How to Improve Your Financial Attitude – It’s All in a Picture

Putting a new face on your financial attitude is easier than you think.  Let me explain how I’ve done that with my blog.  You might notice that the blog indeed has a new face.  The new picture shows my daughter and myself at the ER.  I thought I’d start using it at Wealth Pilgrim because it captures exactly what I’m trying to do here on the blog and it captures my definition of success.  I’ll explain, but first a little background.

A month ago, my youngest came home complaining about a boo boo.  (Keep in mind that this one takes a daily inventory of all her scrapes and bruises and makes a full report to me before she goes to sleep each night.)

She hurt herself playing four square at school.  Now, we know it’s almost impossible to hurt yourself playing that and we were pretty sure she was OK…but she kept complaining and began shaking with discomfort.  We took her to the doctor to get her checked out.

As we suspected, she was fine (thank goodness).  While the trip to the ER won’t win me any points with the federal administration trying to change our health care system, I felt it was important to go.  First, we aren’t docs and there really could have been something wrong.  Second, we thought it was important to demonstrate to our little Pilgrim that we take her seriously.

“OK…nice story Neal…why are you using this picture?”

Glad you asked.  In my mind this picture captures the idea that:

a. Situations are rarely as bad as we make them out to be.

b. There is usually a way to remedy problems.

c. It’s usually not all that difficult to accept the things we can’t change.

This is the essence of what I’m trying to do here.   What do you think?  Am I off-base?  Do you prefer my old snazzy headshot?  Am I breaking child labor laws by using the new pic?  Is it important to have an image that illustrates the concept of the blog?

Enough.  On to the links this week:

Without further delay, I’d like to announce that Matt Jabs gets the Pilgrim Pick of the Pack award this week! 

He wrote a stellar piece on why he got rid of his credit cards. He worked hard for the award.  He wanted it.  He deserved it.  Matt…congratulations, sir!

Now for the other worthy mentions:

Five Cent Nickel schools students on how to “spend” their college windfalls.

I wrote a nice little piece over at Free Money Finance on how to handle money and marriage.

Think your low monthly payments save you money?  Frugal Dad has some other ideas.

Baker explains lease options.  I’m not a fan of this investment method (see my comment on the post to understand), but he does a great job of explaining how this works.

Is your Costco membership worth it? I ask myself this every time I go in.  Green Panda has some ideas of her own on this.

Here’s a novel look at debt and the risk of being fat.  (Does this credit card bill make my rear look big?)

Can you live on half your income? Cap looks at this interesting and frugal issue.

Digerati Life asks how healthy your finances are.  I love this post.

Moolanomy learned a great deal about finances over the last year.  Let’s see what we can pick up too.

Here are some essentials on emergency funds brought to you by Monevator – one of my favorite writers.