The MPRE
*Note- My intention has been for Saturdays to be for posts relating to law school and law but I haven’t been doing that on a regular basis.
A passing score on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam(MPRE) is required for admission to the bar in most U.S. jurisdicitions. Missouri is one of the states that requires it and I took the exam yesterday. You can take the MPRE before or after you take the bar exam. Most law students take the exam in either their 2L second semester or during their 3L year so they will have one less thing to worry about when studying for the bar exam and fulfilling all the requirements for admission to the bar.
Most (all?) law schools require you to take a Professional Responsibility course which covers much of the same material that will be on the MPRE. I would strongly advise anyone who needs to take the MPRE to take it when they are taking the Professional Responsibility course. This way the studying you do for Professional Responsibility or the MPRE will serve you for both. This will make taking the MPRE much easier.
I took my Professional Responsibility course this spring but didn’t take the MPRE then because I wasn’t sure if I would be continuing in law school. Once I knew I was staying in law school I registered to take the August MPRE. I thought I would still remember most of the material I learned in Professional Responsibility and be fine for taking the MPRE but I had forgotten a lot already. I’m hoping that I passed the test but not taking it in the spring is looking like it might have been a mistake.
How to See Movies Cheaply or Even Free
I love movies and watch a lot of them. Here is how I manage to do it on the cheap.
For DVDs I mainly use Redbox which I have posted about before. Now it is an even better deal. When you sign up for their SMS alert system they will send you a free promo code every Monday. This month they are also sending free promo codes on Wednesday. Since the codes are good for each credit card you have I sometimes rent two movies using different cards and then have one to watch on Monday and one to watch on Tuesday. As long as I remember to return them before 9pm the rentals are free. Luckily, I have a Redbox that is only a three-minute walk away. We also have a $5 Netflix subscription to allow us to watch movies that aren’t available on Redbox. Our cost per movie for Netflix and Redbox together is well under a dollar and even under 50 cents if we watch more movies than usual.
The other new thing I discovered this year is seeing movies cheaply by taking advantage of store promotions. I’ve been taking advantage of these all summer and I haven’t had to pay full price -full price means full matinee price,of course- for me and my GF’s movie tickets yet. An example is on this Slickdeals thread. If you buy 4 Axe body wash or spray at Walgreen’s you get 2 movie tickets free. The cost would be a little less than $7 making your movie tickets less than $3.50 each. And you get to use the product as well. I wouldn’t normally use Axe but I will to take advantage of this deal. If you can get a deal like this for a product you already use then it is like getting the movie tickets for free. I just go to Slickdeals once a week or so and do a search on the word “movie” to see what promos are available. I shouldn’t have to pay full price for a movie ticket for a long time.
July Investment Income
My July investment income rose to $29.44 from $27.69 the month before. This is pretty good since I was only able to contribute $100 to my Roth IRA. Most of the gain from the mutual fund in my Roth IRA rebounding a little and receiving the employer match on my small 401k. Since I’m quitting my job I won’t have a 401k much longer. I plan to do a rollover to my Roth IRA. The nice thing about my 401k is that my contributions and the employer match are immediately 100% vested.
Disclaimer: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.
Running a Marathon On the Cheap
Over at My Money Blog, Jonathan did a post about an Affordable Bucket List. One item on his list was running a marathon which he listed the cost of as being from free to $$$. Many commenters replied that running a marathon was very expensive and couldn’t be done cheaply much less for free. As I stated before in my post Keeping Hobbies Inexpensive people are taking something simple and making it more complicated and expensive than necessary.
I’ve run four marathons and haven’t spent a fortune to run them. Registration fees are usually the item I spend the most money on. You can easily save money on these by running in smaller races. An example close to me is the Heart of America marathon which has a $25 entry fee. You can use the Marathon Guide to find inexpensive marathons in your area. You can also often save money on race fees by registering early.
The next big expense is shoes. I usually spend only about $30 on my running shoes. Many people think you can’t possibly get quality shoes for that price but I disagree. I’ve run four marathons and have never had any knee, ankle, or feet problems despite being about twenty pounds overweight. The trick here is to buy shoes that were originally more expensive and have been marked down to about $30. When I lived in Nevada I bought my shoes at Big 5 Sporting Goods which usually had a good selection. I bought my last pair of shoes here in Kansas City at Off Broadway shoes. I try to purchase a brand that I’ve used before and had good results with such as New Balance. You can find New Balance shoes cheap online here. They had New Balance running shoes for under $30 when I checked this morning.
The last expense would be running apparel. You don’t really need to spend anything on this. You can run in an old pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. Running shorts will be more comfortable though and help prevent chafing. My solution for cheap running shorts is to buy swim trunks when they go on clearance at the end of the season. This is what I’m currently using and they work fine and the cost was about $5.
Those are the only things you need to spend any money on to run a marathon. I’m not counting food since you have to eat anyway. There is no need to buy any gels or special foods. Since I’ve always been overweight when training for marathons I didn’t feel a need to buy any extra food at all. The key to running a marathon on the cheap is the same one to doing many things on the cheap-keep it simple.
July Income-$1293.99
Here is a breakdown of my income for July.
| Job | $864.87 |
| Online Income | $370.24 |
| Bank/Referral Bonuses | $30 |
| Survey/Mystery Shopping | $13.5 |
| Interest | $15.38 |
| Total | $1293.99 |
My income was decent considering I only received one paycheck in July. Online income continues to be good and I hope to increase it. My bonuses were way down this month. This was mostly due to not receiving any OptionsXpress bonuses but their $100 bonus offer is back this month and my bonus income should go back up. A large part of my interest income is due to my Wachovia account paying 16% which is ending this month I think. The amount of interest will go down but it isn’t a significant part of my overall income. Although I quit my job I’ll receive two paychecks so that income shouldn’t be down too much. Next month will be the real test of whether I can make sufficient income without a job.
I Won Free Mcd’s for a Year Again
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might recall that last year I won free extra value meals for a year (1 a week) as part of a McDonald’s grand opening promotion. This morning a McDonald’s close to my GF’s house had a similar promotion and we had to take advantage of it. This grand opening was much more crowded than the last one but we still easily were in the first 75 walk-in customers and received our free extra value meals for a year. My GF already informed me that this won’t count as our weekly date meal but it is still a good deal. With the free McD’s I won before I’ll now have two free extra value meals a week during August and September. The drawback to this is that I want to lose weight and eating at McDonald’s doesn’t help that. I’m going to try to make slightly healthier choices but most of what I like at McD’s isn’t healthy.
July Expenses- $1099.62
Here is a breakdown of my expenses for July.
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Household
$401.23
Transportation
$340.47
Utilities
$87.34
Food
$73.50
Entertainment
$96.77
Student Loan Debt/Books
$100.31
Total
$1099.62
My expenses were pretty good for the month. The only thing that was too high was my transportation expenses. This was due to my taking a road trip and my car running inefficiently because it needs a tune-up. Since I won’t be taking a road trip this month and I’m quitting my job the transportation costs should be way down. My food costs should also go down since I’m eating many meals at my GF’s now. I count our restaurant meals as entertainment. The entertainment category isn’t too expensive because I find lots of free or low-cost entertainment for us. All the other categories should remain roughly the same.
July Goals Update
I didn’t do a goals update for June because I was terrible about making progress towards my goals in June. July was a much better month. My first goal of not acquiring any new debt other than student loans is still being met. This one is pretty easy to meet. I made some progress towards my goal of losing 20 pounds. After gaining 8 pounds earlier this year I’m now back to my original weight. I’ll now need to lose 20 pounds in six months rather than a year. This is doable but I’m going to have to put a lot more effort into it. I did make good progress on improving my blog. I started the Frugal Blog Network and I was featured twice on the Smart Spending blog at MSN.com.
FBN Roundup- Quit My Job Edition
I’ve only got one more week of work and then I’ll be officially jobless. One week after that law school starts, I won’t have lots of free time for long. Here are my favorite posts from the Frugal Blog Network and beyond this week.
“Give Linens a New Lease On Life” from Almost Frugal. This is a good idea and I might try it someday if my cheapness overcomes my laziness.
“In Defense of Expensive Shoes” from Antishay Ventenne. Sometimes better quality can be worth the extra expense. I don’t really see a need to have so many shoes though.
“A Hydroponic Garden” from Frugal Babe. I once knew a guy with a hydroponic garden, he didn’t use it grow spinach though. I might grow a garden of the non-hydroponic variety next year.
“Storing Your Financial Documents” from Not Made of Money. I seem to accumulate these things. It is good to know what I can get rid of.
“Class Warfare and The Simple Dollar” from The Simple Dollar. I’ve got some thoughts on this and I’ll post about it this week.
“How to Create Your Own Online Store” from Gather Little by Little. I’m looking to increase my online income and I’m probably going to try this out.
That is all for this week. Thanks again to everyone who commented after I was robbed and left suggestions for income ideas.
Brainstorming Income Ideas
Since I’m soon going to be unemployed I need to replace my job income. Towards that end I decided to brainstorm ten ways to make more money. These are the first ten ways I came up. Not all of them are good ideas but I just wanted to think of some ways to increase my income. I’d love to hear any ideas you have about making money also.
1. Get another job- This is the most obvious idea. It is going to be a fallback for now because I really want to make money from my own business and want to be free from any schedules.
2. Sell plasma- This could be done whenever I felt like it. I probably won’t do it though because there isn’t a collection center close to me and I think there are other things I could do that would have a better return.
3. Increase my blog income- This is easier said then done. Several things I could do to possibly increase my income are add adsense to this blog, add other affilliate programs, post more often, promote my blog, and change the design. There are many more things than that but that is a good start.
4. Launch more web sites- I won’t be launching any more blogs. I can barely keep the two I have updated. There are some other sites I want to launch. I have several domain names and have being doing research on PPC and keywords and such. I just need to get the sites launched.
5. Write articles for Associated Content- This isn’t a big moneymaker but I like to write and this would be a good place for articles that aren’t appropriate for my blogs. I can also publish and be paid for articles that I later make in to blog posts.
6. Other writing- I’m sure there are other places online that pay you for writing I just need to do some research and find out what they are. Also I could submit articles to offline publications.
7. Tutor- My LSAT score is high enough to qualify me to tutor but the one test prep company I applied to didn’t hire me. I’d prefer to do this on my own but am not sure how to go about it. I need to develop some tutoring skills. I have the knowledge but am not good at imparting it to a student.
8. Be a Guinea Pig- I’ve done many medical studies in the past and made good money from them. I need to call the local clinics and see if they have outpatient studies I could do while in school.
9. Surveys, Mystery Shopping, etc- I could also look to increase the little things I do for extra money now. This isn’t a very good option though because there are a limited amount of opportunities available and most of them don’t pay much for the time invested.
10. Sell stuff- I don’t own much but it would be helpul to sell a few things before I move at the end of September. What I really need to sell is the few hundred comic books I have in storage at my mom’s house. The vast majority of these books were bought at cover price or less and I got my value out of them when I read them. There really isn’t much point to keeping them now but I’ve delayed doing so out of laziness and a belief that I should be able to sell them for more than what they would fetch on Ebay. I need to research whether an Ebay store or some other way would be the best way to sell them.
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