I’ve noticed that I am getting lots of traffic from MSN for my food stamp post from last year. Could someone tell me why it is getting so much traffic now? Thanks.
Announcements
Bought a New Cell Phone
I bought a new cell phone yesterday to take on my hike. I bought an lg rumor touch off Craigslist for $60. This was a great price since it would have cost me $30 to buy the phone if I signed a new two-year contract. It is worth more than $30 to me to not have to sign a new contract. I have already activated the phone and it is working fine.
The main reason I bought a new phone is so I could check my email on the trail. This phone will work for that although I probably will just be checking my email and not sending and reading a lot of emails. How much coverage I’ll have on the trail is another question. It doesn’t look like Sprint has very good coverage along the trail. Hopefully, I will have coverage often enough to make it worth upgrading my phone.
***My book giveaway contest is ending tomorrow. Right now there are only 2 entrants at the one I’m hosting at Bank Bonuses. Head over and enter the contest and you have a great chance of winning.
Reader Questions #2
Here are some more answers to your questions. If you want further clarification of any of my answers or you have a different question to ask just leave a comment. I will post more answers next week.
What do you do with your free time?
Me and my GF are both big movie fans. We watch DVDs two or three nights a week in addition to attending the movies once a week. I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I need to cut back on the mindless surfing and increase the productive time spent online. I also read a lot. My non-fiction reads are usually money related and my fiction reads are usually mysteries but I like to read on lots of topics and genres. I plan to start running on a regular basis to get back in shape but that hasn’t happened yet.
When did you become a Tight-Fisted Miser?, When did you decide you wanted to retire early?
I have always been very frugal. My mother was always very careful with her money and I’ve taken that a little bit farther. I’ve always had a vague idea of wanting to retire early. It is just in the last couple of years that I have had a plan on how to achieve that and early retirement seems feasible.
How do you make money online?
I make about half my money from Adsense and the other half from paid links and affiliate sales. This didn’t happen overnight, I started blogging in December 2005. My online income is from several sites not just this one.
Reader Questions #1
This is the first of what I hope will become a weekly or monthly feature depending on the amount of interest shown where I will answer reader’s questions. I have consolidated and changed the questions some where I felt questions overlapped or just needed to be changed so I could make one answer to several questions.
How did you and your GF meet?
We met through eHarmony. I read on Maggie Wang‘s blog how she met her husband through eHarmony and shortly after that I saw a deal for a free preview weekend and eHarmony and decided I should give it a try. My GF was the first one I met through the service. We hit it off pretty quickly so I canceled the service and didn’t bother meeting anyone else.
It was somewhat serendipitous that I signed up for the service and we met. Maggie Wang’s blog is not a personal finance blog, although she occasionally posts on personal finance, and is not a blog I’d normally read. I happened to click through from some PF blog to her site though and that eventually led to me signing up for eHarmony.
Why did you decide to hike,how are you planning it, and how does your GF feel about it?
The hike is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve already gone on two long hikes and it is one of my lifetime goals to complete a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Since I’ve already done two long hikes on the AT I am not doing much planning. Most people seriously over plan for their hikes. I just make sure I have enough food to get to the next resupply and make up the rest of my plans as I go along.
My GF is not wild about me going on this hike. This was discussed when we very first started going out though and she agreed to it then. I will be bringing a cell phone to keep in touch which I probably wouldn’t do if I didn’t have a GF back home. We’ve reached a comprimise on this hike but any future adventures I have that require a long time apart will probably create a major problem.
What are your plans for after the hike?
This is still somewhat up in the air. When I return I will get a job of some sort. I haven’t worked since last August and I’ll need to start earning some money. Although I am burnt out on law right now I hope that whatever job I get utilizes my J.D. in some way. At that time I’ll decide whether to sit for the February bar. I will probably go ahead and take it just to give myself more options.
That isn’t all the questions but I’m going to save the rest for next week. If you have any other questions or want clarification of any of my answers just leave a comment.
Book Giveaway: Nobody Wants a Million Dollars
I won the book “Nobody Wants a Million Dollars” in a giveaway at My Two Dollars last week and now I’m going to give it away also. It is a slender book and I was easily able to read it in a couple of hours this weekend. The subtitle explains what the book is about; viewing money as a personal finance tool instead of a life goal. The first part of the book covers that and the rest of the book is dedicated towards standard personal finance advice.
This giveaway will have the usual rules. Just leave a comment to enter and I will draw the winner at random this Friday.
**I accidentally deleted a couple of comments. If you left a comment and it isn’t here please comment again.