Gather Little by Little

Up On A Hill – Photo by: trekkyandy

Today’s lyrics are from the song Everything To Me found on Avalon’s 1993 album Testify to Love: The Very Best of Avalon. The song tells us that you can know all of the Bible stories and lessons, but salvation and true peace is more than knowledge, it’s found through truly knowing Jesus and making him the focus in your life. Is He everything to you?

You can also listen to the song and see Avalon by viewing this video on Youtube.

Click to continue reading...

Snow on the Appalachian Trail, photo by: Calweb

This is the first Friday Gathering of the new year and it was a great week for reading blogs. Everyone was sharing information on how they did meeting their 2007 goals and sharing our goals for 2008. The M-Network did a group writing project that involved 12 different personal finance bloggers where we all shared information about our 2007 net worths.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: wsh1266

This is a guest post by WJ, a husband, father, fellow Christian and frequent commenter here on Gather Little by Little. WJ had made a very informative comment on my article, 10 Ideas To Help Teach Your Kids About Money. I asked him if he might be interested in expanding further on how he helps teach his kids about finances by writing a guest article. Fortunately for us, he was kind enough to do so and I think he did a great job! Thanks WJ!

Here are 3 steps to a personalized income plan for your children:

Click to continue reading...

Joshua Davis (articnomad)

The M-Network along with many other bloggers are doing a year end net worth wrap-up. You can find links to all of the participating blogger’s articles at the end of this article.

I didn’t actually start tracking my net worth until February of 2007. I decided to start tracking it based on the suggestion from a number of personal finance books I’ve read, primarily The Millionaire Next Door.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: j.anne4( Janne )

The popular thing to do with most people each new year is to set resolutions. I am not a big resolution person as I find setting goals much more effective (JD over at Get Rich Slowly recently wrote an excellent article on this same topic). I considered writing about 2008 goals, but instead thought I would provide you with some ways to kick off your personal finance new year that will have a positive influence on your finances. I would encourage you to turn these into either goals or resolutions, which ever work best for you.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: rjs1322

It’s new years eve and almost the start of a new year. Since July of this year, I’ve written more than 200 articles and received more than 1600 comments from you. Next to my How to Get Your Finances Under Control, One Small Step at a Time series, I personally enjoyed writing the Money Saving Monday Tips the most. Since this last day of 2007 is a Monday, I thought I would recap all of the articles in that series.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: blmurch

My oldest son became a teenager last week and my 7 year old turned 8 the day before. My children are quickly growing up around me and it’s both sad and exciting at the same time. Today’s lyrics are from a song that has met a great deal to me as I’ve watched my children grow up. The song has served as wonderful reminder of the example I need to set.

The song? I want to be just like you from Phillips, Craig and Dean’s 1995 album Lifeline. I found a video that a wife made for her husband that uses the song as background music if you would like to hear it.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: ?ick Harris

It’s hard to believe, but this is the last Friday Gathering for 2007. This year has been a strange one, with the first half of the year seeming to take forever and the second half just flying by. I am looking forward to 2008 and to be honest, I am glad to have 2007 behind me.

Click to continue reading...

A few quick announcements

• On January 2nd, the M-Network will be conducting another group writing project. We’ll be doing a net worth wrap up and encouraging other bloggers to join with us.

Photo by: Gio JL

I started Gather Little by Little on July 1st of this year after having written various personal finance articles on a very simple blogger.com blog. I had no readers other than my family, but enjoyed writing and sharing my ideas immensely. Being new to blogging, I really didn’t have any set goals nor did I really know where I wanted my blog to go. I was just writing about two things that were having a major positive influence in my life: my faith and getting control of my finances.

Click to continue reading...

Photo by: Kurt Magoon

As I write this article, I am surrounded by boxes, new gifts, and the remaining bits of wrapping paper. Our house is in a bit of chaos, but that’s alright, it was a wonderful Christmas both financially and emotionally. This Christmas was one of our best Christmases ever.

This was the first Christmas that I can remember where we didn’t rely on credit cards. In the past we would have used whatever spare cash we had to purchase gifts and then rely on our credit cards to pay for the rest. We seldom stuck to a specific budget and frequently purchased gifts for our children and for ourselves that were way beyond our means. This year was different:

Click to continue reading...