I’ve posted a review of A Million Bucks by 30 on my other blog Bank Bonuses. I’m also giving away a copy of the book. You can enter by leaving a comment on this post or the review post. The only stipulations are that you can only enter once and I’ll only ship the book in the U.S to keep my mailing costs down. The deadline for entering is 8am on Friday Aug. 15,2008.
Andy Hough
The MPRE
*Note- My intention has been for Saturdays to be for posts relating to law school and law but I haven’t been doing that on a regular basis.
A passing score on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam(MPRE) is required for admission to the bar in most U.S. jurisdicitions. Missouri is one of the states that requires it and I took the exam yesterday. You can take the MPRE before or after you take the bar exam. Most law students take the exam in either their 2L second semester or during their 3L year so they will have one less thing to worry about when studying for the bar exam and fulfilling all the requirements for admission to the bar.
Most (all?) law schools require you to take a Professional Responsibility course which covers much of the same material that will be on the MPRE. I would strongly advise anyone who needs to take the MPRE to take it when they are taking the Professional Responsibility course. This way the studying you do for Professional Responsibility or the MPRE will serve you for both. This will make taking the MPRE much easier.
I took my Professional Responsibility course this spring but didn’t take the MPRE then because I wasn’t sure if I would be continuing in law school. Once I knew I was staying in law school I registered to take the August MPRE. I thought I would still remember most of the material I learned in Professional Responsibility and be fine for taking the MPRE but I had forgotten a lot already. I’m hoping that I passed the test but not taking it in the spring is looking like it might have been a mistake.
How to See Movies Cheaply or Even Free
I love movies and watch a lot of them. Here is how I manage to do it on the cheap.
For DVDs I mainly use Redbox which I have posted about before. Now it is an even better deal. When you sign up for their SMS alert system they will send you a free promo code every Monday. This month they are also sending free promo codes on Wednesday. Since the codes are good for each credit card you have I sometimes rent two movies using different cards and then have one to watch on Monday and one to watch on Tuesday. As long as I remember to return them before 9pm the rentals are free. Luckily, I have a Redbox that is only a three-minute walk away. We also have a $5 Netflix subscription to allow us to watch movies that aren’t available on Redbox. Our cost per movie for Netflix and Redbox together is well under a dollar and even under 50 cents if we watch more movies than usual.
The other new thing I discovered this year is seeing movies cheaply by taking advantage of store promotions. I’ve been taking advantage of these all summer and I haven’t had to pay full price -full price means full matinee price,of course- for me and my GF’s movie tickets yet. An example is on this Slickdeals thread. If you buy 4 Axe body wash or spray at Walgreen’s you get 2 movie tickets free. The cost would be a little less than $7 making your movie tickets less than $3.50 each. And you get to use the product as well. I wouldn’t normally use Axe but I will to take advantage of this deal. If you can get a deal like this for a product you already use then it is like getting the movie tickets for free. I just go to Slickdeals once a week or so and do a search on the word “movie” to see what promos are available. I shouldn’t have to pay full price for a movie ticket for a long time.
July Investment Income
My July investment income rose to $29.44 from $27.69 the month before. This is pretty good since I was only able to contribute $100 to my Roth IRA. Most of the gain from the mutual fund in my Roth IRA rebounding a little and receiving the employer match on my small 401k. Since I’m quitting my job I won’t have a 401k much longer. I plan to do a rollover to my Roth IRA. The nice thing about my 401k is that my contributions and the employer match are immediately 100% vested.
Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income.
Running a Marathon On the Cheap
Over at My Money Blog, Jonathan did a post about an Affordable Bucket List. One item on his list was running a marathon which he listed the cost of as being from free to $$$. Many commenters replied that running a marathon was very expensive and couldn’t be done cheaply much less for free. As I stated before in my post Keeping Hobbies Inexpensive people are taking something simple and making it more complicated and expensive than necessary.
I’ve run four marathons and haven’t spent a fortune to run them. Registration fees are usually the item I spend the most money on. You can easily save money on these by running in smaller races. An example close to me is the Heart of America marathon which has a $25 entry fee. You can use the Marathon Guide to find inexpensive marathons in your area. You can also often save money on race fees by registering early.
The next big expense is shoes. I usually spend only about $30 on my running shoes. Many people think you can’t possibly get quality shoes for that price but I disagree. I’ve run four marathons and have never had any knee, ankle, or feet problems despite being about twenty pounds overweight. The trick here is to buy shoes that were originally more expensive and have been marked down to about $30. When I lived in Nevada I bought my shoes at Big 5 Sporting Goods which usually had a good selection. I bought my last pair of shoes here in Kansas City at Off Broadway shoes. I try to purchase a brand that I’ve used before and had good results with such as New Balance. You can find New Balance shoes cheap online here. They had New Balance running shoes for under $30 when I checked this morning.
The last expense would be running apparel. You don’t really need to spend anything on this. You can run in an old pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. Running shorts will be more comfortable though and help prevent chafing. My solution for cheap running shorts is to buy swim trunks when they go on clearance at the end of the season. This is what I’m currently using and they work fine and the cost was about $5.
Those are the only things you need to spend any money on to run a marathon. I’m not counting food since you have to eat anyway. There is no need to buy any gels or special foods. Since I’ve always been overweight when training for marathons I didn’t feel a need to buy any extra food at all. The key to running a marathon on the cheap is the same one to doing many things on the cheap-keep it simple.