PT Money

Upromise Review: A Little Extra Savings for College

PT — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:03:36 +0000

I joined Upromise a couple of weeks ago to start saving money for little Miss PT’s college education. I had heard of Upromise before, but didn’t bother signing up…because I’m a dork. I’m going to give you the full review below. But if you want to make better use of your time, just sign up with Upromise and get started. This is really one of those things you and I both should have started a long time ago.

Upromise is a free, set-it-once-and-forget-it type program that will earn you free money towards a college education. The savings aren’t lucrative. But it’s extremely easy to set up and then you’re free to just go about your business.

Who is Upromise?

Upromise was founded by Michael Bronner, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Digitas, a leading marketing services firm. In August 2006, SLM Corporation, commonly known as Sallie Mae and the nation’s leading paying-for-college company, acquired Upromise, Inc. Upromise has given away over $500M in tuition assistance since 2001.

How Upromise Works

In short, you get a kickback from Upromise just by buying from their partners. They cut you in on the commission.

You simply sign up and enter your credit card, debit card, or store loyalty card information. Upromise handles the rest. They track your spending and provide a % payout to you when you buy from one of their partners. Upromise’s partners include ExxonMobil Corporation, JCPenney.com, LandsEnd.com, Sears.com, and hundreds of others.

What makes this so great is that you don’t even have to be conscious of where you’re spending your money. Upromise is partnered with most of the places you will go anyway. There are some ways to optimize your savings with Upromise (see below), but those things aren’t necessary to get the base level of savings.

When you’re ready to withdraw your funds, just make a request for a check, transfer to a 529 Savings Plans, or use it to pay for your own student loans. To request a withdrawal, use this form. (h/t Bargaineering)

What’s the Catch?

There really is no catch. Upromise is a completely free service. They make their money from the Upromise partners, who pay to participate and for marketing opportunities.

How Much Can You Really Save?

I’m just getting started with Upromise. So I can’t exactly boast about my huge savings from the program. I think I have around 21 cents saved since I started a couple of weeks ago. Ha! But, others have gone before me. And they have some significant dollars to show:

Paul at Fiscal Geek saved over $700!
Sun from Sun’s Financial Diary saved over $400 (as of 2007).
Thrify Florida Mama saved over $500 (as of 2007).
I’ve also seen blog comments from people who have claimed to have earned in the thousands by fully utilizing what Upromise has to offer.

Those numbers are by no means going to cover your kid for their 4 years at Harvard, but they will provide some assistance. And if you can earn that amount without really doing anything extra then you’ve succeeded. Free money!

How to Optimize Your Upromise Savings

Want to make the most of the Upromise system? You should look into their extra services:

TurboSaver Internet Browser Toolbar
Upromise Credit Card
Invite Family Members to Sign Up
Shop Online Using Upromise.com

Final Thoughts

As I warn with any savings system like this, don’t let the opportunity to save affect your buying decisions. For instance, don’t just browse the Upromise list of merchants to find something to buy so you can save for college. But if you’re already planning to buy, check out their list of merchants and consider using their link.

Also, be conscious of how Upromise might affect your decisions to use your credit or debit card more than you normally would. Bottom line, as long as you can set this up for yourself and don’t really change your spending, it’s going to be a plus for you. Sign up with Upromise and get started.

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Love Them or Hate Them, Make the Most of Gift Cards this Holiday Season

PT — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:16:15 +0000

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Many consumers will be heading out stores soon to find the best deals on stuff they want or stuff they want to give others. “Stuff” has it’s place in this gift-giving season, but gift cards are actually one of my favorites items to give and to receive for most situations. I like gift cards because they’re a consumable gift and they take some of the hassle out of shopping. Gift cards aren’t without their downside though. Some people aren’t a fan of them, calling them restrictive and impersonal.

Whether you love them and give them out, or hate them but still get a few, here’s a few tips for making the most of your gift cards this holiday season:

Giving Gift Cards

If you’re the type that loves to give out gift cards, check out these tips:

Choosing Between Generic Card or Store Brand Cards

There are two basic categories when it comes to gift cards. Those that are basically like a prepaid credit card (generic), and store-specific cards. What type you get depends on the type of person you’re buying it for. The most hard to shop for group of people, teenagers, are also the one’s who would be most likely to want a generic gift card or even just cash. Any other person and you run the risk of seeming too impersonal. So, if you go generic, make sure it’s for a teenager.

For most everyone else, a store-specific card would be appropriate. Do your best to match the store with what you know about the person. If they’re a reader, give them an Amazon.com or book store gift card. If they like sports, consider a gift card to a sport apparel store, or to a ticketing website, where they can find tickets to all types of sporting events. Gift cards for consumable experiences (movies, restaurants, events) are always best in my opinion. I love gifts that don’t clutter up someone’s house.

However, please be careful what store you purchase your gift card for. Stores that go out of business or go bankrupt might not honor the card after a certain point. So aim for cards from stable companies.

Also, it’s important to note that some generic gift cards often come with fees. Stay away from these types.

Don’t Buy Gift Cards for These People

Unless they ask for it, I wouldn’t suggest getting a gift card for your significant other. This is the one person in the world that you should know exactly what to get and not resort to a card. Additionally, you wouldn’t want to get young kids a gift card either. Kids enjoy unwrapping actual gifts. Lastly, people who don’t go online or out that much wouldn’t have much use for a gift card either.

Use a Gift Card to Inspire

Gift cards can be used to inspire a person into certain actions that you or they desire. For instance, if you know someone who never takes the time to treat themselves, consider giving them a gift card to a spa or ice cream shop. Know someone who talks about learning a musical instrument or being more physically active? You can get gift cards for music lessons or sports/active programs.

Look for Kickbacks

Some gift cards come with an incentive for the person doing the giving. Last year I bought a $25 restaurant gift card, and received my own $10 card for free. It was for a place that I frequent, so I felt like it would be put to good use. You might consider this even if you aren’t giving the card away.

Receiving Gift Cards

If you receive a gift card this year, keep these points in mind:

What to do with Gift Cards You Don’t Want

Let’s say you get a gift card that you didn’t really want. For instance, you’re not a coffee drinker and you get a gift card from Starbucks. What a waste, right? Well consider these options:

Re-gift the card to someone you know is a coffee drinker.
Browse the various gifts, music, and food at your nearest Starbucks. There may be something besides coffee that you’ll like.
Use one of the websites that will allow you to trade for a different card or send you a check for your unused gift cards.

Use Them or Lose Them

Unfortunately, some gift cards come with expiration dates. So make it a point to place all your gift cards in a highly visible spot so that you’re sure not to forget about them and let them expire.

Have any other tips related to gift cards? Share them in the comments below.

Photo by litandmore

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QuickHits: The 5 Easy Ways to Get Free Personal Finance Updates from PT Money

PT — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:41:52 +0000

You may have noticed I made some changes to the way I’m presenting information here at PT Money. I thought I might take a second to revisit all the ways you can get more out of this website. There’s more to it than simply bookmarking it, or trying to remember to come back each day.

You can have the content automatically delivered to you. There are main 5 ways to get my free content delivered to you. None of these 5 ways will ever cost you a dime. They’re all easy to sign up with. And you can unsubscribe from each one instantly, whenever you like. Okay, here’s a comparison so you can determine which one is best for you:

RSS

Cost: Free
How Often: 3 or 4 updates per week. You get my articles within minutes of when I post them. Typically around 6 am CST on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday.
What You Get: The full content of my latest article. No clutter from the website or sidebar. Just the text and images from my articles. This is my favorite way to read blog posts. If you don’t really understand RSS, check this helpful video explaining RSS.
How You Sign Up: Click here for my RSS feed.

RSS by Email

Cost: Free
How Often: 3 or 4 emails per week. Typically around noon on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday.
What You Get: The full content of my latest article. No clutter from the website or sidebar. Just the text and images from my articles.
How to Sign Up: Click here for RSS by email.

Facebook

Cost: Free
How Often: 3 or 4 mentions on your news feed per week. Typically around 6 am CST on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday
What You Get: A small blurb about the article, picture, and a link to access my website where you can read the entire thing.
How You Sign Up: Click here to visit my Facebook page.

Bonus Content Areas:

These next two connection points will give you updates about what’s on this blog. Plus a lot more content. Still free.

Twitter

Cost: Free
How Often: While I tweet several times a day, my actual blog post tweets follow the same pattern as my RSS feed. Typically around 6 am CST on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday.
What You Get: A small blurb and a link to my latest blog post. Plus, tweets with links to other interesting articles. Quick money tips and links to freebies. This is where I share ideas too small to create a full article. I also occasionally share a bit more personal information.
How You Sign Up: Click here to be taken to my Twitter Profile.

Cost: Free
How Often: No more than 1 or 2 emails per week. Twice a month for the actual latest blog posts roundup.
What You Get: Access to all of my e-books (yes, there’s more than 1). My 6 week series, “The 6 Key Takeaways of Personal Finance”. Latest 10 posts on the blog (you’ll get this around 2 times a month). TBD (I’m still working on more detailed content for the newsletter). I’m really excited about this new aspect to my content. And I hope to really help a whole new audience of people with this service.
How You Sign Up: Use the form below…

Let me know if you have any questions about signing up. Thanks again for reading PT Money.

The QuickHits

Listed below are some great blog posts last week from around the pf blogosphere:

A good analysis of time vs money: Is it Silly to Pay Retail to Protect the Value of Your Time?

More info about the homebuyer tax credit:
Senate Extending Home Buyer Tax Credit
Senators Agree to Extend First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit and Allow $6,500 for Current Homeowners

Good tips for the Holidays: 10 Ways to Save Money this Thanksgiving

Other interesting finds:
Finding Financial Treasure
What’s the Average Credit Card Debt in America?
My Wallet Gets Beer Goggles Too
Are You an Expert on Personal Money Management?
Don’t Lose Any Sleep Over Not Having a Good Credit Score

Also, this past week I had the opportunity to write at the Quicken Online Blog. Check out my blog post: The Proven Strategy for Making Extra Money

carnivals… Money Stories, Money Hackers, Debt Reduction, The Best of Personal Finance

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Quick! Go Buy a New Home! New $6,500 Homebuyer Tax Credit for Existing Owners and $8,000 for First-Timers Gets Extended

PT — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:41:39 +0000

The lawmakers have acted. There is now a $6,500 tax credit for current homeowners to go out and buy another home. You no longer have to be a first-timer to take advantage of the homebuyer credit. Trade up, baby! And as predicted by yours truly, Congress has also extended the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. I guess it’s good time to be looking for a home. But not so fast. There are some details to go over:

Amount of the Credit and Important Dates

As I write this, President Obama is likely signing the bill, which he’s promised to do. So don’t do anything until the bill becomes law if you’re a current homeowner looking to use the $6,500.

If you’re a first-time homebuyer and you were worried about not making the November deadline, you can breathe easy. You still qualify for up to $8,000 in tax credits. In addition, as was mentioned above, people who have owned their homes at least five years qualify for up to $6,500 in credits. I personally have been in my home for a measly three years. So I’m the guy caught in the middle paying his tax who’s not getting a piece of the action here.

Okay, enough of my sob story, here are the important dates involved with the new credit and the extension. It’s easy. The dates are the same for both. Your purchase must be secured by April 30, 2010 and your closings must be finalized by June 30, 2010.

Income Limits

Hold your horses, Richie Rich. You can’t partake. Here are the income limits that Congress says is fair: If you’re a single taxpayers with an adjusted gross income under $125,000 you are eligible for the credit’s full benefits. Joint filers must earn AGI of under $225,000 to get in on the action. If you have an income of up to $145,000 (single) or $245,000 (joint) may receive partial homebuyer tax credits. That’s what you call “phase outs” there folks.

Other Rules that Apply

There are some other rules you might want to be aware of:

Only those homes that are $800,000 and under are eligible for the tax credit.
Members of the military serving outside the United States for more than 90 days will have until June 30, 2011, to qualify for the tax credit.
The program is expected to cost the federal government $10.8 billion.

I’ll mostly leave it to you to decide whether this is a positive thing or not. But I tend to think that while this is a windfall for some people, it’s just another prop up for our Economy as a whole.

Let me hear your thoughts about this new $6,500 tax credit in the comments below…

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Save Money on Health Care: A Quick Summary of Tax Advantaged Medical Savings Accounts

PT — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:56:50 +0000

In light of recent Health Care discussions on my blog and the fact that it’s soon to be benefit re-enrollment period at your work, I thought I’d address a couple of tax-advantaged health care accounts: the Health Savings Account and the Flexible Spending Account.

I’ve used an Flexible Spending Account for some time and I’m just learning about Health Savings Accounts. Let’s look at what they are and how they can help you.

Health Savings Account (HSA)

The Health Savings Account is like an IRA. You get to fund it with pre-tax dollars and it’s typically administered by a financial institution. But unlike an IRA, you get to use the funds when you need them towards qualifying medical costs.

You also get to decide where the funds are invested. You get a lot of control with this account. Tax savings and growth.

Only certain people qualify. You must be enrolled in an HSA-eligible high-deductible health insurance plan.

You’re annual contributions are limited. 2010 limits are $3,050 for individuals and $6,150 for families.

Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

The Flexible Spending Account is a pre-tax dollars savings account your company administers where you’re allowed to save up a year’s worth of health care costs. Most people use it to pay for deductibles, co-pays, and household health care items. It works like this:

At the beginning of the year (or during your benefit open enrollment) you must elect to open the account and save a specific dollar amount.

This account is funded automatically from your earnings at work. Your company will deduct the funds before taxes are calculated (pre-tax).

Throughout the year you’re allowed to spend the dollars you’ve accumulated in the account. The spending must be for qualifying health care costs.

Important: it’s a use-it-or-lose-it type plan. You must spend all the funds in the account or you lose them. Thus, people are normally very conservative with the amount they elect to fund the account.

The effect of using the account is big tax savings. If you normally spend $1,000 on “above coverage” health care costs in a year, you could save around $250 a year by using one of these accounts.

Things you might not have known were qualifying health care expenses (every plan is different, but these oddities are likely qualifying): Hand sanitizer, cold remedies (and other over the counter meds), sunscreen (like Coppertone®), and band aids.

What We Use

We currently use an FSA, which we heavily funded this year for baby medical costs. But we do not qualify for the HSA because we’re lucky to be on a low-deductible premium plan.

Do you use these accounts? How have they worked out for you?

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PocketSmith: A Calendar-Based Financial Planner

PT — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:22:56 +0000

Tracking Your Future Cash Flow

Do you remember my Excel-based Monthly Expense Tracker? I used to use it religiously to keep track of my future spending and saving goals. This was great because it allowed me to avoid over-drafting my accounts, and helped me to stay focused on reaching my savings and debt reduction goals. Looking towards your future spending with your goals in mind is far more valuable than simply looking back at your past spending and beating yourself up over failures.

Well, someone took that concept and designed an online software tool that does exactly the same thing. Only theirs is far more interesting to look at and comes with a few more bells and whistles. It’s called PocketSmith.

More About PocketSmith

PocketSmith is a calendar-based financial planner. It helps you maintain a focus on cash flow forecasts. It’s quick and easy to use. In short,

“it uses a calendar paradigm for a unique view on one’s finances, and bridges the gap for many who are looking for a simple and understandable solution for working with their money.”

PocketSmith also comes with modules for adding actual spending data from your bank account. This is done using manual upload. Automation coming soon. They also have a nice goal setting module which works hand in hand with the calendar to help you reach your savings and debt reduction goals.

How PocketSmith Works

When you create your PocketSmith account you are taken to your calendar. Your first step is to load this calendar up with all your known future income, spending, saving, and debt reduction activities. For instance, if you get paid on the 15th, you go to that date and create an “event” called salary (or paycheck or whatever you want to call it).

You’re then able to add in how much your paycheck will be, and set up any type of recurring options (i.e. every month on the 15th). One thing that I noticed PocketSmith might improve on is the ability to add recurring items on specific dates. For instance, I get paid on the 1st and 15th. I’m not able (as far as I can tell) able to set up my salary event using those parameters.

Adding future expenses and savings transfers is just as easy. Once you have it all setup you’re able to see what the projection for your cash flow is. Going forward you need only tweak the calendar events as your information changes.

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Results of a Week Without Spending

PT — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:34:02 +0000

The “Week Without Spending” officially ended on Friday eve. Today I’m sharing the results of our little experiment. In case you missed it, last Monday I shared that Mrs. PT and I were doing a week without spending (Sunday though Friday) to help us stay on track with our saving and help reduce some of the clutter in the house and food in the cupboards. The only exception to the no spending rule was that if we earned extra money during the week we could use that as we pleased. So how’d we do?

Here are the actual results (in no particular order):

Beginning Balance	$0
Craigslist Sales	38
Consignment Shop	10
PT's Return	74
Mrs PT's Return	16
PT's Tuesday Lunch	(10)
Sunday Dinner	(13)
Sunday Groceries	(60)
Friday Dinner	(3)
Christmas Cards	(42)
BDay Card / Baby Clothes	(7)
Ending Balance	$3

I’d say it was a success! We actually made $3 at the end of the week.
The Christmas cards were a purchase we already had planned and due to a sale price ending during the week we decided to make the purchase this week rather than next. Excuses, excuses, I know.
The Craigslist sales and consignment shop money were quick money. As were the returns.
The dinner on Friday night was a feast at Boston Market. They were running a $1 dinner special.
We still have about $100 worth of items on Craigslist which hopefully will sell soon.

More thoughts about the week:

It wasn’t that hard to eat more meals from home, thanks to Mrs. PT creating some excellent meal choice for us throughout the week. This made the meals outside the home more special.
Earning extra money to spend wasn’t that difficult. While there might not always be things to return on hand, there seems to always be something lying around that we could sell on Craigslist. We have a bunch of clutter.
The clothes consignment shop was easy money too. Although, the lady at the counter told me my styles (that didn’t sell) were “a bit dated.” I took that as a compliment and quickly dropped those items off at Goodwill.
It didn’t take much planning to prevent those impulse convenient items.
This is something we should do at least once a month. We really could use to do this sort of thing more often. Recently, we’d gotten lazy with our spending and we haven’t always made the conscious choice with our end goals in mind. This week helped us to be more aware about our spending and live more within our means.

So what do you think about our experiment results?

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Should You Move to a High-Deductible Health Insurance Plan and Use an HSA to Make Up the Difference?

PT — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:14 +0000

General Motors recently announced that they are moving towards higher deductible insurance plans. Such things wouldn’t normally be news worthy. But here we are in the middle of a government controlled health care battle. Every piece of health care news seems to have an impact.

So, should you consider moving to a high-deductible plan, if given the option? Odds are if GM (who traditionally has “Cadillac” insurance plans…pun intended) is moving towards higher deductibles, your company will be too. Therefore, you should likely be ready to make this decision for yourself when the time comes.

Below I’ll present an example of someone who’s making the move. I’ll also provide some things to consider when deciding whether it’s right to make a similar change.

Moving to a High-Deductible Plan: An Example

I have a friend who’s current health insurance plan (covering him and two kids) is costing him $614.63/month with a deductible of $500 and a $20 copay. He’s considering a new policy: $278.08/month with a deductible of $5,600. His tax bracket is 25%.

He calculates that the savings on his monthly premiums will be $336.55/month, which is $4,038.60 in a year. That’s incredible savings on the premiums alone! He’s considering using a Health Savings Account (HSA) to stash the difference in plan costs.

Policy	Deductible	Monthly Premium	Yearly Cost
Old	$500	$615	$7,380
New	$5,600	$278	$3,336
		SAVINGS	$4,044

But he knows he can’t stop the analysis there. He factors in estimated usage: best case, he says his medical cost for all three people including dental and prescriptions would be $2,000. He’s a young guy, so I’m sure that’s fair.

Under the new plan, he’d have to pay all of this $2,000 out-of-pocket, or out of his newly opened HSA. So the $4,038.60 in premium savings minus $2,000 actual medical cost plus $500 in tax savings using the HSA equals estimated savings of $2,538.60 per year. Pretty good, right?

He says the worst case scenario would be that he has $5,600+ in medical expenses. He gets 25% tax savings, so of the $5,600 deductible, he would only spend $4,200. His other deductible was $500, so to compare he can subtract $500 from the $4,200 to get $3,700. Which compared to $4,038 (saved above) would give him an actual difference in yearly cost of $338.60 to his advantage. Basically, even if he pays his entire deductible, he comes out ahead.

My friend goes on to say,

“Even in the 15% bracket, my worst case would be that I paid $221.40 more a year than I would have with the other plan, which I believe is worth the risk when the savings are so big. Plus I can roll over from year to year and could get an interest-bearing Health Savings Account.

As long as I keep it funded correctly (paying the difference in premium to the HSA until I have it where needed, it should be a great financial situation for me. Once I get it fully funded, I can take the money that I was spending to fund the HSA and put into savings, a Roth IRA, etc.”

Factors to Consider When Thinking of Moving to a High-Deductible Plan

Okay. Let’s extract from my friend’s example some of the key points he used to help make his decision:

Will you save on premiums? In the example above, the answer was “yes”, and in a big way.
What’s your estimated usage? I like the way my friend used an average and then compared it to the maximum estimated spend. It might be prudent to break out last year’s actual costs to provide some more perspective.
Should you be trusted to setup the HSA and contribute? My friend seems to think that would be a easy thing for him. And I agree. The fact that he’s even taking the time to make this calculation shows he’s got the initiative to make the savings happen. And he’s obviously had the money each month if he’s been making that kind of payment. There are some eligibility rules for HSA you should know about. I may discuss that in a later post. Shop for insurance plans with health savings accounts.

But what are some other things to consider?

Are You Getting Similar Coverage with the New Plan? My friend didn’t mention a couple of things when discussing his old plan vs the new one. The maximum annual out of pocket allowed and the difference in the actual coverage of the plan. If he didn’t already, he should go back and factor those things in.
Are you healthy enough? If you’re already maxing out your current plan and you have some serious health issues that require prescription drugs, odds are a high-deductible plan isn’t for you.
Are you about to try to get pregnant?
Do you have pre-existing conditions? On an employer plan, pre-existing conditions aren’t a problem. Moving to a high-deductible plan will create a re-start in your coverage and the insurer is likely to charge you more for those pre-existing conditions.

What’s your take? How do you feel about the analysis done above in my friend’s example? Have you or are you considering a move to a high-deductible plan? Share your experience below…

Photo by Mozo Man

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52 Ways to Make Extra Money …Revisited

PT — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:00:22 +0000

I’ve created a download-able version of my most popular post, 52 Ways to Make Extra Money. This book is available for download right now.

But this isn’t just a rehash of the old post. With the help of some friends I was able to provide much more detail for selected ideas (around 15). The guide also includes 2 bonus ideas, extra money tips, and quotes. Plus, it was beautifully designed by my friend Ryan, of HillThread.com.

Thanks to these friends for their expert contributions to the expanded sections:

J. Money from Budgets are Sexy
Bob from Christian Personal Finance
FFB from Free From Broke
Pete from Bible Money Matters
Baker from Man Vs. Debt
Madison from My Dollar Plan
Jason from One Money Design
Studenomist from Studenomics

Update on the Saving to Give e-book: A week or two ago I mentioned I was writing an e-book focused around the idea of saving more to be able to give more. That e-book is still in the works. I’ve written it. I just need to determine the best way to format it and present it to you. Those that originally signed up with the PT Money Newsletter in hopes for a preview copy will get one soon.

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A Money Experiment: A Week Without Spending

PT — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:05:36 +0000

Remember 7th grade and the science experiments? Ah, good times. Well, today I’m not going to make you dissect a frog. We’ll be looking at more of a monetary experiment.

Just a few more days till the end of the month, right? I’ll get paid and we’ll have a little more breathing room in the budget. You see, Mrs. PT and I have been saving aggressively over the past few months for some upcoming goals. We do our saving automatically, a few days after we get paid. That way we have the rest of the month to spend the remaining funds on whatever. This month, however, our aggressive saving and spending finally got the best of us. Now we’re running a bit low. So, instead of dipping into our savings or using debt, we are challenging ourselves to not spend any money this week.

One exception: If we earn extra money by selling something or by returning something and getting a refund we get to use that money however we like.

Because of the exception above, I made some moves over the weekend. I grabbed a few items around the house that we didn’t need anymore and listed them on Craigslist.org. Two have sold so far, giving us $38 dollars. We also brought some of our old clothes by a consignment store, which gave us an additional $10. That’s almost $50 to spend this week without having to dip into savings. And if a few more items sell, we’ll have even more cash. Sweet!

More thoughts going into this week:

I don’t pretend to think that this is going to be easy. We’ve gotten into the habit of spending when we feel like it. Especially dining out for lunch or dinner. So, believe it or not we normally spend a lot more than $50 on food in a week. It’s our biggest frivolous expense, you could say. Plus, we have all the other normal expenses to avoid: groceries, personal care, and convenience items. Although, I think the groceries will be easy since we have so much in our cupboard already.
I know some of you guys are a lot smarter with your spending, do this sort of thing all the time, and are probably laughing at me right now.
Hopefully we can do it successfully and get more in tune with our needs vs wants. I see it as a chance to get back to the basics.

I’ll report back on Friday and let you know how we did.

If you’d like to take on this experiment with me, let me know in the comments below. You can also follow along on Twitter for more timely updates.

If you’re tweeting too, use the hashtag #weekwithoutspending

Carnivals from the last two weeks:

Economy And Your Finances, Pecuniary Delights, Money Hacks, Frugality, Money Hacks, Twenty Somethings

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