Savings - My Second Favorite Way to Make More Money

It seems obvious, but occasionally I need to be reminded of the easiest way to have more money each month. It's simple:

Spend Less.

Spending less is something we can do every day - not buying that King Sized Snickers Bar (even though it was on sale and I've had a really rotten day 48 hours and, dang it, I wanted one.*) or regularly looking at the big, fixed bills and seeing if those can be affected.

A lot of blogs talk about calling up credit card companies and asking them for better rates. I have never had one lick of luck dealing with credit card companies, so I keep my rates low by having good credit. I did, however, have luck with my mortgage. Having my taxes drop was just lucky a windfall, but paying the escrow shortage was by choice. All together it means that each month I pay $80 less - which is more money in my bank account.

This month I tackled my insurance. (Ok, I actually did the work last month, but my rates change on the 7th so I am calling it part of July's plan.) As I mentioned earlier, I have been working with my brother-in-law to drop my insurance rates. By making some changes to my policies (and paying some of them up front) I was able to cut the costs down by $31.44 a month. With this new system, I am not funding my life insurance plan as well as I would like to, but this plan keeps everything in place and me secured until times are a little less tight. I will re-evaluate these decisions on a quarterly basis to make sure they are doing what I need them to do, and as soon as I can change things around, I will.

By far the best thing I did though, is realize that I had a really bad spending habit when it came to my emergency funds. I was not keeping my checking account at a comfortable level and then having to use my emergency funds to cover it - it made for a mess! Especially since I wasn't doing a good job of replacing the funds. Since that light bulb moment I have changed my pattern of behavior - now when I get reimbursement checks, they are are used as reimbursement checks and the money goes straight back into checking. I noticed the difference in June! My checking account seemed much, much healthier - and I was able to fund my emergency savings with one check and then stop monthly payments into it. Of course now that I am having water heater problems, I may have to dip into it, but that is what it is there for - not for frittering away, like I was doing.

Total monthly savings - $161.44

*Yes, I bought it anyway. And it was gooooooood.

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The Water Heater Blues

So, last night (my second official night in the house) the water heater went out. Sigh..... To make things even better my ex had the gas (with the warranty) through the 30th. I have it starting the 1st, but my "new" warranty doesn't start until the 15th. Nice, eh? Thank you DTE! Personally I would probably try and live with it for 13 days - nothing like a brisk Navy shower to wake you up in the morning! I have a tenant, however, and with that comes responsibilities. So, I called a plumber and I am meeting him at the house this afternoon. I do have some emergency savings for just such a situation so we'll see how it goes. Ironically, I have a number of friends who know a lot about hot water heaters, but they are all out of town this weekend working. If it had happened Monday, I could have had them help me out. It is like a comedy of errors conspiring against my frugal plans!

The other exciting bit of news I got this morning is that my gas bills are going to be about $50 more a month than I anticipated. Yay. I was using my ex's figures, but of course they reset it based on the 12 month history and as we all know, gas prices just keep on going up. Of course, they are basing it off his usage which may be different than mine, but still... Ouch.

So, while we are talking about things that hurt, let's talk about my budget for June:

As it turns out, most of my expenses are fixed. However, June was a bit of a wonky month because I was moving from my tiny apartment to the house. That means that these numbers are not as clear as I would like them, but I figured better murky numbers than no numbers at all - besides, I had to start somewhere.

As I have mentioned, I blew my gas budget:
Budgeted: $75.00
Actual: $144.59

To be fair, I had no idea what to set my budget at, the number I picked was as carefully chosen as if I had pulled it out of a hat. Now that I know what I spent in June, I have a number I can work with. In July my budget is $150.00.

Groceries:
Budgeted: $125.00
Actual: $165.31

I was over by $40.31, which is almost exactly the amount I spent on "moving food" this weekend. I ended up going to the store and picking up some things I could easily (and healthfully) prepare even though my kitchen was in boxes. Had I not been moving, I could have very easily made my budget, so I am keeping $125 for next month.

Misc:
Budgeted: $50.00
Actual: $128.80

Again, this comes back to moving. My "misc." column is where I put weird expenditures I don't know how else to categorize - like stamps and parking meters. I was over by $78.80, which is pretty much how much I spent buying a tank of gas for a friend who helped me move. Since I don't expect to be moving again for awhile, the budgeted amount will stay at $50.00 for the month. I put the tank of gas here, rather than in the gas column, because there I want to track how much gas I spend in my car only.

Entertainment:
Budgeted: $100.00
Actual: $100.00

This was another of those "shot in the dark" numbers. Since I am pretty active in the arts community here, I put in $100 to cover plays, movies, galleries, etc. What I found was that most of what I did like that was free. In actuality I spent $15 on those types of things. (And $10 of that was buying a ticket for someone else who forgot his wallet.) The reason I hit $100 was because I took the other $85 with me to Cedar Point to pay for food and so forth on that trip. The Cedar Point trip is a one time thing, so it won't effect other months. Because of that, I changed my budget for July. For this month I put the entertainment budget at $50.00 and added in my Netflix subscription at $5.29 (formerly it was its own line item) which will leave me at $44.71. I am very comfortable with that number.

And finally, some good news:

Dining Out:
Budgeted: $200.00
Actual: $112.54

This even included mandatory medicinal ice cream runs during the move. Again, I am a pretty social person and I honestly thought that $200 was going to be a stretch for me, but I found it was no problem. I still went out, I just was careful of what I ordered. For July I have dropped that budget to $150.00.

I am trying to be calm about it all - and I was up until 11:30 last night when I was sobbing into my pillow over a stupid hot water heater. Still, I suppose set backs are natural. It just means that I cannot slack at all - and in fact, may have to work even harder to keep afloat.



Photo by iboy_daniel.

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Bank Interest - My Favorite Form of Passive Income

This morning I started my counter over there on the right at $0. As you know, my goal is to get $900 each month in additional income. As of 4:30, I changed it to $14.17 - so what happened????

Simple, I added up my bank interest.

I love bank interest. It is my favorite form of Passive Income. (My second favorite is savings.) Why do I love it? Because it is so easy!

Other investments like mutual funds, stocks, even the intriguing Prosper.com all have elements of risk, and to be frank - work. Whether it is research on the front end or regular re-diversification, there is work to be done. But my bank is my bank. I have an online savings account and I have an account with a local credit union I've had over 15 years, and these are the accounts I pretty much stick with. I put my money in, it is safe and secure, requires no additional work on my end, and each month they give me money. It is a beautiful thing!

There is one other reason I love bank interest:
Because when I am getting it, it means there is money in the bank. I will be honest here, this whole situation makes me nervous. I know that each month I need to keep the repo-man in mind so I don't end up going belly up. I am feeling good about taking on this challenge, and I know it is the right thing for me to do, and yet, I am also very aware of the pitfalls too. If I slack on my goals, it is going to hurt - a lot. So, having money in the bank means I have a cushion, I have some "wiggle" room. I am not living paycheck to paycheck, I know that to make my goals I don't have to starve. That's pretty important.

So, while bank interest isn't as sexy as index funds it still makes me incredibly happy.



Fun photo from Squeaky Marmot.

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End of the Month Reflections

Well, it is July 1 and I am moved into the house. This is the moment I've been preparing for. So, so much is going through my head right now! In many ways, this is exactly why I started this blog: to get all of this "stuff" that is swirling around in my brain out of there and onto the page where hopefully I can deal with it better. Using my mind as a hamster wheel is just not very effective... but the good news is I have a lot of topics for the next couple of days!!

I am going to leave June's numbers up for awhile and then possibly move them further down my web page. (I think it will be helpful to keep a running tally of how things are going.) I will also post in the next couple of days a breakdown of actual numbers and how my budget is coming along. While I didn't hit $900 for June, I was really, really pleased with how I did. It was even more fun when I checked my email and saw that I sold another $53.47 worth of items on eBay, Amazon and Half. That all gets applied to June since it came in on the 30th or before! When I think about the fact that I raised over $600 in a month it just blows my mind. It is truly amazing what can happen when you put your mind to it!


I can't wait to see how I do in July!!

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Moving Day!

Today I am moving. At noon the movers will be coming by to pick up my heavy stuff and bring it over to the house. This is what it is all about - this is the big step. It is far, far more house than one single woman needs, and yet, here we are.

Divorce is hard, painful and emotional. Like many things in life, you can't imagine what it is like until you go through it. It is bad enough dividing up a relationship, what no one prepares you for is what it will be like to divide up your life.

For a long time I have been focused on how much I didn't want to live in this house. Who am I kidding? I still don't. But I have discovered something through this blog - when you stop spending your time and energy worrying about what might happen and focus instead on how to take control and make it work for you - things begin to happen. You begin to feel strong, powerful, focused, brave - instead of tired, scared and frustrated. I've thought over and over that I am not here by choice, but in fact, I am. There are other options - I could be buried with my face in the sand, waiting for foreclosure - or worst yet, I could still be in a marriage that made me miserable.

I'm not going to focus on the house as a place I don't want to be anymore. I am going to focus on the great things about it instead:

- the garden
- room to entertain
- HUGE closets
- a garage (oh, I have missed my garage)
- Great neighborhood
- nice big kitchen
- big wood porch
- a workshop
- loads of storage space
- room for all my furniture
- a place for the gals and I to have a garage sale
- a dishwasher AND a garbage disposal (things you don't get in apartments in my area.)
- hardwood floors
- light filled bedroom with a window seat
- the potential to do whatever I want - paint walls green with polka dots if I choose.
- and, it is a fantastic investment property!

No more crying or complaining - only looking forward and moving ahead!



Photo by RBerteig.

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How to Save Gas Money at Going to Work

I mentioned recently that I blew my gas budget this month. Then I read an article on Passive Family Income's blog about how gas prices affected him. One thing leaped out at me - taking a different route to work.

So, I work approximately 6 miles from work - how much can I really shave off? Well, quite a bit it seems. I've been tracking it, by changing my driving patterns a bit I can easily shave off a half of mile. Then I tracked it from the house I am moving into this weekend - another half mile off. In other words, by simply taking a different route each day I can save a mile each way - two miles total.

Ok, it doesn't seem like much, but there are other advantages:

For one thing, I find myself much more engaged while driving. Probably because of the newness of the route (and this may change in time) but I find myself looking around at nature, people's landscaping, beautiful buildings - instead of driving with my mind stressed out and thinking about how I'm going to scrape up a few more dollars.

Secondly, this route is a slower pace. I am finding I am enjoying the relaxing drive, rather than the speed of the expressways, and while the route may take a little longer, I am out of major traffic which is nice.

I am not sure if my little 2 miles a day saved will help a lot - but hey, out of pennies....



Photo by snarl.

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What is NonPassive Income?

Did you know I track how many visitors come to my little site, how they get here, and that kind of thing? Seeing my small statistics slowly rise helps me feel motivated to write. (I bet I still know half of you personally!) One of the things I can track is the words people used on search engines to find my site. One string caught my eye:

What is NonPassive Income?

It struck me how often we who are deep in Personal Finance throw around words that we assume everyone knows. So here we go:

Dawn's Down and Dirty Definition for NonPassive Income: NonPassive Income = Work.

Basically it is your job, or services you do for money, including tips and bonuses. It is traditional income.

Passive income, on the other hand, is ways to earn money without doing work. It includes things like bank interest, dividends from investments, rental fees earned, advertising dollars - things like that. I have thrown both terms around pretty loosely, so let's get down to brass tacks. Over and over I mention The List. The List is a legal pad of ideas I came up with as ways to try to get myself an extra $900 a month and keep myself out of foreclosure. There are basically only two ways to get more money - spend less and earn more. Since we are at the end of the month, I am going to do a wrap up of what I have done from The List over the last month and put it in terms of Passive and NonPassive Income and Savings.

Savings:

Lowered my mortgage payment - I wrote about this as one of those "follow through" things. I really didn't have to work at this, all I had to do was make a phone call to verify that my escrow shortage check was received and there you go - $80 in my pocket each month. What I love about savings like this is - I get this every month, I am not going to go changing my blog to "Getting Eight Hundred and Ten," but you see where I am going with this.

Changed how I handled "Emergency Savings" - This was simply changing a big fat spending habit I had. Since making this change I am no longer frittering away $50 a month who knows where. I have really seen the difference! Usually at the end of the month I'd be nervous about making sure that my bank account was "covered" so I didn't go into the red. This month the account is fat and healthy and I feel no need to dip into my savings at all.

Passive income:

Bank Interest - Last month I earned $7.23 in bank interest. It isn't much, but out of pennies, dollars are made! I did absolutely nothing for that money. Zip. However, it isn't exactly sitting in no-interest standard account either. Some of my money is in an online savings account while the rest of it is in a higher yield checking account with my credit union. To get the higher yield account (5%) I simply made one phone call and they set it up for me in less than 5 minutes.

Cell Phone Rebate - I had totally forgotten I was due a rebate from my new cell phone. It never got to me. I made one call and they reissued the check. That $50 was one of the first things I did to get my $900 a month rolling.

NonPassive Income:

My Job - I don't talk about it much here, but I do work a 40 hour a week regular job. My income from it pays the lion's share of the bills.

A Second Job - In the month of June I picked up two second jobs, one house managing and one being an extra in a car commercial. Both of these jobs were part time temporary work - I was an extra for 4 hours and the House Managing was for 3 nights. I got offered another one which I would have loved to take, but it fell right in the middle of my move this weekend, so sadly, I had to turn it down. I am hoping I can pick up more jobs like this - I have already got a word out about doing more House Managing in the fall.

Semi-Passive Income:

Selling Stuff - Some people call selling on eBay and things like that "passive income." It isn't. If done correctly, it is a fair amount of work. There are photos to be taken, descriptions to be written, and then the product needs to be shipped out. Nonetheless, it has been my big money maker this month. I sold $297.20 on eBay and $18.94 on Amazon and Half.com. My average price of eBay items is about $17.95, although if you take out my big score with the Mikli frames, it comes out to be an average of $10.45. So, we are not talking about big items, here.

Other things in the works:

I have not included my House Managing fee in the goal numbers for this month because I haven't got the check yet. I never include money until I have the money in an account. If it arrives in the next 4 days I will add it to June, otherwise it will be a nice start to July.

I am hosting a garage sale in July with my best gal friends. More on that soon, but I am hoping that will bring in a few more shekels.

I am also going to be looking into refinancing one of the home loans. It has two, one has a great rate, but one is high. I may combine them or just refinance - we'll see what the bank says.

Currently I am working with my brother-in-law, the insurance agent, to drop my insurance premiums. That should start July 7th, so more on that soon!

There are other things happening too - as I mentioned yesterday I have some exciting things happening at Prosper.com and with companies like eBates However, I will not add those until the funds are in hand. For example, I got a $25 bonus for signing up with Proper, but I am not going to count it until the loan I bid on is repaid. Mom always told me never to count my chickens!



EDIT: Looking for more information on online book selling? I am compiling all my articles about my experiences in one place. Check them out at The Online Bookseller.

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Cleaning House

Following in the footsteps of a few other bloggers I respect, I am making some small changes around here. Nothing serious, just a few layout changes. For one thing, I am slowly getting rid of the Adsense ads. They aren't doing anything and add nothing to the site. Passive Family Income wrote awhile back about only having ads on his site for products he actually uses. I like that. It makes sense. (He also writes in this article about Restaurant.com, which I signed up for but haven't used yet.)

In that vein I added the Prosper.com link. I currently am investing $100 with them - $75 of my own money and $25 that I got as a bonus for signing up. So far, I have really liked Prosper, and wrote about my experiences here.

Today I added a new advertisement for eBates. I used to do a ton of online shopping - now that I am being frugal it has gone way, way down! I still like online shopping for gifts though. I keeps me out of the stores (and away from impulse purchases) and I feel like I have a better time finding the perfect thing. My sister's birthday was June 5th. One of the items on her list was "fun wine glasses." Those are kind of tricky to find - if you eliminate the plain ones, the stemless ones, the ones that look like they belong to Henry the Eighth, and the stupid ones... there isn't much left! I went to my favorite "inexpensive, fun, hip" store - Target. I had just read about eBates so I decided to try it out and see if it worked. It did!

The wine glasses I found were $15.99. From eBates I got a $5 sign up bonus and then a 4% cash back on my purchase for $.64. This puts the cost of those glasses closer to $10! I noticed they have tons of stores, so that is where I will be doing a lot of my online shopping come Christmas time. Oh! If I had only known about this site earlier - the have a 6% cash rebate on Zappos.com, do you have any idea how much I could have gotten back on shoes alone???

The other thing I am doing is an idea I got from Enginero. He is listing the blogs on his blog roll by how many people they refer to his site. I've been looking for some way to change my list of blogs, to somehow sort them in order of who I get the most from. I didn't want it to be a popularity contest though, I wanted some hard metric. What I am finding is the ones I get the most from are the ones that I comment on the most, which are the ones referring people back to me. So, I thought I would give his system a try. I hope it won't be too difficult to keep up with, but I figure if I check it weekly or so, it shouldn't be too bad.

If that doesn't work, I'll list them by the number of letters in their name or something equally clever!

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Books Selling eBay vs. Half.com vs. Amazon

Today I sold my first book with Half.com! At the beginning of this month I decided to start selling whatever I can to help fund my $900 a month goal. One thing I have an abundance of is books!

First I starting listing books I that no longer need on Amazon. It is actually a very easy process to set up a store and begin selling. Unlike my sales with eBay, however, it is a very slow process. eBay auctions end (typically) in a week, meaning that you can watch the bidding and see what will happen in just seven short days. (Click here to read about my experiences with eBay on non-book items.) With book sales it is different - you throw them out there and wait for a bite. I've been selling one a week or so on average.

On Catie's advice I decided to also take a look at Half.com - eBay's answer to an online book/music store. Like Amazon, it is fairly easy to set up an account and start selling, in fact, they have much of the same process; even down to the fact that both pay directly into your checking account twice a month.

Neither Half or Amazon is really set up for vintage or antique items. To list on their websites you should have the ISBN#, and older books don't have those. In those situations the item isn't really being sold as a "book" - it is being sold as a collectible. In that case eBay is your best bet.

As for Half and Amazon there are pros and cons to each. Amazon is older and more established... with all that that implies. As one of the largest book sales websites on the web, they get a ton of traffic. It means you have more potential buyers, but it also means you have more potential sellers. There hasn't been an item that I have posted yet that I haven't had a ton of competition on - and in almost every case selling the book for less than I wanted too.

Half is less established, which means there is less competition. I notice that when I review the prices, they tend to be higher than on Amazon. A book I may be selling for $4.00 on Amazon, might be selling for $6.00 on Half. This is not always the case, by any means, but I would say the majority of the time.

My solution has been to list books on both sites. This does open the door to a potential problem of selling two copies at once, but at the speed in which they are moving, I am willing to take the risk. I will continue to post updates on my success with all three sites and let you know about how smoothly the transactions progress.

Are there any online sales websites that you love? Either as a seller or a buyer? Let me know and I will check them out!



Read More About My Online Selling Adventures:

Selling Books Online with Amazon, Half and eBay

Garage Sale vs eBay, Which is the Best Way to Sell Your Junk?

Selling Books, CDs and DVDs with Amazon and Half.com

EDIT: Looking for more information on online book selling? I am compiling all my articles about my experiences in one place. Check them out at The Online Bookseller.

Photo from austinevan.

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1968 Shelby Cobra Mustang Steering Wheel

Well, I did it finally. I posted my father's Shelby Cobra Steering Wheel on eBay. Let's hope she sells!! Right now I have several things listed, but not a lot of bidding going on. Plenty of watchers though - c'mon people help a girl out here!

I can't complain though, eBay has been good to me. At the end of this month I will post about my experiences and the money I have earned this way. I will say that this is not exactly passive income. This is a fair amount of work. It is worth it on a number of levels, but it isn't for the faint of heart.

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Saving Money While Moving

My mother has offered to pay for movers for me. I have been trying really hard not to take money from her - as far as I am concerned she is one of my "last resorts" when it comes to this whole financial mess. In my opinion, borrowing from relatives is never a good idea, so I told her I am holding her as my "ace in the hole." If things get so bad that I am going under and the repo men are calling - I'll make sure to call her first.

Still, she wants to help. Her daughter is in trouble and naturally she wants to do something. I understand that, so I am trying to find a good compromise by picking specific things I need and can accept help with. Sometimes this works really well, other times she doesn't seem too excited about the idea - she was happy to help me out with getting a vacuum for the house, but not so excited about helping me with getting an ironing board. (Hey, I need one, my apartment is so small I've been using one of those rotten college dorm-sized ones. It is totally impractical and I want to throw it out the window - preferably at the guy who designed it!)

My mom is the one who came up with the idea of paying for movers for me. I had this elaborate plan that involved eight friends, four SUVs and a partridge in a pear tree. Mom put the kibosh on it and insisted on me just hiring movers to do the work; as she said, "You will be relying on your friends for a lot over the next year, let's save them (and their backs) for something else." I couldn't argue with her logic*, so I tried to graciously agree.

Still, that doesn't mean that I can't do this whole thing as frugally as possible. Master Your Card has an interesting article about Managing Your Credit Cards While Moving. There's some good tips in it that I plan on following. Here are some other things I am working on:

1. My goal is to move over most of my personal items myself or with the help of friends. Especially awkward things like clothes - then I will let the movers take care of the heavy things. This will save them time, and since they are getting paid by the hour, it will save me (ok, mom) money.

2. I am using boxes and old newspapers given to me by friends and family to box everything up. Since I am moving literally .5 mile down the road, I am not sealing the boxes with tape. The only thing I have purchased for packing so far is a roll of trash bags ($4.99) because they are my favorite way to pack shoes, linens and folded clothes. (And I can reuse them later!)

3. Each day on my way to work I am going to drop off a few bags of stuff. It is on my route anyway, so that will hopefully save some back and forth trips later on - hence, saving gas.

4. After the move, I will be giving the place a good cleaning so I can be sure and get my security deposit back!

5. I am resisting the urge to give in to my "moving stress" and spend money. For example, this morning I actually thought to myself, "I don't want to make a lunch. I'll just buy something." What?!?! Where did that thought even come from??? Then I realized - it came from the fact my apartment is in a disarray and that is making me feel unmotivated. I also feel like I "deserve" to eat out because I am stressed. At the same time I knew the following: a) I had good food in the refrigerator, b) it was healthier than anything I could eat out, c) it was cheaper, and d) I knew that I wanted to eat down my food so I didn't have to move it! I blame this momentary lapse in judgment on the chaos of moving; it just seems "easier" to eat out and with so much going on, easier sounds good. But in fact, it took me about 2 minutes to whip up and bag a tasty lunch. These potential slips are things I am going to try and avoid.

6. I have already switched over utilities for the house and the apartment starting June 30th. By setting this all up in advance I hope to avoid any unexpected charges.

7. I am dropping off a change of address form to the post office today, again by acting early I am hoping to avoid important mail getting lost in the shuffle.

8. As I pack I am making eBay, garage sale and charity boxes. This is a great time to sort things out - I have the time to decide what I really want to keep and what I can get rid of.

Do you have any tips for keeping moving costs low? Let me know - I would love to hear them!



*Especially as mom's logic is essentially the same "I don't want to squander this great resource" logic I am using on her.

Photo by Adrian F

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First Payment

Well, I did it. I got the mortgage bills in the mail for the house this weekend. So, I did what had to be done - I went into my online banking and set up payments. There are two loans on the house - totaling a mortgage payment of $1,531. According to my budget, I should be okay as long as I can keep this momentum going. Don't think I'm not scared though; it is 7 days until the end of the month and I haven't hit my goal yet. Don't get me wrong, I am really happy with what I have done, but it does mean I will have to work a little harder in July!

There are still items on The List though, including a garage sale in July. Right now I don't even know what I am going to sell, but I will focus on that after I move - I am sure there will be pleanty of things I have forgotten about there.

I kind of feel like I am getting closer and closer to the edge of a cliff - pretty soon I am going to have to jump off and either fall or fly.

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Gas Pains

So, buy the middle of this month, I already knew I had blown my gas budget for June. To be fair, I had no idea what my gas budget should be, so to make a budget I did the equivalent of throwing a dart at a wall. I picked $75. ....yeah, I am at almost double that for the month! Ouch!

Summer means a lot of driving for me. I am trying to cut some of those costs down by having a bike, but so far the bike has been used more for exercise than transportation. (I like to think of it saving on my nonexistent gym membership.) I have done some walking - I have walked to the theatre for board meetings and out to meet friends, but obviously not enough to significantly impact my bottom line.

Do you ever get the feeling that the universe is sending you signs? That's what has been happening to me in regards to gas expenses. While on my trip to Cedar Point over the 15th, Catie told me about her new credit card that she got from a local supermarket. They are running a promotion on gas right now and you can get $.10 off a gallon when you shop at their stores through Labor Day. Then last week, Passive Family Income had an article about ways to save on gas. One of the ways he mentioned? A gas credit card. Now I see Give Me Back My Five Bucks has a gas challenge for the month. Like I said, sometimes the signs are so bright, I feel like I am in Vegas.

But here is the thing, while I would like to find ways to cut down on gas, I am not going to stop going to the cabin or driving to see friends. One of the main goals of this blog is to keep me sane, and those are two things that make the stress go away. So, what is a girl to do?

The first thing is to get that gas credit card Miss Catie mentioned. Although, I have hesitations about it; after all I am doing really good at eliminating my debt - in fact, this is the first month in a long time I haven't put a penny on a credit card! There is a part of me that doesn't like the idea of another credit card in my wallet, sitting there like a sweet temptation. So to nix that in the bud, what I am going to do is only use it for gas - nothing else. When I use it, I am going to put the money I spend in a separate part of my checking account. If I put $39.82 in my tank - $39.82 gets put aside. That way when the bill comes I can just pay it off in one fell swoop. No building balances!

The store that is offering this card is where I do most of my non-farmers market shopping anyway. I also already buy all my gas from them. The reason I do is because of politics. I believe in supporting local businesses, especially ones that give back. BP, Shell and the rest have never done a thing for this community - but the owner of this store constantly gives back by building gardens and creating public walking trails - things I use a lot, not to mention giving to a theatre I care about. The way I figure it, gas prices are pretty much the same everywhere, I might as well support someone who has supported my community.

I applied for the card last week. Every time I go to this store there is this gal working there who asks me if I want a credit card. Every time, I decline. I decided that if I was going to get a card, I'd find her and give her the application - I am sure she gets a spiff or something based on the number of cards she gets.

I think she was a little surprised when I just walked up to her and said, "Hi. I want a credit card." I doubt that is the usual way she gets applications! Nonetheless she quickly handed me a clipboard and told me what she needed. It took just a minute and she was really nice - too nice really, more in that "wow. I wish you would stop touching my shoulder but I know you are genuinely nice so I can't really complain, but you are making me a little uncomfortable here and are we done yet?" kind of way. Here's the hilarious part - with my sign up, I also got my choice of a twelve pack of store brand pop, a dozen donuts, a cherry pie or a rotisserie chicken. Being that it was the only vaguely healthy option, I took the chicken. How Midwest is that?

Apply for our credit card and we'll give you a chicken!!

I love it! I've got about a third of a tank right now, any bets on whether I can make it to the end of the month?






Photo by bobbychuck24

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Movin' On Down the Road

It is time to move. This week I'll be packing up and getting ready to make the big move to the big house. I'm feeling fairly good about it, but a it nervous too.

My apartment has already been rented out. This is a very, very good thing. You see, I screwed up. With all the hullabaloo of the divorce, I forgot to tell my landlord that I was moving out. I finally remembered to call her the day the divorce was final - June 5. That's when she gave me the bad news - my lease specifically says that she has to have a full 30 days notice before moving, which technically meant that I would be responsible for payment through August 1. I was just sick to my stomach. I understood where she was coming from, after all my landlord is just running a business and in this economy getting new renters might be tough. Still, just because I understood it, doesn't mean I liked it. I was pretty mad at myself, I can tell you.

We worked out a deal though - she could show the apartment any weekday during the hours I was at work and I would do my best to keep it "show ready." If she could rent it before the end of the month, then we would just proceed as if I had given her notice on time. It seemed like a good deal, until the first time she went to show it was the one time I could have really used the apartment to myself!

Last week I wrote about spending the afternoon hauling wood. What I didn't tell you was that I dropped mom off and drove towards home, looking forward to a hot shower and dinner before going down to the theatre to House Manage. You guessed it... that's when I noticed I had voice mail. I can't check my voice mail at the cabin for some reason, so once I got into town I took a listen. It was my landlord telling me she would be at the apartment with people to view it at 6:00 and 6:15 - the exact times I needed to be there to clean up. It was 5:15 when I got the messages and I was still on the road. I called my landlady and explained the situation, letting her know it would be fine but please, please don't come up until 6:00. She promised to call first.

I walked in the door at 5:35... and was indeed out the door, fully dressed and looking professional by 6:00 on the dot. I saw the woman who was coming to see the apartment and thought to myself that she looked like just the kind of person this apartment would be good for - she looked like me. Not like we had similar features, but we were cut out of the same cloth: mid-thirties, professional women, nicely dressed, and with that "recently divorced" look in our eyes. I don't know that she was, she just looked that way to me. In any case, I was right about her being a good match for the apartment - she took it on the spot! My landlord called to tell me the great news and said I must have good karma!! I don't know about that, but I was thrilled it turned out to be so easy, even if it did mean that my "dinner" that night consisted of a crude sandwich, made from meat and cheese I had in my car from the cabin, that I put together on the top of a cardboard box on the way to the theatre.

The cardboard box in question was one for packing up. Now that my apartment is rented, I have filled it with the detritus of moving - boxes, crates, packing materials and plastic bags. It looks like a UPS truck exploded in the middle of it! Tonight I am going to go home and try to put together a plan. I have friends helping me and I would like to have a somewhat organized process before they get there.

This is the big step - what I have been gearing up for all month. This is the whole reason I am keeping this blog and struggling for every penny. At the end of next Monday, I'll be up and running for real!

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How Much Wood....

Yesterday I took the day off work to spend some time up north at my cabin. My goal is still to get it "rent ready" and try to earn some income that way. As Tracey pointed out - if I can't get it rented the worst thing that could happen is I get the cabin cleaned inside and out and the yard looking great. Not a bad trade-off in my opinion!

My mother came up with me because I wanted her opinion. When I was a kid we used to regularly rent a cottage for a week in the summer. I thought she could help me walk through and see what might stand out to her as things I needed to do beforehand. She also volunteered to help me work on the yard and get things done.

In most ways having my mom up there was fantastic. She is great company and was a hard worker. She got tons and tons of raking done and helped trim a bunch of unruly bushes. The areas she worked on look so much better. There was one little thing that I found frustrating though... she wants to remodel the entire cabin. She may be right, but I can't afford it.

My mom has a great eye and is a marvelous interior decorator. She also is very good at quickly seeing what can be done to a room to make it more appealing. The thing is though, I just don't have the money (or time) right now for the projects she is proposing. As she walked through the cabin talking about replacing flooring and putting in new cupboards I had to remind her over and over that I wasn't looking to remodel this year - just get it "renter ready." It was like talking to a wall. I could see her looking around and replacing light fixtures in her head. Finally I had to burst out, "Mom, unless it is FREE I am not doing it. I can't. My goal is to make money - not spend it. I cannot afford to do anything else." She said something about helping me, but I just had to stop her. There are things I will need her to help me with, but frankly, replacing the kitchen cupboards is just not a priority.

It was hard for me on a couple of levels. Remember that whole Shame of Frugality thing I wrote about awhile back? Yeah.... there is also the Humiliation of Being Poor. I don't like admitting that I can't afford something. I hate having to say that I don't have money to spend - that my bank account is empty. (Even saying it to my mom stinks.) I doubt I am alone - it does help explain our fondness with credit cards, doesn't it? "Mastercard means never having to admit you are poor."*

The other thing is, to be perfectly honest, I don't think the cabin looks bad. Yes, there are things that could and should be done.... but it is a cabin in the woods. It isn't supposed to look ultra modern or have perfect rooms. People should feel like they can track dirt in and put their sandy feet up on the coffee table. I am okay with that. It is a place to kick back - not a showpiece. It is hard to explain to my mother though.

She and I concentrated on working on the yard while we were there. The weather was cool so it was just right for working outside. I decided to run the mower to make sure that there weren't any mice rebuilding homes inside of it, and while in the shed I heard an odd sound. It sounded like my propane grill was on. It hasn't worked in a long time so I knew it couldn't be. That's when I realized that bumblebees had built a nest in it. Oh yes, I need that now. I didn't have any bug-b-gone or anything like that, so I just concentrated on moving the mower out very carefully and not bumping the grill. Next time I go up I will bring some spray along. That should be exciting. Anyone got a HazMat suit I can borrow?

As I was blowing any forming mouse houses out the mower exhaust and trying to flatten the yard to a more presentable height, my neighbor came over to ask me if I wanted to go in with him on a log splitter. Last fall he and I had some trees taken down. I had the wood hauled away, but he kept the trunk of his. Back then he offered me as much of the wood as I wanted - the only condition was that I had to split it. I talked to my then husband, and he told me we could rent a log splitter. Well, time passed and the only thing that got split was my marriage. Those huge pieces of trunk were still piled up along I and the neighbor's property line.

So yesterday Justin, my neighbor, offered me the wood if I'd go in with him on the splitter. I agreed, little knowing what I was getting into!! I ended up spending hours loading red oak logs into a wheelbarrow and taking them over to my woodpile. I have no idea how many trips I made, but when all was done I had two stacks 12' long and 5' high. Believe me, my shoulders are feeling it today!!

Still - my half of the rental was $25. I am guessing that I got well over $100 worth of wood there. I will be loving it this fall! There is nothing like being quiet and cozy under a quilt with a nice fire going in the fireplace.



*I am getting better at admitting that I am broke. And you want to know something interesting? Once you start saying it - and do get comfortable with it, lots of other people feel comfortable saying, "Really?? Me too!" It can be freeing... when it doesn't completely stink.

Photo by humbolthead.

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Whooo hooo!!! Over halfway there!

I got a big, big help from eBay today. Tommy had given me a couple pairs of glasses to sell to help me meet my goals - and one of the designer pairs fold for $103.50! Yay! Who knew that empty eyeglass frames could be so popular?

I sold a few other items as well. The total came to $133.71 for today. Now, my profit will be slightly less because I still have to ship them out, but I am trying to do that as inexpensively as possible. My plan is to get a few more items listed yet today and then take a bunch of photos tonight of some other items I need to put online.

One of the items I have yet to list is my father's steering wheel from his 1968 Shelby Cobra. I am hoping to have that online this week or next. Now, that is going to be a tricky item to ship!! I did however contact a Shelby Restoration website to see if they would be interested. They weren't but they gave me a good idea what to list it for on eBay. You'll have to keep an eye on this blog to find out how much they suggested!

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The Large Print Giveth... and the small print taketh away*

Actually it isn't print that is giving and taking - it's life. I've had a weird financial roller coaster couple of weeks. For example:

Sending in my emergency room visit bill to Flex Plan is smart.
Holding onto the cashed check in my savings account through the end of May to get the interest on it (since the bill wasn't due until June 9th) was also smart.
Forgetting to pay said bill until June 13? Dumb.

Lesson learned - I pay all my bills online, so I set them up and forget about them. Either always do that or pay the bill right away. Thinking I will remember a week later is a recipe for disaster.

I just got the bill for the balance of what I owed my lawyer for handling the divorce.
Paying him half when I had the cash was smart.
Hoping he might forget about me and just not send a bill for the rest? Dumb.
To make matters worse, the bill is $200 more than I expected. (Court fees.)

Lesson learned - People are going to want to get paid. That is just the way the world works. Hoping someone will "forget" a debt is just naive. Plan on paying it and make the arrangements to do so. (And per the first lesson I will set it up in my online bill pay today.)

Awhile ago I wrote about going to Cedar Point. This was a hard decision for me - I am trying to be so, so frugal and careful about extra spending, but on the other hand Maureen had asked me to go and had offered to help offset my costs. While there, I did end up spending my entire entertainment budget for the month, which seems dumb, seeing as I am only halfway through the month, however while on the trip:
I found out my friend Stasia has moving boxes I can use. Free boxes with little hassle. Smart.
My friend Randy offered me the use of his gym/pool at his apartment. Free gym? Smart!
I also chatted with someone out about a business opportunity.** It is a great opportunity, but I am not sure I am in the best space to take it on. Still - being open to new ideas? Very smart!

Lesson Learned - Sometimes you do have to just say yes. I had a wonderful time on my trip and it was like a mini-vacation. It also put me in contact with friends and opportunities I would not have known about. Being open to what the universe has to offer is very, very important.





*Tom Waits, "Step Right Up"
** I am not going to write about it here until I make decisions about it.

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Prosperous Lending

One of the things I am going to do is set up passive income streams so I don't burn myself out trying to make my goal. Working another 40 hour job might do the trick and get me to my $900 goal, but it might also kill me in the process. (And I very much like being alive.)

I thought I would write today a bit about Prosper.com. I am a bit new to the program but so far I love it. The concept is one that I can support - basically it puts together people who need a loan with people who want to lend. They do it on a large scale of course, so it isn't one to one. The borrowers then can avoid the big banks and the lenders make a nice interest rate - simple. Personally, I like it from a business perspective. I'm the type who believes that people can take things into their own hands. I'm not a big fan of big banks - especially with the credit crises of recent days. I like the concept of people working together.

As I say, I am new to this so I don't know how this whole thing is going to pan out. Just because I love the concept and so far my experience has been positive, but that doesn't mean it guaranteed by any means. As things happen, I will try to post about them so people can see my experiences.

Here's what I have found so far: Frankly, the sign up process takes a bit longer than expected. In order to transfer money to Prosper.com you have to create an account and then give them your routing and account numbers. They then make a deposit in your bank account and then withdrawal a small amount. (It was less than $.25) It worked very similar to setting up a Paypal account or setting up an online savings account. The actual process of creating the account was easy - they walk you through all the steps. But I will say that it took several business days for me to see the deposit and withdrawal. This may have been because I did it just before Memorial Day weekend, but the process took about a week. I was checking it every day and starting to get frustrated. I might not have been if someone had warned me about it.

Once that was completed then I had to transfer money to my Prosper account so I could bid - and that took another 5 days. Basically it was almost 2 weeks before I could lend. I found that a touch frustrating since I like to get going on things right away.

Once the money was in the account though, Prosper gave me a $25 welcome bonus, which meant my $50 went straight up to $75. Not bad! You have two choices then - you can choose the loans you want to bid on, or you can use one of their Portfolio Plans and let them do it for you. With a Portfolio Plan you choose your own template: Conservative, Balanced, Moderate, Aggressive or make one of your own. I'm madly busy right now with the move and everything else, so I chose the Moderate Plan and let Prosper deal with the rest rather than choosing and bidding myself.

Here is some of the information on my first loan that I helped fund:

Purpose of loan:
This loan will be used to pay down my car so that I can sell it. I have a new company car and no longer need my 350Z. It is worth about 16,500 but I still owe about 21,000 on it. The rest of the money will pay off my biggest interest credit card.

My financial situation:
I am a good candidate for this loan because I have good credit, I have a career in a company with a low turnover rate, I make good money, and I have never been late on a payment before. I also do make more money than I have listed, but I was not sure how to list commissions, so I only listed my base salary.

It gives a lot of other financial data as well - monthly expenses, salary, debt to income ratio, etc. It also has a nice photo of him and his wife on their wedding day. I like that - it gave it a personal touch.

I then transfered over another $25 so I could add it to my referral bonus and make another $50 bid. This one I put in a Balanced Portfolio Plan so I could see the difference between how the two perform. I just did that today so I don't have details yet. I will let you know how it works as time goes on.

If you have questions, I recommend checking out Prosper.com at their website. (If you do sign up after reading this article, please use my link so I can get credit for the referral.) As things happen - I will keep you posted!

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Combining Finances - The Divorcee Has Her Say

Moolanomy has an interesting article on his blog on Money and Marriage: On Combining Finances. I feel like I should chime in here, since I, as one recently divorced, have a unique perspective on it. My ex and I never combined finances. In the long run, this turned out to be a good thing for me, since that would have been another nightmare to deal with during the divorce, but I also wonder if that wasn't a sign in the very beginning that I didn't have 100% faith in the relationship.

We didn't mix finances on my request. My feeling was that we were two adults who had been handling our own finances for a long time. We each had our own ways of paying bills and savings, and I didn't see why marriage should change that. We still split expenses, which made things equal, and that seemed enough to me.

Looking back on it, I am not sure that was such a good idea. Here's why: I didn't find out until after we were engaged and heading towards the alter at full clip that he was considerably in debt. I won't give numbers here, because that wouldn't be right, but let's just say it shocked me to my core. After hearing how much, I was determined more and more to keep things separate. Not asking about and discussing financial matters is just plain dumb. You know what? I knew better.... but a bunch of things kept me from asking before; I was in love, we were getting married, and my ex seems so capable and together. He never seemed to worry about money. (Maybe that should have been a red flag?)

Speaking of signs - the fact that I didn't trust him enough to mix our funds tells me that there was a flaw at the core of our relationship from the beginning. At the same time, I do believe that married couples should have some of their own money. A woman doesn't want to explain every time she splurges on a new lipstick or a guy buys a new tool for his shop. Couples don't want the other to see how much they spent on that birthday present they bought for one another or the "I'm sorry honey" roses. I think everyone needs the power to have a little "mad money" - the possibility to save up for something special.

Here's what I think - couples have to be honest and open about the money they make, and most importantly, the debt they have. Once they get married, statements and bill paying should be shared. Both people should know 1.) how to pay the bills, 2.) what the bills are, and 3) when they are being paid. The goal here should be that both people are equally comfortable with finances. You hear all the time about one spouse dying or a divorce happening and the other person has no idea what their financial situation is - that shouldn't happen. In my humble opinion household bills and expenses should be paid out of one joint checking account. At the same time, a small agreed on "allowance" should be given to each person to use as they see fit. The amount can be readjusted annually as the yearly budget is made.

My belief is that there has to be financial openness and joint responsibility - otherwise, it is time to really revisit your feelings. If you can't trust your spouse with your checkbook, can you really trust them with your happiness?








Money photo by Darren Hester.

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Trashed!

Last night I ran into my ex - who generously gifted me with the trash bill. You know, I've been living in an apartment too long - I didn't even think to calculate trash into my budget.

So, now I had to decide what to do. The trash bill was $152 a year or $40 a quarter. Paying for a full year only saved me $8. Considering the fact that we are well into June here, the added expense was not at all welcome and $40 sounded like a pretty good deal but, then I thought about it more. I am a firm believer that "out of pennies, dollars are made," and I would be happy if I sold one of my books for $8. Plus, this month is really just a trial run. See, the mortgage on the house for June has already been paid by my ex - this month I only had to pay rent on the apartment. That's a huge difference and it means that I have a little extra money to play with.

Most of that extra money will all be going towards creating a cushion for next year. (I am sure there will be months where it will be hard to make my goal.) So, ultimately I decided to pay the bill in full. It just made sense. Now I don't have to worry about it being in my budget - it is already paid for the year. I save the money and it isn't something that will sneak up on me four months from now.

Speaking of trash, and therefor recycling.... I am about to admit something embarrassing:

I don't bring my cans and bottles to the store to recycle them.

Now, before treehuggers everywhere come after me - I do recycle them. It is just that rather than taking them back to the store, I put them in recycling containers. Now why would I do this since I live in a state with cash refunds for bottles?

Simple - because usually I don't have enough of them to matter. I don't usually drink things that come in returnable bottles at home - I rarely have beer or pop in the house. On the rare occasion that I have a returnable in the house it is usually from a friend leaving a bottle of pop or something like that. I have 2-3 a month at best. It hardly seems worth it to bring back one pop can when I go to the store, so I put them in recycling bins instead.

However, as of late I seemed to have accumulated a number of them, so for the first time in quite awhile, I saved cans. I ended up with a half of bag full of cans and bottles so yesterday I decided to bring them back to the store. As I walked down the back steps I noticed one PBR and one Coke can in the recycling bin - apparently I am not the only one who feels this way.

Laughing at myself the whole time, I walked over and fished them out. How's that for frugal?



This fantastic photo is by bucklava

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