Six Tips for Eating Out Frugally

Most of the time, people go out to eat, not just for the food, but for social and entertainment purposes. These six suggestions will help you get the experience at a “discount”.

1. Order water - In the US, you’ll usually pay $1 to $3 for a soft drink with your meal. Water is healthier and can often reduce the cost of your meal by 10% to 20%.
2. Go out for lunch - Many places charge more for the evening meal than for lunch. Sometimes the evening portions are bigger, but this isn’t always the case. If you go out for lunch you’ll often save 35% to 50% on your meal. (This seems to be particularly true for Chinese restaurants.)
3. Go out just for dessert - Eating at home and going out for dessert can be a good option if you are just wanting to get out of the house. One advantage of this is that you can splurge and get something fancy without completely blowing your budget.
4. Take home leftovers - If the money you paid for one meal feeds you twice, you’ve made it much more cost effective.
5. Order toward the low end - Many times a $12 entree and a $35 entree don’t differ substantially in quality of taste. Most of the time the more expensive items simply reflect the additional cost of bringing in food from outside the country. However, restaurants will sometimes mark up an item more just to get a nice range of prices–someone will order the more expensive products thinking it is better.
6. Share an Entree - In most US restaurants the food portions are enormous. Sharing an entree can be a good way to keep the cost down and eat portions that are more healthy. My wife and I have found that in most places we have to share an entree in order to have any room left for desert.

Bank Mistake

I have a bank that didn’t get my last change of address notification. When the mail was returned to them, they found my address and sent it to me along with a note telling me to change my address with them.

The odd thing was along with my statement were 5 other statements from people I don’t know. I called them and confirmed the address change and mentioned the other statements. They said they would take care of it.

The other day I got my next statement--and the statements from 5 different people I’ve never heard of. I don’t mind getting other people’s statements. However, I’m very concerned that some of my statements may be sent to total strangers.
This is one advantage of online statements. They are less likely to get put in the wrong envelope. Of course there is the risk that they will do something wrong and everyone’s information will be exposed, but that is a risk either way.

If you are concerned about identity theft, you might consider moving away from paper statements as much as possible in order to decrease the amount of data about you that is running back and forth in the mail.

Have any readers had experiences like this with their bank?

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity. Watch for more Wednesday financial posts in the future.

Reader Question - Getting Your Money

How do you get money back from someone who owes you?

Generally if you are asking this question, you’ve probably made a mistake somewhere. Here is a list of rules I follow for loaning money.

• Never loan money to friends or family that you can’t afford to lose. If you can’t forgive them the debt without holding it against them, you are not the person who should be loaning them money.
• Do everything in writing. Don’t expect to remember the terms of the loans. Get it in writing and signed.
• Make sure you have terms listed to handle the case where they don’t pay. This could be listing an item as collateral, late payment fees, etc. You need to leave yourself an out if they don’t pay. Be careful because every states have different laws about what you are allowed to do.

Keep in mind that if someone is coming to you for a loan instead of going to a bank, there might be a good reason the bank won’t loan them money.

Ok so lets assume that you have already loaned someone money and are having trouble getting them to pay. The best thing you can do is to keep communication open with them. If they haven’t spoken to you for 6 months about it, you have much less chance of seeing your money that if they are making some small payment every month. Give them some options such as:

• Offer them a longer payment period.
• Offer to accept a physical item in exchange for some or all of the debt. Their boat, motorcycle, computer, vacation house, etc. may be worth more to you than it is to them, so it can be a win win for both parties
• Offer them other payment options. If you can accept a credit card payment, you may be able to move the loan off your shoulders to the bank.

As a last resort you could turn the loan over to a collection agency, get a lien against their house or car (they can’t sell it without paying you off), or even get a court order to garnish their wages or seize property.

Asking for a Discount

One way to realize great savings is to simply ask for a discount. For example, when we were getting ready for our daughter to be born we asked the hospital if we could have a discount for paying the entire fee up front. They gave us 20% off what we would have paid otherwise.

I’ve generally had good luck asking for discounts. Here are some tips to follow:

• Make sure you have something to offer - If you can pay in cash, but in bulk or offer some other type of incentive it is easier for the person selling to want to negotiate with you.
• Be prepared to walk away - If the sales person realizes that you might not make the purchase you have much better bargaining power. I’ve had car salesmen turn down my offer and then coming running after me with a change of heart as I walked out the door.
• Don’t be argumentative - The ideal offer is a win win for both parties. If they don’t agree to your proposal, you should still be nice. If you don’t like the price walk away.
• Ask for upgrades - Sometimes they can’t budge on price, but they may be able to do something else. For example a car salesman might be able to give you an upgrade on the stereo or a free oil change. Sometimes an upgrade would be valuable for you, but cost them very little.

Asking for discounts can be a little tricky, but with some practice it can add up to significant savings. You usually have nothing to lose so there is no reason to stop practicing.

What type of luck have you had asking for discounts?

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity. Watch for more Wednesday financial posts in the future.

Credit Card Skimming

Today I got a call from my credit card company wanting to verify a few charges. They listed several purchases from a part of the country we haven’t visited for years. The charges were all from a card that we don’t use any more–we keep it just for emergencies (if other cards are declined or stolen).

My wife and I both have our cards so it seems someone “skimmed” the number. Hi tech thieves will find a waiter or waitress and offer them $5 or $10 for each card they run through a small hand-held device. The thief then takes the device and downloads all the numbers into a computer and offers them for sale on the internet. Usually this will be done in a batch of cards say 100 or 1,000 card numbers.

People buy these cards numbers and put them on the magnetic stripe of other cards that have been physically stolen, but have been cancelled. Then they take these cards into the store and make purchases.

If you notice stores like Best Buy typing in the last 4 digits of the card, this is why. They want to verify that the number scanned in matches the number printed on the front of the card.

Other methods of skimming include getting a hold of the paper receipts from the old manual credit card machines or photographing (or even memorizing) the card number when you take it out at the store. There are also cases where people skim the cards by picking them up from a store’s unsecure wireless network when the point of sale reads the card or even extracting them from a merchant’s server.

In the past we have had a credit card physically stolen but this is the first time I’ve run into just having the number stolen. Oh and the credit card company canceled the card, refunded the purchases and is sending a new card.

In most cases, you are only liable for the first $50 of fraudulent charges and only if you discover the theft and don’t notify your credit card company within 30 days. Both times we’ve had a card stolen, the credit card company called us immediately because they noticed the change in our buying patterns.

Have you had a credit card stolen? Please share your stories in the comments.

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity. Watch for more Wednesday financial posts in the future.

Reader Question - Organization & Saving

How can being organized save you money?

If time is money and being organized saves you time, it saves you money. Lets say you look for 6 things each day that take you on average 5 minutes apiece. You reorganize your office and reduce the time to 1 minute search for each item. You are now saving 24 minute each day or about 146 hours each year. Even if you have to invest half of that time staying organized that still gives you 73 hours of extra time from being organized. This is an extra 9 days each year.

You can reinvest your extra time back into work to try to earn more money, spend it with your family, or just take some extra time to relax.

Books

Earlier today I mentioned a book by the Wall Street Journal about personal finance, but failed to actually point people to the book. I’ve added the book to the Productivity501 store.

The book is designed to give you a good financial foundation.  It doesn’t go into great depth on subjects, but it seems to do a great job of making sure you aren’t missing anything in your financial foundation of understanding.

Another book that I’d recommend is called Founders At Work.  It is a series of interviews with people who started various companies.  It is a great read and very enlightening to hear the stories behind all these different businesses.

One thing I’ve been fascinated by in the book is how money injected into a small company is often just as much of a curse as a blessing.  Many of the truly innovative things created by these corporations were done with very little capital investment.

That isn’t to say that money never helped any startup companies, but it does give you a different perspective that not having unlimited cash on hand can be an asset.

If you haven’t checked out the book at our online store, I’d encourage you to take a look.  It is quite an eclectic collection of titles that I feel have made me think deeper.

Being Financially Literate

One of the best investments you can make in yourself is to increase your financial literacy.  In fact if you only have 10 hours this year that you can invest in self-improvement there are very few ways you can better spend that time than reading a book on investing and financial management.

Go ahead and take the time to visit your library and find a few books on investing and financial management.  Even if you just skim the parts that look interesting you’ll find this small investment can make a big difference in your ability to plan financially for the future.

The Wall Street Journal has a good book on investing that I’d recommend.  What do other people suggest?  Is there a financial book that you would recommend? 

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity.  Watch for more financial posts in the future.

Fewer Financial Institutions

Last year I finally got fed up with all the statements I was getting from various financial institutions.  I had retirement accounts with 4 or 5 different companies and stock accounts with 2 or 3 others. It was very difficult to keep track of what was doing going and what was doing poorly.

I finally settled on two institutions.  One for retirement type accounts and one for my non-retirement savings, checking and investments.  I contacted both institutions and gave them a list of what I wanted to move over.  On the retirement side of things the transition went very smoothly.  They filled out all the paperwork, sent it to me for my signature and I FedExed it back to them.  The non-retirement side of things took a bit more work–probably because I was dealing with a smaller amount of money so they made me do it on my own.

In the end it has made things much easier for me to manage.  If you have worked several different places over the last decade or so and have retirement accounts in various areas, you might consider combining them.

One advantage I found was that with my combined balance, some of the fees I was paying are now waved on the retirement side of things.  On the non-retirement side of things, I have access to savings accounts and CD with a higher interest rate because I’m over a certain threshold.

On the negative side of things, I suppose there is a little more risk that someone could get into one account and take my money than getting into multiple accounts.  This is probably offset by the fact that with my combined account on the retirement side I have an account manager paying much more attention now because of the larger balance.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think it is better to combine to one or two institutions or keep things spread out with 5 or 6 different places?

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity.  Watch for more financial posts in the future.

Reader Question - Credit Cards

Why do people use credit cards?

If you have financial self discipline, using a credit card can be much safer than using cash or debit cards. Credit cards offer you better protection from fraud. They are also setup to protect your rights as a consumer because you can leverage the credit card company against a merchant who sold you a defective product. In a previous post, I discussed 4 Reasons You Should Use A Credit Card.

Many people are conditioned to avoid credit cards at all costs. This is a good strategy if you have no financial discipline–just a like an alcoholic should steer clear of even driving near a bar. If you treat your credit card like a checking account and keep track of each purchase as if the money has already been removed from your checking account, you can get the benefits of using a credit card while avoiding the dangers.

Next Page »