Only a few more days of vacation! While I finalize things around here and get back on the road in 2 days, please enjoy one of my favorite and most popular posts from a year ago. I will be back next week with all new stuff, so thanks for your patience in the mean time!
How many hours of your week is spent working just to pay for your “wants” versus your “needs”? Do you have to put in overtime just to keep up with minimum credit card payments, or can you survive comfortably on your regular salary? Are you working for your stuff or are you working for you? These are important questions to ask yourself when you feel the desire to spend your hard-earned money on “stuff” rather than putting it in savings or buying necessities. While most people work to live, many people work so they can try to buy their happiness — and it’s never going to work. Instead, they find themselves working longer hours at jobs they hate or extra jobs just to try to keep up with paying for their “stuff” that is supposed to being them happiness. What a horrible way to have to live! When you start breaking down how many hours of your day are spent working just to pay for the extras in life, suddenly the extras are not that attractive anymore. If I was still spending like I did in my early 20’s, I would have to be working 3 jobs just to put food on the table. It’s definitely not a good way to go through life, and I am glad I stopped all that nonsense sooner rather than later.
Last week, Smart Money ran an article discussing the 10 things that moving companies won’t voluntarily tell you that I found pretty interesting, as I have hired major moving companies 3 times in the last 10 years. And while I did get my stuff each time, the amount of money I was charged did change each time when the movers arrived, the timeline of when I would get my stuff was different than promised, and I always had a few scratches and dents on my belongings. So after reading their article on movers, I decided to go through each of their 10 things that they think movers don’t tell you – and give you my opinion on each after hiring them so many times!
Retirement, Emergency Funds, Education, Health Care, Life Insurance – the worrying never ends, does it? Most people spend so much time focusing on the future that they forget that their life is happening right now…not tomorrow, not in 20 years, but right now. This is it – this is your life. There are no second chances, no do-overs, no mulligans; so why are you only concentrating on the future instead of living your life today? I am all for trying to make sure I can survive comfortably (both financially and in health) to a nice old age, but I am not as concerned as some people I run into. A few years back I realized that while I was trying to plan for “then” and amass stuff and cash, I was missing out on actually living in the present. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” That was me, and at some point I decided I didn’t want to miss it.
Forbes has released their annual list of of the top towns to live well in here in the U.S., and there might be some surprises on the list. Here are the Top 10 from the list:
10. Foster City, California
9. Coral Gables, Florida
8. Rockville, Maryland
7. Columbia, Maryland
6. Newton, Massachusetts
5. Cupertino, California
4. Mountain View, California
3. Fairfax, Virginia
2. Doral, Florida
1. Boulder, Colorado
