AntSaint

Turn $5 into Thousands

Saving is often about little tricks and games you play with your money, to help you set it aside. It lets you get yourself out of the way of actually saving money. It might seem gimmicky, but when you take $5 and over time turn it into $12,000, you can't argue with the results:

Link: Turning $5 into Thousands ∞ Get Rich Slowly.

"I love to read about the little tricks people use to force themselves to save money. Apparently I’m not the only one. Yesterday Jeff sent me a brief story from The Boston Globe that describes how Marie Franklin saves every five dollar bill she receives. She’s been doing this for three years, and in that time she’s managed to save $12,000"

While the pieces notes it helps if you pay in cash a lot, there are ways to do something similar even if you predominantly use plastic. Jodie and I leverage the Automatic Savings Plans (ASPs) of our ING accounts to help us, for example. We have different accounts for very specific types of spending, and we have monthly draws set up for each one. It happens automatically, behind the scenes, and over time, we have the funds set aside for general savings or for something in particular.

Warren Buffett Tells How to Invest $1 Million

Think you can time the market?  Even Warren Buffet will tell you not to bother – even if you had a $1 million to invest:

Link: Free Money Finance: Warren Buffett Tells How to Invest $1 Million.

Step-by-Step Guide to Budgeting Using ING Direct

Like Trent at The Simple Dollar, Jodie and I are big fans of ING Direct and the flexible banking it offers. In addition to being stable and customer-friendly, ING is one of the best tools you have for making the most of your money. We use ING to automate payments (spend less time and money on... money), budget for future expenses (such as a trip, a new appliance or a wedding), and to help us better understand where our money is, how it's growing and what we want and need our purchasing dollars for.

Does it sound like any of that might help make your financial life easier? If you aren't an ING customer, Trent has a step-by-step, screenshot-rich tutorial on setting up an ING bank account, and then really leveraging their online account area to help you with budgeting, saving, and even spending.

Link: The Simple Dollar - How to Budget Using ING Direct (Or Another Full-Service Online Bank).

As regular readers know, I’m a very happy user of ING Direct. They provide my checking services, my savings services, and all of my online bill pay services. They even allow me to set up sub-accounts so that I can save for specific goals. In my opinion, ING Direct is the best of the full-service online banks, and I’m a happy customer of theirs. Because they offer all of these useful tools, over time, I’ve begun to use ING Direct as my primary budgeting tool.

Via How To: Set Up a Complete Budget with Your Online Bank

We, The Savers - A Declaration of Financial Independence

This is one of the most important things I'll ever post.

Don't like what's happening in America's financial markets? Don't like what's happening in your bank account?

Do you want to do something about it?

If so, here's what you do:

Declare Your Financial Independence

We, The Savers, from ING Direct, is a 10-point list of the things you can do individually or as a family to improve your finances, regardless of what's happening above and around you. As ING points out:

"If you live by it, you'll be in control of your financial life. If everybody lives by it, we'll live in a stronger nation. We urge every American family to read it, talk about it together, commit to it. Then print it out and tape it to your refrigerator door. It's a declaration of financial independence that will put your future into your own hands, where it was always meant to be"

You can be stronger than any fear about the economy – if you decide to be. And then take these steps, as applicable to your life, to improve your budget, your pocketbook, whatever.

We, The Savers - A Declaration of Financial Independence - ING Direct

Bad Economy is not a Great Depression

Some things don't change. Markets go up, markets go down — and people panic. There's so much doom and gloom in the headlines (check that, just more doom and gloom than usual), that this particular post really got me. "Great Depression" and "Greater Depression" are phrases that have been bandied around a lot lately, but as Trent at The Simple Dollar points out, that's pretty presumptuous:

Link: The Simple Dollar � The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.

I look out my window here in Iowa and I see the ongoing harvest of one of the largest soybean and corn crops ever - not the cropless Dust Bowl of the 1930s.I don’t see a single person with a bank account that has lost their deposits, like my grandfather’s family did circa 1932. I see people going to work, working hard and producing value for their wage, coming home, and buying the things that they need to keep their family going, which puts money directly into the economy.I see unemployment barely over six percent, not the 25% rate at the time of FDR’s address.I see industrial production still rising - in 1932, it had fallen by more than half in just three years.

For me, this reinforces the things Jodie and I are doing at home right now. Gardening more, and saving more. As for investments, the only thing I'm doing is leaving them alone.

This too shall pass.

$15 Every Two Weeks - Getting Started in Saving & Investing

Think you can't save for the short-term or long-term? Baloney. Think you could set aside the equivalent of a couple of lattes (or a couple of pints of microbrew, or a few gallons of PBR), once every 2 weeks? If this guy could do it, so can you.

Link: Vanguard − Saving for retirement: One investor's success story.

"He started small, contributing 1% of his salary. "$15 every two weeks," he recalled."

Language of the Perpetual Poor

This is a tough one. I've never been of the belief that money is evil. Or that it's good. To me, money is a tool. Assigning value to it is like making moral judgments on a hammer — it's just a tool. It is only what you do with that tool, that may deserve or merit a value judgment. But many don't see it that way (Eugene's full of folks who don't see it that way), and I found myself nodding a great deal while reading this post:

Link: Language of the Perpetual Poor | Frugal Dad.

"Do you know someone who is “perpetual poor?” You know the type - constantly complaining, poor-mouthing, griping about the price of everything and jealous of everything others have. I think we all know at least one or two of those types. I’ve had the displeasure of knowing many, and over time I have heard my share of sob stories related to their personal finances. I recognize that some people are generally down on their luck, or going through a rough patch. Maybe they have faced a debilitating illness, or a job layoff, or some other tragic event that has derailed them from leading successful, productive lives. Those are not the people I am referring to when I attach the label 'perpetual poor.'”

Kill A Watt gauges available at Eugene library

Jodie and I try to be pretty conscientious of our power usage. We subscribe 100% to Greenpower program from our local utility, EWEB, for example, powering our house with wind and solar. We're good about unplugging or power-stripping "energy vampires" to cut down on wasted power, and therefore wasted money. And now, if we want to see if there are other areas where we need to trim power consumption, we can check out a watt gauge from the library:

Link: Kill A Watt gauges available at Eugene library: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore..

"A device that measures the amount of electricity used by computers, flat-screen televisions, lamps, recharging iPods and other electronic devices in homes and businesses is available for checkout at the Eugene Public Library"

Bargain Shopping and the Tingling Saver Sense: The Joy of Being a Capricorn

I'm a frugal man, though I suppose that could just be a euphemistic way to say "tight-arsed cheapskate". In any case, I have always chalked up my sense of frugality, at least in part, to being a Capricorn. I like saving money, but when I do spend money, I spend it well.

We Capricorns have a nose for bargains — an instinct. Mine is very quiet, unless it's needed. It comes when it's called — but it also comes when it knows should be called.

This evening I had to run a couple of errands, and the moment I set out, my saver sense began tingling. "Go to Goodwill," it said. At first I questioned it; I had no need to run to Goodwill. I wanted to run my errands, get back home, drink coffee, blog, and check email. "No," my saver sense insisted, "Go to feckin' Goodwill."

So I did — it was on the way, so it wasn't a big deal.

And I'm glad I did. For ages now, Jodie's been on the lookout for a second-hand crockpot that she can use for dyeing yarn. She needs a fairly big crockpot, one of the 5- or 6-quart sizes. And at Goodwill, by listening to my saver sense, I found her a big crockpot... for $6.

As I type this, she's off knitting with the girls. And her new, bargain-scored crockpot is sitting on the dining room table, complete with a wee red bow.

I can't wait for her to get home. She'll be so happy. Being a Capricorn rocks.

Oregon Taxes: 744 Oregon Biofuel Consumer Tax Credit - Pellets, Biodiesel, Bioethanol

Do you fill up with bioethanol (E85 only, thanks Chris in the comments for that clarification!) or biodiesel? Do you heat your home with pellets, firewood or B20 heating oil? If so, and you're an Oregon resident, you're getting a tax break on your 2007 state taxes.

I'm not a lawyer, accountant or anything even remotely resembling a tax or legal expert. But, I am a schmoe doing my taxes, and I've found the 744 Oregon Biofuel Consumer Tax Credit will save folks like me a few bucks off their taxes, effective with tax year 2007. The program looks like it's expanding in 2008, to include firewood and tax credit incentives for woodburners to upgrade to more efficient stoves:

• Oregon Biofuel Consumer Credit - Google Search
• Biofuel consumer - Oregon.gov - "Oregon now has a tax credit available for consumers of qualifying biofuels"
• Smallwood News :: View topic - OR State & Feds Promote Woody Biomass as Local Heating - "In early December, the Oregon Department of Energy announced the availability of a new Residential Energy Tax Credit for the purchase of highly efficient wood or pellet burning stoves. A household that purchases a qualifying new stove can receive a tax credit of 25% on the net cost of the stove up to $300"

The Biofuel consumer - Oregon.gov link contains info on who qualifies and how to claim the credit.

I could end this by saying "many happy returns," but I just won't. I'll just note that if you have any questions, talk to a tax professional, and good luck on your taxes.