Fearless Money

On my coffee table this month, I remain focused on building my business, but I’m adding a sprinkling of personal development and religious books.This month, my “actively reading” list is: “iCon Steve Jobs : The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business” (Jeffrey S…. Simon) “Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time” (Maria Veloso) “The Irresistible Offer : How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less” (Mark Joyner) “Grow Rich! : With Peace of Mind” (Napoleon Hill) - One of the most recommended self-help books of all time, a great grandaddy of them all. It is worthy of all that praise, in my opinion…. Hamilton) - Just picked up, I like Hamilton, but I haven’t started this yet. “Deadhouse Gates : Book Two of The Malazan Book of the Fallen (Malazan Book of the Fallen)” (Steven Erikson) - So far, not as gripping as the first book, but still very involving and interesting. I like the exceptionally detailed world. “Interface” (Neal Stephenson, J. Frederick George) - just picked up for my vacation trip, but didn’t get to it.

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This is the fourth edition of my “Virtual Coffee Table”, a tradition I began observing in February. Every month I take a shot of the books I am actively reading or have started and finished reading in the last month.

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This is the fourth edition of my "Virtual Coffee Table", a tradition I began observing in February. Every month I take a shot of the books I am actively reading or have started and finished reading in the last month.

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In the tradition of the Virtual Coffee Table posts I’ve been making, I think I’ll start sharing about significant new possessions entering my life. For the moment, I’m picking $100 as the cutoff for a single item to be marked “significant”. Before we started the budget last year, $100 was the cutoff amount between “spend at will” and “talk to my spouse.”This month was much bigger than normal.

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This is the third edition of my "Virtual Coffee Table", a fun tradition I began observing back in February. I just take a shot of the books I’m currently “actively” reading.

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Continuing a fun idea I first explored back in February, here’s a glimpse at my "Virtual Coffee Table."These are the things I am reading at the moment, with no editing. My goal is to finish a book a week. I think I usually do hit that mark these days.

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It is an odd thing, but repeatedly proven to be true, that setting constraints often sparks creativity.The way we did it this year was by budgeting “gift money” every month. The money, $50 each for Dustin and me, goes in envelopes marked “Dustin Gift Money” and “Bruce Gift Money” in the safe…. We use it to fund all gift giving throughout the year, supplemented by whatever we feel like kicking in from our personal “mad money” allowances. Since we started the formal budget in June last year, there were a total of $800 maximum dollars in the envelopes…. $500 really is not a lot to buy presents for the five people in the family, relatives, and close friends…. We did this by setting our limits up front, and by not really buying any “impulse gifts”…. I found myself thinking things like “that is a nice shirt, Dustin would love it, but if I buy it, I wont have enough left to get that bracelet I came here to buy.”… Temptation is just easier to avoid when you are using cash.Another big help was something I read on another personal finance blog (sorry I can’t recall which). It pointed out that young children really don’t have the attention to enjoy more than three or four presents.

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