techniques Archives - Page 5 of 16

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

December 15, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

As the New Year starts to loom closer (where did the year go?!), you may be thinking about your goals for the upcoming year. I know I am! Both my husband and I are curious how goal setting will go with a newborn! =) One of the things that people often make goals around are Finances.

I’m going to save more.
I’m going to spend less.
I’m going to ask for a raise.

If you’re thinking about those very things, know that those goals I listed above are TERRIBLE. No, it’s not that they are bad ideas. It’s that they’re written in a cavalier manner that won’t get you to your goal. Your goals need to be:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time Oriented

So, those goals would be:

I’m going to save $500 by June 1, 2011. I am going to do this by putting away 5% of my income on an automatic deposit into my savings account.
I am going to make a budget and spend $55 per month less than I spent in 2010. My budget will be completed and reviewed by February 1, 2011.
I am going to ask for a 3% raise by March 15th.

Most people want to improve their financial lot in life. You could always be a little more comfortable, a little less stressed and be able to go on a slightly more lavish vacation. But surprisingly, most of the ‘wealthy’ millionaires in America actually live very frugal lives. There’s a new book called “Stop Acting Rich … and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire” (by Thomas J. Stanley). In the book he debunks the idea that millionaires have flashy lives. In fact, it turns out that they lead very unassuming and unpretentious lifestyles.

They don’t have palatial homes. Approximately, 90% of millionaires live in homes worth less than $1,000,000 and 67,000 of them in the U.S. actually live in mobile homes. They don’t even have vacation homes. 64% of millionaires have never owned a vacation home. In fact, the typical second home buyer has a median household income of just over $80,000. Why don’t millionaires buy second homes? Simple. They understand that second homes are costly to maintain and they don’t want to be locked into vacationing the same place every year.

Interestingly enough, true millionaires don’t buy expensive toys either. More than 93% of the boats purchased in the U.S. are not bought by millionaires. The majority of American millionaires have never owned any type of watercraft. Again, they know how much it costs to maintain.

But surely, they must be spending their money someplace, right? New cars! They must have nice wheels! Wrong again. Eighty-six percent of all expensive makes and models of cars are driving by non-millionaires. The typical millionaire drives a Toyota (11%), followed by Ford and Chevys. And the average price paid is more like $30,000. Millionaires are looking for cars that maintain value, cost less to maintain and aren’t flashy. They don’t want to attract thieves nor do they need the cars for status.

The bottom line? Millionaires often become ‘rich’ because of their frugal lifestyle. They made conscious, smart spending habits to get to be a millionaire and they kept them long after they became millionaires.

If the millionaires aren’t spending like millionaires … then what should we be doing in 2011 around our personal and business finances?

You are Responsible for What You Do and What You Don’t Do.

November 10, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

What chronic situation in your life are you complaining about routinely but not doing anything about?

I had a conversation this week that I’ve had many times before. A good friend came to me with the same gripe I’ve heard for the last ten years, “XYZ won’t quit doing this incredibly annoying behavior and it’s ruining my life. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to see them socially and I hate my life.”

Wow, “I hate my life” is a pretty powerful statement. That’s a lot of power to give over to someone else.

The conversation didn’t end well. I pointed out, as I have for the last decade, that they have a CHOICE in how they are going to act and react to this person. I said what many wiser teachers before me have said: in a relationship, you have 100% responsibility for the relationship. You cannot control the other person. You can only control yourself and your actions and reactions in any given situation.

The conversation got heated. I feel so strongly about the concept of “Take 100% responsibility for your life” that I get worked up when I see people close to me in pain because they’re not living by this principle.

You chose to eat the last Twinkie. Every day. For the last 15 years. Now you’re obese. That’s not the food industry’s fault.
You chose to have that last drink at the bar. Every Wednesday. For the lats 10 years. Now you’ve gotten your license taken away for your 3rd DUI in 10 years. That’s not the bar’s fault.
You chose to buy the big house knowing you’d have to vacuum 6 rooms and clean 4 toilets. Every week. For the last 5 years. Now you’re feeling like you don’t have enough quality time with your family. That’s not the house’s fault.

I was in Seattle yesterday, dealing with their horrendous traffic. But, in sharp contrast to some of the drivers around me, my blood pressure was stable. I had prepared for the traffic by packing a book on tape, stopping at the store to get 3 different healthy snacks and had a full bottle of water. All around me, you could see tempers flaring as the traffic stressed and entire commute worth of drivers out. We were all in the same chronic situation – yet some of us were happy and others were downright angry and miserable. How you act and react to situations is a choice. Listen to yourself for the next week. Are you routinely complaining about something? What can YOU do to change? How can YOU control your reaction so that the situation or the person isn’t taking up so much space in your head?

No Fare for You!

November 1, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

I spent the weekend in Seattle with Ms. Kayla from Essential Wholesale. We spent the weekend eating (too much), watching movies (Conviction and Life as We Know It – Conviction, in my opinion, is a must-see) and hitting the spa for some (eh hem) research. Oh and of course, cupcake tasting. We ate 4 cupcakes in the span of 3 days. Even we were impressed with that amazing intake.

We were in the ‘big’ city of Bellevue, WA and delighted to walk everywhere. That is, until it started to rain. Then, we were considerably less happy to walk everywhere. We tried to find a taxi.

The first guy we came to asked where we were going and then refused to take us because it was too small of a fare.

We called two taxi cab companies. They refused to come pick us up because the fare was too small.

We finally found a cab company willing to take us for our $6.50 fare. He explained to us that many cab drivers wait in the fare line for up to 2 hours and want their 2 hours of waiting time investment to pay off big and so they won’t take a small fare when it comes up.

What if the cab drivers instead took every fare, irregardless of the size of the fare rather than sitting in the cab line and waiting to hit the lottery of the large fare?

What if you did away with your order minimum and filled every order as if it were ‘the Big One.’? What if you treated every customer as though they were the only thing that mattered? What if you kept the ‘Nordstrom Customer Service’ principles throughout your entire customer line, every day, all the time? What are the ramifications for turning away a small sale; what small customers are you discouraging that could be a large customer tomorrow?

Crucial Conversations Don’t Happen via Text

October 24, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Good friends from Mastermind Group (no, I’m not pregnant there and drinking. And no, it wasn’t any of them.)

Small minds trade on the currency of gossip.

I got my nails done on Wednesday to make sure they were beautiful for our SoapQueen.TV shoot yesterday. While at the drop-in nail salon, a distant acquaintance made an extremely personal comment to me. Surprised, I inquired about the nature of the comment. It turns out that she had heard some malicious gossip about my marriage. Not only was the gossip untrue, she even mentioned where the gossip had originated with.

I went to the source. I called a few times and in the interest of time, left a message requesting a face-to-face meeting the next day, stating the subject matter and my feelings (hurt, surprised, puzzled). The next morning, I received a … text message (!) in return. No phone call. No meeting. And no chance for dialog.

The art of having a ‘Crucial Conversation’ has been written about extensively (I’ve even written about it here). There’s even a book (recommend it!) that my Mastermind Group read. I recommend it. But here’s the cliff notes version of how to have a crucial conversation (and no, text message isn’t in it):

1. Start with heart – Focus on what you really want. Ask yourself: How would this look and sound and feel if I got everything I wanted out of this. Refuse to give in to the sucker’s choice of peace and honesty. Look for the win win in every conversation. Avoid fuel words like ‘Always’ and ‘Never’. What is your style under stress? Make sure that you’re not resorting to that.

2. Learn to look – Focus on the other person. What are they saying? What are they doing? Is their body language escalating? Are they moving to silence? To violence? Ask questions.

3. Make it safe – Apologize when necessary, contrast to fix misunderstandings, and brainstorm together to come to mutual solutions.

4. Master YOUR story – What’s really going on in your head? What are your feelings, really? What stories are you telling yourself (example: am I enjoying playing the wronged victim? Did I make an offhand comment that could have been misconstrued?). Determine what you really want to happen.

5. State your path – Share your story, encourage facts, talk tentatively

6. Explore other’s path – Listen, mirror (“I hear you saying…”), agree, build, compare

7. Move to action – Determine who is doing what, when, and how to solve the situation.

Meaningful quotes (to me) from the book:

“Every time we find ourselves arguing, debating, running away, or otherwise acting in an ineffective way, it’s because we don’t know how to share meaning. Instead of engaging in healthy dialogue, we play silly and costly games.”

“In order to justify an especially sordid behavior, we suggest that we’re caught between two distasteful options. Either we can be honest and attack our spouse, or we can be kind and withhold the truth. Either we can disagree with the boss to help make a better choice – and get shot for it – or we can remain quiet, starve the pool, and keep our job. Pick your poison. What makes these Sucker’s Choices is that they’re always set up as the only two options available. It’s the worst of either/or thinking. The person making the choice never suggests there’s a third option that doesn’t call for unhealthy behavior. For example, maybe there’s a way to be honest and respectful. Perhaps we can express our candid opinion to our boss and be safe. Those offering up a Sucker’s Choice either don’t think of a third (and healthy) option – in which case it’s an honest but tragic
mistake – or set up the false dichotomy as a way of justifying their unattractive actions. ‘I’m sorry, but I just had to destroy the guy’s self-image if I was going to keep my integrity. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the right thing to do.’”

When is the last time you had a ‘Crucial Conversation?” Is there something you’ve been putting off for weeks, months? Deal with it, this week (!) staying calm, open, and following the road map from Crucial Conversations. Here’s to improving all of our interactions, one by one. Have a great week, team!

Business Lessons Learned from Monopoly

September 29, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Sometimes, you can do everything right and still lose.

Recently, I was playing Monopoly with my husband. I did everything right from a strategy standpoint: I bought blocks of property, mortgaged all the worthless non-monopoly properties and proceeded to build massive developments on my properties. All my unsuspecting husband had to do was land on any one of my three building developments and the game would be over.

Alas, I did not factor for chance.

Because I had built my hotels quickly, I had no money left and nothing left to mortgage. But this wasn’t a worry. I had all the developments and he had nothing. I was like a passive spider waiting for the fly to just happen upon its web. Unfortunately, the luck of the dice was with my husband because he literally passed by my housing developments over 20 times. He hit the “chance” island in the middle of my housing developments more times than seemed possible.

Now, really, what are the chances of that?

3.9% chance of landing on any 1 square in any 1 rotation to the 20th power. Or taking it even further, there were 4 safe squares that he bypassed 20 times (out of 10 squares). The chances of this are 1 in 100 million (.4 to the 20th). Meanwhile, I kept playing the game, landing on his $18 and $50 rent properties and managing to land on every “luxury tax” and “income tax” square there was and picking every “you owe the bank $240” community chest card possible.

How is it that I had 3 hotels, two complete monopolies yet ended up losing the game? Luck. Stinking stupid luck.

I listened to Jim Collins speak a few months ago. He said that one of the ways great companies fall is they begin to discount the role that luck has played in their rise to the top. Once that happens, ego and hubris quickly set in and you begin making decisions, forgetting that you were lucky to get where you are.

I was lucky to land on the monopolies. It wasn’t skill. It wasn’t my smarts. It wasn’t anything but luck. But then, I discounted the role of the roll and started counting on my strategy to save me.

My business lesson take-aways from the disastrous Monopoly game centered around luck, blessings and planning. Think of the ways that luck has favored you and then think of the ways you can be prepared if luck does not favor you.

At the same time, count your blessings. It is so important to be thankful for that which you have done nothing to earn (born in the US, democratic government, women that can vote, fill in the blank)

Finally, prepare as though the worst will hit you. Those who prepared in the last recession had cash for opportunities and for waiting the economy out. Don’t mortgage all your properties like I did, leaving yourself with no out, should the worst hit and luck desert you.

Make Like a Tree and Leaf

September 16, 2010 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Melt & Pour Soap

I’ve been itching to try these One-Time-Use soap leaves for the longest time. I just whipped them up this morning. Really. Just made them. Super easy. Although, no one has to know exactly how easy they really are. You don’t have to soap and tell!

Ingredients

Clear Melt and Pour

Orange Spice Fragrance Oil

Water Soluble Paper

Fall Leaves PDF

Buy everything you need for this project in one click!

ONE: Download this PDF file of leaves. Print them on any type of color printer onto Water Soluble Paper. Then cut the images out with scissors. Leave a little piece of the white to use as a handle when we’re dipping the leaves.

Hint: Remember that leaves are not perfect and often misshaped so don’t spend too much time cutting around every nook and cranny.

TWO: Tear off a strip of wax paper or butcher paper and tape it to a hard surface, shiny side up. This is going to be our drying rack.

THREE: Melt 2-3 ounces of clear soap base and mix in your fragrance oil of choice (I chose Orange Spice for Fall- refreshing, spicy and delicious).

Other Fall Favorites: Red Apple, Pumpkin Spice, Turkish Mocha, Chai Tea, Ginger Pear, Sandalwood Vanilla.

FOUR: Hold a paper leaf by the “handle” and dip the entire leaf into the melted soap base. Then place the soaked leaf on your wax paper to let dry.

FIVE: Once the leaves are cool, peel them off by the handle. Use your scissors to snip off the handle and trim up the edges with a craft knife or your fingers. Some leaves might have a little extra soap on the edges while others will look perfect!

SIX: Put the leaves in a little bowl by the bathroom sink. Each guest will have their own individual soap to use!

Hand Washing Advice from the Soap Queen: Experts say that you should keep a good lather for about 30 seconds or as long as it takes you to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. These leafy soaps will last for the perfect (and recommended) amount of hand washing time.

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

August 23, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

You’ve heard that term right? “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”? I think it was even their official promotional line at one point. Sure, it’s a funny line. And it gives soon-to-be-marrieds the excuse to get liquored up, wild, happy and craaaaazeeee in Vegas where apparently, all bets are off (or on, depending on your preference).

The thing about life is that:

how you do anything is how you do everything.

How you do the little things is how you do the big things. If you’re dishonest in one area of your life, you’re dishonest in other areas. If you’re lazy about one thing, you’ll be lazy about another thing. If you can’t share your authentic feelings at work, you don’t share your authentic feelings at home either.

Little things matter. How you live every moment of your life matters. If there’s one area of your life where you’re embarrassed about, think about the characteristcs and traits that make that little embarrassing part possible. Where else in your life do those characteristics hold you back? What little changes did you vow to make in January of this year that haven’t happened? How can you get yourself back on track and make a simple course correction?

How did you do on the ‘Tell Me More‘ challenge? I’ve almost got it incorporated fully into my life without even thinking about it now. So, how about another challenge? For the next 30 days, pick one trait that doesn’t serve you and start making the steps to change it. Baby steps in the right direction lead to momentous change over time.

Listening as an Act of Love

July 6, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Listen to your heart
Originally uploaded by Ana Luiza Santana

One of my challenges as a leader is listening. Listening has all kinds of benefits within an organization – engenders respect, helps solve problems faster, makes the team member feel valued, encourages active participation, helps with accuracy. This is clearly a skill I want to improve at.

I’m a fast talker and my brain pings from thing to thing more quickly than a parakeeet on caffeine. This often leads to me finishing other peoples’ sentances (of course I know what they’re going to say!), talking over others or not completely listening because I’m forming my next thought while they’re still talking.

None of this is good if you’re a wife, a friend, a daughter or a boss. I’ve been working with a business coach (Shandel Slaten from True Life Coaching) on improving my listening skills with small baby steps because WOW change happens with small, incremental movement daily. One of my personal goals for the month is to use the phrase, “Tell me more....” at least once per day (and then, to be quiet!).

Want to become a better listener? Join me in this! 30 days of saying “Tell me more…” at least once per day to improve our listening skills and by default, all of our relationships.

PS – If you’re reading this in your email or through a reader, click through to check out our summery updated Soap Queen header. It’s short-sleeve season!

Your Number One Job

June 30, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Online Stock Trades – Sell or Buy
Originally uploaded by lastnychero

Are you self employed? Your number one job for your company is sales – creating revenue. Sales is a full time job and when you’re the owner, the buck always stops with you. Even if you have sales people, your number one goal and job is creating cash for your company.

I think the number one quality that make a small business owner successful at prospecting and sales is PERSISTENCE. You can’t take the first ‘no’ for an answer. You just say, “Golly gee, that’s more information than I had before and every no leads me closer to the yes.” Then, you move on to the next prospect and keep working your way through your list.

The next quality that is important is FOLLOW-THROUGH. That first prospect that said “No”? Make sure you contact them again in 6 weeks – not with a sales pitch necessarily, just with a simple message of “Hi, hello, here’s something I found interesting” and make that ‘interesting’ thing something they really would find interesting. If it’s a blog post, an industry magazine article or even a new product debut in a category you’re not in – just something that keeps you top of mind in their head AND gets them to identify you as helpful (not always pitching and wanting something).

The final quality for making sales as an entrepreneur is CURIOSITY. Why didn’t you get that sale? You genuinely want to know (and not in a salesy-sales way – you really really are curious). The phrase “Under what circumstances would you put my soap in your shop?” must become your friend. There is no way around it – you’ve got to ask the tough questions, “Why didn’t I get the sale? How can I improve? And, under what circumstances would you consider giving me the sale?”

What’s holding YOU back from creating the company of your dreams, with revenue flowing in from multiple stores and sources? Get honest with yourself and make a plan to overcome your fear of selling. Your company can’t succeed without YOU out there selling every single day.

You Are the Media! GO!

May 2, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Donna Maria from Indie Business Network just finished an incredible talk on social media and how we can best benefit from it as small businesses.

Some key take aways:

If you do not embrace technology and systemize it for your business, you will not be profitable in 2 years.

Social media is FUN stuff because you get to talk about things that you LOVE. People want to connect with people who LOVE what they do. “You’re not just selling soap. You’re selling emotional connection and memories”.

If Donna Maria could pick only two social media mediums to use, she would choose a BLOG and a NEWSLETTER. Why? Because those are the only two mediums that you OWN. You control that. You don’t have to worry that someone (Twitter, Facebook) is going to change the rules and your social media outlet will be gone.

This isn’t hard. Talk about what you know. Talk about what you love. Interview people. Show your herb garden. Talk about cooking, your family – just whatever you do, start to make a connection. The beautiful thing about having products is that you don’t even have to be on camera.

Use the tools. Get the gadgets. Let technology make this easier for you. Podcast software costs $20. You can get a Vado digital video for under $80.

Thank you Donna Maria the presentation. Now, what are YOU waiting for? Go claim your blog, start your email newsletter and start broadcasting YOUR message to the world!

But, I Can’t Do That!

April 25, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Greetings happy SoapQueen team – I hope you’re having a great weekend. I know I am. It’s a rare weekend in Bellingham without a billion things scheduled. I’ve had the luxury of a great 90 minute ‘flow’ Power Vinyasa Yoga – Level II class (which was the opposite of relaxing), Farmer’s Market cupcakes (spiced apple with caramel buttercream frosting), lunch with a friend (at the incredible Old World Deli in Bellingham) and I made great progress on my book club book, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. All in all, an excellent first day in a fantastic weekend.

As I was going about my incredibly luxurious day yesterday, I kept thinking about a lesson I learned at the Jack Canfield event last month. Jack asked us to partner up and then tell our partner about all the things that we can’t seem to get done in our lives.

“I can’t find enough time to get 8 hours of sleep”

“I can’t seem to devote time for my hobbies.”

“I can’t quit speeding on the freeway.”

Each partner had a minute to describe all of their ‘can’ts’. And then Jack said, “Now, put ‘won’t’ in place of can’t and repeat all those to your partner.”

“I WON’T find enough time to get 8 hours of sleep”

“I WON’T devote time for my hobbies.”

“I WON’T quit speeding on the freeway.”

Ouch.

Just changing that simple word gave each and every person in my group a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach. Because, who controls the outcome of your situation? You do. If you’re not fully taking 100% responsibility for your situation, where you are at in life, how your life ebbs and flows around you, it’s true… you WON’T make the changes you need to. It’s not a ‘can’t’ anymore; it’s a ‘won’t.’

That lesson stuck with me. Now, every time I catch myself saying “I can’t,” I ask myself, “Is this a can’t or a won’t“. It has forced me to get more honest with myself and the areas in my life where I tend to cop out and not hold myself accountable.

Try exchanging those two words in your life; you’ll be surprised at what comes up.

Take 100% Responsibility

April 21, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

I recently attended a 1 day Jack Canfield seminar. Jack Canfield is the author of countless books (including the Chicken Soup for the Soul series) but my favorite book he has written is ‘The Success Principles’. Reading and doing all the exercises from that book is like a crash course MBA. When he came to Seattle, my entire Mastermind Business Group signed up for a table and spent a full day learning from Jack. He is an excellent speaker – humble, enigmatic and thought-provoking all in one – so spending from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in a hotel conference room was not a hardship.

Erin Baker from Baker’s Breakfast Cookies with Jack

The first lesson he drilled into our heads was that we must take 100% responsibility for our lives. This means that when something goes wrong, instead of immediately blaming (“It’s Mary’s fault! If she had just finished writing up the description for Monkey Love on Friday, we could have had that fragrance up in time for the weekend!”), we should stop, take a deep breath and ask “What was my part in this? How could I have changed things?“

Jack taught us the following formula:

E + R = O

where E is Event, R is Response and O is Outcome.

Event + Response = Outcome

Simply put, every outcome we have in our life can be controlled by our response to the initial event.

Event: You present your products to a store, only to be turned down.
Response: You say “Thanks” and walk away.
Outcome: You have no wholesale account.
Event: You present your products to a store, only to be turned down.
Response: You say “Thank you. Under what circumstances would you consider adding my line?”
Outcome: The manager tells you “Well, you don’t have any fragrances I like. If you had fragrances I liked, I’d add the line.” You rework your fragrances and add an account.

Quoting directly from Jack Canfield:

The truth is…when confronted with a negative event, successful people look for ways to transform that negative into an opportunity for achievement and greater success.

They simply respond differently.

Think about almost every negative thing in your life. What is your part in the situation? How can you change your internal dialog to constantly say “I accept responsibility for this situation. What action steps can I take now to prevent this same outcome in the future?” After all, don’t we all want to lead lives of distinction with boundless joy, unbridled optimism and endless resources? Taking responsibility and recognizing that we can change each and every situation is the first step.

Rules for a Turnaround

April 3, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Alaska Airlines
Originally uploaded by smenzel

Last week, I attended a talk put on by Western Washington University Business Forum. The guest speaker was a superstar CEO, William S. Ayer, the leader in charge of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. And, he was a superstar speaker. His message was spot-on and his delivery was engaging. I took detailed notes so I could share them with you.

After 9/11, there was a lot of changes that Alaska needed to make in order to be a profitable and Mr. Ayer had to be the one to lead the charge. He told the audience that initially, he didn’t get much feedback that the changes he was making was right. The advice he gave for managing change was practical, “Hang in there! It’s easy to defend the status quo. We are always in a state of change and the leaders who are going to thrive are the leaders that can change.” He said that Alaska Airlines was “still in transformation. Change is a core skill at a company like Alaska.” They have something to be proud about with their 10,000 employee company – six straight years of profitability. (Can I get a woot woot!?)

To create transformational change within your organization, he shared the following ‘rules’:

1. Get the right people on the bus. Make sure that your team is all the best and remember that the tone at the top (the leaders, especially the CEO) is important.

2. Create a sense of urgency. At Alaska, they had $200million of losses in 2 years. This created a natural sense of urgency. Figure out who your opinion leaders are and make sure they are on board with you.

3. Focus on one or two big ideas. Identify those two big ideas and then design metrics around them so you can measure them and have accountability for success.

4. What you measure gets done!

5. Be clear about goals. Everybody wants to win. Give them a roadmap to do so.

6. Be totally and completely customer focused. The customer decides on how successful a business is. Treat them right.

7. Don’t confuse being popular with doing the right thing.

8. Develop win-win partnerships.

He ended with his common sense philosophy on business management:

Don’t buy things you can’t afford.

Don’t borrow money you can’t pay back.

Don’t do deals you can’t understand.

If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

Money Wi$e Honorable Mentions

April 2, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Yesterday, I announced the winner of the Money Wi$e contest. It was a totally random contest so I didn’t get to play favorites with the answers. I had asked participants to leave a comment on the blog and share their best money saving tips (for our current eh hem, challenging economic situation). There were so many great money saving tips that I had to share a couple of my favorites…

Denette: Budgeting and money management has been a topic on my mind a lot lately and was so excited to see your post about it!! Here are a few tips that have really helped me:

1 – I will echo a few others here and suggest making your own meals including lunch for work. When my husband was in grad school we went 9 months without eating out! This was difficult in the beginning with our “date nights” but once a week I made a special dinner and ate by candlelight. It was really fun to try new cooking techniques and it was quite romantic to boot! Taking the time to develop my skills in cooking/baking not only helped my family during a financial crunch time, I also have these skills that I can teach to my children to help prepare them for the future and help them become more self-sufficient!

2 – Pay yourself first! When pay day rolls around, we take 10% of our net pay and split it into 2 different savings accounts. Two-thirds of that amount goes into one savings account that we don’t dip into unless it is an emergency or until we have enough saved up for our large purchase we are saving up for (right now that would be a down payment on a house!), and one-third of the amount goes into a second savings account that we use for unexpected or less often purchases like car repairs. Most people don’t need to split them up, but this helps us out because we can see the progress we are making on saving up for our home while we still have money set aside that we can use for other purchases.

3 – Save your change! It is a rare occasion that I pay in cash, so I am talking about saving your change from your debit card/checking account. Now, some banks will do this for you, but mine doesn’t so I keep track of it on my own. I have actually been doing this for about 10 years now and it is crazy how fast it all adds up! What I do is I document in my checkbook registry the purchase I made and then in the balance column I put down the amount I spent rounded up to the nearest dollar and then I write down the difference in the deposit column. I write my whole registry in pen and the change in pencil so I can keep it strait. For example: I just paid my cell phone bill which was $56.45, so in the balance column I deduct $57.00 from my balance and I added 55 cents to my running total of change! Over the past month I have saved up almost $17 just in change! Every six months we take the saved up change and make an extra payment towards our debt. If you don’t have any debt you could use that change to treat yourself to something nice like a vacation or extra holiday/birthday money! My parents have been doing this for years and have used this money to build a new deck, take a trip to Europe, and just recently bought two new wave runners!

Financial freedom has really been on my mind a lot lately and I loved reading all the fantastic advice and comments, a few of which I will be implementing into my routine so thanks everyone!

# # #

Donna Maria Coles Johnson: Use coupons and cash.
Coupons. Contrary to popular belief, there are coupons out there for healthful food items. You just have to keep an eye out for them. Sometimes, grocers have coupon stickers on items that offer discounts on the spot. For example, yesterday, I purchased two quarts of Organic Valley Farms milk. Each container had a .75¢ coupon stuck to it. The regular price of each was $2.50. Since it was triple coupon weekend at the store, I paid 50¢ for $5.00 worth of organic milk! That’s $4.50 more in my pocket, without even trying — just being on the lookout for the bargain. As you shop, keep an eye out for opportunities to use coupons. If you’re more industrious, clip them in the Sunday paper and in inserts that come in the mail. By clipping coupons, I save hundreds of dollars a year!

Cash. Another tip is to use cash for non-business purchases. Forget using credit cards — we ditched ours years ago and are debt free, except for the mortgage. (No car payments either.)

When I say use cash, I don’t mean a debit card either. I mean green dollar bills. You’ll be amazed at how many more of them you will hold onto if they actually have to slip through your fingers with each purchase. It’s easy to swipe a card, and when we do, it doesn’t feel like we are spending that much, when we really are. But when you have to actually count out the dollar bills, you’ll think twice before putting them in someone else’s hands!

I withdraw a certain amount of money from our checking account each Sunday or Monday. I use it for all of that week’s home-related purchases — food, toiletries, personal items, clothing — everything except home repairs and maintenance. I always take out less than I think I’ll need to really challenge myself. I am rarely out of cash at the end of the week, and I have not even touched the ATM. I hold onto a lot of money this way.

There are only 4 things you can do with money: spend it, save it, invest it or donate it. Because I spend with coupons and cash, I have more left to save, invest and donate!!

Thanks for the opportunity to share, and I hope these tips are helpful. dM

# # #

Jody Bergsma: Have 10% automatically taken out of your paycheck and placed in a savings account…It really adds up! Take a to go mug full of coffee in the morning and avoid the “Latte” habit…4.00 day times 360=$1440!!! each year!

# # #