• Save Money by Being Married/Antisocial

    by  • May 15, 2012 • Tagged: , , ,

    This is a post from Make Love, Not Debt staff blogger, Abby.

    Tastes Good Regardless of Location Consumed

    Tastes Good Regardless of Location Consumed

    My husband, Brad, is in the midst of his last school-related work before his summer (of more working) begins. He’ll be done on Friday, and the other day we had the following interaction:

    Abby: Hey, since you’ll be done on Friday, do you want to go out for drinks to celebrate?

    Brad: Maybe.

    Abby: What if we just go to [NAME OF NEIGHBORHOOD BAR] and get some dessert and a beer?

    Brad: I guess.

    Abby: . . . or do you just want to sit in the apartment and drink the beer we have in the fridge and eat a sleeve of Thin Mints?

    Brad: Yeah, that sounds perfect, actually.

    Sometimes, I read personal finance articles and the comments associated with them, and wonder how these people, most of whom are my age, spend so much money on going out. What are you doing? I think. Why can’t you just drink a beer at home? And then I realize – not everyone has the advantage of living with one of the few people they can stand for long periods of time. Don’t get me wrong – I like to dress up in something other than $6 men’s sweatpants from Target, and enjoy a nice gin cocktail with people to whom I am not married every once in awhile. But most of the time, my husband and I are each other’s company, and we like it that way. The added benefit, which we often don’t consider, is how much money it saves us. Consider some of our favorite activities:

    • Ordering takeout from the exceptionally delicious pasta place near our apartment and consuming it in our apartment.
    • Sitting with (nice – we do spend a little on our home-bound alcohol) beers in our apartment, while I watch something on Netflix and Brad half-watches, but mostly catches up on college sports blogs.
    • Ordering takeout from the great Taiwanese restaurant nearby and eating it in our apartment (sensing a trend?).


    Besides our penchant for carb-heavy takeout for which we don’t have to change out of sweatpants, we spend a lot of time hanging out with each other in the apartment (particularly in the colder months up here, which is almost all year long). And the natural consequence of this is that we don’t go out as much as we would if were single. We don’t feel compelled to head to a local bar that often, because the beer we would get there is the same beer we can consume in the comfort of our home, as is the company.

    As I said, this doesn’t mean I never get out. There are work happy hours, friends to meet with over a glass of wine, and potlucks that I attend. But after reading that some people my age go out on a near-daily basis, I can see how my generation can become mired in credit card debt after an accumulated however-many drinks consumed. It gets pricey, and we’re lucky to be cutting our expenses through our anti-social/homebody/married tendencies.

    How do you manage your social expenses?

    image: Jeramey Jannene

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    Tweets and Links for Mother’s Day Weekend

    by  • May 11, 2012

    This weekend is Mother’s Day weekend. I didn’t realize that I’d have to do stuff for TWO mothers after our kid was born. Argh. Luckily Her wants to do something low-key.

    This year my mom made brunch reservations, waited for me to ask her to brunch, and then told me where we were going. Awesome. Here’s a few more links to my mom’s craziness:

    It’s been a little while since I’ve done a Twitter roundup because I’ve been really busy at work and haven’t been too active on Twitter. Here’s some of my favorite tweets from the past month or so.

    Have a great weekend!

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    My One and Only

    by  • May 10, 2012 • Tagged: 

    This is a post from Make Love, Not Debt staff blogger, Abby.

    Would You Declare Bankruptcy for This?

    Would You Declare Bankruptcy for This?

    My husband and share the same frugal-to-the-point-of-stupidity tendencies. We will skimp on nearly everything, and not always for the better (see: my recent bout of food poisoning in Spain, when we should have just headed to a clinic, but spent a morning slowly re-hydrating me instead). I can always go to him to validate my monetary decisions when it comes to miserly behavior, and he knows I similarly share his mindset.

    Except when it comes to our cat, Norman. While I might be happy to contemplate the necessity of a hospital visit while I am the person lying on the bed in the fetal position, slowly losing feeling in my limbs after seven hours of vomiting and wondering whether that’s reason enough to incur an international hospital bill, there is no cost too high for our cat. He is the light of our lives, the greatest purchase (i.e., donation to a shelter) we ever made, the most wonderful thing we could have done together. And if anything were to happen to him, we would pony up the cash like there was nothing to it.

    Compare our mindsets when it comes to spending money on ourselves:

    “Brad, don’t you think it’s time for a new pair of glasses, as you cannot see out of the ones you have?”

    “Ugh, the expense.”

    “OH MY GOD NORMAN IS CLEANING HIS EAR MORE THAN USUAL DO YOU THINK SOMETHING IS WRONG? SOMETHING IS PROBABLY WRONG. LET’S GO TO THE VET.”

    We have been incredibly fortunate (knocking on ALL THE WOOD) that nothing catastrophic has happened to him. But I know that if something were to happen, and our vet were to tell us a cost that might seem extreme, that cash would flow out of our emergency fund instantly. Part of this is a commitment I feel people should make when they adopt animals. Indeed, part of the reason we haven’t adopted a second cat is the knowledge that we would absolutely want to finance their health issues, and our concerns that while we might be able to do so with one cat, we may not with two.

    And part of it might be an inherited behavior. My family brought home a sweet, beautiful yellow Labrador when I was ten years old, and in her older years she developed diabetes. After using canine insulin on her for a few weeks, we realized she wasn’t responding, and the vet told us she would need human insulin. I watched my mother (who once had me drive myself to the emergency room at 3 AM, because she didn’t think the granite I had lodged in my eye precluded me from driving myself there) get down on her knees twice a day, and deliver the wildly expensive human insulin to my aging dog herself. “I can’t just let her DIE,” she would say, syringe in hand. “She’s our family.”

    I feel the same way about Norman. I once asked my husband if he would cry when Norman dies. “Oh,” he said, “I’ll cry like a baby.” And that kind of emotional attachment allows for a financial commitment I don’t mind making.

    What are your thoughts on expenses for pets?

    image: MowT

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    Putting a Stop To Spending

    by  • May 8, 2012 • Tagged: , ,

    This is a post from Make Love, Not Debt staff blogger, Abby.

    Clothing

    I Do Not Have to Own All the Clothes

    While I generally think of myself as someone incapable of mindless spending, over the past few months I realize that I’ve been putting more money towards a variety of purchases than I would have liked. This has something to do with my current occupation – as I’ve written before, my current (and relatively new) job requires that I dress much more nicely than I’ve previously needed to, and as a result I’ve found myself spending money on clothing, if not quite willy-nilly, then close to it. Yes, there were the justifiable expenses – five identical black turtlenecks from Ann Taylor for winter work attire (I lack creativity, get cold easily, and spill food on myself with such frequency that these have already paid for themselves several times over); black boots from L.L. Bean that are real leather, great for the office, and even better for going out in my freezing cold New England city when I’m meeting friends for dinner or drinks; a few very much on-sale dresses that I can wear for the upcoming onslaught of weddings. But then there were the little things that I could “justify” if I tried, and which, added up, made me uncomfortable with where my spending was going. I may be trying to buy only things that I love and that will serve me well in many capacities for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I have to own all of those things at once.

    What finally made me reassess my spending was a Lilly Pulitzer dress I’d had my eye on for a while. This purchase was partly inspired by my lifelong quest to transform myself into someone who at least has the wardrobe, if not the life, of an old-money WASP, and partly by my desire for a cute beach cover-up for the summer. For those of you familiar with Lilly Pulitzer, I can assure you that it was on the low, low end of that clothing line’s cost spectrum. But after I bought it, I thought to myself, “Did I really need this now? Was this something I should have considered a bit more before making the purchase?” I worried that I had purchased it when I did out of a momentary desire to own a Lilly Pulitzer dress, as well as the lure of free-shipping. These motivators, while understandable, should not be my reasoning for making a big purchase.

    Spawned by my discomfort, I considered my closet. I feel that over the past few years I’ve made good choices – I’ve bought things that I like, that I really wear, and that will look good for some time. I try not to make frivolous or impulsive purchases. But the fact that I’d bought a few more unnecessary items than my closet needed – and that I’d done so somewhat thoughtlessly – prompted a decision. I won’t be buying any clothes for a few months. I could be less of a coward about this, and say, “I WILL SPEND NO MONEY ON CLOTHES FOR FIVE MONTHS,” but I worry that a rule like that will just breed a self-resentment that will end up in a cranky moment in J.Crew, feeling sorry for myself and pulling out my credit card for something unspeakably useless and expensive. So instead, I’ll be doing my best to be much more thoughtful. When I try to justify that purchase of a dress for a friend’s wedding, I’ll remember that I already have more than enough from which to choose. When I covet that pretty new J.Crew bracelet (sometimes I think J.Crew should pay me for all of the times I mention them on this website), I’ll remember that I have plenty of pretty bracelets that I don’t wear enough as it is. It isn’t about denying myself – it’s about considering what I have.

    Have you ever put yourself on a spending hiatus?

    image: _e.t.

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    My Terrible Start Towards Financial Responsibility

    by  • May 3, 2012 • Tagged: 

    payday_loan

    Friendly service, indeed.

    When I started grad school, I also decided to start being “financially responsible.” See the quotes? That means that I had not idea what that actually entailed. I thought that the best way to start this new life was to take control of my debts. I owed a few hundred dollars to a friend and a few thousand dollars across multiple credit cards. The plan was to completely pay back the loan from my friend and to consolidate the debts I had on my credit cards by paying off the ones with low balances. Since I didn’t actually have the money to do all of that, I hatched a brilliant plan to pay it all back: Borrow more money!

    Since I had an assistantship, I was paid a monthly stipend; therefore, I thought that I could easily pay back any loan. However, the assistantship paid only about $24,000 gross per year. It was the most money I ever made up until then. I thought I was untouchable so I started getting the plan in action.

    The university that I attended had a short-term loan program that was available to students. As a graduate student, I was allowed to borrow $1,000 without interest for 30 days. Fantastic! I would get the maximum, pay my debts and then pay back the loan, with no real cost to me (other than a paltry $3.00 service fee). But things didn’t work out that way.

    When I received my first paycheck, I realized that after my monthly expenses were paid, I wouldn’t be able to repay the interest-free loan in full. The interest rate on the loan would be a paltry 1.5% per month (18% APR) on the unpaid amount. I didn’t want to pay that interest, so I looked for…another loan. A PAYDAY LOAN.

    If you’ve never had a payday loan (most of you, I hope), it works like this: you present to them your latest paycheck stub so that they can determine the maximum amount that you can borrow. You write a check to them for the loan PLUS the service fee. After 14 days they cash the check. I ended up borrowing the maximum of about $800 as that’s what I needed to repay the remainder of the university loan and get by for the rest of the month. The fee to borrow the money was $12 for a 14 day loan, which meant that the loan was AT A RATE OF 391% APR.

    And that wasn’t the worst part.

    After I got the payday loan, I walked out to my car, which of course was locked. I reached into my pocket to get my car key…

    …but it wasn’t there.

    I patted down all of my pockets, but no keys. I ran back inside the payday loan shop and looked around. No keys. I asked the customer service person. No keys. I went back outside and looked into my car…

    …to see that the key was in the ignition. I had locked myself out. In front of the payday loan shop.

    I was deflated. I needed to call a locksmith, but the payday loan place didn’t have a phone book (remember those? this was before even cell phones were popular). I can still remember the look of pity the customer service person gave me as she handed me the employee phone so that I could call Her (who was my girlfriend at the time [now wife, bless her heart]) to ask if she could call a locksmith for me. She didn’t pick up the first time because after looking at the caller ID, she thought she was getting a call from a bill collector who had been trying to collect debts from the person who previously had her phone number. After I called three times she finally picked up, and upon hearing my voice asked, “Why the hell are you calling me from a payday loan place?” She eventually did call a locksmith for me and even drove to the payday loan place to give me a good ribbing and some moral support. Probably the most disheartening thing was handing over $200 of my newly-loaned money to pay the locksmith. I was so ashamed of myself and embarrassed that this all happened in front of my future wife.

    After all was said and done, I still ended up paying the university loan in installments. And since most of my next paycheck was going to repay my payday loan, I was back at square one and had to use credit cards to get me through the next few months. In the end I did end up “achieving“ my goals of paying back my friend and consolidating my credit card debt, but at an enormous cost.

    Today we’re free from credit card debt and have been since June 2007. Too bad I had to take such a humiliating route to get there.

    This was originally posted on the ImpulseSave blog and an edited version has been republished here with permission. If you want an ImpulseSave account (see my review here), I have two invites remaining in my account, so let me know. 

    image: taberandrew

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    How We Spent Money on Our Wedding, Or Not

    by  • May 1, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    Image: Cat When I was younger, I never dreamed about my perfect wedding. Rather, I spent my adolescence imagining the day I could become a reclusive editor in New York City, living in my fabulous apartment with my multitude of cats, free from the limiting requirements of “marriage” and “other people.” So you can imagine ... Read more →

    Save Money With Us at ImpulseSave!

    by  • April 27, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    One of the financial skills that we’ve kinda let lapse over the last few years is saving money. Pretty basic, but we’re terrible at it. What we’re really good at is impulse spending. We should get a medal or award for it. Well, from here on out, we’re going to change that. And we’re going ... Read more →

    When There is No Parental Cushion

    by  • April 24, 2012 • Tagged: ,  • Comments

    Image: 401K Drawn in by all of the media hoopla, I recently found myself watching the first episode of Lena Dunham’s new show “Girls.” Early in the show, Dunham’s character explains to her parents that their decision to cut her off financially (in her mid-twenties, two years after graduating from college) is unfair and unrealistic, ... Read more →

    Who Knows How Much You Make?

    by  • April 20, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    image: J Wynia What would you rather tell people: your favorite sexual position or your salary? Which would you rather people knew? Of the topics of conversation that seem to remain forever taboo, revealing how much you make will always be controversial. If you make more than your companions, then they might think that you’re ... Read more →

    Being the Breadwinner

    by  • April 17, 2012 • Tagged: ,  • Comments

    Image: cookbookman17 My relationship is not unlike many in my age-group. This is the time for figuring out your career, for going to graduate school, for living cheaply and on different sums of money depending on where you are. My husband and I try to base our relationship on a degree of equality – his ... Read more →

    Net Worth April 2012 – Disappointing 2 Years

    by  • April 11, 2012 • Tagged:   • Comments

    It’s been about two years since I’ve updated our net worth on this website. Scratch that, it’s been about two years since I’ve updated our net worth period. Yes, it’s been THAT long since I’ve added up the numbers. I was frightened to see the numbers. Now I’m just disappointed. Here’s a rundown of why ... Read more →

    Judge Not

    by  • April 9, 2012 • Tagged: , , , ,  • Comments

    Image: Kurman Communications, Inc. Despite reminding my husband constantly how amazing I am, and how lucky he is to have me, I do, in fact, have a number of flaws that I try to correct (when I can remember them). Besides an anal-retentive need to keep things organized at the expense of the sanity of ... Read more →

    The Adverse Effects of Sunlight

    by  • April 5, 2012 • Tagged:   • Comments

    Image: Rachel Kramer We’ve had a spate of gorgeous weather here in the Northeast, and normally bundled and home-bound citizens have been venturing out in the sunshine. I’ve noticed that with nicer weather comes a trend: spending money. I’m less content to sit inside and drink tea or a beer with my husband; I’d rather ... Read more →

    Roth IRA – My First Investment Account

    by  • March 27, 2012 • Tagged: ,  • Comments

    Source: goodfinancialcents.com via Jeff on Pinterest We’ve joined over 140 other bloggers to promote the Roth IRA Movement. Thank Illinois Certified Financial Planner Jeff Rose for this awesome idea! How We Found Out About Roth IRAs According to my statements, my Roth IRA was opened in 1996. I was in high school at the time and got into ... Read more →

    TurboTax Giveaway Winners! Favorite Tweets!

    by  • March 23, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    A big hearty congrats to Michelle, Sarah, and Liz for winning our giveaway of free federal and state preparation and e-file with TurboTax Deluxe Online on our post about TurboTax for Mac review. They will all be expecting refunds so they might actually enjoy doing their taxes. Enjoy! To send you off this weekend, here’s some ... Read more →

    Is Misery Worth It?

    by  • March 21, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    Image: F. Hoffnar When I graduated from college in 2008, like many people my age, I graduated with debt. Thanks to my college’s stellar financial aid policy, a generous parent who believed the cost of higher education was worth it, and some substantial saving on my own part, that debt was a very reasonable amount ... Read more →

    TurboTax for Mac Review

    by  • March 16, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    I’ve said a few times that I was going to get a tax professional to do our taxes this year. We picked a guy from friends’ recommendations, and he gave us a worksheet to fill out. I would have had to get all of my paperwork together in order to fill it out. By the ... Read more →

    Interview at Credit Card Assist, Personal Finance Tag Responses, and Favorite Tweets of the Week

    by  • March 13, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    Today we’re featured in the Credit Card Assist “Best of the Bloggers” interview series. Bill has written quite possibly the best introduction to who we are that I’ve seen.  He’s been very patient with me over the past few months as I kept pushing back when I was able to get back to him, but ... Read more →

    Spending the Savings

    by  • March 12, 2012 • Tagged: ,  • Comments

    Image: Tom Small There are moments when I look at my savings accounts as abstract items not to be used – pristine, shining examples of my frugality that are there for looking, but not for touching. And then there are the moments when my apprehension disappears, and I understand why I continually add to them ... Read more →

    Running Our Way To Savings

    by  • March 9, 2012 • Tagged: , ,  • Comments

    image: HikingArtist.com My wife and I have recently started going for regular runs. We aren’t training for anything (yet), but we enjoy the fresh air and the activity. We relish the chance to switch up the routine in the evenings and come back home with a runner’s high. And, of course, we both like the idea of burning ... Read more →

    Breaking the Financial Rules – Co-signing Loans

    by  • March 7, 2012 • Tagged: , , ,  • Comments

    image: Eason41 Don’t spend more than you earn. Don’t buy too much house. Don’t forget to pay your bills on time. There’s quite a few financial rules that are floating around that we’re told to follow, or else. Just like rules in your everyday life, sometimes you need to know when breaking them will benefit you ... Read more →