Lately, the search referrals I’m getting include a lot more “asset allocation international” type searches.

Are you guys also looking to internationalize your investment portfolios? I thought I mentioned this before, I’m bumping up my international portion by reallocating money to a second international fund which is less growth oriented and more blend/value. Seems I never said this when I search my posts, but yes, I’m now holding two international funds not just one.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure I am going to do a full rebalance and sell stuff to buy stuff. I was doing lazy rebalancing by changing my 401K contribution allocations. But that’s a little moot right now since I’ve stopped the 401k contributions altogether for the rest of the year.

What about you? Are you doing lazy rebalancing like me or an actual rebalance into more international funds?

Greetings!

It’s that time of year again. Open Enrollment. I dread it because it means lots of changes to insurance. Make sure you gear up and make some time in your schedule to attend an Open Enrollment session by your HR department. It could save you a lot of money.

This year, I got a lovely canned email from the CEO telling me that he’s in the High Deductible Plan and that new for 2008, our company will double its contribution to your the Health Savings Account. Fab. What’s the incentive? Who cares? Well along with those changes, I will now have to pay more for my PPO plan.

I’m seriously considering the change since I didn’t have much medical stuff happen to me this year. However, I do want to wait until I run the numbers and see what this is really going to cost me. There are some other benefits like more generic drugs in the formulary will be cheaper in the High Deductible Plan, which is good. I paid a lot for Augmentin in 2006. It was going to $70 bucks because I forgot my prescription card. When I went back with it, instead of being $5, it was a $15 prescription. So I presume if I need heavy antibiotics again, I’d be paying $5 for the Augmentin under the high deductible plan. Of course, I would hate to be sick again. (Whimpering in pain. If that is what Lyme disease is like, NO THANK YOU.)

Yeah, if you’ve ever wondered why I don’t write about HSA’s, it’s because I don’t have one. I use a FSA instead.

Tomorrow: 401k Plan Changes!

How about 2 3rd place finishes for the baby goats my friend took to the show? Ok. I know, you don’t read my blog to hear about cute little baby goats. CuteOverload needs a new category for them though. They are pretty adorable.

Dinner Friday night at Calico was superb. The duckling I had was okay, but the bites of the filet mignon and bouliabasse made me regret the duck. The patisserie was the real treat. I had one of the mini cakes. It was a white cake with mascarpone layered in the middle with dark chocolate ganache and a merigue kiss on top. TASTY! I believe the name of the cake was ‘Joy’. Add a glass of wine, a cup of tea and splitting the check four ways, and my share of dinner was about $45. This was a planned fancy dinner we wanted to do because everything else for the weekend would be fair food and fast food.

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Hat tip to JD for pointing out that it’s National Save for Retirement Week.

For individuals, they have a resource page of Adobe PDF documents you can download and read. I especially liked the one-sheet files for young people under 35 and for those earning a low income.

I encourage everyone to save some money this week, even if it’s only a little bit.

1. I will be putting in my weekly $5 to short term liquid savings. (Something I do on top of my retirement savings and some other monthly savings I do.)

2. I also put $5 into my piggy bank after I got back from my trip this weekend.

3. I will be saving money indirectly by being frugal this week and dining out less. (Yesterday I spent $2.50 on some lunch, and $1.40 on breakfast. Two more Almost No Spend Days)

As I talk with my girlfriends about money, I find that most of them learned how to be good savers from their moms. So if you are a mom, do something this week to teach your kids to save money. You’re the best example your child has to build a good habit.

Remember, as Boston Gal says, “Today is a great day to start saving.”

One day I shall opine over tofu. But it’s kind of hard for me to do that in English since tofu yumminess is equated with Korean food. Today, it’s all about SPAM.

At the request of two commenters regarding my remarks about SPAM fried rice, I am posting a recipe and some suggested variations. Remember, I’m a single gal and I dine alone a lot, therefore these are single people portions.

This recipe will use a half can of the half-sized SPAM. Get it? It’s the 7oz can, which my supermarket sells for $1.99 each.

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This is an official announcement that Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge has joined the WPersonalFinance Network. It’s a loose affiliation of women-written personal finance bloggers, many of whom I enjoy reading daily, like Chief Family Officer, Ms. MiniDucky, Mrs. Micah: Finance and Life.

From the website:

This network was created to focus on the personal finance issues that women face every day. While both men & women must deal with many of the same issues (getting ahead in the workplace, retirement, saving money & paying off debt, etc) the way that women approach those issues is different.

You will always be able to browse the network using the WPF sunflower logo chicklet in my left sidebar.

We have met our goal of $2000 thanks to 18 generous donors. We are solidly in 5th place for the topical blog leaderboard, and 19th overall. I hope just by being on the list, people see us and become interested in personal finance. If nothing else so there’s more money left for philanthropy.

So, even though we’ve met our goal, can we catch up to Ralph Answang’s photography site? He’s got a few high dollar donors, but seriously, I think we could overtake his #4 ranking before the end of the month. WHO’S WITH ME? (Please Lord don’t let this be a repeat of Jerry Maguire. Renee Zellweger is cute and all, but I can’t take chirping crickets.)

There’s one more payday left this month. Can you squeeze out $5 from it to help some kids?

BTW, I did get an electronic thank you note from the teacher whose project I helped. It does make you feel good to know the money is going to good use.

Unless it’s over a beer. But really, all you need to know about me is already in this blog.

I’ve played the game before, so any new meme tagging for tidbits about me will be ignored. Sorry Kay, TMac, Juan Million. I won’t do it.

Alrighty reposting all you want to know:

100 Things

Another 5 Things

ENOUGH. That’s it. Nada. No More. BASTA.

UPDATE: Voting closed. In 12 hours, consensus seems to be option #3.

Alrighty, here’s the scenario. I owe my friend $500 for a nice used laptop. I have paid her a good chunk of the agreed price, but now that I have the computer in hand, I need to pay her the rest.

Now, when I agreed to do this, I didn’t have a $3000 dental bill. I had $500 in an account ready to give to her. But now, that $500 is long gone to my oral surgeon so I wouldn’t be tossed into collections. I would like to pay my friend before Thanksgiving, but the question now is how to do that. (I am buying the laptop for my blogging business as this is no longer considered a mere hobby with casual income after the advertising deal I signed earlier this year. So ultimately, a chunk of its cost is a write-off expense.)

I am in a short term cash crunch and I foresee myself doing 3 things.

1. Take a balance transfer/credit card check and write myself a check myself to cover both the dental surgery and the laptop. ($2066.50) There would be likely a 3% fee and 7.9% interest for doing this. I figure if I am going to bother doing an advance, it should be for a large amount, rather than a small one. (Or is my thinking wrong on that?) And that I am suffering this cash crunch because of the dental bill so I might as well pay that off now, and then use the extra cash flow for the rest of the year to pay off the debt faster.

2. I could write myself a check from my HELOC, again for the combined amount of two debts, but the interest would be 10.3% and I would be lowering my home equity to a point that makes me really uncomfortable. Ditto the reasoning above on why I am considering combining amounts again.

3. Break one of my emergency fund CD’s for $404.99, losing interest for 3 months at 5.2%, but at no other cost to me. The remaining $95.01 I can pay out of my short term savings and next paycheck. But I would still owe the doctor money rather than a bank. (Mind you, they don’t charge me any interest or late fees for the payment plan I am on.)

Sorry that I don’t have a voting widget set up. So leave your vote in the comments. You have until Monday 8pm EDT to vote because I need to resolve this quickly and let her know when to expect a check. (FWIW, like a mad negotiator, I told her that I think I can pay her in two installments but I needed to check Quicken first because I had just arrived at home. She was fine with that, she just needed to know amounts and dates. I told her I had no idea as I had lost my PC for a few days last week.)

Is this all robbing Peter to pay Paul? Meh. I feel like the first two options are mega suck and the last option is probably the best bet.

I spent nothing on Thursday. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing!

In the morning, I had enough gas to make it to work and back. I pushed off tanking up till just before I leave on my road trip on Friday.

I brought soups from home for breakfast. They were BOGO Progresso soups from the supermarket the night before. Lentil. Yummy.

I ate a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner for lunch with a slice of bread. Steak Tips Portobello with broccoli. One of my favorites.

I had a can of Pepsi I brought from home.

I had some leftover SPAM fried rice for a snack before going to a volunteering gig.

I walked to the volunteering gig.

I came home and made more fried rice to use up the leftover half of the SPAM. That makes dinner and breakfast on Friday!

WHOOPEE! Finally, a complete No Spend Day.

This is great as I have budgeted $100 for my share of the hotel this weekend, $100 for gas (to be split with my friend), $30 for tolls, $100 for food and admission for the NY Sheep and Wool Festival. I think I could come under $330 as I am also planning on taking snacks to the hotel. We have a fridge available so there’s no need for spending a lot on food. We’re taking ourselves out for a fine meal on Friday night, but the rest of the weekend will be fast food, fair food, and whatever we bring with us. I’m taking some Pepsi, Soup to go cups (if I can find a microwave) and snackies.