Here goes nothin’
I’m not going to lie; I’m no expert on money in the traditional sense. The one economics class I took in high school put me into dream land every day, and the economic crisis kind of makes my me want to hide under a rock. But I am one really good with one thing: managing my own money.
I’ve been lucky when it comes to personal finance because I learned it at a very young age. For literally as long as I can remember, I worked to earn money. When I was a kid, I did chores around the house to earn an allowance of $2 each week. That $2 was my money for anything other than the necessities. When I asked for my mom or dad to buy me a toy the response always was, “You have your own money.” So I learned to save (one year of saving really paid off when I bought this).
I share this story because while money may be very complex, it breaks down to simply earning it, spending it on what’s important and saving it. Yes, when I was five years old having a Barbie Dream House was the most important thing, but college is different and our priorities are becoming that much more important.
In this blog, I hope not only to provide tools for how to save money, but to break down a bit of this complicated world of personal finance so it’s just a bit easier to understand for all of us. I still have a ways to go when it comes to money and I’ll chronicle my ventures so we can all learn from my mistakes and success.
Money talks
You don’t have to know with certainty what’s right and what’s wrong, but you can know what’s stupid. … Taxing bonuses at AIG is stupid. Anything that Congress passes in a short period of time is pretty much stupid.
-Adam Davidson, business and economics reporter at NPR
at the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism
on writing about business
Gas tools galore
The price of gas when you first started driving has now become one of those life facts you’ll never forget and always bring up as a reference point: When I started driving gas was $1.95 and I spent about $18 a week).
Right now, it seems gas is going back up after a nice stay around the $1 and change mark, but analysts say (what does that even mean?) it should stay around the current national average of $1.90 (the New York state average is $2.07).
Need to find the cheapest gas in your area? Check out this handy interactive map from MSN Autos. You just zoom into wherever you’re located, and it lists all the nearby gas stations and its current price list. I checked it yesterday, at least by the gas station closest to my apartment and that was correct - but that’s all I can reallly vouch for.
Also, a sort of common sense tip from Young Money, everyone probably already knows to fill their tank when the price of gas is low - but do you do the reverse when the price is high? I’m in the habit of always filling my tank so that I won’t have to keep coming back to the pump, but if gas prices are high, there’s a good chance they’re falling, and in that case, I’m missing an opportunity for lower prices. The trick there is to keep on top of the news and anticipate when prices are rising and falling. Don’t you worry, there’s a tool for that too.
And if you can’t get enough about gas … check out The Ithacan’s new column Common Cents for an interesting argument about why gas prices should stay high.
The cure to empty cabinets
… is of course to go food shopping. BUT if you’re like me and that just never seems to happen (I think I’ve been living off old pasta, chili my dad made when I was at home and grapefruit my grandmother mailed me from Arizona, for like, two months) there’s a Web site for you!
At NotBeansAgain.com, you enter whatever you’ve got in your fridge into its ingrediometer and you’ll get a list of recipes you can make without having to go food shopping. Plus, there’s a “League of Thrift” column on the homepage with the day’s top recipes, so if you have to go food shopping, at least you can try to find something that uses the least amount of ingredients. The current winner according to me? Poor Student Pie (because how could you not relate?) which appropriately calls for 2 potatoes, 1 can of beans, butter, grated cheese and chili powder. So even if you don’t have all of that - you could easily pick up a few things for less than 10 bucks (which it would totally cost to order out) and be set for dinner tonight … and maybe lunch tomorrow.
Now, don’t expect magic or anything people, if you’ve only got lettuce and some pickles, it’s not going to turn out a secret recipe for Filet Mignon, but still, who knew most of your leftovers could be put to use? And when you’re strapped for cash, every day you don’t have to buy milk and eggs or hit up Campusfood.com counts for something.
Everything you ever wanted to know about how you are so not getting a job after graduation
Remember back in October when economists were saying we should prepare for a possible 7.1% unemployment rate by the time May graduation dates roll around? Well, in January the U.S. unemployment rate rose from an already-higher-than-that 7.2% to 7.6%. The highest cuts? The finance industry - not so surprising - Citigroup alone laid off 50,000 workers.
So where are the jobs? Seems like chemicals and pharmaceuticals are the way to go (too bad I almost failed chemistry in 10th grade) and according to sources like Forbes, Businessweek and HRWorld, anyone looking for a quick career-path change should look to technology, healthcare, education and … administrative assistant? Well, if anyone goes for the latter, I could use someone to remind me to blog more often.
Check out WSJ.com for a detailed breakdown of the biggest layoffs by industry sent to me by the last person who reminded me to blog more often. Seriously, go look at it, it’s really cool.
The man, the legend, the interview: Warren Buffett
Magically, a transcription of a PBS Nightly Business Report interview with Warren Buffett ended up in my inbox and I thought it would be a great place to pull a catchy quote for a Money Talks post (which is basically my cop out when I have nothing else to write about). But halfway through the interview I realized it was way to good to pick and choose. Buffett - CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, worth about $60 billion (pre-economic collapse), and widely considered to be one of the smartest investors in the world - is truly an amazing guy.
For someone who’s life you would think revolves largely around money, he is, afterall, an investor by title, he seems so unphased by the economic climate right now.
A PBS reporter interviewed Buffett as a part of the Nightly Business Report’s 30-year anniversary special about his talks with President Obama, his optimism for the economy in the long run, and how he hasn’t altered his investing strategies since 1949, or maybe ‘50 (no, he will NOT give you investing recommendations, even if the reporter begs, which she does)
Here’s a quote to satisfy those of you who don’t like to read, the majority of the interview after the jump for those of you in the middle, and for anyone who wants the whole beast - post a comment and I’ll e-mail you the full interview.
Well the most important thing to fix right now is the economy. We have a business slowdown particularly after October 1st it was sort of on a glide path downward up til roughly October 1st and then it went into a real nosedive. In fact in September I said we were in an economic Pearl Harbor and I’ve never used that phrase before.
- Warren Buffett,
CEO, Berkshire Hathaway,
inventing new phrases.
Recessionistas
It might seem strange that my two loves are saving money and buying clothes…
…. but they are.
So I’ve been trying to scheme out a way to write a post about fashion that was even remotely relevant to this blog and now I think I’ve finally found the way. Her name is Michelle Obama.
The first lady has been making almost as many headlines as her husband ever since she started showing promise of giving First Lady/Fashionista Jackie O. a run for her money. Except not really. Because Mrs. Obama has made a name for herself among us ladies who truly believe that fashion can be affordable. She’s appeared on TV in low-priced, household brands like J.Crew (which also dressed daughters Malia and Sasha for the inauguration) and White House Black Market (pictured above on an appearance on The View).
Defeated.
The only thing worse than a New Year’s Eve party that ended with shattered glass and a hole in my parent’s wall was having my Mint.com account laugh in my face come 2009 - sure, I spent the latter part of 2008 cautiously watching every penny that left my wallet, but then came Christmakkah. All of the painful sacrifices I made, including pledging to go a year without buying clothes (which is still going well, by the way) were worthless because I drained my bank account on presents. I don’t mean to sound selfish, I enjoy buying gifts for family and friends, but there are ways to survive the holidays without depleting your savings - I just broke every rule.
So I, like the economy, am starting out the year in a downturn. But I’m getting a head start for next year and I suggest you do the same. It turns out, Christmas Club Savings Account, offered at many local banks or credit unions, are sort of nonsensical because they make almost no interest. But the general idea is easy to replicate, just find yourself a high-interest CD (easier said than done these days, but don’t forget about Bankrate.com) that allows free transactions throughout the maturation period. The only stipulation on you is to actually transfer a part of your paycheck to the CD - the one benefit of the traditional Christmas accounts is that it’s out of your control.
So in light of all this I have a two-part New Year’s resolution: 1) Be able to save money THROUGH the holidays next year, and 2) use that money to pay my parents back for the damage done to their home.
Spend less: Go bagless
Obviously when you’re talking about consumerism and overconsuming, there are certain things that you can eliminate from your spending habits and some things that you really can’t. For example, when I decided not to buy clothes for a year, even if it seems drastic, it was a pretty logical decision for me since I just have no need for a single other piece of clothing in my closet. For the past month, however, I’ve unintentionally stopped buying groceries. It turns out, I’m really hungry and that’s not really one of those things you can cut out of the weekly budget.
So today was my first time back in the grocery stores and I thought I’d try Aldi since I’d heard it was a lot cheaper than Wegmans or Tops, the favorites of Ithaca. I should have done my research because I was totally unprepared.
Aldi has the right idea - they cut costs by keeping their spaces small and more energy efficient, eliminating store displays (the aisles are formed by simple shelves and the actual stacks of food) and making you pay a quarter for shopping carts and 5 cents for shopping bags.
Okay, I’m not so cheap that I wouldn’t have paid 5 cents for a shopping bag, but since everyone at the store had brought their own reusable bags, I just felt like sort of an idiot and didn’t bother to ask if there were any for sale. I really didn’t save that much money price-wise (when I compared the prices of the items I’d bought to the prices at Wegmans I found they were basically the same) BUT I did end up buying a WHOLE lot less groceries since I could only take what I could carry.
So there’s one idea for you. Go bagless, buy less.
Get some answers, Girlfren’ (or Boyfren’)
One of the greatest things about being home for breaks is definitely late night TV …. or just having time to watch TV, for that matter. So it was with great pleasure that I finally discovered the Suze Orman show - I’ll admit, I’ve been intrigued ever since they started spoofing her on SNL.
I’ve become quickly obsessed …. I spent most of today YouTubing clips from her show (and re-watching the SNL skits) - it’s sort of amazing how someone can be so obnoxious and yet so intriguing at the same time. I mean, she’s clearly smart, but there aren’t that many respectable TV personalities that can get away with referring to a caller as “Girlfren,” and there aren’t that many respectable people period who can emphasize so many syllables with equal importance. She’s sort of amazing.
So halfway through my Suze Orman marathon, my father discovered how incredibly lazy and unproductive I was being me and suggested I ask Suze for advice on how to invest my money - afterall, she’s bound to love me … I have no debt, about $7,000 in savings and some considerable cushion in the fact that I don’t pay many expenses (no rent, utilities, not too many bills, etc) and own a car. So, for probably the first time ever, I’m going to take my dad’s advice (he gave me $5 to get my car washed today and instead, I bought Starbucks … being home is so great).
I’ll keep you updated on what she says …. though I suspect it ends with: People first, money second, things third. Thanks, Suze.
The Suze Orman Show airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. and midnight on CNBC. Check her out.
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