One Month Challenge

Keeping Track of My Time

by

In order to figure out where I am wasting all of my time I am going to keep track of what I’m doing for every hour of the day this Monday through Friday.  I already know I waste a lot of time on the Internet but maybe seeing exactly how much time I’m wasting will motivate me to make better use of my time.  It is possible that I might identify some other time wasters as well.  I really need to start being more productive.

On an unrelated note I took advantage of my 10 free eBay listings and put some stuff up for sale.  Probably could have selected some better stuff to sell but since the listings were free I just listed the first 10 items I found that I no longer want. Check out my eBay auctions.

Passion Saving: Review and Giveaway

by

I received a copy of Passion Saving for review last week. This is the first review copy of a book I’ve been sent but if there are any other personal finance authors out there who would like me to to review their book feel free to contact me. I won’t guarantee a good review though. In conjunction with the review I’ll be giving away a copy of Passion Saving. Just leave a comment by noon CDT Monday and I’ll randomly pick a winner then.

The full title of the book is Passion Saving:The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work and the author is Rob Bennett. Rob managed to retire early and in this book he shares how he did it. This book is more about motivation than nuts and bolts. He distinguishes between what he calls Sacrifice Saving and Passion Saving. If you can change your mindset to see saving as buying you a little bit of freedom rather than something you have to do that you won’t be able to enjoy for many years than saving will become much easier. Another point he makes that I like is that 10% of your income is probably the worst percentage of your income to save. It is just enough to be painful but not enough to quickly see results. If you want to retire early you should be increasing the percentage of your income that you save. The main focus of this book is changing how you think about money and savings.

There are only a couple of things I didn’t like about the book. He seems to like creating buzz words such as Fun Units, The Freedom Store, etc. This seems to be pretty common among personal finance writers now so I won’t fault him too much for that. My other criticism is a mild one that if you have read Your Money or Your Life you really shouldn’t need this book. If after reading YMOYL you still need motivation than this book might work for you. You can only order this book at Passion Saving.com.

If you would like a chance to receive a free copy of this book just leave a comment to be eligible for the giveaway.

June Challenge

by

I’ve decided to have a one month challenge every month. I lost ten pounds during last month’s challenge. That was more due to eating being painful due to the oral surgery than any self-discipline on my part. Anyway I’ve decided to try to continue the weight loss. To do this I’m going to stop drinking soda and run three times a week. The running should be easy since I like running I just have to get back in the habit of doing it regularly. Cutting out the soda will be more difficult. I’ve tried to stop drinking soda several times and have never lasted long. I know that cutting the soda out of my diet would be a significant benefit to my health though. I drink way too much soda now and it makes up a large percentage of my calories. Eliminating that should lead to weight loss and hopefully better sleep as well.

Grocery Challenge Results

by

Depending on how you look at it the Grocery Challenge could be considered either a failure or a qualified success. I’m going to call it a qualified success. My original goal was to spend only $1 on groceries for the month. Then I changed it to $5 then to $10 and I spent more than both of those goals. The last part of the month I was depressed and whenever I feel depressed I eat junk food. The final result is that I spent $31.60 on food for the month. Although this is far more than my goal it is still a pretty low monthly total so I don’t consider the Grocery Challenge a complete failure. There is still plenty of food in my pantry so I should have a low food total for June as well.