Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Some Years, No New Debt Is Reason To Celebrate

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When you’re in debt, it’s easy to be hard on yourself.

You shouldn’t have let yourself go into so much debt. 

You weren’t smart with your money. 

You’re not paying off the debt fast enough. 

On and on we berate ourselves.

It’s even easier to do this at the end of the year when you feel financial pressure to buy gifts for not only family members, but associates, hired help, etc.

In addition, if you’re anything like me, you may have set some lofty goals last January that you could not achieve.

Our Lofty Goals

Last January, I could see nothing but clear horizons.  I set some ambitious financial goals (for our financial situation).

  • I wanted to put at least $3,000 in our emergency fund.
  • I wanted to save $1,000 for a family vacation.
  • I wanted to save $3,000 for a new-to-us car.

Guess how many of those financial goals I accomplished?  None!

Guess how many I partially accomplished?  None!

No new debt celebrate

Sometimes Finances Are Just about Survival

What I could not see that fine January morning when I set my goals was that we were on the precipice of a financial cliff.

Within just a few weeks of setting the goals, we experienced a number of financial difficulties.

  • My husband had to get a root canal and a crown at the cost of almost $600.
  • I had to see a periodontist and several dentists for a cyst on my gum that finally resulted in a root canal in April and a corrected filling. The cost of all the treatment was approximately $700.
  • Our daughter had to have several fillings filled and then later had to have a tooth pulled. $300.  (This was a special year for dentistry; I promise, our teeth aren’t as bad as this year makes it sound!)
  • Our car needed a $1,500 repair.
  • Our car needed new tires. $700.
  • My son needed braces. We saved and paid the first $900 out of pocket.  In a few months, we’ll need to come up with another $900, and then we’ll be on a payment plan with zero interest for the rest.
  • Our 18 year old A/C unit was leaking Freon, causing one electric bill to be $150 more than normal, and we also paid $200 to have it serviced for a grand total of $350.

In short, this year was a financial disaster as far as paying off debt went.  This year was all about financial survival mode.

And that’s okay.  Some years you can’t be gazelle intense or even pay any extra on your debt because you’re too busy just surviving.

Even though the year didn’t go the way we had planned, at all, it wasn’t a complete wash financially.

The good news is that we learned more creative ways to stretch our money even further.  We’ll continue to implement those strategies this upcoming year.

The even better news is that we didn’t acquire any new debt.

Sometimes, treading water is the best you can do.  Overall, for this year, I’m happy with that.

If you’re paying off debt, did you make the progress you wanted to this year, or did you have a year like ours?

Saving Money (and Possibly Your Life) With Vaping

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I’ve written about cigarettes and smoking in an offhanded way a few times here.  It doesn’t take an accountant to tell you how expensive of a habit it can be.  I was smoking about a half pack a day.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  Now, I save money with vaping, and I might just be saving my life too.

Why I Switched to Vaping

I was a smoker for almost 15 years.  Over those years, I’ve attempted to quit a number of times.  I tried the nicotine patches, Wellbutrin, and Chantix on several occasions.  All with varying levels of success, and then failure.  Of the bunch, Chantix was probably the most successful.  I think I managed 6 weeks without a cigarette that time.  But, you only take Chantix for about 6 weeks, and then the urge returned, my will power left, and it was back to it.

Saving with VapingAbout a year or so, I started seeing, and reading, articles on Facebook and elsewhere about vaping.  For the uninitiated, vaping is the act of vaporizing a liquid called e-juice.  Technically, those e-cigarettes you see at the gas stations are vaporizers.  Whomever decided that naming them e-cigarettes should be ashamed of themselves though.  The e-juice that you vaporize is a mixture of Propylene Glycol and/or Vegetable Glycol, liquid nicotine, and various flavorings.  The mix is added to a tank that wicks the e-juice to a coil.  You press a button on your Mod (the device that holds the batteries and powers the coil) and the coil heats the e-juice to vaporization.  You inhale the vapor, exhale the vapor, and get your nicotine fix without a lot of the chemicals you’ve been getting in your cigarette smoke.

As I read more and more of those articles, a recurring theme started to show itself.  There were a lot of people who had started vaping and completely replaced their cigarette habit.  And most of the reports I had read seemed to indicate that vaping was a lot safer than smoking cigarettes.  I decided to give it a try.

Luckily, for me, I had a friend who I knew used a vaporizer, and I was able to ping him to get suggestions on equipment.  If I hadn’t, I would have been completely lost, and probably struggled with the process a lot more.  I might have even failed again and written off vaping entirely.  I’m glad I had that help.

I ordered my equipment, and some e-juice to get me started, and on May 25th, 2015 I made the switch to vaping.  I’ve had a total of two cigarettes since then.  And they both tasted terrible.  It’s been almost 6 months.  The urge to have a cigarette is almost entirely gone.  There are still a few triggers that spark the urge, but I can easily overcome those with a few quick vapes.  I’m no longer a smoker.

Saving Money with Vaping

In a way, I’m lucky that I live where I do.  A pack of cigarettes is only about $5 here.  In neighboring Minnesota, a pack will easily cost you $7.50.  There are places where it’s more expensive. For comparison sake, I can buy a 15mL bottle of e-juice for somewhere between $7 and $25 (the premium juices are the top end of that range.  Average is closer to $10-12).  On an average day, I vape my way through about 3-5 mL.  So, that 15mL bottle lasts about 3 days.  I used to smoke a half pack of cigarettes a day.  The cost for e-juice is slightly less overall.  Equipment adds a bit more, averaged over time.  As the cost of cigarettes continues to go up, over time I’ll save more.  That’s assuming that taxes and such aren’t applied to vaping products of course.  They might be.  If so, it might be a wash.

While some of this is unclear, what I’ve read so far indicates that vaping is a whole heck of a lot safer for you than cigarettes.  I fully expect, based on that, so see a lot of the savings from making the switch through my health and health care costs.  There’s really no way to calculate those savings, but I believe they are pretty huge.  Those savings aren’t just in financial terms either.  There’s a very real possibility that my health will improve, my quality of life will improve, and I’ll possibly have saved my life from some nasty cigarette related disease.  That’s my kind of savings!

Over the last few months, I’ve found a few ways to apply some standard saving techniques to my vaping as well.  I’ve used coupons and sales to buy e-juice at bargain prices.  I’ve done the same for some of the equipment.  I’ve started making my own coils which reduces the cost of the coils by a great deal.  And I’ve found some nice subscription offers to get some good e-juice for a far cheaper price.

Ready to Save Money with Vaping too?

If you’re looking for equipment, I fully recommend an open tank vaporizer set up.  All that means is that the tank is refillable unlike those disposable ones you find at the gas station.  Reusable and refillable is excellent.  I use the eleaf iStick 30w Mod.  I wish I had the eleaf iStick 100W TC.  It just adds some additional wattage and other options that I would have liked to have had.  Cost made it a bit of a stretch though.

As for the tank itself, my favorite right now is the Kanger Subtank Mini.  It will take premade coil units in a pinch, but also has the ability for you to build your own coils.  It’s the best of both worlds.

e-Juices come in hundreds of different flavors.  What you need to know is that you can adjust your level of nicotine.  I started off with 18mg/mL and it was too much.  Someone who was a heavier smoker might want it that strong.  I’ve been using 12mg since, but recently started buying 6mg.  One of the coolest things I’ve found is Zamplebox.  It’s a subscription box where you get sent a variety of 15mL bottles each month.  I’m subscribed to the 6 bottle package.  It’s highly customizable, and allows for you to try some flavors that you might not have without. They offer a 3 bottle, 6 bottle, and 11 bottle subscription.  They’re $19.99, $24.99, and $44.99 respectively.  At $24.99, my 6 bottles are just a hair over $4 each.  That’s a pretty good deal.  If you’re just beginning, I highly recommend you give them a try for a few months.

 

Are You Ready for a BIG Emergency?

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Are you ready for a big emergency?  Do you have the required 6 to 12 months’ emergency fund?

I can hear your groan now.  Who has enough extra money to put aside 6 to 12 months in the bank?  If you have expenses of $3,000 a month, an ample emergency fund of 6 to 12 months would be $18,000 to $36,000.  Definitely not small change.

An emergency fund is hard to build, and that may be part of the reason why many people never even try.

Big Emergency
Original image credit: https://flic.kr/p/7KLtYi

But there will be an emergency that will occur sometime in your life.  You will need that money.

Financial Death by a Thousand Nicks

We relocated to Arizona 10 months ago.   Doing so drained our meager emergency fund.  For a few months, we were doing pretty good and getting back on our feet until we started facing endless financial nicks—braces for our son, $2,000 in medical and dental expenses, $1,500 in car repairs, etc.  The last five months have been financially very difficult.

If we would have had a 6 to 12 month emergency fund, our job now would be to rebuild the emergency fund, not do constant damage control.  I think it will be a few more months until we are financially in the clear, assuming no other major expenses come up.  Meanwhile, we feel extremely vulnerable financially.

The Big Emergency Worst Case Scenario

However, our current financial difficulties are nothing compared to what others face.  My daughters’ therapist is living a financial nightmare.  Her husband had a stroke and now has locked in syndrome, which means he has his full mental faculties, but he can’t move his body.  He is no older than 40.  No one would expect this to happen.

The therapist’s life now is driving to see her husband and advocate for him as well as juggling the finances of losing one income as well as the rapidly mounting medical expenses.  She does work but has had to take frequent days off.  Even with a Go Fund Me page that brought her nearly $50,000 in donations, I have no idea how she is handling the expenses.

Of course, this is a worst case scenario, but still, an emergency fund to liquidate in this situation would be nice.

Take Baby Steps to Reach Your Goal

Right now, my husband and I are struggling to stay out of debt.  So far we’ve succeeded, but we’re right on the edge.  Still, our plan is to put a small amount away in our emergency fund, say $50 a month.  Something is always better than nothing.

In the next few months, we’ll amp that amount up to a couple of hundred a month and keep increasing as we are able.  We won’t have a sizeable emergency fund anytime soon, but we will have some money put aside.

Too often, it’s easy to look at your finances when everything is going right and say to yourself, “We’re doing alright.  I can afford to splurge.”

But that’s short-sighted thinking.  Look at your finances and ask yourself how would you be financially if you had several smaller emergencies of a few hundred or thousand dollars or if the worst case scenario happened?

My advice is to wait to splurge until you have that emergency fund.  Trust me, one day you’ll be glad.

Do you have a 6 to 12 month emergency fund, or do you find it too difficult to achieve?