Mighty Bargain Hunter

Are any of your projects laughing at you?

My wife is designing, and making, a quilt for a competition. A couple of days ago she did a wholesale change of the design. When I asked her if it what she had planned to do was just too difficult, she told me, “Pretty much everything I did, the quilt was laughing at me.”

She’s a great quilter and makes great quilt designs, and this about-face wasn’t because of lack of effort.  She’s cutting her losses, and the new design is working much better.  (She showed me some of the stitching she did, and I couldn’t find where the stitches were until she pointed them out.  Really slick!)

I find that some of my projects are laughing at me, but they’re saying, “You took me on, and now you can’t finish me.  Hahahaha!”  I hear them laughing at me each time I’m driving to work and one of them pops into my head at a time when I can’t really do anything about it.  Having too many goals is like having none and what ends up happening (I’m finding out) is that none of them really flourish.  The projects grow so closely to one another that they choke each other out.

Cutting the losers out of your schedule is hard enough, but backing off from winners to pursue something even bigger must be harder still.  Those projects are laughing with you rather than at you.  J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly is looking for a staff writer in order to pursue some publishing deals, and he admits that it “feels like [he's] crossed a threshold into a strange and scary world.”  He is trying to avoid being laughed at by his blog as he pursues these other deals.  He knows the time commitment involved and is willing to risk adding a different voice to his 65k-subscriber blog in order to leave time to pursue these other ventures.

I run across ideas every day but still find it difficult to keep up with the ones I already have.  Too many of my projects are laughing at me.

Posted in Making Money, Organization | No Comments »

Carnival of Debt Reduction: Waffle Iron Day edition

There is still time on the West Coast for celebration of Waffle Iron Day.  My apologies for posting this so late in the evening.  Please don’t batter me.  This Carnival of Debt Reduction will feature fun facts regarding the humble waffle iron and the scrumptious breakfast treats it produces.

Personal debt reduction stories

• Crapped Out on Credit shares a very personal story of the toll that a gambling addiction can have on one’s finances.

The waffle is old.  It dates back to 14th-century Greece!  The Greeks at that time topped their waffles with cheese and herbs instead of syrup and whipped cream.

Debt-related resource posts

• Bargaineering explains how debt settlement works.
• Free Money Finance gives five ways to make paying back student loans less painful.
• Five Cent Nickel has some thoughts on paying off the mortgage early.
• Debt Goal discusses overdraft protection and its impacts.

“Weird Al” Yankovic is no stranger to the waffle.  (He’s not a stranger to much of anything edible.)  In one of his songs, he was convinced that he had to make a model of the Eiffel tower out of Belgian waffles.

• Bill Eater calls us to action, telling us to stop dragging our feet, and get out of debt.
• Leave Debt Behind has three surefire ways to raise your credit score.
• Credit Card Assist differentiates a soft and hard credit inquiry.
• Dough Roller lists hard-to-find 0% balance transfer offers.
• Canadian Finance Blog discusses Debtors Anonymous.
• Prime Time Money answers readers’ questions about clearing up credit report errors.
• Out Of Debt Christian has a take on MJ’s financial legacy.
• Ask Mr. Credit Card answers some questions about bankruptcy and credit.
• Debt Tips wonders why debt settlement has a bad reputation.

Waffle Iron Day breaks the monotony of the five otherwise waffle-holiday-less months between International Waffle Day (March 25th) and National Waffle Day (August 24th).

Generally good ideas to save money so that you can reduce your debt

• Frugally Green discusses energy efficiency, appliances, and saving money.
• Budgets Are Sexy lives like he’s broke.
• Christian Personal Finance reviews Upside Living in a Downside Economy.
• Money Ning recommends doing the entrepreneurial side hustle.
• Wealth Pilgrim shares the best, and cheapest, wedding present you can give anybody.
• Money Smart Life suggests not being lazy during the lazy days of summer.
• Savings Toolbox has six tips for saving money on life insurance.

Waffles with either peaches or spiced apples on top are my favorites.  (Please don’t mail any to me, though.  The thought is good enough.)

• My Dollar Plan reviews You Need A Budget.
• Personal Finance Analyst gives ways to reduce debt without tightening one’s belt.
• Almost Frugal asks how we judge success.
• Miss Bankrupt chats on frugal lunches.

And just for fun … the talk like a banker word search!

That’s it for this week.  Thanks for reading!  Please consider stumbling your favorites if the posts spoke to you.

Next week Rocket Finance is host, and the following week No Credit Needed will be hosting Carnival of Debt Reduction #200!

(Photo: Wallslide)

Posted in Carnivals, Debt Reduction | 6 Comments »

Wegmans is open in our area now

My wife had been counting down the days until Wegmans opened in town, and the time has come.  I grew up with Wegmans in upstate NY so we had the chance to shop there when we visited my parents.  The new Wegmans just blows away any experience I had with it growing up.  It’s insane what we can buy there now.

More options for grocery shopping is a Very Good Thing.  Ukrop’s has been wonderful, and they’ve treated us very well, but the selection and price at Wegman’s is going to be hard to ignore.  It still remains to be seen whether we can buy everything we need there for our daughter’s restricted diet (and my wife’s, frankly) but we can get a good bit of it.

A few fun facts about Wegmans:

• Wegmans began in 1916 as the Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company, in Rochester, NY.
• Wegmans currently has 73 stores in five states.
• Pricing at Wegmans have pretty much “done what they’ve said” even since the 1980s.  If an item was “buy one, get one free” and we bought only one of them, we paid full price.  The second one was free.  This is different than “50% off,” but ends up being the same thing if we buy two of them.
• Wegmans offers free or almost-free products with minimum purchases. For opening week in the Fredericksburg, VA, store, we could get free butter with a minimum $10 purchase and a Shopper’s Club card.  This week it’s peanut butter.  Good, useful items thrown in just for shopping a little there.
• Wegmans is in the UPromise.com network according to its website.  This means that we can register our Shopper’s Club card and get rebates for the participating name-brand items we buy.  Just set it up, and forget it. Easy peasy.

Posted in Shopping | 1 Comment »

Private mortgage insurance companies to the rescue

The real estate mess is hurting not only homeowners, but businesses as well.  Bad things happen at both ends when the mortgage payments stop coming in.  The homeowner of course loses his house and his good credit rating, but the businesses that were involved in lending the money lose out as well.  Banks may get the house back but this is an expensive procedure, and house prices are falling across the country.  Home equity lines of credit get sacked, too.

Private mortgage insurers have to pay as well.  These are the companies that underwrite insurance, usually purchased by the homeowner for the benefit of the lender, on mortgages for which the down payment was less than 20%.  Although insurance companies do have to pay out claims as part of the course of business, they don’t make money paying out a lot of claims.  (No insurance company does.)  So that’s why some private mortgage insurers are helping certain homeowners keep their payments current.

Businesses are in business to make money, and if paying $2,000 per month for six months while one of their clients looks for a job saves them from losing their home — which means they don’t have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the lender — then they win.  This is loss mitigation, and it’s a happy and healthy way for businesses to take care of themselves.  They’ll do what they need to do in order to stay in business.

The more I see of all of the mortgage fallout, foreclosures, whatever, the more I’m in favor of seeing the involved parties work things out to their benefit, by themselves, without subsidies, regulations, kickbacks, rate controls, etc.  It will hurt more, but it will be over with that much sooner, and everyone comes out ahead in the long run.  Try to subsidize and it will last longer and cost everyone more.

So if you’re behind on your mortgage payments, talk with those people who stand to lose if you default or are foreclosed on. They may just listen to you.

Posted in Real Estate | 2 Comments »