Because this yo-yo is made out of money, but I am not.

I write about personal finance, so I know how important it is to save money for your children’s college education. (As long as you’re not doing it to the detriment of your retirement account, of course.)  I talk to financial planners several times a week, and I know that the key is to start early. START NOW. I get it. I do.

So I’ve been a little stressed out that we haven’t managed to be more aggressive about college savings for our two girls. But we live in New York City, and frankly, it’s expensive. It’s beyond expensive. It’s nuts. And the amount of money we spend on basic fixed expenses—rent, daycare—is outrageous.

And then it hit us. We spend a lot of money on daycare. We spend more money on daycare than we do on rent. (Those of you familiar with NYC rent numbers will understand that our monthly bill is not insignificant.)

But daycare is not forever. At some point, these girls will enter school. Public school, if we can help it, which means we’ll no longer be paying for daycare. Which means we’ll have THOUSANDS to funnel into their college savings funds each year. If we save even half of what we’re spending now, we’ll have a sizable college nest egg by the time each girl is ready for collegiate life.

But could it be that easy? Is it just a matter of redirecting the money we’re already spending? And if it’s that easy, why doesn’t everyone (who pays childcare expenses) do this? And is it okay that this savings strategy won’t kick in until the girls are 5 years old?

I asked a planner friend of mine to weigh in.

“That sounds like a great plan,” says Ted Toal, a financial planner in Annapolis. Most people, he says, are more likely to dream about how they’re going to spend their newly freed-up money, not save it. But this strategy can work with anything. “Let’s say you have a car payment of $500 a month and you pay the car off,” Toal says. “Don’t spend that money. Start saving it. Put it into a savings account. Put it into an investment. Up your 401(k) contribution.”

The takeaway? This could work for us. And I’m no longer stressed about saving for college, because the money is already in our budget. And when the time comes, we’ll just shift those payments from “daycare” to “529 plans”—with maybe a little bit earmarked for “weddings.” Because we do have two girls, after all.

What’s your college savings strategy?

(Dollar bill yo-yo from felipejcontreras on Flickr.)

Doesn't she look happy? She's avoiding a fine by working out!

It’s January. Tis the season for healthy resolutions and crowded gyms.

But come March, what might motivate you to keep hitting the elliptical at your local Gold’s or 24-Hour Fitness? A personal trainer? A photo of a svelter you? Or—and here’s an idea—what if you had to pay a fine every time you skip your workout?

A new service is betting on the latter option. Sign up with GymPact, commit to a number of workouts per week, and if you don’t hit them all, you’ll pay a predetermined fine (minimum: $5) for every missed sweat session. And if you do keep your gym promises, you’ll actually earn money, paid for by all the schmoes who got fined. The amount you earn will vary depending on how many people paid into the communal pot and how many workouts you scheduled, but it would likely come out to about $1.50 per week. (So it’ll take you a while to save up for that Kindle Fire.)

A few things:

Thing 1: This app is only available for iPhone users, so Android, Blackberry and other off-Apple brands can’t join the fining fun, for now.

Thing 2: The app uses your phone’s GPS capability to know when you’re at the gym. So if you’re an outdoor exerciser (running, anyone?) or doing a Jillian Michaels video at home, this won’t work for you.

Thing 3: Isn’t this kind of the idea of paying for a gym, to begin with? The if-you’re-paying-for-it-surely-you’ll-use-it argument? Although I guess your gym doesn’t add money to your account if you go. So there’s that.

Still, GymPact claims that its users complete their promised gym commitments about 90 percent of the time.

Would this work for you?

(Photo from jamesmcashan on Flickr.)

And in some ways, I am on top of things. We had family holiday photos taken the first weekend in November. I really felt like I was ahead of the game. But between the time it took to receive the images and the time it’s taken Shutterfly to fill our holiday card order (What’s up, Shutterfly?), our cards will be mailed tomorrow, at earliest. That would be December 16th, for those of you who haven’t checked a calendar in a while. (So look for your card — we’re sending them to EVERYONE! Wait, no. Maybe not everyone.)

Speaking of December 16th, let me bring up one of my favorite holiday happenings: Free Shipping Day.

Have you heard of this? It is the Best. Thing. Ever. For those of you who’ve been putting your holiday shopping off until the last minute (i.e. me), a variety of merchants will be offering free shipping, with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve.

That’s tomorrow. TOMORROW.

So if you’ve got a stack of catalogs sitting on your kitchen table, tonight is the night to go through them. Get your Internet ready. Because tomorrow, December 16th, is Free Shipping Day.

Retailers include Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Land’s End, Sephora, Apple, Eddie Bauer, you name it. (The full list will be revealed in the morning.)

I will be shopping like a maniac. Join me at FreeShipping.org.

It's a paper deer head for your wall. You fold it yourself. No, really.

Poor Rudolph. In retrospect, experts think Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer may have been bullied. After all, all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, right? From ABC News.

What Not To Do At Work If You Want to Keep Your Job. The list includes taking shots of Jack Daniels at your desk and calling your congressman employer an “idiot boss” on Twitter. Take note. From CBS.

Spirit Airlines keeps it classy. Now that Rod Blagojevich has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, Spirit Airlines is offering a “Slammer Sale.” From their marketing materials: “You don’t have to live in the ‘Big House’ to take advantage of these fares.” Nice. From NBC Chicago.

Got a Ford Fusion? Or a Mercury Milan? Ford is recalling its 2010 and 2011 models of the cars because, well, the wheels could fall off. Good luck with that. From USA Today.

4 gifts that keep on taking. What if you could give a gift that would cost its recipient hundreds of dollars over time? You can! Check out SmartMoney.com’s list.

Wedding oops. Supposing you were getting married. And supposing your in-laws were Muslim and religiously opposed to eating pork. Then supposing your wedding caterers served rice with pork sausage, potatoes with ham, salad with bacon, and ham sandwiches? (Aside from the obvious problem, what kind of food selection IS that?) From the Consumerist.

Deer on the wall. So you’ve always wanted a deer head on your wall (don’t we all?), but you don’t want to shoot one? Enter Foldeer, stage right. It’s a paper toy deer head that you fold yourself into a 25-inch piece of 3D wall art. Don’t everyone order all at once. From ABC News.

Happy weekend, all. Try not to bully any reindeer.

A bracelet made from recycled gift cards. It seemed fitting.

If you aren’t buying gift cards this holiday (ahem, shopping) season, you’re in the minority. Something like eight out of 10 holiday shoppers have plans to buy gift cards, according to the latest numbers from the National Retail Federation’s 2011 holiday survey.

What you might not know is that you don’t have to pay full price for gift cards, according to this neat little piece from MSNBC. The answer: Buy them from resellers and save up to 35 percent on gift cards from retailers like Home Depot and Macy’s.

But here’s the thing you may not have considered: You don’t necessarily have to buy a discounted gift card and give it as a gift. (“Here’s a gift card with $33.97 on it. Merry Christmas!”)

You can buy a discounted gift card and use it to buy gifts.

This is genius, I think. Buy a $200 gift card to Pottery Barn for $180, then use it to pick up gifts for a handful of people on your list—and you’ve saved 10 percent before you even started.

MSNBC recommends using established sites to do this, and I second that recommendation, but I’d never really poked around on them before. So here’s a rundown:

• Plastic Jungle: This seems like a really nice site, selling gift cards from a variety of big-name retailers, and you simply search for what you want, and purchase. Completely simple. (Spotted: 10% off cards from Pottery Barn Kids.)
• Gift Card Granny: At first glance, this site seems like it offers a ton of great gift cards, but then you realize that the majority of them are eBay finds—meaning you have to jockey with the masses to secure the deal. I don’t have time for this. (Maybe you do. Go for it.)
• CardHub: I’ve heard good things about this site, but I can’t tell you much. The gift card portion of the website was down all day.
• Cardpool: Another nice little site with a nice selection of gift cards. (Spotted: 15% off gift cards from Anthropologie.)
• Giftcards.com: Limited selection, and you can’t tell what kind of discount you’ll get until you click on a merchant. Even then, the site doesn’t calculate the discount for you, as other sites do. That doesn’t mean there are no good deals here, but you’ll have to work harder to find them. (Spotted: 13% off cards from Pier One.)
• Gift Card Castle: I wasn’t wowed by the selection here, either. (Why so many Tommy Bahama cards? Do people really buy gift cards for Tommy Bahama?) There is no way to sort by discount, and many of the major retailers are missing. Not impressed, but again, you should check it out if you have a specific retailer in mind. (Spotted: 12% off cards from iTunes.)

Last, but not least, a note: These sites will also help you sell a gift card, if you get one that doesn’t appeal to you. Just something to think about, come January.

Shop on, campers. Shop on.

(Bracelet from Courtney Dirks on Flickr.)

Yep. That about covers it.

So I got a mailing from Chase Bank the other day, and I almost ditched it immediately—it had that junk-mail air about it.

But I opened it. And I’m glad I did. Because this is what it said:

Currently, our records indicate that you are not being mailed any offers from Chase. We are updating our customers’ preferences for receiving these mailings. We want to be sure that you know about available offers and that you have the opportunity to consider them.

Please completely fill in the ovals below next to the Chase product and service offers you do not want to receive by mail: (Emphasis theirs.)

• Auto and Vehicle Financing
• Credit Card
• Education Loans
• Home Equity & Mortgage
• Annuities and Insurance
• Investments
• Personal Banking
• Business Banking
• Value Added Products and Services

If you do not respond, you may begin to receive offers in the mail about these products and services. (Emphasis mine.)

Okey doke. Let me get this straight. I have somehow managed to successfully opt out of your unwanted promotional mailings, and you’re just double checking to make sure I still don’t want a flood of useless offers in my mailbox?

And if I’d chucked this into my trash can without reading it—as many Chase customers will probably do—I would have started receiving promotional offers in as many as nine different product categories?

Frankly, I’m actually not all that irritated. I’m even a little impressed by the attempt, which will bump more than a few absentminded Chase customers back onto the bank’s marketing lists. I mean, it’s not like they didn’t ask.

Well done, Chase. Very sneaky. (But, readers—pay attention to your snail mail.)

(Earrings from Web Property Developer on Flickr.)

Because debit card fees make me crabby.

I imagine the past few weeks haven’t been the best for Bank of America’s public relations team, after BofA announced that it was going to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards.

Oh, the outcry! The petitions! The bad press!

(I’ll bet the media team at Netflix could commiserate.)

The kind of hilarious part about all the hubbub was that Bank of America wasn’t the only bank contemplating charging fees to access your own cash. A handful of other banks were testing fees in various markets around the country.

Evidently, no more. Last Friday, Chase and Wells Fargo decided to nix the debit card fees they’d been testing in a few places. And on Monday, Regions Financial Corp and Suntrust dropped the fees they’d already put in place—and said they’ll be reimbursing customers.

Then, yesterday, the big kaboom. Bank of America is ditching its debit card fee as well.

Triumph! The little guy wins!

At least, for now. Banks will surely think of another way to charge higher fees, now that they’re collecting so much less revenue otherwise. But it’s nice to know that publicly airing our dissatisfaction can make a difference, especially when it comes to egregious fees.

Keep voting with your feet, folks. If you don’t like the way your bank is doing things, find another bank. It actually works.

(Photo from Big Max Power on Flickr.)

Bird parents discussing their priorities.

Occasionally I rant and rave about student loans and college costs and the fact that no one bats an eye anymore at borrowing $100,000 for school. (Until it comes time to pay those loans back, and then everyone says, “Oh, 18-year-old you, you should’ve known better.”)

But here’s the thing: While I believe we should be doing everything in our power to keep kids out of crazy student loan debt, that doesn’t include giving up on our own retirement. And according to some new numbers from MassMutual’s State of the American Family series, the majority of parents are now prioritizing paying for their children’s education over saving for their post-working years.

And then, it follows, comes this stat: Only three in 10 American parents are confident they’re going to be adequately financially prepared for retirement.

Well, sure. I could’ve told you that. If you choose to front your kid’s $50,000-per-year college bill over your own retirement nest egg, that’s going to leave you in the lurch down the road.

So let’s revisit our priorities, readers. Sure, it’s important to make sure that your children get a quality education without ending up neck-deep in student loan bills. But there are other ways to make that happen. (And why aren’t we talking about them?) Your kids could attend a community college for a couple of years before transferring to the big-name school. They could attend an in-state public university instead of a pricier out-of-state or private one. You could become serious scholarship hunters and cover a few thousand of your annual expenses that way. You could say the words, “No, son, you can’t attend that school because it costs too much money.” (Trust me, he’ll be okay.)

Because if your answer to this college-cost conundrum is to ignore your 401(k) and pretend you’ll be perfectly happy working until age 90, then you’re in for some unhappiness later. (As are your children, who will have to support you when you run out of cash.)

What’s your priority?

(Cartoon from Glennz Tees on Flickr.)

This could be your view. You know, when you retire at age 80.

Got plans to retire at 60? Or even 55? You may want to rethink your rosy picture of the future if it doesn’t involve a paycheck of some kind for many, many years. Although we’ve spent the last several decades moving the average retirement age forward (from 73 to 63 between 1910 and the mid-80s), that trend is ending, according to a recent study.

Why? Let me tell you.

First of all, we’re living longer. It used to be that we retired and lived on savings for about a decade, but now you may spend as many years retired as you spent working. That’s a lot to expect from one retirement account, especially since Americans aren’t great savers.

But there are other reasons, as set forth in this article on SmartMoney.com:

Health insurance. Sure, you can give your boss the wave-off at 60, but Medicare doesn’t kick in until 65, and only about 1 in five jobs offer health insurance into retirement now. (And a hint: It’s not cheap.)

Social Security. If you were born after 1960, you won’t be able to collect full benefits until age 67—or later, if the government rolls it back further. That makes it tougher to relax on a beach drinking Sea Breezes at age 55.

Pension plans. Or rather, the lack of them. Your parents may have had a pension as a job benefit, but you probably don’t, unless you’re a state employee, a teacher, or the President. That means you have to save the money yourself for retirement. (And did I mention that Americans aren’t great savers?)

Add all that up, and you’ve got the results of this survey, which found that 40 percent of workers expect to retire later, with more than a third planning to work past age 70 or never retire.

Maybe we can drink Sea Breezes at our desks instead.

(Photo from Captain Kimo on Flickr.)

Because if I can tie ABBA into anything, I will.

Well, this is cheery—and not particularly great news for those students who excel in all areas but don’t necessarily have the funds for a four-year degree. A survey of senior admissions officials at colleges around the country found that more of them are heavily recruiting “full-pay” students—those who don’t need financial aid.

For instance, there’s a push toward attracting more out-of-state and international students, who (at public institutions) pay more for their education. Which doesn’t seem so terrible, I suppose.

But then there’s this: Some 10 percent of four-year schools report that the full-pay students they’re admitting have lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants.

Hm.

So if I can foot the bill for four years of higher education—which, incidentally, cost more than $16,000 per year for tuition, room, board, and fees for an in-state public school last year—I may get admitted over someone with a straight-A average, oodles of extracurriculars and a stunning SAT score who qualifies for financial aid.

Sure. That seems fair.

I realize that colleges aren’t there to hand out degrees for free, but favoring someone for admission based on their financial status doesn’t seem like the way we should be going.

What do you think?