5 Tips For Reducing Your Moving Expenses

Recently, my wife and I made a long distance move from Jacksonville, Florida to Orlando, Florida. We were no strangers to moving, it was our third time making a move in four years. Hopefully, it will be our last move for a while!

Through our many moves, we’ve lived and learned about things to do and things not to do when moving our stuff from one place to another. Our philosophy for moving is to find the least expensive way to move our stuff in the most professional and less time consuming way possible. I know, this sounds like an unattainable task, but our last move came close to attaining these goals.

Here are five tips to reduce your moving expenses while still moving in a professional manner.

Check Craigslist For Moving Supplies

 If you want to move the right way, you need the right supplies. This means that you need sturdy moving boxes and good packing paper or bubble wrap. My wife was browsing through Craigslist one night, and she found a couple who was selling about 25 to 30 boxes with four wardrobe boxes. We went to go look at them, and we saw that they saved all of the packing paper to go with the boxes. So, for $20.00 we got 30 boxes and four garbage bags full of packing paper. Getting these boxes and paper really helped us pack our stuff properly and safely.

Drive Your Own Moving Truck

Using a full-service moving company is extremely expensive. Even if you want or need movers to help you load up and unload the truck, you can rent your own truck and hire movers to load up and unload. We used Budget Truck rentals, and I highly recommend them for finding the best deal. If you go online to forward your mail at USPS , you can download a 20% off coupon for a truck rental on a one-way move. Budget gave us two days to make the move and unlimited mileage. With longer moves, they will give you more days to complete the move. We only moved 150 miles away. Penske is another good truck rental company, but they tend to be a little more expensive. I would never recommend U-Haul for a long distance move. They’re trucks are old and not well maintained.

Only Drive the Truck from Point A to Point B

You’re paying for your own gas, and gas isn’t cheap right now. The Truck has a 30 to 35 gallon tank, and it only gets about 10 miles to the gallon. So, don’t do any extra riding in the truck or make any errands around town with it. It may sound like common sense, but you’ll find yourself using it to go to Home Depot and other places while you still have it. It’s not worth paying for all of the extra gas.

Recruit Help to Load and Unload

Unfortunately, we had to move on a Monday afternoon, and we could not find anyone to help us, so we used two professional movers to help us load up the truck. It was actually a blessing, because our stuff barely fit in the 16′ truck. Their expertise helped us load it up to fit everything. But, if you have friends or family in the area, getting them to help you load up and/or unload is a blessing, because it saves time and money. If you’re going to recruit help, make it a fun event. Order some food, and make it a moving party.

Move During the Week

Most people move on the weekend, so truck rental companies and moving companies will increase their rates for the weekend. Move during the week, and you’ll save on a truck rental and movers if you need help loading up or unloading the truck.

For any of you that have done a long distance move, you know that you can end up spending thousands of dollars just to move your stuff from one place to another. We like the balance saving money on moving with spending enough to get our stuff safely moved. Follow these tips and you’ll have your stuff moved safely while saving a ton of money.

We did our move for less than $600, and our budget was $750. Even though it was still a big chunk of change, nothing was damaged and we were still under budget. Do you have any tips to save money while moving? Share it with us in a comment below.

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TradeKing Brokerage $50 Bonus for New Accounts

TradeKing’s $50 bonus for opening a new account promotion has been extended through the end of next month.  TradeKing sent out an email last night talking about how the current economic conditions have effected the volume of trading and that despite the uncertainty in the market they’re seeing a lot of new people trying out their brokerage.

Brokerage Competition

There are other online brokerages offering incentives for opening an account, which shows that a tough economy can sometimes be an opportunity for good companies to grow.  As lesser quality competitors struggle and lose customers, the true value of good companies becomes more obvious and it becomes a chance for those quality companies to add customers.

It seems TradeKing may be in this position right now, offering a $50 bonus for people to try out their trading platform and see why SmartMoney magazine choose them as having the best customer service for a discount broker in their annual broker survey. You can read more about pros and cons of the online brokerage in this Trade King review.

Promotion Extended

Anyhow, the extension of the bonus is good news for procrastinators. If you were thinking about taking advantage of the promotion and hadn’t gotten around to it yet, here is your second chance.  The bonus isn’t available directly through their website, you have to use this link to qualify.

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How to Cut Your Moving Costs

Packing up and moving to another part of town or to a new city can be an expensive experience if you don’t manage your moving costs.

Of course the average moving expenses will vary depending on factors like how far you’re moving, how much stuff you’re taking, and whether you hire a moving company or not; but you can certainly make decisions that make the whole process cheaper.

Obviously if you can have some of your relocation expenses reimbursed by your employer that can make a dent in the cost but if you’re moving for reasons other than your job then you’ll be faced with the full expense yourself.  Unfortunately in tough economic times some people are moving because they may have lost a job or even their home.  Keeping moving expenses low is even more important in these cases since money is already very tight.

We know several people that moved recently due to housing needs and Erik’s family moved due to career reasons.  Over the next few days we’ll take a look at their experiences and how they found ways to cut costs and manage their finances while moving, check out the articles on moving expenses below:

• 5 Tips For Reducing Your Moving Expenses
• Moving Expenses – Paying Bills On Time & Avoiding New Fees
• How to Find a Doctor, Accountant, or Plumber You Can Trust in a New City
• American Express Blue Cash Card Can Help You Move

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John McCain – What Will He Do With Your Money?

We are currently examining the economic policies of the presidential candidates. First, we looked at some of the economic policies of Barack Obama, and today we’ll take a look at John McCain’s plan bring the economy out of its current slump. Both candidates have stark differences when it comes to their philosophy for changing the economy, but right now their words are just words. All we can do as voters is discern who we think will stick to their word about their policies. Here is a look at some of the economic policies of John McCain:

Immediate Relief For American Families

Food and Gas Relief:

The gas thing is a little outdated, because I just filled up my gas tank for $2.69 a gallon, which is pretty low for today’s standards. However, back when gas was $4.00 a gallon, McCain wanted to take away the 54 cent gas tax on imported sugar-based ethanol. Of course, oil prices could always shoot up again in the future. McCain also wants to repeal the ethanol mandate in gasoline to help drive back down the price of certain foods.

Housing Plan:

McCain has a plan to help individuals who genuinely can’t afford their current mortgage whom are currently the primary resident in the home. He wants to put a plan together that will allow individuals to apply for a new mortgage at a fixed rate with a different amount. Apparently, if your current mortgage is $300,000, but you can only afford a payment on a $250,000 mortgage, then the $50,000 difference would be forgiven, and the new loan would be backed by the FHA.

Protect student loans:

The goal of McCain’s plan is to make sure that student loans are available during the credit crunch.

Federal Spending Reform

Balancing The Budget by 2013:

By the end of his first term, McCain claims he will balance the budget by administering comprehensive spending controls, reasonable economic growth, and bi-partisanship in budget efforts.

Eliminate Wasteful Spending:

McCain has a decent record when it comes to voting against bills with too much wasteful spending, and he vows to continue that trend if he is president.

Reforming Social Security and Medicare:

How he’s going to do this in four to eight years, I am not sure, but this seems to me to be a typical Republican thing to promise. Social Security and Medicare are basically federal government liabilities, and I think they’ll just keep pumping money into it to fund it.

Small Business

Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent:

No one seems to talk about this in the media. This could be a huge stimulant to the economy. The Republic of Ireland was in a huge economic recession, and then they slashed the corporate tax rate, and their economy is now flourishing. Small business accounts for 80% of American jobs, and his plan focuses on protecting small business owners.

McCain wants to establish a permanent tax credit equal to 10% of wages spent on research and development.

Good for companies in health care, energy, and other innovative industries, but not for the local pharmacy and the general contractor.

Reduce the estate tax to 15 percent. The goal is to help keep businesses in the family.

Miscellaneous

• His would like to ban taxes on goods and services sold on the internet and taxes for cell phone/text message use.
• Promote workplace flexibility by allowing people to work at home, maintain a flexible work schedule, and make health care more portable.

Whoever you support for president, whether it’s McCain or Obama, make sure you get your say, don’t forget to vote next week!

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Investing Strategy Review – Retirement Accounts and Timing the Market

When I wrote about investing in the stock market last week I raised some questions from people about whether we were getting out of the market and trying to time the market.  I thought I’d address those questions so that I don’t give the wrong impression.

Retirement Accounts

Basically what I did was pretty much stop contributing to our retirement accounts other than putting enough in the 401k to get the match.  Why? The vast majority of our net worth is in our 401k, 403b, and IRA’s; accounts that we can’t touch for a loooong time.  I know, that’s the whole point of the retirement plan structure, using tax breaks and early withdrawal penalties to incent us to keep the money growing for retirement.

We’ve definitely taken advantage of these tax breaks since we began our careers, maxing out our investments to my 401k, my wife’s 403b, and our IRAs over a period of about eight years.  I’ve often thought that we should invest some of that money in non-retirement accounts but I’ve never acted on it.  One of my weaknesses is that if I’m unsure of a major decision I can postpone taking action on it for a long time.

Finally I decided it was time to invest our money outside our retirement accounts and to prevent further delay on the decision I went in one night and stopped the automatic contributions to all but 3% for the 401k.  That money instead went into our ING Direct savings account while I decided where and how to invest it.  Will we restart our retirement savings again?  Yes, I haven’t decided yet when that will be but it will definitely happen.

Stock Market Crash

As I allowed myself to become distracted over the following months with a new job and a new baby on the way, things took a turn for the worse in the financial markets.  Stock prices dropped like the country hasn’t seen for a long time so instead of opening a brokerage account, I opened an account with FNBO Direct and earned 3.5% on the cash.

Then about two weeks ago I decided that stock prices and P/E ratios had fallen low enough that I was missing out on the “buy low” opportunity. I opened an account with Zecco and transferred over a big chunk of money. I’ve been taking advantage of their unlimited free trades this month and have been investing money into the markets every day.  They’re going up and down but I’m “dollar cost averaging” the money in so that I don’t dump it all in just to see it all drop big time the next day.

Buying Low

I didn’t want to give the impression that we’re no longer investing our money for the long term or that we’re out of the market.  We’re covering our living expenses and have built up a sufficient emergency fund, the remainder of our money is being invested for long term growth.

So, was this market timing? Yes.  Do I advocate and regularly participate in the practice of trying to guess what the market will do and trying to time my investments based on that? No.  Until this case, ever since we became investors, our money has gone into the markets twice a month on a regular basis, every time we received a paycheck.

This was simply a case of me changing investment strategies and getting side-tracked on making a decision.  While I was in delay mode, the markets tanked so we were spared the loss, at least temporarily, of the money I would have invested in August, Sept, and the first part of October.  Now it’s going back into the market and I’m hopeful that over the long term we’ll look back on this as buying stocks at a bargain.

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Making Money at Halloween

With the economy struggling many people are looking for ways to make some extra money.   I’ve written in the past about how to make money at Halloween, most of them require advance planning so it’s a little late for those this year.

So if it’s too late why am I bringing it up?  The morning of Halloween, stores will start marking down their Halloween stuff big time, the day after they’ll drop the prices even more.  I actually even saw some discounts already when I was out this weekend.

This is a perfect chance for you to buy on the cheap, you know how much people were buying it for in the weeks leading up to Halloween so you can get a feel for how much you stand to profit.  Of course the Halloween costumes and decorations you buy will just sit in the basement until next Fall, not earning you any money, but when the time comes you can make out nicely by selling them on eBay or even Craigslist.

Haunted Houses & Pumpkin Patches

Of course there are other ways to make some extra money during Halloween. I can’t  believe it but some people pay $15–30 a ticket to visit a haunted house.  Those aren’t just New York prices, even in the Midwest haunted houses aren’t cheap.

You could setup a haunted house and charge $5–10 bucks to get in.  Sure it won’t be as cool as some of the professionally done ones but it’s cheaper and you could target the suburbs for people who don’t want to drive all the way into the city.

If haunted houses aren’t your style you could go with a pumpkin patch.  You don’t necessarily need a lot of land, you could even have a mobile pumpkin patch.  Search around to see if any of the typical patches have moved locations or aren’t running this year.  Fill up your trunk with pumpkins and park out front of where the pumkpin patch used to be.  People that show up to find it has moved will be in need of a pumpkin and you’ll be there to sell them one.

Hard Work

Of course, all of these things will take work, planning, and spending some money up front.  But who ever said making money was easy?  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.  Maybe these things aren’t right for you but the point is to show some examples of ways that you can make money by filling a need that’s not being met or a getting a great deal on something and reselling it to a different market or at a different time.

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Tax Deduction, Baby!

The Child Tax Credit is available to taxpayers who have a “qualifying child.” A person is a “qualifying child” if he or she has not attained the age of 17 by the end of the taxable year and meets the requirements of 26 U.S.C. Sec. 152(c). In general, a qualifying child is any individual for whom the taxpayer can claim a dependency exemption and who is the taxpayer’s son or daughter (or descendent of either), stepson or stepdaughter (or descendent of either), or eligible foster child. – Wikipedia

Since we’re always looking for ways to save money we looked into the child tax credit and decided it was time to have another kid! 

Baby on the Way

We’re due in April and the morning sickness is finally starting to subside.  Of course, we’re not having a baby for the tax credit, kids are obviously much more expensive than any tax credit will ever cover.

The truth is we really enjoy being parents despite the drain on our finances and the trying of our patience.  We’re actually pretty lucky, our son is a delight to be around most of the time.  His terrible twos show their ugly head off and on but spending time with him is the highlight of my day.

Money Matters Less

Over the last few years I’ve learned that money plays an important role in the happiness and comfort of a family but there are definitely times when you do things despite the financial implications.  For example, after we had our son, my wife left her job to be at home with him.  His years as a baby and toddler will be over before we know it and we’re gladly willing to give up an income so he can have his mom around growing up.

Family time and mental health also took priority over money in my recent job change.  I took a pay cut but now I can leave work on time every day and have the evenings with my family.  I’m not in a bad mood because of a lousy day at work, I’m not constantly stressed about meeting deadline after deadline, the pager isn’t interupting us on the weekends, and I don’t have to worry about being at work over the holidays.

Less Money, Less Sleep

So come April we’ll have more baby expenses and we’ll get no sleep but we’re really excited about having another kid and all the fun experiences he/she will bring!

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Free Quicken Online & Wall Street Journal Free Trial

Quicken Online is Intuit’s web-based version of it’s popular personal finance software.  Quicken Online is even easier and simpler than the desktop version, offering a quick and easy way to track how you spend your money.  Now you can sign up for Quicken Online for free!

The Wall Street Journal free trial gives you free access to the online version of the Journal for two weeks and and saves you $20 if at the end of the trial you decide to subscribe to the business and financial news website.

These are two of the recent features on the deals site.  Every week or so I try and summarize the recent money makers or money savers, here are the other new additions.

$50 Deals

ShareBuilder is offering a $50 bonus for new customers. After you open an account and make a trade you’re eligible to be paid the new account promotion.  With $4 trades, the $50 should cover your fees for a while.

ING Direct has a $50 bonus if you sign up for Electric Orange Checking by the end of this month, then make at least 3 signature transactions in the first 45 days with your debit card.  This is double the bonus ING was offering last month for opening an ING Electric Orange account.

Free Trials

Lingo digital phone service has a free trial promotion running that includes free activiation, free Linksys adaptor, and the first month free.  Lingo was chosen as Wired magazine’s best VOIP phone provider last year so it might be worth trying out.  The deal is over at the end of the month so if you’re interested try it out before it ends.

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Barack Obama vs John McCain – What Will They Do With Your Money?

The Presidential election is just over a week away, and there are millions of undecided voters out there. The economy seems to be the hottest topic for this election, because we have recently seen the stock market go crazy, investment banking firms go under, and the sub-prime mortgage industry wreak financial havoc throughout the country.

We try to avoid partisan political discussions on this site, however, we want you to be be aware of some of the economic policies we might see when you vote for Barack Obama or John McCain. As the election draws near, we’re going to look at the candidates financial plans for topics like energy costs, tax reform, job creation, and home ownership.

We’re not political experts but this is what we understand from listening to McCain and Obama, if we didn’t explain something correctly or you disagree with our take, let us know in the comments.

Energy Costs

One of the things Obama promises to do is enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give Americans a $1,000 energy rebate to help pay for rising energy costs. How he will define “excessive” is not explained, and now gas prices are back to the price they were a year ago, so this concept may not have as much traction as it would of a while back. 

Tax Relief

This tax relief is part of his plan to restore the economy, which is different from his tax reform plan.

• Provide a tax cut for “working” families. He will set up a tax credit called the “making work pay” tax credit, not sure what criteria he will use to classify a working family.
• He’ll eliminate taxes for senior citizens that make less than $50,000 a year.
• Obama wants to amend the way taxes are filed by requiring the IRS to gather basic financial information from banks and employers, pre-fill the forms, and send them to taxpayers whom then can verify that the information is correct and add or delete anything else on the forms.

Trade

Obama’s philosophy and plan towards trade is to make moves that help American workers keep their jobs and create new manufacturing jobs for American workers.

Part of this plan is to amend the NAFTA with Canada and Mexico. This was the center of controversy during the primary season, because he took a very strong position against NAFTA early on his campaign, and then retracted his strong comments after that. Although, he still wants to amend it, he is not specific what he would like to do with it.

Creating New Jobs

Obama takes two issues, creating jobs and creating alternative sources of energy, and fuses them together. He starts out by investing $150 billion dollars toward clean energy, and thus creating more jobs for workers because more of these plants will be created.

Obama also wants to mandate that all households derive 25% of their energy from renewable energy by 2025, and this will in effect, force the creation of more jobs due to higher demand for renewable energy sources.

Supporting Small Business

• Eliminate capital gains taxes on start-up businesses and small businesses; which I don’t undertand because small businesses don’t typically pay capital gains taxes do they?
• Plant entrepreneurship incubators around disadvantaged areas of the country to encourage small business start-up in areas that need their economies boosted.

Homeownership and Mortgage Reform

• Create a universal mortgage tax credit that will give an average of $500 tax savings to households making less than $50k per year.
• Ensure more accountability for the subprime mortgage industry, and create a more standardized way of helping consumers learn the true cost of a loan or mortgage product.
• Work to eliminate the provision that allows mortgage companies to prevent bankruptcy courts from modifying the mortgage payments of individuals that file for bankruptcy.

Those are some of the economy policies proposed by Obama that could effect your wallet in one way or another. Make sure you note that political candidates make a lot of promises on the campaign trail so you should do your own research and make an informed opinion about whether you think the promises are feasible or realistic. Next time we’ll take a look at John McCain’s economic plan.

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Online Brokerages Offer $50 Bonus and Free Stock Trading

Investing in the stock market comes with bonuses this month: a TradeKing $50 Promotion, ShareBuilder $50 Bonus, and free stock trades at Zecco.

The TradeKing $50 promotion for new customers is over at the end of this month. You get your $50 bonus after you make your first trade with TradeKing so if you’re interested be sure to sign up before the end of the month. Learn more about the benefits of the brokerage in the TradeKing review.

I’ve never used the online brokerage myself but they have low commissions ($4.95 a trade) and come highly recommended, ranked #1 in customer service by SmartMoney magazine.

 

Speaking of low commissions, Zecco is offering unlimited free stock trades for the month of October.  They typically give you the first 10 trades for free but this month their promotion includes no limit on the number of equity and options trades.

 

ShareBuilder is also offering a $50 bonus for opening a new account and making a trade.  This promotion is double ShareBuilder’s previous $25 offer from last month so it’s a pretty good deal.  Your $50 bonus will be deposited after you make your first trade.

 

Updated Deals

If you want updates on similar bonuses or money saving tips, click here to subscribe for free daily updates.

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