How's your gift-giving etiquette?

Here's a great little self-test from Kiplinger on gift-giving etiquette.

Test Your Gift-Giving Etiquette
When giving or receiving this holiday season, there's a right -- and wrong -- way to go about it. For example, is it okay to re-gift? Do you know how to handle an unexpected present? Is an e-mail thank-you note acceptable?

I regret to say I only received a 60%, which in most schools means failure. However, I don't mind re-gifting -- it wouldn't bother me if someone re-gifted to me, and I think it's fine to send unusable things on, so long as they are still in their original packaging -- and I always gift my boss a gift. I give the same thing to my boss and co-workers (when I'm working), which is usually just a tiny box of chocolates, or a card for a free latte with a card. Regardless, it was fun to see what was there and how others scored. Enjoy!

Making a list, and really checking it twice

So I caved and went to the mall and and a few other select stores yesterday and today to pick up some deals. A dear, dear friend of mine, whom I recently visited, has three children aged 7, 9 and 13. While I was there, I noticed the state of their bedding was horrible, and there were hardly any towels in the bathroom that were a single piece. So, this year, even though I am not buying gifts for any other friends, I decided to buy each child a bed-in-a-bag and to buy my friend some complete sets of towels. I budgeted around $150 for the family, knowing that I could buy super-cheap items for that but hoping I could find some nicer deals this weekend. After all, the problem with super-cheap stuff is that it just doesn't hold up, and clearly, THIS STUFF NEEDS TO HOLD UP.

I hit multiple stores looking for deals. I shopped Linens-n-Things late Friday night. I cruised Target at 10:45 p.m., noting the gaunt and exhausted faces of those poor Black Friday workers. I found one bedding package at Linens-N-Things for $49.99, and two towels sets (each with bath towels, hand towels and washcloths) for a mere $15 a piece. I had a 20% off coupon for the bedding, but I could hardly buy 3 without exceeding my budget. I soldiered on.

I haunted the basement of JCPenney's at 10 a.m. I dragged screaming family members into Sears. After an hour of picking through a few hundred comforters, I finally found two amazing comforters for just $18 each. Bingo! They were soft. They were warm. They were blue. They were perfect!

Then I found two sets of 300-thread-count sheets on clearance -- not only were they a decent thread count, but they matched the comforters. They were marked down to $16.97, with an additional 20% off. I took my haul to customer service to listen to them try to sign me up for a Sears card and to finally ring up my merchandise.

They forgot the 20% off. So okay, that's fine, I go back and show them the sign and they nod and then take my 20% off the sheets, saving me another $6.00. This would seem unremarkable, except...

I then found some really nice Skechers for my 5-year-old for Christmas. He really wanted a pair (purely due to t.v. advertising, I'll admit) but since I've only just gotten him out of plastic Spiderman sandals, I was actually happy he wanted nice shoes. I found a pair at Sears later that day marked down from $44.99 to $19.99. This is only a few dollars more than a regular pair at Target or Walmart. I seized the box (they had his size!) and took it to the register.

It rang up at regular price.

I took yet another saleslady to the sign, she checked the numbers, and then we proceed to wait nearly 20 minutes (I am serious) for a manager to show up to clear the transaction. My savings? $25.00 But this is getting a bit old...

Except for the fact that, earlier in the day at JCPenney's, I picked up a pair of jeans for my son (he's also grown out of everything the past month) that were marked down to $10.00. There was another, nearly identical pair next to it. When they rang it up...the second pair was $17.99. I had them take it back. My savings: $7.99 (actually $17.99, since I didn't go search for another pair).

So...the total mistakes for today totaled $39.00. That's nearly 40 bucks! It's hard to believe that these are all honest mistakes, and not retailers' deliberate sloppiness. This sloppiness means money in their pocket. How many people would weather the embarrassment of waiting 20 minutes for a manager to show up (who was, incidentally, completely unapologetic for the wait)?

It has only been recently that I've started really scrutinizing my receipts. My mother used to do this, but I never acquired the habit. Then I saw this article on Get Rich Slowly, and I decided to start checking and see what would happen. In addition to my $39.00 savings today (or $49.00, depending on how you see it), I have also noticed mistakes on my grocery receipts three times. For two of them it was an incorrect price, for a savings of $7.39 (the third was an item under the wrong sign, and I opted to pay the higher price for it).

If you add up the grocery mistakes, I made $46.93 this month, just by spending the time to check the receipts.

So for everyone joining the rat-race we call Holiday shopping, here's a tip: don't just check your gift list, check your receipts -- and recheck. The money I saved today meant that I came under budget for my shopping this weekend.

(On a side note: By using my coupon and insisting on the advertised discounts, I managed to buy the two towel sets and 3 complete bed sets for my friend for the low, low price of $143.79, tax included. I came under budget by $6.21 while still buying really nice, good quality items. I am very proud of my shopping this year, and glad that my good friend will have nice, warm blankets for all her kids!)

Black Friday Online

I've been surfing the web, looking for Black Friday deals, and it looks like the best ones are actually online. I have to get up to take my mother-in-law to the airport early Friday morning, and I thought if anything I was already looking for was on sale, I would drop by and buy it.

I have never shopped on Black Friday, choosing instead to sleep off my large Thanksgiving dinner and ignore the mania. Last year, a friend of ours waited in front of a Best Buy in San Diego all night long, only to have to run for his life as some stressed out consumer pulled a gun. But here, in laid back Tucson, the thought of such craziness seems impossible. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like this year, at least, I'm not going to find out. My Black Friday will exist online this year, if at all.

Amazon.com has a great Friday sale every Friday of the year; I expect great things from their online Black Friday Sale. And if you're looking for a list of online retailers and what they are offering, here's a list of Black Friday Sales.

Just keep in mind, as one poster to this site put it; if you search around the web, most of the deals can be found anytime. So save your crazy for something more deserving than consumer goods, and keep your dollars in the bank.

Move over, E-Bay

This year, I lost a $720 diamond ring. I had bought it at a discount at the Gem and Mineral Show here in Tucson. Since I lost it through basic stupidity (leaving it in a place my toddler could reach), I decided not to replace it and instead purchased a very similar ring made of cubic zirconium via Amazon.com. The new ring is small, tasteful and virtually nobody realizes it is not a diamond. The price? $13.49.

However, had I seen this site called Bidz, I might have considered buying another diamond ring, particularly if I could get one for less than $100. I don't know how long my silver and cubic zirconium ring will actually last. That being said, the prices on this site show yet another aspect to this; although the ring had been a gift, diamonds are not a good investment of money. Instead of buying a diamond ring, it would probably be worth it to take that cash, however much it may be, and buy the company that sells them -- shares of it, at least.

It may not be shiny and sparkly, and may not fit on your finger, but extra money in the bank? Now that's pretty.

DIAMONDS MAY BE forever, but on Bidz.com they're hardly priceless — and that's turning out to be a valuable strategy for this online jewelry auctioneer. Rings, ruby bracelets and pearl earrings all start off at $1 on Bidz. Shoppers decide the final price, with winners often making off with their bounty for under $100.

Bidz is the creation of Chief Executive David Zinberg, an immigrant from Moldova who took his first job in the U.S. in a shoe store. He went on to form a business selling jewelry on eBay and parlayed that into what is now Bidz.com, a roughly $400 million company whose stock has risen 125% since its May initial public offering. In August, Zinberg decided to forgo his annual salary and receive a nominal $1 a year, with no stock options or bonus, saying the move more closely ties his pay to the company's performance. The CEO owns close to three million shares of the company. (Read the entire article here).

Black Friday's comin'

Black Friday is next week! How did this happen? Luckily we've already done our Christmas budget, and my family has agreed to draw names this year, which means we may actually come under budget. Also, my mother-in-law is coming for a visit next week, which I hope means I can send gifts back with her and save on shipping. I've never been a Black Friday shopper; I don't much like shopping, and the idea of standing in the cold for a "possible" deal just doesn't appeal to me. For those of you who do, Kiplinger has a list of ten ways to save money on Black Friday. My favorite is the last one -- curling up on the couch and relaxing. Because the best way to save money is not to spend any at all! I like the two below, too, and plan to spend my Black Friday doing just this:

6. Clean out your closet, basement or garage. Are your old clothes, knick knacks, books, CDs and other household items taking up precious space? Donate your used stuff to a charitable thrift store such as Goodwill or Salvation Army and get a tax write-off. Or sell it on Craigslist, eBay or Amazon.com to make some extra cash for the holidays. Learn more about where and how to sell online.

7. Assemble your financial emergency kit. This fall's California wildfires serve as a somber reminder to get all your important documents in order. A couple hours of preparation could prove priceless if disaster ever struck your family.
Gather all your important documents, including insurance policies, birth certificates, property deeds, car titles and investment records, and store them in a fireproof safe. Also, consider creating a couple of backup CDs of digital family photos to stash in your safe. Pictures are often the number-one item people wish they could take with them in an emergency.

Ironically, the one thing Kiplinger doesn't mention is a magazine subscription to them, which is a great gift that doesn't need to be shipped. My parents have talked to a financial advisor this year and are actually trying to save money. My mother is 60 and my dad is 56, and they have been spenders most of their lives (they actually did best when they were poorest; when me and my two siblings were small, they paid off their house in just 6 years. They re-mortgaged it when I was a teen and maxed out its value with an equity loan just this spring). I am happy they are starting to sort things out, and hopefully they will get good information from the magazine. I don't think they'll be offended; my mother has been asking for some kind of books or reading materials all year. I think Kiplinger is a good resource, but if anyone has a better magazine or book that works for them, leave a comment!

Preparing for the Plunge

After reading about how Net Worth can be artificially high because of house prices, I've finally decided to take the plunge and adjust our net worth down. I did not use Zillow for this; instead, I found out what a similar house on our street sold for and used the price-per-square-foot to figure out ours. It is only a few thousand from the Zillow figure, anyway.

So, the worth of our house will go down $13,000 this month to reflect the housing crash. Since we've just put $25,000 into remodeling and $2500 into new appliances, this is hard for us to chew. On the bright side, we only owe 72% of the worth of the house, even having taken out money for remodeling and such, and our mortgage interest rate is just 4.375%. While we don't want the worth of our house to drop, if it did, we could weather the storm. The majority of our debt is the mortgage and our student loans; in fact, it comprises 95.7% of our total debt (24% is student loans). Our consumer debt is just 4.3% of our total debt. So, while our net worth is not terribly high, a large portion of our debt can be deferred during hard times.

Because of this, what I really want to concentrate on right now is saving for retirement and having a really well-funded emergency fund. Right now we only have 2 months worth of expenses saved, but my goal by May 2008 is to have 6 months or more saved. That way we will be ready for an impending recession.

I will say that, as a state employee, my husband has very little chance of losing his job. He was moved from "soft" money to "hard" money four years ago, and is vested as a state employee, so it would be pretty hard to fire him. We have been hoping to move and for him to get a new job in a couple of years; a recession could stymie that plan. But I think we are reasonably well prepared to weather some hard times, although we could be much better.

My big worry is if this impending recession will last more than a few years. In the 1980s, it went on forever, and if that happened, things would get very tight. Right now my husband has a secure job, but the pay isn't that great for a four-person family. He will finish his degree in May 2009, but if there aren't any other jobs out there we could be stuck. Right now he gets the GI bill to supplement our income, but that will end next year. That's a reduction of $800-$1100 a month. Living on his salary alone will be tough, and right now I am trying to live just on his income and use the GI bill as savings or to pay off debt.

I feel like we need to practice being disciplined and not just expand our living expenses because the money is there. It's hard, but things are finally starting to fall into place as we slowly reduce what we spend every week. We will get rid of our second car in the next few months; we've gotten rid of our storage unit, are using the scooter to save gas, are eating in most nights a week and making lunches. All this means that this month we have an extra $800 to put on our debt. It's not much, but every little bit counts.

Next up: Amazon versus Half.com. I am selling around 300 books and using both sites, with the extra money to go onto our debt, of course. Keep an eye out for the update.

November Net Worth

November Net Worth: not great. Although we show a slight raise in our net worth, this is about to plummet, as we just purchased two major appliances. Our stove chose the month of October to go out, and our dishwasher hasn't worked for three months. It's just our year; it seems like everything in the house is on its last leg.

The end came with me trying to make an apple pie; I had to light the stove six times, and it took nearly 3 hours. The pie came out like applesauce, and we finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy new appliances (it is more than the stove is worth to fix it; we've been coaxing it along for nearly 3 years). Sears had a nice 15% off deal for people buying two appliances, so we got a new, very energy-efficient dishwasher, and a brand-new gas stove. Our 1963 Kenmore 36-inch monstrosity of a stove is no more.

In addition to buying appliances, I used the credit cards to buy some needed storage cabinets and a new drill to install them (we need a special drill for our masonry walls). This purchase, like the appliance purchases, was born out of continued frustration. I am continuing to try to get boxes unpacked and our lives in order, but some of the changes we've made to the house greatly reduced our storage space. Renting the guesthouse is a loss of 400 square feet of space as well, so I finally decided it was time to buy some cupboards for the laundry room and some under-bed storage boxes. I spent several hours considering the best course of action, and my final decision was carefully and knowingly made, even if I did have to use our credit cards. So, our credit cards went up slightly, rather than down.

On a brighter note, my investments have really taken off, and I've seen a $300 raise in their worth in the past two months. In addition to this, I am trying a few money-making things this month. They won't make up for the $1275 we spent on appliances, but it will at least help out with clutter. I am selling books via Amazon and Half.com. So far my only sale (Amazon) has resulted in a loss of .55, primarily because I chose the wrong postage (priority rather than media mail). I hope that, when this gets going, I will earn a little bit, at least enough I can buy a new novel or two when I'm done. So far I have listed about 60 books, and have 3 more boxes to go.

Our bill for the appliances hasn't shown up, so I don't have it reflected in our net worth yet, but expect it to drop sharply. I may edit it this month, or I might leave it for next, depending on when the bill comes. I am hoping, however, that next year we will see some nice savings from upgrading to energy-efficient appliances, and a lot fewer headaches.

Making a list, and sighing over the cost

We have already sat down with a list and decided on most of our Christmas gifts. So far our total is around $500 for non-family members. I will be trying to reduce that as much as possible; I'd like my husband's family to start drawing names, rather than having to buy for two sisters-in-law, three brothers-in-law and six nephews and nieces, just on his side. Plus his parents. More than half our total budget will be on his family. *sigh*

Here is a great article from Kiplinger about some online tools to reduce the costs of the holidays. I am starting to feel like my father, dreading the holiday season and the loads of money it requires spending...

Sure, Thanksgiving is the traditional kick-off to the holiday shopping season. But why not get a head start before the crowds? Think of the lull between Halloween and Thanksgiving as the calm before the storm. You can take advantage of this time to prepare your budget, draw up gift lists, comparison shop for the best deals or even look for ways to earn extra cash this season.

You can't invest in love...

...but you can invest in hour-long stays in themed rooms with vibrating beds. Japanese love hotels, one of my favorite Japanese things, will soon be available for the discerning investor.

The articles focuses a lot on the aspect of organized crime in the Japanese love hotel business, but unlike "by-the-hour" hotels and motels in the U.S. (which are beyond sleazy -- I know, I stayed in one with a Journalism team as a joke in college. I still can't get the image of the pink, heart-shaped bed and the red carpet out of my mind) Japanese love hotels are frequented by regular people, primarily because of the culture of large, extended families living together combined with the tradition of paper dividers between rooms.

I have a little money left to invest, so I am waiting to see what the IPO looks like, and if Americans can invest too. An eight percent dividend is pretty sweet...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's secretive love hotels are opening up to European investors as one player in the sector prepares for a debut on London's stock market this month.

Japan Leisure Hotels, which owns five love hotels worth some 21 million pounds ($43.68 million) in Japan, hopes to lure investors to its IPO with an 8 percent dividend and promises of fast growth -- shedding light on a sector that is often associated with sleaze and organized crime.