I Actually Made a New Year’s Resolution
Happy New Year to Everyone!
First, let me start by wishing you all a Happy New Year! Borrow From None is back after a short hiatus for the Christmas holiday…thanks for stopping back. It was a great break and I hope that you and your family had a great end of the year as well!
I do not usually make New Year’s Resolutions
I can’t remember the last year I made a new year’s resolution. I know they are very popular, but I just don’t make them. I guess I’ve always kinda felt it was hokey to make some big "resolution" on December 31st that you know you’ll probably break by January 4th. I guess that’s why I never went for them.
For some reason, however, this year I felt led to make one. Probably it was because I had a resolution that I felt was actually worth keeping (I wonder what percentage of all of the resolutions are to "lose weight" or "stop smoking?").
My 2009 Resolution: Be Generous
I am not a naturally generous person. I think the main reason is that I am somewhat selfish. It’s not something of which I’m proud…I’m just being honest. Also, I am especially not generous with others outside of my family because I’m preoccupied with saving/spending/investing for my family and myself. So, for 2009, I am going to force myself to be generous.
Not only force myself to be generous - but w0rk to internalize that generosity
My wife is a very generous person. Whenever she sees a need, she immediately tries to figure out how she can help meet that need. She always volunteers to take meals to friends. She always wants to buy gifts for other people. She immediately thinks about being generous and then figures out how to make it happen.
To be blunt, I do not think that way. I worry about how being generous will affect me and my family and my finances, etc. So I do feel that this resolution is a good idea for me (and hopefully for others around me) but it will certainly take some effort on my part
So, the first thing I will do to change my resolution from idea to reality is to force myself to be generous. I will keep telling myself, "be generous…it’s ok, be generous." That part is fairly easy. But internalizing that and making generosity a natural response for me…well, I don’t really have a plan for how to make that happen yet. I’ll figure that out later (hopefully). You have any suggestions?
What about you? Are New Year’s Resolutions a part of your January 1st routine? Have you made any good ones this year?
Site Statistics: November 2008
Well, things have pretty much settled back down this month. I am not getting the traffic that I was back in August/September. I am still getting visitors, however, and for that I am quite thankful!
It has been a struggle lately to keep my head above water on this site. I have dropped down from five posts a week to three in the hopes of getting back on track. Alas, I am still quite busy with other projects (that make more $ than blogging currently does) and family life and still haven’t been able to get ahead on this. I will keep trying…maybe next month!!
One exciting thing for BFN is that I am tantalizingly close to hitting 100 RSS subscribers! It jumps around from day to day but I am hoping it will stabilize above 100. Then I can put one of those feedburner dealies that show how many subscribers you currently have (I’ve decided to not post one until I hit triple digits).
Again, I’d like to give a big "thank you" to all of those in the blogosphere that have been referring traffic my way. I appreciate it greatly. Hopefully I am sending traffic back your way as well.
My top 10 referrers (is that a word?) this month:
- Bible Money Matters
- ChristianPF
- Gather Little By Little
- FinansAdrian - Mot rikedom (It’s good he reads English because I surely can’t read Swedish - and I’m not even sure it’s Swedish)
- The Passive Dad
- Spilling Buckets
- Engineer a Debt Free Life
- Free Money Finance
- One Caveman’s Financial Journey
- The Apostle of the Turtle
Top 10 posts for the month:
- Warren Buffet’s 10 Ways to Get Rich
- 45 Ways to Earn Some Extra Money
- Preparing for Black Friday via BlackFriday.GottaDeal.com
- Making Money Spotlight: Using CashCrate to Earn Some Extra Money
- Biblical Financial Lesson from the Book of Acts
- The Bible and The Bard Agree on this Financial Principle
- Politics: An Historic Result
- Is Giving Really that Important?
- Where’s My Bailout?!?!
- The Lesser of Two Evils: Determining Which Loan to Pay off First
Interestingly, most of the most popular posts this month were written months ago. Numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8 are showing great staying power, I guess. Now I just have to focus on knocking them down with better posts…
Amidst the preparations for Christmas and the holidays that mark the end of the year and kick off the beginning of 2009, I hope that you are able to enjoy the last few weeks of 2008.
God bless…
A Twist on the Traditional Christmas Present
This is such a busy and hectic time of the year as we prepare to wrap up 2008. In the midst of the Christmas season, there are so many things going on. One of the more time-consuming (and money-consuming) tasks is, of course, gift shopping. Since our young kids started preschool a few years back, their teachers have been added to our list of people for whom we’re buying gifts.
Giving homemade gifts
In the past, we’ve tried making our own gifts for them to make them a bit more personal and to keep the cost down. One year, for instance, my wife found a great recipe for wholegrain pancakes. She then bought some decorative glass containers and layered the ingredients in them and attached a copy of the recipe. I thought it was a pretty neat idea and it was a little more personal than buying a trinket plus it was less expensive. The trade-off, of course, was that it took much more time to prepare.
Who doesn’t want to get a goat for Christmas?
For the last few years, we’ve taken an entirely different approach for these gifts. We have started buying more "useful" gifts for them like goats, chickens, sheep, blankets, etc (You should see the look on their faces when they see the goat!). Ok, so obviously we don’t actually give any of the animals to the teachers. We purchase them in the teachers’ names to be given to needy people in various parts of the world. The organizations provide gift cards to give to the recipients that inform them a bit about the organization and what was purchased in their name and what benefits it will provide.
There are a number of organizations that utilize these "gift catalogs" to make giving donations more real and tangible. For the past few years, we have been buying these gifts through World Vision’s Christmas gift catalog . We have sponsored a child through World Vision for a number of years, so it was natural for us to buy these gifts through them. Gospel for Asia also produces a gift catalog with the same idea in mind.
Do you think your teacher would like a water buffalo?
We usually allow the kids to pick out what they want to give each of their teachers so it’s a little bit of fun for them too. I actually find it quite interesting to see what they pick ("And why do you want to get a llama in Mrs. X’s name?"). There are other gift options as well. Beyond animals, for instance, World Vision has categories for food, shelter, HIV prevention and AIDS care, health care, education, and others.
Of course, these gifts are much, much more expensive than creating homemade gifts or even giving "normal" gifts. So, though these take a lot less time to purchase, you will probable end up spending more money. We feel it is worth the extra money for a few reasons, however. I really feel that it is a more meaningful gift for the recipients. In fact, we have gotten very good feedback from all of the teachers to which we’ve given such gifts. Maybe I am being naive, but how many mugs does a teacher need to get each year?
What other gift can do as much good for someone who needs it?
Also, I believe this is certainly one of the most useful gifts you can give. You are directly impacting a family’s life somewhere in the world by providing the ability for someone to feed his/her family and earn some money for other expenses and also, if you use one of the Christian organizations, to hear about the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ. They also open up your children’s eyes to the great need that exists in our world and ways that they can start being generous to others.
So, yes, these gifts are more expensive. At the same time, I do feel that they are great gifts to give in honor of someone. They are meaningful and beneficial for a number of reasons. I encourage you to take a look at the catalogs and to read about the impact these organizations have on the lives of people in need around the world.
Photo Credits: RBerteigMusings on an Efficient Afternoon
I love efficiency. I love doing tasks in such a manner as to reduce the overall time it takes or the effort exerted. This manifests itself in a number of different ways depending on if the task in question is a household chore or home improvement project or shopping trip, etc.
I also love accomplishing things. I am a list maker and I feel great when I get to cross items off the list when completed. In fact, if I do something that wasn’t on my list, I will add it to the list and then immediately cross it off to get that feeling of satisfaction! (Do other people do that?)
Anyway, so with those two things in mind, This is what I did one afternoon last week:
- I returned some pillows we had purchased
- I got four new tires put on my wife’s "ivic"
- I had an eye doctor appointment
- I bought some milk
- I bought some compact fluorescent lightbulbs for my dad (he was along for the trip)
- I filled up the car with gasoline
The interesting thing about this day was that all of this took place at the same store . For accomplishment’s sake, I was able to do a ton of things in a very short period of time. For efficiency’s sake, I was able to get them all done very quickly with no extraneous driving around from store to store. I also was able to overlap waiting for the tires to be installed with the eye appointment and shopping.
What has the world come to where you can buy milk, get new tires installed on your car, and get an eye checkup at the same place? Though maybe this is actually more like how shopping used to take place years and years ago when a town would have only a general store to get everything you needed (or at least everything that was sold in a particular town)?
Though I do love efficiency and I do love checking things off my list, it is true that I don’t really love spending lots of money. So, from that standpoint, it was somewhat of a downer of an afternoon as an eye doctor appointment and four new tires are quite expensive nowadays.
Photo Credits: WrotePolitics: An Historic Result
It’s finally over! Well, that is the best part about the election, I guess. I’m not so thrilled about the outcome, but that being said, we have elected our first African-American president and I think that’s a good thing (I probably would have preferred a different first African-American president but that’s not important any longer). I just wonder how long the honeymoon will last. It seems that some people have some pretty unrealistic ideas about what he’s going to do for them like this lady who was probably just caught up in the emotion of the moment but now will be immortalized via this very popular clip (by people like me).
Apparently the Obama campaign has already started planning how to temper some of the enthusiasm that was generated before a backlash begins ("You mean I have to do all that stuff I said I would do?")
The sun did come up again Wednesday morning for conservatives
There is no doubt that the GOP has moved away from the ideals that gave them control of congress and then the white house over the past decade or so. We now have a bigger and less fiscally prudent federal government than eight years ago which is pretty much the opposite of what most conservative voters originally wanted.
The bright side?
In a strange way, I think Tuesday’s result will energize conservatives. My wife has been more involved in this election than ever before - I have never seen her so interested in the process nor have I been either. Another friend I spoke to Wednesday morning is really feeling the pull to get more involved with politics at some level as well.
And there can be no doubt that Republicans were routed by the Democrats this time around. I don’t necessarily think this means we are now a left-wing country. I feel that this election was more about discontent with the current leaders than an embrace of the far left. So, at the party level, I think you’ll see a change in leadership and a return to the ideals of the GOP - smaller government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, etc.
Who did we really elect as our President?
Most conservatives are very concerned about the next few years. Where we head in the near future depends on who we really elected to be our president.
Did we elect the Obama of his past and the democratic primary - a man who is liberal in all areas, embraces big government, redistributing the wealth, is big on social justice, abortions for all, etc.
Or did we elect the Obama of the presidential campaign - a man who will really cut taxes for 95% of working Americans and go through the government with a fine tooth comb to eliminate programs that aren’t working?
That is quite a dichotomy and it will be interesting (and maybe frightening) to see what actually comes to pass. The answer will greatly influence what this country looks like in four years.
The optimistic view
At my most optimistic, I think that he really cares a lot about being popular and well-liked and that would portend following through on some of the moderate/centrist promises he made.
The not-so-optimistic view
On the flip-side, I would guess that if he does veer sharply back to the left, he will not be granted a 2nd term as president. Remember, this is still a center-right country and I don’t think it will tolerate a liberal president and a liberal congress pushing us to the far left.
It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken. — Margaret Thatcher
I feel that a lot of people hear these far, far left-wing ideas (banning all guns, creating a civilian defense force for who knows what purpose, reviving the fairness doctrine, redistributing the wealth, encouraging the courts to enact social justice) and just can’t believe that a reasonable person would really want to do any of them (it must be a product of those mean-spirited attacks by John McCain). If some or most of these things actually come to pass, I think a great number of Americans will be absolutely shocked and Obama and a bunch of liberal congress members will be gone over the next few election cycles (even if they do promise to pay your mortgage and fill up your car with gas)
Ok - that’s it - no more politics! Back to personal finance next week
I could go on and on about this stuff but I will get back to PF. I think I need to find a friend with a political blog to do an occasional guest post and spare you from it! After all this stress and concern surrounding the election, here’s a little reminder for you…
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. Daniel 4:37
Have a great weekend and God Bless America…
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