27 posts tagged “pff”

I kind of fell off of the financial independence wagon at about the same time that these Personal Finance Friday posts started to dwindle off into nothingness.  However, after returning from the east coast to find that my vacation budget wasn't really all it was cracked up to be and my bank account hemorrhaging all over the place, I've decided that I'm going to get my act cleaned up before I have to return there for Christmas.  Back to the basics.

The folks over at Lifehacker posted a reader submission on some essential saving tips on Thursday that might be worth reviewing for anyone stuck in the same boat that I currently find myself adrift in.

1.  Set Up A Budget

A budget is like a personal finances map.  Without a map, you can end up in some pretty shitty places without even trying.  For example, several months ago, I was going out with a friend to do a day hike and we didn't bother to bring along a map.  Somehow we convinced ourselves that heading in the general direction of the mountains would eventually put us right where we wanted to be.  Instead, we wound up in some no-name town in the desert.  Try to imagine a dusty little place in the desert where rusting commuter buses on the side of the road are used as shelter and the one guy at the gas station who will make eye contact with you is actually trying to sell you narcotics.  I can't even begin to fathom what the financial equivalent of that place would look like, but it certainly can't be pretty.  Later today, I'm going to be setting up a budget and actually sticking to it.

2.  The 60/40 Rule

According to the original author, once you've tied off your financial loose-ends by implementing your budget, it's time to roll up your sleeves and start to automate the process.  In order to do this, he suggests splitting your paychecks up and dedicating 60% of your income to cover your monthly expenses and then distributing the remaining 40% into specialized savings pools.  I've read similar suggestions elsewhere and think that this idea really does make sense - assuming that you can keep your monthly expenses below a 60% share of your income.  In this case, you might need to get a little creative with ways to lower those expenses.  Lucky for us, the author makes some suggestions on how to do this.

3.  Get A Library Card

The original author of this list claims to have been spending upwards of $200 a month on new literature.  Personally, I can't imagine even finding the time to read $200 worth of books, let alone the justification for purchasing that much.  But, all the same, the author points out that picking up a library card freed him of all of that purchasing pressure.  Another suggestion might be to use a service like BookMooch to get your hands on some fresh literature.  My mother uses it all the time and the only real expense ends up being the shipping charges for mailing out your old used books in exchange for someone else's.

4.  Stop It With The Latte Already

Anyone who knows anything about drinking good coffee will tell you that Starbucks coffee is amongst the least flavorful and undoubtedly the lowest quality coffee that money can buy.  Yet, despite this fact, people are still flocking to their local Starbucks on at least a semi-regular basis to throw their money away on a liquid that has more in common with the black sludge in your car's oil pan than with anything actually worth guzzling at such a frequency.  Of course, coffee isn't the only thing that people will justify throwing money away with on a regular basis, it just happens to be a common one.  David Bach likes to call this the 'latte factor' while my mother might like to call it 'nickel and dimeing.'  Whatever you might end up calling this nasty habit, cut it out.  Make some coffee at your house in the morning, or brew your own stuff in the breakroom when you get to the office - just stop throwing your money into paying for crappy burnt espresso drinks in that bleached white Venti cup, ok?

5.  Bag Your Lunch

Similar to the Starbucks problem mentioned above, eating out for lunch is a bad idea - and an expensive one to boot.  I used to eat out all the time and, even at it's cheapest, packing my own lunch for work saved me almost 50% of what I used to budget for.  Is the convenience of not having to plan ahead for your lunches at the office really worth the expenditure?

6.  Cancel Your Cable

I'm actually in the process of doing this right now.  I've got a real love/hate relationship with my television - on the one hand, having access to the 24 hour cable news cycle keeps me up-to-date.  On the other hand, nothing makes me want to end my life prematurely more than an 'America's Next Top Model' marathon, which J is prone to get sucked into watching.  When I can get a decent DSL internet connection for half of the price and a NetFlix account for less, still, what's the point of keeping the cable around?

7.  Pay Off Any Debts

If I'd made this list myself, I think I'd probably have put this closer to the top of the list.  Most of my debt is student-related, but I have got a credit card that could use a little more pay-off dedication on my part.  When dealing with debt, particularly credit card debt, there's really no excuse to keep it hanging around.  Credit card companies may not send their thugs to your house to break your thumbs over a late payment, but they'll put the screws to your credit score.  This is where the debt snowball method I mentioned a while ago might come in handy.  For my part, I think I'm going to end up dedicating a portion of that 40% chunk mentioned in point number 2 above strictly to getting my credit card paid off.

In the end, the most important thing to keeping your head above water seems to be that you want to keep your expenses lower than the amount of income that you earn.  I'll keep you posted on how things go for me.  Right now, though, I need to review my budget.

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My girlfriend is the kind of sexy that shows up after a long week of work and classes with surprise tickets to see Daniel Johnston in concert.  Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to postpone the Personal Finance Friday entry I had intended for today until tomorrow.

But, because I don't want you to end up losing any sleep over the absence of content today, I leave you with yet another Daniel Johnston favorite of mine.  It's a little ditty by the name of 'Big Business Monkey.'  For more, I've also got 'Walking the Cow' still posted here for your listening pleasure.

I lie to strangers on a regular basis in order to save myself a few dollars every week.  That's right.  I lie.

For the most part, my lies are directed at the faceless credit card machine as I'm checking out.  Occasionally I find myself telling lies face-to-face to complete strangers.  In some small way, I'm like a modern day Robin Hood - pilfering the spare change of the rich for redistribution to the poor.  Only, in this case, that redistribution stops at my bank account.  And I don't look very good in green tights.
Or so I've been told.

Some of you may have a moral objection when it comes to lying.  On the other hand, some of you may do it too often to admit.  Whatever the case, we all like to save a couple of bucks on our purchases, don't we?  And just about all of us carry around an assortment of store membership cards to helps us save those bucks, right?

I think that the first store membership that I ever signed up for was at a CVS pharmacy in Quincy, Massachusetts back in 2001.  As I recall, they had me fill out a detailed brochure that included my mailing address, telephone number, and my email address.  In exchange, I was given a CVS membership card with a barcode on it that was supposed to give me access to deals and coupons that weren't available to any non-registered CVS patrons.  At the time, this seemed like a pretty good deal and I jumped at the chance to use that card whenever I needed to get any shopping done.  I think it even had some sort of account on it that would, over time, accumulate a nominal amount of money in rebates that I could spend at some undefined date far into the future.

Since then, it seems that these store membership programs have grown exponentially.  In fact, I have a hard time imagining hitting the register at the local grocery store without the person at the check-out asking me if I have a store membership or, in the case that I don't, if I'd like to sign up for one.  For a while there, I was actually carting around upwards of five different membership cards with me wherever I went - all to make sure I get that $1 off of my next purchase of teriyaki beef jerky.

Well, in the last year I've grown a little more privacy-minded while also becoming more financially-minded.  I was having a hard time justifying volunteering my personal information to some random merchant corporation in the hopes of shaving a couple of bucks off my total bill.  That's when I had an epiphany.

I was at a local BevMo store when it happened (for those of you that don't know, BevMo is like the Target of liquor stores.  They've got an amazing variety of wines, liquors, ciders, and (most importantly) beer at equally amazing prices).  Standing at the register with an armload of some random American microbrew, the teller looked me in the eye and said, 'Do you have a BevMo membership for this purchase?'  Now, I knew that I'd signed up for a membership at BevMo sometime in the not-so-distant past - but I didn't bother to carry the card around with me because, well, I don't go to BevMo all that often.  I stammered out a quick 'Um...Yes.  But I don't have the card on me.  Can I give you my phone number?'

It was at this point that I recalled that I put some of my store memberships under a couple of different numbers in order to avoid more telemarketer calls.  As luck would have it, I had absolutely no idea which number had gone with the BevMo card.  So, I squared my shoulders a bit, set the precious beer down on the counter, and told the teller the only number that came to my mind.  '(555)555-5555, sir.'  The teller raised an eyebrow in my direction about halfway through typing in the number and paused for a second.  I nodded in his direction, as if to verify that that number was really mine.  He shrugged and input the rest of the number, after which his eyes widened a bit and he said 'Thank you - you've saved a total of $2 on your purchase today,' as he handed me my receipt.
As I strode triumphantly out of the store and into the parking lot, it occurred to me that this might work at other stores.

Since then, I've managed to throw out all of those stupid store membership cards.  No more am I a slave to the corporate machines which I patron!  No more do I have to struggle between my privacy concerns and my financial independence!  And when I run into a store that doesn't have a registered (555)555-5555 number?  I just fill out a new membership, muttering something about how 'I could have sworn I used that number.'

And what kind of personal finance advice are you supposed to get from this post?  Maybe you really should sign up for store memberships when they'll grant you access to whatever savings you can find.  If you don't like lying, then use your real phone number.  If you don't like your friends, use one of their phone numbers.  Just sign up for it.  As I recall, one of those old CVS receipts, after a couple of years of membership there, had my lifetime savings printed on it - and it was somewhere near the $300 mark.

My apologies - I had meant to get this posted yesterday, but my day was consumed with attempts at picking up more customers for my so-called side business of basic computer repair.  I'd have posted last night, but I ended up staying out with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a while.

That being said, I was only just recently realizing that these weekly personal finance posts have dwindled to nearly nothing in the last two months.  This is a travesty!  And my bank account has reflected that - it seems that my attention to financial details is directly correlated to my writings on the subject.
Talk about motivation, eh?

Most of the jobs that I've worked over the last several years have paid their employees on a bi-weekly basis.  I'm not entirely sure why this is the case, but it seems that the lengthy amount of time I've spent as a twice-monthly earner has had almost no effect on my spending habits.  On pay weeks, I'd live like a king.  In the week prior to the next paycheck, though, I lived off of leftover pizza and tap water.
Brilliant.

Only in the last year or two, when I started taking a real look at finances, did I start practicing some kind of savings in order to offset my stunning ability to drain two weeks of pay in a mere seven days.  To that end, I have my weekly budget fully calibrated to take care of my monthly expenditures on just two paychecks.  You can imagine my joy when I realized that the month of June was going to provide me with an extra bi-weekly paycheck.
After looking over the calendar, my mind immediately started weighing whether or not my third direct deposited chunk of cash should cover a Nintendo Wii or go towards building a new computer.  Despite everything I've done in the last few years to alter my spending habits, it seems that buying new toys remains my biggest temptation.

Luckily, Trent over at the Simple Dollar blog had a few better suggestions:

- Pay off debts
- Create an emergency fund
- Invest it
- Save it

After going back and doing the math, I decided it would be better to put that extra paycheck to work on eating through some of my leftover debt from my move into the new apartment.  And, I'll tell you, it felt pretty good to send in a massive payment instead of my usual twice-the-minimum payment.  Maybe not as good as doing a little Wii Sports Bowling - but it's going to be much more valuable in the long run.

It's a Saturday night and I should probably be writing a post about personal finance - however, I'm kind of locked in the middle of a life-or-death battle with my now deceased hard drive.

To that end, I urge you to follow this link over to an article at The Simple Dollar blog.  It's a brilliant run down of how to get out of debt and secure a decent financial plan for the future.  Give it a read and let me know what you think because I'm likely to need some reading material while I reinstall my Linux and Windows partitions.

As my weekly schedule has recently been moved around a bit, I think I'm going to start doing my 'Personal Finance Friday' posts on Saturday as a temporary measure.  You know, stretch my muscles and see what happens.  This way I'll be able to get back to spending more time with the posts instead of my recent PFF posts that involve quick links and smarmy comments.

I trust that everyone is excited about St. Patrick's Day.  If you've got any exciting plans for tomorrow, leave me a comment about it.  I'm afraid that I won't be doing much.
Besides a Personal Finance post, of course.

I've got a big night planned tonight and, unfortunately, can't devote as much time to todays post as I'd have liked.  However, I've been meaning to squeeze in an entry at some point about how much money I save simply by drinking water all of the time - so why not now?

Back when I was a kid, I drank milk by the gallon.  No joke.  My family would go through that tasty white liquid faster than we could burn the gas in our gas tanks.  Not only did I think the stuff tasted great, but I was almost certain that all of my daydreaming about having bones as strong as Wolverine's adamantium-laced skeleton might actually come true with that delicious dairy elixir.  It was like this all the way through the end of my high school career when I moved to Boston for my freshman year of college.
The time had come, I guess, when I finally became a man and realized that comic book characters weren't real.
Except for Spider-Man, of course.

Anyway, in college I quickly learned the art of living on a shoestring budget while maximizing my intake of the essential food groups in the cafeteria.  Buying my own milk wasn't really an option, and trusting the people working in the campus cafeteria to keep the milk dispenser properly cooled wasn't really much of an option either.  So I switched to soda while I lived on a steady diet of pizza, jell-o, Lucky Charms, and the occasional midnight run to the Chinese takeout restaurant up the street.
I'm sure you can imagine the sort of reception my immune system would greet me with whenever I looked to it to help me stave off one of the many campus-wide waves of illness that seemed to plague everyone there.

A couple of years later, I transferred schools back to Virginia and got a little more health-conscious - though not by much.  I tried to incorporate more greens (not just green jell-o) into my meals, but was still more of a grilled-cheese and french fry eater than anything else.  At some point, though, I bought myself a Brita water pitcher and stopped drinking all the soda.  As I recall, I kept it in my mini-fridge next to the television set in my dormroom.  Since water was cheap, this proved to be the best option for thirst-quenching.  And quenched I was.
In no time, I found myself feeling less hungry when dinner time came around, and I seemed nearly immune to any number of the non-alcohol related sickness that befell my classmates.

Since then, I've slowly convinced myself that water is really the only liquid I need (besides a nice cold beer on a hot afternoon, of course).  Over at the Simple Dollar blog, Trent appears to agree with me - citing his reasoning behind drinking water more often:

...drinking a little water before each meal is a real money saver in more ways than one. Today, when you start thinking about a meal, have a glass of water before you even get started. The end result? You’ll eat less, feel better, and save some money, too.

Whenever you're stuck in the drive through pondering over which value meal you want to buy and, subsequently, what you'd like to drink with it, perhaps you should consider just going with water.  You'll save the money they'd be including in the meal for a drink and it'd be that much more healthy for you.  Perhaps instead of buying that 24 pack of Coke next time you're at the grocery store, you should consider going with a filtered water pitcher instead. 

Sure, you won't feel as super as Wolverine after a couple of glasses, but your body will certainly feel SUPER about it.
(Yeah, yeah.  Lame post.  Just shut up and drink your water.)

Here's something:

One of the greatest financial challenges people deal with is the simple concept that everyone can be well off, if not rich, by following simple, fundamental principles of money management. Most people actually believe the opposite: that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there are only a few, lucky individuals who start life poor and end up financially sound.

I'll agree that the cases of people starting poor and ending rich are not that numerous, but it's not because some are lucky and most are not. No, it's because some are disciplined and most are not. For all but the most poor in the most desperate conditions, financial well being can be had in a lifetime as long as the person learns and applies solid financial principles. Unfortunately, these principles require perseverance, commitment, and the willingness to spend less than a person earns. For most people, this is simply asking too much.

I'm a big believer in personal responsibility.  If there's something I can't stand, it's people who act like they're entitled to your pity just because they don't want to lift a finger to better themselves.  People need to just settle in an accept that they're going to get out of life what they put into it.  This concept has shaped my outlook on politics and my outlook on life.  The more I study up on personal finances, the more I'm realizing that this concept is key there, too.

But enough of my ranting, I just thought this was a good article posted over at Free Money Finance:

So the path to prosperity is quite simple:

1. Spend less than you earn.

2. Invest your surplus to make your money grow.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for many, many years.

Yes, it's that simple.

So you're here because you're dying to know how to save a little extra cash on your cellular phone bill every month, eh?  Well, let's clear the air a little bit and allow me to reiterate that I'm going to share with you how I save money with my cellular provider.  That is, I currently do my telephone business with Sprint PCS and, while the following pointers won't all be directly applicable to every provider out there, you should at least give it a read.
Who knows?  You might find something useful.

1 - Make sure that you aren't paying for minutes you don't use.
The biggest money-maker for any cellphone provider is the fact that consumers (Americans in particular) are incredibly lazy.  Most of us can afford to be paying for cell phone plans that give us some astronomical amount of minutes per month, and most of us are lazy enough to pay that higher price - just to watch those minutes that we never used disappear with every new phone bill that arrives at our door.  Don't let that happen to you.

I realize that this is common sense, but everyone should really look into it.  Go back and take a look at your minute-usage from previous months and compare that to how many minutes your cellular plan allots you.  If there's a significant difference, you should really consider downsizing your plan.  It could save you hundreds of dollars a year.

2 - Make sure that you aren't paying for services that you don't use.
When I first signed up for my service plan with Sprint, they offered me something called the 'Sprint PCS Vision Pack.'  This was a service that would allow me unlimited access to the internet, picture mail, and the numerous applications and games that Sprint offers their members for download - all via my cellphone.  This service came free with my plan for the first month and was only going to cost me $15 for every month after that.  Most cellular providers offer similar options for their plans and, if you're anything like me, you probably think you're savvy enough to cancel it before the charges start rolling in.  And, if you're anything like me, you're a simpleton.
Sprint managed to milk a full three months worth of Vision Pack charges off of me before I got around to ending the service.

So, when you're comparing your minutes used to your minutes purchased, take a moment to glance over the extra services that you're paying for.  Do you use all of the text messages that you're being charged for?  Do you really need the ability to have access to the internet at all times via your two inch cellphone screen?  Some people do, but reviewing the necessity of these things on a regular basis can help save you some money in the long run.

3 - Avoid 800 Numbers.
Common knowledge suggests that all 800 numbers are free to call.  Unfortunately, this common knowledge was developed in the years before cellphone service really proliferated to us lower-class types.  Do your best to avoid calling 800 numbers from your cell phone unless you know for a fact that your provider isn't charging you for it.

Editors Note: This post went unfinished, as my computer decided to burn through the harddrive.  I'll be back to finish this one up ASAP.  I promise.

Sad news: I'm going to be postponing the Personal Finance Friday post for the week until tomorrow night.  I'll be showing you how I manage to beg, borrow, and steal every damned penny I can from my cellular provider.  However, I haven't got the time, at the moment, to go into that just now.

Check back in tomorrow, kiddos.