Search Results for: budget

Ways to Save with Banking and Recurring Payments

August 10, 2011 By MelissaB 17 Comments

If you are new to saving money and cutting expenses, you may search the internet where you will find such tips as “Skip your daily coffee fix” and “Buy store brand foods instead of name brand foods.” While this advice is good, it only offers a superficial way to cut expenses. You may need to look beyond this generic advice to find other ways to trim costs. My family is in this situation currently; our income does not add up to the equivalent of our expenses. Not only are we making less than we spend, we are not able to add to our savings. This situation is temporary, until my husband finishes his post-doc, but obviously it is not sustainable for the two years he will be in a post-doc position. Here are some of the extra ways we have found to trim our budget:

-Stop writing checks. We have automated our bill paying online. At first I was resistant to do this, but when I added up how much I was spending on checks ($38.12 for a year’s worth) and stamps ($52.80 a year) for a total of $90.92, I decided to do it. I can’t eliminate all check usage, but automating our bills has reduced our check usage by 3/4s, which will save because I won’t have to buy checks as frequently.

-Cancel automatic payments for services you no longer use. One downside of automating payments online is that you may stop using a service and yet forget to stop the auto payment. I recently closed an eBay store that I had. As part of my eBay business, I had automated payments to a template service (that basically made my auctions look prettier by putting a design in the background) at $12 a month and to a selling newsletter for $8 a month. I was annoyed when, a month after I closed the eBay store, I discovered I was still billed the $20. I forgot to cancel the subscriptions.

You may find that some companies make it difficult to cancel online subscriptions. (Remember the old Friends episode where Chandler wants to cancel his gym membership, and every time he tries he is instead convinced to stay?) While it may be very easy to sign up for recurrent payments on your credit card, when cancelling you may need to call the company and listen to them try to upsell you. Persist because it is not worth paying monthly for a service you are no longer using.

-Change to online bank statements. My bank recently began charging $3.00 per month for paper statements. That adds up to $36 per year per account. Because I have 3 accounts with them, it adds up to $108 a year wasted. Yes, I prefer to have physical copies of my statement, but not at a cost of $108 a year.

-Consider changing banks if the fees get too high. Last January, my bank started charging me $9.99 per month for my eBay business checking account. That is $119.88 a year just for the joy of banking with them. I have since cancelled the account. I am now in the market for a new business account for my writing and blogging service, and you can bet I won’t be going with my current bank, and I’ll be looking at well reviewed banks that maybe have good new account promos.

There are plenty of ways to save money if you look carefully. These are just a few ways you can save at your bank and online, but they clearly add up. Making these small changes has saved my family $230 a year!

What other ways do you use to save money?

photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

Debt Ceiling Crisis?

July 25, 2011 By Shane Ede 13 Comments

If you’re even slightly interested in the US economy, and, let’s face it, most of the world is, then you’ve likely been at least marginally following the last few weeks worth of debt ceiling news. The quick and dirty of it is that the US government has a debt ceiling that puts a cap on how much debt the US federal government can carry. If they reach that cap, they can no longer issue treasury bonds and the like to raise money to pay for things. Based on what I’ve read, everyone would like us to believe that it’s a major crisis, and the world will end if we don’t raise that debt ceiling and allow for more debt. But, is it really a crisis?

Let’s think about this just a little bit. Replace “U.S. Government” with John Doe in everything I’ve just said, and all the news you’ve read. If we were talking about an individual, we wouldn’t be talking about how the world would end if they weren’t allowed to accumulate more debt. We’d be talking about how they need to radically cut costs, increase income, pay off debt until they can get their finances in order. Would it be called a crisis? Maybe on a personal level, John Doe would believe it was a crisis. But, it certainly wouldn’t be world ending.

I’ll admit that it is a bit different when it’s a government entity that we’re talking about. If the US government goes bankrupt, there will be some pretty serious problems with the economy for a while. Which brings up another issue altogether. The US economy needs some diversification of it’s revenue streams. Way too much of the economy balances on how much money the US government sinks into it each month.

It’s time we start asking the same questions of the US government that we would be asking of John Doe. Do you really need that expenditure? That service? All three cars? The McMansion? Unfortunately, those that are in charge in Washington are playing political ball instead of really trying to solve the problem. They think way to hard about what programs they can cut that won’t lose them votes in the next cycle, or how much they can raise taxes without losing votes, when, instead, they should be looking to make the US government financially solvent and stabilizing it’s fiscal situation. You or I would start with a balanced budget, I don’t see any reason why the government shouldn’t do the same.

What do you think? I don’t think I’m being to idealistic in asking that they carry a balanced budget each year. Or that they cut costs until they can do that. Yes, they’ll likely have to raise taxes some to pay off what they’ve got for debt, but if it doesn’t come with some pretty significant cost cutting, they’ll all be looking for new jobs in 2012 anyways.

photo credit: Public Notice Media

Going on Trips with Fido (and other Pets)

July 11, 2011 By Shane Ede 5 Comments

When you take a trip that’s going to last over night or longer, and you have pets, you are faced with a decision to make. You’ve either got to find somewhere for your pet to stay or take your pet with you. If you don’t have a family member or friend that will watch your pet for you while you’re gone, you’re faced with finding a kennel or pet hotel to put your pet into until your return. Anyone who has boarded a pet will know that it isn’t a budget friendly thing to do. The frugal thing to do is to take your pet with you on your trip whenever possible.

Taking trips with your pets can be just as cringe-worthy for those without any experience in doing so. When we went on a week-long trip recently, I was more nervous about taking our dog with us than I was about any other part of the trip. The longest trip we’d ever taken the dog on was a two-hour ride, and the trip we were taking was an 8-9 hour trip followed by another 7-8 hour trip the next day and then doing it all over again at the end of the vacation. There was even a hotel stay on the way and one back. When it was all said and done, there was very little to worry about with the dog. He was a champ! (that’s him below) I thought I might share a few things that I learned about traveling with animals with you.

Hotels. I had this huge preconceived notion that there were very few hotels that would allow a dog in the hotel. I was kinda wrong. While many of the nicer hotels don’t allow pets, many of the more budget friendly (not dives) hotels will usually allow a pet for a small nightly deposit or fee. Some, like Kelly Inns, are extremely pet friendly and allow pets for no charge. If you know what city you are going to end up in for the night, do a little research and find a pet friendly hotel ahead of time. Then make reservations. We did this on our way to our destination. On the way back, we didn’t know where we were going to stop, but I was able to use the browser on my smart phone from the road to find and make reservations at a pet friendly hotel. Once you’re in the hotel, remember that your pet is in a strange place and will likely experience some anxiety if you all leave the room without your pet. If your pet doesn’t handle anxiety well, plan to leave your pet in your car while your away from the room. Many of the pet friendly hotels will have policies against leaving your pet unattended in the room because animals that have anxiety problems tend to take it out by chewing and digging. Both are bad for hotel furniture and carpet.
Riding Room. Your pet is going to need somewhere to sit. Don’t overpack to the point where you have to push and shove so that your dog can sit on top of the pile of luggage. If you wouldn’t be at least slightly comfortable riding there, neither will your pet. Different pets will have different requirements. In our case, we took a big comfy blanket and laid it out in the back of our Suburban for a bed for our dog. He then squeezed himself in between the two child seats on the bench seat and rode with his backside on the seat and his head on the console between the two front seats. Once you’ve taken a few longer trips with your pet, you’ll likely get a feel for where he/she likes to ride and be able to adjust accordingly. Once we figured out our dog wasn’t going to ride in the back on the blanket, we just made sure he had a path from the back to the seat without climbing over all the luggage and left it at that.
Food and water. Most importantly, make sure you bring plenty of food with you. If you’ve got the room, bring a bowl too that you can just leave out in the car or in your hotel room. Everybody’s schedule is likely going to be a bit screwed up, so your pet might not adhere to it’s normal eating schedule. Water is a bit trickier since it’s a bit harder to contain and still make available. What we found to work pretty well is to have a bowl and a large bottle that we could cap to hold the water. Whenever we stopped, we’d pour a bit of water into the bowl for our dog to drink then could pour out the extras from the bowl back into the bottle or onto the ground and not have to worry about spills.
Entertainment. If you’ve ever traveled with kids, you know that entertainment for the trip is of utmost importance. It’s not as important for pets, but it can be very helpful. Bring along a few of your pets toys for him/her to play with at your destination. A favorite chew bone for in the hotel, and a ball to fetch at our final destination for instance.
Potty breaks. Unless your pet is really, really good about telling you when it needs to relieve itself, you’ll want to schedule regular breaks for a quick walk. Our dog is pretty good about this and is used to going 4-8 hours without going outside during the work week, so he was pretty good on our trip. He’s also a big dog, so has a larger capacity than some smaller pets will. If your pet is asking outside frequently at home, he/she will likely still need breaks during your trip that are nearly as frequent. We found that anytime we stopped for gas, taking our dog over to a grassy area did the trick. Most interstate rest areas have an area to take your pets to.

Taking trips with pets can be a stress inducing idea, but if you take the proper precautions, it can also be very rewarding. It can also be easier on the pet that would have to stay at a boarding kennel otherwise. We’re glad we took our dog with us. I know he enjoyed being with us and playing up in the mountains with us. As an added bonus, he turned out to be a bit of entertainment for the kids too. Just like anything else, planning can make or break your trip. So take the time to plan ahead, and take your pet with you on your next trip.

Photo Credit:Thatedeguy on Flickr