Beating Broke was included in five carnivals last week:

Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #234  hosted by Personal Dividends

Yakezie Carnival – Earth Day Edition hosted by The Frugal Toad

Totally Money Carnival #65 hosted by Debt Black Hole

Festival of Frugality #334 hosted by This, That and the MBA

Financial Carnival for Young Adults #10 hosted by 20s Finances

Thanks to all of the hosts for including my posts!

This is a bit of a hard post to write. If you’ve been following the I Quit My Job series, you’ll know that I quit my full-time job back in November 2011 and have been working a part-time job and running my websites ever since.  With any journey that entails so much change, things are always changing.  Several weeks ago, I made the decision that it was about time to start looking for a new full time job.

Resume t-shirt © by WikiThreads

Why, you ask?  Do you want the simple answer, or the complicated one?  The simplest answer is that I’m running out of money, and need to earn more.  Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but that reason is the largest of the bunch.  In truth, it’s less of a reason as it is a symptom for a few other reasons.  One of the biggest of those reasons is a lack of preparedness.  When I quit my job, it wasn’t after months of planning and saving.  It was a decision that I came to after a week and was based far more on an unhappiness with the position I was in.  I don’t regret having made that decision, and I truly feel like I’m in a better situation now than I was there.  The fit of the position and I had fallen out of sync, and it was time for me to go.  Nevertheless, it wasn’t the soundest decision financially.

When I quit, I decided to give the new situation of blogging and a part-time job 6 months to see where it went.  While the part-time job remained fairly stable, the blogging income has been anything but.  My income on that front has fluctuated by several hundred dollars from month to month, and hasn’t grown at the rate that I had hoped it would.  Because of that, and the fact that I was operating on limited funds to cover any differences between my income and what we needed to pay bills, I’ve got to make the right move here and get a job.

In a way, I feel like I’ve failed.  But, sometimes, you have to fail in order to move ahead.  I’ve failed in that I wasn’t able to grow the income from this and other sites at a rate that would allow me to continue doing what I’ve been doing for the last 7 months.  I’ve failed in that I wasn’t able to see that lack of growth in time to find better (other) ways to increase my income.

I’ll be in a better place.  The new job is at a company that I feel is much more in-line with what I want in an employer.  They’ve got a very progressive business model that I feel is very unique in North Dakota, and was key in my making the decision to accept their offer.  While looks can be deceiving sometimes, I don’t think that they’re that far off.  Many of the issues that I had with my previous employer don’t exist at my new employer from what I can tell.  Time will tell, but I truly believe that I’ll like and enjoy my new job.

I’ve struggled a bit over the last few weeks, after I accepted the position, as to what it meant for the direction of this site as well as my other sites.  What I’ve decided is that Beating Broke isn’t going anywhere.  I really, really enjoy the interactions with you, and the writing that I do here.  I may have to scale a few of my other sites back a lot, and will likely get rid of a few of them as well.  I may even scale back how often I write here, but at the moment, I plan on continuing the 3 a week schedule that I’ve been keeping.

That decision is two-fold.  I enjoy Beating Broke as a creative outlet.  I also am not giving up on my dream to do this on a more full-time basis.  I want to continue to grow the site as best I can so that I might, someday, be able to come back to what I’ve been doing the last 7 months.  But, hopefully, next time, I’ll do it right and do a lot more planning and saving in order to do that.

What would you have done in my position?  What other thoughts do you have? How about questions?

Yesterday, I told you that I’d be giving away a few copies of “Money Rules” by Jean Chatzky, and today, I’ve got the giveaway for you.

It’s easy to enter, just pick one (or all) of the methods in the entry form below, follow the instructions, and off you go! The giveaway ends on May 15, and I’ll announce the winners shortly after that. The giveaway is open to U.S. residents age 18 and older.

While there are several ways to enter, I’d really like to see everyone take advantage of the blog comment option and share one of your personal “Money Rules” with everyone else. I think it’s a great way to add value to the book, and to help share a few rules without having to read the book.

Go enter!

(more…)

Money Rules : The Simple Path to Lifelong Security By: Jean Chatzky Chatzky is a pretty big name in the realm of personal finance media, so when I was asked if I wanted to review her latest book, I jumped at the chance.  In Money Rules, Chatzky aims to break down personal finance into it’s [...]

Beating Broke was included in three carnivals this week: Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #30 hosted by My University Money Carnival of Money Pros hosted by My Journey to Millions Yakezie Carnival – 4.22 Edition hosted by Faithful with a Few Many thanks to the hosts for including my posts!

As you no doubt know, this is a blog about personal finance with a leaning towards getting yourself out of debt, staying out of debt, and learning how to handle the money you make once you’re out of debt.  There are lots and lots of ways to get out of debt.  My personal favorite is [...]

Do you watch a reality show such as Storage Wars or Sell This House? Perhaps you have watched Storage Wars and have seen some of the participants walk away with as much as a $5,000 to $10,000 profit.  (Of course some participants also have weeks where they lose a few thousand dollars on storage units, but [...]

Think that you are already overpaying for cable? Think again! According to the NYPost.com, monthly cable bills will continue to grow in the coming years. In fact, they are predicted to be an average of $200 a month! This does not include Internet and phone services either. NYPost.com continues, “Currently, households spend an average $86 [...]

Beating Broke was included in two carnivals this week: Yakezie Carnival – Severe Weather Edition hosted by Money Qanda Carnival of Money Pros – Tax Rush Edition  hosted by Novel Investor Thanks to the hosts for including my posts!  

It wasn’t that long ago, as the economy was crashing down around us, that people started noticing a drop in the number of credit cards that were offering the 0% transfer rates, and a drop in the number/quality of the rewards associated with rewards cards.  Higher default rates and changing regulations seem to have been [...]