I’m going to my very first funeral today. It’s actually a very strange experience for me. I’m still too young to have much wisdom, but one thing I realize more and more is that life is a marathon and not a sprint. There is so much you can accomplish in a lifetime without having to be some sort of superstar. As long as you live each day with a purpose in mind, one day you’ll look back and be amazed at all the things you have accomplished. The key is simply to keep moving forward.

So I ask you: Are you moving forward? Are you closer to your goals this month than last month? If not, why not?

Currently, my main goal is to achieve our dream future. We are definitely closer this month than last, but not as much as I could have. I need to start setting monthly entrepreneurial goals again.

Due to the increasing needs of this site, I have been upgrading to a new server over the weekend. It has been taking longer than expected. Because of the way the internet works, there are currently two copies of my site on the internet right now – one on the old server and one on the new server. Depending on where you are located, you will be seeing one or the other.

The side effects of this are that you may leave a comment on the “old” server, and it will disappear when you eventually get redirected to the new servers. Posts also might appear and disappear. The dust should all settle within the next 24 hours. I have been monitoring the e-mails on both my old and new servers, so everything should be okay in that respect. Thanks for your patience.

I have never been a very neat person. Having a bigger house is not a good thing for me. I swear the amount of junk we have has doubled since we started living in a house with a basement!! Given that we are also doing an inter-state move in less than 4 months, I really need to get rid of this junk. Because of this, I’ve been noticing a lot of other articles that related to simplifying your life:

The Zero Inbox – Here, the idea is to have nothing in your e-mail Inbox. Nothing! The second you get the e-mail you either answer it, delete it, or file it away appropriately. 43 Folders has a whole series about this method. I think I have over 1,000 messages in my blog e-mail Inbox alone. 😛

Buy Nothing For A Year – A group of people, called The Compact (see their blog and Yahoo Group, are pledging not to buy any new products of any kind (from stores, web sites, etc.) for all of 2007. They wish to “counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture.” and simplify their lives. Instead, they borrow, barter, or buy used. (I think food and medicine are okay.)

Having Zero Impact – What if you went further, and led a life with the goal of having zero impact on the environment? For the couple interviewed in this New York Times article “The Year Without Toilet Paper”, it means “eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.” This means no cars, no subway, no toilet paper, and barely any electricity. I’m sorry, but I need my Charmin, dude…

While I don’t necessarily want to go to any of these extremes, I do feel I need to consciously choose to live a more simple life and let go of my pack-rat tendencies. I’ve felt this way before, though, so I know it won’t be easy.

You may be curious as to how I keep track of my net worth updates. It’s actually highly manual and nothing fancy. I simply log into Yodlee account aggregation via Bank of America’s MyPortfolio and copy-n-paste the appropriate balances into this simple Excel spreadsheet file. Then I make a screenshot and post it online. This way, it only takes a few minutes – I don’t have to log into 12 different websites, I have a permanent copy for my own records, and I don’t have to write any HTML.

The net worth progress bar on the top right of this page is also made manually with a graphics program (I’ve migrated from Microsoft Paint to Macromedia Fireworks). If you are looking for something automatic for your own site, try this progress bar image maker or run a search for “percentage bar javascript”. Hope that helps!

NCN shares a list of things he actually does to save money. Maybe you can pick up a few ideas.

If you are looking for more about online lending at Prosper, Lazy Man is starting his Prosper Week. He started by addressing some parts of my Prosper Review.

Mighty Bargain Hunter has a multiple-part review of the book Debt Is Slavery and how stuff will imprison you. It’s amazing how much junk I’ve accumulated after living in a house with a huge basement.

Got a crockpot? Trent shares some of his essential recipes. Am I the only person who doesn’t have one of these things? I don’t think I can handle any more kitchen appliances. Maybe if I throw away that old sandwich-maker…

Sometimes trying to save money can be tricky. Have you seen those places that offer $100 brake repair and a lifetime warranty? If you couldn’t smell the cow dung from a mile away, Golbguru has shared his own experience. Hint: It’s never just $100. That reminds me, our Nissan is nearing 100,000 miles as well.

HSBC Bank is offering a $25 or $75 bonus for opening one of two types of checking accounts with them. This may be a good complement to their 6% HSBC Direct account (my opening review). Your two options:

Interest Checking ($75 bonus)
– To avoid fees, you need to keep $3,000 in combined balances, or simulate direct deposit with an ACH transfer from another bank each month. HSBC Direct balances count toward the $3,000 requirement!

Free Checking ($25 bonus)
– No monthly fees, no minimum balance, no direct deposit requirement
– You do need some sort of checking activity every 3 months, or you’ll be knocked down to Basic Banking checking, which does have fees.

Both offer:
– HSBC Debit MasterCard? Card with PayPassTM
– Free first order of selected wallet-style checks
– Check-writing ability, and thus the ability to link to banks like Capital One 360, Emigrant Direct, etc.
– ATM access to money and free Online Billpay
– Possible branch access to people who live near one.
– Instant Transfers between Checking and HSBC Direct accounts, and thus possibly avoid HSBC’s longer transfer times.

I recommend opening an Interest Checking account first, and either keeping $3k in HSBC Direct or simulating direct deposit for a while to grab the bigger $75 bonus, and then after 6 months downgrade back to the Free Checking account. I did this myself with a previous bonus offer with no problems. Fine print:

HSBC reserves the right to charge your checking account an amount equal to the bonus if your checking account does not remain open for at least 180 days. Limited to one (1) cash bonus per household. Offers expire April 10, 2007 and cannot be combined with any other offers.

See, this is why I don’t go to the mall. Even though we don’t like pet stores and the associated puppy mills, we came perilously close to buying another puppy today. It looked very similar to this little dude (We already have a Cavalier).

(image from CuteOverload)

Impulsive means you woke up that morning without any plans to buy something, but by the end of the day you had it in your possession. Mine was probably a laptop that was “too cheap to pass up”. Leave the fun details in the comments 🙂

Everybody loves hearing success stories. I certainly do. And I know that many of you readers have some great tales to share…

• Did you start your own business?
• Did you crawl out from under a mountain of personal debt?
• Did you overcome hurdles (illness, tragedy, divorce…) to reach financial stability?
• Did you switch careers?

If so, I would like to interview you either online or via telephone. I’ll ask questions like – What did you start with? Who/What inspired the idea? How did you do it? What outside help did you have? What tools, software, or services did you use? What was the most helpful advice you received? What was the most unhelpful advice you received? Any regrets?

Alternatively, you can submit something to me in writing. Please include as much detail as possible. Either way, toot your own horn and contact me! I can keep it completely anonymous if you’d like.

Speaking of business cards, check out this one I found:

If you can’t read the sentence on the back, it says:

This card waives the setup fee for your first paycheck advance. Call us to set up your consultation with our financial advisors today!

My head hurts.

Queercents offers some tips on choosing a tax professional. It’s always interesting to see tax advice from an actual accountant.

No Credit Needed explores the differing attitudes towards debt amongst personal finance bloggers.

This week’s edition of the Carnival of Investing is available at Stock Market Beat. If you’d like to host please visit the main Carnival page.

In anticipation of March Madness, Free Money Finance is gearing up for a tournament bracket composed of blog posts. Readers can participate to choose the winners and get some prizes. Time to start studying that bracketology!