Guest Blogging Round-up: December

Last year  I wrote about all things finance from the young adult’s perspective in a series called Pennies-Nickel-Dollars over at Pretty Natural Divas.  Take a look at my posts from December:  


The Hidden Costs of Shopping A purchase is never just a purchase. A warning about additional costs associated with shopping. 


6 Money-Saving Apps  6 smartphone apps to make your shopping easier and save you money. 


On The Web: Money Article Round-up Highlights of my favorite personal finance articles I found on the web. 


New Year, New Goals Goal-setting tips, just in time for the New Year!




Happy Reading! 

Money Lesson: Don't Eat The Cookie!

Recently I shared some of my financial goals for the year, but I didn't tell you all about the other life goals that I have. One is to improve my eating habits, and part of the way I've been doing that is to track calories and keep a food diary using the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone. My motivation was tested when my fiance decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. I had space in my calorie count for the day to have a cookie, so of course I was ready to run in the kitchen to get one...BUT, I decided to enter the cookie into my food diary before actually eating it, and boy did this make all the difference.

The app I use tells me how much progress you can make in 5 weeks if everyday you ate like you did today (in terms of calories consumed). By eating this 150 calorie cookie and getting into the habit of "splurging" on an extra 150 calories each day, the amount of weight I can lose in 5 weeks would be decreased by 1.5lbs. This was a light bulb moment for me...when it comes to health or even money, each seemingly small decision you make is important, as they collectively form your set of habits that will either lead you to your goal, or lead you astray. That afternoon vending machine break and the weekly trip to Target that leaves you $20 poorer each time may seem like small amounts of money, but added together can really hurt your budget. 

Every time you make a bad decision, it becomes easier and easier to make another one. Also, each bad decision makes it easier to fall off the wagon of change because even though we all know that you can make mistakes along our journey, we all have had times where we accept mistakes as failure and just stop trying all together.

To commit to a lifestyle change, we have to first commit to taking the journey one decision at a time. At each "checkpoint" (decision), we have to decide whether to move closer to our goals, or to move further away. We will have missteps along the way, but we just need to work on making those mistakes occur further and further apart.

I think this commercial from Fidelity illustrates my point pretty well:

2012 Financial Goals

It's a new year, so it is the perfect time for a new set of goals.  I made awesome strides in my financial life in 2012, and I hope to continue that success into 2012.  Here is a list of my goals for 2012, along with ideas for behaviors that I can do to help achieve them. 

Save $4000 by January 2013

• Direct deposits to savings: Already set, with the current setting can save about $2500 without doing anything else.  May increase the amount saved each month.
• Save 50% (or more) of tax refund.  I saved a good portion of my refund last year and used part of it to pay off credit card. 
• Increase income.  This year I will be eligible for a promotion at work that comes with a 10% raise.  Also use money earned from Swagbucks (gift cards), online surveys, and credit card rewards to decrease some of my regular expenses instead of using it to buy frivolous stuff

Maintain a buffer of $100 in my monthly budget.  A few times in 2011 I went over my budget (note: I think of my savings as a bill I have to pay, so I didn’t actually spend more than I earned, just cut into the amount of money I put into savings each month).  After I build up a few months of a buffer I will transfer that amount to my savings account.

• Tell myself no when I’m lusting after an item in the store
• Limit costly restaurant meals
• Use cash when shopping for personal supplies, clothes, food, etc to make sure I stick to the monthly budget.

Maintain $0 credit card debt. 

• Pay credit card balance in full each month
• For major purchases and wedding purchases, create separate savings account/sub-account to take care of it instead of using credit card.

Open a Roth IRA

• Read blogs, books, etc to research options

Guest Blogging Round-up: November

Every Thursday, I write about all things finance from the young adult’s perspective in a series called Pennies-Nickel-Dollars over at Pretty Natural Divas.  Take a look at my posts from October and be sure to check me out  each and every Thursday! 


Pennies-Nickels-Dollars: Managing Student Loans  Tips to help you minimize and manage student loans before, during, an after college.

No Job & No Savings, Could You Survive? A look at the online game Spent that simulates the feeling financial hardship. 

5 ways cleaning out your closet can make/save you money  How to find money in your closet!

3rd Update: Short Term Goals

It's been a while (6 months!) since my last update, but I've made a lot of progress in some of my goals, mainly the financial ones!


Financial

Create a $1000 emergency fund by September 2011.  
2/11: 75% of the way there! Woo Hoo!
6/11: Savings account balance: $3175.48   Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm going to wait until September to officially set a new savings goal, but with automatic savings I should be at around $3500 even by then :)
*I almost forgot about my bank that I mentioned in the "Making Savings Fun" post,  we've raised about $54 in change lol  
12/11: On December 1st I broke the $5000 mark in my savings account!