Bryan C. Fleming

This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Melissa recently joined the Million Dollar Savings club and writes:

"The concept of the Latte Factor is that if we invested the $3.50 or more a day
that we spend at Starbucks we could all retire in 10 years. Its true add it up.
I found out that I was spending almost $75 a month on frappacinos! No wonder I
cant pay my credit card bill. I was also spending $5-$9 a day on food. That's
about $100 bucks a month. Yes I know I have to eat but that sandwich that I
spent five bucks on, I could have made it at home for $.25! Probably would taste
better too."

That’s the trick. Finding a few simple ways to cut back on what you spend is how you save money. Melissa took a quick inventory of her spending habits and can now start saving money. Too many people are focused on the offense (making money) rather than the defense (not spending everything we earn). Try cutting back on a few of your daily extras. Make a sandwich instead of going out to lunch and you’re in the club. Then you’ll turn around one day and have piles of money.

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Last night I decided to count each pile of money. You know what? There was much more there than I thought. Yes, you can sit there and say, “Bryan it’s day 36, you should have $36 in each pile”. This is true, but to actually see that much money sitting in front of your face is different.

You have to think about it. This money seemingly came from nowhere. True we had to build the habit of saving a dollar a day. But honestly it really should be something you’re doing now without thinking about.

Then you turn around one day and start counting all that cash. Twenties, tens, and fives all start appearing from your pile. You probably won’t even remember putting them in there. Seriously, you should have over $100 among the 3 piles now. That’s a lot of money for skipping a few StarBucks coffees.

Remember what we’re learning here: You really need to see the money build up first hand before you can talk yourself into bigger commitments. We will get into that soon I promise. We will have a plan to really have a million dollars. We’re taking baby steps now.

Here are some pictures of my money piles:

Investing



Savings

Give-away



Even if you’re just starting out, you can read my previous posts and play along. The first few days are the hardest. I promise you that. Drop me an email with how much you have in each pile. Include a picture if you want and I’ll post it on this blog.

Enjoy counting your cash. You’re doing the right thing. Your life will only improve as these piles of money get larger and larger each and every day.

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Last week I told you we'd be doing something different with this carnival and here it is - Categories. Maybe you're interested in money or goal setting or your health? Well it's much easier to find these articles. Enjoy.

Goal Setting

Jonathon Bates presents Goal Setting – Why do it?

Alexander Becker presents WOW: Leap Forward and Benefit from Nonlinear Growth

Health

Aleksandr Kavokin, MD, PhD presents How do they use you as guinea pig? Part3

Money

oovs presents The Courage to Live Debt Free - the Principles of Economic Security

David Lorenzo presents The Five Habits that Make You More Money

Steve Faber presents Money – What Matters is How Much You Keep

Personal Growth

Phil B. presents Phil for Humanity: Overcoming Laziness

Gleb Reys presents Knowing Where You Want To Be

Brandon Peele presents The Evolutionary Role of Ethnocentricism

Peter Kua presents Wanna be more productive? Trash that bloody PDA!

Chris presents How to be Cooler How to get a Social Life

David Maister presents How to Get Ahead: Lie and Cheat?

Hieu Doan presents Imagination - The Way to Empowerment

Alexander Becker presents WOW: Acceptance vs. Resistance?

Rollo presents How to get out of life alive

Milo Paulo milo G. Riano presents How to Let Go and Move On

Matt Hutter presents The four-year-old optimist

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

While going through the comments in the Million Dollar Savings Club it occurred to me, “Why not list the top savers at the end of each month?” That’s what I intend to do. I will start posting a leader-board at the beginning of each month. If you’re playing along, email me. Include how much you have in each pile (savings, investing, giveaway). For extra-proof, include a photo of your money (I will put it on the leader-board). By making it fun and having a little competition we’ll all save more money.

Million Dollar Savings Club Leader-Board for September:

1.Alex Williams $84
2. Bryan Fleming $29
3. Travis Wright $16
4. Mom2Fur $14

Obviously, don’t make any outrageous claims. If you do, I will email you back requiring proof (Pictures).

Yes, you can add more money to your piles than $1/day. We’re using $1/day as a starting point so people can get started. $1/day is the minimum to be “in the club”.

Congratulations Alex. Right now you’re the winner. But look out. There are probably some serious savers reading this blog right now.

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

Here we are at day 29 of the Million Dollar Savings Club. Today I want to talk about the savings pile.

Obviously, the savings pile is for saving money. But what should you use this money for? Specifically the savings pile is to protect you from yourself.

For each of us there are times in life when you come up a short on money. Maybe it’s the end of the month. Your house payment is due and you’re stretching every dollar. You suddenly find you pushed your checking account a little too far and you have no money until your next paycheck. If you don’t think this happens a lot, look at how many pay-day-advance services have appeared in recent years.

Most people have a quick fix. They turn to credit cards to buy a tank of gas, or charge the groceries (Yes, there are people that finance food).

Your savings pile will protect you against turning to the credit card trap. It will also protect you from dipping into your investing pile. Do you see the difference? The investing pile is for investing money. For making your money work hard for you because you’ve worked hard for it. Saving money is for a rainy day. You don’t need to gain high returns on your savings; you need it for a financial cushion.

So here we are at $29 in our savings pile today. You have a small cushion for probably a tank of gas and a few meals. It’s not much, but it’s a start. The next major hurdle will be having enough in savings for a utility bill, then an unexpected car repair and ultimately a few months of living expenses.

Of course that’s a ways off. In the meantime, You can sleep better knowing the savings pile will protect you from life’s unexpected twists and turns. Best of all it’s growing every single day because you’re adding money to it.

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Welcome to the September 19, 2006 edition of the personal growth carnival. I'm happy to say this week is a new record! We've had 23 submissions, which is more than any week in the past. The carnival is certainly growing, and it shows how much talent is out there.

Next week, I have something very exciting to announce. It will be durning the carnival of September 26th. Until that time "Stay tuned". Enjoy this week's submissions.


Christine Kane presents How to Live a Life of Quiet Desperation posted at Christine Kane.

Peter Kua presents 7 strategic reasons to take on corporate philanthropy posted at RadicalHop.com.

Praveen presents Financial and Branding Lessons from Tyra Banks posted at My Simple Trading System.

Daniel Scocco presents Choosing a Profession posted at Innovation Zen.

Violeta presents Top 10 things successful people have in common posted at All Tips and Tricks.

Erich Jaeckel presents How to strengthen your decision making skills posted at Life Training - Online.

Shuchetana presents Happiness and Health posted at Life PBS.

Patricia presents Dream Your Dreams to Achieve Greatness and Inspire the World posted at Patricia.

Steve presents Light Up And Live posted at Poetic Pilgrimage.

David Trager presents Life Is Like A Road Trip…To Texas posted at Dave Trager.com.

Matt Hutter presents The Story of Two Bank Tellers posted at A year's salary under the mattress?, saying, "Making daily deposits in your mind can amount to the apex of your achievement....or continued disaster."

David Maister presents The Secret of a Great Marriage Is posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Gleb Reys presents Are You Interested? posted at Personal Development Ideas Blog.

John Buehler presents The 3rd Channel » It seems so far away posted at Rebuilding Eden.

Werner Boersch presents What is spirituality? posted at Werner Boersch, saying, "Discover Your Higher Self, Your Spirituality, Live in the Flow of Your Nature"

Violeta presents Give me something to do posted at Questallia.

Wenchypoo presents The Wages of Expediency (L-O-N-G) posted at Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Warehouse.

Dave Cheong presents How to Overcome Distractions Anytime posted at Dave Cheong Engineer to Entrepreneur.

michelle presents 10 Easy Ways to Not Get Dumped posted at AmericanInventorSpot.com, saying, "Funny article on how not to grow."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival
using my carnival submission form.

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Want to know where you’ll be five years from now? You don’t have to go any further than the words coming out of your mouth!

I read a good article today called “Words are Containers for What We Believe”. It struck a cord with me, so I thought I'd pass it along. Bill drives this point home and even gives some action steps towards the end.

Enjoy!

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I get letters from the Social Security office here in the United States, just as everyone else does. These letters tell you how much money you’ll get when you reach retirement age. What’s funny is how they keep changing the ‘retirement age’.

Below is a photocopied section of the letter I got from them yesterday



In telemarketing there is a term called ‘spiffing’ your phone operators. It means to give them a big incentive to close one more sale. Looking at the picture above, I’d say the government is trying to ‘spiff’ everyone into working longer. Consider that they will pay me almost twice as much if I hang in and work another 7 years.

You also can’t help but read the bold print on the bottom that this could change at any moment. So none of this is guaranteed.

You simply can’t depend on the government to take care of you. That’s why you need to save money. Even by saving a modest amount of money regularly you’ll gain more interest from your retirement account than Social Security will pay you. That is, if they can even pay you at all.

If you have not been able to save money, start today. Join the Million Dollar Savings club and build the habit of saving money. You won’t need to rely on the government. In fact by the time YOU decide to retire (not when they tell you to) you’ll probably have too much money and they will disqualify you. Personally, I’m OK with that.

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Welcome to the September 12, 2006 edition of The Personal Growth Carnival.

We've been spending a lot of time saving money. But you should always take time out and read something that will make your life better. I've done the work of erasing some of the submissions that came in this week. I just didn't feel you would benefit from them. The articles below are the best of the bunch. Bookmark this page and come back to it throughout the week. You'll find it makes for great reading.


Brian Kim presents How to Believe You Can Do Anything posted at Brian Kim.


Peter Kua presents Not another cholesterol lowering drug! Innovation vs. blockbusters posted at RadicalHop.com.


Peter Kua presents Building a successful business: 8 qualities of an expert posted at RadicalHop.com.


Christine Kane presents Are You A Quitter? posted at Christine Kane.

This is Jeff's first post, make sure to stop by his blog and say HI!
Jeff presents How to Overcome Guilt posted at Jeff


Gleb Reys presents Don’t Be Afraid To Be The First posted at Personal Development Ideas Blog.


Joseph presents help with everything: Goal setting and your destiny posted at help with everything.


Mary Jo Manzanares presents Diffusing Anger posted at Leadership Turn, saying, "No matter how we try to avoid it, anger is a part of our business life. We can't eliminate it, so we may as well learn to deal with it."


Shuchetana presents 10 questions to ask before you join a new job posted at Life PBS.


Andrew Leahey presents Overcoming fear posted at Leahey.org.


Kevin Chu presents Don’t wait until it hurts posted at Smart Living 4 Smart People.

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

If you’ve been playing along in the Million Dollar Savings club, then today is a big day for you. It’s day 20. Why is today so important?

First and foremost, you’ve probably noticed it’s easier to get $20 bills for your fund than anything else. Since you have $20 in each pile of money you can make change for yourself. I’ve talked about this before, but it becomes really important since $20 bills are probably the most common amount of money you have on hand to put into your fund.

Secondly, it takes about 20 days to form a new habit. Do you notice this new habit? Probably not. You see that’s the funny thing with habits. You don’t know you form them. On a side note this works for bad habits too. So always keep an eye on yourself. We fall into bad habits and have to work to develop good ones. Saving money in the Million Dollar Savings club is a good habit to form. Congratulations.

So pat yourself on the back. You deserve it. You should have a total of $60 today. That’s more money than most people have in their back pocket right now. It’s significant. To drive the point home, count your money. As the singles, fives, tens, and twenties slide through your fingers you’ll be amazed at where this money came from. It will seemingly have appeared out of thin air!

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

If you don’t have any money you can’t seize opportunities when they come your way. That’s why it’s important to save money. The more cash you have, the more opportunities you can seize.

Even at day 15 of the million dollar savings club you can seize opportunities. Let me share with you my story:

Yesterday I looked out my window and saw a couple of guys standing around with an earth-moving machine. For weeks, I’ve procrastinated about moving a large pile of dirt from one end of my yard to the other. I knew these guys could move the dirt in 5 minutes with that machine. It would take me a full weekend to move by hand. I suspected if I offered them $20 they’d jump at the chance and move the dirt.

But there was a problem. I didn’t have the cash on me.

A light bulb went off in my head. I thought, “Why not borrow $20 from my savings and investing pile to pay these guys? Then I’ll put the money back when I have time to get to the bank.”

I approached the young man and he jumped at the opportunity. He moved the dirt. I paid him $20. I saved a tremendous amount of time and effort because I was able to come up with the cash immediately.

So there it is. Even with a modest savings account you’ll see opportunities open up to you. That’s why it’s so important to begin saving money today.

If you’ve not tried the million dollar savings club, what’s been stopping you? It’s only a dollar per day and as you’ve seen, the money will start adding up. I guarantee it will change your life. Get started today.

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This post is an update to the Million Dollar Savings Club. If you are not familiar with this club, you can learn more by reading my post describing it.

By now you should start feeling comfortable with your new habit for saving money every day. Congratulations. You’re almost there. It’s been said that it takes about 20 days to form a habit. We’re one week away.

Personally, I can tell you that the habit has finally taken root. Having cash on hand to put into separate piles of money is almost an afterthought. I do it without much thinking now. It’s painless. It’s much different than my problems a week ago.

Today we’re fourteen days into the club. You now should see a fairly sizeable amount of money in 3 piles – Savings, Investing, and Giveaway.

Today, I’d like to focus on the third pile, the giveaway pile. You should have $14 in the giveaway pile. Fourteen dollars is not a lot of money is it? But let me ask you, when was the last time you gave away fourteen dollars? If you don’t think it’s a big deal, add it to your waitress’s tip the next time you dine out. How will she react? I’m willing to bet it will make her night.

What about homeless people? I don’t know about your town, but in Detroit Michigan they’re everywhere. You can’t go into the city without being approached from someone with his or her hand out. Most of us just walk by and give these people the cold shoulder. Some may give them pocket change, but most only give them an excuse why they can’t give.

I wonder what their reaction would be to getting $14. I wonder how you would feel giving that money away.

Don’t discount the giveaway pile. I think you’ll find it the most important pile of all. Even though it’s only $14 today.

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This week we're back with a lot of new and upcomming talent as well as some of my favorite writers who've been with the carnival from the begining. If you have an article on personal growth, why not add it to next week's carnival? It's easy to do. Just follow the instructions at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy!

J Clegg presents How to Create a New Identity – Part 1: Letting Go of the Past posted at A Life Journey

David Trager presents Freedom and Powerlessness posted at Dave Trager.com.

Dave Cheong presents 13 Problem Solving Nuggets Everyone Should Know posted at Dave Cheong | Engineer to Entrepreneur.

Brandon Peele presents Politics is Philosophy for the Intellectually Lazy posted at GT.

Alexander Becker presents WOW: How to Deal with Principles vs. Results posted at WOW, saying, "Stick to principles or focus on results?"

Rick Cockrum presents Nine Obstacles to Completing Your Goals and Four Ways to Overcome Them posted at Shards of Consciousness.

Edward Mills presents Caution: Singing Driver, or, Tears of Joy Ahead posted at Edward Mills

David Maister presents You Gotta Go First posted at Passion, People and Principles.

Alexander Becker presents They Call You Crazy? You're on the Right Track posted at WOW, saying, "Remove yourself from everything average."

Kevin Chu presents Statistics – Its irrelevance in most of life’s decisions, for “If it is to be it is up to me” posted at Smart Living 4 Smart People.

Phil B. presents Phil for Humanity: Speaking Carefully and Correctly posted at Phil for Humanity.

Alexandra Levit presents The State of Laziness posted at Water Cooler Wisdom.

Peter Kua presents 21 secrets to becoming a millionaire posted at RadicalHop.com.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
personal growth carnival using my
carnival submission form.

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