Top 10 Money Drains

Bankrate.com has listed 10 of the daily expenses that eat away at your money on daily expenses.

1) Coffee - for all you coffee addicts out there save your money, make your own coffee.
2) Cigarettes- this pretty much talks for itself, quit smoking save money.
3) Alcohol- Many of us spend way too much on this, cut it out and save muh-lah.
4) Bottled Water- This is one of my addictions, why pay a buck for bottled water.
5) Manicures- Women do your own nails, save money.
6) Car Washes- It's easy to blow $20 or more getting a car wash, wash you own car even at a car wash may cost around $5 in change.
7)Eating Out- Eating out kills your wallet, take a lunch to work and cook at home instead of going out.
8) Vending Machines- As a student it is very easy to waste a couple of bucks on junk food between classes or during breaks.
9) Credit Cards- Need I say any more? This should be number one.
10 Unused memberships- Like gym memberships, if you aren't using them cut them out.

Other places I think you can save money on is cutting out cable or satellite channels. Get the basic coverage if you need it. Let me know if you have any other ideas on how to save money or cut things out.

Classes Starting Again

Well classes are starting again this month. I am taking an Internet class, because I want to be able to spend more time with our baby. The good thing about taking classes is that it saves me money because I am studying most of the time. Anything that saves money is a good thing. So I am definitely looking forward to going back to class. I will probably be able to cut down some of the satellite channels and some other stuff, I won't have time to watch or do. This should help save even more.

Stocks Rising

Looks like stocks are rising, which is good because I almost made a major boo-boo by getting out at the bottom and cutting my losses. Hopefully this trend lasts. I guess I will just have to be patient and see what happens. I need to get back to reading more on stocks and the forex market. I've been slacking and that's what got me in trouble to begin with. If anyone has any recommends on either subject, I would greatly appreciate any input.

Investing Problems

So my investments aren't doing so hot. I didn't get out when I should have and my stocks dropped big time. Now I'm stuck either waiting for them to go back up or getting out at the bottom and trying again. So basically I get the shaft both ways. I think I will wait it out and see that it hopefully gets back up to where I was at. Now you know why I am an amateur investor. Oh well, each mistake is a learning experience.

Carnival of Personal Finance #108

The 108th Carnival of Personal Finance is being held by Broke-Ass Student this week. Just wanted to say thanks for the great job and for including my article on Spending Too Much on Your Kids. There are a lot of awesome posts so check them out. I will post some of my favorites once I get a chance to read some of them.

Happy July 4th

Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July. We did, we spent time with friends and family, so we had a great time. Hopefully no on lost any digits playing with fireworks. Again Happy late 4th of July!

Spending Too Much on Your Kids

MSN has a good article that talks about how parents are spending too much money on their kids and not putting money away for retirement. Being a new parent I can see how this happens. There are so many things out there for kids and you want your kids to have the world, but how much is too much? We are lucky enough to be a two income family, but I can still see how we could overspend on our new baby. This is why we are trying to work up a budget that still lets us put money away for retirement and for our emergency savings account. The article talks about some of the reasons people are getting in debt for their children; paying for private schools, buying bigger homes, trying to keep up with the Jones' kids, and not teaching your kids the value of money. I think this is the most important of all and plan on teaching our kid when she is old enough the value of money and savings. This way she won't be in the same boat my wife and I are in. Anyway the article is pretty good, check it out.

I really hate budgets

I really hate budgets for some reason. One we never meet them or we just blow them off and two they are just a pain in the butt. I know I need to work on one to track our spending better, but I just dread taking the time to go through everything. Anyone have any ideas or comments. I'd like an easy budget and something that we would be able to not only keep up with, but would be willing to continue using.

Where We Are With Our Goals

Here is an update on where we are with our goals and with our debt.

1) Get out of debt. We are still working on this one, but at least we have consolidated all of our credit cards.
2) We are investing for retirement.
3) I am continuing my education college and investing.
4) We've had a baby.
5) We've remodeled our kitchen.

Our five year goals are still to get out of debt, buy a new house, rent or sell the current one, fix up our yard, get fit & lose weight. So we are halfway there and it has only been a year. I guess it's time to rethink or redo our five year plan, so we can stay on track of things.

Motivation and Goal Setting

I was looking over some notes that I have and found this and thought that it would make a good post again. I don't remember what book I got it from or which seminar I heard it from, but I give props out to whoever came up with it.

1) Examine your identity.
2) Define your Values.
3) Establish goals and create sub goals.
4) Create and action plan.
5) Implement various motivations.
6) Establish Discipline.
7) Maintain Flexibility.
8) Reach an outcome.

I feel that it is good to get refocused on your goals so that you stay on track. This is one way to keep on track or to actually get on track. If I remember where I got this from I will list the author so that you can check it out.

Old Habits

It seems that we have gone back to our old habit of eating out a lot, which is eating up a lot of our income. We had been doing pretty well with buying groceries and cooking at home, but it all starts to become a pain in the butt. Besides junk food is so much easier to get and jacks up your fat intake and your body weight. Anyway it looks like we are going to have to get strict with ourselves and start making meals at home again. Back to the fun of home cooking.

Bad Blogger

So I have been a bad blogger lately. Part of it is the new baby, but most of it is running out of things to talk about. Now that things are getting back to normal, I will start blogging more. I've got a couple of books that I want to do reviews on and talk about the evils of credit cards again. Speaking of credit cards, have you noticed that when you stop using them, credit card companies start sending you new cards, checks to use on your credit card, and about anything else they can throw your way to get you to get yourself back in debt. Well their Jedi mind tricks won't work on me. Just say no to credit card debt. Anyway I will get back to my usual posting habits.

A.I.

Ready For A Bigger House

Now that we have a new addition to our family, it looks like our house has shrunk a little more. I am ready for a bigger house already, but we need to wait on paying off the loan we took out to pay off our credit cards. So it looks like we will be stuck in a small house for a while longer. We should be able to manage, we might just have to get creative with the space that we currently have. Anyway just wanted to rant a little about our tiny house.

It's a Girl

Just wanted to let everyone know that we had our baby. She's a beautiful little girl. I should be posting more again now as things start getting back to normal. Sorry it's been a while since I've had a post. I will get back on the ball.

:)

Our Emergency Fund Is Coming Along

Since we have been using HSBCdirect to grow our emergency fund, our account has been growing slowly but surely. I've also been very happy with their service, seeing that I locked myself out of my account a couple of times and was always able to reach someone from customer service to help me out. We have enough in right now to cover a small emergency, but I would like to save enough to where if something came up, we wouldn't have to go back to charging on our credit cards. So knock on wood that nothing comes up. Anyway I am very happy with the service that we have been getting from HSBC and would recommend them to anyone looking for an online savings account.

Eating Out Less

Last month we noticed that we had been going out to eat too much and spending way to much on restaurants. So we decided to see what would happen if we cut out eating out and spent more time making meals at home. Well we have spent about $300 a month on groceries, but we have saved a ton of money by just eating at home. We have still gone out a couple of times, but not as much as we were before. Hopefully we can keep up with this trend because we need to be saving as much money as we can for when the baby comes. Which means we will be spending a lot of time at home and with family for a while. I am new to fatherhood so I am not sure about how soon you take your baby out and all that stuff, so it should be an interesting experience.

1st Payment on Loan

Today was our first payment on the loan that we got to consolidate all of our credit card debt. It felt really good just to be making one lump payment and not a bunch of small ones. The other good thing is that we can actually see the light at the other end of the tunnel. Unlike when we were just paying on the credit cards, we actually know that we will have everything paid off in 4 years. So I am pretty excited about that. I have also been slacking on my blogging duties, part of it is writer's block, and maybe a little bit of laziness. I will get back on track and try to start posting more often.

Cold Turkey, Cutting Our Spending

In an attept to cut our spending and save some extra cash, we took a look at our budget and bank statements and realized that we were going out to eat way too much. So this past month we hit up the grocery store and have been eating and spending more time at home. Turns out our budget looks a little better this month and our dollars are stretching a little more than they have the past couple of months. We still went out to eat once or twice, but nothing like we had before. I guess you don't actually know how much you are spending on junk or wasting money until you actually sit down and look at it. This month may actually turn out to be a good one after all.

Our Love with Debt

I just read an awesome article on debt called, "Deep In Debt, Deeper In Denial" by Laura Rowley. It talks about a documentary that is coming out called "Maxed Out", my life story. Anyway it talks about how bad Americans are in debt and how much creditors and collection agencies are loving it. Pretty sick if you ask me, especially since I am in debt. I am looking forward to checking out this documentary. Definitely read the article, it has a lot of great information.

Budget Time Again

Well now that we got the loan to pay off all of our credit card debt, it's time to do our budget again to make sure that we have everything paid on time and aren't broke most of the month. I was paying all of our bills at the beginning of the month, but now I'm going to have to split it between the 1st and the 15th. I hate budgeting, but it has to be done. I am glad that we have all of our credit card bills consolidated now and only have to make one payment instead of many. I am also trying to put some money away for when the baby comes, just in case we have any extra costs. Hopefully the budget works out with out too many hassles.