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Budgeting For Fun

This is a guest post.

As crazy as it sounds, budgeting for fun has never been more important that it is in the current economic climate. It doesn’t matter if you are single, married, a parent or part of a family, budgeting is the right way to go if you want to keep on top of your financial situation and keep track of where you spend your money . How many of us reach the end of our pay check long before the next one’s due, and have no idea where the money went? Unfortunately this is all too common and if it’s happening to you right now, you need to sit down and draw up a budget so that you can have fun without having a long term financial crises.

Just as our kids need a financial education, we as adults need to face up to our responsibilities and make sure we do not add to our debt or overspend simply because we want to have some fun. Entertainment is a luxury and not a necessity, and one of the suggested recreational activities that can be enjoyed by adults in the comfort of their own homes is online gaming.

Online gaming can be enjoyed on your PC at many popular sites across the web, or you can use your mobile phone to play at casinos and by gaming at home you are already saving yourself a fortune in entertainment costs. The convenience and instant accessibility of online games cannot be argued and they provide the perfect platform for you to enjoy realistic games any time you desire.

In order to keep yourself in check and your head above water, try the following:

Draw up a budget that dictates how much your online gaming allowance will be
Stick to your budgeted amount, or set a self imposed limit with a casino
Do not fool yourself into believing that you can afford to spend more than you have
Decide whether to play your winnings or save them
Research the best bonuses on offer and claim as often as possible

By following these 5 tips you can save yourself hundreds, or even thousands of Dollars and the price tag on entertainment will be a manageable amount with no unexpected surprises.

Birthday Parties are Evil

Finance, Parenting

This is a post from my archives.

I hate birthday parties. Well, not all birthday parties. Not even most parties. Just the expensive-for-the-sake-of-expensive parties. The bar-raising parties. The status-boosting parties. I’m done.

My son is seven years older than my first daughter. In those seven years, with only one kid, we managed to spoil him regarding birthday parties. Every party was big and there were a lot of presents. That’s an expensive way to run a birthday and it is a lot of stress. We even moved the parties home, but still invited all of our friends and family. It was much too stressful.

A good friend used the pizza and game place, buying tokens for everyone at the party. That’s incredibly expensive. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t afford that for three kids. There’s an element of keeping up with everyone around me, but I just can’t make myself care about that anymore. They aren’t paying my debt or cleaning my house. They don’t get a vote.

My plan this year was to have a sleepover for my son. He had five friends spend the night, playing games and watching movies. They giggled and squealed for eighteen hours, all for the cost of some take-and-bake pizzas and snacks. It was a hit for everyone involved. The other parents got a night off and all of the kids had a blast.

My girls are one and two. We’re done with parties for them, too. They got big parties for their first birthdays. Those are parties for the adults; the kids don’t care. In a few years–even a few months–they won’t remember the party. My older daughter’s birthday will be a trip to the apple orchard, followed by cake and ice cream. She’ll get presents. She’ll get “her day”. She’ll remember that her birthday is special, without costing a lot of money.

We want them to have fun. We want them all to feel special. We also want to manage their expectations and keep the parties from breaking the budget. So far this year, it is working.

How do you run a birthday party on a budget?

Naked Money

Finance, Parenting

In our house, the bills don’t get hidden. I’ve never tried to hide our finances from our children. I believe doing that is part of the reason I reached adulthood with no brakes. Growing up, finances were almost entirely invisible. Now, I believe is financial transparency.

Now, as a father, I balance the checkbook and pay bills on the laptop in the living room where my children can see me. They see the stack of bills and they watch me balance the checkbook. We discuss how much things cost and how we can cut expenses while the bills are being paid. Even the toddlers know Daddy is doing something important.

My ten-year-old son knows what sales tax is and where to find it on a receipt. He knows what property taxes are and how much they are in our neighborhood. He knows roughly what percentage of a paycheck gets withheld. I work to make my son financially aware. My girls are too young to understand the concept of money, but they will be receiving a thorough financial education as soon as they are able to grasp the concepts.

The hard part is explaining to my son how we screwed up our finances. I’ve shown him my paycheck and discussed our debt. I have explained to him that we were making much less money when we accumulated our doom debt, while maintaining a higher standard of living. Now, when we go to the store, he doesn’t even ask if he can borrow money until we get to his bank account. He has learned to dislike debt in almost all forms. I’m fairly proud that my kid voluntarily practices delayed gratification.

What he doesn’t quite grasp is the idea of living within your means, even if your means are limited. “But, Dad, what if you don’t have much money? Then you have to borrow money for nice things, right?” I’m not sure how to break him of that. Delayed gratification is an understandable concept for him, but the difference between wants and needs seems to be missing. Any ideas?

8 painless ways to save money

Finance

I saw this list on US News and thought I’d give my take on it.

Get healthy. They are right. It is cheaper to be healthy…in the long run. Short-term, eating crap food is cheaper and obesity doesn’t get expensive until you are older. But remember, long-term planning is important. I intend to enjoy my old age, so I am working on losing weight and exercising. Fat and lazy is easy, but it won’t be in 50 years.
Rethink your auto insurance. I don’t have an argument here. When I established my initial emergency fund, I set my deductibles to match it. We regularly review our policies to make sure they match what we need.
Improve your credit scores. I don’t know what they were thinking with this one. If you’ve got lousy credit, it’s hardly painless to improve it. Digging out of a pit of debt hurts.
Invest on the cheap. This is another one that’s hard to argue with. Low-fee funds are, by definition, cheaper. Will you get a better return on a fund with higher fees? It’s worth checking the historical return to see if the fee is justified.
Think triple play. They recommend bundling your internet, TV, and phone. It is cheaper, but I don’t recommend it. I don’t like putting all of my eggs in one basket. If the cable goes down, or the the power goes out, I’d still like to be able to make a phone call, if I have to. My landline is independently powered, and I always make sure there is a corded phone plugged in somewhere. My basic landline only runs $35/month, so a bundle won’t save anything for me, anyway.
Go prepaid with your cell phone. I have a coworker who pays, on average, $5/month for his cell phone. I use mine far more than he does. If you don’t talk much and don’t use data or texting, this can work out well for you.
Shop online. I do shop online for a lot. I even buy my toilet paper online. For some things, I prefer to shop locally. When a store owner gets to know you, he can get you some fantastic deals, and give you advice that can save you a ton of money.
Get cash back. I have a couple of decent cash-back credit cards, but I won’t use them. Until all of our credit card debt is paid, I won’t consider making regular use of any form of credit. Your mileage may vary, but that’s the condition I had to set on myself to make our debt plan work.

How many of these ideas do you use?

Automatic Oopsie

Finance

When I found myself doing an abrupt unemployment tour this month, the first thing I did was dig into my budget. I did it so I could see how long it would be before our finances got scary and to see what could be eliminated.

English: A Netflix envelope picture taken by B... — English: A Netflix envelope picture taken by BlueMint. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gah! So much could be eliminated.

There were things that I’d set up on automatic payments, added to my budget, then ignored.

There were things that I’d signed up for and used, but didn’t get as much enjoyment out of any more.

Example Number 1: Netflix

We love Netflix. It gets used every single day. But the DVDs often sit on the kitchen counter for a month before we get around to watching them. We clearly don’t need the DVD plan any more.

Example Number 2: Software Subscription

I use some software to track the Google rank of several of my websites. There is an addon that makes the software work much better. The addon costs $20 per quarter. The problem is that I’m not looking at the rankings of these sites any more. Some of the sites have been shut down, or I’m no longer involved with the clients. That makes the paid addon a total waste. I canceled it and told the tracking software to run slower so it would give Google a fit.

Example Number 3: Extra Domains

Hello, my name is Jason and I’m a domain addict. Seriously, for a while, I was buying domains every time I had a good idea for a website. Some of them were developed, and some were sketched out and put on hold. I also bought domains to help with the search engine rankings of the developed websites. I topped out at about 120 domains. All of them were on auto-renew. I’ve been letting them expire, but some didn’t have the auto-renew settings changed, so they (surprise!) renewed automatically.

These are just three examples of several years of development, exploration, and automation of my complicated financial life, and they add up to more than $100 a month essentially wasted.

Here’s what I want you to do.

Right now.

Not “tomorrow”, not “when you get around to it”.

Now.

Pull up your bank statement, your Paypal account and your credit card statements.

Is there anything in there that’s happening every month that you forgot about, don’t need, or don’t even want?

Ax that crap. Kill it with fire. Nuke it from orbit. Stop wasting your money.

I’d be willing to bet 99% of everyone has something they are paying for every month that they don’t even want, but either forgot was happening or have just let inertia keep paying the bills.

Be the 1%.

Kim Kardashian’s Baby Has It Easy: How Much Does It Cost To Have a Baby?

Celebrities

If you have not heard that Kim Kardashian has officially given birth to baby North West with rapper boyfriend Kanye West, you have probably been hiding under a rock.

Baby North was welcomed to the world several weeks early on June 15, and since then has been showered with thousands of dollars in gifts from family and celebrity friends like Beyonce and Jay-Z. Saying that baby North will never want for anything materialistic is putting it lightly, but how much does it truly cost for the average person to have a baby in today’s modern age? Here is a brief breakdown that will help you start saving before you start planning to have your very own precious baby.

The Hospital Bills and Doctor Visit Costs

While you probably will not have to pay for your prenatal and post-natal care out-of-pocket, the average insurance plan does come with out-of-pocket percentages that you must pay when you are hospitalized or when you visit the doctor. If you did not account for the medical bills when you were budgeting for baby, this is the first financial roadblock you will run into. You might not give labor in a luxurious suite like Kardashian, but it will feel like you did when you get the bill. Most parents report spending about $2000 out-of-pocket for the delivery and the hospital stay. This does not include the cost for co-pays for doctor visits. If you do not have insurance, expect to spend about $10,000 for a vaginal birth or $16,000 for a cesarean section, assuming there are no complications.

The Costs of Caring for a Newborn Baby

You will get some great gifts at your baby shower, but you still will spend money on the necessities. If you are not lucky enough to get $7000 gifts from your friends like Kanye and Kim, you should allot a budget for the big items first, and the basic daily necessities second. You will need a crib, a stroller, a car seat, and eventually a highchair, but these items are not as expensive as you might think. If you can pass up the designer brands, you can find great deals at consignment stores or retailers. Thrifty shoppers can purchase the must-haves like car seats, baby monitors, changing tables, cribs and strollers for $450 or less.

In addition to the immediate necessities, you will incur other regular expenses for diapers, clothing, wipes and childcare. Kim and Kanye may be guilty of buying $50 onesies, but you do not have to have custom Gucci clothing made for your little one. Remember that your baby will grow out of their infant clothing in a month or less. Accept hand-me-downs, and you can save quite a bit of money. Diapers, on the other hand, are a re-occurring expense that will not go away. Expect to spend at least $80 to $100 per month on diapers and wipes until your baby is potty trained. If you are not breastfeeding, allot about $100 per month for formula until your baby advances to baby food.

Kim and Kanye may have plenty of money to give Baby North whatever her heart desires, but new parents can raise a baby on a reasonable budget. It is difficult to put an actual number on how much it costs to have a baby, but being a parent is not cheap. Keep the fact in mind that love and affection is much more valuable than the material things. Consider the real costs of being a parent, and this includes lifestyle costs and monetary costs.

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The Hospital Bills and Doctor Visit Costs

The Costs of Caring for a Newborn Baby

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