I am loving the warm weather! That and the combination of daylight savings time has made each day nice and enjoyable when I got home from work. It’s great to see everyone outside, the kids playing, and the landscaping starting to bud up. All-in-all, this winter has been a dream come true for a commuter like me! Almost no snow storms, no ice, and no big delays. With all the snow gone, I’m quickly realizing how TERRIBLE my yard looks and how badly I need to start the projects I had originally planned for the Spring. We’ve got flagstone retaining walls to build, slate rocks to cover all the gardens, and a whole lot of weeding along with weed block material to lay down. … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 3/17/2012
Archives for March 2012
Another Expense Reduced – Refinancing Your Auto Loan
It wasn’t one week after we closed on our mortgage refinance that my wife and I got our next “big break” on our expenses. As I’ve spoken about before, part of my annual budget is to pick a handful of expenses each year and see what I can do to reduce them. Sometimes this takes a fair amount of work and research as was the case with the mortgage refinance. But ironically, this next one came from an unlikely source: Junk mail. … [Read more...] about Another Expense Reduced – Refinancing Your Auto Loan
Would Dollar Cost Averaging Have Saved You From “The Lost Decade”?
From time to time when I get my 401k statement, there is a small newsletter mixed in with my financial statement. It usually presents some very introductory information about retirement, investments, etc. In this issue one of the topics was dollar-cost averaging. For those of you who don’t know, dollar cost averaging (DCA) is a strategy where you invest the same amount time after time. During the good times when shares are higher, you buy fewer shares. During the rough times when shares are lower, you buy more shares. This strategy prevents you from buying at the wrong time and over-spending or under-spending on your investments by “averaging” your price over time among these periodic investments. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what … [Read more...] about Would Dollar Cost Averaging Have Saved You From “The Lost Decade”?
Buy Your Own Death Star for $852 Quadrillion
Okay, this one is too much fun to pass up. Consider it your Sunday comic blog post … A few weeks ago, MSN covered a quirky article from the blog Centives entitled “How Much Would it Cost to build the Death Star?”. Yes, that would be Darth Vader’s Death Star; the giant planet-like weapon from the first 1977 Star Wars movie (or Episode IV if you’re a true nerd!) The blog, ran by students at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, used some logical reasoning to estimate the size of the Death Star and roughly how much steel the creation would consist of. Here are the highlights: … [Read more...] about Buy Your Own Death Star for $852 Quadrillion
Weekend Wind Down 3/10/2012
The month of the birthdays continues... Both of our children’s birthdays are in March, so each weekend is usually filled with something relating to them. This week will be their combined birthday party with their friends and cousins. Last week we saw “The Lorax” as part of our son’s presents. The movie was hilarious by the way! The majority of the week was spent with our son fighting off a nasty stomach bug that caused him to have to miss school for a few days. I’m looking forward to a weekend where everyone’s health is back to normal. As many of you already know from my prior post, the week started off on a good note with the closing of our home refinance! That activity saves us about $100 per month on our budget. Also, the way the … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 3/10/2012
Check Out My Guest Post “The Satisfaction of Doing Your Own Home Projects”
I’d like to kindly invite everyone to please take a moment to head over to the blog Invest It Wisely to read my guest post entitled “The Satisfaction of Doing Your Own Home Projects”. As many of you know, I recently decided to take on putting hardwood floors in my house. I am not handy at all and I had a little apprehension about doing the project. But because I am also cheap (sorry, frugal), there was no way I was going to pay what they were asking for professional installation. So this post is about getting over the fear of trying something new, saving a little bit of cash in doing so, and learning some skills that will help me with later projects in the future. Please give it read and leave me your comments! … [Read more...] about Check Out My Guest Post “The Satisfaction of Doing Your Own Home Projects”
Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 5
I’m very proud to announce that this chapter will end our story on getting a refinance. As of Monday, we finally closed on our new mortgage under the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP)! Here’s what has been going on since last time: Our Home Appraisal: So after the initial consultation and deposit, there was not a lot to do except wait until the estimator came back with his appraisal of our house. And so we waited, and waited, … And after 8 years of not “really” knowing how much our house was worth, we finally received an official home appraisal as part of the process. How did we do? Bum-badda-baaa (victorious trumpets sounding ….): … [Read more...] about Adventures in Refinancing, Chapter 5
Weekend Wind Down 3/03/2012
What a long and stressful week! Both my wife and I had some pretty hectic schedules these past few days, but it’s all good. This week was also very special because we celebrated our son’s birthday! He’s a great present “getter” because he opens each present as if it’s the best present he’s ever received. Unfortunately I think the week is going to end with Mrs. MMD coming down with a cold. I’m glad to announce we finally got the estimate back on our house and will be closing on our HARP Refinance soon! We also finished installing our hardwood floors. Both of these will be expanded upon in upcoming posts next week. … [Read more...] about Weekend Wind Down 3/03/2012