Fox has launched their new TV channel, Fox Business with the corresponding website FoxBusiness.com. Unfortunately my cable provider, Cox, isn’t carrying it…
The website however is beautiful. Very nice colors and layout; very modern and not cluttered. Of course they have a personal finance section as well as the other usual business news related sections.
There are many ways to save for a vacation or other expense. High interest savings accounts, mutual funds and on an on. However sometimes the old standbys are still the best.
OK, so our ‘piggy bank’ is really a big jar, but so what. I personally don’t like keeping change laying around, so into the the jar it goes. I do this every day when I come home from work, shopping or whatever. I simply empty my pocket of any change and into the jar it goes.
Now obviously this alone will mean you get a vacation about once every ten years or so. So we take it to the next level, and I also drop in most of my single dollar bills. I will keep one or two on me for the vending machine, tips or whatever, but everything else goes into the jar. When I’m in a really good mood I’ll drop the occasional 5, 10 or 20 dollar bill in as well. It seems that the more bills that are in there, the more often I will put another one in.
For our particular jar, we’ve put in about $150 in just over 2 months. OK, not enough to fly out to the Bahama’s or take that Caribbean cruise but it will cover our gas and part of our hotel expenses on our trip to the beach in a couple of weeks. If we had started a few months earlier it would have covered almost all of our costs. Not bad.
No, it isn’t sophisticated. However what it does do is give an immediate reminder that there is money there waiting for us to use for some fun in the sun. In other words, it is motivation. Seeing all of that silver and green in that big clear jar is far more motivation than looking at a number on a bank statement. It’s immediate and rewarding and that is a good thing.
We didn’t set up a budget (I hate budgets), and yes we could save a whole lot more by putting some money directly from our account into yet another account, but what fun is that? We keep our jar right on the kitchen counter where we see it everyday when we come home and every time we go to the fridge.
If we were going to save for something much bigger, like a cruise or trip to Europe or something similar then yes would would have a more ‘formal’ plan for saving. In our case we plan on taking a few smaller trips throughout the summer and we don’t really need several thousand dollars. Since we aren’t saving for any real length of time the interest earned wouldn’t be all that much anyway.
As I mentioned, having that jar visible is self feeding. I want to put more money in just because it is sitting there. Sure it may only be a couple dollars a day or the occasional 10 or 20 but it sure ads up in a hurry.
Give it a try, you just might be surprised how motivating it can be.
The market has taken a bit of beating. The Down Jones industrial average is down almost 200 points, the S&P 500 is down almost 27 points. Stocks all across the board are being sold off on fears of global inflation.
It is times like this when the nay-sayers say “see, ‘playing’ the market is a bad idea”. Well, if all you are doing is ‘playing’ the market then yes you will more than likely lose money. However owning the right stocks in the right market can help shield you from such downturns.
It is amazing what good sleep can do for you. My wife and I have had a bed for almost 8 years and it was definitely long past its time to be thrown out. It wasn’t a good quality bed to begin with and was just plain falling apart. The foam was almost gone, we tossed and turned all night, no support and on and on.
A couple years ago we went to a mattress store and I laid down on a Tempur-pedic bed and I loved it! I tried a couple others but I just really liked the way you kind of molded into the bed. At the time we couldn’t really afford a new bed, so we did without for quite a while, until a week ago.
It just so happened that I played in a poker tournament and ended up splitting the money of the top three finishes. The next day we were out looking at dishwashers (we need on of those too), and were going from Lowes to Home Depot when my wife said that we really needed a bed more than a new dishwasher. Turns out there is a mattress store in the same shopping area as HD, so in we went.
Of course they had the bed we were looking for, and we ended up buying one right then for delivery the day. We had much anticipation for our first night on the new bed and we even decided to make a really nice experience by buying new linens and such. The first night was wonderful. The next day was better. A week later and I’m completely sold. I fall asleep much, much quicker and this weekend when I slept in a little late I wasn’t sore and miserable. What a difference!
Just about any bed would have been an improvement, but I’m glad we went ahead and got a really nice bed. The difference is tremendous.
I just read a post on MSN called How to make big money. It lists 11 strategies that, quite honestly, very few would even attempt and aren’t really realistic. Sure they could make you money, but seriously, Government Subsidies and Inheritance as the number one and two methods?
Instead, why not try becoming an entrepreneur and build a business around something you really love? You may or may not make big money, but it will be money you enjoyed making. Or perhaps invest some money and make it big over the long haul. Either way, the article isn’t particularly helpful.
Don’t forget to update your timezone setting for your blog! In Wordpress this is under the Options tab.
MSNBC has an article called The best cars of 2007 for teenagers. While the article does cover options for actually affording the vehicle, a more important question should be should you actually buy your teenage a new car to begin with?
With 3 teenagers (two are driving age), and one preteen, my wife and I have talked about cars on several occasions. Sometimes we talk about various things like what kind of car each child seems ‘appropriate’ with, but one thing that we both agreed on very quickly was that we would not buy a new, or even a fairly new car, for any of them. Are we just being mean?
It doesn’t matter how good a kid is, they aren’t going to be the best drivers around. First is just inexperience. They don’t pay enough attention to what is going on, they don’t know how to react to situations, etc. Second is kids being kids. I see it like this: I was a good kid, made good grades, was above average in the responsibility category, etc., etc. and while I was a pretty good driver, I still drove that car into the ground (a nice 79 Turbo Regal). Everybody I know now and then was pretty much the same way. It didn’t matter if their parents bought them a new car or they had clunker.
So what we plan to do is buy them (or help them get) reliable but older car that doesn’t cost a lot for their first car. We call this the ‘one year car’. It only really has to last for the first year or so while we look for a better car. During this first year they will learn about paying their insurance, paying for the car itself, maintenance, etc. and let them get over having a car in the first place.
During the first year we will be looking for their ‘real’ car. While it may not be the one they really want, it will be something that they like. Something that they can look forward to providing that they don’t mess up with their first car.
With a couple of the boys this might mean not actually buying a second car, but fixing up the first one. My dad built his cars for a long time, I’ve worked on a few myself and my wife’s dad owns a salvage yard so it kind of runs in the family. Besides it would be a fun project, if they so chose.
So would you or have you bought your teenager a brand new car?
Since I don’t have quite as much to blog about when it comes to straight personal finance, unlike some of my fellow personal finance bloggers, I’ve decided to expand the horizons of what this blog will cover.
So what will I cover? Well, we are in a stage in our life when we are not only getting out of some of our debt but also wanting to enjoy some finer things in life. While we are by no means wealthy, we have the means to enjoy things that aren’t really all that expensive but kind of fall into that ‘fine living’ category.
So with that in mind I will start blogging about these things. Whether it is good deals, or just enjoying some of the money that we recoup from paying off credit cards and such. It will also give me a reason to further utilize this blog which I have pretty much neglected in recent months.
According to Matt Cutts, Google’s webmaster tools has expanded its reporting of backlinks. I just checked mine and it is a pretty nice feature.
If you aren’t using their free webmaster tools, you’re missing out!
Health insurance is a hotly debated topic and we all know this. The idea that is proposed in the State of the Union is a cross between government run and private insurance. For the most part I’m completely against government running of anything other than the military, but I like this idea.
In essence the idea is that a tax break would be given to cover health insurance costs. This allows individuals to buy whatever insurance plan that they deem necessary instead of the government dictating what they will get. If I heard correctly the tax break would be structured similar to depend credit. I wish it would be structured like a 401(k) or health saving accounts, where the cost would come out completely before taxes.
I noticed during the panning of the camera that it didn’t show Hillary. I wonder what she thinks of that idea?
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