1. Choose Social or Solitary. Do you spend your days dealing with people, in a crowded work environment, or do you just find that you want some time by yourself? Choose a hobby that is solitary–woodworking, photography, fixing cars, or gardening. On the other hand, if you are stuck in a cubicle on a computer all day, or long for adult conversation after taking care of children, you will probably want a hobby that gives you a chance to be with other people–playing games or cards, a dinner group or a book club. Even if you have a solitary hobby, it’s easy to find a way to make it social. Perhaps you enjoy painting–you can take a class. Or you can volunteer to teach others.

2. Choose an interest. It makes sense to choose a hobby that you are naturally interested in or have a passion for. You may also consider trying something that others are interested in. I found that when I quit my job to stay home with our son, my hobbies didn’t match my new social circle. Not many of my friends who are stay-at-home moms enjoy managing web sites or building databases. I’ve tried my hand at new hobbies to create common ground–some are not for me (scrapbooking). But others I’ve really come to enjoy (gardening).

3. Don’t just spend money, make money. Almost all hobbies will cost money. Memberships, materials, equipment, classes, lessons–it can be expensive. The best way to defray hobby expenses is to find a way to turn your hobby into a money-maker. Sell your fresh fruits and veggies at a farmer’s market, teach your skill (art, music, etc.), post photos on www.istockphoto.com, or become expert enough to be a judge and get paid to give your opinion! With a little creativity, most hobbies can bring in a little money.
Right now, I have a bunch of hobbies that I switch between. I run a book club, enjoy square-foot gardening, am part of a dinner group, sew, and sell MaryKay. My book club and dinner group cost me money, but I’m saving on fresh produce by having a garden, I sell tote bags that I sew, and I make a little money as I deliver little pink packages.

What is your hobby, and have you found a way to make money with it?

Resources:

Candice Z Watters The Benefits of Family Hobbies

Gabryal Benefits of Digital Photography as a Hobby

Elizabeth Scott Great Hobbies for Stress Relief

Find My Hobby

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Sam and I agreed that we should quit drinking Diet Coke. I always limited myself to only one per day, usually about 12 ounces. For me, Diet Coke helps me through that 2 o’clock slump–the same time Adam is getting up from his nap and is ready to go. Also, it’s a social thing–it’s the drink of choice at my in-laws, and after years of drinking it at family gatherings, I was hooked.

Sam, on the other hand, had at least a 44 ounce drink per day, sometimes two, and maybe a can or two.  For him, it’s a habit of refreshment; you get in the car on a hot sunny day, crank up the air conditioning, and stop for a Diet Coke. So he might drink one if he goes out to lunch and he almost always gets one on the drive home.

We’ve both tried to quit in the past, but with little success. Finally we have found something that works–MONEY! We made an agreement that whoever drinks a soda first owes the other person fifty dollars. And we’ve been soda-free for three weeks!

Ironically, neither of us are willing to pay the other $50, yet this is probably the amount we were spending each month on Diet Coke. A fountain drink at the gas station costs about a dollar. Sam had at least 20-25 a month, plus 10 or so for me. Then we’d buy a couple of 12- or 24-packs to have at home. I’ve found more savings: getting a giant popcorn at the movies is not nearly as good with water, and a nice greasy cheeseburger and fries does not satisfy without an ice-cold Diet Coke. I’ve found myself eating out less, and cutting back on a lot of foods that I associate with soda–most of them unhealthy and expensive.

I did a little research, and it turns out that Diet Coke is pretty bad for you. People quickly develop a tolerance for caffeine, and experience withdrawal symptoms such as headache and nausea when they stop consuming it. I can personally verify this–I had a headache for five days! High levels of caffeine has been linked to problems getting pregnant, miscarriage, and low birth weight babies. Caffeine and the high levels of phosphates in soda drinks seem to pull calcium out of bones and into the blood stream, increasing the risk of osteoporosis (Source: Nutrition and Well Being A-Z: Caffeine). The acids can also effect digestion–increasing stomach acid and causing indigestion.

All these reasons should be enough to deter me,  but in the end I quit because I don’t want to pay the fifty dollars!

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My number one planet- and money-saving practice is using www.freecycle.org. In fact, I am such a fan that I volunteer as a local moderator. This is how it works–go to the website and join the group nearest you. What you are joining is a Yahoo group (a separate web site is in the works right now!). Then, you clean out your basement/garage/closet and offer your items to others for free. A bunch of people will reply, and you pick the big winner (or winners). After you’ve become a contributor, you can ask for things (a WANTED post), and watch for others to post items that you can use. Just today I picked up a children’s kitchen playset–for FREE!

Although it is fantastic to get something for free, even better is when you can give things away. My favorite feature is the curbside pickup–by this I mean somebody else comes to my house and takes the junk I was going to get rid of anyway. I don’t even have to make the effort (or pay the gas) to drive to the local thrift store. I have given away kitchen utensils and gadgets, chairs, couches, lamps, decorations, curtains, clothing, shoes, tackle boxes, two tons of gravel, a broken lawn mower. . . the list goes on. It’s a great place to get rid of moving boxes, used carpet, extra building materials, large furniture, etc.

Freecycle (TM) is organized locally, so that the benefit of reducing landfill waste is not outweighed by the pollution of driving to get something. When choosing a recipient, I always pick someone who lives closeby, and who has offered several items in the last few months. It’s my way of rewarding those who contribute to the community.

I’d love to hear your favorite enviro-penny-pinching ideas!

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Now, many of us have probably been in silly book clubs before–with little emphasis on books, it’s mostly a club for socializing. And then one annoying member (usually self-invited) manages to make the dynamics unpleasant so that the people you do enjoy seeing and talking to stop coming. There are some resources that tell you the basics of how to start a book club. In addition to these, I have found there are several ingredients to a happy, healthy, successful book club:

1. Leadership. Somebody needs to be in charge–this is particularly true if the book club is only women. The leader will run the meeting (although not necessarily the discussion), call or email members to remind them of meetings or changes, and provide all the books (see #5 below). This should be someone who is kind, but bold. This person should not be afraid to make an executive decision, while still balancing the needs and opinions of the other members. If one member starts sabotaging the experience for everyone else, it is the leader’s job to confront them, and if necessary, ask them to leave the group. This doesn’t have to be as mean or scary as it sounds: “Listen, you tend to do ___________ and it’s not really working in this group. We’d love to have you attend, but if this doesn’t change then maybe this isn’t the best group for you.”

2. Membership. In my experience, a book group won’t be successful if there are too many or too few members. Six to eight is ideal. You need enough that if one or two, even three members can’t attend, you still have enough people for a discussion. You need a small enough group so that when everyone does come, there is still a chance for each member to participate. I am opposed to “open” membership, mostly because by choosing members carefully you will avoid a world of problems later. If you must include anyone who wants to attend (it’s a neighborhood/church/group based club), you will need really strong leadership. Another disadvantage to open membership is that, unless you live in a diverse city, you are likely to have a very homogeneous group–I love having members of various ages, backgrounds, family status (single, married, married with children), etc. The common ground each member shares is the literature and a love of reading.

3. Identity and Purpose. Establish the goals and purpose of your book group from the beginning. What types of books do you want to read? Classics, poetry, science fiction?  Do you gather mostly for social reasons or do you really want to challenge each other and have focused discussions? This also helps limit your membership. Not everybody wants to join my book group because we read classics and discuss them at length. We talk about character development, symbols, and what the book says about mankind. It works great for us, but I know it’s not for everybody.

4. Democracy. Another pet peeve of mine when it comes to book clubs is what I call literary dictatorship: when the entire group is subject to read what one person thinks is a good book. Don’t get me wrong–I often take recommendations of friends and family for my personal reading enjoyment. But the fact that one person liked a book does not mean it’s good book club material. Instead, make/find a list that matches your purpose. Also, this list can be edited by length (it’s hard to get through 1200 pages in a month) or content. I have compiled a huge list of over 500 books that we choose from. Each person prints out the list and identifies three to five books or authors they would like to read. Then, we all get together, discuss it, and vote on our favorites. Each person also gets several “veto votes” so that we never read a book someone hates or will not read. Usually we agree on a small list (up to 10 books) and then everyone ranks them. The books with the highest combined rankings are chosen. By choosing books together, more people are likely to actually read the book and come prepared to discuss it.

5. Time and Location. Although some people enjoy a travelling book club, I prefer to have it at the same place and time every month. That way, if someone misses a meeting, they won’t miss again because they weren’t sure where and when to go. I chose a day and time before we began, so it was another factor that thinned our membership. If you choose to have refreshments, you can still rotate who brings them.

6. Money. I charge everyone $5.00 per month, and I purchase all the books and distribute them the month before. For example, if we are reading The Grapes of Wrath and will discuss it in August, I hand out copies of the book in July. I am consistently able to purchase books at Half.com or Amazon.com for $5 each, including shipping. Usually when one book costs a little more, another will cost less. Overall, it averages out. Then the members get to keep the books, and build a nice reading library. You can collect money each week with cash, or request PayPal funds. At first I thought charging money would be a problem, but nobody minds. On the other hand, they LOVE not having to find a copy of the book every month.

When I told a friend I was writing this post she said “But what do book clubs have to do with personal finance?” The answer is simple–wherever we spend our money, that is where we also invest our time and energy. I could probably find a way to run my book club for free, but when people get something for free, they don’t value it as much. Because they pay for it, my members are more likely to come, to read, and that leads to a very successful book club.

The same is true in personal finance–do you want to know what you truly value? Take a look at your spending. That’s probably also where your spend your time and attention. One of the goals we have is to spend consciously; we talk about what we value, and then plan to spend based on our values. It is a natural result that we are more invested in those areas.

Happy reading everyone!

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Having my wife go through surgery again actually takes my thoughts back to when she had surgery two years ago. That unexpected event is what compelled us to take control of our finances. It was either that or we would be forced to move. What a contrast between then and now. Back then we really had no grip on our spending. We knew how much we were spending overall but had no mechanism in place for controlling the money before it left. We didn’t know how we were going to pay for the surgery and had no emergency fund in place. We were living within our means but didn’t have a budget in place.

Two years later we were easily able to budget in enough money to pay for her surgery and a week-long vacation (including airfare) without undue stress. And that’s without any significant changes in income. It truly amazes me how much money we were wasting before because we didn’t have a system in place to direct our spending. I don’t even notice a difference in lifestyle even though we spend less. In fact, there are ways our lifestyle has improved. Now, rather than having a constant gnawing feeling that I might be overspending, I feel liberated knowing exactly how much I have left to spend. We can direct our spending to the things we really want rather than impulse purchases that we won’t value much. It really feels like a before and after makeover. It’s a night and day difference.

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I really didn’t sleep, I just took a two hour nap. It eased the pain to look at it that way. I climbed in the car just after 3:15 fearing I would be one of a small group and feel stupid for getting there so early. My fears were unfounded. Instead, I was part of a very large group of stupid people who arrived even earlier than me. As I rounded the bend, the Best Buy parking lot was full and overflowing into the neighboring Home Depot. A line surrounded the store, almost winding back to the entrance. Why I didn’t just turn back then is beyond me. I’m sure the fact that it was quarter to 4:00 had something to do with it.

Because I hadn’t anticipated such a crowd, I also didn’t think I would end up standing in the cold for almost an hour and a half and didn’t dress appropriately. A short sleeved shirt under a medium jacket just barely held enough heat to make the wait bearable. The one piece of planning I DID do was to bring a book of Sudoku puzzles. But my choice of mittens rendered that piece of brilliance useless because I couldn’t write with them on, not to mention it’s hard to do a puzzle standing up.

I did have the good fortune of standing next to some friendly people and we entertained ourselves by chatting about the things that wouldn’t be available by the time we got in the store. Actually, there was really no need to entertain ourselves as there was plenty going on around us. The hot chocolate/treat cart went around, we had a guy on a little step ladder (I guess he was pretty short) preaching a sermon, and a number of foresightful, entrepreneurial-minded people handing out business cards. We even had a little fiasco with a car parked in the loading dock. Really, it was non-stop fun.

About half way through our wait, and still holding out hope for a ticket (kinda Willy-Wonka-esque isn’t it?), I noticed in the Best Buy flier that there was an interesting piece of information that had previously eluded me. Next to each item were two lines. One listed a maximum items per customer and the other listed a minimum items per store. At a glance I would normally gloss over these lines assuming they were both restrictions on how much a customer can buy. That’s expected for super-duper promotions. But on closer inspection I realized, in my foggy stupor that one line was a customer restriction but the other line indicated the number of items in each store. The number per store for my monitor read “5.” I panicked! I quickly started counting the number of people in line, estimating how many people there were in front of me. I estimated there to be at least 300. My chances of getting a monitor were about 1.6%?!?! And yet I stayed. It was no longer about the monitor. I wasn’t going to get up at 3:15 and wait in the cold for over an hour for nothing. If I didn’t get the monitor, I was going to get a great deal on SOMETHING! Hypothermia must have been setting in.

Well, I never even saw the ticket people coming around. I’m sure they ran out of tickets by the 114th person. Finally 5:00 came. By that time the line had grown another couple hundred people and I felt downright smart for getting there so early. As I entered the store, I would have run to the monitor section had there been space to run. Instead, I slowly inched my way there only to find my precious monitors taken. Unfazed, I figured I would at least get some of my shopping done. There were still some nicely-priced portable DVD players available and I could get a couple of movies for my son. As I got my items and went to get in line, the balloon of my early-morning enthusiasm finally popped. The check out line snaked from the front of the store through the music section, and ended, as far as I could tell, somewhere in the large-appliances section. I’m not quite sure because I never found the end of the line. I put my items somewhere in the mobile-phone department and left—defeated and tired.

Despite my negative experience, I’m still a believer in great deals. I’ve frequently found great rebate deals in the Sunday Fliers or sites with electronic versions like ShopLocal.com. But I will not ever again be caught dead participating in early-morning Black Friday mania. I sacrificed great personal comfort and sanity to try and save a mere $50. I could have earned that amount in less time by selling something on eBay, picking up a small freelance job, or working a little overtime. Had I not gotten caught up, I would have figured that out before I made a series of foolish decisions. I don’t know what came over me, but it wasn’t holiday cheer.

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I’d like to welcome all of Frank’s readers and hope you find useful ideas about managing your personal finances. Please feel at home and stay as long as you’d like.

Sam

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