PocketCoinage

Remember, you can contribute to your Roth IRA for 2009 until April 15th!

I have yet to contribute anything for 2009.  Quite frankly, I’m upset that I did not put anything in at this point.  However, it’s been a big year for me: buying a house and paying off the car.

Over the past 2 years, I have contributed the maximum amount to the Roth IRA.  With the most recent economic crisis, that $10,000 turned into less than $5,000.  Within a few months time, I lost one year’s contribution.  I guess it could have been worse; I could have lost it all.  Since then, I traded in the Global Real Estate for Global Bonds and opened a Roth IRA Savings account with ING Direct.  Probably not the best choice to regain my money back.  The Global Bonds (IGBOX) are only up about 7% compared to 29% with Global Real Estate (IDGTX).

I think the recent events with the market and buying a house made me realize my true risk tolerance.  I do not like losing money – especially when I see what I put in and lost.  For some reason, I feel differently about my 403b.  I think it’s because it’s deducted bi-weekly and I don’t “see it” except on the quarterly statement.  I still have yet to compare all the statements to see what I have really lost.

However, it’s good to have a balance of funds.  I think I will keep my 403b on the aggressive side and make my Roth IRA fixed with savings, CDs, and bonds.  The market took a large hit in the past week and I do not think we are out of the water yet.  Remember, bonds are more attractive when the markets go south and are less attractive when the markets rise.

I should have a plan for my 2009 Roth IRA by the end of the month.

It’s early February and spring is right around the corner; even though Milltown Mel predicted six more weeks of winter!  I already placed a seed order with Park Seed and I will need sow some of them indoors by the end of the month.  The last day of frost for Central New Jersey is approximately May 15th.  Starting certain seeds indoors, such as tomatoes, will yield crops earlier.  I plan on using my sun porch with a seedling heat mat to start things off.  Last year I did it without the heat mat and had great success.  However, it was nothing like a hot house!

Last year I build a raised bed with my dad to plant tomatoes, peas, spinach, and radishes.  It is a 16′ x 4′ full sun garden, surrounded by deer netting, that produced a lot of vegetables!  This year, I want to try Square Foot Gardening to make better use of this space.  Square Foot Gardening involves creating 1′ x 1′ squares within your raised bed.  The concept here is you can make more efficient use of the space when you break it down into smaller plots versus having a large one.  For example, you can fit one tomato plant per square foot and about twelve onions (depending on type) per square foot.  The raised bed we built last year is approximately 64 square foot.  In theory, I should be able to make 64 separate gardens and rotate them accordingly.  So if I wanted to, I can plant 64 tomatoes or 768 onions!

This year I want to build a few more raised garden beds.  Instead of making one long one, I would like to make multiple small ones.  This way, it will be easier to tend from all sides.  It was a big pain in the neck to walk through the tomatoes last year.  I’m thinking about making them 4′ x 4′ or 16′ x 2′.

I will have more updates once I start the seedlings and build the raised beds!

Alice is a website that allows you to save time, money, and emergency trips out for toilet paper.  They were founded on the idea that you’d rather do other things besides waste time at the store.  They say that the average Alice customer saves 30 minutes per week. I can think of many things I can do with that extra 30 minutes, like become more self-sufficient.  Alice holds your shopping list online, has competitive pricing, price comparison, automatic coupons, reorder alerts, and free shipping!

I found out about Alice through an advertisement on another blog.  I checked it out and decided to give it a shot – I had nothing to lose.  I discovered that I not only saved time, but money as well.  What sets Alice apart from other sites is the price comparison, reorder alerts, and free shipping; with free shipping being the biggest benefit in my opinion.  You do not need to buy in bulk to save, but you do need to order at least 6 items.

The website layout is like a store shelf.  You can search for a particular product or just browse aisles.  Once you found your product,  you can perform a price comparison, see if there are any automatic coupons, browse reviews, check out ingredients, read the item’s description, add it to your order, or save it to “My Products” to purchase later.

I placed my first order with them a few weeks ago and it arrived in three days.  I ordered a variety of items including: super washing soda, borax, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and a few bars of soap.  The items came nicely packed and everything intact.  The powder cleaners (this even happens when I go shopping myself) seemed to have leaked all over the other items; It was nothing a dust rag couldn’t handle.  I sent them an email with the problem and a possible suggestion to resolve it.  They customer service representative emailed back and passed the suggestion over to the shipping department.

Just adding the additional time to my schedule will be invaluable.  I am hoping to use this time to be more self-sufficient, write more content for my blog, or be more involved in the community.

If you are interested in Alice, please click on the banner below and sign up for their service.  You will get a $10 credit once you spend $50 and I will get 3% of all the sales for an entire year.  Once you sign up, you can also refer friends and family!

Have you tried Alice?  Are there any other sites out there that are similar?