A Responsible Kid at Last

The lunchboxes have arrived! And so much faster than the Stum (as my roommate will now be called) and I had expected. From now on we will be bringing our lunches in style. Admiring my lunchbox today I felt it was the best 15$ (including shipping and handling) I’ve spent in a very long time. In an effort to be frugal in these struggling times I have begun to cut frivolous costs, including, as some of you may have read, by bringing my lunch to school- I mean work.

I have a few money saving tips that in my opinion are helpful tools for keeping cash in the bank though they may be obvious or maybe I'm a fiscal genious. I'm gonna go with the former but in the spirit of blogging and putting ideas and such out there I'm going share what I've learned in my very few years as a responsible “adult”.

1. It is important to know your own economic limitations. My father always said that I should take a certain percentage of my paycheck and put it away in some kind of savings account. These days a good savings account is also one that accrues interest. Places like www.img.com have a 3% interest rate on their savings account, which can be opened by anyone at anytime online. What I mean by know your limitations is it's good to know how much you are receiving each month and how much you are spending. A lot of people (myself included) end up spending more than they are earning. What's hard, however is to know where the extraneous costs are.

2. I believe that it is worthwhile to have fewer credit cards thereby reducing your potential credit debt or spending more than you have (limitations!). Another good idea when it comes to credit cards is to always pay them in full and on time. In full so as to avoid interest rates on the left over amounts on your card and on time so that you don't damage your credit score. I find it's helpful to put a mental limit on how much money I spend on my credit cards each month and stop using the card once I've gotten to that limit (which sometimes happens early on in the month).

3. Now I pay off some of my bills on my credit cards automatically. It's important to track what those bills are and the activity of those bills. Recently I discovered that my cell phone bill was quite large, unnecessarily so. I was paying for more minutes that I ever used and features like early nights and weekends that were not needed when I had rollover minutes that were accumulating and not being touched. I immediately changed my phone bill to fewer minutes and a lower amount of dollars. Then I went back to my credit card bill and saw a charge for my gym. I haven't been to my gym in over 6 weeks and in being honest with myself I'm not sure when I'll be going back. I immediately contacted my gym and cancelled that sucker.

4. Finally, more words of fiscal wisdom from my father, don't set monetary boundaries that are unrealistic or become too stringent. Don't put away too much money for savings leaving you with not enough money to have a few small frivolities, like dinner and drinks with friends during the weekend or catching that new movie in theaters. You should always have some running around money, make it so that you don't limit yourself so much that you're having to say no to a lot of fun activities like dinner thereby making yourself more miserable if you were in debt.

Of course, there is a fine line between being prudent with your money and being frivolous. I don't think there is an exact science to it and everyone's patterns and behaviors are different and can differ from day to day and month to month. There are a few helpful blogs and websites that can give you further and more detailed tips for saving money on a daily and case by case basis like this one: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/02/06/little-steps-100-great-tips-for-saving-money-for-those-just-getting-started/. It documents 100 different ways to save money from buying stuff for yourself to watching TV and buying gifts. This website is accredited and has a more organized list of ways to save: http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/05/05/smart-money-saving-tips-you-need-now.html.

Of course my list is about the very basic stuff and again, probably common sense but it's good to share the wealth of sense that is floating around out there and in our heads.