500 Posts Celebration and FREE Headline Shirts T-Shirt Giveaway

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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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Well, break out the champagne (or non-alcoholic grape juice substitute if desired) folks, because yesterday, My Personal Finance Journey posted its 500th total post!


Looking Back….


Altogether, generating 500 posts took 1 year and 11 months. Looking at the numbers, this equates to an average of one post every 1.4 days. This sounds like a pretty good consistent average, but what really happened was that I would post as regularly as possible, even if that meant pumping out 3 posts per day for the first 6 months and then getting interrupted by 2 week breaks between posts during my first year of graduate school in 2010. However, all together, it’s been quite a fun ride!

I’d like to also express my deepest appreciation to all of you out there who have been involved in this blog throughout almost 2 years now. A special thanks goes out to all blog readers, blogging colleagues, Yakezie friends, guest posters, blog carnival hosts, and advertisers for your continued support in making the My Personal Finance Journey community alive and successful.

FREE Headline Shirts T-Shirt Giveaway ($20-$30 Value) – Deadline to Enter is Midnight, December 15th, 2011

To celebrate embarking on the journey towards a second set of 500 posts, let’s do a giveaway!!!

Up for grabs in this giveaway is 1 premium T-shirt from Headline Shirts (includes free shipping) for one winner – valued at $20-$30, but yours free with this giveaway!


Since this post is all about celebration, I’m going to make entering SUPER quick and easy (only two options of actions to take to enter). To enter in to the running, simply follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below. In the (likely) event of a tie, I will be using a random number generator to select the winner.


To receive your prize (if you win), you’ll be given a free t-shirt/free shipping coupon code to use at the Headlineshirts.net site. At their site, you can browse their selection, select the shirt you want, and then have them ship it directly to your house (no need to go through me). 


My Experience Receiving a Free T-Shirt from Headline Shirts


Prior to running this giveaway, Headline Shirts offered me a free T-Shirt in order to try out their service/product before offering it to readers (a wise precaution!). 


Overall, my experience with Headline Shirts was top notch. I was given a coupon code to use to process my free T-shirt/free shipping deal through Headline Shirts’ website, picked out my T-shirt, ordered it, and it arrived approximately 3 days later. Not a bad turnaround for shipping the T-shirt from San Francisco to Virgina, eh?!


Headline Shirts offers some very funny, cool/unique T-shirt designs. They are far from the typical, plain color T-shirts you might find at a regular department store or Wal-Mart. They are the type of shirt that if you saw someone wearing one, it would definitely catch your eye as being “clever.” Personally, in order to pick out my T-shirt, I mainly browsed through their Most Popular Shirts category. There were several shirts that caught my eye, including the Sasquatch Cyclist, Wisdom Tooth, and Flying Squirrel shirts. However, I ultimately decided on the Flying Squirrel shirt since the squirrel looked pretty awesome and was a nice yellow color.


The materials used by Headline Shirts were also impressive. For the T-shirt, they tend to use very soft-feeling (maybe Pima???) cotton fabric that feels very nice on the skin. Furthermore, the plastic bag that the shirt is shipped to you in is 100% biodegradable! Pretty cool stuff! 


Anyhow, all of this is to say that I think the winner of this giveaway will be very satisfied with their shirt – both because of the free price tag and also the quality of the product. Happy giveaway entering!! 🙂

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

<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 December 15th, 2011 (~2 weeks from today). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner will be contacted via email to receive their prize. To receive your prize, you’ll be given a free t-shirt/free shipping coupon code to use at the Headlineshirts.net site. At their site, you can browse their selection, select the shirt you want, and then have them ship it directly to your house (no need to go through me). 


Fine Print + Full Disclosure: I received a free t-shirt from Headline Shirts for hosting this giveaway on my site and in order to try out the company’s ordering process prior to a reader receiving this giveaway. However, I did not receive any monetary compensation, and the views expressed above represent my honest opinion and experience ordering from Headline Shirts.  

***Photo courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2426/3715371020_6aa00e2aef.jpg

How to Ignore Market Volatility

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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 guest post comes to us from Rob Berger, the founder of the popular personal finance blog, The Dough Roller. It’s an honor to have him guest posting on our site today! Enjoy the article!

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”— Pogo

You’re no doubt familiar with the above quote. It comes from a comic strip character, Pogo, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly. The quote appeared in an anti-pollution poster on Earth Day in 1970. And boy does it apply to investing as well as the environment.

Study after study shows that investors are their own worst nightmare. We buy when the market is on the rise with big fat dollar signs in our eyes (investing can be addictive!), only to sell when the market goes down out of gut-wrenching fear. In other words, we do exactly the opposite of what famed-investor Warren Buffett preaches:

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

—— Warren Buffett in his 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Chairman’s Letter.

Of course, buying in down markets and selling in up markets is much easier said than done. Having managed my family’s investments now for twenty years, here are some tips on how I ignore the market’s ups and downs.

Asset Allocation:

Having a sound asset allocation (think stocks versus bonds) won’t insulate you from market losses. In fact, with any asset allocation that includes equities and debt, periodic losses are certain. But, a portfolio consistent with your investing goals will give you confidence that over the long run, your investments will grow.

The single biggest asset allocation decision an investor will make is how much to invest in stocks and bonds. As an investor nears retirement, his or her exposure to equities should give way to more bonds and fixed income securities. Taking unnecessary risks often cause investors to react negatively to market volatility.

Index Funds:

Over the long term, index funds generally outperform managed funds. They are also less expensive. And these are the two reasons index funds and ETFs are trumpeted as the preferred investment vehicle. But there is another reason to favor index funds—stability.

Managed funds depend on the stock-picking prowess of the fund managers. If these funds start to underperform the market, investors often sell and search for a different manager. This realization led me to leave Bill Miller’s Legg Mason fund in the 90’s when it was still trouncing the S&P 500. I knew his winning streak couldn’t last forever, and I didn’t want to sell when the fund was taking a dive. So, I moved my money to an index fund.

With index funds, there’s never a concern that poor performance is the result of human error. Knowing that the fund simply tracks an index can help an investor stick with the fund through thick and thin.

Minimal Debt:

This may seem out of place, but I’ve found that too much debt can cause some to make bad investing decisions. Particularly for those nearing retirement, too much personal debt may cause investors to sell investments in retirement accounts at any sign of a market decline. A family member of mine with significant debt made this exact move following the market declines in 2008. The result was that she missed out on the market gains in 2009. And, this move was made shortly before her retirement.

Low Investing Costs:

Finally, keeping investing costs down can help investors stick with their investing plan. Of course, low costs are important in their own right. But, I’ve found that investors who put cash in high cost mutual funds are more likely to sell when the market declines. These high costs may seem palatable when the market is on the rise and the fund is booming, but they sour quickly during a bear market.

As a rule of thumb, I try to keep the weighted average cost of investing below 50 basis points (0.5%). With ETFs and index funds, the cost of investing can be even lower. And for stocks, I always trade with an online discount broker (Scottrade is my choice, but there are number of good options).

How about you all? How often do you keep track of the overall position of the market? Does it bother you to find out the market has decreased several percentage points in a day, or do you shrug it off pretty easy?

Do you find yourself falling prey to selling when the market is low and buying when it is high?  What techniques do you use to maintain a long term investing perspective and not allow sudden dips and increases in the market bother you?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

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

• @ Investors being their own worst enemy –
• Thanks so much for sharing this article with us Rob!
• As a big fan of passive investing myself, I am a believer that for the majority of individuals, selecting individual company stocks to buy and sell (or buying in to a mutual fund that picks individual stocks in an attempt to “outperform” the market) will ultimately result in a loss of money in the long run.
• As Rob mentions, this often happens because investors are not confident enough in their investment selection in order to stick with it once they start to lose money. 
• @ Warren Buffett –
• It’s no secret that Warren Buffett is arguably one of the best (if not THE best) individual stock investors of all time. 
• However, in a quote I found while putting together the Festival of Frugality in September of 2010, he mentions that even though he does not believe the market is ALWAYS efficient, he does believe that the majority of individuals would be better off buying an index mutual fund instead of trying to buy/sell individual stocks.  
• @ How to determine your asset allocation –
• Determining the appropriate asset allocation for your personal situation is a big decision. There’s no way around that. 
• One exercise that helped me to develop my investing strategy was to consider having a $100,000 investment. From there, ask yourself how much of that investment you would be able to emotionally tolerate losing in a single year time period?
• Your honest answer to this question will help you take the first step in determining an appropriate level of fixed income asset allocation. 
• @ People in debt investing significant amounts of money in stocks/mutual funds –
• I would definitely agree that people that have large amounts of debt would be more prone to overacting to market downturns by selling prematurely. 
• This is logical, since I’d imagine that people in debt would have less of a safety cushion as far as how much money they can afford to lose temporarily.
• I think it’s also important to note that if people are in large amounts of debt (particularly credit card debt), they should remember the account hierarchy priority order of financial needs and make sure to save up enough money for a cash emergency fund prior to investing significant money in stocks. 
• @ Choosing an online discount broker for trading individual stocks and ETFs –
• When I first started investing, I was a customer of Scottrade for several months.
• However, I found their trading fees/commissions ($7 per trade) to be higher than Sogotrade ($3 per trade) and Zecco (the ones I currently use, if I use any play money to invest in individual stocks). 

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwhitlock/4931419824/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Different Types Of Loans

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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. Enjoy!

How about you all? What types of loans have you taken out in the past? Have you used any of the types of loans mentioned above? Share your experiences by commenting below!

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

• @ Unsecured loans – 
• It’s important to note that since unsecured loans expose the banks to a significant amount of risk, they must be compensated for this increased risk/return ratio by demanding a higher interest rate. 
• This is the exact reason why the interest rate on credit cards is higher than many types of secured loans. It’s all about that risk/return ratio!
• @ Using secured loans to build credit – 
• In a previous post, I’ve discussed how I (and you as well!) can successfully use a secured personal loan in order to start building a credit history. This especially works well if you are younger and don’t have established credit already.
• In my case, I secured the personal loan with a CD that I took out from the same bank with which I took out the loan. This enabled me to keep the interest rate low on the personal loan.

***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/4557765121_17d83c918f.jpg

Four Letters That Will Help You in Your Debt Payoff Journey

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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 $201.40 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 November 30th, 2011.

How about you all? What rights or strategies have you exercised in order to help payoff (or better manage paying off) your debt? 


Have you tried sending in any of the 4 letters mentioned above? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!

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

• Thanks so much for such an informative article, Frank! I must admit that learning about all of these rights people have/techniques that people can use to help manage their debt payoff made me feel quite in the dark, as I have fairly little experience in this area.
• However, I imagine that a lot of people are in the same boat as me in that they don’t know that many of these rights/strategies are available to them. So, thanks for laying them out in plain sight for us to analyze!
• It’s also interesting that despite all of the technology available to debt-companies these days, there are apparently still many official actions that can only be managed and handled through good ole-fashioned mail! haha This was also the case I experienced recently when opening a self employed 401(k) account with Vanguard. They required that the hardcopy application be sent in via the US Postal Service.
• @ Debt validation letter – 
• Interesting! This sounds like a good way to at least delay (or maybe eliminate all-together) being bothered by certain debt collectors. 
• One thing I’m curious about though is what exactly is required for “valid proof” that the debt they’re collecting is correct? Is there a standard form for this, or can it just be an “overdue balance” statement from the credit card company?
• @ Receiving receipt confirmation when sending important debt reduction letters – 
• In my experience, whenever you’re sending a letter either by physical mail or email that is not SPECIFICALLY requested by the receiving party, you always have to be prepared for the likelihood that it will simply be ignored and/or lost. After all, if they’re receiving hundreds of pieces of mail per day, why should they place your note at the top of the pile?
• As such, it definitely makes sense to have a way to validate that the receiving party actually did receive the letter. Paying the $0.30 extra for delivery confirmation can go a long way to helping you achieve your goals in this case! 
• @ Not being scared of your creditors – 
• Lastly, I think that another important thing to point out with the whole process of paying off your debt is to avoid viewing the company to which you owe a debt as some powerful, evil entity that has the power to SUCK OUT YOUR VERY SOUL! 
• As you can imagine, at the end of the day, the company to which you owe money is just made up of normal people who want to accomplish their goals and add value to others’ lives. Because of this, it actually is in THEIR best interest AS WELL AS YOURS to work with you in order to get you to pay off your debt. 
• Often, I think people are surprised at how flexible debtees can be in helping their debtors pay off their debt, either by being flexible with interest rate or even payoff terms overall. Typically, this flexibility can only be discovered if you take action and ask about what you can do. After all, the worst that can happen is that they say, “no.”

***Photo courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2105/2510296904_408a716826.jpg

5 Things to Remember When Investing in a Rental Property

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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. Enjoy!

• How much money will it take to get the home in move-in condition for tenants?
• Should you be looking into tax benefits?
• Does the property have the potential to provide you with a steady income?

How about you all? Have you ever invested in a rental property? If so, what steps did you take to make sure it was desirable/would be rented out regularly? 


If you haven’t yet invested in a rental property, what has made you resist doing so? Was it monetary, or a desire to avoid the burden of being a landlord?


Share your experiences by commenting below!

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

• Very interesting post! I like articles pertaining to becoming a landlord, as I could definitely see myself getting involved in renting out properties after finishing my graduate school program and obtaining a regular job with a more substantial salary.
• However, the approach I would probably take is to first buy a house/condo to live in myself for several years while I made progress paying down the mortgage. Then, when I was ready to upgrade to a larger home, I would keep ownership in the old place, move in to the new house with my family (the two houses can be in the same city/location – that’s no problem), and then start renting out the previous house to tenants.
• @ My principle concern with buying real estate just to rent it out – 
  • With the way the real estate market has been for the past several years in the US, the main worry I would have with owning a rental property is not whether I could actually do my homework properly to determine whether a place is desirable to tenants or not, but rather there is enough demand for the place to rent out in the first place.
  • For example, I currently live in a condo complex that maybe has several hundred units. However, it feels like about half of the units are empty currently. Of course, this could be related to them all being “for sale” and not an accurate reflection on the strength or weakness of the rental market. However, it still definitely prompts the question.
  • As such, before becoming a landlord, I would probably want to get a very concrete sense of the rental market overall in the town in which I lived.
  • Currently, I’m not sure of any good online resources to do this – do any of you all know of any?

***Photo courtesy of http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1406/1455052642_43acd1ab29.jpg

Carnival of Personal Finance #337 – Black Friday 2011 Statistics – November 28th, 2011 Edition

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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 $201.40 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 November 30th, 2011.

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And, listed below are the rest of this week’s great article submissions, separated by category for targeted reading.

FRUGALITY

Annabelle from Shopping Detox presents How frugal is the $500 Law & Order box set?, and says, “It may seem crazy expensive, but buying the complete series of Law & Order is kind of *saving* you money.”

Teacher Man from My University Money presents Black Friday and Cyber Monday Shopping Tips and Deals, and says, “I am definitely not a fan of waiting outside in the cold at 4 AM, pushing and shoving with other people in order to save twenty bucks on a laptop. However, any time I can sit on my butt, in my pajamas, with a warm cup of coffee, and save a lot of money, I am all for that!”

Fanny from Living Richly on a Budget presents 25 Gifts Under $25, and says, “Need gift ideas for under $25? Here are gift ideas for almost everyone on your list.”

Adam Williams from Rabbit Funds presents Dear Retailers: I want Thanksgiving back!, and says, “I’m outraged. And you should be too. Black Friday is officially taking over Thanksgiving. Is this nation so obsessed with profits that we will throw our heritage and family traditions out the window?”

Martin from Passive Income Now presents How to Choose a Property to Rent in Your Community, and says, “The best way to find a rental property in the area you live in.”

Nicole from Nicole and Maggie: Grumpy Rumblings presents The WOH/SAH decision: Finances, and says, “Nicole and Maggie discuss the working outside the home vs. staying at home parenting choice from the perspective of temporary financial independence. What factors should you consider, and how should you prepare?”

Paula from Afford Anything presents Give Me Money! Finding Freelance Work, and says, “Briana says: “I’ve been pursuing a ‘career’ as a freelance writer … but I’m still not making enough for a full time income. 11 months later and the stress of getting a ‘real job’ is even greater than before.” Here’s my epic, 2,000-word response to her question, with advice that applies to any industry, not just writing. The real question is not “Where can I find work?” The real question is: “What work is worthwhile? What work is a waste of time?””

Neal Frankle from Wealth Pilgrim presents How to Control Spending In 5 Minutes A Month, and says, “You may think it’s impossible but I’m here to tell you that you can control spending easily. The first step to doing that is to know what you spend. Make sense? Now, if you are sick and tired of hearing me suggest that you use software to track your spending like You Need A Budget, you have an alternative. You can get the big picture on spending in under 5 minutes a month. Oh…and that includes spending 3 minutes making yourself a nice cup of coffee.”

Money Thinker from Money Thinking presents Why Discounts help Businesses, and says, “Money Thinker explores why gimmicks like Black Friday work so well for the business and the consumer…”

Miranada from Financial Highway presents 45 Ways to Save Money, and says, “Do you want to start your own business and make a little extra money? It can seem daunting at first, since there are so many others out there trying to get something started. Here are 4 creative business ideas that can help you get started. “

Green Panda from Green Panda Treehouse presents Barriers That Prevent us From Saving Money, and says, “Why are you not saving up money?”

FMF from Free Money Finance presents Finding the Life Insurance That Is Best for You, and says, “What type of life insurance is right for you? This post will help you decide.”

Squirrelers from Squirrelers presents Inheritances and Blended Families: Who’s the Priority?, and says, “The topic of inheritances can be an emotional one. This tension can be heightened in the case of blended families, where there are might be different priorities and agendas. This post discusses this topic, within the context of a specific scenario.”

Miss T. from Prairie Eco Thrifter presents Why Donations to Charity are Important, and says, “Throughout history, money has been donated to the needy, as well as food, clothing, tools, bedding etc. These donations were often organized through the Church and it was considered the duty of the wealthier classes and merchants to give to the poor. These days, this generous attitude to giving to the needy is not so well defined. Why is it important that we donate to charity? Here are just 5 good reasons:”

Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff presents The Mall Is Hazardous to Your Financial Health, and says, “Despite all of these temptations, I was able to get out of the mall after our walk without spending a cent. However, it was a lot tougher than I would have anticipated to keep my money in my wallet—I actually stopped and “browsed” several times even though I had only come to the mall to walk”

Peter from Bible Money Matters presents How to Protect Your Money When Ordering Goods or Services for Future Delivery, and says, “There are circumstances where using a credit card over cash or checks is really the most prudent approach.”

Jon the Saver from Free Money Wisdom presents Tips for Buying Furniture Online, and says, “There are some tips for buying furniture online that could potentially save you even more money.

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***Photo courtesy of http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3279/3067820964_7421309fe8.jpg
***Black Friday 2011 stats courtesy of http://www.npdgroupblog.com/2011/11/they-came-with-a-purpose/, except where otherwise noted

Easy Like Black Friday Morning Weekly Roundup – # 4 – November 25th, 2011

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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 $201.40 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 November 30th, 2011 (this coming Wednesday).

Each week (even though I missed the past several weeks! – Oops!), the purpose of the Easy Like Sunday Morning Weekly Roundup series is the same – for me to be able to connect with you, the readers, on a more personal (non personal finance informational transmission only) level, encourage community, and also to give back to the other bloggers around the blogosphere who have mentioned My Personal Finance Journey throughout the past week. This week, since I have gotten behind in doing a roundup for several weeks, I decided that I didn’t want until Sunday to put together this week’s edition. And, since it is Black Friday, that’s the reason for the minor name change! 

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

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

Weekly Updates from Jacob’s Personal Finance Journey and Life

• I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this post that I missed doing a roundup the past few weekends. However, I did not mention why. 
• As far as my life in general, November has been a SUPER-busy month, as it often is for a lot of people in today’s society. 
• At the beginning of November (November 4-8), my girlfriend and I took a vacation to New York City so that she could run in the New York City Marathon. 
• Then, almost immediately when I came back from that trip, I traveled to Richmond for the Richmond / McDonald’s Half Marathon on November 12th. 
• This race is my favorite road half marathon running race of the year, and as usual, it was a very fun time this year as well. It was about 40 degrees at the starting gun of the race, but then warmed up to around 53 degrees F by the finish. 
• I was very satisfied with my finishing time of 1 hour and 31 minutes! 
• If you’re interested in seeing some pictures of me running in the race, you can click here. 
• Since the Richmond Half Marathon, I have been hustling to continue my graduate school research in Alzheimer’s disease in my lab. There was a slight time-crunch since we had to analyze the data from a previous aggregation/cytotoxicity experiment and then start another 8 day experiment in order to make some progress before taking off for Thanksgiving (right now! yah!).
• Since Wednesday, my sister and mom have been in Virginia with me to celebrate Thanksgiving. Currently, they’re attending a yoga class, so I decided to do a little blogging during the downtime. 
• We had a delicious Thanksgiving meal last night that my sister prepared. Included in the meal were 1) sweet potatoes topped with oatmeal, 2) a 10 pound free range, never frozen turkey from Whole Foods with celery/raisin stuffing (the most expensive grocery store EVER by the way, which I never usually shop at because it is overpriced. Good – but overpriced!), 3) bacon-wrapped brussel sprouts, and 4) fresh-made cranberry sauce (from real cranberries). Shown below is a picture of the complete spread! Sure was tasty! 
• As far as my personal finances go, I’ve encountered and am currently trying to sort through two big changes. 
• First, last week, I finally had time to analyze my earnings from this year for tax purposes, and have determined that I will indeed, owe a quarterly tax payment in January (ahead of the normal time that taxes are due). This is due to the fact that I owe taxes on self-employment income and also from my graduate school NSF fellowship, neither of which withholds any taxes automatically. 
• Since the amount of taxes that I owe is fairly large, I’ve been investigating opening up a self-employed retirement account as a way to reduce my tax liability. I’m fairly certain I’ve narrowed the choice down to an individual 401(k). 
• However, it was a very difficult decision due to a plethora of differing opinions on the subject, a lack of information available directly from the IRS, and changes in the tax laws over the years. 
• As such, I’ll be sure to put together a future post covering the various considerations in my decision-making process, as I think this would be very helpful to people in the future when they are going down the same path that I was. 
• Second, I had been planning (and saving money) for several months now in order to install a stacked clothes washer/dryer combination unit in my condo that I purchased last year. 
• However, after recently deciding to make my second bedroom my office/blogging space (reducing total storage space in my condo), I’ve decided that placing a washer/dryer in my house would not be the best use of space because it would effectively monopolize all storage room in the biggest closet.
• Therefore, I’ve decided to indefinitely delay my plan to install a clothes washer/dryer in my condo. There’s always a possibility that I’ll change my mind about this in the future, but for now, I’m going to devote the money I had been saving for this purpose to other outlets.    

My Favorite 10 Posts of the Past Week

Guest Posts from Personal Finance Bloggers on My Personal Finance Journey

Over the past week, there was one guest post here at My Personal Finance Journey.


Corey from 20’s Finances and Passive Income to Retire posted about, “What Does a Passive Retirement Look Like?” Thanks so much Corey for the post! It was great to hear about your plans. 

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

Blasts From the Past

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

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

Hamster Revolution Email and Electronic File Management System – This post discusses the current email storage management system that I use to manage email with my day job as well as blogging activities. It discusses a electronic filling system consisting of the “COTAP” folders – one for clients, output, teams, administrative, and personal files/emails. It really works, and I have enjoyed using it ever since I wrote this post in July of last year!

This week’s award goes to Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents. Last week, when I was trying to sort through the seemingly overwhelming decision about which type of self-employed retirement account to open, I came across several of the posts that Jeff wrote about the subject during a Google search. It was amazing how helpful the articles were – much more helpful than any IRS tax publication, Ask.com, or Wall Street Journal research. I began reading several other articles on his site and thought it was amazing how accessible he makes very difficult personal finance topics seem when he explains them in his posts. So, good job Jeff, and I look forward to reading more! 

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

Giveaways

Blog Carnivals Featuring My Personal Finance Journey Articles

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

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

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

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

Until next time – Jacob

Money-Saving Travel and Flight Apps

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The following is a guest post. Enjoy!

Regardless of where you like to take your vacations or the kind of activities that you like to take part in while away, it is fair to say that most people have something in common when booking their holiday –  a want to save some money. Listed below are some great tips to help you save some money on your next holiday:

Language:

Remembering just a few simple phrases can easily help you save some money. You may be able to negotiate a taxi fare, a price in a shop, or even the room rate at a hotel. At the very least, knowing a few phrases will probably curry some favour with the locals and help you to get fantastic service when dining out or using facilities.

There are lots of fantastic mobile phone applications and websites available that can help with languages when abroad. For example, Bussu.com offers seven different language applications that allow you to learn some of the most common European languages (to a basic standard) completely free and in the minimal amount of time possible.

Eating:

When you are in a strange place, it can be difficult to locate an eatery that is suited to what you want to eat at that time. But, there are lots of fantastic mobile phone applications that can help with this. ‘Urbanspoon’ is the main one that springs to mind, as it allows you to choose your eatery by price, location, and even food type, so you can be sure to find something that is suitable for your requirements before you even head out to the streets to locate a place.

Currency:

If your home is the United Kingdom and you are looking for a fantastic way to work out how much something costs in Sterling while on vacation out of the UK, then why not download the ‘currencyapp,’ which will allow you to see, at a glance, how much something works out from over 100 different currencies back in to your home currency. You do not need internet access, once downloaded, to use this application, so it is a fantastic way to check how much you are going to be spending even while away from an internet connection.

Money:

If you are looking for a way to keep track of the money that you have spent while abroad, then why not consider downloading ‘Expensify’ or one of the other similar applications available on the market at present. This will allow you to document the items that on which you have been spending, like flights, hotels, and eating out and their cost. It is a fantastic way to see, at a glance, how much you have currently spent and therefore work out how much remaining from your budget you have.

Communicate:

While you are away, you may want to keep in touch with people back home. One such way to do this is to use a web based voice service, such as Skype. This allows you to talk to people, anywhere in the world, free of charge, via webcam and microphone. This is a fantastic way to check in with people and you can even add some credit to your account that allows you to send text messages and call mobile phones and landlines rather than computers for a very reasonable fee.

Conclusion

There are literally thousands of applications available on mobile phones that will allow you to budget your money, find locations to visit on holiday, and do numerous other things that will help you stay organized and hopefully, save a fortune while on holiday!

How about you all? What mobile phone apps do you currently use that help streamline/simplify your traveling or even save you money? Did you have to pay for these, or were they free? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!

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

• Interesting post here! Thanks for sharing, as I’m always interested to find out about new technological tools that people can use to save money and streamline their finances! 
• Personally, I don’t yet have an Apple iPhone or other type of smart phone, so I’m not able to access all of these sophisticated apps. But, they sound like they could be quite useful when a person is on the road. 
• One potential problem I do see is that when people are traveling, they often have limited access to Internet hotspots or cell phone/3G service in general. So, there may be a case for people making sure they don’t rely too heavily on the apps from their smartphones while on vacation. 
• @ Knowing the local language helping you to save money on vacations – 
• It’s definitely also been my experience that if you know at least a little bit (or try to speak a little bit) of the local language of the country/place you’re visiting, you’ll be shown much more respect by the people you’re paying to buy things or to provide you with a particular service. 
• This is especially true since the price of so many services and goods are indeed quite negotiable.
• And, if you at least attempt to speak some of the local language it shows the person that you’re trading with that you respect them and their culture. And, in my experience, this almost always is helpful in making sure you don’t get charged too much.
• After all, would you not feel the same way if you were in their shoes?
• @ Finding affordable restaurants while traveling abroad – 
• So far, when I’ve traveled on vacations, I generally use hard copy versions of travel guidebooks to find appropriately-priced restaurant options. 
• However, I could imagine that referencing a smartphone app would provide slightly more up-to-date information about the local flavor.
• @ How I handle calculating the approximate cost of items using currency conversions –
• Typically, when I am traveling abroad, I don’t worry about my spending down to minute penny amounts.
• Instead, what I do is develop a general easy-to-remember mental formula for equating the price of items in the foreign country to my home currency (US Dollars) by dropping some of the zeros from the exchange rate. 
• For example, the last foreign country my family and I visited was Chile in January 2011. Currently, the exchange rate between the Chilean Peso and the US Dollar is ~500 Chilean Pesos = 1 US Dollar.
• So, if a bottle of Chilean red wine was 3,500 Chilean Pesos (a fairly common amount for a moderate bottle of wine), I would drop the zeros, and divide 35 by 5 to find out that the bottle of wine was about $7 US Dollars. Pretty easy, right?!
• @ Question about spending tracking apps – 
• Unfortunately, I’m not very familiar with the spending tracking smartphone apps available on the market today.
• As such, I actually had a question for the readers out there – do these spending tracking apps hook directly up to your bank account or credit card transaction reports and update automatically? I would imagine that would streamline things a lot!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2731/4416977499_4a9f255bb7.jpg

What Does a Passive Retirement Look Like?

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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 $201.40 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 November 30th, 2011.

The following is a guest post from Corey at Passive Income to Retire, where he is keeping track of his progress to retire early. Corey is one of my close personal blogging friends from the Yakezie group and is doing a very good job building his blog(s) and helping others with their finances. I know you’ll enjoy the post!

If I were to tell you that I am 24 years old and I plan to retire in 2-3 years from passive income, I am sure that you would wondering, “What’s the catch?”

I recently started my second blog ‘Passive Income to Retire‘ in order to document my progress towards reaching a goal to retire early. To sum up my goal, I hope to build up passive income streams that will provide me with enough money to replace my mediocre salary from my day job.

I want to think long term, so my plan will eventually integrate long term income streams as well (real estate and dividend investing). Here’s the catch – earning income online is not passive at all and as a result, my plan to maintain these income streams really isn’t retirement – not in the traditional sense at least. Before you think my goal is completely ridiculous, let me explain.

Online Income Isn’t Always Passive

My new goal in life is to earn enough money from blogging (and a few other online business ideas) so that I can quit my day job. Six months ago, I didn’t even know that you could make money from blogging. Now, I not only know it is possible, but I am doing it! I don’t want to just stop with mediocre success. I want to shoot for the stars. My earnings have increased rapidly, and that is the reason for my new goal. I enjoy it so much that I have invested a lot of time to build up my first blog.

The only problem with this goal is that making money online isn’t passive. Some people claim that it is semi-passive, but to be honest, it takes a lot of work. When my (non-blogging) friends hear how much I am beginning to make from my blog, they want to know how they can do the same thing. The fact is that I earned very little money my first and second month even though I probably put in 100 hours for each of those first months. Usually it takes 6-9 months to make any money, if not longer. (It is also important to point out that the Yakezie Network has been a huge help as I am learning the ropes).

The idea of replacing my income from my day job to start another full-time job didn’t make any sense. Why would I forfeit many of the benefits that come with working for an employer just to be able to work in my pajamas? Even though it is a lot of hard work, I hope to create systems that will let me manage an online business (or “empire” as it is often coined). Managing these blogs and online businesses will take time. This is why I recognize that I will have to work about 3 days a week to keep everything running smoothly. I know this won’t happen overnight, but I hope in 2-3 years, everything should be in place that this should be manageable.

Working 3 Days a Week Isn’t Retirement

Because I know that online income isn’t entirely passive, I knew I couldn’t just expect to do nothing for the rest of my life. Plus, I enjoy this stuff. Why would I want to stop? I didn’t want to become a coach potato at the age of 27, but I also didn’t want to become a workaholic like some bloggers that I know. Like I said, why just swap jobs? Why not try to do something completely radical at the same time? Lots of people make a living from blogging, but how many people do it in 3 days a week?

This retirement goal is about so much more than not working. I no longer see retirement as not working. Where’s the fun in that? It is instead, about being free to follow my dreams (without working too much), experiencing life, and giving back to the community that I am apart of. The best way that I can see how to do this is to work part-time. This would give me the freedom to be able to participate in important causes and also get me out of the 9-to-5 job. A great part about this is that I don’t have to work for 40 years to begin my life.

Ultimately, the question I keep coming back to is what I could do with those extra two days every week. The potential to make a huge difference in this world with that time means a lot more than getting out of the rat race.

So, here’s my question for you- What would you do if you only had to work 3 days a week? If there is something else you would rather do, why aren’t you working towards that goal?

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

• Great post here Corey! It’s definitely good to see someone come to the realization of what they want to accomplish in life, and then initiate the process of making that dream a reality. 
• I definitely agree with you about blogging not being the best source of passive income, as I have probably put in several thousand hours to writing content and building the community of my blog over the past 2 years or so. But, because I really enjoy the blogging process, I don’t mind at all. I will, however, be very interested to follow your progress and learn ways that you find to make it more passive. 
• However, I am a believer that blogging can be a nice source of leveraged income in the sense that you can put together an article (or collection of articles), and that information can be referenced by anyone the world over for possibly years to come. 
• In other words, there is a possibility that you can provide value to others while you sleep. 
• In this way, blogging is a leveraged source of revenue, but maybe not directly passive in the strict sense of the word.
• Like you, I also think that retirement is not necessarily a time when I would just be relaxing/doing nothing all day. Instead, it would be about being free to choose things that I would want to do, irregardless of if they were associated with a job. 
• I definitely hope and expect to develop passive income from real estate investing and online ventures as a hobby/side-business. However, I intend to keep my primary career as developing and commercializing pharmaceuticals, as I feel very strongly in a commitment to delivering these medicines and improving the health of the world as a whole. As such, I would be perfectly fine and completely fulfilled doing this job 5 days a week. 
• In general, I think that if people do a little soul-searching and determine that there is something (or multiple things) that they want to contribute during their life, but are not able to do so in their current job, it would be beneficial for them to begin taking small, actionable steps towards this goal. After all, life is short!

***Photo courtesy of http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4791395291_552f7b8978.jpg

Vacation Budgeting, Saving, and Execution + An Example of This Process in Action From My Recent Trip to New York City

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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 $201.40 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 November 30th, 2011.

Setting the Stage for Vacation Planning – Personal Reflections on New York City from a Recent Trip

To me, New York City is truly a source of amazement and wonder for several reasons.

First, from an infrastructure perspective (yes – the nerdy engineer in me always appreciates the structural aspect of things), it’s fascinating to see a place where SO MANY enormous buildings are built on such a small area of land, yet all of the transportation (subways, roads, and trains) and utility (water, sewer, gas, and electricity) needs of millions of people can still be served by this land at the same time. Second, New York City is fascinating from a social dynamics perspective because it is a place where millions of people from severely diverse backgrounds live and work together in a very small land mass. Yes – New York City is quite a gem and is a very cool place to visit for a vacation!

However, from a personal finance perspective, in my opinion, New York City is a financial disaster as a place to call home. Now, I’m not trying to say that the city or companies located in New York City run their finances poorly. Far from it actually, as I commend the companies that operate there because it is a good, accessible location in which to do business. What I mean is that for the average middle-class American Joe/Jill, because of how expensive it is to live there, New York City just might be the worst thing ever for a person’s personal finance, retirement, debt-payoff, and savings goals.

In fact, in doing a brief investigation on Google, I found a Forbes study reporting that the savings’ rate of not only New York City, but of all 10 of the highest populated metro areas in the US, did not rank in the top 50 highest-saving cities in the country. Clearly, there seems to be a trend that if you want to save money, these big cities might not be the best place to reach your goal (unless of course, you have a high paying job in one of these cities that cannot be located elsewhere).

Budgeting for a Vacation

So, needless to say, in July of this year, when I began planning an early-November trip to New York City to watch my girlfriend compete in the New York City marathon, I knew it would be quite essential to budget for the trip conservatively, save accordingly, and then stick to executing the plan once we were on the trip in order to prevent the scenario of having to pay for things on my credit card that I don’t actually have the money for.

Now, if you’ve read my blog before, you probably know that I am not the biggest fan of budgets in the traditional sense of planning your monthly spending and then saving whatever is left over at the end of the month. What I’ve found is that if people do this, they tend to not have any money left over at all. Instead, I endorse the strategy of saving pre-determined amounts at the beginning of each month.

However, since in the case of vacations, you are only planning your SPENDING needs, budgeting is an appropriate and intelligent exercise.

Listed below are the various categories I like to budget/plan for when preparing for a vacation. It’s worthwhile to note, that for the most part, these are the same general categories that one considers in planning his or her regular monthly expenditures as well (with the exception of Investing and Charitable donations savings). To get you started, I’ve also listed some of the specific cost items that normally fall in to these categories.

Vacation Spending Categories to Consider in Putting Together a Vacation Budget

• Entertainment (shows, museums, games, club entry fees, tours, activities/excursions)
• Lodging (hotels, motels, B&B’s, resorts, or anywhere where you spend the night)
• Transportation (gas, plane ticket, car rental, tolls, parking fees)
• Food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). I like to use $10, $15, and $20 per person for each of these meals, respectively, to plan conservatively and then multiply by the number of days of the trip (see note below for expensive destinations).
• Miscellaneous (a “cushion” amount to allow for random spending)

How about you all? What favorite techniques do you use to either budget, save, or make sure you stick to your planned spending during a vacation? 


What are the biggest hurdles you encounter during a vacation that cause you to go outside your budget (the people you go with, finding out about new activities, etc?)?


Share your experiences by commenting below!