Not cheap, Fiscally concerned

You know how it goes, you go for an oil change - they run some tests - suggest some services - and gullible you don’t bother to take a quote and then shop around for a better price. It’s almost the story here, almost though.

First, I’d like to apologize to my 3 readers for the site’s downtime. Blogvis upgraded their services, and my blog was under a coma. It is still in the process of being recovered and all my blogrolling links are still missing. That should be up in a few days.

Now for the story:
I own a minivan that I bought a couple of years ago at a high millage. Since purchase, we added very little millage but it always had it’s clunks. If you watched the movie “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you would remember that the space ship had a personality - and every time a door opened a sigh of pleasure would emerge. For our minivan though, every time we turned the steering wheel a bit - the car would cry as if it would burst into tears soon. I believe the minivan wanted us to feel guilty for turning…

The car always had a will of it’s own. It was working non the less.

I was told at several repair shops before that it’s not an issue. Other places have changed oil and each came up with something different that is urgently in need of repair. A week before driving from Michigan to DC in the summer, a repair shop notified me that the brakes would have to be replaced. I rolled my eyes and asked if I could schedule it done after the road trip. The nice man smiled at me as if I had mental problems. I had it done the next day. To be accurate here, I did ask for rigorous testing and mentioned specifically that the car would go on the road. Despite spotting the breaks, nothing was said about the steering.

This time, I had my oil changed at a dealer’s shop with a coupon. And either they needed the money (automakers/dealers crisis), or they saw a sucker walking in - they came back with a list of “what’s wrong” that tallied to a number above a 1000$.

I am a sucker - and I know it. But to tell the truth, I wanted it fixed and running - especially with a newborn being driven. That’s a silly statement - because you would like to be safe in your car at all times, and not just because you have a new baby in the house.

After handed the list of repairs I looked back at the chubby repairs managers at the dealer’s office and said:

You know, I know I told you to do the carburetor flush already - but I’ve done these kind of services before, and have done it for much cheaper. If I’m going to have the rest of the services done - I’d expect to see some discounts. Let me know - and I’ll make some calls to decide what to do.

I was bluffing, not about the carburetor flush being a broad day light mugging (it was), but about shopping around. I didn’t. I just wanted my trusty old clunker to be fixed and wanted to trust the dealer’s repairman.

He came back with a 10% discount, and a 2 day replacement car rental from one of the used ones on the lot. I agreed, and 2 days later my clunker’s whiny personality had been subdued.

Should I be happy with the price? I don’t know - I could have probably gotten a better deal if I had shopped around. But I’m content. It’s not the first time I have to dig into the emergency fund to fix something way out of budget, but that’s what it’s for. Unfortunately - that would probably not be the last time I would have to dig there (ominous signs from the outdoors piping system this early morning)…

What would you have done?
Cheers!

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As promised, I added a page to collect and highlight the relevant posts on how we spend less than we earn. How we implement “Financial responsibility, changing one’s financial path from consuming own savings to growing”.

To reach the page click on the top on Our “Secret” or click here.

In that page you will find links backs to my posts on how we spend less than we earn and how our family has agreed together on our system. You may add comments for the page on this post.

Cheers!

We use one credit card for all our purchases, and towards the next billing date we begin tightening our budget further and further. The creditor usually sends a bill towards the 10th of the month and we usually use up most of our self imposed limit by then.

For some reason I feel a sort of a pride when we manage to amuse ourselves and feed ourselves to a satisfying way and still show a low bill. Just sitting at home listing to an AM radio would be fine if we weren’t an actual family with two kids who do need to be entertained and have some fun at the weekend.

Yesterday, on the 4th of July we had a big breakfast at home - then did some house chores and generally waste time things (like reading blogs… playing PC-Games…) until around 2pm. Then we packaged some sandwiches and light snacks onto our cooler and drove to a nearby metro park. We bought a couple of months ago an annual pass for 20$ and we go to one of the many parks at least once a week.

Yesterday we were almost alone there. We had our outdoors picnic at the wonderful weather, played some ball and then the kids played at the playground. Before leaving the park we followed a nature trail to a river. When we got back to the car it was almost 5pm. We drove through the side roads enjoying the views of farms and expensive homes along the way.

A picture taken at Gallop Park in Ann Arbor - 2007

Once we got home - the kids went out and played with our neighbors kids. I fired up the grill and flipped a few burgers. That’s my kind of fun. When the sun set around 9:40 at evening the neighbors started firing their fire works. I personally like to observe - not to light up fire works… We have a nice view from our deck at our neighborhood as well as some other more distant places. It was great fun. The only money “spent”? None, just the gasoline already in the car and the food already in the fridge. I guess if we lived any closer to main event cities like Detroit we might have drove to those… Sadly we missed the fireworks last week at our metro-park (again, would have been free with the annual pass). We usually go to our closest metro park, they have a great show and a band playing. Next year…

Today was still frugal but less. We went out to eat breakfast at McDonald’s - a family of 4 eating for 13 bucks - where else can you find that? Then we drove to our local library and looked for DVD-s for the kids and books in general. The kids always have fun and find something to do there. After that we went on to another library, an even bigger one, at another close by town which share the same “library card”. There was a farmer’s market right by the library and some music too. I found the book I wanted and the kids got glued to the computer screens. It was now around 1pm and we continued to the closest Taco Bell. Again - 13 bucks to feed a family of 4. That’s as close we can get to “pigging out” - all four of us - for a total of 26 bucks.

Now I’m back home, telling you about it, and looking at the stack of books I got lined up to read in the next two weeks.

Have a fun frugal weekend too!
P.S. Flipping burgers always means some beer as well…
Cheers!

Since starting to post on this blog – about a week ago – my wife’s been frowning at me. I sit too much time in the evening in front of the laptop and I’m not talking enough. I agree honey – and I’m sorry. I believe that communication is the key to a successful marriage. One of the examples given in the book “Dealing with people you can’t stand” is of a mature couple where the husband says nothing and the wife is frustrated. It seems that for many married couples, that situation is at least the perception of reality – if not the reality itself. The book gives a good strategy on how to improve upon the situation by engaging in inquisitive conversation and insisting on getting answers. A conversation has two sides, and if you think your partner is not saying much – be assertive and muscle out some answers. If your partner is drowning in his newspaper, book or laptop and you feel left out, reach out – touch – and stare at his/her face from a short distance. You will get that kiss your face is demanding and it is the right opportunity to talk about something. Don’t hesitate to start the conversation.

At our first years as a couple – finance was a touchy subject. Whenever I raised the issue I came out as a villain and as cheap. I avoided talking about it altogether and I silently observed as our tiny savings account shrunk further and further. We didn’t have a plan, we didn’t agree, we spent on what we thought we needed. It wasn’t selfish; whenever my wife would buy something she would feel guilty and try to explain to me how it is for the family. I struggled for years to reach an understanding between us on our money.

About two years ago I did something very sneaky. We both enjoy going to book stores and browsing through the selection. Our kids scan through their section and we take turns on looking for what might interest us. I picked up two personal finance books – “Smart couples finish rich”, and “The automatic millionaire”. I suggested to my wife that we each read one book, and when we are done we exchange and read the other. The result was stunningly good. We both learned more about managing our money and we finally began thinking together on how we should plan and execute together. My wife came up with the program discussed here in “How to spend less than you earn, in a nut shell” and I added the electronic part to it – “How to spend less than you earn, part II”.

The books introduced us to the idea of setting goals. For me it was always a given that we should save money. Even if we don’t get rich, money would be there for us when we need it. My wife, coming out of Russia and seeing how inflation and political turmoil can render yesterday’s money worthless always assumed that money is there for us to use now. We now have an understanding of why we save and how we will use the money in the future. Money isn’t accumulated so that we could count it greedily – it is there for a purpose and we have already seen the fruits of that strategy. Before – we would charge our credit and I would act frugally. We have begun taking annual vacations with money we save each year and we enjoy it so much more.

Since then, we regularly discuss where we stand on a fiscal basis. My wife no longer feels guilty she buys things when I don’t. We have turned the corner and have begun saving more. As long as our income and health do not change – we know where we are heading financially and are pleased with it.

Communicating about money between couples is key to a happy marriage.
Communication in general and expressing fondness and love is what ties it all together.

I’ve been looking a few days now into starting a new blog, I’ve read through different options, opened and deleted several blogs with the same name at different providers to check the waters and this is where I landed. Blogvis, was good enough for me. Wordpress.com didn’t even consider allowing ads, and you have a very limitted design options. I like wordpress as a software, I like blogger better - but I have my reasons for choosing a wordpress platform for now, mainly the ability to export the blog and continue elsewhere.

I looked into paid hosting and to tell you the truth, I don’t see the point of putting money upfront. Sure I have intentions with this blog, but only if it does well and pick up readers will I want to pay for the premium services available at a monthly charge like AN Hosting.

So I kick things off while saving those 7$ a month fees and setting up some simple ad-sense links. No plan to get rich here, just to prove a point. Writing a blog without the remote possibility of making some nickles on it is senseless. You’re here, you’re reading, go ahead and help keeping it coming by clicking on the ads, like this one:

This site is still under construction and I promise you will find very useful things here in the very near future. For the meanwhile, I raise my beer to you and say “Cheers!”.

See you soon.