New Job=New Life=New Budget

My decision to leave finance for journalism has made me reevaluate my life priorities and goals. But now that I am off "the track" (prep school, Ivy League college, investment banking job), I have also been forced to review my spending habits. While recognizing that I needed to keep better track of my finances, I cringed at the thought of saving receipts and creating ugly, cumbersome Excel spreadsheets. But at the suggestion of one of my co-workers I decided to try Mint.com, free online software that tracks your money for you. Mint couldn't be easier-- you simply log into your bank accounts and credit cards through the site, and the application downloads and categorizes your latest transactions. Before Mint, I knew that I was using roughly half of my salary per month post-rent, but didn't know what I was spending it on. Now thanks to Mint, I have a detailed pie-chart breakdown of my monthly finances and can track which areas I should cut back on. I've come up with a list of ideas to decrease my spending by $400-$500 per month:

1) Eat cheap/BYOB: I only dine out about once a week--so how am I spending 20% of my income on "restaurants?" Easy. Big group dinners=lots of wine=hefty bills. I've decided to scrap $60 plates at the Spotted Pig and Union Square Cafe for inexpensive eateries (think tapas and dimsum). New York magazine has posted this helpful list of affordable BYOB restaurants (complete with a list of nearby liquor stores) that I intend on taking advantage of.

2) Lunch with Leftovers: Spending $10/day on lunches really adds up--but the last time I tried to pack turkey and cheese three days a week to work I ended up bored and uninspired. I've decided to give the brown paper bag lunch another go, but focus on bringing dinner leftovers instead, and mixing up my sandwich selection with pasta salads, wraps and quesadillas. I got several creative ideas here.

3) Learn to Say No!: My friends know that I am always up for anything, anytime, from movies, to concerts, to charity events. But while I've certainly had a lot of fun, this care-free attitude has drained my savings. I've decided to reduce my "entertainment" budget by cutting back on $12 trips to Kips Bay Theatre and shows at the Fillmore for less expensive options--$5 comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade, museum exhibits and--when it's nice outside--walking tours through unexplored New York neighborhoods.

I'll post updates on my (in)ability to stick to my budget!

Eight Recession-Friendly iPhone Apps

Here is the first post I wrote for FiLife:

Many computer programmers are quitting their day jobs with hopes of striking it rich developing iPhone applications. Not tech-savvy but want to cash in on the iPhone jackpot? Leave the programming to the geeks and invest in these eight apps to save yourself a bundle:

Budgeting

1) iXpenseIt: View your monthly budget against daily expenses from groceries to gas to utilities, store phone receipts, and view graphical reports of your spending.
Cost: $4.99

2) BillMinder: Helps to eliminate late charges by alerting you when bills are due. Also manages bill information, including paid/unpaid, amount, date, account number and confirmation number.
Cost: $1.99

3) PocketMoney: Track your cash across multiple accounts, including credit cards, savings and checking accounts. Download the data into Excel and charts to visualize categories of over spending.
Cost: $9.99

Shopping

4) SnapTell: Take a picture of any book, video game or DVD with your iPhone camera-- the app will produce a list of vendors that sell the product so you can compare prices. Also includes links to reviews from Google, Wikipedia and YouTube.
Cost: Free

5) Grocery IQ: Spare yourself the headache of forgotten groceries by organizing your food shopping with an electronic list. The application was recently purchased by Coupons.com, so expect electronic coupons integrated within the platform soon.
Cost: $0.99

Lifestyle

6) Cheap Gas: Find cheap gasoline while on the road, as well as GPS-routing to the station's location. Works in both the U.S. and Canada.
Cost: Free

7) Wi-Fi Finder: Locates the closest free or paid Wi-Fi hotspot to where you are, and provides directions on how to get there. Includes over 200,000 locations in 135 countries.
Cost: Free

8) Stanza: Forget expensive hardcovers and purchase cheap electronic books with this e-Reader. Offers New York Times bestsellers, contemporary titles, and free classics.
Cost: Free

Me, A Personal Finance Blogger? Ha!

I've recently become a contributor on FiLife, a personal finance website and community. While I am in no position to be doling out real financial advice based on my own spending habits (think "confessions of a shopaholic"), I'll be researching some of the newest tech products to help you save, as well as other topics of interest to me (education, travel, dining and entertainment). Check out my articles here. In the future I'll be posting some of them to this blog.

Banker Chick No Longer...

As of last week, I am no longer a poor banker chick! After several rounds of interviews, I've been offered a position as a financial journalist covering M&A. I gave my two weeks notice last Friday and will be starting my new job at the end of April. Yet despite my career shift, I don't regret my decision to work as an analyst this past year, as everything I've learned about finance will undoubtedly help me to become a better business reporter. I'm also looking forward to more normal hours, the ability to actually make (and keep) social obligations and a casual work environment (hello American Apparel jeans, goodbye Express Editors pants!). The only foreseeable downside? A major pay cut. While I may no longer be a poor banker, I'm now just...poor.

Wanna Ditch Time Warner? Not So Fast...

The television industry is growing increasingly worried that budget-conscious viewers may shift from expensive cable subscriptions to the web, The New York Times reported today. Thanks to the growth of free video websites such as Hulu and downloadable shows on iTunes, fans of "Lost" and "The Office" no longer need to subscribe to traditional cable and satellite services. In response, companies such as AT&T, Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Verizon have approached cable networks like Viacom (MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central) and Scripps (HGTV and the Food Network) to explore new business models which would allow viewers to watch shows online but only through a paid log-in.

Although my Time Warner bill is relatively high (around $150.00/month for cable, high speed Internet, DVR and HBO), the thought of unplugging my cable and being forced to watch "Gossip Girl" on my tiny VAIO just doesn't cut it. Other consumers feel the same way--earlier this month, CNET posted a useful list of inexpensive ways to stream online video and TV content from the Internet onto your flat screen. But while viewers can save mucho dinero in the long-run by ditching cable for Roku or AppleTV they must be prepared for a tradeoff--limited content, poor video quality and sketchy sound. According to CNET, Roku, which gives users access to Netflix's on-demand video service, lacks popular releases and video for non-HD titles is not DVD quality. Other options, including AppleTV, Vudu and 2Wire MediaPoint media player, also have a limited selection of videos and TV titles.

While some believe that cable operators face a similar dilemma to that of the newspaper industry--creating a workable Internet business model in an environment where advertisers are wary over paying top dollar for online content--I am skeptical that the fate of Time Warner and other companies (despite the recent bankruptcy of Charter Communications) is as dire. It will likely take a year at least for digital video players to improve so substantially that consumers dump traditional cable services, buying cable operators time to adjust their business model to better compete.

My advice? Unless you're eating Ramen to compensate for your soaring cable bill, hold off a little on purchasing a web TV box until content expands and quality improves.

Take NYC Transit, Get Back $

Yesterday morning I took the 1 train all the way up to 218th Street to watch the Cornell men's tennis team play Columbia in the Ivy League opener. While I usually don't notice the subway advertisements (with the exception of those featuring Dr. Zizmor's dermatological services, because they're impossible to ignore in an amazing kind of way), one ad in particular caught my attention. As my family and friends know, I'll do just about anything to save money so I don't know how I missed this, but from January 1 until March 31, Chase is offering a Commuter Cash rewards program. If you enroll your Chase or WaMu Debit/Credit card here, you are eligible to receive $10 cash back for every $150 (for a total of $50) you spend on MetroCard vending machine purchases, Long Island/Metro-North Railroad/PATH train tickets, and New York City yellow cab fares.

I remember a similar program offered by Bank of America back in November, in which consumers who enrolled their BoA Visa debit or credit cards would get $10 back for every $100 they spent on public transit--including bridges and tolls--for a total of $100 cash back per card.
While the Chase rewards program is not as generous as Bank of America's plan, I am encouraged that both banks are reaching out to Manhattanites during this difficult economic time.

AmEx Flexible Payment Option: Worth Signing up For?

Several months ago, I received a call from an American Express representative offering me the Flexible Payments Option. The option sounded like a great idea at the time: a complimentary service that lets you defer payment for purchases over $200 on your charge card. According to the AmEx website, here's how it works. Your payments are divided into two categories: for small payments, your card acts as a charge card and items must be repaid in full. For larger purchases (over $200), your charge card can act as a credit card by allowing you to spread payments over time, instead of having to pay them off in full each month. Because enrollment is free, I signed up for the service and didn't think too much about it.

Last weekend, I left my AmEx at the Terminal 5 bar during a Cut Copy concert, and had to call customer service to order a new card. The customer service rep asked me if I wanted to keep my flexible payment options in tact. I said yes, but decided to do a little digging to discover if this plan seemed to to good to be true, and how American Express stood to benefit. Here's what I found out:

While American Express lets you temporarily suspend payment of purchases over $200, it wants you to pay off these items sooner rather than later. Because charge cards are supposed to be paid in full, AmEx charges a relatively high credit card interest rate (or APR) if you choose to utilize the flexible plan option. According to SmartMoney:

Each month, you must then pay your regular charges in full, plus the minimum payment (the greater of $20 or 1/50th of the balance) for the revolving charges. The remaining flexible balance accrues interest charges at a variable rate, typically the prime interest rate plus 9.9%, or 15.4% based on today's current prime rate of 5.5%. That's more than the average for variable-rate credit cards, which these days carry an average APR of 13.5%, according to Bankrate.com.

The verdict? Consumers who select charge cards do so because they want more control over their expenses. Those who want to spread out their payments over time would do better ditching their charge cards/flexible plan option and signing up for a standard credit card.