————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
Back in January of this year, I laid out my short term, mid-term, and long term goals for the 2011 year. I do this once every year as part of my goal to create what author David Bach calls a Purpose Focused Financial Plan. The goal of this system is to employ money in your life in a way that matches your life values and dreams.
You can read more about my journey to create this system at the following links – Creating a Purposed Focused Financial Plan & My Personal Finance Journey’s Investment Strategy.
As part of making this system work, I wanted to give an update on how I’m doing so far this year with the goals I established. Overall, I feel that I am doing a satisfactory job. I got semi-behind on these updates (had to give a bulk one for the months of January-April, but this past month, I am much more on top of things! 🙂 Let’s keep our fingers crossed to keep this up!
Short Term (< 1 year) Goals:
Mid-Term (3-5 years out) Goals:
Long-Term (>5 years out) Goals:
How about you all? How have the months of April and May been for achieving your goals? What are your next milestones?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2622/4207563765_954cd50863.jpg
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
A little over a week ago, I published a post about how online coupons can be used to actually save money on things you want to buy. This is in contrast to print coupons which, in my opinion (for the most part), just make you spend money on things you probably don’t need at stores you don’t need to be in.
For example, let’s say you are a consultant and need to meet face-to-face with clients in another country. However, you don’t want to pay for the plane ticket every time you need to meet. So, you decide you want to buy computer meeting/desktop sharing software. Indeed, you could easily go online and search for “GoToMeeting coupon” and find promo codes that could make this acquisition a little less burdensome on your wallet/business cash position.
Of course, this is all well and good. However, another important consideration to think about is whether or not coupons are a good fit for you/your situation in the first place.
To start out, let’s take a look at when, in my opinion, everyone can benefit from the use of coupons.
When Can Everyone Benefit From Using Coupons? – Larger, Infrequent Purchases
Even in the case of my stingy, Great Value generic-brand-buying self, I honestly believe there is an important place in everyone’s life for coupons.
What is this place? Easy! I believe that everyone can benefit from the use of coupons/deals on “one-off,” larger, infrequent purchases such as laptops, iPods, cars, kitchen appliances, etc. These are the purchases that are typically planned out in advance, and one can easily find the time to search for any deals that are on offer at the time.
However, in the case of everyday purchases, the answer to this question becomes slightly more complex.
When Does The Advantageousness of Using Coupons Become Situation Specific? – Everyday Purchases
For me personally, when I go to Wal-Mart once a month to purchase mass quantities of food (most of which is Great Value brand) for my $2 per meal or less consumption, the last thing on my mind is coupons. Buying Great Value is a coupon! 🙂
When it comes to every day purchases, the question of whether or not to use coupons becomes very situation-specific. Because of this, I’ve tried to summarize some of these situations/considerations below.
So, those are the main considerations I could think of in order to help you determine if coupons have a place in your life. I hope you got some value out of this post!
How about you all? Do you use coupons? If so, when do you use them? Do you know any one that uses coupons for everyday purchases?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/24218656@N03/4589929510/sizes/m/in/photostream/
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
Note: This post was selected as the #6 pick in the 103rd edition of the Best of Money Carnival, hosted at My Journey To Millions. Stop by and take a peek at all of the other great articles as well!
In the 2002 edition of the book, Stocks For The Long Run, Siegel includes a lovely little analysis/study of whether or not the stock market has had higher real returns (so this = after inflation has had its effect) when Republicans vs. Democrats have held the office of the President of the United States.
What exactly did he find from this study? Let’s take a look!
Siegel’s Results
Now, I definitely don’t want to make this a big political battle, because I am not a very “involved” political person.
However, it is no secret that the stock market in general reacts better to Republicans than Democrats. Republicans pride themselves on being champions for lower capital gains taxes and supporting the businesses that make up the stock market.
Indeed, Siegel’s findings support the theory that sentimentally (short-term), the markets do favor Republicans being President as compared to Democrats. This was determined based on the study results showing that since 1888, the market has risen 0.7% (on average) on the day following a Republican victory vs. falling an average of 0.5% the day after a Democrat victory.
This is definitely an interesting finding. However, what is really important is to determine how the market acts during the entire term of having either a Democrat or Republican in Office.
To do this, Siegel and his research team computed the annualized real return (after inflation) during each Presidential term since Harrison became President in 1888. The results of this portion of the analysis are listed below:
So, from these results, we can conclude that during the time that most people reading this blog have been investing, having a Democrat in office has been favorable.
However, since I just have the 2002 version of Siegel’s book, I wanted to check up on this and see how our Presidents have performed since then.
Update on Recent Presidents
Just as an example, I pulled up the Google Finance chart of the performance of the S&P500 index during the Clinton presidency. During his terms, the stock market went up 203%.
The same S&P500 chart for G.W Bush’s two terms is shown below. During his time in office, the market decreased 29% overall. However, he did have a nice run in the 2007 time frame!
Obama is fairly new to the Presidential office compared to the others. However, the performance of the S&P500 index during his term so far has shown a 44.18% increase (see chart below).
So, it appears that the trend of the markets performing better when Democrats are President vs. when Republicans are in Office has continued.
Will it continue to be this way? As far as this question goes, I don’t have any answers, as I am not one to ever try to time/predict the market. As a passive investor, I merely adjust my asset allocation to my targets on a monthly basis based on the fluctuations in the market.
Another thing I don’t have an answer to is why Democrats being President cause the markets to do better (at least in the past 60 years)? Because one would think they would do better with Republicans in Office! I need your help to shed some light on this.
How about you all? Why do you think the market has performed better when Democrats are in Office the past 60 years? Is it just residual policies being enacted from when Republicans were there? Is it because Republicans control the Senate/House during this time? Or, is it because Democrat policies enable lower and middle class people to have more money/spend more money?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3602/3366720659_b746789dfd.jpg
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that I have a guest post up today over at one of my Yakezie friend’s sites, Budgeting in The Fun Stuff.
The post is a cost analysis between the two major pet supply stores we all know and love (or at least spend money at), Petco and Petsmart. The goal of the study was to determine whether driving the extra distance to one or the other will save you significant money in the long run.
Read all about it by clicking the link below!
Petsmart vs. Petco – Which Is More Affordable? – BITFS.com
How about you all? Do you shop at Petco or Petsmart? Why do you choose one over the other? Which do you find is cheaper?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-305571892-hd.jpg
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
This post was originally posted as a guest post on Happy Simple Living on February 4th, as part of the Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network “post swap” event. In this initiative, Yakezie participants are paired up to exchange guest posts on each other’s sites on a common topic each month. Enjoy!
When I was informed that the topic of the 2nd Yakezie blog swap would be to share our most effective money saving tip we employ on a daily basis, I immediately knew what my answer would be.
The answer is simple. I save big money on food and even bigger money on drinks! How do I do this and how much do I save, you ask? These ideas will be the topic of this post!
Before we get started on sharing my tips on how to save money on food and beverages, I want to address the question about just how much you can save by reducing the amount of eating/drinking out you do.
Up Against The Averages
The average cost per meal (included tax and tip) for one person eating out is $17. Obviously, this varies depending on where you live. But for now, we’ll use that as the average for our analysis.
How Do The Totals Look?
According to UCSD Nutrition Link, Americans eat out an average of 4-5 times per week. Assuming the frequency value of 4 times per week, this equates to $68 per week, or $272 per month. This is incredible!
According to a report from the USDA in 2007, the average monthly per person cost on groceries is $112.
In looking at these numbers, it occurred to me that I am clearly spending more on groceries every month ($200 is my average grocery bill per month), but since I am only averaging eating out once per week (total eating out bill of $68 per month), my overall food cost is greatly decreased.
Let’s put this in to plain English, shall we? My monthly savings over the spending schedule above would be $272+$112-$200-$68 = $116. This equates to saving $1,392 per year!
If instead of spending that extra $116 each month on food, I invested it in my Roth IRA in an index mutual fund averaging 10% return from now (at age 25) until the age I retire (age 67), it would be worth $748,000 due to the miracle of compounding interest.
As you can see from this example, it is clear that there is a lot of potential for accumulating wealth with this money saving tip alone.
So, let’s take a look at some of the things I do to save money on food and beverages.
Money-Saving Strategies for Food and Beverage Purchases
1) Purchasing $3 Bottles of Wine
This potent strategy works wonders on relieving the strain on your pocket book. Every two months or so, while I am at the grocery store (I shop at either Kroger or Wal-Mart), I stock up on approximately 8-12 bottles of $3 wine. At Kroger, the brand I buy is Bay Bridge, and at Wal-Mart, the brand is Oak Leaf.
This is the type of wine that I drink when having larger get-togethers or am just eating dinner at home by myself and feel like a glass of wine.
For special occasions (one when I can really appreciate the wine), I have several “nicer” bottles of $10-$20 per bottle local Virginia wines that I drink. By employing this one method, I save most likely several hundreds of Dollars per year.
2) Only Purchase Wine at Restaurants on Special Occasions
At a restaurant recently, a bottle of local Virginia wine was listed on the menu for $45. The price to buy this same wine at the grocery store or at the winery was $15. This represents a 3X markup! Wow! Now that’s profit!
As it turns out, the average markup for bottles of wine at restaurants is 2.5-4 times the normal retail cost. Personally (maybe I am just plain weird), but I find it very hard to actually enjoy the taste of something when I know it is ripping me off from the inside out.
Therefore, unless it is special occasion and I have planned for it financially, I personally don’t buy wine at restaurants!
3) Never Go Out to Eat Alone
This is one of my favorite money-saving strategies, and it is so simple. Only go out to eat when you are going out with friends!
Think about it. If you’re like me, you probably eat 80% of your meals by yourself (including breakfast and lunches). By simply eating at home or bringing lunch to work with you, you can save tons of money if you just make it a policy to avoid restaurants/fast-food if you are by yourself.
After all, who wants to eat out alone at a restaurant anyway?!
4) Buy in Bulk and Buy Generic
At least once a month, I make it a policy to go to the local Wal-Mart to stock up on the bulk of my groceries.
Why? Simply put – no one can beat Wal-Mart’s prices when it comes to their generic Great Value brand. And, I bet you “name-brand” loyal shoppers out there would be surprised how good the quality of a lot of their items is.
While I am at Wal-Mart, I try to buy as much as possible of items that won’t go bad. Examples of these items include bagged cereal, oatmeal, pasta, canned beans, salsa, tortilla shells (I love burritos!), frozen fruit, etc.
5) Buy Frozen Foods and Canned Foods
The last money saving tip of today’s post may also be one of the most effective; I save big money by buying canned and frozen foods.
Even though canned and frozen foods do not taste quite as good as fresh foods, they keep for longer, can be bought in bulk, and are much much cheaper.
Furthermore, recent studies have shown that since frozen vegetables and fruits are picked and flash-frozen at the peak of ripeness (instead of when they are green so that they ripen while being shipped from Chile to California over a 2 month period), they contain a much higher level of nutrients.
Well – those 5 tips are the main ways I save money on a daily basis. Thanks to everyone for reading my guest post. I hope you can use some of these tips in your daily life to save money for your future.
How about you all? What strategies do you use to save big money on a day-to-day basis?
***Photo courtesy of http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1217/5125464384_9182d3426f.jpg
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than 4 years since January of 2007. However, that’s how long it’s been since I first started learning what investing was for real through self-directed reading.
However, for the most part, if you are wondering anything about stocks, bonds, or any security for that matter, this is the book to go to!
Recommendation for purchasing the book (if you so desire)
If you’re interested in buying this book, I would recommend purchasing a cheap, used copy from Amazon. There are two editions available for purchase – 1) the 2007 edition and 2) the 2002 edition
.
Personally, I would buy the 2002 edition because it is only $0.48 vs. $23 for the newer edition. I seriously doubt that the added material is worth >$20 more in purchase price, because the 2002 version is already very good!
How about you all? Have you read Stocks for the Long Run by Siegel? What did you enjoy and what would you change? What are your favorite investment and/or personal finance books?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
On Friday of last week (29-April-2011), My Personal Finance Journey participated in the 6th Yakezie Blog Swap. In this event, members and challenges of the Yakezie Personal Finance Network paired up and exchanged posts on the common topic of, “if you were homeless, what would you do to improve your situation?”
There were 16 bloggers who participated, and this blog swap was set up as a trail of crumbs. There were four total stops. At each stop, you were sent to the next post until you made it back to the first.
My Favorite Swapped Post
In this blog swap, I really had two favorite posts, each selected for different reasons. Read more about them below!
My Swap
The Rest
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcopapale/382187039/sizes/m/in/photostream/
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
One of my many financial pet peeves is the copious amount of books or magazines of coupons I receive each week.
Why is this one of my pet peeves?
Essentially, the coupon system in the USA is out of control. Coupons have become more of a way of getting us to spend more money that we don’t have at stores we would never step foot in (or be on their webpage), as opposed to what they should be – a way to save money on things we already need to buy and for stores to reward customers. On top of this, all of the different coupon packets sent to me each week (Red Plum and Valpak, just to name a few) go directly in the garbage and fill up our landfills.
Let me give you all a quick example of the uselessness of the current system.
Today, I received a Hometown Magazine booklet of coupons. I just flipped through the booklet cover to cover, and I did not see one coupon for something that I already needed to buy this coming week. However, there were plenty of good looking deals to get me to spend more money on things I don’t need, like going out to eat at the China King Buffet and getting $2 off, getting 5% off car repair work if the repair job is over $350, or getting a discount price on a golf club membership for $1799 per year.
Clearly, this type of coupon system is not working. What is a needed in today’s shopping environment is a searchable interface where you can actually find deals for things you are looking for.
But, There is a Promising Solution!
Online coupons providers are becoming a very promising resource for consumers to “strike back” and save some real money. One of these resources that I was recently exposed to was PromotionCode.org.
This system allows you to search for the specific store you normally shop at (whether it be Target, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc) and find coupons on the actual items you normally buy. There is also a cool feature that allows you to sign up to receive new coupons via email when they are posted or get coupons that specifically offer free shipping on online orders.
An example of how this system can be used is as follows:
As you all know, my favorite place to buy cheap, used financial books is through Amazon.com. And, one of the books that I already know I want to buy is The Power of Passive Investing by Rick Ferri. By simply searching for Amazon, PromotionCode.org’s system directs me to the Amazon coupon codes page. Listed on this page are several 5% off promo codes that can be used to reduce the cost of buying this book. It also lists the success rate that other users have had with the codes, as well as a system that allows you to report faulty or expired deals.
This is definitely something that would never be possible to obtain from a ValPak booklet.
How about you all? Do you ever use the coupons that you receive in the mail? Have you had good luck with online coupons recently? What resources do you use?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/24218656@N03/4587200719/sizes/m/in/photostream/
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
How about you all? What steps would you take to improve your situation if you were homeless? Have you ever known any one that was homeless?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
Jacob’s Thoughts – Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.
***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-4307313294-hd.jpg
————————————————————————————————————————
Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
————————————————————————————————————————
Click here to enter my free giveaway for 2 copies of H&R Block At Home Premium Edition
How about you all? Do you currently use Netflix to save money on your monthly cable bill? If not, how much do you pay for your TV channels?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.consumerqueen.com/consumerqueenwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/netflix.gif