Blogging?

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So, during the three or four months that this site was hacked, it wasn’t pushing people towards malware sites or anything.

I just want to make that extra clear.

It was, instead, pushing *all* of my traffic to a specific website in Ukraine that “sells” completed term papers.

All of that is cleaned up now, nothing phishy going on anymore, and we’re back and indexed on Google again, which is great, but I couldn’t help but notice that a sizeable amount of the traffic coming in via search query, of late, has been led here via search entries such as:

  • Best Website to get Essays
  • Narrative Essay High School
  • Best Personal Essays
  • Admission Essay Writing Services
  • Describe my Best Friend Essay
  • Personal Narrative Essay Writing
  • Andy Warhol Marilyn Essay
  • Write my Summary for me
  • Research Paper on Barn Burning by William Faulkner
  • Order Argumentative Essay
  • Buy litrature [SIC] review
  • Sentinels Statistics Project
  • Custom Essays
  • Home Work at Low Prices
  • Research Paper Online
  • Advanced Accounting Assignment Help
  • Report Writing Online
  • Do My College Homework

Those came in just last night, like, within the past 18 hours.

So, yeah, I’m quite certain I’ve never written a post regarding any of those topics that.

Well, besides this one.

So, if you landed here looking to have someone write a paper for you about Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe portrait, at the last minute, sorry, you’ve come to wrong the place.

My advice would be to just write it yourself cause, honestly, any paper you just “purchase” has likely been sold hundreds of times and plagarism is just too easy identify these days. Too easy.

Not worth the risk, so put down your phone and GET TO WORK!

2 4873

Wow, this place fell apart, huh? So, seems like the site was “hijacked” a few months ago, redirected to all kinds of unusual foreign sites and subsequently de-listed from Google so…there probably isn’t anybody reading this post but that’s okay. I’m writing it anyway.

So, first things first, I’ve eliminated the issue where someone was nefariously stealing my traffic and reputation. A few years ago, I’d be all bent out of shape over something like this — we were pulling in nearly 8000 visits per day for a while there — but now that I’m old, eh, I can let it slide. I’ll take the 35 visits per day — 34 of which are probably me — for now.

Google finds good content and I still think the site is overflowing with good content, good advice, some great typos, and some pretty silly remarks that are timeless. We’ll be listed again soon, I’m sure.

Now, I know that this place kinda transitioned from a Finance blog — which were all the rage a decade ago when I started — to more of a Mommy blog (even though I’m a dude) but that’s what happens when you have kids. In my case, three of them.

For real, they take over your life. Even financially.

So, just to get everyone back up to speed, I feel like I should re-introduce myself.

My wife and I live in central Connecticut and have three kids, born in 2009, 2011, and 2015. If you’re interested, I’m pretty sure I documented their arrivals pretty thoroughly in the archives of the website.

Since the start, my finances have been the main topic covered — specifically paying down debt while also building wealth.

Through the years, I’ve come to realize that I’m really, really, really good at paying down debt but not so great at growing savings.

Living debt free is so much more appealing than being rich. They seem like they’d be connected…but they’re more different than you’d think.

I suspect the reason behind it — my preference of “being” in debt — is that it’s easier to set, and work towards, a goal of “not owing anybody anything” than it is to just have the most commas and zeros in your accounts.

For that reason, as of right now, I find myself deeper in debt than I think I was way back in 2007 and 2008. I’ll give everyone an update on where my finances are with a long overdue Net Worth report shortly.

Another topic I covered quite frequently were home renovations. My house is over 125 years old and, subsequently, has required some, ahem, updating. Costly updating.

For years and years (and YEARS!), I went on and on about the 3-car garage I imagined on my property. Well, guess what?

During my hiatus, we built that garage! Hooray!

It’s not done yet — still needs interior painting, a new driveway, and a bathroom to be finished — and it hasn’t come without it’s own set of drama…but it exists.

Pictures and updates on that are also in the pipeline.

In more recent news, and related to my finances, my trusty 2005 Scion xA died on me a few weeks back. Mustered 142k miles out of it before I was forced to abandon it, err, sell it to CarMax three states away from home.

I’ll have to share that story here as well which, as it was happening, caused me great anxiety but now it all seems pretty funny.

My spending habits have also changed, I think, since I last reported. Sure, I still spend stupid amounts of money on that dumb hockey jersey hobby but NOTHING like I used to.

That spending has been replaced by spending money on hockey tuition for my kids. Good investment? Terrible investment? Is it even an investment? I have a lot to say about that, as well.

And on the front of always trying to add little bits of passive income here and there, I’ve started using those peer-to-peer lending websites — Lending Club, specifically. No, not to borrow for myself, but to lend to others.

It’s been an learning experience, now nearly two years into the process. I can see the value in it but I went about it all wrong at the start so I’m just barely breaking even.

For real, would it kill people to pay back their loans?

I’m far to naive in thinking “most” people pay their debts back. So, yeah, I’ve gotta cover that too.

I guess I’ll leave it at that, for now.

Oh, and if you read this, please leave a comment just to let me know you’re out there!

1 2988

It’s been a long and unnecessary hiatus on here so if you’re still with me — I’m talking to you, Angie, out there in Arizona — thank you.

I still like to think of this place primarily as a personal finance blog overflowing with an abundance of incredibly useful advice though I must confess it did turn into a bit of self absorbed mommy blog towards the end.

But, really, you should see my Facebook page.

But I think the best response I ever received from a reader was along the lines of “You could write the phone book and make it a fun read.”

I should probably stick to my true strengths, huh?

Finances are fun for me, and I’ll still write about them, but I know that they’re pretty mundane for the masses.

My kids are fun too but I know how painful it is to look at a family photo album full of people you’ve never met. I’ll still write about them — and probably include photos of them too — whenever I think there’s something worth telling.

But, really, I’m going to try to post more often on things like current events, witnessed road rage incidents, unusual items spotted on public transit, and poor fashion tips along with the occasional “how to” article.

Like, how to get your kid’s soccer shin guards on while also driving.

Those bring in a lot of traffic for some reason…

And now to clean up nearly a year’s worth of spam comments…

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Okay, so there’s some tumbleweed tumbling around here lately.

And a whole boatload of spam comments regarding expensive sneakers, weight loss drugs, and forex schemes. I’ll clean it all up when I get a chance…

First, though, I need to get everyone still stopping by up to speed on what’s happened to my finances.

See, I lost my focus, my motivation, my direction, and as a result, a lot of my financial comfort.

No, I’m not in dire straits. Far from it, but I’m also a long way off from where I’d like to be.

Where I should be.

Where I could have been, you know, had I not stopped holding myself accountable here.

I do still track my finances.

I still check my balances multiple times per day. And, yes, I’m still paying my bills on time.

I’m just not moving towards any kind of goal… like a $1 million net worth (long since abandoned), zero credit card debt, or that 3-car garage we’d like.

So, here we go, starting over in a way…

Here’s the bad news…and what needs to be corrected in a hurry.

  • I’m currently carrying in excess of $6k in credit card debt. Debt that I’m paying finance charges on — that hasn’t happened to me in YEARS?!
  • I have a big auto loan balance. Again, not really anything unusual in the grand scheme of things but we’d grown accustomed to owning our cars outright. Prior to the past couple months, I’d forgotten what it was like to have a car payment and, I’ll tell ya, it’s really crampin’ my stlye.
  • My savings account has been tapped out so there isn’t any kind of back-up reserve. Much of that is due to the fact that I just paid my property taxes this week but… well, it’s troubling me to not having *any* emergency money when it’s just always been there for the past few years.

So, I’m not going to tiptoe around how I got here — I spent a lot of money and depleted my reserves. Pretty obvious.

Thankfully I’m not in a hole I can’t dig out of. Not even close.

But I do need to get back on track so… wish me luck!

2 2921

ManwichWow… Six years is both a long time and, well, at the same time, it doesn’t really feel like that much time has passed.

There haven’t been a lot of things in my life that I’ve stuck with for that long though, you know, without finding something new or different to replace it.

Maybe a handful… Tops.

My favorite food in the world has been Manwich for the past 27 years — at this point, that’ll probably never change. The hockey jersey thing has been going for 18 years now. The photography hobby/job is about to hit a decade. I’ve been married for almost 7 years. The kids are still fun and exciting but, compared to the site, they’re still relatively new.

No, I won’t lose interest in them… C’mon…

But things that pretty much defined my personality that I’ve totally lost interest in are yo-yo’s, Burger King, argyle socks, video games, the Simpsons (proably been a decade since I watched a “new” episode), running, camping, khaki pants, shaving, “current” music, real haircuts, taking the stairs, swimming, web design, and any sort of manual labor.

Sure, age might be partially to blame but if you’d told me 15 years ago that I’d end up abandoning my $40 haircut, argyle socks, and the Whopper for lunch everyday, I’d have thought you were crazy.

Anyway, I remember the morning I decided I’d start doing this and typed out that very first post like it was, well, just a couple of weeks ago.

Every other post since then? Well, not so much…

Now, everybody knows that I prefer to chop things into weeks (rather than months or even years) and six years is 312 weeks.

Right now, I’m stashing away $110 each week for property taxes, $16 each week to cover my homeowners insurance premium, and $250 per week for just, well, whatever I fancy.

If I’d been doing that all along (and never had to take it out to cover the property taxes, homeowners insurance, and, uh, whatever — totally hypothetical, I know), I’d have stashed away $117,312. And earned plenty of interest along the way too.

Time is your friend.

Well, dedication too.

0 1966

Wow — can’t believe I’m on the verge of going an entire calendar month without a post.

Let me tell you, my finances are showing it too.

More to come in March. I promise.

0 1927

This is a repost from April 26, 2007. Yeah, almost 5 years ago… Seems history is repeating… Already.

– – – – – – – – – –

Headlines all over the place are touting yesterday’s surge that put the DJIA over 13,000. And then, just a few lines into the articles, every one of them taken from the AP wire, they drop the line, “But appearances can be deceiving, and there may be more reason to worry than rejoice about Wall Street’s latest accomplishment.”

I disagree. While it is odd that it’s taken less than 7 months to go from 12k to 13k (it took like 7 years to go from 11k to 12k), I don’t think it’s realistic to call this a repeat of the dot com era.

Last night, CNBC was essentially calling this bittersweet, dropping in references to the rising energy costs (I still think gas is very affordable), the slumping housing market (it’s not slumping, people are just overpricing their homes), and the sub-prime mortgage issues in the news lately. On those, hey, if you fell for a 5-1 ARM mortgage, it’s not like you didn’t see the day coming when the rate would go up. You gambled and you lost. I like to think the number of people out there with this problem are greatly exaggerated in the media.

I’m also not one to get excited because the Dow hit a nice round number. Honestly, 13k is no more exciting than 12.5k for me. I love how they drop stats like it was the “35th record close since the start of October.” Talk about meaningless filler!? Did you know I just reached a new record for breaths taken since birth? Yep, I just raised it again. One more. And again.

Don’t get me wrong, any day that has a 1% gain is huge — my net worth for next month, should the pattern hold steady, will show that. The number 13k, though, is meaningless. Love it — a meaningless headline.

My real point though is that this is *nothing* like the dot com era. I made a lot of money before it came tumbling down, but I lost my shirt on stocks like Pets.com (what was I thinking?). The past 6 months or so of gains haven’t come from the Amazons, Googles, or Yahoos. It’s been the staples, Boeing, Pepsi, Corning, etc… That’s a big difference. Those aren’t volatile stocks.

And this talk of the economy tanking just doesn’t hold any weight in my wallet. Things are cruising along just fine. And no, the price of gas hasn’t changed the way I live my life. Not one bit.

Neither has this latest milestone.

1 1975

While perusing through the archives of this site, I’ve found that my posts used to be, well, more frequent, yes, but better too.

Lotsa fun charts, neat comparisions, goofy photos, and some over-the-top rants all mixed up into one and somehow still connected to my financial task at hand.

Now, though, it’s like it’s practically a formula of efficiency. Picture up top on the right, a few bland single sentence paragraphs, a rhetorical question that I answer anyway, and couple of links to past postings before I click “Publish”.

I’m trying to break that habit.

Honest.

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