Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

4 Ways to Make Money for Christmas Presents this Year

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You may have started with the best intentions.  You didn’t want to go in debt to pay for Christmas presents, so this year you resolved it would be different.  This year you’d set aside money every month, so when November came, you’d be able to buy Christmas presents with cash on hand.

But then, you’re car broke down and the repair was more expensive than you thought, so you had to dip into your Christmas savings.

It happens.  Sometimes Christmas is only weeks away, and you don’t have money to pay for the presents.

Don’t worry.  There are still ways you can make money to buy presents for Christmas.

Consignment Shops

4 ways to make money for christmas this year
Make Money for Christmas Presents

Do your kids have clothes they’ve outgrown?  Do you or your spouse have clothes in the closet that you don’t wear anymore?  Why not take them to a consignment shop?  When the shop sells your clothes, they’ll give you a portion of the sales price.  Or, they may just offer you a flat fee upfront.  Either way, it’s money in your pocket for items you weren’t using anyway.

Pantry Challenge

Take a minute to go look in your freezer, refrigerator, and cupboard.  Chances are you have a lot of food there, probably more food than your family will eat in a week.  Why not have a pantry challenge?

There are several ways you can do this.  One idea is to just take a week off completely from grocery shopping and just eat up what you have in the house.  If you normally spend $150 a week for groceries, that’s $150 you now have for Christmas gifts.

Another idea is to do a pantry challenge for a month.  That doesn’t mean that you don’t buy any groceries for a month.  Instead, it means that if you normally spend $600 a month for groceries, try to mostly eat up what you have in the house.  Give yourself an allowance, say $200 for the month to buy perishable essentials like fruit, veggies, milk, etc.  At the end of the month, you’ve saved $400, which you can use for Christmas presents.

Credit Card Rewards

If your credit card offers cash back rewards, start saving that money now.  You won’t make a lot this way, but you can use that money to help supplement your Christmas fund.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks is an online search engine.  You use it just like other search engines, but you’re sometimes rewarded with Swagbucks.  Earn 2,200 Swagbucks, and you can get a $25 Amazon gift card.  With diligent effort, using Swagbucks every day and doing other activities as well as meeting your Swagbucks daily goal, you should be able to earn enough points for the $25 Amazon gift card in a month.

If you need money for holiday presents, a pantry challenge will give you the most reward for your effort.  However, the other three strategies will help you make additional money.  By combining all four strategies, you may have enough money to purchase your gifts in cash.  Take some effort now, and you won’t have to go in debt this holiday season.

What other strategies do you use to raise money for Christmas presents?

 

When the More Expensive Option Is the Frugal Choice

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I like to be frugal.  I like to get the most from my money, as I’m sure most of you do.  When it comes to handing over huge amounts of cash, I’d much prefer to go with the lowest price, but sometimes, the lowest price can cost you the most money.

Frugality Gone Wrong

When I was 16, I needed a car to get to my job, so my mom and I combed the ads for a cheap little car for me.  We found one with an unbelievably low price.

And then when I took it in for its first oil change, our family mechanic explained why the price had been so low.  The college student who owned the car before me had rarely ever had it serviced and had frequently run it without oil.  While he did okay running it this way, I had to pay for his mistake. . .and pay, and pay, and pay.  Even though the car had relatively low miles, it broke down constantly.  In the end, I paid more than if I had bought a nice car that had been better maintained.

Lesson learned.

When the More Expensive Option Is the Frugal Choice

When the Expensive option is the frugal one
Can the Expensive Option be the Frugal One?

Early in July, our central air conditioner broke.

We knew this was coming.  The A/C unit was original to the house and was 19 years old.  The realtor had told us when we bought the house two years ago that the A/C unit would need to be replaced relatively soon.

In anticipation of this expense, we called an air conditioning company to get a quote last summer.  The owner came out, peeked into the attic where part of our A/C unit is, and gave us a quote.  The whole process took less than 30 minutes.

When the air conditioner actually broke, the company that we talked to last year couldn’t come to see what was wrong until four days later.  When you live in Arizona and it’s 110 degrees out every day, waiting four days is not an option.

We called another company that, based on the reviews I read online, provided excellent customer service but was expensive.  They came out the same day that I called and confirmed that the A/C unit was dead and needed to be replaced.

Their “comfort specialist” as they called their sales rep, much to my amusement, came out less than an hour later.  Before he gave his quote, he did all sorts of tests—checking the vents for leaks, checking how well insulated our home is, and inputting the layout and size of our home into a computer program.  When he put in other details such as where the morning and evening sun hits, the program told him what tonnage we needed for our air conditioner.  Surprise!  We only needed a 3 ton air conditioner, not a 5 ton like the one original to the house.

The service and attention to detail between the two companies was night and day.  In addition, the company we went with gave us two years of free service checks for our air conditioner and heater and a 10 year warranty on parts and labor for the air conditioner.

Even though this company wasn’t the frugal choice when it comes to our bottom line, we feel sure that spending more money upfront will save us in the long run.

What have you purchased that wasn’t the cheapest available but will save you money in the long run?

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget

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Do you have a budget that already feels tight?  Have you cut and cut but still have more month than money? Are you struggling to find more money in your budget?

I know how that goes.  Over the last few months, my husband and I have been working hard to cut our budget as much as possible.  We thought we’d cut all that we could, but I discovered one more secret, which, depending on your budget could help you “find” another $20 to over $100 a month.

So what’s the magic secret?

Make your payments on a semi-annual or annual basis rather than on a monthly basis.

Paying Annual Can Provide Big Discounts

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget
Find more money in your budget.

We have Ooma for our home phone line.  I pay $17.99 a month.  Recently I had to call Ooma because I was having an issue with the service.  After the customer service rep had finished helping me, she asked if I wanted to pay annually instead of monthly.  An annual payment would be $105, the equivalent of $8.75 a month.  In other words, I was paying an additional $110.88 a year for the convenience of monthly payments.

Our life insurance is the same.  When I checked into it, I realized that we would save $22 a month if we paid annually instead of monthly.

We already pay our car insurance semi-annually, but if we opted to pay monthly, we’d be charged a $2 per month fee.  Other car insurance companies charge as much as 5 to 10% more for a monthly payment.

Convenience is expensive.

Take a look through your monthly bills.  Are there any that you can choose to pay annually or semi-annually?  If so, how much will you save per month if you pay annually instead of monthly?  In our case, we “found” an extra $32 a month.  Sure, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a year, it adds up to an additional $384 we now have that we didn’t have before.

Two Caveats

Before you change your payment method, it’s important to consider two factors.  First, if your budget is already tight, you may need to wait to switch to an annual payment until you have a windfall like a bonus at work or an income tax return.  If you’re used to paying $80 a month for car insurance, even with a discount for paying annually, you may still be looking at paying $800 or $900 in one swoop, which can be difficult on a tight budget.

Second, only use this method if you know you’ll be disciplined enough to set aside money every month for the annual payment.  If your annual car insurance is $800, then set aside approximately $65 a month so you’ll have enough to pay the annual payment when it comes due.

Making payments annually or semi-annually can be a great way to find extra money in your budget, but before you change to this method, make sure that you have the discipline to set aside (and not spend) the money each month for the annual payment.

Do you pay bills like your insurance monthly or semi-annually or annually?  Which do you prefer?  Why?