Week’s Round Up: The Ripple Effect

*Happy Friday! There are times in one’s life where family and friend’s take priority. This is one of them. As I take off the weekend to be with them, I hope these great posts keep you busy! There are so many talented writers!

This Week’s Round-up

Planting Dollars: Is Passive Income Possible?, is a rebuttal of sorts to the guest post featured on Fiscal Fizzle’s, called: There is No Such Thing as Passive Income.

Investor Junkie: Are you Saving Too Much? speaks out about our common issue in finding a happy financial medium between saving versus spending.

Get Rich Slowly: has a guest post, written by @ericabiz, called, Outsourcing Life: Unconventional Advice for When You’re Financially Secure. It marks my sentiments exactly for wanting to outsource.

Financial Samurai: allowed @LeanLifeCoach guest post a terrific article called Marketing or Manipulation? (how consummerism sucks you in). Financial Samurai also twittered about a great archived post of his, called The DVD Method to CD Investing: The Only Way to Achieve Maximum Yield (tis a passive way to generate extra cash?)

Rainy-Day Saver: says to keep in a close eye on your credit card statements in Credit Card Interest Rate Increases: Excellent Credit Be Damned.

Young and Thrifty: did a good job with this post on Does Living Together Before Marriage Save You Money?.

Foreigner’s Finance: great post about How to Avoid My 3 Novice Investment Mistakes. Eventually soon, I would like to invest. This article is bookmarked to be reread.

Little House in the Valley: Why the 70’s Rock is a walk down memory lane.

Ultimate Money Blog: How to Make Mouthwash offers a frugal way to leave a minty clean feeling in your mouth. Be sure to check out the toothpaste recipe and how to make your own shampoo.

*Original content has been revised. Friday’s are to be happy.

Book Review & Giveaway: Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey

“Happily Ever After IS NOT A FINANCIAL PLAN” Love it!

When I recieved a copy of, Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. My honey and I talk alot about our finances and where we are going with them. So, I didn’t think I was going to stumble on pertinent information that would pertain to us. But was I wrong!

We all hear money is one of those subjects in a relationship that can cause marital/relationship conflicts; potentially leading to divorce or seperation. But after reading this book, you realize that it doesn’t need to be that way.

Break the silence! Thakor and Kedar help women avoid the kind of financial stress that destroys relationships and to get them to own their financial future. Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey is a guide for stripping the layers to find the naked truth in a committed, long-term relationship.

Here are points I really enjoyed from the book

-”Five Power Steps to Financial Success” - If you get these five steps right, you’ll be well on your way to financial nirvana.

-”When you learn the basics of personal finance and have your financial house in order, you can make major life decisions from a position of strength.”

-One woman expresses what “Financial Empowerment Means to Me” – “Financial Empowerment means choices, freedom, independence. Choices in how I provide for myself and those I love and give to my community. Freedom to be in charge of my life. Independence to pursue my dreams.”

-Home Buying Rules of the Thumb - “Build up a 20 percent down payment…”If the price of your home goes down and it comes time to sell, “you’ll really want that 20 percent cushion so you don’t end up owing the bank more than you get for the sale of your home”. <==Great point!

-The magic $100 bill and the power of compounding <== need to implement with my kids!

-Strive to save 15 percent of your before-tax income - 5 percent towards your emergency fund and big-ticket items combines. Ten percent will go toward your retirement savings. Nice breakdown.

-Eliminating Credit Carditis (love the term) and the Rules of Thumbs for paying off credit card debt.

-How to Invest your money: Keep-It-Simple <==love this portion of the book.

-And the Q & A for particular situations.

Conclusion

I learned a lot from this book. The books speaks to women in many different financial situations. It helps that Thakor and Kedar mix there own examples and how they apply to this book; especially because I share similar situations with Thakor’s life.

When we are swept up in the arms of a true love we are more likely to share out intimate desires than our credit rating. Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey, by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, offers the answer on how to speak to your husband/finace/boyfriend about money. They show readers how to address this critically important subject, take financial responsibility and keep the love alive.

To Win a Copy of this Book

One copy of this book is up for a giveaway. Leave a comment, by Sunday, February 21st 8pm PST, telling me: What does Financial Empowerment Mean to You?

The winner will be chosen by random picking.

If you enjoyed this post, please re-tweet.

• Want to see what happens when you DON’T speak about money with your honey? Check out my Financial Foul-up at My Next Buck.

Crystal is the Winner. Please contact me so that I may have the publisher send you your copy! Congratulations!

iPhone vs Blackberry: did I get the wrong phone?

Exchanging contact information is an important process in networking whether for business or personal obligations; write a number on a cocktail napkin or exchange a business card for future reference. Well now, technology has taken exchanging contact information to the savviest level and I am quite jealous.

Last night, I was reading my newest edition of Entrepreneur
magazine to find an app that caught my attention – it is called “Bumping”. Tres cool! It is a bump application available on the iphone. As Michael Dinan from TMCNET.com puts it, “One Pow at a Time”.

The ‘bump’ app, developed by Bump Technologies LLC, uses location-based technology and WiFi to exchange contanct information between two iPhones. You open up the app and ‘bump’ with the person with whom you want to exchange contact information. It’s a virtual business card transferred into your phone within seconds… maybe even miliseconds. With my Type A personality this would be a great app to have for exchanging contact info with potential business or personal contacts.

But, I own the Blackberry Curve. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my phone for its Übertwitter and Facebook App. But I don’t have a ‘bump’ app, I have a Barcode that needs to be scanned. Tis not as fun sounding.

The process is similar in that you open up the Instant Messenger 5.0 contact list to Invite and scan. Again, the contact information is transferred within seconds.

Do I leave my provider to transfer to another provider who offers the iPhone? Do I pay an expensive termination fee to gain the fun app called, ‘bumping’? *sigh*

Wait! I found a solution: Verizon Wireless (my provider) now offers the Motorola DROID
with Google’s Android 2.0. And you know what? I can download & use the Bump Application. I’m in Love.

When Dreams Come True the end is a Surreal Feeling

**Warning: Personal info may be TMI (too much information)**

The other night, Brad Pitt and me had thee best night of raunchy passion. Kicked back to eat Indian food at a small restaurant in Thailand, went back to my room at the hotel and…the rest is my history.

Okay, so it was only a really damn good dream, but if my intentions are to make my dreams come true than this fantastic night of playful fun is a great indication that when dreams come true the end is a surreal feeling.

Flexo from Cosumerism Commentary wrote a great piece called Start the Decade Off Right: Do Something You Love. I really enjoyed the piece and I think you will, too. It sums up that life is too short and it’s time to do something you are passionate about.

How to embark?

• continue to seek out opportunities to discover new and old passions
• eliminate anything that doesn’t stem from passion
• and… try everything if you don’t know what your passions are

The last one really rang a bell with me as I have somehow lost focus with what it is I love to do. Try everything – a simple and profound solution. Make a list of those things you’ve always wanted to do or accomplish no matter how silly it may sounds. Let your ideas fall out of boundries.

Some of my ideas:

• Write a book
• Take martial arts
• Learn woodworking
• Learn to snowboard
• Build a sustainable business
• Travel the world, backpacking
• Jump out of a plane
• Zipline in Costa Rica
• Each lunch with Brad Pitt in Thailand

Now that you have your list. Think of ways you can break it down to smaller tasks to accomplish your big goal. I want to travel the world. Since, I can’t travel it all at one time I am choosing to plan one section of my trip this year. How much is it going to cost? Where will I stay? How do I plan to get around? Then I plan on taking that trip in the near future and marking that section off the list and starting on another.

We can think of 2010 as the decade that passed us by or the decade we are going to take hold of (past vs. present view). Do we wallow at what we didn’t accomplish or look with anticipation at what the future holds? I plan on looking forward to future with anticipation and kicking some Christine butt!

This Week’s Link Love:

Financial Samurai’s The Best Post on Craigslist, And It’s All About Love and Money

Consumerism Commentary’s Start the Decade Off Right: Do Something You Love

The Centsible Lifes’s New Year’s Financial Resolutions

DeliverawayDebt’s How-to Set Up a Car Maintenance Plan and Budget

This Week’s Top 5 Referrer’s:
(people driving traffic to my site – Thank you!)

I’m an Organizing Junkie
An Ostrich Named Sam
Climbing Out
Saving 4 Later
Debt Maven

What are the dreams you will accomplish?

Tags: Goals

How to Make $100,000 in the Next 6 Months & Book Giveaway

January 1, 2010 by money funk  
Filed under The Daily Grind

40 Comments

Happy 2010 to all of you! Get that strong coffee brewing and rid of that New Year hangover cuz you’re gonna wanna read this post.

Title caught your attention, huh? Caught mine, too. Especially, because one of my career goals would be to work remotely while travelling the world (sounds good,eh?)

I found Tim Ferriss’ “Build Your Business” competition through Planting Dollars. $100,000 for the grand prize winner!

Here the jist:

It is a 6-month “Build Your Business” competition, offered by 4-hour workweek and Shopify, to help kick start one into building a viable near- or fully-automated business online following the steps in The 4-Hour Workweek.

• $100,000 for the grand winner
• $120,000 total in prizes
• 6 months starting January 1st
• Even if you don’t win the prizes, you should end up with a viable business at the end of 6 months

Even if you don’t win “the prizes”, you will end up with…

A Vast Wealth of Valuable Information!

They plan to support you with the tools and skills you need, there will be expert tutorials on critical subjects (like Google Adswords testing, design, etc…) on a monthly basis at minimum, posts on his blog,with real-life examples, and more.


 

Oh, I am tempted to join the contest! What the heck would I sell? What can I sell with low start up? The brain is clicking! (To find out about the contest rules, click here)



If you were to enter the “Build your Business” competition and needed to read the revised edition of The 4-Hour Workweek: Expanded & Updated to help you on your journey, but don’t have a copy…I am giving one away! (You don’t need to enter the “Build your Business” competion to win the book)

To enter Book Giveaway:

Simply leave a comment by Friday, January 8th, 8am Pacific time about what business you would consider starting if you joined this competition. A winner will be picked randomly Friday, January 8th, 2010 post ending time of giveaway.


 

What stopping you? Get commenting!

And the Winner is:

Well, if you all are wondering what business I would do. Considering the lack of time I have to ‘make’ a product, I would probably sell beer & bbq paraphernalia: mugs, steins, aprons, bbq sets, food gift items, etc…

Okay, okay. And the winner (via Random.org) is… @GrlRedBalloon. Yeh!

Thank you all for entering!


Tags: Build your Business Competition, The 4 Hour Work Week

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