- RT @kristinbrianne: You won't believe it… I just entered to win the #KodakSweeps on http://tweetphoto.com/contest Pls RT #
- RT @wilw The single most insulting thing you can tell a creative person is, upon viewing their creation, "you have too much free time." #
- Hmm. I share a birthday with Linus Torvalds. #
- @freefrombroke I'm following you and would love to be followed back. in reply to freefrombroke #
- RT: @SuburbanDollar: New Post: : The Art of Delayed Gratification http://bit.ly/5gsKXy #
- RT @FrugalYankee: #NEWYear's #QUOTE: All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening. ~ Alexander Woollcott #
- Crackberry is certainly accurate. I may be too connected. #
- MIL thinks a Kitchenaid stand mixer will make it easier to remove the snow in the driveway. Bad logic, but she's buying one for us, anyway. #
- What magic is in a saw-palmetto capsule and why does my prostate need the power of 1000 of them? #
- RT: @SuburbanDollar: Sounds like he's asking you to rent him a date. #
- RT @hughdeburgh: "I'd rather die fighting for freedom than live as a slave." ~ Judge Andrew Napolitano #Iran #in2010 #USA #
- Happy New Year, 3 minutes early. #
- Billy Jack vs Chuck Norris. Winner? #
- Getting my hair brushed by an 18 month old while watching Married With Children. It's a good evening. #
- RT @FrugalYankee: #NEWYEARS #QUOTE: The most important political office is that of private citizen. ~ Louis Brandeis #
- RT @ScottATaylor: 40,697 Laws Take Effect Today http://ff.im/-dFXNR #
- 5AM. It'd be so easy to go right back to sleep. #
100 Push-ups in 22 Days
Push-ups
One from the vault:
Last month, I set a goal to do one hundred push-ups in a single set by the end of the month. Before I started working on this, I hadn’t done a single pushup in at least 10 years. At the beginning, I didn’t know if it would be possible, or how much it would hurt. I knew it would be a challenge, and I was looking for a challenge.
Three days before the start of the month, I did one set of pushups. I wanted to find my baseline, so I could see the progress I was making, and I wanted a chance to recover, so I’d be starting from scratch on the first of the month. That day, I did 20 pushups. I pushed, but 21 wasn’t going to happen. That’s not an impressive number, but I ride a desk all day and had spent 10 years lazy. It could have been worse.
My initial plan was to do two sessions per day, morning and night. I’d be doing a total of 56 sessions. Each session would consist of 5 sets of my baseline, progressing to 100 push-ups in a set for the 56th session. That would mean I’d have to add 1.5 pushups to my sets each session. I decided to add 1 to each set in the morning and 2 in the evening sessions. My planned progression was 20, 22, 23, 25…95, 97, 98, 100 over the course of the month.
That lasted one day. February 1st, I did 100 push-ups in 5 sets of 20. That night I did 110 push-ups in 5 sets of 22. The next morning, I hurt so much I couldn’t do 10. I did something like 8/5/5/5/cry-like-a-baby. My abs were cramping and my shoulders burned. I ended the session in the fetal position, hoping all of the screaming muscles wouldn’t cramp up at the same time. If pain is weakness leaving the body, then I was making a significant contribution to the the problem of homeless weakness particles.
Plan A failed. As I waited for the pain to end, I had some time to think. In between “Please don’t cramp! Please don’t cramp! Please don’t cramp!”, I developed Plan B.
I decided to base everything on the previous session’s largest set. The largest set would set my baseline for the next session. The first set in the session would be half of the baseline. The next three sets would be 3/4 of the baseline, and the final set would be pushed until I couldn’t go any further, establishing the next session’s baseline. Starting from my newly established baseline of eight push-ups, my next session was 4/6/6/6/15. The session after that was 7/11/11/11/16, then 8/12/12/12/16.
Plan B became an aggressive, self-correcting progression. If I pushed too hard, the next session was done at a lower level, allowing me time to recover.
The first week hurt. Going from little-to-no real exercise to an aggressive exercise regimen is painful. I was stiff and sore, but I was progressing. One of the best things about Plan B: Set #1 is a good warm-up. Warming up is important.
By the end of week one, I was back to where I started, doing sets of 20. I wasn’t sure I’d make it. I had a few days in a row that didn’t improve my baseline at all. Then I skipped a day. When I came back, but baseline jumped by 10 push-ups. I had hit a small wall, gave myself a day to recover and had a 50% improvement. Guess what got incorporated into Plan B? If I had two days in a row without improvement over the four sessions, I skipped a day.
By the end of week two, my baseline was up to 60. I stopped increasing the warm-up set, so it would still be a warm-up and not create strain. I only went above 20 for the warm-up set once before I created this rule. At this point, my session was 20/45/45/45/60. That’s progress.
At the end of week three, my baseline was at 80. I took the weekend off.
On Monday, February 22nd, I decided to see where my absolute max was. I did a set of 20 to warm up. I followed up with a set of 30, to make sure I was ready. Set #3 was 100 push-ups, a full week early. I’m not going to lie and say push-up #100 was perfect, but it was done. I went from barely being able to do 20 push-ups to successfully doing 100 push-ups in 22 days. I spent the rest of the week perfecting my form. After 75-80 push-ups, it’s hard to tell exactly how straight your body is and how low you are going, without a spotter or a mirror.
Next, I’m applying Plan B to sit-ups.
A Well-Trained Husband
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I am so well-trained.
I was more than a bit wild when I was younger. For the most part, that ended when my son was born. When you procreate, it’s time to put the wild on a shelf and become a reliable provider. That’s just the way it is. Anybody who prioritizes the wild over the progeny needs to be forcibly sterilized and exiled before be sold for parts.
When my mother-in-law got a membership to Sam’s Club, she gave my wife the second card, so we effectively have a membership. For those who don’t know, Sam’s Club is a warehouse store that has some incredibly good deals and a lot of things that look like good deals because you are buying in bulk.
The thing I hate most about warehouse stores is the default accusation of theft when you leave. They require you to line up so the the person by the door can look at your receipt and pretend to count what’s in your cart while they are really scanning for the most-stolen items in the store and ignoring the rest. The only thing they really accomplish is making all of their customer feel like thieves.
I used to bypass the line and the checker and just leave. My wife got sick of the indignant screeches coming from the store as we left. Eventually she got me to stop.
Last night, I went back to pick up supplies for a fund-raiser I’m helping to organize on Sunday. I went with one of the other organizers, who had some personal shopping to do later. We checked out using his account and he paid, while I took the food home to keep until Sunday. Since he’ll be getting reimbursed for the food, he kept the receipt while I headed for the door. Anybody see the problem here?
When the receipt-checker challenged me, I docilely stepped to the side and called my friend to bring the receipt to the door. I hate the feeling of submitting to authority, especially when the authority is pretending to be customer service. I just calmly did what the door-cop told me, just like my wife wanted, even though she wasn’t there.
I hate warehouse stores.
Do 1 Thing
- Image by Sailing “Footprints: Real to Reel” (Ronn ashore) via Flickr
I’m lazy.
Really, I am. When I get home from work, I want nothing more than to plop down on the couch, dial up a movie and ignore the world for a few hours. I need some downtime to relax.
While I am keeping the couch from flying away, my wife gets home, makes dinner, does the dishes, changes the cat litter and maybe vacuums the floor. Once dinner is cooking, she usually throws in a load of laundry. Three kids is a great way to guarantee a lot of laundry needs to get washed.
I have just two things to say about that:
- It makes me feel really lazy.
- I love you, honey!
I’ve never considered it a problem because I work my butt off on the weekend. My wife isn’t happy with the arrangement because I tend to do next to nothing during the week. I think it’s a good balance. I’m productive on the weekend, she’s productive during the week. Unfortunately, my habitual laziness has caused a bit of tension. We’ve had a few “discussions” about that balance. It’s obviously not working.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying something new. When I get home from work I’ve been doing just 1 thing. I do one thing per day. One day, I fold laundry, another day I do the dishes. Some days, I pick a room to organize. It’s never very much, but it’s always something that needs to be done and, possibly most important, it looks like I’m doing more so my wife feels less abandoned to the housework. I’m not actually doing more, but it gets spread out over the week, so it looks like more. Slowly, surely, all of the work is getting done.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it seems to be working. More is getting done, my wife feels like I’m helping out more and I get more time on the weekends to pursue whatever I feel like pursuing. It’s a win for each of us.
How do you balance relaxation and a shared workload?
What Can Cause Damage to Your Credit?
Credit scores move up and down as new financial data is collected by the credit bureaus. Many factors can cause a credit score to rise or fall, but most people don’t have a clue what they are. Understanding what affects credit can help keep your number in a good score range, where it should be. But, even a bad score can recover more quickly than most people realize, even after a bankruptcy or default. Here are some factors that can help you understand why credit moves up or down:
Late Payments
About 30% of your score is made up from your payment history. This is comprised from things like credit card bills, auto loan payments, personal loans, and mortgages. At this time, bills like utilities or rent are not factored into your score, unless they are sent to a collection agency. If you are late to pay your credit card bill, it will show up on your credit file. One late payment will probably not have much of an effect, but a history of this over time can drop your score. It is very important to keep bill payment current as a courtesy to creditors and the benefit of your own financial history.
Credit Inquiries
One of the most misunderstood factors that can cause a credit score to drop are “credit inquiries”. An inquiry takes place anytime your credit is checked. This makes up 10% of your total score. What most people don’t know is that there are two different types of credit inquiries, “hard inquiries” and “soft inquires”. Only hard inquiries affect credit and happen when you apply for a new credit card, loan, or mortgage. Soft inquiries on the other hand happen when someone like an employer, landlord, or yourself check your credit report. These are not factored into your credit score at all. Hard inquiries are a necessary part of applying for a loan or credit, so an occasional inquiry will not cause damage. It can only cause problems if there are many hard inquiries in a short period of time. This can be a signal to creditors that you are in financial trouble and are desperately seeking cash.
Credit to Debt Ratio
Your total amount of available credit compared to the amount of credit you use each month, makes up your credit-to-debt ratio. FICO suggests that you use no more than 30% of your available credit before paying off your balance each month. For example if you have $10,000 of available credit spread across 3 different credit cards, the optimal amount to charge would be $3000 or less each month. Maxing out your credit cards can cause your score to drop even if you pay them off completely each month.
Age of Your Credit History
The length of time you have had an open credit account is a major factor of your credit score. It can help to open a credit card when you are younger by getting a co-signer. If you are the parent of a teenager, it may be helpful to open a credit card in their name, but only allow them to use it for emergencies. Having an open credit card in good standing for a long period of time can help build this history. The length of time that you have had credit makes up about 15% of your score.
Different Types of Credit
The last major factor that makes up about 10% of your score comes from the different types of credit that you use. These credit types include revolving, installment, and mortgage. The ability of an individual to successfully handle all of these credit types can show that they are financially well-rounded. This makes up about 10% of the total credit score.
About:
Ross is an investor and website owner.
Say Please
This is a guest post/reader story from a good friend of mine.
Greetings,
As a long time reader of Live Real Now, I’ve enjoyed the advice and the step by step, “I’ve been there” advice from Jason. Sadly, until now I haven’t really taken much of it. It was too much work. It was too hard. But the recent “Future Me” post really struck home so I looked for something that should be easy.
What I found was the concept of “Call and Ask”. I took a look at all of my accounts and utilities to decide which ones I was willing to change, drop, or reduce. The two I came up with were Dish Network and CenturyLink DSL.
My plan was simple:
- Look for their introductory offers
- Compare to my current price
- Call
- Ask if existing customers are as important as NEW customers
- Finally, be nice!
I started with CenturyLink since I needed to call them for a new modem in anyway. We’ve been with CenturyLink for years and I’ve been paying $34.99 for slow DSL and using it a couple times a week to work from home. Their new customer promotion is $19.99 for the faster service. I’d love to give you my script but I don’t entirely remember what I said. I believe I asked if they would extend the new customer rate to me and for how long. I know I pointed out that I would be out 3-5 days of internet service so now was the time to start trying to lower my bills. The customer service rep was actually pretty cool about it.
“Let me look at your account. We can offer you that rate for 12 months. After that the rate will be $54.99.”
That seems like a short term win for a long term loss, right?
His followup comment was golden: “Call us back in 12 months and see what specials we can offer you then.” So I went into Google Calendars and set myself a reminder 10.5 months from now.
Net effect: $15/month saved.
Next step: Dish Network.
We’re getting the Family Package which is already pretty inexpensive for Dish. Looking around, the new subscriber price was $5 less.
Same plan.
“Hello, I’m a long term subscriber. I see that you’re offering new subscribers the same package for less. Could you extend that offer to me?”
Same response… “Sure, you can have a $5 discount for 6 months.” Again, I set a Google Calendar reminder, this time for 4.5 months out.
Net effect: $20/month saved.
Can this go farther?
I recently purchased 3 pairs of F.O.M work jeans from Duluth Trading Company. Yes, they’re expensive, but they fit and last a long time. I’m not a small guy. (Ed. Welcome to the club!) Anyway, at the time their sale looked good: $10 off each pair when you order 3 or more. Coincidentally, I was down to a single pair after a deer hunting accident. (Don’t tie your jeans into your boots while field dressing a deer. You’ll stretch and then things get a bit breezy.) With $5 shipping, I saved $35 on that order for jeans I needed anyway.
I thought I’d done pretty well.
Fast forward to today where I see 20% off on everything and free shipping. And they’re still offering the $10 off deal I already used. I called Duluth Trading Company, and explained I was VERY happy with their pants and enjoyed the sale but was wondering if they’d please extend the 20% off sale to my prior order since it was so recent.
$23.70 back in my account.
Easy as pie and a polite: “Thank you for offering us the chance to make you happy with the transaction, sir.”
So, 3 nice phone calls, net effect:
Immediate: $23.70 in my pocket
Short term: $30 savings over the next 6 months
Long Term: $180 Savings over the next year
Total Savings: $233.75 for 15 minutes work
