It looks like that GeoCities is closing it’s doors.  [I didn't even know they were still around!]

To those who remembers GeoCities back in the day, they provided free website hosting. All of the sites that were hosted by GeoCities were organized by “neighborhoods” depending on what the site niche was about.

Geez, I remember hosting some videogame site back in the day.  Ahh the memories… what’s interesting is that GeoCities pretty much setup what we call Blogs nowadays.

They apparently were bought out by Yahoo! and long story short, Yahoo! ran the service into the ground by changing the entire GeoCities environment by adding premium services and getting rid of the “community”.  Since the economy has been directing a lot of financial hurt as of late, I’m sure Yahoo! would like to stop the bleeding by closing this service up.

Here’s more information regarding the GeoCities closure: http://bit.ly/geocitiesclosed

What is an Impulse Buyer and why do they make Impulse Purchases?

According to Wikipedia:

An impulse purchase or impulse buy is an unplanned or otherwise spontaneous purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse purchaser or impulse buyer.

So now you know what that means, how many of you guys are impulse buyers?  I’m pretty sure a majority of you are.  It’s human nature and a lot of marketing!

I used to be so bad, I’d go into Fry’s Electronics and leave with some random electronic device or goto Foot Locker and pick up the latest Jordans. I racked up a ton of debt in impulse purchases when I was in college it was nuts now that I look back on it! I can now go out, have my wallet filled with cash and credit cards, go walk through the mall and not buy a thing.

Let’s do some quick math with my previous spending binges so you have a better understanding:
Monthly Jordan Purchases: $120-$180
Electronic Purchases: $100-$200

Let’s say we go with the averages:
@ $300/mo for Shoes/Electronics Yearly Cost: $3600

Minimum:
@ $220/mo for Shoes/Electronics Yearly Cost: $2640

Maximum:
@ $380/mo for Shoes/Electronics Yearly Cost: $4560

Let that sink into your head for a bit….

Are you ready to listen now?

There are TONS of ways to approach this.

The way I personally do it is by asking myself “Do I really need this?” and “Will I be still be using it in the next 6 months?”.  If they meet the criteria, then I’ll go through with the purchase. Telling yourself “I deserve it” or “I can’t live without it” are the worst excuses you can give yourself.  I have a collection of electronics I no longer use and my Jordan collection still stands, at the same time I don’t have to buy shoes for a long time.

You can try using a list.  Before you go out for the day, write down a list of things you NEED to buy and go do your errands.  I live and die by my list.

I also keep a budget aside for “toys” and “entertainment” so if I feel like spending, I’ll go buy it guilt free. If you don’t have any kind of budgeting setup, better get started!

Or another way of looking at it is, add up all of those purchases you made in the past year and see how much value it’s worth to you now. Not worth much when it’s piled up in your closet or garage is it?

If you’re the worst of the worst… take your Credit Cards, chop em’ up, or freeze them in a block of ice!

It’s all about discipline.  Make the changes you need. If you want out of debt, you’re going to have to make a ton of sacrifices.  Sell all the old crap you’re no longer using! If you have a goal to buy a house, a car, or go on a lavish vacation, make that your motivation to save up.

ps. I would’ve used a picture of a woman, but then I would’ve gotten a lot of heat from women out there. Enjoy!

I look at the same time frame now and I’ve spent $1k less!

Now this includes a raise in salary and putting more money into savings too, so I’ve probably saved a lot more than that.

Don’t you find it interesting when you go over your expenses and see how your spending habits are? It’s puzzling to see where you spend your money and ask yourself why and how did it end up there. Despite of being in a recession/depression (whatever you want to call it nowadays) you can still spend for the luxuries you enjoy! You just have to know how to save and spend wisely.

Well what do you mean spend for luxuries and still save?

I like to do a lot of things, which means I have to spend money to enjoy them. If you really want to do something, you do it.  So I wanted to save more money.  Sacrifices had to be made, but I can still have fun!

I’ve cut back on my “entertainment” and “hobby” expenses, which include going out to the club/bar ($40 a night) and snowboarding ($150 a trip). Since I’ve been cutting back on that, I’ve actually reallocated the money spent on those activities to either travel, put more into savings, or put it into my business.

I’ve also scaled back on eating out as well. I love to dine at fancy restaurants; can’t help it, it’s just something I like to do. Who wouldn’t love to dine on a steak and lobster meal every now and then or maybe have a fancy salad for lunch.  Yea.. I was feelin’ the pinch on this too. So I had to make some sacrifices on it as well..  make your own meals and eat in!  On the plus side, it teaches you how to be a better cook too!

Money saved from cutting back can go to doing more fun things or getting that “toy” you’ve sought after for sometime.

Now what do I do with all this extra money and maintain it?

This is where it gets fun… get an Online Savings account (or a regular one). Doesn’t matter with who you sign up with. Just find one you like, especially one with a good interest rate (it’s really low right now.. I know it sucks).  ING Direct gives you $25 if you sign up with them and if I refer you I get like $5 bucks, so if you’re interested just drop me your email address.

So what the heck do I with this thing after I sign up?

Put money into it of course!  I have mine setup to take $25 out of my checking account on a weekly basis.  I call this account my “fun” account; i’m putting $100 a month into savings. Big deal it’s just $100! Look at this way, $100/month equates to $1200/year! Of course it’s a big deal, when you’re going to splurge on a cool toy or do something “fun” just pull it out of this account.  This is so you’re not spending it once your paycheck comes in.  Pay yourself first!

Be realistic when setting up financial goals for yourself. I was pretty optimistic myself, but when you look at how the money grows it becomes substantial. Maybe I’ll try saving up for that trip to Australia or London next year…

Cheers!

I am a big supporter of Firefox add-ons, not only because they make the browser look all nice and pretty, but it helps the overall experience when browsing the web.

I can show you how to get from this:

Standard Look

To this:

Simple and Clean!

You can obviously see that I’ve modeled it to Apple’s Safari Browser and since I need Firefox for my everyday use and all, I thought I’d duplicate it.

So let’s start by hiding the unecessary toolbars that’s eating up the nice real estate.  This can be done by disabling all Toolbars, (ie. Bookmarks, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Google, Yahoo, etc.) as they take up majority of the space.  Disable the Status Bar at the bottom as well, unless you have add-ons that need the toolbar.  This can be all done by navigating to the View menu.

Next, you can start by downloading the following add-ons and I’ve included a short description of how each one works.

Fission
Embeds the progress bar into the Address Bar, a-la Safari style.

Stop-or-Reload Button
Merges the the Stop and Reload button into one useful button!

Hide Menubar
One of my favorites, it hides the Menubar! Press Alt to reveal it.

And one more tip…

Remember how Firefox 2’s address bar turns yellow when accessing an ‘https://’ site? If you haven’t noticed by now you’ll see that they removed that feature and put the tiny lock into the Status Bar instead.  Since I don’t use the Status Bar, why not return the ol’ yellow bar back?  I thought I’d link back to the this tip from Lifehacker.com. Click the link below for the directions.

http://lifehacker.com/396582/turn-firefox-3s-location-bar-yellow-at-https-urls

That’s pretty much it for cleaning up the browser.

In the next part, I’ll include the tools that I use to help me with productivity.

Happy Friday! PEACE!