Spender Vs. Saver

We're underway...

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Finally, a response. It came over a week ago in the form of a phone call from the 'second guy' I tried to contact. We'll call him Mike. Almost immediately after Mike calls, the 'first guy' called to set up an appointment as well. Sorry dude, you had a couple of extra days head start and you still missed the boat...

My wife and I met Mike last week, and we did the basic get-to-know each other. He took some notes on what our goals are, and where we want to be in the next few years, stuff like that. Then he gave us some basic forms for tracking our spending and also for calculating our net worth. I've tried to find duplicates on the web, but so far I've come up empty handed. Visit any financial website and you'll find similar forms, just not the exact ones given to us (not that you'd fail if you didn't use the exact forms we got).

During our hopes and dreams conversation, I told Mike that my overall plan was to outgrow him. I think he took it well. I'll post my 'big goal' later, but-like I told Mike-he'll either have to quit his job to work for me full time, or he'll have our account taken from him because it's too large for him to handle!

During our conversation, my wife asked the perfect question. "Not to sound dumb, but what is it that you're going to do for us?" I thought it was the perfect (and absolutely not-dumb) question! He replied with a basic rundown of the products he sells (insurance and mutual funds) and how he helps people develop budgets. It was this question that got me thinking, "Why do we really need this guy?"

The answer I've come up with is 'accountability.' Originally, this blog was to serve as a mechanism of accountability for our spending habits. Unfortunately, the inconsistent and wacky posts of the past have left us with a big fat zero for this blog keeping us accountable. I also wanted someone to handle the finances for us. Not paying the bills, but putting our money in places that would get us some decent returns. After all, I bought Bank of America near it's 52 week high in 2007 (and carried it all the way to the bottom).

There's a lot of things floating around in this post. I'll expand on them later. But for now, we have a financial planner, and we're meeting him again on Thursday. More to follow...

If at first you don't succeed...

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:09:00 +0000

Try, try, again, right? The first time I tried to contact someone at Raymond James it was at one of their adviser's websites. So this time, I went straight to Raymond James homepage and found another one in my local area. Hopefully they'll contact me!

A quick tirade: Not returning calls is one of my major pet peeves. If you make me work for your business, you're out. I'm having the same problem with grad schools. I have a state university that's about 10 minutes from work, and 20 from home. No one there will call me back about their program, so instead, I'm going to wind up driving 6 hours every week to attend another school that's more expensive! I'd rather go there anyway, but that's not the point of this rant.

Now, I need to come clean on our finances soon. There's been quite a few changes.

P.S. Anybody that regularly reads this from the website, I apologize for all the ads. Especially the one between the post and the comments link. That's annoying. I'll get that fixed soon too!

No News...

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:21:00 +0000

I'm a little disappointed that no one from Raymond James has contacted me yet. It's been two days since I requested that someone contact me online. It's like my dad used to tell me: "If you want to make a million dollars in this world, all you have to do is call people back..."

I'll give it a few more days, then the strongly worded letters start coming out :)

Starting Over...

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:29:00 +0000

Given the fact that I haven't posted here in a couple of months, and that quite a few of the past posts were pretty lame and without merit, I've decided to start over. I'm contemplating deleting the past few posts, but I'll probably leave them there for awhile.

Now, getting on to the meat and potatoes of this post. I've decided it's time to seek some outside help. I have haven't been consistent enough in our finances to be able to achieve the goals I've wanted. With that, the quest for a financial planner began about two hours ago.

I had originally planned to go with Edward Jones. I have a couple of friends that use them and are satisfied, or at the very least, not disappointed. I, however, selected Raymond James. They have received numerous awards over the past few years, and last year (2008) they were selected as JD Power & Associates Full Service Investor Satisfaction survey winners (the only firm to receive perfect marks).

We'll see what happens after the first appointment. I suppose the greatest significance of this isn't that I've selected Raymond Jones, but that I've finally swallowed my pride and started searching for some outside expertise.

Free Tax Preparation Service

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:04:00 +0000

If you need assistance doing your taxes, the IRS has legions of volunteers that are here to help! The program is called VITA - Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. VITA Representatives are people that have volunteered to help others prepare and file their taxes with the IRS (and their state of residence).

They can't handle everything, in fact they may turn you away and tell you to use a 'paid preparer.' But, if you have 'simple' taxes, like a W-2 and some interest statements, they can definitely get your taxes done for you at no cost!

If you're like me and want to account for every penny, explore each line of a 1040, and actually claim sales tax paid as a deduction instead of income tax paid (if it's worth it), then your best bet is to stick to a paid preparer or software package.

Now, if you're needing someone to gurantee the accuracy of your return, a paid preparer is who you should use. Because their services are free, VITA reps aren't liable for incorrectly filling out your return. They do have several quality review steps that are conducted to ensure that your return is prepared correctly, but it doesn't mean their trying to find your lowest tax bill. Bottom line, if you want someone to help you fill out a 1040EZ, then VITA is probably the way to go. But if your tax return is a little more complicated because of itemized deductions, lots of various sources of income, or a personal business, you are probably better off using a software package like TurboTax or TaxCut or a paid preparer like an accountant.

For more information on the VITA program visit the IRS website for the program. Or call 1-800-829-1040 (1040 - I'm sure no pun is intended) and find a VITA site near you.

Getting Started in Forex Trading

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:22:00 +0000

Well, I made $30,000 in the Forex market today! Yeah right, wouldn't that be nice... Actually I have no idea what I'm doing, but Forex trading is sounding kind of interesting. So, I figure I'll learn a little about it.

If you don't know what Forex is, it's the Foreign Exchange markets where currency is traded. Basically when currency needs to be exchanged for different kinds (like dollars to euros), it's done through Forex. The idea here is to take my U.S. Dollars, trade them for Euros when I can do it 'cheaply' and then convert them back to dollars later, and make a profit doing it.

Here's an example (not entirely accurate given current exchange rates): I take 100 Dollars on Monday, and given current economic conditions, trade them for 75 Euros. The next day, economic conditions change, and I can trade 75 Euros for 125 Dollars. I do so and, in turn, pocket a 25 dollar profit.

Now, this really happens on a much smaller scale, fractions of a cent (called pips), and much faster, minutes or seconds apart between trades.

There are all kinds of sites for learning, practicing, and brokering Forex trades. I'm going to begin learning how, right now. Hopefully by the end of the month I can begin practice trading. And, by the end of the year, I'll be the richest person on earth, owning my own private island (or at least be up $50).

If you're interested in learning how to trade on the Forex market, check out these sites that I'm looking at:

http://www.forexpeacearmy.com
http://www.babypips.com

Let me know about any experiences you've had with the Forex.

Credit Score

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:17:00 +0000

As the new year begins I've decided to take a more active interest in my credit rating. Especially with the economic conditions the way they are.

I've also been receiving notices in the mail lately telling me that my credit line for card x or card y has been lowered. At first I just figured we'd finally spent ourselves too far, but a quick search on Google reveals that plenty of others are getting their credit limits cut too. It hasn't had an impact so far, except for one card. I had to make an extra payment to avoid going over my limit.

Normally, I don't care what my credit score is. I don't need it, unless I'm buying on credit. My eventual goal is to get the point that I don't need to buy on credit ever. Not everyday items, luxury items, cars, or even our home. But, as ambitious as I am, I realize that I have at least a few more years of needing credit. So I better keep that score high. Right now, it's a chilling 650. Before we did our last big credit card refinancing (which didn't work out very well), it was 720+. I'm quite disappointed at the huge drop. It's up from last month, where it was only 644. Hopefully our recovery will happen quickly.

Beginning next month (or the month after), I'll post a nice graph showing the change from month to month.

Goals for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:36:00 +0000

In the past, I've set complex goals with various requirements that had to be met for the goals to be achieved. This year, I'm going to go the opposite direction. I have two goals this year:

Grow our savings to $10,000.
Reduce our debt by $15,000.

These two simple goals should be achievable within 2009. I'm going to focus on them for now. If good financial discipline should prevail, I will likely come up with some additional goals for the remainder of 2009.

I truly believe we'll achieve both of these goals ahead of schedule (hopefully October time frame). This will help give the ego boost we both desperately need. Then we can set higher goals!

Getting started in '09

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Okay, The last run with this was fairly disappointing. Now, after a few months hiatus it's time to kick this thing into high gear. We've had a financially draining holiday season and a growing desire to move the hell away from where we are. Unfortunately, we're still lugging around debt that is pulling us down emotionally.
We'll start this year off with my next post, our financial goals for 2009. Good luck to everyone hoping to make 2009 their year of financial freedom!

$11.52 Towards a New Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:02:00 +0000

I have a jar on my desk, one of those ceramic ones you find in gift stores. The one's that have little messages written on them. Mine says 'Hopes & Dreams.' It's got a whopping $11.52 in it. That's pretty pathetic.
My wife and I don't really care for where we're living right now. It's twenty miles outside of the city we both work in (and therefore travel to every day). We don't really like the schools either, so we want out before our children are old enough to start school. The jar on my desk will be our ticket out of here.
It's a long road from $11.52 to the big numbers we need to build our next one. We can discuss our housing plans later, but lets just say that we need about $80,000 - $90,000 down for the next house.
This is somewhat contrary to my previous post concerning our goals. For starters, this wasn't one of the goals. Second, we'd be taking on a $400,000-$450,000 mortgage, which would put a serious cramp in our ability to grow the million dollars we wanted. It still fits inline with the net worth goal, since the home would be a $400,000 asset. But I wanted the bulk of our money to be a little more liquid.

Show me the money.

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:30:00 +0000

I'm currently dumping information into Quicken, finally. I didn't realize all the other features it has. I've been putting together spreadsheets to estimate expenses and income and tons more stuff for the past couple of months. Low and behold, Quicken can do pretty much all of it, if you just look around. I'm sure if I took the time to read the manual, I'd be able to spot those capabilities much sooner, but as of yet, I haven't (and probably won't). So, one I get all this good stuff put into Quicken, I'll shoot out my Net Worth report. I can't wait to get everything in there, it will make the 'snapshot' of our finances so much easier.

Still Here

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 06:38:00 +0000

Only one post last month. That's pretty weak. We're still here with much to talk about, just haven't posted anything lately. Stay tuned, we have quite a few things going on. My wife's first paycheck has arrived, we're looking into credit counseling and lots more. Tax planning is my big item for 2009, so I'll have plenty to post on that issue soon. We haven't quit!

Net Worth: August 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:23:00 +0000

Only 8 days late, but I finally finished our first Net Worth statement. I wish this data matched up with what I have in Quicken, but that would make it way too easy to report on. Over time I plan on accomplishing that so I can turn out good financial data on the fly.

We're just under $67,000 in debt, that's actually a little better than I thought. While I would much rather be on the plus side, I realize that half of our Net Worth deficiency is my wife's schooling. That will pay off in spades soon enough.

I suspect that over the next few months there will be some very large variations in our Net Worth statements as we continue to find places where we have money (and twice as many places that we owe money), as well as working out the best way to pay off some of the debt we have now.

A concious decision

noreply@blogger.com (spender) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:53:00 +0000

I went to Target today and I actually went in and got what I went for instead of anything else! In and out, and all this while in the back of mind I was thinking "Well I really need this or I really need that". I feel good about that. Also, we have been doing decent on our $400 dollars every 2 weeks budget. I still think we need to make it $500 though. With gas prices the way they are, our money gets sucked up with gas pretty fast. Plus my husband is using the "bills" account for gas instead of the "spending" account, if we had the extra $100 he could use that account for gas instead of the "bills" account!

Where We Stand: Assets

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:02:00 +0000

Much to my own dissatisfaction, I've finally compiled all of our assets together. I don't like the idea of including our vehicles as assets, but I've chosen to do so since they do have some value, can be sold if necessary, and there are loans against them. I'm gathering that information from Kelly Blue Book, http://www.kbb.com/. So here's what we have:

Next up: Putting the debt and asset tables together to give our actual net worth. I'll post our first one for the end of August on Labor Day! Hopefully, the spender will put something out here soon!

Where We Stand: Debt

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:05:00 +0000

I'm still working to get all of our account balances and what not together so that I can show our Net Worth. I use Quicken to keep all our finances in order, so I could just crap out a report with the exact information we need. But, I decided to put this information together myself, without using Quicken. This way I can compare what I have, versus what Quicken should have. Ideally, the data should be the same, but I can tell already that there are a few discrepencies between what I have and what Quicken has. For example, I'm not putting down the money we still owe the hospital for our son's birth, nor am I including the money I need to pay my school (long story) so that I can finish my degree. In Quicken, I'm tracking the money I owe the school, but not the hospital, I also don't have the full value of my wife's student loans in there, but I'm including them here. Needless to say, this means that the financial picture I'm about to give is still somewhat inaccurate. (About $4,000 off, I think). So, without further ado, here's what we owe:

Goals? What Goals?

noreply@blogger.com (spender) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:47:00 +0000

Honestly I do not think like my husband. Sure I would love to have tons of money in savings, but in my mind saving that much money seems impossible. How are we to live the life if the bulk of our money is being put away every month? I do want to save money, I just want to live life too. I guess maybe I would just rather use my money to live now rather than later. As I sit here and write this though, that kinda sounds ridiculous! If we just spent our money now and didnt save enough I would probably end up living very megerly later in life when I should be enjoying retirement! This blog really helps me think about things. I even skipped going to get my nails done with a friend today so that I didnt use a credit card and add $25 to our $45,000 in credit card debt. Yeah me! I do however need to buy some more work clothes... this is something that will probably go on a credit card. And this is what my husband means by not planning for things and having the money to buy things we need with cash instead of credit. Ok...so after writing this my goal is to be debt free in the next 5 years!! I want my dream house.... NOW!!

Where We Stand: Credit Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

As I’m working on some pretty spreadsheets to show our financial ‘picture,’ I added up our credit card debt. This is just the credit card debt alone, no cars, no house, no assets that are tied to these accounts. All told, we owe roughly $45,000, for nothing. We have nothing to show for the $45,000 we’ve borrowed.

Of course, there’s a TV in our living room and a computer at my desk, and plenty of other ‘things’ we spent the money on, but we could have saved for that stuff! That way we’d have it all, free and clear.

This leads to a new problem. We’ve become accustom to the lifestyle. The ability to buy what we want whenever we want it has been great. But the cold realization is that we’ve been able to buy what we want when we can’t afford it. So, in addition to having to break the habit of spending the bank’s money, we also have to curb spending even more to pay down the debt in a reasonable time. Debt sucks.

My Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Finally, after thinking about this for a little while, I remembered that I'd had goals already set for my financial future. These goals were several years old, so I thought I'd dust them off, revise them, and put them out here. My primary goal was a Net Worth of $1,000,000 by the time I was 35. Given the past couple of years of financial turmoil, I've revised that goal to be a Net Worth of $1,000,000 by the time I'm 40. Right now, I'm 26, so that's 14 years to sock away a million clams.

To go along with that, I plan on being debt free (except the 'secured' loans, like the mortgage and maybe a car payment), by the age of 30, which is about 3 and 1/2 years. I'll also shoot for what's a-likely-to-be-even-more-difficult savings rate of 20% of our Gross Income. By the time my spouse is working, that should be an incredibly high $24,000 per year. Even with this high of a savings rate, and if we were at debt-zero already, we'd still be short by $125,000 (assuming a 12% return). Not to worry though, if we carry that plan through until we're almost 90, we'll have about $78,000,000. Plenty to leave behind for our great grandchildren!

I won't revise my goal to a more 'practical' number, there's just no fun in that. If I set the goal to a soft $250,000, where's the motivation? We could achieve that in less than 10 years with less than half the investment. By setting my goal higher than what I can presently achieve, I'm hoping to motivate myself into finding different streams of income (and saving that income).

As I'm proofreading this, I realize that I'm using the word 'I' almost exclusively for the goals that are outlined above. I think this comes back to the fact that neither she nor I communicate well when it comes to money. We'll see what my wife puts out here for her goals, and then we will come up with a common set to work from.

Why I spend

noreply@blogger.com (spender) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:58:00 +0000

I realize as I am sitting here at home with just the baby that I find myself thinking "do I need to go anywhere?" I am realizing that while I spend money on things we need, it is not always necessary. I am bored; this is why I am trying to find somewhere to go. Unfortunately we don't have much to do around here so going to Target is about as fun as it gets sometimes, and it's at the expense of my pocket book. At least I'm not at the mall I suppose!

On another note, our "spending" account is down to $30. We always have $400 to spend for 2 weeks and by the beginning of the second week it is nearly gone. I told my husband I think $400 is unrealistic and that $500 would be better. But, we need to just get a freaking budget....that's the real problem!!

I don't know if I agree with my husband's post about this blog being pointless. I mean it's a place to get our thoughts out and share our feelings. Look what I just did instead of finding somewhere to go! Today I will stay home and clean, but tomorrow some good friends have invited me to lunch! Should I go? I want to.... I don't see them very often. We will see.

Whats the Point?

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:44:00 +0000

Well, after a few posts, I've realized that there's really no point to this blog. We haven't changed anything since we started 5 days ago. And of course, the obvious reason is a total lack of real goals. We don't have a budget, we don't know where our money's going, and we're not trying hard enough to fix that. We also don't have a good list of our financial desires. Without knowing where you are, and where you want to go, you can't really achieve much. So, starting next week, I'll be putting together an accurate list of everything we owe and start working on a plan. Real numbers coming soon!

Defeating the Purpose

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Here's a good example of what my wife's talking about. We're getting ready to go out to eat, again, today, for the second time. Now, we were invited to go, and unfortunately we're very weak when it comes to our meals. So, while we have a delicious dinner planned already for this evening, we've decided to go ahead and enjoy the company of others and dine out. I'm not sure what it is about eating out, but it sure has it's spell on us. I know we're not saving any time by doing it: we've got to load up the kids, drive there, order, wait, wait, (wait some more, depending on where we are), eat, pay (a lot), and then drive home and unpack everyone. We kill two hours on a thirty minute meal! It's definately not saving money (wouldn't be talking about it if it did). So what is it? Why do we like to do it so often? Any thoughts?

Doing the Right Thing...

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:33:00 +0000

As I was churning through my overflowing inbox of unopened mail, side projects, and stuff my daughter likes to throw in there for fun, I came across a brand new credit card that had never been activated. It was from Citi and they had issued it to replace my Zales Card that I had opened several years ago. So, what should I do? Activate It, or call and close it? I decided to activate it, at least at first. I called the number on the front of the card (I really have the activation process down), and just as I heard the distant end start to ring, I hung up.

Printed in GIGANTIC letters next to the card was a different phone number that simply said, 'If you do not want the Citi MasterCard, call and we will close your account.' I dialed the number and within three minutes, the account was closed. No one tried to convince me to stay (or activate the card), I didn't get any great credit offer, nothing, just an automated thank you and a quick disconnect. I feel pretty good.

I'll admit, I had absolutely no intention of using the card, I mean the line was only $4,000. We have too much debt to take advantage of any 0% APR offer, so we would have just wound up buying a TV or furniture or something. Even though this isn't a huge victory over our mounds of debt, it was a step in the right direction. Now, where's my ice cream...

Our Spending

noreply@blogger.com (spender) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:22:00 +0000

My husband and I have two beautiful children. Our daughter Kaitlynn is 3 years old and our son Kaleb is 1 month old. Like many parents we aspire to give our kids the world. They deserve it! We would like to put our kids in private school, but it costs 6,000 dollars a year. And by the time our eldest goes to college at a good university it will cost nearly 190,000 dollars for a four year degree. So my husband and I have to ask ourselves, how are we going to be able to pay for all this if we continue down this path of debt? Don't get me wrong my husband and I make decent money, but we could have so much more and save so much more if it weren't for the debt. We have tried numerous things to make ourselves stick to a budget. We gave ourselves 400 dollars every two weeks to "spend", but at the end of that two weeks we found ourselves spending money from other accounts! I have to say that our biggest spending problem is eating out. We eat out entirely too much! If we could just curb the frivolous spending we would do a lot better. I have a hard time keeping track of the money I spend too. I have tried writing it down and I have tried just carrying cash, but nothing seems to work. My husband gets very frustrated with me. I am by no means out shopping for myself, I just do most of the spending for everything. My husband seems to think our relationship when it comes to the finances is more of a father and daughter one, rather than a husband and wife one. He is probably right. The other night he asked me "If I died could you handle our finances?" My answer is simple, No. I don't know anything about our finances. I have always left the saving, budgeting, and paying of the bills to him. I really need to get more involved. The truth is that it just doesn't interest me much. With everything else I do around the house and taking care of the kids I find the idea of having to sit down and pay bills exhausting!

Welcome to Spender vs. Saver!

noreply@blogger.com (Saver) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:15:00 +0000

After 4 years of marriage, my wife and I are more in love than ever, but not with our pocket books. We've spent the last four years racking up an insurmountable amount of debt. Finally, it's time to get rid of it!

There's just one problem, neither one of us wants to drastically change our lifestyles. Now, I'm not a super-penny-pincher nor is my wife a shop-a-holic, we're just two young, average Americans that want to achieve our lives' ambitions early! But, as it turns out, ambitions cost money. Money we thought we'd pay back by now. And now, it's time.

So, we're turning to the Internet. While we intend to maintain as much anonymity as possible, we're going to live a nearly transparent financial life through this blog (sorry, no account numbers). Sharing with the world our financial ups and downs will hopefully help us to make wiser decisions about how we handle our money. Not just how we spend it, but how we save it as well.

Both my wife and I will post here as we learn the best ways to spend (and save) what we work for. We're open to suggestions, and of course, words of encouragement are always welcome!