The Friday Feast ~ the 29th of April

The Friday Feast ~ the 29th of April

The Friday Feast ~ the 29th of April
    The personal finance community is filled with so many talented writers and inspiring families in search of something better out of life than the traditional society-approved plan of buying lots of stuff and retiring in your 60s if you're lucky.

    Here is a look at the best of this week's personal finance blogs.

    In this episode of Friday Feast: Slowly Sipping Coffee, Root of Good, Practical Saver, So Over This, It Pays Dividends, Self Employed Movement, Smart Money Guides, She Picks Up Pennies, Penny Thots and Go Van.

    reading

    Check this out, guys - This weekend marks the one month anniversary of our move into the Airstream. Wow, a month already, and we're still going strong and having fun. Lots more outdoor time. Far less maintenance. Even the dogs are falling into their groove.

    Hot damn, I think this is gonna work! Now, onto the business at hand...

    In the blogosphere, Slowly Sipping Coffee starts us off by discussing how difficult investing on your own actually is. Is it really that scary?

    And elsewhere, check out the road trip that Root Of Good is planning to take later in the year - a road trip to Canada. Then, check out the budget that they are vowing to keep.

    My favorite post of the week

    My favorite post this week comes from Practical Saver who wrote on Monday about six ways to maximize your 401k. Remember, you can't start to consider how to maximize those contributions unless you're making them to begin with, and that's the first step.

    "This seems obvious but there are millions of employees who don’t participate in company provided retirement plans. If you haven’t already, get the application from your Human Resources department and get started," Allan wrote.

    Regardless of how much you contribute, he continued, it's always going to be better than nothing!

    More from the personal finance community

    So Over This talked about the 4 most common scams that people, somehow, keep falling for. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!

    Be sure to check out Thias's post on It Pays Dividends this week about writing our own stories. "Are you going to be fine living an ordinary life? Or are you going to create instances of greatness for yourself?" I'll choose greatness, thank you very much!

    Also, Marc from Self Employed Movement gave the ol' heave ho to video games after realizing they are dead weight in his life. Recognizing a waste of time = win!

    Lastly, over at Smart Money Guides, Jon talks about figuring out exactly how much you're actually spending every year. It might be more than you think!

    Honorable mentions: She Picks Up Pennies talks 30 ordinary days before 30, Penny Thots comes clean about his 5 stupidest recent purchases, and lastly, Go Van discusses how to live debt free in an old school bus. Creative!

    Photo of the week

    I captured this shot of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona the week between Christmas and New Years in 2014. It was about 15 degrees that day, and I can still feel the biting cold.

    Grand Canyon just after Christmas in 2014

    Coming up in the week ahead on ThinkSaveRetire: Next week, I'm talking about life in a two-part blog post that reveals that single solitary moment when I realized that my life...the life that I thought was part and parcel of success in this country, was actually pure life-draining crap. Phew, those were some interesting blog posts to write!

    Thanks for reading, and cheers to another financially productive week ahead!

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    Steve Adcock

    774 posts

    Steves a 38-year-old early retiree who writes about the intersection of happiness and financial independence.