The Best Money Blog – How to Save Money, Live Frugally, and Earn Passive Income

This month has definitely been an interesting one. We saved money, spent money, and even wasted some money as usual. The biggest news is that we have begun renting out our house and moved to an apartment. Our renters move in tomorrow, and I am grabbing the last of our stuff later tonight.

The real question is whether or not our pretty drastic lifestyle changes made any financial difference. It definitely had an emotional and physical impact (I swear I’m hiring movers next time), but how has it affected our finances?

The Best Money Blog received editors choice honors in the new Carnival of Personal Finance#267, this time hosted over at Beating Broke. Saving Money For Opportunities was chosen along with four other articles to be featured at the top of the list.

Be sure to check our some of my personal favorites below that were included in the carnival.

The Best Money Blog’s Favorites

• How To Convince Your Spouse You Need A Budget by Neal Frankle @ Wealth Pilgrim
• 10 Tips To Create Wealth. by Bob @ Christian Personal Finance
• These Commercials Are Making Me Batty! by J. Money @ Budgets Are Sexy

Why are you so afraid of your own success? Do you even realize that fear is what is keeping you from reaching your goals? The number one reason that most people fail to meet their economic expectations is fear. You must learn how to overcome this fear if you ever want to move beyond your current fiscal situation.

As a follow up to Wednesday’s article on our current exploration of renting out our house, I felt like now would be a good time to discuss the greater purpose of saving money.

A couple of days ago I went into some detail as to what we are planning to do with the money we will save. Today I want to try to explain it in a way to will serve as a long term inspiration to anyone, no matter what financial situation you might be in.

The Best Money Blog was featured once again in the Carnival of Personal Finance, Getting Hot In Here Edition, this time hosted over at Nerd Wallet. If you have never checked out a carnival of personal finance, now is there time. They are chock full of the best articles out there on saving, spending, investing, frugality, and all things money.

Be sure to check our some of my personal favorites below that were included in the carnival.

Top 3 Money Articles of the Week

• U.S. Presidents and their Net Worth by J. Money @ Budgets Are Sexy
• The Secret to Getting Out of Debt: Forget Snowballs and Interest Rates by Frugal Dad
• Financially Prepare your Spouse in order to Simplify by Simple Financial Lifestyle

A few articles back, I posted my first money saving idea, which was to use cash for groceries in order to track our expenses better. This week I wanted to talk about something that has been in the works for the past month that will finally come to fruition about a week from now.

We have rented out our house and are downsizing to an apartment! Before any congratulations or bashing begins, read the rest of the article to see our reasoning behind the move.

If you could earn 5% more at work without actually doing more work would you? It’s safe to say that everyone would take a pay increase in a circumstance like this. So now you probably want to know how it can be done. It’s done by buying things for the company of course. Alright, maybe that’s not the answer you are looking for, so let me rephrase the idea. It’s done through reimbursements for the things you buy for the company.

I’ll give you my answer right now, yes. Back in the old days, before Al Gore invented the Internet, people balanced their bank accounts using a pen and paper. This is not how it is done today.

More and more, people are relying on services like Mint.com to keep their finances in check, and it is only going to continue in this direction. By not cashing checks immediately, you are basically giving people the idea that they have more money than they do, and while I realize you are not responsible for their finances, there are other negative consequences as well.

It may seem like an easy question to answer, because you can’t save money unless you earn money first. What I want to discuss is how each one is going to help you more on the road to wealth. To make things a little more complicated, I will start off by saying that the answer to the question is both, but you’ll have to read the full article to see how each one can help you attain the wealth you have always dreamed of.

Earlier this morning, I read a reply to a post on The Simple Dollar about improving your financial situation that got me thinking. Leah W, along with a few other people, disagreed with some of what Trent said. I’ll be honest, it’s hard to tell which of the comments are her own thoughts, and which ones are the comments of others, but it’s not about who wrote what, it’s about what was said.

Sam is a gentleman that had just written the following to Trent at The Simple Dollar:

You think your world is all rainbows and puppies. Guess what? Karma will eventually bite you in the [rear]. Seven months ago I got fired from my job for no fault of my own the company was going under. Now I can’t pay my bills and I’m going to lose my house. Your life isn’t a real life.

Here is some of what Leah W. posted:

Not all people are so lucky. Trent often overlooks the “luck” factor and chalks it up to his hard work and dedication. Truly, that’s part of the mix. But some people work just as hard and are just as dedicated, but they end up like Sam.

It is true, many people work equally as hard and are just as determined as those around them, so what is it that makes some of them more financially successful than others?

I would not say luck.