Personal Finance Advice

I wrote a while back that lack of sleep costs me money and how things that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with money can actually end up being a fairly large drain on your wallet. I found out this past weekend that being in a hurry is another one of those areas that [...]

I was intrigued with an article I read about the other day. There is this guy named Darrell Nelson who was sweating up a storm mowing his own lawn and trying to think of a way to lose a few extra pounds. A light went on in his head and the light bulb went on [...]

I’ve written before at how useless it is to purchase lottery tickets with the long odds they have, although there are a lot of people out there that still believe that the way to become financial secure is to win the lottery. It doesn’t matter that the odds are better that you’ll die from flesh [...]

I missed going through my goals last month as I was busy with the move, so I definitely want to get through them this month – especially since we’ve reached the half year mark. We’ve made progress in a lot of areas, but still need work in others: Increase unique visitors to the main site [...]

I went to the movies for the first time I have in years. If you think ticket prices in the US are expensive, they are better than the prices in Japan which are about $18 a piece (although they are catching up quickly). That $18, however, doesn’t guarantee you a seat – if the show [...]

Received word that our dog died yesterday. It isn’t a surprise as he has been sick for quite awhile now, but that doesn’t make the event any less sad. Like all the other pets we have, he was a stray rescued on the street. We were heading home one evening from my wife’s parent’s house [...]

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve decided to pass on getting a car for now which means when I go out, I either walk or ride my bike. I took a short walk to the bank today and it is quite obvious that people don’t walk in the suburbs. This is a huge change since there [...]

Comcast Internet access is driving me crazy because their “simple set-up” has been anything but thus far. I went to pick up the modem and other stuff from a nearby office yesterday and spent over an hour there as they tried to figure out my order from the call center (it seems that the call [...]

One of the first things I’ve been wanting to do since returning to the the US is get a good Internet connection deal. I found one – Comcast Cable Internet for $19.95 a month for the first six months (of course, I’ll negotiate for the best deal I can using junk mail when the introductory [...]

I’m not a big fan of cyber begging for a couple of reasons: 1) There is rarely any way to tell if the story being told to get money from you is true or not and 2) It doesn’t address the problem of why the person needs the money in the first place (If you’re [...]

Besides having a houseful of Hello Kitty, we’re also slowly collecting a houseful of real kitties. Our latest member arrived today when my wife found a stray kitten sticking out of a water drain pipe of a cement wall next to a busy street. With no mom around and constant traffic only a few feet [...]

Packing has given me a lot of time to think (it doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to put things into boxes) which I haven’t had lately to consider more where I want this blog and the main site to go. As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t been happy with where things currently [...]

I spent a good part of yesterday trying to come up with a plan to make this blog a better example of what I want. I now have a plan, although I’m not sure how it will work. It is a bit different than anything I’ve seen taking place on other personal finance blogs which [...]

Sometimes a phrase or quote comes along at the perfect time and sticks with you. That happened to me today as I was thinking about this site and how it isn’t what I want it to be: Everyday is a competition between the person that you are at that very moment and the person you [...]

I had one of those “oh, wow” days today. In being introduced to some new people today, a good friend said the following: “This is Jeffrey. You won’t believe what he does. He’s a professional blogger…” The introduction caught me by surprise because while it’s correct to some degree (with a big asterisk since a [...]

I was putting away my winter clothes this week when I came across the jacket I wore when I went to pray to the God of Wealth and found an extra 10 five-yen good luck coins I had placed in the pocket. Instead of simply throwing the coins back into my coin jar, I thought [...]

According to a new survey from Fitness Magazine, you’re likely to choose being poor over being fat. The survey says that the majority of women (63%) and men (55%) would choose to be poor at their ideal weight rather than be rich and substantially overweight. More than half of both women (58%) and men (54%) [...]

From Post Secret

If you live in New York, check your pennies. According to this ABC report, there are some valuable ones in circulation: Outside the Nasdaq offices in New York City, Travers dispersed the first of three coins — all pennies — at a food vending stand just this week: a 1914-D Lincoln cent valued at $300. [...]

Spring is in the air and the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom. That meant that we had to go out for cherry blossom viewing and none of this casually walking around viewing – my wife wanted to get dressed in her best spring kimono (with cherry blossom obi) to go out and view them. [...]