One Great Potential Benefit Of Higher Gas Prices - Less Traffic

By MoneyBlueBook

As gas and oil prices continue to push vigorously into higher unprecedented levels, my wallet lets out a single quivering tear drop. But when I find myself mired in the unmoving water boarding torture that is rush hour traffic - I end up rooting for higher gas prices so that financial natural selection can put a slowdown to the serious problem of traffic jams gone wild.

I hate living, visiting, or even driving near cities with bad traffic. Unfortunately I happen to live near a major metropolitan hub that Forbes Magazine views as the city with the worst overall traffic in the United States - Washington D.C. I was rather taken back when I read that since I had always assumed the smoggy Southern California city of Los Angeles claimed that title, but then the dubious distinction doesn't exactly surprise me. The D.C. Beltway certainly deserves that title as the highway is always filled to the brim with honking drivers.

Why does the local suburban crawl population in our area keep expanding every year? It only adds to the ever growing traffic congestion problem in the region where I live and grew up. Just because the public schools in suburban Maryland and Virginia are some of the best in the nation and the federal government places the vast majority of its jobs in the city doesn't mean everyone have to move here. Why not move to say - neighboring West Virginia or the Appalachian area of Southern Virginia? I hear they have plenty of

By MoneyBlueBook

These days I've been working from home and enjoying time off from my full time contract legal gig. On some level I miss the daily human interactions and the regular social associations offered by traditional lines of work, but I don't miss the early morning mandatory work schedules or the need to kiss a supervisor's butt cheeks for the sake of getting on his or her good graces for promotion purposes or to ensure a steady stream of future work opportunities. The inevitable downside of working as someone else's employee has always been that you are funneling your own efforts and personal abilities to help someone else grow their business and make them wealthier. In exchange for your services, you are usually offered a set salary or in my case, an unpredictable but very decent wage rate, as well as the occasional health benefit package and transportation related fringe benefits. However, the fact remains that as long as you continue to work for someone else, you never truly own the fruits of your own labor - and I think it's important to own your own fruits.

Over the last few years, I've learned to incorporate blogging and online websites such as my personal finance and frugality blog and a few other attorney based blogs (I prefer not to reveal them here) into my tentative business goal of one day truly working for myself and ending the cycle of exchanging hours for money. While my online sites are certainly growing rapidly and exceeding my

By MoneyBlueBook

I just made the most wonderful discovery a few days ago. Well it was wonderful in my eyes at least. I sleep pretty late these days so I decided to take a stroll downstairs to the condominium lobby. I currently rent a unit in a medium size condo complex. We have a small cozy lobby area with a front management room that doubles as a sales office. However, now that most of the condo units have already been sold, the small lobby is now more of a reception room for guests. Since I almost always enter the building from a side gated entrance, I rarely pass through the main lobby. But on this particular day I decided to visit the lobby for no particular reason other than to have some place to walk to. When I got there I saw something that I hadn't noticed before. Our building apparently stocks a free complimentary automatic Flavia coffee and tea maker for guests and residents to use! I'm sure some readers are rolling their eyes going "oh brother" at my almost whimsical fascination with my "treasure find", but it's a big deal for me. While Flavia coffee machines don't exactly produce gourmet, five-star cups of coffee or tea, they do a decent job of churning out fairly acceptable drinks. They are also extremely convenient. Like most of the dispenser pod-based machines out there, Flavia coffee and tea makers utilize pre-made coffee and tea packets to brew the drink. You simply select select the drink you want by

By MoneyBlueBook

This is not really a blog about my religious beliefs but what is Easter Sunday without writing a post about money and God?

Many Christians may have spent the morning waking up early to attend Easter Sunday service. Although I did not attend this year, my church chose to celebrate the early morning occasion by holding special holiday services in the great outdoors at a lakeside location in Columbia, Maryland where the whole congregation could worship together with the tranquility of nature.

For non Christians and those unfamiliar with the religious concept of Easter, allow me to explain why the holiday is so important to Christians. Well for starters, it doesn't revolve around the Easter bunny and her basket of Easter eggs. I have no idea how a cuddly rabbit and her loot became the commercialized focus of the Easter holiday, in the same way I am unclear as to how Santa Claus became the figurehead of Christmas, the other major Christian holiday. But the reason why Easter is important to Christian church goers is because it commemorates and observes the third day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and became resurrected after His crucifixion by the masses. While the day is not filled with presents and celebrated with as much shopping related hype as Christmas, Easter is actually the most important Christian holiday because it remembers the day in history that Christ fulfilled His destiny to become the living sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.

Many ordinary folks tend to overlook the significance of this

By MoneyBlueBook

When you're standing in front of the cash register about to make a large purchase for hundreds of dollars, it's easy to immediately recognize the high cost and the financial gravity of the situation. The price is high and it's easy to see how the large one time expenditure is going to hit your pocket book. But what about those pesky little daily expenses that we often take for granted? They are just as effective at draining money, but the only difference is that they usually occur over a wider span of time. Those type of silent and hidden expenses do add up quickly over a month or even a one year period. It's important to be aware of what some of them are so that we can learn to avoid these money traps and do a better job of pocketing the savings.

1) Bottled Water - Although I list this as my first money drain due to the consensus of many, it's actually one daily expenditure that I personally find to be worth the daily cost. While not necessarily healthier in terms of purity, due to the convenience and the healthy consumption habit the act promotes, I actually think drinking bottled water is worth the regular cost. However, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. The right way is to buy bottled water in bulk supermarket 24 packs or in Costco's mega 32 packs. The absolute wrong way is to buy them in single units from a place like

By MoneyBlueBook

I can't help it. I'm attracted to and fascinated by trashy reality television shows - the bigger the train wreck, the better. My newest reality fixation is Bravo TV's new millionaire dating show called The Millionaire Matchmaker. This show could easily be the next logical step up for those party girls from MTV's Super Sweet 16, which I previously wrote about.

The Millionaire Matchmaker features feisty Los Angeles matchmaker Patti Stanger who runs a modern and high end business of helping rich men fulfill their dreams of finding true love and potential wife, and helping gorgeous women marry into millions. On the show, her clientele of wealthy men pay a high fee to be introduced to an exclusive selection of beautiful and smart women, pre-chosen based on their compatibility factors. The men are given access to an array of high end staff of date coaches, personal shoppers, and interior designers to help them improve their personal self appearance and to spruce up the presentation of their millionaire dollar homes. Many of these men are workaholics who are usually too busy with their own careers to find time to date for themselves.

For women, joining the club is free so long as they can pass the high physical appearance requirements and aren't red flagged as possible gold diggers. From the start, Patti makes it clear that she is no Heidi Fleiss madam and that her agency is not an escort service as she strictly prohibits sex until both parties have