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Cheap Vacations

Finance

Hotel Bristol w Warszawie
Image via Wikipedia

Last month, we went on vacation for a week.  It was our first debt-free vacation, ever!  We had a busy week, full of fun activities and it didn’t break the bank.  We saved money on everything we could.

Hotel

We save a lot of money by staying at a casino/hotel that was a 20 minute trip away from our vacation city.   This won’t save money if you have a problem with gambling.  The only time we went to the casino was to get to the connected restaurant.

We made the hotel even cheaper by arriving on a Sunday and leaving on a Friday, avoiding the weekend rates.  That gave us a full 6 day vacation with no rush to pack and 2 days to recover and relax when we were done.  We just didn’t see the point of checking out on Saturday, just to head home, when we could check out on Friday, spend the day seeing the sights, then leave late.

Meals

I like good food, but feeding a family of five for a week costs far too much.  So we compromised.

We brought milk and cereal to the hotel.  Instead of rushing to get out of the hotel for breakfast, we had a leisurely breakfast in our jammies and took our time getting moving.  No stress.  For our daytrips, we packed sandwiches, juice, and snacks; avoiding the need for lunchtime restaurants.  Dinner was our extravagance.  Every night, we ate someplace nice.   Not fancy, but nice.  Our food budget was about $30 for the week, not counting dinner.

Attractions

I had  a plan to keep every day fun, without resorting to using an agenda.  We were far to flexible to call it an agenda.  They just don’t make vacations fun for me.   We had one thing planned each morning, one each afternoon, and one each evening.  Every day, one of those things was spending a couple of hours in the hotel pool.  No stress.

The first thing I did was hit the city’s tourism website for coupons.  Yay us!

We tried to group our activities geographically to save on parking.  For example, one day we went on a sight-seeing boat tour, then walked over the a retired-ore-freighter-turned-museum and only paid one parking fee, which was actually reimbursed by the tour company.

We also hit a lot of state parks, which was mostly free, except for the daily parking permits.

Some of the museums had gotten together to offer a “3 attractions for the price of 2” deal.  This was available to us, but I didn’t find out about it until the end of the week.  Luckily, it only cost us a few dollars more to use the other coupons.

When we had some spare time, we did other things, like bowling or catching a matinee.   They were just some cheap  time-fillers, but still good times.

All in all, we had a great time.  Nobody was bored and we didn’t end up broke.  A good time was had by all, and I got to teach my son how to play poker.

How do you save money on vacation?

Saturday Roundup – The OMG It’s Busy Edition

Misc

Halloween Vintage 05
Image via Wikipedia

Last Saturday, my 3-year-old rode in her second horse show.  She got third place out of 4, which is pretty good for her second show.

Halloween is well under way here.  Normally, I get everything set up the last weekend of September, but we went out of town that weekend to visit my sick Grandma, so things are behind schedule.  Now, I’m trying to finish decorating my yard in the evenings, between work and sunset.   That really cuts into blogging time.

Today, my two oldest kids are having a birthday party together.  October is a crazy-busy month.

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The best posts of the week:

Every blogger needs a WordPress cheatsheet, right?

$93 of generosity turned into $100,000 of charity.  It’s an inspiring story about how the little things add up.   What a way to make a difference!

The debt-settlement meany-butt-jerkfaces have to obey an entire new set of laws to keep them from lying to their customers.

I love precious metals.  The only gold I own is on my ring finger, but I’ve got a small stack of silver in the house.  There’s just something about a gold or silver coin that makes me want to fondle it.

Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in:

Last week:

20 Lazy Ways to Save Money was in the Carnival of Money Stories.

3 Reasons You Hate Your Budget was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

The Magic Toilet was included in the Festival of Frugality.  I love my magic toilet.

This week:

Halloween Decorations Ain’t Cheap was picked up by the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thrifty Sucks was included in the Carnival of Money Stories.

If I missed anyone, please let me know.   Thanks for including me!

Sunday Roundup: Yep, It’s Saturday

Misc

funny road sign
Image by Sree_ via Flickr

Yes, it’s Saturday.  Tomorrow, I’m hosting the Yakezie Carnival, so I bumped this up a day.

This week has been super relaxing.  Wrestling season is over.  We’re done with activities for a while.

30 Day Project Update

Last month, I was trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set.  I recorded each session in a spreadsheet.  I hit my goal on the 28th, 3 days early.  Since then, I’ve cut down to just one session per day.  I’m now doing 35 slow, deep push-ups every morning.  It’s not a goal, or a challenge, just part of a general effort to be healthier.

Weight Loss Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 41 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 1 pound since last week and 8 pounds in March, while doing an insane amount of push-ups and packing on a few pounds of muscle.  Seriously, for the last couple of weeks, on the days I haven’t totally slacked off, I’ve been doing 500+ push-ups a day.  That’s a lot.

Total Inches: I have lost  23 inches in the same time frame, up 1 inch since last week.   That makes me sad, but it seems to be muscle growth, so it’s not too bad.

Best Posts

Mint shows how lazy employees are, on average.  Surprisingly, only 2.09 hours are wasted in the average 8 hour day.   The rule I’d heard before is that employers expect 2-3 good, solid hours of work our of their employees every day.

Money Crasher has some cheap appetizer recipes.   I can’t wait to make the biscuit meatballs.

The Mars Rover died.  Tragic.

Get Rich Slowly has a post on emergency preparedness.  If I mentioned that I keep enough supplies in my car to live for a week, would that make me a survivalist or just a fun guy?

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

First, I examined the value of exchanging your time to save a bit of money.

Then, I talked about the futility of trying to force your spouse into frugality.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Filing Bankruptcy: Pride or Shame? was an Editor’s Pick in the Totally Money Blog Carnival at Debt Free Divas.  Thank you!

Budgeting tips – sticking to your budget was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Saving Money: The Warranty Fund was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

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Have a great week!

 

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Money Problems: Day 11 – Extended Warranties

Finance

PACCAR Parts-Extended Warranty
Image by TruckPR via Flickr

Today, I am continuing the  series, Money Problems: 30 Days to Perfect Finances.   The series will consist of 30 things you can do in one setting to perfect your finances.  It’s not a system to magically make your debt disappear.  Instead, it is a path to understanding where you are, where you want to be, and–most importantly–how to bridge the gap.

I’m not running the series in 30 consecutive days.  That’s not my schedule.  Also, I think that talking about the same thing for 30 days straight will bore both of us.   Instead, it will run roughly once a week.  To make sure you don’t miss a post, please take a moment to subscribe, either by email or rss.

On this, Day 11, we’re going to talk about extended warranties.

You’ve been there.  You walk into a big box electronics store to buy a $10 cable for your DVD player and the boy in blue at the register tries to pressure you into spending $4 on an extended warranty in case the cable dies due to too much adult video…or something.

The same nameless blue and yellow store is currently selling a laptop for $349 with a 2 year extended warranty for $89.   The sales pitch usually goes something along the line of “These things have a tendency to break.  You need a warranty to make it worth purchasing.”  Thanks, jerk.   You just sent me to a competitor since your sales pitch involves telling me you’re selling garbage.

Seriously, getting an extended warranty on electronics is almost always a bad deal.    Yes, almost 30% of laptops fail within  three years.    Most of those fail in the 3rd year.   What’s a 2 year warranty going to do for you then?    New laptops generally come with a 1 year warranty from the factory.    That leaves you volunteering for a 25% markup in exchange for protecting your device for a year that is not statistically likely to include a laptop failure.

A much better idea is to create a warranty/repair fund.   When you buy something and have a warranty offered, turn it down and put that money in a special savings account.   That money will get set aside to repair your stuff when it breaks.    If you do that with everything you buy, you’ll soon have a fund that can pay for most repairs, without stressing your budget.  I’ve got $25 going into my repair fund every month, so I’ll never have to worry about an extended warranty again.

It’s called a self-warranty.

But what about a car warranty you ask?

This is where I differ from most people.  I’m a fan of extended warranties on cars, with 2 caveats.

1.  Use it.  If you car has started shaking, knocking, or almost anything else, bring it in.    You have a warranty, so get your dang car fixed.    When you’re getting close to the end of your warranty, make up an excuse and get that car into the dealer.  “My car’s making an intermittent knocking sound.  Can you fix it?  While you’re at it, please do your 90,000 point inspection and fix whatever you find.”   There’s no reason that you can’t get your car running like new when it kicks over the 70,000 mile mark.

2.  Negotiate it.   The charge you see is typically twice the dealer’s cost.   Let them make some profit, since that’s what makes the world go round, but don’t let them take advantage of you.    If they offer you a warranty for $2000, counter with $1200.

If you can get a decent price and are willing to make sure you use the auto warranty, get it.

How do you feel about extended warranties?  Please leave a comment below and let me know.

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Winning the Mortgage Game

Finance

There’s a game that’s often mistakenly called “The American Dream”.   This game is expensive to play and fraught with risk.   It single-handedly ties up more resources for most people than anything else they ever do.

Conway's Game of Life
Image via Wikipedia

The game is called Home Ownership.

At some point, most people consider buying a house.   On the traditional, idealized life-path, this step comes somewhere between marriage and kids.   That’s usually the easiest way to organize it.   If you have kids first, you’re much less likely to buy a home.  This is a game with handicaps.

Once you get to the point where you are emotionally ready to invest in the 30-year commitment that is a house, your first impulse tends to be to rush to the bank to find out how much money you can borrow.

That’s a mistake.  If you take as much as the bank will qualify you for, you’re most likely to overextend yourself and end up losing your house.   That’s the quick way to lose the home ownership game.

The best thing you could do is figure out how much you can afford before you visit a bank.   Conventional wisdom says that your mortgage payment should be no more than 28% of your gross income, but that’s absurd.   Who builds their budget on their gross income?  I like 28%, but only of your net income.    To make the numbers easier to remember, I’d round it to 30%.   If you take home $3000 per month, your mortgage payment should be no more than $900 per month.

From there, it pretty easy to figure out how much house you can afford.  Using this e mortgage calculator, you’d be able to afford a mortgage of $175,000 if we assume an interest rate of 4.5%.  Throughout most of the United States, that will buy you a reasonably sized home, though certainly nothing ostentatious.    Clydesdale Bank also has an excellent loan calculator.

Some people like to start out with an interest-only loan.   That same emortgage calculator shows that an income of $3000 per month would be able to afford a $240,000 with almost the same payment.  That seems like a good plan, but eventually, you’ll have to pay more than just the interest.   Taking out a loan that will one day be more than you can afford on the assumption that you’ll be making more money by then is not sound financial planning.    That’s the same logic that helped me bury myself in debt.

When you buy a house, make sure to base your payments and your mortgage on what you can realistically afford.  Anything else, and you’ll only end up poorer and less happy than when you started.

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Why I chose a prepaid credit card

Finance

 This is a guest post.

You can’t get credit without a credit card, and you can’t get a credit card without good credit. This is a dilemma that many people find themselves facing, whether they are trying to re-establish their credit or build credit for the first time. In fact, this is the dilemma that I found myself in. My solution was to get a prepaid card, and here’s why.

The Real Deal with Prepaid

Prepaid credit cards have earned a mixed reputation over the years. While it’s true that they usually have more fees than a regular credit card, they also offer a financial solution for people who don’t have good credit. And you should also keep in mind that they don’t charge interest because the cash that you are using is yours to begin with. The important thing to remember about prepaid cards is that they are a means to an end; once you rebuild your credit, you’ll find it much easier to apply for a card with better rates and fewer fees.

In addition, prepaid cards offer several advantages. The most important one for me was the convenience of having a card that I could use to make purchases. Prepaid cards look and work exactly like regular credit cards (you don’t have to enter a personal identification number to use them), so the only one who knows it is prepaid is me. And while I use cash for everyday purchases, there’s no avoiding the need for a card when you have to shop online or pay for gasoline at the pump, for example. Most digital merchants only accept payments from cards linked to large financial brands like Mastercard and Visa, and my card gives me a way to buy what I need from whoever has it in stock. In addition, my prepaid card offers me a way to keep track of all of my purchases electronically, which is helpful since I am trying to keep a closer eye on my budget.

Prepaid cards also offer security. Cash can easily be lost or stolen, but if you lose a prepaid card, you can easily get a replacement. More importantly, your balance is protected by a replacement guarantee from your bank, which comes in handy if you ever have to dispute fraudulent charges.

Perhaps the most convenient factor of a prepaid card, though, is how easy it is to get one. You don’t have to have a bank account in your name to receive a prepaid card. However, if you do have an account, you can easily link it to your prepaid card.

Changing my spending habits and getting out of debt hasn’t been easy for me, but one way for me to show creditors that I am getting better at managing finances is to build my credit with my prepaid card. It’s also a way for me to eventually be able to make big purchases that are necessary, such as a car, and hopefully one day, a home. Prepaid isn’t for everyone, but if you find yourself considering this option, it’s worth a second look.