The economy has turned us into private analysts bent on securing our own futures. We may switch stock buys, move to more safer investment solutions, and call out our friends and family who speak on the side of resurgence in the US economy. The troubled financial times bring out a renewed interest in many of our debts and spending habits. A recent San Francisco Chronicle article reported on the state of the US economy.

The first fallacy of spending money in order to save it (you’ve saved XX dollars by shopping Safeway, says my grocery receipt) is that you can’t save money you don’t have. We are not saving by spending. We may be buying something more cheaply, but make no mistake: We’re still spending money. [Source: SFGate.com]

We need to focus on our own saving habits and on our spending habits. While the two habits become intertwined, we should have a separate plan for each in order to stay on top of our financial well-being. Let’s assume we seek out the savings on a flat screen TV, finding a deal more than 10% less than the best price anywhere else. The question then becomes, ‘Should I buy this TV, even though it’s considerably less than the same model elsewhere? Do I need it?’ Just because something is a good deal doesn’t mean its a necessary deal.

We live in a society where marketers and advertisers seek to tap into the buy now pay later mentality. Just because I can walk in and buy a fantastic new queen sized bed with no interest until 2012 doesn’t mean I should do that.

The problems with our economy seems to stem from our credit hungry ways. As individuals we can stop the bleeding by simply waiting until we can afford the items. We need to look not at just the savings, but also at our spending habits in order to heal properly the financial problems.

We talked about this in our last post — Keep Your Money Safe from Investment Failures. The US economy has not seen this type of bank failure since the great depression. Other such markers of the trying times crop up in the stock markets. The stronghold of our financial endeavours, banks, seem to be teetering in a market squashed, mortgage, short selling nightmare. We trust our banks, but so did thousands of others in the few that went the way of the dodo.

MSN Money has an article online named Bank crisis: 10 things to know now. The article explains telling signs your bank may be ready to go belly-up. In part they dispell some errant thinking too. Even if the bank fails you’ll be protected by FDIC, which was recently expanded to cover Mutual Funds (wow!).

The article describes the procedure the regulators take after moving in on a failed bank.

Regulators usually shut down failed banks on Fridays. The FDIC then works all weekend to transfer insured deposits and most of the bank’s assets to the bank that’s taking over the business, or to a new entity created for just this purpose.

During the weekend you would have access to your account via ATMs. Worst case scario — you might be out of touch with your money for a few days, not much more.

It’s no surprise many of us don’t know how this process works. It’s been a while since bank failures became somewhat regular. In my own banking, I’m wary of bank changes. The losses creditors are taking in the mortgage front may be recouped by varying charges, monthly and irregular fees for things like overdrafts, etc.

All in all it speaks of responsibility, knowing where our banks stand, and we should also be keen on their changing procedures. Read the mailings they sent, but most of all keep saving and trusting in your bank, unless you have reason to believe otherwise.

With Lehman Brothers, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and other top companies being rescued or going belly-up, many of us may be rightfully concerned with the state of our investments. Does our investment firm have a solid footing? What does our bank look like financially? How can we find answers to these questions?

You’re Covered
If you have your savings socked away in an interest bearing savings or checking account in some bank — large or small — the money should be covered by the FDIC. The FDIC came about from the vast number of bank failures during the Great Depression. The Steagall Act of 1933 created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation so bank goers would return money to their accounts from under their mattresses.

Is this a Market Correction?
If you’re involved with stocks, then you’ve noticed the tanking of many sectors in the recent weeks. The risk is all but apparent in the drops the DOW has taken. You could lose everything if the wrong company files for bankruptcy, right? It pays to diversify. This may be the time to take a long hard look at your portfolio, so you can purge some of the bears and pull in some long term buys.

Can You Balance This Budget?
It may be an even better time to start the budget and stick to it. The economy can fluctuate as much as it wants if we have the security of a nest egg behind us. Imagine having enough money saved to pay for six months of expenses if anything should happen. It may save you a lot of time you would have spent worrying.

Overall our investments should be safe in banks and brokerage accounts. We may want to reassess our investments and move money to safe, long term buys at the moment. This market will turn around eventually. Just make sure your money doesn’t go with the change.

In a world where economic uncertainty puts financial strains on a household, many families have to save for both retirement and their children’s educational future. Many families save upwards of $100,000 per child simply for education. If there are 18 years from birth to high school graduation, then you need a mature way to attain a savings for your child’s college education.

According to CollegeBoard.com, ‘About 56 percent of students enrolled at four-year colleges or universities attend institutions that charge tuition and fees of less than $9,000 per year.’ The student would also have living expenses to consider, which would be approximately $10,000 extra each year. So a total expense would average around 20K per year, with the average student attending for 4 1/2 years. The total cost for tuition and living expenses could exceed $90,000. When you make your plan for each child, it’s probably good to consider inflation as well, so a healthy $100,000 per child doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Now that we have the goal, we need to find a way to attain that number. Since we don’t have kids at the same time (unless you have twins, or triplets, or quadruplets!) we should be able to use a 18/XX year variable. Let’s begin for one child.

Doing the Math

18 years to high school graduation and $100K goal.

$100K divided by 18 years equals $5,555 each year.

$5,555 divided by 12 months equals $463 a month.

So to save $100,000 in 18 years you would have to save $463 a month. This is, of course, without interest.

How Much Would it Take with Interest Factored in to the Equation?

We’ll use the online savings rate of 3.5% currently being offered by HSBC. to save $100K in 18 years, a person would have to contribute at least $333 a month into a 3.5% savings account.

The $333 payment would actually pay for one child, so doubling the figure would give you a good idea of the cost for two.

Savings Interest Rate Makes a Huge Difference

Finding where to put your savings may make the most difference in the long term. Having the money in a high interest bearing account would benefit your monthly budget — you could save less and be guaranteed the same amount. It’s best to put in more than our stark figures though, since cost of living will likely rise between now and your child’s foray into college.

Gas prices may have dropped from the all-time high, but we know you could still use some money for the tank. We decided to keep up with the $25 Gas Card Giveaway. You can join our previous three lucky winners by simply following the contest rules, which really aren’t that difficult.

Contest Rules:

The rules are simple. Each visitor has two ways of entering the contest.

1. 2 Entry Tickets: Link in a blog post on your site the words "save gas articles" with the following link: http://www.savemoney.com/transportation/gasoline.html. It should appear like this: save gas articles. 
2. 1 Entry Ticket: Subscribe to the Save Money Blog’s RSS feed via email. The signup box on the right column makes this process very simple. Only verified emails count - so be sure to respond to the initial email.

Each person can gain up to 3 entry tickets!

On October 1st we will tabulate the contest entries, assign a number to each one, and visit the random.org number generator to select the winner. The winner will be mailed a gas card for $25 or given an equal amount via Paypal. Anyone in the world can win, just follow our easy steps to enter today!

The August $25 Gas Card Giveaway has come to an end. There were two ways to enter, by subscribing to our RSS feed via email or by posting about the contest on your blog. The lucky winner this month was an email subscriber who signed up in July, so it pays to stick around!

There were a total of 182 entries. We gave each person one line in an excel document, in the order they came to us. To obtain the winner we went to Random.org and ran the random integer generator on a set between 1 and 182. The lucky winner?

14

The lucky winner has an email address like this:
_ ortmu _ _ a @ _ _hoo.com. Congrats on your $25 gas card!

To all of you who didn’t win, you can enter our September Gas Card Giveaway Contest! Every email subscriber automatically receives an entry, so don’t unsubscribe. We will explain the details for the new contest in a post very soon.

Again, thanks to all who entered and we hope you liked the opportunity to save money on gas!

This Labor Day retailers will be looking to get consumers out of their backyard barbeques and into their stores. US News ran an article describing some of the deals you and I can expect to see this Labor day. Assuming we have the money to spend, it would seem a great time to go buy a little something for the house, ourselves, or a family member. Let’s consider some good buys this time of year and see if you can find the store with the corresponding ad.

1. Visqueen and Insulation - As if we need another reminder summer is on its last leg, many home improvement stores will be running ads for this hot winter commodity. It makes sense to buy it cheap, so do your DD and find the best deal. Now might be the perfect time to insulate your garage from the cold winter drafts. It can save you money on your heating bill after all.
2. A Freezer - Stocking up on meat and other frozen goods can save you money over a period of time. I know in the winter months we tend to stock up more than in the summer, but without a freezer where would you put it? You might find a good deal on a freezer this labor day — and then you could buy more groceries when they’re on sale.
3. Outdoor Furniture - At the end of the summer season, many places will have sales on their outdoor furniture collection. If you’ve been wanting more furnishings to entertain guests outdoors, now would be the time to buy.
4. Computers - Many main electronic retailers will be touting good deals on electronics. They expect to upsell you on multi-year warranties and protection plans. While these can be good for the accident prone, many will never take advantage of the costly two to three year warranty. Don’t hedge against uncertainty.
5. Fashion - While I tend to spend less time in the clothing store, it’s not surprising many retailers have their eyes towards my spending. They want to unload the remaining season and entice everyone towards a new wardrobe.Try to stay away from in-store credit cards at these places. Only buy what you need.

Happy Labor Day everyone. If you find a great deal, be sure to stop back by here to let us know where it was at. We want to hear about your experiences.