Monday, May 18th, 2009
I’ll start with what I know: Personal-finance blogging has shaped a lot of my financial knowledge—from pointing me towards advisors like Dave Ramsey to encouraging me to set specific and tangible goals to giving me a support network of like-minded savers/spenders, albeit anonymously.
And I’ve loved that. What’s more, when I was fresh out of grad school, I needed that.
But here’s the thing: I don’t love it anymore. It’s time for a vacation—not just the kind where you think I could write again, but I haven’t in a while—but the formal, here’s-me-announcing-it kind. I am on hiatus. There.
And if you’re, you know, wondering what I’m doing instead, shoot me an e-mail: gradgirlblog [at] gmail [dot] com. There’s another corner of the Internet that has been taking all my free weeknights and down time, and I’d love to share it with friends.
Friday, May 1st, 2009
Long-time readers will remember my post a while back about buying a Blackberry phone, on eBay, but not wanting an Internet plan. I had that phone for a while, then I switched to a nicer version I also bought on Blackberry, selling the first. For more than a year now, I’ve been using my BB as a personal organizer but without Web access.
Now that’s changed.
Before I decided to go with an Internet plan, I weighed the pros and cons:
PROS: 1) Internet access for pleasure 2) Ability to keep up with work e-mail while away 3) Ability to use downtime more efficiently
CONS: 1) Cost
Decision: Try it out for a while.
I called my provider, who informed me the cost would be about $30 monthly (or like $1 a day). I started at the end of April, and if I wanted to drop out, I could call in and cancel at anytime, receiving a prorated bill. This was very low risk, as a week of trying it out would be like $7 or $8. Turns out, I love it. I love that I can catch up on things while I’m waiting at a train station, that I can get notified immediately if something’s up at work, that I can Google things while I’m not at home.
I said it would never happen, but now I’m one of those people.
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
I went on vacation recently, to a new city I’d never been to, partly for work and partly for pleasure. We flew out on a weekday, returned on a weekend evening, and spent a total four days enjoying the tourist life.
Guess how much it cost?
No, seriously. Guess.
The airfare? Free, partly because of work and partly because of rewards points.
The hotels? Free, again one night because of work and the rest because of rewards points.
Taxis? Paid for by work.
Some of my meals? Paid for by work.
Souvenirs? Didn’t buy any.
Literally, the grand total of everything I purchased (food) was a little over $200. And all the rest of that $1000 vacation fund is going straight to savings.
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
Hit a momentary setback on the saving-money train: a quick stop at Target yesterday that left me about $80 poorer. I did come out with a dress, a sweater, a skirt and a new pair of sunglasses, so it wasn’t a total loss, I guess, and honestly I haven’t bought new clothes in a while. The bigger problem, really, is the reasoning behind the purchase.
I am an emotional shopper.
See, sometime recently, this handsome guy found me on Facebook and he sent me a message, which I replied to, and then another message, which I also replied to. He was so full of compliments and kind words, my mind got a little ahead of myself. I knew he was from Chicago and a writer and that he was athletic and responsible, and yes, I know this is starting to sound a little pathetic and desperate. But yesterday, I think I was still on the high of maybe-we’ll-meet-soon when I bought the new clothes. Which is really unfortunate.
Especially since this morning, through a little Internet stalking, I found out he has a girlfriend and I totally misread everything - and I wish I could say this was the first time. When will I learn my lesson?
Serious question though, for all you male readers: Why don’t you put that you’re in a relationship on your Facebook profile? Hello? The way I see it, if you’re proud of the girl you’re dating, you’ll want people to know you’re dating her. And if you’re not proud for people to know, you shouldn’t be dating her in the first place. Am I wrong?
Note to self: Really need to start meeting men the old-fashioned way. SIGH.
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Things are chugging along in the Operation Found Money front. Over the last few weeks, I’ve:
(1) Sold things online - $43 text book, $20 purse, $13 book
(2) Got my federal tax refund - $426
(3) Used my dad’s leftover credit card rewards points to buy my plane ticket & hotel rooms for vacation this month, cutting costs and reducing the amount I need for my trip - $500
(4) Added interest from my emergency fund - $59.44
(5) Gone to see a great apartment and declined renting, hoping to achieve my goals this year (fingers crossed!).
Total put away since beginning: $1061.44
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
There are a lot of things I didn’t learn in school: how to bake cookies, the value of a good night’s sleep, how to drive on winter roads, why men and women communicate so differently - but that was fine. These, like a lot of other things, came to me other ways. We all know there’s a lot of real-life knowledge that 18- to 22-year-olds do and should figure out on their own, and I did. That’s fine.
However, forgive me if this seems too broad a statement, but: Personal finance isn’t one of those things. Personal finance - and by that term, I mean the basics of managing and saving money, not how to rack up credit card debt - not only isn’t taught to most kids in school, but also bad financial philosophies are instead constantly pushed on them.
I mean, do you remember your first credit card offer? Do you remember how old you were? Probably you were a teenager. And if credit card companies think you’re old enough to learn about finances at 16, so should schools.
Here’s what I propose:
Some kind of basic budgeting education, given to high school kids or younger, made relevant to their lives and discouraging dependence on credit cards. It could be a basic seminar or a series of such things, taught by competent real-life finance managers. The emphasis would be on budgeting, saving, managing - maybe every kid could be given $1000 pretend money as their monthly salary and told to manage it for a family of 2. I don’t know. This might not be the solution either, but it’s a start. I’d also see value in a deeper study like this required of all liberal arts degrees in colleges - something that prepares kids to go out as new grads, aware of what their student loans and future paychecks means.
Too often, I feel like financial terms, from foreclosure to debt to types of taxes, are mysteries we are forced to try and figure out as adults. Why? If how we manage our money will have a huge impact on our future lives (and it will), why shouldn’t there be information (a lot of information!) provided?
What do you think? I’d be interested to hear if you school did do something like this and if it helped you, as well as any general thoughts.
Saturday, April 4th, 2009
I really want to buy a place.
So I know it could just be my desires talking, but I’m considering abandoning my previous plans for a 15-year mortgage and huge downpayment.
Here are the reasons:
1. Whatever I buy, it’s going to be a townhome/condo or a tiny house. I will not plan to live there for more 10 years.
My Realtor was saying that there’s no real value to doing a 15-year rather than a 30-year when you’re not planning to stay there forever… true, you’ll end up paying less over the life of the loan, but I wouldn’t be staying for the life of the loan in either case. All I’d really have is a higher monthly payment. I guess I’d have more equity when I decided to leave, but I’d also have a lot more of my money tied into the house.
2. Apparently, all you’re required to put down on a house these days is 5%.
I still stand by the 20% down payment, but mainly because I think if you can’t put down 20%, you’re buying too much house. Agreed? Disagreed?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these figures. I keep going round and round with them, trying to figure out what I can afford, and while I *can* do the 15-year, I’m trying to decided if it’d be worth it.
Saturday, March 28th, 2009
I’m looking at houses again (well, condos and townhomes, really).
And do you know what I’m finding? While I still can’t afford exactly what I’d want, I can afford something decent. And actually, if I put a little more focus into my spending/saving, I could probably afford something pretty good.
I want to at least make a 20% down payment, so the amount I have available (at present, $35K) is dictating my spending limits ($175K).
However, if I could become more aggressive with my saving for the next few months, I could raise that number. So I’m going to.
Over the next few weeks, I am going to do everything I can to pinch pennies and add to my nest egg.
Want to join me? I find that a little motivation works wonders for savings—when I have something I’m saving towards, the whole game changes. So what are you savings towards? What could you be saving towards? Whatever it is, doesn’t now seem like a great time to get focused and make it happen?
I’ll be keeping you updated with my progress in the sidebar, and I’d love to hear any and all ideas you’ve got for adding to my funds!
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
This is my financial routine, as it has become: Paychecks come in every two weeks, auto-deposited into my bank account. Mint.com tracks all my spending of the said money, and I use the budget feature to make sure my spending is going in the right places. (It’s taken me some time to get this automatic, to get it into something I hardly think about. It makes me happy to have reached some sort of routine.)
My recent spending: I hardly ever buy clothes, usually one chunked purchase a month, where I went to Target or ordered something online. I buy a lot of food—but that’s not just for nourishment as much as for social activity and, mostly, enjoyment. And the rest varies: sometimes I pay a $300-something auto insurance bill (it’s every six months); sometimes I stock up on toiletries at Wal-Mart. Overall, I am spending way less than I earn, as you’ve been hearing here for a long time, and I’m putting a good percentage into savings each month.
Good news? I’m starting to see the rewards. While my stocks are usually down, my savings accounts are reliable (albeit at a measly 1-point-something percent now) I look at my financial picture and see that the funds are finally starting to accumulate. It can sometimes feel like “accumulate towards what?” because, of course, I don’t want to buy a house right now (in this economy? yeah, right), but it’s nice to know that when I do want to, I’m at least on the track to be ready.
Personally, I like to know that, especially when you start to feel like the tortoise in a race full of rabbits, slow and steady really is key.
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
I get in these moods sometimes where I think, oh my word, everything is the same as everything else. I’ll see a vintage bowl in an antique shop, and I’ll think, Someone was my age, using that bowl, baking cookies just like I’ll do, and she got older, just like I’ll get older and … circle, circle.
Or I’ll read something very complicated about careers/the current job market, and I’ll reduce it to something extremely simple, like, it’s a rough market now, and then I’ll think how it’s been a rough market before and there was a Depression, and people lost everything, and we’re repeating the basic cycles of time.
It’s the kind of thing most people would find very annoying, listening to an ordinary girl who thinks she’s a fortune cookie. But let me continue:
Sometimes I’ll make a financial discovery, such as on this Saturday night, when I finally sit down to add up my earnings from this blog over the past year, and I’ll realize, in the midst of all my complaining about how I should delete this non-profitable site, that I’d actually made over $200 in the last year, without a whole lot of effort for most of that time.
And in classic form, here comes the pithy saying: In finances—like relationships, recipes and real estate—it pays to do your research before forming strong opinions.
(So to anyone who feels like PF bloggers/savers/people-who-claim-to-understand-money are out to make you feel bad about yourself - trust me: this girl gets it, she so gets it, and we’re all learning together.)
