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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?

 

First Steps – Ramsey was Wrong

Finance

Day 161: Taking <a href=Baby Steps” width=”180″ height=”240″ />
Image by bonnie-brown via Flickr

Fixing a lifetime of financial mistakes can be an intimidating process.  Scratch that. It’s always an intimidating process.  Where do you start?  You’ve got a pile of bills, a dozen messages from bill collectors and two bi-weekly paystubs.  What next?

Traditionally, and according to Dave Ramsey, the first step to fixing your finances is to make a budget, but he and tradition are wrong.   The first step is to get everybody involved in your finances on the same page.  If your spouse isn’t on board with paying off the debt and spending responsibly, nothing else will work.

Once you have that out of the way, you can move on to the traditional first step, making a budget. I’ve gone over my process to build a personal financial plan in quite a bit of detail, so I’ll just hit the highlights this time.

First, make a list of all of your expenses.   Include all of your utilities, debt payments, tax payments and absolutely everything else.  You need to know the amount of the payment and the frequency.  If a bill is due quarterly, divide it by three and you’ll know what you need to set aside each month.   Round up in all cases so you can build an automatic cushion.

Next, make a list of your income sources.  For most people, this is far easier than tracking their expenses.   Figure out your monthly income.  If you get paid weekly, that that amount times 52, then divide by 12 to get your monthly income.

Finally, subtract your expenses from your income.  If your total is a positive number then you are golden.   If you total is negative, you have been a bad monkey. You need to make some cuts, and they may be painful.  If your outgoing money is more than your incoming money, it is not possible to get ahead.

Once you have your income and expenses recorded, and you have made the cuts necessary to have a positive balance at the end of the month, you have a successful budget.  Congratulations!

My New Windfall

Finance

Tax season is over.

money
money (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

This year, TurboTax and Amazon teamed up to offer me a 10% on up to $1200 of my refund if I took it as an Amazon gift card.

$120 free if I spend that money with a company I’m going to spend money with anyway?

Yes, please.

I spend lots of money with Amazon.  I subscribe to many of my household items there, because I use them and I don’t want to have to think about buying them.  I get my soap, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, and garbage bags automatically delivered.  There’s a bunch of other stuff, too, but that’s what I remember off the top of my head.  If I have 5 items in a monthly delivery, I get 20% off.

Free money, free shipping, and none of the hassles of shopping?

Yes, please.

So now I have a $1320 credit with the company I use for most of my non-grocery shopping.

I also have 962 items on my wishlist with Amazon.

To recap: $1320 burning a hole in my metaphorical pocket and 962 items that I have wanted at some time in the past, begging me to bring them home.

That’s a dilemma.

The smart answer is, of course, to let that money hide in Amazon’s system and slowly drain out to pay for the things I actually need.

The fun answer is to stock up on games and books and toys and gadgets and cameras and, and, and….

Some days, it’s hard being a responsible adult.

I think I’m going to compromise with myself.  I’ll leave the vast majority of the money where it is, but I’ll spend a little bit of it on fun stuff, and a little bit more on stuff I don’t quite need, but would be useful, but not so useful that I’ve already bought it.

A new alarm clock to replace the one next to my bed that automatically adjusts for daylight savings time but was purchased before they changed the day daylight savings time hit so I have to adjust the time 4 times per year instead of never.  That’s on the list of not-quite-needs.

The volume 2 book of paracord knots is on the list of wants that can’t possibly be considered a need, but it’s going to come home, anyway.

I figure, if I spend a couple of hundred dollars on things I really, really want, I’ll scratch that itch and leave most of the money alone.

What would you do with a $1300 gift card at a store you shop at every week that sells every conceivable thing?  Spend it right away, or stretch it out, or something else?

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How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Finance

A U.S. riverboat deploying napalm during the V...
Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever been screwed by a company?  Have they sent you the wrong item, or an empty box, or left your order backordered for so long that you can’t even dispute it with your credit card company any more?

What can you do?

I know you’ve heard the phrase, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  That means, he whines loudest, gets the most.  The thing is, you have to whine effectively, or you’ll just get round-filed.

Targeting Subsystems On

Who you complain to matters more than what you complain about.  The clerk at your local big-box retailer isn’t going to refund your online purchase.  You need to complain to someone who can make a decision to help you.   First, find the customer service email address.   Next, if you are complaining about a recurring service, find the retention department’s email address.  Finally, find the email address for absolutely everybody Vice-President or above for that company, including the board of directors.   Go to their website, find the email for some PR drone and figure out the format.  First.Last@Company.com or FirstInitial.LastName@Company.com or whatever.   Look up the company in Google Finance and translate everyone’s name into the email format.   You might not have the perfect list, but it should be close.

Target Locked On

Now that you know who you are about to blast, what are you going to say?   A few things to include are:

  • Your contact information.   If they can’t get back to you, they can’t make it up to you.
  • Details of the problem.  Include the date of purchase, date of delivery, and a detailed description of what actually went wrong.
  • Scanned copies of receipts.
  • Any names of anybody you’ve had to deal with, either in the original transaction or when the problem occurred, if you have the names.

Engage!

What to say, what to say?

  • Don’t be abusive.  It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to let them know your are angry, but swearing or threatening their lives will–at best–only get you ignored.  Worst case, threats are illegal and they can pass your email along to the police.
  • Stay brief.   It doesn’t matter that your daddy took you to Starbucks to use their free wi-fi when you were just three years old.   Don’t talk about that time the aliens abducted you or how sad you are that they never call like they promised they would.   Keep to the point.   “This is who I am.  This is what happened.  This is what I want you to do about it.”

Send that sucker out.   If you feeling particularly perturbed, send a CC to your state’s Attorney General and any possibly related regulatory agencies.   I tend to save this step for round 2.

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Watching My Debt

Finance

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I’m so excited.  Yesterday, I transferred the final payment for my personal line of credit.  This LOC was originally my overdraft protection LOC that had worked it’s way up to $6000 at 21%.    Today, it is non-existent.

We started to pay down debt on April 15th, 2009.   Since that time, we have paid off  $22, 370.70 of our debt.   That isn’t $22,370.00 in payments, that is a $22k reduction in our total debt!   By my calculations, we have made approximately $28,000 in payments to get that reduction.  Next week, we cross the line for 25% of debt eliminated.  This is a good day.

Over the last 14 months, we’ve settled into much more responsible spending and saving habits.   It no longer feels like we’re sacrificing our lifestyle.   We’ve built up a useful emergency fund and set aside money for some things that we know are coming, like braces for my son.   In 6 weeks, we are taking our first debt-less vacation.

Now, we start on the long slog to the end.   We have 3 debts left to pay:  Our last car loan(ever!),  one credit card which was an accumulation of pretending we were making progress on our debt by combining many debts onto one card, and finally, our mortgage.    The car will be paid by the end of the year.  When summer childcare expenses are over, we’ll be making triple payments until it is gone.    After that, we have a long, slow couple of years paying off the credit card.

It hasn’t always been easy, but right now, it feels good to look at the progress we’ve made.

Update:  This post has been included in the Carnival of Debt Reduction.

10 Things to do on a Cheap Vacation.

Finance, Life, Parenting, Relationships

This summer, my family  took a six-day cheap vacation.  Technically, it was a “stay-cation”, but I hate that word.  Our goal was a fun time, on a budget, for 3 kids–one, two, and nine–without driving the adults nuts.   Obviously, if you’re not herding small children, some of these choices may not be for you.

  1. Zoo.  In St. Paul, there is a free zoo that is more fun than the paid zoo in the area.  There’s a small amusement park, a playground,  lots of picnic benches, and even animals.  We packed a cooler full of food and drinks and hauled the kids to Como Zoo for a day.  If there isn’t a free zoo near you, find a local petting zoo.  They are good for a few hours.
  2. Go Antiquing. Make sure you stay on a budget.  It can be more fun to feel the history in antique stores than to feel the fleeting thrill of an off-budget purchase.  This isn’t much fun for small children.
  3. Children’s Museums. We have access to a “Museum Adventure Pass”.   We used one to go to The Works Museum, which is a hands-on science exhibit not far from our home.  It wasn’t busy and the kids had a blast.  Most metropolitan areas have a wide variety of childre-friendly museums.
  4. Municipal Pool. We spent an afternoon at the city pool.  Aside from gas, this was one of the most expensive events for our vacation.   Residents get a discount, but it was still $30.   I discovered that my two-year-old loves big waterslides.  She comes out of them with a death-grip on the inner tube and a huge smile on her face.  It was a double tube and she sat in my lap.
  5. Game Day. Spend a day with the TV off and games on the table.  Make some snacks and prepare for some of the best quality time you can have as a family.
  6. Picnic. Pack a lunch and go somewhere quiet.   Go to the park.  Go to the country.  Grab a bench on a sidewalk somewhere.  Just have a leisurely lunch and take the opportunity to connect with your family.
  7. Hike. Find a trail somewhere and just walk.  I’ve found that it easy to have deep or sometimes even awkward conversations while walking.  You may find out things you never would have guessed.
  8. Visit Family. Hotel on the go?  My parents live more than 2 hours away, so they are always thrilled to have us visit with the grandchildren.   Be nice, bring some food to help out.
  9. Bike. The final day of our vacation, my wife and I left the kids in daycare and kept the day to ourselves.  We had breakfast in a nice little cafe.  We went antiquing.  Then we went out to the park where we were married, had a picnic lunch and went for a bike ride together.  It was our anniversary.
  10. Apple Orchard.  Around here, they are everywhere.  Pick-you-own apples, a petting zoo, pony rides.  If you go in the fall, there is usually a corn maze.  You can by real apple cider and any number of baked goods.
  11. University Exhibits.  Check your local colleges, especially the public universities.  Most of them have a PR program to maintain public interest and funding.  Even the private schools will usually have fund-raisers for some programs.  We recently attended the raptor show at the University of Minnesota for free with our Adventure Pass.

Vacations don’t have to be expensive to be fun.  Counting gas, food, and the occasional souvenir, we took a 6 day cheap vacation packed with activities for well under $400, possibly even under $300.

How do you save money on a vacation?

Update: This post has been included in the Money Hacks Carnivals XCV.