Hi and welcome to the Friday recap! I hope your week went well. Remember you can win $1000 cash thanks to that awesome giveaway, and $100 on that other one,good luck!
Life news
The house works are progressing like crazy and all walls are now up, the concrete roof terrace should be finished by the end of next week, leaving only the installation of sinks, shower, toilet… and the French door. I can’t really imagine how a 3×2 meters sliding door can be delivered in one piece after 6 miles of dirt road, but am certainly curious about how it turns out. An update is scheduled for next week, after the 13 money resolutions series end.
This is the buried room on the right.
As I mentioned last week, I was hesitating between repaying a loan early or keeping the money for investments. This loan had a 7% interest rate which is higher than my average weighted interest rate, and I was tired to see it standing there so I decided to go for it and make a big first step towards my 2013 financial goal to repay over $25K of debt. The paperwork went through and the loan is now closed! Using an early repayment calculator I was able to determine that I saved over $1200 in interest, which was great. My depleted current account reminds me every day that I need to work hard on finding extra sources of income.
Seeing all those great articles about the Debt Movement, and this crazy project to repay $10 millions of debt collectively in 90 days motivated me big time!
If you would like to join a community of people that will support you and help you crush your debt faster, have a look at the Debt Movement!
We are all in different financial situations and I was very lucky to have a windfall to help me take such a huge step towards debt freedom, I know it may be hard to face the daunting silhouette of debt and you may be struggling to make minimum payments. I wrote a few posts on the 13 money resolutions for 2013 series that can help you find a bit more breathing room in your budget and accelerate your payments, and will be happy to share more and help you with your debt journey!
Reminder: I am not a financial adviser and you should talk to one if you need bankruptcy or IVA Advice.
Blogging news
On blogging news I wanted to share a tip that will make your tweeting life easier. You probably already retweet all of your posts, and are doing this automatically, right? RIGHT!?
If you don’t, follow those steps, and save yourself an hour per week. You are welcome.
One of the easiest way to manage your Twitter account and multiple social accounts in general is Hootsuite. And Hootsuite has an option to pick up new posts directly from an RSS feed and retweet them for you. Here is how to proceed.
Create your Hootsuite account
Go to RSS/Atom under settings and add an automatic tweet every time you produce a new post. This option can check every 24 hours for example, and tweet your new post on your behalf.
You can add several of your favorite bloggers and their RSS feeds, like, ahem, ahem, Reach Financial Independence? Lovely, thanks!
PS: Don’t add too many websites, just the ones you RT daily anyway.
PS2: Not a free pass to skip your daily visit to your favorite blogs!
Thank you to everyone who shared my posts this week.
I was featured on Frugal Rules, Eyes on the Dollar, Carnival of Money Pros, The frugal farmer,Money Principle, Carnival of retirement, One Smart Dollar, Yakezie Carnival, Carnival of personal finance,
THANK YOU!!
If I missed you, please let me know and I will add you next week.
Here are a few great posts for you to enjoy!
Why are bad habits so hard to break? at Untemplater
Money mistake #1 and lesson learned at Plunged in Debt
What happened to my allowance? at The Random Path
What causes hoarding? at Outlier Model
How to save money shaving at Edward Antrobus
The Frugal Portland philosophy at Frugal Portland
Improve your attitude: Turn negatives into positives at Eyes on the Dollar
Is it the right time for investing? at Money Principle
Have a great weekend!
Latest posts by Pauline Paquin (Posts)
- A quick guide to setting up a successful blog - May 24, 2013
- Friday recap, a new site and politeness - May 24, 2013
- Lessons learned from an investment gone wrong - May 23, 2013
- ‘Bad credit’ credit cards – everything you need to know - May 22, 2013
- 4 Mistakes I Made When I First Started Investing - May 22, 2013
Very cool tip about Hootsuite! I manually tweet my posts (I used to automate it but changed to manual recently). I will probably go back to automating it again soon. Hope you have a great weekend!
DC @ Young Adult Money recently posted..15 Giveaways for Friday!
I tweet anyway and have such a hard time with slow internet that the automation is great. Plus people don’t always include their handle (btw I think you don’t
) or short URL so it takes even more time.
Great post, Pauline! House looks great as well
. Happy Friday!
Tony@YouOnlyDoThisOnce recently posted..Stare at Who You Want to Become
Thanks Tony, have a nice weekend!
Thanks as the mention as always Pauline! The house looks like it’s coming along great and congrats on the loan repayment…that’s AWESOME! I’ve played around with the Hootsuite idea, but really can’t find a way so it schedules them so I don’t Tweet dump. Honestly, I’ve not had the time to seriously look at it yet though. Have a great weekend Pauline!
John S @ Frugal Rules recently posted..Frugal Friday: Blog Posts That Ruled This Week, 100 Posts Edition
there is another service called twitterfeed that tweets shortly after the post is live, so no dumping.
That house looks sweeeeet!
THe loan repayment thing is always tough to figure out. Sometimes when there’s a high interest rate, it’s easy man. Pay it off! But when it’s a low itnerest rate or somewhere in teh middle, sometimes I think it sounds better to just save up some money for awhile or invest instead of paying it all back fast. It’s a tough call. IT hink you’re doing the right thing for you though! Good job, dudette!
TB at BlueCollarWorkman recently posted..An Elementary School’s Answer to Gun Violence
Thanks TB! I would rather have the money but sitting on too much cash makes me lazy and I want 2013 to be about DOING! So here it is, the money is gone and I have to work hard!
It’s incredible to see how quickly (in the big scheme of things) it’s all coming along for you. Congrats on the debt repay. Cha-ching!
AverageJoe recently posted..Joe’s Top Movies of 2012
Happy Dance! The house is really being built quickly but I feel the workers have been here forever. Looking forward to a few days of peace.
Thanks for the hootsuite tip and the blog mention. House is coming along great! Have a great weekend lady!
Budget & the Beach recently posted..Link Love/Week in Review 1/17/13
you too!
Thanks for the tip on Hootsuite. I use it, but have not set that up yet. I am going to do it now. Thank you for mentioning my guest post on Modest Money. I hope you have a great weekend Pauline!
Debt Roundup recently posted..Weekly Personal Finance Blog RoundUp – 1/18/2013
Thanks Pauline, great job on the loan payment!
Catherine recently posted..Weekly Reads 18.01.13
Thank you, have a nice weekend Catherine!
Congrats on the loan payoff. Hopefully it mentally frees you a bit for something else. You certainly have done your part in the debt movement!!
Thanks for the hootsuite tip. Automating some of that stuff is something I’ve been putting off for awhile, so this has made me do it!
Anne @ Unique Gifter recently posted..Honeymoon Gift Basket Ideas
Yes, it feels lighter already. But the debt movements can only track US accounts..
Thank you for the mention, Pauline. And what an awesome job you did at knocking out that debt. Eliminating $1,200 for unnecessary interest payments is nothing to sneeze at. You are a true inspiration, woman!
Jennifer Lynn @ Broke-Ass Mommy recently posted..Weekly Spending: January 14-18 and some irksome parking tickets.
Thank you! The money saved is great, but knowing that two years of monthly payments are canceled is even better!
Ooh, thanks for the tip about Hootsuite! I’ve always wondered how it works.
Thanks for the mention Pauline and have a wonderful weekend
Mackenzie recently posted..Link Love: Hockey is Back Edition!
It is a great tool, you can manage your FB page there as well, saves a ton of time!
You’re making really nice progress on that house. I wouldn’t worry too much about the sliding door unless it’s made out of some kind of fragile glass. Then again, shippers always amaze me with their ability to wreck stuff. “Please explain to me how it looks as though a shark has taken a bite out of this package.”
I’ve never heard of Hootsuite before. I’ll have to check it out. My blog does send updates to Twitter, but I’m not a very effective twitter user.
My Financial Independence Journey recently posted..Man Up and Admit Your Money Mistakes In Order to Learn and Improve
I was overwhelmed with social accounts at the beginning, hootsuite really simplifies it all. I am planning on paying after the windows get installed, that should be motivating enough not to mess it up!
Congrats on killing that debt! Nice progress on the house as well. Is the door very fragile?
I used to use hootsuite to auto tweet from the feeds but at one point when there were lot of advertising quite a few blogs started posting sponsored posts almost every other day. I absolutely don’t have a problem with the sponsored posts, a blogger has to make money. But if the post is not written by the blogger, the sponsored posts were really really dry and sometimes gave wrong advice. So I decided to go back to manually tweeting them because I couldn’t figure out how to tweet only the posts that are written by the blogger.
Suba recently posted..How to get cheap prescription drugs and save money on medications
Thank you! I think the door will be normal strong glass, but it’s not like they have all the big trucks and careful handlers around here…
Re hootsuite I hear you about the sponsored posts, it is only up to the blogger to take them off RSS feeds, at least you can automate yours!
I saw your post on the Yakezie forum about Hootsuite, and since I already use it, I followed your instructions to add my RSS Feed. It tweeted automatically the next day, but that was it. It only worked once. Weird.
Tackling Our Debt recently posted..Popular Small Business Ideas – Part 2
oh, that is strange. twitterfeed is another service you could try.
The house is coming along nicely I see and congratulations on closing out that 7% loan; you must feel good
Have a great week-end Pauline!
K.K.@ Living Debt Free Rocks! recently posted..Update from T&T
Thank you K.K., you too!
Good job on the loan. I have that issue as well trying to decide how much to keep saved up vs how much to put toward debt. When all the debt is gone, it will be an easy decision. Thanks for the mention.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted..Save Money on Groceries-How to use a Value Card
Being able to make that kind of decision is already a luxury, but oh my will it be nice when it’s all finished.
Great job paying off that debt! Its always such a great feeling to pay off a loan and know you don’t have to deal with it anymore. I’ll have to check out hootsuite, it certainly looks like it could help me save some time sharing posts!
The First Million is the Hardest recently posted..Do You Really Need A Financial Advisor?
Thank you! It is a great time saver, and you can schedule your own posts if you know you won’t be around to tweet during the day.
Nice job on the house progress! I can’t imagine how exciting that is, especially since you see actual tangible changes around you. That’s neat about Hootsuite. I always wondered how people did that. And thanks for the mention!
Untemplater recently posted..Best Eats From Around The World
Thank you Sydney, it is a lot of fun to see everything take shape. And a lot of work but soon there will be a home where there was a hole two months ago!
Congrats on the loan payment. Woot woot!! I think the house is coming along great. Just think of how much knowledge you are going to have after.
Thanks for the inclusion too. I really appreciate it.
Miss T @ Prairie Eco-Thrifter recently posted..Friday Links – Still Swamped Edition
Thank you Miss T! I am learning a lot of things I had no idea existed, and it is nice to use all the elements around us to build a home.
Congrats on paying off your loan! Saving $1200 in interest is a great chunk of change and it would have been hard to beat that 7% interest rate especially when you take taxes and inflation into consideration!
Jason recently posted..FreeTaxUSA – Review and Analysis by a Tax Accountant
Thanks! A 100% guaranteed return of 7% is almost impossible and for once I chose the safe path.
Awesome about the debt repayment and thanks for the mention! I use hootsuite to automate my own posts but buffer for everyone else’s.
Kathleen recently posted..Spirituality lesson from my baby sister
Thanks for the mention! (Sorry for the delay)
Vanessa recently posted..Injecting some humour into your Saturday