Discounted gift cards are a reasonably easy way to spend less at many stores. Briefly, the market for buying gift cards under face value goes like this: A person sells an unwanted gift card to a liquidator like Cardpool or GiftCardZen for, say, a 20% discount to face value. Another person buys that gift card … Read more
There are times of abundance, and times of scarcity. Furloughs are times of scarcity if you or someone in your family is being furloughed. A furlough is not as bad as job loss, but it’s like a partial layoff: fewer hours. Several hundred thousand Department of Defense employees stand to be furloughed for one day … Read more
Going through a furlough — a temporary non-work, non-pay status, also known as a reduction in hours or a partial layoff — is a financial hardship. Even if you’ve gotten into the right mindset, paychecks will still be smaller for a little while if the furlough goes through. Even if you’ve fully internalized that the … Read more
After several weeks of discussion, there appears to be a clearer target for many Department of Defense civilian employees regarding furlough as a consequence of the sequestration of funds that went into effect earlier in the year. These employees are now looking at 11 days of unpaid leave through the end of September. This is … Read more
My recent post on running a practice month on a furlough budget had a comment from Dan: I created a furlough calculator for everyone I work with. It quickly made its way around the globe and many civil service employees are using it to project the near future. It is a simple excel spreadsheet that … Read more
Paying more than the minimum amount due on an installment loan, like an automobile loan or a mortgage, saves on interest expenses in the long run. You owe the money for less time, and hence pay less interest. There are of course lots of ways to pay down loans more quickly. There’s something for everybody … Read more
Eating out is a common budget-buster. A meal at a restaurant can cost easily several times what a meal prepared at home would cost. And don’t get me started on the 1,000%-plus markup on sodas! If dining out is killing your budget, then a simple way to begin bringing the problem under control is to … Read more
At the beginning of this month, sequestration went into effect. This means sweeping cuts of $85 billion from this fiscal year’s budget. To shore up this shortfall, many agencies are furloughing employees during this time, which effectively is a partial layoff. I live in an area with a lot of federal government employees, many of … Read more