A Tentative Personal Finance Blog

I know it’s been a while since this blog has been updated. I’ve been filling my time with freelancing for other websites, but rest assure plans for expansion are in place (but ran into a few complications). Look for updates coming soon!

Here is a nice link to the History of Labor Day so you know what it is really all about.

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

Any bank that gives finance at low rates would be a best bank. In a normal scenario getting a creditcard approval or an approval for credit finance requires a good credit score. Everybody should invest time doing income planning to avoid doing future debt management. Life has become so much easier today because of technology special softwares like a tax software can help us save while doing taxes.

While I’ve been thinking about the direction that A Tentative Personal Finance Blog takes, I’ve been trying to money online in other ways.

1) AGLOCO has finally released their viewbar. It’s available for download and is ready to use. You can earn money while surfing the net. Things you would normally do anyways. Why not get paid to do it?

2) Earlier this week, I was able to get access to a bunch of Wiis. I’m putting them up on eBay! Act fast, the first auctions are ending this weekend!  I also have a few Wii games, a 7.2 Megapixel camera and a slot loaded DVD drive, among other things.  Check it out!

Here’s a list of some of my favorite posts this week.

JD calculates how much fun activities really cost and asks readers what he should do to get his house in order. Praying for you buddy.

Ramit from I Will Teach You To Be Rich is finally back and figuring out a new beginning.

The Mint Blog tells you why you should put off saving for retirement.

Free Money Finance shares his thoughts on tithing.

The Sun’s Financial Diary compares online interest bearing checking accounts.

Money Socket uses kryptonite to stop impulse buys.

Finance Physician shares how doctors can save themselves from getting sued.

zenahabits has 73 Great Debt Elimination Tips.

John Chow dot Com, a blog that helps you make money is giving away a 24″ wide screen LCD monitor! To enter, you just have to write about it. This is my entry. Now give me the monitor! The contest is sponsored by BluFur, who wants to let you know that they’re hosting Canada and the rest of the world.

Ms. Danielle is giving away a 30GB Microsoft Zune that she won from John Chow. On her new blog site she talks about everything from online marketing to golf! Here’s a post that I’ve enjoyed. Make money online vs. get rich quick.

David Culpepper is holding 2 separate cash giveaway contests this month. He is awarding $100 CASH to whoever posts the 1000th comment on his blog. He is also randomly drawing a name for another $100 CASH to anyone who blogs about this contest. Visit his blog for some great blogging tips and to find more information about how you can win.

One of my favorite shows that ever aired on television was Quantum Leap.

Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett lead an elite group of scientists into the desert, to develop a top secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressure to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped in the project accelerator, and vanished…

He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact wit his own time was maintained through brain-wave transmissions with Al, the project observer, who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, put things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next Leap will be the Leap home.

The uniqueness and maybe the weakness of the show was that each week Sam jumped from life to life. There was never a story arc that lasted more than two or three episodes, but at least at the end of each episode there would be a teaser for the next. He’d have the occasional run in with celebrities such as Buddy Holly or Michael Jackson. He even had a Halloween episode where he squared off with Satan! How could you not love that?

To me, the appeal of the show was that he “finds himself leaping from life to life, put things right that once went wrong…”. I look back on my life and and often wonder how small decisions or even minuscule events have shaped and affected the person I’ve become. Don’t get me wrong, I love my current situation. But we all have things in the past that we want to erase or wish were different.

In another episode, Sam leapt into his own life as a boy! Here are some things I would tell myself to do differently or even prevented if I were able to leap:

• When you burn a hole in the carpet don’t blame your cousin, learn to take responsibility and own up to your mistakes.
• Take care of your little brother better
• Don’t waste that first, “I love you,” on the cute Mexican girl with big brown eyes in sixth grade.
• Trust in Jesus sooner
• Learn Spanish instead of French, trust me, it’s not a more elegant language… plus no one uses it in America.
• Don’t be so uptight and emo in high school.  Make the most of your time there.  Participate in other things besides Junior Engineering and the Academic Bowl.  Go to a dance even! Make friends even though you won’t be keeping in touch with any of them.
• When Kathy the cheerleader moves across the country, keep in touch with her.  You’ll marry her 12 years later.  She won’t think you’re so weird anymore.
• Stop wasting your time being a Counter-Strike pro.
• Making $7 an hour at your first job at USRobotics is nice, but don’t blow it all on comic books.
• Learn how to balance a check book.
• Don’t hijack your parents car while they’re out of the country.  You get into accidents AND they find out.
• Do not pick up poker.  Do not start playing poker online and even when you’re making a couple thousand a month doing it… the ride will end and you’re not Johnny Chan.
• When you go to college, go to the school you want, and not the one that’s closest to your girlfriend.  You’ll break up three months after school starts anyways. Also, major in English and communications… No matter how much you think you love science, you’ll hate organic chemistry.
• Do not buy things on credit because you can pay the minimum balance and roll it over just one more month.
• Do learn the value of money and not from your parents.
• Don’t always have something to say, you’re not always right.

This post was inspired by Lazy Man’s post regarding the same topic.

During the last six months, my life has drastically changed. Half a year ago, I would have given someone a blank stare if someone asked me what industries the Dow Jones represented or what the 500 in S&P 500 stood for. Today, I’m writing a personal finance blog for the last 6 weeks. That’s quite a turn around. What did I get myself into? The change didn’t happen over night but as a byproduct of lots of reading and a strong desire to be educated on personal finance. I wouldn’t dare say I have nothing left to learn, because I’m still young and there’s still tons of financial situations that would leave me flabbergasted. I just don’t have the experience to deal with certain things yet. But as I get older and continue to learn, I’ll evolve and hopefully will be able to tackle things such as financial planning when death occurs or when medical bills arise suddenly.

As you take control of your finances, your life starts to change and it’s inevitable that you grow in a lot of areas of your life. The way I see it, personal development happens hand and hand with taking control of your finances. You learn to be more disciplined as you learn how to pay bills on time and setting a budget. Your values can change as you plan for the long term and weighing the pay off at the end rather than the instant gratification of the now. You learn how to make better and smarter decisions, not with just your money, but also with your time.

A reader recently sent me an email asking how it was possible to manage the posting schedule that I’ve been holding since the beginning of this blog. Two posts a day on the weekdays and at least 1 on the weekends. To be honest, it hasn’t been easy and I’ve resorted to linking to other bloggers or writing post that I didn’t really think were quality posts. I haven’t quite mastered the most effective use of my time, but here’s what works for me and my situation. This is just a rough schedule for a typical weekday.

Sometime between 5am and 6:30am By this time, I’ve usually been awake for 30 minutes to an hour. I have a really abnormal sleep schedule and get anywhere between 4-6 hours of sleep a night. I use this time to prepare for the rest of the day.

6:30am to 7am I check the blog to see stats on visitors, ad revenue, and most importantly respond to emails from readers. One of the best parts about blogging has been the networking aspect of connecting with readers and fellow bloggers. They’ve (you’ve) made these first few weeks intensely enjoyable. I also check my RSS numbers around now too. This always gives me a little excitement as I see if my RSS subscriber numbers have increased or not. I also fire up Quicken and quickly balance and reconcile any checks or receipts I might have.

7am to 7:45am I scan through almost 100 blogs that I read daily. I’m fortunate that I can scan and read pretty quickly. I pick out posts that I want to comment on and if I have time I’ll leave remarks, but most of the time I’ll bookmark them and comment later on during the day. I do this because comments usually will generate some traffic onto the site, plus contributing to the community is helpful in developing and chewing on new thoughts. My wife’s alarm usually goes off at 7 and she plugs in her rollers and starts to get ready for her day.

7:45am to 8am I’ll use this time to quickly touch up drafts that will be posted in the next few days or roughly draft ideas for future posts. I don’t do much of that in the mornings because I’m not really a morning person and do the bulk of my writing in the evening or late at night.

8am to 8:15am I’ll usually be the one making lunches for both of us. It’s been one of the best ways to save money on food. Lunch usually consists of a sandwich, chips, a cookie, something to drink and a vitamin.

8:15am to 8:45am I’ll finally brush my teeth and start getting ready for work. This time can be invaluable because my wife and I can touch base about our days and what we need to get done. Reruns of Dawson’s Creek is usually playing in the background.

8:45am to 6pm We both head off to work. Because my work schedule is pretty flexible (I usually take off a day during the week to spend with my wife), I work a little bit later during the days I do go to the office. It’s a normal 9 to 5 doing IT work. This gives me a lot of leeway to be in front of a computer during the day. As hectic as the job can be, there are patches of down time each day where I can respond to emails for the blog, scratch out some more posts, or comment on those bookmarked posts from earlier in the morning. I really have to learn how to cut out this part of my day (the 9 to 5). Maybe in a couple of years, if this blog takes off.

6pm to 6:15pm The first thing I do when I get home is launch Quicken and see how our investments did for the day. I’ve accepted the stock market’s volatility and learned how to control the feelings of the gains and losses by now. The first few months were painful as the market would dip a few percentage points and elation as it rose.

6:15pm to 7:45pm This can be a good session of writing here and the first bulk of it is done during this time. Not much to be said here. Meals are usually prepared from leftovers or in advance with our slow cooker. That thing has been wonderful as we save money on meals and time for preparation.

7:45pm to 10:30pm My wife gets home from work around this time and we spend time together. We eat, share stories about the day and try to connect. A lot of times, we’ll do this in front of the tv. We’ll try to play games or read. It’s the best part of the day for me. I don’t have to worry about work or blogging, even though my mind’s constantly thinking about it. She gets ready for bed around 10:30 and leaves me to my own devices.

10:30pm to 12am I’ll usually be chatting with friends on AIM or playing games with them and speaking to them on a VOIP called Teamspeak. If you noticed, that’s usually a program gamers use to speak to each other during gameplay. I’m an avid Battlefield 2 player. I’m a Major!

12am to 1 or 2am We call it a night and I stay up to work on the blog some more. More brainstorming, drafting, writing, and what not. This is the time I plan out the posting schedule also. I love the timestamp feature in Wordpress. I can write posts days or weeks in advance, or leave them in que, and have them published on a certain day and time. Sometimes I’ll have a good day and write 3 or 4 posts at once and they go out on autopilot.

That’s pretty much a typical weekday. Here are some observations. I’m spending between 3 to 5 hours a day working on the blog. It’s almost like a part time job, except the pay is ridiculous. Also, I need to get more sleep.

This time of year, corporate offices swell with college interns. The extra staff helps employers, and students gain coveted work experience. Because an internship is a critical stepping stone to employment, students who are prepared to make the most of their summer job will come out way ahead.

Be ready to do the nitty gritty At work, I know someone who always complain about their tasks or felt like they are owed something. Others are too eager and incredibly ingratiating. You don’t want to be either. The better approach is simply to work hard and be willing to put in extra time. Don’t worry about impressing people. Also be ready to apply the same focus and energy to grunt work, such as making copies or filing. Those are the little things that make companies run. If you don’t show you can do those tasks well, you’re certainly not going to be trusted with bigger assignments.

Set tangible goals At the same time, you won’t gain anything from fetching coffee all day. When you start the internship, sit down with your immediate supervisor and discuss what will be expected of you and what your goals are. Once you establish three measurable goals, write them down and keep weekly updates on how you’re doing. This helps articulate what you’re learning. If half way through your internship you’re not making progress, talk to your supervisor. Indicate that you’re happy to do what’s asked of you but that you’d like to contribute in other ways too.

Don’t stay in your head Employers like a worker bee, but it is also important to come up for air and make connections with co-workers and share some of your ideas. Some of the most successful interns are those that network themselves well, have been innovative, and are not afraid to bring up new ideas. Not that you have to befriend everyone or offer clever ideas your first day. There will be plenty of office events at which to meet people and chances to share your thoughts. Just be ready to seize the opportunity.

Get feedback In formal internship programs, you typically receive a performance review before leaving. Even if your job isn’t as structured, ask your supervisor for feedback. It’s a huge chance! You can find out where you went wrong , what your strengths are and what you can do better. It’s also your opportunity to ask for a letter of recommendation or, if you liked your experience, to remind your supervisor of when you’ll be graduating. And make sure you express your gratitude for the experience. While people say first impressions are most important, the last impression is going to be a lasting impression.

Stay in touch After the internship is over, stay in touch with your managers or supervisor. Doing so can pay off. Lots of employers hire interns into entry level full time positions.

Who is the best person to handle your finances? It’s you, but let’s say you’re the kind that can make money but don’t know what to do with it once it’s yours. Or perhaps you know a bit about personal finance but need some help on the more complicated matters associated with managing your money. Or maybe you don’t want a thing to do with handling your finances. You simply want to turn them over to someone else. In all of these cases, you may be in the market for a financial adviser. But the world of financial planners is full of sharks. In most states, anyone can call themselves a financial adviser, even if they don’t have any training. So how do you pick a financial planner who knows what they’re doing and won’t rip you off by only working to turn your money into theirs? A few thoughts…

Financial pros will ask you questions such as your expectations for returns and tolerance for risk, but because you’re doing the hiring, you should also do some interviewing.

1. What process do you follow to identify goals and evaluate performance?
2. What are your sources of research and information?
   
3. How often will you hold formal meetings and reviews with us?
4. Are you available for informal meetings?
5. What is the fee structure?
6. How are you compensated?
7. If I have a complain, where do I take it?
8. Does your firm have a formal dispute-resolution process?
9. Can you show representative portfolios or actual client case studies?.

The first step is making sure the planner’s expertise meets your needs. Then there’s another issue of compatibility. Is the adviser someone you can confide in, someone you feel comfortable going to with questions, problems, and concerns? The answers won’t tell you everything. References will be self selected. Even clients’ overall portfolio returns are of limited value because of timing differences. What’s helpful is the actual performance of the funds or accounts an adviser proposes for you, which you should ask for.

You’ll also want to check to be sure your planner hasn’t had any run ins with regulators. But your real goal is to smoke out bluster and get a sense if someone is candid and intelligent. That takes face time. The more research you do and questions you ask before signing on with someone, the fewer problems you’re likely to experience down the road.