I am still around!

We are moving this week and packing up the house, buying a house, and selling a house has proven to be a bigger chore than I expected! I've also been working part-time, and we traveled over the holidays. It doesn't leave much time for blogging, but I promise to finish my thoughts on preparing for emergencies once we get settled in our new North Carolina home.

How well will you do?

Here is an interesting game from Urban Ministires of Durham. Of course you are stuck with the scenerios they give you as well as only a few options. But it is an interesting look at how quickly someone can fall in the hole financially.

Play Spent

I'm embarrassed to admit that I came away from this game in the negative. Fortunately, I've made better decisions and have had better circumstances in real life. How did you do?

I Am The Lamest Blogger Ever

I just wanted to put a post out there that I am the lamest blogger ever. I don't know how other bloggers post on a daily basis. I'm just trying to keep up on a weekly basis and am failing miserably.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I want to add that I haven't been thinking much about money lately specifically saving money. If anything, I've been thinking about how to spend money. It kind of goes against my nature but it is how I've been feeling. Two weeks ago, the rabbi, where my children go to Hebrew school, passed away. It wasn't sudden, as he had been ill for a few years. But he was 34 years old. Thirty-four! Gosh, it makes one stop and think. He left behind a wife and four young children. There is a website dedicated to his memory, and I have found myself looking at it from time to time, browsing pictures of him from happier days. And when I see pictures of him smiling at family events or when I read stories about him telling jokes to his congregants, I think to myself, does saving money really matter when it all comes down to this?

Well, yes I still believe it does, to an extent. But there is saving, and then there's going overboard. Put money away for emergencies. Yes. Scrimp every last dollar you make. No. Save money for retirement. Yes. Turn off the heat each night before you go to bed. No. Put money away for your children's education. Yes. Don't ever take them on a vacation. No.

None of us know how many years we have left on this earth. G-d willing, we will all live to 120. But if we die tomorrow, will we be sorry that we didn't order that steak dish that we love so much at our favorite restaurant? Will we be sorry that we never took that vacation to Paris? Will we be sorry that we didn't spend money to learn how to play the piano?

On the other hand, if we live to 120, G-d willing, we do need to live on something other than boxed noodles. And we cannot depend on the government or others to take care of us. So we do have to put money aside in case something catastrophic happens. And we need to have a plan to pay for medical expenses for ourselves. So I will always think saving money is smart. And I do think we should all be doing it. But, let's not become a hoarder of money. Once you have an emergency fund, are happy with your retirement savings, and feel comfortable with the amount you have saved for your children's education, spend freely on what you enjoy. Take that trip to Paris or bring your kids to Disney World. Eat out at your favorite restaurant on special occasions. Sign up for piano lessons.

As far as we know, we only get one chance at life on earth. And sometimes that life is short. Many times it is not. So, save wisely, but enjoy yourself, too. As none of us know which life expectancy camp we fall into. For some, the length of our life is not nearly long enough as was the case with our beloved rabbi. Fortunately, he was a great role model for living life to its fullest. He seemed to enjoy every moment on earth and every person he was in contact with. While one can certainly live a full or even fuller life without spending a lot of money, I have found myself loosening my reins a bit on our spending because of his untimely death. I don't want to regret not doing things because I didn't want to spend the money - money that we had to spend. Saving just for the sake of it is not always the best option.

So I am looking at our savings and spending with new eyes with the idea that if we can afford it, and it will enrich our lives, then we will do it. Having said all that, I know that the best things in life are free. My family and friends, and the beauty of nature don't cost a dime. Although, that plane trip to see nature's finest might. Thanks for being a good example, Rabbi Levi. We miss you.

My family has been "bitten" by the stomach bug this past week. After taking care of my two daughters, I was laid up in bed myself so I apologize that there haven't been any posts for several days. Once I get things back in order - laundry! dishes! shower! - I promise to do more regular posts. Thanks.

Be Aware of Advertising

Tip #226 - Be Aware of Advertising. On a daily basis most of us are barraged with messages to separate our money from our pocketbook. Very few people are immune to advertising unless they live in a cave or in the wild. We often think of advertising as television commercials or ads in magazines. But it goes much further than that. It permeates nearly every aspect of our American culture. If you visit nearly any web page on the computer, there are usually ads decorating the border of the page. When you pull down a box of cereal from the cabinet in the morning, there is an ad right on the front. Turn on your cell phone and you see the name of the cell service you are affiliated with. The toothpaste you use makes claims about itself right on the tube. If you take public transportation to work, there are ads all over the buses and subway trains. From your car you might see ads on billboards or on buses. Many supermarkets have ads on their floors. Sports arenas have ads all over their fields. In your mail, you probably get advertisements almost every day.

What do all of these advertisements have in common? They are all trying to convince you that you need to buy their product or service. The message may be subtle or it may be direct. It may be mostly truthful or quite exaggerated. But either way, companies advertise so that you will spend your money on their product.

Many people think they are not influenced by advertising, but in reality there are probably very few who are not affected. A jingle gets caught in your head. A commercial on television shows an appetizing snack. A billboard presents a scene of two people relaxing in the sun on a beach. How can one not be drawn into any of these? The fact is most of us are, to some extent. Why? Because advertisers are good at what they do. They know how to make us want their product by presenting pretty scenes, luscious food pictures, or catchy tunes. And when they draw us in, we spend money on what they are selling.

There isn’t anything wrong with spending our money. After all, we all need to buy things. We need food to eat, clothes to wear, and a way to get to work. And we all want to have some fun, too. But we don’t have to buy everything that appeals to us – food that looks good, cars that sound glamorous, or trips that look exotic. In fact, just by being aware that we are influenced by advertising may help us cut down on spending money on the product or service they promote. If you weren’t craving french fries before you saw the oversized billboard of McDonald’s fries, then don’t stop on your way home to buy some. You need your money more than McDonald’s does. If you were not planning a trip to Cancun before you saw a great deal on a website, then don’t plan one now. If you are not in the market for a new car, then don’t be dazzled by the features shown on a television commercial for the new line of sports cars.

Be aware that most of these ads are designed so that you will spend YOUR money on their product. They are not public service announcements. Just by realizing that you are susceptible to their advertising will cause you to pay attention to what you are doing and may lessen the chances that you will succumb to the products that are promoted.


In Real Life (IRL) – "Way back when" I took a marketing class as part of my business major in college. I remember one particular message our professor told us and that was that people who think they are least likely to be influenced by advertising are actually the most influenced. I don’t know what facts or statistics he had to back it up. And I really don’t know if it’s true or not. But what I do know is that whether or not we think it, we are all influenced by advertising. And there is more of it around us than we realize. There is so much advertising permeating our lives, that I think it is one of the reasons that people have trouble putting away money. Because subconsciously advertisers from all directions are trying to get us to buy their products. And we are letting them because we are comfortable with advertisers doing this. After all, advertising is almost everywhere.

I realize that I am susceptible to the genius behind advertising. Pictures of families playing in Disney World may stay in my mind for months until I start planning our next vacation there. Pictures of hot fudge sundaes may have me running out at night to buy into my newfound craving. But many times, I just ignore what the ad is trying to sell me. I tell myself that I am not interested, and that I do not need the product. And the bottom line is, if it is not in my budget I usually do not buy it. That doesn’t mean Disney might not influence me to spend my budget money there rather than at the beach where I originally planned. Or that I won’t go out to eat at McDonald’s instead of Wendy’s. But I won’t start buying things that I do not have plans for. How much does advertising affect you? How do you think you can cut down on being influenced?

Help Haiti

Help Haiti - Today my family made a donation through The Jewish Federation to help with the devestation in Haiti. Although I don't believe in making public all of the charitable donations that our family makes, I wanted to post this because Money Saving Mom is graciously donating $10 to the relief fund for everyone who blogs about their donations. I figured $10 would be more appreciated than me keeping quiet.

Some Fun Snow Pictures

Our area was dumped on with a foot and a half of snow yesterday! Lots of fun times staying indoors with the family. Sometimes it's fun to take a brief break from all of the financial stuff and just take in all the beauty life has to offer. Here are some pictures of our snow. Enjoy!

Quick Note

Just a quick note that I realize that I haven't updated my blog in several days. I've been running around quite a bit from activity to activity for my children and spent 5 hours in line today getting my middle child the h1n1 flu shot. (I went yesterday with my youngest child, but it only took about 30 minutes!) I hope I have some free time tomorrow or Thursday to sit down and write a post. Writing while tired and with a headache usually equals disaster, at least for me.

Happy 1-Year Anniversary!

Happy 1-Year Anniversary! Today is officially one year since I began blogging. After reading homemaking and couponing blogs for about a year, I decided to take the plunge and start one myself geared to the bigger financial picture without getting too complicated. I believe that we should all learn to be good managers of our finances. And good financial habits start young. If one grows up observing good role models handling money well, then one is more likely to handle money well himself as he gets older. However, if one grew up with poor role models in that regard, then one will probably not be so lucky with his financial future. And that’s where more financial education is needed.

I was fortunate to have grown up with good financial role models. Because of that and an inherent interest in numbers and saving, I have been able to successfully put away a little bit of my income each year in order to reward me in the future. Sacrifices and smart money moves I made years ago have helped allow me to stay home with my children while they are young. Sacrifices we are making now will hopefully pave our way for paying fully for college education our children and providing us a stress-free retirement, financially. In this blog, I hope to be able to impart some basic financial knowledge to those who may not have yet learned how to handle their money. It really is the simple things that work: spending less than we have, saving for a rainy day, learning about general investment vehicles, and being aware of basic tax advantaged products.

Much of what I write about becomes somewhat repetitive over time, not just with others who write about finances, but with myself over time. Good financial rules bear repeating or being worded in other ways. Most of what I write about is based on what has worked for me, and what I have learned from managing my own money for twenty years. What I do may not be the best for everyone. But I try to write about good, basic money management methods that would apply to a broad spectrum of people. I appreciate all of the readers that I have so far. And I look forward to another year of writing about Saving Money In Real Life.

This weekend marks the observance of Yom Kippur, a Jewish Holy Day. I will be spending it with family and will be back next week with more financial ideas.

Here's a simple article in Yahoo! Finance that explains why many people live beyond their means or cannot get out of debt:

7 Expenses That Are Keeping You In Debt

I Am Taking A Week-long Break

My parents who are getting up there in years have been wanting to do a family vacation for several years now. After a few plans have fallen through, we have finally been able to get the whole family together to take a 5-day cruise to Canada. We are very excited! It's my first time taking a cruise, so I am anxious to see what it is like. My children are very excited, too. Since the Internet connection onboard is pretty steep, I am going to take a break from blogging until I get back next weekend. Hopefully, I can do a post in the near future about the cost of cruising. Have a good week!

Be Honest

Tip #172 - Be Honest. On our quest to acquire money, it is sometimes tempting to buck the system. After all, it will get us to our goal faster. Won’t it? Why pay for an extra person in the hotel room when the people at the front desk won’t even know they are there? Or why not add some extra mileage to your expense account to pad it? After all, it’s money in the bank. Or is it?

The truth of the matter is, the more honest we are when it comes to paying what we owe, the more everybody saves. How many times do you hear people complain about people who take advantage of the welfare system? And rightfully so. If people didn’t take advantage of it, there would be more money available for people who really need it. Right? How about shoplifting? Do you know how much that costs our bottom line when we pay for things? A lot. Stores need to figure into their prices the percentage of items that will be stolen, which raises prices across the board. Doctors’ bills would be less if they didn’t need to buy so much malpractice insurance. The same is true for almost any serviceperson. Most service people need to buy insurance to protect themselves from lawsuits. Of course, the consumer pays for that insurance through higher costs. I’m not saying that a certain percentage of lawsuits aren’t legitimate; they are, but there are certainly a fair number that are blatant lies that cost everyone around them more money. How many people take pens or copy paper from their place of employment? That costs the company money and brings down salaries since it raises overhead. I could go on and on with examples, but I'll try not to bore you.

If each of us took our personal responsibility, and didn’t cheat the system, then things would cost a lot less than they do. I’m not suggesting that any of my readers is a liar, thief, or dishonest in any way. I just know how tempting it is to try to get off paying less money if one can get away with it – trying to pass your child off as a younger age to get a cheaper rate, cramming more people into a hotel room than without paying for all of them, printing more coupons from your computer than are allowed, etc. Each of these brings the prices up for customers who do pay their fair share. And while it is tempting to save ourselves a little bit of money, if each of us were truly honest and paid what we owed, didn’t scam anyone, steal anything, or try to pull one over on the company, we would all save money. We’d also live in a much nicer world. Of course, it’s never going to happen. But if each of us did our part, we might eventually see a difference in the way of lower costs. And even if we don’t, we can at least feel good about ourselves that all the money we have saved up was gained honestly and morally.

In Real Life (IRL) – It’s funny how sometimes I am thinking about what I will post about next on this blog, and an opportunity presents itself to me on what to write about. Earlier this week I went to the grocery store to pick up a half-gallon of ice cream (or is it 1.5 litres now?) that I was craving (no, I’m not pregnant – just a piggy!). I walked into the store and the whole ice cream section was empty as there was something wrong with their freezers. Ugh, it was truly the only thing I went to the store for. So, I found a substitute in a much smaller freezer and picked up some ice cream pops. I debated about it for five minutes, since they are pricier than I usually spend. But I really didn’t want to go over to another supermarket, and I really was craving them. So I bit the bullet and took them to the checkout line.

Since I only had one item, I went to the self-checkout line. I scanned the item, and then looked down and in the change slot was a $5 bill and two $1 bills. “Whoopie!” I thought, I actually made money on this ice cream rather than spent more than I should have. Of course I knew it wasn’t really my money. It was the person’s who checked out before me. I held it for a minute or two, thinking about it. Who is to say the customer ahead of me will realize she’s missing the money and come back? If I brought it to customer service, the guy behind the counter might take it, especially if the customer does not return. And that’s when all of my moral lessons came back to me. If I were the one who left it behind, I would hope that the person who was after me in line would turn it in. So that’s what I did. I brought it to the customer service man and told him where I found it. And then I left the store with a good feeling in my heart and a box of overpriced ice cream in my hand.

Be A Mensch

Tip #170 – Be A Mensch. For those of my readers who are not Jewish, a Mensch means “person of integrity” in Yiddish. It is a common saying among Jews to call someone a mensch if that person is a good, kind person. If you know your neighbor has nothing to do on his birthday and you invite him over for lunch, you are a mensch. If you visit your grandmother once a week because you know she is lonely, then you are a mensch. While being a mensch is all well and good, what does that have to do with financial success? Well I believe what comes around goes around. That’s not why I think people should act as a Mensch, but it is a nice bonus.

For example, when you go out to dinner with a group of friends, and one member of the party eats for significantly less than the rest of the group and everyone wants to split the bill evenly, a mensch might stand up for this person suggesting that he pay less since he ate for less. And then maybe next time when you are the person who eats for less than everyone else, someone will remember what you did and will stand up for you so you only have to pay your fair share as well, saving you some unnecessary expenses.

If the next time a friend or neighbor gets ill, has a baby, or breaks a leg, a mensch might offer to cook a meal for her because it is the right thing to do. And then perhaps the next time you are in need, she will do the same for you, saving you spending high costs for convenience food.

Being a mensch makes the world a better place one person at a time. Sometimes it makes the world a better place three-fold because someone sees you helping a person and then they help someone in return, and so on until it comes full circle and someone down the road is helping you. It’s the idea of paying it forward. Even if it doesn’t come back to you or even if it doesn’t save you money, you can be happy in the knowledge that you have made someone else’s day or saved someone else time or trouble. And sometimes that’s even better than saving yourself money. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it helps bring you financial success, too

In Real Life – I started out this post thinking about something else entirely, but I got sidetracked yesterday and stayed up until 3 AM reading the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Now this person, Greg Mortenson is a real mensch. Delving himself into what seemed like a doomed project, not to mention risking his life, to help build a school for a group of children in Pakistan could only be done by a mensch. At first it didn’t seem like he would succeed, but he was a real mensch and worked tirelessly until he fulfilled his promise to a village in Pakistan. It seems his good works were indeed catching. Because once he got his first goal fulfilled, he started working on building more schools and caught the attention of others to support him both in efforts and monetarily. Years later it seems like the humanitarian efforts of Greg Mortenson has made him into a success with a best-selling book, a good reputation, and I assume some financial success, too. All of this happened because he was a mensch.

There is certainly more to life than making money. Making a difference in people’s lives even by small acts is certainly more important than making a buck. So while the tip in this post might not make you a millionaire or even necessarily become a money maker for you, it may change the life of someone else for the better even with a simple act of being friendly. And who knows it may even lead to financial security, as well. At the very least, you can say you learned a Yiddish word. :-)

Blogs I Like

Since it's a holiday, I thought I'd do something different today and share some great frugal and financial blogs that I enjoy reading. First, though, a special thank-you and remembrance to those soldiers who lost their lives and those who are still serving to keep America the great country that she is.

Okay, back to the blogs. About 3 years ago, I did a Google search on yardsales and came across a forum that looked interesting. From there I met some people who had blogs about what they find and what they make out of what they find. After that I did a search on frugal moms or coupons or something similar. From that I found a blog I liked, and from that bog I found another blog I liked until now I read about a dozen blogs or forums regularly. Most of them revolve around yardsales, frugal living, and personal finance, with a few others thrown in for good measure. The one thing they all have in common is that all of these blogs are all much bigger than mine, and the writers have been doing it a lot longer, so none of them need my endorsement. However, I thought I’d share the blogs I read that that give me a well-rounded perspective on finance and frugal living.

Yardsale Queen - This is the site that started it all for me. I found it and fell in love. There is a forum there with wonderful people who like to shop at yardsales and thrift stores. Many are also resellers on eBay and other sites. Chris, the “Queen” from the forum also has a blog on this site.

Money Saving Mom – This is a great for finding out deals at drugstores and some supermarkets, as well as finding free and cheap items and goodies to send away for. The author, Crystal, also writes about frugal living.

Tammy’s Recipes – This site is run by a woman who seems to cook everything from scratch, in addition to baking bread, canning, making her own laundry detergent, and making her own deodorant. Her recipes are simple and basic.

Smitten Kitchen – This recipe site is a bit more sophisticated than Tammy’s recipes. Written by Deb in NYC, there are great recipes on here simulating the taste of things you’d buy in a restaurant or a shop in the city. She also take fantastic photos.

Get Rich Slowly – This was the first personal finance blog I found. It also has a forum attached to it. The author, J.D. climbed his way out of debt and now writes about personal finance subjects.

The Simple Dollar – This is very similar to Get Rich Slowly. The author, Trent, also climbed his way out of debt and writes about personal finance topics.

Frugal Dad – The name says it all. The author on this site writes about frugal living from a dad’s point of view as well as personal finance topics.

My Money Blog – This is another personal finance blog I like.

Vacuuming in High Heels and Pearls – I met Heidi, the author of this blog on yardsalequeen. In addition to shopping at yardsales and thrift stores, she turns her finds into beautiful crafts and decorations.

Monkeybox – Shara, the author of this blog is also from yardsalequeen. Another person who turns her trash finds into treasures. From both of these blogs, you can find links to many other talented people who create beauty out of little things.

Like Merchant Ships – Meredith, the author of this site is a talented, frugal shopper who creates beauty out of little things, offers hospitality on a budget, and is a gracious hostess. There are great, frugal ideas on this site!

Scribbit – This site written by Michelle is a mom in Alaska. She writes about random topics from pop culture to life in the Last Frontier.

I know there are so many other wonderful blogs out there. These are the ones that have caught my eye and keep me reading on a regular basis. I have learned all sorts of things about cooking, living frugally, creating, investing, giving, shopping, selling and being. If you are not familiar with some of these blogs, check them out. You won’t be disappointed! Happy Memorial Day.