“General Personal Finance” Archive
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Weekends are over too fast. Yesterday we socialized with some new friends and today we went for a long hike (3.2 miles - that’s pretty long for us! LOL) in the woods. My knees held up quite well during the hike which is great. There was a little bit of pain, but nothing serious.
Behind the scenes on here, I noticed today that a few things were still broken after my scare yesterday with not being able to log into my blog. If you were trying to contact me, my contact form was missing. I’ve also had an influx of spam comments. I think I have restored everything back to normal now, but if you happen to notice something funny - please let me know. It’s crazy how much technical stuff is involved with running a blog.
Okay, now onto some articles of interest:
First up is a collaboration piece over at Christian Personal Finance. He asked a bunch of us how we could make $200 in 2 weeks. My idea - garage sale. I’ve had having a garage sale on the brain lately, so that was an expected response from me LOL. I’m still pulling out stuff to sell.
Next up is an article by Grace at GRACEful Retirement. She talks about a situation over at a blog she reads (Need to be Debt Free). It’s also a blog I read, and I agree with what she had to say.
Lastly, some congrats are in order!! Two bloggers have paid off their debt! Yay!!
First up is the blogger behind Tung Sai. They are now debt free and shared how it feels.
Next up is Chicky at Kiss of Debt. I’m a little late at this, and I noticed that her blog is invitation only now, but she sent out her last credit card payment in April.
Congrats to you both!
Oh I love the weekend! I’ve been doing well with doing exercises instead of physical therapy and I can start to feel a difference with my knees. In fact, I just got done having a little dance session by myself. Ok, so maybe we shouldn’t call it dancing. Probably more like flinging around like a mad woman. LOL. In any case, it was good fun and I should do it more often.
For today’s link love, I’d like to point out a few things that I have participated in lately. First up is credit card survey over at Mr. Credit Card. He asked quite a few personal finance bloggers some questions about their credit cards. One interesting tidbit - 23% of them didn’t know their credit score. I was a bit surprised about that one. Nice job Mr. Credit Card for putting all of that together!
Next up is an article written by Dr. Mike from NewsAboutKids.com about teen finances. He approached me and asked a simple question: What three tips would I tell a teenager about money. He also asked many others and put together a very nice article that you can share with your teen.
Lastly, a fellow blogger is looking to interview people in debt. If you are interested in sharing your story, head on over to Blunt Money for more info. She doesn’t bite 
I hope all of you are having a great weekend!
I started working on our net worth for July and I noticed that our credit card debt didn’t go down one penny since the end of June. That couldn’t be right…could it?
You know that feeling of blood rushing through your body when you think you just made a mistake? That was exactly what it was like to see that we didn’t make a credit card payment in July. I quickly logged into our account online and I see a minimum amount due glaring at me. I am thanking my lucky stars that the due date was Friday.
I made a payment so that is fine. This is the card at 0% right now and the last thing I want is to lose that interest rate prematurely. Our checking account isn’t so fine. That payment put us in an overdraft situation if we pay our gas bill on time. I haven’t mailed it yet, so I’m going to pay it a little late this month.
I feel like I am back to the “good ole days” of shuffling around payments because money was so tight. We shouldn’t have to revert back to that. I don’t want to revert back to that! But I have been losing focus the past week or so. This happens every time when life gets too hectic on other fronts. The biggest culprit is usually work and that is the case this time. It takes up so much of my energy (especially when I have to work late) that the last thing I want to do is work on the computer more after work. Unfortunately, that also affects my blogging so that’s why I haven’t been around here on a daily basis lately. Even my participation in our budding business has come to a screeching halt because that is computer-based.
But back to the topic on hand…losing focus can be bad. We almost lost our 0% interest rate. If it wasn’t for me trying to update my already overdue net worth on here - I would have missed that payment. So I thought I would ask all of you for your input…
How do you keep focused on your finances when life is crazy? What tips can you share with others?
I absolutely love the weekend. Yesterday we went out on an adventure to find a u-pick strawberry farm and ended up checking out a local museum that we’ve heard about, but never checked out. It gave a nice look into how early settlers to the area lived. I especially paid attention to the house we were able to tour. I’m into tiny houses so I paid a lot of attention to the layout and got a few ideas.
We didn’t end up picking strawberries. Instead, we found a few boys on the side of the road selling some and picked up two quarts. My son and I dug in as soon as we got home. With a few of them I made a strawberry cake today complete with strawberry frosting (yum!). As of right now, there are only a couple strawberries left.
Besides being able to go out and check out new things, I love the weekend because I can cook to my heart’s delight! During the week, I don’t have the time because I get off at 5pm and by the time I’m done cooking it would be late in the evening. I am also usually very tired after work. But the weekends - oh boy. Then it’s my turn to cook 
For breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, strawberries and a bagel. In the afternoon, I cooked up some chicken breast. I put some aside for ceasar salads next week and with the rest I made chicken tacos for lunch accompanied by apple slices. For dinner, I made homemade pizza from scratch. Then we had my strawberry cake for dessert.
In a way, it’s probably best that I have to work during the week. I’ve never run the cost for my weekend meals, but it probably runs on the high side. At least it is still cheaper than eating out and I enjoy flexing my cooking chops. One of these days I plan on running the numbers and sharing a few of my recipes.
Okay, now onto some articles that caught my eye this week:
My son is still a few years away from being a fifth grader, but I still got a kick out of this article by Kristy, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader (Re: Credit Cards). I wonder how my son will answer those questions when he is in 5th grade.
Livingalmostlarge had a link to a quiz to see what type of billionaire you are. I usually don’t do these, but I couldn’t resist. It said that I would be an investor. I can see that.
SiliconValleyBlogger has an article about fuel efficient cars mpg illusion. Pretty interesting article that goes through the math behind mpg. If you are looking to buy a different car to save on gas, this article is worth a read.
Here’s another gas related article: Cleverdude was forced to get better gas mileage. His findings? He got better gas mileage when he slowed down. I can attest to that as well with our car. We can get 40mpg with going 55-60mph. Once we go 70mph, our mpg goes down to around 32mpg.
I spent some time yesterday catching up on my blog reading. I was pretty far behind. I follow over 120 blogs so I had some reading to do! Here are some articles that caught my eye to share with all of you.
Kevin is now mortgage free. Congrats!
Ms Broke argues that keeping cash on you is a bad idea. I follow her reasoning and we barely have cash on us. We end up spending it too easily. But everyone is different.
Twiggers shares a cautionary article about spending $10 today, be out $100K tomorrow. Very interesting.
Things have finally caught up to JW. Paying off debt is important, but it’s not the most important thing in the world. JW, we wish you a very speedy recovery!
Arduous has spent nine months not buying new stuff. Congrats!
I haven’t been around here much this week. We have been working so hard on our new business to get it ready for launch by the end of this month.
It’s been tough. We’ve hit some roadblocks along the way but we managed to get by them. It did set us back time-wise so we are working extra hard to meet our deadline. Lately I have been so pumped about working on it that I have been skipping my normal weekend routine of sleeping in. That is very unusual for me. I usually look forward to the weekend because I get to sleep in. Now I look forward to it because I can work on the business.
Of course, if we can launch before the end of June that would be great. The sooner it launches, the sooner the business can start making money
Ok, now on to some articles that caught my eye this week:
JW’s family is fed up with frugal living. I feel for JW with having older kids in the home. With our son, it’s fairly easy to live frugally since he’s so young and doesn’t have a lot of peer pressure yet. He’s quite content with going out of the house with ripped, dirty jeans. He groans when mom tells him to change.
Jeremy has a guest article on his site about the connection between your brain and credit card debt.
Shana is wondering what is your threshold is for paying to drive. When I read this article I remembered a little news piece (I think it was from Wisconsin) where they showed people’s reactions when gas prices hit $2.00/gallon. Almost everyone they interviewed said they would start biking and walking more. I wonder how many of them did it. What do they think now that gas is $4.00/gallon?
I am excited for the three-day weekend. It’s a bit cold here in Michigan but at least the sun is shining. I have been very anxious to get out my fishing pole this year and I think a family picnic/fishing outing is in our future for this weekend.
Here are a few links I found interesting this week:
Jesse is dealing with a wrecked car. He gives some tips that I sure could have used when I had a car accident.
Glblguy talks about using constant reminders to help you keep focused. I have a few of them. My desk is surrounded by pictures of my family and I have a excerpt from a book that I always have in my wallet.
Lastly, this has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance. But it sure made me smile last night when I saw it on TV so I thought I would share: YouTube Video of Robert Muraine. A-ma-zing.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
About This Site
Credit Card Debt
- Starting = $37,614
- Paid Off = $29,141
- Current = $8,473
- $25 ING Savings Bonus
Savings Account
- Current = $3,750
