Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for December, 2011

Controlling Christmas Costs

December 6th, 2011

How I Controlled Christmas Costs in the Past

Christmas Presents

I’m constantly looking out for value in Christmas Gifts. For example, my wife is a big book enthusiast, so whenever I see certain authors in the Bargain Bins, I snatch them up! Some of her favorite authors are Stephen King, Grisham, Ken Follet and others…

Sometimes, I would cheat by going to a used book store and look for volumes that are in pristine condition. I once bought a hardback book for $1 at one thrift shop. After examining the book for any obvious marks or dog-eared pages, I bought it. I wrapped up my used-but-new-looking Christmas Present, and gave it to my wife and she was none the wiser. Later I told her what I did, and she was honestly impressed (or understood that we didn’t have much money back then).

Now I often buy first editions of her favorite authors on eBay. They are not $1, but we now have a bit more money to spend on such things. The shipping on such purchases is very reasonable, and currently (although this may change soon) there is no sales tax on item bought online (and in particular eBay) unless the buy and seller is in the same state (at least that’s the way it is in my state).

As a bachelor, I often got by at Christmas with only spending $100 on Christmas presents. And of that $100, fifty of it was for my younger sister as a big surprise (back then the money meant more to her than it does now). I use to get various size boxes and put the money in the boxes hidden so she had to search for it, or fight to get it out of the package. It was a fun time and something that we both looked forward to, but now since she’s an adult, that has fell by the wayside.

How I control Christmas Costs now

Now my methods are simplified! All I do is create a budget of how much I’m going to spend, and then try to stick to it. If we go over, then I try to make up for it by reducing my cost for other things over the following months until I hit my initial budget numbers. Unfortunately this happens a lot of the time…

We usually spend a bit over $1,000 now, but a lot of that reason is because we have kids! Kids grow up quickly, and Christmas is like magic for them, so we try to make the best of it.

How I would like to Control Christmas Costs in the Future

This might not be a surprise to my regular readers, but I would like to have money invested in dividend stocks or bonds that would provide dividends or interest money at certain intervals. This would be my Christmas Dividend Fund and I would use that money for Christmas present purchases. Sometimes I wonder if I should have called this blog moneyreasonsfordividends.com (lol).

I’ve had the dream of a Christmas Fund that would pay for my Christmas gift purchases, even since I was in college. I need to start this now instead of later if I ever expect to have such a thing.

Control your cost today to enable you to have more elaborate Christmas experiences and gifts in the future!
MR

17 comments »

Posted in Costs

Tags: christmas budget christmas spending christmas spending past Controlling Christmas Costs controlling costs present and future

Christmas Is Coming Too Fast This Year

December 4th, 2011

This year time is flying when it comes to Christmas!

We usually have certain things we get accomplished before the Christmas rolls around, but this year we are way behind schedule! In fact, just yesterday, I finally go the light put up! Usually we put the lights up in November during Thanksgiving weekend.

This year, I took a backseat and let me son figure out the lights placement and how to accomplish the wiring. I instructed a bit with how the wiring should be accomplished, but he planned out how the wiring should be and where the lights should go. Not bad for an eleven year old.

Christmas Lights

The weather has been so warn, that it looks like it’s going to be a hard Christmas for us since we always (or at least usually) get our Christmas tree when it snows. This will definitely affect our Christmas tree tradition by requiring us to cut down our Christmas Tree without snow this year. We already proposed the idea to our kids to go this weekend, but they protested (wanting snow) and so we decided to wait a bit longer.

I thought I was done with Christmas Shopping, but wham, now I’m not. The kids (really my daughter, because the Christmas bells no longer rings for my son) put a few things in the letters to Santa that we don’t have yet. Actually, on of the big gifts is a new laptop for my son. I posted about the inner turmoil I had in the previously posted article called: “For Christmas, My Eleven Year Old Son Wants a Laptop!“. All those who commented swayed my opinion, so now I’m going to buy a laptop for him. Thanks everybody that commented, your opinions really helped!

So now that I have a lot on my plate still, I need to get rolling, so without further ado, here are some of my favorite picks from the past week:

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: Sausage Cornbread Dressing Recipe – Delicious and Addictive – I have never heard of such a combo before, sounds delicious!
20′s Finances: Where Bloggers Spend Their Money – Dollar Challenge Results – What a great challenge! I love statistics, and as far as I can tell these numbers are meaningful and representative! Great stuff!
Sweating the Big Stuff: How Much of an Incentive Do You Need to Take Action? – Good question! I think $300 is enough for me!
101 Centavos: Junk Silver In A Household Economy – Sounds like some wise advice to me. I’ll have to look into eBay for such purchases my kids!
Financially Consumed: Value Added Landlord – Great message, and I loved the video (especially after just watching Elf).
My Journey to Millions: Happy First Birthday My Boy! – Awesome, Evan had more financially qualified articles this week, but this articles was great and a way to give a shout out to his son!
Retire by Forty: Sell Your Losers Before 2011 Ends = Retireby40 beat my message (I’m a bit behind this year) on selling losses to offset gains! Take heed!!!
Thousandaire: Thousandaire Countdown #5 – Shoes For a Race – Funny original song? I’ve bought stuff before too and regretted it (gym membership).
Everyday Thoughts and Tips: 9 Financial Things To Consider Before The New Year – Great list of things to do before the end of the year! It’s time to sprint to the finish line!
Financial Samurai: Life Lessons From Twelve Days At Sea – This may be the best article ever of the pros of blogging abroad!

And now for the Carnivals that I had the honor of being in this past week:

Hope everybody had a great weekend.

MR

17 comments »

Posted in Holiday

Tags: christmas Christmas time christmas tradition Christmas Trees Time crunch at christmas

Are Hybrid Cell Phones The Future?

December 1st, 2011

I recently bought my son a cellular service plan from Kajeet for $19.99 a month.

I admit that I did not want to make this purchase. My son has an Apple iPod Touch, and with that awesome electronic device, I configured my son’s iPod to make and receive cellular calls when he is connected to a wireless router. Included in the app is texting, so I didn’t understand why we needed to buy a cell phone, but my son insisted that he wanted one. So we went with the Kajeet services I mentioned earlier.

At the time it was one of the cheapest yet practical Cellular Plans out in the market place. The feature that sold us was the unlimited texting, this was exactly what my son wanted. Overall, we’ve been happy with the Cellular Plan from Kajeet, and the cell phone that we bought… until recently.

The latest rage is the new hybrid cellular plan from “Republic Wireless“! It’s basically a blend of the iPod app that makes and receives calls (and texting) over a wireless router, and the cellular aspect of a cellular plan (Sprint I believe).

LG Optimus

The basic idea is that when you are within range of a wireless router (they calculate this to be 60% of the time), you use the router for your calls, texting and for internet access. Then the times when you are not in range of a wireless router, you use the cellular services that they provide (again, via Sprint). It’s basically taking advantage of both technologies for an optimally frugal mix! All for the price of $19 (yep, that’s right, it’s even cheaper than Kajeet).

The plan is unique in that the service refers to customers as members instead of customers, and if you violate the 60% too much or too long, they reserve the right to kick you out of the community. How’s that for a different business model!

But, from what I read it seems like a fantastic deal, and I’m going to sign up for the service once they start taking new members again!

I usually don’t say this, but go check out the Republic Wireless website. They did an excellent job with the design, and all the information is presented in an easy to comprehend manner. I was very impressed by their presentation.

What do you think? Is Hybrid Cell Phones the future?

The great thing about Republic’s service plan is that it’s not a long-term contract, it’s monthly and even has a 30 day guarantee.

I recently blogged about how I was considering breaking down and buying a cell phone in the article: “Frugal Confessions: I Do Not Own a Cell Phone” recently, but I’ve decided to delay that decision and wait until I can get on board with Republic Wireless instead.

What do you think, since it’s risk free, would you consider such a plan?

Tell me what you think,

MR

24 comments »

Posted in Bargains

Tags: cheap cell phone cheap cell phone service cheap cellular plan frugal hybrid cellular solutions hybrid cell phones republic wireless