spending

Amazon Prime Day: Black Friday in July?

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Have you taken advantage of Amazon Prime Day, or are you ignoring it completely?

If you were interested in buying a Kindle, an Echo speaker, a Fire Tablet or TV stick, a Blink security camera or any other tech that Amazon makes, this could be a good time to do it.

(You have until 2:59 a.m. Tuesday, July 16, to make up your mind.)

According to Cnet.com, some prices hit rock bottom during the sales promotion. That Fire TV stick was just $15, and the Echo Show 5 was priced at $50. In addition, while the Amazon Echo dropped down to $22 (from as high as $50), you could get an Echo for free if you bundled it with stuff like Ring Video Doorbell Pro or the AmazonBasics microwave.

Non-Alexa household, here. In fact, I have to admit that I spaced the date until Amazon Prime Day was more than half over. And I’m okay with that, because I agree with Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst with Bankrate.com: Any spike in sales is good news for Amazon shareholders, “but not necessarily for consumers as a whole.”

The hype surrounding Amazon Prime Day is not unlike that of Black Friday (or Gray Thursday, or Cyber Monday). We’re being set up for a major, collective case of FOMO (fear of missing out). What if we miss the best deals ever? What if everyone else gets the cool gear and we don’t?

Yeah, and what if the prices aren’t as good as they look?

 

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How many credit cards should you have?

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This is not a fun topic to tackle, since so many people hate credit and the credit scoring system. But in a recent post on The Simple Dollar, “You need at least two credit cards: Here’s why,” I take on the issue of how many credit cards you should have, and also our love/hate relationship with plastic.

You need at least two forms of payment in case of fraud, robbery or card loss. And no, debit card use is not a good substitute; it puts your personal cash at risk and does not help you build a credit score.

Who cares, you ask? Isn’t cash king? Ideally, maybe: We would all buy only what we could afford and pay cash on the barrelhead instead of running up debts.

But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, life is never pure and rarely simple. Less-than-ideal things happen all the time.

The post explains what might happen when you lose a card or it gets hacked and you have no other form of payment, and also what could happen to those who use debit only.

It also points out the benefits of rewards credit cards, one of my enduring frugal hacks. Every time I cash in points for a birthday gift (which I recently did), a home improvement project or some kind of entertainment, it reminds me how much I like being rewarded for buying something I was going to buy anyway.

 

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No-spend February: What have we learned?

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Really, really enjoyed the no-spend February. The month showed me that sometimes even super-frugal types are susceptible to advertising. It reminded me to keep an eye on impulse purchases. And on the bright side, it spotlighted how ingrained my careful spending habits tend to be.

I also loved the sense of community, of seeing readers encourage one another and suggest tactics to help stay on target. This has long been a sharing group; the no-spend month merely confirmed that.

It was great fun to read about everyone else’s frugal hackery, including but not limited to:

Slowing down (staycations, letting bad weather keep us indoors, craft activities, taking the time to watch TV or read free Kindle books)

Substituting (adding chopped apples to the oatmeal because the raisins are all gone; substituting not-quite-right yogurt for the sour milk in a recipe; trading a discount movie for a friend’s DVR queue)

Stretching (adding some water to full-fat milk; turning doggy bags into additional meals)

Setting things to rights (repairing a vacuum cleaner with help from a YouTube video

Sunk-cost strategies (fixing meals based the cupboard and freezer; using on-hand items to make snacks rather than buy them; bringing coffee from home vs. hitting Starbucks)

A lot of good money habits begin with the letter S.

And now that the month is over, we can all spend again! But will we?

 

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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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Christmas creep.

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It begins. For the past couple of weeks, at least, I’ve seen lights and ornaments, singing holiday trees, and even a life-sized Santa Claus at a Home Depot entrance.

Yeah, it was kind of cute that he wore an orange HD apron over his red suit, and that the words “St. Nick” were written on the “Hi, I’m…” tag. But for heaven’s sake, it’s not even Halloween yet. What’s with the Christmas creep?

Rhetorical question. The “rush” is that retailers need to make a certain amount of money or they become ex-retailers.

An excellent way to do that is to get people thinking ahead to the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Specifically, to get people thinking about this way ahead of time.

I admit it: Although I’m mostly horrified by the specter of Christmas creep, part of me does derive a certain frisson from those blinky lights on the periphery of the store. Does that mean that dark marketing forces have trained me to think that way? Good grief, I hope not. I much prefer to think it’s because Christmas was quite wonderful when I was a kid.

 

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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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Where I’ve been.

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To quote a recent headline from my daughter’s website:

Blah.

As in, “I haven’t written much lately and I apologize. But things have been so busy that when I finally stop for the day my mind is, well, pretty blah.”

Can’t focus on brilliant new blog post ideas. Heck, I can barely focus on anything except putting out freelance fires and after that, hanging out with DF for a little while and going to bed.

Maybe it’s the long spell of gray, gray days. Maybe it’s age-related fatigue; where I once could write from morning until the midnight hour, now I just want to get away from the screen after a few hours. Whatever the reason, I just haven’t felt creative enough to write anything.

Yet I hate to have 10 days go by with nothing new up on the site. I miss you guys when I don’t post!

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How we use credit: A new federal report.

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A recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau contained a couple of concerns and a big surprise. For me, anyway.

“The consumer credit card market” states that both the total amount of credit line and the average amount of card debt have gone up over the past few years. No surprise there, given our national preoccupation with spending.

Here’s what got my attention: More people are signing up for secured credit cards, which require cash deposits. The number of secured cards provided by mass market issuers was 7 percent higher in 2016 than in 2015.

Until fairly recently most financial institutions haven’t put a whole lot of oomph into marketing secured cards. That’s changing, the federal agency notes, as consumer groups and the media suggest these cards as a good way to build credit scores.

What’s in it for the banks? Loyalty.

 

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Customer service: How to get the answer you want.

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My daughter, who has a chronic illness, often deals with bureaucracies. Once she told me something very wise: If you don’t get the answer you want, ask it again – just in a different way.

This is an excellent tactic for all sorts of customer service issues. Here’s how it shook down for me earlier this week.

Some time ago DF and I bought a set of flannel sheets on clearance. DF thinks it was early spring, because he seems to recall that snow was still on the ground. Since our current linens weren’t yet completely raddled, we put the new set on a closet shelf.

Fast-forward to seven or eight (or more) months. Time to use the new sheets! But when DF opened the package, planning to hang them on the clothesline to air, he noticed one edge of the top sheet was ragged. Not just badly sewn, but torn and scraggly.

And of course we didn’t have the receipt. Taping it to the package would have been intelligent.

 

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