Gather Little by Little

Photo by: Taekwonweirdo

I’ve wanted a BMW for years. I’ve always admired the looks, the performance, the style, and the quality. Being a car nut, there are many other makes and models I like, but BMW has always been at the top of my car short list. My all time favorite being the BMW M3 Coupe. Of course unless I was a multi-millionaire, I would never buy one and even if I was a multi-millionaire I still might have issues with purchasing one due to the extreme cost. Recently though, BMW has released a new model that is reasonable priced as BMWs go, looks awesome, and performs well: The BMW 135i. Believe it or not, I have only ridden in a BMW once in my life, and hadn’t driven one until two weekends ago.

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Photo by: leafar

This morning I received an email from eBay stating that my email address had been changed. I often get email from eBay, Paypal, and various banks stating things like this, along with requests to update my personal information, and even claims my identify has been stolen and I need to login immediately. Most of these emails come with a convenient link that will take me to wherever I need to go, to do whatever the email is wants me to do. Since I work in the computer industry, I am all too familiar with the phishing techniques used by crooks to trick you into giving them your id, password, and personal information. My initial response to this email was that it was just another phishing email and just about deleted it. Fortunately I didn’t…

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Photo by: biskuit

My level of detest I have for credit cards and credit card companies is no secret. I’ve many times about the shady tactics of credit card companies and how they prey on people in need. Credit Card companies not only issue credit cards, process credit card transactions, market and sell credit cards but they also aggressively look for ways to make themselves more profitable. Here are just a few of the many secrets credit card companies don’t want you to know:

Credit Card Statistics

According to CreditRatings.com:

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Photo by: stu_spivack

Mondays here on Gather Little by Little are “Money Saving Mondays” where I share an articles that will help you save money. You can find my other Money Saving Monday articles here on the category page.

We have 6 children, 5 boys and 1 girl. Son #4 was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on November 14th, 2006. My wife and I both read various diabetes websites and magazines as we’re always on the prowl for new recipes and products.

My wife recently found this article on Every Day Health that shared 13 ideas for saving money when grocery shopping. Only one of them is specific to diabetics:

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Photo by: Gabr1ela Card0s0

The Sunday lyrics song this week is Butterfly Kisses and is by special request from my wife. Butterfly Kisses was written and performed by Bob Carlisle. The song placed him and his is song on billboard top charts in 1997 and was played on radio stations around the world. The title of the original album containing Butterfly Kisses, Shades of Grace, was even renamed Butterfly Kisses due to the song’s overwhelming success.

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Photo by: Marianne Perdomo

This is a guest post by Jim, who normally writes over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and My Retirement Blog, who saw the sad empty post and wanted to help. :) Glblguy says: Thanks Jim! Nothing worst than a sad empty guest post!

Occasionally on BFP I’ll write posts in which I list promotional offers such as the Revolution Money Exchange promotion or a Sharebuilder promotion code or some free money credit card offers. With the RME offer or Sharebuilder codes, it’s a pretty straightforward offer with little downside. The credit card offers are different, they look soft and cuddly but they have some pretty sharp teeth you need to be aware of. I wanted to discuss those offers specifically because there are substantial negative impacts to taking advantage of them and you should be aware of them before you sign up.

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Photo by: Orin Optiglot

Well, it’s not blank, but there is no guest post! I’ve had two guest posts lined up for the past two weeks and well, the articles never arrived. See, each Saturday I like to host a guest article from other bloggers to both give you my readers a chance to read somebody else’s writing and to also give other bloggers some visibility.

Interested in writing a guest post? Please contact me. I’m not real picky and am interested in articles on personal finance, Christianity, personal development, and frankly lots of other topics. So drop me a line and let me know topic you’re thinking about and I’ll get you scheduled.

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Photo by: esphipul

I had a great week. The training I attended was probably one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. I came back to work with some great ideas for improving our software development process and bringing my team together even more. While I’m not a big fan of class room training generally, this does prove when the training is done by a top notch instructor who is an authority in their field, it makes a huge difference. This was definitely an epiphany class for me.

Important Stuff

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Photo by: afiler

One of they things you can do to save money is create and follow a budget. I’ve heard Dave Ramsey say many times that when you start following a budget, it’s like getting a raise. I’ve found that to be very true. When you start tracking and pruning your expenses, you find money that you were previously just blowing.

What I’ve seen is that many people don’t follow a budget. The reasons why vary, but here are just a few I’ve come across:

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Photo by: infomatique

“Geesh, It’s only $5.00!“. These were the words I heard uttered by one friend to another in a store we were shopping in a few weeks back. While I didn’t over hear the entire conversation, the two ladies were discussing some type of clothing accessory they were both looking at. Based on what I could tell, the one lady was trying to convince the other lady to purchase one as well. The one expressing the concern with the $5.00 cost was resistant and received the “It’s only $5.00” response in return.

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