Sense to Save

Johnny’s first Halloween costume

I’ve never been ultra into Halloween. I don’t like to scare people or be scared. But, I think dressing up can be a lot of fun and of course I love candy and treats :)

This is my son’s first Halloween. At 10 months old, he couldn’t care less.

I decided to dress him up just for the sake of a cute photo. We won’t be going to any parties or trick-or-treating this year. However, I’m hopeful that a few neighborhood kiddos will knock on my door so I can see their costumes and give them some candy bars. We’ll see!

And…

Tee hee! And no, he wasn’t in the box in the first picture, silly goose!

This little get-up was made with items we already had. I took a small box that we use for toys and threw a baby blanket around it for color. Threw some makeup on a squirmy kid and ta-da! I also made a “hat” out of some colorful striped baby pants and I taped a little plastic ball to the feet on each side. Johnny doesn’t like wearing hats for even a second, so oh well.

Saving for house, retirement or both

Last week, I read with great interest this article from Get Rich Slowly (the comments, too!). Author April questioned which should come first: Getting a house or funding your retirement?

She explained her plan and reasoning and then her new approach.

I thought I’d talk a little about my own situation.

Shane and I are 24 years old. We have 35 years until Shane can tap his retirement account without penalty. We’re renting an apartment and will continue to rent until 2011 or longer.

At this time, we are saving for both retirement and for a down payment on a house.

We’re sending about 9 percent of Shane’s gross pay to his Roth 401 (k). There used to be a generous company match, but they’ve taken it away entirely. The company has hinted that they may reinstate it, but we aren’t keeping our fingers crossed.

Our long-term plan is to bump up the retirement contributions to at least 15 percent of his gross pay, regardless of company match.

We’re also aggressively saving money so that we can afford to buy a house.

We’re putting anywhere between 22 to 31 percent of his gross pay straight into the house fund.

Since there’s no free money on the table, we could stop our retirement savings for now, and put all of that into the house fund. It would add a significant amount to our down payment, and maybe even be enough so that we could put a full 20 percent down, thereby avoiding costly PMI.

But.

There are 35 years until we can touch the retirement accounts. Since that’s 11 more years than we’ve been alive, that feels like a really long time to us. Thirty-five years is a long time for compound interest to do amazing things with our money.

In that vein, we think it’s worth it to keep on saving for retirement.

Also, diverting retirement funds into our house fund would not put us into a house faster.

When we decide how much house we can afford (and I do mean we — not the mortgage lender!), we’ll be sure to save room in our monthly budget to increase our retirement savings and for our son’s college. We haven’t yet started Johnny’s college fund.

I do realize that some people live in markets where, despite their best efforts, it will take years and years to save enough for a house. Depending on how old those folks are, and how important having a house is to them, it might be better to cut back on retirement savings a bit to put more toward the house fund.

Even in that situation, I think it’s worth it to put at least a little bit toward retirement. And if there’s a company match, put enough to get all that free money.

What’s your take on this? House vs. retirement?

Ebates offers new payment methods

Ebates* has long been my favorite shopping portal. I’ve earned a lot of money through them simply through referral links (thank you!) and by clicking through the Ebates portal before I make an online purchase.

How much? I won’t be vague. I’ll tell you exactly: I’ve earned $70.36 in cash back from purchases I’ve made. And thanks to their generous referral program, I’ve earned $916 in bonuses, for a lifetime total of $986.36. Good grief, that’s a lot of money!

If you aren’t yet a member, go here* to sign up and earn either a $5 cash bonus or a gift card. I certainly appreciate your referral!

Anyway.

It used to be that you got paid each quarter, and could be paid via a check in the mail or through PayPal. Now, Ebates has launched a few new ways for you to get your cash.

• You can electronically transfer your money to your bank account, which takes a few business days to become available.
• Convert it to a Visa Virtual Account, where you can use it to make online purchases.
• Order a Visa prepaid card to use online or in stores.

All of these methods are free. In fact, I earned a $1 bonus by trying their new “fast cash” method. I opted to send my latest earnings of about $16 directly to my bank, where I’ll send it to my housing fund.

It seems that these fast cash methods are only available for certain accounts. You’ll just have to login and see what your options are.

Secondly, you do need to earn $5.01 in online purchases (so, not counting your initial account bonus or referral bonus) before you’ll be able to cash out. I generally have no trouble doing this, but sometimes I’ll miss a quarter or two depending on my online shopping.

*Referral link