Money Crashers » Budgeting

More of What You Want From Mint

Erik Folgate — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:56:26 +0000

That’s a link from the Mint Blog highlighting some of their new features. Now, Mint is more cash-flow budgeting friendly, and they have a better filtering system. Check it out! Mint is definitely the best personal finance application on the web, and if you like handling your money online, you need to check them out! Related Posts:

More of What You Want From Mint is a post from: Money Crashers

How I Use Mint.com To Benefit My Personal Finances

Erik Folgate — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:34:17 +0000

I have written a few articles in the past about Mint.com and how I think it is the best personal finance web application on the internet. In my opinion, it is the easiest to use, the most intuitive, and its budget and net worth calculators are the best. I also wrote a review about Mint.com that you can read when you get the chance. Mint.com now offers the ability to hook up virtually all of your bank and debt accounts to track your net worth in real time. I now have the following accounts linked up to my mint.com account:

Checking Accounts
ING Savings Accounts
Sharebuilder brokerage and rollover IRA accounts
Student Loan Accounts
Mortgage account with Countrywide/Bank of America
Bank of America Credit Card (which we don’t use)

Net Worth Updates

If most or all of your bank and credit accounts are accessible online, then you can probably link them up to your Mint account. This is a great way to track your net worth in real time. It’s also a great way to track your progress of paying off your outstanding debts. Mint gives you a nice snapshot of Assets and Liabilities all on the left-hand side of the dashboard. The only problem I have run into is getting some of the sites to link up properly. For instance, ING uses quite a few security measures, so sometimes the security questions keep Mint from updating the account. Mint asks you what your security questions are, but sometimes the sequence of what ING asks for throws off Mint.

Tracking Variable Expenses

Don’t pay for a service like Mvelopes.com when you can use Mint.com to do the same thing. Mint allows you to set up budget categories you want to track. I suggest only tracking variable expenses such as groceries, entertainment, gas, clothing, and gifts.

Track Spending Trends

Mint.com compiles spending trends based on your spending categories by automatically compiling your debit transactions. If you’re a chart nerd, Mint.com gives you a pie chart and a bar graph. This is good information, because it can help you see what you are spending more money on each month and what you need to start tracking more often.

I want to hear your thoughts about Mint.com and how you use it. Do you like their application? Did you start out using it a lot and then forget about it?

Check Out Build My Budget

Erik Folgate — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:02:06 +0000

I have been playing with a fairly new personal finance application put together by Chris from Build My Budget. Sometimes, Mint.com and other personal finance budgeting applications do a little too much for some users. Build My Budget has a simple, easy-to-understand interface. it is a great application for people who want to build a monthly budget and stick to it.

There is a blog and forum to interact with other users, but the best part about the website is the massive educational center with a wealth of information about how to budget and WHY you should budget.

Chris, the creator of BuildMyBudget.com, was a successful financial advisor, but he left his corporate job behind, because he found himself selling products that he didn’t believe in to people who didn’t need them. He saw the need for people to get on a written budget. Many of his clients didn’t even know where their money was going on a monthly basis, and this was his inspiration for Build My Budget.

They don’t have the marketing budget of many of these other personal finance applications, so give it a try and come back to give me your feedback. Related Posts:

Check Out Build My Budget is a post from: Money Crashers

Save Money On Baby Sitting and Save Your Marriage

Erik Folgate — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:48:04 +0000

Many of us are cutting back on things that are not necessary to spend money on, and entertainment is one of life’s little luxuries that we tend to cut back on during tough economic times. However, there are a ton of date nights you can do with your spouse, and I will have a list of my ideas for tomorrow’s post. One reason many married couples with kids cut back on entertainment is because of the cost of babysitting. Young teenage girls aren’t cheap anymore. The days of paying them $5 an hour are gone. they want $8 to $10 an hour. If you’re gone for 4 hours, that’s a huge chunk of change to add on to your night out. Here’s a way to completely eliminate the cost of babysitting.

Create a Babysitting Co-Op Group

Find a group of couples ranging from 5 to 15 couples that would be interested in joining the group.
Hold an informational meeting explaining how the group will work and what information you need from each couple.
Assign tasks to a stay-at-home mom or someone with a little extra time on their hands to keep records for each spouse. Information you want to gather are emergency contact numbers, names of child’s doctor, special instructions for the children, etc.
Make a list of operating rules. Set a list of rules about how the babysitting will work so every member knows what to expect. For example, will you drop off your child or will the couple come to your house to babysit?
Start a free blog at Blogger.com and give full access to each couple to post updates and information and requests for babysitting. This is a great thing to have, because it leaves a paper trail for babysitting requests and open dates for babysitting.

Why This Works

Everyone is pitching in to help each other out, and if you find couples with kids a similar age to yours, you won’t have to do much babysitting, because they’ll just play together most of the time. If you feel like your marriage has been a little off lately, it’s because you haven’t spent quality time with your spouse. Setting a date night once a month is essential to a healthy marriage. You must get out of the house and away from the kids sometimes. Your kids are not your world. Your priority is to be a good husband or wife first, and THEN a good mother or father. Many people flip-flop these priorities and marriages begin to fail.

By the way, this co-op group also works for pet sitting. We have a dog, and we always dread the money we need to spend boarding our dog when we go on vacation. So, give it a try. I think you’ll find that everyone benefits from a group like this. Related Posts:

Save Money On Baby Sitting and Save Your Marriage is a post from: Money Crashers

6 Ways to Save Money On Your Holiday Party

Erik Folgate — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:13:07 +0000

The holiday party season is coming up, and your friends and family might be pressuring you to throw the Christmas party this year. Are you strapped for cash? You can still throw a pretty nice party on a strict budget. They key is spending less money on the small details. Don’t spend money in areas that most people don’t give a crap about. Here are 6 ways to save money on your party this year:

Send e-vite invitations either through Evite.com or Facebook. Some of your guest might not have facebook accounts, but for those guest that you know are facebook junkies, set up an event and invite friends and family to join the event page. It’s a great reference for them to look up the details of your party.
Do a pot-luck dinner. I know it sounds bad to be the host and ask people to bring food, but most guest don’t mind bringing one item. As the host, take care of the main dish, and prepare your own menu for side dishes and desserts. Then, give guest a specific dish to bring. They will appreciate the fact that you already thought through everything, and all they have to do now is follow directions.
Get a keg of beer. if you’re planning on having alcohol and you have a lot of beer drinkers coming, don’t buy cases of bottled beer. Beer cans look cheesy, so buy a keg and dress it up nicely in Christmas attire. You can get a keg of Bud Light for $40 to $50 at the grocery store. If you’ll be drinking wine, ask guests to bring their favorite bottle.
Buy in Bulk. Go to a wholesale store such as Costco or Sam’s Club to buy items in bulk that you’ll need for the party. Ask your guests to RSVP to make sure they are coming, because you don’t want to buy too much food that you won’t use.
Make your own decorations. Don’t fall into the trap of buying a bunch of extra Christmas decorations. Use what you have, and make extra decorations. Using outdoor lights inside is a good way to set the mood of your party, and if your house is decorated well on the outside, consider moving your party outside if the weather permits.
Plan Ahead. I always believe that when you have the time to think of ways to save money, you’ll save money. We often fall into the trap of spending more money because it’s convenient or we can get something quicker. If you want to throw a holiday party, start planning for it now and create a budget for it. Put a dollar amount for how much you want to spend on it.

Just talking about this makes me excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s such a great time of year!

More Ways to Save Money This Holiday Season

Erik Folgate — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:30:09 +0000

David Bach was on Regis and Kelly this morning, and he gave some good tips for ways to save money this holiday season. Here they are:

- Start with a detailed list for gift giving: Write down all of the people that you want to buy a gift for, and then write down an amount you want to spend on them. Stick to that amount, but don’t go crazy over it. If you go over a few dollars, it’s not a big deal.

- Home Made Gifts: Make something for a loved one, and they will cherish it forever. But, don’t make something that looks like a three year old did it. If you’re not crafty, ask someone who is crafty to help you.

- Give magazine subscriptions: I love magazine subscriptions, but I hardly ever buy them for myself. They are cheap, and they make a great gift.

- Buy books as gifts: You can pick up a lot of classic fiction and non-fiction books for less than $10.00, and they make great gifts for people that you have a hard time buying a gift for.

- Buy in Bulk: Buy a box of wine, books, and gourmet candy for gifts for people like bosses, co-workers, hair dresser, landscaper, or trusted professional in your life.

- Secret Santa: If you and your spouse have a bunch of siblings, then ask them to participate in a Secret Santa game. Each couple will pick another couple secretly, and you can set a gift limit. Then, every sibling gets one nice gift, and you spend less by not buying for every family member.

- Re-use the bags: Re-use the bags you get at a department store for gift wrapping.

- Recycle newspaper, magazines, and wallpaper for gift wrapping.

- Christmas Cards: I’m not a big fan of online greeting cards, but there is another good way to save money on greeting cards. Take a digital picture of you and your family, then go online to Target, Wal-Mart, Kinkos, or any other store with photo printing. Upload the image and choose a holiday design. Last year, we got 25 online greeting cards for $12.00, and the envelopes were included.

- Cash in your reward points: Do you have a ton of credit card points saved up? Cash them in to buy items that you can give away as a gift.

There’s no excuse for not saving money this holiday season!Related Posts:

More Ways to Save Money This Holiday Season is a post from: Money Crashers

Halloween Savings Tip

Erik Folgate — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:47:17 +0000

Here’s a tip for next year when you’re thinking about buying a jack o’ lantern for Halloween decoration:

We procrastinted buying a pumpkin up until today, but we still wanted to get one because the trick-or-treaters need some kind of indication that we’re a Halloween friendly house. So, I went over to the local pumpkin patch at a church, and I found a decent pumpkin. The options are obviously slim when you buy on Halloween day. I went to give the lady the money for the pumpkin and she said it would be $6.00, and I could get two more for free! I went and picked out tinswo more to put in our front yard flower bed. Three huge pumpkins for $6.00 isn’t a bad deal at all. Related Posts:

Halloween Savings Tip is a post from: Money Crashers

5 Tips For Saving Money This Holiday Season

Erik Folgate — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:23:19 +0000

The economy is slumping, and experts say that people will be spending significantly less this holiday season than last season. Budgets are a little tighter, and we’re all worrying too much about our 401(k) rather than our upcoming holiday gift list. The first thing to remember is that it’s not a requirement to spend a ton of money on the holidays. This idea that we need to stimulate the economy by spending more money is so superficial. The people that go on TV and say the economy is doing bad, because people are spending less is just absurd. No, we’re being smart with our money, instead of going out and buying a bunch of crap that we don’t need. Anyway, here are five ways you can save money this holiday season and still spread the joy of giving.

Write a list of people you want to give gifts and put a dollar amount next to each person’s name. We’ve done it ever since we’ve been married. We say, “Mom: $XX.XX” and we stick to that number for the gift(s) we get her. You don’t have to be crazy about spending the exact amount, but give or take a couple of bucks on the figure you come to. Total it up and see what your budget looks like. If the budget looks to high, make some revisions, or if it’s too low, amp up the amounts for the little ones on your list, because their faces on Christmas Day are the best.
Focus on one big gift rather than a bunch of gifts. Personally, if a loved one is going to spend money on me, I’d rather have him or her get me a nice gift that I really want rather than a bunch of smaller, more insignificant gifts. This works well with children. Sometimes, parents go way overboard with dozens upon dozens of $10 to $20 gifts. Try buying them two or three bigger gifts, and you could end up saving money. If you want them to have more things to open, do what my mom did. She wrapped up every pair of new underwear and socks for me to open, but then she had a new Nintendo hidden until the end.
Choose the most important holiday parties to attend. Hopping to holiday after holiday party can get expensive. Choose the ones from your family and best friends and skip out on the ones hosted by co-workers and acquaintances.
Shop at discount stores rather than the mall. if you want to see the full-effect of the mark-up at shopping malls, go into a music store and see how much they charge for a CD. They’ll typically charge $17 to $18 per CD, when you can buy the same one at Target or Wal-Mart for $12 to $13 dollars. Typically, you’ll get a 15 to 25% mark-up from stores in malls, because they’re paying for all of that overhead to be in a nice, indoor mall. Kohl’s and Marshall’s are two of my favorite stores for men’s clothing. They sell really nice stuff for half the price of Macy’s and Dillard’s.
Pay with cash. You might say to yourself that you’ll pay off the credit card after the holidays, but things happen and before you know it, you’re carrying the holiday balance into April. Don’t pay for unnecessary interest and fees on credit cards on items that you’re not even keeping!

Post your tips for saving money during the holidays in the comment section below.

More Ways To Save Money On Your Pets

Erik Folgate — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:45:37 +0000

A while back I wrote an article about different ways to save money on your pet. I was sitting in my house earlier today, and I realized that there are a few more things we do to save money on our dog, Harley. She’s pretty spoiled, but we try to cut costs in areas that are not necessary. We don’t cut costs on food, and we buy premium science diet naturals. We believe that more quality food you feed your pet, the healthier your pet will be. The healther your pet is, the less trips you will take to the vet. So, here are a few more ways that we save money on our pet.

Use an old comforter as a pet bed. We just moved into a house with wall-to-wall wood floors, and Harley has had a hard time adjusting to laying on hard wood. So, instead of going to Pet Smart or even Wal-Mart and buying a $40 to $50 pet bed that is big enough for an 80 pound dog, we put down a folded comforter on the floor. She seems to really love it, and it’s a comforter that we didn’t intend on using on a bed ever again. If you wanted to get really creative and you were good at sewing, you could also make an inexpensive pet bed with two pieces of fabric and cotton filler.
Make homemade cat and dog treats. The quality treats can be expensive, and it’s easier and healthier to make your own treats. Here is a site with some good dog treat recipes.
Buy flea and heart worm medications online and in bulk. Pet Care Rx and 1-800 Pet Meds are legitimate pet medication websites with good deals on buying pet medications. We buy our front line and sentinel medications at Pet Care Rx, because they periodically send us 15% off coupons.
Control your pet’s weight. Some dogs and cats would eat until their stomach exploded if you let them. They don’t have the concept of watching their figure or exercising to stay healthy. They’re just goof balls and they love to play and have a good time. It’s your job to make sure they maintain a healthy weight and exercise regularly. Overweight cats and dogs tend to have more health problems just like humans. You’ll save a lot of money in the long run by making sure your pet isn’t a fatty.

Owning a pet is a big expense. I don’t know how some people do it with five cats or three dogs. We spend about a $100 a month owning just one dog. But, if you don’t settle for buying everything new at Pet Smart and buying all of your medications at the vet, then you can really save yourself some money.

10 Ways To Reduce Your Utility Bill

Erik Folgate — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:45:37 +0000

At Money Crashers, we are dedicated to helping you save money in every area of your life. I know there are families out there that stare at $200, $300, $400, and sometimes $500 utility bills every month. This is a huge expense, so we need to tackle it. Obviously, there are many factors that go into a utility bill. Bigger houses equal bigger bills, and typically older houses yield higher bills, because they do not have the energy efficient features that newer houses have. Here are 10 ways you can start immediately reducing your utility bill.

The colder months are quickly approaching so here are some tips for insulating your home better . . .

Apply Weather Stripping to doors and windows.
Insulate outlets and light switches.
Install a programmable thermostat and set it to turn down the thermostat at night and when you are gone.

Saving Money With Your Water . . .

Install a tankless water heater. Renai is the leader in tankless water heaters and you can visit their website Forever Hot Water.
Insulate your water heater. If you don’t want to pony up the money for a tankless water heater, you should definitely insulate your water heater, just make sure that you don’t cover up important pieces of the heater such as the thermostat and the air intake.
Wash clothes in warm or cold water.

Appliances are your biggest energy sucker. Use these tips to reduce the energy they use:

Pack the dishwasher. Don’t over pack it, but make sure that you never run the dishwasher for three or four plates and some silverware.
Air Dry Large pots, pans, and dishes. These take up a lot of room in the dishwasher, and you’ll use it less if you dry these items yourself.
Buy appliances with the Energy Star sticker on them. We just bought a used front-load washer and dryer. It uses SO much less water and energy than the standard washers.
Use the microwave or toaster oven to re-heat food. Don’t use the oven just to re-heat something. It uses much more energy to heat up.

When it comes to saving money on your utility bill, identify the items in your house that use both water and energy. Dishwashers, washing machines, and water heaters are three major appliances that you may want to consider replacing to more energy and water efficient models. Also, remember that your air conditioning and heater usage is the biggest game changer when it comes to your utility bill. If you turn the air up a little bit in the hot months and turn it down a little bit in the cold months, you’ll save hundreds of dollars per year.

There are hundreds of more ways to save money on your utility bills. Comment with your tips and suggestions below.