My Personal Finance Journey

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My name is Jacob, a husband to a wine-blogger wife, father to two bouncy-boy toddlers, and I'm the owner/author of My Personal Finance Journey. By day, I am a scientist working in bio-pharmaceutical development. Personal finance has been my hobby since 2007 when I started teaching myself through books (that finance B.S. degree didn't teach me much!). Learning how to save, adopt a frugal mindset, and invest my own money soundly has allowed me to have a savings rate > 50%, increase my net worth by > 20 times, grow my career, and always do what I love. Check out the About Me page to learn more!

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Festival of Frugality # 298 – Funny Graduate School Cartoons – September 20th, 2011 Edition

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Welcome to My Personal Finance Journey! If you are new here, please read the “About” or “First-Time Visitor” pages to find out more about us. If you would like to receive free updates on articles like this by email, then sign up here or you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, check us out on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks for visiting! Keep on learning!
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Welcome frugal personal finance fans! Thanks for stopping by.

My Personal Finance Journey is very proud to be hosting this week’s edition of the Festival of Frugality. 

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Festival, its purpose is to spotlight excellent ideas that are floating around in the blogosphere to help readers squeeze a few extra pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters out of every dollar. And, in this age, I believe that we all could use some good advice on how to do this!


It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly 3 months since the last time we hosted the 281st edition of the Festival. For me personally, the summer absolutely FLEW by due to the fact that I was preparing for my PhD qualifying exams after my first year in chemical engineering graduate school. 


We had the presentation/exam on September 7th, and with a little luck and a lot of help from other students, I passed! Happy times! 


To celebrate the qualifying exam being done with (THANK GOODNESS!), this edition of the Festival will focus on some funny comic strips related to graduate school that I found in doing a Creative Commons search. Enjoy!

So, without further a due, let’s get on with the Festival!

Shown below are the top 3 picks out of this week’s submissions. Congrats to the winning article from Darwin’s Money.

Top 3 Editor Picks

1. Darwin presents Older Americans Are Going to Wreck Your Life – Here’s Why posted at Darwin’s Money, saying, “There are several surprising demographic and financial reasons why older Americans are set to wreck your life. Nobody’s talking about it, but the outcome is undeniable.”

I would give this article the top ranking merely for the picture at the top of this post (just kidding, but check it out anyway! haha). However, on a more serious note, this post brings up some VERY important issues about how the Baby Boomer’s and other aging individuals will affect the economy in the near future.

2. Mike Holman presents A practical way to estimate and budget for home maintenance costs posted at Money Smarts Blog, saying, “Traditional methods of calculating home maintenance costs can be misleading. Here is a more accurate to handle house maintenance costs.”

The posts you read while surfing the blogosphere that make you think to yourself, “I need to perform this same analysis with my specific situation,” are true gems! Indeed, they are probably the reason that many of us read blogs in the first place. This article is one of these posts. Personally, I have been using the percentage method of calculating home maintenance costs for the past year and a half since I bought my condo. The method described in this post seems much better though, and it definitely warrants me to give it a try!

3. Evan presents Can You Tell One Scotch from Another? Price versus Preference posted at My Journey to Millions, saying, “Just because you pay 50% more for your cell phone service doesn’t mean it is better …just because you overpaid on an engagement ring doesn’t make it more valuable…and just because your bottle of scotch is 4 times the price doesn’t mean you’ll like it more!”

Personally, I’ve never been able to see how people discern a significant difference between a good $15 bottle of a wine and an expensive $80 bottle of wine. Heck, I’m happy just having a $2.77 (price just went down) bottle of Oak Leaf from Wal-Mart for every day drinking. So, this post really resounded with me! Give it a read!

And now, on to the best of the rest!

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Funny Graduate School Cartoon # 1 – The Joys and Pains of Becoming The “Go-to-Person” For Something


Source – http://www.anujpradhan.com/uploaded_images/phd100206s-706960.gif

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Jeff presents Netflix vs Cable TV and HBO Movies posted at Deliver Away Debt.

Robb presents Extended Warranty On A TV? No Thanks! posted at Canadian Finance Blog.

Mike presents Warehouse Club Shopping Tips posted at Stupid Cents.

Dr. Dean presents Disaster: 15 Tips To Prevent Financial Disaster From A Natural Disaster! posted at The Millionaire Nurse Blog.

Glen Craig presents Frugal Vacation Idea – Tag Along to Your Spouse’s Business Conference posted at Free From Broke.

Crystal presents Prince Amukamara – A Frugal Football Rookie! posted at Budgeting In The Fun Stuff.

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Funny Graduate School Cartoon # 2 – Contrary to Popular Belief, Graduate Degrees Don’t Necessarily Increase Your Chances of Landing a Job!

Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/etherealdawn/4551577867/sizes/l/in/photostream/

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Squirrelers presents Carefully Watch Prices – They Can Vary From Store to Store! posted at Squirrelers.

Dough Roller presents 15 Cool Ways to Save on Electricity posted at Dough Roller.

Flexo presents Taking a Salary Cut posted at Consumerism Commentary.

Amanda presents 6 Reasons Why You Need to Carry Cash posted at My Dollar Plan.

FMF presents Save Money on Gas by Not Buying on Four Days posted at Free Money Finance.

Donna Freedman presents In praise of the bandana posted at Surviving and Thriving.

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Funny Graduate School Cartoon # 3 – When You’re Stuck in a Computer-Modeling Lab All Day Doing Research, Sometimes the Closest You Can Get to a Gym is to Render One on your CAD Software.


Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/poldavo/305519631/sizes/o/in/photostream/

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Ryan presents How Deal Sites Might be Costing You More posted at Cash Money Life.

Miranda @ Financial Highway presents 45 Ways to Save Money posted at Financial Highway.

A Thrifty Mrs presents Why you only need two cleaning products posted at TotallyMoney.

Kelsey presents Is Buying in Bulk for You? posted at Money Mum.

Jon the Saver presents Converting Your JUNK to Cash posted at Free Money Wisdom.

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Funny Graduate School Cartoon # 4 – Why Bother Condensing Your Resume to One Page When in Graduate School, Four or Five Pages Total is Acceptable!?!




Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffmcneill/3359395571/sizes/o/in/photostream/

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Marie presents Creative Ways to Stick to a Family Budget posted at Money Spending Mommy.

Echo presents Mutual Fund Fees: The High Cost of Canadian Funds posted at Boomer & Echo.

FIRE Finance presents $6000! Save Your Hard Earned Money posted at FIRE Finance.

Miss T. presents How to Live Your Dream Life Debt Free posted at Prairie Eco Thrifter.

Paula presents What’s Wrong With Most Money Advice? posted at Afford Anything.

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Funny Graduate School Cartoon # 5 – And….My Favorite of All – The Weekly Productivity Graph of a Graduate Student 




Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/etherealdawn/4552222862/sizes/l/in/photostream/

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Sustainable PF presents Is Debt Consolidation Bad? posted at Sustainable Personal Finance.

Corey presents Is Frugal Green? posted at 20’s Finances.

Money Matters Guy presents How To Save Money On Groceries posted at Saving Money Today.

Matt presents Financial Excellence: Inexpensive Family Entertainment Ideas posted at Living in Financial Excellence.

Jason presents Discount Gift Cards: How Much Can You Save? posted at Live Real, Now.



Well, that wraps up this week’s posts! They sure were some great ones and very interesting to read through!

Get your articles in early for next week’s Festival (Festival of Frugality #299). It will be hosted by our friends over at  Credit Karma Blog. 


Also, let Jim (the Festival organizer) know if you are interested in hosting as well. It’s a bit of work, but a great way to get your blog out there and meet new folks in the process! I just took a quick look at the schedule, and it appears that almost all of the hosting dates are open for the rest of this year. So, there is plenty of opportunity!

If you were included in this list, please don’t forget to link back to the festival here. Thanks!

    ***Leading photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulanesally/5198784680/sizes/l/in/photostream/

    About the Author Jacob A Irwin

    Hi folks! My name is Jacob. I am the owner and operator of My Personal Finance Journey. I started this blog in January of 2010 and have enjoyed the journey ever since. Since finishing up graduate school in Virginia in 2014, I have been working in biopharmaceutical development in Colorado. You can read more about me and this site here​. Please contact me if you have any questions!

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  • Donna Freedman says:
    September 27, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    Thanks, Jacob. Congratulations on passing. You kick chemical butt.
    My recent post How to cut your phone and Internet bills. (Hint: Go on vacation.)

    Reply
  • @prairieecothrif says:
    September 23, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    Thanks a bunch for the inclusion. Really appreciate it.
    My recent post prairieecothrif: RT @AffordAnything: How to Fail a Job Interview & Why Your Resume is Ignored …. ” target=”_blank”>http://t.co/xKNhnMxJ

    Reply
  • Darwin's Money says:
    September 23, 2011 at 1:05 am

    I'm honored – thanks for the mention!
    My recent post What If Unemployment Benefits Were Structured as a Loan Instead of a Freebie?

    Reply
  • FIRE Finance says:
    September 21, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    Thanks for hosting the carnival and including our post. Best wishes ahead :).

    Cheers,
    FIRE Finance
    My recent post What is the Current Unemployment Rate?

    Reply
  • Echo says:
    September 21, 2011 at 2:44 am

    Thanks for including our article. I liked how you used the phrase, “for my everyday drinking” 😉
    My recent post Minimize Your Estate Costs

    Reply
  • cashmoneylife says:
    September 20, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    Thanks for sharing!
    My recent post Where to Open a Roth IRA Account

    Reply
  • Paula says:
    September 20, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    Thanks for the great cartoons!

    Reply
  • @prairieecothrif says:
    September 20, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Thanks for hosting and for including my article. I really appreciate it. Good luck with your school tests.
    My recent post Is ‘Going Green’ Killing Our Economy?

    Reply
  • Sustainable PF says:
    September 20, 2011 at 12:55 pm

    Thanks for including our article.
    My recent post Smart Baby Stuff Purchases

    Reply
  • @Free Money Wisdom says:
    September 20, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    Thanks for the inclusion!

    Reply
  • Mike Holman says:
    September 20, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    Thanks a lot for giving me one of the editor's picks. Glad you enjoyed the article.
    My recent post LinkStuff – Erasure Edition

    Reply

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