I have a secret:  I didn’t graduate college!  I won’t graduate for another year!  I make good money without a college degree and I’ve made the most of my assets after paying off my debt. 

My true stoppage to spending/debt increase was about a year after I quit college and started my current job (I’ve been in my current job about 8 years).  I stopped spending and started saving.  Now I probably have a lot more net worth than most college-grads (about $250k - I’ll put up my NetWorthIQ one of these days).

Here’s how I did it:

1.  Get a secure job.  I can’t really think of many jobs with the same sacrifice/benefit ratio that I have, but there are many other stable jobs out there that pay well without having a college degree:  construction, factory work, etc.

2.  Learn from your mistakes.  I learned that I didn’t want to waste that money on partying or “running up and down the road” as my dad called it (I had a boyfriend back at home).  It took about three years for me to pay off my college loans for one year of partying and being stupid.  I got some classes out of it, too.

3.  You don’t have to go to college - or a 4-year college, for that matter.  My best experiences were after I quit college.  I got an awesome job and started attending my local community college.  I’ve been plugging away at it ever since, but I make decent money now without a college degree.  The degree is just for my next career - after “retirement”.  My parents had it stuck in their heads that state college was the only choice.

4.  Stay in your job as long as possible.  The real money is in your sticking power.  It seems like no one stays in one job for their whole life anymore.

5.  Become the “What Else?” Guy.  One of my boyfriends worked for my dad during my senior year of high school.  He would complete tasks quickly, then come to my dad and say, “Now, what else?” instead of waiting for my dad to tell him.  That stuck with me and has always helped me.   Try being proactive instead of reactive.

Try these tasks and you might be surprised.  If you’re already a college grad, you might even go further!

The local newspaper is a rag.  Seriously, I kick myself everytime I pay $1.25 for it.

I tried a few times to get free Sunday papers by calling early Monday morning and asking for leftovers.  No joy.  Nobody is willing to give me the coupons for free.

The local library has the coupons that people donate, but I don’t want to have to drive over there to get the coupons.

I have a feeling that I’m paying $1.25 to bring the newspaper home and find deals that I could get by just walking into the store (CVS definitely has ads right there when you walk in the front door).  I just like to be all tactical by planning it out on Sunday afternoon.  I would feel strange standing around for an hour, planning my attack from within the Walgreen’s.

But I also face the consumerism that comes with all the Best Buy, KMart, Sears, etc. ads that come along with the drugstore ads.

Thoughts?  Have you been successful getting the Sunday paper for free on Monday?  Anybody an insider that knows what stores do with Sunday papers that don’t get bought?

The house payment went through yesterday.  I never wait until this late in the month to pay (my payment is due on the 1st).  I think they wait to deposit your electronic check on purpose so you’ll be a late payment.  I recalculated my payment on the right there.

This month, part of my house payment (shamefully) came from my emergency fund.  I know that mortgage overpayment on a bad month does not constitute an emergency, but I should get the travel voucher/tax money any day now to recover the $2K that I took out of my emergency fund.  Maybe I’m too lax with my safety net, but it sure is peace of mind (full disclosure:  I have $10k in my emergency fund and I don’t own a credit card).

I will have this house paid off with a May 1, 2009 house payment if things keep going the way they have.  The final payment is set to be $1093, so I’m going to try to get rid of this payment by overpaying an additional $1093 spread over the next 12 months, making there really only be 12 more payments left.  This equates to $91.67 each month of additional overpayment.  I could probably knock it out this month if I get back on track with my money.  We’ll see…

My friends all say I’m a strict mom because the rules in my house were no video games until DS pulled straight A’s.  At that point, the plan was to go out with the son and purchase some $300 video game (either a Playstation or Wii) to compensate for these straight A’s.  At that point, I would be willing to spend the money for his efforts and he would have to maintain the grades to keep playing the games, otherwise I would keep the power cord.  This is strict to other parents (work = rewards).  They think all kids have this innate right to play video games.

DS has at least 2 hours of homework every night, so I don’t really understand where he would even have time on some regular weeknights to play if he did all his homework (some nights, it’s upwards of 3 hours).  3rd grade has changed since you and I attended.  Anyway, he was always 2 B’s away from the straight A’s.

We went to visit my uncle in Florida a couple weeks ago.  My grandpa took me aside and told me that my uncle was going to give me some “computer games” (haha) and wanted to know if it was okay if DS played computer games.  I just told Grandpa of course.

My uncle came out later with a TV, Playstation (2 only), cables, and controllers.  Not really the computer games I had anticipated, but games nonetheless.  I explained my rules to them, and my uncle rolled his eyes.  “Take it home anyway.”  He had already bought his Playstation 3 and HDTV.  DS was elated.  We trucked it home.

One week later, DS brought home a progress report with straight A’s on it.  This was enough for me.  Yesterday, he finished his spring break book report and got to play the Playstation.  I think it means more to him because he earned it.

Thoughts?  Am I too strict?  Is my son still too easily placated?  Is a free Playstation 2 really that big of a deal?

Watching the videos at Me vs. Debt certainly ate up a bunch of my time yesterday, but it was a practice for me in getting into the right mindset.  Sometimes I fall off the frugal bandwagon - even I need encouragement sometimes.

The first video, Maxxed Out, was probably my favorite.  It is very liberal and sensationalist, so if you’re not into that, then please don’t watch it.  I do think it was over the edge, but the lady with the real estate business made me want to puke as she is everything I hate.  I don’t even like real estate agents.  She must be my archnemesis (spelling?).

If I really need to purge the spending feeling, then I just read a bunch of PF blogs.  My favorite is Early Retirement Extreme, since Jacob is such a straight shooter.

The real killer was my mother-in-law’s plane ticket.  Next time, I will be around to shop around for prices on the plane ticket and we will buy it for at most $800.  DH even got her the 6 am flight out for $15 less, but the price ended up being around $1100.  I would have spent the $15 to get her the noon takeoff.  Yuck - international flights require a two-hour prior check-in, and the airport is 1.25 hours away - they will have to leave here at around 3 am.

The other thing was that the car needed its 30k maintenance.  Newer cars disgust me, but I really couldn’t put it off, as we want to keep the new car nicer.  That ran me about $425.

Then we had to make the trip to Florida to see my grandparents.  The hotel rooms were free, but gas from NC to FL was not free.  Yuck.  Maybe I’m a horrible person, but it’s kind of nice to live far from relatives, so I don’t have to keep up with the Joneses - my family!  It’s expensive going out all the time!

So, March has been a bad month.  Luckily, the tax return and another huge travel voucher should help us out, but that money should have been budgeted toward the mortgage anyway.  It is still looking like a mortgage payoff date of next May - only 13 payments left!

This week has been bad for my time management skills, but I’m getting it back today, right now.  Here are the great articles (only in my opinion) from the next 5 in the blogroll:

1. Him at Make Love, Not Debt wrote an interesting article about Chicago’s city taxes going up.  Will he bite the bullet and buy local or will he go for the gold?
2. Mapgirl is glad that she’s still single.  I’m not so sure…sometimes it is excruciatingly annoying to have to clear every monetary transaction through another person, but DH also keeps track of my crazy hairbrained ideas.
3. This is what really ate up my time today:  I got hooked into Me vs. Debt’s movie/documentary posting.  A really interesting couple of videos.
4. MBHunter used Youtube to visit some old childhood memories, but he’s concerned with how much longer these items will still be available to him.  I use the internet to get lots of free stuff.  Is it ethical to watch free videos on the internet instead of renting them for my classes?  Maybe not, but it saves me a bunch of money!
5. Frugaltrader at Million Dollar Journey has a great article about avoiding upgrading your housing.  I’m good to go now, but I’m not even sure if I could stomach new building, ever.  Unless I got my dream house.

And here are the wonderful carnivals for the week:

Shanti at Antishay Ventenne hosted the Money Hacks Carnival:  The Haute Couture Edition.

Frugaltrader at Million Dollar Journey hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance:  The Baby Education Edition.

My Dollar Plan hosted the Festival of Frugality:  The ABC Edition.

DH just got approved for a federal grant that will pay for his tuition and books for the next two years (up to $6000 for the two years).  What a blessing!  This will help us pay off our house even more quickly! 

Sorry for the late posting today; I’m on break and slept in, then got caught up in other happenings.

I faltered and fell for the $2 hair colors this week at Walgreens.  The color is in my hair right now.  Agh.  It will be blonde again in another 20 minutes.  I bought four of them for $2 each (3.99 for two) - it’s a good deal if you buy hair color (they usually run about $7 each).

I did all four shopping trips last night in one night after work so I saved a bunch of gas.  Are you consciously consolidating trips now to conserve gas?

I’m so frustrated right now (jokingly).  DH had me do a typing test and it said I was an okay typist (75 wpm), but I had 13 errors in 3 minutes.  The stinger was that 5 of those errors were from double-spacing between sentences (putting two spaces after a period).  Did anyone else learn this way?  Am I crazy?

Anyway, here are some ways to save money during office work.  I’m only working on Monday of this week, so I’m super excited to get a break.

1.  The old standby:  bring your lunch to work.  I’m super-cheap, so I live on peanut butter sandwiches during the day.  You can be much more creative or simply make extra of your main dish when you make supper the night before.

2.  Don’t buy into the coffee/soda/snack bar.  Bring your own food.  There is much less of a markup.  Drink water instead of soda.  If you must treat yourself to a soda, buy your own and bring it in.  Or, if there is already soda in the fridge, buy some at the grocery store, stock the fridge and keep a tally for yourself so that you know how many sodas the fridge owes you.  At worst, if other people buy/drink all your soda, you can ethically take their money out of the fund at the end of the week, since you provided the soda.

3.  Go for a walk at lunchtime instead of staying at your desk.  This is one of my “treats” for myself, as I am SOOO busy at work all the time.  I like to go for a walk, even if it’s just out the front door of my office.  The guys all go out to restaurants for lunch, so this is my method of going out.

4.  If you accept invitations, you must also reciprocate.  I’m not so sure about this one, but it is DH’s policy.  He doesn’t go to anyone’s office parties, because he doesn’t plan on holding any parties here at home.  It is a good way to save money, but doesn’t fit my lifestyle as well as it fits his.

5.  Don’t accept gifts.  If you don’t accept gifts, they won’t expect you to give a few dollars here or there when they pass the hat around at work.  Let people know if it is public knowledge that you are going to a funeral that you would not like flowers sent and you value their prayers more than anything, and they won’t send it.  Let the office know that you are not interested in receiving gifts.  It’ll be worth it to your pocketbook. 

6.  Carpool or find cheaper transportation.  I’m still working on this.

7.  Don’t buy the crap (girl scout cookies or wrapping paper).  You can probably get cookies for cheap at Walmart and wrapping paper for almost free right after Christmas.

8.  Work on your network.  This sounds a little counter-intuitive, but stick with me.  Whenever someone does me a favor, I ask them what they want from the area I’m in.  For example, if I’m in Georgia and I call back home with a travel voucher problem from a trip a week ago and the admin chick helps me out, I ask her if she likes peaches and if I can bring some back for her.  Stay with me for another minute.  After this, I never have trouble again with my travel voucher, as I have the admin chick gunning for me and watching for my travel vouchers to come through.  I always keep a spare 12 pack of beer in my trunk as a favor-puller.  The recipient isn’t a beer-drinker?  Try coffee, tea, special snacks from the area, etc.  I can’t stand nick-nacks, but the travel lady LOVES them.  You can bet I always bring her something back that I would hate to have in my house.

What are some of your methods for saving money at work?

Sprint has been sending me offers to give me and a friend $25 discounts to get the friend to join.  Instead of advertising that here, I’m going to tell you not to go with Sprint, as my best friend has been warning me for the past 6 months.  Here’s how they’ve screwed me:

1.  Double-charged me for phones by not giving me credit on my bill.  I paid 99.98 for the phones by credit card over the phone.  I was subsequently billed for the phones on my regular monthly bill like normal, but not credited for the 99.98 I had already paid by credit card.

2.  Charged me for shipping.  I was assured they would not charge me for shipping.  Then, they billed me for shipping - TWICE for each phone.  Here’s what it looked like:

1st phone - $10 for shipping, $12 for shipping

2nd phone - $10 for shipping, $12 for shipping

Totalling $44 in shipping alone.  When I called them last month (Feb’s bill), they reassured me that I would be credited on this month’s (March) bill.  They conveniently forgot to credit me the $44 and reassured me it would be credited on April’s bill.  We’ll see.

3.  Rejected my rebate just to test the waters.  I received a postcard that the 99.98 rebate I sent in was rejected because I had already received too many credits (I got $150 credit on each phone ($200 phones) and $50 service credits for re-signing for 2 years).  I called them and waited on hold for 20 minutes to be told that there was a glitch in their system so I would be receiving my expedited rebates within two weeks.  I think this is a scam so they don’t have to pay out on rebates unless the customer has enough tenacity to call and wait on hold.

4.  Gave me a $26 tax bill by making me get “free” phones by filing for a rebate.  Whenever you pay cash for a product, you have to pay taxes.  The phones aren’t free, even though I’m getting a full rebate on them.  I even tried getting $26 Sprint credit by calling the company and explaining this idea to them, but they said no.  It didn’t cost me anything to ask.

So far, I’ve been really unimpressed by the service on this 2 year agreement.  I’m going to keep fighting them.  Next time, I work the SERO deal always publicized at the Hustler Money Blog.  But buyer beware at Sprint.  I know that if I gave up, they would never credit me this money.  Look for further updates on IF I ever get the money back that I deserve.

This last month has been a horrible month for money.  I went overseas for a few weeks, then when I got home, my mother-in-law was using her visa to come visit my husband, so we had to travel all up and down the Eastern seaboard.  I will still make my target house payment ($3500 each month), but it’s coming out of my emergency fund and I will pay it back with my tax return ($3600).  My tax return was so great this year because we got our final adoption credit for monies we paid back in 2005.

The biggest thing I can counsel you if you have a bad month is to always bounce back.  It is so hard after a vacation to go back to cutting the budget to the bone, but it is the only way to get ahead without making major money or winning the lotto.  It isn’t too hard for me, but to convince my family…that’s another story.  Here are some ways to convince your family:

1.  Do the budget together.  Very young kids understand that you have to get money somewhere and will help if there is a reachable goal that they can work toward.

2.  Remind them that you can do another vacation after you save up enough money.  Giving them a goal really helps.

3.  Find replacement activities.  Go for a walk or play a round of basketball at the park.  They won’t bug you too much about going to the arcade if you keep them too busy.

There are many more, but these are some easy ways for us to break back into regular life.  Vacation wouldn’t be so great if it were everyday, would it?!?!