Gather Little by Little

Photograph: Learning The Hard Way by Alex @ Faraway

This article is part of an M-Network group writing project. We are all writing articles revealing our best and worst financial decisions. See the end of this article for links to other M-Network member articles!

I’ve made a number of good and bad financial decisions in my life. Unfortunately until about a year ago, the majority of them where bad. I could list far more than 6 decisions and frankly could probably write a whole book on the them. To keep from completely boring you though, I’ll only share 3 of each. My sincere hope is that you can learn a little something from my decisions and maybe avoid learning things the hard way like I did.

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It’s time again for The Friday Gathering, my weekly review that highlights my favorite articles from the M-Network and the rest of the PF blogosphere. One change I am making though is adding my favorite articles from meta-blogs that I read. Meta-blogs are blogs about blogging. Since many of you are bloggers yourselves, I thought you might find my favorites in this category useful.

One quick note, make sure you visit us on Monday. Myself along with the rest of the M-Network crew will all reveal our best and worst financial decisions. This is going to be a great series of articles, so make sure you stop by. To get all of our articles at one time, subscribe to the M-Network combined RSS feed.

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About 4 months ago, I found a 75 gallon tank, wooden stand, glass tops and light for $150 on Craigslist. New, this equipment would cost close to $800.00. Using my Craigslist tips, I purchased it for $100, a steal. I had always wanted a salt water aquarium, and thus began my quest to set-up the salt water aquarium of my dreams, or so I thought.

By the time I bought all of the necessary equipment, chemicals, salt, and test kits my $100 dollar aquarium was now a $500 dollar aquarium.

Downside #1: Salt water aquariums require lots of high-tech and expensive equipment

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All of the carnivals I participated in are up. Here’s the list of carnivals and links to the articles I submitted:

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• On The Horizon was the host of Christian Carnival CXCII where my article In Financial Chaos? Pass the Test!! was included. This was my first time participating in in this carnival and it has a ton of wonderful posts. I’ll be submitting to this one again!
• My Two Dollars hosted the 94th Edition of The Festival of Frugality. My article Money Saving Monday Tip #11 – Price Comparison Sites was included in the Shopping Tips section.

Not so long ago, American cars weren’t engineered to run for 200,000 or more miles. If fact, they were engineered for a maximum of 100,000. Honestly, they were lucky to run that long under the best of circumstances. Today’s cars, both foreign and American are far better engineered and designed to last 200,000 or more miles. In some cases even much much more.

Of course to keep a car running this long requires keeping it well maintained. Not to mention keeping good tires on it, paying for oil changes, fixing things when they break, replacing the shocks, and who knows how many windshield wiper blades. With all of that maintenance cost, they may run for 200,00 or more miles, but is it really worth the cost?

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Let’s face the facts, bad things happen and usually unexpectedly. Regardless of your age and how healthy you think you are, accidents and sudden illness can happen to anyone. Various studies show that medical debt is one of the leading causes of financial chaos and turns out to be one of the main reasons people file for bankruptcy.

With statistics like this, it may surprise you that 18 million people ages 18-34 don’t have health insurance. Why so high? Well, people in this age category are finishing school, or between jobs, or new to their jobs and don’t yet quality for heath benefits, or work for small companies that don’t offer health benefits. These people could purchase their own insurance, but it can be expensive especially for someone just graduating or in a new job.

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Another September came to an end Sunday. It was another busy and very successful month for both GLBL, the M-Network and me personally.

Personally, football season for my son officially started, so I spend most weeknights at the football field at his practices. He’s doing awesome this year, and I am very proud of him. Our Saturdays are now consumed by his weekly games, but we really enjoy them. My real job has been keeping me quit busy as well which has made blogging a bit of a challenge, but I like a challenge. Oh, did I mention I turned 38 as well? 2 more years to 40….*sigh*.

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Seldom will your car require maintenance that you can’t do. Most car repairs and maintenance items are fairly simple. Armed with a little knowledge and some basic tool skills, you can save yourself a considerable amount of money doing repairs yourself. Here’s a few tips for making your own repairs and doing your own maintenance:

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1. Buy a service manual - Manuals range in quality and you will get what you pay for, but for real basic routine maintenance type items Chilton or Haynes repair manuals work well. For more detailed and comprehensive manuals, nothing compares to a manufacturers service manual. These can frequently be found on eBay or Craigslist.