I don’t know about you, but this would make me more reluctant to fly with them in the future even if the flight was perfect (which it wasn’t). Of course, if their flights are the cheapest, I’ll probably end up doing so anyway.

Have you ever run into credit card advertising someplace you didn’t expect? Tell us about it in the comments!

Photo by el3enawe licensed under Creative Commons

I have a problem. My problem is that even when I’m on a tight budget, I have a hard time keeping myself from spending money on the things that I really want. Not buying ice cream? Easy enough. Eating lots of inexpensive food like apples and beans? Easy. Stopping myself from buying a Wii? Hard.

I don’t play that many video games, but the few that I do bother to play I really enjoy. In particular, I’m in love with the Halo and Zelda series. But I’m on a budget. And the fact that I have neither a Wii nor an X-Box means that it wouldn’t be a matter of $50 on a game (which would still be too much). Instead it would be more like $300.

So what do I do to keep my hard earned money from exchanging itself for a game console?*

• Keep myself away from places that talk about the latest and greatest in gadgets and gaming
• Stay away from the software and gaming aisles in Wal-Mart
• Recognize the fact that I only have time to play one game well at a time and that I’m already playing it (Command and Conquer 3 if you care to know)
• Think about the fact that there are probably only a couple of games for each console that I would find worth playing

Do any of you have similar problems?

* Yes, if it happened it would be the money acting of its own accord. I would have absolutely nothing to do with it. Because, after all, I would never do such a thing knowing that Young disapproved.

Photo by DCE licensed under Creative Commons

I’ve seen many personal finance sites recommend that when trying to keep a budget, you should only spend money in cash rather than using a credit or debit card. This, the common wisdom says, will help you be more aware of the amount of money that you’re spending and make you less likely to part with it. There’s just one problem. It doesn’t work for me.

When I go into a store, I almost always know what I’m going to buy. But on those rare occasions that I don’t, paying with cash is one of the surest signs that I’ll be parting with my money. The problem is this. When I spend cash, I inevitably end up with lots of smaller bills which are harder to keep track of (at least psychologically) and seem less worthy of my attention. So if I’m going through checkout with a loose $1 bill, I’m much more likely to get that pack of gum, or box of matches, or mini-lint-roller-that-I-don’t-really-need than I am if I go through with with larger bills and pay with plastic.

I don’t claim to know why it works this way for me, but it does. I consistently spend less when I use a credit or debit card than I do when I use cash.

What about you? Does plastic or cash cause you to spend more? Does it even make a difference at all?

Photo by Ian Koh licensed under Creative Commons

Young recently posted an entry asking those who have children (or plan to have them), how they intend to help their children learn about finances. Early Retirement Extreme gave some good common sense advice in the comments.

Very easy. Set a good example. Children will mostly imitate their parents unless the parents are completely unreasonable in which case the kids will eventually do the opposite of their parents. If nothing else, I think keeping financial matters hidden from children is a bad idea.

While this is excellent advice, I think there’s an aspect of being a good example that’s often overlooked. Even if you’re “being a good example” in the sense of doing sensible things with money, unless you make a point of actively including your children, it’s often invisible to them.

For instance, even though my parents helped me figure out finances in some ways, in most they just left me to fend for myself, assuming that I had observed what they had been doing over the years. The problem was that since finances weren’t at all interesting to me as a child/teen, even if they’d been balancing the checkbook right in front of me, I would immediately tune it out.

It seems to me that being a good example is much more than just doing the right thing when the kids are around. It also means actively showing them what it is you’re doing. What do you think?

Photo by monkeyone

Under current circumstances, there are only a couple of expenses that can really be controlled. First among those is food.

As in most areas, I would previously spend money on what I wanted without giving it a second thought. To help save money, as well as to help me be more conscious about spending, I’m trying to keep my food expenses under $100/month. I’ve never actually tracked my food expenses before, but I know that in the past it has been more than that. (Primarily due to fast food.)

So, with a goal of $100 a month, that means I can average a little over a dollar per meal, though less than that is good.

One of my standard breakfasts recently has consisted of one bagel, one apple, and one orange. Let’s see how that adds up.

Oranges are $0.33 each. Apples are $4.88 for a bag of 13. Bagels from the sale rack are about $1.15 for a bag of 4 or 5. So…

$0.33 = Orange
$0.38 = Apple
$0.29 = Bagel (assuming 4 per bag)

That brings the grand total for my standard breakfast to exactly $1.

In part, I realize, this is because I haven’t really been going about things in an efficient way. I tend to focus hard on one opportunity at a time, and fail to pay attention to other possibilities. My current plans are to send out resumes to the last handful of local companies that might could use my skills, and if I don’t hear anything fairly quickly, to apply with a temp agency. Since I work in the technology sector, I think it should be fairly easy to get a temp position, but I also thought getting a full-time job wouldn’t be that hard either.

Probably one of the reasons that I am inefficient in my job search is that I’ve never really had to do this before. I had to do almost no searching for my previous job, and it was my first formal employment. The lesson? Don’t be limited by your background or your personality. Where either of them are obstacles, work to adapt.

When I was growing up, debt never really affected me negatively. I was vaguely aware that there were times when my parents were trying hard to pay off credit cards and other debt, but it never seemed like it was a big deal, since it didn’t change much besides how often we would order a pizza or go to see a movie.

In my teen and college years, I ran my own business. Though I did incur a little debt for business equipment, it was an investment that allowed me to make much more money over the long run, and I always paid off the loans ahead of time.

Thanks to a combination of scholarships and income from my business, I never had to deal with student loans at all.

After college, I quickly moved into a technology related job that paid reasonably well, but continued living at my parents’, thus avoiding the expenses of rent. Because the job was a bit of a distance, I also had to upgrade from my old pickup truck to a relatively new car. At my job I saved, put money into an IRA, and worked to pay off my car loan.

Through all this I…

• Never had to deal with a loss of income
• Never had to deal with much in the way of fixed expenses
• Never had to deal with real debt

As a consequence, I had a very relaxed relationship with money, and just wasn’t used to thinking about financial discipline. If I saw a book I wanted, I’d just buy it.

Then came this fall. Young and I are from different parts of the USA. And despite the pitfalls of long distance relationships, we were in one. It became clear that if we were actually going to make things work, it was time to be close enough to see each other frequently. So I quit my job and moved, expecting that I’d find a decent job relatively quickly. That’s not quite what happened.

I think that our experience parallels the experience of many others who find themselves in debt in their early twenties. We hope that as we write about the things that help and hurt us, that it will benefit others who read it.

Of course, it isn’t purely altruistic. We hope that keeping this blog and posting on it regularly will help us keep on track with our financial goals, too. So here we are.