Listen.

Can you hear it? It’s the sound of money disappearing from my savings. It’s been going on for many months now. I haven’t been able to save as much as I used to, and I’ve had to dip into my savings more often than I have wanted.

I think the reason for this is twofold. First, I’ve probably been a little too aggressive with my investing strategy based on my income. Considering my fixed expenses, like rent, I probably can’t afford to send 12% of my gross income to my 401(k), plus $250 a month ($333 a month in 2005) to my Roth IRA, plus $800 a month or so into general long-term savings. I’m going to have to rethink that strategy.

The second fold of the aforementioned twofold reason is budgeting. I’m spending too much in general, and I’m going to cut back on some of my expenses. The car has been the largest change in the past year, and I don’t have much choice there. My rent is sky high and in May I might have to consider (gasp) finding a roommate.

I wonder if the market would be right in a few months to buy a duplex and rent out one side while living in the other. Unfortunately, that would require a lot of money up front that I just do not have.

Anyone who owns “things” should keep an inventory of all those “things.” I haven’t really updated my inventory in a while, and the beginning of the new year would be a good time to do so. The Insurance Information Institute has a website from where you can download free software to help in your recordkeeping.

Microsoft Money does a horrible job in managing a home inventory. I’ll try out the software offered by I.I.I. and post a review at some point. I like the ability to include photographs and receipts with each item.

How to buy certified used cars, according to Peter Valdes-Dapena from CNN Money. “Certified” is generally the way to go for much value-conscious people.

ING Direct has increased the interest paid to its savings account customers to 2.35%. If you’re not keeping your emergency fund, or any money you’re not investing/gambling with here, you should think about opening an account. If you do want to open an account, I can offer you $25 for doing so through a referral program. You get $25 and I get $10 for each referral. Email me through the link on my sidebar (under Who is Flexo?) and let me know you’d like a referral email to get your $25.

According to an article in USA Today, more consumers give new cars as gifts than they ever have before. Specifically, gifts tend to be luxury model cars.

It’s hard to fathom what is needed to afford this type of thing. I’m struggling with coming out on top at the end of the month even while spending under $200 in gifts this year.

Jennifer Mulrean over on MSN Money put together a nice article regarding results for a holiday shopping related survey. Here are some interesting tidbits:

• Most respondents are giving gifts to between six and ten people.
• 300 respondents (out of more than 2,000) are giving no gifts.
• A plurality (21%) of respondents are spending between $251 and $500 on gifts and 2.6% are spending more than $5,000.
• 12% said they went into debt for last year’s holiday shopping. The more debt they had, the longer it took to pay it off. Some are still paying it off.

• The most popular category of holiday gifts is clothing.

  There are more within the article.

There have been many articles I’ve wanted to link to in the past week and a half or so, but I just haven’t really had too much time to do so. Here’s another millionaire in the making story from CNN Money. The couple are avid savers. Of course, the biggest help they have is having a nicely-sized combined income. They’re also big on bagging their lunches and saving money every opportunity they can.

The “Consumer Price Index” is around 3.2 percent at the moment, although I believe the cost of living has gone up much more for most people, due to prices of things that are not reflected in the CPI. Hopefully, any cost of living adjustments we receive at our jobs will cover at least the Consumer Price Index.

Jeanne Sahadi from CNN Money warns us of six expenses that will grow at a rate larger than inflation in 2005. She cites health insurance, (rose 11.2 percent in 2004), heating costs (34 percent increase in the northeast forecast for 2005), college costs (public university tuition went up 10.5 percent), homeowners and auto insurance (already sky high in New Jersey), interest rates (loans, mortgages, things I’m not worried about for 2005, but it will be nice to have a better interest rate on my savings account), and new homes (apparently there’s a cement shortage).

Time to start budgeting for 2005! It’s going to be a rough year…