Category Archives: Uncategorized

Frugal Weight Loss and Body Shaping

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I just weight myself this morning and after a little over 3 weeks, I’m down 20 pounds!

So what’s the big deal about losing 20 pounds?

I’m going to exercising to start shaping my body into the athletic look that improved the way I feel and perform when doing physical tasks.  It’s nice to be thin, be even better to be in optimal shape to go with the look.

How am I going about it?

I decided to start my frugal weight loss using the Akins diet.  It’s a very cheap way to start if you use eggs and cheese as your stable during those first few weeks of the diet.

The problem with dieting is that while you’re losing fat, you are so losing muscle, but that’s where exercise comes in.  Exercising helps to maintain the muscle mass while stripping away the fat from your body while dieting.

A low carb diet is excellent for working out with weight and dieting at the same time.  Since your meals are higher in protein than your typical diet, if you work out with weights or some form of resistance training, your diet provides a steady stream of protein building materials.  They are perfectly complimentary to each other!

Vitamins are a stable!

While a low carb diet (like Akins) is high on protein, I’ve found that it’s necessary to supplement the diet with a daily intake of vitamins.  Not only are they required by the body, they also help expedite the weight loss process.  I might talk more about my selection of vitamins in a future post, but for now taking any multi-vitamin is good and can only help!

Starting slowly

Instead of jumping in and starting to lift weight right out of the gate, I’m going to start resistance training by doing pushups, situps, no weight squats and some curling with light weights.  I’ll do this routing for a few weeks to a month, then I’ll shift gears and start using the weights I have at my house to move into more of a heavy resistance-training routine.

And this is how I’m going to go about it!

Thanks for following me on the start of my new lifestyle, it should beat my middle class lifestyle!

MR

Are You Overspending Today Because Of A Future Inheritance?

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Overspender

Always Broke

 

I have a friend at work who seems to have holes in his pockets!  He is always broke and deep into credit card debt and doesn’t have any equity in his house after paying into his mortgage for over ten years (he keeps refinancing, taking the equity out).

Just this year, he’s bought brand new leather living room furniture, a new expensive washer and dryer, a new zero turn riding lawn mower (so now he has 2 of them in total),a full house backup generator, and well over $1,000 in paintball guns and equipment.  Oh, I forgot that he remodeled his master bedroom, buying hard wood floors and had someone come out to rebuild his deck, oh and bought expensive new bikes for him and his wife.  This is just that stuff that I’ve heard about!

My friend is a clever guy and a peer, so I wondered how we could be so different…  So one day, after his incessant complaining to me about his lack of savings, I asked him why he always spend so much money on new expensive things all the time.

He leaned in close and told me that he plans on inheriting a good chuck of money from both his parents and his wife’s parents.  In fact, he mentioned that his wife’s parents are really loaded.  I hope the expression that reflexively popped on my face didn’t reveal my feeling on his line of thinking…

I think that it’s risky and horrible to overspend today while waiting to receive a future inheritance for these reasons:

  • The parents could give the bulk of the money to charity, leaving my friend a much smaller amount.
  • Some financial disaster could happen and that money could evaporate (think Bernie Madoff or Enron)
  • Some medical problems could eat away at their parent’s money too.
  • Perhaps their parents aren’t as rich as they appear to be.
  • It’s a sucky way to live life waiting for your parent to die to get money, very sad really…
  • Their parents could decide to spend the money, going out in style as they age.
  • You risk becoming your parent’s pets the entire time they are alive.
  • You miss out on trying to establish your own financial empire (lol).
  • You begin to view your parents as an investment instead of your parents.
  • You might be stressed whenever they spend money.

I admit, I envy his lifestyle, and I’m a bit disappointed that I’ll never catch up to him or surpass him financially since he has huge advantages.  That said, I do feel that I’m accomplishing my own financial future by living more within my means and my by financial planning over the years.

So should I hate my friend because he’s overspending today because of a future inheritance?

Naw, I hope the best for him, after all he is a friend first.  I just wish deep down inside I wouldn’t think he was such cold-hearted reptile.  I wonder how long it will take them to blow through their inheritance once the do receive it?

Do you know anyone similar to my friend?  What is their deal?

MR

Stop Living For the Weekend and Just Start Living

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All too often we hear people saying that they “Live for the Weekend”! 

To be honest, I use to be of that same mindset too, I also saved myself for the weekend and during the week I would work, watch TV, then go to bed everyday… until the precious weekend.  But then the weekend would come and it might be cold, or raining, or some other event might be happening that would prevent me from enjoying my weekend.

So what do I do know?

I try to do something everyday, whether it’s coaching my daughter’s soccer team, doing yard work, walking the dog, working on my blog, reading a book etc…  And I plan on starting to workout, swim with the kids, bike ride with the kids, loss weight and meet with friends more often.  Summer is a great time to be more active!

“Live For the Weekend” is something that sounds good because most of the activities that are going on happens on Saturday, and we have the entire day to do things but…

  • going to dinner during the week is less crowded and you can get seated more quickly
  • while at dining out, the food may be prepared better because the cook isn’t rushed.
  • Other activities may be similar to dining out, fewer lines, less waits, and a better experience.
  • The roads will be less crowded, especially after rush hour during the weekdays.
  • If you look, sometimes you can find discounted prices during the weekdays.
  • Less chance of getting a sunburn while outside since most of us get off work after 5:00pm.

Conclusion

While you don’t exactly have to “Seize the Day”, you don’t have to wait for the weekend either.  Waiting to live life just on the weekend wastes too much life.

Personally, I would like to make or change something everyday, even if it’s just cutting the grass…

What activities or ways do you maximize you weekdays?

Cheers,

MR

Maximizing Your Lifestyle Responsibly

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The following article was originally post as a guest post at Cashflow Sherpas, to view it in it’s original form, click here.  The following article is an updated and slightly improved version of the article, but updated enough to make both stories significantly different!

During my college years, I had a fun time, but even so, I think I could have had more fun while at the same time optimizing my finances.

While I was very frugal and did have some investments, I did so by living a fairly frugal existence in college.  Often times, my college roommates would find clever activities for us to do because nobody had money make then.  While I participated in some of the cheaper activities, I missed out on the ones that others would charge to their credit cards.  Today I look back and I believe I could have had a better mix of frugality and spending.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s okay to use credit cards and build up debt!  But if I had to do it over again, I definitely would have used some of the money from my investments.

In fact, if I had to do it all over again, I would have invested money that I made from working since I was sixteen into investment.  I would also invest all the money I got over the years from birthdays and Christmas, into investments that would yield dividends.

Next, I would have created a spreadsheet that tracks all my finances including the dividend stream from my dividend stocks.

The beauty of having such an income stream would be that I could have maximized the money to use to have more memorable experiences back then.  Many of these are age specific experiences that once you miss them, you really can’t go back!  So I would urge others to do such a thing, especially if you are too frugal like I was!

I was so frugal, that there was a point in my life where I wouldn’t even go on a date because I felt like I couldn’t afford it.  Luckily, I was still able to find a few girlfriends that I was able to go out with while staying on a frugal route!

The above is only part of the process though.  It’s the bean counting part that while crucial, in just part of the puzzle.  The other part is spending intelligently, and keeping your eyes open for opportunities to make money.  In fact, I think being aware is the most critical piece of the maximization puzzle.

While I don’t see any obvious, risk free opportunities that would have made me rich in college, there were definitely opportunities that may have made it happened if I tried!  If you don’t explore and try such things, you’ll never know.  You don’t have to start the next Microsoft, it could be a small money making venture, experiment!

While I have missed some life experiences, for my kids I’ve already creating an investment portfolio that will contain a portion that will have stocks invested in dividends, They will be able to use that money from the dividends for their potentially fun college fun expenses in the future.  That way they will get to experiences more than I did while going the college thing!

In the end, it’s about developing a financial balance that would maximize your life.

Bests,

MR