Done To Zen

Bumblefucked talks about an often-ignored reason for why being in debt sucks. My own apartment experience wasn’t as terrible, but only because I lived there for all of one month.

Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” Matching Fund via Nine Circles of Debt. From Bank of America:

Saving is a whole lot simpler when you don’t have to think about it. That’s the idea behind Keep the Change. When you enroll, each time you buy something with your Bank of America Check Card, we’ll round up your purchase to the nearest dollar amount and transfer the difference from your checking account to your savings account. You get to keep the change — so every cup of coffee, gift, meal, and tank of gas add up to more savings for you.

The best part of the program is that Bank of America matches 100% of your Keep the Change savings for the first 3 months and 5% from then on. The maximum match amount is $250 per year.

Saving Money on gas by hypermiling via How I Save Money. You simply have to use your common-sense. The tips given are very simple and will take only a little patience to get used to:

1. Know Gas Mileage
2. Don’t Drive Aggressively
3. Coast
4. Accelerate Slowly
5. Neutral Shifts

I’m ashamed to say that I score only 2 out of 5 on this (#1 and #2). I follow #4 when driving on highways and have been trying harder to do it on local roads, too. I admit I hate getting stuck behind someone who seems to take 10 hours to go from 0 to 40MPH.

Budgets Are Sexy wants to know whether you would rather take $500K now or $1 million in 10 years. Personally, I’m all for taking $500K now. I would buy 10 investment properties that will give me a gross cash flow of $100,000. I will retire and explore my passions. 10 extra years of pure zen are more important to me than an extra $500K. Besides, $500K now is worth more than $1 billion in 10 years because you get to invest it.