The Debt Defier

Fat Wallet Cash Back

2010-07-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

I have seen lots of points programs in my time. Most of them seem like a waste of time because it would take so long to accumulate enough points to actually get something out of it. There are a few that I use regularly, only because it doesn't cost me anything. Mypoints for example sends me emails daily that allows me to earn points just by clicking through the email. I would say I get one $25 gift certificate to Target about every 6 months. Not bad for following a few links. I recently discovered Swagbucks and like that too because I don't have to shell out any money to earn points. I just do my regular web searches and badda bing badda boom, you earn points. Recently however, I've discovered FatWallet cash back and LOVE it.

Normally the problem with these points programs is that they don't offer points for retailers that I frequent often and you have to accumulate a lot of points before you get anything. FatWallet on the other hand gives cash back for practically everything on the net (except for Amazon sadly). They even give you 1% off for Ebay! Another great thing is that you can request to receive your cash back at anytime through Paypal so there is no waiting until you have accumulated 50,000 points to reap your rewards. Another bonus is that they link to any coupons or sales that are currently offered by that retailer. Right now there seems to be tons of sales and I just haven't been able to resist the great deals. "Really? I'll get the 70% off clearance sale plus 5% cashback?" It is truly a shopper's paradise. Plus you can find lots of great deals and freebies in the "Best Deals" section of the site. Here are some of their tops deals right now:

Free Philosophy Facial Cleansing Cloths
10% off Best Buy coupon
$5 1-Year Subscription to Popular Science Magazine
Vans Shoe Sale: Up to 79% off + 4.0% Cash Back
Free Sample of Nivea Happy Sensation Daily Lotion

Earn money for doing what you already do

2010-06-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

I discovered Swagbucks a couple weeks ago and I have already redeemed my points for a $5 Amazon.com gift card and I am well on my way to redeeming another one. This site gives you points just by searching the internet, participating in daily polls, and completely surveys. I was surprised at how quickly the points rack up! You'll earn 30 SwagBucks just for signing up for the program! It only takes 450 Swag Bucks to get a $5 Amazon gift card. Here are some tips in racking up points in no time:

1. Do all of your routine searches through Swagbucks. I set the Swagbucks search page as my home page and every time I do a search I use their search engine. You randomly earn anywhere from 5-15 SB just for doing these searches. I would say I earn about 50 SB a day just by doing normal searching. Think about it: after just 9 days you can earn $5 in gift cards just by doing something you normally would be doing anyways! There is the potential to earn hundreds of Swagbucks, but I haven't been that lucky yet. You can also download the toolbar so that you can do your searches without having to go directly to their site. You'll also get 1 SB per day for having the toolbar installed.

2. Participate in the daily polls. You only get 1 SB for answering the poll question but they are kind of fun and super fast!

3. Search for codes. If you become a super dedicated Swagster, you can find codes throughout the day on their Facebook site, their blog, and on their Twitter page. These range from anywhere to 4 SB - 30 SB.

4. Participate in surveys. You can earn hundreds of Swagbucks just by answering surveys (that is if you qualify). I have not qualified for any of the surveys yet, but I have earned hundreds just by filling out my profile. Plus, every day you get 1 SB just for checking to see if you have any more surveys available.

5. Invite your friends. When you refer your friends, you earn Swagbucks every time your referrals earn Swagbucks. I imagine this can add up super quickly!

I have heard of lots of people using these Swagbucks to pay for all of their Christmas shopping. Personally, I know I have a lot of books on my Amazon wishlist that I am looking to buy! So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!

Free Tomato Seeds from Campbell's

2009-04-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-01-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

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

2008-05-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-25T12:44:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-05-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

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.

I Love Free

2008-05-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

I would like to take a moment to bask in the bounty of my free samples.

Sigh.

It's so beautiful.

Everything you see here was free. That's right. FREE! The only thing I had to pay was 12 cents of sales tax for the tampons, but I still think that's a pretty good bargain.

All in all, here is what I've received so far:

1 6 oz. bag of Healthful Life Purina Cat Chow
1 Temptations cat treats
1 travel size Advance White toothpaste
1 travel size Aquafresh White & Shine toothpaste
1 travel size Aquafresh Extreme Clean toothpaste
2 boxes of o.b. ProComfort tampons (Vons store coupon)
1 compact fluorescent lightbulb (Farmer's Market courtesy of the county)
1 Dove Pro-age deodorant
1 Dove Ultimate Clear deodorant
1 Dove Advanced Color Therapy shampoo and conditioner
1 Dove Therapy Energize shampoo and conditioner
1 Feline Greenies cat treats
1 Vaseline Intensive Rescue lotion
1 bottle of Coffee Mate Vanilla creamer (up to $4.50)
1 bag of Starbucks Breakfast blend (Click on Explore Our Coffees)
1 bag of Seattle's Best Vanilla Bean roast
1 Curel Life's Stages lotion
1 mini cup of Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream (Vons store coupon)
1 stick of Power Pixies from Airborne (not pictured)

I had to actually go to the store today to pick up the free tampons and coffee creamer. I tried to see if they would double my free coffee creamer coupon, but she said they didn't do that. Darn! But she did give me another coupon booklet that included another coupon for a box of tampons and the ice cream (the first free ice cream coupon I gave to my grandma), so I turned right back around and got more free stuff. It was awesome!

The other great thing about the free samples (aside from being FREE) is that they usually come with a generous coupon. If it's something you might use, that's a pretty nice bonus (especially if you can get the coupon doubled).

I'm sure there's more to come. Every day I get something new in the mail. It's like Christmas every day!

If you're interested, just do a google search for "free samples" and I'm sure you'll find lots of stuff too.

Dumpster Diving Like a Pro

2008-05-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

My first dumpster diving adventure was a success, but I recognize that I was merely a novice dumpster diver. We had to pass up on some good finds and experienced some unnecessary unpleasantness just because we weren't properly prepared. The next time we dive, I plan on learning from my mistakes and diving like a pro by following these 10 dumpster diving tips.

1. Bring sturdy, water-proof gloves and hand sanitizer.

Gloves are of the utmost importance when dumpster diving. Obviously, you'll want to protect your hands from any bacteria or sharp objects that you might encounter in the dumpster. We learned the hard way that it is essential that the gloves are water-proof so that liquids don't seep through. Make sure that you bring some hand sanitizer or baby wipes to clean up afterwards because you probably won't be able to wash your hands immediately.

2. Wear long sleeves.

Digging around deep in the dumpster, you're just as likely to get your arms dirty as your hands. Protect them by wearing long sleeves.

3. Go late at night.

Trash is at it's optimum levels immediately following business closing hours. You'll want to get there after they have taken the trash out for the day and before trash collection in the morning to find the best selection. Plus, you'll have less of an audience and avoid nasty confrontations.

4. Bring a flashlight.

If you're diving late at night, you'll need a flashlight to uncover the hidden treasures of the dumpster. A headlamp would be super handy if you have one!

5. Take a friend.

Dumpster diving is a team sport. You may need help lifting a large item, holding a flashlight, or backing you up with their super kung-fu skills if someone gets pissed that you're digging in their trash. Plus, it's just more fun to share the adventure with someone else.

6. Bring bags, boxes, and containers to store your finds.

The last thing you want is a bunch of trash free-floating around in your trunk. Bring stuff to haul and contain your finds to make for easier transport and clean-up.

7. Bring something to stand on.

For safety's sake, you probably don't want to take the term dumpster "diving" literally. Try to stay out of the dumpster to avoid encountering hazardous materials. It'll be much safer and easier to bring a milk crate or step ladder to step on and get a better look deep inside without actually having to get in.

8. Invest in a grabby thingy.

Since you're not actually getting in, you'll want to extend your reach with a grabby thingy (you know what I mean). You can buy one at Amazon for about $15.00 but if you're like me, you'll want a free alternative. Basically, anything that has a long handle and a hook on the end should work.

9. Don't dive in any locked dumpsters.

Dumpster diving laws vary from city to city but it's a pretty safe bet that if it's locked, you should keep looking for another dumpster . If they lock it, that means they don't want you there, so don't go looking for trouble.

10. Don't make a mess.

If you go in and make a mess, chances are the building/home owners are not going to be happy. They may decide to lock up their dumpsters or complain to the local authorities, making it more difficult for you and others to dive in the future. Make sure to leave the area as clean or cleaner as you found it.

Saving at a snail's pace

2008-05-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier, I had posted an ambitious goal of saving nearly $3,000 per month for grad school. Despite 2 solid months of buying absolutely nothing new, I was barely able to save a little over $700 this month. It would've been closer to $2,000 if I didn't have to pay over $1,000 for dental work (it hurts to type that) and if they hadn't messed up on my paycheck...again. At least with the paycheck, I'll be able to put the money towards next month's savings, but the dental work...boo! Needless to say, I am brushing and flossing like a maniac to avoid having to pay any more costly dental bills in the future.

I had thought of taking on a second job to increase my income but I've had little luck finding something suitable. There was a job posted at the Fresh and Easy (my favorite store ever), but the pay was not enough to make it worth it, in my opinion. Honestly, I'm quite shocked at what's available out there. This is the first time I've seen a job market so scarce. I guess combined with companies cutting back and employees losing their jobs, the job market is pretty tight.

In happier news, my garden has become a wild little jungle and is bursting with vegetables.

Here's the garden just a couple weeks ago, if you remember:

And voila, here's the after:

My how it's grown! I wish my money would grow as fast.

Today, I got a very pleasant surprise when I went outside. We've had this cactus outside for years and I've never thought anything of it. The past couple of days, I noticed little shoots growing out of it and assumed it would be blossoming soon. I thought this was strange because I had never notice it blossom before. So today when I went outside I was amazed to find this:

Wow-wow! I'm in love with this plant! I never knew that cacti could be so beautiful.

And last but not least, take a look at my baby rosemary, basil, and mint plants. Notice that I've been using everything from yogurt cups, to plastic drinking cups, to plastic containers to plant seeds in. I'm starting to look at everything as a potential seed pot. The trick will be finding places to plant them after they get too big for their little seed starters.

I'm telling you, I think I missed my calling. I wonder if I should just become a professional farmer?

Website publishes country's tax records

2008-05-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so thankfully, this story isn't from the U.S.

Italy's government had a total brain fart and decided it'd be a good idea to publish the entire country's tax info on the web. That's right. Every Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Donatello (uhh, what's the Italian equivalent to Tom, Dick, and Harry?) had their tax info briefly published on a public website until it was crashed by thousands of visitors. Presumably, everyone was trying to catch a glimpse of their neighbors, bosses, and co-workers salaries and they clogged the site. Eventually, the government wizened up and took the site down.

Honestly, it would be kind of awesome to be able to get a sneak peek into people's finances, kind of like looking in someone's journal (not like I'd do that or anything). Then again, imagine all the problems it could create. You know a bunch of people went in and demanded raises today after seeing that their co-worker made more than them. How would you feel if all of a sudden your tax info was published on the web for the whole world to see? Would you care?

How to make $130 in 30 minutes

2008-04-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

I love free money, don't you? Here's a way to make $125+ in 30 minutes by signing up for a few financial services that will help you jump-start your savings.

1. Earn $25 by signing up for Revolution Money Exchange. It's a Paypal-like service that allows you to send money via the internet. I signed up a couple of weeks ago and have already earned $65 for the sign-up, plus referrals ($10 each) and have transferred the money into my bank account with no problems.

2. Earn $25 by signing up for an ING Direct savings account. ING Direct has been my savings bank for years now and I love them. If you don't already have a high-yield savings account, you need one. Earn $25 just by signing up and making an initial deposit of $250.

Orange Savings Account Links - Earn 3% with no minimums (remember you must start with $250 to earn $25)

ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus

Electric Orange Savings Account Links - Earn up to 3.4% with more than $100,000

ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus

3. Earn $25 for becoming a lender at Prosper and funding your first loan. I just started funding loans and I must say it's addicting. I picked loans that were pretty conservative and I'll be earning about 11% on my investment. Not bad!

4. Earn $25-55 for signing up for Sharebuilder and purchasing a stock or ETF. I've been interested in investing in some "green" companies for a while and last night started doing some research. I had already signed up for a Sharebuilder account years ago but haven't used it lately. I did some research and found some great promotions that allow you to open a new account (even if you already have an account) and earn $25-55. Sharebuilder charges $4 for each automatic investment if you have a basic account (no monthly charges). I'll be using the $55 sign-up bonus to jump start my investment portfolio. Nice!

If you have a Costco account, you will receive a $55 sign-up bonus. If not,,you can still get a $25 bonus.

Click here to sign up for Sharebuilder and start your investment portfolio.

So, now you've just earned over $100 and have a few accounts to start diversifying your savings. Not bad for just about 30 minutes!

Today is Ben & Jerry's free cone day!

2008-04-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Go help Ben & Jerry's celebrate their 30th birthday by eating free ice cream! Nom nom nom.

Dumpster Diving Adventures

2008-04-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe I have lost my mind, but last night I thought it would be fun to go dumpster diving. I've heard a lot about "freegans," people (with jobs) who go to the grocery stores late at night and live off of the discarded food found in the dumpsters. They claim this is completely safe, but I'm just not that hardcore (yet). But, I thought it would be an interesting Saturday night activity to go and poke around and see what was lurking in the trash cans (that's how I roll).

I don't know what I thought we would find. I knew we would find some disgusting rotted food and a nose-full of unpleasant odors. But maybe, just maybe, I hoped for treasures, like an iPod tape adapter that I have been searching for ever since mine broke which I haven't been able to replace because of the 100 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge. I surely didn't expect to find what we did find.

We started off at an business complex and was surprised to find that there were tons of people working at 10 p.m. on a Saturday. Now, I was just a little (ok, a lot) shy about poking through people's trash, so I definitely didn't want to have an audience. We drove around until we found a nice quiet dumpster and parked the car, got out our gloves, and started digging. Mind you, I don't take the term "dumpster diving" literally; we actually just kind of leaned over and peered in. At first, we didn't find anything too interesting. Empty pizza boxes. Cardboard boxes. But then, I rummaged across a huge pile of perfectly good clothes, everything from pants, to sweaters, to ties. I didn't want them but I figured they shouldn't end up in a landfill, so we took them out to wash and then donate to the Goodwill (hello, tax deduction).

That wasn't all. We also found a wet suit in perfectly good condition, a box of CDs, and money! Yes, money! There was a bag that contained about 20 cents in change. Who throws away money? Perhaps it was beginners luck, but we found tons of stuff in this dumpster without ever having to set foot inside it. Who knows what else was in the bottom of that dumpster?

We drove around to a few more with no luck and decided to try some retail dumpsters. We saw a shopping center with a bargain store and thought we might find some pretty good stuff there. Unfortunately, there was also a Jiffy Lube and a barber shop, so mostly all we found were hundreds of plastic oil containers, old air filters, and (barf) human hair. It wasn't completely fruitless because we found a ton of recyclable bottles and cans.

Afterwards, we decided to hit up an apartment complex that had a whole alley full of dumpsters. I was quite nervous about going to an apartment complex because, well, people live there. And yes, we had someone staring at us from the balcony as we "dove" in their dumpsters. I can't blame them though; it's not every day that you see people like me going through your trash.

The dumpsters at the apartment complex were pretty nasty. Rotting food and dirty diapers. MMMMM. Right away, I saw a nice-looking suitcase on top of the dumpster. I go to pick it up and it's heavy with stuff inside. When I opened it up, I found that they had used this perfectly good suitcase as a trash can. Who does this? It's bad enough that you throw away a perfectly good suitcase, but to fill it with trash and then throw it away, that's just too much.

We went to a few more dumpsters in the complex and found some more bottles and cans, Coke rewards points (my bf saves these things if you want to send me yours), and another bag full of clothes. I probably could've kept going all night (it was so fascinating) but my trunk was full so I figured we should stop.

All in all here is what we found:

2 bags of clothes to be donated (tax write-off)
1 wetsuit (sell on Craigslist?)
1 bag of bottles and cans (CRV!)
1 suitcase to be donated
23 cents in change
10 CDs (about 3 in good enough condition to sell on Half.com, others to be recycled)
1 key chain beaner

That was just from about 1.5 hours of active searching in approximaely 15 dumpsters. I was shocked at how much of the stuff in those dumpsters could've been recycled or donated and how little of what was actually in the dumpster really needed to be there. I take for granted that everyone is as conscious as I am about recycling or repurposing old materials and it was a little disheartening to see all that waste. I might even right Jiffy Lube a letter, requesting them to implement better waste management procedures. I just imagined all the Jiffy Lube's around the country producing that much unnecessary waste and I felt so overwhelmed. It's amazing that we're not all swimming in the trash that we produce every day.

As disheartening as it was, it was also great fun. I think I'll definitely do it again. Maybe I'll check out a grocery store, just to see what is actually thrown out. I meant to bring it along and forgot on my way out! Next time, I'll try to remember my camera so I can share my finds with you.

Cheap gas isn't always cheaper

2008-04-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that some gas stations are able to consistently offer gas that is 10 cents cheaper per gallon than the other gas stations around town? People flock to these stations and wait in long lines to get the "cheaper" gas. Are these stations just trying to set competitive prices to attract customers or is there something more sinister going on here?

Where I live, Arco is usually a good 10 cents less per gallon than other stations like Mobil, Shell, or Chevron. It seems like a great deal, until you realize that they don't accept credit cards. Who carries $50 in cash to fill up their tank? But wait! They accept ATM cards! No problem. So you fill up your tank on the cheap and use your ATM card to pay for it. Except, it probably isn't much cheaper if you realize that you're being charged $1.00 for the convenience of using your ATM card. D'oh!

We can also factor in that when you use an ATM card or cash you are not receiving any rewards that you would if you were using a cash back credit card (and you should be). Personally, I would receive 3% back on my purchase.

So if gas is $3.67 at Arco and I fill up 15 gallons, we could thus calculate:

$3.67 x 15 = $55.05 + 1.00 = $56.05

But if I pay the extra 10 cents at another gas station and get the same amount of gas and use my credit card, I pay:

$3.77 x 15 = $56.55 - $1.70 (3% cash back) = $54.85

Blimey! Paying more for gas actually works out to be cheaper in the long run, even if I don't pay the $1.00 ATM charge...and I don't have to wait in the long lines at the "cheaper" gas station!

Lesson be learned - sometimes it pays, to pay more.

Is it time to stockpile food?

2008-04-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

Sam's Club (Walmart's warehouse division) announced today that they will be limiting rice purchases to four bags per customer, amid supply and demand concerns. Costco is also limiting sales of flour and rice at some of their stores.

They claim that business owners, like restaurateurs, are stockpiling food out of fear of global food shortages generated by media reports. The U.N. is calling the food shortages, "a silent tsunami" that is devastating the world's hungry and driving up world food prices.

Is this simply a case of panic, or are we going to be facing even more dramatic increases in food prices? Heck, the price of rice is already 66% more than it was at the beginning of 2008 and global food prices have risen 57% in the past month. How much higher can it go?

Are you worried? Is it time to hoard food, just in case? Or will that just make the crisis worse?

Happy Earth Day!

2008-04-22T10:08:00.001-07:00

Go out and do something good for the Earth!

Evaluating a Prosper Loan

2008-04-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Back when savings interest rates were 5% or more, there wasn’t a lot of incentive to run out and look for investments that would provide a higher yield. You could earn a decent rate of return on your money with no risk and no work on your part. Now that savings interest rates are down, it doesn’t make much sense to keep a huge chunk of cash in a savings account where it’s only earning 3%, especially with current inflation rates at 4%. That means that for all the money you save earning only 3%, you’re actually losing 1% of the value to inflation.

I’m not saying that you should run out and take all the money from your savings account and move it riskier investments. Everyone needs to have some cash liquid and secure in case of an emergency or unexpected expense. You just don’t want to keep it all stock-piled in an account that’s earning less than the current rate of inflation.

So, I started contemplating the various options for investing my money. I figured that it would be worth giving Propser a try because credit card companies have been raising their rates and clamping down on consumer credit, causing people to look for other options to get a lower interest rate on their debts. After being in debt myself for so many years, I feel for those who are struggling with their credit now. When I was in debt, I was able to get lots of 0% interest offers, so I was paying very little interest on my debt. I think if I actually had to pay interest (and some people are paying more than 15% on thousands of dollars!) it would’ve taken me years longer to pay it off.

I’ve been browsing the listings for a while, trying to use my psychic powers to determine who the dead beats are and who is trustworthy enough to make good on their financial commitments. Sure, I could just use their credit rating to help me choose, but a listing offers so much more to go on than just a letter score. As I browsed, I realized that there were some very subtle, and non-subtle, red flags that (I hope) can help lenders choose borrowers that a minimal risk.

1. Financially irresponsible behavior.

Make sure that your borrowers have their priorities in line. If they claim they’re taking out a loan to pay off high-interest credit cards and padded a little extra to pay for a vacation, then you should probably take a pass. If they were serious about getting out of debt, they would wait to take a vacation until after they have paid off their debts.

2. High revolving credit balances.

If they don’t have a good explanation for their high revolving credit card balance, I assume the worst. I want to hear an explanation as to how their habits have changed and what positive steps they are taking to get on the road to debt recovery. If I don’t see those things in their listings, I assume that they are liable to making the same mistakes again.

3. Any delinquencies or public records.

I take my finances very seriously, and I would want anyone who borrows money from me to take it seriously too. Delinquencies are a big no no. NO NO I will not lend to you.

4. Vague business plans.

If it’s a business loan, I want to see a solid business plan and why it’s going to succeed. Starting your own business is a risky venture, but you can minimize the risk if you have a solid business plan in place.

5. Lots of missing or vague information.

I want to see that the person has taken some time and effort to make their listing as informative as possible. If they didn’t bother to give detailed information about their expenses, credit card accounts, etc. then that shows me that their not concerned with helping lenders make an informed decision.

6. Inadequate income to handle unexpected events.

Make sure that they have enough extra income in their budget to make all their payments and handle any other unexpected expenses that may arise. If their income and expenses barely leave them enough money to pay the minimum on their cards, than they are more likely to have to make some tough decisions and either miss a payment or take on more debt what something unexpected happens.

7. Borrowers who are also lenders.

I find this one hard to understand - borrowers, who claim to have high-interest credit cards, making loans to other people on Prosper…and then using it as a selling point! It’s like saying, “I’m not only a member, I’m the president.” ?????? My feeling is that if you have credit card debt, any money you have should be focused on paying off your own debts. That’s a guaranteed return on your money with 0% risk.

Using these guidelines, I lent about $300 to about 5 different borrowers with an average interest rate of 11.23%. I stayed more towards the conservative side, but even still that’s a lot better than 3% in my savings. I’ll be posting back to report how well my choices turned out and whether or not I picked winners or losers. I’m crossing my fingers for all winners!

Curious about checking it out? Prosper is offering a $25 sign up bonus for lenders after you fund your first loan.

Why you need an ING Direct account

2008-04-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

ING Direct is one of the best high-yield savings accounts out there. I've been a customer with them for years, and have never had a problem with them unlike other banks. Why do I like them so much?

They pay a competitive 2.96% APY.
There are no minimums and no fees.
They link to your current checking account for easy transfers, BUT money is not instantly available (it takes about 2-3 days to transfer to checking) so I'm not tempted to spend it.
They offer automatic savings plans.
Their referral plans allow you to earn extra cash for your savings goals.
They have great customer service. They're always helpful and knowledgeable (unlike some places).
Their website is easy to use.

Really, I can't say anything bad about them, except for the fact that they used to have better rates, which is not necessarily their fault. The days of 5% savings accounts are dead for now so I'll take my 3% and run.

So, if you're still stuck with a low yield savings account, consider signing up with ING Direct using one of the links below. They'll give you $25 just for signing up with an initial deposit of $250, and I'll earn $10 for the referral. Then you can start referring all your friends and earning even more money for your savings goals.

Orange Savings Account Links - Earn 3% with no minimums (remember you must start with $250 to earn $25)

ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus

Electric Orange Savings Account Links - Earn up to 3.4% with more than $100,000

ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus
ING Direct $25 Savings Account Opening Bonus

Don't think you have the money to start on your savings goals? Here are some quick and easy ways to save money fast and get you on your way.

1. Compare auto insurance rates online.
2. Use the library for books, DVDs, CDs, and magazines. Then, sell your old stuff on Half.com.
3. Pack your lunch. Need some inspiration? This is an amazing site with creative, kooky lunchbox ideas.
4. Stop eating fast food. Period.
5. Sign up for a good cash back credit card and earn money for all of your purchases (but don't carry a balance).
6. Buy all your produce at the local farmers market. I end up paying nearly half for my fruits and veggies than I would at the grocery store.
7. Find a carpool buddy.
8. When eating out, share an entree with a friend. When drinking out, stick with beer or wine instead of fancy (and expensive) cocktails.
9. Drive at a slow and steady speed to increase fuel efficiency.
10. Use Freecycle to find items you need for FREE.

Following these tips, you'll easily save $250 in no time. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments and share your experiences with ING Direct.

Oh my dental woes

2008-04-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

My teeth are quickly becoming the bane of my existence and a drain on my wallet. Just a couple weeks ago, I went in to get a root canal and got a temporary crown put in. It hasn't been giving me too many problems...until two days ago when I was eating kettle corn. I looove kettle corn and was chomping away when I hear CRACK. I had accidentally bit into a kernel with my bad tooth. I run to the mirror and check it out, and it looks fine. Whew. I thought for sure I was going to have to go in for another costly dentist visit, but it seemed just fine.

Then last night, I was flossing away while playing Scrabble with my boyfriend. Why I felt so compelled to floss at that moment, I'll never know, but all of a sudden, I look down and see that my tooth is on the floor! There is nothing more humbling then to see your tooth falling out of your mouth (unless you're 5 years old, of course).

The first thing that goes through my mind is, "Crap! That's going to be another $200!" I contemplated going around with a big hole in my mouth and living off a liquid diet for the next 4 days, just so I wouldn't have to pay any more money at the dentist.

Luckily, Recapit came to my rescue and for $5 I was able to cement my tooth back into place. Let's just hope that my teeth stay in my mouth until I go back to the dentist and I don't have to shell out any more cash for my chompers. If my teeth keep this up, I'll never reach my grad school savings goal!

Attending grad school without going broke

2008-04-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

The heat is on to jumpstart my grad school savings. I recently got my financial aid letter and realized that my $1,000 a month savings goal is going to fall drastically short of the actual cost of attending grad school without incurring any more student loan debt.

Now, I realize that student loan debt is not all bad, but I already have $8,000 of student loan debt from my undergraduate studies and I’m not interested in getting any more, especially because the loans that were offered were unsubsidized loans with about 6.8-8.5% interest. It might be worth it if I was going into a high-paying field, but teaching? C’mon!

After doing the math, I realized I’ll need to save at least $2,356 for the next 6 months to cover the estimated annual budget. GULP.

Here’s the breakdown:

Estimated Budget

Registration fees and health insurance $9,645
Books and supplies $1,881
Living expenses $18,411

Total: $29,937

Fellowship ($7,000)
Current savings ($3,000)
*Federal Perkins Loan ($1,800)
**Teach Grant ($4,000)

Total Needed to save $14,137
Total to save each month (6) $2,356

* Interest is 5% and I don’t have to pay interest until 9 months after I graduate.
**This program is new so the details are still fuzzy. I’m 95% sure that I’ll qualify for this federal grant.

Seems nearly impossible for me to accomplish, but I’m sure with a little creativity and hard-work, it can be done. The question is, how does one go about saving $2,400 a month on a small salary?

I'm already living at home to minimize my expenses. It may not be a glamorous life but Grams likes the company and I can save the majority of what I earn. I'm also considering taking on a part-time job for the next couple of months to increase my income. I get home fairly early from my "day job" so I have a good chunk of time in the evenings to take on something extra.

Most of the budget isn't tuition; it's mainly just living expenses. If worse comes to worse, I suppose we could live in a tiny room...but I don't think my boyfriend or the cats would appreciate it. I'd like to avoid eating PB&J and ramen for the next 2 years and avoid a lot of the stress that comes from being dead broke.

Of course, the wheels in my head are spinning trying to come up with more ways to avoid getting into debt again. I’m determined to avoid making the same mistakes I made the first time around. And you know, as I come up with my brilliant schemes, I’ll be posting them here.

Why a Recession is Good for Us

2008-04-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

The media has done a good job worrying us about the future. Sometimes, listening to the news, I convince myself that I should be building a bomb shelter and stockpiling food to deal with the impending world crisis. What with global warming, food shortages, and the upcoming economic collapse, we’re all doomed! Gas is creeping near $4 a gallon. Food is getting more expensive every day. People are filing for foreclosures left and right. Everything seems to be coming together to create a perfect mess.

But actually, when you stop to think of it, these things aren’t so bad after all. In fact, it’s about time these things started to happen.

The way I see it, the economy has been behaving like a teenager who’s just left home for college. At first, they eat all the junk food they want. They get a credit card and buy, buy, buy. They drink and party and stay up late. They think that life is just grand. But then, the consequences set in. They’re fat, broke, and hung over and realize that it’s about time to grow up.

That pretty much sums up how our economy has been behaving for the past 10 years. Now, we’ve got to suck it up, pay the consequences, and work off that Freshman 15! The good news is that once we start getting our act together, we’ll enjoy the benefits of our responsible behavior. Here are just some of the positive effects that I see coming our way.

1. People will get creative.

You know the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Well lately, we haven’t had much necessity. Easy credit has put the world at our fingertips. Now that it’s gone, we’ll just have to get creative to find ways to enjoy the same quality of life that we’re used to. Just think of all the breakthroughs in alternative energy that we’ve made in the past few years. Once we started to feel the burn of high oil costs, people started going to the drawing board to find a solution. Now, we’ve got algae fuel, energy producing knee braces, and revolving doors that produce generate power, among numerous other unthought-of possibilities. I have faith that we’ll pull together to see this thing through and end up with some great innovations as a result.

2. We’ll lose weight.

Food in America has been notoriously cheap and easy. Packaged foods and fast foods provide convenience and so far have been relatively cheap. Now that food is getting more expensive, people may have to get more creative with their eating habits and turn to healthier, inexpensive alternatives like lentils, beans, and other whole foods. Forget the South Beach Diet; try the Recession Diet.

3. People will talk more about money.

Have you noticed that ever since people started buzzing about a recession, people are talking a lot more about money? They’re not bragging about their most recent purchase or that big raise they got (thank god); they’re talking about their problems. People feel more comfortable admitting their mistakes when they think they’re not alone. Who wants to talk about their credit card debt when Sally is gushing about her expensive new sports car? Maybe, people can start coming out of the financial closet and create dialogues about smart money choices. Sharing knowledge is one of the great things about being human - we don’t have to experience something ourselves to learn from it. As people open up, more people will be able to draw upon their experiences to make wiser financial decisions.

4. There will be less traffic.

People think twice about driving their car when gas costs almost $4 per gallon. There will be more people carpooling, taking public transit, and just plain not driving. As a result, there will be fewer cars on the road and less traffic. HALLELUJAH! I’d gladly pay more for gas if it meant sitting in my car for fewer hours. As an added bonus, people will realize that driving like a jerk costs them money. No more people speeding past you on the freeway and driving like maniacs (ok, we can wish right?)

5. We’ll reduce our impact on the environment.

Saving money and helping the environment go hand in hand. Walking instead of driving, turning off unused lights, buying less…all of these things cut back on energy use and make the world a greener place.

The next time you here people complaining about the shrinking economy, don’t fret. Just think about how great life is going to be. You’ll be more creative, look great in your bikini (or speedo) this summer, have some stimulating conversations, spend less time in traffic, and be one with nature. Recessions are great, aren’t they?

When are you going to receive your tax rebate check?

2008-04-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Hooray for May 9th!

That's when I'll be receiving my tax rebate check. That baby is going right into savings. That's right. Unlike the government, I think a healthy economy is based on savings. How else are people going to have the money to invest in capital? Then again, I'm probably preaching to the choir. :)

Do you know when you're going to receive your check? Are you counting down the days?

In case you're curious, here's the estimated schedule from Money.com:

Direct deposit payment
If last 2 digits of your SS# are:	Your rebate should be sent by:
00-20	May 2
21-75	May 9
76-99	May 16

Paper check
If last 2 digits of your SS# are:	Your rebate should be sent by:
00-09	May 16
10-18	May 23
19-25	May 30
26-38	June 6
39-51	June 13
52-63	June 20
64-75	June 27
76-87	July 4
88-99	July 11

Let's hope you're not getting your refund by check and your social security number doesn't end in 88-99. :)

Debt Mind Trap #5: You think shopping is a hobby.

2008-04-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

Friend A: What do you want to do today?

Friend B: I don’t know. What do you want to do?

Friend A: Hmmm…I don’t know. We could go to the mall?

Friend B: I guess. There’s nothing else to do.

Ok, so Friend A and Friend B might be kind of boring people, but I’m sure this sounds vaguely familiar. You don’t know what else to do, so you just go shopping. There are countless “entertainment centers” with little else to do but shop and eat. You walk around. Browse the shops. Buy an overpriced pretzel, coffee, or cheese-thing-on-a-stick. It’s all very uninspiring, but it passes the time.

Even if you don’t buy something, it’s still a dangerous habit. Just by sheer proximity you are increasing your chances of spending money on something you don’t need. You may be able to escape without buying something the first time, but window shopping plants little seeds of discontent. Even I find things that I didn’t know I needed until I saw them at the store. Yes, I neeeeeed that fancy garden tool. I didn’t know it existed before now, but I NEED it. J

There are tons of other things to do if you just do a little research. I love Yelp to find free events and festivals nearby. Make a list of all the things you’ve ever wanted to do and when you get stuck you can just refer to your list for inspiration. The world is a big place, full of possibilities. Don’t waste your life in a mall!

So there you have it - the 5 Debt Mind Traps to avoid. If you can recognize these thought patterns before you swipe the credit card, you're ahead of the game. Stop and acknowledge your thoughts for what they are - a road block on your path to financial freedom. Then you will feel more empowered to make better decisions and stop the cycle of credit card debt.

Debt Mind Trap #4: You think spending money will improve your life.

2008-04-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

If only I had…

…a more professional wardrobe, I would be taken more seriously at work.

…new workout clothes, I would go to the gym.

…a faster computer, I could get started with that new project.

…this storage unit, I would never lose things.

…an expensive new haircut, I would feel more confident.

…an exotic vacation, I would feel relaxed.

This list could go on and on with things that we think we could buy to improve our lives. Some of these things might accomplish their intended goal, but most likely, you could’ve accomplished the goal without spending the money. New gym clothes might motivate you to go to the gym, but you very well could’ve gone to the gym without them.

What is more likely to happen though, is that buying these things only serve as a quick-fix to a bigger problem. The new gym clothes might get you to the gym one or two times, but once they are not so new, the appeal is gone and you’re not going to the gym anymore. The new haircut might make you feel good for a while, but once everyone has gushed over how great it looks, you’re back to feeling the same way you did before you got the haircut. The exotic vacation might give you a temporary energy boost, but after a few weeks, you’re feeling stressed and worn out again.

Spending money on things is only a superficial solution. If you really want to make changes in your life, look to the root of the problem, and start there. Most likely, you won’t have to swipe your credit card to solve the problem.

$25 Bonus for signing up with Revolution Money Exchange

2008-04-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of Revolution Money Exchange? Ya, neither had I until today.

Apparently, they're trying to compete with Paypal in the money exchange business. To get the word out, they're offering a $25 sign up bonus for new customers.

I checked out their website and they look pretty legit. Their accounts are FDIC insured and there are no fees for sending or receiving money. This would make it super easy to pay a friend back, pay your portion of the rent to your roommate, or pay on Ebay, of course.

The sign up only took about 2 minutes and voila, there was the $25 credit in my account. Plus, as an added bonus they're giving $10 for each person you refer.

If you sign up using the graphic below, you'll receive the $25 sign up bonus and I'll receive the $10 referral bonus. Nice! But don't delay because the offer ends April 15th.

This and That: My Week in Review

2008-04-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to report that the sun is shining here in Cali and my garden is thriving! The zucchinis, bell peppers, and eggplant already have little fruit growing on them. Yay! I had to replant them from their containers because they were just getting too big. I was this close to going out and buying some wood to build a box to put them in so that the dogs wouldn't trample them, but that would mean breaking the 100 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge! No way was that going to happen! :)

Thankfully, my dad is a notorious pack-rat. He has oodles of crap lying around, which used to annoy me, but really helps me now because if I need something, he usually already has it. For example, I needed a power strip. He had them. I needed some containers for my garden. He had tons of them. Now, that I needed something to build a garden enclosure, of course, he had everything we needed.

The solution was to simply put up four posts and encircle it with chicken wire. The open end very nicely wraps around the corner so that it easily opens and closes like a door. Total cost: $0.00! Here's the end result:

And here are the zucchinis (if you squint real hard you can see them):

And a baby little eggplant:

Rising food costs won't get me! Growing food is economical and strangely satisfying. I guess I'm just a farmer at heart.

Yesterday, I made it to the Farmer's Market. I ended up scoring a bag of spinach and a bag of lettuce for just $2. Not a bad deal. At the grocery store I probably would've paid three times that much, and by buying at the Farmer's Market, I'm supporting local farmers. Hooray! PLUS, while I was there, the county public health department was there giving away free energy efficient light bulbs. It was a very productive trip.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. Check back tomorrow; I'll be posting DMT #4!

Debt Mind Trap #3: You think that you are too busy to manage your finances

2008-04-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

The mail comes and it’s just one bill after another. You look at the pile of bills and feel overwhelmed and exhausted just thinking about it. There’s no possible way you could sort it all right now. Later, you’ll put aside some time to tackle it head on. The only problem is, later is too late. By the time you’ve gotten around to the huge pile of bills, you find that some of them are already past due. Oops!

This hurts you in more ways than one. Not only do you end up having to pay late fees, which is annoying enough, but you also hurt your credit score and cause your interest rates to sky rocket. Some credit card companies have a universal default policy, meaning that if you are late on a payment with any of your creditors, they can raise your interest rate to a default rate, as high as 29.99% or even higher. Just by being late on one bill, you may end up with higher interest rates on ALL of your credit cards.

So, let’s do the math to see how much this could end up costing you. Let’s imagine that you have $5,000 in credit card debt at a decent 12% APR. If you pay the minimum payment, you will end up paying $2,500 in interest. Now, let’s imagine that you start off with the same $5,000, but your interest rate is 23%. If you pay the minimum, you’ll end up paying $8,833 in interest. That’s a heck of a lot more money that could’ve been saved if you were able to get a better interest rate.

Those bills may seem like a headache you want to avoid now, but in the long run you’re only prolonging your misery. When you’re in an unpleasant situation, sometimes it’s easier to avoid the problem than it is to face the music. Of course, this doesn’t accomplish anything except making the problem worse. The debt is not going to just go away if you don’t open the bill. The best thing to do is face your fears, get organized, and stay on top of your bills like your life depended on it!

Debt Mind Trap #2: You think you deserve it.

2008-04-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

After a long week of work, you’ve decided to stop by the mall for some “window shopping.” While you’re there, you see a pair of shoes that you think would look great on you. You decide to buy them as a reward for your long week at work. After all, you deserve it, right? WRONG.

We all like to treat ourselves from time to time, but it’s not a treat if you’ve got to put it on a credit card. Those amazing shoes may seem like a reward now, but in the long run they are more of a punishment. The temporary joy of having something new will pale in comparison to the long, drawn out struggle you’ll have with your bills later.

How do we avoid DMT #2? We must learn to deny ourselves from time to time. Somehow, our culture of consumption has convinced us that we deserve, maybe even have a right, to have nice things. We’ve forgotten that sometimes, life is tough and we have to “do without.” Remember, a new pair of shoes might seem nice now, but being debt free is even nicer!

Debt Mind Traps: How We Get Ourselves Into Debt

2008-04-09T17:06:00.000-07:00

I would venture to say that most people, if given the chance to choose between having credit card debt or not, would choose to not have credit card debt. No one really wants to pay interest or have debt collectors calling all the time. Why is it then, that so many of us end up struggling to pay off credit cards?

Of course, you could just be unlucky and have some unfortunate, catastrophic event happen to you. Most likely though, it wasn't one big thing; it was many little things that added up to what now equals a hefty credit card bill. You might not have even noticed it happening. A pair of shoes here. A trip to the grocery store. A medical bill. Slowly the bill just kept getting bigger and bigger until one day, you realized that you were thousands of dollars in credit card debt and you're left asking yourself, "What happened?"

So what DID happen? I'll tell you. You have fallen victim to the costly set of "Debt Mind Traps" that caused you to make bad financial decisions. The good news? Recognizing these psychological patterns, or what I'll call "Debt Mind Traps," will allow you to break free of the cycle of credit card debt.

Over the next few days I'll cover some of these DMTs and how to change your thought process so that you'll be one step closer to financial freedom. After all, paying off the debt is only one step of the process. In order to make sure that you never end up in debt again, you've got to change how you think too.

Debt Mind Trap #1: You think you’ll have the money later to pay off your debts easily.

You’ve convinced yourself that someday soon you’ll have the money to pay for the stuff that you want now. Maybe you think you’ll be receiving a raise, a tax refund, a bonus, or any other cash windfall, or you’re just waiting for the next paycheck. Whatever it is, you figure that being broke is temporary, and that soon, you’ll be rolling in the dough.

Unless you’re Miss Cleo, you shouldn’t be predicting the future. Any number of things can conspire to come between you and your money. Instead of getting a raise, you may be given a pink slip. They may find an error in your taxes that causes you to owe money instead of getting money back. Anything could happen.

Even if you’re 100% certain that you’re going to receive the money, you should still exercise caution and wait until that money is sitting safely in your account. Why? First of all, unexpected expenses may pop up that will cut into your discretionary spending. You may have thought twice about buying those new shoes if you knew that you were going to have to spend $500 on a car repair. Second, by the time you’ve received the money, you’ve probably already thought of a million other ways to spend the money and the last thing you’ll want to spend it on is your credit card bill!

Follow the golden rule of finance - don't spend more then you have and you'll never end up in debt.

Debt Mind Trap #2
Debt Mind Trap #3
Debt Mind Trap #4
Debt Mind Trap #5

Free coffee at Starbucks tomorrow

2008-04-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Starbucks will be giving away 8 oz. cups of their new brew, the Pike Place Roast, for 30 minutes tomorrow, April 8, starting at 9 a.m. PST. So go get your Free Jamba Juice then get your free coffee! What a glorious day!

Who knew there were so many ways to count money

2008-04-07T17:50:00.001-07:00

How People Count Cash? - video powered by Metacafe

Get the most out of your gym membership

2008-04-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

One of the most important money saving tips to follow is to stay healthy. Exercising regularly can help you avoid many costly health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. While some may decide to go-it-alone and exercise without a gym membership, others may decide to spend a considerable amount of cash to get them on track to their fitness goals. The most obvious way to get the most out of your gym membership is to go often, but here are a few other ways to take advantage of your gym membership.

Take showers at the gym.

After a long, hard workout, you’re most likely in need of a shower. Since you’re already there, why not take advantage of the free shower facilities at the gym? Sure, you might have to look at a few old ladies/men walking around naked, but your water bill thank you for the sacrifice. If you figure that the average 10 minute shower costs $1.12 for water and heating costs, taking a shower every day at the gym would save you $33.60. That might even be enough to pay for the gym membership itself!

Take advantage of group exercise classes.

Usually, you can get a much more effective and comprehensive workout if you attend one of the instructor-led group exercise classes. The classes are usually designed to target all the major muscle groups and pace you to optimize your heart rate. One hour group classes give you much more calorie-burning power than say, one hour on the treadmill. Plus, there is accountability. You’ll feel motivated to keep going because you see a whole class full of other people working through it.

See if your gym card can get you discounts.

Some gyms offer perks programs for their members. 24 Hour Fitness, for example, offers discounts for car rentals, flower delivery, airline reservations, and more. Check with your gym to see if they offer something similar.

Catch your favorite TV program at the gym.

Stop being a couch potato; be a gym potato. Whether you watch Desperate Housewives, Jeopardy, or CNN, you can probably watch it at the gym. If the TVs aren’t tuned to the right channel, don’t be afraid to ask someone to change it for you. Time your gym visits to coincide with your favorite TV program and you’ll never have to turn on your TV again! Ok, maybe not, but if you’re going to watch TV, you might as well do it on someone else’s dime.

Utilize the facilities.

Gyms offer a lot more than just treadmills and weight machines. Most often they also have steam rooms, saunas, and/or hot tubs (not all locations always offer the same facilities so if you have a multi-gym membership, check nearby locations to see what facilities they have to offer) . Steam rooms and saunas can be great for opening up pores, increasing circulation, and just plain relaxing so, instead of paying an arm and a leg at the spa, grab your loofah and exfoliating masks and head down to the gym for a little DIY spa action.

Hang out with a friend.

Instead of going out to dinner or catching a movie, hang out with friends at the gym. Some gyms have basketball courts, racquetball courts, swimming pools, and many other facilities that can be used for group recreation. If your friends don’t have a membership, gyms are often very willing to give out free passes to friends.

Network.

Most likely, the people working out at the gym next to you are members of your community. They could be a dry cleaner, a restaurant owner, a landscaper, or something closely related to your field. Don’t be afraid to chat with people. It may be difficult if they have an iPod stuck in their ear, but most people are just as bored at the gym as you are. Offer to alternate sets on the weight machines or meet the people in your group exercise class. Having friends at the gym will not only make your workouts more enjoyable, but it could offer you opportunities to swap services with the people in your community.

Use the trainers.

The trainers will do a lot of things for you for free…in hopes that one day you’ll sign up for training sessions. Take advantage of this. They can offer a range of free services like training sessions to show you how to use the gym equipment, fitness assessment, body fat analysis, nutrition counseling, and goal management. Check with a trainer to see what services they’re willing to provide to you.

Don't forget to take the new poll before you go! I'm curious to see how many people have a gym membership.

This and That

2008-04-05T11:28:00.001-07:00

Today is Day #33 of the "Buy Nothing (New) Challenge" and I have to say that I haven't struggled much at all. The one thing that I've been itching to buy is potting soil. I know it sounds silly...33 days and the one thing I want to buy is dirt, BUT, it is springtime and the dirt in my backyard is just not cutting it for my seedlings. I attempted to grow some seedlings using an egg carton and some compost but unfortunately, I think the compost was too thick for the little seeds to flourish. I may try to re-pot some of my existing plants to get some of the soil out from them or just try the regular ol' dirt and see what happens.

I'm off to another buy-nothing weekend. I'm taking a friend out for her birthday tonight; I figure I'll buy her a drink or two in place of a gift. Have a happy weekend everyone!

Here's a roundup of my favorite stuff from the web this week:

Who knew coffee grounds were so useful?

Mmmm, yum! These look like they'd be mighty tasty, and if you wrapped them up right might make a good home-made present.

This might not be very useful in California since it hardly ever rains here, but here's an idea: Collect rain water in a barrel to use in your garden and reduce your water bill.

Cellfire sends coupons to your cell phone so you'll never leave a coupon at home.

American Express is giving away four free movie or museum tickets if you make a purchase at one of their sponsored retailers. Not a bad deal if you have a Del Taco near you! I figured you could buy 3, 29 cent tacos and you'd end up with the four movie/museum tickets for only 90 cents! Too bad I don't have an AMEX card...grrr.

Free 2 Be Frugal has posted a few Earth Day deals. Walmart is giving away re-usable shopping bags and so is Macy's.

Here's a cool idea (snickers at the unintended pun): a refrigerator that uses no electricity!

Being Frugal has posted a huge compilation of tips (168 to be exact) on how to stretch a dollar.

Think Your Way to Wealth has a very funny post on "Ways to Aggravate Your Spouse With Your Frugality." I particularly like #7 and #5.

If it's not one thing...

2008-04-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sigh. I spent 3 hours at the dentist this morning finishing up a root canal and a cavity. I never hated the dentist...until now. It's not that the dentist was bad necessarily. Actually, he was quite good. There is just something wholly unpleasant about spending hours in a chair, drooling on yourself while someone is drilling and poking and prodding in your mouth.

Today wasn't my first trip to the dentist. In the past two weeks, I've spent close to 7 hours in the dentist's office for one root canal and one cavity and I'm not done yet. I still have to go back in a couple weeks to have my permanent crown put on.

All in all, I've shelled out about $750 cash and had to take three days off of work (as a substitute teacher you don't get any sick days). Thankfully, I have some savings so it doesn't throw me back in the debt loop, but it sure does complicate my savings goals. The combination of cash outlay and loss of income makes this quite a significant financial event.

It just seems, if it's not one thing then it's another. Car repairs, medical expenses, graduation school fees...I can't get a break. Once I start making some financial headway, I get blasted with a major unexpected expense. I guess I'm doing alright considering I still have a bit of a cushion and I don't have any credit card debt, but will this ever end?

How good are you at the stock game?

2008-04-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Want to see how well you'd do in the (fake) stock market? Check your instincts over at Inspectd and see how much fake cash you can rake in.

How does it work? You start off with $100,000 imaginary buck-a-roos to play with in the stock market. They show you a random chart of a company's stock and you have to decide whether to buy, sell, or hold. If you make the right decisions, your account will grow. If not, you'll have lost your $100,000 smackers in no time.

So how did I do? In about 5 minutes I was up $99,397. Not too shabby. Actually, only about two decisions greatly affected my account value. I made one bad decision and lost a whoppin' $30,000 because I bought instead of sold. I thought I was done for, but then I made $100,000 for buying instead of selling. Goes to show that just one decision on the stock can have a great impact (if you are playing with $100,000 fake money).

How to Beat the Stress of Debt

2008-04-02T11:46:00.001-07:00

Let's face it. Having debt can cause a lot of stress. I had a lot of anxious days and sleepless nights when I was in debt. You may be late on your payments, stuck in a dead-end job, or have bill collectors hounding you day and night. Whatever situation you're in, debt is not fun (I know!) Here are some suggestions to help you keep your cool and stay focused as you work towards paying off your debt.

1. Take action

Having a mountain of debt can make you feel powerless. You feel like you have no control over your life because that debt is holding you back from what you really want to do. Those feelings of powerlessness don’t help you at all. When you start feeling overwhelmed and helpless, remember who’s in charge. You! Don’t resign yourself to inaction.

What can you do? First, you can educate yourself. If you’re reading this, then you’re already on your way. Read lots of blogs to find support and ideas. M int.edu has a great resource of 30 e-books on personal finance. Then, go to the library and browse the personal finance section. There are lots of free resources out there, so there is no need to go out and buy new books (that’ll just create more debt!)

Second, find ways to increase your income. Think about asking for a raise. Look around at the stuff you have and decide if there are things you can sell. DVDs, books, and CDs are all very easy to sell on either Amazon.com or Half.com. Get creative and find a way to make something and sell it. Etsy is a great place for crafters to sell their products. Or maybe you can even take on a part-time job. If you’re spending all your time working, you won’t have the time to be spending any money!

Third, get serious about cutting back. You’ll be surprised at all the things you can get rid of and still be happy. Cable, Netflix, TiVo, eating out - these are all luxuries that can be cut out to aid in your debt reduction.

2. Find inspiration

Paying off debt can be a long, arduous process. There are going to be times when you feel like giving up or cheating a little bit. When I was struggling with debt, I worked at a job I hated, just so I could pay off the debt faster. Some days I felt like quitting then and there, but I knew there was a bigger goal I was working towards. When I felt down, I thought about my long-term goals like owning a chateau. It may sound silly, but it was a really fun goal to have. I had a picture of my dream chateau on my desktop so that when I turned on my computer I was reminded of what I was working towards. If I started getting frustrated, I would take a break and look at chateaux for sale. Usually, my spirits would be renewed and I felt motivated to stay on track. Find what works for you. It could be a yacht, a dream vacation, a fancy car, or the freedom to work at a job you love. Your imagination is your only limit.

3. Find support.

I owe a lot of my success of paying off my debt to this blog. Before I started this blog, I felt self-conscious and embarrassed talking about money problems. In our culture, talking about money problems is a sign of weakness, so it makes it difficult to find support. Most people get uncomfortable when you start talking about being on a budget, probably because they don’t want to think about how they themselves should be saving money too. They want to keep you down with them.

Try to stay away from those people who encourage your bad habits and surround yourself with like-minded individuals, or have a buddy that you can call when you are feeling tempted. Think of it as a Shoppers Anonymous sponsor. Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes. The more we start opening up about money, the better off we’ll all be because we can learn from each other’s mistakes and successes.

4. Replace old habits with new ones.

They say that once you break an addiction, you usually replace it with another one. If you were addicted to shopping, make sure that the old addiction isn’t replaced with another bad habit that’s going to cause you even more stress (eating, smoking, etc). Try to find a constructive activity that you can participate in when you are feeling stressed or have an urge to shop.

One great stress relieving activity is exercise. I know, I know. That’s probably not what you had in mind, but it can be very satisfying when you get into the habit. Take a walk. Play tennis (but don’t buy any new tennis rackets). Join a community sports team. Getting out and being active will not only relieve stress, but keep your mind active so you’re not worrying about your debt all the time.

5. Remember, it’s all temporary.

It’s easy to let the debt rule your life. It’s important to remember that this is only one chapter in your life that will soon be over. Don’t let yourself identify with what you don’t have and what you didn't do right. It's easy to beat yourself up for not making better decisions in the past. Concentrate on all the things that you do have and the fact that you're doing the right thing now. Write a list of all the things that you are thankful for. Maybe it’s your health. A loving family. Faith. A really cute cat (like my Isabelle). There are many people in the world who don't have these things, so consider yourself lucky.

Whether your debt is going to take 1 year or 10 years to repay, stay strong and focused throughout the journey. The important thing is that you are taking positive measures to increase your financial health and the habits you develop during your debt defying years will stay with you long after your debt is repaid. Learn from your mistakes and keep your eyes towards the future and you'll be at the finish line before you know it.

Free Breakfast Day at Jamba Juice

2008-04-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

When: April 8th from 6-11 a.m.
Where: Your local Jamba Juice
What: Jamba Juice is giving away free breakfast drinks to promote the new Breakfast Line they have.

The Breakfast Menu:
Juicies:
Orange Carrot Bannana: consists of orange juice, carrot juice, and bannanas, and ice.
Orange Mango Passion: consists of orange juice, mango passion juice, and mangos and ice.

Yogurts Blends
Sunrise Strawberry: consists of soymilk, plain yogurt, strawberries, and bannanas
Bright eyed and Blueberry: consists of soymilk, plain yogurt, strawberries, and blueberries.

Toppers
Berry Topper: consists of soymilk, vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, and bannanas with organic granola on top. eaten with a spoon.
Mango Peach Topper: consists of soymilk, vanilla yogurt, mangos, peaches, and bannanas with organic granola on top. eaten with a spoon.

Chunkey Strawberry: consists of soymilk, natural peanut butter, organic granola, plain yogurt, strawberries, and bannanas, with fresh cut bannanas on top. eaten with a spoon.

Juices:
fresh squeezed orange juice
fresh squeezed carrot juice

Money saving tips from a dirty hippie

2008-04-01T07:11:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! Today's post comes from a guest blogger, The Dirty Hippie. Enjoy!

Hey all you cool cats. Here’s a list of far out tips to help you save your dough. You dig?

1. Go au natural

There’s a conspiracy, man. A conspiracy that is taking us away from our natural selves. Why fight what nature intended? Nature didn't intend for us to smell like Teen Spirit. All of these “beauty” products are designed to make us feel inadequate so that we spend huge wads of cash to fit in. Fight the power! Ditch your razors and let your hair grow free. Hairy pits are sexy! Chicas – keep it real! Stop wearing make-up,and let your real beauty shine through. No need to spend money on complicated chemicals. Nature gives us everything we need – a little patchouli, some aloe, and you’re set!

2. Eat your veggies man

Mother Nature provides us a wonderful bounty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. There is no need to harm poor, fuzzy creatures for food. Besides, meat costs a lot of dough, dude. By going veggie, you can totally cut back on your budget.

3. Become one with nature

Nature is like the gift that keeps on giving. Why pay $10 to go to the movies when you’ve got nature’s entire playground laid out in front of you for free. Think about it dudes. The ocean is like a fantastical swimming pool. The mountains are a wonderland of trees. The desert is a vast valley of contemplation. The only thing that Mother Nature asks of you in return is for your respect. That’s a groovy bargain if you ask me.

4. Chill out dude

Stress is totally gnarly. There’s no reason to get your panties all in a ruffle. Just let what will be, be. Hang looooose. You don’t want stress to bite you in the end with high medical bills cuz you got a stroke or something, do ya dude? Take a chill pill and just….reeelaaaax. Yaaaaaa.

5. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The three R’s totally rock my world. It’s like the proverb says, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Profound stuff. Profound stuff that will save you money.

6. Find your passion

That’s the reason we’re alive. The quest for passion and meaning in life. Don’t be one of those people who hate their job – workin’ to live, not livin’ to work. That’s no way to be man! Those who are truly successful in life have found their passion. Money follows after.

7. Unleash your inner creative beast.

The revolution is all in your mind. Creativity is your only true commodity. Don’t work for the man. Let the man work for you. Write. Invent. Paint. Play. That’s where the true money is.

8. Kill your TV!

The late, great Jim Morrison told us that we are ruled by our TV. And that was back when TV was free. Now, people pay to have their minds warped. Do yourself a favor and turn it off! Chuck the thing! There’s lots of other things you should be doing like going to a drum circle or hugging a tree that don’t cost a thing.

9. Practice free love

Karma can be a….well, let’s just say you don’t want to mess around with karma. Give love and receive love. Give money and receive money. If a friend needs to crash at your pad, let them. One day you may need a place to crash and karma will be on your side. It’s all one big, happy karma loop.

10. Happy April Fool’s Day!

Energy Saving Dishwasher

2008-03-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

This was too funny not to post. I know we have two dogs at home who would love to have this position.

Source: Green Upgrader

Spreading the Frugaliness

2008-03-31T15:00:00.001-07:00

N. Fru-ga-li-ness. The condition of being frugal.

Frugaliness is contagious and I'm spreading the word.

I started off with my niece. I planned a frugalicious day with my niece making recycled paper with my new/old free blender. My niece loved it because she could put her hands in ooky gooky paper goop and I loved it because it didn't cost any money! Here is the list of materials that we needed and how we acquired them:

- blender (Freecycle)
- paper (credit card offers from the mail)
- old window screen (neighbor had some that they didn't need)
- frame (used some old picture frames I had lying around)
- blotting cloth (opted to use newspaper instead)
- glue (had some lying around)
- bucket or tub (used the one that we use for mopping)
- flowers (picked from the backyard)

A little resourcefulness and creativity and we had a free Saturday afternoon activity. Unfortunately, the paper didn't turn out like we'd hoped, but I think with a little practice we can get better and it was a good lesson that you don't have to spend money to have fun.

When my niece came over, we gave her the check that she received in the mail from a class action settlement with Merrill Lynch. When she was a baby, my grandma had opened an investment account for her so she was eligible to receive a portion of the settlement. Since then the account has been closed, but man, was she ever excited about receiving her VERY FIRST check. She started brainstorming all the ways she could spend her $18.33. Then she asked, "Does this mean I can get a credit card now?"

I thought it was a good time to bring up the concept of saving and the importance of having a savings account. She is 8 after all and you can never get started too early. I told her she should open a bank account and start saving her money so that she'd have money for college. I told her that they would actually pay her to keep her money in the bank and that she could make her money grow even bigger if she kept it in long enough. She didn't seem too impressed by this but she did seem excited to have an account in her name.

It got me thinking though that we really should be talking more about money with her and that we need to get our act together and start saving for her college. If I was a good Auntie, I would've been doing this a long time ago! So I figured I better set up an account for her graduation gift and start depositing money every month so that she'll be better set for college.

She must really think I'm crazy. Driving around finding free blenders. Making her SAVE her money for college. Then when we were grocery shopping (at Fresh and Easy), I wouldn't let her buy any mangoes because they weren't on sale. I told her I only bought fruits and vegetables on sale! Haha. Why buy 2 mangoes for $4 when you can get 8 plums for only $1.50? I just hope that some of my frugaliness with rub off on her.

I also had the opportunity to pass on some frugaliness to my grandma. I got a $25 check for my student loans in the mail from my rewards card. I showed it to my grandma and she asked me how I got it. I told her that I earn points or cash back from my credit cards and she was a little perturbed because she didn't earn anything on her card. So we called her credit card company and got her set up with a card that'll earn her 1-3% cash back on her purchases. I wish I'd known sooner so she could've been earning money all along!

It just goes to show that talking about money could save you or your loved ones money and spread the frugaliness all around!

Freebie: Emergen-C

2008-03-30T11:46:00.001-07:00

Sniff sniff. Cough cough. It's official. I have a cold. Bummer.

But I found a link to some free Emergen-C. Just click on the "Share the Good" link and you can send it to yourself or anyone else you'd like. Too bad I didn't have this a couple days ago!

Tonight's Jackpot: Health Insurance

2008-03-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

Oregon's Healthcare Lottery

Oregon has come up with a new way to handle the health care problem in their state. They're giving away 10,000 spaces in the state's health care plan. The catch? You only have a 1 in 9 chance of being chosen in the lottery - only 10,000 of the 90,000 who applied are going to be randomly chosen.

I must say I really feel for those without health insurance - mainly because only a month ago I was one of them. In Thailand I didn't need health insurance because they had such a great health care system. They had state of the art facilities and Western-educated doctors, all at an affordable price. Medicine was cheap too. When I needed antibiotics, they were less than $1 without health insurance. I must admit that part of me was scared to come back to the States because I knew I didn't have health care.

I went for months without health care because I was only working part-time. I always felt like I was gambling by not having health insurance because if anything happened to me, I could end up in just as much debt as I started with, if not more.

I shopped around for health insurance but man, was it expensive! The best I could find was something like $70 a month, but that only bought me a $5,000 deductible with 60-70% coverage after the deductible was met. And that didn't even include prescription drugs!

Luckily, I was able to be added on to my boyfriend's plan as a domestic partner. I finally got around to going to the dentist and found out that I had to have a root canal done. If they had been able to catch it a few months earlier, it would've only been a cavity, but a few months earlier I didn't have health insurance. A lesson to myself that maybe it doesn't always pay to try to save a few bucks.

I'm curious to see how the recent unemployment rates are going to affect people's health coverage. The way that health insurance is linked to employment seems to put those people who are unemployed, self-employed, or only working part-time at a much higher risk.

This and That...Some Random Findings from the Net

2008-03-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

Good news in the 100 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge. My search for a blender has almost ended. I posted a wanted ad on Freecycle for a blender on Wednesday and someone replied. I'm going to go pick it up today, so my recycled paper adventures can begin!

Here's a sampling of my random favorites from the Net this week:

Asset Gatherer talks about their experience with Prosper. I was thinking of funding a few loans, but after reading this post, I think I may reconsider.

Free chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot. Mmmmm. Nom nom nom.

Tricia over at Blogging Away Debt has reached another milestone. She's under $13,000 of debt! Congrats!

Some interesting tips from the Nursing Online Database on health habits that can save you money.

Don't forget to turn off your lights at 8 p.m. (your local time) tonight to support Earth Hour US.

U.S. Oil consumption in January was at it's lowest point in 3 years. High gas prices are finally pushing us towards conservation.

I love free audio content and Frugal for Life posts a great list of audio resources.

Free 2 Be Frugal posts an offer for 20 free prints from Target. Too bad I already have an account.

Mapgirl struggles with eating single. Ok, so she doesn't put it that way, but I totally sympathize with not being able to finish all the food you buy if you are just one person. So what does she do? She gets creative and makes soup!

How much do I love these re-purposing ideas for CD cases over at Green Upgrader? I especially love the bagel sandwich holder. Hahaha.

I love surfing blogs again! I hope everyone has a super great weekend. I'm off to pick up my blender!

Our Tax Dollars (Inefficiently) at Work

2008-03-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, and I should be relieved that it's the weekend after 3 days of substituting for crayon-eating kindergarteners. Bless their little hearts; they are cute but they have way too much energy for me.

Instead of being excited about the weekend, I am perturbed about the gross inefficiencies of the Los Angeles Unified School District. These people just can't seem to do anything right.

As I'm leaving for the weekend, the school office casually mentions, "Oh, you may not get paid this month for your time because we're not sure what fund we should take it out of."

I was a little shocked that they were just getting around to putting in our hours because they had known for weeks that we were coming AND we had been working there for the past three days. How is it that they only realize that they don't know how to bill us an hour before the cut-off time? I tried to explain to the lady that it is highly unprofessional to have three days pay held back and her response was, "Well, you shouldn't be cutting yourself so close."

That was just the icing on the cake for me. Somehow, it ends up being MY fault for wanting to receive MY money in the pay period that I earned it. WTF?

It's not that I need the money. It's just that I am routinely receiving portions of my paycheck late because people are not doing their jobs right. Last month, I had to wait an extra 2 weeks to receive 2 days of pay because someone "forgot" to enter in my days. Right now, I just looked at which schools have put in my time for this month and I am missing 5 days (3 from the school I just mentioned)! That is a full week of pay that I'll have to wait to get paid for.

The funny thing about it is that this happens so often that they have to have a whole different pay cycle called the "off-cycle" pay. The "off-cycle" pay is an entire pay cycle devoted to paying the days that were not entered in correctly the first time. That means that they have to waste time and tax-payer money just to go back and fix what they couldn't get right the first time. How inefficient is that?

This is just one of many examples of how our tax dollars are being wasted at a time when they are threatening to lay-off teachers and cut back government services. Why is it that the first thing they look to cut is teacher's jobs? Why can't they re-evaluate the complicated bureaucratic system that eats up a good portion of the budget? What about the $35 million they had to spend to repair the payroll system that ended up causing more problems than it solved? What about that lady that is always looking at cute kitty pictures and shopping online when I'm trying to get some paperwork processed? Surely they can find a better way to solve the budget crisis than by laying off teachers.

Now that there is talk of recession and the economy is suffering, shouldn't we be pushing our government to tighten the belt and start making wise decisions about our money. What we need are a few good frugal men and women in politics. I'd like to see them get in there and apply those penny-pinching efficiency strategies in some of those government offices. It'd be awesome to have a coupon-clipping president! Any bloggers interested in running for office? I'll totally vote for you! :)

An Ode to a Grocery Store

2008-03-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

Fresh and Easy, you are no average grocery store. You stole my heart from the first time I walked through your doors. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. You generously bestow me with $5 off coupons. It started off with one lonely $5 off coupon, but you would not leave me wanting for more. No. Instead, once I used my first coupon you gave me a whole booklet full of them - one for each week for the next four weeks. Not content to give me just one set of coupons, the next time I came, you gave me another one! Your love just kept giving and giving. Alas, our four week fling was soon coming to a close. I mourned the loss of the coupons that was a symbol of our love. But just as before, you renewed your vows and gave me a whole new set of coupons for another 4 weeks! Now that is true love!

2. You know what I like. Sometimes I wonder if you can read my mind. Maybe you're just paying attention. Whatever it is, you always seem to have what I want. Lots of fresh produce. Rice pudding. Whole wheat pizza dough. A nice selection of organic products. You really are a thoughtful grocery store.

3. You respect my checkbook.

As if the $5 coupons weren't enough, you also have super low prices. I especially love that I can always find a good deal on fruits and veggies because you reduce the price substantially on produce that has an upcoming expiry date. That shows that you respect my hard-earned cash, and we all know how important respect is in a relationship.

4. We share the same values.

I get the feeling that we could talk for hours and hours...if you were human. We see eye to eye on issues like the environment and labor policy. Most of your foods are only made with no artificial colors, flavors, or trans fats because we both care about health. You carry local products because we care about our economy. You encourage people to use reusable bags because we both hate plastic bags. You pay your employees a decent wage and give decent benefits because that's the right thing to do. And your stores are energy efficient because we care about the environment. It's almost like we were made for each other!

5. Our love is easy.

You make it so convenient for me to love you. Big aisles. Self-checkout. Uncomplicated product selection. Plus, you're so close I could (and have) walked to your store. It's so easy, I almost feel guilty.

This is why I must declare my love for you from the highest mountain (or at least my blog). My love is not jealous and I hope that everyone will have a chance to share in our love affair!

*P.S. I wasn't paid anything to write this. I just have an unnatural love for grocery stores.

Things I Learned About Money from the Thais

2008-03-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Attitudes about money in Thailand and America are not all that different. I think we'd all agree that it's good to have it and we'd like to have more of it. I must say though that living in Thailand taught me (or at least reinforced) a few lessons on money. Here are a few of my reflections on money from my experiences in Thailand.

1. It’s only worth what someone will pay for it.

Forget price tags in Thailand. Prices are “liquid,” meaning that they can change the price whenever they want. If it’s the end of a slow day, you are more likely to get a better deal. Then again, if you are a “farang,” you’re more likely to get charged 5 times more than a local. You’ve got to be willing to practice the art of haggling; the buyer starts low while the seller starts high. Hopefully, you can meet somewhere in the middle. Then again, I’ve seen some tourists get totally taken by a merchant. They start at such a high price that by the time you’ve gotten them to drop their price in half, you are still paying double what a local would pay for the item. It just goes to show that prices are relative. Only pay what the item is worth to you and you’ll limit the amount of buyer’s remorse you feel.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask people how much they paid for something.

One of the most popular questions asked in Thailand is “How much did you pay for that?” Practically everything I had, they asked me how much I paid for it. “Nice bag. How much? 500 baht! Ohhh too much!” “New phone? How much? Oh really, you paid that much?” At first, I was really put off by this. I thought they were trying to size me up or something. It didn’t help that they were usually telling me I overpaid for stuff. It got me thinking though. In a market where prices are liquid, one HAS to ask how much people paid for stuff to know what a fair price is. By the end of my stay, I started asking everyone how much they paid for stuff and I became much better at negotiating prices. Now, you may not want to try to go into Target tomorrow and try to see if they’ll lower the price for you, but by asking around you can get a good idea of how much things costs and where to find the good deals.

3. Cash is king.

Thais haven’t really caught on to the whole credit card thing yet. We even got paid all in cash. Imagine getting paid 38,000 baht in 1,000 baht bills. That’s a whole wad of cash! It was funny too because they’d put your salary in an envelope, but before you left the office you had to give them the envelope back. You’d be stuck having to put the money in your pocket, leaving you with a huge, bulging mass shooting out of your hip. Hmmm, good times. :’)

In the States you can pretty much get away with not carrying any cash, but you can’t do that in Thailand. I think one day they will get there, but for now, most shopping is done in a small market setting where it wouldn’t necessarily be advantageous for merchants to accept credit cards. This has obvious advantages because the fewer credit cards you have, the less credit card debt you have! After all, you can’t spend cash that you don’t have!

4. A smile can go a long way.

Thailand is not known as the “Land of Smiles” for nothing. Everybody smiles, even when they’re mad at you and especially when they’re taking you for a ride. You hardly ever see anyone yelling or getting mad in Thailand because doing so causes both parties involved to lose face. You look stupid and the other person looks stupid so they are definitely not going to help you. I learned that when I felt like I was being taken advantage of, it would be useless to demand to speak to the manager (most likely them) or complain about bad customer service. It was much smarter to fight smiles with smiles. Using a calm and pleasant demeanor is much more efficient at getting what you want than a hostile one.

5. Waste not, want not.

Frugality is a way of life in Thailand. They were hilariously frugal. Things that we take for granted are guarded very closely in Thailand. Let’s take for example, paper. At the school I was teaching at you actually had to sign out each piece of paper. They didn’t actually keep paper in the printer. If you wanted to print something from the computer, you would have to walk all the way to the library to sign out a piece of paper. If you wanted to print out a worksheet you had to make sure that you used every bit of paper, including the back. No one-sided copies! I don’t know how many times I decided to not use paper just because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of it. I compare this to the wanton paper use in American schools and I wonder how much of the budget actually goes to paper? Surely we could save a lot of tax dollars by adopting some frugal practices in government institutions. Seriously though, was it totally necessary to send a notice that I’m going to receive a tax refund? I think if the IRS had to sign out each piece of paper that they had to send in the mail, they’d think twice about it and save some tax dollars.

What about you? Have you traveled or lived in a place with much different attitudes about money? What things can we learn about money from other cultures?

Day 21 of the 100 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge

2008-03-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

I'm more than a fifth of the way to my goal of 100 days without buying anything new. So far I haven't struggled too much aside from wanting to purchase a few items to facilitate with my little "eco-projects."

I posted before about making some recycled paper and was all set to do it until I realized that it would definitely help to have an old food processor or blender. I don't think it would be too tasty to be drinking smoothies made out of the same blender that I made paper out of!

My first thought was that I could post a wanted ad on Freecycle. I was definitely not pleased when the moderator denied my post. I didn't realize that wanted ads were only allowed on Wednesday. Oops!

Not to be put off by failure, I decided to check some second-hand stores. While we were checking out the new Fresh and Easy (which I love and will probably blog about sometime soon), I remembered that there was a Savers nearby. I have probably only been into a Savers once or twice and I guess I never realized the beauty of the store. I've made a few trips to the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores lately and I'm always put off by the high prices. I know that sounds weird to complain about high prices at second-hand shops, but I remember the good ol' days when you could buy a paperback for a quarter. Now, paperbacks sell for $2! But I digress.

The beauty of Savers is that they have retained the old school prices. They had tons of stuff for under $5 and a pretty good selection too. I started thinking that I may never need to buy anything new again! I could change it into the "1000 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge"....but I'm not going to! :) I was excited to see that they had two food processors both under $6. We tried the first one but alas it didn't even turn on. We had more luck with the second one; it turned on BUT the blades didn't turn. Not too helpful for making paper.

My trip to Savers was not a complete waste though. I also had a plan to make reusable shopping bags by fusing many plastic shopping bags together like I saw here. If you read some of my pre-Thailand posts you know how much I hate plastic bags! The instructions say that you can use a piece of paper in place of the parchment paper but they lied. I tried it and the heat couldn't quite make it through the paper to the bags. FAIL. I thought parchment paper might be difficult to find used so I thought I might try to find some cheesecloth like fabric. They had tons of fabric and there was one really pretty bright red fabric with a little gold embroidery that was quite thin and might work. If it didn't, well I could make a nice pillow or a curtain out of it! I decided on buying it even though it was marked as $4.99 (big spender, I know). I go to check out and when the cashier tells me my total is $2.50 I feel a little guilty because I think she made a mistake. I wonder, "should I tell her?" and I do (karma people) and she told me it's on sale. Score!

I still have no blender though. I went to the Goodwill after work today and there was not one blender or food processor in sight. There were oodles of coffee makers everywhere I went. If I could make recycled paper out of a coffee maker I would be set. Why is that? Do people endlessly replace their coffee maker in search of the perfect cup of coffee? Why aren't there an equal amount of blenders?

Anyone have any good ideas where I can find a used blender or a food processor?

My Life After Blogging

2008-03-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

Boy a lot has changed since I stopped blogging! There are tons of new personal finance blogs to check out and I'm happy to see that a lot of progress has been made towards savings goals and debt repayment. I'm also pleased to see that most people have continued blogging and their blogs are thriving. Yay! It's amazing to see how much it has grown!

The financial times are also so very drastically different. Our credit hungry lifestyle has finally caught up with us and now we're paying the price. No more easy credit.. While it may be tough for a while, hopefully this will be a reminder to us all that a healthy economy is not one based on spending, but one based on saving.

A lot has changed in my personal life as well. Like I mentioned before, I spent a year in Thailand teaching English and traveling and it was such a wonderful experience to have right after such a stressful time in my life. It allowed me to let go and start anew with a clean slate in a new country.

I'll have to admit that the transition to living in the States was rough. Before I left for Thailand, I got rid of almost all of my possessions, except for my car (and I'm very happy I decided to keep it). I had a few thousands dollars saved up but no furniture, no appliances, no bedding, and worst of all no job. The whole "get rid of your earthly possessions and travel the globe" is all fine and good until you come home and you realize you don't have a bed to sleep on. I contemplated getting a room somewhere but I had no idea where I would end up or when I would find a job. I even thought about picking up and moving again to some other exotic land like Argentina but I soon realized that one day I would have to come back and reestablish myself and that this rough patch was going to come sooner or later. So what did I do? I ended up moving back home! Agh! I figured it would be temporary but I'm still here. Between paying for car insurance, an unexpected expensive car maintenance, graduate school admissions fees, CSET test fees, etc. I was seriously low on cash.

While I was in Thailand I realized that I really enjoy teaching. My previous job was absolutely miserable. I hated every minute of it but I endured because it was helping me pay off my debt. That made me vow to never work at a job I didn't like again. I worked part-time teaching ESL to adults while I searched for something more stable and full-time. Now I'm working as a substitute teacher in some really difficult parts of L.A. (ever heard of Watts or Compton?) and while some days I think I may lose it, it's 100 times better than working with a bunch of needy, whiny real-estate brokers.

I recently found out I got accepted into grad school, so soon I'll join the ranks of starving students everywhere. I'd really like to minimize the pain and suffering that comes along from having to pay astronomical sums of money on books and tuition while simultaneously not being able to have a job. Thankfully, I have two things in my favor. First, I will receive a $7,000 fellowship and I may be eligible for even more aid if I commit to teaching in an under served area. Second, the second year of my program I will be working full-time in my own classroom and receiving a normal salary.

That means I just have to save enough money to live on for one year. I've managed to save about $2,500 so far. I'm thinking it might be realistic to save $10,000 by August if I am super-resourceful. Let's see. That means I need to save $7,500 in 5 months. That's just about $1,500 each month. That's a little steep but hey, I was able to pay off $30,000 of debt in less than two years, right? Stay tuned to see if I can do it! :)

Carnival of Personal Finance #145

2008-03-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Head on over to Million Dollar Journey to check out the latest edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance!

10 Questions to Ponder Before You Buy Something

2008-03-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

1. Can I afford it?

First and foremost you should check with your budget. Some people (my former self included) believe that if you have the credit line for it, then you can afford it. Wrong. You cannot afford it unless the money is sitting in your bank account and your bills are already accounted for! Then again you can always e-mail Suze Orman and ask her what she thinks.

2. Do I need it?

There are some things in life that you cannot go without: food, water, shelter, clothing. Do we need to eat filet mignon and drink Starbucks coffee? No. Do we need to wear fancy designer labels? Negative. Do we need a glamorous chateau with a moat and 16 bedrooms? Yes. Ok fine, no. The point is not that we can’t indulge ourselves from time to time, but that we should be able to distinguish between needs and desires to make wise choices.

3. How often will I use it?

Sometimes breaking it down into a per use cost can give some perspective. For example, if I determine that I will wear a pair of $50 shoes 3 times a week for a year my per use cost of those shoes would be $0.32. Not a bad deal. However, if I was only going to wear those shoes once to a party, my per use cost rises dramatically to $50, and they don't seem like such a good deal anymore.

4. Can I find it cheaper?

First, you should always compare prices using one of the many price search engines on the internet.

If you're out and about shopping and don't have access to the internet you can use Frucall to check prices from your phone. This service allows you to check prices from your phone by either texting or calling them with the bar code. I haven’t tried it but it seems that it would be pretty handy!

Don’t forget to check forums like Fatwallet and Slickdeal to see if coupons are available.

5. Would it be more economical to rent or borrow it?

It just doesn’t make sense to purchase some things either because a) the per use cost doesn’t justify it or b) there is a good supply of items you can easily borrow for free or at a low cost.

Books and movies are a good example of something you should never buy. Between the library, book trading sites, and Netflix you should be able to find what you need.

Other less obvious things that you should think about borrowing instead of buying are sporting equipment and cooking supplies. I always have good intentions of playing tennis frequently, but the reality is that I have only played tennis a handful of times in the past year. It makes more sense for me to borrow someone else's racket instead of buying my own. Along the same line, I may think baking my own bread sounds like a fun idea, but I'll never do it enough to justify buying a bread maker. It's probably a better idea to borrow one from my Betty Crocker neighbor.

6. Can I earn points for my purchase?

Make sure to check sites like Mypoints or Ebates to see if you can earn points or cash back for your purchases.

7. Do I already have something that can do the same or similar job?

Sometimes, if we are resourceful, we can find ways to make the things lying around our house work for us.

For example, now that it's springtime I wanted to plant a garden. The only problem was that I had vowed to not buy anything new for 100 days. I needed pots because my dogs love to trample itty bitty baby plants. I was in quite a conundrum until I realized that we had some old buckets lying around that would do the job. All I had to do was poke some holes in the bottom for drainage and I had some nice planters for my vegetables.

The moral of this story is is that sometimes we already have what we need, we just need to be creative to see it.

8. Can I wait?

They say that patience is a virtue. Why? Because it can save you money! By waiting you are increasing your chances that the item you are coveting will go on sale. This is especially true with electronics. You pay a premium for being an "early adopter." Some people call this the "stupid tax." Think of all those poor people who bought the iPhone when it was first released, only to have the price drop $200 2 months after the release.

9. Have I picked the right product?

Make sure you are getting a quality product with the right features for YOU by checking customer reviews from sites like Epinions and Amazon.

10. How should I pay?

If after asking yourself questions #1-9 and you still think you need this product (really?) you should consider your payment options. Many credit card companies offer cash back or rewards for money that you spend with their card. Make sure that the rewards you are earning with your credit/debit card best matches your lifestyle and spending patterns. Most importantly, if you are already carrying a balance on your credit card, you should not be adding more no matter how good the rewards are! Consider paying cash instead.

Asking these questions has prevented me from making many purchases and probably saved me thousands of dollars. I hope you find them useful too!

Save a Tree...Power Down Your PC

2008-03-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

Oh lordy, I just made a rhyme! :)

Now, are you one of those people that leave your computer on all the live long day? Tisk tisk! I know you're out there! I don't know how many times I've walked into a classroom (I'm a substitute teacher) to find that the teacher has left the computers on all weekend long. I wonder to myself, do they know how much energy and money they are wasting by letting those buggers run endlessly? The crazy lady in me wants to leave them a message kindly telling them to stop wasting tax-payer's dollars by leaving their computers on 24/7. Of course, I don't. But I think it.

I know lots of other people at home are guilty of it too. Heck, it's just convenient to have the computer handy at all times just in case you have to look up a random piece of information or check to see if someone has emailed you. I understand. I'm human too. But, have you ever wondered how much energy (and money) you could save if you optimized the power settings on your PC? Well, there is a free download that will tell you exactly that.

Local Cooling is a program that you can install on your PC that will easily allow you to change the energy settings on your computer. It allows you to change the following features:

*the sleep time of the monitor
*when the disks start stop spinning (assuming DVDs, CD-Roms, and the like spin when they don't need to?)
*shut-down and hibernate times for the computer

As the program runs, it tallies the amount of trees, water, and energy that you have saved by powering down the computer. The only thing it's missing is a feature that would allow you to calculate how much money you have saved by making this one small change, but if you were industrious enough you could figure it out by multiplying the kWh you saved by your energy rate.

Now, you don't need to download a program to optimize the power features on your computer. All you need to do is check in the Control Panel and make a few tweaks. You have to admit though, it is pretty darn nifty that you can see exactly how much you're saving and give yourself a big pat on the back for being so economical!

Putting Credit Card Offers to Good Use

2008-03-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Ever get sick of all those credit card offers you receive in the mail? They never seem to stop! Even when I was $30,000 in debt I was still receiving at least one new credit card offer a week. I couldn't imagine why they thought I needed MORE debt!

Well, today as I was throwing another offer into the recycle bin, I had an idea. Wouldn't it be funny if I collected all the credit card offers I receive and made recycled paper out of them? Wouldn't it be even funnier if I took that recycled paper, sold it, and then donated some of that money towards other people who are struggling with debt? It'd almost be like the credit card companies themselves would be paying for people to get out of debt. Ha! You wouldn't want them to be paying all that money to print and mail those offers for nothing, would you?

I decided to look up how to make recycled paper and it didn't look too difficult. Here is a list of items needed to make paper from MakeStuff:

a food processor or an old blender
an electric iron
an old wire hanger
an old pair of panty hose
newspaper or other paper, torn into 2-inch squares
white glue
water
an insect screen or strainer (optional)
food coloring (optional)
a big sink or tub filled with 4 inches of water

The only thing I don't have is a food processor/blender and since I'm not allowed to buy anything new, I think I'll post to Freecycle to see if I have any luck with my project. If I can find it, I won't have to put out anything but my time and it should be a fun project! :)

Update: Living in Thailand Blog

2008-03-21T13:11:00.000-07:00

Some of you had expressed some interest in my Living in Thailand blog and I thought you would like to know, I just posted a quick entry with some of my photos from my trip. Hope you enjoy!

100 Day Buy Nothing Challenge

2008-03-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Paying off my debt taught me many lessons about myself and life. It taught me that things don't bring happiness. We hear that all the time but I guess it was something I needed to experience to understand. I also learned that I could get by on a lot less than I thought. I realized that things that I thought that I "needed" were only things that I "wanted" and that has forever changed the way I spend money.

Even though I am still very cautious with the way I spend money, I thought I would give myself a challenge just for the heck of it. I have been playing a game with myself to see how long I can go without buying anything new. I did it kind of subconsciously and today I wondered, "How long could I really go without buying anything?" That's when I decided that I would set a number of days and rules for this personal challenge.

I decided I would try to go 100 days without buying anything NEW. I am not really interested in trying to not buy anything at all. Most of the reason why I started this was because I not only want save money, but I also want to reduce the amount of waste and energy that I consume. Americans tend to consume so much without wondering where the stuff comes from. We don't think about the amount of energy it takes to produce and transport all of the goods that we consume. I figure that by fixing, trading, or buying used I could significantly reduce the impact I have on the environment...and my budget!

These are my exceptions:

1. Food
2. Personal products like deodorant, toothpaste, etc. (those would be kind of gross to buy used!) I will however, try techniques to make my own homemade personal products to reduce what I have to buy.
3. Gas
4. Services

I figure it will get difficult with birthdays and holidays but I'll try to find a way to make something instead.

Like I said, I have been trying to not buy anything for a while so I looked back at my bank statements and saw that the last time I bought something was on 3/03. That means I have already made it 16 days and have 84 more days to go. I wonder if it will be difficult?

What about you? How long do you think you can go without buying anything new?

Grad school and Smarty Pig

2008-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, let me start off with some good news. Yesterday, I received my acceptance letter to graduate school. I'll be going back to receive my teaching credential and Masters degree in the fall! Not only that but I also found out that I'll be receiving a $7,000 fellowship which will cover everything but $2,000 of tuition. Score! I was seriously stressing out about how I was going to pay for school and that will help a lot. I didn't want to end up with even more school loans as I'm still paying off the ones from my undergraduate studies. Thankfully as a teacher there is lots of aid available, especially if you commit to teaching in an under-served area. Maybe I'll get out of this thing without having to take out any loans! That'd be nice!

Moving on...I wondered if anyone had heard of or tried the online savings account SmartyPig. I was checking it out because they offer a 4.30% APY which is one of the highest I've seen around. It seems to work a little differently than traditional online banks though. They call themselves SmartyPig because they imagine themselves to be like an online piggy bank. After reading their website this is how I gather it works:

1. Set a savings goal. Decide how much you want to save and a date by which you want to have it saved and SmartyPig will tell you how much to save.
2. SmartyPig will make the automatic deposits until your goal is reached. You also have the option to make your account public so that anyone can make deposits into your account. (Hello Magic Money Fairy? Would you like to make a deposit? hehe)
3. After your savings goal is reached, SmartyPig gives you two options:
a) Receive a Mastercard with your savings amount on it
b) Receive a gift card from selected retailers with an added bonus (up to 5%)

So what do you guys think? Is this a good way to save? Would you be willing to try it?

A Rant

2008-03-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I'm currently working as a substitute teacher and most of the schools are on spring break so I didn't get called today. Boohoo. It's nice to have the day off but it sucks because if you don't work, you don't get paid. Waaaa. Well, I figured I'd try to make it a productive day by blogging, working on my garden, and doing some research. So here it goes. :)

This post is going to be somewhat of a rant. A rant with a happy ending. I think those are the best types of rants anyways.

Well, let's just start at the beginning, shall we? As most of you know, after I paid off my debt I decided to go to Thailand to be a teacher. I opened a Citibank account because they told my friend that they had branches in Thailand and she would be able to access her U.S. account at those branches. Plus, at that time they had a great savings rate at about 5% so it didn't seem like a bad idea.

We get to Thailand to find out that yes, they have a branch in Bangkok but that's it...A branch. As in one. We supposed it was better than nothing so I called the customer service line for the Bangkok branch and asked them if we could make deposits to our U.S. accounts at their branch. She told me yes, we could, although I'm not sure if she even understood my question. So, we take a long (and expensive) taxi ride to the financial district of Bangkok only to find out that Citibank Thailand is a completely different bank from Citibank U.S. In short, we made the long voyage in vain because we couldn't make a deposit without paying all kinds of currency conversion fees and wire transfer fees.

All of that doesn't really matter now, but it did perturb me that when my friend specifically asked if we could make deposits into our account from Thailand they emphatically said "yes." Lame. Lame.

But now, I'm home in California where I don't sweat 24 hours a day and the food does not burn a hole in my stomach. Hallelujah! Alas, Citibank's previous savings rate of 5% has dwindled to a measly 3% so I started shopping around for rates. ING Direct is only at 3.10%. Emigrant Direct 3.3%. Like I said before, if inflation is at 4% you end up losing money if you save it at anything under 4%. So of course, my over-active mind starting going to work.

I thought of putting the money in a CD account and discovered that the rates on CDs are even lower than the rates on savings accounts! What? At first, this made absolutely no sense. Why would I put my money into a 12 month CD for 3% when I can get 3.1% in my regular old savings account? Then I realized that they must be planning on lowering savings rates even more and my over-active mind got even more active.

Stock market? No. Foreign currency? Nah. Gold? Uh uh. Hide it under my mattress?????

Then I thought about microlending sites and thought hmmmm, now there's an idea. I remembered hearing about Prosper and thought I'd check it out. I figured since banks are getting more and more conservative with lending and credit card rates are rising, people are going to start looking for alternatives (like Prosper). I figured I'd try it out with a small amount of money.

I was all set to fund my account when I realized that the account that I had set up years ago (but never actually funded) was using my old Wells Fargo account that I closed when I went to Thailand. I tried to update with my Citibank account but Prosper required that I send them a canceled check to prove the account was mine.

Still with me?

The problem was was that I never actually got checks for my Citibank account. I haven't written a check for years! I definitely didn't want to pay $19.95 for a box of checks just so I could open this account so I called Citibank to see if they would comp me a box of checks.

The answer? A big, fat NO! I tried to pull the "But your competitors offer free checks" card but it had no effect. So what did I do? I started looking at other banks who would give me free checks.

And I found out that Washington Mutual not only will give me free checks but also has a 4% rate on their savings account. Score!

Now, I'm just waiting to get my new account set up and receive my new checks and my Prosper adventures will begin. I'll keep you all updated!

I'm back!

2008-03-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hi again everyone! Well, it's been almost 2 years since I defied debt and I'm happy to report that I have managed to stay debt free! I spent an amazing year in Thailand traveling around and enjoying my new-found debt freedom. I never would have been able to see and do those things with so much appreciation if I hadn't been through the experience of working hard to get myself into a sound financial position. Even after getting massages and facials every week, traveling to tropical beaches and jungles, and having tons of new experiences I was able to save a couple thousand dollars. Living there was so cheap and the demand for English tutors was so high that I was able to have a high standard of living while saving. Unfortunately, the cost of readjusting to American life virtually wiped out my savings...but at least I never had to resort to paying for my expenses with a credit card.

I've been thinking a lot about money again, not because I don't have it but because I do (well at least a little bit). One thing I'm thankful for is that I was able to get out of debt when I did. I feel bad for those people who are struggling with credit card debt now. Just a few years ago the consumer had a lot more options. It seems as if the days of low interest rates and 0% APR balance transfers are gone. Even I (with a pristine credit rating) can't get my credit card to lower my interest rate. This is inconsequential to me because I don't carry a balance but to those who are trying to pay down debt this can have major consequences.

And remember the times when you were always receiving notice that banks like ING or HSBC were raising their savings account interest rates? I hadn't checked for a while and was shocked to see that they are barely paying around 3.10% and 12 month CD's are paying even less! It looks like saving your money in a savings account or a CD is going to end up costing you with current inflation rates at about 4%.

All of this has inspired me to update this blog again. Blogging is a fun way to keep myself on track and communicate with lots of other people who are working towards similar goals. I'll be looking for ways to save and writing about my thoughts on money in general. I look forward to reading comments and checking up on other blogs as well!

Hallelujah, debt salvation has come!

2006-07-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm doing an inner victory dance right now. I can't do an actual victory dance because it's too damn hot right now. But that's o.k. because the 401k check finally came and I now have enough money to pay off the balance of my credit card! The check couldn't have come more last minute. Today was literally the last mail day before my flight for Thailand and I have been sweating bullets (literally and figuratively) hoping that check would arrive before I leave the country.

I'm not sad to say that I'll be closing a chapter of my life. It's been about 5 years since I got myself into this mess and I've spent the last 2 years toiling to pay off the approximately $30,000 in debt I had accumulated while I was in college. All the sacrifices were worth it. The bad haircuts. The scant wardrobe. The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The terrible job. I never want to do that again!

This whole experience has made me appreciate everything so much more. I was trying to think of exactly what it is that I appreciate more but I really think it is EVERYTHING. I appreciate not having to worry about money and all the things that I learned you can enjoy without money. I appreciate how I learned who my true friends are and how you can pretty accurately judge a person based on how they treat people who don't wear fancy clothes or flash their money around. I appreciate the freedom that comes when you don't have to struggle paycheck to paycheck to survive. I truly appreciate all the things that you can buy with money because I lived so long without having much.

Tomorrow before I go to the airport I'm going to go to the bank to deposit the check. It's strange how the timing worked. Depositing the check will be one of the last things I do in the States and then I'm off to start a new life thousands of miles away. It's the rebirth of me. Weeee!

Don't forget you can check out my new blog, Living in Thailand, to follow up on my progress.

New blog is up!

2006-07-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

In case you were interested in following my adventures of living in Thailand, the new blog is up. I'll be leaving next week and hopefully I'll be able to start posting soon after I arrive (depending upon the availability of the internet).

I'm still not debt free. I've been waiting to receive my check for the 401k distribution for a week now. I called them today to see if they had sent it and found out they had sent it to the wrong address (they put the wrong apartment number on it). After arguing with them for a while that I would not get it if they sent it to the wrong address (they thought it would magically be forwarded to the correct address) they cancelled the check and said they would send another one. Unfortunatly, by the time they get around to sending me the check I'll be out of the country anyways so I'll have to get someone else to deposit it for me. I guess no one said moving out of the country would be easy.

Thanks to everyone for all of your support and ideas and suggestions. I might keep posting here from time to time but it will most likely be to talk about travel and related expenses and ways to save money while living abroad. If you are in the same boat as I was two years ago, you might want to check through the archives for ideas and inspiration to pay off your own debt.

Happy debt defying!

Waiting...Waiting

2006-07-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

My life is in limbo right now, just waiting to leave for Thailand. I'm not working right now so I have loads of free time. Some people might complain of boredom but I have to say that I could really get used to this whole not having to work thing. I feel like I actually have time to do stuff like read and go to the gym. That stuff is normally neglected when I have a job because I'd rather veg out and relax after working all day.

I must say though that moving to another country is a job in itself. There are so many things that you have to do before you leave because you can't do them once you are gone. For example, yesterday I had to go and get my immunizations at the health clinic. Luckily, my friend's mom told me where to go to get them for cheap because it could have cost a lot of money. For her, even with insurance her doctor was going to charge her $800 for all the shots she needed. The clinic only charged $90. Although its not required to get the shots before you go, I think the $90 is worth reducing my chances of getting some crazy disease.

I also had to set up a new bank account with Citibank because they are the only bank I know of that has branches and ATMs in Thailand. It would suck to have to pay the ATM fee everytime I had to take out money. And now I can sign up for their savings account which pays 5% APY. Not only does it pay a higher interest rate than ING Direct, but your checking and savings accounts are linked so you can instantly the money you don't need immediate access to so it is earning interest for you. Luckily, I had no problems signing up with them (unlike all the drama I experienced signing up with HSBC).

I'm struggling with the decision to sell my car. Part of me wants to sell it because I would have extra cash and I would be able to pay off my student loans. But the other part of me is telling me not to sell it because if things don't work out in Thailand I would have to come back and buy another car and pay taxes and license and all that good stuff again. Having the car would give me a sense of security while I'm in Thailand that if things don't work out, I can always come back home and start over again without much hassle. The extra money would be nice though.

I'm so excited to get going. My 401k check should be in the mail on Monday so I'll have the money to either pay off my debt or buy my plane ticket (depending on what I decide to do with my car). Until then, I'll just have to keep waiting!

Want to save $20,000 in a year?

2006-06-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

English teachers abroad are in very high demand and just by being a native English speaker you are qualified to get some pretty high-paying jobs in foreign countries like Thailand, Korea and China. I say high-paying because while they may not be as much as you can make in the States, the cost of living in these countries is extremeley low. Even if your income was about $30,000 you could get by easily on $10,000 a year, especially if they provide you with housing. You can command even more money if you have a TESOL certification and can make money on the side working as a private English tutor.

Not only will you be able to save up money but you'll be able to experience another culture first-hand. You can never truly grasp a country in 1-2 weeks while on vacation and you never get below the surface of the tourist traps to see how people really live. Plus you won't have to go away on vacation because there will be plenty of exciting places to explore in your new home.

Living abroad is probably not for everyone. You'll most likely have to live without a lot of the creature comforts that we take for granted in the States like huge living spaces and air conditioning wherever you go, but once you live without them for a while you realize that you don't really need them and you appreciate them a lot more when you do have them.

I most likely won't be able to save up loads of cash while I'm living abroad because I plan on doing a lot of traveling around Asia but the good thing is I won't have to go into debt to it!

Selling my soul at a garage sale

2006-06-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend and I had a garage sale to get rid of as much stuff as we possibly could before we move to Thailand. I've never been much of a garage-saler, mostly because I am never up early enough to make it to them on the weekends. I knew people would be cheap and would try to haggle, but I wasn't quite prepared for the extent of people's audacity for bargaining.

First of all, I set off going around my apartment thinking that I would get rid of nearly everything so that all my material belongings would be able to fit into one suitcase. I soon found out that parting with things was harder than I imagined. Things that I hardly noticed on a daily basis took on a sudden sentimental value. I vowed to be strong despite my over-emotional reactions because I figured it would be worth the temporary pain to be divorced from any material longings.

So I show up and put my whole life on display. I figured people would be quite impressed. I was selling some nice stuff, some stuff was practically new, never been used and of course, I bought it so it was of the highest quality. Boy was I wrong. There is something infuriating and humbling to see someone pick through your belongings and see them turn up their nose at it. Or when someone asks you how much you want for something and you say $1 and they put it back down and walk away. What? Was $1 too much for you? I paid $20 for that thing! Were they expecting that I would say, "Free for you!" You can't buy anything for $1 anyways. Even a pack of gum costs more than $1!

I never got the whole bargaining thing down either. I would try to start off high expecting them to counter offer and they would just walk away. And if I started low they would try and haggle. This one lady came up with her arms full of stuff and offered me $4 for it all! She must have lost her mind. I thought well I'll try and haggle because I needed to get rid of the stuff anyways so I countered with $7. A whoppin $3 more and she looked at me like I was crazy and said "I said $4." I was tempted to tell her to stop wasting my air and get out of my face, but I decided to take the polite route and told her that her offer was too low. For that amount of money, I would rather donate it to the Goodwill so that the money will go to a good cause instead of some cheap rich lady who's husband was waiting for her in their nice car with the engine running.

I ended up making nearly $60 which isn't bad because nobody bought the major stuff I was selling. And to be honest I don't even remember what I sold. The rest of the stuff will probably end up at the good will, hopefully to homes that will get some good use out of them. And the extra $60 will go to payoff the debt and/or my savings account!

More surprises up my sleeve

2006-06-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

I made a big decision. To celebrate getting out of debt I'm going to make a drastic change. I'm moving to Thailand to teach English. I've already been offered a job there at a private school and a good friend of mine will also be teaching at the school with me. I'm very excited about the change.

It seems like now would be the perfect time to do something like this. I'll be debt free, I'm just getting out of a long relationship and I have no job so I have no obligations to keep me here. I'm young and have no mortgage and I'm in good health and adventurous. How many times in my life will I be this free?

I did some calculations and decided to make a major personal finance faux pas: I'm going to cash out my 401k to pay off the remainder of my debt. I guess Henry's comments were right; once you start toying with the idea it's hard to give up. I'll have to pay the 10% penalty and taxes but I figure I'll have to pay taxes when I retire anyways and the 10% is worth the peace of mind of not having debt hanging over my head anymore.

I'll also be selling my car when I move so that will give me enough money to pay off my student loans and have a couple thousand left over for emergency money. I'll be completely debt free, no credit cards and no student loans and with money in the bank. I didn't think that would be possible for another couple of years. I'll also be selling my portion of the furniture to my ex-boyfriend and I'm selling all my books and DVDs on Half.com. Everything that I own will soon be able to fit into a couple of suitcases.

After being in debt for so long and having material possessions tie me down, it'll be an interesting experience to live without any of those constraints. For me, the whole point of getting out of debt was to be able to experience freedom again. The freedom to go where I want to go and do what I want to do and to have freedom from any worries about things.

For example, a couple of weeks ago someone hit my car and left a scratch on my bumper. I was so mad that someone could hit my car and not leave a note. I was angry because I would then have to either fix it or just accept the loss. It sounds silly but when you have things you always have to worry about them breaking or getting lost or having to replace them. I want to be in a place where none of that matters.

I probably won't move until mid-August so I'll have enough time to take care of all the loose ends. I'm not sure how accessible the internet will be but I'm hoping to continue to blog, probably not solely about personal finance but also about my travels and experiences in Thailand!

Gambling isn't for me

2006-06-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's been a while since my last blog posting. I admit I've been going through a blog funk, mostly because life has been hectic and I've been frustrated with the pace of the debt payoff. The smaller it becomes the more impatient I become to get rid of it. It's changed from a giant menancing dragon into a tiny pestering fly in comparison which I'm happy about but I just wish I had a fly swatter that would make it go away NOW. :)

The new job took a dive for the worse. I took a gamble even taking the job and that gamble isn't going to pay out. I knew it was 50/50 going into the mortgage business now because rates are going up and a lot of places were struggling as business was drying up but the promise for greater pay was too alluring to pass up. Unfortunately, I think the promises were too inflated so I'm going to start looking for another job. It's a bummer because it throws another wrench into the debt reduction plan but hopefully another job will come along, this time a stable, normal job.

I was contemplating cashing in my 401k to pay off my credit card just so that it would be gone and done with. I have about $4,000 in the 401k and I think after paying taxes and the penalty I would have just enough to pay off the rest of my debt. I know, I can already feel the angry comments being hurled at me. I'm not going to do it, but it's tempting! The thought of not having any more credit card debt makes me tingle a little.

I'm going to do something I have never done in the history of this blog. I've added a Paypal donation button. If you've enjoyed reading my site AND feel it's a worthy cause AND you are in the financial position to do so, you can make a small donation to help me get out of debt. I've avoided adding these types of links to the blog in the past because I'm definitely not looking for a handout. Don't donate because you feel obligated or anything like that, only do so if maybe I've made you laugh or gave you something entertaining to read while you were at work or you've been following my story from day one and are as excited as I am to see me get out of debt. Of course, all of it will go directly to paying down the evil credit card.

Soon people, soon. Only $2,150 to go. It's so close but farther away than I would like.

I'm a Carnival Flake

2006-06-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

Umm, oops? I signed up to host the Carnival of Debt Reduction a couple of months ago and totally forgot about it until I saw Mighty Bargain Hunter's post about the carnival. At first I thought he had gone nuts but then I realized that no, I'm really just a Carnival Flake. My apologies to all! But check out MBH and the posts he's selected for this week.

I'll ban myself from hosting carnivals from now on. :)

The debt reduction has reached a snail's pace but I'm still trying to make progress towards my goal. Soon, very soon, I will be able to say that I'm free from credit card debt.

I finally received my pin number from HSBC but I refuse to transfer any money to this account. The 0% interest balance transfer game is tricky business and the last thing I need is for HSBC to mess something up and cost me a lot of money. I made $90 in interest last month from the money I borrowed from my credit card at 0%. It feels good, like I am recouping some of the money I have paid them in interest over the years. But I must caution that I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. You must be extra vigilant to make sure that all of your bills are paid on time or they could spike your interest to some ridiculous amount and you'll be in a bad position.

On another note, if you haven't seen it yet you should check out the movie,The Inconvenient Truth. It might not necessarily be directly related to debt reduction or personal finance but it will make you think twice about the consequences of consumption and material excess. If financial freedom, peace of mind and a comfortable retirement doesn't motivate you to save your money and stop buying "things," perhaps the end of the world might give you the impetus to reconsider your spending habits? I kid, I kid. Kind of.

The website also has some eco-friendly money saving tips. Check it out.

Deep Fried Cars

2006-05-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Forget the Prius or the Insight or the Honda Civic hybrids. I want my alternative fuel car to run on vegetable oil, the kind that you use to deep fry twinkies and onion rings (what you've never had a deep-fried twinkie?).

My grandma, always the first to know of the latest technological innovations, told me she had heard about a company that was selling kits to convert your car so that it could run on vegetable oil for only $800. I did a quick search on google and found the website she was talking about.

The company, Greasecar, sells a self-install kit that converts your car to run on plain old vegetable oil. You don't even have to pay for the vegetable oil because most restaurants have to pay a disposal fee to get rid of the vegetable oil they use for frying. If you could find a good local restaurant that uses lots of cooking oil, you could convince them to give it to you for free to save them the hassle and all you would have to do is filter the oil. Assuming that you pay $100 in gas a month, the kit would pay for itself in 8 months.

I was almost ready to buy the kit when I realized that the kit can only be installed on diesel engine cars. Boooo! I knew I should have bought the diesel Jetta!

Most diesel cars available in the U.S. are either older models Mercedes, big pick up trucks, or newer Volkswagens. I definitely don't want an older car that will have to be in the shop all of the time, I am not necessarily a pick-up truck kind of gal, and even though I already own a Volkswagen, I don't think I could trade in my Jetta for a diesel version without acquiring more debt.

My deep fried car project will have to wait for now but as soon as I get out of debt and I have some savings, I'll be looking to trade my car for a car that will relieve me from being at the mercy of gas prices. And gas prices aside, wouldn't it be cool to tell people your car runs on cooking oil?

Sticker Shock

2006-05-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

Against my own advice, I ventured into the murky depths of the mall today. I normally try to stay as far away from them as I possibly can but I suffered from a temporary lapse in judgement. First of all, I was searching for a birthday present and thought if I could walk around the mall I might get some ideas on what to buy. Second of all, my clothes have started to get that too-tight look that means that my body is expanding against my will. It is a sick cruel joke my body plays on me; every time I try to lose weight I end up gaining weight. Maybe I should try to gain weight in order to lose weight? And, it has been ages since my last hair cut and I felt the need to splurge on a nice cut and color.

The good news is that even though I went to the mall with every intention of spending money, when I looked at the price tags I almost fell to the floor in shock.

"HOLY bejezus, $130 for a pair of jeans???"
"$40 for foundation makeup? $28 for blush? Bless their souls; they have lost their damn minds!"
"They want me to pay how much for this serving tray? That must be $9, not $90."

These were my inwards conversations as I made my way through the mall, just aching to spend some money but not quite THAT much money.

The worst was when I went to go get my haircut. I had bargained on about $150 for a cut and color. Boy, was I ever wrong. Thank goodness I asked before I took a seat in the chair! Apparently, haircuts at this salon run from $85 for a "Stylist" to $135 for a "Creative Director" and anywhere from $145 to $205 for a color. I tried to maintain my calm and composure while she was explaining their pricing, and as soon as she looked away I ran as fast as I could.

Have I really been not shopping for that long? When did everything get so expensive????

More HSBC Drama

2006-05-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Let me just clarify a few things in regards to HSBC. I misread the FAQ's on the HSBC site in regards to the fees for bank transfers. This is what their site says:

*No transaction fees if you transfer money into your HSBC accounts from your non-HSBC accounts
*A $3.00 transaction fee will be charged for each outbound transfer from your HSBC accounts to your non-HSBC accounts

At that point I had stopped reading because I was ranting and raving about the $3 fee. If I had maintained my compusure and continued reading the line below, I would have seen this:

*No transaction fees will be charged for HSBC OnlineSavings, Domestic Private Banking or HSBC Premier customers .

Now, tell me, does it make sense to have this on a whole separate line. If I were writing these FAQs I would have written it like this:

A $3.00 transaction fee will be charged for each outbound transfer from your HSBC accounts to your non-HSBC accounts (No transaction fees will be charged for HSBC OnlineSavings, Domestic Private Banking or HSBC Premier customers ).

This would imply that the 2nd and 3rd bullet points are related. Or better yet:

A $3.00 transaction fee will be charged for each outbound transfer from your HSBC accounts to your non-HSBC accounts*

And then a little note at the bottom explaining the conditions of who pays and who does not. I mean, its really not that important but it would have saved me the heart attack.

In other HSBC news, I still have not received the PIN number they were supposed to send me a month ago. I called them again to see what the deal was and of course, it was more drama. After explaining to them that I had not received the PIN and that they had sent it to the wrong place before he said that he could not send me another PIN number because I recently had a change of address. "UMMM? No, I never changed my address. You merely sent it to the wrong address before." He said yes, he could see that in my file but that he couldn't send it to me because of the problem and I would have to fill out some form and fax it back to them to request a PIN change. At this point, I lost it. I normally try to be a courteous calm and collected person but if I have to call any customer service place 3 times to solve a problem, my nerves get worn a little bit thin.

So after explaining to him that I didn't have time for this nonsense I told him I would simply like to cancel my account. He then informed me that I could cancel my account if I would like, but since I had not had my account for more than 6 months I would be charged $25 to close the account. My pissed-o-meter was through the roof at that point and I told him that I wanted to talk to his boss. He insisted that his boss wasn't going to tell me anything different and that it would be a waste of my time to talk to him. Of course, I insisted on talking to him anyways and after waiting on hold for 5 more minutes his boss came on the line and told me he would overwrite the system so that a new PIN would be sent to me.

Now, let me ask you this. Why do I always have to be at my breaking point before they figure out how to solve a problem, i.e. the lady that told me there was no way I could fix my user name and password until I received my PIN until I insisted that she fix it and this turdball who insisted there was no way for me to get a new PIN without filling out some form and faxing it back to them. I don't like to be that crazy lunatic customer but by golly if they aren't going to get it done without me losing my cool, then thats not my problem.

We'll see if I stick with HSBC or not. At this point I have so much time and energy invested into this process that I might as well take advantage of the higher interest rates that they are offering. Both ING and HSBC raised their rates but HSBC's are still .5% higher than ING's but I have become quite attached to my drama-less banking at ING.

Why ING is Better than HSBC

2006-05-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

I've had my ING Direct account for more than a year now and have never had any problems with them. The sign up process was painless, when I have questions their customer service is awesome and their online site is easy to use. The only reservation that I had with ING was that some of its competitors were paying higher interest rates on their savings account. For example, right now ING's rate is at 4.15% while HSBC is at 4.5%.

I decided to at least give HSBC a try. The application itself was fairly easy but unlike ING, you have to wait for them to send you your user ID and password in the mail. I signed up for my account and waited and waited and waited. Finally, after about a month of signing up I called them and asked them what the deal was. I know I could have called earlier but I am a busy lady, like most people, and just never had the time to call them. So on a Saturday afternoon I called them and the customer rep informed me that they had forgotten to put my apartment number on the mail. AGH. That was a little irritating but what was even more irritating was that he wanted me to call back on Monday to ask them to send it to me again.

This kind of thing rubs me the wrong way. I have no idea why he couldn't just do it over the phone right then. Do people who work on Monday have special mail rights that people who work on Saturday do not have?

So after wasting even more of my time to get the problem fixed they finally sent me the info I needed. BUT when I went to log into my account the password and user name did not work. Frustrated, I called the customer support and after waiting on hold for 15 minutes I tried to explain to the customer service rep that the password and user name that they sent me did not work. She said there was nothing she could do for me and that I would have to change my password online using my PIN number. I explained to her that I had not received my PIN number (and still 3 days later I have not received it) and that I couldn't do that. She said I would just have to wait for it to come and after a few minutes of me trying to explain to her that I was entering in EXACTLY the user name and password THEY sent me and that it didn't work she put me on hold. When she came back she asked me to try it again and MIRACULOUSLY it worked.

I was relieved and perturbed at the same time. She offered no explanation of why all of a sudden it worked after she told me over and over again that she couldn't help me. If I had not argued with her I would still be waiting to be able to sign into my account and access my money. Luckily I only started off with $20 for this exact reason.

After I was able to log in I noticed that there was no way to transfer money between non-HSBC accounts. I had already given them my routing number to my checking account so I thought I could easily transfer money back and forth between the two, like with ING. Noooo, that is an additional service that you have to sign up for. Transfers going into your account are free but any transfer going out of your account is charged a $3.00 processing fee. I guess I had been so spoiled with ING that this came as a shock to me.

So far, everything with HSBC has been a problem. Don't you sometimes wish that you can send people bills for the time they have wasted in your life? Instead, I'll have to pay the $3 to take my $20 and put it back into my ING account.

Pay Day Advances

2006-05-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today I was hit up by someone wanting to put an ad on my site. Normally, this would be a great thing because hey, if I can sell advertising space on this blog then I can pay off the debt even faster, right? But when I checked out the site I thought to myself that these people must be delusional or on crack to think that I would ever link to them on my site.

I'm not going to say who they are, but they were one of the many pay day advance companies that rip people off when they are probably already in a bad financial situation to begin with. Let's say you are behind on your bills and don't get paid for another week. You need cash NOW so you find one of these cash advance places that will give you the cash you need now. Nice of them huh? There's only one small catch: they will charge a teeny weeny amount of interest, in this case an APR of 391%. No, not 3.91%. Three hundred ninety one percent.

Holy moses! 391% APR? Are they out of their minds? Why not just ask them to give up their first born child?

At first when I looked at the site they said you can get up to $500 in your account tomorrow for only $15 per $100 borrowed*. "Not terrible" I think to myself, "but ahh, what is this * about?" I read down in the small print that finance charges are calculated every 14 days which is equivalent to a 391.07% APR. Very tricky bastards!

It makes me sick to think of paying that much interest. And think about it. If you are already hard up for cash before you get paid, when you do get paid you will have to pay back that loan and your next paycheck is already gone. Then what do you do? Take out another pay day loan? It would be like being in a never ending cycle of debt, digging a deeper and deeper hole that you will never be able to get out of.

So just don't do it! I know I am probably preaching to the choir here but people should avoid pay day loans like they are the plague. If you need cash, ask a friend. Do a balance transfer. Get another job. But whatever you do, don't get a pay day loan!

Free brain food

2006-05-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

I randomly came across this site on Wikipedia, ThoughAudio.com. They offer free MP3 downloads of classic books ranging from Plato, to Ayn Rand to Sun Tzu. I was subscribing to Audible but canceled my subscription because I wasn't commuting to work anymore. I started missing the service because I do listen to the books from time to time when I work out or when I go to sleep at night, but now there are tons of books I can listen to for free! Hooray!

Also, if you were looking for free ebooks, there are lots of books available from the Project Gutenberg. I personally don't like to read books from a computer but it's fun to know it's there. I'll probably still just go to the library and get the books, for free!

Paper or Plastic? I Say Neither!

2006-05-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I splurged and made a big purchase: two canvas grocery shopping bags for $2.50 each. I had gotten so annoyed with the huge pile of plastic and paper grocery bags accumulating under my sink. I must have a stash under there that would last me for years to come but I just can't throw them away because I feel like that is such a waste. So after thinking about it for a while I took the plunge and made the $5 purchase.

Today I took them to the store (Trader Joe's) and was pleasantly surprised to learn that every time you bring your own bags to the store, whether they be bags from a previous trip or the canvas reusable ones that I had, they will enter your name into a monthly raffle for a $25 gift certificate. I'm crossing my fingers that I win.

So far, here are my advantages:

1) No more messy bags under my kitchen sink.
2) Chance to win free food.
3) Reducing waste and pollution.

I was doing a little research on the environmental effects of paper and plastic bags as opposed to using reusable bags and found this on the EPA website:

"* In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by five million pounds and save $250,000 in disposal costs.
* When one ton of paper bags is reused or recycled, three cubic meters of landfill space is saved and 13 - 17 trees are spared! In 1997, 955,000 tons of paper bags were used in the United States.
* When one ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil are saved.

Many grocery stores now offer for sale sturdy cloth grocery bags. Some of these stores even give you a little discount (e.g., five cents per bag) if you bring your own bag. So, keep a stash of reusable bags in your pantry or if you drive to the store simply keep them in your trunk."

Apparently, CostCo, Whole Foods and Ikea offer a $.05 to $.10 discounts per bag when you bring your own bags and of course Trader Joe's has the monthly raffle. Who knows, your local grocery store might have a discount too.

How saving the environment can help save you money

2006-04-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, when I look at the gas prices I shiver in horror. I thought there was no way it could get any worse than $3 a gallon but now even the cheap stuff is close to $3.25 a gallon. I'm not alarmed by the gas prices because I drive a gas guzzling SUV or drive an excessive number of miles and part of me is glad that the higher gas prices are making people think about alternative forms of transportation and conservation (the operative word in that sentence being "think"). Maybe more people will go out and by hybrid cars, making the actual cost of hybrid cars go down. Maybe more people will take the bus so that they will actually start adding more buses to the route and lowering bus fare. And maybe more people will start riding their bikes and they will see the need to make more bike lanes on the street (you have to be pretty fearless to ride your bike in the street where I live). I'm not going to get into a lengthy debate about whether or not the gas prices are justified or not because, well, it just makes me angry.

But I do want to point out that it's not just the actual price we pay to fill up our tank of gas that will be going up, it will be the price of everything. Think about it. Transport costs go up. Electricity prices go up. The cost to manufacture goods goes up. As the cost to do business goes up, companies will pass this on to the consumers as higher prices. I'm no economist but I foresee inflation. Not just your regular run of the mill inflation, but big mean bad angry inflation (can you tell I am not an economist?).

They say that gas prices are the result of "supply and demand" in the market. So what can we do as consumers to decrease demand for energy therefore bringing the market cost back down and saving the environment in the process?

Well there is the obvious DRIVE LESS and buy more energy efficient vehicles but there are also a lot of other things that we can do that will save us money in the short term as well as reduce consumption. By reducing consumption we not only cut back on the amount of waste that is created when we throw the product away but also reduce the amount of energy and resources that it took to create it in the first place.

One of those things we can do is to stop buying bottled water. Bottled water is one of my biggest pet peeves. Not only are you paying a ridiculous premium for something that you can get right out of your faucet, but the waste it creates is astronomical.

PEOPLE, you have got to get over your fear of the water in the faucet and stop buying bottled water! What a waste. We don't live in Tijuana where it probably isn't safe to drink the water. Do you know anyone who has ever gotten sick from drinking the tap water? I certainly don't. Studies have shown that bottled water is the same if not worse than tap water. And if it's taste you're worried about, I have found that by purchasing a filter and keeping water in the refrigerator I end up with water that is virtually indistinguishable in flavor from any water I have had from a bottle. And if its portability you worry about, just buy a water bottle that you can wash and use over and over again.

I use the Brita Pitcher and Nalgene Water Bottle, both one time investments that have paid for themselves many times over because I don't need to constantly buy bottled water. If you consider that the price of a bottle of water is approximately $.50, the total cost of these two items is about the same as 80 bottles of water. Assuming that you drink two bottles of water per day, the cost of both of these items will be recovered in less than two months.

Have you ever thought about how much environmental harm is caused by those little water bottles? The Container Recycling Institute estimates that 1.5 million barrels of oil are consumed every year, just to transport bottled water in the United States. That is enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars for one year! That is not including the energy cost to produce the bottles or to transport the waste that will end up in landfills for more than 1,000 years, the time it takes for a single bottle to biodegrade.

Just by making one small change, you could be saving yourself money, reducing the demand for oil and saving the environment, all at once.

Ok, I'm going to go hug a tree now.

Vacation time!

2006-04-19T10:24:00.001-07:00

I'm officially done with my last job and don't start my new job until May 1st so that means I have about 2 weeks of much needed vacation time. I would love to pick up and go on a road trip or small vacation but I still have my accounting class that I have to go to twice a week. That's o.k. though because it will help me not spend money on hotels or gas and I live in southern California where it shouldn't be hard to find fun things to do close by.

I got my last check yesterday so I am filthy rich. Well, not really but I am not sure what I should do with the money. All of my bills are paid for the next month and I have about $1,000 left over. I'll need to keep some money around for food and gas as well as other random expenses. Normally I would put any excess towards my credit card but I'm not sure when the next time I will see a paycheck will be. I think for the time being I will put the majority of it in my savings account and count it towards the debt reduction total and if for some reason I need it I will be able to still have access to the money. So don't panic if you see the debt totals rise. It doesn't mean that I've gone on a wild shopping spree with my credit card; it just means that I've had to dip into savings until my next paycheck at my new job.

In other news, I've decided to revive my failed attempts at making money off of the 0% balance transfer offers I receive all of the time. When I had tried this venture before I had received an offer for 0% interest on the balance transfer until a specific date. That is why it was so frustrating when they were taking their sweet time to transfer the money to me because every week they stalled I was losing out on the time I could be accruing interest on the money. Well last week I received another one of those offers in the mail except this time the offer was for 0% interest on the balance transfer for 6 billing cycles. I thought at least this way if they tried to delay the transfer, the time when I owed the money would be pushed back as well. The offer said I could do it all online so I logged onto my account and noticed another offer:

0% interest for 6 billing cycles and NO TRANSFER FEE

Woot! I was even more excited about this because that would save me $75 and make all of the money I earned as interest truly free money because it required no initial investment from me. But when I'm filling out the transfer form it asks me for the address of the bank. I wasn't sure what to put here. Could they mean the branch office? Or the corporate office? Or some other office address? So I call them and the customer service rep quickly says she can take care of the balance transfer for me. The catch is though that she doesn't show that the 0% interest for 6 billing cycles and no transfer fee offer is available to my account. Ummm, that's weird because I was looking at it on my computer screen at that very moment. She can't offer any explanation but says that I can call back later and ask them to waive the fee. I laugh at this because we all know that once the credit card companies have their claws in you there is no way they are going to go out of their way to make your life easier. So I decline and tell her I would rather do it all online where I can avoid paying the balance transfer fee at all. She pauses a moment and asks if she can put me on hold...I got all tingly because you know whenever they put you on hold they are simply pretending like they are going to ask their supervisor if they can do something "special" for you. Just as I suspected after a minute had passed she got back on the phone and said that she could waive the fee right then and there. Yeah!

I also decided to sign up for a savings account at HSBC because their rates are way higher than ING Direct. HSBC's rates are at 4.5% while ING is stuck at only 4%. I have had no problems with ING but a half a point of interest could mean as much as $10 more per month on my balance transfer.

Overall, I think it will be a good deal. I'll get to keep the money longer, I won't have to pay a balance transfer fee and I'll be earning at a higher interest rate. Overall I hope to earn $88 per month for 5 months all for doing nothing (except for taking a hit on my credit score for having a large amount of credit).

Book Review: Not Buying It

2006-04-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was sent a reviewers copy of Not Buying It by Judith Levine. It took me forever to read, not because it was boring or tedious, but rather because the book covered so many interesting topics that I would read a page and be distracted by wanting to look up more information about that topic or look up a book that she mentioned. This book-induced ADD is a good indicator that whatever I am reading is thought provoking and inspiring.

I was almost turned off by the book because the beginning pages are filled with Bush bashing and liberal political rhetoric. While I am myself a liberal, I get turned off by overly zealous ideologues weaving in their political rhetoric at inappropriate times. I decided to keep reading (after all the book was free) and was glad that I did. The book not only chronicles her experience of a year without shopping but goes deeper into the anthropological, sociological and political forces behind shopping. "Not Buying It" explores the most banal questions, for example, "How essential are q-tips anyways?" to the more profound, "What environmental impact do my shopping habits have on the planet?"

Going a year without shopping is an interesting endeavor, however, it would have been much more interesting if she hadn't admitted to stocking up and binge shopping before January 1st and conveniently not counting the stuff that she buys for her home renovation or the generosity of her friends offering to buy her this or that or picking up the tab when they went out to dinner and the movies. At the point when my friend is paying for me whenever I go out with them, even though I have the money, I would have either stopped going out with them or chipped in my portion of the bill. I still give her kudos because she went much longer at not buying anything than I ever could.

Which makes me wonder, how long could I go without buying anything? I've contemplated doing my own experiment to see what it would be like to not buy anything and see how long I could last and how much money I could save. Then I realize that in essence, this is what I have been doing for the past two years while getting out of debt. I don't need any more severe deprivation to know what it will feel like, especially when I am so close to being out of debt now.

Do you think you could do it? How long do you think you could last?

I got a new job!

2006-04-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

What a relief! It's only been a week and already I've had two good job offers. It was not easy quitting my job without having another job lined up but I am glad I took the risk. I had known for a while that my job was not right for me but I just wasn't in the financial position to do anything about it. So finally, all the months of saving and paying off my credit card and transferring the remaining balance to a 0% card finally paid off! I had the freedom to quit when I knew it was time to move on and now I have a new job that I think will make me much happier and ultimately much wealthier.

The job that I am accepting was the result of a referral from a friend. The day that I quit she told me about the opportunity. It was great timing. I interviewed with two of the people from the office and got really excited about the job. It is in an awesome location a block away from the beach, a casual environment (the guy was wearing flip flops and jeans when I went to go see him), the people seem really nice and free of office politics and there will be lots of room to grow and learn and make lots of money.

The only problem is that I would be hired as an independent contractor without any benefits like health insurance. Initially I will be paid on salary and then slowly that would be phased out to a commission only basis. I know that this is risky but I feel that the time to take risks is now when I don't have any dependents or a mortgage or massive bills to worry about. I do have my credit card debt but I am confident that I will be able to pay it off before I have to start paying any interest on it.

I was offered another position that would be a more stable and secure corporate job. I weighed the benefits between the two jobs and came to the conclusion that I just wasn't made for working in a corporate office environment. The thought of working in an office environment makes me cringe while the thought of working a block from the beach makes me very happy.

If it doesn't work out at least I tried and I can start over again looking for a new job. I'm still young so there is not much to lose and if it works out then the credit card debt will be gone in no time.

All I have time to say is...

2006-04-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

looking for a job is exhausting! I really feel like I need to be 2 people right now. I hope to have lots to blog about soon... and have the time to do it!

Thanks for all the good wishes. I was so worried I would have an angry mob of blogsters mad at me because I quit my job and the debt repayment would have to be on hold for a while. =)

Bump in the road

2006-04-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

I quit my job! It feels liberating and terrifying at the same time. I tried to look for a replacement job while I was still working at my current job but it was just too difficult. I don't know how people do it, trying to sneak phone calls in during business hours and making excuses to go on interviews. Regardless, I gave my two weeks notice and will soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

I kind of viewed my job as an abusive relationship. I knew it was bad for me but I depended on it to give me security and even though most days I was so stressed out that I could vomit (sorry for that mental picture), I was comfortable there. I tried to stick it out until I was debt free but 4 months seemed so far away. Before you get all up in arms let me make a few points:

1) What is more important? Being happy or being debt free? Being debt free will come in time but living your life in misery will have long term consequences. Think about how stress can take years off of your life and cause all kinds of diseases like heart attacks and stroke. I had to make the choice to take back my sanity and slow down the debt reduction for just a little while.

2) When I transferred my credit card balance to a card with a 0% interest I stopped making payments directly to my credit card (except for the minimum payment) and started socking the additional money into a high yield savings account. As a result, I have a 3-4 month reserve of cash that will tide me over until I find another job.

3) I am not paying any interest on my debt. I have until January of next year to pay it back without paying any interest on it. Even if I can't pay it back by next January I can always find another 0% interest offer to take advantage of. I'm not saying that is what I am planning on doing or that I would like to do it but if worse comes to worst it is a possibility.

4) There is a good job prospect that kind of fell into my lap the day that I gave my notice. If it works out, I could be working again right away and it won't affect the debt repayment at all.

5) Heaven forbid if I don't find another job in 3-4 months I can always go back to school full time.

I vow not to increase my credit card debt while I am looking for another job and still feel that I can reach my original goal of being debt free in 2 years. This will just make the journey that much more interesting!

My 0% interest scheme was a flop

2006-03-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

A while ago I wrote about using a 0% balance transfer offer to earn a little extra money buy putting the transferred money into a high yielding savings account. There are technically no rules against this and although the interest would not be substantial (probably would amount to about $300), it would be "free money". I was ready and determined to avoid any sneaky fees that the credit card company might try to charge me. I was not ready however, for the endless delays that they would subject me to.

I called the credit card company and told them that I wanted to wire transfer $23,000 into my checking account. Unfortunately, the thing I did not know was that in order to request a wire transfer, you have to call from your home phone number. When I moved, I had failed to update the number on my account and the old number had long been disconnected. I updated the phone number and would have to wait another 30 days for the change to take effect. It was frustrating, but understandable. They were only trying to look out for me, right? She suggested that I simply write one of the checks and take it to my bank to deposit it.

That is exactly what I did. The only problem was that when I tried to deposit the check, they informed me that they would charge a $15 processing fee and would hold the check for 5 weeks to make sure it was legit. Apparently, banks have a dislike for checks from credit card companies. I fussed and fought but they were not budging. So I politely told them to shove it and left without cashing the check.

I waited and waited thinking of all the interest earning time that was passing by. Finally, I figured that it had been 30 days and called back to get my money. Everything seemed to be going fine. $23,000 is nothing to sneeze at so of course when I called and talked to the customer service rep they asked me to answer a number of security questions to verify that I was who I really said I was. He told me I should have my money in about a week. Finally!

Every day I would check my account online, waiting for the transaction to go through. Then one day I tried to log into my account and nothing was there. Panicked, I called them. They had placed my account on hold because they suspected fraudulent activity. (I know you can't see me right now but just imagine me rolling my eyes.) So I answer the security questions again and he cheerily informs me that my account should be back online in 30 minutes. Greeeaaat.

The next day, I log online and still nothing. I call back and go through the same ordeal.

Them: Did you recently initiate a balance transfer?
Me: Yes. I have already talked to two different people about this.
Them: O.k. ma'am. Well do to a high volume of fraudulent activity we need you to answer some security questions.
Me: Fine. But I've already answered these questions twice already.

After a series of exceedingly annoying questions, they confirm that indeed everything is legit (for the third time) and say that they will restart the balance transfer process and that I should get my money in a week. This is where I lose it.

Me: You told me a week ago that I would have my money in a week. Now you're saying that it is going to take another week?
Them: Well we had to put your transaction on hold because there were fraud concerns.
Me: Were you ever going to call and tell me this? Remember, I had to call you to solve this problem.
Them: We sent you a letter.
Me: A letter? I'll probably get that in a week. Couldn't you have at least called if you were seriously concerned about fraud?
Them: Um, we did. But we couldn't get a hold of anyone.
Me: Did you leave a message?
Them: Um, actually they said you didn't live there anymore.

I am so completely irritated at this point that I tell them to forget the whole thing. What was the point of me updating my phone number over a month ago if they can't even get the phone numbers straight in the first place? I won't even torture you with the back and forth exchange I had with these people about why they were calling the wrong number.

My theory is that they drag out the process as long as possible so you have the money at the 0% rate for a shorter amount of time. They used to give you 6 months or some predetermined amount of time to have the money at the lower interest rate. Now they do it so you only have it until a specific date. And not to mention that although they say that you have until say September 20th, they really mean that you have until September 20th or before the pay cycle that includes September 20th. This means that if you wait until September 19th to pay it back but your pay cycle begins September 18th, you are already too late.

It was a good idea but not made for a person with low tolerance for annoying customer service. I just couldn't stand the thought of having to call them and answer more security questions. Another victory for the credit card companies. But at least I don't have to sleep with the enemy anymore.

Ever wonder...

2006-03-30T21:55:00.000-08:00

what is the point of signing when you use your credit card? Does it really matter how you sign? Do you ever just get lazy and scribble your name? I always wished I had a cool doctor's like signature but alas, my signature takes me a good 15 seconds to execute. Every letter is clearly drawn, nice and neat. 15 seconds may not seem like a long time but it feels like an eternity when there are people practically pushing you out of line because they are in a rush to be next. These people clearly don't appreciate perfect penmanship. Would it really matter if I just quickly scribbled anything, just to seal the deal and get the heck out of the way?

Well, I happened across this funny article from Zug about someone who tried just that. Not necessarily because he (or she?) was in a rush but because (s)he wanted to see if people were paying attention. (S)he even went so far as signing with a grid and a stick figure. I got quite a laugh out of it. Next time I buy something with my debit card, I'll have to try it and see what happens.

Throw away the fashion mags

2006-03-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

For a while I held on to the fashion magazines. I lived vicariously through the glossy pages, envisioning myself in the clothes or with the new lip gloss. I figured it was harmless because I wasn't actually buying anything but I was wrong. Really, I was just torturing myself with stuff that I wanted but could not have.

You see, I now look at fashion magazines the same way I look at malls. They are evil. Pure and simple. They are evil because they are loaded with ridiculously expensive things that alter your perception of what is affordable and what is not. My eyes nearly bug out of my head when I see the price tags of some of the items. $2,000 for a handbag, $800 for a pair of shoes, $550 for a sweater. It makes it so that when I see a pair of shoes for $220 I think they are a bargain! It builds us up to a false sense of practicality. Comparatively the $220 pair of shoes are a much better buy than the $800 pair of shoes so you are making a frugal decision, right?

Not to mention that fashion magazines are designed to make you feel, well, bad. Ever notice how in those "what's hot, what's not" sections, the what's not was what was hot last month? So now that you've run out and bought the latest trend you have to hide it in your closest or risk being passé and drag yourself back to the mall to buy what is hot this month. And the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats. You can never win.

Along with banning the mall I am now banning fashion and beauty magazines as well. I'm not saying that all magazines are bad. Just the ones that try to sell an impossible lifestyle. Magazines should be inspirational, educational and informative, not a test of willpower.

Maybe it's time to start subscribing to a personal finance magazine instead so I will be more tempted to save instead of spend!

This is the thanks I get?

2006-03-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I parked my car under a tree in front of my apartment. When I went down to my car this morning imagine my shock and horror when I found my car looking like this...

Keep in mind that when I left my car last night it was bird poop free. I looked around at all the other cars and not one of them had one drop of bird poop on them. I had parked in this spot and never had an incident like this before. Clearly, my car had been maliciously attacked by angry birds. They used the weapon they know best, their feces.

"Why?" you ask. I can tell you why those little buggers attacked my car. You see, it all started with trying to make my cat happy. We moved here from a place that was full of birds that my cat could watch from the window. Bird watching was her hobby. In our new apartment she had nothing to watch except a parking lot full of cars and the occasional person walking by. She was depressed and bored so I bought a bird feeder hoping that we could attract some birds to our balcony.

Months passed and no birds came. I tried everything to keep her happy. DVDs of birds, remote control mouse toys, I even contemplated getting another cat to keep her company. Nothing worked. Then one day I noticed that some of the bird food had been eaten and later I noticed that 2 little birds would come and eat out the feeder. My cat was finally happy.

2 birds turned into 4, 4 turned into 6 and soon I could have upwards of 16 birds on my balcony at any one time.

The birdy party crashers were eating me out of house and home. I would put food out when I got home from work and by the time I got home from work the next day the food would be completely gone. I went through a whole bag of birdseed in just one week. I tried to space out the feedings so that I wouldn't have to buy as much bird seed.

I ran out of bird seed and on my trip to the store I forgot to pick up more. I contemplated making a special trip but couldn't justify the effort for the birds. Apparently, the birds didn't like my decision. After 4 days of not having a refill, they decided to show me exactly how they felt about me.

You may be thinking that the bird poop happened because I had attracted these birds to my balcony in the first place. But I argue that I had never had a problem with a soiled car when they were regularly fed! Coincidence? I think not.

So I'm off to get an expensive car wash (I have not had any luck finding a cheap car wash around here) and some bird seed to mollify the angry birdy powers. I have learned my lesson.

Blogs from the Financial Front

2006-03-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

Hooray! They finally have the link up to the article at Money Magazine featuring the "Five online money diarists too smart--or weird--to miss". Am I the smart one? Or the weird one? Hmmm. ;) Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised to be mentioned along with:

Sound Money Tips
All Things Financial
Another F@cked Borrower
Change is Good

And thanks to Bailey from Thoughts from the Change Race for providing a scan:

Bill Re-Evaluation

2006-03-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

The whole fiasco with my auto insurance reminded me of the importance to re-evaluate all of my bills. It has been a while since the last time I really went over what all my monthly bills were and whether or not there were ways I cut back. So in the past week I have been doing some thinking and have decided on a couple of money saving sacrifices:

1) After comparing all of the auto insurance companies I decided that Unitrin was the most cost effective and reliable insurance companies, even with the additional $40 fee for renewing my policy. Even though I couldn't get that fee waived, after changing some of my coverages to what was more approriate (lowered bodily injury liability and dropped towing and rental car expense coverages) I was able to save $40 off of my premium.

They had also increased the per payment fee from $3 to $5. So I decided instead of paying on a monthly basis I would just pay for it all up front. This will hurt the debt repayment in the short term but after the initial hit I'll have more money per month to pay towards the credit card.

2) I cancelled my subscription to Audible. I don't commute anymore so I don't have any real need for audiobooks and I have a ton that I haven't listened to yet. That will save me $15 a month.

3) I changed my student loan repayment schedule from the most agressive repayment plan to the least expensive per month. That will free up an additional $50/month to put towards the credit card. While this may not save me any money (either way it would have gone towards debt) it will help me out mentally by speeding along the process of paying off the credit cards. Once the credit cards are paid off I'll be able to focus all of my energy towards paying off the student loans.

The end is near, I can almost taste it. The closer I get, the more excited I get and hopefully making these few small changes will help me along my way.

Getting to Know...Me

2006-03-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

Head on over to the NCN Network to read a little email interview with none other than yours truly. Find out why I started to blog, what my long term personal finance goals are and much more than you ever needed to know about me.

My Day of Salvation

2006-03-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

I tried to calculate the exact day that I will be out of debt based on my pay schedule and when my bills are due. Based on my calculations I should make my last credit card payment on August 4, 2006. This is assuming I don't receive any extra cash before then and I don't have any major unexpected expenses. That means that I have 162 days until I am debt free!

An unusual real estate investment choice

2006-03-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight I sat in on a very introductory course on real estate investment. A lot of the stuff I already knew but one thing that struck me as unusual was one of the property types he suggested for beginners. In addition to the usual suggestion of purchasing a condo, a single family home, a multifamily home like a duplex, or a small retail space he suggested buying a post office.

I didn't even know that you could buy a post office. I assumed that the government would own the building and the land that they operate the post office on, but I was wrong. Anyone can buy a post office and lease it out to the U.S. government.

Think about it. What a sweet deal that would be! The biggest drawback that I have always envisioned for owning investment real estate is that you have to deal with people, people who don't pay their rent and who don't care about maintaining the property. If the U.S. government is your tenant most likely they are not going to be throwing wild parties and they will have the money to pay you rent (well, lets hope so because if they don't we're all in trouble).

Here are some of the advantages to owning a post office:

*Rent to a Stable tenant
The U.S. government usually signs 5 year leases so you are guaranteed the income for at least 5 steady years. Most post offices tend to stay in the same location year after year. When was the last time that your post office moved?
*Tenant responsible for all expenses
You won't have to worry about them running up the electric bill because they have to pay for it.
*Post offices are everywhere.
This means that there are plenty of cheap locations to choose from.
*Easy to manage.
Post offices are pretty self sufficient so there is no need to hire a property management company that will cut into your cash flow. Also, you can buy out of state and not worry about having to visit the property often.

A quick search on a commercial real estate search engine produces this affordable post office in Idaho. Only $48,000 to buy with an 8.2% CAP rate (rate of return on your investment).

So it all sounds good, huh? What are some of the disadvantages?

*If the post office decideds to not renew its lease, you'll have a hard time finding another tenant to replace them. If that happens you'll most likely be able to only sell it for its land value.
*It's hard to find financing.
*The U.S. government is hard to negotiate with. You'll have a tough time trying to raise the rents on them.

Not a bad deal if you ask me. It's better than having to deal with clogged toilets and evictions.

What $300,000 + Buys You in…Orange County, CA

2006-03-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

JLP over at All Things Financial started a post on what $300,000 will buy you in the real estate market in his neck of the woods and has encouraged other PF bloggers to do the same. O.k. I'm game...but can you really buy anything in Orange County (Irvine) for $300,000?

The answer is yes, but you're not going to get much! The closest thing I could find to $300,000 was this "spacious" 1 bedroom, 1 bath upper-unit condo of 643 s.f. for $299,900.

Now maybe you can understand why I feel like I will never own a home unless I move out of the state.

Just Say No to the Mall

2006-03-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

The mall is an evil place. Walking into a mall is like walking into a vortex where your money is sucked straight out of your wallet, or even worse, money you don't have is charged to a credit card.

O.k. Maybe I am being a little dramatic in saying that the mall is evil, but I definitely feel there is something sinister about a mall. The mall has a way of casting a spell over me while I am there. Things that I didn't even know existed are all of a sudden a necessity and my entire wardrobe seems helplessly shabby and outdated in comparison to the fresh new styles on the racks of countless stores. I lose all sense of rationality and my old mantra of "You only live once" creeps back into my mind and I feel tempted to go on a wild shopping spree. This is why I now avoid the mall at all costs!

You see, I think a lot of Americans end up in debt out of sheer boredom. Go to the mall on any day of the week, especially Saturday and Sunday, and you will find throngs of people filling the malls, fighting over parking spaces and bumping into each other with their baby strollers. Why are they there? Surely all of these people don't need to be there. I think many of them just can't find anything better to do than to hang out at the mall and grab a Cinnabon or a hot dog on a stick. And while they are there passing the time, they end up spending money that don't have on things that they don't need.

I remember every Saturday my grandma and her sister would go to the mall. It was a sort of ritual they had. Rain or shine, regardless of whether they needed anything or not, we would all go to the mall and then go out to lunch afterwards. It's only now that that strikes me as bizarre.

I rarely go to the mall anymore and I've found that my desire for things in general has dropped considerably. For the most part I am content with what I have and can resist emotional or impulsive spending. Sure there are times when I feel the need for something new but its much easier to resist when I am far, far away from the mall.

So if you are in debt or are trying to save money, stay away from the mall. I suggest having a healthy fear of the mall. Think of it: rabid frenzied women pushing you out of the way to get to the big sale, no parking, bad food, and worst of all...money being sucked right out of your bank account, never to be seen again. Not my idea of a good time!

How Much Car Insurance Do You Really Need?

2006-03-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

I've been with Unitrin Direct auto insurance for the past year. They were the cheapest quoted when I went to www.insurance.com and when I switched to them from Mercury insurance I saved about $40 a month. I've never had any really problems with them...until now.

I received my renewal package in the mail and was looking through it to make sure they hadn't raised my premium and was even hoping they would decrease my premium. Neither really happened but what they did do was slap on a $40.00 "policy set up fee" to the total bill. What? A policy set up fee? Nothing on my policy had changed, nothing fancy is required of them. And to make things worse, they decided that they are no longer doing annual policies but instead are now only offering 6-month policies so in another 6 months when my policy renews I will have to pay another $ "policy set up fee." What BS!

Their policy set up fees will end up costing me another $80/year or about $6.60/month. I hate when companies nickel and dime you so that they can lure you in as customers and then try to squeeze as much money out of you as possible. It's more than principle of the matter more than anything. Why not include their expense costs in the premium instead of making it seem as if they are doing you a favor or providing you some additional service by renewing your policy? Isn't that exactly what their business is?

I called them and told them "NO THANK YOU" to the additional fees and they said "TOUGH LUCK." So I started shopping around for auto insurance.

I went back to www.insurance.com and got back a few different quotes, only 1 of which was less expensive than the quote at Unitrin. Annoying but the quote that was less was $108 cheaper for a 6 month policy than at Unitrin. All of the other quotes were

The quote was from Esurance so I decided to do a quick search to see what they were all about. I was so glad I did because I read numerous complaints from the Consumer Affairs website about them claiming that they gave them the run around when they submitted a claim or that they ended up raising their rates during the policy period for no good reason. I think I'll take a pass on them.

Here is what I don't get. I'm 24, never been in an accident, never had a ticket, have a good credit rating and only drive 4 miles one way to work. My car is pretty reasonable; it's about 3 or 4 years old, I own it and it is probably worth about $13,000. But for some reason I end up with ridiculously high quotes from insurance companies. AIG gave me a quote of something like $1,100 for 6 months or $183/month. That could be another car payment!

Maybe its time to reevaluate my coverages. There could be other ways to trim down my auto insurance cost which is my biggest expense after rent, credit card payment and student loans.

I found a good article on this subject at Smart Money. Here it is in paraphrase form with some of my own comments. I recommend checking out the full article as well.

Bodily Injury Liability
This will compensate the driver of the car and its passengers and passengers in your car when you get into an accident. The amount of coverage you need should be determined by the amount of assets you need to protect. This was news to me. I had bodily injury liability coverages of $100,000/$300,000 and I don't even have any assets besides my car. Unless they want to take me to court to win a portion of my credit card debt, I should really lower my coverages here. Smart Money recommends using their Net Worth calculator to determine the amount of assets you need to protect.

Property Damage Liability

This will help pay for the cost of damage to the other party's car. If you live in Orange County like me where too many people buy ridiculously expensive cars, you should have enough to cover the cost of that Mercedes or Porsche.

Personal Injury Protection

This will cover medical and funeral costs of you are passengers in your car regardless of whose fault it is. If you already have medical & life insurance you can be fairly safe in skipping on this coverage.

Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist

This will cover medical and funeral cost for you and your family if you get hit by a hit and run driver or with someone without any or enough auto insurance. A definite because of the number of people driving without insurance. It will make up for anything your medical insurance does not cover.

Collision and Comprehensive

Collision will reimburse you for the cost of replacing or fixing your car after an accident. Comprehensive will reimburse you for the cost of replacing or fixing your car in the event of a natural disaster, theft, or vandalism. It's best to choose the highest deductible available (usually $1,000) so that you can save on the amount your policy premium will cost you. In the long run, you'll only be paying more than $500 to reduce the amount of deductible you have. This is only of course, if you'll be able to pay the $1,000 deductible if you are in an accident.

If you have an older car it may make more sense to drop collision and comprehensive all together as these coverages can make up 30-40% of your total policy cost. If you get into an accident the amount of money you receive to replace or fix the car may not be more than you have already paid in insurance.

Car Rental and Roadside Assistance

The likelihood that you will need to use them are pretty slim. You'd be better off paying for them out of pocket if you do need them instead of paying a monthly fee just in case you might need them.

Unfortunately, even taking into account some of these changes, I still can't find a price that beats Unitrin and isn't shady like Esurance. It would be nice to move to a more reputable company like Geico or 21st Century but I would have to pay at least $40 more per month. In the end I just don't feel it is worth it. I guess I'll have to keep crossing my fingers and hope I don't get into an accident. And it gives me a reason to look forward to getting older...maybe when I turn 25 I'll start getting lower auto insurance rates!

When you love your shoes too much...

2006-03-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. I'm not really a shoe person. I'm one of those people that would walk around bare foot or in flip flops most of the time if I could. This works out great for me because I am not tempted like some people to spend an inordinate amount of money on shoes thus breaking the budget. I have other vices but shoes are not one of them.

Mainly I hate shoes because they tend to hurt my feet, especially heels. I've never gotten used to walking in heels and I always look ridiculous when I do. Just today, I tripped and nearly fell on my face 3 (yes three!) times because my heels got stuck on something or I twisted my foot the wrong way. Its fine as long as no one notices. I usually do a quick look-around to make sure no one saw and if I don't see anyone giggling then I'm cool. But its hard to play it off when you are trying to carry on a conversation with someone and all of a sudden you are immobile and your shoe flies off of your foot because it has gotten stuck in the floor (and yes, this did happen to me today).

I'm just not one of those girls who freaks out about shoes and wants to own 100 pairs of Prada or Jimmy Choo shoes. I have a hard time getting excited about shoes because I know that my feet will hate them and its hard for me to care how cute the shoes are when I'm in excruciating pain and falling all over the place. Even tennis shoes are hard to buy because it is so difficult to know whether or not they are going to be comfortable because they have to be broken in before you can truly know the nature of the shoe.

But alas, there is one pair of shoes that have always done me right. I bought them about 5 years ago and never regretted the $80 I spent on them. They carried me across Europe on a backpacking trip and I wore them just about everyday when I was in school and didn't have a car and walked everywhere. When I wear them I feel like I'm not wearing anything at all and they provide great ankle support so I can really hussle when I'm walking somewhere in a hurry.

They have looked terrible for a while now but I can't bare to part with them. I've washed them but they still look dirty and there are little plastic things that are falling off left and right.

I've bought other shoes since then but they don't compare. I feel like every time I buy another pair of shoes I am just wasting my money because I won't want to wear them. On the other hand, I don't want to wear the old shoes because they look beat. There comes a point when frugality must make way for fashion.

So what is a girl to do? I either buy new shoes which could be a waste of money (and money is tight) or I can just keep the old shoes and look, how do you say, ghetto.

I did have one other brilliant idea. I could just try to find the same old shoes for sale on the internet. Unfortunately, these shoes seem to be a rather rare find. I searched through tons of shoe listings on ebay but didn't have any luck finding the shoe.

I'm not sure what they are called but the bottom of the shoe has the words "Turbulence," "Duration," and "Max Air." Most of these brings up tons of shoes, not one of them being my shoe. The tongue of the shoe has the number 302308 which seems to be a product number because when I type it in I get results from some Asian website that has a picture of my shoe in red and gold. If only I knew what the heck the website said and they had it in the right color my life would be one step closer to being complete.

Oh mighty shoe gods...please help! These shoes must exist somewhere.

Reader Success Story

2006-03-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen the commercial that says "When banks compete, you win?" I'm not sure what company that commercial was for but it is so true! A Defying Debt reader recently shared her sneaky strategy of getting her interest rate lowered and I think it was such a wonderful idea that I wanted to pass it along to everyone.

Raven had over $65,000 worth of debt at the end of 2005 and now owes $49,000. That is an amazing feat in itself. If you do the math that is $16,000 paid off in just a few months, wow! The problem was was that she had one credit card with a balance of $14,700 with a whoppin 22% interest rate. She had tried numerous times to call the credit card company to have them lower her rate but with no success. I guess they knew they had her in a bind and they were not going to make things any easier for her (those bastards).

So she took matters into her own hands, contacted a bank that would let her take out a personal line of credit for $15,000 at 20% interest to pay off her credit card. Now that is all fine and dandy, 2% interest on $15,000 can add up. But she didn't stop there.

She then called the credit card company back and asked them what it was worth to them to keep her as a customer. They then offered her a balance transfer rate of 6.99% for the life of the loan!

Just by creating a bidding war between banks she was able to cut her interest rate down by 15%. That just proves the commercial right, when banks compete, you win!

I'm lovin it! Congrats to you Raven! Thanks for sharing.

Investing in Stocks: Part III

2006-03-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

So far I've talked about choosing a good broker and reading a company's financial statements but haven't gotten into the really fun stuff yet. I've been reading lots of books from the library and listening to audiobooks about investing and I have to say that there are so many ways to evaluate a stock that I don't really know where to begin. I don't want to bore you with a bunch of terms and ratios. Those kinds of textbook explanations are much harder for me to understand and digest than an explanation that is dynamic and uses tangible examples.

The best way I think I can synthesize this information is to just break it down by the main points of each book and what information I thought was most useful and applicable.

The Warren Buffet Way
I love reading and learning about other successful people. I'm always hoping that just a little bit of what they have that makes them successful will rub off on me. Of course, when you think of successful investors you probably think of Warren Buffet, the second richest person in the United States. His net worth is over $40 billion (can you imagine?) so he must have been doing something right with his investments.

Apparently, Buffet followed in the ways of Benjamin Graham, who I had not heard of before but is considered to be the "Father of Value Investing" and wrote the highly influential book called "The Intelligent Investor," which is next on my books to listen to. Graham's method of investing is called "Value Investing" and taught that one should only buy shares in a company that are selling below their true value. Simple, right? But how exactly do you determine if a company's stocks are selling at a bargain price?

Buffet determines the value of a company by estimating the future cash flows of a company and then adjusting for the time value of money (or discount rate) based on the rate of a long-term U.S. bond. This is called the discounted cash flow and can be calculated with the equation below:

AGH! Equations, I know. I apologize for that. This is what equations do to my head:

All this equation is doing is putting the future earnings into today's dollars plus the amount of interest that it could have earned if you had bought government bonds.

Moving on.

Buffet is able to determine the future cash flows of a company by only focusing on companies that he understands and that have had consistent earnings power in the past. By focusing on companies that have consistent earnings and on companies where he understands the business he feels he can eliminate much of the risk that he can confidently project earnings into the future.

For those of us who aren't Warren Buffet and who don't have the experience of reading tons and tons of financial statements over many years, there are a bunch of ratios that people can use to determine if shares appear to be underpriced. The most popular one is the price to earnings ratio that I mentioned in a previous post. The P/E ratio can be computed:

P/E ratios are useful in comparing stocks between like companies, say if you are trying to decide between buying a share of Coca Cola or a share of Pepsi. The lower the number the better. Basically what it means is that if the P/E ratio for Coke is $10 you are paying $10 per dollar of earnings and if Pepsi has a P/E ratio of $15 then you are paying $15 per dollar of earnings.

Have I confused you yet? I think I'll leave it at that for now as all the numbers and equations are making my head spin. Please note that I am by no means an expert but rather I'm still trying to grapple to understand most of this myself. If you notice anything that is grossly erroneous, please let me know and if I make absolutely no sense, let me know and I'll try to clarify.

The good thing about trying to write this is that I can try to fill in the gaps in my understanding and I am learning a lot as I go. I hope you are getting something out of it too.

Recovering from your mistakes

2006-03-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

We only get one life. That's why it is so frustrating when you've made mistakes with the life that you were given. No one is perfect; we are all bound to make mistakes sooner or later. But sometimes it seems that the mistake of getting into debt is costing me too much of my life. The effects of debt have had repercussions on my life for years and will continue to cause repercussions for many years to come.

In ways, getting into that much debt (in May 2004 I had over $30,000 of debt) is one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I know it sounds crazy but I truly think that it had to come to such a dramatic climax to help me understand how important it is to save money for the future. Who knows when I would have realized the need to start saving for a house, retirement, etc. without it coming to that point.

Then again, I'm frustrated that all of this effort and sacrifice is being made just to pay off obligations; obligations that have left me with no real assets (except for my car, which doesn't really count because it is always depreciating). Wouldn't it be great if that $30,000 that I started off with could have been saved as part of a down payment for a house or the seed money for my own business?

Enough of that negativity! Gosh, talking about debt can be depressing sometimes. The most important thing to take away from this is what we can learn from our mistakes and how we can make up for the time it has cost us to repair those mistakes. Let’s face it. Anyone in debt like me has more of a disadvantage than someone who was smart with his or her money to begin with. So how can we make up for lost time? Here are some of the tips that I have come up with to take control of our financial futures:

1) Have a master plan.

The plan should not only include how and when you get out of debt but also what you are going to do after you get out of debt. This could include saving for a house, a business, emergencies, retirement, or all of the above.

2) Educate yourself.

Read tons of books (from the library). Read lots of blogs (especially mine!). Keep up with the news. Take a class on something that interests you. Getting educated not only helps you make more informed decisions but it will also keep you motivated to do the right thing. Besides, if you are constantly engaged in ways to better yourself, you will be less likely to be at the mall spending money.

3) Network with like-minded individuals.

People with similar goals will keep you on track and will hold you accountable for your actions. Not only that, but you can exchange ideas and assist each other in accomplishing your goals. I recommend that if you are also struggling to get out of debt to join the No Credit Needed Network. NCN has recently gotten himself out of debt and has started the network to encourage others to do the same. Imagine, a whole network of people cheering you on to attain your goal.

4) Always look for ways to learn a new skill or improve on your skills.

Having a large skill set will help increase your income earning potential. Whether it is by taking a class or by engaging in a hobby that helps you practice a skill (like blogging) you will be glad you did it. You never know when an opportunity to practice that skill might present itself.

5) Think big.

Most people laugh when I tell them that I want to buy a chateau (stop giggling!). It sounds so big, so unattainable but that is precisely the point. I probably could never have kept up my motivation to get out of debt if the end goal was to only get out of debt. Boring, right? There have been many times when I wanted to rebel and go on a wild shopping spree but then looked at pictures of chateaux and realized that my dream would be that much further away if I did. Dreams have to be big in order to keep inspiring us.

Debt can be the biggest blessing in disguise if we learn from it and vow to improve our finances. If you aren’t in debt, learn from my mistake and don’t do it!

Remember: “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.” ~ Conrad Hilton

Investing in Stocks: Part II

2006-02-27T21:43:00.000-08:00

It has been one crazy week! I don't even know where all of the time went between working and class and everything else that life has thrown at me in between. Sorry for the lack of updates...I promise to do better!

Next month, my company is going to hold a training class for the staff on how to begin investing in real estate (i.e. how to buy your first home, whether you should buy a singe family home or a 4-plex, & how to buy a small commercial building). This should be great blog material. Look out for that in the near future.

But let's get back to investing in stocks which is the topic du jour. Now that we've picked an online investment firm, we need to understand what a stock is.

This may sound very elementary but understanding this basic principle is crucial in allowing us to make informed decisions when we invest in the stock market. So please, bear with me!

Basically, when you buy stock you are buying partial ownership of a company and therefore a claim on it's future earnings. The more stocks you own, the more say you have in how the company is run and are the larger your claim is on the company's future earnings (paid out in dividends). The more the value of the company grows, the higher the stock price is likely to go, thus allowing you to sell your stock at a later time for a higher price. Conversely, if the value of the company declines, you will not be able to sell your stock for as high a price as you bought it for and you will lose money (boo).

Therefore, when you buy a stock you want to know as much as you can about the past and future potential earnings of the company so you can gauge how safe your investment is and what the potential for return is. Learning about the past financial history of the company is the easy part. Predicting the future...well that's another story. So let's start with understanding the past.

All corporations are required to issue financial statements to investors at least once a year. Once you are able to read these financial statements you will be able to make a more educated decision on whether or not a stock is a good investment or not. The 4 important financial statements are:

Income statement: Records the revenue and expenses and provides the net income or net loss for the year
Cash Flow Statement: Records where cash is being spent and how they are financing business operations
Balance Sheet: Records all of the company's assets, liabilities and stockholder's equity
Retained Earnings Statement: Records how much of their Net Income was paid out in dividends

Financial statements are available for all companies if you go to NYSE website. Simply go to the "Listed Company Directory" and pull the "SEC Filings" for the company you are interested in.

The information in the financial statements allows investors to calculate different ratios that can measure a company's performance (i.e. Earnings per share and Price-Earnings ratio), track the company's revenues, and see how much debt the company has, among many other things.

Knowing what everything in the financial statements means will probably take lots of time, but reading through even at a high level will give you a greater sense of the operations of the business, how the company intends to grow (if at all), and how profitable the company is.

It can be fun to read through financial statements randomly. I would recommend to think of a product you love, or an industry that you are familiar with and read through some of the annual reports for those companies. You will probably learn a lot!

Next: What to look for in a company...

**Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert in investing in the stock market. Quite to the contrary! These are just my general findings as I educate myself on how to invest wisely so please, take everything I saw with a grain of salt. And I'd love to hear your opinions and advice from your own experiences!

Investing in Stocks: Part I

2006-02-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

Investing in the stock market can be a scary thing. It is something that I've heard about a lot but never actually took the time to understand. Part of the reason why it seems so difficult is because you may not know where to start.

Do you start by looking up ticker symbols and viewing graphs and charts that mean absolutely nothing to you?

Do you start by reading about companies and industries and what is going on in the market as a whole?

Do you start by looking up definitions and terms so you might stand a fighting chance of understanding investment jargon?

NO.

Personally, I think the first move that someone interested in investing in the stock market should take is to choose a brokerage firm where you will conduct your business of buying and selling stocks. Why is it so important? Well for starters, for every transaction that you conduct you will have to pay a fee. The total amount of fees that you pay for buying and selling shares could have a significant impact on your total overall return on your investment. The amount that you are willing to pay may vary depending on any number of factors including how often you want to buy/sell, how much you are investing, and what kind of tools you are looking for to research and track your investments.

For the beginning investor (like myself) there are a number of online investment companies. Each one offers a different fee schedule, different plans and research tools.

Sharebuilder: Offers the lowest fees for trading that I have found so far. There are 3 levels of accounts:

Basic: $4 per investment, $15.95 for a real time trade (buying or selling a stock at the current market price), and $19.95 for a real time trade limit order (buying or selling at a specific price).
Also includes a Portfolio Builder tool which recommends stocks based on a simple survey that tests your risk tolerance, goals and experience.
Standard: $12/month which includes 6 free investments per month + $2 per additional, $14.95 real time trade, $18.95 real time trade limit order.
In addition to the Portfolio Builder you get a Gain & Loss tracker which tracks the performance of your stocks.
Advantage: $20/month which includes 20 free investments per month + $1 per additional, $11.95 real time trade, $15.95 real time trade limit order.
In addition to the Portfolio Builder and Gain & Loss Tracker you have access to a tool that tracks your capital gains for tax purposes and an IPO (company's first sale of stock) priority notifier.

Transferring money is simple. You can link it directly with your checking and savings account and transfer money online. Under the basic plan you set your investment plan to do everything automatically for you.

For example, let's say that you have $100 to invest every month. You can create your own custom portfolio and have it invest in those same stocks every month (or every week). You can also set it up so that you can make a one-time investment. The only problem that I have is that investments can only be made on a Tuesday so if it is Wednesday you will have to wait nearly a week to buy (unless of course you want to pay the $14.95 for a real time trade).

Also, I decided on Sharebuilder because of a promotion through Costco where new members earn $65 just for signing up for an account and conducting their first transaction. Can't beat that if you are already a Costco member and are interested in beginning to invest.

Ameritrade: There is only one type of individual investing account. They charge $10.99 per internet equity trade which includes stop and limit orders.

Their fee structure seems to be a lot trickier. For instance, the $10.99 fee for trading only applies to stocks being traded online. If you decide to do it over the phone they will charge $14.99 and if you want to talk to an actual broker it is $24.99 for a market order and $29.99 for a limit order. OR if you want to trade a mutual fund rather than a stock you will be subject to a whole different fee structure. And it doesn't end there. They will charge a $15 maintenance per quarter if the liquidation value of your account is below $2,000 in addition to the normal trading fees.

Bottom line that they will probably find a way to charge you for anything and everything they possibly can.

Ameritrade offers a variety of tools, some of which come with a fee. Some of the complimentary services they provide are the Ameritrade Streamer which gives you customizable real time streaming quotes and the Quote Scope feature which will give you the best bid and offer and last trade prices for a stock and displays such things as the Liquidity ratio and Flow indicator for your selected stocks. There is also the Advanced Analyzer which tracks the performance of your portfolio for $19.99/month.

Scottrade: As with Ameritrade there is only one level of account. They offer $7.00 online trades, $12 for a limit order and a minimum of $500 to open an account. They do not charge inactivity fees so that is a plus. Reading some customer reviews I noticed many people had the complaint that they had lots of technical errors (servers crashing, website being frequently unavailable) which would be frustrating if you are used to have 24/7 access to your accounts. The layout of their website leaves much to be desired; searching for info on their fees and services is quite a challenge. From what I can tell they offer the following research tools:

Scottrade: Online portal to track your account including news alerts, access to stock quotes and research.
Scottrader: Live streaming quotes, Top Ten lists and interactive charts, personal stock lists and Quick quotes to track individual stocks.
Scottrade Elite: Free if your account value is over $25,000. With this tool you can get Dow Jones News, Comtex News, advanced charting capabilities, and technical analysis.

Plus they were rated 6 times in a row for Highest Investor Satisfaction with Online trading services.

Well, I'm sure there are lots more that I haven't covered yet like E*Trade, Buy and Hold, etc but you get the idea of what types of things to consider when you are on the hunt to find a right match for your investment needs.