How I Will Be Rich

Hell week is almost over for me. Tomorrow is my last chance to get all the jobs done that people demanded were done before Christmas. Today we had a little fire in the factory. Somebody decided to put their coffee in the microwave for twenty minutes and, pretty literally, blew up the microwave. Not to mention one of my key factory guys decided not to show up today and set us back a little on our production priorities. It’s been a rough week and, by the end of the day tomorrow, I am going to be so relieved. We’re actually throwing a Christmas party for the factory and we are BBQing carne asada. I’m looking forward to that.

I have about twelve days off after tomorrow. I won’t be going back to work until January 2nd, 2008. I’m really going to spend a lot of time focusing on this blog during that time. I want to apologize for the random, off-topic and short posts that I’ve been coming up with lately. My brain hasn’t had the chance to relax in the past week. This vacation will be much needed for my sanity and for the blog.

My girlfriend is throwing a formal Christmas party tomorrow night. I’ve got to get back to Ironing out all my dress clothes. In the mean time, go check out our sister site, Be Healthy and Relax. It has really been blowing up lately. The site has been really well received and has just been bombarded with traffic out of nowhere. It’s really amazing. I’d recommend it for people who are fans of Zen Habits, anyone wanting to learn how to relax or anyone wanting some good health advice.

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I had a meeting with my school counselor earlier today. It’s official; I’m starting back to school on January 7th.

A little background on me.
There are a lot of people that read my blog that know me personally but there’s a whole lot more who have no clue who I am or what I do. In 2001, I graduated from high school and moved on to college. While I was in high school and college, I worked in the office of the family shutter company. I took night classes and, over the next few years, I finished an Associates degree in Business Management. Shortly after finishing my Associates degree, my family had a falling out with our general manager. They asked me if I felt like I could handle the position. I was confident and I accepted the position.

The new job consumed me. I was working seven days a week and putting in seventy to eighty hours. As you could imagine, it became a little too overwhelming to run the company and continue with my schooling. I decided, along with my parents, that it would be a good idea to take some time off from school.

Since taking my break from school, I’ve hired some help and really got the hang of managing the company. I feel like I’m finally ready to give school another go. I’ll be taking night classes and online classes and will have class sessions every single night of the week. It is going to be intense. I’m not really looking forward to the added workload but I am looking forward to learning more about finance and investing.

I’m hoping this move will be good for the blog. I will explore avenues that I’ve yet to venture down. It’s exciting and scary but I think I’m ready.

Photo Credit: Avolore

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Today I’m posting sort of a random personal post. I want to apologize for the sporadic nature of my posting. I’ve been having a hard time getting back on schedule. I like to write my posts at night right before I go to bed and set them to post the following morning. Coming in to the holidays, work gets crazy. Everybody wanted their order yesterday. Everybody seems to think that their order was supposed to be ready before Christmas. It gets really hectic. Lately, I haven’t been able to get myself to post right before bed; hence the random times of my various postings.

My girlfriend and I just purchased the game Rock Band. I’m not sure if anyone has played guitar hero but it’s very similar. You have the option to play guitar, bass, drums or even sing. The game is so much fun. It was kind of expensive to get the whole set but I’m a huge video game nerd and we splurged a little. We purchased the game the frugal way… We found it on eBay. We actually managed to purchase a copy for less money on eBay than it’s actually selling for in stores.

In Guitar Hero, you can play forever and it probably won’t ever help you get better at guitar in real life. Playing the drums in Rock Band, however, can actually teach you to become a good drummer. You’re basically going through the same motions you would in real life. It’s really cool. I think I’ve been getting a workout too. Joe would be proud of me.

I’ve re-registered for school. I’ve mentioned before that I’m working on a finance degree in school. I took one semester off to spend some time focusing on the family business. I’ve re-enrolled to get back on track starting in January. It should only take me ten more months and I’ll be done. Since I will be taking finance and investing courses, the topics of my blog may reflect this. I really want to get more in depth with investment topics so I would imagine that my blog may roll in that direction a little for a few months.

I hope people don’t mind my random rant of a post. If you do, just skip over it. I’m going to go play some more Rock Band before I go to bed.

Photo Credit: greatestpeopleever

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I want to know if anyone has read The Secret The book has been endorsed by Oprah and has topped best seller lists. I have yet to talk to a single person who has read the book. I am bringing this up because, a few months ago, my girlfriend’s aunt gave us a copy of the DVD. We finally got around to watching it over the weekend and I must admit, I was intrigued.

The idea of The Secret isn’t any new idea. The simple concept is that if you want something and you visualize yourself with it, one day you will achieve your goal. That’s the whole idea… You just think positive thoughts and you never let yourself believe that your goal is unattainable.

There is more complex theory behind it all. When looking at The Secret on a quantum physics level, the DVD explains that everyone and everything is made up of energy. When really broken down, everything in the universe is made up of the same thing. The concept explains that your brain sends off signals and the universe receives those signals and, ultimately, helps you get what you want.

I’ve never read the book. I know it promises a lot. It claims that with “The Secret”, you can have money, good relationships and anything you can ever want. I don’t want to give my opinions on the theory just yet. I want to know if people have actually read the book and I want to know what they thought. To tell you the truth, I haven’t completely made up my mind on what I think about this book.

If you get some discussion going, I’ll repost some of your thoughts on the idea and also give you a more detailed version of what my thoughts actually are.

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Reviewing Last Month’s Goals

• Post 5 blog posts per week
  I had no problem achieving this goal. I’ve realized my optimum writing time. I have discovered that if I set some time aside at night close to bedtime and I just sit in silence for a little while, I come up with my best ideas. The blog posts just flow naturally. I tend to be insanely busy on the weekends and have a hard time finding the time to blog. By sticking to approximately five posts per week, I get a couple days off and I don’t overload the readers.
  
• Get to 100 subscribers
  It’s kind of funny because my goal before this was to get to fifty subscribers and literally two days after my month’s end deadline, I hit my goal. This month I had my goal set at 100 and by November 30th, I had a total of 93. As of writing this (December 4th), I have broken that 100 subscriber mark. I will consider that a success for the month, despite the fact that my deadline was about 4 days late.
  
• At least 1 carnival per week
  This goal was no problem. I probably averaged about three carnivals per week this month. I love carnivals. They are such a great way to get exposure for your blog.
  
• Break $100 total money made
  I was shooting to make $100 total. That’s not $100 for this month, that was a total of $100 since the conception of this blog. This is the one goal this month that I failed to meet. The blog’s income, since the day it was born, currently stands at $90.14. So in case you are wondering, this blog averages about $0.73 or so per day.
  
• At least 2 guest posts on other (more popular) blogs
  I actually did write a few guest posts this November. I was successful in doing that. They weren’t published in November but I did manage to get them written. One of them was actually featured yesterday over at Brip Blap.
  
• New theme / layout
  As you can see, my blog has a new theme. I like it better than the last one but it still needs work. I’m actually rethinking the whole thing once again. Right now, I think it might be a little too busy. I’m thinking about switching it to something a little more minimalistic. White background, black text… Something like that.

I had a pretty good month as far as achieving goals go. Hopefully I can do even better in December and meet 100% of them.

Goals For December

I’ve realized that I’ve only been sharing my goals related to blogging. I’ve decided that, starting this month, I’m going to get a little more personal with my goals. I will still share my goals concerning this blog but I also feel that it could be beneficial to share my goals concerning my personal finances and my entrepreneurial endeavors. Sharing these goals holds me accountable and I will realize that, this time next month, I will have to share how well I faired on my personal goals as well.

Personal Goals

• Complete all of my Christmas shopping within a budget of $500
  I tend to go a little overboard every year on my Christmas shopping. I dig in to credit cards and pay for Christmas for months. This year I am going to set a strict budget and stick to it. So far, I’ve already spent $40 of my budget on one person… I’ve got about ten more people to go…
• Open up a separate bank account for my side business
  Joe and I have a few internet endeavors in the works. I’ve got a separate Tax ID number already, I just need to find time to get down to the bank and get an account set up.

Blogging Goals

• Post 5 blog posts per week
  For now, I’m going to stick to this schedule. It has worked great. It’s not overwhelming me and I don’t think it’s overloading any readers.
• Get to 200 subscribers
  I’m feeling pretty confident this month. I hit my 100 subscribers, I’ve got guest posts out and about, I’m consistently participating in carnivals and some bigger name blogs are starting to make mention of my blog. I’m confident that in December I can make the subscribers double from what I’ve managed to accomplish in the entire history of this blog. I have decided that, once I hit 150 subscribers, I will publish my subscriber numbers for everyone to see.
• At least 2 carnivals per week
  Carnivals are great. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been mentioning them a lot lately. They do great things for blogs that are just starting out. It’s really a great way to get yourself out there. Last month I committed myself to one per week. I am upping my commitment to two per week.
• Break $150 total money made
  Seeing as it has been extremely hard to make much income off this blog, I’m not really shooting for the stars this month… If I can make $60 over the next 25 days I will be extremely happy. That will put my overall blog income at $150.
• At least 2 guest posts on other (more popular) blogs
  So far, only one of my guest posts has been published. That one day, however, I saw a huge boost in hits. I’ve got to continue with this. I’m going to start submitting some of my best stuff to share on other sites. I really think that can be a great tool to help this blog grow.

Some Thank Yous:
These are the ten sites that referred the most traffic to me in November:

1. Lazy Man and Money
2. Brip Blap
3. Consumerism Commentary
4. My Two Dollars
5. No Credit Needed
6. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already
7. Stock Trading To Go
8. The Digerati Life
9. The Simple Dollar
10. Clever Dude and Personal Finance

Thanks so much to all of the blogs that have sent traffic to me and talked about me on their blog. I appreciate it so much. The blogging community has been so great and accepting of new blogs and I think it’s really great to finally to start to feel like part of the community.

Thanks So Much to everyone,
-M

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