money Archives - Page 13 of 17

I Am Stefanie OConnell, Founder Of The Broke And Beautiful Life, And This Is How I Work

My grandparents were storytellers. I could sit down with any of them and become engrossed in their words. I loved their insight, experience, and thoughtfulness. That love of learning about others continues, and now I’ve been spending some time interviewing the best of the personal finance community (like the founders of Budgets Are Sexy and Modest Money).

Surprisingly, it’s a tight-knit group of writers and financial experts. Some are certified financial planners, while others (like me) are experts in another field. The latter feel like the Supermen of the personal finance world: regular employees by day, financial bloggers by night.

Today, I have the privilege of interviewing one of the top financial bloggers, Stefanie O’Connell from The Broke and Beautiful Life. Her work has been featured around the top personal finance sites, and even on Frugaling. Here’s my interview with her:

What inspired you to begin TheBrokeAndBeautifulLife.com?

Oh, lots of things:

I spent the first several years of my acting career on tour where we would get a per diem for housing, food, and other day-to-day expenses. My goal was not only to live entirely off that modest allowance (rather than dipping into my salary), but also, to save as much of the per diem as possible. Unemployment is an inevitable reality in the acting world. Every job ends, I knew that going in, so I prepared accordingly. By implementing this strategy, I learned lots of ways to scrimp and save that I felt I should share.
Some actors are terrible with their money. I knew it would make for an uncomfortable working environment if I walked up to them and told them they were being stupid with their spending, so I decided to write about it instead.
I heard so many stories about actors in Broadway shows who were left with zero savings when the show closed because they had inflated their lifestyle so much during that time. (The minimum salary for an actor in a Broadway show is $1,807/week; yep, that’s some serious spending).

All in all, I just wanted to spread financial literacy in the acting community. If anyone needs to know how to budget well and make money last, it’s actors.

How did people (friends, family, etc.) react when you first started?

I’m not really sure. I think people may have been skeptical because they knew I was a “theatre person.” I don’t think anyone ever expected me to make a career writing about money.

What was your experience with design, code, web work prior to starting your site?

The Broke And Beautiful Life Screenshot Website — *Screenshot of TheBrokeAndBeautifulLife.com*

Zero! I started out on a free blogger template. After toying around with that for a year I decided to get a logo, hire a designer for the site, and setup self-hosting. As soon as I made that financial commitment to the blog, I suddenly felt committed to myself as a business owner–I needed to make the investment worthwhile.

What advice would you give to those thinking about starting their own site?

Two things:

Define what you want from creating your own website. Are you looking to start a business? Are you looking to have a hobby? Do you want to use it as a portal to market yourself or your service? Are you looking to make a lot of money? Clarifying your goal for the site will help guide a lot of your initial decision making.
Embrace your YOU. When I decided to transition to a self-hosted site, I hired a blog coach to help me figure out where I wanted to go with it. After talking to her for five minutes she said, “I’ve read through your entire site and I didn’t know until just now that you were an actor.” I had been afraid to pigeonhole myself and make myself irrelevant to non-artists, but the truth is, it’s my perspective and experience as an actor that sets me apart from all the other finance sites out there. Heck, that’s why I started writing in the first place!

How do you make money from your site?

While I make a fair amount of money blogging, it’s mostly from freelance writing (hire Stefanie!). My blog has served as a kind of active, online portfolio/resume to get me jobs writing for other websites.

Going forward, I’d like to generate more from the site itself through affiliate income and direct advertising. I’ve got a little bit of that going on now, but maximizing that earning potential is definitely my next big goal.

What do you think you’ve learned from your readers and fans?

I am a huge fan of alternative perspectives. Reading through the comments on each of my posts is always exciting and enlightening. I truly value the different opinions I come across, even when I don’t agree.

How can somebody in lower incomes best overcome financial hurdles and prosper?

Everybody has challenges, some of us more so than others, but the steps for overcoming them are universal: S.M.A.R.T. goals coupled with defined action steps. Chances are, you already know what you need to do, as Nike says, “just do it.”

Who are your financial role models?

Honestly, it was Suze Orman who really got me interested in my finances. I read her book, The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, and I was hooked; not necessarily because she had some life changing techniques or advice, but because I found her engaging and interesting. That’s what I hope to do with my blog, engage people enough that they want to take control and learn more.

What personal finance sites do you read?

I once tried making a list of all the blogs I read on a regular basis and it just got to be too long. Somewhere between 50-100 (maybe more), and they’re all fantastic in their own way.

What else would you care to share with the readers of Frugaling?

One of the big messages on my site, and one that you’ve undoubtedly heard before, is balance. I’m all about pursuing dreams, while earning income, saving for the future, and living in the present. You can have it all if you’re willing to prioritize. I don’t do the daily latte, but I’m going to Europe next month. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice when you’re thinking about the big goals.

Want to read more interviews like this one? Read the entire interview series here!

The New Cadillac ELR Commercial: A Corporate Dream Of Consumerism (Video)

By Frugaling 4 Comments

Bill Maher is known for his polarizing opinions and uncensored diatribes about right-wing politicians. He’s an amalgamation of environmentalist, socialist, philanthropist, talk-show host, and comedian. While I seldom agree with his polemics, I feel like his opinions help me become a more well-rounded, critical-consumer of news.

Each week he films Real Time with Bill Maher, brings on about 4-5 guests, and does a brief standup routine. In one of his segments this week, he targets the car company, Cadillac. The brand is known for luxury vehicles and generally appeals to a higher-income bracket.

This commercial was too funny, disgusting, and wrong to avoid sharing it. While humorously filmed and brilliantly acted, the commercial suggests that Americans are special because we take less time off than other countries, work harder than everyone else, and get “bored” with scientific accomplishments.

The company and actor propagate a dream of consumerism that is your reward for all this “hard work.” Instead of enjoying more time with your family, taking a vacation, helping a charity, or saving for an early retirement, the dream is the all-new Cadillac ELR.

Hopefully your family, time, and life are worth more than this new car:

My High School Gambling Problem

By Frugaling 9 Comments

Poker Table Chips Cards Gambling Problem — *Photo: flickr/imagesofmoney*

As a Millennial and part of the tech generation, I grew up around computers. I can’t remember much of a time before the Internet. Computers were ever-present by the time I reached middle school. When I was in fourth grade, I learned HTML and began writing code by hand – a geek of the highest order.

In elementary school, my parents bought their first computer. I was glued to the magic of the mouse, keyboard, and screen working together in a confluence of beautiful technology. These integrated zeros and ones seemed to dance before me, and it wasn’t long before I started making money from it all.

Today, I have a secret to share with you all: in high school, I had a gambling problem. In 2004, I started playing poker with my friends. It started out pretty casual and fun; lighthearted, even. Large groups of people would coalesce at one person’s house every couple weeks, and a doable $5 buy-in would be advertised. Texts and phone calls would be sent out, and the get-togethers were great.

Poker Cards Chips Texas Hold Em Gambling Problem — *Photo: flickr/deutero*

The buy-ins (the amount to play in tournament-style texas hold ’em poker) grew, too. What was $5 soon became $10, $20, and there were even re-buys (to buy back in for extra if you had lost once) at another $20. The shared prizes were amounting to hundreds and hundreds of dollars. If you won, you could easily walk away with an extra $100-200+ in your pockets. The infusion of funds was electrifying. I was hooked and loving it.

Some people were inspired by the statistical underpinnings. Behind it all, poker between friends was a stats-based game of skill and chance. But if you mastered the art of stats, your chances became stronger. Poker wasn’t pure gambling, as the same winners would be on the leaderboard week-to-week. They were doing something right.

The mathematics never appealed to me; instead, I loved the interpersonal dynamics – the play, candor, and fight between personalities at the table. Give me 8 other opponents, and I believed strongly that I could understand their style, bets, and choices. This was exciting and enticing. Unfortunately, at the end of every tournament, the game would be done for a couple weeks. I’d have to put my earnings and love for poker on hold.

I was looking to fill that gap, and that’s when I found online poker. The world of online poker is complicated to explain in the space and time I have today. Basically, the in-person life I was experiencing every couple weeks could happen every day – at any time. There were hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. Money was flowing – some would say overflowing. A growing mass of amateurs were joining, dropping $100, $200, $1,000 into online accounts. Frankly, they were suckers and I was ready to take advantage of their inexperience.

In 2005-2006, I was playing regularly online through two websites. I entered a couple tournaments and made nearly $2,000 in a couple weeks. When I played “cash games” (no buy-in and not in a tournament style), I was averaging anywhere from $7-10 per hour. Mind you, I was a sophomore/junior in high school, and this kind of money was astronomical to me.

Unfortunately, I had one major problem: I couldn’t stop. The money was so powerful and my earnings were ridiculously lucrative. I lost respect for money, and that’s where things got troublesome.

I was only 16 years old, had made thousands of dollars off of poker, and I was getting bored. Better said, I wanted to raise the stakes and make more money. $2,000 here and there was no longer enough – I wanted the $50,000 prizes and $50 an hour average pay. Amidst this mix of greed and boredom was a toxic combination. I started playing one-on-one (colloquially: “heads-up”) for hundreds of dollars at a time.

The numbers didn’t really mean anything, and it all began to feel pretty surreal. Once, I continually bet $100 against someone – over and over again – until I lost about $400. My heart was racing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Within seconds, I had lost hundreds, and all without care. I had been gambling for entertainment, and this was never the intention.

Off and on, I struggled to stop or curtail it – a telltale sign of addiction. The rush was calling and I itched to play more – in time and money. As my winnings disappeared, I saw my savings account go back down to near-zero. In addiction parlance, I had hit rock bottom, and began selling off dvds, books, and anything I could get my hands on to keep funding the rush. When I ran out of that, I used credit cards. When I ran out of that, I realized I had lost everything.

I’m about 5-6 years “sober” from poker/gambling problem. I haven’t touched a deck of cards to teach or play texas hold ’em. I blocked and closed all online accounts. Like all dependencies, I know this itch is eager to get back out there and play another hand. Instead, I’m writing this article and saving my precious pennies. Now, my life is changing and it has nothing to do with the cards I’ve been dealt.

Burnout: My Into The Wild Craving

By Frugaling 8 Comments

From Into The Wild Movie Burnout — *Burnout makes me want to take off to Alaska, and have my own Into The Wild moment*

Today’s diary-like article is brought to you by my head’s burgeoning desire to really see the world and diversify my experiences. As a student for about 21 years straight, I’m really starting to develop an itch for more. Stuck inside classrooms with esoteric professors (at times), and told to read ever-increasing amounts of onerous text, I’m burnt out.

My head keeps thinking about bigger questions:

Why are we here?
What motivates me?
How can I follow my dreams?
Why am I sitting in certain courses, losing an hour-and-a-half of life each class?
Am I benefiting from these more pedantic exercises in endurance for endurance sake?
How can I better help others?

Before I can focus on these questions, I’m swept away by the confining, time-limiting world of graduate school. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this cliche: “Graduate school is like a marathon.” The purpose of this phrase is to both reassure and reevaluate your place. A marathon is all about pace; to finish 26.2 miles, you must have a perfect confluence of both time and energy. Just pace yourself in grad school, and you’ll make it through.

The analogy works, until I remember that I finished two marathons in the first two years of graduate school. See, I’d take a marathon any day over the drool-inducing caverns of classrooms. In these moments of both clarity and disillusion, I wonder what I’m doing and desperately want to buy a ticket to some far away place.

Dorothy from Wizard of Oz — Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, clicking her red heels…

I want to see the world before it’s too late. I want to feel more before it’s too late. Life is finite, and precious. Being in a classroom, sitting through an incomprehensible lecture on a subject I will never apply to my work as a psychologist is hard to swallow. Like Dorothy, I’m clicking my shoes together, hoping to be anywhere but within these four academic walls. I want to be out there, helping people, and making a difference – concretely, directly.

That’s when my more frivolous self comes into the picture. That airfare to a remote destination is most certainly not frugal. The desire to experience, see, and do often comes with a price; frankly, Groupon doesn’t help. I’m in debt. Nothing is truly affordable; yet, I’m itching to get up and go.

Burnout is a warning. Burnout is when the presses stop, wheels cease to spin. Burnout can be disastrous to a frugal budget. That’s the last thing I need. Nowadays, my solution to these moments is to accept my body’s non-acceptance. My head and heart are telling me: something’s gotta give.

If you’re beginning to feel burnout, your body is communicating something about stress and flow in life. Likely, your time and energy is primarily going to tasks that aren’t fulfilling. The answer is simple: keep doing the same thing or change it up. Usually, it’s not about needing more time; rather, a reallocation of time. If you’re burnt out it’s probably time to starting saying “no” to certain projects, taking more time to pursue passion projects, and giving up a little bit of the expected path. It helps to remember that this is your path – no one else’s. You can change course whenever you feel like it.

I Am Stefanie OConnell, Founder Of The Broke And Beautiful Life, And This Is How I Work

What inspired you to begin TheBrokeAndBeautifulLife.com?

How did people (friends, family, etc.) react when you first started?

What was your experience with design, code, web work prior to starting your site?