We’re thrilled to share the news that the amazing Amy Suardi, our savings expert, has a makeover series on TLC! In the series she works with a variety of families facing different savings challenges. As always, she’s warm, helpful and full of insightful tips.

Here’s her latest video – helping a growing family reign in their weekly spending.

We highly recommend following Amy’s series over on TLC.

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances, our money makeover winner, Angie has had to withdraw from the year-long money makeover process.

We are going to regroup and determine whether or not we want to proceed with this program.

Twelve moves down, one to go. Since I graduated from college 20 years ago, I have moved that many times, and I am about to embark on what I hope will be the last for a very long time.

Whether you are single or hooked, with children or pets, moving is a major ordeal. Yes, it can be an exciting adventure, but transplanting yourself from one piece of ground to another is not akin to gardening.

In fact, experts rate moving as one of the top ten most stressful events in life, right up there with divorce and loss of a loved one. So if you are moving this summer, take lots of deep breaths, make lists, and try not to sweat the small stuff.

Given my extensive experience, I have put together some tips to save you time and headaches when choosing your mover. Unfortunately people get ripped off – just visit MovingScam.com, where I got recommendations for honest moving companies with the best record.

Which Kind of Mover Do You Need?

Large Moving Companies
National operations like United, Allied and Mayflower are not likely to spring any surprises on you. On the minus side, the costs will be higher.

Another disadvantage of large companies is that, because they will combine your stuff with others to fill their tractor-trailer trucks, you’ll probably get a delivery window of two days to two weeks!

Do-it-Yourself, but Not All of It
Of course, with all things in life, you’ll save money if you do-it-yourself. I have rented many a U-Haul in my day, and we even leased a bucket of bolts for our first move as a family.

However, since we no longer knew a bunch of brawny guys who would unload our stuff for pizza and beer, we hired moving help through eMove.com. The guys arrived on time, did their job extremely carefully, and there were no hidden charges. eMove.com can also help you pack, unpack, and clean.

You Load (Calmly), and They Drive
Driving a run-down truck full of heavy furniture across the country can be harrowing. Just ask my dad. Another budget-friendly option is to hire someone to do the driving part.

Perhaps the most well-known company in this category is ABF U-Pack Moving, but watchdog website MovingScam.com also endorses Atlas SmartMove and Broadway Express.
A variation on this theme is PODS. With one of those white storage containers placed in your driveway, you can take your time loading (and unloading), while the company hauls the container for you.

Small- to Mid-Size Moving Companies
This is my favorite method. We found a small New York City-based company by consulting MovingScam.com, which lists a handful of mid-sized companies which have received only positive ratings from people on that website.

The company we are now using for the third time, All Star Moving, uses smaller trucks, take one family at a time, and deliver the next day. I love that their competitive fee is not an estimate, but a fixed price.

Be Careful of Who You Trust With Everything You Own

While cost is a concern, so is safety and trust. To avoid getting cheated by a rogue mover, who might quote you a low price and then demand more money before they release your things, follow these tips:

• Try to get an all-inclusive price, not an estimate, which will be free of hidden charges and last-minute fees
• Beware of companies that ask your budget straight off and tailor their estimate accordingly
• Do not rely on telephone quotes: an estimator should come to your house and evaluate your stuff
• Be wary of a company that asks for a deposit, which is not standard practice
• A mover should get mainly positive consumer ratings at places like Epinions.com or MovingScam.com
• Go with a company that has been around for many years
• Ask friends, neighbors, and real estate agents for recommendations
• Make sure there are no complaints lodged against the company at the Better Business Bureau

Amy Suardi, Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert, is moving from Syracuse to Washington, D.C. at the end of the month. She writes about ways that save money and make people happy at Frugal Mama.

Saving money can be as unappealing as going on a diet. Yes, the results will be fun, we think, but the process won’t.

Just like in losing weight, we’re supposed to change our lifestyle. But what exactly does that mean?

Don’t be daunted: I’m here to tell you that being frugal can be incredibly satisfying. I have been writing about the win-wins of cutting costs for over a year and a half and I could go on for another decade.

With the launch of Buttoned Up’s year-long Money Makeover, I thought it would be a great time to look at ways to overhaul our thinking and embrace a new normal.

So if you too want to button up your finances, here are three ways to toss the old “no pain, no gain” mantra, and start loving your new frugal life.

1. Focus on what you love

When I was in college, I asked my psychology professor if I could analyze in my final paper the main character of Madame Bovary, my favorite novel. “Sure,” he said, “go where the passion is.” That was the best paper of my academic career. I really loved that book, so the writing became fun.

When you have to get down to work to cut costs in your life, start with an activity you love. Do you relish traveling? If you direct your energy into it, I know you can find surprising ways to skip the Bali trip and have super-fun and memorable vacation.

If you love eating, put your all into carefully making up your grocery list, discovering farmer’s markets, watching cooking shows, and trying recipes from your favorite restaurants. We just discovered homemade pizza, and I don’t think we’ll ever be able to call the delivery guy again.

2. Simplify your life

The infinite choices we have today – from paint colors to cereals to elementary schools – can lead to overwhelming confusion.

Decide to simplify your life in three ways that will make you feel more peaceful — and save you money. For example, you could:

• eliminate an after-school activity next year or cut out a hundred cable channels
• shop at only one grocery store (you’ll know its layout, prices, and sales better), or
• clear out your closet and vow to only classic pieces you discover at the same thrift store

Limiting our spending also limits our choices, and sometimes that can be a refreshingly good thing.

3. Make it about people

Sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to do more, do it better, and do it faster, that we stretch ourselves into a string of saltwater taffy, flimsy and drooping.

The simple act of slowing down and spending more time at home can jumpstart our relationships — and our happiness. Skip the Mexican restaurant and have a picnic in your backyard. Make a bouquet of wildflowers and pretty weeds. Invite another couple over for a simple dinner. Ask to borrow your neighbor’s wheelbarrow and offer to lend your snowblower. Send over a plate of cookies when you know someone needs a hug.

Not only will you spend less on entertainment and eating out, but you’ll increase the good feelings among the people you love, the people you want to know, and people like neighbors, who can be an invaluable resource for sharing, helping out, and saving money.

So experiment with different ways to increase your happiness. I am still surprised at how things I initially did because of our tight budget, made me happier, healthier, or wiser.

And that’s better than any diet on earth.

Amy Suardi, Butttoned Up’s savings expert, writes about ways that save money and make life better at her blog Frugal Mama.

KEYS TO SPENDING LESS AND LIVING WELL: Find the Free

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about five fundamental elements of saving money and enjoying a fulfilling life. These steps have worked wonders in my life, and I know they can for you too!

We’ve already talked about Cherishing Your Long-Term Goals, Tracking Spending, Being a Planner, and Joining Communities.

The fifth and final key is:

Find the Free: Ask, Swap and Do-it-Yourself

Give and Take

Instead of spending the time and effort selling my stuff on places like Craigslist or to other moms on a listserv, I prefer to give it away. I’m no entrepreneur but, in my experience, the money earned in consignment sales and eBay is not worth the effort. It makes me feel bad to get so little for objects that were well-loved by our family.

In contrast I save time (and money, if time is money) and feel good when I can just bag it up and find someone who is grateful to have it, whether it’s a neighbor or friend, someone in Freecycle, or a charity like Salvation Army.

Maybe because I regularly give, I feel comfortable asking for cast-offs such as hand-me-down clothing.

If you belong to a group (see my last post about Joining Communities), it’s easy to send an email asking if anyone is ready to pass along their baby boy clothes or if someone could lend you a luggage rack cargo carrier.

Do-it-Yourself or Delegate

You don’t have to be crafty or good in the kitchen to make home-made party supplies and food. There are lots of other ways you and your family can band together to get jobs done.

Think about how your children can help the economy of family—it teaches them life skills and the value of working together.

When we lived in New York City and could not spare a dime, my two daughters (then aged 5 and 7) helped me clean the house. We used a cleaning wheel to keep it fair and consistent, and every Saturday and Sunday morning we each took our turn to dust the living room or clean the bathroom or vacuum the bedrooms. It’s amazing how well children respond to being treated like grown-ups, and how feeling needed and respected can foster a sense of unity and strength in a family.

Barter, Exchange, Swap

Within a community of people, there is no limit to what you can exchange among others. Here are just some of the ways you can save money, make friends and have fun:

• Clothing swaps (kids, womens or family clothing; it’s easy to host a clothing swap party)
• Toy swaps (organized between families like a clothing swap) as suggested by Buttoned Up’sPretty Neat: Let Go of Perfection and Get Organized
• Neighborhood tool sheds: “No one has to invest a lot of money to own a lot of tools that only get used periodically,” says Karen Falter of Cincinnati about communities that swap tools. “The neighbors make a list of who owns what and circulate the list to everyone. They develop a set of rules about what to do if someone breaks or loses a tool and an easy method of going about borrowing tools. I knew a group that made a group purchase of a snow-blower, decided who stored it, shared costs of maintenance and passed it around when needed.”
• Dinner exchanges (See the New York Times’ Save Time and Stress with a Cooking Co-op)
• Babysitting swaps, babysitting parties, babysitting co-ops, co-operative preschools

This is my fifth and final post in this series about keys to saving money and making life better. I hope you have found them to be helpful and do-able.

Have you found creative solutions to getting the things you need for free?

By Amy Suardi, Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert

Amy Suardi loves to find the silver lining of living on less at Frugal Mama.

KEYS TO SPENDING LESS AND LIVING WELL: Join Communities

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about five fundamental elements of saving money and enjoying a fulfilling life. These steps have worked wonders in my life, and I know they can for you too!

We’ve already talked about Cherishing Your Long-Term Goals, Tracking Spending, and Being a Planner.

Number four is:

Join Communities

So many of us are separated from our families by thousands of miles. Participating in groups can not only make us feel less alone, safer and happier, it fosters co-operation, which can save us all a lot of money and make life easier. Think about a neighborhood association, a PTA, a scrapbooking group, or a book club.

Are you a parent? Then run, don’t walk, to join a group like one of these:

Local email groups

One of the easiest groups to join are local online communities (or email groups) that connect people in a certain city or neighborhood. (Search Yahoo or Google groups for one near you, or if you are a parent, see Babble’s Top 12 Listserv Parent Networks.)

I love these groups for a quick and immediate way to exchange with a bunch of people at once — ideas, advice and tips on everything from affordable handymen and kids’ allowances to rummage sales and job openings.

In-person, common interest groups

If you are a parent, then you already have something in common with A LOT of other people: raising children.

Whether it’s a casual playgroup born through your pre-natal class or a chapter of a national organization like Mothers of Preschoolers, parenting groups are perfect venues for organizing co-operative efforts such as babysitting co-ops, clothing swaps, or meal deliveries to new moms.

Setting up a “free table” or a book/magazine/dvd table where people can leave or take whatever they want is a simple way to spread good karma and help people declutter or fill their needs.

Improve Your Finances — and Your Health — by Participating in Groups

Plus, by joining communities — such as churches, knitting circles, and tennis clubs — and by just being a friendly person, you create social capital, or mutual goodwill. You create social capital when you help someone carry a package, attend a neighborhood block party, or bring a plate of cookies to a shut-in.

In Is Social Capital More Valuable than Money?, the people at Get Rich Slowly explain how these everyday kindnesses “compound (just like compound interest) to yield larger returns in the future.”

Get this:

There appears to be a strong relationship between the possession of social capital and better health. ‘As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half. If you smoke and belong to no groups, it’s a toss-up statistically whether you should stop smoking or start joining’. Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or church attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income. Civic connections rival marriage and affluence as predictors of life happiness. (Cited from a 1998 book by Bo Rothstein in the definition of social capital at Informal Education.)

Next and final key: Find the Free.

Have you noticed that belonging to groups brings you more than companionship?

By Amy Suardi, Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert

Amy Suardi loves to find the silver lining of living on less at Frugal Mama.

KEYS TO SPENDING LESS AND LIVING WELL: Be a Planner

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about five fundamental elements of saving money and enjoying a fulfilling life. These steps have worked wonders in my life, and I know they can for you too!

We’ve already talked about Cherishing Your Long-Term Goals and Tracking Spending.

Number three is:

Be a Planner

Long term goals are important in saving money, but daily planning is essential.

Here are some examples of how this works:

Food:

If the refrigerator is full of fresh, perishable veggies, the beans are soaked and the meat is thawed, it’s hard to justify ordering in. Also: pack lunches, brew your own coffee, make double batches of recipes and freeze the rest.

Sign up for a farm shares (read: cheap organic produce) in the winter (or earlier) for the next growing season. For more information on Community-Supported Agriculture, and a participating farm near you, see LocalHarvest.

If you want to plant your own, way before spring arrives research planting times and how to start seeds.

Outings:

Never, ever leave home without snacks and water. For longer trips, bring a picnic lunch or dinner.

Travel:

Frequent flyer tickets with the lowest mileage requirements are snapped up almost a year in advance. Subvert airline baggage fees by trying these tips.

Kids’ classes:

Be aware of deadlines for preschool, toddler or after-school classes. Often the most economical (and high-quality) programs are those offered by the city, county or parks and recreation department. If you think you qualify, ask about tuition reduction or scholarships.

Gifts:

Give yourself the time to make or buy thoughtful gifts. Keep on hand a bunch of favorite yet inexpensive hostess presents (I like to give a tin of homemade magnets or a wine stopper) and kid birthday presents (we love Stomp Rockets).

Planning ahead is another case of how the slow and steady turtle wins the race. If we can pause in the evening to think about what’s on the docket for the next day, give ourselves an extra cushion of time in the morning, or write down deadlines and to-dos, it’s amazing how we will feel ahead of the game, both organizationally and financially.

Of course the folks at Buttoned Up wrote the book on getting organized: Pretty Neat: Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection. I love their ideas on topics as far-ranging as wrangling family schedules to mastering home-cooked meals.

Next key: Join communities.

Have you found that planning ahead saves money?

By Amy Suardi, Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert

Amy Suardi loves to find the silver lining of living on less at Frugal Mama.

KEYS TO SPENDING LESS AND LIVING WELL: Track Your Spending

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be talking about five fundamental elements of saving money and enjoying a fulfilling life. These steps have worked wonders in my life, and I know they can for you too!

Last time we talked about Cherishing Your Long-Term Goals.

Number two is:

Track Your Spending

Last year I wrote here about Why Tracking Spending is Good for You, but I thought I would revisit the idea because it’s so concrete and can-do.

I remember when I was first starting out life with my husband and our joint bank account. Things got a little tense because money seemed to be flying out the door. Hubbie looked at me, the household purchaser, as if I were scooping up rubies and alligator skin boots.

Not having any real proof of where the money was going, I also couldn’t explain the way our money seemed to slip through our fingers like sand.

I was pretty motivated to create the daily expenses chart we use now, and thankfully, it solved the problem. We realized, “Dang, groceries are expensive here,” and “Did we really spend $1500 on that weekend trip?”

We were able to identify both 1) expenses that were unavoidable, and 2) expenses that, well, could be tamed.

Choose an Easy Method That’s Right for You

There are all sorts of ways to record what goes in and what goes out:

• Buttoned Up has a gorgeous printable monthly spending form
• You can also print out my daily expenses chart for free
• Use software such as Quicken or Microsoft Money
• Try a free website like Mint.com, or
• Simply create your own chart with pen and paper.

Besides avoiding marital strife, what are other good reasons to mark down what you spend?

• Stay accountable to yourself, your goals and your family
• Discourage non-essential purchases knowing they can’t be brushed under the rug
• Learn where you spend the most, where you could cut back, where you are doing well
• See instant results when you are successful in trimming expenses

Once you start, you’ll never say again, “Where does all the money go?”

Next key: Be a Planner.

How do you record your daily spending?

By Amy Suardi of Frugal-Mama and Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert

Amy Suardi writes about saving money & making life better at Frugal Mama.

]]> http://getbuttonedup.com/2011/02/03/keys-to-spending-less-and-living-well-track-your-spending/feed/ 0 http://getbuttonedup.com/2011/01/20/keys-to-spending-less-and-living-well-cherish-your-long-term-goals/ http://getbuttonedup.com/2011/01/20/keys-to-spending-less-and-living-well-cherish-your-long-term-goals/#comments Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:02:43 +0000 Amy Suardi http://getbuttonedup.com/?p=14119



KEYS TO SPENDING LESS AND LIVING WELL: Cherish Your Long-Term Goals

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be talking about five fundamental elements of saving money and enjoying a fulfilling life. These steps have worked wonders in my life, and I know they can for you too!

Number one is:

Cherish Your Long-Term Goals

Bend your budget to your values, not your values to your budget.

For example, when my husband and I were just starting out and I got a part-time job teaching English, we decided that we would not depend on my earnings — at all. Every penny would go into savings. We would just make it work. Why?

We wanted to have children soon, and I wanted the freedom to stay home with them if I wanted. To avoid developing a lifestyle that was dependent on a double income, we immediately whisked my salary away into savings.

Not only did we gain freedom, but we also started building a nest egg that helped us pursue other dreams, like moving from his native Italy to the U.S. (It should be the other way around, I know!) and my husband going back to school so he could change careers (from public health to psychiatry).

What are you saving for? Here are some common goals:

• buying a house
• retirement
• sending children to college
• amassing an emergency fund
• taking a sabbatical or dream trip

As blogger Frugal Babe notes in a guest post she wrote for me this summer, “Never sacrifice what you want most for what you want right now.”

Tips for keeping your goals in the forefront:

• Change all your computer passwords to something about your goal, such as “houseinthecountry” or “$10,000by2012″
• Display images of your goal on your desktop, your car, your fridge (but don’t keep your passwords in view on your desktop)
• Cheer yourself on with visual displays of your progress, such as coloring in a graph of your savings
• Define concrete milestones with due dates and track your progress, suggest Buttoned Up’s Sarah and Alicia in their really helpful new book, Pretty Neat: Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection.
• Remove temptation and set limits by arranging automatic bank transfers from checking to savings every month

Next key: Tracking your spending.

What do you do to keep faraway goals upfront every day?

By Amy Suardi of Frugal-Mama.com and Buttoned Up’s Savings Expert

Amy Suardi writes about saving money & making life better at Frugal Mama.

]]> http://getbuttonedup.com/2011/01/20/keys-to-spending-less-and-living-well-cherish-your-long-term-goals/feed/ 0 http://getbuttonedup.com/2010/12/14/dont-cut-off-your-hair-ask-for-what-you-need/ http://getbuttonedup.com/2010/12/14/dont-cut-off-your-hair-ask-for-what-you-need/#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:00:36 +0000 Amy Suardi http://getbuttonedup.com/?p=13515

Don’t Cut Off Your Hair: Ask For What You Need

Remember the story about the young and poor married couple who wanted to surprise each other for Christmas? The man sold his treasured pocket watch so he could buy a fancy hair comb for his wife. She sold her long beautiful hair to buy a chain for his pocket watch.

That’s the problem with surprises. Yes, they’re terribly romantic, but sometimes they’re just terrible.

It took me a few years to convince my husband that we should save money by getting each other something we needed, instead of surprising each other with sometimes frivolous and under-used gifts.

My Best Man Present

If you’re really into keeping gifts secret, try to figure out what it is your spouse needs. My husband often complained about how our towels were always damp and cold, having no way to dry on their towel rack behind the door in our cramped bathroom. I came up with a behind-the-door towel warmer, which remains the most successful present for my husband ever.

Need? you may scoff. But really it was a towel dryer. The best part is that we both experience this gift every day with the sensation of absorbent, toasty towels. (Plus it only consumes the energy of a 60-watt bulb.)

(Unfortunately, Hinge-It doesn’t seem to be making this hinge-mounted, behind-the-door towel warmer anymore, but wall-mounted towel warmers or stands are plentiful.)

Another Good Present

One the best presents I get from my parents is a lump sum to spend on clothes when I come home to visit. OK, it’s a little mortifying that I’m now 41 and my parents are still clothing me, but maybe they figure that this is just about the only way to get me into a dressing room. I mean, what’s fun about shopping with a bunch of rowdy kids, or trying on 78 pairs of pants in an hour?

With the gift scenario instead, my parents watch the kids and, although I still have to try on 78 pairs of pants, at least I don’t have to worry about the bill. In fact it’s kind of like a game seeing how much I can get for $200, or whatever it is. I usually go somewhere like TJMaxx or a goobery department store that has great clearance racks.

It’s true there is nothing to open up and ooh and ahh over, but I come home afterwards, and just like when I was a teenager with a budget for a fall wardrobe, I model all the bargains I found. (The narrated fashion show is just as much about the price as the style.)

Invest in Something that Won’t Collect Dust

My husband wasn’t too thrilled when I first brought up this practical approach to Christmas presents.

“No, but you should just go out and buy a set of mixing bowls,” he argued. “That’s not a present.” He kept wanting to wow me with something unexpected and glittery.

Who doesn’t love sparkly? — and what a scrooge I am to discourage a romantic like him — but as a frugal mama, I was thinking: you could have wrapped up that garage door opener, and I would have been just as happy.

Here are some more ideas for gifts that feel special, but don’t fit on the knick-knack shelf.

• A warm, fuzzy robe and slippers.
• A coupon for a month (or season) of paid-for lawn care, snow shoveling, or garage organizing. The time saved can be spent with the family or hanging out with friends.
• A new briefcase or purse/diaper bag. (For our ten-year wedding anniversary, I invested in one of these old-world Italian leather briefcases for my husband, which I found at 40% off at Briefcases.com.)
• A cozy throw blanket for cuddling on the couch.
• Equipment for a loved sport.
• A gift certificate to a beauty store like Sephora.
• A bird feeder and a large bag of seed.
• A wool sweater or a no-iron shirt (OK, maybe the person who does the ironing needs this more!)
• A set of yoga classes (and childcare to make it possible).
• A book, magazine subscription, online service or tools that feed a hobby or passion.
• A labor-saving device like a food processor. Mark Bittman claims its the only kitchen appliance you need.

What things do you need that you wish your family would give you?

Subscribe for free to Amy’s blog, Frugal Mama, for more solutions that save money and make life better.



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