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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 10:15 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
One morning, personal-finance blogger "Blunt Money" got out of bed and stepped right into a puddle of cat barf. How many of us would have let that ruin our entire day?
Not her. "I chose to just get it cleaned up and move on. After all, the day was bound to get better from there, right?" Blunt Money wrote in a blog essay called "Attitude matters."
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Posted
May 07 2008, 11:02 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
"Dividend" has been using the snowball approach to debt reduction. To do so, the reader treats debt reduction payments as a monthly bill, "as necessary and unavoidable as paying rent."
Dividend started by creating a minimalist yet realistic budget to live on. This includes predictable expenses such as car insurance, gift-giving and "a little bit of play money." Everything left over is officially invisible. "I treat that money like it doesn't exist until the end of the month. Then, out of that, I pay minimums on everything first, and then the remainder gets paid to the next item in the snowball."
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Posted
May 02 2008, 09:00 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
About six weeks ago I wrote an essay about why getting rid of some of the clutter in your life could help you save money. Yesterday I read an Associated Press article about people who are emptying closets and attics just to keep the wolf from the door.
Online auctions are bristling with family heirlooms, home electronics and designer duds. Craigslist ads are getting increasingly frantic, like the one in which a teen begged on behalf of her unemployed mom for people to "please buy anything you can to help out." One cash-strapped Wisconsin woman put her diamond engagement ring up for grabs.
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 09:12 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Just for the heck of it, I counted my "found money" collection. So far this year I've found $6.56. Yeah, I pick up change on the street -- and so do a lot of other people, judging from the response to "See a penny? Pick it up!"
What surprised me was that $2 of the $6.56 total was made up of dimes. Twenty people dropped them and didn't retrieve them.
Lately I've also seen dimes in the "need a penny, take a penny" cups found at many cash registers. What gives?
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Posted
Dec 31 2007, 05:32 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Just before Christmas, an Associated Press article reported that Americans are losing the battle with credit-card debt. We're falling behind on payments, and defaults and delinquencies are increasing rapidly.
The subprime mortgage mess is partly to blame, economists say. But they also cite "America's long-standing attitude that debt -- even high-interest credit card debt -- is not a big deal."
Howard Dvorkin, the founder of a Florida credit counseling service, put it this way: "The desire of consumers to want, want, want, spend, spend, spend -- it's the fabric of our nation."
Dvorkin's words irritated the heck out of me. Unfortunately, they happen to be true.
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Posted
Nov 14 2007, 10:01 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
A month ago today, I became debt-free – made the last payment to a relative who had lent me some money. This loan had allowed me to throw a big chunk of cash against credit card debt accrued during divorce proceedings. (Lawyers bill by the hour, you know.) Once the credit card was paid in full, I started repaying the family loan. As money came in through diligence or chance, I’d let it build to $300 and then write a check. I'm not sure why $300 became the magic number; it just sounded good. Now I'm debt-free: no student loans (I'm blessed with a scholarship), no car payment (please let it last another six or seven years), no credit card debt (and there won't be any more). It feels about how you'd think it would: pretty darned great. 'A perpetual grin' This relative wasn’t dunning me. But it bothered me to owe money. Some people count sheep; at night I would lie in bed counting ways to stretch available funds to reach the next $300. Reading some postings from a Smart Spending message board
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Posted
Oct 19 2007, 09:41 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Losing a debit card. Cleaning out the garage. Buying a condo, or not being able to buy a condo. Living out of a suitcase. Wanting to stay home with the kids but fearing you can't afford it.
All these were defining moments that turned spendthrifts into thrift-thrifts. A reader posting as "bigdreams" solicited such tales in a Smart Spending message board thread called "Switching from being a spender to a saver -- what was your 'aha' moment?"
Some "moments: were epiphanies, others slowly dawning realizations. Readers variously described their experiences as a slap in the face, a kick in the butt, a good hard look at oneself, a God-given wakeup call, the sudden glimpse of a bleak future.
However they arrive, aha moments carry the same basic message: Something has to change.
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Posted
Oct 04 2007, 09:48 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Sam’s Club thinks I deserve luxury. Specifically, the retailer thinks I deserve a pair of Granny Smith apples dipped in caramel, rolled in pecan pieces and drizzled with three kinds of chocolate. This particular luxury would cost me $18.22 -- plus shipping, since it’s available only online.
The two-piece treat was one of several items highlighted in an e-mail whose subject line read, "Luxury You Deserve At Sam’s Club." That got my attention because I’d just read a review of a new book called "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster."
Back in the 19th century, the "luxury" trade was small and aimed squarely at European aristocrats. Now it’s big, big business and marketed to the middle class. For example, the author mentions a secretary who’s saving to buy her second Prada bag.
She’s putting money aside to buy a purse. She’s not saving for a down payment on a home, startup funds for her own business, tuition to further her education or, God forbid, retirement.
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Posted
Sep 27 2007, 04:14 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
What I love about the Smart Spending message board is that it’s peopled with folks who are just as easily amused as I am. This group knows you don’t have to spend a bundle to have a ball.
Take the reader posting as “chrisfan1958,” who has sworn off most desserts due to health concerns. Five or six times a year, she treats herself to an ice cream that’s not just a luxury -- it’s a time machine.
“It's hot and ice cream is melting faster than I can eat it, dripping down the side of the cone, sticky fingers, and a messy face. Just like I was eight years old again!” Chrisfan posted on a thread about small luxuries.
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Posted
Sep 26 2007, 02:42 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
I had a Desperation Dish the other night. It saved me from going out to eat, which is why I recommend the practice. It also helped me clean out the fridge – another point in its favor.
The expression comes from the 1942 memoir "We Took to the Woods,” a delightful tale of living in the Maine backcountry. Author Louise Dickinson Rich described Desperation Dishes as "things we eat when we run out of food."
Rich and her family weren’t completely out of food, but rather down to things like dried beans and cornmeal. But they must have been desperate if they were excited by DDs like "Mock Tripe," made with fish skin and seasoned leftover oatmeal. Yum.
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