Most popular posts on Wealth Itself from Jan 2009

• 5 Reasons to Track Your Expenses
  Posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 in manage money – Comments: (3)
  One of the most important things you can do for your finances is to track your expenses.  For many people, this means using Quicken.  For me, it’s a simple Google Docs spreadsheet.  Whatever your method, there are countless reasons to perform the simple task of tracking your expenses.  5 of these reasons are listed below: It’s absolutely the simplest way to overcome your paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle.
• A Penny Saved is a Penny… Saved
  Posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 in save money – Comments: (4)
  Want to know a quick and easy way to save money?Keep a piggy bank.That’s right… just like you did when you were a kid and had no financial worries in the world. Simply find a container that is lying around the house, unused, and put it to use. I use a sugar jar (which hasn’t actually contained any sugar for probably about 2 years) to collect my spare change.

An Open Invitation for Guest Authors

If you are hosting a blog on a finance-related topic, and would like some help in getting your name out there, then you are welcome to submit your guest posts to me for inclusion on this site.

All guest post submissions must follow these guidelines:

• Topic must be related in some way to personal finance (it helps to provide not only money-saving tips, but time-saving tips as well, in order to fit with the “15 minutes to riches” theme).
• Post must be a minimum of 500 words.
• Post must use proper spelling and grammar.
• Post must be original content.
• Post may contain one or more links to your own site for promotional purposes.

If you are interested in being a guest author for Wealth Itself, please let me know.  Thanks and happy reading!

Information Overload Will Eat Your Brain

Well, it’s the 21st century and there is so much information floating around that it’s just impossible to ever consume it all.  This surplus of information has given us a need to quickly sort through our sensory inputs, separating the good from the bad, and ignoring (if we can) the bad.

As a result, we’ve seen the rise of social sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon, we’ve been introduced to new groundbreaking productivity systems such as GTD and ZTD, and we’ve witnessed the uprising of a new psychological condition commonly referred to as ADD.

With so much information, it often seems like there’s just not enough time in a day.  Daily tasks such as dishes, laundry, and cleaning are much harder to “make time for.”  Unfortunately, our pocketbook suffers too.

Proper management of our finances takes time.  Coupon-clipping takes time.  Price-comparisons take time.  Budgeting takes time.  You get the point.  These things, unfortunately, often take a backseat to other things in our lives, simply because we feel that we don’t have time.

Garbage Disposals and Money in My Pocket

We’re in a recession–no doubt about it.  Companies are downsizing left and right, coworkers are getting laid off, the housing market is stagnant, and pay raises and corporate bonuses are smaller than ever.  On top of that, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

Drastic times such as these call for drastic measures.  In this post, I’m going to present to you one such measure.  In doing so, you are going to learn about one of the most important things you can do during these hard financial times.

The action I’m referring to is to become your own handyman.

We’ve all heard the horror stories.  Contractors are notorious for over-charging consumers on basic home maintenance tasks.  The problem, in most cases, is that we are ignorant to what they are doing.  When you are your own handyman, however, all these worries go out the window.  You are empowered to do the job yourself, and nobody is going to rip you off.

I’ll give you an example.  Earlier this week, I bought and installed a new garbage disposal.  I admit that it was a little intimidating at first; I pictured myself working for several days just to figure out how the thing worked.

New Edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction

The new edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction is out and one of my articles has been featured: 5 Reasons to Track Your Expenses.  Go check it out!

This carnival really featured some great articles.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Make Your Own Debt Reduction Plan from Destroy Debt
• What to Do When Relatives Ask for Loans from Free Money Finance
• How to Eliminate Your Debt (Without Spending More) from Words of the Shadow’s Kin
• A Penny Saved is More Than a Penny Earned from Little People Wealth

I hope you enjoy the content from this carnival.  It’s one of the best I’ve seen in a while!

Want a Quick and Easy $25?

Here’s a quick and easy way to get $25 for practically nothing…

Open an Orange Savings Account or Electric Orange Checking Account with ING Direct and get $25 deposited into your account FOR FREE, when you deposit at least $250.

Folks, if you save your money, ING Direct is an excellent bank to work with.  They generally offer higher rates than B&M banks and are very reputable… not to mention the fact that they are giving you money to sign up!  I’ve been with ING Direct for years and have had nothing but positive experiences with them.

If you are interested in this offer, contact me for an invitation.  I will then send you an invitation via email which you can use to get the free $25. This offer has expired.

I have a limited number of invitations to give out, so don’t waste time!

(Note that I do get a $10 bonus for each new account sign-up, but I would not recommend ING Direct if I did not believe in their service.  If you are going to have a savings account, ING Direct is the way to go.  Period.)

A Penny Saved is a Penny… Saved

Want to know a quick and easy way to save money?

Keep a piggy bank.

That’s right… just like you did when you were a kid and had no financial worries in the world. Simply find a container that is lying around the house, unused, and put it to use. I use a sugar jar (which hasn’t actually contained any sugar for probably about 2 years) to collect my spare change.

Many people will scoff at this idea, believing that you can’t actually save any real money using this method. Well, guess what? I save at least $10 per month this way. That’s $120 per year for doing NOTHING; certainly nothing to laugh at.

How do I collect so much change per month? It’s easy. Every two weeks (after my paycheck is deposited), I withdraw about $150 to use for entertainment, according to my budget.  This $150 is subsequently used for all my entertainment needs during the following two weeks.

And here’s the secret: anytime I receive spare change for an expenditure, I deposit that change directly to my piggy bank.

5 Reasons to Track Your Expenses

One of the most important things you can do for your finances is to track your expenses.  For many people, this means using Quicken.  For me, it’s a simple Google Docs spreadsheet.  Whatever your method, there are countless reasons to perform the simple task of tracking your expenses.  5 of these reasons are listed below:

1. It’s absolutely the simplest way to overcome your paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle.  Simply notice how much you are spending each month and budget $5 or $10 less for the following months.  Set this money aside as “padding” and eventually you’ll have a significant chunk of “extra” cash in your account.
2. It allows you to optimize your spending.  When you track your expenses, it will likely be blatantly obvious where the majority of your spending money is going.  For me, this has traditionally been eating out.  Simply notice these activities that are sucking up all of your money, identify a “fix”, and commit to it.  One of my previous fixes was to spend $100 less per month on restaurant food.  It worked.