Bound no more!

Tired of being bound to your cell phone carrier? You may not be!

As of February 11, 2015, a U.S. law called the "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act" went into effect. What does this mean?

You can unlock your phone and [hypothetically] sign up with another carrier, whether you have a contract phone or a phone on an off-contract, prepaid plan (as I recommend here).

Value Laptops 2015

Value Laptops 2015

This is an old article and will no longer be updated. Please see my latest version here.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of laptops. However, I’m also a fan of saving money and living within my means. If you're looking for a great deal on a new computer, I've picked out some of the best deals around to include in this article. Isn't it nice to have someone else do your shopping for you? :)

from http://press.asus.com/content/201406021517165793.jpg

Premium Laptops 2015

Premium Laptops 2015

This is an old article and will no longer be updated. Please see my latest version here.

Being Froogal doesn’t mean you can't have nice stuff! The trick is to allocate your resources effectively. If you can justify the purchase of a higher-quality, more expensive item because you need it for work or a hobby and you can afford a premium item, you can still get a great value!

Laptops: The quick tech guide

Laptops: The quick tech guide

People who don’t care what laptop specs mean, or already understand them, can skip this article. But for those who just want a quick guide through the ocean of letters and numbers may find this helpful! For people who would like to know even more, I've created a guide to the dirty technical stuff.

http://www.bypasswindows7password.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/asus-notebook.jpg

If you don’t quite understand all of the technical mumbo-jumbo when you’re looking for a computer, that’s OK—that’s what I’m here for! My handy guides are free! Any computer I recommend will be a great value for its speed, quality, reliability, and common-sense pricing. Some (though not all) will also be lightweight and/or have great battery life. Check out my my latest recommendations by clicking the links below!

Value Laptops 2015

Premium Laptops 2015

Laptops: A detailed guide to the dirty technical stuff

Laptops: A detailed guide to the dirty technical stuff

For those who only want a quick guide to what you should know before shopping for a computer, check out my quick tech guide. For the curious folks who would like to know more details, read on!

Guest Post: Setting Goals Like the Wealthy at Canadian Budget Binder

My latest series of three posts is currently under development--check for it next week! (UPDATE: Done! You can find the post on value-priced laptops here, the post on premium laptops here, and there are two tech guides to help you make sense of the jargon: a quick guide here and a detailed guide here).

 In the meantime, please check out my guest post on "Setting Goals Like the Wealthy" over at Canadian Budget Binder (http://canadianbudgetbinder.com/2014/12/22/setting-goals-like-wealthy/)

I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

Thanks to Mr. CBB for the opportunity for this guest post! Canadian Budget Binder is filled with helpful tips--be sure to check back there every so often!

Interesting reads, Jan 2015

Here's some more useful and/or interesting content for you from blogs and other sources around the Web:

For the married: http://www.frugalrules.com/teach-your-spouse-frugal/
For the engaged: http://canadianbudgetbinder.com/2015/01/12/engaged-five-money-conversations-say/

A great article about finding your mission in life:
http://blog.phroogal.com/leave-job-without-plan-finding-lifes-mission/

For anyone:
http://professorsavings.com/probably-never-thought-youd-fall-love-kentucky-will-watching-video/
http://moneybulldog.co.uk/frugal-fix/
http://www.frugalwoods.com/2014/12/22/our-festive-and-frugal-100-christmas/

Good advice regarding the changing nature of retirement savings, and what you can do about it: http://retirementsavvy.net/multiply-your-streams-of-income/
http://www.moneyjournal.com/5-ways-to-achieve-income-diversity/

Some good advice about groceries: http://moneysavingdude.com/groceries-on-a-budget/

http://www.frugalwoods.com/2014/05/30/do-you-really-need-that-dont-be-owned-by-your-stuff/ (sounds kinda like The Millionaire Mindset! Great minds think alike...)

Here's a cartoon with a great message about hard work: http://i.imgur.com/xWzjHUQ.jpg

Some other interesting and/or thought-provoking reads:
http://www.frugalrules.com/smallest-to-largest-debt-payoff/
http://www.moneybeagle.com/2015/01/spending-money-dont-recipe-disaster.html
http://www.frugalrules.com/festivus-for-the-rest-of-us/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11112194/Millionaire-couple-split-over-cancer-philanthropy.html
http://www.outliermodel.com/2015/01/09/4-good-jobs-science-minded-people/
http://www.wellkeptwallet.com/2015/01/4-ways-to-pay-off-debt-fast/
http://embracingsimpleblog.com/ready-embrace-simpler-life/
http://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2015/01/how-to-manage-your-finances-effectively.html
http://moneybulldog.co.uk/would-you-consider-becoming-a-frugaltarian/
http://deardebt.com/blog-changed-life-j-d-roth-get-rich-slowly/

And, unrelated to finance, an article on tech for geeks like me: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-carrizo-carrizo-l-notebook-apu,28345.html

Quality entertainment for a bargain! :)

Toshiba laptop free upgrade deal (until 1/19/2015)

As you may be aware, I'm a fan of finding great values, particularly on laptops like these and these, and headphones like these.

I haven't posted much here in the past two months (but see my guest post from December 2014, "Setting Goals Like the Wealthy," at Canadian Budget Binder). But I'm working on finding more great deals, and a series of posts are coming soon--promise!

In the meantime, here is a deal from Toshiba:

The Key to Success

The Key to Success

If you're at all like me, you've often wondered what the secret is to success. Why do some people, who are so blessed with intelligence, physical talent, and/or social support, fail where others--who lack these advantages--succeed? I've never seen a satisfactory explanation for this.

Until recently.

Jump in!

I found this article interesting: http://lifehacker.com/move-before-you-re-ready-get-started-without-being-an-1654826130

Learning skills as you need them can increase both your motivation to learn the material (because you need it now!) and your engagement with the subject material. This increased motivation and engagement can lead to a deeper, richer understanding--and a quicker acquisition of that deeper, richer understanding!

This flies in the face of the advice that you usually hear about planning ahead and learning everything about a subject before doing it--but such advice does not account for constraints of time, motivation, and cognitive ability. This advice to "jump in and learn on the fly" does.

How does this apply to personal finance? Well, I'm a big proponent of keeping things simple. So, if you start out keeping your budget (and your investments) as simple as possible, and only learn about new things when they come up, you'll be more likely to actually accomplish something (rather than putting it off for a day...or a year). And who wouldn't like to accomplish more?!

Definitely an interesting idea, and a great read!