Many people who read Richer by the Day and my posts on the Lending Club blog know that I am a full time telecommuter.  To address the needs of other telecommuters and give insight to those considering this career path, I launched a new Telecommuting Blog this week.  Content is still rather light, but over time it should become a valuable telecommuting resource.  The site will also give career and productivity advice, so even those with traditional jobs may find the information useful.  I hope you take the time to check it out and would welcome any feedback or comments that you have.  Thanks!

A combination of factors may have many workers receiving an extra paycheck in 2008.  This is due largely to 2008 being a leap year and partially due to the fact that January 1st, 2009 is a bank holiday and falls on a Thursday.  The leap year means that there will be 53 Tuesdays and Wednesdays this year, where normally only one day of the week has an extra occurrence.  What all of this means is that if you receive a paycheck on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you may have already heard from your employer about receiving an extra paycheck this year.  Whether your pay was scaled throughout the year to reflect this, or if you will simply be receiving one less paycheck in 2009 varies by employer.  In any event, the result could impact your income taxes for the year as well as your 401k

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TheLadders.com, the job site for positions in the $100K per year range, ran an interesting experiment.  They placed $100,000 in a glass box and left it out in public to see the response.  Hidden cameras captured what unfolded.

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My wife and I recently cut back to having only one car instead of the two we have traditionally owned.  This isn’t the first time we’ve gotten by with just one car, but it is more difficult.  The last time we lived downtown in a small city and could easily walk to shopping, restaurants, and entertainment.  After we moved to the suburbs, we decided that a second car was necessary.

Our regression to one car had nothing to do with gas prices, cost of insurance, or anything like that.  We’re going to be moving again and took a recent opportunity to move the car ahead of time.  So now, until we move, we’re living far from everything with only one car. 

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The latest book review here at Richer by the Day is Your Money or Your Life by by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

Your Money or Your Life is one of those classic personal finance books that everyone seems to have read. After finally getting around to reading it myself, I can see why it is so popular. While there are certainly some portions of the book which are outdated, the majority of the content is as relevant today as when the book was written in the early 90s.

One of the main concepts introduced in the book is how to define “enough.” I found this information particularly useful because I’ve been feeling guilty, or at least in the minority, that I don’t want any more than I already have. I’ve been living on the “enough” peak for a while now. Understanding that after a certain point having additional possessions

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We have long heard the positive benefits of getting more rest, yet many of us still get much less than we need. Trying to capitalize on this “reality”, Sealy Posturepedic, the well known mattress company, has a new print and media campaign urging you to “Get a Better 6.” Watch The Better 6 TV spots.

The idea behind the campaign is that if you can only get 6 hours of sleep a night, you should get the most restful sleep possible, presumably on one of their new mattresses. While I can’t fault them for marketing to people who have given up hope, their ads are akin to saying, “since I can’t give up fast food, I’ll try to eat at the healthiest fast food restaurant.” While that is better than the alternative, it detracts from the actual solution to the problem, eating healthy food (or getting sufficient rest).

You may wonder why I’d cover getting enough sleep on a personal finance blog. First of all,

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President Bush today signed into law an updated GI Bill that had broad bipartisan support. The new bill provides service members, who served in the military for at least three years, full tuition at any in-state public university along with a monthly housing stipend. The benefits (which are as high as $90,000) can also be used at private schools.

The bill adjusts the benefit scale based on cumulative active service, a move that levels the playing field between active duty, National Guard, and Reserve members. Everyone on active duty will receive the benefit from now on free of charge.  Previously, service members paid $1200 to buy into the benefit. Benefits are also significantly higher, up to $90,000 from $40,000 under the old plan. The bill also allows veterans to transfer education benefits to their spouses or children.

With the rising cost of secondary education,  service to our country is a great way to pay for college and an excellent way for our govenment to reward our brave veterans.

There are some computer based tasks that computers cannot do as well as humans. Instead of hiring people full time to perform such services, many companies turn to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website. There you can sign-up and get paid to perform simple tasks.

To get an idea of how profitable the site could be, I created an account and began working on a few Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs). After practicing with a few, I thought I’d time myself. I was able to complete 69 HITs in 10 minutes. The HITs I was working on paid $0.02 each, so I earned $1.38 in 10 minutes, or $8.28 an hour.

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photo credit: lisatozzi

Ask nearly any personal financial adviser about the risks and rewards of playing the Lotto and they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s a waste of money. What is often lost in that advice is that there’s more to the Lottery than the potential for riches.

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When you work for a company, you’re likely to encounter the productivity paradox, which can be summarized as follows: The more work you do, the more work you get. Being more productive, while beneficial to your company, is likely less beneficial to you. Ask most bosses if you can work fewer hours as long as you get your work done and the answer will probably be the same: if you can get all of your work done in fewer hours, think of all the extra work you can get done if you put in the full amount of time. The trouble with many jobs is that there is not a direct correlation between the effort you put in and the pay that you get out. Working twice as hard won’t get you twice the money and may just serve to raise expectations.

That’s why extra time may be better spent

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