Financial Friday: Stuck On You Sale & Announcement of November's giveaway!

What a great sale at Stuck on You! Just in time for the Holidays!



We, at Regarding Nannies, just fell in love with Stuck on You, a fun innovative company that makes labeling FUN! They have ideas and products for all aspects of your house and gift giving packages! They have wall stickers, wall art, personal labels, personal t-shirts,pantry labels, dog tags and you name it basically. Anything that needs a label!

The products are made with the best vinyl that is microwave safe, dishwasher safe, waterproof and UV resistant. Their iron/sew on labels are built to last through the rough and tough play and washer/dryer wear.

These will make awesome holiday gifts for your charges, new moms and even for yourself! Several people have commented on how awesome the labels are for sippy cups, toys, diaper bag items and other items that are easily left behind.



SALE ITEMS!!! (Click on photos for larger images)
Our Gift Labels, Party Invites, Skin Prints and Sasi Journals are 30% off until November 5th and the new Designer Collection is 10% off until November 5th. All perfect for holiday gift giving and stocking stuffers. (It does take 2-3 weeks for delivery)

The sale prices are already in the system, so hurry fast and order now before it is too late!

Giveaway for November: (open from Oct 30-November 20th-announced on November 21st, with order being placed on Monday November 22nd, so you have in time for the holidays)
$25 gift certificate to Stuck on You. Visit Regarding Nannies to find out how to enter! All are welcome to enter!

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Financial Friday: Where do I put my money?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted Step 2: Setting up a Monthly Budget for professional nannies and others on making sure you have enough money for your fixed and flexible expenses. JanStClair commented and asked

"Will you address expenses that come due annually, such as insurance? In the
past, I've divided them by twelve and put them into the monthly budget. But it
does confuse me because it looks like I have more money in the bank than I
should until WHAM, the bill comes due."

This was an excellent question. I have quarterly, semi annually and annually bills due as well. Jan was correct that you should be saving for these monthly in your budget along with other expenses like clothing, gas, food and utilities. I have been using the online ING Orange Savings account at ING Direct This is an online savings account that is linked to my checking account. I can put money into my ING Orange Savings Account at any time online or via phone. What you would do is monthly deposit your expenses that you are saving for later pay dates. When it is time to pay the bill you will need at least 3 business days for the transfer from Orange Savings to your checking account. You can also set up an automatic transfer from your checking to your ING Orange Savings.

This is taken from the website regarding Orange Savings:

Watch Your Savings Grow.
Earn a variable 1.30% Annual Percentage Yield (effective 09/09/2009). Open an Orange Savings Account today.

The Orange Savings Account

• High Interest, No Fees, No Minimums - All your money goes to work for you.


• No Changing Banks - It electronically links to your current checking account. Transfers are free and easy.


• FDIC Insured - Your deposits are FDIC–insured up to $250,000 per depositor.


• Quick Application - Start saving in less than 5 minutes.


• Start now

The other really neat thing is that you can earn $25 free from ING for setting up an ING savings account with an initial $250 deposit. That is a 10% return on your deposit. If you are interested in receiving the email for this email me at thefinancialnanny (at) gmail (dot)com. I will receive $10 per person that signs up through the special link. I will be using the money I receive from this to buy holiday items for a local children's shelter that ADCAN is working with closely throughout the coming year.

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Financial Friday: How much and How Long?

As a professional nanny we can see our employers spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on items at the drop of the hat. At times this can cause a nanny or anyone for that matter to try to "Keep with the Jones". This is what can sometimes get a nanny into debt.The past 3 weeks we have gone over how to set up a budget and track daily expenses. This week I will share with you a great little tool online called a Debt Management Calculator.

This is what you need to get started:

• your credit cards


• bank loans


• car loans


• mortgages


• school loans

For each of these debts (up to 9) you will need:

• the current balance


• the interest rate-is it fixed or special rate for 6 months etc? You will need the APR's payment due

Then you will also need (based on setting up your budget from the previous weeks)

• Your monthly budget savings: Money from your current budget that you can apply to your debts


• Income raises: Any anticipated raise to your monthly income that you can apply to your debts


• Cash 'windfalls': Any one-time events that will increase the cash you have in a given month

I will share with you that I do NOT put any bonuses in this amount of "cash windfalls" as the amount is unpredictable. I do not put raises either as they vary from year to year. I know that I have an additional amount of money that is not allocated for my fixed and flexible spending in my budget. This is the amount I use for my budget savings.

Then you go to the Bankrate's Debt paydown calculator and follow the questions. At the end of the questions, it figures out how long it will take you to pay off your debt. For my debt and what I can pay monthly on it, it says 30 months, which will be April 2012.

There is also a chart that is included to tell you how much to pay on the debts each month. This is so awesome to me as it shows me monthly how my debts are going down and how close I am getting to becoming debt free. I have printed out this out and have it sight daily so I can look at my debt end date.

When will you be getting out of debt?

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Part 3: Putting everything in your Spreadsheet

Part 1: Getting ready to start a budget
Part 2: Setting up a monthly budget

We have finally reached the fun part of our budget-putting it together in a spreadsheet! This is where the fun happens. Putting everything in the spreadsheet and watching your debts go down monthly along with your expenses being paid regularly and on time.

Here is what your spreadsheet might end up looking like if you are a live in professional nanny. If you are a live out professional nanny you might have additional items such as rent, utilities, and car expenses etc. Those expenses can easily be added to your budget spreadsheet.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it-you will need to do this to figure out the next steps)

This is an example of my budget (alias numbers/names).

The column (A) names my expenses and column (B) shows the payment due. Column (C) shows the accumulated total of those expenses due. Column (D) is the due date for these expenses. These are fixed for me. You may have some flexible expenses. Cash is my monthly allowance to use on those items that are not fixed like gas, eating out, clothes, and anything else not written on this budget.

Row 14-C shows my monthly total of $910 for expenses a month. There is a formula for this that automatically figures out the addition for you :)


The column (E) is my debt-credit cards. There are three credit cards on this budget. Column (F) is the balance of the debt. Column (G) is the minimum amount due. Column (H) is the amount of money I am paying towards these items to pay the debt down faster. This will vary based on how much money you have left over a month after subtracting your flexible/fixed expenses from your income. I will share in the coming weeks how to determine which credit card to pay down first via Bankrate.

F-5 is the total debt of credit cards
G-5 is the total minimum due monthly for my credit cards.
H-5 is the total amount of money I pay on my credit cards monthly.
H-17 is the minimum amount needed monthly to pay your credit card debt and expenses
I-17 is the minimum amount you need for 3 months worth of your expenses/debts.
L2-9 is the names of my checking, money market, IRA and savings accounts
M2-9 is the balances of those accounts. This is helpful when figuring out where your money is.
P-Q shows the dates of my paychecks and the amount received on my paychecks.

You may notice several color cells on the spreadsheet. It is color coded according to my 3 banks and what money for debts come out of what account.
Green is Fidelity Credit Card
Blue is LGCU Credit Union
Gold is Wachovia

I have 3 items that are paid on my Fidelity Credit Card monthly because I receive cash back awards for using that account. I then transfer 5000 points to $75 to my Fidelity IRA account. I allow my money to work for me. I get rewarded for paying my bills for my retirement. The items in blue for my Credit Union are auto drafted from my checking account. My paycheck is direct deposited every two weeks on Friday. The gold items come from my Wachovia checking account. This is my account that basically is my "allowance" account. It is a seperate account from my expenses/bill checking account. I have found this has been working very well for me as it seperates my money. Every two weeks I write a check to myself from the Credit Union to Wachovia for my "allowance" When the money is gone in that account, the money is gone.

I hope this gives you an idea of how to set up an excel spreadsheet of your budget. If you do not own Excel you can go to Microsoft Office Live Workshop and set up an account there. Then if you email me at thefinancialnanny (at) gmail (dot) com with the names of your expenses/debts I can fill it in for you and share it with you via MS Office Live Workshop. Then you can enter your amounts of everything. You can also use Google Documents to make a spreadsheet as well. I will be happy to help you with formulas or setting up the columns if you run across problems.

You should revisit your budget monthly. This way you can make sure you are staying on task for your budgeting. This way you can see your monthly debt going down versus staying the same.

Up next week: Where do you put that money for expenses that is due quarterly or bi-monthly.

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