AskDong

Worry not readers, I’m not becoming a professional blogger anytime soon. However, it seems many of my more successful compatriots are. I read the other day that Trent at The Simple Dollar turned in his letter of his resignation. Who would’ve seen that coming? <END SARCASM> I thought Trent was long overdue. He’s successful blogger who clearly has demonstrated an ability to monetize his blog, but more importantly keep his spending down. He knows what his priorities are: his Ninentdo Wii, kids, and some tasty meals. Not necessarily in that order. He joins other bloggers like J.D. at Get Rich Slowly and Lazy Man (though Lazy Man did not do it quite out of his own volition) on trying to make it a go as an independent. Others such as Flexo at Consumerist Commentary remain on the Fence.

Given that I don’t read too many blogs other than personal finance blogs, I’m not sure how common it is for bloggers to go “pro”. That said I’m not surprised that so many succesful personal finance bloggers have gone pro. The mentality that leads one to write a blog on personal finance is the exactly the mentality that it takes to escape the 9 to 6 rat race. What are some of these qualities?

• A Plan
• Frugality
• A desire for independence

Personal finance bloggers even if they love their jobs almost always have a strong desire to be financially independent. This is what drives them to frugality. This I also think what leads them to write public blogs. They want their voice to be heard above the crowd, and may cause them to dislike working under the structure of most corporations.

It is highly unlikely that I will join the ranks of financially self sufficient personal finance blogerss anytime in the near future. While I may be on my way to becoming a six figure blogger, it’s six figures in Mongolian Turgiks. While I like to believe I share some of the same qualities as these independent bloggers, I also realize I have still few more things I like to accomplish at work before I could even consider doing something else. I believe blogging will be part of that something else someday, but I’ve got some other plans for that something else as well.

Before I get into my monthly update on my IRA investments, I want to welcome all the readers from Get Rich Slowly on which I had a guest column about “Opening Your First Brokerage Account.”  I hope you enjoy this site, and please subscribe to the RSS feed if you do.

This will be my last IRA update in this form. As I move to a new investment tracking method, I hope to share with my readers even more information regarding my investment performance. I will still provide a monthly update of IRA positions but within the context of my overall performance.

I’m down for the year and down even more since my last update. All my holding have performed terribly along with the overall market.  Individually amongst my stocks there’s not a single winner.  The only thing that has prevented me from sinking even further is that I already sold some of my holdings last year and am relatively cash heavy.  I remain bearish on the overall market over the next year, and have not done as a good a job in protecting my IRA account as well as I have my 401k or Brokerage accounts. That said I think over the course of the next year there will be some great buying opportunities for quality stocks that will be unfairly beaten up by “Mr. Market”. I just need to figure out which stocks those are…

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year on this first business day of the year. While I’m still putting the finishing touches to my personal finance goals for this year, I do want to share some of the topics that I will be writing about in the next couple weeks.

• Mortgage Shopping Walkthrough - I should close on my condo this month, and want to share my most recent experience with shopping for a mortgage.
• Measuring Investment Performance - I’m looking at better way to measure my overall investment performance.  One of my goals this coming year is to become a more disciplined investor.
• Getting Rid Of Christmas Excess. - The holiday season is time of excess.  Excess food and Excess stuff.  I need to start hitting the gym again. In addition,  I’m also looking at ridding myself of old stuff.

So those are some of the topics I hope to sharing in the next couple weeks. However as this is the start of the new year, I’m also soliciting topics that people want me to write about.

Lazy Man published the most recent Festival of Frugality #102. I was selected as an editor’s choice for my ode to premium toilet paper and on top of that I got a link at MSN’s Smart Spending. Woohoo!

Below are a few other articles that I enjoyed from this most recent festival.

• Silicon Valley Blogger shows off some Piggy Banks My piggy bank is a big pitcher.
• Free Money Finance Lists the 10 Most hated Money Tips. I only hate two of them. I only really hate reason #1, move to a lower cost of living city (and indirectly #9 - even though I’m all for foreign living in general).
• The Juicefairy offers some basic dining tips while traveling. It’s a little easier when you travel from a homebase that’s already expensive to dine.  If anything my dining costs often go down when I travel.
• The Bag Lady ponders how you value brands. I don’t. That’s not really true. I actually do think that some brands do confirm quality, and am willing to pay a premium for those, namely toilet paper.  How you determine what is quality is the harder question.

I was featured in the recent Carnival of Personal Finance #122. I didn’t make the editor’s choice, but that’s ok. I thought I would feature some other articles that I liked that but weren’t picked for the A team.

• Mrs. Micah tells us how we can find find freelance jobs in our free time. I personally don’t have time currently to do any freelancing, but it’s certainly something I want to keep in mind as a option
• The Dividend Guy informs us how we can track dividend hikes. Rising dividends are usually a good stock indicator, and who doesn’t like to get paid on a regular basis?
• Eden at Our Family Village gives tips on eating healthy without breaking the bank. I agree but tell that the people shopping at Whole Foods!
• Curtis at Real World Finance debunks the myth that a flat tax would benefit the poor. That’s certainly a myth I haven’t heard.  I’ve always been a opponent of the flat tax because it would be too complicated to make the tax fair for the lower income families and individuals.
• Penny Nickel offers a guide to socially conscious gas consumption. I’m a big believer of socially conscious consumption, but generally pooh pooh socially conscience investing. Not sure I agree with Penny about Citgo and Venezuela.
• Plonkee debunks the common excuses for not giving to charity. I agree.  Give early and give often.  I know I could personally do better in my own giving.