Money Reasons

Smart Reasons to Save, Use and Invest Money

Archive for October, 2011

Today, My Blog Is Two Years Old

October 8th, 2011

Time has gone by quickly!

Reflections on Being Two Years Old:

I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my blog adventure. There was a time when just one reader would come by daily and read my blog. She was what I thought of as my first real reader. She too had a blog (SeeJaneGetRich . com, now defunct though) and I would reciprocate by visiting her blog also. “Jane” was an incredible bright girl who was going to Law School at Brown University. Surprisingly, I still find that I miss her…

For the first 5 months, I didn’t understand what was required to get google to see me in their search engine. During that time, I hardly I got any hits from google at all. I really didn’t understand the whole SEO thing, and nobody was there to help… It was a lonely journey that just Jane and I were on! Check out Jane’s twitter account (SeeJaneGetRich twitter Account) if you are curious about her.

Next came Sam. One day a guy with an avatar called the “Financial Samurai” stopped by and left a comment. This wasn’t the first time that I’ve seen the Financial Samurai name though. Back then (before Yakezie) Sam visited a lot of pf bloggers and would leave comments often. Excited, but weary (I even had comment spam back then), I visited his site and was amazed!

Lego Birthday Cake

The looks of Sam’s site was breath-taking, much, much cooler than my own (and it still is). I thought to myself “Yeah, but is his content good, or is he all just flash”. I read one article, then another article, and so on. After a few articles later and after dive in his archive, it was obvious that Sam was a very talented writer and very entertaining to boot. Sam is hugely responsive for me growing more quickly and the fact that I’m still blogging today!

How I’ve Grown

I’m not the same man who started this blogging journey, I’ve changed. I’m definitely learned to take charge and forge my own path instead of going down the same path that everybody else follows. I was nervous at first, but now I’m seasoned in this area too. I’m very comfortable voicing my opinion and changing the course when I think things are wrong.

I’m more social, and much less introverted than before. I actually was very excited to go to the 1st Financial Blogger Conference (we are all indebted to you Phil at ptmoney.com), and actually sad to leave so soon.

Surprisingly, the only thing that hasn’t really change much is my financial awareness and strategy. In fact, I was recently commenting that I think that I’ve neglected my own finances a bit while I instead focus on blogging (how is that for a twist)…

My technical side is starting to finally come out more in my blogging. I’ve been wanting to change my theme for a long time but I’ve been holding off. Lately, I’ve been geeking out playing with all the cool features around blogging. Hopefully I’ll have a new look by next year.

Where I Want To Go

I love blogging, but now it’s time to expand and make my hobby, my tech hobby too. I want to try some things, to see how far I can push myself, to see how far I can reach up (from Pat Flynn’s speech at the finCon11).

I sometime talk about going outside of the box, but mostly I just look outside of the box and tell others when I see. They sometimes do what I see while I sit safely inside of my box. But now it’s time to take a step out, no, not jump out but taking that critical first step. A journey of a thousand steps begin with a single step (by Confucius).

I find that once I take such a step, it’s hard for me to stop, kind of like the unstoppable motion of the Juggernaut from Marvel Comics.

Future Giveway:

Yes in celebration, I’m going to be giving away a best buy gift card in the near future.

Bests,

MR

P.S. My blogoversary was on Oct. 7.

43 comments »

Posted in Blogging

Tags: blogging for two years blogoversary lessons learned from blogging

Getting Paid To Lose Weight?

October 6th, 2011

I’m out of shape and I need to lose weight!

Traditional Paths To Lose Weight

I’m out of shape, there, I said it with only a tear in the corner of my eye. In the past, I would go searching for a gym membership at some fitness club. The pricing for the fitness clubs that I could afford would range from $40 to over $90 a month. The of course you could always hire a personal fitness trainer (but this is definitely something that I couldn’t afford). Finally at the uber-high end of paying for fitness you could buy membership to a country club. I would faint if I told you the pricing for this luxury (some are over $20,000 per year)!

Now to be fair, there are perks in joining fitness clubs and country clubs that go beyond the goal of losing weight and becoming more healthy. Socialization is one such goal, Prestige (or bragging rights) is another. For someone at my level of income, I can’t afford such luxuries.

Cheap Ways to Lose Weight

Over time, I learned that there are cheaper, although not as exciting way to lose weight. Below is a quick list of some of the easy ways to be healthy both physically without spending a ton of cash:

Purchase a weight bench and weights or some other piece of proven fitness equipment (and use it!).
Exercising to morning fitness programs on TV.
Take strolls around the neighborhood at night (of course you need to live in a safe area and go with a buddy).
Calisthenics – pushups, situps, leg squats combined with a sensible diet works wonders really!.
Mowing the lawn.
Taking the dog on walks (good for the dog and you, of course you need to have a dog…)

The methods above are things I’ll be doing in addition to the next topic below!

Getting Paid To Lose Weight

I’m not talking about getting huge, then going on some diet losing half your body weight (blob to babe) kind of deal…

My idea is to find ways to get paid while losing weight, it’s that simple! So let’s say that you have a buddy that has a law mowing business. You should talk to him and see if he has work for a few hours to five hours per week that you could get paid for. Of course you would have to be reliable and stick to it for at least a year. This approach could be a win-win for both you and your buddy.

Another approach would be to make videos about it and post them on youtube. Of course you would have to be entertaining… Perhaps while doing your video you can dress up as something silly (like Fred, nuff said!). This approach is a long shot, but it could be a lot of fun to do in the process!

Oh, one finally point on getting paid to lose weight, if you do find a way to make money while losing weight, use the money for something that rewards you for doing so (I’m not talking about buying ice cream either)! I mean something like a small vacation after a few months of losing weight work, or maybe a small shopping trip to the store, or paying down extra on your debt… Make the money gained by losing weight targeted to something fun or rewarding!

Thinking to Lose Weight

The point of this article is that you don’t have to let the past define the technique you use! You can think outside of the box on this and come up with entirely new ways to make fitness work for you! You might even come up with a system that is so much fun that you can market your idea and become rich (Zumba comes to mind)!

So today, I’m officially back on the weight lose wagon and I want to make a little money (or at least do it cheaply) while doing so!

MR

41 comments »

Posted in Weight Loss

Tags: cheap ways to lose weight losing weight frugally losing weight getting paid losing weight the smart way lsoing weight

A Perfect Drive Home After the Financial Conference

October 5th, 2011

I hate to drive long distances, at least without having a good audio book in the CD player.

When I started my drive home, about 100 miles in from the start of my journey, I got pulled over by the police. I was pissed because I knew I wasn’t speeding, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The police officer strolled up to my passenger window and asked me what was going on. He said he saw me riding off of the road. Now I hug the road edge but to be riding off of the road I would have had to go over those slashes in the road that alert people they are going off of the road, and that I did not do!

He started asking me if I had been drinking and other odd questions. I told him I was driving home from a blogger’s conference and showed him my conference tag, and he said okay and left. It was very bizarre, perhaps he was the one that was drinking! Okay, that wasn’t so perfect huh…

About 300 miles into my journey on the route home, I was bored (and I didn’t like the audio book that I had playing so I stopped it). Instead I started thinking about blogging and tried to come up with some clever ideas to pursue. I admit that my focus on the road at this time wasn’t 100%, but there weren’t many cars (or semi-trucks) around at that time, so I jotted down some ideas I was thinking about blogging… I was wondering if they were good, when I looked up and saw the thickest stub of a rainbow to my right that I had even seen. It looked like a tree stump of colors. At first I thought “WOW” and I was sure that many would consider this a sight! But then I thought no, a sight would be a full rainbow across the sky. Ironically, about 15 seconds after thinking that, POW, the rainbow is fully across the sky (very stunning actually). Even though I’m not superstitious, I still feel optimistic about the ideas I came up with… funny how thinks like the sudden rainbow can do that (especially since it wasn’t raining on me at the time (obviously in the distance where the rainbow showed up, it was…)

About a half and hour later, I look in my mirror and I noticed the sun setting into a corn field. In many ways that sunset reminded my summer vacation when I would watch the sunset at Captiva Island, except instead of going down into the ocean, it went down into the corn plants. After it was almost set I noticed the dark amber clouds from the sun setting, they too were beautiful. I actually drew some energy from the entire sequence of nature’s color display!

It might not seem like a lot, but seeing such a display was the perfect conclusion to a wonderful weekend (minus being pulled over and after I stopped wish I had gotten a rental car instead). At least I didn’t get a ticket, probably because I’m a blogger, lol!

I hope the other pf bloggers had as great of a journey home as I did!

MR

19 comments »

Posted in Inspirational

Tags: beautiful sunset enjoy your dirve home making the best of things rainbow while drriving

Financial Blogger Conference 2011, Behind the Words

October 4th, 2011

Most of what I heard at the Financial Blogger Conference I knew or supposed to some degree, so instead I thought I would talk about the energy behind the words of the speakers. It’s not necessarily what the speakers told you that matters, it’s the energy you apply to move those words that matters!

Originally, I was going to write about my takeaways from the event! But Hunter from Financially Consumed did such a great job, I thought I’d just reference his site: Ten Takeaways – Financial Blogger Conference. Check out his article, it’s spot on as to what the primary takeaways were (check out the Ramit video too, it’s great)!

So I was watching Ramit and Adam Baker speak, I heard their words, but I also wanted to try to get a feeling for what makes them different from most of the other blogger (and really everybody) in the world. And what I noticed was a driven kamikaze style to their behavior. Ramit moved like a lion pacing in a zoo cage, ready to pounce on his next meal. He spent more energy in his hour presentation that I typically do all day! The same is true with Man vs Debt, massive amounts of energy was spent during his presentation too.

I think that those guys are very competitive and driven more than most of the people in life.

As I watched Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com, the style was different. He wasn’t near as aggressive, but he seemed very quick and smart about things. I think he has learned to be very clever about matters and has the ability to go a different route, or even make his own route in what he persues. If there was a style to emulate, he would be the one to be like.

J.D. Roth was too polished for me to read. I’m sure he give a lot of speeches and was great with this one. Mostly, from J.D. I saw a focused, passionate individual, but beyond that I wasn’t able to guess how he functions.

Honestly, all the speakers that I saw did a great job. The conference was well worth the price! I would do it again in a heartbeat!

MR

26 comments »

Posted in Blogging

Tags: financial blogger conference pf blogger personality

How I Saved a Customer at McDonalds Up to $5,000

October 3rd, 2011

On my way to the 1st financial blogger’s conference, I decided to save some time and drive through the McDonalds drive-thru to pick up a quick meal.

While pulling into the parking lot, I noticed a white box commercial truck snaking around the McDonald’s yellow bar that tells drivers that they can’t drive through the drive thru if there vehicle is higher than so feet (usually around 9). I found this maneuver to be very strange. I chalked it up to that fact that the driver was going to not go under the roof and yell her order and pick it up by getting out of the fairly large box truck.

Well…. Apparently the driver forgot or wasn’t the swiftest driver in the McDonalds drive-thru as she drove the box truck up to “Pay Here” windows. Sure enough a nasty screeching sound happened and the truck got stuck underneath the roof.

I had my windows down since I had just ordered when I heard the cashier say to the driver to back it up. I thought no, no, no! Driving it back would rip that part of the siding off since it was sticking, and possible cause damage to the roof! As the driver started to do that I decided to take action (I was hungry, lol!).

You see, I had an idea! My idea was that If I were to get a few people on the back bummer, the extra weight would make the shocks go down and the driver would be able to drive forward (or backwards for that matter), without causing any extensive damage to the roof. I got up on the bummer, and sure enough the truck’s back-end did move down slightly, but not quite enough.

At this point, something special happened! The driver in the car immediately behind the truck got out and told me what a great idea I had and climbed up. Then a tall (and a bit heavy) girl (16 or 17) who was coming out of the McDonald’s building and saw what we were doing and asked if we needed help (which we obviously did and gladly took her offer)!

With the three of us on the truck, the truck shocks sunk and instantly the truck lurched forwards! Unfortunately, the driver was at the back of the truck with us, so the truck was moving without a driver. Once I realized what was happening, I said “Ummm, the driver is back here, we should jump off now!” All three of us jumped off, luckily the driver was able to get in at the last moment and stop the truck before it hit other cars.

I was very surprised afterward when even though I stepped up and becoming the problem solver, I wasn’t thanked by neither the McDonald’s cashier nor the driver of the box truck thanked me!

What really impressed me during the entire issue, was that both the lady and the girl complimented me on a such a great idea. I was especially impressed by the girl! She was young so I was surprised that she volunteered to help instead of just laughing at the truck driver’s problem and looking away.

It was rewarding enough knowing I did a good deed!

MR

27 comments »

Posted in Problems

Tags: good samaritan problem solving example