financial zen

Not really, but often times we overlook spreading methods we come across that we all ready know - like these Five credits that can reduce your insurance costs.

Amy Hoak covers the basics that some people forget to tell their agent about.

• Live in a gated community? Credit!
• Have a security system? A little one? A BIG one? Credit may vary!
• Do they have your car insurance as well? The discount could offset the slightly higher cost you *may* incur.

The point is - are you asking your agent the right questions about getting discounts? They can add up - and every dollar counts.

So nickel had an interesting article, comparing the definitions of frugal and cheap. Unfortunately, the examples are rather lacking.

So let’s take it up a notch - instead of HotOrNot why not “frugal or not?”

Take for instance, store brands. We know Del Monte, Chiquita, Pepsi, Coke (once Ohio State’s savior, now a harsh reality check), Jif (the choice of choosy moms) and a number of other brands. Can you taste the difference?

Honestly, there are a few choices that I have “gone frugal” on, and never will again. One of them is Peanut Butter. I bought generic once - and never again. It still amazes me that the taste can be so different. Vegetables, however, I can’t tell the difference - as with canned fruit. If it’s not fresh from the farmer (I’m working on it!) - it all tastes the same. I buy cheap.

Another recognition that “image from purchase” problem - I was once told that low-income families would be envious of the family that fed their children formula. Breast feeding is better, and recommended. Why do they go the more expensive route?

For the appeal of being seen buying and using formula. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t better, but to be seen spending that extra cash makes you look “rich.”

The point is - we’re presented with options all the time. Name brand this vs. generic that. The “appeal” of being seen wearing (or buying) that name-brand item or hottest fashion, instead of the functional, or the old or the worn. C’mon - sometimes, it’s okay to splurge. Sometimes, that endorphin boost is worth the price tag for those new shoes, that new shirt, whatever. Moderation is key!

It’s important to recognize that you don’t need to give up everything in difficult times - but recognize where your money is going, and why you’re buying it.

Mrs. Zen and I have long been battling the decision of a dual income, or having her be a stay at home mom. As much as I’d love to be a stay at home dad, I’m the main bread winner - her income is basically pure profit, free to spend as we desire (and mind you, it’s going towards debt reduction). We recently traded in my 1996 Honda Civic for a 2005 Honda CRV - mainly because we had the extra income to do a large down payment, and trips to Grandma and Grandpa’s with packed bags, stroller, and dog in tow. Once in the Civic was enough - and with a dual income we could more than afford a new(er) car.

As was pointed out - the after tax and childcare income is about 13k. But let’s make some adjustments:

Our childcare is about $2,340 due to our baby-sitter service. We only use them for one day a week - for now. If Mrs. Zen becomes full-time salaried, that will change, but no matter how you look at it - her additional income is after all bills are paid.

Let’s tackle their considerations:

• Career Advancement Goals - There is *always* more to a career than money! What about happiness? Mrs. Zen desires a career in paramedicine - she enjoys staying at home, but she also loves her work (as do I!)
• How to Return To Work? - I can’t really argue this one - leaving for eyars ad coming back in - that’s potentially ‘resetting’ your career unless you continue your work part-time.
• Extra Expenses - I’ve got to agree - working has expenses, just as staying at home. If no one is home, the heater/AC is off, less electricity, and at work you may have “job functions’ - happy hours, lunches and the like (I *DO* consider these essential - I owe my current job due to lunch-time networking! And pizza.)
• Breadwinner May Become Workaholic Career Freak - C’mon, really? This is a personal thing, and if you can’t balance your career and life, you need to reassess your values.
• Coupon Clipping - I’ve got mixed feelings here. My brother-in-law works from home (ebay business) and is an excellent father and cooks, while also shopping at night. He’s thrifty and is business than some other people I know. Coupon clip, regardless, I say.
• Schools - This is something I’m still looking into. I moved into a certain area for its reknowned public schools - you can send your kids to a private school so that by the age of six they know three languages and a head start on other students. Do you really want to make your kid go through that? You’ve got to focus on your kids being kids and not being “intellectual geniuses” or “young athletes” - they’re not here to live out your dreams. Do what you can to provide, but don’t force your kids to be something other than children.

Now the stay-at-home parent conundrum is an interesting one - I’ve talked to work-at-home, stay-at-home and day-care parents, with plenty of pros and cons. Your children need you to be their parent, but htey also need to develop social skills and learn to go out on their own - not developing an attachment on you, needing you for everything. I’m a parent, and the wife and I are working on him not developing separation anxiety, but I’m still reading on the psychology of it all (which is a never ending quest!)

Blueprint For Financial Prosperity has an excellent write up about his prior addictions - from soda to bottled water, and how it’s important to not get hooked on “the higher end items.”

This is one of those areas that my wife and I are often at odds about - she prefers bottled water, expensive meats, and Jif peanut butter, along with other items that are more expensive (but are they necessarily worth it?) I, for one, enjoy eating the leaner cuts of beef, and made the mistake of buying cheap peanut butter once. I can’t recall the brand, or where it was from, but it was the most disgusting peanut butter I’ve ever tasted (and I’ve tasted military peanut butter, which isn’t half bad!) Water, on the other hand, I prefer to drink cheap. Until my last apartment…

Where we once lived, the tap water tasted like chlorinated pool water. We made spaghetti with it, and it tasted like chlorinated noodles. Brita water filters did nothing, so we took up to buying bottled water (.59 cents a gallon from Kroger’s). We drank a ton of water at the time (we were on Weight Watchers), so this caused a huge dent in our budget, up until we moved.

Thankfully, our current water off the tap (ran through Brita) tastes excellent - although my wife swears by country water, which makes me think of Homer Simpson - and in honor of bottled water “If it’s brown, drink it down, if it’s black, send it back!” - and in honor of Smashing Pumpkin’s new Album, Zeitgeist, here’s one of my favorite clips.

Even the glorious, never-wrong (truthiness?) wikipedia has an article about local food.

Of course, they pull in the economical problems of eating locally - mainly the problem in a free market, and the damage that can be done if we don’t support the world market. The world requires free trade - a world economy can’t go ’round if we don’t all put in our share.

As well - they bring the variety issue - we can’t get summer foods year round without it. However, by growing in season, foods are fresher and tastier - particularly when you grow them yourselves, so it’s got your blood, sweat and tears in it. You put yourself into your food - your spirit - and it comes out when you harvest. I don’t think shopping gives the same satisfaction.

Ahhh, economics. Everywhere we want to be. As a student, my thoughts are still incomplete, maybe you have something to add?

In my last post I wrote about stumbling upon community supported agriculture - eat locally grown food. Prior to finding this gem, in response to my high gas prices commentary Jay pointed out:

My gut says it’s possible that food grown elsewhere and trucked in could still be “better” for the environment than that grown locally due to various efficiency considerations. But I’m not making any claims as I have absolutely no idea which one is better. So, show me the data.

Now, very often writers (myself included) write stories based on loose information - half truths, speculation, or theories. So I’m going to attempt to look into the 100-mile diet and can we really save the world in doing so?

The 100 mile diet site has 13 reasons to eat local - here’s the ones that I feel highlight the economical reasons:

• 4. Get in touch with the seasons. - I love this one. Eat in season foods means eating foods when they are at their best and fresh, not frozen from god knows where (which means not putting the impact of world-wide travel on your food).
• 7. Save the world. - Yes, you can save the world as an Iowa study found. More information (like how much money would be pumped back into the local economy) can be found at WorldChanging.
• 13. And always remember. - Everything about food and cooking is a metaphor for sex. Okay, so it’s not an economical reason, but still, a little sex in cooking for two is never a bad thing.

Miles to Go Before I Eat has calculations available to help show the different methods of food traveling to your doorstep - it’s not pretty how much energy is wasted for far-off eats!

Has anyone else come across information arguing for eating locally? Or has anyone come across definitive information detailing how it’s all a crock?

CSA is an attempt to eat and purchase locally grown food (veggies - and meat in some cases). I blogged about looking into this the other day, and behold, I find a friend asking questions and finding this answer! Local Harvest has an array of local options and price ranges - we’re going to look into options.

I’m going to have to further my research in this area.

Take a moment and read up about people like No Impact Man. Read about it - the 100 mile diet, not buying anything new (the compact) - living self-sufficiently, reducing our global foot print (which I wrote about before).

Basically, get rid of your car and start riding public transportation (or better yet, BIKE to work). Too far? Car pool. Eat local - don’t shell out for the goods that had to travel over a hundred miles in a refrigerated truck, buy from the local farmers market.

What lead to this? This article on MSN Money, about profiting off this fiasco. After all, why bother with fighting with it when you can make money off of it? Disgusting.

It’s a goal of mine to be able to get a hybrid (or live close enough to work to bike). I’m working on getting a budget setup to afford organic, local produce (including beef, pork and chicken, I’m sorry, but I’m an omnivore). It’s a long-term goal - with a baby on the way and a tolerant wife I can only do so much.

I’d love to go at this 100%, but as with many things in life, it’s one step at a time.

I’m taking that “oh-so-forbidden” (I kid, I kid) route to personal finance shame - I’m buying a house.

Guess what? Interest-only mortgages are making a comeback. Guess what? On houses people can’t afford. Because, in theory, you’re going to take the difference (i.e. “savings”) and hope to get a return on it higher than what you’ll be paying down the line - or maybe you’ll pay more than you owe and have your house paid off in less than twenty years. Maybe sixteen, maybe ten - who knows? The point is to not buy a house you can’t afford - but then would Interest Only loans on a house you can afford work in your favor?

Free Money Finance has five tips to get the best deal in buying and selling (from parade magazine) - buying is what I am doing (did?) and we (Wife and I) hit it pretty much on the head. We’ve got great credit ratings, our debt is almost extinguished (I promise to update my networth this week! And my NCN Network!). Overall, we’re doing incredible - on top of our finances, enough cash to cover emergencies, and we landed a great deal in a great neighborhood - a house that was on the market for 180+ days, passed inspection with flying colors.

But why housing? Why not investing?

We want a house. We, being my wife and I, want a place to call home, where our neighbors are not against our walls, their dogs aren’t scratching at our door, and they aren’t blaring their polka music at full blast at 3am. We’re wanting stability, and a place where we can have space to grow a family, a backyard to throw Barbecues in, and a place we can decorate and design the way we want it, how we want it, without the landlord complaining.

Yes, it’s an emotional thing. But you have to weigh the cost (financially) with what we will get out of it (utility). Trust me, it’s something we’ve debated, gone over, checked our selves on renting vs. buying many times (and we’re not the only one) - we came to this decision after a lot of thought. We won’t have to deal with misinterpretations of our lease, or poor maintenance (I get to be poor maintenance!).

It’s a hefty decision - but like many bloggers have pointed out, sometimes you save too much for retirement that you miss out on life. I’m not saying they aren’t right about investing or renting, I’m saying that a person who buys a house has more in mind than just making money.

Whoops, I made a mistake. A big, big mistake. In my favor, in a way. I feel kind of goofy, but I know how I made this mistake.

I doubled a credit card payment (the one from HSBC that was going to knock out a huge chunk of debt). Thankfully, I had a large chunk in savings, so all my bills are paid, and it means this week is a “whoops I paid off more debt than I intended.”

So I’m a little richer!

This weekend, to combat costs, we’re spending the weekend with family and friends - two gatherings tomorrow.

I think one of the biggest problems (and complaints) I’ve noticed about being fiscally responsible is that it’s boring. You’re bored. Your friends are all having fun. At the bar. At the movies. At the mall (do people still hang out at the mall?).

Why don’t we take a look at that situation. College students (I mean *REAL* students, the ones that eke by on meager paychecks and have student loans) can’t afford to go out all the time. They buy Natty Light, not Heineken. They join groups with similar interests. And I think this is something people forget about as time goes on, and their paychecks increase. Nights in with friends become nights out at the bar/movies. A friend cooking dinner becomes a weekly Mad Mex trip. Natty Light becomes Imported beer.

See the key here? An increase of income causes an increase in spending. This increase also affects your level of fun - what used to be free (or cheap!) and fun becomes more about how much money you can spend.

I’ve mentioned this to friends before - movie nights, group trips to places, potlucks - and it’s slowly coming to fruition. The Radar Lovebug Transistor manages to do a double-feature every Friday night (albeit, in New York). He creates a flyer, that shows his intent for the evening.

Total cost? Time.

A couple friends of mine are having a group over this weekend - volleyball and beer, a celebration of the summer finally coming, and staying. You know, the crazy warm, snow, warm, snow we were having? We can celebrate it being gone.

These kind of events creates a social atmosphere - no membership fees, no door fees, no concession fees. Bring a few bucks for beer or bring a dish. You spend a lot less money, be social, and - did I mention - spend a lot less money?

So next month, how about we start trying to bring back those college days - social events at your house/apartment. Movie marathons. Trips to a volleyball court. Beers - at home - with friends. Buy a case of Natty Light and reminisce about your college parties, those all nighters, and remember how much fun you had when you had so much less income.

Anyone got any party planning ideas? Group fun?