H and I have finally gotten the upper hand on the house stuff, so I feel like i’ve got more time to spend on the website lately.  There’s still a lot to be done for sure, but I think we are over the hump.  Unfortunately, after I had basically cleared the bathroom for use, H noticed that the bathtub was leaking when I took a shower.  It didnt leak before, so Im guessing it just needs to be tightened up because it has been in there for so long and gotten kicked around when H and I were moving in/around the tub putting in the tile, etc.  Once that gets done, we can use the shower again, and we are considering using harvey water softeners for the upstairs when we take showers.  Though we havent got the bathroom fully finished yet, I think we may have hard water.

You all noticed that I put a survey on the site last week, so that I could figure out more of what to write about that you would be interested in.  For those of you that responded, thank you.  I’ve got a few articles built up (so hopefully there wont be huge lulls in the new content anymore) but I’ll get working on your suggestions right away.  If you’ve got a specific topic you’d like me to cover send me an email or leave it in the comments and I’ll be happy to work on it.

Lots of people are curious about lending club (and/or prosper) and with good reason.  H and I are getting a terrible .9% interest on our savings accounts, and lending club is offering returns that are much greater.  My friend kevin at thousandaire built his own lending club calculator to see how much you can actually make with the service.  I’ve used lending club for about 9 months now, and I have no complaints.  If you’re interested, check it out and give it a trial run.

Eric from Narrow Bridge posted about what we waste money on.  I think one of the main things that I waste money on is eating out.  H and I were doing well in that area for a while after doing poorly for so long while our kitchen was under construction, but because we’ve been out and about much more lately, we are doing more eating out.

PT at pt money has an interview about a credit card app party.  I havent done one of these yet, but I have been dabbling in the miles and points game recently, and I’ve been able to come out ahead in a big way.  I’ve got a few posts detailing how i’ve done it and how you can too coming up.

I’ve been staff writing lately for My personal finance journey, and here’s my latest post for that site on urgency and goals (something which i’ve lacked lately).

Over the last few weekends, H and I have done nothing but work on the house, and seem to have hit quite a few walls.  We’ve gotten stopped by our lack of hot water, not having the required materials, tools or knowledge or a number of super lame things.  I think we could both feel the frustration mounting from the situation and earlier this week we both acknowledged that we need to start focusing our energies so that we wont be getting pulled in so many different directions and frustrated with the lack of results.  Hopefully it works.

Anyway, on to the best links this week:

Kevin at thousandaire has a great example of arbitrage on old washers and dryers.  I figure if you knew about how to repair these, you could probably turn that into a decent side hustle.  Not something that I’ve got time for right now, but ill keep it in mind for later.

Trent at the simple dollar has a post about finding the path again.  This post really hit home with me as I know exactly what he’s talking about.  H and I have been under a lot of stress as we have a lot of things going on right now with marathon, the house on top of our normal day-to-day stuff.  While I think trent’s solution of more work is a good one, I’m aware of the fact that sometimes, you just cant bring yourself to do that – make sure that you relax and take a breather, and dont make any stupid mistakes.

Roshawn wants broke people to stop giving him financial advice.  I agree with this – which is why I dont understand how people can take orders from an overweight health professional or trainer – if they are the “authority” shouldnt they be able to at least take care of themselves?

H and I are moving soon, so we are currently getting rid of quite a few things that we dont think we will need in the future or haven’t used since we moved into our current place around 3 years ago.  It’s nice that we are getting it out of the way and we wont have to move it, but there’s just so much stuff that we’ve got to find a way to get rid of it all.  I dont really want to throw it in the trash because most of it still works just fine.  I’m working on some good ways to de-clutter in a sustainable way.

Also, the redesign of the site is complete (for the most part, still a few tweaks I’d like to make) and I hope that you noticed that I’ve put my email list back up here.  I plan on doing a weekly newsletter in the future, where I’ll be sharing some awesome sustainable tips and tricks that I’ve been using.  I hope that you’ll consider signing up!

Fiscal Phoenix had a post on 5 ways to advance your skills at work.

Broke Professionals had a post on the cost of jury duty (which for the record, I do not like serving jury duty)

Stock Trend Investing had some sweet infographics on the S&P 500.

That’s all for now, it has been a busy week!

I’m sure that some of you have heard about the search engine business that has gone on with google for the last month or so – I unfortunately got caught up in that mess, so I’m making a few design changes to the site.  This is something that I have been considering for a while and just kind of got pushed into it.  I’m ok with that though – because honestly it has not taken near as long as I thought it would (I feel like I’m pretty well finished) which has been nice.  I’d love some feedback from you all about design, color matching and readability, so if you’d like to check out the new site, head over here and look around.  Then if you could come back and leave me a note in the comments or drop me an email telling me what you think, that would be awesome.  Not everything is up there but for the most part, everything is.  On to the best reads of the week:

Kevin at Thousandaire has to turn in his lease and is wondering if he should get a new car.  This is a debate that I’m really having with myself right now – even though the truck is almost paid off, H and I dont really need it – I only use it to go to the gym, which I could bike to if I wanted in the summer and make other arrangements in the winter.  It’s pretty handy to have around and I’ll probably keep it, but I always wonder.

Van Beek is wonder if he should buy real gold or gold stock.  I’m not really much of one for investing in commodities, but this is interesting, and even more so with the run up in gold lately (as well as the more recent pullback).

A sweet infographic from money for college project on studying abroad.  It was something that I never really did (or was very interested in, honestly) but I had a lot of friends (and even my mom!) did it.

Financial hope over at broke professionals is also interesting.  The one thing that kept me going when I was paying off debt was that I was too busy working (or driving to work) to think about much else.  Admittedly, there were times when I thought “this blows” but I thought it would be better debt free, and I didnt really feel it that much because H and I had just moved to a new city and didnt have many friends, so it’s not like my phone was ringing off the hook with invites to go do awesome stuff.

I’m also over at yakezie today, talking about your desired lifestyle.

More New Yakezie Members

• Tushar at Everything Finance
• Jana at Daily Money Shot
• Lisa at Sense to Save

Since H and I started the home purchasing process, it feels like it has been nothing but paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork!  Contracts, inspections, mortgage disclosures, and everything else you can possibly think of, constantly showing up and asking for attention (when I want to put it in the shredder).  I guess this is the price that we are going to pay to have a new place to live.  Thankfully, I dont have to deal with this all myself.

One frugal girl posted about people with boring jobs.  I’d have to say that she makes some good points – according to some, I have one of these boring, unfulfilling jobs.  It’s all in the eye of the beholder though – my job isnt too bad, and the pay and benefits are nice – i’d rather sacrifice a bit now for a big return later.  To each their own – if you want to blog in your pj’s all day, then do it, but dont talk down to those who dont want to do that.

Roth IRA day was monday – I didnt post on it but a lot of people did.  If you’re curious, kevin at thousandaire has a pretty good post on roth iras.  There’s tons of info, so if you’re curious about a roth ira, then poke around.

BB at Beating broke has a post on what is enough.  This is something that is different for everyone, but I know when I go overboard and dont feel right – if I have too much it makes me uncomfortable.

Send some love to simon and family because they just had to put their dog, freya, down.  Losing a pet is an awful thing to go through.

New Yakezie Members:

• Jana from Daily Money Shot
• Corey at 20s Finances
• Lisa at Cents to Save
• Marisa at 36 Months
• Funancials
• Andy at Tight Fisted Miser
• Shawanda at You Have More than You Think 
• Cash Flow Mantra

These last 7 days have been pretty rough on my running schedule.  Usually, my days to run are tuesday, wednesday, thursday and saturday, with the longest run of the week on saturday, a 4 mile run on tue/thur and a 7 mile run on wednesday.  Of course, last wednesday I was traveling down to new mexcio for the opening rounds of the NCAA tourney (my team won the first game, lost the 2nd).  I ran tuesday of last week, but not wednesday, and I did thursdays run on friday.  I missed saturdays run (which I had kind of expected to), then ran again this tuesday.  Had a meeting run long last night , so it got dark before I could hit the pavement, but I’m looking to get back on the saddle tomorrow.  Either way, it has been a rough week, but that will happen to anyone doing a 3 month training program – that’s why you just have to keep plowing through.  Missing was bad for my momentum, but not so awful for my training that I cant recover and quit training.  On to the links this week:

Kevin at thousandaire thinks that it’s time to legalize pot.  Never having been a drug user myself, I do find his point of view interesting, and am honestly kind of shocked that the tentacles of the government havent gone after this revenue source.

Melissa at fiscal phoenix has a post about fundamental analysis.  Make sure to check the balance and cash flow before you buy some stocks people!

Van Beek has a post on why to invest internationally.  I think it’s important to be diversified when investing, and this is just another slice of the pie.

Suba at broke professionals has a post about simple work problems, and how to fix them.  I think that just about everyone has dealt with this from time to time, and it’s a matter of being clear about what you want, and staying on task (Big for me).

Well, March is finally here.  With it it brings warmer weather, and basketball.  Right now, I’m on my way down to Albuquerque, NM to go see some college basketball at the Pit.  I have been wanting to do this for about 8 years, so I’m really excited to go.  I was happy to go no matter what games I got to watch, but last week my undergrad school (university of colorado) went on an awesome run through the pac 12 tournament and captured the tournament title, earning a bid to the NCAA tournament that was previously out of the question.  Even though I was super pumped that they won the tournament, this brought a new piece to the puzzle – where would they play?  As luck would have it, they got put in Albuquerque, making an awesome weekend that much better.  Not only to I get to see games, but I get to see my team play! On to the best links of the week:

Amber had a great post at Money Under 30 about how to save money during march madness.  I’m not much of a gambler (at all) but I do understand that quite a bit of money can change hands.  My suggestions are to set a limit for the tournament and dont go over.  If you bet round by round, use it till its gone and if you double up, pull your initial bet out so you can play with the house’s money.

Money Cactus want you to know you can save money and improve your finances with twitter.

Melissa at Fiscal Phoenix has a story about teaching your children about debt.  This is something that I think is important – no one is as deathly afraid of debt as they used to be, they just see it as a part of life.  Once the younger generations get a hold of it, if they cant manage it they will be sunk.

Roshawn wants to know if there are any safe investments anymore?  I think there are, but they are uncommon ones – investments in yourself are always worth it, as are investments in learning new skills.

Van Beek has a nice article about Roth IRA conversions in 2012.  Personally, I did this last year so I dont need to do this again this year.

MB Hunter has a post about silver.  I’m always fascinated by time-value of money posts, because everyone’s is so different.  What I may consider worth my time, you may not consider worth yours.

Broke Professionals has a post about managing the costs of commuting. This used to be a huge problem for me personally, but I switched to a job that I live close enough to walk to.

March is finally here, and for the college basketball fans like me, there’s no greater time.  Will UCONN win 5 games in 5 days (again) to capture the big east tournament title, en route to an NCAA tourney crown?  Who will win the pac-12 with all its parity?  Who is going to emerge from the meat-grinder big 10 victorious?  Will winning games this week prevent teams from winning next week?

As you can tell, it’s my favorite time of the year – better than christmas!  Enough with that, on to some great links

PT Money has a post on the cost of living off the grid.  I’ve looked into this quite a bit (and almost impulse bought 10 acres of land along the arizona-new mexico border) and was very interested in this article.  Though I think the costs are overestimated here (a self sufficient house need not be 1500 sqft) It’s a great outlay of what you’ll need if you’re getting started getting off the grid.

Fiscal Phoenix has a post on when a good job interview goes bad.  I’ve had this happen to me before, but it was mainly because I was reading the language on the job post a bit too literally.  I wanted to make sure that the job was going to be around longer than the stated 4 months, and they couldnt – so the interview kind of went south from there. I learned a lot from that.

Broke Professionals wants to know what will be your greatest accomplishment?  This I think will be different for everyone.  Some people want to land on the moon, some people want to give a boat-load of money to a group that helps others.  No matter what that goal is, what are you doing, today, to get yourself 1 step closer?

The college basketball bubble season is finally upon us, and I’ve got to admit I’m pretty excited about it.  Like last year, my team is on the outside looking in (and in all probability wont make it this year) but I’m really enjoying watching everything shape up this last few weeks of the basketball season.  The dangerous teams in march are just starting to get hot, so if you want office bragging rights, now’s the time to start paying attention.

Anyway, on to the best reads of this week:

Well Helled wants to know if she should save money or travel after her lease ends and before she starts grad school.  For me, I’d probably hop on the plane if it was a once in a lifetime trip (to me, china qualifies) but if it was anywhere else, I’d probably skip it – I havent left the city yet this month, and im happy about that.

Lindy at Minting Nickels is talking about Fiverr.  If you’ve never heard of it, people post things they are willing to pay $5 for, and if you want you can do it.  So, what are you willing to do for $5?

Evan from My Journey to Millions went to a storage auction.  I’m kinda shocked that there’s room for storage places in NYC, but either way, he had an interesting take on how the process works.

I just found a new site, Sky Minded and Ever Growing, that I think is pretty sweet.  They live on 1/8th acre and detail how they go about growing and preserving what they grow.  A recent favorite of mine is Buy it Cheap, Put it up, about canning and the grocery store.  From what I’ve read, canning and buying food from the store is kind of a tricky lot – slightly more expensive than it should be, but could still be worthwhile.  Check out all their tips.

The Yakezie Network is welcoming a new class of members.  The first posts are from:

• One Cent at a Time
• Family Money Values

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’d really like to get a garden started at my place this year.  I’ve been looking on the side of the road and in other places for some lumber to reclaim to get the side walls of the garden beds built, and I finally found some this week – I was pretty excited about that, and I’ll be writing a post about it coming up.  Reclaimed wood is awesome!

A Guest Post over at Get Rich Slowly from a high schooler talks about getting through college debt free.  He mentions one of the programs where he could take college classes paid for by the state in high school.  I would strongly suggest this over Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.  Both AP and IB programs focus solely on 1 test at the end of the year, and different schools take different scores.  All schools will take credit transferred from another college (even if they dont all count towards general requirements)

Van Beek at Stock Trend Investing points out why you should think twice about owning your company stock.  Sure, you may get a discount, but dont put all your eggs in one basket.

Mighty Bargain hunter isnt worried about the mortgage tax deduction going away.  Honestly, i’m not either – if the governments budget needs to be brought under control, subsidies like this need to go away.

Roshawn has 4 ways to reshape your views towards money.

Penny Pinching Professional (a regular van wilder, if I do say so myself) has a post about the pluses and minuses of graduating.  Enjoy your new income and stop living the poor student life in 5 years.

Fiscal Phoenix suggests you pay cash for your car.  I’d agree, and if it was even remotely possible, I would have done so too.

Broke Professionals talks about the $10 per week difference.  What would you do with an extra 120 each year?