This weekend the 2014 Financial Blogger Conference is taking place in New Orleans.  It’s the 4th year of the conference, and the first one Vonnie and I are not attending.  The conference has traditionally  been a fantastic shot of motivation to keep my blogger juices flowing.  I’m a bit down that I’m missing it this year, although I am grateful to follow along virtually by reading blog posts of my friends and fellow bloggers attending, as well as through the steady stream of Facebook updates.   Hope to be back at next year’s conference. In the meantime, it’s Friday, which means […] Read more »

We’ve had some house guests this week, my parents on Tuesday night, and some friends of ours from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area Wednesday and Thursday night.  Since my city, Rochester, MN, is the home of the Mayo Clinic we offer up our home as a place to stay when friends and family are referred there for tests.  While the circumstances for seeing people isn’t always the best, we’re always happy to spend time with loved ones, and take a bit of stress off of their need to come to town. I’ve been enjoying the heck out of the cooler temps […] Read more »

Yesterday’s high in Rochester, MN was close to 90.  Today it will struggle to get our of the 60’s.  Guess what peoples,  Fall is officially on it’s way.  While I LOVE summer, Fall’s cooler temperatures and lowered humidity makes for great running weather.  There’s also the start of the NFL season (first game kicked off last night!) to soften the transition away from summer. Along with those cooler temperatures comes the turning off of the AC, the opening of windows, and MUCH lower utility bills.   My electric bill literally gets cut in half for the next couple of months, and […] Read more »

Here we are, the last weekend of Summer.  I have to do a 17 mile run,  a fantasy football draft, some last minute school shopping, and our neighbor is having a neighborhood party.  We’ll be throwing back a few cold ones, grilling some food, and putting together the 200 foot slip-n-slide down the hill of the park that extends from our backyards.  It’ll be a busy but fun weekend, and except for the school shopping part. relatively tame on the checkbook.  Then, next week it’s back to school for the kids, and back to her job at the school district […] Read more »

Happy Friday, EOD Nation! Bob from Christian PF had an article over at the Huff Post this week that listed some great budget spreadsheet resources for readers…….and the EOD zero based budget spreadsheet was among those listed!  What an honor and privilege – thanks Bob, that gets me in the mood to fist pump! Check out that article and the rest of the best that had my fist flying this week below! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump 4 Reasons Your Budget Isn’t Working from Luke 1428 A Lesson in Extreme Couponing From the Checkout Lane from Frugal Rules Summer […] Read more »

We’ve picked up all the supplies our kids need for school.  That was the easy part.  All we had to do was go to the school district website  and print off the recommended list of items.  This weekend comes the more difficult part of getting ready for the school year. We’re going clothes shopping. My son will find shirts he likes in just under 0.5 seconds.  Finding jeans that he likes….well, that’s another story. I had no idea that teenage boys could be so picky about jeans.  The good news is, I’m not even sure that my daughter needs anything.  […] Read more »

Welcome to August, EOD Nation!   August has traditionally been a challenging month financially for us, as it is when we pick up the things our kids need for the upcoming school year.  In years past this meant checking out Old Navy and Kohls because we had store credit cards for those retailers and we could get new clothes without having to spend any money immediately out of pocket.  Over the last few years, with the lines of credit unavailable due to our debt management program, we have struggled to save up the funds needed to get clothes and school supplies.  […] Read more »

We’re headed to a wedding this weekend, something we haven’t done in quite a long time.  It should be a good time, as it’s for a daughter of a coworker and friend of mine.  Party with the work crew!  I’m guessing that all the usual wedding songs will be played at the dance, and there may be some fist pumping action going on.  But it won’t compare to the reaction to this week’s list of favorite posts, there were some great ones this week. Get ’em up! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump Is It Possible To Live Without Credit? […] Read more »

It’s a very tired fist pump from me this morning, my friends.  The ringing of our home phone woke me up at 1:00am.  Being a software engineer part of a team that writes firmware for very large business class servers, I’m essentially always on call. I was called to look at a critical customer problem and worked most of the night.  Hopefully you guys can all back me up this week – so get ’em up. Have a great weekend! Posts That Make Me Fist Pump 5 Causes of the Money Blues and How to Eliminate Them from The Heavy […] Read more »

I’m away for the weekend celebrating the 4th of July in the great city of Chicago with some friends and family.  We had a great night last night at a dueling piano bar and having Chicago style pizza, and today it’s off to Navy Pier and the Dave Mathews Band concert.  We’ll wrap things up with going to Ribfest on Sunday….YUM!  How are you spending your 4th of July Weekend? Before we get into our usual fist pump routine, I wanted to mention that I had the honor of having a guest post published at mint.com this week.  I Don’t […] Read more »

There are two events that have had me looking forward to this weekend: 1.) The new Transformer’s move comes out today.  Yes, I’m a big geek.  I loved them as a kid, and while some of the moves in the series haven’t been all that great, this one looks like it may finally live up to  the hype.  My son and I are going to go see it this afternoon. 2.) Sunday is my wedding anniversary.  18 years of wedded bliss with Mrs. Vonnie Pizel.  I’m looking forward to celebrating our lives together.  We’re just getting started! Can I get […] Read more »