Tight Fisted Miser

Got My Tax Stimulus Rebate Today

It was scheduled to be paid no later than the May 9th and I got it today the 9th of May.  It was in the amount of $368 which was somewhat surprising. I only heard of the amounts being $300 or $600, I wasn’t aware they did amounts in between as well.  I was thinking I was only going to get $300 so I’m happy to get the little bit extra.  I had hoped to use this amount to either invest in my IRA or pay down my student loans.  Instead I’m going to use it to pay next month’s rent and hope that will result in my having a surplus of money in June to save or invest.

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »

Would You Fall for this IRS Scam?

I received the following in my email yesterday. Even if I hadn’t already received my refund in March I don’t think I would have fallen for this. The sad thing is there probably are people out there who are stupid enough to get scammed by an email like this.

Posted in Frugality, One Month Challenge | 1 Comment »

April Investment Income- $27.50

This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings.  What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income. The 6% figure is the highest interest I can earn in an FDIC insured account right now. My plan is to eventually have my investment income equal or exceed my expenses. My expenses were $1581.53 in April so I have quite a way to go. The total of my expenses should go down though, making the gap not quite as large.

I just started reporting this figure now because I should now make enough money to be able to contribute enough to my savings to have this figure consistently rise. However if I’m no longer able to get 6% interest or my stock fund declines significantly the amount could still go down. I’m hoping that won’t happen and my contributions will be sufficient to cover any minor fluctuations.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking | 3 Comments »

April Expenses-$1581.53

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

Expenses were way too high for April. My goal is to keep my expenses under $1000 not counting optional debt repayment. If my entertainment expenses wouldn’t have been ridiculously high I would have been on budget. Most of the entertainment expenses was in the first week of April and I’ve now gotten that back under control. I now have a girlfriend and my best friend is coming back to town this month after being gone for a month and a half so I’ll still have considerable entertainment expense for May but it should be much lower than April.

I plan to make significant cuts in my food and student loan expense also. I plan to cut back on the fast food and the junk food to lower my food expense. I’ve decided to not pay ahead on my student loan for now which will reduce that expense.

Household, Utilities, and Transportation expense should all remain roughly the same. April’s transportation expense included a payment for six months of liability insurance. My gas expense actually went down even though gas prices were higher because I drove less. This month I’m going to start working three hours away from my apartment and commuting back most weekends. That will cause my gas expense to rise but I hope the total transportation expense will not be more than in April.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking | No Comments »

I’m Getting Fat

More accurately, I’m getting fatter. One of my goals for this year was to lose 20 pounds. I weighed myself earlier this week and I’ve gained eight pounds since the beginning of the year. Now I’ve got to lose 28 pounds. My main problem has been eating too much fast food and junk food. I’m cutting back on that now and I need to start exercising also. I’ve been successful at losing weight in the past. I know what I need to do I just have to start doing it.

Posted in Goals | No Comments »

Quitting Law School

I’m not actually quitting law school but the idea is somewhat tempting. I can’t say I’m enjoying law school at all. At this point I feel like I have too much time and money invested to quit though. I’m hoping that once I do some actual legal work this summer that I will like it. One more year of law school will be much more bearable if I feel that I have a legal job that I’ll like to look forward to once I finish. Several people have told me that they hated law school but love being a lawyer so I hope that is the case for me as well.

Posted in Law School | 2 Comments »

Freebie Friday

Here are some free deals for you.

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. This is celebrated the first Saturday in May each year. Go to FreeComicBookDay.com to find a participating comic book shop in your area.

McDonalds is giving a free southern style chicken biscuit or chicken sandwich with the purchase of a medium or large drink on May 15.  I doubt they’re as good as Chick-Fil-A but for free I’ll try one. More details at WhatCameFirst.com.

You can get a free movie rental each Monday in May from Redbox. They’ve been doing this since February so this will probably continue after May. You just need to sign up for the SMS Alert network here.

Posted in Good Deals | No Comments »

April Income- $371.06

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

Since I can’t work during the semester all of my income is alternative income. I’m really pleased with my online income. I’ve already made this year than all of last year. May should be even better than April. Most of this online income is from my other blog. This blog hasn’t really been monetized yet and I’m debating whether I should. I’ll discuss that in a blog post sometime.

I’m also pleased that my alternative income total is almost as much as my rent of $375. I’ll have to set a goal of making enough to pay my rent with alternative income this month.

The interest amount is high because it includes ING Direct referrals. Since they will be reported as interest on my 1099 at the end of the year I just go ahead and count them as rent now.

Posted in Expense/Income Tracking | No Comments »

Don’t Forget to Make Money

The simplified formula for personal financial success is to spend less than you earn and invest the rest. Blogs like mine concentrate on the spend less part but don’t say much about the earning part. This makes sense since this is a frugality blog but I think the earning part of the personal finance formula is too often overlooked. I’m certainly guilty of it. It is one of the issues I addressed in my “I’m Frugal So Why Am I Poor” series of posts. Other personal finance bloggers are guilty of it as well. In many cases I think this is because they are already earning a better than average income and assume the spending part is what every one needs to address. If you’re only making $15,000 a year though you need to concentrate on earning more, not just on spending less. At that level if you manage to save 10% of your income it is only $1500. This is better than nothing but you’re not likely to ever become financially independent at that rate. I’m looking forward to finishing the semester so I can start concentrating on earning more money and making financial progress. There are probably plenty of others out there who need to concentrate on earning more as well. I’ve added a “Make Money with TFM” page to get the earning more started.

Posted in Financial stuff | 2 Comments »

COPF #150 and FOF #123 Posts

The Carnival of Personal Finance is being hosted this week at Lazy Man and Money. It includes my post “Save Money,Save the Planet, By Not Having Kids.”  The Festival of Frugality is being hosted at  Sound Money Matters. It includes my post “Tracking Every Penny and My Non-Budget.” There are plenty of other good posts but I don’t have time to look at them right now since I should be studying instead of reading blog posts.

Posted in Announcements, Frugality | No Comments »