Personal Finance Review – Family Edition

We spent most of this weekend with our extended families. I’ll admit I had some stress and anxiety over this. Our families do not always get along, and there was a ton of work to be done around our house – none of which actually got done. When we finally got home and started getting ready for the week I found myself uncharitably thinking – What was my time worth?

Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the challenges of day to day life, and the frustration of things interfering in our schedules. But when you get right down to it, what’s more important?

We spend a lot of time talking about what our time is worth on the job, and how to calculate our true hourly wage. I have a different question for you today – What is your time with your family worth? When you calculate it against your hourly worth, you can put a number on it, but the part of me that refuses to operate by numbers says there’s a much higher value to that time.

For those of us (myself included) who would really say that the time spent with our families is worth everything – I wonder, how often does your job interfere with your family time? How often do you feel stress because you are not working when you think you probably should be? How do you deal with it?

The Week In Review:

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Excellent articles from the Money Writers:

• Jeremy over at Generation X Finance gave us a very detailed article on the importance of diversifying your investment portfolio. (With real examples!)
• Silicon Valley Blogger at the Digerati Life wrote about how she masters her mindless spending, and plugs those holes in the monthly budget.
• Madison at My Dollar Plan discusses how to make early IRA withdrawals. While this is normally not a good idea, there are certain expenses and life events that qualify you to take your money out early. This is a nice concise article that tells you what you need to know – worth a bookmark!
• Frugal Trader at Million Dollar Journey did his regular net worth review. This was fascinating to me. So may times we just see articles highlighting “10 ways to save money!” and it’s rare to see a blogger put his money where is blog is and bare all.
• Brip Blap gives us some very sage advice: Stay away from the news! Yes. I totally agree. This is why we do not have cable. The internet is as full of news as everything else, but I can click that nifty little x in the top corner and shut up the talking heads any time I want. Somehow, I never seemed to shut the T.V. off the same way.
• Lazy Man @ Lazy Man and Money gives us the lowdown on what he earned from his blog last month, and what his expenses were.
• Sun at The Sun’s Financial Diary compares the savings accounts at Emigrant Direct and WT Direct. I was sad to hear the Emigrant Direct has cut their APY. I have recommended them for a while now – but no more. He also did his net worth review. Dare we compare?

Article highlights from The Money Blog Network:

• Nickel at Five Cent Nickel goes deep inside the housing rescue bill.
• The readers at No Credit Needed share their best personal finance tips. There are some good ones on this list!
• Free Money Finance shows us The Odds. Turns out there’s a better chance of being hit by an asteroid than winning the lottery!
• Flexo at Consumerism Commentary gives us the dirt on which savings accounts have the highest interest rates. With the recent financial shakeups, the interest rates at some banks have been dropping like flies. Nice to know there are still a few good ones out there.
• Mighty Bargain Hunter takes a unique stance on the price of gas with “I don’t care how much Exxon makes per second!” What do you think?

Around the Blog-o-sphere:

• Jim at Blueprint for Prosperity has an overview of Obama’s Emergency Economic Plan.
• Trent at The Simple Dollar looks at Debt Repayment as an Investment. Smart words in my book!
• Get Rich Slowly makes me virtually jealous with some excellent photos of his garden and how much money he is saving.
• Bible Money Matters reviews micro loans and the KIVA credit card. Boy, micro lending is sure taking the internet by storm! How do you feel about it?
• Money Ning discusses Upselling and the Supersize mentality.

Thanks to 2Paupers and the Carnival of Living Cheaply – August for featuring our articles. Thanks also to Megan @ Counting My Pennies for giving our Kung Fu Panda article a thumbs up!

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