Most people who track their spending accurately (see CalendarBudget) will notice that their expenditures on entertainment add up to more than they expect. I know for me and all of my friends this is true. Of course, this makes sense. What else are we going to do with our disposable income? Given that, here are a few ideas for less-expensive entertainment alternatives so you can take your extra money and pay down that debt or invest for your future… and you’ll find some of these ideas are great fun!
- Rather than going to a restaurant on a date, go to the grocery store, spend less than half the amount and make a night out of preparing the food. You’ll be surprised how much fun this can be.
- Create a dream board – collect a bunch of magazines and cut out pictures of things you’d like to have, like to do, places you’d like to go, etc… Put it all together in a collage. This generates great conversation during and after about goals, dreams, etc.
- Rather than going to the theater or renting movies, go to your local library and borrow some free DVDs from there. My wife and I don’t have cable TV, but we get sucked into some interesting TV series. We just borrow the whole season and watch an episode every few nights.
Please share your other ideas with everyone else by commenting.
My first introduction to personal finances was because I sought it out while I was in high school. It was a simple pamphlet called One For the Money, that my church (of all places) published. It was fascinating to me. I could hardly believe at my young age that people could accumulate so much debt as to need special programs. I was surprised that high schools didn’t teach the basics of money management. I saw people all around me making poor financial decision early in life, setting patterns of behavior that would leave them in dire straits once the major bills of adult life came. Since most people get their education from learned behavior from parents, this is not a great scenario — since many parents are no better off than their children regarding handling money properly.
More…
Last week, and later this week, I’m participating in a blood study. This is drug testing on human subjects, but its not as bad as it may sound. These studies are mainly for introducing clones of brand name medication which have an FDA requirement for clinical trials, even though they are using essentially the same chemicals as the brand name drug. In the case of the study I’m participating in, its for Athsma. I go in Wed afternoon, have dinner, fast until the next morning, then take 2 small puffs from an inhaler and they draw blood from me 19 times over the next 24 hours or so. Total blood taken is less than a regular donation at a blood donation clinic. Then I leave Friday afternoon. Do this cycle twice (once for the brand name drug, once for the new clone) and they pay me $1,100. More…
Even I, an individual who tries to keep their finances very simple and understandable, have more than 1 bank account to manage things. In face, when I log into my bank web site I have the following listed:
- Checking Account
- Savings Account
- Daughter Savings Account (for half of her allowance)
- Business Account (for PayPal use)
- Visa
- Line of Credit
Arguably, Visa and Line of Credit are not accounts, but I treat them that way. While using CalendarBudget, I can currently only track one of these accounts which has always been something I planned to remedy. We’ve been working hard on this one… we actually completed a design and released it, but after some feedback and observing our users trying it, we pulled it back and started over. The original design just wasn’t right. It was painful because it meant 3 weeks of work had to be trashed… but it was the right thing to do. More…
I recently heard about this new account the government of Canada is working on implementing at the start of 2009. Here are some links to the details of what they are planning:
More…
Comments (1)
Post Comment