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.

Join or create a buying co-op to save money

When I first started looking around on blogs to learn tricks to save money many people talked about how wonderful stores like Costco are.  But often unless gas is much, much cheaper and you drive a lot, as a single person, Costco is not a good deal.  But what if a whole group of people went in on the large box items together?  Sometimes then it is a good deal.  And what if one of those people can get free access to a big box store via their parents?  It might become a wonderful deal.

And you can take this idea further than just Costco.  A local butcher shop in Buffalo will occasionally have major deals on chicken and steak but you have to buy 40lbs in chicken or 15lbs in steak.  Besides the fact that 40lbs won't fit in my freezer, I can't afford 15lbs of steak.  But if a bunch of grad students chip in, we all can get a little bit and save a lot of money.

That is the idea behind co-ops, groups of people getting together to buy large amounts.  I have notice quite a few high end co-ops for organic groceries, but you can create your own as well.  So all you need to do is fine one person with a car, one person with a membership to a big box store and a few people who want to buy in and you are set.  Each person picks a store to watch and then a text or email to the whole group when a deal comes and everyone benefits.  

This collaborative approach towards saving money can save you money, time and space, all things many college students lack.  Are their any readers that have tried this before?  Or do you plan to try this during the new year?

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?

Three week grocery round up, with a Serious Fail!

Single week shopping does not work for us!  We averaged 68.97 every week and were careful, so very careful.  We did fine at the main store, but not good and we still spent at the "deal" stores because of course, we found deals. 

We were over a total of $8.97 which makes us owe $366.19 with a month to go till the end of 2014.  Granted only being over by 8.97 with thanksgiving in there is pretty decent, but we can't go with decent, we need good.  We could not shop one bit and still not be within budget.  And, not shopping won't work at all.  So my plan is to go back to once every three weeks shopping (though maybe I will stretch it to once a month, what do you think?) and do my best. 

This has taught me that screwing up is hard to fix, and much easier to just not screw up in the first place.  Now if I can just keep to that.  I am going to be keeping a better eye on my accounts, one reason I got mint in the first place and trying for some more cheap meals during this winter.  This is going to be a struggle for me, but one I fully intend to win.  See you soon.

Expenses During Buffalo's Snowageddon and Why They Pale Against the Real Fiscal Armageddon

People talk about the cost of working, and how you only need to save 70-80% of your income because your costs will go down when you retire.  This might be true for some people, but I don't think it is true for us.  We had a perfect example this week when we were stuck at home during a set of storms that hit the buffalo area.

Since we are home the food we are making is a little higher end (the meat store was open one of those days), the stove is on for longer, the electricity is on more and the heat sure is a lot higher.  Granted I am trying to do work while at home (and I do have a kid that makes that difficult) but I think most of the costs would be about the same.

However, I do have to admit I am not spending gas to get to work, which does save some money.  In this case both my husband and I will be working during the weekend to make the lost days up but if we were retired, we obviously would not.  That is about a $26 saving.  Granted my husband drives an hour each way for post-doc, five months ago that cost would have just be $6.  But let's go with $26.   Are the increase costs of staying home add up to $26?

The meat store was an increase of $5, plus some meals we normal eat on the weekends will have to be replaced for probably another $3.  But that is just $8, surely we did not spend another $18 just on utilities?  And honestly I am not sure.  I have not found an easy was of comparing utilities except for assume a 3% decrease of your costs by for every degree you lower the thermostat.   But that is monthly, plus we are not increase it for the entire 24 hour period, just while we are up. And that does not include water or electricity increases which I admit are very much increases while we are home.  Nor does it include the wear and tear of items at home.  Using my computer at home is likely to decrease years the computer useful for.  Same goes for the oven or microwave.  When I think about it, I don't think all of these expenses add up to $18, but there is a big expense I did not cover.

Health insurance
I spend a little over $140 a month for my share of health insurance, pre-tax.  My employer, well now, they send over $550 a month.  So really, I need an additional $550 plus the cost of taxes to cover my health insurance.  I know some people say, well what the ACA?  I am not holding my breath.  We might get something close but GOP won this last election and they want to get rid of it.  If the democrats don't come out in two years, we will have a republican president and congress and then ACA will be gone.  I can't trust democrats to get out and vote, because they don't.  So, I go with COBRA when I looking at expenses.

So, if compare your "working costs" against COBRA, I'm pretty sure you are going to come out ahead by working.  So please let my Smowmadegon encourage you to save and expect to spend more than what you live on now, because health insurance is not getting cheaper and we are just getting older. 

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.

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/.

Updating our millionaire goal!

My husband started a new job since he graduated from graduate school on Aug 29th.  One of the best ideas I have for students is find a job before you graduate.  My current employer (my husband's old employer) delayed paychecks for new employees by over a month and for many students that meant borrowing from parents or using credit cards.  Thankfully, this employer does not seem to do this.  However, with the job change we have a lot of change.

First change is a pretty large raise of $15,664/year, but that raise comes with quite a bit of expenses.  We bought a second used car with a loan (with a $117 monthly payment), my husband will be commuting about an hour each way along a toll road costing us about $6,200/year.  Obviously, with the new car comes a repair fund that we need to fund and car insurance, together costing about $1000.  His new job does come with a $400 savings because we don't have to pay student fees.    However, students who work as part of their education (like work study) or graduate students don't always pay FICA.  Students at my school only paid FICA during the summer so, we need to pay extra FICA costs totally $2690.  This means our total increase is $10894.  And we have not even gotten into taxes!  But I do have a reason for that.  We have decided to put all of the raise into my husband's new pre-tax 403b but that means finding other money for our increases.  Well, we found that money in what we now save in our Roth IRAs.  But is that savings enough?  No, it is not.  We only save $750/month which is $9000/year.  Where can we find the other $1894?

Right now I am not sure, to be honest.  But, I don't want to pay the extra taxes, so I need to find the money somewhere.  For now, it is coming from our rental income which cuts into our taxable savings, but I am looking at other things to cut, which will be a later post. :)
But on to the millionaire plan:

In order for me, The Frugal Student, to become a millionaire, I (and my husband) pledge to do the following (each year):

1. We will be contributing $1303.66/month to my husband's 403b
2. I am also contributing 3% to my pension (the max I can).
3. We also now have access to a daycare FSA allowing us to deposit $5000/year tax and FICA free for the little frugal baby's daycare.
4. We will be putting all of our daycare spending on FIA VISA which will deposit $140/year in my Roth.
5. Living frugally. 

  Using CNN-Money’s millionaire calculator with a conservative interest of 6%, I will see a cool $1 Million in approx. 25 years! That is right in line with when I want to retire!  But can I, a young person, retire on 1 Million?  That is the question, isn't it?

Saving money just by asking

As we were looking at our budget one thing that jumped out at us was the internet bill.  Even with the $5 savings by bundling it with our cell phone we still pay $40/month.  But verizon had discontued dryloop so even if we went down in speed we could not save money.  Or so I thought.  I mentioned this problem on the MMM forum (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/) and was told about dsl extreme.  However, the discounted rate was $24.95 for a year plus a $2.88 fee and then it jumped up to $34.95/month.  Did I want to do this, especially when it meant buying a new router?  Not really, but what other choice did I have? 

So, I turned to my husband and asked him to call verizon and let them know that we were wanting to switch to a new company because of the price, could they do anything to keep us from leaving?  And they did!  Not much, only $5/month and only for a year but where else can you save $60 for ten minutes worth of work.  That is $360/hour, I know I don't earn that much. 

Has anyone else saved money just by asking?  Who can you think to ask for a deal?  The worst anyone can say is no and if you don't ask, the answer is already no.

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.

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.

Updated Millionaire Plan April 2014

We are doing steadily well, we added $625 this month but our account is now worth $18,532, a $698 increase.  We plan to keep depositing $625 per month for the foreseeable future which means as long as we don't lose money we will make our first mini-goal of $21,000 (6 months expenses including COBRA) in about four months and our second mini-goal of $25,000 (my entire annual income) in about 10-11 months.  Obviously the market can either help us and we may get our goals sooner or it may hurt us and it may take much longer than four or  eleven months to beat these mini-goals.  But I am optimistic that we will make it to $25,000 within the 2014 tax year!

We have considered trying to increase our deposit amount but have decided that paying off our student loans, saving a emergency fund and moving fund at a higher priority right now.  As young people we have a lot of expenses vying for our money and very little money to spend so choices have to be made.  I am doing the bare minimum right now and hope to increase my savings over time as my income increases.

I am also looking at seeing if there is anything more I can cut without hurting my lifestyle too much.  I do want to have fun, and have some spending money but as I continue in my frugal life new ideas pop up.  Never stop looking and you will find ideas where you least expect them.    

How are your investments going?

It's that time of year! Scholarship Time!

Sorry folks, I know you wanted me to say it was Spring Break Time, which it is but for your college career, scholarships are more important than spring break.  When I was in undergrad it was hard for me to apply for scholarships.  I felt that time could be used making money at my part-time job or studying.  Why work so hard to find these scholarships when chances were, I would not get them.  I did get pushed into apply for a few and I did not get them.  But, I am still applying now.  You may be asking why?  And why would I be tell you folks to do so?

There are a ton of scholarships out there and yes the chances are not great but the more you do, and the better you do, the better chance of landing AT LEAST one.  And, winning $500 is worth a lot of time, about 50 hours for a student.  So, tell me, have you spent 50 hours working on scholarships?  I know I have not.  I have two that I will be working on, one due in April and one due in December.  I have spent about seven hours on the one due in April and it is almost done.  Once it is done, I plan to find one more.

It is hard to get excited about scholarship because the reward does not often come through.  But it can.  I know of many people, my husband included who received them.  People are not tricking students, and they want students to apply.  So, I give you this challenge during Spring Break give yourself a 3-5 hours and find and work on a scholarship application.  Five hours will mean my scholarship application will done and I will have found a second.  Let me know in the comment if you plan to try for this challenge.

Updated Millionaire plan March 2014

This is my first update after starting my $625 per month retirement savings.  We did very well this month, with a bit of help from the market.  We now are at $17834.  Our next goal is $21,000 which includes all of our expenses for six months plus COBRA.  We are still $3,166 short but are getting close very quickly.  If the market cooperates with us we will be there in about five to six months, well within our goal of having six months by the end of 2014.  

Our goal after $21,000 is $25,000, the amount of my gross income, as well as the amount we need to stop using target date funds, and diversify on our own.  That will lower our investment costs, increasing the money we keep to invest.  If the market does not crash, it looks like we may be able to get up to that goal in eleven to twelve month (March 2015).  But who knows, maybe the market will help us more, and we will beat both of these goals in 2014.

But, right now we are not looking for extra money to up our retirement savings.  I am happy with 15% while I focus on other money goals, like building up an emergency fund.  Within this year my husband graduates with his PhD.  That means our very secure income, won’t be as secure.  Once you graduate, be ready for turbulence.  That is why I am saving a bare minimum for retirement and focusing on here and now.  We are building an emergency fund and paying off debt.  Once those are done, we will start pushing up our retirement savings again.

Updated Millionaire plan February 2014

Now that I have a job, we have revised our millionaire plan and we actually have a goal in mind as well as a goal to beat!

In order for me, The Frugal Student, to become a millionaire, I (and my husband) pledge to do the following (each year):

1. Now that both my husband and I are students, we are not eligible for the saver's credits...
2. Therefore we are contributing $625 per month to our Roth IRAs (this is 15% of our salaries).
3. I am also contributing 3% to my pension (the max I can).
4. We also now have access to a daycare FSA allowing us to deposit $5000/year tax free and FICA free for the little frugal baby's daycare.
5. We have not done well on selling stuff so we shall be changing this around to try to find something to earn $10 extra a month towards our EF.  This will increase surveys, being part of experiments and possibly selling things.
6. Living frugally.  

Our previous plan was:

1. Contribute to the traditional IRA if it will make us able to use the saver's credit at the max of .5
2. Contribute $200 per month to our Roth IRAs depending on the saver's credit to determine where the money will be deposited
3. Sell stuff on eBay, craigslist and Amazon - $10/semester ($20/year)
4. Live Frugally - $1000/year (put into my EF



Using CNN-Money’s millionaire calculator with a conservative interest of 6%, I will see a cool $1 Million in approx. 35 years and 7 months!  So now you see why we have a goal to beat.  I am not waiting till I am 65 to become a millionaire. 
So what is the next step?  We will follow this plan until life changes and we will update as we go along.  If anyone has any ideas, feel free to throw them at me.

401k FINALLY rolled over to Vanguard- And it will never be added to....

The Frugal Student now has money at Vanguard.  My 401k rolled my money (about $4200) into a IRA without my consent or knowledge so I responded by contacting Vanguard and initiated a rollover.  It took over a month and a three way call with Vanguard and my old 401k provider to finally get them to give my money up.  I am very happy to be at Vanguard, though and will be started back up with my millionaire updates starting this month.

I chose Vanguard because of their low fees (.18% for my current account), but had avoided them until now because of their high minimums ($3000/account) and because Fidelity has a credit card which deposits 2% of my spending into an IRA.  Right now those credit card rewards are going into my husband's Roth IRA, and is the only retirement savings we have.   Once we are saving again, my husband Roth IRA will be moved to Vanguard as well, and I will open a Roth IRA at Fidelity to take continue to take advantage of the rewards, for as long as they last.

However, none of the money in my new Vanguard IRA will get added to which may in the future limit me on my IRA contributions and I may later decide to move that money to Fidelity.  The money in my 401k, and now in the Vanguard IRA was money set aside prior to my marriage, and therefore is all mine.  Well, as long as I do not add one red cent during my marriage.  Therefore I plan to keep that money separate from any marital assets. Some people may say I am planning for my marriage to fail, but to that I say, I get life insurance and disability not because I expect to get disabled or to die in the ten years, but to cover me, in case it does.  I came into the marriage with assets, my husband with debt, why should I not protect myself.  I could have done a pre-nup, but since most of my assets were in retirement accounts, why not just use the little legal trick and not add to those accounts?  A pre-nup can be set aside by a judge, keeping assets apart can't later be joined by the judge.

For those who are frugal students, don't lose the benefits of your frugality when you get married.  Protect yourself, and if your future spouse loves you, he or she will want to protect you too.  I know my husband was willing to sign a pre-nup before we got married, he even brought it up.  He benefited from my frugalness, but he did not want to take advantage of it.  And, to me, that distinction is important.

I'm anti-529, normally, but not right now! Now is the time to get one!

For background, a 529 is a college savings account where the money can be used for undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees (medical school, dental school etc).  The money you deposit is not tax-deductible but the profit is tax-free, just like a Roth IRA.  In some states, though, the state gives you a tax deduction as well, for example my state, New York State.  However, if you use money from a 529, you cannot use the federal tax credit for the education expenses.  A way to get around this, is use money from your 529 for living in the dorms, if you are attending at least half-time.  There is a program that allows you to live off-campus, but not all schools are part of the program.  Check with your school.

The downsides to a 529, beside not having the federal credit, include higher fees than other brokerage accounts, few choices and the ability to change funds only once a year.  Also, similar to 401k, and IRAs, if you remove the money for non-approved expenses, you have to pay a penalty.  Personally, because of these downsides, I avoid would prefer to avoid a 529 in many cases.  So, what would I normally recommend?  Well, do remember that you can remove any money in Roth IRA for tuition and fees for higher education, as well as any deposits, as long as you have had the account for five tax years.  I know what you are thinking, but what about retirement savings?! That is where having a 401k comes in.  If you are saving 20%, to cap out of your 401k, you need to earn $87,500.  The average person does not make that.  So, the average person can use their 401k for retirement savings and a Roth IRA for their children's college education.  Obviously, the lower income group would want to take advantage of the Roth IRAs for their retirement as well, which is what I am doing but once your income goes up, start using the 401k as well.

So why now am I recommending EVERYONE to get a 529, since I am so opposed to them?  Because right now, there is free money associated with it.  Bank of America started a website called grad save, which is like a baby registry for college savings which you then transfer the money you were given to a 529.  I honestly think it is silly, but here is the free money part.  For the next four days, they partnered with living social to give you a $50 gift card for $26.  You can only buy one card per beneficiary or owner.  However, doing this only took me 20 minutes.  What college student/ grad student earns $96/hr, which is what this trick is worth when you compare the amount of time it takes to do this, and what you get for it. 

So I opened a Vanguard 529 account with the minimum required ($25) because that is what company holds my state's 529.  I, then, opened a grad saving account and then went to living social and bought the gift card.  I received the gift card code within hours of ordering it.  I added the cash into the grad save account, and once the 529 is finished being set up, I will transfer the $50.  Once this happens, I will turn around and remove the money for class expenses for this year and close the account.

If anyone is interested in getting this deal, please feel free to use the link below to do so.

http://www.livingsocial.com/deals/491862?rpi=101339564&ref=personalized-link-box-101339564&rui=3021660