Saturday, March 05, 2005

Coupon Shopping

My wife and I have a weekly food budget of about $50. My wife takes control of the shopping. In an effort to feed the four of us, she's taken to coupon shopping, and she's getting really good at it.

See, the principle behind coupon shopping is something like this:

Manufacturers are keen on getting their products off the shelves. Obviously, they're motivated by profit, so they want you to buy them. However, sometimes they have other reasons to want to move the product.

Maybe they're going to introduce a new product and they want to free up shelf space. Maybe they want to get you to try the new product. Maybe they want to get something discontinued out of their sight. Maybe they have improved the quality of a product, and they want to get people to try it in the hopes they'll change brands.

So the company and the store will employ a variety of measures to make this happen. These include events, sales, and coupons.

The good news, for us, is that because the reasons a company puts an item on sale are often the same reasons they'll make coupons for them, you can usually get your coupon and a sale price for a product to meet up pretty easily. This means you can get the item very, very cheaply.

Prices are always different. Walk into three different grocery stores, find the same product, and odds are you'll find three different prices. One store will have the product on sale, and the other stores will have different shelf prices than each other. You can even go into the same store three different weeks and find three different prices.

And coupons, of course, expire.

So, the trick becomes being willing to go to three or four different stores, on an all-out quest for the absolute lowest prices on every item and comparing that with the coupons you have.

All of this takes time. The whole process takes time. You have to clip the coupons, scrutinize the sale papers, and visit all the different stores (one friend of ours actually goes to three different stores to check prices on Monday morning, then goes back to the same three stores to make her actual purchases on Tuesday morning).

I know it all sounds like a time-consuming, terrible hassle. It is. But the old adage is 100% true: Time is money. If you're willing to take the time, you can save the money. The less time you're willing to give to a purchase, the more money you're going to pay. No one pays more for anything than the person who decides they must have something and that they must have it now.

We're actually eating pretty well this way. In fact, I think we'd be eating great easily, if it wasn't for the little rub that I'm trying to lose weight at the same time I'm trying to get out of debt. Trying to eat healthy while we eat cheap makes it harder than it would otherwise be.

But she's doing a great job of it. Right now, we've got a freezer full of Lean Cuisine meals I use for my lunches at work that she got by combining a sale and coupons.

I wasn't able to get those even before I was on the budget.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Gambling: The Lottery

Imagine if the Governor of your state came up with the following proposal:

In order to solve the state's money problems, he was going to create a new tax. This tax would be only on the poor and the middle class.

Sounds silly, right? He'd get laughed out of the Governor's mansion.

Well, fact is, governors crank out a "reverse tax" like this all the time, and people love it. They clamor for more. They line up to pay it.

Because when you think about it, that's what the lottery really is. A tax on people who don't have any money but want some.

I could quote you odds and percentages on this one, but do I really need to?

The fact is, the government is waving a carrot in front of you--really, in front of you and all your neighbors--and saying that if you all hop and jump and dance for them, one of you will get the carrot.

What's worse, they're doing this while there are plenty of carrot patches all over the place.

Of course, if you think about how interest works, and how your own money can work for you, growing to make more and more dollars, it's more like the government is asking you for carrot seeds in exchange for carrots. If you would just go plant the seed, tend it and take care of it, soon enough you'd have all the carrots you would want.

Same thing with your money.

The current ad campaign for California's Super Lotto plus brags, "Why not take a risk where the upside is millions and the downside is only a buck?"

In truth, the average lottery player plays $30 a month. That's about a buck a day, seven tickets a week.

If the same person invested just that $30 a month in a Roth IRA starting at age 21--$360 a year--at 12% interest they would have half a million dollars waiting for them at retirement.

If they started when they were 18, they'd have $770,000. Over three quarters of a million dollars.

And if you hope to become a millionaire, start at 18 and pop $40 a month into the IRA instead of at the Lotto counter. By retirement, at 12% a year, a millionaire you will be.

I realize, however, that you aren't playing the lottery to prepare yourself for retirement. You're playing the lotto in the hopes of getting to retire now.

Just like the folks who make Fear Factor know they can get a half dozen people to eat bugs and rats by offering one of them some money, just like the people who make American Idol know they can make fun of as many people as they want, if they offer one of them a record contract, the state knows it can get more money out of the lower classes by offering to lift just one of them out of their plight.

And please, spare me lecture on how the money all goes to good causes. Here in California, the lottery was pitched as an education saver. But if you ask anybody in the field of education, they'll tell you the local governments were more than happy to cut school funding for various projects since the schools, after all, could now fund those with lottery money.

And please, spare me the story about your sister's mother-in-law's friend who once won $20,000. One of the guys on Fear Factor got a car, too, but I'll bet his wife kissed him different after he ate that rat.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Cancel That Card!

I went through the roof when I saw the headline, "Don't Cancel That Card!" on the Motley Fool.

The article didn't turn out to be nearly as adamant as the headline, and, buried deep in the article, the truth is there, but almost dismissively.

The fact is, mortgage lenders tend to view open, zero balance credit cards very negatively--they know how many additional expenses you're going to incur during a move--ordering pizza for the gang who helped you move, replacing stuff the gang broke while they moved you, buying new stuff because your old stuff seems out of place in the new place, etc, etc, etc.

Where are you going to put that extra expense? On all those open, zero balance cards. Any home loan officer worth his salt knows that.

There's some good links in the article, but man--those Motley Fool guys can sometimes be more foolish than Foolish. Ever since I got a call the other night offering me a "Motley Fool Credit Card," I knew a little conflict of interest had cropped up that would keep them from dispensing the best possible financial advice.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

The Lymphatic System -- More Reason To Move

Just in case this blog hadn't provided you with enough reasons to get up and move yet, now we present to you your lymphatic system.

What in the world is that?

Well, you know all about your circulatory system, right? Heart pumps blood through your body, carries oxygen and nutrients to all your cells?

See, there's another system in your body that's sort of like that, that carries a clear fluid called lymph all through your body. Lymph helps remove unwanted stuff that's hanging out inside your body, and is an important part of the immune system. Lymph isn't something a lot of people know they have, but it's important to staying healthy.

Lymph has a disadvantage compared to blood, though--there's no heart for the lymphatic system. The heart will keep the blood moving around no matter if you're lying down, running around, or sitting on the couch watching Dr. Phil. There's nothing that keeps the lymph moving, unless you move.

Any movement helps--just taking a few deep breaths can get it flowing, although some people recommend sharp, quick breaths--but as you've probably guessed, nothing gets your lymph flowing and flushing out your system like exercise.

So, not only will exercise bring down your weight, help your heart, and release endorphins, but it will also help prevent sickness and cancer.

How many more reasons do you need?

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Intensity

This is a word I keep hearing bandied about. Dave Ramsey talks about gazelle intensity. Bill Phillips talks about intensity. I think George McFly says something to Lorraine about intensity. Everywhere I turn, intensity, intensity, intensity.

They keep saying it's the secret. The secret doesn't seem to be a pill or a "program." It's also not a "system"--not a weight management system, not a card-counting system, not even a life planning system.

It's intensity.

So I go and look it up in the dictionary.

in·ten·si·ty
n. pl. in·ten·si·ties


Exceptionally great concentration, power, or force.


Wow. That's speaking to me. So you do something with intensity, and it works--you're putting an exceptionally great amount of effort into something, and you start seeing results. That makes sense to me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw exceptionally great results.

You get out of any program what you're willing to put into it. If you're not intense, no program can make up for that. If you are intense, just about any program will do.

The casual problem solver looks to the program to solve his problems for him. The intense problem solver uses the program to solve his problems himself.

That's the sad, cold truth of it. If you're not giving it all you've got, you just ain't going to see the same results as if you were.

But that's also the happy, warm truth of it. If you're absolutely fed up, if you're driven, if you're willing to do what it takes--well, that energy's not going to be wasted. Let that intensity take control, and let desire move you.

Monday, February 28, 2005

Tale Of The Tape

Well, it looks like my belly and my chest are almost reaching the same circumference, despite my weight staying the same. I'm glad I'm measuring.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Sunday Book Review: The Richest Man In Babylon



If you read thirty reviews of this book, odds are 29 of them will use the word "simple." What they really mean is "short and clear." If people want to mistake brevity and clarity for simplicity, that is their choice, however I fear it keeps people from taking the book as seriously as they ought.

The Richest Man In Babylon was written in 1926 by George S. Clason. It's told as fiction, although the book does little to try to actually be a narrative. The main character is Bansir, a chariot builder, who wonders why the wealthy have gold and he does not.

As he seeks an answer to this question from Arkad, an old friend who has become the wealthiest man he knows, he discovers the principles that brought Arkad wealth are not out of his own reach, humble chariot builder though he may be.

Naturally, the book's principles also turn out to apply to you and me. They are not, believe it or not, principles of luck or craftiness or brazenness or any of the other things people think they need in order to succeed. They are actually solid, practicable principles that guarantee success.

If you went back and looked at those same 30 reviews I mentioned above, you'd probably see another phrase a lot--"common sense." This book is full of that as well, although in a world where most people receive more than one offer of credit a day and still count it a compliment that so many people are willing to lend them money, this type of sense has become far too uncommon.

Some examples:

Start thy purse to fattening - Part of what you make is yours to keep. Start keeping it. At least 10% of your income.

Control thy expenditures - If you don't have it don't spend it. In fact, don't even spend all you have.

Make thy gold multiply - Put your money where it will make you more money.

Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment - Own your own home. Get it paid off.

Increase thy ability to earn - Never stop learning. Not about money, nor about the things you need to know to provide yourself an income.

Again, this isn't innovative. The book was written in 1926. These are the tried-and-true, time-tested answers.

Those late-night infomercials you see that promise wealth in minutes, those ads you see promising great incomes for three hours a week worth of work--those are all attempted shortcuts. We all know about shortcuts, and how lost they can get you and how much time they can lose you.

This is the regular path. This is the way that you get there, the straight-line route that takes you from point A to point B. And while the book may be clear and short and straightforward, I think if you really read it, and believe it, and apply it from day to day, you'll discover the right word to describe this book isn't simple after all.

It's powerful.