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Dilbert Teaches You About Investing

Posted on April 19, 2012 // 4 Comments

The Dilbert comic often dispenses good investing advice, but sometimes it’s either so spot on or so subtle that I think it’s worth repeating to makes sure everyone gets the lesson behind the joke.

Perils of market timing explained:


Alternate title: Momentum investing explained, via Abnormal Returns

Survivorship bias explained:


This actually happens!

Financial advisors with high costs and bad incentive structures explained:


Buyer beware…

Subprime mortgage crisis explained:


Diversification!

On a more serious and practical note, don’t forget about Dilbert’s One-Page Guide to Everything Financial.

Filed Under: Funny, Investing //

First Baby New Expenses? One Family’s Experience

Posted on April 4, 2012 // 32 Comments

The following is a guest post is from Elle at Couple Money. They live on one income, and have fun with the second!

When I read MMB’s questions about baby expenses, I shared a bit of our own experience with him. We are just a year ahead of him last summer we had our first baby, a little girl. It has been a wonderfully fun ride so far, with everyday bringing new milestones and challenges.

During the pregnancy my husband and I decided to track the baby expenses on Couple Money as we’re going through this process. We’re not the first parents to have questions about the finances of raising children, so I share our expenses and have asked others to give their input. Some wonderful bloggers have decided to join in the fun and share their own stories, tips, and advice on what works, what doesn’t, and what’s not worth stressing over.

Are Kids Really That Expensive?

For us, most of the expenses are just small bumps in our monthly budget. I think the main reason is that we made some financial decisions before we became parents that lent itself to reducing baby bills. For one thing, when we first were married we made it a family goal to keep all necessary expenses on 1 income. That allowed us to use the second income to pay down debts, save for goals, and invest for later.

Health Insurance and Doctor Visits
During the first trimester I was dehydrated enough that I needed to go to the ER to replenish; that was about $150 out of pocket. For the most part, though, my pregnancy had been uneventful. The health insurance policy we had when I was pregnant had a $2,500 deductible, so we saved a bit in our general funds to cover the deductible when our baby girl was delivered. Saving up to pay the bill in full allowed us to also get a 15% discount with the hospital.

Once our daughter arrived we quickly added her to my husband’s health insurance policy. That’s been the biggest change to our family budget – our premiums went up about $200/month for the family option.

Housing
No change in our housing bills. We bought our townhouse before we had our daughter. It had 3 bedrooms, so we converted the guest room into her nursery. We don’t have any plans on changing our location, right now we’re focusing on paying down the mortgage.

Daycare
I know that for many parents daycare is a huge expense. From what I saw last year it was about $1,200/month for an infant. Right now I work from home and our daughter stays with me. While it has cut back on the hours I work, the savings from not having her in daycare offsets it.

Food
Since we’re breastfeeding our food bill has increased just a bit to accommodate the extra calories I need to keep up. Since becoming pregnant, we changed our eating habits a bit. We’re focusing on making more meals at home and we a part of a CSA program with weekly deliveries during the part of the year. It’s been helping to keep groceries manageable and we’ve also discovered new recipes and dishes. Our daughter has baby food and some of what we’re eating in addition to breast milk.

Transportation
Even before we found out we were going to have a baby my husband and I were saving up for the vehicle as we’re trying to avoiding taking out a car loan. However we saving up a bit more to purchase a family sized sedan, like a Sonata. Our budget is $10k for the next car. We have the money saved and we’re currently searching for a deal. It’s not an immediate need (tight fit in my Jetta, but fine), so we’re going to make sure we look around a bit before securing the next car.

Clothing/Baby Gear
The first 2 months our bills were higher than normal as we bought a few items we didn’t receive from the baby registry. We waited until our daughter arrived to see if we really needed them or if they were nice to have items. Fortunately most of the necessary stuff was already bought. After the first 8 weeks, our expenses have smoothed out.

We have received gifts from family and friends – both new stuff and gently used. We didn’t have to buy a baby swing, since a buddy’s son didn’t seem to like it. It was practically new and our daughter loved it.

Right now diapers are about $20/month give or take through Amazon Mom and they are delivered right to our door. We get her wipes through Costco where a huge box costs about $20 as well (lasts a couple of months). Any clothes that she needs we pick at Target, Old Navy, or the consignment store around the corner. That’s about $30/month.

Thoughts on Having Kids

This is just a snapshot of our family’s baby expenses. As our little one gets older we know things will change. I’d like to hear from you – what expenses to you have to cover for your little one? What has been the biggest unexpected expense? What’s been the best surprise?

Filed Under: Budgeting, Family, Frugal Living //

Sprint Family Plan Discount Change, Cancel Without Penalty

Posted on January 23, 2012 // 8 Comments

If you are on a family plan with Sprint service and also have a student or employee cellular discount applied to it, this is a quick heads-up that Sprint is raising your bill. If you look carefully on your January statement, you should find this announcement:

Discount Policy Change Notice
Effective your February bill cycle, Family and Business Share monthly plan charges will be billed differently. Discounts will only apply to the monthly recurring charge of the primary line. Line 2 will be billed at the applicable Add-a-Phone rate and will not be discount eligible.

Previously, the discounts applied to first two lines, but now it only applies to the first line. (What if both users qualified for discounts?) SprintFeed has an earlier leaked memo with example. In addition, this SprintUsers post (by an actual Sprint employee) reports that this indeed constitutes a material change to the contract, and thus gives you the ability to cancel your contract before the end date without having to pay an early termination fee (ETF). However, you must actually end your contract, as opposed to simply switching to a month-to-month basis. You’ll probably have to escalate your call to the Sprint retention department, and they may offer you some sort of incentive to stay on your plan.

Filed Under: Frugal Living //

$5,000 Cash & Two iPads Holiday Giveaway from MyMoneyBlog (Winner Announcement)

Posted on December 22, 2011 // 113 Comments

Winner Announcement! The contest is now over. Congratulations to Devin A. and Julia D., the lucky winners of $2,500 and an iPad 2. You should have received an e-mail notification to your registered e-mail address. Thanks to all who entered, I hope to do it again next year.

‘Tis the season of giving so I’ve decided to award two lucky MyMoneyBlog readers with $2,500 in cold hard cash!  And as an added bonus, each winner will receive a brand new iPad 2 (64gb).  Yes, really! I don’t think you’ll find a richer giveaway on the web so please tell your friends, family and coworkers to get an entry in!   Winners will be selected at random on the morning of Wednesday, December 21st and to enter the giveaway, you need to follow two simple steps:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Giving Back //

Never Pay Full Price When Buying Gift Cards

Posted on November 28, 2011 // 8 Comments

Gift cards. Even though they are far from perfect – let’s face it, there’s a reason they have become so popular. They are convenient to buy, require minimal decision-making, and you get to spend exactly what you budgeted. While you may fall back upon a gift card, that doesn’t mean you have to spend full price on them!

Grocery Stores
You can now find gift cards from every store imaginable at your neighborhood supermarket, and certain credit cards give increased rewards at grocery stores.

Also, check for specific deals by your local chain stores. Safeway is popular in my area, and they are offering $10 towards your next purchase if you buy $100 in select gift cards from 11/24-12/6. In addition, through December 10th, Safeway also has 4x gas rewards points on all gift card purchases.

Gift Card Reseller Sites
A secondhand market for gift cards has sprung up on sites like PlasticJungle, Cardpool, GiftCards.com, and GiftCardRescue. You can buy both physical gift cards and electronic gift card codes. You might feel weird about giving a gift card for $48.44 instead of $50, but if you keep looking you can usually find a nice round number. Wrap that “used” gift card in a nice handmade card and envelope, or print electronic codes directly on the card. The good thing about these websites is that the transactions are guaranteed by the site and not some random person. I’ve bought a few cards from Plastic Jungle with no issues, usually Home Depot cards at 7% off.

eBay
The world’s biggest garage sale is another good source of discounted gift cards, although I would stick with sellers with excellent feedback ratings. Even as a former Powerseller, I haven’t been overly impressed with eBay’s customer service of late. Using a bid sniping service if you’re not using Buy It Now. You could even try Craigslist if you’re brave.

eBillme
These guys are trying to be the next PayPal payment service, and part of their business is selling discounted gift cards. However, read their terms and conditions carefully. New users can get 10% off a $100 Amazon gift certificate for a $10 credit, but you need $50 of credit to actually get a check mailed to you. Otherwise, you have buy something using eBillMe as the payment method from a participating merchant (like Sears or Buy.com) and apply that $10 credit to your purchase. Rather convoluted in my opinion, but may work out for you.

Cash Back Shopping Portals
When shopping online in general, there are now a bajillion cashback shopping portals that will get you cash, points, or miles of some kind. I usually prefer cash from eBates ($10 new user bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 new user bonus), or BigCrumbs. You can use Evreward.com to compare them, however it doesn’t always keep up with the quickly-changing payouts during the holiday season.

Please note that for many merchants, purchases of gift cards are not eligible for cash back. You can always give it a try, but don’t include anything else in your cart because it might negate cash back on the entire purchase. One known exception: American Express Gift Cards. These are pretty close to cash, and BigCrumbs offers 1.6% cash back and there is a promotion code to waive the $3.95 purchase fee.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

Compare Sales, Income, and Property Taxes By State – US Map 2011

Posted on November 14, 2011 // 46 Comments

(Update 2011: I ran a search for this topic and found my own site. Ha! The maps were from 2009, so I updated this post with the updated 2011 information. They appear to have actually taken some of the feedback from earlier comment and improved the general applicability of each chart.)

I ran across some nice visual maps from TaxFoundation.org today. Each one compares a different type of tax across all 50 states. How does your home state choose to extract revenue from its residents? (Yes, extract. They have to pay for things, but I doubt asking gently with a packet of free address labels would work very well for them.)

State Sales Taxes – State and Local (Combined) General Sales Tax Rates, 2011 (Greener is higher)

 

State Income Taxes – Top Marginal State Income Tax Rates By State, 2011

 

State Property Taxes – Median Property Taxes Paid by County, 2005-2009 (Darker is higher)

Click on the images for a bigger source version.

Filed Under: Taxes //

ThredUP.com: Swap Outgrown Kid’s Clothing With Other Parents

Posted on August 30, 2011 // 16 Comments

Update: ThredUP is no longer a clothes swapping site, but you can get a free $10 credit towards your first purchase of clothing at the new store.

Kids grow. Clothing doesn’t. That’s the basis for a new swapping site called ThredUP, which I’ve seen in multiple news articles recently. Another similar site is Zearly, but it seems like they are on hiatus.

Got clothes that doesn’t fit any more? Box up about 10 items (tops, bottoms, dresses) that fit the same age level and gender. They send you free boxes, you print a prepaid postage label online, and have it picked up from home or drop off at the post office.

Want some cheap clothes? Browse other people’s boxes and pick one. There appears to be feedback rating system for users. Each box costs $15.95 ($5 + $10.95 shipping). Some boxes have toys and books as well.

I don’t have kids, but I think I would definitely try this if I did, especially for babies and younger ones. At about $1.50 an item (regular price), it seems like a reasonable system. Any users out there?

Filed Under: Family, Frugal Living //

Reader Poll: Do You Still Have a Landline Telephone?

Posted on May 26, 2011 // 42 Comments

A recent government study found that over 25% of Americans now rely solely on a cellular phone for calls. In some states, over a third of people were wireless-only. This is a growing trend, and I wonder if you readers are any different?

What Is Your Phone Situation?

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Factors that increased the likelihood of being wireless-only were having a lower-income, being younger, and renting. It’s suggested that being poor means you’re more likely to cut landlines as an extra expense, while being young means you may simply never have had a landline. Finally, both prepaid basic plans and packaged plans offering unlimited minutes have become cheaper and widely available.

One major factor stated for keeping a landline is for reliable emergency usage. Other possible reasons that come to mind are that you make a lot of calls, better clarity, or you wish to minimize radiation exposure. I solve those problems with my significantly cheaper VoIP phone service.

Filed Under: Frugal Living //

Groupon: $8 For Domino’s Pizza, $20 For General Mills Combo

Posted on April 20, 2011 // 12 Comments

Update 4/21: There is a new national deal for a General Mills sampler pack that include a whole bunch of random goodies like cereal and sn.acks, along with a coupon book. Over 1,000 bought already, partially I guess since cereal is so darn expensive these days

Groupon has a national deal (still valid 4/21) at Domino’s Pizza that gets you any large pizza with up to 10 toppings (online order, carryout only) for $8. Valid at all locations in lower 48. I haven’t tried their new revamped pizza yet… is it really better?

If you don’t have a Groupon account already, please use my sign-up link, and I’ll get some Groupon credit for referring you. (It feeds my dining-out addiction… literally.) Then visit the Domino’s pizza deal link.

You can save even more with cashback shopping sites like eBates ($5 new customer bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 bonus), and BigCrumbs.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers //

My Money Blog on FaceBook – Gift Card Giveaway

Posted on April 1, 2011 // 6 Comments

I’ve finally caught up to 2009 and created a Facebook Page for MyMoneyBlog.com, with a little nudge from reader Amy. With this page, my hope is to be able to share links and other quick news that might not make it into a blog post, as well as interact with readers. Additionally, if you are a regular Facebook user and “Like” the page you’ll get all these things plus new post updates fed into your regular news feed.

To promote awareness for this bribe you into checking it out, I have set up a quick giveaway for a $15 eBay gift card that I bought from Groupon yesterday. Just visit the page and look on the left for the “Sweepstakes” tab. All you need is your e-mail. I am using the third-party app Wildfire to manage this giveaway, so you’ll need to approve a Facebook app. Contest ends Sunday night 4/3 at midnight Pacific.

You don’t need to “Like” the page to enter, but it would definitely provide me a nice ego boost. 😉

Filed Under: General //

Talent Is Overrated, Deliberate Practice, & Tiger Moms [Book Review]

Posted on January 17, 2011 // 15 Comments

If you’re looking for a inspirational book to read for the new year, consider this one, but read on to see if you like what you’ll learn. 🙂 In Talent Is Overrated, author Geoff Colvin explores what makes world-class performers different from everyone else.

What is the key to great achievement?

  • Hard work?, or
  • Innate talent?

Talent vs. Practice

One area where we often give the credit to talent to is musicians. Look at the “kid genius” Mozart, who famously composed his first piece at age 5. Well, Mozart started learning music at age 3 from a pushy composer father who loved to teach (and likely helped write many of his early works). He had been working at music for over 10 years by the time he wrote anything that was widely acknowledged to be of special quality.

In a separate study comparing music students enrolled in elite music schools with those in regular public schools, it was found that the average number of practice hours need to reach the same level of skill was the same for all students. Sure, the students in the elite group were often practicing 2 hours a day vs. only 15 minutes a day for the other kids. But no matter how you clocked those hours, quickly or slowly, nobody got there without putting in the same amount of hours.

Next, let’s look at sports and Tiger Woods. Woods was a prodigy, but he was also an only child to a army-trained teacher/father who started him playing golf at a mere 7 months old. He was playing and practicing on a real golf course by the age of two, and throughout his career was known for his intense practice habits.

The fact is, that almost every study that has looked for evidence of the sort of genetic edge that we call “talent”, has failed to find it. Instead, they find that without exception, every single top achiever has put in thousands upon thousands of hours of practice into their field. In addition, the amount of skill is almost directly proportional to the amount of hours put into it. Terms like the “10,000 hour rule” (as noted in the book Outliers) or the similar “10-year rule” have been created to describe how long it takes before true mastery is achieved.

Deliberate Practice

But wait, lots of people do the same thing, every day, for years. Why aren’t they all awesome? Researchers have also found that “practice” is too vague of a word. Instead, what creates excellence has been termed “deliberate practice”. Deliberate practice is not just hitting through a bucket of golf balls every day.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Family //

Poll: How Big Is Your Emergency Fund?

Posted on January 10, 2011 // 20 Comments

Below is a chart of the median duration of unemployment from July 1967 to December 2010, based on data supplied by the US Department of Labor. Things are bad out there, and remember, this is just the median!

According to this December 2010 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, out of the 9.4% unemployment rate, 44.3% of them are considered long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more). That means over 4% of the total US workforce – 6.4 million people – has been unemployed for over 6 months.

Which leads to the poll question of the week. How prepared are you for an extended period without a paycheck? In this case, by emergency fund I am talking about a cash (or similar) cushion that is accessible, not lines of credit.

How Big Is Your Emergency Fund?

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Filed Under: Career, Frugal Living, Insurance // Tagged:
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