home » archives for money

Apr 1 2009

How not to win me back when I leave your company for a cheaper alternative.

category: frugal

A little while ago I did some research and discovered I could save a lot of money (at least for the first year) if I switched electricity providers.

With the way the thing is set up, I’d still be stuck with the same basic provider (they own the pipes), but I can choose a different end provider.

So I happily switched from company X to company Y and all went well.

And today I received a call from company X, asking if I had time for some questions. As I love to see how these conversations go, I said yes. Continue Reading »

tags: companies, money, things

Mar 22 2009

What not to spend money on…

category: decluttering, frugal

No Comments

I’m ~~a bit of~~ a compulsive spender. There, I said it.

Unlike others, I don’t buy shoes or clothes. I buy boxes. And organising stuff. Sites like The daily planner and The container store make my heart beat faster.
And Thinkgeek.

Oh, and pens.

And I buy a lot of food.

Only on occasion do I not use the things I purchase, this happens maybe a couple of times per year. I don’t buy 50 pairs of shoes, new skirts because they’re on sale etc.

But I am a compulsive spender and this has to stop. I have more pens than I could possible ever get empty (granted, drawing just goes a lot better with the right pen, but I have multiple so that shouldn’t become a problem any time soon). I have a gazillion (lovely) boxes.
No more buying food when I have plenty in my pantry. Make shopping lists and stick to them. Time to grow up ;)

tags: boxes, drawing, food, money, organising, pen, shop

Feb 27 2009

Indy gifts for mother, sister and boyfriend.

category: frugal

No Comments

My sister’s due date is the 5th, bf’s birthday the 7th and mother’s the 9th.

I’ve started thinking about gifts for them. I have budgeted some money for these and want to try and gift a nice non-expensive gift (cheap makes it sound bad).

For my sister I can’t really think of anything original, so I want to purchase a sweet little baby blanket at Ikea for 3.99 euro and then sew the name of the baby on it, to personalise. In all honesty I don’t think it really matters what I give, she’ll get swamped and I’ll most definitely get ‘outbid’ by his family. I have no intention of trying to keep up with them (I don’t even know them) and I do want to give a useful gift. I figured, baby blankets get puked on and dirty, she’ll probably have use for one more anyway. I like the idea of a personalised blanket, so that’s what I’ll do :)

For my mother I want to sew something, but I don’t know what. She’s a pretty independent 50-something year old woman who enjoys hiking and drives a cab for a living. She enjoys going to Germany with her boyfriend where they have a caravan at some camping-site. I’m considering sewing maybe tablecloths for the tables there, with a set of napkins, or perhaps making a fancy laundry-bag (of a recycle shopping-bag and some nice fabric, for when she goes out to the caravan). Not entirely sure yet…
Maybe something to pamper herself with, but what? (limited budget, willing to spend time and she’ll appreciate that)

Speaking of fabric, I noticed Ikea has some pretty nice fabric. It’s not all great and fab, but it can certainly compete with the store where I usually get my fabric. I also noticed they have nice cheap duvet-covers that I could buy just for the fabric. I thought that was pretty good thinking ;)

No clue for boyfriend’s birthday though… What can one give a geek that basically has all he wants and needs?

So far, I’ve only purchased groceries and have not let my temptations get to me, hehe.

Still not sure about going out for dim sum in two weeks. I’d like too, but not sure if I want to spend that money right now. Also noticed it’s pretty easy to not even consider things. At work we regularly have outings, that cost a little money. I saw the poster today and immediately thought ‘Nope, can’t do, No Spending Month!’
It feels pretty liberating :)

tags: gifts, money, no spending month

Feb 23 2009

Giving up.

category: frugal

3 Comments

Though I don’t follow any religion I have had a lot of Christian influences in my life (has to do with where I live(d)). Growing up we had Carnival (which shows I grew up down south) and only later I learned this proceeded Lent. Ever since the concept of Lent has intrigued me, not from a religious point of view but more from the challenge point of view.

Lying awake in bed thinking about that and my current situation, I’ve decided to participate. I will give up frivolous spending and TV for Lent under the following conditions:

I read Lent is about fasting but Sunday doesn’t count.
I will fast on TV shows except on Sunday when I can watch all I want.
I will postpone watching that Grey’s Anatomy episode till the next Sunday and nobody will give me spoilers!
I will go for one dim sum lunch on Sunday march 15.
Boyfriend and mother have their birthday, will spend some money on that as well as the birthing day of my sister’s child (not frivolous IMHO).
I will not spend money on anything else unplanned unless absolutely necessary, which means no booze, no craft supplies, no ‘fun’ stuff, no iPhone apps, no online ordering. Yes to medical things for me and Nano that can’t wait.

As far as I know I’ll start wednesday, which is exactly payday. It’s a sign ;-)

tags: challenge, lent, money, no spending month

Dec 17 2008

Financial programs for the mac.

category: geekery

1 Comment

Many people have written about this before, and many more will follow. What can I say, I couldn’t help myself.

I like staying on top of my finances, it reduces stress and makes life in general a lot easier. I won’t go into the psychological reasons why people get into debt and how to use psychology or blackmail to get yourself out. I merely want to give my thoughts on some of the software for macs out there.

I always look for the best software to fit my needs. I like computers and I feel they should make my life easier. Software can actually do that (and also make us hate it so much we want to drag it outside and beat it to a pulp).

I’ve tried several financial programs for my personal finance:

iBank (OS X, Full version $59.99)
Moneydance (OS X, Windows, Linux, $39.99)
GnuCash (OS X, Linux, open source, free)
MoneyWell (OS X, $49.99 / currently $39.99)

First a list of what I want in personal finance software:

Easy to use
Easy to set up
Easy to maintain
Easy to see at a glance how I did in a certain month
Budgetting

The software should also not crash and lot eat up my data. Saving my data in some type of file that I can access outside the program scores a lot of extra points. Exporting to .qif or a similar common format sounds good to me as well.

More points get acquired if the program works well on a smaller screen and older mac. I have a iBook G4, a bit of an oldie now, which still works pretty well, but I don’t need some fancy new software that only runs on an Intel with 3gb of ram. Personal finance software should not push my mac to its limits.

Behind the cut I will describe my experiences with these four programs and wrap it up with a winner.

I will do the following actions to judge the program: