Show us the Money

Affordable Wine

2006-09-06T21:34:00.000-05:00

Eric Asimov of the New York Times put out an interactive list of $10 and under bottles of wine that are worth every penny. I enjoy wine every now and then, but most of the stuff that pleases my taste buds are out of my price range. I haven't tried any of the wines on Asimov's list, but I plan to try a few in the coming weeks. If you've tried one (or have another favorite affordable bottle of good wine) leave a comment below.

Eric also blogs at The Pour. If you're into wine, you'll like this one.

Saving Money with DIY Baby Wipes

2006-08-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

I'm on my third child and I still can't believe how much money we spend on diapers, wipes and baby food. I watch our budget pretty closely, so it's easy to tell when you start shelling out an extra $100 per month on those items.

My wife had a friend at church tell her about a way to save money on baby wipes that I thought I'd pass on. A Google Search for homemade baby wipes brings up 175,000 hits so it's no secret, but in case you missed it, here's a link to one of the better explanations (although we do it without the power tools).

There is a small initial investment, but you recoup it by the second batch because the homemade wipes cost less than half as much. We even like the homemade wipes better than the ones you buy in the store. They work better, feel better and smell better. Not to mention our 4 month old has had no diaper rash since we started using them. We only wish we would have discovered them with our 1st, 4 yrs ago.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

One roll of paper towel cut in half (preferably a mega roll of Bounty)
2 cups of water (we don't boil first as some suggest and it works just fine)
2 TBSP Johnsons baby wash
1 TBSP baby oil

Lay paper towel roll on its side and cut in half with a serrated bread knife. Place 1/2 roll cut side down into a tupperware. Mix the baby wash and oil in water and pour over roll. After the roll absorbs the water, pull out cardboard center (it slips out pretty easy). Pull out your wipes from the center as needed.

Investing in clean energy

2006-08-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

There was a very interesting article in the lastest issue of Business Week on the latest investment gold rush: clean energy. Entitled, Wall Street's New Love Affair, the article lists dozens of investors looking for opportunities and companies looking for dollars. Here's a few:

Investors:

The Carlyle Group
Khosla Ventures - Vinod Khosla put together a very interesting presentation on ethanol entitled Biofuels: Think outside the Barrel (warning: it's 25 MB)
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
New Energy Fund
Cleantech Capital Group - creators of the Cleantech Index

Companies:

Analysts and Researchers:

Skype says: Stop paying for long-distance calls!

2006-06-03T20:06:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I received an email from Skype alerting me to their new promotion: free SkypeOut calls through the end of the year. That means, if you download their software (which I did), you can call from your computer to any landline or mobile phone for free.

The sound is crystal-clear and I haven't lost a single call. In addition, I actually prefer making the calls from a headset. Yesterday, I participated in a 74 minute conference-call from work with Skype; that's a savings of about $6 for my employer.

I got my brother to sign up and I'm going to get my mother-in-law on Skype so that she and my wife can talk for free after the end of the year (that alone should save a lot on long-distance bills). My four-year old daughter (pictured here) thinks it's pretty cool to make phone calls from Daddy's computer. Gotta go make some calls!

Money for used books

2006-05-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I went to ebookdrop.com to see what they'd give me for some books that I had listed but not sold with Amazon. They bought four books for $16.33 and PayPal'ed me the money 18 days after I mailed them. Not a bad way to earn a little cash from books that I've already read and don't plan to read again.

Learning to Earn More

2006-05-14T10:34:00.000-05:00

I went to my library again in recent days to pick up a couple more learning resources. The first was an audio book appropriately titled Learn to Earn, written by famed stock picker Peter Lynch.

One of the most interesting of Lynch's theses was about the dangers of market timing. In order to get the full benefit of being in the stock market, Lynch points out that you have to put money in that you can leave forever. He talks about a good stretch for stocks in the 1980's, when "stock prices gained 26.3 percent per year." But the most interesting thing about this profitable stretch of 1,276 days was that most of the gains occurred 40 days. As Lynch writes, "If you were out of stocks on those 40 key days, attempting to avoid the next correction, your 26.3 percent annual gain was reduced to 4.3 percent."

Although the book is ten years old and somewhat dated (he mentions tracking stock prices in the newspaper), his primary message is still relevant: pick stocks based on the earnings of the company. If the earnings of a company go up, the price of its stock probably will as well.

The second was Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey. If you're a fan of his show (as I am) there isn't a lot here that will be new to you, but it's a quick read and has some beneficial nuggets. I enjoyed his chapter on negotiating and on investing. One particularly interesting point in the book (page 120) is the importance of investing early in your life. He shows two investors who invest $2,000 per year at 12 percent. The first one invests from age 19-26, for a total of $16,000, and then never invests another penny in his lifetime. The second invests nothing until he turns 27 and then invests every year until he turns 65. His contributions amount to $64,000 or four times the first investor's total. Who ends up with more at age 65? The first investor. The more of the story: INVEST EARLY AND INVEST NOW!

The book also has almost 30 pages of financial management forms that assist in budgeting and planning, some of which are available on Ramsey's web site. If you're just getting into financial planning and budgeting, this book is a great place to start.

Free Credit Monitoring from PayPal

2006-05-10T21:11:00.000-05:00

PayPal is offering two free credit monitoring services from Equifax for PayPal account holders. One monitors balance changes (in amount and percentage) and the other will send you wireless alerts when inquiries are made to Equifax about your credit.

With all I've been hearing about identity theft these days, I signed up right away. If you don't have a PayPal account, it's easy (and free) to sign up. If you need any other incentive to sign up with PayPal, their Money Market Fund is currently earning 4.62 percent.

Is Real Estate in a Buyer's Market?

2006-05-09T07:37:00.000-05:00

Today's New York Times reports that It's going from a seller's market to a buyer's market. Those of you out there trying to make money in real estate...do you agree?

If you're looking to buy and rent, maybe this is a good thing. However, if you're a property flipper, this has to make you a little nervous. Will declining real estate values change your investing?

Canceling Cable Television

2006-04-29T09:01:00.000-05:00

When we last left off, we were talking about saving money on utilities. As we've discovered, it takes some creative solutions because there's not a lot that can be done here. After all, you can't cancel your electricity. But you can cancel Cable TV...which is what I just did.

We had a bundle of services through our local cable TV provider: phone, high-speed Internet and Cable TV. There was some cost savings from using the bundle, but essentially bundles are a cleverly disguised way to sell you premium services. In our case, the cost of buying the basic services in our bundle would have been about the same as what we were paying. But, by putting it in a bundle we got call waiting, caller ID and 10 movie channels.

Before I made the decision to cancel, I priced a couple of other services from competitors and quickly found that this is NOT the easiest industry to deal with. The price for everything depends on what all you're buying. The more services you buy, the less each service costs...at least for a while. It seems like almost everything has an introductory price which jumps significantly after 1, 3, 6 or 12 months.

After a couple of days dealing with these hucksters, I decided to stay with the service I had...the devil you know is often better than the devil you don't. Besides, I've been generally happy with what I've got.

But I did cancel the Cable TV for a monthly savings of $58.85 once you take debt retirement into account. I kept the phone and high-speed Internet (can't live without either of those) and even ended up keeping call waiting and caller ID for the phone. It turns out that the two services were only an additional $2 per month since I paid for phone and Internet (that's one bundle I couldn't turn down). But, as the final insult to injury, the reduction in services was not reflected on my most recent bill and will be credited to the next one (which should be close to zero with the credit).

Our family has been without Cable for about two weeks now and I can't say we miss it much. In addition to the cost savings, we watch a lot less TV and read a lot more. Both good things in my book. My kids love Noggin, so for the week before we canceled Cable, we taped several days of programming.

Being without the Cable box has also led me to do some searching for online content. Some of my favorites are Christian music videos on JCTV, videos in the news from National Geographic, and the ABC World News Now podcast from TVTonic. I might have to put together and Internet TV post in order to encourage others to cancel cable and still be able to watch TV.

As for movies, we now get those from the public library. I can search their database of thousands of DVDs online, place a request for the title I want, indicate the library branch where I want to pick up the movie and they will call me when it's ready. Since it's a public library, I get it for one week and it doesn't cost me anything. They even let me know what's new each month.

So no, I don't miss cable TV...at least until the World Cup starts.

We set the phone and Internet bill set up on automatic payment through our new credit card, so add $0.45 for mailing costs, and our total monthly savings is $191.82 after going through about half of the line-items in our budget. Reflected anually, that is a savings of $2,301.84. I must say that I can see a big improvement in our cash-flow since I started this budget review process two months ago and I think it's going to get even better. Stay tuned for more.

Rich Dad = Real Estate Dad

2006-04-19T21:11:00.000-05:00

So I went to the library, picked up Rich Dad, Poor Dad and read it over the weekend. I would have posted about it sooner, but work has been keeping me up late at night. Got a big project due Friday.

Anyway, Kiyosaki's basic message is that you need to be an owner have real financial security; you need to "Mind Your Own Business" (Lesson #3). He speaks of the need for people to gain financial knowledge, or as he refers to it, your financial IQ, and its made up of:

Accounting
Investing
Understanding Markets, and
the law

As for the skills needed to manage success, Kiyosaki writes that there are three:

The management of cash flow
The management of systems (including yourself and time with family)
The managment of people

Kiyosaki closes the book with ten steps to get started acquiring wealth:

I need a reason greater than reality
I chose daily
Choose friends carefully
Master a formula and then learn a new one
Pay yourself first
Pay your brokers well
Be an "indian giver"
Assets buy luxuries
The need for heroes
Teach and you shall receive

It was an easy read and it motivates you to build your assets in a quest for financial security. While I was at the library, I also picked up a copy of Rich Dad Success Stories to read about what other people have done with the knowledge they learned from Kiyosaki. I'm almost half way through the book and I think all but one success story was about real estate. Therefore, from this day forward, I will call Rich Dad...Real Estate Dad. If you read his column regularly, like I do, you'll see that the most frequent topic is real estate.

Don't get me wrong. Real estate can clearly be a great investment. Dave Ramsey is also a big fan and it certainly seems to have worked for Kiyosaki. If you're looking for a motivational book about what buying real estate can do for you, this is a great series. However, if you're looking for an exploration of broader asset topics, you could probably do better.

I am taking Kiyosaki's advice and furthering my investor education. At my local library, they are having an Investor Education program. I'm going to give it a try. What do I have to lose?

Investor: Educate Thyself!

2006-04-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

I was listening to the April 6 Jim Cramer's Radio podcast last night and he was bemoaning the lack of investor education in America. Cramer referenced a study unveiled at the Federal Reserve by the Merrill Lynch Foundation which showed that the nation's high school seniors don't know much about personal finance.

Of the students surveyed, only 14 percent said stocks were likely to have higher returns, just 23 percent realized that interest on savings accounts may be taxable and only 40 percent understood that they could lose their health insurance if their parents became jobless. And I thought I had a lot to learn about personal finance.

Well, for those who want investor education the Internet provides all kinds of places to get it. One of the latest ways I've come across is OpenCourseWare from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Any person can take a course for free (without credit) including courses from the Sloan School of Management, MIT's business school.

Trip, at MusingMoney is taking Investments 15.433 and I think I'm going to join him (many thanks for pointing this out). Maybe we should get a usergroup going so we can set up our own classes on this thing. Anyone else in? Let me know in the comments below.

Saving Money on Utilities

2006-04-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

When I last left off, our budget-cutting had netted us a monthly savings of $130.24, which translates into $1,562.88 in annual savings. Not bad, but we're just getting warmed up. Today, I'm going to look at the utilities portion of our budget, which would seem to be one of the hardest places in the budget to save money. Well, we're going to have to get creative.

First up is trash collection. I have received a few recent mailings from trash collectors advertising a significant discount for the first three months with no long term commitment. One could probably cut costs by switching a couple of times per year. For me, that is not an option.

The company I use is owned by a guy who went to high school with my brother (same school as me) and he does a great job. Case in point: I recently installed hardwood floors in my home and had a bunch of carpet to get rid of. One morning when he arrived to take the trash, I went out and asked him if he could take some of the trash. He took it all and saved me a trip to the dump. How can you leave a company after that? Besides, he's also cheaper than most of the others.

However, I did say we went to the same high school. Now we're onto something! That small, private school has a Tuition Reduction Program (TRIP) where businesses credit a percentage of your purchases of their products or services to a tuition account of your choosing. Turns out that my trash collector pays 9% so I signed up. Now, $1.38 per month and $16.59 per year is deposited in a tuition account for my kids. I hope to send them there some day and the tution is north of $4,000 per year, so every little bit helps. I'll be talking more about this opportunity with other bills.

Next is electricity. Nothing we can do here, right? Well, maybe there are some things we can do. My provider is Xcel Energy and their web site is full of resources and useful tips for how to save money on your electrical bill. They even have a handy PDF called: 60 Simple Ways To Save Money On Your Energy Bill.

One of the 60 tips is to install Compact Fluorescent light bulbs. According to ENERGY STAR, replacing a 100-watt incandescent with a 32-watt CFL can save you at least $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb. If you pledge to change a light in your house, ENERGY STAR will send you a free gift. GE has more information about CFL bulbs, and some coupons, at GELighting.com. I'm going to give them a try.

The one easy way to save money (and time) with electricity (and most bills) is to set them up for automatic bill pay. The money we save on the stamp and the debt retirement is $0.45 per month or $5.39 annually. We're now at a monthly savings of $132.07 and an annual savings of $1,584.84 and we're not even half way through our budget.

I'll be talking about the other utilities soon.

What is my future success story?

2006-04-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

I went to the local library today and checked out a copy of Rich Dad's Success Stories: Real Life Success Stories from Real Life People Who Followed the Rich Dad Lessons. I read the intro and the first success story tonight and I'm looking forward to digging in and seeing if I can learn something.

Rich Dad author Robert Kiyosaki has a CASHFLOW Quadrant (pictured here) that shows people the benefit of moving from employee or self-employed to a business owner or investor. That's what I'm talking about when I say that I want more passive income that's not connected to my employment. I don't want to work for the rest of my life. I'll keep you posted on the book.

New Rewards Credit Card

2006-04-04T22:51:00.000-05:00

Following the information provided by the excellent MyMoneyBlog, I submitted an application for the Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa Card. We've had our current MBNA World Points MasterCard for almost two years and it was time for an upgrade. We don't plan on spending as much money with our credit cards as we did in the past, but we'd like to maximize the return we get on what we do spend.

It's hard to beat 5% back on gas, groceries and pharmacies and 1% on everything else with no annual fee. Next, I'll need to change my automatic bills over to the new card once it arrives.

No flipping this time

2006-04-04T22:22:00.000-05:00

Someone else bought the house. They offered 14 percent more than we were willing to pay. I guess I'll keep looking.

The Millionaire Next Door

2006-04-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

I used my last free book from Audible.com to download The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley.

Stanley documents seven common denominators among those who succesfully built wealth. Here they are along with my assessment of how my family is doing on each factor:
1. They live well below their means. I think we're doing okay, but need to do better. We currently live on about 70 percent of my take home pay. The rest goes to investments and debt reduction. We're still looking for ways to cut our budget and increase our income.
2. They allocate their time, energy and money efficiently; in ways conducive to building wealth. This is something we don't do very well. That's part of the reason I started this blog is because I realize that we need to dedicate more of our resources to this.
3. They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. I drive a 1988 Toyota. Enough said.
4. Their parents did not provide economic out-patient care. My grand-parents paid for my college education and my parents are doing the same for my kids, but we don't depend on either of our parents for our economic survival.
5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient. My eldest will turn four next month. The last thing I want for her is to be economically self-sufficient right now.
6. They are proficient in targeting market opportunities. I need to get better at this. I'm trying to start thinking like an entrepreneur and investor.
7. They chose the right occupation. I like what I'm doing, but the jury is still out on this one.

I'm about a third of the way through the book and thoroughly enjoying it. It's well worth the read...er, listen.

Funding my IRA

2006-04-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

I went online today to check my Simple IRA that was set up through my employer and saw that my monthly contribution was deposited. What a good feeling to see my net worth increased by $323.04 (the fact that half of it came from me, pre-tax and half was from my employer made it even sweeter).

BTW, I also discovered that the PayPal Money Market dividend had been credited to my account. Their Money Market fund is currently paying 4.45% so it's tempting to put even more in that account.

Should I Flip this House?

2006-04-01T22:17:00.000-06:00

I took a look at a house today that I'm considering purchasing for a flip. Tonight, I'm sitting home watching Flip That House on TLC, watching all the things going wrong and wondering if I really want to do this.

This would be my first flip. I'm not going in blind. A friend and I have been working with a local realtor who has a lot of experience in working with house flippers, even having done some himself. We've been looking for a long time and waiting for the right house. We may have found it. I don't want to tip off any other local investors by posting information on the house, but if we do it, I'll give you the details.

It's not that I'm that interested in real estate. What I am interested in is increasing my income and I'll invest in anything that I think can help me do that.

Anyone out there have some advice for a first-time property flipper?

Credit cards with the best rewards

2006-03-30T23:36:00.000-06:00

I'm in the market for a new credit card that gives better rebates. I know that many people think they are terrible and for many people they are terrible. But, I consider myself a fairly responsible user. I've never carried a balance on a credit card. When I got my first card, my parents gave me a handy tip: when you charge something, write it into your check book ledger so you know it will always balance.

Today I mostly use cash, but I have a number of automatic bills paid through my credit card. I figure that they're bills I have to pay anyway, so why not get some cash back?

My current plastic is an MBNA World Points MasterCard. I recently cashed out some of my miles for prepaid cards and received a $100 card for every 12,000 miles, which is a reward rate of 0.83 percent. Not terrible, but I want to do better.

That's why I read with interest an article from Kiplinger's Personal Finance on the best credit card reward programs. It looks like the Chase Rewards Plus Visa is the card for me. Hat tip to Inchoate Random Abstractions in the discussion on MyMoneyForest.

Anyone have a better suggestion?

2006-03-30T11:43:00.000-06:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

What's the best book on personal finance?

2006-03-29T12:12:00.000-06:00

I recently purchased an mp3 player and received a trial membership and two free book downloads from Audible.com. I'm almost finished listening to Freakonomics and am thinking about what I want to download next. My question to you is: what is your favorite book on personal finance? Leave your answer in the comments below. Thanks.

More budget cutting

2006-03-28T21:22:00.000-06:00

When we set aside our budget cutting yesterday, we had looked at gym membership and house cleaning service. We quit the gym and cut back on the cleaning service for a total monthly savings of $87.98 and an annual savings of $1,055.70. Today, we'll look at a few more line items and see how much we can save.

The next one I'd like to look at is not new to most personal finance bloggers, but it's an easy one. Dave Ramsey's budget form lists it simply as hair care. A few months ago, I started cutting my own hair with a set of clippers. Monthly savings: $20, counting debt retirement: $21.40, annual savings: $256.80.

There are a couple of reasons why this works better for me than some. First of all, I have a receding hairline. Because of this, I simply put a #3 attachment on the clippers and cut my hair by myself. My wife usually has to spend a few seconds on the spots I missed, but it doesn't take much. Second, the really nice girl who was cutting my hair got married and moved out of town so no one's feelings had to get hurt. When she left a few months ago, I took that opportunity to become my own barber.

Unsurprisingly, I am not the first person to come up with this idea. In fact, my mom cut my hair (and the hair of my two brothers) while we were at home. Personal finance bloggers have also picked up on this opportunity to save money. The author of MyMoneyBlog started letting his wife cut his hair a year ago and he's saved $250. Contrary to what you might think, this is not limited to men. Mapgirl cuts her own hair and saves $35 per time. (Somehow I don't think I'm going to get my wife to go for this one). If personal finance bloggers are representative of the broader public, I would avoid investing in hair salons and start investing in hair clippers.

Next, I looked into potential savings on my automobile insurance. While talking to our insurance agent, the only option available to us was to increase our deductible. We can save $20 per month by increasing our deductible from $100/$250 to $500/$1,000. I'm thinking that's probably not worth it because one accident would wipe out more than one year's worth of savings. In addition, we're probably going to have to buy at least one new car in the near future so I'll sit on this one for now.

As for other insurance, one of our largest costs are health insurance premiums, which are taken directly out of my paycheck. Nothing we can do to decrease that cost, but this year we did start taking advantage of a flex spending program available through work. We put $30 per week of pre-tax income into a flex spending account that totals $1,560 for the year. In the 15 percent bracket, that is a tax savings of $234 for the year, $250.38 when accounting for debt retirement. Total monthly savings: $20.87.

While we're on the topic of healthcare, let me tell you another way we have saved money in the past. When we had our last baby, we were given the opportunity to get a 15 percent discount on our total bill if we paid before we left the hospital. Most hospitals will probably be open to this because collections are such a pain for them.

We have $500,000 in life insurance on my wife and I that we got a few years ago at a good rate, so there's no room to cut there.

So, add the savings from cutting my own hair to the flex spending account and you have a monthly savings of $42.27. Add that to yesterday's monthly savings of $87.98 and you have a total monthly savings of $130.24. My total annual, savings after looking through a few line items in my budget, is $1,562.88.

Tomorrow, I will be terrorizing my phone/internet/cable provider. I've done my research, taken some advice from a fellow blogger, and will be going for some discounts. I'll let you know how it goes.

On another note, I went to AnnualCreditReport and pulled my credit report using experian. Good news. experian found 0 potentially negative items in my report and I didn't have to contest anything. I decided not to pull all three like MyMoneyBlog, electing to save the other two for later in the year. That's enough for today. I've got a Dave Ramsey podcast to listen to.

There are more blogs on personal finance?

2006-03-28T20:42:00.000-06:00

Yes. Hundreds more. Luckily for you, they're all in one place: PFBlogs.org. There, you can find such engaging blogs as Stop Buying Crap and Money Dummy. Yours truly is number 456. I can see myself spending WAY too much time here.

Book Blogging

2006-03-28T13:13:00.000-06:00

On his radio show, Dave Ramsey often sites a book by Dan Miller called 48 Days To The Work You Love. He recommends the book because he believes that people will be more successful if they're doing a job that they enjoy.

Well, one of the things that I enjoy is reading. But you can't make money doing that, can you? Actually, it turns out that you can. I came across an interesting new book that was relevant to the topic of another blog that I write for. I emailed the publisher to ask for a review copy...and you know what? They sent me one.

I read the book, reviewed it on my blog, included an Amazon Associates link and got paid $1 for every book that was purchased at Amazon. Then, I sold the book in Amazon's Marketplace for $13.5o.

My total take on the thing was only about $15, but it was a book that I wanted to read anyway. So, instead of paying $20-$25 to read it, I earned $15 by reviewing it. By my math, that's coming out $35-$40 ahead for minimal extra work.

Are you a blogger? Is there a newly released book that you want to read? What's the worst they can say? Go for it!

Pruning your budget

2006-03-27T21:23:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've heard the saying "It takes money to make money" hundreds of times. Well, just because you make a lot of money doesn't mean that you have a lot of money. The only money you have is what you don't spend (and the government doesn't take).

I make decent money, but the struggle for us has always been having enough money at the end of the month to save, invest or pay down debt. At times, it seems like the only money being saved is what comes directly out of my paycheck (you gotta take that employer match).

Anyway, I've been listening to Dave Ramsey a lot lately and what I've heard there was reinforced by what I learned from The Millionaire Mind. They have influenced me to start going through my family's budget to see where we can save some money. We started with the budgeting forms on Ramsey's website and got on a written budget that we're following.

Once we wrote down our current budget, we realized why we weren't saving very much money: there wasn't much money left over at the end of the month. So we started going through the budget line by line to see where we could cut.

The first line to meet our scrutiny was an expensive gym where I was a member. It was good and worth the money, but expensive, so I quit it and started looking at other options. I was honest with them, told them I liked their facility and hoped to be back in the future, but could not afford it at this time. You know what they did? They took pity on me and gave me a punch card (in return for filling out an exit survey) that gave me five free visits. Honesty is often the best policy.

First of all, if you're considering a change in your gym, you might be rewarded for doing a little research. For instance, I checked with my health insurance provider and they have a 10% discount at a different gym. With that discount, joining their gym would save me about $25 per month or $300 per year.

I also called the local YMCA, where I was a member for years. Membership at the Y was a little more expensive than the other gym, but they have a discount if you're willing to volunteer your time as a basketball referee or coach.

There may be other opportunities for you or in your town. In college, I had a friend who took a part time job at a gym so he could get a free membership. The point is that you might benefit from taking a creative approach to saving money on this line item in your budget. I ultimately decided to not join any gym over the summer and have started running, biking and doing sit-ups and push-ups. It's saving us $69.50 per month which is $834 on an annual basis. If that money is used to pay down debt (which it will), it actually saves us $892.38 annually because we won't have to pay interest on the debt we retire. That's real money.

The next line item we looked at was the cleaning lady. We have young children that my wife stays home to care for, so we have a cleaning lady to make our lives a little more sane. I'd rather have my wife spend time with our kids than on her hands and knees cleaning a toilet. Funny thing, she agrees with me. However, we decided to cut back the amount of time that she cleans. We will end up saving $12.72 per month, or $152.64 per year, $163.32 counting interest that won't be paid on retired debt. We will keep the cleaning lady until the kids get old enough to help out around the house more.

So, after looking at just two line items in our budget, we have saved $1,055.70 on an annual basis. There are dozens of items left to go and I can't wait to attack them. Stay tuned for more budget pruning in the near future and leave any tips in the comments section that you have from your own experience.

Do you have the mind of a millionaire?

2006-03-26T19:49:00.000-06:00

I just finished listening to The Millionaire Mind, the follow-up book to The Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley. Listening to the book influenced both the creation and the theme of this blog, for Dr. Stanley says that the typical millionaire is both productive and frugal. They work hard and take calculated risk to make money, but they also do things like reupholster furniture and shop with coupons in order to make their money go further. Every post and link on this blog will be dedicated to at least one of those two goals:

1. Increasing your income
2. Making your money go further

By the way, instead of buying this audio book, I went to my local library and checked it out for free. You might be surprised what you can find at your library if you stop in for a visit. Dave Ramsey is fond of saying that the average millionaire reads one non-fiction book per month. What have you read this month?

Wanna save and make some money?

2006-03-26T12:05:00.000-06:00

Me too. That's why I started this blog. I've been trying to find ways to extend our family's income by making and saving money. Most of the opportunities I've found have an online component, but I couldn't find a central clearing house for those opportunities.

That's what this blog will be. As I find new opportunities to save or make money, I'll post them on the side or blog about them here. All so you can take advantage of them as well.

Also, I'll be posting tips to save money or increase your income as I come across them. For starters, see the Google Adsense links at the top of this blog? I'm here to make money as well. In fact, if you click on the affiliate link on the side bar and add Adsense to your blog or web site, I'll get paid $100 when you get your first $100. Not bad, eh? A little further down is a link to download Firefox. Do that and I'll get a dollar.

So stay tuned and come back often. I'll do the leg work and find opportunities to Show us the Money!