The Simple Dollar Time Machine: October 30, 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 (October 24 – October 30, 2009)
The Ten Most Important Things I’ve Learned About Money and Life Since Starting The Simple Dollar This article really sums up the valuable things I’ve learned over the past several years.

Ethical Frugality Week: Regifting I don’t think regifting is necessarily a bad thing. If you can put an item into the hands of someone who will genuinely enjoy it more than you, I’m fine with it.

Stress and Overspending When I’m stressed, I simply spend too much. There’s a deep connection between the comfort level in your psyche and your ability to make good choices in the moment.

14 Ways a Notebook in Your Pocket Can Save You Money Quite seriously, my life would be far less productive without a note-taking device of some kind in my pocket.

Why Windfalls Make Many People Unhappy We’ve all heard stories about the lottery winner who discovered that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Two Years Ago (October 24 – October 30, 2008)
Brand Preferences and the Two Year Old Child What can make a very young child prefer some brands over other brands? I was mystified by this when my first child was two, so I dug into the question.

Some Follow-Up Thoughts on Fruity Cheerios and Branding Our Kids My investigation into marketing to very young children continued a few days later. I was really stunned by this.

Should an Entrepreneurial High Schooler Go to College? My answer was yes, but part of that is fueled by a sense that college is often wasted on people straight out of high school.

Eleven Tactics for a Cheaper Christmas It’s so easy to overspend during the holiday season. Here are seven ways my family commonly reduces holiday spending.

Exploring the Connection Between Time and Money I think that money is simply a representation of time spent, and the more money you get for your time, the more effective that time was.

Three Years Ago (October 24 – October 30, 2007)
Spam Emails About Individual Stocks: What’s The Scam? The scam is “pump and dump” – they want you to escalate the price so they can sell the stock at a profit.

A Deeper Look At Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps To Financial Freedom – And How They Apply To Us I have a strong respect for Dave Ramsey’s straightforward debt management tactics (even if I’m not a big fan of the product upselling).

Preserving The Things That Money Can’t Buy Relationships are the big one here. A relationship with a loved one or a close friend can’t be represented in dollars.

The Eternal Question: Am I Doing The Right Thing? I find myself pondering this question quite a lot, actually. I’m never quite sure.

The Ten Most Important Things I’ve Learned About Money and Life In The Last Year This summarizes many of my revelations during the first year of The Simple Dollar’s existence.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Christmas Thoughts Edition

This week, I went through the archives of several of my favorite personal productivity and personal finance blogs and found some of my favorite articles they had written about the Christmas season. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

A Non-Consumer Christmas: Simple Gifts for Kids and Grown-Ups Our biggest challenge, honestly, is limiting who we give gifts to. We have deeply enjoyed giving our homemade gifts to neighbors, people who provide services for us, and countless others this year. (@ get rich slowly)

What to do with holiday cards? Recycle! I’m going to save a pile of this year’s cards for use in 2011. (@ unclutterer)

Happiness is…a Beautiful Scent: Fireplace, Baby Powder, Christmas Tree. This absolutely hits a home run in terms of expressing why I love real trees at Christmas instead of artificial ones. It’s the aroma. (@ happiness project)

Holiday Safety Tips for Home and Away I really advocate for people asking their police department for a “vacation watch.” (@ frugal dad)

5 Ways To Deal With Holiday Stress & Battle The Christmas Blues My biggest problem is a mild case of seasonal affective disorder that I seem to get each winter no matter what I do to try to prevent it. (@ the digerati life)

What Christmas Is NOT About The reason I write about Christmas so much is because it’s the best opportunity I have during the year to reconnect with a lot of people in my life and show them that they’re appreciated. There are many, many friends and family members whose schedules make it difficult for us to meet up, but almost all of us have time off at Christmas for each other. (@ man vs. debt)

The Case Against Buying Christmas Presents Absolutely. Make some instead. (@ zen habits)

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget Even better, these are gifts you can give your children all throughout the year. (@ becoming minimalist)

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: December 18, 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 (December 12 – December 18, 2009)
The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good If you’re trying to be “perfect” when adopting a new habit, you’ll soon find that you can never really be “perfect.” Instead, shoot for being “good.”

Investing without Goals Is Like Golfing without a Putter… Goals help you figure out what the right kind of investment is. Without goals, it’s like shooting in the dark.

How I Wrap Gifts, Christmas and Otherwise I didn’t do this this year because we picked up a lot of wrapping paper at a steep discount late last December.

Two Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2008)
Planning Ahead for Next Year’s Garden Our garden is a major part of our food planning for the year. Garden planning plays a big role in that.

Are You Insuring the Irreplaceable? Look around your house and ask yourself what items would actually be replaced if your home burnt down. Now, are you insuring those things (at an extra cost to you)?

The Two-Career Assumption Do you and your spouse both have to have a career? For different families, different arrangements work better.

Three Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2007)
A Talk With My Niece My niece is now a wonderful eighteen year old woman, a college student who seems to have a better grasp of her life than almost any younger person I know.

The Real Value of Stay At Home Parenting Not everything in life is measured purely with dollars and cents.

Maximizing That Hourly Rate: Figuring Out How to Best Utilize My Working Time The more efficiently you work, the more you earn per hour over the long run.

Four Years Ago (December 12 – December 18, 2006)
Shakespeare Has Insights On Everything – Why Not Money? Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets have something of value for every element of life.

The Talk: Tips For Difficult Financial Discussions I find that when I’m about to have a difficult financial discussion, the time I spend thinking about it and planning ahead is very well served.

What Exactly Is A Certified Financial Planner, And Why Should I Care? It’s worth knowing about because it helps you to determine on at least a basic level how competent the person across the table from you really is.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Novel Update Edition

On November 2, I wrote about 10,000 words of my novel I’m writing this month. I was about to upload it, except we had some internet issues, so I decided to upload it the next morning.

I woke up the next morning, read some of what I had written, and hated all of it. So I started from scratch, re-drafting my plot outline and my character descriptions before starting over. My first upload of this revised novel finally happened last night at my Posterous site for the novel.

Whew.

Deal or No Deal? Comparing Dollar Stores to Walmart & Others This post just goes to show that no store has the lowest prices on everything and no matter how much you shop around, some other place will have a lower price on the item you’re looking at. (@ len penzo)

The Graduated Tithe – A Good Alternative to Tithing? I think there’s a nugget of a good idea here, in that people with large incomes may be able to tithe a larger percentage than people with lower incomes, but the idea as presented goes a little far, I think. (@ provident plan)

Never Work Again This is all about the perception of work when it comes to teaching children about it. The challenge I have is that if I don’t make clear at least some of the things I need to do, my children will just assume that I am always free to play with them. Why fix dinner when I can play Hey, That’s My Fish? Why do any writing when I can go to the park? (@ man vs. debt)

Budgeting for Mistakes I usually handle this by having an “overrun” in each month’s budget. I basically add on about 20% on top of what I estimate I’ll spend in a given month, to account for mistakes and unexpected events. (@ get rich slowly)

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Printing Photos Edition

I’ve been experimenting with photo printing at home (related to an upcoming post). I’ve lost quite a bit of money simply mis-printing photos and trying new things.

My conclusion? If you’re printing a wide variety of stuff, you’re probably better off using a service. A one-off photo is fine. A bunch of photos? Find a service.

Cheap Things You Never Use Are No Bargain Excellent article. I have a follow-up post that I want to write, but it needs to percolate for a little while. (@ get rich slowly)

11 Reasons to Ditch Your Television When I see statistics like “the average American watches five hours of television a day,” I shudder. Yes, I know that averages aren’t perfect statistics, but even if you have one person watching two hours and one person watching eight hours, that’s still every day. (@ man vs. debt)

A Simple Formula for Financial Independence This is an interesting way to look at your expenses. It puts those little expenses in the light of what they’re costing you in terms of financial independence. (@ frugal dad)

Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs. (Well, Kinda Sorta.) This really boils down to the whole “supersizing” effect. If we’re already buying something, why not throw in more cash and make it a bit “better”? (@ len penzo)

The Path Between Fear and Overconfidence While this article uses investing as the backbone, this is really true of any fear people want to overcome in life. (@ dividend monk)

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: November 13, 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 (November 7 – November 13, 2009)
Giving Experiences, Not Things, This Holiday Season For most people, the experience of Christmas is the best part, not the stuff that they receive. Keep that in mind this holiday season.

The Five Whys and the Power of Analyzing Your Life I find that the more often you use the “five whys” in your life, the more often you find yourself reaching conclusions, spending money, and doing things that are more in line with what’s really important to you.

Is the Dollar Store Really a Bargain? I’ve come to find that there is no store on Earth that has the cheapest prices on everything. Because of that, I usually end up suggesting that people focus on the store that offers the overall best prices on the specific things they regularly buy.

Two Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2008)
Walking Away to be a Stay-At-Home Parent This is an incredibly tough decision, and I think it’s one that every professional who has a child considers, at least a bit.

Taking Dramatic Change One Day at a Time Rather than focusing on the huge impact a major change you choose to make will have on your life, try focusing on just achieving that change one day at a time. What will you do today to achieve that goal?

On Good Debt and Bad Debt I don’t think there is a strict line between good and bad debt. I think all debt is bad, but some types of debt (like your first home’s mortgage) can be justified to an extent.

Three Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2007)
Lying to Yourself About Money (and Anything Else) When you fall into the habit of lying to yourself about your life, you reach a point where you can no longer trust yourself and rely on external forces to guide you, forces that you can’t really trust, either. You’re like a boat without sail or anchor, wandering the seas aimlessly.

Parental Enthusiasm and Childhood Branding It is utterly amazing to see how much impact the little actions of a parent can have on a child. If you’re excited about something they can comprehend, they often get excited about it, too.

Six Things I Look For At Yard Sales – And How I Get Them Even Cheaper There are certain things I always look for at yard sales, simply because I know they’ll always be a bargain.

Four Years Ago (November 7 – November 13, 2006)
Money Magazine’s 25 Rules to Grow Rich By – Reevaluated Money Magazine does a great job of promoting basic personal finance, but sometimes they promote specific things that are a bit sketchy, like the mutual fund du jour.

Remembering A Painful Childhood Experience – And Trying To Apply What It Means This still shakes me every time I think about it. It caused me to distrust a lot of things in life.

The Inspiration For The Simple Dollar This is still the inspiration for The Simple Dollar, though it’s grown over the years.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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 130,000 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: October 23, 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 (October 17 – October 23, 2009)
Ethical Frugality Week: Hidden Replacements Is it an honest thing to substitute a lower cost item into the package of a higher cost item in your home?

Ethical Frugality Week: Hotel Visits What items in a hotel room should you feel okay putting into your luggage?

Ethical Frugality Week: Haggling When is it okay to start negotiating for price? What should you expect from haggling?

Ethical Frugality Week: Free Samples How “greedy” should you be when you have the opportunity to pick up some free samples? Is it cool to grab fifteen packets of ketchup and then go home and fill your ketchup bottle?

Ethical Frugality Week: Lifetime Guarantees How long should a lifetime guarantee last? How “abusable” is it?

Two Years Ago (October 17 – October 23, 2008)
18 Things a New Homeowner Should Do Immediately to Save Money I’d give this checklist to any new homeowner. There are lots of great things a homeowner can do to maximize the value of their new home purchase.

When Networking Doesn’t Work: There’s No Value in Just “Touching Base” I think if you’re not giving value to someone or getting value from them, why are you communicating with them?

That First Taste of Financial Success It’s so easy to fall back into bad habits when you begin to feel financial success. Here’s how to not fall into that trap.

Stop Wasting Money on Disposable Things Disposable things mean that you’re going to eventually chuck them and it’s a net loss for you. Look instead for non-disposable items that will last for a very long time, even if you have to pay a bit more up front. You’ll use them forever and they’ll still have value in ten years.

Giving Outside the Box: Generosity on a Limited Budget Give your time. Give your talents. Give your unused or unwanted possessions. There are so many ways to give that don’t involve you busting open your wallet.

Three Years Ago (October 17 – October 23, 2007)
Stumbling on the Simple Things I do this, actually. My biggest stumble? Keeping up with my inbox.

Five Reasons Why Having A Child Isn’t As Expensive As You Might Think Most of the huge costs for raising a child don’t include the areas in which you save by having a child, and some of those can be a tremendous help.

Seven Lessons Learned From The First Issue of Money Magazine I really enjoyed making this article, because it enabled me to read this classic issue of Money.

Twelve Tactics For Defeating the Starbucks Habit I used to have a bad “Starbucks habit.” Breaking it not only saves a lot of money, it can also help your health.

Handling A Child’s Material Wants and Impulses This is pretty much a daily challenge for us, given we have a four year old and a three year old at home. They need different lessons because there’s an 18 month gap between them.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: October 2, 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 (September 26 – October 2, 2009)
Do You Want to Appear Rich? Or Do You Want to Be Rich? I think different sides of this coin appeal to different people. I also think the desire to appear rich hijacks the ability to be rich, causing people to go deep into debt.

Some Thoughts on a Cultural Shift Towards Frugality In short, I don’t think it’s sustainable, because people will rebound their spending when the economy eventually rebounds.

How the Traditional “Rules” of Frugal Living Often Vastly Undervalue Time There are a lot of frugality tips that seem to assume that you have a mountain of time with which to apply them. That’s simply not a reality for many of us.

How Does The Simple Dollar Earn Money? Some Notes on Do-It-Yourself Self-Employment Mostly, this article provides insight as to how I got the ball rolling on The Simple Dollar.

Modular Meals We make a lot of our meals with an eye towards our ability to remix the leftovers into some sort of completely new dish.

Two Years Ago (September 26 – October 2, 2008)
Looking at Your Career as an Investment Your career isn’t just an exchange of time for money. It’s an exchange of your effort for future opportunities as well. Simply put, it’s an investment.

Personal Energy and Frugality As with the time factor mentioned above, many frugality tips seem to assume that the person carrying out the tip has an infinite amount of energy. The solution? Don’t be afraid to filter a big pile of tips for the ones that are actually doable.

A Visual Guide to Saving Money with a Baby I took these pictures to describe how we saved money with our daughter. We’re now doing the exact same things with our son.

How to Find and Utilize a Mentor, No Matter What You’re Doing I think a mentor is the most valuable thing you can get during your career. A mentor can help your career develop in countless ways.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself This was my response to the complete doom and gloom being shouted from the rooftops at the start of the economic downturn.

Three Years Ago (September 26 – October 2, 2007)
The City Versus Rural Debate: Which Is The Better Place To Live? I think it depends on the person more than anything. What do they value? What’s more important to you: a small forest behind your house or easy access to cultural events? There’s no black-and-white answer there.

The Backlash Against Frugality Why do people sometimes treat frugal tactics in a negative fashion, as though it’s an affront to their personal sensibilities?

Five Personal Finance Lessons That Rocked Me Like A Hurricane When I Figured Them Out The things I’ve learned about personal finance since I started The Simple Dollar have completely changed how I view the world, from day-to-day life to global perspectives.

Should You Give Yourself Material Rewards For Meeting Certain Milestones? I think it works if you keep those rewards reasonable and decide on them in advance.

Thirteen Ways To Reduce The Effect Of “Bad Luck” In Your Financial Life The essential core of these tips boils down to simply making sure you’re removing burdens from your future self, because the more burdens you’re carrying then, the more likely it is that bad luck will find you.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: November 6, 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 (October 31 – November 6, 2009)
The Stumble What do you do when you “stumble” on your financial journey? Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, reflect, and recognize that you’ve just taken a couple steps backward on a journey of a thousand miles and you’ve not undone all of your progress.

Teaching Money Management Through Self-Responsibility We’re utilizing self-responsibility as we teach our children money lessons. Here’s a big taste of how we’re doing it.

A Reflection of Your Closest Friends Much of who you are is a reflection of your five closest friends. What does that mean for your career and finances?

Two Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2008)
Dealing with Personal Disappointment and Tragedy Life isn’t always a wonderful path filled with roses and happiness. How do you deal with the unwelcome moments in a financially sensible fashion?

Reading This Article Won’t Make You Rich There’s no article that, just by reading it, will make you rich. No book will make you rich. Only your actions will do that.

Excuses, Excuses There’s always a reason not to do the hard thing.

Three Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2007)
Seven Tips For Avoiding Boredom During A Financial Turnaround Cutting back on living the big life can be “boring” for some. Here are some ways to deal with it.

How to Create A Nifty Visual Savings Goal Reminder These can really help when you’re saving towards a big goal. It turns the goal into something visual that you can constantly connect with.

Homemade Bread: Cheap, Delicious, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think I love love love making homemade bread.

Four Years Ago (October 31 – November 6, 2006)
The Road To Financial Armageddon #1: The Earliest Mistakes This is the first entry in a ten part series that will give you a very clear picture into my financial background. I hope to someday write #11.

Turning Off The Financially Irresponsible Mindset For me, it was akin to finding a light switch in a dark room. I stumbled around a lot to find it, but once I did, it was much like flipping a switch.

How Your Local “Alternative” Newspapers Can Save You Money I am a big fan of CityView, a free alternative newspaper that you can grab in the grocery stores in our area. I read it each week. Toons is another excellent one – a collection of political cartoons of the past week.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Time Machine: September 25, 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 (September 19 – September 25, 2009)
Business Card Doodles I had so much fun making this post because it was so far outside of what I normally do. Truly, though, I usually start my presentations on the back of business cards because I don’t think a slide should contain more info than you can fit on the back of a card.

Is Overmaintenance Costing You? Yes, most people run into trouble by undermaintaining their things, but the flip side can be costly, too. I’ve become an adamant follower of the manufacturer’s recommendations.

What Is a “Good Job”? I think there is no standard “good job.” The elements that define a “good job” vary greatly from individual to individual.

“Eighteen and Out” – Good Parenting or Bad Parenting? My parents more or less espoused this with me. I never lived under their roof again after I was eighteen years old, and I think it was very good for me.

Seven Things I’ve Learned from Doing It Myself More than anything else, though, doing things myself gives me the self-confidence to try doing more things myself. It builds on itself and gives you the self-motivation to gain a lot of useful little skills.

Two Years Ago (September 19 – September 25, 2008)
Overcoming a Routine of Bounced Check Fees, Overdraft Fees, and Payday Loans This is a rough routine to fall into, but people fall into it all the time. Here’s some advice on getting out.

The Twelve Biggest Personal Finance Mistakes People Make Over and Over Again They happen over and over again because they become so ingrained in people’s personal routines. That makes the ability to escape them very difficult and causes people to just repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Managing the Natural Ups and Downs of Your Workweek My peak writing days are Tuesday and Wednesday, like clockwork. I’ve learned that over time, so I often plan my week with that idea in mind.

How to Safely Build Your Credit History A good credit history can be very useful even if you never take out a dime of debt. Here’s how to build it if you have no credit at all.

The Psychological and Emotional Attachment to What We Have and What We Want It’s easy to get attached to the things that are ours, but there is great value in getting that attachment under control.

Three Years Ago (September 19 – September 25, 2007)
Making A Major Life Change: Is It Time For Kathy To Abandon The City? This post sponsored a lot of discussion. I often think people know what they want to do in their heart, but they allow others to convince them otherwise.

Why Does Everyone Preach About Index Funds? What They Are And Why They’re Good – From The Very Beginning Want to know what an index fund is? This is the place to start, from the very beginning.

Is The Value Menu Really A Value? Comparing The Homemade Double Cheeseburger To The McDonald’s $1 Version This story is still true – except that now the double cheesburger costs $1.29, moving the marker ever closer to the homemade version.

When A Frugal Life And Social Gift-Giving Come Into Conflict Like many of you, I feel very uncomfortable when I’m socially “required” to give a gift to someone. It feels cheap.

The Simple Dollar Guide To Eating Out For us, the real cost in eating out isn’t in the meal out, it’s in doing it in an overly spontaneous fashion. You pay for pure spontaneity – hard.

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

Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten 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. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.

4. Follow me on Twitter. I post 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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!

9. 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”.

10. 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!

View the original article here

The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Doctor Who Edition

The only television programming I have watched in the last three weeks is Doctor Who. I’m not sure what exactly that says about me.

Anyway, here are a few articles of interest, starting with a few freelance pieces by me that have appeared at OPENForum.com.

Askers, Guessers, and the Art of Negotiation This is a further discussion of an issue I’ve talked about on The Simple Dollar before. People negotiate with each other in very different ways, and being aware of those differences can make all the difference. (@ open forum)

Does Your Community Know You? One of my favorite small businesses is going out of business! Why? They made one simple mistake – but it was a pretty big one. (@ open forum)

The Hard Choices Sometimes, we’re stuck in a corner and can’t find an easy way out of it. Which of several bad choices do we make? (@ open forum)

A Minimalist’s Guide to eBay: The Least You Need to Know to Get Started Good information here. I have sold quite a few things on eBay over the years, mostly liquidating things I no longer wanted. (@ zen habits)

Do you know your ABC’s? How to Control Negative Self-Talk It is very hard to overcome beating yourself up internally. I still struggle with it all the time. (@ pick the brain)

The “lost decade” you should really be afraid of Shocker: it’s the past decade, because real wages have actually dropped 5% since the end of the Clinton years. (@ pop economics)

Inflation and Your Mortgage With interest rates as low as they are, it’s conceivable that inflation could actually exceed the interest rate of your mortgage in future years. That creates some weird projections for real dollars spent on your mortgage over the next decade or two. (@ all financial matters)

Improved Probabilistic Inference as a General Learning Mechanism with Action Video Games A new paper in Current Biology backs up something I’ve believed to be true for years – video games help with improving one’s decision-making and information processing abilities. Yes, they make you smarter. (@ cell via the 99 percent)

View the original article here