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April 30, 2010, at 6:00 am If you're new to BFS, please subscribe to my RSS feed. It shows me a vote of support and keeps me motivated to keep your attention. If you have any questions or comments for me, please contact me and I'll get back to you asap. Thanks for visiting! The library is an oasis for anybody looking for entertainment. Readers can enjoy books, books on tape or CD’s, and ebooks to our heart’s content. Movie lovers can browse the DVD’s. People who like to stay in-the-know could take a look at a variety of newspapers and magazines that would cost a personal fortune to have delivered. They also have computer access with databases galore for anybody dying to go online or find research materials.
In short, the library offers a ton of free entertainment options that are pretty easy to enjoy.
In many cases, it’s even easier than browsing the shelves or spending half an hour searching down the book you know they have. Many libraries have a site online that you can use to find and request what you are looking for. That can be used to request an item anywhere in the library system or even request an item from somewhere else. Once the item reaches the location of your choice, you can pick it up right off a hold shelf, check it out, and be back to your car in less than 5-10 minutes.
Interlibary lending has allowed me to have access to over 100 paranormal fictions and murder mysteries in the past year that I would not have been able to get to as easily before. It’s also allowed my husband to save a couple of thousand dollars on books and materials he needed for his graduate school classes. He’s has had to read a couple of hundred children’s books and teen novels in the past 8 months. Those alone would have cost us at least $1000. He’s also used the library to get novels on CD’s so he can take care of the “reading” part of assignments on his way to work or hobbies.
Yep, I’m a library lover. How about you? Do you use your local library? Does your library have an online search and request site? Do you use your library for something I forgot to list?
April 29, 2010, at 1:00 pm
My guest post, Retirement Savings Mistakes, is up at Learn Save Invest today. It’s an overview of a retirement savings mistakes article and how we are stacking up. Please take a look if you get a chance!
April 29, 2010, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post. Billeater writes about ways to save money on your bills. The site strives to find the not-so-obvious solutions to every day expenses. You can read about more energy saving tips at www.billeater.com.
 It may seem as old as sliced bread, but everyone looks for ways to save energy. Some are struggling to get by and need the money to pay bills. The lucky ones are saving money towards buying an iPad or their next vacation cruise package. All told, Americans use an estimated $1 million worth of energy every single minute. Studies show that saving energy reduces the basic fossil fuels burned (such as natural gas, oil and coal). Burning fossil fuels results in air stagnation, pollutants and other contributors to global warming. The average American will produce over 35,000 pounds of CO2 emissions each year. The question is: what can you do as a consumer to lower these emissions of carbon dioxide (otherwise known as CO2)?
Well, as luck would have it, the things you do to improve the atmosphere also help you save money towards buying your favorite things.
By beginning with the biggest energy wasters, you save a good chunk of money right out of the gate. Begin with replacing your old appliances. Take advantage of government rebates and other incentives being offered by environmental programs.
The Kitchen
First, look at your refrigerator and freezer. The ideal temperature setting for your freezer is 2° to 4°, and between 35° and 38° for your refrigerator. This one appliance accounts for 25% of the entire home energy usage.
Since we’re in the kitchen anyway, let’s look at the dishwasher. The best way to save energy here is to refrain from using the hot drying cycle. Instead, open the dishwasher when the cycle ends and let the dishes air dry. Also, choose the shortest “time saver” cycle whenever possible to save additional energy.
Laundry Room
Choose front-loading washing machines whenever possible because they save up to 75% of hot water usage. Remember to look for the Energy Star Label, a sign that the appliance meets strict government standards for saving energy.
If you already have an Energy Star front loader, be sure you are using cold water whenever you can. Most of these machines default to warm. Check the settings and make sure you set both wash and rinse on cold water. Hang clothing to dry outside on sunny days and plan your laundry days around the weather to avoid using your dryer as much as possible.
Hot Water
Next, let’s go to the thermostat on your water heater, since this affects all the hot water usage in your home. The standard setting for most household hot water heater thermostats is usually 140°F. Turn the temperature down to between 110°F and 120°F. While you are at it, take time to inspect the insulation around your water heater to be sure you are not losing heat unnecessarily.
Heating and Cooling
When summer gets here, you’ll be eyeing that air conditioning unit or thermostat longingly. Do whatever you can to stay cool by other means. Try spending more time on the bottom floor of your house, and only use the AC when you absolutely must.
Before the heat sets in, check the filters and replace them if needed. This will prevent overworking the system and will save energy. Also, don’t forget to turn the heat off when the nights get over 60 degrees. During the winter, you should set the thermostat for 68 degrees during the day and 58 degrees at night.
Lights
If you just can’t get the kids to turn off the lights when they leave the room, consider investing in some auto-sensing switches. These switches turn off the lights after prolonged inactivity.
Of course, energy-efficient light bulbs are important as well. Check with your power company to see if you can get a special deal on equipping your house with these bulbs. Don’t wait for the energy-wasting bulbs to blow out. Install the energy savers right away to start saving immediately. The bulbs will cost three times more, but last 12 times longer. Some estimates put the energy savings for changing the light bulbs to as much as 68 percent!
Windows
The best way to deal with leaky windows and all the energy loss in your home for that matter, is to ask your electric company to come out and do an energy audit. If they do not provide the service, you can do it yourself with the help of Energy Star through their Home Energy Yardstick. For more specific recommendations, you may wish to hire a professional home energy auditor.
Be vigilant in your search for ways to save energy. Simple steps like unplugging appliances that you rarely, use and taking shorter showers, can save you heating and electricity costs. The more you save on energy, the more you’ll have saved towards your dream vacation next winter!
April 28, 2010, at 6:00 am
I hit on the main ways of diagnosing your financial health in this past post. I’m going to use Wednesdays to go further in depth on each point since I truly believe that financial health leads to less stress and happier lives.
I have already covered the first two points, Spend Less Than You Earn and starting an Emergency Fund. The third point was to save enough for retirement. This means saving consistently to fully fund the years after you stop working full time. Whether you choose to retire or simply age out, retirement savings is a truly important part of your fiscal life since you lose options with age.
Look at Your Options
You may be eligible for a 401k, 403b, IRA, Roth IRA, pension plan, etc. We even plan on using our stock investments at Scottrade as retirement income down the road.
Out of all of these options, I’d first concentrate on the 401k to see if your employer matches any contributions. If so, make sure to contribute as much as you need to in order to get the full employer contribution. Otherwise, you are literally ignoring free money. What other investment do you know of with a 50% – 100% rate of return?
In our case, I get matched 100% up to 6% in my 401k. We definitely contribute the entire 6%.
As for our other retirement accounts, my husband is also eligible for a full pension, so we keep an eye on that. We also contribute to a Roth IRA since we believe we’re in the lowest tax bracket of our lives right now (15%). I want to be able to accumulate interest for the next 25 years and not have to pay anything to the IRS for it when we start taking withdrawals. In fact, we’re looking into starting another Roth IRA this year.
No matter what way you are able to contribute, the important part is to take action and start saving.
Set Your Goals
Using articles and online calculators, like the Roth IRA calculator or the 401k calaculator you see in this post, you will be able to determine your overall retirement needs. In general, most people believe you will need at least 80% of your pre-retirement income, but I think there are quite a few factors involved.
For example, we save about 40% of our joint income every month, which means we only live on 60%. Should we still make sure to have at least 80% of our income throughout our retirement years?
Personally, I think we should plan on using as much as we use now. We won’t have a house payment, but we will have increased medical costs. I also plan for our future as if the pension and retirement accounts will be our only source of income. Sure, we hope to continue working hobby jobs and to receive Social Security benefits, but I rather plan conservatively.
Our current goal is to have between $2-$3 million saved up along with my husband’s pension.
Automatically Save
Once you have chosen your retirement account(s), set up an automatic way of contributing. In our case, my 401k and my husband’s pension plan contributions are automatically deducted from our paychecks before we even see our money. We also have an automatic deduction set up monthly from our checking account into our Roth IRA.
Automated contributions take out the guess work and ensure you’ll have something saved regularly for your future. Remember to continue this automated contribution plan for your whole working life…we are talking long-term.
Retirement savings is what’s going to keep you going through the later years of your life. Please plan accordingly.
Are you currently saving for retirement? Are you happy with your contribution amounts? Does anyone else know anyone that actually seems to be following the plan below?
April 27, 2010, at 6:00 am
The Simple Life in France posted Where Would You be Without Debt? and got me thinking. Debt freedom has to feel amazing. In our case, it would open up a bunch of options and really boost our early retirement goal.
Right now, we have a total of two debts:
1. Car Loan – $9,900 at 4.6%
2. Mortgage – $72,700 at 5.375%
I am currently concentrating on paying off the car loan as soon as humanly possible. My husband has even taken to this battle since he found out we wasted almost $700 on interest alone for the car in 2009. If we successfully pay it off by August 2011 as planned, that will be at least an extra $500 a month to “play” with since the payment is $330 and we’ve been contributing extra that comes our way.
We might use that extra money to tackle the rest of the mortgage. We are currently on schedule to have that paid off by December 2017, but I think it would be possible to move that up to 2015-2016 without hurting too much.
My only hesitation in any of this debt repayment is that it will be very difficult for us to open a second Roth IRA this year if we’re pretty much channeling that money to the car loan instead. We are going to try to do both, but I won’t really know if that’s on track until August or September 2010.
Have I mentioned that I have no patience? If not, I am not a patient person. Ever. Waiting sucks.
Anyway, that’s where we stand. Debt freedom is less than 7 years away. I think it will feel like being surrounded by free candy and chocolate…I’d be oh-so-happy and would enjoy figuring out where to start.
How do you stand? What’s your debt freedom date? How do you think it will feel?
April 26, 2010, at 6:00 am
I was inspired by this article to give a proper shout out to my parents. Thank you Mom and Dad for everything you taught me from as far back as I can remember. You are the reason I love personal finance and have never had to deal with high interest debt.
Okay, no more mushy stuff, I promise. The article above has a great 15 item list, but I really honed in on these points:
- Only spend what you earn.
- Only allow yourself to spend 50% of that.
- Guide and advise but don’t dictate your kids’ spending.
- At some point, cut your kids off.
I’d also like to add these specific suggestions since they either helped me or people I know:
- Help your kids open a banking account…having my own account spurred me to save.
- Teach your kids how to balance a checkbook and what those numbers mean.
- Have fun going over compound interest…I loved learning what my money could do.
- Explain debt’s consequences…this works best if they already know about compound interest.
- Introduce investment ideas…my mom went over CDs with me when I was 10. They help teach patience too.
- Quickly highlight what credit scores are and what they’re good for.
I know my parents taught me way more than what’s listed above, but I honestly don’t think there’s enough memory space for all of it. What big points did I miss? Do you disagree with any of the points above?
April 25, 2010, at 6:00 am
BFS is a member of the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge! My ranking last week was 624,347. Now it is 455,774! Below the half million mark baby!
The ultimate goal is to be in the top 200,000. I’m giving weekly rank updates in order to track our progress. Not too shabby for a blog that started at 8,531,858 when it joined the challenge in March 2010!
I would like to sincerely thank all of my readers and the members of the Yakezie Challenge. Obviously, this would be impossible without all of you.
In case you didn’t know, Alexa traffic rankings are determined by the numbers of hits a site gets by people with the Alexa toolbar. If you want to be part of this ranking community, you can download the Alexa toolbar here.
If you are a Yakezie member and don’t see yourself on my member list, please send me an email or leave a comment here to be added, thanks!
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DISCLAIMER I am not a professional or a financial advisor. BFS posts are informational opinions only. Please make your own financial decisions based on personal research or see a financial advisor.
Also, there are paid links on this site. There is no obligation on your part to purchase any products advertised on this website.
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