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I may have taken Labor Day weekend off from writing about personal finance, but that doesn’t mean my colleagues did. Here are some recent articles I found interesting:
At Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, Jim followed our recent discussion of paperless personal finance with an article of his own. He says there are two primary reasons to go paperless: it’s good for the environment and it saves you money. Since Jim writes a personal finance blog, he’s taken an in-depth look at 5 ways paperless personal finance saves money.
Jonathan at My Money Blog explored the idea of an adult allowance, a monthly budget allocation for each person in a partnership that can be spent with no questions asked. I think this is a great idea for those with joint finances. (Those of us with separate finances basically operate in this mode by default.)
Sometime when I wasn’t watching, Him and Her at Make Love, Not Debt gave their blog a face-lift. I like it. If you haven’t read this couple’s adventures getting married and struggling to get out of debt, you should check them out.
While everybody else was writing, I spent 72 hours purging books and cleaning the house. It’s amazing how a little elbow-grease can turn an old, messy room into a whole new space. Dawn at Frugal for Life happened to just post a piece about purging excess. She discusses the merits of “going cold turkey” vs. taking a more gradual approach.
Finally, if you’re frugal and crafty — and have kids in your life — check out the cool list of safe toys you can make at the CRAFT Blog.
.jpg "The Money Blog Network - Improving your bottom line")
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:45 pm
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I can’t imagine living without the allowance system. Would you have to discuss every purchase together? Or would you have to have some sort of allowance through budgeting, i.e. Clothing-Him and Clothing-Her?
For people with J.D.’s system, do you discuss how much to contribute to retirement savings, essentially leaving both people with an allowance anyway?
All those questions are to say, for us, allowance is the easiest way around it all. It’s really just another way of paying yourself first. Every payday we pay savings first, fund the account for joint expenses next, and the rest is fun money.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Ha ha…Harry Potter dolls are only safe if you think it’s okay to expose your child to branded items and to intellectual property infringement.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Thank you! I’ve been trying to think up something cool to get for a newborn, and the purl frog is simple and adorable… and will not be ridiculously expensive!!
September 4th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Thanks for the mention! Glad you like the new design.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
My wife and I have a variation on the allowance theme. We DO have ‘no questions asked’ funds of roughly $50 per week. This is the level we can afford without undue strain. She can buy shoes without having to tell me where the money went and I can wander around in Harbor Freight as needed. That’s what the allowance is for.
But we also have an agreement that neither of us will spend over $50.00 from the common funds without discussing the matter with the other beforehand (if humanly possible) or as quickly thereafter as circumstances permit.
Yes … if the car bails out many miles from home, you can call the towing company and get relief. But you can’t keep quiet about it. This is so that the other partner does not also try to access the same funds. It is based on simple courtesy toward each other.
The intent is that each should have sufficient funds to act as an independent human being, but that larger expenses should come from the “holdings in common”.
I suppose that, technically, that means that we have room to be somewhat wasteful … but what is money for if not to enjoy it? Having an allowance puts a reasonable upper cap and allows each of us to save for larger expenditures (last winter I held on to mine until I had enough for a 3.5 hp router, then charged it and was able to pay for that charge when the bill came).
This system works for us because it suits our joint temperament. Each couple needs to sit down and establish what will work for them. Possibly their circumstances and goals would permit of a larger allowance, perhaps a somewhat smaller one is in order. The key, though, seems to arrive at a number that both can agree on yet won’t break the bank. We, living in Michigan, actually find that sum somewhat generous. In NYC or Washington, DC things would likely need to be adjusted.
There is no good reason why a single person should not adopt an allowance system, too. Many years ago, when I had buried myself so deep that I doubted whether I would ever be able to come out of it I adopted an allowance system for myself and, just a few years later, was able to emerge essentially debt free.
So I celebrated by getting married.
September 8th, 2007 at 7:48 am
I would encourage you to have an allowance for yourself. I have always included that in my budgets, probably because I received one as a child, but it worked really well. It basically says that this money, and only this money, may be spent as frivolously as you like. Once this $50 (or whatever) is spent on comics, you have no more to spend on comics, or movies, donuts, books, whatever it is that is fun but unnecessary.
I think this is a good way to get in the habit of saving — rather than have only a set amount be saved, have your set amount and anything that doesn’t get spent in your regular budgets.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Here’s a photo of the purl bee frog that I made for that newborn. While I ended up spending $25 on materials, which was more than I expected, I have enough now for many, many frogs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/weathershenker/1388928680/
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 am
Here is a GREAT example of a large company doing their part to “go paperless”.
Play the UPS Great Paperkless Adventure online now!
http://paperlessgame.ups.com/
Created by: http://goinginteractive.com/