Tips for everyone to give, take, share on saving money

McD5 said:

There is some great advice in this thread, and I definitely need it. I'm going to start with quicken tonight. I cannot believe how quickly my money goes.

I have one other piece of advice. Never, and I mean ever, buy a boat. The maintenance is so costly.

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The budgeting tools are cool too. Categorizing expenses is a pain to start but doing it once a week afterwards isn't bad. You can also get the quicken app on your phone and they sync if you want.

Extreme said:

They have a lot of aps that track every penny you spend now, you just enter it right there when you spend it so you always know where its at now. Works great when you're Christmas shopping or spending a tax check.

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Yeah. You have to find tools that work for you so you actually use them. In the past I stop after a month and just waste it. Doing pretty good right now though. Hopefully I stick with it.

tshile said:

Yeah. You have to find tools that work for you so you actually use them. In the past I stop after a month and just waste it. Doing pretty good right now though. Hopefully I stick with it.

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That's the same problem I have is sticking with it. it's great when it's new, then it gets harder and harder to give a damn with a lot of things like that.

Another idea - this is only for those that feel comfortable with credit cards.

Find a credit card that gives bonuses towards something you'll actually use. Pick something that will help. One idea is to get a card that racks up airline miles/points and use it for your next vacation. Another is have an AMEX costco card and use the bonuses to buy food from costco.

The trick is to first be a person that doesn't have an issue with spending more a month than they should, second use the card for everything you buy. No more cash, no more checks, no more debit card (debit card is a security issue anyway, you shouldn't be using it to begin with), just that card. Use it for things you'd normally buy - gas, lunch, when you go out to eat, but more importantly all your bills.

You'll rack up so many points by converting you normal monthly spending towards a card that turns 3% cash or points/miles/etc towards something you can use.

Wife just took out an amex that gives miles and our vacation in october will be paid for in terms of traveling by the time it comes up. I put my down payment on my car on it, redskins tickets will go on it, all our auto-pay bills, everything. Before that we were using my amex costco card and cashing checks at costco ever 4 months that covered groceries.

If you pay off the entire balance every month you wind up not paying anything extra to get the rewards. You also rack up some +'s for your credit rating.

Tshile is en fuego tonight. I really do appreciate the tips.

I've never had a credit card in my life, and I'm 43. It's probably time that I get one.

McD5 said:

Tshile is en fuego tonight. I really do appreciate the tips.

I've never had a credit card in my life, and I'm 43. It's probably time that I get one.

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If you do, you'll wish you didn't. Sooner or later. The convenience of it becomes too much to resist. Besides, when you factor in interest and the fact that they find new ways to screw you every year, are you actually really getting anything for free?

If you're paying interest on credit cards you're doing it wrong

I would hopefully just set something up with my bank, where the balance is automatically withdrawn every month, so that I never have a balance on my card.

tshile said:

If you're paying interest on credit cards you're doing it wrong

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I'm not paying a dime on credit cards, I don't have them I got burned one time when I was 18, and that was more than enough for me.

....and there's no such thing as an interest free credit card, just ones that are interest free for a limited time before they bend you over and "forget" the KY. That is, unless you're lucky enough to have the means to use the hell out of a card and pay it in full every single month. A luxury most people don't have.

Cash is always the best option. A bank can't take it, skimmers can't skim it, I can't break it trying to get in when I'm locked out, it doesn't expire, I don't have to call an automated number and waste time on hold if I can't find it, I don't have to worry about new laws changing what it does, I can spend it and not have it drained from my wallet by a waiter at a restaurant, and I always know exactly how much I have.

If you pay your credit card on time, there is zero interest. All credit cards are therefore interest-free. The interest rate kicks in when you buy $5000 worth of stuff, and pay it off with lesser amounts, monthly. But if you use a credit card like you would cash, then pay off the entire balance each month, you don't pay interest.
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Extreme said:

I'm not paying a dime on credit cards, I don't have them I got burned one time when I was 18, and that was more than enough for me.

....and there's no such thing as an interest free credit card, just ones that are interest free for a limited time before they bend you over and "forget" the KY. That is, unless you're lucky enough to have the means to use the hell out of a card and pay it in full every single month. A luxury most people don't have.

Cash is always the best option. A bank can't take it, skimmers can't skim it, I can't break it trying to get in when I'm locked out, it doesn't expire, I don't have to call an automated number and waste time on hold if I can't find it, I don't have to worry about new laws changing what it does, I can spend it and not have it drained from my wallet by a waiter at a restaurant, and I always know exactly how much I have.

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What Lanky said. I wouldn't recommend anyone use a credit card to buy stuff they can't otherwise afford in a thread titled tips about saving money. If you don't have the willpower to only buy what you can afford then it's a bad idea.

Paying it off every month was the key to my post, which I mentioned a few different times. The bonuses are there to lure people who can't handle using credit cards without running up a balance they can't afford to pay off.

Don't be that person. Be the person that pays the balance off every month, pays 0 (zero) interest, don't get a card with an annual fee, and get your vacation flight played for; or groceries for a month; or something.

It requires the willpower to not buy stuff on credit (ie: roll a balance over every month) and planning to know what would be good for you.

Some cards offer big kicks on mileage just for signing up. For those interested look into American Express, Discover, and Chase. There are others but those seem to have the best kickbacks.

The kickbacks are funded by the charges the card companies charge vendors. Which is why those cards aren't accepted everywhere

McD5 said:

Tshile is en fuego tonight. I really do appreciate the tips.

I've never had a credit card in my life, and I'm 43. It's probably time that I get one.

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DONT!!! They simply arent worth it. It took me all of my 20's to get out from under the CC mess. I havent had one for a decade or more and I coulndt be happier.

Extreme said:

I'm not paying a dime on credit cards, I don't have them I got burned one time when I was 18, and that was more than enough for me.

....and there's no such thing as an interest free credit card, just ones that are interest free for a limited time before they bend you over and "forget" the KY. That is, unless you're lucky enough to have the means to use the hell out of a card and pay it in full every single month. A luxury most people don't have.

Cash is always the best option. A bank can't take it, skimmers can't skim it, I can't break it trying to get in when I'm locked out, it doesn't expire, I don't have to call an automated number and waste time on hold if I can't find it, I don't have to worry about new laws changing what it does, I can spend it and not have it drained from my wallet by a waiter at a restaurant, and I always know exactly how much I have.

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filled with great advice here ^^^

Snydershrugged said:

DONT!!! They simply arent worth it. It took me all of my 20's to get out from under the CC mess. I havent had one for a decade or more and I coulndt be happier.

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It depends on the person, SS. My wife and I went through the same thing in our 20's, but have recovered nicely from that and are fine now. We keep two credit cards active, using the rewards T talks about, but pay them off every month. If you can discipline yourself, it's a good way to go. We pomised ourselves if we ever got more than one month behind (not missing a payment, just not paying the balance down) we would pay them off ASAP and shut it down.

Yeah. Credit cards are not for everyone. If you're using them as a way to borrow money then you are likely to get in trouble. That why I say use it for gas, bills, groceries, your work lunch. Those are things you have to spend money on so you should have the money in the bank when the bill comes.

The entire idea falls to crap if you are not paying it off in FULL every month. Then you're paying someone a fee to spend money you don't have which is a terrible situation to put yourself in.

Goaldeje said:

It depends on the person, SS. My wife and I went through the same thing in our 20's, but have recovered nicely from that and are fine now. We keep two credit cards active, using the rewards T talks about, but pay them off every month. If you can discipline yourself, it's a good way to go. We pomised ourselves if we ever got more than one month behind (not missing a payment, just not paying the balance down) we would pay them off ASAP and shut it down.

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I agree, its definitely by individual. Though, I would have to say that the ever present danger of them getting out of control makes it too dangerous for the average person. Its way to easy to think "well, things are tight this month, so I will just pay the minimum and catch back up next time". It tends to snowball in my experience.

In general terms, all of society should act as if credit were non existent IMHO. If that were the case, our individual and especially, our government debts would not be a concern.

We all need to learn to live within our means and spend less that we earn. Its simple math.

Couldn't agree more, amigo . Like I said, we got buried when we were young, and it took years to dig out of. Partially, I blame my folks, who did a great job raising such a fantastic individual overall , but not so great when it comes to managing money. And more than my wife, I was responsible for the debt we racked up. And of course, the credit card companies are cheerfully run by Satan, as near as I can tell. Anyway, bad mix all the way around.

We learned our lesson. The wife handles all the bills now.

Another tip - make sure you're saving for retirement. That's in addition to saving for a rainy day - your rainy day fund should not be tied to your retirement, you should have separate accounts for those.

Time flies and the key to saving for retirement is to start early. It's very easy to push it off, turn around and be 35, and say 'crap I don't have anything for retirement!' It's far to easy to put off, but even if you're only putting $100 in it a month, it is something. Especially if you work with a 401k or IRA - the more money in the account the more money you make when the market goes up. So having 40k in it when you're 35 severely limits your ability to grow your retirement fund as opposed to starting when you're 24 and having 200k by the time you hit 35. Those are not unrealistic numbers if you save 10% and have a company that matches; oh and have a 401k fund manager that helps you out

How you do it is up to you - there are many ways. Us, personally, we use IRA's and 401k's. There are many people who got burned through that or are scared of the stock market (for legitimate reasons.) Those are not the only ways to save. However you do it, make sure you start early. If your company offers matching on a 401k and you're not taking full advantage of that then you're missing out on free money, you're lowering your compensation from the company and you're working for less than you could be.

If you already have those set up then you should really take full advantage of the service and work with whoever the rep is for your account. In my experience working with these people is free and is part of the service your company pays for when they set up a 401k account with a company. Use your rep, they know more about what is going on than you do (probably ) and it is what they are paid for. Make sure you talk to them at least once a year to update them on what your finance status is and make appropriate adjustments. Maybe you just bought a house, or you know you need to purchase a car in 3 months, or you have a kid on the way.

The worst thing you can do is not have something for a retirement plan. The second worst thing you can do is open a 401k when you start at a company and dump money in it every month for the next 10 years without working with your rep to have a plan and update that plan as your life situation changes.

Snydershrugged said:

I agree, its definitely by individual. Though, I would have to say that the ever present danger of them getting out of control makes it too dangerous for the average person. Its way to easy to think "well, things are tight this month, so I will just pay the minimum and catch back up next time". It tends to snowball in my experience.

In general terms, all of society should act as if credit were non existent IMHO. If that were the case, our individual and especially, our government debts would not be a concern.

We all need to learn to live within our means and spend less that we earn. Its simple math.

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You're absolutely correct. If you look up the average credit card debt for people you'll see that they are being used the wrong way by far too many people. It's not for everyone. It's for people who already have their spending and finances under control and are simply looking for an additional way to maximize their spending habits. If you're already having issues with rolling over credit card balances then there is a (probably) long list of items you need to go through to get your finances under control before you get to 'using credit cards to rack up bonuses' .

I've been under the CC debt rock before, and its awful. I was a stupid college kid, and spending well beyond my means on the credit card. Now, I don't have that problem (partially because my means have increased, but...); I know approximately how much I've spent on the CC, and know when its time to cut it out. But I pay the entire balance every month (no matter how painful), and I'll be flying to Thailand first class in November thanks to that.

Side note: very jealous. I always wanted to go to Thailand. The pictures I see of other people's trips there look like they're out of a movie about wonderful places