Welcome to the weekly Saturday Quick Hits and Weekend Reading post!
Quick Hits
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Blizzard!
Well it snowed and snowed…and snowed some more last Sunday. Because of the foot-plus of snow and the embarrassing/nonexistent cleanup effort by our Department of Transportation, I spent over two hours commuting home on Monday evening. I thought Tuesday would be better, but instead I had yet another commute in excess of two hours. Those long commutes drain you, especially because you have to pay attention to the road conditions at all time…there was so much ice on the road that you could easily have spun out…hence why there were hundreds upon hundreds of accidents.
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Christmas Vacation
I’m officially on Christmas Vacation! At the urging of my wife (and for my own sanity) I will try to relax a bit, and I look forward to multiple Christmas celebrations with family. But if you know me I always have a lot on my plate (almost entirely by choice) so I will be working on a few things such as:
– Working on getting our studio apartment rented out (our original renter who was ready to sign the lease backed out)
– Working on our house
– Working on this site
– Working on some spreadsheet side work I got from a friend
– Other little annoying things I put off until nowDoes anyone else get behind on things and have to use their PTO to catch up?
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Always Tired? It could be your spine
I found a fascinating article at the Wall Street Journal titled Scientists Try to Unravel the Riddle of Too Much Sleep. Here’s what researchers have found:
Recently, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta have begun to unravel the mystery of this often-debilitating condition. They’ve found that some sufferers have a substance in their cerebrospinal fluid that acts like a natural sleeping pill. They think as many as 1 in 800 Americans may have the substance and that it may be a factor in other conditions that involve excessive drowsiness.
Isn’t that incredible? As someone who owes their life to modern medicine (Asthma nearly killed me in first grade), I love hearing about stuff like this. I can’t imagine how great people have felt and will feel when they get their excessive drowsiness condition treated. I have suffered from sinus issues and since getting them treated through surgery I feel so much better. Dealing daily with a medical condition can be hard for non-sufferers to understand, so kudos to the researchers who are finding cures to illnesses!
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Another Giveaway? Absolutely!
So my previous $100 giveaway just ended yesterday. I have some good news, though! There is another giveaway going live on Monday morning! Be sure to check it out and get your entries in.
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Posts from this week & Guest Posting Opportunity
This is where I usually list my posts from the previous week, but I’m not sure that is incredibly useful because you can just scroll down this page and see the posts. Maybe one day it will be beneficial when there are regularly 50 posts/articles a week on the site? A guy can dream, right?? ;)
I did want to point out the two great guest posts I had this week. Monday Pauline Paquin from Reach Financial Independence wrote a really solid guest post titled Kill your debt faster: How to make extra money while working a full-time job. As someone who is pursuing income in addition to my full-time job, I found this post particularly useful. It totally depends on your situation, but I think pursuing side income can be a great decision, especially for young adults.
Johnny and Joanna from Our Freaking Budget wrote a guest post on Thursday called Saving Money on Entertainment and Hobbies, which is absolutely one of my favorite topics! I am not against spending money on entertainment and hobbies, but you don’t have to. There are plenty of cheap and free alternatives to expensive hobbies and entertainment.
While I do not have a guest posting policy listed on this site yet, if you are interested in guest posting contact me and I will send you the guidelines. I should say that there is a charge if you are a company or a “non-personal” site (totally up to my discretion…sorry I wish there was a black-and-white formula that would determine this…but there isn’t). I hadn’t done any guest posts until now, but the feedback has been positive and I think it’s beneficial to have different opinions/voices/viewpoints on this site.
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Carnival Mentions
The Yakezie Carnival mentioned my post The Costs Involved in Sinus Surgery. Two other carnivals, Carnival of Money Pros and Financial Carnival for Young Adults mentioned my post 10 Things I Learned from Working at Pizza Hut.
Whoops…looks like “Quick” is a bit misleading of a title for this section…had a lot to say this week.
Weekend Reading
As usual, here are some posts from this week that I really enjoyed:
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Pocket Your Dollars and a few other websites are hosting a $600 giveaway.
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Sicorra from Tackling Our Debt offers An Easy to Use Time Management Checklist
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Jeffrey from Saving Advice takes on a crazy challenge for 2013 in Living Well on Minimum Wage Challenge
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J. Money from Budgets are Sexy asks
Which Is Growing Faster: Baby or Expenses? -
iHeartBudgets asks What Does $1 Mean To You?
Have a great weekend!
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Enjoy your time off and try not to work too hard… but I dont’ have to worry about that, I know you will :)
@Money Life and More Haha thank you sir, I hope you enjoy your long weekends!
Can’t believe you guys have snow! I’m really hoping it doesn’t snow here for awhile. Enjoy your vacation :)
@SenseofCents Thanks I definitely will. I’m sure the snow is headed your way ;)
Now your city is catching up with ours. The commutes are so nasty. Good thing you have a few weeks off from work so that you can take a break. Thanks for the include! Enjoy your time off.
@TacklingOurDebt I’m definitely looking forward to the break, thanks!
Sounds like you got hammered with snow.. was that your car in the ditch ;-) Happy Holidays mate!! I may be interested in guest posting in the New Year. Mr.CBB
@CanadianBudgetB Haha thankfully that was not my car! Happy Holidays to you as well!
Enjoy the holidays! Driving in snow is so tiring, I imagine it was dark as well on the way back so even worse!
@RFIndependence Yep dark when I get to work dark when I leave…. : /
What part of the country are you in?
@Thirtysixmonths MinneSNOWtah
Though I love snow, I am glad that I don’t really deal with it much in NC. When it snows here, the whole city shuts down because they have no idea how to handle it. I don’t mind driving in the snow because I have done it so many times in college, but I don’t like driving around here because no one else knows how.