Downsizing, Negotiating, and other Clever Tips on Saving Money And Spending Wisely During the Economic Downturn

Every morning we wake up to the latest economic hurricane to have struck from Wall Street to Main Street  Whether it’s continued job-loss, the mortgage crisis, or the stock market plummeting, we are living in a treacherous financial climate, and we don’t seem to be bouncing back any time soon. Are we in a “great depression”? Probably not. However, does it really matter what we label what is happening to our country financially, when it hits every household from the West Coast to the East? “While today’s situation does not necessarily imply another Great Depression, the economic downturn and those comparisons can encourage us to turn worry into a positive. Consider the lessons learned from the Great Depression and apply some of your grandparents’ financial knowledge to improve your own lot in life,” said Ethan Ewing of Bills.com. Therefore, call the economic crisis what you want, however start today and figure out how to budget properly so that you can live with less stress, make more from little, and make what you have and what you earn last.  Below are a series of tips and recommendation as to how to adapt to the economic downturn, and how to make life changes in order to sleep comfortably at night.

●   Decide what you can live without doing, such as entertainment.  Maybe go to the movies once a quarter instead of once a month. You may have to pass on the concerts and sporting events for the time being, as other aspects of life become far more important. This can be hard, as well all look forward to entertainment in our lives, but sacrifices must be made in order to stay above water.

●  Coupons, Deals, and One-Time Offers:  Because a great deal of businesses are struggling, many are offering incentives to come to their restaurant, or shop at their store. While you may not have been a coupon-clipper in the past, there all deals all over the internet, some small, but many are unusually great deals as these companies so desperately need the business. Take advantage.

●   Food:  Grocery shopping can be costly, as can going out to eat. If you look at your monthly budget, it is incredible how much we spend on food, and how much goes bad as we often do not even get around to eating it.  Therefore, shop wisely at the supermarket.  Buy the store-brand bottled water rather than the other expensive competitor brands. Bring your lunch to work rather than spending money out at a restaurant. I promise you will see a difference when budgeting matters of food.

●   Clothing:  Shop in your own closet.  Image consultants claim that we only use 10% of our wardrobe’s potential. Take time to explore what you already have. Also, this is an opportunity to teach your children the value of hand-me-downs, and using what you already have, rather than racing out to buy the next best thing.

●   Family Trips:  Go on inexpensive excursions in this economic climate.  Go to the beach, or a public park.  Visit the museum, which is often inexpensive, and sometimes free.  Get friends together for a barbeque, or to watch a sporting event on TV. Believe it or not, these events save money and can often times be as fun as the expensive cruise you may have had to scrap. Do not let the cost of things inhibit you from enjoying life.

●   Fixed Rate Plans:  Get on fixed rate plans with your utility companies, such as the electric company. Fixed rate plans provide savings during times when prices typically climb, such as the summer months. This type of plan guarantees one rate for a certain period of time. This gives you the security of knowing your electric bill will remain the same during this period.

●   Credit Card Companies:  Call your credit card companies and negotiate with them to lower your interest rates, and if possible, transfer high interest rate credit cards to a lower interest rate credit card.

●   Water Bill:  Water the lawn only when necessary so as to decrease the water bill. Eliminate all unnecessary water, energy and fuel usage.

●   Heating And Air:  If possible, install a programmable thermostat for your central heating and air, which will save you at least 10% a year on your bill. Shutting the central air and heat on and off will increase energy use, and in turn increase your electric bill.

●   Income Status:  Live below your income. I find this to be the most important piece of advice. Don’t spend more than you earn. You can put this into action by withdrawing enough cash each week to cover necessities and putting the credit cards away.  A recent study by Visa found that people who pay for their food with a credit card spend 30% more than people who pay with cash.

●   Focus On Your Needs, Not Your Wants:  Why this may seem a bit philosophical, decide what is a necessity, such as food, medical care, paying your bills, and clothing, and what is not, such as buying that new flat-screen TV.  To avoid confusion, put off purchases for 24 hours, allowing yourself time to focus on your needs and to isolate your wants.

●   Eat In:  Cook cheap meals at home. Have fun with this by either following recipes or creating your own. Sit around the table with the family rather than running out to a fancy restaurant, or all going your own ways, and in turn, spending your own money.

●  Transportation:  Keep the old car. Unless it is on its last legs, the truth is, now is not the time to upgrade just because you want to. Also, look into some of the amazing new transit systems and high-speed rails all over the country. Often times they are clean and drop you right at your location. The money saved on gas alone would leave you with a great deal of extra cash each month.

While there are many more suggestions as to save money, each and every one of us has to make our own plans, and settle into our own new adjustments.  These are just a few guidelines that may help you cut off excess spending, in a time when we simply can no longer afford it.

What are you doing during the economic downturn to save money? What kinds of sacrifices have you made in order to live a more cost-effective style?  Has it made your life less interesting, or, in some cases, has this forced downsizing revealed what is important in life, and maybe even enhanced it? Please let me know by joining our fight Back! discussions on my faceBook page at http://bit.ly/9PmpU3 , follow my daily updates on Twitter @davidhorowitzFB , and email me your own personal stories at david@fightback.com.

Another Fight Back! Reader Responds

While my article on Traffic Tickets in Costco Connection magazine @ http://bit.ly/9juSey has caused a bit of controversy, below is a fascinating letter I got whereas a Fight Back! Consumer brings up some very interesting points about this subject.

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Hi David,

First I would like to share a traffic violation experience that I had about a year ago. I really enjoyed your article about traffic tickets but I think it leaves out one very important point. The point I am referring to is the distinction between traffic court /traffic law and the usual American justice system of “Guilty until proven innocent.” In a traffic court you do not get a jury, relatives cant serve as witnesses, and its your word against the officer’s. The officer always wins. I am sure you know the details so I will just describe my version as an example:

I approached a stop sign with my wife in the car. I was driving on a small neighborhood backstreet that had a sound barrier wall erected on its right side. I approached a right intersecting road i.e. the intersecting road formed the long side of the T with the road I was on. My only choice was to clear the right side of the stop sign. Because of the sound wall, a bushy and fenced garden on the right corner house, and a dozen parked cars on the road I was on and along the road I was clearing I could not safely clear the way from a complete stop at the limit line. I stopped at the limit line anyways then I rolled forward slowly to improve my field of view around all the mentioned obstacles. It turns out there was an officer behind the cars from the road I was trying to clear. I got a ticket for a rolling stop. When I went to court it was me vs. the officer. I had pictures of the wall, the corner house garden and fence, the rows of cars and even a picture that shows how obstructed the view is from the limit line. I invited my wife to the hearing as a witness. As it turns out her testimony is not admissible because of her relationship with me. Had she been a hooker or a just a friend I would have been in the clear. I stopped twice for safety reasons but I got slapped with a ticket because that is all the officer saw. All he had to do was make a few ambiguous sketches on the white board, mumble some police jargon, and claim that the neighbors have been complaining of people passing that stop sign. I could go on to describe scenarios where the driver is the best and only one to make the safest choice regarding evasive maneuvers such as the one you described with dear but the fact is that our traffic law does not account for intentions such do the other branches of law in our legal system. In traffic court it is black or white. You either did it or you did not. Everything else is meaningless. I do not agree with the system but I still feel powerless and helpless despite the mythical tips about not confessing, go to court, etc. The funny thing is there was a guy who was completely drunk or drugged up that day in court. His officer did not show. He stumbled out of the court room right around the time the sit in judge was explaining how my wife can not stick up for me.

Thank you so much for fighting back!

Best Regards,

“William”

Recently, I have received a great deal of criticism regarding my article about your right to fight traffic tickets that I wrote for Costco Connection, which you can find here:

http://www.fightback.com/2010/08/costco-connection-traffic-tickets/

I was surpised at the feedback I have been getting, as many readers felt that I was justifying or even condoning that driver’s break the law, and in turn offered ways in which they could beat their ticket. What I was simply trying to do was illustrate the fact that even while on the road, fortunately, in this country we are all innocent until proven guilty.

With the drastic rise in the bail amount for even the smallest traffic violation, I have been hearing from a great number of Fight Back! consumers who feel that they are innocent, or have been wrongfully ticketed, yet they feel powerless in defending themselves.  I feel this is something important to address, and therefore I offered tips on how to fight your ticket when you are not guilty, rather than pay a hefty fine because you feel that your hands are tied.

Have a look at the following correspondence I had from an angry Costco reader who clearly misinterpreted my article, and let me know your thoughts on both my response, as well as this subject in general:

From: Jack
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 2:41 PM
To: david@fightback.com
Subject: “Speeding through court” is morally repugnant

Gentlemen:

David Horowitz’s he September column, “Speeding Through Court,” is wrong.  He says that the cost of traffic tickets and subsequently increased insurance tickets is too much and then says it’s a “Hidden Tax.”  The threat of tickets causes drivers to be “checking their review mirrors” and they are victims of “invasion of privacy” according to Horowitz.  That’s garbage.

He offers tips on how to beat a ticket.  He demeans the whole concept of speeding tickets as just revenue-generating, unjust government oppression.  Of course, he throws in a CYA comment at the end about not speeding, wink-wink, nudge-nudge . . .

I’m appalled.  Have we really degenerated into a crude “not-what’s-right, but-what-can-we-get-away-with” society?  Is that all that matters, is driving just a sport to “beat the pigs” and game the system?

The purpose in punishment is to change behavior.  If you violate traffic laws, you should be punished.  A five dollar speeding ticket won’t change anyone’s behavior, but a day’s pay might.  Two or ten days pay might slow down even more drivers.  Speed kills, that’s the bottom line.  I think we should use every tool of technology to stop speeding drivers, including a fine stiff enough to stop speeding.

I usually like Horowitz’s articles because he has decades of good experience and insight.  However, to encourage people to speed if you can “get away with it,” is unsafe and morally repugnant.  Horowitz needs to recant the article.

“Jack”

Here is my response:

From: David Horowitz
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 3:41 PM
To: “Jack”

Subject: RE: SPAM-MED: “Speeding through court” is morally repugnant

“Jack”,

The information for this article was complied with detailed information and facts provided to Fight Back! from the police department, the California Highway Patrol, and our main source, the California Triple AAA. Since the article was published, ironically, I have received correspondence from several Traffic Officers who feel that the expensive increase in ticket prices is unfair, as well as some of the speed traps that are set, which many officers have told me test the grey area of our traffic laws.  You must have misread the article, as I am not in any way condoning illegal or unsafe driving.

In fact, I am a supporter of M.A.D.D., and a strong advocate that those guilty of high-levels of speeding, and those with D.U.I.’s should be punished severely. However, far too many people have been complaining to me about getting tickets that they either feel are incorrect, entirely wrong, or simply unfair, and they feel powerless in fighting these tickets.  For you to dismiss the article as garbage also dismisses the hard work of the CHP and the LAPD, eager to keep our roads safe rather than act as toll collectors, as well as one of our most respected and knowledgeable organizations, the Triple AAA.

As I mentioned, I assure you that you and I both share the same concern about unsafe drivers, and I have years of stories to draw on that make me a strong advocate of safe driving (I have written several articles about hands-free driving, driving while texting, road rage, etc.). However, you state that traffic tickets and the financial punishment that comes with it is meant to teach bad driver’s a lesson.

Put aside the issue for a moment that the driver in question may be innocent, and, according to Triple AAA, the statistics do not prove your argument. Tickets do not act as a successful deterrent to poor and unlawful driving, especially in the instances of speeding and D.U.I.’s. These forms of reckless driving are simply not resolved through the ticketing process. Rather, it is the cost of the ticket that puts tremendous stress on hard-working members of our society who are often on their way to work.

You and I both agree that we need to keep our streets safe, and speeding is extremely dangerous. However, frivolous tickets by a bankrupt city government is not the answer, and is also a questionable solution at best.

Let me give you an example. I just received a call from a consumer eager to Fight Back! It was early in the morning and as this driver with a flawless driving record approached the intersection, a family of deer suddenly appeared, giving him only enough time to quickly pull over to the side of the road. That was Option A, whereas Option B would have been a tragic, dangerous, and potentially fatal head-on collision with a family of deer. Well, less than a minute later a police officer pulled up behind the driver and issued him an extensive ticket for a moving violation, not signaling properly and moving rapidly over to the side of the road. Apparently, the officer would have preferred the driver chose Option B, though I imagine the deer would not. If the driver were to not fight this ticket, and if you add traffic school into the overall amount of the ticket’s bail, this man, who happens to be a hard-working blue-collar employee at a sawmill, would be paying nearly $600 for a violation whereas he clearly had no other option, despite the officer not giving him the opportunity to explain.

Myself, along with Triple AAA, simply want to remind drivers that they have both the right and the venue to explain their innocence, or the specifics of their situation in front of a judge in Traffic Court. Those who break the law should pay, though the price still should not break their bank or make it unaffordable for them to continue their daily lives and feed their families.  However, those caught in traps for a minor infraction that cost significant sums, or for violations in which they turned out to be innocent and the citing officer was simply trying to raise revenue for the city and meet a quota, well these people have a right to represent and explain themselves.

You should know that many of these people have asked for my help and successfully won their cases in court, There is no reason for them to fall victim to the very system that their hard-earned tax dollars fund. I will grant you the fact that guilty is guilty, yet in a country where we are innocent until proven guilty, that applies to our roads as well, and too many Fight Back! Readers have come to me claiming that they feel powerless when it comes to the matter of traffic tickets,

In no way anywhere in my article do I encourage a guilty party to “get away with it”; I am simply a person who believes that those who are innocent have a right to stay innocent no matter if they are handed a ticket or not, and fortunately we live in a country that is based upon this very principal. To trample on it because there happen to be many drivers who are guilty should not be excused.

Thank you,

David Horowitz

Let me know your experience with traffic tickets, good, bad, or a pain! Have you been wrongfully cited? What are your thoughts on the steep bail amounts that have increased with the city and state going bankrupt? Do you feel powerless when you get a ticket? Finally, what are your thoughts on what “Jack” had to say about my article, as well as my defense? Please let me know on my FaceBook page @ http://bit.ly/9PmpU3 , email me directly at david@fightback.com, and follow my consumer updates on twitter: @davidhorowitzFB .