Thanksgiving is in two days, and it’s likely that most of you have plans of some sort: getting together with family, eating a tremendously large meal, enjoying some football on television, getting caught up on your sleep, and so on. Some of you may have already begun on those plans – I know that for my own family’s Thanksgiving, the turkey is already slowly thawing as you read this.

Of course, with such a big spread (and also with the requisite travel for many), Thanksgiving can often be a very expensive holiday. Here are seven tactics I’ve found over the last year that can help mitigate the expenses of this costly day.

Freeze leftovers in manageable containers. Sure, freezing leftover turkey is a common tactic, but many people make one big mistake when doing it: they jam multiple pounds of turkey into individual bags, then when they go to thaw some out for later use, they either talk themselves out of it (thinking that they don’t need so much food) or they unthaw a multi-pound bag and let much of it go to waste.

Instead of freezing such a tremendous amount of food in a few big containers, pare it down into a lot of smaller containers (Ziploc freezer bags work well). This way, when you do choose to unthaw some over the next several months (frozen turkey is good for six months or so), you can easily unthaw just the amount you need – and no food goes to waste.

Don’t waste the carcass. Many people are happy to toss the leftover bones and small amount of meat left over after carving up the turkey. Don’t. That carcass can be used to create a lot of tremendous broth that can also be frozen and used to make simple, flavorful dishes.

Just take the entire carcass and toss it into the biggest pan you have. You can also toss in the neck of the turkey and the giblets (but not the liver). Add a chopped yellow onion, a cup of dry white wine, a bit of pepper, and a chopped stalk of celery, and let the whole thing simmer for three or four hours until the broth tastes tremendous.

When it’s done, remove all of the large solid pieces (bone, etc.), leaving nothing but broth, and store that broth in Ziploc bags in the freezer, two cups or so to a bag. This stuff is tremendous for any homemade soup or anything you wish to make – just add egg noodles to it for an amazing homemade soup. You can also use it in casseroles to great effect.

Go potluck If you’re hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, go potluck with it. Encourage all guests to bring a side dish, then just focus your efforts (and expenses) on the turkey and other staples. This not only saves money, but greatly reduces stress as well, as you have far fewer dishes to prepare.

For some, this may seem too forward, but remember that quite often people volunteer to bring a side dish – and when they volunteer, you should always accept that dish. It makes the person volunteering happy and takes stress off of your shoulders as well.

Use the environment for decorations. Instead of using tired, store-purchased decorations to make your setting look festive, take a walk outdoors the day before Thanksgiving and look for appropriate natural decorations. Pine cones, acorns, bright red maple leaves, cuttings from a pine tree, and other such decorations, laid carefully at the center of the table, are not only free, but they also look gorgeous and can smell quite nice, too.

Parks and wooded areas are great places to gather this material. Take along a small bag and pick up anything that appears to have potential – you don’t have to use everything that you pick up. Plus, a walk in nature the day before the big meal can help you de-stress if the holiday season is dragging you down.

Encourage guests to bring their own leftover container. This does several things at once. First, it encourages people to take leftover food with them, giving you less to deal with in the cleanup process.

More importantly, it eliminates the risk of (accidentally) losing a leftover container if someone forgets to return it – and it also saves the guests the effort of having to remember to return the container. My parents have lost many nice food storage containers over the years when packing them full of leftovers and sending them with guests. The guests often simply forget to return the containers.

Don’t overspend on the “extra” items – like wine. At many holiday meals, hosts often sweat and worry about making sure that all of the minor details are perfect – and often overspend on those details. One of my relatives, for example, obsesses over wine – often winding up buying several bottles, most of which go untasted or only partially drunk.

Instead of getting caught up in the details, take it easy. The joy of the holiday comes not from the “perfect” bottle of wine, but from enjoying time with family. For the details, just pick something simple and inexpensive – stop by your local wine shop and just get a bottle or two of a very low cost but solid table wine. Virtually everyone at your table will be thrilled with it, it will all get enjoyed, and you won’t have several expensive and only partially empty bottles left at the end of the meal. Best of all, you will have saved yourself quite a bit of money.

Similar logic applies to almost every side dish you can prepare: go simple and don’t prepare tons of options. This reduces your cost greatly without reducing the quality of the meal at all.

Use the opportunity when family is gathered to discuss important matters. For many families, Thanksgiving is the only time when everyone is gathered together in one place. That also means it can be the perfect time to discuss family matters – how to help your parents in their golden years, for example, or other such issues.

Many people opt not to talk about such things at Thanksgiving, not wanting to “ruin” a family moment, but often the reverse is true: if such things are not talked about, they end up painting the holiday with a sense of regret, of an opportunity missed. Take advantage of the holiday – or the day after – to handle such important discussions while everyone is gathered, reasonably rested, and relaxed. Doing so can save you a great deal of peace of mind – and also likely save you all some money as well.

Jerome writes in with a common question:

I constantly read articles about how important it is to network online to help advance my career, but outside of emailing people I know in my field, I don’t really know where to start. Any advice?

Let’s start with the big question.

Why?
What is the point of doing online networking for your career? How is it any better than simply keeping in touch with people you know via email or at meetings? Isn’t stuff like LinkedIn or Facebook a waste of time, or at least not worth the time you invest in it?

Online networking tools serve two purposes, really.

First, they make it easy for people to find you – or at least find the information about you that you want to be found. Once you set up a proper profile at a social networking site, it’s often the first thing that shows up about you on search engines. Thus, when people go searching for information about you, you can have a lot of control over the information that they find.

Second, they allow you to keep tabs on other people – and allow other people to keep tabs on you. Let’s say, for example, that you’re starting a new project that might interest a lot of people in your field – and you might want input from some of them. Is it easier to collect all their email addresses then send a blanket email to all of them or to just simply update your online networking tool?

Similarly, if you’ve set up such tools properly, you can effortlessly and automatically follow such news and updates about others in your field, which can automatically alert you to any interesting changes without having to hope that that person remembered to send it to you.

Together, these things add up to tons and tons of opportunities to connect with people without having to invest a ton of time continually tracking people down.

Tactic #1: Just Use Google
One problem that many people have with doing this is that there seems to be a giant pile of services available for people to connect to others. Should I use Twitter? Should I use Facebook? Should I use LinkedIn?

Really, though, there’s only one you need to worry about. And that’s Google.

When people want to find other people online, they turn to Google. They type in that name, click on the first few links, and see what they can find out.

That means your focus shouldn’t be so much on which of these services to use. It should be to make sure you’re controlling that top search result on Google.

How can you do that? You need to have a page that’s (a) fully open to the public and (b) linked to by a lot of other people.

Based on what I’ve observed, for professional purposes, the best tool for that is LinkedIn, so if I were just getting started with things, I’d use LinkedIn. Facebook has more users, but it’s a “walled garden,” meaning the general public cannot read your profile. If you’re focusing solely on professional material, that’s actually a pretty big disadvantage.

Tactic #2: Detail Your Profile
When you sign up for such a service, the first step is to add appropriate detail to your profile. The key word here is appropriate.

The purpose for doing this is to attract professional connections, so keep it professional. Describe your career. Enter all of the relevant information and include as much detail as you can, including past places of employment, organizations you’re involved with (that you’d want to share professionally), where you went to school, and so on. Make especially sure to describe your current work (again, in as much detail as you can). Be sure to share it all publicly, too, so that you can easily be found on Google searches.

The more information you provide – particularly interesting information – the more likely it is that people will take an interest in you, follow you, and contact you for further connection, which is exactly what you want.

Tactic #3: Find People You Know (Or Want To Know)
Once you’re in place, start searching the site for people you know and establish connections with them. You may not know anyone – that’s fine – but if you can at least establish a few connections, you’re off on the right foot.

You might want to search whole companies, like your own, just to get a list of people, so you can quickly identify people that you may want to link up with. Don’t be afraid to connect with people above you in rank – or even below you – but focus on connecting to those that might actually have value in that connection. Don’t just connect for the sake of connecting or else you’ll suffer from needless overload.

Tactic #4: Invite Your Friends To Join
So, you signed up at LinkedIn (or whatever site you’ve chosen to use), filled in your profile, and located a few people you know. Now what?

These tools work better if you know lots of people using the tools, so email a bunch of your work contacts. Send them the URL of your LinkedIn page, along with perhaps the URLs of some other people most of them might be interested in, and encourage them to sign up. If people already know that they have at least a few connections in the bag, they’re much more likely to sign up for such a service.

Tactic #5: Keep People Reminded Through Other Means
Once you’re established there, make an effort to remind people through other mediums about your profile page, so they can follow you, too. I’d encourage you to stick a link to your profile in the signature of your emails as well as into the profile of any other online services you might use (like Facebook, for example).

What this does is it gives people many opportunities to visit your page and keep you in their mind – and that’s a pure benefit for you.

Tactic #6: Keep An Eye Out
Once you’ve established a profile and a lot of connections, it’s worth setting your basic page on the site as a bookmark so you can keep up with what’s happening with the people you’re connected to. I tend to look at what’s happening with my connections on various sites every other day or so, just to keep tabs with them.

For the most part, I don’t do anything with the updates – I just try to keep track of them. I usually send congratulations in response to big news and occasional follow-up questions, but I usually try to avoid too much follow-up (see #8 for why).

Tactic #7: Update Regularly
I also make an effort to update my own profile whenever there’s something significant to note. Whenever something happens that’s significant enough for me to wish to contact people professionally, I make sure to update any relevant social networking pages with a global update (so that everyone can see it and anyone who follows me or is connected is alerted to it).

Of course, there’s a fine line here – too much stuff can overburden the people connected to you. To mitigate that, I keep the update count down to the serious stuff – things that I would actually bother to contact others about, such as major project changes, changing jobs, the birth of a child, or another major event.

Tactic #8: Don’t Get Bogged Down
Ideally, you find yourself in a situation with a lot of connections, which means a lot of people are keeping tabs with what you’re doing. The danger in that is that it’s tempting to get involved in a lot of conversations – and that turns the social networking tool into an unproductive time suck.

My suggestion: avoid long conversations on the site. If you see something truly compelling, contact that person directly off the site. If it’s not compelling enough

Tactic #9: Add Value
There is one other reason I add updates to such social sites, and that’s when they add direct value to the people following me. If I find a truly great resource or piece of information that many others in my field will find valuable, I add an update letting others know about it.

Why do this? Why share something of value so easily? If you share truly valuable things, people will come to ascribe value to you – and that will stick in their minds. Do it regularly enough with stuff that’s truly valuable and people will share valuable things with you – information, important news, and so on.

Tactic #10: Follow Up
Most of these tactics don’t require much time, and so it can be easy to just put up the profile, check in every once in a while, and not think about it.

If you just do that, however, you may miss out on opportunity. Thus, I’d suggest two methods for regular follow-up on your profile.

First, set the site as a default page in your browser. This way, checking the page becomes part of your normal routine. You can often integrate a number of pages into a single iGoogle start page – that’s the tactic I use.

Second, check your own profile regularly and make sure it’s updated. Don’t let it slag with out-of-date information. Check it once a month or so and make sure that correct, current, and relevant information is easily found by people searching for you.

Follow these ten tactics and you’ll be using online networking to great career advantage.

Quite often, when people write to me asking for specific financial advice, I respond to them encouraging them either to seek a lawyer or a financial advisor, but I also make a point to tell them to lay all of their cards on the table for this advisor.

Some readers have expressed surprise at this response. Either they seem shocked that I wouldn’t simply give them an answer to their question, or they seem almost insulted that I would somehow imply that they weren’t being forthright about their situation.

There are multiple things at work here.

First, most personal finance solutions aren’t as simple and one dimensional as one might think at first. There are many, many factors that are in play when one tries to determine the best move for their situation: age, health, psychology, current financial state, current employment state, goals, future plans, ongoing relationships – even things as mundane as the amount of free time one has.

As a result, many situations simply don’t have a simple off-the-cuff answer. It’s quite likely that, in a short telling of your story, you’re leaving out some key information, intentionally or otherwise.

Second, I’m not an expert. While I’ve read a ton about personal finance and have actively applied that to my own life (which is what I write about here), I have very little experience taking that same knowledge and applying it to other situations. I think there’s value in sharing my own experiences – and I do believe that others can take home lessons from those experiences – but, frankly, I’m not trained in the nuances of evaluating the experiences of others. All I can share is my experience and the lessons that have come from that.

So, what’s the solution if you do need an answer to a financial question?

First of all, it is reasonable to write your situation in detail. It’s similar to the reason that people journal – quite often, simply recounting and describing your own experience and situation can open up your own mind to revealing the correct answer.

I honestly believe that this is the biggest reason people write to me. They simply need to write it all out, and once they’ve done that, they want to share it all with someone – but not with someone they know personally.

Don’t overlook things, either. No matter what the situation, you should include all the basics – your current financial situation, your health, your goals for the future, even the amount of time you have to seek new solutions. Every significant factor in your life is important for solving financial problems.

Often, just this process alone – writing everything out – will reveal the answers you need. I know that quite often I find the answers I’m seeking while writing a post for The Simple Dollar. I’ll start an article about my own situation, turn the pieces over and over in my mind, do some additional research, and by the end of the article, it’s clear to me where I should be going with things.

What if the answer isn’t obvious? Your best first step is to talk to someone you personally trust, but it must be someone that you’re willing to lay out all of the facts to or else talking will get you nowhere. You must be willing to open the books to this person in order to really tap their wisdom.

In many situations, this can be the best approach, as the person you trust likely has some insights into your personality that no advisor could bring to the table.

Of course, there are many situations where this isn’t appropriate, either. Such personal advice mostly works best when figuring out general plans, not specific investment choices. Once you get down to the specifics of financial choices or legal options, you should turn to a financial advisor or a lawyer. Here are a few tips for finding a good one.

First, you should always retain the final decision in any situation. You are hiring these people for their expertise to help you make the right decision, not to hand them the responsibility. That responsibility still rests with you and it always should. Never give full autonomy to an advisor to make choices for you. Instead, if they give you an explanation you don’t understand, ask them to explain it better. You’re paying them to provide you with their expertise, not provide you with more confusion.

Second, if you’re seeking a financial advisor, look for a fee-only advisor. A fee-based or commission-based advisor both have other interests that they bring to the table – namely, they want you to invest in whatever investment they can earn a big commission on, and that’s often not the best investment for you. Instead, seek out advisors that operate based only on fees – they may be a bit more costly up front, but you can be sure that they’re not trying to sell you a product. For your fee, what you get is their best advice, unhindered by the need to shill for a product.

Third, hit up your personal network for recommendations for both lawyers and financial advisors. This goes both for positive and negative (stay away from…) recommendations. You’ll often be surprised at the responses you get from friends and relatives you trust when you ask them for suggestions on lawyers and financial advisors – they may offer strong (and accurate) recommendations that you didn’t expect.

Finally, do not hide key information during this process. I know quite well that it’s tempting – usually out of personal pride – to hide key painful pieces of information when asking for advice. Don’t. Provide all of the painful information up front, and be an open book for additional questions. Don’t. Hide. Anything.

In the end, make sure the advice passes your smell test. Do your own investigation into the advice you get and make sure that it does make sense, no matter what the source. Multiple sources for your information are always good.

Good luck!

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently. A few people have asked questions about how to deal with a large set of collectibles. Here are three articles that might help.
Dealing With Those Piles Of Old Baseball Cards In Your Closet
Personal Finance and Nostalgia
An Inheritance of Collectibles

And now for some great reader questions!

I am a 32 year old mother of 2. Stable employment w/ the same company for 12 years, in school, own my 1st home, been working on paying off charge cards, braces and an auto loan. I am getting ready to go kick my partner out of my home and my life, which will leave me w/ just my income. I can’t make ends meet w/ all of the bills alone. My partner started using heroin a year ago and I have been doing my best to keep on her w/ her methadone treatment program and have spent all of my savings and am now in debt trying to save her. She wrecked my brand new car. I lost $17,000.00 in equity w/ that accident. She keeps getting fired and now I have simply had it. I can’t stay afloat. I put my home on the market. I am going to take a huge loss of close to $50,000.00 w/ this sale. I have to move as soon as I send her packing. How and what do I do to keep paying the bills?
- Tanika

It sounds like you’ve made a very tough emotional decision, one that’s resulting in some big financial consequences.

The best move you can make is to make a clean break as soon as possible. If you’ve decided for your own personal reasons that the relationship needs to end, end it. Don’t dance around the issue and get yourself in an even worse situation.

From there, turn to your family and friends for support. Explain the real truth of your situation to them and ask for emotional help and advice. However, do not ask to borrow money – a borrower-lender relationship is an easy way to ruin friendships and family bonds.

You need to spend some time and get a very accurate picture of your financial state, then come up with a debt repayment plan to get out of it.

It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Let your children inspire you to more than you ever thought possible of yourself.

Do you think the horrible economy has made an impact on the success of the Simple Dollar? We have all had to think outside of the box to make ends meet in this recession.
- Mol

It probably has helped somewhat. More people are seeking answers to their financial questions, mostly through searching Google, and have thus stumbled upon articles here.

I’m not really convinced it has helped the site acquire more long-term readers, though. The people that stick around here seem to mostly be those who are genuinely seeking answers to their financial situation, not those who only worry about their money if People tells them to.

So, it’s helping a bit, I think, but not any sort of avalanche. My traffic is going up, but it’s not a tidal wave.

With ING’s recent interest rate drop from 3.00 to 2.75% for their orange Savings account, would you consider switching to other banks with higher interest rates, ie: Dollar Savings Direct (4.00%), or would you keep your money at ING?
- Chris

I generally think that rate chasing is a pretty weak game. No matter what the interest rate is, good customer service from your bank wins out. I stick with ING because of the service, not because of the rate.

As for the rate question itself, most banks, and online banks in particular, tend to change the rates offered on savings accounts quite often. It is a mistake to make a long-term banking decision based solely on a snapshot of compared interest rates.

That being said, if you are looking for an online account just for your savings, it does make sense to use interest rates as a major consideration – above, I’m mostly speaking about using an online bank as one’s primary bank.

What would be a better kitchen investment, a stand mixer or a food processor? I make bread about 2-4 times a month. I cook dinner at home 5 times a week (with leftovers the 6th night and we eat at the in-laws the 7th night). Dinners often have diced chicken breast, chopped veggies, etc. I bake cookies maybe 1-2 times a month. Can food processors make cookie dough or cake batters with the dough blade? Or just bread doughs? How do I determine the size that I need to get (for either appliance)?
- silver

We use the stand mixer substantially more than we use our food processor. For most family uses, the food processor takes about the same amount of time and has substantially more cleanup than a sharpened knife – the only time I use it is for processing large amounts of something, such as shredding zucchini for future loaves of zucchini bread.

The stand mixer will handle pretty much any kind of dough you throw at it with the dough hook or the baffle.

I’m not sure entirely how to determine which size is appropriate for you. For my family of four, I’ve found the KitchenAid Pro 600 Series mixer perfect for our uses. We use it so often that it occupies a permanent spot on our countertop.

I’ve heard that during a recession and the recovery is a good time to buy stocks and commodities, during the upswing is a good time to buy stocks and property, and during the peak and start of the economic decline is a good time to invest in bonds. What do you think about this? If you are investing on a regular monthly basis, is this a good way (in general) to allocate funds if you already have an emergency fund and adequate insurance?
- Oliver

That’s a reasonable approach to follow, excepting that I’d replace “bonds” with “bonds and cash (such as CDs).”

The only problem with that approach is clearly knowing what phase you’re in. Are we at the bottom of the market and just beginning an upswing right now, or is there still room to fall?

That’s the reason most market timing tends to fail. A much better approach is this: determine your desired allocation up front, say 50% stocks, 30% real estate, 10% bonds, and 10% cash (for example). Set up an investment account at Vanguard and buy index funds of each type – a stock index fund, a real estate fund, a bond fund, and a money market fund. Then automatically contribute to each one in that appropriate percentage for the next six months no matter what the market is doing.

After those six months, look at your balances and see how close they match your desired percentages. If one segment is bigger than you’d like and another is smaller, don’t buy or sell your investments – just change your allocations for the next six months. Lower the allocation to the “big” piece and raise it to the “small” piece. Then check again in six months.

If you want to change your allocation, change it by altering your contributions. Let’s say you want to go down to 40% stocks and up to 20% in cash. For a six month period, contribute 60% of all of your contributions to your cash fund and none to the stock fund, then see where you’re at and adjust accordingly.

This way, no matter what happens, you can ride through the changes with a secure, steadily-growing portfolio.

Granted, party affiliation matters less on a local level, but do you see yourself always running as an independent, even though that will inevitably limit your potential to gain office? Or are you just leaving off partisan politics until such time as your political career is developed enough to warrant it?
- JonFrance

The problem is that parties tend to function very differently on a local level as compared to a national level. What the Democratic Party stands for in my county has seemingly little relationship to what it stands for nationally.

Having said that, I’d probably sign up with the party that represents my views in a national sense and just follow my own judgment when it comes to local issues. If that meant I was a Democrat who acted like a Republican locally or vice versa, so be it.

Due to a company-wide reorganization, I will be losing my job at the beginning of February. I am only 24 (with no dependents) so this isn’t absolutely devastating. As part of my severance package, I will receive 4 weeks of pay and a lump sum of about $7000 (after tax). My goal is have another job lined up come February so I can save my severance package and eventually put it towards a down-payment on a house or a new(er) car in 2-3 years. Given the lackluster job market, this may or may not be realistic.

What else would you be doing in this situation?
- Cara

The only other thing I’d be doing is honing my skills and making professional connections. Right now is when you should be polishing up what you know and reaching out to people in your field for openings or other opportunities.

If you have any chance to hit up conferences or other events in your field, right now is the best possible time for you to be doing so. Learn what you can, build relationships with your peers, and continue to build those relationships in whatever you find yourself doing early next year.

Would you prefer to raise children in the city or in a rural area?
- Morgan

I’d vastly prefer a rural area, but not one too isolated. I’d prefer to have some access to an urban area within an hour’s drive.

There are valuable growth opportunities both in cities and in the country, and I’d ideally like to have my children experience both worlds. I actually tend to believe it’s easier for children in rural environments to adapt to and enjoy the city in small chunks than it is for city children to adapt to and enjoy the country in small chunks.

I just moved to a small town far, far away from anyone that I know. The only people I’ve met so far are my coworkers and the elderly couple in the apartment next door. I’d like to find a circle of friends who don’t spend money, but I don’t know where to look. Any advice?
- Yancey

Look to your own personal interests. What do you enjoy doing? If you enjoy reading, hit the library and see if there are any book clubs. Take a peek at the community calendar and see if there are any events in the community that might interest you.

If there’s a university nearby, look for cultural events there that appeal to you, particularly ones that include a discussion opportunity and some room to meet others. If you’re of a religious stripe, join a church and get involved in a Bible study.

All of these activities tend to be havens of people who don’t actively spend money and can provide a good source of social enjoyment without a high financial price.

What’s your biggest regret when it comes to The Simple Dollar?
- Angie

My biggest regret is that I didn’t go full time with it sooner than I did. I wish I had gone full time with it earlier on.

Why? There are many, many big projects related to The Simple Dollar that I’m in the midst of. Most of these projects had their original ideas planted before I made my career choice.

If I had quit earlier than I did, more of these ideas would have come to fruition by now instead of just dwelling on the back burner for months and months, slowly coming together.

I guess what I really regret is that I don’t have more time for my ideas.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or entrepreneurship book.

If you’ve ever read much about personal development online, you’ve probably bumped into something written by Steve Pavlina. He’s the person behind an enormously popular personal development blog and discussion forum on the topic.

I’ve corresponded with Steve a few times and mentioned some of his writing on here, usually in agreement but on occasion not so much. In general, I find his writings spot-on, though he sometimes tends to go pretty far down the road of New Age philosophy and the power of positive thinking – much further than I do, at least.

Unsurprisingly, then, I was quite eager to read his book on the topic of personal development, with its title (Personal Development for Smart People) taken from the slogan from his long-time web site. I looked forward to reading some longer, more in-depth pieces from him on specific areas of personal development – but I also expected to cast a wary eye if he got too far into Secret-esque thinking, with the good of the book far outweighing the bad and thus making it a worthwhile read.

Did I get what I expected? Is this a really worthwhile book on personal development, or is it more over-the-top positive thinking mumbo jumbo? Let’s take a deeper look.

Part I: Fundamental Principles
The first half of the book focuses on the basic principles of personal growth that can be applied to any aspect of our lives.

1: Truth
Pavlina opens the book with the clear statement that seeking truth is a fundamental part of personal growth. One must strive to be honest with themselves as well as honest with everyone around them. This includes things like confronting addictions, seeing through the false visage of advertisements, not making statements about things you don’t know (at least not without making it clear that you don’t know), and being up front about personal relationships. How can you achieve this? Pavlina offers several tactics, but strongly encourages people to take up journaling and to use that journal to tackle all of it – any area in your life where you’re unclear, whether it’s personal politics or how you feel about another person or your lack of information about Ethiopian economics.

2: Love
You have the potential to build a strong, loving bond with every person you interact with in a significant way, and those bonds can help you through life’s struggles and be there to celebrate with you when life hands you success. Yet building such bonds is difficult – there is no simple recipe for building deep bonds with the people around you. Pavlina argues that the key to building such bonds is to communicate – speak with honesty and candor and respect to the other person, and listen to what they have to say. Another key part: check your self-consciousness and hesitation at the door. Realize that sometimes you’re going to succeed and sometimes you’re going to fail and just go with it.

3: Power
Pavlina defines power as the ability to take control of the situation around you instead of letting the situation control you, and that power itself isn’t a bad thing, it just tends to be used in cruel ways by cruel people. What is power made of? Responsibility. Self-determination. Confidence. A willingness to make hard decisions. You can get there by taking on bigger and bigger challenges until, eventually, you realize that others have come to rely on you.

4: Oneness
Oneness is the area in which truth and love overlap. It’s the ability to empathize with and even experience the feelings that others have through deep honesty and a loving bond. Oneness is a sense of comfort with oneself, both alone and in the company of others. How do you find it? The biggest piece of the puzzle is to make a conscious effort to engage in meaningful moments with the people around you that you love. Hold your children close. Hold your spouse close. Tell people that you love them.

5: Authority
Authority is the area where truth and power overlap – it comes when you make consistent, logical, and correct actions over and over again in your life. Establishing this as a pattern causes others to look to you as an authority on the subject, someone who provides correct answers and correct actions as a matter of course. You can get there by constantly seeking answers to your own questions and freely sharing the answers you do have with others.

6: Courage
Courage is the area where love and power overlap. Courage allows you to take on difficult challenges, ones that might seem beyond your means at the moment. It requires not being afraid of failure and knowing that you do have the abilities needed for the job, plus you have the loving support of those you have built relationships with. Again, you get there by pushing yourself, trying progressively harder things, and not regressing when you fail.

7: Intelligence
How are these six principles connected? They’re all pieces of intelligence – of understanding ourselves and the world around us. We seek out truth in the form of new knowledge, share that truth with others in the form of love, and utilize knowledge through power. What does this really mean, though? It means that life is a learning experience, with every moment and every subject teaching us something new and worthwhile.

Part II: Practical Application
So how do these principles apply to the areas of our lives? The second half of the book focuses on some specific applications.

8: Habits
Most people have a large number of habits in their life, some good and some bad. Well-rounded people should seek to identify their bad habits and eliminate them, often replacing them with good habits. Pavlina mentions several techniques for this, but I found his discussion of a “thirty day trial” to be particularly powerful. A “thirty day trial” is just that – you adopt a new habit for thirty days to see if it works for you (or, alternately, discard a old habit for thirty days to see how things go without it). For example, one might give up television for a month and replace it with an hour of reading in the evenings. If, after a month, you find the habit doesn’t work for you, you can feel free to revert, knowing you gave it an honest try.

9: Career
To find the best career for you, you must be honest and open with yourself. A true, careful evaluation of your real talents is in order, and that often requires some brutal honesty. Don’t believe that you have talents that you do not; similarly, don’t ignore the talents that you have. Instead, let the truth be your guide – listen to what your heart tells you as well as what loved ones tell you.

10: Money
I strongly agreed with this chapter. There’s a deep connection between money and oneness. If you have a strong sense of who you are, a strong sense of authority and responsibility, and are willing to look at the messages you receive from others with a discerning eye, the natural outcome is financial responsibility. That means not only having money for the things you need in the here and now, but recognizing that you must save for the future as well as contribute money to worthwhile causes.

11: Health
Much like with money, one’s health is intimately connected to a deep understanding of self. Understand not only your responsibility to yourself, but also your responsibility to others, and have the intelligence to see that maintaining your health is vital to fulfilling both. For example, in my shoes, I’m not being a good father if I allow myself to fall into ill health. This means not only eating well and keeping an eye on medical conditions, but also exercising and doing other preventive things to minimize the chances that ill health will befall me.

12: Relationships
Relationships require work. They don’t just magically happen. To build strong relationships with others, you need to realize that you yourself are not perfect and are flawed, as is the other person in the relationship. In order for the relationship to be truly successful, you need to work at minimizing your own flaws and seeing beyond the flaws of the other person, and that requires communication and a strong sense of self. Pavlina’s right here – communication is the key.

13: Spirituality
Pavlina closes with some thoughts on how these tactics affect our spirituality – our individual understanding of how the world works and whether there is a higher power. Pavlina seems to find both prayer and meditation to be useful tactics for getting in touch for one’s spiritual side, even if one is uncertain as to anything beyond what is physically observable.

Some Thoughts on Personal Development for Smart People
Here are three things I think I think about Personal Development for Smart People.

Concrete, actionable advice is my favorite kind of advice. Personal Development for Smart People is loaded with it, and that’s not something I entirely expected given some of the writings on the author’s website. Each of the chapters has several specific activities to promote growth in that area.

The book is sometimes prone to spiritual discussions that you may or may not agree with, however. Several times, Pavlina goes down the path of discussing his faith or observations about other faiths (not just in the final chapter). If you are an ardent follower of a specific religion, the discussions might get under your skin. I’ve always found the best approach for reading about other’s beliefs is not to argue with them, but to figure out what I can learn from them and apply to my own spirituality. Take that tactic here and you’ll be fine.

Pavlina almost entirely avoids The Secret problem. The stuff here is actionable – it’s based on stepping up and taking action in your own life to bring about change. Positive thinking helps, but it’s only part of the solution – Pavlina sticks to that idea here to his own benefit.

Is Personal Development for Smart People Worth Reading?
I’ve always taken a personal interest in personal development. Ever since I was young, I’ve had a strong desire to be a better person and to find new ways to push and challenge myself, and along the way, I’ve read a lot of personal development books.

This one just might be the best of the lot.

The problem with most personal development books, from my perspective, is that they focus in one of two places, both of which are bad. Either they stick to “the power of positive thinking” (a la The Secret) or they talk so abstractly that you can’t get any sort of coherent action out of it (a la Born to Win). Pavlina deftly avoids both traps, laying out basic principles and connecting them to coherent, reasonable, and actionable ideas, many of which I’ve already done in my own life and which have almost all worked for me to some degree.

If you have any interest in the area of personal development (and I believe that personal development is inherently connected to being a good steward of your money), this one’s definitely worth reading.

Recently, I was browsing through the Creative Commons pictures on Flickr (those that have been given permission to be shared freely) and I came across a few pictures that actually reminded me of my early professional years.

by YellowDog

by rjw1

by sindesign

I see several things when I look at these pictures.

I see people who enjoy and are proud of their possessions. For some, there is a great deal of personal pride associated with their possessions, and to post the pictures of their shelves and living spaces in public, they’re quite willing to show them off. Accumulation of possessions has become something of a point of personal pride.

I also see a lot of money devoted to things. At the same time, it takes only a quick glance at a shelf full of items to recognize that there’s often a lot of money tied up in those items. A large collection of anything not only had a great deal of cost invested in assembling it, but also has a great deal of cost tied up in merely sitting there. If a person has overstuffed shelves but is also facing financial trouble, there’s a direct conflict going on.

I also see a difficulty in organization brought on by having so many things. When I see an overstuffed shelf or a room full of stuff, I usually wonder how easy it can be to find the item you need when you need it. It’s often buried under mountains of items or filed away on long shelves, meaning that when you have the desire to enjoy one of the items, you have to invest some time in actually finding that item.

I also see a lot of items left unused because of the sheer number of items. Another thing that I notice is that if a person has a lot of things, he or she can only devote a progressively smaller sliver of time to each of those things. That means the cost per hour of enjoyment of each item goes way up.

Think of it this way. Compare a person who has 10 DVDs to one who has a thousand. The person with ten DVDs can watch those DVDs at their leisure, has likely enjoyed all of them multiple times, and doesn’t have to devote much effort at all to storing them. On the other hand, the person with the giant DVD collection has to devote significant time to organizing the collection, likely has not enjoyed his or her collection (many were likely watched only once, some not at all, perhaps), and has to devote significant time, cost, and space into storing them.

This is where libraries and other “borrowing” mechanisms come into play. If you’re unsure as to whether something is going to have significant repeat value for you, borrow that item. Your cost for enjoying the item is then very cheap – nothing if you use a library, or a buck or two if you use a rental service. There’s also no storage cost or effort involved, plus you retain access to a very large library of options.

But what about the “good feeling” of having a lot of stuff? For many, it feels good to have a lot of things. I know that, for a long time, I felt that exact same way. I was very proud of the media collection I had assembled, and I was quite willing to show it off to anyone and everyone.

What I eventually learned was that clutter is the enemy of good personal finance habits. It encouraged me to continually sink my money into items that would simply add to the clutter, and thus my actual cost per bit of enjoyment from those items went up significantly. The end result was a painful financial situation – and the best route of escape from it that I found was getting rid of at least some of the clutter.

If you live in a cluttered environment, take a serious look around and ask yourself whether the clutter is giving you real “bang for the buck” in your life. If it’s not, consider taking a new approach to things.

I’m writing this article in a coffee shop, one that I hadn’t set foot in for several months. I’m sipping on a big cup of chai – and it tastes great. I look around at the environment, glance at the newspaper that’s also on my table, and I realize that this is a very nice little morning treat for myself.

A couple years ago, I used to stop here every single weekday. I’d usually get some sort of beverage to go, finishing it off on my way to work. Some evenings, I’d even stop on the way home and get a cup.

Eventually, the experience became routine. It was no longer a treat, it was just a standard part of my weekday. $5 in the morning, $5 many afternoons, all for something completely routine.

It added up, too. $100 a month for my morning drinks. Perhaps $50 a month for my evening coffee. That’s $150 a month given over to a treat that had become routine.

So I stopped.

At first, I took it one day at a time. I would consciously remind myself not to stop there, even though it felt like the normal thing to do.

After a while, it began to feel normal not to go there, but the temptation remained. I would still drive by the shop and think, “Gee, it’d be nice to stop in there and get a cup.” On occasion, I would, usually when other things were on my mind.

But as more and more time went by and I kept to my regular pattern of not stopping by, I stopped even thinking about it as I drove by. The “norm” of my morning didn’t involve such stops any more. And my wallet was thankful.

Some people might read this story and think, “Yeah, but you had to give up something you enjoy – the stop at that coffee shop for a familiar cup each day.” What I eventually realized is that it wasn’t actually the coffee that I liked.

It was the familiarity of a morning routine.

So I established a new routine. Instead of stopping, I would take a beverage with me in the morning and enjoy it along the way. If I wasn’t finished with it by the time I arrived at work (almost always, I was already finished), I’d sit in the parking lot for a bit, finishing it off and listening to the radio.

After a time, this became the comfortable and familiar morning routine. The warmth of my truck on a cold morning, bundled in my jacket, listening to the radio felt familiar, and stopping to run into the coffee shop became the unfamiliar feeling.

And, with that, the coffee shop stopped being a habit.

Now, I rarely go to coffee shops, but when I do, they feel like a real treat, not a common and ordinary experience. That $5 doesn’t just buy me another ordinary piece in another ordinary morning any more. It now buys an experience – the smells of the coffee and scones, the sturdy table, the leisurely read of a newspaper, the overheard conversation, and the taste of a delicious cup that is sublimely better than the stuff I usually drink.

If I just wanted a morning pick-me-up, I could make it at home for pennies and get roughly the same enjoyment as a daily routine coffee shop visit.

The difference? $150 a month.

What can you take home from this? Look around your own life. What tired routines of spending money do you engage in on a highly regular basis? Do you shag a fast food breakfast each morning, or perhaps a sandwich as you leave work in the afternoon? Maybe you feel compelled to stop at the gas station every other day for a tobacco product. Or perhaps you always stop by bookstores or electronic stores on Tuesdays to see what the new releases are.

Look for those patterns in your own life – and put a stop to them. Replace them in your routine with a lower-cost alternative. Kick a bad habit in the teeth. Look for lists of new releases online instead of in a store where it’s easy to buy one – or, better yet, start reading or enjoying older media.

Finding those patterns of “ordinary” spending – and knocking them out of your life – is one of the most powerful things you can do to regain financial control.

After answering many reader emails and addressing the topic in multiple reader mailbags, I thought it would be worthwhile to write a comprehensive post on how to host an effective dinner party on a reasonable budget.

Why a Dinner Party?
A dinner party? you may be asking yourself. Why?

An evening dinner party is perhaps the best way possible to develop new relationships with people and strengthen ties to old friends at the same time. It provides an evening’s worth of entertainment, a good meal, quality time with interesting people, the basis for ongoing friendships, and the possibility of helping your friends establish new friendships, too.

It doesn’t have to be pretentious, either. It can be something as simple as a backyard barbecue or a very humble and simple meal or as complex as you’d like to make it. In fact, I tend to find that encouraging everyone to be as casual as they want is often a great way to get people to let their hair down – and to see respected members of the community in jeans and a beat-up tee shirt wolfing down a hamburger.

The real key, though, is building relationships. Not only should a dinner party help you build relationships with the other people there, it should also help those people build relationships with each other at least partially independent of you. It may come to pass that two people destined to meet met at your dinner party, or that the foundations of a business began when two people started talking over the pasta bowl in your dining room.

Such relationships and moments not only are the foundation of lasting friendships, but they can also develop into professional relationships and job opportunities as well. Not only that, it usually gets you on “the list” for other dinner parties in your community.

Selecting Invitees
The first question is who you should invite, which is the real key to dinner party success.

I usually encourage people to keep the invitation list between eight and fourteen people. Less than that and you limit the number of interactions that might happen. More than that and people will get lost in the shuffle.

I’d encourage you to mix and match the social groups you’re a part of. Don’t simply invite a string of people who are all previously connected to each other. It’s fine to invite some people who know each other previously, but there should be a mix of old and new faces for everyone who attends.

In particular, make sure that anyone you invite who is introverted has several familiar people in attendance. This is less important for an outgoing person, of course, but if you invite an introverted person, they’re likely to follow you around carefully instead of talking to others and building new relationships.

You should also look for any potential “matches” – people with aligned interests who don’t necessarily know each other, for instance. You’re not necessarily setting people up, but you are creating an environment where paths can cross.

Don’t overthink things, either. No list is perfect, and you’ll likely have a chance to have additional dinner parties in the future.

Selecting the Meal
If you’re unsure, go simple. Have a simple barbecue (with a vegetarian option) or a simple dinner (like salad and pasta). Meal preparation works best if the final preparation steps can be handled by one person, so that if you’re part of a couple, your partner can be mingling with guests.

To go along with the simplicity of the meal, you should inform the guests that the dinner party is very casual. This tends to put most people at ease and also means you’re not expected to produce pheasant under glass, either.

It can be useful to have a tray of simple appetizers out for guests when they arrive – something like dried pita chips with an interesting dip can be a very good choice. This will allow hungry guests to have something to much while they mingle before the meal.

I usually recommend having a bottle or two of wine that appropriately matches the meal on hand and perhaps a small assortment of craft beers. Don’t over-think either choice, though – choose something simple and relatively inexpensive.

Final Preparations
It’s a good idea to try to invite people with two weeks’ notice before the event, perhaps slightly more. I usually use email and ask them to let me know how many will attend, then follow up by phone a few days later. This way, I have a good estimation of attendance and might possibly invite another guest or two if there are multiple conflicts.

Make as much of the food ahead of time as you can and store it in the refrigerator. If there’s anything you can make in advance, do it – even if it’s something as simple as “mix these three ingredients together and then add to the other ingredients.” Get it done in advance because it will maximize your time to interact with your guests.

When guests arrive, give them some time to mingle first and use that time to make introductions if you think it’s appropriate. This is made easier, of course, if you have the meal under control.

Three Things to Remember
1. The food doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not awful. That’s why I encourage people to keep it simple. If the dinner conversation is good, a simple plate of pasta and a glass of red wine is wonderful.

2. The important part is people interacting with each other. Your party is successful if everyone else is talking to someone (obviously, you should be involved in some conversation, too). If you see someone left out, involve them in your conversation.

3. This is supposed to be fun. If you’re getting stressed out about it, let it go. It’s likely a detail that no one else is going to worry about at all, so don’t let it get you down. Instead, look forward to and enjoy your time with the people you’re inviting.