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K-Cup Prices to Increase

Posted by Michael • October 18, 2010 @ 8:35 am

2 Comments

It’s a good thing we have the Fed on our side, promising future “easy money” policies and thereby making sure that market prices don’t do something nasty, like decrease.

Otherwise, you might have retailers and producers resorting to absolutely insane schemes, such as dropping prices on commodities and food and various necessary items. Obviously, in a credit-soaked economy like ours, price declines must be resisted at every opportunity. The last thing you want is for your present-day dollars to actually go farther (and past debts to grow more cumbersome).

Heresy, for sure.

Thankfully, the fine folks at Green Mountain Coffee have gotten the memo:

Green Mountain Coffee: We’re Raising Our Prices

I’m a big K-Cup and Keurig fan, so this eight percent increase (from $11.95 per box to $12.95) isn’t likely to dissuade me much.

So go ahead, Federal Reserve governors. Threaten to flood the system with more money. And smile, why don’t you.

Filed In: Products, Spending

Permalink: K-Cup Prices to Increase

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Blurry Images in IE8

Posted by Michael • October 12, 2010 @ 8:25 am

2 Comments

Okay. So this post has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance, but I’m going to mention it anyway.

Internet Explorer 8 is my browser of choice these days. Sometime in the last few months, I noticed that most web images (GIFs in particular) were just a smidge blurry. Not horrible, but enough to notice … and just enough to bug the living crap out of me.

Numerous Google searches left me with no fix. I played around with settings in TOOLS → INTERNET OPTIONS for hours, probably, but to no avail. I figured it had to be something with Internet Explorer 8, as the same blurry images looked just fine in IE7 (the default browser on my work laptop).

Then I happened upon the third post in this message-board thread … and BINGO.

Turns out the zoom slider in the bottom right corner of my IE8 browser had somehow gotten changed to 105%.

When I adjusted it back to 100%, my web images were clear again.

Oh, the joy I felt. Amazing how such a little thing can cause untold irritation. And the fix, of course, was in plain sight the whole time!

Filed In: Software

Permalink: Blurry Images in IE8

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Excel: Switching Rows & Columns

Posted by Michael • September 23, 2010 @ 8:17 am

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Every so often I find the need to swap (or transpose) rows and columns in Excel.

Take a report generated in Quicken, for instance. I like to see how my spending categories change from month to month. Getting Quicken to generate a Spending Report that shows this is really easy. In the Quicken menubar, REPORTS → SPENDING → SPENDING BY CATEGORY will get you there. Generate the report, then select your Date Range. Add a column for “Month” and you’re set:

Exporting this data to Excel is a simple matter, too. In the Quicken report menubar, choose EXPORT DATA → REPORT TO EXCEL-COMPATIBLE FORMAT, then give your data a save location and a name, and save it.

One problem, though: When opened in Excel, Quicken reports usually have the date periods as columns, and spending categories reside in rows. What if you want your categories in columns, and your dates in rows? (This is usually my preference.)

Thankfully, Excel makes such a switch very easy to do.

Transposing Rows & Columns in Excel

As an example, I created a “Spending by Category” report in Quicken which shows my auto expenses for a portion of 2010 (March 1 thru July 31):

Exporting that to an Excel-compatible format gives me a text file, which I named “Data2.txt” and saved on my desktop. I then opened a blank Excel spreadsheet, and from within Excel, I then opened Data2.txt.

Importing a text file to Excel like this is quite easy: In the Excel menubar, select FILE → OPEN. Navigate to the text file you wish Excel to import. Excel opens its Import Wizard, where you can change column breaks and ignore rows as necessary. When you’ve finished this, click OK to close the Import Wizard, and your text file should now be converted into Excel.

Readers who wish to follow along with the files I’m using can get them here:

Excel File: Sample Data (ZIP file with Data2.txt and Data2.xls inside)

Just download and extract that ZIP file, and you’ll have the files I use below. Play with them as you wish!

Once the text file has been opened in Excel (I’m using Excel 2010), it’s time to work some magic. We want our date headers to be in rows, rather than columns, and our categories to be in columns, rather than rows.

First, select the area of data to be transposed. In this case, that’s B5 thru H13:

Now right-click inside that area, and select COPY:

Now place your cursor in the spot where you want the data to be moved (and transposed) into. For this example, I’ll select Cell B15. In that cell, right-click again, and choose PASTE SPECIAL:

In the PASTE SPECIAL menu that appears, select TRANSPOSE:

Our data rows and columns have now been switched (transposed)!

I can’t tell you how many times that this feature of Excel — being able to swap rows and columns with a few clicks — has saved me TONS of work!

Filed In: Excel, Products, Quicken, Software

Permalink: Excel: Switching Rows & Columns

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Quicken Users: What Do Tags Do For You?

Posted by Michael • September 13, 2010 @ 8:09 am

13 Comments

Reader Kelsey emailed me with a Quicken-related comment a few days ago. Buried in the middle of it was a question that intrigued me:

Categories I get, but there’s these tag things … what would anybody even do with those?

Personally, for my household, I haven’t really come up with a good use for tags in Quicken. To this point, categories have taken me everywhere I need to go. (I’m currently using Quicken 2010 Deluxe, and have reviewed it previously.)

Quicken Tags: What’s the Point?

Basically, tags give Quicken users a way to “categorize” transactions outside of, and across, categories. I guess you could call tags a “second level” of categorizing goodness.

Suppose you wanted to sort of “sub-track” your grocery spending so that you could see how much of your grocery spending was attributable to unhealthy food. You could do something like this…

… and then run a report as necessary to see how much you’ve been spending on foods that will kill you. But in reality, such a usage of tags wouldn’t be all that novel. After all, you could do the same thing with categories. Simply have a subcategory of “Junk Food” in your main “Grocery” category, and you’d be set.

However, say you wanted to track all your “Nonessential” spending. That’s a “tag” that could span across categories because, after all, “nonessential” could apply to Groceries, Entertainment, House Repair & Remodel, and just about any other category you could think of.

So keeping an eye on “Nonessential” spending, via a tag named “Nonessential” or something similar, is more along the lines of what Quicken intended tags to accomplish.

Possible Use of Tags: Tracking Your BMF

One “big picture” idea for tag-use that comes to mind — but which I’d be way too lazy to implement — would apply to anyone who wanted to follow Elizabeth Warren’s Balanced Money Formula, as described in her book All Your Worth (review).

Warren advocates that folks classify their outflows as one of three types: “Must-Haves,” “Savings,” and “Wants.” Then track where your money’s going, and aim for the following percentages:

I’m good with using those three “types” to track spending and saving, and to create a plan for such, but I’m a Certified Data Dork, too. I would also want to know what I was spending on, say, groceries, household consummables, mortgage debt, and so on.

So, in Quicken, I’d categorize my spending normally as regards the groceries, dining, and so on. But then I’d also give my spending “tags” of Must-Haves, Savings, and Wants as applicable. That way, I could quickly generate a Quicken report (utilizing those tags) to show me how my BMF-style money plan was working out.

Possible Use of Tags: Monitoring Use-Tax Expense

For a while, I really thought I could make great use of Quicken’s tagging feature by assigning specific tags to my use-taxable online purchases throughout the year. By assigning a tag of something like “Use Tax” to all my online purchases on which I hadn’t paid sales tax at the time of purchase, I could, at tax time, fire up a simple report and see how much I needed to remit in use taxes to my state’s taxing authority.

In the end, though, I decided to treat my use-tax liability as what it really is — an ongoing “debt” that I owe to the state, and which I pay off in April of each year. So I accrue for it in its own Quicken liability account, as detailed in my Quicken: Handling Use Tax tutorial.

What Have You Made Tags Do?

I’m sure lots of people have put Quicken tags to work for them — I’m just not one of those folks. To date, I’ve been able to make categories do ALL my heavy lifting.

So what about you? Have you come up with a great use for Quicken tags that I’ve overlooked?

Filed In: Budgeting, Quicken, Spending

Permalink: Quicken Users: What Do Tags Do For You?

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Quicken’s Register Calculator

Posted by Michael • September 2, 2010 @ 9:15 am

3 Comments

As readers probably know, I’m a big fan of Quicken. It’s my finance-tracking tool of choice, and has been since the mid-1990s.

Last week, I received an email from reader Dennis, who apparently has caught on to something of a shortfall in Quicken’s internal register calculator. For those of you who aren’t sure what that is, here’s a screenshot:

If you have numbers to add or subtract, you can do it inside the SPEND and RECEIVE columns in Quicken’s register. Anyhow, here’s what Dennis had to say:

In your review of Quicken 2010 you revealed that you have been a Quicken user for a number of years. Personally, I’ve been using it since the second release.

I’d like to alert you to a bug in Quicken that has been for many years. I submit a bug report on this issue with every new release, but apparently one user isn’t enough to promote change. Maybe you would have better luck.

The Quicken Register Calculator does not perform calculations in the mathematically standard priority sequence of Parenthetical, Exponential, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction operations. Using the Register Calculator, the key strokes “2+3*3+5*3” are evaluated as “(((2 + 3) * 3) + 5) * 3” resulting in 60 (the wrong answer) instead of “2 + (3 * 3) + (3 * 5)” which results in the right answer of 26. Anyone accustomed to using any standard calculator will experience this error.

To avoid this error, it’s necessary to add repetitive values individually when using the Register Calculator (2+3+3+3+5+5+5 = 26). It’s a lot easier (and more accurate) to use any external calculator and copy the result into Quicken; however, since that last step creates an opportunity for transcription error, so it would be better if Intuit would simply fix the Register Calculator. Of course they could rename it to “Register Adding Machine” which would at least alert the user that it doesn’t function as a ‘Calculator’.

Dennis’ note caused me to think: I can’t remember the last time I used any Quicken calculator. I almost always have Excel open, so it’s kind of become my default “quickie” calculator. And now that the calculator in Windows 7 shows you all the numbers you’ve entered …

… as you input your formula, I have even less reason to utilize any “calc-ability” inside Quicken.

I spent some time trying to think of a situation where having Quicken calculate this way — computing what is effectively a formula, and doing it without standard mathematical priorities — would be an issue for me, but I couldn’t come up with one. Again, I’ve grown accustomed to using Excel as my calculator for pretty much everything.

I suspect that Intuit programmers never really intended this feature to do much more than add or subtract a string of numbers. Don’t guess I can really fault them for that, either. It’s awfully tough to program software that can do everything for everybody!

Filed In: Excel, Quicken, Software

Permalink: Quicken’s Register Calculator

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How to Know You’re a Dork

Posted by Michael • August 8, 2010 @ 2:57 pm

3 Comments

This past week, I replaced my laptop (a 5-year-old Dell Inspiron) with a fresh ‘n’ shiny Toshiba Satellite A665-S6050.

Inherent in this upgrade was my switchover from Windows XP Home, which I loved, to Windows 7 Professional, for which I don’t yet have a verdict.

(No, I never so much as bothered with Vista. In fact, a couple of years ago, I purchased a second Dell laptop for my wife. My first out-of-the-box change? Wipe the hard drive and its Vista operating system, and replace it with a clean, non-OEM-cluttered full version of XP Home.)

However, based on something I just discovered, Windows 7 just got big bonus points in my book. If you’re a power user of the calculator in Windows, as I am, you just gotta love this revamp:

Giggity.

And yes, I am a complete dork.

Filed In: Products, Software

Permalink: How to Know You’re a Dork

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Online Personal Finance Tools

Posted by Michael • July 31, 2010 @ 10:11 am

5 Comments

The answer to Jim’s question is “No, I don’t.”

Great. That’s out of the way.

So what was the question?

Bargaineering: Do You Use Online Personal Finance Tools?

Call me crazy. Call me “stuck in the 1990s.” Call me whatever you like. But I’m very much a guy who feels better when my personal-finance software, and the vast amounts of sensitive data therein, reside right on my hard drive.

Now, when I say “personal finance software,” what I’m talking about is stuff like Quicken. Spending, saving, and account-balance tracking software. And I know there are lots of super-cool online-based tools out there these days — heck, Quicken and Quickbooks offer online-access versions, but even here, Intuit is way late to the game. I, however, am not yet sold on the concept.

I like knowing that my household’s financial data is stored locally. “Locally,” as in, in my laptop. On my kitchen table. (And in a backup hard drive that’s also “locally” stored.)

Actually, Jim’s (the Bargaineering author) feelings on the subject very much mirror mine:

I trust all the services to do the right thing and to protect my information and privacy, but I know that sometimes mistakes are made and things can happen. Maybe I’m a little too old school; I’m about the age where I am comfortable telling people where I am via Twitter but not comfortable telling a third party my banking credentials. Mint and the like will treat it with the sensitivity it deserves but … you never know.

Precisely. It could be, though, that I’ll rethink this stance in the coming years. Since I don’t ever use Quicken’s “transaction download” features, and thus would never store any account-access credentials with Quicken/Mint or whomever, the only info I’d be leaving on their servers would be account-balance and spending data. And who’d give a crap about that, aside from some data-mining, consumer-research enterprise?

(Note to any data-mining, consumer-research entities who read this post: My life is boring. My spending patterns are boring. Steal my data, and you will be underwhelmed. I promise.)

Filed In: Products, Software

Permalink: Online Personal Finance Tools

5 Comments
Simply Money and Windows 7

Posted by Michael • June 7, 2010 @ 8:14 am

22 Comments

Ready for a trip back in time? If so, grab a copy of Kiplinger’s Simply Money. And get ready to see 1995 all over again.

I reviewed Simply Money back in 2006 after receiving a free copy in the mail. The program takes you back, for sure. If you’re looking for financial-software simplicity — and don’t give a flip how it looks on your computer screen — then Simply Money is your huckleberry.

However, there may now be an issue for those folks who use Windows 7. As noted by reader Dick, via email:

I found your article on the subject through Google. I’ve used this software since 1993 (latest version is 2.08, 1995) and have found it to be most useful. I just (inadvertently) moved up to a 64-bit Dell desktop running Windows 7 and the software will not load (even though it was fine through Windows 3.1, 95, 98, and XP). Do you know of any patch or fix that will let me continue to run my old friend? I’d really hate to move to Quicken or one of those other packages with the unnecessary bells and whistles.

Well, if we’re to believe what we read at SimplyMedia.com, Simply Money doesn’t appear to play well with 64-bit systems. They write that a new version/patch is in the works…

[Simply Money] Works on Vista up to 32 Bit. 64 Bit Vista not stable enough yet. Stay tuned for that improvement from Microsoft–and then from us with Simply Money to be compatible with their 64 bit Vista.

I’m not sure exactly when 64-bit Vista hit the ground, but it’s been a while. And now we have 64-bit Windows 7 out there … and still (apparently) no fix for Kiplinger’s Simply Money to make it usable on such systems. The same site has a small tech support page for Simply Money, but alas, no answers are to be found there, either.

In any case, Simply Money still deserves a place in my list of Quicken alternatives, but for those of you who are using 64-bit operating systems, you may (for now) wish to look elsewhere.

Filed In: Products, Software

Permalink: Simply Money and Windows 7

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Quicken Tip: Set Up Monthly Transfer Reminders

Posted by Michael • May 17, 2010 @ 8:10 am

4 Comments

It’s a bit of knowledge of which some folks are still unaware: You can set up recurring account transfers in Quicken the same way you set up recurring bills.

Created this way, such transfers will appear on your BILLS screen, along with all your other recurring expenses and deposits. For my household, I’ve set up our monthly Freedom Account deposit this way, as well as my transfers to a less-used checking account outside of our normal ING Electric Orange account. (The less-used account handles our annual life-insurance premium payments, our monthly MCC tax credit fees, and our child’s medical-insurance premiums — as these must come from an account at an in-state financial institution, which ING Direct is not.)

What’s the Advantage?

If you’re anything like me, you’re a busy soul. Money and bills aren’t the only things you have to worry about. And regardless of how much coffee you drink, or how many gingko biloba pills you pop, you still go through periods where anything that didn’t get written down, gets forgotten.

Quicken’s “recurring bills” feature is a great failsafe against just such memory lapses — those that affect your financial life, anyway.

Every month, your recurring bills, deposits, and transfers appear as a list of items that “check off” as you complete them. Actually, these days, all decent financial software programs offer this feature in some fashion or another. So it isn’t as if this feature is specific to Quicken. Quicken happens to be my software of choice, so that’s where I focus.

(In Quicken 2010 Deluxe, you can set the program to always open to your BILLS desktop. If you’ve set up all your recurring transactions correctly, this makes it darn near impossible to EVER forget one.)

Setting Up Recurring Transfers in Quicken

I’m currently using Quicken 2010 Deluxe (review), so screenshots and instructions will be applicable to that version. Recent Quicken versions have offered similar functionality.

Let’s say you make a $371 transfer to your Freedom Account savings each month. To set this up, you could go to the Quicken menubar, and select…

BILLS → ADD REMINDER → TRANSFER REMINDER

Alternately, from the BILLS tab (desktop), click the ADD REMINDER button on the right side:

Both methods pull up the EDIT TRANSFER window.

From there, simply fill out the data fields as required. Most are self-explanatory. Note that I label the “PAYEE/PAYER” field with my nickname for the transfer itself, rather than a “payee” name in the usual sense. This makes the transaction more recognizable when viewed in your BILLS list … which is where it will appear from this point on!

Filed In: Quicken, Software, Spending

Permalink: Quicken Tip: Set Up Monthly Transfer Reminders

4 Comments
K-Cups: Best Prices Are Where?

Posted by Michael • May 10, 2010 @ 8:15 am

20 Comments
NOTE: For more recent K-Cup pricing data, please refer to my October, 2011 K-Cup comparison post.

As I noted in my Keurig single-cup coffee maker post in early 2009, I have grown to really love my Keurig. I get my daily coffee quickly, steaming hot, and it makes just enough to please all the coffee lovers in my household — namingly, me.

Perhaps the largest ongoing drawback to the Keurig single-cup coffee makers is the fairly steep price of the “K-Cup” coffee pods they utilize. At anywhere from forty to sixty cents per cup, firing up your morning dose of ground-bean caffeine ain’t exactly cheap. Not compared to the cost-per-cup of regular drip coffee makers, anyway. (Though it’s still a far cry better than the $1.89 the donut store down the street asks for its large coffee.)

Those of you looking to be more cost-conscious when it comes to your coffee habit can always opt for Keurig’s K-Cup adapter, which allows you to use your own grounds/beans in the machine. While this might make economic sense, I will state here that the adapter itself is a pain to clean. And since I want to clean it after each use … well, you get the drift.

For day-in and day-out use, K-Cups it is.

K-Cups: Shopping Around

When we first bought the Keurig, my inclination was to use our local Bed Bath & Beyond (a store I otherwise regard with much ambivalence) as my K-Cup supplier of choice. Their selection has always been quite good — much better than Target’s — but their prices leave a significant coffee stain on your wallet, for sure. Thankfully, since we ended up on Bed Bath & Beyond’s mailing list at some point, we can mitigate this pain somewhat by using the “20% Off” coupons we regularly receive. (See below for more on that.)

Since that time, I’ve come across a few other (better!) options for K-Cup purchasing. Those of you out there who are also K-Cup aficionados might want to chime in here, as well.

Ranking Common K-Cup Retailers

As things stand currently, here are my price rankings for the most common K-Cup providers available to me:
1. Amazon.com w/”Subscribe & Save” (40.7 cents/cup)
2. Bed Bath & Beyond w/”$5 Off $15 Or More Purchase” Coupon (41.6 cents/cup)
3. Bed Bath & Beyond w/20% Off Coupon (44 cents/cup)
4. Green Mountain Coffee “Cafe Express” w/Free Shipping (47.8 cents/cup)
5. Amazon.com w/Amazon Prime (47.9 cents/cup)
6. Target (55.2 cents/cup)
7. Bed Bath & Beyond w/Normal Pricing (55.5 cents cup)
8. Green Mountain Coffee (+Shipping) (at least 58 cents/cup)
9. Amazon.com (No Subscribe, +Shipping) (60.4 cents/cup)
Now, to be fair, not all these retailers should be graded equally. If you need your coffee yesterday, Amazon and Green Mountain won’t work for you. Plus, none of these places carries ALL the varieties of K-Cups that are available. If you want Green Mountain coffees, for instance, you can’t get those direct from Amazon — you’ll have to go through Green Mountain themselves, or Bed Bath & Beyond, or an Amazon third-party vendor.

K-Cup Pricing Winner: Amazon.com

For us, Amazon (utilizing its “Subscribe and Save” service) is now the lowest-cost provider of K-Cups — provided they carry the flavor(s) we’re wanting. This isn’t always the case, sadly. I’m a big fan of Timothy’s Colombian Decaf (best decaf I’ve ever had), as well as Timothy’s German Chocolate Cake flavor. Amazon carries both.

I buy these flavors regularly, so signing up for Amazon’s “Subscribe and Save” service (free shipping, plus an additional 15 percent off the usual price) makes sense. The free shipping offered by “Subscribe and Save” is nice for most folks, certainly, though the fact that I’m already an Amazon Prime member makes this irrelevant to me.

At current prices, Amazon’s delivery of K-Cups to my door nets out at just over forty cents per cup. (A bit cheaper, actually, since our Amazon Visa rewards 3 percent cash back on Amazon-bought items.)

Second Place: BBBY (w/Coupon for $5 Off $15 or More Purchase)

Every so often, Bed Bath & Beyond sends us a coupon for $5 off of any purchase of $15 or more. Buying two boxes (18 cups each) of K-Cups costs $19.98. Five bucks off of that gives us a cost of $14.98 for 36 cups, or 41.6 cents per cup.

Third Place: BBBY (w/20%-Off Coupon)

As long as I have a 20% Off coupon handy, a box of K-Cups at Bed Bath & Beyond costs me forty-four cents per cup (the image below is wrong!), which is the second-cheapest I’ve found. Without the coupon, the price jumps to almost fifty-six cents per cup.

If my experience is any indication, most of BBBY’s coupons will be of the “X percent off one item” variety. So even with this coupon, if you’re buying more than one box of K-Cups, you might want to shop elsewhere.

Green Mountain and “Cafe Express”

Green Mountain Coffee (owner of the Keurig brand, also) makes several flavors that I really like — and which Amazon doesn’t sell. Green Mountain’s Vermont Blend is my favorite “standard” coffee these days; their Mountain Blueberry and French Toast flavors are, in my opinion, nothing short of heavenly.

(Oh yeah: I love diner-style coffee mugs, and Green Mountain has a very nice diner-style mug of its own.)

Since I’m an every-day coffee drinker, signing up for Green Mountain’s Cafe Express membership was the way to go. I have no problem buying four boxes of K-Cups at a time, so I can always get free shipping from GMCR and Cafe Express. Utilizing Cafe Express in this manner, Green Mountain K-Cups currently cost us not quite fifty cents per cup.

Target

Our local Target carries perhaps 5 to 10 varieties of K-Cups. It’s a convenient place to pick up K-Cups if you’re desperate. Pricing, however, isn’t competitive. Right now, K-Cups from Target cost us a little over fifty-five cents per cup.

Wal-Mart

Though I read that Wal-Mart was going to begin selling Green Mountain coffees and assorted K-Cups in 2009, I have yet to see them appear at my local store. We’ll see how they’re priced when/if it ever happens. Sam’s Club does carry industrial-sized boxes of K-Cups, and I’m sure their prices beat out most competition. However, the few flavors they’ve carried to this point haven’t been varieties that I’d want to buy in quantity.

If you Money Musings readers know of any reputable K-Cup retailers that I’ve missed, and who ought to be on the list above, please let me know!
Filed In: Products, Spending

Permalink: K-Cups: Best Prices Are Where?

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