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Cost Vs Convenience

September 14, 2022 Being part of this season’s Project Money has helped our family make more prudent decisions regarding our finances, both large and small, and especially useful in keeping us accountable on those smaller expenses. Something that pre-Project Money we may have moved forward with, without so much as a second thought, we are now looking at with a more critical lens. This process has helped reinforce (and remind) that savings, however small, overtime can aggregate to something more substantial. One item that we have taken a closer look at recently is our waste and recycling service, albeit not initially by choice. When we first moved into our house we immediately signed up for the waste and recycling service that had our route. There were two reasons for that, this is what our family was used to (having lived in the city previously and had this service) and the nearest county waste and recycling center would be almost an hour round-trip from our home. It was a no-brainer and was very convenient up until the end of last year. The company that provided the service was sold, and the new firm determined that they were no longer going to service our route. As strange as it sounds – for a few weeks we weren’t quite sure what our options were going to be to get rid of our garbage. As luck would have it our township decided to open a waste and recycling collection station in response, and it happened to be a ~5-minute drive from our house. The more recent decision point has been if we should get back on a waste and recycling route, as a new firm has recently picked up our route. If this was pre-Project Money, I think we would have jumped back on the service route without much thought. But given some reflection, we have decided to hold off and continue to utilize the township facility. This will end up saving our family hundreds of dollars over the course of the year, with only a slight inconvenience (driving to the facility). You might also be interested in As the year comes to a close, so does Season 14 of Project Money. In preparation for writing our final blog post we reflected over what has occurred over the last 6 months and the strides our family has made. Below, in no particular order, are a few of the highlights from our journey: In the last week we had to take Robin’s car, a 2019 VW Atlas, in for a couple of recall notices we had received. Nothing completely out of the ordinary and wouldn’t have any out-of-pocket costs – so it wasn’t something that we had put much thought or effort into – outside of scheduling the appointment. Unfortunately, what we anticipated being a ~1 hour visit ended up being 5+ hours and spurred a larger discussion. One of the topics we had mentioned in our posts from earlier this year was an employee stock purchase plan offered by Robin’s employer. We have never participated in any stock purchase plans before through our employers but being a bit more vigilant as part of Project Money, we decided to give the program further consideration. Being part of Project Money has pushed our family to take a more active role in managing our finances, necessitating weekly conversations that have spurred growth from both educational and fiscal perspectives. One of the topics we had discussed was micro investing, investing small sums of money in fractional shares of stock or ETFs. With Thanksgiving behind us, the countdown to Christmas has “officially” begin. This year, as part of our Project Money journey, we have been planning to approach things a bit differently when it comes to our holiday budgeting. I had been putting this off for a few weeks/months now, optimistic that Fall might stretch on a little bit longer – but this past week’s winter weather brought with it a reality check, it’s time to replace the tires on my vehicle. I’ve just started to research pricing at local tire shops and trying to narrow down which tire choices will be the best value – both in related to cost and performance in wet/winter weather. I’ve also been checking some of the retail stores, Costco in particular. Over the last few weeks, we have been working to refocus, and get back to some of the basics as we start to head into the end of year holiday season. Over the past few weeks and months, I had seen several news reports about I Bonds, usually with a corresponding endorsement of their attractiveness as an investment in today’s market. I’ll be honest, my only experience with bonds was a savings bond that I received as a child – and I can remember waiting for what seemed like an eternity until I (and the bond) were old enough to cash in. After that I haven’t given them much thought until the past couple weeks. We have reached the point of the year where we have one foot firmly planted into heating season and thought we would reflect on what energy saving tips we have used previously and are currently using to help reduce our bills. 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