That is how much I earned in interest on my personal checking account this much. Hey, that is almost $22 more than I had for doing nothing. I like free money!!

I meant to say, this month!!

I am a member of a couple of local forums in my town. Once in a while, people will make comments about me having a lot of money.
I just want to straighten them out.

I started work at age 12 and worked full time til I was in my mid 40's. Then i worked part time for several years. I have never made "big" money and neither has my husband. But no matter how much or how little we made, I always saved part of my money.

When I first got married at age 20, I was making $1 an hour. My dh was making $1.25 an hour. I saved enough money that year to put a down payment on a new house. We had very little furniture for years.
My second marriage ( I was 32) and I was working at a small savings and loan making $89 a week. (this was 1977) My new husband was making $4 an hour ($160 a week) We continued to save.

We moved to the mountains in 1984 and lived on our savings for an entire year while my husband built our log house completely by himself. (He lifted every log alone)

I got a job as a waitress making $2.01 an hour plus very poor tips and my husband began building houses for $7.50 an hour. My husband was always busy cause he always charged less than the other really good builders.

But the difference was, we continued to save out of every paycheck and then I began investing in mutual funds.

My husband makes decent money now, but our last two customers told us that he still works too cheaply. We got lucky with our spec houses. They all (six) sold quickly and for a nice profit. We have never spent one dime of the profits, we are saving them for the next spec when building picks back up.

So, you don't have to make a lot of money to have a nice net worth. It is not what you make that counts, it is what you KEEP!!

I am loving the new business checking account that I opened last week. Actually, it is the same account I have had for 12 years, but they changed the terms. I must keep a minimum of $1000 in the account, but for that, I get paid 3.1% interest. I was use to getting .005%, just 1/2 a percent or if my balance got low, I got zero percent.
Just in the past 8 or 9 days the account has been open, I have earned about $47 in interest.
I think I will withdraw the interest every month of two and add it to my challenge money!!

I total my June interest on all my savings and checking accounts and it comes to $1987.00 That is the first time my interest has been below $2000 for the month, in over a year. My savings has not gone down, but the interest rates have.
Last week, I switched two acounts earning 1.98% to an account paying 3%. Hopefully, that will help.

I earned that much in interest in one of my money markets for the month, yesterday. Not all accounts pay interest on the 1st of the month. I have some that come due on the 8th, the 10th and the 22nd. I keep track of my interest monthly. Got to love free money!! $131.83!!

Thngs are really slowing down in our little town. Most of the work around here is related to the construction of new homes. Lots of people have found this area and are moving in. That has almost come to a standstill right now.

I am on a local forum. For years, I have been preaching to the other members of the forum how important it is to save some of what they make, every paycheck.
Of course, they did not listen to me, but continued to spend every dime.

Now, they are complaining that they no longer can pay their bills on time. And after 20 plus years of marriage, they have no savings to help them in these slower times.

But still they do not listen. Anyone can save a little bit, even if it is only $5 out of each paycheck. Please, everybody, pay yourself first!!

Someone mentioned to me that they had bought Tide on sale, instead of paying $10 a box!! When did it go to $10 a box? I have used Trend for years and years. In one store it costs 99 cents and in the other store, it cost $1.09. It works just fine too!! Oh my gosh, I am shocked!

I check my accounts at the bank almost daily. I had two accounts (money market) at the same bank. When i opened these accounts, they were paying 5.25% for amounts over $50,000. This has gone on for over a year. In October, the rate fell to 4.75% and has been declining ever since. For the past month or so, the rate has been 3.44%. I checked today and the rate has fallen to 2.96%
My gosh, what are us savers supposed to do?? My goal was someday to earn enough interest to live on!! That is never going to happen at less than 3% interest being paid!

I got a great deal on a new chandlier last night. We are building a really big house with a really big foyer and this chandlier is going to look great!

It was over $500 but they only had two and they were on sale for $180. We paid for it, but could not fit it in the vette, so dh will have to go back for it next week.

I am happy when I save someone else money too. This is a spec house we are building, but we are building it for another couple to sell.

I have often bragged about my local bank appalachian Bank which offered money market accounts paying 5.25%
These accounts worked out great for us, cause we could make 6 withdrawals a month and that was all we needed when we were building a spec house.
I had 2 accounts there, one in joint names with $200K and one in my name, payable on death to my dh, for $100K.
That way, all $300K was fdic insured.

A few months ago, when the fed cut the rates, my interest rate dropped to 4.1% Yesterday, I was shocked to see that the rate had fallen to 3.4% I called the bank to see if I could move into a c.d. paying about 4% and was told no!

So, I called my husband to come home early from work and we drove to another town about 25 miles away.

I opened up a joint c.d. there for 200K earning 4.8% interest for one year! They had a 5.% rate for 6 months, but i think rates are going down, not up, so I took the lower rate in order to lock it in for a full year.

I figured I will earn an extra $2720 in interest money by moving it to the new bank.

That is worth losing a few hours pay.

Just 11 more months til christmas! Have you started to save your christmas money? I have!!

I check out my local bank accounts every day and record the amount of interest that I have earned.
I was very proud of my one local bank. For a couple of years they have paid 5.25% on a money market account and I made decent interest while we used the money to build spec houses.
Several months ago, the rates dropped to 4.1% but I still kept the money locally.
I was shocked when I went online today to see that the rates had dropped to 3.4%

I called the bank and explained that i had 300K in there, but they would not give me a rate above 3.6% Looks like I will be moving on!!

I opened up a new account at Umbrellabank a few weeks ago with the minimum to earn 5%, which was $1000. Yesterday, I sent an extra $11,000 to the on line bank. I am a little leery of banking with a bank that is online only and so is dh.
I really sure put a large sum of money in there to earn the higher interest rate, but I will probably do it just a little bit at a time for now.
I am worried that I will transfer a lot into the bank, and then they will lower the rate, like ING did.
Does anyone bank with Umbrellabank??

I am opening a new account with umbrella bank today. Their pot o gold money market. I am a little leery of on line banking cause I know so little about a computer. However, they are still paying 5% on deposits, so if I can figure out how to look up my account online to see my balance, then I will send them more money.
They did say they would send me a paper statement for a $5 charge everymonth, but I hate to waste the money.
Has anyone here had dealings with Umbrella bank??

I got my credit card bill in the mail yesterday. I signed up for a chase master card because they give back 3% of what you spend at home improvement stores and 1% on other purchases. My dh spends a lot of money at home depot, since he is a builder.
So, on this, my 2nd billing cycle, I have earned enough points to get a check. You only need 5000 points to get 50 dollars. I already have over 9000 points, so I requested my check and will be able to request another by the time I get the next bill.
Then I did a survey with nfo and that earned me another $10 check.

Ok, the checks are in the mail!!!

I have a lot of cash sitting in a local bank. However, they have lowered their rate from 5.25% to 4.16% That is a pretty big difference. so, I have been thinking about putting some money in one of those online banks that are still paying 5%.
I did open a small account at ING, but they are not paying great.
Do any of you have any advice about a good online banking service that you like? Remember, the account has to be preety simple for me to open.

About the power of compound interest!! I once attended a financial seminar. The question was posed like this. "Lisa saved $2000 a year from age 20 to 30 and then stopped. Susan, however started at age 30 and saved $2000 a year from age 30 to age 65. They both earned the same percentage of interest. Who had the most money at age 65?" Every woman in the group said that Susan had the most money cause she had saved for 35 years.

I was the only woman that knew that Lisa had the most money cause Lisa started saving 10 years earlier than Susan.

Be smart, start saving your money when you are very young!! I started working at age 12, but I used my money to buy clothes, school supplies, candy, etc. I wish I had saved some of that money when I was a young teen.

Start early!! Save early!!

Darn, the fed lowered the interest rate again and my bank has already lowered theirs too.
Because my dh is a builder, I keep a large amount of liquid cash in local banks. I was getting a decent 5.25% return on my money without any risk. The rate has gone down 3 times in the past few months, and now the rate is down to 4.16%.

Now, we certainly don't live on the interest, but it sure would be nice to, someday.
However, even with this terrible slow down, if nothing comes along for him to build, he is going to build a spec house to keep himself busy! So the cash has to stay liquid!!
I figure that this rate cut is going to cost me $5,450 in interest next year and that is if they don't lower the rate any more!!

I just figured out my interest for the month and it was $2204.56. Not as good as late month, but rates went down in several accounts and I made a big withdrawal. Now, If I could just live on $2000 a month, that would be really good!!

I know how to keep up with my savings, checking and cd's using the computer to look them up everyday.
What I had not bothered with (much) was using the computer to see how my mutual funds are doing.
Just for the heck of it (cause my dh is at a local car show), I decided to look up my mutual funds with American Century.
My Heritage fund has had a 53.24% gain in the past 12 months!!
Wow, I am shocked!!
That was the very first fund I ever opened back on 7-11-88. I opened it with $2000 but back then, they would accept any amount.
I put a grand total of $6500 in it, with $50 or $100 dollars going in as often as i could save it out of my tips. The fund is now worth over $48,000 now.

Start young and save what you can. It will pay off down the road.

I finally got around to computing the interest that I earned for the month of Augusut on savings. It came to $2352.80, my best month so far. I know I should have more money in the stock market and less in cash savings, but that interest looks so nice!

I like that site, networthiq.com. I now track my net worth on the first day of the month. (sometimes the 2nd)
My net worth is up over $12,000 for the month. some of that had to do with my stocks and mutual funds being higher and some of it is just addding to savings and the interest also.
I have been so lucky so far this year (knock on wood) beause I have not had to make one withdrawal due to an emergency. I mean, we did have to pay out to get the van fixed, but I managed to save up the money in advance. Anyway, it was a good month.

I got the interest added to my largest money market account yesterday. That makes my balance go up by $975.20. So far this year (knock on wood) I have not had to withdraw anything for emergencies.
The van seems to be running fine right now and I had expected a big bill on that repair. (It still may happen) My husband went to the dentist this week and it was "no charge"
Everything seems to be going great except waiting on permits to start a new house. We applied 8 days ago and they usually come out and check out the property in 2 days.

I do not add the interest that I receive each month to my $20 challenge, but I am keeping track of it cause my goal is to earn $20,000 in interest this year.

Baselle took mine, pay your self first every payday. I have done that all my life.
I have saved a lot of money by keeping my electic bill low and saving the rest of what I had budgeted for it. I do this by keeping the heat down and the hot water heater turned low.(usually off)
I also have saved a lot of money by coloring my hair myself the past 35 years.

It has been one of my goals this year to earn $20,000 in interest this year. Yesterday ( I just added it up today), I hit the $15,000 mark ($15,059) in interest, on ELVIS day of all things.
Unless I have some really big expenses or start a new spec house, I should hit the $20,000 mark this year, with no problem.

Most people think saving money is depriving them of "things" that will make them happy.
Actually, saving money does make me happpy. I think it is a lot of fun to watch that interest add up!!
Today I logged on to check on a new money market savings account that I just opened a month ago. I just earned $488.78 in interest this past month.

Now who doesn't think that is fun???

Building of new homes is certainly slowing down around here. You use to have to get on a wait list for getting a basement poured, now they are out there in a few days.
We talked to the engineer at the power company and he says very few houses are getting started.
We talked to the guy in charge of the building dept. and no one is pulling permits to build spec houses right now.

There are over 700 homes sitting on the market in this county, and we only have a population of about 19,000. We have so many friends who are sitting on and paying interest every month on their spec house.

We have been so fortunate. We have decided to take a break from building spec houses until things pick back up. We are starting two homes for customers that will take over a year to build, plus we are talking to another couple on Synday. If they can wait a year, we will take on their house too.
So, we should be fine.
In the meantime the cash we have accumulated to build the next house will be sitting in the bank earning 5.25% interest.

I did our net worth this afternoon. I usually like to do it on the first day of the month, but I was a little late today. I had to take my beautiful puppy to the groomer's.
Anyway, I was kind of dreading it because the stock market has been down so much the past several days.
Sure enough, most of my stocks and all but one of my mutual funds were down.
However, I had done some good saving last month, plus earned decent interest on my cash holdings. The fact that my 6 month certificate deposit paid me $2796.00 helped too.
So my net worth actually went up over $3000 last month and I am pleased!

I just totaled the interest that I received for the month. It was $1957.88. That is last than last month; however, I transferred 100K into a new account so that I would be insured for everything in the bank. I transferred the money on July 3rd, and after 3 days, they paid interest on the money. So that is why my total interest in almost $300 less than last month. I have about 24 days of interest unaccounted for which will be paid around the 6th of this month.

I see that many of you read money magazine and scfr mentions the chart on page 109. I did not quite understand how to figure that chart out. Maybe one of you smart people can tell me how much we should be saving according to that chart.
My husband is near 55, makes close to ( but less) than 80K and we have about 800K in savings. How much should we be saving per year?