5 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Finances, Beginning Now
A good post on Simple Mom, with a high-level overview of things you can do to get your financial house in order.
The only place where I (personally) diverge from the author is that Sarah and I aren’t on the “all cash” team, as we find we spend more when we’ve got cash on hand, and less when we use a credit/debit card. But I know that a lot of people do find that the cash-only approach is helpful.
Question: Hi Charlie — do you know of anyone that uses your Pear Budget simply to track expenses? I mean not put in any budget — just enter receipts? It seems to confuse me with the budget, then spent, not spent. I might get the hang eventually, but for now would just like to track expenses. Do you think this would work? Thanks.
Answer: I think that would absolutely work. In fact, that’s a great way to get started with it. It’s only once you have a “baseline” of what’s “normal” that you can begin to adjust your spending based on where you want to go. You could say, for example, that you want to spend no more than $20 a month dining out. But if you’re currently spending $200 a month (that is, if $200 is “normal” for you), it’s going to be VERY hard to adjust down to $20 a month. So tracking expenses without worrying about the planned budget numbers is a fine way to go. If you get to a point where you’re comfortable with what you’re tracking, you can then begin to set goals, and say things like “if we want to set aside that $1,000 for a vacation, we should spend a little less on _________.”
10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget, from the writers of Wise Bread
Emily, at Remodeling This Life, is giving away two subscriptions to PearBudget. If you want to win, head over to her blog & check it out: http://www.remodelingthislife.com/2009/05/11/pear-budget-giveaway/.
Thanks, Emily!
A quick note on recurring receipts: The server’s downtime yesterday meant that the code that normally creates recurring receipts didn’t run on the morning of the 5th. So if you have a recurring receipt that runs each month on the 5th, you should take a minute to enter it in by hand. We’re working on a tool that’ll allow you to see all of your recurring receipts (across all categories, in one spot), but we don’t have that quite yet. So if you need any help checking your recurring receipts, send us an e-mail, and we’ll help you out.
Thanks!
I just increased the font size, line-height, and contrast on the blog. We hadn’t had any complaints about it, but as I read yesterday’s long-ish post, I thought it was a little washed out.
Feedback (good or bad) is always welcome! Send me a tweet @pearbudget or @charliepark.
Let’s think about something happy. These are our little girls! Frances (2), Lucy (5), and Kate (2)
Update: looks like we’re back up. Head on over to your account at pearbudget.com.
If you’ve tried to access your PearBudget account over the last day, you’ll have seen that the server is down. This is an issue at our hosting company, Media Temple. They have a team of engineers working on it, and, presumably, will have it resolved soon. Also, they’ve assured us that they’ll be moving PearBudget to a faster, more stable server as soon as they can.
I want to apologize to all of you who’ve been thwarted as you’ve tried to get to your budget last night and today. I know that it’s often hard to get into “budgeting mode,” and that even small barriers can serve as great excuses to not do it. We’ve tried to make PearBudget into a tool that eliminates those barriers as much as possible. The irony of this situation — that we’re the ones keeping you from budgeting — isn’t lost on us. We’re really sorry that the issues at Media Temple are affecting us, and (more important) that they’re, in turn, affecting you.
Even with the promises of the faster and more stable server, we’re again looking into other hosting options. One of the issues in moving to a new hosting company is that we don’t have a dedicated system administrator on-hand. Honestly, I think describing me (Charlie) as a “programmer” is a bit generous. Most of the hosting companies we’d be considering are built for companies who have sysadmins who know how to manage and control the servers. I’m always up for learning new skills; I’m also realistic about my limitations. Also, the more time I spend sysadmining, the less time I have to do customer service, and the less time I have to develop new features. But if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.
Back to the meat of it. I’m posting updates, as I have them, on our Twitter stream, @pearbudget. And if you feel like sending @mediatemple a note about how this is inconveniencing you, well … I don’t think that’d hurt.
In the meantime, please feel free to e-mail me (charlie@pearbudget.com), or to send me a tweet (either @pearbudget or @charliepark) if you have any questions, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as quickly as possible.
We started up the “Budgeting Tip of the Day” again at Twitter (twitter.com/pearbudget). Just in case you missed it.
In related news, if you’re following us on Twitter, and we aren’t following you, and you aren’t a spammer, send us an @pearbudget message and let us know, and we’ll follow you back.
An interesting post over at Get Rich Slowly: How to Create Your Own Target-Date Mutual Fund. I’m not totally convinced that the author’s grocery store metaphor is apt, but I think his point warrants thinking about: When you allow an investment firm to bundle up a package of stocks and bonds that you buy, there’s the potential for problems — the investment firm essentially gets to decide what their profit’s going to be, and there’s not necessarily a guarantee that you’re going to get the best stocks / bonds (best for you, that is) in your mix.
That being said, there’s a tremendous benefit to signing up with a target-date fund, in that it gets you started. As long as you have the minimum amount to get started, it takes hardly any time at all to just get going. If you have to evaluate the various stocks and bonds you’d like to purchase, it’s all-too-easy to just sit on the decision and to never get around to it. Just get going, and if you decide the pre-built target-date fund isn’t right for you, change it. But, again, just get started.
Again, here’s the post at Get Rich Slowly: How to Create Your Own Target-Date Mutual Fund.