The Amateur Financier

It’s finally happened: I’ve reached 250 posts of The Amateur Financier!  I’ve managed to keep blogging through nine months, two jobs, and any number of other distractions.  It hasn’t always been an easy task, continuing to put up new articles on a (mostly) timely basis, but it’s been surprisingly fun and entertaining, to say nothing of introducing me to a variety of good blogs.

Now, if you’ll indulge me for a bit, before I highlight some of the interesting posts from other blogs in this past week, I’d like to do a retrospective of sorts and look at a few of my favorite posts from the first stage of the Amateur Financier.  Some were popular, some were highly informative, and some simply stuck in my mind as being fun to write, but all of them represent some of my favorite works of the Amateur Financier.  In no particular order, here are some of my top picks:

My Favorite Posts (So Far)

Three Things I Wish I knew When I Was Younger – One of the advantages that comes with age is wisdom, while one of the disadvantages is regret.  Here’s a list of a few things that, in hindsight, I wish I could have learned earlier in my life, but still appreciate gaining the knowledge now.

Let's party like... we aren't being forced to wear silly hats!

One Million Dollars – A few priorities I would have for how to spend one million dollars, if I happened to stumble across it.  Looking back, I can already see (less than one year later), that I would do things quite a bit differently (in particular, providing more money to my mother) than what I have listed here.  I suppose that’s the nature of goals; they are always moving and changing.

Unemployment 102: Know Your Fees! – A reminder to those who are unemployed (as I was at the time of this article): you have to be careful about fees that might be attached to your unemployment benefits, particularly if you are getting your benefits through a debit card.  The last thing you want to do is to be nickeled and dimed by small fees every time you attempt to get at your money.

5 Ways to Get Rich Quick – A list of simple, highly effective, and easy to put into effect plans to generate millions, even tens of millions of dollars with practically no time or effort… published on the first of April.

Ten Steps to Control Your Finances Reviewed – I spent an entire week in May going step by step to show everyone how to get their finances in order.  Here’s a summary of all my tips, in order; all are good to follow, although given some of the comments, I do sometimes consider whether I made the right choice in their order…

Trick Tips – More of a ‘fun’ post than anything else, this is simply a collection of ways to calculate a tip when you don’t have a calculator handy or printed tips suggestions on the bottom of the receipt.  If you find yourself in such a situation, or simply like trying to keep your mind sharp with some regular algebra, these tips could prove helpful.

Blog Posts I Liked This Past Week

You’re Rejected!  How I Use Rejection to Motivate Me Every Single Day – Many of us (and I’ll gladly include myself in that number) go out of our way to avoid being rejected by the people around us, be they friends, coworkers, or even random strangers in a public setting.  But as the Financial Samurai reminds us, rejection is one of the best ways to learn and grow.  Keep that in mind, and perhaps you’ll start looking at rejection in a new light.

How to Pay Off More Than One Debt – If you’re in a situation where you have more than one debt to pay off, it can be tricky to know where to start.  Luckily, Stephanie of Poorer Than You has created a helpful little Google document that will allow you to organize all your debts and sort them according to the lowest balances, highest interest rates, or even Stephanie’s own favorite, the ‘annoyance factor’ you feel about repaying the debt.  Good if you want to find some place to start with your debt repayment.

Top Fifteen College Degrees by Starting Salary – My Life ROI covers the top degrees for those of us who want to profit from our education.  I’m a bit miffed that my major (biochemistry) doesn’t make the list, while the degree I would have gotten if I stuck with my original major (pharmacy) tops it, with a six figure salary to boot.  Ah, well, such is life, and perhaps in a non-round-up post, I’ll have to share more of that little story…

Retiring on Investment Interest and Dividends Alone – An interesting idea I’ve heard tossed about in various places, to live off the dividends and interest your investments can produce rather than drawing down the principle.  In theory, doing so would enable you to stretch your retirement dollars much further, as your principle would remain the same through the course of your retirement (or preferably, increase as you reinvest some of your dividends so that your income keeps ahead of inflation).  However, as Generation Y Investor points out, doing so requires a rather hefty amount of money up front, even in favorable climates for dividends.  Still, it’s one idea I’m definitely going to look at for the future.

Make Money With a Garage Sale – I’ll admit it: I’m a pack rat.  It runs in the family, our tendency to accumulate more and more stuff without really having any place to go with it.  Luckily, there are ways to get rid of it, including a garage sale.  If you go that route, be sure to (a) check out Studenomics’ article on making money with a garage sale to pick up some good tips, and (b) invite me, so I find some deals!  (What?  I’ve already told you it’s genetic…)

That’s it for this week at the Amateur Financier; here’s to another 250 posts, and many hundreds more after that!

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