Change Jar Savings » PF – Saving Money

Aldi’s Opens 11 Stores in Dallas Ft Worth 3/18/2010

Jim — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:54:48 +0000

Aldi intends to open 11 Texas stores in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area on March 18. A total of 27 locations are slated for North Texas in the next few months.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 15

Jim — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:10:14 +0000

Today is payday. Yes I get paid twice a month. I don’t hate getting paid this way but it never seems to match with my bills. I have been paid every other week and weekly at past jobs. I kind of liked being paid weekly as cash seemed to always be just around the corner. With being paid 2 times a month, there always seems to be a half to whole week when we are just trying to scrape through to payday.

For this payday I went back to direct deposit. After my experience with a paper check this is definitely worth it. I have access to my money right away without waiting for days or having enough funds to cover the check “if it were to bounce”. I still like the idea of having a paycheck that does not say void but I now have cash in hand on payday not days later.

After work I went to get my cash and went to a national department store to pay off a credit card bill. It was so nice handing them cash and knowing that as of that moment I now owed them $0.00. One less card to think about. Yes!

Tomorrow I have to pay more bills. We will see how that goes.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 6 – 14

Jim — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:59:59 +0000

April 6 – 13

It has been a busy week with work and home; I was finally able to get some cash. I have been able to discover some benefits already. I have been only using my local bank to do transactions. This effectively brought my accounts from 5 down to one. By working with cash means less even time spent balancing and reconciling the checkbook. This in itself is a godsend.

The second benefit is that we are spending less. It was too easy to pull out the checkbook or one of the cards to pay for something. We are now looking at whether we really need something or if it can wait. Most things we were buying on the cards were more impulse items.

I had always thought I was good with impulse buying. I knew from working in the grocery industry how strong the marketing is to get you to impulse buy. I knew how the stores were going after those extra dollars. But I have come to realize that while I was good at the checkout and the junk that they try to sell you there, the fact is that the more you even go into a store the more you impulse buy.

My daughter is good at dragging me to the store to get diapers, clothes for the grandkids, etc. Then once in there she finds all these thing that my wife and I should buy. Most of them are not needed. The first step was telling her I have no cash. I purposely left the cards and checkbook at home. So I couldn’t buy her or the grandkids things if I wanted too. This in itself has saved me money.

But where the impulse buying was really hitting me is going to the grocery store because we are out of… (fill in the blank). We would rarely buy just that item. It seemed that you cannot walk out of a Wal-Mart without dropping $100.00, even if you were just picking up milk. Or going into the grocery store, the milk became a loaf of bread, cereal, something for supper… Realizing how many extra trips are going to get these stray items has controlled spending.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 5

Jim — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:56:59 +0000

April 5

Well 5 days have passed and today was the easiest of them all. You see yesterday was Sunday. We did not leave the house. Yeah, a no spend day.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 4

Jim — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:46:01 +0000

April 4
Saturday and family events today and no need for cash today.

Yesterday I did have a dilemma. I needed to pay my mortgage. This should have been paid on the first but it is not late yet. The lender is not local so I could not run down cash to them. So I allowed myself a technicality. I did authorize the lender to make a withdrawal from my account. Although it is using technology, the technical loophole is that I did not write the check. This proved to me that it is next to impossible to do without checks and electronic banking.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 3

Jim — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:00:27 +0000

April 3

I had to get some gas this morning before the bank opens. Still no cash but I was able to scrape up some change. I loved the look on the clerks face when I took out Quarters, nickels and dimes to pay for $3.25 worth of gas. Gas is at $2.099 so I have a little over a gallon. I was riding below E or I would not have done it. It did bring back memories of scraping up change for gas or beer as a young adult. Back then gas was less than a dollar so it would last longer. Thinking about it, beer was cheap too for Kingsbury or Old Style. $3.50 would have bought a 12 pack.

I also had to work late so no cash until Friday…

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 2

Jim — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:53:16 +0000

April 2

I don’t have any cash yet as it takes 3 days for a paper check to clear the bank. Somehow I forgot the days like today. Knowing you have money but cannot access it while watching the gas gauge getting closer to empty. I do not normally carry cash with me so I have nothing from last month. I will have to scrape together some change for gas tonight. I have not done that in years.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Old School Finances – Day 1 (March 31st)

Jim — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:27:04 +0000

For a over a month, I have been really losing a grip on my finances. If you would ask me how much money I have I would not know. All of it was in the bank and I was so busy with the new granddaughter and work that I just could not keep up with even the incoming mail much less our finances. I started thinking how complicated my financial life has been. With multiple accounts at ING Direct and a local checking account, debit cards, credit cards, automatic payments, direct deposit… Yikes! Where is my money going????

Years ago it was easy, I would get paid and the money would be gone. Nothing to track. The one checking account I had was really only a place to hold the rent payment because the rental office was only open till 5 pm. I could pay everyplace else in cash. Need to reconcile the checkbook? One check cleared. How easy is that?

Remembering this got me thinking, is it possible to live on cash today? With direct deposits, and electric checks, everyone with credit/debit cards, can someone in today’s society exist on a cash only basis?

So this month I am experimenting with my finances to see if it is possible. It should be.

Day -5 (yes 5 days ago)

I actually started a few days ago by canceling my direct deposit. This was very easy, just let HR know.

Day 1 (March 31st)

I get paid on the 15th and last day of the month, so today is essentially the beginning of the month for me. Got my paper check and actually I had the afternoon off. I could very easily get to my bank to cash my check. (Even though the bank is open later than 5 pm in today’s world.) At the bank they looked at my check and looked at me like I was nuts wanting to cash a payroll check. “Well” the teller said, “I am going to have to get more cash for my till. I am going to have to give you some hundreds…”, as she walked away with my check.

She came back with more money for her till but then came the issues. She looked up my account. She said “I have a problem. I am going to need a supervisor to approve this. You don’t have enough money in your account.” I am thinking to myself of course not. No news to me. I actually knew I had a little over $100 in the checking account. She got a supervisor to come over and they both had a look of no way. I could see them thinking he wants cash????

The supervisor told me that they could not cash my check. I would have to go to the bank it was drawn on and probably pay a fee for them to cash it. Wait a fee to get my own money. Boy, banks really have a racket going. I could deposit the check and take out $150 (a debit card transaction didn’t clear yet?) and then come back for the rest in a couple days. The check needs to clear.

Now here it is pay day. I have a check, bills to pay and no real access to get at it. The supervisor did tell me that I could have had access to the fund today, if the check was direct deposited. DOH!!!!

So I deposited the check and left it all in there. I will come back…

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Surprised by my own ad

Jim — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:00:51 +0000

I was checking on my site this morning to make sure a scheduled post came up ok. It had. But then I noticed a spelling error. So I was going to log in to make changes. Since I was going to make changes I scrolled down to check for other errors I might need to change. Then BAM. There it was the Google AdWords dispal ad at the bottom of my site had an ad for Microsoft Office Home and Student edition. Microsoft was advertising on my site! WOW!

Then I thought it the product they put on would have been exactly the one I would have hoped to see out of all their products. You see I have recommended Microsoft Office Home and Student edition to many people. They want Word, Excel and the price of the Professional version of Microsoft Office scares them. They are too afraid of the free open source office type programs, like Star Office. So I ask them if they have kids in school, or are they taking a class to further their education. If so they can qualify to get Microsoft Office Home and Student edition.

And the cost is $79.99 at Amazon. A far cry from the $400 plus of the full professional version. So if this decribes you, this is a great way to get Office and not spend as much.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

Tracking your Finances? What Works?

Jim — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:25:29 +0000

I used to track our finances very closely. However the last few years I have had problems keeping up. With my finances a mess I had to try something.

I used Quicken from about 1995 through 2001. Starting out with a version that came with a Macintosh, I then bought a PC and bought a PC version. I even upgraded once or twice.

Then I started having troubles. My kids were teenagers and on the computer all the time. I saw a Pocket PC. I thought I would switch to MS Money. Money for Pocket PC was free, Quicken was not.

I justified the Pocket PC by saying I could balance the checkbook when the kids were on the computer. Just sync it up later. I also would not be spending $50.00 a year buying day planning calendars every year. So I bought it for $250.00. I still have it 7 years later. So I did save money but it did not help.

The problem that I was experiencing is that as good as all of the off the shelf programs are they have become too bloated and more cumbersome to use. Back when I first started using Quicken it was basic checkbook program. It offered some loan tracking and reports. Every upgrade added cool new features. Downloading data seemed great but it never worked quite the way I expected it to. I would have to edit the data every time. I gave up downloading. Then it seemed to reach a point that you had to be an expert to decipher everything available in home financial packages.

Frustrated by bloat I decided to use a spreadsheet on my thumb drive. I created a basic checking sheet. It worked but was still difficult to get the data entry required. I tried sophisticated formulas that would create a budget. My own worksheets were getting to be too much too.

Computer time, having receipts/checkbook when I needed was still a problem. I would have the checkbook and my wife would need to write a check and would grab another book of checks. So now I was missing transactions entirely. (I was guilty of this too.)

Then about two years ago, our finances fell apart. I cannot pin point what went wrong. Last year I started using GNU Cash on a thumb drive. I liked it because it was free. It is a pretty basic program and not bloated. I still do not download any thing from the bank. But it still is not perfect. Time is still the main issue. The secondary issue is too many bank accounts with debit/credit cards.

What I am releasing that simplicity is what is missing. I am more likely to balance one checkbook than five. Then add in credit cards and there are even more accounts to reconcile.

Last summer we had an experiment. We were going to be using only cash. I loved it but the cash was in an envelope in a drawer at home and not with us when we needed it. While it did cut down on impulse shopping, it was a problem when you forgot to grab gas money as you were heading out of town. We also did not like the idea of all that cash sitting around. To this day, we think a $20 was stolen by someone that was at our house but cannot prove it as we were missing receipts.

With the simplicity of cash with no receipts to enter, the idea that if the power would go out for a day or two, we would have cash. ATMs do not work without power. Bank failure is another reason to keep some cash on hand.

There is no great system that I have found. It is a matter of how much detail and how much time you want to spend with a finance tracking system. For us, less is what we are leaning towards. I would love to be able to close all of our accounts and just use cash. But this will not happen in today’s cashless society. All we can do is minimize and simplify. This is my goal.

How do you track your finances?

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com