Category Archives: Costs

Frugal Sins Of A Personal Finance Blogger

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I’m consider myself a Frugal Blogger, and I am mostly, but I have my frugal sins that I commit.  And now, I would like to confess some of them, please try not to hate me!  (lol)

Frugal Sin #1:

I’m like Neo in “The Matrix” when it comes to not following David Bach’s “the latte factor” advice, …the rules do not apply to me!  Or at least you would think that is what I believe.  I have a McDonalds latte at least 4 days out of the week.  On top of McDonald’s latte’s, at least four times a month, I sneak in a Starbucks latte in too!  I also go to the local cafe shop and drink a few of their lattes per month.

This sin cost me about $15.00 extra a week, ($60.00 monthly).

Frugal Sin #2:

I’m currently not carpooling!  I have a buddy at work  that I’m sure I could carpool with again (we have in the past, when gas prices went over $3.00 a gallon), but I enjoy my alone time driving to work too much to give it up.  When I drive with my buddy, I feel like I have to entertain him, but I like listening to audiobooks, music, NPR, and other things.  Sometimes I even think about blogging topics.

This sin also cost me an another $15 dollars to my weekly expenses ($60 monthly).

Frugal Sin #3:

And what may be the most outragious sin of all… We still have a landline phone!  We have 2 cell phones, and a gmail voice account… and yet we still have a landline with Verizon?  My wife wants it just in case we need to call 911, but it’s not really necesary!  I wonder at what point in time, I will start to get embarrassed by the phone?  Maybe when we have company over, I’ll throw a blanket over our landline phones, or will I grab them and throw them in the utility room?  Oh the shame…

This sin also cost me an another $6 dollars to my weekly expenses ($24 monthly).

So my frugal sins only cost me almost $150 dollar a month, but still that’s $150 dollars that I could be saving for investments!

Please don’t tell my mom…

Would you like to confess some of your frugal sins here?  I think you’ll feel better if you put those nasty sins out on the table and in the open!

-MR

How To Save Money By Cost Control

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How to Save Money by Cost Control is a discovery process.  One of my debt free goals was to save money with great passion since I’m part of the Million Dollar Club! 

After I became totally debt free by paying off my mortgage, this past February, I was very excited about being able to sock away an extra $1,500 a month into savings and investments.   I imagined myself every quarter of this year, plopping almost $5,000 into a balanced mutual fund or ETF. 

So how much extra money have I saved up for investing?  nada, nil… nothing at all.  Now, I knew that I would have an adjustment period at the beginning, that would stun my initial investing plan, but I didn’t see it lasting this long! 

I’ve learned that Cost Control, is the new root of my saving problems.  You see, when you have more money in your checkbook, it’s easier to justify getting the more expensive or quicker product. 

Here are examples where my cost control wasn’t in place:

  •  My old Lawnmower (Mean Green) was finally forced out of action (I’ll blog in greater detail about Mean Green some other time).  But instead of looking at Craigslist for one or buying a cheap model from Lowes, I went out and bought a new Toro self-propelled (variable speed) lawnmower! 

    My new lawnmower (called Red) is spectacular!  I love it, but I also spent about $375.00 dollars on it.  To me this seems a bit pricey! 

    In the days when I still had a mortgage, I would have went out and bought a cheaper model, or bought a used lawnmower.  In fact, my boss offered to sell me a cheap used lawnboy as a replacement…  But I declined.
    I’m sure if I put my mind and efforts to it, I could have found a lawnmower for at least half the price.  
      
      

     

  • Car problems.  My wife’s car was experiencing a car problem.  So what did I do?  I call my favorite mechanic and asked him to get it in today and fix it.  My mechanic is great, so that was exactly when he did, but it cost me $450 dollars. Now you might be thinking what is so bad about this?  Well, we have a few friends that are auto mechanics.  We could have waited and had one of our buddies look at the car and fix it for a lot cheaper!  After the fact, my one buddy told me that he could have cleaned the part and that might have made it work.  He said he would have done it for free.  So I paid a premium to get it fixed that day!  It would have taken my friend at least 5 or so days to get to it.     

  • Changing the oil on the car.  I haven’t done this in years!  It’s easy enough to do, but I always convince myself that it’s not work the time and energy (and perhaps it’s not).  Some people may say, yeah but what about the cost of oil disposal…  Well, you can drive your old used oil to any Walmart car service department and they will take it off of your hands for free!  It’s possible to created a paper funnel and pour the oil into a plastic 1 gallon  milk container,  then put the plastic cap on to keep the fumes contained.   I have used the milk jug trick for the oil changes I did performed on my old lawnmower and snow thrower.     

If you stay focused and realize that you are wasting money by doing such as I have above…  You can save money by using more focused cost control! 

Have you every mode impromptu decisions that you knew weren’t the best, but because you had the money to do them, you did them anyway? 

-MR

The Cost Of Being Rich And Famous

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Most of us wish we were a rich and famous celebrity, idolizing every step they take, constantly watching them in the news.

However, the cost of being rich and famous may be greater than we imagine. I would go as far as to say that the star celebrities are constantly on a kind of public stage, always being photographed or badgered by adoring fans (not to mention stalked).

Now granted being wealthy and a celebrity has its advantages, but my concern is about all of the great things that they’d miss out on that the average middle class family experiences!

Here’s a list of the things a celebrity would miss out on:

  • A casual walk in the mall, or really anywhere in the public eye.
  • A quiet evening out with their spouse.  Even when they are at a private room in a restaurant, there is someone trying to take pictures or get an autograph.  And there is always the nasty process of going and leaving the establishment.
  • Travelling must be done in disguise, and even then, they are often recognized.
  • Since they are busy with an acting gig, or away on a business trip, they miss large segments of their children growing up.
  • They often adopt children rather than have their own kids, possible fearing that they might lose their million dollar looks or body.
  • They’ll miss out on the sports that a child might play (if they play any at all).
  • Their kids are bound to feel like they are entitled to have the same stuff other rich kids like them have.  The celebrity may not experience the hugs from a child when they come home from work.  Or at least not as many opportunities.

So while I wouldn’t mind being rich or financial independent, I don’t think I would really want to be famous.  I think the costs would be too high, and you would give up too much in the process, especially if you have kids.

What do you think?  Would you like to be Rich And Famous or just discretely rich (my preference)?

-MR

Related Reading:

Check out Everyday’s tips and thoughts‘s article: Who Needs Yachts and Islands, it was my motivation for writing this article.

Less is More On The Road To Accumulating Wealth

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Some think that you have to fake it to make it… and in some ways this is true.

But I think it’s also true that less is more when it comes to accumulating wealth while having an average salary.

Whenever a person moves up in their salary amount, or their rate of pay, they start to think that they have made it. They start to buy more expensive things because they believe that they are supposed to.

But the way to build wealth while on a modest income is by practicing the less is more concept!

The “less is more” concept in a nutshell is that the less you spend, the more you get to save for wealth building activities!

Here are the ways that you get ahead by following the Less is More idea:

  1. Less House!  It’s true, that housing has traditionally been a great way to acquire wealth (excluding the past few years).  But along with a big fancy house, comes big expenses!  With a larger house you will pay
    1. More in Real Estate Taxes (unless you are outside of city limits, or in a state that doesn’t tax Real Estate).
    2. More on your utilities (gas, electric, water, sewage)
    3. More for repairs to your appliances and house (roof shingles, heaters, water pumps, etc).
    4. More on landscaping (after all you have to keep up with the Joneses, if you live in a big house).
    5. More on Cosmetic features (faux paint, fancy decorations, artwork, etc)
    6. House cleaning…
  2. Less Car!  If you buy a decent dependable car instead of a luxury car, you’ll save money instead of spending more!
    1. Insurance will be less for a cheaper dependable car.
    2. Surprisingly, luxury cars break down more than the reliable cars reviewed in Consumer Report Magazine.
    3. Auto Repairs will be more expensive, or auto mechanics will charge you more because they know you can afford it.
    4. It’s more apt to be stolen.
  3. Less on Eating out and Living Large!
    1. Eating out more (especially drinking alcohol), is a quick drain of money!
    2. Buying Football (and other sport) tickets!  Nothing waste money quicker than spending hundreds of dollars for sporting events.
    3. Fancy vacations!  There have been years where my family had to vacationed in backyardsville, so that we could get our finances stable.
  4. Less on Electronics!
    1. Skip the newest smart phone when it comes out (iPhone anyone)!  At first, they are typically overpriced.  Some people toss their current phone and run out to get the newest electronic gizmo!  As someone in the technology field, I understand the temptation!  But if I can do it, then so can you!
    2. Once you buy a product stick with it!  I keep my computer at least 5 years!  Once we buy our newest TV (with credit card reward points money), we’ll keep it until it breaks down.
    3. Don’t stick to brand names!  Believe it or not, an Apple IPod is still just an MP3 player…  I know I can buy an MP3 player for a much cheaper price!

These are just some of the ways that you can apply the Less is More idea to save more money which could then be used for investment, or paying off debt!

Readers, did I miss any other big “Less is More” item?

-MR