Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

It was $11 I didn’t need or use anymore.

In fact, that snappy iPod I won last year has gone AWOL. Frankly, I don’t really miss it. I was balking at spending the $50-$100 needed to get a car adapter which is all I would use it for anyway. No iTunes spending for me.

I am trying to stick only to the essentials, which is why I decided to go to the Gogol Bordello show in DC next month with my friends. They said it was a fantastic time, so if I am going to spend time doing anything with that crowd, this looks to be the event. I am eschewing all the weekly happy hours and only attending social events at people’s homes so that I can bring food/booze, and good times. That somehow always seems cheaper than hitting happy hour every week.

I am in the midst of planning my annual large camping trip. For some reason, I’m being completely silly about getting a car. I keep thinking that I can fudge it in some manner so that my friends can pick me up from the airport when I arrive and deliver me to a hotel before I leave. (10-days without a real shower means I need to wash up before flying.)

Savvy Steward asked me about putting money into a Roth IRA. Currently I do not have one, and with my Debt-O-Meter as is, I am not sure where I’d squeeze out the extra cash to put money there. I backed off on maxing out my 401k contribution so I could have a little more money to throw monthly at credit card debt and put cash into my pocket.

I am seriously considering forgetting getting laser vision surgery next year. If I cut back medical FSA spending to only $1000 to cover new chi-chi glasses with all the fancy coatings, a flu shot, asthma/allergy meds, various other teeth stuff and other prescriptions, I would be able to bring home another $3k in cash to put into a Roth. As it is, I REALLY want to see without glasses and because I put my teeth before my eyes, I really was looking forward to finally having surgery done next year. (pun unintended, but it works here.)

If you total my 401k, Medical FSA, Traditional IRA and random cash savings, I save about 27% of my gross paycheck. Mind you, I can only do that because I have some side income coming in every month from blogging and this and that. If I had no other side stream of income, I’d go back to working at the yarn shop.

In calculating statistics, I figured out that I only need to bank away an extra $110 every check to round out to a 30% savings rate. How cool would that be?

But I HAVE to get out of debt first. I MUST.

Read this daily meditation by 3 Things About Money. She writes a pretty good blog and this post caught my eye because I think I’m having a lot of anxiety about money lately. Scratch that. I KNOW I’m having a lot of anxiety about money lately.
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Happy Lunar New Year! How are your Julian Calendar new year’s resolutions going?

I’m a big believer that every day is a new day and a new opportunity to make a change in our lives. If you’re not following your budget this month, that’s no reason to stop trying to make your budget tomorrow or next month. So what if Lent started on Wednesday? Tomorrow is Thursday and a perfectly good time to start if the concept is new to you.

I love Lent because it’s another shot at any new year’s resolutions I’ve made and failed at keeping. It’s a specific period of time during which I can try to discipline myself once more. Since today was the first day, Ash Wednesday as one of my commenters noted, I will note what I did to keep Lent.

1) I avoided the cans of soda in my desk, even though I **REALLY** wanted one today. My friend and I went to eat lunch at her apartment and she made me coffee instead. (We got Panera take-out so she could walk her sick dog.) Later I heard my boss open a can of seltzer at his desk. I swear he was doing it to torture me. I am conditioned to crave soda after I hear a can pop open.

2) Even though I bought lunch, I made the decision to go get groceries and cook dinner at home tonight. I feel this was a good choice because I have a ready supply of food in the house now so I don’t get tempted to go out for dinner. I probably saved $3-5 as I hoped to do, and I got my ‘allowance’ out as cash back, thus saving myself a side trip to the bank!

Take a moment and think back to any goals you sent at the beginning of the year. Are you working on them every day? Every week? Every month? This doesn’t just apply to your finances. What about your diet? Your exercise? Your homework? Your house projects? Your craft projects?

Onward and upward, my friends!

Last year I wrote about what a lousy Catholic I am, but I do keep Lent. I’ve been really busy this year due to Daylight Savings Time changes this year. I’ve had a lot of upgrades scheduled midweek at odd hours, etc. It’s why I never posted yesterday. (BTW, you guys in the PF Blog world do know about this right? Your computers are all fixed?)

Bear with me here. I promise this post really is about personal finance, but you have to get through some of my personal history with Lent to get to the good stuff.

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Kirby & Kira both write about their micro-level spending. I know I have a problem with buying things with cash. But lately I’ve been doing the John D. Rockefeller thing and writing down all cash outlays into a little notebook. Doing so means that I spend less. I am so frickin’ lazy that I will skip buying something so I don’t have to pull out my dorky notebook. (It’s an expensive Moleskine, which I bought as a DIY gift for someone, but he found the lost thing I was trying to replace with the gift.)

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I’m sorry, this is the real reason why I want to be rich. Forget that scholarship stuff.

Though this article did not meet the 84th Carnival of Personal Finances’ two-week requirement, I still liked it. The Digerati Life on how living in a rich neighborhood can be dangerous for the poor Yet another reason why inequity can be dangerous. (no second link for you for being a bad submitter!)

George at Fat Pitch Financials reports that Macy’s is asking for your Social Security Number. Don’t give your social security number unless you are applying for an in-store credit card. (which you shouldn’t do anyway!) Someone possibly faking as a Macy’s rep left a comment, so stay tuned to find out what happens.

Frugal Duchess wrote a great post about what teaching has taught her about money. I think her brief lessons are true. I was a better student when I had more discipline imposed on me in life. (Straight A’s in high school, till I was accepted to college, and then 4.5 years of slacking off mightily. Sorry Mom & Dad!)

Frugal Duchess again on John Travolta’s frugal money lessons. I love it. DIY projects with dad make for life long memories. Mom shopping thrift for good looking quality clothes. Good stuff. Did you know that disco was nearly dead till Saturday Night Fever revived it? That white suit? I read somewhere that the wardrobe people found it on sale in a store and it became the indelible image of disco.

Trent says Change your routines to change your financial habits. Absolutely. They say that it takes 21 or 27 days to create a new habit. Just think about your daily financial wastes. Can you break yourselves of those wasteful habits?

HC at One Big Mortar Board tells it like it is when it comes to helping your kids pay for college and why. She wrote something pretty compelling. The quote I liked best? In contrast, while I’m immensely proud of getting a master’s degree from Big 10 U., the fact that I paid for all of it out of my own savings, work-study, and lots of loans doesn’t make the accomplishment any more meaningful to me. I spent a lot more time being worried about money than being proud that I was paying my own way.

Make Love Not Debt tells us to hit White Castle for a frugal, yet romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. There’s something about those little sackfuls of burgers. But now that I’m in DC, I prefer Julia’s Empanadas as my late night post-nightclubbing snack. SOOO GOOOD… SOOOO CHEAP…. SOOO TASTY…. Even the next day. I ignore the first reviewer in the link because I don’t eat fruit so her review does not apply. I go straight for the meat ones and they are amazingly tasty.

I was looking at Quicken over the weekend. I was really tempted to drain out my Emergency Fund and pay down a credit card.

Friday night I updated my January 2007 Net Worth. While I was looking at my Net Worth IQ graphs, I realized that my credit card balance didn’t have a serious dip in the last 7 months. I have to go back all the way to May 2006, before those damned weddings to find where I made a dent in my credit card balance. In my horror, I decided to try and make huge payments each month and try my best damage control before June when the zero-interest expires on a balance transfer.

The problem is that I have this fat wad of cash in my Emergency Fund and I’m about to spend it against my debt. VERY BAD.

So instead, I decided to sweep a chunk of it into a 12 month CD. I will take the penalty of 3 months in interest if I have an emergency, but it will be worth it to tie up the money so I can’t spend it for a non-emergency. I have to learn to discipline myself. This is just one of my struggles with my finances. I know I dine out too much. I was so conscious of it that I actually bought groceries for myself last week and made an effort to dine only at the cafeteria downstairs at work. They charge you by the weight of your food, so it helps me portion control what I eat and spend less. I can eat well for $4.00-$8.00, probably averaging about $6.00. No tax, no tip so it’s much cheaper than going out to a restaurant. One of my co-workers lives close to the office and she’s been inviting me over for lunch at her house so we can fix sandwiches and watch TV. Hey, to save money, I’ll watch TV!

My two biggest struggles are my dining out budget and spending my emergency fund. What are yours? Are you aware of your financial blindspots? Can you find them with your budgeting tool or your financial statements? I don’t think I would have been as aware of the non-progress I was making on my credit card debt without paging back through my net worth graphs. It really hits home when you see you’ve looked at 7 months’ worth of graphs and there was no progress made at all.

‘Life is hard. Get a helmet.’

Jane Dough tells it like it is. Becoming wealthy is within reach if you want to do what you really have to do, spend less than you earn and save your money.

Kind of sucks to hear it out loud, but get used to it and end up with enough for retirement. Rather than rewards in paradise, I’d rather just not be destitute when I’m aged.

Today is Easter. While Lent officially ended on Thursday, I counted my Lenten piggybank money today. I also broke my soda fast on Saturday, though this year, I was sorely tempted many times by the hospital vending machine. Coca-Cola really is the nectar of the gods.

I got:
1 $5
23 $1
2 Quarters
11 Dimes
10 Nickels
16 Pennies

$30.26 Total

So less than a dollar a day during the 40 days of Lent. I know, you’re thinking that it’s a pretty lame figure. But I can tell you right now, that’s already $28.00 I didn’t spend because I didn’t leave those bills in my wallet. I hoard quarters for the laundry, so I’m surprised there were any quarters in there at all.

I tend to use my credit card or debit card for all my daily expenditures. I have been working on buying everything with just my debit card. For the last two paychecks I’ve done pretty good with that. There’s only a few things I’ve put on credit in the past month, mostly recurring subscriptions. I even paid for the first two months’ of car/home insurance with debit.

For anyone who’s thinking that I’m not saving enough for retirement, don’t worry. This experiment was in addition to my 401k and regular savings. I just wanted to see what kind of cash I could save if I tried this route. I found myself often not depositing into the piggybank thinking that I might need that cash for the next day. It definitely helped me budget a little more on a daily basis. I was much better about spending less than $15 a day on food, often trying to spend less than $10. I found myself yanking out $40 bucks from the ATM and reminding myself to drop a few dollars into the piggybank. I tried to make sure that I would come home at night with some money to drop in rather than have absolutely nothing. I was actually *excited* to put in my money, kind of the way little kids are when they get their first bank.

I guess the other reason there isn’t more in there is that I went away for a week. I could have taken the bank with me, but it wouldn’t have reflected my true spending activity since sometimes my mom would give me a few dollars to eat at the hospital cafeteria when she didn’t bring me a sandwich. (I don’t really like sandwiches, mainly because my mom didn’t really know how to make them when I was a kid. I am proud to say that she’s much better now after living here for 30+ years. Though perhaps it shouldn’t have taken this long…)

The main lesson learned? I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about the meaning of this sacrifice. If asked me if I lost out on anything, the answer would be no. I suppose this represents $30 bucks worth of sodas that I gave up this year, but probably not the beer I didn’t drink.

Subsidiary lesson? Cut a bigger hole. I had a hard time stuffing wads of dollars into the bank because I cut the slit too narrow.

Is it worth doing again? Yes, I think so. I think I’ll do this again and I won’t wait for Lent. I am going to keep this piggybank and try to make an effort to put money into it in a more disciplined fashion. I really liked that I became more conscious of how I was spending money on a daily basis by using this in conjunction with a Paycheck Challenge.