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. 

Millionaire update- November

Time for another millionaire update.  Even without depositing anything into retirement this month. we have increased our assets by $31 thanks to the market.  We now have $13,513 set aside for retirement.  Since we have no money to deposit for awhile, I sat and thought about what we could do, in regards to our retirement.  We have decided to move my old 401k over to Vanguard.  That should lower some fees and may help the market increase our assets. 

But, just as we have been lucky lately, the market could do a down turn at any minute and lose money.  I am ok with that because we have over thirty years but I wonder how many parents have their children's 529's invested all in stocks when their children are close to starting college?  Or how many parent have their own investments all in stocks when they want to retire within 10 year? 

Becoming a millionaire is not just about putting money aside but also what you do with that money.  I might not have any money to put aside now, but I can always find something to help our fiscal situation if I try hard enough.  How about you, what can you do this month to improve your fiscal situation?

There is a "cash back" offer for amazon

I, like most students, love using amazon.  We mostly use swagbuck earned giftcards, but will use the amazon chase if we are spending more than we have earned from swagbucks.  However, today I have learned of two better ways to get "cash back" or similar when shopping on amazon this holiday season.

First, discover is allowing 5% cash back on all online shopping, including amazon, up to $1500, until December 31st.  That is a better deal that three points for every dollar you spend on amazon, that you can get from amazon chase.  It does require that you sign up, but there is no cost involved.  However, not everyone has a discover, is there another way to get money back while shopping at amazon?  For some items, yes.

Swagbucks is offering for a limited time 6 swagbucks for purchasing any jewelry, clothing, watches, handbags and purses, shoes and strange category called MYHABIT. It does not matter if you a credit card or a gift card, you can still get points back from swagbucks.  Go to this link to start.   http://www.swagbucks.com/shop?merchid=793

Happy shopping everyone!

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...

Maximum Allowed Contributions for IRAs Have Increased!

For the first time in four years (since 2008) the maximum allowed contributions for IRAs have increased from $5000 to $5500. I know this may not help most students right now, but it will help in the future.  This increase is for both traditional and Roth IRAs.  The income levels have been increased as well. 

Limits for Traditional IRA in 2013

If you DO HAVE a retirement plan with your employer:

• Single or head of household: If your modified gross adjusted income (MAGI) is $59,000 (up from $58,000) or less, you can take a full deduction. If more than $59,000, but less than $69,000 (up from $68,000) – you get a partial deduction. If over $69,000, you cannot take a deduction.
• Married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er): If your MAGI is $95,000 (up from $92,000) or less, you can take a full deduction. If more than $95,000, but less than $115,000 (up from $112,000) – you get a partial deduction. If over $115,000, no deduction.
• Married filing separately: If your MAGI is less than $10,000, you can take a partial deduction. If $10,000 or more, no deduction.

If you DO NOT HAVE a retirement plan through an employer:

• Single, head of household, or qualifying widow(er): Any MAGI permits a full deduction.
• Married filing jointly or separately with a spouse who is not covered by a plan at work: Any MAGI permits a full deduction.
• Married filing jointly with a spouse who is covered by a plan at work: If your MAGI is $178,000 or less, you can take a full deduction. If more than $178,000 (up from $173,000), but less than $188,000 (up from $183,000), you can take a partial deduction. If $188,000 or more, no deduction at all.
• Married filing separately with a spouse who is covered by a plan at work: If your MAGI is less than $10,000, you can claim a partial deduction. If $10,000 or more, no deduction.

Limits for Roth IRA in 2013

The 2013 Roth IRA income phaseout limits are as follows:

• Married filing jointly or qualifying widow(er): If your MAGI is $178,000 (up from $173,000 in 2012), you can contribute up to the $5,500 max. If at least $178,000 up to $188,000 (both up $5,000 over 2012), your contribution limit is phased out. If $188,000 and above, you cannot contribute to a Roth IRA.
• Single, head of household, or married filing separately and you did not live with your spouse at any time during the year: If under $112,000 (up from $110,000 in 2012), you can contribute up to the $5,500 maximum. If at least $112,000 up to $127,000 (was $125,000 in 2012), your contribution limit is phased out. If $127,000 and up, you cannot contribute to a Roth IRA.
• Married filing separately and you lived with your spouse at any time during the year:If MAGI is between $0 and $10,000, your contribution limit will phase out. If $0, you can contribute up to the $5,500 maximum. If $10,000 and above, you cannot contribute to a Roth IRA.

If you want more information check out the IRS publication 590.

 There is no way I can put away $5500 for myself and my husband.  Frankly there is no way I could put away even $5500 total.  However, once I graduate this will start being very useful to me.  We plan to say 20% once we both graduate (we are older than most students) and this will allow us to stick with IRAs to do so until we earn $55,000.  And since often the prices of mutual funds is better in an IRA than a 401k or 403b, I am very happy.    Maybe in the next two years it will have gone up even more.

Millionaire Update-September 2012

I have been a bit lax in posting my month updates for our retirement saving, but I had to post this month.  As of October 8th, we have $13,482 in our retirement savings.  This is over half of our annual wage ($26,000)!!  Granted, if we retired now, we would need to pay for health insurance ($550/month) so it is not half of our annual retirement spending, but is a lovely start.  Sadly, other than credit card rewards from FIA Card Services, we will not be putting any money in until at earliest June of 2013 because I am back in school.  However, at least .2% of our income being saved ($50 credit we normally get annually from FIA card services), is better than nothing, so we will take it.  Hopefully the market helps us as well.  Is anyone else doing creative things so get more money saved for retirement?

Why I love credit cards

I have just gone back to school, in August and we will be having a baby in January both of which mean that cash is really tight, as is time. We stopping putting money away for retirement, plus cut a bunch of other expenses to pay for my class without any extra debt. However, I am disappointed that we cannot save anything for retirement given that I am 27 and my husband is 30. But funny enough, credit cards to the rescue. Working, lab work, prepping for school, and now school all together have made my life crazy (part of why I have not been posting much), so I have been cutting back on any non-required fiscal time. However, I had some free time today so I checked my fia card rewards and lo and behold I had 15,000 reward points which gives me $150 IF I deposit it in a retirement account. So, as of October 10th my husband's Roth IRA will be $150 richer. For us, $150 is .5% of my husband's wage. It is not a lot, or even enough, but it is a start and a great help when we otherwise would not be able to put anything in.

After that, I thought about checking my discover card as I was setting up the transfer to pay it. With paying for my classes this semester I was just over the $45 required to get the $50 cvs gift card so I grabbed that too. $200 richer in about 10 minutes, not bad, not bad at all.

Credit cards can be harmful if you use them badly, but as shown above, they can also be very helpful. Which are you going to chose?