jurvetson

We opened up the swimming pool this past weekend, so summer should be right around the corner.  All we need now is for the weather to cooperate.  It feels more like April than June.  I spent a couple days scrubbing the winter cover and water bags, and yesterday I was walking like Quasimodo.  I know, wah-wah-wah.  I must be feeling my age!  Here’s some good reading from the past week:

Brett at The Art of Manliness shows us how to make our lawn look like Wrigley Field.  He talks about how the way the grass is bent determines the striped or checkerboard pattern that you see at major league stadiums.

Trent at The Simple Dollar tells us to prepare our important information for a disaster.  This is just an excellent post on how not to be caught flat-footed in an emergency.

Peter at Bible Money Matters doesn’t want us to let our emotions to cloud our judgment.  You can get yourself in quite a predicament by letting feelings get in the way.

Scott H. Young thinks that consistency is an overrated virtue.  I agree.  Being consistently bad is never a good thing, so try something different.

Flexo at Consumerism Commentary informs us that our house is not a good investment.  He talks about the benefits of renting, and that buying a house doesn’t make sense for everyone.

Ali at Dumb Little Man wants us to mono-task to work more effectively.  I’ve always thought multitasking allowed me to do a bunch of things in a mediocre fashion.  I’ll leave multitasking to my computer.

Nickel at Five Cent Nickel wants to know how large our emergency funds are.  I keep about 10 months worth of expenses in laddered CDs.  If you don’t have an emergency fund, please read Nickel’s post.

In a guest post at My Two Dollars, Cameron tells us to create a gold-laying goose.  He tells us to create passive income from the “goose” (assets), and then “live on the eggs.”

Tough Money Love wants us to feel wealthy on a middle-class income by paying our bills at the beginning of the month.  He makes the case that peace of mind is worth the cost of paying bills before they are due.  It’s a strong case.

Kevin at No Debt Plan says anything worth doing requires sacrifice.  He lists his goals, and reminds himself why he’s sacrificing now for future rewards.

Jonathan at Awake at the Wheel wonders if gifted and talented is a life sentence.  He talks about the differences between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, how the fixed “gifted and talented” mindset is more limiting than a growth mindset that rewards effort.

David at Simple.Organized.Life gives us 10 ways to simplify your life starting today.  There are some great lifehacks in there.

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• Frugal Cesspool Maintenance Photo by AnyaLogic Those of you with a weak stomach might want to skip this post.  Every three years, we have our cesspool serviced.  I know, thanks for sharing, Enrique.  We have a few thousand gallons of "stuff" pumped out, and about 25 gallons of sulfuric acid added to......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Corporate Re-Org Edition tcp909 My company is going through yet another reorganization in order to "rightsize" and position itself better in the marketplace.  Can layoffs be far behind?  Well, I don't worry about layoffs, as I 've alluded to in the past.  On a cheerier note, here are some good posts that......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Chainsaw Massacre Edition Photo by lancefisher No, that's not me in the picture.  But I did take the chainsaw out this week, and cleaned up the look of the website a bit.  I got rid of the big, ugly ad in the sidebar, and reduced the amount of categories.  Hopefully this will......
• 5 Things to Know About Social Security Photo by alan(ator) Yahoo! Finance recently published a guide to the five most common questions about Social Security benefits.  You can read the original article by clicking on the following link: What You Need to Know About Social Security Given all of the doubt that the entitlement program will......
• Corporate Barbarian Links: Sports Physical Edition My son had his sports physical this week.  Two doctors had to accommodate hundreds of high school athletes.  Needless to say, the wait was a long one.  I waited in the car, and a baseball game on the car radio would have passed the time, but the Yankees were......

• Sunday Money Madness: Money and Frugalness Hello and welcome to the Money and Frugalness edition of the Sunday Money Madness Roundup. Several categories are presented below to help break up the collection of weekend reading links. Pull up a seat, grab your coffee and peruse to your heart's content. Save Money | Frugal Tips: Digerati Life......
• How to Never Have to Borrow a Dime In Your Life When people go out to buy a new car, major appliance, or other expensive purchase, more often than not they use the store's financing options or throw the purchase on their credit card to pay for their purchases. It's very rare that people pay cash for such purchases now of......
• Ask me anything - The Answers Photo by: goldberg About 2 weeks ago, I gave my readers a chance to ask me any question they wanted. I ended up receiving more than nine different questions. I would really like to make this an ongoing series, so if you have a question you would like to......
• Do You Really NEED it? Or Just Want It? Do We Really Need That? My wife and I were recently talking about how we need to get a new TV in our bedroom. With the digital switchover happening in 2009, we have two options to consider. First we could buy a digital to analog converter box for about $10......
• Adjustable Life Insurance Adjustable life insurance is sometimes referred to as "universal life" insurance. It's a permanent life insurance, meaning that some of the premium you pay is invested. The investments help you grow value. Adjustable life insurance features: Death Benefit - when you purchase an adjustable life insurance policy, you select......