Don’t Feed the Alligators

I participated in my first blog carnival this week at the Carnival of Personal Finance. I submitted my article about the parallels between losing weight and growing wealth. You can see it and all the other great articles at this week’s host Gather Little By Little. This week I also joined the conversation on a number of topics at other blogs. Some of the blogs that mentioned me or in which I participated were:

• Lynnae at BeingFrugal.net solicited the best financial advice that her readers had ever received. My words of wisdom were 1.Pay yourself first and 2. Anything you can measure can be improved.
• Glblguy at GatherLittleByLittle.com wondered why he still has to carry cash. I don’t usually carry much cash, and it tends to sit in my wallet for a long time. In the comments I shared my strategy for using my rewards credit card for everything I can.
• Frugal Dad at FrugalDad.com wondered whether it was cost effective to buy a new car for the explicit purpose of saving on gas mileage. I suggested that for people who continually carry loans, the cost of gas is minor compared to the other operational costs of a car.

Another article that caught my eye today comes from the Boston Globe’s Personal Finance Section which reported on a new study being conducted at my alma mater which will “explore how people make decisions about their money, and how technology can shape and assist in these choices.” This study is part of a new Center for Future Banking that seeks to understand how changes in technology will affect banking. This study will explore many of the questions that fascinate my about the social psychology of money decisions. It is a bit dubious, however, that Bank of America is providing the financing for the study… Lastly, I made some updates to my Blogroll at the right this week. Check out some of my fellow bloggers sites if you haven’t already. b

Thursday marked one month of Don’t Feed the Alligators. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, my readers, for your attention and comments, both online and off. Ultimately it is you that makes this blog what it is, so with that in mind, I would like to ask for your help, comments, and suggestions to the following administrative issues:

Schedule: To date, I have been trying to publish an article approximately every 3 days. I originally decided on this schedule for two reasons: 1. I thought it should be relatively easy to write one article every 3 days, and 2. I didn’t want to exhaust my relatively short list of ideas too quickly.

On Point 1: I was traveling for many days this month, and found this pace difficult to keep up. I have resorted to writing opportunistically and then publishing when appropriate (I am writing this on Sunday…). I also found help in the form of a guest blogger, who already has many great ideas for future articles. I am reasonably sure that I can manage to keep churning out 2 articles per week.

On Point 2: My list of ideas is now growing much faster than I can actually write and publish articles, so this is not going to be an issue until well past October at my current pace.

Question Series 1 for my readers:

Are you happy with the current pace? Would you rather see articles published when they are finished rather than on an arbitrary timeline — even if that could mean that you don’t see a new article for 5 days?

Content and Comments: Nearly half of the articles that I have written so far have been inspired from reader questions. This certainly helps me to stretch out the long list of topics that I have in mind already. I am hoping that more people will become involved in the comments section, however. Good feedback is ultimately going to be essential to the future content, style, and quality of articles here.

I hope that am helping some of you to get your financial houses in order, but I have a couple of articles brewing that will ask you to help me with some advice for optimizing what I’m doing with my own financial house.

Question Series 2 for my readers:

Are you happy with the content of the articles here at DFTA? If not, how can I improve? Is there a specific topic that you would like to see and discuss? If yes, what is it that I’m doing well? How can I promote more discussion in the comments section?

Subscribers: After the initial rise in subscribers at the beginning of last month, subscriptions have remained rather flat. Curiously, nearly every day I lose a subscriber only to gain a new one. Here is where I would like your help. If you have enjoyed reading Don’t Feed the Alligators, please consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, please consider sharing a link to this blog with you friends, family, and coworkers. The more eyes reading the articles here, the more likelyhood of some good discussions in the comments sections and therefore the better the information that you will have in the end.

Thanks again for your readership and support. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Welcome to Don’t Feed the Alligators, a Personal Finance Blog that seeks analysis and discussion surrounding all aspects of personal finance as seen from the perspective of a small-scale multi-family property investor.

My personal background is similar to many other personal finance bloggers:

My story starts in college. The first week I was exposed to all kinds of offers for free T-shirts, Frisbees, etc. simply in exchange for filling out a credit card application. I had some part time jobs in college that allowed me to keep paying the minimums, but I continually flirted with my limits. Eventually I graduated and got a “real” job. I bought a big screen TV and an expensive stereo.

I had a good mentor who helped me to start making a dent in my debt. Together my then fiancé and I saved for a debt free wedding and worked down most of the credit debt. We bought a new car, with all the options. No problem, we could afford the payments. But we still had some credit card debt.

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