Anyone else tired of this?
I’m effing sick of this, seriously! Manage your memory, Firefox!
4 comments October 16th, 2007
Posts filed under 'Daily Grind'
Saving Money 101
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had several people say things about me that have really pissed me off.
No, no, no, they didnt make fun of my hair.
Mind you, none of these comments were said to my face - they were completely third party. Thank God I have good friends who snitch on these asshats. What did these snide remarks entertain? My lifestyle and my income! Evidently, I blow A LOT of money. I spend money on things I don’t need, I am completely wasteful. I live like I make a million dollars a year — this goes on and on…
Before I go into the details, I want to tell you a few things about me:
- I am a hard worker.
- I am not a 9 to 5′er nor do I have that mentality.
- I am very fortunate to have been lucky and find a job I enjoy that pays well.
- I have zero credit card debt - paid off monthly.
- I have had several side projects and currently am only working on one major site.
That being said, I’m going to disclose a few of my savings plans and thoughts to
- (a) show that I am not blowing cash like its cocaine and
- (b) encourage my readers to adopt saving strategies.
I’d suggest anyone who doesn’t have a budget or have any idea of how much money they spend to read Dave Ramsey’s book - Financial Peace. I’ve started reading it and cannot put it down. Not because I am eyeballs in debt and freaking out, but because some of the concepts must be learned.
Emergency Fund - The Number one thing!
First off - Let’s talk about what I call the “Emergency Fund” (also in Dave Ramsey’s Books). Like many of you, I didn’t have crap at 22 or 23 for savings. I did make a few wise investments and purchased a condo on the lake. I lived there for two years, sold the place, avoided capital gains tax (2+ years of primary residency), and made a nice chunk of change off of it. What did I do? Well, I blew a bit of it on fun stuff, I put half of it in a savings account, and spent the remaining money on moving to Kansas City.
After a few years of having my money earn about 0.002 percent in this credit union savings account, I moved it to a ING Direct Savings Account earning 4% interest or so. This was a smart move. It’s hard to move money in and out of ING - so its pretty safe, but still a bit liquid. I managed to use (blow, whatever) about ___ bucks on some things (down payment on boat, boat stereo, nice new wakeboard). I realized I had to stop that, so I moved most of it into an ING Mutual Fund where it is currently earning some seriously nice interest. This is my “OMFG I just lost my job, wtf do I do!” money and I will not be touching it until said event occurs. I’ve keep a few bucks in my ING account to gather good interest and save me from things like messed up props, engagement rings, car repairs, and other random shit I have to save for… I dump about $200 dollars POST tax money into this account every month, saving nearly $2,400 a year on it.
My 401K Information
My company matches 6% in our stock - which might be tanking, but its still nice. Guess what, I match the entire 6%. Read This - YOU ARE A RETARD IF YOU DO NOT MAX OUT THE MATCH. This is FREE money. Seriously, take it. I’ve thrown an extra 4% of my salary at a few other funds in my 401k. Why? First off, I’m getting this stuff Pre-Tax, so it drops my taxable income.
Oh no Craig, stop, you are sounding like an investor…
Seriously, I thought that extra 4% would kill me — How much fun am I going to be missing out on? Well, with the savings from FICA taxation, etc, it costs me hardly anything. I don’t even notice it at all! In fact, I’m bumping it way up. You can contribute up to $15,500 for the 2007 tax year. I think it bumps up $500 a year for inflation, the limit will probably be $16k in 2008. This is a quick way to save for retirement that doesn’t hurt you as bad.
Craig, what about your Roth IRA? I’ll be honest, I dont have one - but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. I will probably get one through vanguard, ing, or fidelity. You can contribute up to $5,000 dollars into these bad boys a year (post tax money). Not a bad savings vehicle! I’ll let you know when I do this. I should probably dump about a $100 bucks a month in one of these to start out.
The Health Savings Account - or account previously known as the MSA
I have a High Deductible Health Plan and an HSA. I put about $100 bucks a pay period in this, so roughly 3k a year. Right now I’m earning a decent interest rate (1.588%) - but soon I’ll be able to put my money into mutual funds (peg balances vary per institution) A peg balance means you have to leave $x amount in the HSA, but anything over can be “swept” into a Money Market account.
I’ve been to the doctor twice this year - once for being sick and once for contact lenses. I paid with a credit card and “reimbursed” myself for the cost of those expenses when I needed it.
A Health Savings Account - © It’s a good thing! I’d suggest you get a HDHP and HSA from First Horizon Msaver, especially if you are uninsured!
That’s my savings plans… Any other good ideas? Now, back to burning my cash…
5 comments September 4th, 2007
Mac Vs. Dell?
I have a friend at Dell who sent me this - thought they were humorous. Credit to the authors.
7 comments March 28th, 2007
Protected: Greatest moment in my life…
I’m sitting here, typing, listening to one of the most interesting conversations in history between a girl I know and some guy she likes. So far, we have discussed “BBQ”, “Hoe bags at Buca”, “Will you go with me to Family Christmas?” — I’ll be honest, it’s been really entertaining. Guys, read the Neil Strauss book — Someday you too can have this happen.
Enter your password to view comments December 15th, 2006
http://akismet.com/
Ugh, I finally caved in and downloaded Akismet. I know, lots of comment spam already in place. I’m not going to be like Randolph and nuke it all though. I have a few ideas of ways to remove the 16,000 spam comments on all of my posts. We will see…
Speaking of new ideas - I have a friend that used to work for First Tennessee Bank with me that has started his own blog. He is a real nice guy, and though he hates server side coding, he is a hellva css fiend. Check out the Ask the CSS Guy to learn some cool tips and tricks. Bofester is also working on a new site - Daily Shortcut.
Silly White Hat newbs… Sites should look spammy! 
8 comments December 6th, 2006
CraigClayton.net vs. CraigClayton.com
I think out of desperation, Craig Clayton Sr. of (craigclayton.com) has decided to wage war on me. Why? His site comes up #3 on the Google Serps. He doesnt understand it. His meta tag is perfect, his page is all about him, but for some reason this slimely lil’ bastard with a .net domain is always outranking him.
Sorry Craig’o.
That being said, I think I could stand to add some content to this site. Congrats, we have a new blog post.
23 comments November 21st, 2006
Blog Spamming and Increased Traffic
Nearly 100 people per day are finding my site through a November 2nd post about Ryan Reynolds and McDonalds. Yeah, I made it to April of 2006 before giving in and eating McDonalds. That’s a long time to go without fast food! The verdict? Well, I still weight around 183 lbs.
I have, however, kicked Diet Cokes and am on Day 7 of my plan to destroy my caffiene addictions. How many diet cokes did I drink on a daily basis? Roughly 12 - 14 twelve oz. cans. Seriously. That’s way too much.
Sorry I havent posted in a while - I’ve found myself to be pretty bored with blogging lately. It’s pretty exciting to see a ton of strangers searching for ryan reynolds and showing up on my site though! That and excessive blog spam about took the site down because of bandwidth restrictions! egads! Bad times.
91 comments April 30th, 2006
Protected: I’m alive, barely…
I’m alive, seriously. I’ve been on hiatus from this site for a while… like, over a full month and a half. I’ve been really busy and honestly, kind of lost interest on documenting my life online (again, this happens ever so often)…
I’ve been doing a lot of work, contemplating moving, and trying to figure out what to do! Sorry!
Enter your password to view comments February 6th, 2006
Tagged the “Loser Cats” …
In ten years, cats fans will look back and this year and label this team the “Loser Cats”…
I remember the excitement last year as a young freshman named Rajon Rondo effortlessly scored basket after basket. Things looked promising. A mere two years and we will have another NCAA championship to boast.
Amazing how things have changed!
The 2006 “Loser Cats” will be listed with likes of the 1998 “Comeback Cats”, 1996 “Untouchables”, 1992 “Unforgettables”, and 1966 “Rupps Runts” as a team of legendary stature - however, unlike the other teams - they will be remembered for how horrible they were. How can a team comprised of three Mickey D’s play so selfishly? oh … wait … maybe that makes sense.
Tonight I was reading the The Cat’s Pause, a forum dedicated to UK athletics. One of the members was having a discussion with a Wake Forest fan who could not believe how quickly we would attack our program for having a less-than-fulfilling season. In response, the member said …
You have to understand that at UK, if you DON’T make the final four, then you have had an unsuccessful year. Losing at all is unacceptable. We are all, in our own rights, sons and daughters of coach Adolph Rupp. We all believe that winning is all that matters. We will do anything to win. If you haven’t before, look up some quotes from Adolph Rupp, they are pretty amusing. Heres and example: When someone once told Rupp, ‘Winning isn’t everything!’ He replied, “…Then why do we keep score?” We are the type of fans that will miss a family funeral to watch Kentucky play, and we fully expect that deceased relative to understand why we weren’t there! We are the type of fans that schedule everything around our games, not the other way around. We are TRUE fanatics. Losing is not in our vocabulary and we refuse anything other than complete excellence. This team, this season, is not playing excellent Kentucky basketball. They have no fire, they have no WILL to win. Instead they lay down when the going gets tough. We as fans find that disgusting. It leaves a terrible taste in our mouths and we won’t stand for it long. This coming from someone who actually likes Tubby Smith!
I can’t help but agree. We are a program that emphasis what NCAA hoops is all about! We should always be in contention! We shouldn’t be disgraced on ESPN night after night…
This is not Louisville basketball. This is a deep - rooted basketball program with some heritage! We must prevail…
That being said, I am thinking that some things will change for the better, hopefully. I expect a few more losses - but I am not as quick as others to start claiming that we will be playing in the NIT this year. God help the Cats!
Trying to smile …
122 comments January 10th, 2006
UK Loses once again …
Imagine being the only soul rooting for your team as they are being destroyed…
Then Imagine paying $200 dollars to watch it from the nose bleed section.
Then Imagine coming home and reading the bullsh#t comments on your own website about how your favorite team in all of sports sucks.
…
Then remember one very important thing… “73-61 - The reason the season has not been a complete wash”
Ahh well…
93 comments January 7th, 2006