The Budgeting Babe

Burned by the price of wine. What would you have done?

2013-06-17T03:01:30Z

Running, fishing, and loads of good food. Can a Fathers’ Day weekend get any better? Not in my book.

My dad, fishing on Sunday at a lake near his house

We did have one problem though, and I wondered what you would have done about it. Some of us kids took my dad to a Brazilian steakhouse in Downer’s Grove for dinner on Saturday to enjoy copious amounts of meat. To give you an idea of the costs, the food was $42 per plate. That gives you unlimited access to a big salad bar, 15 types of meats, and some side items. This was an “expensive” restaurant for our family, but we were all pretty excited to splurge on my dad. Drinks were not included with the price.

As we ordered drinks from the waiter, we were considering getting a bottle of wine. While the waiter was standing there, I asked about three different bottles, all priced under $30. My dad wasn’t sure about the choices I picked (a pinot noir, a malbec, and a French red). He explained to the waiter that he wanted something sweet, and explained that he really loves sangria (which they had on the menu). The waiter said something along the lines of, “I have a sweet red wine that I think you will enjoy. It’s (insert name here).” He was sort of difficult to understand through a thick accent.

I asked, “Is it your house wine?”

He said it was not, the house wine wasn’t sweet.

He never pointed it out his recommendation on the menu, but since he had seen the prices of the bottles I was considering and I asked about the house wine, I just assumed that his suggestion was on the same price point.

The wine came out and I thought it was good. We all had some. We actually left a little on the table because not everyone loved it.

Then the bill came: it was a $126 bottle of wine.

I was shocked.

But I didn’t ask about it because I thought it was my fault for not asking the price. After all, we drank the wine. It was nearly done by the time we got the bill. My family wanted me to ask about the price, but I was insistent that we didn’t because I didn’t want to cause a stink on a special occasion, and also because we consumed the wine, so there didn’t appear to be much the restaurant could do. So we just paid it and left.

Now, after a nice, relaxing weekend, I’m sitting here kicking myself. I should have made sure the waiter charged us for the right bottle. I shouldn’t have been embarrassed to question the bill. Had it been a special craft beer, we would have been very savvy consumers and known the price right away. Unfortunately, we’re not wine connoisseurs. We had no idea whether that bottle retails for $20 or $200 (since it wasn’t one of the wines I normally buy). I should have made the waiter explain why he recommended such a higher-priced wine than a house wine with no warning. I feel totally fleeced by that guy.

In the future I will always ask for the price of a bottle of wine before I buy. I’m thinking of calling the restaurant and asking them what the bottle was so I can make sure they charged us correctly.

So, readers, what would you have done differently in my situation?

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Five Ways to Blow Your Budget

2013-06-14T21:26:46Z

We talk a lot about how to be frugal, make smart decisions, and meet your savings goals, so I thought it would be fun to highlight a few ways I’ve missed my target budget over the years. In the spirit of learning from my mistakes, here are five easy ways to blow your budget (even when you’re trying to be good):

Always a bridesmaid? Make sure you can afford it!

Pay too much for housing and furnishings. My rent was too high for what I was earning when I first moved out of my parents’ home. I spent two years building up a savings cushion, only to see that cushion gradually disappear as I spent more than I made each month. Your rent or mortgage should be no more than 30 percent of your income. Above that, you’re really jeopardizing everything you’re working for. My current apartment isn’t perfect, but my rent hovers around 10 percent of my income and allows me to save big for a down payment.
Attend many weddings in one summer. After college, a lot of your friends will get married. Sometimes, you’ll have five weddings or more to attend in one summer. You can’t very well say no to your close friends and family, so you agree to attend. Then you purchase a dress (an expensive one, if you’re a bridesmaid), new shoes, and some nail polish (after all, you’re seeing all the same people at each wedding… you can’t wear the same dress twice! You also purchase a shower gift. Then you spend money on a hotel room. Next is the actual wedding gift. By the time the summer’s over, you’ve spent like $500 to $1,000 extra each month that the weather is nice, and you have nothing to show for it except a feather light bank account. Even when you employ frugal tactics like borrowing a dress and splitting a hotel room, multiple weddings in one summer are a budget buster unless you have some savings to cover them, or adjust your monthly budget in some other way.
Take a vacation, and forget to plan for real costs. It never fails: you save and save for your annual getaway, but you forget to account for meals, entertainment, souvenirs, or the crack in the rental car windshield, for example. While on vacation, it’s easy to think, “Meh, what’s another $300? I’m only here once,” only to come back to a spending splurge hangover. Next time, check your budget from the month you took your last trip to make note of your spending patterns. Better yet, take your trip, then catalog your expenses when you return. Then you have a template for your next trip set up and ready to go.
Injure yourself. MRIs, medications, appointments with specialists, follow-up physical therapy… none are cheap. And is it just me, or is insurance covering less and less of these expenses? The only way to protect yourself from blowing your budget is to have a rainy-day fund set up for something like this. And hope you heal quickly.
Lose or break your cell phone. What’s that, you don’t have insurance? Your new iPhone will be $800, after rebate. This wasn’t that much of an issue when we all had flip phones, and trust me, I lost a few of those. But now that our lives are run by smart phones, it’s much harder to deal with the subpar replacements offered by cell phone companies for less than $100. I’m not sure I could stand to be away from my phone 10 minutes, let alone wait until my next contract renewal. The best option? Don’t lose or break it in the first place! But if it’s gone, keeping around your old smart phone for a few months or buying a used one off a friend might be a better idea than going without. If you don’t have that option, maybe try getting out for a few long walks while you save up for your new phone.

Ever blow your budget while trying to be good? I’d love to hear about it.

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Missing the Starting Line

2013-06-10T01:56:24Z

Today I was scheduled to race in the Espirit de She women’s sprint distance triathlon in Naperville, Ill. It would have been my fourth time on this course in the past five years. Unfortunately, I’m still getting over a nasty case of bronchitis and laryngitis and still on several medicines, with loads of upper airway and head congestion, so I bailed on the race. It’s the first tri I’ve ever bailed on, and I’m pretty bummed about it. It’s so disappointing to be in good physical condition but to be not functioning at 100 percent.

My concern was the swim; I couldn’t chance having a coughing fit or asthma attack in the water without access to my inhaler, and I also worried that with my ears being so congested (so odd and annoying), any water that lingers could easily turn into an ear infection. I do not want to be sick again, and I do not want to be on antibiotics again, so I stayed home while my friends completed the course.

Missing the starting line at a race like this is doubly frustrating because in addition to missing out on race day festivities, you forfeit the fee to be on the course. In this case, I think it was $75. Quite the cost not to participate. There’s no sense in asking for a refund, these events are non-refundable because whether I’m there or not, the race must go on. The supplies, the permits, the race crew, the photographers; they’re all there whether I show up or not. So I don’t mind losing out on the money; the production crew has a job to do and the organizers are clear about the no-refund policy. But seeing all my friends’ smiling, confident faces in their race pictures? The camaraderie displayed in the pre-race group shots? The enthusiasm on display in their race reports? I’m more sad I missed out on the experience than the money.

All that said, I can’t be too sad; I have a long race season ahead and now it’s time to transition from triathlon and focus on running. Marathon training officially kicks off tomorrow and I need to be mentally ready for all the ups and downs the next 18 weeks hold. In retrospect, I guess I’d rather have been sick before marathon training and be healthy for the rest of the summer and early fall. Time to focus on wellness and getting back to fighting form.

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A week of spending

2013-06-01T23:56:34Z

Generally, I seem to go through cycles where I spend very little, and then one week I go out and spend a lot. Last week was that week. When I go shopping, I don’t do enough damage that I go into debt; it’s all within my monthly budget. But sometimes I wonder if I could be saving more if I was a little more disciplined. Let’s take a look.

The Teva Wedge Sandals I bought for work. Super comfy. Waterproof. And expensive.

Here are a few random things I purchased last week.

$20 to check my FICO score. I’ve been a little thrown off by the feedback from the credit bureaus that comes with my LifeLock subscription. So I bought my FICO score, which had much better feedback for me.
$11 on a new very small wallet. It fits in pockets. This was a learning from my stolen wallet saga. I had previously carried wallets so big they had to be carried in a purse. Which meant 1) I was carrying a bunch of personal stuff I don’t need on me every day, and 2) I was carrying big purses, which leave you vulnerable to theft more than a wristlet or carrying your wallet in a zipped pocket on your body. I’ve been loving my wristlets, but my cash and cards inside them were always held together with a rubber band. Now they are a bit more official (and less likely to fall out).
$100 on a cable modem so I could skip the $7 monthly rental fee from Comcast. (I also spent $35 on cords so I could watch my Netflix on the television vs. the small computer screen. Helloooo Arrested Development season 4!)
I recently threw out or gave away eight pairs of shoes. I replaced two pairs of work shoes. One was a pair of black flats for a reasonable $39.

Not doing so bad yet, right? Wait for it…

A second pair of shoes; these were Teva brown leather wedge sandals. And they were $84. I bought them because I learned long ago that cheap stiletto heels are a no-go for me. I need to buy shoes with some support, especially when it comes to heels. But now that I have them, I think I probably could have done without them. I got kind of wrapped up in the moment at DSW.
$77 at Ulta (beauty supplies). This included a $23 bottle of conditioner which will last me six months or more, new eye shadow (unfortunately Bare Essentials is not cheap), two new shades of nail polish, and a new top coat. I always hate spending money on beauty supplies. And I hate that I buy expensive brands. But they really are so much better than the cheap stuff. And, at least I didn’t pay for a manicure!

One of the nail polishes I bought. Happened to be the same color as my water bottle. (Clearly, this is a DIY manicure.)

Then there’s also the usual stuff: rent, groceries, pet food.

I guess those bottom two bullet points aren’t that bad. I didn’t go over my clothing and shoes budget during the month of May, and my entertainment and travel spending was nada (we cancelled a planned trip at the last minute). I did a really good job saving during the previous few weeks, and most of my bigger expenses were pre-planned (marathon training program, for instance).

Wow, it’s crazy how expenses that used to be nothing for me suddenly gnaw at me as overspending. I’m trying really hard to be frugal and less focused on consumerism, so when I give into unnecessary wants vs. planned purchases or needs, I feel like I’ve cheated on me. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

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Advice for College Graduates

2013-05-24T22:01:26Z

This morning, a student group came in to talk with me about communications careers and social media. It got me thinking about advice I would offer to the graduating class of 2013. I can go on for hours about careers in communications, but instead, here, I’ll focus on financial advice for your future.

Don’t spend what you don’t have. Plain and simple. Step one to being independent is setting up a budget and sticking to it. Sounds simple, but you’d be amazed at how often adults fail at this. Buying on credit is spending what you don’t have. Learn to live on what you earn, no matter how little. Learn how to say no. And learn to be comfortable living within your means.
Save, save, save. Adopt a frugal lifestyle, no matter how much you earn. Sock money away before you ever see it with automatic deposits. Invest in a retirement fund. Yes, in your 20′s. It’s important to develop good saving and spending habits at this stage in the game, rather than be someone else’s mess later on in life.
Blaze your own trail. I have been living in an apartment since 2003, paying rent. This makes my family legitimately angry. A lot of my loved ones feel very strongly that home ownership is important. I feel that saving up for a down payment is important. I have a strong retirement fund and a lot of cash savings. I feel good about this decision.// … I didn’t drive until age 28, and I didn’t buy a car until age 31. People thought this was shocking. Some loved ones actually got upset that I would “put myself in danger” on public transportation. I made due just fine.// … And while we’re on expenses, man friend and I are saving up for a wedding, eventually. Which means I’m 33 and not married, with no kids. And I am training for a marathon, travel often, and love my job. And I’m doing great.// … Sometimes, people’s best financial advice, while heartfelt and well-meaning, isn’t what is right for you. Do your research, and believe in your own brain.
Determine what you value, and make it your true North. In college, I vividly remember doing an exercise where we had to rank our top priorities in life. At the time, mine went something like: 1) Education, 2) Family, 3) Friends. It was my signal that whatever happened, my education and family came above anything else. Now, many years later, the same exercise would have a different, but not unfamiliar, outcome. Nowhere in there would you find material goods, a big house, a fat salary, or climbing the corporate ladder. Today, I value my loved ones, I treasure new life experiences, and I value my health. The way I spend my time directly correlates to those. It’s easy balancing your budget when it corresponds nicely with your values.
Treat others how you want to be treated. In business, and in life, this is of the utmost importance. Don’t cheat, steal, lie, or step on others to get to the top. Be kind. Invest honestly. Live a life that’s worth living, and help raise others up, not drag them down.

Congratulations to the class of 2013. You face a long road ahead that will no doubt be filled with challenges, and no road map or course catalog offers a guaranteed path to get you to a place of happiness and financial security. But if you make wise choices, commit to doing good, and stay true to yourself, you’ll be closer than you think.

Here are a few other Budgeting Babe posts college graduates might be interested in.

2012: Be the heroine
2012: How not to handle your student loans
2008: The class of ’08 scrambles to find work

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Decluttering the Apartment

2013-05-19T23:21:59Z

Last night, I made a deal with myself that I’d get rid of five things in my living room. You see, despite my best efforts, I still have a lot of stuff lying around that I haven’t used in years, and every once in a while I set a little goal like this to help declutter my living space. Inevitably, once I get on a roll, five things turns into many more, in many other areas of my apartment.

So, tonight I got rid of:

7 pairs of shoes! (1 for gymshoe recycling, 2 in the trash, 4 to the Salvation Army)
6 books (to the local library)
1 hat (Salvation Army)
4 purses (family and Salvation Army) and 1 laptop bag (family)
1 unused swim suit and one pair of lightly used sweats (family)

Additionally, I was holding onto a giant bag of junk mail, receipts, and documents with personal data that needed to be shredded. A friend told me rather than shredding, he puts his junk mail into his bathtub, fills it with water, lets the paper absorb it, then throws the pulp away. Intrigued and eager to avoid time shredding, I modified the process and put the paper into a bucket with some bleach. It’s been sitting overnight in my tub and now looks something like this:

It’s a big mess, and I’m not even sure I can put this into our recycle bin anymore. Terrible. If I had more time, I could probably make my own paper with it, but for now I need to focus on cleaning up my bathroom! Next time I’ll stick with the slow shredding.

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Personal Finance Link Love – Week of May 13

2013-05-16T20:25:40Z

Now that my blog is back up, I’m pumped to return to reading other personal finance bloggers. One easy way to read your favorite authors consistently is to use a feed reader, like Feedly; another is to subscribe by e-mail (my subscription link is on the right over there >>).

Here are a few good posts I read this week by personal finance bloggers. I’ve shared some of these via Twitter, but in case you missed them, enjoy!

Frugal Beautiful: A creepy letter I wrote to myself a year ago.
Give Me Back My Five Bucks: How much should you save before moving out?
Money Under 30: Sell your junk for profit.
My Pretty Pennies: Home improvement- decluttering.
Eat. Live. Run.: I’m going to Ethiopia.
Get Rich Slowly: Financial advice for my former self.
Budgets are Sexy: My new non-spending tracker.

I am feeling very inspired by some of these posts. I’m also super impressed by the design of these sites; these bloggers are so talented! I wish I could hang out with all of them.

One last resource for the week; I also plan to share Dave Ramsey’s free guide to budgeting with my younger brother, who is just starting out in his first apartment on a tight budget.

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Meet Alan the Aloe Plant

2013-05-16T20:21:33Z

Sometimes it’s a nice day outside and you take a 10-minute walk to soak in the sun, and then you come back to your office with a $6.99 aloe plant named Alan.

In my ten-plus years of office life, I’ve never had a work plant before. I was drawn in by something a little more colorful, but without thinking about anything other than how useful this plant will be when I am sunburned, I snatched up this little guy and carried him with me. After I set it up, I realized my mom keeps an aloe plant in her window, and maybe that’s why I bought it.

At any rate, on a day when I brought everything I needed from home (lunch, drinks, snacks), I walked out of the store with $10.26 in unnecessary purchases, among them my new friend Alan, all because it’s a nice day. I’m such a sucker for good weather.

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Mother’s Day Spending Recap

2013-05-13T16:14:58Z

My mom is a fun lady. This photo is evidence. Here she is, doing a fancy dance with me a several years ago that involved her winding up my sash (it was attached to the bridesmaid dress I was wearing), then making me “unwind” on the dance floor. Clearly, we are tearing it up.

“The Unwind,” a dance move created by my mom.

Though she can cut a rug when the occasion calls for it, Mother’s Day is typically a low-key event for my family. We usually just hang out at my parents’ house; my dad cooks, my the rest of us watch movies and play sports outside.

This year, instead, my dad left for a fishing trip Sunday morning, and we children decided to take my mom to the zoo to enjoy the weather and allow her to spend time with her one and only grandson. So on a blustery morning that felt more like early April in Chicago, nine of us trooped to Brookfield Zoo in the western suburbs to take in the monkeys, lions, and bears. We spent a few hours there until my brother, his wife, and their baby split, and then the remaining six of us went for coffee followed by dinner and drinks. My mom enjoyed herself (maybe not at the level of intensity in the above photo), so I’ll count the day as a success.

Here’s how the spending went:

Gifts. I bought her a yellow flower plant, mums, for $10, a box of cookies for $4, and a card for $4. I included a future dinner and a movie in the card, so let’s count that as an additional $100. Total: $118.
Zoo day. We are zoo members, so no fee for parking or entry. We lunched at one of the zoo cafeterias, and I put lunch for 6 on my charge card for ~$70. I got money back from most of my siblings, but I’m still collecting. My lunch alone was probably around $12 for a salad, juice, water, cookie, and chips. My eyes were too big for my stomach; I only ate the salad, 1/2 cookie, and drank the water. I gave the rest away.
Coffee. I’m not sure who paid for my coffee at Starbucks after the zoo. There was a lot of awkward throwing of money at each other. Hilariously, I think the $20 my mom tried to pay ended up back in her pocket, and there’s a good possibility the $8 I tried to spend ended up stuffed somewhere in the back seat of my car.
Dinner. We had a lovely three-course dinner for six at our local pub for ~$215 (including tip). $36 per person isn’t bad, when you factor in that we all had two drinks each and my mom got crab legs. I paid for most of this meal because I was treating my mom and I owed my brother and his g/f a meal. So I paid$135 of that total. Again, there was a lot of awkward “YOU BETTER LET ME PAY FOR THIS” type of talk by everyone at the table. My brothers having full-time jobs is a new thing so none of us really are used to them having cash for outings like this. I will let them treat me next time, for sure.

Looking at the rundown above, Mother’s Day was pretty expensive. Especially when you consider that we took manfriend’s mom out for dinner the night before with his family. Since we don’t do this every year, I’m OK with this spending level. After all, if you can’t give your mom a nice holiday when you work full-time, what’s the point? There are days to be frugal and days to splurge a little, and Mother’s Day is definitely a splurge day.

I went grocery shopping later that night and spent around $150, so I will have to be very good with my cash flow this week. It won’t be difficult; we don’t have any events to attend (phew!) and our house is a mess so we’ll spend this week cleaning and hopefully relaxing a bit when I’m not training for upcoming races.

How did your Mother’s Day go?

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Quick Budgeting Tip No. 1

2013-05-08T16:24:45Z

It’s Wednesday! People used to call it “hump day” when I was younger, which was hilarious. Because anything involving the word hump is pretty funny when you’re 11. Then I found out the real reason had to do with Wednesday being the middle of the week, thus the ‘hump’ to get over, and that seemed far less funny. So to you I say, “Happy hump day!” where the hump is about the humping and not about the middle of the week.

On to budgeting. Here’s a little tip to get you through the week: If you feel like your financial future is one big mess, focus on things you can control now vs. those you can’t.

For instance, in 2009 I was spending a lot of time freaking out over how my parents would afford health care during retirement and what the future might (or might not) hold for me. But those are things I can’t control, and worrying about what might or might not happen in the future is no way to enjoy all the wonderful things that are happening around me right now — or to ensure my stability. Thinking about a million different possibilities that may happen 10 years from now is enough to leave anyone dizzy with doubt about the “right” investments, paralyzed and overwhelmed by all the options.

Without the benefit of hindsight, I’m too young to tell anyone what the best investment choices might be to secure your future. But my hump day tip is to focus on the easy choices you can make today to put you in control of your financial future when those tough decisions come due. For instance, set up an automatic payment system that sounds reasonable (say, $25 a month) for your savings account instead of haphazardly setting aside money when you feel like you can. Commit to paying your credit card bills on time and pay down that debt. Increase the percentage you invest in your retirement account. Set up a meeting with a financial planner. Start writing down your personal goals and set up a plan to make them happen.

You’ll never have control of the future. But making smart choices today can give you peace of mind and alleviate some of the anxiety associated with the unknown. Focus on decisions you can make today, then put future doubts out of your mind with a long walk or some other physical activity. Live in the present, not in distant future!

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