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| The Basics | 'D'oh!' 14 careless don'ts that waste money
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We pay a premium when we're rushed, disorganized or careless. Here are ways to avoid the little bites that add up to big money.
By Liz Pulliam Weston
It happens to the most frugal among us: a moments inattention, a seconds lapse and Doh! Youre slapped with some stupid, totally unnecessary expense -- and youve no one to blame but yourself.
A parking ticket. Library fines. Late fees for those movies you never watched.
May Choi-Steele of Jamaica, N.Y., has a whole list of these niggling little --and not so little -- expenses, including buying, then forgetting, new clothes for her fast-growing kids.
By the time I put it on them, they'd outgrown it! lamented Choi-Steele, mother of two children, ages 3 and 4. And I ripped off the price tag!
These stupid expenses undermine our efforts to save money and manage our finances wisely. For solutions, I turned to professional organizers and the posters on the Your Money message board for ways to prevent some of the most egregious money wasters.
Banish the late fee
Goodbye, video store. Hello, DVDs by mail: It seemed like blockbuster news, all right: Blockbuster announced it was waiving late fees.
Then the details came out, and it was clear the perpetually tardy among us wouldnt be saved after all. Blockbuster was creating a one-week grace period on top of the usual rental time. But after that, the chain sells you the movie by charging the full retail price to your credit card. (You can get a refund if you return the item within 30 days of the original rental date.)
Several posters on the Your Money message board said late fees for movie rentals finally drove them to sign up for one of the DVD-by-mail services, such as those offered by Netflix, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart. Now they pay as little as $15 a month for an unlimited supply of DVDs. When theyre done watching, they mail back the movies in postage-paid envelopes, and the service sends out more.
There are similar services for paperbacks and audiobooks, such as booksfree.com and Simply Audiobooks.
Library fines? You're overdue for an organizing system: If you want to use the local library or movie-rental store, youll need to set up a system to make sure your borrowings get schlepped back in time.
Professional organizer Maria Gracia hangs a tote bag over her utility rooms door handle, and thats where library books live when theyre not actually in use. The printed list of titles she gets as a receipt at checkout goes on the refrigerator door, so she can round up any stray titles. Then she designates a regular day, such as every other Tuesday, to return what shes borrowed.
For shorter borrowing periods, a portable calendar or PDA can help. Make it a habit to enter the due dates before you leave the store or branch.
Automatic debits for your credit cards: Conquering late fees on credit cards and other revolving accounts is actually pretty easy: just set up an automatic debit so the minimum balance is taken from your checking account each month. You can always pay the remaining balance, or some portion of it, later.
Not all bills can be paid this way. Less regular payments like property taxes, annual life insurance premiums or car registration fees may not be eligible for this treatment and are easier to overlook.
Paying these bills as soon as they arrive can help you avoid late fees. You can also use personal finance software or most online bill-paying systems to set up reminders so that you dont overlook these less-regular bills.
Skip those car follies
Slow down . . . and think: A surprising number of lapses happen in and around the car. We lock our keys inside and have to call a locksmith. We overstay our meter and wind up with a parking ticket. We forget that oil change one time too many, and wind up paying for a new engine.
And then theres the plain old lead foot that leads to speeding tickets, fines, time spent in traffic school and higher insurance rates.
The obvious solution is, of course, to slow down . . . and build in some redundancy.
Plans that pay off: Roadside assistance plans can pay for themselves after one or two lock-outs. Putting a few extra quarters in the meter might, if nothing else, bring a little joy to the next parker. (To make sure she has enough quarters, Gracia always keeps an intact roll in her glove compartment; as soon as she breaks it open, she gets another one.) A note on the PDA or a sticky on the dashboard can remind you about regular maintenance.
To help you with the Speed Racer complex, one poster suggested using your cruise control.
Wasted food? What would your mother say?
Buy just what you need: Another common Doh! expense: produce and other food that goes bad before you use it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture once estimated 10% of our grocery dollars are wasted this way.
One solution: buy less. Stuffing a refrigerator full of food makes it harder to keep track of whats inside, and more likely stuff will rot away forgotten.
One of the things I do is only buy enough fresh vegetables to last a day or two, said organizer Gracia, who also runs the GetOrganizedNow.com Web site.
The freezer can help by preserving the fresh foods you cant use in time. A surprising variety of foods can be frozen, including milk, bread and butter.
Institute a food patrol: Of course, you dont want your freezer to become the mausoleum of forgotten foods, either, so consider a weekly patrol of whats inside and what needs to be used soon.
Your fridge should be patrolled even more often, perhaps daily, to help you spot food before it fades. Cruising frugal-living Web sites can give you ideas on what to do with stuff thats past its prime but not yet inedible.
Mushy bananas and spongy apples, for example, can make great-tasting muffins. Rubbery carrots can be ground up in a food processor and dumped into spaghetti sauce. Most vegetables that arent actually moldering can be thrown in a pot with water to make vegetable stock for cooking pasta or soups.
The stuff we buy and never use
Kids' clothes, paint supplies and more: Choi-Steele tries to shop seasonal sales for clothes her kids can wear the next year, but the months pass and the new outfits get forgotten.
One YM poster, PatrioticStablest, laments all the painting and other supplies shes purchased for her rental properties.
We must own all kinds of caulk guns, spackling tools, nails, drop cloths, paint brushes, and on and on, she posted. (We) get in a hurry to do something, can't quickly find them and buy more. . . . I bet I have a box full of each item. Even though they are written off rental property, it's still wasted money right out of profits.
Organize, so you know what you have: Professional organizers will tell you: if you cant easily see and find what you need, youre wasting money. Thats why they often recommend grouping similar items in clear plastic bins with big, easy-to-read labels.
Instead of hanging too-big clothes in the closet or tucking them in drawers, for example, Choi-Steele could have bins labeled by size.
Simply buy less: Or try the waste-prevention solution of simply buying less and giving away the excess, said Marla Cilley, doyenne of FlyLady.net an organizing site for the domestically challenged.
Children don't need that many clothes! said Cilley, author of Sink Reflections." The more you have, the more laundry is going to pile up.
Cilley firmly believes each kid only needs three or four pairs of pants, 7 or 8 tops and a couple of dress-up outfits for church and special occasions. Any more, she says, creates clutter, guilt and waste.
Watch that expiration date
Slip-sliding away: This is a catch-all for the money you had but let slip through your hands, like gift certificates, rebates or flexible-spending account balances you dont use before they expire.
Regular YM poster Pooh-Dad confessed he once lost $600 hed saved in a flexible-spending account because he failed to use the cash by the end of the year. Flexible-spending accounts allow workers to put aside tax-free money to pay for medical or child-care expenses. Balances that arent used by Dec. 31 typically are lost (although a recent ruling from the Treasury Department says employers can opt to give workers until March 15 to spend the money; check with your company about its policy).
File for reimbursements right away: This use-it-or-lose-it feature scares many workers away from the valuable accounts, but Pooh-Dad said giving up its benefits would be like punishing myself twice.
So he still contributes, but these days he submits receipts for medical expenses as soon as he incurs them rather than saving them up and doing a bunch at once, as in the past. I am unashamed to submit a reimbursement request for $2, Pooh-Dad wrote. It helps me to remember that the account is there.
Don't let them keep your rebate: Rebates are another cause of pain and regret on the Your Money board. Golfwidow72 confessed to being lured into buying computer components because of the fantastic rebate, then failing to send the forms in on time.
Even if you manage to clip the UPC code, fill out the form and circle the right item on the receipt, the deal still can get bungled, as noted in The ripoff behind rebates. So you need a tracking system as well.
The solution: Send in the rebate forms as soon as you get home from the store and file a copy of the documents in a pending orders file in your desk.
Do it absolutely immediately, said Gracia, author of Finally Organized, Finally Free. By the next day, youll forget.
Use your calendar: If the rebate is supposed to take six to eight weeks, make a note on your calendar eight weeks hence with the 800 number so you can call to find out what happened if your check doesnt arrive.
You also should mark your calendar with the expiration date of any gift certificates you receive, and perhaps set up an electronic reminder to let you know a few weeks before the gift expires. Better yet, use them right away. Youll avoid any maintenance fees a retailer might charge for not using the card, and ensure your benefactors cash doesnt go to waste.
Do you have more ideas, or a Doh! expense you need a solution for? E-mail me at ask_liz_weston@hotmail.com, and Ill share more problems and fixes in an upcoming column.
Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.
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