Well, once again I’ve made the trek across the great state of Pennsylvania, this time for family reasons rather than work. Yes, my godfather (the kindly, gift giving kind, not the running our family’s highly illegal crime syndicate kind) was born on August 1st, so I came back in order to more easily attend the party this Saturday. It’s always good to help celebrate with your family, although these cross state trips are really starting to wear on me.
Still, it promises to be a fun time, and I do like my family for the most part. Plus, it should be good practice for when I bring my fiancée out to visit; always good to get a refresher on the eccentricities of my family members before I subject her allow her to meet the crazies interesting people in my family.
Unfortunately, all the travel and time spent with my fiancée has left me with less time than usual for catching up on my blog reading. Thank goodness for RSS Owl; otherwise I’d completely lose track of all the blogs I try to follow. I’ve managed to catch some of the best posts each week using the feeds there. Some of what I’ve found useful this past week includes:
What If There Was No Tomorrow? – Sometimes, you forget that on the other side of the computer screen, there are actual people who have lives outside of this computer screen. It usually takes some big event to remind us that our fellow bloggers are mortal; earlier this week, Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money had a near death experience. He nearly choked to death and thus had an epiphany about his life and how quickly it can end (as people tend to do in these situations. Thankfully, he seems alright, and will be imparting some of the lessons he learned soon.
Chart Early Retirement – A good post from Luke Grand, writer of the new blog Cash Out Life, which focuses on preparing for an early retirement. In this post, he suggests plotting your expenses, earned income, and passive income over the course of several months. That way, you can see whether you are earning more than you spend and gauge when your passive income will become high enough to exceed your expenses. It’s a pretty good exercise, one that can help you see where you finances currently stand.
What to Bring to College-College Survival Skills – Studenomics takes a new twist on the list of things to bring to college, collecting a list of four different skill sets you’ll need to survive college life. I agree with all of them (particularly cooking and cleaning, an area in which college students tend to skimp) and would add good study habits, as well.
Save Money By Becoming An Organized Packer – Given how much I’ve had to carry from one side of Pennsylvania to the other in the past few weeks, any thoughts on how to be more efficient are welcome. Luckily, on My Life ROI there are a fewer thoughts on how to make your travel a bit easier. I’m especially fond of the reminder to Ziploc bag anything that might spill; after a bad situation with a left over milkshake on this last trip, I can definitely tell you it is no fun trying to clean up after a spill.
(Image taken from the Skate Ranch of Raleigh website)
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