- @fcn Yahoo Pipes into GReader. 50 news sites filtered to max 50 items/day–all on topic. in reply to fcn #
- @fcn You can filter on keywords, so only the topics you care about come through. in reply to fcn #
- It's a sad day when you find out that your 3 year old can access anything in the house. Sadder when she maces herself with hairspray. #
- 5 sets of 15 pushups to start my day. Only 85 to go! Last 5 weren't as good as first 5. #30DayProject #
- What happens to your leftover money in your flex-spending account? http://su.pr/9xDs6q #
- Enter to Win iPod Touch from @DoughRoller http://tinyurl.com/y8rpyns #DRiPodTouch #
- Arrrgh! 3 year old covered in nail polish. And clothes. And carpet. And sister. #
- Crap. 5 sets of 5 pushups. #30dayproject #
- Woo! My son just got his first pin in a wrestling meet! #
- RT @Doughroller: Check out this site that gives your free credit report AND score without asking for a cc# or social… http://bit.ly/bRhlMz #
- Breaking news! Penicillin cures syphilis, not debt. https://liverealnow.net/KIzE #
- Win a $25 Amazon GC via @suburbandollar RT + Fllw to enter #sd1Yrgvwy Rules -> http://bit.ly/sd1Yrgvwy2 #
- This won't be coming to our house. RT @FMFblog: Wow! Check out the new Monopoly: http://tinyurl.com/ygf2say #
- @ChristianPF is giving away a Flip UltraHD Camcorder – RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2ZvBZL #
2012: The Year the World Ended
December 21st marks the day that Mayan calendar-makers decided was far longer than they needed to waste their time carving
days into stone.
More importantly, it marks the beginning of the week before my birthday. No self-respecting civilization would end the world just a week before my birthday.
This is traditionally the time that people look back at the previous year, and make resolutions they don’t intend to keep in the following year.
Who am I to buck tradition?
In 2011, I became a bit of a workaholic.
This site has taken off a bit. I’m not about to retire off of the proceeds, but it has turned into a nice little side income. Thank you for that.
I launched a marketing company. We do web design/development, social media work, and search engine marketing. It’s strictly a part-time gig right now, but it’s growing and taking up most of my free evenings and weekends.
I’ve been working 50-60 hours a week at my day job.
The plus side? I’ve also paid off almost $20,000 of my debt in 2011, bringing my total to $47,535 left.
It’s been a lot of work, but the harder I hustle, the sooner I can stop hustling.
What’s in store for 2012?
On the work front, I plan to cut my weekly load down to 40-45 hours again. Life it to short to work all of the time.
I want to expand my new company to the point that my day job is optional. I’m projecting that by spring. Call it June 1st.
Here, I want to double the size of my audience. I don’t just want random people popping in, I want to grow an engaged audience. That means more comments and more discussion. Expect to see more along those lines.
I’ve also got a couple of products under development. By year-end, I’d like to have them both released.
On a personal level, my biggest goal is to carve out a regular chunk of time to spend with my wife. Working all of the time has cut into our quality time together. I want to find a way to schedule date nights at least twice a month. It will cost more money, but that’s part of why I’m working so much.
Financially, I want to kill the last of my credit card debt. That’s down to about $17,000. We’ll need to keep working at it, but it’s a reachable goal. That means we still don’t get cable, I still avoid buying books every week, and my kids still have to live with not getting every whim fulfilled.
To recap: I’m going to work smarter, grow my side projects, and make this site better for you. In the process, I’m going to kill the last of my unsecured debt, and drag my mortgage down to it’s last gasping breaths.
Here’s to the end of the world….
A Moment of Clarity
- Image by Matt Stratton via Flickr
Ten years ago, I buried myself in debt. There was no catastrophic emergency or long-term unemployment, just a series of bad decisions over the course of years.
We bought a (short) series of new cars, a house full of furniture, electronics, hundreds of books and movies, and so much more. We threw a wedding on credit and financed an addition on our house. We didn’t gamble or drink it away, we just spent indiscriminately. We have a ton of stuff to show for it and a peeling credit card to prove it.
What changed?
In October 2007, we found out brat #3 was on the way. Don’t misunderstand, this was entirely intentional, but our…efficiency caught us by surprise. It took several years to get #2. We weren’t expecting #3 to happen in just a couple of weeks. #2 wasn’t even a year old when we found out she was going to be a big sister. That’s two kids in diapers and three in daycare at the same time.
The technical term for this is “Oh crap”.
I spent weeks poring over our expenses, trying to find a way to make our ends meet, or at least show up in the same zip code occasionally.
I finally made my first responsible financial decision…ever. I quit smoking. At that point, I had been smoking a pack a day or more for almost 15 years. With the latest round of we’re-going-to-raise-the-vice-tax-to-convince-people-to-drop-their-vices-then-panic-when-people-actually-drop-their-because-we-made-them-too-expensive taxes, I was spending at least $60 per week, at least.
Interesting side story: A few years ago, Wisconsin noticed how many Minnesotans were crossing the border for cheap smokes and decided to cash in by raising their cigarette taxes. The out-of-state market immediately dried up. Econ 101.
So I quit, saving $250 per month.
Our expenses grew to consume that money, which we were expecting. (Remember, we were expecting a baby!) Unfortunately, our habits didn’t change. We still bought too much, charged too much on our credit cards, and used our overdraft protection account every month. At 21% interest!
Nothing else changed for another year and a half. My wife would buy stuff I didn’t like and we’d fight about it. I’d buy stuff she didn’t like and we’d fight about it. When we weren’t arguing about it, we’d just silently spend it all as fast as we could.
Bankruptcy was looming. We had $30,000 on our credit cards and our overdraft protection account was almost maxed out. Have you ever thought you’d have to sell your house quickly?
One day, while I was researching bankruptcy attorneys, I ran across Dave Ramsey. When I got to daycare that evening to pick up the kids, I noticed they had The Total Money Makeover on the bookshelf, so I asked to borrow it.
I read the book twice, had a very frank discussion with my wife about the possibility of bankruptcy, and we set out on the path to financial freedom together.
What made you decide to handle your finances responsibly? Or, perhaps more importantly, what’s holding you back?
3 Worst Things About Being Financially Responsible
Everybody talks about all of the wonderful things that happen when you’re saving money and being responsible. I know I do. It’s true, good things do happen. There’s really nothing like the feeling that you’re suddenly not living paycheck to paycheck.
But what about the other side of the coin? What sucks about staying in the black?
1. You have to make choices. When you’re living on credit, you can buy a car, charge an expensive dinner every week, and go on vacation. If you’re not spending real money, then who cares? When you’re living for real, you have to prioritize. Do you buy groceries or video games? Do you buy sexy lingerie or a fancy dinner? Braces or college? You’re given a lot of choices, but you can only pick the ones you can actually afford.
2. You’re no longer the Joneses other people are trying to keep up with. The guy down the street, with the fancy car, big screen TV, and artificially perfect noses on his teenagers? You’re not him, anymore, but that’s okay, because he’s financing his lifestyle 9.9% at a time. Yes, a bit of incoming envy can give you a warm, tingly feeling, but it doesn’t put food on the table.
3. It’s boring. Taking a trip in a fast car and picking up an entourage for a 10-day party is fun. Balancing your checkbook and spending 6 months saving up for your kid’s braces is not. If you’ve been living like a rockstar, rolling back to a responsible standard of living is going to come as a shock, but it’s better than suddenly running out of money and having your world come crashing down around you.
Being responsible comes with a lot of downside, but it’s all superficial. The benefits are real, and long-lasting. What’s the worst thing you’ve had to deal with by being responsible?
13 Things to Know About Sweepstakes, Giveaways, Lotteries, and Contests
- Image via Wikipedia
I don’t know why, but it seems like this time of year breeds sweepstakes, drawings, and giveaways. Maybe it’s to cash in on the people who are afraid to pay for the holidays, maybe it’s because, at the end of the year, people are realizing how much money they didn’t make this year, or maybe I’m only noticing now because I just ran a giveaway to celebrate my 1 year anniversary. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of giveaways going on this month and, because a certain segment of the population sucks, there are a number of scam sweepstakes going on, too.
Knowing some basic facts about sweepstakes–legal and otherwise–can help you stay safe and avoid wasting your time and money. Here are 13 things you should know:
- Foreign sweepstakes are always scams. You didn’t win the Spanish lottery. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
- Sweepstakes winners are always chosen at random. If there’s something you can do to influence your chances, it’s not a sweepstakes.
- Contests involve some skill, whether it’s captioning a photo, answering a trivia question, or showing up in a bikini. It is legal to charge a fee to enter a contest.
- Lotteries cost money and must be random. There are almost no cases where a lottery is legally run by a private enterprise. The government has reserved this privilege for themselves.
- Since a prize, chosen at random for a consideration is the definition of a lottery, there is nothing you can do to influence the results of a legal sweepstakes, aside from not entering. Buying a product will not help.
- Odds suck. You are not likely to win, unless you enter a giveaway at a small-ish blog. Sweepstakes and lotteries are required to disclose the odds of winning, generally, 1 in a gazillion.
- Businesses(and blogs!) hold giveaways or sweepstakes to draw attention to themselves. It’s marketing and advertising, every time. Companies do not give out thousands of dollars in prizes because they like you.
- I give our prizes because I like you. And I want the attention. It’s marketing, advertising, and gratitude.
- If you have to pay to get a random chance to win something, it’s a lottery. If it’s not run by the government, it’s almost definitely an illegal lottery. Sweepstakes are free.
- Sometimes the entry solicitations look official. They are not. The companies do that to get more people to open their envelopes. It is illegal to misrepresent themselves as a government agency.
- Always read the fine print. There are a lot of things that can be included in the fine print to make it less attractive, like the right to sell your contact information, or your soul. Try getting that back after a long weekend.
- If you don’t want to receive sweepstakes garbage in the mail, write to the company soliciting you. The Federal Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act requires them to remove you from their mailing list within 60 days.
- If you want to get rid of all of the junk mail, write to the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service, Post Office Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512 and they will remove you from the lists of their members for 5 years.
It is possible to make money with sweepstakes, but the odds are low. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time. Do you invest in the sweepstakes hobby?
Negotiating Superstar
Recently my son asked me for some money.
This isn’t rare.
He asks me for money on a regular basis. He’s kind of greedy some days.
This time, however, he asked what he can do to earn some money. Now, since I live in Minnesota and have the dog and we had the sixth snowiest winter ever this year, all my dogs little shoe-bombs have been buried for the last six months. It started snowing in early November and as of this writing, on March 25, I still see two inches of snow covering every thing. Last week, we had a thaw and got to see the grass. We also got to see the dog’s business all over the yard.
I told him that I would give him $10 to clean up the yard. He asked if a friend could help. I said yes. Then he asked if they would have to split the money or if I would be paying them $10 each. I said that I’d be getting the same amount of work done, so they should split the $10.
He didn’t like the plan, so he negotiated his way up to getting seven dollars each. Originally, I was planning to pay $20, but got talked down by a friend. I’d still be willing to pay $20. What I’m trying to do is encourage him to start negotiating. I am a lousy negotiator. I want my kids to have better financial skills than I do. I want them to grow up knowing how to negotiate and being comfortable negotiating. That will make him a better financial adult.
So I encourage him. Sometimes I offer a lowball number and if he gets so upset walks away I ask him why he didn’t give a counter-offer. If he just accepts a number that’s way too low, or if his grandma offers him a shiny nickel to mow her yard, I tell him no. I tell him to reject it and offer something that he feels is more in line with what he would actually be doing.
Now, if I’m going to keep up these lessons I need to work on my negotiating skills too, so this is also a self-improvement game.
How do you teach a kid to negotiate? What resources are out there to teach yourself?
