What I’ve Been Up To

Of course, the wonderful views of London’s scenery aren’t too bad either. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if seeing shot after shot of Big Ben and Tower Bridge is giving you a bit of a travel bug. And according to a SmartMoney article, booking an impulse trip across the pond won’t cost you as much as you think. Some discount airfare sites are offering package deals — roundtrip airfare and a week in a London hotel — for as little as $1,500 per person. SmartMoney even found hotel rates of $70 per night in London’s famous Notting Hill neighborhood. You can also minimize the cost of a British getaway by flying out towards the end of the Games and staying after all the athletes and spectators have fled.

Now, since I don’t usually advocate impulse spending (even if it is an attempt to see Usain Bolt race inperson), I also wanted to share this Travel and Leisure article with you. It talks about knowing whether it’s best to use cash, miles or points to pay for a flight — a tricky question, to be sure. There’s no hard and fast answer, but there are a couple rules of thumb you can follow when planning your next vacation. The two best things to keep in mind are:

1. Know the dollars-to-miles exchange rate. Travel and Leisure says that the average value-per-mile is 1.4 cents, so 50,000 miles are worth $700. If you’re contemplating a flight to Florida that costs either $275 or 25,000 points, pay with cash. Travel and Leisure recommends saving your miles for flights that fall in the $500 area.
2. Consider how easy it will be to use the points. Some airlines make it difficult to use your miles — a study found that only 27 percent of Delta flights were offering reward seats, and only 45 percent of American Airlines flights offered reward seats. This means you may have to resort to using miles whenever you can, even if dollars would be more cost-effective.

Finally, before I move onto the rest of the news stories for this week, I’d like to share something with you. As I go around the country, many of you ask great questions and want to know more about financial independence. So, my “brain trust” and I have been thinking…why don’t we take this show on the road?

I’ve decided to develop a series of workshops based on my books, with a hands-on opportunity for you to really solve your own issues and develop your own financial plans. But the first thing I want to know is, “Does this sound like something you’d be interested in?” If so, please let me know (email me at Jean@jeanchatzky.com and please include your name and location). I’d also like to know if you’d be willing to be part of a focus group that I can talk to to come up with a curriculum that would be really worth your time and money.
And now, here are the other headlines for the week:
Olympic-Sized Scams

Speaking of the Olympics, it’s worth noting that internet scammers are using the occasion to try to trick innocent fans into clicking on malicious links and buying fake tickets. Time’s Moneyland blog reports that people should be especially wary of “usateam.org” (which is impersonating Team USA’s real website) and of anything that says you’ve won tickets to the Games and asks for passport or driver’s license information.

 

Brace Yourself For Higher Food Prices

Thanks to the drought that is afflicting crops across the country, the price of meat, peanut butter and dairy products is going up. CNN Money reports that the cost of ground beef could rise to $2.88 per pound, and the cost of sirloin is rising to $6.47 per pound. The cost of chicken will rise slightly, to about $1.34 per pound, and a gallon of milk will soon set you back about $3.66 per gallon. Unless you know of a very effective rain dance we can all do, I suggest combing through your Sunday circulars with more attention than ever — now’s the time to save wherever you can in order to make up for the costs we have no control over.

 

Great Expectations or Great Burdens?

One of my favorite money gurus, Carl Richards, recently wrote about how letting go of outcome-based goals can actually make us happier. This is an interesting concept, because so often we’re told to visualize our goals, strive for our goals, tell others about our goals. However, Richards notes that there is a downside to all of this: “Even starting out with the right intent, I sometimes forgot that goal and instead focused on a specific outcome out of my control. And no surprise, it led to anxiety and often disappointment.”

He goes on to say something that I think we all should keep in mind — in fact, I think someone should make this a magnet:

“I know how hard it is to stop worrying about money. After all, there are so many money things to worry about. What if it all goes away? What if I can’t afford to send my kids to college? It’s a hard habit to break, but it doesn’t do us any good. Can you think of one single thing that got better because you worried about it? Obviously it’s different from sitting down and crafting an action plan to solve a problem. All worrying does is create an uncomfortable rut.”

Hear, hear. Have a great week!

Jean