Tuesday 10-16: saving for a rainy day

Today's fun and frolic will begin with setting money aside "for a rainy day" as the saying goes. That's what the "RAIN" tab in your spreadsheet is all about, so you want to be in that sheet tab

Ready? Oh ga--rooooovyy!

You may have noticed that each time we start a topic, I try to eventually back off more and more, and let you take up a little more control. That's what going to happen today. For example, when we looked at cars and houses, the assumption is that whatever you buy, you will be paying for by the month. With food, its more like a week or two

With savings, I will leave the timeline up to you. You can tell me how much you want to sock away per year, per quarter, per month, per pay check...whatever works for you.

I am also not going to tell you HOW to stash your money away. There are as many different ways of storing your saved funds as there are stars in the night sky I suppose. I will give you a few suggestions, then I will get you started.

However, before we get to that, I want you to make sure that whatever amount you choose to save is at least somewhere between 2 and 10 % of what you expect to earn.  So whatever you figure on making , just set aside some small per centage of that to stash away, "just in case"

OK, here are some possibles you could look into:

Savings account at a bank or credit union
Boring as watching paint dry, but lots of people still save their money in a bank or credit union. Below are links to a Google search for each type of financial institution in the Charleston area
CREDIT UNIONS
BANKS

Treasury Bills and Notes  http://www.treasurydirect.gov/
Yes, I know: our government is 16 trillion dollars in debt. The good side of that is you can make money by buying some of that debt. You buy some of that debt, and then they pay you back your money, plus guaranteed interest. This website shows you how... assuming that the zombie apocalypse doesn't happen, in which case, you'll have much bigger worries than the federal government pulling a fast one with your money

Tax Liens SC
Another way of saving money is to put some into what is called a "tax lien" Basically, it works like this: some homeowner doesn't pay their taxes. You pay those taxes, and you get issued a "lien", meaning that if you don't get your money back, plus lots more money on top, you own their house. Surprisingly, most homeowners manage to find their checkbooks

GOLD & SILVER
For thousands of years, gold and silver have actually BEEN the money that was used; it's only recently that paper money has taken over. Still, some people swear by gold and silver in the form of coins, or even in bars. Here are some places where you can buy both
www.apmex.com
www.monex.com
www.roslandcapitalgold.com

There are many others as well


OK, that should be enough to get you started. Naturally, you can ignore every website I've suggested here if you have better ideas of your own. You just need to tell me what websites you used, what they offer, and how much you are socking away "for a rainy day"

cheers,
Mr. L