March Madness! I always fill out a bracket but it’s been quite a few years since I won a pool. Here’s to this being my year!
Welcome to the Weekly Quick Hits Roundup!
If you’re new here, 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 129 giveaways listed this week that end today (3/21) through next Thursday (3/27).
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To all the college basketball fans – how’s your bracket looking? Still in contention for the $1 Billion prize that Warren Buffet is paying to anyone who submitted a perfect bracket? I’m not :(
I picked Iowa State to win the whole tournament. They aren’t a popular pick, but I think they have a strong team and I’m a big fan of their coach, Fred “The Mayor” Hoiberg. He used to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves and was essentially a 3-point specialist. When my friend and I played NBA video games growing up I would always start Hoiberg and have him score a bunch of threes.
I’m pretty bummed that the (Minnesota) Gophers didn’t make the tournament, but they played pretty inconsistently all year. I’m not sure how to feel about the NIT tournament. It’s great that they get to keep playing, but honestly does anyone care about it?
In other news I took on my first weekly contributor job. I will be contributing one post a week to the FeeX blog. My first post was 4 Things to Do Before Putting Additional Money Toward Student Loans.
I waited to take a contributor job until I found the ‘right’ one. It’s a wash with what I pay for a weekly post on this blog, so I always figured contributing to other sites would be taking away from this one. In reality I think having other writers on the site gives it some variety. I mean let’s face it, you aren’t going to see a whole lot of posts by me about the financial aspects of having a baby or about jumping into a frozen lake. It’s just not gonna happen!
I also wanted to mention the $150 cash giveaway that I am hosting on the site. The theme is ordinary people making money on social media and I feel like very few know how they can monetize their regular old social media accounts.
Below are the posts we published this week:
- On Monday Cat asked Is There Such a Thing As Luck When It Comes to Finance?.
- On Tuesday Sally shared Being a Transformational Leader.
- On Wednesday I explained How to Calculate and Pay Quarterly Estimated Taxes.
- On Thursday I shared a strategy for making money online plus a giveaway in How Ordinary People Can Make Money on Social Media [+$150 Giveaway].
Posts of the Week:
As usual, here are five posts from around the blogosphere that I enjoyed:
- Shannon from Financially Blonde discussed Investing Fear Factors
- Charles from Getting a Rich Life tells us how to Overcome Your Fear To Build Your Financial Independence
- Mitchell from Snark Finance shows us how to save money by Cutting Cable By Streaming Your Entertainment
- Stefanie from The Broke and the Beautiful Life discusses Breaking Through Your Own Glass Ceiling
- Tara Zee from Streets Ahead Living gives us a harsh dose of reality in You Aren’t Entitled to Anything
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What are you up to this weekend? Have you finished your taxes? If so, will you be getting a rebate or will you pay in? If you filled one out – how’s your NCAA bracket?
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Photo by bp6316
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Thank you SO much for including me in your Roundup this week!! I think that Florida is going to win it all this year, but you never know, the unpredictability is what makes it so fun. As a Wake Forest alum, I have not been emotionally involved in the tournament since Chris Paul was on the Wake team that went to the tournament. It’s obviously been a long time. :-)
I also pick my brackets based on my favorite uniforms. No joke. If I cant decide between uniforms, I go by mascot. Seriously, it’s worked! I’ve won big prizes a couple years ago picking like this.
Sorry to hear about your taxes. We’re still waiting on ours and should here back soon. I’m really hoping we sent in enough at the end of the year as I don’t want to have to write another check of similar size. I’m starting to work on the redesign this weekend as I found who’ll be doing it and fear it’s going to be more work than I was expecting. We’re also bottling my latest home brew, which will be fun.
Ouch. I’m going to have to check out the quarterly tax bill post now that I’m actually making some money with all of this.
Thanks for including me in the round up. Have a great weekend DC!
Ouch on your “extra” tax payment this year. It’s is one of those catch-22’s, I guess. Obviously you made more money (yeah!) but it’s too bad that means more has to go to the tax man (boo!). When your side business is an growth mode and has somewhat fluctuating income, it makes it even harder to estimate taxes. Have a great weekend, DC!
blonde_finance Hey no problem! It was a great post. Yeah it definitely has been a while since Wake Forest was in the tourney. I hope Iowa State makes it to the final four and beats Florida ;)
fitnpoor Haha I know some people who do that and hey, sometimes you win! Especially in a year when a lot of upsets happen.
FrugalRules Oh no worries about the taxes. It won’t be fun to pay that amount but I knew I wasn’t paying in enough so it kind of eases the pain haha. I have a designer working on my redesign but it’s been really tough for me to approve one of his designs. I think it’s more me than him, but I just don’t want the site looking worse. I like it now but there is some functionality that I would like to change. Home brew sounds like fun for sure!
brokeandbeau Yeah I’d look into it now so you don’t get hit hard next tax season. Hopefully my post is helpful and not confusing. Hope you have a great weekend too!
ShannonRyan Exactly! It’s a good and bad thing haha. It can definitely be difficult to estimate what you should pay in for taxes. You don’t want to estimate too low, but also not too high. Hope you have a great weekend too!
Thanks david for the include. Who knows you could be a bracket bbillionaire. Have a great weekend
Congrats on your new writing gig! Nice article, too. I can check off three on that list, only because I don’t have an HSA. My taxes were done a few weeks ago and I got a decent refund that’s going towards my student loans. Have a great weekend!
I think North Dakota State ruined lots of brackets, and while I did not pick Mercer, I am more than excited that Duke got knocked out, even if I didn’t win a billion. Congrats on the new gig. I found out some wonderful news that we owe even less tax than we though because our accountant left a zero off one of our quarterly estimates. It’s a good day and will be super if KY wins!
Oh wow, that sucks about the taxes. Good thing you had the money saved just in case. I got some money back this year. We’re getting a 60+ weather day on Saturday so that should be nice. Enjoy your weekend.
Congrats on your new writing gig! Hope you enjoy it. Also good luck with the march madness. I have’t done a bracket in ages. I’m not into the traditional sports so I always forget about it until people start posting stuff on Facebook. :)
Charles@gettingarichlife Unfortunately there are NO brackets left in Warren Buffet’s billion dollar pool. Hope you have a great weekend as well!
JourneytoSaving Thanks! That’s great you got a refund, its kind of a goal of mine next year haha. Hope you have a great weekend as well!
Eyesonthedollar Left a zero off one of your quarterly estimates?!? I don’t know whether you should be happy or mad haha. Actually it’s pretty easy to make little mistakes here and there. I love all the upsets!
Raquel@Practical Cents 60+ degrees?? Amazing! We have another cold week ahead of us, but I think Spring is just around the corner. Hope you have a great weekend as well.
Beachbudget Thanks! I like it so far, it’s just different to be writing on a site other than this one haha. I’m glad you are back safe from your trip!
If you do win the $1B, will you stick around to at least post that you did? If I win, you will notice me in the papers….
Someone will have to win, after all, there should be enough entries that someone gets it by chance.
No Nonsense Landlord Haha unfortunately there are ZERO brackets that are perfect through the first round.