this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Wednesday was a less than stellar day. I planned on a quick well baby check up for the baby and then off to Monkey's tumbling class. Only that isn't how it happened. The appointment took too long and we weren't able to make it to tumbling.

I knew Monkey would be sad, so my mind was racing with things I could do to make it up to him. I asked him what fun thing we should do since we couldn't go to tumbling. He said he just wanted to go home and eat lunch (it had been a long morning - he probably was hungry!). Still, I kept thinking of things we could do - maybe stop somewhere for lunch, or at least stop for ice cream on the way home.

Here I was thinking of many things we could that would involve money when he was just content with going home. Why did I feel the need to buy his forgiveness? I was clearly more upset about the situation than he was and for some reason I was trying to use money to fix it. Such a silly thing when there are so many activities that he loves to do that don't cost a thing.

I'm glad I snapped out of it and just went home to make him a cheese sandwich.

I'm a casual coupon user. I use coupons, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to use them. I clip the ones that come in the Sunday newspaper as well as any that might come in the mail or come in the packaging of products that I buy. I used to print internet coupons, but I rarely do that anymore because it started to be more trouble than it was worth for me. I can't tell you the number of times I found a great coupon to pair with a great sale, printed out said coupon only to find out that the product I wanted was sold out. This always seemed to happen when the promotion was something along the lines of "buy 10, save $5", so getting a raincheck wasn't a possibility.

I recently read an article on the Wall Street Journal's webpage lauding coupon usage. I don't doubt that coupons can be a great money saver, but I think that the media makes them out to be more wonderful than they really are. This article claimed that the average coupon savings is $1.44 per coupon. I think my average savings per coupon is about 40 cents. There just aren't many coupons out there for the products that I actually buy. I tend to clip more than I think I will actually use just in case a great sale pops up. Still, I normally just throw most of them away because even the sale price plus the coupon is greater than the brand I would normally buy. It's important to note that none of the stores in my area double coupons (at least not on a regular basis - one store will occasionally have week long promotions in which they will double coupons). I'm sure this skews my view of coupons.

I hear people singing the praises of drugstore sales. I have yet to shop at CVS (but will try it out soon as one is scheduled to open in my area in the next month or two) and though at one point I thought I had Walgreens working in my favor, in the end it really wasn't. Besides, for me it just isn't normally worth the extra trip considering the fact that I have two or three kids in tow.

I do think coupons are great, and I do use them, but I believe there are many people out there actually spending more money due to coupon use due to the fact that they are buying products that they normally would not. Yet these people think they are saving money because they are using coupons and coupons save money!

What are your coupon thoughts?

It all started out so innocently. A dinner date followed by a trip to a nearby car dealership just to "look". But it ended with us becoming owners of a 2007 Toyota Sienna. It's exactly what we wanted and we're happy that we have a car that better fits our family. I'm sure there are many people out there who would be very content with a five-passenger car for their family of five, but we just found it a bit too cramped for our liking. Here are a few random thoughts regarding our experience.

• We feel confident that we weren't going to get a lower price from a dealer. Perhaps we could have paid less by purchasing from a private party, but that would mean we would need to find one and if the past 3-4 months are any indicator, the car we wanted just doesn't come up very often, or really at all. 
• Seeing that much money leave our bank account all at once is hard.
• We were very, very surprised that the dealer dropped down to our price. We were shown a car, we liked it,  but it was more than we were willing to pay. We said that it was too high for us, so they came down a few thousand. We said it was still too high, so they came down again. We agreed to take it for a test drive.
• We did have to finance some of it. Without selling the Jeep we just don't quite have the cash. As soon as the Jeep sells we plan on paying it off in full.
• I think the kids like the car more than we do.

Sometimes it seems as if date night is more trouble than it's worth. Though I love spending time with my husband, deciding what to do is always so hard! Not to mention the fact that it seems as if the things we mostly want to do involve money, which is okay every now and then but can add up when the date nights become more frequent.

This past Saturday night we had some friends who offered to watch our older two kids (free baby-sitting!), so we headed out to dinner at a restaurant that we had a gift card for (free dinner!), then we went put together the remaining balances on two gift cards and used that for dessert (free again!). Then, after thinking that it would be fun to stick to our gift card theme for the night, I suggested we head to Target and use the $5 gift card I had to buy silly little gifts for each other. But this was kind of a joke and a trick because everyone knows that you can't leave Target with only spending $5. We ended up spending buying light bulbs and apple scented shampoo and condition. Great gifts seeing as I am the light of his life and he is the apple of my eye. Okay not really, actually we just needed those things and found them on clearance.

Next time you're searching for a date night idea, see if you can be creative with any remaining gift card balances you might have. No gift cards? Try a nice dinner at home. Purchase some cuts of meat or other ingredients that you normally wouldn't (but are still cheaper than a restaurant meal) and prepare the dinner yourselves. Enjoy the great outdoors and go for a walk, or a hike, or play sport you both enjoy. See if you can find any inexpensive community concerts or lectures (if there's a university near you, you are bound to find something). What other ideas do you have?

This past weekend, my five year old played his first game of Monopoly. His first instinct was to buy up everything he landed on and that's exactly what he did. Though sometime this tactic can work, he ended up with lots of property and a handful of houses but not much money. On the flip side, once everything was claimed, I only ended up with four properties. This wasn't due to my stinginess, but rather my inability to land on something that was actually available for purchase. I didn't do very well either.

Real life kind of works that way too. Though there are always exceptions, for the most part neither of these strategies is very wise. It's important to find some restraint and not buy everything that's placed in front of you, but you do need to find some balance and spend some money here and there.

photo by rysac1

Two grocery shopping trips ago I purchased one bell pepper, but I was charged for 71 of them. Fun, huh? I didn't notice this error until I was waiting for the bell to ring in the parking lot of my son's school. Though when I returned the next day to request a refund (it was either that or request my seventy bell peppers) I was given it no questions asked, I was still kicking myself for not noticing it earlier.

When the cashier read me my total, I knew it sounded a bit high, but I chalked it up to the fact that I had simply started rushing at the end of my shopping trip and stopped paying attention to the cost of what I was putting in my cart. It figures that the one time I didn't do a once over of my receipt there was a large error!

Usually I try and estimate the total before I get to the register. I round everything to the nearest dollar and if the totals are really different I know something is up. It's easier than it sounds. If you have trouble keeping track in your head, you could always jot some notes down on your shopping list. Clearly, I didn't do that this time - otherwise I would have known for sure and could have had it corrected before leaving the store.

photo by bulliver via flickr.com

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This month's issue of the Ensign, a magazine published by my church, includes a short article on money management and avoiding debt. The following quote particular quote really caught my eye, "It takes great faith to utter those simple words, 'We can't afford it'. It takes faith to trust that life will be better as we sacrifice our wants in order to meet our own and others' needs."

I think that regardless of your religious beliefs, you could probably appreciate the connection between faith and money management. One definition of faith is simply a belief in something you cannot see. Sometimes it takes an awful lot of trust to put off purchasing something you really want. You pass up on the purchase because you believe it will help improve your future financial situation, but really you don't know that for certain. It takes a certain level of faith when you pass up one opportunity because you believe that a better one will present itself, one that will financially be better.

No one knows what the future will bring. A little faith that the future will be better can sometimes help you make those difficult financial decisions today.