There are two ways that average house prices and rents could come back together. Sure, everyone seems to think it's a free-fall of housing prices; however, with general inflation on the rise it's also very possible that much of the lost ground will be made up by a rise in rents, which have been stagnant for far too long.
Thanx for the push I have also put off setting the Weekly budget for the food. I tend to do very well and come in right around the same each week.($120-$125 for a family of four)But I know I can do better.The truth is I have the time to clip coupons and watch the fliers I just don't. Well didin't... I do now! Here's a little tip from an ex-Bartender for your booze dilema. Buy a gallon of cheap vodka (wait for it to go on sale 'round the "party " holiday's) pour it into a sun tea jar and add a bag of frozen mixed berries. Now stash it for a few days when you come back the berries will be a cocktail on their own and you cheap vodka will taste great!! Be sure to scoop out the berries. You can just eat 'em they'll keep in the fridge or toss a few in the bottom of your drink but don't leave 'em in the jar they'll disenegrate and well...It's yucky
I'm 22 and my fiance and myself are as about as frugile as you can get when it comes to grocery shopping. We are both big eaters and never eat out always stay home, still we manage to live on a budget of $100 dollars for grocerys every other friday. Here's a few tricks i've learned; First get the sunday paper and scan throught all the sale ads and coupons, w-mart will match any other prices; Buy in bulk at S-club(usally you'll pay the same prices as anywhere else but you get double the product); Grow a garden(I grow a small garden and we freeze alot for all year around). That's all it takes for us, hope it helps.
I think in some areas home prices are still going to go down. Like Phoenix and Vegas but a lot places the home prices ares staying about the same. I invest in real estate and I have been fortunate the values of my rental homes have not dropped and I don't expect them to drop much.
In the UK there's usually quite a few coupons in the Sunday paper's glossy supplement. Many supermarkets will actually redeem the coupons against your total regardless of whether you bought the item. They don't care because they claim the money from the producer any way.
I know Waitrose do it, and I'm pretty sure that Sainsburys do too.
Most of you above have a pretty naive view of Wikipedia and of open content manipulation in general. Fact is, paid PR shills are increasingly paid to edit open content (very influential) and seed blogs with rumours and lies (thankfully much less influential since blogs have no capacity to create long term consulted resources). WikiScanner doesn't do much except show up some of the most naive and stupid liars, those who don't know how to use an IP proxy, hire a PR firm or even use a net cafe for Pete's sake. Getting caught editing from an internal IP address of an obviously conflicted entity will soon be a firing offence in any nefarious organization, they'll catch on fast enough to all the tricks Wikipedia trolls have used for years.
Paid trolls, however, are much more of a threat to open content since they can keep adapting their techniques regardless of cost and difficulty. Unpaid trolls (don't waste my time arguing that there is such a thing as a Wikipedia editor who is not a troll!) countering them will inevitably fall behind without huge numbers and a discipline of restoring neutrality and integrity as fast as possible. This discipline seems to be lax at Wikipedia now, with so many articles to track.
Even more nefarious is the prospect of manipulation of content used in formal courses and schooling. Open textbooks perhaps will end up containing quite a bit of corporate sponsored lies.
A few tactics that might help save open content and Wikipedia:
1. Suggest improvements to Wikiscanner including IP proximity checks so that, for instance, not just the NRA's head office but net cafes or public IP addresses in the same city can be "yellow flagged" as well as red flagging the ones from inside the NRA itself. If you have the skills to add these improvements or to mashup the Wikipedia page histories, do it. Wikiscanner needs a lot of help and a lot of competition if you want to be able even to see who is doing the most obvious manipulations.
2. When you find a particular manipulation of open content very offensive, write that organization and it's competitors. If it's the Australian Government, write the Official Opposition. If it's the NRA, write a few prominent gun control groups. Do your best to explain to them what tactics are being used and how you expect them, not you, to be monitoring Wikipedia effectively and exposing the liars and exploiting their lack of judgement to defeat them politically. Send them a few bucks or your business.
3. Boycott all organizations that repeatedly (that is, twice) engage in overt manipulation of open content. If you haven't already boycotted Exxon, for instance, there's something seriously wrong with your moral compass. If they do it three times, start organizing others to boycott that organization.
4. Set policies in your own organization against overt spin doctoring and promoting correction of factual errors in open content. Make clear employees are welcome to edit Wikipedia to insert useful research on their industry or technologies or on current events, but they have to meet journalistic standards of evidence (two credible sources at least) and avoid conflicts of interest. If they edit materials on the company, they must do it offsite and on their own authority, and keep confidentiality agreements, and explicitly do not have company support for this.
If you have employees, put up a big sign in your workplace, "do not promote the company or its services by telling lies or denying problems we know about internally - we will fire liars".
Make clear to all suppliers big and small that you expect this same standard from them. If you shift your fuel business off Exxon, for instance, send a polite letter to the board and to major shareholders explaining that frequent manipulations of open content to deny Exxon Valdez's long term effects and to cast unscientific doubt on climate change cost your business.
5. Teach your children how to debate: that it's important to debate politely and factually, and simply correct errors of fact and dispute faulty logic without emotionally responding to these.
But if they get suspended from school for beating up a kid who's repeatedly lying about them or one of their friends, make sure you back your kid up, and get the liar thrown out of school or (better) placed in foster care with better parents. A society that educates and tolerates liars is a dead society for sure. One that has no means to violently silence them will be very quickly exterminated by a new society with less tolerance, that will violently silence or suppress the entire liar-run civilization.
Let's try not to be that liar-run civilization that everyone hates and tries their best to destroy.
We write a menu for the week ahead and keep a close eye on what is in our pantry and fridge. We can then write our list with items that are needed. We have been doing this for many years now and keep our shopping budget under control because of it.
Click my link to get some info about how a farmworker who picked grapes for the wine perished due to heat stroke. The UFW is having a letter-writing campaign against TJ's to pressure them to tell their supplier to improve working conditions. (Don't worry, it's not a boycott.)
Other than that, I thought the article was awesome. Keeping focused on the big picture definitely helps one to cut the pointless goodies, stock up on good staples, and get quality "luxuries".
1. So, tell me a little about yourself.
Why, are you some sort of con-artist?
2. Why are you looking (or why did you leave you last job)?
Because of the $$$, stupid
3. Tell me what you know about this company.
You don't give a f*** about me, why the hell should I give a f*** about yours?
4. Why do you want to work at X Company?
See answer to #2
5. What relevant experience do you have?
Enough experience to know that these questions are lame!
6. If your previous co-workers were here, what would they say about you?
I don't want to visualize that question!
7. Have you done anything to further your experience?
Yeah, hire me and it'll be the answer to this lame question.
8. Where else have you applied?
The job market.
9. How are you when you’re working under pressure?
Stop it with all these questions! Arrgh!
10. What motivates you to do a good job?
$$$, and lots of it!
11. What’s your greatest strength?
I once beat up a nerd...
12. What’s your biggest weakness?
...but was unable to standup against bullies
13. Let’s talk about salary. What are you looking for?
Preferably in the millions but that won't happen unless I win the lottery.
14. Are you good at working in a team?
Sure, if they don't get in my way!
15. Tell me a suggestion you have made that was implemented.
Do what I say and everything will be alright.
16. Has anything ever irritated you about people you've worked with?
Yeah, because I'm right and everyone else is wrong!
17. Is there anyone you just could not work with?
My parents. They never trusted me, you can't work out a deal with them!
18. Tell me about any issues you’ve had with a previous boss.
He was a d***wad
19. Would you rather work for money or job satisfaction?
Are you working for job satisfaction? Yeah right, you'd probably ditch this job if you win the lottery just as I would!
20. Would you rather be liked or feared?
Respect mah authorita-h!
21. Are you willing to put the interests of X Company ahead of your own?
Give me controlling stock of your company and I would!
22. So, explain why I should hire you.
You pay more!!
23. Finally, do you have any questions to ask me?
Cut to the chase and give me the d*** job.
This is so true. I bought a head of green cabbage today to use in a coleslaw. It was a small head, and it cost me $.46. I used it as a side dish for three people, and there is enough for at least three more meals.
Grains are still cheap as well, I've just started adding them to meals each week. I bought two lbs of quinoa for $4, it will be the main part or a side dish for at least a dozen meals.
Oh, wow. I hadn't seen this post, Philip, but I have to agree. The first time I had fresh eggs, it was a revelation. I treat myself to a dozen fresh eggs once a month or so.
We're actually allowed to keep chickens within Seattle city limits, but I'm not sure my neighbors would approve, as I don't really have a yard to speak of.
Yay! Menudo! I really enjoy all the strange animal parts that most Americans don't like to eat. And it's SO much cheaper. Our Chinatown keeps me pretty much cheaply enjoying veggies, too. I'm shocked to go to actual Chinese restaurants and see dishes like pea sprouts, which cost something like 99 cents for a huge bag at the Vietnamese grocery store, going for $12 a plate at our local Cantonese eatery.
With booze, my family has found that wine spritzers are a good way to drink a bit less while still enjoying red wine. Or we'll make big pitchers of sangria, which all in all, is a pretty cheap concoction for a big group.
I think when one is saving they need to figure out how much it will affect their total budget vs. how much time it takes to save the money, determined by how much their time is worth. For me to clip a coupon takes a lot of time and the savings to my bottom line are miniscule. I wrote an article about this on ptmoney, and like to look at my cost savings on a per hour basis - if saving ten bucks takes me five minutes of work, on an hourly basis that's worth $120 to me. However, if it takes me a half hour to save two bucks, that's only $4/hour. That's not even minimum wage.
The childcare at my gym is the best bargain around. i try to get there every day, whether i work out or not. it helps that the ladies working there make it a place my kids actually want to go.
I pay $60 a month and use an average of 15 hours of babysitting two kids. So even if I NEVER used any other facilities there, I'd be getting my money's worth @ $4 an hour.
I have to disagree with your tip about avoiding the free breakfast at hotels. We just traveled cross-country for a few weeks with our 4 kids, and I never saw a positive association between the price of hotels and whether or not they offered a free breakfast. You'd call around to several hotels in a given town, and often the place with the free breakfast was cheaper than the place without it. The real differentiator was how much availability the hotel had. If they had lots of unfilled rooms, you could push them on price.
Plus, free breakfasts are great when you travel with kids: let them eat the free food, and then grab tastier food with your spouse before you leave town!
Here's a surefire tip to cut your costs while traveling: leave your kids at home!
I stash the new $10 bills that have red print on them. If I get one in change in a side pocket of my billfold it goes. Last year I saved over $600 for Christmas this way. This year I have had grandkids visit every 2-3 months so this has been our "fun" money. Might sound silly but it works for me. The other thing I do is auto deposit $50 a week from my paycheck - what you don't see you don't miss is my thought.
Yes it is possible to save if you don't try. I have very simple tastes and there is nothing I want to run out and buy. Usually my monthly income is around $1200 and I live on that without credit. Briefly my income was up around $1700 and during that time I was able to save about $4000 without trying.
There are two ways that average house prices and rents could come back together. Sure, everyone seems to think it's a free-fall of housing prices; however, with general inflation on the rise it's also very possible that much of the lost ground will be made up by a rise in rents, which have been stagnant for far too long.
Thanx for the push I have also put off setting the Weekly budget for the food. I tend to do very well and come in right around the same each week.($120-$125 for a family of four)But I know I can do better.The truth is I have the time to clip coupons and watch the fliers I just don't. Well didin't... I do now! Here's a little tip from an ex-Bartender for your booze dilema. Buy a gallon of cheap vodka (wait for it to go on sale 'round the "party " holiday's) pour it into a sun tea jar and add a bag of frozen mixed berries. Now stash it for a few days when you come back the berries will be a cocktail on their own and you cheap vodka will taste great!! Be sure to scoop out the berries. You can just eat 'em they'll keep in the fridge or toss a few in the bottom of your drink but don't leave 'em in the jar they'll disenegrate and well...It's yucky
I'm 22 and my fiance and myself are as about as frugile as you can get when it comes to grocery shopping. We are both big eaters and never eat out always stay home, still we manage to live on a budget of $100 dollars for grocerys every other friday. Here's a few tricks i've learned; First get the sunday paper and scan throught all the sale ads and coupons, w-mart will match any other prices; Buy in bulk at S-club(usally you'll pay the same prices as anywhere else but you get double the product); Grow a garden(I grow a small garden and we freeze alot for all year around). That's all it takes for us, hope it helps.
Fortunately, most of the prices that are dropping are those in the areas that were already the most inflated.
Take out those 2 hard hit states, I'm sure those two lines are very close.
There's some really good stuff in here, but did you know that "porn" is at the bottom of your shopping list?
Great article!
I think in some areas home prices are still going to go down. Like Phoenix and Vegas but a lot places the home prices ares staying about the same. I invest in real estate and I have been fortunate the values of my rental homes have not dropped and I don't expect them to drop much.
In the UK there's usually quite a few coupons in the Sunday paper's glossy supplement. Many supermarkets will actually redeem the coupons against your total regardless of whether you bought the item. They don't care because they claim the money from the producer any way.
I know Waitrose do it, and I'm pretty sure that Sainsburys do too.
Most of you above have a pretty naive view of Wikipedia and of open content manipulation in general. Fact is, paid PR shills are increasingly paid to edit open content (very influential) and seed blogs with rumours and lies (thankfully much less influential since blogs have no capacity to create long term consulted resources). WikiScanner doesn't do much except show up some of the most naive and stupid liars, those who don't know how to use an IP proxy, hire a PR firm or even use a net cafe for Pete's sake. Getting caught editing from an internal IP address of an obviously conflicted entity will soon be a firing offence in any nefarious organization, they'll catch on fast enough to all the tricks Wikipedia trolls have used for years.
Paid trolls, however, are much more of a threat to open content since they can keep adapting their techniques regardless of cost and difficulty. Unpaid trolls (don't waste my time arguing that there is such a thing as a Wikipedia editor who is not a troll!) countering them will inevitably fall behind without huge numbers and a discipline of restoring neutrality and integrity as fast as possible. This discipline seems to be lax at Wikipedia now, with so many articles to track.
Even more nefarious is the prospect of manipulation of content used in formal courses and schooling. Open textbooks perhaps will end up containing quite a bit of corporate sponsored lies.
A few tactics that might help save open content and Wikipedia:
1. Suggest improvements to Wikiscanner including IP proximity checks so that, for instance, not just the NRA's head office but net cafes or public IP addresses in the same city can be "yellow flagged" as well as red flagging the ones from inside the NRA itself. If you have the skills to add these improvements or to mashup the Wikipedia page histories, do it. Wikiscanner needs a lot of help and a lot of competition if you want to be able even to see who is doing the most obvious manipulations.
2. When you find a particular manipulation of open content very offensive, write that organization and it's competitors. If it's the Australian Government, write the Official Opposition. If it's the NRA, write a few prominent gun control groups. Do your best to explain to them what tactics are being used and how you expect them, not you, to be monitoring Wikipedia effectively and exposing the liars and exploiting their lack of judgement to defeat them politically. Send them a few bucks or your business.
3. Boycott all organizations that repeatedly (that is, twice) engage in overt manipulation of open content. If you haven't already boycotted Exxon, for instance, there's something seriously wrong with your moral compass. If they do it three times, start organizing others to boycott that organization.
4. Set policies in your own organization against overt spin doctoring and promoting correction of factual errors in open content. Make clear employees are welcome to edit Wikipedia to insert useful research on their industry or technologies or on current events, but they have to meet journalistic standards of evidence (two credible sources at least) and avoid conflicts of interest. If they edit materials on the company, they must do it offsite and on their own authority, and keep confidentiality agreements, and explicitly do not have company support for this.
If you have employees, put up a big sign in your workplace, "do not promote the company or its services by telling lies or denying problems we know about internally - we will fire liars".
Make clear to all suppliers big and small that you expect this same standard from them. If you shift your fuel business off Exxon, for instance, send a polite letter to the board and to major shareholders explaining that frequent manipulations of open content to deny Exxon Valdez's long term effects and to cast unscientific doubt on climate change cost your business.
5. Teach your children how to debate: that it's important to debate politely and factually, and simply correct errors of fact and dispute faulty logic without emotionally responding to these.
But if they get suspended from school for beating up a kid who's repeatedly lying about them or one of their friends, make sure you back your kid up, and get the liar thrown out of school or (better) placed in foster care with better parents. A society that educates and tolerates liars is a dead society for sure. One that has no means to violently silence them will be very quickly exterminated by a new society with less tolerance, that will violently silence or suppress the entire liar-run civilization.
Let's try not to be that liar-run civilization that everyone hates and tries their best to destroy.
Great post!
We write a menu for the week ahead and keep a close eye on what is in our pantry and fridge. We can then write our list with items that are needed. We have been doing this for many years now and keep our shopping budget under control because of it.
Thanks very much.
Click my link to get some info about how a farmworker who picked grapes for the wine perished due to heat stroke. The UFW is having a letter-writing campaign against TJ's to pressure them to tell their supplier to improve working conditions. (Don't worry, it's not a boycott.)
Other than that, I thought the article was awesome. Keeping focused on the big picture definitely helps one to cut the pointless goodies, stock up on good staples, and get quality "luxuries".
The first line in the list says "we need" and the last says "porn"? I'm not really sure if this is part of your regular shopping list*laughs*
But seriously,I agree that healthier foods are cheaper, as in fruits and vegetables.
Sam
Fix My Personal Finance
http://fixmypersonalfinance.com/
1. So, tell me a little about yourself.
Why, are you some sort of con-artist?
2. Why are you looking (or why did you leave you last job)?
Because of the $$$, stupid
3. Tell me what you know about this company.
You don't give a f*** about me, why the hell should I give a f*** about yours?
4. Why do you want to work at X Company?
See answer to #2
5. What relevant experience do you have?
Enough experience to know that these questions are lame!
6. If your previous co-workers were here, what would they say about you?
I don't want to visualize that question!
7. Have you done anything to further your experience?
Yeah, hire me and it'll be the answer to this lame question.
8. Where else have you applied?
The job market.
9. How are you when you’re working under pressure?
Stop it with all these questions! Arrgh!
10. What motivates you to do a good job?
$$$, and lots of it!
11. What’s your greatest strength?
I once beat up a nerd...
12. What’s your biggest weakness?
...but was unable to standup against bullies
13. Let’s talk about salary. What are you looking for?
Preferably in the millions but that won't happen unless I win the lottery.
14. Are you good at working in a team?
Sure, if they don't get in my way!
15. Tell me a suggestion you have made that was implemented.
Do what I say and everything will be alright.
16. Has anything ever irritated you about people you've worked with?
Yeah, because I'm right and everyone else is wrong!
17. Is there anyone you just could not work with?
My parents. They never trusted me, you can't work out a deal with them!
18. Tell me about any issues you’ve had with a previous boss.
He was a d***wad
19. Would you rather work for money or job satisfaction?
Are you working for job satisfaction? Yeah right, you'd probably ditch this job if you win the lottery just as I would!
20. Would you rather be liked or feared?
Respect mah authorita-h!
21. Are you willing to put the interests of X Company ahead of your own?
Give me controlling stock of your company and I would!
22. So, explain why I should hire you.
You pay more!!
23. Finally, do you have any questions to ask me?
Cut to the chase and give me the d*** job.
So you'd rather have communism back?
This is so true. I bought a head of green cabbage today to use in a coleslaw. It was a small head, and it cost me $.46. I used it as a side dish for three people, and there is enough for at least three more meals.
Grains are still cheap as well, I've just started adding them to meals each week. I bought two lbs of quinoa for $4, it will be the main part or a side dish for at least a dozen meals.
Oh, wow. I hadn't seen this post, Philip, but I have to agree. The first time I had fresh eggs, it was a revelation. I treat myself to a dozen fresh eggs once a month or so.
We're actually allowed to keep chickens within Seattle city limits, but I'm not sure my neighbors would approve, as I don't really have a yard to speak of.
Yay! Menudo! I really enjoy all the strange animal parts that most Americans don't like to eat. And it's SO much cheaper. Our Chinatown keeps me pretty much cheaply enjoying veggies, too. I'm shocked to go to actual Chinese restaurants and see dishes like pea sprouts, which cost something like 99 cents for a huge bag at the Vietnamese grocery store, going for $12 a plate at our local Cantonese eatery.
With booze, my family has found that wine spritzers are a good way to drink a bit less while still enjoying red wine. Or we'll make big pitchers of sangria, which all in all, is a pretty cheap concoction for a big group.
I think when one is saving they need to figure out how much it will affect their total budget vs. how much time it takes to save the money, determined by how much their time is worth. For me to clip a coupon takes a lot of time and the savings to my bottom line are miniscule. I wrote an article about this on ptmoney, and like to look at my cost savings on a per hour basis - if saving ten bucks takes me five minutes of work, on an hourly basis that's worth $120 to me. However, if it takes me a half hour to save two bucks, that's only $4/hour. That's not even minimum wage.
The childcare at my gym is the best bargain around. i try to get there every day, whether i work out or not. it helps that the ladies working there make it a place my kids actually want to go.
I pay $60 a month and use an average of 15 hours of babysitting two kids. So even if I NEVER used any other facilities there, I'd be getting my money's worth @ $4 an hour.
What about going to a Charter School?
I have to disagree with your tip about avoiding the free breakfast at hotels. We just traveled cross-country for a few weeks with our 4 kids, and I never saw a positive association between the price of hotels and whether or not they offered a free breakfast. You'd call around to several hotels in a given town, and often the place with the free breakfast was cheaper than the place without it. The real differentiator was how much availability the hotel had. If they had lots of unfilled rooms, you could push them on price.
Plus, free breakfasts are great when you travel with kids: let them eat the free food, and then grab tastier food with your spouse before you leave town!
Here's a surefire tip to cut your costs while traveling: leave your kids at home!
I stash the new $10 bills that have red print on them. If I get one in change in a side pocket of my billfold it goes. Last year I saved over $600 for Christmas this way. This year I have had grandkids visit every 2-3 months so this has been our "fun" money. Might sound silly but it works for me. The other thing I do is auto deposit $50 a week from my paycheck - what you don't see you don't miss is my thought.
Yes it is possible to save if you don't try. I have very simple tastes and there is nothing I want to run out and buy. Usually my monthly income is around $1200 and I live on that without credit. Briefly my income was up around $1700 and during that time I was able to save about $4000 without trying.
Anytime the IRS is given more financial information it can't be a good thing.