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Confessions Of A Recovering Spendaholic

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There was a time I spent a little too freely. I’d buy things when I wanted and worry about paying for it later on. For lunch I’d go out with the intention of window shopping to waste some time but come back with a sweater and new pants instead.  It felt good when I’d buy something but the feeling would wear off especially when I’d get my credit cards bills which were slowly adding up in the thousands.

I’ve since curbed my spending ways (somewhat). But every now and then the itch returns and I get the urge to splurge. The frugal/saving side of my wants to let go. It’s like you see on a TV show when the devil and angel both appear on one of my shoulders and they argue it out. The angel usually wins out but sometimes the devil makes a good case!

So here are some confessions of a recovering spendaholic. These are things I sometimes think about and get the urge to spend on. I usually hold myself back but other times…

[Continue to see what I want to spend for]

9 Ways To Save On Baby Costs

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Baby Feet

So you’re expecting?  Congratulations! A new baby is an exciting event in one’s life (how’s that for understatement of the year!).  In preparing for the little one’s arrival you’ll start to think of all of the things you are going to need for the baby as well as the costs!  But it doesn’t have to always be expensive.

Here are 9 ways to save on baby costs:

1) Shop at wholesale stores

Places like BJ’s, Costco, and Sam’s Club will be your friend when it comes to shopping for your baby.  We love the big boxes of diapers and wipes that we get at BJ’s.  They also have great deals on car seats and strollers from time to time.  Do your homework on what you expect prices to be of course, but we find that things like diapers are always worth getting at a wholesale store.

2) Reach out to friends, family, and co-workers

If you know anyone else who had a baby before you then talk to them about what they have.  Not only can they give you some practical advice on what they bought but odds are they have a ton of stuff that’s relatively new that they would be happy to give you!  Baby stuff takes up space and parents love to clear out the clutter.  We’ve gotten tons of clothes (it’s great when you can be clothing kids close to free), toys, bassinet, high chair, swing, and much more from friends and family.  Sometimes it was to keep while others said just give it back when we’re done.  Understand that many items will be used for a baby for a few weeks or months and will still be like new!  Heck, there was a time when we had to rush to put our little guy in clothes before he outgrew them.  Seriously, reach out to friends, family, and co-workers!

3) Check Craigslist and local Mommy forums for toys and furniture

Remember my point above about parents wanting to get rid of clutter?  Same idea here.  A parent buys X for their baby, uses it for a couple of months, and now it sits in the garage practically new.  We picked up a huge toy chest for $25 that originally cost about $75.  It looked like new and the Mom was more than happy to have us take it off her hands.  Bargains like that are all over the place!  You want to be careful with something like a crib or anything that the baby would be supported in to make sure it’s fully intact and has all the parts.  Safety first!  Bargains second! (Car seats may not be a good idea to get used as they wear out over time).

4) Breastfeed

This one is a personal choice for sure.  But by breastfeeding you don’t have to buy formula!  Plus it’s natural and better for your baby.  But what about a pump?  First, you may not need one, it depends on your situation.  Second, you could rent them out if needed or possibly you may have a friend that doesn’t need theirs anymore.  My wife bought her pump when her daughter was born.  It was well worth the money as it was used for our son and will be used for the little one on the way.

5) Set Up a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account

If your employer has this option you can set up flexible spending money to be taken out of your paycheck pre-tax for child care expenses.  If you already have a plan but re having an additional child you can make flexible spending account changes to account for costs on the additional child.  You then apply with a receipt to get the money back.  The benefit here is this money isn’t taxed!  The limit is $5000/year when I last checked.  That’s a lot to not be taxed.

6) Set up Health Care Flexible Spending Account

Same idea as dependent care but this can be used for things such as prescription medication and doctor’s visit co-pays.  Check with your employer for the contribution limit.

7) Set up a 529 plan for the little one

A 529 plan doesn’t only save for college in the future.  Many states offer tax benefits now for money you contribute to a 529 plan.

8 ) Sign up for a baby registry

I’ve heard parents-to-be say that they don’t want a baby shower; that they don’t like the idea of a registry.  But the truth is this is one even in your life that people genuinely want to help you start off on the right foot and want to contribute to your child’s well-being!  You don’t know who may be planning a surprise shower for you or who wants to send you a gift.  One thing they’ll ask about is a registry to get you something you need.  You don’t have to get a baby registry.  But it could also leave with a TON of onesies, bibs, and clothes as gifts rather than items you really need (nothing wrong with onesies, bibs, and clothes, but there comes a point where it too much).  Maybe your aunts and uncles will chip in to get you a crib?  Perhaps your college roommates will get together to buy you a car seat?  You don’t know!  Give them the option.  Also, most places that have a registry make it very easy to return gifts.  You’re going to find that you have extras you don’t need or items you thought you needed but don’t use.  We had a registry and were still fortunate to get two car seats!  We returned many a bib that we never used too.

9) Check product forums and sites like Amazon for reviews

If I’m making a big purchase I scour the web for product reviews!  I want to know what everyone is saying.  I’ll try to get as much information as I can.  I want to know the pros and cons of an item from people who are not salespeople in the store.  There are a ton of choices out there for expecting parents and it can be a daunting task trying to figure out what is best.  Do your research!  You may find that for some items spending a little more will save you in the long run.  I’m thinking about products like strollers which take a lot of abuse.  Amazon Bonus: They now have a program called Amazon Mom that offers discounts and free Amazon Prime for a time.

There you have it! 9 ways to save on your baby costs.  Can you think of any more?

Creative Commons License photo credit: lepiaf.geo

Frugal Alternative to Microsoft Office

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So I got a new computer recently. The last one went back to the turn of the century and the screen finally died (the battery had already gone).  Anyway for all of the great programs on my new computer I didn’t have a good spreadsheet or writing program.  Of course the industry standard is Microsoft Office.  Office 2008 for the Mac on Amazon is going for a little over $100.  Pretty good but still expensive after already buying a computer!  I found out I could get a pretty good discount through work but a discount still means I’m paying for it.  That’s when I remembered an article 9 Tips to Save Money on your Next Computer which mentioned OpenOffice.org!

I was a little skeptical of OpenOffice.org at first. I mean, it’s touted as a free alternative to MS Office.  Could it really be as good if it’s free? I’ve used another alternative, Google Docs, a bunch of times.  Google Docs is also free and is nice in that you can access your docs on any computer where you can get Google.  It’s got good programs but falls behind in what MS Office offers.

OpenOffice.org , on the other hand functions almost exactly like MS Office!! So here’s our story: Last week my daughter had a science project due.  In true fashion we all waited to just about the last minute.  I hadn’t bought MS Office and didn’t use OpenOffice.org yet.  We needed to print out her project, titles, and a graph of her research.  Uh-oh!  So I went to the OpenOffice site and downloaded thier suite which includes Writer (Word), Calc (Excell), Impress, Draw, and Base.  I gotta tell you. I was surprised to see that it looked and operated just like MS Office would!  I am sold!  On top of the great programs you can also download templates and extensions to help you further.

Here’s the welcome page when you first open it:

openofficeorg-welcome-page

Here’s what a spreadsheet looks like:

openofficecalc-spreadsheet

Looks an awful lot like Excel, no?

Here’s what Writer looks like:

openofficewriter

Very similar to Word!

And here’s the templates and extensions screen:

openoffice-templates-docs

There are a ton of great templates to chose from!

I mean, whats more frugal than free?!?  And with the functionality of MS Office products it’s really a no-brainer!  Although I haven’t gotten to use it too much yet I’m really liking it so far!

If you are looking for a spreadsheet, document, or presentation program I really think you should give OpenOffice.org a shot before you go out and buy anything!

Have you used it?  What do you think?

We Did It, We Bought A New Car

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We did it!  We broke down and decided it was time for a new car.

We bought a brand new 2008 Honda Odyssey EX.  We picked it up last week and we love it so far!  I feel a little guilty saying that since hey, a new car costs money, but I think we did it as cost-saving as we could.

See, we could have stuck with our 2004 Toyota Corolla, which was a great car.  It had a relatively good number of miles on it and it ran well.  Thing is, it was getting too small for our family.  We’ve been getting by finding ways to fit everything into the trunk of the car on various outings.

Shopping at BJ’s was always fun since we had to get things like diaper and wipes boxes into the trunk as well as the stroller (remember, we have two kids one of which is a toddler).  On some days we got real close to not fitting everything.

The other things was we really couldn’t fit any more people than the four of us.  Maybe we could squeeze a friend of my daughter’s in but that was it.  We wanted to be able to transport more people if we wanted (and hey, there’s always the possibility of more little ones too).

Let me show you what we did to keep costs down:

We traded in our Corolla

We considered keeping it but we didn’t need two cars.  We were better off putting the car toward the cost of the Odyssey.

We researched and then researched some more and then shopped around

We checked Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, the official Honda site, the Official Toyota site…We looked everywhere we could to make sure we understood what the dealer costs were and what prices we could expect to get for both the new car and our old car.  With this information we shopped around until we found the best price from a dealer.  In the end, after an odyssey of our own, we received a price that we were happy with (much less than MSRP and lower than dealer invoice).

We added some luxury but not the works

I wanted power side doors which put us up higher than the base model.  After that we didn’t go for any other options.  As much as we would have liked them we didn’t get the navigation system, the DVD player, the leather seats, etc…  We looked at what we knew we needed and wanted and stuck with that.

We got a great financing deal

I know, buying a 2-3 year old car and paying for it in cash is what a lot of experts say is the best thing to do.  We’ve had bad experiences with older cars already and we know we are going to use this car for as long as we are able (many, many years we hope!).  We considered a used car but in the end we wanted new.  One thing that helped decide was the fact that Honda is offering 0.9% financing right now (Toyota was offering 0% but we preferred the Honda overall).  Financing for 0.9% is real close to free money (a great reason to make sure your credit score is good).

So you know, we have enough put away that we could have paid the car off entirely but since the rate is so low we can keep the money in our Capital One 360 Savings account and let it earn interest while we pay the fianancing.  I did some quick calculations and our financing is costing us less than $300 while we could earn around $1,800 keeping the money in our savings.  For a used car the fianncing would have been much higher.

Our insurance will be lower

As an added bonus I found out that our auto insurance premiums will be lower since the Odyssey is considered a safer car.

Our vacation will be more local

We were undecided on what to do for vacation this year.  We were strongly considering flying off somewhere that has Caribbean water.  But now that we have a new car with more storage space we’re going to do a driving vacation and travel within a day or two’s distance and check out the sites.  Yes gas is expensive now, but we’ll still be saving more than if we flew somewhere.

Finally

We have a little bit of buyer’s remorse knowing that we have a debt to pay off but we’re really happy to have gotten the car!  We’ve already taken a couple of small trips and we plan to do some more (there’s a frugal list of things to do somewhere out there isn’t there?).

A car is a great big expense.  But I think we purchased ours in a way that’s financially responsible.

Customer Service Done Right 1800Contacts.com

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Contact lenses in eyes

I needed to order new disposable contacts.

I realized I was on my last couple of pairs.  I didn’t want to go to my previous eye care provider since their salespeople, what’s the eloquent word?, oh yeah SUCK!  The past few times they have been pushy and do what they can to get you to commit to a purchase.  They speak all sorts of double speak when you ask about prices which just leaves you confused and fed up.  I’d like to think it was just me but my wife has experienced this as well.  I wasn’t going to give them my money again!

That brings me to 1800CONTACTS.com.

I heard all of the commercials and saw the ads online as well as heard great things about them from friends.  I had to at least look into them, right?

Right off the bat I saw two things that interested me: Free shipping on online orders over $50 and they price match against other sites and take off an additional 2%.

Now, I usually check out a price in a few locations but this gave me a real incentive!  Lo and behold I found my contacts on another site for much less.  I was now armed with a price to see if they would match it.

One option the 1800Contacts.com site gives you is to have one of their people call you.  You enter your phone number on the site and they call back.  I did it and immediately got a call with very little waiting.  A real person with little wait?  Another plus!  Ends up this person was located in Utah.

So I tell the woman that I was interested in ordering contacts and I saw a lower price on another site.  I waited a few moments while she looked it up.  (She apologized for the wait too, which wasn’t much.  Another plus).  She found the price and told me they would match it and take off an additional 2%.  We were now looking at a price for 8 boxes of contacts that was less than what 1800Contacts and my previous provider offered!  I’m real close to sold.

Remember that free shipping on online orders over $50?  So I’m on the phone, right?  Not online.  I mention the offer to the woman and she said that because they were price matching they could give me the free shipping too.  Nice!

The next step was to give her the prescription information on my contacts box and give the location of my previous provider who have my eye prescription on file (in New York your prescription is good for a year).  She looked up the location and told me they would contact them for verification.  Once that was done my contacts would ship out.

I felt really good doing business with them at this point.

The salesperson I spoke with was very clear and polite and did everything she could to help me out.  This was how customer service should be handled.  She even informed me that if my prescription should change I could return any unused contact to exchange with a new prescription.  Now I didn’t have to worry that I might get stuck with contacts if my eyes changed (my eye prescription has leveled out so I wasn’t too concerned about my prescription but I have had to change brands).  Now other places will take back an unopened box.  1800Contacts will take back any unopened contacts!  This could save some money if my prescription changed mid-box.

This was last night.  Today I received an email saying they contacted my old eye-care provider and were told that my prescription expired so they had to put my order on hold.

Remember how bad I told you the old provider was?  They just didn’t want to give up my business.  I knew my prescription was still good so I called up 1800Contacts to see what could be done.  The new person I spoke to looked at my account and explained the situation.  She then asked if I would mind being put on hold while she called my old provider.  “Sure,” I said.  I could always hang up and call back if it took too long.  A couple of minutes later the woman came back on and said that my old provider had made a “mistake” (the mistake was bad service to begin with) and my prescription was indeed still good!  They were giving 1800Contacts a hard time but the salesperson would follow up and get the prescription.  For the trouble, she was going to upgrade my shipping, which was already free, to next-day shipping!  Now I’m getting my contacts faster!

This, my friends, is customer service done right!

Let’s recap the positives here:

  • They price-matched and took off an additional 2%
  • They gave me free standard shipping
  • They were pleasant and helpful at all times
  • They took care of obtaining my prescription for me
  • When there was a problem they let me know about it then resolved it
  • I was upgraded to next-day shipping for my trouble (which wasn’t really trouble at all)
  • Both customer service salespeople spoke excellent English and I didn’t have to repeat myself once! I’m all for cost-cutting but some call centers outside of the US have people that are very hard to communicate with. It may be cheaper for the company that uses them but it makes for a frustrating customer experience!

There are always options these days.  We don’t have to settle for bad customer service!

What companies do you know have great customer service?

photo by Baston