Jean Chatzky, You Don’t Have to Be Rich
Jean Chatzky wrote a book that, in internet terms, came out forever ago (2003). She talks about studies (her own included) that question the notion that money buys happiness. Well, that is not completely accurate; money does buy happiness, but once you make between $50,000 and $75,000 per [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/comments-on-you-dont-have-to-be-rich-by-jean-chatzky/
It is interesting how bringing a failure (or perceived failure) to light can make one feel more motivated about it.
I reconnected with an elementary-school friend today and through my twitter feed, he saw this project, a project that is most definitely unfinished.
I had planned to ‘tithe’ my life for 365 days and made it to [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/embarrassment/
“People know you for what you’ve done, not for what you plan to do.” ~Unknown
While plans are nothing until they are executed, plans are extremely important. For the last week I have been working on the Hambrick Family Master Plan July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2011. That is a fancy way of saying that [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/day-78-planning-for-major-expenses/
I am reading (for the third time) Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez. Every time I read it something different jumps out and changes my life in a new way.
Today it was the chapter on the past and our past money mistakes. It asks the reader to calculate his or her lifetime earnings. [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/day-75-1-saved/
I worked on my budget again today. I wanted to know what categories were getting the highest percentage of my cash. The following chart came out of my work:
http://www.titheyourlife.com/spending-percentages/
Five years ago, I dabbled in some day trading. It was a fiasco. I lost a lot of money.
I sold out and never looked back… until last month. I looked up the stock symbols for the stocks I owned. If I hadn’t sold out, my investment would be worth five times what it was worth [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/investment/
“Everything’s gonna get lighter, even if it never gets better.” – Mates of State, Get Better
People who know about this project often ask me how things have changed. And with the exception of the financial category, concrete improvements are hard to come by. Even in the financial category, money still feels tight – I think it always [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/day-68-recap/
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” To which Ernest Hemmingway retorted, “Yes, they have more money.”
Lately I have been asking myself what it takes to go from lower middle class to upper middle class like my parents did. They taught me [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/the-wealthy-are-much-different/
Seth Godin wrote yesterday about building in deniability to our projects:
How much of the time you invest in a project is spent preparing excuses, creating insurance, seeking deniability and covering your ass just in case things go poorly in the end?
At some point, that effort becomes so great you never actually ship anything, which of [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/deniability-response/
Day 102: Annual Budget Meeting
Christina and I just finished our annual budget meeting. We are now working off of a July to June fiscal year budget as opposed to a January to December.
Our agenda looked like this:
Financial goals for the year
Expected maintenance
Major purchases
Future planning
Career development
Our daughter
Each of these had sub-topics, but one could get the gist from the above.
We [...]
http://www.titheyourlife.com/day-102-annual-budget-meeting/