Saving Pennies or Dollars is a new semi-regular series on The Simple Dollar, inspired by a great discussion on The Simple Dollar’s Facebook page concerning frugal tactics that might not really save that much money. I’m going to take some of the scenarios described by the readers there and try to break down the numbers to see if the savings is really worth the time invested.

Darrin said, Driving around town looking for the cheapest gas prices for the day. Yes there are apps and web sites that tell you all that, but I don’t think about filling the car when I’m in front of my computer. I found a gas station that is usually a couple cents above the lowest prices, but it’s on my route to work so I stick to it now and have more time.

Let’s say, for instance, that you are driving a car that needs ten gallons in it and you only save $0.05 per gallon by driving around. That’s $0.50 in savings. If you’re driving a truck that needs eighteen gallons and you find a place that saves you $0.10 per gallon, that’s $1.80 in savings.

No matter what you do to save gas, you’re talking about a small amount per fill-up. If you drive around looking for cheaper gas, not only are you spending time doing this, but you’re burning gas in the process.

In my opinion, driving more than a few blocks for cheaper gas isn’t worth it. Even if you’re saving $1.80 in the optimum situation above, you’re still burning a bit of gas to get there and a bit of time to drive that extra distance. If you go further than that, your money saved continues to drop and your time spent continues to grow.

There’s also the factor that sites and tools that give you updated gas prices aren’t perfect. More than a few times, I’ve discovered the hard way that the prices listed in these tools isn’t accurate. Someone has uploaded bogus data as a prank or as a simple user error or the tool is outdated. When these sites work, they work; when they don’t, they don’t.

Instead, I use a completely different approach for gas. I invest some time up front figuring out which local station(s) consistently have the cheapest price on gas, then I use that station (or stations) as my primary place for filling up. Here’s what I do.

I monitor the gas price comparison sites for a week or two to see which stations in my area have the cheapest gas. This is really the backbone of my plan. If you’re in an area where prices are updated frequently, you can easily get a sense of which stations are consistently the lowest by watching such comparison data.

I also look for stations that have special deals in addition to the normal gas price. For example, the local Sam’s Club offers discounted gas to members and the local Hy-Vee Gas offers a discount if you bring in a recent receipt from a nearby Hy-Vee grocery store. Other gas stations offer tremendous discounts if you use their credit card.

Once I have this information in hand, I figure out which gas station is consistently the lowest (or tied for the lowest) in terms of gas prices. Usually, this is pretty straightforward once you know some of the offers available at the gas stations and what their regular prices are.

The winning gas station simply becomes my regular gas station. I use it for all of my gas purchases for a while until I get a sense that perhaps I should recalculate

While this process doesn’t guarantee me the lowest gas price at each fillup, it does ensure that I have one of the lowest gas prices around at every fillup. Even better, I’m not driving around to find this bargain. It’s usually a station along my regular route for groceries or other goods.

To put it simply, driving around looking for the cheapest gas saves pennies (at best), while figuring out your cheapest gas station in advance then using it regularly saves dollars over the long haul.

One very interesting part of living in Iowa (a facet that I imagine is really only shared with residents of New Hampshire) is the huge amount of political gamesmanship that goes on in this state for the six months or so before a presidential caucus. Because Iowa is the first state in the nation to have a presidential caucus, presidential candidates descend on Iowa like locusts. There are events all over the state every single day where you can meet the presidential candidates, hear them speak, and so on.

Besides that, if you ever even give a hint of being a participant in a caucus, you find yourself on the calling lists of all of the candidates.

Because of this attention, there’s a pretty big focus on presidential politics here in Iowa, particularly in the last months of the year before the presidential election. It’s fascinating to watch these candidates and campaigns trawl for votes all over the state.

Simply put, it’s politics season here in Iowa.

(An aside: whenever there’s a year in which an incumbent is in office, I register as a member of the other party because I feel my voice at the caucus matters more. That means I go back and forth with my party affiliation. In 2004, I was a “Democrat.” In 2012, I’m a “Republican.”)

The warning signs of defending the status quo Change is hard. It’s even harder when you’ve already decided against the possibility of changing anything. (@ seth’s blog)

Are Your Spending Habits Stunting Your Freelance Business Growth? There’s a careful balance to make here, even if you’re merely self-employed (like I am). There are expenses. How do you decide how many expenses are appropriate? Which ones actually provide value? (@ freelance switch)

How to Break a Big Goal into Little Steps This is a profound skill to have. Over and over again, there are large projects that show up in every aspect of my life. Knowing how to address them and move forward with them is incredibly useful. (@ pick the brain)

Social Capital and the Neighborhood Exchange In my eyes, this is just an outgrowth of a great relationship with neighbors. The better that relationship is, the better off you are. I am thrilled that I can open a conversation with any of my neighbors any time I wish. (@ get rich slowly)

About twelve years ago, I had a job as a computer lab monitor at the college I attended.

The job was easy. All I had to do was go to that room during designated hours, sit at a particular desk, and answer user questions, along with a few other minor tasks such as reloading printer paper and changing print cartridges. The vast majority of the questions were very basic.

This left me with quite a bit of time where I wasn’t really doing anything but filling space.

Those hours – and there were many of them – are actually one of the biggest regrets I have of my college years.

I spent a lot of that time just sitting there web surfing. Occasionally, I’d dig into a homework assignment. Once in a while, I’d read a paperback. More than a few times, I stared at the wall and the clock.

I was underemployed, in other words. While there was a need for someone to be sitting in that seat, most of the time there wasn’t enough actual work for me to be doing.

I’m not alone in this. One of my closest friends used to work the graveyard shift as a convenience store clerk. She said that customers would come in at a rate of about three an hour during the night and she spent most of her time staring out the window or moving bags of potato chips around aimlessly. She usually had a nighttime checklist of things to accomplish, but those tasks were usually out of the way in the first two or three hours of her shift.

In each of our cases, we wasted our underemployment. Instead of taking advantage of open time where we’re actually being paid to just sit there and use that time for some sort of self-improvement, we just wasted that time.

I would give almost anything to have all of those wasted hours back. Those hours held the key to a lot of different potential avenues in my life.

Here are four incredibly useful distinct things you can be doing if you find yourself in an underemployed situation.

Look for useful things to do
There are always things that can be cleaned or organized better. There are always procedures that can be improved a little bit. There are always things that can be documented.

Sure, one might argue that these things aren’t really your job. And you’d be right. That’s not the point of doing them, though.

The reason to do them is twofold. First, you’re being paid to do something, not just sit there. You are earning money for your time there, so you might as well do something with it. Second, doing things like this earns you positive attention at work from your supervisor, which can help a lot if you’re in an emergency situation or if you’re hoping for a raise or a promotion down the road.

Improve your skills for this job
What skills are on display at this job? Communication skills with customers? Efficiency at making food or pouring drinks? Techniques for the technical field you’re involved with? Can these things be practiced or improved upon?

There are always ways to work on the skills you use in the workplace. Working on those skills when times are slow is a sure way to make sure the job goes much more smoothly when times are busy. Plus, an effective employee is one that stays around and is often in line for promotions and raises.

Prepare for your next career step
If this job is a jumping-off point, use your idle time to prepare for whatever it is that comes next.

There are a multitude of things you can do in this regard. Put in some extra studying time for a class. Work on that novel you’ve always wanted to write. Investigate a topic area you’ve always been curious about. Polish up your resume. Find leads on new jobs.

Improve yourself
If all of those fail, you can always spend the time there improving yourself. I know one person who used to take a barbell to work with him and do various exercises with it during downtime to build up his arms and shoulders. You can always take and read a challenging book – one that forces you to think deeply about the world in some way. Perhaps you can spend some time writing a handwritten letter to someone you care deeply about. The key here is to leave work a better person in some fashion than when you arrived.

Underemployment doesn’t have to mean idleness. In fact, it usually means opportunity.

If you take out a $200,000 loan for 30 years at 4.5% interest, how much in debt are you?

Some might argue that you’re only $200,000 in debt. However, when you look at the payments you’ve committed yourself to making over the years, you’re actually promising to make payments totaling $364,813.20.

Thus, I’d argue that your actual debt is $364,813.20, even though you actually only received $200,000 in cash out of it.

It’s kind of a scary way to think about it, isn’t it? You get similar scary pictures when you look at the federal budget and examine the pledges we’ve made for future Social Security payments. If we’ve promised to pay it, it’s reasonable to include it as part of our indebtedness.

In fact, I’ve actually moved to calculating my net worth in this way. This number reflects the payments I’m obligated to make in the future. Yes, if I were to liquidate all of my possessions, I could reduce that number, but it’s not realistic to think that I’m going to liquidate my possessions to pay off a mortgage. If you think liquidation is a reasonable assumption, then by all means calculate things with just your debt total.

So, now you’re $364,813.20 in debt. You’re going to have to repay that much money over the next thirty years. You’re going to make 360 payments, one per month, of $1,013.37 each (do the math – if you multiply $1,013.37 by 360, you get $364,813.20).

Here’s the interesting part. Let’s say you add just $1 to just the first payment. This single extra dollar paid drops the entire debt by $2.83. You turned $1 into $2.83 in terms of your net worth. Not only that, you’ll also have your final payment reduced by $1 beyond the $2.83 in interest savings.

Essentially, you invest $1 now and you get it back in 30 years. Along the way it reduces your debt for you by $2.83.

Let’s say you add $100 to just the first payment. You reduce the entire debt by $283.33. You get the $100 back in 30 years and, along the way, it reduces your debt by $283.33.

Let’s say you just add $1 to each payment. You reduce the entire debt you’re going to pay by $399.16. You get your $360 back at the end of the 30 years, plus it reduces your debt by $399.16.

Every time you add a little extra to the payment, the total payment amount you’ve agreed to play goes down. Your obligations are reduced for the future. Not only that, you get the extra money you added back at the end of the debt in the form of a smaller final payment.

For me, the easiest way to keep track of this and of the impact of an extra payment is to use a sophisticated mortgage calculator like this one at Bankrate or, better yet, this Microsoft Excel template. I keep my mortgage data stored in this calculator so that I can see the impact of any extra payments I might make and so that I can see how much I really owe going forward assuming I just make the minimum payments from here on out.

Why think of things this way? For me, there are really three reasons that stand out for looking at debts this way.

One, this method makes it clear how much you’re actually obligated to pay. A $200,000 debt doesn’t mean that you’re obligated to make $200,000 in payments. It means you’re obligated to make quite a lot more.

Two, it’s very clear how much of a positive impact early debt payments can make on your future obligations. The impact is large. Thanks to calculating things in this way, one can really see the big impact extra debt payments make to one’s future obligations.

Three, it lets you see how powerfully debt repayment compares to investing. Without using this method, early debt repayment doesn’t have a powerful impact on your financial bottom line. In fact, it has no impact for the time being – it only shows up very gradually as future payments begin to take advantage of the lowered principal and less of your payments go toward interest. An investment, on the other hand, can quickly begin showing returns that directly show up on your balance sheet.

If you do use this method, though, you can quickly see the long-term impact of an extra debt repayment on your bottom line. Your obligations are immediately lowered by that extra payment, which lets you breathe easier.

To me, knowing my total obligation instead of my total debt feels like a more financially honest approach. It’s the same approach many of us are demanding from our government, so why not apply it to ourselves?

Saving Pennies or Dollars is a new semi-regular series on The Simple Dollar, inspired by a great discussion on The Simple Dollar’s Facebook page concerning frugal tactics that might not really save that much money. I’m going to take some of the scenarios described by the readers there and try to break down the numbers to see if the savings is really worth the time invested.

Cheryl said, Making my own powdered dishwasher detergent actually seems more expensive than just buying it at the dollar store.

This was a pretty intriguing comment to me as I’ve made my own liquid laundry soap at a price per load that is about 10% that of Tide. While dishwashing detergent is a bit of a different animal than laundry detergent, I’m interested in how the prices compare.

After scouring the internet for recipes (and trying a few), I found that the best recipe was a very simple one: one part borax, one part washing soda, one part water. This creates a liquid dishwashing soap that seems to clean our dishes pretty well.

As we’ve seen before, I can obtain borax for $2.89 for a box that contains six cups, washing soda for $1.89 for a box that contains six cups, and water is basically free (a tiny fraction of a cent for six cups). If you mix these together, you get 12 cups of dry dishwashing detergent for $4.78 (or 18 cups of liquid), about $0.40 per cup of dry detergent.

I then visited a few different stores in the area and examined their dishwashing detergent prices. I found that the cheapest box I could possibly find in any store was at a dollar store (as Cheryl mentioned), with a box containing approximately four and a half cups of powdered dishwashing detergent for $2. This is a price of about $0.44 per cup of powdered detergent. There were some larger containers of the same detergent, but the price per cup was virtually identical.

I tried out this low-end detergent and found that it did a comparable job to my homemade soap. I would give a slight nod to my soap simply because it managed to get some dried spaghetti sauce off of a pan completely, while the low-end detergent didn’t get all of it. Neither one left significant spots on the glasses or anything and I’d be happy to use either one in my dishwasher.

Simply put, I can save about $0.05 per cup by mixing together borax and washing soda as compared to buying the cheapest powdered dishwashing detergent I could find. Does that make it a bargain? It’s a small bargain in my estimation, but it’s there. This mostly comes about because, by mixing a box of borax and a box of washing soda, you’re making twelve cups of the soap, saving you roughly $0.56.

Now, could we make either item cheaper? It’s certainly possible that dishwashing detergent could be found at an even lower cost than what I found it for. At the same time, it’s certainly possible that I could find borax or washing soda for less than what I found it for. Hitting a sale at just the right time could easily upset the value proposition described here.

Of course, the actual effort involved is also something worth addressing. Mixing together a container (say, an old jug of some sort) with equal amounts of borax and washing soda is pretty simple and if you’re mixing together several cups of each at the same time, you’re saving a little under a nickel per cup of finished product. If you can save just short of sixty cents for a minute or two of effort (which is completely reasonable here), it’s worthwhile.

In my eyes, making your own dishwashing soap is not nearly as strong of a value proposition as making your own powdered laundry soap. There is a bargain to be found here, but making your own powdered dishwashing soap saves pennies, not dollars.

That doesn’t mean I won’t do it, of course. I’ll happily keep using my borax and washing soda mix on my dishes. Sixty cents for two minutes of work is an hourly rate of $18 in pure savings, which isn’t bad at all. Just don’t expect to change your entire world by making your own dishwashing soap.

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. Move in together
2. The crossover point for cars
3. Freelancer feeling desperate
4. Retirement and wedding
5. Basics of prepaid credit cards
6. Debt repayment planning
7. Teenage kids and cars
8. Zucchini bread
9. Self-conscious about hobbies
10. Child discipline

Six homecooked meals. A dance recital from not just one, but two of our children. A community festival. A parade. A grocery store trip. An air conditioner failure. A case of explosive illness from the third child.

All in a weekend’s work, I suppose. I need a nap.

Q1: Move in together
My boyfriend and I are considering moving in together, and both of us are very good budgeters. We both use a percentage-based plan where your take-home pay gets divided into categories which each have a percentage amount, e.g. housing 35%, investing 15% etc. My question is about how to account for a child support obligation he has from a prior relationship. Does that get taken off his take-home pay amount before he puts that into the budget, or does his take-home amount include the child support and then it’s part of his miscellaneous money? Under our ideal plan, we would each contribute a percentage to a joint account, but maintain some of our own money for retirement account, savings and miscellaneous money for clothes, books, video games or whatever personal purchases we might make for fun. Since he makes more money than me, he can afford for his child support to come out of there. But I am not sure whether that is fair and whether we should be counting his take-home pay as what it is before the child support gets deducted or as what it is after. What do you think? And do you have any general advice about moving in together with a yours/mine/ours money melding?
- Jill

It depends on whether or not his wages are being garnished for the child support. Most of the time, it functions much like an ordinary bill.

The fairest way to do this is to treat it as any other bill that you have to pay, alongside electricity, insurance, and the like. This is exactly how I would treat such a bill in our marriage.

My biggest advice for people who move in together is to talk about things. Communicate. Do it even if it feels awkward. You’re going to get along much better if you actually understand what each other is thinking rather than hiding thoughts and allowing them to fester.

Q2: The crossover point for cars
I have been a avid reader of your blog for a long time and now could use some impartial advice about car repairs…I have a 2006 car which has been fully paid off for three years, and has about 90K miles on it. I had planned on keeping the car for another four years or so and then purchasing another car. I take good care of the car in terms of maintaining it and keeping up its appearance, since I rely on it so much. But this year the car has needed some significant repairs (about $2,000 so far) and I have just been told that I need additional repairs (possibly another $3,000 or so) before the year is over.

My question is, when does it become less cost efficient to keep putting money into repairs vs. buying another car? I would like to think that these repairs are a one-time thing, but since the car is getting up there in terms of mileage I feel I will probably be putting more money into the car over the coming years, over and above regular maintenance. The car has a decent blue book value (about $15K) so with the current shortage of used cars I could probably get a good price for it and put that towards another car, however I’m not sure I want to take on a car payment right now. I do have some money saved that I can add to that so my payments will be lower, but not enough so I can buy a car with cash. Any advice?
- Denise

There are all kinds of “rules” for when the right moment is to trade in a car and get another one, but the best metric I’ve found is simply trusting your gut. If you have a sense that a car is no longer reliable, then you shouldn’t be sticking with it. It’s going to cause you far more headaches than it’s worth.

The key thing to remember is that the core reason you own a car is to get you from point A to point B, and if that car is no longer reliably getting you from point A to point B, then it doesn’t really have much value.

Listen to your gut on this one. You’ve driven that car for a lot of miles. Is it still reliable? The answer there will lead you to the right place.

Q3: Freelancer feeling desperate
I am an artist/wordpress website maker. i moved to California because I was feeling sad at home (Canada) and figured … I’m not sure. It didn’t work out as expected – money from Canada didn’t show up as planned, so now I’m wondering, should I get an under the table job? Or what? I have no dollars of any kind left, and have spent $600 in the last three months- there’s nothing left to cut.

I’m really talented and built my own website- I’m just not hooked up with people who need me. And i’m feeling desparate and that’s not attractive!

Anyways, would love some ideas on where to start!
- Kendra

The fact that you survived in California for three months while only spending $600 tells me either that you’re homeless and live on Alpo or you have some friends or family helping you. If neither is true, you need to start a website on frugality.

My experience has been that your work speaks for itself. If you create something good and put it out there, people will notice it.

If you’re a WordPress website maker, make some WordPress templates. Make your own website and share some of them freely and perhaps charge for others. Show off what you can really do. On your own website (which should be linked on the templates you give away), make your sales pitch for yourself. It takes time, but good things will happen if you produce quality stuff.

Q4: Retirement and wedding
I currently make 52k/yr and contribute 6% to 401k with 6% employer match, 5% to roth 401K, and max out an IRA. My company provides a bonus (profit sharing plan) March of every year. The benefit has been paid the last 10 years so it’s pretty much a guarantee. I stand to make 10% of my salary if it’s paid again this year. It’s paid as a bonus so the taxes are around 40%. We have the option of taking cash or putting 85% into 401k and taking rest (I guess at least 15% needs to be taxed). My long time boyfriend and I live together and have been talking about a potential wedding date of January 2014 (we want to get our finances in order first but that’s another conversation). I’d like to use the bonus the next two years and put it towards the wedding. Since the bonus is taxed at 40%, would it make more sense to lower contributions on 401k to 0% and throw the bonus into the 401k (my employer will match the bonus also as long as it hasn’t hit 6% for year) and save the money that would have gone to 401k towards wedding since it’s taxed at a lower rate?
- Jolie

If your 401(k) plan allows you to do this, then it makes sense to me. Just make sure that you’re allowed to do this before cutting your contributions.

More importantly, though, I’d ask myself if a wedding is something I want to dump that much money into.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have had an even simpler wedding than the one we had. Yes, it’s a big moment in your life, but it’s your moment. Share it just with the people who matter most in a simple way that reflects you and move on with life.

Q5: Basics of prepaid credit cards
I am curious to know if you can try to explain the confusing topic prepaid credit cards. I am an airline professional, who was furloughed several times after the 9-11 attacks. As a result, I defaulted on credit card payments, you know the story…you’ve heard it many times. I am now looking for a prepaid credit card that I can use for travel purposes (i.e. renting a car) I need to choose a card that will help me rebuild my credit with the lowest amount of fees and red tape. Any ideas as to which card you would choose? Any insight you could provide would be helpful.
- Rob

A prepaid credit card is one where you provide a deposit on the card before you can use it. Usually, that deposit is equal to your credit limit on the card. This is done to protect the credit card issuer from someone who has a very poor credit history.

When you sign up for such a card, you typically must pay the deposit up front. Often, it’s an amount on the order of $500. After that, it’s just like any other card, except that if you cancel the card, you get your deposit back, but if you just fail to pay the bills, they close the card and pay off your debt from your deposit.

Most prepaid cards are very straightforward and very similar. I would probably use such a card from a bank that I might be doing business with in the future on a home loan or another financial move along those lines.

Q6: Debt repayment planning
My husband and I are planning a big life change in 2-3 years where we will move from the DC Area (both working full-time jobs grossing $137k a year, paying a mortage of $2,093 a month on a $315,000 townhouse) to North Carolina where our families are. The cost of living is much lower in that area and we expect that we’ll be able to buy a house for around $150k. We were married two years ago and plan to start our family once we are settled there. Once that happens, I plan to only work part-time, or even ideally not at all.

We have a number of debts. As our lives are now, we have about $10k in savings and after paying all of our bills and debt monthly we can save about $800 a month. We would like to start putting this money towards our debt so that when we go back our obligations might be a little less. So in 24 months, we could realistically have about $19,200 extra paid towards these debts (on top of the minimum payment we are already paying monthly).

Which should we tackle first? I know the ones with the largest interest rates should be first, but is there anything else to consider? Do you have any advice about negotiating lower interest rates for some of these items that seem out of wack?
- Brianna

There really are two schools of thought on which debt to tackle first.

The one that will offer the lowest total amount for repayment is the one where you start by focusing on the highest interest debt, then move down the ladder as you pay them off.

The one that focuses on psychological self-motivation (a.k.a. the Dave Ramsey plan) tells you to pay off the debt with the smallest balance first.

They both work as long as you stick with it.

As for negotiating a lower rate, it’s always worth trying as long as you’re fine with the credit holder cutting off your line of credit. They may do this if they perceive that you’re negotiating from a place where you may have difficulty paying off the debt in the future.

Q7: Teenage kids and cars
I have a combination kids/cars question for you: what will you do about transportation when your kids get old enough for part-time jobs, and later, going off to college? You have said you want to live in the country, so I assume there will be no public transportation. If your kids start after-school jobs, and later work while going to college, how will they get about? Will the bus system in the college town actually be workable for those crazy college kid work/school schedules? Would you want your daughter to ride a bus after a late waitressing shift in a college town, for example, or will you feel you have to help her get a reliable car? What if they win scholarships to different schools and can’t share rides? What if it’s actually cheaper to rent an apartment than live in a dorm (it was here), which means commuting to and from campus at all hours? What if they live at home for two years and commute to a community college? I have witnessed so many goggle-eyed parents who thought they had it planned, who suddenly find they need to provide transportation to 2 or 3 kids going in differing directions; kids who are working hard and covering as much expense as they can with their part-time paychecks. How can that be planned for, to avoid the sudden crunch of, say, two car purchases in four years, not counting mom or dad’s which might need to be replaced by then? I never see this addressed anywhere, and in rural areas, it’s a real issue.
- Joanie

Anything can be planned for if you start saving right now. If this is something that concerns you, then start saving for it.

I don’t feel that my children will need a car. I’ll buy them a bicycle if they want faster transportation in college. I did not own a car during my entire college career, though I had multiple jobs in various places around town with some of them having crazy hours. I even lived off campus for a few years. The city bus system and my bicycle handled things just fine.

At some point, you have to decide to let your children fly, even if their first flaps of their wings are difficult ones. Where do you draw the line between dependence and independence? For me, it’s shortly after they exit high school – and if they’re not ready for independence at that point, I’ve failed in my entire plan as a parent.

Q8: Zucchini bread
You’ve mentioned your zucchini bread on the blog a few times but I don’t think you’ve ever posted the recipe. Since we’re in the middle of zucchini season right now, could you post something on it? I’m knee-deep in zucchini from my CSA and need a good way to use it!
- Marc

Be warned, this isn’t a health food.

Mix together two cups of sugar, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Add three eggs, one at a time, and mix until everything is consistent. Then, add three cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 1 cup chopped black walnuts, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, and two cups of peeled and shredded zucchini. Take two loaf pans, coat the inside of each pan with a bit of vegetable oil, then cover that vegetable oil layer lightly in flour. Pour half of the batter in each pan. Bake at 350 F for about 55 minutes. Put the loaf pans (with the cooked bread still in them) on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, then remove the bread from the pans. It’s ready to eat!

I like my zucchini bread warm with a bit of butter or margarine on it.

Q9: Self-conscious about hobbies
One of the things I like about The Simple Dollar is that you’re unashamed of your “nerdy” hobbies, such as playing board games and reading and painting figurines.

This is something I have trouble doing. My two favorite hobbies are knitting and doll-making. I love spending my spare time doing this and I even have an extra room in my apartment devoted to these hobbies. But whenever hobbies come up in a conversation, I hide these things.

Do you have any suggestions about how to introduce a “quirky” hobby to people?
- Catelyn

I think this feeling often comes as a natural outgrowth of being introverted. My solution is to not be ashamed of it at all. If you act ashamed of your hobby, then other people will feel completely free to disregard it. You’re telling them it’s okay to think it’s nerdy because you think it’s nerdy.

I have no problem telling anyone in the world that I enjoy playing board games. It’s my hobby. So is reading and so is cooking.

I do think about ways to describe my hobbies to others in ways that will intrigue the most people, but the key thing I always do is simply make sure that I’m not ashamed of what I spend my time doing. If it’s something I’m ashamed of, why would I be doing it?

Q10: Child discipline
I truly value your opinions and was wondering if you have any recommendations for books on child discipline?
- Mike

The first time you face a rebellious toddler, parenting can seem like an absolute nightmare. I’ve been there and I know exactly what you’re going through.

The problem is that there is no recipe for managing your child that works for all children. For example, the ideas in 1-2-3 Magic worked wonderfully with my oldest son, but were practically useless with my daughter. She tended to respond better to techniques along the lines of Parent Effectiveness Training.

My advice is to not give up if a particular set of tactics seem not to work with your child. Try a different approach.

Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). 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 or other book of interest. Also available is a complete list of the hundreds of book reviews that have appeared on The Simple Dollar over the years.

I’ve often talked about how having a social network that challenges you to improve yourself and encourages you towards good behavior can deeply shape how you think and the choices you make. Although I largely observed this idea on my own, a reader recently pointed me toward this book, Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, which essentially argues the same idea in great detail.

Goleman’s premise is simple: good relationships support our physical and mental health and drive us to improve ourselves in a positive fashion, while negative relationships do just the opposite. The social network we build has a great deal to do with how we think and how we behave on our own.

The impact of this idea on personal finance is tremendous. If you associate with people who have solid views on personal finance, personal growth, and career development, you’ll naturally draw on these ideas to shape your own path in your finances, your career, and your life.

While I discuss the ideas with a broad brush below, Goleman goes into these with great detail, often discussing how they work on a biological level. Friendships and relationships change us biologically, in other words.

Wired to Connect
Our brains are wired to make connections with other people. Even deeper than that, our interactions with others shape our behavior again and again in subtle ways. A simple example of this is the fact that how people interact with us alters our self-image, but it goes far beyond that. We often subtly emulate the behaviors we see other people taking on in various situations, trying these behaviors on for ourselves. Thus, if we associate with people who have good behaviors in a wide variety of situations, our repeated viewing of these behaviors begins to affect who we are and how we act.

Broken Bonds
Obviously, there’s a negative side to this. When people treat us poorly, we begin to reduce our own self-image. When we lose someone, we can feel lost ourselves. The social bonds that break in our lives can break us. The key to getting past this is improving our understanding of other people. Others are mortal. They feel pain. They die. They make mistakes. They have their own goals and dreams. It’s not necessarily a poor reflection on us if the goals and dreams of someone else do not involve us, though it can be a sign that we need to improve some aspect of ourselves. That’s all about self-improvement, though, not self-loathing.

Nurturing Nature
Goleman takes on the “nature versus nurture” question here and argues that, while our nature does form some aspects of who we are, much of who we are is formed by the people around us and the interactions we have. For instance, if someone is rather antisocial by nature, the best way to overcome that isn’t by just saying “Well, it’s my genes,” it’s by associating with people who find social interaction to be easy. The best approach you can take is to be honest and open with yourself about your flaws and make a point to seek out others that can, through social intelligence, help you overcome those flaws. Find friends that bring out the best in you.

Love’s Varieties
Obviously, these concepts relate deeply to love and committed relationships. Relationships are the end result of a large number of social encounters, and people who are in relationships often powerfully shape each other in more ways than they realize. Most married people will tell you that the flow of their married life, even when they’re without their partner, is different than the flow of their previous single life.

Healthy Connections
Goleman argues that stress is almost entirely a social phenomenon because it indicates on some level that we feel we’re letting others down. The healthiest relationships we have – the ones that lack stress – are often the strongest ones we have. Think of your closest friends, for instance, or your spouse. Healthy connections (the ones that do not provide us with stress) are incredibly valuable in our life because they allow us to make deep connections and learn an incredible amount.

Social Consequence
A healthy life is one that finds a happy medium between stress and boredom. In either extreme case, we’re unproductive and often unhappy. The key is to find situations and relationships where we’re neither bored nor stressed out. This applies in almost every situation in life, from having a dinner with acquaintances to working on a project in the workplace. A stressed-out person simply does not perform well, nor does a bored person. Thus, if you want to succeed or want the people around you to succeed, you need a warm and enjoyable environment. Often, that’s one filled with people that you have (or can have) positive interactions with. Shared positive interactions create the kind of stress-killing that leads to success.

Is Social Intelligence Worth Reading?
Many of the conclusions in Social Intelligence feel like common sense. Some of them, though, are revelations. All of them are backed up with some solid cognitive theory.

If you want to really understand the science between human interactions and how being a bit more thoughtful about those interactions can have a profound positive impact on many different aspects of your life, read Social Intelligence. It’s a fairly long book and can be challenging at times, but it can certainly be profoundly rewarding.

Check out additional reviews and notes of Social Intelligence on Amazon.com.

Sharon writes in:

How do you manage the balance between saving for the future and for your own personal goals with a desire to give to those less fortunate than you? It feels like they’re going in opposite directions.

To an extent, this is a struggle for virtually everyone in the first world. Everyone reading this lives well into the upper half of the world in terms of standard of living. We constantly spend money on aspects of a standard of living that far outstrips anything in the lifestyle of the poorest people in the world.

This is a philosophical issue I’ve worked on for a long time in my own mind and I’ve come up with a handful of conclusions about it.

First, it’s not really saving your money that runs in opposition to giving. It’s spending your money with reckless abandon. Money saved in an investment or in a savings account is still yours to use at a later time, but money spent on unnecessary things is money that’s essentially lost to you.

At the same time, the ideas that push me to be a saver are the same ideas that push me to reduce that unnecessary spending. The less you spend on unnecessary things, the more you’re able to save. Alternately, the less you spend on unnecessary things, the more you’re able to give.

So, what about saving versus giving?

There’s no reason not to do both. Many religions, for example, encourage their followers to give 10% of their income to the less fortunate. Other people happily donate to charities of all kinds. These kinds of gifts help to make a difference but don’t cause the people who give to fall into financial hardship to make the donation. They’re very capable of saving an additional portion of their income beyond what they give to charity.

Having some savings means that you have less chance of becoming reliant on charitable giving. This enables the money that’s given to charitable organizations to go to other people who need it instead of you. This is, in itself, a charitable act.

Many large savings goals retain their value when reached. My wife and I are saving for a large home in the country. When we buy that land and build that home, we do so with the knowledge that we will some day be able to sell it and recoup our investment. It’s not lost money.

There’s no reason not to pass on a large portion of your estate to those less fortunate. My wife and I plan to leave behind only small portions of whatever estate we leave to our children and grandchildren and have the rest go to charitable groups. This enables us to protect ourselves while we’re living from draining charitable programs while delivering the wealth we’ve accumulated to charitable programs when we’re no longer around.

Charity is more than just donating money. Time donation is another powerful form of charity. Simply giving some of your hours to fulfill the needs of a charity is a powerful gift. Along those same lines, giving your skills is another powerful non-monetary gift you can give, one that translates into a monetary savings or pathway to more donations for the charity.

When I think about my savings and my charitable giving, I try to think about where exactly each dollar of mine will end up. If I know that there’s a good likelihood that the dollar will remain in my estate for the rest of my life (and eventually be donated after my passing) or be used in some method that will prevent a charity from investing in me, I feel good about how the dollar is used. It’s yet another motivation for me to make wise moves when it comes to what I do with every dollar that comes into my life.