Finance Archives - Page 2 of 3

05Oct 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Weekly Pain & Gain: FinCon +

Continuous improvement, Finance, Weekly Pain & Gain

Pain So I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry I've fallen off my consistent posting schedule. agh! I was doing so good too. Lately I missed a lot of posts, which sucks because it was my goal to have 1 post a week . It's my fault I fell off the horse. But below is the reason why. Excuses, Excuses , Excuses I recently attended FinCon ( financial bloggers conference) for the first time and what can I say I needed some time to recoup and make up for all the family time I missed. Also I needed to make time to process all the info that I got at the conference. It was awesome but also very overwhelming. I have to make a game plan because when…

07Sep 2015 by The Roamer No Comments

Weekly Pain & Gain: Capsule Wardrobe Madness

Finance, Weekly Pain & Gain

Happy Labor Day everyone. I hope you all get to celebrate how you see fit. Make sure though you keep and eye on the dollar. I read a post that said most people spend more then what they are getting paid to have the day off. Say what?! So yeah have fun but make sure your asking yourself what the value proposition is? Don't just follow the crowd... if you think it has valued then go right ahead. Just taking the time to ask yourself the question and making sure your actions are in line with your values is where its at. Okay now for this past weeks update. Pain This past week I'd been anxiously awaiting the weekend so I could get to work on switching out my capsule.…

04Sep 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Goals: 2nd Trimester Review 2015

401K, Family, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

At some point this trimester I realized I needed to focus my efforts. It's not that it's impossible to work on multiple things at once. It was more the fact that I needed to do a lot of learning. See sometimes you have all the foundational knowledge to accomplish something you just need to take up the challenge to push yourself farther, harder. But that wasn't the case for a lot of what I was trying to do. I didn't have the background. So one task would split into several other smaller things that I needed to learn first. In essence my one goal might actually require me to jump 5 hurdles before even being able to address my goal. I knew that on some level. That was part of…

28Aug 2015 by The Roamer 7 Comments

Frugal Back to School shopping

Maximizing money, Parenthood, Savvy Spending

Last week on Tuesday Jr went back to school. Not only that, I also realized I'm getting old he's getting old. I mean he's in 2nd grade! ( inhale ,exhale, inhale, exhale) What happened to the surprise baby. :( After the initial shock I had a thought. And it went like this. "Oh yeah, wasn't there a shopping thing I was supposed to do to get ready for today" I didn't prepare at all. I didn't even really think about preparing for it at all. Other then "oh Jr starts school next week ". Instead of think about it in regards to money and purchases. I thought about it in regards to time. How are our schedules going to change? Adjust? But wait a minute I want to go back to…

14Aug 2015 by The Roamer 4 Comments

Shooting for Early Retirement

Finance, Retirement, Saving

I don't remember and don't want to go back and look at all the previous Traveling Wallet posts. But......Do you even know what our retirement goal is? I don't think that I have shared it with you. I guess in a way I always wanted to retire early but that to me meant at 50. I first started thinking about retirement because at my new full time job I had to decide what to do about this 401k thing. As I learned I thought 65 just sounded wrong specially with the acceptable retirement age getting older and older. It almost seemed like it was just out of my control. So I started reading about retirement, a lot of it was very negative but I also discovered retirement calculators. I got…

07Aug 2015 by The Roamer 7 Comments

FinCon 2015, Help!

Finance, Savvy Spending, Special Occasions

Just a little over a month away FinCon 2015 is hot on my mind. I'm starting to get nervous for multiple reasons. You see like any good personal financier I am getting worried about the numbers. What is going to be my ROI? How will I make sure its good? Though we can afford it in one sense, it is a big investment. I mean there's the conference pass, the hotel stay, the plane ticket, lifts to and from the airport, food. There's a lot of money tied into this thing. But its not just that, there are other costs too, specially in the realm of time. My vacation time and weekend both things that are for my family won't be. My husband and I will have to go 12 days…

31Jul 2015 by The Roamer 4 Comments

A Loan on Life: Helping someone out

Counter Culture, Finance, Freestyle

How helping someone can go completely against good financial advice. And how it can change lives. I had messed up. I hadn't done my best. I hadn't tried my hardest. Maybe I hadn't taken it seriously from the get go. But there I was needing to take more classes and having just lost a big financial aid scholarship. $12,600 if I remember correctly. The scholarship was only good for the standard time to complete the degree. Me, I had just failed to do that. Why did I even go to college? You see my parents didn't go to college right after high school in fact my dad never even graduated. My mom finish high school and was shipped off to American from her central American home. My dad dropped out…

28May 2015 by The Roamer 3 Comments

Quarter 1 review of goals

Earning, Family, Finance, Saving, Travel

Actually I guess its not a quarterly review as much as a trimester review. Jan- April. So part of making goals public is that they help you with accountability right? Well things have not been going well on all fronts. I am just going to hit these all fast and hard... Is what I was going to say, but who am I kidding :) Starting from the top and working my way down. [caption id="attachment_1136" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Picture of the goals I carry around in my planner. The one in my planner is actually all marked up.[/caption] Spiritual Awareness Let see what we have on here?.. Attend 4 churches in a year( attend 4 times a month ) 1 2 3 4 Write in Journal, reflect 15 min what…

05May 2015 by The Roamer 2 Comments

Blog Birthday

Finance, Yearly Review Series

Can you believe its been a whole year since The Roamer emerged on the blogger scene and started talking about the journey through parenthood, early retirement and travel here at travelingwallet? No!? Neither can I. But it has indeed been a year. I know because I got the renewal charge on my credit card. Realizing its been a whole year calls for some introspection which I want to share with you. I want to talk about a few things. My favorite posts What I learned My birthday wish request Blogs I'm hooked on What is coming up this year My advice to new bloggers Its a nice round set of topics from a year in this new world. The personal finance world. So let's get started. My Favorite Posts I…

31Mar 2015 by The Roamer 3 Comments

One More Year Syndrome

Earning, Family, Finance

I have given up writing beautiful prose.(don't laugh) Instead of just not ever publishing because of limited time I think I'm just going to start publishing my thoughts as they come. Some I think would be useful to my readers and other well they might just be good practice for me. (Besides it's not like I can't go back and delete the really bad ones) So here goes you have all been warned. Actually what I should have is a weekly wrap up like so many other bloggers have. But again then I wait because it's unfinished and never end up publishing because the moment has passed. So let's get started. I'm suffering from the one more year syndrome. But first let's take a step back. Life changes so fast.…

30Jan 2015 by The Roamer No Comments

Do you put your money where your mouth is?

Counter Culture, Finance, Maximizing money, Savvy Spending

I made a lot of changes last year. Honestly though, they were easy changes to make. Math, I trust it. And it showed me it would be no problem to reach my goals. Today I'm going to make a big change. I am so scared. That is so depressing in itself, when did I become so complacent. I have been with my company since 2008. The last 2 years I have suffered through it. I wasn't proactive enough, maybe. Truth is it doesn't matter, I just never did much about my situation. I see now that I've stayed because it was safe. I've been saying, "I am ready for a change," but I haven't done anything really. Just last year I changed positions but I'm still with the same company.…

28Jan 2015 by The Roamer 14 Comments

2014 Financial Goals Reviewed and Net Worth Revealed

401K, Finance, Saving, Yearly Review Series

Time to review our Financials. We were on track to reach our 3 financial goals. Pay off all Student loans by July Open MMA Celebrate with a splurge activity for the family As you can tell these are some measly goals. Is one of them really open up a new account ,in other word break up with my bank and take my funds earning less then .01% to a better place(Hey breaking up is hard, right?). So at the start of 2014 we had over 35K of Debt. Some of that was student loan debt. Student debt Mr. Had finished paying off his the year before and so we had a talk to discuss what we would do with the newly available funds. We deferred them to my student loans.…

15Jan 2015 by The Roamer 8 Comments

Starting on 2015 goals, Tackling Blog Monetization

Finance

Time to test the waters! As my 2015 goal state I want to make my blog able to sustain itself. I think it would be great if I can get it to pay for itself. In that respect I'm finally jumping into the world of AdSense. As some of you may have noticed I have an ad on my side bar. I'm excited! I've always wanted to start my own business but I've never really made the time to cultivate a passion. Starting this blog has been a nice jolt in waking up my brain and I've been learning so much. Monetizing is just another step on the ladder. Recently I just signed up for an AdSense account and now I need to figure out how all that works. You'll…

08Jan 2015 by The Roamer 8 Comments

2014 Family Relationships Reviewed

Finance, Parenthood, Yearly Review Series

2014 Relationship Goals [caption id="attachment_784" align="aligncenter" width="340"] 2014 goals[/caption] Focus on the Marriage [caption id="attachment_785" align="aligncenter" width="196"] Alone time with the husband. Big Goal for 2014! Picture in Frugalwood's headless style.[/caption] In 2013 I ran across a great idea on Pinterest. A great little present where I had pre planned and partially paid for dates. I don't want to get into to much detail about the gift but it was a fun and effective way to ensure Mr. Roamer and I were going to be spending some alone time. In my household growing up I don't have any memories about my parents dating. Yet so much of what I read now about healthy relationships highlights the importance of cultivating the spousal relationship. WHY?! because the kids will leave in 18…

02Jan 2015 by The Roamer 6 Comments

2014 Goals Reviewed

Finance, Parenthood, Reading, Yearly Review Series

How did I do with my 2014 goals? [caption id="attachment_740" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Goals Before 2014 Started[/caption] [caption id="attachment_741" align="aligncenter" width="225"] paper reminder barely surviving a year of annotations[/caption] I am going to break them down. But the 3 major ones I am going to post on individually. Which ones are the 3 major ones? Well the ones that pertain to this site more specifically. Relationships (Parenthood and family time), Travel, and Finances. I want to go into more detail for these 3 areas so I will post on them individually. My Finances will reveal our net worth for the first time(WHAT?) So stay tuned. Now lets cover all my other goals. Spiritual FAIL! yes I did not really make an effort to get these done. That is why you see…

24Dec 2014 by The Roamer 9 Comments

2015 This year make Goals not Resolutions

Finance

I am pretty obsessed with goal setting. I know a lot of people who make fun of New Years resolution. It's become the running joke to fail. Frequently hearing people boast in February or in March well there goes that New Year's resolution. I've even seen on my Facebook people complain because the gym is so packed in January wishing for all the newbies to fail. Stuff like I want to lose weight or I want to exercise more will fill our Facebook feeds in January. Some people do try admirable resolutions like I want to be a better person or I want to spend more time with my kids. But then what happens? how many months go by? how many changes have been made? If you listen to them…

22Dec 2014 by The Roamer 6 Comments

Tis the season of Hit and Runs

Finance

Ah life just when you feel its going so well something happens to bring you back down to earth. This happened on Saturday evening. Mr. Roamer had ran out to get us a late night snack.* I remember thinking he was taking too long. Just imagine you are busy typing away on your computer. When you hear that your husband(wife) was just in a car accident. This is what happened to me. It had happened right around the corner. I literally ran out the door heart racing... Is he alive? While simultaneously calling his phone. I turned the corner multiple cop cars there,I was searching for his car, searching for him. I was still running when I finally saw him. I ran until I reached him, We met with a…

15Dec 2014 by The Roamer No Comments

Wanderings and a Welcome

Finance

This weekend the Traveling Wallet has journeyed over to the wonderful blog 1500 days and was feature in the long running 10 questions and a pizza place. So head over there first to check it out. 10 Questions and a Pizza Place with The Roamer at The Traveling Wallet Welcome Are you new? If you are new here I'd like to welcome you to my humble abode here in internet land. I'm your host the Roamer here at the Traveling Wallet. I have had a crazy year slaying the debt monster and other such discoveries. I think you'll find the following articles a nice sampling of me and what I'm about. This is my most popular post. Where I tell you about how our family paid off the mighty sum of over 100k…

11Dec 2014 by The Roamer 16 Comments

Over 100K paid off in 3.5 years

Debt Destruction, Finance, Saving

When I started this blog, Traveling Wallet, I wasn't in the death grip of debt. Actually I was about to make my escape. I have written a few posts about my debt and my repayment journey. But I really wanted to take the time and give you the whole big picture. When I look at the numbers it just really amazes me. And I think its inspirational. That is why I am sharing. Like I've said before when I graduated I had a ball and chain of student debt attached to me to the tune of $46,695. With $10k of it at a horrendous rate of 10.75%. Can you say Wow! But that wasn't all. I had a car and no mechanical experience. To translate I knew nothing about this…

08Dec 2014 by The Roamer 4 Comments

401K I like you more then Presents

401K, Counter Culture, Finance

A bit a ago I wrote this article about the 401k and how we would use it. I think it wasn't super clear so let me paraphrase. I talked about how I had an ah ha moment, that I didn't have to wait until next year to max out my 401k, that I could do it now. For this year! Well at the end I said I would make the changes which I made. Well Mr. Roamer then asked, I thought we were already maxing them out. No sorry honey, like I mentioned in the previous post I had done the math for 12 months of contributions. Or I guess a rolling 12 months. But that's not how taxes work so if we want to max it out for this…

06Dec 2014 by The Roamer 2 Comments

Weekend Wanderings: Include Language in your Journey

Counter Culture, Finance, Parenthood, Weekend Wanderings

I have a little ritual I developed at work to cope with my dissatisfaction. I had listened to 7 habits cast and realized that effective people take responsibility for their lives. I was feeling rather passionless when I started but I found that watching some TEDx talks always gave my mind a work out whether it was inspirational or informative or controversial. It got my juices flowing. So I've made it a point that every Friday I schedule 30 min. To be inspired. After watching these I find a few that just are Wow and I want to share them. I use to email them out but it felt weird to just include specific people. And it seems limiting. But now, I own a blog a place where I can…

01Dec 2014 by The Roamer 5 Comments

Extra Income Challenge Wrap Up

Earning, Finance

Last month I visited money manifesto, he had posted a throw down which I though was a great idea. So I took the extra income challenge. Here is my pledge The Pledge I, The Roamer, accept the extra income challenge. I challenge myself to make an extra $100 of income this month. I plan to make this income through a yard sale where I get rid of unneeded items.I will also be registering to UBER to provide lifts. I will report my progress next month on the next Extra Income Challenge update. And challenge it was. I'll just start with the punchline. I failed. Oh man did I fail. Now let's get to the details. The Yard Sale My yard sale was actually a community sale hosted by my son's…

26Nov 2014 by The Roamer 4 Comments

Lets give thanks

Parenthood, Special Occasions

Happy Thanksgiving Hi everyone. We prepped the Turkey today and got other things ready for tomorrow night. We are hosting our thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to having people over for delicious food and family games. Maybe we'll play Pictionary, Euchre or some Wizard. Since it is Thanksgiving time, today I wanted to take the time and talk about the things I am thankful for. There are many things. My Children [caption id="attachment_431" align="aligncenter" width="168" class=" "] Have to make sure the little ones are taken care of.[/caption] To be able to come home to my kids and spend time with them. It doesn't happen everyday that I get this feeling, but I still get days where I look at them and am blow away and so overwhelmed. It seems…

19Nov 2014 by The Roamer 4 Comments

This Year Lets Focus on Thanksgiving not Gift Giving

Parenthood, Special Occasions

On today's travel we walk carefully, opening and closing our wallet through the treacherous holiday season. An open letter from the Roamer about the Holidays. Just recently I was thinking about how Thanksgiving is getting closer and that of course means that Black Friday is around the corner. As the holidays get closer you are probably starting to think about all the gifts you need to purchase. You are excited! Shopping is so much fun and gift giving is even better. Right? And all those bills you'll have to pay off next January, those are just a minor inconvenience. Right? What about getting gifts? Just thinking of all the gifts you'll get, makes you so happy! You never get stuff you don't like. Well except for those silly salt and…

09Nov 2014 by The Roamer 3 Comments

Design your own Wedding dress

Finance, Maximizing money, Savvy Spending, Special Occasions

Hi everyone today at Traveling Wallet we will be talking about wedding dress design. Design your own wedding dress Let's talk about why you would want to Tips for how to Why design your own dress? The Cost Do you know the range for the cost of already made wedding dresses? The average is $1,100 But designer dresses can even be north of $6,000. ( Boing, as eyes pop out of sockets) The average cost would have been 20% of my budget. I designed my own wedding dress and as it were my actual dress cost was $173. Which was more like 4% of my total cost. Its funny I thought that designing your own stuff meant it would be more expensive. Guess I was wrong. Uniqueness I'm going to…

05Nov 2014 by The Roamer 4 Comments

I accepted the Extra Income challenge

Earning, Finance

As the Roamer here at the Traveling Wallet, I am reading up on how to optimize. One of my goals is to retire early and another is to be a better parent. One of the methods I plan to use to reach these goals is by diversifying my income stream. If I can earn income from home then I can be home with my kids. If I can earn side hustle income while holding a 9-5 then I can save more aggressively and reach FIRE.(That's Financial Independence Retire Early for any new to the term.) Which means that the sooner I reach it the sooner I can stay home with my kids. It's a never ending circle of finding a way to spend more time with the kids! So one…

29Oct 2014 by The Roamer No Comments

Waging the War on Wireless

Finance, Saving

A battle for better internet rates Hello All, Guest post today.... Mr. Roamer, but don't worry, my grammar and story telling isn't much worse than the Mrs. Well lets get too it: After returning from the mail box last Monday afternoon, we discovered that AT&T no longer was providing us with the promo rate of $25.95 a month (6 mbps down, 1 up for the tech savvy). They had hiked the rate up to $52.00 a month. I was speechless and frankly, kinda pissed off. I told the wife that I would call the next day and talk some sense into them. [caption id="attachment_464" align="aligncenter" width="300" class=" "] Look at it just look at it! DOUBLED![/caption] Flash forward to the next day. I called during my morning "break" at work (first mistake). And proceeded…

27Oct 2014 by The Roamer 7 Comments

Fun on the Fly: How not to Vacation

Special Occasions, Travel

The fancy pants trip to Wisconsin. We recently returned form a very short adult only vacation. We traveled to Wisconsin from California to attend one of my friend's wedding. It was great to see people and catch up again. Since we were on vacation we threw caution to the wind and spent freely. I knew it was going to be painful to see the numbers added up later. [caption id="attachment_416" align="aligncenter" width="168" class=" "] It was lovely![/caption] Vacations can be very expensive when you get caught with your pant down. In other word when you're not prepared. I am not adept with purchasing flights with points but I still think we got a good deal with the flights. However, after that everything else was poorly planned. Trip Costs The Flights…

11Oct 2014 by The Roamer 10 Comments

A Wedding or A Marriage? Part 1

Counter Culture, Finance, Special Occasions

Here at the Traveling Wallet I am trying to talk about the journeys we go through in life, and one of the many stops people encounter is indeed the wedding. At 27 I'm at the age where everyone seems to be getting married or having babies. Seriously its every where. But today I'd like to focus on marriage, lets start with a story. Maybe you've had a conversation like this lately maybe not but what's the first thing to talk about when there is a proposal and therefore a marriage on the horizon. Well The ring of course... what follows is an actual conversation Coworker " I'm going to propose to Jenny*, how much did you spend on your wife's ring?" "I spent about $300 on it" Coworker "Oh I'm…

01Oct 2014 by The Roamer 2 Comments

Got Interest? Making your money work hard for YOU

Finance, Maximizing money

We are all looking for the holy grail, passive income and interest growth is the first step. I've been managing money for longer then I realized. I thought it started after I graduated college but really it was before then. It was really in high school. I use to have an account at a credit union that I rarely had access to. It was 2 cities away and it's were I kept my emergency money. How funny to look back now and realize I always had an emergency fund. This was the money I had saved while growing up. It totaled $1,000 but it fluctuated up an down but I almost always had at least $700. It was my child hood account, so I had no debit card for it…

Category: Finance