Little Miss Moneybags

Five Frugal Things

2018-07-27T12:32:00.001-05:00

1. I got a random (but very strong) urge to declutter, and ended up clearing out three bags of things we don't use from the kitchen as well as a full bag of stuff from my closet. The only thing I never seem to declutter are my books...but to me they aren't clutter! I really will get around to reading all o them someday; I believe it!

2. I joined a gym. Peanut has been going to a climbing gym for most of a year, and I finally joined as well. I don't climb, but they have good fitness classes included in the price. The more classes I go to in a month, the cheaper they are per class! I started going once a week, then twice, now I'm up to three times a week, about $3 per class. I'd like to go four times a week but I'm coming up against schedule conflicts. Working out at home is free, but only if you do it. Classes motivate me better than anything else. I'm focusing on strength training for the first time in my life, and it's HARD. I do not enjoy the classes, but I enjoy the way I feel afterwards.

3. I tried intermittent fasting and discovered that I like it! I don't eat from 8 p.m. until noon the next day, and it's great. I am not hungry in the mornings and no longer have a mid-morning slump. It's also made me much more aware of what I'm eating when I am eating, and I've cut out a lot of sugar. The biggest downside is that I like breakfast foods and we don't have breakfast for dinner very often.

4. I got a credit card from an airline in order to get enough points for two domestic round-trip tickets. We'll have enough points on our other card to cover hotel and other stuff, so Peanut and I will get to take another vacation together soon. I don't have any big financing considerations coming up, so when we are done, I'll close the card and take the hit to my credit score with no problem.

5. I got a bunch of new workout clothes to go with my new gym hobby. Four complete spandex outfits set me back....$20, because I went to the thrift store instead of shopping for brand new stuff.

What are your recent frugal wins?

2018-05-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

My approach to money has changed a lot over the last six months.

This might be lifestyle creep. Or maybe it's something else. Basically, I feel like I have enough. I got a more than 20% raise with my recent job switch. We are maxing out all retirement options. We have money left over at the end of the month. We're bulking up our emergency fund and are even at the point of planning some of those "someday" spends, like a new couch.

The way it primarily plays out for me is Lyft. We still only have one family car, and I take the bus to work every day. A few times a month, something will come up that will make taking the bus home in the evening onerous. A committee meeting that ends so late my bus ride would take two hours, or something like that. So I'll get a Lyft; it's usually about $15. And every time, I marvel at how easy it is for me to make that choice.

Spending money on convenience for myself has always been very difficult. I can count on one hand the number of times I took a taxi in New York, and I lived there for eight years. I can count on one finger the number of times I took a taxi by myself for convenience. In eight years. I just didn't feel I could afford it, I didn't feel like the convenience outweighed the cost. So I dealt with some unsafe situations, being alone on the train late at night coming back from performing, because I couldn't bring myself to spend the money.

And now, it's easy. I don't feel stressed by the cost.

I wouldn't say I think about money less than I used to, but I think about it in a different way. It feels much more like a tool than a straightjacket.

How much should I pay for convenience?

2018-04-26T21:58:00.000-05:00

The other day I was hot and thirsty and my lips were chapped.

So I went into a convenience store to buy a beverage and some chapstick. I didn't have any cash on me, so I figured my purchase would be close to a $5 card minimum, if they had one. I don't mind paying meeting those minimums, as I know it costs money for merchants to accept credit cards. I recently got one of those little stick-on pockets for my cell phone case, and now I basically carry just my phone, my ID, and my credit card. I don't carry a wallet anymore, and rarely have cash on me.

Instead, I stumbled into a conversation with the clerk and another customer about a relatively new Minnesota statute that allows any store that accepts electronic payments to charge a fee equal to their costs, typically expressed as a percent of the purchase, as long as the customer is notified before the transaction. In this case, it was 3.69% and there was a large oval sticker on the counter where I placed my items. This statute has been in effect since last year, but this store was just implementing it and it was a popular topic of conversation.

Now, I've said I didn't mind paying a $5 minimum, but this fee gave me pause. It's pretty rare that I "need" to make a purchase that is below $5 with a credit card. (I say "need" because I didn't need to make this purchase - I can't think of any truly necessary purchases that fall into this category.) But it's rare, so it doesn't feel like I'm paying that much more over time for those few transactions where I'm buying something else to get over $5.

We have a good credit card that provides travel rewards, and I use it for almost all my purchases. Even so, the rewards percentage is only about 1% for non-travel purchases - well below the 3.69% fee the store was passing on to me. Which means that suddenly, paying with a credit card is more expensive, literally. It's effectively a cash discount. And if a lot of places start passing that fee along, it'd be pretty noticeable.

Is it going to change my buying behavior? I think it might. I'm certainly going to pay attention and start carrying an "emergency twenty" on me like I used to, to avoid paying more than necessary. The statute is clear that it applies to credit, debit, and other electronic payments, so I'm also going to watch to see whether it shows up on payment systems that use apps - there are a couple of places where I will pay with LevelUp or a proprietary app that works like a loyalty card. And what about online bill pay? It seems like that might be affected too. I'd have to figure out if the fee would be cheaper than a stamp, I guess.

It also makes me rethink how useful my travel rewards credit card is. For the 18 months I've had it, it's paid for itself - it offers travel reimbursements up to a few hundred dollars, covered the TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry fees for Peanut and myself, provides access to travel lounges in airports around the world, and in addition to the 1% on all purchases, gives 3% on travel expenses. I travel about once a month for work, and we went on a vacation last year that was paid for with those points. I'm on track to get a vacation every 12-18 months if I use the card for everything, but this means I'm paying more for that vacation or taking longer to get it. Is it worth it then?

Do you think a pass-through fee for credit card use would change your buying behavior?

Linkfest

2018-04-15T20:35:00.001-05:00

A librarian finds hidden codes in Scottish library books.

Break the chain, don't be a slave: " Appetites for desires are rarely quenched. As people spent more, they got more into debt. As they got more into debt, they wanted more and more. As their wants exceeded even the debt-funded shopping sprees (cars, trucks, houses, swimming pools, campers, play structures for the kids, etc.), they got unhappier. They saw other people with things they wanted. Things they felt like they deserved. Their relationships suffered. They became miserable. They hated their jobs but they were stuck. The bank owned them. Work owned them."

The best books I've read in the past month:

The Immortalists

Golden Age and Other Stories

Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders

We Are Legion, We Are Bob (series)

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

HSA Learning

2018-02-20T07:31:00.000-06:00

I learned something new today.

New job, new benefits. As I was completing all the paperwork, I realized that my employer doesn't sponsor or contribute to an HSA, even though they offer two high deductible health plans.

We already have an HSA - we've been contributing to one at either Peanut's job or my job for years, first at actual expense levels and then fully funding (without withdrawing) for the last several years.

I know I can add money to our HSA any time I want, but I wanted to make sure that I'm getting all of the benefits of an HSA, including the initial tax benefit. (I love HSAs for their triple-tax protection: contribute pre-tax, withdraw tax-free for medical expenses up until retirement age, when you can withdraw for any purpose tax-free.)

My HR person didn't really understand what I was asking about so I did a quick google search and figured it out: we contribute post-tax, and simply deduct the total on our taxes next year. It feels less impressive somehow, but ends up the same financially. Peanut and I are now deciding whether to contribute in one lump sum for the year now or on December 31, or at regular intervals throughout the year.

Perhaps not a big insight - but a helpful one for me, and maybe for you too.

Linkfest

2018-02-16T18:15:00.001-06:00

Breadwinning moms are increasingly the norm. Not to be confused with gender parity in the workforce, but it certainly speaks to the need for workplaces to have family-friendly policies around flextime, part-time white collar work, and other accommodations that recognize the fact that this is not the 1950s anymore.

Share your job, shatter the glass ceiling. I think this is an absolutely awesome idea. I have had direct reports in all sorts of situations (part time, contract, .8) to allow them to construct a life that they want. No one has approached me with a job share situation, but I think it would probably address every single one of the drawbacks I see as a manager in the current part-time set-ups. I'd love to propose something like this for future reports. (I am not interested in it for myself so much, because I have a stay-at-home-spouse so I don't feel the pinch of parenting as much as couples where both parents work.)

Linkfest - Working Woman Edition

2018-02-05T21:46:00.000-06:00

The Baby, The Book and the Bathwater - on how crazy-making baby and parenting books are. And on the importance of keeping yourself when you become a mom. The desire to create and contribute doesn't disappear when men become fathers; why do we assume it does when women become mothers?

Share Your Job, Shatter the Glass Ceiling - I am finding more and more companies are open to less-than-full-time positions, but I haven't come across a job sharing situation yet. I'd like to explore that for some of my team, as it might alleviate all the "problems" we experience with having some part-time employees. (I say "problems" because they aren't problematic enough to avoid helping people achieve the work-life balance that keeps their talents where I can use them, but they do create some inconveniences, and my biggest fear - that people are working more hours than they want for less pay, simply because the work will never be done.)

Rather than thinking about how much revenue you need to cover your costs, think about how few costs you need to survive as long as you want. While this advice from the Basecamp team is ostensibly about building a business of slow, steady, sustainable growth, it also works as a great analogy for living within a budget and planning for retirement. While merely "surviving" doesn't sound like a lot of fun necessarily, it certainly takes a lot of pressure off in terms of aiming for exponential growth/gains, and helps focus on cost-cutting and meaningful.

The deck is unfairly stacked against women when it comes to retirement savings. We are paid less for the same work, are more likely to be in professions which pay less overall, are more likely to take time off work, are less likely to contribute to retirement savings in the first place - oh, and we live longer. If I could impart one thing to each of my 20-something coworkers is that there is pretty much no sacrifice too large for them right now to get a solid retirement savings plan in place.

Busting through that glass ceiling

2018-02-01T21:37:00.000-06:00

I accepted a new job at the end of last year. It's in my same field but a step up to a bigger company, bigger team, bigger budget, bigger goals. And bigger salary. I finally broke through six figures!

Five years ago, I had just left my job to go on maternity leave with Pickle. I knew we had a very sick baby, and I knew I was going to have to stay home with her for longer than I'd planned. I also "knew" that I was ruining my career by doing this, but what else could I do? I was making $35,000 and Peanut made almost twice as much and had much better health insurance. It was obvious who had to stay home.

I had heard all my life that as a woman if you step out of the race for kids, you lose your chances at high-paying jobs, at career advancement. I bought into it and when I started trying to go back to work I undersold myself, badly. A lucky break got my foot in the door at my last job, and I proved the heck out of myself. I was so hungry to be back at work, to be doing what I love and what I trained for. I knocked it out of the park for two years and got recruited to join the new place. And what's ironic? I am definitely making more than I would be making if I had stayed on the track I was on.

Obviously, everyone's story is different, and my situation includes at least as much luck as talent or skill. But staying home with babies does not have to be a career death-sentence. I don't think there's a magic formula for making it work, except to say that don't let anyone else talk you out of your own worth. I was able to identify some skills that staying at home taught me - negotiation, advocacy, perspective, superduper budgeting skills - and how those translate into the workplace. I learned a lot about myself and what I want out of life, which gives me a drive I never had before. And that catapaulted me higher than I'd be if I hadn't had something to stretch for.

So far, the new job is going well. We're trying to avoid lifestyle creep. As we did last year, we'll be maxing out my pre-tax retirement account, as well as fully funding Roth IRAs and an HSA. Last year, that was all we could do, but this year we'll have a little extra to start saving towards the kids' college funds or general savings for something else. The biggest danger of lifestyle creep so far has been lunches - I've been invited to lunch multiple times every week since I started and that make sense as I'm getting to know people but isn't something I want to get used to. Otherwise, we are living much like we did when we made half as much, which sets our future up for even better things.

It's kind of silly that $100,000 is a benchmark goal - there's nothing inherently special about it. I did feel a particular satisfaction sailing past it, but hopefully I can be content here for a while.

Best Books I Read in 2017

2018-01-29T21:37:00.001-06:00

I read a lot of books in 2017 - 115 to be exact. And yes, that was while working full-time with two children under five. (How do I do it? I have a stay-at-home husband, which is the answer to almost everything in my life. Also, I take the bus to work and make time to read in the evenings instead of watching TV. But mostly it's that I don't have to do cooking/cleaning/that kind of thing.)

Here, in no particular order and without (much) commentary, are the best books I read in 2017.

Email Marketing By the Numbers

They Ask, You Answer (by the River Pools and Spas guy)

Borne - so weird.

All Our Wrong Todays - so, so, so good. My favorite science fiction/spec fic of the year.

The Art of Digital Marketing

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe - couldn't put it down!

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Oh, Crap Potty Training - if you have kids, get this book. It's the best one!

La Rose

The Content Trap - so good I read it twice.

The First 90 Days - recommended to everyone starting a new job.

The Dark Tower Series - somehow I had never read them before.

The Broker - the only book I could find to take place in Bologna, Italy, where I traveled in 2017.

When You Reach Me

Steve Jobs - I'm not an Apple fan, but I enjoyed the book.

The Everything Store - I am the opposite of an Amazon fan, but I really enjoyed this book.

You Should Test That - so good I bought it after I read it.

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty - poetry! If you are or know a teenage girl, this is great.

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success

The Children's Hospital - a tie with Borne for weirdest book of the year.

Google Analytics Breakthrough

City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York - awesomesauce.

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built

Be the Boss Everyone Wants to Work For: A Guide for New Leaders - recommended for people new to managing

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction - I also read this one twice. It's The Content Trap lite.

Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America - if you buy food, you should read this.

The Punch Escrow - very close second place for best science fiction of the year.

The Merchant of Yonkers - which I requested from the library and discovered to my delight that the last time it was checked out was in 1948.

My least favorite book of the year was a tie between I Hate Everyone Except for You and The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Which, yes, won the Newbery Award and which everyone else on the planet loved. I can't explain it.

What should I read next?

Book Review: Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Econonmy

2018-01-18T22:29:00.001-06:00

This book was such fun! I love narrative nonfiction and especially interesting tidbits of history, but this book looked at each of the inventions through their effects on the economy. It's a fascinating take on everyday items and ideas that shape our modern world.

One thing that stuck out at me was how many of the things that had the biggest impact did so because their primary use was to free up women's time. The plow, the pill, the TV dinner - these and so many other inventions shaped the economy because they freed women up to join the workforce. I did a stint as a stay at home mom and homemaker, and I found it really overwhelming in terms of drudgery, boredom, repetitive work - and I had a washing machine, a dishwasher, a microwave, all those things to help make my daily life less filled with the kind of work that my female ancestors would have dealt with.

Another thing that I found really interesting was how many of these inventions aren't things as much as they are concepts. Money, timekeeping, patents and copyrights - all fabrications from the human mind, not products that we can touch. The best representation of money I've ever heard was a story about a time when the banks closed in Ireland...for months. People survived by writing checks since they didn't have access to their cash, and it worked. It shows how much money is really theoretical and doesn't have much to do with paper and coins.

There are lots of interesting anecdotes like this that carry through the book, and if you have any interest in how our modern world works, I highly recommend it.

Linkfest

2018-01-09T21:30:00.001-06:00

Two incomes are not always the answer to having more money. Really important stuff here! We found it to be true that as a dual-income-with-kids family, two incomes did not leave us with more money - in fact, we were paying for the privilege of me going back to work. Having only one working parent has always given us more discretionary spending money, even when that income was half of what I'm currently making.

There are additional important points throughout this excellent article, including the comment about how disability insurance for stay-at-home parents is critical (and very hard to find). We are lucky that Peanut's disability insurance from when he was working will continue to cover him now as long as we keep the premium paid on time. I couldn't find any kind of disability insurance for a no-income spouse when I was at home, and I know of only one company now that offers it.

Author Ann Patchett reflects on her year of no shopping.

Two different approaches to business - do you notice these things as a consumer (or do you consider them as part of your job)?

Selection librarians from my local library system were profiled in my local newspaper, along with the most popular books of 2017. I'm a library super user, with 20+ books and ebooks checked out at any given time. The kids and I go weekly to pick up new books and return the ones we're done with. Our local branch has an excellent play area, and we've made friends with neighborhood people we see regularly. I use the hold system and the interlibrary loan system extensively, and have even checked out a power tester for free. I've also booked a number of offsite meetings for work at the library, giving us a distraction-free (and literally free) workspace for creative work and planning. Yay libraries!

I love this age-by-age guide to what kids need from parents.

But on the other hand, children learn the most important lesson away from adults. And that culture of childhood is threatened. I'll have more to say on this later in 2018.

Kickstarter math is weird. This is a super interesting (and eye-opening) look at what it takes to be successful on Kickstarter.

2018 New Years Resolutions

2018-01-01T22:08:00.001-06:00

1. Read fewer books, but more fiction. While most people who put anything about reading on their New Year's Resolutions list are probably hoping to read more, I'd like to read less. I read 115 books in 2017 (and no, that doesn't include books I read out loud to the kids). And most of them were non-fiction of the self-improvement or business/work-related type. I tend to get hooked on a topic and then read 8-10 books on the subject, but I find that after book 3 or 4, there are diminishing returns. So I don't really need to be reading more books - I'm aiming for quality over quantity this year. I'm going to try to read 2 fiction books to every non-fiction title, aiming to read for pleasure as much as for learning. I'm aiming for 75 books overall, or about 1.2 books per week.

2. Organize my digital life. I want to DO something with the saved links, the starred blog posts, the pinned recipes, the downloaded podcasts. Yesterday, I upgraded to a paid version of Evernote, giving me more space per month, so I'm going to try to put it to good use by storing all of this kind of information in a single place, and setting a dedicated time each week to reviewing the information that I've saved for later and doing something with it. Things like, actually writing the blog post inspired by that article, or putting the ingredients for that recipe on a shopping list and scheduling a time to try it out, or actually looking back at the notes I took from all those self-improvement books I read this year. I've put a reminder in my calendar to do this weekly.

3. #1goodmoneything per day. This is an idea I got from Revanche a couple years ago - instead of always saving up for big wins, aim for a single good money decision each day. Little things add up and while it may not be super sexy to tweet about "brought my lunch to work five days this week!" that is a major contributing factor to how Peanut and I were able to grow our net worth by more than $80,000 this year. It's really in the small decisions.

4. Regular journaling. I'd like to bring a little more intention to my day and awareness to my decisions, so I was thinking of writing down big decisions and my reasons for them, then revisiting them later to see where my thinking is faulty. Then I saw Trent's recent article about his journaling habit, and I thought maybe I could combine them into one new habit. I've added a reminder onto my calendar to do this every day.

5. Inbox zero for personal email. I have a terrible habit of reading emails on my phone, then marking them unread with the intention of replying later...only I never do. So my goal is to get to inbox zero by the end of January, only open emails once, and actually respond to people in a timely manner. And this includes my drafts folder, too. Not kidding - I have drafts in there from 2012!

6. Physical movement. With the exception of my seven years with a belly dance troupe, I have always struggled to get enough physical activity. I'm a sedentary person by nature (see #1 above, about how much I read!) and I don't like to sweat. But as I get older, I notice the effects of sitting at a computer much more, so I'm going to work on it (again) in 2018. I did a push-up challenge in 2017 that did wonders for my back, so I'll repeat that. I've started doing yoga at home once a week as well.

7. Spend more time on physical self-care. I'm in my mid-thirties, and I'm starting to see the effects of aging. Which is fine - I actually like both my body and my mind more as I age - but it does mean I can't drop into bed without taking care of my skin anymore! I'd also like to use up all the samples of stuff I have lying around, from moisturizer to cuticle care to fancy pepperminty exfoliating foot stuff.

8. Be with the kids when I'm with the kids. My kids are still at the ages where they want to snuggle me, want to be read to, want to just be with me. But I'm starting to see it fading. I want to take advantage of how much they love me now - not reading or being on my phone in the evenings when we're together.

Five Frugal Things

2017-12-14T21:52:00.001-06:00

1. I keep a couple of cans of soup at my desk at work, in case I forget my lunch. That came in handy this week. I still got to have a hot lunch with no cost.

2. Baby bBear is not a baby anymore. For his third birthday, he got spoiled mightily but not by his parents. We got him a candy bar and that's it. He was delighted and I'm happy that it didn't make noise or need batteries. He did get some other neat toys from his grandparents and that was plenty.

3. I haven't done any Christmas shopping at all. I don't really have much to do, just some stocking stuffers for the kids and for the white elephant exchange but that's it. I still wish I had thought of it in October before the stores were so crowded.

4. I have been absolutely horrible about tracking my spending this year. I think I've mentioned that before. Part of the problem is that I use a Mac for work and I can't access our spreadsheet on it. So then I just think that I will remember what I spent money on, and of course I don't. Luckily, I use my credit card for almost everything so at least there is some record of it. But anything that I pay cash for just basically disappears. We have a plan for addressing this for the new year.

5. I'm in a phase of life where I want to spend a lot of money, but I don't actually want to spend the money. Examples are: I want a new couch, we want to turn the guest room into an office, I want Next Level business clothes. But I don't actually want to spend the money that I have on any of those things, so instead I just don't do a lot of anything.

Bonus: I have been reading books like crazy from the library, and I am definitely going to hit my 100 book goal for the year.

Happy Taco Day!

2017-11-24T20:55:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had brunch and tacos instead of traditional foods this year, and it was wonderful. Today when we set up our Christmas tree, it was so warm outside I had the window open at one point. Very strange for Minnesota!

I didn't participate in #BuyNothingDay this year. I've been needing a better winter coat, and time to go shopping for one without kids, so I went this afternoon. The mall looked absolutely packed, but I skirted around the edges and checked out some consignment shops instead. They were far less busy but still had great deals, and I came away with a perfect Lands End down coat plus a couple other items for just $60.

Peanut did pick up a couple of Black Friday specials in the technology department - we've been slowly wiring the whole house up to be a smart house. Now we have Google Home minis on every floor as well as a chromecast. They are purchases we would have made eventually, so I'm glad he saved money + got Target gift cards for future purchases.

We recently had our house appraised by the mortgage company to get rid of the PMI we've been paying for the last six years. The home inspector said two wonderful things to us - our home value has increased by $50,000 over what we paid for it (!!!) AND out of all the houses he's been in, he'd never seen as many books as he saw in my house. And I bet he didn't even realize that my bookshelves are double- or triple-shelved! As a lifelong book lover, that made me very happy.

Our internet bill went up by $30/month because we ran out of some promotional period, so Peanut called them and complained and it went back down to about where it was (but now we have a month of two extra TV channels or something, which we won't use, but they had to get added to get the discounted price). It will be much harder to negotiate these kinds of deals if net neutrality ends.

Our dryer started squealing and then stopped working. Peanut took it apart and discovered a melted plastic part that had damaged the motor. He price-checked some dryers and decided to order a new motor ($120) instead of a new dryer ($500). I suspect that there are cheaper new dryers out there than $500, but I also much prefer the idea of repairing than replacing it. I'm inspired by The Frugal Girl and how she always takes her appliances apart to keep them running instead of defaulting to replacement. In the meantime, we are air-drying everything, which is also working fine - we actually considered not repairing or replacing, but just living without a dryer altogether. I already line-dry all of my clothes except socks and underwear, but heavy things like towels tend to take a very long time to dry in our basement. We also tend to do laundry infrequently but then do six loads in a day which wouldn't be possible without a dryer. Still, we might explore using the dryer much less even when it is working again. I used the dishwasher a lot when I stayed home, but Peanut only runs it once a month to keep the seals in tact, and instead uses it as a big drying rack. There's no reason we HAVE to use those appliances just because we have them.

Thinking ahead to Christmas (of course), I feel like this is the year that we are finally going to get out of the rat race. We've been whittling back our Christmas shopping for years, going from everyone in the extended family exchanging gifts to just for the kids + a white elephant for the adults to just the for kids to now I think it's just grandparents (I mean Santa) giving to the kids, and my generation giving a group photo to the grandparents (a tradition now in its third year). Peanut and I buy very little for our own family celebration - we haven't exchanged gifts in eight years, I think, and our kids get so much from everyone else. They already have too many toys, more than they could possibly play with. I have a couple things laid up from consignment sales that I might bring out, plus a candy bar for each of them. Really, that's enough. We do help them to buy small gifts for each other and for us, though, so that they can learn how to be good gift choosers. But I think Christmas has been so overdone that people are starting to pull back from it. Maybe that's just my perception, because even the people in our family who used to want to exchange gifts with everyone are not wanting to do that anymore. Do you feel like Christmas is becoming less about gift-giving the last couple of years, or has it stayed about the same for you?

Plan to Eat Black Friday sale

2017-11-10T21:10:00.001-06:00

Plan to Eat's Black Friday sale is back! Get 50% off a great meal planning service - just $1.60 per month!

I will admit, I used to be a Plan to Eat subscriber, but I've let my subscription lapse. I don't do the meal planning, shopping, or cooking anymore, and Peanut has his own system. But when I was doing this, I LOVED how easy it was to use. Better than Pinterest for collecting recipes, searchable by ingredient, with a calendar feature as well as an export meal plan to shopping list feature, organized by the layout of the store.

You can do a four-day free trial, then get the Black Friday sale from Nov. 24-27.

...

Why are you still here? Go sign up!

(This post isn't sponsored and links are not affiliate links. I really think this is a great service and if you struggle with meal planning I think you will love it!)

Linkfest!

2017-11-02T22:26:00.001-05:00

From The New York Times:
What the Rich Won't Tell You:
"For individual people to admit that they are privileged is not necessarily going to change an unequal system of accumulation and distribution of resources."

Technology is not neutral

The true cost of an iPhone X based on what you earn

Risks of Using More Debt to Pay Down Debt

2017-10-25T07:28:00.001-05:00

By Patty Moore, a single mom who recently started blogging at Working Mother Life

If you are buried in debt, you are not alone. Debt is a serious problem for many people, and it occasionally it can seem never-ending. If you’re a typical debtor, then you know the consequences that come along with it. For example, it can stop you from purchasing a new car or prevent you from being approved for a loan, especially if your credit score has taken a hit due to it.

One of the most common forms of debt is credit card debt. People rely on their credit cards every day, and consumer credit debt rises each day accordingly. Most people can say they’ve carried a balance at one point, and some people can say they’ve been embroiled in inescapable credit card debt before. Fortunately, there are ways to get out of this debt, but none of them are free.

Naturally, there is are a couple common solutions for people with too much credit card debt, but it often requires them to take on a different form of debt such as a loan or a new credit card. For instance, if someone has $1,500 in debt, they may pay that off with a $1,500 loan. Afterwards, they’ll deal with the loan which would have a different interest rate and payment term.

Often, people choose a personal loan to consolidate their credit card debt, or they will find a cheap balance transfer card to help them make headway. Both of these options can save money, but they can also lead to disaster if mismanaged. Below, we will talk more in depth about why you may not want to take the risk by paying off one debt with more debt.

Personal Loans

As mentioned, a common reason for taking out a personal loan is to consolidate debt. Whether it is the remainder of an auto loan or credit card debt, they turn to a personal loan to cover it all with the intention to pay off that new loan later. One of the advantages is the ability to pay off your old debt immediately, then you are stuck with debt at a hopefully lower interest rate.

While the advantage of eliminating old debt is there, it does not come without some risks attached to it. Mainly, your debt doesn’t actually disappear, and the obligation to pay it is still prevalent. If you don’t pay down the new personal loan diligently, then you’re still heading in the wrong direction as before. If you start spending like crazy after consolidating, then you are in trouble.

There are other risks besides being unable to curb your spending. You could get a higher interest rate on your debt if you aren’t careful; this would cost you more money in the long run. You could deal with origination fees as high as 5.99% or even prepayment penalties which only drive the cost of debt. If you can’t manage your debt or avoid fees, then you are liable to make your situation worse.

Balance Transfer Card

Another common option to pay off credit card debt is the balance transfer credit card. This is where you apply for a low rate credit card and transfer your old debt to this new card. With this move, the new card pays off the debt on the old card which is effectively a transfer. Ideally, this new card will allow you to make headway on slimming down your debt.

If you can effectively transfer a balance and pay down the debt, this is an extremely advantageous move. Many balance transfer card offers offer a zero percent interest rate for anywhere from six to twelve months. If you can pay down the debt in this time period, then you’ll have saved money as opposed to handling it through your old card.

However, a balance transfer card poses some of the same challenges as a personal loan. Once the balance is transferred, the debt still exists to your name. If you start spending on credit again or neglecting payments, you’ll be digging yourself in a bigger hole. Furthermore, if you do not pay off the balance within the introductory timeframe, then you could start incurring fees and interest charges once again. If the new rate is higher than your old card, then you’ll be in worse shape than before, especially if you didn’t make progress on payments.

Final Word

It is not a good idea to pay off debt with debt if you do not have a solid plan moving forward. Personal loans and balance transfer cards offer a way out of debt, but they require you to pay down debt just like before. If you can’t fix the root problem of being unable to make payments, then opting for a new form loan or line of credit only delays your problems with debt.

With that being said, these options can save you money, but you just need to be able to understand the obligations that come with them. They’re not get-out-of-jail-free cards, but they do open up pathways to success, and potentially more problems.

Meal plan? What's a meal plan?

2017-10-15T16:36:00.002-05:00

I tell you what, being the breadwinner while Peanut is the stay-at-home parent is awesome. I don't have to cook hardly at all anymore, or do any meal planning or anything. We go grocery shopping as a whole family a few times a month, but that's more fun than stressful now for me. Also, we are eating better than we were when I cooked. I just compared our average spending for my last year at home and his first year at home, and we have spent about $20/month less on food (groceries and eating out) with him in charge than with me in charge. It's a win-win-win!

I usually make breakfast for myself and the kids so Peanut can sleep in. Breakfast is usually frozen waffles and scrambled eggs, or cocowheats and oatmeal, so it's not too difficult. Baby Bear would live off of cocowheats if he could. Pickle is a little more adventurous, asking for different things every other day or so. I can't stand eating the same thing over and over again, so I usually make something different for myself every day.

I take my lunch to work. We don't often have leftovers, so I buy Amy's frozen lunches, but only the Indian-inspired ones - matter paneer, saag paneer, and vegetable korma. Once or twice a month I buy lunch, and also once or twice a month lunch is provided as part of a meeting I attend. When I buy lunch, it ranges from $5-$16, which is why I don't buy too often. I used to keep some GoPicnic meals at my desk in case I forgot a frozen lunch, but I haven't been able to find them at Target in a few months. Did anyone else notice that?

Since Peanut cooks dinner, and he can eat the same thing every day for the rest of his life, we've learned to compromise about what he makes. He makes a really good halal-inspired chicken and rice dish but served it so often I rebelled. Now he rotates among that, spaghetti and meatballs, shakshuka, pork chops, and pizza, and maybe a few other things. This is very different from how I did meal planning, where I felt like (for some reason) I couldn't repeat anything for a month or so and tried to have like "Mexican night" and "new recipe night" and other rules that made it more work than it needed to be.

Meal planning is one of those grown-up chores that I just hated, and I'm so glad it's off my plate now. In its place I am doing board deck revisions and sales forecasts, and we are all much happier.

Linkfest

2017-10-13T07:03:00.001-05:00

Why should WE have to pay for Equifax's blunder?

This article about FAcebook freaked me right out.

"So Facebook knows your phone ID and can add it to your Facebook ID. It puts that together with the rest of your online activity: not just every site you've ever visited, but every click you've ever made – the Facebook button tracks every Facebook user, whether they click on it or not. Since the Facebook button is pretty much ubiquitous on the net, this means that Facebook sees you, everywhere. Now, thanks to its partnerships with the old-school credit firms, Facebook knew who everybody was, where they lived, and everything they'd ever bought with plastic in a real-world offline shop...What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens."

Adam Ruins Everything: Why You Should Tell Your Coworkers Your Salary

Five Frugal Things

2017-09-13T20:18:00.000-05:00

1. A friend had an extra ticket to last week's Beck/U2 concert at the Vikings Stadium, and offered it to me for free. We had a great time!

2. The day before the concert, I noticed a post on my company intranet about a nearby parking garage offering a free day of parking in exchange for a name and email address. I took advantage of it the night of the concert, so I didn't need to pay for either parking or an Uber. I'll get a few emails from this parking garage, which I can delete (or hang on to, if they are offering a discount on future parking) and I saved at least $20.

3. I had my kids try on every single piece of clothing they own, including all their winter gear. I also took their measurements from head to toe, and had them stand on a piece of paper to trace their feet for shoe sizing. Next weekend is my favorite local kids' consignment sale, and I plan to go on half-price day. Now I know exactly what they need (and what they don't!), and what sizes to buy.

4. We're almost done with diapers! Baby Bear starts potty training this weekend. We use the Oh, Crap! Potty Training method, which means I am 100% confident that this is it and we will not be going back to diapers. What a milestone!

5. We just celebrated Pickle's fifth birthday (!!) and she had a homemade cake that looks kinda sorta maybe like I had intended it to. The thing is, I didn't make that cake to win any awards. She really wanted me to make it, she wanted Dora on it, she wanted it vegan so her cousins could eat it - and she loved it. So it was a win, and it cost me about $5 compared to a store-bought vegan cake that would be at least $30+. We bought her one present (a kitkat bar), and we celebrated her and how much we love her and how glad we are that she is in our family. Especially for very young kids, their birthdays don't need to be expensive to be special.

What frugal wins have you had this week?

Linkfest!

2017-09-10T20:43:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since we've had one of these! Here are some of the great things I've been reading on the web lately.

On Being a Bad Manager - People get promoted out of individual contributors to managing people, which is a skill set that doesn't grow out of being a great individual contributor. I have been leading a team for a little over 18 months now, and it's been challenging in very different ways than anything I've done before. I've had some good mentoring on that, but I was still really surprised at how different of a job it is to be a manager versus a regular employee. My HR department has started a regular meeting for us middle managers and I'm hoping there will be some training to go along with it.

The highest-paying jobs and fields of study in the United States - is your field on here? Mine's not, and some of those numbers are HUGE!! I'm happy with where I'm at salary-wise but it's eye-opening to see what's possible with enough training and specialization.

The Equifax hack is possibly the largest disaster in the history of the social security administration. The social security number was never intended to be used for all the things it is currently used for - so it's a highly private identification number that is used for all sorts of public things by companies whose security systems are not strong enough to protect it adequately. I hope that this breach will be the thing that finally triggers an overhaul of the system of financial and government identification in the US, but I am not holding my breath. Also, consider carefully whether you want to sign up for the free "credit monitoring" service Equifax is offering to those affected - you may be signing away your rights to recompense from a class action lawsuit by doing so. Right now, we've opted for a credit flag and credit freeze with the three bureaus, and continued tri-annual monitoring of all our credit reports.

Recently Read & Highly Recommended:

Four Queens

All Our Wrong Todays

The Dark Tower series (how late am I to this game!)

For kids: Fox and Hen Together

Sharing and subscriptions for the win!

2017-09-04T17:18:00.001-05:00

My family recently celebrated a wedding, and so there was travel involved. We were all set to book a hotel room in the block the bride and groom had set aside when one of my siblings suggested that we (the siblings not getting married) split an AirBNB.

I had only used AirBNB one time previously, on a work trip, so it hadn't even occurred to me. But I did some poking around and managed to find a big apartment only two blocks from the wedding venue. We ended up paying around $75 per adult instead of $150+ per adult, plus we got to hang out communally during our down time, we had a kitchen at our disposal for easy breakfast and snacks, and being only two blocks from the venue it wasn't a problem to walk the kids back during the reception when they got overtired. Lucky Peanut got a break from all my extended family and hung out there playing video games in the living room - if we'd had a hotel room, he'd have had to hide out in the bathroom or something so he wouldn't keep the kids awake.

And it turned out that the apartment we rented was owned by a hairdresser, who is a friend of my new sister-in-law and did her hair for the wedding. What a fun, small world!

I am loving the growing and evolving economy of sharing (AirBNB, Uber/Lyft, tool libraries) and subscriptions (software licenses, Movie Pass). I think this is a much better use of our resources and a better way to build community, save money, and get things done. It's still not a default for me - like I said, I was ready to book in the hotel block, because that's what I've always done for weddings before. But as I have more positive experiences with the sharing economy and subscription models for experiences and services, I am starting to check there first before resorting to the traditional way I've done things growing up.

(Somewhat randomly, a few days before our trip we listened to the How I Built It podcast with the founder of AirBNB, which was really good!)

The one sharing/subscription thing I haven't really got into is the boxes, especially the clothing subscriptions. I don't buy enough clothes to justify it, probably, and I really, really prefer to try things on before spending any money (and also prefer to buy used stuff), but I like the concept of it.

What are your favorite sharing economy or subscription model offerings?

Is Facebook the new blogosphere?

2017-08-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

Is Facebook the new blogosphere?

It sure seems like most blogs I read are now feeding posts to a Facebook page; some even have Facebook groups or communities. On the one hand, this is annoying - I blog anonymously for a reason and want to be able to leave comments without having them broadcast to my entire IRL friends list. On the other hand, it's harder and harder to find an RSS feed reader that I like, and pretty much all the information I find from anywhere is through Facebook (I kind of hate admitting that, but it's true), and it's nice to have more of that kind of thing on there than the stuff that's being shared by the people on my friends list. So, there's that.

Part of what brought this up is that Peanut and I attended a FIRE meet up today. Go Curry Cracker was in town, and we thought it would be interesting to meet people who share our thoughts about money. It was a fun (and frugal!) time; we met some nice and interesting people, and enjoyed a beautiful day outside at a lovely park. It made me wonder how much I want to be anonymous, and really, how much I want to blog generally going forward.

I haven't posted much lately. I haven't had much to say. In truth, I am fairly disconnected from our finances. I earn, we save, we spend. We are maxing out my 403(b) this year and while we thought that was going to be a stretch goal, we haven't even noticed. We are on track to max out our Roth IRAs as well. We are saving as much as we're spending, we're hitting our goals, and we don't even feel it - there's not much to say. Bringing lunch is a habit. Buying used (or not at all) is a habit. I hardly spend money except when I'm traveling for work and it doesn't matter. I have therefore become terrible about keeping track of my money, even with an app on my phone for recording what I spend. Peanut pays the bills every month so I'm not even engaged in looking at the trends of our finances anymore.

It seems like we are in the limbo period where everything we could do is in place and we are now waiting for time to make the compound interest magic happen. It's fairly boring.

However. I am coming up on the 10 YEAR anniversary of this blog! I've been blogging longer than fourth graders have been alive. The PF blogosphere is a huge reason that we are where we are financially - the support, encouragement, and community that I found when it was a struggle to figure out how to manage my money and where to aim my goals are the things that really helped me be weird in a world that thinks being in debt is normal. Over the years, the blogosphere has changed. Some of those changes have been good (more women!), and some of those have been not so great (spam! losing great bloggers! content mills!).

So I'm wondering if I'm seeing the next shift of the PF world - to one that is less anonymous and more in the public of our every day, by happening primarily on the place where we spend our online lives, on Facebook. In a way, that's why I've been writing for the last decade - to make personal finance a thing that we talk about, to not equate salary with worth, to have open discussions about the meaning of money and what it enables us to do with our lives. I don't think I'm done trying to move that conversation forward, and maybe getting back in the habit of talking about it will help me feel more engaged and connected with the future we are building.

So, all of that to say - I'm on Facebook now. Pop over and say hi! Facebook.com/littlemissmoneybags

Easy way to help prevent identity theft!

2017-08-03T21:23:00.001-05:00

The Social Security Administration has joined the 21st century and has online accounts. Only one account can be linked to each Social Security number - so why wouldn't you go ahead and register now before identity thieves helpfully register you on their behalf.

It's a small thing, but to my mind it's like registering your email address or domain name - just do it, even if you don't think you'll use it for a long time.

Thanks to the online friend who pointed this out to me!

Round Up

2017-06-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

Well, I asked for my raise. I got a "let's keep talking about it" response, which is not terribly surprising. I think I will probably get something ahead of the next company-wide cost of living adjustment, but what it really tells me is that this "promotion" is somewhat temporary - I had suspected that my department may be reorganized again within a year, which would take these strategic decisions back off my plate, and I'm now fairly sure that that's the plan. Which is also fine with me - we're doing fine on my income as it is, but I felt like I should advocate for myself since the workload did increase. And I probably will get something out of it, because the sales numbers certainly don't lie. I have a chance to have a one on one conversation with HR later this year as well, and I will bring it up then if nothing has happened by then.

This post on Habits vs Goals was great. I've pretty much stopped doing goals posts for this reason - I don't really have goals per se anymore. I try to develop specific habits (bring lunch to work every day, 100 push-up challenge) and those aren't motivating to report on. But they make a bigger and more longer term impact on my life, so that's where my focus is instead.

I've been trolling through J Money's blog directory looking for new pf blogs to read. It seems like the blog world has really changed a lot in the last year or two - so many blogs have turned into "content" machines, and fewer of the personal blogs that I really like to read still exist. I don't read blogs for personal finance advice anymore (if I ever did) but more for people's personal experiences, choices, goals, hopes, and dreams, and those are getting harder and harder to find. Maybe people are talking about that stuff on Facebook or something instead? I don't know.

Where do you find new pf blogs to read?