Free Family Finance

It has been a long time since I contributed anything meaningful to this poor blog.  My reasons are plentiful, but let us say this – a lot has happened in that period of time. A lot.

We moved into our short sale.  We learned how expensive home ownership can be.

We bought a car.  We learned how to sell a car after you find out it’s engine is full of sludge.

Yada. Yada. Yada.

One of my all-time favorite quotes, says this:

A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

As far as personal finance is concerned, I like to think of myself as a wise man.  But that is not always true.  However, if I can’t be wise, I can, at least, give you all the opportunity to be smart.

Many crises have emerged.  Some were avoid.  Some linger on.  But along the way, many financial lessons have been learned.  And I look forward to sharing those lessons with you.

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As I write this post, I sit in my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts. I stop here as a part of my daily routine – 7 days a week. I love there coffee. One large with cinnamon, cream, and sugar [$1.97]. It is the sole reason for my visit.

I recently made an adjustment to my routine, a move that would cut my coffee budget in half. I started bringing my own cup. Yes, a ‘refill’ only cost $.97 (including tax), plus saving all of that styrofoam probably has some insignificant environmental ramifications. So, now my coffee budget is down to $30 bucks a month.

But I pushed on. If I bought all of the proper quality ingredients, surely I could replicate this intoxicating goodness in the comfort of my own home. My hope was to further reduce my coffee budget, but my efforts were interrupted.

If you know anything about fff, you know we are not big on credit cards. Beyond that, we don’t get all wrapped up in credit card reward programs. Historically, it just doesn’t pay off. But, for a guy like me, this one seems too good to be true.

Admittedly, I have an American Express Blue Card. I got it along time ago – in my more foolish days. In a conservative estimate, I probably haven’t used the card 5 times in the last 3 years. I don’t even carry it in my wallet. However, last week Dunkin’ Donuts sent me an interesting offer via email.

In conjunction with any American Express Blue card:

“For every 4 times you shop at a Dunkin’ Donuts store in a calendar month, you will receive a $5 Dunkin’ Donuts card.”

“The more you go, the more DD cards you can earn through 3/31/11!”

Huh! If my arithmetic is correct, and I’d like to think that it is, I can dominate this offer. If I visit DD every day for an entire year, I will have spent $354 on coffee. However, if I do so while utilizing this offer, I will have earned a $5 DD gift card 91 times. That’s $455 worth of gift card credit. That translates to 1.28 years of free coffee. Thus, over the next 2.28 years, I can drink Dunkin’ Donuts premium coffee for only $12 a month – a savings that couldn’t be matched by brewing my own DD at home, especially when considering the shortcoming in quality.

And that’s how I intend on drinking my beloved Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for an entire year, for free.

In case you missed out on some of the beta announcements. freefamilyfinance.com has a new Android app. We are pretty excited about it and we hope you will be do. This app will give fff followers a way to follow our blog, flickr feed, and youtube feed from one convenient (and mobile) place.

If you’ve already given the app and spin, I would love to hear your thoughts. Comment below with any constructive criticism.

You can find the app in the link above or just visit www.freefamilyfinance.com/android/