Lazy Man and Money

Past, Present, and Future

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I’ve never liked click-bait titles. You know, those kind of titles that end with, “… and you won’t believe what happened!” I am almost always disappointed because the “unbelievable thing”, wasn’t so unbelievable.

So today, I’m going to do the opposite and start with the most boring title I can think of. By setting the expectation low, I can’t help but surpass it, right?

We’ll start with:

The Past

It’s Memorial Day in the United States. For many it is a time to reflect on the people who gave their lives for our country. For some it is an excuse to drink beer and eat burgers. If you are in the later group, I hope you spend some time reflecting on why we have the holiday. Having an appreciation might make your beer and burger taste a little better.

It’s tempting to write a whole blog post about Memorial Day, but this site is about personal finance. There are some great military blogs and news sites that will do a far better job than I will

The Present

Long weekends are great for my dog sitting business. It was looking bleak for most of the month, but in the last week, we booked up completely. I even had to turn away a couple of dogs. (That’s always a heart-breaker.)

We’ve had a lot of rain this weekend, so I haven’t gotten out much. I’m a long ways away from The Shining territory, but I am starting to feel a little trapped. My 4-year old suggested that we play memory for Memorial Day. I liked his logic. The four of us played and my wife cheated by using her photographic memory. She got twice the matches I did. I got twice the matches my 4-year old did. And the 4-year old got twice the matches my 3-year old did. Sounds like an SAT problem.

The rainy Memorial Day weekend is significant for our local economy. We get a ton of tourism and Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. (Shop owners can in some ways say, “Happy Memorial Day!” and not have it sound weird. This is when they make most of their money.) With the rain, people didn’t come and didn’t spend money. I’ve seen restaurants gut their staff after such a hit.

The Future

Today is also 5/29. For personal finance blogs like this one, it is a significant date. It’s an annual reminder to those of us who have kids that we might want to contribute to their 529 Plan.

If you are new to 529 Plans they are tax-advantaged way to save for college. They almost work like Roth IRAs where the money grows and comes out tax-free. That’s a decent tax perk. In my state, Rhode Island, we can also deduct up to $1000 from our taxes per year. Since we are saving for our kids college anyway, it makes sense to do it this way.

It seems that Rhode Island has another tax perk that could prove very interesting. It seems that a couple is allowed unlimited carry over of this deduction. I understand this to mean that if we put in $40,000 today we could deduct $1000 off our taxes for the next 40 years. I need to consult my tax advisor on this to make sure I understand it correctly.

If that’s true, it is not too shabby to have that tax deduction hanging around. Of course, who knows if we’ll live in Rhode Island or be alive in 40 years. The only downside is that a $1000 state tax deduction may only amount to a $40-60 savings each year at Rhode Island’s correct tax rates. Hmmm, that’s not too exciting after all.

It is a little dated now, but 10 years ago, I wrote a brief guide to choosing a 529 plan. The main ideas are still helpful, but the specific numbers for the states probably have changed.

I found that if your state offers one with some tax deduction (like Rhode Island), usually that’s the way to go. If your state doesn’t (California didn’t when I lived there), it may be best to explore another state’s plan. Back in 2007, I decided that Ohio’s was the best fit for us. I still have a couple of accounts with them today.

However, you choose to spend today, I hope it is meaningful to you.

Christmas Spending in the US

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We down to single digit days before Christmas. I saw this infographic and had a few thoughts:

Christmas Spending in the United States - Avant
Provided by Avant

  1. It’s probably not a surprise, but I’m in the 90% of shoppers who haven’t completed their shopping. It is mid-December.
  2. My reason for not completing fall in the 28.8% of not being given ideas by loved ones. However, I can’t throw stones in my glass house as I haven’t given many ideas for loved ones. It seems more and more difficult to find material objects that provide value to me. On the plus side, I avoided the 20% of being too lazy. If I can do that, you can too.
  3. When I look at the presents that people want, it becomes more clear to me why I can’t figure out what to ask for.
  4. I think I’m far below the $830 amount spent on gifts, but I’m not sure how that is tabulated. Is it the total that I spent for my wife and half of what I spent for the kids (with the other half being from my wife)? That seems to be the most natural way to do it.
  5. The best tips are buried at the end… how to reduce spending over xmas. Make Time would be the most important thing for me.

Sell All Your Clutter on Ebay Now…

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I probably don’t need to remind you that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. You are likely already preparing your turkeys. You’ve made sure your football is properly inflated. You have mapped out your plan of attack for Black Friday.

Over the next week or two, you might want to add one more thing into the mix… selling your clutter on Ebay.

For the last couple of years, my wife has been selling dozens (maybe hundreds) of items that we no longer use on Ebay. With our youngest child nearly two, there’s a lot of toys and clothes we simply don’t need any more. It’s not limited to that though. We’ll sell anything that we don’t need or use. For someone that doesn’t typically spend much, it is amazing how much stuff we have. (I think we have “stuff” elves that create stuff while we asleep or it just multiplies like rabbits.)

You can sell your clutter any time on Ebay. These couple of weeks are by far the best time to sell items. I think my wife sold more items in late November and December than in all the other months combined (except February – more on that later). It’s like having your own personal Black Friday sale.

The two advantages are obvious… less clutter and some money. We might even sell enough to cover all the money we are spending on gifts this holiday season.

I’d like to give you more tips about what kinds of things sell. However, it’s been my experience that nearly everything sells. The only thing that we haven’t been able to sell are these Grillie ornaments for your car. I was able to get some on a deep discount and thought I could flip them to make $15-20 each relatively easy. I should have anticipated that the world doesn’t know what a Grillie is, and there’s not just demand for them.

Don’t let that stop you from posting your own stuff. Even if you only make a few sales, it’s money in your pocket and space saved.

I’m very, very good at procrastinating. (That’s probably why my wife takes the reigns in the Ebay business.) If you are nearly as good as I am, here’s one last motivating push: go to Ebay now and post just one item.

Update: I forgot to get to the February thing I mentioned earlier in the post. I don’t know exactly why it is, but February was a huge sales season for us too. I thought maybe people are using gift cards they got over the holidays. My wife thinks that maybe people are buying the things they want for themselves that they didn’t get over the holidays. Who knows, but February seems to be a hot time to declutter on Ebay as well.