The calendar flips to a new year.  You look back at the year that’s passed and look at where you want to be and decide you need to make some resolutions.  Things are gonna change in the next year!  So many grand ideas fill your head.  You’re gonna be a new person.  You’re gonna lose weight, pay off your debt, get in shape, read the classics, learn a new language, save up for retirement…you name it.  A few weeks pass and not only are you done with your resolutions, you end up disillusioned about trying.

I’m saying it – New Year’s resolutions are bulls@%t!!

Most people who make resolutions don’t keep up with them.  We’ve all heard the story – people go out in droves after the new year and get gym memberships that, for the most part, are hardly used.  I think we all have one friend that comes up with all sorts of grand ideas to accomplish in the new year but they never actually get off the ground.

Why are most resolutions bad?

Folks look back on the year and tell themselves they need to make big changes.  Usually the changes are too big and grand.  Maybe they have friends or family that are making resolutions.  Most of the time they are biting off more than they can chew!  I often hear of resolutions that are big statements.  Guess what?  Most of us don’t change that much real quick.  Real change takes time, patience, and practice.

We’ll start off with a lot of enthusiasm for a resolution, putting a lot of energy into trying to make it happen.  Then we realize how hard the resolution is and our enthusiasm wanes.  Before long, the resolution is not only forgotten but we get so fed up and disillusioned with the resolution that we want nothing to do with it.  That doesn’t sound too healthy does it?  This is why I say New Year’s resolutions are bulls@%t.

What to do then?

Don’t even think about resolutions.  Get them out of your mind.  Rather, think about what you want to change as a goal or a habit.  Be concrete and SMART about what you want to do and change.  It’s ok to want to change or accomplish something, but you need to have a real plan and intention.

Here are some suggestions to keeping a goal from a recent Wall Street Journal article:

• Take One Step At A Time – Too often a person tries to do to much too quickly.  It’s a sure-fire road to failure.  Break up your goal into small, achievable tasks.
• Get A Little Help From Your Friends – Recruit your friends to help keep you accountable.  Find friends that have similar goals and use each other as a support group.
• Announce Your Intentions – Let as many people as you can know about your goal.  This will help you commit and will give you a large group of people to check in with you.  When you announce your goals people will ask about them later on.  Use social networking to get the word out, you can even start a blog to help keep track of your progress.
• Expect Setbacks – Too often a setback is seen as failure and turns a person away from their goal.  Expect that things will not go perfectly all the time.  Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward!

And here is what Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has to say on the subject:

• Focus on only one habit at a time.
• Implement the changes gradually.
• Start out easy.
• Focus on enjoyable activities.
• Have a specific plan with specific actions.

(For more from Leo Babauta check out his new site 6 Changes and his helpful book The Power of Less).

Look, it’s great that you want to improve yourself.  I just think that New Year’s resolutions, for the most part, are not generally taken seriously.  If there’s something you want to do or change then you need to go about it seriously.  We all should strive to be the best we can and we should do this every day not just when the calendar turns a page.

What do you think of New Year’s resolutions?

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New Year’s Resolutions Are Bulls@%t!

Every year I say around this time but it’s always the same – I can’t believe the year has ended already!  This has truly been an interesting year for us.  We put our co-op on the market, introduced a beautiful little girl to the world, sold our co-op in a down economy, I went on the FMLA to take care of the kids, I went back to school (again), we moved, I became a full-time stay at home dad, it’s been busy to say the least!  I can only imagine what will come in 2010.

Free From Broke grew by leaps and bounds as well!  Thank you all who stop by, read the articles, and leave comments.  Without you guys, this site is no fun!

Here are the most popular articles on Free From Broke in 2009:

25 Traits Of The Not So Well To Do This was a fun one to write and by far the most popular, getting picked up by lots of other sites. This article has over 100 comments on it and seems to really polarize readers one way or another!

Obama 2009 Economic Stimulus Plan – It’s Gonna Be Big! The economic stimulus was on many people’s minds this year. What a crazy time for the economy this has been.

Do We Have To Pay Back Economic Stimulus Checks? Many wanted to know what happens after we get our stimulus checks. The money has to come from somewhere?

A High Yield Online Savings Account Is Great For Savings Having an online savings account was one of the best personal finance moves I’ve made!

Tax Confusion About Paying The Economic Stimulus Back Come tax time last April there was a lot of confusion about the economic stimulus and whether it had to be paid back.

Free Or Low Cost In NYC Written in 2008, this still gets lots of readers looking for frugal things to do in the Big Apple!

7 Ways to Get Rich Quick People always want to know if there’s an easy way to get rich. Here’s a hard truth – there isn’t!

Use First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit For Your Down Payment As part of the economic stimulus, the first-time home buyer tax credit helped spur home sales for new buyers. We’ll see what happens when the credits expire after April 2010!

Google Calendar Can Help You Pay Your Bills On Time I’ve had too many close calls with almost missing due dates for bills. I started using Google Calendar to set up due dates and reminders and so far it’s really helped!

US Savings Rate Finally Turning Upward For too long the savings rate in the US was negative. No wonder our country is in debt, huh? But with the bad economy came changes in spending habits and the savings rate finally moved positive again.

Here are some great sites that linked to Free From Broke in 2009 (yes, you should check them out!):

More Money from CNNMoney.com
Smart Spending from MSNMoney
CreditBloggers
The Simple Dollar
Tip’d
Bible Money Matters
Free Money Finance
WiseBread
PT Money
Moolanomy
Good Financial Cents
Single Guy Money
Remodeling This Life
Bargain Babe
Cash Money Life
We The Savers
Sense To Save
My Super Charged Life

There are so many others as well as people who have been so kind to mention Free From Broke.  I thank you all!

What will be in store for 2010?  You’ll just have to come along for the ride!

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Free From Broke Best Of 2009

To help start off the New Year financially right, WalletPop is offering a free download of David Bach’s latest book Start Over, Finish Rich for free on January 4th.

From David Bach:

My goal with Start Over, Finish Rich is to help millions of Americans to bounce back from the recession and regain belief in themselves and their future, both personally and financially. I’m excited to be partnering with WalletPop to bring consumers the encouragement, tools, and information they need to get back on the road to wealth in 2010.

David Bach is a well-known financial author whose books have been on the New York Times bestseller list, including Automatic Millionaire and Smart Couples Finish Rich.

I was fortunate enough to get permission to print an excerpt from Start Over, Finish Rich.  Take a look at Mr Bach’s advice for affording to max out your 401(k) contribution:

HOW TO SAVE $750 A MONTH—
AT A COST OF ONLY $350

I can hear your protests now: “But, David, I can’t afford to put away more than I do.” Here’s why I know that you can. If you are investing using a retirement plan like a 401(k) or an IRA, then every dollar you invest actually costs you less than 70 cents.

How is that possible? It’s the magic of pretax investing. As we know all too well, every time we earn a dollar, before that dollar ever makes it onto our paycheck, the government grabs something like 27 cents in federal income withholding taxes (often more—and before very long probably a lot more). On top of that, local governments may grab another five cents in city and state withholding. (Exactly how much depends on where you live.) And then there are Social Security taxes, Medicaid, and unemployment.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you are contributing to a pretax retirement account—like a 401(k) plan or an IRA—the money you put in is entirely TAX-DEDUCTIBLE (up to certain limits). In other words, it comes in off the top, before Uncle Sam takes his bite. You get to keep the whole dollar for you and your future.

What this means is that if you decided to start saving an extra $50 per paycheck in your 401(k) or IRA, you would not see your take-home pay go down by $50. In fact, it would go down only by $35. The $15 that normally would have gone to the taxman goes to your future instead.

And if your employer has a matching program, you may be able to add another $25 to that $50. In other words, a $75 investment is costing you only 35 bucks. If you have ever shopped a sale, how can you refuse a bargain like this? The bottom line is that you can save much more than you think, easier than you
think.

What I’m talking about here, of course, is the tried-and-true concept known as “paying yourself first”—putting some of your hard-earned wages into your retirement account before the taxman takes his cut. I’m going to be blunt here. If you want to be financially secure and ultimately finish rich, you have to do this. There is absolutely no way to start over and finish rich if you allow the government to continue muscling in ahead of you. I mean, think about it—how can you possibly expect to get anywhere if you’re willing to give up 30 to 40 cents out of every dollar you make before you ever have a chance to spend—or invest—a penny of it?

There’s no getting around it. You must PAY YOURSELF FIRST. Not doing it is simply not an option.

Excerpted from START OVER, FINISH RICH by David Bach © 2009 David Bach. Reprinted by permission of Broadway Books.

This is a concept that I feel a lot of people miss out on!  When you put money into your 401(k) you’re getting more bang for your buck than you think.  Can’t wait to read the rest of the book!

On top of the free download, David Bach is donating $1 for every copy of Start Over, Finish Rich sold in 2010 (up to $20,000) to charity: water, a non-profit organization that brings clean drinking water to people in developing nations.

I know I’ll be downloading Start Over, Finish Rich on January 4th. I want to read about the 10 steps he suggests we take to get back on track financially in 2010.

Will you be downloading it?

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Download David Bach’s Start Over, Finish Rich For Free

David is striving to be a director and is straight out of film school.  He has been learning the ropes, techniques and has completed several short films, even winning an award in college for best short film.  His favorite director is Quentin Tarantino and tries to base his shooting style off of his.  He is working on his first full feature independent movie and wrote this great script and has nailed the casting for the leads.  He has put just about all of his savings into the production of the movie and maxed out his credit cards, but still is coming up short with raising enough money to shoot the full film.  He is looking to have the whole movie ready to be distributed in less than a six months so he can send it off to film festivals to hopefully get picked.  He just needs to raise a little bit more money so he can get all the shots done he wants because film is very expensive to buy.  How can David raise the extra money needed for him to finish his film?

One way would be to create an online savings goal for his film.  By setting this up, he can keep track of how much money he has saved, how much more he needs, and in how much time he needs to raise the money, helping him track his progress and motivating him to succeed.  He then can email friends and family who can directly pledge money to his goal and keep track of this progress to help him out.  This allows David to have a central location for people to donate money making the whole process nice and simple.  With the extra donations, David is now able to raise enough money to finish shooting his film and will have it done in time to send to film festivals.

BudgetPulse has just released a brand new saving goals function to integrate with its personal finance software.  Now you can set up a savings goal, collect money (via PayPal or Amazon), and then be able to track the transactions associated with it and the income and expenses with the budgeting aspect, all in one tool.  You don’t have to use multiple programs to do the same task.  Now you can strive to get some financial help for the education you desire or for any goal specific to you that you are dreaming of.  Now you can strive to get some financial help to shoot your movie, or for any goal specific to you that you are dreaming of.

This is a guest article from Craig at Budget Pulse.

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A Way To Save And Raise Money For A Short Film (Or Anything Else)

My wife was vacuuming the house. She notices that the vacuum isn’t picking up as well as it should (this has happened before and we had discovered that the hose was backed up).  No big deal.  Then we smell a real nasty smell of rubber burning.  And the vacuum stopped picking up dirt.  Oh no.  “Great, we have to buy a new vacuum,” I say to my wife.  “What did this one cost us?  Around $150-$200?  Maybe we can get a good deal with it being the holidays and stores are trying to get rid of their inventory,” I say, trying to find the silver lining.  Just what we need though, another expense.

What to do now?  Head out to the store?  Check prices online?  Heck no!  Grab the toolbox and take the sucker apart!

I unscrewed the plate at the bottom of the vacuum. I quickly scan and I noticed that the rubber belt that turns the brush wheel was broken.  Ah-ha!  We found our culprit.  “Maybe I can fix this,” I think to myself.  I grab the broken belt and the vacuum cleaner model number and head to the computer.  I look up the Hoover site to see how much a new belt will cost.  Maybe I’m too cynical but I’m expecting this to be a part that’s expensive.  You know, one of those parts where it pays to just buy a new appliance rather than the part.  To my surprise, a new belt from the manufacturer costs a whopping $2.79!  With shipping and tax it would cost about $6.  Ok, I know it’s not expensive but can I get it cheaper?  I flip over to Amazon and look it up.  I find one seller selling it for $3.85.  For two.  With free shipping.  Guess what I ordered?  I’m thinking now I might actually get this vacuum cleaner fixed!  And if I can’t what have I lost?  Less than four dollars?  Well worth the shot.

The belts came within a few days. With belt in hand I jumped back on the computer.  I knew where the belt needed to go but I wanted to check with the manufacturer to see if there was something I might be missing.  I tried looking up my vacuum cleaner model on the manufacturer’s site and couldn’t find it.  Seems they don’t make the model anymore but they had the next model up which was basically the same.  I downloaded the manual and looked up the belt.  Lo and behold it had step by step instructions.  I grabbed my screwdrivers, the vacuum, a new belt and found an empty spot to go to work.  Can I tell you, it took me all of five minutes to put the new belt in!  I went and plugged the vacuum in and tried it out.  It picked up some loose sparkles on my daughter’s rug perfectly.

Spending money to buy something new isn’t always the answer.  We could have easily gone out and bought a new vacuum cleaner.  What a waste that would have been.  For less than four dollars in parts we saved over $150!!

So I don’t make any other mistakes buying something when I can do a simple repair: What appliances have you fixed for a relatively low cost?

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A Little Investigation And Elbow Grease Saved Us Over $150

I sincerely wish everyone an incredible holiday season and hope your new year is your best yet! So far for us it’s been up and down.  Unfortunately we’ve had a ridiculous cold going around the family that insists on getting each of us.  It’s never fun when the little ones are sick (we discovered what croup is).  But the bright side is that my wife and I are both home to take care of them and the school break lasts for another week or so.  Hey, it happens.

On to some great articles around the web:

The Top 111 Twitter Lists That You Must Follow at Good Financial Cents.

Interview with Free From Broke over at MoneyHackers.net. Check out their interview with me and let me know what you think!

PF Comic #3 – Mo’ Money featuring J. Money from Budgets are Sexy at CreditCardDaily. See if you can find the Easter Eggs in the comic! You might find one of them familiar.

Remember When? Round-up of Blogger’s First Posts at Spend On Life. A fun look at some personal finance blogger’s first articles.

How Is Your Mortgage Interest Rate Determined? at Amateur Asset Allocator.

Automating Your Finances is an Expensive Mistake at Bargaineering. Automating certainly has its plus and minuses. I agree that you need to be aware of your payments every month.

Debt Help – Dealing with Holiday Debt at Debt Free Adventure who is also giving away $100 so check it out!

* How To Regift Unwanted Presents at Moolanomy.

7 Free Toys Your Kids Will Love More Than Expensive Gifts at My Super Charged Life. Sometimes kids don’t need the things you see on television.

Paying for Quality Saves Time and Money at Five Cent Nickel.

10 Tips to Help You Reduce Your Credit Card Debt at PT Money.

-> Do You Have Financial Purpose Or Do You Just Manage Your Money?. at Bible Money Matters.

And a few carnivals Free From Broke took part in:

Carnival of Debt Reduction at Couple Money.
Money Hacks Carnival XCV – The “Tiger Woods We Hardly Knew Ye” Edition at Len Penzo.
Carnival of Personal Finance: Parts-of-speech abuse edition at Mighty Bargain Hunter.

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Holiday Link-Up 12-27-09

Do you have your own blog and are looking for more exposure?  Maybe you don’t but you’re a good writer and you’re looking for a place to share your ideas?  Well, Free From Broke is looking for talented writers for guest articles.

I want to keep up producing quality content for my readers.  Life is hectic though.  We now have three kids and finding time to write everything myself is tough.  I’d love to have some fresh writers help fill the spaces between my articles.  I’d especially love to give some newer sites an opportunity to show off their writing skills.

Why write for Free From Broke

A guest article here provides a writer access to a large, growing audience of readers interested in personal finance.  If you have your own blog this can mean access to new readers for your site.

What I’m Looking For

I’d like personal finance articles with broad appeal.  Having a personal spin on the subject is great so long as it can appeal to the general audience.

What I’m Not Looking For

No spam.  Please don’t contact me with a short post trying to sell your product.  Seriously, people do that.  Please don’t be one of them.

If you are interested, please take a look at my Write For Us page for some more details and guidelines.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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Write For Free From Broke

It happens all the time.  You think you covered gifts for everyone and without fail you find you need one more at the last minute. Or a person you didn’t expect got you something and you want to return the gesture.  What to do?  Do you try to run out to a store last minute, fighting traffic, in the hopes that the store is still open and has a gift to get?

Enter Amazon to the rescue!

There’s still time to give an Amazon gift card!  If your recipient has an email address, and who doesn’t these days, you can email them an Amazon gift card.  If you’d like to make it more face-to-face then you can print out an Amazon gift card.  Find a nice design, print it out, toss it in a nice card and you’re set!

Ok, some argue that it can be a bit impersonal to give a gift card.  I’ll buy that.  But sometimes you genuinely don’t know what to get the person and with Amazon you can buy anything from groceries, to MP3’s, to flat-screen TV’s.  And Amazon gift card have no fees and no expiration dates (BTW, check the fine print on gift cards you see sold at the supermarket for fees and such!).

Personally, I use Amazon all the time and would love gift cards!  But hey, that’s me.

If you want to get something perhaps a little more personal that your recipient can enjoy for the year then you should look into a magazine subscription through Amazon.  They have a number of great magazines deals such as $3, $5, and $10 off deals.  Here are a couple of great deals for $5: Smart Money, Inc., and Fast Company.

So if you’re stuck for a lst minute gift you still have some choices through Amazon!

What are some of your ideas for a last minute gift?

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Need A Last Minute Gift? Amazon To The Rescue!

We had a total of fifteen comments that qualified for the Marshalls/TJ Maxx gift card giveaway.  I used Random.org to generate the winning comment (each comment is numbered).  Comment 12 from Sarah R is the winner!

Congratulations Sarah!  I’ve already sent an email to get mailing info to send out your card.

I loved all of the responses to how you stretched your gift budgets.

Here was Sarah’s response:

First, I started shopping earlier, so my bf’s Christmas gift (tickets to the Philharmonic) actually came out of September’s budget. Next, I made jewelry for gifts, used credit card points to “buy” gift cards at no cost, and gifted my old iPod speakers to my brother. The only people who are receiving purchased gifts (outside of the bf, of course) this December are my nephews because I couldn’t figure out how to make the train sets they’d asked for. But even that was on the cheap: I researched the lowest prices and bought battery-operated trains because I think they’re too young to take care of a real train set.

Here are some other, notable responses:

Becca went the handmade route:

I got crafty and made a lot of my gifts! Christmas ornaments, a pair of mittens, and some photo frames. Sometimes it’s a lot cheaper to buy the materials and make your own stuff.

Abigail used the power of the net (among other strategies):

This past spring, I signed up at Swagbucks and enlisted my mom, my husband a whole bunch of my readers to sign up as well. With their help and some diligence on my part, I got enough Swagbucks to get $170 of GCs from Amazon.com. That got my husband his main present, a PSP. It was a combination birthday/Christmas gift, so he already has it. And love love loves it!

Mike:

I have gotten gifts for the younger kids at goodwill. They are hard on toys and don’t care if its been played with before.

J. Co, Emily N, and Sarah cashed in credit card points.

These are all great ideas, some of which I’ll have to utilize myself! It’s great to hear from readers.

Thank you everyone for sharing your ideas (and for entering the giveaway).  I hope you have a great holiday season!

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How Some Readers Stretched Their Gift Budgets (And The Gift Card Winner)

There’s a new cookbook that’s come out that sounds like it’s great for families and the frugal-minded.  It’s called The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook.  The book is written by Erin Chase, author of the popular site 5DollarDinners.com.

The premise of the book is that every recipe will feed a family of four and will cost no more than $5.  Part of the way this is accomplished is through the use of coupons and finding the best deals when shopping.  Sounds like this is right up our block, huh?

I’d love to give you a in-depth review but the book just came out and I don’t have a copy yet (though the publisher is sending me one).  To read more about the book check what the author’s site has to say: 5DollarDinners.com/Cookbook.

Oh Yeah, The Giveaway!

The publisher was also kind enough to supply a copy of The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook to one lucky reader (US & Canada only).

To enter the giveaway leave me a comment below with your favorite frugal meal (only one comment per person).  You have until Sunday, December 27th 2009, 11:59pm EST.  Make sure you leave a valid email address.  I’ll pick one comment at random as the winner.  If I don’t hear from you within 48 hours I’ll pick a different winner.  The publisher is responsible for shipping out the book.

Editor’s Note: This contest is now closed.

Start off the new year well with a frugal cookbook to feed your family with (well, don’t feed them the book, you know, use the recipes).

Check out Amazon if you’d like to purchase a copy.

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$5 Dinner Mom Cookbook Giveaway