Christmas shopping has begun at our household thanks to my wife. I haven’t really helped at all yet :0
Welcome to the Weekly Quick Hits Roundup! Every week I write a weekly wrap-up of things that were going on here at Young Adult Money, a few personal updates/thoughts, and finally a few posts I read this week that I thought were worth sharing.
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We also have our giveaway roundup every Friday. This Friday there are 110 giveaways listed this week that end today (11/08) through next Thursday (11/14).
Below are the posts we published this week:
- On Monday I explained Why Zillow’s “Zestimate” can be Misleading. I love Zillow, but it definitely has it’s shortfalls.
- On Tuesday Sally shared So Your College Degree Doesn’t Match What You Want To Do Anymore…. I think more people than we think don’t want to be in the field they got their degree in. Sally offers some great tips if you’re in this boat.
- On Wednesday Cat talked about what she is doing to prepare for having twins in Double the Money, Double the Fun. If you’re a parent head on over and give her some advice!
- On Thursday I asked Are tablets a waste of money or something everyone should have? I’m so conflicted about whether or not to buy the Surface 2!
Update Time
- Learning New Skills –
Partially because of a new project related to Obamacare (thanks Obama!) and partially because I have been proactive about getting more involved in the IT side of my job, I’ve started to work with data a lot more at work. I’m starting to realize just how valuable data analysis and data management skills are and will continue to be in the future. Seems like every single company in every single industry has a ridiculous amount of data to store, utilize, and analyze.In particular I have been spending a lot of time learning SQL and Microsoft Access, which are two things that I’ve been meaning to learn for some time now. While I will continue to learn and develop my Microsoft Excel skills, it feels great to add a couple more things to my resume.
- $50 Fail – I have a $50 fail to share with you. I signed up for leaf pickup in our city for a $50 charge. They split the city into four zones and I must have misread it and our zone’s pickup was this week. I wouldn’t have even signed up if I knew it was that early because there were still a ton of leaves on our trees. Unfortunately I am out $50 and will lose a lot of time going back and forth from the drop-off site. Last year I had 25 huge bags of leaves and I can only fit 6 in my car at a time, and that’s with the car packed completely full.
In my defense we were on a border of the zone so I just didn’t look closely enough. Nevertheless my $50 is gone and I will be making multiple trips to the drop-off site this weekend instead of just raking the leaves to the curb.
- Weekend – This weekend my wife is working all day Saturday, so my plan is to get a lot done around the house so she doesn’t have to worry about anything. I’m constantly inspired by her incredible work ethic.
Other than that I don’t have too much going on besides the usual blogging, hanging out with friends for a bit, and watching the Gopher’s game. Who would have thought I would care so much more about college football than the NFL? Speaking of the NFL, can’t believe the Vikings finally won again last night!
Posts of the Week:
If you want to see your post included in this roundup, comment on posts on Young Adult Money throughout the week – that’s where I find blogs/posts to include.
- Travis from Enemy of Debt talked about his recent $100,000 debt payoff in How Does It Feel to Pay Off $100,000 of Debt?. I had the honor of meeting Travis at one of our local Minnesota FinCon meetups earlier this year and I had no idea he was on the verge of such a milestone. Such an amazing and inspiring story!
- Cat from Budget Blonde talks money and relationships in The Hubs Wins A Money “Discussion”.
- E.M. from Journey to Saving talks about insurance, medical bills, and emergency funds in My Dental Dilemma.
- John from Frugal Rules shared What is the Key to Success When Paying off Debt?.
- Peter from Bible Money Matters is looking ahead to 2014 in 2014 Traditional And Roth IRA Contribution Limits And Phase Outs.
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What are you up to this weekend? Anything new going on in your life? Have you started Christmas shopping yet?
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First photo by Laura Bittner
Second photo by gnizr
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Sorry about the $50 DC! I hate dealing with leaves, but thankfully we’re in a fairly new neighborhood and don’t have trees that create enough to worry about. My youngest brother is coming in to town this weekend and will hopefully get to take some time off with him here and maybe even watch some football. Thanks for the mention sir and have a great weekend!
FrugalRules Yeah the trees in our neighborhood and our yard are HUGE so it makes for quite the cleanup effort. I hope you have some time to watch football, I’m antsy for the Gophers game tomorrow!
I would like to start Christmas shopping this weekend. R tags along, but I think of all the gifts. Awesome job on picking up extra skills at work! That can definitely come in handy in the future. That is awful you need to pay to have your leaves picked up. I think there’s a limit on how many bags they pick up here, but they designate weeks to put them out at the curb. They have been falling in full force lately. Thanks for the mention, and have a great weekend!
JourneytoSaving Hope you have a great weekend as well! I don’t mind tagging along with my wife, either, and she usually asks “is this a good gift?” and I can give my approval, though I approve almost 100% of her ideas haha. I do pick out her gifts, of course, which is fun.
I’ve learned a good amount of SQL in my job over the last few years. It’s really pretty intuitive, and I feel like there could be a way to use it in some kind of side hustle. Haven’t spent much time trying to figure that out yet though.
Matt @ Mom and Dad Money I used to do more spreadsheet consulting as a side hustle but never sought out additional clients so I just have one that ask for quotes from time-to-time. I would love to get a good understanding of Access and SQL and combine it with my Excel skills to offer db and spreadsheet work to small businesses as a side hustle. First I’d have to outsource this site 100%, which I don’t see happening for well over a year.
I pretty much refuse to do any yard maintenance. If the hubby makes a fuss, I ask him how many times he’s cleaned the toilet and that wins every time. The high school drama club is doing Peter Pan this weekend, so I’m taking kids to see that . It should be fun if the high school kids can hold their attention. If not, it might be a quick trip!
Eyesonthedollar Have fun at the show! I haven’t been to a drama or musical for a long time now despite the fact that Minneapolis is theater central. Maybe I’ll have to take the wife on a date to one sometime soon.
I definitely need to start Christmas shopping like you guys. I loathe to be in a mall in December!
Suburban Finance Even late November the malls start getting INSANE!
I feel your pain on the leaf removal bit.. Our new house is beautiful and has lots of gorgeous trees on the lot, which we love. On the other hand with so many trees there are a lot of leaves to remove. I think I’ve raked and bagged leaves 3 times already now, and finally most of the leaves are down. I pay for yard waste removal too, and at times it feels like a waste, although I actually got my leaves out there at the right time to be taken away.. Can’t say I’m envious of you having to bring your leaves to a disposal site.
moneymatters That’s great that you have some good-sized trees at your new house as it seems like a lot of new developments have that. Thankfully the disposal site is only about a mile and a half away, but it’s no fun making 2 or 3 trips.
Dang, that sucks about the $50. You couldn’t have gone out and shaken the leaves off the trees? :-)
I guess that is a nice perk about having 3 acres, I can either put my leaves in a burn pile or spread them around the property for them to decompose. Have a great weekend DC!
RatherBeShopping Haha the trees are so tall there’s no way I could reach all the branches, even with a 30 foot pole!
I would love to have more space in the backyard, but I’m having trouble maintaining what I DO have so it’s probably a good thing I don’t have a bigger yard. Hope you have a good one!
Thanks for the mention, DC – very much appreciated! I’m in denial that it’s time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. Complete denial. LOL.
DebtChronicles No problem on the mention! I thankfully haven’t had to do too much work for Christmas shopping. I did help set the budget, though ;)
Travis’s story is so inspiring and great motivation to anyone struggling to get out of debt. While we definitely have trees that lose their leaves, we don’t have as many in our neighborhood so raking leaves where I leave isn’t a huge production. :) While I wouldn’t love losing out on the $50, I’d be more annoyed by all the trips I have to take to get rid of them. Major bummer for you! Enjoy your weekend!
ShannonRyan Definitely not amused at the loss of time! We have some very big trees in our neighborhood and it causes quite the cleanup effort in late Fall. I hope you have a great weekend!
So when you’re talking about SQL are you referring to learning about the query language or are you learning how to set up SQL databases alongside Access databases? Congrats on the Vikings win last night btw. B’s family has quite a few Redskins fans and I’m looking forward to trash talking about the fact they lost to every team in the NFC north.
MicrosMissions the query language, though I’m not 100% sure what you mean when you say “SQL databases alongside Access databases.” Definitely was a big win for the Vikings last night!
Argh! Christmas! Already Christmas music in the store! I’m not ready! :) Hope you have a great weekend!
Beachbudget Yeah Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier. As soon as Halloween was over the stores and a lot of people dove right into Christmas!
Thanks for including me this week. :D I’m glad you liked the post! :)