Over the last week I've been included in a pair of quality carnivals. The first is the Carnival of Real Estate hosted by Searchlight Crusade. The editor disagreed with my recreational approach to real estate I called House Lust. I agree that it can be dangerous, but if you are conscientious I think cruising the open house circuit can still be an informative and fun way to spend a pretty weekend.
One of my articles was also included in the Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance. I've always thought it is important to recognize that personal finance is much less about numbers and more about our values, goals, and aspirations. Check out the carnival for some great reading.
One last thing I want to include in today's round up is the creation of a new category of post on Aspire 2 Wealth. Recently I've written two posts on the topic of Behavioral Finance. I am a big fan of this area of research and so over the next few weeks and months I will hopefully continue to cover more aspects of this neat (financially powerful) science. Check out Your Brain Make Building Wealth Hard and More Ways Your Brain Tricks You if you missed them the first time.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Carnival Update
Monday, February 25, 2008
The 123 Book Meme
Over the weekend I was "tagged" to make my contribution to The 123 Book Meme. Here is the low down:
"Grab the nearest book that has at least 123 pages, open it to page 123, and count down 5 sentences. Then, type the next three sentences here. Then 'tag' 5 other people/blogs."
Credit Withdrawl was kind enough to tag me so here goes. My closest book is The Only Three Questions That Count
"The PSR [Price to Sales Ratio] tells you, in the event the name didn't give it away, a stock's price relative to its per share sales. It's just like a P/E but uses annual revenue or sales where the P/E uses earnings. A stock selling for $25 with $25 in sales per share has a PSR of 1."
There you have it. You have now learned a new metric by which to value stocks! Now I'll tag five new blogs (in no particular order).
Today I was also featured in the Carnival of Twenty Something Finances hosted this week by The Frugal Law Student. I'm going to spend some quality time this evening going through the carnival and commenting on some posts. It will be time well spent.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Round-up: Cupid Edition
Last night my wife and I had our special evening together for Valentine's Day. I cooked a red wine fondue. It involved a lot of chopping veggies and cutting meat into cubes that were put onto skewers and cooked in a boiling mixture of wine and beef stock. Very yummy.
I also gave her two sets of coupons as a gift. The first set of 13 tickets are redeemable for "Blog Free Nights." My wife supports my blogging, but there are times that she needs me to pull myself away from the computer. Blueprint for Financial Prosperity posted recently about the Five Languages of Love. I know my wife needs attention to know she feels loved and that isn't always my strong point so this way she can remind me when she is feeling short changed on my affection.
The other coupon book I found online, I've lost the link now, and each coupon is an activity for us to do together. One is a day of cuddling, another is a picnic, and another is a romantic dinner out. In all there were about 15 of these activities. Some are going to be nearly free and others will be fairly expensive. The total value of all of the coupons may even be $500, but used over the course of the year it will be a great way keep up the romance.
There were a ton of great posts around the blog-o-sphere this week about Valentine's Day so I'll give a quick round up of some:
- Cheap Way to Say "I Love You" from Get Rich Slowly
- 6 Tips to a Frugal Valentine's Day from Consumerism Commentary (slightly tongue in cheek)
- Of Love and Money from Wise Bread
- Every Day is Valentine's Day from Clever Dude
Aspire 2 Wealth was also featured in the Carnival of Homeowners this week. You should check it out. Thanks for reading. Enjoy your President's Day weekend!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Start the Week Off Right
It is Monday morning and I had a tough time dragging myself out of bed. Despite my wifes tempting suggestion that we both take a "mental health day," I resisted temptation and got myself to work. I do my best to be a good cubical drone and use my sick leave in a responsible manner. However, the urge to abuse a liberal sick leave policy is always just a phone call away. I wonder how much our economy looses as a whole from people who take a couple extra days for the sake of Monday-Morning-Blues.
A couple weeks ago I missed two days of work because of a nasty head cold and sinus infection. My mom chastised me for missing work for such a minor illness. Of course she was right that I could have pulled myself together, heavily medicated, and kept my chair warm all day; but at what cost? How many of my coworkers would have been exposed to my germs or distracted and grossed out by my constant nose blowing? How much work could I have actually gotten done in my drug induced haze? My dad went nearly 20 years of his life without using sick leave (unless he had been admitted to a hospital and was literally deathly ill). I have to wonder if his valiant sick-on-the-job efforts actually helped his employer or not. Is this a generational difference from the days where loyalty to ones company begot a pension and health insurance and all those "old fashion" benefits?
I think that it is reasonable to use about half of my 13 sick days each year and "bank" the rest until I have saved up the maximum. That way after a few years I can withstand a catastrophic illness that lasts a month or so and still get paid. Once I have saved up the max do I have a "right" to use up all of my sick days every year even if I may not be sick? What about if I just feel under the weather or have a headache, would it be reasonable to use up leave for that? I haven't figure all of this out for myself yet either, but I do know that I am going to use my leave and not let it go to waste like my parents.
Today Aspire 2 Wealth was featured in on a few posts from around the blog-o-sphere. The Dividend Guy hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #137. My post Millionaire Rule #7 was included. The Carnival of Twenty Something Finance #14 included my post Diapers and 529 Plans - Scary Stuff over at TheLocoMono Website. Finally, Credit Withdrawal posted a weekly roundup Time Travel Edition that also linked to my Diapers and 529 Plans post. All of these great sites are worth a surf so check them out if you need some reading material to help your Monday move a little bit faster.
If you are visiting Aspire 2 Wealth for the first time please take a minute to subscribe to my RSS feed. The navigation bar at the top can direct you to some of my key posts that will help you get to know me. Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Issues of the Day
Today the Carnival of Personal Finance #136 was hosted at Green Panda Treehouse. My post $272 of Found Money was included along with a ton of other great content. I know that I'll be spending some time today browsing through all of the great links.
In other news, I had to bite the bullet and reformat my computer last night. My operating system had gradually descended into unusable territory so it was time to rebuild the system. Because this happens with a predictable pattern (thanks Micro-shaft) I was fairly well prepared. I already have an external backup drive in place so it was only a matter of copying over the most recent additions to the My Documents folder and exporting my Mozilla bookmarks (which are now full of great personal finance blogs). I highly recommend everyone buy an inexpensive external drive (or two) and make regular backups. From a purely financial perspective, all of the information you would loose in a hard drive crash could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. There are also the irreplaceable digital pictures, home movies, or other priceless data that you will want to save for a lifetime. Think of a backup system as insurance for all of the hard work you have put in creating, downloading, researching, and writing the content stored on your computer.
I also had a few more of my Found Money auctions come to an end. I have added almost another $100 to previously posted amount of $272 so the current total is over $350. I have four more auctions that will close next weekend which will likely put me into the $500 territory. I can not wait to get this money applied to my credit card balance. Of course I am only human and I did spend some of the money to buy a much needed printer (I did not have one at all before and I really needed it). I researched the best budget printer and ended up finding a great solution for $50. That will be my only indulgence, so look for my credit card balances to drop by at least $400 extra in time for my February Net Worth Update coming up in 10 days.
Thanks for reading. As always, if you like what you've read, please subscribe to my RSS feed and/or come back again soon.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Investment Basics Carnival #5
The Investment Basics Carnival #5 was posted this morning and my post Ignore the Stock Market Pain was included. The host set the bar pretty high and selected 17 interesting posts (out of 35 submissions) for the carnival. I found two that were particularly interesting for me, Goal Based Investing by Raag Vamdatt and Common Stock Investing Mistakes by Investing Angel.
If you have been reading my posts this week you know that I've been sick (which lowered my posting output too). I'm back up to about 90% so I'm going to try and put some of my thoughts from this week into posts. With any luck you'll see a flurry of posts in the next 2-3 days. Make sure to subscribe to my RSS so you don't miss them.
Friday, January 4, 2008
What Ever Happened to 'Greed is Good'?
Today Aspire 2 Wealth was included in the Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance. Penny Nickel from Money and Values is our gracious host. It always intrigues me how personal finance bloggers reconcile their sometimes conflicting (and always complicated) views of money as the enabler of both Good and Bad. Check out the Carnival to take a look at how many bloggers balance their ethics and their money.
If you are new to Aspire 2 Wealth, a good place to start exploring is with my current feature posts titled Millionaire Rules which provide detailed explanation of my Ten Simple Rules to Build Wealth. Please take a minute to look through my archives and subscribe to my RSS.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Last of 2007 - Carnival of Personal Finance #133
We're In Debt has brought us one last Carnival of Personal Finance for 2007. I really liked the great sampling of bloggers who have posted their 2008 goals for all the world to see. I picked up some ideas and inspiration. There are also dozens of other articles on all topics related to money. It has reminded me to put my goals into writing so check my RSS (you are subscribed right?) later today for Adfecto's 2008 Money Goals.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
New Edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning
The Skilled Investor has posted the Carnival of Financial Planning this afternoon. Aspire 2 Wealth's most popular post, My Money Decisions: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was included. If you haven't read that post yet now is the time! Surf over to check out the rest of the great articles too.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
My Holiday Recap
Christmas has come and gone till next year. It was an INSANE time here and I'm sure it was the same for most others too. We drove about 1000 miles and spent time with nearly all of our family. We also got some really nice gifts, and the gifts we gave seemed to be well received.
We got a nice mix of books, ornaments for the tree, and clothes. I was totally surprised when my parents gave me a 16 Gig iPod Touch. It was something I would never have bought myself so it made it that much cooler to get one. My wife got a Kitchen Aide mixer that she had been drooling over for months. We also got a fairly significant sum of cash that will refill the coffers and allow my wife to buy a bunch of new clothes that she needs (for a new work wardrobe).
Of all the things we did during our Holiday, I think we had the most fun playing an assortment of board games with our family. My wife and I picked up a couple new games that ended up being big hits. Crainium
I spent the whole week away from the computer and Aspire 2 Wealth. While I was gone I was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by The Digerati Life. It was a great set of Holiday Themed articles that you should check out. My wonderful wife also let me know not too subtlety that she was jealous of the time I've been spending on the blog (at least 2 hours every night after work). I missed the site over the break so Adfecto is going to keep on blogging, but I think in the future I will slow down a little bit and post 3-4 times a week instead of pushing hard for my original goal of 7-8 posts per week. I am all about balance in life and this will be no exception. Till next time... thanks for reading.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tax Carnival #26
Today Aspire 2 Wealth was included in Tax Carnival #26. Don't Mess With Taxes was kind enough to host the carnival. Check it out for a Texas Sized helping of tax information to help you save money and keep more of your hard earned dollars.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
My First Carnival
Today I was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance - Edition 130. It is my first carnival and I'm super excited. Everyone make sure to check out the carnival and read all of the great articles. Thanks to Money $mart Life for hosting and including me this week.
