And here we are… Lending Club is finally available in California! Well, not just California. In fact we went National today, 6 months after the launch of our Facebook application and 3 months after the limited opening of our public website at www.lendingclub.com. In the last 6 months, Lending Club was not available to borrowers in California, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Nevada, and was only partially available in Texas and Ohio. We did the math: that’s about 108 million more Americans who can now borrow and lend directly among each other and get better rates.

So this is really good news…first, because my neighbor in the quaint town of Los Gatos, CA will finally stop asking “Dude, when can I use your site?” and second, arguably more importantly, because in the current climate of tightening lending practices from the banks, people in every community across America are looking for alternatives to help meet their financial needs, and being available nationwide will help us serve our community better.

As we pointed out last weekend, affinities and connections among Lending Club members get most of the credit for the remarkably low defaults recorded by Lending Club borrowers over the last 6 months. The ability for Facebook users and members of Lending Club’s partner alumni and professional associations to connect across all 50 states will make the Lending Club network even more efficient and help us deliver even more value to both lenders and borrowers.

Better Rates Nationwide. Together.

Renaud from Lending Club

Continuing with our Money Marathon series, today we’ll go over something that is more fun instead of more work.

When training for a race, it is essential to maintain at least 100% desire to go out there and train. One of the experts once said that if you ever feel yourself falling below this threshold you should immediately take a week off from training and just relax. This would allow you to reenergize and be ready again to train with full enthusiasm.

I’ve turned this around for the Money Marathon and call it the Fun Fund. Everybody should have a fun fund to make personal finances more fun and to have a way to reenergize your desire to continue with the Money Marathon.

What is a Fun Fund? A Fun Fund is an account you set up to hold money that you can do anything fun with and feel zero guilt about it. Do you want to buy that big toy? Do you want to take that weekend trip? Do you need that gizmo you wanted since childhood but never received?

You can use the Fun Fund money to do any of the above.

How do you set up a Fun Fund? You should set up the Fun Fund as a savings account with no restrictions. Look for an account that has no minimums, no limits on how many times you deposit or withdraw money, and lets you set up withdrawals from your other accounts. Once you have set up this account, write down the account number and the transfer number and keep it handy.

How and when do you contribute to your Fun Fund? As a general rule, you should add to the Fun Fund whenever you have any kind of windfall. Let me give you some examples:

• If you receive a 4% raise at work, take .5% and automatically redirect it to towards your Fun Fund and the rest to your investments account

• If you sell used stuff on Craigslist or eBay, and accept payments via PayPal, you can transfer this money into your Fun Fund

• If you find a way to cut 5% of your monthly costs, then redirect 4% to your investment accounts and 1% to your Fun Fund

• If you’re refunded $400 on your taxes, enter your Fun Fund account number to have the money sent straight there

Why set up a Fun Fund? Setting up a Fun Fund will allow you to be more enthusiastic about savings, investing, cutting costs and so forth, because you’ll be sending a portion of the proceeds to your Fun Fund. Another big reason to do this is that you will not destroy your budget by making impulse purchases, because you know that you can always buy something that you really want from your Fun Fund. Having this ability to reward yourself will help keep you on track with your money marathon training without derailing your efforts.

My recent post about supermarket loyalty cards got me thinking about using coupons in general. Just like Lending Club has improved the lending industry with its P2P loans, more advanced savings methods have added to the obsolescence of coupons. Taking a close look at them, though, may reveal that they still offer substantial savings potential.

To determine if it’s worth it for you to use coupons, you need to know a number of things first. You’ll need to know what your time is worth. You’ll need to know the value of the coupons, including any multipliers offered by your preferred store. You should take other intangibles into account, such as the cost of using the desired store, brand loyalty, etc.

Obviously using coupons is worth it if you will save more money than the time it takes to find and use the coupons. You may find that it’s only worth using easily accessible coupons, such as those that print out along with your receipt. The time to find others, such as by scouring newspapers and magazines, may be more valuable than the discount that you’ll receive.

The intangibles, mentioned above, often make it difficult to determine the true value of a coupon. For example, the pleasure of using a branded product versus a generic may not be worth the normal premium paid for the brand, but may be worth it when the branded product is discounted by a coupon. Similarly, you’ll have to consider whether driving across town (on $3 a gallon gas) is worth getting double coupons versus single at a closer merchant.

With many discounts now being taken automatically through supermarket loyalty cards, the whole concept of coupons seems less relevant. Some people still use the system though, which indicates that underlying value likely still exists. You should be able to spot the coupons that are worth it to you more easily once you’ve considered the value of your time and the true savings a coupon has to offer.

I learned this technique from Brian Tracy. It applies to a lot of decisions that we have made in the past and it’s especially applicable to your Money Marathon. Zero-based thinking is not about changing your mind after you have made a decision that you’re having some second thoughts about. It’s about learning from the past and taking definite action.

The question that Brian Tracy asks is: Knowing what I now know, would I ever make this decision again?

The answer to this question is either yes or no. If yes, continue with that same decision and develop it further. If no, then you ask: how can I get out, and how fast?

When training for a race, you end up spending a lot of time on training or other activities that take you away from your normal daily life activities. To free up time for training, I had to ask this same question about many of the things that I was habitually giving time to. Knowing what I now know, would I ever start these habits again? After going through different areas of my life, I ended up cutting many things completely and reducing the time that I spend on others.

For your Money Marathon, you need to ask the same question to achieve the results that you have set for yourself. Look at every part of your life that involves money, finance or work and ask yourself: knowing what I now know; would I ever go into this again?

Here’s a sample of questions for you to consider:

• Knowing what I now know, would I make the investments that I’m invested in?

• Knowing what I now know, would I take this job? Or would I hold out for something that I enjoyed better?

• Knowing what I now know, would I save my money in the bank? Or would I go for bigger returns by lending out it with p2p lending?

• Knowing what I now know, would I continue leaving the thinking about my money to other people? Or would I become actively involved in my own personal finances?

If any of these questions are answered with “yes,” you should ask yourself, ”How I can opt out, and how fast?” This will free up many of your resources to let you focus on making better decisions and winning your Money Marathon.

Go to nearly any bank or mortgage website and you’ll likely find a calculator for how much house (i.e., mortgage) you can afford. While the result will likely be a number large enough to put you into the home of your dreams, you’ll have to decide if that dream is worth the price.

The question that arises is whether or not you should borrow the full amount, or anywhere near the full amount, that is offered to you. What the calculators typically do is determine the maximum amount that you would be able to survive paying each month. Taking such an amount is basically asking the bank to place you on the brink of financial disaster. If anything should interrupt your assumed income or expenses, even temporarily, then you would likely not be able to afford your home any more.

Like so many aspects of personal finance, there is a mindset that can predispose borrowers to taking on too much debt. The question to ask yourself is: Would you rather live in a house that you can easily afford or in a “better” house that you can barely afford?

To get around the problem of taking on more than you can comfortably afford, I recommend the following course of action: When using an online calculator, factor in your savings goals. When you are entering monthly expenses, increase one of them to include your desired savings. That savings goal could be what you hope to invest in P2P loans at Lending Club, place in your savings account each month, contribute to your retirement plan, or have available if an unexpected expense should occur. You could even add in the sum of all such expenses.

By treating your savings goals as an expected expense, you’ll be shown how much house you can afford while still maintaining healthy savings habits. If your assumptions later turn out to be flawed, you would have the option of reducing your savings allocations rather than losing your home.

Proper planning when determining how much to spend on housing can offer you flexibility in times of trouble. Rather than buying a house at the absolute limit of what you can afford, using some self-control and including your savings goals in your calculations will likely leave you in a much better financial position.