Making a Challenge Challenging

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There are various bloggers out there who have no spending challenges. The typical no spend challenge isn’t very challenging for me though. I don’t have any desire to buy most things that aren’t allowed in a no spend challenge. The only tangible items I’ve bought this year besides food are detergent, toilet paper, and books. These were all necessary and I didn’t spend much money on them. The books were bought used for school and I’ll sell them again when I’m done with them. Entertainment is where I’ve been spending way too much money and I need to challenge myself to spend much less there next month. This will be complicated because I just started dating someone and I put dates in the entertainment category. She doesn’t expect me to spend a lot of money on her but when you first start dating you don’t want to be too cheap. Also my best friend is coming back to town after being out of town for a month and a half. We will be spending some money while hanging out and catching up. My goal for the month is just to spend less than my average monthly entertainment expenditure. This shouldn’t be too hard since my entertainment spending has been very high this year due to a vacation and excessive gambling.

There is also a May Grocery Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks that I’m going to participate in. My goal will be to spend $50 in groceries for the month. This is what I usually budget but I’ve been going way over the past couple months. I’ve also been eating out too much. To make this challenge more challenging I’m not going to eat out unless it is on a date or with family or friends. I will try to keep those occasions  reasonably limited. I won’t invite my friend or girlfriend out to eat just because I want to eat a meal out. These conditions should make this challenge challenging to keep.

It is Finals Time

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I have completed classes for the semester and am now in the final exam period. I might miss a couple days posting over the next couple weeks because I need to make preparing for my exams a priority. In law school 100% of your grade is based on your final exam. This makes it hard to know how well you’re doing in class until after you take the final. Sometimes you can’t even be sure then, you have to wait until you get your grade. This semester I feel ok about two of my classes and am worried about the other two classes. I’ve already taken one final which I think I did well on. My feelings about how I’ve done on finals have been wrong in the past though, usually the result is worse than I expected. I’ve already been given a second chance at law school so I have to do well now. There won’t be a third chance. Wish me luck.

The Fisherman and The Investment Banker

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When I was reading some books for my trip to Cancun I came across the following story. I had read it previously and it has been around for many years but I like it so I decided to share it for those of you who haven’t read it yet.

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied, only a little while.

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then?”

The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions.. Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

This story is an oversimplification but not far from the truth . My ideal life would be just about as simple as the Mexican Fisherman’s.

The Power of Blogging

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Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised when I blog about a company and then get a response from that company. My blogs only get a few thousand visitors per month, they don’t get anywhere near the traffic of the major blogs but they somehow get the attention of these companies. I suppose they have someone doing blog searches for the company name.

At my other blog Bank Bonuses I wrote about the problems I had with Revolution Money Exchange. I signed up for the service but I wasn’t able to complete the registration because I have a fraud alert on my credit report. They were supposed to send me an email telling me how to complete my registration but apparently it went to my spam folder. My emails to customer service went unanswered and calls to customer service were met with the reply to just wait for the email. After blogging about my experience though I received an email from Revolution Money Exchange explaining there had been some problems with their contact form and apologizing for my problems. They approved my account so I could complete my registration. This improved my opinion of them but made me wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have a blog. I might never have been able to open an account. Since this company is an alternative to PayPal,which I’m not a big fan of, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If you want to give them a try I’ve added a sign up button in my sidebar.

Tracking Every Penny and My Non Budget

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Over at My Two Dollars last week David wrote a post arguing against what he called “Watching Every Last Penny Syndrome.” Since I track every penny I spend and earn I have to disagree with that post. This is something I started doing after reading “Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence” and I’ve found it very helpful and pretty easy to do. Apparently Trent at The Simple Dollar keeps track of every penny too.

That being said I don’t budget every penny. I just keep track of what I spend and when my spending gets out of line in a certain category I adjust my spending accordingly.  Stephanie at Poorer than You uses a similar system and Nick at Punny Money has his own variation of the system. This system works well for me but it won’t work for everybody. You need to determine what kind of budgeting system works best for you.