Tracking My Finances In May: Day 29
Welcome to How I Save Money and tracking of income and expenses for the month.
Income for the month to date: $907.67
Expenses for the month to date: $2703.78
Net effect: -$1796.11
I received $101.47 income from the ads that run on this blog so that money has really helped me. I realize that it is not in the league of ProBlogger or John Chow but to me it is still great. I would like to get more so I just need to keep working on this blog and providing better content so I can get more readers.
How I Save Money Presents: Principles Parents Must Teach Their Children If They Ever Want to Get Rid of Them!
Welcome to How I Save Money Guest Post series.
Today’s guest post comes from Cameron Taylor who is the president of the Does Your Bag Have Holes Foundation. Cameron wrote the book Does Your Bag Have Holes ? The post is called Principles Parents Must Teach Their Children If They Ever Want to Get Rid of Them!
Please read the following post and I hope it makes you think.
Tracking My Finances In May: Day 26
Welcome to How I Save Money and tracking of income and expenses for the month.
Income for the month to date: $806.20
Expenses for the month to date: $2601.78
Net effect: -$1795.58
Now that we are in the final week of the month and I get paid on Saturday I can take a look at the budget once again. I am pleased to report that I am still within the budget for the month so overall I am happy with the performance of my money this month.
Changing How I Save Money in My ING Accounts
With my focus on ways to save money one thing I look at is the interest rate I am getting.
I have been a loyal fan of ING and it is currently my main savings and main checking account.
I was speaking to Baz earlier and he mentioned opening a new savings account take advantage of the savings account rates that ING offers. This made me realize that I have not looked at the rates in a while so I logged in to my account to see what was going on.
- ING Savings account: 3.00%
How I Save Money in the News
Here is a listing of Carnivals featuring How I Save Money
Check out my post on Emergency Funds in the Carnival of Money Stories #60 over at College Of Cash . While you are there don’t forget to check out the other great writers who sent in posts about money.
I am also listed in the Carnival Of Debt Management #52 with my use of an Emergency Fund.
After all, we can all do with more ways to save money and more ways to make money!
Upside Down Car Loan
Honey and I have been searching for ways to save money on our car loans. With that in mind we were both looking at refinancing our car loans, especially since my credit score just went up.
I tried a couple of places only to be turned down or given ridiculous rates. I went into the local credit union to try that and was told that I was upside down on my car loan. Being upside down means that you owe more on the loan than the vehicle is currently worth.
It turns out that after checking comparable cars, I am owing almost $2000 more than I could sell the car for. This is very upsetting to me because I thought the value of the car was higher. The only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that the car is in great condition at 64,000 miles even though it is 6 years old.
I had planned on driving it into the ground because I cannot afford to get another car just for having a new car sake. Hey I can always buy the new car smell in a bottle at WalMart!
How are you doing on your car loan?
Are you upside down or right side up?
How I Save Money Visits: May 22
Welcome to How I Save Money visits ! This will be a regular weekly posting of an article that I thought was interesting in some way.
I have articles from around the blogosphere that you are welcome to read.
Wealth, Money and Life Network
The LocoMono contemplates Continuing The Emergency Fund Into 2009 . I think it is great to continue it even though you reach the amount you previously set because there is nothing wrong with saving money for a rainy day.
Saving Money Snowflakes
I received a payment from a sponsor of $77 for How I Save Money. I am snowflaking this payment out into two different areas. $50 will be a snowflake payment to the Citi Visa card and the remaining $27 will be snowflaked over to my Never Go Back To Fresno Fund, which is my Emergency Fund.
I am happy that I received this money and while it would be good to put a larger amount into my emergency fund the interest rate on the credit card debt is higher than the interest rate on the savings account.
I am putting that small snowflake payment down to go as soon as the money clears so that way I will have a balance on the credit card that is $50 less to pay interest on.
My electricity bill was also about $33 less than what I had budgeted for so I will be sending that $33 as a snowflake payment over to the Citi card to take down the balance even more.
ING makes it Easy.
I love using my Electric Orange account from ING because I can simply go in and click to send the checks for each of those amounts. Since it is a check I am not limited in the number of payments I can make to the card and it is refreshing to see the balances go down each time I save money somewhere.
