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October 11, 2010, at 6:00 am If you're new to BFS, please subscribe to my RSS feed. It shows me a vote of support and keeps me motivated to keep your attention. If you have any questions or comments for me, please contact me and I'll get back to you asap. Thanks for visiting! I was talking to my friend Kris about job hunting the other day. One position that I’m trying for would increase my salary by $20,000 a year. One of her comments in passing brought up how great it would be to finally have the money to replace my much-hated Chevy Aveo (My Crappy Car). As I walked out the door to go to the job I don’t want anymore, I realized that I probably wouldn’t buy another car even if I had the money in the bank.
The car still works. Despite the few problems it has had due to really awful craftsmanship, it is still a driveable car and not costing me more money than $35 a month for liability insurance, $75 a month for gas, $20 a month for tires on average, and $150 a year for registration, inspection, and oil changes. This little piece of doo-doo car really only costs me about $1700 a year plus whatever breaks (which has been about $350 in parts this year and $500 last year). Not too bad for my main mode of transportation.
In fact, looking at it like that, maybe I don’t hate it as much as I thought I did. It will depend on how long it lasts before something else breaks. I dislike car payments more than I dislike my car, but I hate errands more than all of it. If it starts giving me regular problems, I will drop it like it’s hot, hehehe. 
What about you? What is your line in the sand for your vehicle?
October 10, 2010, at 10:22 am
BFS is a member of the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge! My ranking last week was 57,418 and is now 54,669!
The original goal was to be in the top 200,000 by July 4, 2010 and you helped me blow that out of the water in 2 months…a whole month early! Then we were shooting for 100,000 by July 4th and we hit that goal too!!! After that we started a new goal of 75,000 by the end of August, and I thought there was no way, but we hit that out of the park by August 15!!!
Now we are shooting for 50,000 by Halloween! I know it’s a little insane, but let’s try it out anyway! We had a FANTASTIC week! Thanks for helping me out so much! Only 4,669 to go!
As always, I would like to sincerely thank all of my readers and the members of the Yakezie Challenge. Obviously, this would have been impossible without all of you. Thank you all so much! I repeat those words every week, but please understand that I mean it every time.
In case you didn’t know, Alexa traffic rankings are determined by the numbers of hits a site gets by people with the Alexa toolbar. If you want to be part of this ranking community, you can download the Alexa toolbar here.
If you are a Yakezie member and don’t see yourself on my member list, please send me an email or leave a comment here to be added. I copied the list originally in early March and updated it in mid-June. Please let me know if you are still missing. Thanks!
If you are interested in seeing how I went from an 8 million plus Alexa rank to about 60,000 in less than 7 months, you can see My Blogging Schedule over at Crystal Clear Thoughts.
BTW, I am going to start posting blogging income updates since so many people, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, seem interested. This update will be posted on all 3 of my sites – Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Crystal Clear Thoughts, and Dog’s Life For Me. Each site will have it’s own income listed and every update will include the grand total. Pop in once in a while and we’ll see whether blogging full time by 2012 is a silly dream or not!
October 9, 2010, at 6:00 am
If you haven’t already (or to see the new content),
please also check out my new blogs,
Crystal Clear Thoughts and Dog’s Life For Me!
If you want to take advantage of the weather to exercise, consider joining the
Inner Couch Potato Homicide Challenge!
My Favorite Posts this Week
- Rainy Day Saver with Understanding Your Explanation of Benefits I hate EOB’s but this helped a bit – I’m also going to get more aggressive with bill follow through…
- Everyday Tips and Thoughts with Car and Home Safety Tips DO NOT program your home address into your GPS and then valet your car with the GPS in it…see my comment to understand why…
- Money Reasons with Financial Lesson For My Son – Savings Ah, starting the new generation of personal finance geeks like us…
- First Gen American with Settling Estate Disputes – Babci Style Another very moving post that proves your past does not dictate your future.
- Live Real, Now with 10 Ways to (re)Use Shopping Bags If you have them around anyway, this is how I use them too. I know, I know, but canvas bags just don’t cut it for animal crap…
- Get Rich Slowly with this guest post from Gail Vaz-Oxlade, Bargain Shopping Gone Berserk! Okay, I’ll admit it, I watch the show Til Debt Do U$ Part and I love Gail yelling at the idiots that refuse to change…she’s usually soooo right.
- Len Penzo dot Com with Why Marriage Makes It So Hard to Control Remodeling Costs Hahaha, yep, spot on.
- The Saved Quarter with A Day in the Life OMG! Her schedule makes me sterile…seriously, I’m sorry people, but there will never be any mini-Crystals in my future…not ever…I’m not patient enough…
- Living Up To a Name with The Case for Reconsidering a Career in Teaching Tough decision…
- Darwin’s Finance with Should You Get Your Bonus When Quitting Your Job? I think, heck yes in the case of his friend.
Guest Post on BFS
Thanks for the guest post and the day off!
If you would like to guest post on BFS, please send me an email with your idea or post and I’d love to have you over for the day! If you are a business, please email me for more details. Thanks!
Blog Carnivals that Included BFS
Carnival hosts, please email me if BFS is included in your carnival so I don’t miss it in my roundup, thanks! I know how much time these things take, so as always, I am truly grateful!
Other Info – Dang that is alot of Giveaways!
- Mike at Do Not Wait is hosting a Retirement Planning Blog Launch Giveaway that includes a bunch of prizes including an iPad! It ends Sunday, 10/31, so take a look!
- Penny at The Saved Quarter is hosting a Sell Your Crap Giveaway! It ends tomorrow, 10/10!
- Eric at Narrow Bridge is hosting a Best Money Decision Giveaway! Just leave your story of your best money decision ever by Friday, 10/15 for your chance to win 500 free business cards!
- Andy at Tight Fisted Miser is hosting weekly book giveaways – this week is Generation Earn! Contest ends Tuesday, 10/12!
- Mark at Buy Like Buffet is hosting a Free Money Giveaway! Take a look by Monday, 10/11 at 9:30am!
- Investor Junkie is hosting a Quicken Giveaway! Hurry, contest ends Friday, 10/15!
- Miss T at Prairie EcoThrifter is hosting a Grocery Voting Contest for the chance to win $25 at Amazon! Ends Monday, 11/1!
- I am also a staff writer at Sweating the Big Stuff. You can see my posts every Wednesday – this week’s was Illogical Debt.
Feel free to email me if you have any suggestions. I’d love to add a few more blogs to my regular reading list or at least give a shout-out for great posts or contests.
As always, thanks to all the bloggers that teach me something new every day. Thanks to all my commenters for making this blog the community I want it to be. Thanks to all my lurkers too. I hope everybody is enjoying this as much as me!
October 8, 2010, at 6:00 am
I am weird. I know I’m weird because I’m 27 years old and my social life is centered around potlucks, board gaming, and bingo. I also know I’m weird because every year in October and November, I get excited because the Texas Renaissance Festival comes to town and I can totally geek out.
For anybody who doesn’t know, the Renaissance Festival is like a theme park that only opens up for part of the year. It is decorated like a renaissance village and every weekend has a different theme. For example, one weekend may be all about fantasy creatures, so you’ll see hundreds of people dressed up like centaurs, fairies, and whatever else they feel like. Another weekend may have a Scottish theme and kilts will be the offering of the day.
Along with the themes, you are surrounded by old timey shops, roasted turkey legs, and ale galore. There are fun little rides, great ambiance, and awesome scheduled shows all over the place like outdoor theater. My favorite is the Dead Bob Show, but there is also tons of other comedy, music, and physical entertainers. There is even a falconry show that my friend Desiree absolutely adores.
All of the shows are technically free although you will feel like a butt if you don’t tip…
In short, the Renaissance Festival is an awesome way to waste away a day with some silly fun and you can even top it all off with a great fireworks display when the sun goes down. The $23 adult ticket bought at the gate always seems well worth it to me (although I do buy it in advance online to save a few bucks, lol). If you’re really gutsy, you could happily be one of the dressed up people within the gates.
Have you ever been to the Renaissance Festival? What did you think of it?
October 7, 2010, at 6:00 am
The following is a paid review of Solution Auctions. I was paid to write the review but everything below is my honest opinion of the service. Please comment with your own take on this new business if you wish!
First Impressions
Solution Auctions is an auction site where people with problems can buy a canned solution or open an auction for a canned solution and others can either sell their solutions directly or put their canned solution up for sale. In short, it’s an auction site for people to help answer each other’s questions and solve each other’s problems.
As someone who frequently web hunts for solutions and has participated in sites that will pay you for good answers, I was definitely interested in checking out this new site. After clicking through the site a bit, it seems very easy to navigate. There are huge “Buy Solutions” and “Sell Solutions” tabs on the top to get you to the correct pages. You can’t miss the “My Account” tab either. The best part in my opinion was that I wasn’t bombarded with ads – the site was easy to navigate and “quiet” for my eyes, which is very nice for someone who spends so much time online.
How It Works
Sellers can browse through posted problems and solve the ones they can to make the posted “reward”. Listing your solutions is free and they are automatically relisted for free an unlimited number of times. Since an answer to a problem can be used more than once, the solution’s poster could sell his/her solution over and over.
Buyers get the benefit of having the possibility of finding specific solutions very quickly. If they can’t find the fix they are looking for, they can freely post their question and allow sellers to bid themselves down to the cheapest price to provide the answer. There is a 100% money back guarantee through Solution Auctions itself.
My Personal Experience
I wanted to try the site out myself a little so this review would be as “real” as possible. Here’s what I did on the site:
1. I registered by clicking the “register” link in the top right and filling out my information. I then went to my email and confirmed my sign-up.
2. I browsed the “Sell Solutions” page to see if I might already know some answers I could sell. I wasn’t interested in or personally knowledgeable about any of the questions listed at the time.
3. I then browsed through the “Buy Solutions” page to see what was offered. I want to slap the guy that wants people to solve Captchas to beat spam prevention. As a blog owner who should never own a gun in case I ever come across a spammer, I really was dumbfounded that this could be a job.
I was enticed by an offer for how to fix my dog’s allergies, but steroids are already working well. The same person is selling a “Clean Dog Food List” as well. Honestly, you can get one from a pet dermatologist for free, so I wouldn’t suggest buying it myself unless you just want to save the trip.
4. I decided to post a few canned solutions for purchase. After thinking about it for 20-30 minutes I realized that anything I was willing to post on this site, I’d be willing to post for free here. Lucky you, lol. Anyway I went through the posting process but it wouldn’t let me enter a discription for my product. Oh well, I’ll work on it after this review posts…
*Update, when I switched to using the Google Chrome browser, I was able to post 2 Solutions easily…maybe the site just doesn’t “like” IE8…*
Overall Impression
I’m not sure if people will be very willing to buy solutions that they could mostly find by searching online for free, but I like the overall idea behind the site. For anybody who would like to save some time, it is a great idea. I hope that there is some additional organization that takes place once there is thousands and thousands of solutions for sell since I don’t know how much time actually could be saved if you have to choose between 500 answers for the same question. I assume that is when the reputation of the seller matters the most. I look forward to seeing this site in action and watching it develop. I do wish it the best.
So, what do you think? Interested in checking it out?
October 6, 2010, at 6:00 am
Did you know that the phrase “how to get the money” is searched globally 246,000 times a month?! I figured I’d help hundreds of thousands of people out and make my list of the top 10 income ideas and ways to save major moolah:
1. Share Your Space
I know the idea of having a roommate may be a turn off, but the cheapest I ever lived (other than at home with my mommy) is when I split the rent of a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other girls in college. I believe I was still charged $288 a month, but I could have even found something cheaper if I was willing to drive. You can save thousands of dollars a year.
2. Eat Out Less
My biggest expense is housing (see above), but the second biggest is food. Mr. BFS and I cut out budget by nearly a third by simply eating out one time a week instead of 4 or 5 times a week. Restaurants and fast food chains really do cost more than if you buy AND USE groceries efficiently.
3. Eat Less Overall
If you are anything like me, you may be eating too much. Consciously think about how full you are when you eat and try cutting your portion sizes in half if that is feasible. That could easily cut your grocery bill down another 1/4th or more!
4. Change Your Mode of Transportation
I love having a car. It’s easy to just jump in and go. That said, I could save a few thousand a year if I could take a bus instead. I’d even lose weight if I’d bike. Heck, even car pooling would save me a few hundred every couple of months. If you are looking for corners to cut, transportation is another great place to start.
5. Get a Job
I know this seems obvious, but this even means look for a better job if you are simply not paid enough. I have known people who will complain until their faces are blue about their lack of funds even though I know they settled on a job that pays even less than mine. Learn a trade, take some certification classes, or just network a bit and you could increase your income overnight.
6. Get a Second Job
Whether you enjoy your work, don’t want to or can’t cut back on any more of your expenses, or simply want a little more money in your life, look into getting a second job. This could be anything from an actual night shift to a side income through pizza delivery.
7. Sell Yourself
No, not in the way I know that just popped into your head.  Think of everything you know how to do or knowledge you have and work from there. If you are fantastic at any school subject, look into tutoring. If you are great with animals, try walking dogs or pet sitting or something. If kids adore you, babysitting is always an option. In short, think of all the things you are good at or things you know and make them work to your advantage. I tried out all of the above and then found blogging – not easy money but money none-the-less.
8. Sell Your Stuff
Craigslist and Ebay have made selling individual items way easier than in the past. Garage and yard sales are also a way of cleaning out your house and making some profit to boot. If you have some time, you could list 5 items a week and work your way through any of the excess you may have accumulated through the years…
9. Passive Income Streams
Interest from investments and per click ads or affiliate programs are ways of making money even while you are sleeping. Passive income is usually something that only starts really helping after you’ve created a solid foundation (like saving, investing, creating a good website, or you can even make money selling ebooks), so make sure to have a plan.
10. Take Care of Yourself
Health care costs are astronomical, so staying healthy is a very important way of keeping your money where it belongs in your pocket. Take this from someone who just finished paying her husband’s $1500 dental bill; you don’t have anything unless you’ve got your health.
What other income ideas do you awesome readers have?
October 5, 2010, at 6:00 am
Live Real, Now mentioned this Investopedia post, 20 lazy ways to save money and let us see how he stacked up. Here’s my results:
1. Schedule automatic payments. I love automatic payments! I have to leave checks for our housekeeper and lawn guy, but every other monthly bill is set up to be paid automatically through our credit cards or our bank account. Our annual property taxes and homeowner’s insurance fees are all manual as well – you know, they want to make sure you feel the pain, lol.
2. Eat your groceries. We were throwing out a lot of fruit but have gotten much better now. I freeze the older bananas for smoothies and eat the rest as snacks at work. Having a lot of freezer space does save waste in our home. Well, that and the monthly board gaming parties where we can unload extra stuff too, lol.
3. Bundle services. We bundle our cable and internet, but that’s it. We don’t have a land line and our cell service is through Sprint.
4. Pay off credit card. Yes, we pay off our credit cards every month. I detest paying interest for nothing.
5. Mark your calendar. I have a little daily calendar for my purse now as well as a hanging one at work. Both are updated as necessary based on new additions. It is working really well so far although I wouldn’t say this saves me money. In fact, it causes me to remember things like wedding showers, so it’s actually costing me, lol.
6. File your taxes on time. We file as soon as humanly possible. Since we have to wait for so much to come int he mail, that means we usually file in late February or early March.
7. Roll it over. I haven’t changed jobs yet, but when I do, I’m either rolling over my 401k if my new job offers one too or keeping it where it is. I will not be cashing it out.
8. Switch credit cards. We don’t carry balances, so we don’t need to do a balance transfer. We do use 3 different cards based on what we’re buying though, so I do play that max-your-cash-back game a bit, lol.
9. Use your privileges. Excellent reminder. I still am thinking about joining AAA.
10. Rent instead of buy. Okay, we suck here. I will almost always buy or borrow. Redbox and Netflix are pretty much the only rental services we use.
11. Buy instead of rent. I love our house. One big reason is that I can do whatever I want to it, but it was a financially better deal for us too.
12. Ask. I need to do this with AT&T again for our cable and internet bill. I tried with Geico but apparently I have the lowest rate available to us right now (I called other places for quotes and figured this out).
13. Just say no. We don’t buy extended warranties, but we do buy our electronics with our Discover card to get the extra year of coverage.
14. Have the awkward conversation. We do a Secret Santa with hubby’s family and exchange gifts with my parents and two little sisters. Other than that, we just do $20-$25 birthday gifts on average.
15. Eat at home. We are eating at home more often, but we still splurge once or twice a week. We’ll see if we can cut back this coming month.
16. Balance your checkbook. I balance our checkbook every 2-3 weeks just to make sure Chase in on the right track. ING is much easier, so I only balance that running total every month or so.
17. Stick with your bank. Thanks to a billion Chase and ING ATM’s, we’re good here.
18. Use your TV. As a couple who watches way too much tv, we’re taking full advantage, lol.
19. Quit those bad habits. We don’t have any daily vices…no smoking, occasional drinking (like a Pina Colada once or twice a month), and no drugs other than Claritin and headache medicines…our latte factor would be our hobbies, but we budget for those.
20. Forget the pet. Nope, sorry, can’t. We really are happier people with a dog or two at home with us.
You can even sell used books for cash. What do you think of the list?
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DISCLAIMER I am not a professional or a financial advisor. BFS posts are informational opinions only. Please make your own financial decisions based on personal research or see a financial advisor.
Also, there are paid links on this site. There is no obligation on your part to purchase any products advertised on this website.
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