Third Guest Post

My third guest post is up at Trendy Cheapo http://www.trendycheapo.com/budgetliving/phd-student-saving-half-income/ and for once, my guest post had nothing to do with real estate!  The author of Trendy Cheapo is a fellow blogger in the Save 50 group and my post is about my efforts at achieving that goal.  I am not even close but getting there will be an amazing journey.  So, head over and let me know what you think of my progress so far!

Save money on the internet and saving time as well!!!!

Today I was talking to my roommate on how I convinced my mother to join ebates, a cashback website, for her online purchases, when I realized that I should check if petsmart had free delivery and was on ebates.  We normally get discounted gift cards from cardpool and then buy our food and litter from persmart.  But why am I taking my very limited time and going to petsmart if I don't have to?

I found out that petsmart has free shipping on orders over $49, plus there is an online sale going on which will save me 10% today.  So I ordered the cat food and litter to be delivered to my house with the petsmart giftcard which I had purchased at 90% of face value.  So I spent $60.88 at pet smart, on a giftcard that only cost $55, plus ebates will give me back $3.04 so really I spent about $52 for a purchase "worth" $61.  So, I saved $9 for less work than driving to the store, plus I did not have to waste our time.  Because it would have taken much longer to drive and shop than order online.  Don't you love when money savings are a time savings as well.  Most times I either need to spend a lot of time or money to do what I want, here I saved both.  What a good start to weekend!

Is anyone else found a money saving trick this weekend?


The links is this article are my referral links, if this is the first time you have heard of these websites and decide to try them out, I'd love if you used my links.

How are you spending your summer?

Summers are great times for students, it is a time of great opportunity.  Right now I am looking around at undergraduate students who are spending 10 weeks working a lab (being paid!) through the CLIMB UP program here at UB (http://www.buffalo.edu/climb/climb-up.html) which will help them decide if they want to go to graduate school.  Unfortunately, this kind of summer opportunity was never one I could take advantage of because I had to work to pay for college.  This meant that because my work was not alright with taking a summer away, I never took advantage of such a great program.  My husband did and it was one of the reasons he got into a PhD program and I only was able to get into a Master's program.

So, what if you don't want to get into graduate school or can't afford to take a summer off from work?  Well, you still have opportunities during the summer.  The last summer before my husband and I left for buffalo we knew money was going to be tight.  We had to pay for moving, save for an emergency fund, and save for closing costs because this was the Summer of 2009 and the government was giving tax credits for purchasing a house and in buffalo it is cheaper to buy then to rent.  So, we worked.  My husband picked up a second job as a referee because loves hockey.  I picked up as many hours as I could at work.  Summers are great for earning money.  As a student I was always, go, go, go.  But the summer takes away all those class hours, all that studying.  Even if you add in a lot of fun times, there is a serious amount of time you can spend working. 

Your work can be something related to your hobby like my husband's refereeing, or just picking up extra hours from your school year job like I did or it can be a small internship.

Internships can be great but many are unpaid.  So how do you find one which is paid?  Tap your network.  Ask professors if they know anyone who needs extra help during the summer, talk with people at you career center, cold call companies that you would like to work for and ask if they have any summer opportunities for students, any of these may work.  Even if all you are doing is making coffee and stuffing envelopes, you can spend the summer making more connections for your future career or your next summer's wage.

Maybe you are sitting there and saying, but the summer has already started, what can I do NOW?  Hit the pavement, start dropping applications off.  Yes, most employers have hired their summer work force but often this is when they drop the ones that are not working out.  Connect with your friends, see if their jobs need anyone.  Ask your parents if they know anyone who needs help.  But this is not the time to be picky.  If you are good with dogs and someone needs a dog walking in afternoon, TAKE IT!  This is your time to be a freelancer, find opportunities for yourself.  Does someone need a tween driven somewhere, grab that opportunity.  Make everyone in the neighborhood know, you are there to help.  Someone is cleaning out their basement for a yard sale, can you help for a share of profits?  You may not make much at first but in this connections matter and by the end of the summer you so busy you won't know what to do with yourself.

But don't forget to have fun this summer.  By the time you finish college, summer break will be a thing of the past, so take advantage of it. 

Updated Millionaire Plan June 2014

In May we decided to start funding my Roth IRA and to do so need to connect our bank accounts to Fidelity, and because of some technically problems that did not occur in May.  We did deposit $71.97 from our FIA credit card (https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/american-express-cards) but nothing else.  But thanks to the market we still have had some nice gains. We now have $19587 in our retirement accounts.

We do plan to add the $625 that we missed in the month of May but because my husband is changing jobs in a few months we are holding on to the money for now.  Sadly we are still short of our minigoal of 6 months expenses including COBRA by $1413 (total minigoal is $21,000) but I bet we will make our goal by our August update.  After that our next minigoal will be $25,000, my gross annual income which will allow us to diversify outside of target date funds and therefore will lower our expense ratios.

I dislike paying extra if I don't have to and in eight to nine month, I won't have to.  I am still a fan of target date funds for new or inexperienced (or even lazy) investors but I have spent the entire time I have been building up our retirement funds learning about investing using index funds and have a pretty good idea on what I want to do.  That said, because of my husband new job, things may change in what we chose to invest in based on their retirement offerings.  I never want to stagnate, I always want to keep learning and being open.  Part of being a student is learning how to learn and my schools have done a great job at teaching me that. 

Getting ready for college, different for males and females?

This is a hard topic to discuss, but an important one.  Rape and sexual assault are common on college campus.  The rape epicenter at my university is the undergraduate dorm, and that is common on many universities, according to the campus cops I spoke to at last years take back the night event.  A tweet was posted tagged with #YesAllWomen and said "Because when girls go to college they're buying pepper spray and rape whistles while guys are buying condoms".  A girl's first two weeks on campus is the time in which she is most likely to be raped.

Keep in mind that many people will have access to dorm rooms, even if both students sharing are careful with closing the door and locking and you can't guarantee that.  RAs, and maintenance people both have keys that can be stolen or more horrifying, used.  And, what happens when your daughter goes to take a shower and is not able to lock the door?  Freshmen are often required to dorm, but you can pay more to share an apartment which will have a private lock on both the bathroom and bedroom.  You can talk to both your sons and daughter about consent, alcohol and rape.  You can support your child if she comes to you and tells you she was raped, even if it was because she was drunk.  You may even be able to convince the school to allow your child to live off campus if you push hard enough.  I'd have the rape and sexual assault information about the area they want your child to live in hand. 

During college the average rapist rapes 5.8 times but they do not call themselves rapists.  Only when they are asked about the actions of rape do they admit it.  "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?" and 1/16 college men said yes.  Please explain that lack of no does not mean yes, a lack yes means no.  Teach both genders to stand up to sexist and aggressive comments. Know how to get help off your campus, because sadly the cops on campus answer to the president of the university so they may not help you.

This is suppose to be a time of excitement, of new experiences and growth, but growing up females means being aware of the risk of being female.  #YesAllWomen  Don't let this stop you from your goals but be aware of what is happen.  Speak up and talk.

Beer Brewing Club Now Open, the benefits of getting involved

My husband came home from the graduate student association monthly meeting with some fun news!  There are a group of graduate students forming a beer brewing club and the GSA (graduate student association) just gave them $300 for the school year.  My husband loves beer and used to brew a lot but lack time and money changed his habits.

He had been talking about getting back into brewing, but had not pulled the plug but THEN here comes the brewing club.  He can brew for free (and drink for free).  He was pretty happy about it.  Funny thing though, going to the GSA meeting meant that he learned about this a month earlier than everyone else and contacted with the organizers.  It really shows that getting involved can have some pretty nice rewards.

Has anyone ever gotten involved in something that had some nice fiscal rewards?

Updated Millionaire Plan May 2014

We are plugging away with our $625 invested again this month and we have a total of $19,118 as of May 1st.  That means we only have $1,882 to go before we reach our mini-goal of 21,000 (6 months of expenses, including COBRA).  So, if we keep this rate we will be there in three to four month.  We are so close I can taste it!  Our next goal after that will be $25,000, my yearly gross salary and if we keep up with our investing and market does not work against us, we will be there in nine to ten months. 

It is kind of crazy to me to see how close I am to having, what to me is, a lot of money.  This money is my freedom.  It allows me to make the choices that are best for our family and our future without worrying.  That idea is what pushes me to save when I want to spend more than I can afford. 

As a young person, especially one with student loans and a family, I'm being pulled in so many directs when it comes to money.  Should I pay my loans, invest, go on vacation?  What is best?  I have to make choices that are right not only for me but for my future self and rest of my family.  The more we can decrease our required bills and increase our income and assets, the more choices we will have.   And I like choices and freedom.  What makes you choose the way you do?  What is your goal?  What will it do for you?