It’s Time To Read My Electric Meter Again

Well, it’s that time of the year again. The time to read my electric meter and send in the results to the electricity company.

I always feel like I’ve used too much. But in actuality, I use well below the average amount of electricity that a household my size (1 person, 50m²) uses during one year. (If you’re wondering how I know this, then it’s because my electric company has charts and graphs on their webpage that the costumer can compare one’s electricity usage with. I’m a blend between a geek and a frugalista in that I actually spend a good amount of time comparing myself to those charts and graphs of average electricity usage. Geez, I should really get off the internet more :p ) 

I also think I used a bit less electricity this last year (2010) compared to the year before (2009) because this past year I’ve had a 9-5 job, so I’m only home in the evenings, whilst in 2009 I was home ALL THE TIME - 24 HOURS A DAY because I was writing my university thesis. So obviously, I would have had to have used less electricity this last year (2010) because I’m simply out of the apartment 8 HOURS A DAY. There’s got to be a cut in the electricity bill there.

But you never know, the price of electricity has increased during this past year (it does so every year at the moment!), so what I’ve saved in actual electricity usage, will probably be eaten up by the price increase. We’ll see. You’ll probably hear all about it because I’ll most likely be publishing a post about my electricity bill, when it arrives.

But here’s hoping that it’s a little less than last year. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. :)

RE-BRANDING: Transitioning Your Blog When You’ve Come To A Different Place In Your Life

When I started this money blog I was a college student. I had 2 years left of college (grad school), I had a part-time job, I was accumulating student loans, I was saving, saving, saving – oh yeah, and the times were good. I started this blog during the summer of 2008. It wasn’t until autumn that year that the global financial meltdown began, and the times-they-were-a-changing.

Now, a number of things have changed. I’ve since graduated (written my thesis and gotten my Masters degree), I’m working full-time, I’m in the process of paying back my student loans – and the current times are, well, not too good, to say the least.

 

I “branded” my blog back then both in blog directories, comments, meta tags, etc. as a “student-money-blog”. As you can see from the sidebar of this blog, I still have remnants from that time. For example the entire link list titled: “Links To Money Saving Tips For College Students”. There was a reason why that was placed there. But now it just seems a bit out of place. 

 

 

BLOGS THAT DIDN’T MAKE (OR HAVE DIFFICULTY MAKING) THE TRANSITION

Broke Grad Student was a blog that I loved to read and followed vigorously back then. But as you can see from his header - he crossed out the word “student” a while back – that he had difficulty transitioning from a student-money-blogger (which was a good, profitable and exciting niche) to a working-man-money-blogger. You could tell from his last dozen posts that he was struggling – to find ideas & the motivation to write about something that he wasn’t a part of anymore, namely, college life, and that he was more interested on occasion in writing about this new and exciting time in his life, namely, as a young, ambitious man beginning in the work force and his experiences and observations here within.

Ultimately, he abandoned the blog completely. And the last post was made on September 1, 2009.

There are 2 other noteworthy student-money-blogs that I followed back then were Broke-Ass Student and The Frugal Law Student. The Frugal Law Student is still posting, but, the posts are far and wide apart. While Broke-Ass Student (Jennifer) has in the meantime become entirely debt-free and so decided to abandon her blog. Her last post was on September 10, 2009.

 

TOPICAL (THE NICHE) TRANSITIONING

When you transition from one time in your life to another, your blog naturally transitions with you, however, the topics of your posts change and so do your keywords. This can be a bit difficult, because you are suddenly veering away from your old niche and into a new, different, perhaps more competitive niche.  As you are able to see from the sidebar of this blog, I still have artifacts from that old time, and that my blog is very much still in a phase of transition.

 

RE-BRANDING AND KEYWORD BACKLINK-BUILDING (AGAIN)

I’ve submitted this blog back then to multiple blog directories, however the prominent keywords back then for this blog were student, college, money, blog, savings, etc. To re-brand this blog today I would probably go with keywords like work, employment, money, debt, … You get my drift? All of a sudden my blog topic has changed, my blog direction has changed, and I still get some visitors who “mistakenly” visit my site through my old keywords like “college/student/thesis/university- savings”. Poor them.  ;) I would need to build backlinks with my new relevant keywords again, again. :)

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSITIONING

Most importantly, I think, is the psychological aspect of one’s blog transitioning. Had I started this blog as a clear-cut debt-reducing blog with well-defined goals back in the day, I think my debt reduction would go faster. However, I’m still in the student-loans-savings mindset on this blog, but I’m working really hard to try and transition it to the aforementioned type-of-blog. But old habits die hard. And as you can see, if I’m nostalgic enough to keep (now) non-relevant links in my sidebar from my old niche just for sentimental reasons, then you know that I’m the kind of person that has trouble with quick transitionings ;) But slowly, but surely this blog will change into a “working girl’s” blog from being a “student blog” – in natural synchronization with my own inner psychological transitioning in real life.

 

LAST THOUGHTS

There are, however, plenty of blogs out there who have made successful transitions like Dooce or Blogging Away Debt. As well as there have been many blogs that have struggled and failed. My blog, however, is still within the Personal Finance blogging niche, so my transition is of course far smaller, and the effects above are undoubtedly exaggerated when it comes to my blog, but I felt the need to blog about this issue, because I feel a concrete shift in my mindset (in real life) and in my goals for this blog.

 

Thanks for reading! And if you have any thoughts, you’d like to share, then do feel free to do so in the comments section. I love receiving comments, so by all means, shoot one my way! :)

Pay Day

So it was pay day on Tuesday. Hence I’m writing this post today to give myself a better overview of my money situation.

Income after taxes: 10,768.46 kr. ($1,957.90)

Amount left after the fixed bills are paid (not including electricity, phone bill, public transportation, et.al.):  4,229.56 kr. ($769)

Snowflaking toward debt: 500 kr. ($90)

Snowflaking toward savings: 500 kr. ($90)

Budgeting for presents this Christmas: 850 kr. ($154.50)

Buffer: 300 kr. ($54.50)

Week 1: 400 kr. ($72)

Week 2: 400 kr. ($72)

Week 3: 400 kr. ($72)

Week 4: 400 kr. ($72)

Week 5: 400 kr. ($72)

This post probably makes more sense to me than to any of my readers. But I really needed to break it down in the above manner. For my own sake. This probably isn’t the most exciting post, so feel free to browse around my sidebar and my archives for more informative posts. This post was, admittedly, solely for me and my overview. And for my peace of mind.

30 Easy Ways To Save Money - Day 3: Brown-Bagging Lunch

So over a year ago I started this blogging series called 30 Easy Ways To Save Money – Am I Doing All Of Them???, that tackled Dumb Little Man’s blog post 30 Easy Ways to Save Money (and No, you are not doing them all!) and the 30 different savings tips that were presented there. I’m a huge fan of serial posts, so I wanted to dedicate a blog post for each individual entry on the list. The time has come for no. 3 – or Day 3, as I happened to call it back then. I had it in my head that I wanted to do this over a 30 day period. Obviously, *ahem* it’s been a little longer than that ;) But anyways, I’ll go ahead and continue this blogging series, as I think they are immensely fun.

A few notes before we begin:

• The original and first post 30 Easy Ways To Save Money – Am I Doing All Of Them??? was written on April 21, 2009.
• The second post entitled 30 Easy Ways To Save Money - Day 2: Coffee was written, as far as I can see on my blogger dashboard, on April 22, 2009.

 

So the logic behind the Day 1 and Day 2 was pretty much there at the beginning :)

 

I’m however going to disappoint you people who are expecting a daily posting on this series, as I am not of yet, a daily blogger. Due to time constraints I currently only blog 1-2 times a week. This blog is, of yet, just for pleasure, not for pay, so I’m taking my time and taking it easy with all my postings. I’m thoroughly stressed out enough in my real life as it is, I don’t want my blog to contribute in any way to that as well. So don’t expect Speedy Gonzales when it comes to this blogging series. It’ll probably take a while :) But anyways, I’m happy. And I’m enjoying it. So that’s the most important part.

 

On we go.

 

This is Day 3 on my series “30 Easy Ways To Save Money – Am I Doing All Of Them??? based on Dumb Littles Man’s list of 30 different ways to save money.

 

• 3. “Brown bag lunch at least a few days a week: Lunch times are great opportunities to network and make connections that could improve your career growth. So unless there is a common eating area for brown baggers, you may choose to limit brown bagging lunch to three days each week. Find a balance between saving some money and making the connection. In my case, I take my lunch with me 2-3 times a week and eat out the rest of the time.”

Quoted from original post at: Dumb Little Man, Photo: brown bagging.

No one knows this, but I actually brown-bagged my lunch for a while at first when I began my new job. I eventually reverted, because of the very reason that was stated in the above. Lunch for us at my job was centered around the in-house cafeteria. A lot of socializing and networking and old-fashioned cameraderie would take place revolving around the in-house cafeteria, and for a young just-out-of-university newly hired employee who was ambitious and driven, this was unfortunately too good of an opportunity to pass up. BUT!!! I consiously have made this decision, so I am well aware of the fact, that I have to make up for it in another area of my life – so I only eat bread for dinner. My daily hot meal is eaten at lunch at the cafeteria, and when I get home in the evenings I eat bread with some meat slice or spread. That’s my dinner. So I’m completely aware of the fact that, if you have to choose one thing and make that a priority (for your career), then something else must go. Which I’m fine with.

 

So there you have it my thoughts in this particular saving tip. This wasn’t actually how I wanted this blog post to go, as I would rather have taken the specific saving tip to heart, and tried it out in my real life, so that I could save. However, on this particular post, I ‘ve had to put my foot down, and state that I’ve already done this, but that it however was not the right way for me to go in this particular stage in my life. I however have made compensations in another area of my life - to even out the fact.

 

So there you go, my Day 3 on this blogging series of mine. I look forward to the next time :) See you there.

December 2010 Goals

“It’s good to have your [financial] goals written down so you see them everyday and don’t lose focus on your ultimate objectives.”

I read this in a comments section, and my, doesn’t it ring true.

 

 

Keeping in that spirit, I’m listing my financial goals for December 2010 right here. I’m going to keep them small, so that I know that I can easily accomplish them. Because there’s nothing worse than setting unrealistic goals for yourself and then failing at them. There’s nothing more demotivating than that. I know, because being the overly ambitious soul that I sometimes can be I often have a tendency to fall into this trap of setting too high goals (that were unrealistic to begin with) and failing -and then blaming myself afterwards for it. Not a very good, motivating factor. So I’ll start small now and then build this one up.

 

December 2010 Financial Goals

• Pay $100 towards reducing my debt
• Put away $100 towards savings

 

That should do it for now. These amounts, by the way, have already taken into account the the Christmas-presents-factor in my budget for December ;) So no worries :)

Saving Challenge Day # 5

Saving Tip # 5: Savings container for your spare change
Many of us grew up with piggy banks but later on abandoned the concept again. I know I did because I somehow stopped believing that those small amounts of coins could really buy me my heart's expensive desires. However on Thriftyfun.com people who are using this technique can be the first ones to tell both you and me the large items they've bought (a vacation or a new sofa) or the surprising amounts they've saved (anywhere between $150-$950) just using this simple tip.

So anything goes. A new piggy bank or an old jar. Just do it.

Save your spare change in a container and empty it out into a savings account every year. You'll soon see how a lot of small amounts accumulate into larger ones.

So this is my savings tip for the day. I've got to go find myself an old and sturdy jar now. See you tomorrow.

Saving Challenge Day # 1

Saving Tip # 1: Turning down the heat

I love the warmth and to be nice and snug during the winter. However, I realized that if I turned all my heating down just half-a-notch in every room, and instead wore two pairs of socks and warmer clothes, I could be saving a noticable amount a year on heating alone.


So this is what I'm doing today.