Poorer Than You: Money issues for college students and 20-somethings, without being boring.

Net Worth Update: January 2010

By Stephanie on February 2, 2010

Happy Groundhog Day! Hopefully we won’t get sucked into a Bill Murray or Buffy-in-the-episode-Life-Serial style time loop! If we do, I’m going to spend that time learning something really awesome, like juggling fire clubs or glass blowing. Barring timeline errors, we’ve got some money stuff to talk about…

Change: $527 or 1.41 %

Another month climbing up out of the valley! As The Boyfriend pointed out looking over my shoulder at this graph, I’m almost up above the point where I took out my very last student loan. A very cool feeling, indeed! Here are the highlights:

Retirement: +$506 A testament to how well my savings snowball is working right now. I met all the minimums for my other savings goals and managed to sock away 100-fold more this month for retirement than in previous months. Hurray!

Stocks: +$2 I’d just like to point out that my one share of Eastman Kodak stock is up 50% from last month! Sorry, I get a little excited. Of course, that’s only as long as no one reminds me that it was worth like $25 when I got it for my 13th birthday.

Weddings Fund – A quick note: in addition to contributing my usual $50 this month to the “other peoples’ weddings” fund, I also spent about $225 on dresses that I might wear to these weddings. I did this without taking any money out of the fund, so it counts as a $275 contribution to that fund for this month. Sort of.

That’s really everything – a boring, big jump while I focus on retirement for the early parts of this year. But boring is good when it’s upward boring!

If you have any questions about my net worth or how it is calculated, feel free to ask them in the comments. Also, if you’d like to see how I stack up against other personal finance bloggers, be sure to check out The Wealthy Blogger List. (Spoiler alert: the name of my site is highly accurate.)

Read more articles about Net Worth • • • • • | Tagged january, net worth increase

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Coupons from the Entertainment Book, Act 2

By Stephanie on January 22, 2010

We didn’t get one last year because we were moving from one area to another, but this year, we’re all nice and settled. To put it bluntly, the boyfriend and I are coupon whores. We hate eating somewhere if we don’t have a coupon. Wow, that makes it sound like we’re being cheap. Frankly, we are. Unless we have some reason to eat somewhere without a coupon (meeting friends somewhere, special occasion, whatever) we just don’t. Or, we sometimes eat without a coupon… begrudgingly.

Nearl all of the coupons we use right now come in the mail. You’d be surprised the amount of junk mail and coupon flyers that arrive in our mailbox. But it tends to be the same things, week after week. Even though the Arby’s coupons are amazing (3 for $5 Beef ‘N Cheddars!), man cannot live on shaved roast beef alone.

So, like our experiment two years ago (which went very well), we’re grabbing another Entertainment Book. I frankly don’t know how it will work out. The quality of the coupons in the Entertainment Book varies widely from region to region. The ones in Rochester were spectacular, and it more than paid for itself. The nice thing about Entertainment Book’s website is that they give you a preview of some of the coupons you’ll be getting in your book. I can tell from the preview for the Washington DC/Northern Virginia one that we’ll use enough to at least save us the price of the book. So it’s about as safe of a gamble as they come.

Come back at the end of the year, and I’ll tally up exactly how much we save, and estimate any extra costs (gas for driving out of our way, Metro fare, whatevs). Hopefully, it will make for an interesting year that gets us out to places that don’t mail coupons straight to our house.

If you decide to try out the Entertainment Book for yourself, be sure to check out my list of tips for getting the most out of your Entertainment Book.

*Disclosure: I get $4 if you buy an Entertainment Book through one of the links on this site. The links also serve as coupons themselves, and will sometimes save you money off the price of the Entertainment Book when you go through the link rather than going to the website directly (depending on the current promotion).

Read more articles about Frugal Life • • • • • | Tagged coupons, cutting costs, Entertainment Book, spending money to save money

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10 Places to Make Money Online

By Stephanie on January 20, 2010

One of the most frequent reader questions on Poorer Than You is “How do I make money online?” This week’s guest post tackles 10 ways you can do just that, legitimately and with no start-up costs. This guest post is from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Grads who are interested in making extra cash can find plenty of opportunities online. Some of the opportunities provide enough income to leave the daily grind behind, while others offer just enough pocket change to pay off extra debt or cover the cost of a few nights’ entertainment. It all depends on the job and the amount of time you are willing to invest. If you are looking for a few new opportunities to try, here are 10 places where you can legitimately make money online.

Demand Studios – Writers, copyeditors, and filmmakers can find thousands of freelance jobs at Demand Studios. You pick when you work, which assignments you take, and collect your pay twice per week.

Suite101 – Suite101 pays writers to write on a variety of different topics. Writers can choose when to write and receive lifelong royalties generated by their articles.

Associated Content – Associated Content (AC) contributors can claim writing assignments or submit an article on any topic. Upfront payment ranges between $2 and $20 per article. Writers also receive additional pay based on page views.

Guru – After signing up for an account on Guru, writers, editors, translators, graphic designers, photographers, web experts, business professionals, and other freelancers can bid on a variety of projects from paying employers.

CafePress – Artists and anyone else with basic knowledge of Photoshop can create and sell a wide range of products through free online CafePress shops. Product options include clothing, posters, bumper stickers, mugs, messenger bags, and more.

Imagekind – Imagekind is an art community for artists who want to promote and sell their work online. Artists set the price, keep rights to their artwork, and even make a commission when somebody buys an accompanying frame from the site.

TeachStreet – TeachStreet is a good place for teachers, instructors, and educators to make money online via classes, workshops, and events. Students can sign up for a class and send payment through the site.

ChaCha – ChaCha Guides can get paid to answer questions on topics they are knowledgeable about. For each question they answer, guides receive points which can then be converted into cash at the end of every month.

Ether – Accountants, consultants, bloggers, computer whizzes, and anyone else who is an expert on a specific topic can earn money by sharing knowledge through emails or phone calls. Experts can set their hourly price and determine when they will be available to help Ether users.

ClickBank – ClickBank affiliates get paid up to 75% commission by promoting products through their website or blog. Tens of thousands of different products are available for promotion.

Have you had any luck with these services? PTY author Stephanie has made a bit of money with eHow, a division of Demand Studios. Share your stories in the comments!

Read more articles about Making More Money • • • • • | Tagged finding money, freelancing, make money online

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Savings Snowball: New Year 2010

By Stephanie on January 18, 2010

Ah-hem! It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t done a “Savings Snowball” updates since May of 2009. Thankfully, I’ve been sticking with the snowball since then, just not writing about it at all. There hasn’t been an update because nothing has really changed… until now.

When we last left my savings snowball, it looks like-a-so:

Name	Goal Total	Progress	Monthly Payment
Bro’s Wedding	?	$0	$25+
Emergency Fund	$10,000	$571	$10
Future Car Fund	$10,000	$106	$10
Charity Fund	Infinite	$106	$10
Retirement	Infinite	$62	$5

For those of you not familiar with the concept, here’s the short version: much like a debt snowball, each goal has a minimum payment that gets paid every month, no matter what. Any extra money I can scrounge up goes to the goal on the top. When the goal on the top is met, everything that was getting sent to that goal “snowballs” down into the second goal, and the minimum payment for that goal continues. Therefore, the snowball gains momentum as it goes down the list.

Here’s what’s changed since the May 2009 update:

~~Bro’s Wedding~~ Weddings: As I explained in my October 2009 net worth update, I’ve got more than just my brother’s wedding to save up for now. I’ve been asked to participate in another wedding as a groomswoman, and that wedding will also require a dress and travel and accommodations, just like my brother’s upcoming wedding. And, if the advice of everyone older than me is true, weddings are just going to keep popping up over the next 5-10 years of my life. There’s no set numerical goal for this, because it’s a rolling number.

Retirement: Oh, hello! I’ve been saying for years that I’m going to start a retirement account. One of the earliest entries in this blog, in January of 2007, laid out starting one as a goal for 2007. I was ambitious, and crazy. I met a lot of goals that year, including going back to college, but starting a retirement account was not one of them. Neither did it happen in 2008 or 2009.

But now I have a big girl job, so my retirement savings? That jumps to the top of the snowball. I hope to max out a Roth IRA for both 2009 and 2010 (I can still open a 2009 IRA up until April 15, 2010), so the goal is $10,000.

New and Improved Savings Snowball

Name	Goal Total	Progress	Monthly Payment
Retirement	$10,000	$102	All that I can
Emergency Fund	$5,000	$646	$15
Future Car Fund	$10,000	$188	$25
Charity Fund	Rolling	$177	$15
Weddings	Rolling	$226	$50

Not really all that different, in the end. Retirement moved to the top, and Weddings to the bottom. It has to be at the bottom, because a rolling goal can never be achieved and snowball down into the next goal. I knocked the Emergency Fund goal down to $5,000. I’m single, no kids, so maybe even that is excessive – I’ll reevaluate it when it’s the top goal. I increased the monthly payment on everything.

Conclusions: That I haven’t talked about my Savings Snowball is a testament to the fact that it’s working. It’s requiring less and less tweaking as time goes on. I’m happy with that.

Read more articles about Savings • • • • • | Tagged savings snowball

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Listen: Graduating and Job Hunting in the Recession

By Stephanie on January 13, 2010

This is well worth an hour of your time, whether you be a recent grad, a young job-hunter, or a student with graduation in your upcoming future (juniors and seniors, I’m looking at you!). This program is an hour from yesterday’s Kojo Nnamdi Show, an show here on the Washington D.C. NPR station WAMU. It’s titled “A Slow Start for Young Workers” and host Kojo Nnamdi talks with a panel of experts and callers about the struggles we recent grads are facing in this tough job market.

While national unemployment hovers around 10%, unemployment for 16-24 year olds in America is twice that. We’re feeling the pinch as employers have their pick of the litter and can turn us down for more seasoned, experienced workers. But not all is lost – there are some things our generation brings to the table that employers would be remiss to exclude from their office. Kojo, the panel, and the callers discuss all this and more.

The experts on this show are:

Howard Ross – Diversity consultant; Principal, Cook Ross
Julianne Malveaux – Economist; President, Bennett College
Katherine Stahl – Executive Director, American University Career Center

They touch on many aspects of our job search struggles right now, and also a few of the advantages we actually have. Give it a listen, and let’s discuss it in the comments.

Listen now to “A Slow Start for Young Workers” from The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU.

Have you experienced difficulties, unemployment, or underemployment in the current job market? (I know I have!)

Read more articles about After College • • • • • | Tagged generation y, podcasts, recession, underemployment, unemployment

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Celebrate! Three Years of PTY

By Stephanie on January 4, 2010

Happy Anniversary! Whether you’ve been reading for the whole three years or you’re just joining the community now, it’s time to celebrate in our achievements! Yes, “our” achievements – I may write this thing, but it’s you, reader, that makes it special. Otherwise, I’d just be airing my financial baggage in an echo chamber, and I’d have no one to call me out when I’m wrong (yeah, like that ever happens!)

We’ve grown! This blog has grown, I’ve grown emotionally, but thankfully not physically – I’m still a shorty at 5 foot 10 inches. So let’s take a quick look back at what’s happened over three zany, incredible, wacky years of Poorer Than You…

By The Numbers

-$7,993 – amount my net worth has dropped by. Entirely student loan based!
$2,440 – amount of credit card debt and overdue school bills paid off in year one
$1,363 – savings in the bank now
3,469 – approved comments on Poorer Than You
1,496 – peak number of Poorer Than You RSS subscribers (December 16, 2009)
401 – individual posts on Poorer Than You (402, including this)
1 – number of college degrees achieved since the start of this site

Memory Lane

The numbers don’t tell you everything. They don’t tell you about how I started this blog because I’d run out of money and dropped out of college. I gained quick attention for being the film school dropout with a money blog, and landed a mention on the front page of the New York Times. The site moved from Blogspot to its current home at PoorerThanYou.com after I won the domain name in a contest (for realsies!). I launched an epic battle against the concept of a No Gas Day, and I like to think I won! (No, I didn’t. It’ll come back again, you just watch.) Then, I decided to go back to school.

I bought a laptop, moved house, then moved to California for the summer (yes, in that order.) I did my first Identity Theft Week then switched from aggressive debt reduction to building an emergency fund (and got yelled at in the comments for it!). I went back to school (finally!) and was interviewed by my college magazine. I made a spreadsheet of all the purchases that I was paying off from my credit card, which turned into my biggest motivator for paying the thing off. I turned 21.

I contemplated whether film school was worth all the debt, and then eventually changed my major. I was nominated for a blogging scholarship, made it as far as finalist and got $100. I put the blog on strike, and went silent for two months.

…

I came back. I railed against the FAFSA while my friends weighed the costs of grad school. A few months into year two, I confessed that I still didn’t have a budget. I made a video about how expensive and wasteful bottled water is. I did a series for my friends who were graduating. I didn’t graduate, because I still had to make up for the time I had dropped out. I achieved about half of my summertime goals. I paid off my credit card debt. I went without shampoo for four months. Now it’s been a year and a half without shampoo.

HP gave me a laptop to give away on my birthday. I looked back on the past year to see if I’d saved money by commuting and living at home with my parents. I started dedicating Fridays to money tips specifically for college students. I paid off my student loan interest without all the facts and missed out on a tax deduction (that I now think never would have mattered any whicha-way.) I found out I would have health insurance after graduation. (Huge relief!)

I started playing with Lending Club using their bonus money. I graduated, but suddenly there was this recession thing and I wasn’t finding a job. I talked about delicious lickable textbooks. I shared something that money can’t buy. I started paying off my student loans… come back in 25 years, and I’ll be done with that! Credit card reform was passed that was mostly good, except it coddles college students. I packed up to move from Rochester to the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area.

HP gave me two more laptops to give away. I moved everything I owned in my car, which stalled 160 miles into my trip. I turned 23. Poorer Than You grew to include forums. I did a second Identity Theft Week (cause it’s just that important). I got a few “big girl” jobs down here in the big city. We don’t have cable, or really even a TV, in our apartment.

Poorer Than You turned 3.

But I guess those are just the highlights… the events. In between, there’s been so much. So many thoughts and articles and lists and ideas. And I can’t take all of the credit. Because I’ve just been living my life and smashing my fingers on the keyboard while doing it. You guys are the real treasure here. You make everything worth doing, and most certainly you’re the ones who make it worth writing about.

So you just keep reading, commenting, and bothering me on Twitter. I’ll keep moving forward, paying down my debts, building up my savings, and sharing it all. Together, we’ll push through and instead of waiting to find out what the future holds, we’ll build it. You and me.

Ready?

Set?

GO.

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Net Worth Update: December 2009

By Stephanie on January 1, 2010

Happy New Year! The first of any month is an exciting time for me, because I’m a nerd and I love doing these net worth updates. (Data! Hurray!) But of course, the first of the year is always that much more exciting! This also marks a full three years of these updates – my first ever data point for this was December of 2006. On Monday we’ll do a walk down memory lane about how much has changed since then. But for now, let’s see what’s changed just since November:

Change: $511 or 1.35 %

Yay! Another upswing, thanks to my “big girl job” that I’ve been working since late October. My student loan debt is down, my savings accounts are up, and I even splurged on other people at Christmas. Well, splurged more than years past, anyway.

A few new things:

Occasionals Savings Account: I created another ING savings account for expenses that I don’t pay every month. My cell phone bill is only paid every six months, as is my car insurance. My renters insurance is paid once a year. So I’m putting aside a sixth or a twelfth of each of those every month into this savings account. I’m also putting a bit extra in there for a new cell phone when the time comes for that.

Lending club loan charged off: I’ll surely write a full post about this as a part of my Lending Club Experiment series, but the short version is that one of my borrowers declared bankruptcy and his loan has since been charged off. I’m down over $22 because of it. No big deal in the big picture, just worth noting.

2010? Oh, I really have no idea what will happen this year. No clue. Nothing is set in stone in my life right now, so 2010 will certainly be an adventure!

Read more articles about Net Worth • • • • • | Tagged december, net worth increase

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8 Techniques to Boost Your Emergency Fund

By Guest Author on December 31, 2009

Just starting an emergency fund as a part of a New Year’s resolution? Trying to boost an existing one? No worries: the following guest post has you covered with some great tips on how to find a little cash for your “rainy day fund.”

In this harsh economic environment, there is hardly a better time to have a reserve stash of cash. A well-established emergency fund can mean the ability to make it smoothly through a job loss, health issue, car problem or other unforeseen personal crisis, as opposed to having to take on substantial debt, encountering costly delays or worse. If you’ve decided it’s time to prepare for the worst, while at the same time building some peace of mind, here are a few tips to help you boost your emergency fund.

1. Sell Off Old Stuff

Reselling old stuff is a great way to supply your emergency fund. Whether it’s books, CDs, DVDs, clothes, antiques and old comic books, or whatever, there are plenty of sources of cash among your unused or unwanted items. Check your local neighborhoods for specialty shops that will buy lightly used cloths, books, and similar wares, or hit the internet for online companies that will purchase these types of items. They may even pay your shipping to send them in!

2. Auction Off On eBay

Selling your stuff on eBay can be a great side project to fund your emergency stash. The beauty is that you can sell just about anything on eBay: from all sorts of odds and ends to antiques and even gift cards and coupons it’s all fair game. If you aren’t a big eBay seller or don’t want to bother with the work to set up an account, consider taking stuff to an eBay store, and let them do the work for you. Beware though, they will take a commission on the stuff they sell for you and will typically only take items of higher value to make listing them worthwhile.

3. Reduce Expenses

The best way to save is not to spend. Try taking the money you might spend on more frivolous items like gourmet coffee, clothing, or dinners out, and set it aside for a month or two to begin your emergency fund.

4. Cut the Cost of Utilities

Another great way to save for a rainy day is through your utility expenditures. Make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of electricity or natural gas you use each month by turning off lights and using heaters and ceiling fans rather than the furnace or air conditioner. You might also consider reducing your cable package and put your monthly savings toward your emergency fund.

5. Pick Up Extra Hours

In the current economic environment, many employers don’t want to hire more people. Hiring new employees is costly since they require employers to pay more in benefits, it takes time and money to train them, and there is no guarantee that they’ll end up working out. Many employers would rather use the staff they already have, which could be an opportunity for you to pick up extra hours and earn additional income that can be set aside for later.

6. Seek Freelance Work

If you don’t see any other way to compile an emergency fund, consider putting your skills to use. Whether your talent lies in carpentry, home cleaning, childcare, writing, tutoring, artistry, or lawn care, there are often needs for all sorts of services and skills that you might have. Check Craigslist, online classifieds or wanted ads in your local paper for services required. This supplemental income might not make you rich but it can be a great way to build up an emergency fund.

7. Do It Yourself and Save

Do it yourself projects can save you big money – money that can be put into your emergency stash. Cutting your own grass, sealing your own asphalt driveway, painting your own home, shoveling your own snow, and doing a variety of other household tasks yourself can help you save, and in many instances, keep you healthy as well.

8. Spare Change

While that extra change you have sitting in your car or in the jar on your dresser might not seem like much, you may be surprised. It can add up quickly. I recently took my in-laws’ change jars in to the bank for them. They were stunned when I came back with two empty canning jars and just over $220 in cash. The great thing about keeping your emergency fund in the form of change is that you’ll typically only go to the trouble of taking it to the bank if there is an actual emergency. It’s just too much trouble, and a tad embarrassing, otherwise.

About the Author: Kris is a personal finance writer with a background in business management who blogs for CreditCardCompare.com.au, an Australian credit card comparison website offering a wide range of reward credit cards that help make ends meet. When he isn’t working, which isn’t often, Kris enjoys spending time with his young family.

Read more articles about Savings • • • • • | Tagged cutting costs, emergency fund, finding money

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The Case for a Paper Address Book

By Stephanie on December 22, 2009

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare. Some people rather important to me left my apartment in a car, and we’d had a big snowstorm this weekend. I didn’t know how good the roads were, and when I called them to ask about something trivial a few minutes later, none of them answered their cell phones. I started to panic and dire scenarios rushed through my head.

Finally one of them picked up his phone, and everything was fine – they just had their phones on silent or out of reach! But during my panic when my imagination was running wild, I realized I didn’t have emergency contact numbers for any of them, and they were the people I would call to get those numbers for each other!

I have a paper address book with all of my emergency contacts in it somewhere, but I don’t know where it is, and I know it’s terribly out of date. After my little panic attack this morning, I’m planning to update it. But emergencies aren’t the only reason you ought to have a paper backup of your numbers.

Your phone might break. If you’re relying on your cell phone to store all of the numbers you call, you might encounter a rude awakening at some point. I did, my sophomore year of college. The screen on my cell phone busted, leaving me without the internal address book, caller ID, or text messaging.

I suddenly realized how many people I called daily without knowing their phone numbers! I had to spend that week making a paper backup that I carried in my wallet just to make phone calls. I still have that same piece of paper in my wallet now, just in case.

Backups of backups. Since the invention of the annoying “I lost my phone and need all of your phone numbers!” Facebook group, cell phone companies realized that backing up contact lists was important. But even an electronic backup can fail, or not be accessible when you need it. For some of them, this is as simple as printing out the electronic backup list every so often.

Addresses. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of people’s phone numbers… but not so many physical addresses on file. Every time I need to mail something to a friend or family member, I have to hunt down their address through Facebook, a mutual friend, or asking the person directly.

Emergencies. Feel free to run through the nightmare scenarios in your head yourself – I’ve hit my quota of those this week already! Basically, relying solely on electronic information storage can be really bad if the power is out when you need that information most.

Address books are cheap – most dollar stores have them, or you could print your own sheets and just use a binder you have laying around. But here’s my big tip for keeping a paper address book: Write in pencil. People change addresses and phone numbers all the time, so instead of crossing things out or keeping the White-Out companies in business by yourself, just write in pencil so you can change it later.

Read more articles about Self Improvement • • • • • | Tagged address book, backups, cell phones, safety

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Last Minute Gift Idea: Textbooks

By Stephanie on December 18, 2009

You may feel funny getting the student in your life something as totally lame as textbooks for a gift. But if they’re cash-strapped like I was over the course of my education, it may end up being the gift they appreciate most this season. It feels like a big weight has been lifted when you go to buy textbooks knowing that the price of them is already taken care of.

How to Give Textbooks as a Gift

Logistically, this gets a little tricky. There are a couple ways you could do it:

Give the student a handwritten (and signed!) IOU for one term’s textbooks. Put instructions on it that the student must email or give you a complete and accurate list of the textbooks they need as soon as possible. Once you have the textbook list, you can go ahead and purchase the books through your preferred textbook retailers, or hit up some of the ones in my textbook buying guide.
Send the student a gift certificate to Chegg so that they can purchase or rent their textbooks from there. Chegg is my personal favorite textbook service, and I rented at least one textbook from them every term since their debut.
For more flexibility, go with a gift certificate to Amazon and write out that it’s for textbooks… or anything else the student might want or need.
I guess you could also go out, buy some random textbooks, gift wrap them, and hope for the best. I meant, who doesn’t love getting a pile of heavy books that may or may not be relevant to your classes?

And don’t feel like the lame friend or relative for giving textbooks instead of something fun. The fun gifts they may receive from other people will be more enjoyable without the cost of textbooks hanging over their head. Trust me.

*Disclosurery stuff: I have affiliate relationships with Chegg and Amazon. I don’t know if I get an sort of commission for gift certificates sold through Chegg, but the link does include a coupon code embedded in it, so it’s win-win. I receive a 6% commission for Amazon gift certificates. As with all of my affiliate relationships, I recommend these sites wholeheartedly with or without commission.

Read more articles about Gifts and Giving • • • • • | Tagged amazon, chegg, holidays, textbooks