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Posts Tagged ‘vacation’

More about tax refunds and a friendly reminder.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I was in the locker room at the gym the other day and overheard a conversation that disappointed me.  It was a discussion about tax refunds, and the 2 women were discussing how desperately they needed their tax refunds to pay off this and that.  I felt for them.  I mean, I know that they can’t be that desperate if they are still paying for a discretionary expense like a gym membership, but to know that people rely on their tax refunds for regular expenses is terrible.

In general, it’s not a good idea to even have a a tax refund.  It’s better for your bottom line as well as mathematically to get that money in your paycheck throughout the year, instead of giving the government an interest free loan for a whole year, but I understand that some people just like to get that lump sum at the end of the year.  That’s fine.  However, if you choose to get the lump sum refund for your taxes from the government, you shouldn’t be counting on it for regular bills or expenses.  This money should be used to pay down debt, start (or add to) an emergency fund or invest for your retirement.  These choices will help better your life and your future, whereas buying a big screen TV will only give you short term entertainment.  Do yourself a favor and don’t budget your tax refund into your budget!

Also, I wanted to share a friendly reminder.  Tomorrow is the first day of April, which means that summer is only a couple of months away.  Have you started planning your vacation yet?? More specifically, have you started planning how you’re going to pay for your vacation?  If not, now is the time to start!  Review your budget and see if there is money left over (assuming you have no debt other than your house and are already saving for retirement) for a vacation, and if there is, you should start saving for it now!  Nobody likes to be caught off guard, and that is usually what happens at Christmas time and vacation time.  People are always surprised that vacation time and Christmas came as quickly as it did, and so they aren’t prepared.  This reminder is an effort to be sure that doesn’t happen to our readers!

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Next week is “Staycation Week”…how to do it on the cheap!

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

On March 6th I wrote a post on why vacations are important, including the aptly named “staycation”. Today, I am going to talk about the planning that went in to our staycation, which happens next week. Now, if you remember the post from March, I told you that we take a vacation and a couple of staycations every year. Well, this is the first of the staycations, with the vacation to follow in August, and more staycations to come later on in the year. So, since it is the first of the year, I knew I had to come up with fun stuff to do, to take real advantage of the break, and I knew that I had to keep the budget reigned in, since we don’t budget a lot of money for staycations. That’s alright, because I love a money challenge!

Well, the first thing I did was to set up a chart of the week on the computer (geeky, I know, but it works!) so that I could plug in the information easier. It has the date, day of the week, activity/activities and the estimated cost of each days activities. This helps you keep track of your activity options, makes sure you know what you are spending (or it keeps you from spending too much) and makes sure that you have enough activities lined up for the week. Now obviously, you want some flexible time in their for the days that you just decide to stay in and goof off, but I always think it is better to be over-prepared than under-prepared!

Next, I did some research to find out what to do in my area for little or no money. After some digging I found quite a few things to do in my area, and started to choose the activities that I thought would be fun for Jerrill and I. Coupling the new ideas with other ideas that I had on my own and we had a very nice list of things to do. For example, I intend for us to go to a wine tasting one day next week. Now, for those of you that don’t know, central Kentucky was the site of the first commercial vineyard in the United States! We have several vinyards within driving distance, and have visited one prior to this (for Valentine’s Day 08…my idea, and we had a great time) but I am looking forward to visiting all of them over time! Other things on the list: Going for a picnic, outdoor games, board game night with milkshakes, go to our local Arboretum to walk around and look at plants, and of course, we will be going to see Night at the Museum #2 and Terminator Salvation. There are many other things on the list, but you get the idea.

Now, that I have decided on my activities for the week, I then get to research them and “guesstimate” the costs associated. I come up with figures for the activities, and total them up. I then take that total and compare it with the amount of money I have to spend that week. Now, as I said in the post on March 6th, everyone has a little money for a staycation, because you have your normal weekly amount to spend. So, if you normally have $150 a week to spend on groceries, gas and recreation (dining out, drinks, movies etc.) then you still have that amount…you can simply repurpose some of it! For example, instead of buying your “normal” groceries, buy some things on the cheap so that you can go out to a movie, or buy steaks to grill out, or both! It’s all about being creative to work within your means!

So, the chart/list would look something like this:

  • May 25th, Monday – Picnic at the park – Cost $10 (for groceries)
  • May 26th, Tuesday – Nature walk at the Arboretum – Cost Free!!

I know that because of the economy a lot of people are opting to stay home this year, so I hope that this will help you better plan for your staycations, so you can more thoroughly enjoy them!

***A note to our readers: We believe that family time is just as important as proper money management to leading and living a successful life, so the blog may or may not be written next week. Honestly, it depends on whether or not I find the time to write in between the fun! I might post photos of the activities we are doing instead, but I haven’t decided. Don’t despair! I’ll be back to it the following week!

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Budgeting Series…You have to know where you’re going before you make a map…

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Sometimes, when a person decides to get their “financial house” in order, they are overwhelmed. They don’t know where to start, they panic, and they mess up. So, in order to help our readers with this sometimes monumental task, I have decided to do a series on making a good budget.

Making a “good budget” is different than simply making a “budget”. Anyone can write down their income and expenses, but a good budget is more than that. A good budget starts off by the person making a list of financial goals. Do you want to save more? Pay down debt (mortgage, credit cards, student loans…)? Save for retirement, vacations or Christmas/holidays? Give more to charity? Once you have decided which of these apply to you, write them down.

Next, you need to figure out where you are. Make a list of financial responsibilities over as long a term as possible, in as much detail as possible, including:

  • take home pay
  • weekly bills (groceries, gasoline/bus fare etc.)
  • monthly bills (electric, water, cable, phone etc.)
  • annual bills (tax prep, property taxes)
  • money spent going out (movies, dinner, drinks etc.)
  • money spent on gifts (birthdays etc.)
  • estimated medical expenses (including dental)
  • child care expenses (babysitter, day care etc.)
  • car payments (don’t forget car insurance!)
  • house payments (don’t forget mortgage insurance!)
  • minimum payments due on credit cards
  • alimony / child support
  • personal spending money
  • clothing expenses (for everyone in the household)

Don’t forget that the more precise you are, the better your budget will be when it is finished. This part of the process will be time consuming, and you should try not to guess at an amount unless you are left no other option. You should be able to locate this information by going through previous bills and receipts. As an example, you should take all of your electric bills for the previous year (if you don’t have these, use what you do have), add them up and divide by the number of bills…this will give you your average monthly electric bill. Now, do the same for any other weekly and monthly bills where you need to know the average spent in that particular time frame.

At this point, you should have a good idea of your monetary needs for a weekly/monthly basis.

Next Wednesday, we will discuss what to do with this information from this point. Good luck with your information gathering!

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