When we moved into our house, we were thrilled to find wild rabbits frequently visiting our yard. We’re animal lovers, so while many people consider them pests, we don’t mind too much that they come and eat our sprouting grass and leave giant rabbit pellets all over our yard; we figure it’s good fertilizer. We even tried to feed them once, but they had no idea what carrots were for (a squirrel ended up eating it). But this time these cute little rabbits have gone just a little too far.

With our automatic garage door inoperable, we’ve been parking our car in the driveway these last few months. Last week, when I needed to go the hardware store, the car wouldn’t start. Everything sounded fine, the engine cranked, the battery was good, but the bloody car simply wouldn’t start.

I called our auto insurance company (Progressive) with which we have roadside service, and arranged for towing to our local mechanic, and 2 hours later my mechanic called with the diagnosis: rabbits had chewed the cables under the car. This is a common problem in our area due to large amounts of undeveloped land - our house is one of 5 or 6 on our street.

This simple problem of chewed cables cost us $150 for the mechanic to take apart the engine and fix the cables. This repair supposedly took him 2 hours (at $75 per hour), but I have a hard time believing that it really did, because when I got there a little under 2 hours later, the mechanics were playing solitaire on the computer. This is what I hate about hiring people to do work that I myself don’t know much about. I have half a mind to go and learn auto repair - and everything else it takes to maintain the entire house.

On top of it all, I had to traipse across the desert (alright, just a small chunk of desert - about 10 minutes) in 101 degree heat to pick up my car.

So a word of advice: If you live in an area where there are wild rabbits, try not to park your car outside, especially during hot summer days. They hide under the car to get away from the sun, and because there’s nothing else to do, they gnaw on whatever they can find under the car - namely, wires. When I went to pick up my car, the mechanic pointed out parts of my engine that had rabbit hairs stuck to them.

I do still think they’re cute. I suppose you can’t blame them. They don’t know any better, and they have to chew things to keep their teeth from growing to long. To prove just how cute they are, here are a couple of bunnies that visited us a couple of years back. Now how can you hate anything as cute as this?

P.S. We are now looking harder to find a professional repairman who will service our area.

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Happy 5th of July, everyone! I hope you had a nice 4th. We just relaxed at home and ate yummy food (pizza with garlic, olives & feta cheese and Taiwanese style fried chicken, the recipe of which I plan to post here some time soon) and watched the Lost Episodes of the Lucy Show on DVD with our cousin who has never seen the show before. (Mr. Mooney is my favorite.)

It’s been a somewhat hectic and busy month what with 100+ degree weather just about everyday since the beginning of June, car trouble and my messed up sleep schedule. I know my posting has been rather irregular, and I apologize to my regular readers. Our cousins’ 3-month visit is winding to an end - she’ll be leaving on Tuesday July 7th - so we’ll be trying to spend as much time together as possible in the next few days. After that I hope to be able to get back to posting a little more regularly.

That said, the past month has gone quite well for Our Fourpence Worth. Our Money Management Monopoly Game Expansion series has met with pretty good reception in the financial blogosphere, 2 of them having been chosen as Editor’s Picks in recent blog carnivals and quite a few mentions at other blogs. This also means we’ve had to do a lot of test-playing of our expansions, which hasn’t exactly been torturous labor.

I’m also really excited to be slated to host the Festival of Frugality on August 19, 2008 and the Money Hacks Carnival on August 20, 2008. We’ve also received the honor of being included in the Personal Finance category at alltop.com.

OK, now on to our round-up for this month.

PF Bloggers

First of all, I would like to announce that the PF Bloggers network is starting a monthly group writing project wherein each member of our network will be writing about a pre-selected topic on the 15th of each month. Our first topic will be our personal/family financial history and basically what influenced or inspired us to live frugally and/or aspire to financial freedom.

• No Debt Plan gives us 2 reasons we should care about his toothpaste savings.
• Master Your Card posted some amusing things children said about credit cards.
• Future Millionaire shares her reasons for tipping generously.
• Wide Open Wallet tells us why she likes high gas prices.
• Pinching Copper contemplates whether a Costco or Sam’s Club membership is worth the money.

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Madoline and I have been thinking about investing for some time now but really have no clue when it comes to stocks and how the stock market works. Then recently, I happened upon a site called Wall Street Survivor, an online stock investing game where you can learn to trade stocks risk-free online in real time.

The stocks in the game reflect stocks in the real stock market today, with only about a 15 minute delay. (You can upgrade to real-time quotes for a fee.) So, when the real market is closed (on weekends for example,) the stocks don’t update until they re-open and trading in real life begins again.

You start the game with $100,000 (in virtual money, of course) that you can use to trade with. You research the stocks and buy and sell as you see fit. For a beginning or aspiring investor, this is a perfect and fun way to learn about the stock market. I’ve only been playing for about a week, but have already learned some things. And despite it all being virtual, you still can’t help but moan and groan when your stocks go down and cheer when your portfolio grows.

They are also currently running a contest: Play to Win $50,000 - Fantasy Stock Trading Game.

A few features of the site are:

• Research tools for comparing stocks
• Records of stocks’ histories from 1 day, 5 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, year to date, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years.
• Daily personal ranking amongst all players
• Loyalty points for logging in, trading and referring friends (points can be redeemed for prizes and gifts)

So join in the fun and learn how to invest in the stock market and get a shot at winning $50,000 (real money, I think) while you’re at it!

We would like to thank the following Blog Carnivals for featuring our posts.

(This list will be updated to include future inclusions for the month of July 2008.)

Descending chronologically by inclusion date

• July 2, 2008
  Money Hacks Carnival #19: The Independence Edition (Editor’s Pick - double thanks!)
  Article: Monopoly Game Expansion #3: Certificate of Deposit

Expansion Difficulty/Complexity: Medium-Hard

This is a credit card add-on for the game of Monopoly wherein players have both cash and credit and may opt to “charge” certain expenses in lieu of paying cash in order to keep the cash flow for investing in property and buildings. For being such a careful money saver in real life, I was surprised at how quickly my “credit card debt” snowballed.

I started out by charging all my expenses because the 10% interest seemed so insignificant, and before I knew it, I was overlimit and paying 20% interest and my debt became more and more unmanageable. I came in second in the end with a credit card debt of $3,600. Madoline won with over $5,000 in cash, and Mabel lost with over $10,000 in credit card debt. :O

Objective

To teach children (and some adults) about buying and owing on the credit system.

Overview

This version of the game uses a credit system wherein players may opt to put purchases and expenses on their credit account instead of paying cash – either because they do not have enough cash available or because they wish to keep their cash to invest in property.

How to Play

• Print out and distribute a copy of the Bank of Monopoly Personal Credit Card Statement (includes rules) to each player. The statement contains 20 tables (representing 20 months/circuits of the game board). If you need more than 20 tables, simply print extra copies of this document.
  Tip: Print 2-Sided to save paper
• Any time during the game, a player may opt to charge expenses such as rent, taxes and miscellaneous fees on his/her “credit card.” in order to save cash for investing in properties and building.
• Property and building purchases may not be charged on a credit card.

How to Use the Personal Credit Card Statement

• A player is allowed 12 credit transactions per month (circuit of the board).
• Each person has a credit limit of $2,000.

1. On the first round of the game, enter $0 under Balance Forward.
2. When making a charge, enter a brief description of the transaction under “Description of Transaction”
3. Enter the amount under “Amount Charged”
4. Total the current balance in the right-hand column under “Balance.”
5. When you pass or land on “Go,” total your balance next to “Total Charges”
6. Pay off your desired debt in cash to bank and enter the figure next to “Amount Paid @ “Go.”
   • You are required to make a minimum payment of 10% of the total charges.
   • If you are not able to make the 10% payment, your interest rate increases to 20% until you are able to make your minimum payment again.
   • You may pay your balance in full and accrue no finance charges, or pay at least the minimum or as much as you are able to or wish to.
7. Subtract the amount paid from the Total Charges and enter the amount next to “Balance Subtotal.”
   If the balance is greater than $0, multiply Balance Subtotal by 10% (n x .1) if you’ve made at least the minimum payment, or 20% (n x .2) if you were not able to make the minimum payment, and enter the figure next to “x 10% Finance Charges.”
8. Multiply Balance Subtotal by 10% (n x .1) and enter the figure next to “x 10% Finance Charges.”
9. Add the 10% Finance Charge to your Balance Subtotal and enter the figure next to “Balance Forward.”
10. This is your remaining debt.
11. Move to the next empty table and enter the “Balance Forward” amount at the top right-hand column
12. next to “Balance Forward.”
13. When entering your first charge of new circuit around the board, add the charge to the forwarded amount and repeat.

Click on the image below to view a sample statement

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I received the following comment today from a reader about my earlier post Simple Solutions to Staying Out of Debt:

“All good advice - sadly, it is harder than it sounds. But then again, the more you make the more you can spend, so figuring out how to live within your means is a lesson we should all learn at an early age!”

Yes, it is harder than it sounds; almost everything is. But what it all boils down to is common sense, self-discipline and keeping your priorities in mind. It is true that it would be ideal to learn such lessons at an early age, but there is no reason why an adult can’t learn to control his spending and live within his means if he truly wants to.

Don’t get me wrong. I am human and I know how hard it can be to resist spending on things you want. For example, here is just a snippet of some of the things I have been coveting for a long time - some for years.

• A laptop computer
• My favorite TV shows on DVD (Friends, X-Files and many more)
• Subscription to cable (which we haven’t had since 2001)
• A cushy armchair for reading in my bedroom
• The complete British and French editions of the Harry Potter books (I collect foreign editions of Harry Potter books)

These are just a few of the things that cross my mind at the moment, but I know there are more. Over the years, I have been tempted more than once to buy some or all of these things, but I know the danger of giving in to the urge to splurge, because spending or getting what you want is addictive. Oftentimes, when you get one thing, you want or need to get more things to go with it.

I know it’s annoying to hear these words because they’re so “self-help-ish” (I myself can’t stand self-helpers and trite inspirational “don’t underestimate the power of the mind” stuff), but -

The tools for fighting the urge to spend are:

• Recognizing your priorities
• Rational thinking (not rationalizing)
• Self-discipline/self-control
• Will power
• Rewarding yourself

Recognizing Your Priorities

For most of us, our main goal is simply to “save money” or “save as much money as possible,” and that works well enough. But maybe for some of us, that goal simply isn’t enough. If you have a strong penchant for spending, you may need more clearcut reasons than “to save money” in order to curb your spending. So you will need to contemplate the following question.

Why do you want or need to save money?

Is it …

• To save for a down payment on a house of your own?
• To save for a replacement car?
• To save for marriage and a family?
• To save for a personal or family emergency?
• To stay out of debt?
• To get out of debt?
• To achieve financial freedom?
• To make sure your loved ones are provided for?
• To make sure you have enough to live on should you lose your job?
• To be able to retire when you want or need to?
• To make sure you have enough to last through your retirement?

Knowing and reminding yourself of your priorities at all times will help make achieving your goals easier.

Rational Thinking

Rational thought is necessary in order to succeed at anything including spending and saving money. When tempted to spend on something you don’t need or can’t really afford -

Try to look at the item in question with objectivity (without emotion) and ask yourself the following questions (The “it” in the following questions can apply to any kind of expenditure. Buying a tangible item, a service, eating out, etc.):

• Do you really need it?
• If yes, why do you need it?
• Are your reasons for needing it valid?
• Can you really afford it?
• What do you already have that can be used instead?
• What will its value be 6 months down the road? 1 year? 5 years?
• If it is a tangible item will you still be using it?
• If it is an intangible or transient item, is it really worth spending money on it that you would otherwise never see again?

Also consider:

• The potential value of the money saved from not spending it and saving or investing it. Use the savings calculator on Prune Your Spending and Watch the Savings Grow to see how much a little money saved over time can become.
• If you really think you have enough money saved for your future or financial goals.

Self-Discipline/Self-Control

No one likes hearing about discipline. It implies strictness, lack of freedom, and unpleasant tasks. But without self-discipline, one can never achieve success or financial freedom. So when confronted with a tempting expenditure:

• Plan A: Walk Away
  The best way to exercise your self-discipline when confronted with temptation is to simply walk away - or close the browser window (and clear your browsing history and cache to make it harder to accidentally happen on it again.)
• Plan B: If you can’t walk away, then wait.
  If you have a hard time walking away from the temptation, then at least wait. Convince yourself that you are not flat-out denying yourself what you want, but rather waiting for a sale or a price reduction. You will often find that by the time the price has decreased, so has your desire for the item.

  If it turns out you do still want the item, at least you will be spending less on it. Also, by delaying your expenditure, you can earn a little more interest on the money to be spent.

Will Power

You will find that as you practice self-discipline, your will power will grow. There will come a time when you can see something you really like and simply be able to admire it and move on without a struggle.

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