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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 06:23 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Lara from Coffee Can Cash left an intriguing comment recently about my post on minimalist kitchens: I'm sorry, but I can't agree with the idea "when in doubt, buy it cheap." ... If you want to save money for the long haul, buying cheap on one occasion isn't what's going to do it; it's the fact that you're cooking at home as opposed to going out. My cheap (read: not frugal, but CHEAP) ex-boyfriend had these disgusting old pans and cookie sheets when we first got together. It was quite clear to me that they were dollar store finds from three or four years ago and they were flat-out gross (you could see the burn marks from cookies past). I'd rather have the $4 AirBake cookie sheet that's going to last me 20 years than have to buy $1 pieces of crap that burn stuff every three years.
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Posted
Aug 08 2008, 04:40 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Recently I've heard a lot of parents grumbling about the exorbitant cost of buying school clothes for their kids for the upcoming year. A few parents were at least putting all of their eggs in the basket of the tax holiday on clothes in Iowa -- and they were quite proud of this, certain that they'd be getting a better deal than everyone else. Guess what? If you put in a little bit of time, you can get your kids plenty of clothes for just pennies on the dollar -- and it'll be exactly what they pick out, too. Even better, the same strategy works for your own clothes shopping. This is the way to get cheap clothes.
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Posted
Aug 01 2008, 06:29 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Before my financial turnaround, I had several expensive hobbies. I loved to golf on the weekends, I played Magic: The Gathering competitively, I collected DVDs, and I thought it was great to eat as many meals as possible at high-end restaurants. Each of these hobbies was a massive drain on my bank account, consuming money in huge bites like a cash-starved elephant. Since then, I've given up most of my hobbies and channeled the remainder onto paths that are much more financially stable. To do that, I had to adopt a handful of useful tactics. If you have a hobby that's a constant money drain, try some of these to see if you can make it more affordable.
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Posted
Jul 25 2008, 05:31 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. One of my favorite debates with my wife has to do with socks. I tend to wear my socks into oblivion -- until they're literally falling apart. Holes around the toes, deep wear on the heel, and I'll still wear them. Since I tend to wear them only inside of shoes or around the house, I figure, "Why not?" But my wife's not so approving. So I sat down with her to figure out the numbers on this one.
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Posted
Jul 11 2008, 06:49 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Let's start off with an interesting statement. I believe that many of the personal-finance problems people face are due to confusion between wants and needs. Not long ago, I used to think there was a blurry area between wants and needs. I'd use that blurry area to justify some of my purchases -- cell phone usage, expensive pens and so on. Those things were "needed" in some way, so I would define them as needs and not think about them critically.
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Posted
Jun 13 2008, 06:26 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Last month, I was sorely tempted to pick up Mario Kart Wii. Mario Kart has been my favorite video game series. I played it for hours and hours with my friends in high school on the Super Nintendo, then burned countless hours in the college dorms playing it on an N64. Even as recently as last Christmas, I stayed up most of the night playing Mario Kart DS wirelessly against my wife's family at their Christmas celebration (one person had a cartridge and several of us had DS units.)
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Posted
Jun 05 2008, 09:29 PM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Prior to our financial meltdown, my wife and I never sat down and talked about our finances. Right after the meltdown, we talked about things almost every day. Through our recovery, the number of meetings slowly declined to a monthly family financial meeting. The meetings have become a big part of the financial glue of our marriage.
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Posted
May 30 2008, 07:31 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Recently, my wife and I kicked around the idea of installing a clothesline in our backyard. We both grew up in the country and we both had clotheslines for drying clothes in the spring, summer and fall. A quick cost analysis. An average dryer load costs about 30 to 40 cents to dry, so we'll give it an average of 35 cents a load. Given the installation cost of the clothesline we investigated (about $30, all told), we could recoup the cost of drying the clothes with about 89 loads, and after that it's gravy.
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Posted
Apr 04 2008, 06:54 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Recently I was leafing through Jonathan Pond's very good personal-finance book, "Grow Your Money," which I had reviewed a while back. In it, he makes the astute statement that everyone puts their money into three basic groups: necessities, luxuries and saving for the future. The more I thought about that statement, the more profound I thought it was, because it provides a framework for the financial problems ailing many Americans. Obviously, the pile that will get you in the best shape over the long term is the "saving for the future" pile, but people's failure to do that is only part of the problem. The reason so many Americans are in poor financial shape is that they put more than they should into one of these areas to the detriment of others. Let me show you what I mean.
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Posted
Mar 28 2008, 06:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar. Just this morning, I was leafing through my favorite personal-finance book of all, "Your Money or Your Life," when I came across the idea of the "purge-and-splurge" cycle. From page 148, discussing what happens after you start buckling down and paying serious attention to your financial state: "In the first month of recording your figures you might confront one of our national foibles. Your income entry might well be lower than your expense entry. You may have spent more than you earned. (It is, after all, the American way.) Seeing this reality might come as a bit of a shock. Chances are you'll want things to change -- and change now. Accustomed to budgets, diets, and New Year's resolutions, you swear on a stack of bank statements and credit cards that next month will be better.
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