Emergency Room Visit
Instead he tripped while trying to get up from his little picnic table and cracked his forehead on the side of a concrete pad on our patio.  There wasn’t much blood or crying but it was obvious from the gaping hole on the side of his face that doctor’s visit was necessary.  Our pediatrician has a hotline you can call on the weekends, the nurse there suggested seeing a doctor and the only place to do that on a Sunday was the emergency room.

Three Hour Wait
We’ve heard enough horror stories about wait times in the ER that we went prepared.  We packed up, checked in, and waited three hours to see the doctor.  Our little guy was surprisingly in a good mood most of the time despite the blood continually oozing from his wound.  I think his good spirits had a lot to do with the pre-emergency room preparation we did.  Here’s what I’d recommend to any parent taking their kid for a long wait at the hospital:

1) Bring Food.  (See jabster’s comments below). We brought along lunch for when he got hungry and snacks for when he was fussy.

2) Bring Toys/Books.  He kept himself entertained for quite a while playing with his trucks and reading books.

3) Bring Something Soothing.  We left his blanket at home so he wouldn’t get blood all over it. He usually only gets his pacifier in his crib but we made an exception for a hospital visit and brought it along.

4) Bring Wipes.  He was constantly touching everything he could in the waiting room then sticking his fingers in his mouth.  We used a lot of wipes trying to keep his hands clean and the germs out of his mouth.

5) Bring Patience.  This is obviously the most important of all.  Sitting in a waiting room with a hurt kid for hours on end will try anyone’s patience.  I’m just glad my wife and I were both there to help out, I don’t know how single parents do it.

Luckily he had no problems other than the bloody gash, he’s all patched up and ready to heal.  Even though we have insurance I’m still a little worried how much the emergency room visit is going to cost us.  As we waited I read a little more of the book “Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely ”, it’s had some valuable information so far on making your health care dollars go further, I’d recommend picking up a copy.

Anyhow, due to the extended hospital visit today is going to be an abbreviated personal finance review for the week.  Here are the articles that caught my eye: 

– Ten Steps To Take When You Are In Financial Trouble @ Gen X Finance

– How Do I Reduce Investment Fees? @ Million Dollar Journey

– Increase Your Salary Without Increasing Your Work @ Digerati Life

– Credit Card Arbitrage Q&A @ My Dollar Plan

– How I Invested My Roth IRA This Year @ Lazy Man & Money

– Soliciting Earthquake Relief Donation @ Suns Financial Diary

– A simple way to save money on food @ Brip Blap

– Save Money by Turning Off Your TV  @ Free Money Finance

There’s certainly alot of talk about the economic stimulus rebate checks.  Five Cent Nickel looks at Economic Stimulus Spending: Expectations vs. Reality, Consumerism Commentary comments on Paper Check Rebates for having Filing Fees Deducted, and the Mighty Bargain Hunter has his stimulus payment and seven suggestions for how you could use your money. Blogging Away Debt warns us of 15,000 Stimulus Payments Sent to the Wrong Accounts, if you want to check on your money, I covered how to track your economic stimulus check.

– No Credit Needed is getting ready for a family vacation, it’s that season and I’m covering travel tips for saving money on vacation and still having fun.

– Get Rich Slowly and the Consumerist point out this news article about Coupon Chrissy and how she saves amazing amounts of money by smart use of coupons. Being Frugal also takes a look at some coupons for the summer, the Simple Dollar lists Sixteen Hardcore Tactics for Minimizing Your Monthly Bills, and My Money Blog looks at Small Rewards Programs For Grocery Shopping. For more frugal tips check out the latest collection of frugal articles at Quest for Four Pillars.

– Lastly, thanks to Money Under 30 for hosting the last personal finance carnival featuring my post on buying health insurance for college graduates.

Fertilizer Costs
Although our yard is the last thing I want to spend time or money on right now, it turns out our neighbors were persuaded by the same salesman. The fertilizer truck came over the weekend, my wife was worried the “Joneses” were going to make our yard look bad and talked me into breathing some life into our yard.

The first way I saved money was purchasing a smaller bag than I typically buy.  In years past, I’ve always had extra left over so instead of spending $40, I bought a bag half the size and paid half the price.  I guess I used to always worry about running out and having to make another trip back.  From now on I’m sticking with the smaller bag, once it’s gone, it’s gone.  The size I had actually worked out perfectly, no leftover fertilizer to store and I covered the whole yard.

Labor Costs
The second way I saved money was to apply the pre-emergent myself.  It took me all of 10–15 minutes, I don’t make anywhere near enough money to pay the $60 the lawn service company was asking for an application.  Twenty bucks for the fertilizer puts me $40 shy of their estimate and I’m definitely not paying a lawn service $40 for 15 minutes of work.

Of course they spray it on vs. the granules that I spread but I have that covered.  I simply water it in, using our self-installed sprinkler system I save the time it would take to drag the sprinklers around.  I forget every year how nice it is to flip that switch and have the water flow, that sprinkler system saves me incredible amounts of time.

Of course, the bad thing about fertilizing and watering is that your grass starts to grow, which means you have to mow it!  What a stupid cycle.  It’s going to be hard for me convince myself to buy gas for the lawn mower this summer with fuel prices as high as they are.  Jungle yard, here we come!

Anyhow, here are some money articles I enjoyed this week:

Fitting for the current economic environment, the Digerati Life talks about how to invest defensively in down markets and The Simple Dollar has a great overview of the current economic situation.

Although the market is having a rough time, that’s no reason to put off fixing your finances.  Million Dollar Journey reminds us the best time to start is now.  The Lazy Man won’t be doing any saving with SmartyPig and My Dollar Plan covers something none of the stocks I own are doing right now, stock splits 101.

You’re almost out of time to contribute to an IRA for 2007, Sun talks about some last-minute promotions brokers are offering for opening a new account.  Generation X Finance asks how much you’re saving in 2008 vs. what you did in 2007?

On the employment front, Brip Blap discourages us from becoming a consultant but then offers the other side of the coin with 15 reasons to be a consultant.

Free Money Finance goes over some ways you can make more money, but of course the IRS wants a piece of the action, so the Mighty Bargain Hunter reminds us we can call the IRS with our tax questions.

No Credit Needed is recycling his way to a new lawnmower, making money from recycling aluminum.

Five Cent Nickel takes a look inside Vanguard’s Portfolio Watch and Jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity does a roundup of his clever Devil’s Advocate series.

I’ve heard this referred to as the middle class squeeze and came across an example of it this weekend. One of our neighbors is pregnant with her second kid and her husband just started a second job to pay for the coming increased costs of parenthood.  I don’t know all the details of their financial lives but they both work, they live in a non extravagant duplex, and don’t seem to spend money irresponsibly.

As expenses go up the only way to get your family budget in the black is to earn more money.  While their approach is definitely more fiscally responsible than going into debt, it does mean the husband won’t be around his family on evenings and weekends. 

Now that we have our own son, I’ve come to realize those evenings and weekends are the most precious time of all.  I have a somewhat similar plan to avoid the middle class squeeze in that I’m working on earning more money.  The difference is that I’m trying to earn it by working at home so I can work on my own schedule and still have family time.  Anyhow, one key to this whole thing is managing our finances responsibly, here are some articles from this week that might help with that.

– Million Dollar Journey is giving away the book Every Family’s Business.

– Lazy Man & Money discusses his alternative income streams.

– My Dollar Plan has an IRS agent answering tax questions and Generation X Finance talks about filing your taxes.

– The Sun’s Financial Diary looks at Vanguard’s new Global Stock Index fund, Brip Blap lets us know about money for nothing, and The Digerati Life has some advice for entrepreneurs.

– Mighty Bargain Hunter asks if you’re just doing the easy stuff and No Credit Needed gets the whole family involved with their finances.

– Free Money Finance shows how much people could save by controlling wedding costs and Five Cent Nickel reports that late payments are on the rise.

– Blueprint for Financial Prosperity looks at outsourcing taxes, hiring a tax preparer is something we did this year.

– Get Rich Slowly gives an introduction to diversification and The Simple Dollar has a good article on developing new skills.

   1. The quality of the companies you buy.
   2. The price at which you buy them.
   3. The length of time you own them.

Although I agree the principles are correct, I can’t help but wince at the thought of losing 22% of a portfolio in one day, even if it means a monumental buying opportunity. 

I’m sure there will be another black day on Wall Street, it may not be a Monday and it may not be soon but I’m sure some variation of it will come again and we’ll all lose money : (  However, I’m not going to let that stop me from investing.  I’m going to keep putting money away and probably even build up some cash reserves so I can take advantage of any enormous market drop.

Until then, check out the money articles I ran across this week:

The Digerati Life has a TurboTax Review and Generation X Finance asks if you think we’re in a recession.

My Dollar Plan shares how you can get free money from Upromise and Brip Blap continues his causes of failure series with the latest reason, insufficient education.

The Suns Financial Diary reminds anyone who bought an HD DVD from Best Buy before 2/23 that they can get a $50 gift card.

The Lazy Man describes why so many people are feeling poor and talks a little about the Money Writers.

Million Dollar Journey covers Informal In-Trust Accounts, it’s interesting to see how other governments, in the example Canadian, give their citizens tax-advantaged ways to save.

The Mighty Bargain Hunter points out a good way to remember your bills that you can’t put on auto-pay and Free Money Finance walks through how to decide how much life insurance you need.

Five Cent Nickel found a calculator where you can estimate your tax rebate and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity talks about the power of impulse saving.

No Credit Needed gives us 5 ways to teach kids about money and the Simple Dollar covers a new site called SmartyPig that you can use to help kids set & reach financial goals with the help of a bank.

During our last visit with the pediatrician I was pondering how I could spend our remaining FSA balance. I asked the lady at the billing desk if we could pre-pay for future services and she was more than happy to accept payment.  I know the money will be used because we’re regular visitors at the pediatrician’s office so it seems to be a perfect solution. 

I haven’t submitted the receipt to our FSA provider for reimbursement yet so I’ll let you know how that goes.  I don’t anticipate any issues, I’m excited to have hopefully found a good strategy for making sure we get to use all the pre-tax money we put into our flexible spending account.

On the topic of heath care and insurance payments, Blueprint for Financial Prosperity discusses HSA, HRA and FSA Differences and the Mighty Bargain Hunter reminds us we get what we pay for with health care. Here are some other recent money articles I enjoyed:

-The Suns Financial Diary has a Financial IQ Quiz

– Generation X Finance goes over Social Security Disability Benefits

– The Digerati Life covers Small Business Payment Hassles

– Lazy Man & Money complains about door to door salesman

– Brip Blap gives coverage of the classic book, Think & Grow Rich

– Million Dollar Journey is giving away the book Fast Profits in Hard Times

– Five Cent Nickel reminds us that Past Performance Does Not Predict Future Returns

– No Credit Needed reveals his biggest financial regret

– Free Money Finance hosts personal finance March Madness

Stop by the Travel on a Shoestring carnival and checkout how you can save money in Las Vegas and other US cities.  Or if you want to learn more about peer lending, visit the prosper lending review for the carnival they hosted that included some peer lending lessons.

Do you ever feel like the growth in some area of your life has hit a plateau and you don’t know what to do about it?  One of my friends was recently in that situation and took action that reminded me we sometimes have to move out of our comfort zone and try something new to make progess.

This is the friend that I introduced to selling on eBay who not too long ago became my eBay partner.  His wife is staying at home with their new kid and he started an eBay business to supplement their income.  He had been seeing steady growth but not enough to earn the money he had planned on.  He realized he needed to try something new in order to break through the income barrier he was facing.  After researching many different options, he decided to spend alot of money buying pallets of goods from Liquidation.com to resell on eBay.

It wasn’t an easy choice, he was spending almost all of his earnings to date on the deal and had never done anything like it before.  Despite the doubt and all the reasons not to do it, he bought the products, took a day off from work to have the pallets delivered, and dove into listing the inventory.  Using his new approach he’s able to list more items, faster, and make higher profit margins.

I was pretty impressed with my friend’s willingness to try something new and take a risk.  I’m really glad its working out for him and offered to be an investor when he needs a few thousand dollars to buy more products.  To me, it was a great example of how we have to be willing to change to grow.

Personal Finance Review

Some weeks are better than others in terms of personal finance content online and this week was just chock full of good stuff so this is a longer review than normal.  Enjoy the articles:

Lazy Man & Money has an article I really liked called Your Financial Football Team, that reminded me of my Personal Finance for Sports Fans series and Is Your Investment Portfolio a One Man Team?

Suns Financial Diary reminds us that we’re not the only ones feeling the pain of the financial markets, things aren’t pretty with Chinese ADRs either.

The Digerati Life has a great article on beating the average investor’s returns with the Simplest Investment Portfolio and Generation X Finance reminds us of the importance of The importance of disability insurance.

No Credit Needed is pretty well read when it comes to debt reduction and offers his Favorite Books About Debt Reduction And Credit.

Free Money Finance warns that little expenses can add up, the Mighty Bargain Hunter covers banks obligations on foreclosed property, and Five Cent Nickel lists 12 commonly missed tax deductions.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity gives us 8 Reasons To Do All Your Shopping Online, make sure you also read how to save money on shipping when shopping online.

Many people are asking the question whether they should refinance after all these interest rate cuts, Get Rich Slowly takes a look in Are Mortgage Rates Tied to the Federal Funds Rate?

The Simple Dollar takes a look at online personal finance analysis tools like Mint and Wesabe and My Money Blog talks about a new online payment system called MoneyExchange that’s offering a $25 bonus to signup.

If you’re not tired of reading about money yet, here are some more good posts from the M-network: 

-75 Frugal Hacks for Your Home @ Being Frugal

-Prosper – the Ebay of Person to Person Lending @ Cash Money Life

-Making Money in Real Estate with Fixer-Uppers @ Gather Little By Little

-The Big Rocks of Life @ Moolanomy

-Money Mistake Monday – The Learn Before You Invest Syndrome. @ My Two Dollars

-American sub-prime crisis: should the rest of us care? @ Plonkee Money

-The Real Cost of Homeownership @ Single Guy Money

-How to buy partial shares of Berkshire Hathaway with ShareBuilder @ The Dough Roller

-The “Can We Afford The Payments” Mentality @ Paid Twice

The Digerati Life has a video on the stock market ruining your life and Generation X Finance asks whether an economic stimulus package will help the markets.

Free Money Finance is buying all the way down, Five Cent Nickel reports on the Fed’s major rate cut, and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity asks should you refinance?

If you’re wondering which type of investments are best to have during market uncertainty, read Sun’s comparison of active & Passive mutual funds.

As things get nasty, make sure you’re building an emergency fund like No Credit Needed and check out 21 money-saving sites listed at Get Rich Slowly.  You could also look into taking a second job or starting a side business over at the Mighty Bargain Hunter.

If you’re short on cash, don’t put it on your credit card, instead get a loan at Lending Club, who Lazy Man reports recently made some updates to their lending site.  When money is tight, be sure not to waste it like Golbguru did recently.

If you’re looking for some ways to take your mind off of the down market check out the 2^nd edition of the Carnival of Peer Lending or the latest edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance.

I’ve written before about a health insurance problem we’ve been fighting, caught between a doctor’s office and health insurance company.  Just last week I think I finally brought it to an end.  After countless phone calls someone at the insurance company finally noticed the date of service was over a year ago and decided to take care of my problem.

I had to laugh when I was transferred to the “Rapid Response Team” to take care of the issue.  I don’t know that I’d call more than a year of waiting very rapid.  To add insult to injury, I was put on for multiple long intervals by the rapid response team as they “researched” the problem, hmm isn’t that what they’ve been doing for over a year now? 

I can’t declare “victory” until the payment actually reaches the doctor’s office but I think my main question is why it has to be a battle to be won? Why can’t they honor their commitments in a timely manner just like everyone else in this economy has to?  Anyhow, if this gets you worked up as it did me, here are some money posts you can read to let off a little steam:

Congrats to Golbguru who has found his dream job and will finally have time to blog again!

The Sun gives a comparison of the TransUnion VantageScore Credit Score compares it to the FICO score, The Digerati Life has 5 Hot Tips for First Time Investors, and Generation X Finance warns us to learn from the past and not repeat financial mistakes.

Lazy Man asks Netflix vs. Blockbuster – Which to Choose?, I say sign up for both Blockbuster & Netflix!

If you’re looking for a way to control your personal finances for the new year check out 4 Ways To Make It Harder To Spend Money by Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and Discipline and personal finance by Mighty Bargain Hunter.  Of course that may be easier said than done, if any of you have a new baby on board, checkout No Credit Needed for his take.

Five Cent Nickel talks about keeping cash on hand and Free Money Finance reminds us of the 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions, tax season will be here before you know it!

One of my favorite personal finance steps I’ve taken is to automate our investing and bill paying.  Get Rich Slowly has a good overview of How to Automate Your Personal Finances.  Just watch out for some of the potential problems with automated online bill pay.

Have a great week!

I noticed something this weekend that made me stop and think about the psychology of spending and saving.  When I exercise I tend to eat better and when I’m slacking in the workout department I’m more likely to eat unhealthy.  I’ve found that when I’m in the fitness mindset I think more about what goes into my body since I just had to work hard to burn off some calories.

I think the same applies to personal finance as well.  When I’m focused on working hard to increase my salary, saving more money, and getting a better investment return I tend to spend less money.  I’ve had to work hard to build our net worth, the last I want to do is turn around and spend it away. On the other hand, if I’m not thinking about how many hours I had to work to earn money or what our portfolio returns are, I’m more likely to spend a little more money.

The good news is that when I’m “in the zone”, I’m not only increasing the acceleration of net worth accumulation, I’m also decreasing the depletion of our net worth.  The bad news is that when I’m in money denial, I’m earning less and spending more at the same time, having a double negative effect on our net worth. I guess the first step is being aware of this weird behavior so that I can avoid being loose with money in my financial mental downturns.  Anyhow, enough philosophizing about finances.  Checkout some of the good articles of the week:

Lazy Man & Money kicks off the Carnival of Peer-To-Peer Lending and is nominated for an award. Free Money Finance does a little money math on taxes and spending away your retirement fund.

The Digerati Life tells us why most investors don’t make money in the stock market and Generation X Finance says to take advantage of record oil and gas prices.

Suns Financial Diary talks about changes to FICO Credit Scores and Blueprint for Financial Prosperity reminds us that checking your credit score won’t hurt your credit score.

No Credit Needed writes about dividend reinvestment, Five Cent Nickel helps a reader with Roth IRA Income Limits, and the Mighty Bargain Hunter talks some more about valuing your time.

A guest post on Get Rich Slowly considers frugality and quality and The Simple Dollar asks how much frugality is too Much?

Finally, My Money Blog gives us a 2008 Financial Jump-Start Checklist, 5 Actions That Can Take 5 Minutes Or Less.

I wasn’t the only one with shopping on the brain this week. The Digerati Life gives us some Black Friday Inspired Shopping Strategies, Generation X Finance offers a List of Some 2007 Cyber Monday Sales, Free Money Finance listed 10 Things Better than Shopping Today, Mighty Bargain Hunter asks Can you do without these holiday expenses?, and My Money Blog suggests some Investment Gift Idea For Children.

Here were some other posts I enjoyed this week:

-The Sandwiched Generation @ Money, Matter, & More

-Book I Read: An American Hedge Fund @ Suns Financial Diary

-Changing Credit Card Rewards Strategy @ Five Cent Nickel

-History of the Indices: Dow, Nasdaq, S&P & More @ Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

-Exactly HOW I Pay Off Debt, Mortgages And Credit Cards Early @ No Credit Needed