I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Oh Wait, You Eat Too

I have two children, which most of you already know.  My son is 4, and has been eating us out of house and home (yes, I know, it only gets worse from here ) for a very long time.  Longer than I’ve been writing this blog, so he’s always been a factor in my grocery budget here.  My daughter, on the other hand, is not yet 2, and when I started this blog was not yet 1 and nursing was her major form of nutrition. She did eat solid foods, but I made them from the food we were eating and the volume of it was so insignificant compared to the whole, she barely added a dollar to our grocery bill a week.

Not anymore.

I’ve been going over the numbers again and again in our grocery budget.  I’ve been shopping using the circulars to buy what’s on sale at the right time, I’ve been cutting coupons, carefully looking at our purchases and keeping impulse buys to a minimum, and yet, our grocery spending continues to go up.  Part of that is the continual rise of grocery prices.  I know that, and I’ve been tracking it.  But it seemed like I was missing something else.  And then it hit me.  My daughter.  She eats.

Not that she’s never eaten before, but over the past 4 or so months, she has certainly upped the volume she’s eaten considerably.  Looking over my purchases in more detail for the past several months, I’ve been consistently buying a larger volume of food each week, almost all attributed to my daughter.   She eats kid-sized snacks, she eats kid-sized portions of dinner, and realistically, we’ve gone from shopping for three to shopping for four.

Sometimes the answer is staring you right in the face, if only you can see it.  Time to think a little more about the grocery budget.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How Far Would You Go For $5?

Last month, my parents bought us a LCD flat panel TV.  When I called our cable company to find out how much an upgrade to the HDTV package would be from our current one, I found out I could actually reduce our cable bill for the next year by switching to the HDTV package because they were running a special.  We have our cable, internet, and phone services bundled together, and switching from the bundle we had (extended basic cable) to the HDTV triggered a 12 month discount.

So I switched to HDTV, and last month, we got a credit on our bill for the half month of the old package we hadn’t used.  This month, we were charged for the half month of the new package we did use.  An odd way to do things, billing wise, I think, but it all works out okay in the end.  Except, on our bill, it appears we were charged the taxes and fees for the phone service twice for that half month.  Everything else matches up with a credit on last month’s bill, and a charge on this month’s bill, except the telephone taxes and fees.  Those appear as a charge for that half month on both bills.  It isn’t a big amount, less than $5, but still, being charged twice for them annoyed me.

So today I called Comcast (our service provider) to find out why.  And, after about an hour on the phone, first on hold, and then with a representative, who frequently put me on hold to consult with different people and access different databases (she claimed, at least), basically, Comcast claims *their* copy of my bill has more detail than the one they actually sent me, and supposedly, on their copy, I have credits for the taxes that got rolled into charges for the rest of the month for the taxes, therefore showing as a charge instead of a credit and a charge.

Maybe.  I mean, I’m not convinced.  This is the stupidest billing system ever.  The person I talked to never could find out how to even see a copy of the bill they actually sent me, just what was in her computer (which didn’t at all match up with what I had as far as details, except the total amount owed).

So she claimed I could create an account online and see my bill there, which supposedly had the detail of her bill (and why they couldn’t send me *that* bill instead of what they do send me, I have no idea).    So after I hung up the phone I tried to create an online account, and it wouldn’t let me.  I have to call Comcast to get some kind of authorization PIN number.

After an hour and a half invested, and at the end it may just be stupidness of their billing system and I may not be charged double after all, I’m not sure it is worth it to continue with this investigation.  I had to leave for work so I didn’t have time to call Comcast again and be annoyed further.  Maybe today I’ll have another free hour to waste. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Ease Of Justifying Wants As Needs

I want a laptop computer.  Really, really want one.

A laptop computer would make my life easier in so many ways.  So I’ve been finding myself saying that I need a laptop.  I look at what having the portability of a laptop would do for me, and turn that into “I need” instead of “I want”.  Simply because something will enhance your life and you have a defined use and purpose for it does not mean that you need it.  Most times, what you have already is more than sufficient, even if it does not have all the same features.

I find it really easy to turn I want into I need in my head and justify that.  For example - I need a land line phone.  Well, I have a cell phone (a pre-paid for emergencies) and I could use that for my phone line as well.  Sure, I’d have to pay more attention to the length of my calls, but I do not truly need both phones.  I just want the convenience of the landline because I hate talking on my cell phone.

This isn’t to say we should only get things we truly need and nothing we want.   However, blinding oneself into believing that things are needs when they are really wants isn’t helping yourself.  Going into things with eyes open, and understanding when something is a want vs a need, helps to be able to prioritize things and know when is a good time to say yes, and what can wait.  For me - the laptop can wait.  My desktop computer is perfectly functional, even if I can’t take it upstairs to tutor so I don’t have to make the kids leave their playroom (which is connected to my office) or take it to taekwondo with me so I can work on flies and promotional materials there instead of at home.  The laptop can wait until we’re out of non-mortgage debt.

Although, I am starting to think a laptop would make an excellent birthday present next year…  (hint hint).  Now to just get out of debt by March…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How You Pay May Cost You Money

For a long time, I didn’t give much thought to the frequency or method of my paying for things.  As long as it was paid, I was fine with it.  Because we didn’t budget and we lived in extreme paycheck to paycheck mode, I never once gave thought to paying for something annually instead of monthly if I had the option.  Monthly was my friend, and monthly was the way to go.

But by and large, paying for things monthly was costing me money.  Not just the obvious things like credit cards or other loans that charge interest, but other things I never gave any thought to, especially insurance.  When I started to really examine our spending and take a look at where we could cut back, it became glaringly obvious.  Paying a fee every month for the convenience of paying monthly?  That was costing me money I couldn’t afford to spend.  The fees seem rather innocuous by themselves, but add up a $3 fee here and a $3.50 fee there every month and it starts amounting to a significant amount.

I couldn’t immediately switch to paying annually for everything.  Without any money saved up, coming up with 6 months or a year’s worth of payments at once wasn’t an option.  But little by little, I’ve been converting those monthly insurance payments to options that don’t cost anything in extra fees.  First was the life insurance, which I have already started paying annually.  Next is our car insurance, which I can pay semi-annually for no fee, so I will be making our payment for 6 months in October.  Last but not least is our newly-acquired disability insurance, which I signed up for a monthly payment plan because I couldn’t pay ~$750 right now to pay for a year’s payment.    But my goal is that by the time we are out of non-mortgage debt, to be on an annual payment plan with that payment as well.

But monthly payments vs annual wasn’t the only thing that was costing me money we can’t afford to waste.   I also, in the past, would pay my bills in the way most convenient for me, which often was on the phone.  Most every company I deal with charges a convenience fee for phone payments.  If I pay 4 bills a month by phone, and pay an average of $2 in fees per payment, that really adds up!   Don’t pay convenience fees!  With a little investigation, a method can be found that is convenient for you and also free.  For me, by and large, that is online banking.

Be aware of how the choices you make about bill payment methods, be it timing or execution, affect those payments.  Don’t increase your bills by paying fees if you can find a better solution.  It’s your money, after all.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I Could Have Spent One Dollar But Instead I Spent Three

My son started preschool this week, and right before school began we got a list of things he needed to bring in for the classroom.  This weekend I took him shopping for the items he needed to bring, and one of them was a package of stickers.  I took him to Dollar Tree to find some stickers, and in doing so, found out he had very specific ideas about what kind of stickers he wanted (animals) and what type (large, not small).  Because he had such a clear idea beforehand, it turned out that the selection at Dollar tree was inadequate and we ended up having to go to target to buy the stickers.  So instead of the $1 I thought I was going to spend on a package of stickers, I spent $3 for ones more to his liking at another store.

But, that was okay.  There are times where a lesson in finding the best bargain and using your resources wisely would be an appropriate one, but this time, for this item, for me it wasn’t it.  For my son has a very significant speech delay, and although he is four, his level of communication lags more than a year behind his biological age.  In fact, that’s why he goes to preschool - he goes to a special education program designed specifically for 3 and 4 year olds with developmental delays (he attended the school last year as well).   So for him to come up with this clear vision for what he wanted, and be able to clearly communicate it to me, and make choices between different options, was a big feat all on its own.  And a feat I chose to reward.  And frugality, after all, is not just about finding what’s cheapest.  It’s about finding the best option all around, not only in price but in quality and personal preference.  I may not have found anything wrong with the generic stickers at the Dollar Tree but ultimately, they are stickers he’ll have to use in his language book at school and he should have ones he enjoys.

Next week when he helps me shop for snacks for his classroom (they rotate snack weeks and the first week in September is his) we’ll have to have a more stringent budget in place and make choices between items.  But for today, I’m just happy we found stickers he approved of, and I understand what he wanted.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!