Money Beagle

 I'm all for saving money at the grocery store.  We save money in our house by a multi-faceted strategy:

1. Clip coupons - My wife is great at cutting out coupons and we also use some of the online coupons sites as well
2. Shop for sales - We will buy things on sale that we need this week, or if it's not immediately perishable, that we know we will use in future.  If we can combine the sale with a coupon, this is even better
3. Buy what we can in bulk - We have a Costco membership and some things just make sense for us to buy in bulk: cans of mushroom, parmasean cheese, spaghetti sauce, granola bars and other snacks are all staples from Costco.  The key is to make sure we use everything up.

However, I think there's cases where saving money on groceries might not always be the best.  How?  Well, if you're spending excessively and buying things that you don't need or won't use.

The trigger for this article was actually a commercial that's aired a number of times over the past few months for Kroger, a national grocery store with a big presence in our area.  In this commercial, Kroger lauds their low prices (editors note: not so much), and has actual customers talk about their savings.  Most of the customers are believable, but one stands out.

She says: "I save an average of $150 per week shopping at Kroger."

Sounds great at first, but then you think, how much is she spending to save that much money?

I'll use our most recent shopping trip to come up with some hypothetical numbers.  We didn't shop at Kroger, but for the sake of argument, we'll say that the numbers are within reason for comparison sake.

We spent $55 total.  Our savings, between buying things on sale and using coupons was $25.  Not as great as some people can get, but I think it was still pretty good.

If you multiply those numbers up, in order to save $150, you would have to spend $330.  That's not $150 off of $330, that's actually spending $330 after you took your savings.  Every week!

For a weekly grocery bill, that seems outrageous even for someone with a large family.

Those numbers would add up to annual out-of-pocket spending for groceries of $17,160.  To me, if you're spending $17k and change on groceries in a year, I would have a hard time accepting that you're really saving a lot.

Unless of course this was the Octomom or Kate Gosselin and I just didn't recognize the person speaking.  But, somehow I doubt that was the case :)


Other great reads

Here are some additional posts I've read recently by other great, hard working bloggers.  Give them a read if you have a few minutes:

• Things A Burglar Won't Tell You - Consumer Boomer
• The Best Time To Have Children - Money Reasons
• Don't Blame Others For Your Debt - My Journey to Millions
• Learning Financial Lessons From Aesop's Fables - The Amateur Financier
• 6 Reasons You Won't Go To Finance Hell If You're Getting A Tax Refund This Year - Darwin's Finance

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

Last December, I reported that my grandmother had passed away.  She was 95 and lived a great life.

I miss her dearly.

She was kind enough to have left me an inheritance.  She and my grandfather (who passed away in the mid-1990's) lived modestly, but were able to save a little bit.

My grandmother had told me of the fact that I was to receive some money at a couple of different points over the past few years.  Even so, I never 'counted on' this money, because I knew that expenses she might have for medical or housing issues might necessitate dipping into her savings.  If that would have happened, I would have been perfectly OK with that because her happiness and comfort was more important to me than any amount of money could have provided.

Things played out, though, where I did receive some money after her passing.  I'm holding onto some, and not including it our net worth, because I haven't decided what to do with it.  I have often heard that the best thing to when coming into money is.....nothing.

We did make a decision to take some of it and apply it towards paying down the student loan balances that exist as debt.  Our goal is to pay these off by the end of 2012, so we applied a portion of the monies towards that.

I sent off the payment this morning!

I know that my grandmother would approve of this choice.  She and my grandfather were among the first people to instill in me, at an early age, the belief that carrying little or no debt was the best way to go.  From as long as I remember, my grandparents owned what was theirs.

The payment we made will take out a big chunk, around 40%, of the first of two student loans.  In addition to applying 25% of our expected tax refunds when those come in, we should be on track to be near a zero balance by the end of 2010.  Once that's paid off, we'll snowball the amount we're paying on the first loan into the second loan payment.

I would much rather have my grandmother back, but I'm thankful that I do have thirty five years worth of memories of her, and a lot of good values and things that provided me happiness. Paying down our debts will make us very happy, so even though she's not here in spirit, part of her is along the journey with us know, and I'm very happy to have her on our side!

Other great reads

Here are some additional posts I've read recently by other great, hard working bloggers.  Give them a read if you have a few minutes:

• The Young And The Homeless - Little House In The Valley
• Why The Gym Is A Waste Of Money - Fiscal Geek
• When Opportunity Knocks, Open The Damn Door - Suburban Dollar
• Innovis Health Stinks - Beating Broke
• How Much Of Your Mortgage Payment Goes Toward Loan Principal? - 20s Money

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

I eat oatmeal pretty much every day at breakfast, at least at work.  It started a few years ago when my cholesterol tested above what it should have been.  I made some changes to my diet and have been exercising more, and have been in the normal range for quite some time, but I still stick with the oatmeal breakfast.

It's healthy.  With a few raisins, it's very tasty, and it keeps me from eating worse breakfasts.

It's also fairly cheap, which is always a nice bonus.

But, one thing I've noticed is that cleaning up after eating oatmeal can be a difficult task.  Or it can be an easy one.

How both?  Let me explain.

Inevitably, I eat my breakfast and I put the ceramic bowl that I use for my oatmeal aside.  After an hour or two, I'll get up for something and I notice that my bowl is sitting there, and the little uneaten chunks have now melded themselves to the bowl.

There are two ways of handling this.  The first is to take it to the kitchen, work and work and work, and hopefully get all the chunks off.  It takes a huge amount of effort and the results aren't even 100% as I'll usually find some uncleaned portions later on, and have to go back and re-clean the entire bowl.

The second option, though, is much better and works out a heck of a lot easier.  I simply fill the bowl with water and let it soak.  Ten minutes later, all the chunks have fallen off and now leave, and a simple wash gets me ready for the next day.

Now, you may be wondering, how is this relevant to a personal finance blog?  Well, I think the analogy works pretty well with financial decisions: It's simply sometimes best to let things soak.

I find that 'letting things soak' is something that I do quite often when making a financial decision.  When we want to purchase something big (over $100), I will often look at it, and then 'let it soak' for awhile. Whether that's a few hours, a few days, or whatever, I find that waiting often makes things turn out better.  Many times, we'll decide that the purchase isn't necessary, or if we do decide to make the purchase, we'll do our homework to make sure it's the best possible price and that it meets our goals, as well as fitting into our financial goals.

When we don't let things soak, we'll often find that we're plagued with similar problems to not letting my oatmeal bowl soak.  We'll find that we're rushing, that we're working harder, and that we may not have 'finished' making the decision in the best possible way.

In short, letting things soak has proven to be a valuable strategy.  Both in cleaning out my oatmeal bowl and in making financial decisions, it works more often than it doesn't.

Other great reads

Here are some additional posts I've read recently by other great, hard working bloggers.  Give them a read if you have a few minutes:

•  Saving Money - An American Virtue Is Reborn - Debt Free Adventure
• How Credit Card Numbers Are Generated - PT Money
• Advice On How To Get Your Medical Care Claims Paid - All Financial Matters
• We Are Credit Card Debt Free - Ultimate Money Blog
• Are Employers Making Crazy Assumptions? - Sweating The Big Stuff

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

It's time for a monthly check of our Net Worth.  As always, I don't give 'real' dollar amounts, but the trends in percentages are worth a look.

Things were looking up this month after a blah February.  I'm happy on most fronts especially the bottom line!



Assets:

•  Property - Zillow and CyberHomes is what I use to track this, with a modification based on 'gut feel'.  Zillow lowered our value a little bit for the month, causing a slight decrease, but overall the value is showing a bit less downward trend over time, leaving me to continue keeping my fingers crossed that the bloodbath worst is behind us.
• Autos - Kelly Blue Book dropped the value of our cars big time in February, but maybe they realized they went overboard, because the values went back up for the month.  So, unfortunately, I didn't increase the value of the cars by adding spinner rims or hydraulics.   I'm just following the KBB value model.
  
• Investment Accounts - We saw a nice gain for the month of almost 6%.  We haven't made any new investments, so this figure merely represents our gains or losses with the investments already in the market.
  
• Cash - Cash dropped significantly, but this mainly because I subtract our outstanding credit card balances (which we pay every month) from our cash holding.  I have a rather large balance thanks to the $358 $658 for plane tickets (including the $300 stupid tax) that is currently there and will be paid off at the end of the month, so this is not an unexpected amount (except, again, for the $300 stupid tax)
  
• Retirement - Our retirement went up 7% putting it at an all time high.  I contribute 10% of my pre-tax salary towards our retirement so the gains were market gains plus new contributions.  
  

Debt:

• Property - We made our standard mortgage payment.
• Student loans - I had a little 'tax refund' cash account that was added to every month based on our withholding rate.  I allocated some of that money towards an additional debt payment, so we were able to knock a few extra percent off Student Loan 1.  We will still be getting actual tax refunds later in the season that will help us knock this down even further.  Still, being able to pay extra was a luxury we haven't had in quite a few months, so this felt great!
• Credit cards - We carry no credit card balances from month to month!
• Auto - We've paid off both cars outright so we have no auto loans!
  

All in all, I think we're moving in the right direction.  When I look at our Net Worth Excluding Property, we have hit an all time high there for five out of the last six months.  I'll take that with a smile!

Here's hoping for another good report next month.

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

One of the things I recently stumbled across was something that Financial Samurai came up with called the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge.  Long story short, Alexa is a site that tracks other sites all across the web and rates them for popularity.  The more popular you are, the better Alexa ranking you have.

Financial Samurai's idea was that personal finance bloggers (like Money Beagle) support each other with the end result being that word of mouth will build, networking opportunities will be created, and a buzz will slowly take place that benefits all participants.  Sort of a blogging co-op if you will.

I think this is a great idea and the approach that Samurai is taking is commendable.  One of my biggest frustrations in personal finance blogging is that those bloggers with the most clout, being the most popular, tend to network and build buzz for other popular blogs.  That's great if you were in that circle, but it tends to propagate the 'rich get richer' momentum.

This challenge strives to accomplish the same thing just on a level that makes it opportunistic for personal finance blogs of all shapes and sizes.

According to the site, my goal would be to move up in ranking to 200,000 or above by the end of 2010.  This would mean that Money Beagle becomes one of the top 200,000 web sites out there.

When I agreed to join the challenge, I was ranked 3,250,230.  In other words, I have a long way to go!  Still, early results (some bloggers have been going with this since January) are extremely encouraging, so I think it's doable.  There's a little box in the bottom of the right hand column that (if it works right) will keep my ranking visible.  There's also a graphical link to the Yazekie challenge there that links to Samurai's page, where he'll keep updated on how things are progressing.

So, while I strive to keep Money Beagle the type of personal finance blog that highlights my own voice, I also would love for that voice to be heard, and that's why I've decided to enter the challenge.  In other words, I promise I won't switch to writing the same '9 Steps to Doing This and This' that many personal finance blogs focus on.  While there's nothing wrong with those type of posts, I'd prefer to give you the rundown on the steps I'm personally taking, simply because that's the type of posts that will keep me motivated to write. 

If you're a fellow blogger, take a look and see if you might be interested.  It seems like a great idea and it will give personal finance bloggers a network and a team to keep us motivated to writing the best posts and making personal finance blogging more credible on the web. 

If you're a casual reader, all I ask is that you keep reading and drop a comment from time to time to let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

So yesterday I wrote about how we're planning a vacation.  Awesome.  Well, the vacation just got $300 more expensive without a thing to show for it, and it's completely my fault.

Yes, I made an error and got charged with the stupid tax, and what really sucks is that it's to the tune of $300.

When planning our trip, we were working along with my in-laws as well as my sister-in-law.  We all had input at various times to things like where we were going to go, where we were going to stay when we got there, how we were going to get there, and most importantly, when we were going to go.

Everybody had to look at their work schedules.  We had to look at the availability of places that we were interested in.  We looked at the costs of flying versus driving.  There was a ton of back and forth.

So, when it came time to the booking of the flight, I went back when I should have gone forth (OK, maybe the other way around when you read on, but that way just sounded better).

Yes, I sat down to book the flight and, for whatever reason, my mind remembered a previous iteration of the week we had decided to go.  So, I happily booked the flight, received the e-mail confirmations, and was happy as a clam.

It took me a week to actually realize that something was wrong when my wife and I were having an innocent conversation about her getting her hair done, which she scheduled to occur before we left on our trip.  She mentioned the date and how it might be hectic since it was the day before we were flying out.  I commented that, no, her hair appointment is a week and a day before we are leaving.

No sooner than the words were out of my mouth and I felt the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and I knew what had happened.  A dead run up the stairs and a few mouse clicks confirmed my worst fear: I had lodged in my head the exact wrong date(s) for our trip, and had booked with the wrong dates in my mind.  I checked and I even requested the wrong week off at work.

Luckily they're not going to charge me to move my week!

So, I had previously been very happy to have found our flight and what I thought was a reasonable rate.  I had even commented that, since my in-laws were driving down, that we were avoiding the excessive fees that they've been piling on everything.


Yeah, not so much.




When I went to the reservation system, I found that the charge per ticket for changing flights was $150.  That's $300.  I called Delta in hopes that I could plead my way down.  I first spoke to someone that was about as unsympathetic as could be and even hung up on me when attempting to 'check into' things.  Sure.  But, I called back, and spoke to a great customer rep and a great manager, but as great as they were, they couldn't/wouldn't help.  


So, I grudgingly made the change and ended up paying airline fees that I had bragged about being able to avoid.


That's the part that kills me is that I was able to avoid them, but with all the confusion, I skipped the step of verification.  I should have never made the booking alone where my wife, as a second pair of eyes, would have caught the mistake.  At the very least, I should have sent her the e-mail confirmations, in which case she might have realized my mistake and could have alerted me to the problem (you do have 24 hours to make a change without the charges).

I guess I thank my stars that we found out when we did, because it could have been a lot worse.  As it was, the correct flights were the same price as the originals.  I'm sure if we had discovered our error closer to the actual time, the prices could have doubled, in which case we would have had to deal with fare increases on top of the $300.

Still, I am very disappointed in myself.  It's hugely discouraging to see a good chunk of money disappear that could have been avoided.

In short, it sucks getting hit with the stupid tax. 

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!

My wife and I enjoy traveling from time to time.  Since we really didn't go anywhere last year since Baby Beagle was just a newborn, we were looking at options for something to do this year.  Initially, we had thought about going somewhere in Michigan along a lake, renting a cottage or something along those lines.

However, my in-laws brought up a trip that they were planning, and that changed our plans.  My wife and her family had gone down to the Tampa Bay area (Maderia Beach / John's Pass) a few times over the years.  They hadn't gone for a couple of years but mentioned that they were going to plan a trip this year.  My wife got to talking to my in-laws and soon we started looking into doing that.  They know the area and have had wonderful times down there.

We're going to go in late spring.

There was some back and forth on:

• Whether to go - Initially, my in-laws weren't 100% sure that they were going.  We were interested but only when everybody had committed did we finally make the final decision to make that our big trip for 2010
• Where to say - My in-laws and family had always stayed at a particular hotel along the beach.  We looked into that, but they came up with the idea of splitting the costs of a two bedroom condo.  The place that they found looked nice, is on the water, and is actually cheaper than a hotel would have been.
• How to get there - We had talked about driving.  My in-laws drive pretty much straight through (it's an 18 hour or so drive) but we had concerns about sticking Baby Beagle in the backseat for that long.  Even if we drove overnight and he slept through, the waking hours would leave a lot of time for him to be confined in the backseat and we knew the trip would be further extended with more frequent stops to take care of his feeding and changing schedule, and just to give him time to avoid being cooped up.  When we looked at some flights, we found that the extra cost to fly was only about $100 versus what we would have paid in gas costs.  Those are using today's gas prices, so the difference would probably be negligable by the time it was all said and done.  So, we have decided to fly.

My in-laws are going to take most of our luggage while they drive, so we won't have to pay the excessive luggage fees that are now the industry standard.  We might have to check Baby Beagle's car seat, but we're not sure of that.  We want to take his stroller and car seat.  The website says tha they don't charge, but it's vague as to whether that's just for the first item or if we can take both at no charge.  Even so, one item charge wouldn't be too horrible considering.  Everything else we're taking will either go with my in-laws or be put as carry-ons.  

So, right now, we have estimated the following costs:

• Our share of the condo for one week - $400
• Two round trip airline tickets (Baby Beagle will sit on our laps since he's under two) - $359
• Boarding of our two cats (they can't come) - $144

We'll have some additional costs for food and activities once we get down there, but right now it's shaping up to be a pretty reasonable trip for what is hopefully a great week of fun in the sun!

Post Copyright 2010 Money Beagle. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for reading and remember, it's a great day to be alive!