His Hers Money

So I received my direct deposit “stimulus” check this week. It was a big whopping $296. Let me tell you, I wasn’t overly stimulated when it arrived. Yes, it is certainly better than nothing but really what am I going to do with $296? I guess I could buy five weeks of groceries, or maybe get my hair done twice (not including tip) or pay a fourth of my car insurance bill. None of which are very exciting if you ask me.

I really think they missed the mark on this one and I’ve thought this since they announced it a few months ago. I think a better program would have been a “Pick a Pot Hole Campaign” where each taxpayer could pick the pot hole they hate the most on the under maintained roads and they would come in a fix it. I personally hate pot holes.

How about a “Cow for Everyone Program” where you could get a cow’s worth of steaks per person, enough to last the entire year. I would even kick in the cost of the A-1 out of my weekly grocery budget!

So, what will I really do with my humungous stimulus check? Probably nothing. I’l put it in the checking account, add it onto the current balance number and move on. HIM should be getting the entire $600 which will be a bit better but we still aren’t going to be hitting the local mall armed with fistfuls of cash ready to stimulate the heck out of the economy!

Everyone knows that automating your savings is definitely the way to go. Right now I feel like I have my savings so disjointed because I have accounts all over the place. I took advantage of the Suze - TD Ameritrade offer where you deposit at least $50 a month for 12 months into a savings type account and they will deposit an extra $100 in at the end of the 12 months. I don’t remember what the rate is but it’s better than I’m getting at ING right now. The promotion code was 701 so you might try it and see if it still works.

I also have an ING account that I send $200 a month to and a savings account with my credit union that gets another $200 a month. So that’s $450 a month in savings. My goal is to have $15,000 in emergency funds . I was aiming towards $10,000 but my financial advisor bumped that up to $15,000 during my yearly financial check up.

I also have some retirement based investments. I fund my Roth IRA in full every year ($5000 for 2008) and my 401k in full every year ($15,500). This all adds up to a whopping $25,500 in deposits in a single year!

Yes, this blog is supposed to be about saving money, not spending money and of course getting out of debt, but everyone knows it’s hard not to spend ANY money. For me it’s gourmet cooking items. I could justify it by saying that because I have cool kitchen/cooking gadgets I cook at home rather than eating out (which is true by the way) but it’s still money spent. Today I did get a little something for the kitchen. I got a small grater that can be used for zesting citruses or spices and also has a small slicer on it. A nifty tool that should really last forever and it wasn’t too expensive at $14.95 plus tax (no tip :)).

One different between her and him is what we like to spend our money on. I prefer gourmet chef gadgets, shoes and car. The car thing will be covered in a later post. Him is more the video games, golf stuff and computer things.

I have learned to limit my shoes greatly in the past year. Living in the Washington DC area we do a LOT of walking so comfortable shoes are really a must and the cute shoes have to be reserved for special occasions which don’t involve significant treks.

Well since HERS hasn’t posted anything yet in order to make sure everything is working around here I guess that I will have to do the honors. The domain has been purchased, the DNS points to our server now, and the basic Wordpress install has been completed. I’ll be taking some time the next two days to modify the Grid Focus theme from Derek that we’re going to be using.

Expect future posts from me to continue to be slightly nerdy as I discuss ways to minimize money spent on such things as video games, poker, and electronics. Plus HERS is already pretty darn good with her money, at least when it comes to putting away money for retirement. Me? Well let’s just say that I have a thing or two to learn about living within my means. This blog will hopefully document our journey through combining finances and the issues that people with different financial situations go through.