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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Carnival of Money Stories – Halloween Aftermath Edition

Finance, Misc

Technicolor Zombie Apocalypse
Image by Dunechaser via Flickr

Welcome to the November 1, 2010 edition of the Carnival of Money Stories.  One thing I didn’t do when volunteering to host this was to check my calendar.  Did you know that November 1 follows October 31, every year?    On Saturday, I had 30 people over for my annual Halloween party.  On Sunday, I ran a haunt in my yard and coordinated to get a dozen kids out begging for candy while using my house as a base of operations.   I’ve had guest from out-of-town since Friday.  Halloween weekend is, by far, the busiest weekend of the year at my house.

Editor’s Picks

J. Savings presents Side Hustle Series: I’m a Restaurant Server posted at Budgets Are Sexy, saying, “Is serving tables thankless work? Yes. Are customers sometimes unpleasant? Of course. But the benefits are plenty!”

Wenchypoo presents Marketing, Marketing Everywhere–There’s No Escape! posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket.

The Wise Squirrel presents Does it Matter Who is the Main Provider Between Husband and Wife? posted at Squirrelers, saying, “Money story about a dual-income couple in which the husband had the opportunity for a big promotion that would have required a move, AND his wife to leave her job. Their different viewpoints are discussed.”

Business

Ryan @ CML presents Get a Tax Deduction for a Working Vacation posted at Cash Money Life, saying, “Tips on how to write off a business trip as a tax deduction.”

Career

Jeff Rose, CFP presents How to Pass the CPA Exam and Become a Certified Public Accountant posted at Jeff Rose, saying, “If you are interested in becoming a CPA, here are some of the experiences of someone who just recently passed the CPA exam.”

Jason @ Redeeming Riches presents What Sam Walton Teaches Us About Money, Success, and Family posted at Redeeming Riches, saying, “Sam Walton had it all – or did he? Find out the biggest regret he had on his death bed.”

Credit

Mr Credit Card presents Cash Vs. Credit, A Real World Experiment posted at Ask Mr Credit Card.

Debt

The Family CEO presents Debt Snowflakes: Or How I Made $821.73 in Extra Credit Card Payments This Month posted at The Family CEO.

Kaye presents Stuck in the Middle posted at Mrs Nespy’s World, saying, “The beginning of the journey was excited, the end will be exhilarating, but this “in the middle” stuff is for the birds.”

Kate Kashman presents Why Not To Bounce Checks posted at The Paycheck Chronicles, saying, “An accidental bounced check in college is still causing trouble, 20 years later.”

Michael Pruser presents Managing $225,000 in Debt Is Starting to Ware on Me posted at The Dough Roller, saying, “My struggles on managing a ton of debt!”

PT presents 5 Lessons Learned From Filing Bankruptcy posted at Prime Time Money, saying, “Lessons learned from an actual account of going through a bankruptcy.”

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Should You Pay Off Loans or Invest Your Money? posted at The Digerati Life, saying, “So you’ve got some money. Should you pay off your debt with it or invest the money? Here’s a personal account on what I’ve done.”

Housing

BWL presents Success Story: Paying Off A House In 5 Years While Tithing posted at Christian Personal Finance, saying, “This is an encouraging story of a woman who stuck to her convictions about giving 10% of her income and still managed to pay off her house in less than 5 years!”

Miranda presents Do I Really Want to Rent Out My House? posted at Personal Dividends – Money+Lifestyle.

Investing

2 Cents presents What Would Make Me Invest in the Stock Market? posted at Balance Junkie, saying, “We have not invested in the markets for a while now. A reader recently asked what it would take for us to get back in. Here’s my answer!”

FIRE Getters presents Early Retirement Case Study – Sandy Aldridge and Dale Lugenbehl posted at FIRE Finance, saying, “At times the fast pace of our city lives appear stifling making us long for a slower pace of life with more exposure to clean air and green vegetation. Our souls yearn for a simple life which is in greater harmony with Mother Nature. Of late our work related health problems have been making us yearn, almost every morning, for a more relaxed life with greater freedom. So we were thrilled to read about Sandy Aldridge and Dale Lugenbehl who retired early (at ages 48 and 47 respectively) more than a dozen years ago to their eight-acre farm in Cottage Grove, Oregon …”

Other

Neal Frankle presents Find A High Paying 2nd Job Using Craigslist posted at Wealth Pilgrim: Money Management Advice, Financial Stess Management, Addiction Recovery Plan & Resources, saying, “You Can Find A High Paying 2nd Job Using Craigs List If you’re looking for high paying 2nd jobs, look no further than your computer screen.”

Super Saver presents Retiree Financial Lessons from the Recession posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, “Although I wish this recession had not happened, I am glad that it happened early in our retirement, while we were better able to meet the financial challenges.”

Craig Ford presents Medi-Share Medical Sharing | A Health Insurance Substitue posted at Money Help For Christians, saying, “Medical sharing is a great way to reduce your health insurance costs.”

passive family income presents Cutting Out Wasted Expenses to Save More Income posted at Passive Family Income, saying, “How many wasted expenses are you paying for? After sorting through my family’s past years credit card and bank statements, I have found several small money leaks in our personal finances.”

Kristina presents Our Parents Estate posted at Dual Income No Kids, saying, “If your parents are divorced, how has their separation affect the way you have planned your estate?”

Donna Freedman presents Rockin’ the surveys — when it’s worth it. posted at Surviving and Thriving, saying, “Online surveys can be a nice source of extra income — except when they aren’t.”

Joe Plemon presents My Car Needs an Engine. Should I Sell it, Fix it or Junk it? posted at Personal Finance By The Book, saying, “What do you do when your beloved car needs an engine: sell it, fix it or junk it? This post explores the options.”

FMF presents My Type of Couple posted at Free Money Finance, saying, “Story of a couple who collected 400k cans to pay for their wedding.”

Lindy presents Once Upon a Time…I Used an Iron posted at Minting Nickels, saying, “One of the likely first stops in expense-slashing is the luxury of paying for laundered shirts. This is a tale of my ironing saga (yes, it qualifies as a saga). And it’s not as boring as this description sounds. Thanks!”

Sandy presents One Disaster Away posted at Yes, I Am Cheap, saying, “We sometimes pass judgment on others for the financial situation, but most of us need to realize that all it takes is one disaster to be in the same situation.”

Bucksome presents Top 7 Ways I Budget My Time posted at Buck$ome Boomer’s Journey to Retirement, saying, “Budgets are needed for more than money in this story about 7 ways to budget time.”

Tom @ Canadian Finance Blog presents How to Watch Cheap and Free TV in Canada posted at The Canadian Finance Blog, saying, “Want to know how to see free TV in Canada? You have a few options with over the air free HDTV, broadcaster’s websites and cheap services like Netflix!”

Lauren Mendel presents A Very Scary Money Story posted at Richly Reasonable – Successes and failures, all in the name of living reasonably., saying, “This Halloween week read the true, terrifying tale of how Husband and I almost lost literally every important document that we have. Muahahaha! You might want to lock your doors and close the blinds before reading this one…”

Sun presents What’s in My Wallet? posted at The Sun’s Financial Diary.

Shopping

Money Beagle presents Costco Coupon Policies – Truth or Fiction? You Decide posted at Money Beagle.

ctreit presents Our family budget has to accommodate this chocolate snob posted at Money Obedience, saying, “Name brands versus store brands.”

Rachel presents Sometimes Less Is More | MomVesting posted at MomVesting, saying, “Melinda talks about how the value of many things isn’t necessarily determined by their cost.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Money Stories using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.  Thank you, everyone, for participating!

Budgeting tips – sticking to your budget

Finance

Image by adriagarcia at Flickr.com
Image by adriagarcia at Flickr.com

If you are looking to get out of debt, or you are currently debt-free and want to stay that way, then it is important that you get a grip of  your financial situation and live within your means.

A good way to do this is to create a budget as this gives you a clear indication of  how much money is coming in, how much is going out and also highlights any areas where you may need to make cut backs should you be falling short each month.

Once you have sorted out the figures and made necessary amendments, for example paying bills by direct debit in order to make savings or cutting existing debts by carrying out a balance transfer to a lower rate credit card, it is time to start focussing on the lifestyle changes.

As you will find, it is one thing to create a budget and quite another to stick to it, but by adhering to the following   steps and exercising a certain amount of will power, you should be able to ensure that you live within your means and resist the urge to reach for that credit card.

Keep focussed

Before you start to look at how you can stick to your budget you need to clarify why you need to stick to your budget!

A budget can initially seem like something that has been devised with the sole intention of stopping you having fun and buying or doing the things that you want. So it is important to remember that, though some cutbacks may be necessary in the short term, a budget is a long-term strategy that will allow you to take control of your finances and, all being well, live a happy life that is free from the worry of excessive debt.

Change your habits

Unfortunately, a successful budget can require a change in lifestyle and this can be one of the most difficult things to adhere to.

For example, if you have previously enjoyed eating out regularly then you may have to make cut backs in this area to ensure that you are living within your means. But, instead of seeing this as a negative, try to focus on the positives and remember the reasons why you are budgeting.

And a change in habits doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to cut back on your enjoyment of life and it may actually open your eyes to other pursuits you may not have previously considered.

For example, instead of eating out try preparing a meal at home and turn your dining room into a restaurant. This means that you can still have the fine dining experience but at a fraction of the price and without the worry of making a reservation!

Shop smarter

Lists figure heavily when creating a personal budget and list-making is a habit that you should get used to when trying to stick to your budget.

When budgeting it is vitally important to avoid impulse buying and a great way to do this is to always make a list of things you need before you go shopping.

This means that you will have a clear idea of what you need and you will be less inclined to make random purchases that may just turn out to be an unnecessary drain on your finances. It’s also worth mentioning at this point that you should always differentiate and prioritise the things you need over the things you simply want.

If you are unsure how to make the distinction then put off making the purchase for a couple of days and then reconsider if you actually need it. This cooling off period will often convince you that you can do without it and save you money.

In addition, savings can be made on your shopping by simply swapping big name brands for supermarket own varieties, using discount coupons and looking for any special offers.

Overall, it is important to be fully focussed and committed to your budget plan and to be aware that a change in finances may require a change in lifestyle. But a few short term changes may well add up to better finances in the long term.

Article written by Les Roberts, budget reporter at Moneysupermarket.com.

 

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Kids Are Temporary

Life, Parenting, Relationships

Have you ever watched someone go nuts after they have kids?

I mean, even after the I-haven’t-slept-more-than-20-minutes-in-a-row-for-3-months stage of babydom?

These people dedicate their lives to their kids.  They sacrifice all of their hopes and dreams and focus on the brats.    They can’t have a date night because little Sally might get lonely without mommy and daddy.  Can’t have a hobby because Johnny’s on the traveling soccer team.   Can’t get laid because it’s a family bed and that’s kind of creepy when the kids are right there.

Everything for the kids.

As they grow, it gets worse.  You spend more time helping with homework and less time talking to your wife.   More time playing chauffeur, less time playing doctor.

It’s a nasty cycle, and it comes with an abrupt stop.

What happens when school’s out?  Little Johnny graduates with a dual degree in Practical Philosophy and Experimental Art History, gets a job at the local Stab-and-Grab, gets married, and starts a family.

When that happens, parents suddenly become “extended family”.  The kid has a life of his own and probably doesn’t need his clothes picked out in the morning, a ride to soccer practice, or someone to write his name in his underwear.

This is planned.  It is–in theory–the reason we raise our kids.   It shouldn’t be a surprise, even if it is a bit of a shock.

Can you survive it?  Can your marriage?

If you’ve spent the last 20 years of your life pretending you are nothing but a system for delivering food, rides, and gadgets for your kids, what are you going to do with your time when they are busy pretending they are that system for their kids?   If you’ve never developed a hobby, are you going to go extra-special, bat-**** crazy now?

For 20 years, have all of your conversations been about your kids?  Have all of your outings been birthday parties?  Will you have anything to say to your spouse when the kids are gone?

Your kids are temporary.

They are important.  They are your genetic legacy and the people who will choose your nursing home.  Don’t neglect them, but you do have to hold something back.   Make time for yourself.  Make time for your husband or your wife.  Or both, if you can make that work.

When your kids are working 90 hour weeks building a new career, or hustling 4 kids to 10 after-school activities, your life doesn’t get to revolve around them.

All you’ve got is yourself and your wife.   If she’s not feeling secure about your feelings now, when she loses the distraction of puke in her hair, that insecurity will blossom in unpleasant ways.    If you can’t find a conversation that doesn’t involve the kids now, the silence will be blistering when you eventually lose that crutch.

If you don’t have a hobby, get one.

If you don’t have a relationship with your wife, get one.  Take her on a date tonight.   Your kids are temporary, your marriage shouldn’t be.    This is the rest of your life.  Make it worthwhile.

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