They're Siphoning Off Your Life's Savings and You Don't Know It

Most people think they are doing the right thing when it comes to their money and their retirement planning. But the reality is that most of the people I talk to tell me they leave their final life's finances up to someone else.

To that I say, what?

If you don't know where your money is, you may as well kiss it goodbye. That sounds harsh. But it's also true. Because if there's one thing anyone wants, it's more money. And who better to take it from but the fools who will easily and willingly part with it.

Yep. That saying is true. A fool and his money will soon be parted.

Don't be the fool. Look, money can be scary and complicated. So can the stock market. But in all honesty, none of it is as hard as you think it is. More importantly it's not as hard as others have made you believe that it is.

Any why do they do it? Why do they make it sound so hard and complicated? If it were easier, who would need a so-called "expert" to guide the way for you? For a fee, of course. Lots and lots of fees. They are literally siphoning off your life's savings and you don't know it.

If you think about it, how many things do you do in your life to make sure things work and last? And what do you do to know it? You research it.

Here's how often you should change your oil in your car. Here's what to do to make sure your lawn mower starts on the first pull in the spring. You research and study what's the appropriate health insurance coverage that suits you. You evaluate your cable services to shop for the best deals and save money. How do I maintain my house and check the roof to make sure the shingles are doing their job? How do I ensure I have the best education to make sure I can make the income I want and need? What's the best college that teaches the courses essential for my career choice? What's best for my diet to remain healthy? What foods should I eat? What foods should I avoid?

We spend countless hours making sure we have what we need that makes our lives better, easier and cheaper.

Yet, when it comes to money, we turn a blind eye. "John's a great financial advisor and I know he has my best financial interests in mind."

Again. What?

Why would you spend all of this time to know things so you can get the most out of everything else but leave your financial health in the hands of someone else? Especially when it comes to your retirement years. A time when you can no longer necessarily earn an income and where everything you ever worked for in your entire life is literally on the line?

Expecting someone else to have your back is a fool's game. It's that simple. Again, harsh. But it's also the truth.

A weatherman can sell you an umbrella for top dollar because he knows exactly when the storm is coming. He will capitalize on your lack of understanding of certain indicators of weather. And it is no different in the financial world.

What you don't know, let me help you to understand. I'll just take 2% and you have to trust me. {wink, wink}

The thing is, there are as many resources as possible that abound about how to save, how to invest, how to plan for retirement, how to manage taxes during retirement, how to navigate Social Security and Medicare and how to budget as there are resources about everything else you want to make sure to get right in life.

Why is the financial stuff, perhaps the most important of them all, at a critical time in life when income is absent, the least important thing to research and know for most people?

I am sorry. But it makes no sense.

You want to feel bad for the people who get to the finish line broke and struggle. But how can you? It was all right there. The information. The signs. The stories told countless times before when Mommy and Daddy and Grandpa struggled through it.

Am I preaching? Yes. Am I scolding? YES!

It's funny to me that people will go through their entire lives saying, "Money isn't everything." Only to get to retirement and realize, it sure and hell means a lot more than they thought it did. But then, it's too late.

The pooch has already been screwed and John who managed your money doesn't give a damn about your struggle because he already took what he wanted from you, who you willingly gave it to with a smile and confidence.

You won't leave your lawn mower to John to make sure it starts in the spring when you need it for the first cut, but you will leave your entire financial future in his hands?

What???

All jokes and scolding and brash and harsh statements aside, the bottom line is that whether you think so or not, your money matters. It should be something important to you to know all you can about just like it's important to know all the other things in life you think are important. 

Someone will always be willing to show you the way for a few bucks of your hard-earned money. Why not cut out the middle man? Not only will you save more money in the long run, you will most likely also amass much more of it. Because when you know what you're doing, and you're paying attention to it, you are much better equipped to make the necessary adjustments and assessments to ensure you get the biggest bang for your buck as you possibly can.

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Don't Spave Your Way to Save

They are virtually everywhere. Certain incentives and rewards programs that make it seem like they are designed to save you money. But the reality is, it actually causes many consumers to actually spend way more than they otherwise might, thinking there's an underlying benefit to doing so.

I am literally getting paid to spend, thinks certain consumers.

In some ways that's true. I am not one to simply ignore rewards programs, and I actually find them personally valuable. But like all things money related, you have to be responsible about how you use these programs, and you have to think about what the benefits really are. Or aren't.

For example, I use Upside. It's an app that offers cash back rewards on things like gas, groceries, and eating out. And it does pay to use it. In a relatively short period of time, I have been able to accumulate well over $200.

It may seem like small change, but pennies do add up, and with inflation still through the roof, any cost savings is well worth it.

But I don't use the app simply to use the app. In other words, I won't shop at a grocery store offering a reward just because they have an open offer. If there is something I need at that store and the price is right, I'll use the app. 

The same goes for fueling up. I won't get gas at one station that has an offer if I can find gas at another station cheaper.

When it comes to any rewards program, I am also not going to buy things just to stack up my rewards. To me, that's counterproductive. If it is something I would buy anyway, and there happens to be a reward attached to buying it, that's a good deal. But if I am buying something just for the reward, I'm shooting myself in the foot.

This is especially an issue when it comes to credit cards. There are all sorts of rewards offers, and all of them are designed to entice you to spend more money to get more rewards. I use Discover which pays me cash back rewards of 1% to 5%—each quarter there are specific offers that they'll give you 5% back on, such as home improvement stores or gas stations. Each quarter is different.

But in order for the rewards to actually be worth anything, I need to make sure I never carry a balance since any interest I pay will far outweigh any benefits I'd receive back on the reward.

From miles accumulated to get free flights to free cups of coffee or doughnuts at the gas station, or even points towards free groceries at grocery stores, none of these rewards are worth anything if we are spending to save. 

In fact, we're not saving any money at all.

Menards, which is a huge home improvement chain largely in the Midwest, based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is one that often offers a rebate program that gives consumers 11% back on their purchases. Since the pandemic, Menards almost always offers the incentive.

But like all the other reward programs, you have to know what your prices are. You don't buy something just because you declare, "Well, I'm getting 11% off." You still have to do your homework, and the deal is only valuable if you use it in a way that actually makes it valuable.

The bottom line is that spending money is never saving money. It is always spending money. Rewards programs can offer you an opportunity to save on things you need anyway and would buy anyway. But it can be a huge trap for consumers who think that these rewards programs offer "secret ways to stash some side cash."

If you are not careful, the real recipient of the "reward" goes to the one who offers it.

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Using the Rule of 5 When Buying Things

Getting ahead financially, or even managing your budget can be a difficult task. But it is never impossible if you at least think about it. Sometimes one of the ways to do that is by having unique ways to force yourself to not only think about what you spend but force yourself to think about ways to save.

All too often, part of the problem is a lack of forward thinking, or the, "I want it now," mentality. What can especially get us into trouble is relying too heavily on credit, and not thinking about what the real cost of things are when they are financed.

We all know about the value of compound interest on assets. But compound interest applied to liabilities can devastate us.

For a lot of people who carry large amounts of debt, they tend to think of their debts as manageable so long as they can make the payments. The reality is that if you cannot afford to pay the debts off tomorrow immediately, you cannot afford to carry the debt.

If debt is used responsibly, it can be a useful tool with some additional rules applied. For example, if the cost of the interest on any loan is less than the amount of interest you are earning on cash in savings or investments, the debt is "affordable." If the cost of the interest on the debt is greater than the amount of interest you are earning on any cash or investments, it is better to use the cash instead of incurring the debt.

The rule, however, creates a caveat. But it is one that works to your advantage.

The Rule of 5 is a very simple concept, and one that can be applied, and even probably should be applied to nearly every purchase you make, with some exceptions—such as real estate, for example.

The idea is to accumulate money before you spend it rather than to simply earn it and then spend it as it comes in. You may see a pair of shoes you want, for example and think, "I have $50 right now to buy them, and so therefore I can afford them."

The reality is that you cannot actually afford them. Even if you have the cash right now in your hands to buy them.

Applying the Rule of 5 means that before you can rightfully claim to be able to afford that pair of shoes, you need to have at least $250 of available cash on hand that is expendable—in other words, not tied to any other commitments.

It makes you stop and think about your money before you hand over your hard-earned cash. It's posing a very simple question. "Can I afford to buy 5 pairs of these shoes?" If the answer is no, you wait until you can before you actually make the purchase.

Not only does it avoid spending money today, but it also forces you to save additional money and to think about your reward for having the money differently. Instead of having nothing left after your purchase, you have the joy of knowing that you have $200 left. On top of that, you can now apply that to other future things you may want to buy.

Although the Rule of 5 can seem impractical when it comes to certain purchases, I think it is essential. It gives us a peak into what we are actually doing to set ourselves back financially. Something we rarely pay attention to, which ultimately gets us into all sorts of financial problems.

"Can I afford this car?" you might ask. "Can I buy 5 of them?" is the better question. Even if you decide to take on a loan, it doesn't mean you can afford it. 

"But if I want a reliable car, and I have to pay at least $30,000 for one that is reliable, who has $150,000 lying around to justify it?"

The answer is, "Most people don't have that kind of money lying around because they have never considered the Rule of 5 in regard to anything else. Especially when it comes to the small things."

We are all well aware of the age-old adage that good things come to those who wait. It is rarely applied to reality when it comes to most people. Even if you applied the Rule of 5 on a smaller scale, the rule could still work.

For example, say you can afford a car payment that is $600 a month. You aren't going to be able to afford $3,000 a month. But you can afford $120 a month. So, when you decide to buy a car, you find one that will only cost you one-fifth of the payment you can make.

How about considering applying this rule in your favor? You effectively make the $600 payment after you buy the car and have a payment of $120, but instead of paying $600 each month to a loan originator, you pay $480 to yourself and put it into savings or investments.

If the loan term is for 5-years, at the end of that term you'd have effectively saved $28,800 which can be applied to whatever future assessment of a vehicle you can afford would be. It is either used as a hefty down payment on something, or it is reapplied to the rule of 5 and divided into a 5th over the course of another 60 months giving you an additional $96 of monthly spending power, meaning now you can afford a payment of $216 per month when added to the $120 per month you could reasonably afford to pay before based on the Rule of 5.

Of course, applying this rule does not mean that what you are ultimately trying to do is to be able to necessarily buy more things. It simply means that if something happens tomorrow that negates your ability to afford things in the longer term, you are able to at least cover everything in the short term.

If you suddenly lose your job, you can still pay for what you have, and if you have applied the rule appropriately to everything you buy over time, you probably have something to fall back on as well to cover the necessary day to day expenses until you can find a replacement job.

The idea is to simply think about your money in terms of its intrinsic value and apply that value in order to get the most out of your money over the long haul.

There is nothing more comforting than knowing that if your income fell to zero tomorrow, you could still afford to pay off every single debt you have five times before you've actually run out of money. More importantly, the Rule of 5 forces you to think about your money more carefully before you pull out your wallet.

| "If you are digging a hole, it is best to bring a ladder with you along with your shovel, because ultimately you are going to want to have a way to climb back up to the surface." |

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Wasting Money: Just Stop Doing It

Money is not the most important thing in life to be sure. But when you don't have enough of it, it really can make life difficult to navigate. And, despite what anyone says, it can also make life less enjoyable. When you are strapped for cash and living paycheck to paycheck, it's like having an albatross constantly flying over your head.

When it comes to saving, though, there's a common utterance by most people. "I can't afford to save." That's because when people think of money or savings or even wealth, and especially building it, they think of income.

I continue to argue that money is rarely an income issue and almost always a spending issue. Having money comes from having a good mindset about money. It comes from constantly thinking of money in terms of its real value.

The pennies are what matter more than anything, and it's the pennies we tend to rarely think about when we consider saving. That hurts us really bad in the end because pennies tend to add up faster than dollars, and because we think of them as less important, they leave our hands far faster than the dollars do.

How many times have you said, "What's five cents?" Say that 20 times and you've wasted a dollar.

The key to saving is simply understanding where you are wasting your money. It's not the only thing you need to think about. But especially if you happen to be one of those people who say, "I can't afford to save," this is the first step to realizing you can actually afford to save if only you think about your spending differently.

It may sound absolutely ridiculous to consider, for example, cutting open an "empty" tube of toothpaste. But it may surprise you to know that when you can squeeze the tube no longer, there's still about 3-5 brushings worth left inside.

It may not make you rich to get every last drop out of the tube. But if you throw the tube away when there's still more toothpaste inside, you are literally throwing money away. You'd never consider tossing a nickel into the trash, would you? But even if it's not a literal nickel, many people do this all the time.

Avoid buying coffee at the coffee shops. Heck, avoid K-Cups for that matter. It is costing people a fortune. And many people who say they can't afford to save are at least using K-Cups which cost about twice as much as regular coffee does.

Avoid eating out for lunch, especially during the workweek. Pack lunches and save. Beyond that, avoid the after-shopping lunch out. Does it make sense to anyone that you are hauling $100 worth of groceries home in your trunk and then stop at Burger King for a hamburger before you get home to unpack them?

Sure, many people may say, "But I consider my coffee and my lunches out to be a treat." Okay. Fine. Fair enough. But if you also say you can't afford to save, how do these treats fit into the why? The reality is that most of the time anyone can afford to save. They just don't realize where they are wasting their money.

There is some truth to the saying that a cheapskate can squeeze a penny out of a wooden nickel. It simply means finding value where there is none otherwise perceived.

I could write a hundred different ways to save money. In fact, this blog is loaded with tidbits and details if you dig around a bit. But the basic idea for this post is to simply help to instill a sense of thought about money and saving not in terms of how much you make—or even how much you don't make. But to think of it in terms of what you waste.

I don't care if you make minimum wage and have four kids to feed. You can save if you know where to look. But of course, you have to look.

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Money is What You Make of It, Not How Much You Make

Because I write a lot about money and opine a lot about money, I tend to get all of the usual types of responses that are almost entirely, in my opinion, generic, and all easily debunked or argued against. The rich are all greedy and just want to hoard the money. Workers are exploited with low wages. You can't get ahead in the world if you don't make a lot of money. You can't live on the kinds of wages most companies provide.

My favorite one is, I can't afford to save, therefore how can I invest?

In part I say easily debunked or argued against because, like most people, I started at the bottom. Not the top. Yet despite that it has not stopped me from being financially secure, getting ahead, or being able to take advantage of the myriad wealth building opportunities everyone has no matter where they exist financially.

Yes. There are limits. But what the real limit is, is how little people recognize what the real opportunities are, how accessible they are to everyone, and what opportunities are afforded us by what the rich have created to have a shot at joining their ranks on some level.

I am not going to say it is easy. By no means. But nothing that is worth doing in life ever is. It's hard because it is supposed to be. It is hard because the challenge is what drives us forward despite what limitations we have or what hurdles we have to overcome.

I took my first job working for Dominoes Pizza at 14 years old putting circulars on doorknobs advertising pizzas to potentially hungry customers. They paid me $2.85 an hour. That was in 1987. In 1992 I went into the United States Navy and, according to my Social Security statement, by the time I got out in 1996 I was making $13,418 a year.

I started investing shortly before I left the navy. And granted, my expenses were low because I lived on the ship during the time and most of my food was paid for. I started investing with roughly a few hundred dollars. 

But I had a mindset. Live on 80% of your income and sock away the 20% you don't need. When I left the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in April of 1996 I had a total savings stash worth only around $3k. That was from money saved as well as money earned from investments.

Even 10 years later, according to my Social Security statement, I was only earning $36,951. But during that time I had real expenses. I bought my first investment property when I was 26 in 1999. Most of the downpayment and my ability to do that was based on proceeds, dividends and gains earned on saved money in the stock market.

I continued to save and invest at rates of 20% or greater, acted frugally, and continued to invest and learn about various strategies in the stock market. 

Never once did I ever think of the rich people I worked for as greedy. Never once did I allow myself to feel exploited. Never once did I complain about low wages, and certainly I was mostly always paid low wages.

I worked for big companies like Quad Graphics, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, and Nestlé. I even did a short stint as a pest control guy for a small company called Batzner Pest Management in New Berlin, Wisconsin.

My best year was at Coca-Cola, working in mid-level management and earned $60k. After Coca-Cola I took pay cuts to take on new challenges, and my last full year at Batzner I only made about $36k. The key here is that no matter how much money I made or didn't make, I never deviated from the plan. I never made an excuse to stop saving or to make changes to my investment goals and strategies.

The one thing that remained static was my thinking that it never matters how much you make, but rather it matters what you do with it.

More importantly, throughout my earning career one thing I never changed was my lifestyle. If I made $60k in my best year at Coca-Cola or $36k in my best year at Batzner Pest Management, I was living the same way, saving the same way, and investing the same way.

I even took time off frequently between jobs. In fact, between Nestlé and Batzner, I took nearly two years off.

Because of my investments, my bottom line changed little. My money was making money for me, and while it may not have been a period where I was necessarily getting ahead at the same rate as before the hiatus, I was still not going backwards.

And because despite the lack of new income coming in from a job, my money was still earning an income, and my lifestyle did not change much.

I will admit I did have to make some adjustments. But not unlike adjustments I had to make after I left Coca-Cola and took major pay cuts to do that. I was always viewing money not as a crutch or a limitation, but rather as an opportunity. 

If I look at my entire lifetime to date W-2 wages, from 1989 to 2022, according to my Social Security statement, my lifetime earnings to date are roughly $975k. Breaking that down that's roughly an average annual earnings of $29,546 a year.

I won't tell you what's in the "bank" now. But I can tell you it is an impressive amount of money considering what I ever had to work with. And that amount that's there now could never have been achieved if I had accepted for myself, the generic responses I get now when I talk about money or opine about it.

I lived on paltry wages and saved and invested them. I held a long-standing belief that opportunity is there for anyone who wants to take the time to learn about them, understand them, and exploit them as opposed to ever telling myself that I was the one being exploited.

In other words, rather than make excuses, I took action. I never once was able to allow myself to be convinced I was the underdog and doomed to poverty by the system or by circumstances not necessarily in my control.

I instead made my own circumstances and controlled my own fate and dictated my own financial future. I took hard the stance, no one can stop me from achieving what I want, because I have seen others before me do it. I always saw the possibilities. 

In no way was my desire to ever become a victim of circumstance or blame others for financial issues I may have had along the way. My financial existence was mine in the making, and mine to determine. If I took a job that paid a wage I didn't like, it was never once thought to be the responsibility of my employer to kick more money into my paycheck. It was my responsibility to kick more money into my paycheck by making decisions to increase my wages or wealth through finding a better job or making decisions about money I was already making to increase its value or worth.

When I write about or opine about money, I am doing so from a point of view of someone who never made much money but was able to build wealth anyway. It's part of the reason I am so strongly opinionated about it. It's why I get a little hot under the collar when someone says to me, "Yeah, you just say that because you have money."

You're just another rich guy lecturing the poor.

But I wasn't always that guy. I was the other guy. The guy who averaged under $30k a year who got somewhere despite it. Do you want to call $30k a year a decent wage? Hardly. And again, I lost ground several of those years, taking time off between jobs. Living off investments and making no income. And despite low wages and year-long hiatuses, still made my way through it. Still walked away with more money than I left off with.

The bottom line is that if you want to be a victim, that's a choice. If you want to allow yourself to be limited financially by circumstance, that's your choice. If you don't want to participate in the opportunities everyone has to get ahead, that's also your choice.

But it's not the rich guy's fault. It's not the cheap boss' fault. It's not societies fault. It's not the government's fault. It's not wage disparity's fault. It's not rich business owners or shareholder's fault.

It's yours.

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A Couple of Ways to Deal with This Inflation

While it is true that the April 2023 inflation numbers dipped to 4.9%—still relatively high—it's much better than when inflation hit its peak of 9.1% back in June of 2022. So, while the rate hikes that the Fed began a little over a year ago seem to be helping curb consumer costs a bit, we're not out of the woods yet and things still cost more.

Mortgages, for example, jumped from 2.6% to around 6.3% for an average 30-year fixed rate loan, and credit card interest has jumped to a record average of around 21%.

There is also the question of whether or not we may still see a recession. Something we have not seen yet, but most economists would suggest that between inflation and rising interest rates, it may be sure to come despite any effort by anyone to try to avoid it. And while a recession is not good, and it's not the end of the world, it would not come without some additional pain as layoffs would likely occur, further stressing American's bottom lines.

On the flip side of this, as rates have risen, so have offered interest rates on certain bank accounts. Savers are getting the biggest bang for their bucks, benefiting the most from banks that offer so-called high yield savings accounts. So, looking into some of them, especially online, may be worth looking into if you have some money tucked away somewhere not getting the best rates. It would be worth the time to shop around as well since not all high interest banks are good.

Ally Bank for example, offers a 3.75% current rate, and CD offerings are northward of 4.5%. That's quite a bit more than the national average of 0.39% even if 3.75% still doesn't come near to beating inflation, a key factor when determining how to get the best bang for your buck.

Capital One also offers 3.75%. Barclays is giving 4%. And there are several others. You can go online and do a quick search to find the best rates and do some bank comparisons.

Beyond that, you really have to know your prices when you shop, and you have to be quite a bit more vigilant about shopping around, even visiting multiple stores to get the best deals on most things—especially food and common household items.

Make shopping lists, maintain a good inventory, and stock up on good deals as often as possible. This will also help to determine where you shop based on who has the best price so you don't have to visit multiple stores all at once. When inflation is tugging at your purse strings, every penny counts more than ever.

Of course, a money related post from me would never be complete without mentioning investing. Dividends are a great way to create new money—it is literally income. And besides, you should be invested anyway. If you are not familiar with investing, a very valuable book to read, and well worth the time and money, would be The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. Creating money from money you already earned is a great way to at least hedge against rising costs.

One thing taking a significant bite out of people's pockets is also the cost of gas and diesel. Why not try to earn some cash back on some of that, and the Upside app lets you do just that. Plus, they also offer cash back on certain grocery stores and restaurants. I have used this app for some time and I have to tell you the savings do add up—and again, every penny counts.

On top of that, doing everything you can to reduce debt at a time like this is paramount. As I mentioned earlier, credit card rates are tipping the scales at 21%. Not only should you pay some of that debt off to save pennies, but you should also be less inclined to use credit to offset expenses caused by inflation. Borrowing when rates are higher, and inflation is through the roof is a good way to compound the problem. So, simply don't do it.

While it may be a more difficult thing to accomplish, provided your company is not laying people off or otherwise enduring other struggles financially, this may be a good time to ask your boss for a raise. You'll want to do some analysis so you can present a reasonable proposal, but the fact is that businesses already understand the impact of inflation on their bottom lines and won't hesitate to raise prices to help get through it. You are as much well within your right to ask for more as they are.

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How To Very Simply Manage Monthly Expenses

Let's face it. Budgeting sucks. I am very good with my money, and always have something left over to put into savings and investments. But honestly, if I had to do a real budget I have to tell you I would most certainly fall flat on my face.

It's hard to make predictions, for example, as to what I will actually spend—or need for that matter—when it comes to food, clothes, gas for the cars, and even entertainment.

So, instead of actual budgeting, what I do instead is simply do a monthly "budget" of sorts. But there's a catch here. I also pay myself a salary based on the anticipated monthly expenses.

The first step is to know how much money you make, and have a general idea of how much money you will need to get your monthly expenses covered. Both fixed and fluctuating. Take some time to save up enough money to cover at least one month's worth of salary. This admittedly take a while depending on how much you have and what you can put away. But trust me, it is worth doing.

Here I will give you a real time example using one of my recent monthly salary/budgets just to help to illustrate what is going on here so that you can more easily apply the principles. So, first off I already have my salary saved and ready to be dispersed at the beginning of the month.

I now will write down all of my expenses, also having predetermined what my monthly spending allowance will be. This, for me, is generally a fixed number which has been arrived at based on some general knowledge of what my monthly spending on food, gas, clothes, leisure, and whatever else that is not generally a bill, looks like.

For me that number is $1,200 per month.

• Mortgage, $1,100
• Truck payment, $300
• Cable and Internet services, $189.00
• Cell phone, $67
• Water bill, $50
• Trash and sewer, $35
• Electric and gas, $103
• Spending, $1,200

From all of this I get a total of $3,149 which I will draw from whatever account I have used to generate my salary. Again, I will do this on the 1st of the month.

Now that my entire month is covered right down to spending, I will not and do not need my paychecks for anything as they come in. This is critical, because now you have to work on replenishing your salary for the next month.

As soon as you get your paychecks, don't worry so much about the amount of them, just put the entire paycheck into whatever account you are drawing salary from (hopefully it is a savings or investment account).

Ideally, if you've done things right you will at the very least put back all of the money you took for your salary. In a better scenario you have worked out your expenses well enough that you will put back more money than you drew.

If you find you are consistently matching your draw or putting back less, simply make some adjustments. Most likely your spending budget is also one of the larger parts of your monthly expenditures, so that might be the best place to start to look to make some of those adjustments.

Get out a separate pad of paper to keep track of your monthly spending. This makes this very easy to track. Keep your receipts and start subtracting every time you put gas in the car, buy groceries, eat out, or go to the movies.

Be careful to not overspend in any of the weeks before the next salary draw, especially in the first couple of weeks. Otherwise you may wind up in what I like to call the "end of the month crunch." That is, toward the end of the month as you start to run out of money you may find yourself cash strapped and may wind up resorting to using credit cards, taking out payday loans or title loans, or simply being stuck in the house not able to go anywhere or do anything.

That's a counterproductive situation as it will discourage you from wanting to continue to apply this process.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Again, ideally you are finding ways to increase your earnings and reduce your expenses so that as you go about this you are more often than not putting back more money than you are taking, which ultimately provides an opportunity to increase your income through wise saving and investing—goes into something I like call "income replacement," but that's for another day.

Convenience And Luxury: Know the Difference

LET'S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT. LUXURY AND CONVENIENCE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Whatever do I mean? Look, there are so many people I know who confuse these two things, and it costs them an enormous amount of money.

You decide to go out and do some shopping for the day. You leave the house and somewhere in the process of shopping you decide you are thirsty. You stop at the local gas station and buy a bottle of Coke to satiate your thirst..

IS THIS LUXURY OR CONVENIENCE?

You might argue that you make enough money, and that you have enough money, and due to that fact alone, being able to buy that bottle of Coke while your out shopping is part of the luxury of having a supportive income.

But it is NOT a luxury. It is a convenience.

LET'S PUT THIS ANOTHER WAY. You go on a road trip and you know you are going to want to buy some bottled water somewhere along the way. You leave the house with 24 bottles of water in the refrigerator, but take none with you on the trip. You stop to fill up for gas and buy a bottle of water.

Is this luxury or convenience? IT IS CONVENIENCE.

Why is it convenience? In part because you decided to leave behind perfectly good and already bought and paid for water to avoid having to take it along. It is convenient that in the event you want that water despite that, someone will have it readily available.

In a way you could equate the logic to going on a vacation out of town. Do you opt to pack clothes you already have for the trip? Or do you opt to just buy those clothes as you need them while on the trip?

Let's put this yet ANOTHER way.

You get home from work and you simply do not feel like cooking dinner. You decide either to order out or go out to a restaurant. It's not that you do not have food available to cook in the cupboard or freezer. And it's not like you don't have the time or the ability to cook dinner. You just don't feel like it. This is a convenience.

So when is it a luxury if you decide to eat out or order in? When you decide to treat yourself to something special.

The long and short of it all is that when you start to break things down, the more you opt for convenience, the less you will be able to afford for luxury. Convenience costs the most even if luxuries are expensive since luxuries are partaken of, theoretically, less often than conveniences.

Drink cheap coffee Monday through Friday, and you may find you will have no problem treating yourself to something special on Saturday and Sunday. And because you have played your money right doing so, affording the luxury of doing so will not cost you as much.

I scrimp on the less important things so I can better afford the more important things.

What makes things worse for a good many people is they opt for both convenience and luxury. And at the end of the day when they look at their bank account what they find is...

THEY DON'T HAVE ANY REAL MONEY...

And more often than not, they have debt which they have created as a result, and a lack of savings to speak of. It's really a conundrum. But one that, when  you know what the difference is, is entirely avoidable...

And who wants to splurge on an easy bottle of Coke when you can do so much more if you didn't?

Retiring Early Is About the Little Things

Most of the time when we think of saving money, the word 'sacrifice' comes immediately to mind. And while it is true that starting the process of saving money may require some of that, the end goal is to accumulate the money by making small changes in the short term so that money is more readily available down the road for life's little pleasures, and having more freedom to pursue them without robbing yourself in the short term to enjoy them.

It is important to identify what those small changes are in order to maximize them. It may be as simple as cutting out that daily coffee at an expensive coffee shop, or even cutting out the K-Cups, or even the higher end premium coffee beans or blends we may buy. Switch to Folgers or Maxwell House, or even a store brand so long as you can stomach it. Maybe keep a package of the better stuff for a weekend treat.

Other things that can be cut-down may be those expensive energy drinks. If nothing else, don't buy them at gas stations where the price is usually ramped up. Buy them at your local grocery store, and by all means look for sales if you really can't bear cutting them out altogether.

Fill water bottles from your tap before you leave the house. How bad is tap water really? It's really just a mind over matter thing in all honesty. You can do the same with soda on the run. Buy the soda in 2-liter bottles and fill smaller bottles before you leave the house. A 2-liter bottle costs about the same as a 20-ounce bottle on the run, so you are actually saving quite a lot of money on this doing it this way.

There a number of things, if you examine closely enough, you can probably live without, or at least curb to save a little bit of money. I could make a ton of suggestions. Most of them are even likely to be cliché and very well known, or even obvious. The key is to identify for yourself what is important and what is not in your daily spending habits. And again, keep in mind that what you should be examining are the little things.The nickle and dime stuff. Not necessarily the bigger things.

Okay. One other small suggestion before I move on; start the habit of slushing in your checking account.

What is slushing? It is sort of like the idea of tossing your loose change into a coin jar to cash in later. Simply round up any transaction you make out of your checking account—if you do an annual audit or reconciliation of your checking balance you should be able to determine how much you have slushed and be able to make a good decision about what to do with it.

So what do you do with any savings? It is important to put that money you are not spending to work. I will tell you now it is best to avoid putting the money into a savings account since generally speaking, you earn so little interest it is simply not worth it. Besides that, the key to building your money and creating more value is by beating inflation. Something a simple savings account, and nowadays even a CD, simply will not do.

So, you want to have your money growing in the markets. Even with the ebb and flow of the stock market, history has proven time and time again without waiver that over time, the markets always grow. And if your money is in the market, so will your money grow. But, you do not need to be Warren Buffet in order to achieve a respectable gain on your money. Putting your money into a simple fund that tracks the S&P 500 has always been a good, sound place to put your hard earned, and well saved money.

I do recommend learning all you can about the markets since those in the know do better over time. But the idea here is just to get you into something simple that will provide a better bang for what savings you are able to muster.

The key here is two-fold. You are trying to retain as much of the money you earn today as you can in order to have more of it tomorrow and into retirement. These days I use my money for both of those things. Income replacement, and retirement funding. At some point, having saved and invested over time, it is not so much of a surprise that what you earn in dividends may meet or beat what your actual paycheck is. And once this is accomplished, this is what I mean by putting aside those little things today to enjoy them (and actually be able to afford them) once you have accumulated enough money that it becomes a virtual cash gifter that just keeps on giving.

Haste makes waste is something most people don't apply to money matters. But hastily buying that latte today will surely waste an opportunity to put $5 to work today that could be worth $10 in eight years based on the track record of money doubling in the markets about every eight years. When you start thinking about the dollar here and the dollar there, and what those dollars are worth over time, and how much they earn in dividends and other gains, it starts to make perfect sense. And even should be a little bit exciting.

One last thought, pertaining to the slushing. So, you might say, "But I don't use my checking account.I charge it," to which I would simply say—

If you had money you would not have a need for the credit card, and may be just one of the other little things keeping you away from getting beyond just working for your money and living paycheck to paycheck.

Taking "Pay Yourself First" One Step Further

The age-old adage in the art of saving away a few bucks for a rainy day and beyond, pay yourself first, is still one of the best ideas to not only plan for, spend around, but to also live by with absolute determination and commitment. For years I have advocated what I like to call the 80/20 rule which basically states that you only live on 80% of your means, and save and invest the 20% you don't need. These days the amount I save is actually higher since the 20% affords, eventually, an increase in your means through dividends, capital gains, and other things that the money "in the bank" tends to generate.

Money makes money is another thing everybody says, but that is also absolutely true.

Something that I find often gets overlooked in all of these concepts surrounding saving money is actually a very important factor that can, if not considered, eat away and terribly counter a great deal of the effort you put into your savings commitments.

The COST of money.

Where this factor is most encountered, it is when we are dealing with how we manage and use credit. Most people who understand credit also understand that there is a difference between good debt and bad debt. Naturally there are some people who will tell you that there is no such thing as any good debt. I am not in that camp. By my definition good debt is debt which leverages an  appreciating asset such as your home. In this instance the cost of the debt is typically negated by the appreciating value of what has been financed. Bad debt is debt that is used to leverage depreciating assets, such as a vehicle. But even I am guilty of making use of this kind of debt—although I do everything I can to minimize the impact. For example when my wife and I purchased our Ford Edge a few years back we put down $10,000 to keep the monthly payments down and reduce the overall interest we would pay. I did the same thing recently when I replaced my old Ford Sport Trac with a newer Ford F-150 and laid out $14,000 cash at the bargaining table.

But the worst debt is the credit card.

Credit cards can be used in ways that actually help you toward your savings goals. For example, I use a Discover card which pays me cash back on every purchase. The trick here is to pay the card as you use it otherwise the cash back rewards are really worthless.

But rather than use credit cards, and finally we're getting to the meat of what I meant when I said let'syour own line of credit? I call this little concept the Credit Savings Account, or CSA. Key here is that if you are following strict savings plans, there should be plenty of money sitting around somewhere that you can allocate to a "credit card" where you are your own bank. My CSA sits in my checking account and when I use it, it is as simple as swiping my debit card.

take the concept of paying yourself first one step further, why not simply establish

And by the way, this is a great way to also avoid overdraft fees, and WORSE, paying for overdraft protection which is absolutely a total waste of money.

Here is how I set up my CSA:

• Establish an amount to fund the account with and determine this to be the credit limit.
• Establish a day each month when you will make payments. Mine is on the 20th of each month.
• Establish an interest rate you will charge yourself. This can be whatever you want it to be. I typically charge myself anywhere from 15%-29.9% depending on the balance, but I never pay myself less than 15% interest.
• ALL INTEREST PAYMENTS MUST BE EITHER PUT INTO SAVINGS, OR USED TO INCREASE THE CREDIT LIMIT. THIS SHOULD NOT BE SPENDING MONEY.
• Establish a minimum payment based on at least 3%-5% of the balance. But of course you can repay yourself any way you want.

When I calculate the interest I don't bother with how credit card companies actually do it, using daily periodic rates and average daily balances etcetera. But of course if you want to you can do it this way—but it is naturally much more time consuming. Here is an example of how I will determine my payment and interest:

• Balance ($300) x 15% interest =  $45 / 12 months = $3.75 (this is my interest charge). Balance ($300) x 5% minimum payment = $15. In this example I will pay $15 on the 20th (my due date). Of the $15 I will apply $11.25 to the principle (balance) and direct $3.75 to interest (which will be deposited to my savings).

There is a caveat here. When you set up this account for yourself you must avoid playing games with yourself, such as forgoing making a payment, or playing around with the interest you charge yourself. This will foil any benefit a CSA will afford you. You are the banker. Act like one and fiercely demand payment and interest, and penalties when you don't pay.

Establishing a CSA takes paying yourself first one step further because it will accomplish two very important things. 1) it will force you to save more money away and 2) it will reduce your cost of money since you are using the CSA in lieu of traditional credit cards.

Perhaps even when I bought my vehicles I should have simply paid cash and set up a loan for myself.

Hmm. Something for me to consider on the next set of wheels I think. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Ford doesn't actually come out with a new Bronco or I may have to revisit this idea sooner than I would like.

A Rebuttal to Comments Regarding Ways To Save A Ton of Money On Groceries And Household Items

After writing my commentary, "Ways To Save A Ton of Money On Groceries And Household Items," while I did not get many comments directly on my post, there were some "circles" of friends and family who wanted to provide a verbal rebuttal to my entire concept that time is money, and not taking the time to shop multiple stores, maintain an inventory, and forget convenience was simply wrong.

But you and your wife do not have kids. We do not have time to go to different stores. We cannot always shop price. We just need to get it done.

I can sympathize with that argument, and I can also appreciate it. But what does it really boil down to for me? And let's be clear that I am not trying to be argumentative or mean when I state this.

You are making this claim with very little true knowledge of the value of your money, and the value of your time.

I stated in my commentary that if the average person wasted an average of $1,000 every single year just to save time, and just for the sake of convenience, that if they made $15 an hour they would need to work an additional 67 hours each year to pay for the cost of just getting it done and saving time.

To that end I decided to break things down a bit more, simply because I was curious what the true cost of saving time happens to be. My numbers are slightly rough, but they also hold a lot of truth. My calculation here is as follows:

• What if I wasted just a mere $1,000 each and every year for the next 30 years? If I would have instead put my waste into the markets, for example, and earned compounded interest at 5% year (a conservative figure based on historical results), how much more money might I have had? Or conversely, how much money did I actually potentially lose just to save time?

In 30 years you have of course wasted, at the bare minimum, $30,000. A small number. And let's keep in mind that the total waste not adhering to some of the ideas I presented in my "Ways To Save A Ton of Money On Groceries And Household Items" is actually significantly more than that for a very large number of people. The real number is probably somewhere around $3,000 - $7,000 a year of wasteful spending depending on your income, and the size of your household. Even those figures may be substantially conservative based on your own lifestyle, the types of products you buy, and of course whether or not you are buying brand name items or no-name items.

If you would have followed the principles, and instead of wasting the money at the cash register, put the money into the stock market, or a simple mutual fund that earned a very conservative 5% annually, at the end of 30 years that money would have accumulated to a whopping $66,643.82. Not only would one have wasted $30,000 in 30 years, their wasted money would have lost the opportunity to gain $36,643.82 of accumulated interest.

Again, more people waste more than $1,000 annually, so this number actually doubles and triples and quadruples. If we were take into account the real numbers we'd be looking at figures more around $266,575.28. If at the same time you were still sticking to your retirement goals it is easy to see how after a mere 30 years of working, following sound money management principles, being disciplined about your spending habits, and following a few simple extra steps to ensure that your money is spent wisely, justly, and with a well mapped out plan for at least the everyday spending, you could be looking at assets that top $1 million or more. Perhaps not quite enough to retire after 30 years of gainful employment. But surely much closer to the prize than if you simply decided you'd rather save time in the short term than save a TON of time in the long term.

Why do people fall into these traps? Why do people easily accept these "justifications?" Because they think in terms of the here and now. Because they do not run the numbers. Because they do not understand the basic idea of the intrinisic value of money. It is the fault of no one. They don't teach this stuff in school and most people don't take the time to learn it on their own.

There are other ways to consider how this $1,000 a year could be "reinvested" as well. One could pay down debts. One could pay down mortgages. Both of these things are also very good uses of the "found" money, and would significantly reduce the actual number of years you are required to work, and save you a massive amount of time overall.

The bottom line? The time you are saving today to make your life easier is costing you tens of thousands of dollars of more time working to make up for it in the end. If you are okay with that, then maintaining the status quo is fine. But the finish line comes up much sooner if you understand how money works, how waste affects you, and how convenience actually costs you more in the end.

It is said than an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That is disputable. But an hour extra a week could actually put retirement in your grasp YEARS earlier. I think the numbers I have presented here speak for themselves. There is much more to be gained by saving money than by saving time. I think that speaks for itself and the numbers make that all too clear. In my life saving time is worthless if in the end it costs me money...

And increases my working life.

Ways To Save A Ton of Money On Grocery And Household Items

One of my secrets to having money has never been making a lot of money, although I have managed to make my fair share. My secret to having money lies in what I spend. Or, put another way, what I don't spend. And the cost savings are enormous. Aside from all the ways you can make more money than you earn from any job, such as concepts such as pay yourself first, investing in the stock market, contributing to IRA's, 401k's and other retirement plans, there is a ton to be gained by following a few simple rules when it comes to spending your money on the everyday things we need and that are the bulk of our daily expenditures. Groceries and household items.

• Know your prices and establish a threshold price. In other words, what is the most you are willing to pay for any particular item? When an item is at or below your threshold price, stock up on it.
• Forget brand names. Brand name items are products of marketing, not quality. Marketers will have you convinced that their product is better through marketing, but if you test off-brand products you will easily find they are comparable, if not better than any brand name items you have been convinced are superior.
• Shop more than one store and DO NOT buy any item that does not meet your threshold price just because "you are there." If you are managing threshold prices properly, and stocking up on goods that meet your prices you should have plenty of supply on hand to wait for a good deal or when you might be at the store that has the best price.

If you are not running your household like a business runs its warehouse, you are doing it wrong. A business keeps a few key factors in mind. Cost of raw materials, upfront cost of supply, days-on-hand of supply, and of course, inventory management and control. If an airline sees oil prices are low, it will buy contracts for oil at current prices in larger number to ensure that tomorrow's cost of use of oil in jet fuel will be lower even if the price of oil rises and thusly the cost of jet fuel. The business has established a price threshold and will take advantage of low prices to save money in the future and it will stock up when the price is good. The same goes for producers that use sugar, corn, and other raw materials in their goods.

Many business also hire purchasing agents or purchasing managers whose sole job it is to buy raw materials and other products for businesses at the best price available and of course to shop the best price. You should be running your household the same way. Again, know your prices, maintain your inventory, and schedule your purchasing both on need AND price. If you are buying because you need it now, you are probably paying more for what you need by default. The cost of doing it this way is enormous.

Why do businesses do so well and make so much money? Because they know how to save and they know how to spend and they know where to buy and they know a good deal when they see it. That's not greed. That's business smarts. We should all be paying close attention to this when we run our household budgets for items that are key and regular items we use. If we are not, we are spending more money than is necessary.

To be very truthful, that is waste due to ignorance and laziness. No business succeeds using an ignorance and laziness model, so why should you?

• But I do not have the time to do all of these things. I have a busy schedule, a busy life, and convenience is just better for me.

Consider this, if you will. One very simple question. Why is life so chaotic? Why is time so limited? In part it may well be that there are jobs to be shuffled in amongst the many other demands life has to offer. So what is the purpose of a job? To make money to maintain the living expenses and to maintain the household and to buy the groceries and household items that we need to get through it all. How much more time does the average person spend working to make the money to pay a higher price for goods to maintain the household due to lack of time to do the due dilligence? You would be surprised to learn that the numbers are in the thousands of dollars per year. We could actually maintain the same quality of life with less hours on the job and have more time to spend doing other things if we knew the cost of doing business without a plan. The dollars we spend over and above what we could spend if we maintained our households better equals many more hours at work to make up the difference. So therefore part of the reason we have to work long and hard hours is because we do not take the time to do the things that are essential to require less money to get it all done.

I harp on all of this because the key factors in longer hours at work, and higher need for credit use, is a simple misunderstanding of the cost incurred from ignorance and laziness to do these very simple things that could save us enormous amounts of money.

When I think of spending, or cost, I don't just look at it in terms of how much out of pocket it immediately costs me. I think of it in terms of time. How much time do I have to spend at work to make the money I am willing to pay over and above what my cheapest cost can be?

Let's say I make $15 an hour on my job. That's 25 cents per minute. I ask myself one simple question. Am I willing to spend four extra minutes at work to pay $1 more for what I am about to buy for convenience?

Pennies add up. And again, the amount we spend over and above what we could spend is actually in the thousands of dollars per year. In effect, if we ONLY spent $1,000 per year extra on things at $15 an hour, we would require an additional 67 hours to pay the difference. You have to ask yourself whether or not saving a little bit of time for convenience saves you 67 hours of additional labor hours to pay the difference.

Your chaos in life therefore may well be self inflicted by your spending habits and your desire to "save time" for convenience.

The problem with money that most people face in this world is a simple thing. They do not know what the cost of their decisions are. They do not know what the cost of their actions are. And they do not know how much time $1 equals. People look at the top line and the bottom line, and they fail to read between the lines. If I am getting by, what else matters? I just keep on keeping on. The cost of this logic is astronomical. The hours spent working by this logic is astronomical. The chaos in our lives, the accumulation of debt, and other factors are the key reason why so few get ahead and so may just get by. The fact is that we are always too focused on the here and now. We say we cannot afford to save, and we say we cannot afford to take the extra time to shop around and shop more than one store, and the biggest reason why that becomes the truth is because we have to work so much longer to make up the difference.

Part of what separates the haves from the have-nots is largely due to the ability of the haves to understand these very basic concepts and to capitalize on the them and ultimately, to benefit largely FROM them.

If you think life is tough and expensive, it is probably because you are working to pay for ignorance and laziness when you could be living well, saving money, spending less, and working less, and even maybe paying debts off sooner and be considering early retirement.

All American Labor Day

Let's be real here, shall we? Part of the reason that the American economy continues to be in the doldrums is because we are still not fully aware of the positive impact of buying small, buying local, and buying American. So here is what I think we should be focusing on this Labor Day in 2015. As barbeques and parties will be all the "thing" to do, our tables and our parties should be littered with American made goods, and with local produce, local brews, and American fare all the way, to the extent we possibly can. Believe it or not, but the impact of spending on small, local, and American is huge in the grander scheme of things.

Let's start with cheese. Why not find a local cheese shop to supply the cheese for your big Labor Day party. I will recommend the West Allis Cheese & Sausage Shop for any cheese needs for your big party day, or sausage, sauerkraut, or whatever else might be your fancy. Barring that, find a store near you that sells great cheese but is not a big chain. Around where I live currently there is nothing other than The Cheesekeeper, a fantastic shop with knowledgeable and friendly operators who always get the job done right.

Onto the meat. Find a local shop that does meat the right way. They are everywhere, you just have to look. But buying from them is always better than buying from the big grocery chains, especially if they happen to be the big national ones. Back home in West Allis I always loved the great service and great quality of meats offered by Rupena's Fine Foods. Currently there are two very small and very local shops I buy my meats from. Schneider's Quality Meats in Waterloo, IL, and B&D Meats in Freeburg, IL. The point is that these kinds of places exist, and all you have to do is look for them. B&D is actually a bit of an adventure. It is in the middle of nowhere, and to get there you have to drive on a very desolate rock road to arrive. Their service is excellent, their prices are reasonable, and they are helpful and friendly. Even if there is a slight premium to their goods, I am willing to pay because helping small and local business happens to be very important to me. I want places like Rupena's and B&D to be around to provide an alternative to the Schnuck's, Shop and Saves, Krogers, and Pick 'N Saves of the world.

Oh yeah. And Walmart.

Want a great dessert to serve your party guests? Why not try a small and local bakery? Around my part of the world that would be none other than Eckert's. Not only do they have great desserts, but fine produce, some quality meats, and many other delectable little treats. It's pricey. But it is also worth it.

How about an all American brew? Where I live there is Schlafly, but of course Samuel Adams happens to be the last, largest, truly American company that brews beer these days. Why not have a few of their brews in the cooler for your guests?

As for what you will cook this great American fare on? Why not take a look at the Made in USA lines offered by Huntington Gas Grills which happen to be readily available through another great American company that often has American made goods on their shelves, Menard's.

This Labor Day I say be it plates, plastic ware, food, or brews, the more you can make it all American and all local, the more you will do for your community, the economy, American jobs, small business, and the more hurt you can put on the big box stores and major national chains. Making America great again is about Americans realizing what is important, restoring competition, and keeping the little guy in a position to give the bigger guys a run for their money.

Does it cost more? Sometimes. Yes. But the real cost is not in what you pay today. It is in what you pay in what the big wants from you because the little guys are not in the game to offer an alternative. This Labor Day think local. Think small. And think American.

You Will Like Aldi Stores

Really, there are many things to like about Aldi stores. A couple of things you notice right off the bat are parking lots devoid of shopping carts lying around in cart corrals or worse, rested up against your front quarter panel on your shiny new car. Aldi has the unique system of a "cart deposit." In other words, you have to insert a quarter to get your cart, and return the cart to the corral at the front of the building to get your quarter back.

Everyone goes back for their quarter and I have never seen anyone leave their cart behind. Not once.

Another thing you notice right off the bat are clean and bright stores, albeit small and compact, but loaded up with all of the normal household items you may be buying already on a regular basis. I have always encountered helpful and friendly staff, and have to be honest when I say I have never had a bad experience at an Aldi store and I have been shopping there for years.

Sure. It's a German company. But one thing that is also worth noting about Aldi Stores is that they pay their employees very well, and I think this helps to ensure that customer service is top notch. Employees are happy, willing to hustle, willing to be helpful, and that makes a world of difference in

my opinion. It is also partly why I think I have never encountered a bad experience there. The average starting wage for a cashier is $12.50 per hour, and rather than force their employees to stand on their feet all day, cashiers are situated comfortably in a chair.

And they are fast. Super fast. Very much unlike when you go to Walmart and swear that the cashiers are paid bonuses for checking people out as slowly as possible.

Another interesting observation about Aldi Stores is that the shelves are always full. And I mean always. The people who work at Aldi Stores are constantly moving things through the aisles to make sure that anything in stock is stocked and readily available to the customer. I have never had to track someone down and ask, "Do you have any more of 'these' in the back?" Never.

What strikes me the most are the prices. Granted, if you are buying meats at Aldi Stores on a regular basis, I cannot understand why. Their meat prices are nothing to write home about. In fact, they are horribly high compared to other supermarkets and even Walmart for that matter. By the way, Walmart meat prices are also almost always higher than anyone else. Keep that in mind if you are a loyal Walmart customer.

The average price for a can of vegetables? About 40 cents. You cannot buy canned vegetables anywhere cheaper than Aldi Stores, period. Even their canned tomato sauces and diced tomatoes are the cheapest I have found anywhere, and I have to tell you.

The quality is as good as anyone.

Even when it comes to my creamed soups, I buy these almost exclusively at Aldi Stores. I also almost exclusively buy cans of tuna and canned mushrooms there. They literally have the best prices I have found anywhere on these items. And again, the quality is as good as anyone.

A fan of mac and cheese? They have the best price I have found for that too, averaging out to about 39 cents a box, and it is as good as any mac and cheese you can buy unless you are a die-hard Kraft fan.

As far as their produce goes, this is impressive as well. Not only are the prices of Aldi Stores' produce fantastic, the quality of their produce is as good as anyone as well. On my last trip I bought a 3 pound bag of yellow onions for 99 cents, and even bought two 5 pound bags of red potatoes for $1.99 each. When it comes to red potatoes, that's a steal. Hell, it was a steal compared to even regular russets.

Another thing that readily becomes visible is the amount of food you can stuff in your cart, that when you checkout would probably cost you three times what it costs you at an Aldi Store. A $50 cart of food from Aldi adds up to bags and bags and bags of stuff. You cannot say that about Walmart, or even the lowest priced discount supermarket in your neighborhood.

Aldi Stores is definitely a place to check out if you have never been. I am liking Aldi, and I think you will too.

Think Aldi is only for poor people? Think again. If you aren't shopping at Aldi not only are you probably wildly overpaying for many of the items you generally keep in your pantry. You may well be making yourself poor in the process without even realizing it.

Another last minute observation about Aldi Stores parking lots? You will find few late model cars parked in them. Instead you see BMW's, Jaguar's, Cadillac's, Lincoln's, and newer model regular makes. Aldi Stores are not stores for the poor. They are stores for smart shoppers who enjoy excellent customer service, excellent quality products, and who choose to keep the money they save there for more important things.