Category Archives for Blogging
Reader Profile – John from Frugal Rules
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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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Today, in the ongoing Reader Profile Series, we’re getting to know MPFJ.com reader and enthusiastic commenter, John, from the site, Frugal Rules (also shown in the picture to the right – Sorry to disappoint ladies, he says he’s married in the 2nd paragraph below). Let’s all give John a big round of applause for sharing his life with us and listen to his story. Enjoy!
Also, if you’re interested in sharing your own financial story/journey with us in a reader profile of your own, just shoot me a quick email, and we can get the ball rolling!
1. PLEASE TELL EVERYONE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF (BACKGROUND, EDUCATION, FAMILY SITUATION, ETC).
A veteran of the financial services industry, I have an MBA in Finance and experience as a licensed stockbroker. I’m married with three young children and run an advertising business from my home with my wife. I left my former position nine months ago to grow our advertising business, which my wife started three years ago.
2. DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT FINANCIAL SITUATION (WHO WORKS IN YOUR FAMILY, HOW YOUR INCOME IS, YOUR EXPENSES, ETC.).
3. WHAT ARE THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CHALLENGES YOU ARE FACING (SAVING, PAYING OFF DEBT, STUDENT LOANS, MERGING FINANCES AFTER RECENTLY BEING MARRIED, ETC.)?
4. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE (RETIRE EARLY; BUILD YOUR CAREER, ETC.)?
Our plans are to continue to build our business and see it grow to new levels of success. We’re actively working toward the point where we can be managing our own advertising agency.
5. WHAT’S YOUR BEST PIECE(S) OF FINANCIAL ADVICE AND/OR YOUR GENERAL PHILOSOPHY ON PERSONAL FINANCES?
My basic financial philosophy is simple – make your money work for you.
Whether you call it a “money plan” or a “budget,” it’s critical to know where your money is going and what it is, or isn’t, doing for you. Be wise about your spending and look for ways to make additional income with an eye toward the future. Life is meant to be fun, but that desire for entertainment has to be balanced with a thoughtful outlook that keeps the future in view.
Today should be enjoyed, but not at the expense of the future. Save now, invest now, and be wise with your money now so that you can afford to live how you want in the future, particularly after you retire.
***Photo courtesy of http://www.frugalrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Profile-Picture.jpg
Easy Like Sunday Morning Recap and Roundup – # 12 – February 10th, 2013
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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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Each time, the purpose of the Easy Like Sunday Morning Recap and Roundup series is the same – for me to be able to connect with you, the readers, on a more personal (non personal finance informational transmission only) level, encourage community, and also to give back to the other bloggers around the blogosphere who have mentioned My Personal Finance Journey throughout the past few weeks or so. It’s been about TWO months since the last roundup, so we definitely have some catching up to do!
As far as the theme goes, the title of the roundup gives it away. The roundup theme is named after the Lionel Richie song, Easy Like Sunday Morning (which I play once each time I put this together), to remind us of the importance of slowing down at least every once in a while to take appreciation for that which transpired over the past few days.
So, without further ado, let’s get started with this edition’s roundup!
UPDATES FROM JACOB’S PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY AND LIFE
- As far as my life in general, the months of December and January were busy, but AMAZINGLY AWESOME and also productive! Below are some of the highlights:
- In my graduate school Alzheimer’s disease research…
- We were finally able to finish up the follow-up experiments required to respond to the manuscript reviewer’s comments (a paper that myself and another coworkers in my lab had been working on for about 2 years). And, with some luck, it got accepted to the journal, PLoS One, without further revisions needed! The title of the paper is, “Halogenation Generates Effective Modulators of Amyloid-Beta Aggregation and Neurotoxicity.” We just submitted the approved-proofed version of the paper a few days ago, so I’ll be sure to share the link whenever the paper experiences final publication.
- If you’re interested in reading up on the type of research I do, you can view the article at the following link in the journal, Biomacromolecules. My paper, titled, “Different Fates of Alzheimer’s Disease Amyloid-Beta Fibrils Remodeled by Biocompatible Small Molecules,” that was approved last year was published in the January edition of the journal. Looks nice!
- This past month, we have also started the planning process for testing our Alzheimer’s Disease drug targets in an animal (mouse) model in the next year or so. Having gained experience testing drug targets on the in vitro level, it would be a nice addition to my graduate school experience (and overall career development) to have some knowledge with in vivo testing as well. So, I’m glad to be making this progress!
- Having finished getting the Biomacromolecules paper published, we also decided to turn it in to my Master’s Thesis. In late December 2012, with some luck, I was able to successfully defend my thesis, and therefore, will be getting my official MS degree in Chemical Engineering in May 2013. Only a couple more years of grad school now!
- At the beginning of November 2012, our younger greyhound, Charlie passed away after losing his battle with some stomach problems that had been pretty severe since June of last year. Because of this, in early January, we successfully adopted a new golden retriever, Crystal (9 years old), from a local kennel here in Virginia. Our records indicated that she had 72 puppies, and since the current puppies at the kennel were selling for $1300 a piece, she apparently was quite the money maker! As you might have read, we had Crystal spayed in mid January, and she has recovered very nicely. Below is a picture of her with her new greyhound “brother from another mother.” She fits in to our life so well and is amazingly sweet! Note: we have no idea why, but the greyhound’s eyes ALWAYS glow green like this in all pictures! It’s kind of endearing to us!
- Lastly, over the Christmas and New Year’s break, I visited my home in Arkansas for 1 week, and then our family went on a week long vacation to Playa Del Carmen and Isla Mujeres, Mexico. It was a very beautiful vacation, filled with lots of great memories. Below is a picture of me swimming with the fishes in Playa Del Carmen, compliments of the awesome Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 shockproof waterproof drop-proof camera Xmas present I got my girlfriend last year! Literally, my entire nuclear family has this same camera, and not one has broken yet!
- As far as my personal finances, the months of December and January have been going well.
- At the start of the New Year, I updated my target asset allocation by 5% to closer match the reality of how I have been operating for the past year or so. Now, I employ a 30% fixed income / 70% equity asset allocation split.
- The S&P500 index/the overall market has now gone up almost 13% in the past year, so my net worth is now at an all time high. However, since the market has increased recently, it is also necessary to keep a close eye on my asset allocation target to make sure I am not getting too overweighted on equity, which would trigger me to sell equity and buy fixed income. When I checked my overall net worth earlier this week, I was still within the appropriate +/- 5% rebalancing band limits, so all is well!
- So far in 2013, I have contributed $2,050 of my $5,500 allowable yearly Roth IRA contributions. So, I’m on a good track there!
- Other than that, my finances have been dominated in late January/early February 2013 by getting in a $3,000 personal donation to the Blue Ridge Multiple Sclerosis Society to support my MS150 ride this summer. With this being the 25th anniversary of the MS150 ride here in Virginia, my goal is to raise $25,000 overall in the past 5 years. In order to meet this target, I need to raise about $9,000 this year.
- If you are interested in helping out with a tax-deductible donation, please click on my donation page link below. Just $10 will make a world of difference in helping me reach my “$25k for the 25th Anniversary” fundraising target!
- Jacob’s MS150 Fundraising Page
- In order to encourage young adults to get involved in the personal finance habit of donating to charity (which often is only adopted later in life), MyPersonalFinanceJourney.com will not only match, but double any money donated to my MS ride by people under the age of 30 years old. So far, 6 folks under the age of 30 have donated! Thanks so much guys and gals!
- Throughout the weekends of the spring and summer, I will also set up and ride my bike trainer outside of various Harris Teeter’s, Wal-Mart’s, Target’s, Kroger’s, and the Downtown Mall throughout the Charlottesville area to promote the MS Society and raise funds.
- As far as my blog goes, February 2013 is now the 5th month for My Personal Finance Journey to feature posts by our staff writing team!
- As I mentioned in the September roundup, I added several new staff writers to contribute articles for the site on a regular basis to prevent having one to two week breaks between my regular posts while I am busy in graduate school and leaving you all out to dry. Listed below are the awesome staff writers for My Personal Finance Journey! They are all doing a great job so far.
- Miss T from Prairie Eco-Thrifter.
- ADP from American Debt Project.
- Travis Pizel, a writer for Care One and Enemy of Debt.
- Kelly from Cordelia Calls it Quits.
- Melissa from Mom’s Plans.
- Kevin from Out of Your Rut.
- Jeff from Sustainable Life Blog.
- Toi Williams from Fine Tuned Finances.
- Greg from Club Thrifty
- Shondell from Call me What You Want Even Cheap.
- While this definitely reduces the net profit of my site (and vis-a-vis the amount that I have available for the 10% income give back), I view this as a HIGHLY worthwhile long-term investment for my site building for the future, so am more than happy to have each and every one of the writers above!
GUEST POSTS FROM PERSONAL FINANCE BLOGGERS ON MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY
Since the last roundup, there were 4 guest posts here at My Personal Finance Journey. They were all SUPER high quality! Enjoy!
- Cat from Budget Blonde posted about if $300,000 worth of medical school loans worth it?
- Eva from Teens Got Cents posted about the state of personal finance education in the US – a topic that is very near and dear to my heart!
- Mario from Gator Finance posted about the reasons why alternative assets should be part of your asset allocation.
- Pauline from Reach Financial Independence shared a reader profile about her life and personal finance journey.
BLASTS FROM THE PAST
PERSONAL FINANCE “MAD PROPS” OF THE WEEK AWARD
Every once in a while, when I’m reading an article or site in the personal finance blogosphere, I’ll be so impressed in hearing about what a person did or wrote about, that all I can say to myself is WOW! This section of the roundup will serve as a running “home” for recognizing outstanding achievement.
GIVEAWAYS
If you’re hosting a giveaway and it’s not listed above, please send me an email to let me know, and I’ll get it included in next week’s roundup!
BLOG CARNIVALS FEATURING MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY ARTICLES
5 POSTS I’VE ENJOYED READING SINCE THE LAST ROUNDUP
TOP 10 REFERRING SITES TO MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY SINCE THE LAST ROUNDUP
- Yakezie
- Free Money Finance
- Enemy of Debt
- Can I Retire Yet?
- Tight Fisted Miser
- Wise Bread
- Cordelia Calls it Quits
- So Over This
- Festival of Frugality
- Mortgage Free by 30
TOP 5 MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY COMMENTERS SINCE THE LAST ROUNDUP
- Frugal Rules
- Reach Financial Independence
- MyFiJourney
- Canadian Budget Binder
- 1st Million is the Hardest
BEST READER SUBMITTED QUESTION SINCE THE LAST ROUNDUP
If you are wondering something about personal finance, please feel free to email me and ask!
MY OTHER SITES
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know – A First-Hand Account of the State of Personal Finance Education
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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 Eva Baker of TeensGotCents.com, who is (in my opinion) a very wise high-school student for getting started early learning about personal finance. I’m very excited to have her guest posting on my site today. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her as well!
Personal finance is in a shambles in America. On the news and in daily conversation, you hear people talking about credit card debt, student loan debt, and how difficult it is to save any money in this economy. Over the last few years, many of my friends have have had a parent lose their job, I know families that have lost their homes to foreclosure, and teens are having a more and more difficult time finding a good part time job.
One might think that these terrible circumstances would lead to an urgent move on the part of parents and schools to teach their children, particularly high school students, more about personal finance. But, you would be very wrong. Few states even offer personal finance classes and even fewer require such a class for graduation.
In 2011 Charles Schwab released a study called, “TEENS & MONEY SURVEY FINDINGS: Insights Into Money Attitudes, Behaviors, and Expectations of 16- To 18- Year-Olds.” What the study shows is very interesting and is at times, quite entertaining. It reveals that 93% of teens say that their family has been directly affected by the recession and that 75% of them have had a conversation about their family’s financial situation in the past year. 73% of those teens believe that it is important to have emergency savings in case a family falls on hard times. What was most poignant about the study to me is that fully 86% of teens say that they are interested in learning about money management in a class instead of making financial mistakes in the real world. Unfortunately for them, only 14 states currently offer such a class (if you’re interested in reading up on which states offer personal finance and economics education classes, click here and go to page 8).
The entertaining part of the study? Well, most teens think that we are going to earn an average salary of $150,000 a year. (Of course I am, duh…) We also consider ourselves to be ‘financially savvy’, but hardly any of us teens even know what a 401(k)/Roth IRA is, how income taxes work, or whether or not using a check cashing service is a good idea. Those things are kinda funny, and at the same time, not so much. A check cashing service? Now that isn’t funny at all. And don’t even get me started on paycheck advance places. Someone should tell teens to stay far, far away.
In an article for US News and World Report titled, “Why Most High Schoolers Don’t Know How to Manage Their Money,” we find out why many teens don’t have the answers to their questions. Apparently there is ‘discomfort among teachers and parents’ and neither group feels qualified to teach teens the basics of personal finance. The article quotes a person named Morrison of the Council for Economic Education saying, “To say it’s a parent’s responsibility seems unfair—unfair to the parents and unfair to the kids. You can’t ask people to be responsible for teaching something if they haven’t received the education themselves.” Really? To be honest that just makes me mad. So, if my teachers don’t feel comfortable and neither do my parents – just where am I supposed to learn anything about managing money? (I have all sorts of snarky things to say here but my mom told me I have to be nice.)
I completely disagree with that kind of thinking. I believe it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to help us as teens understand the basics of managing our money. You don’t have to be an expert, have a finance degree, or go through a year of specialized training in order to teach those basics. Thankfully, this gap in education is not going unnoticed. The Council for Economic Education reports that fourteen states now require students to take a personal finance class in order to graduate. According to CEE in the News, local groups such as the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce are also doing their part to help educate students. They recently sponsored a “Reality Check” event which is an exercise in real life budgeting and money management. Even though students may not understand everything in the class, they did walk away with a greater appreciation for the cost of living and how education affects earning ability.
Some of my earliest memories about money involve managing that money. My parents made up three envelopes for me, and I had to choose each week how much of my allowance would go into each envelope. My choices were savings, spending, and giving. It really doesn’t get much more simple than that. Early training has helped me appreciate that money is a tool and I am the one responsible for making purposeful decisions about what I earn or am given.
If you are a parent or educator, I urge you to get involved now with your students so that they can learn these basic principles. If you have or are struggling yourself, be transparent with your kids and allow them to learn with you so that they don’t make the same financial mistakes you might have made. If you are a teen, talk to your parents. Don’t be afraid to tell them that you have questions and want to be educated on all issues of handling your money well.
Teens may not know what we don’t know, but we deserve a fighting chance.
Aside from that, I’ll leave you with the following cartoon I found while writing this post. It was a good reminder for me of the importance of open communication between parents and teens.
***Cartoon displayed with special permission from http://www.glasbergen.com
How about you all? Did you learn about personal finance in school or from your parents? Or, did you have to teach yourself through trial and error?
How do you think the personal finance education system in US public schools could be improved? What roadblocks do you see to prevent its implementation?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
Eva Baker is a high school student passionate about preparing for her financial future and helping other teenagers prepare as well. When she isn’t rock climbing at the gym or pinning ideas for her non-existent wedding, she documents her financial journey over at TeensGotCents.com. Find her on Facebook and Pinterest as well!
Carnival of Personal Finance #397 – Favorite Superbowl Commercials – January 28th, 2013 MONSTER Double 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 $51.95 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, 2013.
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, a weekly listing of the top personal finance articles around the blogosphere in the following categories – taxes, money management, investing, career, debt, frugality, credit, economy, finance, real estate, saving, and budgeting.
With the Superbowl being only a little less than a week away, the theme for this week’s carnival is a listing of several of my favorite commercials (available on YouTube) from this event over the past few years! Even if you’re like me and are not the biggest football fanatic, we all love the Superbowl commercials, right?!
As you may have noticed, there was no Carnival of Personal Finance last week due to a scheduling mix-up. Therefore, we are doubling up in this edition, so you might see a couple blogs with multiple articles listed in order to catch us up (around 80 posts total – hence the name, MONSTER edition!). I hope you enjoy the posts and that you can stop by My Personal Finance Journey on my non-carnival days as well!
Listed below are this week’s top 5 editor’s picks. Congrats to the five winners! Some truly great articles here!
5. MyFIJourney from My Journey to Financial Independence presents Man Up and Admit Your Money Mistakes In Order to Learn and Improve, and says, “It’s fun to talk about our success with money. How much we saved, or how much our investments have risen in cost. But equally important is to admit our failures so that we can learn from them. Here, I provide a roll call of my biggest financial blunders from having no budget to failed investments. Hopefully everyone can learn something from my mistakes.”
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Favorite Superbowl Commercial #1
Michael from Financial Ramblings presents Should You Pay for Your Kid’s College?, and says, “You might think that paying for your kids college helps them out by relieving the pressure to work while going to school. But you might be wrong…”
Adam from Adam Hagerman – Financial Coach presents Behold The Power of Compound Interest, and says, “When people ask me what my first piece of advice would be regarding personal finance, I always say “spend less than you earn”. However, I always have to add in a second piece of advice on compound interest. If people understood the power of compound interest, I can guarantee you that they would be saving more earlier on in life.”
Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents presents 4 Practical Money Skills You MUST Teach Your Children, and says, “One of the best things you can teach your children is the skill of money management. Here’s the most basic practical money skills that everyone should have and how to teach them to your children.”
Michal from Dough Roller presents How To Max Out Your Retirement Savings, and says, “Max out your retirement savings with these 7 tips”
Andy from Saving to Invest presents How Tax Refunds Are Spent and Received, and says, “With an average of $854 spent during the holidays and an average consumer credit card debt of $8,721, income tax refunds are a big source of funds to meet debt obligations. ”
Michael Kitces from Nerd’s Eye View presents An Efficient Solution To Implement Intra-Family Mortgage Loan Strategies, and says, “In this difficult borrowing environment, some potential homebuyers have found the best way to finance a purchase is not from a major commercial bank, but from the “family bank” instead through an intra-family loan. And as long as IRS guidelines are followed, the transaction can be remarkably appealing for the borrower – and a way for parents to earn a higher return while keeping the money in the family!”
Paula @ Afford Anything from Afford Anything presents Myth: Only Rich People Invest, and says, “Rich is the result of, not the prerequisite to, investing.”
Dividend Growth Investor from Dividend Growth Investor presents The Dividend Kings List Keeps Expanding, and says, “The following companies have each managed to increase dividends for over 50 consecutive years in a row. This is particularly interesting, since this period covered several recessions, a few oil shocks and one embargo, a few wars, inflation and a lot of change in the global economy. These companies not only managed to prosper during that tumultuous period, by adapting and embracing change, but also did not forget to reward their loyal shareholders with a dividend raise. ”
Pauline from Reach Financial Independence presents 13 money resolutions for 2013: Enjoy!, and says, “This is the last post of the 13 money resolutions for 2013 series. Once your finances are in order, it is time to use money to enjoy life. Many people have a hard time finding the right balance between saving and spending, especially the frugal ones. Money is meant to be spent on things that make you happy.”
Emily Reeves Grammer from the pastor and the bartender presents $794.87, and says, “This article details our home-buying process and offers tips on how to buy within your budget.”
Emily from PT Money Personal Finance presents Why Millennials Are Delaying Homeownership, and says, “There are multiple reasons you’re not seeing many twentysomethings purchasing homes. And chances are, you won’t see those numbers increase anytime in the near future either.”
Ray @ Financial Highway from Financial Highway presents RRSP Deadline 2013 – Limits & Options, and says, “The RRSP season is upon us! Every bank, every bank branch and every teller will remind you to contribute to your RRSP before the deadline. If you have a financial advisor, they have probably already contacted about your RRSP contribution. With so many people vying for your RRSP contributions, who should you trust?”
Nicole from Grumpy Rumblings of the Half-Tenured presents Delaying gratification, and says, “Nicole and Maggie discuss a simple trick to keep up your willpower for saving. Tell yourself you can have it later.”
Kristen from My Dollar Plan presents 11 Free or Cheap Winter Activities at Home, and says, “The warm weather makes it easy to keep busy without spending a ton of money but what about when it’s cold outside? We have some ideas!”
Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents Getting Going on Retirement Savings, and says, “We all want the ability to retire at some point in our lives. While the definition of retirement may be different for some of us, we want financial freedom when we are older to do what we want.”
PK from Don’t Quit Your Day Job… presents Basel Equity and Its Impact on Banking and Lending, and says, “Most of the world may have their eye on Davos, but Cameron has his eye on a different part of the country… Basel. ‘Basel’ is shorthand for a number of treaties and ‘suggestions’ for bank leverage – and Cameron wonders what that means for you.”
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Favorite Superbowl Commercial #2
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Favorite Superbowl Commercial #3
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Favorite Superbowl Commercial #4
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Teacher Man from My University Money presents Goals for 2013, and says, “With everyone talking up their goals for the New Year, I figure I’d better jump on board here before the train leaves the station.”
Pat S from compounding returns presents Investing Basics: Understand Your Company, and says, “Investing Basics: Peter Lynch Style”
Edward Antrobus from Edward Antrobus presents How to Save Money Shaving, and says, “Shaving can be an expensive part of your personal hygiene routine. Ignore the marketing hype and learn how to save over 25% on your shaving needs.”
Miss T. from Prairie Eco Thrifter presents The Difference Between Looking Rich and Being Rich, and says, “The reality is that they only look rich to outside observers. It probably doesn’t occur to these outside observers, and probably not even to many of these men’s friends, that these guys aren’t rich. Their so-called wealth is actually debt.”
The Happy Homeowner from The Happy Homeowner presents Yes, My Boyfriend is Paying Me Rent, and says, “My boyfriend recently moved into my condo and I’m definitely charging him rent. In fact, we’re splitting everything down the middle. Read more to find out why!”
Grayson from Debt RoundUp presents The Day My Personal and Financial Life Changed, and says, “I never knew how much my life would change until my son was born. I realized that I would have to tighten my budget and learn about all of the proper savings avenues in order to provide financial security for my family.”
Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents What Does My Credit Score Mean?, and says, “A common saying tells us that our credit score is the only grade that matters after we graduate from school. It is used for new credit, mortgage loans, phone accounts, job applications, and even dating. If it is so important, it is a good idea that you understand it.”
Colin Williams from humble savers presents What Is The Real Cost Of Coffee, Snacks And Lunch To You?, and says, “This post includes a Free calculator that will instantly tell you how much money you are really spending on coffee, snacks and just about any other items. It highlights how much money you could have if you saved it instead. For an example, your daily cup of coffee can easily cost you more than $90,000”
eemusings from NZ Muse presents The dangers of recommending a friend for a job, and says, “Mixing work and friendship – is it a good idea?”Neal Frankle from Wealth Pilgrim presents An Easy Budgeting Process That Works, and says, “Just about everyone I know has a budget. But how many have a budgeting process that works? Very few. That’s a shame because a good budget will help you spend less money, enjoy your life more, worry less, have a wonderful retirement and never get into debt. Just about the only thing a good budget won’t do for you is cure the common cold.”
Jason Price from One Money Design presents Best Ways to Achieve Your Savings Goals this Year, and says, “Looking to save more money this year? Most people want to achieve savings goals and I’m convinced you can’t do it unless you do these three things.”
Lance from Money Life and More presents Four Ways to Split Expenses at Home, and says, “Splitting expenses is a often a touchy topic when you’re living with a significant other, roommates or family. If everyone doesn’t agree it can get pretty nasty fast. There are a few ways to split expenses between yourself and those you live with but I’m going to highlight four of the most common ways today.”
Well, that concludes this week’s edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance! To all of this week’s participants – it was an honor to be able to read and get involved with such high quality articles! Please remember to link back to this post if your article was included here and to promote via social media when possible.
Next week’s carnival (#398) is scheduled to take place on February 4th, 2013. Be sure to submit your articles for next week’s edition, using the following handy submission form.
Also, if you’re interested in hosting a future edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, you can apply using this form.
How about you all? What is your favorite Superbowl commercial of all time?
"$25k for the 25th Anniversary" MS150 Tour de Vine Challenge Launch!
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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 $51.95 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, 2013.
My “$25k for the 25th Anniversary” Challenge
In order to get a larger number of people involved with this goal and to increase awareness, I’m requesting donations in $10 amounts.
Additional Steps I’m Taking to Meet the “$25k for the 25th Anniversary” Challenge
As the name suggests, obtaining this goal of raising $25,000 overall this year will be quite CHALLENGING. Because of this, I’m embarking on several additional fundraising steps this year that I have not done in the past:
- 1. In order to encourage young adults to get involved in the personal finance habit of donating to charity (which often is only adopted later in life), MyPersonalFinanceJourney.com will not only match, but DOUBLE any money donated to my MS ride by people under the age of 30 years old. This is on top of the 5% of my blog income I’ll donate each month to the MS150 cause as part of my monthly 10% give back.
- 2. Throughout the weekends of the spring and summer, I will set up and ride my bike trainer outside of various Harris Teeter’s, Wal-Mart’s, Target’s, Kroger’s, and the Downtown Mall throughout my hometown area here to promote the MS Society and raise funds.
About MS
Why I Ride the MS150 Each Year – My Connection with MS
I’ll plan to give periodic updates on my fundraising progress and what matches MPFJ.com does in the next few months.
Reader Profile – Pauline from Reach Financial Independence
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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 $51.95 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, 2013.
Today in the ongoing Reader Profile Series, we’re getting to know MPFJ.com reader and enthusiastic commenter, Pauline, from the site, Reach Financial Independence. Let’s all give Pauline a big round of applause for sharing her life with us and listen to her story! Enjoy!
1. Please tell everyone a little bit about yourself (background, education, family situation, etc).
My name is Pauline. I am 32 and was born in Paris, France. I graduated 10 years ago with a Masters in Business, and wanted to try a different approach to life after spending the last two years of college working part time for a big firm. I knew the cubicle life was not for me and wanted an early exit.
I backpacked my way around the world for a year, then worked in Guatemala, Spain, and the UK for six years, holding in each country jobs that had to do with my college skills. From a law firm to an IT software company, my goal was to save as much as possible to avoid setting foot in an office ever again. I thought it would take me until 40, but I was able to ”retire” from the corporate world at 29.
I have now settled in Guatemala where I bought a lakefront property three months ago, and have started to fix up a house I hope to turn into a guest house. I am working on this project with my boyfriend. We have no kids.
2. Describe your current financial situation (who works in your family, how your income is, your expenses, etc.).
My boyfriend is a retired lawyer. He owns a cattle ranch and has one of Guatemala’s most extensive art and coins collection from which he makes an occasional profit. Most of his income comes from selling cattle at the moment, and he is also an expert in flipping things, buying low and selling higher.
My income comes mainly from several investments. I own a three bed flat in the UK that has positive cash flow, and just sold a flat in Paris that used to generate rental as well. Instead of keeping that money in a savings account to live off it for a while, I chose to reinvest the money in my Guatemalan property to force myself to generate more income from it. I also own a coconut farm, some cattle heads, and a few other investments that one would qualify as unusual, that produce a solid passive income. I like tangible investment and would rather see a calf or a coconut than imagine a virtual share of an online company.
On top of that, I make a little bit of active income, writing articles for travel French and Spanish websites, and my blog is also generating a nice income, but I’d rather not count the hours! A few clients from my old jobs occasionally contact me for translation jobs and other virtual tasks. I get paid in Euros, British Pounds, Dollars, and spend in Guatemalan Quetzales, so sometimes I make a bit of money trading currencies.
I have brought in six figures in 2012 and hope for an even better 2013! A great part of 2013’s income will hopefully come from the development of 90 acres of land that came with the house into residential properties.
My expenses are:
Shared Expenses– We split everything in half for the house. All the rest, each of us decides how to spend their money.
- Mortgage – $0. We were able to buy the property in cash but are putting a lot of money into repairs, with over $10K in the past three months.
- Food – $300. Trying to lower that to $200 this year. This is very high for Guatemala, but we like to eat and rarely go out. Includes alcohol and expensive things such as cheese or bacon that come at a premium here.
- Gas – $100. Weekly trips to the supermarket and to buy building materials cost $20, plus the occasional visit somewhere. We use my boyfriend’s car, so I occasionally pay for half of the repairs.
- Utilities – $50. $10 for gas, $40 for electricity. No heat or AC but we have an electric water pump to pump water from the lake and with the works around the house, lots of drill and other electric usage. Otherwise, just a fridge, blender, deep freezer, and a couple of laptops and phones. The shower also has an electric heater, but we rarely use it.
- Handyman – $200. I don’t want to have a maid, but this guy does all the heavy lifting, gardening, maintenance… and will stay once the works are over.
- Animals/garden – $20. We have 9 hens and a rooster, and couldn’t find the courage to butcher our Christmas turkey, so he is around too. They eat corn and bird food at the end of the day to come back to the cage. I started a small garden, more for entertainment than saving on the grocery bill since vegetables are ridiculously cheap here.
- Property taxes – $30. I don’t know exactly how much that will be. The lakefront plot is leasehold from the state, and there is property tax on the 90 acres piece of land that came with it.
- Accountant – $20. We pay an accountant since we bought the property together through a company, of which we each hold 50% of shares. We don’t have other assets in common.
- Internet – $50. Bad provider, slow connection but in the middle of the jungle, you can’t hope for much. BF has a smart phone plan. this is just for my laptop USB modem.
- Fun money – $50. I don’t really know what goes there lately since we moved to a remote place, but this is usually treats and expenses for when I am alone.
- Travel – $250 or $3K yearly. For a trip back to France for a month and another trip somewhere.
3. What are the current financial challenges you are facing (saving, paying off debt, student loans, merging finances after recently being married, etc.)?
4. What are your plans for the future (retire early; build your career, etc.)?
My plan for the future is to keep building wealth by doing things I enjoy. I want to convert the two guest rooms in my house into a small B&B, and if business picks, up maybe add some extra rooms to the lakefront plot, develop the 90 acres piece of land, and maybe invest in a couple more rental properties.
5. What’s your best piece(s) of financial advice and/or your general philosophy on personal finances?
***Photo courtesy of http://reachfinancialindependence.com/
Blogging and Personal Goal Setting for the 2013 New Year
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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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With this being a new year and all, I’ve decided to lay out some personal goals for my life in general and blogging goals for My Personal Finance Journey during 2013. I have also added a reminder on my Outlook calendar to track our progress pertaining to these goals each month (or as often as I have time for anyway!).
As I experienced in 2012, by tracking these goals each month, it provides us with more accountability and visibility to what we are doing and where we want to go with this community/blog and in my life.
As is the case with many things in life (including my 2013 financial goals which I laid out a couple days ago), a good portion of my blogging goals are long-term commitments requiring attention in each passing year. As such, you might see many similar goals that I was trying to or did achieve in 2012 listed for 2013. I am perfectly fine with having some of the same goals year-to-year, provided that I believe in the causes they represent (which I ponder each year, and all of the ones listed below definitely do meet that criteria!). Nevertheless, I’ve tried to call attention to completely new blogging/personal goals for 2013 by highlighting them in bold red text for easier reading.
- Read and interact with (comment) 25 partner blogs per week.
- Continue active participation as a proud Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network member.
- Publish 3-5 blog posts per week.
- Obtain 600 unique visitors per day average by end of 2013.
- Host all personal finance blog carnivals (Festival of Frugality, Best of Money, Tax Carnival, Carnival of Personal Finance, Totally Money, Carnival of Retirement, Carnival of Financial Planning, Carnival of Passive Investing, etc).
- Continue organizing Carnival of Passive Investing in 2013. Offer hosting of the 12 editions for 2013 to guest hosts. If you’re interested in hosting, shoot me an email! You can view the schedule by clicking here. Also for the Carnival in 2013, my goals are to a) continue getting passive investing authors involved and b) start reaching out to financial journalists (maybe from Kiplinger’s or Money Magazine, etc) and/or financial reporters on TV.
- Continue to spread word about benefits of passive investing over active investing. Get involved in BogleHeads forums as well.
- Write 1 guest post for another blog per month to expand reach of my ideas.
- Create an eBook on one of the following topics – a) Ways to be Frugal, b) Investing Strategy, c) Steps to Buying a Home, d) Getting out of Debt, or e) Financial Prioritization / Account Hierarchy. Once create book, market it afterwards.
- Possibly transfer blog to WordPress hosting. First, migrate Carnival of Passive Investing for practice before do My Personal Finance Journey.
- Create and publish monthly newsletter – “Intelligent Financiers Newsletter.”
- Attend blogging, marketing, finance, or real estate classes at local community college or nearby conference locations. Particularly, I would like to take a class or two to learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and also how to publish a book in hard-copy.
- Submit blog posts to blog carnivals every two weeks to expose my blog to new audiences and build links.
- Successfully execute Tour de Personal Finance in July this year. For 2013, plan further ahead of time to gather more entries (max = 64) and get some sponsors involved. If get sponsors, donate 50% of the earnings of the event to a charity chosen by the yellow jersey winner of the event and also offer prizes for top place entries and jersey winners.
- Do Easy Like Sunday Morning Roundup and Recap 1X per month minimum.
- Continue social media presence on Twitter and Facebook. I would also like to try to incorporate some use of Pinterest as well.
- Feature one Cheapskate Jake Frugal Ramblin’ per month.
- Run 10% Blog Income Give Back Project each month. Continue teaming up with local charities to build relationships. Focus on visiting the charity personally after each give back concludes. Try to get other sites interested in doing something similar and also begin to look for sponsors for 1-2 of the giveaways.
- Start and grow personal finance group speaking service. Generate ideas for speaking topics. Offer to local community first and build from there. Create page promoting service on My Personal Finance Journey.
- Continue to try to find other ways to help people with their finances away from the blogosphere. One thing I’ve applied to do is become a volunteer credit counselor with Credit Education.org. However, I have not heard back from them, even after submitting my application multiple times. Another option I could pursue is offering general advice on finances from a life coach perspective – lifestyle, frugality/money saving tips, life values and dreams, etc. You have to be very careful in making it clear to not offer advice on specific financial instruments since you must have the correct certifications for that (which I do not have). This might be hard for me to resist delving in to the specifics, but it could be fun! I would definitely need to learn more about the legal aspects first though.
- Start building smaller sites – one about blogging tips, finance from a scientific perspective, running, and my family’s genealogy as time allows (this is a lower priority goal).
- Network with other bloggers, with a particular focus on physically meeting them to build relationships. The bloggers I have met in person so far are really interesting people!
- Incorporate affiliate resources in to posts where relevant.
- Negotiate advertising deals for other sites.
In addition, my personal goals for 2013 that I set are as follows:
- Get to bed at midnight or earlier.
- Take 1 day off per week (Saturday or Sunday) completely from doing work on my blog or from my graduate research job to keep my mind feeling more “fresh.”
- Become better at following the Getting Things Done email/work flow management system to focus my time and energy on high value projects first and avoid distractions.
- Hike or bike ride 1 time per week with a group.
- Do a bike race if my Achilles starts to feel better.
- Hike more with the Charlottesville Hiking Group.
- Read one personal finance book per month.
- Go backpacking one time per month in warmer months.
- Take a trip out of town 1 time per month. Visit sister’s new home in Raleigh. Visit one of the beaches in Virginia.
- Learn how to build a group speaking business.
How about you all? What blogging/personal/professional goals have you set for yourself in 2013? Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/aresauburnphotos/1121058121/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Happy 3 Year Birthday to My Personal Finance 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 $51.95 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, 2013.
Happy Wednesday folks! Just a quick post here this morning to announce that today marks the official 3 year birthday of My Personal Finance Journey! Wooohooo! If my site was a child, he or she would be causing all sorts of mischief at this point! 🙂
It all started 1095 (Wow! That sounds like a lot of days!) days ago with a simple little post about a $30 sign up bonus offer for the Chase Amazon Credit Card. Coincidentally, I still have that credit card and use it for all of my Amazon purchases. It provides a pretty nice cash back feature too, as I discussed the other day in my financial accounts and tools post!
Since that first post on January 16th, 2010, here at My Personal Finance Journey, we’ve had about 300,000 visitors and 811 total posts (290 posts during 2012). It’s been a great ride, and I look forward to another successful year of learning and interacting with all of you.
To celebrate reaching the 3 year mark on this site, I’m giving away ~$52 as part of the ongoing monthly 10% blog income give back project. Be sure to hop on over to that post to enter to win and help a charity all at the same time!
Thanks again for all your support!
Jacob
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettneilson/4962603428/sizes/l/in/photostream/
$51.95 Giveaway – Community and Charity 10% Monthly Blog Income Give Back # 16 – January 2013 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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The 10% give back giveaway fun rolls on for the month of January (I can’t hardly believe we’re in 2013 now)!
I’ve had a wonderful holiday vacation the past few weeks, spending one week at my home where I grew up in Arkansas and then another week on a vacation with my family in Mexico (the picture on the right was taken from Isla Mujeres at sunset). I hope things are treating you well also! Are you all ready to get back in gear for working the next few months?!
In case you missed the first 15 editions of the 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).
Because of these considerations, I’ve decided that each month going forward, I’m going to give away 10% of my net (after-tax) blogging income/profit to My Personal Finance Journey readers (5%) and to charity (5%). Listed below is how the process will work:
- After each calendar month passes, I’ll tally up my net blog income and determine what Dollar value correlates to 10%.
- I’ll post the giveaway (similar to this post you’re reading now), and you’ll have approximately 2-3+ weeks to enter.
- Once the giveaway is over, a grand prize winner will be announced, and that winner will then select what charity they’d like to have 5% of my blog income sent to. Once the giveaway entry window ends, I’ll send out the money to the blog reader winner(s) and personally drop off the charity donation.
- So far, I’ve been very happy with the success of the October 2011 – December 2012 give backs. Listed below is a summary of what we’ve accomplished so far with the give backs.
- Current total given to 9 different charities = $770
- Current total given to blog readers = $769
- $51.95 total blog income to give away – $26.95 to a My Personal Finance Journey reader and $25 to the charity selected by the giveaway grand prize winner (see bullet point below for additional details on how the charity selection will work this month).
- $26.95 in the form of one prize available to one reader as follows –
- 1) Grand Prize = $26.95 Amazon Gift Card or $26.95 cash via PayPal.
- Because of the success experienced in the October 2011-December 2012 give backs with building relationships with local charitable organizations, I’ve decided that for January we’ll keep how we select the charity that receives the 5% blog income donation the same as last month. Continue reading below for more details:
- Instead of having each entrant specify any charity in the world, the goal for this month will be for My Personal Finance Journey to develop a relationship with one of the 4 charities listed below. The Grand Prize winner will select which of these 4 organizations receives the donation on behalf of the blog.
- The Nature Conservancy
- Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville
- United Way Thomas Jefferson Area
- Alzheimer’s Association of Central and Western Virginia
- All of these charities were selected because 1) they are high quality organizations who do very good things and 2) they all have a significant presence/office in the area in which I live and operate this website (Central Virginia).
- I have contacted the local offices of these organizations and told them that they are part of the 10% blog income give back. After the Grand Prize winner is selected and the selected charity announced, I hope to be able to visit the local office of the organization, meet their staff, and present them with the money personally.
- It’s been very fulfilling developing a relationship with the local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through the MS150 fundraising bike ride I do each year, and I’m hoping that this experience will be just as awesome! I look forward to seeing which organization is selected.
How to Enter the Giveaway – Deadline to Enter is 11:59 PM, January 31st, 2013
Like last month, I’ve decided to use the RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the January 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 10 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.
Remember, the deadline for entries will end at 11:59 PM, January 31st, 2013 (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.
2012 Year-End Blogging and Personal Goals Review and Progress Update
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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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Back in January of 2012, I laid out some personal goals for my life in general and blogging goals for My Personal Finance Journey for the 2012 year.
As I experienced in 2011, by tracking these goals periodically, it provides me with more accountability and visibility to what I am doing and where I want to go with this community/blog and in my life. As such, the purpose of this post is to review how I did in 2012 in reaching the aims I set out for myself.
As far as life goes overall, the second half of 2012 was very successful in my opinion. However, because I was fairly swamped with finishing up my Master’s Thesis defense, serving as a Teacher’s Assistant, and trying to continue making progress in my Alzheimer’s research in general, I wasn’t able to spend quite as much time on my blog (and we’ll most likely see this reflected by a good number of Not on track status updates below). But, such is life I suppose, so I’m not too disappointed about it all!
- Read and interact with (comment) 25 partner blogs per week.
- Done.
- Continue active participation as a proud Yakezie Personal Finance Blog Network member.
- Done. I’ve been doing pretty well recently with interacting through the forums, although I could definitely improve here!
- Publish 3-5 blog posts per week.
- Done. With the help of the staff writers on MPFJ, I’ve been able to consistently post around 5 articles per week. A big thanks goes out to all of them for helping out during this busy time in my life (and in the coming year!).
- Obtain 800 unique visitors per day average by end of 2012.
- Not achieved.
- During 2012, my traffic has remained very steady at around 400 visitors per day, so it has not increased quite to the level that I was shooting for. However, this really is my fault. There are several things that I’ve been needing to do in order to build my site further, but just have not had the time to do them. Because of this, I will keep trying to fit these things in as time allows.
- Host all personal finance blog carnivals (Festival of Frugality, Best of Money, Tax Carnival, Carnival of Personal Finance, Totally Money, Carnival of Retirement, Carnival of Financial Planning, Carnival of Passive Investing, etc).
- Done.
- Continue organizing Carnival of Passive Investing in 2012. Offer hosting of the 12 editions for 2012 to guest hosts. If you’re interested in hosting, October, November, and December 2012 are still open and in need of hosts! You can view the schedule by clicking here. Also for the Carnival in 2012, my goals are to a) continue getting passive investing authors involved and b) start reaching out to financial journalists (maybe from Kiplinger’s or Money Magazine, etc) and/or financial reporters on TV.
- Done.
- Continue to spread word about benefits of passive investing over active investing. Get involved in BogleHeads forums as well.
- Not achieved. Need to participate more in BogleHeads forums.
- Write 1 guest post for another blog per month to expand reach of my ideas.
- Done.
- I did really well at this the 1st half of the year, but ran a little short on time in the 2nd half.
- Create an eBook on one of the following topics – a) Ways to be Frugal, b) Investing Strategy, c) Steps to Buying a Home, d) Getting out of Debt, or e) Financial Prioritization / Account Hierarchy.
- On track! I started writing a book during Thanksgiving about 31 steps taken over the course of a month (1 per day) that a person can take to get their personal finances in order.
- Possibly transfer blog to WordPress hosting. First, migrate Carnival of Passive Investing for practice before do My Personal Finance Journey.
- Not achieved – Have not had time.
- Create and publish monthly newsletter – “Intelligent Financiers Newsletter.”
- Not achieved – Have not had time.
- Attend blogging, marketing, finance, or real estate classes at local community college or nearby conference locations. Particularly, I would like to take a class or two to learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Done. Took a blogging class at a local community college back in October. It was really good actually! I learned a lot about marketing during the class.
- I also recently attended a meeting of a local entrepreneurs group that was really interesting as well. I learned about some of the resources that the county government offers for free to local business owners.
- Submit blog posts to 5 blog carnivals each week (or after generate 5 new un-submitted posts) to expose my blog to new audiences and build links.
- Done.
- Successfully execute Tour de Personal Finance in July this year. For 2012, plan further ahead of time to gather more entries (max = 64) and get some sponsors involved. If get sponsors, donate 50% of the earnings of the event to a charity chosen by the yellow jersey winner of the event and also offer prizes for top place entries and jersey winners.
- Done.
- Do Easy Like Sunday Morning Roundup and Recap 1X per month minimum.
- Done.
- Improve social media presence on Twitter and Facebook. Establish a more regular M-F posting schedule for those outlets.
- On track.
- Feature one Cheapskate Jake Frugal Ramblin’ per month.
- Not achieved – Have not had time.
- Run 10% Blog Income Give Back Project each month. Continue teaming up with local charities to build relationships. Try to get other sites interested in doing something similar and also begin to look for sponsors for 1-2 of the giveaways.
- Done
- Start and grow personal finance group speaking service. Generate ideas for speaking topics. Offer to local community first and build from there. Create page promoting service on My Personal Finance Journey.
- Not achieved – Have not had time. However, I did teach one class on personal finance topics for college students which was fun!
- Continue to try to find other ways to help people with their finances away from the blogosphere. One thing I’ve applied to do is become a volunteer credit counselor with Credit Education.org. However, I have not heard back from them, even after submitting my application multiple times. Another option I could pursue is offering general advice on finances from a life coach perspective – lifestyle, frugality/money saving tips, life values and dreams, etc. You have to be very careful in making it clear to not offer advice on specific financial instruments since you must have the correct certifications for that (which I do not have). This might be hard for me to resist delving in to the specifics, but it could be fun! I would definitely need to learn more about the legal aspects first though.
- Not achieved – Have not had time.
- Start building smaller sites – one about blogging tips, finance from a scientific perspective, running, and my family’s genealogy as time allows (this is a lower priority goal).
- Not achieved – Have not had time.
- Network with other bloggers, with a particular focus on physically meeting them to build relationships. The bloggers I have met in person so far are really interesting people!
- Done.
- Incorporate affiliate resources in to posts where relevant.
- On track. I was fairly surprised how long/difficult it was for some of the affiliate programs to actually approve me. What I was finding was that most of the programs that center around products I actually would use were either 1) not offering affiliate programs or 2) not approving me. Because of this, I had to manually email the affiliate program managers to move the process along.
- So far, I have inserted affiliate links in to appropriate past posts on my site, but I need to work more on adding product resource lists pages, etc. There is definitely more work to be done here!
- Negotiate advertising deals for other sites.
- Not achieved fully – Although I did a few throughout the year, I didn’t have as much time to actively pursue this as I would have liked.
In addition, my personal goals for 2012 that I set were as follows:
- Get to bed at midnight and wake up earlier, instead of staying up until 2 am working on various projects.
- Done.
- Take 1 day off per week (Saturday or Sunday) completely from doing work on my blog or from my graduate research job to keep my mind feeling more “fresh.”
- Done.
- Become better at following the Getting Things Done email/workflow management system to focus my time and energy on high value projects first and avoid distractions.
- Done.
- Run a full marathon.
- Cancelled – During January and February, I started ramping up my running training, but I soon realized that my body simply wasn’t meant to run 17+ miles at a time.
- However, I’ve been really good in the past few months at bike riding more with a local riding group.
- Hike more with the Charlottesville Hiking Group.
- Done.
- Read one personal finance book per month.
- Done.
- Learn how to build a group speaking business.
- On track – I’ve learned enough for now, but the hurdle now is to find time enough to execute on the things I’ve learned.
Looking over the progress I’ve made on the goals listed above, I would say that I am satisfied (but not extremely ecstatic!) with how I’ve done in reaching the goals relating to blogging. These are ambitious goals, and would likely be more appropriate for me to achieve in full if I was blogging full time. However, they continue to the great things for me to strive towards as time allows, so I’m not too worried! 🙂
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/meddygarnet/2224691808/sizes/l/in/photostream/