Easy Change

Things are going really well. In addition to a slow, but sure increase in net worth, things are becoming easier in terms of bills. After some recent calculations, I've determined that there will be enough money in this coming month to completely payoff my car loan. It seems a little premature, but the idea of getting completely out of debt on the car is so exciting I cannot wait to do it. Last week, I was able to call up and get the payoff amount and I ran the numbers for the checking account and found that I had just about enough in there to cover it. Originally I thought I had more than enough, but it turns out the amount was just right. So now I am in a situation where I need to be able to wait a couple more days, but in about 2 weeks, the loan will be paid off. But the Real Payoff comes in 2008. For me, the real payoff will be the extra several hundred dollars that I save each month by not having to deal with that bill. The real payoff will be knowing that there is that much l...

So, recently, my situation has changed and due to some restrictions related to employment, I have to get rid of some of my retirement holdings which are currently invested in ETFs. ETFs are nice alternatives, in my opinion, for people like me who really cannot afford the minimum requirements for investing into more standard mutual funds. So, rather than deal with the minimums, it is easy to open up an account at a brokerage firm and then purchase individual ETF shares which trade like stocks. Personally, I bought VTI and VNQ. I've always liked Vanguard, and I think that these are nice solid index funds with low expense ratios that I was comfortable with. However, now that I am not allowed to own ETFs, I need to get my money into mutual funds, but I still don't have the minimum required. What to do? Using Vanguard's website I was able to do a screen that captured my major requirement: minimum investment. Fortunately, there IS a fund by Vanguard that has only a 1000 dollar r...

Not long ago I switched to electronic statements for my bank accounts. I chose not to have them sent to me directly, instead, I will go to the website and download them in pdf format. I think this is a great idea for a few reasons: 1. It saves time because I don't have to open them up each month. 2. It saves paper. 3. It prevents me from having to file them away and hang on to them for years on end. 4. It means there is less mail with my personal information floating around out there. Have you switched yet? You should consider it. I think you'll be as pleased as I am.

Despite all of the back and forth about sub-prime mortgages and the housing bubble, I am feeling just fine. The reason is that when purchasing, I followed some old advice: Don't expect to flip. In general, I've been told by many people that you shouldn't buy a home unless you plan to hold on to it for 7 years or longer. If the market does well and you decide to sell, fine. But if you want to be sure not to lose money, don't buy something that you only want for a year or two. I've been in my current location for more than 3 years. I like it. And I have no intention of leaving in the short or medium term. It seems to me, that real estate, like any asset class, has its ups and downs. But as a practical point, I don't look at my home as an asset per se. Rather, I consider it to be a fixed expense that I need to survive, much like food and water. Therefore, as long as the payment is reasonable and it functions to keep me warm and sheltered and comfortable, that is a...

So, its been a while since I've written anything and I think it is interesting to start looking at some macro ideas. I'd like to sum up a couple of conversations I've had recently about the economy. With a friend over the holidays, we were discussing the economy and people were asking me what the best thing to do was. I told them that I thought that the time to "prepare" and "react" to this situation is long since gone. People that are leveraged in investments or real estate are going to have a hard time unless they have liquid cash to weather the storm. An emergency fund is key here and most people don't have serious free cash flow to save money right now, especially with the cold winter and holidays coming up. So, the takeaway for people in trouble is to do the same old boring things: 1. Build an emergency/freedom fund to handle these lean times that we're in. 2. Cut spending and increase earnings so that you can have a good "cushion"...

So I am about to go on vacation; plane leaves tomorrow. And since this is a blog about money, I thought that I would talk a little bit in this post about my plans for the vacation and how I plan to manage the money. 1. I plan to bring several hundred dollars of american money to convert to foreign currency in an airport exchange. 2. I plan to bring several hundred dollars of travellers cheques in american currency which I will likely exchange at the hotel or a bank during my stay. 3. I plan to use a credit card for major purchases and to pay for parking when I return. Even though this vacation will be somewhat expensive, it will be quite fun since the money has been diligently saved up in order to really enjoy it. Furthermore I feel comfortable with my progress toward financial goals so this will be a real treat. Of the options above, here's why I am doing each. First, I like to have some currency on hand. Second, I like to have additional currency that is available in the event o...

I just read this entry ( http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/an-annoying-email-i-got ) over at I Will Teach You To Be Rich and I think that it is brilliant. So many people I know never save up before they get luxury items. This is a fundamental difference from those who are "into" personal finance versus those who are not. The quote and concept and explanations that Ramit points to here are the core of people who are serious about personal finance and those who aren't. Over the past two years I've become quite addicted to personal finance. I really like knowing where all my money is going, and what it is up to. Did it stay out past it's curfew, is it getting into trouble with the neighbor's money etc, etc. The bottom line is that for many of us, our wealth just isn't high on the priority list. Instead "paying the bills" is important. Or perhaps even "getting a better paying job" is important. Small things don't really matter....

Well, the payoff's finally complete. With the advent of electronic banking, I've been paying many of my bills using my bank's online bill pay. I like the convenience of knowing exactly when the amount is going to hit my account. This is easy to plan since most of my bills that are paid this way are actually paid as an electronic debit instead of a check. However, for some institutions this might not be possible and therefore a check will be cut. So, for your situation, mileage may vary on online bill pay. But when it comes to my student loan/credit card payoff which happened this week, it is a great feature. I scheduled the payment and I knew exactly when the money would hit my account. Now the bill is completely paid off and has given me even more wiggle room in terms of my measurement of free cash flow on a monthly basis. The key here is what to do with the free cash flow. Currently, it appears that I will be doing some sort of a three-way split with the funds. I plan on ...

So, today I should be depositing a check that will allow me to make the final payment for loan #2 for college. I will be using this combined with some other miscellaneous income that I've transferred over from my paypal account. And then there was one. That one that is left is a biggie, but simply getting these things paid off gives a huge sense of accomplishment. In retrospect, I think that the transfer to a zero percent credit card was a great idea. It gave me the opportunity to actually accumulate some forward momentum since I wasn't fighting the tide of interest. As for me, I went out to a celebratory dinner last night in honor of the achievement. Next up is my car loan. And with just over 3000 dollars left, something tells me that I'll be paying that off early as well.

Ok, I will admit it up front. This post is a short rant, but a rant with some practical tips and ideas. Frequently in my life I get bombarded by situations where my time is wasted. And I cannot let it roll off my back all of the time. In fact, it is probably one of my biggest pet peeves that people waste my time without a good reason. If I am going to be meeting you somewhere and you don't show up at the time you said you would and don't let me know ahead of time, you're wasting my time. If I am going to be doing some work for you and you had told someone else to do the same work and we both do it, you're wasting my time. If I am waiting to make a turn and the person on the other side of the road coming toward me has no turn signal running and then makes the same turn as me, he's wasting my time. I could have went already, except I had to wait because he/she didn't tell me what he/she was planning to do. Wasting other people's time for no reason is rude. Key...

After a very long journey of about 7 years, I will soon be paying off my second student loan. This loan is a private loan which unfortunately did not have any tax-deductible interest so it was in my plan to move this to a zero-percent credit card. I've done that and it has made a huge difference. Making progress wasn't super easy, but I took most of my extra income and tried to put it toward this debt. For me, one of the biggest benefits to paying off this bill would be the increased monthly cash flow. Now it looks like there will be fewer than 6 payments left, depending on how much I can pay toward it each month, since there is a balance of 1290 dollars left. The amazing thing about paying off debt for me is the feeling. The debt actually feels like a weight. And as it is paid off, I feel more and more confident and in control. I think that this just comes from knowing that as time goes by, more and more of my money is actually mine and not going to other people.

Check out this article about the war in Iraq. http://www.examiner.com/a-953145~Bush_quietly_advising_Hillary_Clinton__top_Democrats.html I'm interested in how this goes because there are a ton of factors to consider in terms of the economic ramifications with regard to how the war goes. This morning I learned that the president will be seeking an additional 50 Billion on top of the 150 Billion already slated for Iraq for this fiscal year alone. From a mutual fund perspective, this is quite interesting. I know that many of the mutual funds that invest heavily in Aerospace and Defense have done quite well as a result of the Iraq expenditures. In fact, I know someone who has seen gains of close to 30%. This is amazing stuff really. But if you are addicted to those gains, its best to keep an eye on the ball in terms of what is going to happen in Iraq. It appears that Bush is trying to advise the candidates that there simply might not be an easy way to flip a switch and be out of Iraq i...

I've never been more aware of how precious your precious resources can be until very recently. For me, my most precious resources are my health and my time. Thankfully, I am in good health overall. My time, however, has become extremely scarce and that has had a direct impact on my financial situation, for the good and the bad. The Good The reason I am so short on time is that my full-time job has become hectic. I've had the opportunity to prove my worth and I've been subsequently rewarded and recognized for that work. The nice rewards come at a price though. And when your already-scarce resources are depleted even further, you start to wonder what the true value of those resources are. The Bad This brings me to the bad part of being so busy. The lack of time has really forced me to divert the focus that I had on my other side projects which were devoted toward passive and multiple income streams and get back into all-in-one bucketing in terms of income. This doesn't pr...

I just got word from my company that they are changing my 401k options again. I am a little excited because there is finally an option that is an S&P 500 fund. This is the first time that we have had any fund that is designed to track one of the major indexes. I like this idea because it really makes it a bit simpler to keep track of. Thankfully, the options that they are removing is one that I didn't particularly care for anyway due to my age: a dividend-focused fund. In the end, I checked my retirement outlook today and things are looking quite good. Currently, I am planning to work part-time into retirement and that helps quite a bit with defraying the costs of the first few years of retirement until later on when it may no longer be feasible anymore. my current allocation for my retirement account according to fidelity is 91% stocks and considering my age of late twenties, I think that this is quite reasonable.

Recently, I've been extremely busy with some work commitments. The interesting thing for me is that this increased work activity has really helped crystallize some of my feelings with regard to time. And these ideas are a critical part about my view on personal finance. I'm curious to know if others feel similarly. Time is money. That is, Time, in some way, contains energy. Money, is also energy. In the act of working, I am able to compound and increase the amount of money that I have. I am exchanging my time and effort and thought which are components of my work, for the productivity that I produce. And this production gets me money from my employer. However, the first dollars that I make each day, week, or month are the most valuable. Then the ones that I make at the end are the most valuable. (Forget about taxes for a minute.) The reason is, the first ones help me have a place to live and food to eat. And the last ones are the ones that I can use to really improve my life lo...

In terms of building an emergency fund, I've found that the "freedom fund" strategy seems to work best for me. Although I keep almost all of the savings in the same high-yield savings account, I allocate it to different buckets. Each year, I consider what the "big" and "unexpected" expenses will be. This could be weddings and holidays, vacations, tax bills, etc that will have to be paid throughout the year. If I am unsure, I look at last years bills and inflate the total by a few percent. Then I round up a little bit. So, if I ended up with a total of 189/month would be needed, I'd make my goal 200/month saved for these kinds of expenses. Then when they come up, if they are less than that month's 200 dollar deposit, I just take it out of that month's deposit. If it is more, I withdraw the difference from the account. And if it is less, I deposit the difference into the account. The whole time, this money is sitting in an account that makes ...

For those of us who own homes and or condos, some extra protection is almost always welcome. For me, this came recently when I went and *finally* got an item crossed off my todo list of financial planning: Homestead Insurance. Without going into excruciating detail as to where the idea came from and all of that (You can read about that stuff <a href="http://www.sec.state.ma.us/rod/rodhom/homidx.htm">here</a>. Since I live in Massachusetts and I have this available, I finally took advantage of it. Clearly if you live in a different state, the laws are going to be different, but it might be worth checking to see if you have something similar. As for me, now that this is taken care of, I can rest a little easier. Of course, depending on your situation, the way you handle this is different. I would be certain that you understand your situation quite well before making any kinds of decisions about doing this; and when in doubt always consult a lawyer. But for me, I fou...

It still is amazing to me in this real estate market that things are still doing as well as they have been over the past few months (the last couple of down days in the market notwithstanding). Here's what I've been thinking about. The problem, as I see it, with many people is that they bought more than they can afford. Surely, if you can barely afford your 'monthly nut' when it comes to your mortgage, it is going to be a bad scene for you when other expenses creep in like increased property taxes or an accident or a sudden layoff or medical emergency. Regardless of the nature of the emergency, it is important to realize the importance of common sense when it comes to purchases. Remembering that the nature of our capitalist economy (which I happen to like, thank you very much) is that people are going to be making money during every transaction. If they aren't, they won't last long. When you buy a car, you get hit up by the sales guy for sales (commission) and t...

One of my pet peeves lately is the idea that the economy is doing so great because of the low inflation rate. Core Inflation is hovering around 2.2 percent and that is being heralded as great news with regard to the overall economy. The problem, as I see it though, is that the inflation that I feel in my monthly/yearly budget continues to increase at an alarming rate. As a simple exercise, I've been tracking all of my expenses for the past year and a half. My household food expenses were averaging somewhere around 200 dollars per month about 1.5 years ago. However, now, the average is often closer to 325 per month. This means that there is a significant increase in the price of food. This is about a 35% increase. Thankfully, food is not the big expense in my budget, but it is getting to be that way. If it continues to creep up at this level, by the end of 2008 I will have a monthly food budget of about 440 dollars per month. Unfortunately, I have not been tracking gas expenses, ...

Since I am relatively new to investing in plain stocks (my investing before this has been exclusively in mutual funds via my 401k retirement account), I have never encountered anything like this before: Today I received an email offering a purchase of my shares in HD. Granted, I don't own many shares of it so I have no intention of taking up this offer, but I still find it quite interesting that I've never really heard of this before.Here is a partial copy of the email I received. <snip> Below is information regarding a tender offer for your holdings in "HD".  This offer expires on 8/16/2007. THE HOME DEPOT, INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION (THE "COMPANY," OR  "HOME DEPOT"), IS OFFERING TO PURCHASE AT A PRICE NOT GREATER THAN $44.00 PER SHARE NOR LESS THAN $39.00 PER SHARE, NET TO THE SELLER IN CASH, WITHOUT INTEREST (IN INCREMENTS  OF $0.25). </snip> The rest of the email is information explaining how to take...

I read... this story this morning about how the big shots in Washington are looking to change the way that taxes are handled for the managers of large hedge funds. I find it to be pretty interesting when you start thinking about it. Certainly it is tempting to simply say that since these people are rich, and they can afford it, lets tax the heck out of them. However, I think that this kind of thinking is a mistake. I studied Economics in college and found it fascinating since the beginning of my studies. But when I read this story, some major red flags popped out for me. If you take the tax break away, you certainly will be getting more income in the short term. However, my gut tells me that there will be a long period of lost money in the long run because less people will want to continue doing business since it is not as lucrative. This will ultimately result in less revenue. Furthermore, many of the ultra smart, ultra rich people will have smarter experts that will still find ways...

One of the interesting things that I've "figured out" over the past few months with regard to my debt repayment is the importance of paying early on daily compounded balances. I've been doing this myself over the past year and it really makes a difference. The first question for all of your debts should be "how is the interest compounded?" For many debts, the interest is calculated each month on a monthly basis. For others, it is calculated up front for the life of the loan and then factored into your payments. Prepaying effectively does nothing to save you money on interest. If however, you have credit cards, it is likely that you have a type of interest calculation that is called the average daily balance or two-cycle average daily balance method. If this is the case, paying off your balance earlier in the month can save you money. This tip is not about paying extra principal per se, although you obviously should do that. Instead, the tip is about how you...

I'm back off Dunkins. Well, sort of. Since things were going so well lately in terms of finances, I found myself getting a little bit too comfortable with my morning coffee routine. If you add it up, its about an extra 10-12 dollars per week that I was spending on my morning cuppa. Then in the afternoons, I might run down and get a starbucks as well. Another 6-8 bucks per week. All told, I was spending close to 20 dollars per week just on coffee or tea! This seemed ridiculous to me even without any of the latte factor hype. In the end, I've decided that I will try to switch back to my old ways of making coffee at work. I use the coffee-single "tea-bag" type coffee. Its not as good as Dunkins, that is for sure. But, I think that in the long run I will be happier knowing that I didn't waste 20 dollars a week on something that I really didn't need to have every day. I think that once I get rid of all my non-mortgage debt, I will be more relaxed about these th...

This weekend was quite nice for me. I was able to wrap up several projects and get some plans made for new ideas that I am working on. My goal is to generate enough extra income to get my loan (see my NCN chart on the right) down enough to be paid off around tax return time 2008. I reread Rich Dad last week and again, I found it inspiring. I think it is a great book for people who are looking for inspiration to be entrepreneurial. I'm not particularly fond of the real estate ideas in the book, though. But I think that is more of a personal preference than a statement about the ideas themselves. I started exercising again and I am happy to be able to return to that. If I can avoid straining any muscles like that ever again, I will be happy. The upside of not exercising was that I was able to catch up on my reading and I've been tearing through the Harry Potter books in anticipation of the movies. I am curious to see how they try to capture so much detail and action into a short...

Recently, I was totally shocked at the fact that the price of milk in my local supermarket went up over 4 dollars per gallon. Granted, it was a brand, not the generic (which still hung dangerously close around 3.80), but still this seemed crazy. And recently, I was calculating my budget and it appears that I was spending on average about 50 dollars per week on food. This seemed a little nuts. And this doesn't really even include the coffees and food that I buy outside of the office or home. This brought me to think about how much (in terms of cost), that I was eating. So, I have recounted all of the food I ate during a day in the not too distant past to give you an idea of what I am dealing with here. And I really have to confess that I don't eat as well as I should, all the time. But frankly, who can afford to eat right if 60 bucks a week barely gets me this...?  .33 corn 1.29 1/2 pesto sauce mix  .60 pasta  .20 olive oil  .50 milk 1.50 cereal  .05 fil...

Net Worth June has marked a serious improvement for net worth. Largely due to some unexpected income, It was possible to make a serious dent in a student loan. The remainder of this loan is sitting on a zero percent credit card for a few more months and large payments are now going to be directed at it in an attempt to pay it off before the end of the year. That may or may not be a reasonable goal, but I expect that it is. http://www.networthiq.com/people/easychange Business investments continue to do well. I'm satisfied with my paypal interest rate as well as the amount of savings that is now accumulated. I'm also happy with Prosper, of late. The total savings means that given a job loss that there is easily 6 months of expenses saved. This is a huge milestone in terms of emergency fund planning. Of course this will continue to go up and down, but knowing that there is a real cash cushion is something that everyone should be striving for in my opinion. New Thinking I'm r...

Well, I've hopefully given myself enough time off so that my body can heal. I started yesterday with extremely light exercise and I am planning on working my way back up. It has taken a huge amount of self-control to not do something for these past 10 days. I feel like I am missing out somehow by not doing anything really active. Today I am able to get out a little bit early and I plan to meet some friends this afternoon, but I will be using the time until then to work on some pet projects that have been brushed aside lately with the hope that they will eventually yield me some additional income. My consulting work has been rather slow, of late. And the my situation with side work may well be drawing to a close so it is critical for me to find additional sources of income in the near future so that I can continue my debt repayment. Again, this is not money needed for expenses, but only to continue accelerating my plan of getting out of debt fast. Additional Income Pain Originally ...

When I was younger, I used to talk to my grandfather quite frequently about money and money issues. He started teaching me this stuff when I was in high school and college mostly. But it was really interesting when I look back on it because I always felt like he was out of touch. I always felt like he was not really able to understand how difficult it was to actually save money and have that much "extra" left over. I mean, even during my best times, I had only a few hundred dollars of extra money. In fact, it wasn't until I was out of college that I actually had more than 1500 dollars to my name at any one time. My grandfather was wise, however. He touted the idea of index funds. He described to me the ideas associated with great books from Mr. Bogle. And the ideas make sense to me now more than ever. Unfortunately, I didn't jump on them at that point in my life. It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I really started to realize the real importance of inves...

From reading various comments, I've decided that it is time to put together a list of reasons that Yahoo! Finance is somewhat annoying to many pf bloggers and other readers out there. With any luck, this will help to improve the finance writing that is being produced. I find it quite annoying actually that many of the ideas and comments go ignored and unanswered by the people in charge over at Yahoo Finance and the authors. These are not all my opinions, they are pretty much gathered from the various comments for the articles. 1. There's nothing new . -- This is by far the complaint that seems to top the comments list. I see some variation of this complaint on almost every single article that is written. This is something that I absolutely have to agree with. What is most interesting about this complaint is that very few of the writers really make an effort to develop original advice content. Most of the writers who are developing new content are using their personal experience...

This weekend was pretty good, but there is definitely still some stuff that needs to be done. I have caught up on a bunch of things lately though so I feel pretty good. Due to a slight injury, I've stopped exercising for the next week or so. I'm hopeful that my body will heal and I will be able to resume afterward. We'll see. In other news, this weekend was a great opportunity to relax and take in some sun. I enjoyed sitting out with my plants and having coffee in the early morning. And a quick walk down the jetty where I live without treating myself to a lunch out was a healthy and frugal activity this weekend. I also was quite productive on the side in order to move some projects forward for side income which is a huge part of paying off debt at this point. Amazingly, this month's finances were all but wrapped up by the 15th of this month, so I am looking forward to getting the final pay of the month and 'closing out the books' lol. It marks the halfway point...

Lately I've been somewhat discouraged. In short, I hurt my back while exercising so my exercise routine is down the drain and while I tried to 'work around' the problem, I'm convinced that I am making it worse, so I have decided to stop exercising until I feel better. Yesterday, I was out for lunch with an old college classmate. It was a great time and we were able to catch up about friends and people we knew etc. But after a little bit of time, we talked about finances. During the lunch I discovered that despite how well I was doing with paying off my debt, I was apparently quite behind. He did an amazing job of paying off his college loans right after college. I had mixed emotions at that point. I was happy for him, but irritated that I hadn't done the same thing. I guess this is why it ranks as one of the biggest financial mistakes I've made. It is also why I crusade against student loan debt and work very hard to talk to people I meet about their college deb...

Well, not long ago, I decided to plant some big pots of vegetables while I did some landscaping in my front area. I had two nice big pots that were already available and so I decided that it would be a good idea to go ahead and plant some vegetables so that I would have some nice eats during the summer. For the vegetables that I picked, I decided on peppers, cucumbers,  string beans, and lettuce. Of course, one of the pots was unfortunately one that had no holes in the bottom and lots of rain threatened to wash out these newly germinated plants. But, after a trip to the store and a quick transplant, they seem to be much better. Now all of the plants are doing well 3 weeks into the planting process. Although some of them are a bit close to one another so I might end up moving them apart to give them more room. But the news so far is encouraging and I am hoping to save some money on groceries in the fall with lots of nice, fresh vegetables. Understanding the up front costs is a majo...

This morning I was flipping through the channels and saw MTV had a marathon of Super Sweet Sixteen on. For those of you who don't know what this show is, it is a reality show where the star is a fifteen year old girl who is planning her sweet sixteen party. Of course, the do tons of little segments with the girls asking for various gifts and different entertainment for the party etc. And I've seen the show before and although it is something that seemed a little ridiculous, I always just figured that was how the "other half" lived. This morning, however, was the topper for me. ::climbs on to soapbox:: It was a girl named stephanie who came across as an absolute spoiled brat. Who knows if that is really her personality or if that was just selective editing and the stress of the situation. But, even assuming that it was not all her fault, the situation just seemed absurd. She had an "invitation" party where she had a special costume and performers etc just to...

PMI, as most of you probably already know, is Private Mortgage Insurance and is basically designed to protect the lender so that if anything happens to the borrower, that the lender is assured to get the value of the loan back. Unfortunately for me, when purchasing the condo I live in, it was not with enough money to avoid the PMI. The PMI is no laughing matter as it sucks away close to 150 dollars per month. Since I've lived here over three years, that calculates out to about 5400 dollars. It is a horrible waste of money. Unfortunately, the real estate market has been relatively flat where I am and the appreciation is going slower than I would have liked. In order to get PMI removed, you often need to have another appraisal done on your property. And luckily for me, a few things have been done to the property (new steps, new landscaping, and a new roof) which might improve the appraised value. But the first step is calling my mortgage company which I dutifully did this morning. T...

Last night I was trying to figure out what the balance on one of my credit cards that I had done the transfer for my unsecured student loans was and I found out that it was much less than I thought. Originally, I thought it was about 1600 and then on the voice machine it said that it was only 890 dollars. I was pleasantly surprised. I somehow thought that it would be more than that but I must have made some payments in there somewhere that really knocked the balance down. So finishing that bill off should be an easy feat for the second half of this month since there seems to be quite a bit extra in the checking account right now. Once that is done, more than half of the balance of that loan will be paid off. Now I just need to get my No Credit Needed chart updated again. :)

Everyone who is involved in personal finance knows about the idea of debt snowballing. Well, this process has worked quite well for me lately. I've maintained a chart over at <a href=" http://www.ncnnetwork.com ">No Credit Needed</a> and I find that it works quite well as a means of keeping track of my debt reduction. I've made posts before on how I dislike student loans and the process and how my particular situation was handled. I graduated with tons of student loans and even after consolidation, there were too many bills and they cost me way too much in interest and there was no one there to be an advocate for me. But now that things are going well, household spending is under control and the emergency fund is growing steadily in a high-yield account over at ING (submit your email on the right for a link to open an account and get a bonus), I've realized that the finish line really is not that far away. About 18 months ago, I got really serious abo...

Charity and donating is always an interesting topic when it comes to personal finance. Some people donate time, others money. And regardless of what people give away, the reasons for doing so are almost as varied as the donations themselves. Recently I heard a report that discussed how local charities are being rated and there is a <a href=" http://www.charitynavigator.org/ ">nice website</a> that you can go to to learn more about your favorite charities and determine how they are actually using your money. If you are anything like me, you want to make sure that your money is being used efficiently. But getting to more pressing and current issues, the G8 summit is on. And one of the major issues being discussed is aid to Africa. I find this particularly interesting because people are actually working on providing more and more aid to Africa - often to combat the issue of poor medical care. But despite all the attention that Africa gets, especially now with the cr...

I was about to write this as a comment, but its quite long and brings up a ton of issues so here goes. First, check out  <a href=" http://hereverycentcounts.blogspot.com/2007/06/money-and-etiquette-why-are-important.html ">this story at here every cent counts</a>. Now on to my response. I am just mortified by this story. I cannot even imagine that people with kids would expect someone in college to pay for their own dinner. I'm assuming that this is an aunt/uncle/great aunt/great uncle situation and that you are a young college student in late teens, early twenties with no full time job. All of my answers below are based on those assumptions. If that is the case, they should *splurge* the 20 bucks for dinner. They are an adult here and as much as I believe that you should be independent, while you are in college and struggling for money, you should be treated on an occasion like this. Big Question: How do your mom and/or dad and/or other immediate family ...

This has been quite a ride. Net worth for this month is up again, thanks to the stock market and the continued contributions to retirement accounts. After doing some increased contributions at the beginning of last quarter, I'm noticing very little difference in my paycheck, but the increase in my retirement account is quite nice. Of course I'd like to have more money in there, but the balance is quite nice. As for my situation with debt, it continues to get paid down. I'm tracking that separately over at <a href=' http://www.ncnnetwork.com' >No Credit Needed Network</a>. It feels good to pay it down, so I've taken quite a bit of the money from my side income and put it toward this debt. There is still quite a bit of work to do, but I'm feeling good about it right now. Total net worth for my household is topping 60K right now. http://www.networthiq.com/people/EasyChange

Fortunately, there was a little bit of extra income in my household this past month. This was largely because of the way paychecks fell etc but now here I am trying to figure out whether or not it makes sense to pull the trigger on a major lump sum payment on a credit card (this was transferred debt from a student loan). But now, here I am, stuck because some money has been eaten up (quite literally) in a hurry. 1. Dinners out 2. Unexpected medical expenses 3. Landscaping 4. Birthdays 5. Water bills Of course, some of this stuff was planned for and some of this stuff was actually handled via the normal buffer that is built into the budget. However, where I was quite eager to put a huge chunk down against some of this debt, these expenses, which total over 500 dollars make me somewhat more hesitant. If I decide to pull the trigger anyway, it is probably not that big of a deal. But I will end up using some of the savings to do this deal -- effectively loaning myself the money. And if I c...

The adventures this weekend started with a couple of seeds, but it really just shows that it was a pretty green weekend. First there was the trip to the local home improvement store (shhh don't tell HD, but I didn't go there for my stuff, even though I own their stock yipe!). Anyway, it was a pretty good trip and about 200 dollars later I had enough supplies to nicely redo the landscaping in front of the condo. It was a good feeling once it was all done, even though it was a lot of work. The total savings by doing it by hand over hiring someone was probably easily several hundred dollars. In addition, planted some vegetable seeds and I'm hoping that they grow nicely. My neighbor is also going to plant some vegetables so we can swap back and forth. This will hopefully save some money on salads this summer/fall. We'll see. If things go really well this year, I will probably increase my efforts next year. I also managed to get one of the old computers in my basement worki...

You have to read <a href=" http://www.slate.com/id/2166765?nav=tap3 ">This week's dear prudence</a> to the end to get this question, but I totally agree here. In general, where there is a concern about how to split up a cost in a marriage, a common theme is to divide the costs proportionally to income. Similarly, there are other common schemes to avoid issues of splitting the costs of vacations and dates. This question crosses into new territory when a divorced couple has to manage the costs of splitting up a week at the beach and letting their kids stay the whole time, plus one step child from one of the couples. One of the two insists on a prorated schedule, but the other thinks that the first is being nitpicky. I had to include this because I feel like it is the absolute epitome of people crossing the line from frugal or fair into the realm of cheap and tacky. So here is my personal rant to this mother: In this case, the step daughter is a friend of the ot...

Well, things have turned out ok on prosper. After doing some checking up recently, I found that my loan that was late has been paid back. That is a good feeling for me because I was starting to get a little concerned since I expect only about a 5% default rate on my loans; otherwise it just isn't worth it for me. And now that my loan got paid, I made another small deposit into my account and I've bid on another loan. And I think that will bring the amount of money I will be investing in prosper to a close for a while. I will just continue to keep an eye on the money and if there is a significant sum, I might do another loan, but I think for the next few months my focus is going to be on paying down my personal debt.

Well, last year I decided that I'd been investing long enough that I wanted to get some real understanding of how individual stocks worked when it came to investing. I had read Jim Cramer's Real Money which was fairly intriguing, but I didn't have the time in order to really give myself over to investing stocks like a day trader. I never really felt like I would have the kind of time that Jim described in his book to make it really worthwhile. My resulting strategy was basic: buy stocks that seem pretty good over the long, long term. Expect that there could be significant losses along the way and that during those times, it might make sense to buy more. Now here we are, several months later and Home Depot which I bought in the mid thirties has gone up to around 40 and come back down. We're not talking a ton of money here, just a couple hundred bucks. But, does it make sense to buy more? Here's why I'm thinking it might: 1. HD continues to pay chunky dividends. ...

This go around, I submitted my recent post on moving back home to the carnival of personal finance: http://firefinance.blogspot.com/2007/05/101st-edition-of-carnival-of-personal.html But I was amazed at how many great articles and posts there were in this edition. My Two Dollars wrote a post on bundled phone/cable packages that hit me squarely in the face since I had the cable guy over yesterday to fix something and he was trying to give me the sales-pitch. http://www.mytwodollars.com/2007/05/17/does-bundling-your-cable-phone-internet-save-any-money/ I also liked this introspective post over at my wealth builder; it seems to speak directly to all of those killjoys at yahoo finance that expect their finance gurus to strike gold with some amazing new idea in every column they write. http://my-wealth-builder.blogspot.com/2007/05/is-anything-really-new-in-personal.html Let me know if there were any articles in this addition that you really liked.

One of the major things that I notice that people deal with in our society is the whole concept of when to move out and start to assert their independence financially. The funny thing about this is that there are some seriously split opinions when it comes to this issue. Some people feel like it is important for young people to assert themselves early by making themselves financially independent of mom and dad. I personally happen to be in this camp. I've worked since I was fourteen and since I was a freshmen in college, there has never been any extended (more than 2 weeks) period in my life that I haven't worked. And for about 90% of that time, I have worked two or more jobs concurrently. Of course, this all underlines a couple of key things about my personality. I have a good work ethic. I think that hard work is good for your self-esteem, your wallet and your soul. But on top of that, I have a sense of responsibility to myself and my family. For me, many people who are not...

I remember when I used to work at a job where I was paid bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly. For those of you who are not payroll nerds like I am, bi-weekly is when you are paid every other week. Semi-monthly means you are paid twice per month. People generally think of them the same way, but they aren't. The semi-monthly people are the ones who get the short end of the stick, in my opinion. If you are paid semi monthly, most often it is on the (1st and 15th) or the (15th and last day of the month). This means that you need to make your money last for that period of fifteen days and cover all of the bills for the next period with that paycheck. Personally, I've found that the best way to do this is using excel. Setup a spreadsheet in excel (or any other spreadsheet application) with a column for the title of your bill. The next column will be for the date your bill is due each month. The third column is how much the bill is for. Obviously, this is just an estimate since you are...

There are certain things that you just can't put a price on. For me, one of those things is my health. I am one of the *those* people who stresses out and the result is that my health goes to pot. Currently, I am juggling about 5 projects. Some things at work, some personal stuff, and also some side projects that I do in order to bring in extra money. I am not complaining, but simply writing this post to encourage those of you out there who are work-a-holics also, to give yourselves permission to say no. This past week I got a call from my mother letting me know that one of her friends had a computer that needed to be fixed and I could fix it for some extra money. And after some consideration, I gave myself permission to say no. I just knew in that moment that I had way too many commitments already and this would just put me right over the top when it comes to stress. Money isn't everything; Indeed, when you are sick as a result of stress, it isn't much at all. So I said no...