Life and Finance

Weekend Links

lifeandfinance — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:31:11 +0000

So sorry that I haven’t been here! I have an after school activity now that goes until 6 most days, so basically I get home, eat, do homework, and sleep. I’ll try my best to update regularly, but school is craaazy.

H ere are some interesting charts of the pay gap between men and women in Europe. Very disappointing, I must say. I would like to see more graphs about the differences between working women and men.
I plan to use this blog post on GetRichSlowly to help me start my indoor garden
Kiplinger’s Erin Burt wrote an article about cutting cabl e – rather inspirational. She also gives cable alternatives (hulu, etc.) that are worth looking into.

Grocery Shopping

lifeandfinance — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:21:06 +0000

Sometimes, you’ve got down so much on your spending that there’s nothing extraneous that you can still cut. And that’s when you have to cut from your typical bills – like grocery shopping. Here are some links to get you started.

Don’t forget to always check your receipts for any possible errors.
The Frugal Duchess gives 11 ways to cut grocery bills.
Here are another 11 tips to cut grocery bills from Frugal for Life.
If you like to read organic, here are some tips.

Away until Sunday

lifeandfinance — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:09:33 +0000

I’m going to be out of town until Sunday night, so no posts till then Have a great weekend!

Don’t Procrastinate!

lifeandfinance — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:27:05 +0000

In personal finance, procrastinating is almost always bad. Starting to save late will always cost you, but sometimes there’s even a fee for procrastinating. Take saving for college – at The Frugal Duchess, the author outlines the fees that she now has to pay. A parent who registered when the child was a newborn would pay about $82 a month. A parent who started when the child was 16? $600 a month. More than just a slight difference.

Then, check out this article at Getrichslowly. “Early Bird Bob” started when he was 20 and ended when he was 40, investing $5000 a year (total $100,000). When he retired at 67, with a 10.95% return, he had $5,938,625. “Late bloomer Bill” invested $20,000 a year for 28 years (total $560,000), and finished at 67 with $3,168,398. Bob contributed less, but ended up with more. I highly recommend that article (this was actually the article that started my personal finance interest) – it’s interesting (to me, at least), and very informative. And it really gets the point across.

My point? Don’t procrastinate! You’ll only hurt yourself.

Money Diaries Post

lifeandfinance — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:48:03 +0000

There is currently an excellent money diaries post up at iwillteachyoutoberich. The guy is brilliant – he’s able to have fun and be frugal at the same time – probably one of my favorite posts of the money diaries series. This guy knows what he’s doing, and he’s doing it – not saying, I’ll do this next time, blahblahblah, but actually carrying it out.

Festival of Frugality

lifeandfinance — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:14:03 +0000

Good Financial Cents is currently hosting the Festival of Frugality!

Here are my favorites:

Have fun!

Links for the Weekend

lifeandfinance — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:41:15 +0000

Find out how Obama’s housing plan will affect you here.
Figure out what the economic stimulus will do here.
Prioritize your savings goals here.
Save money on cable here (I actually could not live without my cable, but if you can, more power to you).
Some personal finance tools online are listed here. Useful stuff

Sorry about the sporadic updates guys! Junior year has been craaazy. Have a great weekend!

Divorcing Money from Emotions

lifeandfinance — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:35:39 +0000

There’s an interesting article on The Frugal Duchess – Divorcing Money from Emotions. Women (at least from my own personal experience) have a tendency to spend money when they are depressed or down. The post on the Frugal Duchess gives you tips for not spending money based on your emotions. For me, when I’m feeling depressed about something, I do the second best thing: online shopping (no, I haven’t curbed my addiction yet. I know, I should). I don’t buy anything online, and I get to look at gorgeous (and expensive) dresses and sigh longingly. Or, if you can spare a few pounds, go the old fashioned route and break out the emergency chocolate.

Stimulus passed

lifeandfinance — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:06:29 +0000

Well, they passed the stimulus. Let’s just hope that it’ll work. And I must say, I’m rather happy about the limiting of CEO paychecks and bonuses. The graph of United States income is skewed very much to the right, and I think that the gap between the rich and the poor is an issue that we need to work on, pronto.

Average is NOT Normal

lifeandfinance — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:32:03 +0000

Quick post – there’s a great quest post up on both iwillteachyoutoberich and getrich slowly. They’re companion pieces, so read them together here and here.

The author, Carl Richards, has a blog at http://www.behaviorgap.com/ – check it out if you’re interested.