Easy Like Sunday Morning Recap and Roundup – # 11 – December 9th, 2012

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Each time, the purpose of the Easy Like Sunday Morning 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 few weeks or so. It’s been about a month since the last roundup, so we definitely have some catching up to do! 

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 each time I put this together), to remind us of the importance of slowing down at least every once in a while to take appreciation for that which transpired over the past few days.

So, without further ado, let’s get started with this edition’s roundup!

UPDATES FROM JACOB’S PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY AND LIFE 

• As far as my life in general, the months of November and December have been pretty busy, but also enjoyable! Below are some of the highlights:
• In my graduate school Alzheimer’s disease research, we were finally able to finish up the follow-up experiments required to respond to the manuscript reviewer’s comments. And, with some luck, it got accepted without further revisions needed! 
• If you’re interested in reading up on the type of research I do, you can view the article at the following link in the journal, Biomacromolecules. 
• Having finished getting this article submitted, we also decided to turn it in to my Master’s Thesis, so I’ll be doing my defense for that before Christmas this year, and the degree will be conferred/finalized in May 2013. Only a couple more years of grad school now! 
• I’m also now 3 months in serving as a Teaching Assistant for a Transport Processes / Fluid Dynamics 3rd year undergraduate chemical engineering class. I’ve really enjoyed the role so far, as it’s given me a chance to teach problem sets for the homework each week.
• We just had our last class on Friday, and so now, all we have to do is prepare for the final and that will be over with. Right now, I’m not assigned to be a TA next semester. 
• Another thing that I’m very proud to report is that my sister will move in to her new condo that she bought this coming week. Due to the severely-depressed real estate market these days, she was able to get a killer deal/value! Congrats to her for making this big leap! 
• At the beginning of November, our younger greyhound, Charlie passed away after losing his battle with some stomach problems that had been pretty severe since June of this year. Below is the last picture we got of Charlie the night before he died on 11/1/2012. RIP 🙂

• Today, we’re actually going to a golden retriever kennel to look in to adopting Crystal (see picture below). I’ve wanted a golden retriever for quite some time now, so we’re looking forward to meeting her. She is 8 years old. 

• As far as my personal finances, the months of November and December so far have been going very well. 
• First, in October of this year, I maxed out my Roth IRA contributions. 
• Next, in November, I received a very unexpected lump sum inheritance that had been passed down from my great-grandparents. With the help of this, I was able to max out my Individual 401k contributions for the year along with my normal contributions to my taxable Vanguard mutual fund account this month. 
• As far as my blog goes, November was the second month for My Personal Finance Journey to feature posts by our staff writing team!
• As I mentioned in the September roundup, I added several new staff writers to contribute articles for the site on a regular basis to prevent having one to two week breaks between my regular posts while I am busy in graduate school and leaving you all out to dry. Listed below are the awesome staff writers for My Personal Finance Journey! They are all doing a great job so far.
• Miss T from Prairie Eco-Thrifter.
• ADP from American Debt Project.
• Travis Pizel, a writer for Care One and Enemy of Debt.
• Kelly from Cordelia Calls it Quits.
• Melissa from Mom’s Plans.
• Kevin from Out of Your Rut.
• Jeff from Sustainable Life Blog.
• Tahyna from DinksFinances.
• Toi Williams from Fine Tuned Finances.
• Greg from Club Thrifty
• Shondell from Call me What You Want Even Cheap.
• While this definitely reduces the net profit of my site (and vis-a-vis the amount that I have available for the 10% income give back – in the month of November, I broke even), I view this as a HIGHLY worthwhile long-term investment for my site building for the future, so am more than happy to have each and every one of the writers above!  

GUEST POSTS FROM PERSONAL FINANCE BLOGGERS ON MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY

Since the last roundup, there was one guest post here at My Personal Finance Journey.