Work Those OTHER Benefits: Reimbursements

You better take it! When looking for ways to cut back on your household spending don’t forget to think about how your employer can help. Many major employers offer more benefits than just health/life insurance, retirement plans, stock, and paid vacation. Have you checked into all the other ways you can get help with through your company?

We are able to get our cable modem reimbursed through Eric’s employer because he sometimes works at home after hours. That alone is saving us $46 a month. That’s not chump change, folks. He didn’t even know reimbursement for this existed until he asked about it. Sometimes you need to just ask. What kind of reimbursements could be available to you?

Regular Reimbursements
Could you get full or partial reimbursement on equipment or services that you use for your job? Do you take phone calls or have to respond to email at home? Are you “on-call” outside of the office? Ask if your employer offers reimbursement to help cover the costs associated with those after-hours duties (cell phone, computer equipment, internet access, etc). How about uniforms or special clothing you need for the job?

Education and Training
This is a very valuable benefit that can help your career even if you eventually change employers. Will your employer help you get the certifications or training you need to advance in your field? Will they cover the books and educational materials you will need? Will they help you get your degree with tuition reimbursement? Will they help you pay your current student loans? I know this may sound unlikely, but you might be surprised to find out that many large employers will help with these costs. That can save you a lot of money and help your career.

Relocation Assistance
Are you going to be moving for your job? Maybe your company will help with the costs of moving. Some companies will even help with selling your home and finding a new one.

Travel Expenses
Do you get paid a flat rate per diem when traveling for work? If so, you can eat cheap and pocket that excess. Are you submitting all your eligible expenses when you travel for business? Did you buy that coffee with cash when you were on the road? If it’s eligible, file it! Are you getting reimbursement for your mileage to the airport? How about parking? Make sure to file ALL those eligible expenses no matter how small - every little bit helps.

Keep in mind that the list of potential benefits is endless; every employer is different and some offer more perks than others. The point is that you should check with your employer to see what they do offer and take advantage of the benefits that help you save money.

Image Source: Mykl Roventine

6″ Too Short, A Mile From Being Right

I don’t think so!! Sorry everyone for the late posting today. I have been dealing with our builder over some disputes we are having regarding some additions we added to the home.

Our issue right now: We paid to add an open shelving unit at the end of one of our cabinets where there was some empty wall space. Because we weren’t sure if it was going to fit we specified that we only wanted the shelf to be added if:

we didn’t lose any existing cabinets to accommodate it
and it didn’t hang over the edge of the wall.

When we checked the cabinets we were shocked to see they had shrunk down the cabinet directly next to the shelf. We got a 12″ cabinet where an 18″ cabinet should have been. I was not thrilled. I measured and not only can another 6 inches fit in that space before the wall ends, but the additional shelving can be cut down if it’s too tight.

But did they cut down the shelf or notify us of the problem? No. They simply eliminated 6″ of cabinet space and kept the shelf.

It will have to be fixed, period. If that means I lose the additional shelving (and they reimburse me), so be it, but I’m NOT losing cabinet space. I’ve been very flexible so far with other issues but don’t mess with my kitchen!

3 lessons learned:

Communicate your wishes through email or writing whenever possible. I was able to locate the email where I specified the conditions surrounding the new shelf so I can show I gave those instructions to our designer and sales rep. Put it in writing - ALWAYS.
If you see an addition that you like in another home, take photos right then. Another home they had built had this same set up added to it but it closed shortly after I started looking at homes. I never took photos of it so now I’m sitting here saying, “You know, that house down the street has it”. It’s funny, but once a house closes the builders seem to suddenly lose all recollection of the changes they made inside it.
Make sure you are organized and can find your documents. This is essential. If I couldn’t find the diagrams I drew and the emails showing I told them they couldn’t remove cabinets they might have a leg up on me in this “battle”. I think I’ll write more about this soon because it is so important.

Thanks everyone for letting me vent! It’s been one of those days. I’ll get the Tightwad Wednesday up by tonight, no worries!

My One Money Advice (MOMA)

My One Money Advice My friend Pinyo over at Moolanomy recently invited me to participate in a meme he created. If you don’t know what a “meme” is you are not alone. I didn’t know until last week when I read this article on wiki. Pinyo wanted this meme to “help promote financial responsibility and awareness in our hyper consumption society.”

His question:

If you can give one advice, tip, or story related to money, what would you share?

I think my one money advice is to be fully conscious of your spending.

Eric and I made the mistake of ignoring our financial situation and assuming we could afford any purchase we wanted as long as it was relatively small. The problem was that we weren’t keeping track of our spending and all those little purchases eventually added up to a big balance.

If you were to ask me a year ago what our cable bill was monthly I would have had no idea. I paid it every month but I didn’t really pay attention. We had no budget so I didn’t know how each bill or purchase fit into the big scheme of things. I just paid them on auto-pilot.

You know that you might not be fully aware of your spending if you look at your credit card bill at the end of the month and can’t fathom how the total got so high. We used to be stunned when we would look at our bill. “But how could it be THAT high? We only had a few dinners out this month, right?”

When we finally woke up from this “financial coma” and really looked at our bills we were amazed at where our money was actually going. It was sobering to say the least.

By examining our expenses we became conscious of our spending habits and that allowed us to dramatically cut our non-essential purchases and work towards living within our means. This led to us being able to tackle our debt and save towards our goal of a new home.

I believe the key to taking control of your finances is to understand where your money is going every month. That information is crucial in determining what expenses you can live without, what you need to keep, and what you can allocate to savings and payments toward debt.

OK - now for the “passing it on” part. I would like to know what Frugal for Life, Rather Be Shopping, Mrs. Micah, and My Two Dollars consider to be their one money advice.

10 Ways to Reduce And Reuse

October 15th is Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers band together to write about a single important issue: the environment. A Penny Closer decided to join in the effort to help raise awareness in our own little way; by showing how frugality and earth-friendly actions often go hand in hand.

Reducing your household waste not only helps the environment but it can help save you money, too. Imagine how much money and garbage bin space you might save if you could use items you typically dispose of to fill a household need.

Even the act of throwing away trash can cost money! For instance, some places may charge you for throwing away more garbage than their preset amount, not to mention the added expense of having to buy more garbage bags.

If everyone would find ways to reuse the things they would normally throw away, or choose durability over the convenience of disposability, we could make a real difference. Not only would we be helping the environment by reducing our impact on landfills, but we could reduce our demand for natural resources by consuming less.

Here are 10 ways you can cut down on your costs while cutting down on your trash.

Avoid single serving size products. Not only do they tend to cost more but they add extra packaging that will end up in landfills. Make your own single servings by putting individual portions in plastic containers or baggies that you reuse.
Buy just one set of bottled water and refill those bottles from the tap. Eric and I have been doing this for months now. We have 12 small water bottles that we wash, refill, and put in the fridge to chill. Imagine how many water bottles are thrown away each day. It will boggle your mind. And bottled water is pricey! Most of that bottled water is no better than tap or filtered tap anyways.
Don’t use the fully disposable electric toothbrushes or razors. Get replaceable razor heads and toothbrushes that allow changing the batteries. It seems like such a waste to throw out entire razors or a battery-run toothbrush when it stops working.
Reuse the plastic bags you get from the grocery store. Either bring them back to the store and reuse them for your next shopping trip or use them for other purposes. I pack up Eric’s lunches in a plastic grocery bag. It accommodates any size lunch and if he loses it there’s no problem. We also use our grocery bags for cleaning the litter boxes everyday. It saves us from wasting a big trash bag for a small job and gives the plastic bags another use.
Reuse packaging and boxes. Either reuse them for mailing other packages or use them for gift giving instead of buying gift boxes. I keep a variety of them in my garage for the holidays. They all look the same wrapped up anyways!
Use plastic containers instead of disposable baggies all the time. When you use baggies try to use them mainly for dry goods or non-greasy items. That way you can rinse and dry them for reuse.
Instead of using paper plates use plastic that can be washed and reused. You will have to buy less plates and throw less away.
Use rechargeable batteries instead of regular batteries. We blow through batteries for our camera. Although the rechargeables are more expensive upfront they have more than paid for themselves even in the short term.
Use paper towels sparingly and opt for washable dish towels. If I just need to dry my hands or wipe down the counters I go for the dishtowel. If it is something sticky, greasy, hazardous, or staining I use a paper towel. By thinking about when to use the paper towels versus the dish towels you will help conserve those expensive disposables and less will end up in the trash.
Reuse containers whenever possible. Why throw out that pickle jar when it could be used to hold paperclips or other small items? Could that old margarine tub be used like tupperware? Before you put it in the trash make sure you have no other uses for it around the house. Wear it out before you throw it out!

This is just a small sampling of ways we can save money and lower our impact on landfills by reducing and reusing. Get creative! Do you have any ideas on ways to reduce your trash? If so, please share them!

Thinking About Your Emergency Fund

Saving for a rainy day… If you’ve been reading much on this blog, or pretty much any personal finance blog, book, forum, or magazine, you probably know the importance of an emergency fund. Everyone should have an emergency fund. The “Why” is easy - you need to have some money to fall back on in case of an emergency. This keeps you from going into debt to fund your emergency, and provides a safe cushion for rough times.

Any amount of money is good to start. The question then becomes how much is enough? I’ve seen a lot of different answers for this, but most people seem to suggest between 3 and 6 months living expenses. Why that much? If you lose your job it might take you 3-6 months to find a new one. If you can avoid debt, you’ll be much better off in the long run.

At first, we started looking at our living expenses and calculated a number that seemed much larger than what we thought it would be. We based everything on our current budget.

The key for us was to think of the expenses we would have if I lost my job. For most folks, this will be a lower number than what your normal budget might be (depending on how frugally you live now). If I lost my job, we’d be going into emergency mode and cutting out as much as we could from our budget. If it wasn’t essential, it would probably have to go. What’s essential could vary significantly from person to person. Here are some of the things we considered:

Food costs - We’d definitely be eating much more frugally. We eat pretty frugally now, but we could definitely be stingier with our food budget. I’m certainly willing to eat a peanut butter sandwich for dinner when times are rough, but when they aren’t, I’d prefer some fresh food.
Phone - I’d cut down on our cell phone plan right away. I wouldn’t need the data plan if I was out of work. I would need the cell phone as I did my job hunting so I could always be accessible. I might get rid of the landline phone altogether.
Cable - this one goes right out. I certainly shouldn’t spend my time in front of the TV when I should be out looking for a job.
Internet access - I’d keep this for sure. This is most likely how I’d be looking for those jobs.
Cars - definitely would have to watch how much we drove. Consolidate trips so we could spend less money on gas.
TiVo, Netflix, and Soda - Gone, gone, and gone.
Electricity - Hello open windows! Goodbye air conditioning! Well, it’s gonna depend on the time of year, but you get the drift.
Water, Gas, and other utilities - minimal changes resulting in minimal savings.

Taking those things into account (among others), we figured out what our real cost of living for a month would be. It was quite a bit lower. This gave us a more realistic view of the numbers we’d need to hit in order to have 3-6 months of living expenses set aside. This was a much more achievable goal.

Our short-term goal is to save up 3 months of living expenses. That is 3 months of cash assets in a high yield savings account (or maybe a Vanguard money market fund) based on a reduced lifestyle. The longer term goal is 6 months. We’re still a ways off of having 3 months, and it will take until after we move before we can start building that up again.

Image by laffy4k

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