Monthly Archives: February 2010

Newly Married? Here Are Some Financial Changes to Make

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This article is by Adam from Money Relationship. Subscribe to his site to get updates about his journey out of $150,000 in debt.

My wife and I got married last July in what turned out to be an amazing day. She looked beautiful, I looked stunning and we had a great time. The last thing on our mind that day was opening up a joint checking account or consolidating our auto insurance. However, as soon as we returned from the honeymoon, the focus shifted to getting things done. We moved into a new apartment and the week after that, I was heading off for five weeks of training. We had little time and a lot to do. So, for all of you newlyweds out there, I will make it easy for you and let you know what you should get done financially.

Talk to Human Resources

One of the first things we did was to add me to my wife’s benefits at work. When you have a life changing event such as marriage or having a child, you are allowed to change your benefits. This can save your a good chunk of change. I estimate that it saved us approximately $100 per month since I was on individual health insurance.

You should also change the beneficiaries on your benefits. Change the beneficiary of your life insurance and retirement plans to your new spouse.

Change Your Auto/Homeowners/Renters Insurance

Changing your auto insurance (or any insurance) and putting both of you names on one policy can save you a substantial amount of money. When my wife and I did this, I estimate that we saved about $1,000 over a year. My wife had a couple dents on her driving record and if she were to get insured by herself, it would have cost about $1,200 a year. Add that with my $1,000 policy and you are up to $2,200. When we went to purchase a policy together and they said our premium would be $1,200, I was shocked. I guess being married shows some responsibility!

Combine the Cash

People have different opinions on this, but I recommend getting a joint checking account. It forces you to keep each other accountable for the money that’s being spent.

Marriage is a team effort and your finances should be no different.

Have a Financial Meeting

Hopefully, you did this BEFORE getting married. Either way, you should sit down again and come up with a game plan. I recommend creating a financial mission statement. In it, you can set your financial goals, determine how you are going to achieve them and find ways to stay on track.

If you are bring debt into the marriage, the new living arrangements and two incomes can help free up a good amount of cash. Use that extra cash to pay off debt fast!

Update Your Wills

If you have a will or are bringing children into the marriage, make sure you update your will to document your new wishes. Obviously, as things change, so does your need for proper estate planning.

Well, there you have it. Those are the things that I came up with (and did). Can you think of other things that may need to get done or should be change with a new marriage?

Weekly Roundup: Vacation From Vacation Edition

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Last week our family took our first trip to Disney World. It was a great time, and while I’d like to tell you about all the frugal lessons we learned, honestly, there is little frugal about Disney. We did learn a few tricks that could help shave money off our next trip (and I’ll share a few of those in a later post). My only complaint about vacationing at Disney is that I now need a vacation to recover from vacation! Lots of walking, not much relaxing.

The Frugal Roundup

Small Human Regrets. Here is a great piece on how to raise your children without regrets. (@Brip Blap)

Can America Learn to Save From a Dog? Just click the link. I don’t want to spoil it. (@Lazy Man and Money)

How To Handle Requests For Financial Advice. Flexo shares some insight into how he handles dishing out financial advice to friends. (@Consumerism Commentary)

Manage Your Money Challenge. Brad is running a new feature over at Enemy of Debt. Head over there and check it out and learn how to win some great prizes while you are at it. (@Enemy of Debt)

Best of the Rest

The Art Of Saying No

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When was the last time you stared down something you really wanted in the store and walked away? Were you able to tell yourself no? How about the last time someone asked you for help, but you didn’t really have the time or money to help? Did you turn them down?

I struggle mightily with both scenarios – saying no to myself, and to others, but it is something I have vowed to work on. Not because I am mean, or unwilling to help, but because no is a powerful tool to protecting my family’s finances, and at times, my own sanity.

Saying No to Yourself

Much of the economic problems our country faces can be attributed to our inability to say no to ourselves. No to more spending. No to a bigger home we cannot afford. No to accumulating more debt. Why is it so hard to tell ourselves no?

As kids, we are quite accustomed to hearing the word no. I went through a very curious stage myself where I’m told I tried to get into all sorts of things. My mom joked that she was afraid I’d grow up to think my name was “No Jason.”

Then we reach a stage in life called the teen years, where we are told to still say no to bad things, but occasionally say yes (and work hard to keep it from our parents!). But the older we get, the less accountable we are to others, and the more accountable we are only to ourselves.

I’m reminded of a famous quote on the subject of integrity: “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.”

Well, to me this describes our decision-making process as young adults. After all, if young and single, chances are you are accountable to no one regarding personal decisions. This is why continuing to say no to yourself is so difficult.

The problem is before we wake up by the age of 30 with a spouse and two kids, we can do a lot of damage. I know; we squandered much of our 20s over-spending and accumulating debt on cars, school and other more frivolous things.

Looking back, I recognize we missed a great opportunity to get a jump on building wealth, and providing a more stable financial foundation for our family to come. If only we’d said no more often.

Saying No to Others

For some, saying no to others is infinitely more difficult than telling themselves no. These people are often categorized as “pleasers.” They put their own needs aside to please others. They are unselfish, to a fault.

There are plenty of good reasons to tell others no. Whether it is to protect your schedule, your sanity, or your wallet, the simple act of saying no often creates healthy boundaries in relationships with others.

In the personal finance world, one of the biggest problematic relational situations I see people get themselves in involves cosigning loans, or outright loaning money to friends and family. Obviously, when approached for a loan from someone you care about, it is hard to turn them down. However, if you are not in the financial shape to help others then saying anything other than no is to put your own financial well-being at greater risk.

Personally, I don’t loan money to anyone because I don’t like the idea of creating debt for others. We worked hard to experience debt freedom, and the last thing I want to do is enable others to owe money – especially when I might have to be on the collecting end of that relationship.

So, instead of loaning money, I give it away (when appropriate, and when I can afford to). This is a little softer approach than flat out denying someone help, and allows us to help a loved one with no strings attached.

I encourage you to resolve to say no more often – to yourself and to others. Do not allow yourself to become over-committed by saying yes to everyone, because that leads to stress. It also makes you less effective at the few things you really do care about. Identify those few things that are most important to you, and build your “yes” responses around those, while blocking out other distractions.

Vegetable Garden Planting

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This introduction to square foot gardening, or raised bed gardening, first appeared nearly two years ago here at Frugal Dad. I’ve republished with a few updates sprinkled in. With the weather warming up here in the south I’m itching to get started planting our vegetable garden, and plan to build a much larger on-the-ground square foot garden. Look for garden updates coming soon!

I recently discovered an interesting gardening method called square foot gardening, and decided we would give it a try here in the Frugal household. The founder of the concept, Mel Bartholomew, has a fantastic resource available in the book All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!

I’ve always thought the idea of growing your own vegetables in raised beds would be a lot of fun. Even if the cost savings are not significant, there are plenty of other benefits to starting your own garden.


Our first square foot garden box built in February 2008

Gardens appeal to self-sufficient, frugal types like me. While I won’t be able to fully feed my family of four with our mini-harvest, we will surely enjoy some fresh-picked vegetables to supplement our spring and summer meals. With any excess, we may even do a little canning. Gardening is also therapeutic in that provides something to look forward to, and is a great stress-reducing hobby.

One of the major challenges to gardening is our lack of quality soil, and frankly, hand-digging a gardening can be a lot of work. While I could rent or borrow a tiller to handle the job, I prefer the square foot gardening method in raised beds. Using this method, you control the soil content, and it doesn’t require any digging prior to planting.

What is a Raised Bed Garden?

The idea behind a raised bed garden is that you can plant fruits, vegetables and flowers in raised beds, above poor soil conditions. Seeds are planted in 1X1 square foot plots, and when harvested a new plant is installed in the square. Raised beds can sit directly on the ground, or include a bottom layer and be placed on patios, decks or porches. Because of a bad back, and a dog with a propensity to dig up our new plants, we decided to build a 4×2 foot table-top design.

Materials Needed to Set Up a Vegetable Garden

Material costs vary depending on factors like the size of garden you plan to build. For our first tabletop garden, we opted to build a 4ft. by 2ft. configuration because it fit the table we were planning to use. Most people typically start with a 4ft. by 4ft. design for their first square foot garden. I’ll share with you what materials I used, but keep in mind the pricing could be higher or lower depending on your local costs of lumber, soil, etc.

(1) Sheet untreated plywood – $0.00 (leftover scrap from a previous home improvement project)

(2) 2×6×8 pieces of untreated lumber – $7.38
Don’t get treated lumber because treatments can seep into the soil and contaminate your planting area.

(8) #8 x 3″ Wood Screws (or deck screws) – $2.94
Use these longer screws to connect the corners of the 2×6’s after cutting to the desired length.

(8) #6 x 1″ Wood Screws – $0.98
These were used to anchor the nylon line to create a grid system for the 1×1 planting plots. I also used a few to fasten the sheet of plywood to the 2×6’s to create a bottom to my container.

(1) Pack of Twisted Nylon Line – $4.43
I used this and the smaller screws to create a grid system on top of the container, in 1×1 square foot patterns.

(2) 2cu ft. bags of Miracle Grow Garden Soil (for flowers and vegetables) – $13.54
There were more frugal recipes here for soil, such as 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. However, I could not find the ingredients packaged locally and the individual ingredients bought separately at the larger home improvement stores were more expensive the bags of Miracle Grow.

Update: This year I plan to visit a nursery and pick up the specific ingredients suggested in the book. The commercial, pre-packaged bags of soil still have too many fertilizers, etc. for my liking.

(10-pack) Strawberry plants – $3.98
(1) Burpee Seed Pack Super Sugar Snap Peas – $1.57
(1) Burpee Seed Pack Tomato, Early & Often Hybrid – $2.47
(1) Burpee Seed Pack Cucumber, Burpless Beauty – $1.88

Total Start-up Cost: $39.17

Building a Raised Bed Garden Box

Square Foot Garden
It was my daughter’s idea to use popsicle sticks to mark the type of fruit or veggie planted. We will fill in the remaining squares after we eat another round of popsicles!

Since we decided to go with raised beds on a table top I checked the dimensions of the table and came up with a suitable size for our square foot gardening container. Four feet by two feet would allow for eight square foot plots for planting. First, cut the 8ft. long 2×6s down to size. Next, position the 2×6s on the table in a rectangular pattern, alternating corners to make the “inside box” dimensions four feet by two feet (I chose not to alternate corners because the table I was working with was only 45 inches wide, so I needed it to be a little narrower). Fasten the sides using the #8×3″ wood screws. If you have trouble with the wood trying to split you may want to first drill pilot holes.

Update: This year, instead of a tabletop design, we plan to build four 4×4 boxes to plant a variety of vegetables and flowers (for color and some marigolds to keep some insects away).

With the sides now fastened it is time to attach a bottom to the container, unless you are planning to put the raised bed directly on the ground. If this is the case, use some cardboard or weed blocking fabric to discourage grass and weeds from coming up through the soil. In my case, the container will be placed on a table top so I needed to attach a bottom to hold the soil in place. Fortunately, I had some untreated plywood I ripped to size. The bottom doesn’t have to be thick, so 1/4″, 3/8″ or 1/2″ plywood would do just fine. Fasten the bottom to the container using the #6×1″ wood screws (assuming you didn’t use 1″ plywood).

Update: With an on-the-ground design we will not place a “bottom” on the boxes. However, we do plan to put down some weed barrier (cardboard) to slow weeds from popping up in the box soil.

Plan for drainage by raising the box up a couple inches. I ripped a couple scraps from the remaining 2×6s and used them to attach four 2″ feet for each corner of the box. I also drilled a few 1/8″ thick drainage holes in the bottom of the box to allow standing water to flow out the bottom.

square foot gardening
You can see our vegetable garden quickly outgrew the plots on the original 2′x4′ box

Create a grid system on top of the square foot gardening container using nylon line and #6×1″ screws, spaced a foot apart across the width and length of the container. Drill the screws about half way into the top of the 2×6s, leaving enough room to tie a knot of nylon line around the screw. If the end of the nylon line frays after cutting (as mine did), use a lighter to gently melt the ends to prevent further fraying.

Update: The nylon string help up pretty well, but got dirty quickly and wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing a some more elaborate lattice systems I’ve seen.

I’m not sure what to expect from this effort in terms of food yields, but just the process of building the box, filling it with dirt and planting seeds with my kids was worth the $40. If the small garden yields a few fruits and veggies during the spring and summer then all the better. Who knows, if we can cultivate a good crop we may build more boxes next summer and section off an area of the yard so the dog does not eat our produce.

I think over time it will help my kids understand the true value of things. Those strawberries don’t just wind up in the produce section of our local grocery stores. As I pointed out to my daughter today someone has to plant the seeds, water the plants, harvest the crops, clean the strawberries, package them, and transport them to a distributor.

I’d love to hear about your gardening plans this year in the comments below!

How To Teach Teens About Money

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The following guest post is from Ryan, a high school senior who recently began blogging at The Financial Student.

If you have children in high school, you only have a few years left to instill solid financial skills. One of the best ways to do this is to open up your own finances. Instead of hiding your financial information and hoping for the best, consider having an honest discussion with your child about both the good and bad decisions you’ve made with money.

Here are some ways to include teens in your family’s financial portrait:

1. Give them a peak at the family budget. This will actually provide a realistic picture of what it takes to run a household.

2. With discretion, reveal how much money you make. This can be quite an eye opening experience! I honestly had no clue how much money my parents made until I was in high school and it definitely put things in perspective. There’s also little use trying to hide this information; you must reveal your income on your child’s federal application for student aid.

3. Don’t hide your debts, if you have them. By the time kids are in high school, they aren’t oblivious to how stressed you become when the Visa bill arrives. Be honest. Let them you know you didn’t always use credit wisely and explain what you want them to do differently.

4. Don’t be afraid to say no. Of all the things I “had to have” and never got, I don’t remember any of them. I quickly got over my desire or decided to start saving up myself.

5. If you still pay bills by check, let your child write it out. This will include them in your family’s finances. If you’re utilizing online bill pay, you can have them type and click. Currently, I sometimes “pay” our family cell phone bill and the credit card used for gasoline.

6. Let them know ahead of time whether you’re paying for all of, some of, or none of college costs. You don’t want to shock them with news on graduation day that they’re completely responsible for financing their education. Also mention whether or not you would be OK with funding any sort of business endeavor they’ve created.

My own parents have been quite open about their finances and I definitely feel it’s been a positive move on their part. Knowing what they did right and wrong will no doubt help my own finances.

Note from Frugal Dad: I’m impressed by Ryan’s financial awareness at such a young age. I was well into my 20′s before I finally began to wake up to my own financial mess, and it took another couple years to finally take action on improving my situation. Very well done, Ryan – you are well on your way to building significant wealth having identified these concepts so early.