Save Summer Money

Miranda over at Cash Money Life recently wrote an erstwhile article about opportunities to save money that exist during the summer months but are not necessarily available the rest of the year. The most prevailing advice is to spend as much time doing free activities outdoors as possible, and I'd also like to recommend getting a programmable thermostat so you can set your air conditioning to coincide perfectly with the times you are at home. But more importantly, I think the best way to save money during the summer is by avoiding the additional recreational expenses that can creep into your daily routine and wreak havoc on your budget. There's nothing wrong with taking the family out for ice cream on Friday night, but if you start doing it several times per week, you might run into budget problems. You might be able to pull off attending several professional baseball games during the summer, but if you try to do it every other weekend, you might find yourself spending more than you intended. It's not necessarily the one-time events that leak the ship, but rather, when you let the extraordinary become the ordinary. It's tempting during the summer to fill up your schedule with hefty expense-ridden events, but be careful, lest you find a less than welcoming bank statement at the end of the month. For a solid article on this topic, check out Miranda's article here: http://cashmoneylife.com/save-money-in-the-summer/.

How Realistic Is It To Win The Lottery

How cool would it be to win $100 million dollars? Heck, $10 million? I bet you're thinking that even $1 million dollars would be nice. I'm sure almost every American has entertained romantic visions of winning the lottery--the prospect of buying a $1 ticket that creates millions of dollars in wealth, taking care of you for life. It's a nice concept. Too bad, it probably won't be you. After all, the odds of getting in a car accident on a given day is about 1 in 250,000. The odds of winning the lottery? One in about 160 million. Not odds you'd want to bet on. But yet, that is exactly what millions of Americans do each week when they purchase a lottery ticket at their local grocery store or gas station. It's a shame considering that winning the lottery doesn't even guarantee financial success. Millions of Americans who have won the lottery have ended up broke, bankrupt, and in a far worse position than they were before they won the money. But yet, millions of Americans continue to dream on, spending $5 a week on lottery tickets. It's sad, really. If they would take that $5 a year, which equals $20 a month, and put $240 into Berkshire Hathaway for 30+ years, they'd be in much better shape than if they had bought worthless lottery tickets. To read a fascinating article on the futility of winning the lottery, be sure to check out Trent's article at The Simple Dollar, link here: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2011/07/06/why-the-lottery-isnt-the-answer-to-your-problems/

Generating Passive Income From Website

Money Crush recently ran a thoughtful article pointing out that there is no easy shortcut for generating passive income. A lot of people get it in their head that they can start a website with a good idea, put about ten hours of work into it, kick back, relax, and watch the money roll in. The fact is, life doesn't work like that. Sure, the best money-making philosophy is to try and generate as much profit as possible while putting in the least amount of work. But this is overtly simplistic thinking. If you expect that you will be making thousands, or even hundreds, of dollars per month just because you spent ten hours setting up a blog, then you are most likely mistaken. There is no short cut to avoid hard work. If you want to make a lot of money from a blog, then you're going to have to put a lot of hours in to it. And it's not going to be fun at first--are you the type of person who would be content spending 300-400 hours in start-up time just to make a hundred bucks? Very few people have the endurance to put up with that type of returns, and that's why a lot of blogs never get the chance to take off. If you want to read a thoughtful article that reiterates this point, check out Money Crush here: http://www.moneycrush.com/start-a-side-business-in-your-sleep-or-not/