The grocery bill can be a source of stress for a lot of households.
But we all have to eat, which makes grocery shopping unavoidable.
And one of our favorite things here at The Penny Hoarder is finding ways to make money doing the things we already have to do every day.
Turning an everyday grocery trip into a cash source can not only help curb some food expenses, but also make it a little more fun!
Here are eight ways we found to make money while grocery shopping:
1. Be a Mystery Shopper
Mystery shopping is a brilliant side gig for a Penny Hoarder.Not only are you paid for your time, but you often get compensated for your purchases, too!
While you’re at the store, earn extra money picking up someone else’s groceries.
Connect with clients throughTaskRabbitorInstacart. Pick up and deliver groceries to people in your area who don’t have the time or interest for grocery shopping.
Use these apps to work whenever you want to make some extra money. You might as well pick up a job anytime you’re headed to the store yourself.
Instacart is an app designed solely for grocery pickup and delivery in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
After brief training, you can log on to Instacart when you want to work and accept job assignments.Shoppers can earn up to $25 an hour during peak hours, plus occasional tips.
On the other hand,TaskRabbitis a general gig site available in 18 U.S. cities and London.
You can pick up tasks from housecleaning to bartending at a private party — orshopping and delivery.
3. Get Paid for Your Steps
Have you ever wondered how much walking you actually do while you’re shopping?
Think about the size of warehouse stores like Costco or Sam’s Club, or enormous big box retailers like Walmart. I’m tempted to consider every Walmart shopping escapade a workout, as long as I don’t tear into the snacks I bought as soon as I get back to the car…
Get credit for the work you put in traipsing the aisles!
Wear your FitBit or other activity tracker when you hit the grocery store so your steps are counted. Then, turn those steps into cash by earning rewards throughFitStudio.
If you use FitStudio, your workouts earn rewards points, which you can redeem for savings at Sears and Kmart.
4. Pay With a Cash-Back Credit Card
This tip is almost too simple, but worth the reminder: Always pay with yourcash-back credit card.
A cash-back or rewards credit card lets youearn money or pointsfor money you’re already spending.
As long as you budget well and pay off your balance each month, it’s free money in your pocket.
A quick search for “[store name] coupon policy” should bring you information on your favorite grocer. If the policy isn’t online (kudos for shopping small!), just ask a cashier or manager next time you’re in the store.
Bet on yourself through a site likeDietBetorHealthyWage. Earn money when you lose weight!
Or do it the old-fashioned way: Create an in-person weight-loss challenge pool with friends, family or co-workers.
What you eat has a huge impact on how much weight you will — orwon’t— lose.
Consider the challenge a way to reward yourself for bypassing sweets and non-nutritious treats on your trips through the grocery store.
7. Use Rebate Apps
Rebates are like coupons you don’t have to find before grocery shopping.
Download a rebate app — our favorites areIbottaandCheckout 51— and earn rewards for the money you’ve already spent.
Using these apps, scan your receipt and item bar codes when you get home todiscover rebatesand earn cash back.
To optimize each shopping trip, check the app before you head out to see which items are offering rebates.
Ibotta even offers rebates for everyday items like milk, bread and eggs! Earn rewards on these staples, regardless of the brand you buy. It should help you stay away from processed foods and make progress on your get-healthy challenge, huh? (See above.)
8. Shop Online and Pick Up in Store
If you’re shopping for items in the store, you’re missing a key opportunity to make money: cash-back websites.
If you do your grocery shopping through a major chain like Walmart or Target, order online through a cash-back website and pick your items up at a store near you.
When you shop through cash-back sites (or “shopping portals”) likeSwagbucks, you’ll earn points for every dollar you spend. You can redeem those points for rewards — usually a gift card or PayPal deposit.
Start onCashbackholicto find the cash-back site that offers the best deal for the store you want to shop. For example, as of this writing,BeFrugalis offering 5% cash back and a $10 bonus when you shop at Walmart.com.
Your Turn: Do you use any of these tricks to make money while you’re grocery shopping? What tips can you add?
Disclosure: Many of the credit card offers that appear on this site are from credit card companies from which ThePennyHoarder.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). We do not feature all available credit card offers or all credit card issuers.
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more.
Awhile back I wrote a post explaining my decision to move from Los Angeles to the Midwest. I’ve now lived in Madison, Wis., for more than five months, and in this follow-up post I’ll do a deep dive into how much money I’ve actually saved since making the move.
Hopefully this can inspire others to look into areas with a lower cost of living. If you’re striving to achieve financial independence as soon as possible, location is one of the most important factors that’s often within your control.
Rent is the obvious money saver, but things like Internet service and car insurance cost way less out here than I anticipated. For this project it made sense to compare the best data I currently have, which is from my last three full months living in L.A. versus my first three full months living in Madison. So, the utilities category is sure to rise in Madison once the February heating bill arrives.
Let’s dive in.
Monthly Expenses
Rent
When I left L.A., I was paying $700 a month in rent. This was for a one-bedroom apartment I was sharing with my girlfriend that cost us $1,400 a month in total. I now pay $400 per month for a two-bedroom apartment that costs $800 per month in total.
Savings: $300/month
Utilities
My last three months of utility bills in L.A. averaged $81 per month. They cost $68 per month for my first three months in Madison. But as I mentioned above, this coincides with some very hot months in L.A. and some mild months in Madison, so this is not the best indicator of where there is money to be saved.
Savings: $13/month*
Internet
I was paying $56 per month for Internet service in L.A. That dropped to $30 per month in Madison!
But,we also had to buy a new router ($80), because the one we had was not playing nice with Charter. (I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that the technology that worked seamlessly with Time Warner wouldn’t give us a signal on Charter. I can’t wait until Google Fiber is available everywhere.) Still, I’m saving $26 per month now that I’ve broken even on the one-time expense of a new router.
Savings: $26/month
Car/Commute
This is a big one. Since I’m now working from home and have no commute, my girlfriend and I were able to drop down to one car. We sold her 20-year-old Camry for $1,600, and we kept my 2007 Prius (bought used for $5,000).
My commute to work in L.A. was only 12 miles total, but that adds up.This Lifehacker articledetails how, when commuting by car and accounting for lost time as lost income, each extra mile you live from work costs you about $800 per year. By that calculus, I’m saving an estimated $4,800 per year just by working from home — although to be fair, this is more the result of a career change than a geographical one.
Plus, I now fly to New York once a month for work. While my company picks up the tab, I get to book my own flight and hotel, which converts directly into rewards points for me. (I got theChase Sapphire Preferredcard to maximize my points on all these purchases.)
Finally, my car insurance in L.A. was $800 per year. That was cut in half, to $400 per year in Madison. (If there is one thing I learned from going through my finances in granular detail it’s that driving is incredibly expensive, even with a Prius!)
These large purchases drove up my expenses in the months after our move, but like the modem, they should only be one-time costs as opposed to ongoing expenses.
Bicycle: $250
Madison is a wonderful biking city, and I wanted to take full advantage of that. But, that meant I had to find a bike. I inherited a nice one from my girlfriend’s sister, which was great. Still, it needed a major tune up, and I wanted fenders to make it more comfortable to ride it during inclement weather. All in all, it set me back about $250.
Winter clothes: $500
My year-round wardrobe in L.A. consisted of a mix-and-match ensemble of three basic items: jeans, basketball shorts, and t-shirts. All old, all comfortable, all perfectly suited to handle perpetually 70-degree days. I hadn’t worn gloves since college and my one winter coat was donated years ago.
Even with our current winter setting records for warmth, I still can’t run around in a t-shirt every day. So, stocking up on good-quality, warm clothes was a big chunk of expenses — though, like the bike, they’re one-time costs I’ve chalked up to the move itself. My jackets, shirts, socks, hats, and long underwear cost me $500.
I have one glaring regret when it comes to my winter clothes purchases. I bought a hat for $150.
No, that is not a typo, and no, the hat did not come with a hundred dollar bill inside it. I really spent that much.
It started so innocently. I wanted to see if I could find a warm hat that wasn’t made out of polyester. I was reading somenot so nice things about the process behind making polyester, and how the chemicals can be irritating to some people. If something was going to be on my head for hours a day, I wanted it to be as pure as possible.
Next thing I knew I was whipping out the credit card to pay for a fancy, 100% wool hat. Whether it was excitement over my new living situation, not asking myself the really important questions to consider before a big purchase, or some other combination of factors, I was helpless in the face of this warm, beautiful hat. It looked so soft and comfortable, and I was doing my part to support small businesses! I’d be sillynotto buy it!
I regretted it soon after, but it just goes to show that we all make financial mistakes, and it’s important to remain vigilant against the relentless desire to have shiny new things. In that moment, I was just your average “see-it-want-it-buy-it” consumer, and I learned a hard lesson. The hat is nice, but I’m not a millionaire. Thus, I should not be buying hats that amount to half of my monthly grocery bill.
Total Breakdown and Final Thoughts
Not including rent or transportation, my average overall expenses for my last three months in L.A. were $578. My average expenses in Madison round out to $742 per month, although that includes one-time purchases like the router and, argh, that hat. But I was still surprised by these results — I thought Madison would come in much lower.
However, housing and transportation are two of the biggest expenses in an average American’s budget. Once those categories are factored in, minor differences in the cost of living are almost inconsequential.
Factoring in my higher rent and car-related costs in L.A., my expenses there were closer to $1,700 per month — significantly more than the $1,200 I’ve been dropping monthly in Madison. And once my one-time, big-ticket purchases fade into the background, I should be saving about $700 a month or more on an ongoing basis.
While my expenses have certainly dropped since the move, this exercise has brought to light some issues I need to address. For starters, I would have guessed I was spending less than $1,200 per month — that’s why it’s so important to track your spending. I think it’s time to trim the fat and see if I can get that figure even lower.
Nearly 25 years ago, 14 couples she’d set upgot marriedin less than a year.
That’s when she looked at her husband and said: “I can turn this into a business.”
“I went to a bunch of other matchmakers and picked their brains and decided I could do this better than anybody else, becauseI had an uncanny sixth sense to just know who belongs with whom and that was it,” she says.
Michele Presley, vice president of sales and marketing for online matchmaking serviceTawkify, has a similar story.
“I was always that person my friends would come to and ask for relationship advice,” she explains. “The minute I would meet people who were single, I would be putting them together in my head.”
While working in marketing for a regional matchmaking company, she realized she could turn her passion into a profession.
“I was supposed to be over on the sales and marketing side, and I would always find myself in the matchmaking room,” she says. “I kept getting more drawn to that, so then I just kind of dove in.”
She attended theMatchmaking Institutein New York City, which costs $3,500. Though she doesn’t regret going, she does emphasize there are less expensive avenues to a matchmaking career. (More on that in the last section.)
Is Matchmaking a Viable Business?
With the advent of online dating, is matchmaking even a thing anymore?
Yes. In fact, the matchmakers I spoke with said their businesses are booming.
“We love that the dating apps and ‘The Millionaire Matchmaker’ have made matchmaking and publicly dating so common and so popular,” explains Carly Spindel.
“People usually get tired of the dating apps and hire us because it’s about quality over quantity.”
Her mother Janis, who is one of the most experienced matchmakers around, charges men a premium for her services: from $50,000 to $250,000. Carly, who “was trained by the best,” charges similar rates: from $25,000 to $100,000.
For women, the Spindels charge an application fee of $25, and if accepted, a one-time consultation fee ranging from $250-$1,000.
Together with their international team, the Spindels brought in $5-$7 million last year. “I’m a very happy camper,” Janis says.
Stefanie Safran, who owns Chicago’sStef and the City, started her matchmaking business in 2009.
Her starting rate is $3,000, which gets a man six to eight matches over the course of a year. For women, she charges a rate a la carte: $50-$200 per “introduction.”
In addition, she offers a slew of other services, including dating coaching, which costs $1,400 for six sessions.
“It’s definitely a six-figure job if you do it full time and you get experience,” Safran says.
At Tawkify, which hires matchmakers around the country, Presley says: “We have full-time matchmakers earning above $100,000 and part-timers earning a wide range of incomes based on their preferred client loads. Safe to say, though, that roughly half of the full-time rate is doable for half-time work and client load.”
In other words, you might be able to earn $50,000 per year as apart-timematchmaker with Tawkify.
Could You Be a Matchmaker?
Interested in following in their footsteps?
The money may sound nice — but are you a good fit for the job?
If you don’t have these essential qualities, you’ll never make it as a matchmaker:
A Genuine Love of People
There’s no way around it:You must enjoy meeting and engaging with people to be successful.
It’s important “to really be a people person, and like spending time with people and getting to know them and to see who would be best for them,” says Janis Spindel.
Strong Debate Skills
Yes, matchmaking is all about love — but it’s also about tough love.
That’s the only way people are going tochange their habitsand actually find a mate.
“You have to be a good debater,” says Safran. “Somebody might come with a laundry list of what they’re looking for and you have to [tell] them if it’s not particularly attainable or is going to take them down the wrong road.”
A Knack for Matching
Even if you have both of the above qualities, you still might not make a good matchmaker. One common refrain from the pros ismatchmaking isn’t necessarily something you can learn.
It’s a skill — you either have it or you don’t.
“You definitely need to be intuitive,” says Janis Spindel.
“I don’t really honestly think you can teach somebody, per se, to be a matchmaker,” adds Carly Spindel.
“You have to a very definitive, outgoing, vivacious personality… You need to be able to talk the talk, walk the walk, go up to anyone, anywhere, anytime and start a conversation with them.”
Ready to Don Your Cupid Outfit?
If you’re chomping at the bit to be a matchmaker, you’ve got a few options:
1. Work for Another Matchmaker
You could work as another matchmaker’sapprenticeor affiliate.
“If they’re really, really awesome, tell them to send us an email.Maybe they can be an affiliate under our umbrella, because that’s what we do with a lot of people who want to attempt to go out on their own,” says Janis Spindel.
Though the Spindels didn’t share a lot of details about how this process works, I bet working for renowned matchmakers like them would be an excellent way to kickstart your career.
2. Work for a Matchmaking Service
Or, work for a matchmaking service like Tawkify.
This year, it’s expanding in San Francisco and New York City, as well as hiring matchmakers in the following locations, according to Presley: Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Chicago and Minneapolis.
“We need matchmakers everywhere,” Presley explains. “In the cities we don’t have matchmakers actually on the ground, our matchmakers work with the client remotely over video chat.”
The application process is straightforward: a resume and cover letter, followed by a quiz that compares your strengths to those of successful matchmakers. Then there’s a video interview.
If you’re hired, Tawkify takes care of the business side of things.
“We bring them in and we train them on everything,” Presley says. “They don’t need to open their own business, they don’t need to market themselves.They can save all that money, and all that time, because we do all the marketing… and then just deliver clients to them.”
As a matchmaker with Tawkify, you’re paid for each action you take, including recruiting new clients, meeting clients, matching clients and planning dates.
3. Start Your Own Matchmaking Business
Starting your own matchmaking service has the potential to be the most lucrative, but it’s also the most difficult.
“You have to be a business person in order to be a business owner,” says Janis Spindel.
“There’s a very big difference between a worker and an entrepreneur.Just because you think you have the skills to be a matchmaker, that doesn’t mean that you can open up your own business… I’ve known many people that have tried and failed.”
“You have to have an action plan; you have to have a goal,” adds Safran, who found her first clients by handing out business cards at networking events. She told men she’d find them dates very cheaply, and once she proved her skills, her business grew.
However you choose to pursue this career, remember these wise words from Presley:
Matchmaking is not what it looks like on TV… Successful matches and the love stories and all of that keep us going, and is really an exciting part of what we do.
But there’s also a side to matchmaking that’s tough. When people have been looking for the match for a long time… It’s also a matchmaker’s job to tactfully and delicately challenge that client.
Regardless, I think it sounds like a fun and interestingside gig… So much so that I’m going to apply to Tawkify right now. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Your Turn: How about you? Do you think you’d be a good matchmaker?
Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
It was just a few days before this weekend’s third annual Winter Fest at the newly refurbished Stroudsburg Quality Inn when hotel Director of Sales Anthony Ruggiero got the word from hotel General Manger Janet Bush that the cash registers would be replaced with new ones at the Tavern on Main lounge and restaurant.That would happen on Friday, the day that 19 bluegrass bands would be converging on the hotel for a weekend of performances and instructional classes. They would be [...]
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Chestnuthill TownshipMESA Investments LLC to CPI Brodheadsville I LLC, CPI Brodheadsville II LLC, CPI Brodheadsville III LLC, CPI Brodheadsville IV LLC, Lot 1, Subdivision Plan containing 4.565 acres, more or less, Tax ID 2/94814, $4,760,000Polk TownshipLND Properties LLC to Andre Proulx, Parcel, Robin Lane, Lot 2, Hillside Terrace Acres, $351,000Stroudsburg BoroughChester A. and Diane Tharp to Meadowbrook [...]
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Making the decision to close a business is not an easy one.For Debbie Herman, the owner of Stained Glass Creations on Route 611 in Tannersville, the concept to shutter the business she has operated for more than three decades, had been under consideration for two years.But now large yellow and black `Going Out of Business’ banners are posted on the store and on the sign in front. Soon a `For Sale’ sign for the building and property will join them.Business [...]
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I’ve been saving for retirement in some fashion or another since I was 22 years old. That means I’ve been accumulating money in various retirement accounts for about a decade and a half.
Honestly, I don’t look at the balances of those accounts very often. They’re locked into target retirement funds, which means I really have no reason to think about the money in there in any real way.
Every once in a while, though, I do log on and check out my retirement accounts, but when I look at those account balances, I feel a real disconnect from those numbers.
For starters, the balance of those accounts is more than what I typically deal with by orders of magnitude. I have a pretty good tangible grasp on what buying seven to ten days worth of groceries is going to cost. I grew to have a pretty good grasp on the reality of our mortgage payment back when we had one – one month of our mortgage equalled roughly two months of groceries. Every expense in my day to day life is easily comparable to things that I can grasp, and I usually think of things in terms of groceries or gas. I rarely even consider expenses that are more than a month or two of groceries at this point.
When I look at my investment accounts, though, I see amounts that could pay for many years of groceries. Many years. That money has been accumulating for a decade and a half while also growing along with the stock market. It’s built up to a tremendous amount, and it’s an amount that’s beyond what I deal with in my daily life. It’s hard to really grasp it.
Another reason I can feel a big disconnect with those numbers is that most of the work I did to earn the money in those accounts is long in the past. The majority of the money in those accounts came from my previous career where I worked in a research field. While I have some fond memories of that career, enough time has passed since I left the field that I no longer have a real connection to the work I did back then. Yet some of that money is still here, working for me. It feels like it came from another life.
To be honest, I sometimes feel a similar disconnect when I’m working on a family budget or making projections for the future in Excel. It often just looks like rows and columns of numbers, rather than the reality of our day to day life and predictions about the future of our lives that it actually represents.
It’s not exactly hard to see how that kind of disconnect can spread to things like bank statements, credit card statements, and even account balances. When we look at numbers – particularly lots of numbers – that are larger than what we normally deal with on a day-to-day basis, it’s easy to feel disconnected.
And when you feel disconnected, it becomes a lot easier to make mistakes.
If you’re disconnected from your bank account statement, it’s easy to tell yourself that you have plenty of money to afford whatever treat you want at the moment. Slowly, over time, you start chipping away at the buffer you’ve built up until suddenly you’re broke and you’re wondering where all of the money went.
If you’re disconnected from your family budget, you can easily overspend in a particular category without realizing it, causing you to run out of money well before the end of the month. Suddenly, you don’t really have any idea where your money is going. It’s a week before payday and you just don’t have the faintest clue where all of the money has gone, but you don’t have any cash.
If you’re disconnected from your investment accounts, you can easily tell yourself that you don’t need to contribute more and thus mortgage your future. If you look at your investments and retirement savings as just a number, your future isn’t going to be the nice, pleasant thought you have envisioned.
All of those mistakes come from a disconnect between a person’s financial statements and their day to day life choices. If those numbers on a statement or a spreadsheet don’t have any real meaning in your life, then you’re going to make day to day choices completely independent of the big picture, and that’s going to lead you into a situation that you’ll really regret.
There are several tactics I use to eliminate the disconnect between numbers on a statement or a spreadsheet and the realities of my life. I find that these tricks work well at different times, and not so well at other times, but usually one or two of them are clicking at any given moment and give me the support I need to keep things real.
The “Back to the Future” Trick
Remember that scene from Back to the Future where Marty is looking at the photograph of his family? That photograph depicts Marty’s family thirty years in the future, but as bad events are happening in the present, elements of that photo disappear as he watches. Here’s a clip, for a reminder:
One of the most powerful motivational tools I have in my toolbox is my “picture of the future.” I have an idea of the life I want to have down the road, in about fifteen or twenty years or so. It involves a lot of road trips with my wife, a lot of volunteer work, visiting my children on occasion but not intruding too much in their adult lives, enjoying my grandchildren if there are any, and not worrying about any sort of working grind.
It’s a great picture. It depicts exactly what I want out of my life at that stage. But it’s not going to be cheap to make that happen.
That picture has a pretty specific price tag, one that I’ve been able to calculate pretty clearly over the years. I know exactly what I need to have in our accounts in fifteen years to make this vision a reality.
So, I have a very specific vision of the future and a price tag attached to it. Whenever I look at my accounts, what I see is that I’m not yet where I need to be to pay for that vision. I need to keep working at it, but I will get there if I stick to the plan.
Of course, what happens if I get disconnected and start making money mistakes? Just like with Marty’s picture, elements of my own picture for the future start to disappear. Maybe Sarah and I can’t afford to travel like that when we’re older. Maybe we have to work until we’re older. There are a lot of little details from that picture that start to disappear when I start draining money from that goal.
I keep that picture front and center in my mind almost all the time. It brings me joy to think about it. So, when I see details slipping from that picture, I don’t like it at all. I see pieces of my future disappearing whenever I think about investing less or spending some of the money I’m investing, and I don’t like it.
You can make this work for you, too, of course. Think about what exactly you want in your life ten or twenty or thirty years down the road. What would your life be like if you were without reasonable financial worry? What if you didn’t have to work? What would you do with your time? Where would you live? Make that picture as detailed as you can.
Then, do your best to estimate what that picture costs. Calculate the expense of making that come true. That’s your target number. Start saving for it.
Then, whenever you consider making a choice that takes away from your plan to get to that number, imagine your picture of the future. Imagine elements disappearing from it, just like in Back to the Future. Then ask yourself what you need to do to restore that picture (and maybe play a guitar solo, too, a la Marty McFly).
The “Envelopes” Trick
I’ve been a long time user of You Need a Budget. It has a lot of great features for recording expenses and viewing one’s spending over periods of time. It’s designed to make budgets pretty easy.
Still, as easy as it is, it’s still just an array of numbers on a computer screen. Nothing in the world can change that. A formal budget is still just rows and columns of numbers, and it’s really up to you to connect those rows and columns of numbers to your personal behavior.
That’s not easy, to be honest. This is especially true for budget categories where you’re not just paying a bill automatically each month. That means categories like food, household supplies, and entertainment/leisure/hobbies. Those are the categories where it’s easiest to feel a disconnect from your budget and to spend more than you should.
That’s why I think the “envelope system” is a brilliant way to handle those categories. It takes the relatively abstract budget and turns it into something very tactile, something you can hold in your hand.
Each month, sit down and make out your budget. For the categories that aren’t simply just paying a bill or depositing money in an account, withdraw enough cash to cover your budget for that item and stick that cash in an actual envelope. So, have an envelope for “groceries” if it’s a budget item for you. Have an envelope for “eating out.” Have an envelope for “hobbies” or “entertainment.”
Then, whenever you spend something from that category, do it in cash that comes straight from that respective envelope. When you go to the grocery store, take the grocery envelope with you and use it for buying groceries. When you go shopping for something related to your hobby, use the hobby envelope for all of that spending. When you eat out, pay for the meal out of the “eating out” envelope.
What if you buy something online, then? If you do, use a credit card, then take that much cash out of the respective envelope and set it aside. Use that cash to fill envelopes next month, so that you don’t have to withdraw as much from your checking account and thus have money still in your account to pay down that credit card bill.
When you run out of money in an envelope, then you’re done with that kind of spending for the month. Because you know that going in, you can think carefully about how to spend your money from that category.
I do this mostly with hobby spending. I have a certain amount that I spend on hobbies and entertainment for myself each month. I withdraw that much cash at the start of the month and I usually begin by putting some cash aside for a convention trip during the summer. After that, everything comes out of that envelope. If I buy something online, then I keep an envelope for next month in the cupboard and just move cash out of this month’s envelope into next month’s envelope. On the first, I withdraw enough cash from my checking account to make the new month’s envelope (which often already has some cash in it from last month’s online purchases) total my hobby spending for the month.
It’s a system that works really well for me. Hobby spending is the only category where I can get myself into spending trouble if I’m not careful and I’ve found that this envelope system really helps keep it under control.
Why does this work? It turns your budget – or at least the parts of the budget that are highly variable and subject to impulsiveness – into something very tangible: cash in hand. It’s not abstracted onto a credit card or onto a spreadsheet. It’s about cash in hand, period. You have to make decisions with cash and you can see clearly how much cash you have in hand for a specific purpose at any time.
The “Media Diet” Trick
There are certain websites that I visit that really tempt me to spend money. Kickstarter is one of them, as are some of the specific sites associated with my hobbies. Another one, believe it or not, is CNN.
Those sites often convince me to spend money on things that I hadn’t even heard about prior to the website visit. My life was perfectly happy before hearing about this new product or this new game or this new variety of hops, but when I hear about them, my interest is totally piqued. I want this new item.
My solution to this conundrum is to go on “media diets.” I simply don’t watch television or visit websites (besides Wikipedia for quick reference) for an extended period of time.
Instead, I read books. I play board games. I engage in art projects. I do some homebrewing. I take care of projects around the house that have built up.
I simply avoid the kinds of media that exist largely to sell things to me. Hobby and “news” websites usually fall into that category. So do most television networks – even the programming is loaded with product placement, and the “news” is often a sequence of sales pitches.
I just turn all of it off for a while.
What happens then? A lot of my desire for “stuff” just slowly fades away. I don’t really want things any more. My desire to open my wallet for the latest clothes, the latest hobby goods, the latest consumer products … it just vanishes. I don’t care about them any more.
When that happens, I’m always stunned to realize how much of that desire is actually driven by the media I consume. The things I think of as my own desires are often just fueled by the articles I read or the television that I watch or the ads that I think I pay no attention to but actually influence me more than I think.
A media diet is the perfect way to cut through all of that nonsense for a while. It helps to reconnect me with the things that are most important in my life. It helps to disconnect me from a constant race to buy, buy, buy.
The “Zero Day” Trick
Even when you use the first two tricks, you can still sometimes feel a disconnect between your financial state and the things you want to do – and spend money on – on a day-to-day basis. You might not have your envelope with you, for instance, when you want to stop at Starbucks. You might begin to not see the connection between what you’re doing right now and your big goal down the road.
For me, the final technique centers around how much unnecessary stuff I spend money on. An awful lot of the money we spend, even when we’re careful, is on stuff we really don’t need. Keeping myself mindful of how truly unnecessary most of our spending helps me make good financial choices even when the “photograph trick” and the “envelope trick” aren’t clicking.
I call it the “zero day” trick. It’s a technique I wrote about a lot in the early days of The Simple Dollar and it’s one that I still use today.
It’s simple. Most days, I make it a goal to spend no money at all. That means eating only the food I have on hand. That means not spending a dime on “treats” like a cup of coffee from the coffee shop. That means not spending money on a hobby, even if I see a great sale. That means not going out to eat. That means spending nothing at all.
The thing is, most of those days are actually pretty good. I have a lot of things already in my home to entertain me. I have food in the pantry and the refrigerator, including stuff in the back of the pantry that I’d forgotten about. I have lots of little tasks around the house that I need to take care of and a “zero day” is a great time to take care of them.
I strive to have 20-25 “zero days” per month. Every single one reminds me that the things I really value in life do not cost much money. In fact, I already have the relatively small number of things I need to have a great life, and everything else really is pretty extraneous.
It keeps things in perspective for me. I find it to be a very powerful exercise and I try to do it as often as I can.
Final Thoughts
None of these techniques alone are a silver bullet against a disconnect from one’s financial state. I find that some of them work really well at times and don’t work as well at other times.
What does work is using the complete set of them on a rotating basis. If I find I’m getting disconnected from hobby spending, I’ll stick to the envelope method for a while. If I find I’m getting tempted to cut back on investing, I’ll spend some time thinking a lot about our long term goals. If I find I’m convincing myself to spend money every day in thoughtless routines, I have a run of “zero days.” If I find myself having desires for more and more and more things, I go on a “media diet.”
Together, those things keep me connected to the realities of my financial life. They show me that I have plenty of things already. They keep me on pace with my big goals.
My wife and I use paper towels for napkins, and tear them in half to make them go further. It’s a habit we maintained even when we made six figures.
Dinner out is often an appetizer at a bar with happy hour specials, and we sometimes pay with discounted gift cards. We buy cheap new furniture or high-quality used furniture to keep costs down.
What do welosebecause of our frugality? Not much.
Paper towels work fine as napkins, it’s more interesting to sit at the bar in a restaurant, cheap couches are comfortable and a new table or bookcase is technically “used” furniture once you’ve had it for a day anyway.
But what do wegainby being “cheap?”
We live without debt. Even our home is paid off.
Our savings accounts and low cost of living let us comfortably survive the loss of any job or business we have, which makes life less stressful.
Most importantly, being frugal with things of less importance frees up money for more important goals— like travel, movies and simply enjoying more time together.
In other words, “being cheap” is a way to live with more freedom.
How Little Can You Live On?
Our expenditures aren’t anywhere near as low as they could be, because spending less is not a goal in itself.
We spend much of our income, but thanks to our frugal strategies and tactics, we have the freedom to spend more of it how we want.
For an idea of how well you can live on less, consider theWagasky familyin Henderson, Nevada.
They live on an annual income of $14,000, far below the poverty level of $23,550 a year for their family of four.
They have everything they need, including a 1,400-square-foot house they bought for $28,000 as a foreclosure. Danielle Wagasky details how they live on so little atBlissfulAndDomestic.com.
But why take the Wagasky family’s story as a lesson in being satisfied with a small income?
Instead,consider the freedom you’d have if you made the U.S.median household incomeof $52,250, while covering all of your basic needs with the first $14,000.
What could you do with all that extra money? Your options would be wide open.
With that in mind, here are some ways to get there…
Frugal Freedom: Strategies and Tactics
It makes sense to find ways to save money oneverythingyou buy, but the large expenses matter most. These include housing, cars and food, so we’ll start with those…
Once you’ve used a few of these money-saving strategies, you’ll have freed up some cash to spend on…
Well, that’s where the freedom part comes in. The choice is yours!
Your Turn: Are you willing to be more frugal in order to gain more freedom?
Steve Gillman is the author of “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” and creator of EveryWayToMakeMoney.com. He’s been a repo-man, walking stick carver, search engine evaluator, house flipper, tram driver, process server, mock juror and roulette croupier, but of more than 100 ways he has made money, writing is his favorite (so far).
One thing that I have craved for investors is a tool that allows you to sync all your investment accounts in one place, but one that also gives you more investment related analysis. I took out an account to do a full Personal Capital review of the financial aggregator, which means you can link all of your financial accounts – your investment portfolio, your checking and savings accounts, credit cards and other loan accounts – all into the same platform. That means that the site will provide you with a place where you can view your entire financial life in one place.
Mint does a fantastic job of giving you numbers, but falls short on giving you a greater insight into your overall investment portfolio.
For my clients, I subscribe to Blueleaf – which is fantastic. The only downside is that you have to be my client (or another advisor that uses it) to get access to it. I realize that everyone will not be my client so the hunt continued for another option. I then discovered Personal Capital.
Bam!
I was so excited to learn more about it that I immediately signed up. I synced all my investment accounts to give Personal Capital a try. In the meantime, I had Kevin write a review about them so you can better understand how this awesome (and often free) program works.
Financial advisors that focus primarily on wealth management can be costly to keep around. Sometimes they charge you as a percentage of assets managed and other times it is a flat hourly rate that can run as high several hundred dollars per hour – that in addition to trading commissions and administrative fees. What’s more, these wealth advisors aren’t really there to teach you how to put together a budget, they strictly manage your money.
You’re handing them a large chunk of your retirement and investment assets, and they manage it to get you top results. Sadly, these advisors — as excellent as they can be — are unreachable unless you have millions of dollars to invest.
But for the rest of us there is now a great option to consider: Personal Capital. This amazing service is like combining financial advisor extraordinaire Jeff Rose and budget management tool Mint.com into one handy website and smartphone app.
What is Personal Capital?
Personal Capital is an online tool that will help you:
Monitor all of your financial accounts in real-time whether checking account, certificate of deposit, or retirement account
Get objective investment advice designed to make you, not the advisor, money
Provide investment options that are tailored to your goals
All while letting you manage this from a browser or on a slicksmartphoneapp. I know what you’re thinking.“Okay, great, but why should I trust these new guys?”I’ve got to be honest with you. There were two words I saw on Personal Capital’s website that made my heart skip a beat.
Those two words. Are you ready?
Fiduciary Obligation
Here’s a straight copy from their website on what they offer:
Objective AdviceThe sorry truth is that bankers and brokers are motivated to help themselves, not you. They are salespeople paid to push products, earning commissions and kickbacks when they do. In stark contrast, Personal Capital is an investment advisor. We accept a fiduciary obligation to act in your best interest, and our advice must be aimed at making money for you, not for us.
This is absolutely key with any financial advisor you talk to whether in person or a company online. Fiduciary duty means the party has a legal obligation to put your interests above their own. Whereas normal brokers get paid commissions by getting you to churn your investments over and over (which costs you thousands of dollars in lost percentages here and there) Personal Capital is putting a requirement on themselves to put your interests above theirs.
This is huge.
And exactly what you should look for in an advisor of any kind. Major points for Personal Capital from me on this one.
How Personal Capital Works
Personal Capital offers a free version and a premium version that features direct investment management. Whichever version you use, your account is actually held by Pershing Advisor Solutions, who acts as trustee for your account.
The Free Version. With the free version you get full use of the Personal Capital dashboard as well as a free consultation from a financial advisor. That advisor will give you a personalized analysis of your investments, as well as recommendations as to what you can do with your portfolio.
In fact, you will have access to a financial advisor at any time, whether you use the free version for the premium version. Your financial advisor can be contacted by phone, email, or by online chat.
The free version includes many of the features and benefits that are available on the platform, including the 401(k) analyzer and access via the mobile app. For the most part however the free version will mostly enable you to aggregate all of your financial accounts, including your investments, on a platform.
The Premium Version. Also known as Personal Capital’s Wealth Management program, this is the version in which Personal Capital actively manages your investment portfolio. Similar to many managed investment platforms, they first determine your risk tolerance, personal preferences, and investment goals. Based on that evaluation, they create a portfolio that will fit within those parameters.
Investment Strategy. Personal Capital uses Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), to manage your portfolio. MPT focuses less on individual security selection, and more on diversification across broad asset classes. Those asset classes include:
US stocks (which can include individual stocks)
US bonds
International stocks
International bonds
Alternative investments (including ETFs and commodities)
Cash
Though Personal Capital makes use of funds in constructing your portfolio, they may also include up to 100 individual securities in order to avoid being too heavily concentrated in a small number of companies.
Another factor that I found in my Personal Capital review that make them almost unique is that they use an integrated investment approach to managing your investments. That means that they consider all of your investment holdings, including those not managed by Personal Capital, in managing your portfolio. For example, though they do not manage your 401(k) plan, your allocations within the plan will be considered in managing your investments that are actually managed by Personal Capital.
Did I Mention It Is Free – at Least Sometimes?
All but one of the services from Personal Capital is absolutely free. Here’s what you get for zero dollars:
Real-time financial dashboard
Mobile device apps
Objective investment advice
Investment check-ups
The only thing that will cost you a fee is their personalized portfolio management. The fee structure looks like this:
0.89% of the first $1 million
0.79% of the first $3 million
0.69% of the next $2 million
0.59% of the next $5 million
0.49% on balances over $10 million
These fees are quite reasonable when compared with fees of 1% to 2% that are customarily charged by active investment management services. The fees apply only to the assets you have under management at Personal Capital, and not to other investments that may be aggregated on the site, such as your 401(k) plan.
In addition, there are no additional fees. Personal Capital does not charge fees for trading or commissions, administrative fees, or other types of investment fees. The fee that applies to your portfolio level is the actual fee you will pay.
Review of Personal Capital Tools and Benefits
There is a long list of tools and benefits in using Personal Capital. Some of the more interesting ones include:
The Investment Checkup. This tool analyzes your investment portfolio, and gives a risk assessment of of it, to make sure that your level of risk is consistent with your goals. This will help you to create an asset allocation that will get you where you need to go with your investments.
401(k) Fund Allocation. This tool can be used to analyze your employer-sponsored 401(k) plan, even though it is not under the direct management of Personal Capital. It can be used to help you with your asset allocation, at least based on the investment options that your plan includes. This is an excellent tool since most 401(k) plans don’t, any kind of investment management advice.
Retirement Planner. You can often find retirement planners or retirement calculators on various sites throughout the Internet. But what better place than to have it available where you also have all of your investment accounts listed? Personal Capital’s Retirement Planner allows you to run numbers on your retirement to make sure that you will be prepared when the time comes. It allows you to incorporate major changes in your life into your retirement planning, such as the birth of a child or saving for college.
Net Worth Calculator. Since Personal Capital aggregates all of your financial accounts on the same platform, they can also provide you with ongoing monitoring of your net worth. This will enable you to get the most comprehensive view of your financial situation, since it not only takes into account your assets, but also your debts. Net worth is the best single indicator of your overall financial strength, and this will give you an opportunity to track it.
Cash Flow Analyzer. Though our focus in this article has been primarily on the investment side of Personal Capital, it’s important to recognize that it also includes a budgeting capability. The Cash Flow Analyzer tracks your income and expenses from all sources, letting you know where you’re spending money (or spending too much of it), which will help you to make adjustments that will improve your overall budget.
Mobile App. Personal Capital’s mobile app is a free feature that can be downloaded on Apple iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Android. The mobile version has everything that is available on the desktop platform. It will enable you to track your investment portfolio, as well as your banking and credit card activity while you’re on the go.
Tax Optimization. Personal Capital uses tax optimization in the management of your portfolio. This feature is available to premium Wealth Management clients, and not if you are using the free version.
They use several tactics as part of tax optimization. For example, they include income producing investments in tax-deferred accounts, while growth oriented investments – that have the benefit of lower capital gains taxes – are held in taxable accounts.
In addition, they don’t use mutual funds, but instead use exchange traded funds with a mix of individual stocks, since stocks can be easily bought and sold for tax loss harvesting. And speaking of tax loss harvesting, they use this strategy to sell losing stocks, which offsets the gains on the sale of winning stocks. This strategy minimizes the negative impact on your investment portfolio from income taxes.
Site Security. Personal Capital uses bank level, military grade encryption on the platform. They also perform ongoing third-party security audits to test their systems. They also use device authentication so that each device you link your account must first be authenticated in order to be used
Crash Test Your Portfolio
Investing expenses and taxes are the two things you can absolutely count on within the investing world. You can’t rely on gains every year, but you can guarantee you will be taxed and you will pay expenses. That makes reducing those expenses as one of two ways you can control your investing destiny.
Thankfully, Personal Capital realizes this and offers you a really great tool to analyze the cost of your investments. Where this gets interesting is you can do an analysis on your employer’s 401 (k) plan (as discussed above) to discover whether your plan is amazing, just okay, or terrible as it comes to costs. You might be the person to go to HR to reveal just how expensive your plan is, lay out a new plan that would cut costs for everyone, and end up getting a promotion just for running a cost analysis.
Even if you don’t get promoted to head investment advisor for your employer, at the very least you’ll save your own retirement from exorbitant fees. And that’s a huge win we can all settle for.
Want to try out the 401 k analyzer? Click the crash test dummy above.
Is Personal Capital for Me?
The idea of wealth management means you need to have wealth to manage. If you’re struggling to get out of debt, that’s okay, but Personal Capital probably isn’t the best fit for you. In that case Mint might be a better option and you can see a full comparison in how to better meet your needs in my complete personal capital vs mint review.
However, if you are building up your retirement assets and want to be able to maximize your nest egg without gambling on penny stocks then you should definitely sign up for the service. You can use all of the features aside from the personalized portfolio management for absolutely free. There is no reason to not take a look at what they are offering.
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Now available on Mattel.com, Barbie dolls will be available not only in the Original — exhaustively debated — form, but also in “Curvy,” “Tall” and “Petite.”
Barbie has remained a staple toy among kids since her debut in 1959, due in part to her affordable price tag.
The new Barbie dolls are available from Mattel for $9.99 — but we’re going to show you how to get yours for just $4.39
Save Money on Barbie Through Deal-Stacking
The dolls are brand-new, so don’t expect to see them on sale, discounted on Amazon or featured on coupons anytime soon.
But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for buying them at face value!
At The Penny Hoarder, we know you can always make a good deal just a little better.
One of the best ways to do it isdeal-stacking— bringing down an existing price with as many discounts, sales, coupons and other deals as you can during the transaction.
Here’s how to bring down the price of your new Barbie doll.
1. Shop Mattel.com Through a Cash-Back Website
Tall, Petite and Curvy Barbie are still only available on Mattel’s website, so you’ll have to place your order online.
The best way to save on any online shopping is to shop through a cash-back website, also known as a shopping portal.
You’ll visit a store through a cash-back website’s link, shop as you would normally and receive a percentage in rewards points you can redeem for cash or gift cards.
We always start atCashbackholic, which shows you the websites offering the best cash-back deals for the site you want to shop.Offers vary regularly, so always compare before you shop.
In this case, Mr. Rebates is offering 5% cash-back when you shop Mattel.com through their site. Plus, if you’re creating a new account, you’ll also receive a $5 bonus.
That’s $5.50 in rewards!
2. Get Free Shipping at Mattel.com
We hate when shipping costs come in and totally ruin all our great savings.
You’ve got a few options for free shipping on the new Barbie doll, but none are perfect.
Estimated standard shipping is $7.49, so if you want one, two or three dolls, you’re better off shopping through the Groupon link.
Mattel offers free shipping on any orders $35 or more, so if you buy at least four dolls, you’re better off shopping through the cash-back site. You won’t pay for shipping, and you’ll receive $7 in cash-back rewards.
Not a bad way to get a head start on birthdays and holiday shopping for the year!
We also found a coupon code for free shipping from Mattel you can try:BDAYBASH
Some people havereported success using the code, but it didn’t work when I applied it today. To save $7.49, it’s worth trying!
3. Pay With a Cash-Back Credit Card
Pay for your order with a rewards credit card, and you’ll earn even more cash back on your purchase.
Saving has always been a challenge for me. While I continuously applied the pay-yourself-first principle to my finances, I struggled to stick to my budget.
So when I wanted to start a cake-decorating business, I needed another way to pay my startup costs. I preferred not to take out a loan because of interest charges.
When my co-worker suggested we start a sou-sou, I was ecstatic and thankful for her excellent suggestion.
It’s a West African tradition also popular in the Caribbean. It requires a group of people to contribute a fixed amount of money either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly to a group account, with one member responsible for collecting the cash.
The group holds a random draw to determine the order in which each person will receive their lump sum payment. However, once each person receives their cash, they still have to contribute until everyone gets their payment.
A sou-sou could run for six months, or even up to a year — it all depends on how many people are in on it. Sou-sous continue until everyone receives their payout at least once.
How I Used a Sou-Sou to Start a Business
Curious about this somewhat unorthodox way to fund a new business? Here’s how I started a sou-sou to help me make enough money to get my cake-decorating business off the ground.
Determine How Much Cash You Need to Start Your Business
I created an inventory of supplies I’d need to start my business, then calculated the total cost of buying them. This helped me make sure I’d be able to get started once I received my payout.
Next, I looked for vendors and shopped around to find the best prices — then asked about a discount for buying in bulk. It never hurts to ask! This helped me save 20% of the original cost when I eventually bought everything.
Find Cash in Your Budget and Earn Extra Money
I needed to free up some money to go towards my sou-sou, so I decided to eliminate one bill from my monthly budget.
I compared my cable and internet bills to see which was costing me more, and canceled my $50 per month cable service — a whopping savings that helped me start my business.
To earn extra cash, I also sold cakes at community events at a reduced price. Consider how you could earn a few extra dollars a month to go towards your business. For example, babysit for friends, or bartend on the weekends.
Form a Group
Everyone in my department had previously been involved in a successful sou-sou, and since we were all working toward financial goals, it was easy for the team to get on board.
A total of 10 colleagues joined the sou-sou, but you can start one with any number of people. Ask co-workers, relatives and fellow church or gym members if they want in.
Choose a Cash Collector
We nominated my supervisor as cash collector, and placed our money in a locked box in her office. Two people had to be present when money was deposited or paid out.
Since we each received monthly salaries, we decided on a deadline for everyone to pay up.
My supervisor was also in the sou-sou. If the person collecting the cash isn’t in on it, they’re sometimes paid a percentage by each member. If my supervisor wasn’t a member, she would’ve received 5% of our earnings for managing the sou-sou.
Decide on a Reasonable Contribution
We considered our final objectives and unanimously decided on a realistic amount each person would pay.
There were 10 members and we decided to each contribute $100 per month — meaning we’d each get a $1,000 payout.
A few members were unable to contribute the full amount, so they joined with another member to each contribute $50 per month. When their payout time came, each person received $500 — a 50% payout.
I decided to double my contributions and pay $200 a month, meaning I’d get two $1,000 payouts to help me fund my business.
Propose Accountability
We suggested each person in the group be accountable to another member to make sure they spent their money toward their goals.
For example, I chose an accountability partner who would make sure I invested my $1,000 in my business and didn’t spend it on something else.
If I didn’t, I’d have to pay my partner 20% of my payout — an huge amount we chose to help motivate me to stick to my goal.
How My Sou-Sou Worked Out
Our sou-sou began in January and I received my payout in May. Since I doubled my contribution, I received another payout in November, which I also put toward my business.
Not only was I able to start my business, I consistently saved money! The group initiative was a huge part of my motivation, and everyone agreed having the support of other members of the sou-sou was crucial to our success.
My choice to use a sou-sou rather than taking out a loan paid off. I didn’t owe the bank any money, and I saved $200 I would have paid in interest charges.
With the assistance of friends or family, saving money to start a business is possible. $100 or $200 may not seem like much, but after a few months or years, it could be enough to get your business off the ground or help expand it without a loan.
Your Turn: Have you tried a sou-sou? Let us know in the comments!
Kerry Mc Donald is a freelance writer. She has written for sites such as Career Addict and Hivesource. A mother of two active boys, ages 2 and 7, Kerry believes it’s important to be creative with your finances and is always in search of inventive ways to save and invest money. You can follow her on Twitter or visit her website: kerryfreelancewriter.com.
