Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for October, 2010

Debt Free, Now What?

October 11th, 2010

This past February 2010, I became totally debt free, but now what!

I thought that there would be a period where I would break even for a while, and then start to plow about $1,000 extra each month into investments! So now that it’s seven months later and how much extra did I save or invest? Not a single cent!

So what’s the problem? Why haven’t I been able to catch up?

Well it’s been a matter of bad luck with equipment breaking down and needing replaced and spending too much for our past vacation to Hilton Head Island!

But it’s also been a subtle form of LifeStyle Inflation! Thinking back now, I realize that when wants would arise, I would just go ahead and buy it. Yeah, I thought about it a bit, but I knew that I had the cash. Then when our car and lawn mower broke down, I had the cash too…

So now will I begin my saving and investment regiment? I certain hope so!

The only think that I’m worried about is the fact that my house is over 10 years old now, and it seems like things are starting to look a little run down! I expect things to start breaking soon or later!

I decided to lower my expectations to only save and invest $500 a month. Hopefully, I’ll be able to build back up to $1,000 though! I plan on paying myself first this time. That way I won’t have to feel guilty about missing my goal!

We’ll see if i can get my lifestyle expenses under control so I can accomplish my new goal!

-MR

Other Projects and Experiments:

33 comments »

Posted in lifestyle

Tags: debt free growing money investing lifestyle creep lifestyle inflation

MR Cache 2010, Oct 9 – Winning Across The Board!

October 10th, 2010

Weekly Thoughts:

This was an exciting week for my family! My daughter got another goal. But even more impressive was that my son’s team won their divisional soccer championship!

I introduced my first comic strip on the moneyreasons.com website! It might not look like much, it will grow into something more (I hope).

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

Budgeting In The Fun Stuff: (Fit in a Fun Friday – The Renaissance Festival) BIFS brings up a potentially super fun time at this festival. While I think that my wife and I will enjoy this too, I’m even more excited for my kids. It should be a great experience! Thanks BIFS for expanding my entertainment arsenal.

Everyday Thoughts and Tips: (To Annuity or Not to Annuity….) Kris does an excellent analysis of Annuities! The commenters further expand the topic, it’s a great read check it out if you want to know about annuities!

Financial Samurai: (How To Make Six Figures A Year At Almost Any Age) Sam is a great wordsmith, but an even better controversy creator! He makes a great and convincing argument that almost anyone can make six figures, and I have to admit what he says rings true. Since I don’t quite make six figures, the words also make me wince a bit. Check out his post see if you agree!

First Gen American.com: (Settling Estate Disputes – Babci Style) – A battle between the mother and father of Sandy over their house. It was a horrible battle, and you learn about how bad Sandy’s dad was. Check it out!

Grumpy Rumblings from the Untenured: (RBOC) Random thoughts and writings from Nicole and Maggie! Personally I like the octopi stories.

Jin6655321: (You’ve Been Saying that For the Past Five Years!) What a great company experience. Check it out and tell me if you think it would be awesome or what!!!

Len Penzo: (19 Tips for Saving a Bundle of Money on Home Appliances) Len introduces some great tips for buying home appliances! I have to admit, he includes a few that were new to me! If you looking to buy or replace an appliance, check out his site first!

The Millionaire Nurse Blog: (Poverty Level is 14%:What Say You?) This article looks at this 14% statistic from an absolute logical perspective. I missed this article, and I thought it deserved to be reviewed! So go read the article and tell Dean what you think!

Watson Inc: (The Problem with Being Budget Minded is Other People) Roshawn does an excellent job of explaining why the group of friends you hang around can make a huge difference in your ability to save money. Check out his great entertaining article!

My Favorite Post from the Week:

This week, my favorite post was: Financial Lesson For My Son – Savings. My son started saving money and keeping track of it all by himself! I was impressed!

-MR

19 comments »

Posted in Weekly Review

Tags: Favorite Reads Link Love Soccer wins

Funny Money – First Comic

October 9th, 2010

Today (Saturday), is going to be another crazy soccer day!

My daughter’s last soccer game it today, and my son is in a soccer tournament!

I’m really hoping my son’s team wins it! That would be great!

Anyway, I meant to post my first Saturday “Funny Money” post with a comic strip last week, but I was too busy moving mysite to bluehost.com. So here is my “Hello World” equivalent into the world of comics strips.

First Comic

Next: Funny Money – Comic 2

So here is my first prototype

-MR

Next Comic:
Funny Money – Comic 2
UPDATE: Hurray, my son’s team won their Division’s Championship!!! This is his 1st soccer tournament win!!!

And my daughter made another goal at her last game!!!

20 comments »

Posted in Humor

Tags: comic strip First comic funny money

Get Healthy!

October 8th, 2010

After going to a high school football game with my family, I now realize that I need to get healthy!

Why? Because I noticed that many of the other parents were both thinner and healthier than I was, so right there and then, I decided to “Get Healthy“!

Actually the reasons I want to “get healthy” are more complex that the one above, but it is the one that broke the camel’s back! Other stronger reasons include: wanting to be around for when my kids grow up, living a more fulfilling lifestyle, looking better so my kids get older they won’t be ebarrassed to be see out in public with me (lol) and the list goes on and on. So there are really many reasons I want to lose weight!

Getting Healthy doesn’t really require a formalized, overly complex plan. In fact, one way to get healthy is just to stop eating as much! It doesn’t get much simpler than that! I know a peer at work that loved to cook, he lost over 100 pound by eating all the great things that he cooked, but he just ate less in quantity!

So as a financial blogger, what is my frugal plan to ”Get Healthy”?

I’m going to start by going on a low carb diet! From experience, I know that by going on such a diet, I can lose somewhere between 10 to 20 pounds in the first 2 weeks, just by cutting out the carbs (carbs are foods with a high carbohydrate number; like sugar, breads, pasta, etc.)!

After the first 2 weeks have passed, then I can add additional elements into the mix to “get healthy“. Below is a list the changing steps:

Week 3 and week 4: Add some carb friendly vegetables (brocoli, and greens) to the diet.
Next 12 to 24 months: All of the above, plus the addition of walking and other light workout activities for a total workout time of 20 to 30 minutes a day.
Time after 2 years: All of the above, but trying to make the workout even more entertaining! Go hiking, swimming, bike riding, jogging, walking at the mall and parks (it’s not just for the very old), etc… You are only restricted by your own imagination here!

The key is to make the workout activities as entertaining as possible. So if you are working out with weights, listen to some motivating music to help get your blood pumping. If you are walking, listen to music on a mp3 player or better yet, listen to an audiobook while you walk. I’m betting that if you listen to a good audiobook that, you may even walk, ride a bike or go hiking for an even longer time frame!

Conclusion:

The plan I’m going to follow above is a guideline. It doesn’t have to be perfect! The most important thing from this post is that you need to start right now! No more procrastinating on this because start tomorrow might extent to weeks, months, years and until never! Never is way too late!!!

Can you think of any additional ways to make losing weight both fun and rewarding?

-MR

15 comments »

Posted in Health, lifestyle

Tags: frugal diet get health health live longer

Financial Lesson For My Son – Savings

October 7th, 2010

A few months ago, around my son’s birthday, I tried to teach my son a financial lesson about savings. Unfortunately, it was foiled by birthday money that he received.

For the past few years, my son was spending a lot of his allowance money on pokemon cards. A few times he got disappointed because he wouldn’t have enough money to buy other things like Nintendo DS games, Legos and the like… Of course, I would explain to him why he should save his money, but when we would talk about the interest gaining aspects, he never quite grasped the idea or at least he didn’t until a few weeks ago.

You see, my son has converted from an impulsive spender to a thoughtful saver! While I’m not entirely sure what brought out this change other than the example that my wife and I set, I’m impressed!

So yesterday, I decided to try to explained the financial lesson on savings again. I pointed out how the interest gains can work with his saving dollars. He understood the idea of interest this time around, especially the geometric (also called exponential) growth aspect. When it’s my daughter’s time to learn this lesson, I think I’ll create a “what if analysis” spreadsheet as a fun interactive visual to the lesson!

My Son The Budget User?

My son created a type of budget journal! It actually more like a checkbook balancing kind of journal, but he created it by without any help from adults!

The most important thing is showing encouragement for both this new activity, “Savings“, and the newly created system that my son created to help accomplish his new savings habit!

I created excel process to help me with my finances all the time. Do you use spreadsheets or other such document to give you a leg up on finances or other decision-making processes?

-MR