I’m hosting the Festival of Under 30 Finances on Feb 9th. This time the festival will have the question of “If you could turn back time, what would you change financially”. Please submit posts that answer that question. You can still submit posts related to under 30 finances in general and I’ll include it in the general section of the festival. Submit posts here.

I’ve been searching the discount/clearance aisles at Amazon.com using www.findthatdiscount.com. Check it out. You can browse for things in different categories tagged 90% off, 80% off, etc.

January is the generally the best time to pickup gift cards and apparently gift subscriptions to services such as Netflix. I think the reasoning is that tons of people get gift cards and subscriptions they don’t want and hawk it on ebay.

I was a bit skeptical about buying a gift subscription to Netflix for 1 year (3 dvds out at a time) but apparently feedback was good for the majority of sellers on ebay. Most 12 month 3 dvds at a time gift subscriptions sell for $170 (which is about $14 a month). You’ll save some cash if you’re already a Netflix subscriber or interested in joining. I found a mispelt auction title and snapped one up for $150 (more on potential savings in mispelt auctions in a future post).

So my Netflix subscription for the next 12 months is costing me a cool $12.5/month for unlimited 3 dvds out at time. The only downside is you pay you essentially pay your subscription dues upfront, but if you have the cash, the potential savings are worth it.

Recently I decided I’m going to track all my expenses. I believe the first step of managing your money is . It lets you see where your money goes and allows you to cut costs easier. Here’s how I plan to do it.

1. Use a small notepad (the size of two credit cards) and a small pen which I bring with me everywhere (the pen comes in handy too, I’ve never realized there is so much in the world to jot down). It’s a lot easier in the winter since my winter coat has a nifty inside pocket which I’ll use. I jot down EVERY expense right after it happens. I even jot down quarters I use to pay parking meters. So far, so good, I’ve managed to track every one of my expenses in the last 3 days.

2. I eventually input all this information into a spreadsheet in Excel. You can get a nifty one free from Microsoft here. To make sure my little notepad is sync with my spreadsheet, I jot a big plus sign (+) on the days which I’ve inputted all my expenses onto the spreadsheet.

It’s that simple! It only takes seconds to jot down the expense and a couple of minutes to update your spreadsheet a couple times a week.

I have to warn you though:

• For people that are coffee addicts, you’ll be surprised how much those daily lattes can add up. However, this may be something you’ll have to live with, getting off caffeine isn’t easy.
• For people that buy insanely useless stuff, be prepared for feelings of regret (Unless there is a return policy involved, your condition may be remedied.)
• For people that buy insanely overpriced stuff… see above.
• For people that just don’t know where their money goes, enlightment.

Now that you know where your money is going you can stop blaming your kids, significant other, roommate, etc. for your wallet feeling lighter each day (unless it really is them). Enjoy!

Surviving and thriving on $12,000 a year
Interesting article I found on MSN by Donna Freedman leaving her husband, going back to school, and living on $1,000/month.

Scraping by on $150,000 a year
This article details the complete opposite in which a family scrapes by on $150,000/year.

Jay, who runs the CotC said it’s okay to delay the start of the CotC if monday happens to fall on a holiday. Since MLK is a holiday (hey, if the markets are closed, it’s a holiday), the carnival will be up at 6:30 pm today.

Sorry for the late notice but I’m hosting the carnival of the capitalists on January 15th.

For information on submitting a post, refer to this page.

I’m glad that we’re staying with my sister, no hotel fees or bills to pay whatsoever. Free food and since she’s older sibling, her and her husband usually treat us out for lunch, dinner, etc. I get to use her car so we don’t have to rent one. It’s a big plus because if you can manage to get a rental and you’re under 25 you have to pay ridiculous surcharges.

There are a lot of free things to do in L.A. if you’re looking for low budget venues. If you’re into watching a taping of a TV show or talk show they’re plentiful in LA. The best part is they’re free too. I haven’t had the chance to see any shows yet but maybe the tonight show or Jimmy Kimmel live since he’s really near to where we are in the next couple days. My sister has been treating us to a lot of different events so we might not get a chance to see the show.

Discounted 1 day passes to Disneyland are extremely difficult to find. Tomorrow I’m joining my girlfriend horseback riding near the Hollywood sign. It’s a value package that includes dinner at the top of the hill. The Millionaire Mind seems to be difficult to get through, it has a lot of cliches and general knowledge most people already know (real wealth vs big spender image, etc. etc.).

There’s another post on my commentary about Matthew Shinnick’s story:

Sorry, bud, this seems a lot like the rantings of youth. As a 19 year old you’re probably much more versed in online scams and fraud than the average middle-aged person. Shinnick is a middle aged shirt salesman and had never sold on Craigslist before. As for the scams and how he should have known better – you think the scams would still be out there, if everyone was already “hip” to them? Why do you think some scammers target the middle aged and elderly? (Others target kids – i.e. exorbitant messaging charges for services/jokes via cell phone, etc.) It’s not because they’re dumb – God knows Depression era people as a whole save a lot more than their baby boomer kids and even younger grand-kids, as smug as they may be. You need to appreciate that not everyone knows all the same things at the same time. Certainly you could gain some more wisdom and knowledge. As stated, you have links to “MMF” sites. Which were stinky when they first came out decades ago.

-left by anonymous

I’ll get to the moola statement first. MMF is “Make Money Fast” I presume? I seriously don’t know how to put this. Moola is not a make money fast scheme or any of the sort. It’s an interesting concept that I’ve always posted in the past to treat as pure entertainment. Everyone knows you’ll never win $10 million on moola, it’s just not possible. It’s just a fun concept that illustrates to you what doubling up (starting from a penny) does.

I appreciate that not everyone knows everything at the same time but the Matthew Shinnick case is a different one. It WAS blown out of proportion when Howard Clark suggested people boycott Bank of America for something they should have done… which is call the police when there is suspicious activity. Banking has been around for ages and check fraud isn’t a new thing. Writing checks isn’t even something my generation does. My point is Matthew Shinnick should’ve accepted the fact he was scammed and what happened to him with the SFPD was idiotic, but take that up with the SFPD. It isn’t Bank of America’s fault you brought a illegitimate check to them and they reported it to the authorities. There’s no way to determine at the branch if Matthew Shinnick was the scammer or the victim of a scam. What could they have done? Ask him? His reply that he recieved the check from a buyer would’ve been the same as a scammer. I’m just annoyed that they’re looking to blame the bank for their troubles in the end.

Yes, scams will always be out there to, but if people get scammed, try to go after the scammers, not institutions like the banks… or just consider it a life lesson.