Open Source Blogging

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Eugene Yiga of Varsity Blah.

Mind, body, heart, and soul: These four elements make us who we are. In order to fully explore our potential we need to constantly nurture all aspects of our lives. It’s not just about being “well-rounded” or balanced; it’s about being anchored in what really matters. And with another year already upon us, now seems as good a time as any to start making some serious change.

The Mind

Everything begins in the mind. Every skyscraper, every painting, and every custom-made Italian suit were once ideas in someone’s … Continue Reading

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently. Here are some articles that include tips for new homeowners, quite a few of whom have written to me recently with questions.
Reflections On Being A New Homeowner
18 … Continue Reading

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, personal productivity, or entrepreneurship book.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’m a huge fan of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. That one simple volume (which I identified as one of the ten books that changed my life) pretty much transformed how I organized my time, moving me from an unorganized slacker who had difficulty managing just a tiny apartment, a job, and a dating relationship into a person who managed a full time job, … Continue Reading

Over the last few weeks, I have been reflecting on how many members of my rather close extended family are either near high school graduation or are in college right now. They have so many great opportunities ahead of them in the next few years - and so many chances to botch things, too. Stephen, Brittany, Robert - these are some of the stupid things I did in college that I wound up regretting financially for … Continue Reading

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

I have a secret.

But I’m not sure if I should tell you.

I mean, it pretty much lets me do whatever I want. I can overcome towering odds. I can keep going when all I feel like doing is throwing in the towel. I can defeat the most terrifying of fears.

I bet it could do the same for you… if only you knew what it was.

Actually… it’s kind of embarrassing. It’s about my underwear.

When I wear red underwear, I can do anything.

Seems a little silly, doesn’t it? I mean, … Continue Reading

After writing this, I’m pretty sure that this article will stir up some potentially intense comments. I encourage disagreement with my take on this situation - just keep it polite towards me and especially other commenters.

For those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, on February 10, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act comes into effect. One of the major changes that this program will bring into play is a mandate that everything sold for children 12 and younger will have to be tested for lead and phthalates, and anything that isn’t tested (or that fails) … Continue Reading

JPG Magazine is dead. That’s a bummer because, as TechCrunch wrote this morning, it was a radical idea in publishing: one that used crowd-sourced data to serve the magazine’s readers.

There were a few problems here:

1. They never got a large enough following to make a business viable. That’s because book stores are going away and the ones that are left are not willing to increase the shelf space to magazines. Tim O’Reilly talked about this in the interview I did with him a couple weeks back for FastCompanyTV. To make it in media you’ve gotta be where … Continue Reading

2008 was the second full year of existence for The Simple Dollar. Over the course of the year, I posted some 700 articles - some good, some bad, and some ugly. Below, I tried to pick out most of the good ones to create something of an anthology for 2008. Hope you enjoy it! (By the way, here’s 2007’s anthology).

January
The Basics: Eight Tactics To Use When You’re Just Starting To Turn Things Around
The One Month Coupon Strategy: A Really Clever Way to Make Coupons Worthwhile
Online Personal Finance Analysis Tools: … Continue Reading

Between Christmas and New Year’s, we’re taking a look at five common New Year’s resolutions that people often adopt for their finances, evaluate some of the traps that people fall into with regards to that resolution, and come up with some real actions that can turn a challenging New Year’s resolution into a success.

I can’t even tell you how many times I offered up some variation of this resolution at the turning of the year. So many times, I pledged to give an intense effort toward launching my … Continue Reading

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently. Here are some ideas on New Year’s resolutions from years past on The Simple Dollar.
How to Define and Stick To a Successful New Year’s Resolution, Financial or Otherwise… Continue Reading