I have performed two funerals for families in the past two weeks. Always a hard event and very emotional. One thing that can help during this time is if the deceased has preplanned his funeral and express their wishes and desires. This helps to ease the burden on the family. I have seen the difficulty and hardship on families as they try to plan a funeral and make big financial decisions all while under stress and grief.

Now I am not saying that you should pre-pay for your funeral, but you can pre-plan, or as some individuals in the  funeral business call it “pre-need”.  You can have this document left with your other important documents (will, medical instructions, etc.), with a lawyer or trusted family member, or you can even have it on file with the funeral home if you know which business you would like to perform this service for you.

Some basic things you can include:

• Cremation or burial (and location of burial or ashes)

• Open or closed casket (even if cremated—sometimes cremation takes place after a viewing service and you just rent a casket)

• Type of urn or casket (how much do you want them to spend?)

• Who to perform the service

• Service held at a Church or a Funeral Home

• Scripture or poetry or songs to be sung

• Donation of organs, etc. (this should also be on other documents that you leave behind)

• Tombstone? Inscription? Type of burial vault?

There are other things you can add but this list would be a start. Not something we like to think about, but something that will be helpful, appreciated, and one more way to show love toward your family and friends.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Funeral Preplanning is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

The good news is that I have job security for the foreseeable future! The bad news is that since we are down two staff, I am really busy. Looking at my calendar for September, I only have three weekdays (excluding Friday) when I don’t have an evening meeting. Yikes!

My minimum work week as a pastor is normally 45 hours. My usual schedule is:

• Monday through Thursday 8:00 am until 4:30 p.m., except Wednesday I work until 8:30 p.m.
• Friday I work ½ day, Saturday I have a full day off
• Sunday I work 7:30 am until 12:30 p.m.

That gets me to about 45 hours a week. But then I usually have a Sunday evening activity, and three out of four weeks I usually have another evening meeting during the week, so it’s not unusual to get 50 hours in during the week.

Looking at September I am going to be way over 50 hours each week. So my situation is different than a lot of folks right now who are worried about keeping their jobs – I am worried about getting burned out. Until we fill those two pastoral positions things will continue to be very busy for me (hopefully not as busy as September is going to be). Right now it appears that the first position will not be filled until sometime late next year, then the other position maybe the year after that (2013). So it looks like I will be busy for awhile!

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Current Work Situation and Schedule is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

A few weeks ago there was a little wedding across the pond (at least from me) that garnered a little attention. I am probably one of the few men in America who watched it. Of course with four women in the house and one TV there was nothing I could do. I tried to go on the computer but every two minutes it was – “Daddy you have to see this!” So I made it a family night.

I am afraid that this wedding will cost me money. My 10, 9, and 8 year old daughters have now begun telling me what they want for their wedding day! My wife and I have gently told them that they need to lower their expectations a little bit. Or should I say a lot. According to where you look, that little British wedding cost anywhere from $35 to $60 million dollars (one site said billion – but I think they were counting the fact that it was a national holiday). Most of that cost was security, but still, several million dollars for the actual wedding.

So to counter act the “princess syndrome” that they are so infatuated with now, my wife and I have begun discussing with our girls what is really important about that day, and things they can do to make the day special without breaking the bank. In a way it is good that we are beginning to talk about it. They need to know what I can and will pay for, and what I cannot and will not pay for, and what their responsibilities will be. Even more importantly, it is a time to talk about the significance of marriage and what that day is really representing.

Any thoughts out there about weddings and speaking to daughters?

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Working in a small office with only eleven employees (three part-time), personnel changes are a big deal. Right now, the senior pastor is retiring at the end of the year. So between now and then I will be picking up some of his duties, as will the other pastors, until a new senior pastor is hired (probably a year or so from now – yeah, it takes for ever!).

Well this past week, one of the other pastors has resigned (we have four pastors total on staff). So now we have only three pastors on staff, with one of them retiring at the end of the year! So again, I will be picking up some more duties, as will the rest of the staff.  We will probably not hire anyone for this position until the senior pastor vacancy is filled, and then determine what type of person to hire for the other pastor position.

So by January, there will only be two pastors on staff. We will hire an interim pastor to help with the preaching come January, but things are going to be crazy for the two of us remaining pastors. I am thankful that I have a job, a very busy one at that! I guess I will have job security for at least a while!

With the recession, are things crazy in your work place? Are you understaffed and overworked? Let me know how you handle it! I could use some tips.

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February is the first month in ages where I haven’t had to rob another budget or pull from the emergency fund! I know we are not even halfway through yet, but usually I have a pretty good feel by now – all the major expenses are in and everything is paid for! Yeah! This would be great if it became a trend. There was even a little money for valentines day.

How are you doing this month or year?

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. A good month so far! is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

Yes, I did receive a free TurboTax basic software disc in the mail – and I assume thousands of other Quicken users did too. Quicken is making this available to “loyal” Quicken customers for free. It allows you to do unlimited federal tax returns and five free federal e-files. Not bad.

The differences between this software and the “regular” TurboTax (they call it Deluxe):

• Cannot do a State Return
• No “ItsDeductible” to help with charitable donated items
• No Deduction “Maximizer – according to their info this searches for over 350 deductions and credits to make sure you are not missing anything.

Since I will already get to do my taxes for free (my Dad already bought TurboTax deluxe) this is not a big deal for me. However it will be helpful – I will start my taxes using this, then print out the info to take to my Dad’s place to make sure I don’t miss anything. Thanks TurboTax!

If you are a Quicken user I would look for this in the mail (if you have registered your version of Quicken). Like I mentioned above, I am definitely going to give it a try and see how it goes, then compare it to the deluxe version.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. I Received a Free TurboTax Basic! is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

Vote your conscience. Vote your wallet. Vote local issues. Whatever your motivation, just vote today!

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Is it just me, or have razor blade prices gotten ridiculously expensive? I was at Costco this past Friday, and in addition to getting their fat free frozen yogurt (yum!), I needed some razor blades. The prices were terrible. Now I know that it was for a large quantity, but still.

Then when I priced the razor blades (I use the Mach 3), it was cheaper to buy the disposable then it was to buy just the blades. How crazy is that? The price per unit on just the razor blades was $2 per blade. The price per unit on the disposable razor, same make, was $1.72.

So I went with the disposable razors – we will see how they last. Even if they are not quite as good, for the price it would still be a better deal. Maybe it’s time to seriously consider an electric razor!

Any crazy pricing you’ve noticed lately?

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Razor Blade Prices is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

As I have mentioned a couple of times in other blog posts, this has been a rough 6 months financially. Now, we face another financial set-back and a bigger life  hurdle. My wife has been sick on and off (mostly sick) for the past three months. They would put her on an antibiotic, she would get better; but then as soon as she was off the medicine she would get sick again. So far she has been on 4 different antibiotics. After numerous tests, blood work, 2 specialist doctors, it appears that she will need sinus surgery in the next few weeks. According to the Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist, her sinus’s are really messed up and need some major work. At this point my wife is excited that there is hope for getting her better. We have talked to several people who have had sinus surgery and they all said it was worth it – they feel so much better. That at least is encouraging. We wont know the date of the surgery until later this week.

So far this year we have spent $2900 on medical bills and supplies. Our deductable for the upcoming surgery is only $750.  Still, we  really need to tighten our belts and put our savings to the max. We have used all of our Flexible Spending Account (medical savings), and we still need to get the girls to the dentist this year. I have already redid our budgets once, but I will probably have to tweak them some more. My new financial goal for this year is to make it through without having to go into debt!

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. A New Financial and Life Hurdle! is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.

The post I had written for today I scrapped – it was about Net Worth. My Net Worth is sinking by the day! Now added to our long list of things breaking down is our Dodge Caravan. Coming back from dropping off the children at Grammy and Pappy’s house (my parents), the Caravan decided to kick the bucket. Fortunately I was able to get it safely off the side of the road at a decent location. One good thing was that I was only about 5 miles from home (rather than the 60 plus miles at my parents), and that I had already dropped off the children.

I was able to get a hold of a friend (who is also my mechanic!) and he towed it for me – he even dropped me by my house so I could get home – my wife was away for the weekend with the other car!

So we now have to say goodbye to our Caravan – it is not worth investing the money to get the transmission fixed. So we are going to buy a high mileage vehicle with cash. If the vehicle we are looking at can last a year, we would be okay (actually a little ahead). If it could last 2 years, we would be in good shape to purchase a nicer vehicle. We don’t want to have a car loan – I do not like having a loan for a depreciating asset.

So now I am redoing the budgets so we can save to the max – (1) saving for a new used car (2) building up the emergency fund.

So, in the last 6 months we have had the following:

• Well Pump gone bad
• Water Treatment System repair
• Water Heater die
• Replace 2 windows (leaking)
• Braces for oldest child
• Car transmission

Good thing we had an emergency fund! Now we have to really tighten our belts and get saving again.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about A Penny Saved? We rely on word of mouth to get new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would truly appreciate it. Dodge Caravan – Transmission Fail! is a post from: A Penny Saved, the best darn personal finance blog around.