Everybody Loves Your Money

This post probably falls under the TMI category (Too Much Information)

I’ll confess that Thanksgiving isn’t my favorite holiday. I love the idea of Thanksgiving and have many, many things to be thankful for each Thanksgiving so that part of the day is great. Where it all goes south for me is the food. Since I was a baby I’ve had severe allergies to many, many things.

Here’s a partial list of the big stuff:

• Turkey
• Chicken
• Salmon
• Soy
• Walnuts
• Peanuts
• Dairy (Milk, cheese etc)
• Wheat (so basically all flour and most grains)
• Barley
• Trees
• Weeds
• Grass
• Dust
• Dogs
• Cats (basically most animals)

That’s a partial list. I was never tested for allergies for the first 32 years of my life so most of my life consisted of avoiding things that I knew consistently made me sick or caused reactions. I’m sure most of my friends and family secretly wondered whether I was just nuts. To be honest, I questioned that myself more than a few times over the years.

A few years ago I finally decided to go to the allergy doctor because I was having some new problems with eczema and was having trouble swallowing. When they did the first round of allergy testing on me the doctor stood there looking down at me as if I was an alien. His first comment, when he saw the results were, “You are a very interesting case. This is very A-typical”. They had done three rows of drops of various substances on each of my arms. They put one drop of the substance on your skin and then prick the skin under each drop to see if your body reacts. If there is a reaction they rate how big the welt is. When they were done pricking, it looked as if I’d stuck my arms in a beehive.

That’s probably too much detail but the reason I’m telling you this is because I won’t be eating most of the traditional Thanksgiving food today (which is why it isn’t my favorite holiday). There will be no turkey, stuffing, gravy or pie, unfortunately. There will be some ham, potatoes etc at my mom’s today which I’m hoping to have a bit of. A week ago I had to have my esophagus stretched out (for the fourth time). I have a disease that’s connected to my allergies that causes my body to attack food in my esophagus which scars over time making it very restricted (to the point that I can’t even swallow saliva). So, I’m still dealing with the soreness and pain from that procedure and most of my diet consists of mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, and other soft foods right now. So, I know I’ll be eating the mashed potatoes today, at least. Maybe I’ll have some nice blended ham to go with the potatoes.

All that being said, I am very thankful for many things today. At the top of the list are my wife and daughter. They are the most wonderful, kind, happy people I’ve ever been around and I appreciate them so much. I’m also thankful for being employed, having a roof over my head, having food to eat (mostly of the soft variety these days), and having so many friends and family. I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that today.

Anyway, what a long drawn out way to get to, “Happy Thanksgiving!!!!”

Some friends of ours have decided to sponsor a family in need this year for Christmas.  It’ s no secret that there are thousands and thousands of families who are in dire need of assistance.  Everybody Loves Your Money has already donated to the fund and I wanted to offer all of my readers an opportunity to give what they can to help a family transition from being homeless to having a roof over their head.

The family that we are helping consists of a Mom, Dad, and three kids, a boy 9, a boy 13, and a girl 15.  From what I understand, they are just now transitioning from being homeless so I’m sure they can use all the help they can get.  The family lives in Oregon somewhere around the Portland/Beaverton area.

I hope that you’ll consider donating a bit to help this family realize that there is always hope, no matter how dire the situation seems.  Our goal is to raise $1000 for them.  That will be used for needed gifts from their list and will also provide money for food.  Anything that we raise above that will be donated to them in the form of grocery gift cards.

If you think about it, with the economy in the shape that it is, any one of us could find ourselves in situations much like this family’s.  I hope that we can raise enough money to help them feel hope and know that others in the world consider them to be important.

If you donate, please leave a note in the comments section to let me know how much you were able to give.  I’d like to post later about our final tally.

Here is a link to Paypal for your donation.  Anything helps.  Even if you can only donate $5, it’s worth it!

A couple of weeks ago I was over at my mother’s house and happened to ask her how much she was paying for her cable TV and Internet service.  I was absolutely SHOCKED to find out that she was paying $130 per month for the two of them.  My mother is not much of a TV watcher, but she does watch the basic channels.  She also doesn’t use her computer too much although I set her up with a wireless network and laptop last year so she can check her email and go on the web when she needs to from the comfort of the kitchen.  What I’m trying to say is that she’s a light user of both.

As we sat there talking about how crazy it was to have to pay that much for a couple hours worth of actual Internet surfing and maybe 30 hours of tv per month I asked her if she had ever called to ask for a better price.  I’m not sure why I asked her this question because I already knew the answer.  My mother absolutely hates to negotiate with people and would never dream of calling a company to ask for a better price.  I can’t say that I love doing it either, but when rewarded with significant discounts just for asking, I find the courage to make the calls.  (okay, maybe I like it a little bit).

Anyway, I asked my mother for a copy of one of her bills and took it home with me.  The next day I called her cable company and chose the option to cancel service.  From past experience I know that the people in the cancellation department have the most discounts to offer to keep their customers.  When I finally reached a customer service person I told her that we were considering canceling our service because we could get satellite tv and DSL internet service for only $55 per month from their competitor.  She did some checking and came back to offer 6 months of service for a total of $60 per month.  That included exactly the same services but was a promotional rate for 6 months.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get them to make it permanent.  I also discovered that my mother was paying for a premium service that she had never even used.  I asked them to remove that as well and got the bill down to $48 per month for 6 months.

It only took one phone call to put a very real $492 back in my mother’s budget for the next 6 months.  That’s an $82 per month reduction in her budget, just for making one phone call.  I think I’m going to sit down with her to review all of her other bills to see if there are any more opportunities.  I’ve always been very aggressive in minimizing our bills so we don’t have any savings like this that we can achieve.  While that seems like bad news, it’s actually pretty good news.  By actively watching our expenses, we save this kind of money every month (and then some).

Are you taking the time to really take a hard look at your bills?  Are there things that you can live without to save some real money each month?

I found an interesting article on The Boston Globe that theorizes what a current depression might look like.  I found it interesting and somewhat believable.  I agree that the long lines would probably be in the hospital emergency rooms and the theory that people would move to urban centers to rent and reduce their transportation costs seems reasonable, although I’m inclined to believe that the suburbs would stay pretty populated as the home prices continued to decline.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article to read.  You can see it here:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like/?page=full

I think one of the most fascinating things about reading a book like “The Millionaire Next Door” is the personal descriptions about how people spend their money.  As I talk to friends and family, I find the same level of fascination when listening to them describe purchases they’ve made, or are planning on making.  What’s kind of neat about listening to friends, families, neighbors etc is that I have a rough idea of how much money they make, therefore it’s easy to see how they prioritize their money.  I don’t do this to judge anyone, rather I do it just because I find it fascinating to see what other people do with their money.

If anyone knows of a good book that has a lot of personal stories about how people manage their money, I’d love to hear about it.  In the absence of a good book, I’ll continue to browse the pages of my favorite personal finance blogs to learn more about what they are doing with their money.

I’d also like to hear from readers to find out some of their circumstances.  Leave a comment and tell everyone some of your basics.  How about using a format like this:

Approximate income

What are your vices?

Are you a saver?

Do you spend less than you earn?  By what percentage?

Any examples of frugality that you are proud of?

Now that our daughter is in kindergarten we’ve discovered a whole new society.  Before we had a child that was in school, we never really saw the elementary school society that has been active all around us.  We haven’t really met a ton of people yet (mostly just chit chat), but the school and the PTA have all kinds of activities for us to attend.

Last night we attended a movie night in the gym.  The cost to attend the movie was $1 per person and they were also selling popcorn, candy and water.  Popcorn and candy was .50 each and the water was a dollar.  For a fun night (at least for our daughter) the total cost was $3 for the movie and $1.50 for refreshments.

Before being involved in the school, we would have gone to a movie and spent 5-10 times that amount.  Our daughter much preferred going to the school to watch the movie because she got to sit with her new friends and run around a bit.

So, as we try to spend less money, we’ll definitely be involved in most of the school activities.  The best part is that the money they raise goes directly to the classrooms to support further activities.  It really ends up being a “win/win” situation.

It’s funny how recessions and depressions work.  Rather than just resetting in one day, it strings out over many months and potentially years.  So far, the water is relatively cold in the pot at my house.  Both my wife and I are still employed, although layoffs are coming at my company.  I suppose the fact that layoffs are coming at my company probably increases the temperature in the pot a few degrees.  At this point, things are at DEFCON 5.  Okay, maybe 4 is more appropriate.  The point is, we aren’t feeling it much yet, other than the pressure that things could change.

As it stands now, things could go a few different ways for us. 

The water in the pot might stay cold

Our hope is that both my wife and I stay employed through the economic downturn.  If that’s the case, we’ll come out on the other side of this with a much larger savings account and feel pretty good about the direction we are headed.  Even if it appears that we won’t see an impact to our employment, we have pulled the belt a couple notches tighter and are actively saving to give ourselves more of a cushion in case the water starts to heat up.

The water in the pot might reach 110 degrees

If the water makes it to 110, that means my wife has lost her job.  We will still have enough income to pay all of our bills and will have adequate health care for our family.  This will warm the water up to the point that it might not be comfortable over the long term, but we will avoid the nasty burns.  This is actually not a very likely scenario because my wife is such a critical part of the operation where she’s at and there are a couple other people that would go before she would.  They would have to reduce employment by nearly 50 percent in order for her to get laid off.  Crazier things have happened though.

The water in the pot hits 120 degrees

If the water gets to 120, we are on borrowed time.  That means that I have lost my job.  We can’t meet our monthly bills on just my wife’s income, but we could barely meet them with my wife’s income and my unemployment benefits.  Unfortunately, those only last for 6 months.  In this scenario, we’d be looking at losing our home within about a year or so if I couldn’t find meaningful employment.  Our savings would help us string this out as long as possible, but if employment prospects were poor, we would probably consider trying to sell our house within 3 months of the job loss, just so that we didn’t start burning through all of our savings and investments.

The water in the pot hits 150 degrees

This is probably not a very likely scenario either.  This would mean that my wife and I both lost our jobs.  If this happens, we are cooked within about 9 months.  Our goal would be to sell the house and move to the lake house that we finished last year.  It’s paid for (on paper) and would let us drastically shrink our bills.

So, as I fret about where we are headed, I find it’s pretty healthy to think through the various scenarios.  They are all workable.  Some aren’t ideal, but the main thing is that we have a roof over our head and food to eat.

Have you thought about what you would do?

Don’t forget to VOTE!

Having someone show up and build a beautiful new home for you is a lot like winning the lottery.  Some people handle these  windfalls better than others.  In the case of this house, Dawne Kirkwood just couldn’t manage to keep it when she and her husband divorced.  In Washington state everything is split down the middle during a divorce so the house has to be sold so that each of the adults can get their share.  Dawne was right when she stated in the article, that they should have put the home in a trust for the children.  It’s a shame that the parent’s can’t both agree to do that now.

It sure seems to be that people who find themselves with a large windfall definitely have more trouble maintaining that level of wealth than someone who has worked for all of it.