Two of the things I buy regularly at Aldi are chewy granola bars and cereal and fruit bars.  Last week, however, I forgot to get them at Aldi, and didn’t realize it until I got to Kroger.  So I sucked up the extra cost and purchased the generic Kroger brand instead.  I figured they’d be close enough to the same as Aldi’s ones to fool my picky four year old.

When I got home, I made a really hilarious discovery.  Not only were they both close enough to make my four year old happy, they were in fact, the exact same bars.  The exterior packaging (boxes) were different, but the wrappers inside around each individual bar was identical to the Aldi brand.  Absolutely 100% identical.

So what i did I pay for my forgetfulness?  Regular price of Aldi chewy granola bars:  $1.69.  Kroger:  $1.97, but were on sale for $1.69 so I lucked out.   As for the cereal fruit bars, Aldi’s price is $1.79 per box and Kroger’s regular price was $2.28 but on sale for $1.89, so only $0.10 a box (I bought two).  Because I timed my mistake well and forgot on a week where the equivalents were on sale, I only spent an extra $0.20.  But I could have spent an extra $1.26 - $0.28 for the box of chewy granola bars and $0.49 each for two boxes of cereal fruit bars.  For the EXACT same thing.

Generic is generic is generic all right - I didn’t realize that the Aldi generics were actually sold other places like Kroger.  Score one more point for Aldi. 

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After some reflection, the answer for me seemed pretty obvious.  My biggest financial vice is scrapbooking.  It isn’t that I spend a huge amount on scrapbooking supplies, but when I have an opportunity for gifts, I always seem to ask for more scrapbooking paraphernalia, and I do spend more than I really fully realize on getting photos printed.   I have been sort of enthralled with getting good prices on photo prints and although I haven’t really spent all that much (and within my budget for miscellaneous things each month) it has become a little bit obsessive.

My son looks at all my unfinished albums and tells me I need to put more pictures in them, so at least he approves. 

What’s your biggest financial vice?

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So I’ve made some adjustments - first I took much of the wiggle room out of our budget by setting a very ambitious goal for getting out of debt.  The goal I set on the blog was adjusted from December 2010 to December 2009, and for my budget sheet, I set the bar even higher - my snowflaking goal is based on getting out of debt by June 2009.  This puts my budget back at a zero-dollar budget (or maybe even more) and puts me back into penny-pinching-counting mode, which is what works best for me.  Because my income is variable we can’t draw up an exactly zero-dollar budget but we can approximate it as closely as possible, and I was erring too much on the side of minimum income vs maximum income.

The second thing I adjusted was how I look at groceries.  I’ve gone back to analyzing my receipts and calculating my spending, and keeping myself to a stricter and accountable budget.  Prices have indeed gone up, which makes things more difficult, but I have tried to be both realistic yet stringent.  My grocery budget is $80 per week for my family of four, and I am sticking to that.  It was $85/week but I reduced it by $5 when I bought a number of protein bars in bulk that will last until about October.    This week, I adjusted my budget up $20 to $100 because we are having visitors all week and I needed to buy some items for their visit we don’t usually have around the house.

Overall, I spent $88.23 this week - $44.17 at Aldi, $18.56 at Walmart and $25.50 at Kroger, which was $11.77 under budget.  I actually spent only $11.64 on items for my visitors, so I spent $76.59 on our normal groceries, which is $3.41 under budget for the week.  I spent $1.79 on impulse items - a bottle of juice, which is 2.3% of my $76.59 grocery spending.  I think knowing I was going to analyze and report helped keep me from putting random items in my cart.  I have been trending towards spending more at Kroger and less at Walmart every week, and this week was no exception.  Every week, it seems less and less things that I shop for and are not at Aldi’s are carried at Walmart, so I have to buy them at Kroger instead.   Walmart is still less expensive at Kroger for non-sale items, but if Walmart doesn’t carry it at all, I have to get it somewhere else.  I have actually been considering getting one of those $330 gift cards at Kroger for $300 since we have been spending more there lately.  I have until July 31st to decide so I’ll be thinking on it some more.

So, July is off to a good start.  Next week, we’ll see.  Hopefully I can keep the trend going by being careful with my purchases and looking for sales every week.

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My very favorite thing to do is get those prints as cheaply as possible but still get quality pictures.  I belong to a number of photo printing programs and make sure to keep my eyes peeled for any deals I can get.  Once in a while a really good (to me) deal comes across my inbox and being that we just had a three day holiday weekend, in case you have some holiday or vacation photos you want printed, you might want to take advantage of it.

Snapfish is offering 50 prints for 50 cents, using the coupon code JUL4PENNY08.  In the US, the shipping is $3.44 for 50 4×6 prints, which brings your total to $3.94 before applicable taxes.  Any time I can get prints for 8 cents or less (total cost) is a good deal in my book.  This offer ends July 12th, so if you’re interested, don’t delay!  If you are not yet a member of Snapfish, they have a 50 free digital prints (excluding shipping) offer for new members which you can take advantage of first.  I am consistently happy with the quality of prints from Snapfish and think that their pictures are some of the best I have ordered.

If you want even more prints, ArtsCow is continuing their offer for new members of 200 free 4×6’s and 200 free 5×7’s and a free photo book.  This isn’t all at once - you can order 50 free prints of each size per month for four months.  I wrote an extensive review of ArtsCow a few months ago, and I have continued to use their print services with very good results.  I even used them to print some poster sized prints for my taekwondo studio that came out very crisp and clear.   The shipping on 50 4×6 prints is $3.99 and for 50 5×7 prints it is $5.99.

So if you have pictures you’d like to have printed - you can take advantage of one of these offers and get them done on the cheap!  I am still working on my son’s baby book so my free prints are printing pictures from 2005…

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Here are some of the posts I found particularly interesting this past week if you are looking for some insightful reading:

Cash Money Life:  The Other America -  Commentary on Food Stamps and the Economy.  I’ll let this post speak for itself.  Agree, disagree, or on the fence, it is a lot to think about.

My Two Dollars:  5 Ways You Can Save Money On Gas.  Which I need to do…

Mrs Micah:  Personal Finance Bullying?  I don’t see it so much as bullying as encouraging…

Remodeling This Life:  Discontentment is Expensive.  It sure is.  And potentially clutter-forming.   Ask my clutter.

Blueprint For Financial Prosperity:  Don’t Let Fear Make Decisions.  Great advice, and something I often need to take to heart.

Blunt Money:  You Can Get One Thing.  A very interesting and useful idea for kids and shopping.

Frugal Babe:  The Road To Solar Panels.  My spouse also wants solar panels.  We’re not sure our neighborhood will approve them though.

Millionaire Money Habits:  5 Investing Tips I Wish I Knew Sooner.  I am always in need of investing insight, since I have none.

No Credit Needed:  5 Free (and inexpensive) Ways To Reduce Your Debt.  I did most of these at one time or another.

Money Hacks:  Oil Price Inflation vs Onion Price Inflation - Guess Which is Higher.  A short little introduction for me to the fact that my grocery budget may just need tweaking, no matter how hard I fight.

There’s my ten for the week!   Enjoy the rest of your (holiday) weekend!

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1. Attend your local fireworks display.  Plan well, and you may not even have to pay for parking at the event.
2. Go to the park.  Bring a picnic lunch and spend an afternoon hanging out and having fun.
3. Get some of that yard work done.  Depending on who you are, it might not be fun, but if you make it a family event it can be.  It worked for us raking leaves last fall.
4. Take a walk in your neighborhood or on local walking trails.
5. Lie out on the lawn and watch the stars.  Oh, and the fireworks your neighbors may be setting off. 

My family and I will be doing much of the above today, although we may add a trip to the local zoo into the mix.  We have a membership so although it cost us money up front, our individual visits don’t cost us anything additional.  In fact, the more we go, the less each trip costs.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July!  And if you are not in the US and don’t celebrate the fourth - have a happy Friday!

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Earlier this week I wrote about my spouse’s employer offering short term disability insurance, and us exploring if it was a good idea for us.  Disability insurance has long been on the list of “things we should have but as of yet do not” - we have made progress on the list but disability insurance isn’t something we’ve tackled.  But we should.  Writing about short term disability insurance brought the long term option to the forefront of my mind, and ultimately after many encouraging comments kickstarted me actually looking into it.

Let me say, things I don’t know anything about intimidate me.  The activation energy required for me to take those initial steps, for really anything, seems enormous.  It was that way with getting life insurance, buying a house, even getting out of debt.  It was really hard to start, but once we did get ourselves in gear and started taking serious steps, the process went rather quickly.

So now I’ve taken those first steps, and hopefully that means the activation energy is overcome and soon we’ll be on the way to having long term disability insurance for my spouse.   We decided to just look at coverage for my spouse at this time for several reasons.  One, our goal is to be able to live on my spouse’s income alone.  At this point, it would be very tight and our debt elimination would stall, but we would be able to get by solely on my spouse’s income.  We wouldn’t be getting ahead, but we could survive without my income.  Second, of my three “jobs”, only one has an actual employer (taekwondo), tutoring is a contract position and I am not an employee, I am an independent contractor, and blogging is self-employment.  So it would be very complicated if not impossible to get coverage for my entire income.  And third, the blogging is partly passive via advertising revenue so it wouldn’t disappear completely immediately if I wasn’t able to do it for a period of time.   In the future, we may look into some sort of coverage for me too, but at this time, it is my spouse’s income that we primarily depend on, so it is my spouse’s income we need disability protection on.

So, on to the actual process.  I did a number of searches online for disability income insurance plans, as well as took suggestions from the comments on my previous post, and found one company I could get a generic quote online within 24 hours (Guardian), and then two others that I could ask a representative to contact me to discuss a quote (MetLife and State Farm).  I also called our current insurer for home, auto and life, Allstate, and talked to my agent about getting a quote.  I did try to find information about several other companies but I came up empty as far as online searches went, so I moved on.  Four quotes should give me a good idea at least.

My spouse’s employer actually uses Guardian for the short term disability policy they are offering, as well as their dental coverage (which we have currently).  So I am somewhat familiar with them.  They sent their online quote, and there were a number of options.   The coverage was to replace 70% of my spouse’s current salary, and would be tax free if we paid the premiums with after-tax dollars (which we would).  The policy covers if my spouse is disabled and cannot perform his current occupation, even if he can be employed in a different one, is guaranteed renewable and non-cancellable on their part until the age we select (more on that in a minute when I discuss options)  and had two additional things I could add to the policy for an additional cost - I can elect to have the policy adjust upwards until age 55 as my spouse’s income increases, and I could elect to have a rider that starts coverage when as little as 15% of income is lost due to disability.  I also had two variables I could change that affected the cost of the premiums - the length of the policy and the waiting period for it to become effective after a disability.  I could have the policy last 10 years, until age 65, and until age 67, and I could start coverage as little as 60 days after a disability or as long as 360 days.

For my spouse, the policy we were quoted, depending on if we added the additional riders and what variables we selected, the coverage would cost anywhere from $57 - $215 a month.  We are leaning towards a policy that would start 180 days after disability and provide coverage until age 65, which would be about $100 a month (starting 360 days after disability is $90/month).  We would also include the additional riders for automatically adjusting upwards as his income rises and the residual disability (coverage at 15% or more disabled), which is included in the $100 (or $90) a month.  I’d like to elect the 360 days after disability one instead, but I don’t think having that large of an emergency fund for us is likely for a good long time.

We haven’t decided if we will go with this company, of course, but it is nice to get the ball rolling and at least find out some information about coverage and costs.   We have many more quotes to get information about and compare to this one.  But the ball is rolling.  This seems to be the week I tackle a bunch of “now I’m really an adult and I need to think about this” questions.  And if I can do it, you can too.  Protect your financial peace.

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This blog really is a labor of love for me and I credit it for helping me begin to turn my financial life around.  It has grown into more than I ever could have possibly imagined and I am so happy to be able to write here and share my thoughts with the world every day, and get feedback, encouragement, and direction in return.

With that said - these were the top ten eleven referrers of traffic to I’ve Paid For That Twice Already… last month (one no longer exists so I listed eleven instead of ten) :

1. Moolanomy
2. MSN Smart Spending
3. Cash Money Life
4. Being Frugal
5. The Simple Dollar
6. Be Thrifty Like Us (blog no longer active)
7. Mrs Micah - Finance For A Freelance Life
8. No Credit Needed
9. Gather Little By Little
10. Frugal Dad
11. My Two Dollars

If you haven’t had the pleasure of visiting these great blogs before, give them a peek and see what you think!  Thanks again for helping the PaidTwice philosophy get out there into the world!

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Last year I got an unwelcome little surprise.   Our property tax was more than the mortgage company had estimated, so our payments for the next year had gone up by a total of about $58 a month to account for the difference and make up the previous year’s shortfall.  So when I got this year’s statement in the mail, I opened it with, in a word, a bit of trepidation.  And I got an interesting mix of information inside.

Our escrow account is required by law to have a minimum balance of at least two escrow payments at all times, in my case about $300.  Apparently it is projected that after my property tax payments next April, our escrow account balance would drop to about $100, or $200 short of the minimum amount allowed.  Therefore, we have a projected shortage of $200.  Instead of spreading this out over the next 12 months as last year’s shortage was, the mortgage company is billing us all at once for it in our August 2008 payment.  So next month’s mortgage payment will be $200 more than usual.  However, after that, we get a nice little surprise.  The amount our payment rose last year was a combination of the rise in property taxes for this year, plus “paying back” the shortfall that we owed from our first year.  The shortfall part was about $33 of that $58 rise in payments, and that portion will then drop out of our payment for the next year.  So our payment as of September and until, I assume, next August, will be $33 less than last year.

So, we have to pay $200 more for one month, but then we’ll pay $33 a month less than we’ve been paying the past year.  That $33 a month savings will be my newest snowflake and go directly to our student loan payment.  That will, over the next year, add up to about $400 of snowflakes to eliminate our debt.  So it’ll be tight in August with the $200 extra to the escrow account that month but after that, the news in the letter was a welcome surprise.

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This doesn’t completely explain being so far over budget but it does explain a good portion of it.  My son’s birthday was also in June and the ice cream and other party supplies for his little celebration also came from the grocery budget, so that’s another factor.  Regardless, July is going to be the month I spend less than my budget on groceries.   Or, failing that, I am going to keep a much tighter reign on the groceries and keep myself as close to budget as possible.  I know the cost of groceries has gone up in general, but I haven’t really sat down and crunched all the numbers to see how much of that is the cause of my overspending last month versus just poor planning.

All in all - taking our June income and subtracting from it everything we spent or moved into savings, we have $533.37 left over as our initial surplus.  Subtract from that $132.50 budgeted for irregular expenses that carries over into next month, and we have $400.87 left as our actual surplus.  I forecasted we should have $439.93 left for snowflaking to the student loan, so I came close but I am disappointed we didn’t hit that mark.   Even with going significantly over budget in groceries and gasoline, we did manage to come close to breaking even, and that is due to both some performance bonuses for me at work as well as our utilities bill being almost $100 under budget.   I am going to take the extra $39 from our July utilities budget, which I also anticipate to be under budget this month, and still apply the full $439.93 to my spouse’s student loan along with our $437.59 budgeted minimum payment in a few weeks.  Hopefully I will have some blog income and survey payouts to add to that and hit my $1000/month goal.

Our emergency savings account now stands at $1753.24.  I have paid for the wisdom teeth removal but not yet for the colonoscopy.  Hopefully our portion (which will be 30% of the negotiated cost from the insurance company) will be less than $750.  Because everything medically checked out fine, I haven’t decided what we’re going to do about the emergency fund.  $1000 will definitely stay put there, but whatever over that remains, I may put towards debt elimination, or I may just keep it in the emergency fund as an extra buffer.  I’m not sure.  For July’s snowflakes, I am shifting back to debt elimination mode, and all my snowflake earnings will go directly to debt versus split 50/50 with savings.  This should help knock down the student loan significantly this month - it would be nice to get it to under $5000.  And get our percentage of debt paid off to 50% would be amazing.  We’d have to pay about $1800-$2000 to debt this month to do those things, which I think is not completely likely but definitely possible.  Next week I’ll have gotten some earnings and maybe made some payments so we’ll see where things stand then.

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