Good idea to allow yourselves a whole month of comparing shopping prices. A week wouldn't be a good test. Bad idea to do it during the holiday season. You'll find prices skewed, but you probably also cook differently this time of year. I have always been a cook at home from scratch type too, but since hubby was "downsized" we are definitely saving more on your hubby's plan. I'll be interested to see the outcome!
If you are really trying to save those $$$$....take-out buffet is the way to go. fill your container with food you really enjoy, cook your own rice at home and have enough food to last a couple of meals. You can fill the take out container with more food than you could eat sitting inside the buffet. Also, those of you who resist tipping....that is the way to avoid it!
This blog is great to keep up with what people are thinking and to actually help me find important information.
I've been working hard to save and stay away from more risky things since I read stickyasset.com. I know with the help of this site, I will know even more.
We have 5 kids still at home and I lean toward organic produce and free-range poultry, but my husband is like yours and cannot resist a bargain. He also prefers beef and sugar and Doritos. I usually bake and cook from scratch and have belonged to food-buying clubs for years, so I bought lots of what we have in bulk (I still have a few 25lb bags of organic pinto beans and cannellini beans we're using), but when my husband comes home with armloads of coupon-reduced frozen or boxed foods, I make them (heat them up, really) for him and the kids.
Also, for cleaning supplies, paper products, and personal hygiene items, I tend not to buy brand name items, or the products I buy are so inexpensive there are no coupons to reduce the price further.
Our grocery budget definitely works better when I grocery shop than when he does!
Funny, I was just talking about the values of coupons the other night with my hubby. I kinda think that coupons are most valuable if you do have brand loyalty. If you are willing, as I am, to buy generic brand food, it's almost always cheaper than the name brand food even with coupons. (And there are rarely coupons for generic brand products.)
I agree that most food coupons are for processed foods that I don't buy. Most non-food coupons are for cosmetics or cleaning products I also don't buy. I'm not brand-loyal, but I still don't find many coupons I can use. Now, if there were coupons for flour, yeast, milk, dry beans, etc., I'd be all over them.
That's not to say I don't use any coupons, as I do use a few for groceries and health/beauty items. I more often use coupons for discounted haircuts, %-off at hobby or housewares stores, etc. But when it comes to spending a lot of time clipping, organizing and using coupons, I feel my time is better spent doing something else to save money.
I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't eat a lot of processed foods, but I'm not above substituting things I can get free/cheap for meals now and then. Usually it's my meals on the weekends that are less healthy/locally grown/unprocessed (and cheaper) while my meals during the week are the stuff that's better for me. It's a tradeoff, but it works for me in terms of balancing finances and nutrition. It also helps that I'm single, live alone and am not really picky about what I eat in terms of taste.
I also use a lot of coupons on non-food items. Thanks to combining sales, coupons and rebates (love Walgreens) I haven't paid more than $0.50/item for hair care, toothpaste, deoderant, soap and similar products in a couple of years. Often times I get these items free.
I used to be a big coupon user, but over the past year or so, I have become more like you. However, I still clip coupons and watch for sales. When there's a deal on mac and cheese, canned soup, or cereal, I stock up and donate the goods to our local food pantry. I get the same satisfaction out of donating $50 worth of food that I only paid $20 for as I used to get from saving that money for myself.
Don't be fooled by the "coupon savings" at the bottom of your receipt. If you're spending a nickel on something you don't like, it's a nickel wasted. But it sounds like your husband is really enjoying the challenge, so why don't you set an amount to spend on donated food each week, or each month, and let him optimize it. It's a good thing to do, and your donations are tax deductible.
A building is a depreciating asset. People forget that. The longer it's there, the less it's worth. The longer you own it, the more you have to fix it.
Land tends to increase in value if the population increases. If the population is decreasing, then the value of the property will decrease. It's just supply and demand.
If you accept these two facts, then, one would expect that house values increase in cities with growth, while houses decrease in value in areas without growth.
All the other fluctuations are due to other factors :-)
verrrry simple solution. buy all your stuff first and offer the remainder of the grocery budget up to the hubby. after all your stuff is the healthiest and most important for the nutritional needs of your kids. not to mention that, at least in my house, i am the one who plans & prepares the menu. so there!!lol!
Starches (i.e., potatoes, breads) and sodas will fill you up fast. Also, you're getting a good deal on your meal and the serdoes do this for you. So, a few bucks qon't hurt you. My grand dad used to say, "If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out".
I use your method mostly. I tried couponing, but with working full time + 2 young kids, it's too much work. What I do differently from you is about once every month or two I'll go to local discount grocery (WinCo here) and stock up on things that are cheaper there than at TJs, such as canned or bulk beans. Also, bulk for spices and oatmeal. And, rice/rice wine vinegar/soy sauce/sesame oil/etc are much much cheaper at the Asian food mart, so I go there for those items.
We sat around my living room (yes, me the lefty with a giant Obama and no on Prop 8 sign in my front window with a room full of nice blue haired church ladies) and talked about how much we all seem to be barting now that the economy has tanked. We were trading yarn, apples, advice, an oil change, and computer repairs today. No money changed hands and we made a pact to look out for each other this winter--make sure everyone has wood, oil, and fresh foods.
And I agree with mom. It's WAY harder to eat healthily with no money because the best things for you--fruits and vegetables--are so expensive. It's a little cheaper if you eat with the seasons but not by much--unless you happen to have trees and gardens. NPR had a woman yesterday talking about raising chickens. We are considering that in spring.
You made me feel a little better... :) We are blessed with decent neighbors, a quiet street and a house that is manageable in size and mortgage payment, and it was only partly a fixer, but a good friend who is a realtor around her echos your myths! Two streets down from us nothing sells! Why? No view of the mountains and less than desirable neighbor at the end of the block. You made me feel smarter than I am about my own house. Thanks.
These are 6 great myths that will help people out tremendously when looking to invest in real estate. Even though it is a very tough market out there now, there are still plenty of investments out there for you to make some good profits today. Just make sure you do your due diligence when investing in a property
In high school and the first year of college I was working at minimum wage (then $3.10). As I had a full scholarship so no tuition, I was able to use the guaranteed (then $2500) loans for pocket money, knowing that when I had a real job it would take very little effort to make the payments. It was a gift my 22 year old self could give to my younger self and I never regretted doing it that way.
Now, I have a salaried position, but I plan my own schedule. I've never missed a function my daughter has had, as I plan around her dance recitals, school performances, or important games. My wife and I pay someone to clean the house and mow the lawn, but when my daughter showed me a desk in a catalog I knew she expected me to build it from scratch, and I did. We choose the things we care to do ourselves and sub out the rest. The trade off between time and money is different for each person, I suppose, but I think we found the right balance.
Joe
Thanks so much for this post, Nora. As someone who can attest to how easy it is to lose money in a home, I have to say that this is the most level-headed assessment of the realities of real estate that I've seen in a long, long time.
Thought I would at least ask...my husband collects those coke rewards points and didn't know if you want your codes. If not would you please send the codes to me as I would really be appreciative. Heather
I can't say you're wrong, but I'm a little more hopeful than that.
My hopefulness comes from the fact that almost all the derivatives that you're talking about have underlying securities that are self-liquidating in some way. The mortgages, car loans, and so forth have maturity dates, so eventually every one of them will either default or else be paid off. Even the credit default swaps have underlying bonds that will eventually be paid off (or not).
The ordinary bankruptcy process could handle that--the situation where the underlying securities still have value (e.g. 90% of the mortgages are still being paid on schedule), but the derivative can't be priced because no one will buy it. Where it falls down is handling institutions that are "too big to fail."
The Treasury and the central bank are hoping against hope that, if we can just muddle through for a little while, we'll get to the point where the derivatives do have a price again. If it isn't too low, we'll be able to save more banks; if it is low, we'll be able to save fewer. Either way, we won't have to build our financial system from the ground up.
I don't know if Paulson's plan can work. It could well happen that the banks will start by sticking the Treasury (i.e. the taxpayer) with the worst of their "troubled" assets--the ones that turn out to be worth only pennies on the dollar--and just keep handing over worthless paper until the money's gone. But it could work the other way: with a buyer for even the junkiest of the paper, all the institutions may well start trying to re-jigger their portfolios--buying and selling, trying to make a profit. If there was a market for the paper, so that it had a value, we might still lose a lot of banks, but at least we'd know which ones were gone.
I worry about your scenario, but I'm hopeful that we can do better. Not confident, but hopeful.
I agree with all, except that I believe the underlying problem with liquidity, goes beyond the collaterized securities... I believe that the problem comes from the inablility to settle derivatives.
I think it's too simplistic to assume that there is a way to value these instruments. It is patently impossible for the government or all governments to try and buy "bad debt", when the amount of these transactions totals more than 500Trillion Dollars. Yes... I understand "notional value", however each of the transactions that represent the basis for this estimated total, is...in fact, a contract, that must be settled between two parties.
The slicing and dicing, and the calculus based risk factoring has effectively precluded any resolution of the settlement process.
In short... there ain't no way to fix this, and until it's fixed, there is no way any government program will do more than pour taxpayer future debt into the coffers of the banks and financial institutions.
The super smart folks who created this monster are at the bottom of the problem. Bad as it may be, letting them fail is the only logical and legal answer.
Will it hurt? Worse than the worst depression or physical catastophe that today's world has ever seen. It will mean going back to square one, effectivley building a new financial world. As a retiree, I'll be at the bottom of the barrel.
But!!!
The smart people will build this back up in a hurry. (Remember the fall of the Ruble and the recovery). We'll have a year of hurt... But the world won't come to an end. We'll come back faster and stronger than ever, and the people who took the money in the first place will be the ones who will take the biggest part of the loss. Yes, they'll still be wealthy, but instead of $50 million, they'll have $5 million dollars. And the loss of their money will settle the hedge fund/derivative bubble.
The longer Mr. Paulson and Bernancke play with an unsolveable problem, the greater our debt and the debt of our children.
We have laws to deal with financial situations... bankruptcy or reorganization. For the life of me, I can't understand how we ignore these laws. Our government is both ignorant and corrupt.
As they say, you can pay me now, or pay me later.... later may be a third world country and anarchy.
Brooke, I agree that the internet is not much better. I actually have a screen saver that says, "computer potato." I used to be able to control advertisements better but it seems fruitless on the internet now. I really have not missed the TV. I did wish I could watch the olympics, that was a bummer.
Good idea to allow yourselves a whole month of comparing shopping prices. A week wouldn't be a good test. Bad idea to do it during the holiday season. You'll find prices skewed, but you probably also cook differently this time of year. I have always been a cook at home from scratch type too, but since hubby was "downsized" we are definitely saving more on your hubby's plan. I'll be interested to see the outcome!
If you are really trying to save those $$$$....take-out buffet is the way to go. fill your container with food you really enjoy, cook your own rice at home and have enough food to last a couple of meals. You can fill the take out container with more food than you could eat sitting inside the buffet. Also, those of you who resist tipping....that is the way to avoid it!
This blog is great to keep up with what people are thinking and to actually help me find important information.
I've been working hard to save and stay away from more risky things since I read stickyasset.com. I know with the help of this site, I will know even more.
Thank you again.
Wilson
We have 5 kids still at home and I lean toward organic produce and free-range poultry, but my husband is like yours and cannot resist a bargain. He also prefers beef and sugar and Doritos. I usually bake and cook from scratch and have belonged to food-buying clubs for years, so I bought lots of what we have in bulk (I still have a few 25lb bags of organic pinto beans and cannellini beans we're using), but when my husband comes home with armloads of coupon-reduced frozen or boxed foods, I make them (heat them up, really) for him and the kids.
Also, for cleaning supplies, paper products, and personal hygiene items, I tend not to buy brand name items, or the products I buy are so inexpensive there are no coupons to reduce the price further.
Our grocery budget definitely works better when I grocery shop than when he does!
Funny, I was just talking about the values of coupons the other night with my hubby. I kinda think that coupons are most valuable if you do have brand loyalty. If you are willing, as I am, to buy generic brand food, it's almost always cheaper than the name brand food even with coupons. (And there are rarely coupons for generic brand products.)
I agree that most food coupons are for processed foods that I don't buy. Most non-food coupons are for cosmetics or cleaning products I also don't buy. I'm not brand-loyal, but I still don't find many coupons I can use. Now, if there were coupons for flour, yeast, milk, dry beans, etc., I'd be all over them.
That's not to say I don't use any coupons, as I do use a few for groceries and health/beauty items. I more often use coupons for discounted haircuts, %-off at hobby or housewares stores, etc. But when it comes to spending a lot of time clipping, organizing and using coupons, I feel my time is better spent doing something else to save money.
I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't eat a lot of processed foods, but I'm not above substituting things I can get free/cheap for meals now and then. Usually it's my meals on the weekends that are less healthy/locally grown/unprocessed (and cheaper) while my meals during the week are the stuff that's better for me. It's a tradeoff, but it works for me in terms of balancing finances and nutrition. It also helps that I'm single, live alone and am not really picky about what I eat in terms of taste.
I also use a lot of coupons on non-food items. Thanks to combining sales, coupons and rebates (love Walgreens) I haven't paid more than $0.50/item for hair care, toothpaste, deoderant, soap and similar products in a couple of years. Often times I get these items free.
I used to be a big coupon user, but over the past year or so, I have become more like you. However, I still clip coupons and watch for sales. When there's a deal on mac and cheese, canned soup, or cereal, I stock up and donate the goods to our local food pantry. I get the same satisfaction out of donating $50 worth of food that I only paid $20 for as I used to get from saving that money for myself.
Don't be fooled by the "coupon savings" at the bottom of your receipt. If you're spending a nickel on something you don't like, it's a nickel wasted. But it sounds like your husband is really enjoying the challenge, so why don't you set an amount to spend on donated food each week, or each month, and let him optimize it. It's a good thing to do, and your donations are tax deductible.
A building is a depreciating asset. People forget that. The longer it's there, the less it's worth. The longer you own it, the more you have to fix it.
Land tends to increase in value if the population increases. If the population is decreasing, then the value of the property will decrease. It's just supply and demand.
If you accept these two facts, then, one would expect that house values increase in cities with growth, while houses decrease in value in areas without growth.
All the other fluctuations are due to other factors :-)
verrrry simple solution. buy all your stuff first and offer the remainder of the grocery budget up to the hubby. after all your stuff is the healthiest and most important for the nutritional needs of your kids. not to mention that, at least in my house, i am the one who plans & prepares the menu. so there!!lol!
Starches (i.e., potatoes, breads) and sodas will fill you up fast. Also, you're getting a good deal on your meal and the serdoes do this for you. So, a few bucks qon't hurt you. My grand dad used to say, "If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out".
I use your method mostly. I tried couponing, but with working full time + 2 young kids, it's too much work. What I do differently from you is about once every month or two I'll go to local discount grocery (WinCo here) and stock up on things that are cheaper there than at TJs, such as canned or bulk beans. Also, bulk for spices and oatmeal. And, rice/rice wine vinegar/soy sauce/sesame oil/etc are much much cheaper at the Asian food mart, so I go there for those items.
We sat around my living room (yes, me the lefty with a giant Obama and no on Prop 8 sign in my front window with a room full of nice blue haired church ladies) and talked about how much we all seem to be barting now that the economy has tanked. We were trading yarn, apples, advice, an oil change, and computer repairs today. No money changed hands and we made a pact to look out for each other this winter--make sure everyone has wood, oil, and fresh foods.
And I agree with mom. It's WAY harder to eat healthily with no money because the best things for you--fruits and vegetables--are so expensive. It's a little cheaper if you eat with the seasons but not by much--unless you happen to have trees and gardens. NPR had a woman yesterday talking about raising chickens. We are considering that in spring.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
You made me feel a little better... :) We are blessed with decent neighbors, a quiet street and a house that is manageable in size and mortgage payment, and it was only partly a fixer, but a good friend who is a realtor around her echos your myths! Two streets down from us nothing sells! Why? No view of the mountains and less than desirable neighbor at the end of the block. You made me feel smarter than I am about my own house. Thanks.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
These are 6 great myths that will help people out tremendously when looking to invest in real estate. Even though it is a very tough market out there now, there are still plenty of investments out there for you to make some good profits today. Just make sure you do your due diligence when investing in a property
In high school and the first year of college I was working at minimum wage (then $3.10). As I had a full scholarship so no tuition, I was able to use the guaranteed (then $2500) loans for pocket money, knowing that when I had a real job it would take very little effort to make the payments. It was a gift my 22 year old self could give to my younger self and I never regretted doing it that way.
Now, I have a salaried position, but I plan my own schedule. I've never missed a function my daughter has had, as I plan around her dance recitals, school performances, or important games. My wife and I pay someone to clean the house and mow the lawn, but when my daughter showed me a desk in a catalog I knew she expected me to build it from scratch, and I did. We choose the things we care to do ourselves and sub out the rest. The trade off between time and money is different for each person, I suppose, but I think we found the right balance.
Joe
Thanks so much for this post, Nora. As someone who can attest to how easy it is to lose money in a home, I have to say that this is the most level-headed assessment of the realities of real estate that I've seen in a long, long time.
THANKS! You're kind to share that. I appreciated it.
If yopur neighbor has a grow op, see if you can get a photo op.
Great post - I love when someone actually writes the cold, hard truth about reality.
Your second example about poor accounting is very true - most people want to feel good about their investment - even if they lost money.
One of my biggest problems with real estate investment (which isn't a myth) is the lack of diversification.
Thought I would at least ask...my husband collects those coke rewards points and didn't know if you want your codes. If not would you please send the codes to me as I would really be appreciative. Heather
this is the code that is printed on all the bags and game boards. Way to go...
@ lghbob:
I can't say you're wrong, but I'm a little more hopeful than that.
My hopefulness comes from the fact that almost all the derivatives that you're talking about have underlying securities that are self-liquidating in some way. The mortgages, car loans, and so forth have maturity dates, so eventually every one of them will either default or else be paid off. Even the credit default swaps have underlying bonds that will eventually be paid off (or not).
The ordinary bankruptcy process could handle that--the situation where the underlying securities still have value (e.g. 90% of the mortgages are still being paid on schedule), but the derivative can't be priced because no one will buy it. Where it falls down is handling institutions that are "too big to fail."
The Treasury and the central bank are hoping against hope that, if we can just muddle through for a little while, we'll get to the point where the derivatives do have a price again. If it isn't too low, we'll be able to save more banks; if it is low, we'll be able to save fewer. Either way, we won't have to build our financial system from the ground up.
I don't know if Paulson's plan can work. It could well happen that the banks will start by sticking the Treasury (i.e. the taxpayer) with the worst of their "troubled" assets--the ones that turn out to be worth only pennies on the dollar--and just keep handing over worthless paper until the money's gone. But it could work the other way: with a buyer for even the junkiest of the paper, all the institutions may well start trying to re-jigger their portfolios--buying and selling, trying to make a profit. If there was a market for the paper, so that it had a value, we might still lose a lot of banks, but at least we'd know which ones were gone.
I worry about your scenario, but I'm hopeful that we can do better. Not confident, but hopeful.
Philip...
I agree with all, except that I believe the underlying problem with liquidity, goes beyond the collaterized securities... I believe that the problem comes from the inablility to settle derivatives.
I think it's too simplistic to assume that there is a way to value these instruments. It is patently impossible for the government or all governments to try and buy "bad debt", when the amount of these transactions totals more than 500Trillion Dollars. Yes... I understand "notional value", however each of the transactions that represent the basis for this estimated total, is...in fact, a contract, that must be settled between two parties.
The slicing and dicing, and the calculus based risk factoring has effectively precluded any resolution of the settlement process.
In short... there ain't no way to fix this, and until it's fixed, there is no way any government program will do more than pour taxpayer future debt into the coffers of the banks and financial institutions.
The super smart folks who created this monster are at the bottom of the problem. Bad as it may be, letting them fail is the only logical and legal answer.
Will it hurt? Worse than the worst depression or physical catastophe that today's world has ever seen. It will mean going back to square one, effectivley building a new financial world. As a retiree, I'll be at the bottom of the barrel.
But!!!
The smart people will build this back up in a hurry. (Remember the fall of the Ruble and the recovery). We'll have a year of hurt... But the world won't come to an end. We'll come back faster and stronger than ever, and the people who took the money in the first place will be the ones who will take the biggest part of the loss. Yes, they'll still be wealthy, but instead of $50 million, they'll have $5 million dollars. And the loss of their money will settle the hedge fund/derivative bubble.
The longer Mr. Paulson and Bernancke play with an unsolveable problem, the greater our debt and the debt of our children.
We have laws to deal with financial situations... bankruptcy or reorganization. For the life of me, I can't understand how we ignore these laws. Our government is both ignorant and corrupt.
As they say, you can pay me now, or pay me later.... later may be a third world country and anarchy.
my opinion only
Brooke, I agree that the internet is not much better. I actually have a screen saver that says, "computer potato." I used to be able to control advertisements better but it seems fruitless on the internet now. I really have not missed the TV. I did wish I could watch the olympics, that was a bummer.