If you have lost control of your finances, the family is probably trying to hang on to their habits while the bill payer is struggling to find a way to pay for them.  It’s difficult for the family to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you are imposing limits on their day to day routines.  While you may not see the benefit in some of their expenses, they obviously do and they will hang on to them at the expense of your budget.

So how do you get your spouse, partner or children to climb onto the budget bandwagon?

5 Tips to Having a Successful Budget Discussion with your Family

1. Determine What Your Family Wants – There has to be a benefit to everyone involved so get your family to help you set goals that they would like to see happen.  If your spouse would like to go on vacation, make that a goal with specific budget requirements, ie, if we can get this bill paid off, we can afford to go on vacation.  For your children, you first have to determine what it is that they want. For the billpayer/budgeter the goals are simple, less stress and fewer bills but your family may not share in those desires.
2. Set Small Goals –  Set small, easily accomplished short term goals and small rewards.  For example, if we can reduce our miscellaneous expenditures by 50% then we can go to see that movie at the end of the month or at the end of the week.   Let the family experience success.
3. Get Them Involved –  Face the fact early, you can’t do this alone so you need their help.  Get them involved in the planning.  Ask for ideas about how they can save money or earn more money.  Get them to implement their ideas and set their own goals.  While you might need for the change to happen NOW, you will have more success if your family does this step by step.
4. Keep Their Interest –  Get your family to make a visual reminder of the rewards of budgeting.  Whether your son wants a new pair of shoes or your daughter wants the keys to the family car, get them to visualize the end result by pictures.  The budgeter’s dream board should also include a way to keep track of your progress.
5. Rewards –  Rewards don’t have to be large or expensive but they should be fairly frequent to start out.  You may need to set weekly or even daily rewards to keep your family motivated.  Small children will enjoy a trip to the park as much as that latest toy and the park only costs you time.

Any budget that is not supported by your family is doomed to fail.  Enlist their support and it will help you in the long run.  Budgeting shouldn’t be drudgery and keeping the family on it can’t be a dictatorship.

Have you had the budget discussion with your family?  How did it go?

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Let Them Eat Cake

I slipped into Walmart the other day to buy a loaf of sandwich bread.  We generally stick to whole wheat bread as it the much healthier choice than white, bleached bread.  I guess the price difference hit me because I was just getting bread and not other groceries.  The generic Walmart brand of white bread was just under $1 a loaf and one of the longer loaves. There was no Walmart brand wheat bread and the least expensive loaf of Whole grain bread was $2.98.  Wow… I was a bit shocked.  Prices for whole wheat bread had been running about double the cost of white bread but this is triple the cost.  It reminded me of Marie Antoinette’s instruction when the peasants couldn’t afford bread, “Let them eat cake!”    And by the way, you can buy a small cake for less than a loaf of  healthy bread.

It really made me think about the cost of eating healthy.  Prices have risen for just about everything.  Chicken prices, beef prices, fresh vegetable and fruit prices have all soared.  I know that the prices are driven by the farmer’s cost of production and then shipping all relying on gas and oil but it seems to me that the cost of producing and shipping white bread should be just as high.  I am sure that Walmart loses money on their white bread because it draws people into the store.  It was the one reason why I stopped there that day and not at our closer store.

The Solution?

The bread solution is fairly simple.  I need to start baking bread at home and my challenge is that it is difficult to slice homemade bread into sandwich sized slices.  If anyone has a foolproof way of thin slicing homemade bread, please let me know. Whole wheat flour is also a bit more expensive than white bleached flour but the cost of five pounds of flour is still less than a loaf of bread.

I am going to be checking out our local farmer’s market this week.  Hopefully, I can not only help my neighbors but I can also buy some fresh, healthy vegetables for less.  They have the added benefit of being fresher.  I can some and some go into the freezer.  If you don’t have time to can, freezing is the way to go.  Most vegetables can be frozen after washing and blanching which just kills any germs on the surface of the vegetable.  I freeze whole tomatoes and peppers out of our garden just by washing them and putting them in a bag.  The skins on the tomatoes come off easily when they thaw and I don’t have to spend hours getting all of them done at the same time.

My question to you is whether you are sacrificing health for price?  I find that there are times when I end up buying the cheaper, less healthy option instead of the fresher or healthier variety.

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The ancient Babylonians are thought to be the first to make New Years Resolutions.  They made them to find favor with the gods and breaking them was supposed to bring bad luck.  Many of us continue to make New Years Resolutions every year and most of us fail to keep them.  The Babylonians were careful to pick resolutions that they could keep through the year and we should be just as careful.

Every year I make the same New Year’s Resolutions and every year I fail to keep them.  I might make some effort to keep them for a week or two but then other things become more important.  I have really spent some time this year determining what I want to accomplish in the next year.

The Most Common Mistake

Most of us make a very common mistake when we are making our resolution.  We make a resolution to do something to improve ourselves such as losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, etc but we never really make a plan on how to do it.  We think about it for a week or so but then just flounder because the reason we haven’t done it in the past is because we really don’t know how to go about it.

Making a plan to support our resolutions

One of my New Years resolutions is to put and keep money in my emergency fund.  Well, that’s a pretty good resolution but it is non specific.  I have to ask myself how much money should I have?  How long should it stay there?  Or even more important why haven’t I been able to keep money in the fund in the past?   The easy answer is that I keep having emergencies but if I look closer, I really haven’t had but one emergency this year and that was when my father got sick in April.  I have taken money out of the fund for groceries, to pay bills, and to do car repairs.  All of these things should have been covered in my regular budget but our income for the month did not support the budget.

So if I make the resolution to keep money in my emergency fund, I am already setting myself up to fail if I don’t make some adjustments to my budget.  This year, instead of putting all my savings into my emergency fund, I am going to start a second account to use as an operating account.  Because our income varies drastically from month to month, I am going to start putting money aside specifically to be used to cover those months where our income is low.  In the past, we have just tightened our belts and done without and then dipped into the emergency fund to cover the essentials.

My plan this year is simple, specific and measurable.   I cannot take money out of our regular income for our emergency fund.  We just don’t have enough income to support it unless the economy does a drastic turnaround.   I do have irregular income that comes from my blog, some ebay and craigslist sales.  This income is going to go into my emergency fund.  Any boon in our regular income will go into a separate account to be used in the lean months.

Another Common Mistake

Another mistake I make every year is not looking at what didn’t work over the last year.  The answer this year is easy, I didn’t work.  I have made very few posts over the last 12 months.  My focus has been on other things and I have made less than a decent effort to write or promote my websites or internet business.  This is going to change this year and I am making a committment to write daily on this blog and several others that I maintain.  I am going to set aside time each day to accomplish this.

My Plan

Increase my internet income to $100 per month for the first quarter.

For the second quarter, I would like to double that to $200 per month.

For the third and fourth quarter, I would like to be making $500 per month.

My How

eBay -  I am going to start selling on eBay again.  I pick up knick knacks and collectibles at thrift stores and yard sales and resell them on eBay.  Historically, I have done pretty well at this, usually doubling my investment.

Blogs -  I need to double my traffic on all of my blogs.  It has dropped off simply because I have not been writing and I have lost quite a few of my readers.  I have also not been promoting them.  I will be writing at least three articles per week on each blog and promoting each article.  I actually enjoy this because so much of blog promotion is just getting out and visiting other blogs.  I learn quite a bit and make some great friends this way.

Guest Posts -  I am going to be accepting guest posts on all my blogs on a weekly basis.  I am also going to try to write some guest posts for other sites.

Results

My resolutions this year and goals are rather ambitious.  It will take time and hard work to accomplish them but it is a labor of love and I will enjoy both the process and the results.  I will keep you updated on how my financial goal is going over the months.

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I really like prepaid debit cards, because they’re “prepaid.” What that means is that you can auto-load your card each month with a set amount, and then you have to stick to that amount. There’s no cheating, because unlike a bank’s debit card, you can’t spend more than you actually have. The other benefit is you avoid ridiculous overdraft fees and you know exactly what your monthly fees will be.

Tips for Using A Prepaid Debit Card for Budgeting

In my budget I have categories and money for some categories has traditionally been put into my savings account.  The problem is that this money often gets used for other things or it isn’t quickly available when I need it.   This means that when the time comes to use the money for purchases in that category, it isn’t there and I end up blowing my budget.

With Christmas coming up, I am always looking for ways to stay in budget and a prepaid credit card that I could not only shop online with but also take with me so that when I see that perfect gift, I would have the means to purchase it.

Another budget category that I might use a prepaid card for is clothing purchases.  I am definitely not a ‘clothes horse’ so my clothing purchases tend to be sporadic.  If I put my clothing budget into my savings account, I either use it for something else or don’t have the funds immediately available when I see something that I really like.

Because we travel in our business, it is often inconvenient to use cash.  I often have to make reservations at a hotel and without some kind of credit/debit card, it is almost impossible.  I can put our budgeted amount onto our debit card and then make reservations with confidence.  It’s also a true pain in the rear to have to prepay for gas.  I have to estimate what it is going to cost to fill the tank, stand in line to pay the deposit and then stand in line again when I am done filling the tank.  The prepaid card will make trips much easier.

You can also extend this to your family. For example, a prepaid debit card is perfect for a college student. Instead of giving them a credit card or cash for the entire semester, consider giving them a prepaid debit card that gets auto-loaded each month. That will force them to stay within their budget, and will also keep them from blowing through their money before the semester is over.

In short, prepaid cards are a tool that can be used to enhance your budget while forcing you to stay in a budget.  You need to shop wisely for your card and be aware of any hidden charges and fees.  As I have said before, I will never own another credit card so a prepaid card is very attractive to me.

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My Dream Card

I have made up the following wish list for my dream card.  I don’t expect to get it free but I would like it to be reasonable:

• Reasonable activation fee of under $20
• No dormancy fees
• Pay some kind of interest on my money
• No fees for purchases
• Reasonable fees for atm withdrawals ($1 or less)
• Free Online Balance Check
• No monthly fees

Is this asking too much?  There are a few cards that come close but none meet all of my requirements so I have been making comparisons.  They are very confusing and the card that might be the best for my spending habits (occasional transactions) might not be best for everyone.  If you plan on using the card several times per month, you might be better off choosing one that has a small monthly fee and free transactions.

Because Walmart has put their money card on sale I thought I would use it as an example. I honestly was somewhat skeptical about the monthly fees but after much research I have found that they are probably the best value.  All transactions are free except atm transactions.  The only way that I have found to get around atm transaction fees is to use your bank card at your own bank and that is not always free.

This is what is posted on Walmart’s cardholder agreement:

In contrast, here are some of the fees from another highly advertised prepaid credit card:
This is the NetSpend Prepaid Card as shown on another website:

Altogether though these fees may be considerably less than you are spending on your current credit card every month.   These fees are subject to change so if you are considering a prepaid credit card make sure that you read the small print and search for the best deal.

If you have any better deals on prepaid cards, I’d love to hear from you.  I am specifically searching for one that pays interest on the available balance.

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Now that I am getting adjusted to the physical part of my job, I find that I am getting just as much done at home.  The only one that it has affected negatively is R.  He doesn’t complain but I can tell that he is lonely and has a bit of cabin fever.  Since his operation, he really can’t get out and do the things that he used to do and he also can’t drive anywhere.  When I get home, he either wants to go somewhere or talk. I am ready to sit down and chill for an hour.

We are working through it.  The first few days, I was exhausted when I got home.  All I wanted to do was take a nap or go to bed.  Now I have a bit more energy and am more willing to run into town or go to the barn and do chores.

The biggest change has been having a set amount of money coming in at the end of the week.  It is different.  I cashed my paycheck and put 75% of it into the emergency fund.  I am going to keep adding as much as I can so that we will have something to fall back on.  I believe that since we have been making it without any outside income, that I should be able to save a good portion of it.

I have also got to sit down and redo our monthly budget.  Eventually, I would like to use my paycheck to pay the bills and have the farm income go into a savings account.  Right now though we are ahead on the farm and so I am just prolonging dedicating my salary to bills.   It feels REALLY GOOD to be growing our savings.

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I wish I could write some great posts on my job search but honestly, I didn’t even apply for this job.  A friend knew it was coming open and knew that I was qualified so they called me.  The employer knows me slightly and there you have it, I was employed.

In the long run it will be a good thing.  Right now it just makes life a little more complicated.  R is still pretty much house bound and even though he has gotten outside a few times this week, he can’t lift anything or do too much on the leg.  I am going to worry about him.

I am also going to have to change his appointments at the doctor’s office to pull blood twice a week to a time when I can take him.  Working around this shouldn’t be a huge big deal but something else to add into the schedule.

I am very thankful that I am going back to work in this economy though.  The job market is tough and competitive especially here where even during normal times there are not many jobs.

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Two years ago, I began my journey to ‘fix’ my financial situation.  I began reading personal finance books and blogs with a passion and one of the rules that I saw the most was “Spend Less Than You Earn”.   While at first glance it seems like great advice, it was almost enough to make me give up.  I was over my head in debt and my income was shrinking not growing.  Obviously, spending more than I earned had gotten me into this mess.

Spending less than I earned every month was pretty much an impossibility.  I had so much debt and so little income that every penny that I made had a  place to go.  When  I wrote down my first budget, I was so far in the red that I couldn’t see black.  How could I possibly spend less than I earned?

I look back now and realize that it was the first book that I read “The Richest Man In Babylon” which helped me the most.  This book was written in 1926 by George Samuel Clason.  It was originally a series of pamphlets that were handed out by banks and insurance companies.  Clason’s firt rule was to “Pay Yourself First”.

Pay Yourself First

In other words, no matter how much you owe others or how much you spend, you need to pay yourself first by saving some of your money.  Clason suggests saving 10% by spending only 9 out of every ten dollars earned.  I always questioned this amount but I can tell you that 10% works.  It is a small enough amount that if you put it into savings, you will not miss it.   Even when I was barely making enough to live on each month, that $10 on every hundred was small enough that I didn’t miss it.

At first, I thought I would put whatever money was left at the end of the month into savings.  I quickly learned that if I waited until the end of the month, the money ran out long before the month did.  There was always an extra bill to pay  or groceries to buy or that extra tank of gas to go someplace.  There was never any money left at the end of the month.  The habit of spending what I had in my pocket was so deeply ingrained that it left without me even realizing it.

When I started to put that 10% into savings FIRST even when I knew I was not going to have enough money to pay bills or buy groceries.  Every single month that I put money into savings before I paid bills or bought groceries, I made my savings goal and somehow I managed to pay the household bills and eat.  I  didn’t pay all of the bills but I could not have paid them without saving anyway.

Now I know that many of you are thinking that you would have used the money that I was putting into savings to pay the debts.   Clason’s second rule is to control your expenses and to learn the difference between needs and desires. Clason’s second rule is to control your expenses and to learn the difference between needs and desires.In some ways, I agree with you but I had come to think of my small emergency fund as my survival fund.  If something went wrong, I would not be able to pay the essentials like rent, utilities and food without some small amount of money in savings.

Emergency Fund

My initial savings goal was $500 to be used for emergencies.  It seems like a small amount but it took me almost 6 months to save it.  I tried snowflaking money into it by selling things on eBay and on craig’s list.  I saved my change and added it to my savings.  All of it helped but in the end the only thing that really worked was paying myself first.

Eventually, my income grew and my debt load shrunk.  It is now possible to spend less than I earn but that first lesson is still the one that governs my financial life.  No matter what else I buy or pay, no matter what I have to give up, I pay myself first by putting that 10% into savings.

After 2 years, I still do not have the fully funded emergency fund (6 – 8 months of living expenses) that is recommended.  I would like to think that I will eventually build up to that amount but I have enough to keep my head above water for a month or so.

Beyond Emergencies

Paying myself first has become more than just a tool to build my emergency fund.  The emergency fund also doubles as an operating account.  I do withdraw money from it for more than emergencies.  There have been times when I have had to take money out of it to keep the farm operating.  My goal is to only take money out for emergencies and to pay for something that will increase our income.

Clason’s third rule is to make your savings multiply.  This can mean as little as earning interest on your savings by putting it in a savings account or cd but it can also mean using it to invest in something that will increase your earnings.  While we don’t take money out of savings to buy things that we desire, I do not feel guilty about taking it out to take advanatage of opportunities.

We buy and sell horses for a living.  We generally budget a certain amount of our income to buy more horses.   Every once in awhile an opportunity to purchase a horse for very little comes along and if we didn’t have some savings, we would have to turn it down.  For example, a friend recently had a horse that she needed to sell quickly.  It was  a wonderful horse, registered, well trained and very pretty.  She wanted a little more for it than we currently had budgeted for restocking, however, I knew that we could easily make double or triple that amount when we sold her.  I took the money out of our savings to buy the horse and sure enough I more than tripled our money on her.

For those of you who are not in business, there are many chances for investment.  You might invest in a college course that will increase your earning potential or you might be investing in your own home.  The important thing is to not only save 10% of your income but also to make that 10% work for you so that it increases.

If you are new to personal finance and struggling to get your head above water, don’t be discouraged by the advice to spend less than you earn.  Try paying yourself first and you will soon find that you are spending less than you earn.

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When I had a job, I automatically had money put into a 401(k) plan.  It was thoughtless savings and when I left that job or fell on hard times, I ransacked the account, paid the penalties and counted my blessings.  If I had only known then, what I know now.

I watch my children, young and old, making the same mistakes that I made.  If they don’t have money, they spend it anyway.  When they do have money, they spend it like there is no tomorrow.  I cringe when I see the way that they spend money.  Don’t get me wrong, most of them are grown and have the right to buy what they want and live the way they want but I feel like I should have taught them better.

These few things took me 52 years to learn.  I wish that I could teach them to my children, it would make such a difference in their lives.

#1 – Save, Save, Save

Kids, I can’t tell you how long it took me to learn this lesson.  Save a small percentage of your money and protect it from yourself like a mother protects her nest.  When times are good, saving is comparatively easy and while it’s easy to save, it is also easy to rob that savings because it was so easy to accumulate it.  When times are hard and you can still manage to save a little, your savings are harder to come by and will give you security.   You will also value whatever small amount you can save.   It’s hard to remember that times might not always be good and you might need that savings at some point in your life.  So when times are good, save as much as you can; when times are bad, save as much as you can and remember when you dip into that savings for something that you might need it more tomorrow than you do today.

#2 – Debt Has Eternal Life

Most of the things that you buy today will have no value in 5 years.  That new phone or new car or new tv will not be worth a tenth in 5 years.  Quite a few of them will have no value in a year.  Yes, they are cool today but you will get bored with it quickly and want a newer model.  If you go into debt for it, you will probably still be paying for it long after it is gone.   Save credit for a house and a car as they are probably the only things that will outlast the payment. Even after paying your debt off, it lives on in your credit report.  If you have a 5 year loan, it will stay on your credit report for 12 years.

#3 -Learn About Money

No one teaches you about money.  There is no class in school that teaches basic finance much less about saving and investing your money.  You are pretty much on your own when it comes to budgeting, investing, saving and planning.  There are tons of good books out there that you can read about finance.  Take the time to learn about it.   Investing is fascinating and it was a total mystery to me until a few years ago.  I am still not sure I totally understand all the facets of it.  If you don’t know what a zero based budget is, find out.  You may not want to do it but at least learn about the choices you are making.

#4 – Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

What led to my own financial troubles was relying on the equity in my house to be the biggest part of my financial plan.  The unthinkable happened, real estate values dropped like a stone and I lost all that equity.  In six months, equity of over $100,000 dropped to $0.  I wish now that I had invested some of that in other things so that I might have had a chance to save some of it.  If you invest your savings in one thing such as the stock market, and it falls, you can lose it all.  Diversify.  Keep some in a savings account, some in CDs, some in stocks, etc.

#5 – Budgets Are Not Evil

A budget does not mean that you can’t spend money on what you want.  It is simple a decision making process to determine where you really want to spend money and how much money you will have to spend.  It is a process that allows you to prioritize your spending so that you have money to spend on the things that are important to you.  It gives you the security of knowing what you have, what you owe and what you will be getting.  Budgets aren’t set in stone, you can change them easily.

#6 – Credit Cards ARE EVIL

The single most devastating thing that you can do to your finances is buy things with a credit card.  Almost all credit cards charge ridiculously high interest rates even the best charge more than you would pay at a bank.  If you pay the minimum payment, you will be primarily  be paying the interest charge and you will pay it forever.  If you are late, most credit cards will not only charge you a late fee but raise your interest rate.  It is extremely difficult to pay off the balance especially when your budget is tight.

#7 – Emergency Fund

A credit card is not an emergency fund.  You need to have some amount of money in a savings account in case of an emergency.  Hopefully, you will have enough in it to support you for a couple months if you have no other income.  At the very worst, you should have enough in it to get you and your stuff home.  It is not easy to have the discipline to save an emergency fund but the more you save, the easier it gets.

#8 – Financial Freedom or Financial Peace

I don’t know if I will ever have financial freedom but I will have financial peace.  There will come a time in my life when I know that I have enough money to live on in the worst case.  Every dollar that I put in savings gives me more security and less worry.  To me, financial freedom would be the freedom to be able to follow my dreams and to have the money to do so.  I doubt at this point in my life, I will reach that but there is no reason why you can’t.

#9 – The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Marriage

Developing a financial plan and having an emergency fund is the best thing you can do for your marriage.  Agreeing on a financial plan, determining your financial goals and relieving the financial stress will do more for your marriage than any counselor in the world.   I have listened to all of you and your biggest marital problems are financial.  You and your spouse need to sit down and reach agreement on what is important to each of you and find a meeting point.  Once you have developed your financial goals, develop a plan to reach them and then stick to it.  This will help your marriage more than any other thing that you can do.

#10 – Teach Your Children

Do what I say, not what I did.  Once you have taken the time to figure out what to do with the money you have and  don’t have, teach it to your children.  Teach them about saving, help them to develop a habit of savings, let them see how their money can grow.   Teach them about budgeting.  Let them plan how they are going spend their money and let them suffer the consequences of not following their plan.  It is a hard lesson but it’s easier when you are there to help them.  Once they have learned about budgeting and planning, teach them about credit.   Teach them everything you know and it still won’t be enough.

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For those non-smokers out there, let me remind you that nicotine is one of THE MOST ADDICTIVE substances.  Quitting smoking is akin to quitting cocaine or heroin.  There is nothing easy about it.  It is not just as simple as not doing it.  Withdrawal has serious physical and emotional effects that sometimes need to be handled medically.  For me, those symptoms include crushing depression.

I would love to quit for both the health benefits and the financial benefits, however, it is not something that I approach lightly.  I know what quitting has done to me in the past and frankly it scares me.  I am going to attempt it simply because the cost of quit smoking aids has become less than the cost of smoking.

Right now, I am smoking a pack a day.  A pack of cigarettes cost me $3.14 right now and I have to say that I smoke discount cigarettes.  The average cost of a pack of cigarettes here is probably closer to $4.  If I figure out how much I spend per week and per month, it comes out to $21.98 per week and $87.92 per month.  It’s probably closer to $25 and $100 as there are days when I smoke slightly more than a pack.  I am going to average up and say $25 per week.

I can buy Habitrol 21 MG patches online for $13.50 per week.  Nicorette is $19.50 and Nicoderm CQ for $25.88.  There are generic store brands available at Walmart and other drug stores.  If I remember correctly our local Walmart has Equate Nicotine patches for $28 for 2 weeks worth.  That works out to $14 per week.

I have also looked into trying Chantix and the cost of that is approximately $140 per month.  If you can take it, I have heard wonderful things about it from other people who have tried it.

I will also need to take a anti depressant while I am reducing my nicotine intake.  The quit smoking aid buproprion is also an anti depressant so I will need to get a prescription for that.  It runs about $40 per month.

If I buy the cheapest nicotine patches plus the generic form of buproprion, my budget will look like this for a month:

Nicotine Patches          $54
Buproprion                     $40

Quitting Total                 $94

Smoking                           $100

Budget gains from quitting $6

Now there are other indirect savings such as needing less allergy medicine, fewer trips to the doctor with sinus and other respiratory infections, etc but I can’t really say that I can budget that savings.

There are many, many benefits of quitting both health and cosmetic.  It has been proven that people are healthier if they quit smoking.  It can lengthen your life by as much as 15-20 years.  It can reduce wrinkles, improve your dental health, and make your fingernails stronger.

Now I know these seem like trivial things but when you add them all up, the benefits of quitting begin to look more attractive.  Big sigh!  Yes, I am seriously thinking about quitting.

Does anyone have any tips?  Have you quit?  What helped you the most?

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