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I've mentioned this a couple of times before - and considering the age of this site, that's really saying something. What to do with irregular income? Even if you are not living on a monthly budget - and you should be - you can still do this. Overtime pay, a bonus check, garage sale profits, inheritance money, tax refund, birthday money... This money is coming in, but what will you do with it?

As you may have found already, if you don't tell your money what to do, you'll always wonder what happened to it. You'll have blown through this extra income so fast, your head will spin and just when you regain your balance, your spouse will say, "Why don't we take that tax refund and do X?". I don't know what 'X' will be, but it won't be a fun conversation when the two of you realize that money is long gone.

Much like a budget, an irregular income spending plan (IISP) is a shared set of goals. If we had extra money, what would we do first? What would we do second? If we still had money left over, what would we do next? A simple spreadsheet will do nicely. What you are making is a prioritized list of expenditures with the cost and running total. I might look like this:



It need not be any more complicated than that, but you can add as much detail as you need. Four important things to note:

1. You should have some needs and some wants. Enjoy your money, but be sure your priorities are in order.
2. You and your spouse need to agree on the priorities. You may think that buying a table saw should be job 1, but since you haven't taken your wife out to a nice meal in 6 months, she may think otherwise.
3. You should always have more items in the hopper than irregular income can cover. Who has ~$13k in irregular income?!? You might! You might not. If you do, then you should have a plan for it. If not, then you can move the remaining items up and work on new ones to fill the hopper. Worst case: a rich relative dies and leaves you more money than you could have imagined and it totally blows away your IISP. This is a good problem to have.
4. You'll notice my use of the pronoun "we", and mention discussions with your spouse. This is more important for married couples than you could ever imagine, and probably warrants its own article. If you are not on the same page as your spouse, what a peace offering this could be. Sit down with your husband or wife and talk to them about doing this. Talk about how important this is to you and about how you want to do it together - and mean it.

My HDTV Challenge article is featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance #137! Big thanks to The Dividend Guy for hosting. Looks like I need to write a better description next time I submit an article. A few articles I enjoyed:

• Jason from The Amatureist Financial Journey has a great piece about crappy insurance. It reminds me about the crap state of health insurance in this country and something interesting I found out about my own.
• Laura's article from Green Panda Treehouse on separate finances in a marriage just leaves me asking, "Why?". As someone with shared finances it just seems terribly complicated, but at least they found something that works for them.
• Bob McDonald from The Platinum Years Network asks What if We SAVED Our “Stimulus Package” Checks? What? We should't go out and blow the money like its two weeks after April 15th? Crazy, Bob, crazy (I happen to agree).

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At the urging of the Federal Reserve Board Chairman and others, the Bush Administration has pushed an "economic stimulus" plan to avoid a supposed recession. From the outset, I was very curious as to how exactly you do something like that. The answer, apparently, is free money. If you qualify - and something like 116 million Americans do - you'll possibly be getting a tax rebate check in the mail. This may come as early as May or June. $600 for individuals, $1200 for couples (filing jointly) + $300 per dependent child. Congress seems to be following along with this plan, though we know how that goes.

This proposed plan, including all of the other rebates that would benefit businesses, is purported to cost the government somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion. Its well known that our federal government is not operating in the black. So our nation goes deeper into debt to stimulate our nation's economy? Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee is skeptical of the whole thing, and I think he's right. Our government will likely borrow the money from a foreign country to give it to Americans, who will likely blow it on products made in foreign countries. So who's economy are we stimulating?

I'll add that if you aren't already living on a budget, if you don't have a spending plan for your money, then you can kiss this money goodbye. You'll have it spent faster than you can say, "Who ran up the Visa bill?". You won't use it to pay down debt (which you should). You won't save it for a rainy day (at least not for more than a couple months). A year from now, you won't even be able to point to something and say, "That's what we did with it, that's how it help our family". If you're not already, then it's time to get on a real plan. Its time to get out of the clutches of debt. This free money from the government may be just the thing to get your debt snowball started.

Full Disclosure: If this check from Uncle Sam comes in ( big IF), ours will got straight into our savings till we apply it to our Irregular Income Spending Plan.

***Update 2/15/2008 *** The checks ARE coming. Does this change our position? No. Read what Dave Ramsey has to say about the 'stimulus package' here.

Opposites do attract, but something my wife and I both thoroughly enjoy is getting deals. We're pretty good at it, too. But we get it honestly - both sets of our parents know how to get a deal and do so regularly. My father, for example, was showing me a couple of beautiful suits he'd purchased recently. Both brand name, purchased at retail at a savings of several hundred dollars. Then came the phrase, "So what's it really worth?". A question of his that I rarely have the answer for.

I typically - true or not - assume a 100% mark-up at retail. That means if the store's cost-of-goods-sold is $100, then they'll be pricing it at $200 (ok, ok, $199.95). Sure some items are loss-leaders - meaning the store takes a hit on the item to get you in the door and buy other items as well. Some items may be ringing up at more like 1000% mark-up. Thats right, an order of magnitude. Try pricing out some AV cables at Best Buy, and then see what you can get them for on-line, you'll see what I mean. At any rate, they're marking it up to cover overhead and turn a profit, thus they can afford to later knock it down "on sale".

The pricing games played at retail are terrible these days - pricing items well above MSRP just to discount it immediately so that you feel good about saving 50%! Not all retailers are guilty of that example, but it seems to be plaguing places like Kohl's and Sears. Some deals are just that - deals. Some are not. How retailers think they can pull this off in the information age is beyond me.

So what's it really worth? How much is a $500 suit really worth? $70 for an HDMI cable? I don't always have the answer to these questions, but I can tell you this: Its generally not worth what they are asking for it. This reoccurring space will be dedicated to those times when we truly, honestly get a deal and have to ask, "So what's it really worth?".

After playing around with this site for a while, I think I've gotten to a point where I might, kinda get serious about blogging. I know, way to commit! I feel I have a lot to say about personal finance, it's just a matter of making the time to make something out of this. A few things to note:

• I did not major or minor in English. Feel free to correct my grammar or spelling, just don't expect me to care. On second thought, don't bother.
• I am not a financial planner, financial counselor, nor accredited in any way in this field. I am, however, an expert in my opinion.
• I welcome intelligent discussion or debate about the topics of my posts, but I will moderate comments and reserve the right to remove inappropriate comments.
• I am a fan of Dave Ramsey and my opinions tend to line up with what he teaches.
• I think Suze Orman is a shill.
• I will mostly be blogging about personal finance as it relates to current events, faith, and everyday life.
• I am not doing this for money, and you will not see ads on this blog. See here for more on this.
  
• I am not independently wealthy, and have earned all that we have.
• I am not afraid to fail and have done so before.
• I have a wife, 2 children, a mortgage, and no other debt (thanks, Dave!).
• I am hopelessly frugal, but by no means a scrooge. I enjoy life, but not at the expense of my family's future.

If you have questions, ASK! I'm happy to discuss.

He's a spender, she's a saver. Together, they're Not the Jet Set.

Fed up with working too hard to not have any money, we made the decision to take control of our finances. We began a mission to get out of debt and stay out of debt - forever. On June 23rd of 2006, we completed Baby Step 2 by paying off over $42,000 in 20 months. During that time and ever since then, we've seen it as part of our calling to help others achieve what we have - financial peace.

not the jet set . net is a blog about money, stewardship, and frugal living - personal finance for the rest of us: one family's story. We don't claim to know it all. We won't claim to make you rich. But we may get you to think a little differently about money and how it affects your life.

Be sure to check these out if you haven't already.

• Who is Mrs. Not the Jet Set?
  
• We're (Still) Debt-Free!
• Our Cash Envelope System
• The Reluctant Spouse
• Our Budgets
• 2008 Year in Review
  

Wanna chat? Got a question? Drop us a line!

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• Mrs. NtJS

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