not the jet set

6/06/2008

"Ed McMahon Is Not Coming"

A phrase that Dave has used over the years to get his point across that no-one is going to bail you out. There is no magic pill for debt. You're not going to win the lottery. And Ed McMahon is not going to show up at your door with a big check from Publisher's Clearing house. "Ed McMahon is not coming."

How true that is. Even for Ed McMahon himself. It was announced this week that Countrywide has begun foreclosure proceedings on Mr. "You may have already won 10 million dollars!" himself, Ed McMahon. He's 85. He's been in show biz for decades, most famously as Johnny Carson's sidekick on the Tonight Show.

Shock #1: He has a mortgage?!
Shock #2: He can't pay his mortgage?!
Shock #3: He has a mortgage with Countrywide?!

He hasn't worked in 18 months since breaking his neck, in a tragic 'he-won't-say-how' accident. I'll wager that his much younger wife may have been involved (wink-wink). Forget that. How is it that this pop culture icon is at the brink of financial disaster at this point in his career? His statement to Larry King sums it up pretty well: "If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," he said. "A couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that."

This statement from Ed's wife is also of interest:

Asked why a multimillionaire could not make his house payments, McMahon's wife, Pamela, said, "Over the years, it's a combination of maybe Ed working so hard and not looking at proper management. We didn't keep our eye on the ball. We made mistakes."

Do you think you are immune to this stuff? Do you think you can out earn your mistakes? The simple answer is NO.

Ed found out that "Ed McMahon is not coming". Literally and figuratively - soon Ed McMahon may not be showing up at Ed McMahon's house.

***Update*** More info here from CNN
Evander Holyfield looks to be in the same boat.

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6/05/2008

Blog Advertising Survey Results

Our survey on blog advertising has been closed a few days, and we've since been examining the results. Quite interesting. With the question of: How do you feel about advertisements on non-corporate blogs?"

The more, the merrier. Monetize, baby! 3 votes (12%)
They are OK, so long as they are relevant. 14 votes (56%)
I have no opinion. 2 votes (8%)
They are OK, but they compromise your credibility a little. 3 votes (12%)
I can't stand them and avoid blogs with ads. 3 votes (12%)

25 votes is not a huge sample size, but it's all we have to work with.
Here is how we are reading this feedback:

The more, the merrier. Monetize, baby! 3 votes (12%)
They are OK, so long as they are relevant. 14 votes (56%)
I have no opinion. 2 votes (8%)
They are OK, but they compromise your credibility a little. 3 votes (12%)
I can't stand them and avoid blogs with ads. 3 votes (12%)

The ones in green are OK with ads - to the tune of 76%. Those in red have an issue with it - at 24%. The 'compromise credibility' group could fall either way, but for the sake of argument, I put them in the anti-ads group. Beyond all of that, the fact that the 'relevant ads' group had a majority by themselves surprised me. Maybe Google was right.

This week we'll take another look at the Forbes Financial Blog Network agreement, and consider giving it a go. We get to screen the ads, so there shouldn't be a problem with relevance.

Is there any reason why we shouldn't do this?

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6/04/2008

$2.049................. per HALF-Gallon

Here's a hot tip for you. When out and about, and no doubt on the lookout for the best gas prices, don't let your jaw hit the ground when you see something like this. Mom and Pop gas stations that have old fashioned gas pumps (the kind with dials, and not digits), may be pricing their gas by the half-gallon, and not the whole.

Before you lay into them about deceptive advertising, know this: Their antiquated gas pumps won't let them price the fuel at more than $3.99. Aparently the wait to get the pumps updated for our new and fabulous global economy is 17 weeks! Yao! Pricing it by the half-gallon is just a temporary work around that allows them to still sell their main product - gas.

And that's what that's all about.

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Carnivals/Festivals

We have been featured on six carnivals/festivals this week. We are pleased to welcome all new readers, as well as new carnivals to Not the Jet Set. To find out more about us, click here. We are a personal finance blog focused on frugality, stewardship, and current events, while also telling our story as a family and the personal finance decisions we have made. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out our new NtJS Cafepress shop!

We're proud to be included on the Organic Green Daddy carnival, which is showcasing our low-cost rain barrel tutorial as a featured post! Thanks, Paul! Glad you enjoyed it. Here are a few other articles that I found particularly interesting:

eFamilyBlogger makes a great case for buying organic.
Veg of the Week then has an illuminating post about which fruits and veggies are most important to buy organic.

Also new to NtJS, is the Carnival of Wealth, Money, and Life. This week's edition includes our evidence against credit card companies to illustrate just how evil they are (but don't blame the cards). Here are some other posts we enjoyed:

Saving For a Home of My Own proclaims why she (and other singles) need an emergency fund.
Fool's Wealth offers some great advice on getting a job. His step one is more than a lot of people will commit to.

The Carnival of Debt Reduction is in Sex in the City style this week. If features out post about evil credit card companies as one of Carrie's Picks! Not sure if that's good or bad, but we'll take it! Here are some picks from the other girls:

[Samantha] Amanda at Me vs Debt admits to falling off the wagon and not reaching a goal.
[Charlotte] Free Money Finance thinks that folks are crazy for taking out a loan to pay for an extravagant wedding (and is right).
[Miranda] The Digirati Life says it's hip to be frugal! Yay for us!

The super-selective Green It! carnival has returned this week and features our green, frugal gardening tips (thanks, Alison!). My favorites from this carnival were:

Condo Blues has a great post on covert composting.
Bean Sprouts shares her tale of a broody hen.

Our rant/primer/what is on budgeting has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance. This week, it is hosted by Moolanomy, and I'm still not quite sure how to pronounce it. Good thing this is a blog and not a podcast! (sorry, Pinyo!) Some other notable posts:

My Small Cents shows how to advertise your Etsy Shop, and if you don't know what Etsy is, then you should.
A Dollar A Day talks about something we could all stand a bit more of: Simplifying.

Another first-timer, the Carnival of Financial Planning, is also featuring our resent budgeting post. The Skilled Investor is hosting this week and has us near the top! Woo-hoo! Here are some other posts you may find interesting:

Forget the will / no will debate, KCLau tells us when to update our will. By the way, you should have a will as well as an advance healthcare directive.
Find Financial Freedom reminds us of an easy way to get a deal.... ASK!

Thanks for reading and thanks to all the hosts. Don't forget to tell your friends and subscribe to get updates via email or RSS.

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6/03/2008

How To: Buy A Used Car: Episode 1

We've gone of the ins and outs of conducting your own private party sale, but now you need some wheels. In these fabulous economic times, it's likely that more of us wish we could walk, bike, or utilize public transport for our daily commutes. If you have one of those options available, then by all means give it a go. Public transport is not nearly as scary as some make it out to be. Mrs. NtJS did it for a couple years in a large metro area, and typically found the bus to be full of professionals and college professors. Definitely not scary and much less stressful than sitting in traffic alone.

New or Used

On the other hand, some of us need a vehicle, for whatever reason - econobox commuter car, daily driver, occasional use pick-up. Most financial folks will tell you that whatever your reason, you should be buying used. Dave Ramsey Show callers are usually surprised to hear him say that they should not buy a new car unless they have a million dollars net worth. His reasoning is that until you reach that milestone, you can't afford the beating you'll take on a new car's value. Now, car manufacturers will brag that their vehicles have the 'highest resale value'. But is buying the best of the worst really what you want? They all lose value, thousands just by driving it off the lot.

No matter what anyone tells you, with very few rare exceptions, all new cars go down in value. A new car is not an investment. An investment should go up in value. According to the Motley Fool, new cars on average lose 20% of their value in the first year, with some losing as much as 40%! Second year average depreciation is around 15%. Ug. Can you afford that kind of hit on a $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 vehicle? Likely not. This kind of year over year losses are not acceptable anywhere else in your financial life, so why accept it here?

According to this USA Toady article, in 2004, the vehicle with the best resale value retained just 62% of the original cost after 3 years. Why take the loss? For the thousands that you'll save by buying a 2 or 3-year old vehicle, you can self-insure through a lot of repairs. Even if you are a big warranty freak, many vehicles are coming with longer and longer warranties these days, and those can usually be transferred between individuals. And that 'new-car smell'? It's a combination of chemicals, adhesives and off-gassing plastics. People like it because they are getting a buzz from all of the fumes they are huffin' while sealed inside their ride. We'll pass.

Convinced to buy used? Ok, good. Now lets go.

Budget
You need to know what you are willing to spend before you even start looking at cars. There's no need to go through the heartache of falling in love with a vehicle, just to find out that it's $4000 more than you can afford. If you just sold your car, then maybe your budget is set - ie the proceeds from that sale. Don't forget to withhold some money for the taxes you'll incur. Maybe you've been saving a few hundred per month, and finally have enough to pay cash for a car. If so, then way to go! That's really awesome. There's few better feelings than paying cash for a car, and knowing you'll never make a monthly payment and never owe interest on you car.

Research

Now that we've gotten that out of our systems. What to buy? Just like selling a car, our advice is going to be research-heavy. Knowledge is power, right?

Spend some time accessing and discussing your needs of your specific situation. We'll assume that you have no idea what you want and work our way down from there. List our your top five features of your ideal vehicle - seating, towing, fuel economy, styling, interior features. Then compare. You need to be on the same page with your spouse before you even start looking at vehicles, or else you will waste a lot of time. If seating for 6 is a must-have for her, but you want 30+ mpg, then you'll find that you have few, if any, options. Try and come to a consensus together on this first, before tying them to a specific vehicle, platform, make or model. You may find some options that you didn't know existed. Don't assume that seating for 6 = mini-van, for instance.
Narrow down the field. CarMax has a great website searching vehicles on the used market. Note that they are a nation-wide, used-car retailer. For that reason, it is a great place to look at cars and see what you won't pay once you get serious about a specific model. I have no doubt that CarMax is decent company with quality product, but we have no desire to pay their markup. We got a much better deal when buying from an individual. At the same time, this is a great place to visit for test driving different vehicles. Not sure how a mini-van handles? Wonder if the engine is underpowered? Concerned about blind spots? Spend some time with a CarMax rep and sit in a few different models. This is a great way to see the difference between brands and platforms.
Let's go shopping! Hopefully by now, you are ready to shop. Craigslist and cars.com were very helpful for us. I also recently discovered that googling "car for sale" will bring up a little search box on the results page asking for your zip code and the make you prefer. Searching here will yield results from tons of sites, yet the results are from your area. once you get into that Google Base results page, you'll have many more search criteria and viewing options including map view. Very cool!

By now you should know what is available in your are and what prices people are asking for them. Once you start finding some vehicles that you are interested in, start looking them up on Kelly Blue Book to see if they have the price right or not. Do the best you can with what you know. Does it look like it's in excellent condition? Very few vehicles actually fall into that caregory, yet so many get priced as though they are.

If they give the VIN and you have your Carfax login, then look it up. Been in an accident? Been through the auctions? How many owners has it had? Mileage accurate? Scrutinize everything before you go to even look at it. It helps to have this information before going to see the vehicle. That way, you can ask questions and already know the answers. Huh? Why? If you know the truth, then you can see how readily the person selling the vehicle will lie to you or try to hide the truth. If they lie about the vehicle being hit (which can be quite obvious), then what else are they not telling you? We're not so sure we want to find out.

Take some time doing this. Next week, we'll tell you how to proceed from here.

How To: Sell a Used Car: Episode 1

How To: Sell a Used Car: Episode 2

From Salesman to Buyer

How To: Buy a Used Car: Episode 1 (here)

How To: Sell a Used Car: Episode 2 (COMING SOON)

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6/01/2008

Welcome MSN Money Readers

We are honored to be featured on MSN's Moneyblog by Karen Datko, and pleased to see so many folks interested in rainwater collection! Rainwater collection is something that we have done successfully and are excited to teach others about. Please contact us with any questions you may have on the subject. Also, if you build a system, send us some pics and we'll feature them here!

To find out more about us, click here. We are a personal finance blog focused on frugality, stewardship, and current events, while also telling our story as a family and the personal finance decisions we have made. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out our new NtJS Cafepress shop, featuring some cool rainwater collection gear!

How To: Water Your Garden For Free - The post that started it all
How To: Build a Low Cost Rain Barrel - Our step by step tutorial
Rainwater Collection Round Up - Links to some great information that didn't exist when we were first getting started in rainwater collection

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to tell your friends and subscribe to get updates via email or RSS.

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5/31/2008

An Ode: Habitat ReStore, How We Love Thee

So really. What is a 'Re-store". We had no idea. There were local commercials advertising two locations with large inventories. We even went to one and really we not totally sure what we had found. It looked like a poor excuse for a True Value full of old, used products. We didn't get it. Fortunately, one day we did.

For those of you unfamiliar with Habitat Re-Stores, here is what one is. It's usually located in a 'low-rent' out of the way storefront, in an unassuming building/warehouse, and is totally awesome. It is a home improvement store stocked solely by donations. Donations from contractors with left-over building supplies. Donations from big-box home improvement stores with discontinued items, items with damaged packaging, or whatever they cannot sell and don't want on the books anymore. Donations from home owners doing some remodeling (or remuddling), and not wanting to just toss everything to the trash. For these reasons, you'll find anything and everything on the shelves. Looking for vintage items - doors, light fixtures, sinks, toilets? They've got 'em. Random selections of paints and stains. Old counter tops (makes great work benches). Appliances. Furniture.

Now why do we adore the Habitat Re-Store? The prices. They'll usually advertise something like "50-75% off retail". Which is great. Sometimes it's even much better than that. They usually are not negotiable, but why would they need to be? With the stock donated, they have a zero cost of goods sold. Low overhead, then gives them high profitability. Those profits, go to the local Habitat for Humanity group and help them build houses. What's not to love here?

Now for the goods. Here are just a few of the awesome deals we have scored at Re-Stores:

Closet Organizers - Brand name, new - in the box, and perfect for our unorganized closets. Unsold stock from the local Lowes, who started carrying a different brand. 2 at $35 each.
Ceiling Fan - The kid's room needed some relief and our daughter was in love with a pink one at Lowes for $99. No way. We sored a perfectly good one at the Re-Store, bought some new globes for it and painted it - together - with paint we already had. $10 for the fan + 9 for the globes.
Counter Tops - Needing a new work bench, we turned to the Re-Store. My trip yielded a nice looking and very structural section of laminate counter top. They had some rather ugly Corian, but it was an odd shape. Re-Store price = 8 feet at $3 per linear foot.
Even the Kitchen Sink - We were wanting to replace the ancient white cast iron sink we had, but found it difficult to justify spending even $100 for a nice new one. On my way back to the counter tops, I spied this stainless steel beauty on the top shelf. Some quick measurements showed that it would be perfect. It was a KitchenAid that retailed for ~$600. Re-Store priced at $30 + I had a 25% off coupon.

Got an undying love for the ReStore too? Share your finds in the comments.

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5/29/2008

Rainwater Collection Round-up

We're getting a ton of visits from those of you seeking info on rainwater collection, rain barrel building, systems, inlets, overflows, plans, costs, structures, daisy chains..... People are thirsty for info on this topic and we couldn't be happier.

The one part of our How To: that we were thought was lacking was the links section. Those were links that I still

had on file from when we built ours, and it was slim pickings back then. Oh how times have changed. I thought it would be good to post some other links that I'd found to be particularly informative on the topic and a good supplement to our tutorial on rainwater harvesting. Enjoy.

Overviews / General Information

Rainbarrelguide.com
Rain-barrel.net reminds you not to drink from these things unless you filter the water.

Other How To's

This Old House (complete with video!)
Instructables shows how in 42 steps. Step 43: Drink a beer.
HGTV's Paul James' segment on rain barrels
DIY Networks even shows how to build a nice platform for elevating your barrels

Retailers (for those of you less than handy)

Rainbrothers of Columbus, OH
Aaron's Rain Barrels & more
Clean Air Gardening has barrels as well as diverters, pumps, and other paraphernalia

Be sure to share your finished projects with us. We'd love to see them and post them.

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$4.089

Ok, I'm ticked. We've been hearing about it on the news for a week or so. We knew it was coming, but that didn't help. Yesterday, I had to pay $4.089 per gallon for gas. Ug.

There have been reports of people really starting to get radical to avoid using gasoline. Good. It's time America got mad about this. It's time we stop politicizing this issue. It's time we collectively work towards energy independence.

Think about some of these things come November. What is really important and pressing on our country? Which leader has the will to make the biggest change of course for our country? I have no idea, and I've been following this stuff.

What is really important in electing our next leader, and the congressmen/women that their administration will be working with? The case for energy independence is more than here.

What have you done recently to stave off high gas prices? Did you stay home over the Memorial Day weekend? We did.

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From Salesman to Buyer

You've done it. You've sold your car, and now you can turn the page on that chapter of your life. Maybe you were upside-down on it and now have a much smaller debt to repay. Or maybe you came out ahead. Whatever the case, as you turn the page, be sure to turn it as opposed to ripping it out and throwing it away. Hang on to your documentation. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen.

We owned our vehicle and had the title, which made things so much easier. But what if you don't? What if you still owe money on the vehicle? You'll have to bring money to the closing, just like if you owed more on your house that you were selling it for. If the loan is with a small local bank or credit union, then it's likely you can work out a deal to borrow the difference between the offer and the value. If the loan is not with one of those two, then it is about to be. Take documentation of both to them and explain your situation. I'm not advocating going into debt to sell your car, but rather reducing your overall debt while selling it. $3000 in debt is better than $25000 in debt. Local banks or credit unions are much more likely to work with you on this than any national bank.

When we sold ours, we got full book value - over $10000. The vehicles we were looking to replace it with were worth less than that. If we wanted, we certainly could have paired that sale money up with more cash and moved up in car a bit. But we didn't need that, so we pocketed the difference. Great irregular income!

Think about what you did as a salesman and how you handled things and get ready to have those tactics used on you. Also, get ready for the seller to not be a prepared as you were.

It's time to go on the attack. It's time to be that buyer you were hoping not to get - the one that knew what he/she was doing. While waiting for inquiries on our car, I was spending time looking for the next one. Doing that streamlined the process a lot. Two days after we sold ours, we were ready to buy - with cash!

Next week, we'll begin the flip side of the coin with our "How To Buy a Used Car" series.

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