Insights from Mint.com

Going over my Mint.com trends for the past couple years, I noticed a few things I thought were somewhat cool. In no particular order:

• 75% of my out-of-pocket expenses are for housing and communications - mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and all utilities including TV, Internet, and phone.
• I spend more for Verizon Wireless than I spend at Walmart. To be fair, my Verizon bill covers five people. To be unfair, Walmart covers the majority of my grocery expenses and cat food and litter. To be fair again, I eat out quite a bit, so groceries are cheap.
• I will also spend more for Verizon Wireless than I spend on eating out, once figures include a full 24 months of Verizon bills.
• I spend a lot at Chili's ($800), and it is probably worth getting any discounted gift cards I see.
• My expenses have actually gone up since I've started paying attention to them. Every month, I've spent more in 2010 than 2009. I've also had more cash on hand.
• It's very important to set up renaming rules right when the name of a merchant changes for whatever reason. From that point on, it becomes automatic.
• Rollover budgets are great in theory, but end up making the overall totals meaningless as they drift way negative or way over budget. Really, the budget feature itself is not as informative as the Trends tab.
• "In the past 30 days, you spent $309.62 on Clothing. Usually you spend $9." That $9/month is inflated because it includes a tuxedo rental and a bunch of clothes that weren't actually mine. In other words, I spend very little on clothes.
• It is also important to realize tax refunds are income that the government held for you, and not taxes. Assigning tax refunds to the 'Taxes' category can result in negative spending for the month, which looks awkward.

Trimming Expenses

After my friend Brian's post about trimming expenses, I've been thinking about my own complete lack of doing so. It's a bit of a problem, potentially.

I've been eating out a lot more than usual, lately. I've been driving more than usual, too, partially as a result of eating out more. I'll need to make repairs to my car pretty soon, and I'm not sure how much those will be yet. Speaking of repairs, I also repaired my file server, to an extent. I bought a couple 2TB hard drives for $99.99 each. I was able to save most of my files, and all of my important files, so that was good. Still, $200.

I'm also thinking of buying things that I really don't need at all. For example, I want to buy another digital camera. Why? Because I keep one in the car to take pictures of personalized license plates. Why does that mean I need two? Because I never have one with me when the cats are doing cute things, and taking videos of cute cats is the quickest way to youtube stardom! I fully recognize that this is not the best investment, but I'll probably end up doing it before too long.

Then there's utilities. The hot weather of late has skyrocketed my power bill along with everyone else's. I've also tried watering my lawn to get some grass seed to grow. That didn't really work, but I'm sure my next water bill will be higher than I've ever seen it. I also bought that new grass seed, some starter fertilizer, and a small spreader at The Home Depot using gift cards. And for the little remaining grass I have combined with the small amount of new grass that came up, I'll need a new lawnmower soon. I'd like a nice quiet electric one, which apparently means $300 or so. I'd also like to avoid the battery problems people have reported, which means $200 or so instead, but having to use an extension cord. So far, I'm leaning toward this cordless 36V mower. We'll see.

Finally, I've been donating (or pledging to donate) more to charity. If that isn't a stupid use of money, I don't know what is! Seriously, though, I'm going to try eating at home more often again. When I do, it tends to be really cheap. Hopefully the fall brings more reasonableness to my power bill, and whatever lawn mower I buy is reliable and durable. You all can hope that I don't buy that extra camera so that you're not flooded with videos of my cats. And you can also thank me for keeping the economy going these past few months!

Justification

A few months ago, I was doing my regular shopping at Walmart. Among other things, I bought two cans of Parmesan cheese. I wasn't entirely sure I bought them at the time, though.

I wasn't paying all that much attention, but it looked like the kind lady at the register had put one of the cans in the bag without scanning it. I consider myself a pretty moral and honest person, but I didn't seriously consider pointing it out. It'd be nice if my subconscious had quickly ruled out that course of action as either unnecessary or inefficient; it'd be even nicer if I believed that to be true.

No, I immediately justified the unintentional discount in several ways. My subconscious was definitely thinking, but it was thinking greedily. But, when you think about it, they've overcharged me for a couple items in the past. And I definitely do way more than my fair share of correcting the product placements on the shelves. And when I take my shopping cart to the car, I always put it back in its designated area - and compact the carts already there, too! Why, I'll even go out of my way to remove shopping carts from the handicapped spaces when I see them. And I do give Walmart a lot of regular business. Retailers build these kinds of mistakes into their prices, after all.

In my defense, there were also a couple of points in Walmart's favor in the battle in my head. I fully appreciated that not ringing up the Parmesan cheese would throw off their inventory until their next manual recount. And, it is Parmesan cheese, and if there was ever a product that deserved to be paid for, it is cheese - especially Parmesan! But I've done cycle counting, and the mistake would be corrected remarkably shortly - if people were doing their jobs properly. And food does taste better when it's free.

Yeah, that Parmesan was going to stay mine. Guilt lasts until you forget about it, and that was likely to be before bed. Parmesan lasts all the way until you eat it (which wasn't actually all that much longer)!

It's remarkable how easy it was to justify an action I knew was wrong. Incidentally, this post is proof that I underestimated my memory when it comes to guilt. I'm sure I understated the awesomeness of Parmesan cheese, too, though. Also, I did check the receipt on my way out, so I didn't leave the store thinking I'd stolen cheese. I still like to think I would have gone back and paid for it had I seen that it was, in fact, missed.

Wal-Mart Lost

Today, I wore one of my Tech-Ed shirts. It has the word "LOST" printed on the front in the style of the TV show, but it's actually talking about "OnPath For SharePoint" being "Never lost." I had wondered a couple points during the day as to what people thought about me based on a first glance at my shirt.

When I went to Wal-Mart tonight for my regular grocery shopping, I found out. As I was exiting the store, the greeter girl commented on the fact that she never understood the show "Lost." I replied that my shirt wasn't actually about the TV show - that it was referring to some technology or other, so I didn't know what Lost was about. She then finished her previous thought, apparently, saying that it was a "Lost show" for her. I concluded the exchange by saying that I didn't really know what the technology was, either, so I was "lost" on both accounts.

Anyway, it was a puntastic conversation, even if it really only used variations on just the one pun. For next time, I suppose we'll have to work on our creativity. Mostly, I was just impressed with the enthusiastic outgoing nature of the new girl.