CentsAble Investments: Switched Wireless Carriers (Big Savings)

We made a huge switch this past week. For the past two years we have been using At&t as our wireless provider.  In an effort to save money & pay off any debt we have, we started looking around at other providers to find the best possible deal.

I am HUGE on having the best of the best. A habit I have had to reign in quite a bit since my adventure into couponing and savings. But, I still always have my eye out for the best savings for the best products.

I have never been in love with a cell phone before -  until I met the iPhone, and it was love from the first time I had my hands on this device. It does everything I need it to and more. I play games on it, have watched movies on it, keep all of our personal info on it (protected with layers of passwords and codes), and so on and so forth. So, giving up my iPhone was a little disheartening.

After much research we decided to switch to Metro PCS. My husband had been wanting to do this for quite some time, but I was hesitant, at first. When we went to talk to a sales rep and learned about their great monthly charges (that were the lowest around), and that they did offer Androids, I decided to go for it. If I had to give up my iPhone I was at least going to switch to an Android.

(I am going to be very transparent here): We went from paying between $220-$240/mth for just two phones with At&t, to now we are paying a grand total of $93.00/mth. That $93 includes two android/smart phones, unlimited talking, texting, data, & everything else, plus insurance for both phones. AND Metro PCS now offers 4G network! Hello! How can you pass that up? We are now saving around $147 a month (that’s $1,746 year! – that’s a small vacation for our entire family).

Also with Metro PCS, their prices are their prices. Meaning we pay $93/mth (that includes taxes and fees and whatever other charges are out there).  With At&t our bill was only $140/mth before all the taxes & fees, and whatever else added up to an extra $100 on our monthly bill. Even if our bill was actually $140/mth we are still saving over $40 mth.

We are no longer locked into any 2 year contract with a phone company as Metro PCS does not require a contract nor a credit check.

And though there are some features on my iPhone I miss, I have to admit that I am starting to fall in love, all over again, with the Android. Many of the apps are still available, and I have found that the apps I may have had to pay for on iPhone is FREE on Android.

This has been a VERY wise investment for us. We paid a bit more up front but will also be receiving about $80 back in Mail In Rebates (MIR) on our phones. Plus with the monthly savings it pays for itself over the long run. I am happy with the service, happy with my new phone, and happy to have almost an extra $150 in my pocket each month.

Where can you find some extra monthly savings in your budget?

Note: These opinions are 100% mine, I was not asked by either mentioned companies above to provide a review of the mentioned companies, nor am I affiliated with either of the mentioned companies. This is based purely on my experience and how we saved money.

CentsAble Investments: Checking Up on Your Credit Report

Did you know that once a year you can download your credit report for absolutely FREE! It is a great idea to check up on your credit report at least once a year to be sure that everything as you expect it to be.

You can visit AnnualCreditReport.com and sign up to download & print your current credit report (they do however require a fee of $7.95 if you care to see your credit score).

By checking up on your credit report you can make sure there are not any accounts open that you are unaware of, or old accounts that might still be open but you haven’t used in a very long time, and could have possibly forgotten about (this actually has a negative effect on your credit score). And most importantly just to be sure there has been no identity theft.

Unlike many of the other sites out there that say you can print your credit report for free, but there ends up being other monthly obligations attached. You just fill out your information, they will verify your actual identity (by asking you questions only you should know), and choose from which reporting agency you would like to receive your credit report from (either TransUnion, Equifax, or Experian).

I encourage each of you to do this and check up your credit report, and dispute any discrepancies, if you should find any. 

I just finished checking on both my husband’s and mine. 

CentsAble Investments: Investing in YOU!

Investing does not have to a monetary thing, investing in something means to put in extra time or hard work to receive more than what we originally put into it. Whether it be money, time, emotions, physical  investment. When we invest in something we hope to have a profit emerge from our investment.

Even though we find ourselves taking away from something in the short term, we find that in the long term what we have invested comes back to us in greater value.

I think it’s a great idea to invest in ourselves. Coming from a mother & wife point of view we give and give of ourselves. Granted what we give is investing in our children, husbands, and loved ones, all the giving and investing that we do will most certain have a greater return in its value over the long run. However, how often do we really stop to invest in our own selves and well-being?

When we take some time to invest in our own selves I promise you, you will be re-energized and ready to continue to give to your family and continue to invest in them.  I know, some of you, may not believe this but we really are Super-Women – though I know a lot of the times it feels like it is expected of us to be Super Woman! But I promise you, we aren’t! We are just people with a lot of demands on us, and those demands can wear on us.

When you become worn out, and lose yourself along the way, your investment into your children and husband, begins to dry up.

I challenge each of you over the next month or two to take some time for yourselves. Go out with friends, get a mani/pedi, go for that massage, go to a movie by yourself (yes, it’s ok to go to a movie by yourself), get those highlights you have been wanting. Anything! Take a day and stay in bed, whatever you feel will help rejuvenate you. And my other challenge is to NOT feel guilty about it. Yes, the house may be a mess when you get back, yes the kids will still have their needs, but taking that small time to invest in yourself and well-being, you will be able to give back to those who need you!

 Remember that you need to check out Groupon, Living Social, & EverSave because these daily deal sites constantly have great deals on services, such as hair care, massages, workout programs, mani/pedis. You can still invest in yourself and save money. Investing in yourself doesn’t have to throw your budget off.

Invest in yourself!

CentsAble Investments: Investing in Christmas 2011

Now that the Holiday season is finally behind us, it’s time to talk about next Christmas – Oh My! I know, I just said that the holiday season was behind us, so can’t we just move on?  We can and we can’t.

For today’s Centsable Investment I am talking about making investments for next Christmas, it’ll once again be here before you know it and I believe that we should get ahead of it before it gets ahead of us.

Here’s what I plan to do to stay on top of Christmas next year. Search and earn as many Swagbucks as possible. Then redeeming my Swagbucks for as many Amazon.com gift cards as possible, to then be used to purchase my Christmas gifts next season.

Also – whenever I receive a Target gift card from purchases I plan to save and hold on to those to use towards purchases of Christmas presents at the end of the year.

 I also plan to start up a Christmas savings account with my bank, and place even just a small amount each month to have some savings in place for next Christmas season.

Finally I plan to make purchases throughout the year on gifts that I can buy at a fraction of their retail price, and that I know will make excellent Christmas presents for the following season. 

I believe that just by doing these four small things I can have all my Christmas presents I need to purchase with little money out of my own pocket. 

Who wants to join me in preparing for Christmas 2011? What are your plans for preparing for Christmas 2011?

Centsable Investments: 'Chicks Laying Nest Eggs'

Because I am getting ready to leave for vacation and forgot to write this daily topic ahead of time. I am doing a VERY quick topic. I came across a great and fun website designed for women called "Chicks Laying Nest Eggs".


They have all sorts of fabulous information on teaching women how to invest their money and where to invest their money. You can research companies, and this site will help you along the way. I love financial sites geared towards women by women. It talks to us in our terms and helps us to make the right decisions on the way we perceive things.

They have a featured called "The Chicks Dozen: 12 Steps to Picking An Investment". It's very well done and lays out the ground work on how to pick a great company to invest in.

Join me in Our Community at the Blog Frog:

 

CentsAble Investments: SmartyPig.com

SmartyPig.com is a FABULOUS online savings account that has fairly high interests rates and has some really awesome features that will assist you in your saving goals, either short term or long term.


I started using SmartyPig.com a few months ago and have been able to put away a good chunk of change, that I am using to save for our Family Emergency Fund. 


SmartyPig was much different then your average savings accounts. You can have as many savings accounts for all sorts of personal financial goals that you need. You then link your SmartyPig account up with your checking/savings account with your regular bank.


You will establish how much you want to save and how quickly or slowly you want to reach that goal. You select how a regular savings withdrawl, it can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, yearly, whatever you are comfortable with having withdrawn on a regular basis. 


Here's what I personally like about SmartyPig, you can't touch this money until you have either reach your financial goal or you choose to completely close off your account. I love that we can't just grab this money easily. It is sitting in a safe account earning a nice interest rate and money is regularly being withdrawn and placed into my SmartyPig Account. 


I have two account setup. One is for a Family Vacation and the other is for our Emergency Funds - of which I plan to fund $1500 to use in the case of little emergencies (car issues, house issues, medical, ect...). After I am able to fund that account I will then start on our Larger Emergency Family Fund, where we will save at least 3 months worth of salary to cover us in the case of bigger emergencies (job loss, medical/disability, ect...). 


Plus you can share your financial progress with family and friends. AND if you like you can have family or friends make deposits into your funds. You could have them do this in the place of Christmas or Birthday gifts. 


SmartyPig consistantly has contests and giveaways where you can win money to be funded into your accounts, or gift cards to retail stores. 


There are really so many great benefits to using SmartPig.com that I cannot list them all here. I encourage all of you to check this site out and sign up and start saving for your future and family now. 

Centsable Investments: Investing in Penny Stocks

*Disclaimer: I am not a financial expert, so you may want to consult your financial advisor on anything I suggest to you in the following information. Also any refering sites I have mentioned in the following excerpt, I am not being compensated in anyway from these sites. All opinions are 100% mine.*

Often as women we don't really look much deeper past our personal finances and the obvious ways of investing our money. Such as in saving accounts at the bank, or perhaps CDs, or Money Markets. These are all great ways to invest our money, better than shoving it under a mattress. At least when you use the every day known investments you are still receiving some interest back on your money. (Whereas, if you stock it under your mattress you would actually be losing the original value).

I think the thought of investing can be quite scary at times, or at least overwhelming. We see the 'Walstreet Guys' on TV waving their hands around, yelling, climbing all over one another. It's actually a bit easier than you would think.

I have invested a little money over time and have come to enjoy playing with the stocks. It was a bit droopey a year or two ago when the markets crashed and you heard how everyone lost money in the markets, and they had. We did too. I remembering reading an article during that time on Warren Buffet and what he was planning to do with his money that was already in the market. He had stated that he was leaving it where it was, and that during that time was the time to really invest since stocks were so cheap. Although sadly, no one really had anything to their names to invest.

In Matthew 25: 14-30 is the parable of the talents, this is probably one of my favorite bible stories because it holds so many meanings.  I think for our sake it's pretty safe to interpret this pretty literally. The first servant the master gives 5 talents (or monies). The servant goes off and actually invests those talents (or monies). When he returns to his master, the servant shows that not only was he faithful in returning the 5 original talents -  he had doubled those 5 talents into 10. Because of the servant's faithfulness in the few talents he was given, the master was able to entrust the servant with many more to care for(or invest).

Going off this parable of investing with the few, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss Penny Stocks. What are Penny Stocks you ask.... pretty much what the sound like. They are stocks that cost only a few pennies or a couple dollars. They are very cheap to invest into and if you learn how to invest in them properly and take some minor risks you can make some descent returns on your money.

For instance let's say you purchase some stock that costs $.05/share. You purchase say $100 worth of shares, that's 5000 shares. If this stock were to double to $.10/share, you would make an extra $100. If the stock where to go up to $1.00/share, you would have made an extra $4,900, not a bad return on investment.

Now I don't want to mislead you and think this is a 'get-quick-rich-scheme', because it's not. Instead it's a good way to start dappling in the open markets and begin to get a feel and become more comfortable with investing in stock markets.

Start small, with even $10, and go from there. Read up and ask around.

To learn more about Penny Stocks you may visit the following sites:

Free Penny Alerts

Penny Invest

Dynamite Penny Stocks

You may also google "Penny Stocks" and find a number of sites that deal specifically with penny stock investments.

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Cent$Able Investments: Welcome

Welcome to Cent$Able Investments the next in the line of new features being release throughout the week. 


I am excited about this one. Because it will give us all a chance to learn more about ways of investing, not only, our money but also our time. And how to make the most of both. 


This weekly feature will go beyond talking about money, we will of course talk about great ways of investing your money. But at times I would love to also venture into investing our time, I think often we get so caught up in life, we forget the most important investment we have, and that is our time. Time with ourselves, our families, friends, work, and so on. I want that to also be a part of this new feature. 


Once, again this is about all of us, me included (especially). I will be bringing you expert advice from all over, and sharing ideas of I have learned about, and hopefully to learn from you. 


I hope you will join me ever Wednesday as we learn about the gift of investment, and how to be wise with our money and our time.