Queercents

Giveaway alert: read this entire post for the chance to win a SmartyPig $100 gift card.

SmartyPig reminds me of the days when my grandmother made weekly deposits to her Christmas Club. Remember those? The special savings program offered by local banks to ease the expense of holiday shopping. These were still quite popular when I was growing up as a kid in the 1970’s.

Well, SmartyPig is giving good old-fashioned savings a boost with some social networking.

Here’s how it works. SmartyPig is a savings account that allows you to save for a specific goal and invite others to contribute. There are other perks: including a good interest rate (4.30% APY) and incentives from top retailers like Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc.

SmartyPig is tilted toward consumer-oriented goals and best suited for people saving for a specific item like a new, expensive crib. Or at least that’s the example Trent at The Simple Dollar gave in his review: Read the rest of this entry »

I had the pleasure of meeting some of the top personal finance bloggers (see acknowledgments below) this past Friday at a forum organized by the folks at NetworthIQ, Expensr and MyStrands who are teaming up to develop a personal finance tool for Web 2.0.

I’m a tough sell customer on everything, from products costing pennies to those reaching into thousands of dollars. A product needs to amaze me before I can loosen my death-grip on money. So, I was curious if there was something that could rival treasures such as a free expense tracker or an inexpensive budgeting tool.

The proposed financial tool under MyStrands would use the power of social networking to give you a snapshot of how your net worth and spending for certain categories compares to those of your peers. It’s a neat concept, but I didn’t find it exciting enough. Part of what has made me financially responsible is the ability to tune out what other people are doing with their money. But maybe I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater — maybe seeing that other people are saving or investing more than me would give me incentive to save or invest more myself. Or it would depress me. Who knows?

I did get excited about two other ideas that I thought could revolutionize personal finance tools. One idea would be easy to accomplish — the other — a holy grail pursuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know what your current financial status really is? By that I mean can you easily answer the questions:

• What is my net worth?
• What is my FICO score?
• What are all the assets I own and their value?
• What are all my liabilities and their current payoff amount?
• How much do I earn?
• How much do I spend?
• Am I adequately protected from an insurance and legal standpoint?

Can you rattle off the answers or at least go to one central record keeping place in your files (electronic or paper) and find the answers? If you are in a relationship are you clear on your financial status individually and as a couple?

If you can’t answer the questions, find these questions creating more questions in your mind, or are simply overwhelmed by it all and would prefer to stick your head in the sand, now is the time to stop and take stock. If you don’t know where you are today financially, how can you ever determine where you want to go tomorrow (and why) and how to get there? Read the rest of this entry »

“With our national savings rate well below one-percent, it is imperative that the government embrace innovative and cost-effective means of boosting personal savings.” – Jim Cooper

In December, I interviewed Liz Rizzo, a contributing editor for the Sex & Relationship category at BlogHer about her rapport with money. She lives in Los Angeles, aims to direct television and has an interesting money story. Like most Hollywood aspirants she’s trying to get by on a budget and pave her way to success in LA. I learned during the interview that she has a “Keep the Change” savings account from Bank of America:

Whenever I use my debit card, they round up the charge to my checking, and put the “change” into my savings. So finally I have money in a traditional savings account, which is meant to hold my two months living expenses, but so far I’ve found myself transferring the money back into my checking account every couple months because something’s come up. So I still don’t have that savings.

Until Liz, I hadn’t heard about this promotion from BofA. Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently signing up for a new program with one of my long term service providers. This person changed their offerings, pricing, and packaging so I had to do some reviewing and deciding. I knew for certain I wanted her service and I knew what package was right for me. I just needed to figure out how to pay for it. That brought me to the question: Do I take her extended payment arrangement or should I self-finance by putting it on my credit card?

It seems like an easy question, but it is not always easy to answer. Why? So often we don’t take the time to actually do the math and realistically determine what the best option is. And, we sometimes don’t have the discipline to follow through on consistently paying down the balance left to our own devices whereas on a monthly plan we are forced to pay what is due.

Here’s how you can make this determination fairly quickly for any big purchase you have looming. At least it worked for me. Read the rest of this entry »

While we all know that rebates are simply worked into the overall equation of making a sale, when I buy something that has a rebate it feels like “found money”. It is exciting because by the time you actually receive your rebate 4-6 weeks after submitting it (or longer) you’ve usually already paid for whatever you bought and it feels like an unexpected gift.

I remember in the old days, you’d submit a rebate form and then receive a check in the mail. As good and as close to cold hard cash as it gets. Nowadays, though rebates are a complex business unto themselves and actually ever seeing a check or cash in hand is unlikely.

Before the holidays my cell phone died and I had to get a new one ASAP. So I went over to my local AT&T store (since that is my cell phone service provider) and checked out the selections. Nothing is every priced as-is anymore, everything comes with a rebate and a service contract. Nevertheless I chose a new phone and submitted my rebate form to get $50 back. Well, yesterday I finally received my rebate in the form of an AT&T Rebate Visa Card. What a pain in the butt. By the time I figure out where I can actually use it and then attempt to use the full amount in no more than 1 or two places, this sudden windfall of money is no longer as exciting as it once was. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s that big Hallmark Holiday (as I refer to these holidays like Secretary’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc. that were created mostly to sell cards) called Valentine’s Day. While I am all for celebrating love today and everyday, I have to snicker at the whole push to “do” Valentine’s Day. You can drop a heck of a lot of money for one day in February with little ROI in terms of happiness or even relationship building. The mass market is of course targeted at straight couples. After all having gay and lesbian couples in all those adds would make too many people squirm and the right wingers get their panties in a twist, right? So, as a result - will you spend more or less than the average on your Valentine’s Day as a LGBT individual? Read the rest of this entry »

It was November 2007, and I was making an afternoon snack. I pop some veggie Buffalo wings into the microwave. I’m hungry and impatient, and I stare at my food as though doing that will make it cook faster. I see sparks of blue flash, or at least I think I do, and then there’s an awful burning smell. I stop the microwave, and it looked as though a laser burned a few spots on my veggie wings.

Blue flashes, laser-like burns in my food: these things are too sci-fi for me to handle, so I arranged to get rid of the microwave. I was pissed because the warranty expired; Zac and I had to host a dinner party later that evening; and I don’t like anyone or anything messing with my veggie wings.

We haven’t replaced that microwave since then. At first it was because I learned that many people had a similar experience with this cheapo GE microwave found at Wal-Mart. I figured this is the punishment you deserve for shopping at Wal-Mart, so if we ever wanted a reliable microwave, we’d have to spend upwards of $150, which neither of us felt like doing. Read the rest of this entry »