By now the economic stimulus rebate checks are old news, and many if not most people have already gotten theirs. I, on the other hand, have been waiting for our check to arrive in the mail. For the 2007 tax year we actually owed money instead of getting a refund so we weren’t going to get the rebate via direct deposit, and we have to wait on a paper check.

According to the IRS’s schedule, which is based on social security numbers, we are supposed to get our check by June 6th. Well, today we finally got something in the mail from the IRS that had Stimulus written on the back flap. I was excited to finally be able to cash the check and put it to use, but to my surprise, what I got from the IRS still wasn’t a check.

It was simply another correspondence saying that we’re entitled to $1200 and that we should get the check by June 6th. I don’t understand why they took the time and spent the money to send me this on June 2nd. They should have just sent the check. So we’ll continue to wait for our stimulus check to arrive and hope that it eventually gets here.

So I’m finally back home again after our trip to Dallas. Like I thought, I didn’t really have much time to post here for which I apologize, but now that I’m home it’ll get back to normal again. I had a lot of fun over the past couple of days, the most fulfilling part of which was merely the fact that I didn’t have to go into work. It’s amazing how I don’t have to do anything that exciting, and it’s still great.

Of course I did manage to do a couple things that were fun. We went and saw a Texas Rangers baseball game, which if you’ve been a long time reader you know I’m a huge baseball fan, and they actually won making it that much better. Of course the experience was improved by the half price tickets and the one dollar two liters that we took in with us so as not to have to buy the expensive concessions at the game.

Currently however, I have to go run an errand so I’ll have to continue the update on my so-called travels a little bit later. So stay tuned for more details…

I wasn’t able to post anything yesterday since I spent most of the day driving down to Dallas. It wasn’t all that bad of a drive, but it did take just under ten hours. We’ll be here in Dallas until next Tuesday when we make the drive all the way back to St Louis. I’ll try to post updates as often as possible, but we’ll have to see how that goes.

I do want to make you aware of a new store I just found out about today. We went to a place called Steve & Barry’s this morning, and it’s a clothing store where everything is priced at $8.98 or less. All the shirts, jeans, shoes and accessories…, everything. It’s an interesting place to say the least with a nice pricing concept, so if you’ve got one of these in your area you might want to check it out the next time you’re looking for some new clothes.

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated as soon as I can get another chance.

This was a guest post I wrote for another blog, but thought that it would also be well served here.

Growing up we never really had a lot of money. I wasn’t aware of any of the specifics concerning the family finances, but I knew we didn’t have a lot of money to just throw around. As I grew older I remember telling myself that money wasn’t going to be an issue for me and that I wanted to be rich (whatever that meant at the time). While I was in college I remember still having this goal somewhere in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t doing anything about it. It wasn’t until the summer before my senior year of college (I was on the 5 year plan) that my mindset actually started changing, and I began working towards this goal that I had vaguely set years before.

The Internship

During this summer, I took an internship position with an Aerospace company as an Electrical Engineer since I figured it would be a good way to get my future career started. The internship was in another state and lasted for about 3 months give or take. Up until this point, everything I had learned in school was very theoretical and in the context of academia. On my internship I caught a glimpse of the “real world” and that products are engineered in order to sell them and make a profit. I also realized that there was more to life than just “what do I want to be when I grow up”.

I was also making more money on this internship than I had ever made before, and frankly didn’t need all of it. This got me to wondering what I should be doing with what I had left over. I went to the library and checked out all sorts of personal finance books, investing books, how to get rich books, and anything else that was remotely related. I didn’t read all of the books all of the way through since I was after the main content and not a plot-line or the experience. I was fascinated by everything that I read and just soaked up everything concerning 401k’s, savings, IRAs, the stock market, the bond market, and even a little about real estate (something I would learn about more a little later). I knew that I had a lot to learn and that not every source agreed with one another. It was a great learning experience and was sort of the springboard into personal finance.

Back To School

When I got back to college for my last year, I registered for a few business classes alongside my remaining engineering classes. I took an accounting class and sat in on a finance class. By far my favorite class was an Entrepreneurship Lecture Series where successful entrepreneurs would come in and talk about their experiences and how they did what they did. I absolutely loved the class and what I gained from their experiences. So, as an engineering graduate, my favorite class ended up being a business class… go figure.

I have since gone to work full-time for the same Aerospace company with whom I did my internship, and am looking forward to going back to school full-time to get my MBA since the business, investment and personal finance world thrills me. This is how I came to be so interested in personal finance and ultimately start a finance blog of my own. It wasn’t just one experience, but a collection of experiences that led me in this direction. So what was/is your experience? How did you develop an interest in the world of personal finance?

I’ve talked before about the importance of having some sort of liquid savings, what is usually referred to as an emergency fund. It’s a topic that’s brought up quite frequently on financial blogs and everyone seems to have their own opinion. I’m not going to go into a lengthy explanation of what the right amount for one is and how it should be handled, but I am going to discuss what I personally do.

I’m aiming for one year’s worth of living expenses saved up in liquid savings. To repeat, that’s one entire year’s worth. I’ve heard it time and time again that it’s too much and better returns could be had elsewhere. Regardless, one year’s worth is what I’m going for, and you’ll see shortly how it’s not really that tough of a goal.

So how do I plan to accumulate that much? Some may be thinking that it’s a great goal to have but maybe a little unrealistic or something that will take years to achieve. This isn’t the case, and I’ll explain why. Every time I get paid I put 20% into this emergency savings account. If this was all I did, it’d take 4 years to reach my goal of one year’s worth (80% left over, which is four times twenty). This isn’t the whole story though. I also pay 10% of any earnings to our church as tithing and put another 40% into another account reserved for future investments. What this means is that only 30% of my take home pay is left over for living expenses, bills, and other spending.

So with this scenario, how long will it take to accumulate one year’s worth of savings? About a year and a half. Living expenses account for 30% of earnings, and 20% is saved. So you can see that it’s not a distant far off dream to have an entire year’s worth of savings. It does presuppose living well within one’s means, but the less you live on, the less you’ll have to save to cover it. So there you have it. One year’s worth of savings done in 18 months.

I’m off to Louisville, Kentucky this weekend to visit some family and just get away. I’m not so excited about gas prices spiking to $3.40 the day before we’re now leaving, but it’s just something that has to be dealt with.

Other than visiting family this weekend, the Kentucky Derby is going on so there should be some interesting festivities and such going on. I’m hoping that I’ll have some access to the internet while I’m out there, but I’m not entirely sure about it. So I’ll try to update when I can.

We dropped one of our cars off at a friend’s place today who is going to replace the brakes on it. I’ve known for a while now that the rotors would need to be replaced and not just the pads since they couldn’t be machined anymore. So why am I bringing this up?

Typically people are not excited when it comes to car repairs because just another thing they need to do and it’s going to cost money. Now, while I don’t enjoy car repairs myself, I don’t really get all that upset over them either. One of the reasons for this is because we own both of our cars outright. General maintenance is something to be expected, and it’s easier to pay for when we’re not having to make monthly car payments.

It also helps that we have built up a decent cash reserve and don’t have to worry about some maintenance problem throwing our finances out of whack. Having an emergency fund definitely helps with a financial peace of mind.

I’m also not tempted to go cheap on purchasing the new parts that need to be replaced. We plan on owning our cars for the foreseeable future, and I’d rather purchase quality parts that will increase the lifespan of the car instead of just trying to get by with something that will work for now. I understand this is a matter of opinion, but this is how I see it.

So working towards actually having your cars paid off and being comfortable driving them for a while, even though they may not be the most stylish, is certainly a goal worth pursuing. It increases your monthly free cash flow and allows you to pursue other options with your money. If paying off your cars and maintaining them isn’t a goal of yours currently, you may want to consider making it one.