My New Driver - Cleveland HiBore XL - Wow - Plus, A Little About Money
I recently purchased a new driver - Cleveland Hibore XL Driver
The new driver is completely different from my old driver. My old driver had 9 degrees of loft, the new driver has 10.5 degrees. The old driver has a stiff flex, the new driver has a regular flex. The old driver has an offset, the new driver sits square.
The thing is - I’ve never really liked my old driver. It never really ‘fit’ my game. But, round after round, it stayed in my bag. And, round after round, I’d adjust my stance and adjust my grip and adjust my rhythm - but I never once played an an entire round and felt ‘good’ about my driver. In fact, I actually played several rounds and never took the driver out of my bag.
But now - I like my driver. I like the way it fits my hand and I like the way that it sets up to the golf ball. When I swing it, it feels like every other club in my bag. I can take my normal stance - right foot back just a bit and left foot flared - and swing. And, the golf ball just - goes!
Shopping for the new driver - and finding one that I really liked - taught me several lessons.
1. It pays to consult an expert. I went to a golf supply store and had my swing tested. I learned about lie angles, swing speeds, launch angles. It took some time - and I had to admit my own ignorance - but it was more than worth it.
2. Spending a little more now will save a lot later. Golf clubs are expensive. And, I paid a pretty penny for my new club. But, when I’m hitting the ball straight - instead of duck-hooking it into the woods - I’ll be glad I shelled out a few extra bucks on a driver that I can actually hit.
3. If it’s in the budget, enjoy the purchase. I hate to spend money. Even more than that, I hate to spend money on myself. For more than two year - yes, two years - I’ve had money allocated for the purchase of a new driver. Even after purchasing a new set of irons last year, I hesitated to spend the money and buy the new driver. But, last week, after yet another disappointing round, I decided to go ahead, spend the money, and get something that I liked. And, man, I’m glad that I did.
4. Priorities come first, and then ’stuff’. I’m debt free. I have three paid for cars. I have a fully-funded emergency fund. I’m working to fund five retirement accounts and three education savings account. Still, I find it hard to justify the purchase of the driver. But, I really, really like to play golf. So, in this case, I decided to reward myself.
5. It really rocks to have a cool spouse. Check this out - My wife and I were shopping when I decided to go to the pro shop to buy the golf club. My wife, who is awesome, not only ‘let’ me go, she encouraged me to do so. In fact, she sat in a chair and held the baby while I tried out various clubs. How awesome is that? And, to return the favor, I held the baby while she tried on outfits for vacation. And, instead of complaining about ‘how much the other spent’ - we just had a good time hanging out and shopping together. Imagine that.
6. If it’s the wrong club, it’s the wrong club. Move on. I thought that I wanted a Callaway X460. I like how the Callaway looks. I like how it feels in my hand. But, when I hit it, I ‘pull hooked’ every single shot. Thank goodness I tested several clubs before making my purchase. Whew.
A few more days and we are off for our vacation. I’ve called a couple of public courses near where we are staying, and I found one where I can play and let my oldest daughter and my son ride along with me. Hopefully, four or five times during the round, one of them will say, “Wow, Daddy, you crushed it!”.
Time Management And Money Management
I was talking to a good friend the other day and he mentioned that he had just picked up a copy of one of my favorite books, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I read the book a few years ago and I really enjoyed it.
The book suggests using a system of 43 folders - 31 folders for each day of the month and 12 folders for each month of the year - to help better organize the reader’s thoughts, priorities and responsibilities. (Merlin Mann, a proponent of the GTD process, has an excellent website, named, appropriately, 43folders.)
I mention the book, because I find that one of the root causes of poor money management is poor time management. Whenever I meet someone who is struggling with their finances, almost universally, they are also struggling to to organize their time. As someone who used to struggle with both money management and time management, I thought it might be helpful to share a few of my own thoughts on both subjects, and how they relate to one another.
Two Budgets -
I have two budgets, one for my finances and one for my time. I use the GTD 43 folders system to budget my time and the You Need A Budget
Priorities -
When my mind is filled with worries about appointments or deadlines or financial obligations, it is not free to think about things that really matter - like my family members or my friends. So, in order to focus on the important people in my life, I jealously guard my planning time. I block off a period of time, at the end of each month, to plan for the next month. I also block of a smaller period of time, at the end of each day, to plan for the next day.
Road Map -
I have a spreadsheet with a list of annual bills, taxes, expenses, and due dates - for items such as automobile insurance premiums, life insurance premiums, car tag fees, renter’s insurance premiums, etc. I also have a list of my monthly bills and their due dates. Each month, I use them to help create my monthly financial budget. Instead of relying on my memory, I rely on my written down lists. Using these lists, I am able to take much of the guesswork out of my financial planning. I know when my bills are due and I don’t have to worry about forgetting an important fee or tax. I also have a list of contribution deadlines for my various retirement and education savings accounts.
At the end of each month, I sit down to work out both of my budgets. I grab my list of annual expenses, my list of contribution deadlines, and my list of monthly expenses. I go through my 43 folders system and I plan my monthly activities. My financial budget almost writes itself, because it it based on the information from the lists and in the folders. This system allows me to spend just a small amount of time planning my month, and a large amount of time actually living my life.
Have you struggled to manage your time? Has this affected your ability to manage your finances? Do you have tips or techniques that you can share? Leave a comment and let us know how you are improving your time management and money management skill.
5 Rules Of Spring Training (For Your Finances)
While we settle in with new baby - No Credit Needed will feature a few guest posts from some of my fellow personal finance bloggers. (I’ll also mix in a few posts of my own, as I find the time.) Today’s post comes from Prime Time Money - and it should get you primed and ready for a great summer of personal finance management.
5 Rules of Spring Training (for Your Finances)
It’s spring training time in major league baseball. Time for the players to head south and get ready for a long season of games. In a similar way, we non-pros need to dedicate some time during every season to get our financial lives together. Why not start now? Whether you’re a rookie or an old timer (like NCN), here are the 5 (unofficial) rules of spring training for your finances.
Pitchers and Catchers Report First
The first positions to show up at training camp are the pitchers and catchers. Why? I suspect because it takes longer for them to get their arms ready for the season, and their ability to work together is critical to the team’s success.
When getting serious about managing your finances, whether it’s your first time or just an annual update, it’s best to start with the most important elements. For me that’s been (1) spending less than I earn and (2) ensuring proper savings for retirement. These, I’ve found, have been my most important players. So I focus on those first. Determine what the major items are for you and spend your early efforts there.
Start Slowly
Regardless of the position, everybody player needs to ease into it. There’s no point in going out full-speed from day one, risking injury and burnout.
The same is true of our finances. Don’t try and tackle every issue tonight, or even this week. That huge amount of credit card debt took a while to build up, so it might just take a while to get rid of. Make yourself a plan of all the things you need to accomplish, whether it’s debt reduction, organizing your files, increased retirement savings, or buying a first home. Work on them as you find time. Take a long-term approach to meeting these goals. It’s a long season, just make sure you have a plan and you’re headed in the right direction.
Go Somewhere Warm
Major league teams go to either Arizona or Florida for their spring training. I think they call them the “cactus” and “grapefruit” leagues. They take this out-of-town approach so that they have consistent weather and can be away from the distractions of their home town.
For me, I’ve found that I do best with my finances when I take myself out of my normal routine and comfort zone. Read a new and motivating personal finance book. Visit a quality personal finance blog. Go cash-only for a week. Mix things up a bit and see how that changes your perspective and provides motivation for a lasting effort with your finances.
Practice the Fundamentals
The key to hitting a fastball or making the throw to first is not natural talent alone. These players swing the bat several hundred times a day and make the same routine throws over and over again. Repetition of the basics is the backbone of any quality baseball training program.
Likewise, for your finances, practicing the fundamentals over and over will lead you to success. For debt reduction, practice the debt snowball. For short-term savings, try making it automatic. Most importantly, find the little things that are working for you and simply repeat them.
Have Fun
Lastly, another element to spring training in baseball is lots of fun, as evidenced by this recent at-bat by “Yankee” Billy Crystal. Spring training is filled with stunts like this, and the teams do a good job of keeping the atmosphere light and care free.
Personal finance can be a dry and boring topic if you let it be. Make sure you’re having a little fun with it along the way. Do this by focusing on all the enjoyable experiences you will be able to afford once you get things organized. Also, be sure and celebrate the goals you accomplish along the way. Have fun!
I want to thank Prime Time Money for this awesome post. I encourage you to visit Prime Time Money, read more about PT Money, and subscribe to the PT Money RSS Feed.
Getting The Entire Family Involved With Managing Our Finances
I like to buy big-ticket items - new computers, new televisions, new lawn mowers. My wife likes to buy small-ticket items - and lots of them. We have two children (and a third on the way) and both of them like stuff - bubble gum, crayons, toys, dolls, video games, etc. So, how do we, a family full of ’spenders’ - manage to reduce debt, save money, and live on a budget?
Me - Daddy, Husband, Budget Creator, Grocery Shopper, Planner
As I’m sure you can figure out, I’m our family’s ‘money nerd’. I like to crunch numbers, create graphs, develop systems, pay bills, and balance checkbooks. So, I handle the day-to-day management of our finances. I make sure that my wife has money in her checking account and cash for monthly expenses. I buy most of our groceries and I handle transfers to our savings and retirement accounts. I’m the one who casts the vision - and does the research - and reads the books.
My Wife - Mommy, Wife, Organizer, Social Planner, Household Manager
My wife is the best Mommy that I know - and a large portion of her time is spent managing our household and caring for our kids. She has ‘budget veto power’. I create the budget, but she has free reign to change it as she sees fit, based on the real-world needs of our family. (In three years of living on a budget, she’s never actually exercised this ‘veto’ power. We are pretty much on the same wavelength. But, if she ever felt that I was being foolish or difficult, she has every right to make a change. It’s not my money or her money, it’s our money.)
How we work well together -
Like I said, I’m good at creating plans - and creating a vision for our future. My wife, on the other hand, is great at keeping things organized and running smoothly. So, I spend my time thinking about the big things, those things that will help us one year, five years, ten years, and thirty years down the road - and I spend time, each day, working on the details of those plans. But, I also struggle to focus on the little things that really help to save money - and that’s where my wife does a great job. We’ve found a good balance between long-term planning and day-by-day living. And, we’ve learned the power of the word ‘WE’. We are debt free. We are saving for our retirement. We are buying a new lawnmower. As I’ve mentioned many times before, when you read the word “I” on this blog, feel free to replace it with the word “We”. Instead of arguing about our finances - we have have agreed to work together, living within the constraints of our budget.
Our kids and money -
I’ve tried, on several occasions, to institute a system of ‘allowance’ or ‘payments’ for the work that our kids do around the house. But, to be frank, at this point, our kids pretty much do what we ask, without expecting payment. As the kids get older, I’m sure we’ll move towards a chores-list with payments, but, for now, we just don’t need it. Our kids receive money from grandparents for their birthdays and various holidays, and they are free to spend that money on whatever they want, after setting aside a percentage for giving and saving. Instead of focusing on money, we are focusing on responsibility - caring for our toys, turning off lights, being thankful for what we have, and honoring Mommy and Daddy when they say ‘no’ or ‘yes’.
We try to avoid fixed roles, but we do know what we are good at and where we need to improve. I like to cook and shop for groceries, so I do those things for our family. My wife does a great job of cleaning our house and keeping things in order. My daughter is quiet, and she helps keep us focused on family things - playing games, drawing, watching movies. My son, he’s Professor-Inquisitive, and he keeps us on our toes - constantly looking for inexpensive ways to learn more about the world around us.
Frankly, we spend a few minutes, each day, talking about our finances, and then we spend the majority of our time thinking about ‘important’ things - our family, our church, and our friends. Once you take control and decide to manage your finances, you’ll be amazed by the number of issues that seem to disappear (or fix themselves). Now, instead of borrowing our way into misery, we save for the things we want - and then we actually enjoy buying them.
I recently purchased a surround-sound system for our den. I’ve been saving for it for several months, and when we recently took a trip out of town, I found the system that I wanted, and I bought it. Instead of worrying about how we were going to afford it or feeling guilty because ‘we spent too much money’ - I’m sitting here watching the Final Four in brilliant high definition and blazing surround sound. And, I don’t feel like I wasted any money, because I made a well thought out, researched, intentional purchase. The same is true about EVERY purchase we make. We have a budget. We live by that budget. We talk about what we are saving for and what we want to buy. We sacrifice for our futures, and, together, we make purchases that we can enjoy, right now.
Paying Bills Vs. Money Management - The Difference Between Surviving And Thriving
I’ve been working for almost twenty years. For most of my adult life, I dreaded ‘paying bills’. For three weeks, bills would pile up on the counter top - waiting to be paid. At the end of the month, paycheck deposited, I’d sit down to sort through the pile. After checks had been written and placed into payment envelopes, I would sit back, blurry-eyed, and think, “Man, what are we going to live on? I just paid all of our bills - and we have ten cents for groceries!”.
Sound familiar?
Here’s how I went from ‘just paying the bills’ to actually managing our money.
1. I created a basic, easy-to-understand budget. I use the You Need A Budget. system for creating my monthly budget.
- Articles I’ve written about budgeting -
- 10 Ideas For A Better Budget
- Budgeting If You Have Irregular Income
- Simple Budget
2. I had a heart-to-heart talk with my wife about what we wanted from our future. We both agreed that we needed to learn more about debt reduction and money management. We established a system for discussing finances and we made money management a family priority.
- Articles I’ve written about family and finances -
- Is it possible to talk with your spouse about finances without arguing?
- How I avoid arguing with my wife about money.
3. I started opening bills as soon as I received them. This simple exercise added a much needed element of discipline to the process. I struggle with organization and procrastination. I made a commitment to myself that I would deal with each bill, as it arrived. Three minutes a day, spent thinking about finances, saves me hours of worry.
4. I spent some time - away from the television - learning about various retirement, savings, and checking accounts. I then opened a Roth IRA for myself and my wife opened a Roth IRA for herself. We made a commitment to fund our retirement, thus ‘forcing’ ourselves to live under-budget. We also opened various other types of accounts, including Education Savings Accounts for our kids.
5. I created a super-simple method for organizing my bills and financial documents. If I need to retrieve a bill stub, I can do so in less than five minutes.
Not only did I put the above ’systems’ into place, I also had a change in my mindset. Instead of viewing myself as a paycheck-to-paycheck guy, I began to think of myself as a money manager. I now treat every dollar, every single dollar, with great respect. And, I’m willing to invest the time it takes to learn about personal finance. It’s amazing what can happen when you couple determination and a good plan.
Get up, grab that stack of bills, and deal with them. Stop putting off the very important financial choices that you need to make. Consider the long-term impact of your spending and borrowing habits. Open your eyes and see - really, really, really see - the bright future that can be yours, if you will begin to work for it, today.
5 Ways To Teach Young Children About Money, Counting, And Making Change
I have two kids (and a third on the way). I’ve recently begun to teach my four-year-old son a little about money. He’s a bright child - and he’s very aware of his surroundings. He likes to ask questions and he’s pretty good about applying what he’s learned in one setting to the questions faced in another.
Kids ages 3 - 5
More or Less Game - I ask my son questions like, “Which is more, 8 or 2?” and “Which is less, 55 or 79?”. He can count to 100 (sometimes he needs a bit of help) and he’s really learning to understand the idea that there are larger and smaller numbers. This simple concept - more or less - can help a small child to understand that different products cost different amounts. The bubble gum costs ‘less’ than the bicycle.
How Many Would It Take Game - I’ll ask my son, who loves Kit-Kat candies, “How many Kit-Kat packs would it take to equal 8 Kit-Kat bars?”. Since the Kit-Kat bars come 4 per pack, the answer is 2. He can use his fingers and learn a little bit about multiplication and division. I also use this technique when measuring water for a recipe. If the recipe calls for 1 cup of water, I’ll use the 1/4 cup measuring cup. Then, I’ll ask my son to count as I pour the water from the measuring cup to the mixing bowl. This begins the process of learning about fractions.
Help Cook Game - When I use the microwave, my son loves to punch in the numbers. He will punch in, say 35 seconds, and then stand back and countdown the seconds. As he does so, he’s learning how to move from a big number to a small number - simple subtraction. Once in a while, I’ll stop the microwave, with about 3 seconds left, and ask him to figure out how many seconds have already gone by and how many are left. He’s getting really good at finding the answers, especially if the starting time is less than 30 seconds. This simple subtraction concept will help teach him to ‘make change’.
Count By Game - This one is simple. We use pennies, nickels, and dimes - and I teach him to count by ones, fives, and tens. But, even though this one is simple - it teaches him much more than ‘counting by’ skills. He is learning, again, that different coins have different values. He’s learning that a smaller item - like the dime - might actually have more value than a larger item - like the nickel, or even the penny. He’s learning that 2 nickels = 1 dime and that 5 pennies = 1 nickel. All of these lessons, when combined, leave the child with better grasps of several concepts.
Toy Shop - My kids have dozens of toys, dolls, balls, jump ropes, and cars. I’ll grab a handful of dollar bills and some change - and gather ten of their favorite toys - and setup a ‘toy shop’. Each toy will have a price and my son will be given a certain amount of money. He then gets to pretend to buy and sell his toys. I’ll play the game with him, or just leave him to play by himself or with his sister. Right now, he’s not quite ready to grasp all of the concepts need for fluid transactions, but he is learning how to count, how to add, how to subtract, and how to figure out which items cost ‘more’. Plus, he’s learning some basic negotiation skills.
What about you? Do you have some games or techniques that you use to teach your young children about money? At what age do you think parents should start talking to their children about money? Do you wish that your parents had spent more time talking to (not at!) you about money? I’d love to read your comments.
