Let’s save money!

I would like to thank Nicole from It’s All Random for this awesome idea! It’s a great way to save money all year long. And it’s only the second week of the year, so it isn’t too late to get started.

So what you do, is each week you put aside the amount of money that goes with the week number. So week 25, you would save $25, week 26 you save $26, etc. But Nicole had the great idea of choosing a random amount and then crossing that amount off so that you still end up with the same amount at the end of the year, but you can save more when you are able and less when you need to. At the end of the year, you end up with $1,378. And I decided what I’m going to do with the money! I’m going to use it for a down payment on a new (used) car. My car is a 2000 and I’ve had it since 2006, so I’m going to eventually need a new one. I know that $1,378 isn’t a lot for a down payment, so I’m going to try to save even more and double some of the amounts when possible.

So who’s with me on using this to save some extra money this year? You have to wait a whole year, 52 weeks (well, after this week, only 50 more) to actually use the money, but won’t that extra $1,378 (or more) be worth it in the end? I think so!! So let me know what you think of this and if you can think of any other ways to tweak it a bit.

Wedding Help!

So…I need any advice I can get on how to do a wedding as cheaply as possible. My fiancé and I kinda went overboard with the venue and photography, so now we are trying to get everything else to be as cheap as possible. The wedding is in May of 2013 so we’re figuring about 11 or so more months to save money because probably around this time next year everything will be due. So if anyone has any advice on how to do a wedding cheap, that would be fantastic! Thank you in advance!!

A year and 8 months away!!!

Hello blogger world!! I sometimes forget that I even have a blog!!! And I just can’t seem to come up with anything to blog about these days. I’m too busy doing school work to think about anything else!!! Yesterday I went and filled out paperwork for my new job! My orientation is next week and I can’t wait!!

Let’s talk wedding plans…I don’t do that much. I’m not planning at the moment because I’m too busy doing school work, but I have been thinking about the budget recently. I’m starting to think that it is going to be impossible to save the amount of money we need! I have a sheet that lists all of the things we need for the wedding and the estimates of what each thing is going to cost. I have the estimates for most things but there are a few things I don’t know how to estimate what they will cost. Without those minor things, we’re at about $16,500!!! That is a lot!!! We already booked the venue for the ceremony and reception and the photography. For everything else, we are going to go as cheap as we can!!! My fiance and I were talking about it last night and he said something about getting a loan to pay for stuff. I don’t want to be paying off my wedding for years after it!! So I’m going to do everything I can to save as much as I can!!

So to do that, I have to come up with a plan. First I am going to have to make up a budget for myself. Starting on Sept. 18th, I started keeping track of my necessary purchases throughout the month including gas, car insurance, and my cell phone. Then, when I start my new job, I’m going to keep track of what I make in a month and then I’ll be able to get a better idea of just exactly how much I can save for the wedding each month. I can’t believe that we have about 1 year and 8 months till the wedding!!!! A few months ago it sounded like it was so far away and we had so much time to save, but now it’s getting closer and closer!!!!

What tips do you have to help save for a wedding? I could use any tips you have, so please leave me a comment! Thanks and have a great Tuesday everyone!!!

How can I make sure I’m getting my $’s worth?

Ok, so I’m all about saving money and making sure I get the most out of what I’m paying for. I’ve had a blackberry for a few months now so I had to get a data plan for it. I have Verizon and I have the 150 MB/month plan. The thing I’m struggling with is that I never use all of my data that I get for the month. I don’t want to get rid of my blackberry because I love being able to get my email on my phone. I never have to check my email when I get on the computer. And it’s so easy when I get a comment on here because I get the email to my phone and I can automatically publish the comment. I also check the weather every now and then. But other than that, I don’t really use the internet that much. So my question is: are there any free apps for blackberry that use the internet? And how can I use the internet more on my phone to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth? Like I said, I love saving money and making sure that when I’m paying for something, I’m getting my money’s worth. Leave me some comments and ideas!

 

 

 

 

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I have decided…

So, yesterday I wrote about how I was contemplating on getting a DVR or not. Well, after thinking about it  (and sleeping on it) I have made a quick decision…

We’re not getting it!!!!

It’s just not necessary and it’s an extra $14.90 per month that could be put towards the wedding. I’ve had people that commented telling me I shouldn’t get it and people saying I should get it. I was considering both sides here, but then I just decided I didn’t really need it. After the wedding and once we buy a house, then we can get DVR because we won’t be saving for a wedding. But right now, any extra money I have I want to either save for the wedding or save to put in my other savings so I can have some money to pay back my college loans.

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DVR…is it worth the extra $?

So just the other day I was thinking about how nice it would be to have DVR. Every Thursday I work 5-9, which means that my fiancé and I miss “Bones”. I don’t even know how many weeks we are behind!  We also miss “Raising Hope”. We can watch the episodes online, but sometimes the internet takes a while to load and it’s annoying to watch it on a small laptop screen. If we had DVR, then we could just hit a button and boom, our TV show is ready to watch. Right now we get the basic plus which is 77 channels. It costs $57.99 a month for that. The cheapest digital cable (Digital Gateway) costs $63.94 a month and then with the DVR that’s an extra $8.95 per month. So when you do the math, it would be $14.90 more per month than what we pay now. So I gotta think about this. That $14.90 per month could be saved and put towards the wedding. Our wedding is about 2 years away, so say we save that much for about…a year and a half, 18 months, that would be $268.20. So really, that’s not too terribly much, but it’s still something. And having the DVR will allow us to watch more of our shows. Which I guess you could say that watching more TV isn’t really necessary, but I think it would be really nice. So what do you think? Is the DVR a waste of our money or do you think it’s a luxury that we deserve? Leave me your comments and let me know what you think!

Oh, one more side not, I’m going to start couponing, so maybe the savings that we make at the grocery store will make up for the extra $14.90 a month we’d be paying for DVR, just a though.

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Dumb money saving tips

So I found an article on Yahoo titled “6 Dumb Money ‘Saving’ Mistakes”. It talks about 6 things that people do to try to save money, but these 6 things don’t actually save you that much.

The first one is falling for free. The promotions that are absolutely free are alright, but it’s the ones that are buy-one-get-one-free or “free shipping with a $150 purchase”, that aren’t really worth it because we spend more money in the end. Dan Ariely wrote in his book Predictably Irrational that when something is free, it suggests to the consumer that there is no downside. This isn’t always the case because if the deal is buy 2 get one free, you are spending extra money if you didn’t plan on buying the first two items.

The next one is overdosing at the Dollar Store. Yes you can find some great things at the Dollar Store, but not everything is worth it. According to Consumer Reports, some items can actually be dangerous. Some of these items are extension cords, lamps, and other items that might have make UL labels that certify their safety. Also, over-the-counter medicine such as aspirin may be on the shelves past their expiration date.

Buying in bulk is next on the list. Sure it can save you money with some things, but it’s a waste of money when you get too much that you can’t use it before the expiration date and it goes bad. I think that the best things to get at places like Sam’s Club or Costco is anything that has a long expiration date.

Next is excessive couponing. I’m sure almost everyone has heard of TLC’s new show Extreme Couponing. The second season started at the beginning of April which surprises me because I’ve never heard of the show before. The people on that show are crazy. I’ve read that they buy tons of stuff like housecleaning supplies, dry goods, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, and more, in bulk just because they have coupons for it. I like coupons, but I don’t see why you would need to fill your whole house with a million things of laundry detergent just because it was really cheap.

Fast-food dining doesn’t save you money? I would have never guessed that!! (Sarcasm..in case you can’t tell) Sure the dollar menus may satisfy your hunger for less today, but if you do it often it can carry a bigger price tag. Most items that are on value menus are high in saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol. They are also linked to an increased risk of cancer.

The last one on the list is making repairs yourself. For services that take up a lot of your time or require a lot of expertise, it is just cheaper to pay a professional to do it. Some examples are re-flooring or re-carpeting your house, changing your car’s oil, and estate planning.

Be sure to check out the blog hop I’m hosting for the very first time and the other hops that I found from other bloggers. Have a great Tuesday everyone!!

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Goals for the summer

So I'm having a bit of writer's block. I wanted to write a blog post but I didn't know what to write about. So one of my friends suggested I write about what my goals are for the summer. So that is what I'm going to do.

1. Read more books for pleasure
As I mentioned in a previous post, my goal is to read 20 books by the end of the year. I'm on my first one at the moment so I've got 19 to go! When I started this goal I figured I would have to read 2 books a month to reach my goal. At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky if I get to read 1 book per month. So hopefully in May, when the semester is over, I can focus on reading more.

2. Get a job working with kids
I'm still going to keep my job at Sonic, but I would also like to find a summer job where I could work with kids. If I were applying for a teaching job today, I wouldn't have any real experience with kids. About a month ago I found a bunch of places near me that I could possibly work at so hopefully I will hear back from them!

3. Save more money for the wedding
As of right now, I'm only able to work 4 days out of the week and I haven't been getting that many hours since we've been kind of slow. I'm looking forward to the summer because I will be getting a lot more hours in and making a lot more in tips! My plan is to divide my tips in half everyday- half goes in my checking and half goes towards the wedding. Then my paycheck every two weeks, maybe I could divide that in half and put half in my checking and half in my regular savings, cause I'm gonna need to start saving money to pay back my college loans.
 
4. Get engagement pictures taken
Well, first my fiancé and I have to decide on a photographer, but once we do that I definitely want to get our engagement pictures taken. We have a little over 2 years till our wedding, but I just wanna get the pictures taken and out of the way.

5. Go to the beach
The last time I was at the beach was in '09, so I definitely want to get there this year, enough said!

6. Go to an amusement park
I haven't been to Hershey Park since ‘09, so I really want to go there this summer!! But I wouldn’t mind going somewhere else like Six Flags. My aunt and uncle gave my fiancé and I coupon book and I was looking through it the other day and saw a buy one get one admission for Six Flags. I’ll just have to find the closest one (which I think is in New Jersey) and see if one ticket for there plus the amount of gas (since it is farther than Hershey Park) is cheaper than two tickets for Hershey Park, the gas, and parking. When I was at Hershey Park last, the parking was $30!! That is ridiculous!!!


I think that about sums up my goals for the summer. If you have any suggestions for me like any fun summer dates or books to read, leave me a comment and let me know!!

Linking to…

Would you rather?

I’m going to start a new weekly post. I’m going to call it “Would You Rather Wednesday”

Alright, I was having a debate with my roommate about this. And it was actually her boyfriend who started it. He had a job interview today for something that is totally unrelated to his degree. He texted me earlier today saying “Here’s my dose of mean: I will probably get a job that pays more than you will ever make teaching. Hahaha”. So then I responded with “At least I’ll be using my degree”, to which he said “Whatever. Tell that to your bank account.” I then told him “It doesn’t matter about the money, if it did, I would have picked a different career.”

So then when I got back to my room I asked my roommate, “Would you rather do something you love and get paid a little or do something you hate and get paid a lot?” You know which one she said? The second one. Then she went off about how if you love your job and get paid a little, you’ll be miserable because you won’t have a lot of money. Well I then said that if you hate your job but get paid a lot, you will still be miserable because you won’t like your job. So either way, both scenarios would kind of suck. But you know what, I’m willing to get paid a little to do something I love, which will be teaching. If I wanted to get paid more, then I would have gone to school to be a doctor or a lawyer, but I wouldn’t like either one of those jobs. Who cares if I’m not getting paid a lot? Then I will just have to get my priorities straight and not splurge on things I need. If I want to go on vacation I can just save money and go every other year or every few years.

So now I wanna know, what are your thoughts on this topic? I put up a poll on the right side of my blog so vote and leave me your comments letting me know what you think.