Category Archives: Money

TGIF Round Up: Recession anxiety edition

With all of the terrible financial news lately, it’s been getting harder and harder to stay upbeat. I’m taking all of the steps I can to ensure our financial security (we eliminated our credit card debt, we’re spending as little as we can, and we’re saving as much as possible). I also have no reason to believe that my job is in jeopardy (as far as I know, my company is doing great compared to other recession-strapped businesses).

I still can’t help but think about the worst case scenario. I guess that’s for the best. If we’re always prepared for the worst, then we’ll be prepared to weather it. I just hate this feeling of instability.

All I can do is keep on keeping on. Pay down our debt, save as much as we can, and hope for the best. I just feel like the recession anxiety hit me late, but it’s hitting hard.

On the bright side, there were a lot of great posts in the blogosphere this week! Here are my favorites:

I’m hoping to have some frugal fun this weekend to cheer myself up! I hope you do the same. Happy Friday!

Organizing my finances electronically

Everyone has a different method for paying bills and keeping track of spending. For a long time, I struggled to find the right method for me. I used to track spending with my online banking system, but that didn’t allow me to create a budget. I was constantly looking at my balance and mentally subtracting bills that I knew were coming up. It was stressful and dangerous.

Then I started paying my bills on payday. This helped me avoid the constant fear that I wouldn’t have enough to pay my bills when they were due, but it often left me with a dangerously low balance at the end of the pay cycle.

Now that I’ve been budgeting consistently for about 6 months, I’ve developed a method for bill paying and financial organization that works really well for me. So I thought I’d share it with all of you.

My checking account is for bills and living expenses only. I keep enough to pay my monthly bills with a little cushion for human error, but the rest of my money goes into savings where it can earn interest and stay safe from impulse purchases. When there’s extra money in my checking account, it gives me a false sense of wealth. When I have just enough to cover my bills, I’m not tempted to spend.

Every month on the 1st of the month, I create a zero-based budget using Mint.com. Every penny of income for the month is assigned to a purpose. By this time, I’ve usually already received the bills that fluctuate from month to month — like the electric bill and gas bill. I set all of our fixed expenses first, then I balance our discretionary spending amounts for food, entertainment, and savings based on what’s left over.

I’m able to determine how much I can afford to put into savings, and go ahead and put it away before we pay any other bills. I’ve tried to wait until the end of the month to contribute leftover money to savings. The problem is, there’s almost always nothing left by the end of the month. If it’s in my account, I’ll spend it. It’s easier for me to determine how much I can save, and save it right away to eliminate temptation.

Because I don’t keep a huge surplus in our checking account, I stagger bill payments with pay periods. Tony receives his teaching stipend at the end of every month, but pretty much all of it goes to rent and savings on the 1st of the month.

I’m paid bi-weekly, so I base our bill pay schedule on my paydays. The bills that are due in the first half of the month are paid on the 1st. Bills due in the second half of the month are paid on my second payday. I use Mint to keep track of what’s been paid.

Every other day or so, I check our spending in Mint. I try to make sure we’re on track to avoid overspending. We have very few discretionary spending categories, which makes it easier. I really only monitor food, miscellaneous expenses, and entertainment.

Pairing zero-based budgeting with electonic spending tracking and a consistent bill pay schedule allows me to stay on top of spending. It also lowers my stress. Because my budget is zero-based, I know I’ll always have enough to cover my bills and expenses. That works for me.

Thoughts from a first time investor

At the beginning of the month, we started contributing to Roth IRAs. We were both so excited to be getting our retirement savings started. Now about a month later our accounts are already down $1.60. No, that’s not a lot, but when you only have $100 they don’t have far to fall.

My point isn’t to whine about the $1.60. I knew going into this that the stock market is volatile, and that we’d see some downturns — especially right now. The point isn’t what’s in my account today but what will be in my account in 40 years.  It’s just a strange realization as a first time investor.

I’m used to putting money away in a savings account. The interest isn’t much, only 2.4% right now. But at least when I put $50 in my savings account, I know that $50 will be there next month. My savings account is about security, not income, so it doesn’t bother me that it will only earn a few cents.

Now that we’re investing in the stock market, it’s difficult to realize that some of the money I put in is already gone. It just doesn’t seem right after years of saving for security. It’s discouraging to know that my money could be growing in a savings account — at the very least staying put — but in my retirement account it’s being slowly whittled away.

It’s also tough to know that I won’t see that money again for 40 years. I like knowing that our emergency savings is there if we need it. The same isn’t true for our retirement accounts. We can’t pay bills with that money if we get into trouble. Investing for retirement doesn’t feel like saving — it feels like paying another bill.

Saving is fun for me because I love to watch our money grow. The more money that accumulates in our account, the more secure I feel. I can’t say the same for our retirement accounts at this point. Right now investing is anything but secure. Not only are we losing some of the money, but we can’t touch it for 40 years.

I’m sure I’ll get used to the difference as we continue to contribute. I also know that this is nothing compared to people who have seen their investment accounts cut in half in the past 6 months. I guess I’m just really beginning to understand the investment process in a way that I didn’t understand it before.

How do you keep your spirits up as the stock market goes down? Do you avoid looking at your accounts? Maybe that would be best for now.

Do you know where your money is going?

One thing I’ve learned from the mortgage and lending crisis — you can’t be too familiar with the terms and conditions of your loans, investments, and credit cards.

Now that we’re facing a credit crisis, it’s more important than ever that you’re familiar with the policies of your lenders and investment firms as some institutions are making changes to their policies.

Take some time this month to educate yourself on where your money is really going and whether you’re getting the best deal.

Banking

  • How much interest are you earning on your savings and checking accounts? What are your options for increasing your interest rate? (Consider moving your savings to ING Direct for a 2.5% interest rate.)
  • Are you paying monthly fees for your accounts? If so, it’s probably time to switch banks. There are many banks that offer completely fee-free accounts.
  • How much do you pay for ATM fees and other transactions? You may be surprised to find out how much you’ve been spending on certain transactions.

Credit Cards

  • Is your account still open? Some credit card lenders have started closing dormant accounts, so if it’s been a while since you used your card, check and make sure it hasn’t been closed due to inactivity.
  • What is your interest rate? This may have recently changed, so check your statement or call for the most current information.
  • What is your credit limit? It also may have recently changed, so make sure you know exactly how much it is. A lower credit limit can affect your credit score.

Investments

  • How much are you paying per transaction? If your fees are high, consider investing in lump sums less frequently to make the most of your fees.
  • If you’re paying high fees, consider moving your investments to no-load mutual funds through discount brokers or investment firms.
  • Take some time to check out the prospectus report for your investments. Is it time to change your portfolio?
  • How much time do you have until retirement? If you’re planning on retiring in 5 years or less, it’s time to move your investments out of the stock market and into low-risk bonds. If you’re young, now is a great time for stock market investments because prices are low and you have plenty of time for the market to rebound from its current state.

Mortgages and other loans

  • Are you eligible for refinancing or consolidation? If your credit is good, now might be a good time to consider refinancing for a lower interest rate.

It can be a pain to track down this information, but it’s worth it to know where you stand. Not only is it important to know where your money is going, but it’ll give you a chance to determine if you’re getting the best rates, fees, etc. As long as the market continues to fluctuate, I suggest you take stock of your finances every 3 months to make sure nothing has changed.

Where do you draw the frugal line?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about degrees of frugality.

For instance, many of you probably think it wasn’t very frugal of me to join a gym and buy new running shoes. On the flip side, some of you might be like my husband, who believes you can never spend too much when it comes to your health. (For the record, I’m somewhere in between.)

Some of you can’t imagine spending money on disposable diapers, and some of you would rather use coupons to get disposables at a low price instead of paying close to $20 for one all-in-one cloth diaper.

For some, time is worth more than money. Maybe you’ll willing to spend extra money on things that buy you more time.

We all have different ideas about what’s really frugal. As I’ve said many times, frugality is not one size fits all. Not even close. There are a million different degrees of frugality.

Whatever you decide, the important thing is that you draw yourself a frugal line in the sand. Figure out what’s important to you, and try your best to stick with it.

For me, frugality is about balance. It means most of the time I can’t have it all. If I want to spend money on a gym membership, I have to cut some of my entertainment spending. If I want to go to a movie on Saturday night, I can’t go out to dinner, too. That’s where I draw my line. I cover the necessities, and find a way to balance the extra stuff.

Where ever you draw the line, try to be consistent. If you decide to give up meals out so you can afford to go to the movies, don’t look at your frugal friend who spends her entertainment budget at restaurants and convince yourself that you can have it both ways. Remember your priorities, remind yourself of the decision you made, and stick with it.

At the same time, don’t feel guilty if you’re spending money on paper towels or disposable diapers while your other frugal friend uses rags and cloths. Trust your decision, and balance your budget accordingly.

It’s ok to change your mind. It’s ok to change your priorities. But always make sure you’re doing it for yourself and your family. Don’t base your decisions on someone else’s frugal choices. If you’re frugal, I’m sure you don’t believe in keeping up with the Joneses. But you also shouldn’t try to keep up with your frugal neighbors across the street.

Everyone’s line is different. Just make sure you stay on the right side of your own.

Don’t spend your tax refund before you get it

I know, I know. I shouldn’t be getting a tax refund, because I should have my deductions set correctly to avoid giving the government an interest free loan. I know. But the fact is, I typically err on the side of caution. I’d rather give the government an interest free loan than owe a huge lump sum of money during tax time.

This year, we’d probably be expecting a refund anyway since we got married half way through the year. Because I make twice as much as Tony, we’ll most likely get a tax discount for filing jointly. Which means we’d be getting a little money back anyway.

How much? The fact is, I don’t know. But in the past, I’d have plans for what I was going to buy with that money regardless.

I’ve used my tax refund to buy a new wardrobe, take a vacation, and buy more electronics than I want to think about. Sometimes I was so broke that I had to wait until I received the refund to spend it. Sometimes, though, if I knew it was coming, the spending spree started before I even received the check.

This year, I’m not spending a dime of it. I already know what I’m going to do with the money, and it doesn’t involve a spending spree. It’s going directly into a savings account to help us cover the two months out of the year when Tony won’t receive his teaching salary.

I bristle at some of the tax preparation commercials I’ve been seeing on TV lately. “Need a vacation? Bring your taxes to us, and we’ll get you the tax refund you need to pay for it.”

The fact is, a tax refund isn’t “extra money.” It’s money that you should have been getting in your paycheck all year, which means the same rules apply to your tax refund as your regular income — don’t blow it.

I realize there are situations where a lump sum tax refund might be helpful. For instance, if you’ve been avoiding major car repairs because you don’t have the lump sum to pay them. That’s completely understandable. By all means, use your refund to get your car in working order.

But if you’re considering using your refund for something unnecessary, I urge you to think of that money as regular income. Can you really afford to spend it? Do you have a 6- to 8-month emergency fund in place? Are you debt-free? Are you fully funding your retirement accounts and education savings accounts? If the answer to those questions is yes, then maybe you can afford a big vacation or a new wardrobe right now.

But if you’re like me — with a tiny savings account, way too much debt, and a non-existent retirement account — then you’d probably be better off putting that money to more practical use.

A difficult decision about student loan repayment

Once we became credit card debt free, we had an extra $200 a month available. We decided to put some of that money toward retirement savings every month, so we only have $100 left to work into the budget.

Yesterday, Tony and I looked at our budget, and talked about where we’d like to put the money.

We have a huge amount of student loan debt (about $60,000 all told). My plan has always been to pay off credit card debt first, and then move on to my private student loans. Private loans account for about 1/3 of our student loan debt, but they carry about a 7% average interest rate. We also have about $40,000 in federal student loans with a much lower interest rate (about 4%).

When I think about all of that debt, I feel so overwhelmed. To make it easier on myself, I’m focusing on one loan at a time — for now the private loans (about $22,600).

I plugged some numbers into a loan repayment calculator to figure out some scenarios. The numbers are disappointing.

  • If we continue paying our current amount ($200 a month), it will take us 10 years to pay off my private loans.
  • If we put the extra $100 toward student loan debt (my original plan), it will be 8 years before the private loans are paid off.
  • Even if we could come up with $500 a month to put toward the private loans alone (while continuing to pay the minimum payment on federal loans), it would take about 4 and a half years to pay off just the private loans. Then we’d still have to pay off $40,000 in federal loans.

“Don’t worry,” people tell me. “Your income will go up.”

The problem is, it probably won’t. Right now I work full time, and Tony makes the equivalent of a part-time salary teaching. Sometime after he graduates, we want to have children. At that point, our roles will switch. He’ll bring in a full time salary, while I work part time (hopefully from home). So we’re looking at quite a while before we see a significant increase in our income.

Tony and I had a long talk about our short- and long-term goals. As much as I want to be debt free (and believe me, I really want to be debt free), at this point in our lives with our limited income and the economy a wreck, my gut is telling me that saving is more important.

Once we’re settled somewhere that we know we want to stay long term — and we have an emergency fund in place — our focus will shift. At that point, we’ll be able to put everything we have into debt. But for now, I want to have as much money stashed as possible.

So we made the decision to continue making minimum payments on student loans for the next year and a half while we beef up our savings. After that, we’ll reassess our financial situation. Hopefully we’ll have enough in savings that we can hold off on saving and shift our focus to debt.

I’m disappointed that we can’t do both, but I’m also confident in our decision. When I look at the difference an extra $100 a month will make in our savings, I feel calm and reassured. I don’t feel that same calm when I see the minor change in our debt that would result from paying an extra $100 a month on it for the next 18 months.

I also don’t regret putting $100 toward retirement every month. If we don’t plan for our future, no one else will. Putting $100 away for retirement every month makes me feel incredibly empowered.

The important thing is that we’re doing what works for us. The best part? Liquid savings is, well, liquid. If we change our minds, we can always pull that money out of savings and put it toward student loans.

We’re saving for retirement!

Last week, I questioned when we should start saving for retirement. I got a lot of great advice from readers (thanks!). After talking it through and doing our own research, we’ve made the decision that the sooner we start, the better — even if we can’t afford to make huge contributions at first.

Neither of us receives a company matched retirement plan, so we made the decision to put all of our retirement savings into a Roth IRA for now. We’re in a very low tax bracket now, and tax brackets are only going to go up. With a Roth IRA we can pay very low taxes on the money now, and then withdraw it later tax-free. Someday we may have the opportunity to get company matches, and if that happens we’ll start contributing to a 401K up to the match.

We only have about 3 months worth of expenses in our emergency fund. We didn’t want to raid our savings for an initial investment, so we looked for an investment firm that didn’t require a minimum investment.

Our main priorities are student loan repayment and liquid savings right now, so we can only afford $100 a month toward retirement or $50 for each of our accounts. We’ll increase that amount later as our income increases and our debt decreases.

After looking at several investment companies, we determined that T. Rowe Price is the best fit for us. The initial investment is $1,000 unless you opt for an automatic savings plan of $50 a month. Perfect.

Tony brought up a good point that I hadn’t considered. “Will we be able to stop contributing on the automatic plan if our financial situation changes?” I wasn’t sure if participating in the automatic plan without a minimum investment would require a time commitment for automatic investment.

Before we opened the account, I called customer service with a list of questions. They were very helpful, which only cemented my decision to go with T. Rowe Price. The answer to Tony’s question is yes, we can temporarily stop contributing. If we haven’t made a contribution for several months and our account balance is still under $1,000, they will ask that we bring the total up to $1,000 or close the account. But once our account balance reaches $1,000, we can contribute as much as we want whenever we want.

It will take us about a year and a half to reach $1,000. We decided that we could afford to make room for $100 a month at least until that point.

Because we have so much time until retirement and with stock prices where they are, we decided to invest predominantly in stocks.

T. Rowe Price offers a convenient option for beginning investors. You can select a diversified retirement fund based on the time you have until retirement. If you have a lot of time, the fund is more aggressive with a greater percentage of stocks. As our retirement year draws near, the investment portfolio will gradually become more conservative. The fund we selected is about 90% stocks with a very diverse portfolio and only 10% bonds.

Because we’re beginners, we decided to go with this option. In a few years when we have more knowledge and more money to invest, we can easily move our money to different funds if we choose. For now, this is a safe bet for us.

I’m feeling really good about our decision. Yes, that $100 would be helpful toward debt or liquid savings, but it will get a much greater return in a retirement account for the next 40 years. Starting now will increase our chances of reaching our retirement goals, and more importantly will get us into the habit of investing for retirement.

If you’ve been thinking about doing this for yourself, I strongly urge you to start researching now. I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it really is.

When is the right time to start saving for retirement?

Obviously, the answer is as soon as possible. But it’s hard to know when it’s time to really buckle down when you’re young and in debt.

Tony and I are 24 and 25, and I had hoped to start saving for retirement this year. But the more I look at our finances and goals, the more I hesitate to start now.

As a grad student, Tony obviously doesn’t have access to an employer-based retirement fund. Neither do I in my current job. So any retirement saving we do at this point will be on our own.

We’d like to open a Roth IRA and start saving a little every month, even if it’s just $50 each. We can always increase that amount later. But then I start thinking about our debt and our likely cross country move in less than two years and all of our other goals, and I can’t help but feel like that money would be better spent on debt and liquid savings at this point in our lives.

I know that saving for retirement is essential, especially for my generation. But I feel like 20-somethings in debt should focus more on becoming debt free. Otherwise, we could wind up paying student loan debt until it’s time to send our own kids to college.

Even though our income is relatively low, I almost never feel deprived. This is one area where I really feel the constraint of our low income, though. After our bills are paid and our necessities are covered, there just isn’t enough left over to save for emergencies, save for our future, and pay down debt. If I split up the extra money between the three, I feel like we’re not making any headway on any of them. But if I concentrate my efforts on one or two, then I feel guilty for foregoing the third.

My fear is that it will only get harder, especially since we plan to live on one income. If we can’t find room in the budget for retirement savings now, how we will be able to once we increase our financial responsibilities and have children?

I trust I’m not the only 20-something in this predicament.

When did you start saving for retirement? Is it crazy for me to wait another couple years?