- Uop past midnight. 3am feeding. 5am hurts. Back to bed? #
- Stayed up this morning and watched Terminator:Salvation. AWAKs make for bad plot advancement. #
- Last night, Inglorious Basterds was not what I was expecting. #
- @jeffrosecfp It's a fun time, huh. These few months are payment for the fun months coming, when babies become interactive. 🙂 in reply to jeffrosecfp #
- RT @BSimple: RT @bugeyedguide: When we cling to past experiences we keep giving them energy…and we do not have much energy to spare #
- RT @LivingFrugal: Jan 18, Pizza Soup (GOOOOOD Stuff) http://bit.ly/5rOTuc #budget #money #
- Free Turbotax for low income or active-duty military. http://su.pr/29y30d #
- To most ppl,you're just somebody [from casting] to play the bit part of "Other Office Worker" in the movie of their life http://su.pr/1DYMQZ #
- RT @MoneyCrashers: Money Crashers 2010 New Year Giveaway Bash – $8,300 in Cash and Amazing Prizes http://bt.io/DQHw #
- RT: @flexo: RT @wisebread: Tylenol, Motrin, Rolaids, and Benadryl RECALLED! Check your cabinets: http://bit.ly/4BVJfJ #
- New goal for Feb. 100 pushups in 1 set. Anyone care to join me? #
- RT @BSimple: Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow"— Robert Kiyosaki So take action now. #
- RT @hughdeburgh: "Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." ~ Sophia Loren #
- Chances of finding winter boots at a thrift store in January? Why do they wear our at the worst time? #
- @LenPenzo Anyone who make something completely idiot proof underestimates the ingenuity of complete idiots. in reply to LenPenzo #
- RT @zappos: "Lots of people want to ride w/ you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus w/ you…" -Oprah Winfrey #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: "The cobra will bite you whether you call it cobra or Mr. Cobra" -Indian Proverb (via @boxofcrayons) #
- RT @SuburbanDollar: I keep track of all my blogging income and expenses using http://outright.com it is free&helps with taxes #savvyblogging #
- Reading: Your Most Frequently Asked Running Questions – Answered http://bit.ly/8panmw via @zen_habits #
Sunday Roundup: Varsity Punk
I moved this roundup to Sunday to give myself a bit more time to track my weight-loss and push-up goals, since I weigh in on Saturdays. Yesterday, however was super busy. It was all good, but full.
Starting Friday: After work, I rushed my oldest to the B-squad wrestling tournament, where he took first place in his weight bracket. When I got home, I fell asleep almost immediately.
Saturday, we woke up and rushed to the varsity tournament. It was his first time wrestling varsity. Now, he wrestles for a youth league. Participants vary from 3rd to 8th grades. My son is 11, 5′ 7″, and 150 pounds. Guess who he wrestles? Almost exclusively eighth graders. He lost both of his matches, but he put in a great showing. He lasted a round and a half against the top-rated kid in his bracket and managed to get quite a few points.
After that, we rushed home, made dinner for some friends and went to a movie. Red Riding Hood is worth seeing. We got home at 1 and immediately fell asleep. This is the first time I’ve had the computer on at home since Thursday night, other than to check movie times and prices.
30 Day Project Update
This month, I am trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set. I’m recording each session in a spreadsheet. I am currently up to 91 in a set and 261 in a session, spread across 5 sets. I’m expecting to be down in my next session, since I’ve totally slacked off the few days.
Weight Loss Update
I am on the Slow Carb Diet. At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing. For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms. My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils). There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism. The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind. There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.
I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs. Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.
Weight: I have lost 40 pounds since January 2nd. That’s 2 pound since last week. I’ve dropped 7 pounds in March, while doing an insane amount of push-ups and packing on a few pounds of muscle.
Total Inches: I have lost 24 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 inches since last week. I’ve lost 7 inches each off of my waist and hips. It’s time to go clothes shopping, which sucks. I manage to avoid doing that for a year or more at a time, but now, my pants have stopped fitting. When I cinch my belt to where it actually fits, my jeans have pleats.
Best Posts
The recording industry has sued Limewire for damages totaling more than the economic value of…Earth.
Making money line is easier when you’re not bing conned. PT has a list of legit paying survey sites.
I’d love to raise chickens. It’s technically allowed in my city, but only with a permit that the city refuses to issue.
LRN Timewarp
This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago. Did you miss them then?
I wrote Fall from Grace, a post about how and why I got into debt.
There was also a post on credit repair.
Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled
You’re Gonna Die, Part 1 was included in the Totally Money Carnival.
Getting Out of Debt: The Prime Rule as included in Carnival of Personal Finance.
Financial Pet Peeve: Fees To Receive Paper Bank Statements was included in the Festival of Frugality.
Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Get More Out of Live Real, Now
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Have a great week!
3 Reasons You Hate Your Budget
- Image via Wikipedia
One of the first steps in clearing up your financial mess is to set up a budget. You need to figure out how much money you are making, how much you are spending, and what you can do to keep one of those numbers smaller than the other. If your income is smaller than your expenses, you’ve got work to do. If not, yay!
Even if you don’t obsessively cling to your spreadsheets and calculator, you need to spend the time to establish a budget–at least once–to know where you stand. When you do, you’ll find out it sucks. With good reason.
1. It takes too long to set up. Setting up a budget can be a long, drawn-out pain in the butt. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be, but you won’t know that until after you make your first budget, then see some fairly drastic changes, and make a second budget. That one will be easier. For the first one, just concentrate on making a list of all of you regular bills and how often they are due. Don’t be surprised when you miss some. I missed a couple of our quarterly bills. All told, it took a year to get our budget completely done.
2. It doesn’t lie. Once you have all of your expenses down on paper, you are done hiding. You can’t tell yourself it’s all puppy dogs and ice cream when you are staring at the giant red pit that is the negative balance of your bad decisions. Nobody likes the messenger who brings bad news. When your budget shows you how big the hole is, you are going to hate it. That’s when it’s time to confront the problem head on and get out of the hole. Find the problems and rip ’em out. Cancel the cable, taxidermize the cats, and start buying generic underpants. It’s time to take an honest look at your situation. If you can’t handle where you are, how are you going to get where you want to be?
3. It’s not fun. When your friends go out, but you stay home because you’re broke, you will hate it. Y’ou’re also gonna hate comparing your old cell phone to the iPhone in the hands of the d-bag contemplating bankruptcy. Like Dave Ramsey says, “Live like no one else, so that later you can live like no one else.” Skipping some of the fun now will turn into security later. When you get to that point, it will have all been worth it.
Why do you hate your budget?
What Happens When You Save
- Image via Wikipedia
I’m a debtor.
I’d like that to be otherwise, but I’m pretty close to the limit of what I can do to change that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s changing, but there is a limit to how many side projects I can take on at one time. So, I’m in debt and likely to stay that way for the next couple of years.
As part of my budget, I set up a few categories of items that are either necessities or “really wants” without being immediate expenses. For example, I’m setting aside some money each month for car repairs, even though my car isn’t currently broken. When it comes time to fix something, I hope to have the money available to fix it, without having to scramble or <spit> tap into my emergency fund.
All told, I have about a dozen of these categories set up, each as a separate INGDirect savings account. Twice a month, a few hundred dollars gets transferred over and divided among the savings goals. Most of these goals are short-term; they will be spent within the year, like the account for my property taxes. Some of them are open-ended, like my car repair fund. Some are open ended, but will eventually end, like the fund to finance my son’s braces. All of the accounts are slowly growing.
As I’ve watched the progress of my savings accounts, I’ve noticed something funny.
My confidence is up.
It may only be a few thousand dollars, but it’s more money than I have ever had saved. The vast majority of this money will be spent over the next few years, but having it there, now means that I have tomorrow covered. For the first time in my life, I’m not living paycheck to paycheck. No matter what happens, I know I can make ends meet for a couple of months. That fact alone has reduced my stress level more than I could have imagined.
Two years ago, I was sure I was going to file bankruptcy. Now, I’m looking at being just two years away from having all of my debt gone. I have faith that my future will be bright, and only getting brighter. If I can dig myself out of this hole once, I can do it again, no matter what happens.
This has brought a calm that I can’t easily explain. I don’t have to worry about where next week’s groceries are going to come from, or how we’re going to afford braces in a couple of years.
Having an emergency fund and some auxiliary funds has been entirely worth the work we’ve done for last two years. Have you noticed any changes as you pay off your debt and build savings?
The Best Financial Advice I Ever Received
Read through any financial book, newspaper, magazine, or blog and you’ll find no shortage of advice. It seems everyone has their own opinion on what you should be doing with your money. One book tells you to invest in real estate. Another says index funds. Another says tax liens.
After awhile it can become pretty frustrating trying to figure out what exactly is the best course of action. If all these experts have different opinions, whose advice do you trust?
Personally, the best financial advice I ever received didn’t come from a financial guru. It didn’t come from a personal finance book or magazine. It didn’t come from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times.
It came from my dad.
I was probably about eight or nine years old and I was sitting on the floor playing with my Star Wars action figures while he sat in his chair flipping though a trade magazine. Out of the blue, he asked me for ideas on what kind of products he could sell for extra income.
Being an 8 year old boy the only things that came to mind were whoopee cushions and magic sets. But that wasn’t exactly what my dad had in mind.
“Why do you want to sell stuff anyway?” I asked him.
“To make extra money. Gotta keep food on the table,” he replied.
“But you already have a job. Just ask for a raise or something if you need more money.”
My dad just shook his head. And then he sat me down and gave me the best financial advice anyone has ever given me.
“Mike, my boss doesn’t give a damn about me. He cares about himself and his own job. If it helps him to have me around then that’s good for me. But if he decides he’s better off without me, then I’m gone. That’s the way it is. It will be the same when you get older and get a job. You’ve got to look after yourself because no one else is looking out for you. You can’t rely on your boss, or the government, or anyone else to help you look after your family. You’ve got to take the bull by the horns and do it yourself.”
Now, my dad wasn’t a financial guru. In fact he was practically broke when he died. Several years after we had our talk his company decided they could hire someone younger to do his job for a lot less money and they laid him off. Several attempts at entrepreneurship failed and he ended up burning through the family savings while racking up debt.
But his words still echo with me today. I harbor an inherent mistrust of corporate America and the knowledge that no matter how well I perform my job I could be let go without warning if they decide to send my job overseas to India or the Philippines.
But my father’s words also fill me with a need for independence and the need to build multiple streams of income to protect myself against the loss of one. Without that little speech all those years ago I might not have learned how to make websites to supplement my income. And I wouldn’t be progressing toward my ultimate plan of quitting my day job so I can focus solely on my own business while having the freedom to spend more time with my family.
Most importantly, I have goals and a plan to reach them. Without that I would be like so many of my friends who march off to work day after day with no real sense of power or purpose.
What about you? What was the best financial advice you ever received?
Written by Mike Collins of http://SavingMoneyToday.net
Tips to budget successfully
This is a guest post written by Andreas Nicolaides, a financial author for UK based MoneySupermarket.com.
Whether your aim is to save money for a special occasion or you just want to make sure you don’t have to struggle financially when it comes to the end of the month, a budget can be a saving grace. Budgets help us quickly and easily identify our total income and all our expenditure, allowing us to plan for the best and prepare for the worst financial situations.
Set yourself a target
If you have decided to set up a budget, then there must be a reason. Are you looking to save for an upcoming event? Or maybe you have realised that you are struggling to make your payments every month and you would like to feel more financially secure. Based on what you would like to get out of your budget, you should set yourself a specific, measurable objective.
My first objective I set for myself was to save $100 every month for a year. This sort of objective is easy to manage and easy to monitor and this is what we are trying to achieve. One important thing I would mention here is to ensure your objective is achievable; don’t set yourself a target that is too far out of your reach, being realistic is extremely important.
How do you set up your budget?
The main key thing when you start to put your budget together is to make sure you’re as honest as possible. Get yourself a pen and some paper and on one page detail all of your income. Include the obvious and also remember to include any benefits you are entitled too. Then grab another piece of paper and detail all of your monthly outgoings, remember to be honest and thorough and try not to forget anything. Once you have both figures, deduct your expenditure from your monthly income that will give you your monthly figure.
You have some extra cash?
If when you have your figure you realise that there is some cash left over, you can then decide what you want to do with it. My advice here depends on your own personal circumstances, for example if you have high levels of debt, your main aim should be tackle your high interest debt aggressively and as often as possible.
If you have some money left over and your aim is to save, then set up an interest bearing bank account. If you are based in the US then you could look to set up an LSA or lifetime savers account. In the UK we have the equivalent, that is called a cash ISA saving account.
No money left over?
If after working out your budget you find you have no money left over, then you need to do something about it. Debt is one of those things that won’t just disappear overnight; it’s something that takes time and commitment, but not giving up is paramount.
How to cut down your expenditures?
One of the main things you can do when you realise you are in a bad situation is to try and cut down on your expenditure. Here’s a couple of quick ways:
- Use price comparison sites – These sites are great to check and see if you are paying too much on your bills, and if you are, you will have a list of fantastic options available for you to choose from. This is a great way of saving money on things like your car insurance, see here.
- Sell unwanted items – Selling unwanted items is a quick way to making some cash, everyone has them around their home, so why not make use of them instead of letting them build up dust?
- Cut down on your spending – Try to avoid buying luxuries and try to stick to a specific shopping list when out doing the weekly food shop, this will help you avoid unnecessary purchases
A budget is used by many just to monitor what they spend month to month, but I hope I have detailed how it can be a helpful financial tool that can help you reach your financial goals. I hope my tips to budget successfully will help you get started on your way to financial freedom.
