Evolving

So I guess I am evolving this blog... I'll try and put up Fred Meyer, Target, Safeway, RiteAId, and Albertsons deals each week. I don't usually shop Walgreen's anymore, because ours here sucks and doesn't ever seem to have the good deals in stock - I also not a fan of Kmart... I'll post sales at different stores, like Old Navy, Toys R Us, Staples, Kohls, etc. that seem like good deals. Also deals online that I find. I'll try and let you know when to REALLY stock up on something, or when it is just a decent deal... I'll try and do the best diaper deals for the week (so in case you REALLY need them you'll know where to go)

I will be working on getting a facebook page up and going...

Please email, post on facebook, leave a comment, if you find a deal and want to share it, and I'll share it with everyone! Please share, I can't find everything.. If you find a great deal online or in the store, or find a certain clearance steal (let me know of any "extra" off clearance sale you find!!), let us know! Or if I miss anything - like we don't drink milk around here, so I have no idea what milk costs - you can fill everyone in for me! Also any community events or activities that would be fun and you want to share, let me know. I always seem the last to know about some fun activities in the area, so PLEASE share them, so we can all join in the fun.

I don't get a newspaper, so I won't usually post things you need newspaper coupons for (feel free to submit those deals for me). I have 3 different computers, so I am able to get most coupons... I did get the paper for awhile, but didn't find it more useful than just printing the coupons, so I quit getting it :P Make sure you set your printer to "fast draft" to save ink and just do grayscale/black and white and save the more expensive color ink....

So let's share fun events and all save some money!!

Here are a few things to get started:

Sign up for Ebates if you have yet to do so - When you want to buy something online, go to their site, and then click on the site you wan to buy from and you'll get $$ back (Ebates will cut you a check a couple of times a year). I have been using them for year and have gotten over $250 back. For example, when we were buying our freezer, I could have just gone into Sears to order it instead I ordered online at the same price and shopped through Ebates and got $30 back!!

Upromise is yet another site to get money back on purchases and save for your kids college. See my post on it here. They also have coupons you can load to your various cards.

Cellfire - you can load coupons to your Safeway and Fred Meyer cards.. I have an app for my iPhone, but you can do it on their website too

Shortcuts.com - another place to load coupons to your cards

Both the Safeway and Fred Meyer websites let you load even more coupons to your card

Sign up for Mypoints - I send it to my junk mail and click on their emails and make points. But they are great for printing your coupons.com and smartsource.com coupons. If you print them from their site, you get points! So get even more from using coupons. I get enough points every year to get restaurant gift cards for when we travel - like to Rainforest cafe (when we go to Disneyland) or Outback steakhouse, but they have lots of options for your points and who can argue with free gift cards?!?! PLEASE Send an email (savvysavingandinvesting@gmail.com) or comment and I'll send you an invite to join! (I get point for referring you then!)

Redplum.com also had lots of coupons (they aren't on mypoints yet...)

I'll also list individual product websites to find coupons to match with sales, or often if you "like" a product on facebook, you can get a great coupons (I'll list them as I find them - or let me know if you find a good one!)

Rite Aid has their Video Values site - watch videos and get coupons you can stack with manufactures coupons. I have gotten so many good deals from these coupons! Watch any you think you might use - you must watch them in the month before they go away and put up new ones, but are good until the next month

Target.com also has coupons to print that you can stack with manufactures coupons. Again lots of good deals to be had because of this!

Homework

I am going to give you all some homework for the weekend - so you can get honest and ready to go on your financial future. I want you and your spouse (or just yourself if single) and gather up your fiances (bills, savings, debt, goals) and I want you to figure out goals that you have for getting rid of your debt and setting savings/investing goals for the future (no matter how little it may start out with)

There is a GREAT Calculator on Suze Orman's website (BTW, we don't get CNBC anymore, because we are cheap and got rid of our extra channels, but you can get her show -and many others from their site for FREE on itunes and watch it on your computer, or my case iPhone) that tracks ALL your spending - even averaging what you spend on vacations, insurance, gifts, etc. each year to what you are actually spending on it each month. It think it is a very useful tool to see where you can cut spending, where you are spending too much, and just to see where all your money is going... I did it for us and found it useful to see how the money is spent every month. It is important to know where all your money is being spent and be HONEST with yourselves, so you can be as accurate as possible.

The calculator will show you if you are overspending or underspending each month and try to show you how you can live within your means. Which, if you are overspending each month, you really need to get honest and figure out how you can live within your means each month and make a plan to achieve it.

Next, if you have debt, make an action plan on how you can eliminate it - I hope if you do have credit card/loan debt, that you do in fact already have a plan, but if you don't it is never too late to start one! Here is another calculator from Suze, to work on your credit card debt.

Once you have dealt with your spending and debt, decide how much you can dedicate to investing and savings - it doesn't have to be much, but you NEED to start - the younger the better! Most say you need to put 10% of your pay into retirement. Well, that would be ideal, you need to start somewhere, no matter how small.

Make a plan on how you are going to save/invest this money. Are you going to do a simple savings account? Are you going to open a ROTH IRA? Decide what is best for your situation. Open a savings or investing account.. Look for incentives to opening an account - many companies will give you money to start an account. Sharebulder will give you $50 for opening an account and if you only have $20 a month to invest, that is over 2 months of extra savings for you. Decide what company will serve your needs best and set up an automatic savings/investing option to have that money taken out every month.

Once you have a complete spending/debt/savings/investing plan, I think you will feel so much better about your future and your financial stability. It may seem depressing (especially if you don't have much or enough money) but you still need to face it and make a plan and get yourselves going for a stable financial future.

If you are local - and I know you well- I would be more than happy to help you set up a plan and go through your finances with you (for free of course - but I would take homemade chocolate chip cookies). I honestly love this stuff and want everyone to succeed and have a plan :)

Next week's topics include: ETF, Limit Orders, 529 college savings, and more.. Let me know what you would like to know more about or what topics you would like to see!

crash course for stock/mutual fund picking

I got a lot of people that were interested in my previous post on investing, so I thought I would give bit more information on picking out good stock and mutual funds in a few easy steps.

First stocks -

Pick a stock of a company you are familiar with and a company you like - unless you are experienced and have a lot of time to research and study, stick to companies you know. Then go to any site - the site where you buy your stocks should have all this information and look up your stock

Look at the P/E ratio (price to earnings).. Each sector has a different p/e ratio that will tell you if the stock is a good buy. Look at what the P/E ratio is on your stock, and compare that to the industry average P/E ratio (hopefully the site you have chosen will show you this.. thestreet.com has it under Earnings when you search for your stock).. If your companies P/E ratio is lower than the sector average, then it is a good buy - it means that the price of the stock compared to its earnings is cheaper than competitive companies... if it is much higher than the rest, then the stock may be overvalued.

Then look at the dividend - might as well choose a company with a high dividend. Anything over 2% is pretty good and they can go as high as 6%+ - the current highest yielding stocks are T,VZ,DD,MRK,KFT,CVX,MCD,KO,JNJ,INTC - all companies you have heard of and all dividends currently over 3% (I have not checked their p/e ratio though)

If you are wanting to buy more than one stock - diversify yourself and buy over many different sectors - for example, don't buy both Target and Walmart - you are just repeating the same sector.

Mutual Funds

The company you choose should have several options for a No-Load, No-transaction fee mutual funds. In other words, you do not want to pay anything to buy this fund. If you have $500 to put into this fund, you want ALL $500 to go into that fund and NO fees to buy it!

Speaking of fees, look at the Expense ratio (what it costs a year to own the fund) - ideally, you want something that is much less than 1%, and definitely not higher than that. I have recently started with ETF's (exchange traded funds) because Fidelity has started to offer them (finally) with no fee to buy and that have extremely low expense ratio - like .09% - really low! If your company offers them at no cost - they are a low expense alternative. But if they are not offered, just pick a fund with a reasonable and low expense ratio.

Next, look at the Morning Star rating. Ones with a 4 -5 star rating are ideal.

Look at its lifetime performance. You want a fund that has been around for awhile and over it's lifetime has done well.

Of course then we would need to go into balancing your portfolio, but that is a whole other post... Sites like Fidelity, will actually tell you how to do that once you get more and more funds/stocks.

If you have to choose - mutual funds are easier and overall safer because you are paying someone that will hopefully make you money :) but stocks are fun too - just a bit riskier (that is why you go for good reliable companies and not chase stocks - unless you have a lot of $$ to waste, which I don't :P) You hear of people buying JNJ and holding it for 30 years and it pays for their retirement :) Just buy and hold... I would just put most of your money into mutual funds/ETF's and a smaller percentage into stocks that you like (sharebuilder works GREAT for slowly building stock shares at only a little $$ a month!)

Remember to just be mindful of all the fees and go with companies that are upfront about all their fees

Get investing!

I love investing - I read magazines about investing and like to watch shows on CNBC. I took a year or more off from paying attention to it much, due to the fact it was depressing. I let all our investments ride and ignored them, and when things turned around, we made all the money back (lesson to never panic and wait it out - unless you are older, then that is different case)... So recently I have renewed my love for investing and gotten back on the bandwagon - I have been rearranging retirement accounts and buying stocks, ETF's, etc...

Recently, someone asked me the best way to start investing (mainly because they didn't want to have to do the reading on what was best way to start).. First of all, if you have a 401K at work and your work matches, you BETTER be putting money in to get that match (up to the match), otherwise you are just THROWING away money!

Second, if you are doing that, or your work does not offer a 401K, open a Roth IRA ASAP! Many companies have minimums, but some don't so look around to find one with LOW costs and NO hidden fees. Roth IRA will give you tax free money when you retire. We have both a Roth 401K and Roth IRA's, so we shall be living our retirement mostly tax free :) (we personally use Fidelity for everything but our 529 college savings accounts and sharebuilder, but there are MANY good companies)

Now if you just want to put a little money into investing a month - I would start something like a sharebuilder account. If you don't have a Roth IRA, you can make this account a Roth IRA and they have NO MINIMUM amounts to invest and no account minimums, so even if you only have $10 or $20 to invest a month, you can still do it! No excuses. Their cost to buy a shares or mutual funds is only $4 - one of the cheapest rates you'll find (I have one of their plans, so it is even less a month per trade)... They even GIVE you $50 as an account bonus for opening an account.

Then pick a stock (or mutal fund) of a good, reliable company that gives a good dividend. companies like (these are their stock symbols) JNJ, PG, GE, WMT, COST, T, KFT, etc... all are companies you can almost rely on doing well - just think of one of you favorite companies and look at their stock. Pick one with a good Dividend rate - for example AT&T (T) has one of the highest divided rates at a little over 6%!!! You can't get 6% from your money sitting around. So high dividends are nice. The last few years, when stocks were in the crapper, my Disney shares were stagnant, but they still made money from the dividends.

Then just set up your account to invest - at least sharebuilder can do this, I am not sure of other sites - to invest $20 or so a month (or less, No minimums, but you do still pay the $4 to trade, so make that $4 worth it!) into that stock (or mutual fund) - if you are going to do more than 6 stocks, then get one of their plans, but if you are new to investing, stick to ONE stock at first (with a good dividend) and then once you are more comfortable, you can try some more. Have it set up Automatically each month (forced savings/investing), and you don't have to even worry about it - really easy :)

So there - almost everyone has an extra $10-20 a month - or you can find it - to start investing (make it a Roth IRA if you don't already have one!!) Remember, you can always remove your principal investment from a Roth IRA at anytime (but you must leave the earnings in until you retire) Just pick GOOD, RELIABLE companies and go for that dividend!! Now go start investing - it is easy and we aren't getting any younger, and you NEED to do this for your future!!