All too often we look at things from their monthly cost instead of the larger, more important picture, of total cost. There were times when these were the same thing. Stores once offered payment plans on purchases that effectively amounted to the 0% interest offers of today, without the associated catches. Offers to accept $5 a month until you had paid the full cost of some mail order item graced page after page of newspapers and catalogs in the early 1900s. Once interest, or the potential for retroactive interest (as is often the case in today’s 0% offers), comes into play, the difference between monthly payment and total cost can be quite large.

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My post discussing whether the penny should be eliminated reminded me of the other redheaded stepchild of US currency: The $2 Bill. You may not realize that $2 bills are still in circulation, but I have a friend on a mission to change that perception.

Every time his supply of $2 bills is depleted he goes to the bank and withdraws $100 worth. I didn’t realize that you could do this, but as I said $2 bills are still legal tender so it should be no surprise that banks still have them. My friend doesn’t waste his bills, he just uses them in place of other cash. Using them as a tip is ideal because then he doesn’t have to explain his rationale each time he uses them. He effectively places them blindly into circulation.

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I finally got around to creating my blogroll, which is located on the sidebar below my category list. Rather than just add the blogroll, I thought I’d share my rationale behind adding each of these sites. There are a lot of other good sites out there, many of which I read. I’ll probably add more of them to my blogroll as time goes by, but the ones below mostly have specific reasons for being included.

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One thing you notice when you watch a lot of golf on tv is that the same commercials are repeated over and over ad nauseum. This past week was no exception. I must have seen the ING Your Number commercial at least 10 times. Clearly their marketing tactic worked, because I did indeed go to their website.

The premise of the commercial is that everyone has a number that correlates to the amount they’ll need to have saved to retire when and how they want. In the ad, people are carrying around a physical number. By going to the website, you can calculate your number and then find a new financial professional in your area or email it to your existing one.

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Being frugal should not be confused with being unable to spend. In fact the opposite is true. Carefully monitoring your spending, following a disciplined budget, and saving in as many ways as possible allows you to spend more in the areas that are important to you.

Since budgeting reduces unnecessary and wasteful spending it leaves more money available for discretionary purposes. Choosing the areas where you will spend that extra money is part of the fun of being frugal.

Looking at this topic another way, by being frugal most of the time, you create a situation where you can spend a little extra some of the time.

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This post is part of my Freaky Financial Fridays series, where I argue a case from an opposing view, generally in contradiction to my own philosophy or conventional financial advice.

Comparison shopping sounds like a great idea. Research the best product or service to meet your need, exhaustively look for the best deal, and only make a purchase when you’re sure that you couldn’t possibly save any more money. The problem is that such a method is often a waste of time and thus a waste of money.

Undervaluing your time is selling yourself short. Your time is probably worth a lot more than your employer pays you on an hourly basis. To estimate what your time is worth, you can use this calculator.

Once you know how valuable your time is, you quickly see why comparison shopping isn’t worth it. A quick check on a comparison shopping websites might be worthwhile, but any more effort than that and you’ll probably be spending more money in terms of your time, than you can hope to save.

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Today, I will make my first post in a new series called Freaky Financial Fridays. For these posts, I intend to argue the opposing view to my personal opinion or a piece of generally accepted financial advice. My goal is not to show how ludicrous the opposing view is, but rather to try to make genuine arguments in favor of that view. Personal situation greatly influences which course of action is best, so it’s likely that some people will find this information applicable. Even if you do not, looking at things from another angle may help to strengthen your own opinion. I intend to write a post for this series a few times a month. If nothing else, this series should prove to be entertaining.

This month Richer by the Day made it’s debut in the FIRE Finance Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs. Rankings are based on page views from a variety of sources. Using Sitemeter, Richer by the Day was ranked number 52 and using Quantcast it was ranked number 82. Either way, I’m excited to be listed in the top 100 and hope to improve my rank in the coming months. I’m proud that this blog, which was only started a few months back, has already achieved such success. That success can be mainly attributed to my readers, whom I sincerely thank for their patronage. If you haven’t yet done so, please subscribe to my feed through RSS or email to stay up to date with the latest posts.

There are many reasons why my finances are in good shape. In coming up with a list of those reasons, I noticed that a few were key to my getting ahead. I call these my wealth accelerators because they have had a dramatic effect on my net worth. Without these I would still have a positive net worth, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is. Your wealth accelerators may not be the same as mine, but I suspect that many of these are common to most people.

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