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Son Buys First Apple TV Show

Posted on by Jerad Hill

A few months back, I had a heart to heart with my son about how iTunes works on the Apple TV. This came after he had purchased a couple of $2.99 shows on the Apple TV without my permission. Apple does not make it easy to set parental controls on the Apple TV. If you enable parental controls, you have to use a four digit passcode for just about everything, even launching Netflix. We often let our kids select their own shows on Netflix because we have a kid-safe profile set up for them. I would have to give them the four digit passcode so they could get into their Netflix shows, but that would be the same passcode that would allow them to purchase shows. Kind of a lost cause.

Tonight, my son came across a show he really wanted to see. It was a Paw Patrol Christmas Episode. I explained to him that the show had a cost of $2.99. I said to him, “The show you want to watch is not free. It will cost us two dollars and ninety-nine cents to watch that show.” After explaining to him what I meant by “cents” by using play money in the toy room, he expressed an interest in paying for the show himself. I took the opportunity to turn this into a teachable moment.

My kids each have a piggy bank. It’s not in the shape of a piggy, it’s in the shape of R2D2, but we still call it that. When they earn money for going over and above what they are asked to do, or a task outside of their regular responsibilities was completed, we occasionally give them some change. We don’t compensate them for everything, we actually don’t compensate them very often at all. However, my son wanted to buy this show and was prepared to pay for it with his own money.

Teaching kids about money

He brought out his piggy bank and we counted the money he had. He had enough for the $2.99 show. I took some time to discuss what spending money on a show would leave him with. I explained that if he spent $2.99 on a show, the next time he was at a store with us, he might not have enough money to get something that he really wanted. His response was, “I don’t need anything, I just got a lot of new toys for Christmas. I can wait until my Birthday.” I explained to him that his birthday was six months away and that he would need to save up again if he wanted to buy something before his birthday. He was ok with it. He really wanted to buy that show.

We counted our $2.99 and set that aside. We then counted what was left. He had $2.08 remaining. I explained to him that he was about to use more than half of what he had in his piggy bank. He was still ok with his decision. I also explained that he would only get to buy one show, because he did not have enough to buy two shows and that this show was only 24 minutes long. He said, “It’s ok, I can watch it twice.” Smart kid.

I looked over at my wife, who had been listening to our conversation and confirmed that she was ok with the transaction that was about to take place. She nodded yes. I explained to him that I was going to buy the show for him and that I would take his $2.99 to pay for it. I explained to him that when we buy shows that cost money, that money is taken from Daddy and Mommy’s bank account just like we took money from his piggy bank to pay for the show.

We purchased the show and it started to load. I asked him if he wanted to play the show now and share it with his brother and sister, or save it for later when he could watch it alone. He said that he wanted his brother and sister to be able to watch it with him. I then told his brother and sister that they were going to get to watch a show that their brother paid for. They both said, “Thank you brother,” and they watched the show together.

After the show was over I asked my son if he thought the show was worth $2.99. He said that it was and that he would like to watch it again tomorrow.

It’s hard to teach kids about money these days. We live in a world where we just swipe a card to get immediate gratification. I want my children to grow up knowing that money is real and it’s a limited resource. It takes hard work to get it and even harder work to save it.

What are some money saving teaching moments you have had with your children? If you have a moment, please share them in the comment section below.

Pay Your Bills On Time

Posted on by Jerad Hill

People don’t talk candidly enough about money these days considering how much of our lives is centered around it. There are a lot of people offering their expertise on money but it seems that they want your money for that advice. There also seems to be a lot of people giving advice on what you should do with your money when they don’t seem to have their own stuff in order. I am not that old, but I have experienced enough ups and downs to have felt both ends of the spectrum when it comes to what to do with money when you have it and what to do when you owe, but don’t have any money. None of it includes avoiding financial responsibilities.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to pay for things on time. When I was in my early 20’s, I didn’t pay for things on time because I spent my money on other things I didn’t need so money was not there to cover my obligations and I owned up to that. Now that I am a bit older, I simply don’t spend my money (as) impulsively and do not take on financial responsibilities I am not confident I will be able to sustain over time. I also recognize that my money is also my wife’s. It’s not that hard. There are times you can not afford things and there are times you can. There is nothing wrong with that and in today’s society, it is understandable. Staying above water simply means having self control with your spending. However, less are responsible these days which means the business whom money is owed loses. Prepare for the possibility of a setback. The only insurance you can really count on is your savings account. I grew tired of “being caught off guard” by unplanned expenses so I started saving by cutting back on other things. Our savings account has floated us across many “setbacks” and once we are in the clear, we begin rebuilding the savings account. I understand that not all things are avoidable, but planning for a situation is the first step to surviving it.

I have came to realize that most people do not change. Most people get set in their ways at an early age and never change. This goes for good and bad habits. When it comes to paying your bills, some people pay them on the very last date possible and others pay them right as they come in. I have even found that some people figure out how late they can be with out penalty and will purposely wait as long as possible before paying their bills. This must be stressful to manage.

I have watched people walk away from homes that they signed the mortgage on with their own signature or let their car get repossessed because they decided they don’t want to pay for it anymore, only to turn around and buy a new home or car in the next year or two. Totally irresponsible.

Bills used to be a major stressor for me. I’m not going to lie and say that still are not a contributor to my stress but I have found a way to keep them from bringing me down each month. Though I loathe the pile of bills that seem to come through the mail each month at around the same time, they don’t bother me as much as they used to because I pay them right as they come in. I don’t let them sit on my desk staring at me. I used to have this organizer on my desk where I put the bills I had to pay. They would just sit there staring at me while I worked reminding me that I was working for them. I never had much money in my bank account so I could never pay them off. I also had a slight mentality that the companies sending me the bills were evil and did not deserve my money until the last minute possible. What a weird way to live, allowing the bills to sit there and control that much of my daily mental expenditure.

After years of impulse spending and a savings account with a zero balance, in early 2007, I cut back on everything. I moved out of the house I was renting all too myself to share a house with 4 other people. I cancelled just about every service I had except for my cell phone, car insurance, gym membership and internet. I sold off pretty much everything I owned that I did not have an immediate use for and I started tithing at church on a regular basis. I also had been dating the woman who is now my wife and knew that I did not want to bring all of these bad spending habits I had developed in my 20’s into a marriage. I had always envisioned having my stuff together before getting married and at this point, I did not.

Little did I know that before our first anniversary we would endure many financial setbacks from medical bills and other insurance related expenses. Our first large setback was a medial bill our insurance declined to be responsible for that ended up costing us $25,000 out of pocket. I had to empty my only retirement account to pay for that as well as use the remaining money left over after selling my truck and paying off the loan. My wife and I shared a car for a year.

Once we recovered from that expense I started dumping any spare money I had into savings. I wanted to have enough in savings to cover living expenses for at least 6 months if not more, so I saved. It’s easier to save these days if you think about it because you can set it to automatically transfer. It’s actually smarter to do it this way because it just happens and you don’t have to remember. If I had $250 in my checking account, $100 would automatically transfer each week. I never turned it off, even if all I had was the $100 left that week after paying bills. Eventually I was able to put more in savings and get to the point where we had enough money in savings to cover at least 6 months of living should something happen to me. Little did I know that shortly after achieving this level of savings I had never seen before my son would break his leg.

When Liam broke his leg, it was 2 weeks before Cohen was born. My wife was in no place to be lifting a 28lb toddler brandishing a 15lb bilateral long leg hip spica cast. I was a full time stay at home Dad for somewhere around 45 days while my wife and oldest child recovered. Savings came in handy. Bills still got paid on time even though their frequency shot through the roof for a couple of months. A year later, we had another hospital stay that lasted a week.

Today our savings account is not where it once was, we have had some expenses here and there that have made it harder to put money away, but still to this day, $100 automatically goes into savings each week and more if possible.

I believe that the main thing you have to get over is trying to keep up. There is no way to keep up with everybody else. We will always find something to be jealous over. Once you get that thing, whatever it is, that everybody else on your block seems to have, the next thing will come. Get over having to have those things and you will find extra money around in your checking account each month, money you can use to save and even take a vacation from time to time. If you can take a step back and watch what other people are doing with their money, you will see how ridiculous it looks for the most part. We are on Earth for a lot of years, even though it doesn’t seem like it at times. We make crazy spending decisions in a day that can effect the next 30 years of our life. It’s time to change that. I have wanted to buy a house for 13 years now and haven’t because I am not ready to commit to that just yet.

You can’t avoid everything. At the time of writing this, I could not handle another $25,000 expense all due at once but I have the right kind of insurance not only for medical but for everything else as well. Should situations arise, I know that I am covered to a reasonable extent. Though I get frustrated at just how much insurance I pay for each month, it is pocket change compared to how much the last several years since starting a family would have cost me out of pocket. I am not advocating the idea of storing up as much as you can in savings. I want you to live life and enjoy your time here as I am. I take my family places and vacation as often as possible. I want to live life and enjoy it while I can. I am not promised tomorrow, I just want to live responsibly enough so that should tomorrow come, I could afford it.

If I could leave you with one thing it would be to show some restraint. Don’t keep your credit cards near your computer where you could be tempted to spend money online and don’t take them with you when you are going out shopping. Get a savings account with a different bank so you can put your savings there. Doing this makes it harder to transfer money to an account it could be spent from. The savings account I use, came with an ATM card, but I cut it up. The only way to get money in or out is to transfer it to my checking account at another bank, which takes 2-3 days. 2-3 days is enough time for the “need” to have something to go away. It sounds silly, but all you need to do is put up a few obstacles between your ability to spend the money you have. Stop caring about what your friends have. They will be more jealous of the vacations you can afford to take then you could ever be of their shiny new toy that spends 99% of it’s time in the garage (not that jealousy should ever be a motivator to do or have anything).

I hope that this post helps someone save a bit more. I can’t recall even 50% of the bad spending mistakes I made in my 20’s. All I know is that I spent a lot of money on stuff I don’t have today and that if I had prevented all of that with the maturity I have now, I would most likely have at least $500,000 in savings.

Why I Buy Locally Most of the Time

Posted on by Jerad Hill

I am a huge advocate of shopping locally. I believe that we are becoming less and less of a small business friendly nation. The United States was built on Small Business, but due to convenience and the must have it now mentality, it is hard for small business to compete. Because many small businesses have been driven out of business by the arrival of larger corporations it offers many of us no choice. My household by no means spends all of it’s money locally, but there are many business types in which I believe we must spend locally in order to keep our community thriving.

I live in a community that was arguably the most effected area in the United States by the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis. Business was already difficult in the Modesto area, now with many people either losing everything or deciding to let everything go, we are left with a handful of businesses that made the right decisions during this economic downturn while the rest perished.

When it comes to options, we are limited to big box stores such as Target, Walmart, Bestbuy, etc.

Buying Commodities
I have no allegiance when purchasing commoditized products such as laundry detergent, deodorant, tooth paste, diapers, and everything else that we are overwhelmed with when it comes to options. We have so many options for these products that all promise and perform essentially the same. If I need these items right away, I will buy locally. However, if I have time to wait a few days I will gladly order them from Amazon.Com taking advantage of their free shipping. It is quite often that when I order from Amazon.Com I also do not incur any sales tax charges due to the items shipping from across state line.

Some will argue that I am hurting my own community by not paying local sales tax for these items. I would recant by saying that my community has hurt themselves by not stepping up to protect local business. I would rather purchase these items at a locally owned store for at or around the same price, pay sales tax and go on my mary way, but since we do not have that option, I order online. These are commoditized items, meaning that I can get them anywhere and they are not specific to any store. I could get these items from Target or Walmart but the money leaves our area regardless. I also believe more in Amazon as a company than I do Target or Walmart. I would not lose any sleep over those companies leaving our community altogether. The less business I can do with them, the better.

These large corporate companies do provide many jobs to our communities but beyond that they are showing our community that it does not pay to be ambitious. They will stop you. If there were no large big box stores around, people would see a need and open a business. That is the way it has been since the start of time. Because the big box stores exist, small business can not.

The fine details of my statements here can be argued up and down depending on circumstances. I have stated my reasons and I believe I have a good reason for doing things the way I do, please read on…

Buying Services
When it comes to service based products I always choose local service as opposed to looking outside of my area. 90% of the time there is a local service provider that can fulfill my needs. Here are some examples of locally owned service providers I do business with rather than using a corporately owned alternative.

  • Auto-Repair
  • Dry Cleaners
  • Computer Service and Repair
  • Hair Salon
  • Pest Control Service
  • Yard Maintenance
  • Gym Membership

Even when it comes to service providers there is a difference between doing business with a locally owned and operated company as opposed to a nationally based service. I am not saying that nationally owned service providers can not provide a good service, there are some highly respected companies out there providing great service and a great price. However, I myself am a service provider providing wedding photography and website design services to my community. I understand the importance in supporting local business. I have always and will continue to support businesses that provide excellent service at a local level. This is where things are different from commoditized products. Services can become commoditized as well. There are some services which I seek out online. These are services such as website hosting, bookkeeping, email marketing, etc. All of those items are commoditized services, some of which are actually available locally but someone else outside of our area is doing a much better job at it.

When it comes to choosing a service in which I want a personal touch and connection, I opt for local. I would not trust a national service to send out some random person to work on my car or repair my computer. I want to know the guy who is doing my yard and spraying my house with chemicals. Even though my insurance is through a nationally branded carrier, I get it through a local representative who is well established and respected in our community.

Shopping for Groceries
I only shop at grocery stores based from our community. If you are from my area you are probably familiar with Savemart and Raley’s (also known as Knob Hill). When I am feeling moderately smug I will even go much more local and shop at O’Brien’s Supermarket (you can tell how small they are by looking at their website). I say smug because it’s the cool place to shop for groceries and you often pay for it. However I do love O’Brien’s and would shop their consistently if the prices were not so much higher. All three of the mentioned markets provide products from local farmers. I am sure there are some mild exceptions but I know that my fruites and vegetables are coming from somewhere with in a few 100 miles. It is important to me to support local because we are a farming community. Modesto is surrounded by farms. I can promise you that you have consumed a farmed product from this area one way or another. Farming is for the most part what is holding the Central Valley up. I know that many of the products that I purchase from these stores are coming from other locations outside of our community but I do know that the money earned from those sales is staying local.

Why do I try to keep most of my money local by spending with local providers?
Small, locally-owned businesses are more likely to keep the money they earn in the community. They don’t send off most of their profits to the corporate office on the other side of the nation. Local businesses are more likely to use local suppliers.

Where do you draw the line?
You can not possibly know everything about where your products of services are coming from. I know that many items I consume are shipped to be sold locally. The main goal for me is to make sure that the profits from the sales of those items go to a locally owned and operated business. I can not possibly know everything about each transaction, but I try to at least be mindful of it.

Conclusion
Let me make one thing clear: I don’t condemn anyone who does not or cannot buy local. I am a complete supporter of small businesses, and I hope that you will be too, but I’m not going to say you’re wrong if you have good reasons for shopping elsewhere or if you feel I am wrong for shopping the way I do.

All things being equal, I suspect most people would choose to buy local. But each of us has a different price at which local is no longer an option. For some, this point is immediate: they’ll always buy the cheapest option, regardless of other factors. Others — and I know a few like this — will buy local no matter the cost.

The decision is ultimately yours to make. You decide how to spend the money that you make. Do not think that I am trying to control that at all or condem you in any way. I am just stating my thoughts and ideas on the matter.