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

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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).

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
<a href=”http://rafl.es/enable-js”>You need javascript enabled to see this giveaway</a>.

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

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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.

• Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Virginia
• The Nature Conservancy
• Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville
• Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville-Albemarle
• United Way Thomas Jefferson Area  
• Sexual Assault Resource Agency
• Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA 
• Alzheimer’s Association of Central and Western Virginia

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.

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

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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?

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.

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

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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.

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!

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

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

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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:
    • Wikpedia.org – Options
    • Investopedia – Options

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.

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?

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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.

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.

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

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

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. 

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

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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.

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:

1. Go down to your local cell phone carrier’s store.
2. Get a new Smart Phone at a significant discount, as part of a service contract extension deal.
3. 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

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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.


The following is a guest post. Enjoy! 

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

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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.

How Spread Betting Works

The Risks Involved

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