Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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Simplifying By Opting Out Of Mail

This was another biggy for us.  Way too much mail.  This needed to be simplified.

I do want all my bills in a paper format.  Personally, I keep them to see what’ happening – so I want this mail.

But I didn’t want a lot of the other mail – catalogues and magazines.  It seemed to me that if I made a purchase from a company then I would not only get that company’s catalogue list but on other’s too.  I am not going to kid you, this was a lot of effort to get off mailing lists.  You can visit my resources page to find that companies that you can opt out from.  But I took it s step further and called all of the catalogues and requested that I be removed from there list.  Yes, it’s time consuming but it has worked.  We simplified by eliminating these catalogues thus reducing that amount of mail that comes, reducing the temptation to make a unwanted purchase and saving trees.

As for magazines, we didn’t renew our subscriptions and let them run out.  I wasn’t finding the time to read them, so they were piling up creating clutter (not a good feeling).  Now, if I want to read a magazine I can check out the magazine through my local library and read it online.  RB Digital from the library works for us.  Again, we reduced that amount of mail that was coming in, reducing the clutter from the unread issues and saving money by not paying for the subscriptions and savings the paper.

We receive less mail now.  In fact, there are days with no mail at all.

Simplifying By Opting Out Of Emails

Are you overwhelmed by all your emails in your inbox?  I was!

Having several email addresses and tons of emails was too much for me.

I took the time to opt out of many emails.  First, I eliminated emails that I never subscribed to.  There was a lot of those.

Next, I made some conscious choices about others. There were some that were no longer relevant to me.  Some that I never got around to reading.  Some that I subscribed to because I made a purchase(s).

Less in my inbox is a relaxing feeling for me.  I don’t feel pressured by another to-do in my life.

I also eliminated so email accounts to have less to go through each and every day.  For me less is better and saves me time and money.

 

Simplified My Exercise Routine

Along with a healthy eating, for us comes exercise.  Since the stay-at-home orders in early March, we changed our exercise to walking in the neighborhood.  We walk difference ways, sometimes along the water, sometimes in the area, sometimes on a trail all within walking distance from our home – no car / gas needed. 

It’s been almost four months of daily walking, regardless of the weather we walk and walk.   One thing we have done is to combine exercise with errands.  We are fortunate to live close enough to town and we do errands on some walks.  It could be to the Post Office or the bank or the drug store and many more.  But about once a week, our walk includes errands.  It’s fun, gets things done and no need to use the car or pay for a gym membership.  And as a bonus, we have met people along the way that we never knew before.

We get our exercise in and save money.  I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

Simplifying By Saying No

It’s such a small word, but packs so much into it.  Is the word “no” causing you problems?  The word “no” is something that I had so much trouble with for many years.  Now I am embrace the word and am loving it.

So what do I mean?  Are you doing things you don’t want to do?  Are others making problems for you?  Let me explain.  Are you at the check out and are asked would you like to save an additional 15% of your purchase today.  You think why wouldn’t I want to save money, so you say “yes”.  Now you have another credit card and the possiblity of more debt and hurting your credit.  Did you really want that?  Another example is when you are asked to do something, do you automatically say “yes”.  Maybe you really can’t afford to do that at this point, but you said “yes” so you won’t disappoint others.  This happened so many times for me.

For me to break the routine of always saying “yes” and pleasing others, I now take a step back and think about it before answering.  I consider my options.  Do I really want that?  How would I benefit from that?  What are the long term repercussions?  Stop and take the time to think about what’s right for you.  You can easily do this by saying – I’ll let you know, not at this time, I have to check my schedule etc.  That gives you the time to make the choices that is right for you.  You can be true to yourself and give an honest answer with some thought.  Sometimes the answer is “yes” and sometimes the answer is “no”.  You made the choice you want and that is best for you.

Simplifying Long Term Goals

Did you set up your automated saving deposits from your paycheck?

The next step is to automated your other savings goal.  What do you want to accomplish / have in your life?  Maybe your are saving for a home, car, saving to pay for college, retirement.  The choice is yours.  You need a plan to achieve your goals.

Set up a smart goal – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.  For example, I want to save $20,000 for the down payment of a new home by 2025.  Breaking that down, that’s $20K in 4 years or $5K a year or $96.15 per week.  Break it down into small manageable steps so it’s not overwhelming. Set up a automatic transfer for the amount you need. Then sit back and watch your savings grow to realize your goal.

Just like you automated your savings yesterday, automate the finance part of your long term goals.  I would suggest that you have a separate savings account for each of your goal, that way you can measure your progress and know exactly where you stand at all times.

It’s that simple to start on a path to achieve your goals.

Simplifying By Automating

Another way we simplified our finances was to automate our savings.

Each pay period (after the direct deposit), we contribute to our emergency savings.  We have done this through an automatic transfer from our checking (where the direct deposit occurs) to our savings.  A specific amount of money is moved from the checking to the saving each and every payday.   No more I’ll save after I pay my bills.  You know this story, there is never anything leftover to save.  So get in the habit of paying yourself first and then you will start to see you saving grow.  This was great with the pandemic and less income coming in, we had our savings to fall back on.

You can do this too.  You can set it up through you bank and set up an automated transfer or you can have your paycheck split between two accounts (checking and savings).  Either way works.  Bottom line, you need to have a savings account for whatever life throws at you.  Start your automated savings today.  You won’t be sorry.

Simplifying With No Fees

Yesterday, I discussed consolidation out accounts.  Today, let’s talk about the benefits of this move.  Yes, there is a hidden benefit.

By having all our accounts at two organizations, it makes our checking account free – no monthly maintenance fee, no paper statement fee, no fee for bank checks, no fee for ATM use (even with ATM’s at other locations).  Consolidating accounts makes our lives easier and no removes the possibility of any fees too!

This is added benefit!

Hopefully, your are not paying any banking fees associated with your bank accounts.

Simplifying Our Finances

We simplified our accounts.  First, we transferred accounts so that we have less organizations to keep track of.  We not have rolled over retirement accounts to once institution.  One statement with all the accounts on it for each of us.  Simple!  Less to keep track of monthly and at tax time.

We have consolidated some debt to zero percent credit cards to get the balances paid off faster with all the payment going to the principle.  We carefully chose the zero balance offor the longest time frame and no fees.  Once it was done, we divided the balance by the number of months at zero percent interest and that is our monthly payment.  Each and every month that payment will be made to have the total balance paid in full without any interest.

Okay, this did take sometime to research, but it will be well worth it in the long run.  Now that it’s done, it simple to make one payment each month.

How many institutions do you have accounts with?

Simplifying Our Mail

Are you overwhelmed with mail?  If you are like we use to be, we got a tone of physical mail.  It’s taken a while, but we have reduce our paper mail more than 50%.

Step 1 for us was to eliminate unwanted mail.  We called each and every catalogue that arrived to ask to be taken off the mailing list.  It wasn’t as time consuming as you are thinking.  WE created a pile and when we had time we made the calls – thinking wait for an oil change, waiting at a doctor’s office, etc.

Step 2 for us was to call the ones we wanted to ask that they not share our name.  You are probably thinking that the privacy act does this and it does to some extent, not as much as I wanted.  They are share you information with affiliates.

Step 3, in addition, we have signed up for these organization that reduce your mail:

Less mail simplifies our lives in many ways – less paper to shred / recycle, no more piles of mail to go through and not more temptation to buy what we don’t need.

 

Simplifying Our Meals

I cannot imagine an easier way to plan meals than being a part of a CSA.  This was a huge incentive towards simplify our lives.

For us, we get an email two days before the pick up of the items of the week.   This gives me time to shop for groceries, check out new recipes and plan the weeks meals.  This makes my life easier as it takes the guess work out of what’s for dinner and as an added bonus gives us plenty to take for lunch and snacks.

I am able to plan the week based on the CSA items and sales / specials from the local grocery store.  This is a big money saver for us.

No more, saying what’s for dinner and ordering take out.  This not only helps our budget, but it’s a time saver too.   For most people, food (groceries, eating out, take out, beverages, etc.) is the biggest part of your budget.  Meal planning helps us to plug the holes in the budget easily.