budget

Join us for a no-spend February.

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Is your budget suffering a holiday hangover? Were you caught in the government shutdown? Or are you just interested in getting control of your cash? A no-spend month could be the right first step to take, and NerdWallet is sponsoring one for February.

To be clear: That doesn’t mean no more fresh fruit until March, or having to shine on a prescription refill. A no-spend month is actually more like a “spend-super-intentionally month.”

On the NerdWallet “Community” message board, my former MSN Money colleague (and now NerdWallet columnist) Liz Weston describes the event as a month where you try to avoid any non-essential spending. Each participant gets to define what is and isn’t essential.

Having done a no-spend month before, Weston describes it as “kind of magical.” Specifically:

“Not only do we save money, but we get creative finding no-spend workarounds when unexpected situations pop up.

“We get clearer what’s a necessity and what isn’t, which can really help us get a grip on our spending going forward.

“We appreciate that having any discretionary spending is a blessing. For many, every month is a no-spend month because they don’t have any extra money beyond what it takes to survive (and sometimes not even that).” 

Sound good?

 

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Adventures in the clearance section.

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Yesterday I was the most reluctant of errand-runners. I’d slept poorly the night before. I’d gotten a late start on the day. I’d needed to deal with a retirement planning thingy that required visits to two different financial institutions.

At that point all I wanted was to go home. But the bag of emptied printer cartridges was rattling on the floor. For ages I’d been meaning to drop them off for recycling.

Grumpily, I forced myself to drive to Office Max. Once I’d handed over the cartridges at the front desk I was ready to bolt for home.

However, I have an ironclad policy: Always check the clearance section.

I headed for the rear of the place. And boy, did I score.

 

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Charity overload.

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I’m drowning in end-of-the-year charity solicitations. Social causes, political action groups, health-care organizations, educational advocacy agencies…Some I’ve never heard of, some I’ve helped in the past. All of them worthy.

Thanks to texting, social media and e-mail lists, marketing departments have more ways than ever to reach out to us. “They know that we have a tendency toward (giving) at this time of year, and they really double down on it,” says behavioral finance expert Dr. Ted Klontz, co-author of books like Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health.

You’re aware that need exists, and would like to help. But giving without a plan could potentially turn you into a charity case.

“If you harm yourself financially, you’re creating the same kind of problems you’re trying to solve,” says Manisha Thakor, vice president of financial education for Brighton Jones and author of On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance.

I talked with Manisha and several other money experts for an article on a new website, Considerable.com. All of them told me pretty much the same thing:

 

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The dollar-an-hour rule.

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One of my blogging buddies, J. Money, recently published a post that bounced off a comment from yet another post.

(Blogging: Sometimes it’s a Ponzi scheme.)

That comment was from a guy who believes that entertainment should never cost more than a dollar an hour.

For example, a video game that costs $70 (!) needs to be played for at least 70 hours. A $60-a-month cable bill should mean your household watches a total of 60 hours of TV per month. And so on.

In “The ‘buck an hour’ rule,” J. Money noted that $1 was “a bit arbitrary and perhaps simplistic.” Just for fun, he took at look at some of his own ongoing expenses (only some of which were actual entertainment).

“It wasn’t pretty,” he admitted cheerfully.

Netflix yes, local newspaper no. Cellphone good, coffee not so much. Gasoline nope, currency collection nyet, historical society donation nein.

You never know when some “random thought” could affect a habit, J. Money concluded. So I decided to examine some of my own entertainment costs.

 

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Frugal Phoenix fashion.

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Before I begin, let me pat my own back for successfully resisting the headline “Phrugal Phoenix Phashion.” You’re welcome.

The thrift stores down here are much better than the ones in Anchorage. No surprises there, since more than a million people live in the Phoenix metro area. This means a lot of donations.

Specifically, a lot of donations of warm-weather clothing, the kind that doesn’t exactly crowd the racks in Anchorage thrift stores.

Since I’m due to attend (and speak at) the in Orlando, one of my goals was to find a couple of new shirts and maybe a pair of pants. My daughter and I spent some pleasant times treasure-seeking in Savers (called Value Village in Anchorage) and Goodwill.

I scored four shirts and a pair of cotton-linen slacks for less than $22. Abby found a bunch of tops for even less – and in the process triggered her thrift-store FOMO. That’s one of the down sides of thrifting. Fortunately my trying-on tolerance is fairly low, so I tended to find a couple of things and then just wait with the cart while she test-drove shirt after shirt.

The best part about Savers: the 50-percent-off sale that takes place every Monday. This allowed me to get good prices on clothes and also a hat to keep the punishing summer sun off the top of my head.

 

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Free stuff at the garage sale.

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Once while shopping at a garage sale I was given a box of canning jar lids and bands for free. I was perfectly willing to pay the $1 price, but the proprietor said “Oh, you can have it” – probably because I was buying a bunch of other stuff.

At another garage sale, my daughter and I showed up just as the hosts were So Done with the event. Everything left was free, they said. And not just some limp paperbacks and yellowed doilies, either: We’re talking a bed frame, kitchenware, sports equipment, a kitchen table, linens and more.

The easiest way to get free stuff, though, is the most obvious way: Look in the free box.

 

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Five fast financial fixes.

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This post is a second-generation copycat post. Specifically: My daughter wrote “5 fast, easy ways to improve your finances” after being inspired by a post from the Bitches Get Riches website (whose title is not ready for prime time, but definitely worth a read if you’re not averse to salty language).

Hey, if it worked for their readers, it should work for mine.

 

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Living “poor” and loving it.

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Happy Throwback Thursday! This is the original version of my second article for MSN Money. Given the popularity of the reboot of my first-ever MSN piece – the one about surviving and thriving on $12,000 a year – I’ve decided to post its successor.

Some of its sentiments about the Us-vs.-Them mentality are still relevant. (Unfortunately.)

Incidentally: I didn’t write the headlines; they were thrust upon me. My own suggestion was “How to be poor,” but the editor liked his version better. I’m leaving in the original because I’m masochistic like that.

 

I don’t consider myself deprived, although I can see why some people might think so. I don’t own a laptop computer, television, DVD player, stereo, iPod, video-game system or  many of the other things marketed as necessities.

But I have food, shelter, family, friends, a radio, a bus pass, a library card and the chance to attend a respected university. How could I consider myself “poor” when so many people have nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep and no chance to improve their situations?

Yet there is another reason I hesitate to call myself poor: the cultural baggage associated with the word. Poor people are lazy, stupid, immoral, shameless and incapable of making smart decisions. Poor people are losers; our country loves winners. We want poor people to trade their rags for riches. We want them to embody the American dream.

 

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Cheryl paid off her mortgage.

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When I visited my dad in Tarpon Springs, Fla., last year, he and I met up with a reader named Cheryl. The three of us sat in a Dunkin Donuts talking about life and money. One of the things she mentioned was a rapid mortgage paydown.

Recently she wrote to say she is now completely debt-free, 14 years ahead of schedule.

Cheryl also included a letter she wrote to her niece, a mid-20s newlywed who’s trying to vanquish student loans. While I’m loath to throw around the word “inspirational,” this note fits the bill. That’s why I’m excerpting it:

 

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Picking up money: My 2017 gleanings.

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Another year of picking up money: change amassed from sidewalks, parking lots and the return bins of those Coinstar machines. This year it added up to $8.80.

It’s not as much as I’d hoped for, but a lot more than I’d feared. Sometimes a couple of weeks would pass between finds, and I’d wonder if I’d even manage to get $5 in 2017.

Regular readers know the drill: All year long I glean specie (and occasionally folding green) wherever I find it, and drop the cash into a vase my daughter gave as a gift when she was little. After a dozen months I count it, round it up and send a donation to the Food Bank of Alaska.

Denomination-wise, here’s how it broke down:

  • 17 quarters
  • 31 dimes
  • 10 nickels
  • 95 pennies

This time around, the food bank gets $20.

 

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