Every Sunday I will try to post my “Weekly RollUp” which is a listing of some of my favorite blog posts and news articles from the week that I think SingleIncomeLiving.com readers will enjoy .
1. Frugal Dad @ FrugalDad.com wrote a great article about getting rid of debt. He says the first step is to get angry–to “personalize debt, and then get mad as hell at it”. He explains that debt limits opportunities, especially those of the family. This line struck a chord with me. Ryan and I don’t have any debt except our mortgage. In the spring of this year we got really intense, hunkered down, and quickly paid off our car loans that we had been carrying for 1-2 years. I’m hoping that we won’t have a mortgage by the time we have children, as I’m worried that the mortgage will limit us in what we can do with our children. I don’t want it to become something that is always hanging over us in our decision making for our family. Frugal Dad’s last step of becoming “a debt killing machine” describes that complacency is very dangerous. He’s correct. We’ve become complacent since we paid off our cars. We don’t seem to have the same motivation to pay off the mortgage as we did a few months ago. I guess we need to get angry!
2. J.D. @ GetRichSlowly.org wrote an article based on the Department of Labor’s latest survey on the how the average “Consumer Unit” spends their annual paycheck. Some interesting stats: The average unit is 2.5 persons and makes $63,091 before taxes. The unit spends an average of $49,638 on annual expenses. J.D. breaks it down even further than this. It’s quite an interesting read, but one caveat–the survey was taken before our current economic crisis. Within the next few days I’m going to compare our spending to this survey.
3. Briana @ BargainBriana.com put together three different CVS shopping scenarios for mostly Back-to-School supplies that don’t require coupons. This is great for someone like me, as I’ve been slacking off on collecting coupons for the past few months. Some items that you’ll ultimately get for FREE are pens, filler paper, memo pads, and more! **Back-to-school scenarios are only good at CVS Sun 7/19 through Tue 7/21**
4. The Dallas Morning News had an inspiring article about Lauren Bergmann, a stay-at-home mom who turned a hobby into a very profitable online business. She is in the process of expanding her business further and has a goal of making $100,000 this year. Her story definitely encouraged me to think about how I can help out our family financially when we have children. As Dave Ramsey mentions frequently on his radio show, hobbies are a great way to earn some extra money.
5. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric made some pretty controversial remarks about women who quit work and stay home with their children or women who work less to gain more time with their children. Read the article @ The San Francisco Chronicle and let me know your views.