Darla met with the @Mendpoverty Development Director Tarry Kang to discuss nonprofit donations.
Yesterday I had my first trip to California Adventures and I went into Disneyland.
I plan to go as many times as anyone will take me before my third birthday. When I turn 3 years old the price for my admission will be over $80. (Since my current allowance consists of any change I find under the couch; Disney is too rich for my blood.) However, thanks to our friend Annette and my Mom, I have learned a few money saving tips.
- Bring your own stroller or wheelchair- if you need one. You can rent one, but they are expensive. Also, the wheeled conveyance can carry your bags of supplies and you will not need to rent a locker.
- Bag o’ stuff. Pack light but wisely.
- Insulated lunch bag with ice or cooling pack.This will keep your drinks and snacks cool and can also be used to rub on the backs, necks and foreheads of hot travelers. I especially like a cooling pack rubbed on my back because the stroller gets hot.
- Frozen bottle of water : Keep in the lunch bag. Also works to keep food and travelers cool and you can drink it to save the $3.00 charge for bottled water in the park. There are drinking fountains you can refill your bottle in as well as refill from water glasses at restaurants.
- Sunglasses and visors or baseball caps.
- Sunblock
- Light weight and long sleeved jacket.-For the sudden coolness at night and to wear during the water rides so your normal shirt remains dry
- Mole skin or band aids-There is a free first aid center on Main Street, but plan ahead for blisters.
- Small bottle of pain reliever.
- Rent a locker :If you have the need for a blanket to watch parades or to keep medication at a constant temperature or your family has more jackets and snacks than you want to carry around. This keeps you from needing to buy a jacket or other expensive item.
- Bring your own digital camera so you won’t need to buy the official Disney photos.
- Ride Buzz Light-year and e-mail the picture of your ride to yourself for free.
- Keep your receipt for the Carnation dining plaza if you hold an annual pass. It will allow you to go in for free refills of drinks.
- Annual Passes. Every 4 years or so Mom buys annual passes and wee travel to Disneyland at least once a month to get our moneys worth. By the end of the year the novelty has worn off and we are filled with Mouse Memories that will hold us for the intervening years.
What do you do to save money?
Investing money is like planting a garden. Your initial investments are your “seed” money – and depending on what you have planted – your investments will ripen at different rates and values. The import part of investing is that we want the money to grow. We want it to make more money. I am going to talk about doubling your money because, well, when you have twice the money that you start with; we can all agree that it has grown and it is easy to measure. Me? I grow sunflowers. I like to see a return on my investment quickly, and sometimes they grow to be 9 feet high – of give back more than I expected. Then I dry the heads and replant the seeds.
Stocks are like Sunflowers. Many things will affect the value of stocks day by day, but in the long-term they grow more than bonds or savings. On average a stock grows 9.8% a year. Yes, I averaged in the bear market years) So, in 7 years (or if you count inflation – 10 years) my money will double. That means I will have doubled my money by the time I enter the 5th grade. However, stocks are not a guaranteed investment. The year Mommy was born the DOW fell 45% (that is almost half!). So , it is important to plant more than my sunflowers.
I also like Bonds. In their worst year, bonds fell 9%. I get excited knowing that in 12 years my investment will double – (meaning when I enter Jr High), but I am depressed when I am reminded that with inflation this just looks pretty. I won’t have doubled my money with inflation until I exit college, 26 years from now.
Saving money in cash is like planting a Sequoia tree. At a 3% return, it will take 23 years for my money to double. It grows so slowly, and is affected by inflation and interest so strongly that the full purchasing power may never be achieved in my life time and my grandchildren might finally enjoy some return on my investment.
But, I am a kid. I have plenty of time to invest a little in many places. I am also smart enough to know that droughts, monsoon, new technologies, and wars are some of the factors that will affect the price and value of my investment while I am waiting for them to mature. And, I know that no investment is guaranteed – just look at the times the stock market has crashed and sometimes it takes decades to recover. Great Grandma said this is what happened in the Great Depression, but she continued to invest and bought stocks when they were at historic lows.
You have to garden and get in the mix with your money. Manage it, know what it is doing and consult an expert who will explain all of this to you. If you are hoping to grow a healthy mix of investments – know what your goals are. Are you saving for college or a new car? Should you keep everything you buy or pull up a few sunflowers and plant more trees?
Word around the sandbox is that when people go on vacation, the family budget gets a vacation too. But, money doesn’t grow on trees (mostly because it is either metals or cotton based fabrics…but that’s not for today’s discussion).
As you know by now, we talk about money a lot in my house. With four girl children, a cat, and two grown-ups ; money is a topic of concern, education, fights, agreements and a tool for planning. Mom and Dad are in charge of making the money, and us girls think we should spend it. That also means we are in charge of making it last. As you know, I am the youngest and my sisters would gladly spend my college fund at Disneyland.
Here are ways we are suggesting to the grown ups to save money:
- The Library! Stop groaning. The library isn’t just for geeks and folks sheltering in free air conditioning.
- The library has entire seasons of television shows for rent FOR FREE! Also available are movies, books on tape, music CD’s , newspapers, magazines, and oh….yes! Books!
- Free puppet shows, movies, entertainment like story tellers, The Reptile Guy, Jugglers and more.
- Go outside! When you go outside you don’t run the air conditioner or fans.
- Camp out under the stars or in your tent
- Swim
- Go to the beach
- Play in the sprinklers when you water the lawn
- Hang up laundry to dry
- BBQ (no stove needed) or eat picnic foods.
- Make Sun Tea and fill up the re-usable coffee mugs and cups.
- Drive-In Movies.
- Sure, you still pay per person, but you are only charged for the first movie and the Drive It plays double features, and sometimes repeats the first movie so you can drive to a new screen. $9 will buy you 3 movies!
- Also, you bring in all your own snack foods and drinks so you save on concession fees (unless you want to buy food there).
Enjoy the summer, and don’t over heat about your money!
YHOO is the stock symbol for Yahoo!, where they hired a geeky girl @MarissaMayer as their CEO.
CEO sounds more like a band name than a job title, but as a job it is the street luge of CEO positions. Yahoo! has been through 5 leaders in 5 years. That is 4 in my lifetime ( Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson, Ross Levinsohn, and now Marissa) and is trying to find itself.
Yahoo! was one of the first and most popular email address providers as well as internet service providers. At Christmastime Mom hangs the free software CDs they used to mail on our house as decoration. They gave away free trials (remember our little chat on Loss Leaders ) and software and everyone was hooked. If you walked into a computer lab in the 1990’s everyone had Yahoo’s Messenger open in the bottom right corner of the screen. Dad still uses the e-mail and messenger service. Yahoo! allowed customers to build free websites and eventually bought GeoCities. Yahoo then implemented their own Site Builder.
I see the Yahoo! Inc building in Burbank all the time, and sometimes the lights are burnt out in the sign. It says Y–o-!, or -ah— etc. at night as we drive down Van Owen on our way to Fry’s. I am hoping Marissa will get the lights on in the sign and turn on some of the brilliance that Yahoo! used to have.
As a girl, I am excited to see another girl as a leader. I have a hard time finding women in positions of power and leadership in any venue other than social work. But I know the value of a girl or boy is not in their pants, it is above their shoulders, and Marissa seems to have a good head on hers.
“Free” doesn’t take money out of my piggy bank.
Every July 11 , 7-Eleven has a Free Slurpee Day to celebrate their birthday
So why do companies give items and products away for free or under cost? It is called a LOSS LEADER.
It works on me because :
1. I am 18 months old. Any strategy or gimmick is going to work on me!
2. Free = good will. It makes me feel like we are friends when you “share” what you have with me. Yes, even when the sharing is a price cut or a door to addict me to your brand or product.
Officially Loss Leaders are defined as: “A business strategy in which a business offers a product or service at a price that is not profitable for the sake of offering another product/service at a greater profit or to attract new customers.
Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lossleader.asp#ixzz20KuAFI3t”
What are some of your favorite give aways or loss leaders? Mine are the free cereal boxes in the mail, Dad likes the razors, my sisters enjoy the free samples at Costco (that long line of grazers…that’s probably us), Mom like’s ordering Avon for the free product samples, the donut lady always comes out of her shop to hand us free donut holes, and when Mom bought her car she showed up at the Scion dealership at 5 am to get the loss leader advertised in the paper!
Also, find me on Twitter @DarlasDollars and FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/darlasdollars
I have asked everyone I know about how much they save and what they save for.
Sister is saving for a @Ford Mustang. The first 10% of every dollar she earns, finds, or receives goes directly into her Ford fund. Another 15% goes to general savings and the rest is spent on video games and fun with her friends.
Mom saves with 12% in her 401k and $200 a week in general savings. She says “Future Mommy” refuses to be poor or live with us.
Daddy says his money all goes to pay the bills, and when us girls spend less, he will save more. I think he is counting on Future Mommy taking care of him.
Middle Sisters save every penny they come across and won’t spend it
on anything. Mommy says this is a good approach until they are 10 years old and then their savings will be split because they will earn an allowance and have steady income to manage.
What is your savings style?
Does your money fund a goal?
Who do you turn to for help meeting those goals?
Like me, dollars are little things and much easier to lose than to find. I want to feel protected when I cross the street, and while I sleep, and i want the same for my money. Pick a Financial Advisor whom you feel comfortable with. Find someone who is dedicated to the safety of your dollars and treats you with respect.
A good Financial Advisor can help! Choose one who listens to you, asks about your goals and wants to check in with you quarterly. My FA comes to me and is available by e-mail and phone. He discusses which investments grow my portfolio and which feed my ego. Because of him, I didn’t buy Facebook on the first day because he said it was a “status purchase” for bragging rights for someone in my income bracket. Taking advice is hard sometimes. I didn’t want to hear that I couldn’t afford a risky investment that was popular with my friends and all over television. However, the difference between a good and a great FA is honesty.
Hi!
My name is Darla and I love money. I like to spend it, hold it, sometimes I tear it or draw on it, but most of all I like to learn about it. Who has it, who they give it to, who buys it and how I can add money to my piggy bank. 
Actually, my piggy bank is a yellow duck. It is a long story.
My blog is for fun and education only. Please don’t think I should replace an actual Licensed Financial Advisor. Daddy is one of those and it seems really important and he is always taking classes. I only know what I hear from him and television and the papers.
I stayed up late – I had to wait out Mom and Dad so I could pull the laptop out from under my blankie. Now I am tired and going to sleep.
Darla's Dollars 