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Sunday Roundup: Father’s Day

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!

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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.

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.

First Steps – Ramsey was Wrong

Finance

Baby Steps” width=”180″ height=”240″ />: Image by bonnie-brown via Flickr

Fixing a lifetime of financial mistakes can be an intimidating process. Scratch that. It’s always an intimidating process. Where do you start? You’ve got a pile of bills, a dozen messages from bill collectors and two bi-weekly paystubs. What next?

Traditionally, and according to Dave Ramsey, the first step to fixing your finances is to make a budget, but he and tradition are wrong. The first step is to get everybody involved in your finances on the same page. If your spouse isn’t on board with paying off the debt and spending responsibly, nothing else will work.

Once you have that out of the way, you can move on to the traditional first step, making a budget. I’ve gone over my process to build a personal financial plan in quite a bit of detail, so I’ll just hit the highlights this time.

First, make a list of all of your expenses. Include all of your utilities, debt payments, tax payments and absolutely everything else. You need to know the amount of the payment and the frequency. If a bill is due quarterly, divide it by three and you’ll know what you need to set aside each month. Round up in all cases so you can build an automatic cushion.

Next, make a list of your income sources. For most people, this is far easier than tracking their expenses. Figure out your monthly income. If you get paid weekly, that that amount times 52, then divide by 12 to get your monthly income.

Finally, subtract your expenses from your income. If your total is a positive number then you are golden. If you total is negative, you have been a bad monkey. You need to make some cuts, and they may be painful. If your outgoing money is more than your incoming money, it is not possible to get ahead.

Once you have your income and expenses recorded, and you have made the cuts necessary to have a positive balance at the end of the month, you have a successful budget. Congratulations!

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Misc

As some of you have noticed, the link to subscribe by email has changed. While you do still have the option to subscribe to the rss feed through Feedburner, I’m no longer providing the link or recommending it. What I have in its place is an actual email list.

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Small Business Solutions to Aid Expansion

Business

For most small businesses much of their strategy will be tailored towards expansion. The transition between being a small and medium sized enterprise can, however, be as tough as it is important. What makes a successful businessman or entrepreneur is the ability to spot the areas in which their business can effect simple changes which have far reaching implications for the success of their company.

Stability online

One of the first places any entrepreneur should look at is cost-effective and comprehensive insurance cover. Firms like Hiscox – Business Insurance Specialist can aid small businesses by looking at what areas of their current business are vulnerable and need cover.

A common problem for smaller businesses which operate largely online can be the type of server they use. Basic servers do not offer the stability a business needs to thrive. For a small business, time offline can be a disaster. Unfortunately, dedicated servers are often costly and, however useful they are in a number of ways, they tend to provide a service which reaches beyond the requirements of most small businesses.

Shared servers often do not provide the flexibility that small businesses need to make the transition to the next stage. As we’ve mentioned, dedicated servers are rarely a viable option for most small companies; instead, many opt to use a virtual private server which simulates many dedicated server features while remaining integrated into a larger, shared server.

Using a virtual private server is a cost-effective way for small businesses to take full control over their server and to apply upgrades as they see fit. The increased levels of performance and independence that virtual private servers can offer a small business can be vital to the realisation of their expansion dreams.

Be critical when considering opportunities

When your company begins to grow and succeed, things are likely to snowball. It is not uncommon for small businesses to face merger propositions and takeover offers. To many young entrepreneurs, this can seem an attractive prospect. Often such deals will involve impressive, short-term financial benefits that make them look appealing to the newly successful business owner.

While mergers and acquisitions can benefit all parties involved, it is important to remain level-headed when considering offers from other companies. For example, in Bain & Company’s 2004 study, they found that shareholder value did not increase in 70% of mergers. A further study conducted at Paris’s Sorbonne found that in excess of 90% of European mergers failed to meet their financial targets.*

Independence and success

The business world has changed rapidly in recent years with the inclusion of social media sites into many businesses’ marketing strategies. With this shift in marketing procedure, the playing field from which businesses are able to reach out to customers has been levelled. This has positive implications worth considering for the small business owner.

It is now possible for any small business to reach millions of people without spending a penny on advertising. Thus, the need for smaller companies to accept stubborn deals from larger companies is lessening. This is not to say that mergers are no longer a viable option for small businesses. Often the resources available to larger companies are indispensable to the smaller company. Instead, this shift in the market could well see small businesses being made more attractive deals by larger companies with a vested interest in the takeover of young and growing companies: just look at the recent Facebook purchase of Instagram.

If your business is facing a similar request or even considering the takeover of a smaller business, speaking with specialists is an invaluable option. Experts can offer advice on the way that such methods of expansion will affect your business and the premiums that you pay.

Utilize Social Media

The establishment of a successful business in today’s climate requires a shrewd and thorough reading of the options available to you online. With a huge proportion of business, small and large, creating a presence on social media and networking websites, this is an area that no small business can afford to ignore.

While business accounts with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are already seen as somewhat necessary tools to the success of a business, use of social media need not stop there. Entrepreneurs who want to get their business on top will be looking to new services such as Google Plus, ensuring that they are the first amongst their competitors to join. Whichever social media platform your business deals with, it is essential to keep your account active, positive and efficient.

*http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/21/merger.marriage/index.html

This is a guest post.

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