Update on the millionaire goal- April

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

The Ultimate Blog Party 2011

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

Why I Dislike Airline Reward Programs

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

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

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

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

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

Points from Priority Club Visa

I just received my bonus points from priority club visa and quicker than I expected too. Normally opening a Priority Club Visa gives you 30,000 points but I signed up when they were having a special and earned 60,000 points. At 60,000 points I gained platinum status which allows me to get upgrades.

When I signed up for the Visa I was told it would take six to eight weeks after my first purchase. I received my card earlier this month so was very surprised to get the points so quickly. Except for the annual fee I am very happy with this card. It also does not have a international fee so when we travel to Canada we plan to use this card as well.

I used my points to get three nights stay in California right before my wedding saving myself about $300. With the free upgrade we got a suite for the normal "points price" so in effect we got an even better deal than we would have gotten with $300 cash.

New ways to make "money" on daily deals

I hope most people have heard of swagbucks, it is a search engine that uses ask.com and google and awards swagbucks randomly when you search. You can get a referral from me and start off with extra swagbucks if you have not signed up already.

Swagbucks is getting into the daily deal crazyness. If you go to their website and purchase a groupon or livingsocial deal through their website you will get extra swagbucks.

Personally I would use ebates when buying a groupon because they give cash back, not points and swagbucks when buying a living social deal.

If you do not have ebates, there is a link on my sidebar to sign up, you get $5 to start you off.

Update on grocery savings plan

My last two grocery shopping trips have been a mixed success, both times I saved more than $5 each time. However last time I still spend more than $55 but this time I spend less than $30 and was able to stock up on two twelve packs of soda. Also, I did a target run and got two packs of code red for $2.50 each using a sale and target coupons.

I have found two wonderful blogs to help me along the way, Happy Clippings and Tricias Frugal Finds. I have linked these two blogs to mine and will be following the matchups weekly.

New goal for the year

While I have been working and going to school we have gotten overly spendy with our grocery bill. We have been working on keeping our eat out bills low but I had let our grocery bill go. I have decided this is going to end. We have a budget of $50/week and we are going to stick to it. I found a couple websites that do matchups for wegmans (my preferred store) and one for tops (my non-preferred store but it is closer. I made our list for this week and we will be going shopping this weekend. I also rejoined the WIR (women in red) grocery hound on their new board, http://notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi. I'll report back on how well we are doing for both this week and the whole month.