Today is February 29th.
Once every four years we get an extra day. This means a few things.
It’s great for people who get paid by the hour. There’s 24 extra hours in the year for you to earn more money. At the same time, it kinda sucks for the people who get paid a salary. I’m getting my 365 day salary in a year with 366 days! Not fair!!!
I’m kidding. I don’t care about the extra day in the year for my day job. But one of my twitter followers Jackie Walters really made me think: with an extra day in the year, how can we use it to accomplish our goals?
I bet there’s something you’ve been meaning to do for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it. I bet some of you have been meaning to pick up an extra shift at work or find a second job. Maybe you’ve been waiting for the right time to get started on a small business idea. Extra income could make all the difference in the world for your finances.
Or maybe you have some smaller items that need to be done. Maybe you’ve been meaning to clean out the garage, donate a bunch of old clothes, or get things together for a yard sale. Heck, maybe you just haven’t gotten around to doing laundry in the last few days.
Whatever you need to do, today is the perfect day to get it done. This is your extra day; you have 24 hours to accomplish something. What are you going to do with it?
I’m Bad at Grocery Shopping
I was asked to write about financial mistakes, and I’ve done plenty of that in the past. For example buying a car and buying another car.
The most interesting part of the question was about mistakes I am CURRENTLY making. Right now I think my biggest mistake is wasting money on food that goes bad. I’m eating at home a lot more often, which can save a bunch of money. The problem is that I’m not very good at grocery shopping and I’ll end up buying stuff and letting it go bad.
If anyone has any tips on how to buy groceries better and not let things go bad, I’m all ears.
We Could All Use Some Motivation
Another suggestion was to write about “hope” and how it can affect us, but I’m actually not a big fan of the word “hope”. It suggests a lack of control. For example, I hope Mizzou wins the NCAA tournament in a few weeks, but my hope isn’t going to change anything.
I prefer “motivation”. I love that feeling when I believe in myself and feel like I can accomplish anything. When I’m motivated, I have control over what happens, In fact, I’ve been thinking about motivation a lot recently and I have a post dedicated to it tomorrow. I think you’ll like it, so make sure you come back!
Missouri Basketball is Darn Good
Speaking of Mizzou basketball, I can’t wait for March Madness. Call me crazy, but I think this team can go all the way to the Final Four.
Missouri has had some pretty darn good basketball teams over the years, but they’ve never made it to the Final Four. A national championship would be great, but just making the Final Four would be enough in my book. It’s the classic Mizzou fan mentality. Set the bar low enough that it should be attainable, and then still get disappointed because they don’t do it. *sigh*
On a side note, I love sports. Even when my team loses and it makes me so angry, it’s still a great feeling. Part of me thinks it’s silly to get so emotional over a game I have no control over, but then I realize it’s great to have those strong feelings. It makes me feel more alive.
Sports either make me really happy (when we win) or really upset (when we lose), but no matter the outcome I love to feel engaged and send my emotions on a roller coaster! Life is meant to be exciting, not boring!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
What we do for groceries is to make a 7-day dinner schedule (sometimes based on store ads), then buy whatever food we need for those meals (plus lunches) using a grocery list. If you stick to the list and schedule you’ll use the food you bought and not buy extra stuff.
That’s a good idea. I just hate cooking so it’s hard enough to plan 2 or 3 meals, much less 7. I’ll have to give it a shot though.
Grocery Shopping Tip: Buy small amounts of Fresh Vegetables you plan on using in the next 3 days. After a couple of runs of spoilage you should figure out the right amount. While I know that not everyone lives within walking distance to a store, this is still a viable strategy (even if you have to drive). You can simply stop on the store on the way home from work. This is what my wife and I have done and it works well for us.
As far as being productive today, I think I am going to pass. I was super productive 4 years ago when I got married on Leap day, so I think from here on out I’m just going to celebrate my anniversary and that’s it!
Maybe I should eat veggies for 3 days and then non-veggies for the rest of the week. I hate going to the store more than once a week.
And happy anniversary! That makes Feb 29 a super special day for you. I hope you have something special planned!
I think the final four may be a stretch for mizzou but is really do-able, but it’s really going to depend on the bracket that they draw and their path. I was having trouble last night between elite 8 and sweet 16 for them last night when I asked.
It definitely comes down to matchups. I just know we have the talent to win any game, and our 4 guard lineup is going to create match-up problems for just about every other team in the country. The danger with a jump shooting team is that one bad shooting night means you are done.
As soon as you bring home produce, wash it and cut it, and put it into containers for the fridge. That way, you don’t forget about it, and more importantly, you know how easy it is to take it out of the fridge and dump it into a salad or a stirfry or a soup.
That’s a good idea. I need to eat more fruits and veggies in general. Maybe this would help me.
I like frugalportland’s suggestion!
I figure the rotting food you’re talking about is produce (Rotting meat is a tragedy!). Just getting produce every few days is a good idea, but I don’t like to shop that often. The two things I recommend are:
(1) Do a little research about how to best store the produce. It seems kind of silly– what are we, 8 years old?– but I just recently learned that apples emit something that rots other produce (except potatoes). Who knew?! I bet there’s a bunch of weird stuff like that.
(2) Make a big pot/pan of something when you get your groceries and eat it throughout the week, or freeze it.
Oh, also, if your bananas are going bad it’s awesome to freeze them and then use them as a base for sorbet. Just sayin’.
Good luck!
It’s definitely a produce problem. I had no idea about apples. They are one of my favorite fruits, so that might be part of the problem.
I’ll have to look into the banana sorbet. I’ve always used old bananas for banana bread. 🙂
I took the first nap I’ve taken in FOREVER. Happy 29th to me!
Your boys totally blew it against Kansas. That game went the wrong way….