FREE GIVEAWAYS!!

Prairie Eco-Thrifter is giving away A TON OF STUFF: an iPad3 and over $200 in cash and gift cards!

Jeremy from Modest Money is giving away two prizes: $50 in Paypal Cash and a 2nd winner will get $25 in Paypal Cash!

Invest in the Markets is also giving away A few free Webinars & a $25 Amazon gift card!

Carnivals

• Prairie Eco-Thrifter hosted the Carnival of Financial Planning – Money Management Edition and included my post Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.


Picture by africa

• Little Miss Moneybags hosted the Carnival of Money Pros and included my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• Portfolio Princess hosted the Carnival of Retirement and included my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• MoneyWise Pastor hosted the Festival of Frugality and included my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• One Smart Dollar hosted the Carnival of Financial Camaraderie – Mother’s Day Edition and included my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• 20′s Finances hosted the Financial Carnival for Young Adults and included my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’

Mentions

• One Smart Dollar mentioned my post Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.
• From Shopping to Saving mentioned my post Recipe: Easy Tomato Basil Cream Pasta.
• Modest Money mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• Finance Product Reviews mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• 101 Centavos mentioned my post Recipe: “Better Than Crack” Brownies.
• Married (with Debt) mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• Finance Yoga mentioned my post How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.
• Money Smart Guides mentioned my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’

Weekend Reading

Highlight of the Week

This was another week where there were a ton of great posts and it was nearly impossible to choose one. However, this post was one that I recently read and it really struck a cord with me.

Nearly 2 years ago I decided to turn my life upside-down and pursue a career that I was passionate about. Due to my personal struggles with finances (which I’m going to talk about in Monday’s post), and overcoming those struggles, I felt a strong conviction that teaching people how to properly manage money was something I was supposed to do with my life.

While the journey over the past few years has certainly had rough spots, it’s been an amazing thing to meet with people that were desperate and hopeless, and teach them ways to overcome their situations and propel them on a path toward financial freedom.

However, one of my personal battles is remembering how hard it was 6-7 years ago when I struggled with money. Our semi-financial peace and our progress on the financial front has distanced me from the pain and fear that once flooded my life.

Despite that struggle, I often take time to reflect and remember what it was like, and part of what keeps me going with this blog, and even in my personal career, is understanding the hardship that many Americans still face.

People often question whether I’m a pessimist and I simply inform them that I’m a realist. I like numbers…it’s part of what makes me good at what I do. With that said, FACTS and statistics tell me a story similar to those people that say ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’

With all of that in mind, the best post I read this week was simply a reminder of the financial difficulties the majority of us face. In his post Staggering Financial Statistics, Funancials discusses some rather scary facts about Americans’ retirement accounts and the percentage of us that DO NOT live on less than we make.

Other Great Weekend Reading

• How does US personal debt compare to Canada’s by Make Money Make Cents.
• Be Careful What You (Don’t Know You) Say by Thad Thoughts.
• What’s Your Happy Number? by Making Sense of Cents.
• Is Gold a Good Investment Right Now? by Free from Broke.
• Give Yourself a Raise (No Boss Required) by Married (with Debt).
• How to Identify a Money Fool by Street Smart Finance.
• Keeping Up With The Joneses In The Digital Age by Modest Money.
• Six Easy Steps to Figuring Out Your Retirement by My Money Design.
• How Do You Feel About Punching a Clock? by Young Professional Finances.
• How To Tell If You Are a Shopaholic by From Shopping to Saving.
• Facebook IPO: Not for Me by Money Counselor.
• High Yield vs. Other Investing Categories in Pretty Pictures by The Free Financial Advisor.
• Taxes You Should Be Paying by Evolving PF.
• Staging Your Home On a Budget – Home Staging 101 by Finance Yoga.
• Sometimes it’s about way more than math by Step Away from the Mall.
• How To Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster by Boomer & Echo.
• The Staggering Cost of Health Care in Retirement by Squirrelers.
• The Money Conversation for Couples by Money Smart Guides.
• Do Side Hustles Really Help You Make Money? by Tackling Our Debt.
• Bike Your Way to a Healthier, Richer, Happier You by Prairie Eco-Thrifter.

Welcome to the ‘Understanding Retirement Planning & Investing’ series! If you’ve missed the first few posts be sure to check them out!

• Everything You Need to Know About a Roth IRA & Why to Start One.
• What is a 401(k), 403(b), 457, Roth IRA, and Traditional IRA?
• Where to Save Your Retirement Contributions – The Retirement Investing Order of Priority
• How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind

Understanding Asset Allocation & How to Choose Mutual Funds

Knowing that I’m a financial advisor, I’ve come to learn that most people really don’t have the slightest clue as to what asset allocation means.

It’s quite common for people in their 20s or 30s to have an asset allocation that’s suited for somebody in their 60s or 70s (100% in cash – i.e. CDs or money market accounts) because they’re scared of what’s going on in our economy and they don’t want to lose any of their money.

Instead of the traditional investment approach of buying LOW and selling HIGH, most ignorant investors do the exact opposite!

The Average Joe falls victim to emotion and makes decisions based on FEAR and GREED. There is no doubt that mass media plays a large part in this, so it’s likely that the more you read the paper and the more you watch the news, the MORE likely you are to make irrational decisions based on FEAR.

The Basics of Asset Allocation

To first understand Asset Allocation, we must learn what different assets types there are to invest in (particularly in regards to saving for retirement):

• Stocks
• Bonds
• CDs
• Precious Metals
• Real Estate
• Annuities
• Commodities

Once you have a firm grasp of understanding that there are only a certain number of things you can invest in when saving for retirement, the next step is understanding that your Asset Allocation ultimately determines your rate of return over time.

Research, through numerous studies, have shown that 91% of a person’s RETURN on investment is based on ASSET ALLOCATION.

Knowing our ignorance in this regard, most Americans’ initial reaction when choosing an investment option in their 401(k) or IRA is to look at MorningStar and find out which funds have their coveted 5-Star Rating.

Others may jump to Kiplinger to find out the hot mutual fund for 2012.

Some may simply look at the 1, 5, and 10-year return on a particular fund and make their investment decision solely based on that.

Unfortunately this method of choosing investments gives you no real understanding of why you own a particular stock or mutual fund; therefore you really have no reason to hold onto it which causes you to sell it when things don’t go well and look for the ‘the next best thing’.

The Greater the Risk, The Greater Your Potential for Return

I mentioned at the start of the post that it’s extremely common to see somebody in their 20s, 30s, or 40s to be invested extremely conservatively based on the fear that consistently gets pumped into our minds.

However, the people that “play it safe” are really hurting themselves in the long run. If conventional wisdom tells us to ‘buy low and sell high,’ and you do the exact opposite by trying to time the market via getting in when things are going well and getting out when things are going poorly, you’re likely to miss the majority of the gains the stock market is going to give you.

Furthermore, if you always keep your money “safe” then it’s highly unlikely you’ll outpace inflation and realistically (whether you realize it or not) you are losing money – well, you’re losing purchasing power.

While risk tolerance does need to be taken into consideration, some people simply need to be coached on how to properly invest. Being in my 20s, I understand that I’m not going to NEED my retirement investments for a long period of time and this tells me that I can take a little more risk than most people.

Here is a visual that I use to help people understand how their retirement investments should be allocated along the assets of Stocks, Bonds, and Cash:

At the base of the triangle you have Cash (i.e. Money market accounts, CDs, or other “safe money” investments). These types of investments really have little to no risk but they also have little to no reward.

Bonds are a little more risky because there is a chance of default but they tend to give you a higher return over time than the “safe money” counterparts.

Lastly, as we all know Stocks are the most risky, however they tend to give you the best chance for long-term growth.

How You Should be Allocated

Ultimately, your particular allocation (again, the percentage of money that should be tied to stocks, bonds, or cash) will ultimately be based on a few things:

1. Your Risk Tolerance

2. Your Goals and the Rate of Return You NEED to Earn to Get There

3. Your Time Horizon (i.e. how long do you have before you NEED the money?)

The greater return a person needs to get in order to achieve their goals, the MORE they should be weighted towards stocks (when I refer to stocks, I mean stock-based Mutual Funds).

The LONGER somebody has until they retire (or until they need the money), the MORE you should be weighted towards stocks. Maybe an allocation of 95% stocks, 5% bonds…or something along the lines of 80/20 (stocks/bonds).

However, as you near retirement, it’s wise to shift your asset allocation towards a more conservative approach and take on a more bond-based allocation. In the next lesson I’ll discuss the 3 phases of investing, in which your phase on investing ultimately determines your asset allocation.

Choosing Funds in your 401(k) Made Easy

Ultimately, how you break down investment choices SHOULD go in this order:

1. Determine Asset Allocation – which percentage of your money should be tied to stocks, bonds, and cash. This answer lies in the following questions:

• How much time do you have until you want to retire or until you NEED the money?
• What is your risk tolerance?
• What are your goals and what RATE OF RETURN do you NEED to get there?

2. Diversify – once you know you should be allocated 80/20, then you look to diversify the 80% tied to stocks and the 20% tied to bonds.

This could be a whole different lesson but there are a few choices of stocks you could look for:

• Large Cap Stocks – these are the BIG companies most of us would recognize (Google, Coca-Cola, etc). They have a market capitalization of OVER $10 billion. These are traditionally less risky but sometimes don’t earn as much.
• Mid Cap Stocks – market capitalization of $2-10 billion. Slightly more risky than large-cap stocks, but an edge on return over time.
• Small Cap Stocks – capitalization of $300 million to $2 billion. Definitely more risky than the other two, but over time they’ve shown to yield a higher rate of return.
• International stocks – despite struggles overseas it’s wise to have some portion of your assets tied to international. If you think about it, the MAJORITY of our assets are already tied to US markets (your job, house, etc), so when you’re diversifying it’s smart to always have some investments that aren’t solely based on what’s happening in the US.
• Emergency Markets – these stocks are a little more risky because they’re invested in countries that the title suggests: “emerging.”
• Growth Stocks & Value Stocks – value stocks tend to have a higher rate of return over a LONG period of time, but they’re more risky simply because they’ve been ‘undervalued’ for one reason or another.

Once you diversify your 80% stock allocation in the above categories, then you need to break up the 20% bonds:

• Government Bonds
• Corporate Bonds
• International Bonds
• Short, Intermediate, and Long-Term Bonds
• High-Yield Bonds (or ‘junk bonds’)

3. Select the Mutual Funds – after you have a grasp of your Asset Allocation and your Diversification approach, THEN it’s time to check out your fund options and choose which funds will best suit you based on:

• MoringStar or Kiplinger reports/ratings
• The fund’s return over the last 1, 5, and 10-year periods (sometime it’s good to look at their return since inception as well).
• Internal fees (expense ratio) and Turnover Rate – turnover is the percentage of the investments in that paricular portfolio that WON’T be in that fund next year. The lower the expense ratio the better.
• Fund Manager – how long as the fund been managed by the same person?
• How long has the fund been around? It’s it brand new or has it weathered a few “storms”?

There is little doubt that MOST people don’t want to mess with this process, thus we end up with people that (1) try to time the market based on FEAR AND GREED, (2) don’t know what they own which further lends itself to buying and selling, and (3) end up with people that get “burnt” by the market and choose to stay invested in cash and therefore never outpace inflation.

If you need help choosing funds in your 401(k), then there is nothing wrong with paying a professional a few dollars to help walk you through the process. I am biased, because it’s what I do, but I think it’s definitely worth the money in the long run!

For those that are too cheap to pay somebody, or for those that don’t really want to do the leg-work themselves, I’ll discuss Target Date funds in an upcoming post.

Meatless Meatloaf Muffins

makes 9 patties

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup marinara sauce
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed
• (2) 14 ounce cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 large onion, chopped
• 3/4 cup oats
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Preheat over to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup marinara (not the whole thing) and the flax seed. Stir and set aside to thicken.

In a large bowl, mash pinto beans with fork or potato masher (leave chunky).

Add the remainder of ingredients to smashed beans (onion, oats, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, nutritional yeast, oregano, parsley, salt, and pepper).

Stir well and then add in marinara/flax seed mixture. Stir again to fully mix.

Scoop mixture into a muffin pan (make sure to grease muffin pan prior).

Bake for 15 minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven, top patties with a spoonful of marinara. Return to over and bake another 10 minutes.

Serve it up with some veggies and enjoy!

Original recipe found at Better Homes & Gardens

Another Day, Another Dollar

Every day and month presents one more opportunity to get closer to our goal of becoming debt free. Whether or not we pay anything “extra” towards our debt we’re still guaranteed to make some progress simply due to the fact that we’re paying our minimum payments.

While April wasn’t anything spectacular, it was a solid month for us and we were able to hop back on the wagon!

A few of the positives from April were:

• We didn’t eat out at fast food restaurant! If you recall we ate out at 5 fast food restaurants in March, so I was pretty happy with how disciplined we were in April!
• We increased our Emergency Fund to $3,000! While a $1,000 emergency fund has worked for us over the last couple of years, we’ve wanted to increase it (especially considering my job is 100% commission). We were finally able to get that done towards the latter part of March and into April; it was pretty exciting and it’s a little more comfortable knowing that the money is sitting there if we need it!

The Bad

Despite sticking to the budget for the majority of our cash spending limits throughout the month, there was ONE spending category that we failed miserably in…

So, my wife and I have wanted a new camera for a few years now and we FINALLY decided to take the plunge!

I’m pretty stoked about it and have been loving it for a few weeks now.

The camera we’ve been using for the past 6 or 7 years served admirably, but when you like to take as many pictures as I do, and when you’re taking food pictures for your blog, it’s okay to upgrade every once in awhile.

I can’t wait to use this new camera when we go on our next vacation (I took about 1000 pictures a few years ago in the 2 days we went to DC; did I mention I like to take pictures?). Furthermore, we’ve been taking all of the new recipe pictures with the camera, and IT. IS. AMAZING.

The colors are so unbelievably bright and the images are so clear…I can’t really believe I’d been using my old camera for so long.

Well, I do believe it because my wife and I are very frugal and we don’t buy things on a whim (we really don’t buy things in general). However, when we do buy things we spend a little more money than most as we place a high priority on quality knowing that we’re going to keep it for at least 6-10 years.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken in the last few weeks with the new camera (I had to modify the image quality a bit because the original files were 3.5MB and that just doesn’t fly on a blog):

A New Chapter

While we haven’t made any final decisions, my wife and I are considering selling our current house and moving to another suburb of Kansas City.

Toots recently got a new job which she starts a week from today. It just so happens the new job is in the same city as the one where I work! Currently, we drive about 25 minutes each way (20 miles or so) and the thought of moving closer and saving TIME and MONEY (on gas) is a huge lure.

However, we love our current home. It is our first home together, it’s the perfect size, we have a lot of space, quiet neighbors (which we appreciate), and the house is fairly new with a lot of the upgrades houses such as this come with.

We’ve decided we probably won’t make a lateral move, or even upgrade (as most people would)…we want to downsize and we’re contemplating a rather drastic change.

It would certainly be a tough emotional decision and will likely take us out of our comfort zone, but there are some possibilities that we’re having trouble overlooking:

• We would buy a place cheap enough so that we can get on a 15-year mortgage (and even possibly a 10). This obviously would have some great long-term benefits on our financial situation.
• Despite the 10 or 15-year mortgage, we’d likely be able to lessen our monthly payment which would help us in the short-term as well.
• We’d save approximately $200-300/month on gas for the cars and on lower utility bills.
• Lastly, if my job continues to develop as I expect, it’s likely we could pay off the house within 2 or 3 years. If that were to develop then we’d end up using the house as a rental and start our real estate empire.

While we haven’t made a decision we’re pretty positive we’re going to move. The questions now become:

How much can we sell our house for?

How much are we willing to spend on a new place and can we find one that we think is suitable to live in for the short-term AND something we’ll be able to rent for a reasonable price down the road?

With that said we have a friend (who happens to be a realtor) coming over next weekend to give us some ideas of things we need to work on to get the house ready to sell. By that time I also should have a pretty good idea of what we’ll be able to list the house for.

Depending on how things play out, I’ll probably make this whole process an upcoming series and really delve into the financial ramifications, long-term and short-term, of a decision such as this.

Without further ado, here are the updated charts for April!

Carnivals

• Financial Excellence hosted the Carnival of Financial Planning and included my post How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.


Picture by africa

• Balance Junkie hosted the Totally Money Blog Carnival and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• Young and Thrifty hosted the The Carnival of Financial Camaraderie and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• 20′s Finances hosted the Financial Carnival for Young Adult and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• See Debt Run hosted the Festival of Frugality and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• Simple Finance Blog hosted the Carnival of Retirement and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• Young Adult Finances hosted the Carnival of Money Pros and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• Once Cent at a Time hosted the Yakezie Carnival and included my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’

Mentions

• Edward Antrobus mentioned my post Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.
• Evolving PF mentioned my post How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.
• See Debt Run mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• Thad Thoughts mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’
• Make Money Make Cents mentioned my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• Money Life & More mentioned my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind’ and mentioned Recipe: “Better Than Crack” Brownies.
• Modest Money mentioned my post ‘How to Retire Comfortably: Start With the End in Mind.’
• From Shopping to Saving mentioned my post ‘Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist.’

Weekend Reading

Highlight of the Week

There were some really great posts that I read this week. It’s pretty hard to choose a winner, but considering that it’s Mother’s Day weekend I have to give the nod to Jeremy @ Modest Money for his post:

I firmly believe that much of how we handle things, our work ethic, and our ability to manage money well all comes from how we’re raised as children.

Having been raised by a single mother myself, I was really touched by Jeremy’s story about his mother and some of the valuable lessons that she was able to teach her children at a young age.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the ladies out there!!

Other Great Weekend Reading

• Working Out the Numbers After a Bad Month by Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. I was really impressed with Crystal’s willingness to make sacrifices given some things that had happened to them recently. I don’t think most people would be able to rent out bedrooms of their new dream home!
• Can You Really Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps? by 20′s Finances via Yakezie.
• How to retire on a pension? by CultOfMoney.
• Joint and Separate Money Series: Changes During the First Year of Marriage by Evolving PF.
• Emergency Fund? You’re Closer Than You Think by Free Financial Advisor.
• Should We Buy a Dog? by See Debt Run.
• Rental Property – The Financial Side by Money Life & More.
• Paying Debts in Collections by Money Counselor.
• How to Find A Job in Any Economy by Street Smart Finances. If all Americans understood that the world owed them nothing, then we’d be in a much better place. This was a great post!
• Do You Really Need Money? by This That and the MBA.

I know better than anybody that financial knowledge and understanding directly correlates to how you handle finances, and it ultimately determines whether you’re going to succeed or fail with money.

The vast majority of Americans need help with money in more ways than one, but I’ve found that nobody really knows where to start.

Knowing that topics such as balancing a checkbook, budgeting, living on less than you make, and investing for retirement aren’t common lessons taught in high school or college, where do you turn to find out this information?

After coaching hundreds of people and reflecting back on my own life, I think it’s abundantly clear that the majority of us learn to handle money by witnessing what our parents did as we grew up, AND by taking the monkey-see, monkey-do approach with our friends, co-workers, and relatives.

Unfortunately, this wonderful approach to money management leads to more hardship than it does success.

So, when I was contacted by Alan to review his new book, The Super Duper Simple Book on Money, I couldn’t help but be interested and seeing if it was something that could benefit my followers.

The Super Duper Simple Book on Money

What This Book Is:

This book is perfect for anybody that is looking to start with the basics of understanding how to handle money.

It took me about a hour to read and it brought me back to Money 101: understanding income, expenses, debt, and saving money.

If you’re getting started on your financial journey, or if you’ve been struggling with money for awhile, then this book is for you!

What This Book Isn’t:

While this book will certainly give you the basic principles of managing money well, it’s probably a little too simple for somebody that has their financial lives under control and knows more than the Average Joe.

However, that’s what I liked about the book! It’s so difficult for the average American to find a place to start. If MOST people want to find an investment advisor or seek a financial professional for help, the place that the professional typically wants to start is with ‘how much can you invest?’

The unfortunate reality is that most people aren’t ready to invest for their futures. They’re looking for a way to make ends-meet and get their financial lives in order so they can stop stressing how they’re going to make it through each month.

Highlights and What You’re Going to Learn:

• The Basics of Financial Education. I loved this quote: “A proficient understanding of personal finances can be the difference between financial security and ruin for individuals and families. The economic hardships experienced by many people were not just caused by poor judgment on Wall Street, but also by a lack of financial understanding on a personal level.” – Thad Cocran and Roger Wicker
• Understanding Income. The more you understand income the more you can have it coming in.
• Understanding Expenses. As a financial coach I’m often surprised at how often people’s solution to their problems is to increase income. We NEVER want to cut back our lifestyles, but “understanding your expenses helps you keep them under control” as Alan says and writing everything you spend on paper is a very POWERFUL experience.
• Understanding Debt. This was may favorite chapter in the book because it addresses some of the major issues and traps that I’ve seen people fall into. Alan really sheds some light on credit cards, student loans, and my favorite: MORTGAGES! Or…the “death pledge” as he refers to them.
• Basics of Investing. Alan does a great job of breaking down terms such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. He also addresses owning businesses and investing in real estate!
• Giving. Regardless of whether or not you’re a Christian and believe in tithing, I think it’s important for everybody to give and I’m glad to see that Alan added this as a part of his book. Some of the greatest moments of Holly and I’s life is when we’re able to bless others with what has been graciously given to us. If you’re always selfish with your money, then I think you’re missing out on a big part of life.

In addition to the valuable financial principles that Alan covers, the e-book also provides for a bunch of great links to budgeting tools and some great educational videos!

Who Is This Alan Dude?

Alan is married to his wife LeeAnn and they have 5 kids (Keanu, Kawika, Kiani, Kihei and Kiliana). He and his family live on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

After years of struggling, researching, and learning the basics of finance, Alan Akina wanted to teach others. So, he followed his passion and started 101 Financial in Hawaii in 2002 with the goal to helping Americans get financially educated.

Alan Akina and 101 Financial have received numerous awards including the Pacific Business News Top Forty Under 40 award, the BBB Business Ethics Award, Inc. Magazine’s INC 500 fastest growing companies in America, and Hawaii’s Fastest 50 growing companies for four years in a row.

Alan also hosts the Financial Fitness and Watch Your Wallet Wednesday segments on Fox Affiliate KHON 2 Morning News. You can catch him every Monday and Wednesday morning on the KHON 2 Wake Up 2Day Show.

Visit The Website and GET YOUR FREE COPY!

The FREE giveaway ends on May 14th, so be sure to head over to Alan’s website and register for your free copy of his great book!

Visit here to get your free download of the e-book!
]]> http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/book-review-giveaway-super-duper-simple-book-on-money-by-alan-akina/feed/ 18 http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/book-review-giveaway-super-duper-simple-book-on-money-by-alan-akina/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=book-review-giveaway-super-duper-simple-book-on-money-by-alan-akina http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorkSaveLive/~3/N9F3eVF24HU/ http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/recipe-easy-tomato-basil-cream-pasta/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 10:30:53 +0000 Toots http://worksavelive.com/?p=4214


Here’s another vegan recipe for ya.  It’s really simple and delicious. Jason’s take: this was definitely a keeper and we’ll be having it again in the near future!

Easy Tomato Basil Cream Pasta Sauce

makes 2-3 servings

• 1 large ripe tomato or 2 smaller tomatoes
• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 – 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 3-4 Tablespoons water or wine (optional)
• 1-2 Tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup packed fresh basil, finely chopped



Chop tomato and add it to food processor (including the skin and seeds).  Now add the cashews, water, and tomato paste.  Blend until smooth.



Add olive oil to large skillet and heat to low.  Add minced garlic and sauté for a few minutes, being careful not to burn it.



Pour the sauce from the blender into the skillet, stir, and bring to a simmer.  Add the salt and let it cook for 4-5 minutes, watching closely.  You may add water or wine to thin out the sauce to your desired consistency, but this isn’t necessary.



Remove sauce from heat and stir in the chopped basil and pepper.  Stir over cooked pasta of choice and serve immediately.



Originally found on: www.ohsheglows.com

]]> http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/recipe-easy-tomato-basil-cream-pasta/feed/ 19 http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/recipe-easy-tomato-basil-cream-pasta/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recipe-easy-tomato-basil-cream-pasta http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorkSaveLive/~3/t8XvvEXc7Cc/ http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/blog-income-and-site-statistics-april-2012/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 10:30:59 +0000 Jason http://worksavelive.com/?p=4297


Like Life, Blogging Has Ups & Downs

Having been at this blogging thing for nearly 6 months now, it’s been extremely exciting to watch my blog grow!

As with most things I do, I’ve tried to give this blogging hobby my best effort. I’ve networked, written fairly educational posts, concentrated on SEO, worked to monetize it, guest posted nearly a dozen times, and even started submitting to carnivals – all in hopes to get my traffic up to a respectable level.



Picture by frankie_8

While most people that come across a blog will never understand this, the amount of time, effort, and energy that it takes to build a successful blog is quite overwhelming and difficult to maintain.

It’s been nothing short of a challenge and a complete sacrifice – one that I’m willing to continue to make in hopes to help one or two more people out there.

With that in mind, the start of April couldn’t have been more gratifying. When most people work hard at something, they like to see reward – and for this blog, I started to see the fruits of my labor FINALLY pay off (in terms of traffic) towards the latter part of March and well into April.

There were days when I’d check my traffic and realize that my blog may grow by 100 or 200% this month over last!

I couldn’t help but to think that things were finally starting to pay off…I couldn’t help but think all of my planning efforts and sacrifices were resulting in the traffic numbers that I hoped for when I first launched this site back in November 2011.

Then…the bane of all bloggers had to rain on the parade. ‘Big G’ or just ‘G’ is what they’re referred to by many bloggers that don’t want the grand-daddy of all search engines to realize they’re being talked about.

When Penguins Attack

From this point forward I’ll just refer to them as ‘The Grim Reaper’ (or ‘the reaper’ for short). Apparently ‘The Reaper’ had an algorithm update on April 24th called ‘the Penguin’.

While most of the algorithm changes that ‘The Reaper’ conducts are done to help people that use their search engine, sometimes (quite often actually) they leave bloggers stranded on the side of the road, left for dead.

While I’ve done my best to adhere to all of ‘The Reaper’s’ policies, I happened to get slapped in the face pretty hard by the Penguin changes. I’m still unsure of what I did (or am doing) wrong but this new change has undoubtedly reduced my search engine traffic by about 70%.

As with life, blogging can be rewarding and encouraging, but there are moments when I wouldn’t mind quitting and giving up. That’s not how I roll though…

As one of my clients reminded me a few months ago: you can either sit and cry, or you can stand and fight. It’s always your choice.

Let’s look at GOALS

Last month I mentioned I had a goal of getting 100+ unique visitors 30 days in a row. Well, from March 26th to April 24th, I DID IT! Woohoo!

Actually, 11 of those 30 days had over 200 visitors and a few came in at over 300! My organic searches on a daily basis were resulting in over 100 visits by itself – it was pretty awesome!

While April was overall a very successful month, I know going forward (until the alogorithm changes) traffic levels will drop back down to what they were before ‘the Penguin’ attacked.

To give you an idea, my organic search results from March 26th to April 24th averaged 97 unique visitors a day. Whereas the 6 days to close April (post “Penguin) resulted in 30 unique visitors a day. Thank you, may I have another!

Site Traffic

Total Visits for April – 5,974 (3,778) +58%

• Organic Search: 2,710 (1,095) +147%
• Direct Traffic: 642 (527) +22%
• Referral Traffic: 2,292 (2,012) +14%

Unique Visitors – 4,173 (2,232) +87%

Pageviews – 9,922 (7,041) +41%
most popular pages:

• 6 Things You Must Discuss Before You Get Married
• Should I Sell My Wife’s Wedding Ring?
• Athletes That Went Broke & Wondering Why We Enjoy Their Downfall
• Understanding the Basics: 401(k), 403(b), 457, Roth IRA, and Traditional IRA

Average Time on Site – 2 minutes 31 seconds (2 minutes 58 seconds) -15%

April was certainly a great month and it was fun to watch the growth in traffic for a couple of weeks. For May my primary goal will be to get back to my March’s traffic figures of 2200 unique and 3700 total visitors.

Top Referring Sites

• Money Saving Mom
• Facebook
• Well Heeled Blog
• Free Money Finance
• Twitter
• Along for the Journey

RSS & Newsletter

RSS Subscribers – 202 (182) +11%

Newsletter Subscribers – 366 (364) +1%

Getting Social

Twitter Followers – 336 270 +24%

Facebook “Likes” – 160 152 +5%

Site Rankings

Technorati Ranking – 361 (1,101)

• Finance Ranking – 16 (552)
• Food Ranking – 1,664 (1,938)
• Business Ranking – 40 (251)

The roller-coaster of the Technorati ranking continues. It really makes no sense to me, but I started making these rankings a part of my original Blog & Income posts so I figured I may as well continue to update them.

Alexa Ranking – 92,748 (164,253)

• Inbound Links – 174 (118)

Google Page Rank – 0 (0)

MozRank – 3.47

The MozRank and Google Page Rank both had recent updates, but they didn’t fall until May so I will wait to show those changes next month.

Blogging Income

Google Adsense – $8.83 ($3.02)

Affiliate Income – $5.75 ($13.00)

Lackluster performance on the income part of things but I haven’t really been focusing on it. As my blog continues to grow it is something I’m going to pay more attention to. But for right now, I’m fine with where this is at.

Beginner Blogger Tip of the Month

Use a Cache Plugin

I hadn’t started doing this myself until a few weeks ago, but apparently caching is pretty important.

According to Wikipedia, web caching is: “a mechanism for the temporary storage (caching) of web documents, such as HTML pages and images, to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag. A web cache stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met.”

While load time may not be an issue as you’re starting off on your blogging journey, it will be something that’s important as your traffic increases.

You might as well get it setup now and have it in place so you don’t have to fuss with it down the road.

Currently I’m using the W3 Total Cache plugin. I’m not sure if it’s very good but it was rated relatively well and it seemed to boost the performance on my site. I’ll rely on some of the better-educated blog nerds to help me out with that.

Fellow bloggers, do you have any recommendations on a cache plugin I should be using?

]]> http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/blog-income-and-site-statistics-april-2012/feed/ 59 http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/blog-income-and-site-statistics-april-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blog-income-and-site-statistics-april-2012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorkSaveLive/~3/FhtOunlgAw4/ http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/carnivals-mentions-weekend-reading-10/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 10:30:30 +0000 Jason http://worksavelive.com/?p=4286


Carnivals

• Money Cone hosted the Carnival of MoneyPros and included my post Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.


Picture by africa

• The Frugal Toad hosted the Yakezie Carnival and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• Young, Cheap Living hosted the Carnival of Retirement and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• 20′s Finances hosted the Financial Carnival for Young Adult and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• Debt Blackhole hosted the Totally Money Blog Carnival and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• 101 Centavos hosted the Carnival of Financial Camaraderie and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• This That and the MBA hosted the Festival of Frugality and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’
• Personal Dividends hosted the Carnival of Financial Planning and included my post ‘Where to Save Your Retirement Investing Contributions.’

Mentions

The mentions last week were rather lackluster. Looks like I need to do a better job networking with my fellow bloggers. #Fail

• The Free Financial Advisor mentioned my post Should You Buy a Car Through CarMax?
• Thirty Six Months mentioned the Southwest Quinoa Salad Recipe.

Weekend Reading

Highlight of the Week

Toots and I are “DINKS”: dual income, no kids. Despite not having children we find it challenging to have a night – or better yet a day – where we can do NOTHING.

The majority of the problem is that I work some evenings and she is carrying a second job right now (soon to be ending), but still…even on weekends there doesn’t EVER seem to be time to do anything that is relaxing to us. There are friends, family, blogging, cleaning the house/mowing the yard, work, church activities, weddings, or some other social function.

While I usually enjoy most of our commitments it does become rather burdensome and it eventually builds up to where you get burnt out. What is relaxing and truly enjoyable to my wife and I may be something completely different than you or my friends/family.

I think Peter from Office Space sums up my thoughts on “doing nothing” quite well:


Lawrence: Well, what about you now? What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Peter Gibbons: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons: I would relax… I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he’s broke, don’t do shit.

Oh my found memories of watching the movie Office Space…still love it!

With all of that said, reading Daisy’s post the other day reminded me about how important it is to prioritize. More importantly to prioritize our life, activities, and commitments based on what we enjoy and not based on other people’s ideals.

While I willfully acknowledge that I’m a rather self-driven person, and I often do my best to improve myself and be the best “me” that I can so in-turn I can add value to other peoples’ lives, and even try to please the masses at times, there is nothing wrong with wanting to do something for yourself or wanting to just have a break for once in a blue moon.

So, the highlight of the week most certainly comes from Daisy and her post Why Slacking Off is Sometimes Better: Letting Go of Ideals.

Great Weekend Reading

• Everbank Review – A Bank Which Pledges Yeild by Finance Product Reviews
• How to Become Rich: Key Finance Lessons from Asian American Hoteliers by Street Smart Finance
• Importance Of Diversifying Online Business by Modest Money
• Being Okay With “I’m Not Okay” Financially by The Free Financial Advisor
• Money: It’s All a Game by Along for the Journey

]]> http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/carnivals-mentions-weekend-reading-10/feed/ 6 http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/carnivals-mentions-weekend-reading-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=carnivals-mentions-weekend-reading-10 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorkSaveLive/~3/3RrzEbOEOGE/ http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/sell-our-car-on-craigslist/#comments Fri, 04 May 2012 10:30:20 +0000 Jason http://worksavelive.com/?p=4242


Last week I detailed why we considered buying a car through CarMax, and I wanted to do a follow-up on a service of theirs that we actually used.

Why We Didn’t Sell Our Car on Craigslist

Realizing that our ’99 Nissan Altima needed $1500-2000 in repairs, it didn’t take a lengthy conversation for us to determine that it was time to finally let it go.

After looking up the Private Resale value of our car on Kelley Blue Book, we discovered that our Nissan Altima was worth somewhere between $2300 and $3000.

With that knowledge in hand, and understanding it needed quite a few repairs, I went into the selling process knowing that we’d accept anything over $1000!



Picture by burienundressedblog

Past Craigslist Experiences

I’ve sold a handful of cars through Craigslist and in the majority of situations I think it’s the best option to maximize your profit.

However, ALL of the cars we’ve owned have been high-mileage, older vehicles. They’re typically not in perfect condition and there are a myriad of things wrong with them. In this situation, if you were to sell your car on Craigslist, the seller can choose to do one of two things:

• 1. Inform the potential buyer of any issues with the car – this will likely reduce the offer you’re going to receive (which is the reason most people don’t go this route)
• 2. Lie and hope that the potential buyer doesn’t discover any of the problems

Ethics and Morality Get in the Way

After talking things through with my wife, we determined that IF we were going to sell our car through Craigslist we were going to be honest with the potential buyer and inform them of all of the issues with the car and the impending repairs. I can’t say this is how I’ve handled selling cars on Craigslist on the past. Sorry to those people that happened to buy my old cars – I know, I’m a jerk.

We realized that a person looking to buy a car in the range of $1,000-$3000 probably doesn’t have much money. It’s also likely that this person is struggling to make ends-meet and has a family that they’re trying to provide for.

With that in mind, we simply didn’t want to be dishonest (for the sake of maximizing our gain) while hurting someone in the process that likely needed the money more than we did.

With that being our primary motive there were a few other things I disliked about the possibility of selling our car on Craigslist:

• You get bombarded with emails and phone calls
• You have to set up individual appointment times for people to come see the car
• Said people may show up and they may not, thus wasting your time
• You can invite the people to come to your house to view the car, but with the world that we live in today, it’s typically safer to meet them at a random location – again, wasting time

Consider Selling to CarMax Next Time You’re Looking

Knowing that we had already planned to test drive cars at CarMax, we also decided it wouldn’t hurt to allow them to give us a bid on our Altima.

For those of you that are unaware, not only does CarMax sell cars, but they’re also willing to buy anybody’s car!

Without really knowing what to expect, here are a few things that I discovered:

1. It didn’t take long – it took around 20 or 30 minutes for them to fully look over my car and give me an offer on it. Considering I place a high value on time, I thought this was pretty good!

We were able to test drive 3 cars and by the time we returned I also had an offer in hand for them to buy my current vehicle!

2. I’m still unsure of how well they inspect the car – our ’99 Altima had been in a pretty serious accident about 4 years ago and they definitely spotted the new paint that was (professionally) used to touch up the hood of the car, but beyond that I’m not really sure if they looked at anything.

They claimed our tires were in good shape – which they weren’t.

Furthermore, and much to my surprise, they claimed that the car had no other problems and that it was in good condition.

3. I didn’t have to lie – the thing about the CarMax car buying process is that you don’t really talk to the mechanic that’s looking over your car.

While it probably isn’t morally correct, I wouldn’t have felt bad about bending the truth when telling a large corporation about what was (or wasn’t) wrong with my car. Regardless of what I wouldn’t have told them, they never asked, so I didn’t have to lie! Or ‘bend the truth.’

4. Their offer was fairly competitive – knowing that the Kelley Blue Book value on my car was $2,300-$3,000, CarMax gave me an offer for $2,000!

It didn’t take me long to agree to sell the car, especially considering I’d already determined I’d part ways with it for anything over $1000!

A few other things about Selling Your Car to CarMax:

• The process couldn’t have been easier – once we brought the car back in to officially sell it, it literally took 10-15 minutes to sign a few pieces of paper and for them to hand over the check.
• It saved me a ton of time – I didn’t have to field phone calls and emails. I didn’t have to schedule inconvenient appoints with random people. And I didn’t have to worry…at all.

Next time you’re looking to sell your vehicle, I’d encourage you to check out your local CarMax and allow them to give you an offer. Hopefully it’ll go as well for you as it did for us!

]]> http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/sell-our-car-on-craigslist/feed/ 49 http://worksavelive.com/2012/05/sell-our-car-on-craigslist/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sell-our-car-on-craigslist