So we’re taking a break from our 10 day journey to save $10,000 to have a look at some interesting items from around the web.

If you missed the initial post on the 10 Money-Saving Tips to Help You Stash $10,000, I highly encourage you check that out and join us as we resume next week!

It’s been a fun ride so far and we’ve already freed up roughly $375 per month!! 

The basic premise is to try to save $10,000 over the course of this next year by implementing 10 Money-Saving Tips! 

For roughly 10 days, we’ll look at a different tip each day to help you stash some money.  Even if you don’t save the full $10,000 – any additional savings will be well worth it! 

These are the tips we’ve gone through so far: 

Tip #1: Cut Back on Going Out to Eat  

Tip #2: Evaluate Your Entertainment

Tip #3: Cut Your Cable

Tip #4: Turn Your Heat Down

Now on to the rest of the show! 

It’s another week in the books and it’s time for a quick tour.  This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena. 

So give these articles a click!

Don’t miss another post! Get Redeeming Riches delivered straight to your inbox!

• Thinking about starting a blog to make a little side income?  Pete from Bible Money Matters is offering an ebook to help you do that!
• Enemy of Debt is hosting a “Manage Your Money” Challenge where each challenge will be different or will introduce you to a unique approach to managing money by using a variety of services and software.
• Kevin from Out of Your Rut takes an angle on retirement planning that doesn’t get talked about near enough – working toward a low-cost/debt-free lifestyle in retirement.
• My wife and I have been talking about starting a garden this spring because we love fresh food and we also love to save money. Frugal Dad offers a unique alternative to a monster garden in Square Foot Gardening.
• Jason Price, writing for Christian PF, posts about one of my favorite topics – Money and Happiness!
• Brip Blap offers some insights into raising kids without regrets. 

R2 Around the Web

These are some Blog Carnivals I participated in this past week:

• Carnival of Personal Finance #245 hosted by Budgets are Sexy.
• Festival of Frugality #218 hosted by Think Your Way to Wealth
• Carnival of Money Stories hosted by Personal Finance by the Book
• Best of Money Carnival #39 hosted by Canadian Personal Finance

Plutus Awards

Lastly, it was a great honor this week to be named as one of the top 5 finalists for the Plutus Awards – (think Oscars for the blog world!) in the category of Best Religious Finance Blog!! 

If you get a moment to vote, head on over to the Plutus Awards site and cast your vote for Redeeming Riches! 

Thanks for reading this week, have a great weekend!!

What a week.  We closed on our house last week and are still living with many unpacked boxes – but that’s OK, it’s just great to be in and sleeping there! 

It’s been hard to post this past week since I didn’t plan ahead and have my internet hooked the day we moved in – so therefore you’ve seen very little posting from me this week.  We should be hooked up by this weekend so I’m excited to get back to a “regular” posting schedule! 

At any rate, This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.  Give these articles a click!

I love Visual Economics.  They always do a stellar job converting interesting facts into neat little graphs. This week they take a look at the question Where Is America’s Debt?

 The Digerati Life found an interesting chart about the Financial Risks and the People You Trust.  It’s not a surprising chart, but an interesting one none-the-less.

This is a great take from Free Money Finance regarding the 6 Steps to a Great Retirement as highlighted in Consumer Reports.  Also, call me crazy, but Maybe You Only Need So Much to Be Happy in Retirement - this is something I try to reinforce on this site – it’s not the size of the accounts that will bring happiness! 

Mrs. Micah does a phenomenal job putting together a mammoth list of 2009 tax deductions and credits!  Wow!

Gather Little by Little offers up some famous money quotes!

Steve Jobs is at it again – trying to change the landscape of media and entertainment through his technology - will it work?

Ok - totally unrelated to personal finace, but I thought this was awesome!  Take a look at TechEBlog’s 10 Strangest Lego Creations.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Today’s the big day! We are finally closing on our new house.

We started the building process back in August of ‘09, moved into the inlaws basement and recently have been frantically trying to get a bunch of little things done so we can keep our closing date.

We locked in our rate back in November with a 45-day lock and today’s the last day!

But the house is ready, we’re ready and we’re so excited to get back to our normal routine!

Enough about us – let’s talk about some of the interesting discussions going on in the Personal Finance world this week!

This Week in Personal Finance takes a look at interesting articles, posts and news from the past week in the personal finance arena.  Give these articles a click!

• Joe Taxpayer is confused why so many Christians seem to look at all debt with such disdain and asks an interesting question, “Is Debt Anti-God?”
• Free Money Finance is a very popular and simple blog  that offers some very thought-provoking posts.  I like that.  This week he says that Those Who Give More Become Rich Faster.  I don’t think that should be our motivation to give, but he does offer a good look at the relationship between wealth and giving.
• Paul over at Fiscal Geek asks a questions we’ve all asked at some point in our lives, “Should You Save For Retirement While in Debt?”
• Kevin at Out of Your Rut asks another popular question, “Will A Million Dollars Be Enough to Retire On?”
• Free From Broke delves into the dark world of credit card reform to find some answers on how the CARD Act affects us.

R2 On The Web

My post about the 4 Questions You Should Ask Before You Buy Life Insurance was included in:

• Cavalcade of Risk from the Colorado Health Insurance Insider
• Canadian Finance Blog’s Friday Links

 401ks have been around for years and have been an ever increasingly popular way to save money for retirement. 

More and more businesses run some type of deferred contribution plan and they are a great way to attract and retain key employees.

401ks are great from an employee standpoint because they are relatively quick to sign up for, fairly easy to pick funds in and once the initial set up has been done, your contributions are taken out of your paycheck automatically. 

It’s an easy way to save.

But, did you know that by contributing to your 401k you could be creating a giant time bomb?  Here’s a look at why:

What is a tax deferred account?

 A tax deferred account is simply an account that allows you to put in pre-tax contributions for retirement.  The money inside grows without having to pay taxes every single year – they are deferred until some time down the road.

Things like 401ks and IRAs and for small business owners – Simple IRAs and SEP IRAs are examples of tax-deferred accounts.

What is a retirement time bomb?

A retirement time bomb is when you put all or most of your retirement savings into these tax-defferred accounts like 401ks and Traditional IRAs.

When you get into retirement and start withdrawing your money, you have to pay taxes on every single dollar you pull out!

At what rate?

It depends, but the money you pull out is taxed as ordinary income, which means for those of you who think your taxes will go down in retirement – you might be in for a big surprise when all of that money is taxed as though you earned it!

For those of you who have socked away a lot of money into tax-deferred accounts for retirement – these have become a ticking time bomb waiting to explode! 

And Uncle Sam is licking his chops!

What should you do about it?

1. Figure out how much you need for retirement
2. Re-evaluate your accounts – determine if you are properly balanced from a tax perspective
3. Consider other options – look at accounts like Roth IRAs to detemine if it’s right for you.
4. Make a plan to diversify from a tax perspective – figure out how muchyou can get into a tax-free bucket and start shifting money either through contributions or Roth Conversions.

What about you?

Are you holding a retirement time bomb?  What have you done to diversify yourself from a tax standpoint?

Perhaps you’re sitting there scratching your head, wondering what happened to your plans! 

Whatever grand allusions you had for retirement – whether it was spending more time with family, more time volunteering or simply more time seeing the wonders of the world  - maybe you find yourself thinking “I may never be able to retire.”

Here are five reasons why you’re off track for your retirement goal and what to do about it.

Market Tank

The 2008-09 recession wiped out many a 401k  and along with that many retirement dreams were dashed!  We’ve had a great recovery so far and many people have gotten back some of their losses.

However, not everyone has the luxury of waiting around for the market to recover fully.

What to do:

Consider postponing retirement and/or reducing your lifestyle.  You may need to cut back the dreams of traveling every three months or getting that second home in Florida. 

Also, re-evaluate your risk tolerance and time frame and consider making some changes to your portfolios.  If you find you have a longer time frame, you may be able to afford a bit more risk to make up some losses.

You Lack Specific Retirement Goals

Is retirement just a grand dream that has no plan of action around it?  You know the old cheesy saying:

Aim for nothing and you’ll hit it every time

There’s some truth to that.  Those who have a plan, review it regularly – making changes as needed – are more likely to reach their goals!

What to do

Take some time and write down what it is you’d like to accomplish.  If you’re married, I highly suggest getting on the same page with your spouse. 

Write down things like:

• When you’d like to retire
• What you’d like to do in retirement (i.e. – travel, volunteer, golf, short-term missions)
• How much money you’ll need for retirement
• How much you currently have saved

Compare where you’re at with where you’d like to be at retirement and consider a course of action to help get you there.

You Make Emotional Decisions

“Markets are down – SELL!”,  “Markets are up – BUY!”, “I want a new 50″ TV – BUY IT”

Are you like a yo-yo when it comes to financial decisions.  This is a sure way to get off track for your retirement goals!  Emotional investing and decision making doesn’t work and will lead to some pretty bad choices.

What to do

If you change direction like the wind consider developing a plan you are comfortable with in good times and in bad.  Consider your risks, your goals and your temperment and get a plan and stick to it only making tweaks as needed.

You Don’t Know When to Sell

This can relate to emotions, but on a broader scale it’s fairly easy to know when to buy an investment.  Most people can identify a deal.  Last March when stocks were half off, there were a lot of deals to be had.

The tougher part is knowing when to sell.   Since March, markets are up some 60% – knowing when to sell is hard.  Why? Because we all want to think a rising investment will continue and we don’t want to sell early and have the stock take off

We’d rather hang on too long than give up some growth even though we might be up some 30%!  Perhaps it speaks to our greed.

What to do

Rebalance your accounts regularly.  Rebalancing simply means getting back to your original asset allocation model by selling investments that are high and buying investments that are low. 

In other words if you start with a 50% stock; 50% bond portfolio and through market growth you are at 60% stock; 40% bonds – sell 10% of your stocks and reinvest into bonds.

There’s a lot of debate at how often you should do this, but I suggest at least annually and if you’re able to perhaps check the percentages quarterly to see how far from your originals you are.

You Don’t Know How Much You Need for Retirement

This was referenced above, but deserves it’s own point.  It seems like many people have no idea how much they need for retirement!  Many people assume they need a million dollars or some other really high amount and therefore they think “I’ll never be able to get there”.

What to do

Retirement is up to you!  Not the government, not your company – it’s up to you.  Therefore it’s vitally important to sit down and figure out what you want to do, how much it will cost and figure out how much you’ll need for retirement. 

Don’t just take these broad “You need 70% of your pre-retirement” figures you find in some financial magazine as truth! 

Everyone is different – therefore your goals are different than mine.  Make a personalized plan to figure out what you need.

How about you?

What else would you add to the list – what else have you found helpful in your retirement planning?

In part 1 we looked at the retirement that is mentioned in the Bible and also the idea of rest that the Bible is flooded with. Now let’s look at retirement defined and re-defined.

Definition of Retirement

Merriam Webster defines retirement as:

withdrawal from one’s position or occupation or from active working life.

Unfortunately many people often think and define retirement as quitting work altogether and not doing anything. 

As if retirement consists of sitting on the couch and mumbling (Christian) expletives at Drew Carey for ruining The Price is Right! 

3 retirement types

There’s basically three retirement types if we boil it down to the basics. 

1. My Timers - ”Retirement is my time!”, you’ll hear them say.  They do what they want, when they want and who they want to do it with!  They think of retirement as a time to finally live for themselves.
2. No Timers – “I’ve got no time to do anything because I’m so busy”, is the creed they live by.  They fill their schedules with all kinds of errands, busyness and other things that eat away their time.
3. Give Timers – “How can I help, where can I volunteer” are questions they always ask.  They view retirement as an opportunity to serve others.

You can see the differences among these three types.  The first two are selfish with their time, energy and resources and think that retirement is all about their enjoyment.

The last one “get’s it” from a Biblical perspective that their time, talents, energy and resources are a gift from God that should be used to serve and bless others.

Here’s what is ironic about the Give Timers - living that way is about their enjoyment – they enjoy being a blessing to others.

I think the Bible is pretty clear that we are called to serve others and to love them as ourselves and that includes during retirement.  In fact I would say – especially in retirement because we don’t have employment constraints to work around.

Redefining Retirement

 Perhaps it’s time to rethink and redefine exactly what retirement is from a Christian perspective.

Instead of us thinking, “I can’t wait to retire so I can relax or play a million rounds of golf with my buddies, or buy that winter home I’ve always wanted” - we should think about community outreach, church ministry, volunteering at non-profit organizations and missions trips. 

Are golf, relaxing or winter homes evil in and of themselves?  No!  By all means – enjoy them.  What I’m trying to suggest is that we don’t view those as the prize! 

Jesus is the prize! 

I want you to see that retirement frees up time for endless possibilities for the kingdom of God! 

What Does This Mean for You?

If you’re holding on to your retirement dreams and goals as an idol - this means you probably need to have a heart-to-heart with God and ask Him to reveal what you need to let go of.

It’s not wrong to desire retirement enjoyment and do things you’ve always wanted to do.  But, this may mean you need to re-evaluate your motivations. 

In my opinion, what we often fail to realize is there will be rewards in heaven for what we do here on earth, which are designed to maximize our joy both here and especially there!

Let’s blaze a new trail - one that redeems retirement!

Should Christians pursue retirement as one of their major goals - or in doing so, are they pursuing something that is in complete contrast to what God has purposed for them?

I think this is a good question to ask, and one that I’ve often wrestled with.

As Americans, we generally want to work for 30 to 40 years, retire with a nice nest egg and spend the rest of our time doing things we really want to do, when we want to do them.

Retirement has become the quintessential American Dream.

But is this something that a Christian should pursue – and does the Bible have anything to say about it?

Retirement in the Bible

After a quick search for the word “retire” in a few different versions of the Bible – I noticed there weren’t many references to view. 

Of those that were listed, all but one had to do with either retiring to bed (going to sleep) or retiring from battle (retreating or pulling back). 

Numbers 8:23-26 was a passage that mentions retirement in terms of withdrawing from labor.  Here’s the passage:

23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. 25 And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. 26 They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”

One of the responsibilities of the Levites was to transport and guard the tabernacle. 

So basically what’s going on here is that the Levites who were over age 50 were able to “retire” from carrying the tabernacle, but still served in guarding it.

As far as I know there is no other mention of retirement in the Bible – but does that mean we should throw out the notion of retirement just because it’s not in there?

Rest in the Bible

God’s word has a lot to say about the idea of rest. 

On the seventh day of creation, God rested from all His labor.  God instituted a day of rest in the 10 commandments, and we see Jesus resting and withdrawing from His work often to get refreshed.

But is this rest the same as retirement?  It doesn’t seem like it.  The Bible typically refers to rest as a temporary rest to get re-energized to go back to work. 

So once again, the Bible seems pretty silent on the issue of retirement.  I got to thinking about what a conversation about retirement would sound like between the Apostle Paul and Peter.  Maybe something like this:

Paul: “I’ve been making tents for the last 30 years – my back is just killin’ me – I gotta get out of this business.”

Peter: “Your back is killing you?  Try pulling a giant net of fish into a boat every day!  My dad had me helping him since I was 12 years old – 50 years of catching fish has caught up to me for sure.”

Paul: “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind taking my pension early and getting a nice little place on the Mediterranean.”

Peter: “I hear ya, Jerusalem for the summer and Greece for the winter would be the life!”

There’s no evidence a conversation like that ever took place.  In fact, I would be willing to guess that retirement to a guy like the Apostle Paul was something that never crossed his mind. 

He never wanted to be a burden to people so as to create any barriers to sharing the gospel. 

Should we take the Bible’s silence to mean:

a. Most people worked until they were physically unable to?

b. The Bible is not concerned about retirement?

Usually when the Bible is silent on a particular topic, it allows us to form our own opinion and conviction on the issue.

In part 2 we’ll further discuss the idea retirement in the Bible, look at the definition and re-defininition of retirement and what that means for us.

Success!  Wikipedia defines it as:

The achievement of an objective or a goal.

When it comes to retirement many of us want to achieve our goals.  The fact is, for most of us retirement is a marathon race and not a sprint so it’s important to have some ideas in mind to keep you on the right track.   Here’s a look at seven tips to successfully achieve your retirement goal:

Start Now!

“But I didn’t get an early jump on saving when I was younger, so what’s the point”.  It doesn’t matter.  If you haven’t saved anything yet – you need to start ASAP!

If you have started saving already – reevaluate the amount you’re putting away and determine if you can begin putting an extra $50 or $100 (or whatever amount you can).

Define Your Goals

Of course you have to know what target you’re aiming for if you’re going to hit it.  If you don’t have some defined goals you’ll really have no idea how to evaluate your progress.

This is Planning 101.  What do you want to achieve?  When do you want to achieve it?  Maybe it’s a certain dollar figure in your 401k or a goal to retire at a certain age.  Or, maybe it’s to have enough money to do short-term missions trips or serve at homeless shelters.

Sit down and jot some ideas on a piece of paper with your loved one so you can get a taste of what you’d like to do.

Determine Your Time Frame

Now that you’ve got some idea of what you want to accomplish and perhaps the age at when you’d like to retire determine how many years you have to make that happen. 

If you want to retire in five years, but you’re not really saving much right now and you’re strapped with debt – maybe you need to reconsider. 

Realistically determine your time frame and keep this number in the back of your head as you make other decisions regarding retirement.  If you need to start putting more away, sit down and take a look at expenses you can cut out or cut down on and make a huge effort to save more.

Determine Your Risk Tolerance

Now that you have your time frame set and your goals in mind – you can determine how much risk you should be taking.

Generally speaking, the shorter your time frame – the less risk you should be taking.  If you’re in your 30’s and you’ve got 30 years til retirement you have some time to make up any losses.

However, if you’re in your mid 50’s and you’ve got less than 10 years you may want to pull the reigns in a little and shift to a less aggressive portfolio mix.

Comfort level with your risk plays a big role in determining your tolerance as well as knowing how much you need to retire.  If you don’t need that much more to achieve your goal – you can scale back the risk.  If you need more – you may need to dial it up a bit to get some gains.

Diversify Yourself

Diversification comes in three areas:

1. Investment – Diversify your portfolio and your asset classes.  You don’t want all your eggs in one basket as the old cliche goes. The reason is because you don’t know what’s going up or down from one year to the next.
2. Time – Diversification from a time standpoint essentially means that you have some shorter term investments as well as longer term investments.  It also means you plan for the unexpected (think short life span) as well as longevity.
3. Tax – This means you spread your savings among taxable; tax-deferred and tax-free accounts to take advantage of the unique tax benefits of each.

Become Debt Free

To me, this is huge.  If you can become debt free before you retire you free up opportunities to give more during retirement, you releive the stress of needing to have a bigger nest egg or larger monthly income stream.

Debt can be bondage.  Ideally, you’ll be in a much better position if you can pay off all your debts including your mortgage. 

Now I know some will argue that there will be lost tax benefits.  Sure, that might be, but some of that can be made up from charitable deductions (goal: give away the amount you’d pay in mortgage interest!). 

Freedom from debt is liberating – and you’ll be glad you wiped them out before you retired.

Review Your Goals Often

In order to stay on track you need to have set reviews.  These can be done annually or semi-annually.  The point is to schedule time to sit down and revisit your goals, check your progress and determine if any changes need to be made.

You won’t know how far off course you are if you don’t review.

Hopefully these tips will give you a start in achieving your retirement success. 

How about you?  What other tips would you add to the list?

Runners, take your marks!

Your heart pounds as you anxiously await the starting gun.

With your fingers touching the ground, you get your legs in position ready to spring out of the gate.

You’re ready for the race of your life.

You hear the sound of the gun and get a good jump!

Your early lead seems to be holding.  You kick it into full gear - there is no one in front of you!

Yes!  You pass the 100-yard marker and begin to slow down.  You did it!  You just won the biggest race of your life!

With your arms raised in the air and your eyes closed you celebrate this great moment.

And suddenly you feel other runners passing you.

Get out of the way!!

What’s going on?   You ask one of the judges what is happening and he informs you that this is not a 100-yard sprint, this is a marathon.

Embarrassed and completely winded you start to run again, but it’s hard to get back on track.

Ok.  So this is an unlikely scenario, but when it comes to retirement there are many folks who are doing this very thing.

They start out of the gate early with good intentions of saving and investing for their retirement goal, but fail to keep up with the plan after a few years.

Some get a good jump by investing aggressively without knowing their risk tolerance thinking they will make a lot of money only to have their hopes dashed by a market correction.

The retirement race is a marathon - not a sprint.

Marathon runners pace themselves for a long distance – sprinters shoot out of the gate with a blast of speed for a short run.

Here are 5 ways to win the marathon race to retirement:

1. Save Early and Save Often

The sooner you get started with saving for retirement the better off you’ll be.

With a good mix of investments and compounding interest working,  your accounts should grow very well for you over time.

This takes the pressure off of having to make up for lost time by taking on too much risk for your investments and exposing yourself to a potential downturn.

2. Dollar Cost Average

Dollar cost averaging (DCA) is a simple investing strategy that invests equal dollar amounts on a regular basis over time.

For example, saving $100 monthly into your Roth IRA is dollar cost averaging.  By doing so you buy more shares when prices are low and fewer shares when prices are high.

The result is a lower average cost per share in the investment over time.  Although there is debate on how well this strategy works in a rising market, it’s clear that in a volatile market it is difficult to know when to buy in.

DCA is a way to take the worry and stress out of trying to time the market for the short term and rather focus on regular savings over time.

3. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

A lack of a properly diversified portfolio is one of the common mistakes people make with their investments.

Why?  Because we don’t know what goes up or down from one year to the next, so spreading your investments over various asset classes is key to a long-term retirement strategy.

Finding a good model portfolio within your risk tolerance will help reduce the risk of exposure to a poor asset class or security in a given year.

4. Don’t Borrow From Your 401k

Your 401k should be the last place you get money from if you need it.

Many people think that it’s not such a bad idea.  After all, you are paying yourself back with interest right?

Theoretically yes, but the opportunity costs and the risks are too great.

First the opportunity costs.  You may pay yourself back with say 6% interest, however, if the market goes through a great stretch like we’ve just seen from March through September 2009 where the S&P 500 is up over 50% you not only lose out on that loan money earning interest, but also the compounding affect that could have been helping you.

The risks associated with a 401k loan are too great as well.

If you lose your job, quit or retire while the loan is still outstanding you are required  to:

• Pay back the loan in as little as 30 days, or
• Pay income tax on the borrowed amount at your marginal tax rate
• Pay a 10% penalty if you are younger than 59 1/2

A 401k loan can ruin your momentum for the retirement race.

5. Define Your Goals and Review Them Regularly

You can’t just set it and forget it when it comes to retirement.  Face it, economies, situations and goals change.

It’s important to define your goals so you have something to shoot for.  After all, you can’t hit a target when it doesn’t exist.

Secondly, you should review those goals regularly so that you can make any tweaks and adjustments as necessary along the way.

With some discipline and hard work you too can win the race to retirement!

If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

If you haven’t yet, consider staying current with Redeeming Riches by receiving my posts FREE through email or RSS Feeds here.  Also, follow me on Twitter here.

Retirement Readiness Quiz - CNN Money

Cool quiz that asks about 10 questions and gives you an idea of what your target savings should be for a certian age. 

Cash For Appliances Government Rebate Program – Bible Money Matters

Pete from BMM has become the guru of all things Government Stimulus related.  Here he explains the Cash for Appliances program. 

 Is a College Education Still Worth the Investment? – Sound Mind Investing

Last week I posted a graphic of the cost of college vs. the starting salary of the average graduate.  This week SMI takes a deeper look at the value of the education. 

The Economic Crisis in Simple Terms – The Economy Collapse

This video shows how to explain the 2008 US Financial Crisis to your kids (and most adults).

Should You Pay Off Debt or Invest - Five Cent Nickel

Nickel tackles an important question that most of us have probably thought about.

Weekly Links

How to Save (Potentially) Thousands by Spending $3.99 was included in:

• Carnival of Money Stories hosted by MisforMoney. 
• Festival of Frugality held at Green Panda Treehouse.
• Money Hacks Carnival #83 at Cash Money Life

Do You Make These 4 Common 401k Mistakes? was included at ETF Trends as well as the Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #6

What a Cow, a Red Box and Hair Clippers Have in Common was included in the Carnival of Road to Financial Independence at One Family’s Blog