Graduated Learning: Now on Facebook! December 7, 2009

I’ve done it.  I’ve created a Facebook profile for my blogging persona.  I know a few other personal finance bloggers that have blog-specific accounts.  Let me know if there’s any other things I should do with this account (for example, should I add it to Networked Blogs or other Facebook applications?).  It’s another way I can keep in touch with readers, and share ideas.

So “friend” me!  You can find me at http://www.facebook.com/graduated.learning.

[Edit 12/9/09:  I've also added a page on networkedblogs, as I had originally debated doing.  Follow me at http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/graduated_learning_life_after_college/]

Can you have too many LinkedIn contacts? November 23, 2009

A while back I was talking to a colleague during a company softball game.  I pointed out that we’re now officially “linked in”, since I got an email from LinkedIn saying she accepted my invite.  She commented that she was surprised to see how many contacts I have on that site.  Last I looked, I had 307 contacts.  I agree, that seems like quite a few!

There seem to be a few main purposes to having a profile and storing your connections with LinkedIn.  It’s easy to keep all your business contacts in one place.  You can still keep in touch with people, even if you only have their old email address.  And there are plenty of ways to network and find new opportunities for yourself or others.

But can you have too many LinkedIn contacts?  When I first joined LinkedIn, I went a little bit overboard with the invites and connection requests.  I think I just wanted my colleagues (mostly fellow classmates at that time) to get involved in the site and see what it’s about.  Now that things have settled down, I tend to get or send a few invites every few months.  But I’ve started to wonder if all these contacts should remain on my list.

How closely connected in real life do we have to be for me to consider you a LinkedIn-quality contact?  Is it better to have more people you’re aren’t very close to on there so you’re connected to and via more people?  Or do you want to pare it down, since you’re likely to be judged by the company you keep?

I’m thinking of removing people who I added mostly from name recognition (classmates that I met once or twice), and keeping actually friends and colleagues on there.

What do you think?  The more, the better?  Or keep only the best?

I just started a Down Payment Fund! November 6, 2009

Well, I decided to do something with my checking account balance.  Most personal finance people I know have the bare minimum in their checking accounts, keeping as much money as possible in interest bearing accounts/investments or using excess to pay off debts.  I’m a bit of a nervous nelly, so I keep more in checking than I need to.  I suppose if I watched all of my accounts very closely, I could figure out the minimum amount to keep in there.  But I think I just need to pare it down.  I’ve decided to do something about that.

I opened a “sub-account” with ING Direct.  To be honest, it’s not actually a sub-account at all, it’s a new account with the bank (and I already had a savings account with them).  But I hear a lot of people referring to them as sub-accounts.  Anyway, I transferred $1000 into my new account (named Down Payment!), and have set up monthly automatic contributions from my lame-o checking to my awesome down payment fund

Why a down payment fund?  Because I realized I have just been saving for the sake of saving, and if I have an actual “goal” in mind (i.e. buying a house), I might be more motivated to save.  And, well, my older, married sister just closed on a house today.  And that’s pretty darn exciting.  I know I don’t want to buy a house just yet, but I don’t want money (or lack thereof) to be the sole reason for my decision in the future.  Granted, I’ll probably need a pretty high goal amount.  If I want to put 20% down on houses around here (which are at least $250k), I’ll need to stash away $50k.  Well, it’s a start!

Yes, the interest rates on savings accounts aren’t what they used to be.  But just moving that money to an account that provides some interest, and getting into the habit of putting money towards that big goal in the distance is a good start.

(As always, if you’re interested in opening an account with ING Direct, let me know.  I do still have ING referrals. If you open an account with at least $250, you get an extra $25, and I get an extra $10. Free money! Leave me a comment or shoot me an email if you want one!)

My Personal Finance Confessions October 30, 2009

I have a confession to make.  I’m not a perfect person.  I know.  It’s hard to believe.

But seriously.  I know there are so many rules that you’re supposed to follow when it comes to personal finance.  And I think I do a pretty good job at following most of them.  I spend less than I earn.  I transfer money automatically to my savings account every month.  I contribute to my 401(k) up to the company match.  I fully fund my Roth IRA every year.

There’s one thing that I don’t really do.

I don’t budget.

There.  I’ve said it.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was lamenting how her mother was so impressed with her sister, because her sister budgets and has a vacation fund.  This friend was unemployed, but had been staying above water thanks to her savings that she’d built up.  She wanted recognition from her mother on this fact.  I commended her!  I’m very impressed by her high level of savings.  I assured her that, once she got back to work, she could start a vacation fund if that’s something that is important to her.  And that’s when my admission came out.  I told her that I don’t have a budget, either.

Why don’t I have a budget?

I don’t have a budget because it would be really boring and not very useful.  I have many consistent expenses every month (rent, utilities, car payment, student loans payment, etc.) which I know will happen each month.  Most of those costs are pretty non-negotiable, though I would consider paying more towards my loans to lower the principle.  The expenses I have every month that aren’t exactly the same each month are things like food (grocery store, lunches, dinners) and gas.  But in those cases, I have a total that I try to stay under.  I keep my grocery spending under $100 a month, and also keep my dining out to once a week, maximum, (and trade-off who pays with my boyfriend when we go out), and try to keep those expenses below $100 as well.  I’m trying to cut down on how much I spend at the cafeteria (i.e. trying to bring my lunch more often, buying cheaper options) but I try to keep my expenses in the cafeteria below $30 a week.  Yes, when you add up all this money over a year,  it’s quite a bit of money.  But I like going out to eat every once in a while.  And I need to have groceries.  I tend to spend less than any of the budgets.  But I don’t actually budget the money, i.e. figure out what money I have available to spend, then divide it between all of my expenses.  And I’m not really sure where I can lower any of my expenses (outside of the variable food), since I rarely go shopping.

So, am I making a big mistake by not budgeting?  I know where my money goes by tracking my expenses (after the fact) with Mint.  But I don’t plan things out.  I just inherently know my limits, and try to avoid spending money when possible.

Layoff Survival Guide: Back to work! September 20, 2009

So, let’s say you’ve gotten a job offer.  Congratulations!  But now you may be wondering what to do about all those changes you had to deal with when you got laid off.  What do you do about your health insurance coverage now?  And how do you stop collecting unemployment?  What are all the things you have to deal with when you’re starting a new job?

A friend of mine asked me to write about this subject.  Well, one friend complained that my Layoff Survival Guide was too depressing, so my other friend (who is still looking for a new job) suggested this would be a happy twist to the posts.

So, with my first post, I talked about 401(k)s.  At your new job, you’ll likely be given the option to enroll in their 401(k) program (or similar program for non-profits, government jobs, and the like).  Sometimes you’ll have to wait to enroll, or wait for them to match or somehow contribute to your account.  I recommend signing up for a 401(k).  If they provide a matching contribution, I would strongly encourage you to sign up.  There are usually a few different options for funds you can invest in.  Don’t let that part intimidate you!  If you’re not sure, there’s often someone you can call at  the company running your 401(k) (or even in you HR department)  that can give you some general guidance.  And while I’m not a certified financial adviser, I would suggest you look into a “life cycle fund”, one that invests in funds that are more aggressive if you’re not retiring for many decades, and become more conservative as you get closer to retirement.  That’s what I’m doing with my IRAs.  For my 401(k), I’ve tried to make a diversified portfolio with assorted styles of funds, and only looking at the funds with low or no expense ratio.

Next I told you about COBRA and transitioning your healthcare coverage.  Now that you’re at a new job, you’ll likely have access to a discounted (or free) health insurance program (depending on what your company offers).  If the new insurance available is, in your opinion, better (cost-wise, or cover-wise, or other factors important to you) than what you’d been on while unemployed, you should sign up!  Confirm that your new health insurance is officially started, then get in touch with your former company’s HR person in charge of health insurance, and/or your previous insurance company, and let them know that you’re on a new plan.

Finally, I discussed collecting unemployment.  At least for me, in Massachusetts, I didn’t have to call to cancel.  I just stopped filing claims.  Hopefully, that’s what I was supposed to do!  I had asked a friend what she did when she got a new job, and she said she did the same thing.  It may differ from state to state, so check in with your state’s Office of Labor to confirm.

Hopefully this has given you a good idea of what you can look forward to once you get a new job.  As always, feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions.

Teach Me Tuesday: CD Ladders September 8, 2009

Teach Me Tuesday is back!  I started it back up because 1:  a friend called me out on not doing any more (sorry!), and 2:  another friend was wondering what his options are for saving money.  So, here we go!

Friend #2 asked me for some advice, because he knows I’m into personal finance.  His general situation (which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mind me sharing!) is that he’s currently contributing quite a bit to his 401(k), beyond the company match but not to the limit imposed by the IRS.  He wants to continue to save money, but also doesn’t want it all locked away for retirement.  He thinks he might want to have kids soon, and so would like to have his savings a bit more liquid.  He figured he’d either lower his contribution rate and make up for it with contribution to a savings account, or just start putting more in savings instead of increasing his contribution rate to his 401(k).

I suggested that, instead of using savings accounts, he could try CDs.  And even better, a CD Ladder!

True story:  I was with my parents at the bank maybe 10-15 years ago, and one of the bankers kept trying to get my parents to buy CDs.  And yep, I thought they were talking about albums.  I’m not even joking.  I think I asked my parents later, and that cleared everything up.

So what are CDs when we’re not talking about Compact Discs?  They’re Certificates of Deposit.  Basically, they’re a method of investing/saving money where you put a certain amount of money in for a certain amount of time and you’re guaranteed a specific return on your investment.  How is this different from a regular savings account?  Usually, you can get a better interest rate from CDs (which is an upside of CDs).  With a savings account, you can usually withdraw your money whenever you want (assuming you haven’t exceeded your allowance of transactions in a given time frame, and have money in the account), and can save as little as you want at one time and overall (i.e. saving $100 a month, keeping a few thousand dollars at a time).  With CDs, you must keep your money in the bank for the agreed upon amount of time, otherwise you’ll end up paying penalties and/or losing out on the original interest rate.  And you usually have to put in a pretty big amount of money all at once (depending on the bank).

So here’s the deal.  CDs can be pretty excellent for long term investments of a large chunk of money.  But if you want your money a bit more liquid, so that it’s not all tied up for years, but you want to keep it in a CD long enough so you can get a decent interest rate, many financial smarties suggest using a CD Ladder.  I will admit that I’m not as familiar with these as some more experienced personal finance bloggers.  So I’m just going to link you to some good posts by them.  I figure you can ask them for more help.  The basic gist of these is that you spread out your investments in some shorter term CDs and longer term CDs so that you take advantage of the higher interest rates of some while making sure you haven’t locked yourself out of all your money.  And once you’ve set up a CD Ladder, you can continue using that method year after year.

Two good places for advice on how to do a CD Ladder:

How to Create the Ultimate Certificate of Deposit (CD) Ladder by Flexo at Consumerism Commentary

Creating a CD Ladder for your Emergency Fund or Other Savings to Earn a Better, Safe Return by Trent at The Simple Dollar

CDs and CD Ladders aren’t for everyone.  When should you NOT do CD Laddering?  If you don’t have enough money to be comfortable having a certain amount off limits.  Also, if you know you’re going to need the money before the CD reaches maturity, you shouldn’t put it in a CD.  Also, it’s possible that for your time frame, the rate on a savings account (or money market account) could be more than that of a short-term CD.  So you’ll want to compare your options.

I’m not a certified financial planner, so this isn’t professional advice, merely me trying to spread some information that I’ve found from others.

I suggested that my friend do an automatic transfer into his savings on a regular basis, and perhaps buy a CD when he gets enough saved up.

What do you think he should do?  Lower the 401(k) contribution while upping the savings?  Or just up the savings?  And have any of you done a CD ladder?  Is the trouble worth it for the returns?

Rock your Financial Life, and other adventures of last week September 1, 2009

I’m began writing this on Monday after staying home all day from work.  I seem to have gotten a horrible cold this weekend.  I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that I was out and about a lot more than I have been in quite some time.  Hopefully not.  I like getting back into spending time out with friends and meeting new people and trying new activities.  So let’s recap the fun times that were had last week.

After Tuesday’s workout at the gym, I had an event filled Wednesday night.

We went out to dinner to say farewell to our summer interns.  On the downside, it was sad to say goodbye to our intern, since he is pretty awesome as interns go.  Hardworking but friendly.  On the upside, the dinner was free!  Hooray free food!  I got a salad, but balanced that nicely with a small chocolatey dessert.

After that, I drove into the city to go to Rock your Financial Life.  I had won tickets to go after entering a raffle at the Ice Cream Showdown the previous Saturday.  That ice cream event was awesome.  They were raising money for a scholarship, and you paid $2 admission for all you could eat ice cream, from local companies like Christina’s, J.P. Licks, Coops Microcreamery, Toscanini’s, B. Good, Chilly Cow, and Wheeler’s Frozen Desserts.  AMAZING.  These companies provided tastes of some really tasty and sometimes exotic flavors of ice cream.  I think I was in heaven

Anyway, I decided that since personal finance is a hobby/interest of mine, and I had free tickets, I figured it would be good to go to this event.  I showed up a bit late, since I had dinner up near work first, but the event was still going strong.  It was cleverly done; the event was held at Hard Rock Cafe, so the theme combined Rock and Roll with Money.  I got to talk to to the president and founder of Lantern Financial, Lisa Peterson, as well as the VP, Leah Hanson.  I met Leah’s family, too.  Just happened to sit at their table!  It was fun, and I won some cute cards made by Shortcake Scraps.  It was also fun because Lisa and Leah had found my blog after I started following them on twitter…they said, “you’re stephtheblogger!”  That pretty much made my day.

Thursday night was a young alumni event for recent MIT grads over at Alibi, the bar at the Liberty Hotel.  The Liberty Hotel is actually the former Charles Street Jail, but was converted recently and is now a pretty swank hotel.  It was good catching up with old classmates as well as meeting new people!

Friday night was my friends’ wedding reception.  They’d gotten married a while ago, but hadn’t had the time to celebrate it with all their friends.  So there we were!  It was very lovely and it was good to see more friends there!

So, look at all those places where I could have caught a cold!  Seriously though, I really like going out, and am glad that I am (hopefully) back into spending time with others, and not being so lazy staying home all the time!

Should I work with a personal trainer? August 29, 2009

I’ve been trying to go to the gym more often.  Something about me getting back up towards my “working at a food science company where I taste test my work” weight made me feel like I should stop being lazy.

Last week and this week I ramped up what I was doing on the weights circuit because one of the employees there suggested it.  It definitely makes a difference!  Going around the circuit once is pretty hard, but going twice around is quite the workout!

That same employee was there again this week, and he noted that I look incredibly bored when working out.  I didn’t realize you had to be excited when you’re working out!  I laugh sometimes when I’m exercising, but it’s because I’m listening to really funny podcasts like “The Bugle” and “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me“.  I think I also do a little dance when I’m going from one machine to the next, depending on how catchy the music on the loudspeakers is.

Anyway, at this point, he suggested that I consider personal training.  He points out that it’s a workout based on your specific needs, and it will keep me motivated and excited, and prevent me from just getting in a rut.  All valid points.  I’ll admit, he did a good job selling the idea of getting a personal trainer.  And I’m thinking it might be a good idea, too!

A friend of mine has been going to a personal trainer, and she’s seen some great results!  She’s training to walk 750 miles up California to raise diabetes awareness.  I’m thoroughly impressed with her!  She’s been chronicling her training in the blog at her website.

I definitely have to consider the cost/benefit analysis of this.  As the trainer said, “you’re investing in yourself”.  I think that’s true.  I’m thinking of starting with their Try Pack program, with 3 training sessions, where you can apply that money used towards future training programs.  And if I decide I hate it, I don’t have to continue.  And I’ve just spent the $79 towards getting some good ideas for my future workouts, and maybe getting a bit more motivated.  I really think that since I’m not very knowledgeable about the gym and all the sorts of exercises one can do there, that this will be a good chance to just learn more.  So we’ll see.

What do you think?  Have any of you done personal training?  Do you think it’s too expensive compared to what you get out of it?  I welcome your insight and advice!

How do you budget friendship? August 23, 2009

I got an email today with a question about budgeting/saving/paying down debt and its possible impact on friendships:

Dear Stephanie,

So I have this friend who is a great guy and everything, but is obsessed with paying down his credit card debt. Now, that’s all well and good, but he seems to be willing to sacrifice his friendships in order to do this.  He won’t go out to eat to celebrate friends’  birthdays, yet somehow he finds money to spend on fishing gear.  Also, his wife doesn’t seem to have any say in money matters, other than she is not allowed to spend money.  I have invited her to hang out several times, both on excursions that cost money ($4 movie matinees) and ones that are free (trips to the beach), yet she always turns me down. A mutual friend actually asked me if I don’t get along with her.  Should I say something?  How do you budget friendship?

Thanks!

I think I’ll start out with my view on this, but I encourage others to weigh in.  I’d like to help her figure out what to do (and what not to do!).

Money matters are always tricky topics…unless you’re among friends who love talking personal finance, it’s pretty much off the table.  I think if I had been asked by the guy in question, I would say that he should let it be known that he’s going to be laying low for a while.  When you’re on a tight budget, you have to consider how often you want to go out, vs. how much money you can spend.

Since I don’t know the whole story, it would be wrong of me to assume certain things about this guy and his wife.  It’s possible he’s really pumped about paying off his debt, and is doing anything he can to reach that.  I find it odd that the wife is seemingly not allowed to go for free trips.  It’s unclear if he has budgeted his fishing gear spending, or just buys it whenever he feels like it.

I’m not sure if the woman who wrote in should do anything, or if it’s really a case of “none of your business”.  If the wife was my friend, I’d want to make sure things were okay for her.

So, my advice to the questioner:  Tread lightly.  Money is a tough topic, and it’s possible broaching the subject might create a rift between you and your friends.  I’d reach out to the wife, and see if she wanted to vent about things.

So, my fellow personal finance folks, what do you think?  How do you budget friendship?  What advice would you give the woman who wrote in?

Thanks!

Personal Finance Mad Lib August 16, 2009

So, I’ll admit, I’m a little late to the game.  Debt Ninja at Punch Debt in the Face (best blog name ever) wrote up a paragraph complete with blanks to fill in.  Now, unlike in 5th grade, when the nouns were boogers and poop, the adjectives were slimy and stinky, and the numbers included eleventy billion, you’re supposed to enter information about yourself, and they’re not (necessarily) supposed to make you giggle.

So, even though I’m a month late, here’s mine:

Hi my name is Stephanie . I currently have 7 dollars in my wallet. When I started managing my finances I was worth -$51,470 (boo student loans), and now have a net worth of approximately $6k. I currently work as a Materials Engineer and have been doing it for a little over one year. I make roughly a good amount per year. I want to have enough to travel and spend time with the people I love waiting for me when it comes time to retire. Aside from learning about finances, I really enjoy science. I think the world would be a better place if food allergies didn’t exist. (I don’t have them, but I know that some people miss out of awesome things like chocolate by being allergic!) I had leftover ravioli for dinner last night and it was just as tasty as when I had it at the restaurant. I have had at least 6 significant others over the course of my lifetime (counting awkward middle school relationships). One thing that makes me different is my phrases and mannerisms are often picked up by friends and colleagues…but I will pick up one from a friend once in a while. Now that I’m done with this mad lib, I think I’m going to get started on my very long to do list (which includes baking a cake!)
Debt Ninja started listing submissions from others here.  Check them out!