Win $50 from SmartyPig Towards Your Savings Goals

Written by Chris on July 3, 2008 – 9:45 am -

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After a great interview with Mike and the folks at SmartyPig, they were kind enough to send me a $50 gift card for SmartyPig. As a user of SmartyPig, that would be a great little bonus into my own account and to be put towards my savings goal. However, I thought it would be more fun to give it away to someone who sets up an account at SmartyPig. Now, before you get too excited about winning a free $50, this gift card can only be used at SmartyPig.com to be added into your account and go towards one of your goals.

So, here is how things will work. First, you are going to need an account with SmartyPig. So, head over to www.smartypig.com and sign up for an account and set up a savings goal. Then leave a comment with your email address that you used with your SmartyPig account. This will let me check to see that you set up an account and see what people are saving for. By signing up for an account and leaving a comment here on this post, you will be entered into the contest.

Here are a couple other ways to get more chances to win:

• Subscribed to the Email Feed for Dorm Room Biz
• Write about the contest on your blog providing a trackback to this post or leave a comment with a link to your post.

It is as easy as that! The winner be chosen randomly and will be annouced on July 15, 2008. After the contest ends, I’ll contact the winner to get their address and send the gift card off to them!

I look forward to some participation in this contest, and more contests will be coming soon!

So, who wants $50 to save towards their goal?

Tags: Contests, mike ferrari, savings, smartypig
Posted in Contests, Money Management | 2 Comments »

Interview with Mike Ferrari, Co-Founder of SmartyPig

Written by Chris on July 1, 2008 – 8:00 pm -

While I was doing some research for my article “Frugality for College Students - 13 Ways To Save Money While In College” I asked my Twitter friends for some suggestions. One of the replies that popped up was from Mike Ferrari at SmartyPig.com suggesting his website as a way for students to save towards a goal of theirs whether it be for books, a spring break trip, a new camera, a trip, or whatever. So after taking a browse through the SmartyPig website, I decided to give it a shot and test out the system. Because the sign up process was so easy and the site is easy to navigate in it self, I thought it was a great idea. I got in contact with Mike again via Twitter to see if he would be interested in doing an interview for Dorm Room Biz. With that being said, the following is an interview we exchanged via multiple emails. I hope you enjoy!

Start off by telling us a little bit about your background - where you went to school, what you studied, etc.
I’m from Ohio, originally. Bowling Green and Dayton. I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I went to DePauw University, in Greencastle, Indiana. Graduated in 1993 in Psychology and Business Administration. Went into advertising right after college.

What sparked your initial interest in entrepreneurship?
Always had a thing for coming up with business ideas. You know the routine. You come up with this great idea and ultimately end up talking yourself out of it. I became quite good at it. Drove my wife mad. But one day, almost four years ago, I had this idea that I found really hard to blow holes threw. That idea was and became what is known as SmartyPig.

Almost four years ago, my wife and I had our first child, Charlie. I remember thinking how important it was to start a college savings program for him. I remember starting his 529 plan a few weeks after he was born. We started putting a hundred dollars away each month. And after 5 or 6 months, I remember logging into the 529 site and seeing his savings build. And more importantly, remembering that feeling of “responsible saving”. It was like I hadn’t even missed the money. Automatically taken out of my checking each month. We just became accustomed to not having the money. Soon after I was in Phoenix playing golf with some old college buddies. I had just dropped them off at the airport and I went back to my hotel to kill a few hours before my flight back to Des Moines. I grabbed my computer looking for a site that would help me save up for other things in my life. I wanted to save up for a trip for my wife and I (some day) to go to Italy. A lofty goal I knew would take years to save for. And I also knew I wanted a new road bike next year. Was training for Ride The Rockies with some friends… So I just assumed there was a site out their that was all about “goal savings”. When I didn’t see it, I guess you could say I had my “light bulb” moment. Started drafting a business plan right then and there. It was all I thought about. Trying to shoot holes in the idea from every direction. I spent the next few months flushing out the idea and showed it to a friend of mine, Jon Gaskell. It wasn’t long before the two of us quit our jobs and became the co-founders of SmartyPig.

Read more »

Tags: interview, mike ferrari, savings, smartypig
Posted in Business Ideas, Success Stories | No Comments »

Start Your Own Tip Jar!

Written by Chris on June 24, 2008 – 5:00 pm -

About a week or so ago I sold a climbing rope on eBay. The item sold for about $100. The winning bidder sent a money order to me as payment. This is good for a couple reasons, but the main reason that I like receiving money orders for large amounts as opposed to PayPal, is because of the fee’s. I have sold the same rope to other people who paid with PayPal and it cost between $6 - $10 in fees - which cuts into my profits!

So anyway, I cashed the money order on Saturday and shipped out the rope to him. I got home and was thinking about what I was going to do with the $100 cash I now had in my pocket. I like to use cash as opposed to credit/debit cards, just because then I have the feeling of “oh well, I only have this much left, so I probably shouldn’t get that” instead of saying “CHARGE IT!”. I know people will argue with this mentatlity, but I don’t care - everyone has their own ways and systems. Anyway, I decided that I didnt want to keep the $100 on me plus the other cash that I had. So, I had the idea of starting my own tip jar.

Basically, anytime I have extra cash on me that I don’t want to constantly carry around with me, I can put it in the tip jar. Or if I get everything I need to done in a day or accomplish a lot of tasks, I can reward myself wth a tip from my own wallet. This is nice because then when I need a couple extra bucks for lunch I can just grab it out real quick and be on the way. Or, if I don’t touch it for a while, it will add up and all of the sudden be like money I never knew I had. Kind of like a deposit from your paycheck into your retirement account - after a while, you start to not even miss the money that should be there. On Saturday I put in about $30.00 to save for another time. This is going to be a great little stash when the time comes and I need to use it!

On top of being my personal tip jar, I use the same container (an old Nalgene bottle), as my spare change holder. So when it starts to fill up, I’ll cash all the change in and have some nice pocket money to spend on something new. I’ll be saving up for a new LCD widescreen monitor, fyi.

I’m sure many of you throw your coins in a jar or something to keep them all in one place, but what about other cash that you don’t want to carry around with you all the time? Do you tip yourself? Deposit it in the bank? Or just hold onto it and spend it?

Tags: coin jar, frugal, saving money, savings, tip jar
Posted in Money Management, Rants / Random | 3 Comments »