Weekend Round Up

I was sick most of last week so I had plenty of time to read blogs. Here's some of the highlights from this last week in the PF Blogger world.

Living Almost Large posted about Money Personalities. I checked out the quiz and discovered I'm 38% Saver, 25% Empire Builder, and 13% Guardian.

Jonathan from Master Your Card posted 7 Ways to Curb Overspending. I think I do/will try all of them except I probably won't be freezing my credit cards any time.

Our For Pence Worth's Penelope posted a Vacation Checklist. Which is perfect for me since I'll be leaving for my cruise on July 11th.

Seb at Pinching Copper wrote a very interesting post about Pennies, especially since his blog name is about saving pennies.

Wide Open Wallet's Mom pulled out her budget from last year to check her personal inflation. I love the idea, now I need to go dig around and bull my budget from last year to compare.

Don't forget to check out all of the PF Blogger's blogs and posts by visiting the left tool bar for the links. Hope everyone has a great week.

Net Worth Update -- June 2008

	Updated 5/31/08	Change from Previous Update	Updated 4/29/08
Total Net Worth	$104,853.72	$4,777.40	$100,076.32
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$29,559.78	$1,728.25	$27,831.53
401k	$23,571.07	$1,347.39	$22,223.68
Roth IRA	$5,988.71	$380.86	$5,607.85
House Down Payment/CD's:	$57,244.83	$163.70	$57,081.13
Future Car Savings	$5,300.72	$5,100.45	$200.27
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$11,207.28	-$3,738.37	$14,945.65
"Cash"/Checking:	$1,541.11	$1,523.37	$17.74

I'm less than $150 away from my goal net worth for 2008 and the year is only half way over. YAY! This means I need to reevaluate my net worth goal. I have increased my net worth goal to $127,000. I came up with this number based upon my current net worth plus what I anticipate contributing to retirement via my 401k and Roth IRA ($10,250), plus what I anticipate receiving as a bonus after taxes from the project I just completed ($10,000), plus my monthly car savings for the next 6 months ($900), and then I added saving an extra $100/month and rounded up.

I think this new goal is definitely achievable but I will have to push myself to achieve it because it extends beyond my automatic savings.

The Cost of Getting Sick

I have a viral infection...oh the joy. At first I thought it might just be a cold but then Wednesday I woke up with a fever and knew I couldn't go to work and I needed to go visit the doctor. I've since spend the last few days laying in bed trying to get better.

Fortunately my fever finally broke today and I'm starting to feel much better, I started thinking about the finances involved in being sick.

Doctors Visit Co-Pay: $20
Soar Throat Drops: $3.00
Nose Spray: $3.50
Sudafed PE: $6.00
Box of Kleenex: $1.50
Prescription Co-Pay: $40
Special Sick/Comfort Food: $15
"Vacation Days" from Work: Loss of real vacation since vacation day had to be used for sick days

All in all the damage from being sick is $89 -- its a good thing this is the first time I've been sick in about 4 years. Fortunately I also have a flexible spending account that allows me to get reimbursed for most of these expenses with pre-tax dollars.

What to do with $5,000?

I've struggling with a rather good personal finance dilemma since updating my net worth last month.

From the left side bar you can see that my Money Market for my Emergency Fund is nearing $15,000. I've made a rule of keeping at least $10,000 in my emergency fund which equates to a little over 5 months worth of expenses at my current spending. However, if a real emergency occurred I most likely would cut back on spending including eating out, entertainment, and savings which would extend my emergency fund to over 9 months worth of expenses. All in all I feel very comfortable with having an emergency fund of $10,000 even given my current work situation.

I have my pay checks and expense reimbursements direct deposited into my Money Market and then only transfer the funds I need into my checking to pay bills, this allows all of my savings to gather in my Money Market, plus earn a little extra interest. In the past when I reached $15,000 I would then take $5,000 and transfer it into a higher interest earning CD ear marked for my future house down payment.

I continued this method even after reaching my House Down Payment goal. I now have over $57,000 for a down payment which is over the 20% needed for any house I would choose -- the price range of houses I'd feel comfortable buying would be around (most likely less than) $250,000. So there's not a real need to put the $5,000 from my money market towards my house down payment funds.

So what do I do with this $5,000? (See I told you it was a good dilemma to have).

My options they way I look at it are:
- Earmark it for additional money towards a house
- Add it to my car savings pot so that I'm closer to achieving that goal
- Set it aside and forget about it until I really need/want to use it for something
- Invest this money in the stock market, since I don't really need it for anything it won't actually hurt me if its all lost
- Blow it --- but I can't think of anything that would really be worth $5,000, plus the saver in me really struggles to part with even a penny

I've basically ruled out blowing it, and I'm am just too overwhelmed by the stock market right now so I've ruled that out. That pretty much leaves my options as house, car, or hold on to it. Since I couldn't make up my mind I've opted to combine the three. I'm going to officially earmark the $5,000 towards my future car and add it to my emigrant direct savings account. I have decided to add $5,000 to my car savings, primarily so that my monthly contribution does not have to increase and now I have a reasonable chance of achieving $20,000 in the next 6 years when I would start thinking about purchasing a new car. And since all of this money is in a saving account its easily movable so I can always change my mind at a later date since most likely I'll be buying a house before I buy a new car plus I can always transfer the $5,000 to something else if I finally decide a reason to hang on to it.

I've also decided to increase my monthly car savings contribution to $150 in an effort to achieve the $20,000 with in 6 years. Hmm....now I have another financial dilemma, what should my next savings goal/plan be since I think I'm on track with everything else. I know I probably should start investing outside of my retirement accounts but to be honest it just plain scares me.

Staying on Financial Track --- Check your Credit Report

I wrote last week about how to stay on Financial Track no matter how busy you were

Scott, a regular reader, send me a link to a USA Today Article about how to Use the Web to Help Keep your Finances in Order and I wanted to share it with you. It has some great advice, including checking your Credit Report. It served as a good reminder to me since I have not checked my credit report in a little over a year. I quickly did so and you all will be happy to know that there's nothing on there that's in correct (very exciting).

(Start of Work Week) Money Funny - Cost of Pop Culture Icons Today

One of the regular features on my blog is "Monday's Money Funny" which are humorous (at least to me) articles/jokes/just about anything that I've discovered over the weekend when I catch up on all my on line reading that spark a need for knowledge. For example the previous Monday Money Funny was a about the City of Atlanta spending $300k on toilets when they are in a $141 Million Deficit.

This week I thought I'd share an article from CNNMoney about what Pop Culture Icons would cost in today's dollars.

Below is a highlight from one of the icons they reviewed, click here to view the entire article and all 10 icons.

The Brady Bunch - 1969 to 1974

Est. home value in the '70s: $87,700

2008 est. value: $509,700

Actual 2008 value of "real"
Brady house: $1.5 million

Raising six kids has never been easy, and architects don't make as much money as television's Mike Brady would lead us to believe. Wow, there's a surprise.

The Bradys lived in a large, four-bedroom house with a live-in housekeeper in suburban Los Angeles. In the earliest figures available from the National Association of Realtors, the average cost of a single-family home in the area was $87,700 in 1979.

Today, the average house in the same area goes for $509,700, and a house that can fit nine (not counting Oliver) would probably cost a lot more. Real estate Web site Zillow.com, currently values the "real" Brady House at about $1.5 million.

An architect's annual pay averages $64,150, according to the latest estimates from the BLS. That would mean Mike made an inflation-adjusted $15,687 a year during the show's final season in 1974 when Greg was getting ready to go college.

As with all Money Funnies this promoted me to research. Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do to combat inflation, however you can learn more about what is inflation so I thought I'd share an about.com entry explaining inflation.

Stay tuned for next week's Monday's Money Funny. If you run across any Money Funnies please email them to me at future.millionaire.blog@gmail.com and if I use them I will give you credit and link to your blog.

Weekend Round Up

I hope everyone's had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. Its time for the Weekend Round Up highlighting some of the great posts shared over the last week by my fellow PFBloggers.

Kristy over at Master Your Card continues the Emergency Fund Debate. Personally, I don't see how one can not have a emergency fund, life happens and you've got to have a pool of money some place that you can draw from. What are your thoughts on Emergency Funds, please share over at Kristy's post.

Living Almost Large posted about the Rising Luggage Costs. I guess I've been living in a cave and haven't seen the news lately and haven't traveled in the last month to be aware of this new trend. Luckily when I fly for business I rarely check bags but I usually fly once or twice a year for personal travel and always check bags, I guess I'll be having to figure out a new plan of action this year.

Get Rich or Die Trying's JB recently got married (Congrats go out to him) and is on his way to Vega. He posted about why he choose to spend money on a Honeymoon rather than paying off his debt. I think he did the right thing, you can't go on an all out money diet or you will fall off the band wagon, I think JB is making the smart money moneys, even though he's going on vacation he was still budget conscious. What do you think?

Seb at Pinching Copper pondered whether Credit Cards will be the next Financial Crises. I'm sad to say I think they will. I think its a spiral effect, first the house then the car and then credit cards. I think we headed down a couple of years of bad times. But I'm hopeful none the less.

Wide Open Wallet's Mom recently posted about Credit Protection and why its not needed. Everyone watch out, there's all types of gimmicks like this around. I told you all a while back about booking my cruise for this summer, well one of the add ons included unless you specifically requested it be removed was medical protection insurance, basically for an extra $30/person you are guaranteed that your money from the cruise will be refunded if you have a medical reason documented by a doctor for being unable to attend. But what they don't tell you is that up to 7 days before the cruise you can receive 60% of the costs back no matter the reason and IMHO if you really can't afford to loose the costs of the cruise then you shouldn't be going anyway.

Kevin at No Debt Plan shares why you should only buy appreciating assets on credit. Also check out his post on Credit Cards and Depreciating Assets don't mix. We're in full agreement. I plan to never buy any depreciating asset on credit including cars.

Despite agreeing that credit cards and depreciating assets don't mix, I am still a fan of the credit card much like Penelope at Our Four Pence Worth who posted about why Credit Cards Really Aren't so Bad.

Too Lazy to Pay Mortagage -- How to Stay on Financial Track No Matter how Busy or Lazy You Are

I recently found out some very "interesting" information about an acquaintance that shocked me. The other day Be-Mine and I were out with his best friend and his best friend's wife. The four of us are very together people especially financially. One of the topics of conversation was about a couple who they are friends with struggling to put their old house on the market. A few conversations later we started talking about how prevalent its become for people to just walk away from their mortgages and allowing their homes to go into foreclosure. I remarked about how I just couldn't ever imagine doing that and "wife" brought up the fact that the wife of the couple we were just talking about just walked away from her house a year ago after she got married because she just never listed it for sale with a real estate agent. It was joked that she was more lazy than our two men combined.

This blew me way, how can someone be so lazy that they allow a house to go into foreclosure, especially this individual who I've always know to have a ton of energy and be very dedicated. I'm not certain this is the full story since I am aware that this couple has had some financial troubles in the past and declared bankruptcy, but none the less, I thought I'd explore this idea of being too lazy or just too busy to take care of financial business. I know we are all busy people and some times get stretched way too thin (I'm feeling that pain right now) so I thought I'd recommend some ways to ensure that your financial matters get taken care of no matter how busy you are or how lazy you are.

1. Automatic Bill Pay for recurring payments (Rent/Mortgage, Car Payment, Insurance etc) --- Use it for all of those bills that you know are the same amount each month and you don't need to check before they are paid.
2. Use online banking --- Use online banking to quickly check your accounts on a regular basis so that you do not have to waste time at the end of each month reconciling accounts to ensure that the checks that cleared were correct.
3. Utilize online bill pay --- Don't waste time organizing bills to be mailed on certain dates, writing checks, and stuffing envelopes. I love online bill pay, I receive a bill in the mail and that very day I open it, review it and then schedule payment. I probably spend all of 5 minutes max performing this task.
4. Make Savings Automatic via banking transfers --- Save time and ensure commitment towards saving by having a pre-determined amount of money transfered from your checking to saving monthly/weekly/regularly
5. Make Retirement Savings automatic via payroll deductions --- Sign up for your 401k/403b etc at work and all the paperwork is complete for you. In addition to this you can sign up for payroll deductions to your Roth IRA or other retirement accounts. It only takes a few minutes to sign up with your HR department and then you never have to think of it again for a full year
6. The Number One Way to Ensure you're on financial track despite busy times is to MAKE GOALS AND REVIEW THEM OFTEN --- Every year I set goals for myself - financially, professionally, and personally. I write these down because goals only move from dreams to goals when written, I then create an action plan for each goal and post both my goals and action items in a nifty colorful pyramid and post these in appropriate places. For example my professional goals are posted on my desk drawer, my personal goals which include my running goals are posted on the refrigerator, and my financial goals are posted next to my computer. Goals help you keep your eye on the prize no matter how busy or lazy your are, plus by creating action steps you not only have a starting point towards achieving your goal but also baby steps that can be accomplished even in busy times.

I hope these tips help you stay focused during busy times. I'd love to hear your tips for keeping on financial track when you're busy or if you're just plain lazy?

Weekend Round Up

Hey all. With my new no guilt for not posting concept. I didn't have enough time (and still get 6 hours of sleep) to finish catching up on my fellow BFBloggers posts from the past week. I plan to do in the coming week and include those highlights with next week's Weekend Round Up.

But in the mean time I thought I'd remind you all to check out their blogs for some good ideas/tips and stories.

• Get Rich Or Die Trying
• Girls Just Wanna Have Funds
• In Debt Blogger
• Living Almost Large
• Master Your Card
• No Debt Plan
• Our Fourpence Worth
• Pinching Copper
• The Social Marginal
• Trees Full of Money
• Wide Open Wallet

Changing Post Schedule

I just got back from am amazing get away. Mr. Be-Mine and I went Hiking and celebrated his Birthday.

It was wonderful to get away from the real world, away from my job problems, away from tvs, computes, phones etc and just chill. I can't remember the last time I was able to truly enjoy a sunrise. Normally sunrises occur when I'm standing in the building trying to get pre-task plans complete with the work crews so we can start our day and normally the sunrise goes completely unnoticed other than to note that the site lighting at the job site can be turned off.

While I was up in the Mountains, I realized that lately I've been stretching myself way too thin lately. The primary reason is because of the demands and expectations of my new project. In the construction industry, I've always anticipated/expected to work 10 hours a day, 12 hours at busier times or when we've behind schedule but since joining this new project I've been regularly working 14+ hours a day on top of running every morning, posting here, volunteering at the food bank (although not as much as I'd like to lately), and trying to do the day to day activities of life all while trying to get sufficent sleep to accomplish all of this activities. To be honest its just not working and some things are slipping through the cracks, so I realized things have to give.

One of them is posting 6 days a week on this blog. Unfortunately I've not even been able to even keep up with this, and each day I go with out a post I feel incredibly guilty so to avoid the guilt I'm just going to make the decision that I'm only going to post 3-4 times a week.

By reducing the number of times I plan to post it will do two things. 1 - It will remove my guilt for when I don't post. 2 - It will allow me more time to complete posts and really put together quality posts that I was able to do when I was working on the project in Valdosta.

I hope you all will still check in regularly to follow Saving Savy by a Future Millionaire as I really appreciate all of your feed back and will need it even more now I as go with this new challenge in life.