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January 20, 2011, 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 following is a guest post from Jenna, Community Manager of Adaptu. Jenna has been a long time reader and commenter here and I’d encourage you to take a look at this very cool, new site. 
One of the reasons why I enjoy following Budgeting In The Fun Stuff is the genuine thought that Crystal puts into her responses to readers’ comments. Whether it’s responding at the bottom of a blog post, sending an email, or commenting on other personal finance blogs, Crystal really cares about her community.
What is Adaptu?
Another reason BFS keeps my interest is the openness to new communities. I’m currently working with one online community that Crystal has allowed me to share with you, Adaptu.
Adaptu is an online service with tools, resources, and a community of connected users, that helps people make sense of and be in control of their financial lives. Adaptu’s goal is to help empower individuals to take a more active role in their finances. By doing this, we believe that users will be better prepared for life’s both planned and unplanned events.
Adaptu Benefits
While there are lots of reasons to become a member of Adaptu, here are a couple of reasons I personally connect with it: For one, it’s free! Can’t beat that. Secondly, the tools allow me to interact with my finances, from low balance alerts to tracking investments, in a way that makes sense. Adaptu has a calendar highlighting your bills, balances and transaction details. If you click on a future calendar date, your projected balances and scheduled transactions for that date will be displayed. Adaptu also has the capabilities to track utilities and reward points. Additionally, you can compare your spending against the rest of the community using the financial comparisons tool.
Most of all, I love the community on Adaptu (granted, I might be a little biased, being the Community Manager). Adaptu has great blog posts, discussions, groups, videos and polls, allowing members to share information, engage other users, and help one another reach their financial goals. Plus, Adaptu allows its users to create their own content. If a user has a particular question, passion or thought, he or she can share it with the Adaptu community as a whole.
Future of Adaptu
Over the next year, we plan to continue publishing great content, expand our community, and listen to the needs of our users in order to create additional money management tools. Of course, our tools are completely secure, with security verification seals from multiple companies. Our bank-level security keeps your account information, as well as passwords, completely encrypted.
I encourage you to check out Adaptu. Oh, and in the words of Crystal, “Honestly, I love to see your opinions and questions.”
Crystal’s Comments: I’ve personally checked out Adaptu in its beginning and liked it’s layout and purposes. What do you think?
Feel free to also check out my staff writer post today at My Retirement Blog,
15 Ways to Ensure a Successful Retirement – Part 2
January 19, 2011, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post from Little House in the Valley. I really enjoy her style, so check it out!
Growing up in a frugal family that saved a small fortune on a conservative fireman’s salary, one would think I’d follow in these similar footsteps and end up the ultimate uber-saver. Not so; as life would present too many tantalizing baubles and opportunities to spend my hard-earned money on. I could blame my deprived childhood, due to extreme frugality, on my poor savings habits and psycho-analyze my behavior as trying to make up for things I missed out on as a child. But let me be realistic and honest; I let spur of the moment opportunities seize my usually money-conscious brain and talk myself into freak lapses of budget-blowing insanity. Instead of sticking to my guns and meeting my saving goals, at the end of year I look at the paltry amount I’ve accumulated, and vow to do better.
This year I’ve come up with a plan to meet those goals through some extreme, at least for me, strategies. Some of these ideas I’ve gleaned from reading personal finance blogs, others I’m making up as I go and I’ll review their effectiveness at the end of the year based on if they saved me money or just wasted my time.
Savings “Bins”
I currently have 3 different savings accounts with small amounts in each and think this is because I haven’t really labeled most of them for specific purposes. Although the one I’ve labeled, “sister’s wedding fund”, I’ve found that I’ve been quite diligent in sticking a set amount every month in that savings account and keeping my grubby little paws off of it since it has a particular purpose. Obviously, this method is working for me. Now all I have to do is label the other two accounts and set a specific monthly savings amount.
I’ve decided that the one I can get to most easily needs to be my slush fund/emergency account. My goal for this account is to continually keep at least one month’s total amount of bills. However, the hurdle with this account is because my income fluctuates from month to month, I sometimes need to dip into the slush to pay for upcoming bills. I’ll have to review this account over a quarterly period instead of month to month.
The online savings account that is a little more difficult to touch will be my long term savings account, or “house” account. Since one of my big goals is to own a house within the next 3-5 years, I need to devote as much money as I can to this account if I ever want my dream to materialize. A realistic goal is to set aside double what I’m already depositing. This will be the tricky part as I find myself coming up short of this past year’s savings amount.
To meet these savings goals, I’ll have to really reign in my budget and find out where it’s “leaking.”
Finite Gift Cards
A few of the “leaks” I’ve noticed include over-spending on our daily habits. These habits appear to be budget-breakers, so to help me reduce over spending, I’ve decided to use a couple of strategies:
- A pre-determined and limited gift card
- A Starbucks card
My Starbucks Gold card can be loaded at the beginning of the month with a set amount on it. Instead of loading it whenever it runs out, I will load it on the first of the month and when it’s gone, then it’s time to make my own drinks from home. Setting a pre-spending limit will keep that part of my budget intact.
The next part of the budget that needs some work is my husband’s habits. Instead of letting him swipe his debit card whenever he needs a pack of cigars, he’s going to be given a finite gift card that I’ll load on the first of the month. He’ll have to make that baby stretch for the entire 30-day period.
Setting finite amounts at the beginning of the month should plug up the holes I’m finding and allow me to save enough for my “house” fund.
Go, Cash, Go
Another leak I’ve noticed is the amount of money we spend eating out, even at fast-food places. A few dollars here and there never seems like a lot at any one time, but those dollars begin to add up and all of a sudden it amounts to a large portion that could have been stuck into my emergency fund.
To fix this leaky sieve, meals out will have to be cash-only. Since I’ve already budgeted a portion of my monthly income towards meals, this amount will be set aside in my Mason jar at the beginning of every month. When the cash runs dry, bye-bye McDonald’s cheeseburgers.
Overflow Buckets
Since I use Quickbooks to track my spending and income, I noticed that I made a few thousand dollars more than what I had originally budgeted for the year. But darned if I can’t find that extra amount I made! Where, oh, where did that extra cash go? It seems to have evaporated into the abyss of the colorful pie charts that track my expenses and income.
This coming year, with a few safe-guards in place (finite gift cards, cash, and purposeful savings accounts) this overflow of income should end up in my emergency fund at the end of a fruitful month. Since the “house” account, “sister’s wedding” account, and the “ER fund” account will already be set aside at the beginning of each month, any extra savings at the end will be moved to the ER fund. That way the overflow of cash will be saved and not spent.
Group Support
Finally, without anyone keeping tabs on me, I might quickly revert back to my old-self. Posting monthly or quarterly updates on my progress for each of these tactics will help keep me following my own advice. Hopefully by mid-year I’ll notice a huge improvement in my savings accounts.
Would these tactics work for everyone? It depends on how budget-conscious one is and if one is willing to keep track of their income and expenses diligently. Will these strategies work for me? I’ll let you know by mid-year.
Crystal’s Question: Do you have any tricks you use on yourself to save more? I cut out coupons (like the V8 Fusion coupon mentioned in that post).
January 18, 2011, at 6:00 am
I saw Thousandaire’s 20 Financial Milestones for your 20s that all started at Gen Y Wealth and couldn’t resist.
Here’s how I stack up at age 28:
#1 – Finance a dream vacation…in cash Mr. BFS and I take at least one big trip every year and always pay for it in cash. Last summer we took our second cruise (we went snorkeling in Jamaica and Grand Cayman and loved the lazy rivers in Mexico). This coming summer we’re heading back to Las Vegas for a week. These may not sound like “dream vacations” to everyone, but I’ve already lived in other countries and Mr. BFS is a homebody, so these are our dreams, lol.
#2 – Pay off your student loans We didn’t have any college loans. My husband’s parents covered his education and my parents covered whatever my scholarships and 3 part-time jobs didn’t. I also lived cheaply in college overall. We were/are blessed. We know.
#3 – Automate paying your credit card bill in full We automate as much as possible in every aspect of our financial lives, lol. We got this covered.
#4 – Get Rid of Bad Debt The only debt we have left is our mortgage since I love paying off debt. I nearly went nuts when we paid off our last car. I think all debt is cruddy, but I doubt home debt is considered “bad debt” in this respect. It’ll be paid off no later than my 33rd birthday though.
#5 – Build an adequate emergency fund We have 6 months of our expenses in cash in our ING emergency fund. Our 401(k), Roth IRA, and Scottrade stock investments would cover us for an additional 2 years at least.
#6 – Make your first, and last, investment mistake We invested $15,000 in a “friend’s” business and ended up losing almost everything. I’m sure we will buy a bad stock once in a while in the rest of our history in the market, but I doubt we’ll ever make the same huge mistakes again. I just don’t think it is a good idea to think you will never fail again.
#7 – Develop a statement of cash flows We operate on a zero-based budget, so we know where all of our money goes.
#8 & 9 Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k) We have fully funded a Roth IRA for 3 years now and have always contributed at least the minimum to get the maximum company match to my 401(k). We are currently trying to fully fund a second Roth IRA for 2010 – we have until April to come up with another $3500, so I think we’ll make it.
#10 – Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power I graduated Cum Laude with my bachelor’s degree and my husband not only received his bachelor’s but completed his graduate degree last year in order to become a school librarian.
#11 – Take a career risk We invested the $15,000 into a failing business so we could turn a game store into our main job. That obviously didn’t work out, lol. I’m now attempting to turn blogging into my full time job by the time I’m 29-30.
#12 – Negotiate something We bought our home as a foreclosure and talked their already low price of $119,500 to $114,000 in 2007 before the crash. You can also check out how I got hubby’s Prius. Finally, I also regularly negotiate down the price of all our souvenirs, art, and any furniture we buy and have to negotiate with advertisers for space here on BFS. I LOVE NEGOTIATING.
#13 – Earn your first side grand I earned about $5000 in 2010 from blogging and another $1000 with side jobs and freelance writing. My husband earns $3000-$5000 a year reffing high school and middle school football and basketball as well.
#14 – Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal We have multiple accounts for everything, lol. Our most loved one is probably our vacation account.
#15 – Set a target retirement date 52. That is when my husband is eligible for his full pension and we are saving like crazy to make it happen.
#16 – Monitor your credit I monitor all bills and expenses and check each of our credit reports every 4-6 months.
#17 – Say no to a financial salesman We say no to a ton of stuff. That is how we are hoping to afford early retirement.
#18 – Give just enough to make it hurt We only give a little money every year, but I donate a ton of time. When we lived close to the Houston SPCA, I volunteered there 3 evenings a week for 4 hours after work and half of every Saturday. When we moved, we fostered Pugs for Pughearts: Houston Pug Rescue until we adopted one and ended up spending $2500 to get Mr. Pug healthy again. This year I’m getting involved with Meals on Wheels.
Two Milestones for the Over Achiever
#19 – Invest $1 for every $1 you spend Not quite there yet. We live and play on my husband’s salary and invest mine, but that’s like investing 40% instead of 50%.
#20 – Start a 529 College Savings Plan Ummm…no. My younger sister (20) earns scholarships and works summer jobs to pay her way through college for her engineering degree and my youngest sister (15) is well on the way to doing the same for whatever degree she chooses. I have no idea if either one of them ever wants to have kids. Plus, my parents are more than willing to help cover any extra now and probably would spoil a grandkid rotten, lol. My husband is an only child and doesn’t even have any first cousins. We have no plans to have children thus far. So this would be a big, fat no.
Grand Total
Of the 20 Goals, here is where I stand: 16 – Completed 3 – We will voluntarily not try to reach these goals (#6, #18, and #20) 1 – Working on it (#19)
How does it/did it look on your end?
January 17, 2011, at 9:00 am
As you may have read, my husband and I joined Weight Watchers. They assigned each of us a certain amount of daily food points. In an effort to conserve as many of our assigned points as possible, my husband decided to buy us some 99% lean ground turkey instead of the regular 93% lean stuff. Do you know how much that stupid turkey cost?! $12 for 2.5 pounds!!! Almost $5 a pound! I am sorry, but that is nuts.
After a few minutes of questioning my husband’s sanity followed by a few more minutes of just being ticked off, I asked my mother why the heck super lean ground turkey possibly costs so much. She then explained that turkey has to be put through the meat grinders twice as often as beef since turkey has tougher “fibers”. Plus, 99% lean means that we bought pure ground turkey breast instead of a jumble of turkey meat. That makes me feel a teeny-tiny bit better.
Okay, that sort of makes sense…but come on! $5 a pound?! We can’t afford that on a regular basis. How many people can?
A closer inspection of the final bill also made me realize that we paid $3.19 for a small package of Fat Free Shredded Cheddar. Last week he paid $3 a pound for grapes ($8 total for 2-3 days worth of grapes…). Not only am I scared to ever let Mr. BFS shop for us again, but I am extremely worried that I cannot afford to eat much healthier. Regular $77 grocery bills for 3 bags of food is just not going to happen.
Here’s my current plan of attack:
- Reduce portion sizes to ACTUAL portion sizes.
- Leave out the higher point ingredients whenever possible.
- Save up my 7 daily “extra” points for the weekends since I don’t want to give up potlucks.
- Cry/whine a little about the $8 grapes and $12 turkey.
- Convince hubby that the 93% lean ground turkey at $2.30 a pound is nearly as great…we talked and he said “okay”, but he used his pouty voice…grrr…
*Update* Jennie O’s 99% lean turkey was $6 a pound but HEB’s brand was $3.50 (hubby just didn’t look)…much more reasonable, but still a little crazy to me. How are you coping with food prices? Are you also avoiding some healthier options since the price is so high?
January 17, 2011, at 6:00 am
To my regular readers, I will be hosting this carnival at least every Monday in January, but I will have another post up in a few hours too. So if blog carnivals aren’t your thing, don’t worry, please check back in again after 9am CST.
Welcome the the second Totally Money Blog Carnival!!! Thanks for taking a look! I’ve riddled this one with crazy diet fads I found at Mark’s Daily Apple in honor of all of our resolutions, lol. I hope to make you smile enough to see you all next week again too!
Editor’s Picks
In 1964 Robert Cameron published “The Drinking Man’s Diet,” a weight loss book that emphasized carbohydrate control but also recommended that readers drink gin and vodka, which, in and of themselves, are low-carb beverages.
Budgeting and Saving
In the early 1900s, San Francisco art dealer Horace Fletcher unveiled a new weight loss technique under which you were allowed to chew your food – 32 times to be exact, one for each tooth – but could not swallow it. Fletcher – or the Great Masticator, as he was often called – theorized that by only chewing your food in this fashion – a technique that was dubbed Fletcherizing – your body would absorb all the nutrients it needed and you would be able to enjoy the taste of food without the risk of weight gain.
Money Management
Eat, eat, eat and always stay thin – or so claims a promotional poster for The Tapeworm Diet. Under the plan, all you had to do is simply swallow a worm-laced pill and watch as the worm dined off your food.
Spending and Debt
Like grapefruit? Want to eat it for every meal? Well, on the grapefruit plan, you will…for 12 days…grapefruit, grapefruit, grapefruit…all day grapefruit. Sound boring? Absolutely. Will it work? Well, yeah, but only because your daily intake on this diet hovers around 600 calories or less (beefed up of course by the odd egg and the occasional cup of coffee).
Finance
Ever tried the “Sacred Heart Diet”? How about the “Military Cabbage Soup,” the “TJ Miracle Soup Diet,” or the “Russian Peasant Diet”? Why would a diet need so many aliases? Well, when the key ingredient is freakin’ cabbage you need to do something to jazz it up! Popular in the mid-80s, the cabbage soup diet required followers to consume as much cabbage as they want for seven days (and presumably stay away from open flames!).
Credit
Introduced in 1987, the F-plan advocated a high-fiber, low-fat, calorie-controlled eating plan. The idea is to fill up on fiber and you’ll be less inclined to overeat from other food groups. However, the diet literally sang the praises of carbohydrates, with a particular emphasis on the consumption of potatoes, legumes and grains, which we now know is not a recipe for optimal health.
Taxes
Popularized most recently by one Ms. Beyoncé Knowles, the diet requires users to drink six to 12 glasses of lemonade laced with cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Still hungry? Have another glass…and another… and another.
Careers and Real Estate
Think you can lose weight drinking beers and knocking back tubs of ice cream? Then you might interested to learn about the beer and ice cream diet, a concept built around the very real scientific law of thermogenesis. Based on this principle, the diet’s developers theorized that you could lose weight by consuming cold foods because your body had to work hard to warm up the meals before you could digest them. Effective? Nope, but people sure did have fun giving this one a whirl (or a swirl…if you’re into ice cream humor!)
Economy and Reviews
Popularized by faux-Brits Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, the Macrobiotic diet borrows from the traditional Japanese diet, emphasizing whole grains, vegetables, beans, and modest amounts of fish and then throwing in a part about every meal needing to hit a balance between yin and yang. While the diet is generally sound in that it advocates a diet rich in vegetables, it can cause a number of nutritional deficiencies, including inadequate intake of protein, Vitamin D, calcium, and iron, among other essential nutrients.
Other
Remember when we were told that fat was bad? And the stores responded by stocking reduced fat foods. And then Americans were thin…wait, what? Nope, it didn’t happen like that, and here’s why. When food manufacturers reduced or altogether eliminated the fat in products, they added sugar to improve the taste. As for the claims that following a low-fat diet could improve your health, a 12-year study published in 2006 the Journal of the American Medical Association found that low-fat diets did not significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease or stroke in women (with the same being said for men, just not in this particular study). So to clear up any confusion, low fat diets DO NOT WORK and fat is not the enemy. In fact, a diet that contains a high amount of healthy fats is considered only one thing in our books – healthy!
Thanks so much!!!
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Please submit your posts to the January 24th edition of the Totally Money Blog Carnival using the carnival submission form. Please remember that this carnival will only include recent, original posts about personal finance or money AND that a description MUST be included when you submit. Thank you!
Also, I opened up Totally Money to outside hosts starting the week of February 7th, so feel free to throw your name in the ring if you match the qualifications. Please contact me with your top 3 date preferences if you are interested!
January 16, 2011, at 6:00 am
During the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge, you helped BFS soar from an Alexa ranking of more than 8 million in March 2010 to 49,852 on October 31, 2010. Thank you!!!
Then, after seeing all the interest for my blog stats and income updates, I created a new challenge to complete by January 1st, 2011. You helped me get an Alexa ranking of 43,055, 28,687 total visits, 239 RSS Subscribers, and 228 Twitter Followers!!! WOOT!
Since I do plan on blogging full time by 2012, this is the year for a HUGE push. I have come up with new goals to keep us on the right track!
Here are my Goals for July 4th, 2011:
Here is what we are shooting for by the Fourth of July – July 4th, 2011:
Alexa – Maintain a Ranking at or around 37,500
Visits – 60,000 total visits (I started BFS on February 20th, 2010)
Feedburner Subscribers – 500
Twitter Followers – 500
Today’s Update
Alexa – 40,698 (We are still so close!)
Visits – 30,388 (29,612 to go…we can do it!)
Feedburner Subscribers – 266 (234 to go)
Twitter Followers – 258 (242 to go)
As always, thank you so much for being my supporters! Obviously, I could not do any of this without you and I never forget that!!!
The Saved Quarter Challenge Update
I joined The Saved Quarter Challenge this year and am aiming to save at least $21,000 by the end of 2011! That would be a tiny bit more than 25% of our GROSS pay from our two full time jobs.
Here’s how I’ve done this week for the Saved Quarter Challenge ($21,000 Goal):
I have better updates after the 13th of every month since that is when our billing periods end, woot! Here’s where we funnelled away money this past week:
- Roth IRA: $300
- Emergency Fund: $500
- Auto and Home Maintenance Account: $500
- Extra Cash for Investments: $200
Total to date: $1740 guaranteed, $19,260 to go.
We also saved $330 to the vacation account and $330 to fun money but I’m not counting that as savings until we have some left at the end of the year.
We were lucky that cash from family as Christmas gifts saved us from the major spending we did for the holidays. The rest of the extra is simply because we live off of hubby’s salary as a school librarian ($38,000 take home pay) and save almost all of what I make ($26,000 take home pay). About $400 of the extra was from blogging income and the last few referree checks for high school football (my husband’s hobby job).
Additonal Info
I will continue posting monthly and yearly blog statistics and income updates from here on out, so stay tuned at the beginning of every month!
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 don’t already, you can follow me via RSS or Twitter by following those links.
To learn more about the Yakezie, check out my Yakezie page! Feel free to email me if you are a Yakezie member or challenger and don’t see yourself on the list!
If you are interested in seeing how I went from an 8 million plus Alexa rank to about 50,000 in less than 8 months, you can see My Blogging Schedule, which breaks down everything I do related to blogging.
THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING THE BEST READERS EVER!!!
January 15, 2011, at 6:00 am
My Favorite Posts this Week
Guest Posts by BFS
Thanks for having me over!
Guest Posts at BFS
Thank you so much for the day off! I truly appreciate it!
If you would like to guest post on BFS, please contact me with your idea or post and I’d love to have you over for the day! If you are a business, please contact me here for more details. Thanks!
Giveaways and Other Info
Blog Carnivals
I have also started my own carnival – Totally Money Blog Carnival
Please check it out and submit here every week!
If you are hosting a carnival that will include BFS, please email me so I can include it in my roundup. Thanks!
Top 5 Referring Sites to BFS in the Last Week:
I list the top 25 on the first Saturday of every month
- Yakezie
- Free Money Finance
- Mom’s Plans
- The Saved Quarter
- Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured
Feel free to contact 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 me!
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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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