Financial Samurai

Alrighty, thank goodness it’s October!  After declaring September to be frugality month (“Samurai September”), I’m finally free to splurge on as much junk as I want!  Was it painful for a recovering spendaholic to not buy anything other than food for a whole month?  Damn straight it was!

Here are some things I learned along the way:

1) By writing out a promise whether it is on a piece of paper stuck to your refrigerator, or on a world-famous website, your goals become REAL.  Writing out my goals really motivates me to stick to them.  It’s just like when you have your To Do List on a notepad.  If there’s one thing that’s not crossed out, you do your darndest to execute .  Focus on the mission soldier!

2) When your goal is to not spend money, you start revisiting things you already have and enjoy them again.  I went through my 1950′s baseball card collection that I had stashed away in the closet and had a fantastic time reading all the stats of great players such as: Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax rookie, Roberto Clemente, Yogie Berra, and Al Kaline.  I picked up my dusty Martin acoustic guitar and learned how to play: “This Is The First Day of My Life,” by Bright Eyes, “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” by Poison, and “Blackbird” by Paul McCartney pretty well.  Finally, my old Klein mountain bike sure got plenty of good use as well.

3) Once I got in the habit of appreciating all that I have, I started not wanting to buy new stuff.  My five year old G4 iBook is a great example of making due with less.  In fact, I wanted to start selling stuff and getting rid of clutter.  There’s no sacrifice in my mind anymore about not buying new things out of desire.  The only things I need to buy now are things out of necessity, such as replacing my loafers given they have holes in them.

4) Time really goes by quickly. I still remember very clearly when I wrote my declaration, and now it’s over.  But, what remains is a nice chunk of change in my savings account because I didn’t splurge on stuff I didn’t need.

5) It’s more fun doing things together! I joined a club of like-minded individuals who want to be millionaires eventually.  I discovered a guy who works three jobs to make ends meet (Brian at My Next Buck).  Brian then introduced me to another fella who was $101,000 into debt and decided to deliver pizza to pay it off  (follow Jeff on Twitter @DeliverAwayDebt.  Jeff is freaking hilarious, and makes me want to go work at In N’ Out Burger for kicks!).  I then was able to call into Blogtalk Radio and speak to Baker at Man vs. Debt and Jim at Bargaineering about their views on using cash and credit cards.  It’s just FUN to speak to, and trade e-mails with random folks, all with the same purpose of becoming financially independent. Read more…

Goodbye My Precious!

After much debate, I walked over to the Apple store and returned my oh so sweet Macbook Pro.  Today was the last day until the return policy expired.  I actually felt a little bit sad, because I got to see the laptop when the store clerked cut open the sticker to make sure I wasn’t returning a couple cement blocks instead.  My reasoning to return were quite simple:

1. No reasonable bids came in for my 8GB, iPod touch for $199 because the day after Apple stopped their promotion of a free iPod with every Macbook purchase, they lowered their price from $239 to $199!  I didn’t change my pricing until the second week, and by that time, it was a little too late to negotiate.
2. My guest post failed to get published within two weeks at this large personal finance site.  I made a submission with outline, thesis, and bio which was immediately responded to and accepted the very next day.  Several hours were spent writing 1,350 words, as well as several more hours revising.  Although they have confirmed receipt of my 2nd draft, it’s still in the queue.  At least I got a nice $10 gift card at Amazon! :)
3. My cash flow cannot afford $1,465 for September because a $1,700 bill is coming due for a couple airlines tickets purchased at the end of August.  I try to only buy stuff through cash flow, and never touch savings, otherwise how will I ever build a big enough nut for retirement?  Going into revolving credit card debt is NOT an option and never will be!
4. I made a promise not to buy anything in September and feel guilty breaking a promise.  With only 6 more days left to go for the month, I need……… to……. stand…….. strong……… and fight the spending addiction!  I wonder if this is how a recovering addict feels, where every day of non-use, and in my case non-spend, is a victory?  It feels good to go 24 days in a row without buying anything other than food!
5. Finally, my wife actually fixed my old iBook G4!  Its speed is as good as new thanks to several updates and clean ups.  Too bad the battery life only lasts 25 minutes now. Read more…

The Apple IIc!

Despite making a promise on August 31st to buy nothing this September, I broke down and bought a 13-inch Apple Macbook Pro yesterday.  You see, I was tempted by two things.  1) Apple’s promotion of getting a free $230 i-Touch with every notebook purchase, and 2) Steve Jobs is back in  San Francisco this week to address new product launches!

EXCUSES

• I have been looking for a new laptop for two years now given my current 12″ i-Book is a hand me down from my wife.   It’s got only 512megs of RAM, a 20 gig hard drive, a sticky space bar, and is slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter!
• My wife, on the otherhand, has a shiny 1-year old Macbook I bought her for Christmas.  Clearly, I am a little bit envious.
• I walked down aisle 7 at Walgreens and a Loreal shampoo bottle told me, “Because you’re worth it!”
• Nobody really buys me anything for my birthday and the holidays except for my wife.  I take it back.  My mom got me a nifty plastic cube with a clam in it last winter.  I think she found it in an old cubbard.  So who’s going to buy me anything?  Cue the violins!
• Furthermore, $1,450 really isn’t $1,450 once I get my $230 rebate in the mail for my i-Touch.  I can then sell the darn thing on Craigslist for $199 and bring my total outlay down to $1,051!
• Besides, how am I supposed to be a prolific personal finance writer on such old equipment anyway?  I can barely do any editing on my 12-inch screen.  Oh, the justifications of spending come spouting out now, and I can’t help it. Read more…