Gather Little by Little

I want to thank everybody for commenting in our first contest. I must admit that I am really surprise about the number of comments. We actually recievec 146 comments! There was some great feed-back. Your input will help us keeping GLBL one of the best PF blog!

The winner of the iPod touch is….Joel!

The winners of the 2 gifst certificate at Amazon for $25 each are:

Patrick from Cash Money Life and Kim.

I will be sending an email to the winners during the weekend so they can get their prize.

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I enjoy reading other bloggers and here are a few posts from around the personal finance blogosphere that I enjoyed this week:

Being Frugal wonders if there is ever a moral obligation to pay more. The reason cited in the post is related to employee compensation, i.e. should we choose Company A over Company B simply because their employees are better compensated – even if Company A costs more. I believe that a product or service is worth only what the market will bear. If Company A wants to charge more, they must demonstrate why their product or service is superior.

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We’re almost half way through summer break and I don’t know about you but our kids are getting bored to death already. We’re constantly on the lookout for frugal or fairly frugal things we can do with our kids. We’ve been hiking, visited the library, visited historical areas and a number of other things. My wife had a great idea a few weeks ago: build the kids a fort.

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I changed jobs over a year and a half ago and I still have not developed a frugal lunch routine. There are certain characteristics of my job that force me to eat out more than I like. At my last job, I always bagged my lunch or ran home for lunch every day. My former workplace was more structured and the people that I worked with had a high level of frugality. Much of that rubbed off on me. Since our move, I have not yet developed the discipline to make sure that I pack a lunch everyday.

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At the beginning of the month, the most recent unemployment statistic was published. The USA reached double digits while Canada was close behind with 8.8% (as of June). The scariest aspect about these statistics is to think that once you stop receiving unemployment support payments; you don’t count as “unemployed” anymore. Therefore, the unemployment rate might be 10% in the States, but it is even higher in the “real world”. People stop receiving unemployment support but not necessarily because they have gotten a job.

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Sometimes it really can be hard to control the small, impulse purchases. You know, the ones where you are just craving a burger, or a iced mocha or just one tiny, little candy bar. Maybe the temptation is not food for you. Perhaps you purchase the occasional movie through your cable service – just a couple of buttons on the remote for a great movie and just a small charge on your cable bill. What about that extra shade of lipstick or the scarf that matches only one outfit . . .but it looks great with your eyes?

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I was talking with a co-worker recently who was preparing to purchase his first home. He recently got married, and has been renting for a few years. He felt that he had a good down payment and with the economic stimulus benefits for new home buyers, now was the time. I couldn’t disagree with him, for him it was time.

Now is a great time to buy a house, but there are some very common new home mistakes that I shared with him and will share with you as well:

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We’re going to Disneyland!

Okay, not quite, but the prospect of facing the next month without a house payment, insurance premium, property tax, gas bill, water bill, heating bill, softwater rental bill and other miscellaneous maintenance costs sounds like a trip to paradise – or at least a couple of days off.

Last week, we closed on the home that we have not lived in for sixteen months. The closing documents were overnighted to us earlier in the week and Mrs. Stew and I signed the papers, had them notarized and then sent them back across the country with our fingers crossed and our hearts in prayer.

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I believe that God orders all events and this belief is a comfort, not a threat. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose”.

So how does this affect my attitude toward money? There are hundreds of ways – we talk about the influence of faith on money all the time. But once in a while, we get a little comfortable and need a reminder that to trust in a high salary, a beefy 401K, or even in debt freedom for security is foolish. Those things are great, they are smart, but our ultimate trust must be in the One “who owns the cattle on thousand hills”.

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I wrote my very first post yesterday introducing myself and telling my I thoughts on handling Gather Little by Little. However, the biggest part of a blog is its readers and community. For the past months, I have been reading your comments and discovered how great GLBL readers are.

This is why I have decided to run a contest in order to know what you like from Gather Little by Little and also what you would like to read in the upcoming months. Are there any topics that you prefer or you wish to read about?

Here are the prizes:

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