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A friend of ours was paid a pretty high compliment.

I heard things about the finances of a successful community event during a committee meeting a few weeks ago.  Specifically, after the accounting was done, it ended up squarely in the black financially.

The person reporting out in the committee meeting credited much of the financial outcome to our friend, because she was “fiendishly frugal.”

What does fiendish frugality look like?

Saying that someone is frugal is a compliment.  (Or should be … right?)  But saying someone is fiendishly frugal kicks the compliment up to a whole new plane, doesn’t it?

Pretty much any discount or reward can be expressed like this:

Get << awesome reward >> when you << do X >>.

Here, << awesome reward >> can be something like:

• 7% cash back
• free shipping
• 10,000 airline miles
• 50% off
• a set of paring knives
• etc.

And << do X >> is something like:

• sign up and confirm your email address
• place an order of $100 or more
• request an insurance quote
• print and redeem a grocery coupon
• make two purchases during each of the first three months with your card
• etc.

In other words: “To get this, you have to do that.”

This is one time when a D-minus actually beats out an A-plus

If you have the option of paying for something in full, or paying for it in installments, which method do you choose?  A number of factors play into making a wise decision.

It’s good advice to consider expensive purchases carefully before buying.  And the more expensive the purchase, the more consideration you should give.  A good rule of thumb is to wait one day for each $100 that the item costs.

Often we’re presented with payment options for a large purchase. These may include a one-time payment option, or periodic options like annual, quarterly, or monthly payments.

We recently had two big expenses to consider. Each one was between one and two thousand dollars. And each one had its own set of multiple payment options.

Pets are expensive.  Not as expensive as children, but still expensive.  Costs can vary widely, but a cost of five figures over the 12- to 14-year lifetime of a dog is easy to hit.

One of our dogs had a leg injury recently that will set us back a bit.  When we asked our vet about payment plans, she gave us a brochure for a healthcare credit card.

On the face of it, the healthcare credit card offers interest-free payment of qualified expenses over time.  The card our vet offered allowed repayment over six, 12, or 18 months.

Why the vet offered the card brochure

But what’s the catch?  You know the drill:  If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.