Single Guy High Impact Saving

Nothing overly thrilling here, just lots of news on how if you keep with the plan, it will work. (You know the plan, saving money and making good investments!)

My reirement accounts are now $15k more than they were at the start of last year's meltdown. Of course since then I have put in $3K at the end of last year, $15K so far this year, and $5K into my Roth IRA, so its not like I am brilliant or anything. But at least I didn't panic and pull money out when the accounts were cratering, as they have all made vary nice rebounds.

My "Trash DRIP" (Read the details here) is at about $900. I'm not getting rich, but it helps.

I've been finding more and more ways to save and now make money at yard sales. Last week I got a new pair of wonderful work shoes for $5 & I'm wearing them now. But better is buying things I can resell. Some highlights are 3 books I bought for $1/each. Only one has sold online so far, but I got $13 for it. Two weeks ago I bought a DVD TV season set for $2. I put it on half.com and it sold in three days for $15. (DVDs are going extremely cheap at yard sales this year!)

And I rarely go to Walmart, but when I did a month ago I found in a clearance isle some remote control car/airplane batteries & chargers for $1 each (or less!). I bought 4 and tried to sell only two so far. I got $15 combined for those two. I may list another one tonight. And now I have gotten someone to buy (on Craigslist) a large toy train that I was ignoring for the past 5 years (my bad!) that took up too much space even in its box. Of course they're paying me $10 more than I paid for it!

Now actually this money (and other sales profits) has gone towards my hobby purchases I have made this summer, but the net hobby cost (hobby costs less profits from above) this year has been very minimal (Maybe $250 for the whole year?). So this is great - less clutter, more (or better) of what I really want, and more money I can put to retirement or paying off my house (which with accelerated payments is less than 3 years to go). And that's the goal, no mortgage or other debt, then I don't have to worry about the economy or anything else (not that I worry now, but as I was unemployed for a year at one time, I know how things can go bad quickly).

Warning: This is (mostly) non-financial related. (But the guys out there should like it!)

OK, you've been warned.

Ever see those interviews where they ask the person, if you could give your younger self advice, what would it be? Well here is my advice to my younger self, pretty much word for word.

Click here to enjoy! I know the guys on here will know its true.

And here is another great one, just read about this guy's blind date, its even worse than anything I have put up with! A very good story!

Oh well, at least I can laugh about it now. As well, continuing to sell more books online (for the last 45 days I have sold 30 books!) also helps. More money - more space.

I'm sure everyone has heard this. You talk to someone from ... say Africa... and they would say you have a lot. Talk to someone from the rich enclaves here in the USA and they would say you have so little.

The thought came to mind when I went to a "grand opening" sale at the local Giant grocery store yesterday. I don't normally go there, as even you take coupons into account, I find going to Aldi's much less expensive. But they had special double your $1 coupons for up to 4 of them, so I decided to go with some coupons and get some brand name things.

As I checked out, and went through the coupons, my purchase of 13 items totalled $14, and I thought thats nice, but I was hoping for better. The lady at the register goes "Wow, you sure got a fabulous deal today." I guess its a matter of perspective.

BTW, if I hadn't gotten the "California Pizza" specialty pizza for $4.50, the purchase would have been under $10, so maybe it wasn't that bad. It included 4 boxes of Kelloggs Raisin Bran, 2 big bags of Lays chips, big Heinz ketchup, two boxes of whole grain pasta, 2 Campells Select soups, and 1 Classico tomato sauce. So no complaints but I was hoping for better!

A sorta rant here, as I try to extricate myself from the overwhelming piles of books left with me from my ex. While this wasn't her only problem, it certainly contributed to her complaining she didn't have any money. She kept buying books, reading a few pages, then buying more books. I know because they are like new, and I often find book marks in them, usually somewhere within the first 50 pages.

Previously I could return some to Barnes & Noble without receipts and get store credits (I was able to get DVDs there for over two years without paying for anything!), but that isn't an option now. So I am selling on Half.com, and this month I have 15 sales (on top of another 25 sold earlier this year). I still have almost 150 listed, and I am still digging out books and listing them when I get the time. Plus I have probably another 200 in boxes that I already checked and won't sell for enough to bother with, so I either sell them at a yard sale for a pittance, try Craigslist, or give them away. Ugh.

I used to like reading books, and I do like to get some money from selling them, but this has really turned me off of books.

OK, rant over. And as an FYI, the sales for this month totalled about $75, so at least that's something worthwhile.

Yes, that is the title of today's front page story in the Washington Post. Of course they understand how it will sound absurd, so in the story they go over the numbers for this family living in their own named house on Long Island Sound. The Post has been doing a number of stories on how the recession has been hitting people around the country, with people ending up in some really bad positions. But wow, this one sure comes at it from the other direction.

A few highlights:
A live-in nanny.
$75,000 in child support.
Her bonus will only be 90% of what it was last year.
She'll only make $50,000 on investments this year.

I don't want to be judgemental, but you can read about it here!

Ahem, any sympathy?

Couple good things so far this month...

Got this month's CC bill, it was only a little over $200. That may sound bad, but it has most all of my expenses on it but utilities (and even some of those), and is usually much larger. That is great! This month will be worse, as I just had a $300 car repair bill. Oh well, these things happen with older cars.

And speaking of utilities, my last electric bill was under $50. Not bad for living in swampy DC. (I've been using only 1 window AC unit)

I've kept up with my new exercise program for one month now. So far I have dropped about 12 lbs, and the muscle definition has definitely improved. And I can even do a chin up now (ok, only 3 at a time, but wow, I never could do that before!)

I donated blood today (so no exercising!). I wish I felt better physically after doing it, but I know its something I should do, so I keep going back.

And I visited my mother the past weekend, and took to her the replacement outdoor grill she has been looking for (her's was 30 years old). I paid $50 and did a lot of clean up on it (and she could see I did a lot of work), so she gave me $75 for the grill and effort which was nice.

Of course now I need to pay my real estate tax bill (bad) but it is only 2/3 of what it had been for the past few years (good!).

Nothing earth shattering above, but hey sometimes thats a good thing, right?

Getting your own windmill has been for the past years has been for the most part an effort in futility (so I've heard anyway). But now comes this product that is supposed to make it so easy to set one up on your house. While it sounds great, you have to wonder if the devil is in the details somewhere.

My biggest gripe with this would be there is no storeage of the power, so if the power goes out you still won't be able to say, power an AC unit for every 15 minutes out of an hour. All you could do is run some lights I would suspect. Still I will have to follow this and see how the reality is when they are on the market.

Your own windmill

Sometimes you go with the best of intentions, and things don't work out. Then other times you aren't even trying, and things just fall into place.

The above was certainly the case tonight. I went to the local Safeway with the plan of getting the 10 bottles for 80 cents each sale (the store is less than a mile away, so I can go just for sales). I had two buy one, get one free coupons, so I figured... 8 X 80 cents is $6.40 + tax (for 10). Not great, but I wasn't in the best mood, and just wanted to spend a little on something I thought I would like.

When I got there I found four bottles of Propel that had coupons on them, so I picked them up as part of my purchase. At the register the on bottle coupons doubled, and the lady used the original price for the amount off of my BOGOF coupons (instead of the sale price). At the end I paid $1.04 (4 Sobe, 4 Propel, 2 Fuze). The lady at the register said "wow" four times. I was afraid she was going to redo everything because I was paying too little. Its weird how these things work sometimes.

Here is an interesting article dealing with some people saving too much for retirement.
How much is too much?
While I can feel there can never be too much saved for retirement, it does make the point that you need to enjoy your money a bit, if you have it to enjoy of course. Before I used to think that if I kept saving as I did, once I hit 50 I at least wouldn't feel like I had to be saving more. I would have enough that as long as I wasn't wasteful I would be fine. Now I'm not so sure about that time frame (for the obvious reasons). My home should still be paid off for before I hit 50, so thats good.

Anyway, after saving so hard for a few years, and knowing that I have a solid job now and semi solid savings, I would be happy to splurge a little, but there is so little I want now, and no one to enjoy it with, eh - what am I to do? No crying here, but sheesh, boy do I feel out of sync with society as a whole.

Damn, if that isn't a depressing title, I don't know what is. As has been reported here by other single guys, meeting single women with, well shall we say common sense and some manners, is so near impossible that it really has effected me mentally this past month. (oh, plus the fact I was going through the dirt and junk of my father's estate this weekend didn't help.)

Before this month I just concentrated on family issues and meeting someone was sorta outta sight, outta mind, which seemed to work for me. But with my life getting back to normal (finally) it is just getting to me being alone all the time, and this time its affecting much more than it ever did. You go online at these match making sites and all you get is obvious scams its ridiculous. I hear its the same for women, but I just don't buy it. And worse, I live in a supposed area of many more single women than single guys. Really? Are they part of the packs of girls doing their best Valley Girl impersonations in the malls while they spend, spend, spend? If so, man, shoot me now.

And to end this on a somewhat better point of view, I have been trying to keep up the with P90X regimine (see my last post) and now I splurged on one (and only one!) of their high priced recovery drink mix canisters. I'll be trying it this week and coming back with a review. And btw, I have lost almost 10 pounds in two weeks, and there is starting to show signs of the workouts.

Well wish me luck, I haven't given up yet. Is expecting a reasonable woman my age too much to ask?

Boy, its been a long time since I wrote anything here. Alot of crud going on in my life, and that sort of leads to the title of this. While I was out cutting the grass tonight, I did what I always do, sorta get into a mental zone, let my body go on autopilot to do the work, and let my mind go through a little self analysis. OK, maybe a lot. Anyway, as I was going over the mess of my life at the moment, I realized this is probably much more productive than going to a psychiatrist (Actually I am very much against going to one, unless you have severe problems ... but that is MHO). And of course the cost is $0 too.

My alternate title for this was going to be "I'm living in a Billy Joel song". Basically the song is (and I'm guessing the title here) "Only the good die young". Everyone "good" in my life in the past year has either died or gotten very ill. Not looking for sympathy, but really, for so many years I had so little of this go on close to me, and then wow, WTF happened? OK, I gotta stop going down this road.

One last thing - not to be an advertisement, but if you are looking at workout routines, and see the one called P90X, OMG is that insane. I thought I was in, well... maybe passable shape. After doing this for a few days I feel like a wimp. If you're not in so-so shape don't try it - I think they have an easier (and older) version called P90. Thats good to get started - I was using that as I found it at a yard sale last year. If I can keep up with this P90X, even if I don't do it as hard as they make it out, I have to get in better shape. I'm hoping I will be able to walk ok tomorrow morning. Aghhhhhh!

... with a couple of "your milage may vary" warnings thrown in. If you're the type that is diligent in paying off your credit cards so you don't pay fees, here is one that could be for you.

http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/exmbl/promo8.htm

It gives you 30 cents back in rebates per gallon (only for 2 months!). This was obviously set up while gas prices were high, but they are still honoring this offer now that prices have dropped. I signed up and now my net cost for gas this holiday will come in around $1.50 or so a gallon. Not too shabby!

Of course if you don't pay your bills right away, or just hate credit cards, then pass on this. Otherwise, hey, save some money! With my planned driving this December/January, I figure to save over $100. This I can like!

I know its always easy to criticize people and their spending, but really, how can some people not have a lot of money saved up? The local newspaper have this series where they are trying to get people out of debt. The current group are military folks, but this one couple, sheesh. They are making, according to the article, around $16,000 per month, but have terrible credit card bills, tax bills, etc... I have to give them credit for what they do for a living, and putting themselves up for scrutiny, but really!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09...

Sorry, just a little rant.

No, not MTV (for those that remember the song), but DTV, Digital Television. If you're crazy like me, and I don't have any cable or satellite service, you need to pick up a digital signal TV converter box. And of course you need to get the $40 vouchers for buying the darn little things.

I picked up one last night, and installed it on my TV. Well I found out you need a fairly good signal (though not great) to get digital TV. Turns out only 1 of 4 local network signals were strong enough, as well a 1 of the other 7 local channels (actually I think only 4 of them even have a DTV signal yet). It was certainly interesting. The two channels I did get were either crystal clear, or on occassion were pixelated (like when you lose a satellite signal). Even with that problem, the picture upgrade was amazing. Now if I can only figure out the right setting on the antenna to get the other channels...

Anywho, if you haven't gotten them yet, you need to go online and order the DTV vouchers. My converter box cost just $10 when I used one.

Well, I guess thinking outside of the box can apply to anything, but in this case it applies to my yard sale-ing. I was out yesterday, and stopped at one last spot. I saw a wall display for golf balls. Very nice, cherry, felt backed, but I'm no golfer. Probably a $15 - $20 item. However I have been wondering all summer how I could display those little gumball football helmets I have.

Hey wait a second, the helmets could go in this! I had to convince the woman I wasn't interested in other golfing gear ("you don't want this stuff to clean golf clubs?"), so I told her why I was getting it, which she thought sounded good. I got it home and set up. Turns out it would hold 30 of them, so I put the final two on top. Great display for $1. (BTW, I got most of them at yard sales as well)

And finally I'm vested in the pension plan. I certainly can't retire yet, but its good for 10% of salary at this point, so thats a start!

... and I don't have them very often. (oh, btw, it has nothing to do with the stock market insanity either).

Background: In the past two plus years I have been getting myself knowledgeable about everything financial. I read items on the internet, finance mags, newspapers, and while I am not into day trading or other esoteric things, I am trying to build a solid net for retirement in around 20 years. I really thought I knew everything (or had a decent grasp anyway) of all things dealing with personal finance. I have co-workers that ask me questions now, I know so much on the subjects.

That said, I was... well stunned... by what I read last night. I'm a numbers guy, so it takes something major to get my attention. It was in the latest edition of Money magazine (sorry, no links are avaialable yet, Page 122 - Oct. 2008 issue). It basically describes how if you are retired, have a pension or other source of income that will give you say 25K per year, for every extra dollar you "earn" (and money you withdraw from a retirement plan will be taxed as "earn"ings), your effective tax rate can very easily be 46%. And that is based on current rates, it could go higher! I spend years saving money, and then the gov't takes half! OMG! Not if I have anything to say about it.

OK, I'm calm now. Its a money mag, so what do they recommend? One word - "ROTH"! I fortunately have two old 401k's I can move into a Roth account. There is the tax hit involved, but the more I ruminate this, the more I am convinced that the next year or two I will be setting up some major Roth roll-overs.

Seriously, if you are planning on having any moderately decent retirement, you need to read this.

... I read article like this...

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/the-65-mpg-car-ford-won't-sell-in-us.aspx

I'm not in the market for a new car, mine does just fine at 36MPG. But jeeze, if I was looking for a new car, I would have to wonder what the people in charge at these companies use for brains.

Its not like this is some car they hope to make, they're making it ... NOW ... and yet they refuse to sell it.

I'm sorry, I know they're dumb, but some days I still get surprised by it all.

Well, this past month (or so) I have finally gotten around to selling items on ebay (ok, just 2 things - but still...), had a yard sale, and have sold things through craigslist. Not that I needed to make money, but I couldn't just throw out perfectly good items.

So how did it work out? Well the ebay items had cost me $2.50 and sold for $30, the yard sale brought in over $240 (and maybe 2/3 of that was pure profit from items I got free at CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreens!), and I sold four items (two child toys, desk, and coffee maker) using craigslist for a total of $45 (my cost was $25 for the same items in the past 5 years at yard sales). Total revenue of over $300, and mostly profit. And I am now organized to have another yard sale before winter comes. And some extra space is now free in my house! Now if I could figure out how to sell all these books my wife left with me to make some reasonable money on them.

I guess I am bad though, in that I have probably spent about the same $300 this year on my hobby. Oh well, I guess I have to take the glass is half full view - at least my hobbies cost nothing this year!

and they were more impressive than I could have imagined.

Due to various life issues I have been concentrating on work, dealing with life problems, and saving money. Not fun, but there are times you gotta do what you gotta do. Anywho, this summer I have tried to see how far I could go without a/c, without a major heat stroke, or something similar. Not something I would want to do every year, but since there have been lots of days I have come home late, been gone weekends, and so on, well... it seemed like the time to do it. I have CFLs through the house, I use no a/c while I am at work or away, and use window a/c units upstairs only as I feel the need. In the swampy DC area that can be alot of the time! And just for reference, I have a four bedroom house.

Starting this summer, the May bill was $19, a very surprising (low) bill. My June bill almost doubled to $29. The July bill came in at a staggering $35. (ok, extreme sarcasm there in case you missed it) I was really surprised how low I could get the bills, as is my co-worker when I show him the bills. The last few days have been cool at night, so I have been able to go with a window fan which should help as well. I guess this shows you can really save money on electricity if you try - not that I want to do this every year, but its nice to know it can be done.

So what have I done with the money I am saving? Buying more stock in my local electric company (of course!). I don't have a ton of their stock, but based on this usage, and the current dividend rate, my yearly dividend covers about 40% of my yearly usage. I'm working my way toward financial freedom.

Added the next day: Wouldn't you know the next electric bill was waiting for me at home. The mid-July to mid August bill was $46. I think I made it through the summer! I figure the temps should start dropping in a week or two.

I have a pension now. Well technically, I am not vested in my employer's pension plan yet. However I have so much built up vacation time and sick time that can be used towards pension calculations, that if I had to leave for some strange reason today (not bloody likely), I could just get in over the five year requirement for the plan.

I wouldn't get all that much in 20 years (10% of today's salary, which would be worth perhaps half or less of today's money then), but still, it's a start. Add that to SS (whatever that is worth then), and my retirement savings & investments (currently around $150K), and I think it just might work out.

My plan (as of a year and a half ago) is looking like it might happen. I want to hit 50 (4.5 years now) with $250K in retirement accounts & investments (I think I can make this number), my house paid off (should happen when I'm 49), and my pension will be worth 18% of my salary. At that point I won't be financially independent, but with no debt I won't even worry about major bills any more.

OK, maybe I'm bragging, but I worked for this. It wasn't easy.

Not that I am wishing for or happy about a slow economy, but sometimes good things can come from the strangest places. And for me, it was almost like a Christmas present last Friday.

This actually starts a decade ago when I bought my home. I got a good price for a 1960 home that needed some repairs and upgrades. I figured I could do it as time permitted. Anyway, the house came with what turned out to something I never got rid of. A dead natural gas fueled air conditioner. I didn't know if it worked when I bought the house, and it turned out it didn't. I disconnected the gas and electricity to it, but it was sooooo heavy, there was no way I could remove it. So it stayed there and rusted. I tried to dismantle it, and was partly successful, but the main unit was still too heavy. I figured I would need to pay someone $100 or more to get it out of there, but I just didn't get to it.

Fast forward to Friday, and I get a knock at the door after work. The man tells me he saw the rusting unit out back and asked if he could remove it. I asked what he charging for it, and he told me no charge - he was taking it for scrap metal. He and his crew of two helpers did house repairs (roofs, siding, etc...) and now that work was hard to come by, they were on the lookout for anyone with scrap metal that they could remove and salvage for scrap metal recycling.

I'm standing there thinking "ok keep a straight face, don't look too happy". "Umm, sure, that would be fine." Boy were they shocked when they tried to move it. I had to wonder if they were ever going to get it out, but I was determined they would get that outta there! So I pulled out from the garage a heavy duty dolly, and they used that to get it to their flat bed they were towing about. They were nice, and tried to be ok moving it, but they made a bit of a mess out back. I'm not complaining, it was well worth the trade, and it certainly can be cleaned up.

And here I thought those strangers knocking on my door were always a nuisance. Not so! (I still can't believe its gone.)

Actually this is hardly anything new to most people reading these finance blogs, but I thought this was funny/amusing/sad (take your pick). I had this thought before, but dealing with the sharp cold snap here on the east coast, it brought it back to mind.

This past summer I was visiting relatives up north, and since I had a free Saturday morning with my son, I decided to travel about with him and check out the yard sales. Nothing extrordinary there, we picked up some items at good prices, at some places they wanted way too much and left. My total expense was probably $15. Odd part was there were two places, many miles apart, that each had a sign up saying they were selling items so they could pay their heating bills this fall.

You know, there are people who would feel so sad for people in such a situation, and its certainly isn't funny. That said, as I stood at each place, looking at table after table after table of - I'll be kind and call it junk - I wasn't sad for them. The only thing in my mind was to ask them if they could be that stupid. "You don't have money? Well, duh, take a look about, here's your money. Don't buy half of this and you would have enough to pay multiple winter heating bills."

I knew better and kept my mouth shut, but jeeze, no wonder some folks don't have money. They do it to themselves.

OK, this is a bit of a re-hash of something I wrote about a few months ago, but hey, why not.

To buy Kelloggs stock online (after your initial purchase into the DRIP), you can only do it by setting up monthly purchases of their stock. To justify the automatic purchase of stock each month I have cut off my monthly garbage pickup (which locally costs $30/Mo.). To do this I have been cutting back on buying junk, composting as much as possible, recycling paper, plastics, and metals, and a week ago I had a yard sale (that's one way to get rid of junk!).

Anyway, since the summer I have been getting Kelloggs' stock each month, and just using money that went into garbage. And the net cost to me has been $0.

Well this has to do with finances only in a round about way... but in any case, I will post it here.

If you live where you have a clothes washer without any water overflow drainage next to it (or even if you do), you may want to consider turning off the water before any long (or even short) trips.

I came home late Friday from work and found the water hose burst sometime during the day and half the first floor was flooded. The burst was on the top of the hose, so water was spraying upwards into shelving full of things, including some cardboard storage boxes, so the mess was imense. Obviously this wasn't a trip, but I can only imagine if this had happened while I was away for a week (as I have done twice this summer). Using a carpet water vac, moving furniture, ripping up carpet - oh yeah, this weekend was fun.

(Finance note: I needed to clean up as fast as possible, otherwise there could be damage to the house and then the cost would sky rocket)

One thing of note. Some time back I was thinking about something like this happening, so I had the water turned on just enough that the tub could fill properly. So I only needed to make a quarter turn to turn off the water. What would have happened if the water was on full blast??? Lets just say I don't want to go there.

... at least for my savings accounts. Of course it really is my fault, so I'm not going around blaming November.

It started last year as I read about one way to maximize the power of your reitrement savings by putting in as much as possible early as possible during the year into your retirement accounts. It also mentioned that in case you felt you couldn't afford it normally that you could change your federal tax withholding so that you paid much less then you normally would earlier in the year, then later in the year when your deductions for retirement are done, you could pay extra taxes to make up for the early part of the year. This way your money worked longer for you and less for uncle sugar.

So I tried it this year, and I am on pace to max out the retirement deductions for the year in mid November. Problem is I now needed to up my withholding for the remainder of the year so I wouldn't get penalized for underwitholding in 2007. So the extra withholding will start in November and those two November paychecks will have both extra taxes taken out (over $800), and the last of my retirement money taken out. I'm happy I did it as my return so far this year is almost 20%.

So in the end it worked out excellently, and will just need to buck it up for November.

Since I wrote my prior message, I figured I should go over some things I do to save on electric usage. Soooo, here goes...
Use power strips with instant on items like TVs and computers.
I use window AC units and only cool the rooms I will be using. I mostly use them upstairs and let the cooler air drift downward
Use CFL bulbs through most of the house. I still have some incandescent, but I using them until they run out.
I run my clocks on batteries - OK, not a big saver, but it just happens that is what I have
When I am away I make sure everything is off except the fridge, even work days.
As I use my stove maybe once a week, I turn off the gas pilot light. Saves on gas, and electricity to cool as well.
I have no dryer, but use a rack to dry my clothes.
I have grown shade trees in useful locations around the house. Shade trees can really help with cooling costs
I rarely if ever watch TV - ok that may not work for a lot of people, but I use the internet almost exclusively now.
In the summer I let my gas water heater set on "Vacation". Since I use little water, it heats it more than hot enough. And as it heats less, I pay less to cool the house as well.
When I bought the house I insulated the walls and attic, and replaced the decades old windows with double paned argon filled window inserts. Doing it myself save me tons of money.
When I re-roofed the house, I got light colored shingles. I'm not sure how much that saves, but its got to be some.
That's all I can think of. I really do believe the window AC units are where I save the most money. Try some of these, and the savings will appear.

... but until the price to add solar to a house is more economical, I think I will work on keeping my electric usage reasonable.

After looking at this summer's electric bills, the thought above came to mind. Not that I am complaining about my bills, its just that if people use some sensible techniques, your electric bill can really be small. I have a 4 bedroom house in the DC area, so summer can be hot and damp. The summer wasn't awful, but it wasn't cool either. With that said, here are my bills for June-July, July-Aug, and Aug-Sep (mid month to mid month) - $42, $42, $37. I used AC as I needed it, quite often over night. Still, the usage was minimal.

Anyhow, I thought I would brag about that for a minute. If you want to see what I have done to allow this type of usage, check some of my older entries. If you have questions, just ask.

Just when you thought it was safe, you find out it isn't.

In this case, it was my assumption of when I signed up for a CD, and they gave me a paper with the rate of interest, that I would get that rate of interest. Silly me. Well I had one of many CDs mature this past week, and didn't think much of it until I put the amount into a spreadsheet and compared the results with other CDs. Then I noticed the numbers looked off, so I did a little checking. This CD got only about 2/3 of the interest it was supposed to. Boy was I surprised. I went to the credit union office (same building where I work), and gave them the original paperwork. 2 days later the correct amount showed up.

Nothing extrordinary there, except the fact that you should always check the numbers. Checkout receipts, and now even the interest you get from the bank.

BTW, the interest I "recovered" was about $40. Certainly worth it.

This may come under the category of "Well duh!", but I try to take something I do (or want to do), and use that tendency to build on other good habits. That is, using psychology in your favor.

Anyway, I have been avoiding a $30/mo. charge for trash pickups by cutting down on trash by recycling and composting, and then taking what little I have (usually a single plastic grocery bag a week) along to the county trash offload station, right near where I work. Its not much work, but sometimes you want to just stop and put it ouside and let someone else deal with it.

So how does psychology help here? Well, I have started a new DRiP (thats a direct re-investment program) and the only way to make investments online is with equal monthly payments from my checking. No optional payments So I have decided to make my trash savings go for this DRiP. I now have a $30 monthly stock purchase, which gives me a reason to keep my trash level down so I don't spend that $30. I have dubbed this my "Trash DRiP". (OK, I like the name anyway!)

Lately I have been amazed at how its now possible to not only get an item for free (free coupon or free after rebate), but now if you do things right you can get paid for buying something.

With that said, I have my entry for best payment for buying something.

There were coupons and mail in rebates for the new Aleve gel-caps in the paper a few weeks ago, and now Rite-Aid has a free after rebate offer as well. As Rite-Aid doesn't require you to use the receipts, I can apply for both rebates. Plus there was a $2 coupon!

Here is the final calculation on my Aleve buy:
Purchase Cost: $3.99
Rite Aid Rebate: -$3.99
Mail-In Rebate: -$3.99
Coupon use: -$2.00
Submit for flexible spending account. Save taxes at 25% marginal rate: -$1.00
Postage to mail in rebate: $0.39
5% cash back with credit card usage: -$0.20

Cost to buy: -$6.80

The mail in rebate may only give $1.99, though the text on the form didn't indicate it. Even so, this is a great deal. Of course I don't need this stuff, so its going to be a gift to my mother when I visit in a few weeks. Another plus.