The New Year Brings New Hope

I also love setting New Year’s resolutions. I actually enjoy setting goals all year long, but I do spend dedicated time looking at the big picture when one year comes to a close and the new year dawns. I set big picture goals for various aspects of my life including financial, spiritual/intellectual, physical, and personal growth.

I like to approach my goal setting with ‘eagle vision’ – taking into account the big picture and recognizing the progress I’ve made, even though I might not be where I want to be in certain aspects of my life. Then, I love to tackle my goals with ‘a birds-eye view’ – writing down the specific steps I can take throughout the year to achieve the bigger picture goals.

The one area where the slate does get wiped clean is when I archive my financial data on Quicken for the previous year and create a new spending plan for the coming year. I seem to notice an interesting phenomena occur when I take that snapshot of the previous year. My spending always seems to be very restricted in the first half of the year, then gradually gets more lax at the end of the year!

I think one reason I love January is that it forces the belt tightening because of the close scrutiny taken with the previous year’s spending. In the spirit of the New Year I’ll share some things we’re doing to help with our belt tightening for 2004.

	We bought a new car in August 2003 – a wonderful Mazda MPV (my husband would have been terribly disappointed if I didn’t mention what it was!) We needed a new vehicle and found a great deal with 0% financing for 5 years. We’ve set a goal to make all of our car payments via selling on Ebay. So far, we’ve made our payments and have enough in the account through March’s payment just with Ebay sales.
	I’ve listed 50 items to sell on Ebay during the first week of January, so I’m off to a great start. One of my tricks – I buy videos, books, audio programs, craft patterns and a variety of other items at thrift stores and garage sales. When I list on Ebay, I know I won’t make a fortune, but I generally sell items for at least 4 to 5 times what I paid for them. Sometimes I find that ‘diamond in the rough’ that makes much more than I anticipated! It takes some work, but we have established a routine which makes it run efficiently.
	We continually declutter and sell stuff from our home, garage, and basement on Ebay. Even when I don’t think we have anything left, we’ll take another look around and generally find something we can sell. My husband recently took a discriminating second pass through his comic collection and found more to sell.
	I lowered our grocery spending plan to $110 per month for this coming year. I’m sure I can stay within this budget with careful planning. Last year’s plan was $125 per month and I was slightly over. I currently have enough in our freezer to feed us for a couple of months. I still buy loss leader items that I know I will use. For example, I just loaded up on boneless chicken breasts at $1.77 pound. For $11.00 I bought enough chicken to last a few months. Pork loin roasts are on sale for $1.88 per pound this week, so I’ll take advantage of that price. Potatoes at $.77 for 10 pounds last a long time when I purchase 20 pounds!

	We have established days throughout the week when we do not have appointments scheduled as ‘keep the car in the garage’ days. Being retired, we don’t have to take the car to work. We can stretch a tank of gas over 3 weeks, and it is amazing the amount of projects and cleaning we accomplish. When we do go out, we group our errands and use the car efficiently. We thought we might find this a little boring, but we have managed to stay very busy at home. I’d really like to see if we can stretch a tank of gas over a month before the year is through. Another interesting phenomena I have observed – there is a direct correlation between the number of receipts I enter into Quicken and the number of days we stay at home.
	We have been enjoying movies from the library, both DVD’s and videos. Our library has a fantastic inter-branch system, accessing more than 20 branches. They have almost 1,500 DVDs in their system. We have been able to view all of the current releases without spending a dime. We go online to place holds on the movies, and the library notifies us when they come in. We haven’t visited a video rental store in months.
	I’m currently working on Christmas gifts for this year. I’ve almost completed one crocheted afghan. We drastically cut our spending on gifts for our children and grandchildren last year by making many of the gifts. Everybody loved what they received. I cut our spending plan even further this year. I’ve purchased most birthday gifts in advance and have them wrapped and ready to send for birthdays this year. We have 4 married children and 12 grandchildren, so this area requires careful planning or it can get out of hand.
	We are utilizing our hobbies to create gifts. We have recently expanded our photography interests into digital photography (we found a great deal on a used camera!) We have been taking some great pictures of the wildlife from our back deck, which we’ll use to make stationary and calendars for gifts. Beading is another hobby of mine, and I will be making beaded jewelry for Christmas this year.
	I finally took the plunge and bought a used stair stepper and cancelled my gym membership. I struggled for a long time with that decision, but it saves $60 per month. I purchased a very nice stair stepper for $60 that had been barely used. I also have bought a few exercise videos from the thrift store, and we have lots of hills for walking and hiking where we live. The only thing I still need to figure out is how to get my swimming in during the summer months, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
	We have always been diligent with our utility bills, although the colder months present a challenge with our natural gas bill. We use self-heating gas logs in our family room fireplace and space heaters occasionally in other rooms of the house. When a friend was recently visiting, she insisted that it was less expensive to use the central heating than to keep the gas logs going for several hours at a time. My husband decided to conduct an experiment. He turned each one on separately and monitored the gas meter. There was no contest! The gas logs used only a fraction of what the central heating required. We have an electronic thermostat which we turn down to 50 at night, 66 during the morning, and then switch to the gas logs. The overhead fan, switched to the winter setting, does a great job of circulating the heat and forcing it downward. I recommend conducting your own experiment with the meters – it’s an eye opener.

There really isn’t anything new in the ideas that I’ve presented. The fun part is the recommitting and rededicating that takes place at the beginning of the year. Did I use the “fun” word? I actually do find it extremely enjoyable to save money. I guess that is why we live the way we do – it isn’t a burden, but pleasurable.

My hope for all of our readers is that you will be able to discover this same enjoyment in gaining control over your financial lives and learning to save more and more. I am looking forward to a peaceful and prosperous 2004 for each one of us. Happy New Year!