There were times when shopping at a wholesale club meant saving money on nearly all of your purchases. That isn’t necessarily the case anymore. Pay close attention to prices or you may end up paying too much.

Back in the day, you couldn’t help but save money by shopping at a wholesale club and buying in bulk. The main reason was that your options for an item like paper towels were to buy one to three rolls at the grocery store or buy a blister pack of sixteen rolls at the club. Buying in bulk saved you money.

Buying in bulk still saves you money; it’s just that you have more places to do it than just at the wholesale club. Target, Wal-Mart, and other retailers have been offering bulk items for quite some time. To see where I’d get the best deal, I did some comparison shopping between Target and Sam’s Club. The items that I was looking for were paper towels, diapers, dog food, and kitty litter. All of these items were available in large sizes at both places. I was surprised to find that Target’s regular prices were lower on all of the items except one. Taking the sales prices into account, it was a no brainer that Target was the right store for this shopping trip.

If I had another list of items, I may have had different results. I have since found that envelopes and packing supplies are significantly cheaper at Sam’s Club. So, you need to check items individually. Also, remember to compare prices by looking at the unit cost. I’ve found that the wholesale clubs tend to carry items in different package sizes than regular stores.

Also remember to take other costs into consideration. Driving across town to get a better deal on one item might not be worth it, especially given the price of gas and more importantly the value of your time.The more you comparison shop, the more you’ll learn which stores to go to for which items.

The money you save is only as good as how you use it. One suggestion you will see often on this blog is to save or invest any such new-found money. Many people with extra cash have been investing in person-to-person loans from Lending Club because of the great rates that are offered. Whatever you do with your extra money, comparing prices at wholesale clubs with your other options will ensure that you always get the best deal.

When we were children, our responsibilities were nonexistent. The only thing that concerned us was when our next meal was and how much play time we could get away with before our parents made us do homework or go to bed.

Now, as adults, everything is different. We hold all of the responsibilities, and for many this includes being responsible for their own children. The financial responsibilities added to all of the other responsibilities might give us the feeling of being overwhelmed and not in control of our lives.

I have been faced with my own responsibilities, and since I don’t like the feeling that comes from not knowing what to do because there is too much to do, I have stumbled upon something that has helped me get a grip on everything. Maybe it’ll help you, too.

The answer is to systematize as much as possible of your life. Now, the word “system” might seem cold and remind us of industrial machinery, so feel free to substitute your own name for it, but I think the idea of systematization works and is the only way to manage a life in the 21st century.

Many of us have been using systems without realizing it. Getting Things Done is a system, person-to-person borrowing and lending with Lending Club is a system, and working with any exercise “program” is a system. According to the dictionary, a system is “a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.” Doesn’t that describe your life? Which is a group of interacting and interrelated elements, or areas of life forming your complex life as a whole.

Now that we have determined that your life is like a system, it’ll be easier to break it down into different compartments, processes and responsibilities, which are much easier to work with than having to manage the entire life at once. Once we realize that we can work and manage our lives just like we can any system, and break it down into its most atomic elements, we’ll no longer be overwhelmed. Because now, to change anything, all that is required is one tweak here or another there.

We can look at our finances as a system within the bigger system of our lives. By looking at personal finance with logical thinking, we can break it down, analyze it and change it accordingly to get the results that we want. Because the goal is to retire wealthy, we’ll work on our financial system in this next series of posts to see how to achieve this goal.

I’ve touched on the subject of money and happiness in a few prior posts. Specifically, in my post The Link Between Money and Happiness, I discussed research that showed how financial situations might affect the amount of happiness that more money can buy. A new study looks at the physical reaction that accompanies the worth we associate with a purchased item.

The research was reported on MSNBC in this article. The main conclusion of the study, released in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that the more we believe an item is worth, the happier we are with our purchase. While this is certainly an argument in favor of indulging in extravagant purchases, the research also suggests that the happiness is very short-lived.

This reminds me of something I often think of when traveling by plane. Doesn’t it seem that first class airline passengers are super smart and worthy of our jealousy as we board an aircraft? I usually think so for most of the flight. Then, as landing approaches, my philosophy suddenly changes. As soon as the wheels hit the ground, I begin to regard those in the first class section as suckers who paid significantly more than I did to get to the same place at the same time. My point is that perceived value and worth can quickly erode, while bargains and frugality tend to bring a more sustainable and lasting happiness.

If you want to do something clever with your finances that will bring you long-term happiness, consolidate your debt with a low rate person-to-person loan from Lending Club. With minimal effort, you can make a change that will likely bring continued financial prosperity for years to come.

Despite the upsides of having a high interest checking account, in an increasingly paperless world, personal checks and the defiantly tangible checkbook are fast becoming a dinosaur of finance. Sitting at the checkout counter, fumbling through check reconciliation pages is a thing of the past. With so many new ways of shelling out dough, consumers have a bevy of options at their behest, and unfortunately for the aging check, many are choosing the slicker, quicker payment options.

What is the cause of death?

Several factors are pointing the demise of the personal check, not the least of which is cost. Producing checks is expensive for banks, and with so many more cost-efficient options available, check manufacturing is in an obvious decline. What’s more, consumers often decide against using personal checks due to their own cost factors like postage and ordering fees. The money going into the check process has started to outweigh the convenience of using the medium for transactions.

Also, personal checks have grown increasingly unsafe to use. Functioning as a fancy IOU slip, they are frightfully easy to forge and counterfeit. And when fakes aren’t being passed, people are signing away large sums of money that they most likely don’t have. So much care goes into processing a check—electronic transfer, valid ID verification, DNA analysis—that the process of paying can sometimes take more time than the shopping itself.

Check Payable To: Amanda Huggenkiss

In a sense, it is too bad to see them go, because writing a check had its own strange charm. There was nothing quite like signing your name in really huge letters to offset the fact that the check was for $4.91. Good times were had writing fake memo lines that ranged from inappropriate to uncomfortable. And no one will forget how life-affirming it was to get those checks with the forest designs that screamed “environmentalist.”

But there’s also plenty about personal checks that no one will miss. Knowing what day it is matters much less now, which is good because it is one less thing to remember. No longer must people carry a pen with them or buy carpenter jeans just so they have a place to put their checkbook. Buying groceries is quicker, and paying bills is faster.

Balance? What’s that?

The greatest timesaver enabled by transitioning from paper to plastic is that there is no more need to balance your checkbook. Thankfully, online banking and monthly statements do all the hard work for you. Reconciling payments is a snap thanks to itemized paperwork and easy-to-understand accounting. Back in the day, balancing the checkbook was a chore; now it is borderline fun (especially where high interest checking accounts are concerned).

Technology has done wonders for banking, even if it has spelled the end of standard checking. E-commerce and credit/debit cards have changed the way we pony up for goods and services. Faster, quicker, with less thinking—that’s the way the Man wants us paying. Writing a check takes so long, we might change our minds about our purchase midway through our painfully girly signature (“Do I really need the director’s cut of You’ve Got Mail?”). At the grocery store, we can swipe our credit card with ease. At McDonald’s, we can wave our debit card and be done. Before too long, all we’ll have to do is think about paying, and the funds will be automatically deducted from our checking accounts. Yikes!

Not every payment is digital…yet

Only a few situations still call for the old pen-and-paper payment. I pay my rent with a check because my landlord does not trust me enough to put my monthly rent on credit. Well, I don’t trust her to fix the stove! Checks also come in handy when I want to impress my teenage friends with my oldness and resistance to change. Other than that, my checkbook spends its days tucked away in a desk drawer…or is it by the phone? I haven’t seen it for a while.

Mr. Check meet Mr. Online Bill Pay

Nowadays, we have a convenient array of payment options built on saving time, energy, paper, and—in some cases—thought. One of the check’s favorite days was bill day, but technology has delivered an electronic bummer to the arcane check community. Online bill pay is here, and it is fabulous. Most services offer a way to check when new bills are available, set up monthly payments, view past payment history, and complain about your cable. All of these used to be done on paper, in your kitchen, by light of an oil lamp.

Online bill pay struck a pretty serious blow to check writers everywhere, but a bigger nemesis is the check card. With most bank accounts, clients receive a check card, a debit/credit card that can be used to automatically withdraw funds from one’s account. The goal of the card is to offer a fast, efficient means of payment, eliminating the need for cumbersome checkbooks and time-wasting memo lines. At grocery stores and retailers nationwide, paying with plastic is as easy as pie. Most places simply require a quick swipe, a quick signature or PIN number, and away you go. Getting rid of money has never been so easy.

Cash is still King

Of course, in addition to checks and cards and online payments, there is still the standard cash transaction. Of all the ways to pay, cash is the most honest, germy way of doing it. Carrying big bills is a lot better than flashing Hello Kitty checks, and dropping a cool twenty on the counter is a lot easier than writing $17.88 in cursive. I like paying in cash because it makes me feel like I’m doing something illegal; writing a check just makes me feel old.

The senility of checks is an apt metaphor for the current state of personal finance. The grumpy old checkbook is the one yelling at the credit cards and online bill pay to “turn that music down!” Life is passing the check by, and there is nothing it can do about it.

As with anything, though, change is good. And the shift from paper transactions to electronic is a great breakthrough. Consumers and banks both benefit from the new technology, and the economy will be better off in the long run. And who knows? Maybe a few years down the road, we’ll be showing our teenage friends our check cards to prove our oldness and resistance to change. Meanwhile, with all that money you’re saving with online bill pay, stick a little cash into a lending account on LendingClub.com and see how you can earn great returns and keep your accounts in the black.

Sound off

Is the checkbook really dead? How do you pay your bills?

Over the weekend, we added several improvements to our site. Our team worked hard to get the new features out, and we’ve enjoyed hearing from many of you who noticed them.

We were particularly pleased that our blogger friends at Personal Loan Portfolio, Lazy Man and Money, RateLadder, and My Microfinance covered our new release, in some cases practically in real time!

So, what's in this release?

• Credit-criteria based search: Our search engine has been seriously upgraded. In addition to searching loans by keyword, % funded and loan grade, lenders can also search by number of delinquencies in the last 2 years (0, 1-3, 4+), DTI (<10%, 10-20%, >20%), and FICO range (714+, 640-659, etc.). More advanced search features are still to come, but these new capabilities will help lenders better zero in on loans that match their specific criteria.

• Search results navigation: After you have identified the loans you are interested in, you can review each one in turn before adding it to your portfolio. Open the first loan and then use the new navigation to scroll through the rest without having to go back to your search results using the controls.

• My Account revamp: Lenders will now be able to have a clearer picture of their account performance with these new features:

o Overall Loans Status: Track your overall performance easier by viewing your loans grouped by status.

o Indicators: Monitor your overall weighted average rate, expected monthly payments, and received payments (broken down by principal, interest and adjustments).

o Account Total: View and understand your total holdings in an easier format. Three sections (Cash + In Funding Loans + Remaining Principal) roll up to your total account value. A Cash detail reconciles money that flows in and out of your account by breaking out such transactions as added/withdrawn funds, earned interest, bonuses, service fees, etc. A Remaining Principal detail shows how much money you’ve invested vs. how much of it has been paid back.

• New All Loans view: As it turns out, many users prefer to view their funded loans without having to open up each portfolio. We now offer you an All Loans View and a Portfolios View. Enjoy!

• Rejected Loans data: Because we strive to make Lending Club as transparent as possible, we now are showing loans that were rejected for credit reasons in addition to loans that have been funded. We are committed to a rigid credit policy both to protect the lender community and to reward the highest quality borrowers. Not only do we make sure that our borrowers have FICO scores of 640+ while keeping a pre-loan DTI lower than 30%, but now we also ensure that borrowers have no current delinquencies at the time their loans are submitted.

• LendingMatch improvements: Our secret sauce recipe gets some tasty tweaks every now and then. This time, LendingMatch has been modified to let you spread your money over a larger number of loans if you wish to do so.

• Wire funds to your account: And finally, we are pleased to offer lenders something they’ve been clamoring for: the ability to wire funds into their Lending Club accounts so that they can start lending faster without the need to verify their bank account.

Tell us what you think, and continue sharing your views on what else we can be doing to improve your experience on Lending Club. We are listening!

Better Site. Together.