Live Real, Now

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

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Don’t Screw Future-You

Finance, Life

A conversation between me and my temporally displaced self.
Future Me: Excuse me, Jason?
Me: Yes?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: May I ask what that was for?
FMe: Of course.
Me: What was that for, jerk?
FMe: That was payback for all of the hell you have put me through.
Me: What?!?  I’ve never even met you, before.
FMe: Of course you have.  I am future-you, and I’m sick of getting screwed by past-me, that is, you.
Me: Huh?
FMe: Listen close.  You’re not  the sharpest brick in the box and I don’t want to explain this twice.
Me: ???
FMe: A long time ago, when you first met our wife, you were dumb.
Me: I don’t appreciate….
FMe: Shut up.  I was dumb then, too.  Remember?  You…err…we bought a new truck, built an addition on our…err…your…err…whomever’s house, got married in the same year.  On top of many other expensive decisions.  Do your recall?
Me: Yes, I do.  So what?
FMe: If that wasn’t enough, you and your smoking-hot bride are still shopping like you’re rich. You drive a new car.  Your kids wear new clothes.  You’ve got a house full of new furniture.  How did you pay for all of that?
Me: Naturally, I charged it.  Zero payments, zero interest for a year!  Pretty smart, huh?
FMe: What happens in a year?
Me: I don’t know.  I’ve got a full year to figure that out.
FMe: <Slap!>  I’ll tell you what happens!  Future-you, that’s me, gets screwed!   Your raise didn’t come through.  You had a baby. The truck broke down.  Your wife took maternity leave.  A roommate moved out.  You took a loss in the stock market.  You didn’t plan!  You had no savings to cover any of those problems because you were too busy servicing debt to pay for your current life.
Me: How was I to know?
FMe: <Slap!>  Life happens!  You never know what is coming next.  You need to plan and save for what might happen.  Otherwise, you’ll just accumulate more debt to be serviced by yours-truly.  That is not acceptable.
Me:  So?  What are you going to do about it?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: Really?  Again?
FMe: <Slap!>  I’m struggling to pay your debt. Your son starts college next year, but you’ve left me completely unable to help.  Your daughter wants to get married in a couple of years, but the Father-of-the-Bride can’t afford a tux.  My wife, your beatiful bride, wants a vacation that I can’t afford.   You’ve screwed me, dude.
Me: I’m sorry.  What can I do to fix it?
FMe: Buy me dinner, first.
Me: Huh?!?!?
FMe: Stop the excess spending. Spend less than you make, for a change.  No credit.
Me: None?
FMe: None.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Only spend what you can afford. Budget.  Pay off those nasty bills.  Don’t leave me hanging.
Me: So, what you’re saying is that, if I don’t have the money, I shouldn’t buy it?
FMe: Exactly.  That’s the path to wealth, freedom, and financial independence.  Live in the real world.
Me: Gee, thanks, Future-Me!  Now I know.
FMe: And knowing is half the battle.

What would your future-you have to say to you?

 

Make Extra Money, Part 6.5: Why I Do It The Way I Do It

Business, Finance

This is a follow-up to part 6 of the niche site walkthrough, Setting Up a Niche Site.  If you haven’t read that post, this one won’t mean much.  Go ahead.  Read it.  I’ll wait.

Several people have asked me to explain why I use the plugins and settings I use.   In this installment of the Make Extra Money series, I’m going to explain every choice I recommended last time.

WordPress

WordPress is a site development dream.  With the right themes and plugins, you can literally make a WordPress site look, feel, and behave in any way you wish.   Even without digging too deep into plugins and premium themes like Headway, you can put together a niche site blog in very little time and know that it’s happening on a robust platform that is actively being improved.

Configuring WordPress

Updates

Keeping your site updated is the single most important thing you can do to avoid getting hacked.   Since I haven’t yet figured out how to make hacking a terminal disease, I do the best I can to avoid letting them cause problems.   Keeping your site updated is the condom of WordPress.

WWW

This is entirely a personal preference, but, after 20 years of reinforcing habits, most people type “www” by default.  WordPress will automatically forward visitors correctly, so this isn’t actually a necessity.

The “Misc” Category

I don’t spend much time worrying about categories when I post, and sometimes I experiment with using external software to post from pools of articles, so I set up a default category.   “Misc” is much nicer to see than “Uncategorized”, even if they mean the same thing.

Theme Selection

I like SimpleX because it is uncluttered and easy to navigate.  It’s hardly the most powerful theme out there, but it doesn’t pretend to be.  If I want more, I use Headway.

Plugins

Plugin Central

Plugin Central is just a plugin installer that lets you install and activate many plugins at once.  Even knowing exactly what plugins you want, this easily saves half an hour of setup time.

All in One SEO Pack

SEO is important.  In fact, it’s what I base my niche site traffic on.   All in One SEO makes it easy to manage the SEO titles that search engines see and the meta descriptions that search engine’s display to visitors when they see your site after a search.   Some themes do this themselves, but I still use this plugin.

Meta keywords are all but useless, but not entirely.   Google and Bing don’t care, but some networking and sharing sites do.

I “noindex” the tag archives because I don’t want the search engines finding each page twice.  Identical pages with different addresses will register as two pages with Google.  How does it know which one I consider most important?  It doesn’t, so I don’t give it the option of indexing my tag archives.

Contact Form 7

This is just a free and easy contact form.  I haven’t found anything better for the price.

WordPress Database Backup

Backups are important.  Always back up your data.  Do you want to spend 3 weeks building a site, just to have your server crash, killing everything?  5 minutes now will save hours or days of headache later.

SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2

When someone comes to your site from a search engine, this plugin takes the term they searched for and appends it in a list at the end of the post the visitor found.  This reinforces your site as a good result for that search term.  It also provides a handy list of the most popular search terms people use to find your site.

Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress

I hate spam.  If Akismet finds a spam comment being posted, this plugin will give the user a change to enter a CAPTCHA code to post the comment. Even if I turn off comments on a site, I keep this installed in case I ever change my mind.   Real comments are good for SEO, so I occasionally test allowing the comments.  I won’t waste the time moderating comments on a niche site, so this is a good compromise.

Date Exclusion SEO

If someone comes to a site and sees the last post was two years ago, they’ll leave. I don’t want a post to look like it’s outdated, so I suppress the dates.

Pretty Link Lite

This plugin lets me mask a link and set it to nofollow.  Nofollow tells the search engines to discount the value of the link, which removes a spam-site indicator from their algorithms.   Masking the link turns a messy affiliate link into a link that looks internal, making it easier for a visitor to click and allowing you to see how often a link is clicked.

Google XML Sitemaps

Making it easy for Google to find your entire site is a good thing.  This plugin helps with that.

WP Policies

This plugin provides a long list of site policies, formatted for a WordPress page.  The most important one is the disclaimer announcing the fact that your are making money on your site.

WP Super Cache

Super Cache creates a pre-generated copy of your page so the site doesn’t have to hit the database to rebuild it dynamically every time someone visits.  It’s all about speed, which affects your search rank.

JetPack

I like using the WordPress.com stats instead of Google Analytics for most of my niche site.  I don’t see a need to announce to Google that these 12 sites are owned by me, so I don’t.   WordPress.com included their stats plugin in JetPack, then discontinued the standalone plugin, so I use JetPack.

Backup

If I subscribe to my own feed, I get every post in Google Reader.  That means I don’t need to make a daily backup of any of my sites.   For the amount of changes I make to my niche sites, weekly might still be overkill, but that’s what I do.   I get the backups by email so I have a copy somewhere other than the host.  I don’t believe in letting anyone control my money but me.

Settings

Discussion

Most comments to niche sites are spam comments, so I hide them without actually turning them off.   Sometimes I test letting the comments through, because some niches might have great people that want to post good comments.  I haven’t had a lot of luck with that, on my niche sites.

Permalinks

The default permalink structure is absolutely not recommended for search engine purposes.  It’s also harder for someone to mention.   I don’t put dates in the link for the same reason I hide dates in the posts: I don’t want anything to look outdated.

Menus

I keep the navigation menu simple.  It has three purposes:

  1. Link to the page that’s designed to make money.
  2. Link to the pages that show Google and readers it is an active site.
  3. Link to the disclaimer that keeps my butt away from federal fines.

Anything else is wasted space.

Widgets

On my niche sites, I use widgets to help with navigation and to point people to the pages that will make the most money.     I haven’t addressed how I do the second part yet, because I haven’t created those pages yet.

Posts

Right now, http://www.masterweddingplanning.net/ has exactly one post, and it’s a duplicated post from eZineArticles.   It has served its purpose.  This site is fully indexed by Google.

When I get the rest of the content written, I’ll delete that post.

There you have it, the reasons behind every choice I make during site creation.  Did I miss anything?  Do you have any other questions?

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Where the hell have I been?

Finance

For the last year or so, I haven’t been writing much, which feels weird.  I used to write three timer per week.   I’d write about saving money, investing, frugality, sometimes, relationships and parenting.2016-01-13 18.51.30

But that stopped.   Why?

When I started this site, I was about $110,000 in debt, and just starting my journey out of it.  A few months before, I was looking into bankruptcy, because I didn’t know how to get out of debt.

For years, the ways I saved money, cut corners, and earned extra money was fodder for this site.  Everything I did was about saving money, earning money, and paying off debt.

Now?  I’m about 2 months away from being completely debt-free.   I paid my mortgage off last month, and have about $10,000 in credit card debt at the moment.   I know, I paid that off backwards, but there are reasons.  Reasons I’ll share another time.

4 years ago, I was essentially working 4 jobs.   My day job, my gun training business, my internet marketing business, and my websites(including this one).   I was working all of the time.   It was necessary, but it’s a path to burnout.   Then, I changed jobs a couple of times, nearly doubling my day job’s pay.   My business partner got promoted out of a position that generated leads for one of our businesses, then had an accident that the other shared business on hold for a while.

Suddenly, I had free time and enough money coming in that I didn’t need to work all of the time.   It was a crazy place to be after spending more than a decade pretending to be a workaholic just to keep my head above water.   (Here’s a secret:  I’m incredibly lazy.  I’m just the busiest lazy man I know.)  So I started pursuing hobbies.

Linda and I have been taking ballroom dancing lessons and are nearly to the point that competing is a real possibility.

I cleaned out my garage and assembled a decent wood shop, which is something I’ve wanted to do roughly forever.2015-12-25 14.49.08

I’ve been taking blacksmithing lessons with my teenage son.

I’ve been playing games with my kids, dating my wife, and simply enjoying my life.

This site?

Through all of that, I haven’t known what to write about.

“Dear audience, this month, I paid my bills, didn’t go on vacation, and bought a drill press.”

“Dear audience, my debt went down another $500 this month.”

“Dear audience,  I didn’t buy a car I can’t afford this month.  Again.”

Those aren’t good articles.   Financially–while paying off debt is disturbingly exciting–my life is very repetitive.   That’s the hardest part about paying off a lot of debt.   It’s good, it’s necessary, it’s boring.   My wins have been spaced out by several years lately, and I haven’t been creatively frugal.  Screw frugal.   If you can afford some conveniences and luxuries, frugal sucks.

Anything new happening in my world that would apply to this site would make it read like an accountant’s ledger book.   $100,000 minus $1500 plus $10,000 minus $300, ad nauseum.

Instead of inflicting boring accountancy on you, I’ve been absent.

What next?   Who knows.   I enjoy writing.  I enjoy writing here.   I’ve started writing a novel.

What would you like to see here?

 

 

Sunday Roundup: Father’s Day

Finance

Father's Day Cake 2009
Image by Jim, the Photographer via Flickr

On Father’s Day, 3 years ago, my third and final kid was born.   My kids are all horrible brats and I love them dearly.

I wouldn’t give up fatherhood for anything.  Watching my kids grow and learn, steering their development, and teaching them how to navigate life is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever been a part of.  Also the most frustrating.  I can’t imagine being anywhere else, not being with my kids.   I have no respect for deadbeat parents.

I am incredibly grateful that I had a proper model for manhood and fatherhood.   My dad taught me the concepts of honor, integrity, and responsibility.   I couldn’t be the man I am now, if he wasn’t the man he is.   Thanks, Dad.

Best Posts

Sometimes, the coolest things in the world are the things most likely to kill you.    Call me crazy, but I’d happily strap a 1200 cc propeller to my crotch and find out what 10,000 feet looks like.

Via Budgeting In The Fun Stuff, Super Frugalette reminds us that, when there’s a significant amount of money involved, spending a few hundred dollars on an attorney isn’t wasteful.

Fivecentnickel discuss multi-level marketing.  It doesn’t matter which company you are in, if your downline is more important that your product, it’s a bad business model.

Keith Ferrazzi shows us how to improve our body language when it really matters.

When I started driving, I tossed my car in a ditch going way too fast.  Naturally, it was my parents’ fault for giving me the curfew I was trying to beat.   They never would have bought it if I would have told them I was driving like my grandma and it jumped into the trees by itself.   Why does the FBI think that’s believable?  Corruption, maybe?

Financial Samurai talks about living a life without regrets, which is a personal goal of mine.

Food storage will become critical when the zombies come.

Beer is good.  Even the cave-men thought so.

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

3 Ways to Keep Your Finances Organized was an Editor’s Pick in this week’s Festival of Frugality.  Thanks!

5 Reasons Your Wealth Isn’t Growing was included in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

Money Problems: Insurance was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.

Unlicense Health Insurance was included in last week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

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

Yakezie Blog Swap

Last week, the Yakezie shared what they would do with a single financial do-over.

– Melissa from Mom’s Plans shares her biggest financial mistake at Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance: Opening an eBay Store and Using Credit.  It is a great story about how not to grow your business and how competing priorities can pose a real challenge.

– Budgeting in the Fun Stuff shares her biggest financial mistake and potential do-over at Super Frugalette: Investing in a Friend’s Business.  Its a good, but costly lesson learned about small business.

– Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance shares how He Wouldn’t Have Paid Down His Student Loans So Fast at The Saved Quarter.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but he has some good points.  Check it out.

– Mr. S from Broke Professionals shares how He Wouldn’t Have Bought a New Car at My Personal Finance Journey.  This has some great analysis, especially considering the new car was a hybrid!

– The College Investor posted at Wealth Informatics: What you should know when you are investing?

– Wealth Informatics posted here: If you had one financial do-over, what would it be and why?

– Barbara Friedberg shares how She Was Scammed at Mom’s Plans.  You have to watch out for the hard sell!

– Joe at Retireby40 tells us about How He Invested his 401(k) in Company Stock right before the dot com crash, at Financially Consumed.  A financial adviser may have helped avoid this one!

– Financially Consumed shares his Car Purchase Do-Over And Over at Retireby40.  Car addicts have it tough!

– LaTisha from FSYA shares her do-over story in It’s Never Too Late at Little House in the Valley.  Sometimes the do-over is quicker and more painless than most.

– Little House yell’s Do-Over! Do-Over! at FSYA Online.  It looks at the road to saving more, starting on an elementary school playground!

– The Single Saver asks, What Are The Long Term Consequences of Small Purchases at Totally Money.  A cool post on how past purchases cost future returns!

– Miss Moneypenniless from Totally Money shares her story of Vacationing to the Brink of Bankruptcy.  Sometimes a vacation can be fun, but the bills afterward may be daunting.

– Super Frugalette shares How a Lawyer Could Have Saved Her $24,700 at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.  Maybe lawyers are worth it sometimes?

– Jason from Live Real, Now shares how he Amassed $90,000 of Debt at Debt Eye.  A good lesson in living a little more frugally.

– Kevin from Debteye shares his do-over: Not Buying a House Right Out of College at Live Real, Now.  I have said it before that buying a house can be challenging right out of college.

– Penny from The Saved Quarter shares how She Would Have Finished College Before Having Kids at Narrow Bridge Finance.  An awesome story that has will soon have a happy ending!

– Jacob from My Personal Finance Journey shares how he was Scammed on eBay at Broke Professionals.  An important lesson for anyone selling or buying online.

– Marissa from Thirty-Six Months shares how she Accumulated a Ton of Student Loan Debt at So Over Debt.  If you are going to live the life, you’re going to pay the price!

– Andrea from So Over Debt shares How She Would Have Started Saving for Retirementat Thirty-Six Months.  I would love to read a post on each of the stories you mentioned getting to where you are now!

– Below Your Means shares his story about A Missed Investment Opportunity.  There are so many times I wish I could have gone back and bought a stock!

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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Carnival Roundup: Bully Edition

Life, Parenting

My mother-in-law’s house is ready.   The walls are painted, the hardwood floors have been sanded and polished, the carpets have been cleaned.  Now, we just have to get the lease signed and let the renters in.

A school bus photographed in New York, New Yor...
A school bus photographed in New York, New York. Bus is a 2000-2001 Carpenter Classic 2000 body with an International 3800 chassis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week, we had our first real bullying incident on the school bus.  I guess one of the benefits of having a kid who is the biggest in the school is that nobody punches him.  My daughter doesn’t have that benefit.   She was punched and pushed for being in the wrong seat on the bus a couple of days ago.   Thankfully, the school dealt with it quickly.   The bus is equipped with video and the little girl copped to it.  She’s s off of the bus for a few days and her parents have been informed.   Unfortunately, her twin sister seems to be the vengeful type.  She came home yesterday lying about how my daughter behaved on the bus and got another little girl to lie about getting hit and bit by my daughter in school yesterday.

How do I know it’s all lies?

First, my daughter didn’t ride the bus yesterday afternoon.  She was scared in the morning, so I promised to pick her up from school.   Hard to misbehave on the bus when she was cuddling with her mother on the couch.    The other little girl–who goes to daycare with the twins just up the street from our daycare provider (who happens to be the grandmother of the twins)–recanted once she was away from the vengeful twin.  Her mother filled us in last night.  I’m not a fan of a grandmother defending a kid’s lies.  No kids are angels, but helping them lie doesn’t make them better people.

Live Real, Now was included in the following carnivals recently:

I’m aware that I’ve been a bit of a slacker about posting these links.  My apologies to everyone who deserved a link but didn’t get it in a timely manner.

Yakezie Carnival  hosted by Narrow Bridge

Finance Carnival for Young Adults   hosted by Finance Product Reviews

Carnival of Financial Planning   hosted by Family Money Values

Yakezie Carnival   hosted by Moneywise Pastor

Lifestyle Carnival hosted by Vanessa’s Money

Carnival of Money Pros  hosted by See Debt Run

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #64 hosted by Master the Art of Saving

Carnival of Retirement #52  hosted by Master the Art of Saving

Yakezie Carnival  hosted by Your PF Pro

Lifestyle Carnival #33 hosted by Lifestyle Carnival

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #62  hosted by Savvy Scot

Carnival of Money Pros   hosted by Debt Black Hole

Carnival of Money Pros    hosted by Making Sense of Cents

Lifestyle Carnival #31  hosted by Vanessa’s Money

Carnival of Money Pros  hosted by The Frugal Toad

Money Mail Carnival #5   hosted by The Money Mail

Carnival of Money Pros  hosted by Vanessa’s Money

Money Mail Carnival #4  hosted by The Money Mail

Finance Carnival for Young Adults #39 hosted by 20s Finances

Yakezie Carnival hosted by My Family Finances

Carnival of Money Pros    hosted by Growing Money Smart

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #57  hosted by My University Money

Money Mail Carnival #3 hosted by The Money Mail

Yakezie Carnival    hosted by I Heart Budgets

Carnival of Retirement #46  hosted by Making Sense of Cents

Yakezie Carnival hosted by The Ultimate Juggle

Carnival of Money Pros   hosted by My Multiple Incomes

Carnival of Financial Planning hosted by Master the Art of Saving

Money Mail Carnival #2 hosted by The Money Mail

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #56 hosted by See Debt Run

Carnival of Money Pros   hosted by Finance Product Reviews

Yakezie Carnival hosted by Parenting and Money

Lifestyle Carnival #27  hosted by Femme Frugality

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #55 hosted by My University Money

Yakezie Carnival hosted by The Ultimate Juggle

Lifestyle Carnival #26 hosted by Mo Money Mo Houses

Carnival of Money Pros  hosted by Debt Black Hole

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #54 hosted by Cash Net USA

Carnival of Financial Planning hosted by Young Family Finances

Yakezie Carnival   hosted by Portfolio Princess

Carnival of Money Pros   hosted by Thirty Six Months

Carnival of Retirement #41  hosted by Financial Conflict Coach

Lifestyle Carnival   hosted by Master the Art of Savings

Yakezie Carnival  hosted by Cult of Money

Lifestyle Carnival  hosted by Blue Collar Workman

Carnival of Money Pros   hosted by Making Sense of Cents

Carnival of Retirement #41 hosted by The College Investor

Thanks for including my posts.

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!

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