Best Of Buck: May, 2010

At the end of each month I highlight a few of my favorite posts from The Buck List. Here is the May batch.

Make Money Selling Plants

Frugal Recipe: Breakfast Pizza

A Walk in the Woods

Facing Our Financial Problems

Save and Make Money by Curbing

Bucks Guide to Finding Work

Related Reading:

Best Of Buck: April, 2010

Weekly Roundup

What would you be willing to do for $5? What would you pay to have done for $5? Fiverr could be just the place to answer those questions.

Use Hospital Compare to “find information on how well hospitals care for patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures, and results from a survey of patients about the quality of care they received during a recent hospital stay.”

Post of the Week – A personal finance post I found to be exceptional.

This post on frugal eats on road trips gives many good tips.

Lonely Planet not only publishes unique travel guidebooks but also has an award winning website. Check out their travel tips, reviews and the extensive Thorn Tree message board. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/us

DIY or Not provides “information to help you decide if you should do a project yourself or hire a contractor.” For each project they “suggest a skill level, how much time is required and tool and material lists.”

Weekly Reminder – A reminder of a useful article you might have missed.

I wrote this post suggesting ten books to have around when the internet goes down.

Ten Free Online Personal Finance Courses

While personal finance blogs can offer a wide variety of in-depth information on all kinds of money matters, sometimes a more systematic approach is needed. If you or someone you know is in need of learning the basics in more of an academic format rather than casual blog reading here are ten sites that should be able to help.

CNN Money 101 – They offer 23 lessons that cover everything from budgeting and taxes to controlling debt and buying insurance.

Money Management International – They offer a wide variety of easy to understand personal finance articles, videos and scheduled webinars.

University of Texas at San Antonio – Register for free and choose from 11 courses aimed at managing your finances.

University of California at Irvine – They offer an eight part set of modules on the fundamentals of personal finance planning.

Suite 101 - Taura Lynn Colbert wrote a four part course on managing your money.

Alison – They provide a seven module set course on financial literacy training.

University of Idaho Extension – Their Money 101 section offers short, to the point personal finance and consumer advocacy articles. 

Brigham Young University Marriott School – Here you can find beginning, intermediate and advanced lessons on a wide variety of personal finance issues.

American Financial Solutions – They provide eight financial education courses.

Utah State University – This is a comprehensive multiple part course on family finance.

Related Reading:

Ten Free Online Colleges and Courses 

Ten Free Tips to Speed Up Your Computer 

Five Free Software Programs for Everyday Use 

Bucks Guide to Finding Work

This is the first installment of a new series. I decided to group together previous posts by subject and recycle them, once a month, into topical guides. There are two reasons for me putting together these guides: One, I might someday assemble them all into an eBook and Two, I want to make subject matter easier to find here. When I read other blogs I like I’m sure there is older content I might want to read, but I don’t like to take the time to dig through the archives. To that end here is:

Bucks Guide to Finding Work

Work At Home Scams – My first post on the subject was a link to another post on the subject. Hey, I had to start somewhere!

Virtual Assistant as a Work From Home Option – This includes telemarketing positions as well as VA opportunities. I was taken to task by a reader in the comment section for not distinguishing between the two.

Finding Seasonal Work – Here are a few ideas on finding temporary work.

Some Work at Home Ideas – This lists four sites to check out for work at home options.

Find A Job Series – This brief series lists some obvious as well as offbeat sites to look for work. There are three parts to the series that presents fifteen sites total.
You can find them here at Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Nine Ways to Find a Job or Work from Home – Another batch of sites for you to peruse.

Can You Make a Living Without a Job? – This is a review of a book that asks that very question.

Where to Find Seasonal Work – A few more ideas on finding temp work.

The following sites and their descriptions appeared at other places on The Buck List:

Hound claims to be the largest online job search engine.

LotsofJobs – Unlike some job sites this one is 100% free to both job posters and job seekers.

Flex Jobs offers to find legitimate telecommuting jobs “from all over the web -- freelance to full-time, entry-level to executive, in over 50 different job categories.”

Interested in starting a home based business? Begin your research with the huge database of resources and information found at Direct Sales Moms.

Internet Based Moms “is the leading community and knowledge center for work at home moms or anyone else who has or wants to have an Internet based business.” Check out the site for networking opportunities, marketing information and how to build a money making website.

Dick Bolles, the author of the job hunter guide What Color Is Your Parachute runs Job Hunters Bible as a supplement to his book. If you are in the job market both the site and the book are must reads.

I have reviewed my fair share of work from home sites, and I have to say Home with the Kids ranks among my favorites. Think its hype? Go see for yourself! 

If you are a college student or you know of one looking for a part time job or an internship opportunity check out Urban Interns, “a national marketplace that connects small businesses with people seeking part-time jobs and internships.”

Finally, for resume help check out The Resume Builder and How To Write A Resume. 

Frugal Lessons From The Past: Frugality in the Spiritual Life

History can provide some of the best lessons to help us figure out solutions to today’s problems.

Concerning our finances, thrift, frugality and simple living there are tried and true bedrock principals that we should never forget.

This post is part of a series that focuses on some of those principals by going to source materials for inspiration.

The following is an excerpt from a book that William L. Watkinson wrote entitled Frugality in the Spiritual Life. His plea from the year 1908 to open our eyes to the “common things” couldn’t be more timely, surrounded as we are today with so many distractions from what is truly important.

"To put extortion on common things" is what we need to learn almost more than anything else. We need wait the invention of no new, strange pleasure; we simply require to open our eyes to a thousand neglected things; we need to weigh every success, every realized wish, to treasure up the agreeable emotions which are allowed to pass unheeded every day. How rich should we be in thought, feeling, memory, hope, if we thus economized and treasured all life's sensations and possibilities of sensation! Some time ago they took up and cremated the woollen carpet which for several years had covered the coiners' room in the San Francisco mint. The precious ashes were scrupulously gathered, and by an elaborate refining process the Government recovered two hundred and seventy-nine ounces of gold, worth five thousand five hundred dollars. So the common things which we heedlessly trample are full of the dust of gold, if we only knew it. Four pounds of gold were not so long ago collected from the soot of the chimney of the Royal Mint in Berlin. So the things accounted vulgar are full of the dust of gold, if we only knew it. We need a quick eye, a ready mind, to let no chance pass us, to be taught by everything, improved by everything. Neglect in this matter brings into our life heaviness, dullness, weariness, vacancy. Let us be alive to every wayside flower in the home, to every flower that springs amid the rough stones of business life, to every sweet thing that blooms in the very dust of the street, to the teachings, the mercies, the comforts, the strengthenings, of common days, places, things, and people: so shall we be charmed along life's pilgrimage until we arrive at home.

Related Reading:

Frugal Lessons From The Past: The Holy Bible 

Weekly Roundup

A reader sent me this one: Dial A Human provides phone numbers and directions to contact a live person for several hundred different companies. Before you have to make one of those dreaded calls that can lead you to phone mail hell try this site.

“Fred and Suzi Dow have been visiting, researching, and providing a wealth of information about National Forest campgrounds since 1994.” Check out their site at Forest Camping for personal reviews and photos of the campgrounds they have visited.

Post of the Week – A personal finance post I found to be exceptional.
Are you or is someone you know locked into the vicious cycle of payday loans? Here is a useful post on alternatives to payday loans.

Airfare Watchdog finds and lists low fares that are verified by humans. Subscribe to receive free fare alerts and also try their search feature that queries ten other sites.

Use Many Books to download free eBooks for your iPad, smartphone or eBook reader. As of this writing they say they have 27,288 eBooks available, all free.

Weekly Reminder – A reminder of a useful article you might have missed.
Here is a list of some cheap summer fun ideas.

Save and Make Money by Curbing

curbing (kûrb ng)
v.
1. To search for reusable or sellable items set out as trash along streets or sidewalks.

Okay, I couldn’t find a definition for curbing online so I had to make that up, but it’s a pretty good one line description if I do say so myself.

In his Lost Notebooks Loren Eiseley wrote of a compulsion he usually had of picking up small discarded items while taking walks. I have a similar habit but it involves collecting larger stuff while driving around. I have been curbing since I was a kid and probably would continue even if I had no reason at all to do it.

I remember when the addiction first hit me. I was maybe 12 or 13 when I decided to build a club house out of old boards from a barn my brother and I had torn down. Behind my house was a wooded gully with a stream running through it and that’s where the little club house went up. When it was finished the next obvious step was to furnish it, but we had no extra furniture sitting around unused. Soon came garbage day and low and behold it was revealed to me: I could gather everything I needed from other people’s trash. I found a couple of upholstered chairs, a table, carpet and enough scrap wood to build a second story! Joy!

During the early salad days of our marriage, when we had very little, curbing helped to furnish our apartments. My wife has the infection as well, maybe not quite as bad as I do. Even after buying our house we continue to curb items. Looking around the place today I see found items such as two wicker chairs on the front porch, the entertainment center in the living room, a table and chairs on the back deck.

Besides just driving around getting lucky an excellent way to hunt for treasures is to find out when a local community has a weekend clean-up day, usually in the spring. Many towns and cities have web pages you can check for a community calendar, or just call city hall and ask when it will be held. My wife and I have hit two so far this year yielding plenty of scrap lumber to build with or burn as kindling, a replacement grate for my grill and a box full of country music cassettes.

As for how to make money curbing? Clean up the stuff you find but don’t want, take a photo of it and list it on Craigslist. That’s probably where those cassettes are going to end up.

Related Reading:

How to Make and Save Money with Pallets 

How to Pick Up Cans for Fun and Profit 

Can You Really Find Good Free Stuff on Craigslist? 

Facing Our Financial Problems

The following is a guest post by Gary Foreman with The Dollar Stretcher.com

Most of our 'problems' are really nothing more than undealt with discomforts. The moment we get up the resolve to look them in the face and do something about them, they vanish. Our real problems are the ones we are afraid to look in the face.

- Rabbi Shraga Silverstein

Everyone has problems. It seems to be part of the human experience. But, if you'll look around you it'll become obvious that not everyone handles their problems the same way. Some are crushed by troubles. Others are relatively unaffected.

Knowing what separates the two groups could make life much easier. So with that in mind, let's examine Rabbi Silverstein's comments.

The natural question is why are we so reluctant to face our problems? What is it about us or the problem that causes us to avoid any confrontation? Are there any clues on how to change our behavior?

What is it about certain problems that make us afraid to look at them? Based on my own experience I'd have to say that there are some problems that seem too big to solve. For instance, owning a home that's worth tens of thousands of dollars less than the mortgage. A big, immovable mountain of a problem.

Then there are the problems that we know how to solve but don't want to make the necessary changes in our life. I know of families that rarely cook at home because no one who lives there has learned to cook. Facing the problem means that someone is going to become responsible for learning how to cook and then providing a home cooked meal. If you just ignore the problem you don't have to face making a decision about cooking.

There are other problems that truly scare us. Some baby boomers are afraid to face their retirement. They've neglected retirement savings and now they're afraid that it's too late to do anything about it.

College students have a similar problem. Many of them know that they shouldn't be using student loans and credit cards for charging pizza. But, they tell themselves that since they're still in school that they're not required to be responsible yet. So they don't face up to the problem that they're creating.

Is there an answer? Well, we can take Rabbi Silverstein's advice and force ourselves to confront our problems head on. One way to make that easier is to not try to solve the whole problem in one day. Take the 'too big mortgage' as an example. You don't need to pay all of it off now. What's needed is the money to make the next monthly payment. Breaking the problem into small tasks makes it much easier to face. You're not facing the whole problem. Just the little piece that you need to handle today.

Or the family cook. They don't need to commit to preparing every meal for the rest of their life. Maybe just prepare a home cooked meal two days a week. It's not a complete answer, but it's better than turning away from the problem and eating out every day.

I'm no psychologist, but it's probably true that success breeds success. So for each day that you face a problem you make it easier to face it again tomorrow. After a few days the problem is vanquished (even if you might need to keep after it for years - as in paying off your mortgage).

What do you think of being afraid to face our financial problems? Do you have a story that would be instructive or inspiring? If so, please share it via email: gary@stretcher.com Subject: Facing Problems.

Keep on Stretching those Dollars!

Gary

Gary Foreman is a former financial planner and purchasing manager who currently edits The Dollar Stretcher website and newsletters.

Healthy Self-Esteem

“Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of healthy self-esteem, not its cause.”

– Nathaniel Brandon -

Weekly Roundup

If you are an antique collector or are wondering about the price of something you own register for free at Kovels. You get can browse or search their online catalog of more than 600,000 antiques and collectibles and subscribe to their free ezine.

At Grave Solutions you can create a free account and search their database of cemetery lots and burial plots. For a fee you can also list any cemetery property you might have for sale.

Post of the Week – A personal finance post I found to be exceptional.
This post tells you the number one thing you should do with your money. 

Simply Checklists provides “a simple way to help others organize, achieve goals and live a better life one check mark at a time.” They offer free, printable checklists for almost every chore, task or occasion.

Howcast “empowers people with engaging, useful how-to information wherever, whenever they need to know how.” They also offer iPhone and Google Android apps for those on the go.

Weekly Reminder – A reminder of a useful article you might have missed.
Like freebies? This post lists the ten best freebie sites.

A Walk in the Woods

A few days ago I wrote my 300th post for this blog. I mentioned that I occasionally would like to write about something other than personal finance issues. I got a few comments telling me to go for it, and I decided to take their advice. Sorry in advance…

A few weeks ago my nephew Toby and I went morel mushroom hunting. We like to take our dogs with us when we go into the woods together, but this time out I decided to leave mine at home. They have kind of an embarrassing attraction to each other. Toby’s dog is a three year old male boxer mix and mine is a two year old female black lab. They are about the same size, and they like nothing more than get out into the woods and hump each other.

You don’t get this kind of entertainment with cats.

Our dogs run around endlessly chasing each other, play fighting and humping. Yes, they are both fixed. And yes, mine is a female. We are hoping they get this figured out soon, as we are all getting older and have really seen about enough. So I left my dog at home this time and we took Toby’s dog shroomin.

Back to the story. We hit one of our favorite spots and are looking for morels, and his dog, named Mack, is running around sniffing things, rolling around and just being a dog. After a while Toby sniffs the air and asks me if I smell that.

“What?”
“It smells like poop.”
“No, I don’t smell it.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
We continue on.

Mack runs up close to Toby again, then away.

“Dude, you can’t smell that?”
“What, poop again? No, I don’t smell anything.”
We continue on, finish that section of the woods, and decide to head back.

Again the poop question and I still have not smelled it. Mack runs off ahead of us.

We get back to the vehicle and I want to stop and eat the lunch I packed. I get it out and start eating when the stink hits. There is no mistaking what it is. We both look down, and Mack is lying at our feet. That’s why it came and went, and only Toby could smell it. Mack was the carrier and stuck close to his master. All I could think of at that point was “good boy.”

There was a mud pit just a little ways back along the trail, and Toby had to take Mack there and wash him down before there was any way we could be in a car with him. After the first time it was still so bad he had to take him back to the muddy water again.

The best (or worst) part of the story? Two days earlier I had been in that same part of the woods when the bowels had to move. Mack simply did what comes naturally to him when finding such a treasure.

Like I said, you don’t get this with cats.

Frugal Recipe: Breakfast Pizza

In the late 1980’s I was working nights at a pizza place. When the owner made me a manager and switched me to days the difference was like, well, you know. Working the day shift there was much less of a chance of our drivers getting robbed and those of us behind the counter had very few drunks to deal with both in the shop and on the phones. Sunday mornings was our favorite time because it was so slow and quiet. It was during these down times that we invented breakfast pizza, or we thought we did, because we had never seen or heard of it before. We would roll out the dough, fit it in a deep dish pan, form the sausage and hamburger in little balls and cook them in the big ovens. We cracked a dozen eggs in a bowl, dumped in the cooked meat along with chopped onions, green peppers, mushrooms, black olives and whatever else sounded good. After mixing the contents of the bowl we poured in onto the dough in the pan and cooked it at 500 degrees until golden brown. Mmmmm. Man, was that good!

That began a tradition of ours at home, as well. Every few week we make up a breakfast pizza with whatever we have sitting around in the fridge. The following is a typical version.

Ingredients

Two packages of pizza crust mix (6.5 oz each)

Whatever leftover meat you have in the fridge. We have used everything from grilled chicken, hamburgers and steak to cut up hotdogs. Get creative!

Chopped onion, green pepper, black olives, whatever sounds good.

Garlic, crushed red peppers, parsley, basil, Tabasco, again whatever you want.

A few shakes of Parmesan cheese and a couple handfuls of shredded cheese – you decide what kind.

Sometimes we have a baked potato left over…I just grate it and throw it in, too.

A dozen eggs, mixed with a splash of milk.

Directions

Prepare the pizza crust mixes per instructions. I use two packages because my deep dish pan is 14 inches and no way will just one cover it. Spread the prepared mix out on the pan and try to work it up the inside edges, making more of a pie crust rather than a traditional flat pizza crust. Poke holes all over the crust with a fork (this prevents giant air bubbles from forming) and then prebake the crust at 400 degrees for about ten minutes.

Mix everything else together and pour it onto the crust. Bake at 400 degrees until done, usually 20 minutes or more depending on what all you’ve got in there.

Related Reading:

Frugal Recipe: Chicken Alfredo 

Have a Mustgo Night 

Post Number 300

It’s kind of a milestone, and one I am a little proud of. When I started The Buck List in September of 2008 I really had no idea what I was doing. I have learned a few things along the way, but nothing to brag about. Blogging is a pretty simple thing to try and easy to begin, but if you stick with it for a while the sky can cloud up. You get discouraged because your traffic is not increasing, you are not making much of any kind of money and nobody is leaving comments. What I decided to do when that happened to me was to keep on writing and consider the possibility that I was providing my few readers with something of value. Slowly it grew, and continues to grow. Last month I had more visitors than any previous month. It is fun to watch something grow that I created out of nothing but an idea and the internet, and it’s amazing to realize that anyone else can do it, too. In this way the internet sort of levels the creative playing field without taking anything away from anyone.

There are a few personal finance topics I have not written about, such as credit cards and investing. Credit cards bore me to tears, and while I have money invested in a 401k, Roth IRA’s and nonretirement mutual funds I guess I prefer writing about more tangible, everyday topics such as frugal tips and how to make some side cash. I enjoy investing; I’m just not interested in writing about it.

Picking a niche can self-limit a blogger. While sometimes I long to write about a good movie I just watched or something funny my dog did, it’s not why you are here. So I try to stay on topic and keep plugging away. I have a couple of pages of ideas to write about in the future, maybe enough to get me to post number 400. If I get there I hope you will still be with me. You make the trip worth the while.

Weekly Roundup

Cities on the Cheap offers insider information on free things to do and deals in various cities across the U.S., Canada and Europe. Subscribe to keep up on all of the deals.

Complete issues of Popular Mechanics from 1921 to 2005 are now available for you to read on Google books. While there take a look around at all the other magazines and books they have digitized.

Post of the Week – A personal finance post I found to be exceptional.
Do you find yourself constantly broke? Here are 8 questions you should ask yourself.

Spend Less TV offers hundreds of aggregated videos on money-saving and personal finance topics as well as exclusive original content.

This one could be used by a serious angler to find a guide, as well as a possible money making opportunity for you if you are a fishing guide, charter or outfitter. Check out Hire a Fishing Guide for details.

Weekly Reminder – A reminder of a useful article you might have missed.
Here is a brief review of the book How to Make a Living Without a Job.

Make Money Selling Plants

This idea I tried several years ago when we were planning on having a garage sale. A few months before the sale I started a variety of houseplant cuttings in water to develop root systems, and a couple of weeks before the sale I potted them. I priced them at $3 to $8 each and sold them all.

I have been to other garage sales over the years and have seen yard plants for sale. The owners just separated or dug up their plants, put them in pots and sold them.

You’re not going to get rich doing it but it can make a tidy addition to your garage sale cash box.

Related Reading: 

Interesting Ways to Make Some Side Cash

Can You Turn Your Hobby into Income? 

Ten Ways I Have Made Money Since Losing My Job 

Do You Haggle?

When I was growing up I was made by my parents to accompany them during their travels around the state looking to buy antiques. We went to antique shops, flea markets, auctions, estate sales, garage sales; anyplace there might be a chance of finding what they were looking for. During these forced treasure hunts I was encouraged to start collecting items myself, if only to get me more interested in going along. So with my small allowance and maybe some lawn mowing money I began collecting comic books, old marbles, military items and various oddball things. I’m sure they both instructed me but I mostly remember my mom giving me tips in the fine art of haggling. I can’t remember the exact wording, but her advice went something like this:

Never pay full price. If they can’t come down, you don’t need it right now. You will find it cheaper somewhere else.

If they don’t take your offer don’t be afraid to just walk away.

Is it even worth a lower offer? Junk is junk no matter what the price.

Try offering half. If they don’t accept you could still get a decent counter offer.

Those were the basics, and they worked well then and still do today. If you are a haggler what tips or advice would you give?

The Cause of Shadows

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson described well what we today might call self-defeating behavior when he said, “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.”

Weekly Roundup

Don’t let the name fool you, Frugal RV Travel is not just for RV owners. They offer a free newsletter, a blog, advice on how to find free camping, frugal travel tips and more. Don’t forget to find out if you are a Shunpiker.

If you participate in a 401k plan use Bright Scope to see how your plan compares to its peers.

Post of the Week – A personal finance post I found to be exceptional.
This post offers great advice on 7 ways to ensure you never pay full price for anything again.

Like crossword puzzles? Hundreds are available in varying degrees of difficulty for free at Crosswordsite. Play on the site or print them off.

Visit Gastrokid for off the beaten path family recipes. Some of these recipes brought back the gagging sounds my super finicky daughter would make when she was little and was forced to try something new. Ah, memories.

I don’t have any allergies that I know of, but I know several people that have mild to severe cases. To keep up on forecasts, get allergy news and access their pollen library visit Pollen.

Weekly Reminder – A reminder of a useful article you might have missed.
According to my stats this article about free barter and swap sites is one of my most visited posts.