Personal Finance Advice

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, [...]

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 [...]

It appears that the first week of the minimum wage challenge will begin on the right foot. I just got word from the parents of a friend that they would like me to house sit for them for a week beginning on December 30th. This isn’t a house sitting / pet sitting gig I would [...]

Apparently I am already cheating on the minimum wage challenge even though I haven’t even started it. At least, this is the argument my sister has decided to make. I recently sent out a “Christmas wish list” to friends and family for what I would like this Christmas. My sister didn’t like my choices of [...]

One of the biggest decisions I need to make that will determine whether this living well on minimum wage challenge will be successful or not is my living conditions. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and there is little doubt that renting would definitely be the safer, cheaper option. The first question [...]

I hate budgeting. I simply don’t like taking the time out of my day to run through the numbers when I could be doing so many more interesting things. One of the reasons that I think that I am relatively frugal is that by being so, I haven’t needed to budget for years. I don’t [...]

Some of you know that my sister and I bet quite a bit. One of the bets ended up with me trying to eat well on less than $1 a day. It was a rather humorous look at my terrible cooking skills and what I was willing to do in order to save money on [...]

I love this idea as a way to physical show what it’s like to earn minimum wage in the US today. Blake Fall-Conroy put together a machine that dispenses pennies and allows any person to work for minimum wage. The concept is simple. An individual cranks a handle on the machine and pennies drop out [...]