Archive for the 'Household' Category
Feeding the Firefoxes
photo figure credit: Glutnix
It’s been another busy week in the MITBeta and ScrapperMom household. But I’m feeling like things are a little more under control since I started reading the now well known but still great book Getting Things Done by David Allen. I’ll have more on that in an upcoming post, but in the mean time I wanted to share some of the best articles that I read this week:
In National News:
With this week’s hike in the minimum wage, Nickel examines the historical minimum wage level relative to the value of a dollar and finds that those on minimum wage have been seeing the value of their salaries fall for the last 25 years.
The Freakonomics blog wonders are we a nation of financial illiterates? I’ll reserve judgement for now, but what do you think? Did you answer the quiz questions correctly?
Personal Finance
Shilpan at successsoul.com reposts Warren Buffett’s 7 Secrets for Living a Happy and Simple Life. There’s some great advice here that really forms the basis for most personal finance: don’t try to keep up with the Joneses, be happy with who you are, not what you have, etc.
Mrs. Micah writes about an error in her paycheck and how thankful she is that she is not living paycheck to paycheck. This reminded me of something similar that happened to ScrapperMom a couple of months ago. Mrs. Micah also has some great tips for breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle.
Home Economics:
EconomistMom writes about “a big family infrastructure day” that took a serious bite out of her bank account. She makes a couple of great points in this article, especially in explaining why the health care problem is such a difficult nut to crack.
J.D. asks readers to help a fellow reader who asks “how can I get my wife to talk about money?“ Chronic disagreements about money are cited as a leading cause of divorce. However many astute readers rightly point out that it’s never just about money. As near as I can tell, open communication is the only way to truly make a marriage work. In fact, that’s the best way to make nearly any interpersonal relationship work.
Social Psychology:
Steven Levitt at Freakonomics shares a great anecdote about performing a blind taste test to see if his colleagues could tell the difference between expensive and more frugal wines. Can you guess what the results were? Apparently there is now scientific evidence to support the idea that taste can be influence by pre-conceived notions about something. I wonder if this means I can think my way into liking onions…
Giveaways:
Frugal Babe is giving away a $100 jewelry gift card to Diamond Nexus Labs in the spirit of switching away from mined diamond based bling.
Baby Cheapskate is giving away $200 worth of BumGenius cloth diapers. As you may know, using cloth diapers is a great way to save money and save the environment.
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Take it from us: Save yourself some frustration. Teach your toddlers to sign. I know it probably sounds crazy and same naysayers may think it prevents or delays speech, but the facts are your babies are able to gesture before their speech is such that you and others can understand them. Babies often wave long before their first birthdays and may not say their first words until 18 months. A friend of ours recommended baby signing (we basically use American Sign Language with a few shortened signs for ease). We have prevented a lot of tantrums this way and have probably saved a lot of frustration, as well, on both of our parts.
I started signing with our daughter around 6-8 months and must admit I was frustrated by around 1 year. I think you could start around 1 year and still get the benefits. At around 1 year something amazing happened, she started signing back! At first they were very common and necessary ones: Milk, More, Eat, Baby and Bath. In 6 short months her signing vocabulary has grown to include all kinds of signs: Help, Drink, Cracker, Water, All Done, Daddy, Mommy, Dog, Please, Thank You, Bird, Train, Plane, Cat, Hat, and ones that hopefully will become very important in the next few months to a year: Potty and Diaper! By having her know what she needs and being able to sign it, we have avoided a lot of frustration. She is also very proud when we tell her what the signs mean. She knows she is able to communicate with us. She does babble and has a few words in her spoken vocabulary, but it’s quite normal for her age and until all the words solidify this is an excellent way to get over the hump of toddlerhood.
One important note: you may want to show babysitters and grandparents some important signs or they may feel like they are hearing/seeing a foreign language. Some helpful ones for them are her favorites: Milk, Help, More, Please, and All Done.
The teaching video I recommend is Baby Signing Time. There are two main volumes and if you are lucky your local PBS station may carry the show. As Michelle commented on another post, it probably would be a good idea to show your support and buy the video and I am ashamed that I haven’t done so yet as I really love its approach to teaching babies to sign. The family that produces the video has a great, captivating and educational style and I feel that I should better support their business. But alas, this is a frugal blog as well, so we save when we can (but hint, hint to the grandparents for gift ideas!). The format of the video separates signs into groups and each group has a catchy song that goes along with the signs. This way it’s easier for mom and dad to remember the signs as well, since you are learning too! During the song Rachel, the singer/signer, tells you why signs are the way they are; milk: like you’re milking a cow, eat: like you are bringing a piece of food to your mouth. Then the song is accompanied by toddlers (under 2) signing and demonstrating the action. I believe the babies signing really helps captivate our toddler and lets us see variations of the signs when performed by babies. For a while our daughter was tapping her nose and I had no idea what she meant, but she was signing bird, which is actually your thumb and forefinger forming a beak at your mouth, but I realized she did it every time we heard birds singing! Just like speech, their first sign attempts may be cryptic! We were able to use Netflix to rent a few other signing videos, but they were not nearly as good as this series. We also have a board book that has signs in it.
So although it doesn’t have a lot to do with finances, getting your child off to a good start with communication is a great thing. Whether you teach a second spoken language or sign, you are taking advantage of the fact that children at this age are sponges and love to learn and imitate you. Also they say it is great for old people like us parents to exercise our brains as well by learning new skills. So drop me a comment and tell me if you have had experience signing with babies/toddlers and if your child is older, how you may use that now. Our friend who recommended sign language to us has told me that, “We love sign language and although he is fully vocal, sometimes we use it for games (guess the sign) or when we need to speak to him “in private”!” So have fun with it and even if you only pick up a few, you may find it’s a great tool.
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Just about a year ago, ScrapperMom and I decided that we had reached the right end of the Credit Card Contiuum and that it was time to start earning some rewards for buying all of the things that we buy or pay for on a monthly or yearly basis anyway. We went in search of a rewards credit card.
Rewards credit cards come in many different flavors. There are air miles cards, new car purchase cards, free gas cards, free coffee cards, cash back cards, and even dedicated 529 earnings cards. ScrapperMom and I decided that since we could not afford to contribute anything specifically to our daughter’s 529 plan that we would look for a card that would allow us to earn money for her account.
One might think that since we wanted rewards to fund a 529 account, that we would choose one of the 529 rewards credit cards that are available. Unfortunately, the few 529 rewards cards out there have terms that are worse than those available from some other cards. For example, one card we looked at has a limit of $300 in earnings per year. Our goal was to put as many of our purchases as possible on the card, and knew that we would easily exceed the $300 limit. Another card we looked at was linked to a specific 529 plan that did not fit our criteria for such a plan.
Instead, it made more sense for us to apply for a cash back credit card. There are a lot of cash back cards on the market, and they all have different terms. Using the credit card finder at Bankrate.com, we looked through many different cards. Some, like the American Express Blue card have different rates for different spending amounts. You have to spend a lot of money before the rates rise to a level on par with many of the other cards. Most of these cards offer around 1% cash back on all purchases and 3%-5% on certain types of purchases, like fuel, groceries, and fast food.
Ultimately, we chose the Chase Freedom Card. This card offers 1% cash back on all purchases as well as 3% cash back on things like groceries, fast food, and fuel purchases. You can redeem your cash whenever you accumulate $50 worth, but if you are patient then you can collect $200 and trade that for a $250 return (which brings the cash back bonus to about 1.25%). We can’t use this card for most of our big bills like our mortgage, car, and student loans, unfortunately, but we can use it on a lot of the small stuff like cell phones, satellite TV, Netflix, periodic insurance payments, etc.
In the past year, we have earned over $750 in rewards that we have applied to our daughter’s college savings. In a typical month, we earn about 75% of our points at the 1% level and the remainder at the 3% level. Since it only takes about 4 months to accumulate $200 worth of rewards, it’s worth our while to wait until that point to cash out the extra $50, since that’s a much better return than putting $50 per month into almost any investment.
Obviously the key to this whole plan hinges on spending within our spending plan. We pay this card off every month with money from our checking account. Again, we don’t use the card to spend on things that we would not otherwise have purchased. One splurge purchase can wipe out a year’s worth of rewards in no time at all.
Many people have difficulty handling credit cards, and I understand that. However, many others have aquired the self-discipline to be able to handle credit cards without breaking the budget. I believe that not using a rewards credit card for things that we are going to buy anyway is just leaving free money on the table. I have spent years giving the credit card companies my hard earned money, and now it’s time to redeem some of it.
Do you use a rewards credit card? What kind of rewards do you get? Do you find it worth it?
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Noah’s Ark for a 1st Birthday Cake!
A great book we found back when we were earnestly baby gear shopping (can’t believe our little one is a year and a half now!) was Baby Bargains. Grab the latest version from the library to save even more! This book has a lot of reviews and recommendations on baby gear. It tells you what you need, what you don’t and which products are worth the money and which you can get on the cheap. Definitely talk to friends as well, to find out what baby gadgets are worth the money and which are not. I found tips from other moms invaluable when buying for baby. It’s amazing how quickly a baby outgrows different toys and items. Some items make your life more manageable (the bouncy seat allowed me to shower for the 1st 8 mos!) and some seem like a waste of money (I bought a little food mill and found that it always jammed. It was easier to either use a fork or get out the food processor).
Yard sales and craigslist are a great way to pick up toys and books on the cheap, typically in great condition. I have purchased a lot of great books at yard sales. Since they were 4/$1 I rounded out her collection of board books for $10! Our daughter can sit and look at her books for what seems like hours (or at least enough time to do some dishes!) I also hit the town yard sale and picked up a lot of summer clothing. Since our daughter was born in the winter we did well with presents for winter/fall clothes, but didn’t have any summer items. I was able to buy shorts, bathing suits, water shoes and t-shirts for under $20 to complete a summer wardrobe. I have also had great luck looking for specific items on craigslist. I wanted to buy the Little People’s Noah’s Ark to use for her first birthday cake. I found out that the all plastic version I wanted was no longer sold. I was able to find one locally on Craigslist. People use baby items for such a short time. There are always bargains to be had in the second hand market. Currently I’m in the market for two items: A push around trike or buggy for walks around the neighborhood and a toddler swing (we are getting the swing set as a hand me down from my sister). MITBeta is looking for a toddler trailer for his bike.
One other frugal tip I found out from a friend is, you should never spend $14 on a pregnancy test. I did not know there was any other option! It turns out that you can obtain very affordable pregnancy tests online for around $1 each! Check out Early Pregnancy Test. You can also pick up tests at the Dollar Tree for a $1 as well. For everyone who has ever spent a fortune on tests this will save you a ton of money! They are also just as accurate as the $14 versions at the drugstore.
Here are some of my top frugal buying tips:
1. Try not to get any “real” clothes for a baby under 3 mos old. You won’t want them in anything but onesies and one piece sleepers anyway. You can save the “real” clothes for when they are older.
2. Since you will be doing laundry so frequently with a new baby you probably won’t need 20 of any one item. As they get older and the laundry stretches out to every 2- 3 days you start to need more (i.e. we need about 5 pairs of spring jammies)
3. Buy things that morph or can be used for longer periods of time: our bouncy seat converts into a toddler rocker that she loves using now.
4. Skip the highchair and just get a travel seat. Our travel seat is always attached to our kitchen chair, but we had it for outings as well. Now she’s big enough for a high chair at restaurants, but the travel seat still works great at home. Space saver as well!
5. Babies/kids don’t need a million toys. Our daughter has entertained herself for days by putting her babies and stuffed animals in a cardboard box and pushing them around. It doesn’t take bells and whistles (and batteries) to entice children.
6. Since you will have the need for some battery operated items, invest in a good charger and rechargeable batteries.
7. Some safety items are not worth the money. We have all the outlets covered, tot locks on the dangerous cabinets and the door to the outside has a knob cover on it, but I found items like a toilet latch, toilet paper cover and table guards are not necessary. I found just teaching her not to touch the toilet lid was enough and since I NEED a shower every day she has spent 95% of my showers hanging out with toys in the bathroom. Some safety items actually attract the child to the hazard. Better if they hadn’t noticed it at all or learn that some things are not toys and should not be played with. Save some money but make sure you are equipped with adequate smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and have a quality car seat. Wait and see, you might be surprised what your own child gets into and what they avoid.
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Last week ScrapperMom and I received our “Economic Stimulus Package” via Direct Deposit. Since there are the two of us plus one dependent, our package totaled $1500. For now, this money will sit in our high interest savings account. With all of the bad economic news lately, we feel a bit more secure with more of a buffer — just in case. (I would like to thank our children and grand-children for giving us this money — you guys really shouldn’t have — really)
If you haven’t received your stimulus check or deposit yet, you can check the schedule at the Economic Stimulus Payments Information Center at the IRS website.
Even though we will be squirreling away our refund for the time being, that doesn’t mean that we won’t still be able to take advantage of some really great additional incentives offered by a number of retailers, including grocery stores. A number of stores have made the offer to increase your stimulus check by 10% if you use it to shop at those stores.
Here’s a list of stores participating:
- Sears, Kmart, and Lands’ End
- SUPERVALU Stores:Acme, Albertsons, Bigg’s, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Hormbacher’s, Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Shaw’s/Star Market, Shop’n Save, and Shoppers Food & FarmacyPress Release
- Kroger Supermarket
- RadioShack
Each of these stores has a different policy on the increment value of your check that you can redeem, but they all offer to stretch your check an additional 10%. Now I certainly don’t encourage you to spend at these stores just to get the extra 10%, but if you were going to shop there anyway, or needed something that one of these stores offers, then by all means, stretch away.
If, like us, you received your stimulus payment by Direct Deposit, you may still be able to receive the 10% by showing proof of your receipt of the stimulus in the form of a bank statement. This article from the Boston Globe states explicitly that Shaws will allow you to redeem your 10% in this way.
In our case, we will be getting triple credit by using the Stimulus like this:
- Purchase $1320 worth of gift cards from Shaws (which is where ScrapperMom typically does our grocery shopping) for a cost of $1200.
- Use our Chase Freedom card, which offers 3% cash back on grocery purchases to buy the gift card, to reduce the cost of the gift card to $1164.
- Keep the $1500 Stimulus in our high interest savings account until September when our credit card bill for the year is due (point 2 in this article).
And actually, since we would be spending money at Shaw’s anyway, the final payment for the gift cards will come out of the grocery line item for our spending plan (aka budget) for the next 3-4 months anyway, allowing the Stimulus to continue sitting in our high interest savings account, earning away.
Here are some other ideas for what to do with your Stimulus:
- Start or augment your emergency fund
- Pay down high interest debt like credit cards or car loans
- Fund your Roth IRA
- Pay down low interest debt like student loans
- Fund your kids’ 529 college savings plan
- Donate it to your favorite charity or cause
Have you received your stimulus check yet? How did or do you plan to spend it? Let’s hear it in the comments section!
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