ROCK ON!  My transfer of $1300 into my new ING account was made official this morning!! And I have also arranged to automatically save $100 from each paycheck ($2600 smackers a year) into that same account.  One of these days, I will also transfer my money from my savings account (about $1300). My husband has also agreed to put money in each month, so we are working on setting him up so his account can link to our new savings account!! Yeeeeeeaah!

 

Surprisingly, I still have money left over, although I still have to pay my rediculous $160 CELL PHONE bill. Family Plan?  More like a SCAM-ly plan!  So I will probably make another $200 payment or so on the car.

 

Thanks so much for the support and all of the advice. It really helped me make the right decision!  Cheers, all!

Mia,

 

Have you thought of expanding your WIR group at all?  Just wondering as I would really enjoy participating if the option ever became available!  I could add a Canadian perspective.

 

Anyhow I just wanted to comment to Travis that I think saving the money now is a great way to start, especially if your loan is interest free until you are done school... that way you have the potential for your money to grow and you aren't paying interest on the borrowed money either!

Laura

So, Steph, report back - what did you do?

Travis, it's never to early to start saving. It will build good habits for the future. If you save a dollar a day, it's $365 a year. Twenty dollars a month, is almost $500, and so on. Good luck with your studies.

I'm a student currently with atleast two more years before I can even get a job that will pay me anything. Im currently pulling in 650 a month part time while to going to comm. college. Ill be going to a state school soon and will have to leave my job, but i will be picking up another when I am there. Is it a good idea to start saving while in college or should I just wait until I get into the workforce. I am paying my own way through via scholarships, grants,..and loans. Should I start paying off loans (stafford loans) or should I save so my money will get some interest and then pay it off later? Thanks for this blog it helps me with many problems.

Dear Stephanie,

 

Responding to your 4/25/06 blog:  If you're that torn between saving and paying down debt, why don't you do an even split?  It's not as much if you do one or the other, but it's something for both.

 

Diana

 

Jessica--My bad--Happy to hear you are " Rothing It"'.   I think to take advantage of the Roth the max income for a married couple filing jointly was 150K for 2005 tax year.   It may go up slightly in the next few years. 

A big THANK YOU to Steph for starting this inspiring and thought-provoking thread!

Hello All - I have been reading for a while but I am a first time writer.  I really love seeing a group of people talk about their financial lives so openly.  It has really helped me to see that other people have the same struggles and ups and downs with money that I have. 

 

I am a 36 years old and divorced and the last 6 years have been full of financially emotional times since my initial seperation.  I gave up the house we both purchased together but I did keep my retirement intact and I have managed to save 98K in it which I continue to contribute 6% to w/ a 3% match .  I have just started to save for a house (ING - 5K) since I just paid my car off late last year and I have zero debt.  I just read an article in the wall street jounal about the writer who said it took him 5 years to get back to where he was since his divorce.  I would be curious to see if any one else has had a similar situation since I have not seen any writings about others with divorce situations?

 

The good news is your group inspired my mom and I to do something similar.  My boyfriend helped me to develp spreadsheets to help track financial goals and monthly savings programs.  My mom and I discuss our financial lives and monthly we compare how we are doing with achieving our goals and adding to our retirement accounts and it has really helped to keep us on track and honest about what we can and cannot afford.  This has also helped my boyfriend and I to become much more open about money and to work through discussing any finacial issues as they occur. 

 

While my mom makes considerably more than I - she 150K and me 46K (I started 11 years ago at my company at 19K) we both have learned to really work with what we have.  I have learned that it is not what you make but what you want to achieve that keeps you focused and plugging along. 

 

I really appreciate the openess, honesty, great ideas and support that everyone offers on this site.  Even when you have difficult times or struggle with goals you are trying to achieve it is really great to know there are others out there standing beside you!

 

Thanks again - KS            

I stumbled across your blogs, and you seem like a very ambitious person, I m looking for three more top team members to join my organization. You seem like an excellent go getter, and that is the kind of person I am looking for. Visit my website and tell me what you think. Best Regards!  Crista Miller www.mymangosteen.com\lovejuice

DH and I both turn the big 3-0 this year. He's never saved anything on his own in a retirement fund, although he also has never carried any debt...we were married fall last year, and used some of the gift money (plus a birthday gift to him from my parents) to open a Roth IRA at Vanguard for him. It now has just over 5K in it. We (well, I) put away another 10K in wedding money with Vanguard (I love them!): 5K in a fed and state tax-exempt MMF, and 5K in a fed and state tax-exempt bond fund. I also contributed about 5K over the past 3 years to my own Roth IRA. Recently, I also rolled just under 40K into my Vanguard Roth IRA from another company...I can't really take credit for the 40K, though. My parents are very wise, and began socking $$ away for me from the summer jobs I had as a teenager. Parents, take note! I also contribute 6% of my 55K salary to my 403(b). Unfortunately, I work in the non-profit world, and a "company match" is a complete dream!!! So between the two of us total, we have about 55K in Vanguard funds and I have just over 2K in my 403(b). Additionally, I have our checking account buffered with 1K, I have $1200 in a linked savings account (it earns next to nothing, but I can access it in seconds if I need to), and a total of almost 13K in ING accounts...one is my personal savings, one is our "vacation fund," and one is our "house fund." And NO DEBT!!! That was my personal demon. I know that we're way ahead of some folks in our age group, and way behind others. I wish we had a house! DH hasn't been worked full-time since March, so I'm only able to set aside about $60 in savings each month...I try not to be too hard on us, though. Hope I haven't rambled.

SileeMili - Sounds like you're on the right track.  With your raise, personally I would recommend increasing your 401k to at least 10%.  In addition to saving more money for retirement, it has the added benefit of reducing your taxable income and lowering your taxes.  You didn't say what your husband is contributing to retirement, so hopefully it's similar.  My goal is to gradually increase mine every year until I reach 20%.

 

Sounds like you and your husband are doing well on saving for your emergency fund already, so you probably don't need to add there or open a money market account.

 

I would also recommend paying extra on your car loans/student loans to pay those down faster.  We have about $45K in student loans, so I feel your pain.

 

Good luck!

 

Julie

Cheryl,

 

Of course we're not giving Uncle Sam an interest-free loan.  We always make sure that we owe taxes or break even come tax time. 

 

What I meant was that my husband's 401K is taken out of his paycheck on a pre-tax basis, whereas our Roth IRA is post-tax.  We would rather do our retirement savings post-tax because we expect to be in a much higher tax bracket when we retire.  Right now, our combined gross income is about $45,000 (I'm in grad school), but we expect to make over $100,000 in just a few years. 

I have to admit to having been a lurker here for way too long now. I have been ADDICTED to the WIR since the start, and this blog has helped me change my life. So now I am contributing. After realizing I was in WAY over my head last year (23 yrs old, $9,000 in cc debt, $15,000 in school loans, living in a $1,400/month apartment in Manhattan and barely making rent and minimum payments) I decided I had to make a change. And fast. So I started doing a lot of reading (on MSN and many different books) and now I am rolling with the momentum of all the positive change I am making. I have put what I thought would be an impossible halt on my shopping problem (I work for a fashion magazine, so you get the pressure...), andam  focusing on doing what's best for my future, I am happy to say that I have am putting $500/month towoard my cc debt and  have it down to $6,000, consolidated my student loans so that my payments make much more of an impact (rather than just covering the interest) and have opened an ING account, which I am automatically contributing $200/month. I make a laughable living for NYC (Let's just say it's under $30k), so even though I am very focused, the progress is slow but steady. Like everyone here should, I feel so positive and proud of what I am doing for myself and look forward to the day I am no longer in the red! (NEXT YEAR! I will have no cc debt by June 2007. I am determined and I will not be distracted.) Thank you all for the inspiration. It is so wonderful to see women encouraging each other like this.

 

On another note...all you who have children or plan on having them someday, make sure you know the impact that your financial decisions will have on them and how important it is to teach them about money and credit. I can't stress it enough. I take full responsibility for my situation, but I am know for a fact had I understood the consequences or even been talked to by my parent about finances I would have made different choices. Set your children up for success!!

Cheryl -

I am very impressed with your no regrets, live and learn attitude. I am working on it, but the serious damage done to my retirement account (oh, and the advisor also had taxable non-retirement funds I was planning to pull out for my education expenses, but he promised he'd get a better rate than my federal loans so I left the money with him - that was more aggressively invested, and I lost about 3/4 of that) still hurts. Obviously, as I am still talking about it!

 

I try to focus on the positive ... we could live on one income if we had to, and we don't deprive ourselves of anything we truly want, but we make wise and reasoned choices of what we truly want. To be honest, I am much happier in my life now than back when I had money.

 

Hello!  I'm 33 and have approx $150K in retirement accounts and another $200k equity in my home.  I love Mia's column and just recently started reading the blog.  My husband and I also try to live on just one of our incomes which helps a lot!  What about kids?  I find that the kiddos make a big difference.  I love to work (very flexible work hours) but sometimes feel guilty about not being at home all the time, so I have two kids in private school at a whopping $1500/month.  It helps me feel better about working. Other than the private schooling, we live well below our means but have some nice things -  kind of middle of the road even though we could afford a lot more. 

 

This subject is really interesting because I too considered myself to be ahead for my age.  Ahead of what, I don't know... but "ahead" for my age.  And I thought I was weird for being addicted to a column on debt reduction even though I have very little debt.  But it sounds like I am not the only one!  I guess we all want to learn new things that can help us out irregardless of what stage we are at (I opened an ING account just a couple of months ago)!  What is also interesting is that you really, really can't tell from looking how well off people are.  It sounds like some of you live very modestly.  I also have friends who make a lot less money than I do but have much nicer cars, clothes, etc. than I do.    But for me, lilving below my means (whatever that is at the time) and saving as much as I can is the most important financial thing.

First off, congratulations to Stephanie on your windfall!  Also, I'm so impressed by everyone's statistics here!  Especially those of you who aren't much older than I am and have stashed away more money that I can even think about.  I just turned 24 a month ago, and although I started my 403(b) within months of getting my first job out of college, my job isn't exactly lucrative.  I love it, which is why I stay here, but unfortunately the city I work in has the highest wage tax in the country (~4%).  I contribute a little over 5% of my gross to my retirement account, which now stands at $1700 with a return of almost 12% last year, but my employer doesn't offer a match (fairly standard in the nonprofit world).  I'd dearly love to contribute more, but by the time all my taxes are taken out, rent and student loans paid, and a meagre amount stashed in regular savings, I sometimes wonder how I manage to feed and clothe myself.

 

It's really frustrating because I don't want to switch fields and work in some soul-sucking job just for the money, but I can't figure out how I'm ever going to make enough to bump up my savings.  I had a second job for awhile, but it didn't make me enough to compensate for my gas/wear and tear on the car, and for how much I HATED retail.  And I just can't think of any other sideline work to try.  I know that my salary will probably increase in the next few years as long as I keep working hard, but the here and now money situation isn't so much fun.

 

Still, I know that saving something is better than nothing, and I'm trying sooooo hard to get into good money habits now, while I have no money, so it will be firmly established for the future.  Luckily I don't have an auto loan or CC debt.

 

Anyway, although my $.02 probably isn't too helpful, I just wanted to chime in to prove to others in similar situations to mine that it is possible to save even a little on virtually no budget -- and compounding interest is a wonderful thing!