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.

Three Dreams, Two Household Tips, and One Merry Christmas

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Money Gift

Last week, I wrote an article that was tough to publish because I was feeling very depressed. Tasks everywhere just caving in on me and I was getting buried… and I don’t even have a traditional career. Turns out that much of the cure for those feelings may have been just writing about them. Or maybe is was all the heartfelt comments I received. I’m sure the passing of time played a role as well.

Whatever it was has had a very interesting side effect. After years of only remember one or two dreams per year (at most), I now have a 3 day streak of very vivid dreams. It’s been years of since I had one vivid dream.

I wanted to share them, because they give a little peeks into myself, this blog, and have a little money mention in them. (I wouldn’t blame you if you just skipped down to the two household tips.)

  1. My MLM scam exposure stories haunt me (and Tom Brady)

    In this dream, one of the old MLMs that sued me into silence was upset about some kind of new story that was being done by a journalism student, Mary Higgs, on the Boston College campus. I guess she uncovered all my previous findings and wrote it into a story. No one would give me a clear story, but the lawyers were fighting and demanded I come in.

    Tom Brady happened to be taken a master’s course there for some reason. In fact, the Patriots had a whole satellite office there. All of it was connected, but no one would tell me how. When it finally came time watch the video of Higgs’ exposé, Tom Brady came in and asked if could talk to me for a few minutes. It was a clear distraction tactic. I don’t have many rules, but one is, “If Tom Brady wants to give you a few minutes of his time, you don’t say no.”

    Of course, I woke up before talking to Tom Brady or uncovering the mystery of the reporting and the connection to the Patriots. I could only assume it was like when the Red Sox players were caught in the MonaVie pyramid scheme.

  2. I sailed around New York City

    I’ve been sailing exactly once in about 10 years. However, I live in a sailing community, Newport RI, so that will change. On this day it changed really quickly as I hopped a quick flight to NYC (not sure how that’s quicker than driving) and rented a sailboat. I took it around the sea a few times and got a picture of the Statue of Liberty through some kind of arch.

    Since I was wet, I got a hotel room and showered. Then it was too dark to sail back to the rental place. A fine Japanese young man who happened to have a sail planned in my direction offered to guide me. I got the sailboat back safely. Then I rented a car and drove back home only with the fear of having to explain to my wife that I spent a few thousand dollars.

    In the morning, I checked my phone for that picture of Ms. Liberty, just to make sure that it didn’t happen.

  3. Barstool Sports makes my son famous

    I posted something on Lazy Man about my son’s scooter not being charged for school. Very mundane stuff. Barstool picks up the story and uses their traditional sarcasm to explain that he must have a howitzer to get girls with such a terrible ride. (Howitzer, is a reference to an old Barstool scandal.) I don’t know if they knew he was 5 years old, but the media jumped on them for that.

    All of this time, traffic to my Lazy Man story was going through the roof. The only thing is that I don’t check traffic very much and I had a full day of real world errands to run. I missed the whole media circus until everyone had moved onto the next interesting thing.

    Come to think of it, that very much sums up everything you need to know about blogging. (Also, I haven’t read Barstool in years.)

Hopefully those weren’t too long or boring. I promise not to give up personal finance writing for dream writing.

Two Household Tips

I realize that you don’t come here for the above stuff, but I didn’t think Christmas Eve was the right time for a deep analysis of the SECURE Act and stretch IRAs. As a compromise, I’ll leave you with two random household money saving tips that I’ve been saving up for years because they don’t fit anywhere else on the blog:

  • Fogless Shaving Mirrors Forever – I NEED a fogless shaving mirror in the shower. It’s the best thing ever invented. The only problem is that they lose their foglessness as you clean them. Sometime they give a 1/10 of an ounce cleaner and ask you to buy more. A better plan is to get RainX anti fog repellent for car windshields. I put a couple of drops on a piece of toilet paper and any old shower mirror is anti fog for a few days. A bottle will last you for years and years. It’s usually about $5, so Amazon’s pricing is very weird today.

    They seem to realize that people have discovered this trick and added that it works great on bathroom mirrors on the bottle. I’ve been on my same shaving mirror for 15 years now and before I had to churn through them every year or two.

  • Bullion Cubes – This is further proof that moms are the smartest people. My mom used bullion cubes fairly often, but I’m mostly self-taught cooker. I bought chicken broth in boxes. Then I’d throw half the box away because it was too much. Then I bought cans because I was less wasteful of broth – but probably more wasteful in creating trash.

    At Aldi’s I discovered bullion cubes on just a random glance on the aisle. It was about $2.00 for the equivalent of 25 cans of broth… in 1/25th of the space! It’s a perfect replacement. I don’t know if tastes the same, but fortunately my cooking is bad enough that no one will the notice the difference.

I hope you got something out of your time reading this today. If you have a favorite household tip, please share it below. Maybe we can compile a greatest hits and turn this into a valuable resource (minus my weird dream stuff).

Finally, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. The plan is to do a financial year in review before the New Year.

Friends’ Influence and Money: A Two Way Street

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I often write a lot of words on saving money. Cut out this expensive item… consider substituting this other item… Sometimes I write about making more money. However, I very rarely go into the psychology behind making and spending money. Today, I’m going to venture into those waters… and hopefully avoid drowning.

I first read in Larry Winget’s book, You’re Broke Because You Want to Be, your income is typically the average of your five closest friends. Though Winget gives credit to Jim Rohn, the concept pans out when I look at my life (at least as long as I’m not only a full-time blogger). Winget makes a great point that he tries to surround himself with wealthy people.

Surrounding yourself with wealthy people is a solid idea, but it’s not like you can just make friends with folks who can afford to shop at 5th Avenue or Rodeo Drive overnight. I met most of my high-income friends in an expensive, private top 30 university. They had typically had fairly wealthy parents and went on to high paying jobs after school. Winget/Rohn seem to approach it as a egg – surrounding yourself with high-income people will help you get rich. I approach it like a chicken – I’m surrounded by high-income earners for the same reasons that they earned a high income.

There’s another side of coin that Larry doesn’t discuss in his book (at least that I recall). I have a theory that your spending is the average of your five closest friends. This is a completely untested theory – it seems logical to me and consistent in my own life. Why is it logical? Well my wife still thinks that I have a plasma television because “all your friends got them.” She doesn’t seem to factor in that me and all my friends love technology. My wife also expects me to get a high-end SLR digital camera soon – simply because my other friends have them. That’s an exception to the rule… I’m not looking to carrying around a murse (man-purse) full of lenses.

So if your income is the average of your five closest friends and your spending may be the average of your five closest friends, do you really have any control of your life? As always, I think the answer is yes – if you recognize these subconscious principles at work and make your conscious deal with them.

What about you? Is your income the average of your five closest friends? Do you feel that your income is the result of associating with those friends, or is it just “birds of a feather flock together?” Do you find your spending is the average of your five closest friends?

How I Research a Purchase

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Personal finance sites put a lot of attention on saving money, investing, even career advice. I haven’t read a lot of information on how research a product before you buy it. Today I’d like to share with you my thoughts and maybe in comments you can teach me a thing or two.

How much research should I put in a purchase?

I look at two major factors in answering this question. How much is it going to impact my life and how much is the item? I’ll actually put some research into something like pillows because I them every day. More often than not, the bigger factor is how much something costs. I’m simply not going to spend a lot of time and energy hemming and hawing over the price of a piece of chewing gum. However, a costly purchase like a home, car, even a flat-screen television… those are the kind of things that I want to research.

Five Tips for Researching Purchases

  • Almost Anything – Amazon has a lot of reviews on more products than you can shake a stick at. Even if you aren’t going to make your purchase there it’s worth checking it out to see what people are saying.
  • Technology – I’m sure some of you will cringe, but I love the reviews of Walt Mossberg. I also like to check Gizmodo and Engadget.
  • Cars – Edmunds really has a wealth of knowledge. I supplement that with Kelly Blue Book. If I was buying a used car, I’d probably pick up a Car Fax report.
  • Homes – When I was buying my home, using Bankrate was instrumental in finding my best mortgage rate. I always like to give Zillow a look, even if it might not be accurate in your area. I’d like to recommend a local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) – but it seems like there are some areas where you can better information if you partner with a Realtor. Since it’s been a few years since I’ve been home shopping, perhaps I’m missing some great resources.
  • Restaurants & Shops – Word of mouth is still king in finding a good restaurant. However, I’m starting to depend a little more on Yelp ratings. Yelp provides more than just restaurant ratings, it’s good for shops and businesses of many varieties.

What research do you do before you buy a product? Please share your best tips in the comments below.

Utah State Employees Getting a Four Day Work-Week

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The state of Utah recently decided that it could save money by letting it’s employees work four day work weeks. Employees will work 10 hours a day and receive the same pay as usual. My mother, a nurse, actually had this set-up for a long time. She quite enjoys it and finds that she can get errands done on her off day that were otherwise difficult or impossible. Many banks just aren’t open past the 9-5 hours that many people work.

So how much money will it save? Reduced energy costs of state buildings will save the state 3 million dollars of it’s 11 billion dollar budget. For those keeping track at home we are talking about 0.027% of the budget. The state government also looks to save money on state vehicles, but can’t quantify the savings.

It’s a little curious that such a small percentage of savings would trigger such a big change. Perhaps the thought is that the state employees will go out and support businesses on their new day off. The aforementioned article did mention that golf courses are looking forward to having people come in on the three day weekend.

I think there are a lot of reasons for a four day work-week, I’m just not entirely convinced that saving money as Utah says it will is one of them. I like to think that they could come up with ways to save a lot more money.