taking control over money

July 19, 2007:

Wow.  It's been a while since I've last written on this site; however, I have been super busy on the most recent phase of actually working on taking control over my money.  How have I been doing it?  I've been learning about the stock market and taking more control over our investments in the IRA and in a small "trading" account.  I became interested in the stock market last October just when it was turning toward 12,000.  Since then, it's been an exciting thing to learn about:  it's rounding 14,000.  But it has been a wild ride getting there.  Not only was there the February plunge, but, since then, we've had a huge up move, followed by some nervous down moves, swelling forward toward yesterday's close about 53 points down from the day before.  I'm going to try to write some articles on helpful things I have learned about the market since I have been learning.

Other than this new learning experience, which, if you are just starting to take control over your finances, you need to have some basic understanding, I have been continuing my family's journey toward becoming debt free.  We have stuck to our guns in terms of our "no-spending" rules:  we are really spending only on what we truly need; however, as you know, life comes and bites you a bit sometimes and the unexpected can cost money.  Thankfully, I have begun to manage the finances in such a way that this money does exist for us finally.

Many people that I speak to about going down this journey think it is far too hard.  So I want to summarize, again, some of the most important lessons I have learned in the last year.  How do you and your family make the leap?  Like other activities in life, the first step is taking that first step.  What is the first step.  Gathering it all together and figuring out where you stand and what your goals are as a family.   I give you some basic advice for that in the section called Organizing your Finances.

My latest research has been geared toward picking stocks and funds for investments.  Thus, I am beginning a series of articles in which I will put together exactly what I have learned beginning with the basic steps I take to research stocks.  I wish I had been able to take you on this journey with me as I did while I was learning how to control my finances.  Unfortunately, learning about the stock market has been quite a time-consuming endeavor and has left me little time to update my readers on what I am doing.  Now that summer is full out here, I hope to be able to bring you all up to date on my information.

February 4, 2007:  Superbowl Sunday.  If the Bears win, is that bad for the Stock Market?  Just a thought.  Anyway, last week, I submitted my article about Taking Control Over the Debt Police to the Carnival of Debt Reduction, but, the host would not publish it.  I did not e-mail him, in part, because I felt foolish for my views, and reprimanded by the community for losing my way.  But I reread the article, and, I do not disagree with myself.  There, I am saying it:  sometimes, we have to ease up on ourselves a little bit or else we will go insane.  I have been insane lately.  However, what the article does not capture is that despite my newfound desire to stop obsessing over my debt, I have done a bunch of new things to become less in debt:  first, I decided to quit smoking; I am on this new pill, and, as a result, am down to a few cigarettes a day.  Why is that debt reduction?  At $4.50 a pack, and a pack a day, I am spending at least $135.00 per month on my cigarettes and the same on my husband's.  If I quit, he'll quit.  Right now, we will not save money on me:  The pills cost about $125.00 per month (but the flex plan reimburses me), so, we'll save, once we do it altogether, $270.00 per month.  Have you ever thought about the cost of your vices?  I bet they suck a lot more money out of your pockets than you think.  Our cigarette habit is over $3200.00 per year.  My goodness.  Plus, not smoking will save us in our life insurance fees, not to mention the health.  On the other side of that, is that we really do need to save for retirement, because, if we quit, we may actually live to retire.  I'm excited about quitting and I'll keep you updated on that front. 

Second, I thought through the whole cleaning woman situation.  Part of the "debt police" article is that I decided that we could no longer justify paying someone $80.00 per week to clean our house when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.  On the other hand, I felt like it would fall on my shoulders and I already work really hard -- not just at my job, but at home as well and, even, on this web site.  So, I felt like I was giving up a lot by this decision, but, I could not, in good conscience, live like a princess when we are in debt up to our eyeballs and have one child in college and one soon to enter.  I was thinking of a second job -- to pay my cleaning person!!!!  That doesn't make sense (although I'd probably rather work longer hours than clean my house, that just is not a good use of my money).  On the other hand, there is this other person involved:  this woman has worked in our home for the past 11 or 12 years; her family is just as dependent on the money that we provide as we are needing it to rid ourselves of debt; in fact, given our different situations in life, they rely on that money more to live while I want it for peace of mind.  I went back and forth until I decided on a compromise that would be good for us both and then, I discussed it with her:  every other week.  I could lower my monthly expenses and she could still make money.  She turns out to be a better negotiator than I am because we settled on every other week at a higher rate of pay for each of those weeks.  So, I am saving about $120.00 a month on that expense rather than the full or even half amount:  however, I am retaining a valuable service for my family (since I really do stink at cleaning having always been working or in school). 

Between those two expenses, I have saved us, hopefully, $255.00 per month, plus, another $135.00 if my husband quits.

In addition, I have been faithfully following the You Need a Budget program which really does keep us mindful of our expenses.  And, hopefully by next week, we will have made a decision about consolidating some debt that we have.  We are also looking at selling our time share and I have been in talks with some people about that, and, we may sell something else that we do not necessarily want to sell, but may generate some much needed cash to reduce our debt even further. 

I will be writing a few new pieces in the future concerning the whole "debt consolidation" process, the budgeting process, a quarterly update on our progress and the need for savings.  I hope you will visit soon so that you will stay informed about those pieces.

January 27, 2007

Yet another experiment in color.  Let me know what you think.  Anyway, I had a huge epiphany this week:  It's time to think like we make money instead of fretting over how much debt we have.  I explain in my new article:  Taking Control Over the Debt Police.

January 25, 2007

In looking over tax changes for 2007, I noticed something that really incensed me:  the mileage rate went up to 48.5 cents per mile from 44 cents per mile for business travel while for medical and moving travel, it went up only 2 cents per mile and only up to 20 cents per mile.  This incongruity of favoring business members is truly outrageous.  None of us pay less to travel in our car for medical or moving trips:  that just smells wrong!

January 22, 2007

This is the place for my little bits and pieces of information.  There are updates about the site, information that is too short for an article and some stuff about what my family has been doing to keep on track.  Sometimes, I note the date, other times I forget.  But I generally like to write a few lines each week in here to remind people of some things that are going on.

This past week I watched Apple's stock go up and down like a yo-yo.  Now, the whole stock market baffles me:  I know just enough to be dangerous I think, and, I suspect, so do most people.  I can't think of other arenas where we are so comfortable calling our "investments" bets:  as in, if you "bet" on Apple, it paid off (for a fraction of a second or until it no longer did).  Or, as Amaranth Advisors learned, they had too large a "bet" in natural gas.

A bet is something you need to do in Vegas, Atlantic City or anywhere else you want -- it is not what you should be doing with your retirement or hard-earned savings (unless you're into betting).  I understand Warren Buffet's first rule:  don't lose the money.  I can't be sure that I won't when I buy individual stocks; thus, until I learn more, I am sticking with funds. 

This was an important decision because my husband and I rolled over IRA's into one account and, the first bunch of money to hit, we invested in individual stocks.  But then, with the next batch, we went to the funds because it was making me anxious to make stock decisions:  let the guys getting paid the big bucks make the big decisions for my money; I seem to do much better when I do that. 

Plus, we went with a growth fund (we are playing catch up a bit, so we need to see some good returns, but, really, we have time, so, if the stock market takes a dip, we should be fine).  But it can be confusing to make the decision or "pull the trigger."  I feel like we should be more diversified so we're thinking of speaking to a planner at Vanguard to make sure that our assets are properly protected and have a good opportunity for growth.

I also just started Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover -- I wish I had the ability to sell myself the way that guy can.  I'll keep you up to date on what it is all about when I figure it out.  (Good news though, I took it out of the library so it didn't cost me anything).  I know that a lot of people love him, but I have no opinion yet.  I'll keep you informed if I like his advice, choose to follow it and whether or not it works.

I will say that just by going to John Camutta's site, I have changed my family's finances.  We decided against the extra expense (and it was huge) beyond the initial $39.95, but that $39.95 allowed me to see just what we were doing wrong and to start this plan of correction.  We are now going for six months and, while I think we backslid a little from our initial start because of some extra large expenses in November and December, we have made so many changes and are really working at eliminating debt.  Thus, I highly recommend that those of you who are in debt get to Camutta's site right away and begin to use his simple method of debt elimination.

FREE ADVICE FROM THE EXPERTS: 

One of my favorite personal finance magazines, Kiplinger's, is teaming up with The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors on two days to answer your questions about retirement (and other financial issues).  All you have to do is SAVE THE DATES:  January 16th and 26th from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. e.s.t and dial the telephone.  Even the call is free.  The number is 888-919-2345.  I am definitely calling about a few questions I have had about saving in both IRA's and 401(k)'s and I will update you guys on how it goes. 

I added a few new articles this week:  One about college again called College Costs:  How to Get Some Aid.  The other is about retirement savings and it is called Retirement Planning Made Easier.  I realized that the thread connecting these two articles is that I worry so much that I do not always get done something that it is in everyone's best interest to get done.  If you find yourself nervous about filling out the forms for college aid (from government aid to private loans, you need to fill out the FAFSA), or , you know you should save for retirement, but you have not chosen the best fund, yet, then, you are in the same situation I found myself in during years past.  By taking control over my own money, I hope that my articles will inspire you to get unstuck and just do what you need to do to deal with your finances -- even if the decisions you make, or the information you have, is not entirely perfect.  Not doing these things is not only stressful, it could waste a lot of opportunity. 

If you are a procrastinator, I should remind you of an article I wrote when I first created this site:  Changing Your Relationship to Money.  By far, doing that has freed my family to spend LESS and save more and I do mean freed us -- we were stuck in spending patterns and denial for a long time and needed to get very unstuck.  We have done it:  we are still a long way from our goal of getting debt free; however, we keep moving toward it.

Also, you may notice some new ads.  I am experimenting with affiliations and different ad placement -- hopefully, some of these ads will help me pay the expenses of maintaining the site and a bit for all my time and energy in researching.  If you'd like to browse through some of my affiliate listings, you can find a number of them in two new sections:  Bargains and Useful Links.  I am trying to limit my affiliations to  those products that I personally find useful; however, because I am trying not to spend any money other than what I must spend, I cannot try everything.  But I do still love Quicken for keeping track of my financial picture and all of my accounts.  At the same time, I love the simplicity of the You Need A Budget budgeting system.  Those two tools are really helping me reach my goals and I highly recommend them both.

Have a good week everyone and enjoy the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday:  as a history teacher, I am inspired by his efforts to transform our nation and saddened by his senseless killing.  I am glad for his legacy, though, and pleased that we dedicate a national holiday to celebrating the life of this great American hero.  So, remember to think of Martin tomorrow:  that way, his teachings will always remain with us.

Another day (January 6th) and it was a good week for taking control over our money, except for the fact that we still don't have enough:  but, what else is always new?

What was good this week?

1)  I finally concretely made a budget.  Now, I have written about why you need a budget and I have even done a month's budget, but I got a new budgeting tool:  You Need a Budget,  that looks like it might be the answer to my budget dreams:  yes, I have budget dreams, the kind where there is actually more money than there are expenses.  But that cannot come true without budgeting for it.  I think of my budget as the "plan" to make the goals happen.  So, I will report on the (hopefully) success of my system soon.   If you would like to try this system, click on the ad on the far right on this page or click here.

2)  Taking Control Over Money concretely figured out that some small expenses that were being billed monthly were adding up to some major money:  $328.00 to be exact.  So, I wrote a new article explaining how my family trimmed those expenses with virtually no change to our lifestyles.  You can find that article at "Reducing the Monthlies," and perhaps, you'll drop me a line with some of the ways you have trimmed your expenses as well.

3)Finally, I helped my sister to see that she, too, can take advantage of her own state's 529 plan. She has agreed to be my client so that she can organize her finances to help her family achieve their financial goals.  She is seven years younger and very smart, but she likes it when I take care of things for her.  Remember, if you have any questions or concerns about your own finances and/or you would like some help in organizing, you can contact me:  I am really excited about helping people in their quest to reach their financial goals.

NEW YEAR'S DAY:  2007

WOW.  THIS FEELS LIKE A NEW BEGINNING AND SO I WILL TREAT IT AS SUCH.  Consumerism Commentary inspired me to make up a few concrete goals:

(1) stick to the newly created budget for the month of January:  tweak it in February and try to live with it.

(2)  reduce consumer debt by 25% -- if we stick with our debt reduction plan, that is realistic.

(3)  create an emergency account with at least $3,000.00 in it.

(4) Cash in the bonds to fund the 529 accounts.  Add money to those accounts regularly.

(5)  Submit all the medical bills.

(6) Stay organized.

(7)  Take care of financial issues every single week -- no more overwhelming pile-ups.

(8)  Increase net worth by 10%.

Those goals would be great.  Plus, one other:  I really would like to create a financial planning businesses.  Now, I have already looked at courses to be a certified financial planner, but, I do not have the money to take the classes.  But, I am going to consult with my friend and we will try to come up with a good business plan (that's her line of work, I'm a teacher,  not businesswoman).  So, we'll see.  If not, to achieve the other goals, I may take a very part-time hourly job.  I honestly do not know if I really have time for all of this.

I have a few new articles to share with you all such as The 411 on 529's, Credit Cards:  The Low-Limit Scam, and a new informational piece reminding everyone of some of the scams out there and how they work:  "What is a 'Get Rich Quick' Scam?

My web site is now 5 months old and I love keeping up with it, even when time is tight and I am not sure what to write about.  Those of you who are thinking of creating your own blogs, my limited experience tells me one thing for sure:  write about something that you are learning about; if you need to know something, chances are good that others are thinking about the same information.  I have stayed with the focus:  personal finance because I have had much to learn and a lot to write about.  I am still learning and so I plan to keep on posting.  I have had at least 5,000 unique visitors according to my hosting company's statistics:  I could never reach 5,000 people in another format besides the internet.  I understand now why people like doing this; it is a way to express yourself.  If you think you'll make money, you may not make enough to pay back your time.  That, however, has not been my issue:  I did not expect to make tons of money and I am in the process of learning new methods of "monetizing" my site.  In fact, one of my affiliate programs offers a store; I have no idea how it will work out, but I have added it to my site.  If you want to check it out, see Taking Control Over Money Store. I tend mainly to rely on the little revenues I get from Google Adsense for a bit of extra money, if I ever really make any.  I hope to someday.

ARE YOU HAVING TROUBLE TAKING CONTROL OVER YOUR FINANCES?

Because I have learned so much, I am offering my services to help others get control over their money.   CONTACT ME BY E-MAIL:  I have decided to offer my help to those who just cannot accomplish the basics of managing their finances.  I have learned a lot since I began this journey and I have made our family a lot more financially secure.  We do not have a lot of money for the fancy extras in life, but, we are certainly paying all of our bills on time and regularly.  That is a fantastic accomplishment in three months.  However, I spend hours and hours in research and have tons of information in my head.  Much of it I have shared and will continue to share on this site.  But, I have kicked around the idea, and have decided that I could help others to attain their own goals.  I am not a Certified Financial Planner; I am a teacher and a life-long learner.  What I offer to others is my own experience of sorting through the paperwork and coming up on the other side.

I have said many times that you are capable of doing this yourself.  But if you feel you need help, I could possibly help you.  You can reach me  via my contact form.  I will get back to you soon after your contact.

I just downloaded my new version of my Sandvox software and it seems just great.  I worried about whether or not to upgrade just for the simple fact that this whole pursuit is so new to me, I feared that something might happen to my website and that I would not be able to get it back.  But, so far, so good.  I think the software is really phenomenal especially for a newbie like myself.

Consolidating IRAs:

I have been exploring the stock market in an effort to pick stocks for some IRA money that my husband and I finally consolidated into one account each.  The real impetus for the change was simplicity and cost.  My old IRA was with Edward Jones.  After years of maintaining one stock that was doing nothing (except earning a decent dividend), I finally decided to trade out of that stock into a stock that seemed like a better investment.  When all was said and done, I had traded 300 shares of stock in total and paid approximately $400.00 in commissions, approximately 4-5% of my new stock's value.  Something felt wrong about that.  But, everything I do wrong, I learn from and I learned two lessons from that trade:  (1) opening an IRA account at Vanguard, where most of my retirement is anyway, allows me to trade at a fraction of the cost of the IRA account at Edward Jones and (2) all stocks should be traded using limit orders.  Limit orders set a price on what you are willing to pay or receive for the stock transaction.  If you do not do it, the broker can match you to a trading partner in-house, receive double commissions and you can pay more for the stock.

My switch to Vanguard was a huge success.  My stock picks have not done great so far, but, I have lots of time to hang in there.  However, my husband and I have bought 6 different stocks between us of varying amounts, and, using online trading and limit orders, we paid a set price of $25.00 for each trade.  Thus, we did not start owning our shares at nearly the deficit that I had on the last trade with Edward Jones.  If you are a big time investor, a full service broker might offer you things that you cannot get with on-line trading; however, with Vanguard, I have the option of tons of research and I can make a telephone call and spend about $15.00 more a trade and get as much personal attention as I got from Edward Jones.  In addition, since I now have all my accounts with Vanguard, I am building a nice portfolio that I can easily keep track of -- when it hits a certain point, the fees for trades are further reduced.  Finally, because all my retirement investments are there, I can have my account maintenance fee waived -- not a ton of money, but, every little bit counts.

Is the stock market real?

My biggest issue lately, when it comes to the stock market, is my worry that it is all a shell game or a house of cards.  I wonder how you can actually make money and insure the safety of your investments when it goes up and down so much.  But, more importantly than the swings is the different information out there:  who can you possibly trust to give truly valuable and worthwhile information.  All the so-called experts have reasonable explanations for vastly different conclusions.  The stock market actually should be fun, but I find it stressful.  We are waiting for a contribution from some of my husband's other accounts, and, while we really wanted to pick stocks, we have recently shifted our thinking to funds -- there seems to be a better risk to reward ratio with the funds and the experts are making decisions, not us.  I just cannot seem, thus far, to get enough of a handle to make a really confident decision and to let my decisions go -- I pick stocks and then I look at them all the time.  At this rate, I won't live to retire because I obsess over it.  But, I do have a strategy for taking some of the stress out of it -- the old fashioned, conservative approach of buying strong companies while they are a little undervalued and hanging on to them for a very long time.  I plan to do that or funds with the rest of the money when it comes in, just so that I can sleep at night.  And that is one thing all the experts agree on:  know yourself and your risk tolerance.  If you do not have a high threshold for risk, than, do not get into too many risky stocks.  Not only do I not have a high tolerance, but at close to 50 (him) and 47 (me), we really can't afford to take the risks that we might have afforded years ago -- and, frankly, why bother?  First, do no harm is my new motto -- then, get some gains.

Emergency Savings:  The Pros are Right

I have also found that an emergency fund is a necessary part of our planning and I need to figure out how to add that to our priorities.  Why?  Well, last month we backslid on the debt.  I am going to do an end of year calculation, and I am afraid the news will not be so good.  The problem was the unexpected or, perhaps, the better word would be, the one-time, expenses, that all came due last month, which ate up one third of our take-home.  Add that to our monthly and weekly expenses and we were in the hole by that amount.  Nothing was "extra."  All the expenses were necessary.  They involved a family trip for a relative's bar-mitzvah which, with the air fare, hotel, clothing and gifts, took quite a bite, a trip to my daughter's all state concert, and a tuition bill for my son's next semester of college.  Add that to the fact that the maintenance was due this month on my time-share, and the bills just added up.  Then, the holidays came on strong and we had to book flights for our trip to Florida in the spring, and you can see that our expenses were way more than allowed within the tight budget that we have.  Thus, we scrimped our way through until there was no choice but to hit up the credit cards that we have been working so hard to pay down.  Thus, so much debt that we had reduced in the three months prior came back strong.  If I could put a couple of hundred dollars a month toward that kind of thing, it would not bite us so hard when it happens.  The question then becomes, where do I get it from? 

So, my one job this weekend is to finally use the You Need A Budget budget tool.  I have written about budgeting before, but I have not done more than a pencil/paper budget from one mortgage payment to the next.  Again, that is not the best way to do things because it fails to account for items that come up over and over again but in a different month.  Thus, I plan to open the calendar and figure out what we need to budget for those expenses that, while infrequent, exist.

I also just opened up a 529 to run my son's college expenses through.  I did some research and learned that my state offers a tax break for contributions to such a plan.  Thus, just by contributing to the plan, for expenses that we pay anyway, makes sense for us.  (See, Taking Control Over College Expenses, The 411 on 529's).   Such plans are a smart move for everyone who has children that will be attending college if they will have expenses.  But each state has different rules, so, be sure to look into it before doing it.  If your state has no tax deduction, the experts concur that Utah's plan is the best in terms of fees and investment options.

Last, but not least, is my effort to increase my revenues.  My Google ads make a very small amount; however, regardless of the fact that from Thanksgiving until Christmas break, I had no time to change my site, I have gotten more and more traffic -- perhaps, I should have congratulated myself sooner, but, my statistics showed 5000 unique visitors in the 5-6 months the site has been up.  That is a real accomplishment and one that I am very proud of.

Updates (Nov. 22nd)

Since the main purpose of this site is to discuss our efforts to meet our financial goals, I thought I would update the community with our quarterly returns.  You can see an article on our debt reduction and how it is going in "Give Yourself Proof:   Time for a Quarterly Update."   In a nutshell:  we have reduced our total debt by 1% this quarter and our bad debt by 4%.  That's amazing.  We have also increased our retirement savings and put more into our flex spending accounts, as per my own advice.     Plus, I took my newest advice in Getting Back to Basics   and calculated our net worth and, I am pleased to report that our liabilities are 2/3 of our assets.  Why should I be pleased?  I feared a negative net worth or at least, no net worth.  So, I am actually glad I did it, because it gives up hope that we may actually get to our goals in this lifetime.

In the meantime,On a personal note, my daughter made an all-state women's chorale group and will soon be performing there. She is the only one from her school to have achieved this honor and we are exceedingly proud of her.  We are looking forward to a number of performances that she has upcoming in the next several months.

Financial news seemed slow this week, but, I did notice something interesting last week in my continuing quest to locate scams and corporate/ private equity greed.  First, I noticed that the Hertz IPO was what I thought to be a really greedy IPO.  They were bought last year by private investors who seemed to be the only ones that would make money on the sale (along with the bankers and brokers and lawyers who put the IPO together).  Sure enough, Cramer failed to put his stamp of approval on buying the shares and the share price did not rise from the IPO price.  GOOD.  On the other hand, NYMEX, which offers a great opportunity, went public on the same day and their share prices doubled that day.  Now, I am not saying a lot of people did not get rich off of that deal; I am just saying it did not smell like the Hertz deal smelled.

The second interesting thing was that I recalled an article in the NY Times about Pre-paid Legal, a publicly traded company that sells "legal insurance."  Aside from the fact that what they seem to sell does not seem worth the price (my humble opinion), they are a multi-level marketing program meaning that one person sells not just insurance to another but the opportunity to sell insurance.  Someone we know pitched it to us as an opportunity, but I had read about their practices in the Times, so I knew what was up.  But it got me thinking about the  people who work in these multi-level marketing plans.  Tupperware and Avon are such companies and I know people make money off of them.  But, for the most part, people I have met who have worked for some of these companies always seem to size up the crowd; they are always on pitching not just a product but a sales opportunity.  But when i see them again, it always seems to be over.  That is because very few people actually make it in such businesses, statistically speaking.  Only about 10% stick around after the first year and about that many make back their investment.  Just something to be on the lookout for:  I know there are legitimate companies who use this as a marketing device, I just haven't met people who work for them that are not under the spell or, after the Kool-Aid wears off, have let go altogether and chalked it up to an experience that, hopefully, didn't cost too much. 

So, remember, be careful out there people.

Obviously, we have not been perfect, but, all-in-all, I am pleased with the progress we've made.

Social Security Agency Warns of E-Mail Scam

Yet someone else is trying to get at your personal information.  This time, the scammer sends an e-mail threatening to "suspend your [social security] account indefinitely" unless you provide personal information to "update" your files.  The subject line says "Cost of Living for 2007 update."  It asks for your social security number, bank account information and credit card information.  DO NOT RESPOND.  The best advice for all e-mail which requests personal information is to avoid clicking on the page that the e-mail sends you to; instead, go to the actual web site through the web-address line.  If the social security agency contacts you by e-mail, you can find it on a correct site by putting in its .gov address.  If you should get one of these fraudulent e-mails, contact the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General.  The telephone number is 800-269-0271.  The web site is http://www.ssa.gov/.  (Newsday, 11/8/06, p. A44; scam also mentioned on ssa.gov site.

(OCTOBER 28th, 2006)

I have written a few new articles in the past week; one, a debt reduction piece, entitled, "What is Your 'Bad' Debt Load," and the other, a semi-political investment piece on corporate responsibility, called, "Taking Control Over the Corporate Management Crowd."

Since I have started this web site, I have learned so much about money, finance, and business, that I am thrilled to have taken this amazing journey.  I sometimes question the commitment it takes to take control over our money in the sense that it takes time and energy that could be devoted to my job and family in other ways.  I never thought money issues were important so it is a huge change.  My family needs us to get in control of our finances for its very survival, but, now, I am turned on by all that I have learned and the community of which I have become a part.

I also really like paying my bills on time and knowing what they are ahead of time.  We have paid off several smaller cards since this all started and have gotten most of our financial information onto Quicken; however, there are a lot of things I still need to do to stay organized. 

I would like to say I have kept all the receipts and mail filed, but I do not do that all the time.  Hence, there is a bit of a build up of mail and receipts because I have been VERY busy. 

Although I have not been exactly as organized as I had hoped, I am staying up with my bill payments and I sort the mail every day.  When my shredder broke, it was a priority to get a new one -- shredding the junk takes care of a lot of mail that would otherwise pile up. 

I am current on my bills and that is a great feeling.

If you haven't been on the site recently, you will notice a bunch of changes including some new articles in addition to the one above:  a fun quiz to test your investment savvy, as well as several new articles in the past couple of weeks.    One in particular will let you in on my own thought processes on what I have been doing to keep focused on the goals:  it is sometimes overwhelming to deal with money issues and debt, but the rewards for doing so are plentiful. 

I have been working with the site's format, hoping to gain more readers and hoping to increase the revenue from advertising.  But, mainly, as has been my focus since I began this site, I have been working on the family finances.  I plan to do a quarterly report at the end of this month because 3 months will have passed since we took control over our money.  So, you can look forward to that.

FTC ISSUES WARNING ON PHISHING BY E-MAILS OFFERING "FREE CREDIT REPORTS":  The FTC is warning people about e-mails offering you "free credit reports."  Some of these sites are scam sites:  you go in to them by clicking on your e-mail, give them information to get your "credit report" and, instead of free credit reports, they are gaining what they need to use your identity.  What can you do?  I think the most important advice is probably to go on any website by typing it in yourself rather than clicking to it through the e-mail.  Lots of sites use slight misspellings to lure you onto their sites when you think you are going to the correct site.

For more important information, see archives.

                  DID YOU KNOW?  (Posted September 15th)

1.                When April 15th comes around, you can get a CREDIT for a tax you should not have been paying since 1898:  the federal excise tax on long-distance telephone calls.  When the US went to war with Spain (the Spanish American War), Congress passed a 3% tax on long-distance telephone service.  In a major OOPS, they forgot to ever repeal the tax, so, although the war ended in 1898, the tax continued.  Congress finally got smart, and repealed the tax and even allowed a rebate for the past three years.  You can get the rebate by claiming the standard credit of around $50.00, or you can go back through your 2002-2005 bills, find the line marked “federal excise tax” on the bills, and claim the total of that amount.  I’m going to call my long distance carriers and ask them to send me the bills for the last three years, or see if they will calculate it for me:  if not, we’ll live with the standard credit, because I do not keep all my telephone bills.

2.               BUYING CHECKS ON LINE CAN SAVE YOU MONEY: After my sister told me that she gets all of her checks that way, I looked into it and found a lot of sites that sell checks with anything you want on them and they are way less expensive than what you would pay your own bank for a check.  A clearinghouse for such checks is called 4-checks.   It will allow you to buy your checks more cheaply than at the bank.  And the site is secure.  Remember secure pages in a site will have an https before the address rather than just the http.

3.               Beware of phishing: I was on line trying to deal with my son’s cell phone features and accidentally typed in cinular (I left out the g) – I got to cinular.com which is actually a company named wirefly and it's site is designed to appear to be a Cingular affiliated site.  I have no idea if they are an excellent or fraudulent company, but, the idea of fraud came to mind.  I felt like anyone who relies on a mistake to get you to their website (while potentially clever), is suspicious.  If you have a good product/site, people should be able to get there the honest way.  Since I had just written that people are buying stocks from e-mail marketing, I thought I should mention that this practice:  duping people into heading to a web-site, is definitely a strategic ploy.  You (and I) need to remember that our information is a precious commodity and should not be given away lightly.  If I was in the market for Cingular products, I would not have bought from them because I would not be comfortable doing business with them.   BE CAREFUL OUT THERE PEOPLE.  A lot of the sophisticated technology used by sites can cause you to give out information to the wrong people.

WELCOME TO OUR SITE:  MY FIRST WEB SITE EVER

This is a web site for all the people out there who, like my family, are searching for solutions to common financial problems:  the mounting debts, the lack of savings, and the stress and worry that comes from living paycheck to paycheck.  If you are like us, you are working hard and earning money, but it never seems to be enough. 

This site is about how my husband and I have engaged in a new financial management system of our own design to allow us to take better care of our money.  In the process, we have changed how we view money and are deciding what we want our money to be doing for us; prior to this it seems as though it was the other way around:  "Ask not what your money can do for you, ask what you can do for your money."

We have never looked to be extravagantly wealthy (it would be nice, but that is not the goal here), but what we want, and suspect that what many other people want, is to have enough money to live nicely, comfortably, in a good home, with reliable cars.  Maybe you would like to fix up your house, but you do not even have the money to maintain it, let alone renovate it and make it beautiful.  Maybe you would like to take a vacation and not worry about the money you are spending for it.  We are interested in the basics of a good, comfortable life that would allow us to stop worrying about money.  This does not mean that our goal is to no longer think about money, but to think about it sufficiently that we know what we are doing when we make a monetary transaction, and we know how that transaction affects our financial situation.  What I have learned is that a stress-free approach to caring about money does exist -- but only if you take control over your financial situation.

What I have attempted to do is stop the cycle of unplanned spending, unplanned borrowing and all the other things that allow us to lose control over our money.  Instead, we have embarked on a plan that has several essential parts: Organizing our Finances, Taking Control Over our Spending, Taking Control Over our Debt, Taking Control Over Our Revenues, and Taking Control Over our Savings and Investments.   After a lot of research and thought, my family has decided to take a number of steps to change our financial situation in small, but dramatic ways.  This site was written to both keep us accountable for our changes and to save others the time and energy that it has taken us to find out the information contained in these pages.  

We hope that as you read you will find ideas that you think are useful, or ideas that you do not.  We hope you will identify with our struggles and successes and that those struggles and successes will motivate you to take action, and we hope that you will contact us with your own suggestions, ideas or stories to tell.  We have decided to be our real selves here:  money is so often taboo as a subject of polite conversation that most people do not actually know how anyone else works with their own money.  Maybe if we talked, we could learn from each other.  We hope that this helps us begin a long conversation and that through that conversation we can gain understanding and insight into our own financial situation and that you will also. 

Aside from the hoped-for dialogue with our audience, we will be researching issues related to money and updating this site frequently with that information.  We will share what we learn from the experts as well as from our own experiences.  If there is a topic that you are interested in, but you either have never understood it or do not feel like researching it, write to us:  if you want to know about something we probably do also.  If so, it could be the basis for a future article.

We really want this site to be interactive.  In fact, I have created a new feature that asks a question that you can respond to in 10 or less words.  So, join the conversation; this may be the only chance you have to talk openly about money.  Young or old, feel like you are on the verge of bankruptcy or fairly well off, married or single, with or without kids, in fact, anyone who wants to participate; there is a place for your stories and a place for you in our site.