The Family CEO

Small Indulgences: A Ghirardelli Chocolate Giveaway

2012-02-03T21:55:12Z

Lunch with girlfriends is one of those small indulgences I allow myself, even as we’re trying to do big things financially. These lunches are important to me because a) I work from home and I need human interaction and b) as I head toward the “empty nest” part of my life, my friendships have taken on new meaning.

I have a group of five girlfriends and we do birthday lunches for each other. That automatically builds five lunches into the calendar each year. We also throw in the occasional “Hey, it’s Friday,” or “I haven’t seen you in a while,” or “Did you watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion?” lunch between birthday lunches.

I look for other excuses to go out to lunch too. I have a former co-worker who I keep up with on Facebook, but we like to “take it offline” a couple of times a year and catch up. Here’s a partial list of what we talked about the last time we met:

Kids, college, 25th anniversaries, blogging, the Nelson Atkins Museum, FAFSA, books, movies, shot glasses, and where can we get those baby carrots with the stems still on them?

These aren’t extravagant lunches. They’re much more about the conversation than the cuisine. But they are little indulgences…both of time and money.

The folks at Ghirardelli Chocolate also believe in small indulgences and they are offering their new chocolate line, Ghirardelli Gourment Milk, as a suggestion. The new line consists of three flavors:

Gourmet Milk Creamy Devotion
Gourmet Milk Sea Salt Escape
Gourment Milk Coconut Rendezvous

I have had all three and they were heavenly. (I thought I would like the Coconut Rendezvous the least and it turned out to be my favorite .)

I tell you all this to let you know that I have a gift pack of all three chocolate bars to give away. (Here they are on my $4 estate sale silver tray. Don’t they look fancy? And indulgent?)

Here’s how the giveaway will work:

You’ll earn an entry for each of the following things. Please use a separate blog comment for each one you do so I can keep track of the entries.

Tell me what your favorite small indulgence is.
Tell me what Family CEO topic(s) you would like to see more of. (i.e. debt reduction, simplifying, frugal decorating, book reviews, simple investing, etc.) There are lists of both categories and tags in the sidebar to refer to or feel free to suggest something new.
Like The Family CEO on Facebook.
Subscribe to The Family CEO by email or RSS.

The deadline for contest entries is Friday, February 10. That way I can get your prize in the mail so you can (hopefully) have it by Valentine’s Day. (You do plan to win, don’t you?)

So good luck. And thank you!

Note: Ghiradelli provided me with the chocolate for this giveaway. My “compensation” was my own chocolate, which I lovingly taste tested for you so I could provide you with this review.

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Reader Question: How to Get Kids to Declutter, Simplify

2012-02-01T16:20:57Z

A reader named Shannon asked this question in the comments of the last post on decluttering:

Any tips for motivating kids to declutter if there is not cash involved?

Obviously, this is going to depend a lot on the age of the kids.

When my kids were small I did their decluttering for them. It’s amazing what you can clear out of a kid’s room while he or she is at school without them noticing. I also think it’s helpful and important to talk about giving something they aren’t using to someone who will get some use or enjoyment out of it.

As they became teens, I left their decisions about their stuff and their rooms mainly up to them, in a “pick your battles” kind of way. But we have a designated spot in our house for donations, and I find that they do use it.

But if decluttering is important to you, and the kids are motivated by money, I would look for ways to continue to make it about money. Here are some ideas:

Teach them/help them sell on Craigslist or eBay. (I helped my son — who is very motivated by money — get rid of some old gaming systems via eBay.)
Help them hold a garage sale of their stuff.
Pay them a percentage of the amount you save on your taxes through donations.

I know the readers will have some great ideas on this too. So Shannon and I are curious:

How do you motivate your kids to declutter and simplify?

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The Power of Simplifying: How One Mom Used a Decluttering Challenge to Save $1800 in Taxes

2012-01-31T16:25:50Z

I’m a big fan and long-time reader of Sharon at Musings of a Midlife Mom. For one thing, we find ourselves in exactly the same place in life. Here’s how she describes herself:

“I’m a wife and mother entering midlife, trying to live simply and save for retirement, and still have a little fun along the way.”

So it doesn’t surprise me when I read something inspiring on her blog.

But a comment she made in a post recently caused me to sit up and take special notice: Because she challenged herself to get rid of 1000 things from her home in 2011, her family is getting an extra $1800 back on their taxes.

$1800.

That’s a very tangible and powerful example of the impact that decluttering and simplifying can have on your family’s finances.

So I asked Sharon if she would do a Q&A with me here at The Family CEO and she graciously agreed. Here’s our conversation:

Tell us about the 1,000 Challenge.

I created a challenge for myself to get rid of 1,000 usable items from my home in one year. Trash did not count, it had to be something that I could donate.

What inspired you to take on the challenge?

I started the 1,000 item challenge in March, 2011 after we had a leak in our basement and our whole house “blew up” with stuff. We had to bring all of the items from the basement upstairs…and there was a lot…most of which we really didn’t use or need. My mantra since then has been “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”- William Morris (Julie’s note: I love that quote. Love it. I refer to it all the time.)

What is your system for decluttering?

Decluttering has to be done in small increments for me to get it done right. If I do too much at once, I get overwhelmed and quit. I like to pick a drawer, closet, or in some cases, a whole room if I have the time. (I also hold myself accountable to all of my blog followers and post about it each Monday.)

The first thing I do is remove EVERYTHING from the space. Then I create three piles…give-aways, throw-aways and a “needs to go to a different spot” pile. I then completely wash down the cleared space before I start to put things back. Once I’m done, I’ll put the give-aways in a pile, snap a picture, write down each item on a piece of paper, then load up the give-aways in a plastic bag to be picked up by Goodwill. Obviously the trash gets put outside in the garbage.

I know you use It’s Deductible to value your donations. I do too. How do you use the program?

I don’t wait until the end of the year to input the items I’ve given away. After each declutter session, I input the give-aways into the program. There is a feature on the top left hand corner of It’s Deductible that tells me the amount I “saved” on taxes. A GREAT motivator, for sure! Also, by doing this throughout the year, I don’t have a huge project to tackle at tax time.

Did the challenge have any other impact on your finances?

Great question. Actually, yes. After decluttering, you know exactly what you have. (This works especially well in the kitchen!) I’ve lowered both my clothing and grocery bill because of this knowledge.

What did you learn or what other experiences did you have while going through the challenge?

I’ve learned that I have too.much.stuff. It has helped me stay out of stores and utilize what I already have. I believe it was transformative in that I’ve started leaning towards a more minimialistic life. I have started this challenge again for 2012. Eventually I hope to give enough away to be able to downsize to a smaller home…which is my ultimate goal.

I want to thank Sharon so much for taking the time to talk with me about the challenge. I find her experience so inspiring, don’t you?

Here are my takeaways:

Challenge myself to sell or donate 1000 items in 2012. I have no idea if this is feasible or not, but our first donation of the year consisted of 64 items. And as my husband put some shirts in the donation pile recently he told me that “here are 4 more things for the challenge.” So I guess it’s on!
Input information into It’s Deductible after each donation. I’ve never found it overwhelming to do it all at tax time, but I only declutter and donate a few times a year. I will probably feel differently when I have a dozen or more donations to input all at once.
Pay more attention to the tax savings. It sounds like Sharon’s family is getting their money back in the form of a refund. How awesome would that be? We’re self-employed so any “refunds” we get go right back to the IRS as prepayments on next years’ taxes. But having the higher tax burden of being self-employed means we’re always on the lookout for ways to shave our tax bill so I’ll be paying more attention to that tax savings feature in It’s Deductible.
Take a picture of each donation before it goes out the door. For both documentation and motivation purposes.

Do stories like Sharon’s inspire you? Are you doing something similar? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

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Ask the Readers: How to Celebrate a Frugal Yet Meaningful Valentine’s Day

2012-01-28T01:03:02Z

Happy Valentine's Day! How will you celebrate?

I’m thinking about Valentine’s Day.

We’re not extravagant Valentine’s Day people, but even the simplest of traditional celebrations can add up. I’d like to keep it simpler this year.

Actually, I think my husband and I have been accidentally celebrating Valentine’s Day since the first of the year. We’ve been attending a six week sermon series on Love, Sex, and Marriage. For the last two weeks, we’ve stopped for a meal on the way home, which turned it into more of a date.

The last sermon in the series — The Habits of Those Who Love for a Lifetime — is coincidentally (or probably not) scheduled for the weekend before Valentine’s Day.

And today a Groupon deal for a local steakhouse showed up in my inbox. While I debated whether or not to buy it, it occurred to me that we could use it for dinner out after the last worship service in the series. That seemed like an especially fitting way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

We’ll also probably exchange small gifts. I’m going to suggest a $10 or less limit so we can exercise our creativity instead of our wallets.

I’d love some help with that part and I’m sure others would too, so I’m asking the readers:

What are your best suggestions for creative, frugal Valentine’s Day gifts? How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

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How to Turn Rebate Cards into Extra Debt Payments

2012-01-24T19:56:37Z

Rebate cards like these can help you with your goal to pay off debt.

The holidays are over and we’re making a final push to get all of our non-mortgage debt paid off in 2012.

Enter the return of found money.

Since the first of the year, we’ve received two rebates totaling $140:

A $40 tire rebate for a new set of tires we put on my van last fall.
A $100 Apple rebate from the new computer I bought right before Christmas, when my laptop died in a most spectacular way.

And last week I sent $140 to our home equity loan as an extra payment.

How to Turn Rebate Cards into Extra Debt Payments

Rebates are one of my best sources of found money. But they don’t always come in the form of a check.

More and more, I’m getting rebates in the form of a card, like this Visa debit card we got for our tires. And you can’t exactly send one of these in as an extra payment on your credit card, mortgage, or home equity loan.

But here’s what you can do:

Use the rebate card on something you would have bought anyway (i.e. groceries or gas).
Send the amount of the rebate as an extra debt payment.

The mechanics of it aren’t hard. The keys are seeing the card as a debt snowflake (and not an excuse to splurge on something unplanned) and then following through on sending the extra payment in.

Once you’ve committed to do those things, you will probably find yourself searching high and low for rebates and other sources of found money. They can add up to big things.

Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing how excited I get when these bits of found money find their way to me and I know I get to make an extra payment.

Are you addicted to debt reduction (or saving)? Do your rebates have a job? Talk about it in the comments.

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How to Read Kindle eBooks Without a Kindle

2012-01-20T19:35:28Z

You can read e-books without an e-reader.

Many of you have taken advantage of the free Kindle ebooks I posted about this week and last. (A lot of you must be decluttering and simplifying too! FYI, at the time I’m writing this, all four books are still being offered for free or for 99 cents.)

As I was posting about those books, however, I was curious about how readers without a Kindle or other e-reader could take advantage of the free ebook downloads. That’s when a new reader named Nicole mentioned in a comment that she was reading the Kindle version of the book without a Kindle. I asked her about it and here’s what she wrote:

There are 2 options. One is that you can read it in Amazon Cloud, I am not sure how it works, but since this was $0.00, I figured that I had nothing to lose and just “bought” it, then found out that I could just read it online, in my web browser, on something called the Cloud.

The other option is to download Kindle for PC, a free download (I have a Mac, but found out that when I’d go to download Kindle for PC, it detected that I was on a Mac and offered me Kindle for Mac, which I believe is still in beta, but it worked for me, anyway.)

Thank you so much for that info, Nicole. I know that it will be helpful to someone.

A question for the rest of you: do you read e-books without e-reader? What method do you use?

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Organized Simplicity Free at Amazon

2012-01-27T17:41:09Z

Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider is currently free in it’s Kindle version at Amazon.

I checked out Tsh’s book from the library last year and got so much out of it that I jumped at the chance to have the ebook version in my library.

Tsh (who blogs at Simple Mom) has organized the book into two parts:

Living Simply in the Real World
Ten Days to a Simpler, More Organized Home

I could go on, but the price of Organized Simplicity could change from $0 back to it’s regular price of $16.99 at any time, so I’ll shut up and let you go get it.

(Please note: This post contains my referral links. See my disclosure policy for more details.)

This post is part of Frugal Fridays and Finer Things Friday.

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A Simple System for Donating Household Items and Valuing Them for a Tax Deduction

2012-01-18T04:36:13Z

What you see pictured here is a recent trip to Goodwill.

Eight bags of clothes, one bag of shoes, and a bag of cups/water bottles.

(I literally called an impromptu family meeting about the water bottles, which were spilling out of our cabinets. Everyone picked one or two favorites and out went the rest.)

Like so many of you, I am decluttering. Big time.

The method I am using is one that I have used for years and years, and it has served me well.

Here’s what it looks like:

The Staging Area

If you’re committed to decluttering – either as a one-time or ongoing proposition – it helps to have a staging area. A place where you can put the things that are on their way out.

It can be as simple as a box by the back door or in the garage. For us, it’s a spare closet off our master bedroom.

The whole family knows about this staging area and we all use it.

The List

Before I make a run to drop off donations, I take everything from the staging area and make a quick list of the items. It’s a very simple list with the name of the item and tally marks of how many there are.

I do this for tax purposes because we write off our donations (more on that in a minute).

The Drop Off

There are several places near me where you can literally drive up, drop off your donations, and get a receipt without ever turning off your car. That’s important, because if donating is too time consuming it’s easy to put if off and the stuff piles up.

We also have some charities that drive through our neighborhood on a regular basis and pick up things that have been left out. I rarely use that option, but many of my neighbors do.

(Check out Charity Navigator if you want more information about the organizations you plan to donate to.)

The Write Off

The biggest challenge with writing off charitable donations for tax purposes is knowing how to value them. That’s where It’s Deductible comes in. It’s Deductible gives you the resale value of your non-cash donations, based on the style and condition of the item.

I started using It’s Deductible when it was first a book and then a software program that you had to pay actual money for. It was that valuable.

The good news is that now it’s completely free to use.

And it’s easy too. It took me about fifteen minutes to input all ten bags of stuff from our donation (and I even took a call from a friend during that time). It really is fast and simple.

It’s Deductible even valued those water bottles for me. They were listed right there under Kitchen>On the Go>Water/Sports Bottle.

When you’re done entering items, you can print off a list for your records. I put the printed list with my handwritten list and then staple it all together with the the receipt from the charity.

If you’re wondering whether valuing your items for a write-off is worth your time, consider this: It’s Deductible valued my eight bags of clothing, one bag of shoes, and one bag of water bottles at $497.

That was for one trip to Goodwill and I should note that I always choose the ‘medium value’ condition for my items instead of the ‘high value’ option.

Work in Stages

One of the reason this system works so well for me, is that I don’t have to do everything at once. I usually handle donations in three stages:

The rest of the family and I collect items on an ongoing basis since we know where to put them.

When the pile is big enough (i.e. we can’t get to our luggage or other items in that spare closet) I make a list of the times and drive them to the donation site.

At tax time, I take the lists and the receipts from the year and put everything into It’s Deductible at once.

(Note: I’ve added It’s Deductible to the Resources page here at The Family CEO for future reference.)

Do you have a system for donating items that works for you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

This post is part of Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

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Debt Payoff Update

2012-01-12T05:09:33Z

In the last 14 months, we’ve paid off over $40,000 in non-mortgage debt. $44,513 to be exact.

That number surprises even me. In fact, I pulled all the statements and re-checked the numbers on the spreadsheet just to be sure.

That number doesn’t include our mortgage, which is on a 15 year payout. We paid $11,700 toward that during the same time period.

That brings the grand total of debt paid down during those 14 months to $56,213.

So what happened?

Did we win the lottery? Come into an inheritance? Sell the kids?

To read the rest of the post, follow me to the PerkStreet Blog.

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Make Your Kids CFOs of Energy

2012-01-10T19:40:39Z

The following is a guest post.

So, if you’re the Chief Executive Officer of the family, why not make your kids the Chief Financial Officers of Household Energy? Yes, you may not be able to pay them the six-figure salaries that most CFOs earn, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make valuable contributions to growing your family’s brand as the most energy-efficient household on the block. Why is this important? Most households waste a lot of energy through appliances and basic neglect simply because energy efficiency isn’t taught at an early age and isn’t viewed as a financial factor in a family’s net value. Are energy costs on the same level of importance as your collateral loans or bonds? Perhaps not. But in the long run, they can add to be a major drain. Here are two solid ways to deputize your children in energy efficiency in order to save money and educate them for the future:

When appliances aren’t being used they should be turned off. It’s astonishing how cavalier we have become about leaving appliances on, even though consciousness about energy efficiency as grown into the mainstream. Radios, electronic toothbrush chargers, computers, lights, TVs, seemingly anything with an electronic pulse can be invariably left on for weeks at a time without being used at all. This is an enormous expense and an incredible waste for the community and the Earth. Teach your kids to turn off appliances; make them accountable for that each night before they go to bed. Also, when you’re out of town, unplug your appliances. Most of them still consume trace amounts of energy even when they’re turned off.

Conserve, recycle, and reuse. When energy is viewed as a precious resource, a luxury, and not a limitless substance that can be wasted, it’s easier to be efficient. Conserving water, electrical, and heat use saves money and teaches your kids to be frugal. Challenge them to be as economical as possible, while also becoming champions of recycling and re-usage. Recycling should be a daily and weekly activity that the whole family can experience together. Reusing containers and products can be fun and creative. For example, instead of recycling all those jars, bottles, and containers, you can reuse them for sauces, paints, art projects or any number of household remedies.

If you teach your kids at a young age to respect the energy they use and to be as efficient as possible with it, you will not only be preparing them for a healthy, responsible future you’ll be saving some major money in the process. Making your kids the CFOs of Household Energy is a smart move for any parent looking to instill smart financial lessons into their children’s lives.

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The Family CEO

Small Indulgences: A Ghirardelli Chocolate Giveaway

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Reader Question: How to Get Kids to Declutter, Simplify

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The Power of Simplifying: How One Mom Used a Decluttering Challenge to Save $1800 in Taxes

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Ask the Readers: How to Celebrate a Frugal Yet Meaningful Valentine’s Day

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How to Turn Rebate Cards into Extra Debt Payments

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How to Read Kindle eBooks Without a Kindle

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Organized Simplicity Free at Amazon

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A Simple System for Donating Household Items and Valuing Them for a Tax Deduction

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Debt Payoff Update

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Make Your Kids CFOs of Energy

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