One of the solid pieces of financial advice in the pf world is to find a way to make money using your talents and hobbies.

This gives that advice new meaning.

Two artists have started that website–Wants For Sale–and are selling paintings of things that they want. The twist? The painting sells for exactly the price of what they want. A Wii painting sold for $270.92, the exact cost of a Wii. A painting of “a good joke” sold for free (plus the cost of emailing or calling in a good joke). They’re still trying to sell a painting of Mets tickets ($597.50) and financial security ($1M, though I think they’re shooting a bit low).

I think this is an incredibly creative spin on the old, use-your-talents-to-make-money advice.

I love online account management. Really. Love. It.

Logged onto my accounts at lunchtime today to get everything squared away so that my automatic savings are in line with my new savings goals. First, I spent about 3 minutes logging into my 401(k) account and changing my contribution rate from 8% to 10%. Check! Done.

Then I spent another 5-10 minutes logging onto my company’s benefits page and changing my direct deposit amounts. As some of you know, I have a certain amount directly deposited into my emergency fund savings account each pay period. While I was paying off my credit cards, I put $50 per pay period into that account, for a total of $100 per month. (Plus a little extra that I deposited manually to round off the number to the nearest $25 at the end of the month.) Today, I changed that $50 per pay period to $600 per pay period, for a total of $1200 per month. Wow! That’s tight, and I already know that there’s probably going to be months when I’ll have to take some of that out of my emergency fund, but I figure it’s better to have my automatic savings contribution high and have to take some out on occasion than to have it low and spend all the extra because I can see it in my account.

Anyway, so there’s my good financial deed for the day! What on earth did we do before all this online account access?!

After contemplating possiblities about my living situation, the time has now come to make a decision. So here it is: I am going to resign a 2-year lease in my current apartment, with a plan to buy an apartment at the end of that time. That will give me two years to agressively save. If I save at the same rate that I paid off my credit card, I should have about $26k after two years, which will be a perfect little downpayment.

That decision has also helped me make another decision I’ve been struggling with, what to do with my extra money now that I’ve paid off my card. I was struggling with my desire to really stash away big bucks for retirement or to quickly build up my cash reserves. Here’s what I’ve decided to do:

1. Put 10% into my 401(k). Right now, I’m putting in 8%, which gets me the maximum employer match of 4%. Even though I have a more immediate savings goal (my downpayment), I still want to up my 401(k) contribution.

2. Max out my Roth. Last year was the first time that I didn’t max out my Roth since I started contributing several years ago. I want to get back on the bandwagon with it this year, contributing $5k. If I need the money later, I can take it out to help with my downpayment ($10k or the amount I’ve contributed, whichever is higher). But ideally, I won’t have to raid my retirement accounts for that.

3. Sock away as much as I can into a downpayment fund. This is something I never really thought about doing; who buys an apartment in NYC?! But I think the time is now; in two years, when I’m getting ready to buy, I’ll be 30, which feels right to me. Besides, I’ve been in the city for ten years, so it’s home and barring some force beyond my control, I’ll probably be here for a lot longer.

So there it is: what I’ll be doing with the next two years! I really like having a set, short-term goal in mind: while saving for retirement or for emergencies is good, in order to agressively save (and spend so little), I have to have something concrete and soon to keep me going, like paying off credit cards or saving for a downpayment.

Since I paid off my credit card at the beginning of the week, I’ve spent around $500. Eek!

Ok, to put that in perspective, about $230 of that is for the shower I’m cohosting at the end of the month, and another $70 or so was for things I would have spent under normal circumstances (groceries, eating out once, etc). All of that was in my budget for the month.

Still, I spent about $200 on things for me that I don’t need, but just want. So…what am I splurging on?

1. The bulk of it went to two new pairs of running shoes. I’m stocking up now because my old shoes have another couple of months on them, but I found the size/model that I wear 1/2 off online on a special sale, so I stocked up. Total damage: $162.

2. I also bought myself two new DVD’s, one movie and one season of a TV show that I really like. Together, those came to about $40.

All in all, that’s a lot to spend in one week, but I feel pretty good about those purchases, especially because I’m counting the DVD’s in the “celebration for paying off credit cards” category.

Now, I just have to buckle down and focus on squeezing back into my budget.

That’s the sound of the ax at work falling in my department. Again.

Some of you may remember last October when a couple of my friends were let go. I survived that without getting the ax, and since then I’ve moved into an informal position of leadership on my team. Still, it’s unnerving when the people around you are fired.

Happened again yesterday. This time, the two people from my department were both struggling to do their work to satisfaction, and they both had pretty contentious relationships with my new boss, who seems to like me. (One of them had a pretty contentious relationship with me, too, though I would never have wished this on her, or anyone else.) And this morning, my boss called me into his office to reassure me that I’m safe.

Still…It doesn’t build confidence.

Let’s start with what I’ve not: CREDIT CARD DEBT!!!

Seriously, here’s this month’s tally (notice the beautiful zero on the credit card line):

There it is: for the first time in what feels like forever, my total liabilities are exactly equal to my student loans. Woohoo!

Thank you to everyone who’s offering congratulations on finishing the credit card debt. As odd as it sounds, I feel kind of indifferent to the whole thing. There are a couple of reasons for this, namely, that the payment I put through yesterday online hasn’t posted yet, so when I log on it still says there’s a balance. It should post sometime today, which will help to get my excitement up.

I think, though, that it won’t really hit me in that giddy, newly free way until the second half of April, when I look at my savings account and realize that I am able to save TEN TIMES what I have been saving each month because of the increase in my disposable income. That doesn’t include the extra 401(k) contributions I’ll be making. Wow!

Anyway, thanks for all your congratulations! Just because I’m a little indifferent now doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them.

It’s that time again, so here’s my review of my March goals: 

1. Get my credit card under $500. Break out the mojitos: as of this morning, I AM CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE!!! Yep, that’s right, this morning I made a quick transfer of funds and wiped out my credit card debt. Woohoo!

2. Eat like a college student. Pretty close. In college, I spent about $40 per month on groceries; this month, I spent $69.78. However, I ate out a lot less than I did in college (thanks to the college cafeteria). As far as *what* I ate, I made many more of the meals that I made in college: risotto, chili, etc. Those dishes (recipes are on my recipe tab) are all simple, with few ingredients, so they’re fairly cheap to make. However, this month’s eating out tab was almost twice what it normally is (eek!), so though I did well with groceries, I stumbled in that category. Overall, I’d give myself a B for this goal: I did ok, but could’ve done a lot better.

3. Socialize cheaply. Well, sorta. I did really well overall: I had 3 different dinner parties and got together with some other friends to watch a DVD, go to a potluck, and have a picnic in the park one weekend. However, I did end up paying about $60 on two outings for friends’ birthdays. Not terrible, but I was hoping to come out of the month with less than $50 on going out/entertainment. Again, I did ok, but could’ve done better.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this month and how far I’ve come. And I’m extremely pleased that I paid off my credit card.

A marketing firm recently contacted me via a group I belong to and asked me to complete a survey about my financial beliefs and habits. The survey was anonymous and asked for no financial information beyond opinions about various financial statements.

Though I usually disregard surveys (especially nonpaid ones!), I decided to do this because I was interested in what they were going to ask.

A lot of the statements were what I would expect: rating on a scale of “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” statements like, “Dealing with my finances stresses me out,” or “I believe I know a lot more than most people about finances.” At the end of the survey, they asked for my gender, age range, salary range, and marital status.

So, I am officially a statistic in someone’s study on how people feel and think about finances. I am in the box for single woman, 25-34, XXX-XXX annual salary. And it made me think about how people from different situations would respond: would a married homemaker in the 65-74 age range say that she feels “overwhelmed by the volume of financial information on the average financial website”? Would a newly retired person say that they strongly agree that they are “on track to meet [their] financial goals”? Would someone who makes half my salary respond that they “lose sleep over financial matters”?

I don’t know, but I read studies (financial and otherwise) voraciously (blame the psychology minor in me), and it’s really interesting to me to speculate.

*For the record: I answered “Mildly disagree” with “Financial matters stress me out;” “Mildly agree” with “I know a lot more about financial matters than most people;” “Disagree” with feeling “overwhelmed by the volume of financial information on the average financial website;” “Mildly agree” with “I am on track to meet my financial goals;” and “Disagree” with “I lose sleep over financial matters.”

If you haven’t already, join in the great debate about a home being/not being an investment. I am really enjoying hearing everyone’s different opinions, though I still maintain that a home makes sense financially, but it is not an investment. As Wanda said in her comment, “I HAVE to live somewhere. Thus a primary residence is consumption to me.” (Well put!)

On a related note: I want to thank everyone who’s jumped into the fray so far for keeping the debate civil. I’ve seen comment debates on blogs get personal and downright rude, and I LOVE that we’re all debating this and yet respecting each other. All hail polite debates!

In the coming days, I’m going to post a little more about why I think that Tom and Meg make excellent points, but why their numbers are masking what I see as the true reason why a primary home is not an investment. However, I want to hear some more thoughts and ideas before I do that, so get to commenting, people!