I don’t really follow Suze Orman, but I think her new advice is good advice. Now is definitely the time to start saving as much as you can, and only make the minimum payments on debt. With all the layoffs and companys that have closed, it’s scary not to have a well funded Emergency Fund. I only make the basic payments on my debt now. The rest goes to savings. I also just consolidated my student loans again. I had consolidated my original student loans when I was in college the first time. I hadn’t done anything with the new loans I had when I started school the second time. Through the consolidation, I will save an extra $40 a month. My payment is changing from $187.28 to $141.61. This is a very good thing for me.
Posts tagged Savings
Savings Accounts
I have 3 main savings accounts. They are my Emergency fund, Car Maintenance fund, and Long-Term savings.
Here is the interest I’ve accured for each; Month-To-Date:
Emergency – $1.24
Car Maintenance – $0.08
Long-Term – $1.73
My long-term account is actually a 6-month CD right now. I took $100 from my emergency fund Since I don’t plan on using that money (hopefully) any time soon. Plus, with working over time, I had a little more wiggle room with my finances this paycheck. Hopefully, more over time will be offered occasionally. I say, occasionally because after working 14 hours of over time last week, I thought I’d lost my mind. From now on I plan to keep my over time at 10 hours or less. The stress isn’t always worth the money.
Finding Ways To Save
I was reading an article from earlier this week, Stashing Your Cash on Yahoo Finance. The article’s author, Brett Arends, makes a good point in my opinion. I may not be as frightened by the market as he is, but I do think it’s important to stop wasting money & start stashing some away. Today, I took the time to cancel a few things that I absolutely didn’t need to be spending money one. One them being Ringback Tones. Who cares if my phone plays music when someone calls me or if it just rings? I don’t call my own phone so it’s not like I get some kind of enjoyment out of it. That’s $0.99 a month I’m wasting. Although that may not seem like much, it definitely can add up. Another thing I’ve decided to get rid of is the data package on my cell phone. Do I really need to spend $35.99 a month so I can check my email from my phone? Not really. That’s why I pay for internet at home. So I’ll be cancelling that as well. Another item I’ve gotten rid of is a credit score tracker. I was spending $7.99 a month for someone else to keep track of my credit score. I don’t need to do that. I can receive a free credit report from each of the three credit buearus once a year for free. Add just those three things up & I spent $44.97 a month on things I really don’t need. How crazy! That’s money I could be putting towards my debt or saving in my emergency fund. Next month, since my membership should be up for the year, I plan on cancelling my gym membership. I don’t use it nearly as often as I should. Plus when the weather starts to get bad, I won’t want to risk my life trying to get to the gym. That’s another $85.00 a month for me, my mom & sister. All in all, that’s almost $140 I waste on things that aren’t important! Holy cow!! I really need to get my prorities straightened out & quit spending.
Savings Goals
There is the current situation on my savings accounts:
Emergency Fund – Goal = $1000.00 / Current = $796.28
Car Maintenance Fund – Goal $500.00 / Current = $100.59
Regular Savings – Current = $35.65
I don’t keep much in my regular savings & the reason for that is because the interest rate is not very good. Plus I’m still trying to get my Emergency & Car Funds fully funded first. Then I would like to start an Emergency Pet Fund for any unexpected things that might happen to my dogs. Also I would like to start a Vacation Fund so that one day maybe I’ll actually be able to afford to go on a real vacation. It would be nice.
This Week’s Paycheck
$797.15 – Net pay after health, dental & vision insurance; 401k & HSA contributions.
- $30.00 – Emergency Savings
- $40.00 – Vehicle Maintenance Savings
= $722.15 – Left for bills & misc.
- $141.14 – Utilities
- $187.28 – Student Loans
- $21.00 – Citibank Credit Card
- $105.00 – Parent Loans
- $31.00 – Investments
- $85.60 – Gym Memberships on Bank of America Credit Card
- $20.00 – Oil Change
= $131.13 Left Over
I think I might be going to a movie with my mother & sister Saturday night, so I should set $20.00 aside. Also, as always, I need more fuel in my vehicle. I’ll have to set another $40.00 aside for that. I will also need to set aside some money for dog food & treats. My dogs eat like they never get fed. I really need to put them on a diet.
CVS Trip
2 Bic Wite Out – 2/$3.00 – $1.00 Off Coupon = $2.00
2 Glade Airfreshner – $0.88 ea – BOGO Free Coupon = $0.88
2 Puffs boxes – $0.88 ea – (2) $0.25 off Coupons = $1.26
3 Crest Toothpaste – $1.99 ea – (3) $1.00 EBC ea – (3) $1.00 Off Coupons = +0.03
4 Oral-B Toothbrushes – $1.99 ea – (4) EBC ea – (2) 2/$1.00 Off Coupons = $1.96
Subtotal = $14.50
Total ECB = $7.00
Grand Total = $7.50
Not bad I’d say. Yes, I still spent $7.50 of my own money. But I still think I did a good job. Toothpaste & toothbrushes should last a while!
Balance Transfer
Yesterday I received some balance transfer checks in the mail from Citibank. Normally, I would rip them up & then shred them. However, last night I decided to open the envelope & see what they were offering. Citibank is offering me No-Interest on any balance transfer until March 1, 2009. I’ve decided to take them up on their offer. Right now I’m paying 10.99% on both my Bank of America card & my Discover card. I will deposit one of the checks, in the total amount that I owe on my other cards, into my bank account & then use the money to pay them off. My goal is to have my credit cards paid off by January 2009 anyway. So now I’ll be paying them off faster because I won’t be paying any interest. I think it’s a great idea if I do say so myself! Also, it will give me until March to get the card paid off if I don’t get it accomplished by January. However I have every intention of getting it paid off by then.
Nothing Special
I don’t have anything special to talk about today. So I’ll just recap my day. This morning I got up & let the dogs out like I normally do. It always takes me a long time to get up & get going. I tend to move really slow in the morning. After 30 minutes or so, I managed to leave the house & head for the gym. Worked out for 30-40 minutes, then showered, changed & went to work. I ended up away from my desk for a good portion of the day. First I was job shadowing another position in another department. It was a good experience & helps me understand more of the company. Plus the lady I shadowed was really nice. After that, I went to our monthly 2 & 1/2 hour meeting.
In my position, we have goals we have to meet each month in order to help drive us to better our customer service skills. I met 6 out of 6 goals & was given a $10 Target gift card. I’m happy to have earned it. I’ll use it to pay for my dogs’ chewies. Another good thing is that I received a $1.20 referral check from GreenPhone.com. This $1.20 will go to my regular savings account. It’s not much, but it’s more than what I had before.
Two Jobs
I’m currently working both my full-time job Monday – Friday, 40 hours a week. Plus I work part-time on Saturday & Sunday at a convience store. I really like my full-time job. The company is great, the benefits are very good, & the people are good people. The second job on the other hand sucks. Seriously. I’ve only been at the convience store since the being of summer, but it’s taking its toll on me. Working 50-58 hours a week is wearing me down. My feet hurt all the time. At my full-time job, I sit at a desk all day. So I’m not used to standing all day. And although the part-time does afford me another $250-$400/month in additional funds, I don’t know if not having time to spend with friends & family is worth it. Plus, working another 2 days a week means another 2 days of driving. Which also means additional wear & tear on my vehicle. I should be using the full amount of extra money for paying down my debt. Instead I usually end up on puting part of it towards the debt & the rest goes towards fuel & other stuff. I don’t know how much longer I will last at this extra job, so I should try sticking to the budget I figured out & get my debt paid off as quickly as I can. Then I can drop the extra job & start sending more of my regular pay to my savings.
On a side note, I managed to come up with enough money to send my car insurance renewal payment early. Now I won’t have to worry about it at the end of month. A down side is that I got the notice for the utility bill & it was up $45-$50 more than it was the month before. We leaving the AC on too often & we aren’t unplugging things like we should be. That bothers me!!! I’m always good at keeping things unplugged, but the others in my family aren’t. I wish they would care more about the utility bill. I’m sure they’d be more concerned if they were paying it.
I’d been reading some other PF blogs about credit cards. Although I’m trying to stay away from them, I did sign up for the Chase Freedom card. Only because you get $50 cash bonus back after your first purchase & you don’t have to spend a certain dollar amount to receive the bonus. Also you get 3% back on any of the 3 out of 15 categories you use most often. And those categories can change from month to month. I have a gym membership that is charged monthly to my Bank of America card. Now I will change it over to the Chase card so I can get the cash back. I also heard that Chase was offering $125 to its Freedom card members that open a checking account. I could definitely use the extra money.
Savings
I have a few small savings accounts. They all serve different purposes. I actually need to set up another as a “Pet” fund for my dogs’ vet & other expenses. Here’s what I have so far:
Regular Savings: $85.42
Emergency Fund: $657.23
Car Funds (Insurance, Registration, & Maintenance): $184.09 – this one is soon to be $334.09 once I can transfer the $150 I set aside from my most recent paycheck
My car insurance is due at the end of this month, so I’ve been tightening other expenses in order to have enough to pay the amount in full. I like paying in full to get the discount, rather than paying extra for making partial payments. Also, then I only have to worry about it twice a year, rather than having to keep track of another bill each month. I currently have a set amount being direct deposited into my car fund. In order to avoid having this problem in the future. Actually, after doing some math, I need to increase that direct deposit.
