Budgeting To Wealth

If that is not a picture of paradise, then I don’t know what that is.  It is a beach on Carabane, an island on the Casamance River.  Lost?  Don’t worry, it’s a small world.  I am sure you will find your way around.

It never fails to cease to amaze me how little corners of the world can look perfect but the directions to get there is downright amazing.  It’s supposedly a village on the river in Senegal which empties out to sea.

I have only heard stories about the coastal life in western Africa so it was nice to see this picture on Wikipedia where I followed the link to read a little more briefly about the place before moving on to the rest of the world.

And, now here’s my 15 minutes around the world…

In today’s news…

Renting Vs. Buying

I first heard something about this a while ago but CNN Money’s revisited this topic on following the rents on similar properties people are buying on.  For example, condos and single-family units.

I had been thinking about buying my first property this year until I decided to hold off.  It is obvious there is a glut of houses and apartment on the market these days.   It mentioned that the rent prices fell 2.3% and this is expected to continue into 2010.

Debt Crisis and Bubbles

It is always interesting to see who does what when it comes to debt crisis.  Blackrock announced that it was confident enough to buy Greek’s debt because the general feeling is that the EU won’t let Greece default on them.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, China is struggling with an issue of vacancy in their skyscrapers which is causing a property fund manager to suggest a bubble is coming.

In the PF BLogosphere

I went over to Deliver Away Debt who introduced some of his peer bloggers who turned one year old today.  He mentioned a challenge at Enemy of Debt which spurred me to check it out.

As it turned out, Enemy of Debt is encouraging his readers to participate in managing their money using Pocketsmith.com, a calendar-based budgeting system.  That is a unique concept which can be difficult to follow depending on your motivation.

At first glance, it looks similar to the calendar in my Quicken 2009 software but more user friendly and Internet based.  I will have to follow his posts on this to see if it appeals to me.  Personally, I am not as satisfied with Quicken as I am with Money Plus which has been discontinued.

However, an interesting feature on Enemy of Debt is the Debt Free News for a Debt Free Reader installlment where J.Money of Budgets are Sexy is interviewed here.  When asked about what sacrifices were  made to become debt-free, I had to laugh at his response.

I stopped shopping, period. Instead of going out to the mall or Best Buy every weekend when bored, I started blogging and entertaining myself other ways. Ways that didn’t cost me money…

I know exactly what he means, resisting the temptation to buy something when there is a bigger picture in mind.

What do you think would be your biggest sacrifice in becoming debt-free?