Young and Frugal

Young and Frugal is officially 2 weeks old today, and I haven’t provided an update, so here it goes in a very random and unorganized fashion… 

First off, I would also like to thank you for stopping by, it’s been two weeks, and I have had over 250 page views! OK, I really don’t know if that’s good or not, but celebrating this little milestone makes me feel good! I’ve also gotten a few nods on some websites from people who apparently like what they see, which is very exciting for me.

I have changed the tag-line to add business to the blog, because business is a passion of mine, and I don’t know how I could not incorporate it when writing about personal finance. Most of my business related posts will also be entrepreneurial to help keep it more interesting.

We haven’t earned any extra income that I spoke about in my first post.  But we have thrown around some great ideas that I know we will be pursuing.  I might give tutoring a whirl, and Mary and I are both going to get certified to be personal trainers, though she will make a much better one than I will.  (If anyone knows of any good personal training certification programs, please leave a note in the comments or send me an e-mail through the contact section.) 

I’ve also toyed with writing a business and personal finance column for a community newspaper, it’s something I think I’d be good at, they are my two passions, and I really enjoy writing, plus I could use it to promote Y&F. 

Another idea is my pet product that I want to develop a prototype of this weekend.  If it works for Lexi (our 2 year old Lab) I would love to see how far I can take that!  

Between writing posts, running, and working my day job, I have been able to stay very busy, which has proved to be a blessing to me.  Before I started the blog, and before I was running and working out 4+ times a week, in my spare time I would watch TV and surf (shop) the internet.  Now that I’m busy, I’d be willing to say I have definitely cut down my spending, and my mind doesn’t feel as numb! 

-Daniel 

In college I became good friends with a guy named Garett, he was the first peer I remember looking up to, and he taught me a lot about life.  Garett was the type of person that wherever he went people would flock around him because he was such a genuine person and he was full of passion.  Through my years of being friends with him, he has taught me two very important things. 

The first is that you can’t fake passion.  You can fake any number of other things, but you can always tell when someone is truly passionate because regardless of who they are, or what their personality normally is, they will begin to talk with their hands, and they will leap out of their seat with excitement when you hit a subject they are passionate about.  Passion is just as important, if not more important, than being smart or having good business sense.  People with passion get stuff done.  They are great motivators, others want to work with them, and because they believe and are emotionally invested in something they will work harder, learn from others, and will get right back up after being knocked down.   

Passion is key in any life venture. If I weren’t passionate about my love and my life with Mary, I might still be in college, because she kept me grounded and motivated me to do well in school.  If I weren’t passionate about business, personal finance, and helping people, you wouldn’t be reading this.  And if I weren’t passionate about my need and ability to be entrepreneurial and do something on my own, I wouldn’t be planning ahead to start a business with Mary.  

The second thing that Garett taught me is to keep a notebook beside your bed, which is actually why I’m writing this post at 6 am on a Saturday (I’m definitely not up because I was out all night).  I didn’t have a notebook by my bed, I had a computer, so why not?  Keeping a notebook by your bed is brilliant because I can’t tell you how many times I have had what I believe to be a brilliant idea in my dreams only to forget it within 5 seconds of waking up.  Having the notebook means you can write down your idea and go back to sleep without having to worry about forgetting it.  So far I have two failed ventures because of this, which is better than not having any at all! 

I have had an idea for a pet product for a few months now, and I have not acted on it, for various reasons, but, after seeing something that my sister-in-law made last night, it all clicked while I was half-way conscious this morning.  Now I know how to at least get a prototype for this product developed for very minimal cost, and I could even get it done today.  That is truly the reason why I am up, and if I didn’t have a computer by my bed I can promise you that I would have already forgotten it.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been young, I wish I could say I’ve been frugal, but that would be starting out this blog with a bold-faced lie.  I’m a product of middle class America and was raised to work hard for what I want, and that is what I’ve always done.  I’ve also always had the grace of my parents to help me out…until June 29, 2007. 

On that fateful day I got married to Mary, my high school sweetheart, just 2 months after graduating college.  Don’t get me wrong my parents love my wife and are thrilled that I got married, but in their minds that was the day I was officially off the family payroll.

I don’t mean to bore you with personal posts unrelated to personal finance but I feel at this juncture it is important to understand the point of view that many of my posts will be coming from, and while I am, in fact, young, married, and frugal (sometimes), it doesn’t have quite the ring to it that “Young and Frugal” has. 

Mary and I, like most millennials, are the youngest children of baby boomers, and as a result of that, we have lived a privileged lifestyle, even more privileged than our siblings, because our parents were already making good money while we were growing up.  We as a generation don’t know much about what it means to struggle and save, and this is also where our financial faults come from.

To elaborate, in May Mary and I will be fully in over our heads, for better or for worse.  You see we are building our first house, and will be spending too much money (upper $200s…in the Dallas area), to get a house that is too big (2500 sq/ft), and way too nice.  In fact it leaves us with an unbalanced budget by about $300 a month, ironically the cost of our car payment for the new car we needed wanted.  Maybe “Young and Stupid” would have been a better name for this blog?

I’d like to think we’ve done a great deal right with our finances because we have no other debt than our car payment, and we got a great deal on the car (future post).  But because of our inability to wait we will struggle.  We are going back to how we were raised: we have both agreed to work hard for it and make extra money.  We’ve thrown around various ideas of what we will do to make extra money, and while we haven’t decided on any yet, I will definitely keep you updated (hopefully 3 times a week).  And in some aspects it’s a very good thing for us because it will make us apply our degrees, as both of us have degrees in finance (ironic, I know) and entrepreneurship.

As a side note, I want the blog and you to be a way for me to maintain accountability for these things.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even get Mary to make a few posts down the road!

-Daniel