Update your Links

Bright Blue's not really my style, neither is not having full control of my blog. So after having a brief flirtation with blogger, I've moved to:

http://www.keepingthereinstight.com/

Please update your links and I promise it's the only move I'll make.

Thanks!

I'll gladly take $600 dollars...

2008: $600
2042: $8214.08

The proposed economic stimulus package definitely makes me a winner. Any tax refunds / rebates received this year are going straight into the Roth IRA I will be opening soon. Once my check shows up, I'll take the value, divide it by the number of months remaining in 2008 and send that much extra into the Roth / month. The wonders of dollar cost averaging will help maximize my investments despite whatever the market decides to do.

At a conservative interest rate of 8%, my 'stimuli' will appreciate 1369%!

I know that I will be receiving at least another $250 back as a refund. By investing the stimulus and my refund, I should get the following numbers at a minimum:

2008: $850
2042: $11636.61

This is the same appreciation rate (give or take a few thousandths of a percentage) but will the extra $250 will yield an result in $3422.53 extra when I'm 59 1/2.

Compounding interest, how I love thee.

Why Must Google Screw with Me?

With the federal funds rate being slashed to 3.5%, I've been worried about the interest rate of my HSBC Online Savings dropping significantly. I know that I have zero control over the APY but every penny I earn counts. The blog world has been mumbling all day about ING's rate drop (now 3.65% APY), so I prepared myself for the worse.

A quick google of the phrase: "hbsc savings rate" returned a wonderful headline claiming HSBC had raised their rates. This made absolutely no sense but I was still overcome by exhilaration. Then the article finally loaded....

A few hours have passed and I have yet to recover from the soul crushing. Thanks Google!



Note: HSBC still shows a 4.25% APY.

CVS Deal: Cheap M&M's

In my line of work, M&M's are highly coveted vehicle for inquiry based learning. I dread lessons that call M&M's as I have to buy them with my own money. I recuperate some of the costs with tax deductions, but it still adds up to be a pricey expense.

Today's purchase was a different story! Thanks to my CVS Card (and a post from Fat Wallet), I paid a whopping total of $1.04 for 4 bags of 14 oz. M&M's. After I deduct this purchase on my 2008 taxes, it'll work out to be $0.78 for the four bags or 19.5 cents per 14 ounces!

The Process:

1. Buy 2 - 14 oz. bags of Cupid's Mix M&M's.
   
2. Since these are Buy One, Get One Free with a CVS Card, it should be 3.52 before taxes.
   
3. A coupon for $3.00 off your next bag of M&M's should ring up at the bottom of your receipt.
   
4. Return the 2 bags of M&M's.
   
5. Re-buy the 2 bags of M&M's using the CVS card and the $3.00 off coupon. This will give you yet another coupon!
   
6. Repeat until you have as many M&M's as you want.
   

This will only work with any flavor of Cupid's Mix M&M's or the green bags of M&M's.

Since I was the only customer in the local CVS, I was able to buy / return / rebuy without any hassle. Your mileage with this may vary.

Better Budget Challenge: Week #3

This week's Better Budget Challenge called for all of the participants to try and save money on our fixed bills. It's been a while since I had done this so I fired up my cellphone and prepared to spend my day off on hold.

Credit Cards
Shell Mastercard - This card had an APR of 19.99% which after 15 minutes on hold was lowered to 17.99%. This was as low as the CSR said he could go unless I was getting ready to cancel the card. Since I never carry a balance and didn't feel like going through the whole cancellation song and dance, I took the lowered rate and hung up the phone. I'd imagine that if I had threatened to cancel the rate would have be lowered.

American Express Blue Cash - My current APR was 14.25% and the CSR couldn't get it to go any lower; she did put a note in my file that I wanted to lower the APR. My cash advance APR was lowered to the same rate from 23.25% which is a significant drop. Again, I don't foresee myself using this feature but I wasn't about to turn down the lowered rate.

US Airways Mastercard - Current APR was 14.5% which cam bundled with my signup bonus of double miles for the first year. I detest this airline with the passion of my soul but since most of my paid-for travel sends me through Charlotte, I have a lot of miles already racked up. The only way to get my APR lowered was to lose the double miles bonus. After I spend another $2,500 on this card, I will have 3 roundtrips worth of miles and I plan on canceling the card immediately. I'll probably then open up an AMEX Starwood Card in its place.

Cellphone
I share a plan with my mother, brother, and sister-in-law. This works out to be about 30 bucks a month, well below anything I could get on my own. The $10 I spend for text messaging could be forgone in months of need but I do use this feature a lot.

Internet
I pay less than $50 dollars for Road Runner and the basic TV package (80 channels). The only better 'deal' would involve spending another $5 dollars a month for DVR. Since I watch most of my TV shows on the via the show's website, I declined this offer and kept my current rate.

Car Insurance
I was already sitting pretty with my rate of $24.50 / month so I didn't bother calling my agent. This rate is already dirt cheap for an under-25 year old male driver.

Magazines
All of my subscriptions are either a) gifts or b) Coke Rewards. No money to save here.

Gym Membership
I have access to free gym equipment at both my apartment and place of employment. Again, I don't pay for these services so I couldn't save any more money.

Bank Accounts
All of my savings are in an HSBC High-Yield Savings account which earns an APR of 4.25%. I've been very satisfied with the services I receive, and I wasn't going to move my small savings around for a small increase. I have a checking account with Bank of America as well as a savings account (I pay my bills out of this). Both of these accounts qualify for free services and since there's a BOA on every corner, I already have my money in the best option.

It's a shame I couldn't get the per day late fee at the library reduced. This is really the only place where I 'throw away' my money. I always manage to pickup books with different due dates and then forget to renew until the last due date is past.

On my taxes, can I classify these fines as donations?

2008: Week 4 Forecast (01.20 - 01.27)

Projected Additional Income:

Returns: $11.00

This week's forecast for additional income is rather bleak. Most of the local school districts just finished exams and have off Monday / Tuesday; thus, my tutoring clients have all asked to not have a session this week. Because of this, all of my expenses will have to come out of the 15th's paycheck.

Projected Expenses:

Cable: $48.50

Food: $30.00

Gas: $50.00

Expenses this week should be kept to a minimum. Due to the camping trip this weekend, I doubt I'll make it to the end of the week without needing gas. I think I've got about 65 miles left on this tank which should last to Friday. My fridge needs some restocking but all of the items on my list can be bought at Aldi which will really cut down on the price. As usual, the cable bill will be deducted from my bank account on the 24th.

This week will really determine if I'll be able to snowflake an additional contribution into my savings account at the end of the month.

2008: Week 3 Roundup (01.13 - 01.19)

Weekly Additional Income (Projected / Actual) : $730 / $712.80

One of my clients flaked out on his session which cut into my additional income by $40 dollars. With it being the end of the semester and the client in question is changing classes, I doubt that's an income I can count on in the future. It's time to inform my regular referrers that I have open slots. My bonus after taxes worked out to be exactly $600, which I promptly transfered straight into savings. This absolutely rocked!

I won the monthly fitness challenge yet again at work, so that was another easy ten dollars. As long as I don't go down with an injury, I can count on this money each month unless the rules change to give somebody else a shot. There's been some discontent among my colleagues about how unfair it is to reward the winner simply on the amount of time trained per month.

Weekly Expenses (Projected / Actual) :

Cellphone Bill: $34.14 / $34.13

Gas: $50 / $73.71

Groceries: $50 / $62.12

Student Loan: $33 / $33

Water Bill: $0 / $27.35

Misc: $0 / $64.82

So my estimates were a bit off, the camping trip on the weekend totally blew my weekly plan. The trip will end up costing me about $100 dollars by the time I get my gas situation all straightened out. Next time I'm asked to do somebody a favor, I'm going to hang up the phone and sleep on my decision.

Either way, no major additional expenses this week; I simply had to trade upgrading my MacBook's RAM for a camping trip in the snow.

Camping Weather Craziness (Update 1)

Despite a snow advisory and a predicted 3-5 inches of snow, myself and the Boy Scouts are still planning on going camping tomorrow. At this point, I don't think it is a wise decision for us to go; however, I don't have the final say so. The boys were absolutely jazzed about going tonight, the mom's not so much.

There's something about driving through 2+ hours through snow and ice, hiking up a very technical trail that is already covered in snow, and then spending spending all night in freezing temperatures that just doesn't appeal to me. I'd also really like to return the $45 dollars in cold weather gear I bought today in anticipation of things taking a turn for the worse.

I've gotten 'soft' in my old-age.

403(b) Summary: 4th Quarter 2007

One advantage to having a pitiful IRA balance is that when you're losing money, there is not much for you to lose.

My 403(b) summary for the 4th quarter of 2007 came in the mail today. The net result? I've lost $4.44 cents over that time period. Actually, I've lost more but some of the funds had substantial dividends. Losing my money wasn't what bothered me, the balance was a different story.

Since I'm a state employee not participating in the state retirement program, the max I'm allowed to contribute is 6.5%. Luckily, the state matches contributions up to 5% of my salary; so technically, each month 11.5% of my salary is stashed away. Unfortunately, when you're paid as little as I am, there's not a lot going into the account every two weeks.

Within the year, I'd like to start contributing another 3.5% into a Roth IRA. That would bring my IRA contributions to over 10% of my pre-tax salary. Thinking about how this will grow over the next 35+ years makes me smile! July is the ETA for my emergency fund reaching six months worth of expenses; and at that point, I can split my monthly savings between the Roth, the house account, and my emergency fund.

It's just depressing to know that after upping my contribution levels, I will still be a few thousand dollars away from maxing out my yearly contributions.

Let's Just ask 'A'

Why is that anytime anybody needs a favor, my name is the first one that seems to come up?

This happens at work, with my family and friends, as well as organizations I'm not even involved with.

Since I'm involved in a lot of the community aspects of the church (softball, being the male chaperone for the youth group, tutoring), I'm young, and don't have any childern; I've become the fallback plan for everything. I've picked up the slack for basketball coaches who have quit midseason, youth leaders who have gotten pregnant and decided to never show up again, organizing mission trips, being the 'foreman' for the Habitat Blitz Build as well as cooking way too many dinners on very short notice. On average, I spend about 5 hours each month doing volunteer activities that I most certainly did not volunteer for.

I was just roped into taking a large group of Boy Scouts on a camping trip. When I was asked, it seemed like the right thing to do; I enjoyed my time as a Boy Scout enough to get my Eagle Scout, I like to camp, and had no weekend plans. As soon as I hung up the phone, the voices in my head to yell the following:

• You nitwit, you just agreed to go camping in the middle of January.
  
• It's going to be really really cold.
  
• You'll be paying about 40 dollars to board your dog.
• You're already over you gas budget for the month, it's another tank of gas you'll use.
  

The net result: I'll spend an extra 80-90 this weekend to freeze my ass off in the woods and no RAM upgrades for the MacBook.

I really need to learn how to say No.

Better Budget Challenge: Week # 2

Better Budget Challenge: Week 2: "if you already have a successful budgeting system, tell us about it."

A brief not-so brief overview of my budgeting system:

In the past, I've used a spreadsheet that I adapted from the original Pearbudget. As usual, I took their solution and adapted it in a manner that worked best for me. I had finally gotten it tweaked properly and then disaster struck. The dog and I were horsing around one day, this resulted in a bottle of water spilling on my laptop and external drive. Needless to say, that version is gone forever. I've slowly been putting together a new version (see below) in Numbers.


















If you want the actual template file, leave a comment, and I'll get it to you.

The spreadsheet is nothing more than a glorified ledger, in which, I track my expenditures on a daily basis. I usually print out a hardcopy, put it on the fridge, and update it daily. About twice a week, I'll sit down, plug the numbers into the spreadsheet and get my updated net differences. I like having the paper version as it lets me stay updated without being tied to the computer.

The first column is a list of the fixed expenses I occur each month. Since I have these withdrawing on the same day every month, I know what they are just by looking at the date / dollar amount. If the actual for this column does not equal the budgeted, something funky is going on.

The second column is for my electricity payment; I simply plug the amount I paid on the proper date. That's it! Once I have a few months of data at my disposal, I analyze any trends to get a big picture idea of my electricity usage. On the hardcopy, I'll make sure I note the # of dryer cycles for the month as that's my wattage 'hog.'

The third column is for my water bill. I record the amount of the bill on the day I send in the check. I wish I could automate this expense, but the company my apartment complex uses charges a $2.50 service fee for paying online. I'd rather go through the hassle of mailing a check if it saves myself an extra $2.01 each month. I record the number of dishwasher and dryer cycles on the hardcopy; this helps to me keep a running tab on what the bill should be.

Gas goes into the fourth column; I aim to spend no more than $150 each month. At my usual weekly mileage, I can get 2 weeks worth out of a single tank. The remaining $50 dollars is reserved for any weekend trips I take to visit family, friends, or enjoy one of my hobbies. If I go over the $150 in gas, I'd better have a damn good reason.

Any food expense goes into the fifth column; I love to cook, so most this column's expenses are groceries. 'Food' also includes any money spent at a restaurant, coffee shop, or any pit stops on a road trip. Again, for my life, it made sense to lump it all together. I try to cook all my meals but my crazy schedule doesn't always work that way. Since I'm single and frequently raid my parents fridge (when I make the 4 hr round trip), I can eat really well on 5 dollars a day.

Car expenses go in the next column, I budget for any car related expense that is not a tank of gas. I do the vast majority of my own maintenance as well as own my car outright, so I'll often go months without having any car related expense. At the end of each month, I transfer the money into my easy access savings until it's needed.

House is for any home related expense; I budget this amount for any light bulbs, cleaners, decorations, etc.. that go to keeping my apartment in order. I could skimp in this category, but to ME, it's worth the few dollars each month to feel help keep my apartment clean and homey.

I budget 20 bucks a month for any personal items. Face cleaner, contact solution, over the counter medication, etc are my usual 'personal' expenses. This is one of the categories that I am usually within a few pennies of my budgeted amount. I'm such a creature of habit that at any given time, I can usually tell you how many more days/uses of X product I have.

The final column is for miscellaneous expenses. I always go over in this column because my running expenses are classified as 'misc.' I go through a pair of shoes in about six weeks ($90-$100) and then race registrations usually run me about 30 bucks every other month. I love to run, it's an investment in my health, and I do spend a large amount of my 'free' time (35 hours in December) in running-related pursuits. As long as I'm not a large amount over the budgeted amount, life will move on. My other typical miscellaneous expenses include dates, extra pet expenses, and gifts.

The last column gives me a daily expenditure by day. You'll notice at the bottom, I have the difference for each category. This is vital and lets me keep track of the month rather easily. I can also grab the data from this column, do a quick analysis and adjust my next months budget accordingly.

I recently signed up for Mint and I have been impressed so far. My one complaint has been the inability to create custom categories. I didn't immediately delete my data out of Mint which is more than I can say for Quicken or Microsoft money.

Two Jimmy Buffett albums later, I hope I have to presented a clear idea of how I budget. It's rather complicated but by having everything so meticulously earmarked and recorded, it works wonderfully for ME.

2008: Week 3 Forecast (01.13 - 01.19)

Projected Income (+ $730)
2nd Income: $130
Bonus: $600

Projected Expenses (- $247.13)
Cellphone Bill: $34.13
Gas: $50
Groceries: $30
Student Loan Payment: $33
Electronics: $100

Net Result: + $482.87

This should be a very good week for my high yield savings account. I'll be getting a nice 'bonus' from work; by bonus, I mean I did a bunch of extra work and they actually decided to pay me My 2nd Income will cover most of the other weekly expenses. I'm also upgrading the RAM on my MacBook. It was cheaper to upgrade if I didn't go through Apple; so now that my bonus has come in, I'll pull the trigger on that purchase.

My extra payment to the holder of my student loans will go to the principal of my unsubsidized portion. I'd like to put more money towards my student loans since my interest rate is higher than that of any interest I'm bringing in. However, trying to increase the emergency fund as well as saving for an eventual down payment are my current priority. Once those accounts reach the appropriate balance, every extra penny will then be funneled into the student loans.

2008 Finical Goals and Forecast

My Finical Goals for 2008

• Have 4 months worth of expenses in my Emergency Fund
• Pay an additional $33 to my Student Loan a Month.
  
• Try to put $200 into my Savings Account each month.
• Keep my register CONSTANTLY updated.
• Spend Less.

With my current employment situation and lifestyle, all of those goals should be relatively easy to keep. If for some reason, I have to dip into my emergency fund (highly unlikely) I will then divert all of the extra money from my Savings back into my Emergency Fund.

I will be changing jobs in June; however, I'm already under contract and I'll be getting a pay raise so that should only impact my economic situation for the better. There is a chance I'll move to an apartment that's closer to work, so I'll have to take a slight hit with any deposits.

In the fall, I'll begin to pursue an advanced graduate certificate which will make me much more marketable when I decide to switch careers within the next 3-4 years. The career switch is a result of being so miserable with my current employment situation. I thought I'd really enjoy my chosen profession but I feel like my personal growth will quickly become stagnant if I did this for the next 30+ years. I'm not yet ready to throw in the towel so going back to school part time makes sense. The skills I'll learn will open many doors and if I do decide to stay in my current career, the classes will pay for themselves with a substantial pay increase.

I'm excited to see what 2008 will bring. I feel like I've finally got an idea of where life is taking me!