Financial jargin aside, I came across this cat site and it’s really cute. You apparently are not supposed to feed your cat milk, grapes, raisins or chocolate. So go ahead and cross that off the grocery list and save yourself some money. This site is oh so cuddly and cute. I’ve already learned more about cats at a mere glance. And the pics are sweet too. Two thumbs up from Bye Bye Broke! I actually believe I was a cat in a past life.
Before I get to the point allow me to divert…
I’m a really picky eater. If you are a parent and you are reading this MAKE your kids eat all kinds of food! If they start getting away with being picky now they’ll end up like me, and by that I mean:
* I can only eat pizza with a trace of sauce (I wipe off the tomato sauce before eating. But I can’t order it without sauce because I want the trace of sauce to be there.)
*I don’t like ANY condiments. AT ALL under any circumstances. I am a fan of gravy though.
*All my sandwiches have to be with lettuce and cheese only
*I don’t like tomatoes and most vegetables actually but I’m a vegetarian…who eats fish and shrimp…
*Don’t like onions or traces of onions. If they are tiny, I will notice them and pick them out one by one bye one.
Back to that point I mentioned earlier…
Needless to say, when I find food I really love I stick to it! I am the definition of a loyal customer. You don’t have to be insanely picky either for this neat trick, all you have to do is have a few choice or favorite items you keep around the house.
If you find yourself eating Casbah Rice over and over and over again because of their oh so delicious animal free flavor-tastic rice, then you may want to write to the company and tell them how much you like them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t but they mail mail you coupons and sometimes samples of new products.
I actually did write to Casbah rice to tell them they are amazing and because one of my rice boxes came without a seasoning packet, so they gave me a bunch of coupons to get free rice. I obviously can’t keep writing to THEM, but there a few other products I am rather obsessed with. So they’ll be hearing from me!
And obviously don’t abuse this. If you’re an intense person I’m talking to you. Just write a short and sweet note saying you like what they’ve got and leave it at that. If you creep them out they are not going to send you coupons or anything else with a return address for that matter.
Most people only contact companies to complain. We should tell people they are doing a good job more often so they can be inspired to do better. They may also be inspired to cut us a few discounts along the way!
*Tip: Email them, it’ll save you stamps. Remember a coupon is a coupon, if it’s to save a $1.00, a 42 cent stamp just cut into your profit almost 50%.
Note: I Know that was pretty anal huh? But you have to start thinking this way with smaller amounts of money. Manage a dollar, then when you’ve shown you can manage $1 go for $10. Wash rinse and repeat until you get to desired amount.
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
ETF’s vs. Mutual Funds
Of all of the abbreviations you have stored in your memory up until now, you may want to make room for this one. ETF stands for “Exchange Traded Fund.” Not only is an ETF your Fund Manager’s enemy and your best friend, what it does is track a certain market, industry or sector for you at a fraction of the cost of whatever expense ratio your forking out in your Mutual Funds these days is.
EXPENSE RATIO- n. a series of fees your fund manager charges you for your Mutual Funds including setting up your account (some charge you for this over and over again every year), their office equipment (no I’m not kidding), loads, etc. LOADS are just one of many, so the whole NO LOAD thing is cute, but doesn’t quite tackle all of these unpleasant fees.
“Ok, Chantelle. So if ETF’S are so great why don’t you marry one?”
I would if I could, and here’s why!
One of the most common indexes is the S & P 500. This index tracks 500 selected American Companies that represent the American Economy. The ETF that tracks this index is called SPY (or the Spiders!) But there are plenty. The XRT tracks the retail industry, GLD tracks gold, and there is even an ETF for corn. Would you believe it?
You can also find “Ultra Short ETF’S” which track the downside of an industry or market. Hmmm…downside…You can make money when the market goes down?…YES! Not to aggravate you but if you would have taken your money and invested in an ETF/index that tracked the economy when it was going well, and then when you saw signs of it not doing so well, switched to an ETF that played the downside, you would not have lost a penny, you wouldn’t have broken even either, You would have come out AHEAD.
“I hear you Chantelle, but that sounds a little complicated to me I think I’ll just stick with my Mutual Funds”
Ugh.
Numbers speak louder than words, you asked for it so here goes.
Say you are getting a charged a “modest” fee of 2.5% to your Fund Manager. Say you have $10,000, and you make an 8% return of $800. Your fund manager does not take a 2.5% cut of $10,000, they take that cut from the $800. WHETHER OR WHETHER NOT THEIR DECISIONS ARE CAUSING YOU TO PERFORM WELL OR UNDER PERFORM THE MARKET.
When money is left alone to accrue interest. A beautiful thing happens. This thing is called compounding. Your interest accrues interest which accrues more interest and when the process is left alone it sets your money to work for you which is what you deserve, end of story!
I promised you numbers so here goes. That same $10,000 fund you have in 10 years with 8% interest left untouched would land you with.
$46,610.
Not bad, for doing nothing eh? Now let’s see what happens after your Fund Manager takes a cut.
…$26,412.
43% of your account is GONE. Se La vie.
I’ll give you some time to process that and make an angry call to your fund manager…
“Chantelle, this is ridiculous, why didn’t we learn this in school?”
Now there’s a FABULOUS question. They were too busy teaching us that Algebra we ended up needing for our daily lives.
Thanks for reading! If you want to learn more about ETF’S you can visit fool.com. If you would like a list of them you can go here…
ETF List
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed broker or financial advisor. I cannot legally advise you to do anything with your money. The idea behind this blog is to help encourage you to come into your own financial power. I am not here to manage your retirement fund, nor would I want to. I believe you will do a much better job at that;)
Open an IRA and commit to putting a certain amount of EVERY paycheck you get into it!
Operative word…COMMIT! (10% is a good number, until you reach the maximum annual limit. Which is often $4,000)
An IRA is an Individual Retirement Account. You can hide up to $4,000 a year (depending on the year, the amount changes) from the government. This money is tax free, no one can touch it and you can leave it or invest/trade it up!
If you are under 35 open an IRA Roth so you can take it out tax free. The younger you are the better, this means the money has time to do a magical little thing called compounding!
*If you are older and you just read this and thought. “Oh woe is me, I started late, I don’t stand a chance.” GET OUT OF OUR OWN WAY! Stop letting terrible thoughts control your life. Success is a choice. So is failure. Someone else is using their years as a reason to start taking action before it’s too late! But I’ll cover this more in Get Out of Your Own Way.
Let’s get back on track here…
Compounding is when money, time and interest combine forces and get your money working for you! To give you an example.
Say you have $1,000 growing at 11% per year. In the first year, it gains $110, and ends the year totaling $1,110. In year two, it gains $122. Year five, $167. Year 16, $526. Year 22, $984. It grows by an increasing amount each year! And all you have to do is NOTHING!
You can open an IRA with any brokerage, might I suggest an online, discount brokerage. They have less fees. There are plenty to choose from. I’m with Think Or Swim. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. But feel free to do your research and choose the one that is right for you.
WARNING: If you have high interest credit card debt, use the 10% -20% of your money to pay that off first. Just the way compounding works for you is the way high interest debt works against you. You don’t want to have it cancel out the beauty of compounding, so be patient and check out my tips on Credit Where Credit Is Overdue. Don’t count yourself out of the game because you are in debt, make moves to fix it now! What you focus on expands so don’t dwell on debt, keep your eyes on the future and start fine tuning those money management habits. You’ll be free of debt before you know it. It took me less then 6 months;)
For more on IRA’s feel free to visit fool.com. This site is where I got my very first introduction to the stock market. It’s funny and they broke everything down for me very nicely. By the way, back in January of this year I knew NOTHING about the stock market. And I mean NOTHING. I highly recommend this site. Between this and Investools I am truly grateful for how much I have learned so fast.
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed broker or financial advisor. I cannot legally advise you to do anything with your money. The idea behind this blog is to help encourage you to come into your own financial power. I am not here to manage your retirement fund, nor would I want to. I believe you will do a much better job at that;)
Now is the time to clearly figure out what it is you want exactly from money. Is it to save up for a car? A vacation? Or do you want some control over your financial situation? Do you want to be rich? Be clear on what it is you want so you can go about getting it. If you are not clear it’s not going to happen. It’s kind of like going to the store without a list. You always forget something don’t you?
MAKE A FINANCIAL LIST!
Here’s a hint, GET SPECIFIC! The more detailed the better. Greg Habstritt puts it quite frankly, “You can’t hit a goal you can’t see.” He goes on to recommend you answer the following questions.
1) How will you measure whether or not you have achieved your goal?
2) How can everyone around you tell you have actually succeeded?
3) How long are you going to give yourself to achieve your goal?
Here’s an example for you.
Bad: I want to be financially free!
Good: I am going to make $175,000 a year in passive income. That’s over $500 a day and $15,000 a month. I will do this by my 26th birthday which is April 15, 2009. I am letting the four closest people to me (my mother, my father, my brother and my uncle) know what I am aiming for so they can hold me accountable.
If you are surrounded by negative people who will not hold you accountable I’ll cover that under the section “Make Friends Who Play Nice With Money.” In the meantime leave your intentions as a comment and I will hold you accountable myself!
Have a wonderful Monday evening!
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
Dude! Did you hear about this new thing called THRIFT shopping? It’s like so totally cool. My GOD! You can like totally get things that are barely used and look FAB! Righteous man!
Like I got the coolest pants there ever and they were $8! And when it comes down to it, no one with a soul is really tallying up how much your outfit is, so like you can pair up some vintage jeans with a $2 shirt and SCORE! The best part is you won’t look like everyone else and you can express your own individual sense of style! Yeah, man.
But you should like totally remember to wash the clothes before you wear them so you don’t get Scabies! And you don’t have to sound like this to put a decent outfit together either;)
Shop on!
Chantelle
You did:) Because you are smart. Now I know no one really admits to this, but especially when I’m in a rush I always leave the lights on. Sometimes even during the day and sometimes I don’t make it home and that light stays on for days. Tsk tsk:( It’s a waste of energy, a waste of money and it really isn’t going to make you any later to turn off the lights in your house before you leave.
For those of you who leave the lights on or maybe even one light to make it appear as if someone is home so robbers won’t try to break in, I personally don’t think you have to go through all of that. Let your neighbors know you are leaving town, ask them to keep an eye out if it helps you sleep better night, and if you truly feel the need to keep that one light on, make sure it’s a night light or a compact fluorescent bulb;)
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
I know you read the title and pictured some balding guy in a silk shirt forking out cash on some 20 something year old girl at the Bellagio. But I’m not only talking to him, I’m talking to you as well. Because love doesn’t pay the bills, so if you are losing money on top of that you need to start reevaluating your heart’s desires. Do you really love this person? Or do you love the way people look at you when they see you scored someone this hot? Or are you the kind of person who just doesn’t want to be alone at any cost?
Who are you dating? If you need to constantly fork out cash to keep your partner interested UPGRADE and get a better partner. You also need to ask yourself why you truly think no one would want to around you unless you paid them money. That’s a hard question to ask yourself so if you find this might be you, I applaud you in advance for facing the facts. It’s how we grow;)
I want to get real specific here so no one tries to lurk away without fessing up.
To the woman who is working two jobs, your boy toy/husband or whatever it is that sloths on the couch all day while you bust your ass (yes I said ass. cope) still “can’t find a job” after 5 years. Stop making excuses, get rid of him! Your account balance will thank you and so will your patience.
To the guy in the silk shirt and the sports car wondering why your latest girlfriend only wants to meet you at the mall and only calls you back right before she tries to lure you back to the place you two met which is some strip bar you continue to tip her at even though you are now “dating.” You’re not her boyfriend. Don’t kid yourself. You are what’s called a repeat customer. You deserve better, find someone who actually enjoys your company. When YOU start thinking you’re a catch so will the rest of the world.
To the woman who met her girlfriend in a whirlwind of drama at Ladies Night in the Castro and is now making her payments on her condo for her because she…”(insert dramatic story with tears)” Get out of the situation. Take yourself out of it and open your eyes and your heart to much less draining possibilities.
While we are in the Castro… To the man who just moved his new boyfriend into his condo and hasn’t seen him in 2 weeks but deep down knows he’ll turn up when he runs out of cash…NO! This is not love! This is not anything! And it’s costing you a fortune.
Now that I have addressed every sexuality! Money is not the only thing we invest. We invest our time, patience, trust, dignity, emotions, SOUL. What is your return? Great connections, in my experience, I have found to be naturally reciprocal. If you feel you are putting out too much and getting nothing in return in any area of your life, it’s time to explore something new and more profitable.
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
My mother has a friend who shall remain nameless. She is all about the glamor. Her poor husband had to downsize his car because she just won’t let her Gas Guzzler go.
“But what will the neighbors say? What will my friends think? They’ll think we are going broke.”
So she holds onto her status like there is no tomorrow. She is going broke, everyone knows it and it’s a shame.
For all of my ballers out there, could it be possible that you care too much what people think about you? Is it possible that in many ways this is costing you a lot of money and your soul?
Never fear, because I have a secret that is going to help you out…Are you ready?!…Can you taste it?!….
NO ONE THINKS ABOUT YOU NEARLY AS MUCH AS YOU ASSUME THEY DO! THEY ARE TOO WORRIED ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THEM TO EVEN ASSESS WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT YOU!
AND REGARDLESS, WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF YOU IS NONE OF YOUR F$&#&@* BUSINESS! SO YOU ARE DRIVING YOUR BOAT INTO THE GROUND ALONE ON THIS ONE FOR ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON!
What I love most about this blog is that I get to remind myself to practice what I preach;) So I thank you for the opportunity. After this I’ll be repeating those last two lines to myself in the mirror. And yes I do that, and I have no shame in saying it because what you think of me is none of my business…Wow, I really am taking my own advice…SWEET!
If your excuse for sticking to your Boat is that you “need the room” then the question you should be asking yourself is if you can AFFORD the room. If the answer is “YES” Good for you! I’m not sure why you are reading this blog it sounds like I need to be reading yours, but High Five!
If the answer is “NO.” Let it go. If you’re not sure what the answer is I’ll give you a Hint: If you and your spouse are arguing about it, the answer is “NO.”
Anyway, it’s Sunday night/Monday morning. I’ll make this short and sweet. Drop the gas Guzzler, take public transportation or find yourself a sleek, gas efficient, sexy car, and invest in commodities. Especially if Bernanke cuts the rates on Tuesday. But that’s another blog another time;)
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed broker or financial advisor. I cannot legally advise you to do anything with your money. The idea behind this blog is to help encourage you to come into your own financial power. I am not here to manage your funds, nor would I want to. I believe you will do a much better job at that;)
Want to hear a fun story about myself? When I first started learning how to manage my money I knew I had to cut down on the two things that were sabotaging my bank account…Eating Out and Alcohol (Whiskey.) I cut alcohol out completely because it came with a few bad habits I found to be rather sabotaging as well. (Waste of time, money wasted on cab rides home from dark bars. Money wasted on courting the wrong people…) But of course I couldn’t just cut food out of the picture. So instead, I decided to shop for food and cook at home.
My mother is a coupon fanatic so I decided to try it out and it REALLY HELPED.
A few things to keep in mind…
1) Eating cheap is no excuse to not eat healthy. For those of you who don’t have health insurance or who have some shady plan (so I’m speaking to all of you! Let’s keep it real!) If you think eating $1 deals off the menu at your closest fast food pit is going to save you money just imagine the health problems you signed up for. Talk about co pay galore and then some! Pay now or pay later. Fork a few extra bucks out to eat healthy.
2) Mambo Sprouts has Health Food Coupons! These pretty much saved me. You can print them out online and they have coupon books as well.
3) WARNING: Make a shopping list and stick to it! If you are using every coupon you have to buy everything you don’t need you are going to wind up spending more money. This is a coupon trap you should avoid at all costs. Tee hee, I couldn’t help myself, I had to say it.
4) Throw away old coupons. Don’t keep clutter in your life. Embrace clarity.
Coupons can really help you save some money and encourage you to shop for the house and cook at home which is a cheaper and healthier bet.
Cheers and Love,
Chantelle