Outsource Chores, Job Security, and Social Security

By Harry Sit

Here are some noteworthy articles I read in the last week or two.

Why I’ve Hired a Maid Service by Flexo at Consumerism Commentary. Flexo decided to hire a maid service for $250 a month even though he knows how to clean rooms.

I don’t see any problem with that. After you contribute enough to your long term goals, you get to choose how you spend the rest of your money. Flexo can afford it. The service does a good job. Flexo thinks it’s worth it. That’s all. It doesn’t matter whether he can or should do it himself. I pay $100 a month for yard service for the same reason.

Make Yourself Indispensable by Nickel at Five Cent Nickel. As I ponder whether I should do something about my job, I welcome this article. Even when economy is bad, you can still create job security for yourself. My previous employer ran into some financial trouble in early 2000s. I was so scared to lose my job. Fortunately I survived.

Social Security Strategies for Married Couples by Mike at Oblivious Investor. As I’m still far away from drawing Social Security, I haven’t paid much attention to Social Security. Although Mike is younger than I, he has posted a series of articles on Social Security:

I’m sure there will be more to come as he prepares for his "Social Security in 100 Pages Or Less" book. If you are close to taking Social Security, be sure to subscribe to Mike’s blog for more.

How I Saved -$97 With PriceLine by Mike Holman at Money Smarts. Mike lives in Canada. They have Priceline there too. Mike wrote a very detailed article on how to use Priceline to save some money on hotels and how not to use it. I missed the negative sign in the title when I first read it.

Rebalance with new contributions to save on grief and cost by The Accumulator at Monevator. The Accumulator is in the UK. What we call dollar cost averaging is called pound cost averaging there. When it comes to rebalancing a portfolio, it doesn’t matter where you live. I described the same in Rebalancing With New Cash with algebra. The Accumulator did a much better job with a nice picture. Note to self: draw pictures; no more algebra.

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Software picked, likely related posts:

Posted on April 29, 2011 under News. Keywords: .

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4 Comments on Outsource Chores, Job Security, and Social Security

  1. Chuck on April 29, 2011
     

    Is that a djb document ID on your RSS? Cool.

  2. Mike Piper on April 29, 2011
     

    Wow. You linked to the whole series! Thank you. I hope somebody finds it to be of use. :)

  3. TFB on April 29, 2011
     

    @Chuck – Not sure what a djb doc id is. The long string in the RSS feed helps me find other sites republishing my articles without permission.

  4. Mike Holman on April 29, 2011
     

    Thanks for the mention TFB.

    Yes, the title was probably a little too subtle. I should have just called it “How I lost $97 using Priceline”. :)

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