Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Mollie & DooDoo Butt

Just when you think you're getting ahead, there always seems to be that day before payday crisis pop up at ya.  Let's back up to the last pay check...my daughter and I come across a dog that had been hit by a car. The two saviors for the day load him up and rush him to the vet (two days before pay day). On the ride to the vet, my daughter realizes that I just took on a financial responsibility that may interfere with her plans of buying a dirt bike. "May interfere?" I ask. How about "most definitely knocked that plan out the window".  After a few minutes of pouting, she realized that this little doggie was much more important than the dirt bike and she would try again with her sales pitch another time.

Walden waiting for surgery

Fast forward to pay day and all the financial arrangements made with the vet. Thankfully, he found it in his heart not to charge me his normal emergency fee and let me pay over the course of two weeks. We survived without the money. The dog, who we named Walden, found his way to a rescue facility that works with permanently injured animals.

Mollie after being bit by snake

Fast forward again to the next pay day (as always, two days before pay day), my own puppy, Mollie, who is a beautiful, 8 month old brindle pitbull, had a run in with a snake and ended up with a swollen leg and enough toxin to make her look like a drunk. Once again, I'm heading to the vet with a deathly ill doggie thinking about how much this one's going to cost. Unfortunately, the vet I used just two weeks before was on vacation so we weren't quite so lucky with the bill. They did let me pay half that day and the balance on payday which was nice, but still no money this week.

Mollie is 100% better and running around like nothing ever happened. Hopefully, she won't stumble on any more snakes.  I think next pay check, I'm going to tell myself not to expect any leftover money and maybe it will just find me instead. All in all, I wouldn't have changed anything. I love those pups!

Making Money with Bee4.biz

Here is my referral link to the Bee4.biz URL shortner and link locker. What this site does is shorten any URL and adds a survey to the link. Once a user completes one of the surveys, the site then continues on to the link you provided. You earn money for active leads as well as referrals. I just joined this site and will keep you updated on any earnings.

Yodlee Yoda Lay He Hoo

Last month, I stumbled across some Personal Financial Management programs and decided I would test them out. Finally, a whole month has passed and I've decided on just one. It worked out great that the day I started was the first day of my new bank statement which means I actually have an entire month's worth of data. I chose three programs to test, Mint.com, Wesabe, and Yodlee's MoneyCenter. Each one of them had benefits over the other, and also a few disappointments. My main reasons for choosing these three to test are (1) they're free, (2) they link to financial institutions without having to import data, and (3) there are no advertisements.

So far, the most functional program is Yodlee's MoneyCenter. I can link to any account that I have online access, except one credit card and they are working on getting it added. I love being able to see all my bank accounts, all my credit cards, my bills, and even my PayPal account on one page. They are grouped by types so I see available cash in one section and my debt in another. One nice feature is the Financial Calendar that shows what bills are due. It makes a big difference seeing your bills in a calendar format versus a list. It gives me a better sense of how much I need to pay when we get paid, or should I say how much money I will have left from my paycheck. The biggest drawback with Yodlee is it is not visually appealing. I know most people don't like all the bells and whistles and the pretty graphics, but I feel if it's possible to make it pretty, then "why not" make it pretty. I guess it's my little way of not feeling so down and out about my debt. Hopefully, Yodlee will work on adding some nice graphics.

The most visually appealing program is Mint.com. I absolutely love the layout, especially the Accounts page. Each account has its own trademark displayed...very professional I think. I love the Spending Trends, it has a very detailed breakdown including how many visits you made to a particular merchant. Made me realize just how often we visit McDonald's. Another great feature is my budget. It is displayed on the Summary page with a bar graph showing how close you are to going over. I bet you can guess that mine is always close to being over. Unfortunately, there are a few drawbacks though...I can't add my mortgage account, a few credit cards and my monthly bills. Another problem I see with Mint.com is the program doesn't allow you to create your own categories, but you can add labels. There are also a few bugs, like duplicate transactions, to be worked out before this program can be useful. Hopefully, Mint.com will make some changes and offer an updated version.

I also tested Wesabe, but unfortunately I never could get the Desktop Launcher to work correctly. Maybe it will work for someone else. I did import my bank data to test it and it had a few neat features, especially the automatic suggestions from other users. But it just didn't help me accomplish what I set out to do this month. Maybe another time.  (Wesabe has closed down since this article was written.)

So for right now, until something bigger and better comes along (oh yeah, and prettier), I will be using Yodlee's MoneyCenter to access all my financial accounts. Now, if I can just find a program that will do all of this and be able to actually use it, like transferring money from one account to the other. That would be the ultimate.

Managing Your Money

Last year, I signed up for a personal financial program called Mvelopes. The concept of budgeting money in envelopes before the expense instead of after the fact was logical. In fact, my mother has used this same concept for years, but with an actual binder, envelopes and an accounting ledger...oh, and real cash. Mvelopes allows you to sync your accounts online to provide you with real-time account information. I tried Mvelopes for about three months and decided that I really do not like to pay a monthly service fee for something I could do for free. I told myself and the support staff at Mvelopes that I would probably try it again in the future.

Today, I thought about Mvelopes again since I've been diligently attempting to manage my finances. Then I wondered if there were any "free" personal financial tools out there. I found a handful and decided that I would test each one. The only problem is that I like all of them, but each one has an issue that relates to me. Here is what I think about the two that I liked the best but I would recommend you try them out yourself to find just the right fit for your financial situation.

Mint...Refreshing Money Management
This tool seemed to be the easiest to upload. All my accounts except for one department store credit card were able to sync online. Every financial account that I own is now on one screen with reports, graphs, and alerts. I know exactly how much money I have in my checking & savings, and how much credit is available on each credit card. There are so many features to check out that I am still finding links that are useful to me.

I will post again on the other online programs over the next few days, but here they are if you want to go ahead and check them out. Some are better than others and some are just basic finance trackers which sometimes can be exactly what you need.

fnCentral...the Free Personal Finance Manager for the Web

Yodlee MoneyCenter

WhatBills?

Foonance

Money Strands - Money Management Made Fun and Easy

All Work and No Goals Make for a Broke Girl

I've been reviewing several personal financial sites lately and I just realized that I don't have any goals. Sure I have goals floating around in my mind about everyday life, but what am I doing for my financial stability? How can I expect to achieve anything if I first haven't set a goal...even if it is small and short-term.

First things first...I opened my bank statement today and headed straight to the "Interest Earned" section. Well, Lordy be, I don't think I will be reaching any goals, not even the smallest inkling of a goal, with the whopping $0.14 I earned for the month of December. That incident caused the "creation" of my first financial goal...to earn more interest than the cost of a piece of peppermint on my hard earned dollars.

Goal #1 - Earn a higher interest rate ~ Accomplished ~
I opened a high yielding online checking account last night to get started. Instead of earning an APY of .21%, my new online checking account is earning 3.92% APY. (Unfortunately, today's economy has caused a drastic decrease in APY's.  Charles Schawb is now at .25%.) There were higher yielding accounts available, but the bill pay feature is very important to me and this one seemed to be the best. This will be my first comparison test.

Goal #2 - Pay myself first (10%)
For some reason, this has got to be the hardest financial step of all. It is hard for me to understand "why am I paying myself, when I can't even pay my bills." To accomplish this, I set up an automatic payroll draft straight into my credit union. Once I get the higher yielding account situated, I will have the 10% drafted there instead of the low yielding credit union. I think it's about .01% APR. Currently, I am "paying myself" .7%. Still a long way from 10%, but I will make it. I have to get to a point where I don't miss the money from my paycheck.

Goal #3 - Snowball my credit card debt
I downloaded Dan's Super Snowball Plan and have put it in action. I haven't yet made it to the point of paying off one card and then using that amount towards another credit card. But I'm getting there.


Goal #4 - Minimize my spending
I should have listed this goal as the hardest since I don't think of money as a total amount but more like an instant visual. If I budget $100 to spend on eating out, as long as I don't spend $100 at one sitting, I think I'm doing great. But after they all add up, I have spent well over that $100, probably enough to feed a third world country for a week. Eating out is definitely my biggest weakness. One month, we spent over $800 eating out in one month surpassing my grocery spending by $500.

I know this is only a start, but that's what it takes. You got to start somewhere and I'm definitely starting small, but I'm dreaming big and eventually I will set my goals a little higher. I feel that the goals I have set are at least attainable...and eventually surpassable. (Is that a word?)

Don't Let the Monkeys Enforce Murphy's Law

Never, I repeat, never say out loud...What else can go wrong? I don't know if it is fate that likes to play tricks on us or just plain old Murphy's Law, but it seems like if one thing seems to be going good, then something else is going to come along and throw a monkey in my wrench...or is that a wrench in my monkey?

First things first...I started this blog with all good intentions to let everyone know what I'm doing to make money online. Well, it seems that as fast as I can make it, one more thing in life requires money.

It all started when I decided to pay off some debt. I did get one credit card paid off, but unfortunately, Christmas rolled around and I used it for a little Black Friday shopping. The plan is to pay the balance each month, or at least half. Anyway, I thought to myself, man, this debt payoff is moving pretty smooth and based on my scientific calculations...er, actually Dan's Super Snowball Calculator, I should have all my credit cards and personal loans paid off in only 9 months. Well, I did not take into consideration those little WTM's (Wrench Toting Monkeys) that seem to pop up out of no where.

Just to give you an idea, these are my latest little WTM's:

Brake job and 2 tires (to replace the badly worn, daily self-flattening rear tires) $200.00
Daily laundry drop off service for the past 2 weeks (I think my washing machine slung a rod!) $200

• NSF charges for not paying attention to my newly started checkbook register $175

Still searching for happiness...priceless.
I will go back to the drawing board tonight, make a stronger commitment with that checkbook register, and scientifically recalculate that snowball plan and get back on track.

ClearCheckbook.com

I've come to realize that I spend half of my time making money and the other half spending it, and the whole time wondering "where did my money go." So I thought I would sit down and try to figure out my finances and see where the money is disappearing to...but wait, I don't even keep a checkbook register much less maintain a budget.

I have always played roulette when it came to my bank account assuming as long as I logged in and checked my balance, I would be fine. Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't win at that game very long relying on luck. So after 10 years of daily checking online just to find out my balance, I've decided to start being responsible for my finances. I'm not one to keep up with an actual checkbook (I hate physically writing anything) and if I can't do it online, then I usually don't do it at all. So I went straight to Google and searched for an online checkbook register. The title for their first listing, ClearCheckbook.com caught my attention...Totally Free Online. Hey, "Free" and "Online", what more could I ask for. I looked around for about one whole minute, created an account, imported my statement from the bank and...voila! I had an actual checkbook register in less than five minutes.

After I got everything up and running, I started checking out their features. My favorites are the Google widget and the AIMbot. You can put a widget on your iGoogle page that gives you an overview of your account as well as quick links to your ClearCheckbook.com account. The AIMbot is awesome. You can send an IM requesting your balance and even add transactions straight from AIM. You can also send the same requests by sending the AIMbot a text from your cellphone. How cool is that?

The creator of ClearCheckbook.com, Brandon O'Brien, developed the program primarily for his own personal use, but decided to share it with the online community. The idea behind making ClearCheckbook.com available was to give high school students and young adults an easier way to track their spending at the same time teaching them basic checkbook fundamentals. This is exactly the type of program I was looking for...easy, free & online.

If you're looking for an alternative to a paper checkbook register, you should give ClearCheckbook.com a try and guess what, no advertisements to clutter your checkbook register. If you like the program and it works for you, please consider giving a donation. He maintains the program at no charge to you and he doesn't run advertisements anywhere on the site.