Money Beagle

Weekend Roundup: February 3, 2012

Money Beagle — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:22:07 +0000

So, yesterday, the groundhog saw his shadow which means we’re in for six more weeks of winter (I almost typed in six months, yikes!) if you believe all that.

But, with the winter we’ve had so far, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Here are some recommended blog articles to read as well as some blog carnivals which I was included in.

Investorz Blog – Be A Dividend Millionaire (Book Review)
Beating Broke – I Quit My Job: Overcoming The Fear
DollarVersity – A Guide To Getting Ready For Your Tax Return
Smart Wealth – Our Frivolous Guilty Pleasures
Not Made of Money – 10 Must Have Rental Amenities
Fat Guy Skinny Wallet – What You Can Do To Fix Poor Credit
Vaerdi Financial – Is College A Worthwhile Investment?
The Jenny Pincher – Carnival of Personal Finance
The Amateur Financier – Yakezie Carnival

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

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What I Got Done In January

Money Beagle — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:29:36 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the list of 500 or so things to do this year. It’s mostly a list of small tasks (though there are a few time-consumers on there), that if accomplished, would keep things around the house clutter free, up to date on maintenance, and just a better sense of order.

Order is good

I was asked to publish the list, but since there’s so much on there, I thought I’d take a first stab at looking what I accomplished (and didn’t) for the month of January. Seeing how it goes, I’ll consider publishing future monthly updates.

Here’s the list, as well as the planned recurrence and any noteworthy blurbs about the task in question:

Clean out the washing machine filter (Quarterly) – There’s a trap / drain at the bottom of the washing machine. I didn’t know about this until the machine stopped spinning at full speed about a year ago. Actually reading the manual gave me the insight that this needs to be done regularly as things get trapped there (I found 11 cents!) I cleaned it out and now do it every three months.
Clean washing machine gasket (Monthly) – Our front loading washing machine, as many do, will get mildew inside if you forget to leave the door open, as moisture gets trapped inside and accumulates on the rubber seal. I wipe it down with bleach and scrub this down.
Clean under the dining room table (Monthly) – Cats like to hang out there so it gets quite hairy
Clean end table glasstops with newspaper (Quarterly) – We dust regularly but paper towel leave a film. Newspaper makes it sparkling clean!
Clean doorwall glass and tracks (Monthly) – Again, cleaning the glass with newspaper, as well as wiping out the track which can get pretty nasty, even if it’s not used! We have two doorwalls.
Clean storm door and window in entry way (Monthly) – As the entrance to our house, I do another go with newspaper to give the glass a sparkle.
Clean baseboards around the hardwood floor area (Monthly) – Part of the first floor is hardwood and the baseboards around can get kind of gunky. I have a thing against dirty baseboards.
Vacuum stairs to the basement (Monthly) – Kitty litter boxes are down there, so despite cleaning and sweeping, the stairs inevitably get some tracked.
Clean out the inside of the microwave (Monthly) – Regular use leads to spatters and this can get quite nasty if not handled routinely.
Wipe down the top of the fridge (Monthly) – Out of sight, out of mind, but this keeps the dust down.
Clean out the floor around the garbage cans (Monthly) – We don’t make a habit of throwing food on the floor, but the area around the garbage cans still gets spilled on, so this involves a deeper cleaning.
Clean out under the sink and check for spills (Quarterly) – Took everything out and cleaned the dishwashing supplies and other stuff that tends to build up under there. Got it organized and wiped down all the gunk.
Wipe cabinet bottoms and around edges in the kitchen (Monthly) – We have to wipe around the edges by hand, no matter how often we vacuum, sweep, or steam mop. Especially with cats that shed.
Wipe cabinet bottoms and around edges in the half bath (Monthly)
Dust and clean our office (Monthly) – It’s in the basement so this falls on me
Dust and clean playroom (Monthly)
Organize the paperwork basket (Quarterly) – Stuff ‘to be filed’ goes in a basket in the office. I’ve been getting to it about once a year, but plan to do so more often.
Clean out office drawers (Semi-Annually) – Along with the previous task, this would go through the filed paperwork to clean out any dated stuff.
Sync and backup external hard drives (Monthly) – We store documents and data on external hard drives. My wife and I each have one, and we have a third that backs up the other two.
Clean my tool area in the basement (Monthly)
Replace furnace filter (Monthly)
Tidy up storage area in basement (Monthly)
Sweep and scrub floors in basement (Monthly) – Mainly to keep the area around the litter boxes sanitary.
Dust bookshelves (Monthly) – They get dusty being in the basement, so they need a good dusting.
Organize basement pantry area (Monthly) – Our kitchen pantry is small so we have a shelf dedicated to storing perishables. This involves going through it, bringing anything about to expire to the front, and making sure nothing gets ‘hidden’.
Check car maintenance schedules for upcoming to-dos (Monthly)
Clean garage workbench area (Monthly)
Check tire pressure in both cars (Monthly)
Sweep out the garage(Monthly)
Clean floor grout in the master bathroom (Quarterly) – We actually had never done a deep clean on this, so it was a big job which I will post about. Hopefully doing it more regularly will be a less involved process.
Clean floor grout in the master bathroom (Semi-Annually) – For now, this area gets a lot less use, so I’m only planning on a couple times a year here for now.
Clean grout in master bathroom shower (Monthly)
Clean out under the sink in the hall bathroom (Semi-Annually) – When we buy extras on toiletries, we put them here. Going through them regularly will ensure that we don’t forget that we have something and buy it again (which happens too often)
Clean out drawers in hall bath (Semi-Annually)
Clean out closet in master bath (Quarterly)
Vacuum under beds (Monthly)
Iron my work shirts (Monthly)
Organize and re-fold clothes as necessary in my dresser (Monthly) – I freed up almost an entire drawer!
Run a full virus scan, malware scan, and defrag my desktop computer, making sure everything is up to date (Monthly)
Ditto on my wife’s laptop (Monthly)
One more time on the other laptop that we also use mostly for browsing (Monthly)
Clean and polish my work shoes (Monthly) – Didn’t get to this one this month!

I was pretty happy with as much as I got done. Goals moving forward are two:

Continue with good momentum
Make it so that if many of these tasks are done often enough, they become less time consuming. For example, I spent an hour and a half tidying up one of the areas in the basement, throwing away garbage, getting stuff ready for donations, and wiping away lots of dust. If I spend five minutes a month keeping this area clean, hopefully the hour and a half projects start becoming few and far between

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page.This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

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So You Broke Your New Years Resolutions?

Money Beagle — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:24:43 +0000

It was only a month ago, but I’m sure for many, both the New Year and the resolutions that came with them are distant memories.

How many diets have been busted? How many workout programs have been abandoned? How many smokers are smoking again?

If you’ve already broken those promises, here’s what you do:

Take a look around. Know that anybody you see has likely broken their resolutions as well.

Then, start them over.

People have gotten into this mindset that we can only improve ourselves but once a year. The New Year brings a new you and when the shine wears off the list of things we want to do to better ourselves, so many of us shrug our shoulders and figure they’ll try again next year.

Why wait?

The fact is, there’s no good reason not to start again. Why not try again to hop on the treadmill or throw away the smokes? Are you really going to give yourself another eleven months of bad habits? That extra eleven months is not going to make it any easier to change next year.

It’ll just make it harder.

So, forget about the fact that you’ve blown your New Years Resolution.

It’s a new month, so I ask each of you to kick off your New Month Resolution. Today.

And, the good news about that is, that if you fail, it’s the shortest month of a year so in a few weeks you can start all over again

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page.This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

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Our Next Credit Card

Money Beagle — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:38:22 +0000

Last week I posted that I was looking for a good credit card which offers cash rewards specifically to improve upon the 1% we get for gas purchases on our current Citi Dividends card.

Two stuck out as the favorites, the Pen Fed card (which is for military based people but you can get around that pretty easily) or the Costco American Express True Rewards card.

My dad and a good friend ended up backing the Costco card pretty strongly, and the fact that we’re Costco members means that there’s no charge, so I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re going to get.

Basically, the card offers 3% on gas purchases, 2% on other categories (I think eating out is one) and 1% on everything else.

I did some research and it looks like they’ve had this for awhile, so while there are no guarantees, the fact that these payouts are in place seems to bode well for the long term viability of these percentages.

It’s not a straight cash rewards program. They send you a reward certificate once per year that you have to redeem in the store. You can either get cash there or get a Costco gift card. Since we do a once-per-month Costco trip, this should work out just as easily as cash. We can just use the gift card that we get to pay for our purchases, and take that budgeted amount and funnel it into the earmarked portion of our savings account which we use for rewards. Easy as pie.

My wife is nervous about adding one more card to the mix. I don’t think we’re too card crazy, so while this is another thing to keep track of, I think the extra bucks we’ll get in reward money will make it worth the hassle, especially since we’ll be consuming a lot more gas given the camper purchase we just did over the fall.

What do you think? Are we making a good choice? Am I putting too much effort into what will likely amount to a few bucks difference per month?

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No Thanks, Magazine Subscription Service Company!

Money Beagle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:01:52 +0000

Around two years ago, I wrote about how we were able to keep our frequent file miles from Delta alive by putting activity on the account via a magazine subscription. At the time, if you went so long without some sort of addition or subtraction of miles, they simply wiped you out of their system (they’ve since updated the policy and miles no longer expire).

At the time I wrote about how I redeemed some of the miles for a one year subscription, and also wrote about how awesome it was that I was able to add a second year for the price of two dollars.

Oops.

Look like I spoke too soon.

Because, as it turns out, that two dollar agreement also must have specified that you would auto renew the subscription at the end of the term.

I found that out when I logged into our bank account and found a $49 charge, that I quickly tracked back to my Entertainment Weekly subscription. Logging on to the website informed me that the subscription was being managed by a third party vendor (can’t recall the name) and gave me a 1-800 number to dial in reference.

And dial I did!

After verifying my information, I politely told the rep that I had a charge on my bill for a renewal that I did not authorize and wished to have cancelled with a full refund.

He looked it up and verified that, sure enough, they’d taken the funds, but he wanted to make a deal.

First he offered to give me the renewal at a rate of $20 per year, and would refund the $29 back to my card.

For some reason, this actually annoyed me more than enticed me, because it basically told me that they were overcharging and they knew it with the original rate. So I said, no thanks.

And repeated my request. I was still polite but I realized I’d have to be a bit more firm.

He still had to take one more shot.

He basically tried to tell me (without asking) that, because I’ve been such a great customer, he was going to give me a six week ‘free subscription’ and that I could call back to cancel any time during the six week period.

In other words, the same thing. Counting once again on people forgetting to call back or whatever. And, the way he did it, he basically tried to tell me that’s what they were doing and was ready to end the call.

I didn’t even bother to sarcastically ask whether the renewal would be at the rip-off price of $49 or the miraculously discounted rate of $20. I told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t interested and that I wanted to continue with the cancellation and full refund.

Defeated, he put me on hold for a couple of minutes, and came back to tell me that it had been processed.

So, let’s see their strategy:

Put something in place that nobody is going to remember two years later. Hope that people don’t even bother noticing or doing anything about the $49 charge.
For the people that do call in, try to keep them around with a 60% discount. I’m guessing that a good percentage of people do this.
Try once again to get people to forget themselves with the dangling carrot of ‘six free’ issues.

I wonder how many people they sink their teeth into by getting people to stick during one of these ‘steps’.

They didn’t get this one.

Two days later, the credit showed up.

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Weekend Roundup: January 27, 2012

Money Beagle — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:41:44 +0000

It’s been a couple of weeks so I thought I’d share some of the favorite blog posts I’ve read recently as well as some of the carnivals I’ve participated in.

Afford Anything – Is This House A Good Investment? (a must read for anyone considering purchasing investment property)
Life And My Finances – How To Avoid Lifestyle Inflation
Weakonomics – How Professional Athletes Are Like Blue Collar Workers
Darwin’s Money – Confidence Is Great, Right? Nope, It’ll Wreck Your Life
Squirrlers – Crazy Job Interview Stories
Funny About Money – What’s Your Choice: More Years Or A Better Life?
Man Vs. Debt – Two Emotional Money Stories
Prairie Eco Thrifter – Five Home Renovation Savings Tips
Passive Family Income – When Being Gazelle Intense, Take Time To Recoup
Frugal Toad – Festival of Frugality
Prarie Eco Thrifter – Yakezie Carnival
Family Money Values – Totally Money Carnival
Diva In Debt – Carnival of Personal Finance
Little House In The Valley - Yakezie Carnival
Passive Income To Retire – Totally Money Carnival
20s Finances – Carnival of Retirement
Matt About Money – Carnival of Personal Finance

Hope you have a great weekend!

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I Should Have Known We Would Get Less Snow

Money Beagle — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:49:54 +0000

We moved into our house in 2007. Since then, the Metro Detroit area has had above average snowfalls every single season up until this winter. Having had to shovel / snow blow the driveway over the past four years, I can definitely attest to the above average snowfalls.

This year, though, we’ve had virtually none, with one real snowfall to speak of just last weekend. Before that, I hadn’t had to shovel the driveway once, let alone use the snowblower.

Thinking about it, I probably should have known that this would happen, since I put a significant upgrade into our driveway this past year.

Ever since we’ve moved in, shoveling has proven to be a nuisance, because of uneven slabs in the driveway. Over time, some of the slabs sunk or shifted, and it always happened that the higher edges were the path that I would be shoveling.

Inevitably, I’d be shoveling and the shovel would smack into the lip of the next slab. This would result in the shovel jarring to a sudden stop, giving me a near hernia (I’ve already had two operations in my lifetime) and multiple curse words.

For the overall health of the driveway, I finally decided to get things fixed over the past summer. I had the sunken slabs lifted by a professional company that drilled small holes into the offending slabs and lifted them by injecting a concrete slurry underneath. I also had all of the joint cracks as well as a couple of cracks that have developed over the years professionally filled so that water does not get under the driveway.

Except for the sinking, the driveway is in pretty good shape. There were just the couple of cracks, only a couple of chips here and there, and very little pockmarking across the surface. A couple of the representatives for companies that gave us bids figured that we could easily get another 10-15 years of life by taking the steps that I outlined above.

So I did so. And, after the slabs were raised and everything was done, the first thing I did was grab my snow shovel (never mind that temperatures were in the 60′s) and run it across the path of where I typically shovel. Imagine my delight when the shovel didn’t hit any lips due to uneven slabs.

All the work cost roughly $1,000. Some would argue that it’s a small price to pay for no snow.

I figure all it did was delay the inevitable, as I predict we’ll get our normal amount of snow, just crammed into a couple months. If I’m right, I might be cussing about snow, but at least it won’t be due to the snow shovel getting knocked loose!

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The Financials of Freelance

Money Beagle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:19:13 +0000

Being a freelancer means you are your own boss. You can set your own schedule and work at your own pace. Even the amount of work that you take on is up to you. However, when it comes to setting up your finances around your new job, things aren’t as simple. Whether you are considering business loans or you want to use your savings to get started, you need to know just how money works for freelancers.

What is Your Cost of Living?

Business loans can make the transition to freelance work easier but you still need some idea of what it costs to live. Add up all of your monthly bills. This includes your mortgage, your car payment and even your utilities. These are things that you probably can’t live without.

Once you have a roof over your head and electricity, you still need money for food, clothing and gas. Entertainment expenses should also be included, but remember that this is a category of spending that may have to go if you aren’t making enough money.

Remember that medical insurance isn’t usually offered in freelance positions. Because you are an independent contractor, you are not a full time employee for any company. This means no medical benefits, no retirement fund and no special savings plans. These expenses and investments will need to come straight out of your pocket.

The total of all of these things added together is the amount of money that you will need to come up with each month to make sure that you are taken care of. Business loans make this transition easier as they make up for the lack of income as you get things started. At some point, you will need to be able to support yourself and make enough money to begin to pay the loan back.

How Do You Handle the Ups and Downs of Income?

Consistent income isn’t always a possibility in freelance work. You can end up having a sizable income one month and not being able to pay the bills the next. While your goal is to find work that is consistent, with steady pay, this isn’t always a possibility. You have to plan for the good and bad months.

When extra money comes in, move it straight to the savings account. You will be tempted to spend it and celebrate your success. Celebrate in moderation. The next month, things could take a turn for the worst. For the first few years, your savings account could end up being a lifesaver.

As slow months approach, you have the savings account to fall back on. You always need to have a safety net when it comes to freelance work. A solid savings account could be the difference between staying in business for yourself or going back into the traditional workforce. Even if you weren’t planning on looking into business loans, that type of back up money can be helpful in the beginning.

This post has been provided by Money Supermarket.

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Looking For A Good Reward Credit Card For Gas Purchases

Money Beagle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:53:45 +0000

At the end of last year, I reported that we were the proud owner of a new camper which will become our main source of vacation time starting this upcoming summer.

A few days ago, I started having a mild panic attack when I looked at the gas price situation and some of the surrounding news. In Michigan, gas prices have gone up around 30 cents over the past couple of weeks. It seems every year the gas price rise starts earlier and earlier in the year, and the projections get a bit higher for the summer projections.

This year, people are already talking about $5 gas. Thinking about the cost associated with towing a camper, it seems that any ‘savings’ we are getting on paying for cheap campground accommodations would be negated by higher gas prices. The vehicle we tow with gets about 20MPG regularly, and I’m assuming that will drop significantly given that we’ll be towing another several thousand pounds.

I finally calmed down when I realized a few things:

We usually do a good amount of driving anyways, so while there will be additional costs due to the reduced mileage and potential higher gas prices, the difference won’t be as bad as I’m probably thinking.
I can take this as an opportunity.

This second aspect actually calmed me down and got me a bit excited.

See, right now, we pay for gas and many other regular costs on our Citi Dividends Master Card. This is a cash back rewards card that offers 1% cash back on all purchases, and 5% cash back on rotating categories that change every three months. Since there is no annual cost for the card and we pay our balance in full, this is just ‘extra’ cash, which we’ve used to buy new TVs and other ‘luxury’ items that, in essence, become ‘free’.

So, back to the opportunity.

What this gives me is an opportunity to see if there is a better card that I can use for rewards on gas purchases. Because, I know there are rewards cards all over the place, but because I’ve been satisfied until now with the simple 1%, I haven’t done much digging.

But, since I know I’ll be spending more on gas than ever before, it’s definitely time to start looking.

Here are the things I’ll be looking for:

Cash back rewards. I want to keep it simple. No ‘points’ or anything else or having to ‘spend’ the rewards with a certain group of retailers. Show me the money.
Rewards for gas greater than 1%. Unless I can find this, there’s really no value in changing cards or adding another card.
Not tied to one particular station. Our camping journeys will likely take us all around the state and maybe even to other parts of the country. I don’t want a card tied to one particular station since I have no assurance of knowing what station we’ll be fueling up at on any given trip.
No annual fee. I’ve never paid for the privilege of using a credit card, and I’d prefer not to begin doing so now.

So, savvy readers, do you know of any credit cards that fit the bill? Anything else I should be looking for?

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Making One Good Decision Is The Key To Everything

Money Beagle — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:27:54 +0000

Monday through Friday, my alarm goes off at 5:04AM. I have two options:

Get up, go downstairs and exercise.
Flip the switch, resetting the alarm for 5:39AM.

That’s a gap of thirty five minutes. It’s thirty five minutes of extra sleep or it’s a thirty minute workout.

My goal is to work out three times a week minimum. More would be nice but anything less than three and it’s not a good week.

I don’t do anything too intense. I have a recumbent exercise bike in the basement, so I’ll head downstairs to use that. Sometimes I’ll lift some of the dumbbells that we have down there. During spring and summer months, I’ve been known to walk around the neighborhood and enjoy the sunrise.

But, it all starts with that first decision.

Measuring My Progress by kretyen, on Flickr

I’ve found that the decision on whether to wake up or sleep in goes much further than that. It can lead to an overall impact much greater than that of just the workout.

In an average workout, I burn, for the sake of argument, 150 calories.

That means that the difference between a day when I get up versus a day when I don’t is 150 calories.

Not too shabby, right?

Except it often goes further.

On a day when I work out, I know that I’ve already started things on the right foot. So, when it comes time to pass the candy jar later in the afternoon, I’m more likely to pass on a day when I’ve worked out versus on a day when I haven’t. That can be 100 calories of no-candy eating.

When I get home from work, I’m normally hungry and I’ll usually have a snack at the same time that Little Boy Beagle wakes up from his nap as a way to tide me over until dinner. One of my favorite things to snack on is graham crackers. I’ve found that on days when I work out, I might grab a sheet, break it in half, and eat just that. On days when I don’t, I’ll eat an entire sheet or maybe even more. That can be another 100 calories!

Add those three things up and we’re talking a difference of 350 net calories in a single day, but the ‘indirect’ benefits have already become more of a factor than the direct benefits derived from the actual workout.

The same can hold true with financial decisions. If you’re on a strict budget, and you go out on a whim and spend $10 that wasn’t accounted for, that might look innocent enough especially when you figure that $10 isn’t going to really break the budget that much.

Only that $10 purchase can open the door. After all, if you can afford $10 without an impact, what’s going to stop you with the next thing you want that’s $20? After that, it could be $40. Keep going and you’ll suddenly be wondering how you spent $500 over budget at the end of the month.

All because you made the $10 decision that started the whole thing.

I truly believe that making one good decision is the key to making a lot of other decisions that will help things go your way.

Don’t worry about every decision being the right one. Just focus on the first one you make being the right one, and you’ll have a much easier time of it and you’ll find that many other decisions will simply fall into place.

And, for the record, today I got up at 5:09!

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