Way back in 1995, I remember when I helped a young pest control business get their first computer. We set up their books with a new software from Quicken. Over the years, Quicken has been the only real money management software for personal of business use.

Since then there has been several of money management programs to come on the market and many of them leave. Then in 2005, Aaron Patzer said there could be something better. So in 2008 Mint.com came out of beta.

Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about setting up a budget for our daughter for school clothes and school supplies. The post was titled, Back to School – A Dad’s View. Well, a few days ago, we gave our daughter her money and went shopping for school supplies.

We chose to do the school supply shopping on a Thursday evening. I would pick up our daughter at the Boys and Girls Club, then my wife as she was getting off work. Then we would go out to dinner before shopping for school supplies.

Like any dad, I want to see the best for my children. When it comes to buying for back to school supplies and clothes it can be a bit of a tug of war. This increases as they get older. Girls more so than boys. I am talking about staying within budget!

I am talking about the definition of basics. Last year I did not see what was wrong with the backpack my daughter had from the year before. The concept of a needing a messenger bag to carry over a perfectly functional backpack was beyond my understanding.

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately about family financial planning and, frankly, I’m not all that impressed.  Some of the plans are interesting, but they are also very complex and can be confusing.

As I was sitting down to write this column I suddenly remembered a conversation I had many years ago with a wealthy friend of mine when I lived in Medina, Washington.  Medina, for those who don’t know, is a wealthy suburb of Seattle where people like Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer (the President of Microsoft) live.

I know it is easy to spend money. We are bombarded daily from television and radio ad. Sometimes it seems that every place we go there is someone who want us to give them our hard earn money. This makes it a real effort just to live within our means.

To many of us the temptation is to live above our means. In the past few years we, as a nation have learned we cannot live on credit. We cannot live above our means, it will eventually catch up with us.

I have notice those people who have not been greatly affected the current recession have been living below there means. They had a good cash reserver. They have been saving money.

I was headed out the door to run some errands when my wife as me to stop by the store and get  Velveeta cheese for dinner. Considering the route I was taking for my errands, I figured it would be simpler to stop by Albertsons instead of Winco.

Since I was in such a hurry, I raced in the store grabbed 2 pound box of cheese, then headed to the self check out lane. I don’t think I spent more than 3 minutes in the store from the time I walked in the door until I walked out with cheese in hand.

In the past week I was talking with a friend about Dave Ramsey. During the discussion the comment was how, if it was needed to pay the back up bills a family would need to go on a diet of rice and beans until those bills were paid.

A 2 pound bag of rice will run $1.77 making 20 servings. A 2 pound bag of beans will cost $1.73 making 25 servings. Then you add things like tomato sauce which is 48 cents per can. Then a couple chopped strips of bacon that cost 25 cents. That makes the cost of 22 cents per bowl.

The weather is getting warmer. Summer heat will soon be here. Some places in the United States have already reached the 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

We can send our electric bill through the roof on just the cost of running our air conditioners, if we don’t do some practical money and energy saving things. They may not seem big, but they can make a big difference when we get the electric bill in the mail.

Turn Off the Computer – Turn off the computers when not being used. Computers generate heat. Computer use up electricity. Just by turning off your computer when it is not being used can save big bucks.

This past week, I came across an article from Nielsen Wire about the relationship of health and financial responsibility. The day before that, I got to sit in on a lecture by Dr. Stephen R. Covey. The underline theme of both messages was personal financial/health before professional financial health.

It got me thinking that attitudes carry over to all parts of our life. How we manage our personal, and home finances will tell how we manage our business finances. This will be reflected in our physical appearance.

Yes, you are going to find the occasional person walking around in old torn clothing, with a million dollars in the bank, but those people are the exceptions to the rule. Most of the people I come across can be read by their overall health and dress.

Recon is a  word associated with the United States Marine Corps. It refer to a small force to gathers valuable intelligence. Then the intelligence is use to formulate a strategy for troop  deployment.

We here at The Shopping Nazi does not do product reviews or reviews of services. We do product RECON’s. We do these RECON’s to gather the best and most objective information. Our RECON brings in product testing, and what those who use the product have to say about that it.