holidays Archives - Lazy Man and Money

So it’s that time of year when everyone is happy about the holidays. Or at least they are able to put on the appearances of being happy. I wonder if the reality is more like this SNL skit:

The kids’ school does a lot of extra events this time of year, so the schedule is helter skelter, “Pick up kids early, drop them off in pajamas, have a special snack prepared, bring ingredients for ginderbread house making.” That’s just a few of the things. Yesterday there was a school play which required the kids get in “special dress” and the result was similar to this SNL skit from this weekend:

Since school is dismissing early my wife came up with a good idea to invite some of the kids’ school friends over for lunch and a play date. We’ve been missing the social connection (her especially, I think), so I figure that this would be a good idea. Unfortunately, our lives are pretty hectic (isn’t everyone’s?) so the house has a billion half-finished projects and we’re overwhelmed with clutter and toys. (In fairness, my STEM toy addiction probably hasn’t made matters better.) We’ve got so many toys that the kids don’t even play with their brand new Nintendo Switch that they saved up for. It’s only going to get worse as I kept finding deals throughout the holiday season.

The biggest thing that is going on with me is that I think I’m just depressed. It’s hard to write that and we’ll see if I hit the publish button. The combination of the short days of the year and it being 15 degrees is simply not a good mix for me. It’s probably some kind of S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder). I don’t want to leave the house or walk the dog or any of the things that would probably be healthy.

Behind the scenes, we have a condo turnover that is just terrible. It’s hard when people move out in November or December in cold states. No one wants to move. We’ve lowered the price, but the real estate agent keeps on asking us to do more and more work. It’s getting to be too much deal with contractor after contractor. With it being a couple of months now (and probably more without a Christmas miracle), it’s hard to pour more money into it.

I’ve had a difficult time online as well – and almost everything I do is online. I had this great idea to review every year of the decade. That kind of article takes 8-10 hours minimum, which is hard to put together. I’m not sure if people get value from it, because few people leave comments on blogs any more. I think it’s just the nature of their being so much content out there that no one has the time to read it all and comment. Everyone else has their own endless todo list, right?

The online income isn’t getting better (which makes sense, because I have less time to blog), but when it does come, it comes with maddening invoicing instructions. It used to be that everyone put an email address and an amount in Paypal and it was done in 30 seconds. I spent nearly half a day with one client after they were making so many changes and special requests, I was wondering they ever intended to pay me at all.

I’m certainly not being helped by the news cycle. I don’t go into politics here very often, but I’ve been transparent about which side I’m on now that the chasm has grown so far apart. I find it difficult to root for someone whose platform of bullying and helping foreign interests is put ahead of America and real problems like student loans, healthcare costs, and climate change. I grew only more sad watching the democratic debate last night and thinking, “It’s a shame that we can’t have any of these intelligent, articulate leaders representing our country.

Usually, I have a few safe havens, like being able to celebrate the Patriots’ success. However, they haven’t had their success (despite the great record) or late. They are banged up and don’t seem to have the offensive talent any more. And to make things worse the local news is buzzing about taping issue with the general conscious seeming to be that because they were deemed guilty before, they’ll be deemed even more guilty now. I’m sure no one would have any sympathy for a Patriots’ fan (nor should they), but it was a constant source of good online news for me for a long time now.

This is also one of the busiest times for my wife. She’s got to file for military promotion. She compares to doing college applications, but in this case, there’s one school – Harvard. So you better have cured cancer in the last year, or the promotion isn’t happening. Even if you did, you better cross every “t” and dot every “i” and make sure all 74 of your bosses signed off on it and wrote a glowing 10 page review. Then you’ll have checked off one of the 5 or 6 areas that they judge.

Personally, I don’t if she should ever even try, but if you fall at the bottom of list, you could get discharged. It sounds like a more and more competitive rat race, and I think she’s at the point where it’s just not worth running it any more.

I don’t know what the end take-away is from all this. I think most of it is temporary and may just be in my head. One of the things that helped was just writing up. I know that a lot of other people are feeling it too. In the grand scheme of things these may be small potatoes in comparison. I think there will be some natural time off with the Christmas holiday and then things on this blog will hopefully pick up before the New Year.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written about Digit, but they charge a monthly fee now. I suggest you use Dobot which works almost the exact same way, but without the fees. You can read my Dobot review here.

A few days ago, I was in the car with my wife picking up the kids and this song came on the radio. I turned to here and said, “I guess it’s time to wake up.” Fortunately, she got the joke right away.

October hits me in the back of the head like this song. Metaphorically, of course, because I’m still typing this article. It’s the start of the last quarter of the year. Everyone is in a rush to put up Halloween decorations, while I get advertisements from my local grocery store to plan my Thanksgiving through them. I bet some of the warehouse stores already have rolled out some of the Christmas stuff.

In other words, this song is going to happen soon. And if you celebrate another holiday that might be around the same time.

(I promise that this article won’t have reference any more song titles… or maybe not.)

Years ago, before credit cards, people turned to Christmas Clubs to save money for the gift-giving season. If you aren’t familiar with Christmas Clubs, I won’t hold it against you… they were before my time too. Here’s how Wikipedia describes them:

“The Christmas club is a savings program that was first offered by various banks in the United States during the Great Depression. The concept is that bank customers deposit a set amount of money each week into a special savings account, and receive the money back at the end of the year for Christmas shopping.”

I don’t know how much money you are you going to spend this Christmas, but the average is around $900. You could spend more or less, but can’t we agree that it’s best to put aside money now?

I’ve found that easiest way to do this is with a ~~Digit~~ Dobot account. Regular readers know that I recommend EVERYONE get a ~~Digit~~ Dobot account. I even recommend personal finance bloggers get it. One said to me, “I save money all the time and I’m great with it. I don’t need that.” He ended up following my advice and saved around $4000 for an expensive international trip. He said he didn’t even notice that the money was being saved.

What is Digit?

Digit was a FREE service (it isn’t anymore) that squirrels away money from a savings or checking account. It analyzes your account balance, spending, upcoming income, and upcoming bills to figure out how much it can safely move to the Digit account. It does a little at a time so you don’t even notice it. You can always tell it to squirrel less, but I set it at the maximum squirrel rate. (If you think I’m trying to set the record for using squirrel as a verb in a paragraph you are correct.)

Digit accounts are bank backed, safe, FDIC insured, blah, blah, blah. It’s got Google Ventures and other big names as investors.

Perhaps the worst part of Digit is that it will take you 3-5 minutes of your day to set-up. I’m being sarcastic. The worst part is that you earn minimal interest on your money. There aren’t a lot of banks paying significant interest nowadays. I’m used to ignoring interest after years and years of receiving almost none from bank accounts.

I’ve had my Digit account since March or April of 2015 and I’ve only saved this much:

I should have waited until I got that “snowman” for the first digit, right? Oh well.

Keep in mind that I’m saving the maximum amount and my finances might are different than yours. You can customize it to save what works for you. That’s why I feel it will work for everyone. No one has given me a convincing argument NOT to sign up for a Digit account other than, “I’m comfortable with my savings process.” That’s fine, but I’d challenge the person to try something new. They might just find out it was better than their existing way of doing things. I did.

I also have withdrawn money from my Digit account. My car needed new brakes, so I simply sent off a text to withdraw the money and it was back in my account in a day or two. If I hadn’t set up Digit, there’s a real chance that I would have spent it.

Forced savings is one of the most powerful forces in personal finance.

My recommendation is to ~~Digit~~ Dobot now so you’ll be prepared for the holidays.

Tough One to Hit Publish On

Reminder: Use Dobot to Save for the Holidays Now!