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May 7, 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! Picnics make me feel light and fluffy since it involves socializing, nature, and sandwiches. I also love the fact that they require people to talk. They get usually quiet people (not me) to open up. Oh, and they are really cheap.
In college, there were a few stone tables outside that were perfectly situated under trees and surrounded by 3 dorms. I’d splurge on a $1.50 loaf of bread, a $2.50 container of peanut butter, and a $2.50 jar of strawberry jam just so I could sit at the table and stop friends and random strangers that were wandering by.
College kids always stop for free food. By the time they finished their sandwich, we had each made a new friend or at least got to get some of the days worries off our minds.
After college, picnics became little romantic dates with my husband. We usually take some cracked corn as well for any ducks or birds that are around. Easy sandwiches, iced tea, good conversation, and wildlife always makes me smile.
In short, picnics are relaxing. You can even find parks with playground equipment that your children would enjoy. $5 of sandwich materials (or salad, leftovers, etc), a place to sit, and hopefully another person or two is all it takes to have fun.
Do you enjoy picnics? How long has it been since you ate outside?
May 6, 2010, at 6:00 am
I realized when I read Suckered By the Discount? at A Gai Shan Life that I had just fallen prey to a special the day before. The point of the post was to remind you that discounts and specials only save you money if you were going to buy it anyway. They end up “suckering” you if the discount or special is what causes you to shop to start with…
I fell prey to a jewelry special. I received a mailed ad in April that said that Zales was selling a sterling silver and diamond accent heart pendant and chain for Mother’s Day for $19.99 instead of their “regular” $119.00 price. Of course I knew that they’d never be able to get $119, but the $20 price tag was calling my name. I immediately thought, “Wow, that’s just too good to pass up.” Yep, I was sucked in.
I thought about that ad for the rest of the day and even put the days of the special on my calendar. I thought that the pull of the deal would wear off in the couple of weeks before the sale, but it didn’t. I ended up going to Zales the first day of the special right after work.
Even though they were out of the necklaces by the time I got there, they were “helpfully” taking layaway orders for them at the $20 price if I would be willing to wait 4-8 weeks for them to arrive. I was fine with that and ended up ordering 5 of these things for $108.20 with tax!
My thinking is that I’ll have one for my mom, both of my younger sisters, my grandma, and myself – like diamond friendship necklaces for all my girls. I’m hoping I can give them out all at once in September but they could still be considered birthday gifts for everybody since all of their birthdays fall between September and November.
Yeah, I’m a sucker and I’m cheap…this post is making me look really good…lol.
So I’m okay with my purchase since I think they will be appreciated, BUT I’d be $108 richer right now if I had never seen that special in the mail.
Have you been sucked in by a discount or special before? Feel silly (like me) later?
May 5, 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 three points - Spend Less Than You Earn, start an Emergency Fund, and review Retirement Savings. The fourth point was to take a look at your debt. This means actually making a list of your debts and coming up with an aggressive plan of attack.
Make a List of Your Debts
There are a variety of debt elimination methods, but I’d start with prioritizing your list of debts. Place your high interest debts like credit cards or payday loans at the top and your lower interest debts like car loans, mortgages, and student loans at the bottom. I’d go even further and list the high interest debts from least to most actual debt and do the same for the lower interest ones as well. This completed list will show you which debt to attack first.
As a side note, high interest debt is so detrimental to your overall financial health, I’d rate its importance above most retirement savings. If I had debt that was at 10% or more, I’d keep a two month emergency fund, only contribute the minimum needed to get my full employer match on my 401k, and then I’d take care of the debt.
Attack the Debts in Order
In order to pay down debt, you will need extra money every month- you’ll need to consistently spend less than you earn. While paying the minimums on all debts, your extra money should be applied to the first debt on the list mentioned above until it’s completely wiped out. After paying off one debt, put that entire amount towards the next debt on the list. Repeat this process until you are completely debt free.
Freedom from high interest debt will give you options and lighten your mental load significantly. Freedom from all debt will give you wings…so I’ve heard. 
Our Debt Situation
As I write this post, my husband and I have about $10,000 left on a 4.6% interest car loan we took out in 2008 and $73,000 left on our 5.375% interest mortgage. Since finally coming to my senses at the beginning of this year, we are hitting the car loan pretty hard whenever possible. We’ve been overpaying our mortgage by $160 a month since it started in 2007. We’re currently on track to have the car paid off sometime in 2011 and our home paid off by the end of 2017. I cannot wait for the feeling and options that come with complete debt freedom.
How about you? What kind of debts are you trying to eradicate? Do you have any suggestions for us?
May 4, 2010, at 6:00 am
Budgets, like the people who use them, come in a variety of packages. Our budget lists our basic expenses and a few different savings accounts we push money into every month (few being like 7…). As the manager of our budget, I find it much easier if I have separate accounts for each of those goals.
Here are the extra accounts we have at ING (currently at 1.1%) and Smarty Pig (currently at 2.15%):
- Emergency Fund – The cash we have set aside for job loss or anything unexpected that the other accounts won’t cover.
- Taxes and Insurance – We don’t escrow, so we put aside money every month for property taxes and homeowner’s insurance.
- Auto and Home Maintenance – Ever since we paid my car off, we’ve been paying ourselves that payment for future car and home costs. We upped that amount when we bought our house but are keeping it somewhat minimal since we’re trying to pay off my husband’s car as quickly as possible.
- Roth IRA and Stocks – We put extra money here even though we also contribute automatically to the Roth IRA. We use this extra money as an opportunity fund.
- Vacations – We save here for our big annual vacations and our smaller weekend trips.
- Hubby’s Fun Money – This is for anything he has a craving for.
- My Fun Money – This is for my hobbies and habits like Shirt Woot.
It would be totally possible to use just one account for all of these, but I like being able to take a very quick inventory without worrying if I remembered to update my Excel sheet that month. It works for us.
What works for you?
May 3, 2010, at 6:00 am
For anyone new to BFS, I post a net worth update at the beginning of every month in order to keep myself motivated and to involve BFS readers. Please feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, or even post your net worths too. I am a particpant-motivated blogger, so please jump on in.
I calculate our net worth as listed below. I don’t include the value of our possessions, I round down to the nearest hundred for assets, and I round up to the nearest hundred for liabilities. I also don’t include my husband’s pension account since I’m too lazy to keep up with it and it shouldn’t actually matter until he retires.
Assets
1. Cash – $25,500 (we paid for grad school’s 1st summer session…yuck)
2. Stocks – $12,300 ($100 loss…icky)
3. Retirement – $36,000
4. Home – $130,000
5. Cars – $16,000
Liabilities
1. Home – $72,700
2. Car – $9,900 (We made an extra $500 principal payment in mid-April, yay!)
Total Net Worth = $137,200
Increase/Decrease = Up $3800 from last month
That’s way better than I was expecting due to grad school. We’ve been living on less lately since we’ve been staying in a lot. Hubby’s been working on grad school and I’m a paid blogging woman now. Those two link ads on the right brought in $387.80 after Paypal took its cut. Please feel free to ignore the ads, but I’m so happy.
I base the value of our home on two things: comparables selling in our neighborhood and the estimated appraisal by Chase Home Value Estimator. I will always estimate low.
I base the value of our cars on Kelley Blue Book’s Private Party Value of our vehicles in “Good” condition truncated down to the nearest $1000. For example, if my car is valued at $4600, I’d calculate that as $4000.
Please feel free to visit the archive to see our past net worths.
May 2, 2010, at 6:00 am
BFS is a member of the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge! My ranking last week was 455,774. Now it is 369,629!
The ultimate goal is to be in the top 200,000 by July 4, 2010. 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!
May 1, 2010, at 6:00 am
My Favorite Posts this Week
Blogs that Featured BFS
Thank you for inviting me to your site!
Guest Posts on BFS
Guest posts introduce different points of view, bring in additonal readers, and allow me to take a day off. Thank you!
If you would like to submit a guest post to BFS, please shoot me an idea or the actual post. I’d also appreciate a one or two sentence introduction for the piece. I’ll get back to you quickly and will give you as much advance notice as possible on its posting date.
Blog Carnivals that Included BFS
Thanks! I appreciate all the time you spent on the process. It’s a great feeling to be chosen!
Carnival hosts, if BFS is in a blog carnival that you are running, please email me the link so it can be added to this weekly list. Thanks!
Other Info
- Mrs. Money at Ultimate Money Blog created my awesome new title banner. I’d highly suggest her services if you’re in the market. Thanks from the girl who couldn’t make up her mind!
- Jackie at Money Crush is hosting a $100 Contest until May 12th in honor of the debt snowball app she created. Please take a look!
Feel free to email me if you have any suggestions. I’d love to add a few more blogs to my regular reading list or at least give a shout-out for great posts or contests.
As always, thanks to all the bloggers that teach me something new every day. Thanks to all my commenters for making this blog the community I want it to be. Thanks to all my lurkers too. I hope everybody is enjoying this as much as I am!
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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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