Handling Finances

I married a woman who is unashamedly addicted to frozen stuff.  She loves popsicles and frozen fruit, sherbet and ice cream (though she’s lactose intolerant) and she’ll just suck on ice if she gets half a chance.  She’s also diabetic so while she can certainly eat stuff with sugar, we try to go sugar-free as much as possible.  That means we go through a whole lot of sugar free and no-sugar-added fruit popsicles every week — at 25 cents or more each, it sure adds up (though honey, if you’re reading this it’s well worth the cost!)

In the last few years, however, we’ve come to enjoy another treat that’s almost better and certainly cheaper… we’ve started making our own snow cones!  The start-up costs are pretty reasonable, all you need is an ice shaver (ice crushers could work too, but the ice doesn’t get as finely ground as we prefer) — we’ve been using a Hamilton Beach ice shaver that is working as well as when we got it 2-3 years ago.  It costs about $25, but we’ve used it often enough that I don’t think it costs more than a couple cents per serving by now.

Secondly, you need flavoring.  If you shop around in local stores, you can usually find some sort of flavoring that will work for a really cheap price (especially around the start of summer) but we’ve generally stuck to high quality flavors.  We stick to sugar-free flavorings (otherwise flavorings can contain a shocking amount of high-fructose corn syrup) and I generally buy them at $9 a bottle (including shipping) at netrition.com.  I’ve never seen DaVinci syrups (or any brand of coffee syrups) at a local store, but I suspect you can’t find them for the $7.50 + shipping.  They’re sold all over the internet, but it’s important to look carefully at shipping costs as I’ve seen charges as high as $18 (netrition charges under $5).

Anyway, the syrup costs about 10 cents per pump, and depending on how much shaved ice you eat in a sitting you end up with a treat that costs between 20 and 50 cents, and that’s for a BIG bowl of shaved ice.  This compares very well with popsicles or ice cream and is MUCH less expensive that if you purchase icees or any frozen treat at Dairy Queen where you could pay over $3.00 for the same thing.

Is it the cheapest treat out there?  I doubt it, though you can shave up frozen fruit or frozen fruit juice for a reasonably healthy and cheap dessert (make sure to clean out the otherwise maintenance-free shaver though).  However, it’s been well worth the ongoing cost to us and if you like frozen stuff as much as we do, you might look into owning your own ice shaver!

Having spent the last week in London, I’m still a bit jet-lagged, but quite happy. It was my wife’s first time to another country (barring Canada) and happily she loved it! London’s pretty benign with their amazing and convenient subway system and although it’s an expensive place to visit, we kept our spending rather low and didn’t skimp on sightseeing one bit!

My first bit of advice regarding overseas travel, however, is much more basic and applies virtually worldwide.  Get a credit or debit card that charges low fees! Visa and Mastercard both charge 1% for foreign (non-US) purchases, and while most card issuers charge another 2% for a total of 3%, many smaller banks don’t add on any fees and Capital One actually eats the 1% Visa/MC fee and charges 0%.  I didn’t do my research ahead of time, so I got stuck with 1-3% on most of my purchases (1% on my debit card and 3% for a couple credit card purchases) and while that was only about $40, I hate to throw away money that’s not necessary!  To be fair, I understand the fees — processing transactions in England does cost the banks more, but when competition drives down the amount I have to pay, I’m happy to shop around!

I paid for most of my trip with cash taken out of ATMs every other day or so — a very convenient and reasonably secure way to deal with foreign money.  When dealing with ATMs though, it’s important to go only to ATMs that are physically connected to major banks.  You can shop around for the ones with no fees, but if you take out your money at ATMs of the money-changers that set up at every airport and tourist attraction, you can pay as much as 2-5% more than you would at a major bank’s ATM.

This week has been very interesting with the ongoing discussion of federal bailouts for investment banks. The act certainly helped avoid a panicked run on investment banks causing numerous more bankruptcies. At the same time, when taxpayers are essentially insuring the industry, government regulation is generally in place to ensure that the taxpayers’ money isn’t being subject to extremely high risks. I certainly hope Bernake decides to clarify his bailout of Bear Sterns so we know whether it was intended as a one-time thing or as a precedent. Whatever happens, we’re likely to see some regulation of investment banks — just the extent and nature of the regulation remains to be seen. Regulation generally has two effects — it makes an industry slower and more expensive, and it makes the industry less risky or dangerous. I do think regulation is necessary to curb wild subprime lending since lending to people who can’t repay the loans is just unethical in my view. At the same time, history has shown that regulation is highly reactionary — it might prevent the exact problem we just encountered, but people will always find new ways to take advantage of others and there will always be loopholes that won’t be plugged until the next time the financial sector gets itself into trouble.

Last week, I posted a riddle about some guys who went on vacation. They were involved in a confusing transaction and it seemed as if $2 had disappeared. In fact, it all worked out and it was just the question that was faulty. Each of the three paid $9 for a total of $27. The hotel got $26 and the bellhop snagged $1 on his way to return the amount they had overpaid. Having an incredible amount of trouble finding money-related riddles that don’t require a strong grasp of math, I’ve decided to retire that project for now. I love complex math problems, but I know few people who share this interest so I suspect that simply coming up with challenging problems won’t be worth much to my readers.

The Roundup

My post Cheaper Financing is a Funny Route to the American Dream was included in Carnival of Personal Finance #145. Check out the carnival for articles from across the internet on personal finance.

PaidTwice posted about how she took way too long to raise her (husband’s) 401(k) contribution to the 6% required to receive the full 20% match.  If your employer offers a matching contribution, the immediate 20%-100% return (depending on your employer) for the first 6% is amazing, free money.  While you might prefer to contribute the majority of your retirement savings to a Roth IRA, make sure you qualify for any employer match first!

Patrick at Cash Money Life discussed job searching while employed.  This is something I need to get into as while I love my job and intend to stay there for the next five years or more, it’s much easier to stay on top of job opportunities when you’re still employed and not desperate for income.  It also helps you keep on top of potential opportunities that you might not notice if you kept your head down in your company.

Finally, Lynnae discusses some cheap homemade cleaners at beingfrugal.net.