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Sunday Roundup: Outta Town

Misc

Scrapbooking Cupcakes!
Image by clevercupcakes via Flickr

This weekend, my wife is off scrapbooking with my mother and sister-in-law.   Instead of hanging around the house trying to keep three kids entertained, I’m at my brother’s house, since his wife abandoned him with their kids, too.   I’ll let his kids keep mine entertained, and vice versa.  Woo!

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 30 pounds since January 2nd!   That’s only 1 pounds since last week.  12 more to meet my goal for February.  The difference this week?  I’ve cut back on the supplements, to see if they actually make a difference.  It would appear they do.

Total Inches: I have lost 16 inches in the same time frame, down 1.5 since last week.

Best Posts

I totally got live this joke.

Are you a compulsive shopper?  Money Crashers has some tips to cut that down.

Before I got a smartphone, I relied on a PocketMod for almost everything a smartphone does.  Does that make me a geek?

$39Glasses is having a killer sale.  $15 off a $40 item is huge.

Tim Ferriss has a guide to slow-carb seasonings.   It’s worth reading if your food is boring you.

LRN Timewarp

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

This was Scam Week last year.  I had a post on debt scams and scams that target disaster victims.  As we roll into flooding season, it’s important to know how these scams work.

I also discussed my attempt to teach my son to savor delayed gratification.  It has been working.  He makes long-term(for an 11 year old) plans regularly.

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

Money Problems: Setting Goals was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Your Budget is Worthless was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Brown Bagging Your Way to Savings was included in the Carnival of Money Stories.

Debt Burnout was included in the Totally Money 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!

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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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Saturday Roundup

Life

I’ve spend the last 10 days at home with my two youngest kids.   It’s been a lot of fun.   It’s amazing watching them interact with each other and seeing how their imaginations works.   It’s also been a helpful reminder that, if I don’t turn on the TV, they will happily find something else to do.

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 belly, waist, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 11 pounds since January 2nd.  This is crazy.  At least part of this has to be due to the natural swing of up to 5 pounds from day to day, and part of it is due to the fact that I was wearing jeans when I weighed in the first time and cotton pajamas this morning.  From now on, this is going to be the first thing I do on Saturday mornings, so everything is as consistent as possible.  Another factor is that I’ve cut most of the crap out of my diet for a week.  My body has been flushing garbage.  But dang!  11 pounds in a week.  I’m a bit excited.

Total Inches: I have lost 5.5 inches in the same time frame.  This is proof that it’s not just water that I lost, which is where first, dramatic losses usually originate in a diet.

The loss seems a little bit nuts.   Here’s hoping it stays consistent.

Best Posts

Your retirement account shouldn’t be an optional investment.   Do you know how to maximize retirement savings?

I’m a big fan of making extra money.   Money Crashers lists 6 sites to help you rake in the cash, without needing any special skills.

Unclutterer is giving away three Fujitsu Scansnaps.   I want one of these is a way that isn’t quite right.

I’ve been moving to LED lights instead of CFLs for a few years.  CFLs make lousy security lights in Minnesota in the winter.  They take 5 minutes to get to full brightness when it’s cold.  LEDs last forever.

LRN Timewarp

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

I posted about the difference between bribes and rewards and the problems inherent in trying to buy good behavior.

Lesson 2 of my budget series went live, detailing my monthly bills.

We made some changes to our budget plans that haven’t worked very well.   Over the course of the last year, every one of these ideas has either been partially or totally abandoned, but it’s working for us.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

3 Things You Need to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance was included in the Festival of Frugality.

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.

That’s all for today.   Have a great weekend!

Money Problems – Day 7: Paying Off Debt

Finance

Scottsturgis unicorn
Image via Wikipedia

Today, I am continuing the  series, Money Problems: 30 Days to Perfect Finances.   The series will consist of 30 things you can do in one setting to perfect your finances.  It’s not a system to magically make your debt disappear.  Instead, it is a path to understanding where you are, where you want to be, and–most importantly–how to bridge the gap.

I’m not running the series in 30 consecutive days.  That’s not my schedule.  Also, I think that talking about the same thing for 30 days straight will bore both of us.   Instead, it will run roughly once a week.  To make sure you don’t miss a post, please take a moment to subscribe, either by email or rss.

On this, Day 7, we’re going to talk about paying off debt.

Until you pay off your debts, you are living with an anchor around your neck, keeping you from doing the things you love.  Take a look at the amount you are paying to your debt-holders each month.   How could you better use that money, now?  A vacation, private school for your kids, a reliable car?

If you’ve got a ton of debt, the real cost is in missed opportunities.   For example, with my son’s vision therapy being poorly covered by our insurance plan, we are planning a much smaller vacation this summer–a “staycation”–instead of a trip to the Black Hills.  If we didn’t have a debt payment to worry about, we’d have a much larger savings and would have been able to absorb the cost without canceling other plans.  The way it is, our poor planning and reliance on debt over the last 10 years have cost us the opportunity to go somewhere new.

The only way to regain the ability to take advantage of future opportunities is to get out of debt, which tends to be an intimidating thought.   When we started on our journey out of debt, we were buried 6 figures deep, with a credit card balance that matched our mortgage.    It looked like an impossible obstacle, but we’ve been making it happen.   The secret is to make a plan and stick with it.   Pick some kind of plan, and follow it until you are done.  Don’t give up and don’t get discouraged.

What kind of plan should you pick?  That’s a personal choice.  What motivates you? Do you want to see quick progress or do you like seeing the effects of efficient, long-term planning?   These are the most common options:

Debt Snowball

Popularized by Dave Ramsey, this is the plan with the greatest emotional effect.   It’s bad math, but that doesn’t matter, if the people using it are motivated to keep at it long enough to get out of debt.

To prepare your debt snowball, take all of your debts–no matter how small–and arrange them in order of balance.   Ignore the interest rate.  You’re going to pay the minimum payment on each of your debts, except for the smallest balance.  That one will get every spare cent you can throw at it.   When the smallest debt is paid off, that payment and every spare cent you were throwing at it(your “snowball”) will go to the next smallest debt.   As the smallest debts are paid off, your snowball will grow and each subsequent debt will be paid off faster that you will initially think possible.    You will build up a momentum that will shrink your debts quickly.

This is the plan I am using.

Debt Avalanche

A debt avalanche is the most efficient repayment plan.  It is the plan that will, in the long-term, involve paying the least amount of interest.  It’s a good thing.   The downside is that it may not come with the “easy wins” that you get with the debt snowball.   It is the best math; you’ll get out of debt fastest using this plan, but it’s not the most emotionally motivating.

To set this one up, you’ll take all of your bills–again–and line them up, but this time, you’ll do it strictly by interest rate.  You’re going to make every minimum payment, then you’ll focus on paying the bill with the highest interest rate, first, with every available penny.

DOLP

This is the plan promoted by David Bach.  It stands for Done On Last Payment.   With this plan, you’ll pay the minimum payment on each debt, except for bill that is scheduled to be paid off first.   You calculate this by dividing the balance of each debt by the minimum payment.   This gives you an estimate of the number of months it will take to pay off each debt.

This system is less efficient than the debt avalanche–by strict math–but is better than the snowball.  It give you “quick wins” faster than the snowball, but will cost a bit more than the avalanche.   It’s a compromise between the two, blending the emotional satisfaction of the snowball with the better math of the avalanche.

Snowflaking

For each of these plans, you can give them a little steroid injection by snowflaking.  Snowflaking is the art of making some extra cash, and throwing it straight at your debt.   If you hold a yard sale, use the proceeds to make an extra debt payment.   Sell some movies at the pawn shop?  Make an extra car payment.  Every little payment you make means fewer dollars wasted on interest.

Paying interest means you are paying for everything you buy…again.  Do whatever it takes to make debt go away, and you will find yourself able to take advantage of more opportunities and spend more time doing the things you want to do.  Life will be less stressful and rainbows will follow you through your day.  Unicorns will guard your home and leprechauns will chase away evil-doers.   The sun will always shine and stoplights will never show red.   Getting out of debt is powerful stuff.

Your task today is to pick a debt plan, and get on it.   Whichever plan works best for you is the right one.    Organize your bills, pick one to focus on, and go to it.

Assuming you are in debt, how are you paying it off?

 

 

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Ignore Your Budget

Finance

IMG_1144
Image by Boz Bros via Flickr

For the first year of our journey out of debt, we had a strict budget, with all of our discretionary money spent out of an envelope system.  We had an envelope for groceries, one for discretionary spending, one for clothes and one for baby crap.   At the beginning of the month, we’d divide the money into the envelopes according to our budget spreadsheet.  If we used a card for anything, we’d take a matching about of money out of the appropriate envelope and put it in a box to get reconciled the next month.

Ugh. Almost 2 years later, it has turned into too much work and too much nagging about everything either of us put on a card.

We decided to simplify the system a few months ago.   Now, we still have a budget.  It’s even a zero-based budget, but we ignore it.  We only look at it if something changes for the worse.  If something changes for the better, the extra money just gets automatically rolled into our debt snowball, so there’s no need to worry about updating the spreadsheet.

Instead of envelopes, we kind of eyeball it.   We budget $450 per month for groceries, so we aim to spend $100 on our weekly grocery run.  That leaves some room for losing track of how much we are putting in the cart, or a last minute addition to the list.  It also leaves room for our secondary grocery trip to buy bread and milk later in the week.  We do go through a lot of milk at my house.  We budget $55 per month for diapers, but the deal we are currently getting with Amazon Mom is only costing us $30.79 for 6 weeks of diapers.  We ignore the difference.

This—and our heavily automated bill pay and savings—lets us keep our finances on track, without stressing over every dollar or fighting over every little thing that comes home unplanned.   I used to fire up Quicken and balance the checkbook every week.  Now, that happens at the beginning of the month, usually.  If I forget, it doesn’t matter.  At the beginning of February, I balanced the checkbook for the first time in almost two months and we never came close to exercising our overdraft protection account.  In fact, we had some extra, so that got sent directly to our debt.

Overall, it’s been good to test out a new system.  We have almost no financial stress and managing our money takes about a couple of hours per month instead of per week.  It’s all win.

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Saturday Roundup – No More Car

Misc

Free Money (film)
Image via Wikipedia

…err, no more car loan.  I paid off my car this week, a year early!   Now I’m down to 2 debts: a credit card with an embarrassingly high balance and my mortgage.  We’re rocking the debt snowball!

Free Money Tip

INGDirect is having a sweet promotion.  Open a checking account, use it three times in 45 days, and get $50 free.  Free money is the best kind.  I love my ING account and keep all of my savings there.  If you don’t have an account there, yet, now is a great time to open one.

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 17 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 6 pounds since last week.  I cheated this week and had a slice of toast and 6 croutons with my grilled chicken-but-no-cheese salad.

Total Inches: I have lost 9 inches in the same time frame, down 3.5 since last week.

Naturally, the first week is the most dramatic.  That’s when my body was flushing most of the garbage I’d been eating, including holiday feasts.  I’ll have a hard time complaining about 6 pounds in a week.  My guess is that I drop another 10-15 pounds by the end of the month, bringing the average to about 1 pound per day.   Over time, that will drop as my base caloric burn drops to match my new weight.

Best Posts

Realized Returns is giving away a Kindle.  I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t enter, because I’d love to get a Kindle.

Maximizing Money has put together a stellar list of financial blogs.  If I’m not enough to keep you going, take a look at that list.

Mystery shopping sounds like it could be such a sweet deal for some people. Always try to make money doing what you love.

Here is another list of sites that can make you some money.  I love side hustles.

And finally, here is Lifehacker, showing you how to make better cocoa.

LRN Timewarp

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

I wrote a post on saving money while cooking.  This post has easily withstood the test of time.  We keep getting better at stretching our budget.   Over the last year, we’ve actually reduced our food budget by an additional $50 per month, while the quality of our meals has gone up.

This was the first week I posted a 30 Day Project update.   My first goal was to start waking up at 5AM.   That worked well for almost the entire year, but I’ve let that slack off over the last few months.  On the weekends, I don’t set an alarm or try to get up early, but I’m still up by 7:30, usually.  During the week, my alarm goes off at 5:10, but I let myself snooze it.   I’ve discovered that I do better at attending to my personal projects(like blogging) late at night instead of early in the morning.  So, I’m going with what works, instead of trying to force what doesn’t.

I also reviewed the bills I pay that aren’t paid monthly in my third budget lesson.

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

First 3 Things to Do in the New Year was included in Crystal’s rockin’ new Total Money Carnival.

4 Ways We Keep Wasting Money was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Living the XBox Life on an Atari Income was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Swamp Finance was hosted by Squirrelers.

I ran the guest post, The Best Financial Advice I Ever Received for Saving Money Today.

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.

That’s all for today.   Have a great weekend!

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