Almost every day, I’ll get an email or two from a reader wanting me to evaluate a particular credit card with a rewards program associated with it.

“Is the Chase Amazon card a good deal?”

“Does that Target Visa really pay off?”

“Is the points program on this card better than the points program on this other card?”

Here’s the deal: the same exact set of ideas govern how I would answer all of these questions – and many more questions like them. It also governs how I handle my own reward credit cards.

Ready?

It doesn’t matter what rewards card you have if you’re carrying a balance. Let me repeat that. The reward program for your card doesn’t matter at all if you’re carrying a balance on it. What matters in that case, far above all else, is the interest rate on the card.

Ideally, you’ll never carry a monthly balance on a credit card. That’s what I’ve managed to do for the last several years, to my own relief. A balance on a credit card means that you’re going to be paying interest to the credit card issuer at an interest rate designated by them. You don’t want to be doing that, because that interest rate is often a painful one.

However, I know that many people do carry balances on their card. If you’re in that boat, the number one factor you need to be looking at – by far – is the interest rate on your card. The rewards program is of tiny consequence next to the interest rate. A card with no rewards program that offers a 7.9% APR is far better than the best rewards program out there on a card that has a 14.9% APR if you’re carrying a balance.

Once you’re past that step and aren’t carrying a balance on a card, it’s worthwhile to note that the best rewards program is the one that’s effortless for you. In other words, it’s the one that most closely matches what you buy and where you buy it.

For example, if your grocery store that you shop at every week has a credit card offer, it should go right to the top of your list, simply because such a card will often offer in-house rewards that will defeat almost anything else you can get. If your gas station that you always fill up at has a credit card offer, you’ll want to look at that one first, too.

It’s not too hard, with the right card, to get a 6% or 7% return on your card use (assuming, of course, you pay off your balance in full each month).

I’ll use a simple example. Let’s say you do your grocery shopping, department store shopping, and pharmacy business at your local Super Target. The Target Visa gives you 5% off on all purchases. On top of that, when you fill ten prescriptions using that card, you receive an additional certificate giving you another 5% off of your purchases for a single day. With some planning, that’s easily going to be 6% off your spending at that store. (However, it doesn’t save you a bit when shopping elsewhere.)

There are many similar cards tied to specific retailers. For example, if you live in an area where your local BP station offers the best gas prices, a BP Visa card will give you a 5% rebate on all gas purchased there.

The rewards on cards like these, when matched with a retailer you already use, is far ahead of the rewards you can get on non-specific cards. The advantage with cards like these is that you don’t have to do any planning or any extra purchasing to get the rewards. They’re just already in line with what you do.

What if you truly don’t have any cards available that match your regular retailers? To be honest, most of the non-specific programs are pretty similar. The best ones offer a reward of around 2% of your purchases and sometimes include a small signup bonus (some include a larger signup bonus, but with restrictions).

This brings me to my third point. No rewards card is worth buying stuff you wouldn’t already buy. If you have to make qualifying purchases, start shopping at a different store, or have to spend a specific amount each month, just skip the program. The cost and effort associated with having your spending dictated by a company exceeds any rewards.

So, if you want to find the best rewards program, do three things. First, don’t carry a balance on your card or else you’re just wasting your time. Second, choose cards in line with how you already shop. Third, avoid cards that require you to buy more stuff or shop in different places. If you follow these three guidelines, you’ll quickly arrive at the right rewards card for your situation.

Sarah and I have a pretty solid arrangement with regards to discretionary spending that tends to work well for us. Simply put, we talk about our goals so often that we basically trust each other when it comes to discretionary spending. It works for us because we’re on the same page when it comes to spending money in that we’d rather both hit our long term goals than have some of the short term things that don’t mean as much.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t both spend money unnecessarily – we’re not hermits, after all. Sarah’s big weaknesses are books and “natural” goods. Mine are books and board games.

For me, at least, I will sometimes pick up a book that I’ve been wanting to read without really thinking about it. I also do a lot of book and game trading via the mail, so sometimes postage can add up.

A few months ago, I went on a big “trade by mail” tear and burnt through quite a bit of postage without thinking about it too much. At the end of the month, I took a look at our remaining money in our checking account and it was notably lower than I expected.

This wasn’t a real problem – after all, we’re talking about having maybe 5-10% less than expected, not anything approaching an overdraft. Still, it raised some alarm bells for me.

Little purchases happen all the time. Someone buys gum in the checkout aisle. Someone else buys a beer after work. Another person might pick up a few rented movies.

Little purchases can also add up. Spend $3 on average each day and forget about it and at the end of the month you find yourself with nearly $100 in shortfall.

How exactly can I handle “forgetfulness” in terms of discretionary spending?

I’ve put a system in place to help me control this type of financially flawed forgetfulness.

First, I simply take out a small amount of cash each month from my checking account. This is more than enough to cover the postage on the packages I mail out and cover a few small incidental purchases.

I essentially use that withdrawn money for all of my little purchases over the course of a month. If I mail a package that’s related to a hobby, I use that cash. If I buy a pack of gum at the store, I use that cash. If I pick up a book at a bookstore, I use that cash.

I don’t really worry about keeping track of it as long as I have some remaining cash in my wallet. I recognize that little things like this will happen and I’ve alloted some money for it.

If I find that my cash has run dry, then I start paying very careful attention to my discretionary spending. Often, I’ll just completely say “no” to any such small discretionary purchases. The exception to that is if I’ve pledged to trade something by mail, in which case I usually go ahead and mail it.

If I splurge beyond that “discretionary spending” amount in a given month, I withdraw less next month. This way, I don’t begin to establish a new standard for how much I can spend a month. If I’m suddenly allowing myself to spend $40 more a month without thinking about it, then I’m probably going to find ways to thoughtlessly spend that $40.

One key part of all of this is that I’m pretty happy with my level of discretionary money right now. It gives me the freedom to buy some little things, but it also safeguards me against interfering with the big things that I want. I don’t resent the amount because I know that I usually don’t need the things I’m buying with it, I have the freedom to use it however I’d like, and the rest of my money is going toward more important things.

It’s actually pretty liberating, in a way. I don’t have to micromanage purchases in the moment and I also can feel confident that the long term is taken care of, too. For me, it’s a win-win approach to the little purchases in life.

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.

Calista writes in: Does making your own baby food purees save pennies or dollars?

As always, it depends on the source of the food you use to make the puree. If you’re using excess produce from your garden, it’s going to be cheaper, of course.

However, where Calista raises an interesting point is with fresh fruits and vegetables that you can buy at a very low price at the grocery store. How do you decide when it’s worth it to make it yourself versus simply buying those convenient Gerber baby food containers?

I’ll use bananas as an example. I can frequently buy bananas at my local grocery store for $0.49 a pound – and, often, they’re on sale for less than that. If I peel out a pound of bananas, I’m left with about eleven ounces of fruit, based on my weighings on my kitchen scale. To this, I would add roughly five ounces of water, milk, or formula to create a smooth texture, then puree it in a blender. After that, I’ll have to individually package it in some method, usually by filling up an ice cube tray with the puree and freezing it. Boom – a pound of “banana baby food” for about $0.50.

On the other hand, I can buy a 3.5 ounce tub of pureed bananas from Gerber for $0.57 per container (16 containers for $9.13). A pound of these containers would be about the same as four and a half of these containers, or $2.28.

In other words, I’m saving about $1.78 per pound of bananas that I turn into baby food. This requires the time to peel a few bananas, put them in the blender, add some liquid, hit the puree button, then pour the liquid into the ice cube tray and pop it in the freezer. That’s about five minutes of work for a pound of baby banana puree.

So, in the case of straight-up bananas, you’re saving dollars and not cents making the baby food yourself.

So, what’s the cutoff for value? I’d be willing to make my own baby food if I were saving about $8 per hour. I would estimate that I could convert a pound of raw foods (like bananas) into baby food in about five minutes, and a pound of food I’d have to cook (like broccoli) into baby food in about ten minutes. Thus, I’d have to spend an hour to convert twelve pounds of raw food into baby food or six pounds of cooked food into baby food.

It costs roughly $2.28 to buy a pound of processed baby food, or $13.68 for six pounds of processed baby food or $27.36 for twelve pounds of processed baby food.

To make cooked baby food worthwhile, I’d have to find a source of the food at $5.68 ($13.68 minus $8) for six pounds of the food, or about $0.95 per pound for the raw food. So, if you can find, say, broccoli at $0.95 a pound or less, it’s probably worth your time to turn it into cooked baby food.

To make raw baby food worthwhile, I’d have to find a source of the food at $19.36 ($27.36 minus $8) for twelve pounds of the food, or about $1.61 per pound for the food. So, if you can find, say, bananas at $1.61 per pound or less, it’s probably worth your time to turn it into cooked baby food.

In the end, you can certainly save dollars by turning some foods, like bananas, into baby food. It gets trickier when you look at out-of-season fruits and vegetables, though, as the cost for a pound of those foods tends to make the savings quite small (and can even result in a loss).

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. Saving for future dream home
2. Setting a budget
3. Forgiving loans to stimulate economy
4. Should we buy a house?
5. Best book of 2011
6. Repaying an old debt
7. Baby life insurance
8. Paying off no-interest loan
9. Mortgage payoff paperwork
10. Vegan to vegetarian

I’ve learned some things and gained some new insights from the Occupy Wall Street movement. They encouraged me to learn more about the issues they’re protesting about and made me reconsider some of my political ideas.

The thing is, I could make the same exact statement about the Tea Party movement.

You can always learn something and grow from anyone, particularly when people congregate under the same banner. Something is making them do this. Why? What makes them so passionate about the idea that they take action? There’s usually something valuable there if you take the time to learn about it instead of just discarding it.

Q1: Saving for future dream home
I was just wondering how you and your family save for your future dream home? Do you put it in a Index fund? If so, at what point would you move it out from that and into a cash account? I remember reading unless my goal is greater than 10 years away, to just keep it as cash. Does that mean 10 years out from your goal you would move it into a savings?
- Fred

For us, we sat down and asked ourselves what needed to be in place for us to move forward with our plans for a dream home. We decided that we needed to be able to pay cash for the land and have our current house completely paid for before we decided to move forward with the plan. Mostly, this is because we’re pretty debt-averse. Ideally, we would like to buy the land with cash, then use the future sale of our house as collateral to build, then put our house onto the market as soon as (or just before) we’re able to move.

Once we had that set in mind, we asked ourselves what financial moves would get us to our goal as quickly as possible. After playing around with several investment and debt calculators, we came to the conclusion that the approach that would lead to success most effectively was a split approach, where we made larger-than-average payments on our mortgage while also contributing a small amount each month to some sort of investment.

Since our timeline for this is a little more than a decade off, we elected to use an index fund for this savings. We are placing half of our savings into Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, which basically indexes most domestic stocks, and half in Vanguard Total International Stock Index, which indexes a wide variety of international stocks.

We re-evaluate these choices every year, watching how the investment grows and adjusting our splitting of our “savings” on an annual basis. As we get closer to the date where we’re able to do this (a date that’s inching earlier and earlier, actually), we’ll move the stock investments into something more conservative that won’t lose value.

Q2: Setting a budget
A friend of mine (she’s 23 and single, part time student with a good paying job and benefits) asked me about budgeting. She said she looks up to my frugal ways and wanted to know if her budget was good percentage wise. I was embarrassed to tell her that other than making sure that housing is no more that 25% of your gross and saving AT LEAST 10% per month, I didn’t know what the “rules” were for percentage of income in the other areas (needs, wants, debt repayment, etc). My personal method is to list my fixed expenses first (of which I include tithe, retirement and regular savings as fixed expenses) and then I try to keep all my other stuff (gas, groceries, entertainment, etc) as low as humanly possible, and then either save the remainder at the end of the month for short term stuff or other things we are working towards (home improvement, vacation). Can you tell me the rule of thumb for budgets? What percentage should be housing, savings, transportation, needs, wants, etc?
- Jill

The problem with sticking to someone else’s recipe for percentages is that they vary widely. The proportion of housing costs, for example, depends heavily on where you live, your housing requirements, and your total salary. For example, a single person making $30,000 a year in New York City is going to have a lot higher percentage of their annual income devoted to housing than a married couple making $120,000 a year in rural Iowa.

The best way to budget is to simply track all of your expenses for a few months, then use that data to calculate the percentages of what you’re actually spending. Then, spend some time thinking about that data. What can you actually cut? What percentages would you like to see elsewhere?

You can categorize all of your spending however you’d like. Just make sure that it’s grouped in ways that make easy sense to you.

Q3: Forgiving loans to stimulate economy
I keep seeing posts on Facebook about asking the government to forgive student loan debts. I’m no economist, but I cannot understand how not repaying the government could prove to be a good idea (though it would benefit me). I’d be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.
- Andy

The idea is that if the government forgave student loan debt, a lot of people under the age of 40 would suddenly have a lot more discretionary income. They would of course then spend that discretionary income, thus stimulating the economy.

Think of it in terms of your situation. If your student loans vanished, you’d probably use that money in other ways. You might buy some things you’ve wanted. You might make a down payment on a house much sooner rather than later.

All of those things would help out the economic recovery. It would be a huge economic boon at the sake of some significant government income over the next few decades. It would increase personal income tax a bit and also increase business revenue a bit too so the government would get to recoup some of it in the form of tax revenues.

Q4: Should we buy a house?
My husband and I are in our early 30′s. We are both from India and have been working in the United States (Texas) for 6 years now. We have no debts and are pretty disciplined about savings. We are on H1b (work) visas and hope to get our Green Card in the next 2 or 3 years.

We have been renting and would like to know if its a good idea to buy a house in the current market? Does it make sense to buy if there is chance that for some reason our GC is not approved and we have to move back to India? Our concern is that we would most probably end up staying and might be wasting money paying rent when we could already be investing in our house. What additional expenses are we looking at and is there anything we need to keep in mind if there is a need to sell in the next 1, 2 or 3 yrs?
- Claire

The best time to buy a house is when you can afford one and it meets your housing needs. If you’re buying a home as a residence, that’s the primary consideration.

Market timing on a home purchase is only a good idea if you’re able to move it easily as an investment. That’s much harder to do if it’s your primary residence. Besides, the future is notoriously difficult to predict. I wouldn’t make a house-buying decision based on the arcane art of market timing.

One point of advice, though. Without a green card, you may find that some lending institutions are hesitant to offer you a mortgage, even if you have a full down payment and good credit, as you might be a risk of just disappearing back into your home country. Don’t let it get you down and shop around.

Q5: Best book of 2011
Your list of your favorite authors was a bit overwhelming. How about just sharing your favorite book so far this year?
- Leslie

I’ll name two books. No, three.

The most enjoyable book I’ve read this year so far, at least in terms of keeping me entertained and keeping me turning the pages, was The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a fantasy novel that centers around a small handful of really compelling characters, plus Sanderson has a particular gift for making it all come to life.

The most thought-provoking book I’ve read this year so far, in terms of making me reflect on it and altering my way of thinking, was Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, which focuses on the neuroscience of memory and how to improve one’s own memory. I’ve also got to give a nod to Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, the best book on running I’ve ever read.

Q6: Repaying an old debt
I have about $6000 in debt on my credit report, most of it over 5 years old. I started saving in order to pay it off but someone mentioned to me and I think you wrote that making a payment will bring the debt current. If in fact the debt falls off after 7 years, is it worth it to may payments on it and in essence bring the debt current or just let it fade away?
- Ryan

In terms of honesty and repaying money you borrowed from someone, of course it’s not the right thing to do.

In terms of strictly looking at your credit report, the debt is probably best left unpaid.

To me, this is really backwards. The current credit score system in this country encourages people to do the dishonest thing if debts have gone unpaid for more than a year or two. I am not a fan of the current way in which credit is evaluated in the United States.

Q7: Baby life insurance
My husband and I just had our first child. We are young newlyweds and are looking for advice on what type of life insurance to buy for our baby and also the easiest way to create a will. Thank you!
- Jill

The easiest way to create a legal will is a service like LegalZoom. They’re perfect for a relatively simple process like creating a basic legal will.

As for buying life insurance for a baby, I generally don’t think it’s a good idea. The purpose of having a life insurance policy is to protect the family in the event of the demise of a breadwinner. The passing of a child doesn’t fall under this category. If it does happen, it’s an expense that you can easily manage and keep moving forward.

If you’re worried about a situation where your child is uninsurable in their twenties or thirties because of a medical condition, these situations are quite rare. Virtually everyone in their twenties or thirties is insurable to at least some level, and most everyone is insurable at a pretty reasonable cost.

Take the money you would have put into life insurance for your baby and apply it to something else, like a college savings plan.

Q8: Paying off no interest loan
I’ve been reading your blog along with several others and all have the same ideas about debt (bad) and savings (good) and how debt can inhibit your ability to save; I’m totally into it. I have no high interest credit card debt as of this month (woot!) and now only have three sources of debt, my mortgage, my wife’s student loan, and a no-interest loan from my parents. They sold me a Toyota Highlander for $9,000 and asked for a monthly payment of $200 until the loan is paid off. I’m about $3,000 into paying it off at this rate. Is there any conceivable benefit to paying it off earlier? To me it seems like free money. Thanks.
- Carl

If you’re looking at it strictly as a debt, there’s no benefit in paying it off early. If you have a zero-interest loan, you’re always better off paying it as slowly as you can.

The catch here is that it’s a loan between family members. A loan between family members is one that’s often made possible because of the strength of a pre-existing relationship. In essence, that relationship is extra collateral on the loan. If you don’t pay that loan off, you can damage the relationship. On the other hand, if you pay that loan off with expedience, you often can strengthen that relationship.

I’m pretty strongly opposed to loans between family members. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably debt snowball this family loan just like the rest of my loans.

Q9: Mortgage payoff paperwork
I’d love to get your advice on a mortgage issue. After much aggressive prepayment of principal, I’ll be sending in my last mortgage check next month. It’s a birthday present to me to pay a 30-year mortgage off in 13 years. Many might call it crazy, but I’m thrilled. So here’s the question:

What papers does the mortgage company need to send me to prove I’ve paid off the mortgage? Are there any documents they (or I) should file with the county where I live in Virginia? I seem to recall my mortgage company sending some notice that you must PAY them to get the payoff papers. That would be outrageous. They’ve made a handsome profit on me, and I’ll fight any additional fees. I thought I’d try the high road first, by calling for the exact payout, sending the check, and then writing them a nice letter asking them to register and send the paid documents to me as soon as possible. Problem is, I’m not sure what to ask for. Please let me know what I must get from them and add info on any optional things it would be nice to get.

You know the saying: a happy customer tells 3-5 friends, and a unhappy customer tells a dozen. Don’t recall the numbers in the saying, but I’m ready to rain a boatload of bad publicity down on them if a responsible customer is ripped off by a bogus money-grubbing policy. Sorry I’m so vehement, but I really want to do this right. I’ll start with a positive letter and ratchet up as needed.
- Alan

The process for this varies from state to state. The usual procedure is that when you pay off a loan in full, the mortgage company then contacts the state, releasing their lien from your home mortgage, at which point the county clerk mails you a copy of your lien-free house title.

If I were you, I’d contact both the mortgage company and the county recorder of deeds to find out what’s next. If you’ve paid off your mortgage, your county’s recorder of deeds should be aware of this and should be able to help you with the next step.

Usually, what will happen is that you’ll have to get a notarized copy of your lien-free deed from the county recorder. That’s legal proof that you own the house free and clear.

Q10: Vegan to vegetarian
I’ve noticed lately that you seem to have switched from being vegan to being vegetarian. What gives?
- Chloe

Last October, I started a vegan diet due to the suggestions of a dietitian who was advising me on some minor medical concerns. This lasted for about nine months, at which point my health was in a better place.

The biggest reason I switched back to vegetarianism is that being vegan – meaning that I eat no meat nor any foods containing animal protein like eggs and cheese – is an incredibly difficult diet with three young children. For a long time, we simply followed their pediatrician’s recommendation that we feed them normally by essentially preparing two different meals each day or by serving them a vegan meal with a heavy protein component to it. This meant lots and lots and lots of beans.

Vegetarianism is simply more flexible, while retaining most of the health-oriented reasons for my original dietary switch. I’m pretty happy with how things are going with it.

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.

One of the most interesting realizations I’ve ever made about my money-spending habits is that, when I was spending money hand over fist on things I really didn’t need, I was mostly seeking fulfillment.

I had this sense that there was something missing in my life in a really deep way, but I didn’t really know how to fill that hole. What I found is that when I spent money freely, I could often cover up that sense of emptiness for a short while, but it always came back. As my financial position got worse and worse, that sense of emptiness got bigger, not smaller.

Eventually, I started to ask myself the real question that mattered. What fulfills me? For me, it’s about my family. It’s about reading and learning new things. It’s about playing board and card games with others, particularly my friends. It’s about cooking a great meal. It’s about getting a great night of sleep.

These things fulfill me. They seem simple and, to many, boring. Day in and day out, though, these are the things that leave me feeling good about my life.

This brings me around to this wonderful book, Choosing Simplicity by Linda Breen Pierce. The crux of the book is that many of the complexities and challenges we have in our life are ones we put there by our own choice – and they make us miserable. In the chase to have everything, we often lose the capacity to enjoy it. You’re far better off having something (and the ability, time, and energy to value and enjoy it) than trying to have everything.

Why Simplicity?
Simplicity simply means finding room in your life for the things you actually value instead of cubby-holing them into the bits of space you can free up after all of the other activities. For example, if you don’t really value having a big house, have a tiny one. That way, you spend a lot less time on home upkeep and you can spend a lot more time on activities you actually value.

My Story: True Confessions of a Yuppie Lawyer
Pierce tells her story here, which has a lot of similarities to my own. She spent a lot of her life essentially trying to have everything: the impressive career, the material trappings, the big residence, and so on. In the end, though, the chase of all of these things left her empty and wondering what she really wanted in her life. After reflection, she realized she didn’t really want very much of it.

Turning Points: What Motivates Us to Start the Journey?
At some point, there’s a realization that we’re leaving behind the things we actually value in order to take on what we think we should value. There are a lot of reasons for this, of course, but the turning point for many is that simple realization. Why are you living your life?

A Parent’s Choice: Saving Life with Our Children
Earlier today, I spent several hours at the park with my children. My oldest child and I taught my youngest child the joy of going down a slide on your stomach. My daughter and I went on a long hike searching for a bathroom and singing the same silly song over and over again. When we left, I asked them if they had fun and they all yelled, “YES!” It didn’t cost us a thing. It gave us all a ton of fresh air and exercise. The children fell asleep in the car on the way home. There is no activity I can think of that I would rather have filled my day with. Yes, we could have done lots of structured activities or we could have parked them in front of a movie while we did dishes and laundry, but does any of that really matter in comparison?

Urban or Rural Simplicity: Choosing a Nurturing Milieu
You don’t have to live in the country to enjoy simplicity, nor do you have to live in a city to enjoy it. The change comes from you, not from your surroundings. The choice should come down to the handful of things you really value, and that’s a personal thing. If you enjoy big gardens and walks in the woods, live in the country. If you love free cultural events and easy access to people with very similar interests, live in the city. You can live simply either way.

Work We Can Live With: A Balancing Act
If you live simply, you no longer have a pressing financial need to work in an all-demanding job. You can take a lower-paying position, one that fulfills you more and doesn’t completely drain you of all of your time and energy. It will leave you with the time and energy you need to do the things that really matter in your life.

On the Road to Simplicity: Travelers in Transition
For most of us, this type of change isn’t a light switch. We can’t wake up tomorrow and quit our jobs to start being a small scale farmer in Virginia because that’s what we’re passionate about. There’s a transition period, where you learn to live in a more simple fashion and reshape your financial and time management to match the new life you have.

Long Timers: People Who Have Always Lived Simply
For others, this entire thing comes naturally. Often, it’s because of the lessons they learned in childhood, either from those who truly practiced it or from their own experiences regarding the dangers of trying to have it all and not really having anything.

Starting Out Simply: Generation X Takes a U-Turn
In earlier generations, it was easy to leave school, walk into a high paying job, immediately buy a house, and have the trappings of that standard “American dream” life. Today, it’s not so easy. Housing prices are out of proportion with the income of new graduates, as are the student loans they’re saddled with. Newer graduates are pushed into a life of simplicity to some degree, though it’s often not by choice.

Having Enough: Living Simply with Financial Freedom
Pierce seems to largely set up complete financial freedom as a goal here. Financial freedom here refers to simply having enough money in savings (or in other sources) to provide adequate income to cover living expenses without working. This is one of my major long-term financial goals, for most of the reasons that Pierce describes. The big one? It makes your life a lot more simple.

Living Well on Very Little: Amazing Stories of Courageous People
You don’t even need that much regular income to live a great life. The key is being able to separate the things you actually value from the things you’re doing because others value it or because you’ve been conditioned to think you value it. Once you strip away those layers, you can get through life with surprisingly little.

Community: Are We Our Brother’s Keepers?
A community is a group of individuals that support each other in good times and in bad. When you’re a part of a community, there’s security and joy because you know you’re taking care of each other and, when you need it, you’re taken care of, too. Being a part of a community has great benefits, but it also involves some responsibility. Do we want to step up to the plate? (I do.)

Environmental Champions: A Passionate Love for the Earth
Another aspect of living simply is that it benefits the environment, not because some sort of “green” initiative, but simply because by living in a simpler fashion, we produce less waste and have less impact on the environment. For example, if one is passionate about gardening and one chooses to live a simpler life that enables more time for gardening, that person is producing more of their own food. It’s no longer made in an industrial fashion and shipped for long distances. That’s a positive impact without a “green” initiative.

Is Choosing Simplicity Worth Reading?
If you’ve ever struggled with finding meaning in your life or wondered why it is that you never seem to have time and energy and money for the things you care about, you’ll find a ton of value in Choosing Simplicity.

It makes an eloquent case for and provides a nice guide for transitioning to a less complicated lifestyle, one with fewer time and money and energy demands that leaves you with the resources needed to do what you find fulfilling. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Check out additional reviews and notes of Choosing Simplicity on Amazon.com.

A few months ago, I was reading an older personal finance article at the library which discussed a very specific method for getting tremendous deals at CVS (a pharmacy chain). All you had to do was follow a sequence of steps and you’d find yourself with piles of items for free!

I decided to give this system a shot. I signed up for the CVS ExtraCare rewards program and started following the method outlined in that older article.

What I found was some good discounts, but not the mind-blowingly amazing discounts described in that older article.

Why didn’t it work out? I actually believe the older article did work as stated at the time it was written. It described a savings tactic that worked very well at a specific moment in time, but as times changed (prices went up, the ExtraCare program specifics changed, the coupons in the flyers weren’t as good), the savings tactic that once worked like a charm no longer worked as well.

(An aside: I’m not saying that CVS ExtraCare isn’t a worthwhile tool for good discounts on pharmacy products. It is. It’s just not the runaway bargain that it was several years ago.)

So, what’s the lesson here?

The big lesson is that no bargain is ever written in stone. Something that saved you a lot of money a year or two ago might not be a great bargain today. The benefits may have been scaled back, or other offers may be superceding it.

What can you do about it? You should re-evaluate your money saving tactics very frequently. I do this surprisingly often. I’ll stop at a different grocery store just to compare the prices to the ones I typically shop at. I’ll estimate the amount of savings I get from the time investment of using coupons (usually, it’s one of those “barely worth it” things). I’ll try to learn about new ways of doing things and see if they beat the way I used to do them (for example, the ongoing Saving Pennies or Dollars series).

How does one “re-evaluate”? The method I always use is calculating how much this tactic saves me per hour. I figure out exactly how much money I’m saving because of what I’m doing and exactly how much time it takes me to do it (if it’s minutes, I divide that by sixty to get the time in hours). I then divide the money saved by the hours spent to get my savings per hour.

That “savings per hour” amount doesn’t have to be more than what I earn, especially because I’m not paying any income tax on my savings due to frugality. It’s mostly useful as a way to figure out how to spend my time. I’d rather spend my time on something that saves me $20 per hour of effort than something that saves me $5 per hour of effort.

You should also be quite willing to discard tactics that simply don’t work any more. If your preferred grocery store seems to be raising their prices a lot, don’t keep shopping there out of familiarity. Look for a different store that has better prices. If you find that the coupons aren’t saving you what they used to, don’t be afraid to ditch them and use that saved hour for something else that saves or earns you more money.

Speaking of which, you might reach a point where the frugal tactic doesn’t change, but you change. Let’s say, for example, that you switch from a low-paying part time job to a better-paying full time position, or that you’ve decided to start volunteering with an organization in your town that needs someone to man the phones. You’re likely going to find that you no longer have time for all of the things you want to fill your life with. This very well could mean cutting some of the frugal tactics that don’t save you as much money. (Of course, that is a cost of your new job, but that opens an entire new can of worms.)

Frugality is never set in stone. It’s all about being aware of what’s going on around you and consistently making better choices along the way.

My youngest child has had an intestinal illness that’s lasted for several days now. It’s involved a lot of upkeep and maintenance and attention, including lots of clothes and diaper changes and baths and sessions spent in the rocking chair, gently rocking back and forth.

One of the best parts of my own childhood was the constant understanding that my mother would be there for me if I were ill. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’d be at home in a comfortable place and that I’d feel safe.

When I had my first child, it became clear to me that I couldn’t offer such a guarantee of security to my children, not with the career I once had. It bothered me a lot. I know that there are a lot of working parents who simply can’t offer such a thing, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bother an awful lot of them.

It pushed me to start making some radical changes in my life in terms of how I spent my time and how I spent my money. I started looking for paths to a new career, not because I disliked my old job (I didn’t) and not because I wanted to earn a mint, but because I wanted to have the ability to be there during these moments.

It was that sentiment that led, in a lot of ways, to The Simple Dollar.

In the scope of things, it was a little dream. The idea of finding a different way to balance my desire to be a heavily available parent and my need to be gainfully employed is a simple one. It’s not a big dream of founding a world-shaking startup. It’s not a grand vision of becoming the next senator from Iowa.

It’s a little dream, but it’s one that I wanted so badly that I could taste it.

No matter how big or how little your dream, you’ll never get there without trying a new approach at the way you run your life. If you keep doing things exactly like you’re doing them, your dream will always remain a dream. It never has any chance to become reality.

If you’re content with the way your life is right now, then keep down that path. If you want something different, you’re going to have to do something different.

Instead of spending your money on frivolous things, put some of that money toward getting rid of your debts. Instead of burning an evening watching Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, start learning a new skill. Instead of watching football all day on Sunday, spend the day building something meaningful.

Your dream might be big or it might be little. Either way, it’s not going to happen unless you choose to start making it happen.

This past week, I spent a lot of time with my son. I could tell by how he acted that he felt safe and protected as he recovered from being ill. There was never any question of leaving him with someone who would watch him, relegating a little kid who doesn’t feel well to an unfamiliar situation.

I was able to give him some semblance of the security I once had. That, to me, is worth any price. It was one of my dreams from the first time the idea of having children entered my mind.

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.

I spent a lot of time looking at photos of autumn to help my kids with an art project. Several of them deeply impressed me with their artistry and capture of the season, so this edition is a bit heavy with those photographs.

1. Autumn dawn
This picture captures the essence of what dawn looked like in the fall in the area where I grew up.

The season is changing, but the world is alive. Thanks to James Jordan for this wonderful picture.

2. John Quincy Adams on leadership
What makes a leader? I don’t think that leadership is simply the nominal head of an organization. Instead, the leader is the person that makes an impact on others.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams

The best leader I was ever around never formally headed up an organization in his life, yet he pushed a lot of people to be better than they were and he could have organized a lot of people to do something at a moment’s notice. Titles aren’t leadership.

3. PrintFriendly
I’ll admit that I often print off documents for reading in situations that aren’t conducive to electronic devices, plus there are times when I want to hand-annotate articles. PrintFriendly makes a wonderful printer-friendly version of any article you’ll find online. Just type in the URL and you’re good to go.

I love simple tools like this that just do one thing and do it well.

4. Ruins
When I was a child, there was an old abandoned boxcar on my parents land. It was fun to explore it as it was often full of weird old treasures, not altogether different than the type of thing you’d see on American Pickers. It was in a mostly wooded area, with a trail leading back to it.

Something about this picture put me strongly in mind of the old box car. Thanks to Nicholas T. for the evocative image.

5. Vince Lombardi on practice
You can practice a lot at something and still never get very good at it. What makes the difference is how you practice.

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. – Vince Lombardi

You can spend years “practicing” anything and still be awful at it. The question is whether or not you constantly look to improve your performance with every bit of practice. Blind repetition is not enough.

6. Graham Hill on how having less stuff leads to more happiness
This is a correlation I’ve experienced in my own life, but Graham Hill spells it out wonderfully here.

I’d be perfectly happy with about a third of the stuff I have. The problem is that getting rid of a lot of it is a significant task in and of itself.

7. Wandering the pumpkin patch
This picture made me remember going out into a pumpkin patch when I was young and picking out that perfect pumpkin to carve up. There’d be a bit of chill in the air, meaning that when we got the pumpkin home and began to clean it out, the insides would be cold to the touch.

Many thanks to Matt Callow for another memory-stirring image.

8. Ramakhrisna on religion
I’ve reached a point where I don’t listen too much to people who say that religion forbids this or religion mandates that. It’s easy to talk a good game about religion. What separates people is whether they actually do it.

It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it. – Ramakrishna

So often, the words of the most outspoken followers of religion seem to have little to do with the actual teachings of that religion. I’d rather study the actual teachings, put them into practice in my own life, and generally keep quiet about it. Actions speak louder than words.

9. Branka Parlic playing Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis 1
I’ve been listening to some of the compositions of Philip Glass lately. This is a great example of his work.

It’s one of those pieces of music that just takes you to another place.

10. The leaf jump
Again, a childhood remembrance: I used to love taking giant leaps into piles of leaves.

This wonderful picture by Andrew Gillespie perfectly captures the childhood energy and nostalgia in this vintage photo. You can almost smell the Kodachrome.