Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattyk72
Where can I open an IRA? Is there anywhere online to do it? I've been putting it off long enough.
I've got my 401k, I've got stocks, now it's time for the IRA.
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Most banking institutions offer many types of IRA's. I have a roth IRA setup through Bank of America
http://http://www.bankofamerica.com/...plate=ira_roth which seems fairly reasonable.
Schneed and ThatGuy are definitely on the money with everything they've said. One huge suggestion I have is to build a spread sheet that lists all of your mandatory expenditures (rent, insurance, bills, etc) and also your voluntary expenditures. Like Schneed said, get a tally of your bank receipts for a particular month to draw information from. Here's a good spreadsheet if you want to get some ideas:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/te...062791033.aspx
Two quick ways to experience a little bit of savings are:
1) setting a specific number of times that you eat out (if any). My wife and I used to eat out anytime we didn't feel like cooking which came to be at least 2-3 times a week. Once we said "OK, we will eat out just once every two weeks" obviously we noticed a significant amount of savings.
2) Set aside a specific amount of gas and grocery money per week. We set aside $35 a week on gas for two cars (Civic & Malibu) and $50 a week on groceries which includes anything we buy at Wal-Mart. Once you can operate within those limits you'll notice that you don't nearly as many trips (gas) to the store or elsewhere.
We cut our expenditures down by about $700/month using a couple of these techniques.