Goals

Goal, true goals, not wishes, are a great thing to have. Goals help us achieve what we truly want and stop life from passing us by. But what are goals? Are goals wants? Yes they can be, but not entirely. Goals are defined wants. I want to be able to retire, my goal is to have four million dollars in investments and 10 duplexes. I want to be debt free but if I want to get through graduate school, I need to take student loans out for a couple years. Which is more important? By defining your goals you determine what is possible, what is most important and most importantly, how you are going to reach your goal.

The first part of having goals if defining them. Goals are not just financial, I have personal and professional goals as well. Professionally my goal is to get a professorship and get paid to do research in my own lab. Personally, my goals include such things as getting married, having children and making connections in the community. And, of course, financially, I plan to become financially independent.

But I cannot just jump from this point to my goals. I need minigoals along the path to help me stay focused and to continue getting me toward the main goal. For example, to reach my main professional goal to become a professor and get my own lab I need to get into the master's program and then into a PhD program. Along the way I need to publish at least two papers and get one grant that I can use as a post-doctoral fellow. During, my post-doctoral fellowship I need to publish at least one more article and get one more grant. This path, should get me a professor position at a university. However, determining this path does not mean there will not be detours but by having goals and minigoals I increase my chances to achieve my goals. I must note that my goal of becoming a professor will require many years and some money to pay for tuition which will affect my other goals. It may even make it harder to achieve my other goals.

Next post I will go in depth regarding my goal of financial independence. I'll talk about where I compromised on that goal for other goals and where I made the choices to make myself be independent in the future.

Update on grocery savings plan March

Considering I decided to cut down my grocery bills during the middle of March, I did pretty well overall for the month of March. My goal for the average weekly spending on groceries was $50 and I spent $50.40. An extra .40 is not much, so I am very pleased but .40/week is still $20.80/year and I have better places for that money so I am going to continue this plan and see if I can't even get under $50 average for the year. Because so far I am already over this goal I will have to cut down below $50/week to make my yearly goal. So far my average for this year is $53.71 and to get the average down to $50/week I will need to average $48.76/week from now on.

I do not expect to cut my spending down to $48.76 next week or even next month but I do plan on trying my hardest to reach this goal and you never know, maybe I will. Slow and steady works much better than extreme frugality and then splurging.
The ladies over on the WIR grocery board have been so nice and other blogs have been a great time saver as well as money saver. I do believe that with their help, by the end of the year I will be able to report on average spending of less than $50/week.

Also, my fiance and I will be preparing our garden both this weekend and next. We will be planting lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, basil, red onions and jalapenos. We already have two blackberry bushes that we started last year. Though we consider the garden expenses part of our food budget we expect to save some money by gardening.

Is anyone else changing their lifestyle to save money? What about reaching out to others to save money? To get our budget down to what I want we will have to do both. Strange enough, I think both the lifestyle change and reaching out to others will be good for us, not just monetarily but socially and emotionally as well.

Off Topic: Hi visitors from Get Rich Slowly

I commented on an article on Get Rich Slowly (one of my favorite blogs) written by Donna Freedman (one of my favorite authors) and posted a link to an article I wrote about something similar for college students. Wow, the amount of people from Get Rich Slowly was amazing for a small time blogger like me.

This is the post from Donna on Get Rich Slowly http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/04/11/use-a-financial-fire-drill-to-prepare-for-the-worst-before-it-happens/
and my post here
http://frugalstudents.blogspot.com/2010/05/emergency-funds.html.
I would love to hear from those who traveled over here (and my small but loyal readership) about what they think of the two articles. What do you see as similar, and what do you see as different, between the two articles? Do you agree with the points or not AND why?

Groupon and upromise

Upromise is now offering rewards for shopping at groupon, the cash back amount is 8% for now. That is four time the amount of cash back you would get from ebates for the same purchase. The cash back amount may change in future and that is why I always check ebates, upromise and bondrewards before I decide which to use for cash back. Also, often these companies will allow double cash back on certain stores, sign up and check on eye on your inbox to find out which stores.

Also, I have a Sallie Mae saving account which transfer an amount over ten dollars from upromise into the savings account and I get a ten percent bonus from those transfers every February. So for now I definitely will be using upromise when I shop on groupon.

Update on the millionaire goal- April

As of April 1, 2011 I have $9337 in my investment account. I am $663 short of having $10,000, my first step in my millionaire goal. This month I will be depositing $68.30 into T Rowe Price but then will be rolling the Roth over to Fidelity and increasing the deposit to $218.30. This income will come from our rental, $200 and the 2% reduction in social security $18.30.
The remain $50 I will now be putting into savings until we save enough for disability/life insurance. By doing price quotes it looks like disability insurance will be $600/year and life insurance will be $100/year. We are still deciding which to do first, given that we cannot afford both.
It looks like I should have $10,000 (if the markets cooperate)by July of this year. My next minigoal will then be $25,000 where I can stop investing in target date funds and diversify myself using mutual funds.

The Ultimate Blog Party 2011

The Ultimate Blog Party has come around again, time for me to check out some cool new blogs and see if I want to add them to my daily check list (slidebar).
My only sadness with this, is I lost google adsense last year by joining the Blog Party because I had missed that joining was against their rules. Since then I have not found another advertiser for my site. Maybe someone from the Blog Party could give me some advice.
But on to the fun, I am hoping to get gift cards from the blog party to put towards the needs of my hypothetical child. I am getting married in may and my fiance and I plan to start trying for a child after that. I am very excited yet scared. This blog party I plan to start looking for advice on my future, not just the moneyside but how parents have been juggling everything.
My fiance and I have not decided if I will be a SAHM or work, it depends if I get into grad school or not and we find that out next march. For now I will work and be taking classes, though I plan to take some time off when our (future) child is born.
The sites that are doing the giveaways I like are A Review And Giveaway, sweepingme, TotallyDesperateMom, MomStart and Periwinkle Papillon. If I get one of these I would save between $50-$100 on needs for our future child.
I want to send out a special thanks to 4 hats and frugal for getting me started with UBP in 2010, you are amazing! She is reason I know about UBP and everyone should check out her site.
My blog is about saving money. From student loans to deals, I have it all, this is perfect place to learn how to be frugal. I focus on the frugal college student but parents will find it fun and helpful as well. My blog shows what to look for in student loans, how to find deals and how to become a frugal saver, who sooner or later will become a millionaire. So come and explore around, and let me know what else you would like to see.

Why I Dislike Airline Reward Programs

It may seem strange that I dislike airline reward program yet like hotel reward programs but they are set up differently. My first problem with airline reward programs are that the points expire. Many programs have extended the expiration date (it used to be a year, normally), to 18-24 months and also wave the expiration on the points if you fly within that 18-24 period or buy more points but honestly it still seems like a pain.

My second issue with them is I cannot find a credit card without an annual fee that links up with a airline. I can get cash back without an annual fee but no airline card? That just seems weird to me. Does it seem weird to anyone else?

Also, and this just may be me, I fly mostly southwest and Jet Blue, neither of which have business or first class accommodations and one of the reasons for belonging to a reward program is the bump ups, either in class or in room type.

Some people like the airline reward programs for access into lounges but I do not fly enough to care about a lounge nor do I see lounges being a great perk. Maybe if they included free internet I would be interested. But I still do not think it is enough to make me pay an annual fee unless I was flying at least once a month and maybe not even then. Off the top of my head I can think of two ways to get internet anywhere, not just in airport, either through a data plan on my phone or an internet card. That would give me what I want (internet) without an annual fee.

At the end of the day, I just don't see the benefit of an airline reward program unless you fly monthly and most students do not. Even my fiance who flies at least twice a year, normally three times a year cannot get any benefit from a reward program. Maybe when we are older I'll change my mind.