I am about to kick my financial self in the rear. Despite having made a neat and brilliantly-designed spreadsheet marking my budget for the transition between full-time employment and freelancing work, I have blown it big. Sure, part of it was the furnace ($484 for a new control panel, vital right before Arctic Blast 2008!), part of it was the family's need for dental work ($965 and counting), but a lot of it is the nickels and the dimes. Or, more realistically, the $2.75's and the $1.95's.

It's all in the pastries.

My budget is slayed, not due to the "Latte Factor" (a.k.a. the "Starbucks Factor," spending $4+ each day for pricey coffee beverages), but due to the extraneous purchases when I get my often-daily coffee. If any of my three boys accompanies me to the coffee shop when I buy 16 ounces of coffee for $1.75 plus tip, I end up turning an under-$3 budget item (or around $40 a month, as I don't go every day) into about $10; three times a week and I've suddenly tripled my monthly expenses. And from there, it's a slippery slope to getting my local coffee shop's fabulous pizza a few times a month ($22 with tip), and maybe a lunch here or there...

So one of my financial resolutions for the new year is to do a better job of removing the pastry expense from my budget. This can be accomplished by baking at night for the next morning's breakfast (especially if I'm sending my husband for coffee; he loves to make breakfast easy by swiping the debit card); leaving the kids at home when I go; and brewing at home whenever possible. I think I can save about $60-75 a month, or as much as $900 a year, if I make good. What are your financial resolutions?

For the last year we've heard some pretty horrific stories about the ways animals are really getting the shaft in the recession. People abandoned dogs in houses to get back at real estate companies. Shelters everywhere are packed as people give up their dogs and cats. But this week the American Kennel Club came out with an unscientific survey showing that dog people are putting their animals first in lean times.

The survey was totally unscientific--just based on a 1,088-person poll on the AKC site. But it was still a bit of cheerful news for animals in the downturn. The question that got all the attention was that 96% would give up fancy coffee for their dog and slightly more would forgo spa treatments. That means only 4% are complete self-absorbed jerks who would favor Starbucks over their dog Sparky. But I'll chalk that up to the crazy quotient that shows up in every survey--like those that say they've seen a UFO or are totally satisfied with President Bush.

Businesses have noticed that because pets are a bigger part of our families than they were a generation ago, we're less inclined to skimp on them during a recession. Earlier this year Wal-Mart announced it was pushing further into pet supplies because pets, like kids, are recession-proof.

The execs at Starbucks have the jitters, and it's not because of their beans. The company has announced that over the past year, profit has tumbled a bruising 97%. Although revenue was up ever so slightly (3%), shrinking disposable income and rising costs have scalded the coffee chain. Looks like trouble's brewing.

It's hardly a surprise that fewer people are laying down $3 to $4 for a cup of joe. Even when our pockets were lined with greenbacks, we knew that what we were doing made no economic sense. Assuming we spend $2.79 a day on something like a latte, five days a week, for 50 weeks a year (subtracting two weeks' vacation), that's some $700 before tax. Half the time, we don't stop at that figure though. We go venti, we buy froth or shots, we eat. So that figure is often a bare minimum.

And it wasn't so much our addiction to caffeine that had us lining up for lattes. It was other, more powerful addictions--our penchant for ritual, and for convenience--that kept Starbucks in the cups. But although we all knew that spending so much each morning was a flagrant waste of money, it's still shocking to learn, once you do the math, just how big that waste actually is.

Just as a trip to Starbucks has been removed from the routines of many people, so has a stop at a shoeshine shop, the New York Times reported on Friday.

In another sign that people are watching what they spend as the economy continues to slide, the five shoeshine stands in Grand Terminal Station in New York City report a drop from some 700 customers a day to 600.

"They tell me, 'maybe tomorrow,' " said Eddie Ardaix, 49, who owns all five stands. "The ones who said yes every day, now it's one day yes, one day no."

When the Wall Street crowd starts getting nervous about a $4 shoeshine, something has to be wrong. I've only had my shoes shined a few times, but it is relaxing and better than having to do it yourself.

"Getting your shoes shined -- it's a little cathartic," Randall Devere, an investment banker, told the Times. Devere said he comes to get his shoes shined a little less often than he once did, just as he now keeps an eye on the price of sandwiches he buys for lunch. "I think it's in the back of a lot of people's minds," he said.

But the shoeshine stands' owner, Ardaix, reported an upside to the drop in business: More people are coming in for shoe repairs and trying to salvage a pair of shoes that might have otherwise simply been replaced. Repair business is up 20 to 25%, Ardaix said.

Aaron Crowe is an unemployed journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read about his job hunt at www.talesofanunemployeddad.blogspot.com

Tuesday is shaping up to be the biggest election in my lifetime and no matter who you plan to vote for there are plenty of freebies being handed out. National companies like Starbucks and Ben & Jerry's handing out free coffee and ice cream on Tuesday, but only one business is giving away a freebie with as much potential for change as the current election.

New Look Laser Tattoo Removal in Texas is giving any voter who brings in proof of voting, or swears on their bad ink, a free consultation and one tattoo removal treatment. This is a great deal, but just like a win on Election Day is only the first step for the next president, the free session is just the beginning. A full tattoo removal will take several visits and can cost upwards of $100 per session depending on the age, size and type of tattoo.

New Looks' November 4th free tattoo removal is the most valuable Election Day freebie yet, but there is another service that is needed even more post election; bumper sticker removal. Bumper stickers are relatively easy to remove, but lately they seem to be as permanent as ink. I still can't drive around town without seeing bumper stickers urging me to vote for John Kerry. I'd love to see a car dealer or auto parts store to step in and offer voters a quick removal of the constant reminder that their candidate lost, if only so I don't lose my sanity.

via Slickdeals

Have you voted yet?

In Oregon, where I live, we vote by mail -- my husband and I voted together Friday night and handed the ballots off at the county elections office Saturday. We're set.

And so now I know what I'll be doing Tuesday morning in the place of the booth voting ritual I miss sometimes: I'll be going to Starbucks down the street to pick up my free tall coffee. In an advertisement on NBC's Saturday Night Live tonight, Starbucks promised it would give a free coffee on November 4 to anyone who says they've voted.

If your area doesn't give voting proof, Starbucks will go on the honor system; and the offer is good at all company-owned stores. The idea behind the free coffee for voters concept came from MyStarbucksIdea.com discussion.

Watch the 60-second ad (friends were reporting tears so watch it!) after the jump:

I write about 'The Latte Effect' often; the concept that, by eliminating Starbucks lattes from your budget, you can save thousands a year. Depending on the application of this concept (are you substituting with another chain's coffee, brewing your own, or giving up caffeine altogether?), it's either a fantastic way to save money or simply an illumination of how spendthrift our economy has become.

Every time, though, that I write about giving up Starbucks, one of you (or a bunch) pipe up to suggest we drink Dunkin' Donuts coffee instead. It's better! you say, and not to mention, cheaper.

You're right. Surprised? I knew you weren't. In an independent, double-blind taste test, Dunkin' Donuts coffee was deemed better than Starbucks. 476 adults in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Seattle participated in the study, pitting Dunkin' Donuts Original Blend against Starbucks House Blend. According to the study administrator, the results "clearly indicate a preference for Dunkin' Donuts" Original Blend.

So the lower-cost choice is not just more imbued with working-class cred; it's tastier, as well. When your friends complain about how much their Starbucks habit is costing them, you can feel superior, in both good taste and wealth. Don't tell 'em, though. It's not kind to show someone how much smarter you are than they are ...

That's because of the free Web access. Apple computers, being cutting-edge, are much less useful without internet access, so its dozen-odd floor models are eternally connected to the Web. That's where the kids come in.

A decade ago, when fewer people had their own computers, if you wanted to get online when you weren't home, you had to go to an internet cafe. But today, moneyed people tote Blackberries and wifi-enabled laptops, so the American internet cafe is all but dead. Except that many high school kids are too young to have jobs and usually don't have their own laptops. So they can't get online at Starbucks or Panera Bread, like the rest of us. They go to the Apple Store, where they can borrow the computer without charge or time limit.

That's attraction enough for those too young to have private Web access (and for those with prying parents back home). But then there's the fact that most Apple computers now come with built-in cameras. Lots of kids are hitting the Apple Store just to take shots of themselves with the webcam. Facebook will take and post a shot of you directly from your profile page. In fact, one Michigan teen just started a new Facebook group called "I Only Go 2 The Apple Store To Take Photos and Put Them On Facebook." There are already 68 members.

Expensive tastes are getting a little bit cheaper this holiday season. When a Starbucks regular realizes that the $3.50 he spends every morning on the way to work adds up to nearly $1,000 each year, he may decide that a good way to save money would be to brew some coffee at home. Of course, he'd be right, but the retail coffee giants don't want you to see it that way.

This year, as more of its customers take a closer look at their budgets, Starbucks is introducing some new ways to save money on coffee and gift items without skipping its stores every morning.

Savings start with new Gold Cards. Store managers will be giving out a limited number of Gold Cards to the very best customers, while others can buy the cards for $25. These cards are good for 10% off most items in the store, and the company expects to sell "millions." If you're one of the ones spending $1,000 annually on coffee, $25 buys you $100 of that back. So if you're not going to cut back on your Starbucks visits, at least you can cut the damage to about $925 this year.

In addition to selling savings with the Gold Cards, the store is cutting prices on many of its gift items in hopes of luring holiday shoppers. Coffee samplers and CD's that sold for $14.95 in 2007 will be marked down to $12.95 this holiday season, and stores will feature tables with gifts under $10 as well.

Lastly, the coffee giants have teamed up with Costco to offer savings on gift cards for the first time ever. Costco shoppers can purchase five $20 gift cards for $80. This deal has been available for just one month, and already the store has sold more than 1 million gift cards. Starbucks execs are optimistic that this will be a huge moneymaker in the holiday quarter. After all, shoppers love to save money -- but one of the best ways to save money still remains: Don't buy overpriced coffee every day.

Recently, the GOOD website printed up GOOD Sheet #4, a nice graph of where the money given to gas stations goes. (GOOD defies description, but it's pretty good. Check it out.) Hard-copies of the sheet are available at Starbucks, but interested viewers can find an online copy here.

It's worth checking out: in a clear, easy-to-read manner, GOOD shows how the profit on gas is distributed and outlines the major factors that drive price. What it doesn't cover, however, is the ways that oil-producing companies actually use this money. Unfortunately, this is also the most important aspect of the oil market.

Oil is, perhaps, the most effective tool for wealth consolidation in the history of the world. Whether through technological innovation, conflict, or the luck of the draw, certain areas and people have ended up with large amounts of crude petroleum at their disposal.

Lately, I've been on an oatmeal kick. My kids and I can't get enough, especially after I started investigating the health benefits of whole grains and learned the easiest, most delicious way to get those grainy nutrients: soak thick-cut oatmeal overnight with a bit of whey, buttermilk or raw milk and cook it in the morning. It takes less than a minute the night before, and only a few minutes of active work in the morning, and I serve my oatmeal with fresh fruit in season, chopped-up nuts from local farmers, organic maple syrup, organic raw milk. Even though I'm using the luxi-est ingredients available and paying retail prices (often from the farmer's market, which is a pricey-but-sustainable choice), each serving costs me less than $1.50.

Enter Starbucks and their "perfect oatmeal." For $2.45, I can pick two of three mix-ins -- dried fruit (sweetened with sugar), nuts or brown sugar. At $2.45 for what is essentially just a cardboard cup with some chopped-up grains, and with that smug name, I expected something great. After all, this whole line of foods is part of CEO Howard Schultz' mission to eat more healthy himself; his cholesterol and weight were deemed too high by his physician. Oatmeal does, after all, seem a sensible and quick alternative to other fast breakfasts, like doughnuts, Egg McMuffins, and the like.

But Howie! What's with all that sugar? And what's with the instant oatmeal? I tried a bowl and was flummoxed. First: it wasn't that good, what with the instant oats and the skim milk. Not only would you eat a lot of processed sugar were you to choose either brown sugar or dried fruit on your perfect oatmeal, using instant oats removes a lot of the good nutrients. So you'll be messing with your body's metabolism (processed sugars and highly-processed grains trick your body into thinking it wants more, causing overeating and directly contributing to weight gain), in addition to paying more than you could if you made it at home.

Making your own oatmeal is cheaper, better for you, and it will prevent you from thinking you need a pastry too... and a grande mocha... paying off huge in lower health costs down the road.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for the humble donut. Long years after the cappuccino and croissant became the preferred breakfast of young urban professionals, I would always sneak into the little donut shop on the corner for my glazed twisty and cuppa cheap coffee. Then Starbucks came on the scene, and I never looked back.

Now venerable donut chain Dunkin' Donuts is beckoning again. The chain is offering 99-cent cafe lattes in the afternoon hours, hoping to lure cash-strapped consumers who've shirked their $4 Starbucks afternoon fix.

The lattes, which normally sell for between $2.59 and $2.79 depending on the market, will sell for 99-cents at all stores between 2 and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. As Homer Simpson would say, "Woo-HOO!"

The best part of waking up hasn't been Folgers for a decade or more. With Starbucks making gourmet coffee ubiquitous and boutique coffee roasters brewing ever-more-delightful java, Folgers is stuck in grandpa's mug. My brother-in-law and I give each other grimaces behind my dad's back when we drink the home brew at his house, and I've been known to bring my own beans when I'm visiting.

But grandpa is getting on now, and consumers looking for ways to save cash turn to their daily coffee beverage so often that saving $4 a day has a name: The Starbucks Factor, or the Latte Factor, depending on your brand loyalty (or lack thereof). But Folgers, Maxwell House and the even lesser-known competitors make their coffee from the ultra-cheap and inferior "Robusta" beans, in contrast to the "Arabica" beans used by upscale coffees. Robusta beans thrive at lower altitudes and produce far more beans per plant, and have twice the caffeine of Arabica beans; but their flavor, according to coffee connoisseurs, is extremely inadequate. How could a discriminating coffee drinker be persuaded to switch to Folgers, without creating a price disadvantage?

Instead of investing in better beans, Folgers invested in technology and marketing.

Starbucks' announcement today that it was launching its own fairly-traded coffee label, "Shared Planet," had me buzzing. My favorite coffee roaster is a local company called Stumptown Coffee, and one of the reasons I love the coffee so much is that I can trust the business' founder to deal fairly with the suppliers. He travels to every country from which the beans come, often tasting each batch himself, and is famous for having paid the highest price ever for an especially eloquent crop of beans. I know Starbucks works hard to pay more for coffee than other coffee big boys -- Folgers and Maxwell House come to mind -- but the average price the coffee giant pays, $1.42 a pound, is probably about a third of Stumptown's price.

Interestingly, Starbucks is still quoting that $1.42/pound, the average price from 2006. It appears that 2007 and 2008 have been lower, as worldwide commodity prices have decreased, but Starbucks has stopped talking price (even its SEC filings are mum on unit pricing). The company is dropping the talks of dollars and cents and is now controlling the messaging around its coffees.

Did it really take a survey of consumers for us to know that coffee costs too much at Starbucks? I think not. Let's just be honest with ourselves and admit that Starbucks coffee is overpriced. We know it, and we still buy it... because we want to. There is no shame in that.

But some genius at Rasmussen Reports decided that we ought to confirm that Starbucks charges too much for its coffee and did a survey. 73% of participants in the survey said the coffee is overpriced, while 21% said they didn't know if the coffee was too expensive, and 6% said it is not overpriced. (No, I don't think the 6% were honest in their answers. It's impossible to believe that anyone in the world believes that the coffee at Starbucks is worth what they charge for it!)

I'm not the world's biggest Starbucks fan, but I do stop there on occasion. At least when I go there, I know exactly what I'll get. And they're easy to find in just about any American city. Another interesting finding in this survey was that only 20% of survey respondents say they stay at Starbucks to drink their coffee. With 80% of people getting their coffee to go, that surely affects the size of stores corporate puts up.

I'd really be interested to know how many people participating in this survey actually go to Starbucks on a regular basis. It would nice to know how many of those 73% who think the coffee is too expensive still buy it regularly.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.