Money and Shenanigans

Being handy around the house

2010-09-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

One thing they say about owning a house is that it is it's own perpetual project. And for me, I've generally found that a good thing. I mean sure no one really likes extra work, but being able to fix and repair things gives me quite a sense of accomplishment when I do get it done. Plus it's motivation in and of itself to do and learn things rather than sit on my butt all day long.

A list of accomplishments around the house in the past few months:

Fixed a leak in the washing machine: Disassembling it was the hard part (so... many... screws...), after that all it took was a quick path on a leaky line. Also I no longer think that the machine is some great vast unknowable thing, turns out it's pretty simple on the inside.

Redid the brick walkway: This was a big one, one side had been sinking for a few months, and finally I went and did something about it. Bought maybe $20 worth of sand and tools and got it re levelled. Had to pull up half the bricks and re-lay them, but no more than an afternoon's effort (with help from the fiancee of course). Plus got rid of the pesky weeds growing between the cracks. Now I'm looking forward to doing the same to the other half of the walkway to get rid of all the weeds growing there too. Although I admit this is partly a temporary solution since the original cause was dirt escaping from between the asphalt and wood logs acting as a retaining wall. I did mortar the crack shut, so it should hold for awhile. But eventually it should be removed entirely and redone with logs that are actually sunk into the ground, rather than just laying on top of it.

Fixed up some cabinets: One of the fake drawer covers was falling off, so a bit of work with some screws secured it back in place.

Pulled up various weeds: Turns out owning a home has changed my general disinterest in nature into an active war. (To be fair I enjoy things like hiking and such, but I don't want nature invading my home.) Gone so far as to put some salt into the areas I don't want things growing. Even mixed in some into the sand for the bricks I re-laid. Should help deter the spread of plants into places I don't want them, and keep it looking nicer for longer.

There are still some projects far bigger than what I'm willing to do as a DIY project, but doing the smaller things myself can free up funds for them. The next big thing we're looking at hiring contractors for is taking out a wall in the basement to open up the space as a big lounge/game room. That I'll want done professionally as the wall is under the main beam of the house, and it'll need to be replaced with a support beam. So that's some heavy duty work right there that'd I'd not want to learn as I go.

In defense of hoarding

2010-06-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

Minimalism, it's all the buzz in PF and money management. Declutter your life, get time for yourself, and such are the touted benefits. But is there a downside? Can having stuff be beneficial?

Of course, given my couponing habits it's no small stretch that I'd defend hoarding, or stockpiling as it is. Why buy bodywash at full price three months from now, when they're paying me to take it home today?

Minimalism is often touted as environment friendly, but the way I see it, it's not. Except for those minimalists living Robinson Curoso style (having the necessary hunting/foraging skills to survive independently) they rely on modern society to provide instant access to life's necessities. Take a basic like food, in the past people had to store it for the coming winter because nothing was growing so you had to live off your stockpiles. But now with cheap oil to transport food around the world, supermarkets always have a constant influx of fresh foods, so no need to stock up, because it's always there.

Though hoarding to just have stuff, and otherwise buying more things that you won't use is bad. Having your own personal scrap heap is unlikely to add value to your life. But if you understand your things to be assets much like your cash and stocks, then you can make hoarding work for you.

To me stockpiling and owning things is about preparedness. The scenario I always imagine is that if an item for a minimalist were to suddenly break, they'd need to replace it, and fast. Supposedly this item is necessary and unique (else it would have been removed), thus it needs immediate replacement. As we know time is something we pay for, if you can wait you can usually get better deals. So they end up having to pay a premium for urgency in replacing the object. Now a conscientious stockpiler may have a replacement, or a substitute product, or even the tools to repair it.

I'm still a fairly thrifty spender I just get what I need, but not necessarily exactly when I need it. For instance I know our bedsheets are getting a bit old, so I'm on the lookout for a good deal, and when I find it I'll pick up a set. Then when we do replace our current set, I'll have it and not have to scramble last minute and pay exorbitant amounts for it.

Basically having a stockpile is both insurance and an inflation/price spike hedge. It's having a spare tire, that extra is a form of insurance. Also if the prices of commidities rise I've already bought them at pre-inflation prices, I've lost no buying power on what I already own. That said it's not like I'm keeping hundreds of barrels of oil in my basement (though I do have a fuel tank for my heater I guess).

To be fair, minimalism has it's place as well as stockpiling. It does no good to keep around things you'll never use (too many extra clothes), but at the same time don't throw out all your winter coats just because it's summer. And buying something does have a risk, you might actually not need it, it may expire before it's used, the cost to own it could outweigh the savings (true of most insurances). But with things that have seasonal or other price variations, buying low and selling high is just as applicable here as stocks.

shopping 6/13-6/19

2010-06-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

So yet another profitable week for body wash.
CVS and Rite Aid both have a sale for free (after rebate) Gillete/Old Spice Body Wash.
This is after getting Nivea Body wash last month, and Old Spice last week. I'm going to look and find a shelter/food pantry to donate most of this stuff to (I think I'll end up with near 20 bottles of the stuff).

CVS
2x Old Spice Bodywash $4.00 ea -$4EB (limit 2 even though ad says 1)
1x Shick Hyro Razor $ 8.99 - $4EB
1x Colgate Pro Clinical $3.99 -$2EB
- $4.00 B1G1 Old Spice BW (PG 6/6)
- $5.00 Shick Razor (RP 6/13)
- $1.00 Colgate Pro Clinical (SS 6/13)
- $4/$20 email coupon from CVS
= 20.98-14 = $6.98 - $14EB = $7.02MM

Need to use a $20 certificate by Tuesday so I'll fill in the rest with either stuff I need/want or whatever gives the best SCR returns, but I'll list what's definate.

Rite Aid
2x Herbal Essences $2.49 - $1.50 SCR (limit 2)
2x Gillete Bodywash 2.99 - $2.99 SCR (limit 1)
[Other Stuff - considering scope, secret, dr. scholl's, tidy cat, clorox] at least $10
-$5/$20
-2x $1 Herbal Essences (RP 5/13)
-$4/2 Gillete BW (PG 5/2)
-other coupons
=$10.96+X-(11+Y) = at least $20 OOP - $(5.99+Z) SCR = ???

Shopping this week

2010-06-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Ho, still bad, but didn't really do much coupon shopping. Well I have but none specifically for it for a bit, just using coupons to get better deals on things I already planned on using. But this week I'm back in the game.

Rite Aid
So originally I planned 2 transaction this week, though I may bump it to 3 now.
2x $3.50 Old Spice Bodywash
2x $4.00 Old Spice Fresh Collection Deodorant
1x $3.59 Aveeno Moustirizing Lotion (2.5oz)
1x $2.99 Johnson&Johnson Baby Lotion
-$4.00 B1G1 OS Fresh Collection Deo (6/6 PG)
-$3.50 B1G1 OS Body Wash (6/6 PG)
-$1/2 OS BW/Deo (6/6 PG)
-$3 Hand/Body Lotion (in-ad q)
-$3 Hand/Body Lotion (in-ad q)
-$5/$20 (VV q)
total = 21.58 - 19.5 = 2.08
get $2 SCR (2 deodorants)
get $4 UP+ reward on receipt
$8 towards P&G SCR, $3.59 towards skincare

1x 9.99 Fusion Proglide Razor
2x $3.50 Old Spice Red Zone Deodorant
1x $3.59 Aveeno Moustirizing Lotion (2.5oz)
-$4 Fusion Razor (6/6 PG)
-$1/2 OS BW/Deo (6/6 PG)
-$3 Hand/Body Lotion (in-ad q)
-$5/$20 (VV q)
total = 20.58 - 13 = 7.58 (use $4 UP+ reward)
get $5 SCR, $4 UP+ reward
$7 toward P&G SCR, $3.59 towards skincare

1x 7.99 Blink Tears
2x 3.50 Old Spice Red Zone Deodorant
1x $3.59 Aveeno Moustirizing Lotion (2.5oz)
1x $3.50 ??? usure, may be just extra deodorant (needs to count for P&G SCR)
-$2 Blink Tears (IP)
-$1/2 OS BW/Deo (6/6 PG)
-$3 Hand/Body Lotion (in-ad q)
-$5/$20 (VV q)
total = 22.08 - 11 = 11.08 (use $4 UP+ reward)
get $7.99 SCR, $4 UP+ reward
$10 toward P&G SCR, $3.59 towards skincare

so total ~$10 towards skincare, $25 to fill P&G rebate & $4 left in UP+ rewards
total spent = $12.74 -14.99 SCR = -2.25MM - $4 UP+ - $5 Gift Card
In total I'll end up with making $11.25 ($9 only usable at Rite Aid).

CVS
3x $2.50 Scented Oil Candle Refills
1x $2.50 Scented Oil Candle Holder
-2x $1.50/1 Scented oil candle refill (inside the tin candle holders)
-$2.50 B2G1 Free Refill
-$2.00/1 Candle Holder
= $10-$8 = $2
get $5 ECB

repeat this twice, though if I get the $5/$15 coupon to print I'll toss more on the second transaction.

Shaws
There are 4 dollar doublers that I can use this week to make deals with.
Stopping here for
Cat's Pride Cat Litter 20lb B1G1 $8.29 - 2x $1/1 (IP) = $6.29 for 2
Tribe Hummus B1G1 3.49 - 2x $1/1 (Blinkie) = $1.49 for 2
On the vine Tomatoes $1.99/lb - $1/2lbs (printable store coupon) = $3.98 for 2lbs
Bottom Round Roast $1.99/lb - $1 (printable store coupon) = depends on weight (probably ~3lbs)
Oscar Meyer Deli Fresh Meats B1G1 $4.49 - 2x $1/1 (IP) = $2.29 for 2

I like the B1G1's this week, also picking up B1G1 Arnold Breadand B1G2 Thomas English Muffins without coupons this week.

Specialization

2010-05-26T07:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I haven't done a post in a while, but I was out on vacation (well back home for a funeral, but really it was vacation time as well).

But I think people obsessed with survival are silly. Why? Because I see them as preparing for a catastrophe I think is absurdly remote: the collapse of society. And not just a collapse of government, but a complete destruction of our economic infrastructure and knowledge. Kind like shark repellent in Kansas.

But why rant about that? Well the less fringe people tend to ascribe to the economic benefits of it. Namely you can do things for yourself without having to pay people. Now to me that's wrong, specialization, not generalization makes for a more productive economy. Think do you want only handymen building a skyscraper, or a foreman, architect, civil engineer, plumer, mason, etc. to biuld it? Their dedication to a particular field is actually more beneficial than them than trying to branch out. Similarly we societies based around subsitence farming tend to be lower tech.

Now I'm not saying, being able to do your own laundry or cook meals are bad. But if you stop and consider, you're actually doing work. Now most of this consider it our 'free time', but your still doing work. (note: we do still have free time that isn't work, sleeping, actively consuming resources, or even doing something otherwise productive but to no end, like sailing a boat in circles). But the reason we think of it as different from our day job is that it's at an amateur level, we aren't being judged on it by anyone but ourselves, as the benefit is not spending resources rather than accumulating them. But if you were willing to use that time instead to work your job (assuming it's more skilled than what level you're doing your hobby at), you'd likely end up richer for it, but likely less happy. So it's not always about optimizing your wealth

Diversification: why?

2010-05-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

So a big thing pushed by most financial advice type people is diversify. By that they mean distribute your money in many different markets and sectors, don't put all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

But why?

The standard answer is to hedge against risk. It's like roulette, you can drop all your chips on one number, or tossing a few chips on various numbers. Of course the analogy is a bit backwards, to make it work better you'd lose if your number comes up. So instead of everything blowing up, only part of your assets lost, while the rest sat ok and made out.

Now this analogy reveals something commonly not considered. Betting one of each on something is not a good idea in roulette, because the house always wins. So diversifying is based on the idea that the house will always lose, or in more real terms, that the market overall will grow. Now to be fair, we have most of human history to back up this point, but do recall the old fund disclaimer, "past returns are not guarantees of the future". Of course if you look at the length of data, I might as well be claiming that the sun might not rise tomorrow. While technically true (it could explode or something), the pattern has happened so consistently we anticipate it being there. Think about it you've likely made plans for events in the future largely based off how your life has been going up to that point (e.g. likely to be in the same city, have the same daily commitments, be with your friends).

Now I'm not trying to build up to a 'everything you know is wrong' moment. Actually I quite believe the underlying premise as well, that the market will continue to expand. It's just important to know what your assumptions are for your investment strategy. So if we do see a trend start to emerge, like say, a marked trend away from consumerism, the world's governments having a radical shift towards environmentalism/sustainability, or a maxing out of our population and each person's work potential, then you'll know to start considering a shift in strategy.

Also a diversification strategy assumes you are stupid. Well not stupid so much as ignorant. And it's generally true too. Regarding the market and economics (micro, macro, global), most people really know squat, and some know just enough to get them in trouble. So unless investing is your day job, or a hobby you're really enthusiastic about, your largely ignorant of what's going on in the economic world, or only know about the overall picture, and not to a small enough granularity to start betting. Back to the casino example, take the market as the biggest poker game ever. There are professionals out there whose job it is to play the game, if your just a casual player, you're not likely to come out ahead. So throw a little everywhere and just follow the overall trend, rather than trying to out-compete people with far more resources than you.

Finally a cute diversification strategy that might not seem so at first glance:
Buy 3-5 large blue chip stocks.
Why? Take GE, in one company you have financial, healthcare, electricity utility, aviation, and more. Plus it's not just tied to the US market because it's a multinational corporation. Pick a few spread out and you can cover most of the market and world, plus large companies like these are usually dividend paying, so you get that strategy as a bonus too.

Shopping this week

2010-05-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Whoops slacking again. Well this is a heavy shopping week, been hitting 2 to 3 stores a day.
The report for this week is:
Walgreens - spent all my RRs on stuff (mother's day cards, candy, headphones), so a good thing overall, I dislike the RRs the most since they expire pretty quickly, and I'm just as happy to be rid of them. So with that adventure I spent maybe $10 out of pocket ($4 came because I picked up the wrong product last week). And got at least $25 worth of stuff I wanted, plus all the more than free stuff as well.

CVS - this week is busy there's a nivea sale going on with a buy $15, get $5 ECB as well. With the new coupons from Sunday's paper ($4 and $3), PLUS the cvs coupon center is spitting out $2/2 bodywash. Makes this a pretty big moneymaker ($3.48 profit per transaction), add to that the limit on this sale is 5. So I'm CVS'ing every day and sometimes twice a day. Well I'll be able to donate all the women's body wash this Sunday when my friend is setting up her event.

Stop & Shop - this one's also a big one. I've been slowly collecting and hoarding $.50/1 Honest Tea tearpad coupons (from various Market Baskets) since they were good until march 2011. And it's here, this week honest tea's on sale for $1.00. So with doubling that makes it free. I have about 60 coupons or so, so I've been hitting stop and shop daily for the teas. Between last week's Nestea and now this, we're gonna be set for awhile (maybe a month or two, unless I keep drinking everything).

So shop shop shop for me this week.

Weekly Shopping

2010-04-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

So last week, did a bunch of nature's bounty at walgreens, now have 4x$5 RR reciepts.
The plan is to convert 3 (limited by coupons) with the following scenario
2.99 Stayfree Maxi Pads
1.99 Plackers (90 count)
2.99 Skintimate shave gel
-$2/1 Stayfree
-$.50/1 Plackers
-$5 RR (from last week)
total cost: ~50c
getting back $3,$2,&$3 in RR
so making about $2.50 in additional RR

Hmm after this I'll have alot of small RRs, well gotta keep them going

CVS, nothing exciting, probably use up a $10 survey coupon on hair, maybe see if the sunscreen EB works with the small sizes.

Rite Aid, picked up a zyrtec on Sunday, using a $5/$20, $4/1 (RA Allergy), ($6/1 mq 4/18SS)
So overall ~$9(tax) put on a Rite Aid giftcard, should count toward the two allergy rebates out there. Once I pick up one more next week (SCR for the week, and I'm betting a sale), then maybe some small things like benadryl, I should have both rebates fullfilled.

Also hitting up shaws for two particular deals:
99c Nestea Pureleaf
-50c (doubled) coupon from tearpad I found in marketbasket
free (1c overage)
1.19 Ronzoni Smart Balance Pasta
-75c (doubled) printable from internet
31c overage

Too bad I've printed out ronzoni already on all the computers I have access to, at least I had 4 left. (I had been buying them previously at regular price (1.69) since that came out to 19c per pack) Oh well, averages out to nearly free overall.

Hmm hope something good for toilet paper comes up soon, that's the one area I'm deficient in. Soo much toothpaste though (and Colgate is free yet again at CVS this week).
Also I'm additionally going to be on the lookout for good donation items for May 9th

Healthcare, psychics, and money

2010-04-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

So this is kind of a political issue as well as a money one. To be straight up, I fall on the side of universal healthcare, largely for social reasons. However, I want to delve into what I see as the money side of this, both on a personal and societal scale.

To start off, health insurance is basically a gamble, will I spend more in premiums+copays, or straight out of pocket costs? Now this wager has many different factors, for instance, group rates, how old are you, are you getting an individual or employer sponsored plan, etc, etc.

Let me lay down how I see the base case. First assume there's only one provider, and that everyone is a perfectly rational psychic (can see the furture perfectly). Also assume that each person only gets exactly one chance to either join the insurance plan or not. Now being perfectly rational, and knowing the future, each psychic can calculate how much they'll need to spend for healthcare for their lives, thus if their insurance premium would cost less, than that amount, they'll join. But wait, the insurance company needs to make money (or break even at the very least), so since only the sickest people are joining, they'll need to raise their average rate to compensate for this. This causes the next most healthiest group to drop out, since their cost calculations no longer make sense to stay on the plan. Again forcing the insurance company to raise rates etc,etc.

Now clearly people aren't psycics and not everyone is perfectly rational (not to mention different risk tolerances). But the underlying distinction between healthcare and say fire or flood insurance is that everyone is likely to need some amount each year. Furthermore, given time everyone is going to need a payout (whether it's small like your yearly checkup, or one of the many procedures and older person is likely to undergo). Furthermore with advances in medicine we're more and more able to predict what problems someone will have (genetic risks, early detection of defects, etc)

So in the real world, if you're young and healthy there is every incentive to have no or a very minimal plan, beacuse it saves you money. But on a societal scale, we need the healthy people buying into the health insurance because their lower use will offset the higher use of the elderly and sicker population. But as soon as a significant proportion of healthy people see what makes financial sense, we see the same cycle of rising premiums and exodus of healthy people.

So to me the only real long term solution is healthcare as an all or nothing deal. Either require everyone to have it, whether through the government (ala medicare) or private insurers. Or it will get done away with altogether as no one is willing to pay the prices for it.

The reason I think our system holds and has held is due to social inertia. Basically with employer sponsored healthcare, most of the real costs are hidden from us, thus greatly skewing each person's calculation (For instance I pay $750 a year for my healthcare, but my company pays over $3k as well, so I'd likely see the cost as $750, not $3750. But it is, because that $3k could otherwise go to my salary). Also the living paycheck to paycheck situation (or even in debt) prevents many from being able to comfortably take the risk of using a high deductible, or no plan at all.

Weekend Shopping

2010-04-19T10:24:00.001-07:00

so weekend shopping trips:
I'll probably end up using coupon jargon, if you're not familiar with it, check out some couponing sites, they're pretty good about explaining things or ask here I suppose.

CVS
Ok here I have two CVS cards, my regular one, and the one I get from my health insurace (it uses the CVS Caremark program. I use it mostly for perscriptions, or if I'm buying CVS branded stuff (card gets a 20% discount on it)).
on my caremark I had $4 in Extra bucks (EB) expiring on Sunday, so I went in and just picked up 2 thermacares which were Free after EB. Apparently there is an online coupon for it, but it's not working at the moment, still free is good.
so transaction
2 thermacare (neck and shoulder) 4.98
- $4 ecb
0.98 ( 0.06 tax) paid,
get back $4.98 in EB

so pay a dollar to get an EB and not let it expire, not bad.
I'll roll my other card's EB this week I have $8 in EB on it. And it usually gets a $3 off $15 so I'll probably need to cook up a bigger scenario.

next stop, rite aid. The hand soap took me forever to find in the store, seriously.

This was a bigger purchase
2x Purex 3-in-1 (20 sheets) 8.99 (B1G1 store promo)
1x Kotex-U pads $3.49
1x Pure and Natural Hand soap $4.49
2x GE Reveal Lightbulbs (40 and 60 watts) $6/2
$22.98
- $5/20 rite aid coupon
- 2x $2/1 purex 3-in-1 (Rite Aid VV)
- 2x $2/1 purex 3-in-1 (MF RP 4/18)
- $1/1 Kotex U MQ (printed online)
- $3/1 Pure and Natural hand or bath soap (Rite Aid VV)
- $2/1 Pure and Natural, any (coupons.com)
- 2x $1/1 GE Reveal (RP 3/7? I think, also in 4/18)
= 1.98+tax
plus submit for SCRs and get
$3.49 Kotex U
$2 + $2 for GE Reveals
so made 5 bucks there

Also stopped in at price chopper to grab some kitty food
they had 9 lives on sale for 3.49, and I had a 75c coupon which doubled, so about $2 for 3.5lbs of food. My usual goal here is to get about a dollar a pound for the food. So while the food ranks on my scale on the poorer end (I judge by the first few meat products that appear, in general: deboned chicken > chicken > chicken meal > chicken by-product meal > poultry by-product meal). Of course I could buy all the nice organic stuff for them, but hey then they'd be eating better than we are (also one is partly outdoors and supplements her meals quite nicely with mice and such things).

further plans for the week,
Walgreens is having a nature's bounty vitamin D sale, Free after register rewards, so print a few coupons for them and make some money there. Pair up with their kotex U deal (3.49 -1q, get 2.50RR) and I'll have a nice switch setup with a few extras tossed in). Also thursday is apparently $1 cartridge refill day, so that sounds good, given I'm all but out of ink.

Nothing particularly interesting on the grocery front, so I'll just buy standard groceries for the week, maybe whittle down the supply of frozen veggies I have.

It's Alive

2010-04-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, I started this and really had no idea what to do/delusions of grandeur/no commitment to this. But I think it's something I want to do. So here's my deal. I'm writing this for me, while things I say are generally what I want others to hear, I'm not going to assume that I'm a great and fantastic blogger so my main audience will have to be me in this space. I'm going to try and stick to a schedule, update about 2-3x a week. One post will be centered on my personal spending/budgeting, another on some frugal/personal finance topic I want to touch on, and some strewn about geekery.

Now I still think that my main forays into the whole blogging arena will mostly be in commenting. I like the back and forth that can develop there, and usually people's topics will get me thinking maybe outside the scope of the post. That's when it's time to come here and make my own. For the most part I'm terrible at advertising, just not my thing (also given that I don't really want to 'monetize my blog', no incentive to really either). So I expect the majority of people who come here are from following any links I've dropped in comments, or maybe if I submit my post for one of those carnival type things.

One thing I need to figure out is just how out there I want to throw my personal life/events. My concern really isn't for myself, but more for anyone who's associated with me, might not want information related to them just floating about the net (admittedly a rather dimly lit area of it). So I'll probably stick with posting about such things in more general terms, maybe a few anecdotes, but generally trying to leave out anything readily identifiable about others.

So that's that, expect a new post by Monday about my weekend shopping (still doing the couponing thing), and plans for the week ahead.

get paid to shop

2010-02-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

I've been meddling in the world of coupons recently. And let me say, 'world' is about the right scope. There's actually quite a bit more than open paper, cut coupon, save a dollar. Done right, you'll actually make money buying things. weird.

Well here's my experience with it:
Picked up a Sunday paper at the dollar store. I don't have paper delivery so I needed to grab one to get all the inserts with the coupons inside. I know buy something for the advertising, that's like watching the superbowl for the ads. Anyways, the main inserts in the paper (metro west news) were a Proctor and Gamble, RedPlum, and SuperSaver.

Now the next important set of literature was the weekly circulars from the nearby stores. Ones I grabbed were, stop 'n' shop, cvs, and walgreens.

So first trip was stop'n'shop gfor the weekly grocery run. Gonna say this was a rather unimpressive trip. When we buy food, we don't get too much in the way of brand products. There's really no coupons for fruits and vegetables. There were some specials on kraft foods (buy $20 get $5 off, + some coupons for discounts as well), and I had some coupons for frozen type foods. So we ended up stocking up on bacon, and some frozen meals and frozen vegetables. We saved about $20 overall, on the grocery bill, still after spending $80, not that impressive I guess.

The successes came when I stopped off at the pharmacies though. CVS and Walgreens each offer their own form of cashback for buying the specials of the week. Of course this is basically given as store credit that expires in a few weeks, but if you keep going there, it's almost as good as extra cash (I don't think it's good toward taxes).

So here's the breakdown of how CVS went:

Coupons I found:

venus razor reg $11.99
$2 off a venus razor (breeze or embrace variety)

olay bodywash $6.99-8.99
buy a venus razor, get a free olay body wash

wheat things $1.99-$4.99
$2 off 2 nabisco crackers

Now not bad savings, especially the buy one get one deal, but it gets better

CVS Sales:
Venus Embrace razor: clearance price $6 (other varieties on sale at $8.99)
wheat thins: small boxes on sale
plus, if you scan your card at the item price scanners in store it'll print out some cvs coupons for you. I got a spend $15, get $3 off.

So the purchase:
venus razor: $6
olay bodywash: $8.99
wheat things x2 :$2
-$3 off for spending $15
-$2 razor coupon
-$8.99 free bodywash with razor purchase
-$2 2 nabisco crackers
total price: $1

neat! So that the power of doing this.

Of course what's really drawing me in now is that it's basically an optimization problem. Given the various coupons and sales how can I line them up to optimize return. Of course it's not really as simple as above. Unmentioned was that CVS has another special: buy $15 of selected P&G (Protor and Gamble) products, get $5 in store credit (Extra Care Bucks they call it).

So the razor was one of those selected products, and now I'm $6 towards that $15 goal. Thus if I continue the process it's now a factor. All this can be pretty crazy and may mean that splitting your purchase is the best way to spend (espcially because of the spend x, get y deals).

Some deals can even net you money if you play them right. A simple one is at Walgreens. Buy a dove for men soap for $6, get $6 in store credit for a future purchase (expires in 2weeks). Now toss on a coupon for a dollar off the soap, and you've now paid $5 to get $6 in store credit (and netted some soap too). Toss that money into sales for the next week and you could potentially keep rolling and growing that.

Of course at the end of the day it's just fake money, so how can that translate to real dollars? Well the obvious solution is buy something that resells well, and drop it on ebay or craigslist. Usually easy and straightforward enough. The other way is manufacturer rebates. For instance, in the paper I got there was a form for shick quattro razors. Buy one and mail in the upc, reciept and form, and shick will issue you a rebate for the cost of the razor up to $11.99. So take some of those store credit coupons, and drop them on a razor, and send in the rebate. In a few weeks you'll have the equivalent in cash (and a new razor).

So couponing is easy to obess over because not only can it save you the value printed on it, but you can actually end up getting things for near free, or at best making money. Now coming up with the right way to optimize your coupons with sales, rebates, cashback, and across multiple stores, can be pretty difficult. Luckily there are a bunch of resources, espcially websites devoted to doing just this (and with their own jargon even). Of course, they often point to even more sales or coupons you might not have known about, which can server to increase the size of your data set, making it even more of a complex problem.

New or Used? The car question examined.

2010-01-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

So a car may be a depreciating asset, but how can we make the most of it. Or how can we minimize the cost to own a car. Well the obvious answer, get a cheaper model. OK, duh, but what then?

Assuming you'll always have a car, this means the cost to own can be broken down to a per-annum (yearly) basis. So if you go with a pattern that ends up costing you the least money per year on average, then you're paying the minimum amount overall. So onto the math and hand waving (this is just a very broad overview because there really are many, many specifics that can affect what the optimum is).

Firstly, leasing a car is something many of us frugal people discard as too expensive.

Well, lets examine why this is so. The way a car lease really works is that you're paying for the devaluation of the car while you drive it. Basically your total cost of the a 5-year lease is the (new car price) - (5 year old car price). To me this sounds equivalent to buying a new car then selling it after 5 years. In fact it largely is, many leases have an option to pay the remainder to the residual price to own the car outright. In essence you just took 5 years to buy the car. Now this usually ends up costing more due to how dealerships do the financing and such, so you're still behind compared to just buying it in the first place.

So now we have to ask, why does buying (new) and selling every few years do worse than keeping one car for that long?

The trick here is that cars depreciate non-linearly. To go back to leasing, there is something called gap coverage. This exists because the car initially depreciates faster than the constant monthy payment you make. So the initial depreciation is fast, then slows down. There is the saying that just driving a new car off the lot loses 20% of its value.

So since a car's value roughly models an exponential decay function. So by that, the oldest car you can get is the best deal. With less value to lose, your cost per each year of ownership due to depreciation is minimized.

But wait, there's the major factor of maintenance costs to add. And these generally rise as the car gets older. So we're now calling the total costs to own a car for a year the depreciation + maintenance. After the initial few years, when the car is done rapidly losing value, the rising maintenance costs will act to stabilize the cost per year.

So it looks like the optimal value is to buy the car at least a few years old and keep it until... when? Well if we consider the cost per year as a car's price. Once maintenance costs rise enough that the total cost will exceed the cost per year of getting a new(er) car, you should give up and trade it in. In the case of deciding whether or not to even do a repair you need to weight that repair cost against the difference between the amount you'd get for a running version of the car, versus it dead (you could still get money from selling it for parts to the scrapyard)

It's also worth it to note that there are several influencing factors in this calculation. Firstly the assumption made is that the new car is similar to the old one. If it's not, things like gas mileage, warranties and the like can influence the cost curve. Also because of things like taxes and fees, you are encouraged to hold on to the car longer so as to spread these out over longer periods. So even in the ideal case you're not buying and selling your car every year.

Now all that said, it really depends on the specifics of the car to know what is a good buy. Of course you can't really know what a 5 year old model's value will be in the next 10 years, but you can look at the other older models to get a good guess. Furthermore, even given figures are just averages, the condition of the car will cause a lot of individual variation.

On a final note, this article on Edmunds shows that not all depreciation are equal, and it's possible to do this buy and sell strategy earlier in the life of some models. (Keep in mind though that newer used cars can be difficult to find) Also the total cost of ownership calculator is great for providing the estimates to make your own assessment of the cost curve of any individual model.

Credit Card Trickery

2010-01-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

So here's a listing of fun things to do with credit cards:
1) Sign up for cards with a large initial bonus. Most reward type cards offer anywhere from $50-$100 bonuses when you first sign up (and use some nominal amount on the card). So sign up and take advantage of them. Then either keep them idle (do make sure your statements still are read) until they decide to close your account, or make some minimal purchases to keep it around as an emergency card. But remember that this can influence your credit rating both good (low balance compared to overall credit lines), and bad (more credit requests, closed accounts).

2) Apply for a card with 0% interest balance transfers and get the money. Well you don't keep it, but for that introductory period of up to a year, you can now invest that money in something safe, a CD or high yield savings account, and pocket the interest. At the end of the term you pay back the balance in full, and then you just were given free money to invest. The specifics of this trick depend on the card, but usually you can request the balance transfer and either overpay another card and get a check from them, or just get a check directly from the card. Now be warned that if you do something like miss a monthly payment, or make a regular purchase, suddenly you'll start racking up a lot of interest. If the money's tied up in a CD, this could be rather costly.

3) If you go out with a group of friends you can offer to put the full bill (or just some other people's shares) on your card and have them pay you back in cash. This will likely save the waitress/staff some effort as well, so they'll likely appreciate it. Just make sure you're good at counting the money, or trust them enough to pay fairly. Most of my friends will round up with their cash, so I could come out a bit ahead, though I toss the extra amount into the tip figure.

4) Use your credit card responsibly. If nothing else, this is the most important bit. If you don't then all the rewards they offer couldn't possibly make up the fees and interest you'll be paying. My personal take on this is, your credit limit is the money in your bank account for spending. Whether this means a specific sub-account or your general money pool is up to you and depends on what you spend on with your card(s). With online accounts to check up on my spending just about daily, I always know where I stand.

Walking Away

2009-12-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

So having read some recent postings and news articles about this phenomenon I of course can't keep my mouth shut (fingers still?) and have to toss in my comments.

The basic premise is if you're underwater on your mortgage (that is owe more in principle than you can get for selling the house), an option you have is to just walk away, and let the bank forclose on it. This removes your mortgage debt at the cost of losing your house (and credit rating). But you end up with more money (or rather less debt) than if you had tried to sell it on the market. So you're trading your credit rating for debt reduction, not unlike bankruptcy.

Now where this gets people angry is when people choose to undergo this process, rather than are forced to. Theoretically the homeowner has the funds or means to keep paying their mortgage on time, but because they owe so much on it, they don't see the point and leave. Now usually this is not a decision made lightly because well, first we have the "sunk money principle" working against them, and secondly well, there's a big emphasis and attachment to 'home'.

However, we smarties (for why else are we so financially savvy) know that the sunk money can easily lead to throwing good after bad. Furthermore, we can see attachment to possessions as bad, leading us to live beyond our means. So the way I call it, good financial decision, as long as you can live with the credit drop you'll suffer and any other consequences of foreclosure.

Now the indignant response is "but you signed a contract, you shouldn't just break it". To that I'll say true, I did give my word when I signed it that I would pay them back, or face the consequences for not doing so. I did not say I would repay them back no matter what, and no matter the cost to me. Thus I content that I am keeping my word as I have given it within the contract.

Furthermore, is it any better to deliberately go out and make myself unable to pay for the mortgage? What if I acted financially irresponsible like many people out there do. I could start living beyond my means, racking up huge credit card debts, take out new car loans. Soon I'll be in a situation like many people have faced before. I'm not able to make it out and will be drowning in debt. Assume for the sake of argument that I've dug myself into a deep enough hole that short of winning the lottery, I'll not be able to get out. Now is it ethical for me have my house foreclosed on? If you're saying that the unethical part was to get myself in such trouble in the first place, well perhaps, but many have painted themselves into such a corner unknowingly.

Finally I'd like to propose another thought experiment. Say I have taken it upon myself to be more frugal, whether to repay debt or save for my old age. As part of this, I realize I don't really need my TV or cell phone plans because they're luxuries that I really don't even use that often. Is it ok for me to cancel them even if it I'm still under contract with them? To me financially it puts me ahead since the early termination fee is less than keeping them for the full contract term. Shouldn't I do so, cut my losses, and take the consequences for doing so? Would I not be generally cheered on for doing that (and the telecoms made out as bad guys for forcing me to even having early termination fees)?

Anyways, that's my take. Remember, a contract is a contract is a contract (but only between Fereginis).

New Credit Card

2009-12-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

After much debating (on which to get, not whether to get it, that much was certain) I picked up a new credit card. This Citi Forward card to be exact.

My (until now) sole current card was a Paypal Plus card. It offers 1% cash back on all purchases in the form of paypal certificates, so I make an effort to filter as much of my buying through it as I can. The Citi Forward offers that plus a few bags of chips. The general stats:
The rewards come in 'thank you points' such that 1 point is approximately 1cent as long as you take gift card type deals, less if you just want straight cash.
5 points per dollar (~0.4%) for entertainment type categories, e.g. books, movies, resturaunts.
1 point per dollar (~0.75%) in all other categories
5000+6000 points on signup (sign up for paperless billing + spend at least $250 in three months)
100 points a month for not going over your limit

So in the categories it's good in, it's a definate boost. , I'll mostly not be using it. It's mostly for my fiancee to be using it. I applied for two cards so she also has one in her name, even though the actual line of credit is only attached to myself. I know, I know, mixing finances and all that worry. But I don't. And even if I were worried, it's simple enough to make a few calls to just turn off the card entirely. The way we've split up spending and budgeting works so she's the one in the relationship in charge of making decisions about what the card is best at, eating out, buying books, and general entertainment. However, she currently doesn't have an income (in school) so I'm the one with the financial stats to get approved for the line of credit.

So the big caveat is that people tend to spend with plastic more freely than cash. I think that I'm a special enough snowflake that I break that trend. To me, when I spend on something the number of it's price is the number. Maybe because I'm one of those mathy nerds, or throughly immersed in the digital age, but the numbers are what's real. I'm actually more free about pulling out dollar or five for vending machines or lunch than I am about pulling out a credit card. In a way, I think that I feel that money in the form of cash is already 'spent' since it's already been pulled out of the cloud of bank accounts that I consider 'my money'.

Though the weakness I do admit to is perhaps buying a bit frivolously when I am using up my rewards. I'm making more of an effort to only pull out the rewards for things that I otherwise would have needed to buy, but often the temptation to spend this 'free' windfall on some niceties (which of course cost more than the reward's value) and end up spending more money. To this end, there's a nice option to drop the rewards money on an extra mortgage payment (up to $100).

So all in all it looks like I'm ready to start earning a bunch of rewards, keep up my credit history, and not pay any interest.

Talking Money

2009-12-11T06:49:00.002-08:00

An insight into dealing with finances together.

In a recent talk with my fiancee about how we each felt about our finances (they're a bit tight). I came to a realization.

I had been feeling a bit like she was out spending money a bit frivolously and wasn't considering our sitation. However, to her she was spending the amount we had alloted on luxuries and had my agreement with what we were getting. The disparity that arose here has largely me to blame. When we first discussed buying something, say movie tickets, she'd be enthusiastic about it, but I'd be a bit iffy and not really into it. However, since it was within our budget, I wasn't going to outright say we shouldn't do it. But I'd just end up filing it away and largely forget about it. This would work fine if it was just me, I'd basically end up not buying something through inaction, since I don't really have a demand for it, there's no impeteus for me to go seek it out and spend money. However, my fiancee would think about it, and she'd actually make plans and act on them. So suddenly I have to go from the mindset of "we're not really going" to "yes we are going". To me it was a pretty sudden shift and now we're spending money I hadn't anticipated on. So to me it feels like she's just about to overspend since it's not something I'd seen coming and planned on. Of course to her, I said yes however ambivilently so clearly we were going, just she was going to be the one who needed to actually get us there because it clearly was her thing. So what's seeming to me to be an impulse buy on her part is something she's actually been thinking about for awhile and just waiting to find the right deal.

Our general solution to this is to actually be a bit more organized. When we're about to go on a shopping trip we now plan to write down what we're looking to get. Not only does this keep us on track, but it can give some warning ahead of time if either of us has overlooked something the other person wanted to get (though this has pretty much just been my problem). I suppose that goes to show that communication is always useful in a relationship.

Cookbooks

2009-12-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

While I'm talking about food, my recent cookbook scheme comes to mind.

So I joined up with a GPT (Get Paid To) site InboxDollars (yeah I just stuck a refferer link in there, eh can't be blamed for trying). Some of the various offers they had is to sign up with various bookclub sites. Their basic premise is that you sign up and get a bunch of $1 books and you commit to buy some additional ones at their regular prices over the next year (oh yeah and unless you actively turn down their offer they'll send out one per month). Generally I don't consider it that great a deal because their regular prices aren't all that impressive and the shipping costs make them even less so when compared to other popular sites like amazon and half.com/ebay.

But one of these sites (thegoodcook.com) specifically geared towards selling cookbooks in this fashion caught my attention. The promotion was/is that you get 4 books for a dollar and are only committed to buying two more (with the option to immediately buy one of those at 1/2 price). Now cookbooks are usually more pricy than you're run of the mill paperback, so this seemed like a pretty good offer. Looking at the average ebay rates, I found that the celebrity chef books sell pretty well, near $20 for names like Alton Brown and Julia Child. So having done my preliminary work I dove into the my newly hatching scheme.

I ordered a mix of books that looked easy to turn around on ebay, and for ~$30 I got two The art of French Cooking, Good Eats the Early years, and Barefoot Contessa (and picked up another that I intend to actually keep). It took about a week from ordering for the package to arrive and it did come with the notice that they were going to ship me this month's featured book unless I responded. Though they do accept online notification, so a quick trip to the website spared me the cost of a stamp to opt out of the book shipment.

I've since sold them on eBay by pricing them about 10% under the average selling price. Each book was gone within a two days of posting with both French Cooking books being snapped up within the first day (and fetching the highest price). I made ~$15 per book (post eBay, paypal fees and shipping costs). So now I just need to buy one more book over the year, and if I choose right, should be able to end up mostly with a wash if I ebay it, or maybe I can pick up one of their selection of non-cook books as well.

So all told I'm currently sitting up about $30 and a cook book from this venture (well and with a commitment to buy 1 more). Not to mention the extra $10 that I got for signing up for this through the GPT site. Now I'm certain that I could have optimized a bit better, but I was hedging by diversifying my offerings, and looking for quick turnaround especially to catch some of the holiday shopping. But still, not that bad of a haul for this adventure.

Making meals, chicken and spices

2009-12-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

Food is a rather basic necessity, and not one Americans are really known for skimping on. One of the cheapest ways is to make it yourself. As such most people ususally calcualte a meal's price by the main ingredients while things like spices and other partial use items tend not to be included.

But having just recently needed to stock a kitchen, I've been experiencing 'start-up costs' buying things that are needed and usually last long term, such as spices, canned products, and cooking oils. Which, while used in relatively small doses over a long term when cooking has me wondering just how much that was compared to a meal's one time ingredients. Reusable ingredients can be calculated as a the price times a fraction of the amount used vs total amount in the package. So pulling a simple example (few ingredients) a chicken and rice dish:
one time: chicken, veggies (swiss chard), rice (we get 10lb bags but it's a main ingredient)
reuse: soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, olive oil.

one time: $6.77
reusable: $1.41

So that was a rather simple meal relying on many common ingredients and few single use ones. I'd expect more complex meals to skew further towards the one time cost, although very simple meals might solely consist of one time costs (I'm thinking something like a loaf of bread here). So I'm now a bit wary about the 'true' cost of making a meal, though that calculation did take a while to come up with. Perhaps just include an overage percentage to cover such expenses might be good enough to provide a quick estimate.

Intro

2009-12-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

So the basic premise of this blog will be to catalogue my various attempts at increasing my net worth whether through various frugal means or semi-thought out money making attempts.

I'm told goals are a useful thing to have so here's a breakdown of them by timeline:

Short Term (6mo-1yr): Make sure my budget is balanced and get a 3 month emergency fund set up.
I've bought a house within the last few months, so while I've kept a budget before, my situtation is now quite different so I'm in recalibration mode. This should be about $2500/month to cover mortgage payments, fixed costs and some bare minimum necessities.

Medium Term (1-3yr): Pay down my mortgage to 80%
I started with 10% down and need to aim to get to 80% to get rid of my PMI, which should chop $50-$100 off future payments.

Long Term: (5+yrs): Pay off my mortgage entirely.
After that it'll just be taxes to pay each year.

I've got some ideas queued up an ready to go, so expect a bit of a flurry at the start. After that it might cool down to about 1-2 posts per week. The next post here should be a general picture of where I am financially.