Fully Switched to Ting, And Loving IT!!!

My husband switched to ting four months ago.  We were on a family plan with Verizon paying $55-60/month together, and had previously talked about switching but had planned to wait till January when both our contracts were up.   But then his phone up and died on us.  We switched him to TING using a flip phone we got off freecycle.  We used a referral code so he started with a $25 credit so no matter what we would be ahead of the game.  Two weeks later he said, I'm buying a smartphone, ting is fine but not having a keyboard is not.  Up until then, both DH and I had dumb phones with a qwerty keyboard but that was it.

Since then, my dumb phone's speaker has stopped working for private calls, so all I can use it for is speaker calls and texting.  Therefore, I have been using google talk much, much more and since the person I text the most is my husband I have gotten used to using google chat for texting.  DH still has not paid a penny for ting because someone used our referral link and the first time one gives a referral one gets $50.  Every other referral is $25.  So, so far all DH has spent on ting was the phone, which he bought used for $120, and a case for $20.  I have still been spending $35/month and the savings of $20 has been going to pay off the phone and case.  We have budgeted $10/month for the phone costs but the case cost went into our miscellaneous spending.

This weekend I too bought a phone and case for the same amount of money (total $120).  Our bill now is $26 plus tax and since we set aside $10/month for phone costs, we will upgrade every other year, just like the big plans with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, but for much, much cheaper.  $36 compared to $55-60 and to even get that low on Verizon we had dumb phones, another person on family plan and often we had to spend some amount for the phone (often less than $50).  I am not sure we could even find a similar phone to what I have without paying about $50 which adds an additional $4 expense per month.

Since Ting is on sprint's network I have not seen much difference and am loving the money savings.  This does require some preplanning and money upfront but for us it has been a win.  What do you do though, if you don't have the money up front?  Well, you don't have to buy the phone from ting, you can buy it from amazon and you can earn gift cards from swagbucks so no cash required.

It will take bit to earn the swagbucks needed, so start now with an extra 150 swagbucks. You will start a third of the way to your first gift card.  If you are unmotivated like I am, you'll only get about $5/month but if you are like some of my friends who are always running swag videos in the background and playing video games on their site, you can get about $25/month.  So it is up to you, can you afford a new phone and a cheaper plan by the end of the school year?  Let me know if you are up for the challenge.  If you are up for it, start off with a free $25 by using my referral code.

Changing our side income strategy

A few years past, once my husband had taken his subsidized student loans out, I looked around for a place to put the money.  High yield savings accounts were only offering me about 1%, was there are better deal?  I found one, a high checking account offer 3%, with only 10 debit purchases, a monthly transfer in and online statements.  That extra cash became our yearly emergency fund (EF).  But as time past the deal got worse and worse.  First they increased the purchases to 15, then made a requirement that the purchase had to be above $5.  All the while, decreasing the interest.  By the time we closed the account it was only 1.85%, where a high yield savings account ranges between .75-1%.  And with knowing that most of our money would be gone come December to pay off the student loans, why should we keep it?  So we closed it and moved all the money to a high yield savings account.  But I will miss the $25/month in interest.

And that is not the only decrease we have had this year.  When we moved my daughter to her new daycare we found out that they did not take AMEX, so we got a VISA, but that only give 1.5% cash back instead of 2%.  But the VISA is better than the discover (the other card we used when AMEX was not accepted) which only give 1% (except for certain categories), so we started using the VISA instead of the discover.  But, we had been using the discover to get about $50 a year in CVS gift cards.  We did not get that this year and coupled with the serious lack of deals we ended up spending part of our food budget on expenses I did not expect to.  That does mean that we need to find extra money somewhere but how?

Normally that would have come from the yearly EF, but now my interest is pitiful and won't cover it. What else to do?  Well my husband and I discussed opening credit cards for the bonuses and we agreed to count this as part the side hustle.  Our agreement is that half of any side hustle money belongs to the person who side hustled and the other half goes towards savings.  We separate the saving as well.  If the money is tax free, like gifts or credit card bonus, half goes to EF and half to retirement savings.  If the money is taxable, all of it goes to retirement.  Right now we are trying very hard to stay within the 10%, and save any additional money in the Roth IRAs.  We are very lucky to be able to stay within it, so I want to get as much out of not needing to spend money as we can.
 
So what have we gotten so far?  Well my husband opened an account at key bank when they offered $250.  I did the same, but I'm missed the better deal and sadly they only offered me $100.  So far my husband got the $250 and I am still waiting on the $100.  But we need some non-taxable money in here, otherwise how can we fund the EF?  So we both opened credit cards.  He got a $100 bonus offer and I got a $200 bonus offer.  Neither have come yet, but I expect at least the $100 bonus to come soon.  We plan to rotate these offers at least every three month for the credit offers, so assuming we get $100, half to the person who found it leaves $25 for retirement and $25 for EF gives us $100 bonus every year. Not up to $300/year but it is getting there.

Granted I only can do this because we have great credit scores and sooner or later all the hard inquires will hurt that, but since we don't plan to buy another house for at least fives I am ok with that.   The next question is where else can I find money to put in my EF.  Any ideas from my readers?  My motto is to never stop trying to improve and I won't!

What have you changed this year?  How are you trying to improve, financial or otherwise?

Joining Moneystepper’s 2015 Savings Challenge

I found two amazing new bloggers last week, Simple Cheap Mom And Money Stepper.  I have been having a blast reading both blogs and highly recommend both of them.  Money Stepper has a great challenge for 2015 that both Simple Cheap Mom I have joined.  He has challenged people to make two goals, 1) increasing your net worth and 2)saving a portion of your income.  Given that I joined the blogger group trying to save 50% of your income, yet I am not saving 50%, I am always up for trying to improve.

In 2014, the highest savings rate I had was 30%, but I just got a COLA raise and in 2015 my employer is putting $600 in my daycare FSA, which given that I spend $9,900 annually on daycare counts as a raise too!  So I think I can improve even more in 2015.  My budget says I should be able to save 37% but I don't think that is good enough.  I am going to aim for saving 40% of my gross income which will require some pretty decent side hustles but also should increase my net worth by 50%.  It is a lofty goal, but I think I can do it.

So, what is your 2015 goal?  Will you join Money Stepper's challenge with me?

Gas is under $3/gallon AGAIN

And I am loving it!  Finally gas costs have dropped down and we are saving a ton of money.  I bet gas will go back up though, so I am not changing our budget one whit!   I am using the savings to make up for the overages we occurred when we bought our second vehicle, a truck with stick shift.  It is a lower MPGs than our car so we had planned for me to drive it and my husband, the one with the long commute, to drive the car.  We overspent the entire first month because I was learning to drive stick and DH was driving the truck 120 miles per day, every day.  Plus his old job paid a lot less and we budget based on the last month's earning so our budget that month was a lot lower.

So how much are we short?  We are short $370 as of today but I expect to cut that about $200 by the end of the month.  So, if we could keep the low price for two more month I'd be ecstatic!

Will I change my budget if by then, gas is still this low?  Sort of, actually.  We don't have enough set aside for car repairs and would have to dip into our EF if something huge happened so I'd like to save more for repairs, and any extra money will go there.  But I'd never budget it towards anything else, because you know that gas can rise and with it food costs and I don't want to be stuck.  Any savings from a discount, IMO, should go straight into savings.

What have you changed now that gas is cheaper?

Paying Off My Husband's Grad Student Loans! How did we do it, and why did we have them?

My husband is within a month of the end of his grace period for his grad student loans and we are able to pay them all OFF!!!  A bill that would cost us $195 a month for 10 years will be gone with one click.  How did we do this?  Well, to learn that we have to go way back, to 2008.

DH and I were not married then but dating.  And we just started to talk money.  I found out he had $25,000 in credit card debt.  However, no student loan debt.  But, you know if you have to pick one, student loans can be better than credit card debt (at least the interest rate).  So we sat down and talked and came to a plan.  He decide to make some major cuts, and we changed much of our dating behavior.  He also increased the hours he worked.  Then, he called every credit card up and ask for a lower rate and for most of them, he got it!  But not all.  So next, he started looking a student loans.  I had just gotten a student loan for my last year of college, from discover.  They had no origination fees and because they were subsidized no interest for the year.  He jumped on it and moved $5500 of credit card debt into student loan debt.

Then, as he starting pay the debt down the 0% offers came rolling in.  He moved the rest of his debt to 0% offers (with 3% fees) and continued to pay the debt down.  Life went on.  We both applied to grad school and he got in but I did not.  He proposed and I agreed to go with him to buffalo.  At this time, the 10% tax credit for buying a house, up to $8000 was into effect. We started looking at rent, and house costs and realized we could buy a duplex and spend the same on the mortgage as we would for rent.  But with what down payment?  I had never spent the $5500 student loan I had, plus I had set aside $7000 in my traditional IRA for grad school so I could cover a small downpayment and lucky for us, duplexes in buffalo were going for $60,000-80,000.  We could afford a small one.

But, that was great and all but what about getting to buffalo.  That would cost $3000 plus renting while we were finding a place.  We had the summer to make this money up, plus we needed another $3000 for closing costs.

So we went to work.  We both picked up extra shifts at work plus he picked up a second job.  We cut the budget further and planned a tight budget for when we got to buffalo.  By the end of the summer, we had all the money we needed plus his debt was down to $5500 in student loans and a little less than $9000 in credit card debt.

We camped out as we drove across the country, living mostly out of food bought in the grocery store (which we stored in a cooler given to us by my mother).  We did get a couple treats but that was it.  We landed in buffalo, found a place to rent and off we went to find our new home.  It took the entire semester but we found a place that we bought for $60500 and closing was covered by the seller.  That meant our $3000 could be used as an EF.  And as soon as we closed DH moved the credit card debt to student loans ($8500), again being subsidized they charged no interest.

I was still trying to get into grad school, but having no success.  We started fixing up the duplex and I looked for a job.  I found a server job, making decent money ($20,000 for the year) that I used to pay for our wedding, and pay for the classes I was taking, to increase my chances of getting in the Master's program.  We finally found tenants and that money went into our Roth IRAs.  We got married as I kept beating my head into the wall of grad school admittance and finally got in.

However, beginning in a Master's program I received no aid and this was just when we found out that graduate students would lose subsidized loans.  So to cover me, DH took out another year of subsidized student loans ($8500), just in case.  However, I had enough from working that we were ok.  Then we found out I was pregnant.  Kind of scary, but we were not going to let it stop us.

We ended up using the rental money for daycare, plus we did get some tax aid.  But all through this, the $8500 sat with our $3000 EF in our high yield checking, growing and growing.    We kept the budget tight and soldered on.  Then something wonderful happened, I got into the PhD program and with that came a $25,000 annual salary.
We saved 15% of our income but the rest was split between daycare and debt pay-off.  Now, being in the program 11 months, we have enough to pay off both student loans, and yet still keep that $3000 EF.   We were lucky to get all of these breaks but we took advantage of them as they came along and work hard to get there.  And the reward is coming.  One less debt over our shoulders by the end of the month.

Get out of the dorm! Save money by moving.

The semester starting to wind down and exams, papers and craziness is starting to ramp up.  But take a few minutes to see if you could move out of the dorms and save some money.  Depending on where you are, living in the dorms may be cheaper than renting a room or much, much more expensive.  How do you decide?

Well you need to add up all the costs associated with each.  Sometimes when you rent, utilities are included, like the dorms but often if you rent directly from a landlord instead of just a room, that is not true.  Ask the landlord what the average utilities costs are.  Google internet in your area and get an idea of that cost. Obviously there is no reason to have a landline because you have your cell, so ignore those ads.  You'll need a way to get to school, should you live near-by or farther out?  That depends if you work and if you have car.  If you don't have a car and can find an apartment on a bus line, that is often better than buying a car.  Remember you are likely to move once you graduate.  Never the less, include the cost of transportation if you did not need in, living in the dorms. Also, remember to add in food costs because you won't need a food plan once you are living on your own.

Then add up the dorm costs and remember to include that food plan!  Once you have everything added up, compare them.  Which is a better choice for you?  If staying put is better, obviously don't move but if moving is better check if you signed the dorm contract for the semester or the year.  If it is for the semester, then plan to move into a new place come spring semester.  If it is a year lease, then you have to do more work.  Every university has someone who oversees the dorms and if you are nice, they may be willing to allow you to break the lease without a penalty.  They don't have to, so don't be a jerk about it, but the answer is always no, if you don't ask.

Come January we will go into how to find a good apartment, from both a tenant and landlord perspective.  See you soon.

Over Your Head: living paycheck to paycheck

A friend posted on facebook about trying to save but not being able to because every week there was new "surprise" bill.  She said she has cut every personal thing and still, she can't get above water.  Sadly, many of my friends agreed.  Honestly I was flabbergasted because some of her bills were not surprises, like car insurance.  But, when you are living on edge, I guess they can.  Personal finance bloggers often say, pay your car insurance bill every six month, but if you can't save that little bit every month, how does that save you money?  However, if you can pay your car insurance every month, you CAN pay it every six months.  It just takes a change in attitude and planning.  So, let's be about it. shall we?

Often people are told to make monthly budgets but that sets you up for "surprise" bills that only come every six month or annually.  I recommend everyone make an annual budget and go from there. 
My budget looks like this:
 

Grocery

mortgage

house insurance

car insurance

taxes of house

car

gas

utilities

internet/phone

house repair

fun money

medical

misc.

school cost

cat

life/disability

daycare

baby expenses

Gifts/xmas

hockey

travel

Every bill I could think of is on there, and then under it is a list of things to add to the budget when I get more money including replacement costs of things like computers, large household items like a fridge or stove, everything.  I may not be able to put money in everything but I can start.  That helps me know where to put extra money if I get it or if I get a raise, if that ever happens.  
Can you see something is missing though?  I have no emergency fund on that list.  And I have a very good reason for that, my extra money goes to my emergency fund (EF).  Most of that money is from the rental but also little things like if I use amazon gift cards, that I get from swagbucks, instead of cash, I put the cash in my EF.   Everyone does need an EF, though many young people don't have one.  And that means putting those surprise bills on a credit card.  But even if the EF starts with $5 a month, that is a start.  And for young people starting is the most important thing.  Once you start thing snow ball.  Many of my bills are annual or semi-annual so I have a slush fund every month and except for a few months out of the year the slush fund grows (and throws a little interest into my EF).  So, what are some things you can do TODAY to stop living paycheck to paycheck?
Join swagbucks
Join My Points
Find a cheaper insurance company, my choice is Geico but check EVERYWHERE
Join ebates if you shop online
For that matter, see if shopping online is cheaper
If you pay for electricity, unplug everything!  Don't leave your computer plugged in or put it on a power-strip.

And if you are buy your own groceries check out money saving mom and cut your groceries spending at least for the one month.
By the end of the year you will have enough to change your car insurance to every six month which will save you an additional dollar.  And all of that will add up to a small emergency fund that will keep growing.   Just don't stop, keep the snowball growing and in no time you will not be living paycheck to paycheck.
If you have an idea that will help people stop living paycheck to paycheck, let us know in comments! 

Learning to be Frugal Young: The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Future

When my husband and I were dating and applying to graduate schools, he got in and I did not.  And, strangely enough, that was the best thing for us.  We moved to buffalo with a very strict budget because we wanted to buy a house and take advantage of the 2009 tax credit.  We had discovered that our mortgage would be about the same as rent, if we bought a duplex on my husband's salary.  If we both had been working, maybe we would have bought a more expensive house, may not.  Maybe I would have bought our house all on my own, (we were not married then) and DH would have paid off his debt quicker.  But what I do know is that our budget would not have been so strict.  We had $5/week each for fun money and date money of $10/week.  Prior to moving to buffalo I had $20/week of fun money just for myself.  If we had not had so little money to spend, we would have kept the fun money at such a high amount.  But, because of our lack of money, we did not.  And that means I am used to only going out to eat once a month, or waiting for a DVD of a movie or even finding deals to catch that movie we want to see in the theaters.

We also spent very little on groceries.  We spent $30/week at the grocery store and $40/month at angel food ministries (which has since closed).  That was it.  It was not fun and the first thing we did when my husband got a raise was increase the food budget.  But that means we know how to cut the grocery budget down and that has helped us, when we ran over budget during the first half of the year and now have to cut way down. 

Those two are just small parts of our whole budget and we worked hard to be as frugal in every part.  This meant that when our daughter was born, we could afford daycare while I went to graduate school for my Master's.  It means that now, with my husband doing a post doctoral fellowship and me getting my PhD, paid, we can afford daycare and to save 30% for the future.  We are a long way from saying 50%, which is our goal or financial independence which is my ultimate goal but learning to be frugal is the base in which all of this is possible.  I never stop looking at our budget for leaks or trying to find better deals like geico affiliates or ting, both of which I learned about from http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/.

Grocery plan updates for a month and half!

We spent 107.44 wegmans, $31.53 for the warehouse club, $31.27 for tops and $7 meat store for a total for three weeks 177.24 which averaged out to 57.88 for each week from Sept 13-27th.  This is a savings of $20.76 from our "debt to the grocery gods" given that we went over during the first half of the year.  However, that was not enough.  Our goal was $48/week, with a reach goal of $45/week.  I am not surprised we went over because we needed to purchase both ground beef and chicken during those weeks. Hopefully we can stretch the meat so we don't have to buy more in the near future.  But still our "debt" to the grocery budget was down to $270.24 at that point.  But, life got in the way of posting so that was three weeks ago, so where are we now?

Well we spent $179.55 at wegmans, $7.89 at tops, $7.67 at the warehouse, and only $4 at the meat store because I was out of town last weekend.  This means we spent $199.11 over the three weeks, which is $66.36/week.  We went over our weekly max of $66/week from the grocery annual budget and now are in more "debt" to the grocery gods.  We now owe $271.35.  And the year end is getting closer and closer.  Do you think we might be able to make it?  Obviously we won't be spending anything this weekend.

We have ten weeks to go, and in there is Christmas and Thanksgiving in there.  Maybe we will get lucky, but we are cutting down the wire and we have eaten much of the food in the house that allowed us to cut down earlier this year.  Our normal budget allows for $66, so cutting $27 off would be $38.  We can't get below $50 so I doubt we can get to $38.   But this experiment has taught us how low we can go and how easy it is to go over.

First three weeks of my new grocery plan: Complete

So, as I look back over the last three weeks, I did not achieve either of my goals, either my safety goal or my reach goal.  See my previous post on my goal and why my goal is $50 or less and my plan for achieving it here: http://frugalstudents.blogspot.com/2014/07/biannual-review-time.html .

I am disappointed in myself and sort of worried that we won't make it.  We spent $92 at wegmans, $23 at trader joe's, $12 at the meat store, $11 at tops market and $28 at BJ's warehouse for a total of $166 for three weeks.  This averages out to $55.33/week.  That means I have to spend less than $45/week for three weeks to make up for this OR find a way to consistently spend less than $49/week for the rest of the year.

So what caused this higher spending?  First, I neglected to account our spending at the meat market. Also, I found a few more items that were cheaper at BJ's than wegmans's, including one that was only cheaper because of a coupon BJ's sent me.  Third, we went through our fruits and vegetables faster than I expected and we did a top off at trader joe's.  Fourth, tops had a sale on my sodas in two litters and I stocked up.  I am noticing a trend here, I stock up ALOT.

So, what is my next step?  Well, logically I won't need to spend as much at BJ's because we have stocked up but what if I find another deal?  Maybe I should leave that amount alone for now?  Given that I neglected to even think about the spending at the meat store tells me I should take a closer look, and maybe cut that down.  My goal will be to cut that by half, down to $6.  Next, because of those larger purchases I am hoping to spend less than $92 next week at wegmans.  The best goal would be $67 but I don't think is possible so I am going to try to spend less than $92 at wegmans.  Combined this should set me up to spend no more than an average of $50/week. 

This does not mean I'll break even, I'll still be over budget BUT I think that I will do better by slowly cutting down than any huge cut.  I had a hard time the last three weeks with not just saying screw it and going out to eat and that costs me more than a $16 extra dollars I spent.  There is also a chance I'll spend nothing at tops over the next few weeks because that depends on the sale and deals and sometimes those just are not there.  I am going to get used to the first $16 cut and then work my way down as needed. 

Biannual Review Time!!!!

My husband and I are in the process of organizing our ENTIRE life, including our finances.  One way to do so is to have an fiscal review time.  Back when I was staying home we reviewed the finances monthly, but honestly I did not have time once school and our daughter came.  So we decided we would get together and review our finances twice a year, once during the summer and once during winter break.

However, after this review I don't think we are reviewing enough and we need to be more in touch than we have been.  So, bad news first, we are $400 over in spending for groceries.  Wow, that is six whole weeks of grocery spending. Thankfully we did our review before our major grocery shopping trip and because of finding this out, we made some changes.  Normally we do a major grocery trip every other week and then go to trader joe's for fruit and other items only at trader joe's the opposing week.  We also do runs to cvs and tops market when there are good deals.  Part of the problem was that there have not been many good deals from cvs so we have been spending our normal cash on non-food items like paper towels, bathroom tissue and such.  Also, I have not been spending as much time getting the gift cards from mypoints as I could because my life has been so crazy busy.  But, I need to organize myself because I can't be that crazy busy for more than six months without changing something about my life.  But we will get back to that later.  What are we doing to save that $400?

Well, we cut out all of the "fat" from our grocery budget and were about to get down to $92 for the next two weeks.  But, I think we can stretch that food to three weeks if we hit trader joe's and our new store BJ's warehouse.  Our new plan will not include a major run every two week, but every three weeks, allowing for a run to BJ's warehouse and trader joe's in the weeks between, which does mean stretching the time between trader joe's visits as well.  This should save us some time as well.  Even if we spend high at trader joe's and average at BJ's, we will average about $41/week for the next three weeks if this works.  This does mean that we are eating out of the freezer and cupboard at lot so we won't be able to keep this low of spending but we should be able to get close to my goal of $50/week for the rest of the year this way, I think.  I will be reviewing this in three weeks to see how we did and I will report back!  I am also on the looking for more meals that can be made cheaply.  We also will be relying on our very small garden.

Because of our schedules our garden is mostly dead.  We have one tomato plant holding on, two basil plants barely holding on, our apple tree and the multiple blackberry bushes.  Right now this means I can get a few basil leaves a week and a small handful of blackberries every day.  I am going to use the blackberries to stretch our budget.  Then, when the apples come in, we will do the same with those.  We are lucky to have these fruits that will really help our budget, but that is not just luck.  Part of why we chose this house was the tree and we planted the blackberries three years ago because I know I don't have a green thumb.  Blackberries are one of those plants that acts like a weed and is very hard to kill.  If you don't have much time, or are like me and kill plants, a blackberry bush can be great if you plan to live in your home for over three years.  Pre-planning when you have time can have great benefits in the future when you become busy. 

But on to the better news!  We ended under budget for miscellaneous expenses, like hair cuts, small appliances, etc which is surprising because we had to buy a new printer and I thought that would mean going over.  One of the reason I try to be strict with myself is so if issues happen I don't have a major problem.  Guess that did not work on the groceries, sigh.  Again, on to other expenses.  We are within budget for utilities but I would like to cut those down a little more so we are trying to cut down on dryer usage this summer. Everything else is pretty similar to utilities, within budget but I am still looking for more ideas to cut. 

Does anyone have ideas they have used for cutting expenses that they would like to share?  I always say "never assume you can't do better" and therefore am always on the lookout.

Frugal student has added a new hat!

The frugal student is now a frugal mom of a precious newborn baby girl. So I have added another angle to my life and another "hat" as one of my favorite blogs, http://www.4hatsandfrugal.com/ calls it.  I now am a student, a landlord, a wife and a mother.  Let the craziness begin.
I do plan to take a page from another favorite blog, http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/, and track how much I spent and spend on the baby.  I do also plan to include some of the eating out during the pregnancy, since normally I just would have gone home.  Look for the first post of that series soon.

I've learned a lot over this pregnancy and my time in the hospital.  Prior to this I was like so many of financial blogger, planning down to the last penny.  Well, I have figured out that does not work when it is not just you,especially when you are in transition. When you are in transition, having flexibility as well as a budget seems to be key.    So is savings to be honest.  We did not have flexibility in our savings because I thought I had figured all that I needed and I found out I got into graduate school a few days before I found out I was pregnant so not much flexibility there either.  So how did we make it work?  Well, we got creative and we asked for help.

I let people know that we planned to shop at consignment stores, so they knew we would take used items.  A professor who had just finished having kids heard and gave us a lot.  Obviously I also did shop at the consignment shop as well as craigslist and got some great deals.  Also, we took help when it was offered.  One of my friends threw me a baby shower and my husband's family did the same when he went back to their area for a conference.  We received a bunch of things we had already budgeted to buy, as well as other useful items we would have never thought of.  This, thankfully, gave us some flexibility, which we definitely needed because we missed a lot of things, including not planning for an insurance miscommunication which cost us over $100.  Also, once I got into graduate school, I knew that we would get a federal tax break on my tuition costs.  I added it up and realized that I could add an additional exemption for 2012.  This gave us some higher cash flow during my pregnancy, instead of a large refund in April.  You might wonder why I don't expect to get my refund earlier than April.  I have classes, my daughter, sleep, lab work, a rental to list and show in March and April as well as this blog to do.  I have inputted some of our tax information but we do have a lot between both my job and my husband's, the rental, the interest payments (consider a high yield checking if you have an EF) and our tuition expenses.  I also have to keep up with regular bills.  Taxes will probably end up on the backburner for a little while.  If I have extra time, I'll do them early but I won't plan for it.

I have discovered that being a college student and then having a kid comes with a strange benefit.  College students are used to running on low sleep for short periods of time.  My husband and I have been catching cat naps of 3 hours at a time and are still coherent a week later.  Since he is back at work already, I kicked him out of the room last night so he could get a full night sleep, and he will spell me this weekend.  Hopefully between the two of us, we can keep in up for the six months it takes for little ones to get better at sleeping at night.

So that is what is up in the crazy life of the frugal student. 

Millionaire Update- Starting the New Year

We continue to grow our retirement savings and are now at $13,867.  Though we will be not be investing any money into retirement until at least September, I am pretty pleased.  Over this last year we have done very well, both because of our investing and because of the market.

We are, though, considering pulling a small amount our of my Roth IRA.  Last year I opened a Roth IRA with ING Direct and received $50 for leaving $200 in there for three months.  At that point we were only investing my husband's Roth, therefore my Roth has just sat in ING, earning very little.  I was planning on moving it to Fidelity and starting my own Roth IRA there (I have a traditional IRA only), however once I got into graduate school plans changed.

We will need about $8000 more to pay for classes than we have from cash flow.  We have the options of either using my husband's subsidized student loans from last year (we have a max available of $8500) or pulling a bit from retirement.  Part of me wants to remove the ING savings because we will have to start paying back the loan before I am done with school at it will be earning an interest rate of 6.55%.  Also, because I am not earning much in ING, I am less concerned about keeping the money in the Roth IRA. 

We also have moved my 401k from my old employer to Vanguard to lower the fees associated with it, so hopefully we will make some decent gains from that.  Even if you are a student and are going into debt, there is always something you can do, to improve your future.  I need to work on remembering that, and I bet others do too.  I read on blogs about people saying huge amounts, or paying down debt and I want to do so, but the money is just not there.  But every cent I save, is less that I will have to pay back in the future.  That counts too. 

2012 End of the Year Round Up

This month I added $105.46 to my husband's Roth using our FIA Card services cc rewards.  This was not the only time I have used credit card rewards to help fill out our budget.  This year I have gotten a total of $255.46 from FIA towards retirement which is about 1% of our income.  1% may not seem like a lot but it can seriously add up.  And honestly, right now is the best time for us to be saving for retirement.  Not only do we benefit from compound interest, but our loans are at the lowest they ever will be at.  Right now all our student loans are deferred, so all we have is the mortgage at 4.75% and a personal loan of 3.49%.  Once my husband graduates he will have $17000 in graduate loans at 6.55% and $5500 in undergraduate loans at 5.75%, and then when I graduate I'll add on another $5450 of undergraduate loans at 5.75%.  Once we are paying those higher rate, it will be hard to throw all extra money into retirement, so any bit now, will help then.  Before I found out that I had gotten into graduate school, we were putting money aside for retirement.  Total with the FIA rewards and our own savings we put about 5% of my husband's salary in retirement.  Naturally, if my husband and I were not students we should be saving 16%-18% of our salaries, but I think for students even a few percentage of your annual salary is enough. 

We also have gotten $150 worth of cvs gift cards from discover. Normally it would be a lot less but I paid for my school fees with discover this year.  I love that my school takes discover without any additional fees.  These gift cards have helped us stretch our grocery budget, along with the grocery game, using iheartcvs.com.  I don't think we did as well here as we could have because: 1)we were lazy and 2)we were extremely busy.  Also, I was adjusting to eating differently because of being pregnant and shopping for that, so that could affected it as well.    We did get better at using coupons for only what we needed, but we splurged a little too much.  Next year I am going to work on improving our grocery budget and not going out to eat.  We still have about $75 from the cvs gift cards so that should help next years budget.  I am still trying to think of ideas to be more organized in regards to cvs.  I am pretty good at checking deals at tops, and staying on top of them.  I don't know why I am so bad with cvs.  If anyone has any ideas on how to get better organized, I'd love to hear them.  I am going to start planning meals better, and getting back to using the crockpot.  Does anyone have favorite crockpot meals?

While I was working, this year, we paid out of pocket for my classes, and put money aside for the baby.  However, we did not save up for the rest of my classes ($11,000 between the two semesters).  We have been using the money from our renters ($550/month), after expenses to pay for the classes but we are still short.  Therefore we had to dip into the student loans my husband took out a year ago and set aside, when we found out about graduate students losing the ability to get subsidized student loans.  This does cause a problem because my husband will have to start paying back the loans before I graduate.  This does mean that I am going to try to cut back even more next year.  Every cent I save, is a cent that can let aside to pay off these loans.  I think I am going to start giving myself one hour per day to work on being frugal, if that is couponing, doing a survey or writing a meal plan.  This will do two things, help me decrease costs and help me work on organization before the baby comes.  Readers, how do you keep organized?

My weekend plans include loading every item we have in the kitchen, into supercook.com.  We keep buying things that are good deals, but not using things up.  I am going to make myself make at least one recipe from supercook per week until the baby comes.  This will help me keep to my budget, and will help us discover new things to eat.  Part of why we are eating out, is because we are getting bored with what we have to eat at home.  How do you fight boredom with meals?  I'd love advice.

I also received $50 in amazon gift cards from swagbucks.  This was lower than years previous and I believe it to be because I do not have the swagbar on my ipad and have been using that most often.  How am I going to ramp up the amazon gift cards?  Well, this will be part of my one hour of frugality per day.  There are free swagbucks for listen to certain swagTV shows, often only a few minutes, which I can do while I do other frugal tasks.  This should help bump up the amazon gift cards a bit.

However, I did get a $10 home depot gift card from https://www.recyclebank.com/ this year as well as an extra $1 coupon I wanted, for an item we would have purchased anyway.  Given that I normally get about $60 from swagbucks, this does make up for the loss of the amazon gift cards.  I hope that next year I earn another $10 gift card from recyclebank, while still making $60 from swagbucks.  We will see if I can achieve it!   

I received no cvs gift cards from mypoints though.  I made enough to turn in for a $10 cvs gift card, but since we still have cvs gift cards from discover I chose not to redeem the points.  Normally, though, I make enough points for about $40 worth of gift cards.  I think this drop can be accounted for by the ipad use, and my crazy schedule.  My goal for next year will actually only be $25 worth of gift cards, because of the craziness.  It would be great if I am able to get more but I'll be happy with $25.

Overall I think I did less well this year than I wanted to, but that is one of the great things about being young.  I can take this year and learn from it and improve as I get older. 

College Student: No time or money, what to do?

When I go to most frugal blogs, many of the things they recommend to do take a lot of time.  It seems you can do things cheaply and spend a lot of time or throw money at a situation and spend very little time.  But as a student, we have no time and no money so what can you do?

Take advantage of the blogs of those who have already found the deals.  I live in Buffalo, NY so I check http://triciasfrugalfinds.com/ weekly to see if there are any deals I like at tops.  This saves me the time of checking the circular and online coupon sites.  Then, if I have time, I check http://www.iheartcvs.com/ as well for deals.  I used to check iheartwags.com and http://www.iheartriteaid.com/ but have decided that the time to organize all of that was not worth it and I had to cut it down to one store.  CVS is the best deal for me, because I get gift cards from discover and mypoints plus the EBs last longer than walgreens cash back system.

Also, give yourself a break.  Classes and lack of time because of class, ebb and flow.  Be the most frugal when you have extra time, and be less frugal when you have less time.  This week, because my exam was on Tuesday and lectures do not start up till next monday I will be doing a bunch of CVS runs as well as a Tops run (or two depending on the sales come Sunday).  Take advantage of rain checks when you can and ask for help when you need it.

It can take about three months to get into a habit so try to make a frugal goal per semester, and that can help you get good at one frugal trick, which can save you time.  Keep in mind what will give you the best bang for you buck (or time), because you have little of either.  Anyone have ideas for being frugal when also short on time?  Post in the comments if so...

The Frugal Student Is Going Back To School

As of August of this year I will be a master's student in neuroscience. This means less income and more expenses but it also means that I am one more step closer to my goal. It looks like the first semester cost will be $5615.75 plus books. Because graduate students are no longer able to take out subsidized loans as of this year, last year we took out $8500 worth of subsidized loans under my husband's name. Those loans will pay this semester, and most of next semester but will be due sooner than if I was still able to take out my own subsidized loans. So you might ask, what are we doing to keep costs down?
First, the school accepts discover, not just cash or check to pay for tuition without any fees so tuition will be paid by discover, earn me a $56 credit on my discover credit card. We will be turn $45 of that into a cvs gift card to pay for the grocery game. Secondly, for any books I need, I will be buying used and if the best price is on amazon I will be using my swagbuck earned gift cards. Third, since I will be going back to school, my undergraduate loans are going to be deferred again. That will save me $30 per month. Fourth, all money normally being save will be going to our new expenses, that includes: emergency savings, future car savings, replacement savings for computers and other electronics and of course all money coming from our rental, which means no more retirement savings. That will bring in about $540 per month, any month we have a tenant. We really are going to have to buckle down to keep expense low and not to get much more debt. Fifth, we will be taking advantage of the federal taxes laws and taking the credit for the student fees/tuition. We have already run the numbers and will be increasing our exceptions on my husband's W-4 to get more money per paycheck, instead of waiting till April of 2013. I am not sure how much this will save us, I will report back after we update the W-4. Any other ideas for frugal savings? Post in the comments.

Budget, How to Make One?

There are so many ways to make a budget and no one way is wrong. Making a budget is, like anything in personal finance, personal. Some people just put away a percentage of their income and spend the rest. Others make maximum percentages per category, for example 25% of net income towards housing.

But when you are starting off the best way to start is to figure out where the money is currently going. Start by taking a month and writing down everything you spend and by the end, you have the beginnings of a budget. But you won't be done there. There are many annual or semi-annual expenses people forget about, like Christmas or car insurance or even car repairs. Start with the monthly expenses and divide what annual or semi-annual expense by 12 or 6 months and put that in your budget as well.

Now, the big question is after all your expense do you have any money left over? And if so, how much? If it is 10-20% of your income, great! If not, you are normal and it is ok. But you do need to work in retirement and emergency savings into your budget. That means looking at your other expenses in your budget and finding ways to cut them down.

It took me about two years to get my budget and my spending the way I wanted them and I still have some improvements to make. Making a budget is not something you do once and forget about, it is a tool for most of financial life.

Do you have a budget? Do you think it is helpful or not? How did you make yours?

Update on grocery savings plan September

We did very badly this month. We spent $296.91 this month of groceries, however we did get a eight dollar rebate so I am only counting $288.91 for this month. This comes out to $72.23/week. Part of the reason for this, is we have just switched to doing our main shopping every other week and did two weeks worth of shopping on the twenty-eighth. Hopefully, that means September will be a low spend month. Also, we stocked up on soda, which we only do every twelve weeks, at rock bottom prices ($2.75/ twelve pack) but we bought 12 packs.

We are now at $2076.01 for 29 weeks, averaging out to $53.24/week. We are almost one hundred dollars over budget for the year and only have thirteen weeks to make it up. This means, to still make my goal I need to spend $42.50 or less every month. Given I am having trouble with keeping to $50/week I don't think that will happen especially since soon we will not have on garden produce to use as supplement. On the other hand, we are very well stocked for meat and we won't need sodas for another three months, maybe I can do it!
Anyone have ideas on how to do Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners without increasing my spending? If I want to get down to $50/week I sure can't overspend for those meals.

Saving Money on Food

I've worked hard on keeping our expenses down this year. We have so many places where we could be spending money it is sometimes hard to juggle. Our weakest point in our budget is our grocery spending and our spending for eating out. Over this last year my husband and I have worked hard on getting both under control and I think we have done pretty well.

We use our crockpot often to avoid the want to go out eat, because we "don't have anything to eat", we also keep a frozen pizza in the freezer for an easy night. My husband and I switch off cooking and that helps a lot. When we do go out we use often groupon or living social to find a good deal. We do have favorite restaurants that we do pay full price but it is rare. Honestly, the hardest part about not eating out was getting used to it. Now, I rarely really want to go out but it took over six months to get over the want to go out every week.

Grocery shopping and staying under budget took some time too. At first we were staying under budget but running out of food by the end of the week and not eating well. We started eating better and started spending more but we could not afford it in the long term. We found a great store for cheap meat, started finding the stores with the cheapest prices and the store that was best for cherry picking. Cherry picking means that most items were more expensive at this store but certain deal would be very cheap and worth it to stop by. We started using coupon match up blogs and planning our meals around what we had in the freezer, cabinets and what was on sale. We also planted a small garden, we are in our second year of it. Over time we got our spending down about $20 and we are eating extremely well. It does take some planning and some time but it is so worth it to me.

Update on grocery savings plan July

I've reposting this post, it got deleted accidentally. I missed posting this at the beginning of last month (July). I spent $148.20 for the month of June which averaged out to $37.05 per week. That was an amazingly low amount and I'm still not sure how I achieved it. I bought using sales and coupon and ate out our garden but still, it is much lower than I expected. I still ate well, with vegetables and whole grains and even had some treats. I am very happy with this month. This has helped get my grocery spending down to under $50/week as an average over the last 30 weeks.

Let us so how low we can go together. Anyone else have great ideas on keeping grocery expenses low while still eating well?