About six years ago, my husband and I had a fairly comfortable lifestyle.  I worked full-time and my husband worked part-time as a graduate assistant.  We had one child, and we had no credit card debt.  We did have my student loan debt from graduate school, though it was less than $10,000.  We budgeted and set aside money for yearly expenses such as home insurance and twice yearly expenses such as car insurance, as well as car repairs.  My employer automatically withdrew 8% of my salary and deposited it in a retirement account.

Sounds good, right?  We thought so.  We thought we could afford vacations and a weekly outing to our favorite sushi restaurant at the tune of $50 a visit.  After all, we were able to pay in cash.

In retrospect, we were misguided.  We couldn’t afford our lifestyle.  Here is why:

We didn’t have a big enough emergency fund.  We did have an emergency fund of about 3 months of living expenses.  In an era where “fewer than four of 10 American adults have an emergency fund to fall back on in the event of some financial disaster, according to a nationwide Bankrate.com poll” (Bankrate), we were doing  good, but we stopped saving when we hit 3 months of saving.  We should have kept saving until we reached 6 to 12 months, but we didn’t.

If we had, it is very likely that when we had two more kids back-to-back and I quit my job because daycare was going to eat up so much of my salary, we would have avoided racking up much of the credit card debt we are now trying to pay off.  We would have had a large cushion, which, in retrospect, I would have taken over weekly sushi dinners any day.

We didn’t fund Roth IRAs.  Yes, my employer automatically took 8% of my salary for retirement, for which I am very glad, but we didn’t save independently for our own retirement.  We should have set aside an amount every month to contribute to our Roth IRAs.  Just making a few simple changes to our lifestyle or our bills could have helped us find more ways to contribute to our retirement.  We became complacent because my employer was deducting money for retirement.

We didn’t fund an educational savings account.  We now have three kids and no money saved for college.  Our oldest is almost eight, so college is only 10 years away.  Our youngest two are much further away from college, but when they go, we will have to pay for both of them at once because they will be only one grade apart in school.  We have a lot of catching up to do, as does most of the country.  The New York Times reports, “The findings of a survey of 1,200 parents of children under age 18 . . .by the Gallup Organization and Sallie Mae reveal families, on average, save $2,676 annually for their children’s education, for a total of just uner $14,000.”

We didn’t save for a house.  We live in an area where homes in less desirable neighborhoods go for $300,000 (and that is after the housing market bubble) and property taxes average $8,000 to $12,000 a year.  Thankfully, we didn’t fall into the trap of buying a home we could not afford.  However, in the next few years, we plan to move to an area of the country with a lower cost of living.  In anticipation of this move, we should have been diligently saving for a house, but we didn’t.

We thought that we were living a comfortable lifestyle that we could afford, but we left out several important aspects of a strong financial position.  Now, we have to pay off debt before we begin to tackle the missing components of our financial lifestyle.  Had we realized earlier that we couldn’t afford our lifestyle, we might not have so much debt to pay off.

Can you afford your lifestyle, or do you just think you can?

• 7 Roth IRA Mistakes To Avoid
• Borrowing From Your Roth IRA
• The Five Commandments For Boosting Retirement Savings
• Mint.com Review: Online Personal Finance And Budgeting Software

Are you engaged? Married? Wondering if you should combine your finances during marriage? What are the pros and cons of a combined financial plan? Let’s explore this topic and figure out why you should or should not combine your finances when you’re married.

Two Arguments on Combining Finances After Marriage

Everyone I’ve met with when talking about this topic has always been passionately on one side of the argument or the other. People a lot of different feelings when it comes to this debate, and I’m going to try and be as objective as possible and then propose the best course of action.

Argument 1: Combining Money During Marriage is Important

For Christians and non-Christians alike, combining finances after marriage can do a number of important things for the relationship.

One of the most important changes it makes is that it creates an environment that fosters trust. Trust is a vital element in any marriage. Without trust, marriages cannot last.

When you share the same bank accounts, agree on a budget, and review each other’s transactions, you’ll know where you’re both headed financially which will give you a greater sense of security. Transparency in a married couple’s finances allows both parties to see the trajectory of their financial situation, allowing a greater degree of planning to take place that leads to a more secure future.

It is also argued that combining finances allows greater degrees of simplicity. By not having to deal with multiple bank accounts, couples can more easily track their financial situation. Money doesn’t have to be transferred between separate accounts, and both individuals have equal access to all the funds.

Christians believe that when a man and a woman marry, they are becoming one unit. This sense of unity extends to every aspect of life, including finances. As it says in the Book of Genesis:

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. – Genesis 2:24 NIV (emphasis added)

Argument 2: Combining Money During Marriage is Unnecessary or Unwise in Certain Circumstances

There are those married couples who keep their finances separate. Here are some of their reasons for doing so.

Some couples feel that the money they earn individually should be their own separate money because they earned it individually. They point to personal responsibility and believe that individuals should be self-sufficient and not dependent on their spouse for anything.

Other couples keep their money separate simply because it is what they are accustomed to doing. They started off single, and never took action to combine their finances. For them, it was merely natural to keep individual bank accounts and continue how they were living when they were not married: separate financial lives.

One reason why some couple keep their finances separate is because they have a general distrust of their spouse. Perhaps their marriage is struggling and separation or divorce is immanent. To protect their financial well-being, one spouse might wisely take half of their savings into a separate account to ensure the overspending and abusive spouse doesn’t keep all the money for themselves.

There are married couples who have been previously married and combining finances will be more difficult for them due to previous bad experiences. When this occurs, both the husband and wife have to be careful in how they handle combining their finances.

How to Talk to Your Spouse about Combining Finances

Talking with your spouse about money is certainly one of the most difficult conversations. If you’ve never really discussed money with your spouse-to-be (or spouse), here are some tactics you can use to make it easier.

First, decide which argument above you agree with more. Every married couple is different, but in my estimation most couples should combine their finances except in certain extreme situations. Let’s say you’d like to combine your finances with your spouse but aren’t sure how to go about the discussion. What do you do?

1. Start the conversation with your vision of a better life.

The conversation might start with something like this:

Honey, down the road I want to be able to [fill in the blank with your financial ambitions such as buying a house or retiring early so that you can spend more time with each other]. In order to do these things, I think it would be helpful if we combined our finances. The reason why is that [fill in the blank with your own reasons]. I’d love to continue this conversation with you to figure out a way to strengthen our marriage in this area. I love you lots and want the best for our relationship and future!

Now, whatever you do, don’t memorize a script! Simply think a little bit about what you are going to say and your main points.

2. Continue the conversation periodically to show you value this change.

If your spouse is reluctant to combine finances, you may need to give them some time. Bring it up periodically and remember to stick with your vision of a better future.

Marriage counseling might be required if you feel you’ve hit a dead end in the conversation and it’s becoming a point of contention. Communicate with your spouse gracefully and understand that change is always difficult – especially if it’s not their idea in the first place!

3. When you gain agreement, talk about the specifics.

Once you are both on the same page, talk about how you are specifically going to combine finances. What bank accounts are you going to combine? How will you both make sure you don’t overdraft the joint checking account? What will your budget look like? How much fun money (money spent freely by each spouse without discussion) will you each have? These are all important questions and you should figure out the specifics so you can act on your new plan!

Do you believe you should combine finances after marriage? How do you handle the finances in your household? Leave a comment below and let’s get the conversation started!

• 10 Ways To Improve Your Relationship This Valentine’s Day
• Is Multi-Generational Living For You? What Are The Pros And Cons?
• Consider Giving Your Spouse Gifts All Year Long
• 5 Money Mistakes College Students Make

I‘ve been using Mint.com personal finance software since the early days back in 2008 when the website was still in beta. At the time the site was pretty novel, and the idea of managing your finances online was relatively new. A lot of people were wary of using a site like Mint.com back then because of the questions surrounding security (and some still are), but in the intervening 4+ years I think it has become more and more accepted.

Over the years I’ve used a variety of personal finance managers. I used Microsoft Money until it was discontinued a couple of years ago.  I use YouNeedABudget (YNAB) as well as a variety of short-lived online personal finance software. While I’m not sure I would ever give up using a desktop budgeting and finance software like the one we’re currently using, YNAB, I believe that Mint.com is a fun and extremely useful supplement to what we do with that software. It is a great way to get a snapshot into our finances, give us reminders, update us on our budget and show us where the money is going.  So let’s jump in and take a full look at the software in this Mint.com review.

Signing Up For Mint.com

Signing up for an account with Mint.com is a pretty simple process.  You’ll just need to enter your email address, country, zip code and a preferred password.   Once you complete that you’ll be setup with an account, and ready to add all your financial accounts.

Depending on how many checking, savings, credit and investment accounts you’re adding to the software you could be setup in just a couple of minutes, or it could be a half hour or longer.  I added 12 accounts to the software, so it took a while for me to enter each one. You’ll need to enter a username and password, and answer any security questions that external banks need you to confirm. Then it’ll connect to your bank and download your account information. You do this once for each bank.

Here’s a video review of Mint.com, showing how to sign up, add accounts and more:

Sign Up For Your Free Mint.com Account

Overview Screen

Once all your accounts are setup in Mint, you’re ready to use the software. The first place you’ll go whenever you login is the “Overview” tab.  The overview tab will give you a complete look at all of your accounts.  You’ll see balances, worth of your assets, as well as notifications if there were problems downloading information from any of your accounts. It will also give you a quick little “net worth” number based on how much you have in your savings and retirement accounts, as well as counting your debts and credit cards against the number.

You’ll also get a look at some overarching trends in your account through the trends charts at the bottom of your overview page. You can see, for example, how much cash you have in your accounts versus how much credit card debt you have. Or how much income you had in a given month versus how much you spent.  It’s a useful way to get a broad overview of how you’re doing  in your financial life over time.  You’ll see if you’re spending too much, or if you need to be increasing your income.

On your overview page you’ll also have a prominent “alerts” section that gives notifications as to large or unusual purchases, low balances, or uncategorized transactions.  You’ll also see a section for your budget, and how you’re doing for the month in major categories.  You’ll see if you’ve overspent, or if you are still on budget.  Finally, you’ll have a few other sections including upcoming bills, goals (if you’ve set them up), ways to save and investments.   In short, there’s a lot of information on the overview tab, and it’s a great way to get a quick look at your financial situation.

Mint.com Alerts

Mint.com has a nice alerts feature that you can setup for your account that will notify you by email or SMS when certain things happen in your account.  Among the alerts you can setup:

• Late fees
• Over budget on a category
• Bill reminders
• Rate changes
• Large purchases
• Unusual spending

The alerts can be nice reminders when you’ve got some big bills that are set to autopay, or if you write a big check for something – you’ll get an alert when it finally goes through.  For example, as I was writing this review today I got a couple of alerts telling me that several extremely large purchases went through.  Turns out my huge tax payments that I made this week were finally sent through and accepted by the IRS and my state revenue office.

The number of alerts that you can setup are pretty extensive. I setup quite a few at first, but then turned several of them off as the number of emails I was getting was just too many.

You can also receive weekly or monthly summary emails telling you the status of your accounts, your spending and so forth.  If you prefer you can turn those off, as well as the regular “advice” emails, which are really more marketing offers for a variety of third party products like mortgages, credit cards and so forth. I just turned those off.

Transactions Tab

The second tab in your Mint interface is the transactions tab.  On this screen you can view all of your account transaction, in a variety of ways. You can view transactions for all accounts, or by single account.   You can search for certain transactions (which comes in handy), or you can filter by account type – cash/credit, investment or loan.

When Mint downloads your transaction data from all of your accounts they’ll automatically categorize them based on what they know about the payees, or based on what you’ve told them about an expense type or payee in the past.  So transactions like eating out at Mcdonald’s is easily categorized by Mint as Food/Dining out expense.  Sometimes you’ll find if Mint doesn’t quite know what an expense is, it will leave it as uncategorized, and you’ll need to go in and categorize it for Mint.  That seems to happen quite a bit for more obscure purchases, or for checks (I had 13 last month).  To be honest, however,  Mint does a surprisingly good job of auto-categorizing expenses and income, and they’ve gotten better at it over the years.

If you do see an uncategorized expense you can easily click on it and set how Mint should categorize that expense going forward.  That seems to cut down on the number of ongoing uncategorized expenses that you’ll see.

Mint Budgets

The budgets tab in Mint will allow you to setup budgets for your major income and spending categories so that Mint can track for you how you’re doing in those areas.  It will also show you your goals, and how you’re doing for those.  To me this is the heart of what Mint can do for you, help you keep track on your spending.

Our budget is setup to include our income from my day job and blog. Then we’ve setup our major spending categories including dining out, groceries, shopping and a couple of other variable spending categories that we have issues with every month. (screenshot below is from a Mint demo account)

It can be eye opening to see just how poorly you’re doing in one category (eating out for us!), or how you’ll find you don’t need to budget nearly as much as you thought on another.  After you’ve setup budgets you’ll see notifications on your overview page as well as in the mobile apps to show you how you’re doing in certain categories. Review them regularly and adjust as needed.

Mint Goals

Another cool feature of the Mint.com software is the ability to setup goals in your account.  I believe setting goals for your financial future is important, and having this feature in the account could be pretty useful for a lot of folks.

The preset goals you’ll find to choose from in mint include paying off credit cards, paying off loans, save for an emergency, save for retirement, buy a home, buy a car, save for college, take a trip and improve my home.  You can also create a custom goal of your choice.

When you’re setting a savings or debt related goal you’ll be able to link the goal to an account, and tell it when the goal will be accomplished. For example, if you’re saving for a car, you can link it to one of your accounts, and say that the goal is accomplished when you reach $10,000 in the account.

While the goals feature can be pretty useful for some of the short and mid term savings and debt goals, it may fall short in some of the retirement planning and savings goals categories. To find out why read our full review of the Mint.com goals feature.

Investments

I’ve only recently in the last couple of months started using the investments tab in Mint.com.  My old company 401(k) provider was difficult to work with and wasn’t able to get pulled into Mint.com.   My company recently switched account custodians, however, and I’m now able to add them into Mint.com and have it pull my account transactions and updates.   I also started using Betterment.com within the past year and discovered that I could add them into Mint as well.

So now I’m tracking my Betterment Roth IRA, Betterment taxable investments, my company 401(k)  as well as my Lending Club account in Mint.  It gives daily updates on the performance of my investments, and shows me my performance against the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ.  Only thing I don’t really like is the “allocation” tab, which shows my investments all as “other” or “not sure”.  That’s a bit strange.

While the options for investors are limited in Mint, at least there’s something there that can help you keep track of value and performance.  For long term investors like me that’s all I need from Mint right now.

Using Mint.com Mobile Apps

Mint.com has a full offering of mobile apps available to iOS and Android users.  They’ve received a ton of awards for their apps including Lifehacker’s “Best Mobile Personal Finance Tool”,  PC Magazine “Editor’s Choice” and noted as one of Kiplinger’s “Must-Have Money Apps”.   If you’re using Mint, and you have a smartphone, you should definitely download the app to go along with it.

• Mint.com Iphone + Ipad App
• Mint.com Android App

The apps are a great way to check your account balances while on the go.  Make sure bills have been paid this month, your account hasn’t been overdrawn or make sure you’re still within budget while on vacation.   While it isn’t going to be as full featured as the website itself, it can come in quite handy at times.

How Can They Offer The Service Free?

Mint.com is offered as a free service.  How are they able to give the website and all it’s functionality to the users free of charge?  They’re able to do it because the website makes money from the users themselves by promoting a variety of products and services to them.  You’ll see throughout the site where they promote their own products like TurboTax, or other things like credit cards, home  mortgages, investment accounts and more.

For the most part the offers are not too in  your face, and they usually only offer you things that may help you to save money or get into a better financial situation. They’ll offer lower rate credit cards, mortgages with a lower APR, or remind you to start saving for retirement – of course with one of their affiliates.

As long as you realize and understand that Mint.com is in partnership with a lot of these companies, and may not always have the best deal available shown in their pages, it isn’t a huge problem.  You can turn off the “advice emails” that are mainly marketing tools, and it cuts down on a lot of the annoyance of the offers.    Mint.com is a business, and I understand why they need to have these advertising partnerships.  Just be aware of that.

Where Mint.com Excels

Mint.com is a great service in my opinion.  There are quite a few things it does very well.

• Budgeting: The budgeting tool of Mint.com allows you to keep a close tabs on where your money is coming and going.  Integral for every household to have something like this.
• Tracking: Makes the process of tracking your spending easy. It automatically downloads transactions and categorizes them.
• Email summaries: Weekly or monthly email summaries are a great way to stay on top of your finances.
• Aggregation of all your accounts: It’s a great way to keep track of all your accounts in one place with one username and password.  The fact that they’re a read-only service helps allay some security fears.
• Trending graphs, pie charts:  Mint.com does a good job of showing you where your money is going through the use of interactive graphs and charts.  Great for people who are more visual.
• Mobile applications: The mobile apps for Mint.com are actually useful, unlike the apps for many websites.

Things I Don’t Like About Mint

There are some concerns or issues that I’ve had with the service, as have other users.

• Troubles with some accounts downloading info:  I have a couple of accounts that continually have issues downloading data and logging in.   I’m told it is a problem with the bank, but it’d be nice to get login and data issues resolved.
• Customer support not that great:  If you ever have issues with your account, you may have a hard time getting support.
• Categorization of income and expenses not always accurate:  While Mint’s categorization has gotten vastly better over the years, it still has issues sometimes and requires user intervention to help categorize at times.  Not a huge issue for me though.
• The ads and “ways to save” emails:  The emails and product pitches via Mint can get tiring.  Thankfully you can turn the emails off, and after a while you become blind to some of the ads and pitches on the website.

Conclusion

I’ve been using Mint.com as a part of our financial tool-chest for over 4 years now.  In that time I’ve seen the site grow and improve it’s feature set, and it has become one of my go to tools when I want to know what’s going on in our financial lives.  While I don’t think I would ever use Mint.com as my only financial planning and budgeting tool (I also use YNAB), I do think how it allows easy access to your family budget and trends in income and spending make it an invaluable resource.  I’d highly recommend adding Mint.com to your tool-chest as well.

Sign Up For A Free Mint.com Account

• Manilla Review: Get Your Accounts, Statements And Bills All In One Place With Manilla.com
• YNAB (You Need A Budget) 3 Budget Software Review: Zero Based Budgeting Made Easy
• Credit Karma: Get Your Credit Score For Free
• Can You Afford Your Lifestyle?

Crystal Paine and her husband, Jesse, have certainly had financial struggles during their marriage.  When they were first married, they vowed to stay out of debt even while Jesse made his way through law school.  Some months they earned as little as $650, and their rent was $500!  Still, Paine says that they tithed 10% every month and often prayed that their needs would be met, and by the grace of God, they were.

Leading by Example

Paine and her husband have been good stewards of their money.  Not only did they sacrifice so Jesse could graduate from law school debt free, but when Jesse began his law career and Crystal’s blog, Money Saving Mom, grew and brought in a nice monthly income, they continued to live a conservative lifestyle.  By doing so, they were able to save for 2.5 years and pay outright for their first home in cash.  Now, Paine shares her strategies for saving money in her new book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget Book.

Not Your Typical Budgeting Book

This book is not your typical financial advice book.  In fact, Paine spends the first chapter talking about clutter, not money.  Why?  She feels that if your environment is cluttered, you are often stifled and likely to spend additional money because you can’t find the things you already have, you may not be organized enough to pay your bills on time, and you spend more time cleaning up because you have to constantly move the clutter.  She advocates taking an entire day to clear the clutter from your home.  In addition to clutter management, she advocates time management in the second chapter.

The third chapter explains in detail how to budget to meet your family’s needs including anticipating expenses you will need to pay throughout the year so you are never caught off guard and never have to dip into your emergency fund for a non-emergency.  She also advocates the use of cash only, which many Bible Money Matters readers already advocate.  Finally, she asks readers to take it slowly and get used to having a budget for three months before delving deeper into budgeting.  Paine seems to want to truly teach her readers habits that will stay with them for a lifetime.

The heart of the book focuses on how to save money at the grocery store from how to use coupons effectively to how to menu plan to feed your family meals for the lowest cost while not skimping on quality.  Paine offers practical advice on using coupons; she does not go to extreme measures and confesses to even taking a week or sometimes a month off from couponing to recharge.  However, she urges all consumers, even those who eat organic foods or have food intolerances, to use coupons because they could still be saving money.

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget Book is a basic primer to teach people how to manage their money and stay out of debt.  It is a terrific resource for those who are struggling with managing their money or meeting their monthly obligations.  If that is you, or if you know someone like that, this book could be very beneficial.

Manage Your Finances to Give Generously

As a devout Christian, donating is something that is very important to Paine.  At the end of the book, she advocates donating your time or groceries you can buy for nearly free when using coupons if you are struggling financially.  One of Crystal and Jesse’s main reasons for staying out of debt is so they can donate generously.  In fact, all profits from The Money Saving Mom’s Budget Book will be donated to Compassion International.  Paine’s final message is a simple one:  learn to control your finances so you can get ahead and also help others by donating your time and money.

The Giveaway

Paine has generously agreed to give five Bible Money Matter’s readers a copy of her book, due to be released on January 10, 2012.  To enter the giveaway, simply share your favorite money saving tip in the comments (mandatory). To earn extra entries just tweet the giveaway and follow us on Twitter. Once you’ve done each entry just click on the rafflecopter giveaway widget to let us know!

This giveaway will end on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 12am.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

• Nuru Personal Finance Flash Cards: Review and Giveaway
• Betterment.com Investing Website Video Review: Walkthrough Of Account Setup And Investing Tools
• Mint.com Review: Online Personal Finance And Budgeting Software
• TD Ameritrade Review: Award Winning Online Brokerage

While doing research for my project on credit I really wanted to figure out why so many 20-somethings were clueless when it came to building credit, paying off debt, and real estate.

I’m not exactly the typical finance person. I enjoy my drinks and I enjoy talking about the most random topics. I never preach to my friends and I rarely bring up the idea of money management. One thing that I do is I observe.  I observed that many of my friends were stuck in credit card debt and unable to get ahead of the game because their spending was just completely unrealistic.

Some personal finance bloggers promote budgets heavily. Other bloggers scoff at the idea of a budget and say it doesn’t work. Instead of debating about budgets and trying to figure out arbitrary numbers I wanted to share my simple spending strategy. I wanted to share how I decide on how I’ll spend my money.

What’s this simple spending strategy? You need to be realistic with how you spend your money.  What’s being realistic with your spending all about? I wanted to share what my take on realistic spending is…

Treat Yourself If You Can Afford It

If you can afford to buy something nice for yourself, then go for it. The key is to only do so if you can afford it. This is actually where the breakdown occurs. From an emotional perspective we don’t want to feel like we can’t have something because we work so hard for our money. From a logical point of view, we need to understand that we can always have everything that we want at the same time. This is why I love to treat myself when I know that I can afford for it.

For example, while traveling through Europe I spoiled myself a few times. The reason I did so was because the currency conversion in some places allowed me to do so. I got more bang for my buck than I ever could at home.

Don’t Hang Out With Big Spenders

Whether we want to admit it or not, our friends really determine our behavior. If you hang with big spenders you might become a big spender. I often don’t recommend hanging out with big spenders or those with different financial values because it can cause some discomfort. This doesn’t mean that you need to avoid your friends. It just means that you should try to hang out with friends that have similar financial values. You don’t want any awkward moments when trying to decide on where to go for dinner or on how to split the bill.

Save A Solid Percentage Of Your Income

I try to save a decent amount of my income. This percentage varies on what’s going on with life and the time of the year. I don’t like to throw out percentages, so I’ll just say that I want to save enough money so that I’m comfortable in case anything were to happen (emergency fund).

Once I set aside a set amount of cash that I’m happy with I don’t have to stress about spending money money when a random evening out pops up or if I want to buy something new.

Spend Frivolously Once In A While

Once in a while I take a set amount of money (usually minor) and I spend it foolishly. I get my frivolous spending out of my system for the next few weeks or months. It’s just not realistic for us to always be smart with our money. Sometimes we need to let loose and buy something stupid. Don’t act like you don’t being careless once in a while.

Think Of Value

I always try to think of the value that I’ll get out of every purchase. As I’m typing this I’m sitting in a cafe sipping on a coffee while I work on various blogging tasks. For some the idea of drinking a coffee in a cafe is waste of money. For me the value is that I can focus on my work while I consume a beverage that I enjoy. That’s the value for me. For others there might not be any value in this.

This is why I think of value. Cheap people often don’t understand value and it frustrates me. You won’t always get the best price when it comes to value. You will get the outcome that you’re looking for though.

At the end of the day I do what I can to be as realistic with my spending as possible. Sometimes I’m too cautious. At other times I’m a bit too careless. If you don’t watch your spending it’s going to be tough for you when you start a side business or if you ever want to quit your current job.

Are you realistic with your spending? What’s your strategy for smart spending?

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Completely Conquer Credit

This was a guest post from Martin of Studenomics. Martin has just released a super-helpful guide that shows you how to completely conquer credit before you hit 30. You can’t have much fun in your 20s if you’re always in debt. Martin spent all summer researching credit so that YOU can save yourself a ton of money, time and stress.

• Can You Afford Your Lifestyle?
• Mint.com Review: Online Personal Finance And Budgeting Software
• 3 Reasons A Budget Will Help You Get Out Of Debt
• 3 Steps To Easily Pay Your Bills On Time

Many people have trouble getting started with their financial plans. And even after they get started, in can be extremely difficult to be consistent. That’s why it is important to take advantage of various ways to set up an automatic savings system.

You’ve read about the advantages of automatic savings on this site in the past, so now we are going to look at a few ways to make this happen. Let’s start with the basics and then move our way up to solid retirement planning.

Build An Emergency Fund Through Automatic Savings

In order to avoid having to rely on borrowing money if an unexpected expense comes up, you should be sure to establish an emergency fund. This is a special account (or allocation of money) that you are not to touch except in the case of an emergency.

When you plan to establish an emergency fund, it can seem like everything around you is fighting you. Many times, other things will pop up and cause you to either take money out of your savings, or divert your contributions elsewhere.

I have found that if you create your emergency fund using automatic savings, it is much easier to reach your goal. You can do this in one of two ways (of course, you can find other ways, but these are the most simple).

First, you can have a portion of your paycheck deposited directly into an online savings account. This way, the money never hits your primary checking account, and you are not tempted to spend it on other things. If something comes up that may not constitute a true “emergency”, you will try to think of other creative ways to handle it – rather than simply not make your periodic savings deposit.

The old saying, “out of sigh, out of mind”, is definitely true when it comes to money!

If your employer doesn’t allow you to deposit your paycheck into two separate accounts or banks, then you can set up automatic transfers from your checking account on payday. This is what I do, and it works very well. Once my transactions clear for that day, my check is deposited and my emergency fund contribution has been transferred. Again, the money isn’t in my primary account long enough for temptation to set in!

Automate Your Debt Snowball

If you are using an online bill paying service – either through your bank, or as part of your credit card benefits – it can be very easy to automate your debt repayment plan.

Once you decide which creditor to pay off first, and how much extra you want to send to them, just go online and set up those additional payments as a recurring plan. This way, you don’t have to worry about writing out a check each month or pay period – you remove the chance of either forgetting to make some of the payments, or being tempted to spend the money on something else!

401k Contributions

Many people are worried about their retirement savings – especially after a couple of really bad days for the stock market. However, the worst thing you can do is to stop saving. It can be very easy to give in to fear and apprehension over investing for the future, which is why setting up automatic savings is so vital here.

If your employer offers a 401k, and you are not contributing, you are possibly throwing away free money. That is because most companies will offer a 401k employer match of up to 6% of your annual salary! The money will be automatically transferred out of your paychecks, up to the current 401k contributions limits ($16,500 or $22,000 if you’re 50 or older). You don’t have to worry about any type of temptation here, the money is taken out before you even get your pay!

This makes it extremely easy to put your retirement savings on auto pilot (at least the contributions), and helps you to fight the urge to take that money and spend it on a current indulgence.

Build Up Your IRA

If your job does not offer a 401k, or if you desire to save even more for retirement, all is not lost. You can also set up an automatic savings plan to fund an IRA. IRA contribution limits are up to $5,000 for those under the age of 50, and $6,000 for savers 50 years of age and older (if they take advantage of the $1,000 catch up contribution limit)!

You can go through most banks, credit unions, and even discount brokers to set up an Individual Retirement Arrangement. They will allow you to set up automatic transfers from your bank account at regular intervals, directly into your IRA.

This is another way that you can save for your retirement, without having to wrestle against all of the alternatives for your cash!

Conclusion

Many of us have great plans and intentions when it comes to handling our money. However, we can find it very difficult to implement those plans. By taking a few minutes, or even hours, to set up transfers to online savings accounts, split direct deposit, and saving for retirement, you’ll be able to reach your goals without even thinking about it.

It’s almost as if you become able to trick yourself into saving money!

• The Psychology Of Saving
• Thoughts On Escaping The Middle Class
• 3 Ways To Trick Yourself Into Saving Money
• Living On Less Before You Need To: Getting By With One Income

Many people know that I am a huge proponent of using automatic savings, and automatic bill paying to help manage my finances. There are many advantages to doing this – fighting temptation to spend “extra” money, saving time having to make these payments/transfers every period, and simplifying your finances, immediately come to mind.

However, there are also certain risks involved with putting your finances on auto-pilot. We will discuss several of them below.

Failing To Reconcile Accounts

To me, the biggest risk with automating your accounts is the fact that you may fail to reconcile your accounts. This can happen in one of two ways. First, if you are automatically paying your credit card bills when they come in, you may overlook the fact that you need to check the statement for errors.

What if there are charges on your bill that don’t belong to you, or are for more than they should be? You may go a few months without checking your statements and could end up missing fraudulent charges, interest rate increases, or other important information. By paying off the balance (or even just the minimum payment) automatically each month, you may miss all of these important notifications.

Also, if most or all of your transactions are automated, you may not stay up to date with your checking account. If your account is hit with any unexpected transactions, then you can easily be thrown into an overdraft situation! It might not even be errors which need to be detected and corrected, but it could be an infrequent expense (such as a subscription) that causes chaos in your checking account.

This is not to say that you will never take a look at your finances if you choose to set up automatic payments; but it does make it a lot easier to overlook certain things.

Disconnected From Your Financial Reality

One of the things that I have found is that by automating payments, I have become disconnected with my finances. Now, I try to go through my transactions and savings every two weeks (the Saturday after I get paid), but it’s still not the same.

By having everything automated, it can feel as though your finances are operating on a continuous cycle that doesn’t require your involvement. Because you do not have to look at your statements and review every charge in order to pay your bills, you may not be as inclined to look for ways to reduce your expenses or increase your income.

You may find yourself going a few weeks without looking at your bank account. Then that may grow to months. By having all of your bill payments and transfers to savings and retirement accounts happen automatically, managing your finances can easily fall into the background of your life.

Start To Lose Motivation

If you don’t have your goals constantly set before you, you may lose your motivation to push toward that goal. Whether that goal involves trying to pay off debt, building up an emergency fund, saving for retirement, or being in a position to increase your giving, it helps to visit that goal often.

By automating your finances, you may miss the opportunity to check your progress often. For instance, if you have set up automatic transfers to establish an emergency fund, you probably won’t look at the balance of the account very often. However, if you have to log onto your bank’s website and set up a transfer every two weeks, it will help to set the goal before you. Of course, if you use personal finance software, you should be able to see all of your account balances at a glance – but you still need to look!

If you have long-term financial goals, you need to stay motivated in order to see them through. Automating your finances can help you to give those goals a place of priority in your finances, but it can also take away your motivation by allowing you to be less involved.

Reader Questions

1. Do you automate your finances?
2. Are there any bills/transfers which you choose not to automate? If so, why?
3. Have you found any other potential problems with setting up automatic payments?

• How To Accomplish Your Financial Goals With Automatic Savings
• 3 Quick Ways To Recover From A Spending Spree
• Having A Budget Meeting Is Like Having A Financial Reset Button
• The Psychology Of Saving

It feels like an oven outside, and it doesn’t seem to even matter where you are in the country.  This summer is just plain hot, and heat waves are happening all over the place.

I’ve heard the term ‘heat wave’ being used this summer and I’ve been wondering what exactly constitutes a heat wave? What’s interesting about the term ‘heat wave’ is that there’s no universal definition for the phrase; it’s really a matter of relativity.  Put simply, it’s just a long period of higher than normal temperatures.

Since my mind is always relating things to financial matters, I got to thinking about how our finances can experience ‘heat waves’ every now and then.  I guess a ‘financial heat wave’ would be a long period of higher than normal spending – which seems easier to do in the summer, at least from my experience.

As a way to beat the heat while keeping our spending under control, my wife and I have come up with a few activities that are pretty enjoyable to do when it’s scorching hot outside.

1.  Go To A Lake

Our new favorite place to go for a few hours is the lake near our new house.  We’ll take the dog and let her swim and they even rent out canoes and paddleboats for half price when you go in the morning.

2.  Basement Movie Night

Our basement stays cooler than the rest of the house, so it’s the perfect place to sit back and start a movie.  With the rise in Nexflix prices, you might just rent a Redbox movie and pop some popcorn for a cheap, cool night.  If you have kids, make it different by pitching some tents or having a theme for the night.

3.  Fire Up The Sprinklers!

Ditch the waterpark and create your own slip and slide.  Make some homemade popsicles and let your kids (or dog for us) run around in the sprinkler to stay cool.  If you have kids, get some water balloons going and have water fight.

4.  Check Out A Museum

If you’ve been cooped up in your house and want to get out and about, check out a museum, library, or mall. You can take advantage of their A/C and spend the day doing something enjoyable.

5.  Head To The Pool

If you’ve run out of things to do indoors, you can make your way to the local pool.  Make up a lunch for a picnic, bring a Frisbee or basketball, and enjoy the pool and park without spending more than you want this summer.

There are all sorts of things that you can do to enjoy the summer without breaking your budget.  Don’t let a little heat wave keep you from having fun!

What are some inexpensive summer activities that you and your family like to do?   

Most Commented Posts

• The Money Saving Mom’s Budget Book – A Review and Giveaway
• A Second Stimulus Check: Is It On The Way, And Is It Even A Good Idea?
• Government Making Home Affordable Refinance And Loan Modification Program: Do I Qualify?
• Dave Ramsey’s New House: Did He Follow His Own Advice And Pay Cash?

Looking for ways to save money on groceries? Are you the type of person who’d rather skip the hassle of clipping coupons?

If so, I’ve discovered a few food-buying programs that will help you cut costs.

How These Programs Work

These programs buy quality food from first-rate suppliers at big discounts. Because of the discounts, they can pass some of the savings along to you. The food items may come fresh, frozen, or packaged.

Orders and distribution are handled by local host sites, which include churches, schools, and other community-action organizations. You can order as many units as you like, and there are no income restrictions.

The menu varies from month to month, so you can enjoy different foods.

How to Make a Purchase

Making a purchase is straightforward.

1. You search for a local pickup site and place an order.
2. The food gets delivered to the host site.
3. You pick up your order at the host site when ready.

Another great thing about these programs is that if you’re an organization that’s interested in offering these food items to your community, you can partner with these programs by applying to be a host site.

Lastly, check out each program and see if their menu items suit your taste and dietary needs before buying.

Okay, here are three food-buying programs.

Angel Food Ministries

site: angelfoodministries.com

This program is the most widely available, with locations in the U.S. and Canada. They have the largest selections of prepackaged food items, and they accept food stamps. They estimate that you can save $28 in grocery costs if you purchase their signature box.

Sample Menu

• Signature Box – $35 (feeds a family of four for a week)
• Golden Cuisine – $29 (ten convenience meals for people on the go)
• Allergen Free Food Box – $25
• Premium Box – $55

If you become a host site, Angel Food will donate $1 to your benevolence fund for every box distributed. It’s their way of giving back to you.

Treasure Box

site: thetreasurebox.org

Treasure Box isn’t as widely available as Angel Food Ministries. It’s only available in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

• The Treasure Box – $32 (over 20 pounds of food that can feed a family of four for a week)
• The Hearty Proteiin Box – $32 (about 12 pounds of protein items)
• Quick and Healthy Meal Box – $32 (10 packaged meals that are low in fat and cholesterol)
• Simply Enough – $24 (a smaller box for people with fewer needs)

Some locations accept food stamps. Treasure Box will also donate money to each host site for every box that’s ordered through that site.

Golden Share Foods

site: goldensharefoods.com

This program is most limited in scope, as it’s only available in Southern California. But if you live in San Diego, you’ll find many available pickup locations.

• Basic – $30
• Veggie – $20
• Mega Meat – $36

They seem to participate in SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

I hope this helps you get groceries at much lower costs!

Darren loves to help people learn business skills that they can apply to better their lives. Check out his blog at Gain Business Skills and get free updates via his RSS feed.

• 8 Ways To Buy Organic Produce And Meat On A Budget
• Keep Your Grocery Bill Down: Avoid Overpriced Grocery Items
• How To Save Money On Your Grocery Bill
• How To Brew An Inexpensive Single Cup Of Coffee With A Drip Cone Brewer

My wife and I love to take trips and usually go on a nice vacation every year or so.  We try to keep the costs low and have found a few ways to make the most of our vacation while keeping to our budget.

Every time we go on a trip, I like to set out an anticipated budget.  This usually includes food, gas, airfare, hotel, and fun.  It’s usually pretty easy to estimate these costs and with the total in mind, we have a better handle on what we should aim for cost-wise.

I’m sure you’ve heard some of these tips, but there may be a few that are new to you.  Hopefully you can use them to shave off a few dollars from your next trip.

1.  Leave After Lunch

I know it sounds simple and may not work for every trip you take, but when you leave after lunch, you only need to worry about eating dinner on the road.  Leaving in the morning means that you will be paying for lunch and dinner during the trip.  If you have a family, that lunch bill at McDonald’s can add up fast – even if you’re ordering from the dollar menu.  : )

When we eat at home before we leave, I know that it’s like saving $10 for the both of us.  While that’s really not a lot of money to brag about saving, it does count for something!  Just think of it as a $10 gas credit!

2.  Pack The Snacks

A pack of granola bars is $2.00 from the store, so pick up a box and keep it in the car during your trip.  If you’re flying somewhere, make sure your snacks don’t include drinks.  As a way to save with things to drink in the airport, you can bring an empty bottle and fill it with water once you get past security.  Then you can bring it on the plane with you.  Go ahead and multiply $3 by each person who bring a water bottle…there’s your savings.

Ok, ok… I know what you’re thinking.  Enough with the small savings, right?  If you’re looking to save in the big things, the following tips are for you (but I’d encourage you to try to save in the small things too).

3.  Use Reward Points

Most major hotel chains offer reward stays that can really add up.  I travel a lot for work and use the Hilton family chain of hotels.  Since I use a Hilton Honors credit card, my points add up quickly.  I usually get a free stay every two months just for using my credit card to pay for things I would buy normally.

Another hotel chain with great rewards is Choice Hotels.  They give you a free stay after two stays.  This can cut your lodging bill by a lot!  Check them out the next time you’re booking a hotel.

4.  Book Your Flight In Advance

There’s a really cool tool called the Bing Airfare Predictor.  It’s a tool that shows you if flight prices are expected to rise or fall during the period that you’re looking to fly.  With an accuracy rate of 75%, you can use this tool and end up saving quite a bit when flying somewhere.

5.  Sign Up For Credit Cards

Wait a minute here?  That sounds a little irresponsible, doesn’t it?  Before you go signing up for every credit card that offers you rewards or flight points, think twice.  I’m not recommending that you open a credit card every time you see rewards attached.  In fact, you want to make sure you’re not creating too many lines of credit out there.

If you are responsible with credit cards, look at a few of these options.

Citi Gold / AAdvantage Visa: 30,000 points after spending $750 on the card.  That’s enough for one roundtrip domestic flight.  (There is a $50 annual fee after the first year)

Delta Airlines Gold SkyMiles Card: 20,000 points after first purchase, 5,000 bonus points when you add two additional members.  Enough for a free flight.  ($95 Fee waived for first year)

Credit card rewards aren’t for everyone, and I would actually recommend that some people NOT go this route.  But, I wanted to include this as a way to save because we’ve saved hundreds of dollars by responsibly using rewards.

How have you saved on travel this year?

• When Getting Great Deals On The Things You Buy, Make Sure You’re Actually Getting The Deal
• When Renting A Car, Save Money By Not Paying For The Extras
• Make Sure You Know The Due Dates On Your Bills Before Leaving On Vacation
• Tips For a Frugal European Vacation