Show of hands.  How many of you actively participate in recycling endeavors in your community?  You schlep around your empty cans, jugs, and bottles.  You pile them up with your used papers, then sort them all into bins so some poor schmoe down at the recycling center doesn’t have to.  All so your city can save a few dimes on an already expensive endeavor.

Let’s think about this honestly for a minute.  Because, I think we’ve got our terms confused.  What, exactly, is recycling?  It’s the taking of something that’s already been used, and putting it back through the manufacturing cycle so that the material can be used again.  That extra cycle is where the term recycling comes from!  But, what is the cost of that extra cycle.  Let’s break it down a bit.  We’ll ignore the first cycle, since it’s going to get used for the first cycle regardless.

Let’s consider a plastic bottle.  It’s been created, and used.  It’s empty, so has no further use in it’s first cycle.  You collect it with similar bottles, then submit it to the local recycling center.  We’ll discount the energy that you use in collecting the bottle, as it really isn’t that much more work than you would use in throwing the bottle away.  But, what about the energy that will be used in picking up or dropping off the bottle.  You’ve got to either have someone pick up the bottle, or you have to drop it off at the recycling center.  Once the bottle has been taken to the recycling center, it then has to be shipped to a factory where it can be broken down in a way that makes it recyclable.  More energy wasted in transportation.  Once it’s there, at the factory, it then has to be broken down.  Depending on the process, that could involve melting the plastic under heat.  It could mean squishing, cutting, and making the plastic into threads.  Even more energy wasted.  Once it’s been broken down, the resulting product must be taken to yet another factory that can then turn it into the “recycled” product.

By the time it’s recycled, it’s been through a manufacturing process three times.  Does the extra cost in energy, pollutants, and work make it worth our while?  I’m not sure that it does.  Want to take a deeper look at some of this?  Take a look at this video.  Now, arguably, the show is called “Bullshit”, and anyone who uses that as the name of their show (or as a title for an article) is out to be a bit sensationalist.  And, certainly, I don’t know that Penn and Teller count as experts.  But, I do think they make some interesting points.  There’s three parts to it, so it’s a bit long, but worth watching, I think. When you’re done, we’ll continue on below. P.S. as you can imagine, a show whose title is “Bullshit” has some NSFW language in it.

I admit, I like sensationalism. And, I’ll make another admission. I’m not entirely against recycling. But, I tend to think that the first two parts of the motto “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” are far more useful and important than the recycling. By reducing the amount of energy and products that we use, less needs to be made. By reusing the things that we can, we reduce the amount of products that will need to be recycled or thrown into a landfill.  Instead of expecting someone else to ease my conscious, and take away my trash to be converted into something usable, I’d rather reduce the amount of trash I make.  Less paper plates.  Less non-reusable water bottles.  Less stuff.

The one thing that I collect to send off to recycling is soda cans.  Mostly, because I can drop them off at the local Humane Society where they take them to a scrap metal yard and sell them for cash.  It’s an extra way to give to one of my favorite charities.  Here’s some more sensationalism for you.  The Humane Society is, essentially, a pet recycling center.  People take their unwanted and used pets there, so that they can be washed, fed, given their shots, and sent back out to a new family.

I’ve gone on about recycling long enough.  Now, it’s your turn.  Scroll down a few inches on the screen and leave a comment.  Do you agree that recycling might be bullshit?  Do you recycle religiously?  What steps do you take to reduce, reuse, and recycle?  Heck, you can let me have it in the comments too, if you like.  One small caveat in doing so, is that any excessive NSFW language will likely get edited out.

Saving money isn’t the only thing out there if you want to become wealthy.  All it does is reduce the amount of money you spend.  You’ve still go to find ways to make more money through a better paying job, passive income, or a second job.  But, it’s still an important part of a well-rounded wealth plan.  One of the more popular, green, methods of saving a few dollars is to turn off your appliances.  Turning them off isn’t the end of it though.  Many of them still pull a small amount of energy from the electrical system even when they are, technically, off.  While it isn’t a whole bunch, it still can amount to enough to keep you from realizing your full savings.  In the UK, they have electrical sockets that have switches built into them that turns the socket completely off, and cuts it’s supply of electricity.  Unfortunately, here in the US, we don’t have such a thing.  But, we can buy power strips and adapters that have timers and switches to cut the supply to the sockets.

Power Strips

Power strips come in many different shapes and sizes, and almost all of them have a switch of some sort on them to cut the power.  Buying one isn’t a huge problem.  Your local Walmart likely has several to choose from.  Consider the things you’ll be plugging into the strip, however, when shopping for one.  If you’ll be plugging in sensitive electrical equipment, like computers, DVD players, laptops, and printers, you’ll want to have one with a surge suppressor, at the least.  You might even consider getting one with a battery backup system so that the equipment stays on when there’s a power outage.  If you want to get really fancy, take a look at this strip from Belkin.  It’s the Conserve Smart power strip.  It’s got a socket that can detect when the item plugged into it is turned on or not and shut off several of it’s other sockets based on that info.

Power Adapters

Adapters also come in several shapes and sizes.  If you want to get a close look at what you are using in electricity, you can use an adapter that will monitor usage and has a readout of the total usage. Something like this Kill-A-Watt energy usage monitor would do the trick.  A more simple, and elegant, solution is the Belkin Conserve Energy Switch.  It’s a simple adapter that goes between the socket in the wall and the device you’re plugging in.  It’s got a toggle switch built right in allowing you to simply flip the switch and cut the power to the device.  It should work great for devices like coffee makers, shredders, and anything else that doesn’t require multiple sockets or anything fancy.

Pull the Plug

Yes, there is an even simpler solution.  Simply pull the plug from the outlet.  No fancy adapters or power strips needed.

With any of these solutions, there’s a small amount of learning curve in play.  You’ve got to learn to remember to flip the switch or unplug the stuff when you’re not using it.  You’ve also got to learn to remember to flip the switch back on or plug the stuff back in when you do want to use it.  Not the biggest thing, and as you do it more and more, you’ll get used to it.  One small note, that I don’t think I really need to say, but I will anyways, is that this isn’t meant to be the be-all, end-all of conserving energy methods.  Making sure you’re using the most energy efficient appliances in the first place, for instance, is likely to save you a lot more on your energy costs than unplugging appliances.  Switching out your incandescent light bulbs for more energy efficient alternatives is also more likely to save you more money.  But, if you’re looking to squeeze a few more cents from your watts (terrible electricity pun, I know.), you’ll do everything you can to save some money, including unplugging or cutting the power to your appliances with a switch like those mentioned above.

Share with everyone!  What are your energy conservation tricks?  Do you turn the heat off all winter and wrap yourselves in wool blankets?  Do you turn off the fridge in the winter and simply store your goods outdoors in the snow?  Tell us!

Everybody knows it’s great to go green, but have you ever considered why? Here’s some advice for homeowners on how greening their homes can lead to a higher quality of life.

1. Homeowners with greener homes pay less for water and electricity each month. If you’re one of the green-savvy homeowners who have installed solar panels or a solar water heater, you are at a great advantage. Although these systems are usually used to complement traditional means of providing electricity and heating water, some lucky homeowners have discovered that they can produce enough green energy to go entirely off the grid. Not to mention that maximizing natural light can lead to lower consumption of electricity, as well.

2. Green homes last longer and sell higher. For those homeowners who are fortunate enough to be able to build their dream green home or participate in the construction of a home already in progress, green additions can be well worth the investment. Not only do these homes produce less waste during the construction process, but their green features — such as reclaimed bamboo floors and solar panels — last longer, giving them a higher resale price if you ever decide you want to move. And who knows how much more in-demand green homes will become as fuel prices continue to rise?

3. Green homes are healthier for you. When going green, it is important to think of the little things, as well. Using non-vinyl window blinds can help reduce the amount of lead particles in the air around your home, as well as using chemical-free paints. These chemicals, when ingested over a long period of time, can lead to health complications that you may not even be aware of. So greening your home is also a way to live a longer, healthier life.

4. Green homes require less maintenance. Whilst you’re spending time around the house this year treating your deck and polishing your floors, consider this: design materials made from recycled product often require little to no effort to maintain and last longer. This means that you can actually save both time and money by incorporating things like environmentally friendly flooring in your home’s decor.

5. They help maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the environment. This may seem like a no-brainer, but green homes do a lot more for the environment than just reduce waste. Home builders who know how to work with the environment in the process of designing their homes can actually use things like the angle of the sunlight to eliminate the need for artificial lighting. They can also take advantage of wooded areas on the land for climate control inside the home instead of destroying the trees.

photo credit: Pylon757

One of the most common things we hear in the computer repair shop that I work part-time in is that the computer has crashed, and could we please make sure to get the data off of the hard drive before we reinstall windows.  And, the first question we always ask is, “do you have your data backed up?”  I probably don’t have to tell you what the common answer is to that question.

Many computer users assume that backing up their data is expensive.  We see advertisements for services that cost $40-$50 a month, and for external hard drive solutions that are several hundred dollars.  But, keeping your data safe, doesn’t have to be expensive.  In fact, I’ve got all my important data backed up, and I spend less than $50 a year.  It’s not because I have some inside information, or get favors from tech companies.  You can do it too.  And, if you value your data at all, you should.

This is the set-up I currently use.

Picture Backup

Pictures are one of the top two things that people are concerned about losing when they bring their computers in.  Unfortunately, pictures are also the largest files that you’ll likely have to backup and store.  If you take a lot, you can have Gigabytes of pictures that will need to be backed up. In my set-up, I pay for a full membership to photo sharing site, Flickr.  It’s about $26 a year, and allows for unlimited uploading to the site.  The pictures are then stored on Flickr’s server, and I can get to them whenever I want.  I should note that this isn’t the most elegant solution, as I would have to download the images one-by-one if I wanted to restore them to my local PC.  I’ll go over some more efficient services at the end, but you’ll likely have to spend more money to use them.

Data Backup

For any files that are important, besides pictures, I use a service called Dropbox.  Their basic plan is free, but limits you to 2GB of data storage.  Because I backup my photos elsewhere, I’m able to store everything else that is important with them, and keep the free account.  After several years of using it, I am getting close to the 2GB max, so I may have to upgrade to the next plan up soon.  The first paid plan allows for 50GB, and is only $9.99 a month, so I don’t think I’d ever have to go above that plan.  I should also note, here, that if you have a very large music collection on your computer that you’d like to backup, you’ll likely have to look at a paid plan.

Other options for data backup

There are several other options that you could use for data backup.  The aforementioned external hard drives can be super easy to use.  One drawback to using one, however, is that the data is still physically located in the same place as the PC you’re backing up.  That’s fine if you only need to restore because of PC failure, but can be a disaster if you have to restore due to something like a fire or flood.  Ideally, external hard drives that are used for PC backup should be placed in an off-site location, but since that’s a bit cumbersome and likely to keep you from actually backing up your data, they should be at least placed in a fire-proof safe when not in use.

Another, more ideal way to back you data up, is through a service like Dropbox.  There are a few others that are specifically designed and marketed as data backup services.  Carbonite is probably the most well-known of them, but there is also ElephantDrive, and Mozy that do the same job.  Carbonite comes in at $59 a year, while ElephantDrive and Mozy come in at $9.99 and $5.99 a month, respectively.

Not backing up your data can be an expensive mistake to make.  Not only can it cost you a lot of money ($100 or more) to get your computer fixed, but you could lose all of your valuable data.  Save yourself the money of having it recovered, and save yourself from losing years of photos and information; get a data backup plan.

Do you backup your data?  What do you use for your data backup plan?

photo credit: Sim75 (Simon Lane Photography)

We got a lot of snow last winter.  We get a lot of snow every winter, in fact.  But, last year was exceptional.  If I remember correctly, we had over 80 inches of total snowfall.  Most of it blows around and drifts, so it isn’t all piled up, but, it was still a lot of snow.  And, a lot of snow is heavy.  The deck on our house was built before we bought the house, so it was probably 10 years old, or older.  Late one evening, just before spring, we heard a loud cracking noise come from outside.  I went outside to see if I could find the where the sound came from, hoping it wasn’t a big tree branch (or a whole tree for that matter), to find that part of the deck had sunk about 3 inches below where it was before.  It doesn’t take a construction genius to figure out that that is a bad thing.

With snow on the deck, it was hard to diagnose exactly what the issue was, so we waited until spring had come and the thaw had gone.  I pulled the first board off of the deck, and found that the sill plate (the board that attaches to the house and supported an entire side of the deck) had given way.  The weight of the snow, combined with the age of the deck and mother nature’s toll on the materials had caused it to break apart in several places.  It wasn’t really safe to use anymore, so we decided to replace the board and all of the decking, leaving the support posts and railing.  We were hoping that by leaving the support posts and railing, we’d save some money on the project.  And, that would have likely been true.  After I had removed all the decking, here’s what we were left with.

With it torn down to this degree, we were ready to do a little clean up, and start on replacing the decking. So, I got my hammer, and started pulling nails out of the posts and railing. One of the first nails I attempted to pull was a stubborn one. Instead of coming out of the wood, the entire post it was in came up off the ground by about 5 inches. Oh, boy. I went around and tested a few of the other posts, and sure enough, almost all of them were rotted through at the ground level. My affordable deck repair had suddenly become a not-as-affordable deck replacement.

When it was just a deck repair, we had planned on spending about $700 on materials to fix the deck.  When it was all said and done, we spent over $1200 to replace the deck.  Now, had we had a contractor come and do the work, it would have easily cost us twice that, so I won’t complain too much about the cost.  But, when you’re expecting one price, and then end up spending twice that price, it’s a bit of a shock to the system.  At the time, we had the money, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Shortly after we started the deck project, we decided to sell the house, so it was going to be a big bonus for selling the house.  Instead of the old rickety deck, we’d have a nice new deck as a selling point. (P.S. attempting to build a new deck while also trying to prepare your house for sale is not the best idea.  Just saying. ) Then, I quit my job.  And we took the house off the market.  So, we get to use the deck ourselves.  Of course, we could use the money we spent on the deck, now, but there’s nothing we can do about that.

I didn’t keep track of exactly how long it took, but overall, I think it came in at about 4 weeks of nearly every night after work and weekend work to get it finished.  When it was all said and done, this is what we ended up with.

Note: I realized when planning this post that I hadn’t taken a picture of the finished deck, so I took one, last week.

I think it turned out really well. It’s way more solid feeling than the old deck, and since we redid the whole thing, we got to stain it, rather than paint it that “fun” redwood color that the old deck was. One of the key takeaways here is that while DIY can often save you money, the projects that you take on can sometimes be more way more than you intended to do. Had we hired a professional to do the work, it would have likely cost us way more. Replacing the decking is a pretty easy task that most DIY’ers should be able to tackle, but building an entire deck is a bit more complicated. Several times, I found myself scratching my head, trying to figure out what step I needed to do next. And, I’ve built a deck before! Someone with less experience and know-how might have easily found themselves in a pickle and had to hire a contractor to come in and finish up. It could easily turn into a DIY disaster that costs way more than anticipated. And, if you’ve only got so much budget to go around, like most of us do, even a little bit more can put a crunch on your finances.

Be sure you do as much analysis as you can on the project, and budget for unforeseen issues, before you tackle any major DIY project.  Also, it’s better to have it done right, than have it done cheaply, so if you get in over your head, find a professional to help you.  Many will gladly charge a consulting fee to come and tell you what you need to do next.  Find one that will, or hire one to finish the job so that it’s done right.

What have your DIY disasters been?  Massive budget overages?  Stuff you built fall apart?  Share with us!

This post on behalf of Emortgage Calculator

One of the more important parts of buying a house, is not over spending on the house that you plan on buying.  Despite all the headlines during the recent real estate boom and crash, people are still trying to buy much more house than they can reasonably afford.  When they do that, any little setback can be a disaster to their housing situation.  Think about it; if you’re already stretching to pay the mortgage, and you lose your job or have some other major expense, will you still be able to pay the mortgage next month?  Probably not.   And that’s where the trouble begins.

Many will say that you shouldn’t buy a house where the mortgage payment accounts for more than 40% of your income.  Some will include the escrow and utilities into that equation, some do not.  Being the frugal fellow that I am, I suggest you shoot for a far smaller number than that.  If you want to truly be able to afford your house, the mortgage payment, including escrow (but not utilities), shouldn’t exceed 25% of your income.  If you really think about it, do you really want to pay any more than one quarter of your income on just your house?  How will you afford anything else, let alone pay down debt?

There are several ways that you can estimate how much house you can buy.  Your lender will tell you how much you can buy and still qualify for the loan, but that’s a terrible way to go about it.  They are only interested in completing the loan, not whether you can pay for it for 30 years.  Many of the real estate websites will have a loan calculator on their sites as well, which can give you a pretty close estimate.  If you’re in the UK, the Emortgage Calculator can help you estimate those costs.  Most calculators will ask you a few simple questions.  How much is the house worth (value), how much will you borrow (loan total), how long will you borrow it (Term), and at what interest rate (Rate).  Using those numbers, the calculator will amortize the loan, and return the estimated monthly payment on the mortgage.  Use that number, plus an estimated escrow amount (roughly 20-25% of the payment amount makes it a safe estimate), and you’ve got a number that you can use to determine if the house is too much house for you.  Then, you can continue on with shopping for a house.

A few other notes.  Yes, an “interest only” loan gives you a much smaller payment amount and may seem like a good way to get into a house that you otherwise couldn’t afford.  But, you’re only paying interest for that period.  When the interest only period ends, so does your affordable payment amount.  Then, you’re stuck with a much larger payment, and all of the principle of the loan.  Same goes for an “ARM”, or “Adjustable Rate Mortgage”.  The payment is nice and low before the first adjustment period, but when that adjustment happens, the payment can go up by a good amount.  Avoid both and stick with the conventional 15 or 30 year mortgages.  You’ll be glad you did.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

In my opinion, buying a house is a lot more complicated than it really should be.  Making an offer on a house plays it’s part in that complication.  You’d think that making an offer on a house you want to buy would be as simple as telling the owner that you offer $xxx,xxx amount and they either accept or reject that offer.  But, if it were that simple, I wouldn’t feel the need to write this article, now, would I?

Depending on your situation, the offer you make can take on many forms.  When we finally found the house we wanted to buy, and decided that we were going to make an offer, we found that there are a few questions that we had to ask ourselves.

How much will you offer?

How much you offer on the house depends alot on your local market.  In some places, the market is pretty depressed, so making an offer that is way below the asking price is pretty common.  In other places, like here in North Dakota, the market has been pretty stable, so offering way below the price could be construed as an insult to the owner.  The house we wanted was originally listed at $138,000 when we first looked at it.  It had been on the market since June, and a week later, when we went to look at it a second time, the owners had just dropped the price down to $130,000.  We knew that we could probably afford the $130,000, but didn’t want to jump at the asking price.  We did that with our first house, and regretted it.  After discussing it with our real estate agent, we decided that offering $125,000 was well within our range, and wouldn’t be so low that it would insult the sellers.

Contingencies to the offer (Only ifs)

One thing that you likely won’t think about, is the contingencies on the offer.  One of these was pretty simple for us.  We already owned a house, and would need to sell that house before we could afford a new one.  So, one of our contingencies was that our house had to sell before we could close on the new one.  If you’re going to have a home inspector inspect the house (I recommend you do), your offer should be contingent on the house passing the home inspection.  There might be appliances that aren’t explicitly stated as remaining with the house.  If you’d like those appliances, you can make the offer contingent on them remaining after the sellers have moved out.  There might be repairs that you think should be done before you move in.  You can make the offer contingent on those being completed.  Think of the contingencies as negotiation factors.  You’re saying “We’ll pay you this much for the house, only if you do this.”

Counter Offers

Once you’ve made the offer, the real estate agent will take it to the sellers of the house for them to approve, reject, or counter.  If the seller makes a counter offer, they may accept all the contingencies, but ask for a higher price.  Or, maybe they’ll accept the price, but want some of the contingencies removed.  It’s all part of the negotiation.

Accepting the Offer/Counter Offer

If the seller accepts the offer the first time, then it’s on to the rest.  If they counter, you’ll have to accept, reject, or counter offer their counter offer.  Again, it’s part of negotiation, so be sure you understand what it is that has changed and what it is that you’re asking for.  At this point, you’ll likely have a bit more paperwork to sign.

What’s next? (After the offer is accepted)

After an sales agreement has been agreed upon, several things will happen.  You’ll want to start the work necessary to secure your loan.  The sellers will start doing any repairs or other changes that you requested in the contingencies.  If you chose to have a home inspection, you’ll want to get a list of home inspectors in your area and contact one as soon as possible to get the inspection scheduled.  All of these things will have a time frame that they will have to be completed within.  In our case, we wanted to have a home inspection done.  We had 5 business days after the offer was accepted to schedule and have the home inspection done.  Once the home inspection was done, we then had 3 additional business days to decide if there were any repairs that would need to be done to the house in order for it to have passed the home inspection.  If there are repairs, you’ll have to request the fixes through your real estate agent who will deliver them to the seller.  The seller can then decide whether they want to make those fixes, or not.  If they choose to not do the repairs, and you don’t want to go through with the purchase, that effectively kills the deal.  If you still want to go through with the purchase, you might be able to have the sellers put the funds for the repair into a repair escrow account for your use later in making the repairs.  If the seller doesn’t want to make the repairs, and doesn’t want to pay for them either, you have the choice of killing the deal, or removing the home inspection contingency on the offer.

Once all the repairs are made (or negotiated out), and all the other contingencies are made, you’ll move onto the financing and closing portions of your home purchase.  Be prepared.  The closing process is drawn out by regulation and can sometimes take up to 90 days or longer.

photo credit: Neil Armstrong2

When we decided that it was time for a new house, (read this post for the reasoning) we knew that we had to be smarter about it than we had been when we bought our first house.  We weren’t going to just jump into it and make a rash decision that might cost us down the road.  What we discovered when we started really talking about it was that we had a slightly different idea of what we wanted in a new house.

One of the biggest reasons that my wife wants a new house was because she feels (rightly) that our current house is too small for our growing family.  Between the two kids and the big dog, we just don’t have room for all the stuff.  Yes, stuff is just that.  Stuff.  It can be gotten rid of, but it seems to just re-accumulate.  There are certain luxuries that we allow ourselves, that some people would just call stuff.  Will it cost us money to keep those luxuries?  You bet.  Are we willing to pay that price?  You bet.  While I’m sure there are some who can live on $7,000 a year, and do so enjoyably, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not one of them.  Call it what you will, but I like my stuff.

But, I also like my space.  So, for me, one of the biggest things I want in a new house is a sizable yard.  It doesn’t have to be huge, but a small postage stamp yard isn’t going to cut it.  We’ve got a dog, and he needs room to run, too!  Yes, there are parks in town.  Yes, we could go to them and run and play there.  But, it’s easier to just do that in my own back yard.  I imagine that part of that is from my experiences growing up where we always had some land to play on.

We’ve got other requirements, as well.  The kitchen has to be comfortably large.  It doesn’t need to be one of those huge kitchens you see on the home remodeling shows, but it needs to be large enough that two people can pass each other without one of them having to practically stand on the stove to do so.  It was a mistake we made in buying the house we have now that the kitchen was just too small and makes any combined activities pretty much a n0-go.   Also, as our family grows, we’d like to have more than one bathroom.  It wasn’t so bad when both kids were in diapers and could go wherever they were, but now that they’re both out of diapers, it makes it very difficult to get everybody ready and out the door in the mornings.  Impossible?  No.  But damned difficult.

So, with a few requirements in mind, we set about shopping for a new house.  Luckily, most of the realtors in the area are pretty good about taking enough pictures to really help you get a good idea of what the house looks like before you go and see it, and we’ve been able to weed some of the less than desirable ones out before we wasted our time to see them.

We quickly weeded through the available houses, and came up with only two that were even close.  The one was a bit older house, but had the land.  It’s failing was that, despite being bigger than the house we are in, it was configured all strangely, and all the extra room was in all the wrong places.  The second house is on the edge of town.  This was a bit worrisome to my wife because the town isn’t known for it’s excellence in snow removal, and there’s a chance that, being on the edge of town, it might get even less attention than the rest of town gets.  It does have a large yard (2+ acres), and has plenty of room inside.  We found ourselves slightly excited by our first visit.  Enough so, that we went for a second visit.  And then made an offer.

The owners countered our offer, and we took their counter, so now, we’re in the process of getting all the ducks in a row and buying a house.  We will need to sell the house we are currently in, to use the funds from the sale for a larger down payment.  God willing, we might be able to close on the house and be moved in before Christmas.

photo credit: lumaxart

This is not representative of the house we are buying or selling. Wouldn't that be nice though?

Way back when, before we were even married, we decided that we wanted to buy a house.  The idea, at the time was that it was terribly difficult to find a house/apartment to rent that would take a dog and that was affordable.  We’d been looking, but everything we had found was $600 or more a month.  To me, it seemed smarter to buy a house where the mortgage would be $400 or so, and build some equity, at least.  I was partially right, I suppose.  Where I had gotten it wrong was in the fact that we weren’t really ready, financially, to buy a house. We had no savings for a down payment, no idea of the costs involved in buying a home, nor any idea of the process itself.  We were young, in love, and ready to get on with our lives together.

At first, my then girlfriend (now wife), wasn’t on board.  She thought, rightly, that it was a big step and, not as rightly, that it was not a good idea for us to buy a house before we were even married.  I tried and tried to convince her that it was indeed a good idea, and that we needed to do it.  One day, while we were driving around town, looking at rentals, she happened to be talking to her mother on the phone and mentioned the idea of us buying a house.  While I couldn’t hear my future mother-in-law on the other end, I’m told she said something along the lines of “Why not?”.  Turns out, she thought it was a splendid idea.  (I should pause here to mention that it’s not the last time me and my mother-in-law have agreed on something where my wife disagreed with us.  It annoys my wife to no end.)

So, we left the rental we had been looking at with a copy of all the current listings in our area, and went home to peruse.  Over the next few days, our youth and inexperience showed through with what, in hindsight, is an extreme brightness.  We drove by 4 of the listings that I remember.  Of the 4, we looked at 2.  Only 1 of them had a yard that was large enough for the dog, and we bought it.  I can’t really say it was a mistake, but it wasn’t our smartest moment either.  Turns out the kitchen was small.  So was the bathroom.  The number of outlets in the entire house can very nearly be counted on one set of hands.  But, we bought it anyways.

We still had a full month of time at the apartment that we were then living in, so we took the time to paint every room in the house before moving in.  We replaced a bunch of the old, yellowed outlets for fresh white ones.  We replaced all but three of the light fixtures.  And we removed what felt like a ton of wallpaper.  And, we made it our own.  We’ve since lost the dog we had, and one more.  We’ve got a puppy three or so years ago, and he likes the back yard enough for both of them.  We’ve managed to squeeze two kids and all of the stuff that comes with them into the house.  But, we began to realize that our time here was limited.  It was time to move.

I’ll write more about the process of finding a house, putting an offer in, and then preparing our current house to sell a bit later.  Hopefully, I’ll have a nice post about the process of actually selling a house too, but we’ve still got that hurdle to jump.  But, the short of it is that we’re moving.  We found a nice house with a small patch of land that should fit us just fine for a nice long time.  We’ve put in a great deal of work to get our house ready for the next owners and listed it on the market, and we’re ready to go. And, as long as we can sell our house, we can buy the other house.  It’s an interesting balancing act that I’ll write more about later too.

The only thing left now is to show the house and sell it.  Which, considering all the effort we’ve put into it to get it ready, I hope is a quick and easy process.

photo credit: wb4klc

According to the USDA’s 2010 report, raising a child born in 2010 to the age of 18 will cost on average $226,920.  This cost is the average cost a middle-class family pays for shelter, food, health care, clothing, transportation, child care, education and other expenses.  They further break down the average cost per child per year as $11,800 to $13,880.  Yikes!  If you are on the fence about having kids, this report will certainly sway you in the direction of remaining childless.

However, as a mom to three kids, I can attest (as many other parents including Beating Broke can), that it doesn’t have to be this way.    My husband and I have three kids, which, according to the report, should run us a minimum of $35,400 a year, not including our other expenses.  My husband is just completing his Ph.D. and starting his career.  While we count on him being able to make a large salary in the future, right now between his job and my part-time work from home, we are making a little less than $40,000.  We are most definitely not spending $35,400 a year on our kids.  Here is how we cut corners:

-Shop for clothes at garage sales.  Babies and little kids don’t really care about their clothes; you can find fashionable, barely worn clothing at garage sales for less than $1 per piece or outfit.  Save money this way.  I know it is tempting to buy those adorable, brand new baby clothes, but babies outgrow outfits in weeks.  Let someone else spend their money buying those clothes so you can snatch them up for pennies at a garage sale.  If you don’t go to garage sales, check out Craigslist or eBay.

-Breastfeed if possible.  Not every woman is able or willing to breastfeed, but if you are, breastfeeding can save nearly $1,000 that would have to be spent on formula for the first year of the child’s life.

-Use cloth diapers.  Cloth diapers do require a large financial investment upfront, but they will last for the two to three years your child is in diapers, and they may even last for use by your next child.  If cloth diapers make you squeamish, make sure to never pay retail for disposable diapers.  By finding deals and using coupons, you should be able to reduce your diaper cost significantly.

-Accept all hand-me-downs.  If you are the lucky recipient of hand-me-downs, please take them.  Honestly, for a newborn, the only thing you need to buy brand new is a crib mattress and a car seat, for safety reasons.  Everything else such as strollers, toys, cribs, clothes, etc. can be given as a hand-me-down or bought second hand.

There are some costs that you can’t save money on such as day care and health care.  In all the other areas, there are ways to cut corners.  Get in the practice of cutting corners when children are small and save the difference.  Forgo the brand new outfits and large ticket items like a crib and instead go secondhand and save the difference.  Bigger expenses loom ahead such as college.  As Beating Broke stated in an earlier post, Stop Adding Up the Cost of Raising Children.  It is possible to raise them for significantly less than the government suggests.

What are your suggestions for saving money when raising children?

photo credit: Sukanto Debnath