Over the last few weekends, H and I have done nothing but work on the house, and seem to have hit quite a few walls.  We’ve gotten stopped by our lack of hot water, not having the required materials, tools or knowledge or a number of super lame things.  I think we could both feel the frustration mounting from the situation and earlier this week we both acknowledged that we need to start focusing our energies so that we wont be getting pulled in so many different directions and frustrated with the lack of results.  Hopefully it works.

Anyway, on to the best links this week:

Kevin at thousandaire has a great example of arbitrage on old washers and dryers.  I figure if you knew about how to repair these, you could probably turn that into a decent side hustle.  Not something that I’ve got time for right now, but ill keep it in mind for later.

Trent at the simple dollar has a post about finding the path again.  This post really hit home with me as I know exactly what he’s talking about.  H and I have been under a lot of stress as we have a lot of things going on right now with marathon, the house on top of our normal day-to-day stuff.  While I think trent’s solution of more work is a good one, I’m aware of the fact that sometimes, you just cant bring yourself to do that – make sure that you relax and take a breather, and dont make any stupid mistakes.

Roshawn wants broke people to stop giving him financial advice.  I agree with this – which is why I dont understand how people can take orders from an overweight health professional or trainer – if they are the “authority” shouldnt they be able to at least take care of themselves?

As you all know, H and I bought a house recently and closed about a month ago.  To make the house something that we would love to live in, we decided to live in the finished basement for a bit while we completely changed the upstairs.  We’ve done quite a bit of work so far and have quite a bit more to go, but H and I feel like we are done with the “demo” phase and can start rebuilding.  Living here has been crazy so far – we are sleeping on what I’ve heard described as a “heroin mattress” (mattress without box spring on the floor) and cooking with a crock pot, an electric frying pan and a rice cooker.  We figure it’s only temporary until everything upstairs is done.

One of the things that we had done was get a gas line installed in the kitchen for use in a gas stove (this was all my preference, but we intend to live here for quite a while and it was something that I really wanted).  Due to the nature of the work, we had someone install it, and they had to have the city come inspect it.  During that time, we had to disconnect the house from the gas mainline, meaning our hot water heater, furnace and anything else that used gas wasnt going to come on until the inspection.  The inspection took 2 days, and unfortunately some very small work needed to be done before it was approved.  The work happened the following monday, and the gas line was tied back on and the furnace started working again.  Unfortunately, the hot water heater did not.

So, we’ve been doing some pretty creative things to make sure we dont totally freeze while trying to shower, and while I was showering the other day, it dawned on me: this is actually a great conservation method.  See, since the water is so cold, what you have to do is get in the shower, rinse off, then turn the water off and put your shampoo, etc on, then turn back on the water and rinse it out.  All in all, this amounts to the water being on during the shower for less than 3 minutes (I’m guessing, I haven’t timed it), which is far less than the water would be on if we were taking a full shower!

I’m not going to sit around and say that having no hot water for 2+ weeks is all sunshine and rainbows, but it sure has caused me to think about how much water that I’m using (mainly, because the less water I use, the less cold my I get).  Its a great way to save some water and speed up the showers, so I’m trying to look on the bright side.  Meanwhile, H has decided to start taking her showers at the gym, which is getting her into the habit of working out again!  It’s a win all around, plus I expect our utilities bill to be way lower until it’s fixed!

Readers: do you ever end up getting your hands tied because of certain situations and end up doing things in a more sustainable manner and end up looking at process completely different than you were previously?  I never expected not having hot water would cause me to question how I’ve taken showers for 15+ years, but it has.

I’ve been in the pf blog-o-sphere for a while now, and sometimes I see people whose debt balances just totally astound me, and up until recently, I never knew how they could get that high – some people with over 100k in non-mortgage debt alone!  How on earth could someone do that, I thought.  Well, it seems to me that part of the problem is time – that debt obviously didnt get there in 10 days, and it wont go away that quickly either.  One of the other problems is owing a house – stuff is expensive, and stuff that’s crucial can go wrong at any time.  If you dont have an emergency fund and there’s a water leak,  you’ve got to fix it and get the water back on, asap!  That stuff adds up fast.  However, if you are in a lot of debt, you may consider some debt consolidation loans to make managing payments easier.  At any rate – just wanted to say that those homeowners who got deep in debt because of it, I understand where you’re coming from now.

On to the best links this week:

Given that it’s around graduation time, there’s always room for money tips for new grads.  From Eric at Narrow Bridge, there’s some great advice in here.  Personally, I preferred to learn these lessons the hard (read: expensive) way, but you’ll be money ahead not doing what I did.

Also, Money for college project has some advice for new grads as well.  Grads, take heed.

Beating broke talks about complacency in your gazelle intensity – I know that happened to me for quite a while, and im not on as tough of track as I was, but I’m back to making extra payments thankfully.

Kathleen at frugal portland has a truth smacking post  getting out of debt is boring - and she’s more or less right.  Once you get in all your big wins, it’s basically just a waiting game.  Waiting till your out of debt, and hoping you dont pick up spending during that time.

As of Sunday, My marathon is less than two weeks away.  Running a marathon was something that I listed in my 2012 goals, and slowly but surely I’ve been working to make it happen.  Much like my savings goal, this started with small, consistent progress.  I started training at the end of January (that seems like forever ago!) with a 3 mile run, and last weekend, I completed my longest run of the program, which was 20 miles.  In between, I’d run anywhere from 20-40 miles (or more) per week, typically over 3 days.  I never really felt like anything was out of my reach or totally unattainable, but that’s because the program took me up in steps.

One of the best ways to fail at a goal is to not try, and another great way is to try and do too much, too fast.  There would have been no way I would have kept up my training if I started with a 8-10 mile run and tried to keep going from there with the program.  I would have hated the goal, hated myself for making the goal, and then just to make sure, I would have hated myself (again) for failing the goal.
Lesson Learned: Start small, you’ll thank yourself for it.

Training for this race required a huge time commitment (obviously), but it was something that I really had not anticipated as I started.  Once the first two weeks had passed though, I knew that I was going to need about 1.5 hours a day for 3 days during the week, and about 3 hours on the weekend.  Those times ended up increasing as the distance increased, but I quickly eased into a schedule of leaving work having a small snack such as an apple or granola bar and changing into my running shorts and shoes and hitting the pavement.  It quickly became routine and I started to enjoy the runs with H and the dog, exploring the city on foot in what was unseasonably nice weather.
Lesson Learned: If you want to succeed, you have to put the time in to reach your goal.

One of the other great parts about this was that I got to train with H – training is always more fun when you’ve got someone that is working with you trying to accomplish a similar goal (H is doing the  half marathon).  Even though my thoughts about the running itself would be all over the map, I really enjoyed this time spent with H and the sustainable house.
Lesson Learned: Get a training partner – it will keep you consistent and you’ll have a better time.

Unfortunately, not everything about this marathon training program has been sunshine and roses.  Since H and I closed on our house, my training has taken a drastic pullback.  I have been logging everything to mapmyrun, which a pretty sweet website and app for android and iphones.  I have made “house things” a higher priority than running for the last 4 weeks, and have been hardly doing any of my weekday runs, but have managed keep on track (for the most part) for my weekend runs.  It was surprising how easy it was to continue missing runs after I missed that first run, and this week it’s already thursday and I havent run at all.  Early in the program when I was ambitious about the marathon (and afraid of not finishing) I ran in gale force winds, and now when the clouds go just a bit grey, I use that as a handy excuse to not run at all, saying that I’ll make it up later.  Well, later eventually did come, and I had to run 20 miles with what was essentially 1.5 weeks off right before hand.  It hurt afterwords, a lot.
Lesson Learned: Don’t miss a run, but if you absolutely have to, dont keep digging yourself into a hole.

During this whole training period, even though I felt a bit tired after some of the long runs (and sore) and had to squeeze in some of the weekday runs, I never really felt like they were that big of a burden or too much work.  I knew that I wanted to run a marathon, so I just decided to make a plan and go for it.  Never once did it seem like I had to drag myself out of bed to run – when I knew I had the time and had already blocked it off, I was usually pretty amped to go, even though I knew it would be hard.  But, because I wanted to do this pretty bad, it never really got to be something that I ended up dreading doing.  Sure, I ended up sore and tired at the end of lots of my weekend runs, but it was a good tired – one where I felt like I accomplished something that took me 1 step closer to a big goal I have.
Lesson Learned: If you actually want the goal, the hard work you put in wont seem like work at all.

Though I didnt really pick a goal pace until later in my training (whenever I run races,  I always miss the mile markers and dont really know how far I’ve got to go in the race) it has been super helpful in training so far – ensuring that i’m keeping on pace and not going too fast at the beginning or too slow at the beginning and leaving too much in the tank at the end.  This will make sure that I dont get caught up in trying to keep pace with the more experienced marathoners at the race and end up having to cross the finish line in a wheelchair.
Lesson Learned: Don’t worry about what others are doing, focus on doing what you can.

All in all, I’m pretty happy that I decided to take on this goal – it was little more than a 15 months ago that I ran my first race ever (a 5k) and I will certainly be happy that I’ll be able to make this big of progress in my running.  I’m not sure how much running I’ll be doing after the marathon training is over, either.  This summer looks busy as it is, and if the last few weeks are any indication, the answer will be not too much for a while, but I’d like to at least get into the habit of running a few times per week.  One of my goals for next year may be to do the spartan race in vermont, but it costs $600 to enter (!!!) but I’m not sure, and I know I’ll need to be in top shape for that.

Readers: What lessons have you learned from training or working towards a goal for a few months before accomplishing it?  Did you find more value in the process of preparing for your goal, or more value in the goal itself?

Occasionally, I review books that I think are relevant to the site.  While this one isnt specifically about creating a healthier environment or finances, I thought it was an interesting book about creating a great state of mental health.  Being mentally healthy will help you be happier and more productive, and who doesnt want that, right?

If you’re interested, you can buy the book on amazon in hardcover or for your kindle.

The book was based on a popular course at amazon designed make the lives (and work) of all googlers better by increasing the mindfulness and emotional intelligence of googlers by focusing on 3 steps.  The Three steps are:

1. Attention Training
2. Self Awareness and Self Mastery
3. Creating Useful Mental Habits

The book relies heavily on scientifically proven concepts that will help you get ahead in your life and business – which im a big fan of.  Using scientific data will hook me no matter the process, because if science says it works, then it probably will work.

Much of this book is focusing on habits, which I know are huge parts of your life, as they essentially take over when you’re in a new situation.  Knowing your habits (self awareness) is key.  A great example from my life is that I occasionally dont know when to quit – H brought me 2 bags of candy for my birthday, which was really nice, but something I never would have done for myself, because I know what will happen.  I’d eat all the candy too quickly and get a stomachache.  Sure enough, I ate about a pound of candy in 2 or so days, and I didnt feel right for a day or so after that.  For me, a better treat would have been 1 pack of candy. That way, I could have eaten the whole thing and not felt like crap for 3 or so days.  This is a habit of mine that i’m fully aware of, so the place where I avoid it is at the store – I just dont buy candy at all, and when I do, I dont buy the giant bags of it.  Knowing habits like that (and avoiding them, if they are as bad as mine) is key to creating a happier life, as the book says.

Another big theme is meditation, which I’ll admit i’ve never really tried – it seem kind of new-agey and a waste of time – I feel like i’ve got better things to do, but the book makes a pretty convincing case for meditation.  You slowly breathe, which turns into a distraction of some sort, regain your focus and breath again, repeating the cycle.  This can help you reduce stress and develop a better attitude – something I know that I could use from time to time.  While I cant say that I’ll surely meditate after reading this book, It’s something that I’d like to consider after finishing doing the work that H and I are doing on the new house (hopefully I’ll be able to put pictures up soon).

Finally, you want to create “desireable mental habits”  - in the words of buddha, what we think, we become.  So think more about what you want, and keep thinking about it.  Try not to get distracted by the day to day and focus on what’s really important.  That way, you should be able to do more soul searching.

Overall, this was a really interesting book and if youre interested at all in self improvement, I’d give it a look.

Forget about your budget for a moment.  What is the normal range of activities in your household?  Are you racking up expenses “going out” all the time, or do you normally stay in and save money.  From food and entertainment to more, your household’s baseline is a great indicator of your budget.

You Are What You Eat

This popular saying has little to do with finances.  Linking health to your diet, though, we can make an analogy.  The health of your budget in inextricably linked to activities that normally take place in your household.

Remove the special events and look at what is “normal.”  Now take a look at some key categories that pertain to your household:

• Food: What does an average dinner look like for you/your family?  Is there a healthy mix of dining out, carry out, and homemade meals?  Is there a preponderance of one category? (Jeffs note: H and I are planning on leaning heavily on our CSA this year)
• Entertainment: From Netflix to the movie theater, this can be a game-changer in your budget.  Consider your habits, from going to the bars and expensive sporting events to board games with the family and more.
• Shopping: Are you addicted to shopping?  By taking a look at credit card bills, you can see if this is your secret habit.  You can even break your budget by going on your computer or smartphone to shop.

Establish a Healthy Baseline

Some of us may have unhealthier habits than others.  After all, there is nothing wrong with going out to eat once in a while.  Yet, if that in itself is a habit – while on a tight budget – then you might want to partake in this reality check.

Many personal finance articles will look at particulars.  No, we’re not talking about term deposit rates and a car insurance comparison that can help you take your budget to new heights; we are keying in on that of your actual budget.  You’ll read about setting limits, giving yourself an allowance in certain categories, and so forth in regards to your budget.

What’s the point?  When you look at your routines, you can often see the health of your budget revealed through these items.  Those who are on tight budgets may be eating out too much, shopping a lot, and going out with their friends too much.  That simply isn’t healthy for one’s budget.

If you need help in these areas, look to make your “baseline” healthier.  Fall back on playing board games and homemade meals with your family.  Make a habit out of having your friends come over for an inexpensive night in – and combine it with free and cheap ways to go out and enjoy the nightlife.  Whether you’re single or have a family, you can have healthy budgeting habits revealed through how you live.

Overall, it can be confusing looking at numbers.  Surely, there is a place for that – at the end of each month.  Qualitatively looking at your actions can reveal what is present in your budget.  Do you normally engage in activities that are frugal?  Take a look at your household’s baseline to see how you are influencing your budget.

Jeff’s Note:  Exchanging habits was probably the best thing for my budget.  I started eating a home more, going out less and finding different things to do that didnt cost near as much.  As my “monthly nut” went down, I was able to increase my debt repayments and get out of debt faster.

H and I have been in our new house for about 2 weeks at this point, and have completed most of the demo we’d like to do (upstairs, anyway).  We’ve completely gutted out the bathroom and the kitchen.  We moved into a house built in the 20s, so it was kind of sad to see some of the stuff go – we had to break apart a cast iron tub with a sledgehammer and carry that to the dump, because it would have been possible to pick up and carry out in one piece, and we had to partially destroy some of the cabinets in the kitchen that were built in by the original owner (though we were able to save half of them and those went into my outbuilding).  Seeing those things come down was pretty hard, because they were so well made, but they would have been extremely difficult to use, now and in the future.  We’ve been donating what we can (and even had some mirror decorations that we donated because they were ugly as sin that made a cameo in a movie H and I watched recently).  I’m working on an article about what to do with all of that stuff to maximize sustainability, so stay tuned.

Ninja took some kids out flocking to raise money.  I think this is a creative idea to raise some cash, and some more thinking in that market is sorely needed.  I cant stand when someone comes up and asks me to buy something.  For one, I feel like the products are geared towards women (I get offers for cookies (both men & women) candybars (same) and candles).  None of those are things I would buy in bulk on a daily basis (or ever), so I dont want to keep them around.  I’d rather give the kid 10 bucks to go away, and they can keep all the money instead of some company taking a cut of the profit.   How do you guys feel?

The Simple dollar has an article about credit cards.  I agree with this – all the cards I use give me some rewards, usually travel miles or points of some sort.  I’ve built a large cache of them this way, and used a portion of them for my honeymoon, and a few other wedding odds and ends.

This is a guest post from Miss T at Prairie Eco Thrifter.  

The old saying of “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” holds especially true in the modern world. Life moves at such a fast pace these days and there always seems to be so much to do. It is vital to create good work/life balance if you want to live a long, healthy and productive life. Here are 5 tips to help you do it:

Work out what’s important to you.

Take the time to sort out your priorities. Determine what is really important to you. Make a list of the top ten things that are important to you, those things that are your absolute top priorities.

These may include family, maintaining friendships, getting healthy and fit, your career, sporting or cultural pursuits, church and religion, travel and holidays, giving back to the community, education, interests and passions. The list of possibilities is almost endless but as you compile your list, it is important to ask yourself, ‘ is this really important to me?’

Arrange these top ten priorities in order of importance. If you have listed more than ten, put them underneath, in order of importance. Check over your list and make sure it is correct. You might find that you revise your list over the next few days.

Keep a journal

For two weeks to a month, keep a journal of all the activities that take up your time. Make a note of how you felt while completing this activity; were you happy, relaxed, angry, upset, stressed or any other emotions.

Compare your journal entries with your priority list. Mark in red any activity that does not appear on your priority list. Mark in green the ones that are on your list and are therefore important to you. Calculate your work/life balance by comparing the time you spend at work with the time you spend on one of your top ten priorities.

Analyze how you spend your time

Take some time for this step, because it is important. Look over your journal and note the percentage of activities marked with red, meaning that they are not a priority for you. Note the following:

• Was it necessary, even if not a priority?
• Was it important that you do it? More important than doing something on your top ten list?
• Why were you really doing it?
• Will you need to continue to do this activity?
• Is there a way you can reduce the time that activity could take in the future?
• Can you delegate it?

Check your schedule

Look for ways that you can create more time for activities that contribute to your top ten. How can you reduce the time you spend at work and increase your time doing things that are important to you? Look for ways you can be more productive with your time by practising time management skills. Find tasks that you can delegate to someone else. Can you do some work at home to reduce travel time?

What is the ideal work/life balance for you?

You need to know what you are aiming for in work/life balance before you can make any adjustments to how you are spending your time. This will be different for everyone. You might need to consult the people who are close to you, especially those who are in your top ten priority list. Ask your friends and family how much of your time they want or need. Consider how much time you want to spend at the gym, or playing sport or attending new classes etc.

One of the best ways to adjust your work/life balance is to ask yourself the following question when faced with any activity – “is this adding to the time I want to spend on my top ten priorities?” This simple question will help you get your life in balance so that you can lead a happier, healthier life.

It may surprise you, but there is a way you can get involved in financial planning and trading without having to spend too much. Using the same level of skill, financial spread betting can, if successful, be very rewarding financially.

By spread betting, UK based traders can trade on markets in the US and just about anywhere else in the world. By using your money wisely and learning how to Spread Bet from companies such as City Index, you could make significant profits.

You can make significant returns as Spread Betting is margined or leveraged, similar to how you buy a house with a mortgage, meaning that you only need to deposit a small fraction (typically between 1% – 10%) of the total trade value in order to place the Spread Bet.

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This means that your outlay is low, but your returns could be magnified.

Similarly, Spread Betting is also risky, with the potential to lose more than your initial deposit if you do not employ Risk Management tools to your Spread Bets. You can learn more about Risk Management through your Spread Betting provider, such as City Index.

In normal trading, if you own shares in a company, you actually own part of that company. The more you own, the bigger the share of that company is in your hands. Owning shares in a company carries a great deal of risk as well as potential reward.

Members of the public can only buy stock in a company if they’re listed on a stock market of some kind. The value depends on how successful that company is. People who want to own stock need plenty of patience, as jumping straight in could be damaging to your investment if you buy at a time when the stock’s value is falling. Researching the stock before investing is useful, as you’ll then be able to identify when the right time to buy is.

With financial spread betting, you can trade on stocks without actually owning them. You can spread bet on whether a stock or an entire market’s value will rise or fall and do this with several different shares.

While spread betting requires plenty of skill and know-how of markets, with little preparation, it could be worth your while. There are thousands of markets such as shares, currencies, indices and commodities to choose from, which is part of spread betting’s growing appeal.

As a leveraged product, any profits made could be significantly greater than your initial investment, as you only pay a small deposit of the total value you want to trade. Meanwhile, if you do incur losses, risk management tools are available, which will help to limit them.

Jeff’s note: I don’t do spread betting like this – It’s incredibly risky and I dont ever feel like I’d be able to sleep at night knowing that I owed on a bunch of stuff and my bet isnt coming through.  As always, try at your own risk.

I’m just over a month away from my marathon, and things have been going pretty smooth.  Finishing a marathon is one of my goals for 2012, so naturally I crafted a plan at the beginning of the year and it has all been execution since then.  There were a few missed runs when I went to new mexico, but things quickly got back on track and I kept going as the weekend miles (that’s the time when you do a really long run) crept higher.

Things honestly have been pretty easy so far.  As long as I make time to do the runs, I can go out there and just run, and it takes nothing but time.  Also, i’m getting a bit faster, so it doesnt take as much time as it used to.  I have been keeping to my 3 runs during the week and the long run on the weekend, but have slipped a bit with my gym routine.  This is starting to bug me, but I’ve had a lot going on lately so something was going to have to give, but i’m hoping to get back into the gym habit soon.

One thing that I would like to point out is that running a marathon is time consuming to train for, but I honestly feel like anyone can do it if they actually train for it.  To date, the longest race I’ve run is a 5k, and I’ve only done 3 of those in my life, and my first one was feb 2011.  I hated running before that because I thought it was boring and pointless, plus I was slow so that made it less fun.  Of course, I was slow because I never ran.  One takeaway that I do have from this is that when you set a goal, map out a plan to achieve it – I did this with my marathon goal, but not any of my debt goals – and as you know, I have not made nearly as much progress on those as I would have liked.  Having a schedule where I can look at something and say “Oh it’s tuesday, I need to run 4 miles today” really makes it easier – There’s no debating how long I should run for or where to go, just that I need to get out and go.

Unfortunately, all of this recently has been roses, but I feel like it’s going to get far more difficult.  We closed on our house on friday, and have a long list of things that we’d like to change, as well as moving all of our stuff.  This essentially took all  of the time both H and I had this weekend.  We were moving, demo-ing and unpacking, and still are quite a ways away from where we’d like to be.  I missed a run this weekend while entertaining my folks (and H’s) who had come up to help us with the move and poke around our new house, and spent most of the day going to the hardware store (7 times) and gutting the bathroom.  I could have carved out some time to run, but unfortunately I didnt.

This is something that I need to be aware of and watch in the future, and I’ll let you know how I’m doing.  Do you have any suggestions for how to keep to a schedule?