This is the second entry in a five part series this week on the stages of a relationship and how you can make financially sound choices throughout. Other entries include courtships, weddings, honeymoons, and marriages.

At some point in a relationship, it becomes clear that the people involved are interested in tying their lives together.

What does that mean? It means different things for everyone, but as you prepare for that major change, there are lots of opportunities to build a great foundation for the future. There are also lots of opportunities to watch money slip through your fingers – money that you will wish you had later on.

Here are ten great things to do to make your engagement a successful one – and one that doesn’t have to break the bank.

Don’t buy into the ludicrous expectations for a ring. The hype about wedding rings is in overdrive. Do not buy into it. Two or three months’ worth of salary is not a reasonable amount to spend – it can create a negative financial impact that will last for years. It can delay your ability to buy a home, reduce your ability to save for retirement in the short term, and (quite likely) put you into a debt hole that will be hard to dig out of. And, if the engagement is accepted, it’s a hole you’ll share. So, what can you do?

If you’re expecting a ring, make a concerted effort to convince your partner to spend less. Make it clear that you not only don’t expect but that you don’t want an exorbitant ring. After all, the money could be put to better use on a down payment for a home, on retirement savings, or on other things that will help you both in life.

If you’re buying a ring, be reasonable about it and share your feelings with your partner. Discuss the purchase to some extent with the person you’re considering proposing to. Find out their feelings on the subject and explain your position that a lower-cost ring will provide greater rewards in married life.

Don’t “overdo” the moment. Make your proposal simple and memorable, not something incredibly over the top. One good idea – return to the spot where you first met or re-enact your first date. This will not only mean much more than reserving a table at an overly expensive restaurant, but it’ll keep your wallet from burning up, too.

Seek pre-marriage counseling. My wife and I attended pre-marriage counseling with our pastor and it was incredibly helpful in getting us to talk about the areas where we needed to work on our relationships. If you’re getting married through a church or other house of faith, consult the religious leader there – he or she will almost always help you through this.

Start talking about your shared money situation. This is vital – so vital, in fact, that I wrote a detailed guide to those first money talks during one’s engagement. This is vital, because if you don’t start off on the same financial page with the same ideas about roles and spending and sharing resources, it will be very hard to get on that page later on. Your engagement is the perfect time to do this.

Be completely honest about your individual money situation. Now is the time to open the books and be fully honest with your partner about your true financial situation. Don’t hide anything – get started with complete honesty. Don’t hide anything, because at some point, your partner will need to know about any big debts you are sitting on or other such issues, and that problem will also be your partner’s problem. Talking about it now allows you both the time and space to figure out how to handle it – together.

Start planning long-term financial things together. If you’re considering financial choices that will have a long term impact, include your partner in the discussion. Plan out your retirement savings and your career choices together, because those money choices will affect your partner greatly in the years to come.

Talk about a pre-nupital agreement, even if it seems unnecessary. Some people firmly believe a marriage is for a lifetime. If that’s so, great – it should be very easy to draft an agreement because you’ll never have to execute it, right? Others might believe that they don’t have enough assets to worry about it – but will that be true in ten years? No matter what, a pre-nupital agreement can save you a lot of headaches later on, so talk about it now.

Talk through your problems with your partner first and foremost. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, one where you share everything with your partner. As you move towards that day, you should be talking about your problems and concerns with your partner, not hiding them away. Hiding them now or seeking others to talk to sets a poor precedent for your relationship, one that will cost you time and time again over the long run.

Got any good, reasonable, frugal advice for people who are engaged – or about to be? Please leave them in the comments.

It’s amazing to me how often one part of my life is in opposition to other parts.

Last Thursday, for example, my wife stayed home with our daughter to take her to her eighteen month checkup at the doctor. I had a lot of work to do, so I went into my office, closed the door, and got to work.

After a few hours, though, I heard my daughter in the hallway. She was standing just outside the door and, quite loudly, she said “Daddy?”

My instinct, right then, was to run out in the hallway, sweep my daughter into my arms, and go play with her in the family room for an hour, reading her books and wrestling with her and playing “ring around the rosy” with her.

But right in front of me sat several work tasks, things I needed to get done. I had posts for this site that needed written. I had a contract revision that had to get printed, signed, and faxed. I had a freelance article that needed mailed. And I had fully intended to do some reading and research.

If I chose the work, I’d get the things done that I needed to do to pay the bills. I’d keep my readers happy and my publishers happy. I’d also have less on my plate to worry about for future work.

At the same time, my daughter would sadly wander away from the door, wondering why her daddy didn’t play with her. Likely she would forget it shortly, but if I make the work choice too often, it begins to establish a pattern in her mind.

On the other hand, I could let the work sit and go play with my daughter. That would be the most fun choice and it would reinforce the great bond I have not only with my daughter but with my wife. Later, though, I’d be faced with a mountain of work that would have to be dealt with – or I’d let someone seriously down.

I wound up choosing my daughter, but it wasn’t an easy choice and it left me staying up very late working on things – and left me exhausted the next day.

Why did I make that choice? I realized the reason I was working at home was so that I could spend that quality time with my family. I could have very easily made the wrong choice here, choosing work over family, but in the end, making that choice would have undone the synergy in my life.

I chose lower income and a more flexible schedule so that I could spend more time with my family. Thus, when I have a choice between work and family, the choice should be easy. Family wins. My life has synergy – everything points towards quality time with my family. Work serves to support that time, not to replace it.

Our purchases serve that purpose, too. Our biggest consideration for purchasing a car is reliability. Why? We minimize our concern about major automobile breakdowns, leading to less family disruption. Our long debate about a GPS purchase (why not just use a map?) came down to family issues as well – where’s the nearest bathroom? Where’s the nearest hospital? Where’s the nearest park? These are questions a typical map can’t answer – but they’re invaluable when you’re traveling with kids. (Since people will ask, we own a Garmin nuvi 760)

On the flip side of that coin, we also cut out a lot of unnecessary purchases to save for other things: college, retirement, a big emergency fund, and so on. We don’t buy many items for entertainment – instead, we use the library and PaperBackSwap and SwapADVD and SwapACD and SwapTree – plus our family time is entertaining. We eat at home almost exclusively because it gives us more control over healthy food choices – and it’s cheaper.

When we hit financial bottom, we didn’t have any sort of synergy to our lives. I’d go to work and work like mad, then immediately spend that earned money on frivolous things. I’d spend time with my wife and son some evenings, then choose activities that completely excluded them at other times. I’d think of long term goals, but I’d change them completely by the next day and never really work towards them.

Now, my life has synergy. Almost everything is centered around being a good parent and a good husband. Writing is my creative release, allowing me to throw out the ideas floating around in my head and giving me the mental freedom to focus on my family. The things I do that I consider “work” mostly serve to find ways to earn income from that writing to keep a roof over their heads.

Using that as a lens, it’s easy to figure out that spending less than I earn is a good move. It’s also easy to figure out the priorities when I do spend.

What’s harder is figuring out how to be the best parent I can be.

This is the first entry in a five part series this week on the stages of a relationship and how you can make financially sound choices throughout. Other entries include engagements, weddings, honeymoons, and marriages.

It’s a coming-of-age routine that almost everyone goes through at some point. You’re introduced to someone. That person seems interesting. Eventually, you wind up on a date – and you hope to impress and, perhaps, build something that lasts.

Along the way, though, you often burn through a lot of money buying gifts, paying for dates, and so on. Many people tend to buy into the idea that romance is best represented by breaking out the wallet and doing something impressive (read: expensive).

That’s simply not true. A relationship isn’t built on the money you spend – it’s built on the personalities of the two people involved. Instead of spending a lot of money to impress (and at least in part misrepresent what you’re all about), spend less money in ways that actually have meaning.

Here are ten dating tactics that not only save you money, but also create memorable moments and a solid relationship that can be the foundation for much more.

Never try to act like something you’re not. Many people work hard to put up an enormous “front” that misrepresents several aspects of who they actually are. They drive an expensive car and dress in expensive clothes and go to expensive places, but it’s not sustainable – and they know it. They’re just hoping to create an “image” of some sort of mainstream idea of success. While that might work over the short term, over the long term the other person will see that you built your initial impression on a lie – and that won’t go over well. If you’re looking for anything longer than a quick fling, be yourself. If you don’t, it will eventually backfire – but not until you’ve wasted a lot of money and energy putting up a false front.

Be thoughtful instead of flashy. Flashy, expensive things might do a great job at getting the initial “wow,” but unless it’s also thoughtful and well-considered, it won’t really mean anything at all. The best memories I have from dating my wife are simple moments – putting a lot of effort into building “big” moments are usually wasted. So, bother rarely – or don’t bother at all.

Tell your story – and listen to their story. Many people struggle with things to talk about when they’re first dating someone – and they often replace it with expensive dates and other distractions. In truth, it’s really simple – talk about yourself. What’s your story? What are your interests? What are your passions? What was your life like growing up? What are the ten or twenty best anecdotes or stories you can tell about your life? Your answers to those questions are all the material you need to talk about for hours and hours. Even better, encourage your date to talk about the same things – and listen, and ask follow-up questions. If your date is filled with such conversation, you don’t need expensive distractions.

Give yourself reminders for important occasions. A forgotten birthday or dating anniversary or other occasion can be disastrous. Remembering it, however, and coming through in some way when it’s not expected is golden. Help your memory out by setting up reminders. I use Google Calendar for this. I put in events like birthdays and anniversaries and certain holidays, then have a reminder emailed to me 10 days in advance so I can plan something. This way, I never “forget” – and it’s free.

The community around you offers a lot of free date opportunities – look for them. The average community is loaded with free things to do – here’s 100 of them, for starters. Look around for interesting things to do that don’t damage the wallet. You might be surprised how many engaging things you can do together without spending any money – and, after all, it’s the “together” part that’s important.

Entertainment books can save quite a bit on other dates. What about going out to eat, or doing things like going miniature golfing? An “entertainment book” is a great way to save money on these outings. You can usually pay for an entertainment book by using it just three or four times, which is easy to do if you’re dating regularly. Not sure you’ll use it? Offer to split the cost with a friend, and make a deal – you can take out, say, fifteen of the coupons yourself and then they keep the rest. Then you can cherry-pick the ones you’ll actually use for half the price.

Make something together. Make a meal together. Make a film together. Make a piece of art together. When you create something together, you not only discover countless things about each other, you almost always produce something wonderful, memorable, and shared. Even better, such creative processes are usually quite inexpensive – you’ve got to cook for yourself anyway, and if you already have the supplies, making films or making art together can be very, very cheap, too.

Involve the other person in the things that interest you – and be willing to try their interests, too. You have certain interests and hobbies, as does the person you’re dating. Share them. Have a movie night where you each pick your favorite movie. Have a date where you engage in your favorite hobby and attempt to teach your date, then reverse it the next time. Most of the time, these are very inexpensive dates – but they’re very memorable ones, too, since you often reveal much of yourself when you show what you’re passionate about.

When there are problems, talk about them – don’t “solve” them with gifts. You’re not going to be perfect. You’re going to make mistakes – say things you regret, do things you shouldn’t. Some of those things are likely going to hurt the person you’re dating. Instead of trying to polish over it with gifts, talk about it. Admit your mistakes. Try to understand why the other person is upset. Don’t just try to “make it better” – figure out the real problem and either fix it or find a good solution.

Don’t “force” things to work – sometimes, they’re not meant to be. I know people who have spent countless hours and countless dollars trying to make a relationship work when it’s clearly not working. Never force it. When you find the right person, you’ll fit together quite well without the need to constantly try to “make” it work.

Got any good, reasonable, frugal advice for people who are dating? Please leave them in the comments.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently.
The Value of Cultural Literacy
My Favorite Bargain: The Free Newspaper
Wallet Hacking: Six Tactics for Modifying Your Wallet to Minimize Your Spending and Maximize Your Time

And now for some great reader questions!

I’ve heard one should have at least two months worth of salary in an emergency account. I have 6 weeks worth of vacation time that I could cash out if I was terminated in the near future. Can I count this towards my emergency fund? Or must I have the actual cash in the account? Thank you very much.
- Kathie

Think about this: what happens if your company suddenly goes the Lehman Brothers route? You likely would not be able to touch that promised vacation pay – you’d just be out on the street holding a pink slip.

Promises from your employer are only as strong as your employer is. If you’re with an extremely stable company or with the government, this might be pretty reliable, but even the most seemingly reliable of companies can go under when you least expect it.

Personally, i would view that vacation time as icing on the cake, not as part of my emergency fund.

Trent- How bout a new look to the simpledollar.com. It’s been this format for quite a while and maybe could use a change/facelift…….just a thought. I’m sure regular viewers will offer up suggestions. Peace!
- Frugal Cubicle

I’ve been tinkering with redesigns for a long time, but I’m hesitant to do one until it contributes something useful to the site. A redesign should actually improve the site in some capacity – simply moving around elements and changing colors doesn’t really serve much of a purpose except to gently annoy people who are quite familiar with the current site layout.

That being said, I do have a couple upcoming things that will make a redesign worthwhile. In other words, expect that, in a month or two, there will be some degree of a redesign around here.

Hey Trent, i was looking at some online accounts and was just wondering how come some banks and their online accounts are able to offer a higher interest rates than others do? Or is it that the banks offering a higher interest rate are doing so to lure new customers and is a such a “to good to be true” deal that you should stay away from. I’m just trying to understand how it all works. Thanks!
- Marlon

Banks, particularly online banks that are competing for attention, offer widely varying rates in order to get new customers. In effect, a higher interest rate for a few months (so that it appears high up in the rankings at Bankrate.com and other similar sites) functions as advertising for that particular bank, helping them pick up customers.

If you’re shopping around for a bank, the biggest things you need to look for are FDIC insurance (do not put your money into a bank that isn’t FDIC insured) and a good history of customer service (which you can find out by Googling for the bank and reading what others have written about it).

I wouldn’t get obsessed about the rate of the moment, though. You’re better off looking for a healthy bank with good customer service, because rates change all the time.

What’s your comfort food?
- Char

Anything with a lot of cheese in it, actually. Lasagna. Pizza with extra cheese. Anything with a good blue cheese in it. Croque madames.

I don’t like sweets much at all and I’m not into steaks or other such things. For me, it comes back to the cheese. It’s really my weakness, and it’s probably largely responsible for every single pound I shouldn’t be carrying.

A good chunk of cheese is sublime for me.

I have a question I have been thinking about for over six months! How does a newly married couple deal with debt (even if it is the “good debt” of a student loan) that came from only one partner?
- Jamie

The answer here is communication. There is no ready made answer that’s appropriate for all couples. Instead, you need to sit down with your partner and talk about your financial situation in detail.

When you get married, most of the time your finances are more or less fused in some way or another. That debt will affect the choices that both of you make, even if only one of you is actually paying the bill out of that person’s paycheck. The person saddled with the debt will have less money to contribute to other things, so the other person will have to pick up the pace.

You guys need to sit down and come together with your financial plans. Figure out where you want to be in the future and get a strong grip where you’re at now. Talk it through. You might just find that you’re in this together more than you think.

Where do you want to be with your writing in five years?
- Cho

I’d love to have a big handful of short stories published. I hope to have another book or two published, too, culminating together in actually getting a novel published, which has really been my dream.

The big question, obviously, is what I’m doing now to get there. I’m attempting to write a short story every day at the moment. Some days I fail – other days I succeed. I save them, then reread them a few weeks later, then work on polishing the ones that still seem good. When I get a small collection of polished ones that I actually like together (ten or fifteen of them), I’m going to hand the collection to my wife and a few friends to read and shred. If there’s anything left standing after that, I’ll see about getting them published.

I have found that making myself write fiction every day is making it easier not only to develop ideas, but also to express them in an interesting fashion. It’s much easier than it used to be to develop characters, maximize word use, and so on.

What do you do when you’re tired of living cheap and want to splurge?
- Lemon

My wife and I both have a certain amount of money that we’re allowed to spend on whatever we wish each month. Whenever we want to splurge, we just dip into this money. We keep this pretty informal, though, since we’re both pretty good about not splurging much.

Give this a try. Each time you get paid, set aside a certain amount of money ($25 or $50 or so) solely for splurging. You’re free to spend it however you like, except that when it runs out, you can’t go for more. You can let that amount build up for big splurges or use it to go out a few times for drinks with your pals – however you want to use it.

Our real key for beating splurging, though, was simply discovering things we enjoy doing that don’t involve spending a lot of money. There are so many inexpensive and free things to do that are a lot of fun for us that we don’t really feel compelled to splurge on expensive experiences.

Do you believe in UFOs?
- Lucy

I certainly believe that people spy things flying in the sky that they can’t identify. UFO means Unidentified Flying Object, after all.

Usually, though, when people ask that question, they want to know if someone else believes extraterrestrials are visiting Earth. I don’t know if I believe that or not – honestly, I don’t have enough information either way to say absolutely “no” or absolutely “yes,” but I don’t rule it out as possible.

Having said that, I did witness an extremely memorable flying object when I was about ten years old. My father and I were fishing after dark on a cloudless night. Suddenly there was a round disc-shaped thing in the sky (no, it was not the moon, which was also visible). It was yellow colored and seemed to be very still, perhaps wavering just a bit. My father noticed it, too. We watched it for a long while, then it began to barely inch to the right, then suddenly it accelerated out of sight. If it were a cloudy night, I would have suspected a spotlight of some sort, but the night was clear, so to this day, I really have no idea what it was that I saw.

The strange part? My future wife was hosting a sleepover one night when she was about nine with several other girls – this sleepover would have been about four to five miles from where my father and I were at. Several of the people at that party reported seeing almost the exact same thing. It is quite likely that we all did see the same thing.

When traveling, do you think it’s better to stay at the cheapest hotel you can find or pay more for a better place?
- Lynn

To me, the “cheap” hotel is almost always out of the question. The rooms are often not cleaned well, which leaves me feeling very uncomfortable when I sleep.

If I’m on vacation with my family, I’d vastly prefer to pitch a tent and camp in a state park or a campground somewhere. It’s less expensive than a low-end hotel and I find sleeping outdoors makes me feel refreshed like nothing else.

Having said that, if I’m traveling for professional purposes, I will spend more for a nicer hotel. A good night of sleep is essential for me, and I simply won’t sleep well in a hotel where I’m unsure how clean the sheets are and the air conditioner sounds like a freight train. The risk of a bad experience isn’t worth it for me.

I have insomnia. Any suggestions?
- Lindsay

I used to have insomnia problems in high school and college, but I haven’t had such problems in many years other than an occasional night here or there when something is on my mind.

The thing that used to work well for me was a large coffee cup of warm milk with a bit of nutmeg on top. Some nights, I’d drink one cup fairly quickly and make the second one, then retire to bed with that second cup and sip it as I read something. That would usually do the trick for me.

Another thing that I found worked well was getting exercise in the morning. Seriously – it works far better than evening exercise in terms of making you tired.

If it’s actually disrupting your life significantly, though, see a doctor. There may be a larger issue at work.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or entrepreneurship book.

My desk is a mess.

It’s not so much a factor of having too much stuff – virtually everything on it has a purpose. The problem is that I collect too many little pieces of paper and various other items and I tend to not spend enough time organizing them and dealing with them in a constructive fashion. My desk usually winds up being a mess of notes jotted on pieces of paper, magazines, photocopied articles from the library, books, photographs, and various correspondence that I need to attend to or file away somewhere.

Most days, my focus is on getting creative work done: researching posts, writing them, and working on other directly related tasks. As a result, all of these little pieces of information detritus tend to build up over time into an overwhelming mass that dominates the left hand side of my desk. Once a month or so, I force myself to go through it – and then I’m glad I did, because I seem to always find tons of interesting and useful things in there.

This isn’t a particularly good situation, particularly since in most regards I do a great job of managing my information. I use a mix of the notebook in my pocket, Evernote, and Remember the Milk to manage the vast majority of the information I deal with every day.

Yet the stuff on the left side of my desk keeps piling up.

This is the exact problem that Theo Theobald and Gary Cooper’s Detox Your Desk deals with. If you are involved in a high-information job, how do you handle the accumulation of information on your desk? Let’s dig in and see what they have to say.

Section One – Analysis
Why is your desk cluttered? Theobald and Cooper argue that clutter occurs when a person is attempting to jam too many responsibilities and too much information into the timespace you’ve alloted in your life for the work. The clutter consists mostly of items that you’ve deemed less important than other, more pressing matters – and, over time, those items accumulate. You’ve committed to things that personally you do not view as a high priority.

The solution is you – what do you find important in your work? What things are you regularly viewing as a high priority – and what items are you regularly viewing as a low priority? What aspects of your job bring pleasure to you – and which ones leave you feeling empty?

Eventually, the clutter on your desk can lead you to some real revelations about your job as a whole. There may be whole pieces of your job that you’re simply not able to do well – and you can either accept that and make it a conscious part of your situation or you can attempt to change it (or have it changed) by meeting with your supervisor about it.

For example, I often find that I spend a lot of time researching articles that I have a difficult time humanizing. I’ll wind up tossing a pile of well-annotated photocopied pages onto my pile, sigh as I realize that I couldn’t find a workable article in there, then move on. Eventually, I’ll either use it as an offhand mention in a completely different article or I’ll eventually toss it. Much of my clutter is a call to focus more carefully on what’s actually worth writing about before diving too deep into the research and thought process.

Section Two – Method
Interestingly, one of the primary methods that Theobald and Cooper prescribe for detoxing your desk is to utilize some basic time management tactics. They run through some of the more effective tactics of time management – keeping a to-do list, maximizing your “focus” by staying with one task for a maximum of one hour then taking a break, delegate as much as possible, and so on.

Theobald and Cooper argue that utilizing good time management tactics will automatically help de-clutter your desk, since many of the items that make up the clutter will never reach your desk – or will only reach it for a short time. In the end, though, this isn’t so much a solution as it is an effective way to keep the problem from getting worse.

Another useful tactic: focus on the things you’ve done, not the things you’ve left undone. Even if you only make a little progress in reducing your clutter, view it as a positive, not as a failure (because you didn’t completely de-clutter).

Section Three – The Detox Program
The meat of the book (in terms of getting your desk clean) comes in the final section, which outlines a two week long program for eliminating the clutter on your desk. I found this program rather clever and tried it myself with quite a bit of success (though not perfection).

The main idea is pretty simple. Clear everything off of your desk, put it in a box, and start living out of that box. Eventually, you’ll find that you’re actually just using a small portion of the items in that box – the rest is largely not useful to you on a daily basis. The items that are useful to you stay on your desk – the rest should go elsewhere and should be dealt with in a rational pattern. The only actual work that should be on your desk should be works in progress – if it’s a pending task, that material should be somewhere else (in a folder, perhaps).

This system largely led me to start filing all that clutter into an office filing system that is currently in that same box I started with. A few folders for ideas, a folder for receipts – it’s actually much easier than tossing it into the pile and then stressing out over that pile all the time.

Is Detox Your Desk Worth Reading?
If you’ve got a desk filled with “stuff” and it makes you sick to your stomach when you think about it, Detox Your Desk will be a home run read for you. It certainly was for me – reading it and giving the ideas a shot helped me turn my desk from a chaotic mess into something clean and simple with plenty of room to take on a task.

If you don’t have that problem – or don’t understand why it is a problem – Detox Your Desk will likely be a waste of time for you to read. Of course, if you’re in that group, you’ve likely skipped this review anyway.

I found it valuable. If you’re in a “messy desk” situation like me, you might find it valuable, too.

Some of us want to get out of debt. Some of us want a better career. Some of us are shooting for financial independence. Some of us would be content to get all the bills paid at the end of the month.

Most of us want something. Most of us want change from where we are right now.

But we want it to be easy. We don’t want to let go of the comforts of our current life. It’s certainly a lot easier – and more enjoyable on many levels – to just keep going through the same routines, doing the same actions, and subscribing to the same ideas.

It’s certainly tough for me, even now. It’s always easier to step into my old routine, to coast. I wake up. I write. I read and answer email. I do some household tasks. I play with my kids. I spend some time with my wife. I go to sleep.

Sure, I can keep that routine. It’s easy. But if I stick with that same old routine, I don’t get to the places I want to go. I want to be financially independent. I want to write and publish fiction. I want to have a bigger emergency fund. I want to have a third child.

I even have plans to get to those places.

The problem usually is acting on those plans when it’s so much easier to stick with our same old routines, our same old beliefs, and our same old life management strategies.

It all boils down to one question.

What are you doing today to make your big goals a reality?

Today. Not tomorrow. Not in six months. Today.

I’ve put a Post-It note on the top of my monitor, a narrow yellow strip that simply says what am I doing today to reach fi? It’s the only such note on my monitor, and the bright yellow stands out sharply from the surroundings. My eyes are drawn to it several times each day.

And then I look around for something new I can try. Something I can do differently.

I seek out new avenues of frugality – and then I get up and try them. I try to think of new ways to earn money online without undermining my writing (which means trying to keep the ads at a reasonable minimum). I work on interesting article ideas that will draw readers and make them think and make them talk.

Most importantly, I try to look beyond the simple rules of thumb that guide so much of my life. Are those rules of thumb really accurate, or is there something useful and valuable hidden behind the curtain?

It’s hard to change. It’s hard to discard ideas and routines and habits that seem familiar.

But if you’re completely unwilling to make that kind of change, you’re going to have an extremely difficult time reaching the goals you have in life.

Good luck.

Over the last two weeks, at least three longtime readers of The Simple Dollar plus a close friend of our family had new babies enter their life. Congratulations are in order.

The addition of a baby to anyone’s life is a major change, to put it lightly. Your life changes in countless little ways because of this new responsibility – often in ways you do not expect. Your expenses change as well – you spend more on some things and less on others.

Here are eight little thoughts/pieces of advice for all of you new parents out there.

The biggest thing your child needs is your time.
If you’re spending every free moment obsessing over the perfect crib, the perfect bottles, and so on, stop. Just stop. The one thing your child needs more than anything else is your time.

Right now, your baby needs to be held. (S)he needs to hear your voice. (S)he needs to be fed regularly and have sanitary diaper changes. Read your child some simple books. Let the child take some naps in your arms. Look directly at the child when they’re awake and talk to them about anything.

Later, they’ll need your time in different ways. You’ll be a teacher, a playmate, a nurse, and a nanny. All of these roles are important. All of these roles take time.

How do you find that time? The biggest change will be in your social life. It’s now much harder (nearly impossible in some cases) to just go out on the town for a good time. For us, social occasions moved from being an ordinary routine to being a treat. This not only freed up a lot of hours, it also saved us a lot of money.

The introduction of a child is a perfect time for other changes.
Your life is going through dramatic change right now, with many, many aspects of your normal routine thrown out of whack. If you’re looking to adopt other changes in your life, right now is a perfect time to start.

For us, the birth of our first child was a call for change. Over the first year of our son’s life, we started a huge financial turnaround. We abandoned several expensive hobbies, got our finances in order, and I gave my dream of writing for a living a sustained, serious shot.

The constant through all of this change was our family – the three of us. Now that you have the same center in your life, take advantage of all of the other waves and make the changes you want to make.

It’s not as expensive as you think it’s going to be.
When many people think about the financial impact that a baby will have in their life, they think mostly in terms of addition. Day care. More food. Baby supplies. Clothes. Ouch.

When you actually have the child, though, you begin to find that there are a lot of subtractions as well. You spend less on your own food because you find it’s easier to make a meal at home than it is to bundle up the kid and go out. You spend less on gas because you don’t go out and about every day. You spend less on hobbies and entertainment because, quite frankly, you don’t have as much time for them.

Don’t panic. The new expenses won’t be as drastic as you think they’ll be. Let your child’s needs (material and otherwise) lead the way a bit and you’ll find that things will fall into place.

Reusable supplies trump disposable supplies.
Of course, this does assume you have a washing machine and a dryer at home. Given that, though, cloth diapers, cloth wipes, and cloth bibs will save you quite a bit of money over the infant and toddler years, plus you can “yard sale” some of them at the end.

The cloth diapering is often a surprise for people. Can that really save money? The Simple Dollar has broken it down before and found that cloth diapering is significantly cheaper for just one child and is a huge savings (well into four figures) for two children.

However, cloth wipes are easier to implement. Just get a pile of cheap, soft cloths and a spray bottle of water and you’ll find that not only do the cloth wipes do a great job, you can toss them right in the wash with pretty much anything else and they come out fine.

Take a look at reusable options. You’ll find that they steadily save you money.

Make time for just your spouse.
Once a child arrives, the dynamics of your marriage will change. Quite simply, you’ll have less time to spend together and less time to communicate with one another.

Make time. Set aside periods (like nap times) where the two of you simply do some things together without the baby.

I have personally witnessed multiple relationships falter and crash because the parents failed to make time for each other when the child arrives. Not only can that be emotionally messy, it can be very financially costly, too.

Eat healthier.
The first six months with a baby will result in a lot of sleep-interrupted nights for all adults involved. This will inevitably reduce your energy level during the day when you need to be performing well at work or at being a good parent or spouse.

One great way to counteract the loss of energy is to improve your energy levels via an improved diet. To put it simply, make better dietary choices. Eat home-prepared meals. Choose fruits as your snacks instead of sweets. Add more vegetables to your meals.

Making such moves will boost your natural energy level a bit, likely cause you to drop a few pounds, and make it easier for you to juggle both your familial needs and your professional needs.

Make an extra effort to find and build relationships with other new parents.
The best friend a new parent can have is another new parent, one who is going through the same experiences and can share many of the same resources.

Look around your social network for people who have recently had children and make an effort to get to know them. Invite them and their child over for a meal and see if you hit it off. If you do, that relationship will help you time and time again.

Another family with a young baby provides opportunities for low-cost socialization. It provides sympathetic ears. It provides supplies and ideas you may have never considered. It can also provide free babysitting if you’re willing to do exchanges with them. All of these can be a great benefit to you during your child’s earliest years.

Reach out to your parents as well.
A final tip: the birth of your own child is a great time to reach out to your own parents. Much as with reaching out to others with babies, your parents can be an invaluable resource for making this period go smoother.

More importantly, grandparents can play a vital role in the life of a young child. It is good for that child to experience a healthy relationship with their grandparents, and vice versa.

Do what you can to patch over any rough spots in your relationships with your parents and open up the doors as widely as you can to their involvement with your children. This is a win-win-win situation – don’t let it slip by.

Spring is awakening here in Iowa, and for us that means getting outside, doing some yard work, and getting some early work done with our garden. With a three year old and a one year old in the house, we try to get everyone involved in the gardening process.

My wife journals extensively, so for this post, I’ve borrowed some of her writing about the garden to help describe some of the early steps for our 2009 garden. She also explains quite well how exactly we get our children involved with our gardening plans.

Sarah’s journal, March 18
Today I took the kids to do some shopping. I was just intending to get peat pellets to start the seeds in, but when I got there I saw a whole set-up with 72 peat pellets in a tray with a lid for $6. The tray is reusable, so next year I can just buy the pellets.

In addition to the pellets, I also bought a bunch of seeds. I had Joe (our son) help me with this part. His current favorite vegetable is cucumbers, so we bought a packet of those. I also had him decide whether to get muskmelons or watermelons (he chose muskmelons). Katie’s (our daughter) favorite vegetable is broccoli, but I couldn’t find any seeds for that. I will have to go to another garden store for those. In addition to the cucumbers and muskmelons, I bought pole green beans and three kinds of tomatoes –Burpee’s Big Boy Hybrid (“outstanding flavor”), Super Beefsteak (“large and disease resistant”), and Super Sweet 100 Cherry (“extra-prolific cherry”). We’re planning on turning a bunch of the bigger tomatoes into sauce, which is why I got two kinds.

Along with the vegetables, I bought a packet of marigolds. My sister, who worked at an organic flower garden for a while, claims that marigolds keep away some bugs, so I always use them for borders in my vegetable gardens.

All together, the cost before taxes for all of this was $13.50 ($6 for the tray, and $1 each for the seed packets, except the cucumbers, which were $1.50).

Here’s our peat tray and some of the seeds we selected for use this year. The almanac was a Christmas gift – it’s a pretty good guide for identifying when exactly to plant in our area. We use it hand in hand with weather forecasts to make a good guess as to when it’s safe to put plants in the ground so they won’t be destroyed by frost.

In addition, we also have a few leftover potatoes from last year’s crop:

We’ll simply cut this potato up into pieces and plant the pieces directly in the garden. The potato sprouted perfectly in a bag in the pantry, where it’s fairly warm and quite dry.

We get the kids involved by having them make several choices about what we plant. Last year, for example, our son Joe was wild about planting carrots, so we planted quite a few carrots in the garden. This year, he was much more enthusiastic about the melons, but our daughter is crazy about broccoli.

By growing things that the kids are excited about eating, they become excited (by extension) about the garden as well.

Sarah’s journal, March 19
Today I worked on clearing the garden of last year’s dead plants, and I also did some weeding. The nice thing about clearing out old dead plants is that it’s really easy to have young children help. Basically, they can’t pull up the wrong thing. If it looks dead, pull it up.

After pulling up dead plants in both the vegetable garden and the ornamental gardens in the front, I’m realizing that our one barrel composter isn’t going to be nearly big enough for all of the garden waste we generate. I’m considering starting a plain old ordinary compost heap behind the vegetable garden.

I also checked out the perennials that we planted last year. Some of the herbs seem to be coming back, and the strawberries are definitely coming up. In fact, I’m a little worried that the strawberries will try to take over the garden. I don’t see any asparagus yet, but I think it’s a little early for those.

I also set the chicken wire around the garden back up. I’d hate to have the young perennials eaten before they have a chance to get going.

In the evening, I had Trent and the kids help me add water to the peat pellets. The tray required 10½ cups of water, so Trent brought water over in measuring cups, the kids poured it in the tray, and I helped make sure Katie didn’t pour the water over herself and the kitchen floor. We couldn’t plant the seeds yet, because it takes peat pellets a while to soak up water.

Here’s our mostly-cleared garden as it sits right now.

We didn’t get the covering off the ground last fall before the first blizzard came through, dumping more than a foot of snow on us which remained for months. We hoped that the covering would be in good shape in the spring – and it is pretty good, at least usable for the coming year.

Soon, we’ll strip the covering off the garden, spread some compost, and till the whole thing just before planting. Since we do not own a tiller (and don’t have extensive need for one), we’ll either borrow a small one from a neighbor or perhaps rent one for a day from the local hardware store.

The waste headed for our barrel composter…

Our composter is a great size for catching a small amount of yard clippings and all of our vegetable table waste, but it’s not exactly big enough to deal with a huge amount of garden waste. Thus, we’re discussing getting either a second barrel composter or perhaps a small chicken wire composter.

In this picture, the compost is just beginning to work. We’re keeping it moist with very warm water and occasional spadefuls of dirt are tossed in to add microbes to continue the composting process. Our goal is to have nice, rich spreadable compost just before we begin to plant next month.

Sarah’s journal, March 20
The kids are at daycare today so that I can get a little bit of work done around the house before going back to teaching. This also lets me do some more of the time-consuming tasks that the kids would get bored with, like planting the seeds (they don’t really have the fine motor skills to help with that yet).

I started by planning how many of each kind of plant I want and deciding where to put them in the tray. I printed out a map of the tray using a spreadsheet program, which I taped to the front so that I can easily see it while I’m planting seeds. I’m saving the extra seeds that I’m not using, in case something doesn’t grow, or I just decide later that I want more of that particular plant. Some plants, like lettuce, can also be planted a second time during the year.

I also pulled out the Farmer’s Almanac that we got for Christmas and looked up when each thing that I’m growing should be moved out to the garden. I wrote those dates on our calendar in the house, as well as one that we’ve got hanging in the garage with the garden tools.

Here’s our planted tray.

We started a bit later than usual this year with our seedling prep – usually, we’re getting this started much earlier in March. However, last year we lost a lot of plants to a late frost and we’re fairly timid about it. Plants will likely go in the ground much later this year, which does push our harvest well into August and early September instead of harvesting in late July and early August as we did last year.

The sheet of paper there is a chart that shows what each spot in the tray contains.

This simply helps us keep track of the planting. Also, here’s our garden calendar – the calendar itself is actually a free bank calendar with a bunch of astrological information already on it.

Notice we’ll be planting the lettuce on Friday or Saturday. Lettuce is hardy and will survive a spring frost or two. Our April calendar has quite a few dates marked in a similar fashion.

In a month or so, we’ll offer an update discussing the planting process.