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andrew_knight This might be the craziest customer story ever. RT @casemate: Blog: Barely There... Or "Bullet Proof There"??? http://bit.ly/9gHxS7 3 weeks ago

I wrote about Mint.com back in January and really liked what they had to offer. One of my biggest complaints was the lack of custom categories. Well they have fixed that now and you can easily add custom categories.

They have also added a very straightforward budgeting section that is so easy to use that you have no excuse for not having a budget! Enter in your budget numbers and then sit back and watch Mint allocate your spending over the month against your budget. This is a great option for people who don’t enjoy spending time in Excel.

In addition to the budgeting feature, they have added a very interesting trending tool.  Not only does it let you look at your spending over time but you can compare your spending to others in your city or state.  This is a really neat feature that can let you compare your spending habits to others and see where you stand.

Although these are both great features the real power of Mint still lies in its ability to categorize all your transactions.  As long as the majority of your spending is on a debit or credit card you can get a great view of your finances with almost no effort.  If you have not tried mint sign up at mint.com.

Personal Finance Blogs

Ramit at I Will Teach You To Be Rich has started a great series on how to save $1k in 30 days. So far the first two tips have been great!  I can’t wait to see what the other 28 will be. His tip on turning down the thermostat is spot on. Although I would say that 3 degrees is a little conservative!  Turn it down 6 and throw a freaking sweater on!

We talk about an energy crisis in this country and people still have the thermostat jacked up/down to 72 degrees in the winter/summer. People look at 72 degrees like it is some kind of law!  I need to do the math on what kind of energy savings we would see if everybody went to 66/78.

Tip #1 is another good one. For the past 6 months I have started bringing my lunch to work about 75% of the time. It just takes changing some habits and doing a little planning. Good stuff Ramit!

Personal Finance Blogs

After a particularly bad junk mail day last week I decided I had had enough.  It was time to take back my mailbox from the unscrupulous marketers. It would not be so bad if it were just a couple things a week but I estimate we get 50 pieces of junk mail a week! Here is what I am doing:

1. Converted as many bills as possible to online payments.  Most companies will stop sending you a paper bill if you are on automatic withdrawals. The only bill I actually have to still open is the water bill. At least I can pay it with a credit card!  Everything else is on cruise control.
2. Went “paperless” with all my account statements that offer it.  Last week I found a few more of my accounts that do!
3. Opted out of all credit card offers for all family members:
   http://www.optoutprescreen.com
   
4. Signed up for the Direct Marketing Association’s DMAChoice to opt out of all member marketing: http://www.dmachoice.org
   
5. Signed up for an account at ProQuo and walked through all the steps to opt out.
   http://www.proquo.com/
   
6. For companies not covered by the above, I started contacting them directly to be removed.
7. If the junk mail has a postage paid business reply envelope I mail the offer back with “Remove From List” written in big black letters! If they are going to send me junk at least make them pay for it!
8. I just found this tip which might eliminate the need for #7:From: http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/
   First class mail: Cross out the address and bar code, circle the first class postage and write “refused: return to sender”. Drop in any mail box, it will be returned to the sender.
   Bulk mail: The post office throws away bulk mail it can’t deliver, so returning it does no good. Bulk mail is the hardest to deal with because the USPS actively provides addresses, support and encouragement to mailers. However, if “address correction requested” is written on the label: circle “address correction requested” and treat like first class mail.

Hopefully these steps will have an impact.  In addition to the environmental benefits, doing this will also help your finances. If you don’t get the shiny new catalogs you won’t be tempted to buy anything!

Personal Finance Blogs, Purely Personal

Last year I wrote about how much I loved WaMu for all my banking needs.  During the financial meltown, JP Morgan acquired them and took over all deposits.  I was not worried about my money as I was within the FDIC limits.  What I was worried about is what would change from a service and account standpoint.  Well two weeks ago the changes started and not for the better. WaMu lowered the online savings rate from 4% to 3%!   If that was not enough they responded to the fed drop on Wednesday and lowered it again to 2.5%

I still think they are great bank for your basic checking needs but I am moving my money over to DollarSavingsDirect who is still paying 4%. They are a division of Emigrant Direct who I had my savings account with before WaMu upped the rates they were paying. It was annoying to have to open another account as I still have my emigrant account but it was worth it for an extra percentage point.

Personal Finance Blogs

I just realized that I never got around to posting our honeymoon photos from St. Martin!  We had an awesome time. The full smugmug album is here

Purely Personal

It has been way too quiet around here. My excuse this time….I started riding my bike again.  After almost two and half years off the bike it was fun to start riding again. Although this time I don’t think I will be doing any Mt Washington ascents!

Purely Personal

UPDATE: This position has been filled!

I have an open position on my team at Astral Brands:

Astral Brands is seeking an Online Marketing Manager to manage specific online marketing programs – including paid search, natural search, e-mail and affiliate marketing – for its Health & Beauty brands. (Aloette, PurMinerals, and CosMedix)

Health & Beauty Products Paid Search
Direct the overall strategy of the paid search marketing program, and manage over 100,000 keywords on the three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Health & Beauty Products E-Mail Program
The Online Marketing Manager will need to direct the strategy of the e-mail programs for the Health & Beauty Products brands. In addition, the Online Marketing Manager will need to write up the Creative Briefs, make content and design recommendations, work with the executive team on the approval process, and QA the final emails that come through. Each brand will have a minimum of two emails per week.

Health & Beauty Products Natural Search
The Online Marketing Manager will need to optimize the content on the current web sites, as well as write the title tags, meta description and meta keywords for all new pages. In addition, the Online Marketing Manager will need to oversee a copywriter responsible for writing and posting specific content pages on each brand.

Health & Beauty Products Affiliate Marketing Program
The Online Marketing Manager will need to direct the strategy of the affiliate marketing programs for all web sites, and manage Performics on a day-to-day basis. The Online Marketing Manager will work with the executive team to make recommendations on exclusive affiliate promotions and other ways to boost affiliate traffic.

Job Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, English, or related field.
- 4+ years of experience managing online marketing programs.
- Experience in the beauty industry is preferred, but an interest is required

To apply send a cover letter and resume to: onlinemarketing (at) astralbrands dot com

Astral Brands, Ecommerce Astral, Ecommerce, Job

I was in Austin last week for the Social Commerce Summit hosted by Bazaarvoice. They put on a great show with a good selection of keynote speakers and client case studies. Sam Decker just posted a great recap of the event on the Bazzarvoice Blog.

I brought Bazaarvoice into Home Depot and really enjoy working with these folks. We just signed on at Astral for both Pur Minerals and Aloette. We should have Ratings & Reviews and Ask & Answer live in the next couple months!

Astral Brands, Ecommerce Bazaarvoice Social Commerce

I am counting on absolutely nothing from the federal government during retirement. If they figure out how to save social security it will be a nice bonus but until then I am not counting on it!

This post had to follow foundation #8 because it is one of the great examples where the numbers are dead simple but behavior always gets in the way. Saving for your retirement is really very simple you need to just DO IT! I recommend people put 20% away for retirement and here is how I suggest you do it

Step 1: If you have a 401k availiable, contribute up to your company match.

Step 2: Max out your Roth IRA, which is $5k in 2008.

Step 3: Increase your 401k contribution so that the total of all 3 steps equals 20% of your total income. The max 401k contribution for 2008 is ($15,500).

So let’s have a little fun and play with some numbers to see what kind of nest egg you can have with 3 simple steps:
Start contributing: 25
Single Income 50K:
401K 3% = $1500 + $1500 company match
Max Single Roth: $5k
Additional 401k %: 4% / $2,000
Yearly Retirement Savings: 20% / $10,000
40 years @ 10% = 5.3 Million!

Start contributing: 25
Household income 100K:
401K 3% = $3000 + $3000 company match
Max 2 Roth’s: $10k
Additional 401k %: 4%
Yearly Retirement Savings: 20% or $20k
If you start this at 25 and grow it 40 years @ 10% = 10.6 Million!

Start contributing: 30
Household income 150K:
401K 3% = $4500 + $4500 company match
Max 2 Roth’s: $10k
Additional 401k %: 7% ($11k)
Yearly Retirement Savings: 20% or $30k
If you start this at 30 and grow it 35 years @ 10% = 9.5 Million!

Notice how the 100k income that starts 5 years earlier will outrun the $150k income! Starting earlier is key but either way you will have 10 Million! And the real kicker – half of that is not taxable as a reult of the Roth contribution. I did not start maxing out my 401k and Roth IRA until a few years ago and it was one of the few financial regrets I have!

Let’s take a different angle. Maybe you don’t have access to a 401k. As long as you make less than $99k (single ) $156k (married) you can contribut to the Roth IRA. If you did just that, the numbers would look like this:

Start contributing: 25
Single Income 50K:
Max Single Roth: $5k
40 years @ 10% = 2.6 Million!

With just the Roth you can have $2.6 million at retirement that is TAX FREE! A 4% draw on $2.6 million equals $100k a year TAX FREE! So the bottom line in all this: you need to find $416 in your monthly budget to max out your Roth IRA and fund your retirement. This is right around the average car payment in America!

Purely Personal

All the personal finace foundations build on each other – #8 continues with the concept that personal finance is much more about behavior than it is about the numbers. Figuring out the basic principles that put you on the right path to financial success is the easy part! It is following through with the behaviors and habits that is the hard part. Most people know that contributing to a 401k is a good idea but so many don’t follow through with the behavior to make it happen. How many people this year blew right past April 15th and did not fund their 2007 Roth IRA? How many people spend more than they make? If I had to pick who was to be better off financially: a CPA with bad financial habits and a recent college grad with good financial habits I am always going to pick the recent college grad! You can’t make up for bad habits with better financial knowledge.

Personal Finance Blogs

We have had a little bit of a hiatus on the 10 foundations of personal finance that I started writing about last year but I wanted to finish it off. So here is #7!

I started listening to Dave Ramsey in 2006 but followed many of his principles before I had ever heard of him or the daily radio show. Dave’s view of debt is spot on: You will never find financial freedom or success if you continue to have “payments”. Credit is so easy to come by today, (although it has tightened up recently) that it is easy to pile up all kinds of stuff on credit from cars to clothes to even air conditioners (heard that on the radio today!)

Like Dave Ramsey, I subscribe to there being only one kind of debt that is part of a solid financial plan: mortgage debt. This is the “almost” part of living debt free. With that said, you need to be smart about your mortgage debt. The banks will approve you for well over what you can afford. Remember, the banks are looking to maximize profit not look out for your best interests. It takes a lot of discipline to not spend what the bank will approve you for but in the long run it is one of the most important financial decisions you can make. In my view your mortgage should not exceed 2.5 times your house hold income. Why does that number work?

Household income: $50k
Purchase Price: $150k
Downpayment: $25k
Mortgage: $125k
15 year Mortgage Payment + Taxes ($1250) & Insurance ($500) @ 6% ~ $1200 month
Monthly Take home ~$2900
Housing to Income ratio 40%.

You might balk at the 15 year mortgage but I can’t emphasize how important that is. Forget the interest savings for a minute, the number one reason to go with a 15 year mortgage is it will force you to keep your housing purchase within your means! I have had a mortgage for 5 years now on two different houses and both have been 15 year notes. If you start out with a 15 you will never miss the 30

The 40% housing to income is on the high side but if you have yourself on a budget you should be able to swing that. Dave Ramsey recommends 25% and that should be the goal but up to 40% is ok with a household income of $50k

If you double the numbers they look like this:

Household income: $100k
Purchase Price: $250k
Downpayment: $50k
Mortgage: $200k
15 year Mortgage Payment + Taxes ($2500) & Insurance ($1000) @ 6% ~ $2000 month
Monthly Take home ~$5400
Housing to Income ratio 35%.

In addition to the 2.5 times rule I also like to use the rule that your down payment should be half of your household income. Again, it forces you to make a housing purchase you can afford.

Personal Finance Blogs mortgage debt

So far the new job is going well. I have been busy getting up to speed on all things cosmetics and skin care which my family and friends find highly amusing! We just launched the new Pur Minerals website last week:

It is a custom built Ruby on Rails eCommerce platform!

If you have not tried Pur Minerals head over to PurMinerals.com and order a starter kit. All the women in my family have converted! We also have a free shipping promotion for Memorial Day right now!

Astral Brands, Ecommerce pur minerals astral brands ecommerce