Guest Posts | Budgeting In the Fun Stuff

What My Parents Taught Me About Finance

February 7, 2012, at 6:00 am

The following is a guest post from a true friend, Suba at Wealth Informatics. She is such an awesome blogger and a sincerely sweet person. Please check out her site for yourself – believe me, you will want to sign up for her RSS feed if nothing else. Her posts are so informative. I have been begging her to write for me regularly for more than a year now, lol. If you don’t know her in some way, I would highly suggest trying. I am a better person for knowing her.

February is National Parent Leadership Month, which highlights the role parents play in shaping the lives of their children. I personally feel that parents have the power and the responsibility to teach their kids to be good financial citizens.

What did my parents directly teach me about finance? Nothing.

Umm… What?

First, a bit of a background about me. I came to the US less than 10 years ago. I grew up in India, in a middle class family (read monthly income : 200 USD). My parents, my grandparents, my sister, and I shared a one bedroom home. Both of us got an excellent education, new clothes when necessary, encouragement to pursue whatever hobby that interested us (as long as it didn’t affect our education), and the freedom to ask questions.

So even though my parents didn’t sit and talk money with us and teach us how to handle money, I learned a lot from them without even realizing it.

Debt

Even when I lived paycheck to paycheck for a couple of years after I started earning, I never got into debt. Now after getting a good handle on my finances, I realize why.

Growing up, my mother used to tell me a lot of stories. In one of the stories, she described a scene when the villain knew that he is going to lose very colorfully. Roughly translated it went something like – “Like a fish in a poisoned pond, like the wax near a hot flame; like a toad caught between the venomous jaws of a snake; the villain panicked and was as scared as a person in debt”.

By association, debt thus became this horrible, horrible situation in my mind. The image stuck with me; I never want to be a toad that is caught in between the jaws of a snake. I never want to be in debt.

I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head when I am tempted to buy something that I didn’t budget for. She would have repeated this line many, many times over the course of the 21 years I lived at home. She inadvertently made sure her daughter had a deep fear of debt.

Choices

My parents never said “no” when it came to education or learning a new skill. If I wanted to learn music, they made room for it in the budget. If I wanted frivolous toys on the other hand, I had to justify it. If I wanted to buy a new dress, I had to explain what was wrong with the ones I had. They made decisions constantly based on priorities. Their priorities and my priorities might not have matched , but I learned to value conscious decisions rather than just going with frugal decisions.

Charity

My parents never budgeted for charitable giving. But when my close friend couldn’t afford to pay for her education, my parents offered to pay for her books, exam fees and even her first semester of college. So even though I was not told to give to charity, I know first hand what impact that small help had on my friend. My friend, because of her education, is now much better off than she was growing up. I am proud to say that my parents had a part in that.

Budgeting

My mother handled most of our finances. We didn’t have credit cards or even debit cards, everything was cash. She used to collect every single receipt and enter it in a diary. When I was 18, I started getting a modest allowance. She asked me to record my spending, which of course as a “I know better than you” teenager, I never did. With 20-20 hindsight though, this is one skill I wish I learned from her. I didn’t have many expenses at the time and because I was living with my parents, I never experienced emotional spending. After being on my own for the first time, I succumbed to it. But after I saw the err in my ways, thanks to my mother, I had the foundation to bounce back pretty quickly.

Ask Questions

I know a lot of parents get tired of kids asking questions. My father is a scientist. He was disappointed if we accepted anything without asking questions. I saw him work relentlessly day and night when he couldn’t find answer to a question. For him, self satisfaction is the death of science. Fortunately, that stuck with me and I expanded it beyond science. I know the day I stop asking questions, I will stop growing as a person. I sincerely hope I will be able to encourage this with my own children.

Entitlement

I am really, really thankful to my parents and my best friend for teaching me not to expect anything. My parents were poor growing up, they worked hard for every single penny. They never once expected to be given anything, and in turn, made us justify our wants. We didn’t have a cushy life, in fact, there were many times when life dealt them lemons. Never once did I see them sit and complain that it was unfair. I don’t have the mental strength of my parents, I have the victim mentality, but thinking about them and what they would do in my situation is my pick-me-up.

Appreciation

This goes hand in hand with entitlement. My parents were always grateful for what they had and they made sure to tell us the sacrifices their parents made to bring them to where they are.

A Very Solid Foundation

More than anything, they provided a solid education, support, and a moral foundation that helped me realize that hard work and smart decisions will take you where you want to go.

They didn’t teach me about money. I never learnt anything about investing or real estate. We never had a lot of money to talk about expensive buying decisions. But they showed me by example, that if I wanted something, I have to work for it.

Whatever I am today is because of them. As an adult I feel that the choices I make today are based on the principles and values I gained as a child and young adult. Me and my sister were given the ability to make our own decisions, good or bad, and learn from them. But we could make our decisions with confidence only because they gave us a good foundation on which we can build our lives. I understand I am very fortunate and I am forever grateful for that.

What was your story growing up? How did it affect how you handle money today? Do our parents’ money decisions define us?

Crystal’s Comments: This explains why I am so much more spoiled than Suba. I do have an inherent sense of entitlement that I have been trying to suppress since no one is entitled to anything. Unless the term “I deserve” is followed by “whatever I work for”, then I cringe. I have caught myself “deserving” many things in my life and popped myself on the back of the head for it. I deserve nothing other than what I earn through my actions and my work eithic. I will just keep repeating that to myself over and over again…

Tips for Planning your Wedding on a Budget

February 3, 2012, at 6:00 am

The following is a guest post from Ellen at Fun With English, where she explores the origin of English words and expressions. In her spare time, she is on her own journey to improve her financial knowledge! She’s guest posted here several times before with ones like How to Save Money on a Road Trip and Impulse Shopping and Discount Chocolate.

I’ve noticed a lot of ads for wedding shows, so I know it is wedding planning season. I’ll freely admit my wedding was not nearly as economical as Crystal’s , but I think I’ve still got some good planning tips to share!

Tips for a Wedding on a Budget

1. Start saving now. As soon as you get engaged, you should start putting money away. We had a rough idea of the overall budget that what we wanted to spend on our wedding, so, once we got engaged, we started putting a lump sum away each month. Our goal was to have enough money saved by our wedding date (we got married about a year after we got engaged) that we would have enough to cover all our costs.

2. Figure out what is really important to you in your wedding. Do you want something small and intimate? A big blowout? Perhaps you’re not big on a sit down dinner, but an open bar is a must. Talk things through with your better half (and other family members if you’re feeling generous/crazy), and see what matters to them. For me – I really wanted a 3-tier cake. I don’t know why, but in my head, my wedding cake was always 3 tiers, so that was a must.

3. Search for talented and connected friends and family members. My now sister-in-law is an excellent photographer and kindly did our photos. Ask around – perhaps someone you know would like to DJ, or works at a flower shop and can give you a discount. Make sure you budget in something to compensate them for their time and efforts.

4. Reduce, reuse, recycle. You can reuse family rings as is (hey, Prince William did it!) or have them reset into a new setting. Reuse flowers from the ceremony at the reception – we put our bridesmaid’s boquets in vases to decorate the head table. And speaking of wedding party – try to save costs for them as well. We picked the least expensive tux for our ushers, and I let my bridesmaid pick out their own dresses, all just keeping in a common colour scheme.

My Summary

In the end – with a sit down dinner and open bar, my wedding ran a bit over $ 10,000 (this was 8 years ago). Not frugal by any stretch, but certainly cheaper than the average cost of a wedding!

My last tip is this – plan wisely, but don’t overdo it. I had $10,000 as a budget in my head and freaked out any time I thought we might go over. I also cheaped out on my bridesmaid hair and makeup (I should have helped cover it, but didn’t), and I really regret that.

What is the best money saving tip you have? Is there something you spent money on you shouldn’t have? Or something you wish you had spent money on?

Crystal’s Comments: I highly suggest having a videographer if you think you may want a video of the ceremony later. That is my only regret. We didn’t splurge on much at all and had a fantastic wedding – really, we absolutely loved it.

Cutting Back to Make Room for More Fun

January 31, 2012, at 6:00 am

This article was written by Jessica at Everything Finance. Everything Finance is a site about just that, everything related to finance. If you like what you see here, make sure to stop by or better yet subscribe to our feed so you don’t miss a thing.

I once had a favorite hobby. I wasn’t all that great at it, but it was such fun and so relaxing that I enjoyed it more than anything. I had to put a stop to it when I was married because we simply couldn’t afford it anymore.

I loved doing pottery. The attention I had to put to centering my pile of clay helped clear my mind and it was very therapeutic. It helped me get through a number of emotional hurdles. But the cost of clay, studio time, glazes, and renting a kiln were not conducive to my budget. I’ve recently formed a leap list and on it is to make room for pottery again.

I plan to keep my budget to the very minimum to make sure I have as much money as possible available to indulge in pottery. I’m going to work at it regularly to make sure that I’m always using an effective budget. I’ve come up with a list of items that are the biggest budget busters and I’m looking at ways to trim the fat, so to speak.

Dining Out

This is by and large the biggest budget buster of all budget busters. It is almost completely unnecessary. Simple planning can alleviate almost all dining out. Planning your meals weekly so as to avoid the inevitable “what’s for dinner” questions will stop those last minute pizza deliveries. Planning snacks and lunches when running errands will keep you out of the drive-thru. Carrying a small picnic basket with non-perishable snacks in the trunk is a great way to cover yourself when you have forgotten to plan.

Cable Television

I have lived without cable television for almost a year. I have only watched it when I’m at my mother’s house. Honestly, I haven’t missed it much at all. I watch the shows I like most online and I use the library to borrow movies when I am in the mood. I recently purchased a $10 tv antenna to watch the local channels and honestly, I wish I hadn’t. The programming is very uninteresting for the most part. I find myself turning off the tv more and more after just a short while.

Cell Phone

I understand the addiction to cell phones, especially smartphones. I am as addicted to mine as many but at one time, it was even worse. In a moment of desperation, I canceled my data plan and started using an older model phone that did not have anything but the ability to make phone calls and send text messages (which I didn’t do much of). I was very happy during those months and I saved myself about $30 each month.

Groceries

One of the easiest ways to adjust your budget is through your grocery spending. Using coupons is probably the best way to do so. Adding in a trip to a drugstore each week to take advantage of their deals will help save you money as well. You can easily save 40% a month by using coupons. Eating cheaper is another way to cull your grocery expenses.

Internet

This is a potential deal breaker for many. One area that I am not willing to back away from. I simply must have the internet to do my job effectively. I lived without internet for 6 weeks in the fall and it ended up costing me money by not having it at home. However, for some, this could be a way to save $35 a month or more. If you have access to the internet at work during the day, there may be little need to be online at night. Or maybe you can find a hotspot nearby to get your surfing in.

Utilities

It may be surprising to some to find out that you can save money on your utilities. Contacting your current provider and asking for tips is a start. Some companies will put a device on your furnace and a/c which is set to shut it off during certain times of the day. You won’t really notice it on there and the utility company will offer you a discount to have it done. You can also shop around. There are co-ops that provide electricity, frequently at a lower rate than a larger company. Also, ask your provider about even billing. This could help keep your monthly budget on track.

Careful examination of your budget will show you places where you can cut expenses. If you find that you have trimmed as much as you possibly can, it may be time to increase your income or look to alternatives to the fun you typically seek. For me, there are full and partial scholarships to a local arts center that I am going to apply for. I’m also going to see if I can do some bartering by checking to see if they would like to add social media to their services or maybe write an article for their website each month.

Budgeting fun into your life is something that takes work but leaving room for it is essential for a happy, healthy life.

Crystal’s Comments: When we look to trim the fat off of our budget, we look at food first too. But honestly, everything else listed would be on our last things to cut list since we are that addicted to cable, cell phones, and the internet…

What would you cut?

5 Tips on How to Improve Your Credit Score

January 26, 2012, at 6:00 am

The following is a guest post from YFS, the owner and author of Your Finances Simplified. He was born and raised in West Philadelphia and is now a financial adviser, IT contractor, landlord, and treasurer of a non-profit. He created his blog partly due to his desire to help people with their finances. Join YFS’s mailing list for straight forward easy to understand financial advice by clicking here.

Improving your credit score seems like it should be a fairly easy thing. Pay your bills on time, and you should have a good credit score, right? Well, that is not always the case. While it is always a good idea to pay your bills and to pay them on time, simply paying on time will not always guarantee a great credit score because other factors are involved.

Credit Scoring

Credit scoring is somewhat of a mysterious realm, and the people who score your credit are not letting the mere mortals in on their secrets. These people put your information into their system, and then they give you a number. The FICO score is the most common, and it ranges from 300 (bad credit) to 850 (excellent credit). Banks and other lenders check your credit score to determine your creditworthiness. Your credit score, in part, helps determine how much money a bank will lend you. This is important when you want to make a big purchase like a car or a house.

Due to the mystery surrounding credit scoring, it is not exactly clear what improves your credit score. Nonetheless, there are some general tips that are likely to improve your credit score, and many of them are good habits. Some of the following tips are good common sense, while others are less readily apparent. These tips will also be helpful if you want to repair your credit after a bankruptcy or want to have good credit to buy a foreclosure.

1. Number of Credit Accounts – In order to have a credit score, you have to have open lines of credit. This generally comes in the form of credit cards, and it is thought that having around five or six credit open credit accounts is best for your credit score. Anything you finance, such as a car or your college education, is a form of credit.

2. Balances and Limits – On one hand, just having open credit accounts is not the best way to improve your score—you need to have a balance on the credit account for it to be as useful as possible. So, while having an open credit account is good, having an active credit account (one with a balance) is better. On the other hand, having a balance on your account that is close to the limit (especially multiple balances that are close to the limit) is not good for your score.

3. Payments – As discussed, paying your bills is important. Late payments will negatively affect your credit score. So, you should be sure to pay everything, student loans, mortgages, etc, on time when possible. If you ever have trouble making payments, you should contact your credit company. For example, if you are unemployed, you can often defer your student loans for a time.

Also, if you do have late payments, their effect will be reduced over time. For example, late payments last year will be less important than late payments last month.

4. Credit Inquiries – Every time you have your credit checked, it will affect your score. However, this should not stop you from checking out a few lenders if you are preparing to buy a home, for example. Also, you checking your score on your own does not affect your score.

5. The Credit Score Killers – Certain things, such as tax liens, collections, multiple late payments, and foreclosures will kill your credit score. Bankruptcy will negatively affect your score for years.

The Bottom Line: The best thing for your credit score is to have multiple credit accounts with relatively low balances, to pay your bills on time, and to avoid the credit score killers.

Have you worked to improve your credit score? What did you do to improve your score?

How Balance Transfer Roulette Almost Landed Me in the Crazy House

January 20, 2012, at 6:00 am

A re-habbed spendaholic, The Happy Homeowner began blogging as a way to stay accountable and to chronicle her quest for financial freedom. From paying off over $14,000 in credit card debt in one year to purchasing her own condo in the expensive Boston real estate market (on her own!), she shares her financial ramblings, musings, and fabulously frugal ideas here.

I have a confession to make: I used to be a complete financial disaster. Not only did I carry mountains of credit card debt (over $14K at one point), but I had no semblance of a budget, I had no idea where my money was going or how I was spending it, and I developed habits of sticking my head in the sand and shredding statements before even opening the envelopes.

Ignorance is Bliss, Right?

For years I ignored the signs of my impending financial doom. On the outside, I was a cheerful, well put-together, intelligent young woman. Inside, I was one nervous breakdown away from being carted off to the nearest psychiatric hospital. The source of my inner conflict? My financial—or lack thereof—habits were keeping me from living the life I desperately wanted and I had no idea how to change my ways. I was consumed by the stress of my daunting debts, meager income, and inability to get a hold of myself financially.

And so I continued to stumble through life in a debt-induced, materialistic-loving haze. I shopped my heart out, took vacations I couldn’t afford, and dined in restaurants in which I had no business being. If I maxed out one credit card, I simply opened a new one. If I couldn’t pay the monthly balance on a particular card, I blindly sent away only the minimum payment. I subsisted in this semi-permanent state of flux for nearly 4 years before I began to wonder if I had missed the financial responsibility boat.

On one particularly low day, I found myself mindlessly browsing the Internet when I haphazardly clicked on a link for a series of financial message boards. For the next 6 hours, I poured over the contents, amazed at how people were struggling with managing their debt, budgets, and financial futures. Then it hit me: I was one of those people! I needed to change my situation, and I needed to do so immediately! But what’s a gal to do when she has very few options? I couldn’t ask other people for money to bail myself out. I had no interest in taking on another job, and I certainly wasn’t in the frame of mind to cut back on my spending.

Balance Transfer Heaven

The next day, the daily mail delivery held what I thought (at the time) was my ticket to financial freedom: an advertisement for a balance transfer program at Citibank. I instantly tore through the envelope, sat down at my computer, and signed up for the program. With a few clicks of the mouse, I had sent most of my high interest credit card debt to the new card, which boasted a glorious 0% for the next 12 months. I rode the subsequent high all the way to the mall, where I charged another outfit I didn’t need in celebration of my newfound financial literacy.

In a few weeks, reality hit me when I saw what I owed as a minimum payment to the new card given its (very high) balance. Fortunately, I had always found a way to keep up with at least the minimums on all of my cards, so I scheduled the online payment. Then I went to another website to research more balance transfer deals. Over the course of the next 4 months, I opened, closed, and transferred thousands of dollars of credit card debt between countless cards. Because I had always made my payments on time, my credit score was still relatively high so I continued to take advantage of all of the offers I was solicited with.

At first, it was all a game to me. I loved the feeling of being “in control” of my debt; that I could simply transfer the balance elsewhere when I didn’t like the terms of my current card or account. Somehow, I mistakenly thought that I was being financially responsible. I filled my browser favorites folder with links to my various accounts, and I diligently logged into the accounts weekly or monthly to manage my balances. I sailed along smoothly for months, eventually chipping away a few hundred dollars of my credit card debt that had now ballooned to over $14K.

Then I went on another vacation—to a place where I would not be taking my laptop with me. Distracted by the high of the vacation excitement, I completely forgot about (disregarded?) my debt and boarded the plane with gusto. I had the time of my life for the first 4 days of the trip. On the fifth day, my credit card was denied. As was the second, third, and fourth card. I withdrew some money from my ATM account and went on my way as if nothing was wrong. But deep inside, a pit was growing ever larger in my stomach; I knew I was going to return home to a mess.

Balance Transfer Hell

And a mess it was. During my absence, I had missed multiple payment deadlines and was hit with late fees that pushed me over my available credit balance which in turn yielded over limit fees. As I sat on the phone with rep after rep after rep, trying to repair the damage, I felt as if an elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I wasn’t seeing straight, and I certainly had no clue how to calm my racing heart and thoughts.

In essence, I was suffering from my very first (and luckily only) panic attack. After hanging up the phone with the last rep, I asked my roommate to drive me to the emergency room. While being examined, the doctor asked me about my current stress levels, to which my response was to burst into tears. After clearing me medically, he made me have a consultation with one of the attending psychiatrists. It was clear to her that I was just tuned up beyond belief, so she sent me home with strict instructions to relax or else I’d end up seeing her again soon.

Enlightenment

On the drive home, I felt an odd sense of calm flood my body. It was then that I realized why I had experienced a panic attack: I needed a financial intervention the size of Texas, and I wasn’t going to get it by playing balance transfer roulette.

Over the course of the next 3 weeks, I laid out a plan to go cold turkey with my spending habits. I also made some changes professionally and personally in order to set myself up with as much success as possible. I’m pleased to report that I paid off my $14K in credit card debt in less than a year, and I haven’t carried a hint of a balance since.

Crystal’s Comments: I could almost feel the stress!!! I am so glad you took the bull by the horns and killed your debt and I am so sorry that you had to learn the very hard way. I’m trying to kill our last debt now, the mortgage, but I can only imagine the stress you felt on those phone calls. Thank you very much for the guest post!

Have you ever hit a wall like this? Learned a lesson the very hard way?

It’s Vegas Baby!

January 19, 2012, at 6:00 am

The following is a guest post from W at Off-Road Finance that I was excited to receive since he had left so many good tips on Ellen’s post, Vegas on a Budget. Thank you for the inside perspective, W!

Long before I achieved blogsphere celebrity (yeah, right) teaching people how to trade over at Off-Road Finance, I was a semi-pro gambler. When most people walk into a casino and see a never-ending party fueled by poor financial decisions. I see an office where I can make money off other people’s poor financial decisions. And I used to spend a lot of time at the office, especially the Vegas casinos. I still vacation there a couple of times a year. There’s something really vital and alive about Las Vegas – I’ve heard it describes as the quintessential American city, both good and bad, and there’s some truth to that.

Crystal asked me to do a guest post on Las Vegas tips. There are a lot of things you can do to make your Vegas vacation much better and cheaper than it otherwise would be. Here are some of my favorites collected over my years in Sin City.

Accommodations

There’s three parts to getting good, cheap accommodations in Vegas: where, when and how.

Where

Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than anywhere else on earth. The quality of the rooms and service varies radically. Since reviewing every hotel is out of the question, here’s a list of the major ones split up by price point. Hotels in green, I would go out of my way to patronize at a given price point. Hotels in red, I would go out of my way to avoid. Black means I have no opinion or no information.

Low roller: Stratosphere, Riviera, Circus Circus, Imperial Palace, Bill’s Gambling Hall, Bally’s (South tower), Hooters, Luxor, Excaliber, Tropicana, Monte Carlo, Flamingo, everything downtown except the Golden Nugget.
Mid roller: The Venitian(suites), Treasure Island, The Mirage, The Rio (suites), The Palms, Bally’s (North tower), MGM Grand, Planet Hollywood, Mandalay Bay/THEhotel, Paris, Golden Nugget
High Roller: Wynn/Encore, Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Vdara, Mandarin Oriental, Cosmopolitan, MGM Grand Signature (condo/suite), Aria, Pallazo

When

Hotel prices vary radically by the day. A random Tuesday night could easily be 1/10th the price of a major boxing or MMA fight night. Luckily the hotels are very transparent about this – their websites all have pricing calendars. Fridays and Saturdays are more expensive than the rest of the week (often 2x), so if you’re flexible you can save a lot. Airfare is also cheaper if you avoid flying in Friday or out Sunday.

How

There’s two things you can do beyond just finding a good hotel price online to cut down your costs or get a better room:

Sign up for MGM-Mirage Spam: the MGM-Mirage corporation, which owns about 1/3 of the casinos in Vegas, has a mailing list where they spam out hotel offers – usually about 20% off cheap-night rates. You can sign up here and then just filter it all to a separate folder in your email or even a totally separate gmail account. When you want to go to Vegas, take a peak and see what deals the spam fairy has brought you.
The check-in tip: the checkin staff at most hotels is very amenable to tips/bribes if they have unused high end rooms. You can find out what hasn’t been sold ahead of time via any hotel website. But just buy the cheapest possible room online and head to checkin. Here’s how you do it: at checkin when they ask for your CC and driver’s license, give them a card-folded-money-card ‘sandwich’. Then ask: “Do you have any complimentary upgrades available? Perhaps a <room type you want> ?”.I usually do $40 at a mid roller joint if I want a suite, and $100 at a high roller joint. I’ve never failed to get at least some kind of upgrade. The Wynn and Bally’s seem to be the best for this trick – you can get a Bally’s south tower room for dirt cheap online and turn it into a north tower suite pretty consistently.

Transportation

Transportation in Vegas can be a pain – it’s crowded, and there’s no good universal public transportation. Here are some options with upsides and downsides.

Cabs: Vegas cabs are expensive (especially from the airport to hotel – see long hauling below). But they do serve a purpose and can become economical when you have 4-5 people and take a van-cab. BTW, don’t drink and drive.
Shuttle Buses: there are airport to hotel shuttle busses, but check their route before you pay. If your hotel is first on the list, it’s just like taking a taxi for half price. If it’s last, you’ll spend an hour being driven around the back side of strip hotels. Some of the casinos also have shuttles to other casinos owned by the same company.
Limos/car service: pricey. Again more economical if you have lots of people.
The monorail: the Las Vegas monorail covers the east side of the strip. If your hotel and the majority of your destinations are on that side, it can be a good play. But if you’re staying going to places on the west side it’s a long walk from the monorail to your destination.
The “Deuce”: This is the bus that runs up and down the strip. It’s cheap, but it’s never there when you want it.
Rental car: People talk about avoiding rental cars to save money, but the rest of Vegas transportation is so lame that I frequently find it’s better to just get a car. It can easily be cheaper than patching together transportation out of taxis and shuttles. One thing Vegas DOES have: parking. Most of the strip hotels have the patented Steve Wynn one-ramp parking structure which is a marvel to behold compared to a typical parking garage. Unless it’s super busy I’ve never had had trouble with parking. Generally speaking rental cars are much cheaper through places like hotels.com than they are from the rental agency directly.
Walking: I walk a lot in Vegas, and it’s fun just because the sights are so outlandish and there’s no open container law (ie. you can drink and walk). Just be aware that it’s a long ways up and down the strip – one block there is like 5 blocks anywhere else. One caveat: if you take kids to Vegas (bad idea), they’ll be exposed to a lot of near-porn on billboards and from pamphleteers walking up and down the strip.

Food

There’s tons of eateries in Vegas, but a lot of them have the same problem: they’re Vegas priced. It’s all to easy to screw up and end up paying $9.75 for a sandwich (and not a good one). If you’re OK with that, just use Urban Spoon and pray. But if you want to eat decent food for prices like you’re used to, try these joints:

Ellis Island Cafe: slightly upgraded diner food at loss leader prices one block off the strip inside the Ellis Island casino. They’re very busy at dinner time, but not so bad at breakfast. A good place to grab a bite and plan the day’s campaign.
Bally’s Sandwich shop: decent subs at non-Vegas prices. Some sandwiches are huge and could serve as a meal for two.
Sportsbook Food Counter @ MGM Grand: the lox bagel here is my personal Vegas morning ritual if I’m staying at the MGM. Also has things like hotdogs at real world prices.
Nine Fine Irishmen @ New York New York: tasty Irish food at reasonable prices in a fun setting – arguably the only reason to go in the otherwise ‘meh’ New York New York.
Snacks @ Bellagio: Vegas priced bar food – what’s to love? Well, a red chip tip will get the poker room brush to give you a $10 comp here. Which turns overpriced into McDonald’s priced. A good move if your’re playing poker at Bellagio.
Shibuya @ MGM Grand: Sushi’s expensive everywhere, but it’s no more expensive here than it normally is outside of Vegas. And I like the ambiance. Try the dragon roll.
Brand @ Monte Carlo: A mid roller steak joint with some cool side dishes. If you want Wagyu beef from cows that have been fed a diet of specially blessed beer, go pay $300 at Prime. If you want a steak a little better than most people can cook at home with sides and drinks for less than $50/person, this works.

Entertainment

Shows: Vegas has a ton of shows for various tastes – magic, music, acrobatics/circus, comedy, adult. Tickets are somewhat pricey, but you can often get 1/2 price show tickets after noon on the day of the show through a firm called Tix4Tonight that has booths all over the place. Availability varies. On the flip side, if there’s one show you really must see, plan your vacation around what nights it’s open (all shows are dark some nights of the week) and buy your tickets ahead of time by calling the casino box office. You’ll pay full price, but you won’t miss out either.
Animals: The MGM Grand has lions. The Mirage has white tigers, panthers and dolphins. Mandalay Bay has sharks. The MGM lions are free and very cool if you catch them when they’re active. The other two cost money, but it could be well spent if you like that sort of thing.
Free/Cheep Music Venues: In addition to national acts, Vegas is home to a lot of the best musicians you’ve never heard of. They play covers and originals gigs at numerous small venues up and down the strip. For the price of a beer you can hear some seriously talented folks do their thing.
Natural & Man-Made Wonders: both red rocks canyon and Hoover dam are well worth seeing. Despite numerous firms offering tours, I would not go to the Grand Canyon from Vegas – it’s cool, but takes a long time and is better as a separate trip or leg of your trip.

Best Bets

Drinking the good stuff for free: find the sports/race book at any high roller joint, grab a racing form and a pencil, and sit down and make little cryptic notations on the racing form. Pretty soon a cocktail waitress will offer you a drink, which frequently includes high end liquors. Just ask what they’ve got in a given category – you may be amazed. The giant TVs in the sportsbook will usually have sports (or SportsCenter) on, so you can relax, drink and watch the game for free. Tip your waitress $2 in white chips on the first drink ($1 is standard), and you’ll get a stream of refills.
Most useful accessory: 4G smartphone. Vegas is a big place with lots of options. Between map/navigation features, Urban Spoon and the ability to check show times/availability online, a smartphone will go a long ways to improving your visit.
Low roller table games: $5 Craps at O’Shays. Just go, find a really busy table, and bet “pass” – you’ll easily be able to consume more in free drinks than your expected gambling losses. Craps etiquette: avoid betting “don’t pass” – you’re betting the other people at the table will lose money, and that can make people cranky. You don’t want to spend your vacation with cranky drunk people, do you?
High roller table games: Wynn/Encore. If you want to get your James Bond on, this is the place. They have notoriously hot waitresses too for the record.
Poker room: Bellagio. Nearly all the casinos have poker rooms, but Bellagio’s is the busiest and offers games with buyins ranging from $100 to $10,000 or so. The room has action 24/7/365.
Strip club: not really my thing, but the consensus favors the Spearmint Rhino

Avoid These Rookie Mistakes

Getting “long hauled” by an airport cab. When taking a cab from the airport to any strip hotel, ask your driver to take Paradise instead of the tunnel/highway. You’ll save about $15 and get there faster too.
Eating a fried Twinkie at Slots-o-Fun. Enough said.
Getting pick-pocketed while staring up at the “Freemont Street Experience“. While you’re ogling the giant TV, professional pickpockets are coveting your wallet. Take appropriate precautions.
Getting run over by a taxi: the taxi drivers drive like idiots. The pedestrians are drunk and completely disregard traffic signals. So people get hit a lot. Don’t be one of them.
Staying at the El Cortez because it’s the cheapest room in town. Gross is the only way to describe the place.
Getting arrested for soliciting prostitution. You may have heard prostitution is legal in Nevada, and it is. But it’s illegal in Clark County, which contains all of the city of Las Vegas. That pretty young thing at the Bellagio Baccarat bar may just be a LVPD vice officer.
Playing the slots. I don’t care if you want to lose money at the slots. That’s a personal problem… But look at the slot players. Are they having fun? Nope. They all look about like this guy: In other words, just passing time. When you play the slots, odds you look (and feel) just like that too. This is because slot machines work based on a psychological effect called partial reinforcement that keeps your attention without bothering to entertain you. Facebook games frequently use the same psychology incidentally. Make a no-slots pact at the start of your trip (substitute $5 craps above if you want some low stakes gambling), and you’ll have much more fun.

Vegas is one of the most bizarre and wonderful places on earth. These tips should help you play your cards right and have a great time!

Crystal’s Comments: This was an amazing post to read, especially since we are going back to Vegas this summer. The only two things I disagree with in the whole post:

1) If you want a super cheap hotel room that you don’t plan to be in much, the hotels on Fremont Street are fine. We’ve stayed in the Four Queens and the Golden Nugget – the rooms were equivalentally “meh” but the Four Queens one was $19 for the night we were there and the Golden Nugget was $69…
2) The fried oreos at Slots-of-Fun are delicious. Period.

And my tip for cheap bets would be the $5 Pai Gow at Fitzgerald’s all day (at least during the week) and the $3 Craps at Binion’s during the week days. I completely agree that you need to keep your hands on your wallet when watching any of the sites…

What an interesting inside take – thanks! Anybody else have some more tips to add?

Impulse Shopping and Discount Chocolate

January 13, 2012, at 6:00 am

Everyone has a weak spot – something they pick up on impulse, and later regret buying. My weak spot is discount chocolate.

Every time there’s a holiday (Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc.), there’s chocolate for sale. There’s a ridiculous amount of it and you can find it every where from the drug store to the hardware store. It comes in all shapes and sizes. You can get milk or dark, plain or fancy, and just about every filling you can think of. And I am a sucker for all of it – especially when it goes on sale.

I have all kinds of excuses on why I should pick it up, preferably in large quantities:

It’s such a good savings
I’ll ration it out
It’ll make great snacks for work
I’ve had a bad day, I deserve it.

And some of these might be good excuses – if it was food I actually needed, or I actually did ration it out. But I don’t need chocolate, and I certainly never have the willpower to ration it out. I usually eat enough at once that I end up feeling a bit sick. Which is OK when you’re 10, but not so cool in your 30’s.

So, now I’ve splurged on “food” I don’t really need, which I wouldn’t have bought if it wasn’t on sale. And on top of feeling bad about that, I also end up feeling guilty because I’ve eaten crap my body didn’t need, and has a negative effect on my waistline.

My ongoing goal is to try to think before I buy. I need to as myself “If this wasn’t on sale, would I still buy it? And if I would – do I really need it?” I’ve had 2 opportunities since Christmas to pick up discount candy. I managed to resist the first time, but gave in the second time. Not a fantastic track record so far. However, I’m just starting a dairy and gluten free diet, so this should definitely help curb my impulse chocolate buying!

What is your weakness when it comes to impulse shopping? Have you had any luck in taming it? What is the most you’ve ever spent on something you really didn’t need?

Crystal’s Comments: I am totally guilty of this right after Valentine’s Day every year…I really, really love chocolate…

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