Hidey-ho, neighbors!

Your boy’s out at FinCon today – our yearly financial blogging conference – so instead of using my brain to conjure up some wise words of financery for y’all, I’ll be temporarily shutting it down and sharing other peoples’ wise words of financery instead. (Real word)

But if you come find me at the pool or in the halls over the weekend, I promise to turn my brain back on for you and hang! This stay-at-home daddy ain’t staying at home this weekend, baby – ow ow! Party time! (And, SLEEP, time! ;))

Now onto my favorite reads (and podcasts) from around the web…

There were some great ones this month!

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Why I’m Retiring from Personal Blogging by Cait Flanders — “I don’t want to be an expert. I just want to be a human… I want to go for long walks and spend time in nature, and not take pictures as proof. I want to get a good night of sleep and a bad night of sleep, and not turn it into a discussion on the internet… I want to make big financial decisions and small financial decisions, and not have to justify them or worry what people will think. I want to have regular days and big days and happy days and sad days. I want to go through an experience and not wonder which parts would fit best into a blog post. I want to live and not share every detail anymore. I just want to be a human in this world.”

Copy This by Ms. Liz Money Matters — “Not long after we finished building our dream home, a gal who worked for me and her husband started building theirs not far away. They liked our home and they wanted to copy some things we did. No problem. We all drove around the community, walked through unfinished homes and stole ideas from others… When they were getting ready to move in, I realized there was one big thing they didn’t copy.”

Decluttering Challenge: One Month, One Item Per Day by Waffles On Wednesday — “Unless you are already a minimalist, finding one item to get rid of every day is actually very easy. Although we have already combed through our belongings many times before, somehow more and more stuff finds its way back into our humble abode. So I picked a strategy that made this decluttering goal even easier. I would pick one area: one cabinet, one drawer, one closet and start there. I would head to that spot every day and remove an item that I didn’t need/ use anymore and be on my way. It made it easy. Every day, I knew exactly where to go to accomplish my goal.”

How to Break The Cycle of Pointless Conversations by Life’s Too Good — “Have you ever been stuck in a game of ‘Why don’t you do this…?’ with someone who keeps coming back at you with ‘Yes, but…’? … This kind of ‘game playing’ almost always serves the purpose of reinforcing our negative feelings or blaming others for our bad feelings… We need to stop playing games and to start making real changes in our life in order to move forward.”

Why Kirk Cousins Turned Down $90 Million From The Jets to Join The Vikings by CNBC — “Despite earning $23.9 million in his last season with the team, the star quarterback admits to still living on a strict budget.  He tells GQ that he and his wife drive a dented GMC Savana van that he purchased from his grandmother in 2014 for $5,000. He also says that during the summer months, he and his wife live in his parents’ basement. Then, for the first few months of the year, he says they spend time living in Georgia with his in-laws.”

Fool Me Three Times And I Give Up by Collaborative Fund — “Pavlov’s dogs became famous for what they learned: when the bell rings, food is coming, so drool. Less known is what happened to the poor dogs in 1924. A massive flood swept through Leningrad, where physiologist Ivan Pavlov did his research. The water came right up to the dogs’ cages…”

Guy Creatively Arranges His Massive Library of Books Into Imaginative Scenes by My Modern Met — “Bookstagrammer James Trevino uses his massive library of books for more than just reading. With a shelf arranged like a rainbow, he pulls from his collection and transforms the texts into imaginative displays. Each book cover acts like a stroke of paint; when they are placed together in specific formations, they produce images that are best viewed from above.”

‘Priceless’ 300-year-old coin that men had to buy to avoid Peter the Great’s ‘Beard Tax’ in Russia is discovered in a ruined 17th Century building by Daily Mail — “Minted in 1699, the copper coin is only the second known example of the coin. It shows an image of a beard and moustache and the words ‘Money Paid’. Dubbed the ‘beard kopek, the coin was part of Peter the Great’s 1987 ‘beard tax’. He banned all facial hair but then introduced a coin-based system that allowed people to pay to keep their beards.”

The Middle Class Retirement Nightmare by Daily Reckoning — “In 1971, you could buy a new Ford F-150 for $2,500. At $4 an hour, it took 625 hours to buy the truck. Today’s model costs $30,000, and the average hourly wage is $26. So the wage earner has to work for 1,154 hours to get a standard F-150… You can do the same calculation for housing. An average man paid about $24,000 for the average house in 1971. Today, he pays $371,000. Priced in time, the house cost 6,000 hours in 1971 and 14,269 hours today.”

The Thin Green Line: Why You Should Be Skeptical of Financial Blogs by Get Rich Slowly — “Blogging has become more business-like and less personal. A decade ago, most blogs — even money blogs — were rooted in the author’s individual experience. Nowadays, most big financial blogs have a minimal editorial voice… The trouble with the rise of blogging as a business is that the business has become the focus for most financial blogs. Financial bloggers aren’t making decisions based on what’s best for their audience. They’re making decisions based on what’s likely to bring them the most income.”

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Other Quick Nods

• Fidelity Zero-Fee Funds Lure About $1 Billion in First Month via Bloomberg — “So far none of Fidelity’s rivals have chosen to match its zero fee offer.”
• Sip of Hope — “The world’s first coffee shop where 100% of proceeds support proactive suicide prevention and mental health education.”
• Azlo.com — “Fee-free small business banking that helps entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. ” Possible new option if you’re on the hunt? (Hat tip: @Otterwize)
• DebtandCupcakes.com <– just an awesome blog name :)

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Podcast(s) of The Month

I’m biased with these, but I thought they came out pretty well :) Particularly the first one as it was the first time I was interviewed by someone outside of the financial space. If you miss hearing me on the Afford Anything Podcast (formerly the M.O.N.E.Y. show), you’ll enjoy these!

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J. Money: Budgets, Building Wealth, and Living Well on The Distilled Man Podcast — “Today on the podcast, unorthodox finance blogger J. Money shares how to get a better handle on your money…and your life. We talk about the the importance of tracking your net worth (no matter how small), the biggest financial mistakes most people make, why challenging mainstream lifestyle norms can be the easiest way to build wealth, and more.”

Track Your Net Worth and Become a Young Millionaire – with J. Money on Marriage, Kids and Money Podcast — “J. Money and I review: how and why he started tracking his net worth in the first place, what methods he used to grow it from $50,000 to $850,000 in 10 years, and why his priorities have changed in the last few years… This net worth boosting conversation is real, honest and genuine. Enjoy!”

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Graphic of The Month :)

(Courtesy of BiggerPockets.com, a fantastic real estate investing community)

Hope these inspire you while I’m gone!

If you miss me too much, just read through all 2,471 posts previously published here and you’ll quickly get over it: Budgets Are Sexy Archives

Tootles,