Padding your holiday budget for the unexpected

Despite my best plans, despite the email reminders and spreadsheets and so on, today I had to hit the holiday slush fund. The reason: I had two presents that I didn't get around to mailing until today.

Yes, I blew past the USPS shipping deadlines for first class mail. (In my defense, I'm balancing the holiday prep with taking care of an infant who nurses every two hours or so, and that's blown holes in my errand-running routines.) So I went to Fed Ex today and ponied up for two-day shipping, just to be on the safe side.

It killed me to spend the money. But fortunately, I had it to spend -- we always set aside a little for unforeseen situations. Some years, it's an impulsive gift purchase for someone new. Some years -- like this one -- it's a stupidity tax.

Have you ever had a holiday expense that was completely preventable? Or one that was unexpected and sort of irritating? Share your stories of facepalm-inducing outlays at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | December 22 2010 at 09:49 AM

When to pay cash for Christmas presents

So the reason I haven't posted in a while is because I was off having a baby. The baby's been had and it's time to resume examining our spending habits and the myriad factors that nudge them in one direction or another. What better topic to look at this week than shopping for Christmas?

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post yesterday: because recovery from the recession has been uneven, this year's Christmas will be too. The better-off will continue to help Tiffany's and Coach hit quarterly profit targets while people who are still scraping by -- if that -- will be hitting Wal-Mart and Family Dollar for the basics.

Also of note this holiday season: more consumers are sticking to an all-cash budget when shopping for presents, which is a great way to ensure they don't overspend. There is something about counting out the cash for an item that forces you to consider whether what you're about to buy is worth what you're going to spend. And having tangible signs that your budgeted allotment is shrinking can help you maintain strict discipline when you're in the stores and your head's getting turned by festive geegaws.

Of course, it's hard to stick to the cash-only rule when you're shopping online for gifts. In that case, may I suggest a sticky note tacked to your computer monitor, upon which you keep a running tally of how much you've spent -- including shipping, of course?

If you're buying holiday presents this year, how are you paying for them? Weigh in on the merits of going cash-only versus credit at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | December 13 2010 at 09:24 AM

Saying no to the nursery

Continuing with the prenatal-themed posts this week, I thought I'd share the most awkward question we've fielded throughout the pregnancy. No, it had nothing to do with preferences for giving birth, feeding or diapering the child, or any of the other issues that seem to prompt vicious infighting among parents.

It was this: "So have you finished the nursery yet?"

The question was a little awkward because I was never sure how to say "We haven't even started" without sounding like I was inappropriately unenthusiastic about this pending parenthood thing. In an era where bloggers painstakingly document all their nursery design decisions, in a culture where "setting up the nursery" is one of those activities you're supposed to tick off on the Typical American Pregnancy checklist, how do you explain why you're opting out of doing so?

The glib answer is, "You take it to your own blog." But what we ended up telling most people was the truth: It made no sense to us, logistically or financially, to buy things and set up a room for someone we hadn't met yet.

I can understand the emotional appeal of stocking up in the nursery as a way to feel prepared for whatever comes my way ... the reality just seems like asking for trouble. Buying things that don't work with our baby's specific personality quirks, having to keep track of the packaging, receipts and return policies so I can get my money back, then schlepping this stuff to the store and waiting in line to unload it -- all while dealing with a newborn? It seems like it will be easier to buy things as we need them. Barring a freak occurrence in which every baby-related retail emporium in America disappears in a puff of smoke, I'm fairly confident we'll be able to head out and pick up that baby swing/play mat/bottle sterilizer as we need it.

Sure, we run the risk of -- Gasp! Horrors! -- paying full price for what we buy, but I'm betting that buying what we need as we need it will turn out to be a better financial move than doing a lot of "Just in case" stocking up on sale items, then not using any of them. Besides, there's always Craigslist. A quick whirl through the baby and kid stuff listings shows a lot of merchandise that's being unloaded for bargain-basement prices because the child never needed the items. Thus I may be able to take advantage of someone else's stock-up-in-preparation impulses.

The closest I've come to nursery prep so far -- aside from clearing out a huge set of bookshelves in which I'm stashing my child's extensive wardrobe, the toys we've received, and the diapers and wipes we've stockpiled in anticipation -- is to bookmark several of those "nursery checklist" features across the Web. Here are the ones I've found most helpful:

• Simple Mom's "The Things You Don't Need (But They Say You Do) For a New Baby" -- Just say no to multiple strollers, says Tsh Oxenreider.
   
• Mighty Girl's "15 Perfect Baby Things for New Parents" -- This list is great for urban parents who don't have a lot of space and can't rely on a car to schlepp their baby gear everywhere.
   
• Apartment Therapy's "9 Month Cure: What You Really Need" -- It has all of six items on it, which is both space- and budget-friendly. Check out the comments for bonus suggestions.
   
• Kiplinger's "Baby Gear You Don't Need" -- This is mostly a common-sense list, but the nice thing about it is how it doesn't make you feel as though you're scarring the child for life if you don't get them a playmate with a lot of bells and whistles.
   
• Mommy Poppins' 5 Baby Gear Essentials for Living With Baby in a Small One Bedroom Apartment -- I liked the less-is-more angle to the post, because it encourages mindful acquisition of baby gear that makes everyone's life better.
   
• Mashable's "20 Fantastic Free iPhone Apps for Parents" -- Hey, not all gear is physical. I have lost count of the number of pals who swear by their smartphone as a parenting tool.
   

I'd like to hear from all you parents out there. Did you set up a nursery prior to your kids' arrivals? What did you find most useful? What would you advise people to save their money on? Share your experience at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | October 15 2010 at 05:22 PM

A new, compelling reason to pay your bills promptly

Do you have calendar alerts set up to remind you when to pay specific bills? Or do you have them built into your online bill pay? You should.

According to a column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, companies are trying to nudge customers toward automated bill pay by charging hefty fees for pay-by-phone. Among them:

Chase Bank -- charges you $20 to pay your mortgage by the phone with a live service rep; $15 for using the automated phone pay system

Wells Fargo -- $15 for using the automated phone pay system

Bank of America -- $15 for using the automated phone pay system

Verizon -- $3.50 for any nonrecurring payment using a credit or debit card

AT&T; -- $5 for paying by phone with a service rep

Time Warner -- $4.99 for paying by phone with a service rep

As to why you'd pay by phone: If you're trying to charge your bills to a credit card for reward points and you haven't gotten around to setting up an automatic bill pay, that's one reason. If you're out of town, that's another. If you've got cash-flow issues and can't drop a check in the mail before the bill is due, that's a third.

Of course, you can always sidestep the fancy tricks and just set up reminders of when your bills are due. That will help you plan ahead and avoid paying fees for (in)convenience later.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | October 06 2010 at 02:22 PM

Digital gift cards: Wave of the future or last resort of the lazy?

A recent CNBC article reported on the relative paucity of "major" retailers offering digital gift cards. The premise behind digital gift cards: they're basically a nicely-formatted email informing the recipient they've got a few dollars' credit with the retailer.

The question I had in reading the article: Are we consumers really clamoring for the ability to send digital gift cards?

I can see one scenario where they're useful: You've put off shopping for presents until December 24, all your gift recipients live out of the area, and you don't want to be the clod whose gift shows up on December 30. So ... off to Amazon.com for the digital gift card.

Or, if you're really committed to green living, an email has a much smaller footprint than even a plastic card, an envelope, the stamp and the delivery from point A to point B.

But as a consumer, I'm still not convinced that gift cards trump cash. For one thing, cash is portable: the recipient can spend it wherever he chooses. For another, cash doesn't come with fees and conditions attached, while some retailer gift cards do. Third, cash still works, whereas retailers that go into bankruptcy (cough, cough, Linens'n'Things, Sharper Image or Circuit City) aren't going to fork over the money already spent on gift cards. Fourth, the state of New Jersey isn't going to claim the $50 bill you got two years ago as "unclaimed property" and confiscate the money. They will when it's a gift card that you haven't used in two years.

And then there's one more wrinkle that is unique to digital gift cards: They may get caught in your spam filter. My brother gifted me with a $50 iTunes digital gift card two years ago, and the only reason I was able to use it is that I happened to check my email program's spam filter. A similar thing happened to a friend to whom I had sent an Amazon digital gift card. Eight months later, after I awkwardly inquired as to whether she knew she had it (Amazon.com showed it as unredeemed), she found it in her junk email folder.

But there may be an upside I'm missing on the digital gift card front. So tell dollarsandsense@sfgate.com what you do or don't like about digital gift cards.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | September 24 2010 at 03:50 PM

Coming to the end of the (land) line

Consumerist's post, "Do You Still Use You Land Line?" hit right as my husband and I were debating whether or not to cancel our land line. It costs us approximately $15 for bare-bones service, and that's $180 we could put toward something else. After all, I reasoned, we never use that phone to call out, and the only people who call us on it are pollsters who hang up the minute one of says we work in the media.

Our land line debate happened because I canceled our long-distance service on the land line. We had only gotten it the year before because a long-distance relative had an ongoing medical emergency and our mobile reception kept crapping out in some corners of the house. Having the land line with the distance service gave us peace of mind. Then the relative got better and the one-year introductory offer expired. After getting a letter welcoming me to the new, doubled rates for the service on a phone I rarely use, I picked up the dusty receiver of our rotary phone and canceled the long distance service. Read More 'Coming to the end of the (land) line' »

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | July 21 2010 at 09:26 AM

What will you -- or won't you -- buy used?

It was a big yard sale weekend on the island, and as I walked by one sale this weekend, I saw a half-bald Christmas wreath, a playpen with a few quarter-sized holes in its mesh and a Cosco car seat with the padding peeling off. Why not? Stranger things have been sold -- or rejected -- by yard salers. I've held yard sales where people snatched up half-burned candles and left untouched beeswax tapers to melt in the sun. We tried to sell this set of six margarita glasses for $3 one year and nobody was interested, but when my mother-in-law put out a twenty-year-old collection of those Ernest & Julio Gallo carafes, they flew off the table.

It got me wondering: Is it true that one person's trash is another one's treasure? Are there some items you should just walk on by for quality, safety or sanitary reasons?

The first one I can think of off the top of my head: baby cribs. Hit the Consumer Product Safety Commission some time and check out how often a crib hits the recall list. It's fine if the person selling the crib was okay with letting their child sleep in a drop-side crib; it does not have to be fine with you.

Second, I tend to avoid LPs, CDs, DVDs or video games because you just don't know what condition the discs may be in. (I will note, however, that my mom unloaded a ton of board games at her last yard sale by going through every game, putting all the pieces in baggies, and putting up a sign assuring everyone that each piece in each game was present and accounted for.)

Another area where judgments vary wildly: upholstered furniture. Thanks to the recent boom in bedbug infestations, can you blame anyone for being paranoid about bringing home some unwanted guests with their new sofa?

(Along those lines: Don't buy mattresses used. You really don't know what's been on there or living in there.)

Finally, this MSN article (which clearly inspired this blog post) highlights a class of consumer goods that has only really taken off in the last decade: consumer electronics. As it points out, you don't know how banged-up that laptop or digital camera was before you got it.

So what pre-owned items can you buy at a yard sale without too much worry? A few suggestions: small kitchen appliances that are still sealed in the box (bread machines, blenders, etc.); baby clothing; books; small wooden furniture; Pyrex or Corningware; glassware; children's toys (so long as they're clean and in good condition); adult clothing; home accessories like vases, mirrors and pictures.

What other items do you feel comfortable picking up from a yard sale? Share in the comments or at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | July 19 2010 at 02:05 PM

Why it might pay to check that grocery receipt

So Ralph's -- a grocery chain familiar to anyone who's watched The Big Lebowski or spent any time in southern California -- has been nailed for overcharging customers. As Dan Mitchell reported in The Big Money:

In several cases, undercover inspectors were charged for the ice glaze on frozen fish—a practice that appears to be widespread in grocery stores. Other counts include charging for the weight of the containers for self-service salads.

Each customer is ripped off for small amounts, often just pennies, but thousands of such ripoffs add up quickly, officials said.

I am the type of grocery shopper who watches the cashier scan every single item, and I've had to speak up to correct produce pricing, request my nickel off per each tote bag, or ask why the special promotional price for yogurt isn't showing up on the scanner. I'm not a jerk about it, but it isn't fun to imply someone else isn't doing their job, and I never enjoy it when a manager has to come over and approve a new transaction. It can seem like a lot of fuss over a few cents. But, as I often huff to myself as I'm leaving the store, it's the principle of the matter. I don't see why a grocery store should pocket that extra fifty cents when it's mine.

On a slightly related note: Maybe eagle-eyed vigilance is what's keeping my grocery bills below the national average. According to the Bundle.com report "The Truth About Food Spending in America," the average American household spent $3,778 on groceries last year (approximately $72.65 per week).

However, we in the Bay Area clearly put our money where our mouths are: San Jose folks spent $5439 on groceries ($104.60 per week), San Franciscans spent $4373 on groceries ($84.09 per week), and Oakland residents spent $3848 ($74 per week).

(Hat tip to Brad Tuttle over at It's Your Money for the Bundle.com link; his post on regional differences is a fun, informative read.)

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | May 12 2010 at 03:38 PM

I, yard-sale veteran

Now that the odds of a rainy weekend have dried up, the season of block sales and yard sales has kicked off. I've recently helped two different sets of relatives throw big, clear-your-house yard sales in preparation for a move, and I thought I'd pass along some of what did or didn't work for us.

Price things to move. Getting money from a yard sale is a fringe benefit; the real point to throwing a yard sale is to get strangers to pay you to haul your unwanted stuff away. It's like the opposite of 1-800-GOT-JUNK!

At one yard sale, we priced nearly everything at 25 cents. It worked amazingly well -- we moved over $40 worth of quarter-only items, so that was 120 fewer items we had to drop off at Goodwill later.

Don't always assume "someone can find a use for this." Because while you may have found a use for 50 square feet of eggcrate foam overlay, you might just be one of a kind there.

Do your research. See what people are willing to give away on Freecycle -- if someone's unloading their 50 square feet of eggcrate foam overlay for nothing, you may have a hard time selling such a thing in the same neighborhood. And see what people are pricing things for on Craigslist. It'll help you figure out the best prices for your please-walk-this-off-the-lot merchandise.

Do not be surprised if people do not see your broken appliance or lamp as an exciting fixer-upper opportunity. In fact, matching up your broken lamp or sewing machine with the person who will lovingly restore it is a job best left to Craigslist. Let search engines and the Internet work for you.

Know the hours that the hard-core yard salers will be out in force. Hint: these people do not sleep in. I have found that being set up by 7:30 is your safest bet. Plus, this means you can shut down shop at 12:30 or so without any guilt. By then, most of the good stuff will have been picked over and the stream of customers will have slowed to a trickle. Make your own jokes about drips here.

People are suckers for sets. Take the time to safety-pin together a set of placemats or towels and you've saved someone the trouble of scrounging. They'll be more likely to buy. If you're selling jigsaw puzzles, put up a sign emphasizing how the puzzles have all their pieces. If you find yourself with a surplus of coloring books and crayons -- bundle them together and charge a quarter for the set. (The weird exception to the suckers-for-sets rule? Dishes. For some reason, I've had better luck selling dishes or barware as individual pieces than as sets.)

Note also: People will ask for shopping bags, so if you've got any on hand, keep them nearby. You may also want to hold on to a few weeks' worth of Tuesday coupon circulars, for packing material if you're selling anything breakable.

No matter how much change you think is enough, plan for a little more. You will be the First National Bank of Yard Sale, breaking $20s for people, so you'll want to plan for that. Or else make sure you have a helper who can hit the bank for you mid-morning.

And then, once the yard sale is over, take your $40 in quarters and treat yourself and your helpers to lunch. All that hard work? You've earned it.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | May 03 2010 at 12:18 PM

Tote bags & water bottles: Buy or hold out for freebies?

In prior blog entries, we've touched on some of the virtues of having a tote bag collection: You can feel good about passing up the disposable bags, you can shave a few cents off your grocery bill, and if you limit your Costco purchases to what fits in the bags, you're less likely to walk out pushing a pallet of stuff you're not sure you really need. Truly, tote bags are useful.

Similarly, let's hear it for water bottles! They let you tote around your own water instead of shelling out for a bottle and risking the dual loads of fiscal and environmental guilt.

I've noticed quite a thriving market in tote bags and water bottles -- they're all over gift catalogs, with marketing copy breathlessly touting the eco-friendly benefits of a $30 BPA-free drinking bottle or the stylishness of matching tote bags -- and I wondered: I can't be the only one whose tote bag collection does not so much scream "stylish" as it does "these were all free." I will cop to owning a Trader's Joe canvas bag ($1.99 at time of purchase), but the other six totes in the back of my car were all freebies. As for water bottles, I will admit to gulping hard and comparison-shopping like crazy when I went looking for SIGG water bottles.

When you acquired your water bottles and bags, did you splurge on something nice so you'd be more inclined to use it? I'm curious about whether spending a little up front on items you're very likely to use near-daily -- i.e. water bottles or tote bags -- made you more inclined to change your habits. Tell me at dollarsandsense@sfgate.com.

Posted By: Lisa Schmeiser (Email) | April 05 2010 at 11:15 AM