Free From Broke

Independence Day - What Does It Mean To You

ffb — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:48:15 +0000

Happy Birthday America! On this day 232 years ago the original thirteen colonies officially declared independence from from the British Empire.

Through all of the sacrifices the many peoples of this country have made I ask you here now - Are you independent?

Do you have financial independence? Are you independent from wants? How about location independent? Independence from credit card debt? Independent of work? Financial freedom from your family?

Just throwing some thoughts out there to ponder. Only you can answer about your independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-Thomas Jefferson

Enjoy the fourth!

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A CD Ladder Plan For Beginning Savers

ffb — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:21:31 +0000

Are you just starting off building up your savings? I’ve mentioned before that a great way to save is by putting money in a high yield savings account such as ING Direct. A way to make a little more interest is to open a Certificate of Deposit, or CD for short.

What is a CD? Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

A certificate of deposit or CD is a time deposit, a financial product commonly offered to consumers by banks, thrift institutions, and credit unions.

CDs are similar to savings accounts in that they are insured and thus virtually risk-free; they are “money in the bank” (CDs are insured by the FDIC for banks or by the NCUA for credit unions). They are different from savings accounts in that the CD has a specific, fixed term (often three months, six months, or one to five years), and, usually, a fixed interest rate. It is intended that the CD be held until maturity, at which time the money may be withdrawn together with the accrued interest.

So if you are investing/buying a CD you want to make sure you don’t need that money for the length of it’s term (otherwise you will have to pay a penalty to cash it in).

Here’s a great way a beginning saver can get started with CD’s:

Figure out a monthly amount of money you know you won’t need for 12 months. Don’t be scared now. It can be a small amount like $10 (One great thing about IND Direct is you can open a CD with any amount). In fact, for our example I’m going to use $10 and ING as a bank.

Log into your ING account and go to their products page. Click on CD’s and proceed to open up a $10 CD for a 12-month term. (If you can afford more by all means do so. Remember this is money you won’t touch for a year.)

Now every month do the same thing for a total of 12 months.

At the end of a year you will have 12 CDs worth more than $120 (imagine if you put more in each month?). If you can, re-invest the CDs as they mature. See if you can add to the amounts, again even if it’s only a few dollars.

“What have we done? Anyone can buy CDs!”, you may ask? Remember this is for a beginner who is starting to build up their savings. Here is what the beginning saver has accomplished:

This builds up a habit of saving. By putting the money in a CD we’re limiting the ability to take the money out (without a penalty at least). Once this habit is in place a beginning saver may have the discipline to expand their savings.
It creates a great sense of self-esteem for the saver. You get to see your CDs growing every month. How great is it to see a year’s worth of savings? Once a person realizes that saving is an achievable goal they will be more likely to continue!
You’re earning interest. Not only have you saved but you’re savings are growing too!

Savings aren’t usually built overnight. But by saving bit by bit you will see your savings blossom over time!

photo credit: naama

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June 08 Review Of Free From Broke

ffb — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:26:14 +0000

Every month here at Free From Broke has been getting better! June saw not one but two contests! First was the Personal Finance Tipping Point contest held here in which readers told their stories of when they either realized they needed to really do something about their finances or told about the point at which they became debt free. In all there were close to 300 entries for the contest (via posts, comments, and subscriptions). I loved reading everyone’s stories! It’s always inspiring to hear about people taking control of their finances and debt. (Congrats again to Ben and Frank at Milk Your Money for winning!)

The second June contest was held by those of us in the Money Life Network. It was the Summer Saving Series in which our group, as well as the readers, told their tips for ways to save in the Summer. We had close to thirty posts written about Summer savings as well a a great deal of comments as well. If you haven’t already, go check them out!

Speaking of the Money Life Network - We grew our group by two in the past week. Remodeling This Life and Sense To Save have joined the MLN. We couldn’t be luckier in having them join. If you aren’t familiar with their work I suggest you go check them out ASAP. I’m sure you will find them both insightful!

If you didn’t catch it I was interviewed over at Prime Time Money. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Need to get in shape this Summer? I’ve been on the One Hundred Pushups routine for a couple of weeks now. One Hundred Pushups is a 6 week program that trains you with the end goal of doing 100 consecutive pushups. I know of a bunch of other bloggers that are on the program as well. You can follow my progress on this Google Doc I set up. Let me know if you join too!

Subscribers to Free From Broke have gone up about 35% in June! Have you subscribed?

These were the top-referring sites to Free From Broke in June:

Moolanomy
Prime Time Money
Personal Finance Buzz
Frugal Hacks
Money Life Network - I hear there are some great sites in that network
Bible Money Matters
Broke Grad Student
My Super-Charged Life
Fabulously Broke In The City
My Two Dollars

Thank you for linking to Free From Broke!

The Top Commentators on Free From Broke in June were:

Thank you all for contributing to Free From Broke! I love getting comments on articles I’ve written (except spam)! See if you can get you name up here in next month’s review!

These were the five most-read articles in June:

Stay tuned in July! There’s more great stuff to come!

photo credit: tanakawho

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Money Life Network Summer Saving Series Articles

ffb — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:20:28 +0000

The Summer Saving Series has come to an end. In all there were 15 articles from the Money Life Network. We also had about 15 articles from other writers who wrote about Summer savings on their sites! Check the Money Life Network site for the contest winner announcement.

I hope we were able to provide a lot of info on how to save in the Summer! We’re thinking up some new contests/series so let us know what you thought of this one.

Here are the great articles written by the Money Life Network:

Monday 6/9: Summer Savings Series #1: Food is a big expense. How can you save?

Tuesday 6/10: Summer Savings Series #2: 9 Money Saving Ways to Prepare For a Vacation

Wednesday 6/11: Summer Savings Series #3: Everyone Can Save Money This Way In The Heat!

Thursday 6/12: Summer Savings Series #4: Fun Frugal Ices With Your Child

Friday 6/13: Summer Savings Series #5: Make Summer Activities Affordable

Monday 6/16: Summer Savings Series #6: Save like you’re paying off a high interest debt

Tuesday 6/17: Summer Savings Series #7 - Send Your Kid to Summer Camp Without Blowing the Budget

Wednesday 6/18: Summer Savings Series Tip #8 - Watch Movies And Play Video Games For Free!

Thursday 6/19: Summer Savings Series #9 - Our Disney World Vacation

Friday 6/20: Summer Savings Series #10 - What is a staycation?

Monday 6/23: Summer Savings Series #11 - Saving at the movies this summer

Tuesday 6/24: Summer Savings Series #12: Save Money and Get Fit with These Summertime Activities and Programs

Wednesday 6/25: Summer Savings Series #13 - Don’t Drive 10 Miles Out Of Your Way To Save $0.20 On Gas! Use GasBuddy!

Thursday 6/26: Summer Saving Series #14: New York State Empire Passport

Friday 6/27: Summer Savings Series #15: The art of Hypermiling

And these amazing articles were submitted to us from other sites:

8 cheap summer fun ideas @ Broke Grad Student

Military Discounts @ Military Finance Network

Summer Savings - What I did @ OneGirlsQuest

You Know What I Did This Summer - Save Money! @ Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You?

Dealing with high food prices @ Paradigm Shifted

7 Ways to save money this summer @ Dreamline Savings

10 Money Saving Vacation Tips @ Think your way to wealth

Summer Savings Series: My Game Plan @ Kingdom First Mom

Freeze Your Air Conditioning Costs @ CashMoneyLife.com

How I Plan to Save Money This Summer @ Amelia’s Healthy Life

How I Will Save Money on My Summer Vacation @ The Dangling Conversation

Using Coupons @ Actiwiz.com

Saving Money This Summer @ Keep it Simple

Here are some of the comment tips:

The Happy Rock “Get your air conditioning unit checked and tuned up to help save on energy costs.”

otherdeb (Deb Wunder)“Know that bicycle that’s been moldering against your back porch/in your attic/in your garage, etc? Get it out, get it checked over, and start using it for local errands!

If you are anything like me, as you build up a bit of endurance, you will also want to start using it to do some local sightseeing!”

Rachel“Summer Money Saving Tip: For a cheap sun burn treatment that won’t require an extra trip to the pharmacy, freeze some of the lotion you already have on hand on a piece of tin foil. Once it’s frozen, it cools and soothes the burn and also moisturizers to ease peeling and blistering. Works great too for those who are allergic to Aloe Vera like me! ”

Sam“Turn you thermostat up to 80 and use your ceiling fans or box fans.

We also turn off the AC at night and just use our ceiling fans.”

That One Caveman “Vacation in or near your hometown. There are often a lot of cheap or free ways to entertain yourself - you just have to look for them. We’ll be visiting a few local museums (free entrance + free air conditioning), the zoo, the lake, and a few parks this summer - all for free!”

Mercedes“This summer I have decided to quit driving my kids around for activities and stay local. I have been lucky to have found things to do in the small town that I live. So far I love this simple summer life. I am kicking back and enjoying the nice weather without a hectic lifestyle.”

There are a bunch of other great tips as well. Make sure to check out the comments section of the original article!

Without you, the reader, the Summer Saving Series would not be possible. It’s great to see all of the articles and comments that were submitted!

photo credit: Todd Baker << technowannabe

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Festive Link Love Carnivality #15

ffb — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:21:27 +0000

School is out for the summer! My daughter is done, my wife has a day or so left, and my son completed his first year of day care. I, on the other hand, still have to wake up and go to work. I look forward to phone conversations that go some thing like this:

Wife: Hi, how’s work today?

Me: Ok, a little busy but no big deal. Sounds like you’re on the cell. What’re you up to?

Wife: We’re at the beach!

Me: (grumbling) lovely.

At least we have the NYS Empire Passport so we don’t have to pay for parking at the beach.

Speaking of summer (you like that segue way?) there’s still a little time left to enter the Summer Savings Series $100 Amazon gift card giveaway. You have until 11:59 am Monday June 30th to enter.

Don’t think you have a chance at winning? Of course you do! But you have to enter. In fact this past week I won a copy of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing over at The Digerati Life. I hope I can put the book to good use! Know how I won? I left a comment!

Now to the carnivals I was in this week:

The 158th Carnival of Personal Finance - Vampire Slaying edition was hosted by Mrs Micah. This included my article Murphy’s Law of the Workplace.

The 65th Carnival of Money Stories was held at The Dividend Guy. Our Disney World Vacation was included.

The Festival of Frugality #131 - Summer Savings Edition was hosted by Broke Grad Student which included Running - Frugal or Not.

The Money Hacks Carnival #18 - The History of Money was hosted by fellow Money Life Network member My Investing Blog. Customer Service Done Right 1800 Contact.com was included.

Now to some favorites I found in my Google Reader:

Introduction to the Stock Market at Moolanomy. A good intro to what stocks and the stock market is.

But I Just Don’t Feel Like It…Four Strategies to Fight the Takeout Urge at I’ve Paid for This Twice Already. We’ve been doing the whole takeout thing too much lately. It doesn’t help us that our kitchen is being remodeled.

The Hidden Costs of Renting a Car at Five Cent Nickel. We rented a car in Miami a couple of years ago and got stuck paying for an extra day because we didn’t return the car by the cutoff.

Ceiling Fan Hacks: Save Big on Energy Use at The Simple Dollar. I didn’t even know that the direction the fan turned made a difference!

Is Blogging Passive Income? at Mrs Micah. Umm…no, it’s not.

A Post in Which the Author Opines On the Possibility of Managing One’s Time Successfully With Two Children Under the Age of Three at Brip Blap. If you think the title is verbose wait until you read the article!

And some great ones from the Money Life Network:

Bible Money Matters - Saving at the Movies This Summer

Prime Time Money - Save Money and Get Fit With These Summertime Activities and Programs

Milk Your Money - Save on Mandatory Fun Trips

My Investing Blog - Don’t Drive Ten Miles Out of Your Way to Save on Gas

Remodeling This Life - Love and Live Happy

Sense To Save - Just Turn Off The Car Please

Wait…who was that? That’s right! The Money Life Network is pleased to announce the addition of Remodeling This Life and Sense to Save as members. We know Emily and Kacie’s perspectives will add value to our group. Stop by their blogs and subscribe to their feeds to get up to date on their writing! Welcome to the group!

Until next time - Read, Learn, and Enjoy!

photo credit: dcJohn

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New York State Empire Passport - Summer Saving Series #14

ffb — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:29:13 +0000

Summer’s here! How are you going to spend your time? Will you go to the beach? Maybe a pool or a lake is more your speed? Maybe go to the park for a picnic? How about camping? Perhaps you’ll go for a bike ride or maybe a nice hike through the woods on a historic trail?

If you live in or near New York State then you have access to all of these activities and more in New York’s State Parks!

A great way to take advantage of all that NY State Parks have to offer is to purchase the NYS Empire Passport. For $59 you get access to most of NY State’s parks and facilities. Consider this: parking is easily $8 for Jones beach. That means the pass pays for itself with about 7 visits to the beach! But what’s great is the pass can be used for so much more. In fact it’s good from April 1st until March 30th of next year. Using it 7 times over the year is easy!

My wife has the summer off as she works in education. This gives her all summer to go to beaches such as Jones Beach or Robert Moses State Park. We worked it out a couple of years ago and the Empire Passport easily saves us money! You can also use the passport to pay for parking for concerts at the Jones Beach Theater (park in an adjacent lot and walk over, it will also be easier to leave after the concert)

Outside of summer beaches we’ve also gone to Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain State Park, Fahnestock State Park, and Valley Stream State Park. Harriman and Bear Mountain aren’t too far from the Woodbury Commons shopping center where you can find some frugal deals.

I’ve gotta say, in putting this article together I’m seeing how much we can do and what we’ve been missing out on! I can’t wait to get out with the family again!

You can order an Empire Passport online. The site says it could arrive in 3-4 weeks but we got ours in a week. The quicker you get yous the sooner you can enjoy all that NYS Parks have to offer!

How will you use your Empire Passport?

This article is #14 of the Summer Savings Series from the Money Life Network. Check out the article on the MLN site to see how you can participate in the Summer Savings Series and possibly win a $100 Amazon gift certificate! You can see tip #13 at My Investing Blog. Article #10 will be at Milk Your Money tomorrow!

photo credit: notsogoodphotography

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Sprint SERO Plan Follow Up

ffb — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:20:23 +0000

So I’ve been on the Sprint SERO plan for about two three months now. My wife and I love the service! We’ve gotten great reception wherever we’ve gone which is an upgrade over Verizon which gave bad reception in our home! My wife has also been loving the unlimited text messaging and I’ve been a great fan of the data access. I use my phone to check my Google account which includes email and my reader. In fact my phone has gotten me out of traffic a couple of times by using the GPS feature in conjunction with Google Maps. It’s wild seeing the car’s position move on the phone (Note: don’t play around with this while you’re driving)!

Besides the service we’re also saving anywhere from $10-$20 a month on our bill over our old Verizon plan. And that includes text messaging and data. We didn’t have a text or data plan with Verizon. We always tried to keeps texts to a minimum with our old plan. If we used Texts and Data on Verizon like we do with the Sprint SERO plan we would have been paying much more every month! So not only has the bill gone down but the value has gone up!

This sounds great doesn’t it? There’s got to be a downside…

Yup - Customer Service!

Their customer service is horrible. You call five times and you can get five different answers. And if you call after business hours you get the outsourced call center which makes things much more difficult to figure out!

That’s not to say that everyone I’ve talked to is bad. You may get a good customer representative from time to time, but most that I spoke to…not so good. I’ve even had a call “lost” while talking with one person (the rep couldn’t give me a good answer and all of a sudden…click!).

Word of advice - I’m on the east coast and the most luck I’ve had with their reps was around lunch time. These have been the nicest, most helpful people. The least helpful? Anyone after five when you get the outsourced call center (avoid the outsourced calls at all costs, they are not helpful).

But if the phone service is so good why would you need to call them?

Because their billing is so bad! You have to read their bills very carefully or can could end up paying too much!!

Here are the issues:

I was charged too much for prorated charges - Sprint will bill you for prorated charges if your activity doesn’t start at the same time as their bill cycle. I’m ok with this and understand it. But they were charging me from the time I made the order and not the time I activated the phone! I called a few times about this (Don’t call after business hours) to resolve this. It wasn’t until I found this little prorated bit on their website that I was able to get the issue fixed. According to the site you should get charged from the day you activate the phone not from the day you purchase the plan. Had I not found this little tidbit I may have been stuck paying the additional prorated charges.

They flat out double billed me - For my second bill there was just way too much money due. After some time discussing the problem with a customer rep it was discovered that my account was being charged for both my current number (the number I had on my old provider) and for the number I was originally assigned when I signed up for Sprint. This was corrected but really it never should have happened.

I’m still waiting for all of my promotion credits - When I signed up I was told I would be given a $25 credit for each line for the first two months for a total of $100 in credits. This was for a promotional code that had been available. The person who signed me up said it would be no probem to include this credi and I might have to wait until my secong bill but I would get it. Well, not yet. I called today and actually spoke with someone helpful who put in a ticket claim for the credits to be researched. I was told I should receive an email with the results. I’ll give it a bit and see. I have the ticket number so I can follow up in a future call. The plan is already a great value but a $100 credit really sealed it for me when I signed up. I hope the company can resolve this.

Did I mention their call center is horrible? Just wanted to get that out there again. Remember - your best bet at getting someone who could answer your calls is to call around lunchtime. I’m on the East coast so keep that in mind.

Even with all of the headache we still love the plan. Would I have signed up if I knew what a hassle they could be? I don’t know. If you’re looking for a new cell phone plan you should consider the Sprint SERO plan but be prepared to go through your bills and deal with customer service.

Are you on the Sprint SERO plan? What has your experience been like?

photo credit: absolutwade

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One Hundred Pushups For A Healthy Fit Frugal Summer

ffb — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:46:35 +0000

Ok, I’m in! I’ve been seeing a lot about the site One Hundred Pushups around the blogosphere lately. I first heard about it from Pete at Bible Money Matters via Twitter. Then Pete posted about starting on the program. Then I saw Pinyo at Moolanomy mentioned it. And also JD at Get Rich/Fit Slowly fame. And Wazzy on Twitter. And I’m sure many others I don’t know about yet…

So what is One Hundred Pushups? It’s a site that lists out a six week program for increasing your strength to the point where, in the final test, you do one hundred pushups!

Why Pushups? From the site:

Push ups are one of the basic and most common exercises for the human body. Push ups are not only great for your chest, but do a tremendous job of defining your abs, triceps, shoulders and torso.

Push ups can be performed no matter where you are, and best of all, they are completely free - no expensive equipment or annual gym fees required! If you’re looking to develop a great chest and shoulders, you could do much worse than follow along with the hundred push ups plan. Your core strength will also go through the roof too!

Check out that second paragraph…”they are completely free.” How much is the average gym membership? I would guess you’re paying anywhere from $250 a year to $1200 a year. Free is a whole lot better.

And a pushup is a great measure of your overall fitness.

I’ve been looking for a good workout program for a couple of months now. I have some free weights but I haven’t been able to commit to a consistent plan. I’ll workout for two weeks then stop for two weeks; I don’t keep up with it. I even almost joined a gym about a month ago. That would have cost me about $500 for the year. I didn’t join since I wasn’t sure I’d use it enough to justify the cost.

But with all of the bloggers already on the One Hundred Pushup band-wagon I thought I’d give it a try. Not only is there a framework to follow for the plan (which I need) but by putting it out here on Free From Broke I’m making myself accountable for following the plan (I hope).

I’ve already done the initial test and the first day of week one (already feeling it in my chest). I set up a spreadsheet on Google Docs so I can track my performance. You can follow my One Hundred Pushup progress here. I hope you check it out and help root me on! If fact join in and we can go through this together!

Make sure you have clearance from your doctor before you start any fitness program.

So are you up to the one hundred push up training program?

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Festive Link Love Carnivality #14

ffb — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:03:23 +0000

Ahh…we made it to Summer! Hey wouldn’t you like an extra $100 to start the Summer right? Check out the Money Life Network’s Summer Savings Series for details on how to enter!

Also check out Prime Time Money’s 5 question interview with me! Let me know what you think!

Here are the carnivals I participated in this week:

The 157th Carnival of Personal Finance: Third Anniversary edition was hosted by Cunsumerism Commentary. My article Customer Service Done Right 1800 Contacts was included. Wow, three years for the carnival. That’s awesome!

The 130th Festival of Frugality - The Eight Little Pigs was hosted by Out Of Debt Again. Fun Frugal Ices With Your Child was included.

The Money Hacks Carnival #17 - Music of the 80’s Edition was hosted by Mrs Nespy’s Frugal World. By What Cover Is Your Book Judged was included.

Alas all good things must come to an end. You’ll notice that none of my fine articles were graced with an editor’s pick. So ends five straight weeks of an editor’s pick. I’ll get over it.

Here are some great finds in my Google Reader:

Multiple Income Streams: 10 Ways to Earn Extra Income by Dough Roller. Any extra income helps!

Think Twice Before Cancelling Credit Cards at Cash Money Life. You hear a lot about cutting up your cards once you pay off debt that we forget you can actually be hurting yourself if you cancel a card. Luckily when I was paying off my credit card debt I had heard about this and kept my first card open.

Ten Ways to Turbocharge Your Emails at Dumb Little Man. Remember how I discussed being judged at work based on your emails? Here are some tips to make your emails better.

How to Use Parkinson’s Law to Your Advantage at Lifehack.org. I find I need definite deadlines for projects otherwise they take forever.

PopTop Ranks Personal Finance - This is a new site that ranks other sites based on the subscriber stats. Thanks to all of you great readers Free From Broke is in the top 100 overall! The site also has other subjects besides personal finance.

Ten Ways Being Fat Costs Money at Mighty Bargain Hunter. Some interesting things to think about if you have a few pounds too many.

And from the Money Life Network:

Send Your Kid To Camp Without Blowing the Budget by Prime Time Money

Save Like You’re Paying Off High Interest Debt at Bible Money Matters

Watch Movies and Play Video Games for Free at My Investing Blog

What is a Staycation at Milk Your Money

That’s all for this week. I hope you’re enjoying the long Summer nights!

Until next time - Read, Learn, and Enjoy!

photo by thomieh

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Amazon $100 Gift Card And The Summer Savings Series

ffb — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:38:01 +0000

There’s only ten days left in the Money Life Network’s Summer Savings Series!

As you know each member of the Money Life Network is writing an article a week about Summer savings.

As well as all of the great articles you can read, there is also a chance for you to win a $100 Amazon gift card (and who wouldn’t want an extra $100 to jump-start the Summer?).

Here how you can enter:

Write a post about how you plan to save money this summer. Send us the link. (5 entries)
Subscribe our our group feed, and email us the secret phrase. (3 entries)
Leave a comment (on the MLN Post) with your summer savings tip. (2 entries)

You can enter each way once for a total of 10 entries. We’ll put all of the entries into random.org to choose the winner. Entries can be submitted up to 11:59 am Monday, June 30th. We’ll announce and contact the winner on Tuesday July 1st to email the gift certificate. If the email address is not valid we will award the prize to the second place finisher. Good luck!

We’d really like to see how many comments and articles we can get about Summer savings so get in on the fun and help make this project bigger!

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