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Sunday Roundup: It’s Push-Up Time

Life

I Knew Pushups Would Pay Off Someday
Image by reid.gilman via Flickr

It’s the end of a month, so it’s time to announce my new 30 Day Project.   Last February, in 22 days, I went from having my abs cramp after doing 15 push-ups to doing a set of 100.   Yes, really.

The problem is that the push-ups weren’t perfect. Funny things happen to your body when you are doing 100 push-ups.   It’s hard to tell what your body is doing.  I had good form for the first 80, but after that, my body wasn’t perfectly straight.  I looked like a typical second grader in gym class.   But  I did it.  They were push-ups.

I haven’t done a push-up since.

In March, I am going to get myself back up to 100 push-ups, only this time, I will only be doing perfect push-ups.

Here’s the plan, based on what worked last year:

This weekend, I established my baseline.   I did as many push-ups as I could, until the point of failure.  Failure for this purpose is defined as either my form faltering or me collapsing.  I went until I couldn’t hold my body straight.

Starting on the first, I will be doing 5 sets of push-ups, twice a day.

Set 1: One half of my baseline. Starting from 24 push-ups, this set will be 12 push-ups.  As I progress, this set will never be more than 20 push-ups.  It is the warm-up set, after all.

Sets 2-4: ¾ of my baseline, so 18 to start.

Set 5: Go to failure. Once again, failure is defined as faulty from.  This will establish my baseline for the next session.

If I don’t progress for 3 days, I will take a day off to recover and–given previous experience–come back with some serious improvement.

This is a self-correcting progression.  If I can’t meet the previous day’s baseline, my last set will be lower, which will lower the baseline for the following session.

An interesting question I have is how it will affect my diet.  I haven’t been exercising at all, to see how well the slow carb diet does on it’s own.  Now, I’m going to be adding an aggressive exercise plan on top of it.   A plan that involves a bit of muscle bulking.  I’m guessing that my weight loss will slow down a lot, but I will shed inches like mad.  I will be tracking my progression, and my weight and  measurements.   The graphs should be fun.

30 Day Project 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 33 pounds since January 2nd!   That’s 3 pounds since last week.  Only 9 more to meet my goal for February.  Oh wait.   I won’t be hitting it this month.

Total Inches: I have lost 17 inches in the same time frame, down half an inch since last week.

Giveaway

I’ve got some codes for H&R Block Premium Online.  It’s federal only and the state return costs an extra $35, but that’s still a screaming deal.  Premium handles small business and investment tax issues.  If you want to get it, leave a comment saying so.  First come, first serve, until I’m out of codes.

Best Posts

Yes, I Am Cheap has a post about growing up poor.

Public Service Announcement: Liquidation sales are rarely good deals.  When one store in a chain closes, the profitable merchandise always gets shipped to another store.   The rest of it will often get marked up, in anticipation of people shutting off their critical thinking skills in the face of big “On Sale” signs.

I’ve found a new life goal: underground glowworm cave tubing.  Wow.

OpenLibrary is offering up 80,000 ebooks to borrow, for free.   10,000 of them are still in copyright.   I need a kindle.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

A few years ago, I sold a truck(on payments) to a friend, who promptly quit paying me and disappeared.   I ended up playing repossessing the truck.

There was also a story about how I convinced two big companies that collecting on me for a bill of more than $800 wasn’t worth the effort.  It was good, because I didn’t make the call.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Slow Carb Diet: How to Avoid Going Bat-**** Crazy was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Three Alternatives to a Budget was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Protect your home was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Budgets Are Sexy ran my post, Side Hustle Series: I’m a Gun Permit Instructor.  I forgot to link back to this, last week.

Prairie EcoThrifter ran my post, The Luxury of Vacation for the Yakezie Blog Swap.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Yakezie Blog Swap

Eric hosted the Yakezie Blog Swap, which is a bunch of bloggers writing on the same topic and sharing the posts with each other.   Here is his list of the participants this round.

I wrote about my journey to become a DJ at Beating Broke.

Beating Broke wrote about shoe shopping at Narrow Bridge.

Barbara Friedberg got a really nice couch and shared the experience at Wealth Informatics.

Suba doesn’t think the rent is too damn high, in fact, Suba thinks it is worth it and shares at Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.

Mr. and Mrs. BP spent a lot when they got a dog. Read about it at 101 Centavos.

101 Centavos went nuts on an anniversary, but you know what that can get you… Read about it at Broke Professionals.

Latisha Styles’ post at Bucksome Boomer is I Spent How Much?! My Birthday Trip to the Bahamas.

Kay Lynn spent her heart out on a new car with all the bells and whistles and you can read about it at Financial Success for Young Adults.

Derek got a sweet new digital camera and tells us about it at My Personal Finance Journey.

Jacob has splurged a couple of times on travel and outdoor gear and has no regrets and shares the experiences at My Life and Finances.

Miss T. likes to splurge on travel. We have something in common. The difference? She wrote about it at Live Real Now.

Jason is a fan of the luxury of vacation. You can read about it at the Prairie EcoThrifter.

Squirrelers went to Europe for three weeks. Totally worth it! Read about it at Money Sanity.

Money Sanity likes good champagne. I can’t judge, I like good Scotch. Read about why at Squirrelers.

Melissa took 10 days and took the trip of a lifetime to visit a friend in China. Read about it at The Saved Quarter.

The Saved Quarter bought a Blendtec blender. Yes, the blender from “will it blend.” The story is at Mom’s Plan. (In case you were wondering, this blender can blend anything. Well, anything but Chuck Norris.)

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Sunday Roundup: Home Depot and Your Kids

Misc

Logo for The Home Depot. Category:Brands of th...
Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I took my girls to Home Depot.  On the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a workshop for kids that gives kids a chance to make a small craft project with a parent.  For free.  This month was race cars.   My girls look forward to it all month.

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.  As of this writing, I am up to 26 in a set, doing about 90 per twice-daily session.  I’m expecting to do more tonight(Saturday) as I’m currently taking a 24 hour break to let my muscles heal a bit.  By previous experience, I’m guessing I’ll hit 30-35 in the morning.

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 35 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 2 pounds since last week, meaning I missed my February goal by 7 pounds.   I added some cheese back into my diet, to see if it hurt.  It did.   Research showed that dairy inhibits the insulin response, make dairy a bad thing for a diet entirely out of proportion to its glycemic index.

Total Inches: I have lost 19.5  inches in the same time frame, down 2.5 inches since last week.

Best Posts

Lifehacker ran a post on simple ways to make money online. They may not all pay well, but the poorly-paid tasks are something you can do while watching TV.

Finally! A post explaining the exact connection between autism and vaccinations.

I’d love to see free-market healthcare given a chance, just once.  We’d never go back.

Going to college, try some of these scholarships.

Most observant people realize that TSA is a joke.  For those who didn’t realize that, TSA admitted it, too.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

This week last year, I wrote a post about doing 100 push-ups in a single set.  Is it a coincidence that I’m trying again a year later?

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Money Problems – Day 3: What’s Coming In? was included in the Festival of Frugality.

5 Reasons Why I Splurge On Travel was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Ignore Your Budget was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Budget Lesson, Part 1

Finance

Sample <a href=budget” width=”300″ height=”185″ />
Image via Wikipedia

Over the next few weeks, I will be going over my budget in detail.

The first section is income, but that’s straightforward.  A line for each income source, bi-weekly, monthly and annual totals.  Simple.

Before we start, a word on the organization.  There are five columns:

  • Category – This is the description of the line item.
  • Cost – How much do you pay for this item?
  • Time – What is the frequency of the payment?  Valid values are ‘m’, ‘q’, ‘y’, ‘w’ for ‘Monthly’, ‘Quarterly’, ‘Yearly’ and ‘Weekly’.
  • Monthly – Cost and Time are combined to calculate the monthly expense, to make it possibly to budget.  If this is $100, I need to set aside a C-Note each and every month to make the payment when it comes due.
  • Yearly – This column is mostly informative.  It’s helpful to see this in comparison to my annual pay.

The first section I am actually going to address is discretionary spending.

  • Groceries/Dining    $475.00 – We don’t budget heavily for groceries, which would be a surprise if you saw me.  At the smallest I have ever been, fit, I was never small.  We shop smart, buy in bulk when it makes sense, and rarely eat out.  We also keep cooked rice and beans in containers in the refrigerator as a cheap and healthy way to stretch almost everything we eat.
  • Discretionary    $250.00 – This gets used for household items, like toilet paper and soap.  It also get used for the odd book or movie, or to cover the gaps between the other categories and reality.
  • Baby stuff    $60.00 – We have two children in diapers.  ‘Nuff said.  This category does get progressively smaller as the baby items are outgrown and the children get potty-trained.
  • Gas/oil    $200.00 – Gas and auto-maintenance.  This is actually higher than monthly costs, allowing us to set some aside for larger maintenance issues.
  • Clothes    $15.00 – All of our dressers are overflowing, so this is strictly replacement cost for the time being.  Our kids wear a lot of hand-me-downs.
  • Blow Money    $50.00 – Occasionally, habitual shoppers need to shop.  If they don’t do it on-budget, they will do it off-budget and kill the whole idea.

Initially, we used a “virtual envelope” system.  We had a spreadsheet and every time something was spent in this category, we entered the amount and stopped when the category was spent.   Didn’t work.  We are going on a pure, cash-only system as of the first of the year.  No money, no spendy.

Budget Lesson, Part 7

Finance

It’s been a month(again!) since I’ve written a post for the budget series, so I’ll be continuing that today.  See these posts for the history of this series.

This time, I’m looking at how to reduce my “set aside” funds.  These are the categories that don’t have specific payout amounts and happen at irregular intervals.   One of the convenient features of our set-aside funds–also a feature of our non-monthly bills–is that the money sits in our checking account, providing a buffer against overdrafts.   The buffer is big enough  that I can withdraw our entire month’s discretionary budget on the first of the month.

  • Parties  – Twice a year, we have large parties.  We have a barbecue(not necessarily low and slow, I’m in the midwest) and a Halloween party.   We also have three kids with birthdays.   Each year, we try to do something exotic at the barbecue.  One year, it was a turducken.  This year, we’ll be skipping the show-off portion of the show.    The Halloween party is never expensive.   I don’t drink much, so the bar stays well-stocked without frequent expensive shopping trips.   We throw two large parties for less than $300 combined, and our guests start RSVPing a year in advance.  We’re fun.   The kids are getting gypped this year.   I am over my addiction to expensive birthday parties for my kids.  There will be a small party for one, a sleepover for another, and a party combined with some cousins’ birthday parties for the third.    It sound horrible but all of them will have fun.
  • Gifts  – We set aside money for presents, but we don’t feel we need to spend all of the money we have set aside.   Anything left over stays here.  Eventually, it will be something nice for all of us.
  • Pet Care – We have 4 cats and a dog.  Cat litter and food are expenses that we can’t make disappear.  We don’t buy the fancy food, but we also don’t buy the stuff that uses cardboard as filler.   We have set a new limit at 3 pets, but that limit will only be reached through attrition.   There’s nothing to cut here for a few years.
  • Car Repair – This is another category with nothing to cut.   If we don’t spend it, and something catastrophic happens to a car, we’ll be covered.  If it doesn’t, we’ll have a bit more cushion in our checking account.
  • Furnace Warranty – When we bought a new furnace and air conditioner, we got the extended warranty.   This is an unlimited renewal warranty, so, in 5 years, we’ll have to buy it again to keep it.  If we keep it forever, they will eventually replace our furnace when it dies.
  • Medicine/Medical – It’s a sad fact that people get sick.   We set aside a small amount to cover our costs.   The costs rise and fall, but over any given quarter, I don’t think I’ve been off by more than $5.

I’ve taken a hard look at most of the bills over time, so there isn’t always a lot to cut.  Next time, I’ll be addressing our discretionary spending.

Budget Lesson, Part 3

Finance

I keep calling these lessons, but they are examples and explanations, more than lessons.   Names aside, please see Part 1 and Part 2 to catch up.  The Google Doc of this example is here.

School Lunch

This time, I’m going to review my non-monthly bills.  These are the bills that have to be paid, but not on a monthly basis.  Some are annual, others are quarterly, or even weekly.  Every month, the amount–adjusted to the monthly equivalent–is set aside in Quicken.

  • School Lunch – We don’t qualify for any of the reduced lunch plan, and I don’t know that it is possible to send a brown-bag lunch that is both cheaper and healthier than the school’s menu.  This is automatically replenished whenever it gets below $15.   This actually gets paid about every other month.
  • Property Taxes – Semi-annual and increasing every year.   I know the valuations around me, so I don’t think an appeal would win.
  • Life insurance – We pay this quarterly.   If I die, my family will be completely covered for several years, without adjusting a single expense.   If the expenses are adjusted to account for the fact that I won’t be eating, driving, or using electricity, it will last much longer.  This is a separate policy from the one discussed in Part 2.  GET INSURANCE!  Take care of your family.
  • AAA – Since we got reliable cars, this hasn’t been a money-saver, but it’s priceless in terms of peace of mind.
  • Vehicle Registration – We have two cars and a motorcycle that need registration every year.  I’m planning to sell the bike in the spring, but I was planning that for last spring, too.  It’s easy to put that off, since I enjoy riding.
  • Daycare – Daycare is a weekly expense.  As a two-income family, this isn’t an expense we can do away with…yet.  As time goes on, the bill will be getting lower.   In June, my youngest reaches a cheaper pricing table and my oldest is almost ready to be done with daycare completely.
  • City Bill – Our garbage and sewer are paid through the city on a quarterly basis.
  • Web host – I’ve got this blog, plus a few other side projects hosted here.  I have been simplifying and reducing the projects that aren’t fun or profitable, but I’m not sure this expense will ever go away.

There aren’t too many items here that can be legitimately and responsibly trimmed.