I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘cool stuff’ Category

Welcome to 2009!  I hope you had as much fun as we did celebrating the end of 2008 (we received Rockband 2 for our PS3 as a crazy generous gift from my brother for Christmas, and we spent the end of 2008 rocking out ) and look forward to a prosperous and fiscally sound 2009.

Actually I am told that my spouse spent a good portion of the beginning of 2009 continuing to rock out.  I am a wimp and went to bed at 12:15 am.

I am a regular contributor to Frugal Hacks, and I have a post there today about my three actionable goals for 2009.  In short – pay off debt, make car situation good, build emergency fund.

I am still on an emotional seesaw of “I do NOT want any new debt” and “I do NOT want to put any further money into the Saturn”.  Time will tell in 2009 which wins out, and I am sure I will be musing on this for a while to come.  But I do remind myself that the Saturn’s continued demise is trying to create new debt all on its own, without even involving another car.  And that’s not a good thing either.

For now I wish my spouse and his parents an uneventful time getting the car back from NY to here.

Have a wonderful New Year!

Here’s to a very merry holiday season to you and yours. Hopefully as you are reading this , weather cooperating, we are traveling from my in-laws home where we celebrate on Christmas Eve, to my parents home, where the grandkids are sure to be totally spoiled with gifts galore. And I truly hope we have our own car back, warts and all, instead of my mom’s car that we borrowed.  Ah, if all the presents for the kids will fit in the trunk for the trip back to the midwest I will be happy.

The temptation to go into even more debt to get rid of this blasted car stays strong in me.  I am trying to resist.  I am.  But I digress.

Thank you for being a part of my debt elimination journey and reading (and commenting) on I’ve Paid For This Twice Already. Maybe while I am off visiting family my not-so-secret goal of 3000 RSS subscribers in 2008 will be met. Each and every one of you, by visiting, reading, and commenting, provides me with motivation to stay the course and get our family on the right track. And I appreciate all of you.

I hope that 2009 is a year for all of us to make strides in improving each and every one of our financial lives and securing an even brighter future. Thank you all for taking this journey with me.

The M-Network is continuing their holiday tradition this year of taking the song The Twelve Days of Christmas and putting a financial spin to the days.  I started the whole thing off last Monday with The First Rule of Personal Finance, and I am continuing today with Day 8.  Did you miss a day?  Check out the end of the post for a complete list of participants and contributions!

Snowflaking is the practice of taking small amounts of “found” money and applying them to your financial goals, be it saving, paying down debt, or something else entirely.  There are many ways that snowflaking can be implemented into your daily financial life, and here are eight of my favorites.  Hopefully within them, you’ll find more than a few that apply to your situation and can streamline reaching your financial goals!

1.  Automatic deposits.   From having a portion of your paycheck deposited to your savings account to making an automatic withdrawal from your checking account each month, one of the most powerful methods you can employ is the “set it and forget it” one.  Once something becomes automatic, you adjust to it and it is a fact of life, not an extra effort.

2.  Pay it twice.  Did you make a frivolous, unplanned purchase?  Large or small, when I spend money spontaneously without thinking, I make a matching payment to the debt I am working on paying off.  If I wanted that frivolous item enough to essentially pay twice for it, I help meet my financial goals at the same time.

3.  Pay immediately when received.  As soon as you receive money that you want to snowflake – do it.  Make an immediate payment to debt.  Move that money to your savings account.  Don’t let the money get lost in the shuffle.

4.  Sell something.  Be it craigslist, ebay, a yard sale, or something else entirely, there are many avenues to sell your unneeded possessions.  I’m not saying to sell everything.  Look around your living space.  There is probably at least one thing that has monetary value that you don’t use.  Find a way to sell it and use the profit for your financial goal.

5.  Cut a bill, use the “profit”.  Can you lower your car or home insurance by raising the deductible?  Can you lower your cable bill by making a simple phone call?  Explore strategies for lowering bills, and when you successfully lower one, use the money you saved for snowflaking.  I know it is hard to make the call – I have trouble with it myself.  Start small.  Just make one call.  You’ll be surprised how simple it can be.

6.  Go under budget in a category.  If you use a budget to track your spanding, set a goal to use the money that you are under budget in a category towards that financial goal.  Utilities $50 under budget this month?  Gasoline $40 under budget?  That’s money you can use towards making your financial dreams a reality.  But see #3 – make those transfers or payments immediately so the money doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

7.  Do something yourself you usually pay for.  Do you eat out several times a week?  Does someone shovel your snow or mow your grass (for convenience, not health related reasons)?  Just once, do that service yourself.  Make a meal at home when you were planning to go out.  Mow your own grass.  Whatever it is, just replace it once with your own time and effort, and then snowflake that saved money.

8.  Take a leap and commit.  This is the hardest one, or the simplest one.  Take a leap of financial faith.  Decide what is really most important to you – and then commit 100% to it.  You’ll be surprised how many ways you’ll find to snowflake if it really is your #1 priority.

Did you miss one of the previous 12 Days or want to keep up with #9-#12?  Here is a complete list of the previous days and locations, and it will be updated with the final days as they are published.  Bookmark this post for future reference, and enjoy our 12 Financial Days of Christmas!

• Day 1 – The First Rule Of Personal Finance @ Paid Twice
• Day 2 – Two Financial Goals – Less Debt, More Income @ Cash Money Life
• Day 3 – 3 New Year’s Worksheets at Mrs. Micah
• Day 4 – 4 ways to be better prepared for Christmas next year @ Gather Little By Little
• Day 5 – 5 Golden Rules To Follow During The Holiday Season @ My Two Dollars
• Day 6 – 6 Ways to Give @ Moolanomy
• Day 7 – 7 Savings Strategies @ Being Frugal
• Day 8 – You read it right here!  @ Paid Twice
• Day 9 – 9 Year-End Money Moves @ Moolanomy
• Day 10 – 10 Personal Finance Essentials @ Cash Money Life
• Day 11 – 11 Ways To Decorate @ Plonkee
• Day 12 – 12 Steps to a Prosperous New Year @ Being Frugal

It is December, and December means holidays.   Last year the M-Network started their own holiday tradition with The Twelve Days of Christmas – Personal Finance Style.  Taking cues from a popular Christmas carol, we changed it up and each wrote about different aspects of personal finance, following the “12 Days” theme.  I’m kicking off this year’s round of posts today with the first day of Christmas with a personal finance focus.  I’ve decided to share a “golden rule” that I live by, and it isn’t the usual spend less than you earn (although I do believe in that as well).  My first rule of personal finance is:

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

I know that I talk a lot about budgeting on this blog, and that I am a huge advocate and convert to it.  But that isn’t all that I mean.  You don’t have to budget to plan (although budgeting is by definition planning), but not planning at all is a sure-fire way to go astray.  Without a plan, you don’t know where you’re headed, or how to get there.

A financial plan can be as simple as a list of things you’d like to accomplish and ideas on how to achieve each, or as complex as a detailed budget accounting for each dollar that comes into your household each month.  The amount of complexity is up to you.  I know that often I daydream about things I’d like to do in the future – places I’d like to go, improvements I’d like to do to the house, experiences I’d like to share with my family, but without committing pen to paper and figuring out what I really want, dreams get forgotten or pushed aside for the realities of day to day living.

So if you’ve never been a planner, now is a great time to start.  Take out a piece of paper, or open an empty text document on the computer, and make a list of twelve things you’d like to accomplish financially in the next year.  They don’t all have to be earth shattering things – I’ve had goals as simple as remembering to pay a certain bill on time or always having stamps on hand.  Then start making a plan for how to accomplish them.  You might be surprised how much of a difference putting pen to paper (literally or virtually) can make.

Keep up with the twelve days of personal finance by following it from blog to blog over the next two weeks!

• Day 1 – You just read The First Rule of Personal Finance right here!
• Day 2 – Two Financial Goals – Less Debt, More Income @ Cash Money Life
• Day 3 – Three New Year’s Worksheets @ Mrs. Micah
• Day 4 – Four Ways To Be Better Prepared For Christmas @ Gather Little by Little
• Day 5 – 5 Golden Rules To Follow @ My Two Dollars
• Day 6 – 6 Ways to Give @ Moolanomy
• Day 7 – 7 Savings Strategies @ Being Frugal
• Day 8 – Eight Simple Snowflakes  @ Paid Twice
• Day 9 – 9 Year-End Money Moves @ Moolanomy
• Day 10 – 10 Personal Finance Essentials @ Cash Money Life
• Day 11 – 11 Ways To Decorate @ Plonkee
• Day 12 – 12 Steps to a Prosperous New Year @ Being Frugal

The holiday season is just around the corner – or for some of us, already here!  As I assemble my Black Friday list and make up a workable budget for my holiday spending, the enormity of all the planning and budgeting the holidays entail can overwhelm me.    The M-Network has been working hard over the past few weeks to make the holidays easier for everyone on the idea end.  We’ve just published a new e-book titled “Money Saving Tips For The Holidays“, which is a compilation of tips and ideas from all 8 members – My Two Dollars, Gather Little By Little, Paid Twice, Cash Money Life, Moolanomy, Being Frugal, Plonkee Money & Mrs. Micah – and it is available as a free eBook PDF download:

Download the free eBook here!

Once you’ve clicked on the link above, you can save the eBook to your computer by using the “Save Page As” selection under the File menu in your browser.

As with our other eBooks, this eBook is copyright M-Network; however you are allowed to distribute to anyone as long as the eBook is unmodified and free. Please feel free to distribute this eBook to anyone else that you think might benefit from reading it. Each of the articles is copyright to the respective authors and is not allowed to be distributed outside of this eBook without express permission of the author. Special thanks to Gather Little By Little for assembling all of our ideas into this one book!