My Personal Finance Journey - Personal Finance, Intelligent Investing, And Frugal Living Tips

$141.20 Giveaway - Community and Charity 10% Monthly Blog Income Give Back # 5 - February 2012 Edition

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:37:22 PST

The 10% give back giveaway fun rolls on for the month of February!

In case you missed the first (October), second (November), third (December), and fourth (January) 10% Blog Income Give Back, after doing some thinking at the beginning of October 2011 about what direction I want this blog to grow and evolve towards in the future, I decided that any income made from this blog would have more significance to me at a personal life values level if I knew that a portion were being given back to the following places:

1) The readers - Obviously, without you here to read my articles and interact with my ideas, there would be no blog in the first place (let alone blog income). As such, it is only fitting that you receive a portion of any blog income.
2) Charitable organizations - If you've read my blog before, you know that I'm a big believer in donating a portion of my money to charity. Each year, I donate between 5-10% of my income to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as part of the Bike for MS fundraiser that I do. Beyond the good that is done by donating your money, getting used to contributing to charity is also a good practice to emulate the actions of affluent individuals (T. Harv Eker discusses this in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, which I would definitely recommend reading if you have a few hours).

Because of these considerations, I've decided that each month going forward, I'm going to give away 10% of my net (after-tax) blogging income/profit to My Personal Finance Journey readers (5%) and to charity (5%). Listed below is how the process will work:

After each calendar month passes, I'll tally up my net blog income and determine what Dollar value correlates to 10%.
I'll post the giveaway (similar to this post you're reading now), and you'll have approximately 2-3+ weeks to enter.
Once the giveaway is over, a grand prize winner will be announced, and that winner will then select what charity they'd like to have 5% of my blog income sent to. Once the giveaway entry window ends, I'll send out the money to the blog reader winner(s) and personally drop off the charity donation.
So far, I've been very happy with the success of the October, November, and December 2011, and the January 2012 10% income give backs.

In October, $205 total was given away, with $100 being donated to the charity, GreenPeace.
In November, $201.40 total was given away, with $100 being donated to the charity, The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. If you're interested, you can view the details of me going to drop off the check at the Food Bank by clicking here.
In December, $74.52 total was given away, with $38 given to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge. You can view the details of the donation drop by clicking here.
In January, $196 total was given away, with $96 given to the Sexual Assault Resource Agency. You can view the details of the donation drop by clicking here.

So, that's the overall flow of things and a brief recap of what's happened so far with the give back initiative. Now, let's get in to the specific details for this month's (February 2012) giveaway.

Details of February 2012 10% Blog Income Giveaway

$141.20 total blog income to give away - $71.20 to a My Personal Finance Journey reader and $70 to the charity selected by the giveaway grand prize winner (see bullet point below for additional details on how the charity selection will work this month).

$71.20 in the form of one prize available to one reader as follows -

1) Grand Prize = $71.20 Amazon Gift Card or $71.20 cash via PayPal.

The personal finance topic I want to place in the spotlight for discussion in the giveaway comments this month is if and/or how people are carrying health insurance coverage these days.

Recently, I wrote a post about the various options for obtaining health insurance coverage aimed at helping the millions of Americans who are having trouble affording regular health insurance, but yet do not make a small enough income to qualify for federal assistance programs for families below the "official" poverty level. This post was inspired by me hearing about several of my own friends who are facing this very dilemma, and I felt very strongly about trying to help figure out what options they had available.
As such, I'm requesting that entrants leave a comment below this post about either #1 or #2 listed below:

1) If you currently have health insurance coverage, what type of coverage do you have/where is it provided from (independent plan, employer plan, etc), and whether or not it is affordable.
2) If you do not currently have health insurance, what are your barriers from obtaining it? What options have you looked in to for getting coverage that either worked or didn't work?

Because of the success experienced in the November-January give backs with building relationships with local charitable organizations, I've decided that for February, we'll keep how we select the charity that receives the 5% blog income donation the same as last month. Continue reading below for more details:

Instead of having each entrant specify any charity in the world, the goal for this month will be for My Personal Finance Journey to develop a relationship with one of the 7 charities listed below. The Grand Prize winner will select which of these 7 organizations receives the donation on behalf of the blog.

All of these charities were selected because 1) they are high quality organizations who do very good things and 2) they all have a significant presence/office in the area in which I live and operate this website (Central Virginia).
I have contacted the local offices of these organizations and told them that they are part of the 10% blog income give back in February. After the Grand Prize winner is selected and the selected charity announced, I hope to be able to visit the local office of the organization, meet their staff, and present them with the money personally.
It's been very fulfilling developing a relationship with the local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through the MS150 fundraising bike ride I do each year, and I'm hoping that this experience will be just as awesome! I look forward to seeing which organization is selected.

How to Enter the Giveaway - Deadline to Enter is Midnight, February 29th, 2012

Like last month, I've decided to use the RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the February giveaway, so simply go through the steps listed in the widget below to enter the running for the prize and accumulate entry points.

There is no limit to the amount of points you can earn. If you refer 10 subscribers – your name will have accumulated 170 entry points! Or, if you link to the giveaway more than once, you can accumulate those 7 entry points multiple times. You can also retweet the giveaway and/or share other My Personal Finance Journey articles via social media sites once per day. In the event of a tie, I will be using a random number generator to select the winner.

Important instructions: After you complete an entry method, make sure to click and fill out the "I Did This" or "Enter" button in the widget so that I have a record of your points.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, the deadline for entries will end at midnight on February 29th, 2012 (a little over 3 weeks from today - the start of the give back). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner (one with the most points accumulated) will be contacted via email to receive their prize and select this month's charity organization for the donation.

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/westbaltimoresquares/5680315829/sizes/l/in/photostream/

January 10% Blog Income Give Back Charity Drop

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:50:22 PST

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A little over a week ago, the points were tallied from the My Personal Finance Journey January 10% Blog Income Give Back. Our Grand Prize winner was Donna B (also the winner of the November 10% give back as well!). As such, $75 in cash was transferred via PayPal to Donna. A big thanks to everyone for participating in the January Give Back event!

Having processed the the blog reader portion of the January give back, it was time to turn my attention to the question of which of the 8 local charities listed below would receive the $96.00 charity portion of the give back.

After asking our Grand Prize winner, Donna B., which charity she wanted to see receive the $96 donation, she informed me that her choice was the Sexual Assault Resource Agency. To me, it sure sounded like a great cause I could get behind and would be happy to support once again!

So, on Tuesday of this week, I took a lunch break at the lab and ventured off on my bike to drop off the donation at the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA) office near downtown Charlottesville.

It was a very nice clear and luke-warm February day out, and the outing made for a pleasant break during lunch. After biking the ~2.5 miles from the University where I work to a little East of the downtown area, I arrived at the specified office location address (see picture below). The office is located in a very pleasant neighborhood, which appeared to be a bunch of older houses converted in to small office buildings for doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.

Pulling up to the Sexual Assault Resource Agency Office in Charlottesville, Virginia to drop off the donation check!

Upon entering, I met Dale, the operations manager, and Margaret, the executive director, and handed them the donation check.

Margaret explained to me a little about the background of the Charlottesville agency, including how they are an independent organization (not part of a national chain) and have been in operation for 32 years now. The agency first started as a group of volunteers, but it has since grown to a full-time staff consisting of 10 professionals, including 2 full time counselors. Quite the success story!

Currently, they are serving the Central Virginia area through a combination of counseling services to sexual assault victims (about 500 people per year) and prevention programs to stop future transgressions. They also team up with local schools to put on multi-week workshops for 1100 children to help prevent sexual assault cases.

If you're looking to get involved in supporting SARA and live in the Central Virginia area, the big event they run each year is called the SARA Three 4 All, which will be held on April 14th. According to the event page, it is actually the world's largest three-legged race, and they are looking to break the world record of 500 three-legged participants this year! Now, does that not sound awesome or what?!

CHALLENGES FACING THE Sexual Assault and resource agency of charlottesville

When I asked if there are any particular challenges that SARA faces in the Charlottesville area, two primary things were mentioned, as discussed below:

First, since Charlottesville is home to a big University (University of Virginia - go Thomas Jefferson!), the number of sexual assault cases is naturally slightly higher since the young adult (under 25) age group is one of the highest risk groups for becoming victims. However, it was mentioned that this University phenomena is experienced nationwide, and is not isolated to only this area.
Second, I found out that the SARA agency in Charlottesville services a large rural population in the surrounding areas/counties. In fact, I learned that 1/3 of their clients in 2011 and 48% of their clients so far in 2012 were from rural locations.

Because of the small population-nature of rural areas, confidentiality of sexual assault (and receiving treatment/counseling for sexual assault) is of the utmost importance. And, as you can imagine, it is also particular challenge because we as humans are naturally curious people to learn about what others are doing.

Overall, it was a truly great experience to see that what we do here at My Personal Finance Journey can have a real life impact. Through this charity give back that you all have helped to make possible, we are able to help a difference in either preventing future sexual assault cases and/or improving the life of a survivor. Just take a look at what a difference even small amounts of money can make (taken from SARA Donation tab on website).

$30 provides a new set of clothes for a victim seen at the Emergency Room whose clothes are collected as evidence.
$50 provides a therapy session for a child or adult victim of sexual violence.
$20 keeps the SARA sexual assault hot line running for a day.
$150 provides a full day of prevention programming to a local school.

So, thank you all for helping with this journey, and remember to always live for a higher purpose and ask yourself what more you can do to help others. Also, be on the lookout for the February 10% give back event, on the way in the next few days!

How about you all? Is sexual assault a big problem/issue in your local community? Do you know what programs are available to help victims and prevent future cases?

Are you supporting any charitable organizations this year? If so, which one(s)?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

What Do You Do If You Really Cannot Afford Regular Health Insurance?

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:12:50 PST

In most personal finance self-help books I've read, one of the first, most important, and fundamental assumptions made before proceeding to discuss the usual personal finance topics such as 401ks, IRA's, emergency funds, etc is that a person should have health insurance to protect themselves in the event of a health emergency.

Indeed, even in the My Personal Finance Journey Account Hierarchy, securing adequate health insurance is listed as the highest and most basic priority for your funds as they come in. However, no detail is gone in to about how to secure this coverage.

Because of the very fact that health insurance is listed first in the pecking order, having health insurance is something that I think a lot of people take for granted in focusing their discussions about personal finance. This is either because they figure health insurance is provided as a health benefit at people's work or they simply use the first funds they receive each month to pay the monthly premiums, and they have plenty of money left over to cover their other necessary expenses.

However, in today's economy with many people out of work, facing tight budgets, or having to take ANY job that comes their way in the stale job market, I've begun to realize (after talking with several friends facing this problem) that many people are 1) left to obtain independent health insurance coverage, 2) unable to cover the cost of an independent health insurance plan because it is so expensive, and 3) earn income above the poverty level and as such, do not qualify for government health coverage.

Because of this realization, I thought it would be valuable to discuss today about the various options that exist (if any) for people that are having trouble affording this crucial life need.

But first, let's take a step back and look at the health insurance landscape we are currently facing...

How Many People Do Not Have Health Insurance in Today's Society and What Percentage of Full Time Jobs Do Not Include Health Insurance?

Looking at the big picture, I suppose the "revelation" that people are unable to afford health insurance shouldn't come as too much of a shock to me. After all, I've probably been hearing for about 8 years now about the statistics of how 16.3% of the US population is without health insurance (source - CNN) . And, since I have faith in people and believe they are not dumb, it's reasonable to believe (hopefully) that they would pay for health insurance first and foremost. The CNN article above stated that the average cost of an independent health insurance plan for a family is now up to $13,770. Personally, I would say that this figure falls in to the "unaffordable" category for most middle class families.

Yet another fascinating statistic to look at (also sourced from the same CNN article above) is the percentage of employers that offer health insurance to their full time employees. To my shock, only 55.3% of employees have health insurance through their employer - down from 65% in 2000.

I suppose this decrease in company health insurance coverage makes sense with the recession we have experienced and companies trying to cut costs. Looking at this statistic, it really makes you feel thankful if you are one of the ones that gets health insurance through your employer. Personally, I had no idea that this figure was this low.

So, What Do You Do If You Cannot Afford Health Insurance?

It's clear that the numbers shared above do not paint a very pretty picture - with approximately 50 million Americans without health insurance and only half of employers paying for health insurance plans.

Putting politics aside (please - this is not a politics blog), it leaves a person asking the following - "With the high price of health care, what are my options within my control if I simply cannot afford standard health insurance? I don't want to get hurt and owe $80,000 for the surgery bill."

Listed below are several things I could come up with after searching around and applying some interpretations of my own. I will approach this issue by taking the perspective of someone that is above the poverty level, earning $20,000-$30,000 per year. I'll also assume you're not yet old enough to qualify for senior citizen coverage through Medicare, are looking for a somewhat long term solution, and cannot afford COBRA extension coverage through your old job.

Option 1 - If you're 26 years of age or under, get on your parents' health insurance plan -

I know. I know. This option won't work for the many of you out there reading who are above 26 years of age. But, it's worth mentioning since young adults age 19-25 represent one of the largest groups of un-insured in the nation. The CNN article above mentioned that some 70% of young adults in this age group are uninsured. This is simply amazing. Please, don't think you are invincible. Talk to your parents to get on their health insurance plan if this is at all possible.

Conclusion for Option 1 - Great if you're 26 or younger, but useless for everyone else.

Option 2 - Get coverage for your family (or at least your children) through Medicaid / Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

Listed below are the eligibility requirements for Medicaid/Children's Health Insurance Program:

Pregnant women earning below $20,000 for a family of two.
Parents (the Medicaid.gov website says that income limits vary by state).

However, I would guess that it's unlikely that you'll be able to qualify unless your income is lower than $15,000-$20,000.

People with disabilities with income up to $2,000 (not very high!).
On the other hand, the government places a priority on trying to get health insurance for children. Families with incomes up to $44,000 can qualify to place only their children (not the parents) on Medicaid. Furthermore, families with incomes above this can qualify to get their children health coverage through the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Conclusion for Option 2 - Medicaid and CHIP are great for people below the poverty level, but useless for higher income earnings that are simply going through a tough time in life or earning $20,000 - $30,000. However, your child (not you though) can still be covered through these programs if you earn a higher income. So, that's one positive thing to give you peace of mind.

Option 3 - Get reduced rate group health insurance coverage through organizational memberships

As a result of involvement in present or past jobs or hobbies, many people have become members of professional and/or formal organizations during their lifetime. However, one thing that a lot of people do not know is that many of these organizations will have pre-negotiated group discount rates on health insurance that they offer to members. Now, they won't directly pay for part of your health insurance like an actual employer will, but these discounts can defray the costs.

So, take a second and think about any professional, union, chamber of commerce, or alumni organizations you are a part of currently or have been a part of in the past. Next, go to Google and search to see if one of the benefits of being a member is getting a discount on health insurance. If you are not a member of any organization, you might think about joining one that offers health insurance discounts. A good way to start doing this is to search for the phrase "membership benefits health insurance" in Google.

While writing the paragraphs above, I thought to myself - "This sounds great, but really how much of a discount can a person get from these organizations? It can't be all that much, can it - enough to make health insurance affordable?"

So, let's take an organization that I am a part of as a result of my graduate school job - The American Chemical Society. In briefly searching around their website, I found that they do offer a group insurance program. Great! However, when I went and tried to find what sort of discount members generally receive for getting health insurance with the organization, I couldn't find anything.

Furthermore, in doing an exhaustive search on the Internet, I could find no disclosure of any estimates for how much of a discount people get for health insurance when it is purchased through a membership organization. This is partly understandable since as you can imagine, the rates for health insurance vary quite a bit person-to-person. However, since there were no instances of people saying, "HEY! I SAVED $200 PER MONTH BY GETTING COVERAGE THROUGH THIS ORGANIZATION," it makes me think that the savings aren't that great. But, you may be able to get more complete coverage through an organization with fewer barriers to entry than searching for health coverage by yourself.

Conclusion for Option 3 - Overall, it's worth checking to see what sorts of rates you can get through membership organizations and determine if it is affordable. Even though you can probably get more complete coverage through one of these organizations, I have not seen the evidence yet to convince me that you will save all that much. Anyone have more experience with this option than me to prove I'm wrong and/or set me straight?

Option 4 - Get a part-time job that includes health insurance benefits

In researching while writing this post, I came across the option of obtaining full health insurance benefits (where the company pays part of your premiums) through getting a part time job at certain companies, many of which I found out were very common companies that you see around town. Phil @ PT Money put together a great list of the companies that offer health insurance to part time employees as well as the qualifications needed.

Instantly, I became a fan of this option, especially thinking of people without health insurance who are between jobs or only working part of the week. Another reason why I like this option is that it really puts you in the driver's seat of controlling your financial well being.

The only drawback to this option (aside from any competition to get these jobs) is that there is a 20 hour per week working minimum to qualify for obtaining health insurance with many of the jobs. So, if you already work one job, it will by no means be a "piece of cake" to obtain coverage this way, but I think that the peace of mind that you'll obtain in knowing that your family is taken care of will make the 20 hours per week well worth it. For example, the 20 hours could be knocked out by working 5 pm to close twice per week and then on Saturday/Sunday.

Conclusion for Option 4 - In my mind, a great option for people to really take charge of their financial well being and obtain health insurance paid for in part by their part time employer. However, you have to be willing to put in the hours to qualify.

Option 5 - State-specific affordable health insurance programs

Continuing with the list brings us to the somewhat variable option of affordable health insurance plans funded at the state level. As you can imagine, you'll have to check with your state's Department of Health website for the specific details of the program offered in your state (usually, a good way to find this to Google, "cannot afford health insurance + your state).

For example, Washington State offers a Basic Health Plan to limited income earners who make 133% of the poverty level (so less than $20,000) and the State of Virginia offers low income earner coverage through the Virginia Health Care Foundation.

Conclusion for Option 5 - No guarantee that you'll be able to get coverage from a state program (especially if you earn above the poverty level), but it's worth checking at the very least.

Option 6 - A "Mixed Bag Approach" Using Emergency Only Insurance Coverage + Low Cost Health Care Options

The last option I found (and optimized slightly) when researching about this topic was a somewhat mixed approach. It was also one of my most favorite (along with getting on your parents plan if you're under 26 and getting a part time job that has health insurance) because it is very concrete and doesn't hinge on income level requirements, etc.

Essentially, this strategy is based on the purpose of insurance in general at it's most bare-bones level being to protect you from financial disaster by not letting you go in to multiple ten's of thousands of Dollars in debt (not to pay for routine visits to the doctor, etc). Using this underlying purpose in assuming that health insurance is A MUST, this strategy involves the following steps:

Get a high deductible coverage insurance policy (essentially, the cheapest policy available with no office visit coverage). By high deductible, I mean high - something to the tune of $10,000.

Kevin from Out of Your Rut found that for a married couple with 2 children, a normal health insurance policy with a deductible of $1000 would carry a monthly premium of $1213. However, when the deductible was increased to $10,000, the monthly premium went down to $303. This makes the coverage go from non-feasible to feasible, but still a pain.

Once you have the policy, you will only use it in the event of a major surgery/injury, since you would have to pay $10,000 to access your coverage and you have no office visit stipulations.
For routine health care (prescriptions, doctor visits, etc), do not go to the emergency room. Even though they are required by law to treat you (and only collect payment on about 70% of the patients they see), this is one of the most expensive places to receive treatment.
Instead, take advantage of free and/or affordable community health care clinics available in your area.

To find one of these discounted clinics, click here to go to the US Department of Health and Human services page where you can perform a search.
When I searched around my area, I found about 4 federally supported/affordable health care centers within 50 miles.

In putting this post together, I was thinking about any negative aspects to mention about free clinics - such as strict low income requirements or long wait times. Therefore, I reached out to my Mom, who worked in a free clinic several years ago for her experience. Her input is quoted below, in the true full sentence form that she always writes emails in no matter what the topic or brevity of the message (she reads this blog by email feed and will probably think it's neat to be included here):

I last worked in a free community health clinic in 1994. We had good staffing and all people were seen during each clinic period in the evening. They had to wait several hours, some waiting for about 3 hours. All services were free, including some medications. People could show up at the clinic and be seen. There were not many restrictions on receiving this care.

Conclusion for Option 6 - While not perfect, using a high deductible health insurance plan coupled with community health care clinics can save you from bankruptcy by providing you with health coverage for expensive surgeries/injuries at a feasible cost.

To wrap up this post, today, we've explored 6 options for people that are having trouble affording health insurance. While none of them are as ideal as simply having a full time job that you commit yourself to (and then have weekends off) that provides low cost health insurance, they are worth exploring in order to obtain health care coverage. It is my belief that having health insurance is STILL the most important financial priority, so it really is essential to not take this lightly and obtain coverage. Thanks for reading!

How about you all? Do you have health insurance? If so, did you obtain the coverage from your employer or through an independent plan? What do you pay for health insurance premiums each month?

Have you ever tried any of the 6 options mentioned above or know anyone that has?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/2898187808_744e8b82a5.jpg

Festival of Frugality # 322 - February 7th, 2012 Edition

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:04:54 PST

Welcome frugal personal finance fans! Thanks for stopping by.

My Personal Finance Journey is very proud to be hosting this week's edition of the Festival of Frugality.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Festival, its purpose is to spotlight excellent ideas that are floating around in the blogosphere to help readers squeeze a few extra pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters out of every dollar. And, in this age, I believe that we all could use some good advice on how to do this!

So, without further a due, let's get on with the Festival!

Shown below are the top 3 picks out of this week's submissions. Congrats to the winning article from Squirrelers. I've been a big fan of their work over there since about day 1 that I started blogging, so I am always happy to read one of their pieces!

Top 3 Editor Picks

1. Squirrelers presents Hara Hachi Bu and Money: The 80% Solution posted at Squirrelers.

In this post, Squirrelers proposes the idea of applying an Okinawan approach to regularly eating until a person is 80% full, called Hara Hachi Bu, to personal finance (saving/spending in particular). Specifically, it is proposed that a person can start getting much further ahead in their personal finances by examining their current level of expenses, and trying to spend only 80% of the current expense level going forward.

Personally, I really liked this idea/approach. It gives people somewhat of a concrete methodology and goal to use to start saving more - rather than just recommending to "save more." I think I'll put this on my list of things to analyze for own personal finances as well and see if I can cut 20% in any areas.

2. Mr. Money presents Do You Save Your Pocket Change? For One Indiana Man, It Adds Up To a New Car Every 10-15 Years posted at Smart on Money.

In this post, Smart on Money shares the somewhat amazing story of an Indiana man who has purchased not just one, but several, cars using only spare change that he has accumulated throughout his lifetime.

I found this to be a very cool story! I didn't know people were saving up to buy whole cars with spare change. I keep all of my spare change that I generate in a jar and usually cash it in and deposit to my savings account once it gets full, but probably do not spend enough cash to accumulate the level of change needed to buy a car.

3. Annabelle presents Which are most frugal: cats, dogs, or babies? posted at Shopping Detox.

This post shares some concrete estimated total costs (along with some awesome pictures!) for cats, dogs, and babies in order to determine which saves the most money over their lifetime.

I would agree with the conclusion that cats are probably the most frugal as well - mainly because they require fairly little interaction, eat less, and can be left alone for longer periods of time than dogs and babies.

And now, on to the best of the rest!

KT presents 3 Tried and True Ways to Find Money to Snowflake on Debt posted at Personal Finance Journey.

Corey presents Furnishing Your Apartment from Ikea? posted at 20s Finances.

Suba presents Simple Home Maintenance Anyone Can Do posted at Broke Professionals.

Erika presents How do you talk about money with your husband? posted at Newlyweds on a Budget.

YFS presents 10 Easy Tips for Saving Money on Car Insurance posted at Your Finances Simplified.

Jester presents Unexpected Crisis posted at The Ultimate Juggle.

Jen presents My Biggest Financial Fear posted at Master the Art of Saving.

Wayne presents Cheap Romantic Dates posted at Young Family Finance.

John presents Frugal Living is All About Creating the Debt Free Magic in Your Life posted at Married with Debt.

Hank presents How To Raise The Next Millionaire Entrepreneur posted at Money Q&A.

Eddie presents Airline's Charge to Check Bags = One Big Cash Grab posted at Finance Fox.

FG presents Is Canada Immune to a Financial Blowup? posted at Financial God.

A Blinkin presents Are You A Mental Accountant? Grand Finale posted at Funancials.

Evan presents How I Saved $80 with Sprint and Why You Should Read Personal Finance Blogs posted at My Journey to Millions.

Money Cone presents This one thing will make a huge impact on how your car handles in snow and ice posted at Money Cone.

Matt presents Can You Live Debt Free and Still Have Credit Cards? posted at Living in Financial Excellence.

Jon the Saver presents We Won What? posted at Free Money Wisdom.

Peter presents Home Workout Programs can Be a Cost Effective Alternative to a Gym Membership posted at Bible Money Matters.

Justin presents How to Throw a Super Bowl Party on the Cheap posted at Money Is the Root.

Evan presents Our Frivolous Guilty Pleasures posted at Smart Wealth.

Miss T. presents How to Keep Your House Clean without Spending a Lot of Green posted at Prairie Eco Thrifter.

Beating Broke presents Take a Challenge to Start the New Year Off Right posted at Beating Broke.

D.J. presents 5 Tips to Slash Your Food Budget posted at The Family Wallet.

Marie presents Money Saving Tips for New Parents posted at Money Spending Mommy.

Cash Flow Mantra presents Getting More Miles Out of the Old Van posted at Cash Flow Mantra.

FMF presents Saving $2,000 a Year by Eating Samples at Costco and Grocery Stores posted at Free Money Finance.

Teacher Man presents More Rewarding: Earning vs Saving posted at My University Money.

John presents A Review of Food.com: Your Online Cooking Resource posted at Passive Family Income.

Kay Lynn presents 4 Things That Used to Be Too Expensive posted at Bucksome Boomer.

Marie at FamilyMoneyValues presents Win Rich Dad's Cash Flow 101 Game posted at Family Money Values.

Everything Finance presents Can You Live a Cash Only Life? posted at Everything Finance.

Glen Craig presents Don’t Underestimate the Cost of Living When Deciding Where to Live posted at Free From Broke.

Glen presents 5 Kids Expenses to Budget For – Apart from College posted at Parenting Family Money.

Little House presents Are We Betting Against Death with a Life Insurance Policy? posted at Little House in the Valley.

SavingMentor presents Calling Retentions Can Really Slash Your Bills posted at HowToSaveMoney.ca.

Lisa presents How to Save Money on Your Super Bowl Party posted at Thriftability.

Lindy presents Making Cards, Not That Hard posted at Minting Nickels.

Marissa presents How much is commuting costing me? posted at Thirty Six Months.

Dr Dean presents Five Per Day: Keeps the Doc Away? posted at The Millionaire Nurse Blog.

Melissa presents Do You Really Want a Typical Valentine's Day? posted at Fiscal Phoenix.

Paula presents How Much Will It Cost to Maintain a House? posted at Afford Anything.

Kennedi presents How Stores Trick You Into Spending More posted at Face and Fitness.

Kurt Fischer presents Airline Ticket Purchase Timing posted at Money Counselor.

Roger the Amateur Financier presents Frugal Friday - Automobile Maintenance posted at The Amateur Financier.

Mama Squirrel presents That's one frugal makeup bag (crochet projects) posted at Dewey's Treehouse.

Amanda L Grossman presents The Zero Sum Financial Game: Ideas to Help You Juggle the Month posted at Frugal Confessions.

Aloysa presents Spending That I Can Afford posted at My Broken Coin.

Well, that wraps up this week's posts! They sure were some great ones and very interesting to read through!

Get your articles in early for next week's Festival (Festival of Frugality #323 - host to be determined).

Also, let Ryan (the Festival organizer) know if you are interested in hosting as well. It's a bit of work, but a great way to get your blog out there and meet new folks in the process! I just took a quick look at the schedule, and it appears that almost all of the hosting dates are open for the rest of this year. So, there is plenty of opportunity!

If you were included in this list, please don't forget to link back to the festival here. Thanks!

***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-2630539049-hd.jpg

Options Investing - Does it Deserve a Place in Your Personal Portfolio?

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:50:40 PST

Out of the numerous investing and personal finance topics we have discussed so far on this site, one topic that has not yet been addressed in any kind of detail is investing in options contracts.

Why has this topic not yet been covered? The answer is pretty easy - because I don't personally invest in options since I employ a passively managed approach to investing using ETFs and index mutual funds, and do not trust myself to correctly make predictions on price movements of stocks/ETFs/indices.

However, just because I personally do not use options does not mean that learning about this type of derivative investment lacks value. In fact, I believe that it is important to have a sufficient understanding of all investment options available so that you can know how and why markets respond the way they do, and you can then act in a rational manner.

What is Options Investing?

For some reason or another, in receiving my finance undergraduate degree, the professors seemed to REALLY enjoy going in to a lot of depth about options investing strategies. Looking back on it, I hypothesize that probably most of the detail was taught from the perspective that we would potentially use it if we got full time jobs working at investing firms. I've since learned that from a personal finance perspective, there is no need to go in to SO much detail to understand what options investing is, and a basic understanding can get you a long ways. So, let's start there, shall we?

Essentially, an option is a derivative financial instrument (derives its value from the underlying security the option pertains to) in the form of a contract between the buyer of the option and the seller of the option based on price movements of the underlying security.

The options buyer pays an upfront price (called the premium) for the right (not the obligation - hence the name, "option") to execute a future transaction at a specified price (called the strike price) before a specified expiration date.
There are two basic types of options - call options and put options

Call options give the contract buyer the right to purchase shares of a security (security means that options are not limited to only individual stocks) at the strike price.

This generally makes the buyer money if the price of the security increases.

Put options give the contract buyer the right to sell shares of a security at the strike price.

This generally makes the buyer money if the price of the security decreases.

Let's just go through a quick example to help illustrate how this process works:

Currently, the price of a call option for the Gold ETF (ticker symbol - IAU), expiration Feb 18 2012, $14 per share strike price is $2.90 per share. The ETF is currently trading at $16.82 per share.

Since you think the price of the Gold ETF is going to increase, you buy this call option for 10 shares, paying 10*$2.90 = $29.00 for the contract in the form of a premium. If, by February 18th, the price per share has increased to $20, you would exercise your option to buy 10 shares at $14 (the strike price) and then automatically sell them at $20 per share for a final profit of $31.00. (10 shares * ($20-$14) = $60 - $29 premium for contract).

On the other hand, if you were wrong about the price movement, and the price actually decreased, you would not exercise the option at all and only lose your $29 premium to the options seller. Make sense?

What Uses Can Options Investing Have in Your Portfolio?

In my mind, options investing can play one of two roles for investors:

Making money -

This one is fairly obvious. Since options do not require you to actually have the money to buy the underlying securities, you can potentially make a lot of money if you are good at predicting price movements without much capital cost.

Hedging risks for your other investments/operations -

Perhaps a more applicable and fascinating potential use of options to me is that options can be used as a hedge for risk in a person's investments or business' other operations.
For example, if you run a business operating abroad and have a significant asset stake tied up in the faith that another country's currency stays strong, you can use a put option to make some money in the event that the currency in the other country gets devalued.
Also, a put option could be used to provide some upside potential in the event that huge losses are realized in the long positions in your retirement savings.
The put option mentioned here is probably the most basic type of hedge you can create using options. For some additional reading on more complex strategies that are available (covered calls, straddles, butterflies, etc), I recommend the following resources:

How/Where Can You Invest in Options?

If it sounds like options are something you want to try your hand at in your personal portfolio/investing strategy, I'd recommend that you start off with only a small amount of "play" money until you gain more experience and comfort with the process.

When it comes time to actually sit down at the computer and start investing in options, it's fairly easy to find a brokerage in which to open an options trading account. This is because most, if not all, of the major discount brokerages online now offer options trading accounts.

Whenever you make your final selection of the brokerage that you want to house your options account, be sure to remember to search around the Internet for any promotional account sign up offers that are often available. For example, by using an Optionsxpress promo code, you can receive $100 when you open a new account, fund it with at least $500, and make 3 trades within the first year. A pretty nice deal!

How about you all? Do you currently or have you in the past invested in options as part of your investing strategy? Why or why not?

If so, how did it work out for you? Did you lose or make money?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/2944592688_3f3de8a417.jpg

What Do You Refuse to Go Cheap On?

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:52:13 PST

The following post was written by me and originally published on Nov 4th, 2011 on My Broken Coin as part of a “Yakezie blog swap.” The topic of this blog swap was to discuss a certain thing or category of things that we absolutely refuse to go cheap on in our lives. Below is my take on this topic. Enjoy!

When the host of this blog swap (Jon from Free Money Wisdom) introduced the common topic as describing an area of our personal finances that we refuse to be cheap about, I have to admit that I was somewhat intrigued.

Why is this, you might be asking? Well, if you're somewhat familiar with the personal finance blogosphere, you probably know that the topics of frugality and saving money are widely popular. They are so popular, in fact, that you might even be hard pressed to look through your blog reader and NOT see a post titled something along the lines of "How I saved $1000 on a vacation" or "7 ways to save money this winter."

Now, there is of course good reason why these types of posts are so prevalent, as people are looking to personal finance blogs for ideas for how they can squeeze a few more Dollars of savings out of their monthly needs in the difficult economic climate. And, I can't say that I blame them at all!

However, it is fascinating to hear the opposite of the frugal-to-death approach to life, do a little soul-searching, and find out where we each draw the line as far as how cheap we go with specific items.

For me personally, I refuse to go cheap on 1) buying sports equipment that will help me to compete better in cycling and running races and 2) buying equipment that enables me to exercise without (or with minimal) pain.

I Never Go Cheap on Competitive Sports Equipment and Expenses

For me personally, there are three life values ("life pillars," if you will) that I need in order to feel as if I am leading a fulfilling life. These are as follows: 1) health/exercise, 2) time with family or friends, and 3) contributing to society and making a difference. As such, each of these values holds a very high priority in my life, and I always strive to do the best I can in each of them.

One of my favorite ways to go about achieving the health and exercise life value is through competition in long-distance endurance sports such as cycling (which I used to do quite a bit but don't anymore due to bio-mechanical issues) or half marathon running races. Essentially, anything that involves going up mountains for multiple-hour periods, I'm there!

Since I strive to do the best I can in these races, I am willing to spend extra money (if needed) to buy equipment, travel to races, and enter races that will enable me to achieve peak performance. Listed below are some various expenses and pieces of equipment I've purchased over the years that have enabled me to achieve peak performance in both cycling and running races. I've also included the price so that you can see that by no means did I SAVE any money by purchasing these items.

Running and Cycling Race Equipment/Expenses I've Purchased Over the Years (the Non-Cheap Variety)

Cycling Purchases - 2001-2006

Road racing bike (multiple purchases) - > $4,000.
Biking shoes - $300.
Biking pedals and cleats - $150.
PowerTap power meter and training tool - $1,200.
Biking helmet - $200.
Biking clothes - $500 or more total - an ongoing expense because things wear out periodically.
Aerodynamic time trial wheels - $1,200.
Heart rate monitor - $200.
Car bike rack - $400.
Cycling training camp in Texas - $600-$800 per year.
Race entry fees - Average of $50 each for > 20 races per year.
Travel to races + hotel fees - A lot. I don't even want to guess!

Running Purchases - 2008-Present

Race entry fees - $70-$120 per race for half marathon road and trail running races.
Garmin ForeRunner GPS and heart rate monitor watch - $150.
CamelBack hydration pack (for trail running races and training) - $100.
Technical material (self-wicking) socks, t-shirts, and shorts - $200 - variable.

Wow! Seeing all of these various expenses listed out like this really reveals 1) how expensive the sport of cycling is and 2) how much cheaper it is to do running than cycling!

I Never Go Cheap in Order to Exercise Pain Free

As I mentioned above, I used to compete quite frequently in long-distance cycling races (I made it to being a Category 2 racer before I had to stop racing). However, in the 2004-2005 time frame, I developed some bio-mechanical issues that started causing knee and Achilles tendon pain while running or cycling.

Ultimately, these bio-mechanical issues (flat feet and a slightly curved back) forced me to have to scale back my cycling activities to recreation-only levels, but I still am able to compete in running races, which surprisingly only minimally cause pain after long races. Throughout the process of trying to correct these defects and even today in my training, there is not much I wouldn't do or spend to be able to exercise pain free.

Listed below are the various treatments and products I've bought over the years to keep me "on the exercise pain-free train." Again, I've listed the prices to illustrate that exercising pain free has not been, in itself, FREE.

To treat/cope with my flat feet....

Special ultra-arch-supportive running shoes - $130 - multiple pairs in order to find the right fit.
Custom molded orthotic shoe inserts for my running shoes - $500
Custom molded orthotic shoe inserts for my cycling shoes - $300

To treat/cope with my slightly curved back causing misalignment in my bike position...

Laser-assisted bike fit session in Boulder, Colorado with one of the world's experts on bike fitting - ~$600 + plane travel to and from.

Conclusions

All-in-all, I think it's great that so many bloggers in the personal finance blogosphere are writing about creative ways to live cheaply and save money these days. However, it is an interesting change of pace to take a step back and think about where I draw the line about being cheap/frugal. This is especially true for me since living in a frugal manner and having a savings-mindset are so deeply incorporated in to my way of life, so much so that I sometimes take it for granted.

Lastly, I think it's important to point out that it's perfectly OK for people to have things in which they indulge themselves (i.e. not be cheap). However, the key to working these specific indulgences in to a financially successful life is to balance them with other areas where you SAVE money. Having this balance, as is the case in so many other areas of life, is crucial to success.

PS / Note from Jacob - One of the many things that I love about personal finance blogging is that finances penetrate in to a person's life on so many levels, and these many levels are revealed in the blog posts that are written. For example, by simply reading my guest post above about an area I refuse to go cheap on, you've learned 1) about my intimate life values, 2) about the competitive sports I've participated in throughout my 26 year life, and 3) the Achilles tendon and knee injuries I've had that affected my life values. Amazing, is it not?! In this way, personal finance blogging can often be more about life in general than simply about optimizing your finances! End deep philosophical thoughts of the day...

How about you all? What areas of your personal finances do you simply refuse to go cheap on? Why do you feel this way about these specific areas?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecastro/3053916892/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Beyond the Dollar: Measuring A Company’s Real Performance

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:14:09 PST

The following is a guest post by Vanessa Mackay. Enjoy!

Beyond the Dollar: Measuring A Company’s Real Performance

There are three primary measures of financial performance in every organization’s financial statements:

Profit
Return on equity, and
Balance sheet strength

While these are crucial quantities to evaluate, by themselves, they cannot provide full information. The two considerations that do not directly appear on financial statements are non-financial performance measures, such as employee turnover rates. These have a real effect on your bottom line.

Here we’ll look at the main hard measures of performance and how to harmonize them with soft measures.

Profit

Profit is not merely the results of business activity. Particularly in a difficult economy, there are limits to what organizations can do to increase profit through higher prices or business expansion. Increasing internal efficiency increases profitability without affecting the customer, but it requires astute management and a positive, results-driven organizational climate. Not every business can engage performance the same way. For example, businesses in the agricultural or industrial sector may see the engagement of employees rise significantly in incentive-based programs like the pay for performance model. In more creative fields, extrinsic rewards may not be as effective.

Though it is important to assess both gross and net profit when assessing any organization, the profit statement alone cannot provide any direct information about internal efficiency or employee motivation. Assessing return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) can provide some insight, however.

ROE and the DuPont Identity

Of course, return on equity is an important ratio to assess, but it almost always is expressed as net income ÷ total equity. The DuPont Identity provides a simple approach to arriving at ROE using more detailed information. The benefit for the financial manager is that the DuPont Identity demonstrates that ROE is affected by three inputs: operating efficiency, asset use efficiency, and financial leverage. If, for any reason, ROE is unsatisfactory in any respect, the DuPont Identity highlights the area in which to look for the reasons.

All of the values necessary for deriving ROE using the DuPont Identity can be found on the balance sheet or directly derived from balance sheet reporting points. The DuPont Identity reduces to [(Net Income ÷ Sales) x (Sales ÷ Assets) x (Assets ÷ Total Equity)]. The result is the same as dividing net income by total equity, but it provides much greater insight for assessing the organization’s performance.

Non-financial Measures:

Employees

There are several non-financial measures that affect financial results, either directly or indirectly. Some of these are:

Employee motivation
Employee turnover rates, and
Customer retention rates

Highly motivated employees not only work better, they also are likely to provide management with workable ideas regarding more efficient operation. Everyone knows that replacing employees is a costly activity, but the inconsistency it creates in organizational learning can serve to inhibit the organization’s progress in employee motivation and customer retention.

Customer Retention

All marketers are well aware that it is more costly to locate and secure a new customer than to retain an established one. Certainly, the organization needs to develop new customers on a continuing basis, but customer retention also needs to be a point of ongoing performance management. Maximizing both customer acquisition and customer retention leads to greater performance.

How about you all? How does your company measure it's performance? Do you think too much or not enough emphasis is placed on financial measures?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

Overall, I think this post gives a well rounded view of the various considerations to keep in mind when evaluating how a/your company is doing.
I believe it is well stated above that while profit, ROE, etc are very important, they are not the only thing to keep in mind when seeing how a company is doing. This could be particularly important when trying to value the company and assess whether or not to invest in it.
For my blogging endeavors, since it is run as a one-person sole proprietorship, the only real concrete financial performance measure I like to look at is monthly revenue, expenditures, and profit positions.

The thing I want to keep an eye on is that I keep expenditures around 20% of gross revenue (as a general target.
Since the business I run mostly requires the investment of my time, I've found the 20% expenses/revenue ratio works well.

However, there are MANY non-financial performance measures, which, truthfully, are much more important to me than financial measures, since blogging is not my main career/job. You can view these performance measures in my blogging goals 2012 post from early in January.

Some of these include number of guest posts I do for other sites, amount of comments, and site visitors/readership.

Should You Replace Your Ink Jet Printer With a Laser Printer? - A Cost Comparison

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:07:42 PST

Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

For Christmas this past year, the main present I received was a laser printer. The exact model I decided upon was a Brother All-in-One DCP7065DN Printer/Copier/Scanner. While the decision making process of selecting this exact laser printer (examining the specs, etc) would be the topic of a post in and of itself, the goal of today's post is to compare capital and operating costs between laser printers and ink-jet printers. By doing this, my aim is to help you decide if replacing your ink-jet printer with a laser printer is right for you.

Let's get started...

Psychological Motivations for Why I Wanted to Upgrade to a Laser Printer

Before upgrading to this new printer, I had been using the cheap ink jet printer varietals that one can purchase from Wal-Mart for $30 or so. You know the type - the ink jet printers that are the most basic model in either the Canon or HP printer family tree - the ones that do nothing but print a page per minute and collect dust.

While these printers undoubtedly require less cash outlay during the initial purchase, what I came to find out was that similar to the Mach 3 Gillette razors/blade refills I use, the initial purchase is actually just the tip of the iceberg as far as spending goes. Nope - the real money maker for these cheap $30 printers is in the ink that periodically needs to be purchased in order to keep the printer going.

What I came to discover was that while the printer itself cost only $30, each ink cartridge (which only printed about 200 pages or so) would set me back about $20. AND, what's more is that I found out that the HP printer rejected all of the cheaper refurbished/recycled ink I tried to buy for it. Therefore, I was forced to keep buying the expensive name brand HP ink. Pretty good system they seem to have going if you ask me, eh?! Do you think it's a coincidence or not that the HP printer rejected everything I put in it but HP name brand ink? I'll let you decide.....

Psychologically, printing with this "cheap" ink jet printer was just becoming to expensive for my cheap mentality to handle, and I found myself avoiding printing at home altogether, even if this meant paying for printing at the University at which I attend graduate school. Basically, I found myself missing out on the convenience of having a printer at home for blogging and job related purposes.

So, for me personally, I sort of 'knew' I wanted a laser printer just to feel like I could be a little more liberal with my printer use at home. However, I definitely understand that a lot of people are more "on the fence" with this decision, and I would imagine that you all would appreciate seeing some math applied to just how much money can be saved by using a laser printer (if at all) to assist in your decision making.

Cost Comparison / Break Even Analysis of Using an Ink Jet Printer vs. a Laser Printer

So, let's analyze which is cheaper to buy and operate - a laser printer or an ink jet printer. To do this, we have to make some assumptions (as with most all analyses). These are listed below:

Cost Analysis Assumptions

Assume electrical operating costs are the same.
Assume paper costs are the same. We'll also ignore the issue of single vs. double sided printing.
For the ink jet printer, we'll use the one I used to have - the HP Deskjet D1660 Printer, which I purchased at Wal-Mart for $29.99.
For the laser printer, we'll use the one I currently have - the Brother All-in-One DCP7065DN Printer/Copier/Scanner, which I purchased on Amazon for $160 (this included shipping).

The laser printer came with a drum unit (good for 12,000 pages) and sample/starter toner cartridge (good for approximately 700 pages).
It's also a funny side story to mention that I purchased this laser printer on the Internet on a display laptop while at Best Buy. They were really busy that day, and I could not get a service rep to help me select another printer I wanted. So, I guess they lost my business that day! haha Hopefully, they'll recover all right. I imagine they will.

Ink Jet Printer Cost Breakdown

Cost to buy - $29.99 (did not come with any ink cartridges)
Genuine HP 60 Ink Cartridge (200 page maximum printing capacity) - Black Ink Only - $14.97 purchased from Wal-Mart

Laser Printer Cost Breakdown

Cost to buy - $160
Brother TN-450 High Yield Toner Cartridge - $44.48 - (Black and white only - 2,600 pages - not needed for first 700 pages)
Brother DR-420 Drum Unit - $71.19 (12,000 pages - not needed for first 12,000 pages since was included in box with new printer)

Average Printing Cost Per Page and Break Even Point

Laser vs. Ink Jet Printer Break even Cost Analysis - Google Docs Spreadsheet

For the ink jet printer, a new ink cartridge was purchased every 200 pages, and for the laser printer, a new toner cartridge was purchased approximately every 2,600 pages. Listed below are the results of the analysis:

Laser Printer

Total cost for printing 12,000 pages = $382.40
Average cost per page = $0.03

Ink Jet Printer

Total cost for printing 12,000 pages = $943.16
Average cost per page = $0.08

Doing the math, we find that the "break-even point," or the number of pages one needs to print before the cost of owning/operating the laser and ink printer is the same is 2,200 pages.

How Can You Use the Results of this Analysis?

From this cost analysis, we have seen that the average cost per page for a laser printer is much less than for a ink jet printer, provided that you print in a significant enough volume. We also saw that a laser printer (depending on the exact model you use) becomes cheaper to own and operate after having printed 2,200 pages total. I imagine that this break even page total would also go down if you were to consider color printing on a laser vs. an ink jet printer.

So, what I'm thinking now is this - "Doesn't 2,200 pages seem like a lot? Do I really print that much?"

First, let's just consider that an average person consumes 2,200 pages of printing needs each year. At 52 weeks per year, this equates to 42 pages per week, or 6 pages per day. In actuality, this sounds like a pretty reasonable amount of printing. Of course, if multiple members of the same family or office place use the same printer, the total number of pages printed increases, and you get in to the realm of where the laser printer is MUCH cheaper to own and operate than the ink jet one.

However, according to an article I found by Reduce.org, it stated that the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. Assuming this figure, the numbers start to look pretty promising in that a laser printer is cheaper to own and operate than an ink jet one.

What's the bottom line with all of this?

Simple. Take a look at your personal home printing needs and usage, and get a feel for the total page count. If it's anywhere around the 2,000 page level per year, I'd say that you could probably save some money if you switched to a laser printer.

How about you all? Do you use a laser printer or an ink jet printer at your home? Why did you choose the one you did? Have you ever thought about switching?

Have you ever tried to use recycled/refurbished ink in your printer to save some money? Did it work, or did your printer reject it - like mine did?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5020/5477371668_4d00a961a9.jpg

The Secondary Cell Phone Market and How You Can Make Money From It

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:00:01 PST

Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

So, you're getting a new cell phone for your birthday, Christmas, or another holiday?

If you live in the US and are planning to upgrade to your first Smart Phone (or a better, fancier Smart Phone) on one of the major US cell phone carriers, you most likely will be following the sequence of events listed below:

Go down to your local cell phone carrier's store.
Get a new Smart Phone at a significant discount, as part of a service contract extension deal.
Hand the cell phone company your current phone as part of the phone exchange/service contract extension deal.

However, have you ever considered what happens to your old cell phone once you hand it over your carrier during the exchange? Do they sell used cell phones for a profit? Or, do they place the old phone in some type of cell phone recycle program?

More importantly, have you ever wondered if you could you come out further ahead if you took matters in to your own hands and sold your old phone yourself?

The Secondary Cell Phone Market

Here enters the secondary cell phone market...

According to an article by Brighthand.com, only 3% of cell phone users recycled their old cell phones. Nevertheless, the article stated that of the people that did not recycle their phones, almost 44% left their old phones sitting around their home in boxes and/or drawers. Do you have any old cell phones in boxes or drawers at your house? I think I do! The rest of people either sold their phones on the secondary market or gave it to friends and family.

From these statistics, it is obvious that the secondary market for cell phones is alive and well these days. In fact, a Boston based study claimed that Smart Phones retain anywhere between 40-60% of their original value when sold in the secondary market. So, instead of simply letting your old phone sit around your house and take up drawer space, it could be very beneficial to search around the Internet in order to find a buyer for your old phone.

In addition, before automatically surrendering your old cell phone to your mobile phone carrier as part of an upgrade deal, it might also be prudent to compare the savings you'll obtain with the upgrade versus how much you'll make from selling your old phone to an independent party. You might just find that you can come out ahead selling the phone yourself. This could be particularly useful if you are dissatisfied and wanting to leave your current cell phone carrier anyway. At the very least, you'll know you checked in to all of your options before proceeding.

How about you all? Have you ever sold your old cell phone in the secondary market? Or, have you merely exchanged your old phones for new models? Why did you choose the route you took?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iFrSLlCGyCY/SN0AmchXfTI/AAAAAAAAAVw/2IkuOIkLOLI/s400/nokia-n78-phone.jpg

Life Insurance Considerations for the Over 50 Crowd

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 PST

Life Insurance Considerations for the Over 50 Crowd

Once people begin to enter the advanced stages of their life, mortality comes into view and various decisions have to be made that will impact not just the rest of their own life but also the lives of those left behind.

Many individuals, particularly those with spouses, children, and loved ones, need to think about a world in which they are gone and how their dependents will cope without them. This can put a huge strain on the last few years of an individual’s life. The best way to ensure peace of mind in your last few years is to invest in over 50s life insurance – a policy which will provide a pay-out once you have passed away so as to ensure your loved ones are okay.

What is Different about Life Insurance for People Over 50 Years Old?

For those who are not well-versed in the intricacies of over 50s life insurance, the whole process can seem rather puzzling. However, the whole process is rather simple once a few areas have been studied.

The first thing that should be known about over 50s life insurance is that anybody can apply for it regardless of their current health; no test is required. Another aspect of note is that over 50s life insurance is usually purchased not in one lump sum but in smaller increments spread out over the year; this duration often lasts from fifty through to the age of ninety. Once ninety has been reached and payments have stopped, coverage continues. The end of payments does not necessitate the end of coverage.

If individuals would like to top up their policy upon hitting ninety, they are able to do so although this will usually mean paying much larger increments. Between the ages of fifty and ninety, a policy may ask an individual to make payments of £10 per month with the aim of accumulating £100,000 by the end of the accumulation period. If, however, the individual decided that they would like to make a payment for one month of £50 rather than their scheduled £10, they would be able to do this.

Remember to Read the Fine Print of Your Policy

Another point of note is that it is worth checking the specifics of every individual policy.

So, for example, an individual may find that some contracts he is offered will only pay out in the event of his or her death if it is as a result of natural causes whereas other insurance packages may have policies that will only pay out if a death is caused through accidental means. This means much diligence and due care should be taken in selecting a policy which can be taken to fit a set amount of requirements.

Finding a Policy that Best Fits Your Needs

There are a couple of ways to find a package which best fits your needs. The first of these involves utilizing an insurance professional, such as a broker, to conduct research on your behalf. The second is to use online resources to customise searches which allow you to add or remove requirements. Whichever of these two you use, it is essential to remember to do your homework in selecting the proper policy. Once you hit 50, insurance will allow you to have great peace of mind.

How about you all? Do you currently have life insurance? If so, what type of policy do you have? Term or whole?

At what point in your life did you decide to take out the policy? Do you think it is wise to wait until you're over 50 to purchase insurance, or should you get it earlier?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

Interesting post here!
Since I decided that life insurance wasn't needed for my current personal situation, I don't have a ton of experience in this area. As such, it's always good to bring this topic to the forefront of the discussion.
When someone hits 50 years of age, I would not imagine that their life insurance needs and/or considerations would change all that drastically.

For example, you would still follow the same advice for purchasing a term life insurance policy, avoiding whole life insurance policies since they are generally not worth the money.
In addition, you would pay premiums on a policy that would be enough to cover your funeral expenses and to support your family for the lost income.
If you don't have anyone that relies on your income, you would still want a small term life policy and/or use your investments to cover funeral expenses once you pass on.

In fact, I would probably argue that most people should have their life insurance policy plans figured out before turning 50, since by then, most people are either married or have had children and hence, have people that depend on their income.

pre-existing medical conditions you have, which could increase after the age of 50.

In reading the post above, one thing I was not aware of was that some policies have restrictions for paying out, depending on whether or not your death was caused by an "accident" or "natural causes." I would imagine that you would want to make sure that the policy you decide on provides coverage for both of these possible outcomes.

***Photo courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/4117033888_c1d5a23fac.jpg

Spread Betting - How It Works and Risks Involved

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:06:39 PST

The following is a guest post on behalf of CityIndex.co.uk. Enjoy!

Spread Betting - How It Works and Risks Involved

Spread betting is a derivative product that allows you to trade on price movements of underlying investment products – such as indices, individual stocks, currencies, commodities, and more. You can use spread bets to speculate on price movements both up and down. If you go long, you will profit on upward movements, and if you go short, you will profit on downward price movements.

Since spread betting involves two underlying transactions, you will be quoted two prices, a buy price and a sell price. The difference between the two is the spread. The tighter the spread, the easier it is to maximize your profits since underlying prices will need to only move a small amount for you to be in profit. Equally, prices can move against you and you may encounter a loss.

How Spread Betting Works

A good example of how this works is as follows. The UK100 Index is currently trading at 5700, and the spread bet is 5700/5701 (where 5700 is the sell price, and 5701 is the buy price).

If you think the UK100 is going to rise, you buy the price, enter your bet at 5701, at a stake size of £10 per point (which is a standard stake size).

If the UK100 Index rises, your profits will rise in line with each increase on the price above 5701. So, if the UK100 Index rises to 5725, you can cash out at the new spread price of 5725/5726. As you bought to enter the spread bet, you now sell to close it at the sell price of 5725. So, your profit would be 24 points (5725-5701) multiplied by £10, so a profit of £240.

The Risks Involved

However, the downside risks apply as well, especially since this is a margined product. If the index price goes down in the example above, to say 5650, you would lose 51 points (5701-5650) multiplied by £10, equals £510. Because of this, risk management needs to play a role in your trades.

You can minimize the risks by using stop-loss orders (which close a trade after a certain price is reached), or even a Guaranteed Stop Loss Order, which guarantees the closing exit price if price move against you. Either way, pay close attention to downside loss potential.

How about you all? Have you ever investigated spread betting? If so, have you ever given it a try? How did it work for you?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

Very interesting post here. It's always fascinating to learn about new types of investing that are available to the market today.
In reading this article, spread betting reminded me slightly of options, a tool I learned about while getting my finance undergraduate degree, in the respect that you do bet on either the upward or downward movement of the underlying security.

However, spread betting is slightly different since the spread is involved, and not just the call and put prices of the option. Additionally, with spread betting, you don't have the "option" of refraining from transacting your bet if the result is unfavorable, as you do with options.

Personally, although spread betting is very interesting to learn about, I don't believe it is well suited for my personal finances. This is because 1) it would not fit in my passive investing strategy / overall asset allocation with index mutual funds and ETFs, 2) it is slightly too risky for my tastes, being as that it is a margined product, and 3) I don't believe I have the ability to correctly time markets, currency, and/or index price movements.
As always, when learning about new investment strategies, make sure it aligns with your current long term plan and goals to make sure you stay on the right track.

***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3409354257_3f03fd9b88.jpg

Pros and Cons of Investing in Gold

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:40:52 PST

Pros and Cons of Investing in Gold

Gold investment is a common topic in many television and Internet advertisements. However, it has developed a reputation for being unsafe and uncertain. Recent turns in the gold market make this reputation questionable. Additionally, certain investment strategies can help you avoid losses and risk.

Performance of Gold Investments

Gold has been on a bull-run for the past decade. Investments in gold have been largely rewarding, due to increased flux through the market (through groups like Cash 4 Gold). Additionally, the Euro Zone crisis has helped gold futures following the International Monetary Fund's agreement to raise additional money for the Euro Zone. In the short term, it appears gold will continue to appreciate in value as the economy turns around and currency equities rise.

However, it also appears that gold investing has been on the decline recently. This means lower demand and lower prices, but whether this indicates a long-term trend towards gold devaluation is unclear. Gold, therefore, may make a stronger short-term investment rather than a long-term investment. Markets, both domestic and international, need to be watched for trends towards depression or deflation.

What Will the Future Hold for Gold Investing?

In 2012, gold has already seen a rise in value greater than 5%. This well exceeds inflation, and a return on a long-term investment would be positive if this trend continues. Although no market is certain, international debt crises seem to indicate that, until markets show a definite turnaround, gold will continue to appreciate in value. It is a buyer's market for gold, though how long the window of opportunity will be open is unclear.
However, American jobless numbers are beginning to decline (or at least stabilize), which means gold futures could start to decline. However, if other countries continue to suffer from the recession, gold will continue to be a strong and potentially high-yield investment opportunity. The most difficult determination will be when gold has hit its peak value.

You can more or less be guaranteed a positive yield on a gold investment if you wait long enough. Although the prices fluctuate like any other commodity, gold demand is consistent and gold production is continually on the decline. If the economy takes a strong turn for the better, gold for products like jewelry and decorations will be in higher demand, driving the price of gold upward. Gold is generally reserved for special occasions, such as weddings, for the average consumer. But, when you factor in that consumer gold comprises millions of consumers, small fluctuations in the ring the average consumer can afford could equate to thousands of ounces of gold, driving demand and prices up.

Whether you're looking for a short-or long-term investment, now is the time to invest in gold. Gold as an alternative for currency will continue to be desirable as long as economies are winnowing. As the markets improve, expect temporary declines in gold until consumer demand begins to rise. If you're looking for an intermediate-term investment, gold is uncertain--the gap between economic upswing and consumer demand may result in temporary declines in the value of gold.

How about you all? Is gold currently incorporated as a part of your investing strategy? Why or why not? What's the best way you've found to invest in gold?

Do you think gold will continue to go up in price?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article:

Fairly frequently, I get asked about my thoughts about using gold as an investment. Unfortunately, I have very little expertise/knowledge about gold, so I cannot provide very much guided assistance. However, it's good to have another post here to bring this topic to the forefront!
@ The future direction of gold -

I do know that gold has been an investment of choice in the past few years since the recession in 2008-2009. As such, the prices of gold have increased drastically.
Because of this, I would be very careful about placing a lot of money in to gold due to risk of buying in at the "top" of the upward price swing.

@ Whether or not gold is a safe and/or good investment + how gold should/should not be incorporated in to one's investing strategy -

Personally, I do not have gold incorporated as part of my investing strategy.
However, is gold a good thing to have in one's investment mix? My answer is "probably," however, I would need to do some more research about this to tell for certain.
If I did, I would either use ETFs or precious metal index mutual funds to do this, as opposed to buying physical metal holdings.
Additionally, I would ensure that only a small proportion of my total investment holdings were placed in gold/precious metals.
One very attractive characteristic about precious metals is that they have relatively low correlation coefficients with the returns of normal equity investments. As such, the addition of precious metals to my investment portfolio would give further diversification and help shifting the efficient frontier for risk/return trade-off.

***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-3400039523-hd.jpg

Easy Like Sunday Morning Weekly Recap and Roundup - # 6 - January 22nd, 2012

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:00:01 PST

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the "About" or "First-Time Visitor" pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

Each week, the purpose of the Easy Like Sunday Morning Weekly Recap and Roundup series is the same - for me to be able to connect with you, the readers, on a more personal (non personal finance informational transmission only) level, encourage community, and also to give back to the other bloggers around the blogosphere who have mentioned My Personal Finance Journey throughout the past week.

As far as the theme goes, the title of the roundup gives it away. The roundup theme is named after the Lionel Richie song, Easy Like Sunday Morning (which I play once a week while putting this together), to remind us of the importance of slowing down at least once a week to take appreciation for that which transpired over the past few days.

So, without further ado, let's get started with this week's roundup!

Weekly Updates from Jacob's Personal Finance Journey and Life

As far as my life in general, since Christmas, I have been trying to power through the month of January - working in the lab on my Alzheimer's disease drug development project and also trying to continue training for the full trail marathon I'm planning to do in March of this year.

One thing that I am looking forward to is when the days get longer with Daylight Savings Time finishing. Since I bike ride to and from the lab where I work during the day and don't get off work until 5 pm or later, it seems that I am ALWAYS riding home in the dark! It's not too bad since I can ride on sidewalks the whole way, but it does take about 50% longer since I have to hop curves and stop more often than when it is light and I can be on the road.
Also - this weekend, my family, girlfriend, and my sister's boyfriend have embarked on a ski trip to Breckenridge, Colorado for one week. Luckily, it appears that the snow in the Rocky Mountains has FINALLY started to pick back up. It's been about 2 years since we last went skiing "out West." Shown below is a picture of my sister and I from our last trip to Breckenridge in December 2009 about to brave the blizzard and do some "easy" slopes. Enjoy!

As far as my personal finances go, the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 was a busy time with some deep thinking about what I wanted to accomplish financially during the coming year. You can see my resulting financials goals for 2012 by clicking here.

In addition, the other big development during the Christmas to New Years time period was that I sent in my estimated tax payments for 2011 that I hadn't paid yet for the entire year (oops!). Lesson learned though - I'll be sure to be better about this in 2012.

My sister and I about to go down some ski slopes in 2009 at Breckenridge, Colorado! Fun times! I hope the snow is this good this time!

Guest Posts from Personal Finance Bloggers on My Personal Finance Journey

Over the past couple weeks, there were three guest post here at My Personal Finance Journey.

-Jason from Frugal Dad posted about The Effects of Reality TV Shows on Reality.
-Wayne from Young Family Finance posted about Back to the Basics: Control Your Spending.
-Rob Bennett from A Rich Life posted about Valuation Informed Index Investing.

If you would like to guest post on my site, please click here to read more details about how to kick off the guest posting process. I'd love to hear from you!

Blasts From the Past

For the first 6 months after I started this blog, I pretty much "blogged in a cave." What I mean by this is that I cranked out over 200 very good blog articles in this time period, but since I didn't know any better, I didn't reach out to other bloggers, get involved with the online community through commenting on other sites, or do any kind of site promotion at all. As you can imagine, some of the articles written during this time period didn't get the attention that I think they deserved corresponding to the content contained.

The Blast from the Past section will feature one old My Personal Finance Journey article each week that I feel is high quality, but was published prior to my blog having any sort of real readership. This week's article is listed below:

Best Options for the Cash Portion of Your Retirement Account - This post discusses what an investor is to do with cash that he or she wants to keep in his or her retirement account, given the dismally low interest rates currently being offered. Unfortunately, the verdict is that if you want extreme liquidity in your retirement account, you're not going to earn much in the way of interest. However, thinking back on this subject/post with what I know now, you might also think about trying a short term bond index fund for a stable investment similar to cash.

Personal Finance "Mad Props" of the Week Award

blogosphere, I'll be so impressed in hearing about what a person did or wrote about, that all I can say to myself is WOW! This section of the roundup will serve as a running "home" for recognizing outstanding achievement.

Unfortunately, I didn't come across any candidates for this honor during the past week.

If you know of someone in the PF blogging world that is really doing amazing things, feel free to send me an email for consideration in future roundups.

Giveaways

Listed below are the giveaways I've come across in my journey through the personal finance blogosphere this week (along with the links so that you can head over and enter!). It's great to see everyone giving back to their readers through these promotions.

The College Investor is giving away $300 to the biggest SuperFan until January 31st.
Maximizing Money is giving away 50 personalized keychains until January 31st.
Rafflecopter is giving away and iPad2 and a Kindle Fire until February 9th.
Yes, I am Cheap is giving away a ton of prizes until February 4th. I am actually sponsoring one of the prizes, so be sure to hop on over and enter!
Money Spruce is giving away $200 to readers and charity until January 30th.
Cash Flow Mantra is giving away $150 to celebrate his blog's one year birthday until January 25th.
Super Frugalette is giving away a $50 Amazon Gift Card until January 31st.
My Personal Finance Journey is giving away $196 to readers and charity until January 31st.

If you're hosting a giveaway and it's not listed above, please send me an email to let me know, and I'll get it included in next week's roundup!

Blog Carnivals Featuring My Personal Finance Journey Articles

· Wealth Pilgrim hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance and included 2011 Year-End Financial Goals Review and Progress Update.

· Mother Miser hosted the Totally Money Blog Carnival and included Green Energy Makes Green Money.

· Magical Penny hosted the Festival of Frugality and included Green Energy Makes Green Money.

· Broke Professionals hosted the Yakezie Carnival and included My Year-End Current Asset Allocation and Net Worth Growth – November-December 2011.

· Boomer & Echo hosted the Carnival of Passive Investing and included Opening and Managing a Self-Employed Individual/Solo 401(k).

· Money for College Project hosted their weekly round-up and included The Effects of TV Shows on Reality.

· The Skilled Investor hosted their Top Financial Planning Articles of the Week and included 2011 Year-End Financial Goals Review and Progress Update.

· Financial Success for Young Adulsts hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance and included Buying the Right Foreclosed House in Today’s Market.

· Invest It Wisely hosted the Totally Money Blog Carnival and included How to Ignore Market Volatility.

· Arbor Asset Allocation Model Portfolio (AAAMP) Blog hosted the Self-Directed Investing for Retirement Carnival and included Opening and Managing a Self-Employed Individual / Solo 401(k).

· 20’s Finance hosted the Yakezie Carnival and included What Does a Passive Retirement Look Like?

· My University Money hosted the Carnival of Financial Camaraderie and included Four Letters That Will Help You in Your Debt Payoff Journey

· Faith and Finance hosted the Totally Money Carnival and included Money-Saving Travel and Flight Apps

· Living Richly on a Budget hosted the Festival of Frugality and included Vacation Budgeting, Saving, and Execution + An Example of This Process in Action From My Recent Trip to New York City

· Money for College hosted their weekly round-up and included November 10% Blog Income Give Back Charity Drop

· My University Money hosted the Carnival of Financial Camaraderie and included November 10% Blog Income Give Back Charity Drop

If you are hosting a carnival that includes (or included) My Personal Finance Journey and I missed listing it here (I don't get trackbacks since I'm not on Wordpress, so I have to rely on direct email and Google Alert notifications), please email me so I can include it in my roundup. Thanks!

Top 10 Referring Sites to My Personal Finance Journey This Past Week

Top 5 My Personal Finance Journey Commenters From the Past Week

Best Reader Submitted Question From the Past Week

This section will serve as a running location for any very insightful, high quality questions submitted by readers throughout the week.

There were no questions submitted this week. However, if you are wondering something about personal finance, please feel free to email me and ask!

My Other Sites

Currently, my only other site besides this one is The Carnival of Passive Investing, which runs monthly editions. For the upcoming January 31st edition, we have Paula from Afford Anything as our host, and passive investing author, Mark Hebner, will be assisting to select the top articles. If you have any passive investing posts you've written recently, you can submit them to be included in the carnival.

However, I have several other domain names purchased, and I am currently learning Wordpress Self-Hosted to get these sites live as soon as time allows! I'll be sure to keep you all updated on progress.

Well, that wraps up this week! If you have any suggestions or recommendations for things you'd like to see in this weekly roundup, just let me know by sending me an email!

As always, thanks to all the readers for creating such a great community here at My Personal Finance Journey. Your interaction is what keeps me going on this blog!

Until next time - Jacob

How about you all? How is your January going for you?!

Welcome Enemy of Debt Readers!

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:00:07 PST

Welcome Enemy of Debt readers! Thanks so much for stopping by my site by way of the my guest post today over at my Brad's site listed below. As the picture to the right shows, I'm very happy to have you! :)

Using Your Credit Card As Your Primary Emergency Fund - An Alarming Trend in Society?

If you're stopping by my site for the first time, I just wanted to give a little guide towards what I offer here, since information overload can occur quickly and time is our most valuable asset.

To introduce myself, my name is Jacob. I started this site back in January of 2010, and since then, have poured my heart and soul in to the site to produce a product I am proud of and I think adds value to the world. You can read a little more on my background and even see a picture of me on the "About" or "First-Time Visitor" pages to find out more about us.

What I Write About Here At My Personal Finance Journey

In short, I like to offer actionable personal finance advice with the goal of achieving long-term success.

Specifically, I really enjoy writing about the following areas (I've also listed several posts related to each topic in case you're interested in reading more):

Long term investing and asset allocation strategy analysis

Deciding how to prioritize new funds as they come in to various spending requirement areas

How to develop a lifestyle of frugality and live according to your life dreams and life values

Balancing Frugality with Fun

Articles Similar to My Guest Post Today at Enemy of Debt

Additionally, if you liked the theme of the guest post I wrote for Enemy of Debt today and are interested in similar posts I've written in the past, you might want to check out the ones below:

What Would You Do if You Had Credit Card Debt?
Places to Store Your Emergency Fund
Helping a Friend Get out of Debt - Part 1 - Collect Your Debts, Part 2 - Finalize Your Debt Free Action Plan, Part 3 - Cut Your Interest Rates in Half.

Ways to Stay in Touch with New Content

If after sampling some of the content above you think that my posts will add value to your life, there are many easy ways to stay in touch with new material when it goes up! See below for details:

If you would like to receive free updates on articles by email, then sign up here.
Or, you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
Also, follow/like our pages on Twitter or Facebook.

10% Monthly Blog Income Giveaway

Also, each month, I give away 10% of any income I make from this site, with 5% going to blog readers and the other 5% going to a charity selected by the grand prize winner. You can read about all of the details by clicking here.

So far, we've given away:

Current total given to charity = $238
Current total given to blog readers = $245

If you want to enter in to the January 2012 giveaway for $196, click here. It ends January 31st!

Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!

***Photo courtesy of http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cP3Pd1BRVXc/S4RnpK8cc1I/AAAAAAAAD0E/gvEpjN8QQBc/s400/smile+dog.bmp

How To Make Money on Your Old Phones

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:05:01 PST

How To Make Money on Your Old Phones

Did you get a brand new iPhone or Smart Phone for Christmas? A lot of people all over the world did. In fact, it is estimated that Apple has sold over 6 million iPhones. However, with everyone upgrading to the newest phones, a lot of old mobile phones are just laying around. What many people don't realize is that you can sell mobile phones back and get cash for them.

How It Works

If you are thinking about selling your old phone, there is a basic process that just about every company follows. Either you go to a kiosk or online, and you input your mobile phone make and model number. The company will then give you an offer for your phone. If you accept the offer price, you simply drop your phone in the mail and send it to your respective company.

Most companies offer free shipping when you send your mobile phone back to them. Once they receive your phone, they will send you payment. Some companies offer cash, others a check, and some can even send PayPal payments. Another option that is relatively new is gift cards. With gift cards, you can usually get a higher payment if you accept it as a form of payment instead of cash or check. As always, it is important that you check around for the best deal before proceeding.

Shop For Options

There are a lot of options for selling back your phone, such as Envirophone, Cash 4 Phones, 8 Mobile, The Recycling Factory, and more. There are even new websites which will compare several different companies, and provide you with the offers of each. You can then compare and decide for yourself which company you want to use to recycle your old phone.

What If It's Worthless?

If your phone is really old, it could have no value left. Instead of tossing it into a landfill, many of these companies also offer free recycling of your old phone - including shipping. So, you can still do the right thing for the environment and enjoy your new iPhone or other Smart Phone tool at the same time.

How about you all? Have you gotten a new phone recently? How did you handle either disposing of or recycling your old phone?

Did you sell it somewhere or exchange it at your mobile phone carrier store for an upgrade?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

Interesting article here, especially with how many people I know did either get their first Smart Phone, or at least upgraded their phone, this Christmas!
@ The market for recycling old phones -

Since phones have become so much more advanced in recent years, they are really more like small computers instead of just phones (like they probably used to be).
And, I never really considered (until now) of how much value they probably still have because of their internal components even after you are "finished" with a certain model and have upgraded.
In fact, I never really thought about the "second hand phone" market at all, come to think of it!

@ My experiences with upgrading or replacing my cell phone -

In my experience, when I have brought in my phone to my mobile company (Verizon) for a replacement, they tend to ALWAYS have some requirement in the deal that enables them to keep the phone - either you lose your phone contacts if you don't allow them to "recycle" your phone or you have to give them your old phone in order to upgrade with a contract extension and take advantage of a deep discount on a new phone.
Now, I understand why; they are able to sell it and make some money out of the exchange! Interesting!
Personally, I have never tried to sell my phone through an independent source. However, it's definitely something I will have to keep in mind going forward!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm1.static.flickr.com/84/275333689_fef2a7c76a.jpg

Investors Who Ignore Valuations Are Like Overeaters Who Ignore the Risk of Heart Disease

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:56:47 PST

Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

The following is a guest post by Rob Bennett. Rob has recorded numerous podcasts on how to invest wisely, addressing such topics as market timing, diversification, and dollar cost averaging. His bio is here if you are interested in reading more!

Investors Who Ignore Valuations Are Like Overeaters Who Ignore the Risk of Heart Disease

Jacob (the owner of this blog) and I have had a number of good conversations about my belief that indexers need to move from the conventional Buy-and-Hold approach to indexing (under which the investor stays at the same stock allocation at all times) to the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy (under which the investor changes his stock allocation in response to big valuation shifts in an effort to keep his risk profile roughly constant. Jacob does not endorse Valuation-Informed Indexing. But, he finds it worthy of further examination. You can read his take here.

The Risks of Ignoring Market Valuations in Your Investing Strategy

The difference between Jacob (and the vast majority of investors) and me is that I view valuations as not just another factor to consider in adopting an investing strategy, but rather as the the most important factor by far. The trouble that I have persuading people of the merit of the new approach is that the importance of valuations varies greatly. In every investor’s lifetime, there are time-periods in which valuations are close enough to fair value that it makes little practical difference whether investors consider valuations or not. Investors can go many years without suffering any penalty for failing to consider valuations.

Then, everything can suddenly change. One day, the investor wakes up to find himself going with a high stock allocation at a time of insanely high valuations and the insanely high level of risk that applies at such times. Over the next 20 years (in every case in history in which valuations have gone to two times fair value, it has taken that long for stocks to begin providing good long-term returns again), he loses so much of the accumulated wealth of a lifetime that he delays his retirement by many years.

The valuations problem (lack of paying attention to valuations that is) in the stock market is like the heart disease problem for those of us who eat too much and exercise too little. Physicians often tell their overweight patients that they could extend their lives dramatically by making a few common-sense lifestyle changes.

The patients often tune out the advice because they have never suffered any serious negative effects from overeating. Then comes the heart attack.

Why I Started Paying Attention to Stock Market Valuations - Safe Withdrawal Rates During Retirement

I learned about the importance of valuations by studying safe withdrawal rates. The safe withdrawal rate is the percentage amount of a portfolio that a retiree may withdraw each year with virtual certainty that the retirement will survive 30 years, presuming that stocks perform in the future much as they always have in the past.

For many years, financial planners told their clients that the safe withdrawal rate (SWR) for a high-stock portfolio is 4 percent. That is, someone retiring with $1 million at age 65 can take out $40,000 each year to live on with no worries that he will run out of money even if he lives to 95.

I am the person who discovered the error in the old approach to calculating SWRs -- the conventional methodology contains no adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. Numerous big names in the field have confirmed my findings in the 10 years since I put forward a series of posts at a Motley Fool discussion board showing that in reality, the SWR can drop to a number as low as 2 percent or rise to a number as high as 9 percent.

Please take a look at a sobering report recently posted at the Raddr’s Early Retirement and FinancialStrategy Board. The report examines how a retiree who placed his faith in the conventional retirement studies for a retirement beginning at the top of the bubble is doing today. Please scroll down to the update put up on January 1, 2012 to read some words that I believe will drive home to you why I view it as imperative that those investing in stocks never take their eye off the valuations ball.

Raddr examines the numbers and concludes that: “The poor retiree’s real net worth has dropped nearly two-thirds (from $1,000 to $367) in only 11 years, and he is now withdrawing about 11 percent of his portfolio per year, which is a recipe for disaster even if the market heads up big-time from here. It looks like his portfolio very likely will fail in the next decade and is virtually certain to fail in the 30-year time frame which was touted as “100 percent safe” by many respectable market gurus and financial planners just a decade ago.”

There are too many retirement portfolios dying an early death as a result of our decision as a society not to engage in the serious discussion that this critically important topic very much merits.

How about you all? Do you consider market valuations in putting together your long term investing strategy and asset allocation? Why or why not? Do you feel that ignoring market valuations in your investing strategy exposes you to unmanageable levels of risk?

What do you feel is a safe rate to withdrawal your money during retirement?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

Jacob's Thoughts - Listed below are my random thoughts as I was reading this article.

Great post here, Rob! Your articles always get me thinking about what I do in my investing strategy and seeing if there are any places for improvement.
@ The conventional approach to indexing / passive investing that I support -

In the article above, Rob mentions that the conventional approach to indexing involves an investor staying at the same stock allocation at all times.
While this is generally the strategy that I follow and promote, there is one big specification that I want to make clear before we proceed to other points in this discussion.

While I do advocate staying at the same stock allocation regardless of market valuations, I absolutely do not recommend staying at the same stock allocation regardless of the life stage you are in. In my opinion, this is far too risky.
Instead, what I advocate is assessing your cash needs for the coming years, your tolerance for risk, your age, life status, etc, and then set a fixed income / stock asset allocation from there based on your tolerance for risk and time to retirement.
My belief is that by rebalancing your portfolio periodically, you can properly manage your risk and exposure to stocks.
For example, just because right now at age 26, my asset allocation is 75% equity / 25% fixed income, that doesn't mean that it will be at those same levels when I am 55.
Got it? Right! Let's proceed with some other fascinating aspects of this discussion.

@ Why I haven't yet been persuaded of adopting Valuation Informed Indexing -

As Rob mentioned in the post, I have done an in-depth analysis comparing the performance of the Valuation Informed Indexing approach to my passive investing approach over the past 20 years.
From this analysis, I found that since the market has been overvalued from a historical perspective for the past 20 years, Valuation Informed Indexing (VII) had the investor shy away from stocks during this time.
Because of this, passive investing outperformed VII during the time period, although VII showed much less risk / standard deviation of portfolio value.
In addition to the under-performance I saw from my analysis of VII, I felt that as an investor, I probably wouldn't have the will-power to stick to the VII strategy.

If you've done much reading about investing strategies, you've probably heard that one of the most devastating things that someone can do is bounce around to different approaches, following whatever advice happens to be given to you. While I'm not saying that VII is some shady penny stock newsletter/tip, I feel it would keep me too far from the performance of the market that I might not keep to the plan.
Just think for a second - would you really be able to hold to only investing 30% of your money in stocks during the late 90's through 2008 if you are trying to aggressively save money for retirement? It's likely that most people would not be able to stick to this plan.

Nevertheless, I do hope that we can one day tweak the VII strategy in such a way that I can become convinced enough to switch. As I mentioned in my analysis post, I really do believe it has potential since VII provides a concrete numerical system (using PE10 values, which keeps emotions from getting in the way) and so effectively reduces risk / standard deviation.

@ The current PE10 ratio

Just out of shear curiosity, I wanted to check what the current PE10 (valuation indicator) value was, since I hadn't checked it since I finished my VII analysis in June of 2011.
According to Robert Shiller's data, the current PE10 is 20.75. This is down from 23 during June 2011, so this means that the markets are slightly less overvalued. If the PE10 goes below 20, VII dictates moving to a slightly more stock aggressive "base" asset allocation. During this time, the market has gone up overall ~2%.

@ The issue of safe withdrawal rates and providing income for retirement -

(I will preface this section by saying that I know much less about safe withdrawal rates during retirement than I do about the investing / nest egg accumulation phase - probably due to my age).
The concerns about safe rates of withdrawal for providing income during retirement are well-founded in my opinion, as this is a serious issue to consider.
In particular, if you had a high-stock allocation portfolio at the time of retirement, I do agree with the fact that you would do well to consider market valuation (because your all-stock nest egg could drastically decrease) when thinking about rates of withdrawal.
However, I personally do not believe people should have a high stock allocation portfolio at the time of retirement in the first place.

If you follow life-stage asset allocation advice set forth in books such as A Random Walk Down Wall Street, in your mid 50's, you would have only 55% of your retirement funds in stocks + real estate. In your late sixties and beyond, you would only have 40% in stocks + real estate. The rest would be in 'more stable' investments like bonds and cash.
By having the majority of your money in secure investments, you actually don't need to rely on your stock holdings for your current income.
Personally, the way I plan to attempt to structure my retirement income is lock in a guaranteed source of monthly payments through an annuity so that it is absolutely certain that I won't run out of money. Then, any money I have invested in stocks, bonds, and cash will be separated from the income source.
By doing this, I could simulate how people still in the working stage of life have an income source separated from their investments.

Overall, if you are using an annuity or another instrument to lock in your retirement income, I do not believe that you need to consider market valuations in your nest egg withdrawals or investment strategy (reasoning would be similar to that used above) during retirement. You are simply wanting to attempt to grow some of your money for your later retirement years and large purchases.
However, what if you don't have enough saved up to lock in a guaranteed annuity retirement income and will definitely need to withdrawal the money now/later from your limited stock allocation to cover everyday living expenses? Should market valuations be considered with how quickly or slowly you withdrawal your retirement savings? Should you use Valuation Informed Indexing in your investment strategy?

This is a much more complex set of questions, and I'll have to do some more research and come back to you all in a future post about this!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm1.static.flickr.com/41/127076756_efb656e584.jpg

December 10% Blog Income Give Back Charity Drop

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:26:40 PST

A little over a week ago, the points were tallied from the My Personal Finance Journey December 10% Blog Income Give Back. Our Grand Prize winner was Greg K. As such, last Sunday (January 8th, 2012), $37.26 in cash was transferred via PayPal to Greg K. A big thanks to everyone for participating in the December Give Back event!

Having processed the the blog reader portion of the December give back, it was time to turn my attention to the question of which of the 9 local charities listed below would receive the $38.00 charity portion of the give back.

After asking our Grand Prize winner, Greg K., which charity he wanted to see receive the $38 donation, he informed me that his choice was the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge. To me, it sure sounded like a great cause I could get behind and would be happy to support.

So, on Friday of this past week, I took a lunch break at the lab and ventured off on my bike to drop off the donation at the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge office in downtown Charlottesville.

It was a nice clear January day out, and even with it being a little blustery/windy, it made for a pleasant break during lunch. After biking the ~2 miles from the University where I work to the downtown area, I arrived at the specified office location address (see picture below). The office is located in a very pleasant location in the heart of downtown Charlottesville directly above a popular local bar/restaurant, Zocalo.

Arriving at the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge Office Location

Upon arriving, I didn't know quite what to expect as far as what type of facility and/or office they would have. After getting only slightly lost in the upstairs office corridors, I eventually found the entrance to their office (see picture below) above The Downtown Mall.

After a temporary period of disorientation (aka getting lost), I found the Big Brothers Big Sisters office and headed in!

Upon entering, I met Becky, Director of Programs for the Central Blue Ridge branch, and handed her the donation check.

She explained to me a little about the background of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge chapter, including how they had recently moved locations from Waynesboro to Charlottesville to centralize their chapter operations after losing nearly half of their operating budget for the 2012 fiscal year as a result of government cutbacks on a three year federal grant they were receiving.

Challenges Facing the Central Blue Ridge Chapter of The Big Brothers Big Sisters

Additionally, she told me that the two primary challenges the Central Blue Ridge Chapter is currently facing is:

1) Getting male volunteers interested in being matched as Big Brothers, and
2) Tight funding due to the issue mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I found the first issue (having MANY MORE females than males volunteers as "Bigs," as the mentors are called) fairly intriguing. Indeed, when I stop and think about my friends and family that have volunteered to be part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, they have all been girls/women as well. Therefore, this may be an indication that many chapters face this same issue.

Personally, I can think of three possible reasons why Big Brothers Big Sisters sees more females than males as volunteers.

First, it could be that women are simply more apt to be volunteers (regardless of the type of organization), and therefore, it's more likely from a shear numbers perspective that more women will show up to help.

I know that for me personally, even though I am very good at donating 5-10% of my own money to charity each year and doing fundraisers for charity, I do VERY LITTLE actual volunteer work that involves me donating my time (unless I am using that time to raise money for my fundraiser) since I feel like I don't have much free time at the end of the day and my work related activities are sufficient to satisfy my "making a difference" life value. However, I do wish I could do more volunteer work at some point!
Nevertheless, the primary volunteer work I have done where no money fundraising was involved was 1) helping to walk dogs at the local SPCA here in Virginia and 2) being a dog foster at a dog rescue when I lived in Pennsylvania. In both of these organizations, I would say that about 90% of the other volunteers were women. While I'm not certain that we can make universal claims based on my limited volunteering experience, it is a striking result nonetheless.

Second, it could be that guys are not attracted to being a Big Brother because they are afraid it will make them look too "non-manly" and "soft" in some way or another.
Third, it could be that more women than men are attracted to being a Big in order to practice some of the skills that would be involved in being a parent (if they don't currently have a child and want one).

How about you all? In your area, do you think more women than men volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters? If so, why do you think this is?

Also - in general, have you found that women are more apt to volunteer their time and/or money in general than men? Why do you feel this occurs?

Additional Information About Big Brothers Big Sisters Central Blue Ridge

In addition to obtaining some great information from the office staff, I also received a brochure that contained some cool statistics about the chapter as well.

A few of these statistics are listed below:

90% of every Dollar donated goes directly to making and supporting Big-Little matches.
Chapter has been running for 30 years in the local area.
77% of Little's who have reached adulthood reported that they did better in school after the mentoring program.
For every $1 invested in Big Brothers Big Sisters, communities see a $3.28 benefit through reduced crime.

Overall, it was a truly great experience to see that what we do here at My Personal Finance Journey can have a real life impact. Through this charity give back that you all have helped to make possible, we are able to help another child get matched with a mentor and increase their chances to succeed in life.

So, thank you all for helping with this journey, and remember to always live for a higher purpose and ask yourself what more you can do to help others.

Happy 2 Year Birthday to My Personal Finance Journey!

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:01:32 PST

Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

Happy Monday folks! Just a quick post here this afternoon to announce that today marks the official 2 year birthday of My Personal Finance Journey! Wooohooo!

It all started 730 days ago with a simple little post about a $30 sign up bonus offer for the Chase Amazon Credit Card. Coincidentally, I still have that credit card and use it for all of my Amazon purchases. It provides a pretty nice cash back feature too!

Since that first post on January 16th, 2010, here at My Personal Finance Journey, we've had about 115,000 visitors and 521 total posts. It's been a great ride, and I look forward to another success year of learning and interacting from all of you.

To celebrate reaching the 2 year mark on this site, I'm giving away $196 as part of the ongoing monthly 10% blog income give back project. Be sure to hop on over to that post to enter to win and help a charity all at the same time!

Thanks again for all your support!

Jacob

***Photo courtesy of http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/skambalu-04540b8d817365b83e0878d99b53b735-hd.jpg

Blogging and Personal Goal Setting for the 2012 New Year

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:00:04 PST

Click here to enter my free $196 giveaway for a chance to win 5% of My Personal Finance Journey blog income and give another 5% to a charity of your choosing! Deadline to enter is January 31st, 2012.

With this being a new year and all, I've decided to lay out some personal goals for my life in general and blogging goals for My Personal Finance Journey during 2012. I have also added a reminder on my Outlook calendar to track our progress pertaining to these goals each month (or as often as I have time for anyway!).

As I experienced in 2011, (click the following link to view my 2011 blogging goals and year-end progress updates) by tracking these goals each month, it provides us with more accountability and visibility to what we are doing and where we want to go with this community/blog and in my life.

As is the case with many things in life (including my 2012 financial goals which I laid out recently), a good portion of my blogging goals are long-term commitments requiring attention in each passing year. As such, you might see many similar goals that I was trying to or did achieve in 2011 listed for 2012. I am perfectly fine with having some of the same goals year-to-year, provided that I believe in the causes they represent (which I ponder each year, and all of the ones listed below definitely do meet that criteria!). Nevertheless, I've tried to call attention to completely new blogging goals for 2012 by highlighting them in bold red text for easier reading.

So, here goes! The blogging goals for 2012 are as follows:

Read and interact with (comment) 25 partner blogs per week.
Continue active participation as a proud Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network member.
Publish 3-5 blog posts per week.
Obtain 800 unique visitors per day average by end of 2012.
Host all personal finance blog carnivals (Festival of Frugality, Best of Money, Tax Carnival, Carnival of Personal Finance, Totally Money, Carnival of Retirement, Carnival of Financial Planning, Carnival of Passive Investing, etc).
Continue organizing Carnival of Passive Investing in 2012. Offer hosting of the 12 editions for 2012 to guest hosts. If you're interested in hosting, October, November, and December 2012 are still open and in need of hosts! You can view the schedule by clicking here.

Also for the Carnival in 2012, my goals are to a) continue getting passive investing authors involved and b) start reaching out to financial journalists (maybe from Kiplinger's or Money Magazine, etc) and/or financial reporters on TV.

Continue to spread word about benefits of passive investing over active investing. Get involved in BogleHeads forums as well.
Write 1 guest post for another blog per month to expand reach of my ideas.
Create an eBook on one of the following topics - a) Ways to be Frugal, b) Investing Strategy, c) Steps to Buying a Home, d) Getting out of Debt, or e) Financial Prioritization / Account Hierarchy.
Possibly transfer blog to Wordpress hosting. First, migrate Carnival of Passive Investing for practice before do My Personal Finance Journey.
Create and publish monthly newsletter - "Intelligent Financiers Newsletter."
Attend blogging, marketing, finance, or real estate classes at local community college or nearby conference locations. Particularly, I would like to take a class or two to learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Submit blog posts to 5 blog carnivals each week (or after generate 5 new un-submitted posts) to expose my blog to new audiences and build links.
Successfully execute Tour de Personal Finance in July this year. For 2012, plan further ahead of time to gather more entries (max = 64) and get some sponsors involved. If get sponsors, donate 50% of the earnings of the event to a charity chosen by the yellow jersey winner of the event and also offer prizes for top place entries and jersey winners.

The blogging goals shown below this point are all new for 2012.

Do Easy Like Sunday Morning Roundup and Recap 2X per month minimum.
Improve social media presence on Twitter and Facebook. Establish a more regular M-F posting schedule for those outlets.
Feature one Cheapskate Jake Frugal Ramblin' per month.
Run 10% Blog Income Give Back Project each month. Continue teaming up with local charities to build relationships. Try to get other sites interested in doing something similar and also begin to look for sponsors for 1-2 of the giveaways.
Start and grow personal finance group speaking service. Generate ideas for speaking topics. Offer to local community first and build from there. Create page promoting service on My Personal Finance Journey.
Continue to try to find other ways to help people with their finances away from the blogosphere. One thing I've applied to do is become a volunteer credit counselor with Credit Education.org. However, I have not heard back from them, even after submitting my application multiple times.

Another option I could pursue is offering general advice on finances from a life coach perspective - lifestyle, frugality/money saving tips, life values and dreams, etc. You have to be very careful in making it clear to not offer advice on specific financial instruments since you must have the correct certifications for that (which I do not have). This might be hard for me to resist delving in to the specifics, but it could be fun! I would definitely need to learn more about the legal aspects first though.

Start building smaller sites - one about blogging tips, finance from a scientific perspective, running, and my family's genealogy as time allows (this is a lower priority goal).
Network with other bloggers, with a particular focus on physically meeting them to build relationships. The bloggers I have met in person so far are really interesting people!
Incorporate affiliate resources in to posts where relevant.

In addition, my personal goals for 2012 are as follows:

Get to bed at midnight and wake up earlier, instead of staying up until 2 am working on various projects.
Take 1 day off per week (Saturday or Sunday) completely from doing work on my blog or from my graduate research job to keep my mind feeling more "fresh."
Become better at following the Getting Things Done email/workflow management system to focus my time and energy on high value projects first and avoid distractions.

Towards the end of 2011, I started getting between 100-200 emails total per day relating to blogging and communications from my graduate research job.
When I used to have a full time engineering job, I had a totally separate computer and email account that would not even allow me to access my home email (which I saw as a very good thing). However, with the way my current job is set up, I use the same computer for blogging and my full time job.
So, unless I am careful, it is easy to be disturbed during the day by blogging emails since there are more requests coming my way than I have time to respond to.
To help with this, the Getting Things Done system dictates that you only download/look at your email 1-2 times per day so that your focus remains in tact.
It's actually a really fascinating "occurrence" because up to now in my life, my responsibilities/involvement have been limited enough that I could generally accomplish everything that was coming at me to get done in a day. However, now, for the first time in my life, I have to pro-actively prioritize what I get involved in and be aware of what I am/am not able to do (even though I would like to do it if I had more time). I'm not sure if this makes sense, but since it's one of my goals for 2012, I figured it merited a little explanation.

Run a full marathon.
Hike more with the Charlottesville Hiking Group.
Read one personal finance book per month.
Learn how to build a group speaking business.

How about you all? What blogging/personal/professional goals have you set for yourself in 2012?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://i.images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-3922312417-hd/Argentina/Sport/Football/Lionel_Messi/Joan_Gamper_Trophy.jpg

What Would Be The Best and Worst Jobs in the World?

jacob@mypersonalfinancejourney.com (My Personal Finance Journey) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:16:08 PST

This post was written by me and published originally 3 months ago at Family Money Values as part of the 12th “Yakezie blog swap” where members of the Yakezie Personal Finance Blogging Network pair up and exchange guest postings on a common topic. The topic of this blog swap was to discuss what each of us thinks would be the best AND worst jobs in the world.

Hello everyone! It’s a pleasure to be the host for the 12th Yakezie blog swap event! One of the semi-selfish pleasures of hosting a Yakezie blog swap is that you get to choose a common posting topic that you've wanted to write about for quite some time or that you are excited about. Indeed, the topic of sharing my opinions on what would be the best and worst jobs in the world is something I've wanted to do on my own blog for about 3 months now.

What Would be the Best, Most Awesome Job in the Planet?

Since I consider myself somewhat of an optimistic person, let's first start with discussing my pick as to what would be the most awesome job in the world.

In my opinion, the most "awesome/coolest" job in the world would be to work as a travel writer for Lonely Planet (or any of the other major travel guide companies such as Frommers, Eye Witness, Fodors, etc for that matter).

What does this job entail exactly?

Well, these guidebook writers (or authors as they term them on the Lonely Planet job description website) are the ones that review, describe, rate, and recommend/not recommend all of the travel, lodging, restaurant, and entertainment venues in each and every city listed in the guidebooks we all depend greatly upon when traveling abroad. I remember that when I was studying abroad in Spain in 2008, I had my travel guidebook within arm's reach at all times, almost like it was my security blanket!

What makes this job sound so awesome to me?

For most of my life, I've had a strong desire and affinity for traveling to new places and seeing how different cultures live. Indeed, this job would offer the chance to be paid for doing something I love - traveling and seeing new places. Also, since you're representing a review agency and/or guidebook that could offer huge publicity for any business included in your final write-up, I'd imagine that the majority of the places you go would pay for you to experience the best of which they have to offer, be it food, hotel accommodations, or drinks. While you'd have to remember to remain objective during this, it'd be an added perk nonetheless!

So, as you can imagine, there'd be some very attractive attributes appealing to me in this job. However, there are also some precautions that need to be taken for anyone thinking of going in to this profession.

First, because of the "allure" of being a travel guidebook writer, there is a great deal of competition. In the last round of writer selection with Lonely Planet, only 8 applicants were selected out of 500 total. And, from what I've seen, the writers selected have to be VERY qualified both with previous professional writing experience as well as knowledge of a specific area of the world where they would review.

I just read the author biographies of a Lonely Planet Southwest USA guidebook, and all of the writers had authored over 30 books previously. Wow! Looks like there's a high barrier to entry!

Second, in reading several interviews of past and present Lonely Planet travel writers, Simon Sellars and David Else, the job, while probably very interesting, is VERY busy and exhausting. In these interviews, it is mentioned that guidebook writers typically burnout within 5 years or less from working 16 hour days with very little rest while "on the road." They are also away from their family for a majority of the time as well.

It makes absolute sense why this burnout happens though, right? Just think about it. For example, a travel writer in Mexico City is on the road (probably alone) and is responsible for every detail in the guidebook of a city with what, 25 million people! Talk about a daunting task! They even have to make sure that the distances from the street intersections to the restaurants on the maps are correct.

So, the bottom line is that I truly do think this would be the most awesome job in the world. However, would it be the most plush, cushy, sustainable, and long term job in the world? Absolutely not. It's a very tough and intense job with probably very little pay for how many hours you have to work. However, for someone who likes to travel (like me), I'm sure it would be a rewarding experience.

As such, I'm fine with my current career goals to work in the pharmaceutical development space. But, being a travel guidebook writer sure would be an adventure to have done once in my life! Therefore, it gets my vote for being the most awesome job in the world, despite its drawbacks.

What Would be the Worst Job in the Planet?

Before beginning my explanation of my pick for the worst job in the world, I just want to make it clear that I'm in no way demeaning or belittling people that work in this type of job. Quite the contrary actually, as I have much respect for you doing what you do. The point of this writing is just to explain why I personally wouldn't want to do the job. With that out of the way, let's proceed...

For me, the worst job in the world would be to work as a ticket agent at a major airline in the United States. And, since I often travel through Charlotte, North Carolina on US Airways, and that airport has had extremely terrible delays in the past 2 years or so, I'll go out on a limb and say that being a ticketing agent for US Airways would be the worst job in the world for me.

When thinking about my choice for worst job, I almost choose being a TSA Security Agent at a major US airport. You know the sort - these are the airports with the 45 minute security lines where you are being yelled at the entire time by the TSA agents to take off your belt, shoes, laptop, liquids, etc, and then you get to the security scanner to find that people didn't listen to the agent, which further upsets the agent. However, I ultimately decided to forgo the TSA agent choice because the passengers are not actually upset at the agents (relatively) when they go through security. The honor of having to deal with truly ticked off passengers falls upon the ticketing agents. Bless their hearts. Read below to find out more!

What does this job involve?

Well, I think we all probably have some sort of experience in airports and are familiar with ticketing agents helping to check passengers in at the gate and main terminal ticketing counter, handle baggage, load passengers for take-off, and help passengers change their flight plans when plane cancellations or delays occur.

Why This Job Would Be Detrimental to My Health (Both Physical and Mental)?

If we lived in a perfect world where everyone's flights were on time and each and every passenger floated through the airport in a state of happiness, I think that being an airline ticketing agent wouldn't be all that bad. After all, you'd get to interact with a lot of different (potentially interesting) people and contribute to the business and vacations trips that make the world work.

However, as we all know, the world is not quite perfect, and significant flight delays or cancellations are commonplace, especially after the airline cutbacks since 2001. The result? Many VERY UPSET passengers! For example, as a ticketing agent, you have to be the one to tell a 45 year old dad trying to get home from a business trip to Detroit that he'll have to miss his son's baseball game because there are no flights leaving Charlotte to go to his destination until tomorrow night.

Again, doing this type of job wouldn't be so bad if people were able to understand the situation and not lash out at you almost as if you were personally responsible for the delay. However, my experiences have shown that since angry passengers cannot take out their frustration on the airline itself, they often turn to the nearest ticketing agent!

Since I am, by nature, not very good at confrontations such as these, being a ticketing agent would be very hard for me. When I am faced with interpersonal confrontations, I typically don't have a problem dealing with them in the moment that they happen, but I'm unable to simply let it "bounce off me" after it occurs. Often times, I'll think about it in some form for several days afterwards. Dealing with confrontations gets me much more physically tired at the end of the day as well.

In performing a brief Internet search for interviews and experiences of airline ticketing agents, I was somewhat surprised to find out that there were not that many negative remarks mentioned about the job by the people that actually do them (far less negative remarks than by the travel guidebook writers interviewed above! haha). Most of them simply acknowledge that yes, the job has it's downfalls in dealing with unhappy customers, but the travel, health, and retirement benefits and other responsibilities of the job outweigh the negatives. Knowing this makes me feel better about the people that do this type of job. However, I still think that this role would be one job that I would simply not fit well in.

How about you all? In your opinion, what would be the best and worst job in the world and why?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenm1/3541851180/sizes/l/in/photostream/