My Financial Recovery

$40 A Day – Come On Rachel Ray: A Look At My Trip Expenses

Posted on: July 8, 2009 by Matt No Comments

Double Decker Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Originally uploaded by siyg

Many of you are probably familiar with the Food Network Show $40 A Day with Rachel Ray.  If you are not – the basic premise is that Rachel Ray goes out on a trip to a city and tries to get through the day spending $40 for all of her meals.  While I was out of town on business I figured I would see what I could do to stay around her benchmark and still eat relatively well for the 10 days I would be gone.

After returning home I promptly went through my spreadsheet of expenses to submit an expense report to my boss.  All said and done I had about $565 out of pocket for the 10 days I was gone and another $1325 or so for the base trip expenses (airfare, rental car, hotel) that my boss picked up on the company card.  The $565 I spent breaks down like this:

• $112.45 – Parking for the airport I was departing from or 10 days.  I used an economy lot with shuttle service to the terminal which saved about $5 – $10 per day.
• $101.28 – Rental car taxes: I guess these were not covered by the reservation booking.
• $74.06 – Gas: One fill up for my car to get to the airport and two for the rental car.
• $23.50 – Parking in Denver: Parking in downtown Denver can run up to $20 per day.  Most uncovered lots are in the $10 – $12 per day neighborhood.  I generally parked a few blocks outside of downtown in a lot that ran $2.50 per day.  I had to walk about 15 minutes to get to downtown but saved the company about $10 per day here as well.
• $253.26 – Food total: That was all of my meals for the 10 day trip plus coffee, snacks and anything else I ingested.  That totals out to about $25 per day which is $15 per day less than my baseline. I did have a couple of dinners that spanned two nights but also treated coworkers to coffee as well as one coworker to lunch.  This makes me wonder if maybe I should get a show similar to Rachel Ray’s and search out the cheap eats in a town for people that need to spend less than $40 a day.  Of course I am not a fan of cameras and have no interest at all in the idea but it is an idea just the same…

So for the entire trip my total came to about $1890 which is $110 less than the $2,000 I set as my goal to stay under.  I am not sure what my boss had in mind for a baseline for expenses or what other coworkers have spent while out of town on business but think I did a fairly decent job of keeping costs low.  How about you?  Do you have a standard amount that you spend while out of town on business?

Quicken Online – Better Than Mint.com?

Posted on: June 15, 2009 by Matt 2 Comments

For the past couple of months I have been looking to find a piece of software that would allow me to manage my money in one central location.  I looked at Mint.com but was disappointed to discover that they do not offer services for my bank.  I also had used Microsoft Money in the past but it looks like Microsoft will be discontinuing Money later this month.  The copy of Money I have is from 2005 and is on my desktop computer that now lives in my girlfriend’s office.  I do not spend a lot of time working in her space and therefore (due to the OEM license) do not have a copy on my laptop.  I began to search for alternatives by looking down the Quicken product line and discovered the free option of Quicken Online.

I created an account and figured I would give it the quickest test I could think of: trying to add my checking account.  My checking account is at a small local bank and the folks over at Mint.com do not have my bank as an option for adding the account.  Despite submitting a request to add the bank nothing has happend over the past couple of months that I have tried. Considering my previous luck I did not expect that Quicken Online would have access to my bank but when I started to set the account up I was pleasantly surprised to see my bank listed!

I went through the process and set up all of my accounts without issue and began to dig into the product a little bit.  Overall the product is very similar to the offering from Mint.com but appears to have less in the way of sponsored services / ads.  The interface is clean and intuitive and offers most features that you need to manage your finances on a basic level (exactly what I was looking for).  The service offers the ability to view all transactions for all accounts lumped together or for individual accounts only, trends for spending, income and savings and a “goals” section to plan a budget.  Additionally – the Quicken service offers the ability to manually add items like bills to your accounts which appeared to be missing from Mint.com’s offering.

Overall – I am fairly impressed by the quality of the “free” service offered by Quicken.  They have access to all the information that I need to have rolled up in one place and the ability to view that data in several different ways.  For me it seems like the most cost effective and robust choice available and I will probably use this as my new personal finance software (for now anyway).  The ability to have access in multiple locations and the broad range of features (including SMS alerts) will be enough to hold me as a customer for a while.

Credit Card Balance Paid Off

Posted on: May 6, 2009 by Matt 5 Comments

Originally uploaded by andrea francesco

On the day that I left for vacation I made another step forward in my financial recovery – I paid off the remaining balance on my credit card. I have posted a couple of times about a new approach that my girlfriend and I have decided to take and I am happy to report that when I left for vacation my credit card had a balance of ZERO!

According to the debt repayment plan we discussed for the credit card we would pay it off as quickly as possible but continue to use it as sparingly as possible.  So I did use the card again while on vacation for most purchases but the upside is that my new charges should not accrue any interest until after my next statement.

Right now my new balance after vacation is about $450 which is actually a little bit less than I had anticipated.  When planning the short vacation I figured that we would probably spend close to $600 in addition to the room so I am about $150 ahead of where I expected to be.  Given my current expenses and income I think I will be able to have the balance paid in full prior to my next statement. In addition – once the balance is paid off again I should also not have to carry a balance on the card any longer.

I should be receiving another statement in a couple weeks here and will plan to give everyone an update on where I stand then but I do believe that I have moved past carrying a balance on my credit card!

Lesson Learned The Hard Way #1: Large Sums Of Money

Posted on: April 28, 2009 by Matt 4 Comments

Originally uploaded by Gnerk

Shortly after my 18th birthday my mother passed away. I had plans to head off to college about a month later and intended to go just to get away from all the old memories lingering around where I grew up.  I had very little in my bank account and all of it was probably going to be needed for books and other expenses related to college.

Later that semester I received notification that I was due to inherit my share from my mother’s estate which amounted to about $11,000. To date this was easily the largest sum of money I have received in one lump sum. I had no idea what to do with the money and was still grief stricken and in shock from the loss of my mother (I really had trouble coping with her death).  I did what most college boys probably would have done: deposited the money in my checking account and spent frivolously.  Of course the nice lady at the bank attempted to give me some advise but I wanted nothing to do with saving money or planning long term.  I more or less told her to just give me the money and shut up.

For the most part I do not remember what I spent the money on.  From what I can recollect now I can recall buying:

• Lots and lots of booze on a regular basis: I developed an even bigger drinking problem in college that I carried with me until a little over a year ago.  At this point in my life I have come to realize and accept that I am an alcoholic and can not drink.  I have been sober now for about 16 months.
• A PlayStation2 that I had to have: I was a guy and in college – of course I needed the newest video game console.
• A beat up car from my girlfriend’s (at the time) brother: This was  my first car.  I did not get my license until I was 19.  It was a little beat up but ran well and I managed to get quite a bit of mileage out of it.

Needless to say – I spent every last dime within a year or so. I do not regret spending it but do think that I made some poor choices.  I suppose that if I had to start all over again today I would probably look to start out by:

• Learning how to manage money: Not just large sums but also general personal finance.  I was fairly clueless, nobody had taught me anything about money management and I had not taken the initiative to learn on my own.
• Parking the money in a CD where it is locked for 3 to 6 months: Actually – I probably would have opened a few of them that would mature at different lengths of time.  Maybe break it into quarters and put 25% in each 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.  I was in no emotional state to make any financial decisions and knew little to nothing about handling money.
• If I needed money, get a job: I had limited to no income the first three years of college.  I cited having to focus on my studies as the reason for not working but the real reason was I was too busy drinking and generally slacking off.  I could have easily worked a part time job.

I do not regret spending the money or wish to change the past but do try to learn from my mistakes.  In this case I learned that having a large sum of money float into your life requires that you press a pause button and do some planning and possibly some healing.  When the inheritance arrived in my hand I was still grieving (at a point where I maybe should have put college off a semester or two) and was not clear headed.  Parking the money and forgetting it existed would have given me some time to work on healing myself.  Once I was in a better place emotionally I could have moved forward with learning how to manage money and planning.  My lesson did not have to be learned the hard way – I could have listened to the nice folks at the bank but I chose not to.   So I guess there is also a general life lesson here as well: Listen to the advise of people who specialize in a field you know little or nothing about.

Credit Card Situation Update

Posted on: April 23, 2009 by Matt 4 Comments

Earlier this week I posted on a discussion my girlfriend and I had regarding paying off my credit card debt. Since I posted on Monday a lot has changed and I thought I would provide an update.  As of right now the $1900 in credit card debt is now down to $601.  This came after applying most of what I had for expenses in my checking account along with some money from my savings.  After thinking about interest rates a little bit I opted to move money from my online savings (which currently earns 1.65% APY) and apply it toward my credit card balance (interest rate of 13.40% APR).  I figure that not paying the extra in interest every month is well worth not having all the cash in savings. In addition I believe I will have the card paid off between one more transfer from savings and the remainder of my checking account balance before the end of the month.  I find this extremely exciting!

Of course we still have normal living expenses and a vacation that I had budgeted for based on my checking account that still need to be paid for this month.  We discussed these items last night and came up with a game plan to work on reducing expenses this month and next month by:

• Cutting back on food expenses: Paying better attention at the grocery store and cutting back on dining out.  We have been steadily getting better here but there is always room for improvement.
• Cutting back on gas expenses: We like to go places and get out of the house.  In our area we drive to a number of different towns to do things.  Aside from vacation we can try to stay closer to home and I can start walking or riding my bike to work.
• Let my girlfriend cover more of the vacation: She has space in her budget to pick up some of the vacation.  I had planned on covering it and intended to pay out of my checking.  However she seems to be committed to fast tracking debt repayment as well and asked that I let her cover more of it.  I have a difficult time letting her pay but I suppose a little growth in this area will not hurt.

My credit card will probably get used before the end of the month and new charges will be incurred but I also anticipate being able to pay them off next month as well with our new plan.  So having the credit card paid off puts me ahead of the goal of getting the balance paid off by October by about six months! I may not be paying it off in full and never using it again as my original plan had entailed but I am working toward that and by not carrying a balance month to month I will not be paying the interest fees! I should also be able to replenish my savings account fairly quickly (within 2 months) to the level it was at before paying off the credit card so that will be available again as well.

I am already looking forward to my next goal of having my car loan paid off (August if I stick with my current payment schedule) and then I will be down to my student loans.  Unfortunately the student loan that needs the most attention is about $20,000 and stuck in collections.  I will simply have to keep moving forward with one step at a time.