Vegas Vacation Recap

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Welcome_to_fabulous_las_vegas_sign Last week I had a five-day vacation in Las Vegas. Although I lost money gambling, the total cost of the vacation ended up being very little. I got the flight, hotel room, and rental car for free. I did not note how much cash I had before starting but I think I had roughly $85 in cash with me and had $9 left at the end of the trip. So the trip cost me approximately $80 since I didn’t take out any cash and any credit card purchases were reimbursed.

The flight was free because I have the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Card. The card has a sign up bonus of 50,000 points which is good for at least two round trip flights. I think I’ll end up getting two round trip flights plus a one-way for my points since I got some cheaper flights. One drawback to this card is that they don’t waive the annual fee for the first year. If you would like to sign up for this card you can leave a comment and I’ll send you a referral link. If you sign up through the referral link you will get the 50,000 point bonus offer and I’ll get 5000 points for referring you. If you don’t want to sign up through my referral link it is easy to find the same offer on the web.

The hotel and rental car were free because I used points from my Capital One Venture card. This card gave me 50,000 points worth $500 in travel when I signed up. This card does waive the annual fee for the first year. The link to the Cap 1 card is not an affiliate link and the bonus is smaller at this time.  I also recommend the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World MasterCard® which pays an effective $440 bonus.

We didn’t spend any money on visiting any attractions. It was my girlfriend’s first time to Vegas so there was plenty to see. We toured a lot of the casinos and watched the light show at Bellagio and the volcano at the Mirage, but there was still a lot more we didn’t have time to see. I didn’t count money spent on food as a trip expense since it was about the same as it would have been if I were at home.  I did eat at In-N-Out Burger a couple of times which I considered to be special meals, but other than that I just had ordinary food. Since I covered the expense of the hotel and rental car my girlfriend covered the $20 in gas for the rental car and the $35 for airport parking.

Overall, I managed to spend four nights and five days in Las Vegas and only spent about $80. I consider that a bargain.  My next trip will probably be more expensive, but I’m hoping I’ll have enough credit card points and SW miles to keep it cheap.

The Minimum Wage Millionaire – Book Review and Giveaway

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minwagemillion I was recently given a copy of the book, The Minimum Wage Millionaire: How a Part Time After School Job Can Change Your Financial Life, to review. I’m offered books to review almost every week, but I have been declining them for quite a while since I’ve read so many personal finance books that I’m pretty much burnt out on the subject. Plus, I regularly read lots of personal finance blogs so I like to read about something else for my additional reading. Since I hadn’t done a giveaway for a long time and I liked the idea of this book I decided to review and give away this book.

The concept of the book is fairly simple. If you are able to invest the maximum Roth IRA contributions for six years while in your teens and early 20’s then you have a good chance of that money growing to a million dollars by the time you are retirement age. You can quibble about the expected return on investment or note that a million dollars won’t be worth near as much by that time, but it is still obvious that starting your savings early will dramatically improve your financial situation later in life.

The author states that this is the book he wishes he would have read when he was younger. By writing the book he hopes to make more young people aware of how beneficial starting to save early for retirement can be. This idea resonates with me. I read a lot personal financial books when I was in my early 20’s and knew how powerful starting to save early could be. Unfortunately, I worked minimum wage jobs back then and barely made enough to pay my bills so I wasn’t able to save much. Once I finally landed a decent paying job I totally abandoned my good financial habits and blew all my money and went into debt. I eventually ended up cashing out the few thousand I had managed to save in an IRA while trying to get out of debt. If only I had kept the same money habits I had when I was making minimum wage once I started making a decent wage I’d be a lot better off financially right now. Having the knowledge isn’t the same as applying the knowledge. If there are any young people reading this post, don’t make the same mistake I did.

The Giveaway

In order to enter to win a Kindle copy of the book, “The Minimum Wage Millionaire”, all you need to do is leave a comment. There is a limit of one comment per person. Other contest rules will apply as needed to maintain fairness. Entry to the giveaway will end on Sunday June 22, 2014 and a winner will be chosen by random drawing. Note that you do not need to own a Kindle in order to be able to read a Kindle book. There are free Kindle apps for smart phones, tablets, and PCs that can be used to read the book.

Weight Loss Bet Update 2 and Other News

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Earlier this year I bet $3000 that I would lose thirty pounds in six months. In the first month I lost twelve pounds. Another month has passed since then so now it is time to post my weight loss for the second month of the bet period. After doing so well in the first month I slacked off during the second month and that laziness is reflected in my results. I managed to lose zero pounds in the second month. That is better than gaining weight, but it certainly isn’t good. A month like the last one could end up costing me $3000.

For my first two months my average weight loss is six pounds a month. If I lost six pounds every month that would be a total weight loss of thirty-six pounds which would be good enough to win my bet. Even though my average for the two months is okay I know I need to do a lot better this month. I’m not going to be able to exercise all day like I did while hiking during the first month, but I can exercise a lot more than I did in the second month. There is also a lot of room for improvement with my eating. After returning from my hike I followed the Weight Watchers diet plan for a couple of weeks and it worked well for me. However, like most diet plans the Weight Watchers diet plan doesn’t work if you don’t actually follow it. Last month I barely kept track of my daily points and I know that most days I went over my allotted points. I’m back on the WW plan now. The fear of losing $3000 has been refreshed in my mind and I will be sticking to plan this month. I doubt I can lose twelve pounds like I did the first month, but I think a loss of at least six pounds is reasonable.

Other News

In other news I recently started a medical study that will pay me a total of $3000. That money could cover my expenses for about three months. I have different plans for this money though. I have needed dental implants for several years, but could not afford them. I’m earmarking all the medical study money towards getting implants. I need three implants and I will be getting them at the local dental school. They quoted me a price of $1200 to $1400 per implant so the study money will not be enough to cover all the costs of the implants. It will at least cover almost all of the cost and I can make up the rest from my savings or if I am working I can cash flow the extra cost from my paychecks.

I am supposed to start another document review job next week. The exact start date hasn’t been set yet so the job is still not a sure thing. The job is only supposed to last two or three weeks and I will be gone one week for my Las Vegas vacation. I’m lucky they didn’t care that I will miss the week due to vacation. That is usually a deal breaker for these short-term jobs. It would have been nice if the job had started a couple of weeks ago and finished right before my vacation. The nature of short-term jobs like these is that they don’t always come at convenient times so you got to work them when they are available. I’m doing fine on money. I haven’t dipped into my savings since my tax job ended in April although I haven’t added to my savings either. This month should be much better financially then May though.

During the last month I was really lazy. It is too soon to say for sure but, I think I might have figured out how to overcome my laziness. I’ve noticed that if I get up in the morning and write my 1000 words and/or exercise that I end up having a productive day. Or at least what I consider a productive day. On the other hand, if I decided to have a leisurely breakfast or put off my exercise and writing until later for some reason then I almost always end up not having a productive day. Although I tell myself I will take it easy in the morning and get to work in the afternoon that almost never happens. I guess it works like inertia. If I start off lazy I tend to remain lazy. If I start off productive then I tend to stay productive. I just need to be more disciplined in the morning. If I can motivate myself to work in the morning then the rest of the day will usually be productive with no more motivation needed. One month from now I will let you know how this worked.

May Income – $92.79

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Online Income

 $0.00
Interest

$3.37

Dividends

$0.00

Cash Back

$39.53

Amazon FBA

 $3.54

Sell Stuff

 $46.35

Total

$92.79

Yikes! My income for May was terrible.  A check I was supposed to receive from an advertiser didn’t arrive so I my online income was actually negative in May. To keep things simple I’m just going to subtract the loss from June’s income.  The check has been promised to arrive in June so I should have at least a little bit of positive online income this month.

Since I sold most of my dividend stocks and invested them in an index fund in my IRA my dividend income is way down.  None of the individual stocks I own paid a dividend in May resulting in $0 dividend income for the month.  I do have at least one stock paying a dividend this month. It won’t be much, but it is better than $0.

My income from Mr. Rebates was one of my largest sources of income this month. That income would have to be a lot bigger for that to be a good thing.  If you haven’t joined Mr. Rebates yet you can get a $5 bonus for signing up through my referral link and I’ll make a little money for referring you as well.
Mr. Rebates

I started a new experiment trying to make money with Amazon FBA.  As you can see, I didn’t do too well. If I hadn’t made the mistake of paying $40 for a professional seller account I would have done ok for the month.  I’m going to continue to try to make money with Amazon FBA, but I will keep the expenses down. I’ll try to make a little more from Ebay and Craigslist too.

My June income should be much better.  Of course, it won’t be hard to improve on May’s meager income. I worked 43.5 hours at a job in May and that paycheck will be received this month. I did some mystery shopping in May that I’ll get paid for this month. Also, I had an MRI for a medical study that I will get paid for this month.  If I make the study I should make about $1000 from it this month. Even if I don’t make the study I’ll still get paid for the MRI I took in May.  Although I didn’t make much money in May I did participate in endeavors in May that will pay me this month.

May Expenses – $1089.97

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household $420.12
Entertainment

$201.88

Transportation

 $64.05

Food

$134.63

Travel

$22.50
Student Loan

$106.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$113.98

Total

 $1089.97

 

My May expenses were pretty low, but I didn’t quite make my goal of keeping my expenses under $1000 a month.  The main budget killer this month was my entertainment expense.  The main reason for it being high was that I included the purchase of my bike and bike accessories as entertainment.  My bike only cost $15.  Buying a helmet, car carrier, bike tools, and a spare tube added quite a bit more to the total cost though.  If I follow through and ride my bike regularly this will be money well spent.

The health cost was a little higher than usual because I had a dentist appointment. I might have another dentist appointment this month which would keep this expense category high.  I plan on having a lot of dental work done so this will be an expensive category in the coming months.

My transportation cost was unusually low. My only transportation expense for the month was gasoline. The gas expense was kept down by using cash back from my credit card. This month I have to buy six months of insurance and renew my car registration so this category will go way up.

My expenses this month will probably be up slightly since I have an over $200 car insurance bill to pay. I’m also taking a three day vacation in Las Vegas. Most of that vacation has already been paid.  If I don’t do well at the poker tables though, the vacation could get a lot more expensive.