Now to be fair, I knew I was going to have to have bifocals which would bump the price up to $99 for two pairs.   I have also had progressive or no line lens in the past and would prefer them to the lined bifocals.  They do not list the cost for progressive lens on the website so I figured I would ask when I got there.   And this would be where the problem started.

America’s Best was very clean and neat.  It is laid out very well and the people were very friendly.  I had made an appointment online early that morning and was a little dismayed that they had no record of my appointment when I got there.  I filled out the forms and was asked to wait.  It seems that the doctors were both out to lunch because they didn’t have any appointments scheduled.  It wasn’t a long wait and they took me back for the pre-exam.

Once the pre exam was over, I waited about 5 minutes to be seen by the doctor.  He was thorough and pleasant.  So far, so good.  After the eye exam, I was told to go out and shop for glasses.

Being on a pretty tight budget, while glasses are a necessity, they also take a pretty hefty bite out of the monthly budget.   I picked out a couple of their least expensive frames and took them to the counter.  On the counter was a placemat that explained their pricing packages or so I thought.

It was pretty simple.  I was looking at their basic package for multi focal lenses which according to the place mat included the bi focal lenses, a one year warranty, a sun or vanity tint and UV protection.  The price for two pairs of lined bi focals was listed as $99.  The price for unlined (progressive) lens was $138.  Ok, so I can live with that price.  It was $39 higher than the lined bi-focals but worth it.

The girl took the measurements and my preferences for tinting one pair as sun glasses.  She put it all in the computer and …. the grand total was $249.    So I said, wait a second, what happened to the $138???  Oh, that price is just for the lens, you still have to buy the frames.  Ummmm, that’s not what you advertised.   So I told her to go ahead and take off the progressive lens.  The total came down to $209.

Ok, so now I am getting a little angry.  I pointed out that their website advertised two pair of multi focal glasses for $99.  The girl told me that they didn’t.  She ended up calling the manager over who told me that it was because she had included the warranty and the tinting.  I pointed to the place mat with the prices and which clearly listed the warranty, and the tinting for $99 or $138.

The manager actually snatched it out of my hands and put it behind her back.  She told me that that  a package price and was just for the lenses and did not include the frames.  By now, I am more than a little angry and I specifically asked her what exactly did the advertised Two Pair for $99 include?  Was it the frames with no lenses or the lenses with no frame? She told me that I could get the tinting for $15.  So if I do the math according to what she was telling me, the frames were $49.95 each and the tinting was $15 for each pair.  The price advertised for the “package” was $99 for the lined bifocal lenses plus the 49.95 for each  for the frames would bring the total package price for the two pair of glasses to $198.90.  Without the package price, the cost would be $99 plus the $15 for the tinting for a total of $114.  This means that you are paying $84.90 for a year’s warranty.

Oh no, I could get the Two Pair for $99 without the warranty and the tint.  With Progressive lenses it would have been $199.  Well, FINALLY!!  I paid for my glasses which will be in about 7 days from now.  I must admit that I am still not sure that I didn’t get railroaded out of the progressive lenses but I did finally get the lined bifocals for the advertised price.

My problems with this are many.  Anyone who just went in for the advertised two pair would have probably gotten pressured into paying over twice as much.  I have nothing against upselling but start at the advertised price and up sell me.  Don’t try to tell me that it wasn’t what they were advertising or just upsell me without even mentioning the lower option.  The girl who waited on me didn’t even know there WAS a lower option.

I left and I am still not sure that I was charged the right price.  It’s a shame because other than the price difficulties it was a pleasant experience.  Have you tried America’s Best Contacts and Eyeglasses?   How was your experience?

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Used Books

I read a lot.  Most of my family reads as well so books are always a good choice for gift ideas.  I purchase most of my books from Amazon.  I buy the majority of them in good as new used condition from private sellers at a drastically reduced price.

Free Shipping

I get free two day shipping on quite a few items by signing up for Amazon Prime .  You can sign up for a free month trial now and get all of your holiday shipping free.  I find this to be an excellent way to shop for my friends and family who don’t live close by.

Online Auctions

For those unique or hard to find gifts, you can often find them on ebay.  I buy jeans for my son in law who wears a 40 inch inseam and they are almost impossible to find in stores.  I have always been able to find them on ebay for a greatly reduced price.  Other gifts I have found are new cowboy boots, some collector items for my mom, some gorgeous handmade wreaths for my daughter and of course, ebay is another outlet for books.  I have purchased all of my laptops on eBay and always been happy with them.  Be sure to check on the shipping price before you bid or buy on ebay as some shippers charge an exorbitant rate.

Comparison Shopping Sites

There are several websites that allow you to comparison shop by price.

Nextag
Shopzilla
Price Grabber

Smart Money rated  different comparison shopping sites and Price Grabber came up on the top of the heap.  You can see the whole list of comparison sites in their article.
Shop Locally

Ok, so what is shop local doing in an online shopping article?  Some stores like Walmart and Sears offer the ability to purchase off of their website and have it delivered to the local store.  This saves shipping on most items and you can stop off to pick them up when you are going by anyway.

Check for Coupon Codes

There are many online sites for coupon and discount codes for online shopping.  Many of these codes are for major retailers such as Home Depot, Kohls, ToysRUs, etc.  Here are just a few:

Coupon Cabin

Retail Me Not

Current Codes

You can find more by googling coupon codes.  Some sites have printable coupons that can be used at local retailers.

Holiday Sales

Just like brick and mortar stores, most online stores have holiday sales as well.  Amazon is offering special Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.  You can also check to see if your favorite stores such as Walmart, Home Depot, or Target have a website and check it out for online sales.   Many of the major retailers are offering free shipping.

Safety

Be sure to make sure that whatever site you order from has a secure order form.  This means that your credit card information is encrypted in the same manner that banks use to send information.  Do not send your credit card information through email.  The safest way to shop online is to use prepaid credit cards as these are limited.  In this way, you are not giving someone a link to your bank account or credit card.

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Benefits of Wood Furnace

1. Free Heat – We cut downed trees up to use for firewood during the winter.  It doesn’t cost us anything but time and work.  Generally it takes us a day to get a truckload of wood and that includes splitting and stacking.
2. Free Hot Water – Our wood furnace uses hot water to heat the house.  The hot water goes through a coil and heats the air in the house.  We also use the furnace to heat our hot water during the winter.
3. Moist Heat -  Rather than having gas or electric burner heating the air in the house, it is heated by hot water.  It does not dry out the air and cause sinus and dry skin.
4. Burns Efficiently – The wood furnace has a draft fan on it that cuts on when the water temperature drops.  This blows air over the wood and the fire heats up.  When the water temperature  reaches 200 degrees, the draft fan cuts off.  At most during the coldest weather, we have to fill the furnace twice a day.
5. Lower Electric Bills – Because we use the wood furnace for both heat and hot water, our electric bill drops significantly during the winter.  I don’t believe we had one that was over $50 last winter.  This saves us hundreds of dollars over the year.
6. Renewable Resource – Unlike oil, coal, gas, etc. wood is a renewable source of fuel.  We can plant more trees while we cannot manufacture more oil, coal, or gas.

Drawbacks of Wood Furnace

1. Cost of Wood -  The wood furnace suits us very well because we have an almost unlimited supply of wood but if you had to purchase wood you would have to weigh the cost of wood against the cost of oil, gas or electricity.
2. Air Pollutant - While the newer wood furnaces burn efficiently and cause less pollution, they do cause some.
3. Load Outside -  Someone has to load the furnace twice a day.   This means going out and putting wood into it even when it’s 10 degrees outside and snowing.
4. Time, time, time – We do not buy wood but we do spend a few weeks a year cutting, splitting and stacking it.  We don’t do it all at the same time but this week we have gotten a load every day and it has taken most of the day to do it.  If you plan on cutting your own, you need to plan on spending several days per month getting wood.

Overall I love the wood furnace.  I love the heat, the really hot water and I REALLY love our electric bill during the winter.  I really don’t mind running out in the morning and loading the wood furnace.  And loading and stacking wood is great exercise for arms and shoulders.

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I was up at 4 am and we hit the road at 6 am.  Yawn!!  It is a 4 hour trip and we wanted to be there early.  I had gotten about 3 miles down the road when I realized that I didn’t have the cell phone.  I turned around and went back after it.  I wouldn’t want to take that long a trip without it.

Everything went well all day Friday.  The weather was great if hot.  The trip up was uneventful and by late fridaynight, had bought two beautiful horses and was back at the hotel.  It was very late and I was very tired.   I fell into bed and slept for a few hours.  At 7 am, I was up and headed back to the barn to check on the horses.  I fed and made sure that all was well and then headed back to the hotel.

That would have been when the trouble started.  The cell phone was missing.  I checked the whole hotel room over and it wasn’t there.  It wasn’t in the truck.  I checked the hotel lobby thinking that maybe I set it down when I went up to get coffee.  I tried calling it from the room and listening for it. The only place left to look was at the barn.

After breakfast, I headed to the barn to load the horses and find the phone.  The horses loaded fine but there was no phone.  Giving up on finding the phone, I climbed into the truck and started it up.  I put it in gear, gave it a little gas and didn’t move and I mean not even an inch.

The transmission was gone.  Boom.  It had acted up the week before but straightened out after adding fluid.  I had a mechanic drive it to check it out plus a couple of friends who are experienced with mechanical things.  They all thought it would be fine, that it was just low on fluid.  Apparently, everyone was wrong.

So here I am 4 hours from home with a trailer full of horses, a broken down truck and no cell phone.  Oh boy!  The barn was getting ready to close for the day so I quickly borrowed the phone to call home.   I got in touch with R’s son and his girlfriend and told them to find someone to come get me and the trailer.

And then I sat there all day, waiting and not knowing if someone was coming or not.   I did spend some time walking the parking lot looking for the phone.  I walked up and down the road in case I had set it on the truck and it had bounced off.  I rode the horses.  I waited and waited.  The security guard checked on me every hour or so but mostly, I waited.

After 6 hours, my friends made it to the barn.  I was mightily glad to see them and mightily grateful to them for giving up their weekend to come get me.  We headed home and arrived at about 11 o’clock minus one truck and one cell phone.

This week I have been dealing with suspending service to the cell and trying to get estimates on fixing the truck.  When it was all said and done, it looked like it was going to be a little over a thousand dollars to rebuild the transmission.  The cell phone is suspended until I can either find it or afford to buy another one.

The good news is that after deciding that there was no way that we could pay to have the transmission rebuilt, I got on the computer and found a rebuilt transmission for $250.   I had someone interested in one of the horses I bought so I had a quick sale and got the money to buy it.   It was another 90 mile drive to pick it up but we should save $750 to $1000 on it.

So once again, I have taken one step ahead and two steps back.

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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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We use the envelope system for both personal and business expenses and as cash comes in some is put in the bank and some is put in the envelopes. A priority is getting cash in the envelope for each bill. Checks are deposited in the bank and as a bill comes due, the money for that bill is put in the bank and the bill is paid. It’s a simplistic way to do things but it works for us. For over a year, the bills have been paid on time and we have money saved. Pretty neat, huh?

Her point is that for someone who is beginning to budget, a simple system may be the best.  Frankly, I think she is right.  When I initially started focusing on my finances and developing a budget, I also used the envelope system.  I didn’t use it for bills but I switched from using my debit or check card to using envelopes.  When I spent something out of the envelope, the receipt went in.

This simple method really helped me to determine where my money was going and helped me to focus on changing my spending habits.  I firmly believe however that how you budget or which spending plan that you use really doesn’t matter.  The key to budgeting is just to focus on your finances.

What do you accomplish when you start to focus on your money?  You become more aware of how much money you are spending.  You start to realize how much those little things like a soda and a snack on the way to work add up.  You realize that a large percentage of your money gets frittered away two or three dollars at a time whether it’s at a convenience store or in the gas tank from those little extra trips.

Once you know where your money is going, it becomes much easier to divert those dollars into savings or debt repayment.  If you stop at the 7-11 every morning on your way to work and spend $2.50, that adds up to $40 per month.  For me, that would be the minimum payment on my credit card plus a little extra.  If I add that to the payment I already send them, I could pay my credit card off in half the time or I could add it to my emergency fund.

It’s those little snowflakes of savings that come from simply focusing on your finances.  It’s not complicated.  You don’t need spreadsheets or programs or folders.  You simply need to focus in some way on where your money really goes.  Once you have begun, the rest gets easy.  The scary part?  For me the scary part is really knowing what I spend my money on, not planning where I want to spend it.

So if you are new to financial planning, keep it simple.  Keep your focus on your finances for a day, a week, or a month and the rest will come easily.  Be warned though, budgeting can become addictive.

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Gas prices have driven my fuel expenses up until they are the highest expense that I have.  The recent drop in price has helped quite a bit but it is still my highest expense.  I stumbled onto a way to cut my fuel bill in half yesterday and I jumped at it.

I have been driving a 1991 Toyota Previa (mini van) for the last year and a half.  It gets decent gas mileage (23-25 MPG) even for a mini van.  Even at that it takes between 5 and 6 gallons per day to commute to the shop and back home so for the last 12 months my fuel costs have averaged approximately $20 per day.  This means that when I get to work, I groom my first dog just to pay for gas and my second one to pay for overhead at the shop.  I only make money on my 3rd dog and I only do an average of 3.5 dogs per day.  As you can see, fuel has been taking a full third of my income.

A friend mentioned yesterday that they wanted to sell their Geo Metro.  I had a Metro when they first came out and LOVED it!

Mine averaged 40 MPG on the highway.  I didn’t have the cash to buy it but it worked out that he was looking for a mini van.  We negotiated an even swap and I am now the proud owner of a 1993 Geo Metro. I’m not the only one who has found that the Metro is a car that meets todays needs as you can read in th

is CNN article.

The Metro should not use over 3 gallons round trip which should effectively cut my fuel costs in half.  With gas prices dropping, I should be able to keep my fuel expense in the 10-15% range of my budget.  I am a lot more comfortable with that percentage than I am with a full third.  Of course there are sacrifices.  The Metro has a lot less room to haul things back and forth to and from work.  It is not a comfortable car for more than 2 adults so families with teens may want to look at another option.

They stopped making Metros a few years ago when fuel costs were down but there are still a few used ones floating around.  With 3 cylinders and 49 hp, they aren’t a power car but if you are looking for a car to commute in, you can’t beat the price or the mileage.

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by mitch.surprenant

I have money!!! I have money in savings, I have money in checking and I have money in my pocket! It’s not a lot of money but I feel like celebrating! I feel like the weight of the world has lifted off my shoulders.

I have also found that I am much more likely to succumb to impulse spending. I have spent the last six months congratulating myself on being frugal and now I find that as soon as you give this girl a little money those impulses come right back. This has been a recurring theme with me. I can be as frugal as the ultimate cheapskate but when I have a little money come in, I end up with a little more going out.

My main goal over the past six months has been bare survival. Really. When there isn’t enough, you get down to brass tacks and make decisions based on what you have to have to get through the next month and priorities are pretty easy. In looking over my spending in the last week, I have found that I have made several impulse purchases.

Now don’t laugh because these are going to seem pretty trivial. I bought a hair clip ($6.50), I went out to dinner last night ($11.95), books ($17.99), and then I have bought sodas and snacks ($8) several days which adds up to enough to the minimum payment on my credit card.

I would much rather have spent that $45 on paying down my debt or putting it into savings to pay for fuel oil this winter or to pay off my tax bill.  There are so many uses that I NEED to put money towards that I really cannot afford to fritter it away.

I’ve Paid For That Twice Already has some great tips to avoid impulse spending.  I have found that being accountable to my readers is a big incentive not to buy things on impulse but also because writing this blog keeps my finances at the top of my mind.  I also really try to know exactly what I want when I walk into the store.  If I don’t know where it is, I ask someone and go directly there so that I avoid temptation.

Some other things that I have found help me are:

Not using my check card.  I keep a limited amount of cash and use it.  It keeps me mindful of how much I am spending and what I am spending on.

Using lists.  I guess because I have ADHD if I don’t have a list, I don’t get anything done so having shopping lists fits right in.  It keeps me on target and if it’s not on the list, I don’t buy it.

Waiting to purchase. If I see something that is not on my list, I tend to hold off purchasing it.  If I decide that it would be a smart purchase, I will go back and buy it later.

What have you found that helps you avoid making impulse purchases?  Does getting a little extra money cause you to go on a spending spree?

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Dinner at Chili’s and a quick trip to Barnes and Noble pretty much blew my No Spend challenge up.  No regrets here though as it’s always a treat to visit with them for a couple hours.  I picked up my third copy of “The Richest Man in Babylon” and my daughter got Jane Eyre and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  My 15 yr old son got a book on Buddha.   He wanted to get a language cd but they had a ten dollar limit. Dinner wasn’t too bad as we all got appetizers rather than an entre and we each still ended up going home with a doggie bag so it will be two meals for the price of one.

I think I will have to write this one up as a failure as I only made it 3 days without spending.  I thought I would be able to do much better than that but I had not counted on expanding my trip to the city.  I will just pick up where I left off and start over again.

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Frankly, my budget doesn’t have much wiggle room except for food. I don’t break the bank on food but I do eat pretty well. I buy things on sale, stock up, use coupons, etc. so the larder stays pretty full. I was going through it in my mind today and thinking about my budget. I usually make a trip to the grocery store every week and spend about $25 to $30. I probably have enough food in the cupboard that I could go for almost a month without a grocery store trip. I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel (hamburger helper is as low as it gets here) but I think I can manage at least a week.

I have decided to take a suggestion from The Ultimate Cheapskate and see how long I can go without spending any money. I am going to start off with one exception. I have to buy gas to go to work. I’m 15 miles away and I don’t know of anyone who goes from my small village to the other small village on a daily basis.

It will be a challenge but I think I can go until the end of the month without spending a dime. The Ultimate Cheapskate recommends it as a way to get control of your spending. He believes that it will show you what is important and what is not. I will let you know if he is right.

Have you ever consciously gone for a period of time like a weekend or a week without spending any money? How long do you think I will hold out? Would anyone like to join me?

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