Today we’re going to stimulate the economy.

Car dealers are hurting, nearly bankrupt. If George Bush were still president he’d tell us to be Good Americans and go buy a car. It will help the banking, credit industry and the car industry.

Our van, our only car, died last week. DEAD. There’s no fixing it. It has 238,000 miles on it and needs a new engine, a new air conditioning system and a new electrical system.

I’ve written that having one car is not an emergency. I’ve been riding my bike around town for months. It’s fun. It’s good exercise. All that sunshine and exercise is good for the positive attitude.

Plus, seeing my kids and I on our bikes makes everyone smile. I feel like an ambassador for happiness, exercise and joy.

No car at all in rural America actually IS an emergency.

We have no money saved for a car. We were too busy bailing water out of the sinking ship that was our van and our other money suck car from the 1990s for the last 2 years. A lot of our savings – our master plan – tanked this year.

Can anyone think of better option than to buy my Dream Ride at 8-9% interest?

This 2005 Dodge Caravan is the Mac Daddy of all minivans. It’s a moving hotel as comfortable as my living room.

The leather seats heat your bootie.

The two side doors and the hatch back open and close electronically with a key clicker.

It beeps when you get too close to something behind you.

So, we’re going to do our part America. We’re going to do our part to stimulate the economy.

Post from: Blisstree

Saving the Car and Banking Industries or Being a Good American

I want to introduce you to my Frugal Guru, Jen from Jlogged.com.

She recently redid her website to help people use their money wisely. If I want inspiration to stay on track with the family budget she’s my “go to.”

Jen’s one of the few people I can compare detailed notes with about income and out-go and saving and financing, etc.

She knows her business. Her business is living a larger life within her means.

And she lives a pretty good life, eats organically and reduces her carbon footprint, etc.

She’s doing Nablopamo and she’s writing about money for all 30 days. You don’t want to miss it. She’s got good stuff.

She has this one on cars.

This one on books you should read to change your thinking about money.

This one about those damn Jones’.

This one about lunch boxes.

This one on costumes for Christmas.

Her ideas are always worth stealing (I steal them all the time) so I’d sign up for the RSS feed if I were you.

Post from: Blisstree

Frugal Guru

Unlike most of America – we have no car payments.

And we love it.

We keep an emergency fund of $1,000 for car repairs. And we use it. Lately we use it a lot.

Over the summer we drained it – more than once. Lately, we’ve been replacing batteries, alternators, air conditioning compressors, starters in our old 1990s wheels.

We accepted there will be no more air conditioning in our van and Thank the Good Lord winter is coming cause 103 East Texas heat and humidity is like unto hell.

Our second commuter car kept dying for no reason. We don’t know the reason and we’re tired of sinking money into a piece of crap car to find out the reason.

My theory lately is that they make cars to be a lot more disposable than they used to.

Car makers used to believe Americans would drive a car for 30 years since they cost so much money. They figured out they were wrong about that and stopped making such good cars. Now, they make cars to last about 10 years. That’s my theory having driven a great deal of used cars. The ones not made in the 1990s were more reliable and easier to fix.

That or I was a lot more tolerant about push-starting my stick shift.

We live in a small town and just decided – hey, we can really walk or ride our bikes to almost everywhere we need to go and I work from home. We really have other things we need to do with our money. Not the least of which is save money for a more reliable car.

We’ll just one-car it for a while. It will be fun.

Then our van broke down.

No car-ing it isn’t really viable. We will have to borrow cars from kind relatives. We’ll have to bum way too many rides – which seemed to be a way cooler thing to do in my 20s, but with the addition of 2 kids and their car seats it seems like a big imposition now.

People will start to pity us. Which is such a shame, because I pity them for having the burden of car payments.

Why don’t we – like millions of Americans just go finance a car? As if this is some Major Financial Emergency? Everybody else is doing it, why not us?

If I had one single explanation for the cause of the international financial crisis we’re facing today I would say it’s, “Everybody else is doing it.”

Everybody bought more home than they could afford.

But, they shouldn’t have.

(Except it wasn’t everybody. It was just a lot of bodies. And those lot of bodies really impacted the entire world in a profoundly negative way.)

Something in my DNA tells me that if we skip groceries for the next two weeks to pay for this $300 car repair and keep on saving our money there will be a whole lot of cars – nice financed 2000ish cars – on the market at rock bottom prices.

I’ve got my eye on a van with double doors and working air conditioning with no car payment.

Check out my friend Jen’s Cash Car 101 at jlogged.com. She’s a money-saving guru.

Photo Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Post from: Blisstree

2 Cars to 1 Car to No Car? Redefining “Financial Crisis”

Hey Ya’ll – Don’t miss Suze Orman, author of Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny on Oprah today.

The way people have been handling their money has been a hot topic around Blog Fabulous since I got here.

The reason is because my family got in some hot water about 4-5 years ago now and it took a long time for us to dig ourselves out of the hole and learn about money and develop a healthy relationship with it.

Women MUST learn about money. Must. Must. Must.

Else you shall have no power in your own life, Sister. That’s a fact.

Watch Suze today and we can talk about what she says in the comments section.

I must point out that Suze saw this bank crash coming. She told ya’ll to stop whipping out your credit card for every little thing you desired.

If you didn’t listen, know that there is a secret recipe to digging yourself out of your money mistakes: LEARN and Change Your Thinking.

Take Financial Peace University at a location near your home and learn to change the way you think about money. It’s hard, but at the end of the road there’s peace.

Buy Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny and learn about women’s relationship with it and how you can develop a healthier bond.

Read my Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny detailed review and critiques here:

Image Source: Oprah.com

Post from: Blisstree

Suze Orman on Oprah Today

When you joined the Save Yourself movement, you also made a declaration. You said to yourself: “I own the power to control my destiny.” Now I ask you: What action have you taken lately to fulfill your goals?* How close are you to paying off those
credit cards?

* Do you have an eight-month emergency fund?

* Have you opened a Roth IRA?

Use this Independence Day to recommit to your financial freedom.

Well, I did join the Save Yourself Movement by opening my own account.

But, I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of mutual funds there are to choose from and the steep arch of the learning curve to figure out the right one/ones to choose.

How are the rest of you handling your own economic independence?

Tell your husband you want to open your own emergency savings account. What’s a 4th of July without fireworks anyway?

Post from: Blisstree

Independence Day

I took a major action step to Save Myself. It wasn’t easy, there were a few fights and one angry letter to Suze Orman over my using $50, of our already very tight budget, to Save My Self by opening a TD Ameritrade Account.

Rewind: Suze Orman had a Save Yourself Plan in her book Women & Money. Women who signed up for a TD Ameritrade Investment Account before March 2008 and automatically save $50 a month for one year will be given a free $100.

So far I’ve saved $100. But, I don’t know what to do with it. The market is tanking and it’s giving me ambivalent feelings about my ability to make a decision. I’m afraid of making “the wrong one.”

Our investment decision are always surface and ambivalent to begin with.

Did you see Suze rip that couple a new one on Oprah? Do you know how this investment did over the last 10 years? Do you know how much you’re spending on servicing this mutual fund? And a whole bunch of other questions I didn’t really follow. Then don’t tell me you have a good mutual fund because you don’t even know what kind of mutual fund you have! she scolded.

The pressure is causing paralysis of indecision. Have you ever looked at a prospectus?

Prior to my husband working at a chicken company I would have thought chicken was as sound an investment as you could get – everybody eats chicken. (except those with an inexplicable love affair with the soy bean). But even that stock is tanking because of . . . wait for it . . . oil.

The seemingly innocuous development of ethanol – with 1/3 of the United States corn crop – is driving up the price of chicken feed and it’s causing unprecedented worldwide food inflation.

Do you have a crystal ball that explains the safe investment which will quickly grow? Can I borrow it?

(P.S. Stockpile chicken.)

Post from: Blisstree

Saving Self/Tanking Market

People can download the book for free until 8 pm Feb. 14, 2008.

It’s a good book. I’ve read it, deconstructed it and followed some advice. Hurry up! Go now.

Women and Money articles:

• Save Yourself With Savings
• Orman and Ramsey Duke It Out (in my head)
• Unearned Loyalty
• Are You On Sale?
• Blame and Shame
• Virtual Book Club
• Money & Happiness
• Cleanliness
• New Money
• Who Are You?

P.S. There is a promo code included in the book that’s worth a free $100.

Like I said – run, don’t walk!

Post from: Blisstree

Urgent: Free Money Book

I’ve been hearing all about those amortized home loans. And I want to know how that effects my position. The media hype is that millions of people are on the verge of foreclosure. In Texas, they say there will be fewer than the rest of the country.

Still, the Center for Responsible Lending estimated that 17 percent of Dallas-area homeowners who assumed subprime mortgages in 2006 would lose their homes to foreclosure, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Pres. Bush is saying they should let a large number of these people refinance under FHA (Federal Housing Administration) guaranteed loans.

The Dallas Morning News reported, which would add about 240,000 people next year to its roster of federally insured loans.

I need help determining where that puts my position as a first time buyer.

• If I wait a few months will I be in a good position to pick up a foreclosed home for a much lower price than I’m seeing today?
• Or will those who borrowed more than they could afford flood the FHA Loan market and somehow negatively effect my position?

Post from: Blisstree

Hey Market Watchers

Do you say your chosen full name in a powerful way? In the last chapter of Women & Money Suze Orman challenges us to say our full names as if we are proud of who we are and what we do. Why should that take so much courage for women?

Post from: Blisstree

Naming of Me – W&M Book Club

In the same way I’ve noticed there is something in the air breeding discontent. By discontent, I mean dissatisfaction with the present situation. Nearly everyone I know is, all the sudden, dissatisfied.

You just can’t stand your living situations, homes, clothes, cars, budgets, hair style, etc. And it feels like an emergency. Like you can’t take the present situation one more freaking second.

You want a new van, a new car, a new house, new jeans, new shoes, new clothes, new hairstyle, new wardrobe, new couch. And you feel like you must do anything to get it. Get your parents to co-sign on the loan, hock your wedding ring, take a terrible interest rate, exceed your budget, get two more jobs, violate your principles and throw out your hard-won financial education and go into debt.

I understand completely – I feel it to. I’m calling mortgage brokers and real estate agents and contemplating brunette or red hair. I bought a new pair of jeans and some red pumps. My husband is scouring classifieds for a car. My daughter informed me today that she needs new clothes and shoes. I’m sure the baby is secretly pining for the must-have baby toy.  

I propose that it’s really not that intangible – it’s marketing. The change of seasons seem to trigger some kind of emotional response to marketing even small children can’t help responding to. More likely marketing efforts are greatly increased to sell school clothes and last year’s car and we find it difficult to resist. It’s difficult to maintain contentment in the face of so much marketing insisting we should updating everything immediately.

Remember last September? You felt just like this. Next September, expect it again. When Christmas rolls around, you know what to expect. Brace yourself now and save up some dough.

Repeat after me: I am not a consumer. I am a person. I have what I need and can exercise patience and good judgement about my money. It may be time for a new-er car, but I deserve for it to be burden free. It’s time to move, but I deserve to not overextend my family to get it. I want new clothes, but I need to respect my self and not destroy my budget over it. My couch will do until I save for another one.

Now take a deep breath.

Perhaps you should satiate this monster of discontent by hitting a discount store, garage sale, thrift store or clearance rack. Knowing I have some buying power often makes me feel better. Cash only under $20 spending can be absorbed into the budget. It might quiet all those voices saying you don’t have enough. It also might give you time to think about that big purchase and how prepared you are to make it. The time to think often saves us from paying lots of stupid tax.

Remember: I am a person not a consumer.

Post from: Blisstree

Smell That?