Earlier this week I was very excited to read an article in the Wall Street Journal tackling whether coupons are worth it or not.  Of course, I know I am preaching to the choir here and all of you know that of course they are worth it.

However, this article does the math for you on the hourly rate you can earn by clipping coupons.  It even goes a step beyond that by adjusting it for taxes.  This is something that I had not considered myself actually.  See, if you calculate the hourly rate you earn when you clip a coupon, in actually that rate is higher.  Because that hourly rate you just “earned” by clipping coupons is not adjusted down by social security, federal or state taxes.  Since all of you are here to find out the best deals to maximize your coupons your hourly rate may even be considered a  higher.

I have said this many times, while you may have found yourself needing to clip coupons because you had to, I hope that as your financial situation improves you won’t stop doing this.  Most of us are often wishing we could earn more money.  Consider coupon clipping that side job you wish you had to earn some extra money.  Be thankful that this is a job you can do while watching TV and in the comfort of your own home.  Personally, I think that’s a pretty awesome side job.

Doing the Match on Coupons by Brett Arends.

What does this mean to you? This means that this holiday shopping season it will be a buyers’ market. The deals are already aplenty, with Walmart even rolling out one-day sales this year. I only suspect that as Black Friday comes and goes these wars will get even fiercer.

While it is already a buyers market and deals are and will be plentiful, how do you keep yourself from getting carried away? I think we can all admit that it is easy to get carried away when bargain shopping. So how do you stop yourself from being an statistic: one in 13 million Americans still paying credit card bills from last year’s holiday shopping?

1. Create a budget of how much you can spend on this year’s holiday shopping. It is important to determine how much you can afford to spend, so you stick to this amount.
2. Make a list and stick to it. This is very important. Without a list you face the risk of overbuying for some and not buying for others. Ultimately this results in you overspending.
3. Don’t jump on a deal because it is “such a great deal.” In other words, control yourself. Even if a deal is such a “great deal” if you don’t need the item what you have just done is waste your hard earned money.

I am just like you, I love the Holidays and I love shopping for others. While this is usually a blog for saving money on everyday items I understand that right now you are probably looking for gifts for others. I want to help you get a good deal on those too. Just like last year I am going to keep an eye out for really good deals on gifts. It would be helpful for me if you gave me an idea of what kind of things you are looking for (so, leave me a comment). I know most likely you are looking for toys, so I will start highlighting some good toy deals at brick and mortar stores as well as online. I just wanted to let you know this, so you know that I am adding these type of deals for the Holiday season and it is not because this blog has changed focus permanently.

Swagbucks is a search and win search engine.  You earn Swagbucks when you search the web through them.  I will be honest and admit that  I am huge Google search user.  I use it several times a day.  At first I was a bit skeptical about Swagbucks.  However, that soon changed when I found out that Swagbucks is powered by Google and Ask.com.  So far I have been satisfied with my search results and have even compared search results side by side and they are very similar.  Then I was afraid about the change, after all, typing Google.com on my browser bar was a habit for me.  But I don’t even have to worry about that anymore thanks to the search toolbar Swagbucks has for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.  Searching and earning Swagbucks while I do that has never been so easy.

I use Swagbucks every single day!  I am accumulating any Swagbucks I earn to help buy gifts for this Holiday season and lower how much cash I spend.  I regularly use the search bar I downloaded for Firefox, the browser I regularly use, and it makes it so much easier.  Swagbucks is introducing THREE new features:

1)  BRAND NEW Swag Bucks toolbar:  the new toolbar will be released on Sept 1st and is compatible with IE, Firefox and Safari.   Members will be able to log into to their account through the new toolbar in addition to being able to track their points through the toolbar.

2) SWAGGO! -  Swaggo is Swagbucks.com answer to BINGO!   During the month of September when you order selected prizes through the Swag Store you will be sent a special SWAGGO piece.  If you collect all the pieces in a row, you will let us know and will be awarded 1000 Swag Bucks!   This is a fun promotion that will only be held from Sept 1st – Sept 31st.   We will have a complete list of prizes that will award Swaggo pieces by the end of this week.

3)  A new “Back to School” section in the Swag Store:  This section will feature everything your child may need as they get ready for the new school year.  The “Back to School” section will feature an assortment of items for elementary schoolers up to high schoolers!

If you are already a Swagbucks member, download the new toolbar right here.

If you are not a Swagbucks member you get 30 swagbucks for just signing up. I am excited about the 30 Swagbuck codes as just 45 Swagbucks get you a $5 Amazon Gift Card.  I love those! Go here to become a new member.

Four months ago I shared with you my family’s plan to pay off in six months our new minivan.  As I spelled it out back then, I talked my husband into sending every bit of money that we could get from out budget to our newly acquired car loan and that if we did so, we should be able to pay it in 6 months.  At the time he was very skeptical.  However, as time started going on and we started making payments he started believing in this.

I am ECSTATIC to share with you that we have done it!!  Yes, the car is ours not the bank’s!  I am not going to lie we had a lot of setbacks in these past four months:

• A section of our siding was blown off: Final Cost $600
• Our water heater died.  Thankfully my husband was able to install the new one himself saving us money in the process: Final Cost $650
• Our dogs went for their yearly check up and one of them needed an added procedure: Final Cost $550
• A section of our fence needed to be replaced, hubby did the work himself of course: Final Cost $320

If we had not been prepared for those expenses, all of them would have set us back an additional $2,120.  But thankfully an emergency fund and careful planning allowed us the ability to weather these extra expenses.

As I mentioned in my initial post I am sharing this with you not because I want to gloat or show off.  I do this because I want you to see that it can be done.  YOU CAN DO IT TOO!  Maybe you have come to this blog because you need to find ways to stretch your dollars.  What I hope you will walk away with is a new skill that will allow you and your family to create room in your budget for the things that matter to you.  Sure, at times being frugal and using coupons seems time consuming, frustrating and laborious, but guess what? every new skill has a learning curve you need to go through.  Don’t give up and allow yourself some time to learn the ropes and start using them for the benefit of your family.

I am celebrating by giving back to you.  I want you to know that I am thankful for your readership. I hope every time you have read my entries you have been able to tell that I really love what I do. I am thankful I have been given the opportunity to help others live better by spending their money more wisely. Every time I write a blog entry I hope that at least one of you has saved money by taking advantage of that deal.

I am giving away TWO $25 gift cards.  The winners will get to choose what store s/he would like to use that gift card from these choices: Walmart, Kmart, Target or Walgreens.  To enter this giveaway all you need to do is tell me about you and provide feedback on this blog.   Please use the following form to leave your entry.  One entry per person please. If you are reading this blog entry in your email newsletter or blog reader and can’t see the form please click through to this website to enter.

This giveaway ends Tuesday June 23rd at 9PM CST.  U.S. residents 18 years and older only please.  I will pick two winners and contact them.  If after 48 hrs they don’t contact me back I will select another winner. Good luck!

Sorry guys, code should be fixed now and working.

Almost two months ago I shared with you how I was going to “earn money from home” by using Swagbucks.  Swagbucks is a search and win search engine.  You earn “Swagbucks” when you search the web through them.   I have been using ti dayly for the last two months and average two, but for sure one Swagbuck earned per day.  To make sure I use it everyday, I use it to search for the sites I visit everyday.  For example, I know a lot of you visit this blog via Swagbucks and thank you for that!  But the best way to accelerate your Swagbucks earnings is by participating in Swagbucks events.  For example every Friday is Mega Swagbucks day.  Last Friday, I earned 10 Swagbucks right off the bat!  It really made my night and I was excited to share that on my Facebook page. In addition you can accelerate how many Swagbucks you earn by spreading the word between friends and family and getting them to start doing the same.

I am being very diligent about using Swagbucks because I want to accumulate as many Swagbucks as possible to help fund my Holiday Gift Fund.  So far, it’s looking good and I would love to be able to trim my out of pocket expense by redeeming Swagbucks earned for Target Gift Cards or Amazon Gift certificates.

This week Swagbucks is launching a lot of new features on their website including:

• On Tuesday: Video Game Section Expansion: We will be adding 1000′s of new and used titles to the video game section of the Swag Store, and offering a special sale on many of these titles.

• On Wednesday:  Shop&Earn Favorites: This great new feature gives you the ability to choose your ‘Favorite’ stores in our Shop&Earn mall, and receive updates on new coupons that originate from these retailers.  So not only will you get SwagBucks for your purchases, you will be notified immediately when a great deals becomes available!

• On Thursday:  Swagbucks.com 2.5 Launch.  Swagbucks.com 2.5 is the next evolution of the Swag Bucks homepage. It will feature a new cleaner look, with easier navigation & quick links and a few new special element.  Swag Bucks Widget:    The widget  will feature a search box, prize images and swag code alerts.

To celebrate these new additions on the Swagbucks website, Swagbucks has provided Common Sense with Money readers who have not signed up with Swagbucks yet a special code.  In addition to earning 3 Swagbucks when you first sign up with Swagbucks, by using the code MONEYCOMMONSENSECODE (case sensitive), you will get an additional 3 Swagbucks for a total of 6 Swagbucks for signing up with the website.  This new code works for new sign ups only.  This code is available for new sign ups between now and June 16th at 11:59pm PST. If you are already signed up for Sawbucks, you can use this code to get friends to give Swagbucks a try and earn extra Swagbucks form their referrals.

If you are signing up for the first time, please check out my initial post about Swagbucks.  I explain how I have added the Swagbucks search bar to my browser to make use of this search engine easier and faster for me.  So, if you haven’t yet I highly recommend you give Swagbucks a try.  Make sure to add the search back to your browser so it becomes a habit to use it faster.

Pinecone Research is still looking for people.  This time they are looking for males ages 18-24.  So, if you are a male in that age group or know one who would like to get paid for theit opinion, share this with them.

Tonight on our radio show Money4Moms, Tara and I will be continuing our series “Make Money from Home.”  Since we have heard so many great things and successful stories from other Swagbucks users we knew that should be our first stop.

Here’s the skinny on Swagbucks.  Swagbucks is a search and win search engine.  You earn “Swagbucks” when you search the web through them.  I will be honest and admit that  I am huge Google search user.  I use it several times a day.  At first I was a bit skeptical about Swagbucks.  However, that soon changed when I found out that Swagbucks is powered by Google and Ask.com.  So far I have been satisfied with my search results and have even compared search results side by side and they are very similar.  Then I was afraid about the change, after all, typing Google.com on my browser bar was a habit for me.  But I don’t even have to worry about that anymore thanks to the search toolbar Swagbucks has for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.  Searching and earning Swagbucks while I do that has never been so easy.

Like I already mentioned, you earn “Swagbucks” when you search the web.  Swagbucks also runs free Swagbucks promotions for even more chances to earn prizes.  There are other types of prizes you can redeem by using the Swagbucks you have earned but I particularly like the $5 Amazon Gift certificate (45 Swagbucks gets you one $5 Amazon GC). It’s a great way to take advantage of Amazon deals without spending your own money.

This week and through 4/20 you can become a Swagbucks member and earn up to 5 Swagbucks right off the bat.  All you need to do is use the code MONEYCOMMONSENSE (in all caps) when you register.  In addition to earning 3 Swabucks for becoming a new member you will earn an additional two Swagbucks because you used my special code.

If you become a new member, follow my advice and make it easy for you to use it regularly.  If you use Internet explorer as your browser, download the Swagbucks toolbar so you can search through it more easily.  Your new search toolbar would look like this

If you use Firefox, add the Firefox plugin.  You can set Swagbucks as your default search engine option within the menu at the top-right of your window.  Your search bar would look like this:

I hope you tune in to our radio show this evening, Wednesday 4/15 at 9PM CSt/10PM EST.  You will hear more success stories from people have been using Swagbucks  for a while.  We have as a very special guest Andrea from MommySnacks.net.  To tune in you just need to follow this link to listen online.  If you can’t tune in live, you can also listen on demand through that link or by using the blue Blogtalkradio player on my right side bar.

Two weeks ago my husband got us an AWESOME deal on a new Toyota Minivan. He found us a 2009 Sienna LE with 800 miles on it for $19,500. What a steal right? you won’t believe where he found it: on Ebay. Yes! we bought our new car online, without even looking at it or test driving it. In fact, the car was not even in this state, he had to fly to NY to get it and drive it back home to WI. I realize this is a fairly unconventional way to buy a car for most people. But just so you know, according to Bankrate.com, Ebay Motors is the largest used car seller/lister in the United States. This is not the first time we bought a car online either. Four years ago we bought his Jeep through Ebay as well. My husband is very diligent in doing all the research necessary and because of that we are confident in the purchases he makes. This was our biggest purchase online though, and of course we took care of everything to make sure we were protected.

Although we had enough money in savings to pay cash for it, I have such little confidence with the current economic situation that I didn’t feel comfortable draining our emergency savings fund for this, so we took on a car loan.  But we are intent in paying this off ASAP and that’s why our financial goal for 2009 is to pay off this car loan in six months and we are going to use the Snowball Debt Pay off Method to get rid of this loan.  If you haven’t heard of the Debt Snowball Method, I want to direct you to this Primer Jamie from Paid Twice wrote about it.  If you have debt and would like to pay if off quickly, this is a concept many have found useful in their debt-free quest.

Our car debt numbers break down like this

$21,500 amount of car loan
plus $600 interest cost of loan over next six months
less $4000 ->We have been saving for a family car for the last two years.
less $4400 -> from tax refunds and other money owed to us
less $4500 -> from sale of my husband’s car
= $9200 amount of loan outstanding after cash contributions

Our car payment is $410 a month.  Last week we refinanced our home loan and that freed an extra $150 from our budget that we can send to this loan.  We are also stopping cash savings for this period of time.  In total we can pay $680 a month until the car is paid off.  Six monthly payments should knock down $4080 from the amount we owe.  That leaves us with $5,120 that we have to come up from our income over the next six months to pay off the car loan.   Here’s where the concept of snowflaking is going to pay off for us.  We plan on just going on a barebones budget for the next few months, create surpluses and send any extra money we can scrape off to this loan.

This is the first time we are doing something like this.  But as I told my husband, it is not a challenge if we don’t push ourselves to the limit.  I am sharing this with you not to show off but to make myself accountable to this goal.  When I first met my husband, I remember he would tell me that a car loan is one of those things that is always part of people’s budget.  For a long time, I bought into that.  I don’t anymore, we don’t anymore.  By saving diligently and planning carefully you CAN break the cycle and get rid of your car payment.  This is what this challenge is about: to show you that it can be done.

At first, I thought that the cost of putting items on layaway was cheap. I found online the terms and conditions for Kmart’s layaway program. Their $5 Service Fee seems reasonable and cheap enough. But then I pulled out my calculator to determine the effective interest rate this fee posed. For example if you put on layaway a $100 value item, you are effectively paying 5% in interest to do that. Since the layaway period is 8 weeks, that 5% turns into a 32.5% APR you are paying on this purchase. That’s almost a loan shark.

In absolute terms $5 doesn’t seem like very much does it? But look how much it is. Skip layaway and start your own “Saveaway” program. Go ahead, hit the stores with your holiday shopping list and make a total of how much everything you would like to get will cost. Then divide that total by the number of weeks that are still left until the holidays. Put that money aside every week. You can either accumulate it in an envelope or head to the store and buy a gift card if you think you may be tempted to spend the money. When the holidays are almost here pull out your cash or gift cards and go shopping without any second thoughts of the interest charges you could have been paying.

Don’t be fooled by these “easy payment” programs. Once you get through the fine print you can be surprised by how much worse than even using a credit card they are.

Previously my husband and I had decided to pool our holiday present money and get a camera as “our” present. But I want it sooner that that so I needed to come up with the money. I knew we had the money we only needed to work to find it.

First I gathered all of the rebate forms and receipts I had been accumulating for the last few months. I filled out forms, gathered UPC codes and circled cash registers. Seven envelopes and stamps later I sent out to get back $65 in the form of rebates.

Then I finally filled out a couple of these surveys I was lucky to find. It is one per household but I was lucky to have my in laws willing to help out. So that adds up $20 to the fund.

Finally, I pulled out the coin jar or bowl. We have been filling this glass bowl with coins for the last two years. There was $110 in cash in there!! And the bowl wasn’t even that big. We had a lot of quarters, $60 worth.

We still need to come up with an additional $65 to be able to buy the camera. You may have noticed that I have added ads and affiliate links to this blog in the last few days. I decided to monetize this blog in order to raise the money. I hope you don’t mind.

This morning I read Jeff Opdyke’s latest column about his need to revisit his budget due to an upcoming loss in income. It got me thinking, what would we do if my husband (God forbid) lost his job and we had to live off our emergency fund. What are our bare expenses and how long will the emergency fund last us?

Right now, we save more than 20% of my husband’s income. That would have to stop for a while. We would also have to reevaluate our monthly bills. Our cell phone plan would be one of the things that would go first, cut back from $60 to $20 for a prepaid phone. Cable sadly would have to go. Our cable includes phone and internet and our monthly bill is usually around $200 because of international calls. We will need internet for his job search so we could bring this one down to $110. Gas, electric and car insurance bills would remain the same because I really think our demand of those services is inelastic and we need the same level of coverage on our insurance. In average those three bills total $350. For the last three months we have spent $400 in HBA and food (including eating out). Let’s assume that stays the same. Our gas expense would go down since my husband wouldn’t be driving to work. Mortgage bill stays the same for the first six months.

All of this trims our monthly expenses by 27% and extends our emergency fund from six months of expenses worth to eight. That’s not very much is it? This exercise just made me realize that the bulk of our expenses is very inflexible (mortgage, insurance, basic utilities), which underlines the need for a sizable emergency fund. I understand even more how easy it is to fall in hard times when you are not adequately prepared for it.

In times of financial hardship it is necessary to cut back on your expenses to the minimum. However, as my exercise has shown, cutting back on some of our basic expenses is not possible in the short term. What happens when these basic expenses represent the majority of our household costs? We can dig ourselves in the hole pretty quickly even with a nice emergency fund when a financial hardship lasts longer than expected. It seems it is true we can never be fully prepared.

How long will your emergency fund last you if you had to live off it?

I think this target will be easily achieved in big cities where the price of gas is at or very near $4/gallon. Right now where I live is $3.79. I will not be surprised if it goes up up more than a dollar here. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks that.

I still remember when the last time was that we paid $1.25 per gallon. That was in May of 2003 as my husband filled the tank of the U-Haul truck we rented when we moved from Louisiana to Pennsylvania. That was five years ago.

I wouldn’t have believed back then that we would be paying three times that five years later.

According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, economists expect the price of gas to average $3.45 over the next 12 months. This is the math I came up to help buyers decide which offer is better:

1. Choice one: Take $5,500 cash rebate at time of purchase. I am going to assume the buyer applies the rebate amount to lower the amount of their car loan (assumed at $20K), if the buyer took a five year loan at a rate of 6.55%. Then by taking the cash rebate the buyer would save $4614 in interest payments over the life of the loan.
2. Choice two: Take a $3,000 cash rebate and the opportunity to fill up gas @2.99 fixed price for 12,000 miles annually. Let’s assume the buyer chooses to apply the rebate to the car payment and reduce the size of his/her loan. Then at the end of five years and at a rate of 6.55%, the buyer would save $2516 in interest payments. Let’s also assume the mpg for the new car is 28 average and that translates to 428.50 gallons per year. Let’s take the average per gallon price as predicted by economists, the the buyer saves $197.11 per year by taking advantage of the fixed gas price. $197 in yearly savings doesn’t sound like very much.

If I were the average Jane this is the math (and train of thought) I would do at the dealership: OK, I can get $5500 right now or I can get $3000 and enjoy fixed gas price of gas of $2.99 for three years. My savings would have to equal at least $2500 over the next three years for this offer to sound good to me. So that’s about $833 per year or $1.94 per gallon of gas. Gas would have to be around $4.94 for me to come out even. I know this assumes a very rough scenario with zero inflation (not likely). But I don’t think I would take that offer.

Is there a financial expert out there who could convince me otherwise?

As I saw the price of gasoline continue to go up through the winter and now spring, I always thought “I can’t imagine how bad it will be this summer.” Summer is more than a month and a half away and it’s shaping to be pretty ugly. The price of a gallon of gasoline hit $3.62. Here, in this little tiny town of 9,000 in South Eastern Wisconsin.

This afternoon it hit me: I feel out of control. I know I can do something to make an impact on how much grocery prices affect me: I can eat less, cook more from scratch. I can use coupons; I can shop sales. But what can I really do to make an impact on how much we spend every month on transportation? Not very much, I think.

Some of the advice out there we are already doing: use cruise control, get rid of the junk in the trunk, keep within speed limit, change oil, keep tires inflated, combine errands, etc. What is the next thing to do: cut back on driving? and here is where I feel we are stumped. With the summer upon us, especially if you have had the winter we had, it is natural to feel the need to be out and about: take the kids to the park, to the pool, just be out enjoying the weather.

I feel I am not the only one biting my lower lip every time I stop by the pump. I think the majority of people feel powerless as far as this expense goes. I guess as the price hits $4 per gallon I will cut back and stay home two out of the five days of the week. I have always wondered, back at my last job there were people who drove 50 miles to get to work every day and 50 miles back. These people took on such long commutes because housing was cheaper as they moved more into the ex-burbs. How are these people coping today with housing prices slumping and gas prices through the roof? Do you know an extreme commuter? If so, how are they managing this expense?

We are using part of it to visit the place where my husband and I met and got married. My husband and I are not from the south but we spent enough years down there to have learned to love it. I have been to many places in the United States, but Louisiana will always have a special spot in my heart. Like I said my husband and I met and were married there, but also the thing I love most about Louisiana is its food.

It’s funny but I remember the places I have been to by their food. For example, I will always remember Philly for the cheese steaks, San Francisco for its chowder, Tennessee for its barbecue ribs, Chicago for its hot dogs. But there isn’t a place in my list where food is as delicious as in New Orleans. I can’t wait to have some jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, beignets, a muffuletta, crawfish boil, the list could go on and on.

My husband is attending a conference there at the end of June and the prospect of eating all of this delicious food clouded my judgment because I decided that I could tag along with a 6 month and a three year old. After we bought the tickets I realized that I had forgotten what it was like to live in a hotel for six days with a two year old (last year). How bad is it going to be now that a six month old has been added to the party? I will find out soon enough.

So after the cost of the tickets for my three year old and myself, some spending money while we are down there and the money we are going to spend getting our dog ear tubes; our rebate is all accounted for. What do you have planned for your rebate if you are getting one?

With the visit of my sister and then my husband’s surgery the first thing to fall of my regular to-do list was overseeing our finances. Why is it that when everything is going OK money is always in my mind, but when things get busy this is the first thing to fall off the radar? I don’t know, but it is a serious weakness and we are paying for it now.

First, lets start with the mistakes that led to the current situation.

• In February we got our state and federal tax refunds and these were never deposited into our savings accounts. I moved the money out of our checking but left them in the savings account tied to it.
• Also, in March we got my husband’s yearly bonus and this was also sent to this savings account.
• Then in March we have the visit from my sister and this led to extra spending.
• My husband took charge of paying medical bills while I paid the rest but we never sat down to go over all of this together.

Where are we now? After going over all of our bank transactions since February and having paid off everything that was owed, we are “missing” $1400. Some of it is the money we spent while my sister was here. Our dogs also had their yearly check up for a total of $380. We did buy a DVD player for a trip we have this summer (more on that later) but that was $200. The rest is unaccounted for.

I am a bit disappointed in this. This means less money we can send to savings, but at least is not debt we incurred which I am glad about. Between now and the end of June I am pushing our budget harder to make up some of this money. I have made a list of the money we have coming in from now until then and a plan of how we are going to pay ourselves back this money. I just realized something, I feel disappointed because maybe even if we didn’t incur any credit card debt, we took this money from our planned savings and I feel we are now our own creditors. Umm, interesting thought.

I leave you with this now. We are heading down to Chicago this weekend. Have a great one!

Then right around the same time my first son was born I read an article about identity theft in children. In this case the hospital where the child in case had been born had a very poor information security policy in place. In this day and age when so much hinges on how clean our credit is, it is terrifying to think that our children could get a start in life with a damaged record.

Terri Cullen’s tips for protecting your children include:

1. Be diligent about who you give your children’s social security number to. Ask them why the number is needed and how they will protect that information. In many cases providing your children’s SSN may not be necessary at all. This could be the case for Dentist or Doctor’s visits. If your children are under your insurance plan, these offices need your SSN not the child’s.
2. Consider it a red flag if you start receiving credit offers on your child’s name. If ever something like this exist contact the company issuing the offer and ask if your child has an account open with them. Ask that they remove him from their mailing address, you may have to write a letter to have this done.
3. Finally, she suggests you confirm that your child doesn’t have a credit report by contacting the three credit bureaus directly. Here’s the information on how to go about doing that.

I know the alternative of having to contact the credit bureaus may seem daunting. But I think protecting our children’s future makes it worthwhile.

Source: Fiscally Fit by Terri Cullen “How to Stop Identity Thieves from targeting Your Children”

Now the magazine goes on to say that grandma loves the first born more than the second born. However, being a newly parent of two I understand that with increasing families the amount you can save for each child diminishes. We have been blessed with generous grandparents on both sides. My mom may not have much money but she has time and love to devote to her grandchildren. On his side, they have already contributed equally to both children’s 529 accounts.

1. Clothing: I have only spend $15 on an outfit I bought him and he quickly outgrew without ever wearing it (yeah, very unfrugal). He has been able to do with wearing hand me downs from his oldest brother. However I do see a kink in this plan. Youngest son was born in December and oldest was born in March. I think the problem will come when summer rolls around because son #2 will be bigger then than the summer clothes we have from son #1. So, I expect this category to grow a little.
2. Feeding: Except from some bottles I bought before baby was born I haven’t spent any money on this. Breastfeeding has saved us a ton of money.
3. Medical Expenses: This is where most of our expenses have occurred.

• Let’s start with the birth, we were charged $2170 by the hospital for his stay and care there. Plus an additional $273 for visit from the Ped while he was there.
• He had a five day check up and that only cost us $55.
• Then he had a visit to a pediatric urologist when he was 10 days old for $285 in charges.
• When he was 3 weeks old he came down with a urinary tract infection. ER care totaled $765, plus two nights hospital stay $3883 and charges for visits form his Ped while he was there of $267. Then he had ultrasound and X-rays done to check his kidneys = $257. 10 days later he had a follow up visit with his Pediatrician $85.
• Total medical billing so far = $8040. This is the total our insurance has been charged. Since we have had problems with some of those bill submissions our total copay is still not clear so I need to get that straightened out.
• We still haven’t gotten billed for his 2 month baby check up where he got shots. He is also going for one follow up ultrasound in 3 weeks. However, in general he has been an very healthy baby since the unfortunate UTI.

You can check out the link on the right bar side for the updated expense file. But don’t you think this is worth it?

Born 6lbs 13 oz, he’s now 14 lbs @ 3 months old!

“Dear such and such, your total for services rendered on 12/3/07 is $7880.00. Insurance paid $0, your responsibility $7880.00. Please pay within 30 days.” Ok, so maybe it wasn’t quite that short but that was the general idea. They give no detail as to how they arrived to that total or what that total entails. I am going to call them to get a break down of this bill. I don’t question the amount I just can’t believe they don’t give any billing details.

That letter was the last bill from my pregnancy and delivery charges. Here is a detail of all the bills we received:
Obstetric services $3850
Anesthesia services $570
My Hospital charges $7880
My son’s hospital charges $2170
Son’s Pediatric check up $273
For a total of $14,743

Our insurance is supposed to cover 90% of that leaving us with an out of pocket of $1,474. But of course is never as easy as it sounds. Notice that the letter we got yesterday says the insurance paid $0.00 towards my hospital stay charges. My husband’s HR department spends more time looking at our medical charges than they do looking at employees issues, I swear. Nothing is ever right with the way insurance processes things for us. We are already owed more than $200 for past overcharges. We will see how this one gets settled.

We finally got it last week and his account has already been set up and funded. We have been very blessed in that my in laws have given a very generous initial contribution to both of our children’s college funds. We have been lucky not only by the amount they have given but that they gave them this gift so early in their lives. They both can benefit from compounding interest in their savings for the next 18 years. That makes for even more savings. But that doesn’t mean we can slack off in saving for their college expenses. I had my husband change the number of deductions he claims on his paycheck to lower the amount of money we get refunded from our taxes. With the “new found” money we are sending $50 a month to each of our sons 529s. In addition we will continue sending any mileage reimbursements from my husband’s job.

Right now our sons’ 529s are with the State of Nevada. Some of the things we considered when choosing a plan were:

1. Minimum contributions: a lot of the plans nowadays don’t have high limits for initial contributions. For example College Savings Iowa only requires $25 for initial contribution and a payroll deduction of $15 per pay period.
2. Investment options: We chose a plan that had a wide range of investment options. This is good because you have a lot of options but it can also lead to confusion. A 529 plan is not for speculating with the funds that are in there. To prevent this a lot of plans limit the number of times in a year you can change where your funds are invested or allocated.
3. Fees and Expenses and Investment manager: For us these two were closely tied. We are very confident with the way the Vanguard group manages its funds. So we wanted a plan managed by them and that offered mostly its funds because they have some of the lowest fund expenses.

You can compare different 529 plans using this tool. You might even be able to save on your state taxes, depending on where you live.

Even though I am not a tax expert, I enjoy the subject and like to talk about it. Personal Income Tax was one of the classes I had to take in school in order to sit for the CPA exam. Believe it or not it was one of the classes I enjoyed the most. It was one of those classes where I felt that any knowledge learned helped me and impacted my bottom line directly. Like I already said, I am not a tax expert, nor do I pretend to be. But I wanted to know if my readers would like to see a weekly series on the subject. It could be once a week and we could cover tax topics, maybe your questions, or maybe a tutorial on how to do your own taxes. I have added the poll on the side bar to sound out interest. You don’t have to sign up to answer it, just say yes or no.

At first, during the first couple of years, we talked about money not very often. We were too busy looking into each other’s eyes, whispering sweet nothings into each others ears, etc. But we still do that now, we are each holding a child in our arms. You know what I am talking about, during the early stages of any relationship confrontation is almost always avoided and couples agree on mostly everything.

Then we got comfortable with each other, we got married and our finances were forever consolidated. Now, talking about money could not be avoided because money was a common denominator in our relationship. Then it became a challenge. Our conversations were filled with tension and defensiveness. At this point we were just learning about each other’s different approach to finances, how each processed this information and how each dealt with it. It was a rough time but the more we had these arguments the better because the more we learned about each other and the more we learned how to tackle this difficult topic.

Nowadays, talking about money is more talking and less fighting about it. It is still challenging because we still have different views on things, so we can’t expect the other to completely agree on something right away. But we have learned to listen to each other’s arguments for and against a situation. Now we have an understanding of where the other is coming from and our approaches to finances. But at the end we are more likely to find a resolution we are both happy about without feeling angry, alienated or resentful.

All in all, talking about money is hard but the key is in continuing to do so. Practice makes master. Don’t shy away from talking about finances because you feel it may hurt your relationship. If you learn to handle this topic it will only strengthen it.

1. First, choose something you really want, something that really matters to you and it’s likely to motivate you to stick to it. In the case of our family saving for the college education of our children is very important. I don’t have any expectations for my children but I have HOPE. We also want to make sure that we are prepared to help them achieve their dreams. So, for this year our resolution is to be more disciplined about putting money away in their 529 plans.
2. Base your resolutions on things you are already doing, don’t expect drastic changes to take hold for a full year. We have noticed that automatic savings work really well for us. The money is deducted first thing from my husband’s paycheck and it only takes a little adjustment in our budget initially and then we don’t “feel” it anymore. Therefore, we will do the same to put money away in their 529 plans.
3. Make it baby steps. Don’t try to do to too much or you will feel overwhelmed. If in the past you have failed in keeping your resolutions, consider choosing just one this year. Limit yourself to one thing and you are more likely to achieve it. This is our only resolution this year. There are many other things I will like to accomplish this year: lose baby weight, save for the down payment on a car. But right now, saving for our children’s college education is what I want to focus on. I will work on the other things I want to do too but this is my priority.
4. Create an action plan. Get specific. Don’t say I will pay off debt this year, say I will pay $XX in debt this year. Create a road to get you there. Commit $xx.xx amount of money every month for this goal. Set a specific strategy to achieve what you have set out to do. Up until now, we have been putting money away sporadically, dependent upon any mileage reimbursements my husband gets from work. This year, we will send $50 a month per child to their 529 in addition to any mileage reimbursements.
5. If you fail, pick yourself up and try again. Set sight on the road not the destination. Focus on the process not the ending result. Yes, it is very important to have a specific goal in mind but more success is achieved if you change your behaviour or attitude. What is the point of paying off $2,000 in debt this year, if next year you’ll engage in the same destructive behaviour that got you in trouble in the first place?
6. Write it down somewhere so you can keep track or revisit later in the year. It will help you keep accountable.

Do you set resolutions for yourself? are they more health related (lose weight), relationship related (spend more quality time with your family) or maybe more on the financial side (save more or spend less)? If you do, don’t give up on them just because you failed once, twice or more. It’s not all about the finish line, it’s about the race.