I have some apologizing to do. I have had the bad habit of over promising and under delivering on this blog. Back in September I was ready to launch the 12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness program and, alas, nothing happened. My eyes were bigger than my stomach and I fell victim of my tendency to want everything perfect. In addition, right when I was preparing to launch our family was hugely blessed by the arrival of a newborn adopted baby boy. We literally had about 2 weeks notice before he was placed with us. Add to all this that I’ve been unemployed, under-employed, or self-employed at various times (and depending on how you look at it) for over a year.

I don’t mean to excuse my lack of follow through, but rather wanted to give a sense as to why taking on the 12 week program became too much for me to handle. But even more than not following through with the program, I apologize for not communicating to those who were waiting and expecting it.

So now I am taking a new stance on this site which is to under promise and over deliver. I’m also going to let go of my tendency to want perfection in each post. That’s not to say I’m going to let the quality slack, but it does mean that I may be splitting up larger posts into chunks to make it easier for me to write them. It means that I may not be on a perfectly consistent posting schedule (not that this will be any different for the readers, but it will help me give myself a break mentally).

I WILL be starting up the 12 Weeks to Fiscal Fitness soon (given the above, I won’t promise a time). The one difference will be that I can’t promise to have new content every week. That will be my aim, but if I miss it I don’t want to get down on myself and stop posting just because I fell behind. Instead of looking at it as “12 weeks,” you might want to look at it as “12 steps” for now. All of the activities and assignments will still work just as well given a slightly longer time frame and I still anticipate it will help you get your financial life under control. In other words, the content won’t be any different.

I have so much more to share on this topic and I never even scratched the surface as to the topics I wanted to discuss. I miss having the community and user feedback which has dwindled due to my lack of involvement. I hope to reinvigorate that. Personal finances are such a personal topic that we don’t often share our struggles and questions with others and I hope to make this site a place where people can share and get their questions answered.

Thank you to all you readers who have stuck around even during long periods of silence. Your readership and contribution is very valuable to me and I truly appreciate it.

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The dust has settled from the holidays, the bills have come in, and the damage has been done. How did you fare financially during the holidays? Did you overspend or did you stay on budget?

After reviewing our holiday spending we actually came out almost exactly on target. That’s not to say we spent exactly as we’d planned. We overspent on gifts for some and underspent on others. It definitely helped to have a plan because we would have grossly overspent without one. This year our plan was a little more casual than other years. My wife and I did a quick and dirty plan one evening, but we’ve had enough experience creating these plans that we were able to implement effectively with only one short meeting.

In December I posted about strategies to reduce spending during the holidays. One strategy we relied upon this Christmas was that of buying items on the fly if we found a good deal, but then returning the items that were over our budget or that just weren’t as compelling as gifts. A couple of days before Christmas, we laid out all the gifts on the kitchen table (after our sons were asleep) and sorted through them decided which were really worth it and which could be returned.

This process was so useful and actually had an unexpected benefit this year. As we looked at the gifts all together, it gave us a great overall sense of “too much stuff.” We realized that we simply had too much stuff for our son. We’ve experienced over and over at Christmas the point of diminishing returns where each additional gift just doesn’t add that much. A 5 year old can only really enjoy a small handful of gifts. More than that and you start entering that spoiled mode where the child is like “is that all there is?” “Aren’t there any more gifts?”

By looking at all the gifts at once we could very clearly see how many gifts constituted “too much” and how many were just right.

So what was the result on Christmas morning?

I’m happy to report that this Christmas was probably the most rewarding in terms of enjoyment-per-gift for our son. Not only did our activity of looking at all the gifts at once lower our Christmas bill, it also resulted in a happier and better-balanced child. There was virtually no spoiled response and our son had just enough a variety of gifts that he was thrilled.

So how is your holiday hangover? Did you have one or were you able to remain sober?

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of the GFD podcast. In this episode I answer several questions from one of my readers. Stephanie wants to know how to keep on track with her budget during the month. She also is concerned with spending getting out of control but doesn’t want to hound her husband about little purchases like getting food or drinks at the gas station. I address these questions and concerns with some actionable advice.

 

 Getting Finances Done - Podcast Episode 1 [17:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Please give me feedback about the podcast. I’m open to feedback about content, how it’s presented, any technical challenges you had getting the podcast, etc. I didn’t try to get fancy with intro music and stuff, but as I get more comfortable with this format I’ll polish things up.

Enjoy!

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1. Don’t set a budget

Budgets put such a damper on holiday spending. It’s much more enjoyable to not be constrained by a well-thought-out plan.

2. Don’t budget any money for giving gifts to anyone but immediate family

Sure you’ll end up buying gifts for the office party, all your friends, and neighbors, but it’s too hard to think of all those people ahead of time.

3. Don’t worry about debt

You still haven’t paid off last year’s Christmas so what’s the point in letting that ruin this year’s Christmas. You’ll still be in debt either way right?

4. Don’t even think about re-gifting

Re-gifting is embarrassing. It’s much better to store the many un-needed gifts from friends and neighbors in the closet.

5. Put off your shopping until the last minute

By waiting until the last minute you won’t be able to worry about how much you’re spending and don’t have to fuss with finding sales because there’s just not enough time to do so.

6. Make sure your kids have enough gifts

The last thing you would want is to short-change your kids by giving them only a few thoughtful gifts. Quantity is king at Christmas.

7. Buy a lot of those “gift”-type items

People love those “gift” items found at department stores. Who doesn’t like a few good knick knacks?

8. Don’t worry about price. You need to get it while you can.

You can’t afford to wait when you find an item you want. It might be gone forever if you wait.

9. Don’t coordinate with your spouse about gift giving.

It’s way too much of a hassle to coordinate with your spouse. Plus you don’t want to put a damper on each others’ gift giving.

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One of the challenges with finding the best sales locally is the amount of work it takes. Sunday circulars – the mini-catalogs you find from local retailers in your Sunday newspaper – are a great way to find deals. However, there’s one big weakness with them – it’s hard to find specific items. You can spend hours pouring over the circulars looking for a specific item of interest.

ShopLocal.com solves that problem by putting the Sunday circulars online. You can browse through the actual circulars page by page or search by item. Once you search for an item you can refine your search by brand, price, or even store.

I use ShopLocal very frequently for items that I don’t want to pay shipping on or that I want right away. I will also buy locally vs online when I want the option of returning the item to the store if I have problems or aren’t satisfied. I find that I can often find prices at local retailers as low as I can online.

Check out this brief screencast showing you how ShopLocal works.

Technorati Tags: shopping, local, retailers, sales, deals

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