Bringing your family on business trips

Here are a few lessons I learned from my first adventure bringing my family to a professional conference.

1. Buy decent luggage.
We pulled up in front of the hotel late Thursday night, and one of the most well-connected people in the state was standing out front talking on his cell phone. He edits a major professional journal. He knows everyone. He stood there and watched while we unloaded our ratty old stroller, our wrinkled dress shirts (gotta get a garment bag), our cooler full of toddler snacks, our Thomas the Tank Engine fuzzy blankie, etc. I realized afterward that I had a sippy cup clamped by its handle between my teeth the whole time.

2. Don't eat at the hotel.
There were a number of conference-related business meetings that took place during meals. How could I attend with someone who would be likely to ask at top volume, "Can I have ketchup in my oatmeal?"

3. Line up superb childcare.
My son was largely out of sight during the conference. This was because my sister lives near the conference hotel and she kept him while we were in meetings. Without this advantage, I think we would have had to pay a friend to come with us and watch him. Our other idea is to team up with another professional family where one or both adults are in our field. That way, we will have more adults to share the childcare and we will each be able to attend most of the conference events. My partner has a former colleague whose spouse is in a different field. We're thinking of coordinating with them the next time we go to a conference. Their 2 kids can hang out with our son, and the one adult who isn't attending the conference can watch all 3 kids.

4. Don't cheat your employer.
My travel, meals, conference registration fees, and lodging was paid for by my employer. My partner's employer paid for his travel and his registration fees. We had to juggle receipts a little bit, but we didn't want our son's meals to end up on the tab of either workplace. My coworkers needled me about this, saying I should just order huge room service meals and share them with my family. But I was already putting them up in my hotel room at my employer's expense (altho it didn't cost my employer more to have them there) and I didn't want to abuse the situation. Better not to do something you wouldn't want your boss to know about, especially since it's a little unconventional to bring your family along when you travel for work. If you're scrupulously honest, your employer will be less likely to object to you representing the company while you're carrying a diaper bag.

5. Don't try to hide the kids away.
It would have been inappropriate to bring my son to any actual meetings. But there was no way, unless we stayed in a different hotel, we could have totally disguised his presence. Most people smiled at us and seemed comfortable with the idea of having him there. I was very self concsious when we first arrived, but by the end of it I felt pretty relaxed.

I decided it was okay to go for this impression:
"I'm a well-balanced person whose work is integrated into the rest of my life. See? My comittment to my family doesn't prevent me from giving papers at professional conferences."

I had no hope of achieving this impression:
"I'm a professional above all else. My work is paramount and nothing interferes with it."

And really, when it comes right down to it, I wouldn't want to work for anyone who didn't grok that I can wear the professional hat and the parent hat with equal aplomb, and often at the same time.

Related posts:
Family-friendly workplaces

Mental health day

I had a lot of comp time after last week's conference, so I skipped out on the old desk job today. It is 70 degrees. My son is at school. My partner is at work. It has been a long time since I played hooky.

What did I do today?

1. Went to Kohl's to buy a pair of wide-wale cords for my partner. I felt very wifely. While I was there, I poured some money into the gaping maw of Thomas the Tank Engine. We have a large wooden train and track collection which Small Person plays with constantly, but he's been wanting an electric train. I got a few things from the Thomas/Tomy battery-operated set for his 3rd birthday which is a month away.

2. Went to Staples to buy greeting card envelopes. We like to make our own cards and were running low on envelopes. It hurt to spend $20, but that's 200 cards we won't have to buy. My partner uses Japanese paper and pictures he cuts out of magazines. I used to make cards with plain white printer paper and nice colored pencils. Now the baby and I make cards collaboratively with construction paper, glue, glitter, stickers, and washable crayola markers. Makes the grandparents happy, and good thing, too, since the kid has SIX grandparents.

3. Went to the dollar store for toothpaste. I started to go to the CVS, but rethought. Found some perfectly good Pepsodent for--yep! A dollar. Also got a couple kid toothbrushes while I was there and scoped out toys for goodie bags for his birthday party.

4. Got a great $13 haircut. It took only 10 minutes and it is perfectly fine. So happy to have found a cheap place that is unpretentious, takes drop-ins, and does a good job.

5. Went to a branch of the public library that is not my usual branch (I'm getting bored with the fiction selection at my local branch) and ended up talking shop with the librarians there. Exchanged business cards. Checked out 3 paperbacks and deflected over-friendly guy at the circulation desk.

6. Went to the neighborhood toy store to scope out birthday and Xmas presents for my Small Person. Instead of spend spend spending, I wrote down everything I wanted to buy him with prices (kid-sized garden rake, Playmobil farm, kid-sized guitar). I'll think about it for a while, talk to his dad, see if I can get any of the things cheaper, and then go back.

7. Xmas shopped for my sister in some boutiquey stores. Wrote down ideas but did not whip out the plastic. Impulse bought one tiny thing for myself--a prism for my window for $1.75.

8. Came home. Went to corner store for hot cocoa mix to keep at the office. Chatted with a neighbor for too long and took a circuitous route home so I wouldn't run into her again on the way back.

9. Made a big pot of black beans.

10. Read pulp novel.

In an hour, I'll go pick up my Small Person from preschool, put him into his tiger suit, and take him trick-or-treating.

Be safe, everybody, and happy halloween.

I'm outta here

Going to a conference, family in tow, until Sunday nite.

I am giving a PRESENTATION. My nightmare. I hate public speaking. My clothes are chronically wrinkled, I babble when I'm nervous, and I am allergic to Powerpoint.

But I need me a new job so I gotta get up there, look sharp, and sound intelligent.

Wish me luck!

Saving for infrequent regular bills

This week, the annual bill for my partner's life insurance policy arrived. Of course I should have been expecting it, and I knew in a vague way that it was due around the end of the year. But do I have $400 easily to hand, and another $300 to pay the premium on my policy next month? No. Not really.

So what am I going to do about it? For a long time I've liked the idea of budgeting with the 60% solution that is very popular among MSN Money columnists. With this system, you keep your regular committed expenses to 60% of your gross. The other 40% is divided as follows:

10% to retirement
10% to long-term savings
10% to short-term savings (i.e., infrequent bills, car repairs, etc)
10% allocated as 'fun money'

Now, I don't really think I'd be able to keep all my committed expenses, including taxes, to under 60% of my gross. And I don't think I can afford to spend a whopping 10% on fun stuff. But maybe, just maybe, this formula could be usefully adjusted to meet my needs.

I envision something like this:

75% committed expenses
15% retirement
10% short-term savings

Over time, of course, I'd like to be able to shift these numbers so that I could actually put some money in to long-term savings. I have a few wild fantasies I'd like to indulge, and only some serious long-term savings is going to get me there.

But when I tried to talk my distinguished colleague (AKA my spouse) into rearranging our finances to fit this mold, he didn't like the idea. To him, the important thing is spending less money with the ultimate goal of having to work less. He is happy to talk about cutting expenses, but he doesn't really care what pots various funds get put into.

Well, with the arrival of this year's life insurance bill, I said, enough! What if we give ourselves a break this once and pay the $400 bill out of the E fund. Then we divide this and all other regular but infrequent expenses by 12, and put an amount into a special account monthly to enable us to cover these bills when they come up. He liked the idea! Woohoo!

Here are the bills I'm planning to pay this way:
Partner's life insurance: $400, due in November
My life insurance: $300, due in January
Car insurance: $375, due in March
Car insurance: $375 again, due in October

Okay, that's all fine and good. That comes out to $1450. We'll call it $1500 in case the car insurance goes up. That's $125/month.

My partner also wants to include Xmas gifts in this, tho. That one I'll have to think about. That would mean I would actually have to stick to a budget.

But I'm going to go ahead and set up a monthly autodeposit to my ING account for $125 and we'll take it from there.

Seattle Simplicity?

Anybody know what happened to Seattle Simplicity?

I liked that blog. Darn. I guess maybe she decided to simplify her life even more and axed the blog.

Carn/Fest-ivals

This week, I participated in two blog carnivals.

The Festival of Frugality #45 is up over at Pragmatic Finance. Check it out. It's prose! Waaaay down at the bottom you'll see my post on giving tax-deductible gifts.

The Carnival of Family Life #24 is up over at Everything under the moon. My post on Sharing coupons with strangers is included.

Everything under the moon is a Marauding Marsupial in the TTLB Ecosystem. This Slimy Mollusc is impressed. Ah, well. Mapgirl says the ecosystem tends to favor conservative blogs, and we're certainly not one of those.

What's my number? Part 2

This week I figured out that I'll need about two million bucks, give or take, to retire.

Today I took a deep breath and decided to see if I was on track to meet this goal. I played around a little bit with one of JLP's calculators.



According to this calculator, I need to be saving $731/month, or $9576 annually, to meet this goal.

With employer match, I am currently saving $6916 toward retirement annually, or $576/month.

I'm short about $155/month.

A few observations:

It's very striking to me that this formula wants me to save nearly $10,000 a year. That's 25% of my gross! Yikes.

I wasn't sure what to put in for total current savings. Retirement savings only? Total net worth? I ended up putting in all my current retirement savings AND my long-term savings, but not short-term, E-fund type savings or equity in my house.

These figures do not include my partner's savings. He's only 24 years away from retirement, so his numbers will be different. I still haven't figured out how to calculate our needs based on our different ages. If anybody has any suggestions (aside from seeing whether we're each on track to replace our own individual salaries) please let me know.

The calculations I did the other day that got me to the number 2,000,000 had me assuming a 6% rate of return. I put in 7% for this calculator, and didn't notice the discrepancy til after I left the computer where I had the software to crop the image. So the inconsistency stands.

All in all, I'm actually pretty satisfied with the results. There is room for improvement, but I do have a lot of time to catch up. Also, with no debt and no mortage (and no freakin' daycare tuition) I think I could probably live relatively comfortably on less than $40,000.

I really like that the calculator shows where I'd be if I didn't save another dime ($588,567) and also how much of a nest egg I'd need right now in order to meet my goal without having to save any more ($126,336--an agonizingly small number when you think about it--so near, and yet so far).

If you haven't done so, check out JLP's calculators. They're pretty fun.

Book review: Bogleheads on rebalancing

Welcome to this week's review of another chapter in The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. This week we're looking at Chapter 17: Track Your Progress and Rebalance When Necessary.

If you're just joining us, please visit JLP's page on The Bogleheads' October Project to read the reviews of Chapters 1-16.

At this point in the book, authors Larimore, Lindauer and LeBeouf (can you say that ten times fast?) have laid out many of the basics of investing in Part 1, Essentials of Successful Investing. By now, if you've been following their advice, you've already put in place many of the foundations of successful investing. You're living within your means. You've put a savings plan in place. You've determined your financial goals. You've decided upon an asset allocation based on your goals, and you've researched low-cost, tax-efficient investments within each asset class. You have chosen a financial advisor or decided to be your own advisor, and you've put your money into all the appropriate pots.

What next? Now it's your job to make sure that your well-laid plans continue to run smoothly until you successfully arrive at each of your financial goals and milestones.

Chapter 17 marks the beginning of Part 2, Follow-Through Strategies to Keep You on Target. It deals with one of the most important regular maintenance activities that successful investors engage in: Rebalancing investments to maintain the desired asset allocation.

Rebalancing becomes necessary when some of your assets outperform others. The chapter lays out a sample portfolio and illustrates how it will naturally become imbalanced through the normal ups and downs of the markets. For simplicity's sake, let's say you start out with 50% of your assets in stocks, and 50% in bonds. Over time, your 50-50 balance will be upset because the two asset classes will not perform exactly the same. You need to regularly sell assets that have grown out of proportion with your desired allocation and buy assets that have lagged in order to maintain the level of risk you decided upon when you created your original asset allocation. The authors also offer compelling arguments for why portfolios that are regularly rebalanced perform better over the long term. If you don't rebalance, you're taking on more risk and it's very unlikely your higher risks will be justified by better returns.

Okay, we're all convinced. Now how and when do we rebalance our portfolios?

1. Track your porfolio
The authors lay out many software solutions for tracking changes in your portfolio with an eye toward maintaining your desired asset allocations. If you're not computer savvy, they say, you should look for an investment company that will provide asset allocation tracking information on regular paper statements. I myself have a sister who has tracked her asset allocation quite successfully for 20 years using nothing more sophisticated than a paper, pencil and calculator. The key is to find a method that works for you and that you are likely to maintain long-term.

2. Decide on a trigger that will cause you to rebalance
There are two main strategies people use for rebalancing. Some people decide on a margin of error, called an expansion band, after which they'll rebalance. This means that if their asset allocations in any category are off by more than, say, 5%, they'll rebalance. This method requires fairly regular tracking so you'll know when it's time to follow through on your rebalancing plan.

The other main method is to rebalance at regular intervals regardless of market performance. Some investors choose to rebalance monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or even less regularly. There are two main determinants for deciding how often to rebalance. The first is taxes. Because gains on securities are taxed more heavily if you've owned shares for less than 12 months, there are strong arguments against rebalancing more often than every 12 months. The second factor requires self-knowledge. What kind of schedule will be the most likely to help you stick to your asset allocation strategy? The authors lay out some examples of how different investor personalities might be better served by different rebalancing strategies.

3. Figure out how much money to move around.
The authors provide a nifty chart that you can plug your own numbers into to figure out how much money needs to be deducted from high-performing asset classes and moved into underperformers in order to get back to that desired allocation.

4. Ready, set...rebalance.
Here's where the authors explain different ways to actually rebalance. A few highlights:

The obvious: Sell off part of your winning assets and put the money into less stellar performers. Don't forget to look carefully at costs associated with taxes and transaction fees before you do this.

If you're already drawing down the account, take your next withdrawals from the asset class that's had a big run-up recently.

If you're actively adding to the account, direct new deposits into funds whose balances have dipped below your targets.

Change the preferences on your accounts so that distributions go into a cash-management account (such as a money-market account) instead of being reinvested in the same fund. That way, you can funnel distributions from high performing funds into other funds in asset classes that are lagging.

Let someone else rebalance for you. A portfolio manager will watch your accounts and rebalance when necessary for a premium. Not surprisingly, the authors tout Vanguard's Asset Management Service (Bogleheads tend to favor John Bogle's company, Vanguard).

Buy a fund-of-funds that has an asset allocation comparable to your desired allocation, and let the fund managers keep tabs on when rebalancing is necessary. Many of these funds also have a built-in target date (such as the date retirement or college entrance is expected), and change their asset allocations to a more conservative mix as you get closer to the date you'll need the funds. These funds are available from many big fund families (Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, TIAA-CREF, etc).

This concludes my review of Chapter 17 of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. If you are a beginning investor, or an investor with a moderate amount of experience who wants to learn from a group of people whose ideas are backed by solid research and experience, I would recommend this book.

Chapter 18 will be reviewed tomorrow by Jonathan of My Money Blog. If you aren't familiar with his blog, take a look around. It's one of my favorites.

Related posts:
Asset allocations nearing completion

What's my number?

Quick, off the top of your head. How much money will you need to have saved to sustain your current lifestyle in retirement?

I confess, I have only the foggiest idea. Why is that? There are a number of reasons I haven't figured it out.

1. It's scary. What if I do the calculations and realize I'm not saving nearly enough? Sure, at age 29, I'm young enough to make up for lost time. But it's still scary.

2. The horizon is too far away. How the heck do I know how much I'm going to need 35 plus years from now? I'm not even half way there. Anything I figured out now would be a guess, so why bother?

3. It's complicated. There are 87 thousand calculators online and most of them want a ton of detail. I've tinkered around with them but usually get scared off by the number of variables.

4. Will Social Security be toast by then or not? It's popular for people my age to say bravely that we're not expecting anything at all from Uncle Sam. But some people are less extremist, and say they think Social Security will replace at least a percentage of their income. What do I think? I usually fall into the "I expect nothing" camp just because the idea of banking on Social Security (or a traditional pension for that matter) and finding out at the eleventh hour that it's either nonexistent or dramatically less than I expected just sounds...terrifying. Better to be pleasantly surprised when the checks come in after all.

5. That whole I vs. WE thing is still being worked out around here. I still find it hard to calculate our needs as a couple, so I usually fall back on looking at how I can replace MY income (and let him worry about his own self). But then of course I'm aware that that's only half the picture, so my projections just end up feeling inadequate. But how DO you do the math when one of you is 22 years away from retirement and the other one is 35 years away from retirement? I never made it to higher math so this is sort of beyond me.


But now, obstacles aside, I found a nice, simple table in Bogleheads (Chapter 6, page 73). Without going into the gory details of the rest of the chapter, I'm just going to plug my numbers into this soothingly simple table.

The tables don't give figures for people further from retirement than 30 years. (What, they think you gotta be in your thirties before you think about this stuff?) Because the whole appeal of this table is that it's simple enough for even me, I'm going to use the numbers that assume I'm retiring in 30 years, not the 35 plus that is realistic. And hey, I won't complain if I get to retire at age 60 instead of age 67.5.

If I'm 30 years from retirement, my numbers look like this:

Required income (current dollars): $1000
Required income (future dollars): $2427
At 5% annual return, I will need $55,864 per $1000 of annual income
At 6% annual return, I will need $49,519 per $1000 of income
At 7% annual return, I will need $44,226 per $1000
At 8% annual return, I will need $39,782 per $1000

I figure I need $40,000 of today's dollars, and I'm assuming I'll have a 6% annual return. So I multiply $49,519 (the amount I'd need for each $1000 of annual income at 6% return) by 40 and I get....(drumroll please)... $1,980,760

If I retired in 30 years, I'd need $1,980,760 to last me through 30 years of retirement.

Okay, okay, there are some problems with these numbers. If I retire early, at 60, I'll need to fund even more than 30 years of retirement. But hopefully I would have some Social Security income to give me a boost, and hopefully my returns would be better than 6%. (I came of age as an investor during the tech bust so I'm leery of predicting higher returns).

So this is a very iffy, wishy-washy projection, but I think I can tentatively say that my retirement goal is about 2 million dollars, subject to many changes and revisions in the next 30-40 years.

Wow. Two Million Dollars. That's a lot.

I'll leave the calculations of whether I'll make it for another day.

15 percent off at Children's Place til Oct 29

I posted that nice feel-good story about the lady sharing her coupon with me at Children's Place, and I completely forgot to include the coupon code! It can be shared with an infinite number of friends. Blog readers=friends, right? (Well, kind of.)

So the code is: HBBF6

Don't forget to shop thru Ebates or Mr. Rebates to get an additional 3% cash back (plus sign-up bonus if you're a new user).

Full disclosure:
I get a bonus if you use the sign-up links above. If you prefer, you can strip out my referral code when you follow the link, or use Fatwallet, which as far as I know doesn't have a referral program.

Enjoy!

Surprised by savings

Don't you love it when you do nothing to seek out opportunities to save money and they just fall into your lap?

Last night I was just not up for the round of bed-time negotiations with my 2-year-old resident diplomat. So I passed the baton to the diplomat's father and went out to run a couple of errands.

At our neighborhood indy video store, I had a pleasant surprise. They had a big sign up saying, "prepay and save 20%!"

Apparently if I prepay $50, I get $60 worth of credit on my account.

Now, I'm trying to cut back on credit-card spending, so I really shouldn't be putting $50 on my card this month. But 20% is a great return, and the $60 credit will probably last us at least a year. We only rent movies about once a month or a little less.

I came home with my DVD and a smile on my face.

A one-week health plan

Anybody besides me need to break a cycle of stress eating? It's good for your body and good for your budget.

Earlier this year, I lost about 20 pounds. I've been keeping it off fairly well (six months now) but the past few weeks have been a bit stressful and I've been finding myself hitting the pantry too often. I was about 3 pounds above where I wanted to be. Nothing to get excited about. Just a good warning to shape up.

I decided to fork over the cash to join Weight Watchers again so I could get back in the habit of eating light. I was happy to see that Mr. Rebates was offering a $5 rebate on a Weight Watchers membership, but I was even happier to see that I could get a 1-week free trial!

This might just be enough. I'm not out to lose a bunch of weight this time. I'm just trying to get back in a good pattern that I can hopefully sustain long term.

CONFESSION: This post is at least partly a ploy to get some of you to sign up for Mr. Rebates using my referral link. I haven't gotten any referrals from them and the referral compensation is pretty good--20% of your referee's earnings for all time.

In case you need an even less subtle hint, click here!



PS. I started the Weight Watchers program again on Monday and I'm actually enjoying it. I'm not being too aggressive about it and I have a bit more energy. Too bad my wallet and my diet took a hit this morning when some coworkers and I went out for Starbucks. Who knew a fat-free whipped-creamless grande mocha was so many calories?

Okay, lunch break over. Time to get back to preparing my presentation for next week's conference. Groooaaan. I hate public speaking.

Bloggers in the media

Want to know why I'm anonymous on this blog? Because I'm way too chicken to write a blog starring my real self.

As a follow-up to my recent post about my extremely limited experience dealing with newspaper and television reporters, I thought I'd link to this post where Heather Armstrong talks about what it's like to be a highly visible blogger in Utah.

I don't know how Heather does it. My family would kill me if I was as open as she is on her blog. I am addicted to her blog (even though I don't really think she and I would be friends in a normal, offline way) partly because I'm reading it and going, oh my god, doesn't she know we're all reading this?? Her daughter (same age as my son) is going to be so mad at Heather when she learns how to read. How does her marriage survive this?

My college boyfriend was completely traumatized because I published a poem about him that was every so slightly sexual. My partner is very tolerant of my blogging habit, but I don't know how he'd react if I was writing the kinds of things Heather writes.

I have to say, although I am fascinated and horrified by how much Heather reveals, I also admire her quite a bit. She's a good writer, even though she uses the same devices over and over. She's very funny. And she is very, very brave. It takes a lot of guts to wrap up your life every day, package it, and publish it on the internet with your picture and your real name attached.

More power to you, Heather.

Sharing coupons with strangers

Sometimes I love strangers. Has this ever happened to you?

Today I went to an outlet mall with my sister to return something, and there was a Children's Place right next door.

Well, my son was a size 2T yesterday, but today he has five inches of leg sticking out of the bottom of his pajama bottoms. He has really grown recently. He needs pajamas desperately.

Great. Children's Place had a display right in front--2 pairs of cotton long-sleeved pajamas for $25. I could do better at the thrift store, but I'm a working girl and this was my only weekday shopping opportunity for who knows how long. I carefully chose something un-Christmasy to please his atheist father, and dealt with the voice from the stroller who was calling out for flip-flops. He has been asking for flip-flops for about a month, basically since the end of flip-flop season. Well, now I had parked his stroller unwittingly next to a huge bin of marked-down flip-flops. For 99 cents, yes, you can have some flip-flops, I said. We chose some Hawaiian-flowered ones with a lizard, and because it was a mild day I let myself be talked into removing his warm socks and sneakers and putting on the flip-flops (as long as he promised to let me know if one fell off while I was pushing his stroller through the mall).

At the checkout counter, I impulse-bought some socks that were on display. And my sister decided that as his indulgent Auntie she just couldn't let us get out of there without buying a little treat for him. She grabbed some cozy red slippers. By this time we had quite a pile on the counter.

That's when I noticed that the nice-looking shopper at the next cash register was trying to get my attention. (She was shopping sans kids--how does she do that?)

She asked me, "Do you have a coupon? I have an extra one" and handed over a 15% off coupon, reusable as many times as I want until the 29th.

SWEET! I thanked her about six times, and made a mental note to offer my grocery coupons that are about to expire to the person behind me in line next time I decide not to buy whatever it is I have a coupon for.

I saved several dollars, and my faith in humankind was unshakable for the next hour--until someone cut me off getting on the Turnpike. But that's another story.

Edit: I forgot to include the coupon code so you folks can save 15% too.
Here it is.

I won, and other tidbits

A few minor announcements.

First things first. I won! JLP offered a $50 Amazon gift card to celebrate his two-year blogging anniversary, and I won! I have entered the odd blog contest before, usually for a review copy of a personal finance book, but I've never won before. I must say, $50 to spend on Amazon is much better than receiving one book. Thanks, JLP!

Now, how to spend it?

In other news, commenters on my post about my annual retirement contributions are probably wondering if I ever took my partner up on his offer to raid his file cabinet and actually look at his account balances. I haven't. I will do it, but I will probably not post details on this site. It's one thing to get naked financially myself, but quite another to reveal all about my sweetie's money. But I do need to do some more thinking about how to coordinate our long term goals together instead of treating them as separate goals. I read a couple of really good posts (on a blog I'd never heard of before) today about combining finances, and now I can't bloody find the blog again. Did any of you recently write about the idea of I versus WE in financial planning? I reallly shouldn't blog this late at night. Maybe tomorrow on my work computer the cookies will help me find it again. [Edit: The mystery post is here, at The Weight of Money. Sorry 'bout that.]

I got my review copy today of Health Care on Less Than You Think by Brock. I didn't read his two first books, on retirement and the vague but pleasant sounding idea of "living well". This one looks good, and I'm tired of paying so freakin' much for bad HMO coverage. I've been thinking about one of these Health Savings Accounts, so I'm looking forward to hearing what Brock thinks about that.

I'm also planning to review Education Registry this week, a new site where expectant parents can register for college funds for their new babies instead of getting yet another 3-pack of receiving blankets. How many receiving blankets does one baby need, anyway? (Actually, they need way more than you'd think in my experience.)

And now I'm going to sleep, quick before the Small Person wakes up and says in his disconcertingly clear four-in-the-morning voice, "I want to be held by you, Mama."

One last thought--speaking of the Small Person, he has suddenly grown about five inches and none of his pajamas fit. Quick, I gotta go to the thrift store before the next Hanna Andersson catalog comes and lures me to buy thick cotton stripey pajamas that last forever. When you only have one kid, and only intend to have one kid, you actually don't need to buy kids' clothes that last forever. It's sometimes more cost effective to buy things that will wear out around the time your kid outgrows them.

Annual retirement contributions

I can hardly believe this is true, but I've done the math 3 times. I figured out today how much we contribute annually to our workplace retirement accounts. With employer match, it is a staggering $11,128.

Holy cow. I am really shocked. I have been feeling like we're undersaving. I guess we're not doing so badly after all.

Here's how I figure. We get paid biweekly so our contributions are also biweekly.*

Partner's job: He contributes $122 biweekly, and his employer contributes $40.

My primary job: I contribute $133, and my employer contributes $85.

My second job: I contribute $32, and my employer contributes $16.

Annually, our contributions total $7462, and our employers contribute $3666.

Combined total: $11,128.

(And before you ask, our annual household gross income is somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000. I can't tell you exactly because it fluctuates a little).

So, we're contributing way more than I thought. I guess I don't have to feel guilty about the roughly $1000/year we put away for college. I had been feeling like we were stealing from our retirement by doing that. And now the 1.5% of our gross that we contribute to charity seems just pathetic, especially in light of some people's heroic efforts.

Of course, I still think these numbers could use some improvement. Of course I want to save more. But I also think we need to shift things so that my accounts aren't getting the lion's share. I'm working more than my partner is at the moment, so more money is going into my accounts. But he's just a little bit older than I am (he's a Boomer, for crying out loud) so we really need to up his contributions and lower mine a little. Do I want to do this? NO. But I do think it would make the most financial sense.

The main reason I don't want to put more money in his accounts at the expense of mine isn't what you think. It isn't really because I want to have more money than he has. After all, we're partners, and so his financial health is my financial health. It's because he never shows me his account statements and I don't dare ask him to. If more money is going into his accounts, I won't have the fun of seeing it grow.

Related posts:
Roth versus the 401k
w00t: The short version

*Please forgive the ugly way I've represented the numbers. For some reason Blogger is allergic to HTML tables. I don't know how other folks do it but every time I try to present numbers in a table on here, it ends up looking like Sudoku on drugs.

Naughty librarian

Why would I want to wear this on Halloween? This is what I wear to work every day.

(Courtesy of Andi, the other PF-bloggin' librarian)

Frugal gift idea number 2: The tax-deductible gift

The perfect gift for the person who has everything is--nothing!

Instead of buying more stuff stuff stuff, why not make a donation in honor of someone? Your donation can help people in need, and many non-profits will send a nice card to the honoree telling them you've made a donation in their name. Plus, you can deduct the gift if you itemize on your income taxes. Everybody's happy. Take my grandmother, for example.

My grandmother does not need another coffee mug plastered with family photos. Nor does she need another ornament/coaster/sweatshirt/calendar with her favorite bird on it. She doesn't need another expensive floral arrangement delivered to her house. And she doesn't need another personalized eyeglass case.

What she needs is to know that her 3 children, 10 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren love her and think of her on her birthday and at Christmastime.

For years I sent my grandmother flowers as presents. She lives alone and likes the outdoors but can't get around much any more. I'd often send an amaryllis bulb or something that would bloom for a few weeks. But having flowers delivered is expensive. So I switched to sending her magazine subscriptions. For a couple years, I sent Smithsonian subscriptions, but then one year she gushed, "Thank you so much for the National Geographic subscription. I read it cover to cover." I realized I was wasting my money.

Then I discovered Madre. Madre is an international aid organization that supports women in developing countries. Many of their projects help provide food and medical care for women in war-ravaged areas. My grandmother worked as a volunteer in a home for poor unwed mothers for many years after she retired. I figured it was a good fit. She was working to help give women in trouble a second chance. I figured I could continue her work by donating to Madre.

So. Every year, I make an easy credit-card payment to Madre online, giving them my grandmother's name and address. They send Gram a nice card. She sends me a thank you note. I write it off on my taxes. It's a beautiful thing.

Now, I do want to add that I realize that an organization like Madre probably spends a fair amount of my donation on that glossy card for my grandmother. And on processing my credit card payment. And on the PR materials they send me all the time. And on their beautiful website. So I may not be getting as much bang for my donated buck as I could at another, smaller, more grassroots organization. But they make it very easy to donate in honor of someone, and their mission is something I think my grandmother would support. (I just hope she doesn't notice their leftist agenda.)

Related posts:
Frugal gift idea number 1: Gift cards
Gifts to family: Unconditional but not unlimited

Frugal fashion: Sometimes you just gotta spend a little money

Madame X just bought 3 pairs of pants at the Gap, and they weren't on sale. She's about as frugal as they come, but I think she's right that once in a while you just have to buy multiples of something because it will never come along again.

My big fashion crisis is shoes. I have the weirdest feet in the world. They are very very small but very very wide. Oh, and I have high arches. Shoe shopping with me is really not fun.

Here's me at every shoestore within a 100 mile radius of my house:

"Um, could you tell me what you have in a size 6 quadruple wide?"

I usually end up in the boys' section. So when I find a shoe store that actually carries women's shoes made for people with basically square feet, I always go nuts.

But at the moment I'm sitting on two unworn pairs of shoes. I bought them at an outlet mall with my sister a couple weeks ago. One is a pair of black leather half-boots that zip up and have good grippy soles. I paid $50. Now maybe I won't have to wear my hiking boots to work when it snows and carry officey shoes in a separate bag to put on when I get there. The other is a pair of brown leather shoes, much trendier than my usual look, but I just couldn't resist and they were only $25.

Why haven't I worn them yet? Well, I had buyer's remorse almost instantly. I need to scrutinize my credit card bill really carefully and see if I can afford it before I commit to two new pairs of shoes.

As Madame X so eloquently put it,
HOLY SHIT I WON'T BE ABLE TO RETIRE IF I BUY THESE SHOES!!!

Prosper: How I select loans to bid on

This is my very unscientific method for selecting loans to bid on.

1. Groups. I will bid on anything at that comes out of my group. Since it's a tiny group with almost no action, that's not that hard a commitment to keep. I figure if I trust somebody enough to let them in my group, I better trust them enough to loan money to them. Besides, I have the advantage as their group leader of knowing their real name, their employer's name, and other personal details that I ask for when somebody applies to join the group. I would also favor the heck out of any PFbloggers, just cause I like being part of this community and I want to support it. I missed bidding on Tricia's loan, and I also recently missed bidding on a loan from the PFblogger group I'm part of. This is because it takes for.e.ver to transfer $$ in and out of Prosper. I keep initiating a transfer, hoping it will go thru in time to bid on a certain loan, but it almost never does unless I catch the loan listing really early.

2. I favor borrowers who say they want to use Prosper to consolidate high interest debt and improve their credit scores. I don't really want to fund MORE debt, even for good causes. It's too risky. I want my loans to be helping people get to where they never have to borrow again. Now, you can say whatever you want in a loan listing, so I'm not sure I believe all that I read. But still, I like to hear that somebody at least knows the catch-phrases of financial responsibility.

3. I favor loans that have a low total dollar amount. You can borrow up to 25 grand on Prosper. It scares me to give anybody that much money in unsecured debt, even if only $50 is actually my money. I like loans that are under $5K, but will go up to $10K or even a little higher if they're convincing.

4. I don't much care about interest rates. I'm trying to get a better return than I can get from a high-yield savings account or a CD. Period. I consider Prosper loans much, much riskier than investing in the stock market, and I'm not interested in increasing that risk by lending at high rates under sketchy circumstances. I'm not trying to earn usurious rates at the expense of somebody else. There are plenty of banks around who do that well enough. I do have two loans with relatively high interest rates, because I figure if I'm unwilling to take high interest I can really only lend to borrowers with good credit, who are the ones who don't need as much help. And yes, I do see Prosper as a way that I can help other people while helping myself at the same time.

5. I like loans that are already mostly funded and that are about to end. I use Prosper's features that allow you to browse listings based on which are fully funded and which listings are ending soon. This is because if I bid on a loan, my money is tied up without earning interest until the loan listing closes. If I bid on a loan that's closing the same day, my money will be earning interest sooner. If I bid on a loan that closes several days from now, I'm earning that much less interest.

6. I loan $50 per borrower. Period. I did not always follow this rule and the loan that's over 4 months late was my biggest loan. Lesson learned.

Index to posts about Prosper.com

Prosper is quick to forgive

As promised, here's my update on the performance of my Prosper loans, especially the 2 loans that were seriously late when I last wrote about Prosper at the end of July.

First, here's a brief summary of my Prosper loans to date. I currently have 16 active loans. 2 loans have been paid off early. The average interest rate is 12.27%. My borrowers' credit grades break down like this: AA: 3, A: 4, B: 2, C: 5, D: 1, E: 1.

So far, I have had 2 borrowers fall very far behind in their payments. One was a C credit grade borrower, who wanted money to start a small business. (I won't be funding any more entrepreneurs). The other was an AA borrower, who wanted money for dental work (how could I have forgotten that medical expenses account for most bankruptcies?). At one point, they were both over 4 months late. Now, one is 4 months late and the other is suddenly--current! Prosper says that after 3 months a loan is written off and you're lucky to get pennies on the dollar from a collection agency, but there is nothing to tell me if I have a collecition agency to thank for the recent payments or not.

One of my defaulted loans is still hanging out there, waiting to be closed permanently. The borrower paid once, on May 30th. That first loan payment was late, and it was the only one I received. I did receive, on August 25th, 3 "community payments", where some Prosper member (or perhaps Prosper itself) anonymously pays off a part of a loan for somebody who's in default. Those community payments totalled $1.94, and glad I was to get it.

The other defaulted loan's payment history looks like this:
April 7th: on-time payment
May 7th: on-time payment
August 25th: 2 "community payments" totalling 29 cents
Sept 26th: sudden payment of all late principal and interest amounts
Oct 7th: on-time payment

Is that weird or what? One day the loan was paid up. All the red text that indicated the borrower was late was replaced by happy green text, signifying on-time payments. I know Prosper probably collected late fees, but I got none of that. I'm happy the loan is current again, but I'm confused. Did the borrower die, and now their estate is making payments? Did a collection agency make them start paying again? Maybe it never even went to collections. I just don't know. Did they just decide to work the system? I really hope their AA-grade credit has a big ol' ding in it now, because I didn't particularly like not being paid for months on end.

So that's the scoop. I'll follow up with a short post on how I select which loans to bid on, because somebody asked me about that recently. Even tho I have had a lot of defaults (more than 10% of my loans have been seriously late in less than a year) I'm still not inclined to bail on Prosper. I still think it's a good idea, and I still like the social aspect of it.

If you'd like to read more about my Prosper experience, check out this index to posts about Prosper.com.

Talking to reporters

...is very dangerous. I think I need to stop doing it.

I suppose it's not surprising that I get contacted by reporters pretty often. Bloggers are perfect fodder for reporters.

Think about it. You're doing an article on, say, rewards credit cards. You need to interview people who have them. A google search reveals a handy assortment of people who have reviewed rewards credit cards on their blogs, and many of them have even explained how the cards fit in with their overall financial plan and debt management strategy. All you have to do is contact the blogger, and get him or her to say again some of what was already said on the blog.

I get contacted by reporters doing pieces about personal finance maybe once a month or a little less. I'm a helpful sort of person, and I like talking about personal finance, so I usually agree to be interviewed. Most of the time it comes to nothing. Their editor decides not to run the piece. They have enough interviewees already. They really needed someone with a different perspective than mine. I always feel relieved with this happens. Some reporters also act like they're doing me a favor, offering me 15 minutes of fame in exchange for my personal financial data. I usually tell those reporters they can bite me.

But twice now, something has come of it. The first one was last spring. I was featured on a local news program talking about something personal-financey. I didn't say anything I shouldn't have. It was a clip only a few seconds long. But it was extremely embarrassing. Coworkers and neighbors are still asking me about it and it was months ago. It was also a reminder of how un-photogenic I am. (My sisters got the Kodak-perfect smiles.) My hair was wet from the shower so it came out looking sort of greasy. And that pancake make-up the reporter was slapping on? I should have borrowed it so I wouldn't look so ghosty. Okay, forget that. I'm not doing television interviews any more.

But recently I did agree to be interviewed by a newspaper reporter. Why did I agree? I'm just too damned nice. The reporter was friendly, she was easy to talk to, and next thing I knew I had gotten off the phone with her and realized I had really f***ed up. See, she knew about my blog, right. So she knew a lot of personal details about me. But she really wanted my real name for the interview. So I said, okay, you can use my real name in the article as long as you don't mention the blog. Fine. But I was too open. I told her the following things that I shouldn't have:

1. That my sweetie and I are playing catch-up because he didn't start saving for retirement until he was in his late 30s. OOPS. It's one thing to say that on my blog which at least has the illusion of anonymity. It's quite another to say that in a syndicated newspaper column that has my real name in it.

2. That one of my family members saves X percent of his/her income and that it has influenced me to save more. OOPS AGAIN. My relative told me in confidence how much s/he saves. How could I have told it to a reporter!??

3. [snip snip snip] [I deleted this one to reduce the liklihood that blog readers will recognize me if they should happen to read the newspaper article when it comes out.]

Augh! Grrrr! Unnggghh! I'm an idiot! I'm kicking myself! Kick kick kick!

I wrote an email to the reporter asking her please not to reveal this stuff, but I am also regretting talking to her at all. I don't care if my personal business is in the newspaper. Okay, I don't care much. But I forget that it's also my spouse's personal business. Even tho I'm the PF-obsessed one, it's still our joint finances I'm talking about. So that's it. Once I live down the embarrassment of this article coming out, I'm done! No more interviews.

The other kicker is that I'm not even gaining anything from this. If they were mentioning my blog and I could be all famous and cool like Jonathan or Amanda, that would be one thing. But since the blog is anonymous, I never allow them to mention it unless they're willing to omit my real name. So I am getting NOTHING but grief out of this. I really need to learn when to keep my mouth shut.

Anybody else get hounded by reporters who have found your blog and want to know how much you're saving for retirement, what you think of social security, who you voted for, how often you scour your kitchen sink, whatever? How do you handle these things? Hopefully more intelligently than I do.

You gotta read this stuff

I don't typically do a weekly roundup here, but I wanted to point my readers to a few good posts and introduce a relatively new blogger that I've been enjoying.

Millionaire Artist is a relatively new personal finance blogger. She writes about creativity, money, charitable giving, health insurance, and myriad other PF topics. I like her blog because she's another strange bird just like me--a left-leaning personal finance geek. Also, my web-design-challenged self enjoys the attractive design of her site. You have to go over there and look at the restful green grass she's got growing around the edges of her text box. Thanks, Madame, for pointing her out to me.

The 22nd Carnival of Family Life is up over at Of Noble Character. My post about buying tickets online is included. While you're visiting the carnival, scroll down and look at the square, grey button at the very bottom on the left. That button leads you here. Isn't it fascinating how blog carnivals bring together people who are so very different?

The 43rd Festival of Frugality is up over at My Open Wallet. I didn't get it together to submit, but the anagrams alone are worth a look.

Jane Dough has a great series where she answers the question, How did I grow my Net Worth by almost $64,000 in 12 months? Read about it here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

And for those of you who have been leaving comments and emailing me asking me to report on my Prosper lending already, I promise to do it in the next 24 hours. Thanks for the kick in the pants.

You father smelled of elderberries

Feel like telling somebody off?

Check out this list of insults from the Reluctant Nomad (courtesy of Dooce, mommy blogger extraordinaire.)

My favorite on this list is definitely this one:
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln.

Sadly, I think this could reasonably said of me sometimes....

Another good insult--I once saw a New Yorker cartoon with two Quaker boys in black hats. They're standing on the playground. One says to the other, "My father is gentler than thine."

[I'm at work on a rainy Saturday morning and there is nothing going on here so I'm surfing the web. I would much prefer to be home playing trains with my son and drinking black tea and chatting with my partner's parents, who are visiting from New England. But if somebody wants to pay me $32/hour to sit at a deserted desk waiting to answer questions, I'm not going to say no.]

NJ State Aquarium ticket racket

Tomorrow, we're planning to take our toddler to visit the New Jersey State Aquarium in Camden. He's been talking about our July visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium nonstop, and no bathtime is complete without his plastic dolphin that he got there.

So last night I got online to research admission prices, etc. It ain't cheap. Adults are $16.95; Children (2-12) are $13.95. With our visiting family members, we'll be 4 adults and 1 child. That's a lot of money, but okay, it's worth it, and it's not like we do expensive family outings every week.

The website also says: "Timed-tickets and advanced reservations are recommended." Okay, no problem. But I don't want to buy the tickets online without asking a few questions. I call Ticketmaster, who handles the sales.


"Do you have any tickets left for Sunday October 8th?" I ask.

The sales rep explains that there are plenty of tickets available for Sunday. The point of buying them ahead of time is that then you don't have to wait in a long line when you get to the Aquarium. Okay, that makes sense to me. But I still have questions.

"Do you offer senior discounts?" I ask, because our visiting relatives would qualify.

"Not online or on the phone," says the rep. "You have to go wait in the line."

"What about discounts if I'm a member of a local zoo, AAA, that kind of thing?"

"Yeah, we have some discounts. But you'd have to go wait in the line."

"Oh. Just out of curiousity--is there a service fee if I buy my tickets ahead?"

"Yes, ma'am. It's $4 per ticket over the phone." Pause. Cheerfully: "But it's only $3.50 per ticket if you buy them online!"

"Thanks," I say. "You've been very helpful." Click.


So, if I want to pay a total of $20 in service fees, don't want a senior discount, and don't want to apply any discounts for the memberships I already pay annually for, I can buy the tickets ahead of time. Or, I can arrive a little earlier and stand in a line.


I think I'll stand in the line.


Note: All images respectfully ganked from the NJ State Aquarium website.

UGMA dilemna: An embarrassment of riches

Every parent should have this problem.

My son has two UGMA (Uniform Gift to Minor's Act) accounts for which I'm the custodian. His father and I also have two 529 accounts naming our son as the beneficiary. Last night, while sorting through the mountains of junk mail in our entryway, I came across a letter from Davis, the mutual fund company where one of his UGMA accounts resides.

They informed me that the balance is too low (currently $664.77) and they're fed up with slackers like me. I can either add enough money to bring the total above their $1000 minimum, or I can do nothing and they'll sell the shares and send a check to the address on record.

Now, these UGMA accounts are a pain in my butt. They were both gifts from wonderful people who love my son. I am very grateful for these gifts. However, I feel conflicted about the accounts.

What is the money going to be used for? The obvious answer is, of course, college. I assume we'll use all the money (and then some) for his college education. But since the money is his money, in his name, I can't just plunk it into the 529 accounts I've already got set up. That's because those 529 accounts are MY money, in MY name. Sure, he's the beneficiary on the accounts, but if he runs away to join the circus and doesn't end up going to college, I can take the penalty and cash out the money and it's mine. But the money in his UGMA accounts needs to stay in his name.

Legally, the money in his UGMA accounts is his when he turns 18, even if he's going through an irresponsible phase. I'd like to think my child will be level-headed and fiscally responsible, but I can't predict who he'll be 15 years from now. I may be able to prevent him from blowing it all if I simply don't tell him about it until he's old enough to handle it. But if he finds out about the money, I won't be able to stop him from using it to buy a car he can't afford, or taking all his friends on a drinking binge in Mexico, or whatever. Even if he's a responsible kid, I'm not sure it's psychologically healthy to hand an 18-year-old thousands of dollars (I expect the accounts, now worth around $3500 combined, to grow in the next 15 years).

I had intended to eventually transfer the 2 UGMA accounts either into a single UGMA account at Fidelity, or into a UGMA/529 account. Like our other 529 accounts, this $$ will be intended to pay for little L to go off to college in 2021. But in the case of a UGMA/529, HE will be both the owner and the beneficiary. If he joins the circus, he can take the penalty and walk away with the $$ once he's 18 (if, that is, I tell my wayward circus clown about the existence of the account). It benefits him to have the money in a UGMA/529 if we're pretty sure it's going to be used for college, because it will get more favorable financial aid consideration than it would if it were in a plain old UGMA account. And yes, even though my son is incredibly wealthy for a not-yet-3-year-old, his parents' modest incomes mean that there's an outside chance he'll be eligible for need-based aid. (Unless, of course, they suddenly start paying people in my fiedl higher salaries, which would be fine with me.)

But I'm not ready to move both UGMAs. This is because my generous, lovable, and crotchetty grandmother still puts $100 into the UGMA she set up for him at Royce every year on his birthday. I can't very well move the shares to another company while she's actively contributing to the account. Hopefully she will be alive and active for many years to come. Therefore I wasn't expecting to deal with the UGMAs for a looong time.

But my hand is being forced. The $660 in Davis shares aren't enough to open a UGMA at Fidelity. Fidelity requires a $2500 opening balance, unless you set up a monthly autodeposit. That's not going to happen, since we need every spare penny to save for, you guessed it, retirement. The $75 we contribute to his 529s every month is plenty, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not also going to sock money into the little tycoon's UGMA account, especially when I have mixed feelings about these accounts to begin with.

So, here are my options:

1. Add $360 or so to his Davis account to bring it up to a $1000 minimum, plus a stinky 4.75% front-end load. Forget that.

2. Cash out the Davis shares and add them to his Royce account, which is at least no-load and has a reasonably low expense ratio of 1.49%. Then, when my grandma is no longer actively involved with the Royce account, I'll have enough to either transfer the shares to a UGMA at Fidelity for him, or sell the shares and open a UGMA/529 for him.

3. Cash out the Davis shares and put the money in little L's tiny ING savings account. Then, when I eventually do sell the Royce shares, I can put all the money that's in his name into the same account.


What do you think? I'm leaning toward option 3. It just seems simplest.

And if you don't totally hate me by now because I'm complaining that my relatives insist on giving my son lots of money, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on UGMA accounts and their uses. What about you? Would you want your young adult to be gifted with/saddled with a large money gift? Will it make him less inclined to work to pay his own way in life? Should I keep it a secret from him as long as possible? I'm concerned in part because I myself received a pretty large financial handout at a young age, and it's made it very hard to learn how to live within my means.


Related posts:
College savings looking positive
My toddler's net worth
My financial autobiography

October net worth update

There was a little uptick this month, in spite of the fact that I pillaged the E fund to buy plane tickets to Europe. Yes, even veteran PF bloggers still fall off the wagon now and again. A strong month for the stock market helped, and also the fact that my raise kicked in retro to July 1. The raise was as usual a desultory 3%, but the retro pay was a nice little chunk of change.

The biggest disappointment is that I still haven't made it back above the elusive 3 figure mark. I hit $100,000 in May and I've been trying to get back there, and stay there, ever since.

Here's the breakdown:

Cash
$1691 --Wachovia checking account
$21,160 --ING Direct. $8660 in savings, $12,500 in CD ladder
$8324 --Fidelity taxable brokerage, CD's and Money Market (horizon is 3-5 years)
$134 --Emigrant Direct
$126 --Paypal
$102 --Virtual Bank

Stocks (Not including retirement savings)
$2484 --Fidelity taxable brokerage
$3659 --Fidelity 529 account
$59 --Sharebuilder

Retirement
$15,485 --Fidelity Roth IRA
$1438 --Fidelity 403b
$18,888 --TIAA-CREF 403b

Real estate
$70,000 Primary home. This is the 2004 purchase price, a very conservative estimate of its current worth.

Cars
$1800 --1994 little Japanese 4-door thing. Probably worth less than this now but I can't be bothered to check Edmund's every month.

Personal property
$5000 --This is a wild guess. I should probably take it out of my calculations, but it would depress me too much to see my net worth drop by 5K. Realistically, we could probably get this much on Ebay if we sold our thousands of books, which include a lot of rare stuff. So I don't think it's too far off, but I think it's silly to include this in net worth calculations unless you need it as a mental crutch.

Other
$800 --Prosper account. Remind me to write an update on my delinquent borrowers.

Mortgages
$50,111 --20 year fixed at 5.25%. Resisting urge to prepay too much.

Credit cards
$1427 --Yes, yes, paid off in full monthly.

Total
$99,859

Related posts:
September net worth update
Asset allocations nearing completion

No more A9?

WTF?

A couple weeks ago, I finally got with the program and started using the Amazon search engine, A9, so I could get 1.57% off of my Amazon purchases. I've been diligently searching with it a couple of times a week.

Yes! I'm in! That little symbol shows up in the header when I'm logged in to Amazon.com.

But before I could even use it, this happens!

"We have discontinued the A9 Instant Reward program, and the A9 Toolbar and personalized services such as history, bookmarks, and diary."

Great. Just great.

I hereby apologize to all the loyal A9 users. Apparently I'm cursed, because as soon as I started getting him to A9 the reward went away. So sorry.

Twenty-five ways I save money

To save money, I...

1. Buy extra non-perishable groceries when things are on sale.
2. Plant perennials instead of annuals in my garden so they come back year after year.
3. Make long-distance calls with my cell phone instead of my landline (yes, both landline and cell phone are necessary to me, altho I admire folks who can eliminate one.)
4. Buy generic whenever possible.
5. Unplug my son's nightlight every morning so it's not using electricity all day.
6. Don't flush every time.
7. Use the cheapo appointment calendar provided by my work instead of buying a nice one with yummy expensive paper for myself.
8. Take vacations in places where I have family or friends to stay with. Wait, is that really a vacation?
9. Maximize tax savings with things like Flexible Spending Accounts, workplace retirement plan contributions, etc.
10. Save even small amounts of leftover food and once a week serve "leftover smorgasbord" to the family.
11. Grow fresh herbs and tomatoes in my garden and freeze them.
12. Pay bills online to avoid paying postage.
13. Make my own mochas by brewing coffee and adding chocolate powder.
14. Use fans instead of the window AC in summer as long as I can stand it.
15. Use the library instead of buying books or renting DVDs.
16. Participate in a babysitting co-op instead of paying a sitter.
17. Buy lasting gifts for my son like art supplies and books intead of this week's obsession, whatever it is (Thomas stuff, Bob the Builder stuff). This theory needs to be put into practice more at our house, to be perfectly honest.
18. Make charitable contributions whenever possible as gifts, which are tax deductible, instead of buying things people don't want or need.
19. Send a handmade card instead of a gift. This works for some people on my list but not all.
20. Drive an old car (12 years and counting) and patronize a great mechanic.
21. Eat at inexpensive restaurants where we can get meals for 3 out of only 2 entrees.
22. Buy used clothes for my kid.
23. Wear my sister's hand-me-downs, even if it means I'm a couple years out of style or wearing things she discarded because of a small stain or bleach spot.
24. Walk instead of driving whenever I can.
25. Blog! Hard to spend money when you're busy doing something constructive.


Inspired by a meme at Frugal for Life: 25 ways I save money. Check out the tricks other PFbloggers use to trim their expenses.

Festival of Frugality No. 42

Welcome to the 42nd Festival of Frugality!

As usual, I'm sticking to the simplest style possible. This is partly because I don't have time to make this into a work of art, and partly because when others host I actually prefer the simpler Festivals and Carnivals.

This week, I'm highlighting a few posts I found especially good. If you only have a little bit of time, check them out. But come back later for the rest of the Festival. There are some gems in the general list as well.

Featured posts:

FMF presents Move, Save Money, Become a Multiple Millionaire - All in One Step posted at Free Money Finance.

Sara Goldstein presents A dollar spent is a dollar spent posted at The Bargain Queen.

Steve Faber presents Money – What Matters is How Much You Keep posted at Debt Free.

J.D. presents How Not to Be Frugal: Too Many Magazine Subscriptions posted at Get Rich Slowly.

Super Saver presents Using Other People's Money to Save posted at My Wealth Builder.


Other great posts, in the order received:

Madame X presents Bad News for Frugal Furniture Buyers: Bed Bugs posted at My Open Wallet.

Penny Nickel presents Stocking Up on Savings: How I learned to stop worrying and love the rain check posted at Money and Values.

Chuck presents Why You Should Never Buy Your Printer Cable Instore posted at The Finance Journey.

Amy Allen Clark presents Our Birthday Party Directory posted at Mom Advice.

Bryan C. Fleming presents Counting Cold Hard Cash posted at Bryan C. Fleming .com.

Stephanie presents Paying Bills- A reality check posted at Stop the Ride!.

Tricia presents I Am So Frugal I... posted at Blogging Away Debt.

Sagar Satapathy presents Credit Card Tips For Students posted at Student Loan Consolidation Lowdown.

Free the Drones Blog presents Lost Your Car's Gas Cap? Ask For One At Gas Stations posted at Free the Drones.

supermom_in_ny presents Get the Annual Fee Waived and Earn Miles for Free Travel! posted at Getting Out of Debt.

mbhunter presents Twenty-five ways I save money posted at Mighty Bargain Hunter.

Katie presents A finance website can’t say that! posted at Aridni

Nina Smith presents Fighting Identity Theft – Shred Everything posted at Queercents.

NCN presents 10 Free Forms Of Entertainment posted at No Credit Needed

King of Debt presents Always Round Up posted at We're In Debt.

Kay Bell presents When renting is the right choice posted at Don't Mess With Taxes.

Adam Graham presents Craig's List: The World's Biggest Classifieds Page posted at Bargain Value.

nickel presents Saving Money: Focus on Big or Small Items? posted at fivecentnickel.com.


Thanks to all the bloggers who participated. If you post an announcement on your own blog, please send me a trackback ping.

Don't forget to check out the Festival next week.

The Bogleheads' October project

JLP is up to his old tricks. He's conceived a project that promotes his blog, promotes many other people's blogs, and makes personal finance blogs more visible and more useful to readers.

During the month of October, a different blogger will review one chapter every weekday from The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. You can read the reviews as they come out by visiting this page:

The Bogleheads' October project.

I'll be reviewing Chapter 17, "Track Your Progress and Rebalance When Necessary", on October 23. I chose this chapter because this is something I need to do a better job of. After my big project to rework my asset allocation last spring, I need to figure out a system to make sure I rebalance annually.

I hope you enjoy the Bogleheads' project, and please visit JLP's blog to leave a comment in support of his continued efforts to promote personal finance bloggers.

Weekly carnivals

*Tired but happy* got it together to participate in two carnivals this week.

Thanks to Hsien-Hsien Lei of Play Library for including my post, I can't rock and roll, in this week's Carnival of Family Life.

Thanks to Nick over at Punny Money for including both my Queercents guest post, Saying no to marriage, and also my post on Family-friendly workplaces in this week's Carnival of Personal Finance.

These are two creative carnivals.

There's still time to submit to the Festival of Frugality, which I'm hosting this week. I'll take submissions up until 9:00 tonight. Expect my usual plain-Jane style. Easy for the host to put together. Easy for readers to scan for interesting material.