Golf is an expensive hobby. Of course, expensive is a relative term. You can easily spend a *lot* of money on golf, but you can just as easily enjoy the game with a frugal approach. I gave up on golf almost entirely when I started working on getting out of debt. However, I really missed the game and I finally came to the conclusion that cutting out something I enjoy to save money isn’t a wise thing to do (assuming it wasn’t financially impossible for me to keep playing, which it wasn’t).

I’m happy to say I’ve started playing golf again over the past month or two, but I’m doing so with a budget and I’m making an effort to stretch my golf dollars farther and to find good value. I no longer need to avoid golf. Though I may have to avoid the expensive courses, I can definitely play an adequate number of rounds and practice my game each month.

If you’re interested in the details, I’m starting with a budget of $50 per month. This is enough for about two to three (inexpensive) rounds of golf per month and some practice time.

Practice your short game more than the long game.
According to Dr. Bob Rotella, “If you’re not spending 70 percent of your practice time on shots from 120 yards in, you’re not trying to become the best golfer you can be.” [Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, pg 88]. Not only will practicing the short game save you money, but it’s better for your game. If I’m going to practice three days in a week, I’ll buy range balls one day and work on my long game, but I’ll only work on my short game the other two days. The trick to this is finding a course with good short game facilities. I’m fortunate to have two courses about twenty minutes from my home that have separate chipping and putting greens and one even has a separate pitching area for shots in the 70 – 100 yard range. I take advantage of these short game areas as much as I can. This is much easier if you have a ‘shag bag‘ and a collection of old (but still decent) balls. I don’t find my long game to be lacking at all and I’m definitely saving more and more shots around the greens.

Use old balls found on the course for practice balls.
During any normal round you’re going to come across lost balls. If I’m certain no one around has played the ball and it’s not badly damaged I’ll pick up as many as I can. I don’t use these balls to play, but I save them for the shag bag and use them on the practice greens. This is a great way to keep your supply of practice balls replenished (they will get lost and damaged over time) without spending any extra money.

Buy a ball retriever.
I used to think ball retrievers were a bit silly, but with many balls costing $3 – $4 each, it can quickly pay for itself. The best part is, a ball lost in the water may have only been hit once so you’ll often find balls that are essentially brand new. I also find that the golfers playing the most expensive balls are the least likely to bother to retrieve them from a lake. The better the course you play, the higher quality you’ll tend to find.

Check for tee times on GolfNow.com, but give the course a call too.
Golf Now is sort of like an Expedia or Travelocity for golf. It acts as the middleman in helping golf courses sell open tee times and you benefit by getting a reduced rate. I find rates are almost always cheaper on Golf Now, but not 100% of the time. To be really sure you’re getting the best deal, you might want to give the course a call before you book on Golf Now, just to be sure you’re getting the best deal possible.

Play during off-peak hours.
For me, playing in Tucson, AZ, off-season is about May – September and the cheapest tee times are to be had in the afternoon. Of course, that means playing in 100 – 110 degree heat, but as they like to say, ‘it’s a dry heat’. As long as I stay hydrated and wear sunscreen, I really don’t have much problem playing in the heat here at all. I’ve suffered much more playing golf in the summer in San Antonio, TX (think 90 degrees with 90% humidity). If you’re willing to be less comfortable and play more golf when other people aren’t playing, you can save a lot of money. I played a course a couple of weeks ago that can cost as much as $170 per round during peak season for only $35. The course is still as beautiful and challenging as ever, I just had to suffer through the heat to enjoy it.

In summary, don’t make the mistake that I made and give up on golf (or whatever your favorite hobby may be) because of the cost, if it’s something you truly enjoy. It’s possible to find a middle ground and approach your hobby in a wise and frugal manner. Value can be found, you just have to work a little harder to find it. In the end, I’m much happier to be out playing golf again and my budget will be just fine.

By Eden, Tue 28 Jul 2009, Comments Categories: Frugality, Golf, Life

*Maybe this is just a rant, and maybe it’s a bit long, but I think it turned into something worthwhile.

What’s the point of this blog and why do I spend my time writing it?

I started this blog after discovering a few personal finance blogs, I think Get Rich Slowly was the first one I found. I thought doing this would help me get organized and get focused on getting out of debt and getting in shape.

If I’m being honest, I also thought that by writing a blog about getting out of debt I could find vast riches and end up paying off all of my debt just by posting those annoying little Google ads on the site and waiting for the dollars to roll in. Of course, as 99% of all bloggers have found, the money doesn’t come rolling in very fast and only a select few, such as J.D. at Get Rich Slowly, Darren at ProBlogger, Bob at Christian Personal Finance, and Leo at Zen Habits can actually turn blogging into a full-time job (see what I did there? I linked to all of those fancy bloggers hoping that I would get noticed—I can’t help myself!).

I started off fairly well here, I was up to almost 200 subscribers after only a couple of months of blogging. Of course, back then I was posting frequently and taking the time to comment on other blogs and link to other blogs to help get noticed. Shockingly, not posting frequently and not working to get any attention for the site caused the traffic to drop substantially.

And therein lies the rub…you have to work on your blog like it’s a full-time job, or at least a part-time job, just to get it off the ground and achieve even a modest level of traffic, all the while only putting a few dollars in your pocket- if you’re even lucky enough to earn money above your hosting costs. And that’s when blogging died for me*. I could spend that same time doing freelance work for real money as opposed to earning pennies per hour for my efforts here. So that’s what I did, and I earned a lot of money on the side and paid off a lot of debt.

*Not that I’m bitter, this is officially a hobby, not a business. At least that’s how it will be until the money starts rolling in, and that’s okay. Really, I’m not bitter. I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not.

So where does that leave me and what’s the point?

I’m going to keep writing here and I’m not going to worry about the money or turning this into a job. I already have a ‘real’ job it’s pretty good to me, and I enjoy most of what I do there. I don’t need to add a second job to my already busy life. However, I actually enjoy writing, and I need to do more of it to improve my skills, so that is going to be the real motivator behind continuing to write here.

To be perfectly honest, I find the topic of personal finance rather boring—if you’re honest about it, don’t you think so too? I wish I had chosen a different topic. Once you figure out that you need to live below your means, you’re pretty much done with your personal finance education. That’s the 80% part of the 80/20 rule. The rest is just filling in little details, which can certainly be helpful, but your bang for the buck drops precipitously the farther you go.

I feel like I’ve made a lot more progress on the finance part of this finance and fat concept than I have on the fat battle. However, just like ‘live below your means‘ losing weight can be summed up just as easily- burn more calories than you consume. I don’t really need to learn more about fitness, I just need to get off the couch and exercise while eating fruit instead of donuts. Of course the concept is simple and the devil is in the details, but I think mostly we just like adding to those details so we feel like we are accomplishing something worthwhile when the answer is really just to get off the couch and go for a walk or do some pushups.

Well, I just told you that I think personal finance is boring and there’s nothing more to learn about it and I think the same concept applies to losing weight. I guess the cat is out of the bag, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing here and it doesn’t mean that I can’t provide anything of value here.

Frankly, I’m very jealous of this guy, Chris at The Art of Non-Conformity, and I want to try to emulate his model of blogging success. I don’t want to remain beholden to Google and AdSense, but I have to create something of real value first. That is of course my next task.

I do think I have something to add to the conversation and I think I can offer a unique perspective. I’m no longer going to share the same crap you can read on 1,000 other personal finance blogs. If I don’t have something at least somewhat unique to say, I won’t say anything at all.

I’ll continue to share updates of my own, real progress because people seem to like that. I think I can offer a little hope, being the average guy that I am who is actually making some real progress to improve my life…and I didn’t do it by finding the perfect money hack or buying the right e-book.

It’s just a matter of working hard and focusing your efforts in the right place. And that’s the message I want to convey and that’s where I think some real value can be created. That’s where I’ll be focusing my efforts and I’m going to do my best to come up with content that is actually valuable to you. And if you made it this far, you really deserve some valuable content! I promise it’s coming soon. Thanks for reading.

By Eden, Mon 20 Apr 2009, Comments Categories: About, Life, Rants

No, I’m not talking about some metaphysical foolishness, sold by the truckload thanks to the Oprah. I’m also not going to suggest crazy, get-rich-quick infomercial trash.

The secret to getting out of debt, or doing anything else meaningful for that matter, is quite simple and you already know what it is.

HARD WORK!

I know that isn’t always the answer we want to hear, but it’s true. No matter how many times I’ve tried to avoid it, I always do my best in life when I just forget everything else and put in some hard work (but I’m careful to work smart as well).

That’s it. Go work hard and you’ll be on your way to financial freedom.

Okay, there is a little more to it than that. You could go do hard work breaking rocks or digging ditches but if you are breaking the wrong rocks or digging a ditch in the wrong place all that hard work has gone to waste. You need to work smart too and you need a plan. But the plan is the easy part compared to the hard work that it’s going to take to execute that plan. Whatever plan you end up with, just make sure it includes some hard work somewhere or it’s just going to fail.

Now quit reading blogs and get to work!

By Eden, Sat 8 Nov 2008, Comments Categories: Debt, Life

My blogging pace has drastically slowed over the past month or so- it’s not that I don’t enjoy writing for the blog, I have just been trying to use my time more efficiently to earn money, get out of debt, and lose weight. I have spent more time doing freelance work, working on building a small side business, and I have read several books (list of the books below).

• The Richest Man in Babylon – Loved this book, it’s a definite must read
• The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class – Loved this one too, another must read
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – Lots of good stuff mixed in with some worthless portions that should be skipped. Overall, I would still call this a must read as it has given me lots of great ideas and inspiration, but be prepared to skip some of it.
• The Millionaire Next Door – Excellent premise and some good basic information, though rather long winded and dull at times (would be perfect minus about 1/3 of the words).
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! – Not quite done with this one yet, but I love what I have read so far.

Look for more complete reviews on those books some day (obviously given my recent pace it probably won’t happen too soon).

I have been attempting to ‘unplug’ a bit from the media and Internet lately- skipping the news almost entirely, un-subscribing to email that piled up in my inbox for no good reason and being very selective about the blogs I read. I have found a lot of ‘extra’ time this way and my mind feels sharper than it has for a while.

One thing I have realized recently is that it can become easy to think you are doing something to solve your financial or weight problems (or whatever the current goal is) because you spend time writing about them (such as this blog) or spend time reading about them (see the 100 plus blogs in my RSS Reader). It’s not that those activities aren’t beneficial, but more time needs to be spent actually DOING something to solve these problems- hence my shift in attention to finding ways to earn extra money and spending more time exercising. I think it is especially easy for bloggers and avid blog readers to get caught in this trap (I know it was for me).

My advice is to take some time to think about what you are doing right now and ask yourself if it is moving you closer to the goals you want to reach or is it just making you feel like you are doing something when in reality you aren’t moving any closer- it’s an empowering question!

By Eden, Mon 3 Mar 2008, Comments Categories: Life, Reviews

Start now. That is the best advice I can give for anything you want to change about your life. No matter what it is you want to do, take at least a few minutes today to do something that will get you started on your new plan.

I have lost 18 pounds since I started this blog in September. I still have plenty of pounds to lose, but I woke up feeling good this morning- I feel lighter and the same clothes that were a tight fit a few months ago are loose and will soon be too big. I would not feel this way today if I hadn’t made the effort back in September to start something. I started small, only trying to walk for 5-10 minutes  per day and limit my calorie intake, but that was what I needed to get the ball rolling and start building momentum.

Setting a goal to walk for only 5 minutes may seem somewhat small and meaningless, but if you are coming from walking 0 minutes per day, 5 minutes is a huge improvement. The point is, no matter what the situation or what your goal is, changing your life can start today and it can start with something small.

Choose something you know you can do. Don’t wake up one day after months of inactivity and decide that you will jog for 30 minutes and lift weights. That is not realistic! Diets can fail for many reasons, but I believe the problem with a diet is the difficulty of making massive changes overnight. You aren’t building new habits if you take that approach. You are trying to force yourself to behave in a new, uncomfortable way- the odds of success are very slim.

No matter what you want to change in your life, I encourage you to start it now. Take the time to write down your long-term goal (perhaps losing 60 pounds or paying off $25K of debt). Think about where you are now and think about what you can do now (or at least today). Choose something that you can take care of in 5-10 minutes. It could be something simple like walking down your street and back, making an extra payment on a credit card, starting a budget, or getting a how-to book at the library- whatever you can do today, in a short amount of time, that will start you down the path to reaching your long term goal.

Decide what you will do today, then do it today and repeat it tomorrow.

There will be setbacks, there will be days you fail to keep up the pace, but the point is to build new habits. After a few weeks have gone by you will find yourself with a new point of view and that long term goal will seem a little bit closer.
Start now!

By Eden, Wed 9 Jan 2008, Comments Categories: Goals, Life