Well, my family had a great time during our end of summer vacation to Wildwood, NJ.  The weather was perfect and the beaches could not have been better.  And my kids had a blast on all of the rides on the boardwalk.

But now it’s time to get back to work.  I’ve got a lot going on right now…continuing to create content for Saving Money Today and also trying to get Money Matters Guy off the ground.  I had forgotten how hard it is to start a blog from the ground up without a built in audience.  Feel free to stop by and say hi!  Here’s a recent post you might enjoy where I answer the question Is it too late for you to start making money online?

I also did a guest post at The Financial Blogger where I discuss why people fail at making money online.  Check it out and leave a comment with your thoughts!

The last few years have been pretty tough on us.  Though we had the good news of our 3^rd child entering the world, the past 3 years have been mostly spent dealing with the prolonged illnesses and deaths of both of my wife’s parents.  My wife has been through an emotional roller coaster in trying to deal with all these feelings and I’ve done the best I can to support her.

One of the most difficult things she’s had to deal with is selling her parent’s home.  As an only child she inherited everything and that includes the house she grew up in.  And although a number of people have told us we should just live there ourselves because the mortgage is paid off, that’s not our plan.  While it is a beautiful home there are a number of factors that make it undesirable for us to stay there long term.

And so we’ve been steadily working on cleaning it out (40 years of stuff saved up in the basement and attic!) and doing some minor cosmetic work to get it ready for sale.  We did some painting and I installed a new sink, vanity and light fixture in the bathroom…and we’re getting the hardwood floors refinished this week to repair the damage done by their dog over the years.

I can’t imagine the emotions my wife must be going through as she prepares to sell the home she grew up in.  There’s a lot of wonderful memories in that house and my wife tears up as soon as she steps inside.  She’s constantly being pulled in opposite directions as one part of her just wants to get rid of the house and move on while the other part can’t bear the thought of it.

In the end, it’s the best thing for us to do.  We can use the proceeds from the sale to pay off our debt and start with a clean slate, and hopefully not make the same mistakes again.  Then we can focus on buying a new home with more room because quite frankly our current house is about to burst at the seams.  It’s only going to get worse as the kids grow so we need to plan ahead and find something that better meets our needs.  Once my in-law’s house sells we’ll have to temporarily keep some stuff in a StorageMart until we are ready to move into a new house.

With luck the house will sell quickly and we’ll be able to move on and get back to a somewhat normal existence.

Using a PO box address is both convenient and cost-effective.

A post office box is a numbered box inside a post office building where you can opt to receive your mail.  When you apply for a PO box, you are required to fill out an application, show identification, and pay a small fee (usually charged monthly or semi-annually).  You are then given a set of keys so only you can retrieve the mail delivered to that PO box address.   You can then start giving out your post office box number as your address.

Let’s talk about some of the reasons why you would want to use a PO box address:

Security – In today’s world we always have to be on the lookout for shady characters who want to steal our identity.  Identity thieves are known to rummage through mailboxes looking for sensitive and confidential information.  But if you use a PO box address, your mail is delivered directly to a post office and it sits behind lock and key until you retrieve it.

Privacy – Have you ever had your neighbor’s mail delivered to your home by mistake?  What if some confidential item you were waiting for went to their house in error?  Using a USPS box will alleviate that concern.   You’ll also appreciate their mailbox services if you have roommates or nosy neighbors who can’t mind their own business.

Speedy Delivery – Since your mail only has to make it to the post office itself instead of being delivered to your door by a letter carrier, you’ll find that you receive it a lot faster.  At the least it should be available for pickup first thing in the morning, and sometimes a full day earlier than if it were being delivered.

Separate Business Mail from Personal Mail – If you have your own home-based business you should consider opening a PO box address for your business related mail.  Separating business from personal mail can avoid potential mix ups and confusion.  It will also give your business a more professional look  than a residential street address would.

Permanent Address – You don’t need to live in the same town as your post office box (though I would suggest you choose a location that doesn’t involve a 2 and a half hour drive!) so your options are really limitless.  If you’re thinking of moving in the near future you won’t have to worry about changing your address because you can just continue having it delivered to your PO box address.

I haven’t been posting as much as usual lately, but don’t worry…I’m not going anywhere. 

My schedule has just been insane lately as we got hit with a big project at work and I’ve been busy trying to do some painting and stuff at home.  I’ve also been battling a cold which won’t go away so in the little free time I’ve had I haven’t felt up to doing much.

But have no fear I have a whole list of post ideas to work on so it’s just a matter of kicking myself in the butt to get moving!

In the meantime, you can check out my member post at The Yakezie.  I also have a book review and giveaway going live there soon so keep an eye out for it!

We all need a little time to rest and re-energize ourselves, and that time has finally arrived for me.  I’ll be spending the next week enjoying the beaches of Wildwood Crest with my family.  There won’t be any new posts while I am off enjoying the ocean waves, the bikinis, and the boardwalk fun and games.

You can still leave comments but they won’t appear until I get back to approve them.

In the meantime, why not take this time to enjoy a few of my older articles that you may have missed the first time around…

Swap Paperback Books Online And Save

How to Make Money Picking Up Poop

Planning A Wedding On A Small Budget

Stopping Phantom Energy Loss Dead In Its Tracks

Are Used Car Seats Safe?

See you next week!

How many times have you heard people saying “Make sure you back up your data regularly”?

Do you do it?  I didn’t think so.

I have a USB drive that I periodically backup my vital files to but to be honest I don’t do it nearly often enough.  In fact a few months went by and I just kept saying to myself, “I’ll get to it tomorrow.”

Well about 2 weeks ago my laptop crapped out on me and until last night it was little more than an expensive paper weight.  

I was really worried that I’d have to go out and buy a replacement, and in the meantime I was dead in the water.  I couldn’t get any writing done and now I’m way behind.

Fortunately my friend Paul is an IT guru and he was able to replace my corrupted hard drive and save most of my data.   So for the price of a new hard drive and a case of Red Stripe I’m now back in business. 

I don’t think I lost anything of importance but I’ve learned a valuable lesson and I’ll be backing up my data regularly from now on!

If you don’t have a blog of your own then you probably don’t know or care what dofollow means.

Without boring you do death, NoFollow tags were first implemented by Google to help bloggers control comment spam.  You see, links are valuable to bloggers and web site owners.  And lots of them were spamming blogs just to get a quick link back to their site.  They offered little value to the blog or its readers…they were simply trying to get something for nothing.

By tagging links as NoFollow a blogger could tell Google not to follow that link or include it in PageRank calculations.

But in my experience blogs that use the NoFollow tag usually get fewer comments and reader participation (unless the site is already established with a large following).

I don’t want this blog to be a one man soap box.  I encourage my readers to participate and I want to reward them for being a helpful member of the community.  So that’s why I decided to make comments on this blog DoFollow.

If you own a blog and comment here you will get a little PR boost.

I do this knowing that I’ll probably get hit hard with spammy comments linking back to all sorts of porn and viagra sites.  But I’ll be moderating comments anyway so hopefully I can delete those right off the bat.

I’ll also be using posting a strict commenting policy and it will be placed prominently.  My comment policy will be in a separate post and it will spell out the rules of commenting here.  If you don’t follow them your posts won’t be approved.