I hope you enjoy this week’s picks:

It’s been a while since someone has taken business analysis to personal finances but Wojciech at Fiscal Fizzle does a great job in his post send the SWOT on your finances. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It’s a great way to analyze a project or venture. The strengths and weaknesses piece analyzes yourself or the venture while the opportunities and threats is an assessment of the environment you or the venture will operate in. Solid post, well worth reading because it gives you another way to analyze your finances. [Fiscal Fizzle]

Do you remember the first time you tried to stand up? I do. I pressed up with all my might, tried to put my little feetsies under me and promptly fell on my butt. But did I let that stop me from standing up? From walking? Heck no! I stand up all the time now! Failure is a good thing and I thought Financial Samurai wrote a great post on how to use failure as motivation. [Financial Samurai]

I wanted to talk about Thrift and the Art of Pet Maintenance not because it has tips for pet care but because those tips apply to the maintenance of anything. Preventative maintenance and regular care keeps repairs down, whether it’s your car, your dog, or yourself. [TIME: It's Your Money]

Finally, I wanted to highlight this uber-useful post by Squawkfox on how to buy a slow cooker. It’s getting to be pretty cold nowadays and, as I wrote about earlier, we’re cooking more in the recession, so finding a good slow cooker is a must. Fortunately, we already have one from our wedding so we won’t be shopping but you might – so I hope you find this useful. (in fact, we made a stew yesterday… and it was delicious).

Have a great weekend!

pfPicks: We’re Almost to 2010! from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This year, the offer is for a 2009 Food & Wine Annual Cookbook that has a retail value of $29.95 (you can buy it from Amazon for $19.77 plus shipping). For the cost of shipping and handling, $2.99, we can get this book for free just because we’re a specially selected Cardmember. There is a money back guarantee on the shipping and handling costs too. If I don’t like the book, I can return it within 90 days of the billing date and get a full refund.

If you’re wondering how a Food & Wine cookbook fits with American Express, it turns out that Food & Wine is owned by American Express Publishing. American Express Publishing is a subsidiary of American Express, as you probably would’ve guessed by the name.

What’s the catch? The “catch” is that you are enrolled in their “Cookbook Series” where you will be given advance notice of future cookbooks that you can buy. If you want to buy them, you do nothing and the books are sent to you and your American Express card is billed. If you don’t want the book, you return the advance notice card within 14 days.

This is known as negative option billing. If you’ve ever had a Columbia House membership, then you’re familiar with how this works. The negative in negative option billing doesn’t mean it’s a bad program or that it is dishonest. Negative simply means you must decline an offer or it is automatically sent to you.

Is this a good offer? If you want the Food & Wine Annual Cookbook and don’t mind the added effort of declining offers or canceling the series, then it is a good offer. If you never cook or feel like online recipe websites are good enough, then it’s not a good offer.

As for us, I’ll take the Food & Wine cookbook for $2.99 please.

American Express Cardmember Gift Offers from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

I also want to thank the fine folks at Intuit and TurboTax for supporting Bargaineering and sponsoring this video. With the end of the year coming, you’re bound to see a lot of tax related articles everywhere as people give advice on what you should do before the end of the year, so it’s fitting that TurboTax is the inaugural sponsor of these videos. If you’re on Twitter, I invite you to follow @TurboTax for more information on tax and product news straight from the experts.

And before you go, one thing I want to emphasize was that the point of this video wasn’t to convince you to avoid making small purchases like coffee and cigarettes. You should spend your money on whatever makes you happy, but I believe understanding the full impact of those decisions is important in making that decision.

What are you thoughts on the video? If you like it, I would love it if you could leave a comment or tell Vimeo you liked it!

BVC #22: Big Impact of Small Everyday Spending from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The Bargaineering Bucks system rewards you for doing things on the site such as visiting daily and commenting on posts. Over seven hundred readers have signed up and earned over 26,733 “Bargaineering Bucks” that you’ve spent in the Bargaineering Store for wonderful prizes such as ING Direct promotional referrals, popular personal finance books, USB thumb drives, copies of Quicken, and so many more wonderfully awesome prizes.

Earning a buck for logging in is a new way to earn points, made live earlier today. If you thought you were missing out before, don’t worry! We’ve been testing the feature and wanted to make sure we got it right before rolling out.

You can earn bucks just by registering for the site and doing what you do already. Right now the two easiest ways to earn points require no extra effort. For every day you visit, you earn a buck. For every comment you leave, you earn a buck. You just have to make sure you’re logged in or the systems won’t know who to award the buck to.

Is this worth the extra hassle? Yes!

Reader daemondust only recently discovered the site and has been commenting furiously, racking up 157 ββ that he’s put towards about ten ING Direct referrals in the Bargaineering Store. If you have an ING Direct account with some referrals left, then you know each referral is worth $10 to you. Daemondust has already made $100 by participating in the site and doing nothing extra, he just makes sure he’s logged in before he comments!

So the question I ask you is … are you earning your Bargaineering Bucks?

(Photo: sokwanele)

Are You Earning Your Bargaineering Bucks? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Sure, you get hands-on help from Ramit Sethi and some great guest speakers, but more importantly you are joined by people just like you. Some of them will have solved a problem you’re facing and I think that’s one of the understated things about the program.

Here’s the curriculum:

• Week 1 – Optimizing your credit cards 11/9-11/15
• Week 2 – Beat the banks and negotiate bills 11/16 – 11/22
• Week 3 – Open 401K and Roth IRA 11/23-11/29
• Week 4 – Conscious Spending 11/30 – 12/6
• Week 5 – Automation 12/7 – 12/13
• Week 6 – Investing – setting up portfolio 12/14 – 12/20

If you are the king of optimizing credit cards, you might be giving more than you get that first week. However, if you are weak with automation, that’s when you’ll learn something. Not good with asset allocation or planning your retirement? Week 3 looks like a place where you’ll take more than you give.

Here’s a little taste of what Ramit’s video presentations are like (and maybe what the boot camp will be like):

In the end, there is a 30-day money back guarantee. If you make it two-thirds of the way through and find it’s not for you, he’ll refund all of your money. There’s no risk in giving it a shot if you think it’s right for you.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich 6-Week Boot Camp from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

When was the last time you had a financial fire? Maybe the car broke down or you broke a window in your house. Maybe you were one of the many millions who lost your job last year. I bet, in most cases, you weren’t sure what to do afterwards.

That’s why I’m recommending that you conduct a financial fire drill.

How to Conduct a Financial Fire Drill

The first step is to list all the potential “fires” you could have, including an actual fire in your home. Some common ones are job loss, car problems, fire or flood in the home, burglary of your house or home, and minor and major medical emergencies. Everything you thought of when you set your emergency fund is in play here.

Next, you need to setup a response plan and a financial plan.

Response Plan

The response plan is the series of steps you’ll take to respond to the emergency. In the case of job loss, you might want to list steps like signing up for job websites, updating and listing your resume, reaching out to your network of contacts in the industry, and filing for unemployment. If there are any steps you can do today, such as registering for job websites, do them because it will make your life easier later.

You want to write down your response plan now, rather than when you’re emotionally charged, because it’s easier to think clearly about it now. What’s easier: finding a job or helping a friend find a job? Most people would say helping a friend. Helping someone find a job is easier in part because you’re less emotionally invested in the income. While you’d love to find your friend a job, the consequences are less severe if you fail.

Financial Plan

Setting up your financial plan is a lot like setting up your emergency fund but doesn’t stop there. First, you need to establish how much you need to save. Take stock of how much the fire will cost you and save money into an emergency fund to handle it. For a job loss, you can save 12 months of expenses to handle an extended period of unemployment. For a car accident, save enough to cover the deductible.

Then, for each of the potential fires, link your response to the financial plan and be sure to include a recovery plan. I’ll include a few examples afterwards but the important part of this step is to try to take “thinking” out of the equation. If you have a CD ladder, include instructions on how you want to liquidate the CDs, in what order, and how you’ll want to get your ladder rebuilt.

Example: Car Repairs

Here’s a sample response and financial plan for a typical scenario – a car repair.

Response Plan for Car Repair

1. Get repair quotes from at least two reputable mechanics (only one is necessary if you have a mechanic you’ve worked with and trust) in the area.
2. Try to negotiate the repair price down or personally buying the parts required.
3. If the repair is more than half the value of the car, consider selling or donating it and buying a new (to me) car.
4. If the repair is less than $500, pay through savings or with a credit card (assuming the $500 can be repaid before the grace period ends). If the repair is greater, begin liquidating CDs starting with the shortest original maturity period (6 months is best, since the penalty will usually be only 3 months compared to 6 months on a 12-month CD) and lowest interest rate.
5. Bring the car in and schedule a ride to work with a friend (or get quotes and rent a car).
6. Redirect monthly savings away from another goal to replenishing the emergency fund.

Financial Plan

Most of the numbers used are example figures used to illustrate the idea of these plans.

Deciding how much to save. My car is a 2003 Toyota Celica and we don’t anticipate major repairs on the vehicle because it’s not at the age, or mileage, where major repairs are expected. That being said, a $500 repair would be significant and so we’ve decided to set an emergency fund allocation of $500 to cover a car repair scenario. We save an extra $42 a month into the emergency fund for a year to cover this.

Our emergency fund is much larger, $2,500 a month, to cover the whole gamut of potential issues (most notably, the mortgage in case of a job loss or a major medical emergency). Our emergency fund is saved up in a CD ladder, with one rung sitting in a high yield savings account. Should we have a car accident under $3,000, we would pay for it on a credit card for the points and then pay off the credit card from savings.

Why Should I Conduct A Financial Fire Drill?

Why is this important? If you’ve ever been fired, and I have, then you know what it feels like. It’s like someone punching you in the stomach and knocking the wind out of you. It doesn’t feel good. When that pain subsides, you start feeling the pressure of having to find another job.

Having to “figure out” how to find another job is really difficult when you have to deal with all the emotional aspects of losing one. If you’ve planned ahead of time, then you can go through the steps without having to “figure it out.” This takes the thinking process out of the equation and just lets you work on executing it.

The response plan can also help you make decisions dispassionately. In the heat of the moment, your judgment might be clouded by a variety of factors. When you’re sitting at home, with a job, with a working car, and without the pressure of an emergency weighing on your mind, you can make better informed decisions. Putting those decisions on paper can give you guidance when a real emergency happens.

The response plan can help others make decisions for you if you’re incapacitated. Anytime you write down the decisions you’ve made in your head, you empower others to act on your behalf if you cannot. You should put your fire drill response plan next to the list of all your bank accounts so that if someone else needs to handle your finances, they know what to do. Without guidance, they’ll use their own judgment which will invariably be different than yours.

Have you conducted financial fire drills and put together response plans? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

(Photo: mbtrama)

Conduct a Financial Fire Drill from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The show will be on live at 6PM Eastern, 3PM Pacific and will be broadcast at this page, if you want to listen to it (it’s also recorded, so you can go to that page to listen in after it airs). As always, you can call in and listen live at 347-327-9144 to chat with us or just listen in the background.

Or click play on this widget (after 6PM on Mondays it will be that week’s show, before then and you’ll get last week’s show):

We are also on iTunes and you can subscribe by clicking on this link, which will open up iTunes.

We hope you get the chance to listen, perhaps call in and chat, or just pop on into the chat room to hang out. It can get a little rowdy in there but it’s good times I promise!

PFHour #26: Financial Rules of Thumb from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

So, I’ve decided to bring these Weekly Roundups back in order to share with you some other websites I personally enjoy and hope that you will to. These will be once weekly and I will try not to link to the same sites because that really doesn’t help you find new and fun places to spend your valuable time.

And yes, that’s a Pontiac Firebird. It’s not a Phoenix, but it’s close enough!

Know Your Rights: Credit Card Minimum Purchases. This week, I was quoted by David Seaman for an article on Main Street, TheStreet.com’s personal finance site. The article covered a practice by some stores to require a minimum purchase before you can use a credit card. The article does a good job of explaining what issuers permit when it comes to minimum purchases and what you can do if you run into a problem.

How to Save Money for Christmas in a Short Amount of Time. It’s not even Halloween and the Christmas creep has his GenXFinance! Jeremy shares some excellent tips on how to save money for the holiday spending spree starting right now.

The Pitfalls of Buying in Bulk. This is a guest post on Get Rich Slowly that covers why buying in bulk might not be the best thing in the world. I’m a fan of buying in bulk when it makes sense but Sierra makes excellent points on why you might be making a bad decision going bulk.

Bed, Bath and Beyond Coupons Never Expire! SVB at The Digerati Life shares a tip that most people don’t know… Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons never expire. They have expiration dates but they don’t mean a thing. Cat’s out of the bag!

That concludes this week’s roundup, I hope you get a chance to check out the sites. Let them know that I sent you and they’ll probably give you a yearly subscription for free!

(Photo: hugo90)

pfPicks: Like A Phoenix, Roundups Reborn! from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

My wife, Tracy, is a stay-at-home mom to my two young daughters – Ava, age 5 and Ella, 2. We don’t make a large salary so we have to be frugal with our money. We are trying to pass on our values to our children. Ava gets an allowance every week for the chores she does. We check each chore off on a daily basis and at the end of the week Ava gets paid for doing these chores.

I decided to pay Ava for her chores since this is work she has to do in order to get paid. We actually refer to her allowance as commission since, like a commission, she gets paid for work she does. I use allowance in this story because most are familiar with that term. Most people get paid for work that they complete. I feel that having Ava do some work, albeit minimal work at this point in time, to earn money will help her develop an understanding that work leads to getting rewarded with money. I am lucky enough to drive her to school everyday (she attends the same school where I teach) and she knows I go to work and get paid for teaching my students. I tell her that she gets paid for her jobs too and wanted to demonstrate this with an easy to use chore chart.

Setting Allowances

We have decided to start off small with the amount we give Ava each week. Right now it is $1.00. As she gets older and does actual work that is above and beyond what she should do, we will increase the amount she gets.

The chores she does right now are basic ones (cleaning her room, using good manners, brushing her teeth, etc.) that are expected off her. My goal with her allowance at this point is not to reward her for doing things that she should do but, rather, to teach her about handling money. I know her chores are easy for her to do and I want it to be that way. I want her to be able to accomplish all of them so I can have a teachable moment with her every week when she gets paid. When she gets a little older, and the money management tools I am teaching her now are hopefully ingrained in her, more will be expected of her to earn this money.

Savings, Give Away, and Spending Jars

Ava has three jars:

1. Savings
2. Give Away
3. Spending

When she’s paid, Ava puts some of the money in the Give Away container first, then Savings and finally Spending (she knows the correct order and this is very important). I feel that by doing this she will continue this practice later in life.

If Ava wants something at the store, now that she’s five this seems to happen more often, Tracy and I tell her we have to go home and look in her Spending jar to see if she has enough to buy it. We use her Savings jar to save up for items that might cost a little more money. Ava has used the money in her Give Away jar to buy a present for a student at my school who lost her father and for a canned food drive at our church.

A few months ago she said something that made me so happy. After putting money into each container she said that she had enough money in her Spending and Savings containers and wanted to get more in her Give Away so she could buy a ball for her 2 year-old sister, Ella. I was so proud of her. She is now of the age that she has started to notice that some of her friends have more materialistic things than she does. We explain as best we can to her why this is so but it definitely made me feel good to hear her say that she wanted more money to give something away rather than buy for herself.

I feel that my 5-year old knows more about how to handle money than people many years older than she is. If Ava continues to follow these three simple steps upon getting paid throughout her life, I have little doubt that she will be financially successful.

What are your thoughts on tying chores with allowances and setting up money jars?

(Photo: minidriver)

Teach Kids Money: Tying Chores & Allowances from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

PearBudget’s tagline is “really simple budgeting” and it delivers on that promise. Within ten minutes, I was able to setup a budget and begin tracking expenses without even entering an email address. You can play with the full tool right from the start, without even registering. That’s uncommon in any tool, let along a budgeting one.

Budgeting Method

PearBudget doesn’t have a predefined budgeting method, which makes it adaptable to whatever your budgeting method is. When I think about budgets, I believe there are two crucial parts – the system and the tools. The system is the methodology behind the budget and the tools are what you use to track your spending, plan your future spending, and work towards your goals.

However, sometimes you look to a tool to give you a methodology to work with. If you don’t have a budgeting method and are looking for a tool to give you one, this tool won’t provide that for you.

PearBudget Tool

Setting up your budget is a remarkably simple five step process that takes all of ten minutes (if you have the numbers handy, less if you are just playing around). First, you choose your budget categories like groceries, entertainment, mortgage, and so on. You can select from fifty pre-written categories or create your own. Then you specify whether a budget category is a regular monthly expense (dining out, entertainment, mortgage) or an irregular expense (property taxes, income taxes). The fifth and final step is entering in your income.

Tracking is even simpler. As you spend money, you enter in the date of the expense, the amount, the category, and then some tags on the receipt. The expenses are reflected in the review section. There currently is no “import” function so you must enter all the data by hand. If you think this is a bad thing, think again. By forcing you to enter everything manually, you become closer to your spending. It isn’t just a number populated by a machine, you spent it, you enter it.

Exporting data is easy too. You won’t see this until you you enter an email address but you can export the data to a CSV file that Excel can read. It’s under advanced user options when you click your email at the top of the screen.

Go-Cards: One fun little feature offered by PearBudget is the ability to print out a “Go-Card,” which is a 3″x5″ card detailing how much you have left available in each category.

Summary

PearBudget is exactly what it says it is – really simple budgeting. The tool itself is easy to work with, very intuitive, and it’s nice that they let you test drive the tool without even entering in your email address. You know from the beginning whether this is the right tool for you.

If you’re a PearBudget user or gave the trial period a run, please share your opinions in the comments. I’d like to hear what you thought of the tool.

PearBudget Review: Really Simple Budgeting from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

It’s on this more somber note that I present to you the 2009 Holiday Tipping Guide, which hopefully will give you an idea of what is considered customary when it comes to showing appreciation to those in the services industry who have gone above and beyond. These are merely guidelines, it’s up to you to decide what makes sense for both your area and your own finances.

All of the tip amounts listed are collated from a variety of sources. Remember, it’s up to you to decide what makes sense for you. In general, for most services you’ll want to tip the value of one session or visit. You can adjust that up if you have a familiar and good relationship with the individual, down if you don’t.

Also, just because something appears on this list doesn’t mean it’s necessarily customary to always give them a tip. According to a Consumer Reports’ survey, reprinted in this 2008 MSN Money tipping guide, no one on this list was universally tipped. The highest was a “cleaning person” at 65%. Only 29% of people tip their mail carriers.

Tipping At Home

These are for people who provide services in and around your home, be it a house or an apartment/condo:

• Babysitter – One night’s pay to as much as a week’s pay, plus a token gift from the children.
• Doorman: $10-$80, depending on your relationship; consider a bottle of wine too
• Garbage collector: $15 to $30 each
• Gardener: $20-$50, or a week’s pay depending on your relationship.
• Maid/Janitor: A week’s pay if you have a good relationship with the individual
• Full-time nanny: One week to a month’s pay, plus a token gift from the children.
• Au pair: One week’s pay, plus a token gift from the children.
• Daycare: $25-70, plus a token gift from the children
• Teacher: $25-100 gift certificate, check with school principal for guidelines.

Tipping for Personal Care

These are for people who provide personal care services to you, your family, your pets, etc.

• Dog walker: 1-2 week’s average pay.
• Haircare: About the cost of one session.
• Massage therapist: About the cost of one session.
• Nails: About the cost of one session.
• Personal trainer: About the cost of one session, depending on your relationship.

Tipping Deliveries & Mail

These are for your mail carriers and other delivery services. In general, this only applies if you regularly receive package deliveries and have a good relationship with the carrier.

• United States Post Office Mail carrier: Non-cash gifts (by law) no greater than $20 in value.
• UPS driver: UPS has no formal policy but driver’s don’t expect tips.
• FedEx: Non-cash gifts (by corporate policy) no greater than $75 in value.
• Newspaper: Around $25-50 for a daily delivery, $10 if weekends only

How Should You Tip?

You have the option of giving gifts in cash, gift cards, or in the form of a item. Cash, especially in these economic times, is probably the best option but don’t discount the effect of a small non-cash gift if it fits your budget better. Most people advise against gift cards because of fees and because it’s less flexible than giving cash.

What If Money Is Tight?

Write a thank you note. If you want to show your appreciation but your finances won’t permit it, consider writing a thoughtful thank you letter in lieu of a gift. The year’s been difficult for everyone so most people will appreciate the sentiment, over nothing at all.

The last idea I want to leave you with is that none of the tips could be considered exorbitant and only you know what you would feel comfortable with. There are two quotes from a 2006 CNN Money article on tipping that I think are worth remembering. First, Cindy Streit, president of Etiquette Training Services, said “Tipping is never required. It may be expected in many situations… [but] should be thought of as a reward for excellent service.” Second, New York doorman Gil Santiago states “Doormen are like elephants. We never forget.”

(Photo: sis)

Holiday Tipping Guide from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

What if you’re money isn’t in a CD because it’s part of a CD ladder, what should you do?

My goal is always to maximize the interest rate while minimizing my headache. Our CD ladder isn’t at ING Direct because they offered the best 12 month CD rates (though they currently do, especially after you factor in the rollover bonus or the new money bonus), it’s because it was the simplest online savings account available when we set up the ladder.

1. Decide whether you want to save this money in a CD. If you intend to buy a house or a car and need the cash for a downpayment, don’t put it back into a CD. If you really want to put it back into a CD, consider a no-penalty CD where you can withdraw your money at anytime.

If you still want to save it, you have two options:

• Renew the CD at your current bank
• Open a new CD at another bank

2. Review interest rates to see if your current bank is offering competitive rates. If your bank still offers the best rates, then then simplest way is the best way – renew it at your current bank. If your bank doesn’t offer the best rate, you have to decide whether opening a new account and transferring the money, which will take several days, is worth the different in interest.

You can use this CD interest calculator to help you decide. 0.5% APY difference on a 12 month CD is only $5 on $1,000 in savings. That’s $5 before you take away part of it for taxes.

Those are the steps I take whenever I’m deciding what to do with one of my non-laddered emergency fund CDs mature.

What To Do When Your CD Matures from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The Personal Finance Hour is a riveting one hour online radio show broadcast live every Monday starting at 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific. At that time, you can listen to it by clicking on this widget below:

We invite you to listen in, call in (the number is (347) 327-9144), and join us in the chat room where we usually have a good time. If you are unavailable, we also offer the podcast on iTunes or through the BlogTalkRadio website directly.

We hope you’ll be able to join us!

PFHour #24: Discussing Retirement Issues from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Then, when you’re ready to upgrade YNAB, we have a special 10% off coupon code:

Also, YNAB 3.0, which is slated for a November release, will cost $59.95. If you buy YNAB 2.0 for $49.95, actually $44.96 after the 10% off promotional coupon code, then you will be upgraded to YNAB 3.0 absolutely free. YNAB 3.0 not only looks more visually appealing but will sport additional features like expanded report functionality over 2.0.

YNAB Coupon Promotion Code from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

I’ve been getting the weekly emails, plus some unscheduled last-minute offers or promotions, for the last few months and the deals have been pretty astounding. I think it has to do with the recession and the last minute nature of many of the offers. If you’re flexible, you can get some amazing rates on cruises, flights, hotels, and shows.

Dunhill Vacations is another company like Travelzoo. They’re not a travel agency but a deal collector and publisher. Their main website lists a bunch of offers and while they don’t have a “top 20″ list, they do have plenty offers listed. There isn’t much more to say other than that I signed up for their free newsletter and you can to if you’re interested. I haven’t received one yet but I think it’ll probably be a lot like Travelzoo’s emails. (and like Travelzoo, they don’t sell your information, which is very important)

If you’re already a subscriber, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. I figure that it’s free and I can unsubscribe whenever I want so I might as well. You never know, you might save a few bucks or find some insane last minute deal that makes it all worth it.

Dunhill Vacations Travel Deals Newsletter from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.