Savvy Chic and Financially Wise: Musings for Those Starting Out or Starting Over

confused

Help! I'm new to the blogging world and I've tried creating a new blog somewhere else and have no idea whether to keep this typepad address or use blogger. I don't know if people are reading it, so I've posted all my recent posts here because this is the one that seems to have the following...

If anyone knows how to help me by letting me know how to link blogs or keep up with stats that would be great. Thank you!

budget travel with only a little work

I love to travel. I would venture to say that that is the number one thing that I would be willing to drop money on without thinking twice. I don't hesitate to buy a plane ticket if someone offers me a place to stay. I have travelled a lot of places and I have done so mostly with a pretty tight budget. When I studied abroad in the UK, I planned side trips to several other countries for one of my girlfriends and I. For $1,000 each I got us both a train card to use the train system in England up to 10 one way trips, a chunnel ticket to Paris, a hotel room in Paris for two nights, a roundtrip ticket between London and Barcelona, a roundtrip ticket between London and Rome, 3 nights at a hotel in Rome, and 3 nights at a hotel in Barcelona. In order to do this, I put a little work in, but knowing the right places to look makes all of this cheap planning a lot easier.

The first step that I would tell you to take if you're looking to travel more often or more inexpensively would be to sign up forairfarewatchdog.com. It's a website that will email you as frequently or infrequently as you ask and will send cheap fares and traveling tips. You should also check out the website on occasion for other good information. They generally offer tips on traveling lighter, what days to fly, and what airports are cheaper.

Next, look for student or age discounts. Airtran.com offers the U fare, where people aged 22 and younger can fly for a set price to anywhere in the country. It's a great deal, and while you have to fly standby, traveling on a budget usually means traveling without a tight schedule. Also, if you're traveling internationally get a student or teacher ID card. In many countries, public transportation, stores, and restaurants make a bigger deal than the US about student and teacher discounts.

For good hotel deals, there are two things I would recommend. First of all, try using places like expedia.com or travelocity.com to package airfare with hotels to get a discount. In many cases you can save a couple hundred dollars for booking together. Secondly, I love the website priceline.com. While the website generally functions like expedia or travelocity, they have something called name your own price. I LOVE that service. You choose a star level hotel and then the area that you're willing to stay in and you put in the price that you'd be willing to pay. I would recommend starting out at the highest star level and only one region, because if your price isn't accepted you'll have to add another star level or another part of town. I've used this before to get a $65 rate at a 4 star off Michigan Avenue in Chicago (heart of the shopping district) and a $50 at the InterContinental Buckhead. I'm talking savings of hundreds here, not chump change.

Once you have your travel plans, do your research. Many museums offer free days each month or discount prices at certain times each week. Why would you pay $12 to get into a museum on Monday when you can go to that same museum on the first Tuesday of the month, which happens to be the following day, for free? You wouldn't, but you could end up if you don't put in a little footwork. You can generally find information like this in guidebooks. I really like Fodor's and Frommer's, but I think Lonely Planet is also a good guide that has a plethora of good information to get off the beaten path.

Think wisely too about your meals when you're travelling. I love to eat out more than most people, so I would rather have a super cheap breakfast and lunch and splurge on dinner than eat semi-nice at each meal. These are things you just have to think about. Bring some peanut butter crackers with you when you go and keep them in your purse to snack on after a late breakfast to tide you over for dinner. Just planning ahead can save so much money.

I don't see not travelling as an excuse for saving money. Put some money aside and plan an inexpensive trip. The only thing stopping you is a little bit of time and yourself.

Employer Matching

I was talking with one of my friends at work today about the fact that we were going to have the opportunity this year to sign up for our school's 403(b) (retirement)account. While I was a little more excited than most about this opportunity, I don't think everyone realizes what an exciting idea employer matching actually is.

What is it, first of all? Employer matching is where an employee signs up for a 401(k) or 403(b) account through the school or office and pre-tax dollars are taken out of each paycheck to fund the account. While this alone is about as exciting as having someone cut part of your paycheck, the thrilling part is that some employers will MATCH your contribution. At my school, if I put in 4% of my pre-tax dollars, they will put in 6%. So, they are matching my money 1.5 times. That's essentially a 6% raise that they're giving me. Granted, I won't touch that money until I'm 59.5, but I'll eventually see it. 

While some people may not be able to afford putting 4% in, the thing that you must understand about employer matching and money being taken out pre-tax is that it isn't really 4% of each paycheck because you are taxed on the salary AFTER the 4% is taken out. Below I have attached a graph to show you how much you are actually putting aside because of the pre-tax dollars. I used someone making $48,000 and getting paid twice a month as an example:

You can see from above that the person making $48,000 is reducing each paycheck by $60 pre-tax. Usingpaycheckcity.com I found that the person would be getting paid $1625.46 each paycheck before contributions, so $60 is only 3.6% of their pay. See what contributing pre-tax can do?

Essentially, not contributing to your retirement account at work to receive your employer's match is like walking down the street and refusing an offer for free money from a passerby. It would be very unwise and financially stupid of you. Think of the employer match as a little gift to congratulate you for making smart financial decisions and thinking about yourself in the future. And, just to source a financial advisor, Suze Orman says that contributing to a 401(k) if your employer matches you is more important than paying off debt or building an emergency savings accounts. In any book she has written or any show she has discussed retirement on, she emphasizes the importance of employer match.

While I may be a nerd, I really do look forward to these business meetings at my school! Yay for tomorrow at 9:00 AM!

Mint.com

As I have learned about personal finance, one word continues to replay itself and sting just the same: budget. I hate the word as much as anyone else, but I have come to realize that it is more important than I would like to admit. This summer when school was out, I payed very little attention to a budget and found myself spending much more than I would have liked to. With that said, I sat down a few weeks ago and figured out where I was financially. To do this, one tool that I use ismint.com. 

While mint.com isn't the be all to end all of financial tools, I find it very helpful. It isn't like Quicken in the sense that it predicts how much money you will have on a certain day; it has it's own flair. It allows you to set a budget and, after imputing all of your financial accounts, will update how much of your budget you have gone through and how much you have left. I like that it has a line showing where the date is and where you are in each category in relation to that date, but in some categories this doesn't really apply. For instance, I pay my rent at the beginning of the month as I imagine many do, so it fills up my rent category and shows me that I am too far over in that regard. It is much more useful in terms of coffeehouses or entertainment.

Another feature of mint.com that I appreciate is the feature that tracks your income versus your expenses each month in graphic format. I love looking back over the past few months and seeing the bar graph in the green and showing a plus. It also keeps track of this information as the month progresses. Besides that graph, another graph that I sometimes hate to look at but appreciate having is the pie chart that breaks down my monthly spending into categories; it is so useful however in forcing me to come to terms with how much money I spend on subway sandwiches or pedicures. And, it has had the positive effect of helping me lower those numbers.

Need more convincing? Check out what theNew York Times had to say about it recently.

If you're concerned about putting in your bank passwords and account information, take comfort in the fact that mint doesn't store this information and only uses it to update your account information for your viewing pleasure. Oh, and there's also an iPhone app!

Photo Credit: mint.com

a second try

Okay, so this is my second try at a financial blog, and I think it might just go to show that anything really worth doing deserves a second chance. I enjoyed blogging about finance, and I enjoyed having people ask me questions about my blog or about posts that I had done; thus, I have decided to try again.

Why? First of all, I think I was trying to be too structured and organized the first time that I gave it a shot. I sat down and made a list of all the topics that I could think about on which to write. This list included bankrate.com, the value of CD's, mint.com, and Roth IRAs to name a few. I started to worry about what would happen when I got to the end of the list and what would happen if I didn't reach my quote on how many blogs to do per week. Then, I started back to school after spring break, and all of the worry and concern kept me from acting.

I recently started reading a blog called Life After College that is written by a 26 year old girl who works for Google. She sometimes writes about life coaching, she sometimes writes about finance, and she sometimes writes about other things. But, she doesn't seem to be too caught up on following a set list or ensuring that she writes every day or every third day. The success of her blog gave me new hope. It made me think that I should give the blogging thing another shot without the payed account or the set list of topics or the regimented schedule. 

So, here is that second shot. I can promise that I will love writing this blog, and I can promise that I will follow through this time. What I'm promising myself is that I will write about what interests me and will help and interest others and that I will write when I have time and not stress about adding this to my list of things to do. I think that is fair to both myself and my readers. Stick with me this time; I promise it will be worth your time.