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Top 10 Reasons To Save Money
As I hope you know, February 19-26 is America Saves week. Americans in 2012 aren't great at saving money, unfortunately. This flies in the face of our thrifty and frugal history, and I'm not just talking about our Depression-era grandparents who refused to throw out string and Cool Whip containers. Once upon a time in America, Ben Franklin's adage "a penny saved is a penny earned" was how most Americans lived their lives. If you need some reasons why to save, here are the 10 best that I can think of. What can you add to this list?
10. You may be able to live in a cashless society at Burning Man, but most people aren't willing to barter an oil change for some of your hand-knit pashminas. Put some money aside every week so you never have to fall back on your weaving skills to get by.
9. Nobody over the age of 23 really likes eating ramen noodles.
8. It's unlikely that the beleaguered employees at China's FoxConn factory are interested in paying for American retirement.
7. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, money will help to keep you alive and fighting another day.
6. Despite our lip service to respecting our elders, not many individuals are willing to put their money where their mouth is. You're on your own for retirement.
5. Expecting your kids to help you out financially entirely depends on your kids. (Hint: if they're living in your basement at age 43, it's unlikely this plan will work out).
4. It's nice to have a choice between a staycation and a vacation. Because no matter how nice your inflatable kiddie pool may be, it will never compare with the beaches of Cabo San Lucas.
3. There really is a difference between sending your kid to an Ivy League school and dropping them off at Big Bob's House o' Learnin' and Pancakes for their freshman year.
2. It's still illegal to print your own.
And the number one reason why you should save money?
1. We're Amurricans, durn it, and we're self-sufficient, independent, and hard-working. I truly believe it's patriotic to take good care of ourselves financially.
No matter what your current financial situation may be, find a way this week to put aside a little more money. You'll feel good. And yes, I believe you can hear the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner in the background.
The Emergency Continuum
Photo courtesy of rampant, who wants your braaaaaains!
When it comes to an emergency fund, the real problem is defining an emergency. There is a continuum of the emergency definition that makes it quite difficult to determine if you really need to tap into that fund of extra cash.
On the far end of the definition continuum, there is the "I was having a terrible day and these adorable Jimmy Choos were on sale for only $350!" emergency. On that end, emergencies seem to arise on a regular basis, and the emergency fund gets quite a workout.
Waaaaaaaaaay on the other end of the spectrum is the "Well, the zombie apocalypse will arrive in my town any day now, and I need a new transmission for my car so that I can escape. But zombies are slow moving and surely the public transportation will keep working. I don't need to dip into savings for this!" On this side of the definition, nothing short of currently having your brains eaten constitutes an emergency worthy of breaking that emergency piggy bank. Because bank balances are a lot more fun when they're big.
I tend to live on the "a zombie apocalypse is not really an emergency" side of the continuum. I have often had to remind myself that I set aside money specifically so I do not have to worry when an emergency arises.
So if you'll excuse me, I believe I probably ought to purchase some 2X4s to brace the doors and windows against the walking undead. I might swing by the shoe store, too. No sense in having my brains eaten while wearing ugly footwear.
Date Night in a Small Town
On the whole, none of us in the mensch family particularly mind living in a town that rolls up its sidewalks at 9 pm. Considering the fact that on most nights, you'll find all three of us mensches sacked out by 8:30 pm, a bustling nightlife is not one of our requirements for a great place to live.
The only problem with the smallness of our town occurs when J and I plan a date night. Each month, the Y where LO goes to daycare offers a Parents' Night Out program. We drop our kiddos off at 6:00 pm on a Friday night, where they will eat pizza, watch movies, and wear themsevles out for three hours–or, in the case of my son, push the Y's baby walker back and forth across the floor of the daycare for three straight hours. The Y does this wonderful program for a mere $8 per kid.
The problem occurs when J and I try to decide what to do with our freed-up time. Dinner out is nice, but it hardly takes three hours. Movies are out, since none of the local movie theaters have Parents' Night Out in mind and therefore offer no showings early enough in the 6:00 hour for us to actually see the whole thing before needing to pick up the kid. Live music would be wonderful, but generally those shows start later–like at 9:00 pm–to fit in with the go-go-go lifestyles of the Purdue students who are more likely to show up than tired parents are.
We have actually used Parents' Night Out to clean the house in the past, which I am not proud of.
Tonight is February's PNO, and I've been wracking my brains trying to think of what to do with our free three hours. My original suggestion of Dave & Buster's was met with enthusiasm from J, until we discovered that there is no Dave & Buster's in a 50 mile radius of Lafayette. (J then suggested we go to Chuck E. Cheese instead, since there is one of those bad boys in town, but I don't think we're allowed to do that without being accompanied by a minor. And the prizes are better at Dave & Buster's anyway). When checking the events calendar at the local newspaper, I found again that the live music was either playing too late in the evening, or family-oriented.
I suggested to J that maybe we could drive halfway to Chicago and back for PNO. He laughed, but I wasn't entirely kidding.
When the weather gets nice again, I'm sure we'll find plenty of outdoor fun to be had during our monthly date night. But for tonight, I suspect Redbox or Netflix will provide our wild-and-crazy activity.
But I draw the line at going to Bed Bath and Beyond for date night. I have some standards.
The Cash Envelope Dilemma
Photo courtesy of Psychonaught, whose dad apparently never taught him to put the smallest bill on the outside.
For several years now, J and I have been paying for cash with things, using the Dave Ramsey envelope method. The popularity of this method–where you get cash at every pay day and put it into specific envelopes for each purpose–proves that everything old is new again. According to my dad (who did teach me to keep my singles on the outside of my money clip), my great-grandmother could never get the hang of banks and kept returning to her envelope system after each failed banking attempt resulted in overdrafts and other issues. I can't imagine what she would have done with online banking.
In any case, we quite like this system, as it makes it very easy to pay for anything we need, from dog food to day care to dishwashing detergent (although we also buy things that start with other letters, too). When we first started the envelope system, we used actual letter sized white envelopes with the purpose written across the front. It was convenient because we could bring the entire envelope with us when necessary, like when we went grocery shopping or ate at a restaurant. But regular letter sized envelopes are made for speed and not endurance, and so we eventually decided to replace them with an expanding coupon holder.
This is both good and bad. Back when we were using regular envelopes, there would invariably be an envelope still hanging out in someone's pocket or wallet or glove compartment when it came time to dole out the next portion of cash. So I'd either create a new envelope for that purpose (which would mean we'd have envelope twins and triplets hanging around, none of them with much cash in them), or I'd waste 20 minutes tracking the envelope down. So it's nice that our new accordion files cannot get lost that way. However, using the cash requires estimating how much you'll need and taking it from the particular envelope to go with you. This becomes even more difficult if you have several errands. Suppose you need to pick up a tool at the closest Lowe's, go grocery shopping, and then pick LO up at day care. You'll end up with a pocketful of uncategorized cash that will NEVER become easy-to-return-to-its-envelope change, and so you spend a frustrating several moments looking for your receipts and a calculator, figuring out how much you owe each envelope, and then trying to find change from the other envelopes to place the proper amount back where it belongs. Feh!
The uncategorized cash problem also leads to the found money conundrum. Going through pants pockets prior to doing the laundry (which I learned to do after a disastrous lip gloss incident), I will often find random money. Sometimes it's wrapped around a receipt, which lets me know what the money belongs to. But more often than not, the money is silent as to its origins, taunting me with the possibilities for its use.
That's usually when I put it in LO's college fund:
Once this bad boy is full, LO will be able to go to Harvard! (To use the restroom.)
A Running Update
Image courtesy of Nevit Dilmen, who seems to have been channeling the twins from The Shining
If you're just tuning in, I lost my mind back in December and challenged myself to run 500 miles in 2012–or else I have to pay $350 to a charity I don't believe in.
So far, I am finding the specter of having to write a check for the particular charity I have chosen (which shall remain nameless) has definitely helped me to get my rear in gear on days when I'm just not feeling the run. Unfortunately, I still have not caught up with my 42-mile monthly goal after finishing January 15 miles behind. My running in February breaks down thusly:
Week of February 1-7: 3 miles (Oops! Apparently, it's tough for me to stay on track when I'm out of town and panicking over a lost wallet).
Week of February 8-14: 14 miles (I had two 4-mile runs and two 3-mile runs)
All of this is for a total of 44 miles for the year. I'd like to get caught up before the end of February, but that means I'd have to run another 40 miles before the 29th.
(Those of you who know me personally, please try not to disillusion the Stretcher Community with your collective online eye-roll.)
I am proud to say that I'm experimenting with speeding up my runs and extending them past my usual "Meh, I feel done" cutoff. (Hence the multiple 4-milers). Though I have always been in the ridiculously slow lane when it came to running–when I told my students that I ran a 12-minute mile back when I ran my first half marathon in 2007, they were sure I meant 12 minutes per two miles, since no one could be that slow–I've actually run a 10 minute mile in the past two weeks. Granted, I decided to speed up to 6 mph just because I wanted to end the running session (because running faster=ending sooner), but I don't think it's a bad thing to use laziness as a motivator for greater feats of athleticism.
With all my extra thinking time I have on my runs, I have also decided that I will choose a charity that I really care about to donate the $350 to when I complete the challenge.
And here I thought I was just a stick-motivator–but knowing that my actions can decide whether my hard-earned money goes to something I care about or something I can't stand makes me feel even better about every single mile. I'm having some fun thinking about which charity I'd like to benefit from my 500 miles. I'll post as soon as I decide, because my preferred charity will NOT remain nameless.
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