Thirteen Things about PERSONAL FINANCE

I’ve been working on my personal finance situation a lot lately! Here are several tools and tips that I’ve come to depend on!

1. PearBudget: I know I’ve talked about this before, but I just have to put one more plug in. Everyone needs a budget, at least when they’re first getting started with personal finance management, and PearBudget is a great program that is free, super easy, and will keep you using it! I’ve been on it for more than 2 months now, which is a HUGE achievement, LOL!

2. Next, you need a way to keep up with your accounts. There’s the old paper and pencil checkbook ledger, but we’re on our computers for everything else, why not managing our finances! I’ve used both Microsoft Money and Quicken Personal Finance, and they are both great tools!

3. Almost any personal finance site that you read tells you that you need to have an emergency savings fund, just in case something happens like you have to go to the hospital, or you get laid off. The amount that goes in this fund varies - a great place to start is $1000, and many sites recommend you keep 3-6 months worth of living expenses. The most common complaint: I can’t afford to put money into an emergency savings fund! The most common reply: You can’t afford NOT to do this. I’ve got 2 that I’m working on right now. My immediate emergency savings fund is through my bank, and I’m currently building a long-term (the 3-6 months one) emergency savings fund in a high-interest savings account. The immediate one is in case I need the money RIGHT NOW - I can get it from an ATM. The long-term one is accessible within a few days, and it will grow because of the interest! Free money!

4. High-interest savings account? How do I get one of those? I’m currently setting up accounts through ING Direct, and I’m LOVING it so far. The interest rate is 4.4% - how crazy is that?! Accounts like these are run through the internet - there is no physical bank, and you don’t get checks. They’re just savings accounts. There are many other financial institutions, but ING allows you to set up sub accounts, which is too cool! I have sub-accounts for my emergency fund, travel fund, medical expenses fund, etc. And all are gonna earn 4.4% interest!

5. I Will Teach You To Be Rich - I’ve blogged about it before, but again, I have to mention it. There are so many different concepts, ideas, and terms that I am so clueless on, and this site explains them in a simple, no nonsense way that will make things clear! Amazing.

6. Don’t want to wade through all the personal finance sites? Then just get the goodies through the Carnival of Personal Finance every week! You’ll find topics about EVERYTHING, and there are three or four sites that I’ve found through reading the carnival that I’ve stuck with.

7. Get an Entertainment Book. They only cost about $20, but there are hundreds (probably thousands) of great coupons and savings in the book. Well worth the money spent!

8. Invest. There are many different kinds of investments (see my #5, he explains them all), but make sure that you are investing. The type of fund that I keep seeing more and more recommendations for is a Roth IRA, which I am still learning about. It involves investing your money and paying the taxes now, and then when you withdraw it, it will be tax-free (no matter how much more taxes are at the time).

9. Another great way to invest - the stock market. Ahhh, don’t be scared. If you read up on what to do, and find a great place to invest with, then you’ll do fine. And the place I’ve seen mentioned over and over again is ShareBuilder. As soon as I start to receive a regular income (aka, when I get out of grad school), I will be investing with ShareBuilder - the fees aren’t bad, and they’re not gonna try to trip you up because you have no idea what you’re doing.

10. Shop at discount stores and buy in bulk! You’ll be amazed at how much you can save at places like Costco and Sam’s Club! However, be wary . . . pay attention to the costs, and divide by how many you’re getting. Are you really saving? Discount stores can be great as long as you play it smart!

11. Take advantage of websites that offer promotions. For example: you need to buy a book for your Bible study in two weeks, and there was a CD you were wanting to get. You could go to Barnes and Noble or Borders that is right by your house . . . or you could go online and get them from Amazon.com for cheaper. And if you spend $25, it’s free shipping, so it’s like you bought it in person. You just have to wait a few days. So why not go for the discount? Or, even better! Do you buy books/DVDs/CDs/software/toys/groceries a lot? Do you shop on Amazon.com A LOT?! Then become a prime member. For a reasonable fee you get free 2 day shipping and significantly discounted overnight shipping. I was offered a free 3 month trial, and I loved it so much that I paid the fee. Now I NEVER buy these things from expensive stores in person! Click here for details!!!

12. Cook at home - don’t eat out, don’t go to fast food restaurants. I’ve been experimenting with my spending lately, and it’s AMAZING how much I’ve saved in food costs!

13. Want a great new opportunity to save HUGE on virtually anything you can buy online? I’m an IBO member, and we sell everything - we have our own product lines as well as partnerships for huge discounts on stores like Barnes and Noble, Office Depot, Dell, Things Remembered, Shop.com, Joann’s Fabrics, and SOOOOO many more! We run the business through Quixtar. The discounts alone are worth it, but if you’re a member, you get a check back based on your purchases and the purchases of your customers. Take a look, and if you’re interested in buying something, let me know! I can set you up as a client with ZERO obligation. Or, if you want to take a great opportunity and are interested in making some money, let me know, and we’ll discuss!

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We’ve all done it. We’ve all had the best of intentions to backup our sites, our hard drives, etc. And of course, we don’t do it for months on end, and then you’ve got a crash and lost a lot of hard work.

I was VERY fortunate that I was able to recover all of my databases and themes for my websites. I however, I was really really stressed out for several days because I didn’t know if my last minute backups worked, if they were corrupted by the hackers . . . I just didn’t know if I’d be able to recover anything.

Loyal readers will remember that I had a big computer crash a month or so ago, and I lost months worth of data. It’s obvious that I need a system here, and I’ve been meaning to set up something for about a year. Finally, I’ve been hit over the head enough times that I’ve actually started to back things up.

The most important backup (in my opinion) is your computer backup, because you can backup your websites all you want, but if you don’t have a backup of your computer and your computer crashes, then you’ve lost your website backups too. Backing up your hard drive can be tedious and annoying.

However, I found an article on one of my favorite sites (Lifehacker) that has revolutionized my back up system. Previously I always backed up on occasion to DVDs, and every once and a while to my external hard drive. But then I read “Automatically Back Up Your Hard Drive.” I’m not even going to try to explain the system because the article is so user-friendly. Just go read it. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks (I actually started it 2 days before the server was hacked, so my backups were helpful in restoring my sites), and this system is great. It sets up nightly, weekly, and monthly backups that are automated. You don’t even have to be at home! And if something goes wrong with the backup, it sends you an email with a detailed report. How amazing?!

So now that I’ve got a great backup system for my hard drive, I can feel safe in backing up my sites. What’s the best method for backing up a WordPress install? You don’t actually need to save all the files on your site. For a WordPress install, it’s actually best NOT to save all the php files. If something goes wrong, then you’ll be saving all the errors (or hacked code, as the case may be). The things that are important are your wp-content folder and your database. If you do a database backup (there is a GREAT plugin for WordPress that allows for one click backups . . . super easy to use), then you’ll have all your posts, pages, settings, user accounts, etc. All that’s left is your design. Your wp-content folder holds all your themes and plugins. If you backup your database and your wp-content, then you could theoretically completely erase your WordPress install and start from scratch. You would do a brand new install of WordPress, then restore the database from your backup and upload the wp-content folder, and it would be like nothing ever changed! This only works if you’re restoring to the same domain that you had initially had the site. If you want to change domains (or even subdomains), then there is another process. But this is EXCELLENT for backups.

Another big backup that I always worry about is my email and my bookmarks within my browser. If you’re using Firefox and/or Thunderbird, this backup is a cinch too! There’s a great program called MozBackup that will back up your profile and all your data for you. It’s pretty much a one click backup, and this program will also restore your backup. I’ve done this MANY TIMES to switch computers, restore after a crash, etc. This is great backup tool as well.

I’ve actually posted a guest post over at Recommended about backing up too (I made that post while I was unable to post over here, before the restore).

What do you do to backup your data? Any great tips you want to share with readers?

Update: Well, the unthinkable happened. Not only do I use my external hard drive for backups, but also for storing alllllll my digital photos. And after 2.5 years of hard work, my drive has died. Now I have to spend more than $200 to try and recover my data because I didn’t think to KEEP A SECOND COPY!!! Make a DVD or something with any files that you don’t have stored elsewhere . . . sigh, you think I’d learn . . .

I’m so sorry that I’ve been gone all week. Last Thursday, the server that hosts my websites was hacked, and then over the weekend it was crashed completely. My host worked like an angel though. She replaced the hard drive on the server, got everything loaded back up, and here I am, with all my posts and everything!!! She’s amazing ;-)!

So, since things have been frantic this week and since I just got my blog back yesterday, I don’t have a Thursday Thirteen for this week. However, please check out last week’s entry on the technical side of blogging. I’m really sorry that it didn’t get to display the entire day last Thursday, so go run take a look at it!

Sorry I haven’t been around, but I’m back now and sooo ready to go!!!

OK, so I can’t figure out how to get it installed . . . does anyone wanna help?