Over the past few days, we’ve had a few houseguests. Wait, scratch that – a lot of houseguests. We had so many people visiting that people ate meals in shifts. Every bed was full, as was much of the available floor space.

Amazingly, though, we managed to get through all meals here at our house – we didn’t eat out or have our guests eat out for any meal. We entertained at home as well, and our total cost was surprisingly low.

How did we pull this off? We used a bunch of different tactics in tandem to make all of this work.

We relied on a lot of food that was in season. Sweet corn and tomatoes were both served, and tomatoes were also used as components in multiple meals. Since these are easily found in abundance and at a low price right now, having them on hand saved a great deal of money.

We also relied on food prepared earlier and frozen. Elements along these lines included barbecued shredded chicken, seasoned ground beef, and bread. Each of these elements were prepared early in the week and frozen in advance of guests arriving.

The key, of course, was detailed advance meal planning. Make a meal plan as early as you can and determine which elements of those meals you can prepare in advance and freeze. This enables you to prepare great meals at home, even for large groups, within a reasonable time, instead of leaving people to spend all day in the kitchen when everyone wants to socialize with family and friends (which often leaves to people deciding to eat out).

Most of our meals were modular and served buffet-style. Tacos. A wide variety of items grilled all at once. Barbecued shredded chicken sandwiches. Each of these meals were served in a buffet-style, with lots of options to allow each person flexibility on what they had for their meal. Vegetarians? Check. Big eaters? Check. Picky eaters? Check. “A little bit of everything” eaters? Check.

We asked for – and received – some early help. My mother arrived two days early and was charged with a simple task that made everything so much easier. She simply spent two days going to local parks and other activities with her grandchildren, enabling Sarah and I to spend those two days getting ready for the onslaught of guests. If you’re planning a big weekend and need such help, don’t be afraid to ask.

Warehouse clubs were our friend. We needed an abundance of lettuce, milk, wine, salsa, wheat bread, and other staples. Since we were buying for a large group, it made a lot of sense to head directly to our local warehouse club and stock up on these items. We estimate that, based on comparable items at other local groceries, we paid for our club membership this weekend alone. If you’ve got a big group coming and you don’t have a club membership, the savings for the coming weekend might pay for your annual membership.

Bookend such events with plenty of sleep. How exactly does that save money? Well, for starters, you’re much more on top of things mentally and able to deal with the inevitable requests from a lot of guests if you’re well-rested. It also enables you to (inevitably) stay up late with all of the guests and still be able to rise early enough to get things going in the mornings. Thus, sleep in advance of the arrivals is a very good idea. Instead of staying up all night the night before people begin to arrive, plan ahead for the things you need to do and get a long night of sleep before people arrive. You’ll be much more ready to handle requests without emergency runs to the store if you’re in full mental order, plus you’ll be able to stay up late without being in a tired stupor. Sleep trumps all.

And, with that, I’m leaving to take a nap.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Married couple getting started
2. Investing for 11 year olds
3. A debt and family mess
4. Dealing with discouragement
5. 457 or Roth IRA?
6. Fixing credit
7. No-knead bread
8. Cash-only budgeting
9. Which debt repayment plan?
10. Selling stuff before moving

Since Thursday, we’ve had family as guests at our home, culminating with a Sunday brunch and early afternoon where we had twenty or so guests at our house. It’s been fun – and tiring, too.

I recently married. My now-husband and I have lived together for several years, so we’ve already merged some of our finances and have had candid discussions on financial goals. Fortunately, we have similar goals, saving and spending habits, and general outlooks on money. We’d like to create a strong financial plan to help us pay down my husband’s student debt, save for a house, and save for retirement. We just don’t know where to start. Do you have any books or resources you would recommend to help us get smart and build a strong financial future?
- Tori

It sounds to me that you’re wanting to create a formal financial plan on the order of a business plan. That’s really a good idea, especially for people who are very plan-oriented.

If that’s your goal, I’d suggest reading How to Be the Family CFO. It essentially takes the elements of personal finance and treats them in a business context – plus it’s a pretty readable book. It does a great job of transforming one’s financial situation into a clear business-type plan.

I think it’ll meet your needs quite well.

My [eleven year old] son is close to reaching $1000 in his savings account and is interested in investing it. Any suggestions? I’ve recommended either his college 529 or perhaps a Roth IRA in his name but he seems more interested in investing it in a company.
- Tas

If he’s interested in individual stock investing, I’d say go for it. It’s his savings, after all.

The first thing I’d do is sit down and make sure he understands that there’s a lot of risk involved in investing in individual stocks. They’re very volatile and he could easily end up losing most of his money in a day or two. Make it clear that it will be his loss and you won’t wave a magic wand to fix it if he loses it. Talk about diversification a bit – the idea that if you don’t put it all at risk in one place, you won’t lose everything if that one place goes down. You should also mention that individual stock investing comes with fees every time you buy stocks and every time you sell stocks.

If he still wants to go through with it, open an eTrade (or other brokerage) account together. Encourage him to read and study and learn. Do it together, but let him make the decisions about the money.

Yes, he might lose some of the money. He might gain some, too. In either case, he’ll be learning and spending his time on something positive.

I am 25 years old, and I live in Denver, CO. I am renting an apartment with my boyfriend, there are times when I cover majority of the rent, because of his medical bills (he has terrible back problems, even though he has insurance, we still pay quite a bit out of pocket). We have separate checking and saving accounts. He is a bar manager, and makes a decent hourly wage, plus tips. I am still in school, taking yet another attempt to finish my degree. My parents divorced two years ago, and my father is not in the picture, left my mother penniless, and every once in a while I try to help her out. I also pay her cell phone bill (mine and her total at about $110 a month, we are on a family plan with t-mobile). My father also bought me a car for my 21st birthday, financed it, and I was the co-signer on a loan. He said he would help me build my credit. After he left, he stopped paying for the car, and didn’t even tell me about it, let alone forward the bill. The car got repossessed, he filed for bankruptcy, and I am left with $10,000 debt which I am unable to pay off. Me and my father are not on good terms, since then. I got behind on my credit cards, to a point where I could not catch up. Some of them I am paying off through Credit counseling, others are charged off. The total amount is hovering right about $4500, I have a list with all the phone numbers and addresses to the creditors/collections. I am a full time student, I was lucky enough to get scholarships, so my tuition and books are paid for. At the beginning of the summer I have decided to go back to my old, short lived stunt with exotic dancing. It proved to be profitable. I know I made a lot of money, yet I have no idea where it went. I spent it, somewhere. My nightly earnings can be anything from $200 to $1500 a night, depending on a night. Then a friend of mine offered me a job as a middle manager at a local movie theater. I would be making $10.25 an hour, 40 hours a week, on top of 18 credit hours at school. I am comfortable working at a strip club, until I finish my degree, as it is flexible schedule, and I can focus on school. But even with my income, even at it’s highest I still struggle financially. My share of the rent is $475, sometimes more, depending on his situation. My credit counseling costs me $129, and cell phone $110. I do not drive, but do get a bus pass for about $50 a month, unlimited to go anywhere (Denver has a great public transportation system). Any suggestions?
- Kasha

I think you’re doing well. You’ve clearly got a good deal of self-awareness and understanding of the issues going on in your life and what you need to do to fix it.

The solution, obviously, is to maximize your income, doing the work you choose to do, and directing that income towards clearing all of the debt that’s in your name. It’ll take some time, but it’ll be worth it – you’ll come out on the other side with a clean slate and a clean conscience.

The only obvious suggestion I can make is that your cell phone bill seems really high. Are you using an iPhone? If I were you, I’d downgrade to something basic and use a more basic plan with limited minutes and limited data usage. The $60 (or more) you would save per month can help you to make a real dent in your debt load.

Good luck.

My husband and I had a huge savings and the only debt we have is my student loan debt and our mortgage. I was laid off but my husband found a position that gave him enough of a pay increase that we had very little net income loss. Our emergency fund had over 20K and we were starting to move more towards retirement savings. After I was laid off I got pregnant (not planned/not unplanned and very welcomed). After looking at my pregnant belly I was always passed over for some ‘other qualified candidate’. Ultimately this was a blessing as our son arrived 3 months early. Due to his and my medical bills we saw our emergency fund drop to half of what we had previous (we did pay as much as possible out of our monthly income but this is what you plan on the emergency fund for right?). This was/is still plenty for us – more than 3 months expenses etc. However after July and August our emergency fund is at 0. HVAC clogged and flooded our downstairs and while homeowner’s insurance is helping we are still left with the bulk of the expenses plus my son needed medical care and other unexpected and budgeted expenses.

My question is – HOW do I prevent myself from being discouraged? At the moment I know I should be thrilled that we did not put a dime on a credit card but I”m terrified of having no savings. At the same time it almost makes me wonder why we worked so hard and had so much in savings just to see it quickly go away. Lastly I’m of course worried my son will require some other treatment that is expensive and now we have no option but to do a payment plan with the hospital or incur credit card debt.
- Katharine

Instead of being depressed at how quickly your savings went away, imagine your situation if you had no savings at all. What would you have done if you had not had an emergency fund with the early birth of your child, the HVAC clogging, and the insurance not paying up?

Your emergency fund turned a situation that could have been completely disastrous into something that you easily handled. Yes, you now don’t have an emergency fund, but this experience alone should tell you how valuable such a fund is.

Start socking away for that new emergency fund right now. Throw every dime you can spare in there. That way, if/when the next emergency happens, you’ll easily be able to handle that one, too.

Both my husband and I work for a local governments and participate in a 457 plans (there is no match from either employer). We are married with two young children and are 37 and 39 respectively. Between the two of us we make about $95,000 per year. I have a retirement plan at work but my husband does not. My question is – I have read a lot on your blog about people saving for retirement and that Roth IRA’s are great options. I know we contribute to our 457 pretax dollars so there is a benefit there. I also know that the Roth IRA’s have tax benefits on the other end when you take the money out. How do you know what is a better use of your money. Which plan is really the better “deal”.
- Lisa

There’s no way of knowing for sure because we don’t know what tax rates will look like in thirty years. If you have a crystal ball and can tell me, I’d love to know!

The reason I tend to encourage the Roth IRA is because income taxes seem to be pretty low right now compared to historic numbers, and on top of that, we’re spending much more than we bring in. What’s the inevitable solution to both of these situations? Higher income taxes.

I believe income taxes will be higher in 30 years than they are now. Because of that, if given a choice, I’d rather pay taxes on the money now (at a lower rate) than in 30 years (at a higher rate). This leans me towards a Roth IRA.

I have recently started back to college on the 23rd to obtain my degree in nursing. I already have about 2k in student loans so far and this semester I decided to take out another thousand in subsidized student loans, about 200 of that will go to cover books. This is mainly what my question is about. I have been asking friends and family but they really can’t give me any advice: Is it a good idea to use the remainder of this student loan and partial amounts of other student loans to make sure that my car is in good working order, that I have insurance for the car, make sure I can pay for an internet connection during the semester and things of that nature while I am in school? I have a part time waitressing job, but when I figure out my hourly rate plus tips, it doesn’t even equal out to minimum wage, and I still have rent and electricity to pay for. Also, at some point, would it be a good idea to use a student loan to pay down on my consumer debt so that I can get my credit looking good enough to secure a job once I graduate? There are a LOT of places that are using credit as a qualification for employment and I’ve already been having trouble finding work as a result of how bad mine is at this point.

So far, I have kept my student loans at a minimum (I have about 68 credit hours on my transcript) and I’d like to keep it that way, but I am having a very hard time keeping things going while I am in school, and this time, I just want to graduate and move along with my life. I need to do a lot of things, but don’t want to hurt myself in the long run. Could you please help?
- Ami

My first question would be whether or not you actually need that car for school. Do you? Is it possible that you could use public transportation or a bicycle to take care of your travel needs? If you can get by without a car, that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d either sell the car to help pay for school or get rid of all insurance and taxes on it and park it somewhere for a while.

Of course, given your shaky credit situation, the proceeds from your car might be better served going towards your consumer debt, simply to make sure you’re up to date on it.

You need to minimize now and, for most students, a car is a want and not a need. Get rid of it if you can.

I’ve been researching no-knead bread to save money on buying loaves. Have you ever tried this technique? If so, what are your thoughts on the method? How about storage? We are a family of two and we don’t eat a ton of bread every day.
- Rita

I’ve tried it twice. Both times, I thought it was good, but I preferred my regular bread-making techniques because I felt they produced better bread.

A lot of the “oohs” and “aahs” about no-knead bread (read about it) comes from the fact that it’s seemingly pretty easy and thus less daunting for a new baker. Add in the fact that it does taste better than the bread you typically purchase at a store and it seems like a winner.

I’d just rather do the kneading and produce the wonderful loaves I make using my own techniques.

My wife and I are considering moving away from the use of credit and/or debit cards and going cash-only. My concern with doing this, however, is the added difficulty with keeping track of our spending. We keep a monthly budget, and track all of our spending. Currently most of our spending is via credit/debit so I simply download the recent transaction history once a week or so, import into MS Money and spend a few minutes putting each transaction into the appropriate category. I do a very bad job of tracking our spending when cash is used, and worry that this will be worse if we move to a cash-only system.

Do you have any suggestions on how to best track cash spending? We do not like the Dave Ramsey envelope system for various reasons. So far the only thing we have come up with is saving receipts, and going through them later to record the amounts spent towards each category, although not all places give receipts (such as the farmer’s market). I also considered keeping a small notepad with me to record the transactions. I do not have a Smartphone, otherwise I would probably try coming up with some method of tracking using that.
- Jonathan

I used the notepad solution myself when I was attempting to get a strong picture of my spending. I found that it really did the trick.

For me, though, one side benefit was that I hated to write stuff in the notebook. It felt like a failure if I spent cash and had to write it in the notebook. Thus, the mere presence of such a tracking notebook made me more careful about my spending.

I don’t trust my ability to keep track of the receipts, plus, as you mentioned, not all cash transactions generate a receipt.

We’ve started attacking our debt, Dave Ramsey style, beginning with the car loan first. We have $4,300 left to pay on our car loan – should we dip into our savings and pay it off with some of that money (we have a 7-month emergency fund saved up). OR are we better to keep that money in there, untouched, and pay off what we can each month? Once the car loan is paid off, should we attack our student loans next or are we better off saving as much money for the new baby? Since our interest rates are so low on the student loans, we’re not sure which strategy is better.

We have the following debt:
Mortgage ($175,000) at 5.875%
Car loan ($4360) at 2.9%
Student loan ($10,267) at 2.6%
Student loan ($20,394) at 1.6%
- Erin

Generally, I feel a family should have two months’ worth of living expenses for each person in the household saved as an emergency fund. If you have more than that, I would consider doing something different with it.

Your interest rates on your debts are so low, though, that you don’t need to be rushing to pay them off. My priority really would be the mortgage here because the interest rate is so much higher than the other ones. Yes, you get the “success” feeling from paying off a debt, but the interest rates are low enough that you’re not gaining much over simply leaving cash in a savings account.

However, if you’re expecting a baby, I would save for baby expenses before tackling any of these debts. I also wouldn’t lower the emergency fund below six months’ worth of post-baby expenses.

I am a incoming college freshman. As part of my packing process, I went through all my stuff and decided what to pack and what not to pack. I am also an aspiring minimalist, so I am getting rid of a lot. About half my walk-in closet is filled with stuff I no longer need. I have outdoor equipment, books, clothes, shoes, and jewelry to sell. I am wondering what the best way to get rid of it is. I was weighing the options of Ebay v. a physical garage sale. I think I’d probably be able to get a better price for my lightly-used outdoor gear online, but a better price for some of my clothes in a garage sale. What do you think?

Also, another complicating factor is that I am going to college across the country, so ebay may not be a good option because I won’t be able to ship right away.
- Erica

Don’t worry strictly about price – keep in mind that there will be effort involved in selling the items either way you go. However, if you decide to have a yard sale, the additional effort per item will be very small. If you sell on eBay, the additional effort per item will be larger – dealing with buyers, packaging each individual item, and so on.

Whether that additional effort is worth the money is really up to you. For me, honestly, it wouldn’t be unless I was sure I was going to make a lot more on eBay. Of course, there’s also the possibility that you could price items at your yard sale at a price close to what you would net on eBay (after all the fees and shipping costs) and only use eBay if that doesn’t work.

In any case, I encourage you to sell as much of the stuff as you can. You won’t need or have room for most of this stuff at college and the cost to ship it is prohibitive. Sell it and move on.

Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag. However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.

When I went to college back in the late 1990s, my school was pretty much selected for me due to the scholarships I received. I didn’t have any financial resources of my own to help me get into college, nor was the internet widely available and full of easy resources to learn more how to acquire them. In short, I was left with a decision that seemed pretty much made for me.

Looking back, I realize that the decision was not as clear-cut as I originally thought. With my academic qualifications and financial state, I could have chosen from a lot of different schools, and the choice among schools was actually quite a bit different than I thought.

In short, when my children choose a college, the process will be a lot different than my own process was – more open ended, more thorough, and with more ideas out there on the table.

This, of course, brings us to this week’s book review, Debt-Free U by Zac Bissonnette. The idea behind this book is that many of the standards and reasoning people use to select a school and pay for it are way off base. Instead, what makes or breaks success in life is the person and the opportunities they have available to them. Because of that (and some research to back it up), the book comes up with some interesting conclusions on the entire college selection process.

1 – How Much Can You Afford, and Where Will You Get The Money?
Bissonnette focuses this chapter on the idea that scholarships are overrated and loans are dangerous. So, how should one pay for college? The old fashioned way – by saving for it and paying for it out of pocket. Work a second job. Don’t fall into the trap that you have to go to the most expensive school you can find in order to get a “good” education. Most of the rest of the book focuses on these latter points.

2 – Student Loans and Stagnant Wages: A Dangerous Cocktail for Future Graduates
So, why no student loans? Anyone under the age of about 40 probably knows the answer: they can be a punishing load after you’re out of school. Not only have you sacrificed years of income in order to get that degree, you’ve also got huge debts to pay back. Often, even with a much increased earnings potential, it’s a zero sum game – or worse. The better approach is to pay as much out of pocket as you possibly can.

3 – Does It Really Matter Where You Go to College? The Solution to the College Funding Nightmare
That’s great, but great colleges aren’t cheap. Bissonnette’s argument against that is that the idea of a “great” college is overrated. Most people who are successful in their field don’t come from “great” colleges – they come from all over the place. What makes a success story isn’t the school the person goes to, it’s the person. Instead, you should seek out the schools that leave students with the lowest debt burdens after college, which are mostly large state schools.

4 – How to Make Any College an Ivy League College
But how do you get the “ivy” experience at Big State U? It’s all about how you approach it. A great college experience that you can base a career on comes from connecting with people and building your skill set at every opportunity. Networking, acquiring unique experiences, and building specific skills are the trademark of success, not the name on the degree that you get.

5 – Why Large Public Universities Are Better Than Private Colleges
Most of the time, big state schools offer the best opportunities to do those very things, given the large number of people there. There are countless opportunities at a large school that just can’t be found elsewhere. Simply due to the sheer numbers, you’re much more likely to find experiences that really click with you and enable you to build skills that match your talents and interests at big state schools – and that’s what draws attention in the workplace.

6 – The Community College Solution
Another advantage of a big state school is that it’s often easy to transfer community college credits. That means that while you’re in high school, during the college summers, and perhaps even during a year or two between high school and a four year college, you can get general education requirements out of the way at a very inexpensive rate at your local community college, drastically reducing the cost of a four year school.

7 – Make Money, Prepare for a Career
This was my favorite chapter because it so directly matches my own college experience. As established earlier in the book, the best way to maximize the value of college is to earn money while there to reduce your tuition bill. Also mentioned earlier, college is the time to have great experiences and build skills that translate to the post-college life. Why not do both at the same time? Seek out paid internships or work-study positions. See if you can find a job with a professor who is engaged in a field that interests you. Ask, ask, ask – it never hurts.

8 – How Your Child Can Save Money While He’s in College
The stuff here is basically personal finance 101 – avoid credit cards while in college, read your college bill carefully and ask about any and all fees you don’t understand, and so on. It’s valuable, though, because these types of tips can make an enormous difference on how much you have to take out in student loans and how much debt you’ll have after college. The lower both numbers are, the better.

9 – Invest in College-Town Real Estate
This chapter felt really out of place, because the rest of the book talks about great ways to minimize expenses and thus reduce any debt you have to incur after college. This chapter really speaks to people who already have a lot of money and are looking for someplace to sink it. Why not buy your child a condo as a gift as they leave for college? They can live there while in college, then rent it or sell it after school is over? Good idea, but it speaks to people with a lot more money than I ever dreamed of having in college.

10 – It’s Not Just a Personal Finance Issue: How to Solve the College Crisis
Bissonnette has a lot of good, if overly grand, ideas here. There’s just one that I really, really wish would take hold in society – I wish society would stop stigmatizing financial prudence. I understand why it won’t happen – marketers don’t make money from financial prudence. Still, if everyone were financially sensible, society as a whole would work much better.

Is Debt-Free U Worth Reading?
If you have children and have at least some intent of directing them towards higher education, or if you’re a high schooler or early college student with the ability to read and digest more than one viewpoint, Debt-Free U is a very, very worthwhile read. It’ll provide a ton of food for thought for your college planning process.

As with any book like this, though, couple it with your own homework. When you’re making such a huge choice, get information from lots of different sources – make this book part of your education about college choices, but never make one book the be-all end-all. It’s very solid and has a lot of great ideas on maximizing every dollar from your college education, but it deserves to be coupled with additional reading, as does any book on a major life decision.

About three months ago, my four year old son saw a toy at a store. He mentioned that he had played with it at a friend’s house and that he wanted one.

But rather than demanding it this minute, he asked how much it would cost. Then, he asked how many allowances he’d have to save to be able to afford it.

He waited the necessary six weeks’ of allowance (plus some pocket money put into his bank by Grandma), then happily went to the store and bought himself a Zhu Zhu Pet. The weird little electronic hamster has spent the last few weeks constantly running around on our floors – and I couldn’t be prouder.

No, I’m not proud that he got a Zhu Zhu Pet – my primary concern there is that I’m going to accidentally step on it and hurt my foot when he’s sending the toy all over the place and I’m walking through the entryway or the dining room.

I’m proud of other things.

I’m proud that he didn’t have a meltdown in the toy area, demanding one now, which is something that we witnessed two other children doing that very day.

I’m proud that he didn’t simply ask for or expect for me to just buy that toy for him.

I’m proud that he knew to save diligently for it and not to spend money along the way – he even pointed out that if he saved his “pocket money” too and went without the small stuff, he’d get the pet sooner.

I’m proud that even though he was really into saving for the toy, he still put money from his allowance aside for college and aside for his favorite charity.

How did we get to this point? I really attribute it to three things.

First, we bring home the point time and time again that everything costs money and that Mom and Dad have to work to earn the money they have. Whenever we consider any purchase of any kind, this is an idea that’s brought up. We also talk about how the more money we spend, the more Mom and Dad have to work, and we also point out that as he gets older, he’ll also be working for money.

Second, we do not give in to any sort of meltdown, crying, or whining. We leave, period. Neither Sarah nor I have any problem with just walking out of the store if either of our two older children melt down, particularly over a material desire. (Our youngest one is four months – the only reason he melts down is when he wants milk or a diaper change.) Our older kids have learned that crying and such only makes their case and their situation worse, so they’ve largely abandoned it. Yes, they still do it sometimes – they’re four and three, after all – but it’s not something that happens often, and it’s usually when they’re tired and acting more on raw emotion.

Third, we help them mark their progress towards specific savings goals. For example, when saving for the Zhu Zhu pet, we made it clear to our son that he would need $8.50 for the pet ($8 for the item, $0.50 for taxes). Each week, they get a small allowance – $0.50 for spending as they wish, $0.50 for saving for a goal, $0.50 for a charity, and $0.50 for college. Each week, he diligently chose to put the free spending money and the saving money into the saving for a goal slot in his bank. Then, he would ask how much more he’d have to save and he started to get quite excited when he was close to the goal. The clear marking of progress – talking about it, seeing money build up in his bank – excited him far more than the delayed gratification brought him down.

It works. If you want your kids to learn how to save, start young and be diligent. Our four year old gets it – it can be done!

Last weekend, I wrote a review of 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More. In that book, the author, Stever Robbins, suggested something he called a “daily action pack.” Here’s my mention of it from the review:

For every short-term and medium-term project you have going on (everything less than a few months down the road), perform an action related to that project every single day without fail. He calls it an “action pack” – I call it a pretty good idea. Just keep a list of your projects with you and each day, come up with an action you can take that moves you along for that project. Write a page of that paper. Clean out that closet. File those papers. Whatever little step it is, take one of them every day.

I tried incorporating this idea into my work and personal routine this week and I have to say – it’s pretty awesome.

How does it work? Basically, you just take every project you have and break it down into bits that can be done each day. Take the daily bit from each project, lump them together, and make that lump of project bits a required part of your daily routine. Robbins calls it the “daily action pack.”

My example I’ll show you a simplified version of how I’ve been using it so perhaps you can see the power of it. (If I wrote down everything, this post would go on and on until you were bored to tears.)

Project #1 is my upcoming third book, which I’m considering self-publishing. The book has fifty short chapters to it (at least in the draft I have right now). My plan for that project is to spend a day gathering notes for each chapter, a day writing each chapter, a gap, a day revising each chapter, and a day collecting images for each chapter. That’s a 200 day plan. The chapters are somewhat weaved together, so I just wrote out a full schedule for 200 days of work on the book.

Each day, I’m tackling one of thoes 200 days on the plan as part of the “action pack.” Some days, I’ll tackle a second one if I’m really in the flow.

Project #2 involves housecleaning. We have a lot of stored stuff in several closets in our home, as well as a pile of other things that need to be done. I’m shooting to finish all of this by the second weekend of October, because we’re expecting a bunch of guests for a very long weekend.

What I did is sit down and write out a schedule for what needs to be done in terms of cleaning each day between now and then. Each day, I take that day’s bit and do it as part of the “action pack.”

Project #3 is all about piano playing. My focus is simply on spending 30 minutes practicing each day, preferably in two 15 minute batches.

So, each day, I have two more things in my “action pack” – two 15 minute piano practices.

So, my action pack for today looks like this:
1. Draft chapter 2 in my next book.
2. Pull everything out of the office closet and figure out what things to get rid of.
3. Practice “Fur Elise” for fifteen minutes.
4. Practice “Canon in D” for fifteen minutes.

I obviously have more elements than this in my real action plan. It currently includes 16 elements and will take me about two and a half hours to get through all of it.

Why? To put it simply, it’s helping me to make consistent progress on a lot of projects. My life – like yours probably is – is so chock-full of stuff that needs to get done and that I want to get done that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, especially by big challenges.

Adopting this “break it down into daily bits” philosophy is really empowering because it enables me to constantly feel the success of moving forward on the big projects in my life. When I kick back at night, I can look back on my day and note all of the big things in my life that I moved forward on – and that feels really good. Then, later, when I actually see success and completion of these things, I get another big rush.

Give it a shot. Start small, with a few projects, and commit to your own daily action pack.

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (August 29 – September 4, 2009)
Revising My Money Goals – And Setting New Ones This isn’t just a one time thing. For me, it’s something to constantly revisit, think about, and reformulate.

Seven Tempting Places – And Eight Ways to Minimize Their Impact My best tactic is to simply avoid them. I rarely go to bookstores at all at this point, simply because I know they’re really tempting for me.

Some Thoughts on Building a Successful Friendship Relationships of any kind aren’t easy, especially if you aren’t blessed with a natural gift of social skills. Here are some thoughts on making friendships wirk.

21 Ways to Reduce Your Spending Without Making Your Life Miserable Many people associate cutting back with “lack of fun.” That doesn’t have to be true at all.

Your Mileage May Vary Not everyone has the same experiences with the same things in life. Something that works well for me might not work for you, and vice versa. That doesn’t mean that the ideas are bad, it just means you need to try lots of things and stick with what fits you.

Two Years Ago (August 29 – September 4, 2008)
Everything’s So Easy for Pauline: Thoughts on Luck, Fate, Money, and Life This is my single favorite post I’ve ever written on The Simple Dollar. I have felt like it was the pinnacle for two years now. It just clicks for me in a way that’s hard to describe.

The Personal Finance Secrets “They” Don’t Want You to Know About I just don’t think that paranoia and personal finance mix well. Making choices out of fear almost always results in more failure and fear.

How to Avoid the Trap of Splurging as a Reward for “Being Good” It’s tempting to splurge when you’re doing well, but when splurges undo all of your good work, it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on how far you’ve come and how much you can undo with just one choice.

Some Thoughts on Plasma Donation It works in a desperate pinch, but there are enough drawbacks that I don’t recommend it as a big money maker.

What’s An Appropriate Home Food Budget for a Family of Four? This post certainly stirred up some debate. It’s important to keep in mind that I only matched the USDA numbers buy buying expensive food items – organics, saffron, and so on.

Three Years Ago (August 29 – September 4, 2007)
Seven Nifty Tactics Credit Card Companies Use To Get Into Your Pocket – And How To See Right Through Them It’s all about the marketing – and big marketing firms, like the ones that represent credit card companies, are good at getting your attention and getting into your pocket.

Is An “Entertainment” Coupon Book Worth It? It really depends on your lifestyle and your willingness to really figure out the big values in the book.

The Real Scoop On Debt Elimination Programs Most of them repackage the advice you’ll find elsewhere and sell it to you as something fresh.

Potential Pitfalls For Paying Off Someone Else’s Debt The pitfall is that it adds a lender-borrower element to a personal relationship. Do you have a deep, unabiding love for your bank? I don’t either, and I don’t want to inject that feeling into my relationships.

What Constitutes An “Emergency” Where One Should Use An Emergency Fund? The answer varies for everyone, but I think it mostly comes down to the things you can’t handle in your monthly money cycle.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.

1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

3. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.

5. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.

6. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.

7. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

8. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!

9. Become a “Friend of The Simple Dollar.” If you find the stuff on The Simple Dollar valuable and are willing to spend five minutes or so a month to help me out with small things, please consider signing up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar”.

10. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

This summer, I’m going to be posting a series of fifteen low-cost, tasty, and easy-to-prepare meals that are literally straight from my own kitchen.

One of the fun things about the end of summer and the start of fall is that, if you have a garden, lots of vegetables are starting to come in. Depending on your garden, you can be producing all kinds of things: tomatoes, sweet corn, peas, green beans – the list is nearly endless.

Thus, in the late summer and fall, we tend to cook dishes that have really flexible vegetable requirements, like last week’s ratatouille. Meals that work with lots of different vegetables are highly prized, and my wife’s flexible chicken pie is one of those recipes.

This year, our garden isn’t doing particularly well (the arrival of our baby right in the middle of planting season did a number on our plans, and the garden flooding in early August wiped out some of the things we’d planted), so the vegetables we’re using below are a mix of fresh ones and some flash-frozen ones.

The basic idea of a chicken pie is basically a pie crust with thickened chicken broth and chicken as a filling, plus whatever vegetables you have on hand. Most vegetables work – in the example below, we used carrots, potatoes, green beans, and corn. You can put pretty much anything in it, from tomatoes to chickpeas.

You can use a pre-made pie crust if you wish, or you can make one yourself – it’s entirely up to you. The same is true with the chicken broth – you can make it yourself or you can buy some broth or stock at the store.

The process is pretty simple.

First, chop any and all vegetables you’re going to use in this meal. I recommend about four cups of total vegetables. Also, chop up the chicken you wish to use – I suggest about a pound and a half of chicken.

Take three cups of chicken broth, then boil any starchy vegetables you’re going to use in it – like potatoes, for example. Then boil (or microwave, if frozen) the remaining vegetables so that they’re warm and partially to mostly cooked.

Cook the chicken pieces in a skillet until browned, then remove the chicken and pour the hot broth into the skillet to catch the wonderful caramelization on the bottom of the pan.

Next, add a pinch of corn starch to the broth and stir it for fifteen seconds or so. Repeat this process until the broth is as thick as you would like – I like it very thick, while my wife likes it soup-thin, so we compromise in the middle.

After that, mix the chicken, vegetables, and broth together, then add all of it to the pie crust, which you’ve already spread out in a pie dish, like so.

Put the other pie crust on top and roll the edges of the two crusts together. Press the tines of a fork all around the crust to hold the two crusts together.

Now that the pie is constructed, preheat the oven to 375 F (about 190 C) and bake the pie for 45 minutes. Delicious!

(We also had a side salad with this, hence the open space on the plate.)

The cost of this meal is very hard to pin down because it depends heavily on what vegetables you have on hand, whether you make your own crust, and whether you make your own stock/broth. Our total cost for the pie was about $8, which averaged out to $1 a meal for the pie. Given the heartiness of it, that’s a pretty good deal.

The other night, I watched a couple episodes of the A&E documentary series Hoarders. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Hoarders is a documentary series that focuses on the struggles of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding.

One thing that struck me over and over again was that people were saying things along the lines of, “I can’t get rid of this stuff because I might have a use for it some day.” Of course, they were making this statement in a home that was so full of stuff that they had difficulty even walking through their home.

Frugal people live on an interesting spectrum between minimalism and hoarding. While on the one hand frugal people often move towards minimalism, with fewer possessions and the like, at the same time, two of the most powerful tools for saving money are reusing things and buying in bulk. Both of those tactics result in the pure accumulation of stuff.

Nearly everything we throw away has some sort of value to it. I could save old newspapers for campfire starters. I could save old magazines for children’s art projects and collages. I could save worn-out clothes for our rag bag. A broken piece of furniture could provide pieces of wood and cloth for other projects. Old electronics can often be refurbished and repurposed.

Given that a frugal person often focuses on the maximization of value, sometimes it’s easy to fall into the trap of keeping more stuff than we actually need. We do this all the time – you wouldn’t want to look at our garage, for example. I have a really bad penchant for saving cables and electronic components because I’m so sure that someday, this adapter will have a valuable use or someday, I’ll need this cable.

Add on top of that the value that can be found in bulk buying and you soon see the problem: frugality can easily lead to the accumulation of excess stuff.

Where’s the line between frugality and hoarding? My feeling is this: once you have a small reserve of any one item, it crosses the line into hoarding if you continue to accumulate more of that type of item at a faster rate than you’re using it.

So, for example, after I go camping, it might be a good idea to save a few newspapers for the next camping trip. However, once I reach that point, it crosses the line into hoarding to continue to accumulate. The only purpose I have for saving old papers is for campfire starters. Saving beyond that, just because the papers have the potential to be useful someday, is hoarding.

You can take a similar approach to anything. If I have plenty of shower soap in the closet, why am I buying more of it? If I have plenty of toothpaste, why am I acquiring more of it? Even if it’s free.

The real story to all of this is that every possession you have has a cost. To own all of these possessions, you have to live in a larger home than you otherwise would. You also have to deal with the cleaning and organizing of all of your possessions. If you’re saving hundreds of newspapers, you’re going to either have to have a lot of room or a lot of organization.

Lately, my wife and I have started to adopt a completely different approach than we used to have towards the accumulation of possessions. In short, if we can’t say that this item won’t have a use in the next two months, we won’t bring it into our home. Even if it’s free.

Why? Even free stuff has a cost, and it’s a cost that we don’t feel the need to pay.