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July 31, 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 Saved Quarter Challenge Update
I joined The Saved Quarter Challenge this year and was aiming to save at least $21,000 by the end of 2011, but we hit that goal in mid-June!!! My new goal is to save a cool $42,000 by the end of 2011 instead! That would be a tiny bit more than 50% of our GROSS pay from our two full time jobs!!!
Here’s how I’ve done this week for the Saved Quarter Challenge:
Here’s how we did this week:
- Blogging Income – $1000 banked
That blogging income was a combo of freelance work and regular ads. This will be my last “counted” blogging account contribution before I start having to pay myself from that account since I am now blogging full time!!! I only get one more regular paycheck – after that, my blogging income will not be considered savings automatically!!!
The new $42,000 goal is hopefully going to be reached solely through 100% true savings – 401(k), Roth IRA, emergency fund/savings, home and auto maintenance account, extra cash for investments, and blogging income before the end of July 2011.
Total This Week: $1000
We can save what we do because we live off of a little more than my husband’s salary as a school librarian ($38,000 take home pay). That means we save most of what I make ($26,000 take home pay a year) and all of our hobby job incomes (reffing for Mr. BFS and blogging for me). Reffing usually brings in $2000-$3000 a year and blogging is bringing in $20,000 or more a year (we’ve already hit more than $20,000 for January-July 2011).
Total to date: $30,288 guaranteed, $11,712 to go.
Additonal Info
I will continue posting monthly and yearly blog statistics and income updates, 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, the blogging group that has helped me in SO many ways, 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 and 3 readers to where I am today, you can see My Blogging Checklists, which breaks down everything I do related to blogging. If you want to see how I have started bringing in more than $3000 a month in less than 18 months, you can check out How I Make Money Blogging.
I have also started a new site, http://howimakemoneyblogging.com/, which will cover how I currently make money blogging and my transition to a work-from-home blogger!
THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING THE BEST READERS EVER!!!
July 30, 2011, at 6:00 am
My Favorite Posts this Week
Guest Posts at BFS
Thank you!
I Staff Write…A Lot…
Giveaways
Blog Carnivals
If you are hosting a carnival that includes Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, please email me so I can include it in my roundup. Thanks!
Top 5 Referring Sites to BFS from Last Week:
- Yakezie
- Money in the 20′s
- Free Money Finance
- Smart Passive Income
- First Gen American / Get Rich Slowly (tie)
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!
My Other Sites
I have started a new site, How I Make Money Blogging!
Let me know what you think!
July 29, 2011, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post on behalf of Compare the Market.
There is a “For Sale” sign in the yard of the most beautiful little home you have ever seen! After a few phone calls, a long tour, much thought, and lots of paperwork, you watch your realtor put “Sold” across the sign. You and your family enter a new and amazing phase of life; your first family home has become a reality.
What now? The enjoyable part will surely be in choosing the purpose for each space, wall colours and furnishings. If you live where there is a great climate, then everyone will probably have an opinion about how the out-door space should be used. Mom may want extra storage space and Dad may want to plant fruit trees. These are the joys of home ownership.
There are, however, less joyous, yet necessary tasks to think about as well. These tasks include homeowner’s insurance for your newly purchased home.
Here are the general types of home insurances, varying slightly by state:
(1) The most basic coverage insures against lightening damage or house fire.
(2) The second type of coverage is called Broad coverage. This one covers your home for losses resulting from such things as ice, sleet, snow, windstorm, hail, freezing/bursting pipes or air conditioning/heating, theft, explosion or smoke damage, as well as removal of property/covered peril, such as fire, vandalism, riot or civil commotion.
(3) The most commonly purchased policy is called Special form. This one insures your home against anything that is not excluded in the policy. You may want to add endorsements for anything that you find is excluded, as you review your personal policy.
- Tenants or renter’s take out this policy in order to cover household and personal belongings should anything in the number 2 category happen to the rental unit.
- This policy is for condo owners who want to cover anything that is not covered under the association’s policy.
(4) Termed the Older home policy, this one provides a modified replacement policy, which means it covers basic supplies/in use now supplies, to repair your older home rather than the types of materials it may have been originally built with.
You will gain peace of mind by having this paperwork completed. You may also want to purchase life insurance as a housewarming gift for your loved ones. Life insurance will protect your family, providing what they need to live should something unforeseen occur. It would help handle costly expenses associated with your new home.
Did they miss a type of home insurance?
July 28, 2011, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post.
The economic situation seems to get worse and murkier every week. So how can you protect your personal investment portfolio? You definitely don’t want to repeat the disaster many of you experienced in 2008-2009. So here’s how you can protect your investment portfolio from the inevitable double dip.
- Go 100% cash! If you’re certain enough that the double dip is coming, why not just sell out all your stocks and make your portfolio 100% cash? That way at least you’ve got nothing to lose.
- Go short. Shorting a stock means that you intend on profiting from a fall in stock prices. Now I don’t recommend playing with shorts unless you’re a really sophisticated investor. Shorting a stock completely depends on timing, and only getting the timing right is very, very hard.
- Buy into the big, institutional stocks that don’t move much. If you don’t want to have 100% cash in your investment portfolio (because you’re not certain that the stock market will collapse), then buy into stocks like Wal-Mart. Big stocks like Wal-Mart that fluctuate very little are very safe (but also don’t offer much gains). In the 2008 financial crisis, Wal-Mart only dropped 20%! Compared to other stocks like Goldman Saches at dropped 66%, you’ll feel much better buying nonvolatile stocks when watching the market fall. This leads to my fourth point.
- Sell the heck out of risky stocks! Financial stocks tend to fall very hard when the stock markets come along. Lehman Brothers went down 100%. Goldman Sachs went down more than 2/3. Also, sell out of luxury stocks such as Louis Vuitton. Sell out of the luxury goods stocks because consumers tend to cut back on those first, hence those stocks fall the hardest.
But most importantly, make sure (if you’re not a full time investor) you have a safe, secure job. Let me end off this post with a story. I had a friend who bought Goldman Sachs stock at around $100 a share in 2008. He knew that stock prices were depressed, so he wanted to wait until the financial panic was over to cash in his gains. Then the stock kept on falling. $90. $80. $70. $60. But he didn’t sell his Goldman Sachs stock, because he was certain that the stock would one day climb back above $100.
And then the bombshell came. He was laid off from his company. So to pay the rent and feed his kids, he had to sell every single last one of that Goldman Sachs stock near the $60 level. That was at rock bottom prices. A year later, Goldman Sachs came roaring back to $180 a share.
My point is, you need a secure job to cover your expenses. Only that way can you hold onto your stock market portfolio without selling out at a disastrous expense.
What do you think?
July 27, 2011, at 6:00 am
As you may already know, I am a staff writer at 7 other blogs on a weekly, biweekly, and bimonthly basis. I staff write for Bargaineering four times a week. I have found that the readers at all the places I blog are similar to my readers EXCEPT for some at Bargaineering. I seem to tick them off with my non-frugal ways. I really try to not mention certain things so I don’t get fired, but sometimes I slip.
My Dryer Slip Up
Case in point, I just wrote a post about Business Clothing on a Budget and had two little, no thought lines in the last paragraph,
…To keep my blouses and slacks unwrinkled, I hung them immediately after the dryer was done with them. For the more fragile fabrics, I hung them when they were still damp in the hall closet to dry.
Did anybody zero in on my fragile fabric line? Nope. But a few people did notice that I use a dryer and kindly explained to me that I shouldn’t. Well, mostly kindly.
What’s Wrong with a Dryer?
Here’s my question, why attack the dryer? I understand it uses energy, but so does my refrigerator and nobody has told me to unplug that yet. How about coffee makers? I don’t drink coffee, so can I bank those credits to use for the dryer instead? What about the washer? If we all washed our clothes by hand, I am assuming we’d save a ton of energy, but nobody seemed to care that I use a washer. So, why is my dryer usage, specifically, annoying people?
This is a real question. I do not understand. I will admit that even if somebody explains it to me, I truly doubt I will ever line dry. BUT, if it’s a good reason, I do promise to stop rolling my eyes.
Why I Don’t Line Dry
And since somebody will ask, here is why I do not line dry:
- I don’t have room in the garage or house, so that leaves my back yard.
- The back yard is full of dust and pollen and humidity (I live in Houston, TX). Even if I wasn’t asthmatic, it seems silly to wash my clothes just to set them outside to get dirty.
- Naturally dried clothes are stiffer than dryer-dried clothes. I don’t like scratchy clothes.
- I do not want to spend time hanging clothes to dry.
- BIG REASON – The dryer is faster.
There you go. I use a clothes dryer. I know a dryer apparently wears out clothes faster, but I am okay with that. It’s worth it to me and I need to force myself to buy new clothes once a year or so anyway just to keep wearing correct sizes.
Now I just have to avoid bringing up bottled water at Sustainable Personal Finance…
Do you use a dryer? Do you avoid them like the plague? Why?
July 26, 2011, at 6:00 am
From past posts, you may remember that my husband Curls (the ice sport) and I’m a Curling groupie. Seriously, hanging out with drunk Canadians and other crazy and friendly Curlers all day for 3 days straight is just a ton of fun! Anyway, my husband and I have a Curling Bonspiel (tournament) to go to again in a few weeks in Kansas City.
Leaving the Important Part to Someone Else
I called and reserved the hotel with the special group rate, rented our car using Priceline (my first time ever), and one of the other Curlers was in charge of our flights. He has a friend that works for the airlines and was going to get us buddy passes for that special low rate. We are still going to the tournament, but the road there was rocky…
Scary Parts
First of all, the tournament is the first part of August and we still didn’t have our tickets as of Monday, July 18th. As someone who buys my tickets 3-6 months in advance, I was freaking out. Then we were told that the friend was able to get our tickets out on Friday but there weren’t any return tickets available for Sunday. What?! Buying a one way ticket back was going to be a few hundred dollars by itself plus the $150 buddy pass!
Figuring It Out
After being completely scared and angry for about half an hour, I had a great idea. I suggested we come back early on Monday instead since our buddy doesn’t work until noon, my husband will still be on summer vacation, and I don’t care where I write from. We found out the next day that we could indeed get roundtrip buddy pass tickets from Friday to Monday for $200 each, woot! Yes, we have a stop each way (I despise stops), but at least we have tickets!
So now we have everything we need – airfare, rental car, and a hotel – but I learned one huge lesson. I do not like relying on others for the big stuff. I was seriously going nuts and felt annoyed as heck at every bump in the road. Our friend already felt bad that his idea wasn’t working and I did not help for the first half hour at all. If I hadn’t thought of a backup plan, I think our friend would have been crushed since he is a sweety and I was visibly upset. Sorry dude for not hiding my freaked-outedness…
I am a control freak. I will not change. I really don’t want to. From here on out, even my husband agrees that I get to handle all the reservations for us on trips. $200 for a roundtrip ticket to Kansas City is awesome, but I rather have paid the $225 I found on Airfarewatchdog.com the month before and not have had the stomach pains.
Have you ever relied on someone else to take care of the important part of a plan? What happened?
July 25, 2011, at 6:00 am
My husband and I like our cable, DVR, and high speed internet. Yes, I know, half of you think cable is a stupid expense and are mocking me in your head. That’s okay. I don’t mind. We use our services daily, so it is an extra expense we absorb voluntarily.
But AT&T believes the two services together are worth $130 a month, but I rather never pay more than $110. This means that every 6 months, I call AT&T to get my U-Verse cable and internet bill lowered. I don’t lie, but I do explain that I am willing to look elsewhere for a good deal if I can’t get a better rate. And I am willing to look elsewhere…I just rather not if I can get a better rate with them.
Here is how I keep our bill below $110 a month including fees and taxes for their best internet plan and the U200 package with 2 DVR’s:
- FIRST STEP, I find something to fill in my time while on hold. Seriously, cable companies are the WORST with hold times.
- I call their 1-800 number, answer all the silly automated questions, and get put on hold for the Billing Department.
- Once I finally get a real person (this last time it took 27 minutes of holding…), I ask to speak to the Retention Department.
- I then get put on hold again (another 25 minutes this last time) and get a real person again.
- I politely explain that I don’t think the service is worth $130 and would like a discount so I don’t have to start looking elsewhere.
- I receive a $15-$25 credit for 6 months and thank them profusely.
It has worked every time for more than 3 years. I even have a cheat sheet with the 1-800 number, my account number, and my phone password ready to use each time. I also mark my calendar 6 months in advance to remind myself to call again, although I sometimes still put it off and have to deal with one bigger bill than I like.
The biggest drawback is I hate how long they put me on hold (although they aren’t as bad as Comcast), but have learned to do other things and leave them on speaker phone until they pick up. This last time, I answered 3 emails and replied to Yakezie forum threads while holding, so they didn’t waste my time completely.
I would highly suggest that everybody try getting reoccuring bills lowered regularly. Companies want to make easy money and retain the customers that pay on time. It just take a little organization to stay on top of it.
Do you call in like I do to get lower rates? What has worked for you?
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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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