Staying Accountable To My Budget

I recently created a detailed budget for myself. I have $100 to spend on miscellaneous items, and I've allotted myself a total budget for groceries and gas of $325 every month. The problem with budgeting isn't so much creating a budget - it's sticking to it.

At the end of every month I've been tallying that months spending. This month I spent $106.66 in the miscellaneous category. This included my antique store purchases, a Groupon certificate for half off at happy hour, lunch with the hubby's grandmother, the Living Social certificate which I applied to buying sprout seeds (can't wait to start this project - hopefully a money saver!) and a late fee and interest. No, I'm not perfect, and I'm super annoyed with myself for this one. I thought I had all of my ducks in order before leaving for the holidays, but I forgot to schedule the payment on one of my credit cards. Usually I can get the late fee reversed (while still eating the interest) but apparently I had done that last March, and USBank is only being lenient once a year.

I decided to include the late fee and interest in my miscellaneous category to really make it hurt. It's frustrating to know that the only reason I went over my miscellaneous budget this month is because of that stupid mistake. I assume that my miscellaneous spending is going to be somewhat flexible every month. By this I mean that sometimes I'll go over and sometimes I'll be under because I don't buy cat food or litter every month, or get my oil changed every month. But it's really easy to go a little over $100 a month, and a lot harder to stay under. I'm glad I almost made it, but I'm going to try really hard to be under in February because of the late payment mistake.

I came in just under budget on gas and groceries - $321.49. This is partly because I decided not to hold myself accountable for the $11.79 my husband charged to my card when I sent him out for eggs. He decided to also get 5 concentrated juices. I would never have bought these for him. Juice is expensive, and I try not to buy too many in a month, and typically keep them in the deep freeze in the garage so that my husband doesn't go through them so fast. This time he's already gone through all 5 cans of Welch's, and he just bought them on the 20th!

After reading that Kristen over at The Frugal Girl feeds her family of 6 on $100 a week (and she does it in part by avoiding expensive juice!) I'm feeling a little disappointed in myself for barely managing to feed the two of us on $285 a month (that's $325 minus the $40 I realistically feed the Prius every month). Truthfully I aim at $200 a month, added in $50 when I started making the hubby's lunches, and allot $75 for gas (which is more like what I fed the Lexus). I combine gas and groceries in my budget to give myself a little extra cushion on groceries, since I definitely don't spend $75 on gas anymore. So basically, I'm pathetic. I mean who am I fooling? Myself?

So I'm going to try to be more accountable for my grocery shopping expenses. I'm going to seriously aim at spending less than what I've currently alloted - a lofty goal, since last year I had a difficult time coming in at the already generous budget I've given myself. So I've decided to track even more data! (There's nothing I love more than a detailed Excel spreadsheet :) The last few times I've been to the grocery store, I've kept my receipts and started tracking exactly what I purchase. I've already recognized that I can probably stop paying $2.50 for two frozen pie crusts. It can't be that hard to make crust, right? And I'm pretty sure I can do it for less than $1.25 each. Hopefully I'll be able to plug more of these holes as I take a closer look at my grocery purchases!

Getting Paid To Take Surveys | Using Fusion Cash

Have you ever wondered how to take surveys for money? All around the internet I see ads about getting paid for taking surveys, but I never quite figured out how to do it. I even signed up for a couple of sites where I created a profile, and then waited to be e-mailed surveys that I matched up to. But then I never seemed to qualify!

Last year I stumbled across Fusion Cash. It makes the whole process a lot easier, and they even start you out with a $5 bonus.

Not only do they have tons of survey options available, but they also have other free ways to increase your earnings. Once you reach a minimum of $25 in your account, you can cash out and get the check in the mail, or deposited directly into your PayPal or bank account.

At first I was afraid it might be a scam, but I figured I'd give it a shot for a month and then if a check never arrived in the mail I'd chalk it up to a learning experience. The first and easiest thing I did was sign up for the daily e-mail. Every morning when I log into my AOL account, I have an e-mail waiting for me. I click on the link in the e-mail which takes me to the login page, and then I click on an ad. Instant 2 cents! It's not a ton, but it adds up. Every penny in the piggy bank counts!

I also take advantage of the 15 cent paid to click offer every day. I read through the entertainment news while I wait for the clock to count down, and then I click through some of the other pages. I can get the news, the weather, recipe ideas, even gas prices! And after I've clicked on 4 pages, I click on one of the sponsor ads, follow the rest of the instructions, and 15 cents is automatically credited to my account.

These two daily offers are now a part of my routine, and take mere minutes of my time. Every month, it's at least an extra $5 in my pocket.

When I first got started I took advantage of a lot of the daily offers. The Offer page at Fusion Cash is easy to sort through. If you click the Daily link, it will bring up the 4 daily survey options from MyThoughtCounts, SurveyHead, GiveUsYour2Cents, and SSI Daily. Every 24 hours you are eligible to complete EACH of these surveys again. I don't necessarily qualify for all four of them every day, but I do often enough that it is easy for me to reach at least $25 every month. 

On top of that, Fusion Cash has tons of other offers for things like downloading the Bing toolbar, trying out Mint.com, or doing a free 30 day trial with Equifax ScoreWatch. Besides earning extra money, you can try out great tools for keeping your financial house in order!

Although some offers do require you to enter a credit card or purchase something, there are plenty of 100% free offers to take advantage of. I've never paid a dime on Fusion Cash, but I've still earned over $135 so far!

A picture of my check posted in the forums for an extra $1!

Once you get started with Fusion Cash, you can also earn extra money - like earning $3 for posting at least 30 times in the Forums every month, or $1 for posting a picture of your check once you cash out. All the bonus offers make it even easier to reach the $25 minimum.

If you think you can get rich for sitting at home taking surveys or participating in PTC offers, you're probably kidding yourself - at least I haven't figured it out yet. But I do earn extra pocket money from Fusion Cash that helps me stick to my financial goals, and it doesn't take up a lot of my time. Give Fusion Cash a shot - even if you only cash out once, you'll be at least $25 richer!

The link I've provided to Fusion Cash gives me credit for referring you to the site - another great way to earn bonus money through Fusion Cash! 

My Credit Cards - Rewards Are Rewarding!

I have a small handful of credit cards, and I'd like to talk about my personal experiences with them and which I like best.

The first card I ever had was the USBank College Visa which I applied for after reading an article about credit scores. My parents had never spoken to me about the importance of establishing credit, and it hadn't really occurred to me before then to open a card. A couple of years ago it converted to some sort of rewards card, but the cash back is less than 1%. I use this card about twice a year, just to keep it active. I also recently added my husband as a joint user (not an authorized user, they did a credit check) so that it would extend his credit history as well. We now each have 8 years of perfect credit history from this card, and a nice $17,000 credit limit grown slowly by about $1500 increase every 6 months.

In 2006, I realized I could be earning rewards for my credit card spending! My extended family all lives in South Africa, and we typically flew NWA/KLM airlines to get there, so I opened up a mileage rewards card for that airline with USBank. That has since converted over to the FlexPerks card. Before it converted I managed to get one first class trip to Vegas out of the card - not exactly overseas. Since it's converted, I can also get cash back for my points instead of travel. It equates to 1% cash back, and there are often opportunities for bonus points. You also get double points on cell phone and airline charges. Since the card converted in 2009 I have received $650 in cash back! That has been greatly assisted by bonus points. I have not spent that much money! But if we're ever going on vacation together, I'd be happy to book it and you can pay me back. Going in on a birthday present for someone? Sure, I'll buy, you can write me a check for your half :) I have a nice limit on that card of $16,500.

Worth noting: if you ever pay your USBank credit card a day late, you can call customer service and get the late charge reversed once a year. USBank's customer service is excellent, and I also really like their website. Since I have checking accounts with them, I can have my rewards deposited into my checking account instead of applied to the card. This comes with the additional benefit of a quick turnover - it takes just a few days for the credit to appear on my statement online.

When my husband and I first started dating and I had to start cooking real meals for dinner (I'd be perfectly fine with some steamed asparagus and brie on crackers after having a big lunch, personally) I started shopping at Costco a lot more often. As you're probably aware, Costco only takes American Express or debit cards. Not one to lose out on rewards, I applied for the American Express Blue Cash card. It rewards 5% cash back on gas, groceries, and drugstore purchases. Unfortunately, Costco is not included and is rewarded at the everything else rate of 1.25%. When I first got the card I think this was 1.5%. Again, unfortunately, these rates only apply after you spend $6500 per annum. Until you reach that mark, it's just 1% and .5% respectively. The year that I got married and put our honeymoon on this card, I knocked the $6500 out of the park quickly. After that it made sense to put any purchase I could make with American Express on this card. I've gotten cash rewards twice now: $232.17 and $226.97 applied to my balance. I really loved this card for awhile, but it no longer compares to my....

Fidelity 2% American Express! This is my favorite card. I've been coveting a 2% card for awhile now. You need really great credit to be approved for this card, from what I understand. I initially was after the Schwab 2% Visa, but waited too long and it no longer exists. Luckily, this card is still around. I opened a Roth IRA with Fidelity and I now make every purchase I can with this card. The 2% really adds up quickly, and overall works out better than the Blue Cash card because there is no limit you have to reach first. It is also gets the same rewards rate at Costco, which is a good chunk of my monthly bills. The rewards are redeemed in increments of $50 and deposited straight into my Roth IRA. So far I have redeemed $200. Again, this is thanks in part to booking the flights and hotels for a recent trip with my siblings who then reimbursed me for their parts.

In looking up the Fidelity 2% American Express online so that I could link to it, I just noticed that they also now have a Visa Rewards Card! While my 2% American Express is great, as you may know, American Express is not accepted everywhere. Sometimes I have no choice to put purchases on my FlexPerks Visa for just 1% rewards. It looks like this Fidelity Visa offers 1.5% on purchases up to $15,000 a year, and 2% after that! I'm going to do some more research, but I think I might have to apply for this.

I have a couple of other cards that I don't really use. One is an Alliant Credit Union Visa for $2500. I have accounts with them with great rates, and since they pull credit when opening a simple checking or savings account it made sense to accept a credit card offer at the same time. I've never charged anything to it though. I also have a Chase card with a $2500 limit that I opened with my sister in law back when it was Washington Mutual. This was mostly to do her a favor in meeting her goals, but I also used the balance transfer offer which I paid off over the next year. It gave me some breathing room on other bills, but for a 3% fee I'm not sure if it was worth it. I never had any problems with it, but don't have a whole lot of experience with it either.

During the credit repair process, when my husband's credit finally reached 650 we applied for a Bank of America credit card in his name. I had read a lot on MyFico about the 99/500 offer. Basically, we applied for a card we knew he'd be declined for, but were countered with an offer for a $500 secured card where you only had to actually put $99 down. The card was then supposed to convert to unsecured after 9 months of good payments. Unfortunately, the economy changed drastically during that time. He's had the card since December 2008, but it has never converted. It also comes with a $29 annual fee.

I have added him to my USBank card and Blue Cash card, so the purpose of the BOA card (to establish credit) is no longer terribly relevant. If you're trying to reestablish your credit and don't have any other options, I would recommend this card. For our financial position now, though, I don't think paying the annual fee makes sense any more. It will still appear on his credit for 10 years after we close it, and it's not the oldest card appearing on his credit report. We've just paid the annual fee, so maybe we'll leave it alone for the next year, but I think we'll close the card before they charge us another $29.

Those are all my credit card experiences, and over $1300 in rewards in the past 2 years! If you can get them, I highly recommend the Fidelity Rewards cards. Between their American Express and Visa you should be set, and it's really fun playing with the calculator they have here in the upper right hand corner. If I spend $20,000 a year and invest the $400 in rewards at a rate of 7% until retirement in about 35 years, it becomes $57,788! Since I pay my entire statement balance and never owe interest, that truly is free money for me. Amazing!

Taking Lunch To Work

My husband used to eat out for lunch every day that he worked. I convinced him to aim for under $10 a day, and with a free sandwich every once in awhile courtesy of a Safeway Deli Card sometimes he'd even beat that goal! But just as easily he'd go over, so saying that he spent $50 a week on lunch is being rather generous. I finally cracked at the thought of this money flying out the window - at least $2600 a year! It's not the thing I want to do most in the world after working and then making dinner, but I started making his lunches every night.

I was worried that there might be complaints about variety, but it turns out my husband's real needs revolve around quality quantity, not keeping things interesting. He's a superintendent at a construction company, so filling him up is really the main goal. If he can have his favorite thing in the world - Timm's Jalapeno Chips - he's perfectly happy to have them every day.

Lunch consists of sandwich, 2 chocolate chip cookies and jalapeno chips. I buy a couple party size bag of chips each month (about $10) and pour them each night into a Gladware container to keep them from getting crushed. I also buy a couple tubs of Toll House Cookie Dough each month (about $12). Not only is this more delicious than out of a box and cheaper than at the bakery, but this way they aren't lying around for unchecked consumption. I learned the hard way that if I have a box of cookies lying around to last the month, they'll probably be gone in a week. I bake a week's worth of cookies at a time, and knowing I have just enough or I'll have to bake more keeps me away from them. My husband loves this sweet dark whole grain bread so I buy it even though it's a little pricey. I need about 2 and a half loaves a month (about $12). I buy a big tub of this pastrami at Costco because it too is delicious along with pre-sliced pepper jack cheese. The pastrami is a little pricey, although I think it sells in my store for about $12 - I need to double check - and the cheese is about $5. And then I supplement the pastrami with some salami (about $5) and other Safeway Deli lunch meat (about $10). Top that with a piece of lettuce or some sprouts and he's done.

That totals about $66 a month. I also buy 2 packs of dijon mustard at Costco and tubs of mayo at Safeway which I use in other cooking as well. These last a really long time, so the cost is pretty negligible. Nevertheless, I know I could probably do it even cheaper. I've looked into baking my own bread or making my own cookie dough. If anyone has a great sweet dark whole grain recipe, let me know! I should probably look more closely at the price of cheese that isn't sliced, but the convenience of the sliced cheese is part of what keeps me committed to making his lunches everyday. The easier it is on me, the more I know I will stick with it.

Due to a recent salmonella outbreak, I have looked into growing my own sprouts, an activity I loved doing with my mom as a kid, and I will post on my experience with that soon. I was also inspired by The Frugal Girl to tackle our breakfast expenses by making my own yogurt  and granola bars. I'll post about my experiences with that soon. But all in all, reducing the cost to $66 a week still saves us over $1800 a year! That's penny pinching at it's finest :)

Antique Shopping Thrifty Finds!

I posted a little while ago about going into a thrift store to check out clothing for pretty much the first time ever. This past weekend the hubby and I visited his grandmother and hit up some local antique shops in the morning. I had mentioned to him that I wanted to try making my own homemade yogurt and needed some mason jars to do it. He saw some adorable Balls jars with seals for $3 each. Probably more expensive than mason jars would be, but also so adorable! On top of that, his grandmother had 2 almost identical but larger jars that she gave me! So I came home with 4 jars ready for yogurt for $6. With the savings I'll have making my own yogurt instead of buying it, I'll pay off that $6 in no time.

Here they are after sterilizing them. Adorable? I think so!

As I was walking out with my jars I looked over and saw a cheese dome just like we'd had when I was growing up for only $4. At that price, I couldn't resist. Maybe thrift store shopping actually isn't going to save me money ;) 

Mmmm, cheesy goodness.

The jars are just perfect for making the yogurt. The big ones are quart sized and the small ones are pints. The cheese dome is something that I really didn't need. I've just been keeping my cheese in plastic bags in the deli drawer of my fridge, and it works just fine. The dome takes up quite a bit of room, while not really fitting all that much cheese since it's round and the cheese is usually...not round. But like I said, for $4 I couldn't resist. I might give it a good wash and put it on Craigslist next month. If I sell it for $10 I'm more than doubling my money. Has anyone else thrift store shopped and sold for a profit? Maybe this could be my new thing in the quest for pennies!

Roth IRA

In high school I was lucky enough to have a brilliant physics teacher. I was especially lucky because he had actually retired the year before. He then took one look at his finances and returned to work part time. The first day of class he didn't say a word about physics. Instead he talked about Roth IRAs and told us all to start one as soon as possible and max it our contribution as often as possible. I have no idea why a man so brilliant at math, and certainly smart enough to realize in his golden years how beneficial a Roth IRA would have been, didn't think about his financial future earlier. My 16 year old sat there smug in the knowledge that I already had a Roth IRA, started by my father. When I took over my finances, the contributions stopped.

Why are our past selves so stupid??

I recently rectified this situation. I was interested in applying for the Fidelity 2% Rewards Card. The rewards are deposited into a Fidelity account, something I didn't have. I knew we needed to start working on some Roth retirement savings, so my husband and I each opened a Roth IRA with Fidelity and I applied for the card and attached it to my Roth. I was pleased to see that Fidelity's trades are also $7.95 rather than the $8.95 I pay in my Schwab account. The Roth IRAs are fee free with a minimum opening deposit of $2500 OR minimum monthly contributions of $200. We set up monthly contributions of $500 each. The first contribution was set up for July, so we would each reach the $5000 maximum for 2010 by the required date of April 2011.

I thought the max contribution would go up to $6000 for 2011, so again we were set up perfectly to reach it by April 2012. Unfortunately, it remained at $5000 so we are actually set to reach the max by February 2012. Thanks in part to the rewards card, I'm hoping to speed that up a bit and make all of our 2011 contributions by December. By contributing as early as possible, we set ourselves up for the most compound interest possible, and this well help make up some ground lost by the max limit not going up.

I read an interesting article on Get Rich Slowly recently about building up an emergency fund even if you don't think you can afford it. I would add that you can also look at your Roth IRA as a part of your emergency fund since you can withdraw contributions penalty free - just not earnings. Although we certainly don't want to ever touch our retirement savings, in the case of an extreme financial emergency, we could withdraw from it. We don't have much additional cash in savings accounts - and I don't really want too much of our money sitting around earning a max of 1.3% - but by the end of 2011 we'll have $20,000 plus earnings sitting in our two Roth IRA accounts. That's enough money to make me feel fairly secure about being laid off, emergency medical bills, etc. and is also a great start to our retirement savings.

So here's to my old teacher. He was one of the very best I ever had. It may have taken me 10 years to really start listening, but I am now.

LivingSocial Deal - Free Amazon Money!

Every morning I have e-mails waiting in my inbox from Groupon and LivingSocial. I do my best to resist the daily temptation of fantastic offers on things I don't need. But today, LivingSocial is selling $20 gift cards to Amazon.com for $10! Sign me up for 10 of those! Or just one...you know...since there's a limit of one per person.

Even if I didn't have something specific in mind, I know that at some point in the next year I'm going to need to purchase something from Amazon, and this Penny Pincher is never going to walk away from a free $10. But luckily I've been eying some sprout seeds at Amazon for about a week now. The recent Salmonella outbreak and scarcity of sprouts - a staple of my husband's sandwiches - had me remembering how my mom used to grow sprouts in a mason jar. Not only would that save me money, but now I've got some free money to get started! Win Win Wednesday :)