Week #52 - Christmas is over... lets watch Human Centipede!

Hello readers... we have finally reached week #52... the final week of my crazy little experiment. I know not many people have read anything I've written and I don't know if any of you regular readers played along and save any money based on my ideas and suggestions or maybe you came up with some of your own ideas. Maybe you were just inspired to save a few dollars or you have a plan to start saving next year (next week!)... no matter what, if you're reading this than I thank you for paying attention and humoring me with my craziness!

So Christmas is over and I'm sitting on the couch at home watching Human Centipede while I write this. I had a good Christmas and got some cool gifts, but more importantly I spent some time with the friends and family that are most important to me. I actually didn't go as crazy as I usually do with Christmas spending this year and I have some of my budgeted Christmas shopping money leftover which is probably good since my wife's birthday is next week! I've got to figure out exactly what I'm going to get her and do it pretty quick!

So even though I'm on vacation I was able to get the paycheck that I would normally get today. It is the last paycheck of December and the last check of the calendar year, the way I budget. This weeks check is normally the one I would devote mostly towards saving and this week I'm going to use it to make sure I reach all of my 2013 savings goals. The paycheck was for $612.82 with $39.12 going into my 401k.

The deposit at the bank is going to be a little confusing even for me since we are dealing with one check and I'll be depositing it into five different accounts... it's a good thing they like me at the bank! So in order to reach a nice round number saved I will be depositing $222.59 into my money market savings, that will make the total saved in that account $2500 for the year! I had set certain goals based on the total balances for the next three accounts so I will be depositing $200.00 into my future car account, $50.00 into my quarterly loan payment account and rather than making a transfer I'm going to deposit $40.00 from this check into the vacation fund account. That leaves $100.23 which I'll be putting into my regular checking account to cover any odds and ends until I get my first check for January 2014. That means that the final weekly wrap up looks something like this...

Here is the week 52 wrap up:
$39.12 to my 401K
$222.59 to the money market savings
$200.00 to future car savings
$50.00 to the quarterly loan repayment
$40.00 to my vacation fund

Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1849.74 in my 401K
$1060.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$750.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2500.00 in my money market
$2077.40 in my car account

Now I have to remind you that most of the money that was saved this year is actually in the bank, but not all. I had to use some money for car repairs, my quarterly loan payment and for my vacation to Disney World, but the balances in all those accounts is at least the total that I saved this year. So without revealing how much money I started with you can at the very least assume that even though I made payments on a loan, did some car repairs and went on vacation I have at least what I started with in January, PLUS no money at all was taken out of the money market savings so that is at least $2500.00 up from the beginning of the year. 

All in all I think it was a pretty good year especially considering that due to a lack of overtime I made over $7,000.00 less than I made last year and I still went on a very nice vacation. There was also the month of February where I made much less than usual because I was out of work after having my gallbladder removed and over the summer I spent some money on schooling for a teachers assistant certificate. That didn't work out the way I hoped, but maybe we'll go over that next week in the full year wrap up (final issue). 

Just so you know that my craziness will not end just because the blog will, I present to you the completly filled 'yellow budget paper' and the one I made up for next year with all the dates of each payday just waiting to be filled in! 

PS. I'll include the totals next week in the officla year end wrap up, but I wanted to let you all know that we did not split the prize in the fantasy football league and the team that my wife picked and managed won the Super Bowl! So instead of splitting and winning $277.50, we have won a total of $453.00! She will get the majority of that money since she had all the know how and did all the work, but I get something for putting up the $50.00 to play!

Week #51 - pay advances, budgeting & fantasy football

Phew.... we are almost at the end of this silly little savings experiment and I must say that I'm very curious if any of you guys have taken any of my tips or come up with any of your own ideas to help you save some money. I hear from a few of you once in awhile and I know how hard it is to save, but even if you put away $5 a week from the start of this blog you could have $250 by now and that's a nice way to start a savings account! With all the holidays December is a hard time to not overspend, never mind save, but if you come into the season prepared you can make it through and stay on budget. I mentioned before that put aside two paychecks from earlier in the year to cover my Christmas shopping, but if you can't do that then the $250 from your $5 a week would have helped with your shopping!

When it gets this close to Christmas this is the time of the year that I'm very tempted to overspend. I get into the spirit and I see things that remind me of people and I just impulse purchase them because I like to give gifts. As much as I would like to have money left over from my Christmas shopping money as long as I can stay in my budget I'll be okay with it. I have finished most of my shopping, but I do have a few more things I want to pick up for people and I have a gift I need to get and then send out as part of a secret Santa that I'm in. I also have to somehow budget in getting my wife a birthday present because her birthday is in January. When your birthday is that close to Christmas you get shafted a lot of times and people give you a combo gift or they hold back one Christmas present and give it as a birthday gift so I have to make sure that I don't do that!

So we are at week $50 and according to my budget paper I only have this weeks paycheck and one more paycheck for 2013. Now because I am on vacation for two weeks, starting today, and because my work pays in advance for vacations my paychecks will be coming in early. I have to make sure that I figure out exactly what is supposed to happen with each one and I will try to do it on the usual weekly schedule so that I don't overspend just because there is more money in a certain account. Today is December 20th, so I will get the paycheck I would normally get plus I will get paycheck I would have gotten on January 3rd and the check from January 10th! The paycheck I would get on December 27th will have to be mailed to me because I wont be at work that day. I'm not as concerned with the two checks for January, but I will need the check for the 27th so that I can finish up my year end budgeting and savings!

I also have a little gambling update for you. My year end total for playing poker puts me at +$11 for the year and that comes from playing cards 113 times at work and 1 times with friends at home. I also ended up making the 'Super Bowl' in the fantasy football league that I'm in. Now I'll be honest and say I know nothing about football and my wife picked and managed the whole team, but we still get to split the money, with her getting a little extra for actually knowing about football! We had originally thought the two teams that made the 'Super Bowl' would split the total prize money $559.00, but the other team consists of a guy I work with and his 14 year old son and the kid said no to a split. I'll lay it out for you... If we split the kid would have gotten $107.25 and if he him and his dad win the Super Bowl he will get $198.00, BUT if he loses the Super Bowl he will only get $18.50. Now I'm not a huge gambler, but I feel like its not worth the risk of losing $89 to try and win an extra $90. I also can't believe that $100 means that little to a 14 year old that he is willing to risk it when our two teams are very evenly matched. We'll have to wait till next week for me to let you know how it turned out. If my team wins the Super Bowl my wife and I will end up with $455.00 and if we lose we will still end up with a profit of $100.00 which is still pretty good!

I already mentioned that this week I got three paychecks, but I'm only giving you the low down on one of them today. I got a check for $646.46 and $41.32 went to my 401k. This is the third check of the month and it has to go to my mortgage so I'm putting $460 in the mortgage account and the remaining $186.46 will go in my regular checking account to make sure my bills are all set by the end of the year. I did do my usual vacation transfer for $20, but I still didn't make it to the store to return my cans and bottles yet. I will do that by the end of the year though, I promise! That's about it for this week so here is the wrap up...

Here is the week 51 wrap up:
$41.32 to my 401K
$20.00 to my vacation fund

Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1810.62 in my 401K
$1020.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$700.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2277.41 in my money market
$1877.40 in my car account

BONUS!
You know why so many places and services offer to give you something for free for a month? Because they assume that you're going to forget to cancel it and if nothing else they will get at least one months worth of money out of you. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a free trial, but if its not something you actually want make sure you cancel it! I'm actually including this as a bonus, but its more of a note for me so that I remember to cancel my Amazon Prime membership that I only signed up for to get free shipping on my Christmas orders!

DOUBLE BONUS!!
Since the next issue of this blog will come out after Christmas I want to give you a little gift card advice. Most people rush to the stores the day after Christmas to use the gift cards they just got. Now if the store is having a great after Christmas sale then go for it, but if stuff you want is regular priced then don't rush! Most of the stores don't restock that well until January and you will have more to choose from if you wait. There is no reason to rush and get something that isn't exactly what you wanted just because you got a gift card!

TRIPLE BONUS!!!
I have been using my cash back reward credit card to buy gas for quite awhile and talking about how great it is to get the cash back. I recently found out about a program they have at a store called Cumberland Farms (most of you probably know of it). If you sign up with them and have the money for gas taken right out of your checking account you can save .10 cents per gallon every time! You can either use an app on your smart phone where you just put in the pump and station numbers or you can get a card in the store and sign up online. Either way its a huge savings. Much better than 1 or 2% cash back! Check it out at www.cumberlandfarms.com/smartpay

I hope everyone has a great holiday no matter what you believe or celebrate. Be safe and enjoy some friends or family!

Week #50 - Friday the 13th

So here we are at week #50 of my silly little blog. I really can't believe that I didn't stop doing it months ago when I started running out of things to write about and when I paid attention enough to notice that some weeks less than 10 people were reading. I guess it got to a point where I figured I had committed to doing it for at least the year and damn it, I was gonna finish it. We're now at wee #50 which could mean 2 more blogs since there are 52 weeks in a year, but I think I will go one further and give you guys a full year wrap up the first week of January. That way I can make sure that all my deposits are made, checks are cleared, bills are paid and deposit bottles are returned!

I have been thinking a lot about the saving that I have done this year and how important it is to me and I do realize that I obsess on it and that I stress about money and I think I'm broke even though I have saved a minimum of a couple of hundred dollars every month this year. I just can't help it because I feel like saving money and running my crazy budget is the only thing I'm good at. It's those feelings that are making it extra hard to find a new job because even if I could find one that would make enough to pay my bills (I haven't yet) I know I won't be able to save as much which makes me sad since it the only thing I feel that I do well. I'm kind of caught in a web of my own OCD and lack of self confidence. Wow... enough with the psychotherapy... this blog is about money, not feelings!

So its Christmas time and we all spend more money around this time of the year. We know that we're going to do it so the best thing you can do is try to be somewhat prepared. I had mentioned before that I set aside two paychecks from the months that had five weeks specifically for Christmas shopping and so far its working out well. I have done most of my shopping and still have cash left which is nice. I guess I could possibly go over budget, but even if i do its not like I had no money saved to buy the presents. It's also nice to get some bargains around this time of year so pay attention to print ads and sales online. You might find a great gift at a good price or you might find something you already needed at a special price!

While I was doing my budget for this week I noted the 'year to date gross pay' on my paycheck and remembered that I had a few weeks when I was out of work after my gallbladder surgery and the pay for this weeks came from an insurance company. When I added the insurance gross to my current 'year to date gross' and then my estimated gross for the last three paychecks of 2013 I found that I will probably make about $7000.00-$8000.00 LESS this year than I did last year because I have been offered no overtime at all. It upset me because my goal is always to make more, but I guess I should be happy that at least I was able to save even with a smaller income.


All right... enough of all that... this week I got a paycheck for $613.82 and $39.12 went to my 401k. I'm going to take $460.00 and put it in my mortgage account since its the second week of the month. The remaining $153.82 is going into my regular checking account. Spoiler Alert: I will probably do almost the same thing with next weeks paycheck too. I did do my standard $20.00 vacation transfer, but that's all for this week. There will be more saving before the end of the year, but a lot of my goals have been reached or are very close so I'm just trying to keep things on track and not stress about spending for the next few weeks! Here's the wrap up...

Here is the week 50 wrap up:
$39.12 to my 401K
$20.00 to my vacation fund

Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1769.30 in my 401K
$1000.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$700.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2277.41 in my money market
$1877.40 in my car account

I've talked many times about credit cards and how they can be used in a very smart way. I my credit card for gas (all though I'm looking into something new that I'll talk more about soon), food when we go out to eat and some big purchases. I already got one $50.00 cash back check earlier this year and on last months credit card statement my cash back total was $49.98 which sounds awesome, but its only paid out in $50.00 increments so I have to wait until my next statement to get the $50.00. Now that's a funny little story, but what it comes down to is that just for using my credit card I have earned $100.00 of FREE money! Don't leave that money on the table... start using your credit cards in a responsible way and earn some free cash!!

Week #49 - It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...

hey everyone... I'm back on schedule (assuming that I remember to post this Friday morning) so that's kind of nice. As I'm starting to type this I'm still trying to figure out what to talk about. I know I said I would tell you about my 'Cyber Monday' shopping, but to be honest I didn't take advantage of any real sales. I did order a bunch of stuff, but it was just because I finally figured out some stuff to get a few people for Christmas.

I can tell you that I saved $30 on an Amazon purchase that I was going to make anyway. I added all the things I needed to my Amazon 'Shopping Cart' and when I went to check out it told me that I could apply for the Amazon Rewards Credit Card and if I was approved and I used it I would get $30 off my purchase. There is not much I won't try doing to save $30, but all I had to do was enter the standard info you need for a credit application and wait about 30 seconds for the approval. Then when I finished my check out it took the $30 off the final price. Not a bad deal at all! Amazon offers free shipping if you spend up to a certain amount of money, but if you don't want to spend that much you can sign up for 'Amazon Prime' for free for 30 days and as a member of 'Amazon Prime' you will get free 2nd day shipping on all orders no matter what the total spent is. So take advantage of that too, just make sure you remember to cancel your membership before the 30 days runs out or they will charge you $60.00 for the year.

I thought of something else that I have not mentioned at all in this blog. I like to play poker, really just Texas hold 'em. I really like to play, but I'm cheap and don't like to lose money so I don't really play for 'big' money. I have played in a casino two times and lost about $50-$60 each time and I left as mad as a 'normal' person would be if they had lost $5000! I do play pretty regularly with some guys at work during our lunch break. Each person puts in $5.00 and gets 20 washers, which means each washer is worth .25 cents. I like playing and $5.00 is far from 'big money' but the problem is that two of the guys that play everyday don't care about the money at all and they will raise all in on almost every hand no matter what cards they have which makes it very hard to play at the table. I complain and say I wont play anymore, but I always go back. I keep track on my calendar about if I played and how much I won or lost each day. I did a review the other day and as of today I have played poker 104 times (102 at work and 1 with some friends at home) and I am negative $26.00 for the year. As much as I hate to lose money I don't think that's to bad since I got a lot of entertainment out of playing and $26.00 would barely be enough for two movie tickets.

Last thing I will mention this week is a reminder about two paychecks that I got earlier this year. The paychecks I got on August 9th and November 22nd were 'extra' checks because those months had five weeks. I still have both those checks uncashed and not deposited set aside to do my Christmas shopping. I will be depositing both checks this week since I did some online shopping and I have to pay my credit card this week to avoid any interest. I will however be getting a $50.00 'cash back' bonus with my next statement which is nice!

Ok... so on to this weeks income. I got a paycheck for $563.07 with $35.70 going to my 401k. The reason the check is a little less than usual is because we had a power outage at work last week and I left 3.5 hours early instead of sitting in the dark all day. Since this is the first paycheck of December I will be putting the whole thing in my checking account to pay some bills. I did make my $20.00 vacation transfer, but that's all for this week. I have some cans, but I didn't have time to return them yet so that might count towards next weeks saving. Here's the wrap up...

Here is the week 49 wrap up:
$35.70 to my 401K
$20.00 to the vacation fund

Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1730.18 in my 401K
$980.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$700.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2277.41 in my money market
$1877.40 in my car account

For this weeks bonus I'll tell you about a couple of deals I saw. For people that drink a lot of coffee, Dunkin Donuts is offering a travel mug that holds a medium coffee and costs $2.49. When you buy it you can get it filled for free, but then every refill after that until the end of February only costs you .99 cents. The catch is that the .99 cent refills are from 2:00pm and later, so this deal is really only good for people that drink coffee all day and not just morning coffee drinkers.
 

This next deal is one I saw at a local restaurant chain called Chelos, but I know a lot of places do this during the holidays. For every $50 gift card you buy, you get an additional $10 card. The people at Chelos actually offer to put it all on one card so the last two times we went there for dinner I went to the reception desk before our check came and I bought a $50 (+$10) gift card and then used it to pay the bill. That's simple math of getting free money that you were going to spend anyway! Keep an eye on places you go regularly and stock up on gift cards because they usually only have offers like this around major holidays!

As always please check out the Facebook page and post up any holiday deals you see or hear about so we can all take advantage of the savings!!

Week #48 -I'm Late!

Hi everyone... I'm sorry to the 10 of you that are weekly readers that this blog is coming out 3-4 days late. I usually write this while I'm at work and I was planning to start it last Wednesday, but there was a power outage at work and I sat in the dark from 7:30am till 11:30 when they finally let us leave if we chose to. Then I was out for Thanksgiving on Thursday and we get the day after as a holiday also. Then I had to some things to do over the weekend and I just didn't get to it, but I do apologize that this blog is so late and will be short.

So last Friday was what some people consider the biggest shopping day of the year. I have a little routine that I like to do, but it doesn't involve going out at 1:00 am and trying to find a $100 TV. I got up at about 8:00 and left shortly after that to go to the Rubber Chicken Comics 'Black Friday' sale. I picked up some cool stuff on deep discount and then had lunch at Subway. I have a little secret for you about Subway. They have a new 'Sriracha Chicken' sandwich that costs $7.00 for the footlong, however if you order the 'Oven Roasted' chicken sandwich you can have all the same items put on it as the special 'Sriracha' sandwich and it costs $1.00 less. The only difference is the chicken in the 'Sriracha' sandwich is cut up into small pieces and the 'Oven Roasted' sandwich is larger pieces of chicken.

All righty.... so after lunch at Subway, I made a few more stops including Walgreens where I bought 3 large jar candles (fake Yankee Candles) that were 3 for $9.99. I actually go to Walgreens for this sale every year. I also went made stops at Target, Walmart & Ocean State Job Lot, but I didn't really buy anything significant at those places. I went to the 5 Below store and bought a couple of small things and then made a trip to Providence to go to my favorite record store Armageddon Shop because they had 3 new releases on their label that came out on Friday.

That was pretty much the extent of my 'Black Friday' shopping and I didn't really do much else over the weekend. I did some shopping on 'Cyber Monday' but I'll save that for this weeks blog, which will be out in a few days! So on to the wrap up...

I got a paycheck for $613.82 and $39.12 went to my 401k. This was the last check of November so it should have been all for saving, but I'm trying to make sure I reach all my goals and have no big outstanding bills by the end of the year so I changed it up a little. I put $200.00 in my car savings account, $50.00 in my loan repayment account, $50.00 in my money market savings and the remaining $313.82 into my regular checking account to make sure I can pay my bills. I also did my $20.00 vacation transfer.

Here is the week 48 wrap up:
$39.12 to my 401K
$200.00 to my car account
$50.00 to my loan repayment account
$50.00 to my money market savings
$20.00 to my vacation fund


Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1694.48 in my 401K
$960.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$700.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2277.41 in my money market
$1877.40 in my car account







For this weeks bonus I just want to say that last week I had 2-3 different people tell me in person that they read and enjoy the blog. I know that represents 1/4 of the readers, but it was still nice to hear so thank you guys!

Week #47 - Phoning It In...

Hi guys... I'm sad to say, but willing to admit that even though we are in the final countdown towards the end of the year I am totally phoning it in for this weeks blog. I've had a very stressful last month or so with lots going on and then this past weekend I was really sick so I don't have much to say.

I want to make sure I promote my friends and tell you that I was able to get an advance ticket for the Super Mega Fest (comiccon type thing) that is this weekend from my friends at Rubber Chicken Comics so I'll be at the 'Mega Fest'. Then next weekend the boys at Rubber Chicken are having their annual 'Black Friday Weekend' sale which includes INSANE deals on Black Friday and more great deals on the Saturday and Sunday so check out www.RubberChickenComics.com for more info.

This week I also designed a logo for a friends plumbing company so if you're in the Rhode Island area and you need a plumber I urge you to call either my friend Sarah at www.AnneThePlumber.com or my friend Greg at American Pride Plumbing & Heating (google it). Greg is the one I designed the logo for so hopefully you will see my design on his business card or promotional material soon.

I got a paycheck for $667.21 which is more than usual because I worked a couple of hours overtime last week. $42.79 went to my 401k, but with the exception of my $20.00 vacation transfer that will be the only saving I do this week. I'm going to tuck this check in my checkbook and use it to pay for my Christmas shopping, assuming I can come up with some ideas on what to get people. That's another thing I'm stressing about! Here's the wrap up...

Here is the week 47 wrap up:
$42.79 to my 401K
$20.00 to my vacation fund


Which makes the 2013 totals:
$1655.36 in my 401K
$940.00 in the vacation fund
$109.90 in the piggy bank
$650.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$288.87 in my vet bill savings
$2227.41 in my money market
$1677.40 in my car account

Bonus...

I still have some saving to do to try and meet the goals I had set for each account balance, but I have 2 more checks that are potentially designated for 'saving' so hopefully I can meet those goals.

My mortgage is actually going down a little bit starting next month. I assume its because the insurance went down, but I'm not sure. Anyway, my plan is to continue to pay the same amount each month and have the additional money go toward the principle. It won't be much, but anything that pays down the principle of the loan is good.

I have a very short week next week because at my work we get both Thanksgiving and the day after as holidays. Then I have two weeks of vacation that I need to take before the end of the year. My plan is to take the last 2 weeks of the year (which includes 3 holidays) which should mean I get 19 straight days out of work. My last day will most likely be December 19th and I'll return on January 8th.

My wife recently reminded me that I didn't sell my old iPhone yet. I have no real explanation of it except that I feel like its worth more than I can get and there for I shouldn't sell it which makes NO sense what so ever... I'm crazy!

I've recently felt burned, taken advantage of, taken for granted and just generally treated shitty by some people lately. Its made me appreciate the friends that I have even more and helped me notice the things that may be small to some people, but are actually huge to me that some people actually do for me. So to the good people... thank you. To the shitheads... I may not be there the next time you need someone to use before you step over me.