Live Real, Now

The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

Search Results for: slow-carb-diet-how-to-avoid-going-bat-crazy/5-steps-to-save/debt-burnout/how-to-complain-the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease/travel-expenses-why-i-splurge/three-alternatives-to-a-budget

Sunday Roundup: 30 Day Project, January Wrap-Up

Misc

Baen Books logo.
Image via Wikipedia

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to establish the Slow Carb Diet as a habit.   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 22 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 2 pounds since last week.

Total Inches: I have lost 11.5 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 since last week.

I’m sad.  I’m only down 2 more pounds this week.  On the other hand, I’m averaging almost a pound a day without exercising.    I’m on a new belt loop and I’ve actually lost a ring size.  I’m going to keep this up for another month.   That’s the beautiful thing about 30 Day Projects: A month isn’t an intimidating length of time.      My goal for next month is to drop another 20 pounds.

That said, this is a pretty easy diet to follow.  If I get a hankering for a candy bar on Wednesday, it’s far easier to tell myself to wait 3 days than it is to tell myself that it will never happen.  Moderation has never been my strong suit.  It’s far easier for me to set some solid rules that give me a built-in outlet.

Best Posts

Do you really want to tie yourself down for the next 30 years.   Sandy doesn’t, and I agree.  30 year mortgages suck.

Trent lists seven common bills and ways to save on each.

Free From Broke ran a guest post from Melissa on how–and why–to freeze your credit.

Larry Correia’s new book, Hard Magic, is available as an Early Advanced Read Copy from Baen Books.  That means you can read the book before it is published.  It’s not quite as polished as the final, but still quite good.  I’ve read the first 7 chapters and am looking forward to reading the final version.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote one year ago.

In Make Yourself Accountable, I list several ways to achieve your goals, primarily by getting other people involved, either to talk you down or to participate in your public humiliation if you fail.

In 6 Questions, I reveal the details of how I manage my finances.  The only one that has changed in the last year is #1.  We have moved back to our debit card now that we’ve established better habits.

I also wrote a post about preparing your children to deal with their finances.  The most important one is to teach delayed gratification.   Yesterday, my son finally had enough money to buy himself a PSP, after saving for it for months.   He earned it and he is incredibly thrilled to have it.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

What Happens When You Save was an Editor’s Pick at the Totally Money Carnival.  Thank you, Crystal!

5 Steps to Save 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 weekend!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday Roundup: Spent weekend

Misc

Photographer: Frank C. Müller
Image via Wikipedia

The problem with running a training class for a side hustle is that it sucks up half of my weekend, whenever I hold a class.   I like my weekends.  Unfortunately for downtime, I like extra money more.

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 50 in a set and 175 in a session, spread across 5 sets.  This week, my elbow started hurting, so I took 2 and a half days off.

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 38 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 2 pound since last week.

Total Inches: I have lost  22.5 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 inches since last week.   My biceps, which are part of this measurement, have grown half an inch each since I started doing push-ups twice a day.

Best Posts

My mother-in-law hates dandelions, with a passion that just isn’t sane.   I want to make her a meal that consists of nothing but dandelions.

When I got my first RSA SecureID card, I thought it was the coolest thing ever.   If you’ve never had one, it gives you a rotating password that changes every 30 seconds, so nobody can guess you password for long.  It was neat, and, apparently, not that secure.

The idea of a tortoise on wheels makes me smile.

I’d like to try to make yogurt.  I can try whatever flavors I like.  Poptart-and-broccoli yogurt just sounds….

I work really hard to save money on vacations, and this post is full of good ideas to help me do that.

eBay is making changes to their fee structure that will make it a lot cheaper to sell things.  I’m guessing the back-the-customer-no-matter-what-at-the-expense-of-the-seller’s-getting-scammed policy was costing them some money.

The big box stores are pushing for Amazon to collect sales tax on all sales, in opposition to a Supreme Court ruling on the topic.  It won’t make a difference in sales.  Amazon will still be cheaper.  And I’ll get a Canadian mail drop.

LRN Timewarp

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

I talked about teaching my kids the joy of delayed gratification.  Interestingly, my son has since decided he doesn’t want an XBox 360, because the buy-in is too high, with having to buy games and controllers to match the console.  We’ve also changed his allowance to savings ratio.  Now, 25% of everything he makes hits his bank account.  The rest is his to do with as he sees fit.

Last year at this time, it was scam week here.  I wrote a post on debt scams and another on disaster scams.

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

Money Problems: Boosting Your Income was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Living in Debt: How I Sacrificed My Future was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

My post on spendthrift whiners was hosted on Faith and Finance.  In return, I hosted his post on paper statement fees.

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

Yakezie Blog Swap

Jacob 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.

He wrote about 3 of my financial pet peeves (spending too much money on drinks, financing expensive furniture, and active investing strategies) on Narrow Bridge Finance.

Robert from The College Investor wrote about how people making mistakes with their 401k accounts is a big “no-no” at Thousandaire.
Narrow Bridge Finance posted about how people not taking responsibility for their financial actions infuriates him on My Personal Finance Journey.
Prairie Eco-Thrifter posted about how sales tax is her biggest financial pet peeve at 101 Centavos.

101 Centavos posted about how wasting food makes his blood pressure rise at Prairie Eco-Thrifter.

LaTisha D Styles writes about how greedy banks upset her at Retire by 40.

Retire by 40 wrote about how bigger is not necessarily better at FSYA Online.

Bucksome Boomer writes about how advertisers that hide the real price of a product is maddening at The Single Saver.

The Single Saver wrote about parents who do not teach their children financial responsibility at Bucksome Boomer.

Kevin from Thousandaire writes about people having misconceptions about Roth IRA’s at The College Investor.

Time from Faith and Finance vents about financial institutions charging to send paper account statements, but still send out a plethora of paper junk mail at Live Real Now.

Jason from Live Real Now politely rants about how aggravating it is to see people whine about their less-than-ideal financial situations, yet do nothing about it, at Faith and Finance.

Money Sanity vents about people complaining about paying overdraft and bank fees, while at the same time, having no idea how much credit card debt they have or their checking account balance at The Saved Quarter

The Saved Quarter writes about people who are financially irresponsible and want to complain about how broke they are while showing off the new things they bought at Money Sanity

Barb Friedberg talks about how investment advisors that get paid to sell products (more salesman than investment advisors in my book) upset her at Happy Simple Living

Happy Simple Living writes about how companies and people that exploit others aggravate her at Barb Friedberg Personal Finance. 

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!

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

5 Steps to Save

Finance

neighbor of the beast
Image by BitHead via Flickr

“Saving is too hard.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“How much should I save?”

“Who the heck are you to tell me what to do with my money?”

“Shut up, Jason.”

These are the things I hear when I start talking about getting a good strategy in place to save some money.   Financial matters are intimidating to a lot of people.  They’d rather not think about their money any more than they absolutely need to, if that much.   Here, I’m breaking it down to some simple steps to make saving easy.

1.  Get motivated. Why do you want to save some money?  Are you trying to make a secure future, or do you just want to buy a new toy?  These are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself.  Nobody else can tell you why you want to make changes to your lifestyle, and nobody else’s reasons matter in the least.   Saving money is something you have to do for you.

2.   Figure out how much you can save. Generally, you’re going to need a budget so you can figure out what you can afford to save, but not always.  If you are making ends meet, then you get a raise, you can obviously afford to bank the difference.  If you do that, you’ll never even notice the missing money.  If you try to save so much your mortgage goes unpaid, you’re plan is doomed to failure.

3.  Open an account at a new bank. The biggest problem I used to have when I was trying to save was that it was too easy to get the money.  Every time I checked the balance of my checking account, I saw the balance in the savings account.   Worse, it took seconds to transfer that money from my savings account to my attached checking account.    Every time I wanted to see if I could afford whatever toy I was looking at, I’d see money that wasn’t earmarked for anything in particular.  Naturally, that money got spent more often that it was ignored and allowed to grow.   Now, I can completely forget about the money.

4.  Automate. I’ve automated everything I can.  All of my bills are paid automatically, except for one company that insists on quarterly paper invoices.    I’ve got $665(neighbor of the beast!) automatically transferred to my INGDirect account, to get divided between my various savings goals, including a fund for my semi-annual property tax payments and a fund to pay for the braces we haven’t actually had to buy yet, but will in a couple of years.   The money disappears into a bank I don’t use for my day-to-day expenses and grows completely out of sight.    Every once in a while, I look at the account and get surprised by how much has accumulated.

5.  Get rich. Once you’ve got the other four steps in place, all you’ve got to do is let it work.  Over time, you will build wealth in a way that may surprise you.    Your goal at this point is to do nothing new.    Every once in a while, you can pull out some money and tuck it into an investment account to get some real growth going for you.

“Thank you.”

“You’re the best.”

“What would I do without you?”

“How can I show you my appreciation? <wink><wink>”

“What the heck are you doing with my wife?”

These are the things I always hope to hear after sharing my strategies to save money.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday Roundup – Life’s Been Busy

Misc

inventables
Image by hahatango via Flickr

I’ve been skipping the Sunday roundups for the last month.    Over the last 4 weekends, I have put 2000 miles on my car, taking 4 trips–only one of which I consider optional and that was the only fun trip.    With the extra gas, and having to pay for my son’s vision therapy, we went over budget by more than $4,000.

Ouch.

It’s the first debt I’ve picked up in more than 2 years.  It’s leaving me twitchy and crabby.  I don’t like it much at all.

And, with all of the traveling, I have let the Sunday posts slip.

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 45 pounds since January 2nd.  I haven’t weighed in since my last Sunday update.  For the last week, I haven’t been terribly strict about being on the diet and I haven’t stressed about staying on it while traveling.

Total Inches: I have lost  27  inches in the same time frame.

Best Posts

Every home needs a secret tunnel.  Every time a house in my neighborhood goes up for sale, I try to convince my wife we should buy it and connect it to ours with tunnels.

Some day, when I’m a brazillionaire, if I hate my descendants, I’m going to set up my will to frustrate them all.

Haggling is a skill I need to work on.

The Monster Hunter Alpha early advanced reader copy is available.  The Monster Hunter books are fun, fast reads.

Bacon art makes me cultured and hungry.

Making strangers smile is a way to make your day memorable.

I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when I hear about people successfully chasing their dreams.

I need to find a use for some of the unique materials here.

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

Karate Guess So was the winner of last week’s Best of Money Carnival!  Woo!

Debt Options was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Budgeting Sucks was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

The Benefits of Ignorance was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.

New Debt was included in the Yakezie Carnival.

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!

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Does Money Make Miley Cyrus Act Crazy?

Celebrities

If you’re like millions of people who saw Miley Cyrus’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards recently, you’ve probably wondered what the effect of massive success on the music and acting star. Cyrus seems to be

Cover of "Hannah Montana The Movie"
Cover of Hannah Montana The Movie

doing everything possible to remake her image in the exact opposite of her squeaky clean mold that Disney and other companies have created for her over the last several years. (A rumor has it that Disney even created a contractual obligation for Cyrus to maintain a certain haircut during her “Hannah Montana” television show.) There’s a sense of someone taking on their first sense of independence, and running with it — the star seemed to be sending the message to the audience that she was not going to live according to the expectations of others anymore, and from the look of it, they got that message loud and clear.

The horrified looks of Rihanna, Drake, and Will Smith aside, the real question people had is whether the massive financial rewards of Cyrus’ singing career can explain her crazy behavior. Cyrus is said to be worth about $100,000,000 — certainly a fortune by any standards. And since she is still struggling with the problems of young adulthood — forming an identity, understanding her values and taking a place in society, it’s very likely that her finances contribute to at least some of her behavior.This effect of money can come from many different areas of life. For one, many people who become wealthy at a young age are suddenly struck with the fact that they have no need to work, but who often want to develop a career and contribute to society. Take Steve Jobs for example, who at 31 years old was fired from Apple Inc. by the company’s board of directors. Jobs had in fact started the company himself, and was worth well over a hundred million dollars by that time. And yet, feeling like contributing to society was more important to his life than resting on his laurels, Jobs started a new company, NeXT, where he hoped to contribute inexpensive computers to universities.

The fact that Cyrus is barely into her 20s should tell you something about how much time she has to develop her career. She has enough to retire at an age when most people are just starting their first real job. And that is a tough position to be in. If she is hoping to push her singing and acting career well into adulthood — as most artists would like to — it may be that she is trying to make her mark now. Think of it a bit like Bob Dylan in 1964, releasing electric music for the first time, when before that point he was primarily known as a folk singer making gentle acoustic music.

Dylan’s idea may have been a bit like what Cyrus’ is. That is to say, maybe Miley Cyrus is trying to avoid becoming a has-been, a relic of the 2000’s who burned out playing inoffensive pop music. If this is the case, Cyrus may be able to shift her career into a different mode by showing herself to be an uncompromising artist. Remember that even the greats of the past — Frank Sinatra for example — were once viewed as essentially music for teenagers, and not serious artists. Sinatra even suffered career failure in his 20’s when his audience grew up and moved on to other things. But he came back to record success when he began allowing his music to mature and his ideas to gain focus. If Cyrus can pull such a move, she may not be remembered as a teeny-bopper, but as a serious artist.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday Roundup: Yep, It’s Saturday

Misc

funny road sign
Image by Sree_ via Flickr

Yes, it’s Saturday.  Tomorrow, I’m hosting the Yakezie Carnival, so I bumped this up a day.

This week has been super relaxing.  Wrestling season is over.  We’re done with activities for a while.

30 Day Project Update

Last month, I was trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set.  I recorded each session in a spreadsheet.  I hit my goal on the 28th, 3 days early.  Since then, I’ve cut down to just one session per day.  I’m now doing 35 slow, deep push-ups every morning.  It’s not a goal, or a challenge, just part of a general effort to be healthier.

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 41 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 1 pound since last week and 8 pounds in March, while doing an insane amount of push-ups and packing on a few pounds of muscle.  Seriously, for the last couple of weeks, on the days I haven’t totally slacked off, I’ve been doing 500+ push-ups a day.  That’s a lot.

Total Inches: I have lost  23 inches in the same time frame, up 1 inch since last week.   That makes me sad, but it seems to be muscle growth, so it’s not too bad.

Best Posts

Mint shows how lazy employees are, on average.  Surprisingly, only 2.09 hours are wasted in the average 8 hour day.   The rule I’d heard before is that employers expect 2-3 good, solid hours of work our of their employees every day.

Money Crasher has some cheap appetizer recipes.   I can’t wait to make the biscuit meatballs.

The Mars Rover died.  Tragic.

Get Rich Slowly has a post on emergency preparedness.  If I mentioned that I keep enough supplies in my car to live for a week, would that make me a survivalist or just a fun guy?

LRN Timewarp

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

First, I examined the value of exchanging your time to save a bit of money.

Then, I talked about the futility of trying to force your spouse into frugality.

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

Filing Bankruptcy: Pride or Shame? was an Editor’s Pick in the Totally Money Blog Carnival at Debt Free Divas.  Thank you!

Budgeting tips – sticking to your budget was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Saving Money: The Warranty Fund 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!

 

Enhanced by Zemanta