Category Archives: Savings

Saving By Paying Attention – Conclusion Part 4 of 4

by

Thinking money matters through

The “Saving By Paying Attention” series has been about focusing and not making rash decisions.

Too often, smart people don’t take the time to weigh all options when making an important decisions.

By paying attention, I’ve been able to buy a lot of things for free, like routers for my computers, DVDs, etc.  With rebates, you can save substantial amount of money too.  There are some huge coupon savings out there if you know where to look.

Another great tool for buying things at a huge discount is the internet.  Sometimes you can find some great deals on Ebay.com.  I’ve been able to buy old CD/DVDs from ebay for a great price, not to mention the unique, one of a kind items that can be found.  For instance, I’ve been able to buy a firefighter nightlight from my son when he was younger.

Another great site for good prices on products is www.woot.com, I’ve been able to buy merchandise that has been refurbished at great prices.  Both of my kid’s mp3 players were bought online at www.woot.com!

I’ve recently learned of a site called: https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/, but I haven’t researched it enough yet to feel comfortable recommending it.  Still you might want to check it out, mainly they offer free software downloads.

Another great way save money is to go to blogger sites that are offering giveaways.  Every so often, you’ll see a $100 dollar giveaway from the blogger sites!

I know people that use the radio contests to win money to.  In fact, this is how one of my friends won a free house.  Another friend continually calls the sites trying to win money and prizes.  Often time she succeeds!  It’s amazing the opportunities out there to either win money or prizes.

It you concentrate and think outside of the box, there are plenty of money  saving or winning opportunities out there!

-MR

Previous Articles in this Series:

Saving Money By Staying Healthy

by

No, I’m not writing about jogging 10 miles a day, nor am I writing about lifting weights either!  What I’m talking about is avoiding getting sick via colds, flus and other germs…

First, a little background about me…  The last 10 or so years, I’ve have been sick a lot!  At first like any great parent, I blamed it on my kids (and when they were very young, I’m sure they had an impact).  But now that they are older and don’t put hands in their mouths so much.  So now, I think I’m primarily getting sick from work.  So, I stopped putting my cube neighbors’ mice in my mouth (lol),

Here is what I now do:

  • I use my sleeve to open the doors if I don’t have a napkin or tissue.
  • I take a napkin (from fast food places) out of my car and use it to open the doors at work.
  • I always use purell after using someone keyboard, or after someone uses my keyboard.
  • I have have a special routine for going to the bathroom.

 

I know, you are thinking “a special routing for going to the bathroom?”  As you well know, not everybody washes their hands after going to either “of the options” when they go to the bathroom (how that for PC?).

This might be pushing the envelope a bit, but I’m going to tell you about my “special routine” anyway!

  • I open the door to the bathroom by pushing it with my forearm if I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt. (sometimes I push the door open with my foot if I don’t have a long sleeve shirt on).
  • Next, I take my magic napkin out of my pocket, tear a long inch wide strip of it and open the bathroom stall door. 
  • The typical activities are performed…
  • Use another long inch wide strip from my napkin to open the stall door.
  • Wash hands vigorously (as the signs that I see around demands that I do, surprisingly the sign is not in our bathrooms…  I guess we are suppose to know…).
  • Leave the water running (only for a sec) as I reach for a paper towel and dry my hands
  • Then use the towel to turn the water off. (Yeah, I’m being picky, but it works for me)
  • Grab another towel and use the bottom half to dry my hands fully.
  • Then as I go to the door, I use the upper half of the towel to open the door.
  • After the door is open, I toss the towel in the trash can besides the door.
  • Don’t tell anyone, but I’m the one who put that trash can there… 🙂  So far nobody has asked why, and tons of people now use it (I’m such a trend setter)…
  • Now I go back to my cube healthy!  Hurray!!!

 

I know this isn’t as glamorous or as exciting as practically any of my previous personal finance posts.  But believe it or not, this post has a lot of value… if you use it, you too will get sick much less often, saving you money!  This technique could also help you advance more quickly in your career.  If you are sick less, you are at work more and you are able to perform at a higher level vs. if you were sick all of the time.

The past few years, I’ve hardly been sick…  I attribute my good fortune to what we jokingly call the “hand something“, but since my kids read this, I’ll leave the name to your imaginations…  Just think of hand protection 😉

 Oh, I also use my napkins for getting water from the filtered water dispense at work, and the elevator buttons, and any surface that I can think of that other people touch frequently.  If you use small strips of the napkin like I do, not many people will notice either…

What do you think?  Am I over doing it?  Do you use similar techniques?

Respectfully, 

-MR

Wealth Tip #5: Increasing Your Financial Savings Delta

by

The following is based on my observations and common sense.  However, usually with these wealth series, I base the post off of rich friends that I know of that have over a million dollars.  Now for my discussion about the Financial Saving Delta.

Your Financial Savings Delta is simply:

(Discretionary Income – All Other Expenses) = Savings Delta

“Discretionary Income” is the money from your paycheck that could be in your wallet.  So it’s your Gross income – (Taxes, medical, 401(k) contributiosn, and practically anything else that is automatically taken out of your paycheck).

“All Other Expenses” is all the expenses that you spend your discretionary money on.

It’s a very straight forward simple equation, but knowing it and actually increasing it are 2 different matter!

The 1st way to increase the Savings Delta is to increase the “Discretionary Income” while holding the “All Other Expenses” constant.

 So what are the ways to increase the “Discretionary Income”:

  • Get a part time job in addition to your fulltime job.  If you are a work house, you could instead get another full time job in addition to your 1st full time job.  Yes, I’ve thought about this, but I want to know my kid’s names (plus I love them…)
  • Win at the neighborhood poker night game (I’m good at this, but not much money to win that way, plus the booze costs make it a fun break even event).  I could go bigger scale, but I could also lose bigger too.  Maybe someday I’ll try it out, but for now I’m good.
  • Find a product to sell on eBay.  I’ve been successful with this in the past!  Note that I didn’t say sell your old stuff.  While this is commendable, it’s a limited source of product.  And besides, most often you sell your stuff at a loss vs. what you initially paid.
  • Investment!  Stocks, bonds, real estate, whatever you fancy…  I hope to really expand this area soon!
  • Blogging (lol, to date (almost 6 months) I’ve made $5.00…  That works out to be about a penny and a half per hour of work!  Move over Bill Gates, I’m moving on up!

 The 2nd way to increase the Savings delta is to decrease the expenses that you have. 

This is easier than it sounds!  Here are some ways to do so:

 

It is very important to increase that Savings Delta though, and then invest it!

Can you think of any additional ways to dramatically increase the Savings Delta?

How Credit Cards Helped Me To Become Debt Free

by

Do I sound like Bizarro?

Hi I’m Reasons Money, oh wait… that’s Bizarro!    

I know, my title doesn’t make sense on the surface, but hear me out!    

It’s true, my credit cards helped me get out of debt quicker than if I hadn’t used them!    

First, let me set the background.  For the last 12 years, I’ve only owned reward credit cards (Sony,Upromise,  GM, Citi, Schwab, etc).    

Secondly, I almost never (hard to believe huh) carried credit card debt longer than a month.  I like to pay my balance in full each month!  The only time that I didn’t pay my credit card balance in full was when I bought a computer with a best buy card that had a 0% interest deal (and even with this card I paid it off early).    

I only own reward credit cards, and usually ones with pretty decent paybacks percentages!    

So how did (and does) that help me pay off my debt any quicker, you might ask? 

Well, first I get a discount on my purchases, typically anywhere from 2 to 5%!  If you pay with cash, you will incur that additional cost!  This is better than I did in the stock market last year! (Laughing, but really crying inside…).  This alone make the reward cards a great deal!    

You might not think this make a big difference but it does!  Instead of saving that money, we used it to help augment our Christmas presents!  We have also used it to rewards ourselves for being so frugally minded.  Yes, purchasing goods with credit cards is frugal (there, I said it!)    

The amounts saved via reward credit cards is like a forced savings plan.

Now, I’m not really Bizarro, and I know that in many ways having Credit Cards for some is like giving a beer to a recovering alcoholic.  But if you have the displine or if you create a budget to control your debt, Reward Credit Cards could be used for good instead of evil (another corny superhero cartoon reference).    

Credit card are a lot like guns!  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, same with credit cards!  Creadit cards on’t get you in debt!  People get themselved in debt!   

I know what I typed runs against the grains of popular opinions out there!      

What do you tkink?    

-D 

One Caveat:  If you are married, your spouse must be frugal and on-board with paying the credit card in full each month for this to work!!!  My wife is and it has worked great!