Jana Says

Can you shop at Target and stay on budget? I can’t.

September 7, 2012 by Jana 10 Comments

Since I’m at FinCon12 this week, please enjoy this post from another blog of mine that didn’t last very long.

I am painfully jealous of people who can go to Target with a list and only purchase what’s on that list. Because I? Cannot.

My Target intentions really are pure. I diligently plan out what I need and bring roughly what I think I’m going to spend on those items (I even have the Target app on my iPhone. It does me no good). I walk in, calmly grab a wagon and walk towards the aisles that house what I came to buy.

I think that getting a wagon is probably my first mistake. I tend to see a wagon and think, “Wow! I’ve got plenty of room in there for my purchases!” I’m ecstatic that I even have room upfront for my purse and whatever toys the child felt were necessary to bring with us (because no shopping trip to Target is complete without 75 Barbies, 49 stuffed animals and a crayon. Yup, one crayon). But seeing as how I clearly hate empty space (and my budget, apparently), I feel the need to fill up the wagon.

I get lured in by the shiny new beauty products that I don’t need (oh, wall of sample sizes. How you test my willpower) and the towels that I have no room for and the toys that my daughter will try to steal so I pay for them because I don’t need a 5 year old criminal. I take them from their lonely spots on the shelves and add them to the party in my wagon. I lather, rinse, repeat throughout the store until I’m too tired to shop anymore. Then, as I push my now overloaded wagon sadly around the rest of the store, winding my way to the registers, I remind myself that I forgot to get what I actually needed. So off I go for another spin. And the cycle repeats. And then I hang my head in shame as I hand my debit card over to the cashier, while the cash in my wallet mocks my lack of willpower.

It’s a shame really because I know that it is possible to walk into Target, get only what I need to survive (or clean myself or feed my cat or whatever), pay and walk out. I know it’s possible because I’ve seen people do it! And they fascinate me with their discipline and fiscal responsibility. I want them to have their own show on TLC; the antithesis of Extreme Couponing. It’ll be called Extreme Target Shopping and the extreme part is not saving money by buying 9700000 bottles of mustard for a quarter but buying only one because that’s what’s on the list.

I’d totally watch that show.

My kid ate what?!

September 6, 2012 by Jana 13 Comments

Since I’m at FinCon12 this week, please enjoy this post from an old blog of mine. Trust me when I say that this is the first of many child inspired posts that will be coming your way shortly (hey, I spend a lot of time with her…I need to get something out of it)!

innova-dog-food1 — Because everything about this screams “delicious”.

As a parent, I try to be very careful about what my child eats. I try to limit sugars, fat, preservatives…all the standard stuff you hear parents say. I’m not perfect and I do let things slide from time to time. I’ve accepted my imperfection with that. Unfortunately, there is one food she ate that will definitely keep me out of the parenting hall of fame.

Once upon a time, when my daughter was an infant and toddler, we fed the dogs in the kitchen. They each had their own bowl of food which was left out for them to graze on throughout the day. It was a method that worked well for our family and we weren’t about to change it. We were happy. Until one day…

I believe it was around dinner time. I was doing something at the stove and my daughter was playing on the floor with some toys or books. She was happy, quiet and content and I went about my business of cooking dinner. Periodically, I would turn around to check on her. I think all of three minutes elapsed between one check and another and when I turned around, I saw my darling daughter sitting in front of the dog bowls.

At first, I thought it was harmless. I thought she was just trying to encourage one of the dogs to eat. But then I saw it. The moment that changed our happy eating arrangements. I saw my daughter eating from the dog bowl.

She sat there, happy as could be, giant smile on her face and her mouth stuffed with kibble. She looked like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. It was horrifying. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I did the only rational thing I could think of. I screamed.

I think the sound that came out of my mouth were “Ohmygodchildwhataredoinggetthatoutofyourmouthrightnow!!!” This exclamation/declaration was followed by me bolting across the kitchen. Keep in mind, I don’t move quickly. I am slow and I am short. However, I think I made it across my entire kitchen in under 2 seconds. I made Usain Bolt look like a slug.

And then in what was a stealth, ninja-esque move, my hands were inside my daughter’s mouth, scooping out literally a handful of half-chewed kibble. From each cheek. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever had to do. As a parent, you expect to do gross things. Change a poopy diaper, clean up blood or vomit, play in piles of dirt, etc. Never do you expect that you will scoop half-eaten dog food out of your toddler’s mouth. But that’s what I had to do. I couldn’t let her swallow it because all I had was visions of rushing her to the emergency room and having to explain why my poor little daughter was writhing in pain while smelling like kibble and then having to defend to DFS that she did it voluntarily and it wasn’t some twisted punishment and having them not believe me.

With those fears tucked firmly inside my head, I extracted the kibble with the precision of a drunk elephant. But I got it out. Then I was presented with another dilemma. Where do I put the mushy, saliva covered, slimy mound of ick that was in my hands? I still can’t remember what I did with it. I’d like to think I threw it in the trash but I’m pretty sure I just threw it on the kitchen floor to deal with later (though I’m also pretty sure that the dogs ate it. After all, it was pre-chewed. Less work for them). I couldn’t deal with it at that exact moment because I had now become all consumed with disinfecting my child’s mouth.

I remember bringing her to the bathroom to brush her teeth. A lot. Like Lady MacBeth hand-washing a lot. At first I thought I was brushing her teeth just to get the nastiness of the dog food out of her mouth but as the event progressed, I realized I was also brushing her teeth to get the smell of the dog food off her breath. Let me tell you, if you think dog food breath is bad on a dog, it’s 10x worse on a child.

After about 5 or 6 brushings, I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that I did the best I could, even if she smelled like kibble. At least she didn’t ingest any and we would not have a midnight visit from DFS.

But something happened that day that temporarily transformed my daughter. I’m not saying there’s anything magical in the dog food but for about 6 months after that, she developed an affinity for sitting in the dog crates, both with and without the dogs. It remains the strangest habit she’s ever had (and believe me when I say she’s had many strange habits over the last 3 1/2 years). She’s outgrown it now, thankfully, but we were concerned for a bit.

So there it is. My kid ate dog food and then temporarily thought she was a dog. I can’t imagine she’s the only one to ever do this. Please tell me I’m not wrong. Please?!

Investing basics: Part 1

September 5, 2012 by Jana 5 Comments

I am at FinCon for the rest of the week. So that you’re not left wondering what happened to this site, I have a few old posts from other sites that are coming back from the dead, as well as a fantastic investing basics posts written by a new (and very smart blogger), Jennifer, who writes To My Girlfriends. Jennifer’s graciously offered up her knowledge of investing (since I know nothing about it) as a tutorial on DMS (which I appreciate so much). When you’re done reading this post, head on over to her site and show her some love!

Hi there. My name is Jennifer, the blogger behind To My Girlfriends. The blog was created because I wanted a venue to share financial tidbits with all “my girlfriends.” Sometimes the content is deep, but I always try to make it easy enough to read if you have limited knowledge about all things financial.

Why should you listen to me? Well, first, I do come with some credentials I am an Accredited Financial Counselor through AFCPE.org (The Association for Financial Counseling, Planning & Education). I have been accredited since 2009. Years prior, I was a registered representative for a financial services company and held a Series 6 & 63 license to sell mutual funds. I also held a life insurance license. I was an independent contractor for said company so I maintained a staff and an office.

This is the beginning of a series of blog posts about investing….the hows and whys. Like some of you, I didn’t know the first thing about investing. All I knew was that my future husband went down to our local bank and opened an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) and I thought I should probably do that too. The banker gave me some investment choices and I made my decisions based on those “stars.” I even invested in the multi-national company that I worked for at the time. They took $10 out of my paycheck a week to start my journey toward owning stocks. Things changed for me, however, when I was finishing up my degree in business and I took a finance class. I fell in the love with the concept of compounding interest…earning money on the interest earned.

So let’s start at the very beginning of what I call the investing cycle…the birth of a business. Most businesses don’t start out as large conglomerates. Think Bill Gates and his garage here. You (just as an example), and maybe a friend or 2, have an idea and decide to offer your product or service to those around you. The idea takes off and more people want what you are offering. You need a little more cash to either buy more supplies or to lease office space so you hit up Mom & Dad, your aunts and uncles, friends, neighbors, etc. You ask them to loan you some money with the intent of paying it back with interest (more money than what you borrowed.)

Now the idea is really going and you know you need more cash for updated computer systems, maybe a truck, new tools, etc. You get the idea. You head to ABC bank. They give you a loan (maybe not in this economy) and off you go to grow your business. You are really cookin’ now! And you need more money to hire salespeople, office staff, truck drivers, computer help, etc, but the bank isn’t interested in giving you more money. So you reach out to what are called Venture Capitalists. These are people or groups of people who are in love with your business. They want to give you money. Great! The catch is that they want a “piece” of your business. Let’s say they give you $200,000 to invest in the business but they want 25% of the profits. So your business grosses (before taxes) $500,000 for 6 months, the Venture Capitalist takes their $125,000 in profits.

Make sense so far?

Your vision has changed and you want to go national with your idea, maybe even international. Good for you and your success! You decide you want to take your business “public” to raise even more money. The Venture Capitalists aren’t going to be the only investors in your business any longer. Large mutual funds will buy shares, as well as Mom and Pop. You reach out to an investment bank to get your IPO (initial public offering) out to the public. Once you are launched anyone can purchase a piece of your company.

And this is where “investing in the stock market” comes in for most of us. We like a company or a product and we want to own a piece of it. Most of us purchase what we think are pieces of companies through mutual funds. Those mutual funds are dressed up into vehicles called IRAs or 401(k)s. There are managers of those funds who decide which companies they want to invest in and what percentage of your money will go to each company. For example you give Ms. Money Manager of XYZ Fund $100 of your money. Ms. Manager then invests in 10 different companies for you. Now you “own” a piece of ten different companies THROUGH the mutual fund. You don’t physically own the shares or the company. Ms. Manager’s fund purchases pieces of the companies on everyone’s behalf and you purchase shares of the XYZ fund. If you purchased some shares of your favorite soft drink company directly then YOU own the shares.

You still with me?

I think this is enough for you to chew on for now. Not all businesses follow this exact trajectory, but it is safe to say a lot do. I just wanted to give you an idea of the general process.

In the next part of the series we’ll cover Next we will cover IRAs, 401(k)s, 503(b)s. They sound scarier than they are. As I always tell my girlfriends, you ARE smarter than you think.

Money Tune Tuesday: FinCon12 edition

September 4, 2012 by Jana 6 Comments

In roughly 24 hours, I will be in my car driving to the Philly airport to leave for FinCon12. To say that I’m excited is an understatement. This,however, actually sums it up perfectly:

I went last year, too, and the amount I learned and eventually applied to this site has helped it become the shining jewel you read daily (or find by accident while searching for unsavory things on the internet. Yes, I’m talking to you. You know who you are). But more than the lessons and information I gained for improving DMS, I also learned the following lessons last year:

Green drinks, namely mint chocolate martinis, are evil. Particularly when Long Island Iced Teas are consumed beforehand.
Hotels will give you complimentary toothbrushes if you forget yours. However, they are one-time use only and you look a little foolish if you ask for more than one. Which means that…
Having a friend with a car and GPS to help you find the nearest Target is essential.
You can never have too many business cards and, upon sitting down at a table for a meal, the first few minutes are like a dizzying game of poker. Cards are flying everywhere, and there’s a whole lot of really confused people.
If you enjoying sleeping, I’m sorry. It will not happen in nearly the quantity you would like.
Smartphones and iPad outnumber conference participants 2:1
Free alcohol tastes exponentially better than alcohol you pay for.
FinCon folks like to get their groove on while on the dance floor.

I’m really looking forward to what I’ll take away from this year’s conference. But in the meantime, I’ll just show my excitement with this song from ye old Pointer Sisters (note: this is not the exact type of excitement I’m anticipating at FinCon but whatever. It’s still awesome and kind of funny. And The Pointer Sisters):

This is more entertaining than shopping

September 3, 2012 by Jana 2 Comments

Today is Labor Day; a day to honor the working folk by giving us a day off (unless you work retail, are a first responder, doctor, animal shelter worker, police officer, small business owner, airline pilot, bus driver, train conductor, taxi driver, or are self-employed. So really, only just a few people) and encouraging us to celebrate by barbecuing, drinking various forms of alcohol, and, of course, shopping.

Because, really, what spells “day off” more than drunk shopping with a full stomach? I'm sure that is what whoever dreamed up this day had in mind (although I do concede it sounds like a good time.)

Anyway, as a quasi-self employed person, today isn't really a day off for me. In fact, I've decided that my labor day is actually December 13, which is when my daughter was born. I think I labored harder that day than any other day in my life. And it ended with me being cut open and a child removed from my body.

Too much information? Perhaps. But true, nonetheless.

Anyway, I initially planned to rant about how I see Halloween decorations out in stores already and how every holiday is commercialized and it makes me really, really annoyed. But then I thought, nah. That's kind of heavy for a Monday. So, instead of ranting, I'm going to share these awesome pictures that I found and hope they make you laugh, too (and make you so entertained that you forget you wanted to take advantage of those amazing, never to be found again Labor Day sales):