People who collect experiences are more interesting than people who collect things. You might notice that out of my 30 goals, only two involve buying something. I want to live a full life, and that doesn’t necessarily having a full house. These purchase goals will provide experiences to make my life richer. My wife and [...]
My wife and I just returned from a handbell concert. Until seeing them mentioned on a tv show this past week, we had never heard of handbells before. A few days later my boss just happened to receive some tickets to the concert that he was unable to attend and left them at the front [...]
I love dating, even though I don’t get to go out as much as I’d prefer. That’s just part of being alive, unfortunately… never enough time. One of the awesome things about being married? You always have a date. My wife and I love exploring, trying new things, and going new places. Many of our [...]
Now that we’ve made some changes to our spending plans, and focused our finances a bit, we need to create a system that automatically lets us know how well we are doing with our goals. As simple as this spreadsheet is, I’ve become a fan of Mint because it enters the information for me. Even [...]
Nowt that I have a Spending Plan, it’s time to trim the fat from my expenses. Similar to the Short List that helps me free up my time, this will allow me to spend more money on the things that I really enjoy. Focus By determining what you really want to spend money on, and [...]
The first task I’ve completed on my way to become a Money Master is to tweak my budget. (If you cringe at the idea of a budget, think of it as a Conscious Spending Plan instead.) It didn’t take me very long, since I already had a good understanding of my finances. Why? It’s nice [...]
On Monday, I mentioned that I want to optimize my personal finances and then increase my income. I want to become a Money Master. What is a Money Master? A Money Master is someone who is in control of their finances without requiring a lot of maintenance time each month. They know how much income [...]
As I look back over my recent posts, I’ve noticed a disturbing theme: I’m not going on many adventures recently. Certainly not as many as I would like. So far as I can tell, there are three main reasons for this: Lack of money Lack of time Focusing on big adventures These are all pretty [...]
When I looked back over January to see how I’d been progressing on my goals, I felt good about having made solid progress on many of them. A few, however, weren’t quite working out as I’d planned. My fitness goal, for example, has gone exactly no-where. After two work-outs, nothing more has been done. And [...]
It’s that time of year again, the time of cupid, chocolates, roses, and teddy bears. Whether you already have something planned or not, here are 10 ideas of ways to make this Valentine’s special.
