I feel like I cheated on Savingadvice.com. I spent the better part of today scrolling the internet reading other people's money blogs. Savingadvice is my one true love and I will always be a lifelong loyalist. It's just that I wasn't getting what I needed to fix a temporary financial need.
Since the Impulsive Purchase I have been swinging back n forth wondering if it was a "Big Mistake, "mini mistake", "good idea" or "GREAT Idea". Depending on the specific circumstances of my day -I swing rapidly around between "Great idea" and "Bad idea". I am craving thai food but my credit card is at the limit for the month and I just spent $10,000 on a down payment last month- so I have no extra cash to use to satiate my thai craving...this Impulsive Purchase was not a very good idea. An hour later I pass by a very pretty Salmon colored house and think about how the Impulsive Purchase would look in that color...buying it might have been a Fun Idea. And then tonight I am counting down the days till we collect rent from it and I can see how the rent compounds and maybe it was a Good Idea.
So I have still not decided...Impulsive Purchase: Best or Worst idea ever? The key to our future wealth or the turning point to losing it all?
I drive myself batty sometimes.
So I went out in search of other peoples experiences. I needed to know- how did their investment properties pay off- (or not pay off)? This search evolved into a more...How am I doing (relative to other bloggers that I found in my age /lifestyle group)? How are my decisions/knowledge/lifestyle measuring up against others? I have my own long term goal- what are other peoples goals...how have their decision to do this that or the other impacted their goals and financials?
I know all these answers can be found here at this blog site. But since I have been blogging here for almost 2 years- I feel almost too close to all of you to be able to see any of your situations objectively. Each blog here is so unique because I know all the decisions and factors that make your situation what it is today. So it's almost incomparable. I needed to go out and find a random guy blogging somewhere and use him as a reference point.
And boy did I learn some things! First off- there is some aggressive blogging out there. You can almost feel the financial frenzy. There are people blogging their net worth every month. I appreciate their blogs, but I myself couldn't get so caught up in writing that my networth is up .03% from last month (especially because I have learned that those tiny losses and gains are zereoed out after a few months). But sometimes you need to read those blogs. To see what they are doing, planning and achieving.
Also I think that some people are better at maintaining their annynimity than I am and they can let it all hang out like that. They can talk about their focus to earn a million dollars in the next 5 yrs, or 10 yrs or one person made $7 million dollars in 7 years! - but they can do that because their blog's sole focus and goal is to achieve this particular objective. Me- I think my blogging style is to just document my life. My own personal interest happens to be personal finance- how people choose to spend the money they make- how their life turns out as a result of their financial decisions- so I enjoy the blogs here at Savingadvice most of all. No one here is particularly "showy", "flaunty" or agressive. No one is looking for the fast track to a high end lifestyle. Everyone is pretty open minded, receptive to ideas and slow and steady. I like that.
But this weekend I needed the other type of blogs. The more focused blogs that simply revolve around a particular financial theme.
I learned...that no one knows yet. No one knows if buying real estate is a great thing or a bad thing. No one knows if investing $2400 a month into retirement will mean you can retire early (I do not invest this amount into my retirement- but I read about a blogger who does.)
Some people are very confident in their decisions. Some bloggers think their method is the track to their sucess (and they have multiple charts to predict it). Some bloggers were very confident and agressive in 2005-2006...and you can actually see them slam on the brakes and re-evaluate EVERYTHING in 2007-2008. And some take the current financial recession as a sign of the times, a "well so I lost 30% of my net worth, so did everyone else" attitude. Others are fighting tooth and nail to get back lost net worth. Some are desperately hanging onto their old system- convinced that it was (is) a good method- in bad times. Others are defeated and suddenly start talking about how money is not everything.
Reading blogs in other areas of the internet- where I am not emotionally invested in the outcome because I dont "know" them (as I know all of you LOL)- was refreshing.
So I learned that no one knows. No one knows if investment properties are a good idea or a bad idea. No one knows if there is any sure-fire method to retiring early. And that makes me feel better. Time will tell if the Impulsive Purchase was good or bad. Right now- today- it's whatever I make of it.
A few blogs I really liked and might continue to follow:
http://frugalzeitgeist.blogspot.com/
http://www.myopenwallet.net
Cheating on you
March 28th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
March 28th, 2010 at 10:59 pm 1269817187
March 28th, 2010 at 11:01 pm 1269817306
March 29th, 2010 at 12:10 am 1269821444
Hope you find a blogger or two who seem to be situations helpfully similar your own, maybe just a step or two ahead so that you can see what might be coming.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:51 am 1269823883
March 29th, 2010 at 12:41 pm 1269866504
Not really.
It's just not that interesting. Even for someone who earns literally $1 million a year(!), 0.03% still comes out to a difference of about $25 each month.
What's the point? Tons of blogs and forums out there deals with these essentially meaningless numbers. I mean, I'm glad they like it, but... who cares, you know?
And even if the numbers are somehow interesting, well, it still lacks soul. I'd much prefer to see these numbers actually MEAN something to someone. Like somebody who got a house and they venturing into a whole new territory of personal and financial life. Or how about resisting their cravings for Thai food?
Speaking of Thai, I've found Pad Thai is such a very interesting subject, because there seems to be so many different variations, right? At the very least, there is the native version and the western version. Even around where I live, I've tried at least 3 different Thai places, and none of them makes their Pad Thai exactly the same! And of them all, I only like one of them so far (western version).
Anyways, in the end, even financial blogs shouldn't be just about the numbers. To me, it's how these numbers apply and affect the people behind the blog that makes it interesting.
March 29th, 2010 at 08:22 pm 1269894144
March 29th, 2010 at 08:26 pm 1269894387
PS You are not cheating. When I am "really into it", I also read other sites.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:13 am 1269908001