Standard Price

What's the going rate at your house? You know, for everything. From the dinner plate to curtains to kitchen tables and living room windows. At my house it is $500. I tried $100 but at a certain point Ben decided that the $100 threshold was within reason and he could calculate how many weeks of allowance it would take to reach it. It was more than a week but still calculate-able. So everything I own that i don't want my kid to break costs $500. The kids and friends were just playing in our tent and I threw out the "Do you have $500?" threat/question. Ten minutes later I hear one girl ask her brother if he wants to pay $500. Hearing it out of her mouth made me realize how wildly ridiculous I must sound. Still it's kinda funny and gets my point across. I think everything will remain at $500.

Jacob Today

I'm online taking care of bills. We borrowed some money from our kids and now that we have our year end bills taken care of and taxes in process, it's time to pay them for their loans to us. Jacob is standing on the chair to my right with crusted yogurt all over his pants where the bib just didn't quite cover. He's got his tongue stuck, curled to his left with out with drool coming down as he says bah-bah-bah-uhh-uhh-uhh through a happy glowing smile with that wiggly tongue going full speed. How weird it is to be paying this little munchkin his $30 for the year. Yeah. He's loaded and doesn't even know it. He could take a date to dinner or something extravagant with all his money. But he's still drooling. It's just so hard to imagine him ever old enough to use the money. He's so care free today. His biggest concern is if mommy will read him the latest book-book-book that he drags to my lap. What a happy, simple life today. Does he really have to grow up and have real problems?

Online Bankers and their Magic Checks

Here is the edited message I got when I clicked to see what happened to a payment we needed sent out last week. "Payment check # xxx was sent to Mr. X on 08/11/2009 and delivered on 08/10/2009. Funds were withdrawn from your checking account on 08/12/2009." Interesting. The check was supposed to go out on the 5th. I didn't realize I could request a magic check. The bank claims to have mailed it on the 11th but that it was delivered the 10th, the day before it was sent. Of course since that left me scratching my head, I'm glad they have allowed me the courtesy two days to figure out magic checks before they actually withdraw the funds today, the 12th (which they haven't done). Never mind the check hasn't been cashed yet by the recipient so I'm not sure where the withdrawn funds went to. In fact, Mr. X let us know he hasn't seen a check yet at all, magic or otherwise. This all started last week on the 5th when I had a phone conversation with Brian. I wasn't home near the checkbook at the time and he was at his computer. We needed to send a check to Mr. X and I said I'd get it in the mail when I got home. Brian is a huge fan of online banking and said he would take care of it. He would just submit a request to the minions at the bank to mail it out ASAP. I like online banking well enough, but this bill pay stuff can be a hassle sometimes. So after six days, what did we do? Brian wrote a paper check to Mr. X as we discussed what ever happened to the magic check. Sigh.

I'm Worth $82/Month

I joined a new discussion group with friends this month. We are discussing finances. Topics range from life insurance, allowance for kids, making sure your investments are diversified and most importantly how to make a budget work for you. I'm pretty excited about all we can learn together and from each other. The whole idea brought back some funny memories though. When Brian and I were dating and were at that point that we figured we should probably get married. Before Brian would propose to me, he wanted to have a finance date. We ran all the numbers, what we made at our little jobs, scholarship he had, summer job income vs. rent, groceries, my tuition, power, gas, books, etc. I am always concience about money too, so I wanted our finances to work out. I was, however, VERY nervous that we wouldn't be making enough. What would that mean? I was worried it would mean he wouldn't want to get married or something drastic like that. The end result of our finance date was that we were $82 short ever month. I did NOT like seeing a big bold red $82 dollar deficeit at the bottom. It was a bit unnerving. In the end, I guess my good looks won him over and I was worth going into debt. He did eventually propose and the rest is history. Now I'm wondering, has my value increased with inflation and as I have attained new skills or have I depreciated in value because I'm older now. I'll have to ask.

Counting the Minutes

No Buy Month ends in just under six hours, but who's counting? We can hardly wait to buy... new equipment to convert to internet phone thomas train stuff on ebay for Ben's birthday piano book so I can return the one I borrowed to our friends before they move to Thailand three bottles of craft paint to finish decorating Jacob's room

No Buy Month Sins

Brian always says he has to read my blog to see what is going on in our lives since he has to miss so much of it while he's at work. This one is to give him the 4-1-1 on my No Buy Month Sins.

• Trip to Buffalo: ate at McDonalds three times, sort of planned on this mishap anyway so lets call it groceries since we didn't have a kitchen to cook with, okay? ($?)
• Date with Ben to Niagra Falls: three bouncy balls for the kids and one shot glass to mail to a friend who really, really needs it ($11)
• Michaels Craft Store: the "A" for Jacobs name and scrapbook paper to decorate it (for the record I tried to buy the "A" in January but they were out of stock and it was killing me to wait a month to finish my project and the scrapbook paper to decorate it was inspiration from seeing how Kristie did McKenzie's name in Buffalo) ($6)

I will borrow the mod podge from Mali to finish the "Jacob" name project so I can't see any other "needs" popping up this month. Only 15 more days to go. Plus, we figured out a way to have a cool Valentines date for free. Claudia, our super neighbor, offered to watch the kids for us. Then we'll use gift cards sitting around the house for both dinner and a movie. No cash out of pocket. Perfect!!

No Buy Month

In March 2007 I participated in an interesting financial experiment, "No Buy Month." I undertook the challenge for two basic personal reasons, one to help me determine my "wants" from my "needs" and the other was to pinpoint just how much money I might be wasting each month. I put a large poster on the inside of my front door so I would be reminded of the challenge each time I left the house and had an opportunity to spend. The poster inadvertently generated a lot of questions and interest from friends. Several people wanted to try it and suggested we extend the challenge to anyone else that might be interested in participating together in May. I sent an email to a bunch of friends and we all set out to save a ton of money.

The general idea:

• Buy only necessities like groceries, gas, doctor co-pays, emergency car repair, etc, but no extra shopping at Home Depot for tools, the craft store for fabric, Wal-Mart do-dads or the mall for new clothes
• Pay your regular bills but don't sign up for new things
• Dining out is under debate, but I chose not to go out for our family

May 1 - May 31, 2007 was our group's No Buy Month and we had a bunch of people do it. Of the group were lots of reasons for joining, one couple made it a competition between them to see who caves first, one couple wanted to find out what rock bottom would be if they were to loose a job and had no income, one person just wanted to save some money to jump start a savings account.

We had a BBQ at the end of our group experiment and talked about what we had learned. Even though I messed up a time or two I learned a lot still. The very first time I did this, it was extremely difficult to go into a store and not get extra stuff. I found myself having to put things back on the shelf before I checked out and hating it. I wrote down everything I "needed" and couldn't buy so I could buy it on the first day of the next month. I totally lusted after the things on my list, knowing that I really, really needed them. Then sometime during the fourth week of the experiment, I lost the list. I searched and searched and searched. It made me sick inside to know I lost the list. After all, I NEEDED that stuff. I tried to remember all the stuff I had written down to recreate the list without much success. After a couple days, I had an epiphany that may be completely obvious to everyone else in the world...if I couldn't remember it all...maybe...just maybe...I didn't really need the stuff.

This month is my fourth time doing the "No Buy Month" experiment. I did it alone in March 2007, with a group in May 2007. I chose to do it in February in the future since it's the shortest month, so I did it in February 2008 and here we are in February doing it again in 2009 and plan to do it annually.

In the end, here is what I figure I gain out of doing this every year:

• save money during February
• learn/relearn to recognize impulse buys
• distinguish wants from needs
• gives me time to plan my purchases
• saves me money in March, April, May and beyond or until I lapse back into my old buying habits
• keeps me out of the stores so I am not tempted to spend money as often

We all spend too much money every year on junk. My annual experiment helps me get grounded again once a year, which is great because I have yet to find the money tree.