Owner: Gather Little By Little URL:www.gatherlittlebylittle.com Join Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 19:41:04 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A Christian personal finance blog focused on growing wealth using common sense biblical practices. Site statistics:Click here
The Friday Gathering for 10/5/2007 2007-10-05 07:53:32
It’s time again for The FridayGathering
, my weekly review that highlights my favorite articles from the M-Network and the rest of the PF blogosphere. One change I am making though is adding my favorite articles from meta-blogs that I read. Meta-blogs are blogs about blogging. Since many of you are bloggers yourselves, I thought you might find my favorites in this category useful.
One quick note, make sure you visit us on Monday. Myself along with the rest of the M-Network crew will all reveal our best and worst financial decisions. This is going to be a great series of articles, so make sure you stop by. To get all of our articles at one time, subscribe to the M-Network combined RSS feed.
From the M-Network:
PaidTwice talks about Surveys For Fun and Pocket Change
Moolanomy conducts an interview with Flexo an A-List PF Blogger.
Being Frugal tells us about a new free apps search engine she found.
The Dough Roller says Stop Frittering Away the Fruits of Your Frugality - Se
Finding and Killing Nemo along with my Debt Snowball 2007-10-04 06:35:23
About 4 months ago, I found a 75 gallon tank, wooden stand, glass tops and light for $150 on Craigslist. New, this equipment would cost close to $800.00. Using my Craigslist tips, I purchased it for $100, a steal. I had always wanted a salt water aquarium, and thus began my quest to set-up the salt water aquarium of my dreams, or so I thought.
By the time I bought all of the necessary equipment, chemicals, salt, and test kits my $100 dollar aquarium was now a $500 dollar aquarium.
Downside #1: Salt water aquariums require lots of high-tech and expensive equipment
We then purchased 3 fish (blue damsels) to let the tank begin maturing in preparation for larger and more exotic fish. All three died within 3 days. The water tested fine, so I headed to the pet store to get replacements, just like I would with my fresh water fish. The store quickly informed me that there is no guarantee on salt water fish.
Downside #2: Most stores don’t guarantee salt water fish
I went ho Read more:Killing
, along
, Snowball
Carnivals for the week of 9/30/2007 2007-10-03 20:58:47
All of the carnivals I participated in are up. Here’s the list of carnivals and links to the articles I submitted:
On The Horizon was the host of Christian Carnival CXCII where my article In Financial Chaos? Pass the Test!! was included. This was my first time participating in in this carnival and it has a ton of wonderful posts. I’ll be submitting to this one again!
My Two Dollars hosted the 94th Edition of The Festival of Frugality. My article Money Saving Monday Tip #11 - Price Comparison Sites was included in the Shopping Tips section.
Moolanomy a fellow M-Network blogger was host for the 107th Carnival of Debt Reduction. Pinyo selected my article Gazelle Intensity, Not For Me Thanks as one of his top picks! He did an awesome job with the carnival this week with beautiful and informative NY City theme.
Credit Card Lowdown was the host for the Carnival of Money, Growth and Happiness #18. My article The End of Cash? was included. This was my first time partic Read more:Carnivals
How to get 200,000+ miles out of your car 2007-10-03 06:11:55
Not so long ago, American cars weren’t engineered to run for 200,000 or more miles. If fact, they were engineered for a maximum of 100,000. Honestly, they were lucky to run that long under the best of circumstances. Today’s cars, both foreign and American are far better engineered and designed to last 200,000 or more miles. In some cases even much much more.
Of course to keep a car running this long requires keeping it well maintained. Not to mention keeping good tires on it, paying for oil changes, fixing things when they break, replacing the shocks, and who knows how many windshield wiper blades. With all of that maintenance cost, they may run for 200,00 or more miles, but is it really worth the cost?
According to Consumer Reports, keeping a car for 225,000 miles over the course of 15 years can save more money than the purchase price of the vehicle itself.
Here’s the recommendations from Consumer Reports for making your car last the long haul:
Buy Smart
Buy c
Tips For Getting Low Cost Health Insurance 2007-10-02 11:46:48 Let’s face the facts, bad things happen and usually unexpectedly. Regardless of your age and how healthy you think you are, accidents and sudden illness can happen to anyone. Various studies show that medical debt is one of the leading causes of financial chaos and turns out to be one of the main reasons people file for bankruptcy.
With statistics like this, it may surprise you that 18 million people ages 18-34 don’t have health insurance. Why so high? Well, people in this age category are finishing school, or between jobs, or new to their jobs and don’t yet quality for heath benefits, or work for small companies that don’t offer health benefits. These people could purchase their own insurance, but it can be expensive especially for someone just graduating or in a new job.
The question many ask is: How can you afford not to get health insurance?? Making the choice to not have life insurance is a serious gamble. By choosing to not pay that $200 or so per m Read more:Health
September in Review 2007-10-02 07:42:44 Another September
came to an end Sunday. It was another busy and very successful month for both GLBL, the M-Network and me personally.
Personally, football season for my son officially started, so I spend most weeknights at the football field at his practices. He’s doing awesome this year, and I am very proud of him. Our Saturdays are now consumed by his weekly games, but we really enjoy them. My real job has been keeping me quit busy as well which has made blogging a bit of a challenge, but I like a challange. Oh, did I mention I turned 38 as well? 2 more years to 40….*sigh*.
GLBL continued to grow, and one of my personal goals for the blog was met on September 24th, the site reached 100 subscribers. I set a goal back in July when I started this blog to reach 100 subscribers by the end of September. So one milestone down and many more to go. My next major goals are: 1) To exceed 1000 unique visitors in a single day and 2) Reach 500 subscribers. I would like
Money Saving Monday Tip #12 - Repair Your Own Car 2007-10-01 07:09:23
Seldom will your car require maintenance that you can’t do. Most car repairs and maintenance items are fairly simple. Armed with a little knowledge and some basic tool skills, you can save yourself a considerable amount of money doing repairs yourself. Here’s a few tips for making your own repairs and doing your own maintenance:
Buy a service manual - Manuals range in quality and you will get what you pay for, but for real basic routine maintenance type items Chilton or Haynes repair manuals work well. For more detailed and comprehensive manuals, nothing compares to a manufacturers service manual. These can frequently be found on eBay or Craigslist.
Use the internet - There are literally thousands of web-sites and on-line forums dedicated to most all makes and models of cars. Doing a quick Google search using the make, model, and adding “forum” will result in a whole list of options. For example, “Nissan Sentra Forum” results in 59,800 ma Read more:Money
, Saving
, Monday
, Repair
A Peek Under The Hood 2007-09-28 13:28:06
I thought it might be interesting for some of you to get a “peek under the hood” (plonkee, that’s a bonnet for you) at Gather Little By Little. So without further adieu…
Hosting and blog platform
Gather Little By Little (or GLBL from here on out) is hosted by DreamHost. GLBL is the first site I’ve hosted with DreamHost they have been great so far. Their control panel interface is easy and simple to use. They offer “one-click” installs of some of the most popular web software packages and unlimited email addresses and domains. One of the things I really like is the longer you are with them, the more disk space you get…all for the same price!
One of their “one-click” installs is Wordpress, the blogging software used by GLBL. Wordpress is the defacto standard software for blogs and the best part, it’s FREE! It offers a tremendous amount of features and an easy to use interface. Want to customize your site? No pr
The Friday Gathering For 9/28/2007 2007-09-28 10:53:28
It’s been an exciting week for Gather Little By Little. I had set a goal when I first started to have at least 100 RSS subscribers by the end of September. GLBL reached 100 on Monday of this week! The next goal is more aggressive, 500 by the end of the year. You can help me out by subscribing to my RSS feed if you aren’t already a subscriber! It’s just a few clicks and you won’t miss out on a single post! If you are a subscriber, thanks, I’m sincerely glad to have you!
GLBL was also included in the Hustler Money Blog’s Personal Finance’s Graduating Class of 2007 listing. GLBL received a B, which I am perfectly happy with! There’s a ton of great blogs on the list, so check them out. Most of the M-Network blogs were included in the list as well!
Now for the gathering of my favorite posts of the week from my RSS reader list:
From the M-Network:
PaidTwice tells us that being assertive really pays off. I’ll vouch for thi Read more:Friday
, Gathering
What’s In Your RSS Reader? 2007-09-27 12:00:07
Over in the MBN forums, GettingGreen posted a thread asking all of the personal finance bloggers what pf blogs they read. I posted my list, but then I thought you might be interested as well. So, here’s the list of the persoanl finance blogs I currently have in my Google Reader
. I’ll try to keep this updated as I change it.
If you aren’t familiar with RSS, please read my article What is RSS and How Do I Read It?.
If you aren’t currently subscribed to Gather Little By Little, I’d encourage you to subscribe so you don’t miss a single article!
Here’s the list:
M-Network Blogs:
Moolanomy
Plonkee Money
Financial Dominance
I’ve Paid Twice For This Already
Being Frugal
Christian Finance
DebtFREE-Revolution
Single Guy Money
The Dough Roller
Saving Explained
A Penny Closer
Advanced Personal Finance
AllFinancialMatters
Blogging Away Debt
brip brap
cheufong.com
Christian Finance Blog
Clever Dude Personal Finance & Money
Consumerism Co
Money Saving Monday Tip #13 - RSS For Deals 2007-10-15 20:26:33
As blog readers, many of you are most likely familiar with RSS as way of reading blog content and being notified of updates. If you aren’t familiar with RSS, then here’s an overview. There is also a site dedicated to RSS that provides some great info as well. In addition to reading blogs, RSS can also be used to find some of the best deals on the web. Here’s how:
RSS Feeds
There are a number of sites that provide RSS feeds containing updated “deals” from various online and brick and mortar shop. More notable feed suppliers include: BensBargains.net, CheapRSS.com, DealCatcher.com, DealNews, eDealInfo.com, Fatwallet.com, Hot-Deals, Passwird, SlickDeals.Net, Spoofee.com, Techbargains.com, and Woot.com.
I wouldn’t recommend viewing these on a day to day basis you will quickly find yourself buying things you don’t really need, exceeding your budget, and spending too much. Instead, use the search feature of your RSS Reader and search the Read more:Money
, Saving
, Monday
10 Mutual Funds For A Greener Future 2007-10-15 02:00:15
This article is just one of more than 14,000 blog articles being published on the internet today as part of Blog Action Day. The entire M-Network is participating and writing articles to participate in this incredible effort.
There are many ways you can make a difference in the environment and make your money greener including eliminating paper, driving more energy efficient cars, etc. I would like to focus on investing. There are a number of new mutual funds that you can invest in that will not only make a difference in the environment but will also provide you with strong returns.
Here are just 10 of the literally hundreds available:
Winslow Green Growth (WGGFX)
Objective: The Winslow Green Growth Fund (”the Fund”) seeks capital appreciation through environmentally responsible investing in small growth companies that have a positive or neutral impact on the environment
Inception Date: 5/3/1994
10 Year Avg Return: 15.56%
Calvert Global Alternative Energy (CGAEX)
Obje Read more:Future
, Mutual
, Funds
, Greener
, Mutual Funds
My Yard is a Waste of Time and Money 2007-10-11 07:24:39
This post was originally a guest post I wrote for Financial Dominance. I am reposting this while my broken arm heals (blogging with one hand is hard!).
My wife made a comment the other night, “Why do we care about our yard so much? I am just tired of worrying about it”.
My boys mowed the yard the other night, and when they finished the whole front yard looked like a dust storm had gone through. What grass I have is crabgrass, the rest is mostly dirt with a few weeds and lots of completely yellow and dead grass. In the spring, in was a luscious green and completely full and thick.
Looking at our yard, my wife commented “Why do we care about our yard so much? I am just tired of worrying about it.”
That got me thinking about how much time and money I put into my yard each spring and fall. In the spring I aerate, thatch, re-seed, fertilize and water. By May it’s beautiful, then the summer heat and drought kicks in. Within a few weeks the yard is yell Read more:Money
Murphy Please Go Away! 2007-10-10 14:08:18
(no, this is not my arm)
Matthew 16:23 - “Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me…”
Ever have one of days, weeks, months, or even years where things just seem to go wrong? In the Glblguy’s household it has been one of those months. It seems like for every one step forward, we take 10 steps back. Thank God though that he provided me with the knowledge to establish an emergency fund. Our emergency fund has been a true blessing this month. Let me explain…
Broken Arm
Yesterday was a record setting day for GLBL. I reached my goal of more than 1,000 visitors in a single day and received my first advertiser. Everything was going great, right up until I fell coming down our stairs last night (while carrying our 18 month old daughter). My instinct was to protect her and in doing so I landed straight down on my hand and broke both forearm bones right behind my wrist. Very painful to say least. Our Read more:Murphy
, Please
The Cost Of Procrastination 2007-10-09 06:59:22 I put off getting my car’s oil changed and tires rotated way too long this go around. I try to get the oil changed and tires rotated every 6,000 miles. I was well over 9,000 this time. To make matters worse, my registration and inspection was more than 2 months overdue. A symptom of too much going on, or I guess to be more accurate poor planning on my part.
Regardless, I finally brought it to the dealership on Friday. Dealership, you ask? I agree, not typically the least expensive option, but let me explain. I purchased my car used from a dealership. This is not something I would normally recommend, but I know the owner and have a really good relationship with him, his brother (the sales manager) and his staff. I trust them, which is really important consideration when buying a car. Anyway, as part of the purchase I received free oil changes and tire rotations for the lifetime of the car. As a result, going to the dealership for both oil changes and or tire rotations Read more:Procrastination
What Kind Of Blogger Are You? 2007-10-09 06:28:22
I’ve mentioned in a past article that the M-Network bloggers, including myself, will be participating in Blog Action Day. If you aren’t familiar with Blog Action Day, it occurs on Monday October 15th. Blogger
s around the world will post about a single topic: the environment and in their own way relate it to the topic they blog about. At present, more than 8,000 blogs have registered and will reach an audience of more than 8 million readers around the world!!
Make you sure you visit all of the M-Network blogs on Monday October 15th and read our blog action day posts on the environment! Until then, if you are a fellow blogger let’s have a little fun…
Blog Action Day has a fun little quiz where you can answer a few questions and they will tell you what kind of blogger you are. When you’re done, you get an official badge to share with others. Here’s mine:
What kind of blogger are you?? Make sure you link back to this post if you take the qui
Money Saving Monday Tip #13 - Just One Club Card 2007-10-08 12:02:36
This is not a paid review nor am I receiving any financial benefit from this article. Just One Club Card is a service that I use and find value from and I thought you might too.
Until recently I had at least 10 different “club cards”. You know, those cards you can now get at pretty much every store you visit. Those cards that give you a discount or deal on selected merchandise each week. I had some in my wallet, most of my key chain and even some in my car. They were a bit frustrating to say the least, but I kept them anyway as the savings I received justified the hassle.
Well I am happy to tell you, I’ve found a better solution, Just One Club Card. Just One Club Card is a simple to use website that lets you enter up to 8 card numbers on their website. The website will then allow you print the barcodes from your club cards on one business card sized card. It consolidates all of your cards onto one or two simple cards you can carry in your wallet or on your ke Read more:Money
, Saving
, Monday
6 Financial Decisions - Don’t Learn The Hard Way 2007-10-08 09:00:30
Photograph: Learning The Hard Way by Alex @ Faraway
This article is part of an M-Network group writing project. We are all writing articles revealing our best and worst financial decisions. See the end of this article for links to other M-Network member articles!
I’ve made a number of good and bad financial decisions in my life. Unfortunately until about a year ago, the majority of them where bad. I could list far more than 6 decisions and frankly could probably write a whole book on the them. To keep from completely boring you though, I’ll only share 3 of each. My sincere hope is that you can learn a little something from my decisions and maybe avoid learning things the hard way like I did.
Our 3 Worst FinancialDecisions
#1 - Purchasing an RV
About 6 years ago, we decided to buy an RV. We purchased a new 26′ travel trailer. It was incredibly nice and we enjoyed many wonderful times camping at the South Carolina beaches and the North Carolina mountains.
The Friday Gathering for 10/19/2007 2007-10-19 21:14:40
Last week I had to skip my weekly FridayGathering
post due to me breaking my wrist. Well, I’m still the “one handed blogger” but getting faster at typing each day, and my wrist is healing up and feeling better. Thanks to all of you who wrote me offering your thoughts and prayers, they are sincerely appreciated. It’s wonderful to have such great, supportive friends!
Just a few quick news items:
In M-Network news, Financial Dominance and Savings Explained are no longer part of the network. My Two Dollars has joined and is an awesome addition to the network! Welcome David!
The M-Network participated in Blog Action Day. Here’s my article which contains links to other members articles.
GLBL reached more than 1,000 unique visitors twice this month and now has more than 200 subscribers!! Are you a subscriber? If not, click here to become one!
I had a guest post go up today at I’ve Paid Twice For This Already
Anyway, I promised I would
A Guideline Budget - How Do You Compare? 2007-10-18 09:36:13
I am currently reading The World’s Easiest Guide To Finances. So far, it’s a good read especially for those that really have no idea where to start. But there is also some great ideas and perspectives for the more “seasoned” personal finance gurus.
The Guideline Budget
One of the topics that Larry Burkett introduces is a guideline budget. It basically breaks your expenses into 12 categories and provides a suggested percentage of your income to be allocated to the category. Here is the guideline budget:
Housing
25-38%
Food
10-15%
Auto(s)
12-15%
Insurance
5%
Debts
5%
Entertainment
5-7%
Clothing
5-6%
Savings
5%
Medical
4-5%
Miscellaneous
5-8%
Investments
8-13%
School/Child Care
5-10%
My Perspective
While I agree with what Mr. Burkett is doing here (providing a baseline starting point), I don’t agree with the percentages. First off, if you have debt, a much larger percentage needs to be allocated. I would say somewhere in the Read more:Compare
Why I Blog 2007-10-17 07:18:52
Inspired by a post from PaidTwice, I thought I might share my motivations for blogging. Most of this information is also available on my About page, but in a more abbreviated format.
In November of last year (2006), my family and I were impacted by a earth shattering personal circumstance. I was out of work for an extended period of time, we were faced with getting behind on our debt payments and beginning to wonder how we were going to put food on the table. We ended up selling a number of our personal possessions to a pawn shop just to make ends meet. It was the most scary time of our lives. Our faith was truly tested.
There is a great Third Day song named Mountain Of God that says:
Even though the journey’s long
And I know the road is hard
Well, the One who’s gone before me
He will help me carry on
After all that I’ve been through
Now I realize the truth
That I must go through the valley
To stand upon the mountain of God
These lyrics are oh so true. We were
Can Your Healthcare Costs Go Up If You’re Obese? 2007-10-16 20:17:41 On July 1, 2007 new rules for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) went into effect. These new rules provide additional clarity around how employers can reward or penalize employees based a specific health results.
Clarian Health Partners Inc. was among the first companies to take advantage of these new rules. I first read about Clarian’s changes in an article published by MoneyNing. Since then further details have been announced and along with them a tremendous amount of controversy and discussion on the web.
Effective in 2009, Clarian will begin charging employees more for their health care coverage if they meet any of the following conditions: BMI (Body Mass Index) exceeds 30, Cholesterol levels are too high, Blood Pressure levels are too high,Glucose levels are too high, Smoking.
The price for not meeting these standards? $10 per paycheck if their BMI is too high, and $5 per paycheck for the others. Previously, Clarian had a program similar to m Read more:Healthcare
, Costs
5 Personal Finance Lessons From The Pursuit of Happyness 2007-10-25 12:01:06
1 Timothy 6:10 - “The love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil”
We don’t frequently watch movies. In our effort to cut back on expenses and be more frugal we pretty much eliminated renting from our budget. While visiting with my wife’s parents last weekend, they highly recommended The Pursuit of Happyness
.
Given we hadn’t rented a movie in forever, we decided to give it a try. Turns out, it lived up to it’s promise and then some. It’s an outstanding movie that contains a number of important life and financial lessons. Here’s just a few that really stuck with me:
1. Never put all of your money in one basket
Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith) spent all of his money buying a bunch of portable bone scanners that he was convinced would make him rich. He made the mistake of risking everything he had financially in the hopes of becoming rich. There are lots of “bone scanners” in the world offering the lure of ri Read more:Personal
, Lessons
What is Frugality and Are We Frugal? 2007-10-24 09:44:28
In a comment made to my recent article A Guideline Budget - How Do You Compare? a reader stated that I am not frugal. I agree, We’re not frugal, or at least I don’t consider us frugal. We are on a quest to be more frugal, but we’re not there yet. But then I began to wonder, how will we know when we get there? What is frugal exactly and what defines one as being frugal vs. not being frugal? I then began to wonder, do we really want to be frugal? Hmmmm…
These questions of course kicked in the strong researcher side of me and I looked into what it means to be “Frugal
” and what societies view of frugal really is. Lets look at a few definitions and perspectives on Frugality
:
Wikipedia
Wikipedia defines Frugality as: Frugality (also known as thrift or thriftiness), often confused with cheapness or miserliness, is a traditional value, life style, or belief system, in which individuals practice both restraint in the acquiring of and resourceful use
Fact or Fiction: Mortgage free in 1/2 the time? 2007-10-23 16:34:34
While at football practice, one of the parents passed out a flier for their business. Being an entrepreneur and Gorilla Marketing fan myself I gave it a read. The pamphlet read:
FREE ANALYSIS
BE “MORTGAGE-FREE” IN LESS THAN HALF THE TIME
PAY OFF YOUR 30 YR. MORTGAGE IN AS LITTLE AS 8-11 YEARS OR LESS
ANY MORTGAGE CAN BE REDUCED (FIXED, ARM, INTEREST ONLY, ETC.)
POTENTIALLY SAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN INTEREST ON YOUR MORTGAGE
NO INCREASE IN YOUR MONTHLY MORTGAGE PAYMENT
NO REFINANCING OF YOUR EXISTING MORTGAGE REQUIRED
LITTLE TO NO CHANGE OF YOUR CURRENT STANDARD OF LIVING OR LIFESTYLE
THIS IS NOT A BI-WEEKLY PAYMENT, DEBT REDUCTION OR DEBT ROLL DOWN PROGRAM
TOTALLY SAFE, LEGAL, PROVEN AND GUARANTEED
THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN TOUTED AS THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY MORTGAGE PRODUCT TO HIT THE INDUSTRY IN DECADES AND HAS HELPED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES NATIONWIDE TO DATE.
THIS INTEREST CANCELLATION PROGRAM WAS DEVELOPED AND IS SUPPORTED BY AN A-1 D&B RATED COMPANY. Read more:Fiction
, Mortgage
Money Saving Monday Tip #14 - Save Money When Eating Out 2007-10-22 09:34:19
In a recent article I compared our budget to a guideline budget from The World’s Easiest Guide To Finances. One of the areas I identified as a problem for us was eating out too much. My wife and I spent some time over the weekend talking about this, and decided to reduce the amount of times we do eat out and to also try to reduce our cost when we do go. Here’s a few tips I’ve come up with to reduce your eating out costs:
Share a meal
In our quest to lose a little weight and eat healthier, my wife and I have both realized that restaurant portions are often far more than we can or should be eating. One of the things we’ve done in the past and will begin doing much more frequently is sharing a plate. What’s great about doing this is that your meal cost is cut in half, and they don’t have to carry you out of the restaurant with a forklift.
Eat on kids eat free nights
I’ve written about kids eat free nights before, but we’ve have be Read more:Money
, Saving
, Monday
The Friday Gathering For 10/26/2007 2007-10-26 08:42:14
It is Friday
again all already and time for my weekly Friday Gathering
. Before I give you the links to my favorite posts this week, I have a couple of announcements:
The M-Network aggregated feed has now changed over to a Feedburner feed. Make sure you subscribe to the new feed as it’s better and faster! The M-Network feed is an aggregated feed containing posts/articles from all 10 M-Network members. Of course you can still subscribe to just my feed. If you aren’t a subscriber, I’d encourage you to subscribe!
The M-Network will have another group writing project coming up in November. Stay tuned for more details. Our first one was a huge success.
I’ll be heading to the mountains this afternoon for a long weekend. I’ll be back on Wednesday (10/31) so no articles until I return. I can’t wait, as we really need the break.
For those that have been following my broken wrist saga… I received word this week that I won’t require su
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