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frugality

Personal Finance

$1000 Challenge and August Goals

by Guest Post

Anyone interested in a little $1000 challenge?  Because after my bumpy spending habits last month I need a challenge to get me serious about saving again and I don’t want to do it alone.  I’ll say more about the challenge in a minute but first I’ll confess why I need this challenge.  I put nothing into our savings last month!! This hasn’t happened in 2 years.

Why no savings?  Both my husband and I have birthdays in July and my sister visited us for 3 weeks so we didn’t pay any attention to our budget and spent money on essentially anything we wanted.  I’m kinda okay with this because we have been doing phenomenally well in terms of saving and instead of dipping into the fun money this month we just skipped adding money to that savings account.  The problem is, it was too much fun not paying attention to our finances or any of our goals!  I don’t want to slip up and continue to disregard our budget.  Now that July is over, I need to start August off strong and really focus on my goals.

August goals:

  • Stay within budget
  • Pay an extra $500 to mortgage
  • Finish master bedroom remodel
  • Attend Combat Fitness 4 days/week
  • Read King Lear
  • Purchase life insurance
  • Lower internet bill
  • Complete $1000 Challenge

The $1000 Challenge:  The challenge is as simple as this, find an extra $1000 this month.  Yep that’s right, start flipping up couch cushions to find those lost hundreds from months ago(I wish!)  But seriously, make every effort to earn or not spend an extra $1000 this month.  Work a few extra hours for some extra cash.  Pick up a freelance job here or there.  Mow a lawn or 2.  Refrain from eating out.  Negotiate some bills down.  You get the idea. $1000 too much?  Then make it $500 or even $100 as long as its an amount that will motivate you and push you to think of creative ways to reach that amount.

I don’t imagine this being an easy task but I think it may be entirely doable for me.  I’ll be focusing on earning an extra $1000.  I have a few strategies. My pet sitting business recently surpassed what it made last year so any money I earn from it will be extra income and can be part of this challenge.  I don’t know if I’ve ever made $1000 in one month pet sitting since I’ve turned it into a part time job but I’ll be trying this month.  I also have some things that I’d like to sell locally or on eBay.  Oh and I can’t forget about my freelancing gigs.   I’m excited to finish the summer with such a challenging goal!  Hope you join me.

Readers: Will you be joining me on this challenge?  What other suggestions do you have for earning extra income this month?

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I Can’t Believe I have Been Blogging for 4 Years

by Evan

On August 5th of 2008 I put up my first post.  I had no idea if anyone would read about my journey, nevertheless care about what was going on in my life, but I wanted to share my thoughts with whoever wanted to read them.  Since putting that first post up I have seen somewhere between 570,000 and 630,000 pageviews (analytics vs sitemeter) and while that is probably a day’s worth of views for a news site I am pretty happy with it, especially since most of the first year or so I was getting under 15 page views a day.

I figured I would go through the full archive of My Journey to Millions and pick out some of my favorite posts in hopes that some of my newer readers can see that my writing was actually even worse back then!  Some of the tax information may have changed but I think these posts stand the test of time almost a half decade later.

It is funny as I built this list there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the topic of the posts, some are financial planning based, some are just about my life, and some are law based.  While there is no topical question I think the style in each of the picks chosen were me being me.

Favorite Posts from 2008

Favorite Posts from 2009

Favorite Posts from 2010

Favorite Posts of 2011

Favorite Posts of 2012

We are only half way through the year but I have some favorites:

If you told me that I would be blogging 4 years later I would have said you were crazy!

  • That is as long as HS,
  • As long as College
  • Longer than I was in Law School
  • One-Third of my Relationship with The Wife (we dated a long time before getting married)
  • It is more than a seventh of my life

This blog has kept me on track with my finances and has opened up opportunities to save money like I never would have imagined.  I started a very viable business with someone I have only met once in real life (I don’t talk about it much here, but it is pretty damn successful); I have shared some of my happiness, scares and tragedies with people I will never meet.  I have actually met like-minded people who have their own blog which is always cool.

For all those things above I want to thank everyone who has ever stopped by my blog.

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Personal Finance

The Awkward Millionaire

by Guest Post

While Evan thinks most things are the exact same and there was a never a good ‘ol time, I believe the economy has changed insofar as there aren’t really any “good jobs” left anymore.  I would define a good job as one that our parents’ had where you worked at one employer for your entire life and retired with a nice defined benefit pension. We have to work with what we have and today’s path to wealth involves two things above all else: making your own way in life, and saving money wherever and whenever you can.  Focusing on the second part of the equation for the post here are a few ways to save a lot of money and still get what you want in life:

Coupon Codes for Top Brands

There are essentially two types of purchases that you can make: those that increase in value over time and those that decrease. A home can be an investment as can certain luxury goods and other assets. Other purchases will start decreasing in value immediately.

For both of these types of purchases, coupon codes for top brands can be a huge help, both in increasing the value of your investment, and in decreasing what you spend on items that won’t offer any return.

Longer Term Decisions                                                   

One of the easiest ways to make and save a lot of money is to think in the long term. For instance, buying the 12 packs of toilet paper for eight dollars or so instead of buying them one at a time for a dollar each. It may seem like a small difference, but four dollars here and there can add up rather quickly.

It’s about getting into the habit of buying everything in this way so that you eventually save hundreds, perhaps thousands a year. Buying the more expensive shoes that last twice as long or a pack of t-shirts instead of one at a time can make a major difference over several months.

It’s not really challenging. It’s not uncommon to go from a five figures to seven figures in the bank in a matter of less than a decade simply by sort of nickel and diming your way to prosperity like this. Saving isn’t the only part of being successful, but it’s part of it.

Post by Amanda

Evan’s Note on the guest post: While I believe that controlling one’s spending is important I think it is naive to believe that most people can nickel and dime their way to a seven figure nest egg.

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Personal Finance

Unusual Ways to Save Money

by Guest Post

Looking for ways to save money is a popular pastime for many of us, but for some people it becomes something of an obsession. Luckily for us, this has led to some interesting and unusual ways of saving money, which we can either use as inspiration for our own money-saving endeavors or for… well, something interesting to read. So, you know all about the common money saving tactics such as using comparison sites to get better car insurance quotes and adopting energy-saving measures in your home, but what about these things?

Substitute products

For some, switching from branded goods to supermarket own-brands to save a few dollars here and there isn’t enough. Some people substitute ‘regular’ products for cheaper alternatives. For instance, instead of using toothpaste, which can be expensive, you can use bicarbonate of soda (much cheaper) instead.

Also, rather than buying costly cleaning products for keeping your home spic and span, there are some good alternatives that you could consider. For instance, plain vinegar is a great cleaning agent that’s even used by the professionals to remove stains from everything from your kitchen worktops to your shower curtain. Apparently it even works as a fabric softener!

Get through college in 3 years

Conscious that their students aren’t always especially cash-rich, quite a few colleges have now started to offer 3 year instead of 4 year courses. It’s thought that this can save you around $10,000 because you won’t be taking that fourth year of classes, so it could be something worth considering. Of course, doing a three-year course will require a greater time commitment in the short term, so it isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, but as an unusual way to save money, this one is actually not bad. When you consider that student debt is a considerable burden on many young people, the ability to knock $10k off what you owe is certainly welcome.

Get a corporate sponsor

This has to be one of the more amusing – but also potentially fantastic – ways to save money in an unusual manner. Apparently, getting corporate sponsors to pay for your wedding is growing in popularity.

It’s not hard to see why, really. The average cost of a wedding is now around $20,000 and expectations for the big day keep on rising, thanks to our celebrity-focused culture. This is a huge amount to shell out for a single day and so some couples have taken to persuading businesses to pay for certain aspects of their nuptials in return for promotions, such as being able to print their details in the wedding program.

Well. If a business logo on the back of your wedding program is what it takes to get free cake, bring it on…

Maybe we could even extend this concept to other areas of our lives.

Guest Post by James

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Personal Finance

Don’t Assume Your Time is Worth a Monetary Amount

by Evan

This past Saturday I found out that my local BJs had gas which was about 30 cents cheaper then most local competitors and since The Wife and I both had our gas lights (literally) on I figured I would fill us both up.  The Wife hates getting gas so I figured I would do it for her and since our son was napping I wasn’t missing quality time with him.  After filling two cars up, The Wife asked how much money did I actually save considering I had to drive to BJs (maybe 10 mins away) and wait on line for gas since I am not the only one that wants gas for 30 cents cheaper then every other local competitor?  When I told The Wife that I probably only saved a couple bucks she said it wasn’t “worth” the 45 minutes or so to fill up two cars.

At this point I had to figure out the real number

The Wife’s Car first

  • 17 gallons at $3.79 =  $64.43
  • 17 gallons at $3.49 = $59.33

My Car

  • 13 Gallons at $3.79 = $49.27
  • 13 Gallons at $3.49 = $45.37

Total amount saved? $9.00.  Not exactly the stuff that makes millionaires which is why I don’t believe that normal people can’t frugal themselves to wealth.  Can frugal be used as a verb? I am going to run with it.  Even if I saved $9.00 every week we are only talking about saving $468 per year.  So why do I do it?

Not All of My Time is Monetarily Valuable

I hate when people just assume every waking hour is equivalent to a dollar amount.  Real life doesn’t work that way.  I can’t say something has to net me $30, $40 or $50 an hour to be “worth it.”  What happens if it is $10 but I wasn’t doing anything anyway…maybe the number has to be closer to $50 an hour to get me to miss something important to me.

This particular Saturday morning I woke up with a fantastic headache contributable to scotch, pumpkin beer, Sam Adam’s Octoberfest and old faithful Bud Light.  I wasn’t about to do any work.  Zero. Instead I was probably going to wallow in self pity on the couch until my son woke up from his nap.

This sort of reasoning  makes even less sense if you have a salaried job.  You can figure out your “hourly wage” pretty easily but does it matter? Choosing to do something else doesn’t mean you could have been earning more money.  The only comparison one can make is whether the dollar amount is worth more than the exact activity you would have been doing instead.

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