Category Archives for Blogging

$60 Giveaway – Community and Charity 10% Monthly Blog Income Give Back # 14 – November 2012 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 November! So far, it’s been a beautiful fall here in my small corner of the world, and I hope things are treating you well also. 

In case you missed the first 13 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).

Like last month, I’ve decided to use the RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the November 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.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, the deadline for entries will end at 11:59 PM, November 30th, 2012 (a little over 3 weeks from today – the start of the give back). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner (one with the most points accumulated) will be contacted via email to receive their prize and select this month’s charity organization for the donation.

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/seriousbri/6293591130/sizes/l/in/photostream/

What’s Your 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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Hi everyone.  I’m Jeff – one of the new staff writers here at My Personal Finance Journey.  I write about finances and saving money while living green over at my site, Sustainable Life Blog.  This is my first post here, so I figured I’d let you all all know about my personal finance journey.

The Beginning – 1st Year of College

My journey starts off around the same time that most peoples’ does – when I went to college and was put in charge of my own finances for the first time.  I didn’t know much about finances (or rather, nothing my parents taught me stuck because I was a teenager who knew everything), and  I didn’t have access to that much cash or credit.  I wasn’t really given enough rope to hang myself with (that would come later).  I paid tuition with my savings, worked in the cafeteria c-store, and went to class. I didn’t do very many things that required money, as most of my needs were taken care of with my student ID.  Things persisted this way for most of my first year of school.  I didn’t spend too much money, but I didn’t earn much either, so I went home during the summer and worked to save up money for future semesters.

Taking a Wrong Turn

The second year was really where I started to veer off track. There was now rent to pay, utilities, and food.  Of course, I knew the lights didn’t come on for free, but I was not good at estimating how much my share would be.   Instead of being cautious, I went out a lot to eat with friends, and overspent a bit, but was able to let it slide because of the prevailing college mindset of “You’ll have a good job that will pay for all of that after you graduate”.  This really was the motto for the next few years, as I let my finances spiral out of control.  Every time I looked at them, I knew I was in the hole but didn’t know where to start to dig myself out, so I just kept digging, hoping something would magically change.  I used my credit card for everyday things as well as “emergencies” (which, looking back, was simply my failure to plan), and the debt racked up.  The money that I had saved for tuition gave out junior year. I was a victim for not starting to save soon enough as well as tuition increases (prices doubled when I was in school), so I took out a student loan for the last year.

The worst time for my finances was my senior year and right before grad school, as I was almost maxed out on my cards and did not have a job lined up.  With the move to my new city to start grad school, I looked at it as a fresh start, and thought that the first thing I’d tackle was getting my finances in order.  This was mid 2007 and I fell into the world of PF blogging, starting with heavyweights like Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar.  I could not believe what I was learning by reflecting on my own habits and mistakes. After I got a job with the university that year (which paid for all semesters but the first one, which I had to take out a student loan for), I was able to pay off one of my credit cards, but left a balance on the other one and kept some in savings because “everyone had credit card debt.”  How dumb was that?  I kept money in savings earning 4% while paying 10% interest – I still kick myself for doing that.

Getting Back on Track

In grad school, my mindset changed, and I started to look towards the future knowing that eventually I’d need to get a job, most likely have to move for a job, and started saving for it.  By November of 2008, I had almost $3k in savings – which was more than I’d ever had in my life!  The economy was tanking and there was uncertainty everywhere, and one night during Thanksgiving break I almost pushed my whole 3k into Ford stock – which was trading at 96 cents at the time.  I asked my dad what he thought and he said, “Don’t risk anything you can’t afford to lose.”  I listened to him because I knew that I’d need the money in 5 months to move.  Unfortunately, I should have ignored him, as I could have had my savings increase by 4x in 5 months, and a whole lot more now. But I learned an important lesson from the situation about money.  Risking it all and losing it would have meant that I would have had to go home with my tail between my legs and live with my parents, when I’d rather move in with my then girlfriend (now wife) and work at a job I was lining up.  I had everything lined up perfectly.

After grad school, I had 2 solid years of living like a student and integrating good financial habits behind me. I was excited to get into the real world and earn a real income so I could pay down the debt that I had  accumulated during my time as an undergrad.  Unfortunately, the downturn took its grip, and my position was eliminated before I even got started; my dreams of stable finances were going out the window before I could even reel them in. I went back to my grad school job for a while as a contractor, but it was a 50 mile drive each way. Gas was eating away at my debt repayment money, but I was still making progress.

Eventually, I got a new job with benefits, but kept the old one. The only catch was this job was also 50 miles 1 way drive from where I lived – and not in the same town as my old job.  I decided to go to nights at my old job and work full time at the new job.  I was making money, driving a ton, and didn’t have much free time to go out and spend money, so I was able to make some great headway on my debts.  I paid off 3 credit cards (with balances ranging from 1-4k), 1 small student loan from grad school (~3k), and my student loan from senior year of undergrad with the help of my parents (~9k).  I kept this up for about two years, but it was beginning to make me tired and I missed hanging out with my girlfriend outside of the house.

I was applying for new jobs at the time so I wouldn’t have to drive anymore.  After 25+ applications with various companies in my town, I finally landed a job.  I was making more money, and  finally felt ‘financially secure’ as I backed away from my debt cliff.  I was also able to cut out driving from my daily routine, which has saved me tons of money as well.  I started saving and backed off of debt repayment for a while, and proposed to my girlfriend a few months later.

My journey is not just mine anymore as my wife and I merge our finances as a couple and have bought a house.  We’ve spent the last few months updating the house (it is 94 years old), and are looking forward to the years to come, as our personal finance journey continues and evolves.

How about you all? What do you consider to the most significant ‘turning point’ in your personal finance journey?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/katielips/15985952/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Is it Possible to Gamble in a Fiscally Responsible Way?

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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 $79.07 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 September 30th, 2012.

The following is a guest post. Enjoy! 

Everyone loves the occasional flutter. And, with the wealth of sporting events going on recently, what better time is there for throwing a cheeky few quid/Dollars on the athletics or boxing event you’re watching?

Indeed, if you know about sport, then the time could be ripe to take your winnings to the max. And, with the football season set to get back underway in a few weeks, more fruitful days could lay ahead for the sharp gambler.

When Gambling Becomes of Problem

But, the key to any successful gambler is discipline. While the feeling of winning is one which is rarely rivaled in life, it is important to ensure that any money you lay down is done in a responsible manner. Unfortunately, some people do not know their limits and end up in serious debt. In 2008, it was suggested that as many as 284,000 people in the UK were in debt because of their gambling habits, with the average person owing £17,500. And, it is believed that these figures have risen further in the four years since.

But, how do you recognize if your gambling has gone from being the harmless bit of fun it is intended to be, to something much more serious? Well, there are a few tell-tale signs. These include having arguments with your family and friends over money issues, yet still being able to scrape enough cash together to go down to the bookies, losing interest in other activities and thinking of gambling constantly. You’ll know that things really have come to crunch point when you are forced to borrow money off people, can’t afford to pay bills because of gambling, or even have to sell your possessions just so can rustle up enough money for groceries.

If You Must Gamble, Gamble Responsibly – Here’s some tips

When gambling, be it on the horses at your local turf accountants, online using a dedicated account, or even on the fruit machines in a pub or nightclub, there are some simple rules which will keep your gambling in check, up your enjoyment, and ensure you don’t lose your shirt.

• The first of these involves setting money and time limits. Tell yourself that the most you are prepared to put down is, say, £50 and that the maximum length of time you are willing to spend checking forms in the bookies or online is 20 to 30 minutes. This way, you’ll ensure that you can only lose what you can afford to and you also avoid the temptation to lay bets on other races or events happening later in the day.

• It’s also important not to overestimate the likelihood of a win. While you might be certain that Sad Ken will romp home at Kempton Park, nothing is guaranteed, so you should never gamble money you don’t have on what at first appears a no-lose situation.

• Another no-no is chasing your losses. Just because your last bet didn’t come in doesn’t mean that you should stake more funds trying to get your lost money back. This often just makes the issue worse and can be one of the trigger points to a serious gambling problem.

• It’s also a good idea to have a spreadsheet or database which tracks your betting. This way, you’ll know exactly what you bet on and when and how much you won or lost. Heck, you could even set up a bank account just for gambling as this would ensure that you only spend what money is transferred into it.

A final suggestion is not to gamble when you’re under the influence/drinking. While a quick bet here and there can be good fun when you’ve had a few drinks with friends, alcohol can impair your judgement and make you do things which you’d avoid when sober, such as making ridiculous bets.

How about you all? Do you ever gamble with your money on sporting events or at casinos? If so, has it ever had any negative effects on your finances? 

What tips do you use for helping to keep your gambling fun in check?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/matsuyuki/201651074/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Do You Have What it Takes to Be Self-Employed?

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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 $79.07 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 September 30th, 2012.

The following post is by MPFJ staff writer, Kevin Mercadante, who is professional personal finance blogger, and the owner of his own personal finance blog, OutOfYourRut.com. He has a background in both accounting and the mortgage industry.

At one time or another, nearly everyone entertains the idea of having their own business. Sometimes, it’s motivated by dissatisfaction at work, the loss of a job, the lack of opportunity in your field, or maybe by a slick TV infomercial—you know—the ones that promise easy riches without having to do a whole lot of work?

Any of these can be the spark that ignites the flame of desire to be an entrepreneur, but is desire enough to guarantee self-employment success?

I think desire is an important motivator—you have to want something badly to make the wholesale changes that self-employment will bring. But, desire alone won’t make a business a success. There are certain skills and personal qualities needed not only to make a business profitable, but also to sustain it over a lifetime.

What are those skills and personal qualities?

You have the ability to deliver the promised products or services

One of the biggest reasons so many new businesses fail so early on is because the would-be entrepreneur knew close to nothing about the business he or she got into. They may have bought into a franchise, acquired a business they knew nothing about, or took a flyer on something totally new.

What ever business you go into, you’ll need to have expert status or something very close to it. That’s the only reason anyone will do business with you at all.

Competition is heavy in nearly all businesses today—you won’t make it as a trainee.

Make sure the business you choose is one where you have strong knowledge and solid skills. You’ll have to be able to convey confidence in what ever it is you’re offering. If you feel you’re lacking in this area, take courses and/or get a part-time job in the field and get the necessary training and experience before you strike out on your own.

You have a high risk tolerance

When you work for someone else, there are two risks you never face, and they’re huge. One is that as long as you work, you’ll get paid. The other is that you don’t have to invest capital into your employer in order to earn your living. It’s literally a cash-and-carry arrangement.

When you’re in business for yourself, neither of those conditions exist. You’ll almost certainly have to invest upfront money in the business, and it may be many months of hard work before you turn your first profit. Should the business fail you’ll lose both your invested capital and the time you put into the business. And it doesn’t stop once the business is up and running.

You may have to invest more money in order to grow the business, consider entering into partnerships with others, or hiring people and trust them to run parts of your business. There are risks in all of that, and you have to be prepared to take them and live with the consequences.

You’re a certified self-starter

When you work from someone else, you typically have a job description. Each day you know roughly what it is you’re supposed to do, and if you don’t, your boss is there to remind you. When you work for yourself, there’s no job description, and no boss. Each day is an open schedule that you need to fill with productive activities. In order to do that you have to be a self-starter—a person who doesn’t need to be told what needs to be done.

You’re a natural at multi-tasking

Entrepreneurs tend to wear the “chief-cook-and-bottle-washer” label, at least when the business is in its early stages. Since cash flow will be slim, you probably won’t be able to hire others to share the workload with. You’ll handle everything from sending correspondence to making sales presentations to troubleshooting business transactions that go sour. You need to be able to balance it all with some level of ease.

You have sales skills or marketing skills

Earlier, we covered the need to be able to deliver on your products and services, and as important as that is, equally important is your ability to market those products and services.

While we often think of sales and marketing as one-in-the same, they’re actually different functions. Marketing is getting exposure for your products and services. It can include the ability to market through the Internet, direct advertising or affiliate selling. It’s the process of getting customers to come to your business, website, email or telephone.

Sales can be thought of as a combination of face-to-face marketing—a skill not everyone has—and the ability to close a sale to a customer that your marketing campaign brought in. When you’re self-employed, it’s best to have both marketing and sales skills.

You have above average money management skills

One thing you won’t have when you’re self-employed is a steady paycheck, at least not at the beginning. You have to be able to survive without it, in addition to the ability to come up with cash for both contingencies and business expansion. To do that, you’ll have to be able to get the most out of a little bit of money. This will be true even if you have considerable upfront capital. You’re ability to stretch your money will be one of the most critical skills as a business owner.

You’re a strong negotiator

You’ve heard the term “buy low, sell high”? That’s the fundamental job of every business owner. Whether you’re selling your products and services to customers, or buying supplies and services from vendors, you’ll have to have strong negotiating skills to maximize your income.

When you work for someone else and it comes to money, as the saying goes, “it is what it is”. When you work for yourself, it is what ever you can negotiate. The better you are at negotiating, the higher your profits will be.

Conclusion

If you’re thinking of starting your own business, think hard about your ability to handle the skills above—you’ll need them all. Or you might decide that working for someone else isn’t so bad after all!

How about you all? What other skills do you think are important in order to be self-employed? Which skill is THE MOST important of all the rest?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/shimelle/877913815/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Easy Like Sunday Morning Recap and Roundup – # 9 – September 23rd, 2012

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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 a month since the last roundup, so we definitely have some catching up to do! 

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

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

Updates from Jacob’s Personal Finance Journey and Life 

• As far as my life in general, the months of August and September have been full of some interesting life changes changes compared to the summer months. 
• In graduate school, I am now officially in my 3rd year of my Chemical Engineering PhD program. 
• For the past 3 months or so, I have been learning a new microscopy technique called Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Essentially, what it involves is using a very tiny micrometer length ‘tip’ that feels along the surface that you are analyzing. The image is resolved by reflecting a laser on the tip to sense the height deflection that occurs. Shown below is an example of one of the images I generated while learning the technique. Take note of the of the scale bar on the right having a maximum of 5 nm. This is 10^-9 meters! haha
• In addition, this fall, I am serving as a Teaching Assistant for the first time in my graduate career for a Transport Processes class. So far, I’m really enjoying guiding the students through their homework each week with the various questions they have.

• In addition, towards the end of the summer, I had my parents come in to town from Arkansas and my sister come in from North Carolina, so it was nice to enjoy some of the local cuisine, breweries, and hiking areas along with them. Shown below is one of the pictures of me cooling off in a swimming hole with my Mom. It was fun! 

• As far as my personal finances, the months of August and September have treated me pretty well. 
• At the beginning of August, I was able to max out my Roth IRA contributions for the 2012 tax year. 
• Since then, I have started contributing any leftover money I have had to my Individual Self-Employed 401(k) with Vanguard. So far, I have made some good progress, with about $2,500 contributed thus far for 2012. 
• However, from now until about the year-end, I plan to begin investing more of my excess funds in to my blog to build for future growth instead of my personal finance retirement savings. 
• As far as my blog goes, the end of September and beginning of October will mark some VERY exciting changes for our site! Read on below to find out more:
• For about the past year, my graduate school schedule has been sufficiently busy to only allow me to produce about one very high quality post every 1-2 weeks. Aside from that, the only other posts that I’ve run have been the occasional guest post.
• Thus far, this set up has worked fine. I got to interact with readers through my periodic postings and learn many new things in the process. 
• However, I’ve reached a point on this blog where I feel the desire to provide more frequent and consistent high quality to you all, the readers, instead of simply throwing a post out to the blogosphere whenever my graduate school schedule permits. 
• As such, I want to introduce to the new complete My Personal Finance Journey Team that will begin helping me out with various things on this site going forward:
• Becca @ The Academic Wino – Becca is my girlfriend of almost 2 years now. She runs an amazing research-based wine blog (The Academic Wino). She has been helping out for about 4 months now on submitting various posts on My Personal Finance Journey to social media bookmarking sites.
• Cherleen – Cherleen has been a part of the My Personal Finance Journey team now for about a year. She helps me each week by commenting on various sites around Internet to let me know of good articles that arise that I may have otherwise missed. 
• In addition, I am adding several new staff writers who will contribute articles for the site on a regular basis. These posts will be spaced out in such a way that I’ll still have plenty of time to post my regular articles. But, instead of having one to two week breaks between regular posts while I am busy in graduate school and leaving you all out to dry, you will have some great new content to read! I am really excited about this new set up, and I hope you all are too. Listed below are the new staff writers that I have hand-picked for My Personal Finance Journey. 
• Miss T from Prairie Eco-Thrifter.
• ADP from American Debt Project.
• Travis Pizel, a writer for Care One and Enemy of Debt.
• Kelly from Cordelia Calls it Quits.
• Melissa from Mom’s Plans.
• Kevin from Out of Your Rut.
• Jeff from Sustainable Life Blog.
• Tahyna from DinksFinances (also a Certified Financial Planner!).
• Toi Williams from Fine Tuned Finances.
• Let’s welcome all of these writers to the site! 🙂

Guest Posts from Personal Finance Bloggers on My Personal Finance Journey

Since the last roundup, there were no guest posts here at My Personal Finance Journey. Let’s change that, shall we?!

$79.07 Giveaway – Community and Charity 10% Monthly Blog Income Give Back # 12 – September 2012 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 September! 

In case you missed the 11 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).

Like last month, I’ve decided to use the RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the September giveaway, so simply go through the steps listed in the widget below to enter the running for the prize and accumulate entry points.

There is no limit to the amount of points you can earn. If you refer 10 subscribers – your name will have accumulated 170 entry points! Or, if you link to the giveaway more than once, you can accumulate those 7 entry points multiple times. You can also retweet the giveaway and/or share other My Personal Finance Journey articles via social media sites once per day. In the event of a tie, I will be using a random number generator to select the winner.

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

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, the deadline for entries will end at 11:59 PM, September 30th, 2012 (a little over 2 weeks from today – the start of the give back). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner (one with the most points accumulated) will be contacted via email to receive their prize and select this month’s charity organization for the donation.

***Photo courtesy of http://www.public-domain-image.com/cache/nature-landscapes-public-domain-images-pictures/autumn-public-domain-images-pictures/fall-foliage-meadow_w725_h450.jpg

Welcome Free From Broke Readers!

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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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Welcome Free From Broke readers! Thanks so much for stopping by my site by way of the my guest post today over at Glen’s blog listed below. I’m very happy to have you here! 🙂

What is the Most Efficient Way to Use Dollar Cost Averaging?

If you’re stopping by my site for the first time, I just wanted to give a little guide towards what I offer here, since information overload can occur quickly and time is our most valuable asset.

To introduce myself, my name is Jacob. I started this site back in January of 2010, and since then, have poured my heart and soul in to the site to produce a product I am proud of and I think adds value to the world. You can read a little more on my background and even see a picture of me on the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us.

WHAT I WRITE ABOUT HERE AT MY PERSONAL FINANCE JOURNEY

In short, I like to offer actionable personal finance advice with the goal of achieving long-term success. 

Specifically, I really enjoy writing about the following areas (I’ve also listed several posts related to each topic in case you’re interested in reading more):

• Long term investing and asset allocation strategy analysis
• Vanguard vs. Fidelity – Which Funds Are Better?
• What To Do With Your 401k Savings When Leaving Your Employer
• The Permanent Portfolio by Harry Browne – Component Returns Correlation Analysis and My Future Plans
• Valuation Informed Index Investing vs. Passive Investing – Which is Better?
• Deciding how to prioritize new funds as they come in to various spending requirement areas
• Account Prioritization Hierarchy – Which Monetary Needs Come First?
• How Do Mortgage Payments Fit in to the Account Hierarchy?
• How to develop a lifestyle of frugality and live according to your life dreams and life values 
• Balancing Frugality with Fun

Additionally, if you liked the theme/topic (investing strategy analysis) of the guest post I wrote for Free From Broke today and are interested in similar posts I’ve written in the past, you might want to check out the ones below:

• Valuation Informed Index Investing vs. Passive Investing – Which is Better?
• Performance Analysis of the American Growth Mutual Fund
• Was the Lost Decade Really Lost for Investors?
• Dollar Cost Averaging vs. Dollar Value Averaging – Which Makes You More Money in the Long Run?
• Should I Add Long Term Bonds to My Investing Portfolio?

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rameshng/5930493923/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Carnival of Personal Finance #373 – Summer Olympics Financial Statistics – August 6th, 2012 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 $119.13 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 August 31st, 2012.

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And, listed below are the rest of this week’s great article submissions.

Justin from Saving Without a Budget presents Take Control of Your Financial Life with These Simple Steps, and says, “Simple steps for improving your financial situation.”

CF from The Outlier Model presents What to buy at the dollar store, and says, “Buying household items at the dollar store can save you a lot of money – but what is actually worth buying? Read on to find out!”

NCN from No Credit Needed presents Mortgage Refinance Is Almost Here, and says, “My wife and I are going to refinance our mortgage – with our current lender. Here are the details.”


Roshawn Watson from Watson Inc presents The Price of Eliminating Failure, and says, “The struggle to pull (ourselves) through a crisis, to come to terms on a deep level with (our) own shortcomings, and to labor to overcome them — is exactly…” what is needed to achieve uncommon success. Here are some reasons you should not be afraid of failure.”

Edward Antrobus from Edward Antrobus presents How I Spent Less than $200 on My Wedding, and says, “My wedding cost less than $200, a far cry from the $27,000 average wedding costs. Here’s how I did it.”

Eric J. Nisall from DollarVersity presents Mortgage Escrow AKA Banks Stealing Your Money, and says, “Escrow accounts attached to mortgages may seem like a good idea, but they are really costing you money!”

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Sean Smarty from Grow Money presents 4 Tips for Saving Money in a Renter’s World.


Elizabeth from Women’s Money Week presents How and Why to Find a Second Job, and says, “A second job offers more than just a few dollars an hour – there are great discounts in addition to having the bonus cash.”

Lance from Money Life & More presents What Would You Do?: I Won One Million Dollars!!!, and says, “Two words. I WISH! But it is fun to dream so let’s continue with this theoretical situation… We have to make assumptions so everyone is on the same page when they share what they will do! You just won One Million United States Dollars so convert to your own currency if necessary to find out its buying power. The taxes have already been paid so you can spend every penny of it if you wish. You are in the financial situation you are currently in, not in my financial position.”

Paula @ Afford Anything from Afford Anything presents Renovating the Rental Property, and says, “When renovating rental property, assume expenses will be higher and income will be lower. Here’s a true story about that … “


Glen Craig from Free From Broke presents Will Divorce Make You Happier? The Emotional and Financial Implications of Divorce, and says, “It’s common for a couple going through a rough patch to think that divorce will make them happier. But the truth is that’s not always the case.

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PK from Don’t Quit Your Day Job… presents Real Personal Income: New Heights, and says, “At least one measure of Economic strength in the United States has fully recovered – Real Personal Income. Sure, a fair amount of it is form transfer payments – but don’t let that get in the way of a good chart!”

Mike from Experiglot presents 10 Ways to Save Money Right Now, and says, “We help you come up with different ways that you can save more money right now.”

Mike from The Financial Blogger presents Should You Quit Your Job If You Hate it? The Quick Guide to Quitting, and says, “How you can finally quit your job.”

Robert from The College Investor presents How Europe Affects Your Portfolio (and What to Do about It), and says, “Stock market corrections are not recessions, international exposure doesn’t just come from an international ETF or mutual fund, and in time, the holdings that you have will become more and more heavily weighted towards international economies. So while Europe grabs all the headlines, something productive might as well come of it.”


Nicole from Nicole and Maggie: Grumpy Rumblings of the Half Tenured presents Fixing little annoyances, and says, “Sometimes there are little things that you can do to greatly improve your quality of life, just by fixing tiny annoyances. These may not cost a lot of money or even time, but just need to get done. The grumpy readership chimes in with examples.”

Bob from ChristianPF presents How to pick the right realtor, and says, “Do you have time to market your home, do you have the knowledge to accurately price your home, figure out all of the paperwork required with listing and closing, and stage your home to make it ready for showings? Much of this is accomplished by a quality realtor for those people who don’t have the time or the knowledge to do it at a professional level…”

Mr. Money from Smart on Money presents What Things Motivate Your Spending?, and says, “Examining your money motivations can help you figure out where you could change your spending, and maybe start using your resources for things that matter to you, rather than wasting money and racking up debt for things you don’t actually need or even want.”

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Peter from Bible Money Matters presents Lending Club Returns at 12.02%: Lending Club Has Issued over 775 Million In Loans to Date, and says, “My Lending Club account has continued to show good returns despite the fact that this month I had another loan go late. My net annualized return is still above 12% (which was my goal to reach a year or so ago).”


Echo from Boomer & Echo presents The Ins and Outs of No Medical Exam Life Insurance, and says, “No medical exam life insurance has higher premiums than a standard life insurance policy, but may actually be less expensive for someone who’s likely to be rated. The tradeoff is in the benefits.”

Bret from Hope to Prosper presents How Large Corporations Skirt Taxes, and says, “Although America has some of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world, the amount some large corporations actually pay is embarrassingly small.”

Money Thinker from Money Thinking presents Considering Trade School.

Karl Marrion from WiseStockBuyer presents How to Invest in Your Children’s Trust Fund, and says, “Help your children get ahead right from the start by investing in a trust fund for them.”

eemusings from Musings of an Abstract Aucklander presents What to do if you’ve been burgled plus things to check RIGHT NOW.

Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents presents It’s Time For Another Movement – Life Insurance Style, and says, “The Life Insurance Movement is coming. Help bring awareness to a much needed cause.”

Eric from Narrow Bridge Finance presents How Should a Young Person Get Started with Investing, and says, “Your first job. Such a big milestone. For the first time ever, you are financially independent. You have moved on from being a broke college student to a successful young professional. Don’t get too comfy with that big paycheck, though, it is time to start investing.”

Adam Hagerman from Walking To Wealth presents 5 Awesome Techniques to Energize Your Savings Today, and says, “Why do Americans find is so hard to save money? Use these 5 awesome techniques to ramp up your savings today!”

FMF from Free Money Finance presents How to Get Great Deals on Outlet Purchases, and says, “Products sold in outlets may not be of the same quality as those sold in retail stores, return policies may be different and you may have to spend extra gas money getting there. Still, outlet prices are often cheaper than retail, and you may score an even better deal if you have coupons.”

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Dan Meyers from Your Life Their Life presents Two emotions that make us broke, and says, “There are two main emotions that cause us to get into debt over any others.”

Sean from One Smart Dollar presents Beginner’s Guide to Finance – Approaching Retirement, and says, “Knowing what to do with your money as you approach and enter retirement is extremely important. It can mean the difference between living comfortable and returning to the workforce.”

Miss T. from Prairie Eco Thrifter presents 7 Ways to Save Money When Dining Out, and says, “If you like to eat out a lot, and you would like to save some money, here are few tips to save when dining out.”

Earth and Money from Earth and Money presents The Value of the Corporate Social Responsibility Label, and says, “Corporate social responsibility is the integration of social, environmental and economic concerns into the values of a company. But is a company that calls itself socially responsible actually socially responsible?”

Savvy Scot from Savvy Scot presents How Much is Enough?, and says, “Savvy Scot discusses the reasons why we are never satisfied – why do we always want more? If you invest wisely and make the right moves, you can retire at 50!”

J.P. from Novel Investor presents What Is A REIT?, and says, “REITs, for the most part, are traded just like stocks. But there are some unique differences every investor should be aware of before buying.”

Squeezer from Personal Finance Success presents How to stretch your dollars when you are unemployed, and says, “With the Bureau of Labor Statistics pinning unemployment at 8.2%, many individuals are out of work and looking for a new job. To combat this, one should trim his or her budget to extend any savings as long as possible.”

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 (#374) is scheduled to take place on August 13th, 2012. 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.  

***Photo courtesy of http://www.texample.net/media/tikz/examples/PNG/the-olympic-rings.png

$119.13 Giveaway – Community and Charity 10% Monthly Blog Income Give Back # 11 – August 2012 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 August! 

In case you missed the 10 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).

Like last month, I’ve decided to use the RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the August giveaway, so simply go through the steps listed in the widget below to enter the running for the prize and accumulate entry points.

There is no limit to the amount of points you can earn. If you refer 10 subscribers – your name will have accumulated 170 entry points! Or, if you link to the giveaway more than once, you can accumulate those 7 entry points multiple times. You can also retweet the giveaway and/or share other My Personal Finance Journey articles via social media sites once per day. In the event of a tie, I will be using a random number generator to select the winner.

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

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, the deadline for entries will end at 11:59 PM, August 31st, 2012 (a little over 3 weeks from today – the start of the give back). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner (one with the most points accumulated) will be contacted via email to receive their prize and select this month’s charity organization for the donation.

Tour de Personal Finance 2012 Post-Race Show – Awards Ceremony, Race Recap, and Goals for the 2013 Tour

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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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On June 17th, I announced the coming arrival of the 2nd annual 2012 edition of the Tour de Personal Finance with an introductory post laying out several goals I had for the event. Over one month later, the 2012 Tour de Personal Finance has ended, a winner has been crowned, and I can decisively say that the 2012 edition of the event has been a great success! The success could not have been possible without tremendous support from the participants and readers/voters. A big round of applause is in order for all of you! **Cheers fill the streets!**

AWARDS CEREMONY and Charity Selections

RACE RECAP

The 2012 Tour de Personal Finance began on July 2nd (same day as the first Stage of the 2012 Tour de France) with 52 participants/blogs (up from 46 in 2011!).

In order to start and finish in the same approximate time period as the actual Tour de France, the competition proceeded quickly through the first round with 8 blogs (4 intermediate sprints) per day. Each sprint was given 3 days for voting to occur. In the last two Rounds of competition, voting was extended, when possible, to a four day time period to give everyone a chance to vote.

You can view the complete story of how each Stage played out by viewing the 2012 Tour de PF Bracket.

When all was said and done, the month-long event featured the following statistics:

• 18 total Stages
• 32 blog posts
• 544 total comments/votes – Wow! That is an awesome amount of participation! Thanks to everyone involved!
• 1,798 page views of Tour de Personal Finance Stages and posts.
• 1,500 unique visitors to Tour de Personal Finance Stages and posts.

2012 REFLECTIONS AND GOALS FOR 2013 TOUR DE PERSONAL FINANCE

As I mentioned above, I think that overall, the 2012 edition of this event went very well.

Listed below are the things that I very much enjoyed about this event the past month:

• It’s enabled me to interact and get to know many new bloggers and readers.
• I’ve learned a lot by reading some of the best articles from each blogger’s site that have participated in this competition.
• I liked how the race started and end of the race stages coincided with the start and finish of the 2012 Tour de France. I thought that was really cool!
• We were able to get a larger number of blogs involved in the event this year (52 vs. 46 blogs/articles last year). 
• Having done the event last year, I had more of a well-defined system for running this year’s event that made things go smoother. 
• I was able to reserve the June and July 10% blog income charity and reader give back amounts as rewards and charity selection options for coming in first and second place in the competition. 
• I was able to get experience putting together a sponsorship kit to attract potential supporters to the event.

How about you all? What did you think of the 2012 Tour de PF? What would you like to see the different or the same for next year’s event? 



Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/wyllphotographie/7645504308/sizes/l/in/photostream/