The Simple Dollar Time Machine: January 16, 2010

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (January 10 – January 16, 2009)
Children, Christmas, and the Materialism Battle I had mixed feelings about a video showing fifty children go CRAZY on Christmas morning after receiving a Wii – so I wrote about it.

The Selling of Gold I found the strong-arm selling of gold during the height of the financial crisis (and the selling is still going on) to be rather questionable at best. Here’s why.

Advantages We all have various advantages and disadvantages in life – there is no equality unless we’re all the same person. The person who succeeds is the person who doesn’t use those advantages and disadvantages as an excuse to not do anything and complain.

Review: Scratch Beginning An excellent book, and a review that started a great discussion.

The Secrets to Entrepreneurship? Or More? Many of the “secrets” for succeeding in entrepreneurship are the same as the “secrets” for succeeding in life.

Two Years Ago (January 10 – January 16, 2008)
The Basics: Eight Tactics To Use When You’re Just Starting To Turn Things Around I speak from experience – big time – with this article. Those first few months after making the commitment to change can be very exciting – and very difficult.

Airport Frugality in the Era of New Security Regulations After watching an airport security person dump out my bottled water, I realized that most of the usual frugal tactics don’t work when entering an airport. So I adapted my choices a bit.

My Favorite Bargain: The Free Newspaper I read CityView and Juice (the two free Des Moines papers) almost every week. They’re both worthwhile and CityView in particular has some very good articles. See what your city has.

Changing Values, Changing Priorities We all change and grow. Almost every time, we’re far better off embracing those changes than fighting them.

Maximizing the Free (or Nearly Free) Things That Make You Feel Good A walk in the woods. An afternoon spent playing with the kids. Cleaning the kitchen with the radio on. They make me feel good – and they’re free (or close enough to it).

Three Years Ago (January 10 – January 16, 2007)
Why Income Inequality Matters: Motivation Instead of being upset or depressed that you’re not earning as much as someone else, use it as a motivator. People all over the world use the financial success of the United States as a motivator, for example.

Afraid To Talk About Money With Your Spouse? Ten Tips For “The Talk” It’s often hard to break down the wall and have that first serious conversation with your spouse about money, especially when there are financial problems. Here are some tactics for making it work.

When Your Income From Investments Covers Your Living Expenses: The “Crossover Point” This is pretty much my ten year personal finance goal (well… ten years, with a lot of hope). I dream of the day when our living expenses are covered by savings and investments.

The Treasury Note Retirement Plan I know of at least two separate people who have done this, and it’s worked very well for them.

How To Quit Your Job In One Year: A Step By Step Guide I came amazingly close to following this plan myself, as I quit my job about thirteen months after writing this post.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

Nine Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are nine great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.
1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.

4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.

5. Follow me on Twitter – or other social networks. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.

I also participate on several other social networks. Feel free to check me out on del.icio.us (it’s where I collect links, from which I select the ones that appear in my weekly roundups), wakoopa (what software I use), GoodReads (what books I’m reading), Facebook, and FriendFeed (which aggregates everything). I also have an irregularly-updated personal site, TrentHamm.com.

6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!

8. Become a “Friend of The Simple Dollar.” If you find the stuff on The Simple Dollar valuable and are willing to spend five minutes or so a month to help me out with small things, please consider signing up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar”.

9. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!

Continue reading The Simple Dollar Time Machine: January 16, 2010 …

From The Simple Dollar.

January 16, 2010 | Filed Under Frugal Living | Leave a Comment

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: November 14, 2009

One Year Ago (November 8-14, 2008)
The Readers Speak Out: Their 25 Best Actions for Saving Money I asked the readers for their single best action for saving money. They responded – big time. Here are the twenty-five top ones, all of which received multiple responses.

Accountability For a lot of people, accountability is a four-letter word.

Taking Dramatic Change One Day at a Time Whenever I want to make a major change in my own life, I find it works far better if I take that change one day at a time instead of committing to big, long-term things that may be impossible for me to reach.

Paying Others to Provide a Service: When Is It Frugal? I think it is if you’re directly replacing the time you’d spend engaged in that service with something truly more valuable to you. This requires a keen sense of how valuable one’s time is, something a lot of people don’t have.

Some Thoughts on the Small House Movement: Is It Something Worth Considering? I think the size of our house is about right (perhaps with slightly bigger bedrooms and perhaps one more bedroom to accomodate our next child), but I know couples without children that have substantially larger homes than we do.

Two Years Ago (November 8-14, 2007)
Should I Report Ethical Misconduct At Work? I don’t think it’s always as cut-and-dried as people want to make it out to be. If I see my boss taking some extra coffee, I’m not going to try to get him fired. But where’s the line?

Should You Report Sexual Harassment in the Workplace? Similarly, I don’t think it’s as black-and-white as many would like to think it is. Sexual harassment is wrong, but I’ve seen threats and blackmail involving sexual harassment for calling someone “dear.”

Toy Catalogs and Children: Are They a Good Match? As of yet, we have never plopped our kids in front of a toy catalog near the holidays. Here’s why.

Fun I must be a real bore if I talk about money all the time.

Melancholy and Spending I believe there’s a huge connection between low self-esteem, sadness, and a lack of control over your spending. A positive attitude makes it harder for advertising to work its magic.

Three Years Ago (November 8-14, 2006)
Review: The Millionaire Next Door The first book I ever reviewed on The Simple Dollar is still one of my favorites.

The Road to Financial Armageddon #8: Meltdown Here’s the story of how I hit financial bottom. It’s painful.

Building a Financial (and Personal) Idea Diary I use one of these every day. I keep a little spiral notebook in my front pocket.

Setting and Meeting Daily Personal Finance Goals Microgoals are a big part of personal finance success. In fact, The Simple Dollar would fail without daily goals.

Applying the Peak-End Rule to Personal Finance The peak-end rule pops up over and over again in life. If you can figure out how to use it to your advantage, it can really help you save money.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

Continue reading The Simple Dollar Time Machine: November 14, 2009 …

From The Simple Dollar.

November 14, 2009 | Filed Under Frugal Living | Leave a Comment

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Next Project Edition

Now that my book is finished, I’ve decided to embark on another big time-consuming project, but this one is a little different.

I’m a big fan of online banks. I think they’re an incredibly powerful tool for helping you with your personal savings. For a long time, I’ve wanted to talk about a slew of online banks, just to review all of the different options out there.

There’s been a problem with this, though. I don’t like to talk about products that I don’t actually use myself. I won’t review a book unless I’ve read it and thought about it. I won’t review a financial tool unless I’ve used it extensively myself. And I won’t talk about a bank unless I’ve used it myself.

I use ING Direct as my primary bank. I talk about it often. But I don’t mention other banks for the reason above, and I want that to change. There is a huge diversity in online banks, offering different features, different interest rates, different offerings, and different tools for managing your money.

Here’s my solution. Over the next several months, I’m going to open accounts at a bevy of online banks. I’m going to try them out, see in detail what services they offer, transfer some money in out, test their customer service, and close the accounts (if I don’t intend to replace an account I’m already using).

Then, once a week, I’m going to post a detailed review of that bank in an effort to outline clearly what distinguishes it from other banks. What do they do differently? Who is this bank most appropriate for?

So I’m going to open this up to you a little bit. What would you like to see in a review of an online bank? What features really matter to you and would cause you to make the move to switch to a new bank?

While you chew on that, here are some interesting personal finance articles that might interest you.

“Natural Inclinations…Are Hardly Ever Altered or Overcome.” Over the last few days, I’ve been enormously inspired by this little quote. (@ the happiness project)

Do you do your most important work first? I used to have a very organized morning routine, where I would do most of my “routine” tasks before starting the day. What I found is that I got my “routine” tasks done, but most of the real meat of my work – the creative tasks – didn’t go nearly as well. (@ unclutterer)

How to Change Your Motor Oil Changing one’s own motor oil is a tremendous way to save money – when you pay someone else to do it, you’re essentially paying someone $20 so you can sit in a waiting room while some guy unscrews a nut, collects some oil in a bucket, screws the nut back in place, then dumps some clean oil in the top. Why not do that at home where you can do something worthwhile while the oil drains and save yourself $20? (@ art of manliness)

What To Do With A Financial Windfall This is a great step-by-step guide to handling a windfall. If you don’t have a plan, windfalls can actually be a large negative disruption in your life, as we talked about a bit last week. (@ moolanomy)

Results of a Week Without Spending Can you go an entire week without spending any money? As an experiment, this family attempted to have a week without any spending and managed to get by only spending $3. Fairly insightful stuff. (@ pt money)