I’m not the only one who has been thinking about the relationship between money and meaning lately. This is a guest post from CJ at WiseMoneyMatters.com, who is trying to live a rich life even as he works to pay down debt.
“Wealth and riches are not synonymous. Wealth will get you riches, but riches will never make you wealthy.” – Dr. Edwin Louis Cole

I love this quote from Dr. Edwin Louis Cole because it gives me a heart check. It helps me understand my motives for doing what I’m doing.
You see, my goals are to become completely debt-free. I’m getting closer and closer to that goal. Within the last few months, I downsized my house, doubled my income, and was able to pay off all of my debts except for the mortgage. So now all I have left is about $100,000 to pay off before I am completely debt-free.
In order to get to those goals, [...]

Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for May 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)
What a difference a year makes! Our fruits, berries, and vegetables had a slow start last year (and then were further slowed by a cold, cold June). This May was warm — very warm. Our food crops loved the weather, and they’ve shown explosive growth.
As a reminder, here’s what the garden looked like at the end of April:
A blank slate…

And here’s what it looks like now:
Tomatoes, onions, peas, cucumbers, squash…they’re all here!

First harvest
The sunny weather produced lots of growth. The peas and raspberries and blueberries and fruit trees all look amazing. We’re going to have huge crops. We have a couple of small snow peas on the vine, and the tomatoes are blossoming. But only three crops have yielded fruit through the end of May:

In its [...]

Yesterday I wrote about my recent business trip to Orlando. This is the “rest of the story”, a behind-the-scenes look at how I spent way too much money for a one-day vacation.
When Kris and I agreed to fly to Orlando for the unveiling of The Great Piggy Bank Adventure, we hoped to have time to explore the rest of EPCOT Center. But when we received the itinerary, it was clear that all we’d actually be doing was attending the opening ceremony. We were scheduled to fly in at midnight, attend festivities from 10am until 1pm, and then fly home at 5pm.
“That’s a bummer,” Kris said. “You should ask the PR rep if there’s any way we can stay an extra day.” Since the public-relations firm was arranging the trip (and presumably paying for it), we were at their mercy. But as many GRS readers have noted in the past, it never hurts to ask. So [...]

Note: Oops. I accidentally had comments closed on this post. Not even sure how that happened. They’re on now.
Chris M. sent me e-mail last week to share some thoughts on rewards checking and on credit unions. I’m a fan of both. In his message, Chris offered a handy tip for those of us who use credit unions instead of banks:
In reviewing your past posts, I realized that you might not know about something I use to get around going out of your way to the credit union all the time. I always work during banking hours, so I make all my deposits via ATM. I use a CU Service Center. The one I use has only two-day hold on deposits, like the credit union. Other credit unions may have five-day hold, which is not so nice. Here’s where I found my credit union service center.
Credit unions are a fantastic option for many people. They’re member-owned [...]

“If we’re going to have a free-market capitalist society, we’ve got to give people the tools to not be victims” — John Cammack, T. Rowe Price

I get a lot of e-mail from PR firms. I ignore most of it, but occasionally something stands out. One recent message invited me to make a trip to Orlando for the debut of The Great Piggy Bank Adventure, a new financial literacy exhibit at Walt Disney’s EPCOT Center.
At first, I was skeptical of the offer. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m wary of crossing the line to publishing advertorials. But after verifying that there were no expectations of coverage at GRS, I agreed to attend the launch. I’m a huge advocate of financial education, and this seemed promising.
“If I like the game, I’ll write about it,” I told Kris before we left. “But if I don’t, I won’t.”
I liked the game.
The Great Piggy Bank Adventure
The Great Piggy Bank Adventure is [...]

I don’t watch much television; I’m more of a books and magazines and newspapers kind of guy. But I’ll make an exception this Friday. ABC will be broadcasting a special entitled Un-Broke: What You Need to Know About Money. According to the website:
Schools teach us almost everything, but not “Money 101.” For the basics on finance, turn to UN-BROKE: What You Need to Know About Money. It’s an unconventional look at the fundamentals of everyday finance with all the facts about credit cards, mortgages, stocks and bonds, investing and 401(k)’s, in a fresh new format combining information and humor. The one-hour special airs FRIDAY, MAY 29 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
The special’s take on basic money sense includes:

Will Smith, who gets down to basics with a boardroom full of corporate finance executives.
Samuel L. Jackson, who appears as a bestselling author of self-help books and who is “Broke as Hell and Not [...]