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Author Archives: Kristina Tahnyak

Avatar photo About Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.

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Weekly Roundup: FinCon, Denver, and PF Bloggers

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Happy Friday Everyone.  Today we are featuring some great blog posts from personal finance bloggers that we met or discovered at FinCon in Denver, Colorado.  You may remember that my first FinCon experience was very exciting; however my trip to Denver, Colorado for FinCon was not so amazing.  However, it’s over and now I am back home safe and sound.

I loved my experience at FinCon because I met some great people, I made some new friends, and I learned a lot about the business of blogging.  Oh yes, and I also finally met some of my online friends in person. If you were unable to attend FinCon this year hopefully we will see you next year…the location has yet to be announced.

Here are some great posts by bloggers from this year’s FinCon Conference:

Sandy @ Yes I Am Cheap – “What is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?”

I met Sandy in the lobby of the Denver Grand Hyatt as we were checking out on Sunday.  We were in some of the same sessions throughout the weekend, but we just didn’t have a chance to connect until the last day.

Ginger @ Girls Just Wanna Have Funds – “8 Easy Ways to Put Some Extra Cash In Your Pocket”

Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet Ginger in person during the conference, but I did see her around the conference.  It actually turns out that we are both being featured in this month’s edition of The Quarter Roll Magazine. I reached out to Ginger on Twitter and she gave me a heads up about two other great blogging conferences called BloggyCon and the Savvy Blogging Summit.  I may just have to check them out.

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Achieving Financial Freedom One Income Slice At A Time”

After reading Financial Samurai for many years I finally got to meet the man behind the words and all I can say about Sam is that he is just a really cool guy.  He has a really deep voice that is both soothing and commanding at the same time. He is a great speaker and has a powerful presence. I really enjoyed meeting him.

Shannyn @ Frugal Beautiful – “A Girl’s Gotta Pay The Bills: Should I Go Corporate?”

Shannyn was a speaker at FinCon this year and after listening to her speak about building your blog’s readership through giveaways I was motivated to create a media kit and start promoting services or products that I use and love.  Shannyn is also the creative genius behind Beautiful Giveaways, check it out.

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Women and Money vs. Men and Money

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money matters, finances, couple finances

Good Morning Dinks.  This post is dedicated to all of our Lady-Dinks friends. I recently found an article on USA Today that discusses where women spend their money and how we manage our money.  The article also has some interesting statistics about married couples and single couples as well as who controls the money in the majority of households.

I think it’s interesting to note that there is a whole demographic missing from this article as well as many statistics in general.  Whenever we fill out a survey we have to identify ourselves as being married or single, but what about those of us who are in a long term relationship but who remain unmarried? I know that being single is the opposite of being married, but what about those of us who are in between?

There is one particular sentence in the USA Today article that caught my attention and I think it’s worth mentioning because I want to know how you (both men and women) feel about this statement:

“Women are gaining financial independence to an unprecedented degree; they now make up the majority of college graduates, (women) are nearly half of the labor force and (women) are becoming the primary earners in many households.”

I understand that these are facts based on a recent demographic survey, but are they also the author’s personal bias because the author chose to include the fact that women are gaining equality to men as far as finances go?

I am not sure if as a woman I should be offended by this article, but I am.  I thought that we live in the year 2012 and that the traditional roles of men making money for the family and women staying home to cook and clean all day were a thing of the past, but maybe I am wrong.

Maybe USA Today didn’t get the memo but its 2012 and women are financially equal to men, we are not just gaining financial independence at an unprecedented degree, as USA Today stated. Please let me know if I am totally overreacting or if you interpreted this article to be as offensive as I did.

Regardless of the personal bias in this article there are a lot of interesting facts and statistics presented in the article on the different between singles and married couples.

Here are some financial statistics about America:

Marital Status in American Households

– Only 49% of American households have married couples (is anyone surprised by this? I thought it would be higher)

– 19% of American households have single women

– 15% of American households have single men

Financial Control in American Households

– 31% of American households equally share their finances between both the man and the woman

– 26% of American households have their finances influenced by the man in the home

– 17% of American households have their money completely controlled by women

– 14% of American households have their money completely controlled by men

Making Money in American Households

– 42% of American households have a woman who works but who earns less money than the man in the household

– 36% of American households have a woman who does not work (this seems really high)

– 22% of American households have a woman who earns more money than the man in the household

I think it’s interesting to note that there is no statistic about the percentage of American households who have a woman working and a man not working.  Doesn’t that also exist?

 

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FinCon Follow Up: Part 2 – The Experience

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Good Morning Dinks. This is a follow up to our post on Monday about my time spent in Denver, Colorado for the Financial Blogger Conference.  As you know my time spent in Denver was not great, however my experience at FinCon was absolutely amazing. Despite all of the travel glitches I am happy that I went to FinCon this year. I learned about some great new products, I heard some amazing business people speak, and I met some great new friends.

The highlight of my FinCon weekend was meeting Adam Baker from Man vs. Debt.  For all of our Lady Dinks I can confirm that Adam Baker is just as cute in person as he is on the internet.  As an added bonus he is also very intelligent, well spoken, and a dedicated family man.

The extreme low point of my FinCon weekend was when a little girl referred to me as Mrs. Lady; I mean who am I my grandmother? It’s time to go on a diet and spend more time on my personal appearance so that I can look younger and so that no one refers to me as Mrs. Lady ever again.

Financial Products and Services

Ally Bank was the primary sponsor of this year’s Financial Blogger Conference.  They were an active attendee as they interacted with bloggers and gave away lots of goodies including reusable drinking cups, Oreo cookies, and USB flash drives. Ally Bank also hosted a Blogger Contest where they challenged bloggers to take photos with selected bloggers at the conference and share their pictures on Twitter.  The winner received $250.

Adaptu is an online money management and budgeting website that helps people learn about personal finances, track their spending, manage their bills, follow their rewards programs, and pay off their debts. Adaptu is a long time friend of Dinks Finance; you can see comments from Jenna at Adaptu on several of our posts.  Adaptu was also a finalist in this year’s financial Plutus Awards.

Chase Bank is a member of the J.P. Morgan Company.  Chase Bank introduced their Chase Liquid Debit Visa Card at FinCon in Denver. The Chase Liquid Visa Card is a reloadable card which allows you to load cash and checks onto the card with no hassle and no additional fees. You can also reload your Chase Liquid Debit Visa Card with direct deposit. You can use your Chase Liquid Visa Debit Card anywhere that Visa is accepted and at any Chase ATM for a flat fee of only $4.95 per month, that means you get unlimited transactions for only $4.95 per month.

Ever Bank prides them self on having the highest yield checking and savings accounts. The Ever Bank pledge accounts allow you to receive the highest yields on your checking account, your savings account, your money market accounts, as well as on your certificates of deposit. The current 6-month bonus rate on the Ever Bank Yield Pledge Money Market Account and the Ever Bank Yield Pledge Checking Account is 1.25%. The Ever Bank customer service team is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

My Favourite FinCon Speakers

Ryan Guina @ Cash Money Life

Luke Landes @ Consumerism Commentary

Ramit Sethi @ I Will Teach you To Be Rich

J.D. Roth @ Get Rich Slowly

Jim Yih @ Retire Happy Blog

Jim Wang @ Bargaineering

Will Chen @ Wise Bread

Shannyn @ Frugal Beautiful

Alex Matjanec @ My Bank Tracker

Photo by armyarch

FinCon Follow Up: Part 1 – The Cost

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Happy Monday Morning Dinks. I have officially been home from FinCon for one week and after a somewhat traumatizing experience in Denver, Colorado I am ready to share my experience. The elevation in Denver, Colorado was not pleasant. However after 6 migraine pills, a litre of water, and 13 hours of sleep I was ready for Day 2 of FinCon.  I attended a total of 10 sessions throughout the weekend which included Alternative Monetization Ideas for your Blog with Kylie Ofiu, Secrets of a 7-Figure Blogger with Ramit Sethi, and How to Land Big Corporate Campaigns with Will Chen from Wise Bread.

Here is breakdown of my FinCon costs:

FinCon Conference Ticket: $149

2 Night Stay at the Denver Grand Hyatt: $241 including a $16 dollar French toast breakfast in bed one morning.  The Denver Grand Hyatt is a great hotel and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Denver, although I would not recommend visiting Denver as a city if you don’t have to.

Round Trip Flight on United Airlines: $100 because I used frequent flyer miles and therefore I only had to pay the taxes and airline fuel charges.

Total Spending: $400 which includes meals, airport baggage costs, transportation costs to and from the airports, and personal shopping.  This total includes $180 in cash spending and $220 on my TD Bank Debit Visa card. No interest costs and no credit card spending.

Total Cost for FinCon: $890

That may seem like a lot of money for a financial professional and a personal finance blogger to spend in only 3 days.  You are probably asking yourself the exact same question that I asked myself when I got home from FinCon in Denver, Colorado…could I have spent less money?

Yes, of course I could have spent less money.  I could have saved $44 if I had taken the bus to and from the airports in both my city of Montreal and in the conference city of Denver.  However the convenience of taking a taxi cab or shuttle service was worth the cost of not getting lost or delayed on public transportation.

I could have saved at least $100 on food if I would have eaten at the conference events and packed snacks for the airport.  However, I am a vegetarian and my eating habits are naturally picky, so I prefer to take a break from the conference and eat foods that I love.  I am also the type of person who will do anything for an extra 15 minutes of sleep; I got an extra hour of sleep every morning by eating in my room instead of eating at the scheduled conference breakfasts. But that’s just me.

I could have definitely saved money on my personal spending but I like to take advantage of my time spent in the U.S. I love shopping in the U.S. because there are so many stores and products that are just not available in Canada. I bought my favourite Dream Angels Heavenly Perfume from Victoria’s Secret, I bought a bottle of Ciroc vodka for my boyfriend Nick, I spent $55 on candles and body wash at Bath & Body Works, and I also bought an NBA Denver Nuggets T-shirt for my boyfriend Nick. I spent most of my money shopping at Rite Aid and Walgreens because there are a lot of cosmetics and grocery items that are not available in Canada. I came home with 5 different boxes of cereal including two boxes of Coco Puffs and a box of Wheaties.

Photo by audrey belenko

Weekly Roundup: Denver, Bloggers and New Friends

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Happy Friday Everyone.  I hope that everyone who joined Dinks Finance in Denver last weekend at the Financial Blogger Conference had a great time.  I enjoyed meeting you all and I absolutely loved the learning experience.  As you know from reading Dinks Finance I have been working in personal finance for over a decade and I have been writing longer than that, but the whole blogging thing is relatively new to me (I started blogging only 3 years ago).  I will take away a lot from the Financial Blogger Conference about how to treat my blog as a business and I look forward to meeting up with everyone again next year.

Here are posts from bloggers that I met or learned about at FinCon12:

Save Up – Top 5 Reasons We Don’t Save Money

Go Banking Rates – Is the rate of inflation killing your investments?

Blonde on a Budget –  My Secret Smart Goals Revealed

Credit Sesame – Quick and Easy Ways to Get More Out of Your Employer, Right Now

Dividend Ninja – How Much Money Do You Need to Save for Retirement?

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What is your secret to success?

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success secrets, success tips, success advice

Have you ever wondered why you are successful in some aspects of your life and maybe not so successful in others? I know that I have personal strengths which allow me to excel in some areas of both by personal life as well as in my career.  I also know that I can’t be great at everything; therefore I (try to) accept my defeats graciously.

Inc.com recently published an article titled “True Secret to Success (It’s Not What You Think)”.  I discovered Inc.com through LinkedIn and I wanted to share their thoughts on the secret to success with you all.

According to Inc.com the secret to success is not a skill that you can learn in school, it’s actually a personal emotion.  According to Inc.com the secret to success is gratitude.  If you live life with a sense of gratitude you appreciate the things that you have and you accept your defeats with a grain of salt.  If you have gratitude then you are a happy person and happiness is a sign of success.

People who don’t share gratitude are never truly happy.  They don’t appreciate their personal success with happiness; if you can never enjoy your success then of course you will never be truly happy.  Nobody likes to accept defeat, but if you accept your personal or professional defeats with gratitude you can learn from your mistakes and graciously move on.

I personally feel that the secret to success is a combination of both our personal skills and our personality.  If you have the type of personality that allows you to work towards your dreams and the skills that allow you to achieve your dreams then you will be successful in life.  However if you have mastered the skills but you don’t have the “go-getter” personality you will never have the passion to work towards your dreams.  Have you ever met someone who had the skills to be successful, but who just had a very bad attitude? People who feel everything should be handed to them because they have the required skills to be successful definitely lack gratitude.

The one thing that people have to realize when they are applying for a job (or writing a book, *hint hint*) is that hundreds of other people with the exact same skills and qualifications are doing the exact same thing. What sets us apart from the masses is our personality and our work ethic.  Our personalities will sell our skills.

5 Secrets for Success

1. Be Humble.  Having gratitude and being thankful for our opportunities makes us successful.

2. Be Honest. In our personal lives and in our professional lives we have to be honest, otherwise we could find ourselves in a tough situation with no way to get out of it.

3. Work Hard.  A great first impression can get us the job, but our hard work will allow us to keep the job.

4. Accept Defeat but Try Again.  Learning from our mistakes is a part of life.  The mistake is not the important part; the learning part is the secret to success.

5. Smile and Get Through It. No one likes a negative person. Even if you are having a bad day just smile and get through it. Being negative won’t get you anywhere and it won’t help your day get better.

What is your secret to success?

 

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Saving Money in the Kitchen and at the Grocery Store

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kitchen saving tips, grocery saving tips, saving money tips

I spend a lot of money on snacks, eating out, and eating on the go. This is mostly because I am very busy, partly because I am too lazy to cook and a little bit because I can always buy food that tastes way better than anything I can cook at home in my kitchen.  I have tried to save money on food by invoking a no spending spree and also by trying to live within a food budget, but unfortunately saving money on food just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle, or at least I haven’t learned how to fit it into my lifestyle.

I can pay off debt, I can get an education to increase my income, and I can learn to save for my retirement; but for some reason I can’t save money on food.  I am sure that my lack of food savings is because deep down I probably don’t want to save money on my food expenses.  I can afford to buy snacks and eat out in restaurants so why shouldn’t I do it?

I know that if I really wanted to cut down my food spending I could because I have done it in the past, but it has always been a temporary situation.  Whenever I need a bit of extra cash the first expense that I always cut is the cost of my food.  In the big picture of my life I am just too busy and not creative enough in the kitchen to be the type of woman who packs her lunch every day and who has a three course meal on the dinner table every night at 6 p.m.

We can always save more  and we can always spend less, but what type of life are we living if we continuously cut out all of the things in life that we love? If I make enough money to travel when I want to, if I pay all of my bills every month and I have personal savings do I really need to spend less money and save more? After all what’s the point of building our net worth if we aren’t enjoying our lives.

What is your #1 money saving tip?

Buy in Bulk.  We can cut down our overall monthly expenses if we buy every day household items and non perishable food items in bulk. Buying in bulk may seem more expensive on each individual shopping trip, but the average cost throughout the month is a lot cheaper.

Stay Home.  Some of us are tempted to spend money whenever we are out with friends, so in an effort to avoid the temptation of spending you may have to avoid leaving the house. If your goal is to save money then you will have to do anything in your power to achieve your goal.

Plan a Realistic Budget.  Many people don’t stick to their budget because it is too restricting.  If you set a budget that still allows you do all of the things you love in life, just maybe a little less often, you will be more likely to stick to your budget. Using a budget software program such as Adaptu will let you track your monthly spending and see where you spend the bulk of your money each month.

If you are planning on renovating your kitchen, frist think of hiring a local expert like mesa az appliance repair

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My $21 Budget Update

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budgeting, living on a budget, budget lifestyle

Good Morning DINKS.  We recently published a post that featured budgeting tips from Fiona Lippey, she is a financial guru who is known for smart budgeting and great savings tips. Lippey is also an author who shares her savings tips with readers on how she lives on only $21 per week.

In an effort to determine how realistic a $21 per week budget can be and because I am a person who rarely turns down a challenge I decided to launch and accept the Dinks $21 Challenge. I wanted to see if I (and our readers) could live on a $21 per week budget just like Fiona Lippey.  I am not going to lie; I honestly didn’t think that anyone could happily live on only $21 per week. But to my surprise, I did.  There were definitely things that I lived without all week as I only spent $21 on myself, but I would definitely not say that I was unhappy.

The $21 Challenge

We launched the Dinks $21 Challenge and we asked if our readers would join us. We wanted to know if we (and you) could live on only $21 per week. If you took the Dinks $21 Challenge and blogged about it please send us a link so we can share it with our readers.  We want to know if you could live on only $21 per week, we want to know what you bought with your $21, and we want to know if your spouse was able to do the same.

$21 per week is not a lot of money, so trust me when I say that when you only have $21 to spend on yourself for an entire week you will definitely make it work.  You want to get the most out of your money and you will be surprised at where you can find some deals.  I constantly found myself looking for coupons and going out of my way to find deals on snacks, food, books and movie tickets.

Depending on how you interpreted the challenge, living on $21 per week could be an average of bulk spending throughout the month or it could a micro budget of actually only spending $21 per week on personal items.

How I lived on a $21 per week budget

Last week I spent my $21 on snacks, a movie rental, and two subway tickets.  I would have enjoyed my $21 a little bit more but I wasn’t feeling well so I had to take the subway to work two days last week.

I definitely gave up a lot of personal items last week such as a new blouse and a new shirt that I wanted.  However I didn’t let temptation get the best of me, even though both tops were both on sale I didn’t buy them. In an effort to stay within my $21 budget I brought my lunch to work every single day last week.  I spent my lunch hour outside with friends instead of shopping or waiting in line for my meal at the food court.

I learned that living on a limited $21 per week budget was not as restricting as I thought it would be.  I lived without some items that I wanted, but those items are just excessive and unnecessary.

I am not sure if I will stick to the $21 per week budget because sometimes I spend triple that amount on myself in a week. Besides, what would I do with all of the extra money that I could save? As our friend James mentioned in a previous post I am not working towards achieving a target net worth.  As long as I save for my future and achieve all of my personal and financial goals I am happy.

Could you live on only $21 per week as a couple?

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Friday Roundup: Fincon, Denver, and Our Friends

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Happy Friday Everyone and Welcome to FinCon Weekend.  I would like to say congratulations to DC from Young Adult Money and to Pearl who are two lucky winners in our Coupon Cabin Giveaway.  Pearl please contact us by email so we can mail out your prize. DC, we have your info from a previous contest. Congratulations again to both of you.

This weekend financial bloggers from all over Canada and the U.S. are travelling to Denver Colorado for three days of workshops, networking, and keynotes at The Second Annual Financial Blogger Conference.

I am arriving in Denver this morning so if you are reading this and you are in Denver please be sure to find me and say “hello”. I am excited to attend FinCon because I can’t wait to meet up with my online friends in person. I am also looking forward to learning about blogging as a business from other personal finance bloggers and I am really excited to finally be able to meet with some of my employers face to face.

Enjoy these great posts from some of our favourite personal finance bloggers. Have a great weekend.

– 50 Plus Finance – Top 4 Reasons To Use Business Credit Cards

– Young Adult Money – Six-Month Goal: I joined the Yakezie Challenge

(DINKS let’s help DC @Young Adult Money increase his Alexa ranking, all comments and tips are welcome)

– Budgets Are Sexy – Side Hustle Series: I’m a running coach

– Clever Dude – Manscaping: Do we really wanna talk about this?

– Financial Samurai – The Pros and Cons of Online Dating: What If She’s A Man, Baby?

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Become Debt Free, Right Now!

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debt free, debt freedom, get out of debt

One financial goal that we may all be working towards is to become debt free.  Whether you have $100,000 in student loan debt or you have $10,000 in credit card debt you probably want to pay off your debts as soon as possible.

There are several advantages to having debt such as building a good credit score and learning to become financially responsible.  Getting something that you want and paying for it later (i.e. a four year university education) is another great advantage of having debt.  However there are also several disadvantages to having debt such as paying costly interest charges, and the possibility of not being able to afford the repayments every month.

I recently received an email from our good friends at Adaptu which was full of great savings tips.  If you do not yet manage your money, your budget, your investments, your debt, and your rewards programs with Adaptu then I suggest that you sign up ASAP.  You will be added to their mailing list so that you can also receive regular emails with helpful money savings tips.  After all, the more money we save on our monthly expenses the more money we can allocate towards paying off our debts.

Here are 4 tips to help you save money and pay off your debts:

1. Avoid All Fees.  Whether it’s a late fee for returning a movie rental after the cut-off time or it’s paying a bank fee for extra services you should try to avoid paying all extra fees at all costs.  I have said it before and I will say it again, I will walk 10 blocks in the rain before I pay a fee to withdraw money from another bank’s ATM.

2. Set a Budget.  You will never save money if you constantly spend all of your money.  This is why having a budget is so important when we are trying to save money and pay off our debts.  Along with your monthly living costs, a portion of your personal income should be allocated towards paying off your debt and saving money. However you have to set priorities.  If your current priority is paying off debt then you should allocate the most amount of your money towards your debt repayments.

3. Have a Debt Repayment Plan.  It’s not enough to have becoming debt free as a financial goal; you have to set a plan in motion so that you can start working towards achieving your debt free goal. Allocating debt repayments into your budget will help you set a target date towards becoming debt free.  You should focus on paying off your most expensive debt first (i.e. the debt with the highest interest rate) then you should focus on the debt with the highest outstanding balance.

4. Simplify Everything. One of the biggest mistakes that people make in life is that we always complicate things when they can actually be very simple.  If you are focusing on becoming debt free then make some sacrifices in your personal spending and allocate as much money as you can towards your debt repayment.  Tracking your progress can be very simple if you use one money management website.  Don’t make your debt repayment plan harder than it has to be, just set up pre authorized transfers from your checking account to your debts, spend less money, and track your progress.  You will be debt free in no time.

Photo by ImagesofMoney

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