This past July I was standing in the front parking lot of my office waiting for Paul to pick me up from work when I saw a big white body mass under a car. It was hot, it was dry, and I was afraid of what I was actually looking at. When I got closer, a big white dog emerged and began licking my legs (have I mentioned before that I cannot stand licking or slobbering of any dogs in any way? I actually had a Dalmatian dog growing up who was smart enough to just lick the air around my legs when she was excited or wanted to greet me). He was malnourished, had scabs all over his skin, and aside from a trot in his step he looked neglected and picked over.

My first response was to sift through my bag for any kind of food leftover from lunch—the only thing I could find was some cereal mush. Then I headed into the office and asked the security guards to call the SPCA. Unfortunately they had about three hours ago and no one had responded. What to do, what to do? I headed back outside. A lady came down the stairs and headed to her truck to go home. When she saw the dog around me, she said “oh he’s been out here all day. The poor thing.” Red flag number two. She asked if I wanted some treats that she had in her truck and I nodded yes. At this point Paul pulled up.

Here’s the thing: we are not dog people. We love cats—they are independent, sassy, you are able to leave them with food and water for an overnight trip, and you have to work for their affection. But we just could not leave this dog behind. Using the dog snacks we lured him in the back of the mustang. As soon as the dog had settled he exhaustedly fell asleep in the air conditioning. We stopped off at the local HEB to grab dog food and proceeded to spoil him with as much food and iced water he wanted over the next three months (cha-ching!).

Vet Costs

The first week we took Ronnie into our local vet. $322 later (cha-ching!) we found that he had mange, fleas/ticks, was malnourished (only weighed 55 lbs.), was a little over a year old, needed vaccinations, and had heartworms, which he was not healthy enough to be treated for. The vet also said that he was most likely a bull-terrier with a dash of Labrador. We got Ronnie vaccinated, and also gave him medication for his mange. After a month his mange and flea/tick problem cleared up beautifully; his white hair grew back fully, and he even stopped smelling—bonus.

Finding Ronnie a Home

While we never intended to keep Ronnie, we were eager to foster him and get him healthy until we could find a great home. However, we found out early on that a bull of any kind is shunned by most places, and because he had heartworms we could not begin adoption processes with many organizations (even though they knew that heartworm medication has been recalled by the manufacturer and was not being produced at the time—talk about a catch-22).

We were able to begin working through Dakota Rescue, an organization that attempts to find homes for animals while you foster them. One Saturday Paul brought Ronnie to a Petco about an hour away from our house to try and find interested families. Unfortunately, Ronnie gets very excited around other dogs and barked the whole time. We had to purchase a sedative to give him for $30 (cha-ching!) and when that didn’t work, we were basically asked to leave (understandably so—we didn’t want to ruin the chances of other pets being adopted!).

Ronnie was such a good-natured dog. But by the end of the third month, our patience was growing thin. We walked him every day to keep his energy at bay. We taught him how to fetch, but I did not like to interact with him beyond that as he had a horrible habit of jumping up excitedly and then licking you. Also, we had to put curtains in each of our windows and barricade them down with books and logs; otherwise he would bark at us at night (our poor neighbors!), and without the logs/books weighing down the curtains our cat Danny Boy would get behind them for a hiss/bark duel. He also managed to eat through two of our soaker hoses (unburied them as well), two plants, and dig a crater-sized hole down to our foundation (cha-ching!).

On top of his energy issues, I am a very light sleeper and I am sure our neighbors are as well. He would not bark incessantly by any means, but he would bark once or twice several times per night and it would wake me up immediately. Most of the time it was very difficult to get back to sleep because I felt anxious about the police showing up to our home due to noise complaints. After being woken up six times in one night and having to make it through a ten-hour work day we called around to every no-kill shelter we could find only to be turned down by each one. Then we miraculously found a shelter who said they would not euthanize our bull terrier, and had the space for him. Triumph!

I took off from work and drove Ronnie to Paul’s job to say goodbye. I then drove the extra half an hour to get to the place, saying my final farewell in the car. I stood in line for about a half an hour with an extremely excited and barking dog. Unfortunately, when I got up to the window the woman told me that Ronnie would be euthanized on the spot. I was speechless—I assured them that I would never have taken off work and driven an hour to get there if I had known that was going to happen. I called Paul in a frantic and he could not remember who he had spoken to. We double checked that it was their phone number and address—yet they denied that anyone had spoken with Paul. I bawled my eyes out and left the facility with Ronnie—we could never do that to such a good-natured dog.

Paul and I regrouped, and decided to use our last resort: Craigslist. We posted pictures, stated that we had vet records, and filtered out any possible bull-fighters by requiring that Ronnie be neutered before the adoption could take place. Fortunately for all involved, we found someone!

Resources if You Find Yourself in the Same Situation

We learned of available resources that could have helped with the rescue costs and medications only after we had all ready taken care of most of Ronnie’s needs. I would like to discuss these with you (mostly specific to Houston) so that you can save money if you find yourself in the same situation.

There are adoption centers that will work to find your pet a good home while you foster it. These centers will do the background checks to make you feel secure in finding a good home, and will oftentimes pay for some or all of the care the animal will need (unfortunately most would not accept Ronnie because he was part-bull and because he had heartworms). Organizations in Houston include HOPE, Dakota Rescue, Lucky Dog, and Barrio Dogs.

Another option is to tell your vet that you rescued the dog. We were told that many vets will give you discounted rates for rescued dogs.

In the end, we were happy to have helped Ronnie out and very grateful and appreciative of the people who rescue and foster homeless pets off the streets and the shelters who work tirelessly to house these animals. Taking in an animal can completely change your life in both good and bad ways. It can also be a costly endeavor; we estimate we spent $500 to rescue Ronnie. While finding a home on Craigslist was not our original intention, we did feel very comfortable in who we chose for the adoption, and also felt that we did the best that we could for Ronnie given the situation. It was a long three months, and we are hoping to have things go back to normal in our household (specifically the cats are looking forward to playing in the backyard again!).

Have you ever taken in a stray animal? What were some of the challenges for you? 

I caught the travel bug in seventh grade Spanish class. While excitedly flipping through my new Spanish textbook I came upon a caption under a photo of a floor-to-wall painting in the Museo del Prado. I cannot remember the painting; I just remember that it was enough to take my breath away. Sitting in that classroom on that afternoon I decided my life’s mission: to go to Spain and see the painting in person. At age 16, after several years of working after school/weekends on our farm’s roadside pumpkin stand and mucking horse stalls at a nearby stable, I went abroad to Spain for 6 weeks as part of an exchange program.  It was amazing…but it didn’t stop there. I decided that Spain was too much like the United States, and that what I was really looking for was something exotic and extreme; I needed to experience something that would challenge the track I felt my life was on. Everything up to this point in my life seemed so unattainable. I was a farm girl who watched the rest of the world live ‘normal’ and stimulating lives while stuck ankle-deep in manure (only a few times in the literal sense). Our lives’ rhythm ebbed and flowed with the needs of dairy cattle, which meant two milkings everyday, even when you are sick. Traveling for the entire family for an extended period of time was just not an option. I had to challenge this and reach something that was seemingly unattainable to me just to prove to myself that I could. And so in Spain I challenged myself to travel to Japan. When I finally reached Japan five years later in college, I found someone else who had the same travel bug as myself—my husband.

Paul and I still have our travel bugs, but must balance them against the two biggest constraints of adulthood: time and money. Everyone has limited resources at their disposal—both financial and otherwise. Being frugal means prioritizing those resources, and specifically prioritizing the money that we spend. Categories where we don’t want to spend our money like clothes and products have been chopped down to size in order to balloon budgets for the categories that we care a lot about, like travel and saving money. But what if we could also chop down our travel budget substantially while traveling more than we do now? Until last week I did not think this was possible. However, I came across something called PlaneRed that gave me hope that I am seeing a sneak peek of more travel to come: monthly subscription airfare.

PlaneRed is an all-you-can-fly monthly subscription due to come out this month (September 2011). They will offer 9-person flights (flights with 10 people or above means that TSA’s guidelines must be followed, and part of their selling point is that you won’t have to deal with TSA standards anymore) with routes only on the east coast at present: Atlantic City, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. They have hopes of expanding to Texas, California, and the Midwest. The monthly subscription cost is estimated to be around $150. The first 10,000 signups will have access to the monthly subscription, and they expect that there will be a wait list.

While this program has not even begun and is only opening on the East coast as a test market, a girl can daydream. The way I see it, if one company is attempting to do this then I am sure it’s only a matter of time before others will start (so long as PlaneRed is successful). I would definitely allocate $150 a month from my budget to be able to travel to anywhere in the United States each month—this would open me up to being able to pop up to PA for my neice and nephew’s birthday parties, girls’ weekend out with friends, and the occasional barbecue. Not only would I be able to spend more time with family and friends, but I could also travel to other locations in the US that I have been wanting to but often do not because I choose to spend my travel money and time off at work in PA. Paul and I have both wanted to go to Colorado Springs (*$272 roundtrip for both of us), it would be fun to visit my uncle and aunt in Michigan ($619 roundtrip for both of us), my uncle and aunt in Arizona ($516 roundtrip for both of us), wine country in California ($436 roundtrip for both of us), and Paul has personally been dying to check out Montana ($876 roundtrip for both of us).

I would also be willing to pay a premium for monthly worldwide airfare. A quick look at airfare to Japan ($2702 roundtrip for both), Ireland ($1708 roundtrip), Brazil ($3,062 roundtrip)—all locations Paul and I have discussed traveling to—shows that even a highly monthly subscription would be worth it to us if we were to take two-three trips per year. Of course, this is all dependent on if we can find the time off from work, and also if we have saved up the other expenses of traveling such as food, hotel, and transportation. Still…a girl can dream.

Would you sign up for a monthly airline subscription? If so, how would you use it? Where would you go? What is your price point?

*prices are using expedia for a random date I chose, October 14^th-16^th, Friday-Sunday, and one stop each)

Much of personal finance is really quite simple. Earn money. Spend less than you earn. Save the extra. However, mastering these seemingly easy concepts is difficult for many people. You know you should set a budget, but it seems so complicated and limiting that you never quite sit down to do it. You have a budget, but this month there are extraneous costs (i.e., health, new outfit, opportunity, fill in the blank) that have you once again breaking your budget barriers. Now that you have all of this money left at the end of the month (earmarked for savings), why not buy just one more thing you’ve had your eyes on?

Well, here is another very simple concept that many of you may struggle with, but is truly the secret to most frugal purchases: patience. Turns out, patience is not only a virtue, but a cost-saver as well.  Anytime you add speed, convenience, or instantaneous gratification to a purchase, from houses down to toothpaste, you add cost. This works several ways, and we’ll discuss each separately.

The first way that patience pays off is by not “needing” things right away. If you can take most of the urgency out of the equation, you can wait for sales and gift-receiving opportunities to get them at a discount. For example, I “need” a new digital camera. I am fortunate because Paul has one that I have been borrowing, which allows me to take most of the urgency out of my need. Now I can afford to wait until either a great sale comes up that I can combine with a coupon in order to receive a great discount on the camera, or for my birthday/Christmas to ask for this gift if someone is looking for something specific to purchase for me (don’t worry, this isn’t a plea!).

Secondly, if you do not need something urgently, then you have the chance to save up money for it. This will save you interest charges and a possible headache down the road by not going into debt for a purchase. Sometimes while waiting and saving, you may even find that you lose interest or do not need the product afterall, thus saving you from making an unnecessary purchase all together.

Finally, many products offer the same end result, but at varying speeds. For instance, while wrinkles are inevitable for everyone (and if you don’t believe this, than perhaps you have been deluded by wrinkle-free cream commercials), there are ways to mitigate them. You can diligently and consistently take care of your skin your entire life by cleaning, moisturizing, wearing sunscreen or a hat in the sunshine, and eating a diet rich in antioxidants. Technically, this would be the long method, and the least expensive. At the other end of the spectrum would be having plastic surgery to remove wrinkles or costly botox treatments. This would be the fastest, and therefore most expensive, method. To further illustrate this concept, take a look at the chart below for a comparison of costs between products that all have the same end result, but offer it at varying speeds.

As you can see, having patience can save you money in every consumer sector. While it seems like an incredibly simple concept, learning to have patience may take some time (that’s right; learning patience may take some patience!). Try it out on your next gotta-have purchase that you can practically do without, and see how much money you can save.

Need fast cash? Instant Loans from MyPaydayLoanCash.com will deposit money instantly into your account! Please be responsible when doing so, and read all of the terms so that you understand what you are signing up for.

Lately I’ve been having a feeling of scarcity. It is a feeling that I am ashamed of, because my fiancé and I are so blessed. We make good money, we recently bought the home of our dreams, we have two vehicles, enough money to fund retirement and entertain ourselves…but it has not felt like enough. In our defense, our bills increased substantially over the course of the last six months which certainly adds to this feeling of scarcity; we are working to pay off his car entirely, pay for our wedding and honeymoon in cash, and just purchased the home of our dreams, so funds that we were used to seeing on bank statements for the last several years have been depleted.

            Instead of celebrating our life of abundance, I have let this feeling leave me insecure, and wanting to hoard money and earnings just like a squirrel who competitively buries all the nuts he can find for fear of the winter famine to come. But in reality, this is leading me to feel even more insecure and even less abundant.

            And so it was with an empathetic and open heart that I listened to a segment on NPR last week that talked about the lack of pure, altruistic, charitable giving in the United States . In its place has been self-gratifying or self-rewarding charitable giving—the kind that you receive tangible benefits in return—or no charitable giving at all. The benefits include trinkets which prominently display your generosities (like pink ribbons and bracelets for breast cancer donors), or being able to tout your givings as a corporation and thus making yourself more competitive, or donating solely for tax benefits, etc.

            Throughout the year I have donated several bags of clothing to local thrift stores, and I have given out soy joy bars to homeless people at traffic lights. I also have dropped off several bags of toiletry items to a domestic abuse women’s shelter. But have I really given of myself? When I donated those bags of clothing, it was more with the intent of cleaning out our closets so that we would not have to pack and ship more boxes. The soy joy bars are free items that I scored from extracare bucks at CVS. The toiletries were also from various free deals I gathered from CVS throughout the year. I absolutely loved donating these items and it made me feel good to help others out, but besides a little time on my end, these items did not cost me anything. And if they had, I could have taken that cost as a tax deduction . Is that truly charitable giving?

            When I was fifteen, I approached my parents with the idea of adopting a child overseas. I was making my own money at the time mucking horse stalls, and so each month I would pay the money to my parents who would write a $15 check out to the organization, which clothed, schooled, and fed her. The child’s name was Belkis. One year for her birthday I sent an extra $10, and she wrote a letter telling me how she was able to purchase a pair of jeans with it. I felt such joy and compassion towards this child. By not sharing this with anyone, I did it for the right reasons (except my parents knew because they had to write the check each month).

Somewhere over the years even though my income has risen dramatically, I have managed to feel more scarceness than I did when I made $90 per week and supported a little girl overseas. I have given this some thought this holiday season, and have come up with a possible explanation. I am competitive at heart and so I don’t just want to save money, I want to save the most money. If I were to check ‘yes’ on my electricity bill to add a few dollars to the fund for people who cannot afford heating and lighting, then that would shave percentages off my money-saving margins that I tediously accumulated all month by unplugging power chords when not in use. If I were to give $1000 to a charity in 2009, then all of the extra earnings I received would not have been added to my bottom line .  

No matter what the reasons have been, I would like to change this. I have decided that in 2010, I am going to choose a charity or a cause, and donate consistently to it with actual money out of my earnings, and without sharing what organization/person it is. I am sure I will continue to donate items that are gently used, and toiletries, but I will make this cash donation the crux of my charitable giving.

What are some resolutions, or things you would like to improve upon in your own life for 2010?

I must admit…I am driving around scared. Each time I come out of my car to go into a store, restaurant, work, or home, I wonder if I am going to be spotted by a Frugal Confessions reader. Why am I so scared? It’s because of what I am driving.

Yours truly now drives a 2007 red mustang. I know…the shame. My car officially bit the dust a week ago, or at least enough to not make me want to put more work into it. If you remember from my original article here, I only paid $1500 in cash for the vehicle six years ago. It would need a new transmission, and that is just too much for me to spend on a vehicle that has 225,000 miles and a few interesting noises.

For three weeks, we either got rides from coworkers (thank you if you are reading this!) or carpooled. Carpooling was not so bad, except I had to change my schedule to fit Paul’s, and so it was a temporary solution. Paul’s father works for a car dealership, and so he asked a mechanic that he uses to look around for us. The mechanic happened to have a Nissan Frontier Truck that he was looking to sell, and had put a little bit of work into it (new battery, new tires, oil change, etc.). One of our stipulations was that no matter what, we did not want to take out a loan for a second vehicle, and the truck happened to be in our price range to be able to pay cash from our emergency fund. We took it for a test drive, thought on it for a few hours, and decided to give it a try.

Paul is driving that now, and he has given me his mustang to use. So far, the truck has been very helpful in picking up our lawnmower from the shop, and bringing back a grill that my mother bought for us as a housewarming present while she was visiting this past week. Plus having the truck is going to make picking up free wood from craigslist a cinch (I am a huge proponent of never paying for wood, especially down South where you don’t need much of it. Craigslist always has someone who has just cleared land and is looking to get rid of wood under the free section)!

The lesson learned in all of this is to keep a savings account where we pay a car payment into each month so that when the time comes for us to get a new car (probably when the Nissan truck goes in a few years), we can pay cash and get a newer model that will last even longer. I am not sure of who first came up with this concept, but it’s a great idea—just pay a few hundred dollars (or start at $100 or even $50 if you have to) into a savings account each month as if you were paying a car loan where it will earn interest. Right now, we will be very happy if the Nissan lasts two years, and our goal is 5 years. There is no indication that it will not last for 5 years, it’s just we are trying to not get our hopes up entirely.

Also, we are very thankful and proud of ourselves that we left an emergency fund after buying our home last month and were able to cover these extra costs that have crept up. I think this is very important for people looking to buy a home: don’t spend everything you have for the downpayment. Wait until you have enough for a downpayment, as well as an emergency fund, because there is no guarantee that your car will not break down the following week!

It begins with one large bill. Then something happens, exacerbating the fact that you just spent a lot of money on the first large bill. Perhaps your car breaks down, or your appliance breaks down, or you have a large medical expense. You spend the rest of the month a little clammy around the wrists, vulnerable to the outside world until your next paycheck makes its way into your hands.

Do you ever have a month that you just can’t seem to get out of, financially anyway? The way my budget works is each month an allotted amount goes to bills, to our IRAs, to our savings, and to spending. Last month, the spending category is simply out of control! In fact, I have never spent so much money in my short adulthood life as I have last month, September, 2009. I feel like Stretch Armstrong.

Our Month that Would Not End

Our first major expenditure was we bought a home. This was a planned expense, although I must admit that we did not know exactly how much to bring to closing day until the day of, and it was definitely several thousand more than we had originally thought. Then, we had to purchase a refrigerator. We managed a great deal; Energy-star rated, stainless steel Frigidaire at 50% of its cost because we bought it at the scratch and dent store. Next, we hired movers. Originally we had not planned on doing so, but several people we spoke with said that it cost around $180 for them to move everything. After renting a truck, paying for gas, and taking all of Paul’s family out to lunch afterwards as a big thank-you, it would have cost us $180 anyway. So instead of taking up Paul’s family’s Saturday, we decided to go with the movers. The final bill? $462. Whew (still not terrible, but we were not expecting that, and we could have asked family to help instead to shave the cost). And the icing on the cake, perhaps everyone’s nightmare (purchase a new home, and not one week afterwards, when you are in that vulnerable period between when you’ve spent most of your savings and when your emergency fund is back up to fully functional), my car died on me. We purchased another used vehicle (paid cash—no new loans for us!).

Finally, we undertook our first home project together: my office! So we went to Home Depot this past weekend and purchased paint supplies, a paint color, a smoke/Carbon monoxide alarm, batteries for the alarm, etc. Getting my office up and running is our top priority so that I can get back to normal writing routines (am currently writing this at 8:00 a.m. on our couch).

Things that Have Mitigated Spending

Honestly, this month could have been a lot worse, and the main reason why it was not was the generosity of so many people to whom we are very thankful for. To begin with, even after negotiations, the past owners generously offered to leave us their washer, dryer, and kegerator! The washer and dryer are saving us lots of money, and certainly lots of headache, time and energy. I mentioned that we saved 50% on our major appliance purchase, which is energy star rated and this will help our energy bills for many years to come. We packed all of our belongings up ourselves with free boxes from our neighbors and Paul’s boss, which was very helpful. One of Paul’s brother and sister-in-law brought us a meal the first weekend we moved in (which we thankfully ate for two nights!). Our previous landlord generously prorated us half a month’s rent for September, even though we did not properly give her the 30 days notice (because of not knowing when the closing day was), which was a big help. We got free movie tickets from my swagbucks earnings and were able to take a break from all of the stressful details and go to the theater. I was able to use my free $40 Wal-mart gift card for our first week’s worth of groceries. I was also able to use a free $40 gift card to the Home Depot, on top of a free $40 American Express gift card to bring our paint supply and safety purchases cost down substantially (earned by going to the Timeshare presentation). And today, a friend from my work is dropping off an old lawnmower that she longer wants, and that probably just needs a tune-up.

Ways to Stop the Bleeding

My point in writing this article is to show everyone that expensive months happen. True, buying a home was a planned expense, and we knew that there were going to be unforeseen costs involved. But we were definitely met with more surprises than we had not thought of (both good and bad).

• If you are planning a big expense in the upcoming months, try to save as many gift cards, coupons associated with your type of upcoming expense (for example, Home Depot/Lowe’s coupons for buying a home/apartment, prescription drug coupons for having planned surgery/start of new school year, etc.), and favors as you possibly can so that you can combine them all and make something out of it to help save you money.
• Plan ahead a little; hopefully you have some stockpiles built up from previous months when you had more cash available, such as in your freezer, which you can use instead of going to the store and purchasing necessities. Remember that on top of whatever it is that is costing you extra for the month—something breaks, textbook expenses, health issues—you still have to feed yourselves, put gas in your car, and pay your bills.
• Always have a backup; even when purchasing a home, resist the temptation to stretch yourself so far that you are putting everything in your savings towards the down payment and closing costs. This leaves you very vulnerable, and who knows…your car may breakdown the next week.
• Don’t let spending money become a snowball effect. For example, while you are at the store, you see some other things that you want/need, and you throw them in the cart because, hey, you are having a bad spending month anyway, right? What’s another item at this moment? Save those kinds of purchases for when they properly fit into your budget in a few months to come.
• Pare down your expenditures for the following month as well in order to better absorb all of the added expenditures into your budget system.

Gain Perspective

But most of all, take a deep breath, and realize that this is not the norm, and that your savings will build back up with a little bit of time, effort, and patience. If this is not your month of large expenses, but someone in your family or a friend is experiencing them, please take the time to offer a cooked meal, or to help out with some of your time, or to do something which will make a big difference for them. Trust me, the kindness is much appreciated.

Note to readers: For such large financial decisions, it is always a good idea to step away, run the numbers and truly think about your decision. Being pressured to buy on the spot is no way to make a purchase. For purposes of anonymity, I am not going to release the name of this particular timeshare.

One of the things that I love about blogging is that it gives me a great excuse to try out new things that I have always wanted to, but have never quite had the gumption to do…such as Timeshares.

A few weeks ago, an invitation to a timeshare presentation came in the mail, and I accepted it. I used to work in marketing, and one of my last projects was for a hotel chain with timeshares as one of its competitors, so I got to briefly delve into the world of them but have not ever visited one. Also, the prizes they were offering seemed way too good to be true and I wanted to test it out for both my readers’ and my own sake and see if I can actually walk away with something more than I came with (instead of walking away with something less…like a pocketful of my money).

My appointment was set for 10:30 a.m. on a Friday and was to last for 1.5 hours. It was an hour away from where I lived, but with the promise of walking away with a $40 American Express card, a trip for two to Las Vegas for 3 days and 2 nights, airfare and hotel included or a trip for two to a cruise leaving a nearby port, plus either a $49,000 BMW, $1500 shopping spree, $500 cash, or a romantic getaway for 5 days and 4 nights for two, the drive did not bother me at all. According to the flyer, you were guaranteed to walk away with at minimum $1295 in gifts, with no purchase necessary. (Frugal decadence at its best).

I walked into a room of probably 50 other people. We all filled out a sheet of paperwork for identification (turns out you cannot get your prize without two forms of ID). On the television screen in the corner was playing America’s Funniest Home Videos, and against the wall was a table with some juice and cookies. One by one our names were called by a representative, who then took us into another room and individually spoke to us. After twenty minutes I was greeted by a very enthusiastic college student clad in a suit. His major was business.

In the building next door he gathered some market research about me. It turns out that by our approximations, Paul and I spend around $2100 per year on travelling (one large trip, and two small weekend getaways) or $200 per month (although honestly it’s $175 if you do the math). Over the course of the next 9 years, this salesman showed me that that would add up to $18,000. But wait—that didn’t include inflation; he opened up a notebook with a paper in plastic sheeting showing the inflationary values of a coca-cola and a movie rental from 1960 until today. The prices had gone up by nearly 536%! (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that salaries had also risen since then). He wanted to be conservative, so he told me that I would be looking at an inflation of at least 100%. So I was truly looking at $36,000 for our one week and two weekend getaways per year.

Next came the tour in his F-150. We saw a cabin on the property, the activities area, as well as the condominium-type buildings. I thought the grounds were sufficient, but not as extravagant as I had imagined them to be. At each location that we toured, he left me with the benefits in mind (you can have your own guests, come and stay with us for a week and if you want to stay longer, the cost is just $75 per night, etc.). He kept quizzing me, the questions rolling off his tongue with assurance that he would get the answer he was leading to. Honestly, I just couldn’t produce all of the answers he wanted; sometimes I was confused by the question, or I had to detail to him that once I had taken a trip to Maryland for a long weekend for $7 in total (frequent flyer miles for the airfare, free lodging at a beautiful cottage on my college campus for a special dinner I was invited to attend courtesy of my old department head, borrowed a car from my aunt who lives in Washington D.C. and had a gas gift card to fill the tank up afterwards, etc.).

After the tour we headed back to the building, where it was finally going to be revealed to me the cost of the timeshare. The college student reminded me how much I was looking at spending in the next 9 years for my traveling, and as he continued speaking, that huge $36,000 number glared at me from the page.

Here’s how it broke down: The promotion for the day was that I would get a one week vacation each year, plus membership into RCI (meaning I can stay at various timeshare locations all around the world for an extra $189 per week), plus stay extra nights for $75, plus have as many guests as I want coming over, plus have the option of staying in 7 different locations around the U.S. (I have to admit, none were particularly to my liking, and I let him know that)…all for the price of $15,500, plus $65 per month maintenance fee. And by the way, this was $20,500 less that what I was going to spend on travel in the next 9 years anyway, so how could I refuse? Besides, I had said myself that currently we spend around $200 per month on travel. For just $289 more per month, $489 per month for 360 months, I can actually own something and rise above all of the other people who rent every year.

I said that I would have to think about it, which was exactly what I intended on doing. As per usual, I wanted to run some numbers at home, talk it over with Paul, and see if it was truly worth it.

Repeatedly, the salesman asked me what was holding me back. I was completely honest with him; my fiancée and I were closing on a home during that week, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our credit history by taking on a rather large loan during the process, (as well as take on a loan of this size when we are about to take on a huge loan otherwise)! The salesman respected that, and waited for his manager to come over so that I could receive my gifts. In reality, the next man who came was the second man on the 3-salesman approach to pressure me into buying.

For fifteen minutes I spoke with this second gentleman. He was noticeably upset that I had not brought my fiancée, as if I had broken some unwritten rule; when I told him that “we” are buying a home soon, he looked puzzled at my sheet, and said “we…who is we?” I said “oh, my fiancée”. He said “why isn’t he here” and looked at me as if I had committed a crime. My phone started ringing at that moment, and was unfortunately on the chair beside us all because the second salesman saw Paul’s name pop-up.

“Oh—go ahead and answer that and talk it over. I’ll go speak with my manager about this”, he said.

I said “I don’t want to talk with him about this over the phone, and especially while he is at work.”

He replied, “Well, he wants to talk to you; look, he’s calling you.” He then stood up, and demanded that I call my fiancée while he went to talk to his manager. As anyone would, I simply sat there and refused to do so (I do not take commands from complete strangers). When he returned with a better offer from his manager, he asked if I had done as he told me to. I said “no”.

In just fifteen minutes, the price of owning a timeshare went from $15,500 to $8,880. The salesman explained that something happened that never happens. Someone reneged on their deal, but had already paid down their deed by $6,620. This would be a savings to me. I could just pick up their deed where they left it off. I still politely declined, shook hands with the person, and he left.

Then came the third salesman in the guise of another manager to give me my gifts. He asked how everyone had treated me, and I said “fine”, and put in a great word for the first salesman because he had really done a great job of representing the place. This salesman came with another type of deal. “I heard that you are buying a home and that the price is what is holding you back. I am here to tell you that we will accept $150 down, and $100 per month for the next ten months to hold these prices for you. At the end of ten months, we will put that money towards your purchasing price. How does that sound?” I thought it sounded like they were willing to work with me, which was nice. Still, I was not ready to take on that debt and sign on the dotted line on the spot. Honestly, I had every intention of thinking it over and running the numbers at home.

The third man gave up with an air of utter frustration. He escorted me out the back door and told me which building to go to for the gifts. He walked away, and I put my hand out to shake his. He shook it, but without even looking at me and shaking his head with utter disdain. Wow. I had gone from being a rockstar to being the mistress in a back alley in a matter of an hour.

They delivered on their prize promise; it was a lottery card that you scratched off to see if you won the BMW or shopping spree, or cash, or the romantic getaway (which is the token prize that most everyone wins, and the first salesman explained that to me). I walked away with my $40 American Express Giftcard, a trip for two to Las Vegas for 3 days and 2 nights with roundtrip airfare and the hotel included, and a trip for two for 5 days/4 nights to a choice of several Caribbean locations with hotel included (you supply your own airfare).

Three and a half hours from when I had first arrived, and with my prizes in hand, I drove away to the symbolic tunes of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling”, feeling entirely relieved from the pressure of buying something that had been building incrementally stronger with each of the three salesman.

Timeshares may be for you. Honestly, the ability to use my week in foreign countries truly sold me on the concept because it is ultimate flexibility. Also, the idea that I can ‘will’ this deed to another generation appeals to me (I know, I am only 26, but I have really long-term thinking). What didn’t sell me is the fact that on top of paying the $15,500, each year I would be paying $780 in “maintenance fees” to upkeep my property, which, let’s face it, is the cost of my two smaller weekend getaways combined. I also did not buy into the 100% inflation over the next 20 years (even though this could happen, I am confident in my abilities to find ways around price hikes). Besides that, the property I saw was only sufficient in my eyes and not the type of luxurious I would be looking for to fork out $489 per month for the next 30 years of my life.

Has anyone else ever had experience with timeshares, or owns one? I’d be curious to hear some stories.

You may also like:
Deal or No Deal or Which Deal, our Timeshare Update
We are Not Going to Help them Make Vegetable Soup out of a Stone

Our hiatus on spending money began Friday night. The reasons are twofold. Number 1: our mortgage broker sent us an email that said we basically have to report to them anytime between now and closing when we move money around between our accounts, charge more than $500 on our credit card, or breathe. And Number 2: we need all the money we can get for appliances and such after the actual purchase of our home, and know that more unexpected costs are sure to pop up.

Going on lockdown is not a far stretch for us. Because I deal in ECBs and the grocery store game, we have quite the stockpile built up (see upcoming article: Plague of Overconsumption). I have enough toothpaste, shampoo and other toiletries, trash bags, plastic bags for lunches, etc. to last several months. If you look in our hall closet, we are flooded with spaghetti sauce, sugar, flour, coffee, bread crumbs, croutons, noodles, pasta, tea, etc. Thanks to some great deals, Lyla is stocked up with a year supply of litter, and probably six months worth of food and treats. Plus, we’ve each got at least a dozen books and movies in our collection that we have yet to enjoy.

Granted, we cannot be on complete lockdown. We will need some food to complement the reserves we have in our freezer and supply closet (like veggies/fruits, cheese/dairy). Kroger’s is having a one-day sale where they will double coupons from $0.40 to $1.00 in value on Saturday August 15th, (and ofcourse continue to triple coupons below $0.39) and I will be taking advantage of this. I just filled up my tank with gas from a free gift card, so I should be set for the month in gas, but I am sure Paul will need to fill up once or twice. All of our bills will still be paid. But “no” will become a much more used word in our vocabulary over the next month. The trick is, we are going to substitute something for everything that we say no to in order that we don’t feel like we are denying ourselves. Feeling like you are denying yourself can lead to a nasty spending binge at the end of the month.

Here is what we will be saying no to, and what the substitute will be:

• eating out = cooking at home, freezing a few meals or leftovers for nights when we will be too tired/busy to cook, and an occasional barbecue at family and friends
• tickets for concerts and such = Miller Outdoor Theater free concerts/plays
• buying cute new things for the house (oh the urge…) = perhaps picking out what we would like to go in our gift registry for the wedding
• new clothes = I have a free $10 off $10 gift card to VS
• new books/dvds = a fully stocked book shelf at home with many books we have yet to read
• going out to the movies = an occasional free premiere invite to Studio Movie Grill Theater makes its way into my inbox, as well as just getting movies on our Netflix subscription and watching those

Is it worth the sacrifice? I will admit that the list of things we are denying ourselves will basically be cutting us off from society. But by saying no to these things, we will be saying yes to a beautiful new home. In my book, that’s worth a few movies and a night out on the town.

What about for you? Having a no-spend month—like the family on this blog is doing—can help to jumpstart many things in your life: an emergency fund, saving for a vacation, a down payment, paying down debt. Perhaps you want to start easy, and go with a no-spend weekend, or week. While you almost certainly cannot get away with spending $0 for the month, you can set yourself a very lowball budget (say $300 for food, entertainment, other) and then bank the rest for whatever is important in your life.

Leave a comment with ideas, or just to let me know how it goes!

I once had a science teacher who told me that if you save 10% of everything you earn over a lifetime, you will be a millionaire. The thought used to boggle my mind. Ten percent of income seemed like such a small amount compared to the seemingly unattainable $1,000,000 mark, especially back in high school when I was only making $98 per week. I’ve thought about this statement every so often over the last decade, and have come up with an idea on my own. What happens if you save 10% on everything you spend over a lifetime? Some people are natural savers, so saving 10% out of their paychecks is not a problem. But many people are not natural savers, or find themselves in a situation where they are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Simply by changing their perspective and getting a 10% discount off of everything they spend, natural-born spenders can amass a savings as well.

Saving 10% here and there on everyday purchases may not seem to add up to much: 10% off of a candy bar is $0.10, 10% off of a new outfit is $6.00, 10% off of an airplane ticket is $30. But if you make an effort to receive a 10% discount off of everything that you buy over the course of a lifetime, suddenly the numbers are quite impressive. In order to show you what this could amount to, I looked at a number of statistics to calculate total earnings in a lifetime, minus total assets/savings left at the end of that lifetime (i.e. inheritance left for the next generation). When you subtract the two, you get an approximation of the amount of money spent in one’s lifetime.

According to a 2006 study by AARP entitled In Their Dreams: What Will Boomers Inherit?, AARP found that the median inheritance is $64,000. Let’s assume, for the sake of this article, that there are 2 children per family, each receiving this $64,000, making it a total net inheritance from one generation to the next of $128,000. If we look at lifetime earning statistics, we see that a household with one income earner with a bachelor’s degree (scroll to Page 2) will net, on average, $2.1 million of earned income in their lifetime. That means that for the example above, this household will have spent a total of approximately $1,972,000 in their lifetime (total income earned over a lifetime minus inheritance left for the next generation). That’s quite a chunk of change passing through a household’s hands.

If this household made an effort to get a 10% discount on everything they purchase, they are looking at amassing $197,200. Granted, they need to actually put this 10% savings into a savings account to see this accumulation (discussed in series: Bank It!), but what a difference discounts and coupons can make over a long period of time!

Another way to get an average is to take the US Consumer Unit Expenditures provided by the Department of Labor—for 2008 it is $49,638 minus the categories of insurance, pension and cash contributions, which makes it $42,481—and divide that by 10% to get $4,248 as the annual amount of money a person could put into savings, even if they spent every dime of their paycheck. Over a lifetime of 45 working years without assuming any sort of interest or dividends earned, that amount would add up to $192,645.

Some assumptions are used, and because these statistics are averages, it may not apply to your own situation. You can go here to calculate your own approximate lifetime earnings (please note, example figures are already inserted into the input fields—these do not reflect my own earnings!). You might be surprised at how much money you will bring home in a paycheck over a lifetime. Are you a saver, or a spender? Perhaps both? If you are a spender, and probably will never amass much of a savings account or retirement (no criticism here) figure out what 10% of your lifetime earnings/spending is, and see what you could amass by simply asking for a 10% discount on everything you purchase.

By keeping your same spending habits and just adding in a coupon, deal, or haggling a little at the cash register, you will be able to stock up quite a bit of savings over a lifetime. Perhaps that is what they mean by purchasing power.

I love using credit cards. Before you fall off your chairs, let me explain. In the marketing world, I fall in the consumer category of Bang for the Buck. In other words, I don’t let credit card companies use me, I use them. I have thus far received over $800 in gift cards and two free airline tickets in the last three years without paying an annual fee or any finance charges. I do this by paying off my credit card bill every month.

What else do I love about credit cards? By charging everything I possibly can on my plastic I can get an accurate report of my spending at the end of the year (compliments of the credit card company). I can fill in a few holes with information from my bank account, such as automatic withdrawals into savings, and very quickly capture an accurate photo of where my money is going.

Without further ado, I would like to share this spending picture with everyone:

Some interesting insights for me personally have been seeing my spending habits reflect the things I value the most: savings, retirement, and paying off my student loan. Areas where I could afford to spend a bit more: clothing and entertainment. And the areas where I will most likely see significant savings in for 2009 due to moving in with my boyfriend: rent, travel and groceries.

You might want to look at your own numbers for 2008 to gain some insights on your own spending. If you use a credit card, you should be able to request a free annual spending summary. Some banks also offer this information for free for your checking and savings accounts. Is your spending in line with what you value most? Are there areas you can cut back on? Areas you are doing well in?

It will be exciting for me, and hopefully for you, to see the changes in my numbers from 2008 to 2009.