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

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Link Roundup

Misc

Wrestling season is wrapping, leaving me more time to do the other things I care about.   One more week, and we cease being over-scheduled for a while.

The situps aren’t going nearly as well as the pushups did last month.  I hit 50 this week, but two days later was down to 35.   Every time I’m about to get into the groove, I over-do it and hurt my back.  I don’t like situps, much.

Finance links:

Couple Money is giving away a netbook for their 6 month blog anniversary.  Subscribe and follow them on Twitter.   Head over for the details.

CNN’s 20 best money websites. I didn’t make the cut, so I’m sad.

Trent talks about Litterless Juice Boxes.  The dollar store near my house sells them for one third the price of Amazon.

We’ve got another example of governments failure to run a cost/benefit analysis.

Other links:

Here’s a photo essay of the 2010 Paralympics.  Stop saying “I can’t.”

If you go out in the woods, wishful thinking doesn’t keep you at the top of the food chain.

Cut your onions cold to avoid tears.

Make Greek yogurt at home.

Saturday Roundup: Evil Dead

Misc

Image via Wikipedia

Last night, my wife and I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical.   I’m a die-hard zombie-movie fan, and the Evil Dead Trilogy is among my favorites.   I don’t recognize a difference between Candarian demons and zombies, so it still fits the genre.

The musical beats either of the first two movies, hands down.   I was rolling.  If you are in the Minneapolis area tomorrow, check it out at the Illusion Theater.    If you are elsewhere, watch for it.  It’s entirely worth the time and money.

Best Posts:

Sometimes, shopping can save you money, but don’t let it get out of hand.

I’ve never had food poisoning, but my wife has.  It was unpleasant.

Bacon soda.  Yum.  No further comment.

Bad marketers.  No donut.

Carnivals I’ve been in:

AAA – Save Some Cash was included in the Festival of Frugality.

The Spending Styles of the Rocky Horror Picture Show was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Crack was included in Foodtastic Favorites.

If I missed anyone, please let me know.   Thanks for including me!

Sunday Roundup: U2 Edition

Misc

Friday night, a friend came to pick me up so I could help him move heavy stuff.

U2 Stage
U2 Stage

He lied.

As soon as we pulled away from my house, he told me we were going to check out the stage they were building for Saturday’s U2 concert.  Now, I’ve never been a fan, but he is, so what the heck, right?

We got to TCF Stadium and geez, that stage is big.  It looks like an invading alien in the middle of the field.   As we were walking up to the gate, we saw two security guards catching a smoke by a rear entrance.    The next thing I know, my buddy’s slipping them some cash and we’re sneaking in the side door to get a closer look.

Our illicit visit lasted about 5 minutes.   The second we made it the the stands, the cleaning crew called security.  Thankfully, we got kicked out by the guys who let us in to start with.

It made a memorable evening.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

Making Extra Money: Niche Selection was included in the Best of Money Carnival and the Carnival of Wealth.

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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Why do you need a trailer?

Finance

As I mentioned before, we recently bought a Chevy Tahoe.   When we bought it, we had a Ford F150 and a Dodge Caliber that we could have traded in, but decided to sell on our own, instead.

About a month ago, we sold the truck.   If you’ve never owned a truck, you probably don’t realize how handy they are to have.   From hauling brush to moving furniture to donating large amount of crap to Goodwill, we used our truck.

We’ve also been on a mission to replace all of our old crappy stuff with nicer things, without spending a ton to make that happen.  We’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, then taking that money to buy other stuff we’re finding good deals on.

We found a 4×8 utility trailer for $300.   It came home with us.   The first thing I heard was “Why do you need a trailer?”

Now, we could have made do with delivery fees or rental trucks, but that seemed silly to me.

  • We recently replaced our living room couches.   One of our cats had mistaken one of them for a litter box.   No amount of enzyme cleaner gets that smell out of a couch cushion.   Shortly after that, my fat a** popped two of the springs out of the bottom.    Bad couch.    We found a good deal on brand new replacements, but the delivery fee would have been $80.
  • My wife found a beautiful entertainment center last week that matched the corner entertainment center we already have.  We don’t need another entertainment center, but after convincing the seller to sell us the side units without the center unit, we have glass-doored bookshelves that exactly match the largest piece of furniture we own.   Without the trailer, we would have had to rent a truck to get them home.
  • Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the last load of stuff out of my mother-in-law’s house.   Without the trailer, that would be several trips in the car.

We’ve had the thing for 3 weeks and it has almost paid for itself in time and money.   I think that makes for a good investment.  I don’t expect to buy a new living room set every month, but it’s nice to be able to deal with large things when the need arises.

Carnival Roundup

Finance

 

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

Yakezie Carnival hosted by Consumer FU

Finance Carnival for Young Adults hosted by PF Carny

Carnival of Money Pros hosted by Savvy Scot

Carnival of Retirement #63 hosted by Midlife Finances

Yakezie Carnival hosted by Thirty Six Months

Carnival of Money Pros hosted by Making Sense of Cents

Carnival of Financial Independence #7 hosted by Reach Financial Independence

 

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!

Born to Launch

Business, Life

I’ve recently discovered something about myself: I like doing new things.

More to the point of this post: I like making new things.

I also like learning new things.

Unfortunately, once the newness wears off, I start to lose interest.

I’m a software engineer, so I regularly build new things and solve new puzzles.  When a project gets into maintenance mode and the new stuff ends, I want to chuck the whole thing in the river and move on.

That carries over into other things, too.  Start a business, lock down some skills, get some customers, then enter maintenance mode.  Boring.

Pick up a new hobby, achieve a basic level of mastery, watch it stop being fun.

Play a new video game, get good at it, get bored.

It’s a flaw in my character and it’s a pretty serious flaw.  Soon after I reach the point where I can fly with a new skill or project, I quit wanting to do it.

When it quits being new, it quits being fun.

When I pick up a new hobby, I get good at it, I get bored with it, so the setup equipment tends to collect dust.

Some of this is work stuff, which isn’t supposed to be fun.  If it were, they wouldn’t call it “work”, they’d call it “happy fun time”.

Some of this could replace work stuff, but I’m not sure how to power through when I hit this particular wall.  Just making money doesn’t keep something exciting.  If I’m not excited, it’s hard to stay motivated, which is probably why I let the dishes pile up. (Sorry, honey!)

There is a good side to this flaw:  I’m never bored.  I fill notebooks with the things I want to do next, from blacksmithing lessons to building a foreign language learning site.  I have absolute confidence that I’ll never be bored for long, and I’ll never be short of new ways to make money, but that doesn’t make me feel stable.

I have a need for stability, and I have a need for new.   Finding that balance is a challenge.

Maybe I just need to launch things faster to build a bigger safety net.   That would let me revel in the new without putting my lifestyle at risk.

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