<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Level Up House</title> <atom:link href="/category/budget-money/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link></link> <description>Home is the best place on earth</description> <lastBuildDate>Sun, 09 Mar 2014 17:33:07 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5</generator> <item> <title>Saving Money with Buy Nothing Month</title> <link>/2014/saving-money-with-buy-nothing-month/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 09 Mar 2014 17:32:46 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Saving Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=3086</guid> <description><![CDATA[We finished our BUY NOTHING MONTH! What is that, you say? It’s a 4-week period of time in which we reject consumerism, stuff our pockets full of saved cash and fly off into the sunset in our roflcopter (pre-owned and paid off, of course). Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-3098 aligncenter" alt="Saving Money with Buy Nothing Month: How we bought nothing but food for an entire month - and loved it." src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month.jpg" width="500" height="500" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month.jpg 500w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_month-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a></p> <p>We finished our <strong>BUY NOTHING MONTH!</strong> <em>What is that,</em> you say? It’s a 4-week period of time in which we reject consumerism, stuff our pockets full of saved cash and fly off into the sunset in our roflcopter (pre-owned and paid off, of course).</p> <blockquote><p>Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.</p> <p>– Tyler Durden, Fight Club</p></blockquote> <p>Words to live by. Buy Nothing Month resets your spending and makes you question everything you normally mindlessly whip out a credit card for. And, at the end, you have a big pile of money to do whatever you want with. If you’re earning a decent wage but just can’t seem to make ends meet, try this experiment. It’s so easy: you don’t even have to do anything. In fact, <em>not doing</em> things is the whole point.</p> <p><strong>Our Buy Nothing Month budget:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>$50/week budget for groceries</strong> – essentials only, no treats</li> <li><strong>Gasoline fill-ups</strong> – it’s tough to compromise on gasoline, but we went nowhere except to and from the office</li> <li><strong>NOTHING ELSE!</strong></li> </ul> <h1><strong>Saving on Groceries</strong></h1> <p>$50/week for two adults <em>should</em> be reasonable – but our grocery spending had crept into the $75-$100/week range in January. What’s up with that?</p> <p>Turns out, it was mostly mid-winter indulgences like expensive cereals and chocolates (which will, of course, just be weight we wish we could lose come June). We agreed to not buy any of those things in February and stuck with the essentials: fresh vegetables, bread, and eggs. For meat, we cleaned out our freezer.</p> <h2>The Freezer Diet</h2> <p>We also paired “Buy Nothing Month” with what we like to call a <strong>“Freezer Diet” – ie: eat all the stuff in the freezer.</strong> Any time the Safeway prizing wizards decide it’s time to put meat on sale I snap it up like a hungry vulture and stuff it into my freezer to get us through the weeks when Safeway prices the meat high. By thawing and eating our stockpile, our freezer went from overstuffed to half empty. By eating what we had already paid for we saved a bundle on February’s groceries – about $20-25 off each week (we eat a lot of meat).</p> <p>For Valentine’s Day we grilled most of the meats we had stuffed away in the freezer. This gave us about 2 weeks worth of tasty, tasty meats:</p> <div id="attachment_3090" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chill_grill_meat_haul.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3090" class="size-full wp-image-3090 " alt="For Valentine's Day we barbequed - and cleaned out the freezer, not our wallets." src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chill_grill_meat_haul.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chill_grill_meat_haul.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chill_grill_meat_haul-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3090" class="wp-caption-text">Our Valentine’s Chill Grill tradition cleaned out the freezer – not our wallets</p></div> <h2>Our Grocery Outlet adventure</h2> <p>Our $50 a week food goal also inspired us to seek out a new grocery store. We drove over to Grocery Outlet and discovered that they sell the <em>same 10 lb bag of chicken breasts we buy at Safeway for half the price: $5 instead of $10.</em> Alas, the rest of the store didn’t carry much of what eat on a weekly basis (plenty of treats like Cheez-It and cookies, though). The frozen vegetable selection was lacking, and the fresh stuff didn’t look so hot, so we probably won’t be back except for a few bags of chicken every once in a while.</p> <p>Nonetheless, it was good to take a trip outside of our “comfort zone” and see just how much Safeway marks things up. I really hate Safeway’s arcane pricing: some weeks a thing is $2.50, other weeks it’s $3.50, and there’s no real reason why! It’s not like there’s a supply shortage, it’s just some B.S. they use to milk a few extra dollars out of every shopper. I know what the lowest price is on our regular purchases and I keep enough on hand to skate through the weeks where things aren’t on sale. <strong>Either way, knowing that another store nearby sells the same thing for a few dollars less made me not want to buy it at Safeway – money saved!</strong></p> <h2>Cutting back on treats</h2> <p>As an additional sacrifice, I quit buying fruit for the entire month. I usually buy about $6-$10 worth of fruit every week – mostly strawberries and blueberries, which I eat as snacks. Turns out, I didn’t even miss ’em. Strawberries are crazy expensive in February, and I pocketed about $35 by skipping them for the month. I figure I still get plenty of vitamins through all the veggies I eat, so a month without this treat isn’t exactly going to give me rickets.</p> <p>We also didn’t buy any cereals, chocolate, or other treats. We have some left over from the holidays, and this stuff just makes us fat, anyway – lol.</p> <p>We don’t buy soda, coffee, or booze, but if you’re doing a Buy Nothing Month those are also easy things to cut.</p> <h2>Trying new foods</h2> <p>Beans are like a buck a bag and offer pretty complete nutrition. I wouldn’t make beans the<em> only</em> thing I eat, of course, but an inexpensive protein would be nice to add to the rotation instead of eating pricey meats every day.</p> <p>Well, I never had beans growing up and I assumed I didn’t like them. I was wrong – beans can be pretty good as long as they don’t get overcooked into grainy mush. Jim likes beans, so he and I went on a bean adventure in Buy Nothing Month. I tried lentils, black beans, and red kidney beans – mixed with rice, mixed with vegetables, and as a straight-up side dish. I need some more time to truly develop my love for them, but I could see beans becoming a household staple.</p> <div id="attachment_3096" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/beans_rice.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3096" class="size-full wp-image-3096 " alt="beans_rice" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/beans_rice.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/beans_rice.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/beans_rice-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3096" class="wp-caption-text">Beans mixed with coconut pineapple rice = omg yum</p></div> <h1><strong>Seeking out Savings</strong></h1> <p>Clamping down on spending also inspired us to seek out unnecessary spending. I didn’t expect to find anything – after all, we run a tight financial ship here… or so I thought.</p> <h2>Deleting doubled-up services</h2> <p>We made a huge discovery this month: <strong>Jim was still paying for his own separate web hosting!</strong></p> <p>With both of our hosting accounts offering unlimited storage there was no reason to have two hosting accounts. This was tough to track down because we buy hosting in 2 year blocks from Lunarpages, so the bill only comes around every other year.</p> <p>We both thought it was<em> my</em> hosting being billed every time the bill came around.We canceled his hosting, moved everything to mine, and transferred his domain for $10 over to Dynadot from Lunarpages. Spending $10 to save $250 every other year sounds like a good deal to me, so we bought the domain transfer. We got together like, 8 years ago. <strong>It pains me to think that for over five years we paid for hosting we didn’t need to be paying for.</strong></p> <h2>Alternatives to current services</h2> <p>I also tried <a href="http://www.carbonite.com/">Carbonite</a>, a $60/year alternative to <a href="http://mozy.com/#slide-5">Mozy</a> which is the online backup solution I normally use and pay $250/year for. I’m very happy with Mozy, but I wouldn’t mind paying $60 instead of $250!</p> <p>Unfortunately, Carbonite didn’t work on my system. I’m on Windows 7 and it slowed Windows Explorer down to a crawl. Every time I right clicked the Start button or inside a folder on my hard-drive I had to wait through a 3-4 second pause before the context menu appeared. This slow-down survived restarts, reinstalls, everything. I gave up, uninstalled Carbonite, and my computer returned to the lightning fast speed I built it for. I guess with online backup services you get what you pay for. Failed experiment, but I’m glad I tried.</p> <h2>Itemized our taxes</h2> <p><em>Eyeballs… glazing… over.</em> I know… but it saved us several hundred bucks. In previous years we took the standard deduction and ran, but this year our property tax was enough to force us to itemize. We dug up old receipts and took the nuanced approach to this year’s taxes and pocketed a few hundred bucks.</p> <h2>Switched to a better rewards credit card</h2> <p>As if that wasn’t enough, we dumped our American Express Starwood Preferred Guest card on account of its rewards being too sucky for us (you can <a href="/2014/starwood-preferred-guest-credit-card-from-american-express-review/">read more about that here</a>) and switched to the American Express Fidelity Investment Rewards card. Now we spend money on the card and get 2% cash back deposited <em>directly into an investment account</em>. 2% cash back is nuts – <strong>imagine spending $1,000 and getting $20 IN CASH</strong> – not <em>points</em>, not <em>fancy hotels</em>, not <em>gift cards to exotic boutique stores</em> – <strong>all for doing nothing</strong>.</p> <div id="attachment_3097" style="width: 551px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3097" class="size-full wp-image-3097 " alt="American_Express_Three_Cards" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/American_Express_Three_Cards.png" width="541" height="218" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/American_Express_Three_Cards.png 541w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/American_Express_Three_Cards-300x120.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 541px) 100vw, 541px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3097" class="wp-caption-text">Click <a href="https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards">here to go to Fidelity’s site</a> and learn more about the very awesome 2% cash back Fidelity Investment Rewards card</p></div> <p>I like getting paid for doing nothing. Too bad we didn’t spend much this month – hah.</p> <h2>Cheap entertainment</h2> <p>We’re very lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest where we’re able to walk outside pretty much year round (especially in February while everyone back home in the Midwest was buried under ten feet of snow). If you live somewhere nice, walking is some of the best free entertainment I know of. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see some crazy stuff, too, like a dude practicing yoga on a fountain or a mess of ducks fighting over bread slices thrown into the water by a toddler.</p> <div id="attachment_3091" style="width: 910px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_walk_outside.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3091" class="wp-image-3091 " alt="buy_nothing_walk_outside" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_walk_outside.jpg" width="900" height="257" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_walk_outside.jpg 2500w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_walk_outside-300x85.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/03/buy_nothing_walk_outside-1024x292.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3091" class="wp-caption-text">Bellevue Park – cheaper than the mall.</p></div> <p>We made a point of not going to the movie theater, not buying the latest issues of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607066017/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1607066017&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20">Saga</a> (this was actually painful, I love this series and am <em>dying</em> to know what happens next), and not going to any events. In the evenings we worked on our personal projects or watched Doctor Who (I love this show more than is probably considered healthy – you can see <a href="http://majoh.com/blog/2014/as-lost-as-i-get-doctor-who-painting-2/">my Doctor Who fan art here</a>).</p> <p>Jim discovered Kindle <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&docId=1000739811&linkCode=ur2&tag=leveluphouse-20">book borrowing on Amazon</a>, and he’s so enamored with it he’s declared that he never needs to buy another book again (we’ll see ;) ).</p> <p>And, as I said earlier, we spent Valentine’s Day (well, the Saturday after) barbecuing meats we already had instead of eating at a crowded restaurant with jacked-up V-Day prices.</p> <h1>Total Spending</h1> <p>We spent a grand total of $380 in February. This all went into food and a domain transfer. The rest was the usual mortgage, electricity, gas, city garbage, and water. We had a sizable amount of money left over, which was shuttled off into our Vanguard investment funds.</p> <h2>Did we just get lucky?</h2> <p>To some extent, yes. After all, our range oven didn’t start sparking in February (no, it did that in March) and nothing fell off our nearly-90k-mile car (knock on wood). But by aggressively cutting discretionary spending, Buy Nothing Month gave us an above-average amount of savings in February to sock away for some future time when it might be needed.</p> <h2>But this isn’t sustainable!</h2> <p>Of course it’s not – but after four weeks of carefully considering everything you buy (or simply going without), it’s much easier to reject unnecessary purchases in the days and weeks that follow. Just like a diet, it doesn’t work if you diet for 4 weeks and then overeat when the 4 weeks are done.</p> <h2>What can YOU stop buying?</h2> <p>If you only spent $380 plus your usual mortgage/rent/utilities payments, how much would <em>you</em> have left over? Probably more than you usually do. That’s why a Buy Nothing Month is so awesome!</p> <p>Pretend you just lost your job and you’ve only got enough for simple food and your rent/mortgage. That’ll get you in the right mindset for a Buy Nothing Month. You can go a month without:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Meals out</strong></li> <li><strong>Anything from Whole Foods</strong></li> <li><strong>Candy / snacks / soda</strong></li> <li><strong>Movie tickets</strong></li> <li><strong>Traveling anywhere</strong></li> <li><strong>Home decor</strong></li> <li><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Clothing & shoes</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> unless the soles just fell off your very last pair</span></li> <li><strong>Personal appearance stuff</strong> like whatever voodoo happens inside salons</li> <li><strong>Knick-nacks / toys</strong></li> <li><strong>Look for places to cut spending</strong> – phone line, TV service, texting plan, etc</li> </ul> <p>Tell us about your own Buy Nothing experiments – even if it’s just for a day or a week, not buying stuff can have a huge impact!</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Unimpressed with Starwood Preferred Guest credit card from American Express Review</title> <link>/2014/starwood-preferred-guest-credit-card-from-american-express-review/</link> <comments>/2014/starwood-preferred-guest-credit-card-from-american-express-review/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2014 08:00:18 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Credit cards]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2993</guid> <description><![CDATA[We take our credit cards seriously here at LevelUpHouse – we pay our balance in full each month and we love watching rewards pile up. We were Chase Freedom customers for years. Those were good times: a nice, fat $250 cash back check arrived every so often and reinforced our love. Then the nerf hammer […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_3003" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/credit_cards.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3003" class=" wp-image-3003 " alt="We're always on the search for the *best* rewards credit card." src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/credit_cards.jpg" width="200" height="292" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/credit_cards.jpg 250w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/02/credit_cards-205x300.jpg 205w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3003" class="wp-caption-text">The weak have fallen.</p></div> <p><strong>We take our credit cards seriously here at LevelUpHouse</strong> – we pay our balance in full each month and we love watching rewards pile up.</p> <p>We were Chase Freedom customers for years. Those were good times: <strong>a nice, fat $250 cash back check arrived every so often</strong> and reinforced our love. Then the nerf hammer fell and Chase began <a href="https://creditcards.chase.com/freedom/calendarreminder">that revolving categories BS</a>.</p> <p><em>Oh, is it finally “gasoline season”? Great, because I’d been holding off on fueling my car… </em></p> <p><strong>But we don’t take credit cards seriously enough to play “the game”.</strong> Lots of people like to get fancy with milking rewards from multiple different cards, but we keep it simpler: one card for “everything”, and another for backup.</p> <p>Three years ago, we selected the <a href="https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/starwood-preferred-guest">Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) American Express card</a> because it kept coming out on top in our research for a new rewards credit card. It’s been three years, and we’ve put nearly $100k worth of purchases onto this card.</p> <p>How’d it do?</p> <h1>Starwood Preferred Guest credit card from American Express Review</h1> <div style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="amex-spg-business" src="http://yeahthatskosher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/amex-spg-business-300x173.png" width="300" height="173" data-lazy-type="image" data-lazy-src="http://yeahthatskosher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/amex-spg-business-300x173.png" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Disappointing rewards took forever to accumulate.</p></div> <p><strong></strong>It sucks. There’s no sugar-coating it: the <strong>rewards are disappointing and limited. </strong>The rewards<em> are the whole point of getting the SPG AmEx card</em>. There is <strong>no other advantage</strong> unique to this card – all other perks can be found elsewhere.</p> <p>After three years of commitment to this card it’s pretty disappointing to find that my 94,000 Starpoints aren’t good for anything I actually want to buy. It’s all awkwardly timed flights, expensive hotels, and gift cards to stores I don’t shop at.</p> <p><strong>So we’re giving SPG AmEx the big middle finger this month, and I wrote this review in honor of its eviction from my wallet.</strong> We’ll be switching to the <a href="https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards">Fidelity Investment Rewards</a> card (read more about our new Fidelity card at the end of this review).</p> <p>Here’s why we’re switching from the SPG AmEx to the Fidelity Investment Rewards AmEx:</p> <h2><strong>Poor flight redemption options</strong></h2> <p><strong>SPG’s flight redemption options are a mixed bag.</strong> I’ve tried to use points to book trips a few times in the last three years, but the flights offered all sucked for some reason or another. Poor departure times and stops in other cities are common.</p> <blockquote><p>I don’t travel often, but when I do, I <em>don’t stop in LA on my way to Chicago.</em></p></blockquote> <p>At Starwood’s points:miles conversion rate, <strong>we can get 2 “free” round-trip flights every 3 years</strong>. Flying from Seattle to Chicago costs somewhere between 25,000 and 45,000 Starpoints (depending on which airline I select). Let’s say I fly Alaska Airlines, which is the cheapest non-stop available at 30,000 points. To fly me and my husband to Chicago on points alone would require 60k points –<strong> two-thirds of what we accumulated in three years. </strong></p> <p>That’s a <em>lot</em> of spending for <em>one</em> measly flight each.</p> <h2><strong>Pricey luxury hotels = !savings</strong></h2> <p>The hotels offered by SPG are by and large a huge disappointment. They’re expensive, they’re in cities, and they’re not where I would normally stay.</p> <p><strong>Maybe this one’s my fault:</strong> maybe I should have known that SPG only deals in high-end hotels? I was all excited to book some hotels using points on our <a href="/2012/our-west-coast-road-trip-seattle-to-san-francisco-and-back-part-1/">West Coast Road Trip</a>, but there weren’t any SPG hotels in the little towns we stopped in!</p> <ul> <li><strong>“Fifth night free” doesn’t cut it with me. </strong>In eight years of traveling for vacations, the only time I’ve stayed at one hotel for more than one night was when I went to Disney (and there aren’t any Disney-owned properties in SPG’s hotel offerings).</li> <li><strong>Using points to get 50% off the rack rate of a luxury hotel doesn’t save me money.</strong> It still costs more than staying at a budget hotel!</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Gift card redemption options are lacking</strong></h2> <p>Let’s say you decide to cash in your Starpoints for a gift card to a retailer. Not only do gift cards get the worst Starpoint to dollar conversion rate, the merchants available are almost exclusively high-end retailers. There isn’t much for high level frugalists like me in here – no Home Depot, Safeway, Target – so <strong>forget about using your rewards for everyday necessities.</strong></p> <p><strong>Starpoints conversion rate: </strong></p> <ul> <li>$25 card = 2800 Starpoints</li> <li>$50 card = 5000 Starpoints</li> <li>$100 card = 9500 Starpoints</li> <li>$150 card = 14,000 Starpoints</li> </ul> <p><strong>You can get a gift card to these retailers:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.bananarepublic.com/">Banana Republic</a></li> <li>Blisscertificates (I have no idea who this retailer is)</li> <li><a href="http://www.brookstone.com/">Brookstone</a></li> <li>Chateau Ste. Michelle</li> <li>Conde Nast Publications</li> <li><a href="http://www.gap.com/">GAP</a></li> <li>MPI (I couldn’t identify this retailer)</li> <li><a href="http://shop.nordstrom.com/">Nordstrom</a></li> <li>PCMA (I couldn’t identify this retailer)</li> <li><a href="http://www.potterybarn.com/">Pottery Barn</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.starbucks.com/">Starbucks</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.williams-sonoma.com/">Williams-Sonoma</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a></li> </ul> <p><strong>SPG’s gift card options are almost exclusively high-end yuppie retailers</strong>. I don’t shop at these places. Going out of my way to shop at these retailers isn’t “saving money”, it’s spending money I wasn’t going to spend in the first place.</p> <div id="attachment_3009" style="width: 432px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/copper_cookware_williams_sonoma1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3009" class=" wp-image-3009" alt="copper_cookware_williams_sonoma" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/copper_cookware_williams_sonoma1.jpg" width="422" height="245" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/copper_cookware_williams_sonoma1.jpg 703w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/02/copper_cookware_williams_sonoma1-300x174.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 422px) 100vw, 422px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3009" class="wp-caption-text">3years of points hoarding and I’m <em>only halfway</em> to this $2,000 Williams-Sonoma cookware set. (Now I know why I don’t shop at Williams-Sonoma.)</p></div> <p>The only retailer on this list that I do shop at is Amazon.com, so that’s where my Starpoints went – into a pile of Amazon.com gift cards, at a poor conversion rate. That’s pretty disappointing.</p> <h2><strong>The gift cards get left on your porch!</strong></h2> <p>I cashed in a bunch of my StarPoints and waited a few weeks for them to arrive. Why can’t the SPG gift cards be awarded digitally?</p> <p>The physical cards come in a slim FedEx envelope, which has to be signed for. Do most people with this card have a butler attending to deliveries? Because I don’t. I’m at <strong>work</strong>, earning the money I spend on this card.</p> <p>So I signed the FedEx form and took the gamble of leaving the gift cards out on my porch all day because the alternative is driving 45 minutes out of my way to Issaquah during business hours to pick the cards up at the FedEx distribution point.</p> <p>Hey, SPG – get with the times! <strong>I don’t want hundreds of dollars in gift cards sitting on my front porch, and I don’t want to drive 30 miles out of my way to pick them up, either!</strong></p> <h2>Starpoints Are Just Really F***ing Confusing</h2> <p>Starpoints, miles system, etc are all built to <em>confuse</em> people. When money is abstracted into “points” and “miles”, people can’t rely their sense of what things are worth. Classic example: why does it take 25,000 miles to fly from Seattle to Chicago? That’s more than the distance around the EQUATOR!</p> <p>The upsells to buy more points are everywhere. If the points I have are already borderline useless to me, <strong>why would I want to turn more perfectly good real money into more Starpoints “play money”!?</strong></p> <p>Good riddance, Starwood.</p> <h1>New “Everything” Card: Fidelity Investment Rewards</h1> <div id="attachment_2998" style="width: 246px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/fidelity_american_express_investment_rewards.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2998" class=" wp-image-2998 " alt="fidelity_american_express_investment_rewards" src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/fidelity_american_express_investment_rewards.jpg" width="236" height="151" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/fidelity_american_express_investment_rewards.jpg 337w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/02/fidelity_american_express_investment_rewards-300x191.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2998" class="wp-caption-text">Our new “everything” credit card: the <a href="https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards">Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express</a> card</p></div> <p>The <a href="https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards">Fidelity American Express rewards card</a> will be our new card henceforth.</p> <p>This card’s premise is simple: spend money as usual, and Fidelity gives you a whopping 2% cash back in the form of a deposit directly into your Fidelity investment account. You don’t even have to do anything once you’ve set your account up. If you spend 2,000 on your credit card, you’ll get $40.</p> <p>I like getting money for doing <em>nothing</em>, don’t you?</p> <p><strong>Behold the Fidelity card’s badassery:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>No</strong> <strong>ever-changing categories</strong> (eat it, Chase Freedom)</li> <li><strong>No confusing redemption options</strong> (take that, SPG AmEx)</li> <li><strong>No annual fee</strong> (SWEET!)</li> <li><strong>Cash back money goes into your investment account!! </strong>There it’ll sit just being awesome, earning more money for you without any effort on your part.</li> <li><strong>You’re free to remove the cash</strong>, too, but I think anything that helps put money into savings and investment accounts is a good thing.</li> </ul> <p>There’s a Visa version of the Fidelity Investment Rewards card, but it only offers 1.5% cash back. We’re going AmEx again and keeping our Chase Freedom as a backup for the one-off places that don’t take AmEx.</p> <p><strong>American Express also offers some built-in consumer protections</strong>, which we like but have never actually used:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Purchase Protection: </strong>If something you just bought gets broken or stolen, if you’re still within the 90 days of your purchase AmEx offers some protection. Coverage is limited up to $1,000 per occurrence, up to $50,000 per cardmember account per calendar year.</li> <li><strong>Extended Warranty: </strong>American Express extends the warranties on things bought with the card, up to a value of $10,000 (not to exceed $50,000 per cardmember account per calendar year). One great example: an iPhone comes with a 1-year warranty. <a href="http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1653175-iPhone-4-Applecare-not-needed-if-bought-with-AMEX">Buying it on AmEx gets your phone covered for two years</a>.</li> <li><strong>Car/Roadside Assistance:</strong> Book your U.S. car rental with American Express and the car is insured in event of accident. (Which is why <a href="/2013/scammed-by-dollar-rent-a-car/">we decline coverage at the rental car desk</a>.)</li> </ol> <p>So that’s our new credit card – the Fidelity Investment Rewards card. I’ll update later this year and let you know how it’s going.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>/2014/starwood-preferred-guest-credit-card-from-american-express-review/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>12 Home Luxuries that are Totally Worth the Money</title> <link>/2014/12-home-luxuries-that-are-totally-worth-the-money/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jan 2014 08:00:25 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2787</guid> <description><![CDATA[When I buy something nice, I cross my fingers and hope that it’s not actually a waste of money. After all, a lot of luxury goods are just fluff whose magic wears off after they’ve been around a while. Being frugal doesn’t mean living a bare-bones existence. Instead, it’s all about spending money where it […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_2837" style="width: 349px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2837" class="size-full wp-image-2837 " alt="12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it.jpg" width="339" height="525" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it.jpg 339w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it-193x300.jpg 193w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/12_home_luxuries_totally_worth_it-185x286.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 339px) 100vw, 339px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2837" class="wp-caption-text">Don’t waste your money on a gaudy throne – get a <strong>nice mattress</strong> and a <strong>quiet computer case</strong> instead!</p></div> <p>When I buy something nice, I cross my fingers and hope that it’s not actually a waste of money. After all, a lot of luxury goods are just fluff whose magic wears off after they’ve been around a while.</p> <p>Being frugal doesn’t mean living a bare-bones existence. Instead, it’s all about spending money <em>where it counts</em>.</p> <p>So where does it count? Which luxuries are worth the cost?</p> <p>I took stock of everything I own and figured out which things I’ve bought were worth the money spent. Here are <strong>12 home luxuries that are totally worth the money</strong>.</p> <h1>1. Artwork for your walls</h1> <p>You’re an adult now –<strong> time to get some classy art for your walls</strong>! Hanging up artwork that represents your own taste is pretty awesome, and art on the walls does wonders for a space.</p> <p>I’ve had poor luck finding original artwork that both adore <em>and</em> can afford, but there’s a decent selection to be found at home decor shops (even Bed Bath and Beyond supplied a few nice pieces around our abode). Look for art that comes on an actual canvas (probably printed with some embellishments made by hand), preferably with some metal hooks on the frame to assist with hanging.</p> <div id="attachment_2834" style="width: 219px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/real_artwork.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2834" class="wp-image-2834 " alt="real_artwork" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/real_artwork.jpg" width="209" height="299" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/real_artwork.jpg 349w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/real_artwork-209x300.jpg 209w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/real_artwork-185x264.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2834" class="wp-caption-text">Art transforms even blah spaces. Have fun choosing!</p></div> <p><strong>The only downside to art? </strong>Pick carefully – there’s virtually no resale value in anything aimed at the mass market, and even inexpensive printed canvases are usually $100+ at home decor shops. Amazing pieces are closer to $300+, even when they’re just prints.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget: </strong>Shop sales and end-of-season clearance at stores like Bed Bath and Beyond and Fred Meyer. I found some of my favorite artworks at these two stores!</p> <h1>2. Thermal drapery liners</h1> <div id="attachment_2850" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2850" class=" wp-image-2850 " alt="eclipse_thermal_liner" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner.jpg" width="225" height="208" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner.jpg 375w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner-300x277.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2850" class="wp-caption-text">Action shot of my bedroom’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LE88FM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002LE88FM&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Eclipse thermal liners</a>.</p></div> <p>Keep heat <em>out</em> in the summer and <em>in</em> in the winter with a set of heavy-duty thermal liners for your existing drapes. Your room will stay dark, even in broad daylight – great for sleeping late in July or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPfMb50dsOk">napping in the middle of a summer afternoon</a>. Just hook them onto the backs of your existing drapes and enjoy! <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LE88FM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002LE88FM&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" rel="nofollow"" target="_blank">Eclipse Thermal Liners</a> the the ones I’ve used in a couple homes and apartments now, and they’ve held up well.</p> <p><strong>The only downside to thermal liners?</strong> They’re a bit heavy, so if your existing drapes are light and wispy they won’t be able to support the weight. Consider full-on thermal drapes instead.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Get them for your bedroom first, the rest of the house can wait (or doesn’t need them at all, depending on your climate).</p> <h1>3. Great big plushy mattress</h1> <p><strong>You spend 30% of every day on your mattress</strong>, so make it great!</p> <p>You don’t need to splash out on an adjustable $5000+ mattress, a pillow-top can get the job done for around $2000.</p> <div id="attachment_2822" style="width: 242px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/beautyrest_simmons_pillow_top.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2822" class="wp-image-2822 " alt="Home luxuries that are totally worth the the money good mattress" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/beautyrest_simmons_pillow_top.jpg" width="232" height="188" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/beautyrest_simmons_pillow_top.jpg 644w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/beautyrest_simmons_pillow_top-300x244.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/beautyrest_simmons_pillow_top-185x150.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2822" class="wp-caption-text">Factory photo of the same mattress I have, a <a href="http://www.simmons.com/">Simmons Beautyrest</a>. So cozy, I just melt right into it.</p></div> <p>Oh, and go big – did you know that sharing a queen size bed with someone else gives you about as much space as sleeping on a twin? My king size bed was worth every penny! I sleep like a sleeping rock.</p> <p><strong>The only downside to a great mattress? </strong>No other mattress will be good enough for you. You’ll be ruined by your luxurious mattress.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Forego fancy headboards and nightstands if it means you can afford a better mattress. We still don’t have a headboard, but our mattress is <em>amazing</em>.</p> <h1>4. High thread-count sheets</h1> <div id="attachment_2821" style="width: 157px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2821" class=" wp-image-2821 " alt="high_thread_count_fieldcrest" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest.jpg" width="147" height="147" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest-185x185.jpg 185w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/high_thread_count_fieldcrest-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 147px) 100vw, 147px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2821" class="wp-caption-text">High thread-count sheets are super luxurious – and not as expensive as you might fear.</p></div> <p>If you’re still sleeping on junky 150 threadcount sheets, it’s time to stop that nonsense right now and get a decent set of sheets. You’ll wonder how you ever slept in anything less.</p> <p>The set I like to recommend is <strong>Fieldcrest Luxury damask sheet set, 450 threadcount 100% cotton</strong>. These sheets come in a bunch of colors and, if you find them on clearance, cost as little as $35 at your <a href="http://www.target.com/" target="_blank">local Target</a>. (They’re normally $70 for a king set, which is still way less than those highfalutin mall stores want for their sheets. I bought expensive $150 set of bamboo sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond once – and they were <em>crap</em>! Wrinkled and baggy!</p> <p>By contrast, my Fieldcrest sheets from 2007 <strong>survived six years</strong> of daily and weekly washes before they started to wear thin. To replace them, I bought another set of Fieldcrest sheets, this time at 500 threadcount. They are like sleeping in a pillow of dreams.</p> <p>If you’d rather shop online, check out these well-reviewed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NY6OVC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000NY6OVC&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Pinzon Hemstitch 400 thread-count cotton sheets</a> on Amazon.com. The biggest problems with sheets tend to be wrinkles and pills, and reviewers say these sheets are prone to neither.</p> <p><strong>The only downside to awesome sheets? </strong>They make it hard to leave the bed.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Look for clearance sales, both in brick and mortar stores and online, especially if you aren’t in a hurry to replace your current sheets.</p> <h1>5. Amazon Prime membership</h1> <p>Amazon sells everything and at great prices, so if you love to shop online you’ll enjoy Amazon Prime! You can even try before you buy: <strong>the first 30 days of Amazon Prime are completely free</strong>.</p> <p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/signup/videos?tag=leveluphouse-20" rel="nofollow"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2825" alt="Amazon Prime membership goodies" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prime_member.jpg" width="625" height="310" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prime_member.jpg 625w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prime_member-300x148.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prime_member-185x91.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>The benefits are great:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Free 2-day shipping</strong> on loads of stuff</li> <li><strong>Access to Amazon video streaming </strong>(and Amazon’s upping their movie and TV game, getting exclusive access to more shows)</li> <li><strong>Book borrowing with Kindle</strong></li> </ul> <p><strong>The only downside to Amazon Prime? </strong>You’ll start buying <em>everything</em> through Amazon!</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> If you buy a lot of heavy things, Amazon prime can pay for itself pretty quickly. The free shipping adds up over the course of the year, too. If you make one purchase a month and it costs $5 to ship each purchase, you’re at $60 – almost at the cost of a Prime membership.</p> <h1>6. Smart thermostat</h1> <div id="attachment_2788" style="width: 247px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLZEQH2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLZEQH2&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" rel="nofollow"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2788" class=" wp-image-2788 " alt="honeywell_wifi_smart_thermostat_review" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/honeywell_wifi_smart_thermostat_review.jpg" width="237" height="194" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/honeywell_wifi_smart_thermostat_review.jpg 296w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/honeywell_wifi_smart_thermostat_review-185x151.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2788" class="wp-caption-text"><strong>Smart thermostats:</strong> living in the future is <em>awesome! </em>Thermostat pictured is the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLZEQH2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FLZEQH2&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat</a>.</p></div> <p>A smart thermostat makes heating and cooling your house a no-brainer by learning your preferences and nudging you towards energy efficiency. Depending on how lazy you were about adjusting your heating temperature, you could save a fortune with a smart thermostat. <strong> </strong>Also: it looks <em>really cool.</em></p> <p>The highest rated smart thermostats are the <a href="http://smartthermostatguide.com/nest-learning-thermostat-review/">Nest Learning Thermostat</a> and the <a href="http://smartthermostatguide.com/honeywell-wi-fi-smart-thermostat-rth9580-review/">Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat</a>.</p> <p><strong><strong>The only downside to a smart thermostat?</strong></strong> You might spend a lot of time geeking out over <em>a thermostat</em>.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Smart thermos are pricey – $200-250 a piece, but a good chunk of the cost might be offset by savings in your heating bill.</p> <h1>7. Space heater</h1> <div id="attachment_2827" style="width: 161px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TKDQ5C/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000TKDQ5C&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" rel="nofollow"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2827" class="wp-image-2827 " alt="lasko_space_heater" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater.jpg" width="151" height="151" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater.jpg 1000w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater-185x185.jpg 185w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 151px) 100vw, 151px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2827" class="wp-caption-text">Warm <em>just the room you’re in</em> for big savings.</p></div> <p>I like being warm, but I don’t like high heating bills. With a space heater, you can have it both ways! It’s much cheaper to keep your house cool and shut yourself into one room and heat it up with a space heater.</p> <p><strong><strong>The only downside to a space heater?</strong></strong> None, space heaters are<em> awesome</em>. Modern models come with temperature regulation, auto-shut off, and safety features that kick in if the heater gets knocked over.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Most decent space heaters will run you just $40-60. Depending on your climate, a space heater can pay for itself in a matter of months as you run your furnace less.</p> <h1>8. Powerful toilet</h1> <div style="width: 146px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/american_standard_super_flusher.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" " alt="Home luxuries that are totally worth the money a good toilet American Standard Cadet" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/american_standard_super_flusher.jpg" width="136" height="179" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">The American Standard Cadet’s slogan should be, “Go ahead, do your worst”.</p></div> <p>It’s an incredible luxury, to just <strong>flush and forget</strong>!</p> <p>When you flush, is your plunger already in hand <em>just in case</em>? It doesn’t have to be that way! Replacing a toilet is easy and <a href="/2013/05/diy-toilet-replacement/">takes about two hours start to finish</a>. Toilets are heavy, but they come in two pieces so as long as you can lift 40 lbs, you can probably replace a toilet yourself.</p> <p>As long as we’re talking about toilets, a heated toilet seat is another luxury well worth the price of admission. Just get one, you’ll see.</p> <p><strong>The only downside to an awesome toilet?</strong> Disposing of the old one can be tricky.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Toilets are cheaper than you might think. I installed a $140 <a href="http://www.homedepot.com/p/American-Standard-Cadet-3-FloWise-2-Piece-Complete-No-Tools-1-28-GPF-High-Efficiency-Round-Front-Toilet-in-White-2880128ST-020/202963992?N=bzbdZ5aZ1z0vm5f#specifications" rel="nofollow">American Standard Cadet</a> just one year ago and it’s a <em>beast</em>. <strong>Worth every cent!</strong></p> <h1>9. Quiet computer case</h1> <div id="attachment_2790" style="width: 147px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QAVVAM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000QAVVAM&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2790" class=" wp-image-2790 " alt="antec_sonata_quietest_computer_case" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/antec_sonata_quietest_computer_case.jpg" width="137" height="180" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/antec_sonata_quietest_computer_case.jpg 381w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/antec_sonata_quietest_computer_case-228x300.jpg 228w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/antec_sonata_quietest_computer_case-185x242.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 137px) 100vw, 137px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2790" class="wp-caption-text">What’s that sound? It’s the sound of a QUIET COMPUTER!</p></div> <p>No more noisy computers! I’ve built/maintained a lot of computers, and the <a href="http://store.antec.com/Product/enclosure-sonata_family/sonata-iii-500/0-761345-15137-5.aspx" target="_blank">Antec Sonata</a> is the <em>only</em> case I recommend.</p> <ul> <li><strong>Dead quiet</strong> – Is it even on? You’ll have to <em>touch it</em> to know.</li> <li><strong>Easy to open/close the side panel</strong> – It even has a lock feature.</li> <li><strong>Quiet EarthWatts 500W supply included </strong></li> <li><strong>Removable/washable air filter</strong> – Much easier than trying to stuff the vacuum nozzle into the case</li> <li><strong>Gummy silicone grommets</strong> to cushion and dampen your internal drives.</li> <li><strong>Four hard drive bays, three external bays (CD drives)</strong></li> <li><strong>Front-panel USB</strong> – Because the’s the 2000’s, man.</li> </ul> <p><strong><strong>The only downside to a quiet case?</strong></strong> You might forget your PC is on.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> It’s a good $50 more than junkier cases, but it’ll last you forever. Jim’s Sonata is on its third set of “guts”, mine’s on its second.</p> <h1>10. Uninterrupted power supply</h1> <div id="attachment_2817" style="width: 132px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000QZ3UG0&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2817" class=" wp-image-2817 " alt="cyberpower_powersupply" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/cyberpower_powersupply.jpg" width="122" height="187" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2817" class="wp-caption-text">I own two of these <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000QZ3UG0&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20">CyberPower UPS mini-towers</a>.</p></div> <p>Why didn’t I get one of these a decade ago?! Oh, that’s right – <em>I didn’t even know uninterrupted power supplies were a thing</em>.</p> <p>An uninterrupted power supply is <strong>basically a huge battery</strong> that keeps your computer going through <strong>power dips and outages</strong>. I hear mine click every so often, usually whenever the lights flicker, – and I think, <em>There’s another sudden restart that didn’t happen</em>.</p> <p>Even if the power goes completely out and stays out, the battery gives me a good 10 minutes to finish what I was doing and shut down properly. For maximum benefit, just put the essentials on the battery – the main computer, your monitor(s). Everything else (printer, scanner, speakers) can just go dark when the power goes out.</p> <p><strong><strong>The only downside to a UPS?</strong></strong> It beeps when the power goes out in the middle of the night. You’ll have to get up and silence it.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> Don’t buy more battery than you need – UPS models come in a range of sizes, and the price goes up as the battery gets bigger. Get one that’s a bit more powerful than your power supply and you should be good to go.</p> <h1>11. Heated car seats (or blanket)</h1> <p>Take it from a Midwesterner – if you’re choosing between two otherwise equal vehicles, <em>you want the one with heated seats</em>. What was once a luxury car feature has trickled down into the mainstream as more and more consumers demand this awesome feature in their cars. The seats heat up quickly and winter becomes just a <em>little bit</em> nicer.</p> <p><strong>The only downside to getting heated seats?</strong> Requires you to buy a car.</p> <p><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong> No new car on the horizon? That’s okay, just toss a fleece throw blanket over your lap and legs. It’s almost as good as a heated seat, and you get to feel <em>stylish as all get out</em>. My car blanket <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006SR33LW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B006SR33LW&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">looks kinda like this</a>.</p> <div id="attachment_2818" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/car_blanket.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2818" class="wp-image-2818 " alt="use a car blanket" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/car_blanket.jpg" width="250" height="333" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/car_blanket.jpg 250w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/car_blanket-225x300.jpg 225w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/car_blanket-185x246.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2818" class="wp-caption-text">Winter? What winter? I feel like <strong>royalty</strong> riding around in my butt-toasting seat and blanket.</p></div> <h1>12. Dual shower head</h1> <div id="attachment_2795" style="width: 188px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dual_shower_head.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2795" class=" wp-image-2795 " alt="home luxuries that are totally worth the money dual shower head affordable luxury" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dual_shower_head.jpg" width="178" height="240" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dual_shower_head.jpg 370w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dual_shower_head-222x300.jpg 222w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dual_shower_head-185x250.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 178px) 100vw, 178px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2795" class="wp-caption-text">Dual shower heads = you won’t want to leave the shower.</p></div> <p>A dual shower head is a cheap way to live in luxury – for under a hundred bucks you too can shower in a <em>warm gentle rainfall</em> – or pounding hail, there’s a bunch of flow settings! Showering with water on your head and back at the same time is <em>amazing</em>.</p> <p>The water flow can be turned off to either head, making it possible to just the detaching head by itself. I use the detachable head to wash large things in the tub (these are great for dogs) and to quickly wash the shower walls themselves.</p> <p><strong><strong>The only downside to a dual shower head?</strong></strong> The shower’s soooo nice, you won’t want to get out.</p> <p><strong><strong>Fitting it into your budget:</strong></strong> Mine was just $70, this luxury is totally within reach!</p> <h1>13. *Bonus* Good TP</h1> <p>You’re worth it!</p> <p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-2828" alt="quilted_northern" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern.jpg" width="280" height="280" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern.jpg 400w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern-185x185.jpg 185w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/quilted_northern-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px" /></a></p> <h1>More Luxurious Upgrades</h1> <ol> <li><a href="http://ask.metafilter.com/108283/Upgrade-Me" target="_blank">Upgrade Me</a> (Ask MetaFilter)</li> <li><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/life-changing-things-that-are-worth-every-penny" target="_blank">30 Life-Changing Things that are Worth Every Penny</a> (BuzzFeed)</li> <li><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1cufcf/" target="_blank">What luxury item is actually worth the money?</a> (Reddit)</li> </ol> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Dollar Rent a Car Refund: How I got my money back</title> <link>/2014/dollar-rent-a-car-refund/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:00:02 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2583</guid> <description><![CDATA[Were you scammed by Dollar Rent a Car or its twin, Thrifty Car Rental? Don’t panic – there might be hope for getting a refund! I got a refund for $224 after I complained on Twitter. Seriously. (You can read about how I was scammed by Dollar Rent a Car here.) Get on Twitter I got my refund […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p dir="ltr">Were you scammed by Dollar Rent a Car or its twin, Thrifty Car Rental?</p> <p dir="ltr">Don’t panic – there might be hope for getting a refund! I got a refund for $224 after I complained on <em>Twitter</em>. <strong>Seriously.</strong> (You can <a href="/2013/12/scammed-by-dollar-rent-a-car/">read about how I was scammed by Dollar Rent a Car here</a>.)</p> <div id="attachment_2665" style="width: 544px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dollar_refund_granted1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2665" class="size-full wp-image-2665 " alt="dollar_refund_granted" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dollar_refund_granted1.jpg" width="534" height="414" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dollar_refund_granted1.jpg 534w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dollar_refund_granted1-300x232.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dollar_refund_granted1-185x143.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 534px) 100vw, 534px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2665" class="wp-caption-text">My Dollar Rent a Car refund. I only got anywhere with this company once I complained on Twitter.</p></div> <h1 dir="ltr">Get on Twitter</h1> <p dir="ltr"><strong>I got my refund by complaining to Dollar Rent a Car’s Twitter account, <a href="https://twitter.com/DollarCars">@DollarCars</a></strong></p> <p dir="ltr">I didn’t try Twitter until I had exhausted the traditional avenues of complaint. I’m not a big Twitter person, in fact, I think my Dollar Rent a Car complaints constitute the bulk of my tweets. In-person help and the 800 number were useless, and my credit card couldn’t undo the charge. Twitter is your best chance at a refund from Dollar Rent a Car.</p> <ol> <li>Create a Twitter account if you don’t have one already</li> <li>Go to <a href="https://twitter.com/DollarCars">https://twitter.com/DollarCars</a></li> <li>Author a tweet of your own, <strong>beginning with @DollarCars</strong> and explain what happened. Like this:</li> </ol> <blockquote> <p dir="ltr">@DollarCars I was charged $XYZ for add-on(s) I did not accept on date/place/time.</p> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Send as many as you like, but they don’t seem to monitor or respond on weekends, so keep tweeting on weekdays until you get a response asking for your Rental Authorization number.</p> <h1 dir="ltr">Be Nice</h1> <p dir="ltr">Remember, you’re an innocent victim even though you’re probably <strong>very </strong>angry. You were just ripped off for hundreds of dollars for coverages you didn’t agree to and the smug asswipe at the airport desk refuses do a thing about it. Even better, your flight’s leaving in an hour.</p> <p dir="ltr">I really wanted to spew a bunch of expletives at this company, but I kept my complaints factual and “safe for work” so that the issue was clearly Dollar’s rip off, not my own psycho craziness.</p> <h1 dir="ltr">Dollar Refunds: What Doesn’t Work</h1> <p dir="ltr"><strong>The desk agent</strong> in the airport probably won’t give a damn about you or your complaint. The guy I got sassed me and blamed me for being the victim. When I complained about being scammed, all he could offer was <em>“If that’s how you want to look at it.”</em></p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>The Customer Service number </strong>(800-800-5252) is equally useless. The best I got out of them was an offer for a $30 discount on my next Dollar rental (upped to $50 when I refused). I refused the $50 offer as well, because <strong>1) it’s insulting and stupid</strong> and <strong>2) it might have invalidated my eligibility for a full refund</strong> if my complaint was marked as “resolved”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Besides, I’m never renting from Dollar again, so what good is $50 in Dollar Rent a Car money? It doesn’t even cover a full day’s rental once Dollar’s added its overcharges onto the bill!</p> <h1 dir="ltr">Still Mad? More Places to Complain</h1> <p dir="ltr">Are you a pissed off customer? I got a refund, but I very easily could not have. I think most people ripped off by Dollar won’t jump through these hoops to get a refund. Here’s a few good places to tell your story and warn others about this unethical company:</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Consumer Affairs</h2> <p dir="ltr">Consumer Affairs is a popular place to complain about lousy companies. Add your grievances about Dollar here: <a href="http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/dollar.htm">http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/dollar.htm</a></p> <h2 dir="ltr">Yelp</h2> <p dir="ltr"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dollar_complain_on_Yelp.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2589" alt="dollar_complain_on_Yelp" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dollar_complain_on_Yelp.jpg" width="580" height="52" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dollar_complain_on_Yelp.jpg 580w, /wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dollar_complain_on_Yelp-300x26.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dollar_complain_on_Yelp-185x16.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px" /></a></p> <p dir="ltr">You’ll have to create an account first, but once you’ve got one just put in the city where you were ripped off and tell everyone what happened.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Facebook</h2> <p dir="ltr">Angry victims of Dollar’s scam have formed a Facebook group, “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/DollarThrifty-Rent-A-Car-Overcharges/351444571571702" target="_blank">Dollar/Thrifty Rent a Car Overcharges</a>“. Complaining here doesn’t get you a refund, but it does get the word out to people who follow you on Facebook.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>50 Ways to Feel Warmer in Your Freezing Cold House (Without Cranking up the Heat)</title> <link>/2014/50-ways-to-feel-warmer-in-your-freezing-cold-house/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Jan 2014 14:00:55 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Home Improvement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Saving Money]]></category> <category><![CDATA[energy savings]]></category> <category><![CDATA[heating]]></category> <category><![CDATA[saving money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2726</guid> <description><![CDATA[I love winter, but everyone around me thinks I’m nuts. Do I know the divine secret to keeping warm all winter? Maybe! The over-arching theme to all of these tips is to focus your efforts on keeping heat in your house and warming yourself, not your entire house. Here are 50 ways to feel warmer […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-3035 aligncenter" alt="Winter's here, but it doesn't have to feel that way. Make your FREEZING COLD house way more enjoyable with these heat-saving bill-slashing tips." src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips.jpg" width="400" height="400" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips.jpg 500w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/50_ways_feel_warmer_in_your_freezing_cold_house_winter_warmth_tips-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a></p> <p>I love winter, but everyone around me thinks I’m <strong>nuts</strong>. Do I know the divine secret to keeping warm all winter? Maybe!</p> <blockquote><p>The over-arching theme to all of these tips is to focus your efforts on <strong>keeping heat in your house</strong> and <strong>warming yourself, not your entire house.</strong></p></blockquote> <p><strong>Here are 50 ways to feel warmer in your freezing cold house</strong> – without spending a fortune. (In fact, most of these tips should <strong>save</strong> you money in the long haul.)</p> <p><strong>LET’S GET WARM!!! </strong></p> <h1>20 Free Fixes</h1> <p>Free ways to be warmer?! <em>Sign me up!</em> Even better, some of these tips can save you more than new windows or appliance upgrades ever will!</p> <h3><strong>1. Lower the thermostat</strong></h3> <p>Sure, every “how to save on heating” list starts with this one, but what does it <em>mean</em>? <strong>It means if you normally keep your heat at 72 F, drop it to 66 instead. You’ll survive.</strong> Heated air is expensive and it likes to escape, so the <em>best</em> thing you can do is to not produce it in the first place.</p> <p><strong>The rest of the tips on this page will help you live with the lower temp.</strong></p> <h3><strong>2. Bundle your butt up</strong></h3> <p>Double up on socks, get some nice thick slippers, wear a hoodie over a short-sleeve shirt over a long-sleeve shirt. <strong>Shirts within shirts, folks, that’s the secret!</strong> You get a choice: be bulky or have a bulky heating bill. The first time I got slapped with a $400 bill for the luxury of wearing a T-shirt in January was the last time <em>that</em> happened.</p> <div style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/chihuahua_scarf.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Level Up House: 50 ways to keep warm in your freezing cold house! Tip #2: BUNDLE UP!" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/chihuahua_scarf.jpg" width="530" height="300" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/marktee/" target="_blank">Mark Turnauckas</a></p></div> <h3><strong>3. Close your chimney flue</strong></h3> <p>Is it closed all the way? Our flue is stupid and likes to open itself on its own. Leaving a window or a chimney flue open is like opening your wallet and letting dollar bills flutter out.</p> <h3><strong>4. Lock your windows</strong></h3> <p><strong>Locking windows makes the seal a bit tighter.</strong> Oh, and duh – <strong>don’t leave windows open.</strong> If you do open a window to get some fresh air, shut the door to the rest of the house.</p> <h3><strong>5. Keep outside doors tightly shut</strong></h3> <p>Even if you’re stepping outside for just a few minutes,<strong> pull that door all the way closed.</strong></p> <h3><strong>6. Minimize use of your kitchen and bathroom fans</strong>.</h3> <p>Kitchen and bathroom fans pull lovely heated air out of your home and into the outdoors. (Wallet, fluttering bills…)</p> <h3><strong>7. Wrap yourself in a blanket.</strong></h3> <p>Be a human burrito. It’s winter, no one will judge. <strong>If they do, give them a good kick. Kicking warms you up!</strong></p> <div id="attachment_3043" style="width: 397px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/human_burrito.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3043" class=" wp-image-3043" alt="human_burrito" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/human_burrito.jpg" width="387" height="443" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/human_burrito.jpg 484w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/human_burrito-262x300.jpg 262w" sizes="(max-width: 387px) 100vw, 387px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3043" class="wp-caption-text">You should see her sexy heating bill!</p></div> <h3><strong>8. Rob a bank</strong></h3> <p>Or just <em>pretend</em> you’re going to rob a bank by <strong>pulling up the hood on a hoodie.</strong> It’ll trap heat and keep you warmer. Bank robbers might suck at being kind to society, but they do save a bit of cash on not having to keep the house so warm.</p> <h3><strong>9. Drop and give me 20! </strong></h3> <p>Pushups or jumping jacks will warm you right up – and help negate the effects of tip #14.</p> <h3><strong>10. Move furniture away from vents</strong></h3> <p>If you’ve got any furniture over or near your heat source, it’s probably soaking up that heat instead of letting it float around the room. Try re-arranging your furniture, if feasible, to work better with the heating vents.</p> <h3><strong>11. Open drapes during the day, close ’em at night</strong></h3> <p>If your summers are hot, you’re probably in the habit of covering your windows to try to keep the rooms a bit cooler. The same principle works in reverse for heating a room: open your drapes and blinds during the day to let heat in, then close ’em up at sunset to keep that heat in.</p> <h3><strong>12. Block door drafts</strong></h3> <p>My first apartment’s doors were the first in the hallway to the outside, so anytime someone came in from outside I’d get a <em>whoosh</em> of icy air under my own door. I wised up and <strong>stuck a rolled-up towel at the base of each door</strong>. Instant improvement! <strong> </strong></p> <p><strong>If you’re crafty, Not Martha shows readers how to make a pretty <a href="http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2006/03/01/114123374401718192/" target="_blank">DIY door draft stopper</a>. </strong>And if you’re not crafty, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00078ZJPG/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00078ZJPG&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20">there’s always something like this As-Seen-On-TV Draft Guard</a>.</p> <div id="attachment_3042" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/doordraftstopper_350.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3042" class="size-full wp-image-3042" alt="doordraftstopper_350" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/doordraftstopper_350.jpg" width="350" height="401" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/doordraftstopper_350.jpg 350w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/doordraftstopper_350-261x300.jpg 261w" sizes="(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3042" class="wp-caption-text">DIY draft stopper by <a href="http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2006/03/01/114123374401718192/">Not Martha</a></p></div> <h3><strong>13. Take a walk outside</strong></h3> <p>Counter-intuitive, maybe, but a brisk walk in the freezing weather outside warms me up and gives me a new appreciation for the inside temperature.</p> <h3><strong>14. Eat (or drink) something warm</strong></h3> <p>Warm food makes cold temps more tolerable. Food in general kicks up your metabolism, too, so dig in. <strong> That’s what I tell myself as I polish off the last of the Christmas cookies.</strong></p> <div id="attachment_3041" style="width: 398px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/warm_up_with_cookies.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3041" class=" wp-image-3041" alt="warm_up_with_cookies" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/warm_up_with_cookies.jpg" width="388" height="262" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/warm_up_with_cookies.jpg 647w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/warm_up_with_cookies-300x202.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3041" class="wp-caption-text">Photo credit: <a href="http://www.joyofkosher.com/2012/04/5-foods-that-will-make-your-house-smell-great/">joyofkosher.com</a></p></div> <h3><strong>15. Close the door to unused rooms</strong></h3> <p>If you rarely go into a room, close the door and don’t heat it. Cold air from the unused room won’t mix with the heated spaces. Keeping 1500 sq feet warm instead of 1800 sq feet will save you quite a bit of cash.</p> <h3><strong>16. Raise your door thresholds</strong></h3> <p>If you see daylight under your front door, you’re losing expensive heated air through that crack! <strong>That metal bar you step over when you go through the door can usually be made taller to close the gap. </strong>Turn the screws counterclockwise until the daylight is mostly gone. Don’t make the door harder to open and close, just shrink the gap a bit.</p> <h3><strong>17. Plug gaps around electrical boxes</strong></h3> <p>Remove the cover plate from an electrical outlet – is there a large gap between the drywall and the electrical box? Most hardware stores sell <a href="http://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-Foam-Electrical-Outlet-and-Wall-Plate-Insulating-Kit-OS12H/100184290" target="_blank">little sheets of insulation shaped like the outlet cover</a> itself to stick in here. <em>(PS: Don’t pump caulk or foam into the electrical box, that’s bad advice that sometimes shows up in lists like this).</em></p> <h3><strong>18. Typing gloves!</strong></h3> <p>Don’t heat your whole house just so your tiny fingers can feel warm. <strong>DIY typing gloves:</strong> cut the fingertips off a pair of cheap garden gloves, and you can still use your keyboard, tablet, and phone while your hands stay roasty toasty. Or, get a nice pair of <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/160259807/owl-motive-knit-texting-mitten-with?ref=related-3" target="_blank">handmade typing gloves</a> like these from ElenaLittleCreations on Etsy.</p> <div id="attachment_3045" style="width: 352px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/elenalittlecreations_typinggloves.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3045" class=" wp-image-3045 " alt="50 Ways to Feel Warmer in Your Freezing Cold House: #18 - wear typing gloves!" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/elenalittlecreations_typinggloves.jpg" width="342" height="456" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/elenalittlecreations_typinggloves.jpg 570w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/elenalittlecreations_typinggloves-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 342px) 100vw, 342px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3045" class="wp-caption-text">Typing gloves by <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/160259807/owl-motive-knit-texting-mitten-with?ref=related-3" target="_blank">ElenaLittleCreations</a></p></div> <h3><strong>19. Roast a chicken</strong></h3> <p>Fire up your oven and bake something huge – your whole house will smell great and feel warm and toasty!</p> <div id="attachment_3046" style="width: 374px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/kellers_roast_chicken.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3046" class=" wp-image-3046" alt="kellers_roast_chicken" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/kellers_roast_chicken.jpg" width="364" height="243" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/kellers_roast_chicken.jpg 520w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/kellers_roast_chicken-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3046" class="wp-caption-text">Roasted chicken credit: Elsie Bauer <a href="http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/kellers_roast_chicken/" target="_blank">SimplyRecipes</a></p></div> <h3><strong>20. Snuggle up close to someone</strong></h3> <p>The world needs more snuggling.</p> <h1>20 Cheap Upgrades</h1> <p>Easy upgrades that cost less as little as a few dollars and no more than $250.</p> <h3><strong>21. Get a space heater</strong></h3> <p><strong></strong>Drop the thermostat, corral everyone into one room, and <strong>fire up a space heater for $BIG SAVINGS$</strong>. It’s way cheaper to heat just one room via a space heater than it is to heat the whole house.</p> <p>My family used this space heater trick when I was growing up and I use it in my own place now, and it’s seriously the best. It’s below freezing outside as I write this, but I am toasty warm in my heated computer-room cocoon thanks to the space heater pointed at me.</p> <p>Don’t have a space heater? <a href="http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_384891902_1?ie=UTF8&node=7469342011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=hero-quick-promo&pf_rd_r=16KDM16RFGZQ1HKR435N&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1627864042&pf_rd_i=B002N7O97S" target="_blank">Browse Amazon’s full selection of space heaters to find the right one for you.</a></p> <div id="attachment_3048" style="width: 298px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3048" class="wp-image-3048 " alt="lasko_space_heater" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1.jpg" width="288" height="288" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1.jpg 1000w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lasko_space_heater1-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3048" class="wp-caption-text">Here’s a nice <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TKDQ5C/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000TKDQ5C&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">portable space heater by Lasko</a>. It doesn’t take a huge space heater to make a room cozy.</p></div> <h3><strong>22. Install a smart thermostat</strong></h3> <p>No, not a programmable thermostat, unless you promise to program it and use it as intended (most people don’t). <strong>Read more about the programmable thermostat energy savings myth <a href="http://smartthermostatguide.com/programmable-thermostat-savings-myth/">here</a></strong><strong> and <a href="http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/21/do-programmable-thermostats-really-save-money/">here</a></strong>.</p> <p>Keeping the house the same temperature 24/7 is expensive and wasteful, but many people do it. If you have a programmable thermostat, setting it up to lower the temperature during the work day and during the night <strong>could save you hundreds of dollars over the heating season.</strong></p> <div id="attachment_2736" style="width: 256px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009GDHYPQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009GDHYPQ&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2736" class="wp-image-2736 " alt="make your home warmer in the winter with a learning thermostat" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nest_learning_thermostat.jpg" width="246" height="235" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nest_learning_thermostat.jpg 246w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nest_learning_thermostat-185x176.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 246px) 100vw, 246px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2736" class="wp-caption-text">It’s crazy popular for a reason – the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009GDHYPQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009GDHYPQ&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">Nest thermostat</a> finds the most efficient heating routine for your home with almost no effort on your part.</p></div> <h3><strong>23. Change your furnace filter</strong></h3> <p>A dirty filter makes the furnace work harder, <strong>which increases the cost to run the thing <em>and</em> wears it out faster</strong>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGYrVgFSzV4">This YouTube video</a> shows how simple it is to change a furnace filter. Measure your existing filter before shopping, since they come in lots of sizes. Change the filter every 6-8 weeks, or whenever it looks really dirty, for the duration of the heating season.</p> <p><a href="http://www.homedepot.com/b/Heating-Venting-Cooling-Air-Filters/N-5yc1vZc4kw">Shop for furnace filters of every size at Home Depot</a>.</p> <div id="attachment_3040" style="width: 314px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3040" class="wp-image-3040 " alt="furnace_filters" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters.jpg" width="304" height="304" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters.jpg 380w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/furnace_filters-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 304px) 100vw, 304px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3040" class="wp-caption-text">The humble furnace filter can save you $$$.</p></div> <h3><strong>24. Upgrade your insulation</strong></h3> <p>You know that fluffy pink stuff that itches like hell if you touch it? Stapling it into your garage, attic, and crawlspace or basement is messy and unpleasant but should save you some cash. Even better, a lot of people have a few rolls of it left over from their own insulation, so ask around – I insulated the walls around my first garage door with some leftover insulation from my parents.</p> <h3><strong>25. Wrap your hot water tank</strong></h3> <p>If your hot water tank is in an unheated part of your home, such as your garage, a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009M3BZBY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009M3BZBY&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">water heater insulation blanket</a> might pay for itself very quickly. Many people also report their water is hotter and arrives faster, so there’s that, too.</p> <h3><strong>26. Replace weather stripping</strong></h3> <p>Weather seals compress and wear out over time, making it easier for expensive heated air to escape. ThisOldHouse offers a <a href="http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20152571,00.html" target="_blank">simple guide for replacing your weather seals</a>.</p> <h3><strong>27. Caulk windows and doors</strong></h3> <p>Depending on your window and door style, a thin bead of caulk applied to cracks between the trim and wall might save you some cash.<br /> <iframe loading="lazy" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-8cXoLV_seA?feature=player_detailpage" height="360" width="640" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p> <h3><strong>28. Locate and fix air leaks</strong></h3> <p>Warm air escaping through tiny cracks and crevices wastes money. <a href="http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/detecting-air-leaks" target="_blank">Energy.gov offers a guide on detecting air leaks</a>. Keep in mind, though, that you do need some airflow. Blocking everything will cause a moisture build-up, so plug the big ones and then move on.</p> <h3><strong>29. Tape duct cracks</strong></h3> <p>Follow the heating ducts from your furnace: are there any cracks or sags? You may need to seal (or fully replace) your duct work.</p> <h3><strong>30. Give your chimney a pillow</strong></h3> <p><strong>Your chimney(s) are pointed in heat’s favorite direction: up!</strong> Plug that thing with an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001HA8MC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0001HA8MC&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">inflatable draftstopping pillow</a>. It’s basically a glorified pool toy for your chimney, and <strong>it’s much cheaper than retrofits or new fireplace doors</strong>. Sizes vary, so measure before you buy.<em> (PS: Always remove your pillow before lighting any fires.)</em></p> <div id="attachment_2735" style="width: 256px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chimney_Pillow_Draftstopper.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2735" class="size-full wp-image-2735 " alt="Chimney_Pillow_Draftstopper" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chimney_Pillow_Draftstopper.jpg" width="246" height="235" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chimney_Pillow_Draftstopper.jpg 246w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chimney_Pillow_Draftstopper-185x176.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 246px) 100vw, 246px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2735" class="wp-caption-text">Plug your chimney with a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001HA8MC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0001HA8MC&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">chimney pillow</a> and keep heat inside where it belongs!</p></div> <h3><strong>31. Get a heated toilet seat</strong></h3> <p>One of the worst things about lowering your home’s ambient temperature is having to sit on a cold toilet seat. <strong> A heated toilet seat changes everything.</strong> I got a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RUQFHY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001RUQFHY&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">UltraTouch Heated Toilet Seat</a> several years ago and it is <em>amazing</em>. <strong>One sit and you’re spoiled for life. </strong></p> <h3><strong>32. Apply window film</strong></h3> <p>Heat lost through windows accounts for 10-25% of your heating bill. Covering your windows with clear plastic film (find kits at your local hardware store) can reduce this loss. If you want a <em>really</em> cheap window fix, try this <a href="http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/bubblewrap.htm">bubble wrap window insulation technique</a>.</p> <h3><strong>33. Get a furnace tune-up</strong></h3> <p>For about $80-$100 a technician inspects your furnace to ensure it is performing at its peak. Doing the maintenance is also a great way to avoid being the proud owner of a dead furnace on Christmas Day, scrambling for your city’s only available repairman.</p> <h3><strong>34. Clean and repair your roof</strong></h3> <p>Moss, leaves, and pine needles retain moisture, so get those things off your roof. Also, repair any existing damage while you’re up there. Replacing damaged shingles and repairing flashing around vent stacks and chimneys will both help your roof last longer and make it a bit more energy efficient.</p> <h3><strong>35. Insulate hot water pipes</strong></h3> <p>Pipes that are warm to the touch should be wrapped to help keep that heat where it belongs (inside the pipe). Pre-slit pipe foam is available at most hardware stores. Just cut to size and fasten it in place with duct tape. The catch? Your pipes are probably in your crawlspace or otherwise awkward to access.</p> <div id="attachment_3037" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wrapped_pipes.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3037" class="size-full wp-image-3037" alt="Level Up House: Wrap your hot water pipes with foam insulation to keep heat where it belongs." src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wrapped_pipes.jpg" width="500" height="372" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wrapped_pipes.jpg 500w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wrapped_pipes-300x223.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3037" class="wp-caption-text">I wrapped my own crawlspace pipes – took a few hours and several yards of foam insulation. Totally worth it – our crawlspace is exposed to the ambient temperature, and no busted pipes yet.</p></div> <h3><strong>36. Insulate the attic “access door”</strong></h3> <p>Even if you pumped your attic full of blow-in cellulose, if the access door itself doesn’t lay flat or lacks insulation it’s just another way for hot air to escape.</p> <h3><strong>37. Hang thick curtains</strong></h3> <p><a href="http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/1/3/thermal-curtains">Room darkening thermal curtains</a> are a real thing and they are awesome. Open ’em wide during the day, then close ’em up at night. The heavier the curtain, the more it will do to retain heat.</p> <h3><strong>38. …or hang thermal liners</strong></h3> <p>I use a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BPPPP5O/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BPPPP5O&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">Eclipse Thermal Liners</a> on the back of my bedroom curtains year-round. It makes them heavier, but the liners are very effective at keeping winter heat in and summer heat out.</p> <div id="attachment_3038" style="width: 385px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3038" class="size-full wp-image-3038" alt="eclipse_thermal_liner" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner1.jpg" width="375" height="347" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner1.jpg 375w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/eclipse_thermal_liner1-300x277.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3038" class="wp-caption-text">My Eclipse-brand thermal liner hangs on the backside of my bedroom curtains, which keeps the room dark in the summer and a bit warmer in the winter.</p></div> <h3><strong>39. Roll out some rugs</strong></h3> <p>Floors can account for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24757144" target="_blank">up to 10% of your heat loss</a> if they’re not properly insulated. Mitigate heat loss with rugs (or blankets).</p> <h3><strong>40. Hug a heating pad.</strong></h3> <p>A 50-watt heating pad can make winter so much more tolerable for the always-cold among us. This <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FGDDI0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000FGDDI0&linkCode=as2&tag=leveluphouse-20" target="_blank">Sunbeam Heating Pad</a> is a family favorite.</p> <h1>10 Long-Term Investments</h1> <p>Here’s the big upgrades: for just a few hundred or thousand dollars, you can help your freezing house be a bit warmer for the rest of all time. Unfortunately, most of these things take a long time to break even on. Still, buying these things make sense if you’re staying a while, or the one you have is already a complete piece of junk, and will help you sell in a buyer’s market.</p> <h3><strong>41. Live in a small home</strong></h3> <p>The practicality of this tip varies by region. <strong>Ironically, in my area smaller (1200-1600 sq ft) homes cost just as much, if not more, than larger (1800-2400 sq ft) homes.</strong> I think other people are onto this secret. But if you’re choosing between a small home and a larger one, consider the cost to heat the additional space.</p> <h3><strong>42. Replace your furnace</strong></h3> <p>Depending on what you’re replacing, a new model might be way more efficient and could pay for itself in a few years.</p> <h3><strong>43. Install a heat pump</strong></h3> <p>A heat pump isn’t something you just walk into Home Depot and buy – <strong>it’s more like a new furnace. </strong></p> <p>If you live in a climate with mild winters, you’ve probably heard of heat pumps, which <em>move</em> heat rather than <em>generate</em> it. They’re popular here in the Pacific Northwest, and can serve as air conditioning in the summer, but it will will take several years to recover the installation cost.</p> <p><a href="http://www.heatpump-reviews.com/heat-pump.html" target="_blank">Read more about heat pumps at Heatpump-Reviews.com</a>.</p> <h3><strong>44. Insulate your attic</strong></h3> <p>Here’s an easy way to tell if your attic insulation isn’t cutting it: icicles are hanging from the edges of your roof. Ice dams and icicles mean there’s heat escaping from your house through your attic – it goes through the roof, melts the snow, and that snow becomes icicles on your gutters.</p> <p>We insulated our attic with blown-in insulation (it’s a fluffy cellulose material sprayed onto the “floor” of the attic). <strong>Our upstairs used to be “the cold floor” of the house: after the blow-in insulation, it’s now the warmest. </strong></p> <h3><strong>45. Increase your home’s thermal mass</strong></h3> <p>Heavy materials retain heat better. Mr. Money Mustache wrote a comprehensive <a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/01/what-is-thermal-mass-and-how-can-it-make-you-money/" target="_blank">guide on the concept of a home’s “thermal mass”</a> – things to keep in mind when choosing materials for your renovations.</p> <h3><strong>46. Replace your windows</strong></h3> <p>New windows are expensive and messy, but <strong>depending on how ancient your windows are you may wait as little as two years for a return on your investment.</strong> But most homeowners will wait a lot longer for a return on their window investment (like, a decade). Figure out what windows you have, and compare them to what you’d replace them with, before jumping into a new windows project.</p> <p>(PS: Windows aren’t just about heat retention. <a href="http://www.andersenwindows.com/planning/diy-library/when-should-i-replace-my-windows/">This guide by Andersen Windows points out some of the other advantages of replacing your windows</a>.)</p> <h3><strong>47. Replace your front door</strong></h3> <p>Is your front door super crappy? It might be beyond simple caulking and weatherstripping – replacing the whole door can also improve your resale value (assuming you pick a nice door that suits the house’s design, but you knew that).</p> <h3><strong>48. Insulate your crawl space</strong></h3> <p>Are your floors cold in the winter? The crawlspace under your first floor might be poorly insulated. Explore <a href="http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_inspections#method2" target="_blank">EnergyStar’s guide on checking your insulation levels</a> for region-specific information. (In the meantime, house slippers help a lot.)</p> <h3><strong>49. Get a tank-less hot water heater</strong></h3> <p>Provides hot water on-demand, and the lack of a tank means hot water isn’t sitting around 22 hours of the day doing nothing. I don’t have a tank-less, but some of my friends do and they love it.</p> <h3><strong>50. Move!</strong></h3> <p>When all else fails, relocate to a warmer climate! I happen to <i>enjoy</i> the cold weather, and I feel bad for people who complain from October to March about the winter season. <strong>Las Vegas and Texas are affordable and booming – check ’em out!</strong></p> <p><em><strong>Note to readers:</strong> Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. They are provided to help you find the recommended product quickly. If you shop through an affiliate link, a tiny % of your purchase (if you make one) helps support this site with a tiny kickback at no cost to you. As always, I encourage you to shop around and price compare to be sure you get the best deal!</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Dumb Money Mistakes I Made in 2013</title> <link>/2014/dumb-money-mistakes-i-made-in-2013/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Jan 2014 14:00:59 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Financial Advice]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2645</guid> <description><![CDATA[I’ve been leveling up my frugal skills for years – I’m well beyond newbie money mistakes like lunches out, expensive TV habits, and retail therapy, but even us high level frugalists mess up occasionally. My biggest doozies tend to be related to travel. When I’m in a strange environment, my usual habits don’t serve me. […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’ve been leveling up my frugal skills for years – I’m well beyond newbie money mistakes like lunches out, expensive TV habits, and retail therapy, but even us high level frugalists mess up occasionally. My biggest doozies tend to be related to travel. When I’m in a strange environment, my usual habits don’t serve me. I’m buying things and services I don’t normally buy, and there’s a lot of opportunity for screw ups.</p> <p>In celebration of 2014, I’m rounding up the dumb money mistakes I made in 2013!</p> <div id="attachment_2649" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2649" class="wp-image-2649 " alt="derp_cash" src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash.jpg" width="384" height="241" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash.jpg 640w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash-300x187.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash-185x115.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2649" class="wp-caption-text">Derp</p></div> <p>Ready to learn from my money mistakes? Let’s start with the biggest:</p> <h1>Didn’t invest my emergency fund: -$6300</h1> <div id="attachment_2650" style="width: 308px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash_pile.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2650" class=" wp-image-2650 " alt="derp_cash_pile" src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash_pile.jpg" width="298" height="172" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash_pile.jpg 497w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash_pile-300x172.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_cash_pile-185x106.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2650" class="wp-caption-text">My emergency fund sat around earning zero interest in 2013.</p></div> <p>Technically, I didn’t lose money, but <strong>I missed a great opportunity to earn some</strong>. The market climbed in 2013, but I kept my emergency fund ($35,000) sitting in my no-interest Capital One 360 account “just in case”. My <strong>Vanguard investments enjoyed a 18.4% rate of return</strong>, and my <strong>emergency fund missed out</strong>!</p> <p>My obsession with readily accessible cash cost me about $6300 in appreciation. If there <em>was</em> an emergency, I could have sold off some of my investments and retrieved the needed funds.</p> <p>In the eight years since I established my own home the worst “emergency” I’ve ever seen was for $8,000, when I got a job on the other side of the country and needed to move. The second worst? That time last year when I paid $3,500 to fix a broken water line under our driveway. My fund is too big – and too idle.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> I’m shrinking my emergency fund down to $10,000 and moving the rest into a diversified collection of Vanguard funds.</p> <h1>Flightseeing puke-fest: -$800</h1> <p>A spur-of-the-moment decision to go on a flight-seeing tour in a small aircraft <a href="/2013/07/alaska-road-trip-2013-da-in-denali-part-2/">left us both puking and ruined our day</a> in Denali National Park. We didn’t even see the mountain! We were face-down in our puke bags for a view… of clouds.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> Eh, this mistake was pretty one-off, but the moral of this story is probably to not go flight-seeing. Lesson learned.</p> <h1>Paid for unused landline: -$600</h1> <div id="attachment_2651" style="width: 190px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2651" class=" wp-image-2651 " alt="dumb money mistakes in 2013 landline" src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline.jpg" width="180" height="180" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline-185x185.jpg 185w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/derp_landline-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2651" class="wp-caption-text">Paying for cell phones AND a landline – now that’s stupid.</p></div> <p>We spent 2013 paying for two cell phones and a landline – <strong>that’s one more line than we have<em> people</em></strong>.</p> <p>We had the landline for two reasons:</p> <ol> <li>Verizon told us we had to have it in order to have FIOS when we first got the house hooked up with service</li> <li>We liked using our Plantronics headset with it for hours-long calls home on the weekends</li> </ol> <p>A $17 TTY adapter from the Apple store let us use the Plantronics headset with our iPhones, ruling out need #2. But what about #1?</p> <p>Well, we tried to cancel the Frontier landline back in February but Frontier said they couldn’t do it. Fast forward to December 2013 when we were feeling angsty about how much we were shelling out for a landline we weren’t using, and tried again – this time, canceling the phone line but keeping the FIOS was <strong>no problem</strong>.</p> <p>Why the inconsistency? <strong>Paying for three years of phone service we didn’t need and rarely used cost us $50 a month</strong>, or <strong>$1800 total</strong> since the purchase of this house. Egads.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> The landline is canceled and I’m looking forward to the $50 in savings each month.</p> <h1>Overpriced Hotel Stay: $-260</h1> <p>I bought into the “moderate hotel” hype at Walt Disney World. We <em>were</em> going to stay at a Disney value resort, but decided at the last minute to go with a moderate hotel thinking the extra $260 would entitle us to comfortable beds and a quiet room.</p> <p>That didn’t happen – our hotel sucked. Port Orleans Riverside has springy flat beds, incredibly loud flush toilets, and just as much noisy foot traffic as anywhere else I’ve ever stayed. Now, I’ve never stayed in Disney’s value resort, but I can’t imagine the bed or noise being much worse.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> Eh, we’re done with Disney for a few years, especially since the new FastPass+ system spoiled it, but if I went again I’d stay at a value resort. It can’t be much worse, and the same Magic Hour and free parking perks still apply.</p> <h1>Didn’t scrutinize rental car receipt: -$224</h1> <div id="attachment_2655" style="width: 203px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dumb_receipt_mistake.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2655" class="wp-image-2655 " alt="Dumb money mistakes I made in 2013 Dollar Rent a Car rip off " src="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dumb_receipt_mistake.jpg" width="193" height="157" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dumb_receipt_mistake.jpg 537w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dumb_receipt_mistake-300x243.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dumb_receipt_mistake-185x150.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 193px) 100vw, 193px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2655" class="wp-caption-text">Hidden charge by Dollar Rent a Car for $224 was expensive and anger-inducing.</p></div> <p>We were <a href="/2013/12/scammed-by-dollar-rent-a-car/">scammed by Dollar Rent a Car in Orlando</a> with a bit of receipt trickery. <strong>We declined an expensive add-on, but they sold it to us anyway without our knowledge.</strong> Had we unfolded the receipt when we accepted the vehicle, we might have discovered that Dollar sneaked in a hidden charge for an unnecessary $28.99/day “Loss Damage Waiver”.</p> <p><strong>Update:</strong> I got my $224 back, but not without having to complain a lot on Twitter like a crazy person.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> I won’t leave the rental desk until I’ve read <em>every. freaking. line</em> on that receipt. AND THE BOTTOM! AND THE BACK!</p> <h1>Wasted money on in-game purchases: -$210</h1> <p>I work in freemium video games, so there’s some work-related pressure to play along (and buy in-game stuff), but not to the extent that I got carried away. <strong>I spent a whopping $210 on in-game stuff over the course of early 2013</strong>. It was fun to win, but it wasn’t fun to be on a never-ending treadmill that pumped out content faster than I could play it, creating an incentive to spend.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> I quit playing. It’s not fun to be hounded for cash just to keep up. Most of my gaming right now is in premium games, where the first purchase is the only one, though I think freemium can be done well (2011’s <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiny-tower/id422667065?mt=8">Tiny Tower </a>remains my favorite example of freemium done well).</p> <h1>SimCity: -$70</h1> <p>What has EA done to my favorite franchise? And <strong>had I waited 6 months to buy it, I could have gotten it for 40% off</strong>, too. It didn’t even run at launch! Stupid.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> Hehe, maybe they fixed it by now. I think I’ll hop in and check it out. :)</p> <h1>Didn’t Sign up for Company 401k</h1> <p>I started a new job in February 2013, but the company doesn’t let employees open a 401k and distribute pre-tax earnings into it until they’ve worked there for 90 days. Needless to say, I forgot to sign up. My last two jobs let me sign up for the 401k at the start and I contributed the max and the whole thing ran on auto-pilot, but this new job wanted me to remember to sign up later. Nope, I forgot about it for <strong>six whole months</strong>.</p> <p>The impact of forgetting to set this account will be minimal, but I feel pretty silly.</p> <p><strong>This year:</strong> I set up my automatic 401k contributions in December, which is just in time for the company 4% match to kick in at the start of my second year with the company. Hooray!</p> <h1>In Conclusion</h1> <p>In writing this, I’ve realized that my money mistakes come in two varieties:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Trusting a company</strong> to be honest with me about whether I can opt out of what should be an optional service. The hard lesson here is <em>no one cares about my money as much as I do.</em></li> <li><strong>Thinking a “premium” experience is going to be worth it.</strong> In effort to get “the best experience” (be it a pricey flight-seeing tour, a better hotel, or upgrades in a game), I think we just set ourselves up for disappointment. Jim and I don’t seem to enjoy “premium” experiences, they never live up to our expectations and we just end up feeling like we wasted our money.</li> </ol> <p>How about you? Any shameful spending in 2013 you’d like to fess up to? Tell us about it in the comments!</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Black Friday Tips for Sane People</title> <link>/2013/black-friday-tips-for-sane-people/</link> <comments>/2013/black-friday-tips-for-sane-people/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:00:48 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Saving Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=2316</guid> <description><![CDATA[I love a deal, but I hate Black Friday. The annual shopping frenzy that encourages people behave like animals for discount microwaves and video games is consumerism at its worst. But it sure is hard to argue with saving a ton of cash. Three years ago, we closed on our house right before Thanksgiving – […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-2523 alignright" alt="black friday tips for sane people" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people.jpg" width="205" height="205" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people.jpg 341w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people-150x150.jpg 150w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people-300x300.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people-185x185.jpg 185w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black_friday_tips_for_sane_people-120x120.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px" /></a>I love a deal, but I hate Black Friday. The annual shopping frenzy that encourages people behave like animals for discount microwaves and video games is consumerism at its worst. <strong>But it sure is hard to argue with saving a ton of cash. </strong></p> <p>Three years ago, we closed on our house right before Thanksgiving – the timing couldn’t have been better: <strong>our refrigerator, washer, and dryer were all Black Friday deals</strong>, which saved us several hundred bucks, and <strong>many of the tools we needed were found on discount in December. </strong>We also filled out our gaming collection for the year thanks to Steam sales. :D</p> <p>So what’s a sane person to do? I can’t stand joining the midnight mobs, but I have found ways to take advantage of holiday season sales without going crazy.</p> <p>Welcome to Black Friday tips for sane people!</p> <p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black-friday-meme.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" alt="black-friday-meme" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/black-friday-meme.jpg" width="389" height="269" /></a></p> <h1>Plan Your Shopping Ahead of Time</h1> <p>If you must go out on Black Friday, don’t arrive at a store without a plan. Remember, retailers want you to go into the store for one thing and come up with 15 other things.</p> <p>Browse Black Friday circulars as they become available (or get leaked) on sites like <a href="http://blackfriday.com/">blackfriday.com</a> and <a href="http://theblackfriday.com">theblackfriday.com</a>. Nearly all major retailers have released theirs by mid-November.</p> <p>Making an<a href="http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=diy07a-20"> Amazon wishlist</a>, even if you also intend to shop in person, can help you track your shopping if you’re shopping for a bunch of people. I like to curate mine all year long to track what I might get when and if it ever goes on sale.</p> <h1>Shop Online</h1> <p>“Cyber Monday” has become more and more of a thing, with retailers holding back some online-only deals until the Monday following Thanksgiving.</p> <p>Shopping online can net you some nice deals, especially on items in the $20-$100 range. I’m a big fan of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=diy07a-20">Amazon</a>, but you have to keep checking back to find what you need. You also need to be flexible – the deals aren’t predictable, so if you’ve got your heart set on a very particular item, you might not want to wait for Amazon to <em>maybe</em> put it on sale.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&tag=diy07a-20"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-2520 aligncenter" alt="Amazon black Friday deals" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/amazon_deals.jpg" width="674" height="262" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/amazon_deals.jpg 674w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/amazon_deals-300x116.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/amazon_deals-185x71.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px" /></a></p> <h1>Time Your Electronics Purchases</h1> <p>Appliances are fine and dandy but what most of us really want are <strong>toys! </strong>We here at LevelUpHouse are big electronics fans, but we’re only happy when we get a deal. Here’s what I’ve learned in some 8 years of buying electronics during the Holiday season:</p> <h2>Smartphones</h2> <p><strong>Smartphones are expected to go on sale <em>just before</em> Thanksgiving.</strong></p> <p>It used to be that the only deal you could hope for on an Apple device was a free Apple Store gift card with your purchase. But times are changing: <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/04/radioshack-and-walmart-match-best-buys-50-iphone-5c-discount">Walmart, Radio Shack, and Best Buy in particular</a> are getting aggressive with their pricing on last year’s iPhone 5 model as well as this year’s iPhone 5C. The previous generation iPad is also on sale at many retailers. If you’ve been thinking about getting an iOS device, this is a good time to grab one.</p> <p>If you’re thinking about any other phone, pretty much every major carrier is offering some kind of smartphone deal along with a 2-year service plan. Research which phone you want ahead of time, and hit the cellular store with a goal on Friday and you should come out a winner.</p> <h2>Laptops, Computer Monitors, and Computer Accessories</h2> <p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/laptop_deal.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-2525" alt="black friday tips laptop deal" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/laptop_deal.jpg" width="250" height="187" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/laptop_deal.jpg 250w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/laptop_deal-185x138.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" /></a><strong>Laptops and computer accessories usually show up as “doorbusters” on Black Friday itself.</strong> I’ve you’ve been waiting all year to upgrade your monitor, this is your chance to do it at a record low price. I’ve personally spent a couple Black Friday mornings camped out (in the freezing cold) for the sake of a good deal on LCD monitors and video game consoles.</p> <p><a href="http://deals.dell.com/#!pgTab0">Dell.com</a> has a somewhat ominous-looking <strong>Black Friday countdown</strong> showing the minutes remaining until they reveal their deals. The Big Reveal is a few days before Black Friday, so if you can still try your luck in the stores if you don’t find what you’re looking for online.</p> <h2>Televisions</h2> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-57610901/when-to-get-the-best-holiday-bargains/">Thanksgiving Day itself is the best day</a> to snag a deal on a <strong>new HDTV</strong>. Deals continue into Black Friday. If you want a new TV but you’re not ready quite yet, don’t worry – Superbowl Sunday isn’t far away, so TVs will go on sale again real soon in February.</p> <h2>Video Game Black Friday Deals</h2> <p><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-2514 alignright" alt="black friday for sane people" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/steam.jpg" width="176" height="44" /></a><strong>2013 is a special year: two new gaming consoles are coming out this holiday season</strong>, the XBox One and the Playstation 4. But don’t expect any deals on the consoles themselves – new consoles never get discounted on their debut Black Friday.</p> <p><strong>But deals on games are a given</strong> – Thanksgiving and Black Friday are the days to shop (in person, alas) for video games. Cyber Monday doesn’t get quite the same discounts, probably because retailers are using video game deals to lure people into stores where they can buy bigger, more expensive things.</p> <p><strong>We’re PC gamers in this house, so we usually stock up on the </strong><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/steam-black-friday-and-other-holiday-sales-plans-leaked"><strong>Steam sales</strong>, which offer discounts on games, DLC, and game bundles</a>. It’s unusual to find a discount on brand new releases, but if you want to back fill your catalog a bit and pick up some of the games you missed out on over the last year, the prices get crazy low (like, under $10 for lots of titles).</p> <p>The best part of shopping on Steam? You don’t even have to freeze your ass off in the cold like we did for our Wii many years ago.</p> <div id="attachment_2518" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wii_camping1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2518" class="size-full wp-image-2518 " alt="wii_camping" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wii_camping1.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wii_camping1.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wii_camping1-300x225.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wii_camping1-185x138.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2518" class="wp-caption-text">Black Friday for insane people: Back in 2008, Jim and I got up early to stand sub-zero Chicago temps for a Wii ticket.</p></div> <h1>Shop the “Other” Days</h1> <p>Black Friday isn’t the end of the discount season – it’s the beginning! The weekend after Thanksgiving in particular is known for <strong><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2013/1118/Black-Friday-deals-vs.-Cyber-Monday-deals-What-to-buy-when">appliance deals</a></strong>, and the entire month of December usually gets good discounts on house tools.</p> <p>The weekdays following Black Friday, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-black-friday-holiday-shopping-20131112,0,2736393.story#axzz2l43Xk4tr">December 4th in particular</a>, have lower store traffic and better customer service, with many of the same great holiday deals.</p> <h1>Start Shopping Now</h1> <p>It used to be that the deals didn’t start until Black Friday itself, but in the colossal effort to out-do each other, <strong>retailers are rolling out sales earlier and earlier. </strong></p> <p>A walk around the mall in early November shows plenty of sales already in effect. Shopping ahead of Black Friday might not guarantee you the lowest price, but it might help guarantee you leave the store with what you came for.</p> <p><a href="http://dealnews.com/">Dealnews.com</a> styles itself as a “year round” Black Friday site. If nothing else, getting an early start on your shopping can save you stress and anxiety as the holidays approach.</p> <h1>Hit up Smaller Retailers</h1> <p><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/small_local_business.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-2524" alt="black friday tips for sane people shop local business" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/small_local_business.jpg" width="250" height="187" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/small_local_business.jpg 250w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/small_local_business-185x138.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" /></a>In 2010, American Express (the credit card company) started promoting “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Saturday">Small Business Saturday</a>” – which is ironic because small retailers are the most likely to not accept my AmEx card.</p> <p>Regardless of the origin of Small Business Saturday, doing some of your holiday shopping at a local business can help you avoid the crowds, connect you with good service, and support your local community.</p> <h1>Two Ways to Skip Black Friday Entirely</h1> <p>The easiest way to stay sane on Black Friday is to just not participate. Obviously, this article was written for folks who do want to participate, just without going crazy, but for the truly bold I give you two strategies that Jim and I have utterly fallen in love with now that our needs are taken care of:</p> <h2>Help Someone in Need</h2> <div id="attachment_2529" style="width: 267px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://www.kithcares.org/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2529" class="size-full wp-image-2529 " alt="KITH-Logo" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/KITH-Logo.png" width="257" height="110" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/KITH-Logo.png 257w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/12/KITH-Logo-185x79.png 185w" sizes="(max-width: 257px) 100vw, 257px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2529" class="wp-caption-text"><a href="http://www.kithcares.org/">KITH</a>, my favorite charity, helps the local homeless start anew. No matter where you live, there’s a charitable group near you who would love your support this holiday season.</p></div> <p>Here’s an easy and inexpensive way to feel good this holiday season: buy a toy for a toy drive. Give $25 to a cause you believe in. Put your money somewhere where it can do good, and you’ll feel good year after year.</p> <p>I want to help the homeless, so I donate to <a href="http://www.ugm.org/site/PageServer?pagename=default">Seattle Union Gospel Mission</a> and <a href="http://www.kithcares.org/">KITH</a>, two organizations right here in my own neighborhood giving homeless people meals, safe places to stay, and assistance in starting a new lives. It’s super inspiring to think that money I’d have spent filling space under the tree is helping someone feel hopeful about their life instead. I love giving to these organizations.</p> <p>Focusing on your own needs counts, too. <a href="/2013/07/stop-giving-gifts/">Skip the trinkets</a> and buy yourself or your family that practical thing you’ve been wishing for, whether it’s a new appliance, tires for the car, or some cash in a savings account. Sure, it’s not as glamorous, but it sure is practical – and you’ll thank yourself come January.</p> <h2>Go somewhere!</h2> <p>Here’s a tip: <strong>many tourist destinations are complete ghost towns</strong> in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas (including Disney World!). Airfare is low, lodging is cheap, and you get the airport to yourself. Skip the shopping and go lay on a beach. Or ski the mountains. Whatever you do, it’s probably cheaper (and more memorable) than anything you could buy on Black Friday.</p> <div id="attachment_2519" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sea_tac_empty.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2519" class="size-full wp-image-2519" alt="Travel between Thanksgiving and Christmas - no one else does!" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sea_tac_empty.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sea_tac_empty.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sea_tac_empty-300x225.jpg 300w, /wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sea_tac_empty-185x138.jpg 185w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2519" class="wp-caption-text">Travel between Thanksgiving and Christmas – no one else does! I took this photo on December 7th, 2012, of SeaTac International Airport. I’m sure it was a zoo two weeks later.</p></div> <p><strong>PS:</strong> And whatever you do, don’t shop at Walmart. <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/1118/NLRB-Walmart-threatened-fired-workers-for-Black-Friday-protests">Walmart is for jerks</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>/2013/black-friday-tips-for-sane-people/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>2</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How to Survive When Life Suddenly Gets Expensive</title> <link>/2013/dealing-with-lots-of-large-expenses/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:00:16 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Financial Advice]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=1645</guid> <description><![CDATA[Typical budget advice goes along the lines of “set aside X dollars for Y each month”, and “don’t exceed your spending cap”. But life isn’t predictable. Or at least, mine isn’t. Mine’s more like: spend spend … dry spell … spend spend … dry spell … OMG, EMERGENCY! SPEND! SPEND! June brought us some nice […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Typical budget advice goes along the lines of “set aside X dollars for Y each month”, and “don’t exceed your spending cap”. But life isn’t predictable. Or at least, mine isn’t. Mine’s more like: spend spend … dry spell … spend spend … dry spell … <em>OMG, EMERGENCY! SPEND! SPEND!</em></p> <p><strong>June brought us some nice new things… and some budget spoilers:</strong></p> <p><span style="color: #339966;">– $1000 couch (planned – couch budget was $2500)<br /> </span><span style="color: #339966;">– $1200 TV (planned – bought with leftovers from couch budget)<br /> – $600 car insurance payment, which is billed every 6 months (planned)<br /> </span></p> <p><span style="color: #ff0000;">– $225 for nine inch nails tickets (surprise!)</span><span style="color: #339966;"><br /> </span><span style="color: #ff0000;">– $520 on a dental crown for me, yay :( (surprise!)</span><span style="color: #339966;"><br /> </span><span style="color: #ff0000;">– $900 on a root canal (surprise!)<br /> -$300 removal of two cysts for me, yay (surprise!)</span></p> <p>Holy medical and dental batman, and that’s <strong><em>with</em></strong> insurance coverage for medical and dental.</p> <p><strong>A common thread:</strong> All of the surprise items came with a time imperative. I’m can’t ignore “my-face-is-melting” pain just because I didn’t know to budget for a root canal it going into the month, that’s nuts. Time imperatives are where debt is born. A problem needs to be solved right now, and there’s just no waiting. The only thing that can save you (and your budget) at that point is a well stocked emergency fund.</p> <h1><strong>Savings vs. Emergency Fund<br /> </strong></h1> <p>You must build an emergency fund, because <em>shit like this happens at the worst times</em>. It’s a rule of the universe: you lose your job, then a major appliance breaks. You need dental work and your favorite band ever is suddenly touring and tickets are 100 bucks a pop.</p> <p>“Emergency fund” is a term that gets bandied about a lot on personal finance sites, but I think it’s easy to confuse “savings” and “emergency fund”.</p> <p><strong>What’s the difference between savings and an emergency fund?</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Savings</strong> = money you “flag” (mentally or physically by moving it to a special account) as being for a certain thing<strong></strong>. You might set aside money for something abstract, such as “the future”, or something concrete, like a piece of furniture, anticipated medical expenses, or perhaps (if you’re super lucky) a vacation. It’s not “emergency fund” money and you should think of this as money you spend very deliberately at some point in the future.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Emergency Fund =</strong> money you keep “just in case something horrible happens” is your emergency fund. You don’t know what this money is for, but when you need it you shouldn’t be raiding your “future” fund or your “new couch” fund to cover the emergency. This is for the completely unexpected: you get a flat and need a new tire. You need emergency dental work. An appliance in your home breaks.</li> </ul> <p><strong>How much should be in the emergency fund?</strong></p> <p>Well, this one’s going to vary person to person, based on location and standard of living, but if I had to put a number on it I’d say <strong>$4,000</strong>.</p> <p>Why $4,000?</p> <ul> <li>It’s enough to cover you if dental work and car repairs decide to screw you simultaneously</li> <li>If you’re a homeowner, $4,000 will replace any major appliance except perhaps a furnace</li> <li>It’ll also cover a $3,500 water line, should yours blow up right after you lose your job</li> <li>For many people, $4,000 might get you through two whole months of rent/mortgage, basic utilities, and food (more or less, depending on your cost of living)</li> <li>It’s a down payment on a replacement vehicle if something happens to yours</li> </ul> <p>Having $4,000 set aside but immediately accessible for “whatever crazy shit happens” is what makes <em>me</em> comfortable – your own number might be higher or lower.</p> <p><strong>Where to keep it?</strong></p> <p>I keep my emergency savings in the checking account I share with my husband. The money doesn’t earn interest, but it’s readily available.</p> <h1>My Savings and Emergency Fund in Action</h1> <p><strong>New Couch & TV – <span style="color: #339966;">from savings</span><br /> </strong></p> <p>The couch budget was about $2500 worth of savings that we’d set “tagged” as being for a couch we could both fit on at the same time. After 6 years of sharing our too-small sofa we decided we deserved a nice piece of furniture that could meed this basic need.</p> <p>In the first week of June, we got a fantastic deal on a huge couch we loved from IKEA. Rather than sock away the rest of the couch budget into regular savings, we splurged on a new television. Probably not the most frugal thing to do, but we were feeling saucy after saving so much money on the sofa itself.</p> <p>Had all the surprise dental work come earlier in the month I doubt we’d have gone couch and TV shopping, but alas, we suck at seeing the future.</p> <p>$2200 from savings.</p> <p><strong>Nine Inch Nails tickets – <span style="color: #339966;">from savings</span><br /> </strong></p> <p>Omg, I can’t miss NIN. Spending money on experiences is said to be better than spending money on stuff, and NIN shows are one of my most favorite experiences. For me, frugality is about “what can you do without so you can afford the things you <strong>really</strong> want?”.</p> <p>This is what savings are for, I told myself as I bought a pair of very expensive concert tickets. I know I’ll have a great time, and hey – at least this time we’ll save on train and hotel tickets since nin’s <em>actually playing in our city </em>now that we live by Seattle.</p> <p>$225 from savings</p> <p><strong>Car insurance payment – <span style="color: #339966;">from savings</span><br /> </strong></p> <p>I hate this expense but there’s not much avoiding it. A car is necessity for us right now, and while I shop insurance quotes every couple years this is still the best rate I have found. I won’t plug my insurance provider here – at $1200 a year for two ordinary vehicles and two drivers with perfect records, they can spend some of that on their own advertising.</p> <p>$600 from savings.</p> <p><b>Dental work – <span style="color: #ff0000;">from emergency fund</span><br /> </b></p> <p>My dental work came out of nowhere.</p> <p>I found out in May that I would need a crown to attempt to salvage a cracked molar, but I wasn’t told the cost until the day of the procedure. I suspect this is a common tactic. Once I’ve gone through all the trouble of establishing myself as a patient of a dentist, setting up an appointment and getting the time off work, I’m unlikely to walk out of the office after hearing the price and just begrudgingly pay it. After all, I was in pain.</p> <p>There must be a way to price-compare procedures across dental offices. My parents tell me crowns run them about $900, not the $1400 my dentist charged me (which was reduced to $520 after insurance kicked in and after I didn’t need a portion of the procedure they thought I would need). At that price difference, I could fly to Illinois for my next crown and still have money left over.</p> <p>What I didn’t know was that I would need a root canal after that crown. The crown made the pain worse, and while that was a known possible outcome of the crown procedure, I was pretty cheesed that my pretty new crown had to be drilled into and filled afterwards. Next time, root canal goes first.</p> <p>$1420 from emergency fund.</p> <p><b>Medical bills <b> –<span style="color: #ff0000;"> from emergency fund</span></b><br /> </b></p> <p>I had a couple cysts cut off my right pinkie finger and my right ear in May. Nothing major, just little lumps that were painful when pressed. That was in April, a procedure which I paid a $20 co-pay for. I sort of expected that to be the end of it. Then I got a $300 bill in the mail in June. This is a symptom of the dysfunction that is our medical insurance system here in the United States. You don’t get to know how much of a procedure is covered and what the cost will be until <strong>after</strong> you buy it.</p> <p>$300 from emergency fund.</p> <h1>Moral of the Story</h1> <p>Your emergency fund will save your ass someday. Plump it up with regular feedings! My emergency fund provided a cushion for unexpected expenses so normal expenses and planned purchases were able to happen regardless of any crises.</p> <p>Thanks, past self, for setting aside the cash for this stuff. :)</p> <p><strong>Related Advice: </strong></p> <ul> <li><span style="line-height: 13px;"><a href="http://wp.me/p3DTBN-sK">How to Save Money on an Entry Level Salary</a><br /> </span></li> </ul> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>How to Save Money on an Entry Level Salary</title> <link>/2013/how-to-save-money-on-an-entry-level-salary/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2013 13:00:24 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Saving Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=1782</guid> <description><![CDATA[Entry level salaries are a lesson in irony. You’re earning next to nothing, but you need to be saving and you’re probably eager to set up a place to call your own. When I started working full time in 2006 I earned $33k a year before taxes. That money went about as far then as […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ - click to view more info about 'Money' or find free 'money' pictures via Wylio" href="http://www.wylio.com/credits/flickr/6355360253"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: right; margin: 0 10px;" alt="'Money' photo (c) 2010, 401(K) 2012 - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-HK0NzwIcvZs/Ue_qNJXxMfI/AAAAAAAABKs/auFlYxyhlH0/Flickr-6355360253.jpg" width="250" height="166" /></a><strong>Entry level salaries are a lesson in irony. </strong> You’re earning next to nothing, but you need to be saving and you’re probably eager to set up a place to call your own.</p> <p>When I started working full time in 2006 I earned $33k a year before taxes. That money went about as far then as it does now, but I still managed to save a little bit each month. $25 here, $50 there, and it started to add up. I got hooked on savings and wanted to watch my savings account grow. My salary wasn’t about to change anytime soon, so I looked for ways to cut expenses. Below are my 20 best tips for how to save money on an entry level salary.</p> <h1>20 easy things I did to save $$$</h1> <ol> <li><strong>I didn’t have TV service. </strong> I didn’t even miss it and without it, I wasn’t even aware of all the cool things I wasn’t buying!</li> <li><strong>I barely furnished my apartment. </strong> With the exception of one sofa, everything in my apartment came from my parents or my own bedroom. My kitchen table was a card table, my nightstand a short bookshelf. All my chairs folded. It wasn’t magazine-worthy, but it did save me a fortune.</li> <li><strong>I bought very few video games. :( </strong> SO SAD. And ironic, considering my job was developing video games. When I did buy a game, it was usually a Nintendo DS game from GameStop pre-owned selection for $10-$20.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t subscribe to anything.</strong> No magazines or newspapers – the Internet’s got more than you’ll ever read, anyway.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t adopt a pet. </strong> Unless you already have one, consider growing your salary to a more comfortable level before adopting. A pet may also limit your apartment options and/or increase your deposit and monthly rent, and being mobile in your early years is helpful in some fields.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t buy any books.</strong> I did, however, check out numerous books from the library a mile away. Added bonus: I didn’t have to move them (twice!) when I moved (twice!) in 2008 (twice!).</li> <li><strong>I cooked everything at home/brought lunches.</strong> I don’t think I ate out more than a few times in my first year working. A meal out seems to run me about $8-15, but that much bought me several days worth of meals in a grocery store. Conservative savings estimate: $5 x 250 work days in a year x 7 years = $8750.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t buy much new clothing.</strong> I dressed fairly nicely in college and was able to wear the same clothing to my first job, which had a casual dress code.</li> <li><strong>I discovered Sunday morning movie dates. </strong>Jim and I would meet at a theater halfway between our homes to see movies for $5 on Sunday mornings. It’s <em>the same freakin’ movie</em> for 1/3rd the cost of a Friday night showing. We <em>still</em> go see movies on Sunday mornings.</li> <li><strong>I bought few electronics:</strong> I did treat myself to an iPod so I wouldn’t have to lug my Discman and giant bag of CDs into the office each day.</li> <li><strong>I dated cheaply.</strong> Dates were walks, home cooked meals for two, surfing the web together, sitting and talking.</li> <li><strong>I never bought soda/juice. </strong> Once I saw how much soda and juice cost, I quit drinking them. I probably saved several hundred dollars by going water-only (and probably avoided a few calories, cavities, and kidney stones).</li> <li><strong> I shopped sales.</strong> I never had the patience or time for coupons, but I did use sales to stock up on things <em>I was going to buy anyway</em> like meat and toilet paper. BTW, buying crap on sale that you weren’t going to buy otherwise isn’t a deal.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t socialize much.</strong> Drinks, movies, GameWorks, dinners – socializing should just be renamed to “spending”. My introvert brain didn’t mind not doing this stuff. :)</li> <li><strong>I had cheap hobbies.</strong> Painting in Photoshop, sewing, walking, and reading were all dirt cheap ways to spend my evenings and weekends.</li> <li><strong>I moved to an apartment a few miles from my job.</strong> I went from spending $80/week on gasoline to filling up maybe once every 3 weeks. This also extended the time between car maintenance.</li> <li><strong>I didn’t vacation.</strong> Sad but true. I didn’t take any time off until I was nearly 2 years into my job, and even then we saved money vacationing in Michigan (a few hours away by car) in the off season (everything was boarded up, it was cool!).</li> <li><strong> I bought store-brand everything.</strong> Most of it is just as good as the name brands I was raised with.<strong><br /> </strong></li> <li><strong>Leaned on Mom and Dad. </strong> They covered dentist appointments, let me do laundry (for free!), and occasionally filled my car with gasoline. Visiting Mom and Dad has benefits. :)</li> <li><strong>I set up an automatic money transfer.</strong> By automating savings, I never even had the chance to see it pile up in my checking account. It just magically appeared in my savings, and I became very motivated to help my savings grow larger.</li> </ol> <p><strong>My frugal hobby #1:</strong> Painting! As a former art student, I already had a decent computer, Wacom tablet, and Photoshop. (Ironically, TV show characters remain a favorite subject, despite my lack of TV :D )</p> <p style="text-align: left;"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby_art.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1805" alt="Save money on an entry level salary with cheap hobbies" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby_art.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby_art.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby_art-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a><br /> <strong>My frugal hobby #2:</strong> Sewing plush. I designed and created these little dudes my first year working full time (they are basically a part of our family now) .</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1804" alt="Save money on an entry level salary with cheap hobbies" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby.jpg" width="512" height="384" srcset="/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby.jpg 512w, /wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cheap_hobby-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></a></p> <p>If you’re just starting out, see what you can do without. Your list will be different than mine, and that’s okay.</p> <h1>I refused to cut back on</h1> <ul> <li><strong>Meat.</strong> I must eat meat. I don’t know how people live on noodles. Cutting from nutrition is like, a last resort option in my opinion.</li> <li><strong>Renter’s Insurance. </strong> Nothing bad ever happened, but renter’s insurance was so cheap (like $100/year) and the peace of mind was good to have.</li> <li><strong>Quality toiletries,</strong> like good razors and deodorant. Some things just have to<em> work</em>.</li> <li><strong>Internet</strong>: lol wut, give up the Internet?</li> </ul> <p>Your 20s are the best time to start saving, so don’t let a piddly salary get in the way of that. (The next best time to start saving is <em>right now.</em>)</p> <p>Also, remember that saving money doesn’t do you much good if you just turn around and spend it on something else. Move the money to a dedicated savings account (my favorite is my <a href="https://home.capitalone360.com/online-savings-account">Capital One 360 savings account</a>, formerly ING Direct – totally free, easy to use).</p> <h1>Last and Most Important Step</h1> <p>Once you have some savings,<strong> don’t let yourself spend it frivolously! </strong></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Sharing One Car: Our 4 Year Experiment</title> <link>/2013/sharing-one-car-4-years/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mandi]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:00:31 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Money]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">/?p=1761</guid> <description><![CDATA[Jim and I started sharing one car in 2008 when his 1999 Ford Escort (with 110k miles) quit at life weeks before our move from IL to WA. We had already been propping the car up with regular trips to the mechanic and jumps (and pushes), and we decided it wasn’t worth shipping to WA. […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Jim and I started sharing one car in 2008 when his 1999 Ford Escort (with 110k miles) quit at life weeks before our move from IL to WA. We had already been propping the car up with regular trips to the mechanic and jumps (and pushes), and we decided it wasn’t worth shipping to WA. We donated it to a charity and moved to Washington with one car between us. Money was tight and sharing one car (my ’02 Ford Taurus) seemed like something we could make work, at least for a little while.</p> <p>Obligatory car pic:</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2002_ford_taurus.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" alt="My husband and I shared this 2002 Ford Taurus for 4 years" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2002_ford_taurus.jpg" width="512" height="384" /></a></p> <p>What followed was a 4 year experiment in negotiation, sharing, practicality, and major savings.</p> <h1>Where to live when you share a car?</h1> <p><strong>Answer: close to wherever you go most often.</strong></p> <p>We knew we’d be sharing one car, so we chose our first apartment in Washington state based on its closeness my new office. We were awkwardly far from shopping, but we could bike or walk to/from work in a pinch (4 miles) and that mattered more to us. (There are few, if any, public transit options and biking everywhere isn’t realistic for us.)</p> <p>Being four miles away made it possible for Jim to drop me at work and then drive back home (or off to errands) with minimal extra mileage. We go to work every day, but we only go shopping once a week, so this was a good trade off and made sharing one car a lot more possible than if we’d chosen to live somewhere further away.</p> <h1>The first three months</h1> <p>A week after arriving in Washington I started at my new office job while Jim continued to work for his previous employer from home. At least one day a week, Jim dropped me at work and then completed errands during the day. This was a wonderful arrangement. Our only gripe was that Jim had to go through that painful transition from driving a small car to driving a land boat with the turn radius of a tank. He basically had to re-learn how to drive and park.</p> <h1>One car, one company</h1> <p>Three months after moving to Washington, Jim accepted a designer position at the same game studio I was working for.</p> <p>Working remotely for the old employer was convenient and profitable, but the new employer offered stability and much stronger networking and engagement with the local developer community. While this saved us a lot of money (the cost of owning, maintaining, and insuring a second vehicle), sharing one car came at the following costs on our time:</p> <ul> <li>Whenever one of us was told to “take the afternoon off”, we didn’t get to take advantage of it.</li> <li>One of us working late? Usually we both ended up staying.</li> <li>Or sometimes one of us would drive home, and then drive back (15 mins each way) at what would normally be bedtime (or worse).</li> <li>Car trouble made us both late to work (or up early) – and lot of freaking out over “the only car” being out of commission</li> <li>Dropping the car off for repair/maintenance also resulted in us walking a mile to the office from the dealership, so we tried to time this with the rain (or lack of)</li> <li>Errand to run after work? We both go.</li> <li>Need to be two places at once? Someone gets dropped off way early. A common example: I’d drop Jim off at work an hour early, and then go to my own before-work doctor’s appointment.</li> </ul> <p>We used to say, “Sharing one car is great, except for about one day a month when it really sucks.” When we became frustrated with the arrangement, we’d go hang out at a car dealer for a little while and look at stickers. This cured any resentment we felt.</p> <p>Even “beaters” cost several thousand dollars. The insurance costs and buying into the same set of problems our aging main car never seemed worth it to get rid of the occasional inconvenience.</p> <h1>One Car, two companies</h1> <p>Sharing one car became more of a challenge when we were working two separate jobs. When Jim changed jobs, he also took on a 10 mile commute in the opposite direction of my job. We tried a few different arrangements, but the least-worst one ended up being Jim dropping me off at 9:15 (for a job that started at 10) and picking me up at 7:45 (from a job that ended around 6:30).</p> <p>Being at work 45 minutes before everyone else was my favorite part of the arrangement. I mostly spent this time creating artwork at my workstation and I occasionally used it to get ahead on work for the day.</p> <p>But the extra hour and 15 minutes at the end of the day was pretty rough. I brought a small “first dinner” to work with me to eat around 6pm (I ate a “real dinner” at 8, once I got home) to help with being hungry. I got involved with projects I could work on from my workstation at work. I walked around the building. I surfed the web. Some of my co-workers seemed to pity me, but I filled the time productively. I’m just glad I had useful tools at my workstation.</p> <p>This arrangement lasted about three months. In that time, I had the car during the day just twice.</p> <p>The first time it was so I could go to a doctor’s appointment in the morning.</p> <p>The second time it was because we were going to a concert after work and it made more sense for me to drive south to get Jim, rather than him driving north just to drive south again. That ended up not mattering. In a fantastic coincidence, this was the day my company did its first mass layoff (me included) so I was super fortunate to have the car that day because I ended up spending the morning boxing up my workstation and going home early.</p> <h1>Unemployment</h1> <p>I was unemployed for three months (don’t feel bad, I had a blast). During that time, Jim was pretty much the exclusive driver of the car. He took the car to and from his new job each day, and I ran errands on Saturdays. We felt no pressure for a second car, but it helped tremendously that the car was <strong>A)</strong> already paid for<strong> B)</strong> 10 years old and not massively expensive to insure.</p> <h1>Back to Work</h1> <p>Three months later I accepted an offer at the same company Jim was working for. Our new employer is 10 miles from home and the car we’re sharing just hit 85k miles.</p> <p>During our four-year run as a one car family, we talked a lot about what would replace the Taurus. We banked money with the expectation that we would either add a second car or outright replace the Taurus at some indeterminate point in the future. Perhaps emboldened by Subaru’s 0% financing and my new income (and general fatigue with the topic of whether we should get a second car) we finally bought a second car. You can <a href="/2013/02/meet-subie-new-subaru-forester/">read more about why we chose a Subaru Forester</a><a href="/2013/02/meet-subie-new-subaru-forester/"> here.</a></p> <p>The second car addressed two key needs:</p> <ul> <li>We need a vehicle that can haul stuff</li> <li>We need a reliable car</li> </ul> <p>It’s sort of an insurance policy against trouble with our 85k miler.</p> <h1>Life with two cars</h1> <p>The biggest benefits of having two cars are <strong>A)</strong> the new one hauls big stuff and<strong> B)</strong> I sleep more soundly at night, unafraid of how much work we’d miss and how much we’d freak out if our only car broke down. Having two cars did not, however, solve any of these issues:</p> <ul> <li>We work at the same place, so when one stays late, we both stays late because it’s a waste of fuel and mileage to drive separate cars</li> <li>The new workplace is much further, too far for making habit of dropping someone off at the office and then driving back home for whatever reason</li> <li>Our insurer doesn’t discount the second car (nor will anyone else that I’ve called. But they will discount a<em> third</em> car. WTF, NO!)</li> <li>The garage holds just one car, so one car gets to be rained/sunned/snowed on</li> </ul> <p>Some perks of having two:</p> <ul> <li>We have an “old car” to take to places where we’re afraid of something bad happening to our “nice car”</li> <li>If one car is low on gasoline we can take the other one</li> </ul> <p>Whether we’d replace the Taurus if/when it “goes” is <a href="/2013/05/happy-birthday-taurus-some-thoughts-on-cars/">an ongoing discussion</a>, but we’d be okay with going back to one car if we had to.</p> <h1>Estimated savings?</h1> <p>Had we immediately replaced Jim’s car with a new one in 2008, we’d have paid about $12,000 (most likely for a used Honda Fit, given our preferences and budget at the time). At $1000 a year/car (which is roughly what our insurance costs here), we’d have paid about $4500 in insuring it since 2008.</p> <p>The hypothetical Honda Fit would have lessened the need for the Forester 4.5 years down the road, but I’m much happier with the Forester than I would have been with a Fit and I’m glad we held out for it. And, since the Forester only cost us $10,000 down and $350/month thereafter (with nothing to insure for the last four years), we’re still ahead of the costs of having bought a second car four years ago.</p> <p>All things considered, the four year shared car experiment was a success.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss>