Just a heads up, I’m doing some semi-experimental updates to the site and the RSS feed(s) this evening.  I apologize if the site shows up broken for a few minutes, but I’ll have it back to normal shortly if things don’t work out right away. 

Update:  Current phase of changes are finished.  You should now notice that the daily journal has been separated from the main feed into a separate feed.  This is something I actually wanted to do from the beginning, but didn’t want to slow down blog & budget progress in order to do so.

So now there’s a couple of the most recent titles from the daily journal available in the header as well as a new feed available in the sidebar for just the daily journal entries.

If anyone really wants to subscribe to both with a single feed, let me know.  I can always generate a one-feed-to-rule-them-all-and-in-the-darkness-bind-them link for anyone really interested.

Thanks for being a reader, and I look forward to bringing more great changes and features in the near future!

I submitted to a couple of carnivals this last week so want to share some of the highlights of each.  I think I’m going to make carnival participation a pretty regular thing going forward as I’ve had many great opportunities to interact with some neat people out there because of them.

Here’s the list for the first week of March:

Carnival of Personal Finance #143 - hosted by Quest for Four Pillars

Carnival of Debt Reduction #130 - hosted by DebtFREE-Revolution

So there you go.  Hope those were enjoyable, and we’ll likely see some more carnival action next week!

Well, I finally did it.  I cut up all my credit cards.  Well, technically I just ran them all through my shredder, but I think that still counts.  LOL

I was inspired by the contest over at The Penny Saved that I mentioned a couple weeks back.  It’s funny, I got them all in a nice big stack on my desk and I’ve been looking at them all week…but I almost forgot to get my submission in on time for the contest!

Here’s a picture of the remnants all dumped out on my desk.  Granted, there’s a few pieces of paper in there, and admittedly there’s a couple of expired cards too…but I just cut up 11 credit cards and 5 store cards!  (I also threw in a couple of check cards that overflow into my credit card as well.  Take no chances!)

 Maybe we’ll get a prize from the contest, maybe not.  I don’t care either way as this was something I needed to do anyway.  It felt good to get rid of some of the cards we simply don’t want to tempt ourselves with anymore.

You also should have seen the look on my kids’ faces when they saw me do it!  Priceless!  Here’s a couple lines from the conversation immediately following:

"Daddy, how are we going to buy stuff if you don’t have your cards?"  *blank stare*

"Well son, these cards don’t use our money.  I’m tired of using someone else’s money to buy things, so now we’re going to use our own money out of the envelopes when we need something."

It was a great opportunity to show them that if you want to change something in your life, sometimes you just have to go for it even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Take an opportunity to show your kids something unfathomable.  Cut up your cards with them today!

Update: I won 2nd prize!  Wheee!

Photo by dmmd303

Are you tired of the weekly excitement and drama of wondering how you’re going to make ends meet until your next paycheck with only $25 left in your pocket?  I sure am.  Having lived paycheck to paycheck for almost 10 years is enough for me to either realize I’ll never be different…or drive me SO crazy that I’m going to SCRATCH AND CLAW MY WAY OUT OF THIS MESS!  Ok, an obvious emphasis on which one I’m leaning toward. 

After doing this for so long, I’ve realized that it’s time to stop looking back and to move forward with new habits.  Before doing that, I want to reflect on some of the things that I’ve been dealing with on an almost daily basis for as long as I can remember.  There’s heartaches, crisis, disappointments, sadness, frustration…so many feelings and painful experiences when living paycheck to paycheck.

I want to share some of these paycheck to paycheck disadvantages with you in hopes that you too can see the light and really WANT to get out of the mess.  This isn’t really a "how to" message, it’s really just me sharing and identifying some of the struggles in one place to really emphasize how much it STINKS to live like this.

1. No long term progress - living in the now doesn’t allow you to save or invest in the future.
2. Not enough money this week - sometimes there’s just not enough money to pay everyone you owe right now.
3. No money for emergencies - living check to check doesn’t really allow you to be prepared for a crisis.
4. Miss out on important events - sometimes you just have to miss out because the only $800 left on payday has to pay the rent.
5. Stress - worrying about money every single week for 10 years can really take its toll.
6. Arguments - fighting over where the last $100 belongs can be like watching two lions fighting over the last scrap of meat on a zebra.
7. Penalties - Being unable to pay for some things means even more fees, worse credit, higher rates, etc.
8. Unprepared all the time - you end up not being able to take advantage of sales because you don’t have the money, then pay full price for things because of when you need them!
9. Priorities get mixed - you end up focusing on the smaller luxuries in life to the point where they become dangerously close to habits.  i.e. junk food, gambling, drinking
10. Envy - everyone else around you always seems to be doing better.  Even though you probably make more than them, it just seems like they always have more money available.
11. Your money works for someone else - wouldn’t it be nice if your money was working for you instead of someone else.  Not only are you missing out, but you’re helping someone else instead!
12. Motivation - living paycheck to paycheck completely takes the motivation out of trying to get ahead.
13. Avoid budgeting - you end up avoiding any kind of budgeting because of how horribly the numbers won’t work out to your advantage.  So you end up digging a deeper hole.

Photo by hufse

I’m sure there’s more.  I’ve only highlighted the major things that have come to mind for me with some examples of each and how it relates to my experiences.  There are COUNTLESS other effects that negatively impact our lives.  I’m absolutely sure of this.  There’s simply no reason knowing all of this can make you just want to sit there and do nothing about it.  It’s time to take control of yourself, get on a plan, FOLLOW the plan until you reach some milestones, and stop living paycheck to paycheck.  Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith to get started on something, this is your chance if you haven’t already!

Hopefully this list has motivated you as much as it has me.  It’s funny how I’ve always known there were things that bothered me about living paycheck to paycheck, but listing all of these disadvantages in one single place has really made me realize how bad it is.  I simply can’t fathom anyone wanting to do this stuff to themselves ON PURPOSE.  And that’s what we’re doing!  Millions of us!

So get started on a plan today!  I’ll be sharing later this week exactly how I’ve managed to stop living from check to check, so stay tuned by coming back or subscribing to my feed available in the sidebar.  In the mean time here’s some great links that could help get you started on how to approach such a feat:

1. Kiplinger: Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck
2. Zen Habits: How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck
3. Motley Fool: 5 Steps to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

I’d love to hear any success stories or tips that you have to share for breaking this vicious cycle.  Share with the rest of us, and I’ll be back later this week with mine.

Update:  See how I stopped living paycheck to paycheck using the Budget Buffer in my follow up articles:  The Budget Buffer and How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck.

After I finally opened up an ING Orange Savings account, I mentioned that I was going to figure out how to create referral links to provide for anyone interested in opening an account of their own.  In order to get the $25 bonus for opening an account, you need to use a referral link from somewhere.  Each person can only create so many referrals, so they are somewhat limited.

Well, now all of my referrals will be made available on the ING Account Referrals resource page in my sidebar.  I included some more details about the program, but it’s REALLY simple folks:

1. You put $250 into an account for at least 2-3 weeks. 
2. You get a free $25 bonus.
3. I get a free $10 bonus.
4. You earn pretty good interest on this account.
5. You can refer other people once you’re in.

So head on over if you’ve been thinking of opening an account and give it a try.  I’ve already got my money, and I plan on using the savings account for snowflaking away my debt over time.

Well, I had all my tax refund money sitting around last week and I was trying to figure out a way to make the best of it before applying every bit of it to some debts.  I keep seeing everyone hyping up the ING accounts because of the free $25 when you sign up and the fact that you can get referral fees for people that sign up using you as a referral.

So I went ahead and opened one using a referral link from a blog I read often, CleverDude.  So I put my $250 deposit in from my main checking account where all my money was, and even before the money was withdrawn a few days later I already had the $25 in my account!

I was very impressed by just how easy it was to get things linked up to my account and get started using it for whatever I want.  (I can take the $250 out anytime after 3/17, which is only a couple of weeks after creating the account.)

Here’s a quick snippet from my bank account page showing the balances already in there (minus the account numbers and bank name):

You can see that my funds are available in a couple weeks, and the account is already earning interest!

So, my plan is to put that $250 back into my main checking account by the end of the month, and just have the $25 sit in there for awhile.  At the end of each month, I’ll start siphoning off some snowflaking amounts into this account until they accrue large enough amounts to make entire payments on my 2nd mortgage.  (I have to pay full payment amounts in order for it to be applied to principle only.)

Also, I’m going to figure out how to make some of those referral links and put them up here as well.  It looks like I just have to email them to myself or something in order to post them, but I’ll have to look at it over the weekend and update when I figure it out.  You’ll get the $25 for opening the account, and I’ll get $10 deposited to my account when you do it.  Then you’ll also be able to make your own referral links for anyone you know that’s interested.  Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Stay tuned for referrals if you’re interested! 

Update: I’ve got referrals available on my ING Account Referrals page in my resources sidebar section.