Hope for your financial life and beyond

Beating the Credit Card Rewards System

May 14, 2013 by 23 Comments

credit card rewardsFive years ago, my wife and I were killing it with the credit card rewards we were receiving. That’s right…free stuff! We exchanged our rewards for airline miles, countless merchandise items and even received cash back in our pockets on some cards. It felt great! We were really beating the credit card rewards system at their game.

However, through a series of personal events and some advanced education, I realized I could do even better. I found out there was (is) a way to get more cash back into my pocket and really stick it to the credit card companies. The best part about this system was that it also improved my monthly budget and helped me save more in the long run.

What was the system I used?

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Filed Under: Debt, Planning Tagged With: , ,

Students Comparison Shop for Generics and Save Big!

April 30, 2013 by 17 Comments

comparison shopDoes your child ever groan when you buy generic brands at the grocery store? That’s what happened recently on one of my shopping trips. I was trying to comparison shop when I reached for the generic brand peanut butter.

“Dad, do we have to get that?” whined my 12-year-old daughter. “We always get Jif.”

“You don’t even eat a lot of peanut butter,” I replied. “Besides, your sister is the peanut butter connoisseur of the house. Let’s test it out and see what she thinks.”

Much to her chagrin, her five-year old sister loved it! Oh, did I mention our food budget also liked it?  There’s a $1.80 difference between comparable jars of Publix peanut butter and Jif and a $2.50 difference between the Publix brand and Skippy or Peter Pan.

This led me to do some field research on food prices, using my high school personal finance class as data collectors. I gave them a list of about 20 items and asked them to comparison shop the difference between name brands and generics at their local grocery store. They were then to calculate the difference they would save by buying the generic brand.

The result was a real eye opener for them.

Comparison Shop Data: Name Brands vs. Generics

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Filed Under: Kids and Money, Saving Tagged With: , ,

Can We Ever Step Off the Gas With Our Finances?

April 25, 2013 by 18 Comments

Sit at home or enjoy lifeI love competition. Better yet, I love to win. Doesn’t matter if it’s a marathon, a card game, or playing Horse with my 10-year old son in the driveway. (He hasn’t beaten me…yet.) I want to come out on top.

This competitive spirit also works its way out when I prepare our monthly budget. I love seeing if I can reduce the prior month’s spending amount for each budget category, thus being able to save more. I know, it’s a little sick. I’ve made budgeting into my own personal can-you-top-this contest.

Some may like that I’m this intense. After all, isn’t this level of passion necessary to win with money?

Well, yes…but not when the kids go naked because you haven’t purchased clothes in six months. That’s a little too intense. (Disclaimer to grandparents, family and friends and DFCS: Just using hyperbole here. No kids are actually going without adequate clothing in our house.)

The issue though is valid to consider.

When can we loosen the reigns on the budget? Do we have to drive hard all the time? When can we take our foot off the gas just a little bit? We free spirit spenders want to know.

My answer may be frustrating and seem like a cop-out. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Budgeting, Spending Tagged With: ,

Budgeting Series, Part III: How to Make a Budget

April 16, 2013 by 7 Comments

Income - OutgoingsYou’ve come to this post for a reason: to get control of your money. You are tired of making excuses and are ready to make a giant step towards being financially healthy. I applaud your courage because the journey you are about to embark on is not for the faint of heart.

The first few real budgets my wife and I put together were a disaster. We had some long “discussions” about how much money should go in each category and we were always changing numbers in the middle of the month for things we had not anticipated. I thought we would never get it right. But we stayed the course with it, through the trial and error, and eventually we figured it out.

The best part is – now that we have figured it out – doing a monthly budget is pretty easy. So there is hope.

In this post, I’m going to walk through the steps of how to set up a budget. By the time I’m done, you will have the basics to begin setting up an effective budget.

But before I get to the nuts and bolts, there are a few ground rules about budgeting. A budget’s effectiveness will be lessened if these principles are not followed:

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Filed Under: Budgeting Tagged With: ,

Two Shall Become One: A Case for Financial Togetherness

April 11, 2013 by 25 Comments

two shall become oneI’ve been planning this post to come out today for a couple of weeks. Then, lo and behold, Grayson at Debt Roundup wrote a post on Monday entitled “Love and Money – An Internal Debate.” So I used his post as a springboard for what I was going to talk about anyway – how two shall become one in marriage.

Thanks Grayson!

In it, he propositioned that he would NOT pay for his wife’s debt under most normal circumstances wherein people incur debt (car loans, student loans, credit card loans, etc.). His main reasoning for this stance was so that a lesson could be learned and responsibility taught to the spouse who had been reckless in running up debt. After all, marriage is about making each other better people.

Grayson and his wife sound like they are completely on the same page in regards to how they live out their financial life. They have set themselves up for success by communicating their values and beliefs to one another and then agreeing to move forward together based on what they believe. By all accounts, that’s a winning formula!

The great thing though about personal finance is that it’s personal.

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Filed Under: Debt, Marriage Tagged With: , ,

Budgeting Series, Part II: 8 Reasons Why People Don’t Do A Budget

April 9, 2013 by 10 Comments

$1000 Budget PigIf you are reading this it’s most likely because you have at least a passing interest in this financial tool we use called a budget. That’s a good thing because, as I noted in Part I of this series, even though money is an inanimate object, it exercises tremendous power in our lives. So it’s crucial that we utilize a budget to help us gain the upper hand with our money.

Even though budgets are vitally important to our financial well-being, most at some point in their working life have lived without one. Seems silly doesn’t it…that we would willingly choose go budget-less if they are so helpful?

There are a variety of reasons someone may choose to live without a budget. I’ll start by sharing why I chose not to have one for many years. I didn’t do a budget because…

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Filed Under: Budgeting Tagged With: , ,

Budgeting Series, Part 1: I Have No Hand, But Am Gonna Need It

April 2, 2013 by 8 Comments
Image at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Welcome to the Luke1428 budgeting series. It’s a prerequisite for every personal finance blog to talk about budgeting, so here’s my shot at it. I’ll be dealing with many aspects of the budgeting process over the next few weeks, so buckle your money belts and lets figure out how we are going to save, pay some bills, and discretionary spend to our hearts content.

At its basic level a budget is a spending plan. Or if you prefer a cash flow plan designed to give you an idea of how money is circulating through your household on a month-to-month basis. Think of it as how your total monthly income covers your total monthly expenditures. Sounds like a big elephant to tackle I know.

It would be easy to jump straight to the how-tos and what-fors of budgeting but I’m going to go a different route in Part #1 of this series and attempt to answer the sickest question ever devised by mankind. It’s the question every parent LOVES (ha-ha) to hear from his or her inquisitive child.

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Filed Under: Budgeting Tagged With:

Would it Make You Sad to Give Away Your Possessions?

March 28, 2013 by 14 Comments

BMW

It’s a tough question to answer, isn’t it? My mind immediately goes to the question “How much stuff am I being asked to give away?” I could easily part with many things in my house and not feel any pain.

But what if I was being asked to give away the entire house? Or my cars? Or sell all my investments and give the proceeds away? Oy, that’s enough…I’m starting to get woozy.

I can think of only one instance where this might occur…

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Filed Under: Giving, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Ways We Lie About Money

March 14, 2013 by 12 Comments

Have you ever told a little white lie about money? What might a “money-lie” look like? Here are some examples I could think of:

*Exaggerating your net worth or monthly income on a blog post.

Woman Quiet

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

*Saying you got a better deal on an item than you really did.

*Telling someone who asked for money that you didn’t have any with you to give (ashamed to say I’m guilty here).

*Pretending you gave more to a cause than you actually did.

*Hiding or covering up your spending habits. (Guilty here as well and as you can read about here).

*Failing to report income earned in cash on your tax forms.

Why are we so apt to distort the truth? I think the core of the issue revolves around three main principles:

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Filed Under: Giving, Vices Tagged With: , ,

Drawing a Line in the Sand – A $37 Decision

March 12, 2013 by 30 Comments

drawing a line in the sandA couple of weeks ago, I had a not so great day at work. Nothing really dramatic happened, it was just one of those long days where everything seemed to be a little off and annoying. After work, things didn’t get much better.

I had to stop at the bank and then was supposed to meet a contractor at one of our rental properties to discuss some repair work. Something came up after school (which often does for teachers) that did not allow me to leave as soon as I had hoped. I’m a stickler for being late to appointments, so this didn’t set well with me.

At the bank we had to wait in line at the drive thru for 10 minutes to make our deposit. That’s unusual but they were shorthanded for some reason. Needless to say, I’m feeling the pressure to arrive at my appointment on time.

At this point, I encountered one of the strange oddities of life.

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Filed Under: Budgeting, Spending Tagged With: , ,

I’m Turning 40 – Now What?

March 7, 2013 by 19 Comments

turning 40Is it taboo to discuss your age on your blog? If so, I’m engaging in a major faux pas today as I announce that it’s my birthday and I’m turning 40. Woo-hoo! Let’s here it for all the middle age guys out there!

I’ve always heard life starts going down hill after turning 40. I’m not sure why people say that. Is it because the average life span in America is 78, so in the mind of most people, your half way home? Is it because people believe the “fun” times of young adulthood – like partying on spring break or at Mardi Gras – are over?

Or is it perhaps that your body starts to catch up with you as more aches and pains come each morning as you roll out of bed?

Now that I’m here, I’m feeling like I don’t want to buy into the pessimism of what I’ve heard.

Thoughts on Turning 40

In the past year, I’ve done three new and remarkable things:

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Filed Under: Current Events, Inspiration, Spending Tagged With: , , ,