All…or Nothing At All

Americans are enthusiastic people. We like to jump into thing whole-heartedly, go for it, give 100%.

This is great. This is to be applauded. Unless such enthusiasm leads us to the flip side of this characteristic...the idea that if you can’t “go big,” you shouldn’t “go at all.”

Far too many of us fall into the “either—or” trap.  We’ll do everything….or nothing. It’s not enough to get better at something. We have to be perfect, immediately, or forget it!

You see this in the person who wants to lose weight and get fit.  They eat nothing but vegetables, exercise to exhaustion and eventually give up. You see it in the kid who practices a sport incessantly, then dumps it when he or she fails to score high. You see it in the student who works for straight “A”s, then feel like a total failure if a B shows up on his report card....and quits studying.

And you see it in people who think they have to become the world’s most frugal person, right now, this instant, and if they can’t…..why bother?

I started thinking about such people when my friend Jenny (not her real name) complained to me one day about her electric bill.  Now, she does a lot of laundry and she dries a lot of towels. Like anything that generates heat, a clothes dryer is a huge energy hog. So I suggested she try drying clothes on a clothesline.

“I’ve got no place to put one.”

Which is true. She hasn’t room in her yard for a full-blown four-strand clothesline. But as I pointed out, she did have room to put up two posts about 10 feet apart and run a line between them. That would cost less than $10 and take about a half-hour’s work.

“I couldn’t dry much on one line.”

“Dry your heavy stuff , “I suggested. “Towels, jeans, sweats, blankets. The things that takes a lot of electricity to dry.”

Nope. Not going to happen. Someday, she’ll have a place where she can have a full-blown clothes line. Until then, she’s not going to bother with doing things “half way.”

This is absurd.

You don’t save money by changing your entire life overnight, but by finding a few small simple ways to save, making them into habits, then finding a few more.

Feel overwhelmed at the idea of home cooking all your meals? Then don’t.  Just home cook a few a week…and save.

Exhausted by the mere idea of replacing your’s light bulbs with high efficiency versions? Then don’t replace them all at one time. Replace a few each month until you’ve made the switch.

Can’t remember the dozens of techniques people use to save gas while driving?  Make a list and start by using just one technique until it becomes a habit. Then each week, add another.

Depressed at the thought of cutting up all your credit cards? Unless you’re in real financial trouble, there’s no need to be that drastic. Just leave most of them at home at first.

Bring your lunch from home once a week. Find one good used-clothing source and buy a few items.  Each week, try buying one store brand item instead of a national brand.

When it comes to handling money, don’t set absurdly unrealistic goals…..then use failing to reach those goals as an excuse to quit trying. Forming frugal habits is done step by sensible step. 

You'll have to excuse me now. As you can see from the picture, I need to get my towels off the line.

Save Money While Traveling By Using the Internet

I'm going on vacation for the first time in a long time in a few weeks, and being frugal, I wanted to get the very best value for my money.

So I got on the internet. Four hours later, I looked up and realized it was 1am. However, in those four hours, I'd managed to book a discount flight, reserve a car at half the rate I'd initially found and reserve rooms in five different motels. (I'm going to drive all over North Carolina.)

What I should have done first, though, was check the weather in Asheville, NC before starting any of this. I did that at 1am and found that there is still snow on the ground in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm not fond of snow. I want to see green when I go on my vacation, not white and certainly not the brown of early spring mud.

So the next day, I called the two people who'll be talking care of my critters, asked if they could take Emma and Jewel and Cloud and Twilight a week later (when, hopefully, Spring will honest-to-God have come to the North Carolina mountains) got an affirmative from both people, got back on the internet and an hour later, had rebooked everything and cancelled all my earlier reservations.

I'd also learned a lot about the process, which I'll share with you.

First, I suggest that you use a site like igougo.com (I-go-you-go, get it?) or bookingbuddy.com to check the main travel discounters such as Ortibitz, Travelocity, Kayak, Priceline, etc. At igougo.com, you can just type in what you want in the way of flights, hotels and car rentals, list which discounters you want to search, and with one click, igougo.com will open a pop-up window from each discounter, which is a lot easier than checking each individually. (The one problem I found is that if you change your parameters in any way, the site opens up more pop-up windows. You end up with a dozen or more on your desktop which can be hugely confusing. So I suggest you close each group of popups before you ask to see different flight dates, check in times, pickup times for car rentals, etc.)

When dealing with discounters, do check for any fees a site may charge. Orbitz, for example, charges a non-refundable fee of up to $11.99 for its service, and if you make changes or cancel, they may tack on another $30.

Which is why you may not want to actually book through the discounters, especially when it comes to flights. I found the best price on Orbitz, $259 for a round-trip to Columbia, SC (I'll explain why I decided to fly into SC in a minute) on American Airlines. Being incurably curious, I opened up a new window and checked directly with American. They would give me the same price and I could put a 24-hour "hold" on the reservation without actually booking, which I did. That came in handy when I decided to change my dates, since I could cancel without incurring the Orbitz fees.

When it comes to airlines, I also suggest that you look into getting e-tickets for your flights, if they're available. A check of American's fee schedule, for example, shows that if they have to issue a paper ticket, they'll charge an extra $50.

As to flying to SC instead of NC....you can save a lot if you're flexible. I checked car rental prices at the Charlotte, NC airport and at Raleigh-Durham and was horrified to find that the cheapest price was $381 a week for an "economy" car. Ouch!

Could I do better? It occurred to me to see if prices were less outside the airport and they were, by a good 30% at rental locations downtown, but a quick check of taxi prices in Charlotte indicated it would cost me nearly $50 to get from the airport to downtown and back. (If I'd been staying at a downtown hotel, I could have used a shuttle to get downtown for free.)

What about another airport? I went to Google Maps, looked for nearby airports and found that I could fly into Columbia, SC for even less than the best rate I'd found for Charlotte and I could rent a car for $181! I certainly didn't mind seeing a bit of SC on my vacation, especially if it saved me $200. If you have that kind of flexibility in your travel plans, use the "check nearby airports" option when you search the booking sites.

Lodging? All I want is someplace clean, safe and quiet. I've found that the primary difference between places like La Quinta, Holiday Inn and my choice, Motel6, is that at Motel6, you have to walk across the parking lot to eat (they build 'em next to places like Denney's) but you pay $30 to $40 a night less. I also needed a chain, since I'd be traveling all over the state, so I worked out a route, checked the very easy-to-use Motel6 website and took about 30 minutes to make my reservations. (And about 45 minutes to make new ones and cancel the old the next day.) One thing to take into account, whever you stay....the local sales taxes charged on rooms. In North Carolina, they seem to run between 10 and 13% a day and are not included in the quoted price.

If, unlike me, you're staying at the same place for your whole vacation, do check the discounters for package flight, car and hotel deals. I did see some good ones, but they were unworkable for my kind of trip.

Finally, double check all your dates and times. After I'd finished booking everything, I realized that I'd listed the pickup time on my car as 11:30 pm instead of 11:30 am. (My flight arrives in the morning.) When I went to the Alamo site to change it, I found that Alamo was now claiming that I'd have to pay $203 for my rental instead of $181.

Well, an extra $20 isn't that bad, but being the frugal fanatic that I am, I went back to where I'd found the original price, carrentals.com, entered the new time and--guess what?--on that site, my $181 rate was still available. I spent two minutes and saved $20. Deal!

Also, if you're planning to rent a car, check with your credit card issuer. Some cards will provide collision insurance when you pay for your rental using that card, a service that could save you $12 to $25 extra per day, the cost for an insurance waiver from the car rental company.

When you total up your basic estimates, add at least an additional 10 to 15%, since there will be extra fees, taxes and charges to pay along the line.

Finally, make sure you take all your paperwork with you, especially the codes that identify your reservations. Putting everything in an envelope that you can hand-carry could save a huge amount of time, money and hassle at check in counters.

How Much Can You Save? Mow Your Own Lawn

It's not always obvious how much you can save on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis by just changing certain of your buying habits. MoneyToSpare.net is all about making choices. What you spend your money on is entirely up to you....but you might want to think about what you could buy with savings like these.
Cathy

Mow your own lawn eight months out of the year (once every two weeks) at a savings of $50 per mow, or $108 a month. It’s good exercise and you’ll save $866 a year…and maybe lose a few pounds!

Invested at 5.5% a year, compounded monthly, that $108 will grow to $17,226.8 in ten years and $47,047.76 in twenty years.

Life Insurance: Who Really Needs It...and Who Really Doesn't

A type of marketing mailout I've been getting a lot lately involves pitches for life insurance policies for little children.

The offer is simple. Insure a small child now and you'll "lock in" an incredibly low premium for the child's entire life. This is a seductive idea, especially for grandparents who are struggling to pay ever-increasing life insurance premiums themselves. Little Susie or Billy will still be paying $15 a month for life insurance when they're eighty! What fond grandma or grandpa wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of such a deal for their darling grandkids.

Often such pitches also point out that if your child dies, you'll have money for funeral expenses. Who can object to that?

Well, I can. Let's take a little closer look at these great deals.

The purpose of life insurance is to make sure a death in the family doesn't create a financial disaster for the survivors. When a breadwinner dies, that income disappears. Immediately, the family can be in serious financial trouble, especially if they have little or nothing in savings. Without money to pay the rent or the mortgage, money for utilties and food, such a family can literally be homeless in a matter of a few months. Even a family where both parents work can face a financial crises if one of the parents dies and the household income drastically drops. If it's a stay-at-home parent who dies, the family will still need money for house cleaning, child care and the hundreds of other services that parent provided.

In such cases, a generous life insurance payout can keep a family's financial situation stable for years. Even a relatively modest amount can give the family enough time to adapt: time to move to a smaller home, for example, or time for the surviving parent to learn a skill and obtain a job.

But children do not provide income or services, and when they die, the family isn't faced with a financial crises. I can't imagine anything more emotionally devastating than the death of a child, but in pure financial terms, it's rarely a disaster. And though it might be an effort, most families can find the money to pay for a child's funeral, either by dipping into savings or taking out a short term loan.

So there's little or no actual financial need to buy a life insurance policy for a child.

What about locking in that low, low premium rate? Or the fact (claim the mailouts) that the benefit can never be canceled or reduced due to changes in the child's age or health. Isn't that a good deal?

First of all, let's actually check those low, low rates. I looked at a major company providing such insurance and, using the example of a 3-year old little girl living in Texas, was quoted a rate of $15.25 a month for $25,000 worth of insurance.

What's wrong with that?

First, this hypothetical child won't have a family to protect for at least 15 years. (No underage child brides in this article, thank you very much!) So a parent or grandparent would pay $2,745 in insurance premiums before insurance was even necessary.

Second, $25,000 worth of insurance may sound like a lot, but it's actually a small amount to act as a safety net for a family, especially if you factor in cost-of-living increases for the next 15 years. If Amy (let's give her a name) gets killed in a car accident twenty years from now, $25,000 may only be enough to last her family a few months. So eventually she'll need to buy more life insurance....and I guarantee you she won't get the additional coverage at that highly-touted low, low monthly rate.

Third, how does one even know that an insurance company will be around in fifteen years?Insurance companies, like any other company, can get into financial trouble or even go bankrupt. (Check the recent history of insurance giant AIG.) Although there are usually safeguards in place to make sure policy holders' claims are paid, there are no guarantees that Amy's super special lifetime rate of $15.25 wouldn't change if another company took over the policy.

Fourth, such policies are almost always whole life policies, and premiums for whole life policies are traditionally much, much higher than term life insurance premiums. (For an brief explaination of the difference between whole life and term, check here.)

Example? I decided to get some idea of how much term life insurance $15.25 a month would buy, so I checked Met Life's online sample quotes.Everything will vary, of course, for any specific situtation, but I still got quite a shock.

Assuming both 3 year old Amy and 30 year old Amy are in good health, here's what they can buy for less than $16 per month.

For 3 year old Amy, $15.25 a month will buy $25,000 worth of insurance.
For 30 year old Amy, $12 a month will buy $250,000 worth of insurance.

Ten times as much. Is that pitch for insuring your kids or grandkids sounding quite as good now?

But, Cathy, you say, what if Amy gets sick between the ages of 3 and 18? With the whole life policy, she still gets those low rates. (It says so right in the mailout.) With the term life policy....who knows?

Here's where we get to the crux of the matter.

Most of us have a limited amount of money to spend on insurance of all kinds: life, health, auto, home. The financial well-being of our families depends on how well we allocate what we can afford to spend.

So, if Amy gets seriously ill between the ages of 3 and 18, it's going to do her a lot more good if her family has spend a little more money on health insurance for her, rather than buying a life insurance policy that she doesn't actually need. Even if her parents get basic health insurance through work, the relatively small cost for supplmental health insurance might be a much better buy.

And if Mom and Dad are struggling to buy enough life insurance for themselves, it might make much more sense to spend that $15.25 a month to help them afford more. Remember, buying a life insurance policy for Amy benefits her dependents, not her. Doesn't it make more sense to spend your money to protect Amy herself while she's growing up?

Don't just accept the word of an insurance company marketing mailout that whole life insurance for a child is a great idea. And don't believe every promise you read in such pitches, including the claim that there are no conditions whatever that could cause that premium to increase. (Always, always, always check the fine print of the actual policy before you agree to buy.)

Also, keep in mind that when Amy is 80, she won't need much life insurance. Her kids won't be dependent on her any more, her house will likely be paid off, and she and her spouse may have savings or investments to supplement any retirement income. (Besides, in 2086 when she's eighty, how much will $25,000 actually be worth?)

Check and compare premiums, and know the pros and cons of different types of insurance before you buy. And remember.... spend your money to protect your kids and grandkids when they're children. Let them make their own insurance decisions when they're grown.

Tasty, Fast and Low-Cost

As I've said in a few of my posts, I'm not a cook. My culinary goals basically consist in making sure I get a reasonable amount of nutrition without giving myself botulism.

However, even I sometimes have to contribute something to a social occasion and a few weeks back, I brought one of my favorite dishes to a meeting for about 30 people. At least twenty people ate my offering, no one sickened or died, and to my complete surprise, I was actually asked for the recipe by some of those present.

Thus encouraged, I'm offering my version of a low cost sort-of salad: easy to make, reasonably tasty and made with low-cost stuff you'll find in any supermarket.

Start with a a pound of frozen corn. (And no, you don't have to cook it first.) Put that and a half pound of frozen peas into a colander and rinse with water to thaw. Then drain. Add half a can of rinsed and drained black beans. (Rinse 'em until the foamy stuff is gone.) Rinse, chop and add two small or one large stalk of green onions. (Discard the really green part of the stalk.) Add two coarsely chopped Roma tomatoes. (I like Romas because they have less water and more meat than regular tomatoes.)

Next, add about two tablespoons of Thousand Island Dressing, a little salt to taste and a shake or two of red chili powder. (Don't overdo the chili powder.) Mix gently until the dressing and chili powder are evenly distributed throughout the salad.

That's the basic salad, but you can also add, if you like, some chopped cooked chicken, a cubed avocado, some cubed tofu, some sliced mushrooms, a bit of grated cheese...whatever you have on hand.

That's it. Takes about five minutes to put together, costs about $2 in ingredients for the basic recipe and makes a nice side dish for eight to ten people. (I doubled up the recipe for my meeting.) If you're taking it somewhere, don't thaw the corn and peas and they'll help keep the salad cool.

Now....I've done my duty in providing a tasty (at least so I was told by those who ate it) low cost dish. (And no, I'm not expecting The Food Channel to call.)

It's your turn. What's your favorite money-saving recipe?

Saving Money Through Barter

If you're finding yourself a little short of cash these days, you might consider indulging in that most ancient of human transactions...bartering.

Long before there was money, bartering was a way to expand your range of possessions. Swapping a basket of freshly caught fish for a suckling lamb, a bag of wool for a woven cloak, or the chopping of a cord of wood in exchange for a hot dinner and a place to sleep....it's a form of commerce as old as mankind and as useful now as it was before humans invented money.

Recently, for example, a lady I know asked me to feed her horses for a few days while she visited a relative. She offered me a $50 round bale of hay as payment. She's also trying to sell her house and the pictures on her online ads don't do the place justice, so I offered to take better pictures for an additional bale. She has more bales than she needs, I have a little extra time and some useful skills....a perfect situation for a swap. Result? She gets her horses fed, better pictures for her ads and I get $100 worth of hay.

Bartering starts by deciding exactly what you need....and who might have it. If you're building a patio, for example, decide if you want pavers, bricks or flagstones and how many you'll need. If you need a bed frame, will you be happpy with anything that lifts your mattress off the floor or are you looking for an antique Victorian four-poster? Need a computer? Laptop or desktop, how much RAM and what do you need in the way of programs? Nail down some specifics, but also remember that you'll have to be flexible as well. So decide what's a true "need" and what's a "want."

Also do some serious thinking before you go looking for services. Some things--basic yardwork, helping clean out a garage, washing windows--can be done by almost anyone, but other jobs require experts: electrical work, anything other than minor plumbing, fixing your crooked teeth....and this may mean that you don't want to rely only on an online ad.

For example....do you want a Star Wars tattoo? (Don't laugh, someone was looking for exactly that on Craigslist.org this morning.) A badly executed tattoo can look awful and one done with dirty needles can literally kill you, so this poster definitely needs a pro, and that means someone who works at a tattoo shop. He's offering his skills as a handyman in trade, skills that businesses often need. If I were him, I'd make a list of all the local tattoo shops and contact them directly, a safer alternative perhaps than relying on an online notice.

The second part of the equation involves figuring out what you can offer in trade. Sit down and make a list of stuff you have but don't want. You may think no one could stomach your late Aunt Emma's avocado-colored sofa (currently taking up half the space in your garage) but that might be exactly what someone's looking for. The same holds true of any leftover building materials, auto parts, the above-ground pool you never use and hate cleaning, the cypress trees sitting right where you want to put a driveway (don't laugh, someone was offering that on Craigslist too) or the old LPs or stacks of National Geographics sitting in your attic.

Also list what you can do. You'd be surprised at what skills people are looking for. The fact that you're reading this article proves you know the basics of using a computer and searching online. There are a surprising number of people who want someone to teach them that. Or are you a good cook? Great at organizing? A terrific gardener? There are people out there who need new recipes for their next party, their home offices organized or their dying gardens revitalized. If you speak more than one language, can haul bricks or stack hay, refinish furniture or build shelves, knit, sew or wash windows....in short, if you're good at almost anything, you have a skill you can offer in trade.

Once you figure out the specifics, start looking. Craigslist is a good place to start, but don't limit yourself to that venue alone.Do online searches, check the Yellow Pages, put the word out to your friends and relatives or visit local businesses that might be able to supply what you need. Don't hesitate to bring up the idea of a trade. The worst that can happen is that someone says "No."

If money is tight, save your bartering efforts for things you'd otherwise have to buy. I needed hay for my ponies, so swapping my services for those two round bales meant I had an extra $100 to spend on necessities.

When you find that potential swap, ask enough questions to make sure you're both going to be happy with the deal. A woman once offered me a dog house if I'd do a "small amount of fence work." I asked to see the dog house before agreeing and found it to be a dry-rotted piece of junk I wouldn't pay $5 for, while the "small" amount of fence work consisted of taking down a hundred-foot length of four-strand barbed wire fence, posts and all. I politely declined.

And don't make a "services" deal open-ended. Set limits. Put things in writing. You may not need a contract, but a polite exchange of emails (keep copies) listing details of the deal is a good idea.

For instance, the friend who says she'll shoot your wedding pictures if you'll make her an afghan needs to show you some photos....and you should show her samples of your knitting. You also need to specify how big an afghan you're willing to make and she needs to know how long the wedding shoot will last and how many photos you expect her to take. Listing such specifics before you agree to the deal will help eliminate discontent later.

One last word: the IRS counts barter as income, so check before you trade for anything of significant value. You'll find more information on bartering and taxes here.

Good luck.....and good trading!

How Much Can You Save? Gas Costs

It's not always obvious how much you can save on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis by just changing certain of your buying habits. MoneyToSpare.net is all about making choices. What you spend your money on is entirely up to you....but you might want to think about what you could buy or how much debt you could pay off with savings like these .


Drive 10 miles less per day in a car that gets 14 mpg and you'll save 5 gallons per week, a savings of $11.25 at $2.25 per gallon. That's an average of $48.37 per month, and $580.50 per year. In three years, you'll have a 15% down payment for a low mileage, late-model used car. (Like the 2007 Hyundai Accent GLS 4D Sedan, 26K, $11,599, that I found on CarMax this evening.)