Blogger Showdown: Clever Dude VS Frugal Dad!
J Money over at BudgetsAreSexy.com just posted Blogger Showdown #9: Clever Dude vs Frugal Dad!Head over to check out our answers to J’s questions, and consider voting for me at the end of the article. We don’t win anything other than pride over our reader loyalty, and honestly I wouldn’t feel bad about losing to Jason from Frugal Dad.
About J Money and BudgetsAreSexy.com
If you’ve never read J Money’s articles before, I highly suggest bookmarking his site or subscribing to his RSS Feed. I’m proud to say I can count J Money as a personal friend IRL after meeting him in person at a few PF blogger happy hours and having extensive online chat sessions about blogging and just personal life matters. While he’s only a year younger than me, we look and act like day vs night. He’s energetic, mohawked and totally ADHD, while I’m lazy, balding and, well, just sort of ADHD.
J has also put together a “V.I.P. Newsletter” and is giving away a couple hundred $$ over the next few weeks as prizes for signing up (one winner per week. See the article to find out more). The Newsletter is different than email/RSS updates of his daily articles, and I’m excited to see what he’s put together!
My Comments about the Q&A
I didn’t get to see Frugal Dad’s responses ahead of time, so it’s interesting to see how we compare on things like handling finances in our family.
Problems with our scheduled programming
If you see an article titled “Our Secret to Success: Part Five: Controlling Your Own Destiny” in your feed reader or email, sort of ignore it. It was a draft I’ve been working on for months to round out my “Secrets to Success” series, but since I really have no idea what I want to do “when I grow up”, I’m having trouble finishing it. I was going through my articles to clean up some funky characters and I accidentally published it.
But if you do read it, any suggestions on how I can handle my desire to exit the IT world and find something more rewarding without going into abject poverty?
See Front Pages of 761 Newspapers from across the World
If you’re interested in seeing the front page from hundreds of newspapers from across the world every day, the Newseum, located here in D.C., has a pretty cool flash application. Click here to see front pages of 761 newspapers from 74 countries.
Just put your mouse on a city anywhere in the world and the newspaper headlines pop up. There are links in the top right to create a PDF of the front page or to browse through to the newspaper’s website. Pretty neat.
Actually, if you’re in D.C., go visit the Newseum and you’ll see many of the actual front pages displayed (and updated daily) outside of the building.
How we save money on watching TV
If you search on Google right now for “free tv shows” or the like, you’ll find tons of articles already written about the hoard of free or cheap methods for getting broadcast, cable and internet-only programming streamed to your computer. But here at Clever Dude, I like to talk about myself, so I’m going to outline the methods we use for wasting away our life in front of the TV.
Just a few years ago, all we had was network channels (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS), but in 2007, we were tempted by the Comcast devil and took their offer for “free digital cable”. It wasn’t entirely free as we had to pay the rental fee for the digital box and remote, plus a bit in taxes, but it all amounted to maybe $5 a month in addition to our existing $20/mth bill.
Cable Cost: $25/mth
I want to be clear here though. We don’t have “extended” or “expanded” cable, which normally costs about $35 extra per month. The digital box really only gave us a couple more PBS channels, but the real benefit was OnDemand. The OnDemand provided tons of free shows from channels we otherwise couldn’t access like Discovery, Food, Travel, Science, A&E and even scores of free movies (usually older than 5-10 years). While we were at the whim of the programmers to determine what recorded shows which we could access, we almost always had something fresh we could watch from the lineup. Also, we could pause/FF/rewind shows similar to a DVR (but it wasn’t a DVR so we couldn’t record live shows).
How much did I earn on credit card rewards in 2009?
I recently upgraded from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2010
Here’s how it broke down:
- Chase Platinum Visa: $391.18 (I’ve considered trying out the Chase FreedomSM though)
- Discover More(SM) Card: $100.00
- Citibank: $57.01
- Discover Business Card: $13.00
- Pentagon Federal Visa Platinum: $3.03 (just got the card in December, but it’s my new favorite card)
Total Earned in 2009: 564.22
Wow, that’s a lot of cash back for buying things I was already going to buy. And the cool thing? I didn’t have to spend a penny in interest to any of these card companies! Because we pay off our balance in full each month on all our cards, we never get hit with interest on our balance. It’s certainly one benefit of being debt free!
Now I will admit that I don’t really try to optimize our spending based on the categories on each card, but I do try to remember which card pays the highest percentage in our common categories. For instance, I used my Chase card for gas purchases (3%) except when Discover offered 5% during its rotating categories periods, and now I use the PenFed card since it offers 5% on gas all the time. But sometimes I forget the Discover categories, or we go somewhere that should be covered in their 5% category, but they don’t take Discover. I don’t plan my purchases around my cashback options, but I do consider the options.
How do you use your rewards cards and how much did you earn last year?
Free download of David Bach’s new book (today only)
Today, January 4th, you can download a free copy of David Bach’s new book Start Over, Finish Rich: 10 Steps to Get You Back on Track in 2010
CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE COPY OF “Start Over, Finish Rich: 10 Steps to Get You Back on Track in 2010″. (Sorry, the offer has expired)
The press release for the book is below:
Said David Bach, “My goal with Start Over, Finish Rich is to help millions of Americans to bounce back from the recession and regain belief in themselves and their future, both personally and financially. I’m excited to be partnering with WalletPop to bring consumers the encouragement, tools, and information they need to get back on the road to wealth in 2010.”
Designed to be read in a couple of hours, Start Over, Finish Rich offers readers a powerful, take-action plan that spells out the ten most crucial steps that Americans can take to put a secure financial future squarely back in reach, including getting out of debt, fixing credit, rebuilding retirement savings, automating finances, and rebuilding with real estate. The book is published by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group at Random House, Inc.
David Bach is donating $1 for each copy of Start Over, Finish Rich sold in 2010 (up to $20,000) to charity: water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. His donation will go towards sponsoring a freshwater well and latrines at a school and will serve 1,000 students.
Carnival of Clever Dude 2009
Many of you will be glad when 2009 has gone, with hopes of a wondrous and prosperous new year in 2010. I, on the other hand, had a pretty good year. However, it doesn’t quite feel like it, but I’ll explain why.
I started this site in June 2006, but I didn’t really get it going until January 2007. In 2007, I wrote 537 articles. I was on a roll! You can check out the Carnival of Clever Dude 2007 for the highlights from that year. I finished the following year (2008) with 447 articles.
But in 2009, I only wrote 147 articles, not counting this one. I hit a wall, and it’s not because I ran out of things to say. Every day I thought up a new idea for an article. The problem was gaining the focus and the motivation to sit down and write it out. The one biggest culprit I have to blame, other than myself, is graduate school. I basically finished my degree this month (December), but doubling up on classes, mixed with all my other obligations, has ultimately burned me out.
Let’s see if 2010 gets any better. Hopefully you’ll all stick around to find out 
2009 was a Financial Success for Us
I didn’t talk about our finances in the Carnival of Clever Dude 2008, but I decided this is a good place to do so. This past year was a big success for our financial life. Here’s some highlights:
- We paid off our non-mortgage debt! In May I paid off my truck, then paid off the last of my student loan in November. However, since we were working on our debt for so long, the final bill payment felt rather anti-climactic. I was so caught up in finishing my degree that it just felt like any other payment. I still don’t think it’s sunk in that all we have left is our mortgage, but all that extra money each month is certainly sinking in.
Get your ING Direct $25 New Account Bonus
I just loaded up on some more $25 ING Direct new account referral links, so if you don’t have an Orange Savings account yet, click through and get your $25 bonus with a minimum $250 initial deposit! The linked page gives more information about the deal.
Clever Dude and his bride started with $113,000 in consumer debt and in just 3 short years, it's gone!