Everyone knows that in order to get more money, you need to make more money, right?

Wrong.  My favorite way to get more money is to save it by not spending it on other items.  The coolest part about saving the money is that you don’t have to pay taxes on it as income!

My best friend has just returned to the U.S. after a trip overseas and she was surprised by gas prices.  She told me that she was going to have to break down and start taking public transportation…and that her work would pay for it!

I had to give her a lecture!  One of my points was that this is a huge benefit to her, especially as she doesn’t have to do anything extra to earn this money and she doesn’t have to pay income taxes on it!  She doesn’t have to work extra hours and she doesn’t have to pay the income taxes on it.

Here’s what she’s doing now:

1.  Uses her salary (she has to pay income tax on it, so it’s already diminished!) to pay to put gas in her car.

2.  Pays sales tax on the gas to put into her car.

3.  Drives the car to and from work, paying for it herself and paying extra taxes on the income/outflow.

Here’s how the scenario could look:

1.  She purchases her ticket through whatever work program she has.  No sales tax, no income/outflow.

I think the choice would be easy for me.  The amount of time that she spends in “the lurch” of public transportation could easily be used to catch up on some personal reading or Master’s degree work.

Photo credit:  Skydiver Mark Wilson

Many military members are very excited about the new GI Bill that was passed last Monday.  I guess I can “come out” now - I’m a military member.  The most exciting piece for me is not the GI Bill money, it’s that I can transfer it to DS.

Here’s how our plan would work:

1.  I reenlist next year and upon signing up for at least four more years, I can transfer up to 36 months of GI Bill benefits to my husband or son.  I already have more than the 6 years of service required to do so.

2.  He can go to any college when he graduates high school.  The new GI Bill will cover three expenses for 36 months of education:

a.  tuition up to the most expensive public school tuition for the state

b.  housing allowance (same as what an E5 living off base would get for that locale)

c.  book stipend up to $1000 per year

I lose out on the $1200 that we had to put in for the original buy-in (the rules were different back then - you had to pay in for your first year) and I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose the extra $600 buy-in I did a few years ago.  Either way, I’m very excited and grateful to the people that made the new bill.  This is one more thing I don’t have to save for - DS’s college fund, and you can bet that it’s a motivator for retention!

Am I missing something here?  I’m only worried that if DS decides to go to a military university (free), the benefits will not transfer back to me or DH.

Link for even more information.

Photo credit:  lyle58

On a previous post, I was thinking about how we get a certain sense of entitlement as we get older.  I have experienced this through personal trevails; for example, when we go out to eat for a business luncheon, the highest-paid individual might foot the bill or buy an expensive bottle of wine.  This might not be viewed as a splurge by my dear readers, but as good business sense.  Good business sense aside, I have noticed that peoples’ perceptions of themselves is usually directly related (instead of inversely related) to their rank and/or age status within an organization.  I don’t see many dudes (as I work with about 80% guys) ordering just a “soup and salad.”  They usually go for a steak, especially if they are in a higher position in the company.  Just a personal observation…

What are your views on spending creep with age?  Inflation aside, do you think you can maintain your current lifestyle, or do you think entitlement will creep in as you age?

DS had a friend over the other night for a sleepover, and it was seriously hilarious to hear how my message comes out of DS’s mouth.  DS kept explaining to his friend that we do things so that we can save money (DS is ten).  I understand that maybe he is a little embarrassed that we have store brand items or maybe that we do things differently, but it’s not going to kill him.  He definitely understands the why - he explained everything very logically and well.  My brainwashing is working…

The friend’s response to everything was, “Oh, my dad is rich.  He’s got $3000 in the bank, so we can buy anything we want.”  I’m sure that he was told this or overheard it, so I’m not really sure of the context of this particular sentence, but as soon as the friend left, I explained to DS that $3k is definitely not equivalent to rich, and that I didn’t ever want him to think that.  I went over it as a general topic, and then I explained that the $500 that DS has painstakingly saved is half of one thousand dollars, so he’ll have $3000 himself before he knows it.  I also explained that $3000 would only run our household for about 5 or 6 months if we weren’t working, and it definitely wasn’t enough to make him rich.

Have you had an experience like this?  How do you explain “normal” kids with financially crazy parents to your kids?

The fifteenth was payday.  The fam and I hadn’t been out to eat, so when DH called and told me we didn’t have any food in the cupboard, I decided to pick up some Chinese food.

So did the rest of the United States military!  I just beat the best part of the line, but there were four uniforms in a seven-person deep line.  I bet if I had picked up food on the fourteenth (the day before payday), the restaurant would have been empty with a tumbleweed rolling through it.  The feeling of having money burning a hole in the pocket was everywhere on the fifteenth.  As soon as I got home, DH and DS went to Wal-mart and bought not one, but two, fishing poles.  They don’t even have time to fish!  And I had gone and gotten the free chicken sandwich during lunch, only to spend an additional $4 on drink, ice cream cone and fries.  What a bad day!

I transferred my money out on payday, and I only keep $1000 in my checking account at most.  Do I need to keep less in there to induce more of a feeling of scarcity?  I felt out of control with spending after a big $44 spending throughout the day.

What do you do differently on payday than any other day?  Is $19 a lot for fishing gear for one person?  What do you do to limit your feelings of spend creep when you have more money available to you?

I thought I was going to get a good deal on my car insurance, but the deal flopped.  The insurance salesman would have saved me $80 on insurance, but I would have had to pay $80 extra for my homeowners’ thru his company.  It was a wash.

This brings up an important point - at least I tried.  Everytime you see an opportunity to save money, look into it.  Research it first (buyer beware), but always look into it at least.  Not worth your time?  I don’t think so.  Pretty much everyone here on Earth works for money, so I’d say that money is worth your time.

What is your philosophy?  Do you try each and every deal?  What deals have you missed out on because you didn’t research them?

I think this blog makes me forget my manners, because occasionally I start talking out of line at work or with friends about their money situations.

The real kicker is when my friends talk about their credit cards.  I want my friends to be happy, healthy and debt-free, just like me.  I explain to them that they don’t need a credit card.  I get a blank look and a question about what I do when I don’t have the money.  Here’s what I say:

“I either don’t buy it or I use my emergency fund.”

Then, I get an even blanker look.  I haven’t done the research yet, so I’m not really sure if the blank look is because people don’t understand the concept of not buying things or if they don’t understand the emergency fund.  Then, I get asked, “How much do you keep in your emergency fund?”

Here, I usually falter, because I realize I’m in an uncomfortable situation.  See, these people owe money to other people because of their “emergencies”.  I have emergency money in a fund above and beyond what I’m going to spend every month.  That puts me on a higher financial ground.  But I’m honest and I tell them, “$10,000.”

This is when I get the blankest look of all.

Mind you, I don’t have the 4-6 months recommended, but $10,000 sounds like a lot of cash lying around to the other person who is probably mortgaged, carloaned and creditcardcharged to the hilt.  It hurts me to even think about it.

So, this conversation happens to me about once per year, and I don’t like it.  How can I approach it better?  I want my friends to have emergency funds.  It’s a great peace of mind, as I stated in my article over at Gen X Finance.  I’ll ask it here, since it’s allowed:

How much do you have in your emergency fund?  How do you address money conversations with colleagues and friends?

This is ridiculous.  I have become addicted to the CVS game.  Poring over the internet for random coupons has become my hobby.  I’m trying to parlay my current $30 in CVS bucks into much more, but along the way, I’ve been buying things I don’t even like.  What do people do with this stuff?  My stuff has been getting tossed in the trash by DH, but I feel like there’s somehow a better use for it.  I usually get one good item (i.e. usable for me) per week.

I could donate it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.  Do they take healthcare items and soaps, etc.?  I could freecycle it.  I could find a local nursing home and donate it.

Any other ideas?  What else could I do with the free CVS items I won’t use?

Okay, the words that no parent on a budget wants to hear:  Braces!  I’m lucky; I have almost perfectly straight teeth, so I didn’t need them, but the dentist said the dirty B-word on Tuesday and said that in 6 months if DS’s permanent teeth come in, he could be referred to an orthodontist on his next dentist appointment.

Ages are a little “off” for my son; he entered school really late, but he’ll be in 4th grade and be 11 when they put the braces on him.  My mom and sisters had braces on when they were in high school.  Isn’t eleven a bit young?  Another thing - my mom’s teeth have moved back to their original positions….what’s that about?  Will DS’s do that?  How much is this going to cost?  I need to sit down with my insurance paperwork; maybe I’ll be lucky and it’ll be covered?

*sigh.

Who’s got brace experience?  Hook a sister up with some info!

When I moved into my current home, we didn’t really have time to unpack, and eventually I just shoved the partially-unpacked boxes into numerous closets.  The last couple weeks, I have dedicated one hour each weekend (a grand total of two whole hours) to decluttering a couple closets.

It is so freeing to find old items that you had either forgotten about or will never use.  I have BOXES of stuff that I haven’t used for over 5 years.  Why?  Just in case I ever need them.  Will I ever remember that I have them in there?  No.

An example:  in all this de-cluttering, I have found that I own three irons.  Why?  Because they were shoved deep into a box at the bottom of the box-wall in my closet.  I haven’t bought any new ones for years, I just forgot that I had extras in there.  In case….one broke?  I’m not really sure in case why, but I own three irons.  Freecycle could be very busy next weekend in my town.

Now, I have a mountain of “get rid of” in the middle of my bonus room floor.  It is pretty cool.  And uplifting.