Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

My daughter is 15. She has talked about getting a job but has found that virtually nobody will hire her until she turns 16. She has talked about babysitting but hasn't really made any major effort to find jobs.

Last week, the religious school director at our synagogue asked her if she could fill in on Sunday for the aide who would be out that day. She did that and the other night, I picked up her first real paycheck. It was for $28 ($7/hr. x 4 hours). Not a lot of money but pretty significant to a 15 year old who gets $10/week allowance.

Even better, they asked if there is an opening in September, if she would like that job regularly. She definitely would, so there is a good chance that from September until May, she will have a regular position there for 4 hours each Sunday.

She's excited, as are we. I hope it works out and they are able to offer it to her. If she gets it, I guess it will be time to open her Roth and I'll help her fund it to match her earnings.

For the newbies, I am a family practice physician and get to do a lot of professional surveys and market research programs. These are not available to the general public. They pay quite well though can sometimes be mind-numbingly tedious or boring. Most of the time, they aren't too bad.

For the month of March, I earned $687. Not bad at all.

I've been very busy the past couple of weeks and have not had much time to do surveys so I've missed out on a lot. That probably means April will be on the lower side but time will tell. I never know what will come along.

For the newbies, I am a family practice physician and get to do a lot of professional surveys and market research programs. These are not available to the general public. They pay quite well though can sometimes be mind-numbingly tedious or boring. Most of the time, they aren't too bad.

I had a fantastic February, earning $1,126 in survey income! Looking at my totals from 2010, I see that I beat my best month last year by over $300. Got to love that.

I don't expect to repeat that anytime soon, but I never know what will come my way. I recently got an invite to participate in a new executive panel from a company I already work with. The info said the pay scale would be substantially above the usual surveys I've been doing. I'm waiting to see what comes of that.

I am a physician and get to do a lot of online, telephone and in-person surveys. These are for doctors only, not available to the general public. My income goes up and down based on how diligent I am at answering all of the requests I get. Sometimes I do more. Other times I slack off and do less, or I get really busy with other things and don't get to do them before quotas fill.

January was a slower month. I earned $484. Not bad, but a glance at my numbers from last year will show that is below average. Work has been very busy because my partner has been away a lot. So I often see the invites in my e-mail but by the time I respond, they've already closed the study. Yesterday alone, I got 5 different survey invitations. I managed to do 2 of them. I screened out of 2 more and the 5th one was closed by the time I responded. There simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to do 5 surveys, each taking 20-30 minutes. At least one of them I would have screened out of anyway because it was about a condition I don't deal with. And I did at least complete 2 of the 5. I did another today at lunch. I also have an ongoing survey that I do every week via the iPhone and I'm doing my best to keep up with that. I did not earn the payment in December due to not entering sufficient data so I'm being much more vigilant about that since it pays me $150/month. I won't let that happen again.

If you have followed my posts on the boards, you'll know that this past week, I decided to clean up some financial stuff. We had too much in cash accounts, well above what we needed for a comfortable emergency fund. I closed one money market account entirely (just over $2,700) and transferred $5,000 out of another.

I went online this morning and verified that both of those transactions had been completed and the money was in our checking account. Then I logged into Vanguard and fully funded both my Roth and DW's Roth for $5,000 each.

Never before have we maxed the Roths this early in the year - January 8. So that is crossed off the list of things to do in 2011. The focus now, along with all of the usual stuff, is going to be prepaying the mortgage. I don't think we'll be able to pay it off before our daughter goes to college, which would have been very nice, but we'll get pretty close.

For the newbies, I'm a family practice physician and get to do a lot of medical market research surveys, mostly online, occasionally by phone or in person. They can be tedious but pay well.

For the month of December 2010, I earned $789 which was quite good. That was my second best month of the year.

Despite a strong month, I was upset because I realized about a week ago that I had not gotten a check from the monthly study I do on my iPhone. I e-mailed them and they wrote back saying that I hadn't submitted sufficient data for the month to qualify for the payment. They spelled out the numbers they expect me to meet, but they had never given me those numbers before. They also didn't send any kind of warning during the month that I was not up to par. Had they done that, I would have had a chance to pick up the pace and earn the monthly check. So that cost me $150.

Still, a good month and a great year. This brought my total for 2010 to $7,478.75, well above my $5,000 goal.

I know this is the time when many of you are posting your goals for 2011. I haven't really given the topic much thought but off the top of my head, I don't really have any specific goals.

I do want to continue the decluttering I've been doing since September. I've made a lot of progress but there is still way more to be done.

I do want to continue prepaying our mortgage but I don't have a specific dollar amount in mind. Something in the neighborhood of $1,000/month extra I suppose. I'd be satisfied to pay $10,000 extra toward principal in 2011.

Fully funding both of our Roth accounts is always on the to do list but I don't really count that as a goal because it is something that I am 100% positive will occur. Last year I maxed them out on April 3, so it doesn't take me long.

Other than that, our financial life is pretty well on cruise control so there just isn't any pressing need to set goals. That's kind of boring, I suppose, but when it comes to building wealth, boring can be good.

For the newbies: I'm a family practice physician and have the opportunity to do a lot of medical market research surveys online and occasionally by phone or in person. These pay well but are sometimes long and tedious. These are not available to the general public. I do also do some general surveys like Harris and Pinecone that are open to everyone but the bulk of the income is from the medical stuff.

For the month of November 2010, I earned $618 from surveys. Not bad at all. That brings my total for the year to $6,689.75, well above my goal of $5,000, and I still have December to go.

For the newbies: I'm a physician and get to participate in a bunch of medical surveys and market research programs. These are for doctors only, not open to the general public. I also do some general surveys like Pinecone but the bulk of my survey income is medical.

For the month of October, I earned $781 which makes it my second best month of the year after July. I'm very happy with that. That brings me to $6,071.75 for the year, well above my goal of $5,000 and we still have two more months to go. I should end the year somewhere past $7,000.

I've been thinking about refinancing for ages, ever since the rates bottomed out, but just kept procrastinating even though I knew it would save us thousands. Not really sure why except that I see the whole process as a bit of a hassle and didn't want to deal with it.

I finally took the plunge today and applied for the refi.

We will be going from a 25-year loan with 17 years, 7 months remaining at 5.875% to a new 15-year loan at 3.99%. I haven't attempted to calculate the savings we will realize over the life of the loan but I know it is a significant number.

We have been paying extra on our mortgage and will continue to do so so I don't expect to have the new loan for 15 years. Most likely, we'll be rid of it in less than 10 years if things go well. Dropping the interest rate 2 points will make that even easier.

For the newbies: I'm a physician and get to do a lot of medical market research surveys, mostly online, that are for physicians only. My goal for 2010 was to earn $5,000 this year through these surveys. I also do a couple of non-medical surveys like Pinecone and Opinion Place so my numbers include everything, but 99% of it is medical.

For September, I earned $602.50. It was down from the past few months but I expected that because I was away for 2 weeks in August and 1 week in July so I wasn't able to do many of the surveys I was invited for. Still, I'm not complaining about $600.

That brings my total for the year to $4,776.75, just $223.25 short of my goal for the year. And today, October 1, I received $195.00 in payments, so I'm really only $28.25 from my goal. I should hit that within a week. I guess I needed to set the bar higher.

For the newbies: I am a family practice physician and do a lot of online (and occasionally phone or in-person) market research and survey programs. These are for physicians only, not available to the general public.

I thought August might be a little low because I was on vacation for a week in July and didn't have internet access meaning I couldn't do any surveys for a week. Despite that, I earned a total of $738 for August which was quite good.

I was away for 2 weeks in August though I did have internet access and managed to do a few studies while I was away, though not as many as I could have. We'll see what happens for September.

For the newbies: I am a family practice physician and do a lot of online (and occasionally phone or in-person) market research and survey programs. These are for physicians only, not available to the general public.

July was a banner month. In addition to all the usual stuff, I got the first payment for the new iPhone-based program I started doing in May. That brought my total survey income for the month to $808. I believe that is the most I have ever earned in one month when no in-person programs were involved (the pay a lot more). This was earned entirely online.

August will probably be a little lighter because I was on vacation for one week in July and missed out on several surveys since I didn't have internet access. We'll be vacationing in August, also, but I'll have internet access the whole time so hopefully I won't miss any survey opportunities.

As I've posted, I do a lot of medical surveys for physicians only. Most are hit or miss and aren't done on any regular basis. A few are regular, ongoing programs. I like those due to the predictable income that comes with them.

I just got an e-mail today that one of those regular programs is ending in August. I figured it would end sometime soon because it was a thinly veiled promotional program for a new drug. Now that the drug has been on the market for a few months, I knew it was only a matter of time before they ended the program.

I was earning a $50 Amazon gift card every month from them, so I'll miss that. Maybe something else will come along to replace it.

For the newbies: I am a physician and get to do a lot of medical surveys and pharmaceutical market research programs online and occasionally in person. These surveys are not open to the general public.

My survey income for June 2010 was $558, a very good month. My goal for the year is to earn at least $5,000 or $417/month. For the first half of the year, I've earned a total of $3,142 or $523.67/month so I am well on track to reach that goal.

Plus, I have not yet gotten my first monthly payment for the program I am doing via my iPhone. That will pay me $150/month. I started doing that in mid May so the first payment should come soon. I'm not sure what their payment schedule is. If I haven't gotten anything by mid July, I'll send an e-mail to ask when they send the monthly payment. That $150 will be above and beyond what I already earn which means my monthly average for the second half of the year should be $650 or more. I didn't know about that program when I set my goal for the year. It looks like I'll blow right past $5,000.

Ok, this entry is NOT about saving money. It is about spending plain and simple. Our 6-year-old iMac has gotten incredibly slow. I think the last couple of software updates really did it in. It had gotten to the point of being almost unusable at times. Also, we have had Verizon DSL for years and from time to time, the service would be very undependable but lately it has gotten really bad. We never knew from day to day or hour to hour if we'd have internet access. As I'm sure you all understand, we depend on our net access a great deal at this point for all kinds of reasons from financial stuff like home banking to entertainment like streaming movies from Netflix to making travel arrangements to DD doing school assignments. Having access that we can't depend on just is no longer acceptable in 2010.

So... we are now the proud owners of a brand new 21.5" iMac and Comcast cable internet with a wireless network. The computer is beautiful, the screen is huge and the processor is way, way faster than the old one. And the internet access is now 3 times faster than the DSL and, I anticipate, much more reliable.

Oh, my wife also got her iPhone last week, so we now have 2 iPhones, an iPod touch, a netbook, a laptop and a desktop on the network. On the phones, the new cable hook up is superfast. On DSL or 3G, there was a very noticeable delay when checking email or viewing a website. Now, it is instantaneous. I literally hooked it up 10 minutes ago but I'm already loving it.

For the newbies, I am a physician and have the opportunity to do lots of medical market research surveys, mostly online, some by phone and occasionally in person. For various reasons, mainly schedule conflicts and plain old laziness, I often fail to do a lot of the programs I'm invited to do and basically leave money on the table that could have gone into my pocket. Once again, last month I "saw the light" and vowed to get back on track and do all the surveys I possibly could. There will always be ones I simply can't do because of timing, location or failing to qualify, but I can't control those.

Anyway, in April, as reported earlier, I earned $396 doing surveys. Not bad but not great. I was sure May would be better and it was. Since there is no mail on Monday, I think my total as of today will be the final figure. For the month of May 2010, I earned $599.25, so just over 50% more than last month. That's more like it. There is really no excuse for me not earning at least $500/month from surveys. Now that I am doing that $150/month program on the iPhone, that number really should be at least $600-650. I just started that 2 weeks ago so I haven't yet gotten my first payment. That will come in June.

I realized that I never posted my survey income for March. Now April is over, too, so I'll update the last 2 months.

March was good and I earned $514 on surveys.

April I slacked off a bit again, partly because I was really busy all month between work, Passover and business at my synagogue and honestly partly due to laziness yet again. Still, for April, I earned $396 but I know it could have been a lot better than that.

Thanks to some increased expenses currently and upcoming including a costly car repair, some home repairs, an unplanned vacation (the cruise I posted about) and our usual summer vacation, I am more committeed than ever to maximize my survey income. The past couple of weeks, I have been really good about doing every possible survey program I can. I don't track money until it is received but I know I've done a few hundred dollars worth of surveys that I haven't gotten paid for yet (there is usually a lag of 3-4 weeks) so May should be a pretty good month.

I've also sold 6 books gotten by doing surveys since April 1 and I've gotten back on ebay. I had 2 items sell yesterday and listed 3 more last night. I will update my Ebay Challenge numbers as soon as I get a chance.

We went to the travel agent this morning and booked a family cruise for July. My mom is turning 80 in August and told us recently that she'd like us all to go on a cruise to celebrate. The date that worked best for all of us was actually early July. It will be DW, DD, me, my mom, my cousin and my MIL. We're doing a 7-night trip from New York to Bermuda. We've cruised 3 times before, most recently in 2005. My cousin is the only one of the 6 of us who has been to Bermuda before but it was about 20 years ago so he is looking forward to going back. I've always heard great things about Bermuda like how clean it is and how friendly everyone is so I'm excited about finally getting there.

My mom actually wants to treat us to the cruise but we're definitely paying part of the cost. Of course, we'll also have plenty of incidentals to pay for, like excursions, tips, souvenirs, meals off the ship, etc. We won't have airfare but we will need a limo service to take us to and from NYC.

I just transferred $1,395 to my Roth and $1,570 to my wife's Roth. That maxes both of them for 2010. I'm pretty sure this is the earliest in the year that we've ever gotten them funded. That was partly because I had some money designated for savings toward the end of 2009 that I hadn't put anywhere yet so on 1/1 I sent it to the Roths. For a variety of reasons, we also ended up with a larger than anticipated tax refund which got direct-deposited last week so I used that to help finish them off.

I haven't fully invested all the money yet - some of it is in the MMF - but at least it is all in the Roth accounts.

A few months ago, before the winter, we discovered that the paneling on one wall of our family room was rotting. We had never seen any water coming in but we had a contractor come out and he found where water was getting in. The roof over the family room is about 14 years old and the roofing material is generally expected to last 10 years so we were overdue for a problem.

The contractor said he should be able to do the job by the end of January. Of course, snowstorm after snowstorm kept pushing that back but he finally came out today to start the job. So far, so good. When he opened up the wall and poked around, there was no more damage than expected. I was afraid he would find rotten ceiling beams but he didn't. Hopefully, that means the work will come in close to the estimate he gave us which was about $2,200. I set the money aside back when he first came out so that's no problem. I just didn't want it to balloon much higher.

My wife's been home supervising. I'll see it in a couple of hours. Hopefully, everything will be done by the end of the week.

As you know, I do a ton of medical surveys and market research programs. Almost without exception, they are pay as you go. Do a survey. Get a check. Do a survey. Get a check. No contracts. No commitments.

Last April, I was contacted by a company to join their panel. I was to enter data weekly online and after 52 weeks, I'd get a lump sum payment of $1,000. I signed the contract and went live with them in May. I've been doing the data entry ever since and it now being mid-March, was looking forward to the $1,000 that would be coming in a few more weeks.

Well, forget that. I got an e-mail today saying that due to the economy and consolidation within the pharmaceutical industry, they have been unable to sell the data we provide. They have let all of the staff go and filed chapter 7 bankruptcy. Of course, there is no money with which to pay the physicians as per the contracts. Poof. No $1,000.

I do believe that if I'm ever approached again to do an ongoing study, I will do so only if payments are made on some regular basis, not only after doing months of work. Lesson learned.

We got hit by a major Nor'easter storm today that dumped a couple of inches of rain on our area, some of which ended up in our basement which has been known to happen during particularly bad storms. As a result, I spent a good part of the day down there running the shop vac to suck up the water as it came in. Since most of it was leaking in around one window, I was able to position the vacuum just right so that I could let it run without having to hold it.

While that was happening, I spent time cleaning the disaster area we call our basement. Every time I'm down there, I tell myself I have got to start selling on ebay again since so much of what is there is my sales stock. Just looking at the table where I do my ebay work made me tired. The table was a mess, strewn with merchandise, papers, tools, craft stuff and more. There was no way I could do anything without cleaning that up, so I did. I put away a number of things that don't belong there, put some sale items on the shelves to clear table space and finally, I reset the cloth backdrop I use to take pictures of items I'm selling. There, that actually looked nice and made me want to start using the space again for its intended purpose - selling on ebay.

I photographed and wrote descriptions for 3 auctions and just finished posting them online. These are my first auctions since December. I have tons and tons of stuff to list. Now that I cleaned up my work space, I'm going to keep it that way and make ebay a regular part of my routine again.

I thought my income from surveys for February was going to be low because it felt like I passed up a lot of programs, but it actually turned out to be $503 which was fine. It was kind of skewed, though, because I only count money actually received during the month. One company I do ongoing programs for only pays when I accumulate $100 in credit and that happened in February. Now I won't get anything from them for another 3-4 months.

I was really busy in February with other things, especially at my synagogue, so I didn't get to do many of the surveys I was invited for. That may impact the March numbers. I'm trying to get back on track as things have calmed down some. We'll see.

Those of us on the east coast have been buried under record snowfall this year. We've officially broken the all-time snow record by over 6 inches as of last night (and it is only early February). This week alone, we've had two major storms totaling over 40 inches which is unheard of in this area (hence the record).

Anyway, while most people have been snowed in, we actually got snowed OUT. Last night while I was washing the dinner dishes, I saw a bright flash out the back window. My wife happened to be looking out the front window at the time and saw the transformer blow on the electric pole and out went the power. Considering it was still snowing heavily and the number of homes without power was in the tens of thousands, we figured it could be quite a while before a crew got out there to fix the problem and restore power. So we decided to escape and spend the night at a hotel.

I called the local Fairfield Inn and booked a room, then went out and cleaned off the car and shoveled enough of the driveway so I'd be able to get out. My wife and daughter packed overnight bags while I was doing that and we hit the road. It was kind of eerie as roads that are usually heavily traveled interstates were deserted. Between home and the hotel, I doubt that we saw more than a dozen cars. We made it there safely and checked into a nicely lit and heated room, two things that were lacking at home.

This morning, I called the house and the answering machine picked up so I knew the power was back on. We had breakfast (included with the room) and packed up and came back to the house. Other than one large tree branch coming down (no damage done), everything was in order. So ended our little snow adventure. And only a tiny ding to the savings for an unplanned hotel stay.

For the month of January, I earned $572 doing my medical surveys (and a couple from Pinecone and Opinion Place). I'm shooting for a minimum of $5,000 for the year or an average of about $417/month so I'm on track so far (and I've already got $205 for February and it is only the 4th).

In the past month or so, I've really taken notice of the fact that we do not take advantage of many things that are in our own backyard particularly as far as inexpensive entertainment is concerned.

When I was off from work over winter break, my daughter and I rode the train into the city to do some sightseeing, lunch and shopping. We try to do that every year but for some reason, this year really opened my eyes to what is out there. We walked through the downtown area and passed endless shops and restaurants that would appeal to all of us, even if just for window shopping. Of course, there are also a ton of historic sites, museums and other places of interest within walking distance of the train stations.

Then yesterday, a school friend of my daughter's was performing in a play at a nearby college. This time, we drove into the city (not near a train station). For $10/person, we saw a very good show. We did pay another $13 to park plus the $4 bridge toll, but that's still less money than if we had gone to NYC to see even an off-Broadway show. The colleges in the area offer all kinds of entertainment - concerts, live shows, art exhibits, film festivals, etc. We never go to any of that stuff and we really should. It is usually inexpensive and sometimes even free. It is close to home. And it is not mainstream stuff so there is an educational/cultural/expand your mind aspect to it, too.

I'm going to start looking around online to see where they list upcoming events and make an effort to do stuff like that occasionally throughout the year.

I realized I haven't posted since the 2nd of January. I've been extremely busy at work. Not much time for anything else.

I have started getting things organized to do our taxes. Today, I worked on my ebay and half.com sales to start putting those numbers together.

I also scheduled the February mortgage payment online today. Last year, I was paying an extra $100/month to principal. I've now upped that to $200/month starting this month.

I added $215 to my wife's Roth last week and will add to mine with this next week's paycheck.

I'm continuing to do almost all of the surveys that come my way, at least the ones I qualify for. I did a $95 one today and got 2 or 3 checks this past week.

We've actually been to the casino 3 times since the first of the month which is extremely unusual. The first trip on the 1st, I won $310. The 2nd trip I went with a friend while my wife, daughter and his wife went shopping. That was more to hang out and talk than to gamble, but I did win $30. The last time, a week ago, I did extremely well. I won $800 playing three card poker though I did lose $93 of it at other games before leaving. Still, that gave me a $707 profit for the day. That puts me up over $1,300 for my last 4 casino visits. My wife and I will be going to Atlantic City probably the first or second weekend of February so hopefully, the good luck will continue.

I've sold 2 books so far this month on half.com but still haven't listed anything on ebay. I've just been too tired after work or had meetings at night. I do need to do that sometime soon.

Guess that's all for now.

I just made our first Roth contributions for 2010. I sent $1,550 to each of our accounts so just 2 days into the year and we are nearly 1/3 funded. This is the first time I've ever put money in this early and definitely never this much so soon. I'm hoping to max them by April or May, a month or more earlier than usual, after which I plan to start attacking our mortgage more aggressively.

Retirement is about 17 years away but I know that time will go faster than one might think and I want to get the mortgage paid off in 10-12 years and use the last 5 to really sock away cash and get everything in place to retire.

For the newbies, I am a physician and get to do a lot of online (and occasionally in-person) surveys for doctors only. These are not things open to the general public. They pay quite well though are sometimes quite tedious to complete.

For the month of December, I finished up the year on a strong upswing, taking in $845 in survey income.

That gives me a grand total for 2009 of $5,542.00.

The actual total is even higher than that because some surveys pay me in merchandise, like a textbook. I generally turn around and sell those items on half.com, which is reflected in my ebay challenge numbers. Almost all of my half.com sales consists of books I got from doing surveys.