Personal Finance Advice

If you haven’t noticed yet, I love the outdoors. One of the things that I wanted to make sure while attempting this minimum wage challenge was that I still got outdoors on a regular basis. With January 21 being a free entrance day to all national parks (and after the failed attempt to go out [...]

Despite my sister insisting that going out for coffee isn’t a real date, I had plans to meet a friend of a friend who was supposedly “perfect” for me at a local coffee shop. I had a few reservations about this, but decided that there was no harm in trying to prove my sister wrong [...]

Apparently, my thoughts of going to a coffee shop or hiking don’t qualify as a “real date” according to my sister. While I realize this is just another attempt by her to try to get me to spend more money in the minimum wage challenge, it did get me thinking about how one does go [...]

As I previously noted, I like to leave places in better shape than when I arrived, so I spent most of the morning vacuuming and cleaning up the house where I had been house sitting. I consider myself a fairly neat person, but it’s amazing how dirty a place can get with two dogs running [...]

I really thought that I had graduated from cooking injuries now that I am doing a minimum wage challenge rather than a food challenge, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. I have two nice lumps on my head to prove it. You’re probably wondering “How the hell does someone get lumps on their [...]

If you’re looking for a way to get a new perspective on how you spend money, one of the best ways to do this is to do some type of “no spend” challenge. While there are a number of things that a no spend challenge can help improve, probably the main benefit is that it’ll [...]

Apparently I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who believe that, much like my sister, I should be dating someone. I’m not sure exactly how I feel about this, but after I mentioned that my sister thinks that I should go out on dates as part of the minimum wage challenge, I received far [...]

Life likes to throw curves. Sometimes even knuckle-balls into the dirt. And on a rare occasion, the ball comes directly at you and hits you in the head. That is exactly what the last couple of days have felt like. Although I’m not somebody who usually gets stressed, I can confidently say that my blood [...]

I guess it really shouldn’t be much of a surprise that since I have reached the age where I can apparently injure myself by doing normal everyday things (I managed to pull a muscle in my back from sneezing that took about a week to heal and I managed to hurt a calf muscle walking [...]

View from current house sitting job I made a big mistake yesterday by not challenging my automatic assumptions. I consider myself pretty decent at doing this, yet I’m finding through this minimum wage challenge that I don’t do it nearly as well as I thought, or as often as I should. Yesterday when I took [...]

Apparently my sister is not only my sister, but also an evil genius on par with all the worst comic book villains of all time in her ability to morph things in ways to get her intended purpose no matter what. I don’t date. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with dating, [...]

With the New Year, people are always looking for new ways to save money that isn’t difficult or complicated, and that can keep them motivated throughout the entire year. It seems like Facebook has provided a simple plan (courtesy of Kassondra Perry-Moreland) this year that anyone can follow and it’ll result in over $1300 worth [...]

I don’t usually give money to people. I’m far too familiar with the many scams that are out there, and I know that my money will go a lot further and help a lot more people by purchasing food for the food bank rather than give it to individuals begging on the street (I have [...]

We all have habits that we really need to take a hard look at to make sure the habit is helping us reach our financial goals. I know from personal experience that one of the most difficult aspects of personal finance is finding those habits (since they’re habits, we often do them without even being [...]

I know it’s been a good week when I felt it was strange that I wasn’t able to go and travel someplace today, although I did get to enjoy the backyard views of the house where I was house sitting (see above). As far as weeks go, I have a feeling that it’s going to [...]

My sister messaged me asking what I was going to get my niece for her birthday. She graciously included a list of really expensive gifts that my niece wanted and told me how I would be a terrible uncle if I didn’t get her one. Sister: You don’t want to be a terrible uncle, do [...]

Today was the last day I really had the opportunity to make a longer trip while house sitting here in Arizona since it’s quickly coming to an end. I may be able to get in another short trip, but I need to begin getting ready for their return on the 7th. I wanted to take [...]

One of the main aspects of this minimum wage challenge is for me to not only live on the salary, but to live well on it. I think that my image of “living well” may not be the same as a lot of people’s image out there, so I think it’s important for me to [...]

Well, I knew this day was bound to happen. I just wish that it would have been a little later into the year. Having it come so quickly into the new year only confirms that I will likely have to make a lot of these choices in the months to come. I had to make [...]

I learned today that if you want to save money by driving your car at a fuel efficient speed on the highway to get the most miles per gallon, you do so at your own risk. You will also have an untold number of angry driver’s violently making obscene gestures in your direction including a [...]