Share Your Resolutions, Past and Present (Whatever They Are!)

The New Year is often a time of reflection for people, and New Year's resolutions are an attempt for us to take control of our lives just a little more, in order to make the next year better than this one.

We here at UMassFive like focusing on New Year's resolutions because, whether they are stuck to or not, we feel that they teach us something about ourselves. This annual reflection period is one of the few times many of us challenge ourselves to improve in such ambitious ways.

Personally, I've found that sometimes the easiest resolutions for me to keep are the ones that are small but meaningful. When I was a teenager, I remember resolving to be nicer to my sister. Lo and behold, by the end of the year, my sister and I had a much better relationship. I wasn't trying to climb the highest mountain or completely transform my life. Still, that one small goal had a profound impact on my life (and probably didn't hurt my sister either).

The nice thing about actually staying true to that resolution is that it made me feel more confident that I could achieve other goals. After all, as a sixteen year old, if I could be nice to my sister, what else was I capable of? The world was my oyster, and I gained confidence that, no matter when I set my mind to accomplish a goal, I could in fact accomplish it. This has even helped me in budgeting, where accomplishing small things like saving $20 every pay check became good reachable goals and gave me a foundation to build on.

Can you remember your most succesful resolutions? What about this year's resolution? Don't be shy, share them here. They don't have to be about money, but they certainly can be!

3 Ways to Save Money On Gifts During the Holidays

I know that to some this may sound like an impossible feat. Beyond the challenge of gift giving, there are countless other opportunities to spend money, like in bringing a dish for a holiday party, or giving money to a charity of your choice. It seems like a time of year when money just burns through my pocket.

These last few years, I've tried to become more careful with where I spend money and how.

1. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - Oliver Platt.
If you are a regular reader then you have heard me bang on this drum a few times. The point is that just because you like a gift doesn't mean the gift receiver is going to like it, and studies back up the concept that the gift receiver cares a lot less about the cost of the gift than the gift giver. That even goes for a gift costing hundreds of bucks. If you're short on affordable gift ideas, take a look at our 53 Easy-on-the-Wallet Gifts. The most important thing is to set a price point that is within your reach. In the end, you can come up with a thoughtful gift at any dollar figure.

2. Start a Holiday Club Savings Account.
OK, this one won't actually help you this year. But if you start it now, by next year, gifts and other expenses will be taken care of and there will be no need to whip out a credit card. If you have charitable donations you regularly give over the holidays, make sure you factor that in to your budget somehow... Your Holiday Club could be a good place!

3. Offer Skills
We all bring something to the table in our skillset. If a friend or family member is in need of help moving, with yard work, gardening, or pet-sitting, this is a way to give a gift that is based on spending your time rather than your money. Times are hard, and for many of us, we have more time than money. Looking for something tangible to give? A thoughtfully picked out (or hand crafted) card could be a great pick. If you're not the creative type but still want a personal touch, try websites like Shutterfly. You can even design a gift certificate if you have a computer and a printer.

What have you found to be great ways to save money on gifts? Please share them, I'd love to get more tips!

Baby Steps to Better Financial Health

I began “budgeting” in 2010. I put the word in quotations because, to a hardcore budgeter, what I did wouldn’t look like budgeting at all... Not even close. Today, I am slightly closer to that goal, but I may never be a budgeting savant. I mean, there are some people that don’t spend a single penny they haven’t set aside for budgeting purposes. I don’t quite know how to do that, because it seems like every time I get close, some unexpected expense pops up, or a friend comes up to visit and they want to go to their favorite restaurant, or a new bar. My point is that budgeting is hard.

It doesn’t help that half the literature out there is about how “easy” budgeting is and how all you have to do is the exact thing that seems so impossible to do. I can look back to not very long ago, and think about how I used to handle my finances. That person would look at what I’m doing today and think, “There’s no way I could do that.” Shows what he knows…

The funny thing is that every time I made a slight improvement on my system, I actually had one less thing to worry about. The truth is that worrying about money is exhausting. Ironically, when I spent virtually no time checking my accounts or tracking spending, I felt more stressed out about money than I do now that I am checking my accounts regularly. After all, my money was being spent one way or another, and every time I swiped my card for a sorta-big purchase, every time I got a loan payment notification in the mail, I was reminded.

I will tell you a couple of things that have helped me, but I also want to ask you what you have done, or will do, as far as baby steps go, to improve your financial health.

Small steps I made:

-          Figuring out my regular expenses, and putting money aside into a savings account I don’t touch except in emergencies.

-          Making financial goals to make sure I’m saving up for things I want to be saving up for.

-          Using Debt in Focus to help me make the most of my debt payments and get a financial overview/help me think about good budgets.

-          Making debt repayment a priority

-          Using Credit Karma to track my credit score for free.

-          Refinancing high interest debt with low interest debt.

These steps in and of themselves were pretty small, but they had big impacts, and they helped me get on the path towards keeping a regular budget. Now that I’m budgeting regularly, it feels like just another baby step. Now for more baby steps towards even better financial health!

Help me, and other readers out and share yours now!

Thinking outside the liberal arts degree to find success after college (while graduating in four years)

Almost a half of all students change their minds on a degree before graduating from college. These students no doubt realize that an undergraduate degree means a lot, and it could direct the future of their career. After all, why would you have an Engineering Degree if you realized you hated Engineering halfway through your college studies? However, when a student chooses to change a degree, it can extend the length of college and the total student loan that will need to be repaid. For parents, this can be a terrifying thought. In fact, my mother expressed gratitude that I had stuck with History as my major throughout my entire college career, for her own sanity as much as for anything else, I’m sure.

And yet, my BA in History was far from a slam dunk on a resume in today’s economy. Most of my options for getting a job in my degree consisted of getting at least a Master’s Degree in order to become a teacher, or a PhD to try my luck at getting a job at a University. My conversations with younger Professors in college left me thinking this wasn’t my ticket to success.

My eventual career landed me far, far away from my History degree, and yet I got the position through a combination of good fortune, determination, and my collegiate experience.

Extra-curricular activities and college jobs can have as much of an impact as your Major on your future job prospects. In fact, many employers see a Liberal Arts major as a big benefit in a potential employee:

A liberal arts education is not designed as training for a specific occupation. What it does do better than any other type of college or university preparation is sharpen analytical and communication skills, teach students how to learn, and provide students with a body of knowledge that can be applied to larger contexts. Thus, it is no surprise that the leaders in most career fields are liberal arts graduates whose specialized training occurred in graduate or professional school.

My addition to that quote is that although graduate or professional school makes a big difference, continuing education takes many forms. In college, I had the good fortune to get a job working at a Greeno Sub Shop, a student-run business at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I learned many business fundamentals like budgets, profit margins, and marketing. I also learned a great deal about what it meant to collaborate and take personal responsibility. Many of my co-managers at the time would agree with me that it almost felt like a second degree, and although I’ve learned a great deal more, I do feel that that experience helped set me apart in a field of applicants, some of whom no doubt had more relevant formal education than me.

Why am I saying this? Because rather than spend all of your time making sure your academics are going to fall in line with what you want to do when you get out of school (which you may change your mind about or reality may force you to change your mind about), it might be worthwhile to spend some time thinking about how you’re pulling on the other resources in a college setting. Getting an interesting student job, running for student government, or getting involved in a club, could open you up to knowledge and experiential learning that you would not have received within your major, making you a more rounded job applicant in the future, without having to worry about how to pay for those extra semesters of college.

What do you want to know about paying for college?

This month, we will be offering Paying for College on October 16^th in Hadley, and October 25^th in Worcester at the Hilton Garden Inn. To help us gear up to this and shed light on the college financing process, I’m asking you today if you have any questions that you wish you had an answer to around paying for higher education. After all, it can be mystifying stuff.

So, what are you most confused about? Or, do you not know what you don’t know? Do you have a good enough grasp on the subject matter, or is it so overwhelming you barely want to think about it and are second guessing why you even started reading this? (If it’s the last answer, bravo for confronting your fears so readily. Hopefully you can keep it up!)  Are you planning on attending our upcoming workshop on Paying for College, or are you going to miss it?  If you’ve already gone through the process, what did you wish you knew at the time? If you’ve been to our workshop, what did you think?

 

I’ll leave it at that, until next time.

A Bigger Car

In the pursuit of living simply, I have actually succeeded in making my life more complicated.  Well, I might just be acting overly dramatic. 

Here is the ridiculous story.  When I first told my boss that I was getting married and one day would probably have children, after nearly falling off her chair she proceeded to tell (and tease) me how I was going to need a mini-van.  Now I know that some people love their mini-vans… great for you!  It is just not the vehicle for me.  I was pretty adamant with her that I would NEVER own a mini-van, even signed a paper stating that fact which probably still exists in my personnel file. 

So in an effort to prove her completely wrong, my wife and I purchased the smallest car we could find.  Well, not really.  We bought a Nissan Versa.  It is a decent economical car, pretty good on gas, and for its class of hatchbacks, fairly roomy in the back.  In our day to day life, it works pretty well for our family.  I mean, we have to finagle the recycling and trash in the back and give a push on the boxes before quickly slamming the door shut. 

Our problems have arisen when we travel.  This summer we took a few camping trips, and we had to pack around our son.  Literally.  The softer items went on top so that in the event of shifting he wasn’t bonked in the head with a cooking stove.  And truth be told it isn’t his stuff that is taking up so much room, it is ours.  Yes we are camping but that doesn’t mean we can’t sleep in comfort.  And this isn’t to mention how the back of the car sank down dramatically when we loaded our bikes on the back.  Yikes!  Sorry struts or shocks or whatever is back there.

 

So we need a bigger car.  And it is indeed a need, not a want.  We are a one car family, we don’t even like to drive.  When traveling we like to arrive at our destination, unpack and then travel by bicycle.  We also have been car-payment-free for the past year, snowballing that payment into other debt.  Knowing that it takes a village, I would love to get your thoughts.  Does it make sense to get a car just for vacations?  Is there something else we are missing here?  And, if we must get a car (thinking Honda CRV size), any recommendations? 

Why I chose to use my savings account

Around three years ago, when I began working at UMassFive as a teller, I had a checking account. That was just about all I cared about. Granted, I did have my basic savings account, which everyone has, but I didn’t use it, and I didn’t care about it. Why would I? I loved the interest rate Co-op Advantage Checking gave me, and I wanted to squeeze every penny out of it.

Then, not two months into my new job, my car broke down.

The funny thing is, it wasn’t actually my car. I was twenty two, working two jobs, and just barely out of college. My mother let me use her car at all times, because she lived in New York, and it helped her not have to deal with owning a car in New York City. It also helped her convince me to run errands for her on my days off. And for me, it was a free car. My mom paid for the insurance, and I had no car payments. My responsibility started and ended with paying for gas and repairs. At the time, that was a lot, but I didn’t know how good I had it until I didn’t have it anymore.

So there I was, with no car, two jobs and about $300 to my name. It was also the winter, and I lived nowhere near the bus route. I got by for about a couple of days, but quickly realized I’d need to buy a new car. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

At 60 hours a week, with budgeting, I was making enough money to save without car payments. With car payments and insurance, I didn’t want to give up my savings, but in order to do that and make sure I was making my payments in time, I had no choice but to put money into a savings account. That, along with a loan savings account, turned a hectic heap of bills into a manageable stream. I began to appreciate that my savings account was there for me to build my savings, and that I couldn’t touch it very easily. And I began to really appreciate it when my savings account grew. It not only helped me build savings, but it also helped me pay my loans down more quickly… Happy days!

Since that time, I’ve moved to being a full time employee of the Credit Union, and I’ve begun leading workshops on budgeting. The practice what you preach mantra has helped me make a more convincing case for separating savings accounts from spending accounts. In that time, I’ve picked up a Holiday club savings account, and am considering a secondary savings account for more transparency.

Still, it’s not easy to work out an organizational plan, especially when you’re concerned with making a high rate of return on the money in your checking account. For those who are resisting a savings account, I have one suggestion: Look at how much interest you’ve earned over the last year. If you feel like you couldn’t have saved more money by keeping your savings separate from your checking, then you should keep doing what you’re doing. If not, it might be time for a change.

How about others? How has organizing your accounts differently helped you save (if at all)?