Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

My name is not "Hov", but I am back on the scene (If you have no clue about this song lyric reference, see the video at the bottom of the article).

I am back! This is going to serve as one of those lame posts where the author explains and justifies why he or she has not been posting at all.  I won't bore you with my lame excuses and drawn out anecdotes today, but I will tell you this much: I was busy as hell!

Over the last month, I had more things on my plate than I could handle, however, I really was not complaining about it.  Referee work has been crazy ever since December 1st, which meant my secondary income stream has been flowing champagne on New Year's Eve!  I experienced a bunch of very long days doing the normal 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM shift and then doing a bunch of basketball games that would have me eating dinner at 10:00 PM.  Again, not complaining at all about that because officiating basketball games do not feel like work to me.

The major thing that I accomplished over the last month was completing my master's degree.  I will be sharing a ton of stories about this over the next few weeks, but my final course forced me to put in a ton of hours dedicated to busy work required by a mindless professor.  I earned a Masters of Information Systems from the school with the largest alumni network in the USA.  Any guesses? 

Call your neighbors, family members, and friends.  Let them know I am back for now.  Hopefully, my 33 subscribers were not too worried about my dissappearing act and will return to reading and chiming in on my rubbish.  I must say, this feels normal hitting the "publish post" button. 

Be easy. 

My Ban on Booze

Happy President's Day and thank you George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for closing the stock market today because that is the only possible way my office closes.  This post is happily coming to you straight from the warm confines of my living room (my parent's technically).  As I was going through my normal Monday morning financial reconciliation process, I found an astonishing development with my budget so far for the current month of February.  I have no yet spent a single cent on any alcohol yet this month!

This is a ground breaking revelation for the first time in my 26 years of age.  You may not believe me, but I actually had this planned out.  Two Fridays ago, I got black out drunk at a friends place the night that the major Nor'easter slammed the Mid-Atlantic region.  I woke up Saturday morning extremely confused with my car buried under 18 inches of snow.  I got extremely drunk at my friend's place that night, but to my credit, we stayed in and drank and did not go to any bars.

My actions that evening forced my to put myself on a detoxification program where I was not going to drink at all till the beginning of March.  Why March?  Well, my favorite day of the year is on March 13th in Philadelphia and its called the Erin Express, the crawl of all bar crawls around St. Patrick's Day.  To my surprise, I have been loyal to my sobriety so far, which is a huge step in the right direction.  Even on Valentines Day, I refused a drink and my fiancee was the only one drinking at dinner, she had an overpriced glass of white zinfandel. 

 If you are reading me for the first time (please subscribe), you probably are thinking "This guy is a jackass and his zero will power if he is writing about being sober for 2 weeks".  Well, you are right, I have very little will power when it comes to things related to partying and alcohol.  While I do not need to check myself into the Betty Ford Clinic, I do believe that even the smallest steps are progress.  Not only am I saving some cash in my wallet, but I am keeping my body a bit healthier.  Stay tuned to see if I can make it to March 13th.  If you would like to make a wager, shoot me an email and put your money where your mouth is!

Time Management Skills Lacking

I have been a waste as of late. You may have noticed this because I have not posted in more than a week. I do not have a good excuse to justify myself, it has been more the case that I fell off the wagon that is my normal routine. Work has been pretty busy and I surprisingly have been logging some serious hours (anything past 4:00 PM) in the office since 30% of my team was Out Of Office the last 2 weeks.

My overall management of my day has been comparable to the New York Mets baseball team as of late. I try and get up for work everyday by 6:30 AM but I have been consistently late in my efforts. By running late for work in the morning, the rest of your day tends to snow ball. Your daily work routine then commences at a later time and then your whole day is a little bit off. This has been my life the last few weeks and I honestly have no idea for why.

I have been refereeing a ton on weeknights as of late, which is a good thing in my book since I do get paid for my services. But maybe the whole process of going to the day job, then shooting to referee during the evening, and then finally returning home, is taking its toll on me? My sleep routine is all messed up. It takes all the energy in the world for me to drag myself out of bed every morning.

Plain and simply put, changes need to be made immediately because my energy, motivation, and determination on a daily basis are totally affecting my productivity. At work I am constantly zoning out and getting distracted which causes me to make constant trips to the Wawa next door for a snack, coffee, or sandwich. Indirectly, my horrible time management is killing my wallet!

So over the next few weeks, I will be cutting out the Wawa trips, the morning coffee, and the late night television. I will be replacing these things with constant glasses of water, earlier bedtimes, and a homemade breakfast that will get my day going on the right foot (Insert importance of breakfast cliche' HERE).

Other suggestions and ideas from all of you would be great. How you optimize your day? Tips on getting more sleep? And nice meal ideas for the quick morning re-fuel. Hopefully I will see a change in my energy levels and productivity, and, in turn, you guys will have more of my crazy life to read in the form of my random, off the wall, multi-topic blog posts.

Ironically, I am posting this one at 11:40 PM... better get to bed!

Finance Your Life's First Birthday

One year ago, I pushed "Publish Post" for the first time. My blog turns one year old today. What started out for me as an outlet to get thoughts out of my head during a rough time has evolved into a way for me to admit my faults, search for solutions, and express myself with reckless abandon.

There were a bunch of dry spells, where I thought the site would just cease to exist due to my lack of attention. But the following week, I would ramp it up and give it more time than I would give my fiancee! There was also the period where I got so caught up blogging stats and ad revenues that I just decided to leave that stuff alone and blog for the reason that I started: To communicate with the rest of the world.

I am far from a personal finance expert (as one anonymous commentor pointed out), but what has driven me throughout it all is sharing my stories and mistakes with the hopes that at least one person can somehow benefit or learn from my miscues. Sharing those type of stories are what makes me write what I do and when I do it (normally during the first hour I get into work).

So as Finance Your Life hits its first birthday, I would like to celebrate by sharing some of my better posts from the last year. Thanks to all the readers, commentors, and 34 subscribers that have stuck with me through thick and thin! (I am scared of commitment too, just don't tell the fiancee). A special thanks goes out to the other bloggers out there that I read everyday.

Finance Your Life's Top Post from Year 1

• How To Pay Down $83,306.89 in Student Loans
• New Year's Resolution: Walk the Financial Walk
• Secondary Income: The Shoebox Money Chronicles
• Dominating My CC Debt
• What If I Win The Lottery Tonight?
• How Do You Live Below Your Means?
• Gas Prices Down, Are You Driving More?
• Cutting Guests For Your Wedding List

A Frugal Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! Not the website, but to me as an actuall person! The man behind the blog. 26 years ago I was born in western Maryland, in a town that does not exist anymore. Birthdays have come full circle over the past few years, instead of receiving phone calls and letters via the snail mail, people send us Facebook messages or write on our walls. Text messaging is also popular too, especially those messages we receive at exactly 12:00 AM the night/morning of our birthdays.

I don't like making big hub bubs on my birthday, so tonight I just am heading out in the city to a very low class, non-dress code enforcing type of college bar that I adore. If you are in Philly tonight, get at me on Twitter for more details. I am planning on taking $20 with me tonight and thats it. Hoping to blow my cash on $1 at this dive bar, even if they are only Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Cheers to you all, a toast to me hopefully having a frugal weekend. I am hoping it entails a great deal of sun, safe drunken nights, and quality time with the people I enjoy being around. Have a safe weekend everyone and enjoy every second of it!

Amazon.com Budgets Are Sexy Giveaway!

Go over to one of pf blogging partner sites at Budgets Are Sexy for the Amazon.com Gift Card Giveaway. It ends tonight at midnight July 12th! (I guess he wanted to give me a birthday gift if I win!). Good luck and happy web surfing!

Engaged

Finance Your Life has been pretty dead lately, but I have good reason. I was running around the last week getting stuff together and then I finally made the plunge and got engaged last night. Lot of family stuff going on and other craziness occurring. I will be back at it and with some intriguing new material now that a wedding is in the works. Hope everyone out there is doing well, make sure you sign up on Twitter!!

Stay Frugal

The Journey...

Remember those times in high school where your teacher stressed to you the importance of a college education? They said you would not be able to get a good job and live a stable life without a college degree of some sort. They were totally on point with that statement, but I'd love to go back and talk to her and ask why she failed to mention that college was not going to be cheap and that the amount of debt of was about to rack up would lead me to a constant personal struggle to find answers.

Fast forward to the present day, I just recently turned 25, I live at home in suburban Philadelphia with my parents (I am not afraid to admit it either). I sleep on the couch and have a decent 45 minute commute to work every day. While this whole "grown up life" has become a boring routine, it has to be that way if I ever want to get out of student loan debt.

I received my B.A. in Information Technology from a private institution in Philly. In total I racked up 100k in student loans. OK, I am lying, its more like 115k (I'll give the breakdown another day). I had to utilize private student loans after federal loans only went so far. Looking back I should have went to the local state school in the city, but I was young and naive and did not realize the implications down the road, but that's life.

I surf the web all day long at work through all of the personal finance sites to help educate myself on solving my day to day issues, then yesterday I came across a blog: http://www.myopenwallet.net . Check this site out! Covers every topic under the sun. I sat for 2.5 hours yesterday just going through post after post and it got me thinking that I can do this too! Very inspirational!

After reading many blogger's comments, I realized we all have struggles and different situations, but many time the solutions are very similar and built using the same principles. I look to others for advice all the time, I guess I find clarity in other people' s information and insight. This premise is what makes the Internet great because everything is at your fingertips, its up to you to figure out what you want to find!

If you thought you graduated with a whole lot of problems your not alone. But remember, money is not everything. Me? I honestly am searching for happiness and I will not lie, not having all that debt make me extremely happy!

The journey begins...

Contact Me

If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, advice, or ideas about how I can fix the blog up please feel free to let me know!

Here is how you can contact me:

DoctorS.FYL@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you!