1. The Financial Blogger talks about Virtual Assistant; Do You Need A VA? Of course you do! Everyone does.
2. Smart on Money answers the question “What Kind of Insurance Do I Need to Have?” This is helpful since we wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money on insurance policies that we eventually won’t need.
3. Buying a Home? Are Home Warranty Companies Worth the Money? Money Smart Life writes about the advantages and disadvantages of home warranty companies.
4. CouchSurfing: A New Way to Travel is an interesting post about a whole experience in traveling by 20something finance. It’s definitely worth reading over. You might want to try it like I do!
5. Money Under 30 advises us to always have an emergency fund. One example is this recent post: Steven Slater Proves It: You Need an F-You Fund.
6. Goodbye summer, hello wedding season. Money Crashers give us 4 Unique Gift Ideas on a Cheap Budget which will be extremely helpful during the wedding season.
7. Everyone I know is on Facebook. It’s a lot of fun, especially with all the games. But if you’re not careful, it can actually cost you. Gen X Finance posts about Social Media and Money: 5 Ways Social Media Can Cost You.
8. Want to keep track of your money? ptMoney shares with us how he uses mint.com to know where his money is. You might be able to find this useful too. And it’s free!
9. Summer is almost over, and it’s back to school time. Studenomics presents a Quick College Students Guide to Personal Finance to help students know how to manage their finances.
10. Enemy of Debt tells us how he saved $169.17 on a recent purchase. I’m sure everyone is interested on how to save money when buying stuff, so read on to find out how.
11. Walking the Walk: My $114,000 Challenge to Uncle Sam is Len Penzo’s post about his thoughts on America’s Social Security System. Is it true that Americans can expect nothing from the system when they reach retirement?
12. Where Are The High Paying Jobs? is a question that The Digerati Life answers for us, complete with geographic illustrations and statistical information. Very helpful indeed.
13. It sometimes pains us to spend over a hundred dollars just for a textbook which we may never use again after a few months, but it is needed anyway. Well, you don’t need to keep thinking about having to shell out $150 for that textbook you need. You can now save by renting college textbooks online as posted by Christian PF.
14. Can Cash-On-The-Barrel Get You Out of Debt? is answered by the Fiscal Geek. I think this is a very good post on using cash instead of credit every time.
15. Kristina of DINKS Finances posts College Educations Equals Debt. But Not a Job. It’s true that getting a degree will cost us, and most often get us into debt, but will it guarantee us a career after graduation?

Here are the 15 top reads for this weekend:

1. Let me start by letting you know that GPT has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance – Gettin’ Hot in Here Edition
2. The Financial Blogger says that it’s Time For The Mortgage! Here are what needs to be done to get approved for the actual mortgage.
3. Emotionally attached to your things? Want to get rid of them but you “just can’t” because of sentimental value? Read about the 3 Guerrilla Tactics for Getting Rid of Clutter in 20 something finance.
4. I get a lot of different offers from different banks just to get me to sign up with them. Do you do too? You should check our this post about Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses: A Reason to Apply?
5. Working hard, earning money and living a frugal life is the way to go. But wouldn’t be better if also give or do a simple act of generosity every once in a while? Gen X Finance shares Everyday Philanthropy: Simple Ways You Can Start Helping Others Today.
6. Studenomics writes about the Barriers to Earning More Money. I’m sure you already know what’s keeping you from earning that extra money, but it takes a lot to acknowledge it and do something about it!
7. Kristina of DINKS Finance talks about relationships and money. I know they don’t exactly mix together, so do you think when it comes to money talk in relationships, is it “right” to have a 50/50 relationship?
8. There should be a “minimum” when it comes to writing checks. This way, like the post from Budgets are Sexy, we won’t have to think “Is it bad that we wrote a check for $10?”
9. Len Penzo writes about his experience about his teenage son, his cell phone, and the bill for $1055.20. Think he had a heart attack when he received his bill? Read on!
10.  The Wealth Pilgrim shares with us 5 Tips on How to Make Your Own Living Trust Online. I am sure this will be helpful to us, whether we already have one or not.
11. Ready to buy a home? Money Smart Life presents a Home Loan Documentation Checklist I’m sure everyone will find useful.
12. With credit cards, home loans, car loans, business loans.. At times like these, Christian PF posts a question, “Is there such a thing as good debt?”
13. KISS stands for Keep It Short and Simple. But Smart on Money says Keep It Simple Stupid: Sometimes We Make Things Too Complex. Sounds true?
14. What with almost everyone having a mortgage to pay off, I’m sure this article from Canadian Finance Blog will be a huge help — Benefits of Taking a Reverse Mortgage.
15. Everyone would not like to think of dying. Death is one thing that is not on our plans, that’s for sure.That’s why there are some of us who would rather not get insured. But Enemy of Debt asks this question though, “Why The Heck Do You Need Life Insurance Anyway?”

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As a college student, I had to watch my money carefully. I was on a very fixed income and had to make sure that I had enough to pay my bills, take care of school expenses, and hopefully have a little bit of fun money.

If you’re living on a shoe string budget, here are some ways you can build savings, cut expenses, and maybe get an extra income stream started.

Looking back, I realized that being conscious of where my money was going and created some extra income helped me the most. I used what I learned to pay off my credit card debts and later on, pay off our car loan.

Your Thoughts on Creating Extra Money

How have you either created another income stream or optimize your spending?

Over the past months, I have written a few articles about asset allocation and the different asset classes. Knowing the difference between fixed income and equity is the first step as you start on your investing journey. But the next step is even more important, to understand why you need all of this. Can’t you just pick a few stock market indices, build your portfolio and open your account statement in 30 years just before your retirement? If it was so simple, I would not have a job anymore

A good Asset Allocation helps you sleep at night

I’d say that buying a few stock market indices is not a bad investing strategy if you know what you are doing and are not afraid to see your investments melt by 40% in one year.

So this is why you should use a good asset allocation; to make sure you will never lose 40% in any given year. Before saving the very first penny, an investor is driven by the hope (or financial advisor’s promise) of gain. Their appetite is so violent that the  novice investor forgets about the possibility of losing money. They want to make money, and they want it now.

On the other hand, the harsh side of reality, when a novice investor can lose 5-10% in the span of a month or 2 (during a nasty bear market for example), he starts to panic. “this wasn’t suppose to happen, I was planning to make money from this, he told me that I should average 6%…” blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine…

A well balanced portfolio will obviously smooth out the dips and the spikes so you stay closer to this so magical average of 6% all along the way. Having different asset classes, will allow you to protect your portfolio against drastic fluctuations.

A good Asset Allocation makes retirement planning more accurate

When we use 10, 15, 20 years or more of historical data, we notice that a good asset allocation has a much better chance to give you a steady yield. Why? Simply because you are not trying to bet on a single winner. Since you are betting a little bit of money on several horses, you have more chances to win a little bit each year. As it is impossible to predict which asset classes will outperform 1, 2, 3, 4 years down the road, you are better off having more asset classes to make sure you have some winners in your portfolio.

What is a good asset allocation anyway?

By definition, a good asset allocation will be in line with your investor profile. For us mortals, this means that your money will be invested according to 3 questions:

#1 When do you need your money?

The length of time your money can remain fully invested before you need to start withdrawing it.

#2 How much are you willing to lose?

The amount (in dollars or percentage) you are willing to risk (i.e. lose on paper) before panicking.

#3 What do you know about investing?

Your investment knowledge (you would be a fool to invest everything in the stock market without knowing how it works).

Once you know the answers to those 3 questions, you are ready to make a good asset allocation with the help of a financial advisor to accompany you on your investing journey.

image source: blprnt van

We’re having a blast here in Los Angeles. The weather is nice and we’re hanging out (and working a bit) over at E3. Exploring the area has been fun and I’ve drained my phone’s battery a couple of times from using it for everything, including maps and Gowalla.

I’m hoping the rest of the trip will continue to go as smoothly and look forward to getting my pictures up.

Trying Something Different

We went out for dinner with friends and had a fantastic time last night. The  food was good and the company was incredible. We caught up with old friends and met some new ones.

Looking at the menu, we saw it was more expensive than we planned. I was thinking of splitting a plate, but my husband said we could get our own entrees (he was hungry!), we just couldn’t go overboard.

While I won’t make a habit of spending that money in our regular budget, it did feel nice to do something different and not stress out over the bills.

Debt Free Vacation -Avoiding Stress Later

It’s weird because years ago when I went on vacations using my credit card, I didn’t too much while I was on the trip, but I caused stress for myself for the next several months as I had to adjust my budget and pay it off.

Now we worry a bit before as we work towards our budgeting goals, but come back feeling relaxed and recharged. What was spent has been spent; no credit cards bills to worry about.

Start a Vacation Fund and Build It Up

Debt free vacations start with having a vacation fund started and filled. I would start small and automate your deposits on a regular basis.

You can either have a separate account for your vacation or you can keep in your general savings with a spreadsheet to keep track. What should you consider when determining how much you need? Here are some basic ideas:

• Transportation
• Hotel
• Food
• Local Activities (Theme parks, festivals, etc)
• Misc. (Souvenirs, car trouble, etc)

It’s not too difficult to have a debt free vacation, it just takes a bit of time and planning. We try to save money with ING’s free automatic transfers. Wachovia also offers a nice Way2Save account that can also help you to reach your goal.

Your Thoughts on Debt Free Vacations

Do you try to have debt free vacations? What was the best trip you’ve had?

Sometimes the best nights for us is relaxing at home watching a movie we’ve been curious to catch. Watching movies and saving money can go hand in hand. There are several options to look at, depending on how you watch your movies.

Cutting Costs at the Theaters

I’m not sure what the prices are around your area, but an evening ticket for a new release is $9.50. It’s not bad in itself, but when there are several movies that you want to watch, it can quickly add up. It does pay to look around and see what deals you can find.

Never underestimate the power of your student ID. Some movie theater chains offer a discount (typically, you can get matinée prices all day). While entertainment books have coupons for movies, they don’t usually apply for new releases, so plan accordingly.

If you’re willing to wait, you can grab a movie for a fraction price at the second run theaters. We have both a $4 and a $1 theater on this side of town.

If you’re looking for the theater experience, you also might want to check with your friends to see if their apartments have a complex theater that they let residents use for free. It’s great way to watch a movie with friends at the fraction of the cost.

NetFlix Subscriptions – Worth It?

Several of my friends have NetFlix subscriptions and they really enjoy it. They tend to be movie fans and love inviting people over for their latest pick. They save money by entertaining friends at home instead of constantly going out to the movies.

For some people, though, it can be a money drain as they are not using it to the full. You have to ask yourself about how much you really use the subscription.

• How close are your alternate video rental options? For some people, NetFlix may be practical, as video stores are inconveniently located.
• How often do you watch movies? We tend to watch them on an approximately biweekly schedule.
• Are you using NetFlix for watch a TV series? Netflix tends to be a better deal for those catching up on some television shows they may have missed the first time.

You have to analyze the numbers to see if a subscription makes sense for you. For some, they may find if they simply downgrade or upgrade the subscription, they’ll have a better deal on their hands. If you don’t want to spend too much time calculating the costs of your NetFlix subscription, you can use FeedFlicks.

RedBox- As Good As It Sounds?

We are fans of redbox and use it grab a DVD for movie night. The nearest redbox is less than 10 minutes away and it’s located at our grocery store. For most movies, we just wait until it’s released on DVD.

What are the pros of redbox? You really can’t be a $1 rental price for movies. I also have found redbox to have several locations near us, so it makes it easy to pick up.

Another bonus that I enjoy time to time are the promo codes that allow me to get the movies for free.

What are the cons of redbox? The selection in each kiosk is limited, but based on my experience, it’s not bad at all. You also don’t get some extras that are included with DVDs nowadays, which is a headache. If I really like a movie, though, I’ll end up buying it, so this not a big deal.

Your Thoughts on Watching Movies You Love

How do you keep from spending a fortune watching all the movies you want to watch? Are you getting your money’s worth with Netflix?

As you know, we’re going to Los Angeles next month for some fun and sun. It’ll be our first time there and we’re looking forward to going.

Dave Ramsey has a saying he’s fond of ” If you live like know one else, later you can live like no one else.” He has a point, if we’re willing to work harder towards a goal than most people, we’re probably going to succeed more than most people. Thinking on a much smaller scale, we want to scale back on our spending here for a bit so we have a bit of fun next month.

Money isn’t an infinite resource in our house, so we have to make the most of what we have. That starts with us anticipating some expenses for the trip.

Vacation Expenses

Some expenses we’re planning for the trip include:

• Eating Out ($200)- We’re not going to eat out every meal, but I really would live to try out some local places while we’re there.
• Car Rental ($200)- It seems like this would be a good option since we really want to explore the area.
• Miscellaneous($100)-  I’m not big on buying a ton of souvenirs, but I’ll pick up something along the way.

We snagged our hotel at a great prices, but airline tickets even with a discount are expensive. To make sure we have some money to play around with, we’re cutting back on some expenses now.  Our hope is to have some more money in the vacation fund besides the food money we allocated.

How We’re Cutting Back and Building Savings

First on the chopping block is eating out. The good news is with the healthier eating habits we’ve been using, we’ve unconsciously cut back on eating out. The plan is to be very selective when we do go out and make sure we take advantage of deals and specials. We’re also inviting friends over or going to friends’ houses instead of just going out to eat.

We also have an other income stream this month with a temp job, so that money is going straight into savings. I had done extreme savings with temp jobs I’ve taken (saving 60-80%), so this is doable. The trick is to deposit and set up an automatic transfer ASAP.

Your Thoughts on Vacation Spending

We like to over estimate expenses rather than assume we’ll be completely frugal on the trip. How about you? How you do you financially prepare?