Category Archives: Spending

Give This Gift If You Want To Piss Off Your Husband

Written by in Spending, Spending Wisely
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I love getting surprises, but there’s one I wouldn’t be too thrilled with. If Lauren ever does this to me, we’d have a problem.

I love the enthusiasm, but I’m pretty sure major purchases shouldn’t be surprises. Surprise, I just locked you into a $30,000 contract and you’re going to be paying someone else every single month for the next 5 years!

Gifts That Keep on Taking

There are a few other gifts that work in similar ways. While it may seem very generous, an xbox 360 for example is sweet because it’s expensive and you may not have been willing to pay for it yourself. But, there’s another side to it. You’re now responsible for buying games to go along with it, and at $50/each, the costs can add up. And you don’t want to waste a brand new, xbox, right?

Similarly, getting someone a nice picture without a frame kinda sucks because you’re forcing them to spend on getting it framed, which can definitely be expensive.

Be smart with your gifts, don’t give gifts that will cost the other person money. And if you’re in a relationship and buying a gift with shared money, don’t buy something really expensive that the receiver will have to share the costs of.

Readers, do you hate gifts that keep on taking? What other terrible gifts have you gotten?

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Used Car Buying Tips

Written by in Autos, Spending, Tips
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I am so glad that my used car buying process is over. While necessary, it was time-consuming and exhausting, so I hope I don’t have to go through it again for a long time. I went in to the market looking for a car as a relative newbie, so I had little guidance as to what to expect. My brother had a better idea, but in the past 3 years, the used car market has charged significantly, so we pretty much had to start again from scratch.

Now that I’m a seasoned pro, take these used car buying tips the next time you’re searching for a new vehicle:

Not All Dealers Are The Same

I visited several dealers, all with similar cars, but their prices and customer service all varied. Some were more forceful, some would do anything to get me to test drive, while the ones I liked were the ones who showed me lots of different options that fit my needs and told me to look online at their full inventory. Both the dealers I was most interested in let me leave without forcing anything on me, gave me a business card, and said be in touch.

The ones who had me sit on a room for even a minute and made me uncomfortable in the negotiating process never heard from me again, even though the prices weren’t out of my range. What was worse was the dealer who told me to come down to look at several cars only to tell me when I got there that they weren’t available and that we should look at a car I had already seen and turned down.

Set Limits Before You Hit The Lot

I went with some vague idea of what I wanted. Basically if it drove, I was interested. What I should have done is limit my options earlier by setting limits on the number of miles already driven by a car and my absolutely maximum price, including all fees, of which there were many. I wasted a lot of time setting soft limits. I ended up test driving a few cars that I wasn’t really interested in. While it gave me a taste of what to expect from dealers and what the process was like, it wasted time that I could have spent in better ways.

Be Aware Of Fees

The price on the sticker is far from the price you’ll ultimately pay. Fees, taxes, and licensing can throw your whole equation off. In California, the fees totaled around 11% of the price, so a $10,000 car quickly became an $11,000 car, which was well above my budget. Knowing what the fees would be can help you revise your budget or aim for a lower car to start with the even with fees, you won’t have to dig into your savings (or spend an extra several months making payments). In a week, you’ll be thinking, “how much is my car worth?” so don’t overspend now!

Know Your Financing Options In Advance

I opted to pay for my car in cash, and boy am I glad I did. Each dealer came back with a whole complicated math problem for me to solve. With an $X down payment, I could pay just $Y per month, and it made it very difficult to compare. By knowing your financing option in advance, you can avoid the tricky math and focus on the total price. That way, you don’t have to worry about the details and can focus on the big picture when buying a car. All I cared about was the final price (what do I care which portion of the price goes to the dealer and which portion goes to fees?) so I tried to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Car buying isn’t always a ton of fun. However, it’s not unbearable if you have the right tools and know what to expect. Use these tips and you’ll be about two weeks ahead of where I was when I started.

Readers, what other tips do you have for when buying a used car?

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How to Save on Staples in the City

Written by in Saving, Spending, Spending Wisely
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I was in New York a few weeks ago, and on Friday afternoon, I took a trip to the supermarket to stock up on food for the weekend. What I found was unlike any other supermarket in any other city I’ve been in. Cereal was almost $6 for a box. A bag of chips that’s typically $3.50 was no less than $5.50, and a bottle of soda, often 99 cents, turned into a $1.50 2-liter.

My eyes bugged out. I wanted to believe that I was in a bad dream. I wanted to run out of the store crying and sit in a corner for two days until it was time to leave. $6 for a box of cereal? Ridiculous.

As my friends making low wages continue to struggle to make it in the Big Apple, I couldn’t imagine that they were being forced to pay such ridiculous prices. And worse, they go along with it as if there are no other alternatives.

However, there are some easy ways to cut costs. Let’s go through some alternatives to paying big bucks for basic groceries.

I’ve discussed Amazon’s subscribe and save options before, but here it has a very real world application.

That almost $6 box of cereal? A quick look at a non-special shows 3 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios for just $8.45. Already that’s a fantastic deal, and with subscribe and save, the price drops to just $7.18 for three boxes, which is less than $2.40 a box! That’s more than 50% off, and you can cancel whenever you want (I suggest immediately after the order goes through so you don’t get charged if the price rises later after you forget about it!)

Feel free to check out the other breakfast foods, I’m positive that these prices beat your supermarket prices.

Breakfast not your thing? Let’s look at pasta sauce: A 4 pack of 45 ounce bottle of Ragu on Amazon is just $9.08 with subscribe an save. For reference, I’m used to paying $2.50 for ONE 24-ounce bottle on pasta sauce! It’s not even close.

We could do this all day. I have no idea what the specials look like, but I’m sure if you check out Amazon once in a while, you’ll find some great deals.

Disclaimer: I don’t get paid for anything you buy. I just know that this information can help lower the costs of living in expensive cities.

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Should We Use Gift Cards on Everyday Items?

Written by in Saving, Spending, Spending Wisely
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Around this time of year, almost everyone gets a gift card or two. Sometimes it’s to stores we don’t visit and sometimes it’s to places we love and would shop at anyway.

Let’s say you received the choice of a $50 to either Brookstone, where they have lots of cool gadgets, or a $50 gift card to your neighborhood supermarket, where you shop regularly.

Which would you choose?

Some argue that taking the Brookstone card is better because it’s supposed to be a gift and it’s not meant to simply be used on daily items we need to replenish, but that it should be used on something we wouldn’t buy for ourselves. That way, it feels like a present, which is the point of having a gift card in the first place!

With a supermarket gift card, we get to spend money on the things we need and as people who care about personal finance, reducing our grocery spending for a month (and throwing the extra money into savings) can be a big deal!

I would rather take the supermarket gift card. I know I will use it. I can spend it on the things I need rather than on the things I want. While gadgets are nice sometimes, it really is just adds to clutter and becomes something we forget about fairly quickly.

What if you could take cash?

Cash is better than the Brookstone card, but having it in my wallet would be too enticing. In a supermarket, there aren’t too many options for buying things we don’t need. At most, it’s a few dollars for the name brand vs. the store brand. With cash, we are constantly enticed to buy things we don’t need.

I recently received a $100 gift card to a store similar to Brookstone in that it’s not a store I typically shop at. Instead of finding something I probably don’t need, I plan on selling my $100 gift card, probably for $80-$85 dollars. Sure, I’m leaving $15-$20 on the table, but at the same time, I’d much rather have $80 of something I want than $100 of something I could live without.

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