Money, Love, and Change

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photo credit: inoc

Wow – it’s environmentally friendly, and it’s free!  Treat yourself to a one year digital magazine subscription from The Read Green Initiative. All you need to do is pick your magazine and enter your e-mail address.

Then, sign up for an account with Zinio, which provides sales and distribution of digital content.  When I signed up for my Zinio account, all I had to do was provide an e-mail address and create a password (no physical address or credit card information was required).

Being a personal finance geek, I picked Kiplinger’s for my free magazine, but there is definitely something for almost anyone (US News and World Report was one of the choices, for example).

I also installed the reader so that I can download the digital issues to read at my convenience (sans internet connection).  If you’re really into supporting the green initiative, you can also purchase subscriptions from Zinio.

If you decide to try this out, please drop a line and let me know what you think!

photo credit: ArtemFinland

As the year comes to a close, it is always nice to take a look at the finances.  Although I love tracking our finances using Microsoft Money, the level of detail doesn’t always provide a clear look at the underlying picture.

For example, our net worth is approximately the same as last year, but this is due to losses in our retirement accounts, which I am not overly concerned about.  Since we are in our early 30’s, we make regular contributions and reallocate our holdings twice a year.  It’s pretty much on auto-pilot.

But what about our debt?  And our savings?  Are we doing better than last year?  Again, it is hard to tell with Microsoft Money.  I have all of my business accounts listed, as well as our credit card that we use to make our monthly purchases (and then pay off in full each month).  These accounts can give a skewed representation of our financial picture depending on the circumstances.

This is where Mint.com enters into the picture.  Basically, it allows you to track your financial accounts online.  This morning, I spent some time entering the login information for all of our accounts.  Then, I used the “hide” function to get rid of all the accounts that were causing “financial static”.  Now, when I log in, I can easily see the totals for the accounts which represent our true emergency savings, our credit card debt, and our student loan/mortgage debt.

As an added bonus, I am also able to quickly look at our credit cards that do not carry a balance to make sure that no mysterious charges have appeared.  Given our recent experience with this, this feature alone makes it worth taking a look at Mint.com.

I wouldn’t use Mint.com for making a budget or tracking our detailed spending – I have already spent too much time with Microsoft Money to tweak it to my liking, and our finances are tracked in the program from 1999.  But now I have another financial tool in my arsenal to help us keep focused on debt reduction, and I’m really excited!

Have you used Mint.com?  If so, what do you use it for?  Are you happy with your experience?

photo credit: naviniea

Christmas is going to be so much fun this year. Our little one is almost 3 years old, and he’s going nuts with all the Christmas lights around town. He’s been asking about a “Kees-mas tee” all week long, and today is the big day!

Since all of our Christmas shopping is done, it’s going to be a very relaxing holiday season. Here are some of the things we plan on doing as a family this year. Some do cost money, but we feel they are well worth it!

1. Cut your own Christmas tree – Yes, we are buying a real tree again this year. However, we planned ahead and included this cost in our holiday budget. There is a wonderful tree farm near our house – we take the dog and make it into a big event. There is a petting zoo, and you can print coupons for free hot chocolate online. As an added benefit, we always get some of our best holiday pictures on this day!

After the holidays, we cut off a small piece of the trunk and woodburn the year on it. After placing a small hook in it, we have a great holiday ornament!

2. Go see the lights! – Consider both going by foot and by car. I would also recommend seeing if there are any local light displays. For example, we travel to Baltimore each year to see Hampden’s Miracle on 34th Street, where every house is decorated. While many homes here could be considered just “over-the-top” with lights, there is also local art on display, including our favorite Hubcap Tree by Jim Pollock. Luckily, we have friends on 33rd Street, so we get parking earlier in the day and have made a tradition of visiting our friends and taking cider on our walk.

3. Bake some of your holiday gifts – It does cost money for ingredients, but I pick one or two recipes and scale them up to keep things simple. The kid always gets a special job, and after all the cooking is done, we have presents in a pinch. Besides, it’s nice to turn on some Christmas music and smell cookies in the oven!

4. Make holiday crafts together – It doesn’t have to be complicated! This year, for example, we are making construction paper rings for our tree garland. The fun is in the creative process itself – the end product is just an added benefit!

What are some of the fun and frugal things you like to do over the holidays?

Everything seems to be in the crapper.  With election politics heating up (and not necessarily in a good way), an economic bailout that I am pretty sure no one has a real clue about, and the American dream becoming less achievable for many, things seem to be “not so great”.

Or is it?  I think that perhaps we’re really at a turning point — a sort of reality check where those that have not been realistic about what they cannot afford need to come to terms with the consequences.  While this is happening at a personal level, I am not really sure that it is happening on Wall Street and in the government.

I know that for us, things are a lot more tight financially because we are trying to rebuild our emergency fund quickly after some major truck repairs.  But we’re really coming together as a family, mostly because I am working evenings to generate additional income to rebuild our fund.  This is an added responsibility for my husband, since he has to come home from work and take over childcare duties.

Although initially it took some getting used to, I think that this is also a great opportunity for us to really evaluate what is important in life.  I think it has helped us develop a better appreciation for what the other person is doing, since now we are both working, and both taking care of the kid alone.

We’re also very thankful that we are frugal, and can currently handle our financial situation.  I don’t need to run out and make the big $$$, but can stay at home with the kid during the day.  At the same time, it has strengthened our resolve to get out of debt, and I am working harder to generate additional income streams.

How about you?  Are you keeping your head up in today’s economy?  Why or why not?

***Note:  Now that the election is over, the voteforchange.com site is no longer available, so I removed the links.***

Even though I voted in the primaries, I am always nervous about whether I am registered to vote or not.  I received an e-mail today from a friend, who sent me a link to the site (it is from the Obama campaign, but anyone can use it) called voteforchange.com.  It only took me about 90 seconds to confirm that I had registered to vote.  You can also use this site to register to vote absentee, as well as locate your polling location.

I really liked how quick and easy this site was to use, so I thought I would pass it along!

I hope that everyone out there has a special cause that they are involved with. For us, we give monthly to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. I used to work with a pediatric neurosurgeon, and although the thought of a sick child is heartbreaking, seeing how they are still able to be themselves despite their illness is absolutely miraculous – there aren’t even words to describe some of the adversity these kids are able to overcome (sometimes against all odds).

Although we believe wholeheartedly in St. Jude’s cause, it is difficult for us to become more directly involved with them because of our physical location. At some point in my life, I would like to return to the bench to do some more science, and St. Jude’s tops my list of who I would like to work for. In the meantime, we’ve been trying to get involved with more local charities.

But St. Jude’s is super cool. They called us and asked if we would be willing to take part in their mailing campaign, where we sent out donation requests to close friends and family. Any donations are mailed back to us, and then we mail it back to St. Jude. I think that this is a wonderful way for us to encourage others to give without being too pushy. It also gets us more directly involved with their cause.

What about you? Do you have a charity that isn’t local that you are involved with? What do you do?

We’re back from a weekend camping trip. It was a lot of fun, even though we got rained on for a whole night and part of a day. Trying to keep a 2-year-old contained in a tent while waiting for a storm to pass was challenging, but somewhat manageable. I have made a mental note to bring more books/toys in the event of rain (we try to keep it simple, but in this case having more than a dump truck and 2 books would have made life better)!

In general, I love camping because it is so simple, and there is a lot of time for reflection. One of the things I spent a lot of time thinking about is that we’ve actually done a good job over the past couple of years making life less complicated. Now when we’re camping, it’s nice to get away from the computer and phone for awhile, and cooking over an open fire, and sleeping on the ground. Other than that, camping is really not as different from home as it used to be.  My husband and I get to spend more quality time together now, and we’ve prioritized things so that we both spend a lot of time with the kid.

Camping this weekend did strengthen my resolve to working harder to become debt free. I would love to have freedom to camp and travel more often, but with my husbands limited vacation time, that’s not possible. We’ll see what happens…

What about you? Do you like camping? Why or why not?

I feel pretty guilty about throwing things away.  We’ve been trying to get rid of the things that we don’t need anymore, and the next thing on the list is VCR tapes and coasters (CD/DVD discs that did not burn correctly).

Even though it costs money, Green Disk seems like a good option for us. Here is a list of some of the things that they will take for recycling (from their website):

• All forms of electronic media and their cases: diskettes, zip disks, CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVDs et al, video tape (i.e. VHS), audio tape, game cartridges, DAT, DLT, Beta or Digibeta, and virtually all other type of computer tapes.
• Hard drives, Zip and Jazz drives, jump drives, etc.
• All forms of printer cartridges including both inkjet and toner.
• All types of cell phones, pagers, PDAs and their chargers, cables, and headset accessories
• All types of rechargeable batteries (not regular alkaline ones) and their chargers
• All of the small computer accessories such as MP3 players, iPods, digital cameras, hand-held scanners, handheld games and other connected devices
• All of the cords, cables, boards, chips, etc. attached to or removed from a computer.
• Laptop computers.

They also will take computer systems and computer components, although it is part of a separate recycling program.

We’re thinking of purchasing a Technotrash can because the postage is included.  They also destroy any information on the media you send them, which is nice if you have a small business or even personal files.

Have you ever tried this service or used something similar?  I haven’t seen anything else where we can send all different types of items to one location yet, but would be interested in other options that may be available.

One of my big goals (part of the change in money, love, and change) has been to simplify our life.  We’ve done quite a bit, but there is more that can be done.

My #1 pet peeve right now is my e-mail.  I have one central e-mail account that has incoming e-mails from school, the website, job opportunities, etc.  Right now, my inbox count is at 1366 messages (down from over 1700 this morning).

Frankly, I’m not that important.  My goal is to take eliminate 100 e-mails per day in addition to any e-mails I receive.  This means that in about 2 weeks my problem should be taken care of.

In addition, I’ve been making a point to switch most of our statements to paperless billing (with the exception of our checking accounts, since I like to have a paper statement for those).  In addition to being environmentally friendly, this should cut down on paper clutter in the house and will help simplify things a bit further.

Do you have this same problem?  Any advice?

I recently finished Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, and it is a quick and easy read.  I would recommend getting it from your local library – I would not buy it just because there are enough blogs and information on his methods on the web (and you can use the cost of the book as your first snowflake!).  I think that Get Rich Slowly has a nice synopsis of the book here if you want to get the basic idea before investing your time reading the whole book.

Is Total Money Makeover going to change our lives?  I’m not sure.  We have been  working hard to pay down debt, and I am confident that we will eventually reach our goal of being debt-free.  However, this book made me realize that we need more of a concrete plan.  We tend to throw money towards debt in a haphazard manner, but I like the idea of having a psychological boost of seeing something get eliminated.  After talking it over with my husband, we’re going to create a modified version of his plan:

1.  Get our savings back up to $5,000 – Ramsey suggests a $1000 emergency cushion, but this just doesn’t sit well with us.  Maybe it has to do with my lack of dependable income, the recent upheaval we were in as my husband found another job (since his old one will be in China soon), or the fact that our little truck will have to give out someday.  We recently used a portion of the emergency fund to cover some unexpected car repairs, and it is sitting at roughly $4400.  We will both sleep easier at night when it is back up to $5000.

2.  Pay off that *$)!(@ private student loan  – it is not our smallest debt, but it is our highest interest debt (currently at 7.5%).  I hate it.  I don’t care that the interest is deductible.  Every time I log into this account, I cringe.  At roughly $3500, it needs to go.

After these two goals, we have a couple of others, but we are not sure what order they will go in yet:

3.   Max out our Roth IRA contributions – Although Ramsey suggests stopping 401(k) retirement contributions until debt is paid off (in most cases), I just can’t pass up free money.  In a recent post, I talked about how we recently decreased our contributions from 20% to 10%.  My husband’s company match is 75% on the first 6% – keeping at 10% will help us in attaining our goal of $100,000 in retirement accounts by the end of the year.

4.  Pay down our mortgage so that the balance is at 75% of the value of our home – this will allow us to close our escrow account and keep the money in savings.  Since we are about $3000 away from reaching this goal, it seems reasonable.  Although interest rates in savings accounts isn’t so great right now, the lower mortgage payment would be a nice psychological boost.  I know we have enough discipline to put the money aside every month, and I also like the idea of having a little more wiggle room about where our money is going every month.

What do you think of these goals?  Are we destined for failure because we are not following the Ramsey plan exactly?