My Perfect Weekend

A Chapter of Laura Vanderkam’s book “All The Money In The World” focuses on a reader’s perfect weekend.  For most people, the perfect weekend involves spending money, even if it doesn’t have to be high amounts.  Even if you focus on quality time with friends and family, there is usually some spending on food, entertainment or other expenditures.

This got me thinking about my perfect weekend.  While the book and most people would lay it out by time, I thought I would just list ideas and categorized by costs:

No-Cost

• Sleep, Sleeping In, Napping.
• Sex.
• Play with kids. 
• Go to the park with family. 
• Go to a friend’s house and watch DVDs.
• Read a library book or a favorite old book. 
• Stay up late.
• Take a long, leisurely walk in a park, preferably by a pond

Low-Cost

• Exercising (can be a DVD or using the gym membership, which is a cost). 
• Watch a marathon of a favorite show (netflix or already owned)
• A nice meal at home (cooked by my husband)
• Starbucks cappuccino or latte
• Calling in sick (I’m counting this as a “cost” since this would deduct from my sick days.  For some reason, things that are a bit off the straight and narrow really appeal to me!)
• Massage ( from husband)
• Taco or Tamales night

High-Cost

• Hire a personal assistant to tackle all the things I hate doing, like help clean out the garage, mopping, getting oil change, handwashing clothes, washing dogs, washing dog mats at the laundromat, etc..the list goes on! (Or I could just switch places with some A-List celebrity for a day?)
• Massage and Facial (can be fairly inexpensive if you get a good deal on Groupon or LivingSocial; also see low-cost option above!)
• Expensive dinner out – sushi?
• Baby sitter for one night (can also barter this if you have a trustworthy friend/neighbor/family member)
• Hotel stay near the beach
• Drinks at a bar (something we rarely/never get to do!)

How would you plan out your perfect weekend? It starts Friday evening!

Book In Progress: All The Money In The World

After finishing “Your Money Or Your Life” (YMOYL), I felt the need to continue my mental shift toward money and decided to read All The Money In The World by Laura Vanderkam.  The author herself was kind enough to email me a PDF of the book despite knowing that I jot down my ongoing thoughts rather than write a full review.  Note to self: I would like to write a wrap-up of my thoughts on YMOYL but that may not be happening soon, or ever!

Here are my random thoughts after reading the first few chapters.

I like her clear, concise writing style.  “Your Money or Your Life” felt more warm and fuzzy; the tone of this book is more like your most practical best friend.

Chapter 1 “What Else Can That Wedding Ring Buy?” — The author  uses the cost of a wedding ring as a springboard to discuss “opportunity costs”‘; in other words, what can you do with the same amount of money.  Is it more worth while to buy a $5,000 ring but can’t afford cleaning help or date nights when you have kids years later?  Obviously some people can do both, but as someone who is now carefully watching household expenses after kids,  I’m 100% sure that the wiser decision for us was to skip the diamond ring and have the money to get cleaning and nanny/babysitter help!

Chapter 2 “Don’t Scrimp More, Make More” — The main point of this chapter is to illustrate how you can make a bigger difference in your quality of life if you focus on making more money instead of scrimping every penny.  I generally agree, however with huge caveats.    I think go-getters and people who have “succeeded” often make the assumption that savers have less ambition; if they would only build up their skill set, they could make more money instead of clipping coupons and cutting cable, etc..  While I can see the reason for that assumption, I also think that it’s not the complete picture.  I have good friends in both camps — those who are more natural go-getters/entrepreneurial and those who are not.  While both can have similar educational backgrounds, go-getters are usually more skilled at two very socially-valuable skills: networking and selling themselves.  Time and time again, I see my go-getter friends succeed while the others lose out on jobs, deals, etc… Does this mean you shouldn’t try if you’re not a natural at these socially-valued skills? Of course not. It is very possible to greatly improve at these skills and it is possible to compete and “win” since a variety of factors also come into play in any given situation.

For those who succeeded or are more entrepreneurial, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would “waste time” and scrimp through life.  What I think gets forgotten is that it gets extremely disheartening to be second-choice or third-choice. After a certain number of years, it’s better (for some people) to focus on other things besides job/career/money success and focus on saving money, even it is doing something as mundane as coupon clipping (!) And while I still can’t imagine going to extremes for couponing, saving money is something within everyone’s control and hence more appealing to many.

I do have a tip to add for those who lean towards scrimping. Learn to negotiate!  Negotiate your salary is most important but you can also save when you shop, buy a house, buy a car, on cable bills, on medical expenses, etc.. Doing this often and doing this well will make a bigger difference than cutting coupons.

This book can be helpful to many but I think it’s most useful for those in their 20s/30s with entrepreneurial leanings.  If you find ways to make more money and be smarter with your financial resources, you’ll go a long way and the sooner you learn those lessons the better!

Back to reading…