Archives for January 2013

I’ll Never Be a Frugal Blogger

January 30, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 123 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I'm what you might call a bad personal finance blogger. Or maybe just a bad frugal blogger (never said I was a frugal blogger though!) Anyways, yup, I said it. I like nice (and brand new) cars, big houses, vacations, cable and premium TV, and everything else. I don't really talk about using coupons a whole lot either. I also use loans to my advantage by obtaining low interest rates (such as 0%) instead of paying for things with cash when I have the cash available.

Some of the things that I just wrote seem to be things that some bloggers and readers might frown upon. Yes, I would like to retire early and not have to worry about money. However, I do like buying things and having nice things also. For me, I don't see it as me trying to keep up with the Joneses, I see it as I work hard for my money, so why not enjoy myself? I'm not the type of person who wants to retire early by being extremely cheap with everything that I do (no offense to those who do this).

I am not perfect, and if I have the income to support the things that I want, then why not? I'm all about increasing my extra income, and a lot of it is used to pay down my $38,000 student loan debt. After that is gone, a lot of it will be funneled towards savings but also for fun things in my life. I hope you all do not hate me by the end of this post by the way.

A couple of months ago I talked about my Budget Busters and My Plans. There are a lot of things on this list that I will be spending money on in the next 18 months. Big wedding? CHECK. Big house? CHECK. Paying off student loans? CHECK. Vacations? CHECK CHECK CHECK. Oh yeah and I plan on getting a new car also.

These girls said it best

I agree with Cait and Leslie. Even though I am definitely not a frugal blogger, I am money conscious and watch my spending. I manage my money well (at least I think so) and make sure that I am able to pay all of my bills. I also make sure that my spending and expenses equal less than 50% of our income. [Read more…]

How To Become a Virtual Assistant

January 29, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 62 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

How do I become a virtual assistant? That is a question that many of you asked, especially after I wrote my post last week titled What Does a Virtual Assistant Do? Now that we've cleared up some of the roles that you can fill as a virtual assistant, we, of course need to cover how you can become one yourself.

Many of you send me e-mails and leave comments saying that you'll never reach the level of extra income that I have, but I definitely want to know that you are wrong. Just last year I was looking up at all the big bloggers and thinking the same thing “How nice that must be to have all of that extra income.” But now I actually have a decent amount of side income, and I'm still trying to increase my extra income even more. There's always room for improvement!

Related content:

Recently, I detailed all of the different ways that I make extra income and I also recently talked about how to get into freelance writing. I hope all of my posts have been helpful. I have many more planned still also. I plan on talking about starting your own blog, finding your niche and everything else. If there is anything that you would like me to cover, let me know.

A lot of you have asked how I found my virtual assistant positions. I will start off by saying that I am not an expert in this area, and I had to do research for this post in order to help you all. I am learning about everything at the same time as all of you. So, while I have not tested everything myself, I am almost 100% positive that these ideas should work for you. [Read more…]

$3,340 in Extra Income, Life, Wedding Updates

January 28, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 52 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

We've been spending too much on eating out.

Happy Monday everyone! Yesterday, I went to the bridal show and it was a lot of fun.

W did tell me over the weekend that his parents said we can get married on his grandmother's property! I am so happy! It's way better than any of the outdoor venues that we've seen, and it also has meaning behind it. I don't think I could be any more happier. It's the perfect place for an outdoor wedding.

Now that we know we will be getting married there, I also have some adjusting to do to our Wedding Budget. I priced out tents yesterday at the bridal show, and I decided that instead of spending $4,000 on a clear tent that I like, I will instead just get a normal white one that is around $1,000. Woohooo!

We did also decide that even though we won't be paying for a venue, we do want to donate/give some money to his grandmother and the trust that she made for the property (there is a trust for the family that she made for the property) in the amount of probably $1,000 or $2,000.

I also found a caterer who does BBQ (WHOOHOOO), tables and chairs for rental, made appointments at a couple of places to shop for dresses (a lot of places were offering 10% off yesterday if you made an appointment right on the spot), a fish eye camera photo booth that I'm in love with, and other things. It's nice to see everything actually coming together. Planning everything has been a ton of fun and I know I'll be sad when it's over. At least I can have fun for the next year with this 🙂

Also, don't forget to check out my sister's blog, FITnancials. I'm helping run it, while she is the writer. This blog has been going pretty well and I'm still excited about it. My sister is a new writer but seems to be doing well. She's still learning about the whole blogging thing but is starting to get the hang of it.

I wanted to say thanks again to everyone who commented and e-mailed me about my reconnecting with family post. I really appreciate everything that everyone has said.

Spending:

We did spend a lot of money in the past week. We bought a treadmill in the beginning of the week. We ended up buying the ProForm 600c For $810 altogether. We bought it right from the manufacturer and saved a lot of money. No sales tax, free shipping, and 4 year warranty. The same treadmill was going for around $1,200 (if you included the warranty and sales tax) at the sporting stores around here.

The warranty is a good one too, they will come to our house and fix it, no need for us to mail it to them, which is what some warranties were. I can't imagine having to undo the whole thing and mail it in, so I'm glad we won't have to do that.

We also spend some money on clothes. Yes, I know I said that I didn't want to buy anything, but I already went over my $100 a month clothing budget. I wanted/needed some work clothes and went to Banana Republic. You can all just guess how that went!

Extra Income (does not include salary from our jobs):

The $3,340 was for the past two weeks since I did not do an extra income update for last week. I did good again in the past two weeks. Still waiting on a couple of payments but I'm pretty positive that January will be better than December, which is great because December was awesome.

I do have some goals for the blog and some general ideas for how I will increase my income even further. Yes, of course $5,000 a month is great, but I want to aim higher and see where I can get this!

One of my main goals is to start working more on affiliate income. I make a little bit in affiliate income every month, but I want to diversify more into this and have my extra income become more passive. I will be making a post on my affiliate income goals soon! For now, will you tell me if you do affiliate income and what I should know? Any tips, opinions, etc. would be awesome.

Food:

No meal plan YET again this week. We are doing pretty bad with this but we talked last night and really want to save as much money as we can. This entails us eating in! I plan on looking up some recipes and really putting my Pinterest skills to use (ha!).

Being healthy:

We finally bought a treadmill! I am so happy and cannot wait for when it arrives. I know a lot of people say that I will never use it, but I definitely think I will. We are pretty much complete with our home gym now. We will have a treadmill and bought the weights and everything else earlier this month. The total was a little less than $2,000 for everything. Definitely expensive, but with a 4 year warranty, it all seems well worth it.

I really want to lose some weight and get more healthy/toned. I hopped on the scale the other day and got pretty scared. This is good motivation though. STOP EATING DEEP FRIED FOODS MICHELLE!

How's your spending, working out and extra income going?

Oh Saturday

January 26, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 32 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Happy weekend everyone! This past week at work seemed to fly by, mainly because I was extremely busy the whole time. So much to do! Oh yeah, those are my wonderful pups above.

This weekend I'm hoping to get a lot done. I really need to start scheduling and writing posts ahead of time. I haven't done this in forever. How far ahead do you write your posts? I'm hoping to get maybe 5 posts done, but I doubt that will happen. I have a long list of things that I want to write about, but I would like to knock them out beforehand.

I'm going to a bridal show on Sunday for MY wedding! First bridal show that I'll have gone to that is focused on me. WOOHOO! Bring on the free drinks and free food 🙂 I hope to find a lot of good ideas and good vendors. Considering that I still need EVERYTHING for my wedding and nothing has really been planned, I know I will be going crazy at this thing. But that's okay, because I love planning and just the thought of it makes me super happy!

This was a week full of whale posts. Sorry they were all so long! I obviously have a lot to say about everything. There will be some more whale posts for next week. I have at least one special post lined up for next week, a post all about how to become a virtual assistant. A lot of you have wondered what a VA does, and next week you will find out how to start and where to begin.

Also, I plan on publishing my How To Start a Blog post next week. Is there anything specific that you would like to know that I can answer in this post? I will try and include it and it'll help me guide where the post will go. A lot of you e-mail me with your questions, but if you have any others, ask away in the comments below. I have a feeling that the How To Start a Blog will be a huge multi-post, so be on the look out!

Posts on my blog:

What Does a Virtual Assistant Do? – This post details possible things you can do as a virtual assistant.
Reconnecting With Family – An emotional post – I talk about about my dreams of having a normal family.
Wedding Budget – Our Expected Costs – If you're not tired of wedding talk yet, then you will be after reading this lengthy post! I'm having a lot of fun planning, so look forward to even more posts in the future.
Time Management According to Strengths – This is a staff post by Jordann. All about time management!

Posts on my sister's blog:

Becoming a Personal Trainer – At first she wanted to go into nursing, but after working in healthcare for a couple of years, she has completely changed her mind. This is why it's good to get a job on internship in the field you want to work in before you jump too far in! She now wants to be a personal trainer.
Looking Cute When Working Out On A Budget – It can't be only me and her who like to buy nice athletic clothes, right?
Jamie Eason’s 12 Week Free Plan – My sister is too healthy for me… 🙂

Favorite posts of the week:

Personal Finance Bloggers I Admire Evolving PF – SOMEONE ACTUALLY LIKES ME! 🙂
Churning Credit Cards for Hotel and Travel Rewards on I Heart Budgets
How Do You Define Success? Tackling Our Debt
Benefits of a Crappy Job Eyes on the Dollar
Are You Financially Ready For Kids? Prairie Eco Thrifter
….When You’re Talking in Your Sleep L Bee
5 Ways to Invest in Yourself on Young Adult Money
The Sexiest Thing My Money Has Bought on Plunged In Debt
Learn From Mexican Merchants – Avoid Being a Passive Blogger on Modest Money
I Will Never Retire on Krant Cents

What are your plans for the weekend?

Time Management According to Strengths

January 24, 2013 BY Jordann - 26 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Time management is something that I've struggled with for a long time. I've struggled with it, mostly because it just seemed so easy to everyone else to just go go go all day long.

I'd listen, envious, while people talk about how they would get up an hour or two earlier in the morning to exercise, or get some work done, or just simply enjoy a leisurely breakfast. I've often harboured fantasies about waking up with the sun, pulling on my running shoes, and setting off into the misty morning for a few quick miles before work.

Unfortunately, when the alarm clock jolted me roughly from sleep, I would, consistently, hit the snooze button repeatedly until I'd snoozed away all chance of extra early morning productivity. I simply can't bring myself to leave my cozy, comfy, warm bed in the morning. Nothing could rouse me from my slumber.

I spent a long time lamenting this feature of my behavior, I didn't understand why I couldn't do what came to other people so naturally.

**Finally, I've realized and accepted that at this point in my life, I'm just not a morning person.**

[Read more…]

What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?

January 22, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 84 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

What do virtual assistants do? How did you start with your virtual assistant work? What does a virtual assistant do? How much does a virtual assistant get paid? These are all questions I am asked often. I am definitely not an expert, but I do want to share what I know. My extra income posts seem to be a hit with everyone so far.

If you haven't read them yet, please read a super long summary about my extra income, 75 Ways To Make Extra Money, Ways to Earn Extra Income Part 1, and then of course So You Want to Be a Freelance Writer?

Virtual assisting is something that I recently started doing. It doesn’t comprise a very big percentage of my extra income, but it is still something. I like to be diversified just in case anything does happen to one of my other extra income streams (yes I realize that I am not fully diversified because a lot of my extra income is earned online – just in different ways).

Now even though it does not comprise a very large percent of my income, making some extra money by being a virtual assistant is nice. I can work from home and can see results immediately.

A virtual assistant or freelancer (for the sake of this post, the terms will be interchangeable) helps a business run, all while staying virtual (most likely at home or at their own virtual assistant business). You can be contracted for one project (such as blog design) or it can be a continuing job such as replying to e-mails and comments.

[Read more…]

Wedding Budget – Our Expected Costs

January 21, 2013 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 79 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Wedding budget post about our expected wedding expenses! What you've all been waiting for 🙂 The picture to the left is of the venue we looked at yesterday (Kuhs Farm in St. Louis).

Anyways, happy Monday everyone. I thought I'd mix it up this week and post about our wedding and our wedding budget. I made a post a couple of weeks ago about some of our (ok they're all my ideas, he doesn't care about anything) wedding ideas.

I'm not going to lie, I am so excited to plan an awesome wedding. I am excited for the food, the dress, the venue, the pictures, EVERYTHING! And of course, since I am a personal finance blogger, I have also been thinking about the average cost of a wedding and I've been adding everything up over and over again.

I don't expect anyone to help us pay since we have been together for almost 7 years, and moved out of the homes we grew up in 6 years ago. The average wedding cost over $25,000, which is a scary number. The average cost of a wedding seems to be so expensive!

To read all of my wedding-related posts, click here. Some of my posts include:

[Read more…]

Archives for January 2013

Spending:

Extra Income (does not include salary from our jobs):

Food:

Being healthy:

How's your spending, working out and extra income going?

Posts on my blog:

Posts on my sister's blog:

Favorite posts of the week:

What are your plans for the weekend?

Finally, I've realized and accepted that at this point in my life, I'm just not a morning person.

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**Finally, I've realized and accepted that at this point in my life, I'm just not a morning person.**