Credit Cards Aren't All Bad

It seems that every time you read a money management article, it is always stressing the idea of giving up all your credit cards.  I agree with this in theory.  If you had no credit cards, it would be a lot harder to go into debt.  However, living with not a single credit card is a very difficult thing to do in today's society.  Credit cards help build good credit.  Also, some things you just cannot buy without a credit card.  So the next question would be, how many credit cards should I have and which ones?


The answer, unfortunately, is not that easy to answer, so I will just give a little background into what I have found to work for me and my family.  Please note that the following recommendations are based on my unique financial situation.  You may find that others work much better for you and you family.  My whole point is to just get you to start thinking a little differently about how you manage your finances.


Now back to the story...
I have had a variety of different credit cards in my life and probably have researched more than I care to admit.  However, I've found that I've stuck with the cards that give me something of real value in return for using them.  I will get back to what I mean of "real value" in a second.  Besides choosing which cards work best for me, I also decided on keeping the number of cards I carry to a minimum.  This means that I have a total of two credit cards and I pay them off in full each and every month.  Not only does this help improve my credit, but it insures that my credit cards keep working for me instead of me working for my credit cards.


Credit Cards Vs. Store Credit Cards
When I say that I have two credit cards, this means that I have one what I call just a credit card and one "store" credit card.  The store credit card can only be used only at that particular store.  Now, in general, I don't really agree to having any store credit cards at all.  They usually have high APR's and a lot of strings attached.  Plus, I feel like every store you go into, you are being pressured to sign up for their store card to "Save 5% on today's purchase".  That's really great until you realize that the 5% you just saved doesn't really justify what that card may do to your credit score.  According to the Experian website, "Having too many credit cards with either high balances or large amounts of credit available can negatively impact risk scores, depending on the overall credit history." 


The only store credit card I carry is through Kohls.  The reason for this is simple.  I shop there frequently, and they send me lots of great coupons.  The only regular credit card I carry is through Discover.  The reason for this is also very simple.  I love their cashback feature.


Real Value
Now for the fun part...real value.  This part gets me really excited because it makes boring credit cards fun and exciting!  Let's first talk about the real value I get from using my Kohls card.  Probably once a week I receive coupons in the mail from Kohls just because I'm a card carrier.  These coupons are always 15%-30% everything coupons.  In addition to these coupons, they also have Kohls cash.  At designated times, when you spend $50 you get $10 in Kohls cash to spend at a future visit.  I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I've stacked these coupons with each other on sale items to receive some ridiculously awesome deals.


The real value I receive from using my Discover card only seems to get better as time goes on.  At first, I was thrilled about their cashback feature.  You get 5% cashback on certain items every few months and 1% on everything else.  Then they added an additional cashback feature called "ShopDiscover" where you can save even more if you link to a store's website through the Discover card website.  During the holiday season they increase the ShopDiscover cashback amount up to 20% on many of their retailers.  I recently bought a new refrigerator and saved 25% using this new feature.  This is because when you use ShopDiscover, you not only qualify for the designated retailer amount, which in my case was 20%, but you also qualify for the 5% cashback bonus or the 1% everything else bonus.  The latest new addition to my Discover cards real value is the ability to pay for items on Amazon with your cashback bonus.  It transfers to Amazon penny to penny.  Whereas you usually cannot redeem it until you have a minimum of $20 built up, with Amazon, you can use as little as a penny if that is all you have saved up.


My Point
When it comes to credit cards, remember to be smart and do your research.  Never sign up for a card at a cash register unless you have already researched the pros and cons of that particular card.  Also, take a good hard look at the cards you already own.  Are they bringing you any real value?  Or are they just a means to buy more stuff?  Credit cards aren't all bad, you just have to decide what cards are really working for you and what cards you are working fore.  Your credit score is now more important than ever in determining what you can do with your life.  Not only does it determine what rate you will receive on a car or home, but employers are also taking special note of it.  Take care of it and nurture it and it will return the favor ten fold. 


Thanks for reading!

Making Ikea Furniture Work

My husband and were recently in the market for new office furniture.  We have quite a unique size room we were trying to fit two work stations into and everything we found either did not fit our needs or was simply too expensive.  I eventually stumbled across the most fantastic website regarding Ikea furniture and it totally changed the way we thought about Ikea furniture.  The website is called Ikea Hackers and it is basically a website that features innovative ways to use Ikea furniture.  I seriously spent about 2 hours straight browsing through different ideas for every room.  


Once we had a good idea of what we wanted to do, we measured and priced everything out to make sure it not only fit in our space, but also fit our budget.  Below is a picture of our brand new office space.

We used 3 Expedit 2x4's and 2 Expedit desks to complete our new office.  Besides coming in under budget, we also have a lot more space than we originally were planning.


Thanks for reading!

Cheap and Quality Phone Cover For LG900

This is a quick post today because I want to share my new phone cover I recently purchase for my Net10 LG900 phone I'd mentioned in a previous post.  I've been looking around for a quality phone cover for my LG900 ever since I purchased my phone last August.  I finally stumbled across this great cover on Amazon.

It comes in a variety of different colors such as black, red, blue, zebra print and so on.  The best part though is the price.  I purchased a black one and a red one (it's actually more of a dark burgundy) at $0.75 each!  What a bargain!  Plus the quality is amazing!  It's a hard cover but has a slight rubber feel to it.  It really makes the phone look a lot more expensive than it actually is.  I have people asking me all the time what kind of Blackberry I have.  HA!

Thanks for reading!

FREE Home Phone Service

In a previous post I wrote about how to save on your cell phone service.  In this post, I'm going to take it one step further and explain how I managed to get FREE home phone service.  Yes, free.  Now before you get all excited there is a small hardware cost, but after that all of your calls within the US and Canada are free.  

Many people these days do not own a land line phone and there are many reasons for that.  I guess I'm kind of old fashioned though and feel like I should have a land line phone just because I should.  Well, that and I absolutely dislike talking on a cell phone.  I was paying about $25 a month for basic phone service which did not include long distance capabilities.  I was looking at my expenses one day and thought to myself, "I'm going to get that cost lower".  I looked at the options my current phone company offered thinking that I would just ask for the cheapest option they offered.  Unfortunately, I realized that I already had the cheapest option they offered!  That wasn't good enough for me though, as I was determined to find something cheaper.  So the research began...

Eventually I came across VoIP (voice over IP) service and found that many companies offer this option.  Well, you know what comes next in my quest to be thrifty...I started a spreadsheet!!!!  In the end, I decided that ObiTalk110 was best for my family.  

Below are some of my reasons for this decision.

• Low initial hardware cost ($43.99 from Amazon)
• FREE calling to anywhere in the US and Canada using Google Talk
• It plugs directly into your router so there is no need to keep your computer on to make or receive calls
• Great call quality
• Pick your own phone number
• It's small!! It's only about 4.5 inches by 4 inches so it can be easily tucked out of the way.
• Easy setup.  I had mine up and running in less than 10 minutes.  I would also like to add that I was able to set it up with a very active toddler in my midst. :)

The only negative I can find with this device is that it does not have the ability to call 911 through Google Talk.  However, with the popularity of cell phones that do have that capability, is it really a negative?  That is for you to decide depending on your situation.

Given that this device pays for itself in less than two months, I'd say that it's a pretty thrifty purchase.

I was able to save about $25 a month ($300/year) by switching to a VoIP service.  How much can you save?


Thanks for reading!

Little to No Cost Television

If you are like me, you love television.  However, just as everything else these days, it seems like the price to watch TV just keeps rising and rising.  I became tired of paying about $60 a month for cable TV.  That equals to about $720 a year just to watch TV.  I could find a much better use for all that money.  Enter my thrifty side...

I began by researching other cable companies and analyzing their packages.  It all just seemed way too expensive, in my opinion, for television.  So I did a little more research.  This time I turned to streaming television.  There are many options out there today.  I checked out Hulu, Amazon and Netflix.  In the end my husband and I decided to choose Netflix.  It fit all our needs and for $7.99 a month for unlimited streaming, it was the perfect price.  


In addition to our streaming service through Netflix, we also have an antenna on top of our house that picks up local television.  For those of you wondering if you need to go out and get a fancy digital antenna, the answer is no.  The antenna that we currently have is the same antenna that was there when we purchased our house about five and a half years ago, and by looking at it, I'm guessing it was probably installed in the 70's sometime.


Antenna television is not your antenna television from when you were a kid.  No longer is it only about seven channels.  We currently receive 40+ channels with quality television being broadcast on them.  What surprises most people when they are browsing through our antenna television is that the picture quality is in high definition.  It is actually clearer than the high definition television we received when we paid for cable.  In my opinion, that is pretty awesome...and thrifty!


I saved $52 a month ($624/year) by cancelling our cable, signing up for a low cost streaming television service and by watching free TV through our antenna.  How much can you save?


Thanks for reading!

How To Save On Cell Phone Service

It seems like everywhere you look you see someone on their smartphone.  It’s turning into an epidemic.  People can’t go or do anything without their cell phone.  Cell phones and corresponding data plans that are a recent necessity for people aged 5-95 are, let’s face it, expensive!  I was recently researching new cell phone service because I was tired of paying $75 a month for our two phones on a family plan.  A lot of you are probably thinking that $75 a month for two phones sounds like a great deal, but it wasn’t good enough for me.  I knew that there had to be a cheaper alternative out there without compromising good service.  I searched through every major cell phone provider’s plans and created spreadsheets (I love spreadsheets).  I looked at their individual plans, their family plans, their pay-as-you go plans.  Nothing was cheap enough for me.  Then one afternoon I was talking to my parents about how expensive cell phones and wireless plans are and how I needed to find something cheaper when they suggested that I look outside the box.  They suggested that I look at companies that offer ONLY pay-as-you go plans.  I must admit, I was leery at first.  How good is the service?  How good are the phones?  Like many people, I immediately assumed that when you choose to go with a pay-as-you plan, then you will get stuck with an old fashioned, un-cool looking phone.  Hesitant as I was, I decided to do my own research on these types of plans.  I was shocked at what I found.  Not only were the plans exactly what I was looking for, but they had cool phones!  Below is the phone that we chose from www.net10.com.  At only $40 it has a ton of features we were looking for.

Net10 LG900 Prepaid Cell Phone

Before you make the switch, however, you need to do more research.  This research involves researching yourself.  How many minutes do you typically use in a month?  I would suggest getting an average of a few months since usage per month can vary.  Do you need a smartphone?  Or can you do with a phone that you can make calls on, text and occasionally go on the internet with?  Once you decide exactly what you need then it’s time to start looking at what you can get to fill your needs.  Pay-as-you go providers offer tons of options.  Prices range from approximately $15/month for 300 minutes to $50/month for unlimited talk/text/data.  Yes, you read that right; you can get unlimited/talk/text/data from a pay-as-you go provider for $50.  What’s better than that, you ask?  Well how about using all those unlimited minutes talking and surfing the web on a smartphone?  Yep, pay-as-you go providers offer smartphones, and pretty awesome ones too!  Another advantage of pay-as-you go plans is that they offer great service.  Many of them share towers with the big companies, so you get the exact same service for a fraction of the price.

In the end, my family was able to save about $45 a month ($540/year) by making the switch.  How much can you save?


Thanks for reading!

Give Yourself an Allowance

I know, I know…You  are probably thinking, “I’m not 5 years old anymore”, but think about it.  Using your credit or debit card is sooo easy, isn’t it?  It’s a magical card that you swipe and you can buy anything you want with it? Right? Wrong-o!  One of the top ways people get in financial trouble is by using their credit card like there are no consequences.  Money isn’t this magical imaginary thing.  It is tangible, and I believe that the best way to get back to really believing that is by having it in your hand. 

So what I’m suggesting is giving yourself a weekly cash allowance.  This allowance is to be used only on miscellaneous non-essential items such purchasing a magazine, a coffee in the morning or buying your lunch instead of brown-bagging it.  By using your allowance money to purchase these non-essential items, you are visually seeing how fast your money is being spent and you have better control to maybe say no to that coffee in the morning if you only have $5 left of your allowance money for the week.

The amount of your allowance will depend on various factors however I suggest that you challenge yourself.  Start with $40 a week.  From there, go to $30.  Can you go as low as $20?  Maybe, maybe not.  It all depends on each person’s unique situation.  However, I have found that the more I challenge myself to be thrifty, the better I get at it.  The better I get at being thrifty, the more extra change I have at the end of every week.  

Thanks for reading!