Kristy’s Weekly Roundup
Another week has blown by and I’m left wondering where the year went. Do you realize it’s only five months until Christmas?? Time to start shopping.Ok, so on to this week’s posts. Another fabulous week in the blogoshpere, as always.
Trees Full of Money had a great article this week on ways to increase cash flow. However, I also ran across the article about some negative effects of getting a pay raise and so that’s the one I’m highlighting for the roundup - both are good, though. We’re doing our mid-year reviews at the credit union, so it was a great reminder of what we should be doing when raises come around.
Nickel at Five Cent Nickel talks about the minimum wage increase. I’m actually torn on this issue. I think workers need to be paid more, for sure. But, it’s also just as tough to run a business and when labor expenditures increase, it can get a bit sticky with cash flow. Even still, full-time workers at minimum wage jobs are earning below the poverty line and that’s a problem.
Get Rich Slowly talked about Dr. Randy Pausch and The Last Lecture. You may have already heard that Dr. Pausch passed away on Friday, and if you don’t know who Randy Pausch is, I highly recommend you watch the clip GRS has posted on his site. It is perhaps one of the most moving and influential lectures I’ve heard in recent times and his death is a sad one. The world needs more people like him, not less. I also intend to post about Randy in the next couple of days, talking about the financial lessons we can glean from his speech, so stay tuned!
Pinyo at Moolanomy has a post about starting an emergency fund versus paying down credit card debt. While we’ve discussed the ups and downs of Dave Ramsey and I’ve posted my justification for a 3-6 months expenses as an emergency fund, I don’t think I’ve actually put it to vote on which everyone here prefers. I have to say, while I thought Pinyo’s post was interesting, I don’t agree with his/her approach. I think an emergency fund should be established while paying off debt. That’s what I did and I still got out of debt in record time. What’s your vote?
Trent over at The Simple Dollar has an excellent post on how to deal with your spouse spending money behind your back. I think I’ll forward this to my sister. Her husband works and she stays home with the kids, but they’re a very young couple and he still has the mentality that it’s his money so he should get to spend it. While she doesn’t disagree completely, she does have to remind him that he has a family to take care of. He’s terrible about spending money and not telling her, but it’s when he’s lying about it that she gets upset. Be sure to check it out, especially if you suspect a partner is spending on the side.
Over at Lazyman and Money, Lazyman shares a reader’s dilemma about their debt. As people in the financial industry, sometimes we’re overwhelmed with numbers - strictly statistical data related to polls and surveys - about how people handle and manage their finances. When looking at numbers, it’s easy to take the human emotions out of how they got there in the first place and simply say they need to wake up financially. But, when we’re given examples of real life situations, it puts those numbers into perspective and we remember the human element that goes with them; something that’s important to remember.
Philip over at Wisebread posted about the standard of living, and whether or not ours should change when our circumstances and income change. Would we be happier? Statistically speaking, probably not. Even still, that doesn’t change the fact that I want a 2008 BMW M3. Yes, I know. It’s not really practical and it’s just a depreciating asset, but the completely irrational side of me still wants one.
Hope you guys enjoy the posts and have a wonderful weekend!
