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Learning Spanish abroad is a quick way to learn the language and can also be a frugal vacation. The immersion technique allows you to learn the language much faster than conventional classes. Plus you get to experience the culture on a deeper level than most tourists.

There are many good Spanish schools out there but my recommendation is Madre Tierra Spanish School in Quetzeltenango, Guatemala. At the school you receive five hours a day of Spanish instruction from trained and experienced instructors. You also receive a homestay with a local family which includes a private room,hot water, and three meals a day. The cost is only $135 a week. That would only add up to $540 if you wanted to go for an entire month. You could quite possibly go on vacation for less than staying at home. My time spent in Guatemala was one of the best times of my life and I highly recommend it.

This is not a paid post. I just think this is a great deal and want to help out my friend at the school.

I had all four of my wisdom teeth plus three other teeth extracted yesterday. I meant to schedule some posts on Wednesday to cover my time away but my hosting company’s server was down. I’ll try to get some new posts up over the next few days. I have to go to the library for internet access though and right now I don’t feel like spending too much time away from the couch.

If you might need wisdom teeth surgery you should get it done while you’re young. The older you get the more impacted the teeth get. This advice was too late for me but maybe it will help someone out there. They gave me Vicodin for the pain but it made me sick so I’m going without for now. One thing I do feel good about is that I was able to pay cash for the surgery. I’m not going in debt for anything from now on except my last year of law school and maybe a house someday.

Sorry if this is rambling, I’m not completely clear-headed right now.

I attended the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Live event here in Kansas City on Saturday. Overall, I really enjoyed the event. Dave is a very energetic and exciting speaker and kept me entertained. There was more humor than I was expecting, which was a plus. The Christian stuff was kept to a minimum. As an agnostic I prefer it this way because it makes it easier for me to ignore. He did make the common mistake of thinking he was in Kansas. The Kansas City is in Missouri! Other than that my only complaint would be that there was too much time spent hawking books and other products.

If you have read any of Dave Ramsey’s books and/or listen to his radio program than the material covered during the event will be familiar to you. Despite that, if you are a Dave Ramsey fan than going to this event would probably be worth the price of admission. If you don’t follow Dave Ramsey you would probably be better of checking out one of his books first before deciding whether to attend a live event.

Thanks again to the Prince of Thrift at Debtfree4ever.net for the free ticket.

According to to Wikipedia, sunk costs are those costs which have already been incurred and cannot be recovered to any significant degree. The example they use is the purchase of a non-refundable movie ticket. If you later decide you don’t want to see the movie an economist would argue that the fact you already paid for the movie ticket should not be part of a rational decision of whether or not you decide to see the movie. This is a condensed version of the explanation, if it doesn’t make sense refer to the Wikipedia entry.

Anyway, there is a reason I’m talking about the economics of sunk cost. I’m somewhat apathetic about going on to my third year of law school and finishing my J.D.  According to the theory of sunk costs the fact that I’ve spent two years in law school and accumulated $57,000 in debt shouldn’t be part of my decision of whether to finish law school. The accumulated debt and time spent are a major part of my decision process though. If I don’t finish law school it would seem like they were wasted.

Maybe the idea of sunk cost isn’t applicable to this situation. If I were to finish my degree I would have a much higher earning potential. To achieve that earning potential via other means would most likely require a further investment of time and money. Also, if I were later to decide I would like to get my J.D. I would have to start all over again. (Assuming I return more than one year after quitting.)  Then I would have to pay for my first two years again and have two years of limited earnings. Tuition would most likely be higher as well. It seems to me that the time and money I’ve already invested have to be considered.

Maybe I’m not thinking this through correctly. I would be interested in anyone’s insights or ideas of how I shoud evaluate this decision. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

There are several reasons why I decided to start this blog. I already have a blog at bankbonuses.info. The focus of that blog though is fairly narrow. I decided to start a new blog to share my ideas and experiences with being frugal and saving money. It seems that most personal finance blogs are written by married men with stable work and family life. (There are exceptions of course.) I can’t always relate to the material they write. An article on how to save $100 a month by cutting out lattes doesn’t have much value to somone who lives on $900 a month. So I’ve decided to blog about my life at the lower end of the economic scale.

The reason my blog will focus on frugality is because that is what I know. I’ve always been frugal and living on my small income makes frugality a necessity. I can’t write an article on how to be rich because I am not rich. When it comes to being frugal though I believe I am qualified to write about the subject.

Although I’m calling the blog Tight Fisted Miser, I don’t consider myself a miser. The difference between being cheap or a miser and being frugal is something I’ll write about in a later blog post. This blog will contain several categories of posts. The main category will be frugality which will contain general frugal tips as well as my personal frugal experiences. Another category will be lazy money which will contain information about what I consider lazy ways to make money. The other categories will be random rants and random observations which will be things I feel the need to rant about or share my view on that don’t neccessarily fall into the personal finance category. These posts will be kept to a minimum.

Anyway that is all for now. Stop by often because I plan to keep this blog updated daily.