Beating Broke

5 Ways to Have a Frugal Halloween

October 21, 2014 By MelissaB 1 Comment

While the marketers would like us to think that Halloween should cost a fortune, it doesn’t have to. On average, Americans in 2013 planned to spend $75.03 on Halloween candy and costumes. (My guess is those with more than two children will spend significantly more than this, especially if they choose to buy costumes.)

If you use some creativity and resourcefulness, you and your kids can have a fun Halloween without spending a fortune. Here’s a way to have a ghoulish Halloween without frightening your wallet.

Save Serious Money on Costumes

If you have the cash to spend, you can certainly find costumes at a discount by visiting second hand stores or perusing Craigslist. However, if you don’t have the money to spend or you simply choose not to, there are still plenty of adorable costumes for your kids:

Use costumes you have around the house.

If you have dress up clothes, those are fair game for a Halloween costume. Another idea is to use your child’s clothing from extracurricular activities. Does your son have a little league uniform? Great, he can be a baseball player. Does your daughter take dance classes? She can be a ballerina. Does your child have a pair of skeleton pajamas? They could easily double for her Halloween costume.

Marketers want us to think that a child should be able to pick any costume he or she would like for Halloween. However, you can limit this to whatever type of costume the child can find around the house.

Create your own costume.

With a little creativity (and maybe some face paint), you can likely find a good costume with things you already have around the house. An old white sheet makes for a great ghost costume and your child’s clothes along with face paint can help create an adorable hobo. With the help of Pinterest, you’ll find plenty of costume ideas you can make at little to no cost using items around the house.

Have a costume swap.

If you have old costumes that the kids have outgrown or no longer want, why not get together a few of your friends and have a costume swap. You may leave with a new-to-him costume for your child, and you will have decluttered your home of a few costumes you’ll never use again in the process.

Save on Candy

Reuse candy.

Now, before you get upset with the wording “reuse candy” hear me out. Buy a bag or two of candy to give to the trick or treaters. If you have young children, take them early in the night. When you get home, go through the candy that your kids don’t like. (As a kid, I hated any candy bars that had nuts in them.) This candy will likely go in your own mouth if the kids won’t eat it. Instead, put it in your candy bowl and give it to the trick or treaters at your door.

Turn off the light when the candy is out.

I know some people who live in subdivisions popular with trick or treaters. These people will buy five, six, seven bags of candy. That adds up fast! Instead, buy whatever amount of candy your budget allows. When you run out, turn off the outside light, turn off the lights in the front of the house, and go settle in to watch a movie or read a good book in the back of the house. Don’t feel pressured to buy more candy than you comfortably can financially.

What are your favorite tricks to save on Halloween?

Grocery Shopping Once a Month – Can You Do It?

September 29, 2014 By MelissaB 10 Comments

My husband and I recently bought a house, and we’d like to plump up our emergency fund just in case we have a large house expense. (Because, of course, when you have little savings, expensive things start to break. It’s the law of nature, right?)

To inspire myself, I reread America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money by Steve and Annette Economides. One strategy of theirs that I latched onto is once a month shopping. The Economides shop once a month for their family of seven and right after shopping day, they make 15 to 17 freezer meals to help them on nights when they’re too busy to cook.

Alright, I already regularly cook freezer meals, so how hard could it be to shop once a month for my family of five?

As it turns out, very tough, at least the first month.

Breaking Bad Habits

I have a bad habit of making a big shopping trip on the weekend and then running to the store for this or that several times a week.

Do you do this, too? From all of the harried shoppers I see at the store at 5 p.m., I’m guessing I’m not alone.

The problem is that each time I run to the store, I buy more items than I initially went to the store to buy. The Economides recommend once a month shopping to avoid this kind of impulse buying that blows up the grocery budget.

Making the Big Shopping Trip

This month, eager to change my bad shopping habit, I scouted the deals and made my big, once a month shopping trip. I spent two days afterward cooking up meals to put in the freezer. I was set, or so I thought.

Turns out, limiting the impulse to stop by the store is more difficult than I thought.

There are a number of reasons why we’re struggling:

My husband likes fresh fruit and veggies. Our family wiped these out after a week, so back I went to the store to pick up some more.
I’m an impulse eater. If something sounds good to me, I want to make the recipe and have it for dinner. I don’t want to wait until my next monthly shopping trip to get the ingredients to make it. (The whim would have passed by then, which is the point, I guess.)
Eating up odds and ends at the end of the month is not fun. Sure, trying to make meals out of what food is left is fun, but the last few days, most of it doesn’t taste good.

Taking Baby Steps Moving Forward

While it would be easy to give up on the idea of once a month shopping, I haven’t yet because I know it can be a big money saver. Instead, I’m going to back up and move to twice a month shopping. This will allow me time to plan out our meals for two weeks, making sure we have all the ingredients we need. Many fruits and veggies stay good for nearly two weeks, so my husband will have the fresh fruits and veggies that he wants.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully implement once a month shopping, but if I am successful with twice a month shopping, I will still significantly reduce my impulse shopping trips and improve my grocery budget.

How often do you grocery shop? Are you a multiple trip, impulse buyer like I am (was?), or are you a grocery store ninja?

Lending Club Is Now Offering Business Loans

August 28, 2014 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

You likely know Lending Club is a peer-to-peer lending site that offers personal loans to individuals as well as the chance for personal investors to invest by lending money to individuals.

Now, however, Lending Club is expanding their services and offering business loans. This is of particular interest if you own a business.

If You’re Looking to Lend Money to a Business

If you’re already investing in Lending Club, you may want to lend money to a business as well. However, ordinary investors cannot yet do that. “For now. . .the program is limited to institutional investors such as hedge funds, insurance companies, and family offices that manage wealth for the very rich, but eventually the company plans to let anyone invest” (Bloomberg Businessweek).

How to Qualify for a Lending Club Business Loan

Business funding can often be very difficult to get, so Lending Club’s business loans offer businesses a nice alternative to traditional funding options. In order to qualify for a loan, a business must meet these minimums:

At least $75k in annual sales,
a personal guarantor by at least one 20% or greater owner of the company, and
the guarantor’s personal credit must be at least “Fair”

What Are The Loan Details?

Businesses that apply for a loan can borrow up to $100,000 for 1 to 5 year terms.

The interest rate is fixed for the life of the loan and can be as low as 5.9% to as high as 29.9%. The rate your business gets depends on a variety of factors including:

how long your business has been established,
how financially strong your business is, and
the credit worthiness of the business, among other factors.

“Lending Club Chief Executive Officer Renaud Laplanche says the average interest rate will be 12.5 percent” (Bloomberg Businessweek).

Lending Club offers a “check your rate” button on their website. Simply enter how much you need and what you plan to use it for and then you’ll be taken to a form to fill out that will check your potential rate. (Filling out this form does not affect your credit score in any way.)

One of the best perks of the Lending Club Business Loan is that you can pay it off early with no pre-payment penalties.

The Fine Details

When borrowing, checking the fine print is always best. There are a few other fees attached to the loan.

Borrower Origination Fee

The origination fee can range from 1 to 6%. That money will be taken off the top of the loan. If you borrow $10,000, for instance, and your origination fee is 3%, you will receive $9,700 because the $300 origination fee is taken off immediately.

The borrower must pay the origination fee to cover the cost of issuing the loans as well as the screening process.

Unsuccessful Payment Fee

If your automatic payment fails, you’ll be charged $15.

Late Payment Fee

A borrower is given a 15 day grace period. If your payment is later than that, you will be charged either $15 or 5% of the unpaid monthly payment, whichever is greater.

Check Processing Fee

If you opt to pay via check, you’ll be charged a $15 fee. If you use direct debit, you are not charged a fee.

Funding your business can be difficult, especially if you go through traditional channels. Lending Club is expanding their business to offer business loans, which is one more way you can potentially find money for your business, whether you’re using it for debt consolidation, marketing, or another purpose.

If you have a business, would you look at Lending Club as a potential lender? If you invest in Lending Club, would you like to invest in their new business loans?