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

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.

I hear them all the time. People ask me for advice on how to make or save more money, and when I tell them exactly how to do it, I’m told it’s impossible for one reason for another. To be honest, I used to be the same way, until I realized that I was justifying my actions because I didn’t want to change the way I lived.

So far, many of the articles on The Best Money Blog have covered different ways of saving money as well as adopting a proper attitude towards saving money and managing your personal finances, without really venturing into the realm of earning money. Today I want to go over three different types of income (active, passive, and semi-passive), how they all work, and how you can utilize each type to continually increase your net worth.

Thanks to Evan over at My Journey to Millions for hosting the 264th Carnival of Personal Finance. The Best Money Blog was featured in the “savings” section.

As a follow up to one of my first articles, 6 Major Money Leaks In Your Life, I have collected another group of items that drain cash from your bank account on a monthly basis. If you can avoid charges from multiple items on each list, you will save yourself a decent amount of extra money you would have otherwise wasted.

This is the first in an ongoing series that will chronicle the different money saving ideas my wife and I try. Hopefully it will provide some insight and inspiration to those of you having trouble coming up with ideas of your own.

You’ve read hundreds of blogs telling you 1,286 different ways you can save money. Some of them might seem crazy, and they often are, but others are tried and true methods that have been successfully practiced since before money was first printed. Why aren’t you using any of them?

We’re going to dive deeper into the reasons for inaction on your quest for financial freedom. You know exactly what you have to do to get there but you aren’t doing them, so what is holding you back?

Acting rich is a good thing. Acting how you think rich people act is a bad thing. One of the most common misconceptions about rich folks is that they spend their money frivolously because they are so wealthy that they don’t have to worry about it. While it is true that some wealthy people, professional athletes in particular, live an over-extravagant lifestyle, the majority of rich people got to where they are by living below their means and persistently investing money. Once you learn to act rich, you will hear the phrase, “You spend money like a millionaire”, and take it as a compliment.