His Hers Money

So as you may have read previously in this space, Hers and I will be heading to Jamaica in less than two weeks for a much-needed vacation. Neither of us has been there before and we are very much looking forward to. In order to be able to relax more we decided to go the all-inclusive route and will be staying at Sandals.

The price is most definitely not cheap. However, if we do it right and do not go adding on extras once we are there then I think it is reasonable. We get 3 meals a day and all drinks included while at the resort. Our plan is to mostly just relax on the beach or by the pool for the majority of our time there. This is not one of those vacations where we have a strict schedule of things to see. We just want to sit and enjoy each others’ company.

Now about those extras. Sandals offers everything from guided island tours, horseback riding, dinner ON the beach, and in-room massages. These are all great and obviously we would love to do them all. However, that is where most people make the mistake. They think “We’re on vacation, we should enjoy ourselves and do whatever we want!” The problem is that usually this is where they will pull out the plastic to pay for it as these were unplanned expenses on the trip. If you have things that you absolutely MUST do while on vacation make sure to budget for those expenses so that the month after you get back there is not a huge charge on your credit card that you can’t remember what it was for.

Once we return from our trip I’ll share with everybody how well we were able to limit our expenses.

As you had read before, we had set up a Smartypig account recently. I like the idea of it. I think the extra money from retail stores is really great for when you already have a specific item already in mind. However, if you change your mind or an emergency comes up, then you are stuck as the funds are not liquid.

Smartypig has stated that at some point they are going to allow you to EFT the funds back into the account from which you originally funded from. This was not the case when I went to close my account on 15 May. I was planning on getting Amazon gift cards as there is a speaker set that I’ve been saving for there. The process was easy and I was notified that any extra funds left over from the gift card purchase (they only allowed $25 increments) would be funded into an electronic Smartypig gift card that I could put towards my other savings goal.  That’s a nice feature.

My big complaint is that it supposedly will take 7-10 business days to get me a gift card! If they are indeed partnered with these companies, it should only take 1-2 business days to get the card in the mail to me. As of now I have not received the card. Now granted, we moved and the mail is forwarding so I will check the postmark when it comes but it’s disappointing.

In the future I’ll be forgoing Smartypig and just creating sub-accounts with ING. It will be slightly less return but it’s worth it for less headaches in using my money.

It’s better late than never and so I present to you my updated net worth for April courtesy of both NetworthIQ and Zoho.

As you can see, things are going well in terms of paying down the debt. That’s my biggest goal right now and then I’ll really step things up in terms of savings and retirement. Hers and I have set up a new budget for after we combine our finances and we’ve built in a pretty ambitious savings plan that I feel we’ll be able to stick with.

So I had a bit of a dilemma. You see, I am a Gamer. Essentially I get probably 60-70% of my entertainment out of video games, with about 20% from TV and the rest from going out for a few drinks with Hers and friends.

Overall, I feel this is great value as the amount I spend on video games per hour played comes out to be far less money spent than other forms of entertainment. If I spend $60 on a video game that I end up playing for say 40 hours that works out to be $1.50 an hour. Compare that to a movie at the theater which is normally say $7.50, for a total of $5 an hour for a 90 minute movie.

The key is to figure out which games will I play for that amount of time. So I spend quite a bit of time researching different websites and magazines, reading reviews and talking to other people that I play with to see what they’ll be purchasing. That’s a big key with the games coming out today as most of them are playable online against other people. This really enhances the amount of time that you can expect to spend playing the game as it is never the same game when playing against human opponents.

So I had my eye on both Eve Online and Grand Theft Auto IV. The key differences being that Eve is a purely online game and subscription based, while GTA is a single player console game with a larger initial outlay of funds. The subscription model is still a fairly recent idea when it comes to games. Everquest was the first really popular game that used it. Normally you pay about what you would or slightly less, for a normal game. After the first month, however, there is a monthly charge of anywhere from around $9.99 to $15.99 for access to the required online servers. This makes the company more money long-term but also opens up gamers to having a huge online world where they get to interact with others.

In the end I decided to get them both. I’m figuring that GTA should take me somewhere between one to two months to finish, unless I play it much more than I’m guessing I will. Then I’m going to sell it on half.com. I’ve had pretty good success with selling there recently and I figure that it should easily go for 75% of my initial cost. So if I get $45 back on my $60 purchase and play it for 40 hours (it probably will end up being more) that ends up being a little more than $.33 per hour of entertainment. Not bad.

With Eve, luckily it’s a slightly older game that’s been out for 4 years. It still has a thriving community of players, with greater than 300k subscribers. It is less than a lot of other games, with the first month coming in at $19.99 and the monthly fee after that being $12.99. So for essentially one night at the movies each month, I get a virtual world that I get to explore in a spaceship and interact with some friends. I see value in that.

In closing, just let me say that Hers does not share my ‘passion’ for video games and this obviously will be coming out of my discretionary ‘allowance’ fund.

Apparently SmartyPig is taking the time to listen to its’ customers and the blogging community. Their marketing team and even their co-founder are participating in discussions on various blogs on how to improve their service. Apparently the latest build of their website will include the ability to withdraw funds through ACH. This is great news and was the only real drawback to the site that I could see.

That allows users to save for bigger and better things. Say a newlywed couple want to start saving for a house down payment? Well instead of doing the traditional registration for household items, they could just refer friends and family to deposit into their SmartyPig account in order to help them reach their goal!

For myself, I’ll probably take advantage of the extra 5% that you receive for withdrawing to a store gift card since I’m saving for gifts anyway. The links below are generated directly from SmartyPig to give you an idea on what it looks like to show others your savings progress.

Last night, Hers and I took in a baseball game at the new home of the Washington Nationals, appropriately named Nationals Park. Luckily she gets free tickets as her place of employment has 8 seats reserved for employees throughout the season. This is good because the seats themselves (in the club level) would end up being pretty darned pricey judging from the carpeted interior where the food vendors and beer is located.

It’s never cheap when you go to a professional sporting event these days. Quite frankly they end up being about as bad as the movie theater, holding their guests captive. Just like any good consumers, we bought a program, a foam finger, and had dinner at the park. The damage just for my dinner alone was $20 for one beer (domestic), a chili-cheese hotdog, and chili-cheese fries. Now I’ll grant you that the food was GREAT, but it was from Ben’s Chili Bowl which is a D.C. institution and I could have gotten the same food I’m betting for half that price at another location.

So here are some tips for your next trip to the ballpark:

• Eat BEFORE you head to the game. Enjoy just a snack at the game
• Take public transportation to the game. This of course is so that you can also drink cheaply before the game if you must have a few brewskis.
• If you want to support your team, fine. Just purchase team apparel AWAY from the ballpark
• If there is a ‘cool’ hangout at the game where you don’t need special tickets to get to, purchase the cheapest tickets available and go there! At Nationals Park, it’s got to be the Red Loft bar in center field. It’s a great view, they’ve got other sports on TV while the game is on, and it’s just a great atmosphere.