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The Minimum Wage Millionaire – Book Review and Giveaway

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minwagemillion I was recently given a copy of the book, The Minimum Wage Millionaire: How a Part Time After School Job Can Change Your Financial Life, to review. I’m offered books to review almost every week, but I have been declining them for quite a while since I’ve read so many personal finance books that I’m pretty much burnt out on the subject. Plus, I regularly read lots of personal finance blogs so I like to read about something else for my additional reading. Since I hadn’t done a giveaway for a long time and I liked the idea of this book I decided to review and give away this book.

The concept of the book is fairly simple. If you are able to invest the maximum Roth IRA contributions for six years while in your teens and early 20’s then you have a good chance of that money growing to a million dollars by the time you are retirement age. You can quibble about the expected return on investment or note that a million dollars won’t be worth near as much by that time, but it is still obvious that starting your savings early will dramatically improve your financial situation later in life.

The author states that this is the book he wishes he would have read when he was younger. By writing the book he hopes to make more young people aware of how beneficial starting to save early for retirement can be. This idea resonates with me. I read a lot personal financial books when I was in my early 20’s and knew how powerful starting to save early could be. Unfortunately, I worked minimum wage jobs back then and barely made enough to pay my bills so I wasn’t able to save much. Once I finally landed a decent paying job I totally abandoned my good financial habits and blew all my money and went into debt. I eventually ended up cashing out the few thousand I had managed to save in an IRA while trying to get out of debt. If only I had kept the same money habits I had when I was making minimum wage once I started making a decent wage I’d be a lot better off financially right now. Having the knowledge isn’t the same as applying the knowledge. If there are any young people reading this post, don’t make the same mistake I did.

The Giveaway

In order to enter to win a Kindle copy of the book, “The Minimum Wage Millionaire”, all you need to do is leave a comment. There is a limit of one comment per person. Other contest rules will apply as needed to maintain fairness. Entry to the giveaway will end on Sunday June 22, 2014 and a winner will be chosen by random drawing. Note that you do not need to own a Kindle in order to be able to read a Kindle book. There are free Kindle apps for smart phones, tablets, and PCs that can be used to read the book.

Weight Loss Bet Update 2 and Other News

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Earlier this year I bet $3000 that I would lose thirty pounds in six months. In the first month I lost twelve pounds. Another month has passed since then so now it is time to post my weight loss for the second month of the bet period. After doing so well in the first month I slacked off during the second month and that laziness is reflected in my results. I managed to lose zero pounds in the second month. That is better than gaining weight, but it certainly isn’t good. A month like the last one could end up costing me $3000.

For my first two months my average weight loss is six pounds a month. If I lost six pounds every month that would be a total weight loss of thirty-six pounds which would be good enough to win my bet. Even though my average for the two months is okay I know I need to do a lot better this month. I’m not going to be able to exercise all day like I did while hiking during the first month, but I can exercise a lot more than I did in the second month. There is also a lot of room for improvement with my eating. After returning from my hike I followed the Weight Watchers diet plan for a couple of weeks and it worked well for me. However, like most diet plans the Weight Watchers diet plan doesn’t work if you don’t actually follow it. Last month I barely kept track of my daily points and I know that most days I went over my allotted points. I’m back on the WW plan now. The fear of losing $3000 has been refreshed in my mind and I will be sticking to plan this month. I doubt I can lose twelve pounds like I did the first month, but I think a loss of at least six pounds is reasonable.

Other News

In other news I recently started a medical study that will pay me a total of $3000. That money could cover my expenses for about three months. I have different plans for this money though. I have needed dental implants for several years, but could not afford them. I’m earmarking all the medical study money towards getting implants. I need three implants and I will be getting them at the local dental school. They quoted me a price of $1200 to $1400 per implant so the study money will not be enough to cover all the costs of the implants. It will at least cover almost all of the cost and I can make up the rest from my savings or if I am working I can cash flow the extra cost from my paychecks.

I am supposed to start another document review job next week. The exact start date hasn’t been set yet so the job is still not a sure thing. The job is only supposed to last two or three weeks and I will be gone one week for my Las Vegas vacation. I’m lucky they didn’t care that I will miss the week due to vacation. That is usually a deal breaker for these short-term jobs. It would have been nice if the job had started a couple of weeks ago and finished right before my vacation. The nature of short-term jobs like these is that they don’t always come at convenient times so you got to work them when they are available. I’m doing fine on money. I haven’t dipped into my savings since my tax job ended in April although I haven’t added to my savings either. This month should be much better financially then May though.

During the last month I was really lazy. It is too soon to say for sure but, I think I might have figured out how to overcome my laziness. I’ve noticed that if I get up in the morning and write my 1000 words and/or exercise that I end up having a productive day. Or at least what I consider a productive day. On the other hand, if I decided to have a leisurely breakfast or put off my exercise and writing until later for some reason then I almost always end up not having a productive day. Although I tell myself I will take it easy in the morning and get to work in the afternoon that almost never happens. I guess it works like inertia. If I start off lazy I tend to remain lazy. If I start off productive then I tend to stay productive. I just need to be more disciplined in the morning. If I can motivate myself to work in the morning then the rest of the day will usually be productive with no more motivation needed. One month from now I will let you know how this worked.

Katy Trail Bike Ride Bust, Weight Loss Update, and Other Stuff

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tardis portapottiMy plan to bike the Katy Trail did not work out as I had hoped. I started my ride last Tuesday and on that day biked a total of 19 miles in five hours. That is very slow for biking on a mostly level path. Just doing that amount wore me out. It was mostly overcast and windy, but I was still sweating and had to take a lot of breaks. Once the ride was over and I saw how long it took me it was obvious that either the bike (borrowed from my girlfriend) or me wasn’t up to the challenge of riding the Katy Trail.

I ended up getting a hotel room that night since it ended up being too cold to sleep in my car as I had brought my summer sleeping bag expecting warmer temperatures. Also, my legs were really hurting me and I thought sleeping in a comfortable bed rather than a piece of plywood in the back of my car might help ease the pain. In over 1000 miles of hiking on the Appalachian Trail I never took a pain reliever due to aching muscles, but on that night I had to take some aspirin to reduce the pain so I could sleep.

After taking the next day off to recover I tried the trail again on a rented bike. I figured this would show me whether it was me or the bike that made the previous ride so difficult. It didn’t take long to realize it had been my bike that was causing the problems. I rode 13 miles in 2 1/4 hours on the rented bike. It was much easier and much more enjoyable riding on the rented bike.

Since I didn’t want to rent a bike for long enough to ride the entire trail I came up with a new plan. I decided to return to KC and buy a better bike. I was lucky that there were lots of garage sales on the weekend and I ended up buying a Trek mountain bike for $15. It is a bit beat up and rusty from being in storage for a long time, but a test ride has already shown that it is much better than my girlfriend’s bike. I plan to return to the Katy Trail at the beginning of June.

When I took a day off after my bad biking day on the Katy Trail I got very lazy. I didn’t do any writing and I ate lots of bad food. This resulted in me gaining two pounds and getting out of my writing habit. After seeing my weight gain I’ve once again started eating better and exercising everyday. Today is my first day of getting back to my writing. I plan on having a long streak of days that I meet my exercise and writing goals.

Weight Loss Bet Update 1

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It has now been a month since I made my $3000 weight loss bet at Healthy Wage. I need to lose 30 pounds in six months or I’m out $3000. If I win the bet I’ll get $600 plus my $3000 back. My first month of weight loss has gone great. My starting weight was 226 pounds and I’m now down to 214 pounds for a weight loss of 12 pounds in my first month. I’ve been consistently losing about three pounds a week. I knew I’d lose weight on my hike, but I was worried that I would still be able to lose weight once I returned home. I’m happy to report that I am still steadily losing weight even though I’m now home. The hike made it easy to lose weight since I generally only had access to the food I was carrying with me and I was walking about ten miles a day with thirty pounds on my back. Now I can buy whatever food I want whenever I want and my exercise has been cut back to thirty to sixty minutes a day. Despite the change I’ve still been losing weight.

When I returned home I was planning to go on the Slow Carb diet. My girlfriend is doing Weight Watchers though and persuaded me to give that program a try for a couple of weeks. I haven’t officially joined WW, but I am using their system by using my girlfriend’s WW calculator to determine how many points I’m allowed a day and to track my points. I like this program since I can eat whatever I want as long as I count it. Of course, if I eat certain foods they don’t leave many points for eating the rest of the day and if I crave a certain food later in the day and don’t have the points then I have to wait until the next day to have it. This requires just a little bit of discipline which is about how much discipline I’m capable of. I still need to eat better. Too much of my daily points is going to soda. I had no problem giving soda up during my hike, but started drinking it again when I returned home. I plan to reduce my soda consumption to one a day and once I’m consistently on that consider eliminating it completely. I don’t think one soda a day would be that bad. The problem is one soda usually makes me want a second soda.

I’m hoping with my Katy Trail bike ride and improved eating my second month of weight loss will be even better. If it is just the same or close to the same I’ll be happy with that too. I’ll keep you updated of my weight loss progress at least once a month or possibly more if people are interested.

My $3000 Weight Loss Bet

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If you have been reading this blog for a while you probably know that I’ve been wanting to lose weight for years, but have never had any success losing weight.  I even had a $500 weight loss challenge a few years ago where I promised to give away $500 if I didn’t lose 40 pounds by the end of the year.  I didn’t even come close to losing 40 pounds and ended up giving away the $500.  Apparently, the fear of losing $500 wasn’t enough to motivate me to lose weight.

Despite my past results I am once again making a bet to motivate myself to lose weight.  This time I have upped the ante. Since $500 wasn’t enough to motivate me to lose weight I am now betting $3000 that I will lose 25 pounds in six months.  The bet was made with Healthy Wage.  I wrote about Healthy Wage a couple years ago.  They are a company that allows you to make weight loss bets. If my weight loss bet is a success they will pay me $3600.  That would be a profit of $600 for me since the $3000 is just a return of my own money. I’m thinking that the fear of losing money and the reward of winning money will get me to lose weight.  Since I had to pay the $3000 upfront I’m also motivated to get my money back.

I’m starting my hike tomorrow which will be my main method for losing weight.  I’m thinking that once I have my weight loss jump started by hiking I will be able to continue to lose weight when I return to everyday life.  Since I can’t hike forever I do eventually need to get in the habit of eating better and exercising more when I’m at home if I’m going to be successful at losing the weight and keeping it off.  I will give updates on my progress (or lack thereof) during the next six months.  Check back in six months and hopefully you will be reading a post about me winning this bet.

*** If you are interested in making your own Healthy Wage I’d appreciate it if you would let me refer you to Healthy Wage since I’ll get a $20 bonus for everyone I refer to Healthy Wage.  Just leave a comment stating you want a referral email and I’ll send one out as soon as I can. Thanks.