One of the most common things we hear in the computer repair shop that I work part-time in is that the computer has crashed, and could we please make sure to get the data off of the hard drive before we re-install windows. And, the first question we always ask is, “do you have your data backed up?” I probably don’t have to tell you what the common answer is to that question.
Many computer users assume that backing up their data is expensive. We see advertisements for services that cost $40-$50 a month, and for external hard drive solutions that are several hundred dollars. But, keeping your data safe, doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, I’ve got all my important data backed up, and I spend less than $50 a year. It’s not because I have some inside information, or get favors from tech companies. You can do it too. And, if you value your data at all, you should.
This is the set-up I currently use.
Picture Backup
Pictures are one of the top two things that people are concerned about losing when they bring their computers in. Unfortunately, pictures are also the largest files that you’ll likely have to backup and store. If you take a lot, you can have Gigabytes of pictures that will need to be backed up. In my set-up, I pay for a full membership to photo sharing site, Flickr. It’s about $26 a year, and allows for unlimited uploading to the site. The pictures are then stored on Flickr’s server, and I can get to them whenever I want. I should note that this isn’t the most elegant solution, as I would have to download the images one-by-one if I wanted to restore them to my local PC. I’ll go over some more efficient services at the end, but you’ll likely have to spend more money to use them. (See note below: 4/15/13)
Data Backup
For any files that are important, besides pictures, I use a service called Dropbox. Their basic plan is free, but limits you to 2GB of data storage. Because I backup my photos elsewhere, I’m able to store everything else that is important with them, and keep the free account. After several years of using it, I am getting close to the 2GB max, so I may have to upgrade to the next plan up soon. The first paid plan allows for 50GB, and is only $9.99 a month, so I don’t think I’d ever have to go above that plan. I should also note, here, that if you have a very large music collection on your computer that you’d like to backup, you’ll likely have to look at a paid plan. (See note below: 4/15/13)
Other options for data backup
There are several other options that you could use for data backup. The aforementioned external hard drives can be super easy to use. One drawback to using one, however, is that the data is still physically located in the same place as the PC you’re backing up. That’s fine if you only need to restore because of PC failure, but can be a disaster if you have to restore due to something like a fire or flood. Ideally, external hard drives that are used for PC backup should be placed in an off-site location, but since that’s a bit cumbersome and likely to keep you from actually backing up your data, they should be at least placed in a fire-proof safe when not in use.
Another, more ideal way to back your data up, is through a service like Dropbox. There are a few others that are specifically designed and marketed as data backup services. Carbonite is probably the most well-known of them, but there is also CrashPlan, and Mozy that do the same job. Carbonite and CrashPlan come in at $59 a year (about $4 a month), while Mozy comes in at $5.99 a month. Crashplan has a free plan, but it requires you to have your own server to back up to. This can work out if you have a second computer at another location or have a friend that you trust with your data. They’ve also got a plan that’s $33 a year, but it limits you to 10GB total storage.
Not backing up your data can be an expensive mistake to make. Not only can it cost you a lot of money ($100 or more) to get your computer fixed, but you could lose all of your valuable data. Save yourself the money of having it recovered, and save yourself from losing years of photos and information; get a data backup plan.
Update 4/15/13:
One of the nice things about a disaster recovery backup plan is that you usually don’t have to use it. More often than not, our computers run on and on until we replace them and we transfer the data to the next machine. Earlier this week, I had to put my set up to the test. My main storage hard drive crashed. While I tried to recover the data from it, it was lost. With a newly formatted hard drive, I was able to reinstall Dropbox and as soon as it was done syncing, I had all the data that was in Dropbox back on my PC. The Flickr photo backup was a little bit more cumbersome. There are several apps out there that you can run that will allow you to download all of your pictures one after the other. I ended up using one called Flump. It worked, but the pictures are in one heck of a mess. None of them have any names, and the structure I had before is lost. So, I’ve got 7000+ pictures to sort through. Moving forward, I’ll be adding one of the above back up services (Crashplan or Carbonite) to my PC to back up my file structure and other assorted things. For the $59 a year it costs, it’s worth the added convenience of not having to deal with the sorting of files and individual applications.
Do you backup your data? What do you use for your data backup plan?
In our house, we have a gas fueled furnace for heat and an electric fueled central air unit. So, as you can likely deduce, our gas bill is much higher in the winter months and our electric bill is much higher in the summer months. But, our bill hardly ever fluctuates. Why is that? We’ve got both bills set up on a little budget helper called balanced billing. It’s a lifesaver when it comes to doing a budget, and it offsets those peak months like the Money Beagle just had.
How does it Work? It’s pretty simple really. The gas/electric company takes our bills for the last year and adds them all up and then divides by 12. That’s our bill for the month. With the gas company, it adjusts each month, so we’ll see a variation of up to $10 or so dollars each month. And with the electric company, they adjust once a year so we usually end up with a little bit higher bill (about $20) for one month to make up for any difference and then it’s back to where it was. I highly recommend it.
How is Balanced Billing a budget helper?
Here’s a little anecdotal story to cement the need for such a program. When I was still in college, I lived with 4 other guys in this awesome old house. It didn’t have air, so it was warm in the summer. In the winter, it had a gas fueled boiler that fed those old registers in each room. The first winter we lived there, our typical gas bill up to that point had been about $200. Not bad when you split it 5 ways. Then we had a particularly cold November. Our bill in December was over $650! Obviously, it was a bit of a shock to us when our heating bill was more than the rent each month! Luckily, we were all pretty good friends and a couple of the guys floated the rest of us some money to help pay for the bill. But, imagine what would have happened if that had happened to a family that was living paycheck to paycheck? Even if you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck, imagine what that would do to your budget!
And that, my dear readers, is why balanced billing can be such a wonderful budget helper. If you’re interested, it usually just takes a quick phone call to the utility company to get it set up.
If you’ve ever been involved with a company’s financials or been an investor researching a company, you likely know that they all have budgets. In fact, they would have a pretty big problem if they didn’t have budgets. And even with budgets, they still have problems when those budgets are unbalanced at the end of the quarter. An unbalanced budget that is in the red can cause a paper loss of millions (or billions) in stock price. That makes for a lot of unhappy investors (read owners).
Why shouldn’t those same rules apply for your personal finances?
Beating Broke Rule: A budget is a must.
Let’s face it. Only the Government gets away with an unbalanced budget. If you or I were to take up similar fiscal actions, we’d be declaring bankruptcy every year. The bottom line is this; If you want to be fiscally responsible and be in control of your finances, you’ve got to have a budget. And it must balance. Must!
Let me finish by finishing the analogy. Think of your personal finance situation as a “business”. You and your Wife (or partner and any children you may have) are the shareholders. When the “business” does poorly (i.e. runs in the red) the shareholders lose value. Only, instead of being able to sell the stock and find a better performing “business”, you have preferred stock that is non-saleable. What’s more, you’re the CEO, CFO, CIO, and mail room attendant. There is nobody you can fire for poor performance and you can’t trim your labor costs with layoffs.
The only way for your “business” to perform well is to have a budget that balances. If you really want to make your “shareholders” happy, you’ll find a line item in there for savings as well.
Analogies aside, a budget can really help you see where your money goes and helps you get in control of your money. Instead of trying to find a few dollars at the end of the month to pay bills, you might just find a few extra for an ice cream cone or two. If you’re curious how to create a budget, read my article on building a simple budget to learn how we created our first budget.
