Lazy Man and Money

Save Money on Valentine’s Day

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Save Money on Valentine's Day
Save money on Valentine’s Day with these tips.

The Super Bowl is this weekend and that means… time to plan for Valentine’s Day. Sorry if I’m being a Debbie Downer to all the football fans out there. I’m a big football fan and, as a New Englander, a huge Tom Brady fan. Still, it’s a good idea to connect the two events, because there’s little more than a week before Valentine’s Day. With coronavirus, shipping times can be undependable.

One reason to act now is that prices are as low as they are going to get. Trying to get flowers at the last minute? Good luck with that. Also, the earlier you act, the more options you’ll have to pick something that will save you money.*

I’m fortunate in that my wife doesn’t seem to care too much about spending money on Valentine’s Day. It could be nearly 15 years of marriage and a focus in raising kids and getting her retired early. Still, she does like nice things. Due to COVID, we’ve saved a lot of money by not traveling and eating out (as much), so this is a good time for us personally to spend a little more than we normally would.

With that in mind, here are a bunch of tips to save money on Valentine’s Day.

Save Money on Valentine’s Day

  • Write a Love Note – This was suggested in the past by a couple of people. I did that several years ago. I was reading a book on writing that mentioned the 10 most beautiful adjectives in the English language. I found a way to work them all in. I think it came out a little forced, but still worked. It’s the thought that counts, right?
  • Create a Treasure Hunt – You can create a treasure hunt around the neighborhood. This can work well in COVID as long as it doesn’t depend on people.
  • Celebrate a Different Day – You can always agree to celebrate Valentine’s Day on the 15th. It makes sense because the date itself doesn’t seem to represent anything special. Back when we could out, we would often go out the weekend before. We can get into the premium places without paying a special markup. It’s also a lot less crowded. For Valentine’s Day itself, we do something small like takeout.
  • Give a Coupon Book – Make a book of coupons of favors that you’ll do. This could range from chores to massages. (Bonus Tip) You might want to start with doing a few chores right away. Studies show that women like men who do housework.

    Did we really need to commission a study to know this? Personally, I’ve known this for some time. The smell of bleach equals “cleaning” to my wife… and “cleaning” equals sexy. You may think I’m crazy, but when I invent bleach-scented cologne and make millions, I’ll be the one laughing to the bank.

  • Go For a Picnic – It’s too cold for us in Rhode Island to go on a picnic, but in warmer climates, it may be possible. Sandwiches, good scenery, and a bottle of wine (which may or may not be legal in your area) all add up to a good time.
  • Fixed Price Activities – Museums and other admission-based venues are typically the same price any time of year.
  • Tour the Romantic Places of the Past – Relive a first date, first kiss, or other milestone.
  • Exchange Small Practical Gifts – My wife and I usually keep our Amazon wishlists current. We usually exchange one or two things that extremely unromantic, but practical. One year my wife had dish soap that was a scent she really enjoyed. Another year, I had new dish towels on my list. Nothing says romance like clean dishes?
  • Have an unValentine’s Day – There are a lot single folk out there. Put on a bad, unromantic movie and eat fast food.

Valentine’s Day Savings at Home

This year, more than any other, it’s best to celebrate Valentine’s Day at home. This can be difficult because you have to make it special. In general, your home is boring, ordinary, and doesn’t scream “This is a special event!” This approach has big risk and big rewards… you are already that much closer to the bedroom…

  • Breakfast in Bed – …or in this case, in the bedroom. Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday this year. It’s the perfect opportunity to get up a little early and make breakfast in bed for your significant other.
  • Cook a Special Dinner – Cooking a special dinner at home is an easy win. At this point in the pandemic, we’re all 5-star Michelin chefs, right? I suggest a great steak or shrimp scampi. I’ve recently started to spend more on a great steak than I have in the past. I can usually find a good deal at my local grocery store for around $6 a pound. Steak and wine are a lot cheaper at home.

    As for the scampi, you can find heart-shaped pasta online or at most grocery stores. For the past few years, my wife has been working from home on Valentine’s Day, so I’ve used this to make lunch break a special Valentine’s Day treat.

  • Cue up a Movie – This is a refreshed article from a several years ago. Back then you’d have to plan to rent a DVD in advance. Now, with Netflix and Chill, you can cut a couple of corners. The downside is that, without putting the effort into planning it in advance, movie night doesn’t seem very special.
  • Cue up the Music and Cut a Rug – I’m not big into dancing, but maybe you are? Maybe you can learn some ballroom moves on YouTube. Finding the right music nowadays is easy… every music should have a romantic playlist you call up on demand.
  • Massage Oils – Looking for something after dinner? Just don’t get scammed into buying super expensive DoTerra essential oils.

Most Valentine’s Day my wife and I have a great dinner at our local military base. For $75 (including a bottle of wine), you get a meal that would be $200 elsewhere. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to continue that tradition this year.

* Don’t give me guff about how Valentine’s Day isn’t about saving money :). While that may be true, the title of “Save Money on Valentine’s Day” should have warned you what this article was about. There’s nothing wrong with maximizing the value your dollar.

What Does Your (Reasonable) Dream Home Look Like?

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A few months ago, one of my neighbors started some new construction on his house. My wife and I was curious about what pandemic feature they were adding. Was it an indoor pool? Was it a chess room? (I’ve always joked about having a chess room.)

Dream HomeMy wife knows the husband better than I do as they shared some military work talk. She found him one day and asked what about the expansion. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a pool or a chess room. His wife was diagnosed with something (Parkinson’s, I think) that makes stairs difficult. The expansion allows living on one floor a lot easier. It took a while to recover from that gut punch, she definitely seems too young for her body to start to go.

It naturally made me think that this house we are in may not be our “forever house” like I had imagined. I can definitely see the advantage of one-floor living as I get older.

That opened up Pandora’s Box. If this house isn’t the one we are in forever, what would that “forever house” look like?

Designing My Dream House

If you are a regular reader, you have probably read me mention that I need some hobbies, things I like to do, and/or a bucket list. I have a long list of things that I don’t like to do such as travel. Teleportation technology can’t come fast enough for me. My challenge is finding things that I do like.

One of the things that gets me excited though is looking at houses on Zillow. I think it’s because I’m naturally a “grass is greener on the other side” person.

It seems that once or twice a month, Zillow reminds me of this house I saved a couple of years ago. I don’t know why it sends me these emails as it isn’t for sale. I also don’t have a spare $7M lying around to make a bid on it.

It does make me smile though.

I started thinking about what I would want in a house. It doesn’t need to be that big, so maybe I could get by with a cheaper place. It also doesn’t need to be here in Newport, Rhode Island. In fact, someplace warmer would be better.

Rather than work backward from a $7 million dollar house, I thought it might make sense to move forward from our current house (we paid $400K for back in 2011). Here’s a short wishlist of things that I’d add to what we have:

  • I want a bigger closet – it’s very tiny now. My wife has a walk-in closet.
  • I want a mudroom area as a place where the kids can change their shoes, hang their coats, store their backpacks, etc.
  • I would like an indoor swimming pool (necessary in Rhode Island) or live in a place where outdoor swimming is easy (Florida for example).
  • I want a big spa tub. I’m secure enough in my manhood to admit that I like baths. Hopefully, I won’t be upset by the costs of heating it.
  • I want my own space – call it a man-cave if you want. It has to be big enough for a deluxe massage chair. The house should also have a she-shed for my wife.

What are some of the things that you would want in your dream home? Maybe there’s a master list out there somewhere to inspire us?

While I’m still figuring out what that ideal place may look like I’ve got the perfect transition house:

HGTV’s Dream Home

No, this isn’t a surprise advertisement for HGTV’s Dream Home. I wouldn’t take money, because then I’d probably be ineligible to win it. Yes, this year’s HGTV’s Dream Home is a couple of miles away from where I live now. It would mean driving the kids an extra 10 minutes to school each day, but I think I could manage it. Yes, it is also missing some things on the list above.

As beautiful as the HGTV house is, it might not solve my dream home goal. It turns out that almost no one keeps their HGTV Dream Home. Everyone has had to uproot their lives to move there. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that. HGTV should jump save everyone else’s time and just give us the house, right?

Moving to the house is only a small part of the problem. The much bigger problem is paying taxes on the windfall. The winner has to come up with $700,000 in cash to give to the IRS.

While the house comes with some prize money, it’s not nearly enough to pay the taxes. If we sold our house now, we could probably pay off all the taxes. It would be a stretch and we’d be “house rich, cash poor”, but not any poorer than we are today. It would be hard to dissuade my wife from taking the house.

Personally, I’d like to take the cash prize. It would mean instant retirement for my wife and the opportunity to move to a house that is more middle of the road than their dream house… just like my dream house that I described before.

Final Thoughts

Have you thought about your dream home? Joe from Retire by 40 has a Hawaiian paradise as his goal. I like the idea, but we’d have to settle for buying an ownership share in that. I’d have to win the lottery to afford to do it. That’s particularly difficult for me to do since I don’t play the lottery.

How COVID-19 Has Changed My Shopping Experience

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We’re more than a half year into the coronavirus pandemic.  At this point, even if COVD-19 hasn’t transformed your life in a drastic way, it has likely caused a permanent shift in some of your daily practices.  For my family, the entire retail shopping experience has been changed.

Online shopping

We were already doing a lot of online shopping.  A considerable amount at Amazon, but also retailers such as Target and Kohls.  This has accelerated in recent months, as we’ve made every attempt to shrink our bubble and limit outside exposure.  We’re lucky enough to be able to work from home, and the kids are able to attend school remotely.  The next step was to push more of our shopping online.  It’s rare to have a couple days pass without having a delivery of some sort.

Stockpiling

I wouldn’t say that we’re hoarding, but we’re certainly making an effort to keep more inventory on hand.  Even though we’re not facing rampant shortages, we do have stretches of a few weeks where it can be difficult to find items.  In the past, we’d keep one spare Tide on hand.  Now we have a couple extras.  We buy Clorox wipes whenever we see them, of course.  Spottings are as rare as Bigfoot sightings.

Grocery pickup

I have always hated grocery shopping.  There are always items I struggle to find, and I end up backtracking.  Canned fruit and fruit cups are in two completely different sections of the store.  Why?  Nobody knows.

The local grocery store offers free pickup for orders of more than $35.  When we first started using this in March, it was a bit of a mess.  Even if you showed up in your correct time window, you could end up waiting an hour or more, and items were often missing from the order.  The process has gotten much more efficient.  In the best situations, it takes less than five minutes.  Even if things go a bit awry, it’s faster than a trip to the actual grocery store.  Overall, it’s a great experience.

Although our first foray into pickups was for groceries, many other retailers off the same service.  The aforementioned Target has a pretty slick process.  They’ve actually improved it in the past couple of weeks.  Previously, you entered your car information, and they’d confirm your identity verbally.  With the recent changes, a numeric code pops up on your phone’s screen, and you simply hold your phone up to your window.

A number of smaller retailers at the local mall are currently offering drive-up service.  For some small retailers, it’s a lifeline to keep afloat, and likely won’t remain in place after the pandemic passes.  For other retailers, it will remain an important channel in the future.

Movie Theaters

At the age of 45, I may have attended my last movie.  I had soured on the experience in recent years anyway.  The local theater moving to a reservation system made things much worse.  Previously, if you got stuck behind tall people, or loud people, or whatever, you could simply move.  Now you need to go out and change your reserved seats.  Additionally, the seats have a tendency to hurt my back.  In general, attending a movie in person had become a much worse experience than streaming something online – and much more expensive as well.  I’m content to just wait for the latest blockbuster to roll onto Netflix.

Dining

I’m going to sound like a grumpy old man, but I’ve never really cared about the ambience of a dining experience.  My primary goal, especially with two kids, has always been to avoid having the experience swallow up an entire evening.  That goal has been accomplished, at least in the short term.  I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant since March 6.

That doesn’t mean that we haven’t eaten food from a restaurant.  About once or twice a week, we use a local service called Chomp that is a competitor to companies like Grubhub.  Chomp has a cool logo (dinosaur) and the majority of the company is owned by local restaurant owners.  The guy who started Chomp lives in an adjacent neighborhood, and has been an active volunteer in the community’s youth sports program.  Being able to help this guy’s small (but growing) business while also getting access to restaurant food is killing two birds with one stone.  Not every restaurant participates, of course, but we’ve gotten a wide variety of food delivered – everything from shrimp to pancakes.  We’ve also had a few pizzas delivered, of course.  There are occasional glitches – like the time Popeye’s only gave us three meals instead of four – but in general the order are accurate and are delivered hot.

At some point, I’m sure we’ll resume in-restaurant dining, but my guess is that this will be less frequent, and that we’ll continue to use the delivery service.

We’re probably going to steer clear of buffets for quite a while, though.  The pandemic has heightened awareness of some unsanitary practices of some of the guests.

One restaurant that has completely dropped off the radar is McDonalds.  I’m not sure if the kids (13 and 10) have just completely outgrown it at this point, or whether it simply loses out to delivery options, but the kids haven’t even asked for McD lately.  I have used the Hardees drive through a few times.  I love their monster biscuit and bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.

Subway is another restaurant that has gotten completely neglected.  My guess is that we’ll eventually return to Subway when we need to grab something quick before rushing off to a school event.  But with the social calendar bare at the moment, there just hasn’t been the need to eat quickly.

In non-shopping news

My company hasn’t announced a plan to return to the office.  They’re planning to work on the plan over the course of the next month.  My guess is that we’ll return to the office sometime in late spring, that some areas will remain primarily work from home, and that the company will use “hotel” cubes in an attempt to reduce the real-estate footprint.  If given the option, I would probably only come into the office about once per week.  Occasionally, if we’re working on something like screen design, it can be helpful to be gathered in front of a big whiteboard.  A lot of my recent work has involved abstract concepts where the need is more cut and dried.  In those cases, remote working is a great solution.  I’m in the process of moving to a new area.  That area supports our tax area, and I’m guessing that even more of my work will deal with the abstract and less of it will deal with user interfaces.

When I worked in the office, I’d buy things from vending machines pretty frequently.  I’m guessing this is another habit that I’ve shed.  Considering the markup on items in the machines, this should save a fair amount of money over the course of the year.

In case you’re worried that I’ll eventually become a complete hermit, that probably won’t happen.  We do look forward to making occasional forays in the outside world at some point.  We have a trip to Door County (Wisconsin) that had to be delayed and is now scheduled for June of 2021.  We enjoyed a previous trip a few years ago and are looking forward to the encore trip.

When Less is More

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sky mallI’m always amazed that I can read thousands and thousands of words and have dozens of conversations… and nothing ever becomes of them.

Then I hear 7 words and it motivates me to change my life. Last night, my 7-year old said these words:

“Can we have a playroom like Theo?”

Years ago, we resisted the temptation to buy a McMansion. It was more important to us to spend responsibly. It’s hard to retire early if you are “house rich, cash poor.” In theory, our 1800 sq. ft home should be enough for a family of four and a dog. In the world of COVID-19, like everyone, we wish we had a little more home. Unfortunately, my crystal ball’s history of success is mixed at best.

In practice, we could use more space. The kids’ grandparents buy tons of toys. I buy every STEM toy known to mankind. My wife knows she has a summer dress problem. I have my own tech gear problem.

However, the biggest problem of all is that I can’t let anything go. I simply can’t bring myself to through something in the trash. I always think, “That has value.” I also feel terrible for contributing more to the landfills. There must be a way to reuse this thing. (For some reason this doesn’t occur to me when I’m buying stuff.)

The worst example of not being able to let anything go is in the image on this post. I have a Sky Mall magazine from 2010. It’s a 10-year old magazine from a company that went bankrupt 5 years ago. Obviously this is extreme and it’s going straight into the recycle bin. However, all the other things I have hoarded are not as easily discardable. It’s not as bad as what you might see on Hoarders, but it certainly isn’t insignificant either.

The other problem is that soon after we had two kids, my wife’s job changed. They put her on a non-stop treadmill and she’s often working 14-hours days. When she has any time off we want to get out and enjoy life with the kids while they are still young. The regular home maintenance gets lost in the shuffle.

It’s time for a change.

My 7-year-old is right, he should have a playroom. It’s not just going to be a kids’ room though. We need a space that can be used for exercise, watching a movie/game (when the primary movie space is being used), doing some quiet deep work, etc. Another living space instead of storage space would help a lot.

There’s a saying, “What you own, owns you” and that’s the case here.

Since this is a large task, I went where I always go, to a spreadsheet. I started to break it up into smaller parts. For example, much of the stuff is going to have to go or get moved to the garage. However, the garage has to be organized and pared down as well. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s something that can be done. One other big plus? I can do it without depending on some outside factor derailing me. It feels great to have full control over something.

There’s an extra benefit to doing all this work… I can put the kids to work. They can’t call a contractor or figure out how to combine a water heater and furnace. However, I’ve said that if parents are doing all this work to make something that will be a playroom, the kids are going to have to help. That means no fighting with each other. It means getting drinks themselves when they are thirsty. It means cleaning their room and having a normal bed-time routine that doesn’t take hours.

I’m just starting to scratch the surface on what it would cost to finish the basement. It is difficult because I don’t have a design in mind. I know that I want it to be able to perform many different functions. I know that I want to use concepts of tiny houses to maximize space. That’s about all I know. I think the costs will be around $15,000. It’s a lot of money, but I think it will be worth it.

If anyone has any advice on a basement renovation or decluttering in general. I’d love to hear it. I should probably watch the Marie Kondo show on Netflix, but that’s precious time that I could use actually doing the decluttering.

What’s Worth Collecting?

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Here’s another article from regular contributor Kosmo. Once again he’s saving my bacon as I’ve been struggling with a lot of things. (Aren’t we all?) I’m hoping to get a fresh article of my own tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have recently begun collecting stamps, primarily those of New Zealand.  One of the more interesting aspects of collections is deciding what to collect.  Some stamp collectors have a very broad collection – collecting any stamp from any country.  Others are much more narrow – perhaps collecting almost unnoticeable variations of just a few stamp designs.





The “Lake Wakitipu” stamp

One recent purchase made me think more about exactly what is worth collecting and what is not.  The stamp was a 2 1/2 pence stamp issued by New Zealand in 1898 (the stamps on the left).  It features Lake Wakatipu.  Unfortunately, in the lower right corner, the stamp says “Lake Wakitipu”.  The error was caught and corrected quickly (with the stamp on the right).  Normally, that would cause the error to be quite scarce.

But people wanted the error stamp.  Demand was strong enough that the postal authorities kept printing the stamp and had to limit how many could be purchased.  People bought the stamps and tucked them safely away.  No doubt the postal authorities were pleased – when a post office sells a stamp that doesn’t get used, it’s almost pure profit for the post office.  Those stamps are probably worth a fortune, right?

Well, no.  The fact that people were immediately purchasing them and collecting them means that there is sufficient supply on the market.  The postally used stamp is actually the more valuable stamp, because few people “wasted” them by using them to mail a letter.  This is the opposite of normal stamp pricing, where the mint copy is worth more.

I know what you’re thinking.  Can’t you just pop the stamp on an envelope, have it get canceled, and make an immediate profit?  Unfortunately no.  The premium for the postally used stamp is only for stamps that were postally used during the relevant time – what is known as a contemporary postmark.  In the case of my stamp, it was postmarked in Wellington on May 12, 1898 (if you’re a postmark nerd, it’s a G class cancellation).  That’s shortly after release, and clearly qualifies as a contemporary cancellation.  If the postmark was in 1908, it would not command the same premium.

Postmarks

Aside from stamps, you can collect envelopes (known in the hobby as “covers”) or even postmarks.  I recently nabbed a lot on eBay.  None of the stamps were particularly interesting.  In fact, half of them were the exact same stamp (one penny 1882 Queen Victoria sideface).  That doesn’t mean they were identical, though.  Not only were there a few different configurations (strips of two of three stamps), and imperfect perforations, but there were also a variety of postmarks, including some partials of the 1900 Wellington Flag cancellation – a very wide postmark that doesn’t fit on a single stamp.  Those partial flag cancellations were the main reason I bought the lot.

Freebies

Another choice some collectors make is to collect the stamps on their inbound mail.  I’ve been fortunate enough to buy stamps from sellers in about a dozen different countries.  Some (awesome) sellers make a bit of a game of it, plastering their envelopes with older, lower-denomination stamps.  The main reason they do this is because you can typically buy modern unused postage at a discount – sometimes as much as 35-40%.  Once again, this is because some collectors hoarded unused stamps in hopes that they would increase in value.  Unfortunately, so many people did this that there’s a glut of these available.  If you have a relatively small number, you can just use them on your own postage.  But if you have thousands, you’ll have to sell – and there just isn’t much demand.

How do you save the stamps?  Put them in warm water for about ten minutes, pushing the stamp below the surface.  I use an old sour cream container for this purpose.  After about ten minutes, the stamp will slide right off the paper.  Rinse off the back to remove any remaining gum residue.  To get them really dry – and to prevent curling – put them between two paper towels, put a bunch of books on top of them, and wait 24 hours.

The scourge of the hobby are the self-adhesive stamps that became popular in the 90s.  You really can’t soak them to remove the gum.  To make it worse, some countries add anti-soaking aspects that basically ruin the stamp if you try to soak it.  They’re not trying to be mean to collectors – they’re just trying to prevent people from reusing stamps.  Luckily, I don’t collect many post-1970 stamps, so this isn’t a headache I worry about very much.

A general rule

A general rule when it comes to collecting: if something is marketed as collectible, it probably won’t be.  The collectibles that tend to appreciate the most are the ones that were never intended to be collected.  When postage stamps were introduced in the 1840s, few people actively collected them – they simply wanted a mail letter.  Postmarks are even less intentional.  Many postmarks have value because it’s from a post office that only existed for a short period of time.  It’s scenarios like that – an organic limit on the supply – that tend to make something more valuable.

But the final rule is this: collect what you want to collect.  You may be able to squeeze a few bucks out of it in the end, but the true value is in the hours of entertainment the collection brings you.