I finally caught up on my TiVo recordings over the weekend. I watch exactly two television shows now, Lost and CSI. With Lost now going on an extended break, and CSI still gearing up for new episodes, I decided to record some new shows and give them a try. Oprah’s Big Give seemed to be a show I would like based on its premise of giving away money for good causes. It looked to me to be sort of a reality show for Secret Santas.

The first two episodes were about what I expected, but as the stakes were raised and the dollar amounts increased, I became more disappointed with each new show. In the March 23 airing contestants were asked to give away $100,000 in twenty-four hours. The stipulations were you could not give away more than $500 to any one person, or $10,000 at any one location, and you could not simply give away cash.

I was surprised when none of the contestants visited local churches, hospitals or social services offices. These seemed like obvious places to look for people who are hurting, emotionally, physically and/or financially. Most churches have a long list for their benevolence funds, and not all of them are requests for cash money. Many families need help making a car payment, or getting their mortgage caught up just to get back on track. Others may be recovering from a serious illness and are buried in medical bills, or have experienced a disaster such as a house fire or flood and have lost all of their belongings.

Many municipalities are closing city pools and recreational facilities because of a lack of funding and dilapidated equipment. I can just imagine a local Boys or Girls Clubs in Miami would have loved to have received a new basketball goal, or other updated recreational equipment for their facilities. Orphanages are frequently in need of linens and meal supplies to care for young people in their charge. Soup kitchens and shelters struggle to keep staples such as flour, bread, meats and rice in stock. There is no shortage of stories of victims of Hurricane Andrew still living in homes in need of repair, fifteen years after the hurricane blew through Miami. $10,000 would have gone a long way at each of these places.

Instead, some contestants bought groceries for random shoppers, gave away flowers at an intersection ($2,000 worth), and donated pet food and supplies to an animal shelter. These were all noble deeds, but I thought the name of this game was Big Give! These contestants were guilty of thinking small.

I was once part of a corporate initiative to implement a process improvement plan throughout the company. Our trainer had us perform an exercise in the very beginning of the 6-week training course called “think BIG.” Basically, each team was given an idea and told to expound on it as many times as we could in ten minutes. My group received the task, “Start a youth sports program – your existing budget is $0.00.” We started frantically throwing out ideas and capturing them on a worksheet. Separating each line on the worksheet were the words, “think BIGGER!”

After completing ten or eleven lines we had a strategy to start a youth football league sponsored by area businesses and local sports teams. A new stadium would be built using a combination of public and private, corporate-sponsored funds. Concession sales and banner advertisements lining the playing fields would pay for ongoing maintenance. Not bad for ten minutes of brainstorming. However, if the words “think BIGGER” had not appeared under each idea we might have stopped with “sell Krispy Kreme donuts to raise some money.”

Most people stop thinking big somewhere along the way. We all settle into our lives and outgrow those big dreams we had as a kid. I’d encourage anyone reading this to “think BIGGER” when imagining what we could do collectively to help other people. It’s easy to sit in my living room and play armchair quarterback, but I would like to think if I had a chance to give away $100,000 to people in need I could find more worthy recipients.

Image Credit: Daily News

The latest Carnival of Debt Reduction is up and running over at Debt Reduction Formula.  My thanks to Ryan for hosting the carnival, and for selecting my article as an “Editor’s Pick.”  Check out the other great reads if you have some time.

Spring break is almost upon us. Ahhh, the warm sun, the wind in your hair, the cool sand under your feet, I can almost taste the salt water. Too bad I don’t live next to the beach! No, the frugal family will be spending this spring break vacation at home. For us, it doesn’t make sense to shell out for a big vacation when we are working to become debt free. Hopefully, by this time next year we’ll be able to celebrate with a debt free vacation paid for in cash! Until then, we’ll be thinking up some activities to keep the kids occupied during the week-long spring break from school.

Here are a few ideas we came up with:

Monday: Cooking Classes. What kid doesn’t enjoy cooking things from scratch? Spend the weekend brainstorming some ideas and gathering recipes and ingredients. Pick up some used aprons and let the kids decorate them with decorative glue and bedazzles (my daughter claims these are fun). If you really want to impress us frugal dads bake a goodie or two from our favorites list and surprise us when we get home from work.

Tuesday: Matinée Movie Day. Time to get in your pajamas, drag out the sleeping bags and hunt down your favorite movie. If you need a broader selection of movies, check out your local library. Many libraries have a great collection of classics, and a few newer releases as well. Our family loves to gather around a movie on Friday nights with some homemade popcorn. It is even more fun in the middle of a weekday! If you decide to hit the movie theaters, call around first. Many theater chains offer $1 movie matinées when the kids are out of school.

Wednesday: Giant Puzzle Day. When I was in elementary school I had to have my leg in a cast for several weeks. I rode the bus home and my grandmother met me at our house to help with a giant jigsaw puzzle. It was just about the only activity I felt like doing after a day of school on crutches. I looked forward to spending time with her every afternoon as we solved that puzzle. Consider picking up a puzzle that can be accomplished in a half a day or so (anything longer and the kids will lose interest). When you have solved the giant jigsaw use puzzle glue to hold it together and pick up an inexpensive matching frame. Hang the new masterpiece in a kid’s room to remind them of the fun way you spent your spring break.

Thursday: Make a “Mini-Me.” Our school’s girl scout troop did this around the first of the school year, and I thought it was so much fun we are planning to duplicate it over spring break. The only supplies you will need to buy is a small roll of butcher paper (unless you just happen to have some at home). Check discount/outlet paper stores or party supply stores for the paper. For younger kids you may be able to substitute a piece of poster board, or large construction paper. Round up all the crayons, pencils and markers in the house. Roll out the butcher paper and have each child lay down on directly on the paper. Take care not to slide around too much or you will wrinkle the paper. Have a parent, or a brother or sister, trace all the way around the child to create a complete outline – head to toe. Next, using crayons and markers try to decorate your “mini-me” drawing with matching clothes and cut out your finished product. Tape it to the back of your kids door, or on a closet door as a fun reminder. The drawing also serves as a measuring stick to compare your child’s height over time.

Friday: Pretend You are a Tourist (in your own town). It is always amazing how much you can find to do if you just look in your own backyard. Sure, it’s fun to load up the SUV and drive a couple hundred miles to put distance between you and the distractions of home. However, if you are trying to get out of debt or build an emergency fund, taking a trip requires associated travel expenses, hotel stays, and expensive meals at restaurants. Contact your local visitor’s center and ask about area attractions, or stop by and pick up some brochures. Chances are there are plenty of museums, landmarks and parks all within a short drive of your home. It is also likely you have yet to visit them all (I’m guilty of this myself).

Saturday: Put the Kids on Commission. After being inside all week Saturday mornings are a great time to teach your kids the value of a day’s work (or a half-day). I don’t believe in allowances, so my kids are on commission. If they work, they get paid. If they don’t work, they don’t get paid. I know, what a concept. Getting the same allowance every week whether or not you do anything to earn it sounds too much like welfare to me, and I don’t want my kids expecting that every week. Find some safe, age-appropriate chores for the kids to do around the house such as raking leaves, watering plants, dusting furniture, vacuuming, or washing the family vehicle. Teenagers can do things like mow the lawn or help with landscaping chores such as mulching flower beds or putting down new sod. Schedule these kinds of projects around a spring break and make it a family affair. You’ll get some extra help, and your kids will earn a little pocket money.

What are your plans for spring break this year?

Image Credit: markymarko, PPDIGITAL, bucklava, plindberg, Bob Jagendorf, terren in Virginia

Happy Easter to all those celebrating today!  It has been a great week here at Frugal Dad.  Some increased exposure brought new subscribers and introduced me to several new blogging friends.  The Life Skills Network is really taking off with the introduction of our new website.  We are fortunate to have such a diverse collection of bloggers writing quality content on a variety of subjects.  I’m honored to be a part of this group.

Here are a few Easter Eggs I found hiding around the web this week:

10 Things to Add to Your Life / 10 Things to Eliminate from Your Life offered some great suggestions for spring cleaning your home, and decluttering your life in general (@Remodeling This Life)

Why Be Frugal?   It’s a fundamental question all us “frugalites”have to face at some point. (@Gather Little By Little)

50+ Resources to Legitimately Raise Your Income is an awesome collection of legit ways to boost the money coming in. (@My Super-Charged Life)

Grow Your Investments One Snowflake at a Time (a guest post from Madison appearing on MSN Money) really got me to thinking about my “snowflaking” strategy.  The concept has been working for me when applied to debt repayment, but until this article I’m not sure I ever thought of it helping me accumulate investments (after my debt is paid off, of course).  This article is a keeper!

5 Ways I Plan to Survive the Recession This list beats anything put out by the mainstream media.  While they tend to focus on the “doom and gloom” aspects of a dreaded recession, Ron points out some practical steps to take to avoid a financial meltdown. (@The Wisdom Journal)

About to Enter the Workplace for the First Time?  Try the 50% Solution.  Great concept – wish I had read this ten years ago and applied it! According to Trent’s article, I would already have 10 years of financial independence banked!  (@The Simple Dollar)

Five Common Money Mistakes to Avoid describes a few of the fundamental financial screw-ups most of us have made along the way.  If everyone would read this article upon graduating high school imagine the improvements we could make in the world of personal finance! (@Milk Your Money)

How Do I Publicize My Blog?  Hank’s post features some great ideas for taking your blog to new heights.  This is a great resource for new bloggers, or “old” bloggers looking to improve their product. (@My Investing Blog)

Are You Selling Your Credit Score?  Of course, not all of these are bad, but as Pinyo points out you must pay these things off when the bill arrives or interest and fees can wipe out any gains you make. (@Moolanomy)

A Juicy StumbleUpon Tip for Your Blog.  One more on “blog improvement,” and it’s a dandy!  Ciaran gives some great ideas for using StumbleUpon as a tool to improve your roundup post development.  I took the advice to heart and used several of my weekly stumbles to develop this post.  It makes life a lot easier to have a ready-made list at the end of the week.  (@Chance Favors)

There’s No Shame in Renting.  When did renting become a dirty word?  Renting makes a lot of sense in many scenarios, but people bought into the “your throwing your money away” mantra of mortgage brokers and realtors.  Do what’s best for your situation, and follow Lynnae’s advice in this great post. (@Being Frugal)

Budgeting for Irregular Income offers up some great ideas for setting up a budget when earning income on an irregular schedule (commissions, part time work, etc.).  (@DebtFREE-Revolution)

Live Simple So that Others May Simply Live.   One of the side effects of a frugal lifestyle is that you use less resources than other consumers.  “Simple living” should be one of the tenets of any quality frugal living program. (@The Good Human)

There have been several popular releases in the “early retirement” genre recently, but I found this book hidden amongst the personal finance books at a local library. It was written in 1992, which made me a little skeptical as to its relevancy today. Great books can hold up to the test of time (Your Money or Your Life), but some are “dated” only one year after their release. I found Kiss the Rat Race Good-Bye to be in the category of those books which still have inspiring, relevant personal finance information many years after their initial release. Let’s dive in with a detailed review.

A Look Inside Kiss the Rat Race Good-Bye

Chapter 1: Here Today…Where Tomorrow?
Are you one of those people who put their dreams on hold to pursue a “safe” career? I wrote about this myself a while back, and I think at some level we all are guilty of doing this at some point in our lives. Unfortunately, it isn’t a realistic expectation that everyone in the world can realize self-actualization in their careers from the very start. For most of us, work involves toiling away at the daily grind to pay necessary life expenses, provide for our families, and save for a rainy day. However, at some point we should all aspire to break free from the rat race and do what it is we believe we were put here to do. If you personally believe you were put on this earth to sit in an office nine hours a day and create reports on widget production then congratulations – you probably won’t have a hard time realizing your ultimate dreams. For the rest of us financial independence comes with the promise of blazing our own trail, setting our own schedules, and doing work we love.

Chapter 2: Life Begins at…
This was by far one of the book’s best chapters. Author Elizabeth Lewin establishes the ground work for creating different kinds of goals: short-term goals, medium-term goals, long-term goals, lifestyle goals, and financial goals. Each type of goal has a different time line associated with it, but each is establish through the same methodical approach described by Lewin in Chapter 2. If you need to brush up on your goal-setting or finishing skills this is a great section for you.

Chapter 3: Up Your Assets
As I mentioned in my 7-Day Turnaround series, the first step of determining direction with any new plan is to establish a starting point. Lewin describes in Kiss the Rat Race Good-Bye her ideas for “gathering the data.” This involves taking inventory of all important financial accounts related to your assets and liabilities, and Lewin includes a handy checklist for recording this inventory. After identifying each type of account as an asset or liability you can put together your personal balance sheet, a task Lewin suggests readers do at least once a year.

Chapter 4: You Can Design Your Life-Style
The most significant thing keeping most of us from retiring early is the lifestyles we have chosen. By saddling ourselves with debt, expensive mortgages, car loans and student loans, the idea of retiring early is a pipe dream. After all, we’ll need to work fifteen years just to pay this stuff off and get back to zero! Lewin makes the point in this chapter that is the lifestyle you choose that has the most impact on whether or not you will be able to make an early exit from the rat race. There are some great tips in this section on setting up a budget, monitoring your cash flow and quite a few money-saving tips as well.

Chapter 5: Managing Your Debt
The opening sentence of this chapter is, “Buy now, pay later.” Might as well be the mantra of the average credit card user. Some are responsible and paying for it “later” means when the bill arrives. Others take “later” to mean some point in the future after interest and fees have doubled the initial cost of that single item bought years earlier. Lewin presents an eye-opening statistic on debt levels at the time this book was written.

When the Diner’s Club card was started in 1950, the total outstanding consumer debt (excluding home mortgages) of the American consumer stood at $21.5 billion. Forty years later, the figure had reached $750 billion.

Now that’s a sobering statistic! Obviously this amount of debt is disproportionate to the population growth during this period, so something else has to account for the staggering increase in American’s debt loads. That “something” is spending. We have bought and swiped ourselves into a financial hole that many will never dig out from. Nothing can derail your plan for an early retirement like amassing large amounts of debt.

Chapters 6-16
The next ten chapters covered many of the same topics you will find other personal finance books. I have consolidated their review here not because there is nothing remarkable, but in the interest of time (mine and yours), and because these are fairly standard sections in any book about money. Of course, this book introduces all the concepts with an added sense of urgency since the ultimate goal is to get us out of the rat race within the next decade or two. Topics covered include social security, corporate pension plans, company and other tax-deferred plans, saving and investing, mutual funds, investing for college, insurance, estate planning, and record keeping.

Chapter 17: Putting It All Together: Real-life Scenarios for Kissing the Rat Race Good-Bye
The final chapter of Kiss the Rat Race Good-Bye was an inspiring summary of the plans detailed in previous chapters. The last chapter provided some real-life scenarios of people who had managed to reach their goals of financial independence in ten to fifteen years. It’s always nice to hear of others who manage to break free from the rat race. It makes the very idea a little more believable to those of us who have a hard time imagining what life would be like without doing the corporate shuffle five days a week. I recommend this book for anyone not doing the work they love, or hoping to step away from the rat race to pursue a more fulfilling calling free from financial concerns.

A couple weekends ago our guest bathroom toilet developed a slow flush. I plunged a few times thinking someone was probably guilty of not being frugal with the toilet paper, but the problem seemed to be getting worse. This was the first time vigorous plunging was not a successful remedy to the slow flush. Like all frugal dads, I was determined to solve this problem myself and set out to learn more than I ever wanted to know about the anatomy of a toilet.

The internet offers a wealth of information when it comes to do-it-yourself home repairs. A quick search on the web revealed some promising leads. Apparently, they make a toilet snake, or toilet auger, that is approximately three feet long and has an extended protective coating to prevent damage to the porcelain bowl. My regular plumber’s auger is much longer, and does not have a protective surface. I shut off the computer and ventured off to the nearest home improvement store.

In the plumbing section I found several varieties of toilet augers with a wide range of prices. The Cobra Heavy-Duty Industrial auger was $48.93. Since I wasn’t planning to snake but one toilet I thought this was a bit unnecessary. The Cobra “Homeowner” edition auger was more my style – $7.48. I also picked up a wax ring just in case I had to pull up the bowl to snake the main drain in the bathroom floor. Not much selection here – just a good old-fashioned $1.54 wax ring with flange.

I returned home to test out the new toilet auger when some new evidence was introduced. My son confessed to Mrs. Frugal that he had thrown a toy “down the potty.” Hoping it would be a small toy that would eventually pass, we asked which one he threw in the toilet. He replied, “Harold the Helicopter.” Fans of Thomas the Train will recognize Harold as the helicopter who buzzes around the Island of Sodor. My main concern was that Harold’s blades would snag on the toilet’s exit and create a messy backup. Then again, this would be an ideal situation as opposed to it snagging in the main drain several feet below the house.

As excited as I was to try out my new toy I put away the auger for fear of pushing Harold further down the drain. I proceeded to turn off the water at the wall, flush several times to attempt to drain the tank and bowl, and then unbolt the toilet from the floor. I laid the bowl on its side, and guess who I found clinging to the very bottom of the exit? Yep, it was Harold. I pulled him out, along with some other stuff I won’t mention – just in case you are reading this on your lunch break. I cleaned off the existing wax ring, affixed the new one and reseated the toilet to the floor.

My household repair material costs totaled $9.65 with sales tax. I spent around an hour of actual labor time, not including my trip to the store. I’m not current on the going rate of plumbers around the country, but I imagine it would have cost more than $9.65 for one to the come to our house, diagnose and rescue Harold the Helicopter.

So what is the point of all this? Besides telling you way more than you ever wanted to know about toilet repair, the story serves as a reminder to try to develop some handy skills so you can make your own minor repairs around the house. It will save you a ton of money versus calling in a professional. However, there are times when a professional is needed. For example, I don’t pretend to know anything about electrical circuits or related equipment. Attempting to “wing it” could be hazardous to my health, so I call in an electrician when electrical repairs, or new wiring, is required.

I also consider my time valuable. Besides working full time, writing part time, and being a husband and father all the time, trying to squeeze in household repairs can create a schedule crunch. There is a break even point, financially, where you would be better off to hire someone and continue to work on money-making endeavors. This is especially true of emergency situations that happen in the middle of the week, or the middle of the night. A busted pipe, or a fried electrical panel, could potentially tie up quite a lot of your time to repair, even if you have the know-how. Instead of sacrificing time you could be using to earn money, you may very well be better off hiring someone to give you a hand.

Image Credit: D’Arcy Norman

The following is part of Frugal Dad’s weekly series, “So You Want to Be a Blogger?” which chronicles the development and optimization of a blog’s lifecycle.

One of the keys to being a successful blogger is flexibility. I had a post all planned out for today’s So You Want to Be a Blogger series, but as I mentioned yesterday Frugal Dad had an unexpected boost in traffic thanks to an article appearing on LifeHacker.org, and subsequently on the front page of del.icio.us, a popular social bookmarking site. Instead of pushing ahead with regularly scheduled programming I decided to postpone my planned post for next week, and instead share some lessons learned from yesterday’s boost in traffic.

Prepare for a surge in traffic before the tsunami hits. Quite honestly, yesterday’s surge in traffic came as a complete surprise. The article I wrote about square foot gardening was picked up by a fellow blogger and referenced in one her posts on the same subject. At some point it was identified as being worthy to appear on LifeHacker.com as a featured article, and 14,000 visitors later I’m sitting here in new-blogger shock. Consider only one in six blogs draws more than 500 page views a day! It was a fun ride, and I am thankful for the opportunities to meet several new people, and pickup many new subscribers. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few things I could have done better to capitalize on the traffic.

• Have a standard “introductory” post ready to go. I scrambled to put together an introduction post welcoming the waves of new visitors, but wasn’t able to publish it until my lunch break, several hours after the initial reference from Life Hacker was published. The purpose of this introductory post is to capture the interest of some of this new traffic and attempt to pull them deeper into your blog. A link to your archives, a “best-of” section, or a popular series post is a good way to attract interest beyond the article the visitor landed on.

• Create a new campaign on Crazy Egg or Google Analytics to see where users are clicking. 10,000-hit days are uncommon for relatively new bloggers, and they provide an excellent opportunity for you to analyze what’s popular on your blog. Keep in mind that if the majority of this traffic has been referred from a social bookmarking site they may be on a stop-and-go pattern, pausing just long enough to read a few paragraphs from your article and then move on. For this reason, average page views or number of clicks per visitors may be misleading. Still, those that do click on a link on your blog will help you determine which sections of your content are most popular. This could be important down the road in terms of advertising, article promotion, etc.

• Promote subscriber options within the post. Be sure visitors know how to subscribe to your blog. A highly visible subscriber area near the top of your blog is a good start. If a particular article has drawn some extra attention make it even easier for new visitors to subscribe by placing a line near the end of your article with links to your RSS feed and/or email delivery signup page.

• Fortunately, my host held up to the traffic and I am not aware of any significant downtime. If you use Wordpress to maintain your blog, consider the wp-cache plugin to reduce the database round trips your server has to make to serve new visitors. Basically, this plug-in saves your pages in a static file which is available for a short time for new visitors. This makes your site run much more efficiently versus the normal request, database pull, code compile and display routine.

Normally a post like this would appear near the middle of a “how to become a blogger” series, but I wanted to share my experience with you while the lessons were fresh. Hopefully, if you experience a wave of traffic early in your blogging journey you will now be better prepared to handle it.

Blogging is a rewarding experience. It provides a creative outlet for those with an interest to share their thoughts and ideas with others. It can develop into another income stream which could add to your “snowflakes.” Best of all, you will build relationships with some fantastic people along the way. If you are one of those new subscribers who landed here yesterday, welcome. Thanks for joining us!

Ready to start your own blog?  I host my blogs with HostGator–a great host with awesome support!