Financial stuff

It’s a given that saving money is easier done a bit at a time, rather than large amounts. A ten-spot? Fifty cents a day a month, with a few days to fudge on. A hundred dollars a month, on the same principle, is a little less than $3.50 daily — skip your morning coffee, or choose a cheaper entree at lunch, and you’re part of the way there, nearly painlessly.

Tuck the accumulating money in a higher-interest online account, like Ally Bank. Sure, interest isn’t high right now — a $1200 deposit (i.e., 12 months of $100 monthly) will only earn you a little more than $10.00, at the current rate of .84%. But that’s ten bucks you earned with no effort.

Your best asset in this process is time. Interest rates won’t be low forever; even if they hang on the tip end of nowhere for a while, your growing savings will qualify you for a higher-interest CD, instead. (Check out the best current deal at Bankrate.com.)

Other things in life benefit from compounding. Take food. Instead of a steak tonight (around $7.00/lb as of this writing), choose a steakburger or pork loin ($3/lb or less). Use the extra money saved to buy steak when it’s on sale. (Holidays like Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth, or Labor Day often feature fancy cuts for much less.) Or put it into fruit you crave — apples, pears and oranges are a lot cheaper in a ten-pound bag, than by the piece or pound. (Save that extra to invest in higher-quality coffee, travel mug and a coffeepot with a timer — fresh coffee when you wake every morning, and no stops for bitter coffee in a paper cup.)

Don’t forget to compound your time, too. Shovel your walk soon after the snow stops, so the sun can finish the job. (Smugly read the paper while watching your neighbor scrape ice off his porch — priceless.) Putting away tools after use means they’re ready again when you need them — and you won’t be buying unnecessary extras because you can’t find one. (Not that I’ve ever done this!)

Clean, put away clothes mean less urge to go out and buy new ones. And a little water swirled in pots and pans right after cooking (unless they’re cast iron) means less scrubbing time afterwards. It may not seem like much at the time — but it is, with these helpful tips:

*Save a bit at a time…more as you can afford it.

*Every minute counts — even if it goes to something relaxing.

Let the positive power of compounding change your life, a bit at a time.

This post is by staff writer Cindy Brick. Cindy is a quilting expert with several published books on the subject and has also had many published articles on a variety of subjects. You can visit her business website at CindyBrick.com or visit her personal blog.

I have seen the sentiment that people nowadays are worse off than previous generations. I don’t agree, I think people in the United States are currently enjoying a better standard of living than previous generations.

My mother was born in a rural farmhouse with no running water. They got their water from a cistern until she was in her teens. Going to a restaurant was a once or twice a year treat. She actually did have to walk two miles in the snow to school, although it was only uphill one way. They didn’t have a television until she was well into her teens. She didn’t think it was that bad when she was growing up because that was all she knew. She enjoyed her childhood but she doesn’t have any nostalgia about that time. She is quite happy with her current standard of living.

Things have changed quite a bit even since my childhood. Cable TV wasn’t available in our town until I was a teenager. The full cable lineup was 13 channels and it didn’t include MTV. Our TV didn’t have a remote, which wasn’t uncommon at that time. Us kids served as the remote. I was into computers as a kid and had an Atari 400 computer which had a fraction of the computing power that a cell phone has now. There was no internet. Long distance calls were expensive. Our house didn’t have central air conditioning and neither did any of the other houses on our street even though they were all relatively new. We didn’t have a microwave. Going out to eat was a special occasion. I looked forward to when we would travel to a large city since we might get to eat at a McDonald’s.

Let’s compare then to now. Our current basic cable TV lineup has about 60 channels. You can’t buy a TV without a remote. A personal computer is incredibly more powerful now and the cost is about the same. Most people have cell phones now and long distance calls are just another phone call. The internet is commonplace now with the average American spending 13 hours a week online. If you didn’t grow up without internet you may not realize just how great a resource it is. Having central air conditioning in a new house is the norm now. Back in the mid 70s only 36% of the entire U.S. population had air conditioning at all. The large majority of households have microwaves now. Going out to eat isn’t a special treat anymore. Overall, 7 percent of the U.S. population visits McDonald’s each day, and 20 to 25 percent eat in some kind of fast-food restaurant. Some studies suggest that, on average, Americans actually eat one out of every four meals and snacks outside of the home.

You could argue that some of these advances are actually detrimental to quality of life but I think it is clear that we enjoy a much higher standard of living now than ever before. There are some areas where the current generation isn’t as well off such as the high cost of higher education. On the other hand college attendance rates are a lot higher than they used to be. Overall, I think kids today are better off than their parents.

The current generation may eventually see their quality of living decrease due to peak oil, a debt default, or some other major happening but for now they have it pretty good.

One of the main worries people have about being self-employed is the cost of obtaining private health insurance.  I have my individual health insurance policy with and my monthly cost is cheap.  This is for a temporary policy with a high deductible though so it can’t be compared to a typical group health insurance policy.  My health insurance is to keep a catastrophic health event from bankrupting me rather than providing me with access to routine health care.  I also save a little money on my health insurance by being an affiliate for eHealthInsurance.

A better comparison of my policy is to other individual health policies.  According to the ‘Cost & Benefits of Individual and Family Health Insurance Plans’ report the average premium paid for individual health insurance coverage in the United States in 2011 was $2,196 per year ($183 per month); families paid an average annual premium of $4,968 ($414 per month). The report also found that the average deductible for individually-purchased health insurance plans in 2011 was $2,935 for individuals and $3,879 for families.

My current health insurance cost is under $50 a month with a $5,000 dollar deductible.  That is for a temporary policy though, if I had a regular policy I’d be paying about $80 a month for health insurance with a $5,000 deductible or about $100 a month for insurance with a $2500 deductible. Either one is still quite a bit less than the report shows for the average.   It looks like I can upgrade my health insurance once my temporary policy is done and still have health insurance that is quite reasonable in cost.  This for a 44 year-old, overweight male if you are younger and thinner you should get a better rate.

The point is that private health insurance doesn’t cost as much as many people are afraid it costs.  If you’re considering self-employment or need your own health insurance policy for any reason I encourage you to check out the eHealthInsurance site.  It is easy to get a quote and determine how much health insurance would cost you.

We were wanting to get a new flat screen TV on Black Friday to replace our old tube TV. I knew Best Buy had a really good deal on 40″ TV but I also knew it would be almost impossible to actually get the deal. Although I don’t like Wal-Mart they had a couple of good deals on TVs so I decided I’d get a 32″ TV there. They advertised that most of their stuff would go on sale at 10pm and the electronics would go on sale at midnight. I didn’t plan on getting there until a half hour or so before midnight. My son-in-law went there at ten to get some of the other deals and checked on the electronics. You needed a ticket to get the TVs and they had already given out all of the tickets.

I had to make other plans. A quick search online showed me that Target had a 32″ TV available online for only $20 more than Wal-Mart. I went ahead and ordered that. We have to wait a few days for it to be shipped but I am okay with that since it kept me from having to get to Wal-Mart hours earlier to get a ticket to get a TV.

Despite ordering the TV online I still ended up at Wal-Mart for Black Friday. My stepdaughter had been looking forward to going to Wal-Mart with me to get the TV so we ended up going anyway. I ended up waiting around a hour and a half to save $30 on an all-in-one printer. I guess that isn’t too bad of an hourly rate for standing around but I don’t think I’d do it again unless I could sit because my knees can’t take standing around.

I don’t think we did too bad for Black Friday since we bought what we were planning to buy at a good price. We didn’t have to have the all-in-one printer but since it was on sale for less than the price of the included ink we will come out ahead on the deal.

What did you buy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Or did you just stay home?

When you look at my monthly expenses you will see that I don’t spend much on entertainment. One of the reasons our entertainment expense is low is because one of our forms of entertainment is going to the casinos about once a month. And we actually come out ahead on gambling.

It is possible to come out ahead at the casino without being a card counter. My wife plays slots and I play live poker. I’m not an expert poker player, after about fifteen poker playing sessions this year I’m down $154. I don’t know my wife’s losses exactly but I’d estimate them to be less than $100. The way to come out ahead despite by being a losing player is by taking advantage of the casino rewards programs and comps.

We don’t gamble large amounts but we have still received well over $1000 in comps and rewards. There are two strategies that we have followed to achieve this.

Concentrate Your Play at One Casino

We play at Harrah’s or CET properties as they are now known. If you concentrate your play at one casino chain you will likely receive more comps and rewards than if you spread out your play among several different casinos. We play at Harrah’s because they have convenient locations for us and because we have a Diamond card there. The Diamond card allows us have free meals daily in the Diamond Lounge. And even free drinks at some locations. In addition to that it allows you to see two free shows a month in Las Vegas. Those perks saved us a lot of money on our honeymoon. Although Harrah’s works best for us a different company might work better for you.

Take Advantage of Casino Promotions

Casinos will run different promotions throughout the year that allow you to earn extra rewards. Harrah’s had a great promotion this year that paid you $600 in rewards for visiting six different properties and earning at least one point at each of them. With the traveling we had to do for our business and a necessary trip for a funeral we were able to visit six properties without too much extra driving. It takes very little play to earn one point so our combined losses to earn the required points on our casino visits was less than $40. Since we received $600 in casino rewards each we basically made $1200 in rewards for less than $40. We can spend that money on meals, entertainment, and hotel rooms at any of the Harrah’s properties. There won’t always be promotions as lucrative as this but most casinos will have some promotions during the year which should result in a positive expectation for a shrewd player.

Choose Your Games Wisely

This is advice that I’m not actually following right now. I play live poker which is not a good game to play to earn comps. In my opinion the best game to play for comp purposes is video poker. I do enjoy video poker but I haven’t played it too much because I haven’t learned the optimal strategy for all the games. I recently discovered a site, WizardofOdds.com, that gives you some easy strategies to learn that are near optimal. Another site, VpFree2.com, gives you the locations of the best paying machines in the casino. I’m going to divert some of my poker dollars to video poker and see how I do. We have two free nights in Tunica this weekend. I’m going to play some video poker there and I’ll let you know how I did.

If anyone has any questions about earning casino rewards or has tips on earning them please let me know in the comments.