Well this week has been another stellar week and I’m really close to finishing my house in fact the guy laying carpet was still their at 9 pm yet last night. With the flooring and plumbing almost done the appliances will be showing up bright and early Monday morning and we should be done sometime early next week. BooYaa!
With all the excitement going on around the house I’ve also been gearing up to move out of my rental house and in to the new house. However the good side to all of this is that most of my stuff is still boxed up and ready to move, which should make things ten times easier to move. Finally, if you haven’t seen the pictures below yet, I thought I’d show off a teaser pic before I did my final review of the house.
This Week On Stumble Forward
If you haven’t had a chance to read latest articles at Stumble Forward you can do so here.
- How to Live Debt Free For Life – 4 Things To Help You Make The Change – If you want to make some serious changes to living a debt free lifestyle you will want to check this article out as I go through 4 specific things you need to do to achieve this change.
- 10 New Home Upgrades To Consider Before You Build – In this article I cover 10 of the big upgrades I did with my house such as adding the wrap around porch and other things most of which didn’t really cost that much extra. So if your planning to build this is a must read article.
Weekly Mentions
Now on to the weekly mentions. This week I have several things I want to cover but first I want to say that I was recently contact by Laura from The Frugal Farmer because she noticed that some of her comments weren’t showing up on my site for some odd reason. So I did some digging and found several of her comments plus a few other in my spam. I am trying to get this cleared up ASAP. So if you notice your comments are not showing up just let me know and I will take care of it.
Secondly their is also a $500 giveaway going on which I mentioned last week by Rather-Be-Shopping.com. The contest runs till the 25th so make sure you get your entries in before you forget because an extra $500 is defiantly worth it. On top of that in that article I also covered a really cool Amazon shopping secret that you may want to check out as well.
Third their is also another big contest going on yet and they are giving away $999,99 as well. This contest runs till the end of the month as well, so sign up here.
Fourth, if you haven’t heard yet FINCON 13 was recently announced that it is going to be held in St. Louis this coming October 17-20. You can check out more details about FINCON here.
Finally, I’ve also been nominated as one of the Top Personal Finance Bloggers of 2012 and I would really appreciate your vote here. I’ve never been nominated for something like this and I would really like your vote. Vote now here.
Blogger Spotlight – Reach Financial Independence
This week I came across a really great article by Pauline from Reach Financial Independence called Budgeting: The No Budget Approach. The article takes a really bold approach and goes against the grain when it comes to what most financial professionals will say, but I like that kind of approach because who’s to say having a detailed budget really is the end all way to managing your finances.
The reason I say this is because sometimes we tend to over analyze things to much to the point that it causes analysis paralysis, which basically means we get so detailed about our budget that we forget to do the most important thing of all, follow it. Instead I find Pauline’s approach a lot more refreshing and simple.
In fact I think that’s what really makes the best budget, one that is simple and easy to use. Take me for example, my budgeting tactics are very simple. I save everything over a certain dollar amount out of every weeks paycheck, take out a small allowance for the week and pay bills with the rest. When it comes to vacations and the Holidays we save a little bit of that money back each month so we can do the extra things we want.
Finally, this may not be the best budget for everyone, I can agree with everyone there. Not everyone has good spending habits and to those people it may take a more disciplined budget but in the end the simpler it is the more likely you will stick to it.
Top 10 Articles Of The Week
Back by popular demand I have my top 10 personal finance articles of the week were I list my favorite ten articles in no particular order as the articles I’ve enjoyed the most this week.
- The Fugal Farmer - The Road to Debt Free: Not for the Faint of Heart
- Canadian Budget Binder - Dumpster Diving~The Top 5 Rules For Finding The Good Free Stuff!
- Making Sense of Cents - How to Live on One Income
- Out Of YOur Rut – Your Kid Does Not Need a New Car
- WiseDollarn – An Easy Way To Save On Your Heating Bill
- Frugal Rules – Why You Should Just Say No to Refund Anticipation Loans
- Critical Financial - Raising The Minimum Wage | Critical Effects On Businesses
- Debt Roundup – Spending Money While on Vacation
- Modest Money – Qmee – Get Paid to Search Online
- Eyes On The Dollar - 7 Steps to Take Before You Put Your Home on the Market
Till next week, have a great weekend everyone.
About Christopher
Thanks so much for the mention, Chris, and congrats on your nomination: you deserve it! Can I just say too that the house looks absolutely GORGEOUS? Can’t wait to see the rest of the pics!
Thanks for the link love! Also, love your porch
Thanks for the mention Chris and glad to see that the house is soon coming to the end. I bet you’re just more than a little excited.
Are you planning on going to FinCon? I’ve not decided yet. The nice thing though is that I can get there by driving in 5-6 hours.
Glad I made the top 10 Chris. I enjoyed Pauline’s article as well because that is kind of what I do. I started out my journey with a budget, but just didn’t really enjoy the process. Glad to hear that your house is almost done. I know you are getting excited.
Chris, thanks so much for the mention! Congrats on the house, it is looking great. Hope we can meet up at Fincon, thanks so much!
That porch is huge mate. Is there a root cellar underneath it? What renos did you do to your house? I have plenty to do myself… Thanks for the mention.
I love the porch. We have a covered porch and it is one of my favorite things about our house. It just seems comforting to see it when you drive up. Thanks for the mention and for the heads up on Fincon. Not sure if I will be able to go, but I hope so.
Thanks Laurie, I really appreciate it. I plan to do a full on review with pictures, video and the whole nine yards in a couple of weeks. I’ll have a lot of stuff in their by that point to give more of the full effect. Thanks for the support.
Thanks Michelle, the porch is defiantly awesome. Now I just need some comfortable porch swings and we ready to go.
I’m not sure if I’m going to FINCON yet or not their are a couple of factors to deal with before I consider it. One is money since things are a bit tight and the other is the fact is our anniversary, this year my wife and I will be married 10 years and we may take a little getaway instead. Maybe I can talk her into going to St Louis but I’m not sure that may be a good idea.
Also I only live about 5 or 6 hours away either since I’m coming from midwestern Ohio I wouldn’t have to dish out for airplane tickets, so I will defiantly be considering it. Thanks for the support John.
I totally agree Grayson. I don’t need to know every exact detail to my budget, instead I just need to know my limits. If I can save a $100 or $200 a week back, pay all my bills off, and have a little spending cash, I know that my budget is working. If one of those areas doesn’t work then I know I have an issue. I may have to do a little more of a formal write up on this at some point. Thanks for the continued support Grayson.
Thanks Jim, I’m not totally sure if I’m going yet but it would be great to meet up with everyone so I will defiantly be considering the idea of going once I get an idea of the cost involved.
Thanks Mr. CBB, unfortunately their is no cellar under the porch area but I do have a full basement. However, after the fact I thought it would have been great to have that area under the porch open because it would make a great place to go in case of a tornado or a place to store can and goods.
I agree Kim, ever since the porch was finished out it’s been turning a lot of heads in our neighborhood as people drive by and my wife has been getting a lot of complements on it as well.
The porch looks great. Thanks for the list of links are they provided some really good information.
Thanks Chris, I really appreciate it. The porch is defiantly one of my favorite part of the house. Anyways thanks for stopping by.
Thank you so much for the spotlight Chris! I was hoping fincon would be at an easy international hub like NY or Chicago but St Louis will be a bit more complicated… love the porch!
Nice roundup – I also loved Pauline’s post over at RFI… bold is good!
I like the location for FINCON because I could drive to it if I want to but I agree with you it’s probably not the best place for someone who is coming in from outside the US. Thanks for your support.
Thanks Savvy Scot. I like that Pauline shared her point of view and instead of just saying you need to have a budget. Not that I don’t think that it’s important to have a budget but kind of nice to know that I’m not the only one not running a strict budget, but rather something this is simple and easy for me to manage and I think that’s what’s really important. Thanks for stopping by.