Save 15% off of your Gasoline Prices

I wish it was a coupon to print out, because traffic would go really crazy. However there is a pretty easy way (at least in theory!) to save 15% off of your overall gas spend. Given that here it is $3.45/Gallon now that is over 51 cents per gallon savings! That would help with my budget!

Ready!...Drive slower (I hear the groans).

Consumer Reports just did a pretty exhaustive survey to dig into the costs of driving faster. For example, if you drove a Toyota Camry on the highway set the cruise control at 65, then at 75, you would see that fuel economy changed. It would have been at 35 MPG then it dropped to 30 MPG, or 14.3% less! The older the car the worse it would be too.

Funny thing is last big oil crisis the government lowered the speed limit to 55, not for safety, but to save fuel! It stayed due to the safety issue.

Sure this isn't a deep thinking thing to save money "Burn More fuel=More Money" but for me it was realizing that it was nearly a 15% saving...that's real money, and can help with you personal finance!

Save 50% When You Dine Out

As I start to pull together our information for February I am struck by something. Our Dining Out amount, when it is just us two, has really fallen, frankly in half for an average meal. This has allowed us to have, pretty frequently, left over funds in that Envelope!


For us, and probably anyone married with three kids, we often eat out to escape. It is nice to have adult time together. It is frankly nice to not order food through a Clown's Mouth when we do it either! :) We are both foodies, and Mrs. X is an amazing cook so we would good well made food. Unfortunately this can equal expensive (at least to us) and can leave buyer's remorse on the tongue!, not to mention in the past, the credit card!


Guide to Save 50% when doing the Full Dining Experience:

• Drinks - This is a restaurants profit center. If we are gonna have a drink, we will have one at home with our...($12 Savings)
  



• Homemade Appetizer - We plan out those dining nights and there is a great little Harry and David store here that has amazing appetizers (Stuffed Bacon Brie! mmm) that just has to be heated up. I will pick it up on the way home the night before, Mrs. X pops it in at the right time and with the drink above and we are half way through dinner before we leave! ($8 Saving w/purchase)
  



• Specials - Restaurants try specials to see if new things work at that location OR if you are in a quaint getaway, just because they want to! It is a great way to try new stuff and save money! ($10-$20 savings)
  



• Dinner Drinks - We are water-ers now (tap please! love the planet), but we will have a glass of wine. Often they will have a good wine by the glass, especially at a small restaurant, or...Bring your own. Most will charge you a cork fee, but that is nothing compared to 1.5-3x markup! ($10-$30 savings)
  



• Pay Cash - Unless you like doing dishes you will stay to budget! (Priceless!)
  



• Dessert - Have it, but not at the restaurant! Find a great little bakery and pickup some neat little deserts there. Or even go for Ice Cream together! A third the price of having it at dinner! ($10 savings)
  



• Babysitting - Your reduced time out saves money. This is one I give you 100% walk away from if the weather is good go take a walk together, or go to the park and breathe! (skip the savings and take the lady for a walk, bub!)
  

This is still an extravagant night, but she is worth it! But if you can do the whole night for $50-$60 instead of $100-$120 you can enjoy it at the time with no post-traumatic credit disorder and protect your budget at the same time!

E*Trade is Up...sort of..and MSN and other updates!

My E*Trade account is now working...sort of.

I had forgotten that six years ago I had an E*Trade account for some stock options that I cashed out when I moved to a new job. This was the only time I used it. But when I signed up for my new Complete savings account, even though it gave me a new log-in et all, it linked the account to my old account and reset the password and log-in! No wonder I couldn't get in to see it!

The phone rep Julie, although I believe she was in India and not her name, was very nice and walked me through the labyrinth to get it fixed. I do have my Wells Fargo Checking tied back to it and all is well...well sort of. The email address locked to the account is my old email account at an ex-job! When I go to change it, it emails the old no-valid email for me to confirm the change...which I can't since it goes to a dead account! This has been draining to say the least. I will call and fix this last piece, but talk about a lot of work for a little bit extra!

The first update is that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Money has been Featured again (second time!) in an article on MSN MoneyBlog's Smartspending! This was a great article by Karen that features a quote from our piece on the people walking away from their homes.

Second update is that the RSS Contest is going well. Lots of entrants, but still not so much to blow Your chance to win. I am really looking forward to awarding the first piece!

Last update involves a meme post I made and took down. While I feel that post had the best of intentions, to promote other blogs, it felt like a gray area in the Big G'g TOS. So I pulled the post on my own. I am not out to game any system and even the appearance felt wrong.

It harkens back to a saying I learned from a great teacher one time: "The More you Know, the more you Know you Don't Know!"

Personal Finance QuickTake: Uneasy Feeling

Yahoo had a really good article today talking about consumer sentiment. Basically even through the housing boom and access to way too easy credit, consumer sentiment has been a bit wary. It was almost like everyone knew this was too good to be true.

Easy credit has led directly to a disconnect with consumer's paycheck and their ability to spend. Gas prices rise, which raises price inflation food and travel, heap on medical expenses running at high double digit growth and a melt down is inevitable.

This is called...inflation.

The problem is you don't fix inflation by lowering interest rates! You do by raising them. This puts our Fed in a bit of a bind. If the raise rates the economy tanks, if the lower them inflation goes nuts.

How bad can inflation get? Picture Europe before WWII. Literally wheelbarrows full of money to buy bread! Not worth the paper it is printed on...Not saying go dig a trench and hide, it it foretells of tougher times ahead. It also says that this doesn't get fixed with a $1200 check from the Government.

How do we cope? Get out of debt. Save and spend less than you make. Not sexy but it works!

Don't forget to sign up for my RSS feed Contest. You could win a $50 value piece of software to help you organize! Just click HERE to enter!

My New E*Trade Account Sucks

This weekend I opened a Complete Savings Account at E*Trade. It was at 4.4% interest with no minimum and pretty light restrictions. I want this account to tuck away the money I am saving for my 2008 Property Taxes and Christmas.

The account itself is probably fine (I hope,) it is just the E*Trade Instructions and communication has been horrid! I get a note saying the account is set up, but then I can't see it on the Log-in page. I try to set up My Wells Fargo Checking to be able to transfer in; it grabs my information and then clears out the UI...Over and Over. You can't tell it is set up until you get an error message telling you that you already set it up!

Then you have to verify the account...but it doesn't tell you how, or walk you through it! I finally got that set up and the money is out of my checking ($100 in seed money in case it didn't work). So now I can see my Wells Fargo Account in my E*Trade account...but not my E*Trade account!

Guess what?...no way to email them about it, you gotta call...an EBank? I am busy here folks! In the mean time the 4.4% account that I signed up for is now 4.1%! I knew the rate was subject to change, but wow!

This was also an experiment of sort for me as I have never really had a bunch of accounts to take advantage of higher rate. I just left everything extra in my Wells Fargo Savings drawing a whopping 1% interest. It was tied to my checking account as overdraft protection, which was good as we were not exactly...on it before. It saves us a bunch of late fees.

Here is the new plan:

• Checking - $300 - After all bills keep amount due to potential medical bills and pharmacy needs. It is interest bearing, but the amount is like 0.25%!
• Savings - $2000+ - This is our Emergency Fund, Baby Step #1. We have $74 auto-transferred each 15th of the month. This coupled with a minimum in savings ($1000) and using bill pay gives me the best Wells Fargo Rate: 1%
• E*Trade - (Eventually)$5000+/- - This were I want to save for our longer bills like Property Taxes and Christmas. Now at 4.1%. When we get to Baby Step #3 (3-6 months expenses) we may put that here as well.

Seems like a good plan to me! But feeling a bit stupid that I went with E*Trade. Well I understand why they didn't have a great reputation on bankrate.com (which is a great site BTW).

How about any of you? Been through he same thing? Worse with an online savings account?

I am really glad I am playing Golf this weekend!

Listen While You Work

OK this a Bizaro-World post that fits into the "Random Acts of Silliness." As I was paying bills and getting ready to blog, I turned on iTunes as I do when I write, and I began to wonder if I am normal, well as normal as normal gets. I wondered, "What do others listen to when paying Bills or Blogging."

Now, I thought, that could be a fun Poll!

For me, I have always been tied to music as a student of music or Professional Musician (another oxymoron!) or like now am tied to music even in marketing, so I tend to have music playing all day as it helps me concentrate.

I also have the CD collection of a schizophrenic monkey...I know everyone says that, but I do. I have David Cassidy and then Danzig is the next artist!

So I looked at my Top 10 Songs played this month (artist then track):

1. Enuff Z'Nuff - New Thing
2. Beatles - Mean Mr Mustard
3. Beatles -I Me Mine
4. Blondie - Dreaming
5. B.W. Stevenson -My Maria (this is the Original version!)
6. Racer X -Heart of a Lion (Huge Paul Gilbert/Anime Fan! - Hence the nom de plume)
7. Weird Al - Canadian Idiot
8. Jerry Reed - She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)
9. Missing Persons - Words
10. Beach Boys - California Girls

So how about you? Listen to anything doing bills? Something happy to feel better, or blues to wallow in the sorrow or Alarming ARMS?

Budget by Beatles? Money Manage by Monkees? Saving by Santana?

Fill out the Poll and if you use other comment here to share!

Moving Day! Savings Day!

Today (actually it started Friday) was moving day into my new office. They rearranged the common area next to my group and basically tossed us out of our homes. But this is already working better. It seems like I should be able to save time and save money.

The new area has the cubes arranged better so there is a common shared table area for everyone to use. We are also a bit more tucked into a corner so it is a bit quieter.

However my I do need to clean up and organize the new office. I just didn't realize I was such a pack rat! Here are some of the things I found:

• About 20 semi-used legal pads - Why do I always use 2/3 of one, lose it and then do the same thing again and again
• 2 packs of pens - Which is great because these are the Bic gel Grip pens and the company won't order them any more...probably cause I lost so many!
• $5 - Stuffed into the back of my old desk - Yeah!
• 20 -2" binders- This was on the bottom shelf of my suitcase, my group doesn't use these as we need the type with the clear view front
• About 400 packets of ketchup - From when I used to eat out for lunch.
• About 400 Napkins - From the same...I always take extra napkins, this was drilled into me as a kid. I don't think Mom ever bought napkins...
• Two full Garbage can of...junk
  

Once it is cleaned up I can bring in my little fridge that I have had for years and stock it with drinks. It is such a waste to go to the vending machines. Not eating out any more for lunch saved the biggest chunk of my "allowance' this will save me even more as I can load up at Costco on the weekends pretty cheap.

It can't be just me though; have you ever found something cool, or weird cleaning up your desk that you forgot about, or even your home?

Common Investor Mistakes Revealed

You might not think of yourself as an investor, but you are. Most of us have a checking account and probably a savings account, even if it is for just Christmas or your Emergency fund. A good portion also have 401K accounts or some other retirement account available to them via their work.

But even if you are just starting out, or have been maxing out your 401K there are five very common investor mistakes made over and over again. Retirement is a compounding game, meaning that returns magnify returns. You really can't afford to drop even 1% a year over 30 years.

If you invested $10,000, never touched it again and earned 4% interest compounded yearly (BTW avoid any investment that only compounds yearly :) ) after 30 years you would have $32,433.98, but at 4% percent it would be $43,219.42 or $10,785.45 more...more even than your original investment.

So here are Five Common Mistakes to Avoid:

1. I Have Plenty of Time to Worry about That - Actually you don't. Using those 4% numbers above; if you have that investment for 20 years instead of 30, your out nearly $17,000! Time is the friend and enemy...use it wisely
2. It is too Late - It's never to late! Once again time is ticking and every second lost is money lost. This goes for everyone: The best time to invest is now!
3. I Won't Take any Risk - While I believe we should all invest within our own tolerance level, unfortunately risk equals reward. You have to balance out the two. As shown above, every percentage is very important over time.
4. I am Captain Cowboy, Let it Ride! - OK, as I have stated before risk management is key here. You need the returns, but risk is still risk. If you want to bet on every tip out there go to Vegas, but read Viva Wall Street first.
5. All in your Company's Stock - One word that should scare the heck out of you at night; the 20th Century Frankenstein...ENRON. The company would have pep rallys, tell the the working staff how great things were going, wait for them to buy to drive up the price of the stock, then sell! I am not saying don't buy any either, take advantage of ESOPs (Stock Options) if you can, just do not peg a higher percentage then you should have of that type of investment class. If you think you need 20% Mid-Cap stocks, and your company is a Mid-Cap stock company and it is run well, etc, fine put some, 5-10% of it in the stock. It is hard to be the nay-saying when your cube mate is high-fiving the janitor, but when/if it tanks, you may be out of a job, but you won't be starting over.

Look, take whatever I say with a huge grain of salt. I am not a stock broker, but I just see people tossing away $10,000's of Dollars. Get with a retirement fund helper. Find someone you trust, then...don't trust her/him! Ask questions, lots. Read blogs (especially this one :) )Don't feel stupid. People can feel dumb all the way to the poor house!

But whatever you decide, make a plan and start working it today. The investment interest you save may be your own!

Very Wealthy People's Characteristics...

In preparing our final 2008 budget and goals, I came across an older book of mine from the late '90's dealing with Personal Finance and Managing Money called, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich."

Well I must be pretty smart, because after owning the book for 12 years I have a negative Net Worth!

Anyway inside the front cover of these book was a tear out page. I don't know if the publisher hoped these would become tradeable or collectible like baseball cards, but lucky for me they didn't cause mine was still there.

All kidding aside it had some great wealth level indicators and such, but the best part was this little list of the Top Characteristics of wealthy people...and they ring very true of everyone that I know who is, as we say...with money.

Here is the list:

Have a Passion for What You Do - This was a key to everyone that I know who have been very successful that I have had a chance to really talk with, including the CEO of a couple publicly traded companies that I have worked for. Both of them I believe would be doing this whether or not they were being paid for it. The seriously enjoyed the business and role they were in. Many would say, "Pay me that kind of money and I would be passionate as well!" Both of these people by all account have always been this way.

I have seen very successful people who didn't care make it as well. They made it on drive, determination and will...and most either seemed miserable, or were busy planning their second career as soon as they had enough money. So call me naive, but I believe successful people get the position because they are those passionate people., not because they have the position.


The Ability to Make Decisions - I once heard someone define genius as the ability to make order out of chaos. So many people that describe their best boss say that the person would weigh all of the input, analyse the facts and make the call. They would spend much more time to make sure that everyone understood their role.

This goes to one of my personal mottos, which is: A Good Plan executed is better than a Perfect Plan in a drawer. A good leader makes decisions, but isn't afraid to make course corrections or change plans in the face of enough evidence.


Discipline - When you look at successful leaders, whether in politics or in business this is a huge difference maker. This can be as small as taking care of your finances or health. It can be as important as not taking a big pay raise when you ask your team to do with less.

I see this everyday on different blogs: Doing the right thing everyday, even in small amounts is so much more important than grandiose gestures. The ones who really get their financial houses in order are the ones that make the lifestyle changes, and make them part of who they are.

Patience - I see this as a key for every investor. If you look at the mix of stocks at Waren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway 3-5 years ago it is pretty much the same, with maybe more added on. Now show me a mutual fund that is the same way. You can find them, but they are rare. So many chase the fat buck running to the hot stock or sector. If it is OK for one of the world's richest men (that made most of their fortunes investing) it may be OK for you :)

This one is going to be a prime goal for 2008 for me. I will have the patience to manage my money, pay down my debt and increase my savings.

Or you will be free to mock me...

.25% Fed Move vs the Tortoise and the Hare...

So the Fed makes another rate move of a quarter point today. This apparently chapped everyone living in Manhattan 'cause stocks got beat up.

A little closer to home, I wonder how fast all of the savings rates will flip vs the rates on credit cards mortgages, etc.. I bet before I can zap my lunch in the microwave at work we'll see a couple major banks make a move regarding savings rates. Those same banks will probably make a move on lowering my credit card rate in 2108!

One of my goals for January is to contact all creditors and re-negotiate all of my rates. It is worth a shot and my FICO scores are climbing, so...