I just realized that my post on car-free living was featured in the 110th Carnival of Personal Finance at Fat Pitch Financials. In addition to my little contribution, there are numerous other articles covering all aspects of personal finance. This is a great way to discover new blogs and I would encourage you to check it out!
I just noticed that I won a Golden Blog Award from the Money Gardener's site on Friday the 13th! I won in the category of Most Impressive Net Worth... and for looking good in a dollar sign medallion. :)
A million thanks, Money Gardener!
I've decided that it is very important to talk with new people. There are two huge benefits:
My brain is too fuzzy to think of something interesting to write about.
All I can think is...
Poor me.
Poor me.
Poor me.
I hope to be back in shape soon!
MD:)
Well, I don't know how she did it, but the Trading Goddess snapped this little photo of me when I wasn't looking and put it up on her site! 
I like it so much I think I might look for a permanent place for it....
If you've never visited her site, be ready for something unlike anything you have seen before! Lots of stock charts and other eye candy!
Hard to believe it, but I have reached the 100th post milestone on my little blog today. Since I wrote the list of Ten Ways Personal Finance Blogging has Helped Me a couple days ago I don't think I need to go into that area again but I will take the opportunity to indulge in some reflection.
I started this blog at the beginning of the year after finding PF blogging while surfing. Since then, it has certainly been a journey with many twists and turns. In the beginning I wrote purely about my own finances and focused on goals like early retirement and reaching $1 million net worth. Lately, these topics have been less of a focus as I try to learn to analyze stocks and make some new investments.
One of the major decisions that I made about my blog was to be absolutely anonymous and absolutely open about my finances. By posting my net worth each month for the world to see, I was able to feel like there was nothing left that was taboo. It was what drew me to this world in the first place and it is still one of my favorite things about it.
I have used this blog to keep me accountable about various things - some more successfully than others. It has also helped me to sort out my thoughts on important issues, because you can't write about something without thinking more clearly about it. I have had other milestones too, such as recently hosting the Second Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs.
As I look forward, I know that my blog will continue to grow and change. I still have many avenues to explore and the topic of personal finance is an endlessly wide one. Who knows what I might be interested in tomorrow?
And finally, I would like to thank those who read and comment on this blog. It is your participation that builds a sense of community and extends my thinking in new directions.
Here's to the next 100 posts!
Lazy Man and Money suggested this topic and it called out to me, so I have compiled my list. Hope you enjoy it!
Ten Ways Personal Finance Blogging has Helped Me
I must add that I am very glad that I started personal finance blogging. I think it has been a very positive thing for me to do!
And here it is... the one you've all been waiting for:
The Second (EVER!) Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs
Thank you so much for visiting! I am known as "The Money Diva" (although this is not my real name), and it is my great pleasure to host this tour which will take you around to some of the best Canadian PF blogs, many of which I read daily myself. Over the past couple of days the submissions have been pouring in and I have been consistently impressed by the knowledge and effort that my fellow bloggers have put into their posts.
I have organized the tour around which aspect of personal finance the post addresses and we got a great range. As a reminder, many of these blogs cover more than one area of personal finance and I encourage you to go back to the ones you like for new content after the Tour.
Now Here's The Tour!!
Spending, Saving and Daily Personal Finances
Consumer Topics
Risk and Insurance
Asset Allocation
Investing
Retirement Planning
By now most of you probably know that I am hosting the Second Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs, scheduled for Monday, May 7th. I have been working hard to get in touch with all the participants, and it looks like the tour should be a great one!
Here is a current list of who is participating:
Canadian Capitalist
Canadian Economy, Commodities And Mining Stocks Through a Fundamental Lens
Canadian Financial DIY
Canadian Dream: Free at 45
Canadian Mortgage Trends
Ellen Roseman: On Your Side
Financial Jungle
Investment Jungle
Investoid
Middle Class Millionaire
Million Dollar Journey
Quality Life Insurance
Riscario
Thicken My Wallet
Your Money by Design
All the participants write about some aspect of personal finance in Canada, but there is a lot of variety, from investing to consumer protection to retirement to mortages and insurance. Many of these participants post to their blog daily so you can visit them now to get a taste of what is to come.
There are a few days left before the tour, so this list could grow! Be sure to join me on Monday, May 7th to tour the best the blogosphere has to offer on Canadian Personal Finance!!
Canadian Capitalist just posted on the New Batch of Canadian Money Blogs and my blog was very kindly included. Thanks for the plug, CC!!
If you are a first time visitor here, welcome to my blog! You may want to check out the series on dividend investing that I have been working on. I am not experienced in this area, so the posts detail my work on understanding and analyzing dividend stocks. The latest posting has links to all the others.
If you enjoy my blog please bookmark it or subscribe to the feed. Have a great day!
I have just received word that I will be hosting the second ever Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs! Monty Loree started this tour and did a lot of organizing and promoting to make the first tour a fabulous success. Now it's my turn to take it on and build on his foundation.
The second tour will happen on May 7, 2007. That's a couple weeks away so we have time to line up participants and work out any changes.
There was a previous discussion with some good suggestions already over at Canadian Money Advisor and feel free to send me further suggestions and input. Then stay tuned for updates as I prepare for the tour. I am hoping that we can really make this a community event that everyone supports!
Frugal Trader from Million Dollar Journey has tagged me to admit to my most obsessive thoughts. As per his post, I'm sure that no one is surprised that personal finance bloggers are obsessed with money and financially related thoughts. Here are my four:
And there you have it. I now get the right to tag other bloggers and I will pick two regular commenters: m00m and Canadian Money. Tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled program. :)
WELCOME! This article is my submission to the Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs.
When I discovered the world of personal finance blogging, I was absolutely delighted to find a place where people could talk about actual numbers freely. I still find it very exciting that so many PF bloggers post their net worth, budget, debt and other numbers so that we can all gain a greater understanding of money than can be found in the single case of just your own situation.
I have tracked my net worth with various levels of accuracy for many years now, but this year I am starting to realize that this number is not to single key to success that I once thought it was. Ironically it is my success with increasing my net worth that has led to this realization.
My retirement planning has always consisted of spreadsheets that model income and expenses based on fixed assumptions. During the accumulation phase, my net worth would rise and during the retirement phase it would decline. But this past year, as my net worth passed half a million, I suddenly realized that while I have learned many things about accumulating, I have no clue about how to make the declining phase work.
Regular readers of this blog will recognize a theme that I have been moving toward for a while now. To retire, you need income. Net worth doesn’t pay the bills every month.
So although the time I spent focusing on net worth has been productive, I know that the time is now right to change this focus. I need to start developing a strategy for income and adding new measurements that will allow me to track it. I also have to determine what my goals are for this new stage.
To those who are on a different point in their financial journey, I would suggest that if you are early in your accumulation phase then net worth may indeed be the best number to focus on. But once you have some basics in place it may be better to address the income question sooner rather than later. I am beginning to suspect that I may have unnecessarily delayed my financial freedom date by coming to this issue so late.
If you have come here as part of the Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs, thanks for visiting. I wish you every success in your own journey!
Well, I have agreed to participate in the first ever Canadian Tour of Personal Finance Blogs. This is my first time participating in something like this, and as soon as I agreed I started to panic. What if I don't have anything useful to write about and contribute?
The tour takes place next Monday, April 16th and when it is up I will highlight any interesting articles that jump out at me. It is being hosted by Monty Loree of Canadian-Money-Advisor.ca so you will able to see the complete tour at his site.
My understanding of these events is that the host basically rounds up articles from bloggers and reviews them and lists them on his site. Then, participants and guests can tour around to visit sites that they might not ordinarily read. It's really a way for bloggers and readers to survey a variety of sites on a single subject.
So I will be spending the next few days racking my brain for some topic worthy of such an illustrious event. If you have a suggestion, please feel free to submit it. I need to submit my article by friday the 13th *shiver* so I guess that I will have to get on top of this fairly soon.
I love my PF blog, but sometimes I can see the dangers of blogging on a single topic. Actually, I supposed that I don't blog exclusively on money, but the focus is certainly primarily there and I realized this week that I am more obsessed with money now than I was before.
I don't mean for obsessed to be a very strong word. I think that in general our culture is obsessed with money and so my obsession is probably quite socially acceptable in most circles. I think that it is quite normal to hear discussions such as:
In short, it is okay to talk about how much things cost or what we would do if we had more money, or what others are spending their money on. It is also okay to give consumer guidance or discuss the market or our investments in broad terms. It is not okay to ask questions or reveal information about how much the people in the conversation earn, owe or own.
I also notice that just about everyone is looking for a way to make an easy buck, whether it be in small scale cash jobs, rental real estate, stock market tips or selling items for a profit. (None of these are easy, in my opinion, and all of them are full-time jobs for other people, but somehow the money seems easier when we are just talking about it.)
For myself personally, I have always had an interest in personal finance and a strong need for financial security. But I have to struggle not to get caught up in a never-ending spiral of needing more and more to feel secure. 10 years ago, the amount of money that I have now would have been a fortune, completely adequate to retire on. Now that I am here, it does not seem quite so abundant.
I believe that whatever you focus on, you will do well at. This is certainly an argument for putting some focus on your person finances but it comes with a warning. There are only so many things that one person is able to focus on and you must be sure to choose those which are aligned with your personal values.
I am not prepared to give up my dedication to my personal financial future (and present) because the value I place on security is very high, but I do sense that I need to make some shifts that might realign my priorities. Hopefully these shifts will become apparent to me as I continue to reflect on this topic.
An interesting discussion at Canadian Dream on Saturday led to this post on Investoid, which I really liked. He talks about gradually working less instead of completely retiring, which is something that I have started to think more and more about. As I discussed previously there are some very attractive reasons that might make me want to continue working. Additionally, many of the drawbacks of work for me come from the stress of it and the lack of time to do other (sometimes financially beneficial) things. So a reduced work schedule seems to allow me to keep much of the good while reducing the bad.
When I started this blog I knew that I wanted to reach $1 million and to work on the cash flows necessary to stop working. However, these goals are a bit vague because I haven't set dates or specifics. Essentially, I am still missing a retirement plan, or perhaps as Investoid calls it, an "anti-retirement plan". I would like to start putting such a plan together but I always hesitate over the unknowns.
I am now inspired to start the work on this plan over the next little while and see if I can come to some greater clarity in my vision of the future. This blog has been a really good tool for me to think about things more clearly and I hope that I will be able to make a great step forward by tackling this rather daunting task!
The advantage of PF blogging is that it keeps me focused on my goals and aware of what I am doing or not doing to move towards them. The disadvantage is that I can look at things too closely, and wish for weekly or even daily progress. Finances don't move smoothly up like that, so such a wish is doomed from the start, and I am therefore doomed to disappointment.
Yes, things are down this month. Markets are down, work is hectic, and my house is still a mess. But I am still on track. I can keep working on things and they will move toward my goals, although not every day.
As a corollary to the above, I think that I need to find a daily focus that is not so strongly on every detail of me and my finances, or I may go crazy. I am going to brainstorm some new topics, to see if a new direction presents itself. So stay tuned... this could get interesting!
Today's billable hours: 8.5
Today's contracted hours: 0
As time goes by, I have an increasing amount of respect for those bloggers that turn out a post (some more than one!) every day, especially those that are delivering thoughtful posts and pouring obvious time into it. I have been blogging for less than a month now, and I have already touched upon many of the major topics that have been on my mind with respect to personal finance. I believe that I have reached the point where blogging might become more difficult to keep up.
HOWEVER.... I think that the things that you work on and put your best efforts into learning about and do as well as you possibly can always pay off. Also, when you are paying attention to something on a regular, even daily, basis it is less likely to turn into a big problem without you noticing. In other words, I see significant benefits available to those who are diligent about keeping in close touch with their finances, whether through blogging or some other means.
And I also feel that in reaching this point, I am now forced to dig deeper. I will need to examine issues that I have not considered before or go into my standard questions in more detail. Either way, I hope that I come out the other side a wiser person.
And keeping track of my hours has almost become a habit now. That is absolutely wonderful!
Today's billable hours: 5.5
Today's contracted hours: 1.5
In looking at my blog, I realized that I have been writing it for one week today. Not a major milestone by most standards, but still a good excuse to ask, "What have you done for me lately?"
Since I'm writing this for myself, my real goal is to gain some focus or perspective on my finances and start to move them forward. Good news: I think that blogging about my finances encourages research, decision making and action on my finances. Bad news: I'm still pretty slow to follow through on all my good ideas.
This week has involved a lot of showing my basement suite. Good news: today I found a tenant that I really like who said he'd take it. More good news: I think that I am learning or developing ideas on what works and what doesn't for renting this suite. Bad news: this is a bigger hassle and more time consuming than I hoped.
In addition, I have managed to write daily and to encapsulate some ideas that are pretty important to me. I have started to examine my goals and I believe that this will help show me the next steps that I have to take. I am reading other Personal Finance bloggers every day. And I have a great feeling about all this - I'm really enjoying it!
So onwards and upwards; I'm ready for week #2!
