A guest post by Joe Plemon, owner and writer at Personal Finance by the Book. Joe is a financial coach and great blog writer. He also deserves a tremendous amount of praise for successfully raising 4 kids! Please sign up for his RSS feed for more great articles from Joe.  Think twice before you sign the papers on that new car loan. It could kill you and I am not talking about a traffic accident. An Associated Press survey links debt stress to such health issues as ulcers, headaches, anxiety, depression and heart attacks. And the problem is growing: there is a 14 percent increase in debt stress in the past four years.
Of those reporting high stress from debt, 27% had ulcers or digestive tract problems, 44% had migraines, 29% suffered severe anxiety, 23% had severe depression and 6% reported heart attacks. The heart attack rate is double those with low debt stress; the other illnesses are worse: 3-7 times those with low debt stress. Although these statistics should not surprise us, many people do not see the connection: higher debt brings on higher stress. We somehow have fooled ourselves into believing that the “good life” consists of driving the newest car, wearing designer clothing, eating out at the chic restaurants and taking posh vacations. And we do it all on credit, telling ourselves it is OK if we can just make that monthly payment. But this “good life” is a mirage: it is ruining our health. A truly good life is always living on less than you make. It is paying cash for your purchases and planning for your future. It is a life of peace and contentment. It is a life of low stress and solid relationships and great marriages. Suppose you currently have $20,000 in consumer debt and you buy a shiny new car. With that new car smell comes twice the debt and twice the stress. If, instead, you applied that new car payment to your debt, you should be debt free in less than two years. So here is the choice: sacrifice your lifestyle and save your health or save your lifestyle and sacrifice your health. Your stuff or your health. Which will you choose? If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your in-box. photo by blw photography
Daily Yakezie Short Carnival Our Debt Checkup
by Frugal Confessions Expected Value
by Invest it Wisely Opt Out of PreScreen Credit and Insurance Offers
by Sweating the Big Stuff These posts have been chosen as one of their best post by the bloggers who submitted them or hand selected. Please check out each of them and let me know what you think!  Every once in a while you come across a new thought, concept, or perception that will radically change your perspective on a subject, if you allow it. Management Rewired – Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science has done that for me.
If you supervise people in any capacity, company owners, managers, and even parents you should read this book. If you don’t supervise but you want to better understand people, how they think and what motivates them, you should read this book. The author pulls together the latest research in neuroscience to show us how the mind really works. Much of this is done with fMRI brain scans. While people are in these machines they are asked to perform a variety of tasks, answer questions and complete puzzles. By mapping the activity levels in various parts of the brain they have developed a much better understanding of how our minds actually work. Everything that we are and understand, our knowledge, emotions and memories are no more than very tiny electrical impulses flowing through a series of interconnected synapses. Each experience we have builds a certain pattern of these network paths. The more often we repeat an experience the more credible each set of network paths become. Our knowledge, memory or skill associated with these new paths improves and strengthens. Each of us experiences the world through our own eyes and as a result we each have a different perspective. Through millions of experiences, each of us has constructed our own very unique view of the world and how it works. The author uses the analogy of a movie running in our head, each custom made. As a result of these unique perspectives, tension, disagreements and misunderstandings occur regularly. What makes logical sense to you, based on everything you know, may be complete nonsense to another simply because they lack some unique experience and therefore the synaptic pathways that tell them it is logical. More and more the science is showing that everything we thought we knew and understood about motivation may be wrong. Contrary to our perception, providing extrinsic motivators such as bonuses, gifts and rewards or even punishments for undesirable behavior may often be detrimental to our long-term objectives. There are more effective and efficient methods to motivate and manage, the author shares, but many of these methods are counter intuitive and challenging to implement. The research provided indicates that the greatest levels of engagement and performance will likely come only after a manager dismisses many of the common management methods in use today. Instead of setting objectives for employees (kids?) you should have them set their own. Instead of praising or critiquing your subordinate, you should ask them to critique their own. When their performance falters, let them determine how to improve. Charles Jacobs writes: When they are the ones responsible for their performance, the psychological dynamic of the relationship works for the manager, because the employee’s self-esteem is positively correlated with their performance and the success of any corrective action.
Fascinating! I cannot begin to cover the depth, breadth and complexity of the concepts that this author so seamlessly pulled together and then presented in simple English. While he expertly introduces complex medical and psychological concepts he educates and enlightens the reader not only on how to better manage others, but also how to better manage yourself. Readers: Have you been exposed to Daniel Pink or Dan Ariely? If not, these two also shed new light on how the mind works, what motivates, how we make decisions us and how we can benefit. If you watch these two or read Management Rewired, please come back and let us know what you think! If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your in-box. photo by brain blogger
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by Frugal Confessions These posts have been chosen as one of their best post by the bloggers who submitted them or hand selected. Please check out each of them and let me know what you think!  …But My Refrigerator Works!
Spend more than a few minutes in the personal finance blogs and you will find many who worship Dave Ramsey’s financial advice. Dave also has his share of critics that will debate his key concepts. However, I can personally tell you that in one respect Dave is absolutely, positively wrong. If you are a follower of Dave, read any of his books or even if you just see him occasionally you have probably heard him preach of the need for an emergency fund. He promotes the use of an emergency fund for a number of reasons. I think most of all; Dave wants his followers to learn the habit of saving and focusing on savings. There are other benefits as well. But if you know Dave, you also know that he often refers to “Mr. Murphy.” Dave tells his listeners that when we have an emergency fund “a funny thing happens… Murphy stays away.” NOT! I’ve been a good boy. I continue my education with all things financial. Our spending has been reigned in, we live on less than we earn. We have paid off all debt with the exception of the house and we have set up college funds for the kids and contribute to a variety of retirement and investment funds. Most of all, we have an emergency fund! But Murphy is kicking my tail! Not long I wrote about my ordeal with the A/C. Now it is the refrigerator. Here is the series of events. - Two weeks ago – The wife thinks we left the freezer door ajar. Everything is melted.
- One week ago – The refrigerator is not cooling but the freezer is working fine. The evaporator is a frozen block. I defrost it overnight and plug it back in.
- Four days ago – The fridge is not cooling again, the evaporator is frozen again.
It would appear Murphy does not shy away from emergency funds, he want shis share! With an overwhelming schedule at the moment and being a little gun shy of appliance repair companies, I seized on another opportunity to address this problem. Actually my son seized on the opportunity to make a little extra cash! My fourteen year old son has his eye on a new laptop. I have a refrigerator that needs to be repaired…. No, he will not get a laptop for fixing the fridge! However, assuming he could save me the repair bill, we did agree to compensate him at a rate relative (but discounted) to the retail cost. It is important to understand that our son, for all his wonderful qualities, intelligence and strong character traits, has virtually zero mechanical experience and not much more skill. He has never been one to take toys apart and could not care less how things work, so fixing a refrigerator would be a stretch to say the least. Admittedly, I ended up helping a little. He needed silly things like to learning basic tools and how to use extensions. I also helped him to identify the major components and lastly I removed the ice-maker. Beyond this, he Googled, researched and directed the diagnostic and repair process. He removed parts and pieces, learned how to test electrical components with an ohm meter and fixed our refrigerator. Total cost: $35 in parts. We needed a new defrost timer. The final repair took two screws and a plug to replace the part. What did I learn through this experience? Surprisingly, it wasn’t about money.
Don’t Underestimate - You will be surprised what people are capable of if only you believe they are capable. Encourage your kids, your friends and your employees try new things whatever they may be. If they have an interest, they likely have the ability. The same applies to us. We don’t believe we are capable of repairing an appliance, starting a business or completing a challenging task so we never try. Instead we pay someone else to do things we can do for ourselves. Murphy will follow us regardless of our path. With or without an emergency fund, unexpected expenses will crop up. We can blindly pay to make Murphy go away or we can fight back. Only your willingness to take on these challenges yourself will save you in the end. btw… Thank you son! If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your in-box. photo by G&A Sattler
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by Wealth Artisan These posts have been chosen as one of their best post by the bloggers who submitted them or hand selected. Please check out each of them and let me know what you think!  Effective and efficient cleaning requires the right tool for the job. I grew up with dedicated cleaners for every chore, glass cleaners, kitchen and bath cleaners, dish and dishwasher cleaners to name a few. With a lifetime of success, why would we want to challenge the status quo?
When I was first introduced to personal finance blogs, it was not long before running into one of Trent Hamm’s posts on homemade laundry detergent. At first I ignored it and all the other DIY home cleaning products. Who has the time for one more chore? How could something like that work as well as the “professional stuff?” In my mind, there was little chance it would perform as well and therefore, even if it was “cheaper” it could not be worth the money saved. While focusing on making homemade pizza and breads recently, I found myself coming back to the concept of saving with more homemade products. Naturally the laundry detergent is low-hanging fruit, easy to grasp and quick (potentially) to provide a pay off. We began our experiment with Trent Hamm’s recipe for liquid laundry soap. Our experience proved successful but awkward. Habitually we use liquid soaps in the laundry but this one did not easily adapt to our methods. The slime, we found, needed agitation regularly. We also enjoy the convenience of the bottle with its own valve. When we tried to put the homemade soap in these containers we found the inconsistent density created erratic results. No doubt the problems we experience were a result of our bad chemistry. With Trent’s experience he probably makes perfect soap. Not to be deterred we considered the possibility of a dry detergent. What a small world it turned out to be. The first page of search engines yielded a site called DIY Natural hosted by none other than our fellow blogging friend Matt Jabs of Debt Free Adventures. Matt’s simple recipe: - 1 bar of shaved bar soap (Ivory, Zote, Fels-Naptha)
- 1/2 cup of borax
- 1/2 cup of washing soda
Thoroughly stir together for 5 minutes and enjoy the results! That’s it folks…seems too good to be true, but it is true indeed! I used an ordinary cheese grater for the Ivory and found that the mix works best if you leave out about 10% of the Ivory. With two kids, we usually have full loads and find that 1/4 cup works very well. The detergent dissolves easily in the water and cleans the clothes well. On a recent batch we tried the Fels-Naptha and found it resulted in a very “commercial” chemically clean smell (the soap, not the clothes). As for the savings generated, my results were somewhat different. Our costs for the ingredients were a little less expensive: 76 oz. box of Borax – $2.99
55 oz. box of Washing Soda – $2.29
10 pk. Ivory Soap 4.5oz – $7.58 The cost per batch of laundry soap ended up at $1.08. Here is the odd part, the ingredients list 12.5 ounces combined. When aerated, my mixture yielded only about 20 ounces as compared to Matt’s 16. I think this may be due to the use of an electric mixer. Also, we found that only 1 tablespoon as suggested was not enough for most loads. With a double dose of detergent (1/4 cup per load) this formula costs us eleven cents per load. Our costs end up twice that of Matt but still fifty percent less than we were paying for name brand commercial laundry detergents. The first argument against going to such extremes in the pursuit of frugality is time. Factoring labor costs often undermine the best laid DIY plans. In this case however time is virtually immaterial. With a little practice the whole operation takes less than five minutes. Additionally, my research into these ingredients indicates that homemade laundry detergent might be the most environmentally friendly approach we can take to cleaning our clothes. Borax is a naturally occurring mineral, washing soda is a little less natural but still basic and save salt compounds and Ivory soaps are made of ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths pure (pure animals fats, plant oils and alkali) Readers: Have you ever made the effort to make your own fill in the blank ? What did you make and what else would you like to make? I’m ready to try something else, what would you suggest?
If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your in-box. photo by MattJabs
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by Single Mom Rich Mom These posts have been chosen as one of their best post by the bloggers who submitted them or hand selected. Please check out each of them and let me know what you think! Einstein was famous for many things including the theories of general and special relativity. I also learned that he was known for using a technique to dream up the answers to his questions of the universe, called “Thought Experiments.” This series takes the concept of thought experiments to different places. Today’s thought experiment is Cottages!  Where there is a will there is a way. In today’s America over 15 million people or more are want a job that is not available. Many of these have or will lose their home. Some will be in search of new affordable house, while others will battle to hold on.
Many of us or not in such dire straits but live with a desire to improve our lot in life. You put in more hours or get a second job. We start side businesses or just try to get every penny’s worth of use of our stuff through frugal living. There are a million ways to reduce your expenses or increase your income and now we have one more; cottages. Yeah, go figure a relic of the 1800′s is making a comeback albeit at a slightly different level on the socio-economic ladder. People are starting to build small self-contained living quarters in their backyards. These are not the Mother-in-law apartments or converted basements, these are free standing buildings. For more details check out this article from the U.S.A. Today. Writer Judy Keen shares the story of John Stoeck building a 437 square foot cottage for $50,000. He expects to generate nearly $11000 in rental income each year! The drive to build these comes from several sources. One of these, amazingly, is local government. With a desire to prevent the bedroom communities of cities from being razed for high-rise condo’s and apartments a few innovative communities have figured out how to capitalize on space that is readily available to increase the population density without losing its historical charm. There is also the added advantage of creating many more affordable living options in and near city centers supporting the lower-income workforce. For some individuals encouragement from their city is only additional fuel to their desire. While in a few cases these dwellings are being built to house aging grandparents, others are purely investments. In other cases these cottages are being used to save investments. A few enterprising owners struggling to make the mortgage payments have decided to move into the cottage in order to rent our their primary residence. With the mortgage covered by a renter, they can sit comfortably on the same property to oversee the care of their investment. Rental properties are a great wealth builder when properly managed. But the risks associated with rentals tend to scare many off. Would having a rental within eyesight make being a landlord a little easier? Readers: How about you, would you consider building a cottage on your property? Would you rent it out or move in? If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your in-box. photo by crabchick
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by Millionaire Nurse Blog These posts have been chosen as one of their best post by the bloggers who submitted them or hand selected. Please check out each of them and let me know what you think! | | |
Think twice before you sign the papers on that new car loan. It could kill you and I am not talking about a traffic accident. An Associated Press survey links debt stress to such health issues as ulcers, headaches, anxiety, depression and heart attacks. And the problem is growing: there is a 14 percent increase in debt stress in the past four years.
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