Search Results for “three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/debt-burnout/subscribe-by-email/budget-lesson-part-2/573/budget-lesson-part-3/budget4/experiences-v-stuff/INGDirect/first-3-things-to-do-in-the-new-year” — Page 81

Selling Your Car

: English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

Little Monster Late Fees

Parenting

Last week, I paid a late fee to daycare. I neverpay daycare late.

little monsters — Image by sekundo via Flickr

Except last week.

As I’ve said before, I work 80 hours a week.

For the last couple of weeks, my three year old has decided that she needs to sleep in every morning. No getting up at 6:30 for her. No way. That little prima donna wants to lounge in bed until 8, then watch a movie while eating breakfast in bed. She’s never gotten that treatment, so I don’t know why it’s become her goal.

Last week, she decided to throw a tantrum when I woke her up.

Followed by a tantrum when I reminded her she doesn’t get to wear diapers during the day.

Followed by a tantrum when I dared to pick out clothes that didn’t have horses, or didn’t look right, or weren’t sweats, or weren’t picked out by Mom, or this, or that or….

I’ve been the one to get her ready almost every morning for 3 years and she has never been catered to that way.

Me: overtired, with 1000 things on my mind.

Her: diva training, trying to wake up.

Her sister: teasing, asking questions, and generally doing her best to stand under my feet.

Her brother: gets himself ready, but tries to avoid combing his hair before school, and can’t be relied on to put on clean clothes.

Me: overtired. Juggling getting three kids and myself ready to leave. 1000 things on my mind.

Daycare: What check?

She finally got paid on Thursday. Over the 12 years we’ve had kids there, we’ve paid late maybe 5 times. I hate late fees.

What’s the fix?

Checklists don’t work for me, when I’m rushing around. I tend to ignore them while I’m herding children.

Selling the monsters to the gypsies is out. They are far too difficult to succeed working in the salt mines.

We need to start picking out clothes the night before, to short-circuit most of the tantrum. We also need to enforce bedtimes better, but that’s hard to do Sunday night if they are allowed to nap too long on Sunday afternoon, which happens when I nap with my kids on Sunday afternoon.

Maybe the best solution is to switch schedules with my wife. I’ll go in to work between 6 and 7. She can herd monsters while trying to get ready for work.

Failed Side Hustle: Scrapping

Business

Last week, the washing machine in our rental house died. It was older than I am, so this wasn’t really a surprise. It was one of just two appliances we didn’t replace before we moved the renters in.

English: Melting metal in a ladle for casting ... — English: Melting metal in a ladle for casting Deutsch: Metall wird in einer Gießpfanne zum Schmelzen gebracht. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My wife–bargain shopper that she is–found a replacement on Craigslist. We got it in, then left the dead washing machine next to the replacement, as a warning to any other appliance that thinks it can shirk its assigned work.

This morning, we went over to pull the corpse of our washing machine out of the basement.

Now, I am an out-of-shape desk jockey, my wife is considerably weaker than I am, and a 40 year old washing machine weighs more than 200 pounds.

In the basement.

I’m Superman. Although at one point, I did trade 10 years of the useful life of my right knee in exchange for not letting that thing tumble down the stairs on top of me.

What do you do with a dead washing machine?We could have the garbage company pick it up for $25. Or we could leave it on the curb and wait for some stinking scrapper to take it.

Or…we could join the dark side and scrap it ourselves.

For the uninitiated, scrappers are the people who drive around looking for fence-posts to steal out of other people’s yards, or cut the catalytic converters out of cars parked at park-and-ride bus stops, or steal all of the copper pipes out of your house while your on vacation. Sometimes, they get scrap metal from legitimate sources, I’ve heard.

We decided to go the legitimate route and take the washing machine to the scrap metal dealer in the next town over.

It was pretty easy. We pulled in with the washer in the trailer. A guy on a forklift pulled up and took it, then handed us a receipt to bring to the cashier. She paid us in cash, and we were on our way.

$7.50 richer.

200 pounds of steel, and we made less than $10.

There are people who pay their bills by recycling scrap metal, but I have no idea how. Driving around looking for things to scrap would seem to burn more gas than you’d make turning it in.

Some people scour Craigslist looking for metal things in the free section.

Some people have an arrangement with mechanics to remove their garbage car parts.

Some people are only looking to supplement their government handout checks enough to pay for cigarettes.

Us? We’re going to leave scrapping to the scavengers.

$1500 Luxury

Finance, Relationships

I’ve got some expensive habits. Not like Charlie Sheen snorting $2500 of blow of a hooker’s boobs, but still expensive.

Charlie Sheen in March 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My latest one is dancing lessons. Linda surprised me on one of weekly date nights a few months ago. She found a Groupon for the dancing studio we used before we got married. It was $69 for a month of unlimited group lessons.

When the month was up, we signed on for their beginner cycle of lessons, which cost another $400.

And now we’re starting the Social Foundation program.

Social Foundation is a series of classes that teach some advanced moves, but also to teach dancers how to lead and follow properly and how to dance socially and look respectable on a dance floor in any number of situations. Leading and following are important because every single dance move out there has specific cues that tell your partner what’s coming next. If she doesn’t know, you both look clumsy.

So we chose the four dances we’re going to learn better and signed up. We’re going to learn the Rumba, Waltz, Tango, and Swing. We’re already pretty good at Rumba and Swing, but we’re going to get better. Personally, I’m hoping to also figure out how to use the Tango on an open dance floor without crashing into people. That way, we can pretend to be Gomez and Morticia, my heroes.

Now, the thing is, dance lessons aren’t cheap. They cost about $100 per hour, where an hour is defined as 45 minutes. We’re rolling the last half of our beginner lessons into our social foundation lessons and paying $1400.

Ouch.

They gave us the option of financing it over 3-4 months, but I didn’t want to pay an extra $200 for the privilege. I think we’ll be tapping the vacation fund to pay for the lessons.

Why am I willing to pay this much?

Dancing is one of the very few things Linda and I both enjoy. We’re pretty good at it, it’s great exercise, it’s fun, and (shhh!) it counts as foreplay. It also doesn’t hurt to have the sidelines of the dance floor lined with people watching us dance, wishing they could do what we’re doing…or wishing their husbands were willing to learn how to dance. This also isn’t just something we’re doing at the studio. We are out on a dance floor dancing to a live band almost every week. That usually comes with about $25 in cover charges and drinks.

Fun, exercise, have sex, and inspire jealousy. That’s a winning combination. And finding things to do that we both love to do is difficult and easily worth the $2000 we’ve paid the dance studio this year.

Ten Easy Ways to Cut Spending at Home

Finance

With the sorry state of the economy over recent years, most home-owners are looking at ways to cut down on monthly spends without being frugal. These are ten simple steps to save your household £100s without missing out on home comforts;

Invest in ISAs. Taxes are becoming a bigger pain than ever before, the only way to avoid the sting in the governments tail is to invest in ISAs. Although there are standard cash ISAs, Stocks and Shares ISAs offer the opportunity to invest for less. This can be risky so only invest what you could afford to lose in the worst case scenario, however if you invest wisely you could potentially bring in a handy amount of cash at the end of your ISA investment term. [Ed. For my American readers, ISAs are tax-sheltered savings or investment accounts.]
Do the weekly shop online. A site like mysupermarket.co.uk offers up all your regular shopping goods but compares the price from all major supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Ocado and Sainsburys) to make sure you pay the best price for your weekly shop. It saves you the time and effort of battling through supermarket crowds and paying over the odds for your weekly shop. Sites such as Topcashback offer money back on your total bill (up for 10%), giving you something for nothing, which these days can’t be ignored!
Homemade not Homepride! It might be the easy option, but ready meals come with a large mark up. By ditching the meals in favour of freshly prepared food you can save yourself a packet and learn a new skill to capitalise on in the future perhaps. Visit local markets for your produce at a far lower price than the local supermarket. So overall, you’re saving money and benefiting from the best, freshest local produce.
Satellite vs. Freeview. When it comes to your TV package you must choose wisely. Packages range from around £50 a month for those who demand all the sports and movie channels, to £13 one off cost for Freeview, dependant on what box you chose. Weigh up if you really need most, hundreds of channels you never watch or an extra £50 a month. [Ed. My basic currency conversion is £1 = $2. It’s not perfect, but it is close enough.]
Household insurance shouldn’t cost the earth. Although this is a safety net, not a legal necessity, most households prefer the security of knowing that if disaster strikes, it won’t strike your bank balance. With sites like moneysupermarket.com it is simple to find the cheapest policy for you, only taking a few minutes but potentially saving hundreds.
Ditch the DIY bodging. With the majority of households carrying out regular DIY, hardware stores are raking in the profits when it all goes wrong. We can’t all be natural born handymen and women but with the help of local courses you can be trained in the art of household maintenance for around £100, a bargain when you compare the costs of getting in the professionals to fix DIY disasters. [Ed. Youtube is also a great resource to learn DIY repairs.]
Auction your clutter. If we’re being honest, we all have that cupboard at home filled with things we really don’t need and will never use! It’s time to be cutthroat and unemotional, get the laptop out and auction everything that hasn’t been used for a year. Don’t use the excuse of ‘it might come back into fashion’ or ‘that’ll come in handy one day’, it won’t and by getting rid you benefit from extra cash and extra space – win/win.
Swap top brands for own brand. I’m not saying settle for foods you dislike, but often you can benefit from supermarket own brands without your taste buds suffering. Items like tinned fruit and veg, bread and butter all taste extremely similar, weather you penny pinch or splash the cash. So trade in your £1.25 loaf of bread in favour for one costing 20p and see if you notice the difference.
Stick to a shopping list. By shopping for a list and sticking to it, it cuts out impulse buys that are responsible for the shock you receive when you get to the tills. Plan your weekly meals and simply buy what you need, cutting waste and potentially cutting your waistline! Also try to avoid 3 for the price of 2 deals on products with a shelf life, as often this results in a bin full of gone off food!
Invest in Skype. To cut down on costly phone bills, use Skype where necessary. An internet let service, it allows you to call and video call people with Skype for free, or phone normal phone lines for a fraction of the cost of using your usual phone line. With free to download software, you would be silly to throw away money on costly phone bills.

Article written by Moneysupermarket.com.

Book Review: Social Nation

Business, Reviews

I recently had an opportunity to read Social Nation: How to harness the power of Social Media to attract customers, motivate employees & grow your business by Barry Libert. Heckuva title.

Libert is the the CEO at Mzinga, which is a company that connects other companies–and their customers–using social media to collaborate and communicate. Social media is, quite simply, using the internet to drive interactive communication. This includes Twitter, Facebook, and forums. Sometimes, it’s just discussion, sometimes, it’s sharing user-generated content.

Social Nation “will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services.” It bills itself as a “complete toolbox” for social media. Does it match the hype? Let’s see.

The book is broken into three sections.

Part 1: The Future of Business is Social

Libert asserts that the future of business is social. That is obviously true, to a degree. A solid viral marketing campaign can drive more eyeball to a product than a full-page spread in the New York Time or a 30-second spot during Super Bowl halftime. However, there are a lot–possibly a majority–of business-to-business companies that will gain no value from a social media campaign. Would a regional supplier with an exclusive distributorship for a top-name line of faucets benefit from being on Twitter? No. On the other hand, 17% of our time online is spent on social applications and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 35 years old or older. There is certainly some value to be gained by have a social media presence in some markets.

This section(all of chapter 3!) also contains a link to a test to determine your social media skills. I haven’t taken the test, mainly because I don’t feel like registering for another site. This struck me as nothing more than lead generation, which is a shame. It could be a useful tool.

Part 2: Seven Principles for Building Your Social Nation

This section has seven chapters, containing 7 case studies that detail the 7 principle of social media, as defined by Libert and Mzinga.

The principles include:

Let the culture lead the way, as demonstrated by Zappos.com.
Involve your fans. The big takeaway from chapter 8 is that, when you create a community, your job is to facilitate involvement, not to control it. If you try to run it with an iron fist, it will choke and die.
Reward others and you will be rewarded. Apple lets developers keep 70% of the money they make in the app store. That encourages developers to develop, making everyone more money. Give. Karma will take care of the rest.
There are 4 other principles, but some are just common sense, and I don’t want to give away the contents of the book.

Part 3: Start Today and Create Your Own Social Nation

aka

Chapter 11: How to Get Started and 10 Pitfalls to Avoid

Section 3 has just one chapter, but it’s a good one. It explains the difference between followers and fans, the value of each and how to bond with each. The difference? Fans are actively involved. Followers are far more passive.

This section/chapter also goes into some things to avoid, like abandoning a social media strategy too early, failing to market your business, underestimating the power(positive and negative) of a social network.

Is it worth getting the book?

Social Nation bills itself as a complete social media toolbox, but it falls a bit short. The book tackles social media from a purely strategic point of view, ignoring the tactical concerns. It’s clearly geared toward helping a company plan its social media strategy from a 10,000 foot perch. For the people in the trenches, or anyone with a grasp of strategy that’s looking for the details on running a social media campaign, it’s not enough. That said, if you are trying to plan a social media strategy, or you have no idea where to start, this is a great book for you. It holds a lot of value, but stops some distance before “complete”. Definitely worth a read if you are involved is social media planning.

Giveaway

I’m giving away Social Nation. If you’d like to have a chance to get it, just leave a comment, telling me how you like to see companies use social media. Fair warning, this is the book I read, so it’s “used”. I take care of books, so you can’t tell that it’s used.

Publishers, Publicists, and Authors

If you have a book you’d like me to review, please contact me.

Search Results for: three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/debt-burnout/subscribe-by-email/budget-lesson-part-2/573/budget-lesson-part-3/budget4/experiences-v-stuff/INGDirect/first-3-things-to-do-in-the-new-year