Gamefly is offering a new referral bonus. $20 for the referrer and 1 month free for the new account.

Popularity: 21% [?]

You would think that the title statement would be obvious, but it’s apparently not. I was reading an article on stocks over on Consumerist, and one of the commenters mentioned that he had his 3 month emergency fund in the stock market.

Cue facepalm.

A. Until you’ve got an emergency fund of at least 6 months to a year, you have NO business doing any potentially risky investing.

If the market is kinda busted like it is now, an invested emergency fund is 1) worth less and 2) you can’t get the invested money you lost back if you pull out in a bear market.

B. Your basic emergency fund needs to be liquid and ready to spend within 48 hours.

Ideally, you won’t need to spend your 6 month emergency fund all at once, but I would say at least $3,000-$5,000 should be immediately available (as in one trip to the bank or one check) for emegencies. We generally have about $2,000 in our checking account and the rest in a Money Market account. We get a better rate in the MM account, but there’s restrictions on how much we can take out at once and how many times, etc.  In an desperate emergency we’d just pay the fees, but for little emergencies (repairs, etc.) it’s easier and fee free to pull the money from the checking.

I’d even go so far as to say you should keep $300-$500 hidden in your house or apartment in case of those rare ‘emergencies’ (large scale blackouts so stores can’t do electronic transactions, roadside service that won’t accept credit or super amazing deal at garage sale.)

Sure, you could try to put any emergency on your credit card, but then you could be faced with 1) a credit limit problem immediately 2) credit limit problem later if you normally put household bills on the card and 3) nasty interest rates if you can’t quite access your money to pay it off before the payment cycle restart. Since Mr. and I both have very high limits, we usually put minor emergencies on the credit card and then immediately transfer the money when we get home. If you don’t have that kind of discipline, however, you’re better off using a debit card.

So anyway, keep your emergency fund where you can easily access it, and don’t invest money you can’t afford to wave goodbye to for 5-10 years.

Popularity: 14% [?]

A guest on Frugal Dad wrote an interesting post on Stretching Your College Fund today, and it got me thinking about a problem a lot of young professionals face. How can you afford to go back to school if you’re just barely making ends meet?

Mr. and I have been trying to send me back to school for almost two years now. While I’m fortunate that I’m only eyeing an A.A.S. from our local community college to supplement my B.A., it’s still a pretty big stretch for our budget at this point in our lives.  So how do you scrape together enough to get that degree?

1. Check out programs at work. Sometimes you can get a little help from your employer if you’re getting a degree that will give you skills they need, so you may get a hand for your M.B.A.  Mr.’s job will even help subsidize a law degree.
2. FAFSA and State Aid. Yes, you can fill out the same forms as the snot nosed freshmen and be assessed for federal and state money. Graduate students can also obtain the Federal Grad PLUS Loan in addition to the loans available to undergrads.
3. Grants and Scholarships. There are a ton of scholarships for adult learners. Check with your alumni association (especially if you’re going to your alma mater.) Ask the financial aid desk at your school. Check with your local community centers. Go online and run a search.
4. Graduate Assistantships. If you’re a graduate student, you can apply for one and get tuition, stipend and sometimes even benefits.  This usually requires 20+ hours in addition to a full-time student status. You’re essentially the low man on the totem pole, so you’ll be doing a lot of grunt work and other drudgery.
5. Go to a local, public university. Lower tuition for residents, plus public school are almost always less expensive.
6. Look into part-time programs. You can work full-time and school part-time if you think the work load won’t be overload. Just remember to make sure any scholarships or grants you apply for will cover part-time students.
7. Consider a certificate program. Make sure you require a M.A. or PhD before you jump in and pay for one. If you’re just looking for a promotion at work, you may only need a certificate program for specific skill sets.

If you’ve gone back to school, how did you pay for it?

Popularity: 2% [?]

I hate shopping for anything even remotely tech related in a brick and mortar store. I’m sick of employees talking to me like having a penis is a prerequisite for understanding how computers work, and it’s worse when they insist on talking to Mr.  instead of me. I also hate them trying to hard sell me stuff because half the time they are talking out of their asses. I’ve actually had to call a few salespeople on blatant lies, although they at least had to have the courtesy to look embarrassed.

It’s a salesperson’s job to make the store as much money as possible. It’s your job to make sure that you are only buying what you want.

If you are looking to be frugal, there’s no excuse for not doing your own homework online before you purchase. Type what you’re looking for into Google and see what pops up. Look up product reviews on places like Amazon or NewEgg. Ask on tech forums.

When a salesperson is talking up a product, it’s easy to get distracted by all the shiney bells and whistles while forgetting that you don’t necessarily need them. For example, a relative of mine was talked into buying the ‘classic’ 120GB iPod. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against iPods (I have a 30GB myself) but we’re talking about a 60-something-year-old gentleman with about 50 songs on his computer. Poor guy got upsold and taken advantage of because he didn’t know the first thing about about iPods or that they came in smaller sizes. Five minutes on the Apple site would have saved him $200.

I also highly recommend buying online, not just because you don’t have to deal with pushy salespeople, but because you have a better selection AND you can almost always find a better deal. Once you figure out what you want, you can use a price aggregator like PriceWatch to find the best deal. With a little bit of patience, you can even hold out for free shipping deals.

Popularity: unranked [?]

… the Frugal Urbanite’s guide to getting what you want.

How many times have you been standing in line and some obnoxious lady (it’s usually a woman, unfortunately) is just freaking out at the cashier. That, my friends, is NOT how you should handle an issue at the register.

You have the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, not the right to $.50 off with a competitor’s coupon. If there’s an issue with a coupon or discount at the register, you need to handle it with poise and grace, not a sense of entitlement.

• Pick Your Battles – Sometimes incorrect prices are programmed into the register or the cashier accidentally skips a coupon. These are the sort of things you should bring up. If you are trying to use an expired coupon, trying to use two coupons that say ‘one per customer’ or otherwise trying to work the system and get caught, accept defeat quietly and don’t try to get the cashier in trouble.
• No One Cares About ‘Last Time’ – Just because the cashier let you use an expired coupon/double coupons/last weeks sale price/etc doesn’t mean you should get away with it again. The cashier could have been just plain wrong, doing you a favor, or just trying to get you to get out of her face. You could also get the previous cashier fired if they purposely gave you a discount you shouldn’t get, so don’t try to work one cashier’s kindness onto another.
• Calm Down – Getting excited won’t help anything and will only make you look like a jerk. If you find yourself yelling or swearing, take a few deep breaths and mentally back up for a second. Chances are you’re getting over-excited about something you don’t need to get excited about.
• Remember Your Manners – The cashier is NOT a drone or machine. He or she is a human being that deserves the same kind of respect that you expect. If you treat the cashier like crap, you are going to get treated like crap. Address them politely, use the magic words and don’t talk down to them.
• Don’t Accuse Anyone – The cashier did not start out the day by planning which customers were going to get screwed over. Don’t accuse the cashier of anything or they will get defensive and you have just added another hurdle to overcome. Use ‘I’ phrases and a polite tone. “Excuse me, Miss, I don’t see where my BOGO coupon was applied.”
• Don’t Lie – Don’t claim you know the manager (even if you do), don’t say the last cashier did it if he or she didn’t, don’t insist that the you do this all the time if you don’t.
• Listen – If the cashier tells you to go to Customer Service, go to Customer Service, because he can’t do anything for you at the register. If the cashier says she’ll have to call a manager, she can’t override her register so don’t keep harping on her while you wait for the manager to answer the page. And if he tells you that the discounts will be applied at the end, don’t worry about it until the end.
• Complain to the Right Person – The cashier is the bottom rung of the ladder and doesn’t have the power to change prices, hire more help, order different products or decide which coupons are accepted. Take those sort of complaints to the Customer Service desk.
• Accept Mistakes Gracefully – If the cashier made an honest mistake, don’t keep bringing it up or acting like you think he or she is purposely messing with your order. If you made the mistake (the store has never accepted competitors coupons) then don’t become a belligerent asshat. It’s not the cashier’s fault that you aren’t aware of store policy.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I hate summer, I really do. I get heat stroke extremely easily, so I am NOT happy once the temperature starts rising over 85 degrees.

The worst part of summer is probably the electric bill from all the A/C. Right now our utilities are included in rent, but I know that it will be a huge battle of comfort vs. an electric bill the same size as our mortgage once we get a house.

Here’s how I keep cool frugally. Some of these may be more drastic than others, but they work for me.

• Close the window shades during the day. – If you’re handy dandy with the sewing machine (or hem tape) you can even buy some cheap fabric on clearance and make some blackout curtains.
• Get nekkid! – Once your windows are covered, you can walk around your home naked (or as close to as you’re willing to get). This won’t work so well if you have kids or roommates, but I’m sure your boyfriend/fiance/husband/whatever will appreciate it. Just make sure you have a robe handy for knocks on the door.
• Wear natural fabrics – If and when you need to wear clothes, stick to light colored, natural fabrics. Yes, the polyester clothes from the discount store are cheaper, but they’re only going to make you feel hot and sticky because they don’t breathe.
• The oven is verboten – Avoid baking during the summer and if you have to use the oven, only use it at night. I even refuse to cook something that takes more than 15 minutes on the stove top. Look up salad, sandwich or microwave recipes.
• Skip the hot drinks – That coffee you insist on in the morning? Put it on ice rather than heating your insides up. I guzzle ice tea like a woman lost in the desert and it does a lot to help cool me down (just remember to drink water too.)
• Put your glasses in the freezer – Rather than buying ice or overtaxing your ice maker, use your glass itself to cool the drink. Just keep coasters handy for condensation issues.
• Popsicles and slushies – If you’re a juice drinker, try freezing it instead. Heck, you can freeze lots of other drinks into popsicles or slushies too. You don’t need a fancy Popsicle mold, just a paper cup and a stick.
• Water, water, water – Aside from drinking lots of fluid, you can wipe yourself down with a damp washcloth or spritz yourself with a spray bottle. Not only will this get rid of that nasty, sweaty, sticky feeling, but it will cool you down.
• Keep the air moving – Ceiling fans, box fans, floor fans, attic fans, hand fans… just keep the air circulating and the A/C won’t have to do so much work.
• Don’t invite a ton of people inside – Lots of people in a small apartment will heat the place up a lot. If you want a big bash, try having it outside or teaming up with someone with a nice, big house.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Mr. and I finally lowered our cellphone plans. Well, mostly. Mr. insists on internet on his phone (I don’t know why, he rarely uses it.)

We’ve gone the route of many young people and have no land line, so we rely on our cells. We don’t need as many minutes as we thought because both our families have the same carrier, so our calls are ‘free’. Most of minutes get eaten up calling up the cable/mechanic/creditc ards/whatever and being put on hold for 40 minutes at a time. I wish there were a way to bill these companies for wasting our time.

Our biggest problem is convincing people to stop texting us, because there’s this assumption among the urban young that everyone has text messaging. While our phones can get text messaging, it costs us $.10 every time anyone wants to ask us “where u at”.

I hate text messaging with a passion and consider it to be rude. If you have something to convey to me, then push those 10 digits (or pull me out of your contacts) and talk to me. I am not a machine and can handle voice input quite well. And if you have to text me (because I’m sitting in a movie theater/meeting/etc and you know I can’t talk or I’m not getting service) it better be an emergency and you damn well better type out the message using real words and sentences.

Before you text one of your frugal friends, please verify that a) they like getting text messages and b) they’ve sprung for a text messaging plan.

Popularity: unranked [?]

No post yesterday because I took Mr. to get the last two of his wisdom teeth removed.

The grand total out of pocket for the both the procedure and the painkiller/antibiotics: $28.50

I’ve had friends question why we have all the supplemental insurance that Mr.’s job has to offer, and between the two eye exams, 4 trips to the dentist’s, 6 boxes of contacts and one oral surgery, I think we have spent $100 out of pocket. If we were paying up front, I honestly don’t think we would go to the dentist as often as we should, we’d be putting off our eye exams, etc…

Popularity: unranked [?]

In order to reach our goal of 20k for a downpayment on our house next March, we need to be putting away $500 a month. As you can imagine, this will not be all that easy.

My main goals are:

1. Pick up 20-25 hours at a part-time job in addition to my home business. If I can put in about $200 a month in, that will take a lot of stress off of the hubby. The rest of my earnings will go for tuition for me A.A.S.

2. Keep the food budget for the month at under $400. This includes groceries, any meals out, snacks, etc.

With any luck will be able to talk down our cable and phone bill by ~$50, which be a help.

Still, this is going to take a lot of work. Now to train hubby to do half the housework if I’m going to be working outside the home.

Popularity: 3% [?]