I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 5/15

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I’m on vacation next week from my day job.  I’ll spend the entire week cleaning, organizing, and shopping for our annual Memorial Weekend Party which takes place next weekend.   Most importantly, I’ll be firing up my smoker almost every day to create some smokey yummy goodness for the party. That’s my fist pump for the week, what’s yours? Posts That Make Me Fist Pump It’s A Way of Life, Not an Event from Frugal Rules 8 Delicious & Frugal Grill Recipes! from Bargain Babe How would you like to be debt free, forever? from Debt Discipline Wants Vs. Needs – […] Read more »

Tell The Joneses To Go To Hell, They’ll Respect You For It

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It’s taken me over 41 years of walking this earth, but I’m finally getting a grip on the person I want to be. It’s been building for awhile, but my perspective was reinforced at a gathering with friends over the weekend. It was our monthly gourmet club get together, which is basically a modified potluck. The host picks the theme and prepares the main course, and the rest of the guests bring an appetizer, side dish, or dessert that matches the theme. It’s a great group of friends, and we always have a lot of fun. It’s also an event […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 5/8

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This weekend brings us Mother’s Day 2015.  I’ll be traveling to see my mom to honor her in appreciation of all the wonderful things she’s done for me, and for the great mom she is. Check out my favorite posts of the week, but DO NOT forget to fist pump for your mom this weekend!   Posts That Make Me Fist Pump How to deal with expensive friends from Get Rich Slowly What Does Financial Independence Look Like? from Young Adult Money How to Talk About Finances With Your Significant Other from DINKS Finance Why You Need Life Insurance, Especially […] Read more »

Sharing Memories On Mother’s Day Using The Lowest Priced Unlimited Plans From Walmart Family Mobile

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #MobileMemories #CollectiveBias When I was a kid, my grandparents lived within ten miles of us, so it was easy for my parents to make the rounds on Mother’s Day. My parents could see their moms, AND show off their grand kids at the same time. Now that I’m an adult, my immediate family is spread out making it sometimes difficult to make it home for Mother’s Day. The good news is Walmart Family Mobile makes it easy to wish our moms a […] Read more »

The One Reason For Eating Out That Is a Big Fat Lie

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I think we would all agree that dining out is more expensive than cooking at home. We all go out to eat from time to time, but did you notice that we always seem to attach some sort of excuse to it? Whether we’re celebrating, or we’re on vacation, or we’re just too busy to cook it seems like we have to justify to ourselves a trip to a restaurant. Sometimes there are some valid reasons, sometimes there isn’t a reason other than we just want to and that’s OK. But there’s one excuse that we tell ourselves over and […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 5/1

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My post from Monday participated in the Financial Literacy Awareness Carnival hosted over at The Heavy Purse.  If that wasn’t awesome in it’s own right, the post then got picked up over at Rockstar Financials.  Lifehacker is known to pull great content from Rockstar, so my mind was completely blown when my article got picked up and referenced at Lifehacker as well!  Super, duper cool. On a completely unrelated subject, I told my son that he could keep his first two paychecks from his first part-time job to do with whatever he pleased.  After that we’ll talk about paying for […] Read more »

Are You Lying To Yourself About Your Finances?

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Today’s post is one of a network of posts throughout the personal finance blogosphere taking part in the Financial Literacy Awareness Carnival.  The Carnival is being hosted by Shannon at The Heavy Purse honoring April as Financial Literacy Month. Once you finish this post, head over there to check out other great articles linked to by the carnival. Enjoy! Are you lying to yourself about your finances? Don’t be so quick to answer that question, maybe you should think about it a little harder. You will never reach your full financial potential if you’re lying to yourself about your finances, […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 4/24

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I’ve had one of those weeks where I find myself extremely thankful for my career.  I’ve been consciously taking note of the interesting and cutting edge things that I’m doing, and can’t help but want to put my heart and soul into doing the very best I can.   Enjoying my job sure makes it easy to get out of bed in the morning.  Hopefully that will translate into some sweet pay increases. That would definitely be worth a fist pump! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump How to Be a Conscious Spender from Debt Roundup Do You Need A Budget? […] Read more »

The Effect Of Debt….We’ve Come A LONG Way

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I know that my life is very different now that we’ve eliminated $109,000 in credit card debt. We have breathing room in our budget, we have the freedom to decide what we do with our money, and life is just over all less stressful. But every now and then, something happens that brings me back to the days when we were struggling and reminds me just how much better off we are without the weight of debt holding us down. My smoker is in need of some maintenance. The rope gasket I had installed on the cover of my smoker […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup 4/17

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Last weekend we had a birthday party for our daughter – she turned 13!!!!  Vonnie and I are now the proud parents of TWO teenagers.  We bought a huge roll of contractor’s plastic and built a “splatter paint cube” in our garage.  It was actually our daughter’s idea….but we made it come to life.  Tori and her friends each got a container with washable paint and a brush.  They went in the cube and threw paint everywhere.  They had a blast.  It turned out to be more expensive than we had anticipated, so this weekend is a “lay low” weekend. […] Read more »

Want Success? Make The Choice!

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There is a redemptive power that making a choice has. Rather than feeling like you are an affect to all the things that are happening Make a choice. You just decide what it’s going to be, who you’re going to be, how you going to do it. Just decide. -Will Smith (actor) This quote was stuck in my head all week, and it inspired me to view the world through a different perspective. I walked to the vending machine with every intention of buying a soda to go with my lunch. When I arrived at the bank of vending machines, […] Read more »

I Love You Like A Blogger Roundup – 4/10

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Tuesday night, my son brought home from work his very first paycheck.  It was for the 8.5 hours he was in training, and he received a paper paycheck as his direct deposit hadn’t taken effect yet.  When I asked him if he knew what to do with the check, he shook his head, “No.”  I explained to him how to endorse a check, and what he would do once he got to the bank.  I could see his eyes glaze over, so I asked him if he wanted me to go with him.  He said, “Yes.”  Looks like a financial […] Read more »

Breeze Through Your Taxes Through Preparation And TaxACT

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This post is part of the TaxACT #BeatTheDeadline blog tour which shares tips on how to make tax time a smooth and easy process before the April 15 deadline. TaxACT provides the tools and guidance to help you confidently file taxes easy and fast. Do your own taxes today at TaxACT. You got this. When you think about doing your taxes, what picture immediately forms in your head? Is it one of sitting in front of the computer answering questions displayed on the screen by tax preparation software? Or maybe one of an appointment with an accountant? I’ve noticed something […] Read more »

A Parent’s Job Is Never Done

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I heard an interesting comment at a wedding over the weekend regarding the current generation. An acquaintance was talking about how his brother was working with some recent college graduates, and how they work really hard on the job, but when they go home all they do is play video games. He described them as intelligent and hard working, but lacked the common skills of shoveling a driveway because all they did in their off time was play games. I laughed a little bit, shrugging it off as your typical older generation looking down on the younger generation sort of […] Read more »