Battling Blogger Burn Out and Lack Of Blog Posting Frequency

By MoneyBlueBook

The past few weeks have been tough on me as an aspiring full time blogger. After almost a full year of nearly regular blog posts and after months of practicing fairly consistent writing habits, I've finally been smitten with the ailment that inevitably afflicts all bloggers and online entrepreneurs at some point or another - blogger burn out. Blogger's block, as the affliction is commonly called, is basically the lack of motivation and sudden depletion of new ideas found in those suffering from writer's block, except it affects those who blog online for alternative side income or for amusement. However, in my case, it's not the lack of new article writing ideas or lack of potential subjects to opine about, but rather the summer laziness feeling that has made it nearly impossible for me to stay self driven and self motivated. I actually have a spiral notebook that I keep around and regularly update. The notepad contains all my various scribbled down notes and ideas as they come to me. With hundreds of personal finance article writing topics and self jotted potential leads to inspire me, it's rarely a matter of running out of ideas - I have plenty of them - it's actually the drive and daily motivation to actually sit down and put fingers to keyboard that's the feet dragging hurdle for myself at the moment. When it comes to running a side business in the nature of self employment, one must have a consistent way to stay focused and stay driven, working

By MoneyBlueBook

Ask yourself this question - when was the last time you balanced your checkbook? Do you even know what balancing a���� checkbook entails? The fact of the matter is, writing checks and issuing payments in the form of paper checks is a steadily dying practice, thanks to the tremendous growth of the Internet and all of the new fangled technological advancements in the area of electronic and automated telephone banking (even phone banking is getting phased out in favor of the web). Much the same way the future of newspapers and the outlook of traditional forms of written news are being called into serious question, and much the same way they are being slowly rendered irrelevant by the overwhelming convenience and cost efficient benefits of the World Wide Web, so too will the practice of check writing and manually balancing accounts ultimately go the way of the dodo bird.

Personally, I can barely recall the last time I actually went through the hassle of balancing my checkbook manually. The tedious bean counting practice of manually comparing my own personal account records with the recordation information provided by monthly bank statements is simply not something I've readily adopted over the years. The last time was probably in high school when my mom sought to teach me about basic account management by forcing me to watch her go through the motion of recording transactions neatly on the gridded transaction register that comes with each set of checks. But other than that first initial

By MoneyBlueBook

I'm what you would call a credit card arbitrager. What that means is that one of my hobbies and passions is to seek out ways to maximize my money, particularly in the area of credit card reward programs. It's not just credit card sign up bonuses and cashback rewards that I aim to maximize either - it's also such credit card perks as balance transfer offers. 0% balance transfer credit cards are used by many, including myself for a variety of financial planning purposes. While some anti-credit card personal finance commentators frequently rally against the use of credit cards altogether, blaming them for the out of control credit card debt problem we have in this country, I personally cite the lack of proper financial education and abandonment of personal responsibility and accountability for the majority of credit card debt related troubles on the part of consumers.

Credit Cards Offer Valuable Benefits For Arbitrage Chasers, But They Should Be Used Wisely and Selectively

While not perfectly analogous, one can compare the benefits and utility of credit cards to that of an automobile. Both are powerful tools that can help people enhance their lives and get them to their target destination, whether real life or financial. However, both, if utilized improperly or irresponsibly, can potentially cause serious damage to oneself and to others. If you drive your vehicle while inebriated or intoxicated, or if you disregard the legal speed limit and swerve around the highways recklessly, you are bound to not only harm others, but injure yourself

By MoneyBlueBook

We live in an extremely politically correct country these days, which means anyone who even mentions anything negative about someone different (like negatively pointing out a foreign accent), or criticizes someone for their inability to speak the language properly, he or she is immediately labeled as prejudiced, racist, or somehow inciting hateful views. I'm truly none of those things, but I feel a personal finance blog platform is as good as any to express my own personal views about my own experiences on the matter. While I was born overseas, I came to the U.S. when I was only 2-3 years old, so I've pretty much grown up as an American and learned to identify strongly with the crux of American culture and its values. While a key component of American culture is the ability to embrace diversity and appreciate differences between different types of people, both foreign and domestic, there are some circumstances when I greatly prefer the services of a fellow American.

This preferential situation comes up whenever I call a live customer service help line. When I pick up the phone and make that affirmative decision to seek help via a toll free telephone number, my reasonable expectation is that I will reach someone who can communicate with me in an intelligible way, and help me resolve my consumer business problem quickly and efficiently, so that I can go along my merry way. It's bad enough that I often have to spend 30 minutes or more waiting on hold before I can

By MoneyBlueBook

This weekend a good buddy of mine and I decided to meet up and go for a round trip cross country bike ride from suburban Maryland, through the tree lined bike trails of Washington D.C., and into the outskirts of Northern Virginia. Neither of us owned decent bikes (none with suitable seats that wouldn't give us wedgies anyway), so we decided to rent a pair from a local bike rental shop near my old university stomping grounds. Since I hadn't been back to visit my old college in some time, we decided that after bike riding we would spend some time looking around and grabbing a bite to eat somewhere in the college town neighborhood.

The bike ride through the shaded forest trails and paved roads was fun and the subsequent pit stop at the National Zoo in D.C. was very relaxing (although, where were all the animals we wondered?), but the biking experience left me utterly exhausted, with aching legs, and a pair of sore butt cheeks. I completely underestimated the painful long distance hill climbs and the sheer distance that we needed to travel. Despite my cross country running background, I've been slacking off in the exercise department of late and wasn't in the best of shape to embark on a long bike ride.

Next time, I would definitely do a better job planning the route. For one thing, I would arrange it so that we faced the long uphill climbs in the beginning first half of our bike ride during early

By MoneyBlueBook

Updated With The New and Current FDIC Insurance Limits For Bank Deposits! (New Law Went Into Effect October 3, 2008)

As the American and world economies endure a period of economic recession, the once stable and thriving marketplace can seem like a distant memory. Not only does it seem like unemployment warning flags and disappointing corporate earning reports lurk around every corner, it's all too easy to succumb to the financial despair. When you combine the mortgage market meltdown with increasing housing foreclosures, and you mix that with high gas prices, fears of another major Islamic terrorist attack, and snowballed consumer pessimism, you have a spicy cocktail for widespread financial depression. While I'm not a financial fortune teller, nor am I a guru who can predict when the recession or lingering credit crisis will pass, all I can do is reassure you of areas in your life where you ought not to be overly distraught or paranoid about.

One segment in the economy that has spawned a huge surge of concern and irrational panic is the area of bank failures and bank bankruptcies. Because of the excessive subprime lending to consumers totally unqualified to receive home mortgages made by irresponsible mortgage lenders in the past few years, the economy is now reaping the terrible financial whirlwind result of defaulting loans and home foreclosures. This calamity is currently happening on a massive scale as huge banking giants like Citibank and Bank of America, as well as major thrift saving institutions like Washington Mutual are getting