A Balanced Approach to Cutting Back

February 22, 2023

As a financial planner, I enjoy listening to other financial planners. I love when they discuss strategies to help people get out of debt and better manage their money. Although I agree with many of the money management strategies, it strikes me that some approaches are extreme. Additionally, many common strategies have little room for a more balanced approach.

For those knee-deep in a financial crisis, I agree that drastic financial cutbacks are needed to climb out of an emergency. There may be a better approach for others not in crisis but need ways to save and pay off debt. I always tell people to gauge what strategy will keep them consistent in paying off debts and saving more. The more extreme you cut back, the quicker you will reach your goals. However, you can still reach your goals and enjoy some of the extras in life with a little modification:

Cable and Streaming Services

I do agree that cable is a want, not a need. However, perhaps watching football or the Real Housewives of “insert city here” is one of the joys in your life. In that case, consider reducing your cable plan to a cheaper streaming service covering your most watched channels. Better yet, look at cable alternatives such as Sling TV or Playstation Vue, where you can watch your favorite cable channel shows in real time. Or rotate your “extra” streaming services so you’re constantly binging the hottest show.

Eating out

Again, if you are in a financial crisis and are seriously behind on your bills, you may have to eliminate eating out. However, if this isn’t the case, and you can’t seem to stop eating out, consider simply cutting back. If you spend an average of $20 eating out and cut it 2x weekly, that’s $40 a week, $160 a month that can go towards saving for emergencies or paying down debt. If you have a typical weekday at work that you work longer or a day where your kids have a lot of after-school activities, you could make those eating-out days (give yourself a budget) and still save towards your financial goals.

Entertainment

Consider some modifications if you are single and going out is your main social activity. For example, you can order an appetizer or a small salad if you eat before going out with friends. Your wallet will thank you. Better yet, skipping drinks with your meal or having only one cocktail with your friends can save even more money.

If you enjoy going to movies, check to see if your employer offers movie ticket discounts. Look for deals using websites like Groupon or Living Social, or search for dollar movies in your area. If you go to a big event, consider either not buying food since it is so expensive or getting the kids’ options, which are cheaper but still give you your food fix.

Cutting back doesn’t have to mean extreme deprivation. As you can see, you can still enjoy your life and save money. The key is looking for certain areas to cut back in and modifying the areas that matter most to you so you can save money with a more balanced approach.

Beware Black Friday ‘Deals’

November 23, 2018

As we see the full retail advertising onslaught and stores open ridiculously early for Black Friday (some are even opening on Thanksgiving Day now, which I find appalling), please try to remember a couple of things:

1) This is the time of year when emotions can override logic and overspending can occur. I have spoken with countless people who end up with a sizeable chunk of credit card debt because of holiday spending. Go into the shopping season with a list (wow, I’m becoming my mother!) of who you are buying gifts for and set a budgetary target. Then, stick to those targets. Those Black Friday “deals” may not seem like such a deal if they have 19.9% interest tacked on to the balance next summer.

2) The people in your life, if they are anything like me, will be happier to spend time with you than they are with any gift that you might buy. I’d wager that if you think back over the last several years, you probably can’t remember what you bought for each person on your list or what they bought for you. It’s a season of friends, family and togetherness – not retail profits.

Drink some cocoa, enjoy your friends and family – and have a safe, fun, and financially secure holiday season.

How to Stay Sane During School Breaks

December 20, 2016

I love the holidays. The world seems to slow down a little and I get the time to catch up with friends and family. The chocolate is even better. But with every holiday, comes a winter break and the inevitable question of what to do with the kids comes up. With the babysitters called “TVs” and “iPads” quickly exhausted, the following are cost effective ways to entertain kids during school breaks.

1. Organize babysitting swaps. If you have neighbors with kids close to your kids’ ages, consider doing a swap where parents take turns managing the children, giving the other parents a break. As odd as it may sound, it is sometimes easier to have a lot of kids that can entertain themselves than one or two kids who expect you to be their entertainment.

2. Look for winter break camps in your area. Some are surprisingly affordable, but the affordable ones go quickly so start early. Consider looking into the programs at your  local YMCA or community center.

3. Eat out on the cheap. Eating out in a restaurant is a fun activity for the kids. For many of us, the problem is the expense. MyKidsEatFree.com is a national database of places where your kids can either eat at a reduced cost or for free. You can also Google your local area for places where kids can eat for free.

4. Look for free activities. Stores like the Pottery Barn and Home Depot have fun kids’ activities. Local malls as well as your local public library also host kids’ events.

5. Plan an agenda. I got this one from my colleague, Cynthia, and it worked like a charm. I planned a series of events for the kids to include a talent show. This kept them occupied until the evening. I also had them watch a few movies and created a trivia game of questions to answer about the movie for a prize.

Holidays with the family is wonderful and tough at the same time. With these strategies, they don’t have to blow your budget. Then they can truly be happy holidays.

The Secret Financial Power of Home Cooking

December 12, 2016

If you could save an extra $500 per month or more by doing just one thing differently, would you do it? Think about what you could do with that $500: pay off your student loans or credit cards, save for a home purchase or home renovation, power up your retirement account or even take a fabulous vacation. If you’re like many Americans who are feeling squeezed for cash to apply to your big goals, there is one simple thing you can do to save a lot more money – cook and eat at home.

I’m as guilty as the rest of us. While I love to cook, I am the first one to order a pizza when the time crunch of work, kids and activities gets crazy. Plus, as an extrovert who works from home most of the time, I enjoy taking my computer to a café so I can see some actual humans.

The keys are 1) moderation – set an “eating out” maximum for the month and 2) preparation – plan to eat at home and shop in advance for ingredients. Need motivation? Here’s how much you could save:

Save money on breakfast

Let’s take a typical breakfast on the go: a ham, egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin with a cup of gourmet coffee for $5. Eat that every day and you’ll spend $35 per week. How to cut this down?

Cook your eggs. Making your egg sandwich at home could cost you as little as $1.00 if you kept all the ingredients on hand and cooked from scratch (not to mention that it might taste a lot better). Your savings per week? $28 or $1,456 per year.

Brew your own coffee. You don’t have to sacrifice coffee quality. My serious Nespresso habit costs me about a dollar per day and I save the pricier coffee shop brew for when I’m out meeting friends.

Buy prepared in bulk. Even reheating a breakfast sandwich in the microwave and brewing a coffee pod would only cost about $2.50 or less per meal. Your savings per week: $17.50 or $910 per year.

Save money on dinner

Unplanned take-out food is the easiest place to fall off the wagon when it comes to your meal budget. For a single person, take-out Chinese food or a pizza dinner would cost about $15-$20 depending on where you live, and you’ll get two meals out of it. For a family of four, a take-out meal costs about $40.

Stock your pantry and fridge for easy meals. Having a well-stocked pantry and fridge is like having money in the bank because you’ll always have ingredients on hand to pull together a quick and easy meal. See the Food Network’s list of essentials to keep on hand and these suggestions from Real Simple magazine for easy meals you can make in a hurry.

Making dinner at home can save you about $7 to $15 per person. Replace just one person’s meal out per week with a home-cooked version and you’ll save $364 to $780 annually. That’s $1,456 to $3,120 for a family of four.

Use your slow cooker. My slow cooker is my favorite piece of equipment in my kitchen. I load it up with ingredients in the morning, turn it on, and presto! There’s dinner at 5 pm.  See this list of easy recipes from Cooking Light.

Save money on lunch

A typical lunch on the go costs $10-$15. Sure, you’ll want to eat out occasionally with co-workers in order to connect and have a change of scenery, but you don’t have to do it every day. How much can you save from bringing your lunch?

Bring leftovers. What better thing to bring for lunch than last night’s yummy leftovers? Bring a hot lunch of leftovers just once a week and save $520 to $780 per year.

Stock sandwich ingredients at home. You can make 5 tuna subs at home for the cost of buying a single one at the sub shop. Your savings? About $28 per week or $1,456 per year.

Save money on snacks

That mid-afternoon latte and muffin or trip to the smoothie shop can cost you $3 to $7 per day easily. Buy snacks you like in bulk and keep them in the office to save $520 to $1,300 per year. If you’ve got kids, you’ll save even more by keeping a cooler in your car stocked with healthy snacks to keep the hungry hoard at bay.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing

I’m not suggesting that you should never eat out again. Rather, be mindful of how much you are spending on food out and set some limits. If you’re saving for a big goal or trying to pay down debts, this is an easy and almost painless place to cut back on your spending. Your return on your investment for preparation and cooking – or even just reheating — is high. That’s the secret financial power of home cooking.

 

Do you have a question you’d like answered on the blog? Please email me at [email protected]. You can follow me on the blog by signing up here, and on Twitter @cynthiameyer_FF.

 

Do You Really Need to Spend That Much on Entertainment?

September 30, 2016

As the baseball season winds down, and my beloved Baltimore Orioles are in a downward spiral and may fall out of playoff contention, the big story on local sports radio is about the lack of attendance at Orioles games in the midst of a playoff race.  When Oriole Park at Camden Yards (the best ballpark in the country in my opinion) opened 20+ years ago, it was sold out every night. 14 years of losing baseball, as well as some questionable business practices, drove attendance down over the years.

Several seasons ago, the O’s made it to the playoffs for the first time since the late 90’s, and the town went nuts. It was tough to get a ticket at the end of the year, and playoff tickets were being sold on the secondary market for outrageous sums of money. This year, I’m almost embarrassed to say that I haven’t made it to a game yet, and tickets are available on the secondary market for next to nothing. My kids haven’t expressed interest this season. Friends that I normally go with haven’t been all that enthusiastic.

It’s weird. If I don’t go in the next week or two, I will go a whole season without going to a game. That may not have happened since I was 2 or 3 years old, and I’m questioning why I haven’t. It hasn’t bugged me until today. That’s an answer that I’ll wrestle with on my own, and as I write this, I’m checking the O’s home schedule and sending a message to friends to make sure we at least get to one game.

While I wrestle with this question, it also raises the larger issue of how I spend my entertainment dollars. Along with the cost of housing, cars and food, entertainment is one of the big line items in most family budgets. Vacations, cable TV, movies, sports tickets, concerts, shopping, going out for dinner – there are a lot of dollars being spent on entertaining ourselves.  When we are having a tough time making ends meet, the entertainment budget is usually the first to go. When it doesn’t, credit card bills can mount.

Most of the people I’ve talked to who are in deep credit card debt will tell me that they spent the money on “stupid stuff” (their words, not mine). A lot of times, it was because times were tough, and they felt that all they did was work, so they wanted to “reward themselves” with a little bit of fun. That fun usually ended up on a credit card, and a $100 expense turned into a $300 payoff amount after many months of minimum payments and high interest rates.

Here’s my challenge to you: Take a look at how much money you’ve spent on entertainment over the last 3-6 months. Are there ways you could have just as much fun while spending less? Hikes, bike rides on local trails, and a kayak rental at a local lake are all very low cost ways I’ve replaced my fairly expensive baseball habit. Rather than eating stadium nachos (now I’m hungry!) and drinking expensive yet lousy beer, I’ve been sweating and spending way less money while drinking water and eating protein bars.

If I can do it, you can too. Find one habit/entertainment source where you think you might spend more than you’d like. Pick a fun and free (or close to free) activity to replace the more expensive one. Spend the next 30, 60 or 90 days re-configuring your entertainment habits. I have a hunch you’ll find the change of pace enjoyable, and you might even be able to REALLY reward yourself in the long run.

 

 

How to Spend Less On Eating Out

June 28, 2016

We all know eating out less can save us money. It sounds easy but at times, it can be hard to execute, especially with late work days, kids’ activities and frankly, days where I would rather have a root canal than step foot in my kitchen to cook. If this sounds like you, here are ways you can have your budgeting cake and eat it too:

1. Set an “eating out” budget. I find eating out is such a big budget buster because like with a diet, most people have good intentions but cheat. Just accept the fact that you will eat out occasionally and budget an amount of money you will spend on it. It may be $10 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $10-20 for dinner as a starting point. Consider committing to brown bagging it four days out of the week and eat out with friends on Friday and/or on the weekend.

2. Come up with strategies to reduce your eating out costs. If you are the group organizer, you have the home court advantage. Choose a place that costs less. Even better, consider using websites like Groupon or Living Social to scope out coupons.

If you have a spouse or significant other, consider splitting a plate. You wallet and your waist line will thank you. Save money on drinks by drinking water. At $2 each, that is an $8 saving for a family of four and $416 over a year.

If you have kids, take advantage of kids eat free programs. If you have a family with hungry little ones, consider using websites like MyKidsEatFree.com or FrugalLivingTV to find programs. Plan out your day and look for places where kids can eat for free near you. Alternatively, this may be hard, but if you can get your kids to agree on the same meal, you can also have them split an adult meal.

3. Use grocery store prepared meals as a compromise.  You are technically eating at home with a prepared meal.  Stores like Whole Foods and Publix have fully prepared meals that you can heat up for a few minutes and have a meal with minimum kitchen time.

Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too. Just remember that your cake has limits. Budget the amounts, plan your eating out days and enjoy!

 

15 minutes Could Save You $150

May 19, 2016

My colleague Tania Brown recently wrote a blog post about cutting her cable cord. It’s something I did many years ago too and never regretted it. If you’re not willing to go quite that far but still want to save some money on your cable bill, another colleague and former Financial Finesse blogger Greg Ward writes about how to negotiate your bill down…

When it comes to in-home entertainment, you have a lot of choices. Phone, television, and Internet services are available through a countless number of providers, but here’s something you may not have thought about. By having so many options, you can have these service providers compete for your business rather than just accepting what they charge you for their programming. Knowing this, here’s an easy way for you to save $150 or more over the next six months.

Contact your in-home entertainment provider right now and ask them what specials they are offering new subscribers. Unless you have recently subscribed yourself, I’ll bet that what they are offering new subscribers is better, either price-wise or programming-wise, than what you are getting today. If that is the case, then you need to be assertive and tell them that you want the same privileges that they are giving new subscribers. In other words, you want more service or a lower price (or both as the case may be).

Now most likely two things will happen. The first is that they will try to accommodate you by offering a different programming package. If you are really looking for a different programming package then hear them out, but if not, hold your ground. Let them know that unless they are willing to work with you, you are willing to work with someone else (i.e., a different provider). Have a few names of other providers that your provider competes with so that they know that you’ve done your homework.

Once you’ve determined that the first operator is not going to be much help, you’ll most likely have to talk with an “account specialist” to see if they might be able to do something for you. That’s good news, because in most cases, the initial person who answers the phone is NOT able to make any concessions. Once you have the account specialist on the phone, you can calmly let them know of your intention to discontinue service in the absence of reaching an agreement. They will also try to accommodate you through other offers, but stand firm.

My experience has been that they WILL make a concession as long as you are kind and persistent. I did this recently, and the specialist was able to apply a $25 discount to my bill for the next six months. That’s $150 in just 15 minutes!

A word of caution: know your other options. Account specialists usually know what their competitors are offering, so if you are going to suggest that you will terminate service if they are not willing to work with you, be prepared to walk.  Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

7 Things I Didn’t Do When I Was in Debt

May 11, 2016

It may surprise you to know that since graduating from college, I’ve dug myself out of credit card debt not once, but twice. The reasons I got into debt are best saved for future posts, but both times I got out because I reached a point where I basically put the cards away and settled in for the long haul of paying it off. In both instances, becoming debt free again involved some significant lifestyle sacrifices. Here are 7 things that I do today, some big and some small, that I DIDN’T do when I had debt:

1. I didn’t take cabs. One of the things I love the most about living in Chicago is that there are literally at least four ways that I can get from one place to another. When I was facing a $12,000 credit card balance while trying to build a business and working a minimum-wage retail job in 2011, I rode my bike everywhere. If I couldn’t ride, I took public transportation. Riding in a cab was out of the question unless my personal safety was in question. These days I’m more inclined to hop in a cab to save time or if I’m tired, but I still try to avoid paying to get from place to place if I don’t have to.

2. I didn’t go on vacation. This is a tough one, especially since I had a sense of YOLO exacerbated by the fact that I have some pretty major personal travel goals, but part of the reason I was in debt was due to meeting some of those goals. Sure I went places. Friends and family got married and I didn’t miss that, but I’ll always remember the time a close friend got married in Florida and while I attended the wedding, I was unable to extend the visit into a real vacation because I couldn’t afford the extra nights in a hotel or the time away from work. These days, we plan ahead for travel and don’t go if we can’t pay ahead of time.

3. I didn’t shop at Nordstrom. I honestly didn’t even know what the inside of a higher-end department store looked like until I was debt-free. If I needed to buy clothing, I shopped at discount outlets or Target. It didn’t feel right to me to spend money on luxury brands while I was still paying down debt. Now I’m more of a Nordstrom Rack aficionado but only if I can turn around and pay off the charge card the day after I shop.

4. I didn’t drink $12 per glass wine. When I went out with friends, I usually stuck to cheap beer or limited myself to one glass of wine before attempting to move the party to a BYOB situation. Nothing sucks up extra money like alcohol and while these days I can afford to be picky about what I drink, I definitely couldn’t afford to be a wine snob when I was debt-ridden.

5. I didn’t get my nails done. To me, having manicured fingers and pedicured toes is a luxury. And while no one can make my nails look as nice as a pro, this was not a “need” in my book while I was in debt. I did my own or occasionally traded my mom for a good foot rub. (We still do that!)

6. I didn’t get massages. I am well-aware of the health benefits of a good massage and during my years of credit card debt, a fair share of birthday and Christmas gifts were massages, but it was not something that I scheduled on a regular basis. If I could afford a massage, I could afford to pay more on my debt.

7. I didn’t get my hair colored.  I’ve been coloring my hair since the age of 25, and I really appreciate having a colorist fill in my roots every 6 weeks or so. Back in the day though, I did it myself with color kits purchased at BOGO sales at the drug store.

This is what worked for me and my values and it may not work for you. But if getting out of debt is a top priority, then I encourage you to take a look at where you’re spending your money and see if you can cut out one or two of these things in order to increase your payment. For motivation, plug it into the “New Monthly Amount” of the Debt Blaster calculator to see how much sooner you can be debt-free.

 

11 Easy Ways to Save Money Without Changing Your Lifestyle

May 02, 2016

Does saving more money mean you have to make big sacrifices? If you are trying to find wiggle room in your budget to apply towards important goals like retirement or paying off debt, the first place to look is at the easy hacks. Where can you cut expenditures without drastically altering your lifestyle? Here are some ideas, all of which I have personally tried:

Spend less on hair and nails. I live in NJ, where big hair and gel manicures aren’t just something you see on reality TV shows. That kind of primping at the hair or nail salon is expensive.

Switch from coloring your hair to less frequent highlights and you can save $100 per month.  Doing your nails at home can save another $40-$50. For guys, switching from a salon stylist to a barber can save you another $40.

Give up restaurant beverages. Drink water instead of soda or alcohol and you can save 10-20% on the cost of eating out. If you eat out frequently, including lunch at work, you don’t even have to do this all the time, just most of the time, to see big savings. Your employer doesn’t provide beverages at work? Bring your own from home instead of using the vending machine or corner convenience store.

Join the library. I once had a Very Serious Book Habit. I adore book stores, read voraciously, and could easily spend $150 per month or more on new books and magazines. If I didn’t like the book enough to keep it, I’d trade it in for store credit after I was finished reading it.

I reduced my book buying habit reluctantly. First, I gave up magazines in favor of the library copies and then I made a concerted effort to also read library copies of those books I was pretty sure I didn’t want to own. I now use an e-reader and buy fewer printed books, which has cut my book buying considerably.

Go from two cars to one or even none. Do you really need two cars?  Maybe, but maybe you don’t.

Try living with one car for two weeks and see how you do. Can you take public transportation, carpool or catch a ride to work from your spouse? You may find it’s less painful than you expected. Giving up a car can save you as much as $700-900 per month. I know because I did it myself.

Shop for insurance. You may be able to save by changing your home and auto insurance. Every few years, shop around to compare coverage and prices. The right coverage could save you $100-$200 per month.

Host a swap party. Clothes, accessories, toys, holiday cookies, unopened gifts, books – almost anything could be swapped! What is unwanted to you could be valuable to someone else and vice versa. For more tips on hosting a clothing swap party, see this article.  The same principles can be applied to any swap or exchange party.

Share babysitting. A reliable babysitter can cost $10-15 per hour in my area. Babysitting during a night out with your spouse adds $40–$90 to the total cost of the evening.

What can you do if you don’t have family to help? Form a babysitting club to trade nights out with your friends. You watch their kids one time and then they watch yours the next.  Some friends I know took it a step further, forming a neighborhood group. Once a month, one family hosts a pizza/movie night at their home, while all the other parents get a night on the town.

Fill up at the cheapest gas station. Our neighborhood suffers from zip code inflation in gas prices. A favorite hack of my husband, Steve, is to take a certain route home from work that passes a less expensive station and fill up there. The result? He spends 30 cents less per gallon.

Quit the gym and mow the lawn. Another one of Steve’s hacks is that he thinks of yard work as his personal exercise program. Instead of paying a gym membership, he mows the lawn and chops wood, doing something every day as his workout.

He decided he wanted to do this on purpose, even though we planned for landscaping in our budget. Did I mention we live on top of a hill and have three acres and abundant trees? Needless to say, he is very fit, and our bank account is fatter.

Stock a snack box. How many times a week do you pick up a snack at a coffee shop or store? Those lattes and muffins can easily add up to $3-10 per day. Add in kids, and a quick trip to Starbucks is twice as much. Keep a well-stocked box in your car and your office with easy snacks.

Not ready to give up the coffee shop coffee? I don’t blame you. (I am a fan.) Consider ordering a less expensive version, such as an iced coffee instead of a fancy coffee drink. You can save 50-60% on each cup.

Fill a gift closet. If you have kids, you know that birthday party gifts can cost upwards of $100 per month. Plus there are always hostess gifts, teacher gifts, office gifts, etc. It’s easy to forget those expenses, but they can really eat into a monthly budget.

Set a maximum amount you’ll spend on them for the year and then shop in advance. We recently bought 8 ultra cool birthday presents on Woot.com for only $80! Stock up on inexpensive small house presents and interesting wines when you see them on sale so you’ll always have something to bring when you have dinner with friends. Better yet, shop for holiday gifts right after the holiday season has ended, often for 75-85% off.

Do you have an easy way to save money without changing your lifestyle? Please email me at [email protected]. You can also follow me on Twitter at @cynthiameyer_FF.

 

 

Don’t Overspend on Assets That Depreciate in Value

April 22, 2016

My middle child, who is merely days away from taking his driver’s license exam, thinks that it is a major hardship that he isn’t going to have a car on day one after he gets his license. That’s not such a bad problem to have considering all the problems in the world. I asked him about the kind of car he’d like to drive and he said he wouldn’t mind a new Mercedes or BMW…a Ferrari would do. In a perfect world, a Lamborghini or Bugatti would be his preference.

That’s when I reminded him that the world is not perfect and that it was time for a quick re-visit of our reality. I had my hiking boots in my car and told him he is going to get a car that resembles those old hiking boots, probably not a car that a high level executive would drive, but it beats walking or riding a bicycle. My rationale: a first car is far more likely to be dented, dinged and wrecked than a car that you buy after 20 years of driving experience.  Inexperienced drivers pay higher insurance rates because they are a higher risk, so we are going to opt for an old ugly car that goes slow and is incredibly safe over a shiny, fast small sporty car. I’d like to see him live a long, healthy life and this car choice will help that along.

I use this theory for buying my cars:

Buy a high quality car that is 3-5 years old with 40,000–60,000 miles and coming off the first lease. I can pay pennies on the dollar based on the original price. I’ll drive it until it has 200-300k miles on it and leaseholders tend to take very good care of their cars. I’m getting a nearly new and high quality car at a low price. My current car is a luxury model that I bought for just under $10,000 2 or 3 years ago and has been a great purchase.

For my son:

If he wants a Mercedes or BMW, that’s great! But it’s not going to happen. Unless we find one that is 10+ years old, has 100k+ miles on it and can be had for a very low price. More likely, we will look for great deals on high quality cars with lots of mileage. He will be commuting a few miles to work or school and taking the occasional road trip.

I want him to have a 4 cylinder engine to be effective on gas mileage and not have much horsepower. And I want the car to have a great safety record from a car maker that has a reputation for safe cars. Looking at cars.com, I found 200+ cars for under $5,000 that my son, his mom and I can all pitch in and purchase together. Now his job is to pass his exam and come up with 1/3 of the cost of the car!

What do I hope you learn about from my son’s car? Don’t overspend on assets that depreciate in value!  Americans spend far too much on cars and other things that don’t increase in value. Set some rules about how much you’re willing to spend on things like this and stick to them.

My kids all laugh when they say they’re going to “invest” in a new computer or video game. They roll their eyes when I ask how much of a profit they’ll make if they sell their new “investment” 5 years later, knowing that they’re about to hear investing means trying to earn a profit. Spending is what we do when a purchase decreases in value. The moral of this long story is to minimize the cost of purchases so that you have room to invest for your future.

 

My Declaration of Financial Independence

December 07, 2015

As I take over Financial Wellness@Work on Mondays (following in the very big shoes of Dr. Scott Spann, who is bringing Financial Finesse wisdom to the retirement planning pages of About.com), I thought I’d take some time upfront to tell you my story so you know my perspective. Twenty years ago, I declared financial independence. I remember my Financial Independence Day very clearly… Continue reading “My Declaration of Financial Independence”

Can You Walk Your Way Out of Debt?

November 06, 2015

I was talking with one of my fellow financial planners, Cynthia Meyer, about a wide range of topics recently. During our conversation, I laughed that I was feeling too lazy to walk the two blocks from where I live to the grocery store. That’s when she told me this story of when she decided to walk EVERYWHERE…. Continue reading “Can You Walk Your Way Out of Debt?”

How This Married 37-Year Old CPA and Financial Planner in Chicago Spends Her Money

October 14, 2015

When my colleagues, Scott and Tania, joined this Last 10 Buys Challenge on Forbes, I took a look at my spending and initially thought, “No way…this looks BAD!” But then I thought about how I actually like it when my instructor at the gym confesses to struggling with her diet so I figured I should bare it all with thoughts on how I could have done better. Here are the last 10 things I spent money on this week:

Continue reading “How This Married 37-Year Old CPA and Financial Planner in Chicago Spends Her Money”

The Last 10 Things This 42 Year Old Mom Spent Money On

October 13, 2015

In addition to writing for the Financial Finesse blog, I also write for Forbes. One of the Forbes staff members, Samantha Sharf, laid her wallet bare and shared her last ten purchases. She then challenged other writers and readers to do the same. One of our financial planners, Scott Spann, took the challenge and shared his last ten purchases. Realizing first with horror that I am older than he is and second the need for people to see that we are not perfect, I took up the challenge to share my last ten purchases over the weekend: Continue reading “The Last 10 Things This 42 Year Old Mom Spent Money On”

How Far Would You Go To Get Rid Of Student Loan Debt?

September 17, 2015

A colleague of mine recently shared this article titled “How Far Would You Go to Get Rid of Your Student Debt?” that focused on the extreme lengths many people were willing to go to get rid of their student loans. It’s not surprising when you consider that the average college student graduated this year with over $35k in loans. If they pay just the 4.66% interest rate on federal student loans for undergrads, they’ll pay almost $9k in interest by the time they pay it off in 10 years. But if they can put an extra $300 a month towards their debt, they’ll pay it off in under 5 years and save more than half the interest. They can then put those payments towards buying a home or becoming financially independent. Continue reading “How Far Would You Go To Get Rid Of Student Loan Debt?”

Is Uber Cheaper Than A Car Payment?

August 24, 2015

My colleague Doug Spencer asked himself that question when his oldest daughter began to drive and so far for him, the answer is “yes!” Like many families, they have two busy kids going in different directions for school, activities and work and with a third driver, a third car seemed like the answer. For many people it probably is, but here are the reasons that Doug has decided to hold off on purchasing another car: Continue reading “Is Uber Cheaper Than A Car Payment?”

Money Saving Tips I Learned As a Frequent Traveler

August 12, 2015

As a senior resident financial planner for Financial Finesse, my job requires me to travel from time to time. As you can imagine, there are several perks to business travel. For starters, you sometimes get to go to exotic places like Parker Dam, CA, Newcastle, WY, or Elko, NV and then there are the luxurious accommodations like the Budget Host Inn & Suites in Memphis, TN or the Rime Garden Inn & Suites in Birmingham, AL or a personal favorite of our planner team, the Hacienda Hotel in our very own El Segundo, CA. All kidding aside, it is fun to travel every once in a while, and you do pick up a travel tip or two along the way. Here are a few of my favorite tips to help the less-than-frequent travelers among you: Continue reading “Money Saving Tips I Learned As a Frequent Traveler”