Gather Little by Little

Photo by: gadl

The following is a guest post by Kevin of No Debt Plan.net, a blog about living a debt-free life. He hates debt, but isn’t afraid of credit cards. You can learn more about him over at his blog. If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe to his blog via RSS.

If you’re reading Gather Little by Little, odds are that you may come from the Christian perspective like Gather Little by Little. This is a personal finance blog, so I have a question for the readers: Do you tithe?

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I awoke this morning, like every other morning at 5:30am. Quietly sneaked downstairs, made my coffee and cereal and opened my trusty Thinkpad to read email. I’ve stopped checking my RSS feed daily as I find the fluctuations frustrating. Upon opening Firefox, I was pleasantly surprised to see my Feedburner chicklet displaying exactly 1000 subscribers!! [[insert mental vision of Gibble doing the snoopy dance in his pajamas in the dark here...ok, maybe not...]].

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Photo by: Unhindered by Talent

The rage around money lending these days, at least in the blogosphere is Peer to Peer Lending (P2P). Services like Lending Club and Prosper enable loans between individuals, bypassing traditional loans generally provided by banks. The P2P concept in theory, allows individuals to reap many of the same rewards as banks. Unfortunately you also assume the same risks as well. Cash Money Life has a great introduction to P2P if you want to read more.

I haven’t written about P2P before, as it isn’t something I’m interested in nor would I advise my readers to consider it. Here’s why:

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While listening to the book, Crucial Conversations a few weeks back, the authors discussed a study that was done in the 1960′s by Standford University psychology researcher Michael Mischel. His study demonstrated how important self-discipline is to success.

The study began with a group of children 4 years old. He optionally offered them one marshmallow immediately, but instead if they could wait for him to return later, they could have two marshmallows instead. He left for approximately 20 minutes. His theory? The children that could wait would demonstrate they had the ability to delay gratification and control impulse, both significant and important traits for attaining wealth and being financially successful. As you would expect, some children took one marshmallow, and other children decided to wait and received two later.

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For the past 3-months or so I’ve been searching for the right software to use to manage our budget. I’ve looked at many different options and even tried using them with little success. As a result, I’ve struggled with maintaining our budget as well. I don’t need a budget, I need budget software! I’ve been using my own clunky spreadsheet. It works, but was tedious. I didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t easy to report on my various budget categories nor was I able to import bank transaction data easily.

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Photo by: Gary J. Wood

Each Saturday I host guest articles contributed by other bloggers and even non-blogging readers. As of today, I don’t have anybody scheduled for this Saturday or any Saturday after that. If you would be interested in writing an article for Gather Little by Little, please contact me. If you’re a new blogger, this is a great way to make yourself more visible and expose people to your writing. My next open slot is this Saturday!

Photo by: meandmybadself

If you aren’t using MyPoints, you’re missing out on a really easy way to get what boils down to free money. MyPoints is a service that pays you for reading emails and taking short surveys. I generally receive 3-5 emails per day and they take all of 3-5 minutes to read and receive points. My wife and I both participate.

Last week, my wife cashed in her points for an Olive Garden gift card. We started doing a weekly date night a few months back, and used the gift card to pay for most of a night out at the local Olive Garden. She used 3,450 points for a $25 Red Lobster/Olive Garden gift card.

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For those of you that have been listening to contemporary Christian music for a while, this song will be a blast from the past for you. DC Talk was one of the first groups I discovered when I first began listening to contemporary Christian and I still enjoy listening to them today. Their music had a significant influence on the growth and popularity of contemporary Christian music in the 90s. Below are the lyrics to “In the Light” from their now famous 1995 Jesus Freak album. You can listen to the song here.

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Photo by: Drown

The following is a guest post by my friend Ana of DebtFREE-Revolution, a blog about being debt free and getting out of debt. If you like this post, consider subscribing to her feed via RSS.

I became debt free but the mortgage earlier this week, and Gibble asked if I would like to do a retrospective guest post for this blog.He suggested a “How I got here” type piece, and that got me thinking about more than just the nuts-n-bolts of how I did it. It’s more about a major attitude shift than the mechanics.

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This has been a very inspiring week here at Gather Little by Little, thanks to Gina’s guest post about her financial epiphany. Other bloggers have shared their stories by posting articles on their blogs, and readers have shared their stories and thoughts in the comments. There are truly some amazing stories. I’ve added links to all of the other bloggers who have written about their epiphany moments and I even shared mine. If you haven’t shared yours, I’d invite you to do so. Just think your story might become someone’s epiphany moment and you’ll change someone’s life for the better!

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