Free Tomato Seeds from Campbell's

It's no secret that I love gardening. I've already started my garden for this year with mixed success. I started my seedlings in a seed starter and got lots of tomato, cucumber, corn, and various herb seedlings. I decided to try using old tires as planters and lovingly transplanted my seedlings. Last year I had lots of trouble with the squirrels so I built an enclosure of plastic mesh strung on some bamboo stakes. It worked for a couple days but alas, the squirrels have already eaten all of the seedlings that I have planted down there. :( Luckily, I am also planting in the old garden spot and the squirrels have not found their way in there yet and I have a nice set of corn, tomatoes, and even potatoes growing there.

If you're interested in starting your own garden this year head on over to Help Grow Your Own Soup to request your free packet of tomato seeds. All you need is a code from one of Campbell's condensed soups. In addition to sending you a packet of seeds, Campbell's is also donating seeds to local FFA chapters for every click that they receive on their website. So what are you waiting for? Go get some seeds!

Lucky Pennies!

Have you seen any pennies lying around lately? Well, pick them up! Not only will you be a penny richer, but you may win some free stuff from CiCi's Pizza. In an interesting promotion that is a sure sign-o-the-recession-times, CiCi's will be scattering 1 million (imagine Austin Power's voice here) special pennies that can be redeemed for prizes at their restaurant. Here is how they describe it:

As part of its new Penny Picker Upper promotional campaign, CiCi’s Pizza is honoring savings-savvy Americans by dropping one million pennies in public places around their restaurants. But these are no ordinary pennies. The backs of each of these specially stickered pennies will list prizes like a free meal at a CiCi’s endless pizza buffet, a free drink, and a buy one pizza get one free deal that can be redeemed at local CiCi’s locations. It’s essentially rewarding you for being thrifty.

To make the deal even sweeter, CiCi's will be donating each of the returned pennies to the Big Brothers Big Sisters Club of America. You can check them out at their Facebook page for more info. Happy change hunting!

How to Make a Budget

With the New Year comes new resolutions and this year with the world in an economic downturn, there is no doubt that people will be resolving to better their financial situation. Whether your resolution is to save six months of living expenses, to pay off your credit cards, or to simply save more money, the first step you should take is to make a budget to guide you along your way. Here's how to get started.

1. Start a money journal.

For one month, track every penny that you spend. Make sure you track everything from your housing expenses to a pack of gum. There are many ways you can do this but the easiest way I find is to use Mint online. It is an online service similar to Quicken that tracks all of your accounts (savings, checking, loans, investments, etc) and compiles the information into one place. I use my credit card for every purchase I can, even the smallest transaction. That way I can not only track where my money is going but I earn cash back on everything (I use a Chase Freedom credit card).

If you're not comfortable using an online service, or if you are more partial to cash, you can always just keep a written journal of all of your spending.

2. Review

After you have tracked your expenses for 1 month, go back and look at where your money is going. Mint and other personal finance software have features that will automatically create trend reports to show you how much you spend in each category, but don't just stop there. Go through each and every purchase you made and circle anything that you think you could have done without. Notice if you are spending more than you thought in any one area such as dining, entertainment, clothing, etc.

3. Take inventory

Now that you know where your money is going, make a list of all of your essential fixed expenses. These are expenses that occur monthly and are about the same amount every month (rent/mortgage, auto insurance, car payment, taxes, student loans, etc). There may also be fixed expenses that are non-essential such as cable TV, Netflix, Tivo, and so on. List these in a separate column.

You'll also have variable expenses that will change depending on your consumption. These can also be essential and non-essential. Examples of essential variable expenses are water, electricity, gas, groceries and so on. List these as an average of your monthly expense. The non-essential variable expenses will be categories such as dining, entertainment, clothing, shopping, and so on. We'll get back to these later.

As an example, this is what you might end up with.

Essential Fixed Expenses:

Rent: $1,000
Student loans: $150
Auto Insurance: $120
Health insurance: $100
Prescriptions: $20

Total Essential Fixed Expenses: $1390

Non-Essential Fixed Expenses

Netflix: $22
Cell phone: $50

Total Non-Essential Fixed Expenses: $72

Essential Variable Expenses

Electricity: $35
Water: $20
Gas (Home): $25
Groceries: $150
Gas (Auto): $120

Total Essential Variable Expenses: $350

Total: $1812

4. Determine what you have and what you want to have

Let's say that in the above example your take home pay (after taxes) is $2,500. Subtract your total above (in the example $1812) and you are left with the money in your budget for everything else. In the example we are left with $688. The first thing you should divvy out your money to is your savings or money towards paying off debts.

Retirement savings (3%): $125
Emergency fund savings: $200
Down payment savings: $100

Now you are left with $263 to divide among the non-essential variable expenses.

Shopping (household, clothing, personal care) : $100
Entertainment and Dining: $113
Beauty (haircuts, grooming): $50

And voila! You have a budget. The hard part will be sticking to it, but I guarantee that it will be worth it and you will be on track to achieving your New Year's financial resolutions.

Happy saving!

Guilt Free Shopping

During my attempt to go 100 consecutive days of buying nothing new, I discovered this store called Savers. It's a thrift department store, kind of like the Goodwill, but better. The Goodwill always seemed to be overpriced to me - I know this sounds ridiculous - but I remember the days when clothes cost $1-$5 and books were $.25 each! Now, when you go to the Goodwill you are hard-pressed to find any clothes under $8.99 and books are $3! At that price I might as well go to Target and the library.

Well, Savers is like the good ol' days of thrift shopping. Everything is super cheap (it is used donated goods after all!) and to make it even better, if you bring a bag of donations, they give you a 20% off coupon for your entire purchase. It works out perfectly with the whole "one in, one out" philosophy.

So the other day I took my bag 'o' donations, got my coupon, and went buck wild. Mind you, I haven't bought new clothes in months, so I was itching for it. I stacked my arms with cute things and then panicked thinking I was spending hundreds. I whipped out my calculator and guess what? I didn't have more than $30 in my hands. Amazing! I decided to "splurge" and bought it all, along with a few pots for the garden and a jam jar (they only had one) for my cherry jam making adventures.

The whole thing wasn't more than $35 and I won't need to go shopping for a while. To make it even better, I don't have to worry about the environmental impact because everything was used and would've otherwise gone to the dump. All in all, it was guilt free shopping!

Update: Prosper Loans

About a month ago I decided to dabble with Prosper as a way to increase return on my savings. I was a little skeptical but I thought I would try it out with $300. I chose 5 different loans and divided my money between them (4 loans at $50 and 1 loan at $100). I decided to stay fairly conservative to reduce the chance that any of them would default - 3 of the loans had a "B" grade, 1 had an "A" grade, and another was "AA."

I'm happy to report that all of my loans made their first payment. I don't know why this shocks me, but I was pretty impressed. That doesn't mean I'm out of the woods yet. There are still 35 more payments to go! Currently, I'm earning an average of 11.25% so over the 3 years I should earn about $90 in interest (if they don't default). That's much better than the $30 I would earn if it was in a regular savings account.

The one thing that is annoying about Prosper is that once the money is paid back (you get a payment every month), it's nearly impossible to get back out until you have a balance of $25. You can't make a bid to reinvest the money unless you have $25 and you can't withdraw the money unless you have $25. Right now, I only have $11 so it's pretty much stuck in there not earning interest. I thought about transferring money into the account just so I could then withdraw the full amount, but even that takes time and while the money is in transit you are not earning any interest on it. I suppose the trick would be to have enough invested so that each month your payments total more than $25.

I also started my first investing adventures with my Sharebuilder account. I'm happy to report that the stock I chose, rose about 10% in the first month. Granted, this could change at any time but I think it was a pretty wise investment. I'm starting to think that investing is super fun, but then again I haven't suffered any losses yet. Let's hope this beginner's luck continues!

If you're interested in trying your luck, you can use the following promotions to jump start your investments!

$25 bonus for signing up with Sharebuilder

Earn $25-50 for signing up with Prosper

0% Interest Cards vs. Cash Back Cards

Choosing the best credit card is a tricky business. There are a myriad of different credit cards out there with different benefits - cash back, points, miles, 0% interest. The card that's best for you will depend on your lifestyle and current monetary situation. For me, because I have no credit card debt and because I am mainly interested in growing my savings, I am torn between two different types of cards - cash back and 0% interest. At first, I thought for sure that the cash back card was the best bet, but then I started considering a few cards that offer 0% interest for up to 15 months. So which is best? I haven't figured it out yet so I'm going to lay out what I feel are the pros and cons of the two cards that I have chosen - the Chase Freedom card and Blue from American Express. Here we go.

Chase Freedom Card - Advantages

• Offers 3% cash back on your top 3 spending categories (recalculated monthly) and 1% on all other purchases
• $100 sign-up bonus
• Cash back rewards are available to withdraw after you earn $50, however, if you leave it until you reach $200, they will give you an additional $50
• No annual fee

Chase Freedom Card - Disadvantages

• If a merchant has not specified their spending category, it will be lumped under "other." My dentist did not categorize himself as "Medical services" so even though it was clearly one of my top spending categories, they claim there is no way to change it in the system so I only received 1% for a cool $1,000.

Blue from American Express - Advantages

• 0% interest for 15 months - If you carry the balance (and why not, you're not paying any interest), you could put that money in a high yield savings account and earn 3% on all of your purchases.
• Earn 1 point for each $1 spent and redeem for various rewards. 1 point = approximately $0.01.
• No annual fee
  

Blue from American Express - Disadvantages

• Carrying a balance could lower your credit score

So, let's calculate the benefits based on spending $6,000 annually on a credit card.

Chase Freedom = $90.00 (50% at 3%) + $30.00 (50% at 1%) + $100.00 (sign-up bonus) + $50.00 (additional money for letting balance reach $200.00) = $270.00
Blue from American Express = $83.19 (savings interest) + $60 (rewards) = $143.19

Looks like the Chase Freedom card would be the best bet, just for the $100.00 sign up bonus. After the first year, it would be a pretty tough call between the two because it would take much longer to reach the $200.00. I was generous giving it 50% at 3% but this could be more or less depending on your spending habits.

After this analysis, I'm pretty satisfied with my decision, although after I reach the $250 rewards, I may consider switching to a 0% interest card. What do you think? Any cards that you are loyal to or that you think have better rewards?

My New Obsession

As you may have noticed from some of my previous blog entries, I have become quite obsessed with my garden. The backyard has become a veritable jungle of fruits and vegetables in all stages of development. I am growing seedlings in any container I can find, buying worms to create worm poop, and contemplating collecting leaves off the side of the road to use as mulch. The zucchinis have begun to produce fruit and I've been busy cooking up fried zucchini and zucchini bread. I got some free lemons off Freecycle and made some super sour lemonade, yum! I found out the cherries ARE edible, but are better for jams than they are for plain eating, so I guess I'll have an adventure making my own jams. Oh, and even better....the avocado tree has also decided to have it's free year of producing fruit (after 15 years?!) so we'll also have a fantastic - fingers crossed - avocado harvest.

So yes, I am obsessed much, but that means my previous obsession, blogging, has kind of fallen by the wayside. Every time I sit down to write something, I think of something to do in my garden or I think of writing something about gardening. I should change the name to "The Debt Defier Does Gardening" or something to that effect. :)

But my dear readers (all two of you), do not give up on me yet. Perhaps this gardening obsession will subside and my good ol' blogging self will be back. In the meantime, I'm going to work on an article that I've been kicking around in my head, mainly because it's so cold and gloomy outside that it's no fun to be out in the garden anyways.

Hope you're all having a great long weekend!

Cherries in my backyard?

Ok, so I know this has nothing to do with "debt" per se, but I was so excited to find this today as I was churning up my compost pile:




My grandpa planted these trees YEARS ago, but I have never seen them bear fruit. He planted them way out in the back and we hardly went back there, so I was surprised when I looked up and noticed a whole tree full of fruit. From what I can remember, they were cherry trees, but I have no idea if they were edible or purely ornamental. If they are edible, we will have cherries coming out of our ears (free food!) because there are at least three trees out there that are producing. If not, they look nice and brings back nice memories of my grandpa. :) I'm going to try to take a branch to the nursery to get their expert opinion. I'm crossing my fingers that we're going to have a nice harvest of homegrown cherries in addition to the veggies from my garden.