Cancel the Lease on Your Storage Rental
Welcome back!
We love to have stuff. It’s the American way after all. A problem arises though, when we have too much stuff and no where to put it. For many people, they take the simple solution and rent storage space somewhere to store away all the stuff they don’t need.
As children we were told to put away our things when we weren’t using them. This shouldn’t be applied to adulthood. Rental storage space is a terrible waste of money. Think about it, you’re paying rent on the stuff that you no longer need!
My father had a storage rental for the longest time. He ran a business and needed somewhere to put all the old equipment that was no longer useful but couldn’t bare to throw away. He rented that shed for YEARS until he moved in to a place wehere he could store everything himself. He thought it was stuff that he needed.
Well, after moving the stuff for the 3rd time to a new location, he realized that he didn’t need most of the stuff and ended up throwing most of it away. He wasted $50 a month for 4 years or so for storage rental on stuff he didn’t need.
Don’t fall prey to the false dichotomy that if you run out of space, you should get MORE space.
No, if you run out of space, it’s time to weed out your things, pare down and clean up your life. The solution isn’t to add another cost to life. It’s time to let go of the stuff you no longer need.
I recognize that getting rid of things is hard to do, especially if you have an attachment to it. But think about it, you’ve already let go of something if you throw in a storage shed. You are already placing it out of your mind, moving it to a geographic location you will rarely visit. After a year, will you miss it? You will certainly miss the $50 a month more.
There are good uses for storage units. For example, if you are in between moves and have to put your stuff somewhere until you can settle. Of if you are leaving the country for work and intend to come back (though this would be a great time to let go our your things).
Grab some gloves, a friend’s pickup truck and go clean out your storage unit. It’s time to let go of the stuff you no longer need and increase your bottom line.
Beware of Liquidation Sales
With the bad economy, major retailers are dropping like flies. Circuit City is the latest company to close it’s doors and liquidation sales are becoming a common sight in many communities. Usually, people think that this means that you can get a great deal.
You usually can’t. Here’s why.
When a store liquidates, it hires an outside company to close the store. The outside company pays the bankrupting company for the right to do this (this money goes to the creditors). In return, they close the store and sell off the remaining stock until it’s all gone. Sound good so far, right?
Well, it’s in the best interest of the liquidator to extract as much value as possible from the remaining stock. So how do they do this?
They raise all prices back up to Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price and THEN starting discounting for the liquidation. This means that some items can cost as much as 50% more than they did before the store was liquidating.
Generally, retail stores always have their goods on sale and occasionally cut prices a bit more to move stock. Also, very few retailers actually charge the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for anything – the price is always too high.
So, while you may think your getting a deal when you go to a store in liquidation, especially when you see signs that say 20% to 50% off. Prices are actually around where they were initially.
Most people don’t know that they’re not getting a deal and think they are. So, they swamp to liquidation sales to ’save money.’ Well, you’re not saving money. As a result of this kind of consumer thinking, all the good items get picked clean from the store and when the store finally actually lowers prices to ‘deal’ levels, all the good stuff is gone and you’re left with saving 75% on a roll of toilet paper.
An Office Depot opened up in my town about six months ago. Despite the fact that it had not even been open a year, Office Depot decided that they should close it down. So, there’s been a liquidation sale going on for the last month. Have there been any deals?
Not really. I saved a few bucks on some pens and blank DVD’s. I’ve been back several times as they’ve lowered prices. I’ve noticed they haven’t been lowering the prices on expensive things like computer monitors, hard drives and printers. They’ve been lowering the prices of the office supplies but not the stuff with any actual value. Even some office supplies are still overpriced. The goal is to make you THINK you’re getting a deal.
Sorry but $200 for a 19″ monitor I could get for $100 as Wal-Mart is not a deal.
There is one possibility for a good deal during a store liquidation and that’s buying store fixtures. The liquidation company has no need for the store fixtures (shelves, displays, registers etc…) so when the store is in it’s final days, you can usually pick up this stuff as great prices. So, if you’re opening your own retail store, head down to the local store going out of business.
5 Things to Keep in Mind about Store Liquidations:
1. Don’t expect staff to be friendly or helpful – they’re losing their jobs so at least be nice to them.
2. Use your store gift card before the store closes or else it’s worthless.
3. They won’t take checks. Cash or Credit only.
4. They won’t accept returns.
5. All Sales are Final.
6. What you see is what you get – don’t expect there to be items in the storage room.
10 Things You Can Cut out of Your Life
This is part of an ongoing series or articles on how to deal with the ongoing crisis in the world economy. Many are calling it a New Depression. Whatever you want to call it, news ways of thinking are being called for. Welcome to the New Austerity.
During this time of trouble, what are some things you can cut out of your life to save money and help make ends meet? What are the things you can live without the most? Believe it or not, there is plenty in your life that you can truly live without.
The Gardener
This one is easy. Mow your own lawn. Go down to the local flea market and buy a second hand mower. It won’t take that long to mow your own lawn. Google basic lawn care and how to care for your lawn.
The same goes for tending to your landscaping. The internet is an invaluable resource and you can find out anything you want to know about gardening and landscaping. Take the time and save the money.
Cable TV
You don’t need Cable TV, you really don’t. With the advent of Digital TV, there is plenty of TV broadcast over the air. You know the stereotype, 500 channels with nothing on. It’s really always like that. What shows you do watch you can download on the internet for free. However, high speed internet, be it cable or DSL, is essential as electricity and water.
Newspaper and Magazine Subscriptions
Your local paper has a website with the same content for free. Stop wasting money on delivery. What if you want the coupons on Sunday? Then get a Sunday only subscription or just pick it up in the store. Most magazines also have a website with the same content as the magazine. Start reading your news online and you won’t need either.
The Maid or Housekeeper
It does not take much time or energy to keep your house clean. Set a schedule and a routine and you can replace your made easily. Successful households require teamwork on the part of both spouses. Help your wife out and she will in return. You’re a team, tackle the current problems together.
The Nanny/Babysitter/Daycare
If your sinking a lot of money into a nanny or daycare, it’s time to investigate the cost effectiveness of having both parents working. If you’re essentially breaking even once you factor in childcare and other kid related costs, then it’s time for one parent to dedicate themselves to raising the kids full time.
Monthly Recurring Billed Services
Look at your monthly outgoings and find recurring monthly bills for stuff you don’t really need. Cut them out of your life and cut up the credit card they’re being billed to. Things like Tivo Service, Netflix, Credit Monitoring (you can do this for free) can all be snipped out of your life.
Sell a Car
If you have two cars and one is sitting around most of the time, get rid of it. It’s just costing you money. The inconvenience of having one car does not outweigh the savings.
Your Next Vacation
Trip to Europe or Vegas planned? Time to cancel it. If the trip is already paid for and you can’t get your money back, then by all means go. But if you can get out of the trip, now is the time to take a hit for the team and wait until the world financial outlook improves.
Eating Out
Stop eating out so much. It’s much more cost effective to eat at home. Make eating out a monthly treat that the family looks forward to. It will feel so much more rewarding to you and your family when they get something they have been working for all month.
Ditch a Hobby
Into model trains? Building RC Planes? Dungeons and Dragons? Collect stamps? Your hobbies are costing you money. It’s time to put your hobbies aside. They aren’t going anywhere. You can resume them when the economy improves. For now, stop spending the money and put it towards saving and living. I’ve given up comic books for now. It sucks, but the comics aren’t going anywhere. You can always take up a hobby that doesn’t cost any money.
If you have any ideas for things you could cut out of your own life and want to share, please leave it in the comments!
How to Survive the New Depression
Photo Courtesy of Improv Everywhere
It appears we’re on the verge of a new Great Depression. Unemployment is up, wages are stagnant, inflation is up, major corporations and banks are collapsing left and right. There hasn’t been this much instability in the international economy since the Great Depression.
The old Boy Scout motto is ‘Be Prepared” and that’s a great creed to live by. Nothing in life is guaranteed.
So, how can you prepare for this?
Maintain Calm
The people responsible for this mess aren’t losing any sleep, neither should you. Things may be getting bad, but they’ll only get better. The nature of the capitalist systems is a series of up and downs. Bad fiscal management by the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve has smoothed out the grooves for the past 30 years or so, the problem is that you CAN’T get rid of the ups and downs. That’s just not the way it works. That’s why it’s important to prepare for the valleys just as much as the peaks.
FDIC Backing
Your money is generally safe in a bank. You should be monitoring the financial health for your bank. Since most banks are publicly traded, this information is freely available. Don’t trust that the bank will always be there. Many banks have failed already. Luckily the FDIC has your deposits insured up to $100,000.
So, what if you have more than $100,000 cash in the bank? First, you shouldn’t have that much money in a savings or checking account to begin with. If you’re truly investing your money, passbook accounts are terrible places to keep your money. Your money should be invested in mutual funds, retirement funds, bonds, etc. So, what if you do have more than that in the bank anyway? Split it up, there is nothing to prevent you from spreading your cash around to several different banks. That way you’re completely protected.
Credit Unions
If you’re completely disgusted by the banking system, like my wife and I, you don’t have to continue participating in it. Join a local credit union. You’ll have more of a say in how your money is handled. Credit Unions are not for profit, so they won’t be consolidating and joining bigger banks and then making stupid multi-billion dollar investments that will bring down the economy. Credit, above all things, are local, which is great. Credit Unions can also get you a car loan, mortgage and other products. Your money is also insured by the Federal Government under a separate insurance program as the FDIC.
Invest in Foreign Markets
Any good investor diversifies his investments for greater returns. There are huge opportunities to invest in markets other than the USA. There are places in the world that are booming right now, despite the current troubles. Many mutual funds run funds based on foreign assets and currencies. The returns on these investments are usually pretty good. It is also a good idea to invest invest in Foreign Currencies and Minerals.
The dollar is currently weak against most foreign currencies, so hedge your bets and buy foreign currencies and hold them. Chances are their value will go up and you will make a profit when you convert them back to dollars (or use them when you travel). Also, many people advocate buying precious minerals like Gold and Silver. I don’t know much about this, just that you should be very careful investing in this fashion. There are a lot of scam operations out there.
Make Budget Cuts
Most people can cuts back and throw things out of their budgets without too much pain. Make a monthly budget of all your in-goings and outgoings and then see what you can cut out. This will allow you to live in your means and save more money. Start going with less.
Consolidate Debt or Get Rid of It
Debt is basically a form of slavery. Avoid it at all costs. That’s easy to say if you don’t have any debt. But what about if you have debt? Consolidate it, reduce it, pay it off. Your mortgage should be your only debt on the books and even then your goal should be to pay that off as quickly as possible. Don’t let anyone own you and you will have much less to worry about.
Shop Frugally
Be careful in how you spend your money on your weekly expenses like food and clothing. Don’t eat out as much. Buy your groceries at places like Walmart and Aldi, where you’ll get the most for your money. Don’t go the mall, you’ll always overpay. Read sales flyers every Sunday and clip coupons.
Maximize Income Earning
You can do this by getting a second job or starting your own home based business. There are many things around the house that can make you money that won’t cost you much to start. Chances are you have hobbies or skills that you can monetize. I wrote a guide a while back on how to make money with things around the house.
Inventory Your Assets
Make a database or spreadsheet of everything you own. That way you have an idea of your assets in case you need to start sellings things to get by. You may lose your job tomorrow. It’s important to know what you can sell tomorrow to buy your families groceries.
Refocus your efforts at work and Shine
If you’re worried about your job, work harder and do a better job. Make yourself irreplaceable. If you think you might be on the chopping block, polish your resume and be prepared for the worst. My general rule career wise is to ALWAYS be looking. Always be on the lookout for new opportunities. Don’t expect your life to work out because you think you deserve your job. You don’t deserve anything in this type of economy.
Educate Yourself
Knowledge will only make you more valuable on the job market. But I’m not just talking about schooling. I’m talking about educating yourself on how this economy works, how capitalism works, how socialism works, how international finance works. If you understand how these things work, you can successfully plan your life to weather the storms. Most people don’t know what derivatives are or mortgaged backed securities. They should.
Save Save Save
You should be saving 10% of your income right out of your paycheck before you spend it. Open an account at ING Direct or HSBC Direct or your local credit union. It’s important to have a cushion of money in the bank in case you lose your job or something catastrophic happens.
Closing Thoughts
One thing to keep in mind is that things WILL get better. That’s the nature of capitalism.
Related Articles:
10 Things Around the House That Can Make you Money
9 Ways to make Money Selling Your Stuff in An Emergency
How to Cut Advertising out of Your Life
9 Ways to Make Money Selling Your Stuff in an Emergency
Image courtesy of west846
During times of need, the first thing you need to do is evaluate your belongings and determine what you can live without and what will make you money. Selling things you don’t need is by far the easiest way to make money quickly.
The philosophy of this blog is to manage your materialism so that you don’t acquire too much stuff to begin with. But most people have more crap than they need and chances are, there is someone out there willing to pay money for it.
Cataloging Your Stuff
The first step you should take is to catalog everything you own. This can take awhile, but it’s important to be aware of all of your belongings. If you know what you have, you can also keep a good idea of what you have it worth. Having a good database also makes it easy to list things online.
Most people have a computer these days and that’s the best way to keep track of what you have. There are simple solutions and more elegant solutions to do this.
The simplest way to create a database of what you own is to throw it all in an Excel Spreadsheet or Access Database. Be sure to set up fields for the items, description, price paid, UPC or ISBN Number and item location. The UPC or ISBN number is the most important aspect, having this on the computer will make it easier to list things online.
I’m lucky that I have a newer iMac. I use a program called Delicious Library. It’s a great program that helps you build a library of what you have. If you’re Mac has a built in Webcam (or any webcam), it can act as a barcode reader and will scan your entire collection. I was able to put in my entire book and DVD collection in the database in one night.
There are similar solutions for Windows that will do the same thing.
For things that don’t have UPC or ISBN numbers, a simple excel spreadsheet will do. Once you have this created, you’ll have a searchable database of all you’re stuff, so you’ll know what you have and where exactly it is.
Selling Stuff Amazon.com
This is by far the best way to sell books, DVD’s, Music and other stuff online. The process is simple and straightforward and your earnings can be directly deposited into your bank account.
I’ve made several thousand dollars selling things on Amazon. It’s helped get us through tough times.
Amazon’s fees can be a little high, but the perk is they take their commission when the purchase is made, so you’ll never have a bill to pay like with eBay.
Also, shoppers pay for the shipping and most of the time the shipping credit is more than it actually costs to ship an item. So you can make a couple more bucks on shipping. For example, users get charged $3.99 to ship a DVD. It only costs a $1.50 or so via Media Mail to ship. That’s how some people sell things for a penny on Amazon. They’re making cash on the back-end.
To sell on Amazon, all you need is an account and access to a checking account. All you have to do to sell something is search for it, go to the product page and click the ’sell yours’ button on the far right. Fill in all the information, set your price and submit. That’s it.
Amazon also has some great features for managing your inventory and customer communications. You’re also protected if an item gets lost in the mail or a buyer tries to screw you.
Selling on eBay/Half.com
eBay is the established place to buy and sell goods. You can sell anything you could possibly imagine.
I only recommend it for higher value items though, like stuff that you can’t easily sell on Amazon.com. It’s not really worth the time to individually books and DVD’s on eBay, especially with their high fees.
For books, DVD’s and Music, there’s eBay’s sister site called Half.com. It’s works on pretty much the same principle that Amazon Marketplace. You list your stuff and they deposit the earnings into your checking account.
Listing on eBay is simple. Just get an account and start listing items. Once you’re a little established, you’ll be able to use Buy it Now, which is the best way to sell things on eBay. Your eBay account will work on Half.com and vice versa.
I highly recommend getting a PayPal account and only accepting that payment format. There are fraud protections built in and you won’t have to wait for a money order to come in the mail. You get the money right away and if you get a PayPal debit card you can use the money right away too.
Selling on Craigslist
Craigslist is perfect for all the crap you can’t sell on eBay or or Amazon.com. Craigslist has pretty much supplanted Newspaper Classified ads in every regard (jobs, stuff for sale, homes, etc).
The basis of Craigslist is personal interaction. You will have to meet the person you are selling to, so keep in mind that you should only sell things locally on Craigslist. Be careful of people e-mailing you and telling you they’ll send a money order or someone to pick up the item. This is almost always a scam. Accept cash and cash alone. That’s your only protection.
The best part of Craigslist is that it’s free. To sell on Craigslist, you don’t even need an account, just list the item and you’re good. Be careful not to give away your personal information in the ad, or you will get spammed.
What kinds of things can you sell on Craigslist?
Anything at all. Here’s some examples. Craigslist helped us get through some tough financial times. We were able to sell some furniture we didn’t need for a couple hundred bucks. We also sold some expensive electronics pretty quickly for cash. It’s a great place.
Just be very careful.
Selling at a Garage Sale
This is pretty much the old fashion way to get rid of stuff. Fill your garage with stuff, set some prices and watch the people roll in.
There’s a subset of society that loves Garage Sales, so be sure to put up signs, put a free ad in the local paper and post an ad on Craigslist. Keep in mind that some things sell better than others at Garage Sales.
Children’s clothes are notoriously hard to get rid of. Your furniture will be gone by lunchtime.
The only problem is that running a garage sale is time consuming and weather dependent. You have to spend all day standing outside and haggling with bargain seekers. Sometimes it can be fun. Other times it’s going to feel like low-paid work.
Selling to a Pawn Shop
Pawn Shops are an excellent way to get cash quickly, but not the best to make a lot of cash.
The concept of a Pawn Shop is simple, you give them your stuff as collateral for a loan. If you don’t come back and pay the loan, they keep your stuff.
While this is a great concept, it’s usually the Pawn Shop making out on the deal. They will severely undervalue your goods. There are also strict laws in most states on how they operate.
They’re probably not the best place to take jewelry and expensive items such as that. But it can be a good place to get cash for smaller stuff that the Pawn Shop knows they can make a profit on.
Selling to a Used Book/DVD/Music Store
If you’re town has a used book, dvd or music store then you’re in luck. They are usually happy to see someone carrying in a big box of stuff to sell.
They’ll usually give you a fair price. But keep in mind, they are going to give you a price based on the margin they can sell something for. Usually this can be 50% or less. Also, they won’t take some things if they can’t sell them. They already have 50 copies of Battlefield Earth so they won’t take yours.
If you have some rare books, used books stores are perfects places to get cash. Avoid paperback exchanges or places that will only give you store credit for your books. You want cold hard cash. So call ahead before you lug all your books there. If you have a Half Price Books near you, they are great places to get cash in a pinch.
If you have a childhood comic book collection you can part with, most towns have a comic store that’s eager to buy old comic books. Keep in mind, though, they aren’t worth as much as you think they are.
If you aren’t willing to let a store give you less for an item than it’s worth, then selling on Amazon is your best best. But selling to a store it the quickest way to get cash.
Resale Shops
Most resale shops don’t pay for stuff and rely on donations. But some towns will have a resale shop that will pay cash for clothes, especially designer clothes they can make a good profit on.
Keep in mind that resale shops operate seasonally and will only take certain types of clothes during it’s requisite season.
Consignment Shops / Antique Malls
These places are similar to resale shops, except the store merely provides a place for you to sell stuff and they take a cut on the final price. This can be good if you have old, expensive antiques that will take a while to sell, but need to be in a place that’s well trafficked to get interest.
Antique Malls operate in a similar way and most towns have at least one of these types of establishments.
You won’t make money quickly though. The whole idea behind it is that it sits until someone comes across it. Not a very efficient way to sell.
Selling at a Flea Market
Many towns and communities have local flea markets where you can sell your wares. They attract the same crowd that garage sales do, people looking for a deal.
They also attract people looking for specific collectables that they can usually only find at flea markets.
The problem with flea markets, is that eBay has given them a run for the money and most sellers now know the true value of their goods. So, it’s getting increasingly harder to find good deals at Flea Markets.
Doesn’t matter for you though, know know much your stuff is worth. Rent a booth and spend some time selling your goods. The financials rewards won’t be huge, but you’ll get some cash and get to socialize with some interesting people.
Conclusion
When my wife and I went through some really tough times earlier this summer, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff to get by. Even though we were sad to see some belongings so, we realized that it could all be replaced one day. But better than that, we realized how much we DIDN’T need a lot of the stuff we had.
Not having so much stuff was great when we moved last month. Not nearly as much stuff to move and because of that, we were able to move across state lines and be unpacked in a day.
Having less can be a very liberating experience.
Important Links
How to Cut Advertising Out of Your Life
They’re not on your side.
Day after day, we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements a day; all encouraging us to spend money in some way. Some manipulate us. Some make us aspire to a life we don’t have. Some make us feel like shit for not having something or make you feel too fat or too skinny.
I could write a book on the wrongs advertising inflicts upon us. But that’s not what this post about. This post is about how to cut advertising out of your life, as much as possible.
It’s possible and I’m going to show you how to block advertising today!
Ad Blocking Software
If you use the computer a lot, you know that you are bombarded with ads to pretty much any website you go to (including this one…). Not only can they be annoying but they can be a major violation of privacy as cookies track your movements from site to site and target ads towards you based on your history.
For example, pretty much every website I go to has advertisements for the latest deals on flights to London. It’s no coincidence that I love England and would give my left foot to go there again. So, the ad networks track me when I price out dream vacations. They know what I want, sometimes more than I do.
So, how do block the ads out?
If you use Safari on the Mac, I recommend SafariBlock. If you use a PC, the Firebox browser has extensions such as Adblock.
There is not a simple solution to block ads in Internet Explorer. You’re better off switching to FireFox anyway, it’s much more secure and works a lot better anyway.
TIVO – DVR’s – Digital Video Recorders
While the TIVO may seem like an unnecessary gadget to have, especially with it’s ongoing cost (monthly fee), it’s a great thing to keep around. There is a TIVO remote hack that allows you to set the TIVO to have 30 second skip. This way you can skip all commercials.
If you don’t have a TIVO or want to invest in one, most cable companies offer a DVR now and charge a small monthly fee for it. While they aren’t as elegant as TIVO, you can still fast forward through commercials and skip them entirely.
Another solution if you want to go even further is to download your favorite TV shows over the internet. The commercials are usually removed and you can get almost any popular show for free via Bittorrent. Though, the legality of this is in dispute. You can also buy most TV shows from online stores like the iTunes Music Store and Amazon UnBox.
Life is so much better without loud and obnoxious TV Commercials.
RSS Feeds
If you are a regular reader of a website and just read the content, the RSS Feeds are your new friend. All you need is a RSS Feedreader like Newsgator or NetNewsWire, or even Google Reader and you can read the content on most sites without ads. Some feeds are starting to have ads, but they are not nearly as obtrusive as content on websites surrounded by ads.
Heck, though I’m shooting myself in the foot, you can even subscribe to the feed on this site and avoid my ads all together (but please don’t!).
Sunday Paper
The Sunday Paper can usually be a useful source for coupons and deals for the week. However, it’s best to just toss the sale paper section. It’s solely designed to get you to WANT. To get you to go out and spend money.
If you want the coupons, of which there are usually only a few and they aren’t worth the trouble of clipping, just take out the coupon ads and throw the rest away into the recycling bin. Your wallet will thank you.
Personally, I hate nothing more than being tempted with a new flat screen TV every time I read the sale papers. So, just toss ‘em. You’ll want for less and be all the better off for it.
Magazines
Pretty much avoid all magazines like the plague, especially more ‘popular’ ones. They perpetuate our society’s materialism. The ads and usually most of the content it written to manipulate you into wanting ’stuff.’
There are some quality magazines out there that have unobtrusive ads and are renowned for their quality content. I recommend The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
If you want to avoid ads even in those magazines, they have websites where ads can be blocked. Most of them also have RSS Feeds.
Junk Mail
Junk Mail keeps the Postal Service alive so it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. There are, however, ways you can reduce your junk mail.
The Direct Marketing Association has a website where you can sign up to opt-out of getting most consumer catalogs. At one point I was getting 3 or 4 of the same Victoria’s Secret Catalogs every couple of weeks. We signed up for this and haven’t gotten one since.
Also, there’s a system to opt out of all those credit card offers you get in the mail. I hated nothing more than getting offers for scam credit cards. I don’t get them anymore.
For all other junk mail that keeps coming, just toss it in the recycling bin without reading it.
E-mail SPAM
The best way to battle e-mail Spam is to get a Gmail account. Their spam filters work the best out of any of the e-mail services I’ve tried. Gmail is free and secure and you can set it up with your usual e-mail reader (i.e. Outlook or Apple Mail) to avoid their targeted ads.
If you want to avoid Spam, avoid a Hotmail account all together.
Telemarketing
Thankfully, telemarketers are pretty much a thing of the past thanks to the National Do Not Call Registry. You can sign up online here. This is, by far, one of the easiest ways get rid of a common annoyance.
Branded Clothing
Is Nike or the Gap paying you to wear their corporate logos? No! In fact you’re overpaying them for the privilege. It is pretty easy to buy clothes without labels on it. I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy and nothing I wear has a corporate logo on it. Even the business casual clothes I wear to work lack ‘labels.’
If you have any tips on cutting advertising out your life, please post them in the comments!
Thought on the Six Truths of Personal Finance
I picked this up off the Consumerist today. They featured an article from The Street, which featured the 6 Unpleasant Truths about Personal Finance.
From the Article in summary they are:
1. You can’t have everything you want.
2. Financial institutions are not your friends.
3. Nobody is going to teach you personal finance.
4. You are your own worst enemy.
5. You need to stop watching TV.
6. Personal finance is easy.
These are some very insightful comments and many of them are some of the main philosophies behind this blog.
My wife and I have learned many of these together, probably the harshest reality of them all is discovering financial institutions are not your friend. It was difficult to wrap logic around the idea that they can treat their customers, the very people they rely on to exist, like such garbage.
I am definitely my own worst enemy and have succumbed to many materialistic sins in my day. After all, I own expensive Apple products and drive a newer car (worst mistake I ever made). But, after hitting ‘financial rock bottom‘ this past year, I realized what really mattered in life and how to take financial control of it. We are probably a month away from having the ship completely righted.
I would, perhaps add a couple items to the list of ‘harsh financial realities.’
7. You can live without it
8. Only worry about it if it will matter in 20 years
9. Credit Cards are, by nature, Evil.
10. Never by a brand new car. Ever.
11. You need a second job or second source of income
12. Don’t attempt to have kids unless you have maternity insurance and money put away.
Do you guys have any you ideas of what you think should be on the list of harsh financial truths?
Just Say No to Credit Cards
According to a recent story in US News, Americans are starting to turn their back on credit cards. Many are forsaking the plastic god that has been sustaining them and are beginning to draw down the rampant consumerism that has created the situation we’re in now.
It’s a shame that the credit crunch was needed at all to teach us that our habits were going to destroy us. Millions have had to suffer unnecessarily.
We’re pretty much against credit cards here at Austerity blog. Though, we aren’t opposed to all forms of debt. We have long believed, and have experienced for ourselves, that the credit card companies are not your friend.
They want you to spend as much money as possible and the minute you slip up, they have your balls in a vice. They laugh all the way to bank as you write that check that seems to get bigger and bigger every month.
While this contraction in spending and reduction in credit usage will, and is, harming the economy, I think that in the long run, the economy will be stronger. This entire society is based on debt and that is unsustainable as an economic system. The recent problems are proving that.
So, what’s the hapless consumer to do? Be responsible and always be prepared for an economic downturn. If you apply the principles of austerity during times of plenty, you’ll be prepared for the downtimes and the downtimes won’t seem so bad, because you are already used to living austerely.
Just Say No to Credit Cards.
That’s our official advice to everyone. I don’t care if you are one of those people that think they are using them responsibly and taking advantage of the credit card companies by their rewards systems. They are taking advantage of you. And when you slip up, they won’t hesitate to punish you.
Like most vices in life, credit cards should generally be avoided.
Austere Back to School Tips
This can be a very expensive time for families as kids go back to school and they need all the accoutrements that go with that.
A major problem that parents face is that often kids don’t know the difference between needs and wants. They don’t think anything of thinking they need the newest clothes and most expensive school supplies.
It’s the job of the parent to reign them in and teach them the values of austerity and to clarify needs and wants. This can be extraordinarily difficult with children, whom generally don’t respond well to reason. This is why one must be the parent in the relationship.
I won’t pretend to be an expert in parenting. My wife and I are waiting to have kids until we can afford it. Which is what many people in this country don’t do. They have kids left and right and don’t think it through. We have decided to buck the trend and put money away first, before they come along.
One of the main philosophical tenants of this blog is to deny yourself until you’ve earned it. And we have not earned children yet. To save and plan for something you really want makes it all the more rewarding when you stop denying yourself.
I bring this subject up because there have been many articles in various news outlets about parents becoming more frugal this fall because of the tough economy. Essentially, hand-me-downs are back in as is shopping at thrift stores. Parents are also seeking ways to get their school supplies cheaper.
Keep in mind, if you’re shopping for your kids, that there is always somewhere where you can buy something cheaper. Walmart generally has the cheapest of everything but they’re not the only place for a deal. While some people hate Walmart, it’s not a bad place for a deal and in the future we’ll be talking about the virtues of Walmart.
Times are tough and the retailers know this. They are tripping over themselves to provide you the best back to school deals. It’s your job as an austere consumer and responsible parent to take them up on it.
