Today I read an excellent article on how to save on 411 calls. If you call: 1-800-FREE-411, then you can get free directory service. Only hitch is that you need to listen to a 10 second ad before a recorded voice says, "What city and state?".

So make sure you program 1-800-FREE-411 into your cell phone and use it to save $3.50 everytime!!

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Yesterday I rode my bike to work for the first time and am officially starting another challenge. Bike to work challenge - I need to bike to work at least 50 times between now and the end of the year. On my blog I've added a ticker to show my progress and from time to time I'll blog about it.

Reason: my reason for biking to work is two fold. First, I'm just so frustrated with fuel costs, then I'm going to do something about it! I really feel ripped off by the OPEC nations and I'm going to do everything I can to drive down demand (as little as it may). Secondly, I'm doing it to save money (what's new). I figure for a round trip it costs me about $2 in gas, and wear and tear on vehicle adds up to about 50cents per mile (or $6.50 - 13 miles). So basically every day I bike to work I'm saving $8.50 (maybe more if gas prices continue to rise). I figure if I do the trek 50 times then I'll save $425!! Sure adds up doesn't it?

Hope you enjoy my latest challenge and you find it motivating too take some action into your own hands!

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Its official. Yesterday I bought a bike yesterday to start my challenge of saving money by biking to work. Yep I got a Columbia Trailhead for my fathers day gift and for my plan to save a little extra money.

I'm going to try and keep a tally on how many times I drive to and from work. I figure one round trip is 13 miles and my car probably average 26 in town, so each day I drive to work I save about $1.75-2.00.

I suppose I should have a goal in mind too of how many trips I want to make by the end of the year. I think a goal of about 50 round trips would be a good goal to start with. There it is...another challenge started. 50 round trips on my new bike between now and the end of the year. That way I'll be able to save about $100.

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Yesterday I read a fellow blogger's comments on them handing in their retirement paperwork.

Analise said, "My retirement paperwork was completed yesterday. Now I just have to take a form to HR to sign off on the information about the number of sick leave days I have accrued. I learned I have enough days that it gives me an additional year of credit. This is good because since I am taking early retirement, my defined benefit amount will be reduced by 33% of what it would have been in three years. Still, it is WORTH IT considering the amount of stress I am leaving behind. I have seen too many people work longer just to hold out for a higher pension, only to die within a year of retiring. Last year, two of my coworkers died before even being able to retire. By saving and planning in the early years of my career, I now have more choices."

This just continues to remind me to save, save, save, because you never know in 10, 20, 30 years what life circumstances you'll be in that you may want the option of getting out. When I first started working at a computer manufactoring plant I saw tons of people in their 60's, 70's, and even 80's working the factory line - the whole while looking miserable. I bet none of these people wanted to be spending the twilight of their years shoving screws into a computer when they could be soaking it up on the beach in a mini-retirement community in Miami! This all gets back to a major reason why I'm frugal, and I save a lot. Some people think people that are frugal or that save for retirement are very matterialistic and have a worship of money. Only (at least for me) the opposite is true. I'm frugal and save a lot because I want the flexibility to someday get out of a circumstance just like Analise did!! Its not about the money its about the flexibility that saving creates! So get out there and SAVE!

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Start by writing down EVERY expense you have for an entire month. This will get you in the mood of being frugal and will help you realize exactly how much you are spending. Hopefully these tips will get you in the mood for saving 3 to 6 months of living expenses:

1) Make a goal for how much you want saved
2) Open a money market account (with just $1) - try emigrantdirect.com or ingdirect.com
3) Switch to paying all cash for your purchases - spending cash always seems harder then swiping a credit card
4) Ask your self before you purchase something is this a want or a need?
5) Setup automatic withdrawlf or direct deposits from you checking account to your money market account
6) Sell unneeded items from your home on ebay or craigslist
7) Get a part time job to generate some extra income to build up your savings
8) Ask for a raise at work
9) If you have credit card debt call for a reduced interest rate - more then likely the credit card company will lower it to keep your business
10) Get rid of your home phone line atleast until you've completed saving for your emergency fund - who knows maybe you'll realize you don't need it.

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Is anyone else experiencing or seeing this? I can't help but have this feeling of a sense of worry throughout our country right now. I go to drudge and see "GLOBAL FEARS PUSH OIL PRICE TO NEW RECORDS" plastered across the headlines. Along with that there are also headline articles on jobless rate jumps to 5.5% and down plunges 400 points.

Everytime I fill up my car I think about these headlines and the fact that I just paid $3.79/gallon, our dollar is dropping, there is turmoil in the credit markets, commodities are going threw the roof, prices at the grocery store are rising higher then the inflation rate that our government is stating, and the prices of value meals are more then $5. When I was filling up my car yesterday I said to my dad, "Don't you feel this unrest in our world...like somethings going to give?" He said, "ya definitely...people are going to go to war over $139/barrel oil." Think about $200 oil?

All these "worries" I sense in our country continue to echo to me that the common man needs to get back to a simpler life. Live frugally. Declutter. No need for the extremely nice things. Family camping trips are the ideal family bonding vacation. When you go on a road trip you pack lunch meat sandwiches instead of paying $5+ at McDonalds for a Big Mac and a pack of trans fat French Fries.

I just wanted to put out there these feelings of worry I sense. Its kind of like our country has a stomach ache and something is going to give.

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Last week I got some comments from Aleta and Terri77 about my bi-weekly mortgage payments.

Aleta - "I agree with not locking yourself into a bi-weekly plan. This is something that you can do yourself without having to pay any fees. I used to make my regular mortgage payment each month and added whatever I wanted extra with the payment. The extra would go towards the principal. I would always check out the fine print and make sure that if you decided to pay off your mortgage early that you wouldn't be penalized"

Terri77 - My credit union does this for no fee. Why exactly do you have to pay for it?

Based on those comments and some investigation of my own I took some action. I discontinued my bi-weekly mortgage payment and decided to do it on my own. Here is what I did...

1)setup a money market account for my mortgage
2)setup direct deposit (weekly) to my MM account for 1/4 of the monthly payment
3)setup monthly withdrawls from my MM to my mortgage payment of Regular mortgage payment + 1/12 of my regular payment

These steps will 1) not make me have to pay the $9/month fee, 2) I can earn interest on my direct deposit to my MM account, and 3) I will apply the extra principal to my mortgage each month and not every month that there are 5 payments.

I just want you all to know that I listen to my readers and their comments. Again this will help our family continue to be frugal and get to retirement early. Thanks for all the great comments and interaction.

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Yesterday I was thinking during my masters class of the toolbox of tools that the frugal use. Here is the list I came up with.

Travel:
http://www.kayak.com/

Deals:
http://www.slickdeals.net/
http://www.fatwallet.com/

Banking:
http://www.bankrate.com/

Finance Forum:
http://www.diehards.org/

Searching for the best online deals:
http://products.google.com/

Home search:
http://base.google.com/

Auctions:
http://www.ebay.com/

These are just a few of the tools I personally use to help my family and I get the best deals and make our $'s go further. What are some of the tools you use?

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Lately while I've been reading the book "Semi-retirement: Work Less, Live More" I got to thinking. What scenario would I need in order to retire with 1) Savings(i.e. 401, Roth, Bonds) 2) Supplemental Income(Tax lien interest, Part-time selling things online, house paid off) and 3) Part time work. Here are the three scenarios I laid out for our family on what it would take to retire.

Savings Supplement PT Work
1. $225,000 x 3 - House Paid - $20,000
2. $225,000 x 2 - $20,000 - $20,000
3. $225,000 x 1 - House paid - $30,000

I basically laid these out as a starting point of what would it take for our family to semi retire. I used the $225,000 x 3,2, or 1 to indicate for each $225k it would provide $10,000 worth of income to our family. I realized at the end that each scenario averaged out to about $50-60,000 per year in income from all these streams. It also showed me that retirement doesn't have to be that far off. I could be a lot closer then I think and I don't necessarily have to have $1-2 million saved up.

Do these scenarios seem realistic? Has anyone else had experience with an actual semi-retirement like this?

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Earlier this year my mortgage company had a sign up for no "startup fee" for signing up for a mortgage accelerator program. They waived the $400 fee, and all I need to pay is $9 extra per month for the transaction of taking my money out every week. Here are a couple of helpful calculators that will show you the difference.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/biweekly-mtg/biweekly.asp
http://www.mortgage-calc.com/mortgage/biweekly.php

Now take a $150,000 mortgage, say a person has 27 years left on that mortgage at 6% interest. Here is the difference.

Regular payments
Monthly Payment: $ 935.98
Total Int.: $ 153256.88
Avg Int each Month: $ 473.02
.................................
Biweekly payment
Biweekly Payment: $ 467.99
Total Int: $ 122197.71
Avg Int each BiWeekly Period: $173.58

You'll have your loan paid off in 22 years and save $31,000 in total interest. That is the kind of savings that can help you get to retirement early!

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The other day my co-worker was looking at a site on homes, and I asked him what was he doing? He said he was looking at foreclosed homes in the area he is moving to - Flordia. I said to him do you have to pay for that? He said no...I just found out today from my mortgage company that if you google up "financial institution name REO" that the first link will be the bank's foreclosure listing that are listed free. Take for instances Countrywide. Here is theirs.

Countrywide

Turns out I found a lot more foreclosed homes in my area then I thought there would be. Here are just a couple of other bank foreclosure sites I found too.

Wells Fargo
Bank of America

Has anyone else used an REO site? I found these extremely helpful!

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Here's a short list of 5 things you can start doing today to help you put money away for the future:

Create a "loose change" jar for all your coins and at the end of each month, deposit the collection into a stock that you believe has hit "bottom" and has growth potential. Sit on it.
Decide today that you will eat out only once (twice at the most) a week. This may be hard for those coffee/latte folks out there.

Do all your bill payments online - as well as set up automatic payments direct from your checking/savings account. This will eliminate any late fees you may encounter, plus any postage fees.
Instead of going out for a movie - or renting a movie, borrow movies from your local library. You can't go wrong with a classic movie - especially a Hitchcock!
With gas prices shooting up, find out if any of your co-workers would be willing to ride-share. This is a great way to get to know people - and save money!

What are some of your tips?

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Today my sister, son, and I went to garage sales. Brings back fond memories as a kid going with my as my mom instilled in me being frugal and getting good deal at garage sales. Sometimes my mom and her friends took garage sales to an extreme, but I got the jist of it! Thanks mom!

This morning we didn't pick anything up for more the 25 cents, but we did find some great deals. Bought a squirt gun and a nice puzzle map of the United States. My parents use to quiz me every night before I went to bed on the states and their capitals. I figure this will help my son learn his states too. Then probably the best deal I am proud of snatching is a vintage 7up glass cup. I remember these cups when I was a kid. I think they came from Pizza Hut, but I'm not sure. I couldn't believe the price tag said 25 cents and I knew it was worth more than that so I looked it up on ebay when I got home! Found a list of two of them for $20!!

7up ebay glasses

Also on Friday I sold my golf clubs for $60, so that is a little more to add to my Multiple Streams of Income challenge. I'm now up to $635 total!!

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I'm looking for topics of interest from everyone on things they'd like to see blogged about to live more frugally, retirement, savings, economy, coupons, 401k, or any financial topics. With your feedback I'll post your topics of interest on frugal retirement

Yesterday I talked about making a list of things that need to get done, because I have so many ideas that come and go through my head. It was really good to do this, because throught the day I came up with probably 15 things that needed to get done or things I needed at the store. That way my trips to the store would be well spent and I would have to make multiple trips. I put the same piece of paper in my back pocket this morning before I head off to work, and hope to continue to add to my list.

Also yesterday I got a lot of good responses about my tranquil picture of a cabin over looking a lake. So I found another picture of a house overlooking a lake that is for sale for $799,000 that looked really peaceful. Its also a view from the cabin where Rachel Ray produced her first cookbook.



I'm also contemplating stopping my blog on savingadvice.com and blogging completely at frugal retirement because of the duplicate content. I also like what my "archived" buddy EnoughWealth said in his final post. EnoughWealth or check out EnoughWealth Blogspot

For other money saving tips to get to retirement early visit me at Frugal Retirement

Yesterday my wife and I received our $165 gift cards from Sears and it reminded me of how many of you received gift cards from the Christmas season. Now they are either sitting in your wallet waiting to be used or are lost in a pile of bills, socks, or in the junk drawer. Many companies get rich off your lack of organization or discipline in knowing that you still have a gift card for their stores. Its almost the end of January now, so if you haven't already...spend your gift cards before the end of the month, because more then like as the year goes on you'll either forget or lose your gift card and the stores will profit. Don't waste your money...be responsible and manage your gift cards.

Just another helpful reminder to help you retire early!

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For other money saving tips to get to retirement early visit me at Frugal Retirement

http://www.dealcatcher.com/
http://www.currentcodes.com/
http://www.coupons.com/
http://www.thecouponclippers.com/
http://www.slickdeals.net/
http://www.dealio.com/
http://www.hot-deals.org/
http://www.woot.com/
http://www.techbargains.com/
http://www.deallocker.com/
http://www.flamingoworld.com/
http://www.bensbargains.net/
http://www.retailmenot.com/
http://www.couponmountain.com/
http://mygrocerydeals.com/

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As a Christian I struggle a lot with this question and what inside of me pushes me to want to be frugal, save, and invest. Yesterday I came across a quote that sums up exactly why I do all the above things to one day be a millionaire:

“Many modern millionaires live in middle-class neighborhoods, work full-time and shop in discount stores like the rest of us,” writes author Kristyn Kusek Lewis. “What motivates them isn’t material possessions but the choices that money can bring.”

Its not the attraction of lots of material possessions that stimulate me but the fact that I can 1) make my dollar go further, 2) create more options on what I can spend my hard earned dollars on 3) create the possibility of giving more, and 4) invest more then the average American does.

What is your motivation for being frugal, wanting to be a millionaire, retire early, or just get out of debt?

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One tip I recommend for saving money and staying cool during these hot summer days is opening up your basement windows during the nights, close the basement door, and then when you wake up in the morning close the basement windows. After you close the basement windows, then open the basement door and turn on a fan at the bottom of the steps and point it up stairs. Your basement will be your own little container of cool air to help cool your house atleast through the morning if not most of the day.

In addition another helpful summertime tip is…

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