Real World Finance$

I finally did it last Friday.  For the past several months we have done nothing with the daily newspaper.  We pay $15 a month for the paper (Thursday to Sunday), and if it makes it in the house from the porch, it sits in it’s bag for a couple of weeks until I go through them and put them into recycling.  Well, Friday I called and canceled.   As luck would have it, the twice weekly local “free” paper they deliver is also going to a $20 annual subscription starting in November.  So, our lawn will shortly not be cluttered by unwanted newspapers.

I talked to my wife over the weekend after thinking about this for a bit.  That $15 a month adds up to $180 a year.  I realized that we spend a LOT of time watching the local PBS station (we don’t have cable) and listening to the local NPR radio station.  Well, we decided that we will take our saved $180 this year and divide it up between the two.  After all, we had been willingly spending money on news we didn’t want and getting what we did want for free.  We’ve talked about supporting our public broadcasters in the past, but never actually did anything about it.  So, we’ll have that money set aside and ready to give by early next year.  Just our small contribution to pay for what we actually use.

This weekend I became one proud dad. I’ve never been a father, but I am a Dad to a great 8 year old step-son. He has grandparents who do the whole Advent presents thing (these are the ex’s parents), so he gets to unwrap 1 present a day from December 1 until Christmas. These aren’t your typical little things or consumables either as they own and run a gift shop. He gets lots of cool stuff that takes up space. Like the Newton’s cradle with the little metal balls that swing back and forth.

So, as frustrating as that gets, we often end up trying to entice him to make room for stuff in his room this time of year by going through and getting rid of toys he doesn’t use. Him and the wife were working on that this weekend and found about 4 good sized boxes to fill with toys and books he no longer needs. We took that over to my mother-in-law this weekend as her church is putting on a holiday shopping event for immigrant families who don’t have the money to buy stuff for their kids.

Before we went over to drop stuff off, we finally took care of the mother-in-law’s birthday present as well. Her birthday was last Thursday and we were also taking over a homemade cake as well. For her gift, we donated some extra money to the local Humane Society in her name.

When we finished with that, the boy had an idea. He asked, knowing dad had paid the mortgage twice and we didn’t have much money, if we could go by the bank and get some of his money to buy some dog toys to take to the Humane Society. What a great idea! We had actually done this for his birthday this year and asked the other kids to bring dog toys that we took by and donated.

Unfortunately, the account he was talking about was the E*Trade account we keep his allowance in! I had to tell him it was a great idea, but it wasn’t some place we could just go and get it. I get paid tomorrow, so this weekend the list definitely will include a trip to the pet store and Humane Society. It’s a good feeling to know we are teaching him to be so giving, especially this time of year.

I ran across an interesting site today called Free Rice. It’s a pretty unique site that gives you a vocabulary quiz. It rates you from 1-50 on your knowledge and gives you appropriate questions in response.

During this process, there are a series of ads on the bottom of the screen. Based on expected ad revenue, they predict that each correct answer to their system will generate enough revenue for them to purchase 10 grains of rice (which they will distribute through the UN).

I thought this is a really unique way to sharpen up your word skills this holiday season and help those who are less fortunate at the same time. Swing by there and give it a try. It’s not as easy as it sounds!