One of the major mistakes most couples make in getting married is taking the plunge before they have much experience of living as individuals in the real world. If you know someone who is getting married or thinking about marriage, have them read this checklist. It might help their marriage become better than they hoped for or prevent it becoming a nightmare. » Read more: A marriage checklist
Archive for the ‘Money’ category
A marriage checklist
February 28th, 2010True cost of driving to work
January 31st, 2010One of the exercises in my Personal Marketing class is to calculate the cost of driving to work. I have decided to share this information with all my readers.
First let’s define some automotive expenses related to driving to work (Gas, Oil, Tires, Insurance, Vehicle Replacement, Vehicle Registration, Monthly Parking, Tolls, and Driving Time) » Read more: True cost of driving to work
New year’s resolution – don’t charge Christmas
December 26th, 2009This is a public service announcement. Christmas is coming next year on December 25th. If you start saving now, you won’t have to put anything on credit cards. It’s quite simple really. If you know how much you spent this year and you plan to spend the same amount next year, you can calculate exactly how much you need to save each month.
Example Scenario Part 1:
If you have a family of 6 people and you plan to spend $50 on each person that would be $300 for next Christmas.
Christmas Budget = $300 = (6 people x $50 per person)
To figure out how much to save each month you would divide $300 by the remaining months. I have created this little table here to help demonstrate how much you would need to save if you started in a particular month. So, if you are reading this post in February, you have 10 months to save. You would need to save $30 per month for 10 months to reach your goal of $300 by Christmas. If you read this in June, you would have only 6 months left to save, so you would have to save $50 each month for 6 months to reach your goal of $300 by Christmas.
| Month | Months | Save |
|---|---|---|
| Dec | 12 | $25.00 |
| Jan | 11 | $27.28 |
| Feb | 10 | $30.00 |
| Mar | 9 | $33.34 |
| Apr | 8 | $37.50 |
| May | 7 | $42.86 |
| Jun | 6 | $50.00 |
| Jul | 5 | $60.00 |
| Aug | 4 | $75.00 |
| Sep | 3 | $100.00 |
| Oct | 2 | $150.00 |
| Nov | 1 | $300.00 |
| Dec | 0 | Christmas |
What about Black Friday?
If you want to have the money by Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. You’ll have to step up the pace a little.
| Month | Months | Save |
|---|---|---|
| Dec | 11 | $27.28 |
| Jan | 10 | $30.00 |
| Feb | 9 | $33.34 |
| Mar | 8 | $37.50 |
| Apr | 7 | $42.86 |
| May | 6 | $50.00 |
| Jun | 5 | $60.00 |
| Jul | 4 | $75.00 |
| Aug | 3 | $100.00 |
| Sep | 2 | $150.00 |
| Oct | 1 | $300.00 |
| Nov | 0 | Black Friday |
Example Scenario Spending:
If you made it to your planned shopping date and you reached your planned Christmas Budget, then you’re going to have a Merrier Christmas, because you won’t have the January Credit Card blues.
Now for the final part, take your budget and divide it between envelopes for each person. Then when you go shopping, as you buy items for that person, you take it out of their envelope. Once, the money’s gone, you’re done shopping for them. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
New Year Resolution:
If you make any resolutions this year. Promise yourself to save up for Christmas and avoid charging Christmas. You’ll be much happier if you save up for it.
USB flash drives are getting really affordable
November 27th, 2009
8GB Sandisk Cruzer
The other day, I received an email requesting me to download some files for a special presentation. I figured there would be no problem. I could copy the files to my trusty 128MB flash drive and be done with it. Unfortunately, the combined sizes of the 2 videos reached 163MB. Needless to say, my poor flash drive was not up to the task. It stopped halfway through the file transfer. I had to find another solution. Did I mention this happened on Black Friday? » Read more: USB flash drives are getting really affordable
Christmas Shopping starting early this year
November 22nd, 2009Something is in the air. All of the sudden everybody is out shopping. What is this phenomenon? It’s not even Christmas yet. It’s not even the day after Thanksgiving day (Black Friday) yet. Black Friday is typically one of the biggest shopping days of the year. So, why is everybody out shopping the week before? » Read more: Christmas Shopping starting early this year
$100 Blu-Ray Christmas update
November 17th, 2009In August 2009 I mentioned that Blu-Ray players were starting to drop in price to under $100. Already there have been a few instances of this happening since Father’s Day 2009. The question is will there be any for this Christmas? » Read more: $100 Blu-Ray Christmas update
Blu-ray Disc Player for Christmas, around $100
August 20th, 2009This might just be the year to buy a $100 Blu-ray Disc player for Christmas. In one of my previous blogs, I commented that Christmas is coming to be ready.
DVD Format Wars
During the Blu-ray / HD DVD wars. I jumped on the HD DVD bandwagon because the price of the player was a whole lot cheaper than Blu-ray. I thought there would be room enough for both of them. However, that was not the case. Not too long after my purchase a winner was declared in 2008. It was Sony this time. It was a little painful to swallow for a while, picking the wrong technology. Ultimately, I still won as, I saw many popular videos in HD DVD format go on sale for rediculously low prices.
No competition
After the war was over, there wasn’t any healthy competition driving the prices toward affordability. It seemed like the prices hovered in the $200-$400 range. You had two choices, an expensive game console or an expensive stand-alone Blu-ray player. Both were way overpriced. Since the format wars were over I have refused to purchase a Blu-ray player because of price alone. I knew there was no reason why they couldn’t be more affordable. All they had to do, was remove a few expensive options and provide us with a bare-bones model that can play Blu-ray discs.
A miracle happened
I don’t know exactly when it happend, but I heard rumors that Blu-ray players have started selling below $100. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this. I had to verify this myself. So, I looked up some major retailers in my area (Fry’s, K-Mart, Target, Sears, Best Buy) At the time of this article I found a refurbished Blu-ray Disc player for $99 and another within $10. Pretty close for my book.
- K-Mart & Sears - Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player, refurbished $99
- BestBuy – Insignia Blu-ray Disc player $119
I hope this trend continues. I’ve seen several Blu-ray Disc players start to drop below the $200 barrier. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen around Thanksgiving. This should get real interesting. I’m still not planning to brave the crowds on Black Friday. But, with all the money we’ll be saving, maybe we’ll pay someone to buy it for us 
Christmas is still coming. Now that Blu-ray Disc players are getting closer to the $100 price-point, we’ll be able to find a deal this year..
