Clutter2Cash

Updatetastic

2006-05-10T20:51:00.000-04:00

It's May 10th, do you know what your networth is? Because I didn't. Yes that's right my monthly ritual of closing the books was behind schedule and I didnt even know how we did this month.

I'd say April was a mixed bag financially. In looking at the balances I realized I had money just sitting in my checking account (this is most likely a result of not yet starting up my 401k) and I just transferred that over to my Roth IRA. So the good news is that my Roth IRA is way ahead of schedule (I'm throwing the net paycheck surplus at the Roth) and it's possible I will have that maxed out by mid-year.

However, it seems I am about a month behind in my average monthly networth increases in terms of meeting my year end goal of $275k. Expenses are down a little bit and I am throwing money at the Roth first instead of evenly contributing to the Roth and 401k throughout the year (I have reasons, don't worry)

My networth as of April 30th is: $227,147

I accidentally entered April data in May and then I couldn't delete May so it looks like April to May is flat. But really I just enter my info on the last day of the month. Is that weird?

I also noticed I am overdue for a re-allocation of my retirement funds. I re-allocated about 13 months ago and I believe I am overexposed in bonds for my investing target. My choices have done decently but I'm not comfortable with my current bond allocation.

Festival of Frugality #22

2006-05-09T11:58:00.000-04:00

Well I've had less time to read blogs lately so I've been feeling a bit out of the loop and hosting this week's Festival of Frugality was like old home week and I learned of some new (to me) blogs to boot. I also learned several things from all the posts, such as: you can purchase coupons on ebay (I *told* you I've been out of the loop!), who sticks the sliver of soap on a new bar (check out Seattle Simplicity's post and the comments reveal all!) and which beer kit sounds like a good deal (oatmeal stout? I say BRING IT!). Without further blabbage I bring you all thirty-three post of the twenty-second Festival of Frugality:

Frugal Musings
~Dawn at Frugal for Life brings us The Frugal Word: Superfluous A great word to learn and throw about to let people know you are living a frugal life.

Amanda at Young and Broke considers To Cab or Not to Cab when weighing personal safety vs. saving money

Seattle Simplicity was Born Frugal

Richard K Miller presents Winning on the margins posted at Firevalt Blog - Personal finance and entrepreneurship.

Meredith at Like Merchant Ships ponders A Frugal Dilemma. Do you think Meredith's husband was being stingy or sticking to principles?

Cooking, Eating and Groceries
The Family CEO just Spent $5.26 to save $25 and discovered coupons on eBay.

Joanne at A Day in Our Lives explains How we save money at the grocery store

jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity exlpains Brewing Your Own Good Beer on the Cheap and that immediately went on my "to do" list!

Penny Nickel at Money and Values has a cheap and easy alternative for homemade pizza crust in Cheap and easy pizza at home

Grill Maestro points out that just like buying a car you should be buying a "used" propane tank to save money

supermom_in_ny of Getting Out of Debt reminds us to take advantage of freebies in Saving Money on Monthly Expenses: Freebies!

Around the house
Amy Allen Clark at The MotherLoad brings around an oldie but goodie in Play It Again, Momma!

Inchoate Random Abstractions presents several frugal and Environmentally Friendly Cleaning and Gardening Tips

mbhunter at Mighty Bargain Hunter explains his De-junking plans

Jeffrey Strain of Personal Finance Advice reminds us all to Check Ceiling Fans to prepare for the summer heat and makes a pitch for ditching the AC

Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality ponders bar vs. liquid in The Soap Bubble

In the Wallet
Wenchypoo at Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Warehouse warns us all of The Aisle of Deception - coming soon to a store near you!

Nick at Punny Money guides us to Earn Even More Cash Back With Citi Cards at Over 100 Merchants. iTunes Music Store? I had no idea!

LAmoneyguy from It's Just Money asks Do You Buy the Entertainment Book?

Personal Finance Blogger teaches you to Maximize your cash back earnings using resources like FatWallet at My Personal Finance Blog.

frugal of My 1st Million at 33 shares his Wife's Shopping Tips

Tynan at Better Than Your Boyfriend explains how to get The Best Cell Phone Plan Ever from Sprint

Financial Reflections writes how thrift stores and some self-reliance saved about $200 in How Goodwill Saved My Computer

Carhacker presents ever popular gas saving tips in: Save gas Use your foot

Looking Good & Special Occasions
Ricemutt at Experiments in Finance with a Polyglot Twist presents Salon training nights: look stylin' while saving money

Rebecca Mielke at The Space Between My Peers shares some Frugal Mom Wardrobe Basics

Tricia of Blogging Away Debt gives Twelve Frugal Wedding Tips from My Wedding and even I wanted to have a wedding. Ok, not really. But almost.

Lisa McGarry at Family Of Five presents Money Saving Tips: Make The Most Of Those Retail Sales! as one way to save on gifts...and more

muse at me-ander reminds us that some of the best things in life are free as she writes about swapping spa nights for basketball games in Relaxing and sleeping well

Other
Paul's Tips presents How to get a job paying more than $100,000 a year

Big Cajun Man of Canadian Financial Rants rants about his government's budget in Budget Spring 2006: What's in it for me?

F. D. Bryant III presents Introducing the FairTax Plan posted at A Geek's World

I also want to give a shout out and a whitegirl wave to those who used the comment form to say howdy!

Next Week: The festival is being hosted by my Boston homegirl Jane Dough at Boston Gal's Open Wallet

Money Blogger Podcast Interview

2006-05-02T10:07:00.000-04:00

Despite loving the overall idea of podcasts and the subscription model potential they bring to the party, I admit to being slow in partaking of the bounty. I've just never been a huge "talk radio" fan and sometimes it's fainful to admit to my friends that I actually do not listen to NPR.

However, I do have two podcast subscriptions that I feel are must haves: Battlestar Galactica and Scott's Money Blogger Podcast. Scott's podcasts put an even more personal face (er...voice) to the bloggers he interviews granting a peek behind the scenes of your favorite money blogs.

I was honored when Scott asked me for an interview a little while back and I had great fun talking with him about personal finance, technology and sundry other topics. He is now through with performing his podcasty magic and has published the interview. I hope I didn't ramble too much...I admit I was a little nervous!

My Money Blogger Podcast interview
Subscribe to Scott's podcast via iTunes Music Store (opens iTunes)
Use WebJay to listen to Scott's interviews through a variety of players
Subscribe to the Battlestar Galactica commentary via iTMS (opens iTunes)

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Announcing Queercents

2006-04-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons

Queercents is coming out of the closet today as a new personal finance blog serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The site features writings from three established money bloggers (Dawn of FrugalForLife, Nina of Sitting Pretty and yours truly) and will aggregate financial resources and content with particular relevance to the LGBT community.

I will certainly continue to post about my own personal experiences with finances here on Clutter2Cash and now with the launch behind us I can get back to updating all you curious folk about my money sitch (it's not all rosy, I'll tell ya!) and attempting to be helpful to anyone with a curiousity about personal finance :)

Everyone is welcome at Queercents, so please come take a look around and feel free to give us your 2 cents on the new site.

I'd Give This Guy Money

2006-04-20T16:28:00.000-04:00

Tags:

humor

Roth Update

2006-04-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

Since I have yet to re-activate my 401k (it's a long story) I have decided that until I do I will try to max out my Roth as soon as possible so I can just check that off for the year and move on to other savings (like getting back to the 401k)

Basically my company's financials are not healthy right now and the prospects are iffy. It really could go either way. So I am prioritizing my Roth savings right now for a couple of reasons:

If the company folds and I absolutely need to, I can access money I've contributed to my Roth (but not any earnings) without penalty. So my Roth is a dire-emergency fund in a manner of speaking. I cannot access 401(k) savings in this way, I would have to borrow it from myself which is harder to do if you are unemployed
I'd rather get my Roth maximized and full invested ASAP instead of seeing my 401(k) money used as an unofficial "float" to cover cash flow problems. Sometimes my money would hit my account 6 weeks after my payday so that's 6 weeks of lost investing time.

To this end, I have added $1200 to my Roth this month instead of the predicted $400 and therefore I am already at 40% of my goal.

If the company's financials make a comeback I will try my hand at "power-saving" so as to not lose the pre-tax opportunity that the 401(k) gives me.

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March Networth Update

2006-04-11T22:40:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't blame you for thinking I took our 10k and jetted off to the Caymans never to blog again, but alas that isn't the case. I was away on vacation for about a week and a half and before I could get settled into my routine again, things got a little busy with some work obligations and I'm still in the process of digging myself out. Hence the slow updates, but I intend to find my groove (definitely not the way Stella handled it) and let you know what's been going on in my wallet.

I was finally able to complete my NetworthIQ update for the month of March and I closed out at $223,847

This is a bit lower than my average target to meet my year end goal. I don't count the money I have in checking because I keep that to a minimum and it's usually all allocated for bills etc. However due to when I went on vacation, I think I'm behind in moving some money to savings so that might reflect the dip. I *hope* it does...we'll see at the end of this month!

Emergency Fund: Ding!

2006-03-21T15:18:00.000-05:00

Turns out I outsmarted myself at tax return time by setting up my refund to be direct deposited straight into our emergency fund at HSBC. My refund was deposited on Friday which brought our total to $9950 and change. I couldn't bear to see us $50 away from our goal, but cash flow in the checking account was too tight for me to fix that. Seriously.

It hit me last night...the reason cash feels so tight is that my company is "borrowing" about $1600 from me (un-reimbursed business expenses...the bulk of that going back to the first week of December) and I had begun a balance shuffling process to consolidate those expenses on one low rate card that I had yet to complete. When the dust settled from the rest of moving money around, the checking account once again looked healthy. My minimum payments (out of pocket...ugh) will be smaller and the interest that my company will have to reimburse will be a smaller amount. Win-win I suppose.

But the net effect is that I was able to transfer in the final $50 so that we have officially met our emergency fund goal, and technically ahead of schedule. w00t!

But honestly we are feeling some savings fatigue so I better take Singlema's advice and celebrate by spending a *little* so we don't feel so pinched. So we're going to splurge a bit while on vacation in San Francisco. Nothing too crazy mind you...just maybe a meal or two to write home about. Oh, and we thought we might pick up the stuff we need to start playing DDR. You know...for the exercise. Ahem.

Now we have to decide where to park that money....

Tags:

savings

Google Finance Launches Beta

2006-03-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

Travelgnome alerted me to the news that google has finally launched a beta of their financial news service, Google Finance. They certainly have a long way to go to catch up to Yahoo! Finance, but I like the looks of where they're going.

Right now, their initial offerings seem aimed at investors in research mode and not much else. But the "web 2.0"-ness of the integrated research tools are impressive to me as a n00b investor.

The chart of stock prices is particularly slick looking and my favorite feature of this view is that recent news items are pegged to the stock price so you can see the impact (if there is one). This doesn't seem to appear on all stocks (yet?) ... I didn't see the news items represented on the price chart for CompuCredit (CCRT), but it was there for both google (GOOG) and Coca-Cola (KO).

Another feature that is technically "cool" is that when you hover over each person in management you might get a picture. I don't really think that's of value to the everyday investor, but it *is* pretty neat in a geeky-integration-of-data way.

After you have completed a few stock searches, the main page is updates with your recent searches and news that is relevant to those ticker symbols. The main page is pretty sparse and useless until this change...and even then it's not terribly exciting.

The portfolio tool is sort of sad, but I'm glad they launched at least enough of it to enable data entry. At this point you can enter the symbol, cost, and number of shares and the portfolio will show you all the totals. I can't wait to see what they do with this though, it is what I am most excited about. Google, get yer graph on and make that portfolio sexxxxxy!

I'm only just beginning to learn about investing so that has colored my opinions. More than anything I am excited to see how they improve the overall service, but I'm glad they got it out the door so we can all take a peek.

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Save-O-Meter Updates

2006-03-15T18:25:00.000-05:00

The emergency fund got a sexy bump today of $1000, courtesy of LaLa, bringing us to 88% of our goal. With the tax refund due in a couple of days I think we may be able to meet this goal this quarter if we stretch a bit. I suppose we should start making a specific plan of where to park this money once the promo rates start expiring for online savings accounts. We want to keep it fairly liquid so we'll be considering options like: online savings, Fidelity Mass Muni fund, CD ladder, & short term t-bill ladder. Stay tuned.

It was also the mid-month payday today and that's when I make Roth contributions. I officially started my 2006 Roth today with a $400 contribution. My plan is to contribute $400 each month so that by mid-December I'll reach the maximum contribution of $4000. I've made a new 2006 Roth-O-Meter to monitor my progress meeting that goal.

With the emergency fund goal in sight and the Roth chugging at a solid pace, it's time to think about re-instating my 401(k) contributions. I feel ready to do this in time for the end of month payday, but the financial condition of my company gives me pause. Even when the cash was actually flowing they were pretty pokey about moving money into my account -- sometimes brushing up against (past?) the legal time limit. So...it's complicated.

Tags:

savings

Blogger Locked Me Out

2006-03-14T16:23:00.000-05:00

After a full week of just not having the time to post due to a work commitment, I came to find that my blog had been "locked" by robots on suspicion that I was a "spam blog" (aka "splog"). Regardless of how you feel about my writing or grammar ;) my content is indeed created by a human (and not robots), my links don't all point to the same site, and I'm really not pulling in adsense worth mentioning at all.

So I gotta wonder why my site got flagged. Because they don't tell you why it got flagged. Nor do they tell you how long the queue to get whitelisted is, or where you are in it. They just tell you that a human has to review your site and that it usually takes 24 hours. My site took more than 48hrs but some people have had to wait longer, and some have even lost their entire site in the process.

I'm just flummoxed. I applaud efforts to fight spam but this process is broken. Many real bloggers are having their blogs locked down and the only option is to submit to be reviewed and then wait. The review process clearly takes too long (due to an uneccessarily long queue of incorrently flagged blogs perhaps?) and the robots apparently aren't very smart. And they hate freedom.

I suppose the good news is that I no longer have to type a captcha every time I post. I thought Blogger had turned on some blogger-wide anti-splog mechanism and it turns out that is turned on in blogs that are initially suspected of splogging. And theoretically there is a way to get whitelisted at that point, but I suppose typing in gobs of pull-your-hair-out-annoying captchas correctly (and quite a few incorrectly...is that two v's or a w? a g or a q? aaaargh!!!) over the past couple of months was not enough to prove I'm human.

I couldn't even update my template to somehow alert the 3 people who might care what was going on. Anyway, I'm back ... and woefully behind so i better get to it...

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Media Mail

2006-03-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

If you are sending books or other media through the USPS, media mail can be an inexpensive shipping option, but there are restrictions on the service that aren't always obvious. Jack at the WROX P.O. gave us the lowdown on Media Mail when we asked why it wasn't available via the self-serve kiosk in the lobby (causing us to endure a 20 minute wait in line).

Media mail can be used to send *only* appropriate media (so don't mix your packages...one book in a box of stuff doesn't make the package media mail eligible) and what surprised me was that media that contains advertising is NOT eligible for media mail. This means you cannot send magazines via media mail (and if you add magazines to a package with books...no media mail!) which was news to me.

Sure enough the USPS website does state the no-advertising restriction:

[Content:] Generally used for books (at least eight pages), film (16 mm or narrower), printed music, printed test materials, video and sound recordings, playscripts, printed educational charts, loose-leaf pages and binders consisting of medical information, and computer-readable media. Sound recordings may include incidental announcements of recordings and guides or scripts prepared solely for use with such recordings. Books may contain no advertising other than incidental announcements of other books.

[emphasis mine]

The media mail stamp now contains a notice that media mail is subject to inspection so they can enforce these restrictions. Which makes a certain amount of sense, but the bears are really out of control lately.

The Taxman Cometh...With Good News

2006-03-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

I started doing my taxes on January 31st and only just finished them tonight (whew!). I had started by entering my data into TurboTax Online so I could assure myself I wouldn't owe. But after doing a price comparison of several tax filing services, I chose a cheapie cheap mccheapster option to give it a whirl. Well, eSmartTax left me high and dry unable to serve up their own pages even in early February (and I absolutely hated their interface), so I chose to go the lazy route and finish what I had entered into TurboTax Deluxe.

All I had left was to enter in all our non-cash donations to hopefully beef up my $500+ refund. I had no idea we had donated so much stuff in 2005! We made 8 donation trips last year and according to ItsDeductible! donated goods worth $1881 (we always used to undervalue goods, now I make sure to use ItsDeductible).

Putting in the detail on our non-cash donations basically doubled my refund and I'm now expecting a federal refund of a little over $1100! I chose to e-file in hopes of getting that money via direct deposit very quickly. I entered my HSBCDirect account so it heads right into an interest bearing account, but I'll have to make a decision about whether to use it for the emergency fund or jump starting my 2006 Roth (you know how I love to get my Roth-O-Meter on).

Oh! And right before I paid TurboTax, I found out that as a Fidelity customer I could get $10 off the federal preparation fee. So my total tax preparation costs were $34.90 total which wasn't too bad. (I had to log in via the Fidelity link a few times before the right price registered).

Unfortunately I do owe state taxes but I won't have to pay that $297 until April. I know your heart bleeds for me ;)

Tags:

taxes
saving

Our Credit Card Debt Story

2006-03-04T19:31:00.000-05:00

Debt Hater recently asked me how I paid down my credit card debt so quickly. First let me correct what I stated in that post about how much debt got paid off when. At the end of 2004 we had over $11,000 in credit card debt...most of it had been aquired in the preceding 3 months. By March I had it paid off, but I added $3000 in order to fund a Roth. This took another 3 months or so to pay off (at a very low promotional interest rate) so the net effect was paying off $14,000 *total* in about six months.

Clearly that's not typical and I am no saving superhuman so let me explain the circumstances that led to the quick debt paydown and payoff.

Backstory
I won't blather on about the two preceding "lean" years that led up to 2004 but let's just say that we were used to carrying credit card debt. We always had some lurking around. For example, the year I was unemployed and LaLa was a shuttle van driver (here is her illustration of what she had to wear that winter) we methodically paid off an $8000 credit card bill (the roof was leaking...what could we do?) only to realize we'd gone about $8000 in debt on other cards in the meantime. Sigh. I landed a well paying job at the tail end of 2003 and 2004 was mostly spent reducing our credit card debt and apparently buying all the stuff we couldn't afford for a while. We were about a month or two away from paying off our final $1500 credit card balance in the summer when we reversed directions.

Debt Spiral
We did purchase some things we truly needed and several things that while pricey I do not regret buying...but clearly spending was out of hand for a few months (mattress, iMac, Christmas presents...and on). To this day I'm not sure what caused the perfect storm, but maybe someday I'll go Quicken-diving and figure it out. So, December 2004 and credit card balances totaling over $11k ... and no savings other than retirement.

Bonus
While I didn't get the large cash bonus I had somehow convinced myself was coming at the end of the year...I did still net about $4,000 (after taxes etc) as a bonus and within a week or so I put it towards the credit cards. All of it. We really curtailed credit card spending so we wouldn't be spending what we were paying down elsewhere.

Tax Refund
I did my taxes in late February expecting a modest refund. When done, I realized I was due a refund of over $6000. While I was thrilled to have that sort of windfall coming our way at a time we were so committed to paying down debt...I was beyond irritated with myself for loaning Uncle Sam $500 a month. I had neglected to adjust my W-4 in January 2004 after aggressively paying taxes in Q4 of 2003 to help pay off unemployment income tax I had not had deducted. As soon as I received my refund in March I put it all toward the remaining credit card debt. And I promptly fixed my paycheck so I had $500 extra each month to assist my savings goals.

The Last $3000
With our credit card debt all but payed off in March I was loathe to take on more debt, but I saw an opportunity to fund a 2004 Roth with $3000 borrowed at 1.9% using a promotional offer before the April 15th deadline. We paid our daily use card off every month at this point and I would pay down the $3000 with a large portion of my 2nd paycheck each month. Even so this amount took longer to pay off than I had originally intended because we had some work done on the house (and I still had no savings!)

Debt into Savings
Those large unexpected windfalls allowed me to pay down my existing credit card debt very quickly. You might think that was lucky, but if we hadn't truly committed to paying it off we probably would have spent that $10k on pimping LaLa's '78 pickup or some other dumb thing. We had slowed the more radical spending in the beginning of the year but had not changed our monthly spending drastically.

But when my net takehome was cut by $800 a month starting in July we had even less to spend each month because we were now...wait for it....SAVING! I was putting at least $500 a month into my 2005 Roth IRA to try to meet the maximum by the 4/2006 deadline. And we were trying to start an emergency fund of 3 months expenses in a liquid account. So we really did have to try to cut spending so we could continue to pay off our credit card balance each month AND continue to make our savings goals.

Even though my story probably looks like I had it easy because I was able to pay it all off in a very short time, I think the principles are the same:

Stop Digging a Cash Hole -- do whatever you need to do to stop taking on more debt. Don't use your cards, stop buying stuff you can't afford...whatever! You can't hit a moving target and you'll need to know the total of what you need to pay down.
Make a Plan -- use the debt snowball, RDRP, baby steps...whatever works for you, just make a plan and start doing it.
Use Windfalls to Pay Faster -- tax refunds, found money, sign-up bonuses, part-time income...use any unexpected inflows to pay off the debt even faster. You don't even miss it.
When the Debt is Gone -- save, save, save and have a fine time doing it too.

At least that's what I think. And of course I'm no expert :)

Tags:

credit
debt

February Networth Update

2006-03-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

Things have been nuts all week. We went to VT for Mardi Gras (ha!), we had family visiting early in the week, drinks with friends yesterday, and I've been in a training class all week 9-5 (the nerve! LOL). I've barely had time to survey the finances but I think I've eked out a fairly accurate networth update for February.

I've updated the Networth-O-Meter and I'm happy to say that so far we are still on target for our year end goal. Networth increase was technically 14.8% but I wanted to turn that text white so I rounded to 15% for the sake of readability (it's only $100 difference anyway...)

I love having a reassuring picture of a line trending upwards whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed. Here's the cute little graph provided by NetworthIQ:

Earned $100 on Monday Night

2006-03-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

...and I didn't even have to stand on a street corner! Ok that was tasteless, but I earned $100 on Monday for joining a focus group - my first - for two hours. I am quite fond of the company that was using the focus group and apparently I am also very opinionated ;)

One of the ironies is that the company is in financial services and there were a lot of women in the group. All the women seemed bright and well educated and yet were very ambivalent about money and personal finance. They admitted to not knowing a lot, not being that interested and some even expressed guilt for those feelings. Interestingly they did all seem to be *more* interested by the end of the session, but I do wonder if that will last.

It really seemed that the women in the room just didn't know where to start. Articles on stocks and funds and PEG ratios OH MY! just didn't light the fire - which I totally understand. Some days it seems like Financial Services are from Mars and women are from Venus or something. I think more and more women are starting to realize they need a basic understanding of personal finance and yet don't always know where to start. Yet, financial services seem to have a history of catering to the already wealthy. I am interested to see how financial services companies craft products and marketing towards a burgeoning female market. And even more importantly I am eager to see women claim their financial power and dive in.

I don't have any answers, I just think that for the most part women have a different "relationship" to money. I have been reading about this in books such as Secrets of Six-Figure Women and Money, A Memoir and then it was right there in the room on Monday night.

Ladies, start your engines.

Humorous Debt Consolidation Video

2006-02-26T20:12:00.000-05:00

I have been away for the weekend and I will be in training all next week so I'll have less time to post. But in the same vein as "Stop buying stuff you cannot afford", I bring you this parody of debt consolidation services in the meantime...enjoy!

How to beat high energy costs

2006-02-23T21:29:00.001-05:00

How to beat high energy costs
Originally uploaded by littlebean.

Since we are on the "budget plan" my gas company reevaluates my usage every four months and fiddles with my monthly charge (some budget, huh?)

In October our gas bill went from around $130 to our new rate of $151. We tried to keep our heat off for all of October (almost made it) and we kept the thermostat lower than ever before.

Our efforts have paid off since our new amount, as of March, will be $103! I know that natural gas prices have decreased a bit, but we decreased our usage majorly this year. And we have the hat-head to prove it.

This will be a $48 savings per month for four months, but I will keep an eye on it. Now that we have some savings built up I'm not so sure I'm loving the "budget" plan since it really is never a set monthly amount for a full year. If the balance keeps tipping in our favor I will probably switch back to just paying what we owe each month. Or move to California.

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Stop Buying Stuff You Cannot Afford

2006-02-23T18:36:00.000-05:00

I found this via It's Your Money and really I just wanted to play with YouTube and give you all that multimedia experience!

It really *is* that simple even though it never feels like it ;)

[UPDATE: It seems that SNL skit was taken off YouTube.com for copyright violations. It's understandable, but given that it is an obvious, but important message, delivered with humor...I'd hoped it would still be available there for a long while. Like zillions of other SNL skits. oh well. Maybe it's still available via Salon]

3 Day Free Access to IBD100

2006-02-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

Investor's Business Daily is providing 3 days of free access to the "IBD 100 List of Top Rated Stocks" [thanks, mom!]

Tags:

investing

Save-o-Meter Update

2006-02-22T21:24:00.000-05:00

First let me say thanks to everyone for "partying" with me yesterday, next time I should totally bring cupcakes!

Some invoices got paid recently so LaLa was able to make another contribution to our emergency fund bringing us to about 78% of our goal. It's pretty exciting to see the end of the goal clearly in reach and the deposit slip for $2200 was downright sexy! I am anxious to meet this goal asap so we can get back to saving for retirement (after our brief hiatus).

The flip side of all this is that our cash flow is crazy tight until mid-March. With all this aggressive saving and a few unexpected expenses we've had to keep a very close eye on the bank account, but the temporary pinch seems worth it to meet our other savings goals. We've gone out to eat only once in the last 5-6 weeks (for a social occasion) and last night was the first night we got any sort of takeout in about the same time period (Ok, I'll fess up...we used a BK coupon and fed both of us for $5.33 not too bad a deal if you're already on the slippery slope of a fast food evening LOL). Anyway the cash flow management should be interesting over the next 3 weeks.

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One Year Ago

2006-02-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

A year ago today I made my first post (2005...The Year of Finances) so I guess that means this is my bloggiversary or blog birthday or some such thing. I haven't accomplished everything I set out to last year (still closing in on that emergency fund and I haven't checked my credit report yet) but I've made some decent progress since I had my "Aha!" moment at the very beginning of 2005.

I started blogging because I wanted a more emotional record of what I was attempting than Quicken could give me. I thought that by making my intentions somewhat public that I'd hold myself more accountable (it works for me). And I also wanted to break the silence that many women seem to have when it comes to talk about money.

A brief look back on the year...

Aha! (A prequel)
It was a few days into 2005 when my 2004 bonus check arrived with my paystub. As I looked at the after tax amount my heart sunk because it was nowhere near enough to pay off the $14,000 in credit card debt that we had incurred. I'll spare you the gory details but what really sunk in was that I alone had the power to make sure I never received a windfall like that again...and felt disappointed. Things were gonna change and change fast.

Credit Card Debt
When I started "The Year of Finances" we had $14k in credit card debt. Shortly thereafter I started blogging and it was down to $11k. I had the credit cards paid off by March, but used a card to borrow money to fully fund my 2004 Roth and that took another few months to pay off. It's been $0 since then because we pay the credit card off every month.

Savings
A year ago I had no non-retirement savings. Our emergency fund is now at $7800 (as of today) and we have about $700 set aside already earmarked for vacations, big ticket house items, and gifts. We are regularly saving tax-deferred retirement, tax-free retirement and regular taxable amounts and we continually strive to save a larger portion of our income.

Roth IRA
I had opened a Roth IRA with $2000 several years ago and had not contributed since because I was favoring the tax deductions of maximizing my 401(k) contribution. Last year I got "Roth Religion" in time and I was able to max out both the 2004 and (just recently) the 2005 investing $7000 total in my Roth over the last year.

I'm not out here blogging as some paragon of financial stability. I'm attempting to use this blog to share successes as well as missteps in a search for community. I want to learn from others, cheer on the struggles of those in debt, make some friends, and I hope that I have a few useful things to share now and then.

I still have a long road to travel to get where I want to be...I have far too much junk in the nether regions of my house, I have a backlog of posts that seems endless, and I still struggle with the feeling of "enough".

But it's still been a great year and I thank every one of you that drops by. And yes, I get like this on MY birthday too ;)

[Coincidentally I seem to have picked an auspicious date to begin since this also happens to be Consumerism Commentary's bloggiversary...the 6th to be exact! Congratulations, Flexo!]

Discover 5% Cashback Promo

2006-02-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

For some strange reason I was mailed an extra Discover card which prompted me to call customer service. I had a great experience talking to the rep who quickly fixed things on their end (so I did not have to "activate" my new card since I had no need of it and it wasn't ORANGE) and she got around to alerting me to the current 5% Cashback Bonus program Discover is running until 3/31. You have to enroll to get the benefit and then you are eligible for 5% cash back on the following health related purchases:

CVS/Pharmacy
Rite Aid
Walgreens
GNC
Jenny Craig
Bally
LensCrafters
Doctors and Dentist visits (including chiropractors, optometrists, et al)

Bonus spending is capped at $1500 (therefore $75 cash back). I enrolled even though I double I'll be purchasing these types of items or services before 3/31 (I don't think my chiropractor takes Discover...)

She indicated that Discover would continue to run periodic 5% cash back bonus programs on certain types of purchases and to check back often to enroll either by calling or visiting their website. I'm not sure it's enough to make me use the card much more, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Tips on Buying Refurbished

2006-02-15T19:48:00.000-05:00

Purchasing refurbished items can be a great way to lower costs, but it pays to be careful. SmartMoney has some tips for buying refurbished merchandise.

Tags:

frugal

MyMoneyBlog's Carnival of Mistakes

2006-02-15T17:23:00.000-05:00

Jonathan put out the call for our financial mistakes and has built quite an interesting little "reverse carnival" showcasing our combined blunders. Whether you read them as a cautionary tale or just want to enjoy a little schadenfreude you're bound to get something good out of it.

If you don't then all our woe has been for naught ;)

Tags:

blogcarnival