Budget Reset: Falling Off The Financial Wagon, and Climbing Back On

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My wife reminded me that we needed to sit down and talk finances. She was right, as she always is. I knew it was going to be a long conversation, as it was the first one that we’d had since our annual Memorial Weekend party. We both knew this was going to be an in depth, serious conversation. We both knew that as we prepared for the party we essentially ceased to execute every single technique that had resulted in us successfully handling our finances over the last few years. It turned into a full fledged, throw the budget to […] 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 »

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 »

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 »

Using Intermittent Spending To Stay On Budget

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A body builder friend of mine recently posted a link to an article that caught my eye. The article described a diet methodology called Intermittent Fasting in which a person would consume all their food for the day in an 8 hour window followed by 16 hours of fasting. This wasn’t just some person’s half cocked idea about how people should eat, there was actually some science behind it. The thought is that eating all the food for a given day in a short period of time more closely resembled how our ancestors lived. Prehistoric man would spend the day […] Read more »

Find Your Financial Forever Pace

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The fact that the weather app on my phone said the outside temperature was in the mid thirties was reinforced by the water dripping from the roof of my house. The sun was shining, the snow was melting, and I was stretching out for my first long run outside in months. Nine miles to be exact. The first few miles are always the hardest. Even though I thoroughly stretch out before I start, it always seems to take a few miles before everything gets loosened up. During my run on Saturday it took about 4 miles, at which point something […] Read more »

Motivational Monday: Three Steps To Achieve Your Financial Goals

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A few months ago, I caught a link to a motivational video filled with inspirational quotes. I still watch the video almost every morning as I prepare to take on the world for the day. It centers my thoughts on what I am going to do that particular day to help me make positive progress towards the goals I am trying to accomplish. After several weeks of listening to this video, I wanted to find out who the voices in the video were. With the help of Google, I was able to determine one of the people featured was a […] Read more »

Warning: Shopping Without A List Is Hazardous To Your Budget

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My love of lists is almost legendary, my daily activities driven from them. I have different lists for different parts of my day: Things needing to be done at work, written on my office white board Personal life todo list written in a notebook on the kitchen counter Blogging todo list written in a notebook on my computer desk My lists help me not only remember things that need to be done, but also to prioritize them. My wife sometimes makes fun of me because of my lists, but she understands the importance I place on them. I commonly find […] Read more »

Why You Should Walk Away From Free Offers

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Today’s post is from Douglas Goldstein, the host of the Goldstein on Gelt Show, as well as the author of  Rich as a King.  Please give a warm EOD nation welcome to Douglas! When you go shopping and you see a sign saying, “1+1 Buy one and get one free!” what do you do? Many consumers don’t stop to ask themselves if they need or want this product. The satisfaction that they gain from getting “the other one free” compels them to take up this seemingly generous offer even if they don’t need both of the items in question. But […] Read more »

Financial Discipline: You Play How You Practice

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“Well, hello stranger!” said a loud voice from somewhere behind the Subway counter.   I quickly found the familiar face smiling back at me. It’s the same young lady that is working at the nearby Subway most Saturdays when I stop in to get lunch for my family. Saturday Subway is a tradition of sorts at the Pizel household. As the cashier rang up my sandwiches, she asked me if I wanted to get one of my sandwiches for free by purchasing a $20 gift card. I politely declined. Buying the gift card would violate three of my foundational spending guidelines: […] Read more »

Sunday Afternoon #LaundryBliss With Purex Laundry Detergent

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Laundry was on my mind as I was running errands last Sunday morning, because I knew I was out of laundry detergent. I stopped by Target just as they unlocked the doors, and surveyed the laundry detergent aisle for the best deal. I found a bottle of Purex laundry detergent boasting 10% more product than usual, advertising the potential of washing 90 loads for a cost of $7.99. That’s less than 9 cents per load! As I was standing in the checkout lane, anxious to get started with the day’s work, I thought about how I could have purchased my […] Read more »

If You’re Going To Succeed, You Have To Have a Plan!

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One of the major components of marathon training is the long run. Once a week, I run much longer than any other day, gradually increasing the length of my run until I reach a distance of 20 miles.   I usually increase my long run by a mile a week. As I pass the 9-10 mile distance I start adding fluids and carbohydrate intake during my run. The weeks where I ran 12, 13 and 14 miles my long runs went horribly.  I didn’t have the physical energy, nor the mental motivation to keep going. In last week’s post I contemplated […] Read more »

Don’t Cheat Yourself By Living a Life of Half-Assity

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I was painfully making my way through a 14 mile run early on a Saturday morning. I was at mile 10, and struggling to find the energy or even the desire to pick up my feet and keep running. “If only I weighed less, this wouldn’t be so hard,” I thought to myself. Last October, when I crossed the finish line of the Twin Cities 10 mile race, I instantly decided I was going to run the full marathon in 2014. I had a full year to get lean, train hard, and run my best marathon ever. Yet here we […] Read more »

We’re Getting a Debt Consolidation Loan, and I’m OK With That

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Hot off the presses, EOD Nation, despite all you may have read, debt consolidation loans are not evil. Even after completing a debt management plan in which we paid off $109,000 of credit card debt, my wife and I knew we still had actions we had to take to really get our finances completely on the right path. One of those actions is paying off two additional lines of credit that could not be included in our debt management plan. Our goal was to consolidate these two lines of credit with a single consolidation loan. We applied for such a […] Read more »