Five Things You Should Get for Free

by

This is just a list I came up with off the top of my head.  I’m sure not everyone will agree with them and there are some exceptional situations where you will have to pay for these items.

  1. Pens- I get free pens as promotional items all the time.  I don’t understand why people pay big bucks for fancy pens.  The only thing you need a pen to do is write and in my experience a free pen writes just as well as an expensive one.
  2. Matches- I don’t need these too often, which is good because it is harder to get free matches anymore.  They are still available at many bars and casinos though.
  3. Drinking Water- This isn’t completely free since you do pay something for the water coming out of your tap.  A glass of water would only cost a fraction of a penny though.  If you carry a reusable drinking container you should rarely if ever find yourself having to purchase bottled water.
  4. Music- It is free on the radio.  You can borrow cds from your local library if you feel the need to listen to a particular song.  If you need to own the music I see promotions for free MP3 downloads all the time.
  5. DVD Rentals- If you have a Redbox near you than you don’t need to rent DVDs.  Redbox comes out with a free code every Monday and that code is good once for every credit/debit card you have.  That allows you to get multiple free rentals.  A quick Google search will turn up even more free rentals.
  6. Stock Trades- Blogging Banks suggested getting free stock trades with Zecco.  I use them and haven’t had any problems so far.  I believe there are some other ways to get free stock trades as well.

Check out the comments for many more freebies.

Goals for 2009

by

I have already posted about a couple of goals I set for 2009 but with the New Year rapidly approaching I decided to add a few more. I’ve also decided I should try to make them S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely).

The goals I already set were to have my expenses under $10,000 for next year and my income to be higher than my expenses. I may not have thought out those goals too well though. I can probably keep my expenses under $10,000 next year if I don’t include the cost of bar prep; with bar prep included that goal probably isn’t very realistic. I might not be able to have my income be higher than my expenses either because I plan on hiking for five months of the year. During which time I’ll be making very little money. I’m keeping these goals as non-smart goals for now and I’ll revisit them when it becomes clearer on whether they are realistic of not.

Now on to the S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Financial
Increase my passive income- This goal should easily be met. I will be investing in more dividend-paying stocks and developing other sources of passive income such as eHow.

Health
Lose 30 pounds- My goal last year was to lose 20 pounds. I went backwards on that and now I need to lose 30 pounds. If I go hiking the last 5 months of the year I will easily lose 30 pounds. Hiking would be a lot easier if I were in shape before I started though. My plans to get in shape include. Run/do cardio 3 times a week or more. Finish the Hundred Pushup Challenge. Drastically reduce or eliminate my soda consumption. Eat out no more than 2 times a week. These are all attainable steps but I haven’t done them in the past. I need to do them now.

Blogging
Increase my subscribers to 500 or more- Last year I started off with less than 100 subscribers and my subscribers hover around 300 now. Natural growth alone might get me to 500. I have some plans to help promote the blog though. I will submit my posts to Carnivals and Festivals more often. I will have giveaways at least once a month. I will write more posts. And lastly, I will look for more ways to promote this blog.

I will check up on these goals at the end of every month. That way I can see if I am making progress towards my goal and adjust accordingly.

WaMu Canceled My Credit Card

by

As I was warned might happen WaMu canceled my credit card due to inactivity. I hadn’t used the card in over a year and utilized the account only for checking on my credit score. Although I was warned the card might be canceled for inactivity I decided to not use the card and let WaMu close it if they wanted to. I wasn’t going to use the card just to keep getting the free credit score. As it turns out this decision was irrelevant because my account had already been closed. I didn’t know it yet because I get all my correspondence for that card at my mom’s address. It was my newest card so the closing shouldn’t hurt my credit score much and I won’t know how it affects my credit score because I don’t have access to my free credit score anymore.

Some Ways I'll Cut Expenses in 2009

by

The big expense I’ll be cutting is transportation because I won’t have a car. I’ll still have some transportation expenses but I think I should be able to cut this expense by up to $1000. Another expense I’ll cut is my cell phone. When my contract expires at the end of June I am not going to renew it. This will save me $35 a month. The savings will be less if I decide to add a line to my GF’s cell plan. I most likely won’t though and will just use a public phone if I need to make a call away from home. I’m also enrolling in an HSA eligible health insurance plan. This will save me about $10 a month plus any tax savings from contributing to the HSA. The biggest way I plan to cut expenses is by hiking the Appalachian trail for five months. I intend to hike on $200 a month. I’ll still have some non-hiking expenses but this will greatly reduce my overall expenses. These aren’t all the ways I’ll cut expenses but it should be all the major ones. What are your plans for cutting expenses in 2009?

Excuses

by

It seems lately that whenever I read a personal finance article dispensing financial advice people are quick to leave comments as to why the advice won’t work for them. Since I don’t know the people leaving the comments I don’t know if they are legitimate excuses or not. Financial advice is not one size fits all and you can’t expect what works for one to work for everybody. That being said I still think there are a lot of people just making excuses for why they can’t improve their finances. It appears when they read financial advice they think of why that wouldn’t work for them rather than how to make it work for them. They may want to improve their finances but they don’t really want to make any changes in their life.

I am guilty of this myself. I have done a poor job of meeting goals I have set for myself this year. Making excuses to yourself doesn’t work very well since you know they are BS. With that in mind I’ll be making some more goals for next year that I’ll post soon. And next year there will be no excuses.