working for money

Recap on Weekend To Do List

2012-02-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Overall I did a solid job on the list. Here's a recap: Replace side entry door on garage. Not quite. The free door we had wouldn't fit without major shimming and such. Will be better and more secure to get a new door. Remove remaining dirt on yard trailer. Done. Tax return. Added a few more items to this years return. Not quite finished but getting there. Clean out gas tank on motorcycle.

Weekend To Do list

2012-02-10T11:32:00.001-08:00

There are a few tasks (some years overdo!) to cross off the perpetual to do list. I'm hoping to tackle a few of these this weekend.Replace side entry door on garage. 6 years overdo. The side access door on our garage is cheap and flimsy with a plastic window. I should have replaced this with a metal door years ago that offer much better security. A friend did a remodel and gave me a replacement

Small changes can change us all: Buying American to create more jobs

2012-02-07T05:26:00.001-08:00

I have long been an advocate to trying to Buy Made in USA, which can be a difficult task at times no doubt. But there is no simpler solution to a stronger US economy than to buy more Made in USA stuff. It's the familiar story... buy more local stuff and more local jobs are reated. The US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released one of their monthly reports last week on

DIY Long Term Health Insurance: Green Tea

2012-02-06T06:03:00.001-08:00

It's been known for a long time how great green tea is for one's health. New studies show just how fantastic a tonic green tea is. The latest study from Japan shows that green tea drinkers have less chance of disability as they age. As a PF blogger I am just as much interested in long term health as I am in a secure financial retirement. In fact health is even more important than money. Not much

The Nitty Gritty of Vacation Budgeting

2012-02-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

I am currently on the end of a 5 day vacation. Now that it time to head back home I am already thinking about things that need to be attended to. One of these things is figuring out the total cost of our trip. In doing so I know I still need to develop a better system to budget for incidentals during the vacations. Generally when budgeting for vacations we surmise a figure that includes fixed

Trying out a new system for house cleaning: Weekly Zone Cleaning System

2012-01-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

A goal of ours this year is to keep a cleaner house. Up till now we haven't used a schedule to clean the house. Our method has generally been to spot clean as needed.This isn't a very effective means to keep a clean house. So we came up with an idea I like to call the Weekly Zone Cleaning System. The idea is very simple. Focus on one area of the home each week. So we divided our house into 4

Low Spend Week and looking at my January No Spend Days recap

2012-01-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

I satisfactorily completed my end of month goals. As I mentioned in my goals post I don't generally set weekly, or even monthly, goals. But maybe I should, it the results and tracking similar to this past weeks. A quick recap of the few goals I made for the week: Low Spend Week. We had 4 No Spend days this week! And could have been 5 but I spontaneously bought soup at work one day for lunch. I

Retirement versus college: Putting ourselves before our kids

2012-01-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

It's easy for parents to put our kid's college savings before our own retirement. We shouldn't; it's a big mistake. A number of top PF celebrities tout this same approach: Suze Orman, Dave Ramsay and Clark Howard to name three. The reason is simple and has nothing to do with tough love, or anything of the like. It is that there are numerous means to fund college: scholarships, GI Bill, grants,

End of Month Goals in mind and my Low Spend Week

2012-01-20T14:43:00.001-08:00

Next week's goals... I generally don't create weekly goals for myself but figured it might be a great time to do so and end the month on a strong note. So for next week I have a few ideas: Low Spend Week. I like the idea of a no spend week, but I'll keep it more realistic and just aim for a low spend week instead. Baby steps... No sugar. This falls in line with my Healthier 2012 goal. I'll

Laptop platform shootout: Windows 7 versus Apple OS X versus Ubuntu

2012-01-17T11:36:00.001-08:00

We have all 3 major* computer OS systems in use on a weekly basis in our house. These include 6 years old Dell and Acer laptops, and a 3 month old MacBook Pro. I often consider consolidating down to just one laptop but realize there isn't much benefit in doing so since the older laptops are still of use and we couldn't sell them for much money. I figure it's better to continue using them and

Paying with cash and receiving 182 year old coin as change

2012-01-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

I don't often use cash because I love my rewards Visa card. I pay the balance off monthy so don't pay interest and collect the 1.5% that goes into my IRA. It's such a win-win. But the other week I did pay for something at a grocery store with cash and received my change from those automated coin change machines. I didn't notice right away but later that night I saw that two of the pennies were

Flat tire illustrates value of "taking care of things the right way"

2012-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

I rode my bike to work yesterday and it didn't go smoothly. In the first half of the ride I hit some bumps and my tail light bounced off the holder. Luckily I heard it hit the asphalt so I stopped and then went looking into the weeds to find it. It continued blinking after falling off so i easily found it. But annoying to disrupt my pedaling. About 5 mins later I got a flat in the rear tire.

My 2012 less-car commuter challenge

2012-01-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

One unwritten goal I have for 2012 is to drive less to work. There are a few reasons for this: 1) save on gas money since the car I drive gets low 20s mpg 2) fewer miles on car, reduced wear and tear 3) exercise, bike commuting is great way to fit in exercise each week 4) fun, i bought a motorcycle last year and it's fun to ride it and gets 45 mpg So the basic motivation is health and money. (

The occasional hassle of saving money - Free over the air TV

2012-01-06T11:41:00.001-08:00

As I wrote about the other month, we are saving money from cutting our cable bill. We love it. However it can be more tedious to find something to watch, but when viewing our regular programs it's super easy to get what we want on Hulu and Netflix. And we can channel surf in the tradition sense with over the air channels. However, the latter has been an ongoing experience that is best described

Facing the emotional facts of an underwater mortgage.

2012-01-05T11:18:00.001-08:00

Well, with the new year here I'm officially ready to recognize that our house is underwater. At least according to Zillow, which I know can be altogether wrong and misleading at times with estimates. But for my emotional sincerity I will agree with Zillow. This realization doesn't depress me. Doesn't make me angry. Or sad. I suppose I just accept it because I don't have any other choice. And for

2012 changes: Using the free credit reports regularly

2012-01-04T08:43:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I finally did something I should have been doing every 4 months. That is, getting a free credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com. The last time I tried this was in 2009 and I recall it wasn't as easy and straightforward as it could have been. At that time one of the 3 agencies still required mailing or faxing a request. I felt the overall process was clunky. Fast forward to

Increase of the trend towards Made in the USA

2012-01-03T09:11:00.001-08:00

I'm a big believer of "trying" to buy US made products. But there are two problems with this philosophy: 1- these products almost always cost more than their imported counterpart. 2- most things aren't made in the US so choices available are very limited. However there has been a resurgence of manufacturing in the US. I feel good when I see companies offering Made in USA products. Some

Happy New Tax Year

2012-01-01T07:47:00.000-08:00

The New Year is here. And so are changes to IRS rules. These are 2012 laws, so won't be realized until filing the 2012 return in 2013. Of course preparing for current year taxes is important so these changes should be noted now as tax planning is always a worthy endeavor, if not painstakingly drab. Due to inflation adjustments $100 increase to each personal and dependent exemption to $3800

2012 - looking ahead

2011-12-29T06:57:00.000-08:00

All in all 2011 turned out to be a great year for us. And we hope to carry the results and momentum into 2012. With this in mind here are a few goals. Money: Make an extra month's mortgage payment over course of year Fully fund both our IRAs Save 15% of income to retirement Continue saving monthly for future "dream house down payment" Health: Lose 12 pounds Bike and run a total of 2,000

2011 - looking back

2011-12-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

I didn't have any specific goals for 2011. I do plan to set some for 2012. But looking back over the past 12 months there are some notable items to note. Household: New carpet for all bedrooms. Instead of DIY like I did with our living room a few years back I shopped around and ended up using a 10% off coupon with one of the big box stores. What an improvement. We should have done this years

When investing is gambling ... penny stocks

2011-12-20T09:12:00.001-08:00

I love to gamble. But very rarely do so because I hate losing money. And of all the times at the craps and black jack tables in my life I've only had one big score (craps table in Atlantic City years and years ago). All other times I lost a little. Or won a little. Or broke even. I never want to experience the 4th outcome: losing big. This being the case I rarely gamble when given the opportunity

The second-guessing of investment choices: The 401k dilemma...

2011-12-15T11:51:00.001-08:00

I started my current job recently and on Jan 1 will be eligible to participate in the company 401k. However, the situation is different from past employer's 401k offerings.Firstly, there is no company match. Sounds bad, but it isn't. Instead, my company does automatic profit-sharing via 401k accounts on a yearly basis. They contribute profits (not guaranteed, of course, each year) regardless of

November Goals Follow Up

2011-12-13T10:50:00.001-08:00

Guess I should review my November Goals before December is half over. 1- Switch Home and Auto Insurance and save money. Done. I have switched both auto and home to two different companies. We now save $281 a year with our new home insurance policy. With auto we save $382 a year. Combined this is a total of $663, or $55.25 a month. Kinda feel like I should have looked into switching a few years

When you regret an investment

2011-12-09T08:55:00.001-08:00

I currently hate one of our investments. I regret getting into. And I want out. All this in spite of the fact that it has gained almost 70% since we bought it in 2010. It is iShares Silver Trust - symbol SLV. I hate it because it just sits there. Doing nothing. No dividend. No interest. Just boringly tracking the price of silver. It's not a huge amount, but not small either. It's value is more

Ahead of the curve - Timbuk2 bag as diaper bag

2011-12-07T08:47:00.001-08:00

As parent of twins we've always been ignorantly overwhelmed with parenting workload. Of course the brunt of this has come and passed with the advent of potty-trained kids (so thankful for this!!). One item that certainly made a difference for us (for any parent, for that matter) is having a good bag/organizer system. With twins it was even more important (for those with triplets .., godspeed).