Kidding aside, I'm glad I have a wonderful wife that puts so much time and effort into our blog. I used to feel like I always had to the be the one at family events and trips to take all the pictures and do stuff like this. Brittany is a great photographer, though, and always seems to have her camera with her. So, I leave most of that to her now. I'm willing to sacrifice having a girly family blog (as in the brown & pink damask, ribbons, and polka dots surrounding this post) because I know I have no room to complain if she's doing all the work! With Brittany at the Relief Society broadcast and me wallowing in self-pity at home with a headache (mostly unrelated to yet another BYU football loss a few moments ago), I figured it would require much less physical energy to write a blog post than to start the laundry. So, here we are!
At some point in the not too distant future, Brittany and I would like to own a house. It will not be for at least another year, because we'll be living in London for the first half of 2011. (Yay!) I'll be on a long-term assignment for work with KPMG, and Brittany may end up doing a study abroad program or find a part-time job. Even though the economy indicates it's one of the best times ever to buy a house, we'd like to find a place that will last us for a while. We need some more time until we'll be ready financially to take on that kind of commitment. We don't need a mansion, but we'd like a place that can keep up with our family as it grows. (Brittany's not expecting or anything, so don't read too much into this. :)
We really love living in the South Bay, but property definitely isn't cheap. I'm constantly thinking of ways we can work toward our financial goals, sometimes at the expense of being a cheapskate. Luckily Brittany is patient with me and does a great job herself making wise financial decisions. From a business perspective, saving money makes a ton of sense. Profit margins vary widely by industry, but let's say you own a business with a 10% profit margin after all your taxes and expenses. Passing up an opportunity to save $100 would mean you'd have to work to get $1,000 in sales to make up for it. If that was a monthly opportunity, that means you have to work $1,000 harder every month. While the numbers aren't usually as pronounced, this principle applies to individuals and families in a similar way. When you consider taxes and other expenses, it almost always requires much more work to make another $100 of disposable income than to save $100.
Our current position as resident managers at our apartment complex is a huge help, because it has allowed us to accelerate our savings plan so that home ownership does not seem like a hopeless, unattainable goal. We've also tried several other things that have been helping us financially.
I fought this one for the longest time. It just seemed wasteful to spend an extra $12 every month for something I thought we didn't really need. Here's the kicker, though... it's been saving us 4-5 times that in money we don't spend on movie tickets, DVDs/Blu-Rays, and other movie rentals. Knowing that we could put almost any movie at the top of our queue and have it in our mailbox within a couple days means we're a lot more disciplined with what movies we buy. We also used to go to the movies once or twice a month, with every trip to the theater costing us about $20. That's almost two months of Netflix for one movie!
Yes, going to the theater is fun for our favorite new movies--for Brittany, read "anything Twilight;" for Sam, read "expensive special effects." But now when see a movie that looks interesting, our standard response of "Hey, let's go see that!" has been replaced with, "Hey, let's add that to our Netflix queue." We can usually wait a few months to get the Blu-Ray in the mail or watch in online using the Wii, our laptops, or even our iPhones. Last night, we had a half hour until our table was ready at the restaurant. We actually took our buzzer with us out to the car in the parking lot, plugged Brittany's phone into my car stereo and watched an episode of "Better Off Ted" with surround sound. For a geek like me, it was one of life's finer moments.
Almost all of the shows Brittany and I enjoy are available online somehow. With Netflix and Hulu, plus all of the networks' websites, the shows we can't watch anywhere, anytime are becoming few and far between. Our Comcast cable package is only about $18/month and provides us with all of the local channels, plus a few extras like Discovery and HGTV (which has been fun, as we contemplate home ownership in the next couple years). We don't have a DVR, but we get a lot of the channels in HD. I don't always get to watch the sporting events I'd like, but maybe that's a good thing. If watching TV isn't as convenient or there's "not a lot on right now," it motivates you to find something more productive to do.
During the first year of our marriage (two years this November!), there were times where we ate out 2-3 times per week. Eventually, we decided we wouldn't eat out more than once a week, and we generally eat at places where we won't spend more than $20-30. We used to heavily overestimate our appetites when we sat down and looked at the menu. We'd order way more food than we needed, and we'd sometimes end up being full before our main courses were brought out. Now we'll often share one appetizer and one entree. The shocking part is that we'll usually still have leftovers.
I also try to take lunch to work with me, rather than eating out, and Brittany's purse is usually like a clown car of snacks when she's at school to save her time and money. $10-20 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but if you multiply that by twice a day, 4-5 times a week, and 4 weeks a month, that can save you several hundred dollars a month. (i.e. perhaps $1,000 worth of gross income!)
Distinguishing needs from wants is often much simpler than we make it. Sometimes it's pretty funny how we rationalize purchases we really could have done without. Several months ago, we decided to have a month where we were each limited to only 3 "wants" for the entire month. I was shocked. It really worked. It was a lot easier than I expected it to be. We didn't even use up all of our allotment, and our "wants" were only $5-10 each. We saved a lot of money.
Even though our goal wasn't to start doing that on a sustainable basis, I think it really taught us both a lot about what we could do without. Brittany and I laugh about that fact that the longer I spend thinking about buying something, the less likely I am to buy it. It's convenient, too, when we divide and conquer a store like Ross or TJ Maxx. I'm generally done looking through my section pretty quickly. After adding a few things to the cart and then following Brittany around for a while, most of the things I picked out usually vacate the cart before we make it to the checkout lane. While that new shirt might be nice, I really don't need it right now. Just gotta keep thinking about making that down payment on a house!
If you know me at all, you probably know that I don't like to read books. I really enjoy reading news articles, and I think I do a fair job of staying informed of what's going on in the world. Maybe it's an attention span thing, but I just get really bored staring at a book for extended periods of time. I also find it difficult breaking it into pieces, picking it up and putting it down. So, this one wasn't really an issue for me.
It's a sacrifice Brittany has made over the last couple years, though--using the public library to find most of her reading material. A lot of the books she reads are volumes in a series, so once you ready one, you want to read them all. Even finding bargains on Amazon.com, bills can still rack up. Using the library, she doesn't have to worry about spending money on a lemon, and we avoid the issue of finding more space to store a rapidly expanding library. Between the Los Gatos library and the Santa Clara County library, she usually has pretty good access to most of the things that perk her interest.
Well, I guess I'll step down off of my soapbox for now. Hopefully, this won't be the last time you hear from me. My online presence typically just consists of brief comments on current events on Twitter and Facebook. This was kind of nice to have more than 140 characters to express myself.
