the bad lesson.   Money, work, relationships.  They all need attention, and your kids are watching you manage each of them.  Make them proud.
  3. Open a savings account for them, and let them fill it. Teach them the value of their money by letting them work for it, watch it accumulate, and spend it on something they care about.  I make my kids work to convince me to make a withdrawal, so they know it is only for the important things.  I don’t, however, decide what is important for them.
  4. Start a college fund. $100 or $10, it doesn’t matter.  Start putting something aside today.   College costs keep rising.  In 10 years, or 20, you can be sure that college will cost more than it does today.  Last year, nearly two-thirds of students graduating with a four-year degree did so with an average debt of more than $23,000.   Anything you can do to move your kids towards the debt-free 35% will help.  They will thank you for it for the rest of their lives.  Remember, they are in charge of choosing your nursing home.
  5. Teach delayed gratification. Don’t let them think that every whim needs to be satisfied…ever, let alone immediately.  Sometimes, anticipation improves the act.   When I am looking forward to a good meal for a few days or weeks, I really savor it when I finally do get the chance to eat it.  If they want everything they see, make them figure out what they want most, and what it will take to get it.
  6. Teach them to balance a checkbook. This is one of life’s basic skills that far too many people are lacking.   If you can’t balance your checkbook, how do you know what you have?  If you don’t know what you have, how can you know what you’re able to spend on necessities, or even luxuries?  Knowing where you are is at least as important as knowing where you are going.
  7. Give them control of money. This is the best time to learn how to manage money.  Give them an allowance and make it big enough to cover school lunch and bus fare.   Let them practice real-world skills and, more importantly…
  8. Let them make mistakes with it. This is their opportunity to make financial mistakes that won’t haunt them for years or decades.   Let them have some money and let them screw it up.  When they can’t buy the new game, or can’t fix their car, they will learn.  It’s better to do that as teenagers living at home than as adults forced to move back home.
  9. Let them see your pride in their good decisions. If they do well, tell them.  Let their endorphin rush come from your praise instead of their purchase.  You aren’t helping them by getting them hooked on the latest gadget.  You are helping them by making them feel good about making the right decisions.
  10. Beat them with a stick.

How do you protect your kids’ future finances from the kids themselves?

 

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My Financial Plan – How I Improve on Ramsey

Finance

In April, my wife and I decided that debt was done. We have hopefully closed that chapter in our lives. I borrowed, then purchased, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. <a href=budget” width=”300″ height=”213″ />We are almost following his baby steps. Our credit has always been spectacular, but we used it a lot. Our financial plan is Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, with some adjustments.

Step 1. Budget:

The budget was painful, and for the first couple of months, impossible.  We had no idea what bills were coming due. There were quarterly payments for the garbage bill and annual payments for the auto club.  It was all a surprise.  Surprises are setbacks in a budget.

When something came up, we’d start budgeting for it, but stuff kept coming up. We’re not on top of all of it, yet, but we are so much closer. We’ve got a virtual envelope system for groceries, auto maintenance, baby needs(we have two in diapers) and some discretionary money. We set aside money for everything that isn’t a monthly expense, and have a line item for everything that is. My wife is eligible for overtime and monthly bonuses. That money does not get budgeted. It’s all extra and goes straight on to debt, or to play catch-up with the bills we had previously missed.  I figure it will take a full year to get all of the non-monthly expenses in the budget and caught up.

Step 2. The initial emergency fund:

Ramsey recommends $1000, adjusted for your situation. I decided $1000 wasn’t enough. That isn’t even a month’s worth of expenses. We settled on $1800, plus $25/month. It’s still not enough, but it’s better. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ignore it long enough that the $25/month accrues to something worthwhile.

Step 3. The Debt Snowball:

This is the controversial bad math. Pay off the lowest balance accounts first, then take those payments and apply them to the higher balance accounts. Emotionally, it’s been wonderful. We paid off the first credit card in a couple of weeks, followed 6 weeks later by my student loan. Since April, we’ve dropped nearly $10,000 and we haven’t made huge cuts to our standard of living.    At least monthly, we re-examine our expenses to see what else can be cut.

Step 4. Three to six months of expenses in savings:

We aren’t on this step yet. In step 2, we are consistently depositing more, making us more secure every month.

Step 5. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement:

I have not stopped my auto-deposited contribution. It’s stupid to pass up an employer match. My wife’s company does not match, so she is currently not contributing.

Step 6. College funding for children:

We have started a $10 College fund.

Step 7. Pay off home early:

I don’t see the point in handling this one separately. Our mortgage is  debt, and when the other debts are paid, we will be less than a year from owning our house, free and clear. This is rolled in with step three. All debt is going away, immediately.

Step 8. Build wealth and give!

We have cut off most of our charitable giving. Every other year, it has been a significant percent of our income, and in a few more years, will be so again. The only exception to this is children knocking on the door for fundraisers. I have no problems with saying no to a parent fundraising for their kid, but when the kids is doing the work, door-to-door, especially in the winter, I buy something. My son’s school, on the other hand, gets fundraisers ignored. When they come home, I send a check to the school, ignoring the program. I bypass the overhead and make a direct donation.

Five Ways to Save Money On Cable

Finance, Life

Cable is a luxury.   There are very few people out there who can actually and legitimately consider cable television to be a necessity of life.  For the rest of us, it’s just something that’s nice to have.   Unfortunately, it’s expensive.  In my area, prices come as high as $90 plus tax, and that’s not including any of the fancy channels that could feed my True Blood addiction.  If you start adding on channels, you can get up to $250 per month.

That’s a lot of cash.

Cutting back on cable TV is one of the easiest ways to get your spending under control.  Here are 5 ways to make it happen.

1.  Ditch it

Do you really need cable at all?  How much of your life do you waste in front of the TV?  This wouldn’t work well in my house.  We enjoy too many shows, and a lack of TV aggravates my insomnia.   When I wake up at 2AM, I need something mindless to distract me while I fall back asleep.

2.  Netflix Instant

I love my Netflix.   With Instant, as long as you aren’t too hooked on watching the latest show as it comes out, you can catch most of the show you enjoy.   There are thousands of TV series to choose from.   I make a habit of choosing a couple of shows at a time, and watching the entire series before moving on.  This does have the drawback of leaving you a couple of seasons behind for some shows, like In Plain Sight.  Grr.

3.  Go basic

If you do need TV, do you need the extended cable-only channels?  Can you get by with basic cable, and just get the shows that would be otherwise broadcast?   That’s what we did.  This, combined with #2, make TV cheap and easy.

4.  All internet

Did you know that you can use a Roku box to get Netflix Instant, Hulu Plus, Crackle, and more?  I have more channels available there than I’ve ever had on cable.   Starting at $50, it’s a steal.

5.  Drop the fancy channels

HBO, Skinimax, and Showtime are pure unnecessary luxuries.  Save yourself some money and buy each series on DVD as they come out.   If you buy one a month, you’ll still come out ahead.

I’m not about to tell you that cable is evil or that TV is rotting your brain.  I enjoy my rot, and you should be able to do so, too.   Try not to waste extra money doing it.

How do you save money on TV?

6 Ways to Stretch a Meal

Finance, Recipe

Various fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains; ...
Image via Wikipedia

You eat.

Right?

Sometimes, we have more money than month and wonder how we’re going to avoid going hungry at the end of the month.   When the grocery budget has run out and the cupboards are almost bare, how do you keep the kids fed?

The secret is to keep some staple stocked all the time.  If you have these ingredients, you can stretch $1 of beef into a meal for 10 people.  Almost.

Rice

We buy rice 20 pounds at a time.   I try to keep a bowl of cooked rice on hand at all times.    When we cook a soup, stew, or hotdish, we add a cup or two of rice to the dish.   If we’re running late for dinner(a painful situation with a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, and an 11-year-old who’s about to hit 5′ 7″), we’ll dump a can of soup over the top of a bowl of rice.  A quick trip through the microwave, and we’ve got a reasonably healthy meal in 2 minutes.   Another trick is to add some to ground beef, whether it’s a meatloaf or sloppy joes.

Beans

This is another ingredient I try to keep on hand, cooked, and in the fridge.    We use it like we use the rice.  We add a cup to soup, or almost anything else.   Throw some barbecue sauce on them, and you’ve got pseudo-baked beans for cheaper than you can buy a can.  Mash them with taco seasoning and you have refried beans.    Add a cup to scrambled eggs for a filling breakfast.

Potatoes

There are so many ways to use potatoes to stretch a meal.  Shred them to cook with eggs or slice them onto a hotdish.   Cube them into soup or dice it as a thickener in stew.

Pasta

Yet another item that can go into almost anything.    Before I met my wife, I’d make a dish that consisted of nothing more than whatever pasta I had on hand, with a can of soup, cooked until the pasta was done and most of the liquid was absorbed by the noodles.  I learned how to wield spices like a crazy Neptunian ninja.

Soup

Whenever we cook, whatever we eat, we make enough for leftovers.   When the leftovers are no longer enough to make a meal for anyone, they go in a bag in the freezer.   When we have enough, we put them all in a slow-cooker with some water and a ton of seasonings.     When we get home from work, we have a delicious soup waiting for us–free soup.   If we want stew, we throw in some rice.   By the end of the day, the rice has completely dissolved, transforming our delicious freaking soup into yummy dang stew.   Everything we make tastes good, so combining a dozen dishes into one soup should also taste good, right?   The exception: fish.  Never, ever add fish to free soup.  Trust me.

Bread

I don’t use bread to cook much, though it’s harder to get much cheaper than a grilled-cheese sandwich.   I like to serve a slice of bread with dinner.    It just makes the food feel more filling.

That’s how I make a meal for two stretch to feed my family of five, without sacrificing taste or nutrition.    How do you make a meal stretch?