... And So Copying Isn't Worth It!

Well I don't usually post funny/non-PF stuff but it's second today itself .... and actually I don't need to write a word, just to let you know that I'm a big Alizee fan and Tabata Jalil is considered Mexican Alizee ;)

Alizee's Performance



Tabata's Performance, same song

(Tabata Jalil is a known name in South America and has a good earned position in media through various TV shows)

I'm Sorry Blogger - But What To Do

I have been dealing with Blogger's painful editing and formatting support for more than three months now, it's only my love for my existing 40+ posts at blogger keeps me from migrating to Wordpress :(

While Google remains in the front row for developing cool and innovative products all the time ... we all are error prone ... aren't we?

I included a video for the first time in my post on Independence Day. While I needed to accept the terms and conditions for uploading a video, Blogger wouldn't show me the conditions :) See the screenshots below:

How Banks Calculate Average Daily Available Balance

With interest rates going a sharp downward path, High Yielding Online Savings Accounts and Rewards Checking Accounts are getting very much attention these days. Both these accounts (and several other bank products) pay us interest based on the Average Daily Available Balance (ADAB) on our accounts.

I had been playing with my online savings statements to find out how financial institutions calculate this number and finally I could figure it out yesterday.

Every bank pays you interest at the end of a term. For normal savings accounts this term is typically 1 month, making them to pay interest at the end of every 30 or 31 days period. It is common sense that the more money we have in our accounts the more interest we will get but this is not it.

Banks don't consider our account balance on the last working day of a month for calculating interest, rather what matters to them is how much money was available to them throughout a month. Banks use the term Average Daily Available Balance (ADAB) to mean this, as is clear from the term itself, this number reflects how much money we made available to the bank to be used for their business purposes.

• Formula To Calculate Interest
  

Amount = Principal (1+r)ⁿ

where, Amount is the sum (with interest) you get after n years at r% per year. For eg. if you had $100 in your account for 1 year at 3% per year then

P = $100, r = 3/100 = 0.03, n = 1

This formula will give you Amount you will have after completion of 1 year. When banks calculate interest they replace Principal (P) with the Average Daily Available Balance (ADAB) so the formula becomes:

Amount = ADAB (1+r)ⁿ

• Calculating Average Daily Available Balance
  

I will work with a simple example here. Consider a bank statement below:

Date	Withdrawl	Deposit	Balance
07/01/09		$100	$100
07/08/09	$50		$50
07/15/09		$50	$100
07/22/09		$100	$200
07/29/09		$100	$300

Assuming there was no transaction after 29^th, it would be unfair to the bank if they had to consider $300 as the Principal for calculating interest. And that is true as $300 were not always present in the account. Let's now calculate Average Daily Available Balance for the above account.

The technique is to calculate contribution of an individual account balance towards the months average balance, sum all such contributed balances and divide the sum by number of days in that month. To do so create a table as below:

Account Balance	Days before next transaction	Contributed Balance
$100	(07/01 to 07/07 =) 7	$700
$50	(07/08 to 07/14 = ) 7	$350
$100	(07/15 to 07/21 = ) 7	$700
$200	(07/22 to 07/28 = ) 7	$1400
$300	(07/29 to 07/31 = ) 3	$900
Total		$4050

July '09, the month under consideration has 31 days. This gives the Average Daily Available Balance (ADAB) equal to:

Average Daily Available Balance = $4050/31 = $130.65

You might be wondering whether this is correct given the account balance at the end was $300. Well it turns out that owing to the transactions made as shown above, the account balance never exceeded $100 for 21 days (07/01/09 through 07/21/09) resulting in a lower average balance.

• Factors Affecting Your Interest
  

As we saw above there are three main factors affecting the interest we may get on our account balances:

1. Average Daily Available Balance
2. Rate of interest per year (out of our control)
3. Time in years
   

Factor #2 and #3 are usually out of our control as we can't actually decide the rate and considering per month calculations the time is going to be 1/12 ~ 0.08 years.

Average balance, however, can be controlled and the only way to do that is to leave maximum you can in your account and leave it there for the longest possible.

• Some Ways To Maximize Your Average Daily Balance

1. Get your paycheck direct-deposited into your savings account, why carry check when it gains you nothing
2. Don't withdraw money until it is really needed
3. Use automatic money transfers between accounts. My car loan's monthly due date is 2^nd of every month. The amount is automatically transferred on the 1^st and till then it keeps gaining interest for me.
4. Set aside some extra money if you think you are a addict of intermittent withdrawls.

What ways you implement to maximize your interest earnings? Leave a comment and share your views with other readers.

I'm in a Blog Carnival: This post was among the ones exhibited in Carnival of Money Hacks at Money Beagles. I am excited about your presence on my blog today and would be glad to know about your thoughts on this post and my blog, hope to see you around :) Consider subscribing to my feed or updates by e-mail.

Happy 233rd Independence Day America !!!

A Very Happy Independence Day to all :)

As it has always been about curiosity ;), I'd like to share something I just found out. It was on July 4, 1776 when the Congress adopted United States' Declaration of Independence. Actually the legal separation of American colonies from Britain happened on July 2, 1776 but it took two days for the Congress to sign and adopt the Declaration of Independence.

July 2 was supposed to be commemorated as the Independence Day but July 4 became more widely known when people came to know about signing and adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Inserting a video for the first time. I visited New York City in December 2006 and shot the video below on Ellis Island while returning from Liberty. I don't know why but I always feel nice and proud when I see this US Flag waving on the beats of cool sea side breeze, Navy Coast Guard chopper in the background and you can literally hear the wind. BTW none of those human noises in the background are mine ... so just ignore them ;)

Don't forget watching the fireworks tonight. While many people enjoy spending their Independence Day driving miles and partying with friends and relatives, I found pretty diverse plans from the readers of Bargaineering.com on Jim's post titled "What Are Your July 4th Plans?". Read the comments here, some are really interesting!

After four tiresome road-trips in June I am taking off of the weekend spree this time, finding for myself how it feels to stay back and enjoy the lull, clean-up my apartment and car, finish reading few finance books. Today was no-work day, I browsed many shopping zones around which I haven't been to since I came here. It was fun, hope to have some good time tomorrow too ... thinking about my plans, ummmmm ... a movie in mall, a cold coffee, While Molten Chocolate Cake @ Chili's and obviously the fireworks ... Happy Independece Day Readers :)

I would love to hear how are you spending/spent your Independence weekend, drop me a few lines!

How I Trimmed My Dining Bills by 59% - "No Eat-Out Experiment" Result

With the inception of June '09 I halted my eat-out habits for a month. Today that 1 month period is over and I would like to share with you the savings I witnessed over the past one month.

• What was the experiment

I coined it a "No Eat-Out Month" Experiment when I pledged to not spend at all eating out. Food is my weakness and so I couldn't stop myself from wandering away from the seemingly pledge but I did try my best and here is the result. It reminds me of setting the bar higher, in this case I lowered the bar a little, though, but still it looks like a success :)

• Result

I saved 59.6% in my dining bills last month. Below is a snapshot from my Quicken Online account with dining trends for June '09:

As seen above I spent $50 on dining bills. Below is the snapshot for my eat-out spending for May '09 when I spent $124 on dining:


That's a $74 savings straight-away! While many people consider 74 bucks as just a mere amount, I see it as my 8-months Netflix bill :)

• How I did it

I cook (almost) every night and take lunch box to work, this habit saves me enough already. In May '09 I joined several friends to get on to roads for some beautiful and eventful trips, and my wallet was slain there. In June '09 I went on 3 road trips but still the results are in my favor.

Here are few things I made sure to put to action:

1. cook at home regularly


2. eat properly before leaving home (for work, shopping, etc.)


3. while on a road trip, prefer coffee with sugar at a service station. Sugar energizes (and satiates) you while coffee lets you keep going


4. meet with friends at home and plan to cook and eat together inside, it's pure frugal fun
   
5. (@trenttsd suggests) stop at a grocery shop while on a trip than at a diner


6. next time you shop groceries buy something that you really savor when you crave. Use it to control your eat-out yearnings


7. if you should go out, then order something you were longing to eat. Satisfaction is a m ust when it comes to taste fellas ;)

• So where did I spend

So where did I spend those $50 and when did I spend them. I am not sure how clear will the following image be once it's published:

This is the list of my dining bills for June '09. As you can see I mostly had coffee and that was when I was driving ;) Secondly Cold Stone which I miss these days was another venue. Panera Bread and Formosa Chinese were where I went to had some real meal with friends.

Julia @BargainBabe.com, with her numerous readers, is observing a spending moratorium month in July '09 that started yesterday. If you feel motivated enough, give it a try and join BargainBabe this month.

Have you ever considered such experiment? How did it go? What do you think of such activities? Please leave a comment.

My Monetary Snapshot - June '09

Let's Be Curious is more than two months old today :)

Here's what it looks like at the end of this month:

Emergency Funds (High Interest Savings): $5578
Checking Accounts (Non-Interest Earning): $917
401K: $608
CD: $2000
Interest + Other Earnings: $97.66
(amazed how come it's $97 ;) all added up by paid surveys and free money)

Car Loan Balance: $13,512
Credit Card Balance: $71

June 2009: Total Assets: $9103 Total Debt: $13,583
May 2009: Total Assets: $8321 Total Debt: $14,522
April 2009: Total Assets: $6065 Total Debt: $15,163

Extra Paycheck Month - July '09

There are 52 weeks in a regular year and 4 weeks in a month. Ohhhh did I miss something, because 4 weeks a month makes it 48 weeks a year? No people, I am correct here! So where are the (52-48=) 4 weeks?

When we talk of "4 weeks a month", we are actually talking about the "complete weeks". In the months having 30 or 31 days, the number of weeks are a little more above 4. The extra days constituting these extra little weeks make up the 4 missing weeks through an year I mentioned above.

If you are lucky enough and are paid weekly, one of the extra day in the month may be your paycheck day. For me it's Wednesday and thus July '09 brings in 5 paychecks for me instead of 4 :)

Whether you budget or not, almost all of us are used to manage our monthly expenses with 4 paychecks a month and thus this extra paycheck you get in July '09 can be used to fulfill one of your long awaited goals.

What can you do with your extra paycheck:

• deposit it towards your loan or mortgage
• start/strengthen your emergency funds
• stash your high yielding savings or checking account
• create a CD account
  
• invest it in
• go for your favorite authentic cuisine restaurant
  
• plan a short weekend outing
  
• get yourself something that you were long waiting to buy
  
• secure your annual subscriptions (my annual Netflix subscription is $120, my annual HSBC CreditKeeper bill is $84)

I am planning to put my one whole paycheck towards my car loan this month.

What are your plans? Where else do you think can one spend an extra paycheck wisely? Please leave comment.

Tips For Saving On Traffic Fines: Handling Traffic Stops

With the Independence Long Weekend around the corner, I thought of writing something about road-trips. I just love them!

Recently I went to Wilmington, DE on my first longest road-trip since I bought my car. Though it was (only?) 5 hours drive but driving alone all-the-way down and coming back isn't that exciting! (driving pleasures apart) It was a Saturday morning when I started, drove through New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware; while the surroundings change there were few common things throughout: us behind the wheels trying to stick to our plans and those watching us doing so safely. Yeah, those here refer to the state patrol troops, rangers and police officers. While they do their duty penalizing if we disobey, we still have chances to save on those fines.


On my way to Delaware I saw some cars pulled over and may be most of them got fined for violating traffic laws, that left me pondering over the topic and inspired me to share this on Let's Be Curious. This is what the article is about: tips on how to tackle a traffic stop and avoid getting a fine.

• Yearly Speeding Tickets by State

Governor's Highway Safety Association (GHSA) is a non-profit organization which administers several programs to enforce safe driving habits on interstates. GHSA conducts and publishes relevant surveys from time to time under title 'Survey Of The States'. Most recent and relevant one I found was published in 2005 based on three years data on 'speeding' habits.

I was amazed by the numbers when I grazed over the report. Let me tabulate some of the eye-catchers:

State	Average Speeding Citations Over Past Few years
California	957,758
Texas	553,912
Illinois	441,303
Dist. Of Columbia	385,618
Massachusetts	363,688
North Carolina	360,000
Maryland	358,729
South Carolina	280,142
Pennsylvania	224,258

Note: Although GHSA operates in all states but data for some of them was not available, including New York!

This table itself is enough to give an idea about how much revenue these citations might be generating for the states, worth driving and behaving careful while at the wheels fellas, read on ...

• The Golden Rule - Keep Watching For Signs On Road
  

No sign will ever say "there's a cop ahead", but they do tell us what cops don't want us to do. It's really simple and I shouldn't be telling you if you have a valid driving license: keep scanning the road signs while you are driving and follow them, because,

- it is safe
- it is recommended
- it gives you sufficient time to adjust to changing traffic conditions

• Dealing With A Traffic Ticket
  

Let's get down to business. So you see flashing lights in your rear mirror and (to make it worse) hear sirens calling you from continuing your journey, what to do next? How to talk to the officer? What to say? (More importantly) What NOT to say?

1. Stop Immediately, Safely and Properly

The officer behind you is there because you (potentially) had violated a law, start acting responsibly asap. Keep the following things in mind while pulling over:

a) Pull-off to a safe position on right, if there is shoulder then stop on the
shoulder
b) Turn-off engine
c) Keep your driver license and vehicle registration ready
d) Roll down driver side window, if not already
e) Keep both your hands on steering
f) Think what is the speed limit of this zone. If you don't remember use your
experience and judgement to come-up with something logical and safe.

Traffic stops are supposed to be very dangerous tasks in a Police Officer's day-to-day activities and thus they are extra cautious when approaching the stopped vehicle. Any kind of movement in the vehicle by driver OR any of passengers is seen as highly suspicious, don't just do it. If you are in between any of the above steps when officer approaches, just stop whatever you are doing. Stay calm and wait for the officer's arrival at your window.

2. Be Quiet, Let Officer Say The First Words - The 2 Important Questions
   

Remember, any thing you say can be used against you in court so don't talk in the hurly-burly, be calm and let the officer begin the conversation. Almost all the traffic stops follow two questions to the driver:

a) Do you know why you are stopped?
b) Do you know at what speed you were going?

Every traffic ticket can be challenged in court and this is officer's attempt to make you admit something which will wipe out all your chances to do so. Take your time to collect yourself and answer when you are ready. Below are the best of the responses to above questions:

a) Do you know why you are stopped? Answer: No officer.
b) Do you know at what speed you were going? Answer: Use the limit you
recollected/calculated as told in the previous section.

Never even try to admit what went wrong on your part, there are high chances that you might say something which the officer had not yet noticed. Never say you don't know what speed you were going at, you are responsible for maintaining your speed within safe limits and that's what the speed limit signs are meant for.

Based on my experience with speed limits in New York state, here are few limits I always remember:

a) Interstates - 65 mph
b) State Highways - 55 mph
c) When entering a city/town/village - 45 mph
d) City/Village/Town - 30-35 mph
e) Watch out for reduced speeds for road works

3. Be Polite And Respect Their Job
   

The officer who stopped you might be starving, experiencing extreme weather conditions and what not, just to make the roads safer for everybody. Being rude, arrogant, insulting or authoritative is the easiest way to invite a traffic ticket. Officers, many a times, stay neutral about citations until they talk to the driver. You may want to consider this situation, it is very likely that an officer may just let you go with a warning word. Moreover an officer's testimony to your arrogant behavior may result in the judge to sentence increased fines in court. Respect officers, they are doing their jobs to make our road trips and journeys enjoyable and safe.

4. If You Get A Ticket, Plead Not-Guilty ASAP

If above steps didn't work and you got home with a ticket then immediately plead not-guilty and return the ticket to the court at the earliest possible. It's always suggested to accompany your plea with a letter to District Attorney (DA) explaining:

a) Who are you
b) You realize the severity of getting points on your driving record
c) Your have an impeccable record so far
d) Request to dismiss a ticket or at least reduce the fine and/or points

Many a times it is also suggested to try to postpone the appearance date in court in a hope for the officer who issued you the ticket would not show and ticket will be dismissed, I am not sure how much this trick may help, let me know if you have had any such experience.

5. Consult Any Free Services Available

Look around and find out if there are any free suggestions available to you. Talk to friends, tweet your questions, ask for experiences, what-to's and what-not-to's. Communicate on Orkut, Facebook, MySpace, etc ........... Most universities usually have a free law consulting department for students, find that out if you are a student. Many traffic lawyers give limited suggestions without charging any fee.

6. Be Ready To Accept Any Deal Offered In Court

Appear on time at court on the given date. Carry all required documents. Upon reaching, look for the DA or the officer who cited you. It happens both ways: the officer (or DA) fights to have you pay the fine to the state treasury while you try to eliminate any fine or at least minimize it. In an attempt to make this happen in a mutually beneficial way, the authorities typically make you an offer. The offers may vary among a wide number of options but mainly to:

a) reduce the fine
b) reduce the points on your record
c) reduce both
d) reduce severity/charges of the ticket

Usually accepting these offers results in reduced fines, at least; only thing they need you to do is accept the reduced charges. There have been many instances when people rejected the offers and contended to prove their case, resulting in a win and dismissal of all citations. However, to make sure winning a case in a traffic court needs rigorous planning and adequate evidences, if you are confident you have those, it's worth giving it a try.

• Try To Avoid A Ticket In Future

Start taking lessons from life right away, do your best to avoid getting into the traffic ticket traps again. Always follow traffic rules, never violate a law, drive safe and make proper decisions. If you had got a traffic ticket and managed to get out of it or got your fines reduced, please leave your story and any tips for readers.

Free: Nescafe Taster's Choice Samples, 6 Flavors

Love coffee? Get this!

Nescafe is sending out stick pack samples of 6 Taster's Choice Flavors absolutely free. All you have to do is click here to register on the website and fill-in your name and mailing details. Only conditions are:

• 1 sample per person
• 2 sample per household
  

OK we can be that content, can't we?

Nescafe believes it will "make a believer out of you", let's se how much weight their claim holds. Leave me a comment below if you find your free samples enjoying!

By the way, Let's Be Curious completes 2 months today! :) :) :)

Quicken Reveals - II: Harms Of Misjudging Grocery Needs

According to my Quicken analysis, Groceries make up 4% of my total expenses. Yeah this is one of the advantages to single-never-married individuals. I believe groceries eat up a huge share of family's total income every week or every month.

• Some Grocery Shopping Facts
  

Let me share some of the things I know about grocery shopping. I am certain there are a bevy of experienced people than me so feel free to leave me comments if I am missing any. Whenever I am planning to visit my grocery store I make sure that:

1. I check my shelves and refrigerator to notice any items I am missing
2. I check my shelves and refrigerator to see any items that may exhaust over coming week
3. I make a list of grocery items I need to buy and try not to deviate from my list
4. I stack-up any coupons I may have
5. I shop as earliest in a day as possible, I get freshly stocked stuff doing so
6. I don't rush through the store, it disables my ability to make free and wise decisions
7. I am not hungry

• Numbers Say So ...

My monthly gorceries totalled $263 in January 2009. It didn't shock me then but I was stunned when I was going over my Quicken account. While today I know that many families of 4 or 5 manage to survive in $150, I was totally unaware of the facts then. The number stroked $147 in February 2009 and again rose to $245 in March. I hope you see what the problem was here, let me reiterate, these are the grocery expenses of a single person.

• When I realized The Problem

I was talking to a friends and we were discussing our monthly grocery bills. He was appalled on hearing my bills as he could manage the same within $40 living with three other roommates.

It was then when I realized what was probably going wrong. It struck me that most of the stuff I was buying in a week wasn't being completely consumed by 3 or 4 weeks after that and this wasn't holding me back from restocking week after week.

• What Did I Do For It?

I strictly followed the 7 ways I mentioned above. Having a look in the fridge and store before leaving for shopping helps a big deal. Another important thing to realize for me was my journey from on-campus job to a full-time job. I was spending more since I started earning more, but then I gave some serious thought to start saving money for future and buy (mostly) based on need than want.

• Result

Yes this was enough! I spent only $72 in groceries in April 2009 that is whopping 70% drop in my bill followed by May when I spent $78. April gave me a good inspiration and encouragement continuing to ponder over money matters and spending wisely.

If you take a look at my Quicken Grocery Trend above, you can appreciate the difference between the first three months and last three months. Yes, 70% drop it is ;)

Have you ever struggled to bring down your groceries bills? What techniques you use to keep hold of your grocery bills? Please leave me a comment!