His Hers Money

We’ve now made it almost one full month in our new joint blogging endeavor. So far I’m very proud of the time that Hers has put into this as it really is her first blogging experience other than a few guest posts on my personal blog. I would like to start doing monthly updates of our financial progress and also the progress of this blog. I figure that with 3 1/2 weeks under our belts I would go ahead and do one now and then start trying to be on time at the beginning of each month.

We’ve been able to get one of my credit cards paid off, the engagement ring paid in full, and more than the minimum payment for the highest balance of my cards. Unfortunately, I had to pull $2,000 out to pay a retainer fee for a lawyer instead of paying down debt further. So overall, good progress and it will seemingly get better.

The site itself is receiving steady increases in traffic each week according to our install of Mint:

I’m hoping that means that we’re doing something right and that people can appreciate what we’re trying to do and our writing style. I’ve almost become obsessed with reading all of the other PF blogs out there in my newsreader each day and trying to participate as much as possible.

There should also be some semi-regular columns starting soon. I have what I feel are a few good ideas for series that will prove invaluable to us in tracking our progress and education in all matters personal finance related.

So we all know that it’s smart to have an emergency account. And it seems that most people recommend to have 3 to 6 months of your salary set aside. For those of us in debt it can be a delicate balance between saving and paying down debt. Do you save, do you put all your extra money towards debt, or do you try and do both at the same time? The third choice is the one that I have made.

I am putting money into savings at the same time as I am using the snowflake method of paying down my debt. Is that the best approach in a purely monetary sense? No. However, it gives me the self-satisfaction of seeing my savings grow and debts paid down to zero.

Another reason for my method is that besides the mental aspect, there is also the specter of small unexpected expenses. Just yesterday I did not have much change with me to park on the street for an appointment that was scheduled for 1:30pm. Needless to say, I was still waiting until almost 2 before I even got into the office. By that time my meter had run out and since I happened to be parked within a 1/2 block of the courthouse and police station, of COURSE I GOT A TICKET! The expense is not large. I can afford the $25 fine. But I don’t want to pay it and of course if I had a tight budget it is possible that it could create a problem.

Moral of the story? Besides taking enough change to pay for parking? Don’t focus entirely on your debt. The last thing you want to do is pay extra on say your credit card only to be forced to take a cash advance on the same card the following week. Give yourself a little breathing room.

After a long weekend in the coding trenches, immersed in the inner-workings of Wordpress, it looks as though I’m finally 99% happy with our little website. There’s still a little tweak or two to be made at some point but I’m not fretting about it. So what exactly was done?

Well, with Wordpress 2.5 released, I upgraded to that. Easily done as we were already running the pre-release version here. I also had become less than happy (already!) with the look of the site and rebuilt it by modifying the freely available Xplosive Reloaded theme from Blog Oh! Blog. Make sure you try out the different color schemes by using the links on the top-right! In trying to not completely geek out on everyone and in keeping with the personal finance theme, here’s a list of the tools I used and the cost associated with them. Note that I use a Mac so these programs may not be available to you.

• CSSEdit - Shareware - 29.95€ - A wonderful CSS editor that lets you extract styles directly from websites and edit them in real-time to see the results.
• GIMP - Open-Source - Free - If you don’t need to do a ton of image-editing or if you’re just too poor (like me) to purchase Photoshop, the GIMP is an excellent free alternative.
• Yummy FTP - Shareware - $25 - My favorite FTP program ever. Performance is good. Their folder sync feature is what I use to backup my websites. Transmit is another good yet more expensive alternative for Mac users and Cyberduck is an open-source alternative.
• TextMate - Shareware - 39€ - One of the leading text editors around. Fairly expensive, in fact the most expensive piece of software listed. But if you do any coding, from HTML, PHP, C++, etc… this is a great program. The best part for me is that it interacts with YummyFTP and lets me edit files directly on the web server. TextWrangler is a free version of BBEdit for those looking to save money.

You’ll notice that I use mostly shareware or open-source software. I find the quality to be just as good if not better than that of the giant software publishers. It also normally is much cheaper and I end up supporting small business owners that are passionate about their products.

For you other bloggers out there. What tools do YOU use to keep everything up and running?

Well, if you read the post below that His wrote earlier today you will see his comments regarding the Bose Home Theater speakers that he is currently “jonesing” for. Well, let me let you in on a little secret: Prior to the current transformation that His is experiencing, those said speakers somehow found their way to our house! Now, I’m not talking about a brochure or picture of them, but the actual speakers. Delivered in a big box, direct from Bose themselves.

Paid for of course by, oh wait, they weren’t paid for, they were financed.

I utilized the Return to Sender option and told Mr UPS to take them right back where they came from and when His got home from work I informed him of his decision to return the speakers and hold off on that purchase. For some reason he didn’t remember making that decision but I think he realized that this wasn’t one of those battles worth fighting.

So, why am I telling you this? So you can see just how far he has come in only two months. It was just late January when those speakers temporarily escaped from the Bose factory only to be returned safe and sound. Now he is using some of his allowance funds to save for them. I am so proud of him!

As part of the Group Writing Project -> Saving over at wereindebt I’m going to detail my current plan, why I think it’s going to work, and where I am at in the process.

I used to have just a plain-jane savings account through USAA, which is the bank that I use for probably 90% of my banking and insurance needs. Overall they provide excellent customer service and good rates for my credit cards and loans. However, the interest rate on their savings accounts sucks and because I tend to spend money when I have easy access to it, it is not the best place for me to be using for savings.

I was slow to the bandwagon in opening an ING account. But Hers already had one and so we were able to get us both some extra $$$ when I funded my account $250 to start. Extra money is always a bonus! I’m impressed with their website and their interest rates even though they’re falling along with every other bank. One advantage with ING is that I have easy but NOT instant access to my money. With a few days to think about that withdrawal I am more likely to realize that I don’t have to spend that money. Therefore, this is going to be my emergency account. I already have it set up to automatically take out $50 every paycheck.

Now that the main emergency account was set up, I was on a roll. Hers saw the offer that TDAmeritrade was running through Suze Orman for their Money Market accounts. Just borrow a copy of Suze’s Women & Money book or look for it at a bookstore to get the code that is inside. Fund a new account and after 12 monthly automatic deposits of $50 or more and you get a free $100! That along with a decent interest rate was enough for me to sign up right away. I have my account set up for the withdrawals and it will sit there until I receive the bonus. At that point I will either throw what’s into my account into an IRA or plus up the emergency account at ING.

I also realized that I could not completely stop my spending habits cold-turkey. I’ve been jonesing for a set of Bose home theater speakers for a long time now. However, since we are trying to be smart with our money, I decided that there was no way I was going to put them on a credit card or finance them through Bose even with a 0% offer. I signed up for a SmartyPig savings account and set up the amount for the Bose speakers as a goal along with how much we had decided to spend on each other next Christmas. Now I will automatically save for both things each month and be able to pay cash along with making some interest along the way. Who knows, with SmartyPig, I might even be able to convince some friends and family to fund my speakers instead of giving me stuff I’m going to return anyway!

The key to all of this is the automatic withdrawals. Between savings and automatic bill pay for most things I’m pretty much in a set it and forget it mode right now. When you don’t have to actively manage your money it is easier to forget that it’s there and the temptation to spend is lessened.

So what do YOU do? Have you signed up with SmartyPig? Ameritrade?

So in order to take advantage of free money, Hers and I both opened up Lending Club and Prosper accounts. I’m going to post my initial reactions of both sites now and post updates as I go along.

While I don’t plan on investing heavily on either of these sites for now, I AM looking for a decent return. Especially when you look at how the interest rates are falling in all of the online savings accounts. I need to start funding my IRA fully, but am waiting the few months until Hers and I get married. She has a pretty large account with Ameriprise and I can just get added to her account after the wedding.

So with that in mind, here’s the lowdown below the fold:

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