Bloomingdale resident & Certified Financial Planner Chuck Donalies: "The Frugal Planner's Weekly Dispatch, Issue 8"

From: Chuck Donalies, CFP®

Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 10:00 AM
Subject: The Frugal Planner's Weekly Dispatch, Issue 8

The Frugal Planner's Weekly Dispatch Personal Finance, News, Ideas, & Things I Find Interesting Issue 8 November 13, 2015 Like what you see? If so, please share with your friends & family! Taking Frugality Too Far This one's for my lovely wife, who has called me cheap (I prefer to think of myself as frugal) a handful of times since we've been together. While surfing the Interwebs I came across a funny post on the blog Have A Rich Marriage. The post's title, "My Wife and I Shared Toothbrushes to Save Money", says it all. It's a good post. And a good reminder that our obsessions with money can be taken too far. And, for the record, I never once considered sharing a toothbrush with Heidi in order to save money. Newsflash: It's Expensive To Retire In D.C. It's no surprise the cost of living in the D.C. region is high. The November issue of Washingtonian Magazine has a story about the high cost of living in D.C. and its effect on retirees. Bonus: Fellow XY Planning Network member Marcio Silveira and I are quoted in the article! Sunrise in Bloomingdale (my neighborhood) One Weird Trick To Be More Productive As much as I dislike it, I couldn't resist using the clickbait-y "One Weird Trick" headline for this section. In this case I believe the weird is appropriate. Several months ago a friend (I believe it was Paul Thomson, and no, he's not the weird part of this topic) mentioned he was testing a new productivity tool called the Pomodoro Technique. I'd never heard of the technique and promptly forgot about it...until I came across an article about it on the Fast Company site. I enjoy reading about (and testing) productivity techniques and found this one fascinating. You can even read the paper written by the technique's creator, Francesco Cirilio, here. The technique, if you're unfamiliar with it, is simple: Shut off your email, phone, and any other distractions. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Focus on one task until the timer goes off, then make a checkmark on something you can track. Take a five minute break. Repeat steps 2-4 three more times and then take a 15 minute break. I've been doing something similar to this for a few years, just not in 25 minute increments or as consistently as I should. My most productive days are the ones where I do focused work without the distractions of my phone, email, social media, music, etc. Give it a shot. If you need help, there's even an app (because there must be an app for everything) called Pomodoro Timer available in Apple's app store. Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2015 Donalies Financial Planning, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are special. You're a beautiful and unique snowflake. That makes you a client, friend, family member, colleague, prospective client, or some combination of these things. Don't like what you see? Feel free to unsubscribe at any time. Our mailing address is: Donalies Financial Planning, LLC 52 R Street NW Washington, Dc 20001 Add us to your address book