With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I have the perfect giveaway – Ghirardelli Chocolate Bars! Who doesn’t like a little chocolate in their life? A simple, sweet indulgence that’s easy on your pocket book, and in moderation, very good for your heart.

Did you know that chocolate has health benefits? Not only does chocolate boost your endorphins, making you feel good, its antioxidants protect you from free radicals. Chocolate can also lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The great thing about the Ghirardelli bars is that you can break them off in bite-size pieces; perfect for moments of indulgence, yet small enough to keep your diet in check.

I’m giving away a total of 6 beautiful 3.5oz packages which include their new Gourmet Milk ‘Sea Salt Escape’, ‘Creamy Devotion’ and my personal favorite ‘Coconut Rendezvous’. The lucky winner will receive two bars of each flavor! All you got to do is one of the following to be entered: Like Me on Facebook, Follow Me on Twitter, Like the Blog post or Tweet about the give-away using the Rafflecopter widget you see below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

When the responsibility of finding the best way to manage the household finances is in your hands, it can be a life-long learning process. As a couple or a family, everyone will have their strengths and weaknesses. It’s easy for you and your partner to fall into a routine of assuming the roles that you are most comfortable with to help manage the daily needs of running a household. But it’s important that, as a team, you both remain vigilant to changes and opportunities, both big and small.

While major events like buying a house, purchasing a car, going to college, or visiting a hospital might seem to have the greatest impact on household finances, it’s really the day-to-day details that count. The ability to make good decisions about spending and saving consistently is what will lead to better results for you and your family.

There are plenty of opportunities to needlessly throw away money every day. The plethora of bills and expenses can be daunting, and you may find yourself spending without thinking. However, it is truly worth the effort of reviewing your monthly costs and seeking out better deals and more opportunities to save.

It’s easy to get complacent with your roles in the household. However, you might be missing out on plenty of savings that will be vital in the long-run. That’s why it never hurts to have someone else be your second pair of eyes once in a while when looking over your monthly expenditures. As a team, you can help each other find new ways and opportunities to better your financial situation. Can we find a cheaper internet provider? Is there a better cell phone plan out there for us? Do we actually need the cable TV package that we currently have?

A good place to start looking for savings each month is your car insurance. Because it’s usually easy to switch to a new provider without incurring any extra costs, it’s certainly in your best interest to seek out a better deal. Then, check out other household expenses. In no time, you’ll be saving a few hundred dollars each month while only expending a little extra energy.

Have you compared car insurance lately?

Goal: Save 10%

This year my goals were fairly simple; save money ($6,000 for the year), continue to grow my blog (375 readers daily), and ride my bike (1,000 miles this year). Using the SMART technique, I came up with a plan to meet each target goal. I also added in paying off the car, but that goal is soclose to being completed, I almost can’t count it as a “New Year’s” goal. So how am I doing at day 31?

Biking

One month into the new year I’m finding that riding my bike 1,000 miles this year is going to be a piece of cake. I’m super motivated since I’ve started a bike blog, Bike Lane Living, and the weather has been sublime. It helps that this is something I have complete control over; it’s up to me to wake up 15-30 minutes earlier than usual and it’s up to me to psyche myself into “You gotta ride, the weather is terrific!” There’s really few, if any, outside factors working against me to meet this goal. Progress: Ahead of the game.

Blog

So starting another blog this year may be splitting my time and focus in two and could detract from my initial goal. However, I’m realizing I need to outsource some of the “busy” work it takes to “run” a blog. But of course, some of you know this already! I’ve enlisted the help of a couple of colleagues to help me network more often; submit to carnivals, comment on blogs I just don’t have time to catch up on, etc. This should assist me in meeting my blog goal and expanding my readership. So far, my page views have been consistently improving and this is a good sign. Progress: On target.

Saving Money

I just wrote an article the other day mentioning some strategies for those of us (i.e. ME) that need mind tricks to SAVE MORE MONEY! If finances were completely up to me, I think I’d be on schedule (Ah, Um…I need to save so pay me more! Or, hey, we don’t really need that, do we?). But let’s face it; outside factors influence how much I can save and what I have to work with. Yet, sticking with a 10% savings plan, I think I’ll be able to play catch-up in the next couple of  months. I’ve also been good at stashing the Lincolns in my Mason Jar, so hopefully that will add up to some extra green by March. At only $200 saved so far this year, I’d say I have a bit of catching up to do! Progress: Behind.

If only saving were as easy as biking, I’d be doing great. I need to break the cycle and save more because this is becoming a recurring theme (and post)!

How are your New Year’s goals or resolutions going so far?

Quite a few years ago, Mr. LH and I decided to purchase a term life insurance policy just in case of a sudden accident. It gave us a peace of mind encase either of us were to die unexpectedly. At least with the policy we selected, it was a low monthly cost and paid out enough that one of use could:

• Pay for funeral services. Cost: $3,000 – $10,000.
• Replace the loss of one income for 6-months to a year. Cost: $18,000 – $36,000.
• Take a few months off of work to sort things out and grieve. Cost: $18,000.
• Buy something expensive to make the remaining person feel better (Okay, Mr. LH said he buy an expensive car. I think I’d just visit family members.) Cost: $3,000 – $35,000.

We’re still paying on our life insurance policy, but because it is a term policy we don’t intend to have it forever since term policies don’t have a cash value applied to them. Actually, with a large enough emergency fund, we could budget for the above items over a 10 year period.

If I calculated out the maximum of each of the above items, that comes to $99,000 (just a grand under our policy coverage). Over 10 years, at a 4% compounded savings rate, if I invested $670 a month I’d have a little over $99K saved in 10 years. Now, if all goes well and we’re still kicking (and really, we wouldn’t be that old anyway), we’d have a nice little nest egg set aside for the future. Also, we’d be saving $5,280 in payments in that same amount of time.

So now I ask myself, “Is an emergency fund a better alternative?” It is if I can scrape together $670 a month to only be applied to our “ER/death” fund. This figure doesn’t take into account retirement, travel, or any other type of emergency that I’d need to budget for.

An alternative would be to swap out our term policy for a cash policy, which would mean we pay a higher monthly amount, but have the option of cashing it out in our senior  years. This may actually be a better option for us since at this point, we could afford a slightly higher monthly payment. I also don’t like the idea of paying money towards something we won’t ever be able to take advantage of except if one of us dies. We’re sort of betting against death or for death I suppose if we wanted to take advantage of the term policy.

Have you reviewed your life insurance policy? Did you opt for a term policy or cash policy?

I love my cats and usually they’re quite inexpensive minus a freak visit to the vet. But one thing pet owners probably don’t take into consideration when it comes to pet costs are accidents. I’m not talking about medical accidents, I’m talking about ACCIDENTS that result in destruction around the home.

For instance, my cats seems to prefer to barf up their hairballs on the carpets instead of the laminate flooring that covers three-quarters of my house. Once a year I have to have my carpets cleaned professionally due to cat vomit; cost: $120. We purposely have a light weight blanket over our bedspread for exactly these kinds of mishaps. Over the past year, the stains have sunk in and just won’t come out. Sometime this year, I’m sure I’ll replace it; cost: $35. Every now and then, my cats get into a bit of trouble and knock over a trinket on a counter top. Those trinkets are usually under the $20 range, but that can add up over time; cost:who knows.

It’s just not cats, though. Just the other day I overheard someone describing her puppy’s destructive behavior, chewing up shoes, books, and who knows what else.

Well just last night, my cats decided to pull a doosey of an accident. One of them (and I’m not sure which one) knocked over a fairly heavy bar stool (I’m thinking it’s my fat cat Fred) and destroyed it. It landed on its side and broke the top of the back off like a twig. It’s a shame because this particular bar stool is $300. Yep. That’s the true cost of pets I suppose.

If you have pets, how much do you estimate you spend annually on pet destruction?