It’s hard to believe, but today my baby turns three months old. It seems like only yesterday she was born and I was fainting while she was being born. (Tip to would-be fathers: holding your breath during the time when your wife is pushing is a good way to ensure that you spend a sizable portion of your child’s birth unconscious on the ground.) It was a time when my life changed, possibly for the greatest change I’ve ever experienced.
Now, my baby Elaine has grown three months old. She’s getting more and more developed every day, with skills from lifting her head to being able to roll onto her side. (In case you don’t have any children, let me assure you that those are pretty big events in your child’s life.) She is increasingly adorable, and wonderful, and she is my dear sweet girl whom I want to provide the best life possible.
In order to help reach that point of providing for her, I’m more dead set on being a successful blogger than ever before (and I was pretty set on it before). That means all the more reason to provide useful posts, and it’s hard to think of too many things more useful than Weekly Round-Ups that link to the great posts around the Inter-webs. So, enjoy some great posts, starting with:
Great Yakezie Posts
5 Tips to Increase Your Income - If you’re hoping to improve your financial situation in life, one of the best ways to do so is increase your income. There’s a variety of ways to do so, and Barbara Friedberg provides several methods to boost you income, from asking for a raise to opening a business.
Bad Choices Can Be Costly – It’s important to make sure that you make smart choices in your life, and one of the biggest choices you’ll make in life is how to marry. This article from Little House in the Valley provides a cautionary tale about what happened to one of her friends, a nice warning against jumping into a marriage too quickly.
I Am Broke! - Not something you normally hear from personal finance writers, but KrantCents lays out some ways it could happen (including divorce, if you don’t follow the previous suggestions), and also provides some advice on how downturns in your life can actually lead to future success.
Spend to Save: 4 Car Maintenance Tasks You Should Pay For – It’s tempting to just leave your car running until it can’t (or you need to take it in for an inspection), but you’ll save money in the long run by taking proper care of it along the way. Squirrelers provides some ideas of the maintenance that’s worth paying for.
Why You Don’t Feel Wealthy With Stocks at Record Highs – Because you probably don’t own much stock. That’s the short version of this article from the Financial Samurai, looking at how stocks are distributed in this country (hint: most are owned by the wealthiest 10% of the population) and how it affects money envy when the market is high, as it currently is.
Contests and Giveaways
- Enter to Win $50 Cash! - This contest from Your Finances Simplified provides a chance to win cold, hard cash, provided you enter by March 15th (aka, Friday).
- March 2013 BFS Newsletter Giveaway-$25 and HIMBB eBook! – For those people who want something beyond just money, this contest at Budgeting In the Fun Stuff allows you to win $25 and the How I Make Money Blogging eBook if you enter by March 31st.
- Canon Rebel T4i DSLR Camera Giveaway – Another contest that ends on March 31st, and is being sponsored by numerous bloggers. Enter for a chance to win a pretty nice looking camera.
There you go, three currently outstanding contests. Enter and enjoy the possibility of winning!
Where The Amateur Financier Was Featured
One of the biggest tasks many parents will face is saving for their children’s college education, although, you can find a lot of disagreement among personal finance advisers about whether you should do so or not. It’s pretty fitting, then, that my article on Money and Child-Raising: Saving for Child’s College was featured in numerous personal financial carnivals, including these:
- Y and T’s Weekend Ramblings at Young and Thrifty.ca
- Yakezie Carnival at Debt Black Hole
- Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Debt Roundup
- Carnival of Retirement at Master the Art of Saving
- Finance Carn. for Young Adults at 20s Finances
Alright, that’s just about it for this week. As always, enjoy the rest of the week and all the personal finance blog entries that will come with it. It’s going to be a good one, I can feel it!
Kevin @ RewardBoost March 14, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Congratulations on your baby’s three month, um, anniversary. Not sure what you call it.
Good luck with increasing your blogging success. There’s nothing like a little bundle of joy for motivation (I think. I don’t have any yet)
Roger, the Amateur Financier March 19, 2013 at 5:27 pm
Thanks, Kevin. The only things that come to mind are slightly crazy, like ‘quarter-versary’, or unbirthday (although, that latter one is appropriate for 364 days out of the year, so I’m not sure that’s the best thing to use).
Thanks for the good luck wishes. Elaine is a pretty big source of motivation, although when you’ve spent much of your night waking up every few hours to care for her, you tend to be a bit less than motivated (or awake) the following day.
krantcents March 13, 2013 at 10:28 am
Enjoy your time with your daughter, they grow up very fast. Besides, you want to have a big influence on her anyway. Thanks for the links, I am in good company.
krantcents´s last [type] ..How to Select Investment Property?
Roger, the Amateur Financier March 19, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Thanks Krant, I’m definitely trying to spend as much time as possible with little Elaine; one of the few positives of not having a job right now is having as many hours as I could want to spend with my little girl. (Although, I’ll be the first to admit that I’d prefer it if fewer of those hours were at 3 a.m., but that’s another issue entirely.) You’re quite welcome, and thanks as always for such a good article.