Carnivals This Week
July 13th, 2009
One of the really neat things about the Personal Finance blogging world is that there are weekly carnivals about topics of interest. A couple of the bigger carnivals are Carnival of Personal Finance and the Carnival of Debt Reduction. These are a couple great sources for great posts. This week I was included in both of them.
Carnival of Personal Finance – New Zealand Edition Hosted by Man vs Debt
This is the 213th edition of the carnival! Here are a couple posts that caught my attention:
29 Reasons Why Being A Part Time Entrepenuer Sucks
How to Hard Reset your Financial Life
Keys To Effective Money Management – Part 1: Attitude
How To Get Out of Debt With A Debt Repayment Plan
To Save Big, Think Small
My Problem with Being Frugal
Carnival of Debt Reduction – Hosted by NCN
Happy 200th carnival! Here are a couple posts from the Carnival of Debt Reduction that caught my attention Why you need an emergency Fund
Getting Out of Debt: Step Three
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Keeping Useless Stuff and Collecting Debt
May 11th, 2009
One of the main reasons that I got into as much debt as I did was that I collected stuff, I purchased it with credit and in the end I didn’t really need it. The problem with some of the stuff is that it was expensive so I held onto a lot of it. David’s post at My Two Dollars about getting rid of stuff made me think about this, how much stuff do we really keep that we shouldn’t? Another question that came to mind was: Why do we buy so much needless stuff?
Unfortunately I can’t speak for everyone but I know that I have become a lot better at purging unneeded things yet a few items have managed to move with me a couple times. Going back to David’s post there is a laptop that I bought and used a bit but not excessively that I have carted with me on three separate moves. The computer is now almost 9 years old yet I still keep it. Why you ask? Well it cost $1,800 at the time and I purchased it on a store credit card so in the end I paid over $3,000 for it. It’s not quite junk, yet, I can still use it but it holds little value to me now. Yet I keep it, how much other stuff that should be junk do I keep around?
I also got to thinking about all the stuff that I have purchased over the years and never used, some of it still has some value and use but why did I buy all this stuff? Well I think it has something to do with the consumer mentality that most North Americans get into as they grow up. The latest and greatest gadget comes out and we purchase it, without really determining if we need it.
There is nothing wrong with being a consumer if you can afford it (environmental issues aside), but I doubt that I am the only one that purchased a lot of my stuff with credit. Since starting this blog a while back I have become much more aware of my spending and as a result a lot less useless stuff has been purchased but I am not completely innocent. Now whenever I am about to purchase something that might end up being stuff I stop myself and think do I need this item or do I just want it? With our focus to repay our debt this questioning of purchases is going to increase.
As for that laptop, it’s still tucked away in the basement but it will be tossed when we clean the house in preparation for the kitchen renovation that’s coming up.
Posted in Commentary, Debt, Sites/Articles | 1 Comment
This Week’s Carnival of Personal Finance
May 9th, 2009
I was included in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance which was hosted by Weakonimics. I can’t believe that this is the 203rd carnival of personal finance. If you haven’t checked it out yet definitely do so there are always some great articles included. Here are a few articles that caught my interest this week:
Is Budgeting Keeping You Poor?
Credit Cards Don’t Suck, You Suck!
Lifestyle Infation
Posted in Sites/Articles | 2 Comments
This Week’s Carnival of Personal Finance
February 28th, 2009
This weeks Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted by Broke Grad Student and my post about Lowering Expenses by Keeping Receipts was included. Definitely check the carnival out. Here are a couple entries that caught my attention:
Job Happiness”: The oxymoron of the century
Cutting Back Can Make Changes to Your Health
Quitting Smoking – One Month Later
When to Cut Your Losses
Posted in News/Misc, Sites/Articles | No Comments
The latest Carnival of Personal Finances is up!
February 18th, 2009
The latest Carnival of Personal Finance (#192) is up and its hosted by Canjun Finances. The theme for this weeks carnival is Family Day which is a holiday in Ontario. I have to say its nice to have this day off in the middle of the winter. Here are a couple entries that caught my attention from the carnival:
Stop Thinking About True Value and Just Buy What You Need
Could you get by on half a million a year?
Forget Economic Stimulus: Get Your Own Financial House in Order
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Site Updates – A new Budget Page
February 8th, 2009
Over the course of January I had a few ideas for changes I could make to the site and today I managed to get one of these ideas into place. The most noticeable change is that the weekly chart is now gone from the right navigation. I have replaced this with a new page on the site dedicated to the weekly budgets.
The new Weekly Budget page contains my weekly chart for the current week and links to the previous weekly budgets. Part of this effort was to ensure that I have a special spot on this site for my weekly budgets. They will still be regular posts but getting to them will be easier for people who are interested. Another thing this frees up for me is a bit of space where I had the weekly chart before. The goal for this new space will be a place for me to track my progress in achieving my financial goals.
After this is set up I am going to work on fixing the broken comments – I have contacted my hosting company only to receive an answer to a question I didn’t ask. Hopefully I’ll be able to resolve this quickly.
Posted in 2009, Sites/Articles, Weekly Budgets | No Comments
Odds and Ends
November 10th, 2008
A me update
I sit here writing this post with a month old baby sleeping against my chest. Her breath is quick and she is so reliant on me and my wife for maintaining her life. The past couple of weeks have been difficult, fatigue and uncertainty have really taken their toll. The baby is by far the most important aspect of my life and she will be for the rest of it. This means that the rest of my life needs to start coming together. I’ve been thinking about my finances, my working life and my happiness in general and honestly a large portion of my life is uncertain. I have my wife’s support and help but the unknowns are things that will need to be resolved. This will be a process that I’m sure will take time but it’s been a while since I was certain about things such as my work and my finances. I lost my self confidences and assertiveness and I happily live in complacency when I shouldn’t. I would like to have these back and the uncertainty removed. Stay tuned I’ll post my results and thoughts.
Carnival of Personal Finance – my post about how I budget was included in last week’s carnival hosted by Sun’s Financial Diary
Posted in News/Misc, Sites/Articles | 2 Comments
Carnival of Personal Finance #165 is Up
August 14th, 2008
This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up, this week it’s being hosted by No Debt Plan and he themed the whole carnival around College Football. I was included this week which was very cool but there are a lot of great articles posted up, here are a few that caught my attention:
Entrepreneurs: Is Extreme Frugality A Waste of Time?
Chasing Money – Is There Ever An End To It?
Ways Not Having a Job Impacts Our Personal Finances
Definitely check the Carnival out – they’re always full of great posts.
Posted in Sites/Articles | 2 Comments
Happy Fathers Day and Carnivals
June 15th, 2008
Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers out there. They might not have given birth but they’re the ones that we most often turn to when something goes wrong. They our the stones of reliance that we always turn to. I have had my disagreements with my dad but I love him none the less (more so if anything). I hope that when its my turn I’m just as good a father as he is.
Carnivals this past week – I was included in the carnival of personal finance hosted by Prime Time Money. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to read through a lot of the posts so I don’t have any picks myself. Definitely check out the carnival.
Contest Note – As you can see by the updated chart in the side nav I missed this weeks’ budget, just barely. If you haven’t left your comment for an additional entry now’s the time to do it. I’ll be drawing the winner tomorrow evening.
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Carnival of Personal Finance This Week
June 8th, 2008
The Carnival of Personal finance this week is being hosted by Moolanomy and my post about Cash and Debit was included. I wanted to post about this earlier in the week but I also wanted to read through the posts and select a few that caught my attention.
Posts of interest to me:
26 Ways to Make Extra Money While Keeping your Day Job
Stop Complaining about Gas Prices
Increase your Salary Without Increasing your Work
Debunking the “Latte Factor”
Posted in Sites/Articles | 2 Comments
