Budget Freak

Despite some heavier than normal expenses, and in turn, a fairly small net income, I was able to grow my net worth almost 6%. My cash reserves were down 11% for the month, mostly due to some index fund purchases. My retirement and investment categories were both up 10% and 62% respectively, between contributions and another great month in the stock market. Assets were up a total of 3% overall. Liabilities were down 1% for the month. I’m continuing to pay off my 0% balance transfer money each month, and I’m contributing $500 per month towards my car loan. All told, a moderately good month. Could have been a lot worse. Here’s to a better June. online pharmacy without prescriptionbuy silverbuy detoxbuy italian charmsdownload softwareonline pharmacy no prescriptioncanadian pharmacydownload moviesfarmacia en lineainternet drugstoremovie downloadmexican pharmacybuy gift basketsbuy levitrabuy hoodiaprescription drugsdownload moviebuy dvdcheap auto insurancebuy jewelrybuy jewelry onlinecheap online pharmacybuy alcohol testdownload filmdownload musicdownload mp3prescription drugsbuy notebook batterydownload moviesonline pharmacybuy charmsbuy piercingpiercingflash games onlinebuy propecia onlinesearchpiercingno prescription pharmacyonline pharmacyonline pharmacy no prescriptiondownload moviescanadian pharmacybuy soma onlinebuy carisoprodol onlineitalian charmsindian pharmacybuy viagra onlinegeneric viagra onlinebuy levitra onlinegeneric cialis onlineonline pharmacy without prescriptionno prescription online pharmacytransformers movieeuropean online pharmacyprivate porn moviesbuy phentrimine onlineonline pharmacy no prescriptionbuy jewelry onlinejewelry shopsilver shophealth articlespass a drug testbuy oem softwareeuropean pharmacydvd movies

Turns out I did miss the extra $50 sign up bonus from Citibank. I wrote Citibank to see if they could apply the better offer, but they said they couldn’t. Oh well. An extra $50 would have been nice, but I’m still happy with the $50 they will be giving me.

If YOU want to take advantage of the $100 offer, you must be a new Citibank customer, and USE THIS LINK.

As you may know, I’ve been making money taking advantage of 0% balance transfers offered by many credit cards. So far, I’ve made over $90, and I’ll be getting another interest payout of $75 by the end of the month. When taking advantage of these offers, it’s critical to keep up with payments. Any late payments, and the 0% offer is revoked and you’re stuck paying interest. I’ve paid 3 bills so far on my two different cards, and it’s been pretty smooth. I’ve also helped myself by setting up reminders that go off at various times the week before the payment is due. If you try something like this, I highly suggest you do the same.

Things are going so well, I decided to push my luck and apply for more cards. Over the weekend, I applied for 4 more cards offering 0% balance transfers, a Chase, American Express, a WaMu card, and another Discover card. I heard back right away from WaMu (only a $1,000 limit ), I was rejected by American Express, and I’m still waiting from Chase and Discover. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I screwed this one up. My credit score right now is probably in the toilet. If I had done these applications when I originally started the arbitrage game, I’m sure I would have been approved, no problem. Now, I’m around a 60% debt to credit line ratio, and I have a few recent hard credit pulls in the last 3 months. To a credit card company, that’s a huge risk, and they’re unlikely to hand out a large credit limit, if they’ll even hand out a card at all.

The smart thing would have been to wait until my balances were lower and the old credit pulls had fallen off (at least 6 months). I guess I got a little impatient. Lucky for me, I’m not too worried about my credit score right now. I’m not planning any large purchases for at least another year, if not 2 or 3 more years. Even still, these inquiries will disappear in a few months, and as soon as I pay off the balance transfers, I’ll have a clean slate.

Then again, maybe I’ll get lucky and Chase and Discover will approve me. Who knows.

One more thing to note, the WaMu card I applied for did have a 0% balance transfer offer, but it also had free access to your FICO credit score. This alone, is worth applying for the card, and I’m really glad it’s the one card I did get approved for. Most companies will charge $10 a month or so to check your credit score, so I had to jump when I saw it for free. Now I can actually watch my credit score take it’s nose dive!

Last night, I decided to take advantage of the $50 sign up bonus that I talked about yesterday on a Citibank Savings Account. I don’t think there’s much harm in having too many savings accounts, and it’s hard to pass up a free $50.

Well, less than 12 hours later, when I was checking the Morning Deals on Consumerist, I found another promotion for the exact same Citibank savings account, this one with a $100 sign up bonus!! (Link: Citibank $100 sign up bonus) D’OH!

So by signing up last night, I made $50, but if I had waited until this morning, I could have made $100! What a cruel, cruel world. I sent Citibank a nice email telling them about my dilemma and asking if I was eligible for the $100 sign up bonus. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get another $50. Fingers are crossed.

I got an email this morning for Citibank Direct, asking me to open an online savings account with them. In doing so, I’d get a $50 sign up bonus. There are no fees, no minimum balances, and a 4.65% APY. Sounds great right?

My only concern is the number of accounts I have open right now. Currently, a checking and savings account at ING and two more checking and another savings over at WaMu. I think that’s even a little overboard.

So my question, then, is having too many banking accounts dangerous? Is there a magic number? Anybody know?

Then again, fifty bucks is fifty bucks, and I guess I could always close the account once I get the bonus.

A friend of mine recently complained because she received a $25 service charge from her bank for transferring money from her savings account to her checking account. Not many people know, but you are limited to 6 electronic withdrawals from a savings account per month. This is Federal Regulation D, not just a limit imposed by your bank. Transactions that count against the limit include Internet and telephone transfers. You can still use an ATM, go into a branch, or transfer money by mail as much as you want. Those transfers won’t count against your limit.

I hadn’t heard of these regulations either, until a few months ago. This is not something the banks do a good job of letting customers know about. I’ve had to be especially careful when shuffling money around between my different accounts to avoid penalties myself. Consider yourself warned!!!

My Mint has a couple other banking regulations you should know about, including Check 21 and reporting bank errors.

Despite spending more than I earned in April, I still managed to grow my net worth ever so slightly. This was due, in large part, to a great month in the stock market. My retirement accounts were up over 15% for the month (including contributions to my 401(k)). That in turn, gave me a 1% overall increase in Assets. I had my first two 0% balance transfer payments due, as well as another big car payment, so Liabilities are down 1% for the month. All told, net worth was up 3% for the month. A far cry from last month’s 14% growth, but still moving in the right direction. I have a feeling May will be a much better month.

Looks like all my financial troubles are over!! I just recieved this email from GoDaddy, my domain registrar.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN®) recently agreed to reduce their Registrar Transaction Fee from $.25 to $.22. What does this mean for you?

Good news. You have been credited $.03/yr for each domain name you registered or renewed dating back to July 1, 2006 — $.06 has been placed into your Go Daddy® account.

6 whole cents!! If I invest my 6 cents in the stock market, averaging 10% return over the next 40 years, I’ll have built up $2.71!!

Can you even buy anything anymore for 6 cents???

My experiment with earning free money from 0% balance transfers is going just fine. I got my first interest payout a couple weeks ago, $26 for about a week and a half’s worth of interest. Right on target with what I expected. I paid my first monthly minimum payment on the Citi Premier card this week. I linked my credit card to my checking account, so it transfers the money electronically. I also decided to make the payments from another checking account, not the account the 0% money is in. My reasoning being the more money is in the high interest account, the more money it will make. The minimum payment was $102 for the balance of $6,800, or 1.5% of the balance. I also just recieved my first statement for the Citi Professional card, with a minimum payment of $150, for a $10,000 balance. Who knew you could borrow $16,800 for a mere $252 per month?!?! I’m expecting my next interest payout to be around $70 on the 26th, so stay tuned.

It’s now been two months since I’ve started BudgetFreak. In those two months, I’ve written 45 posts, and have received 70 comments. I’ve gotten about 1,000 unique visitors, 3,000 visits, and about 9,000 page views. I’m not breaking any records, but still much more than I was expecting.

If you’ve missed anything in the past two months, here’s what I’ve done to help myself out financially:

• Saved $75 using coupons
• Saved $300 canceling my gym membership
• Opened up an interest earning checking account at ING
• Lowered my credit card interest rates and increased my credit limits
• Started earning interest borrowing $16,800 from credit card companies for FREE, taking advantage of 0% balance transfers
• Checked my free credit report
• Opened a ROTH IRA and maxed out my 2006 contribution
• Opened a Washington Mutual Savings Account earning 5% interest
• Will save $500 a year by driving slower
• Participated in my first Blog Carnival
• Will save about $400 a year by shopping around for car insurance
• Managed to grow my net worth by 33%

I’d say I’m off to a pretty good start. So thank you all for reading and commenting, and here’s to many months to come!

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been keeping track of my net worth. For those new to the game, net worth is basically the total of all your assets (checking and savings accounts, investments, real estate, etc), minus all your liabilities (car loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc). To see how to build your own net worth spreadsheet, check The Simple Dollar’s How to Calculate Your Net Worth. While this calculation is not the be-all-end-all, it’s a good progress indicator.

For the first quarter of this year, my net worth is up 33.8%. I enjoyed 3 positive growth months of 12%, 6%, and 14%. Most importantly, my retirement assets almost doubled, growing 82% in 3 months. Funds went from $6,800 in December 31st, to now $12,500 as of March 31st. This was mostly due to increased contributions to my 401(k), a $4,000 contribution to my ROTH IRA, and a little help from the market.

All told, I’m moving in the right direction. I’m spending less than I earn, and stocking as much as I can towards retirement. I’m still working on getting my spending down, but if I can continue these double digit growth months, I’ll be happy.

I was looking at my finances last night, and I realized my cash flow for this month is going to be crazy awesome. I’m paid on a bi-weekly schedule, so since there are 26 paychecks in a year, that means there are two months where I actually recieve three paychecks. March happens to be one of those months. My company also have a pretty aggressive bonus program, that pays out ‘Project Profitibility’ bonuses three times a year. I just got that check (just over a weeks pay) yesterday at our company meeting. Also, I recieved my tax returns this month, which was good for another $1,000.

So, this month I’ll recieve 6 weeks of pay, a company bonus, and my tax return. I wish every month was like this. Part of the money will be going towards my car insurance, which is coming due next month. Part will go to service on my car (30k mile service), and registration, another $500. The rest, I’m probably going to invest. Stay tuned for that.

I participated in my first carnival this week! For those not familiar, a blog carnival is a showcase of the week’s most interesting articles on a particular topic. Articles can be submitted to the carnival host, and then they assemble and highlight the posts as they see fit. This particular carnival is all about personal finance.

Tired But Happy host this week’s Carnival Of Personal Finance. Among my favorites this week:

Debt Consolidation News submitted the Young Adult’s Guide To Personal Finance, which has 65 tips and advice for the 20 something crowd. [Edit 1/14/08: Broken Links]

My Pocket Change posted an article about how the Young Professional should save for retirement. The numbers are a little scary (40 years from now, to live off $50,000 a year in today’s dollars, you’ll need to save $4.41 Million).

My post about Saving Money by Driving Slower also made the list.

Go check out the full list for yourself.

Washington Mutual is offering a 5.0% APY savings account if you sign up for a free checking account online. (Direct Link to sign up page: here) There’s a $1 minimum to open and no monthly fees. I decided to apply for an account last week to hold my 0% balance transfer money. Even though I already had a Washington Mutual Checking account, I still needed to apply for a new one to get the savings account offer. Unfortunately, this means they’ll be sending me an ATM card for the savings account, a MasterCard Debit Card for the checking, and two books of checks. I’m pretty sure I’ll never use them, but I guess that’s the price you pay for 5% interest rate. The application took about 10 minutes to fill out, and the account was created immediately. I transferred $50 from my old checking account to the new one to take care of the minimum balance.

The next day, after my balance transfer checks cleared, I moved the $16,800 into the new savings account and started earning some interest. I had originally planned to move the money to my ING savings account, but after some thought, opened the wamu account instead. One reason was the interest rate. The extra half percent over ING will work out to about $85 extra throughout the year. Also, after the headache trying to cash the checks, I figured it would be easier and quicker to transfer within Washington Mutual accounts. The transfer from checking to savings was immediate, where if I transferred to ING, it would have taken 2-3 days. Not a huge deal, but it would have cost me another $5-$8 in interest waiting for the transfer to take place. I really enjoy my ING accounts, but it just made more sense to stick with Washington Mutual.

All is well with the world again. After depositing the checks on Monday and being told they would take 11 days to clear, I was a little ticked. I called the Washington Mutual Branch today to see if I could expedite the checks clearing. The conversation went something like this…

WaMu: It’s our policy to hold credit card checks for 11 days because most of them bounce due to insufficient funds. It’s also an out of state check so we have to hold it for 11 days. The best I can do is release $4,900 tomorrow, and the rest of it in 11 days.
Me: That’s not good enough. Let me talk to your manager.
WaMu: Hi sir, as a courtesy to you, I can release $2,000 right now, $5,000 tomorrow, and the rest in 11 days.
Me: That’s not a courtesy. I don’t want any courtesies. I gave you two checks for $16,800, and I want my money.
WaMu: Well, how much to you want right now?
Me: I want all of it right now.
WaMu: I’m sorry I can’t do that.
Me: You’re holding my money hostage. Please stop treating me like a criminal and assuming my checks won’t cash. I’ve been a customer for 8 years and never had a problem.
WaMu: I can try and call the credit card company to check the funds. Do you have a copy of the check?
Me: No, I don’t have a copy of the checks, I gave them to YOU to cash!
WaMu: Hold on a second, let me talk to the teller.
(On hold for 5 Minutes)
WaMu: I found a copy of your check, I’ll call them and then call you right back.
Me: Thank you.
(15 minutes later)
WaMu: I got a hold of the credit card company and the checks are OK. You’re money is available.
Me: THANK YOU!

And just like that, all $16,800 was available immediately. It’s important to note I never got mad or yelled at the supervisor, that wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere. I stayed calm and they eventually were able to help me out. My faith is now restored in Washington Mutual. I can now rest a little easier knowing my money isn’t in limbo and I’m finally earning some interest.