My regular roundup of the week’s blog and financial site links.
I am going to start highlighting a blog post that made me think each week, followed by a quick personal response. I’d like to put the emphasis back on the excellent sites out there.
Wealth Pilgrim found out this week that his buddy doesn’t do the dishes [1].
To quote the post:
He explained that he’s got a full-time job working as a technical engineer plus he’s trying to grow his blog into a serious enterprise.
When he gets home from his day job, he works on his blog. Of course before diving in, he plays with the kids. But as soon as they head off to bed, he heads off to blog.
30 minutes of chores means 30 minutes of reduced production. In his opinion, it’s a better business move for him to stay focused on work. He feels that he can simply add more value for the family by writing than by rinsing.
An interesting conundrum, and increasingly commonplace as more people search for passive income streams [2].
I remember visiting my girlfriend’s parents one Sunday about 10 weeks after co-launching a start-up, and realising it was the first Sunday I’d had off work in all that time! So I understand where Neal’s mate is coming from.
On the other hand, blogging for money [3] is a terrible way to get rich, so if he and his wife leave the dishes until he makes it big, they’ll all die of dysentery.
More immediately, he has a family and shares his home, and such things are fragile enough without spending several hours a night shunning her to ‘play’ (as she will see it) on the computer.
The only way this will work is if he brings her on-board and shows her it’s a joint project for them, not an escape pod for him. And that conversation probably starts in the kitchen, with a dishcloth in hand.
I’m assuming here that Neal’s “friend” is not a thinly-disguised Neal. Here in the UK it’s very difficult to discuss the problems of a friend without people assuming you’re talking about yourself.
I find it particularly difficult when my friend is having period pains or suffering from piles… 😉
Note: I’ve already done a pre-budget review [4] roundup this week.
The rest of the week’s personal finance blogs
- Index funds: Why anything else? – Mike [5] guesting on Get Rich Slowly [6]
- Why most people are bad at picking stocks – Ducks in a Row [7]
- Why dividend stocks rock – Bargaineering [8]
- Springing the liquidity trap – The Psy-Fi blog [9]
- A future dividend income stream in progress – Dividends Value [10]
- Benchmarks matter – Abnormal Returns [11]
- Invest online like Peter Lynch – The Digerati Life [12]
- Zero-fee ETFs: A bargain? – Index Universe [13]
Other interesting financial and money articles
- How to beat middle-class tax crackdown – The Times [14]
- CGT will surely rise next year, so act now – Financial Times [15]
- Iraq to be world’s second biggest oil state – Financial Times [16]
- Did positive thinking kill your career? – Newsweek [17]
- Gilt yields up to 3.8% after pre-budget sell of – The Telegraph [18]
- Stockbrokers face bonus bashing tax – The Telegraph [19]
- Copenhagen comes down to numbers game – The Independent [20]
- China market has the right goods – The Independent [21]
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