Archive for the 'Site News' Category

I finally decided to link The Finance Journey up with the social networking revolution. I have created an account on Twitter which you can keep up to date on all the postings here and also my random thoughts, interesting links, and other items that do not make it to a full post here.

Follow Me On Twitter!

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I have changed the layout here on The Finance Journey. Its been a while in the making, and it still has some flaws (mostly in Internet Explorer 6) but nothing that should take away from the usability of the site.

I figured I would put it in since if I didn’t, I probably would let it sit around for another 6 months before actually putting the finishing touches on it. So this should give me some motivation.

If you see any problems or have any feedback, please feel free to comment or Contact Me.

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Some of you have been wondering why I have not been posting as frequently as of late. Unfortunately over the last few months I’ve been having some health problems that needed to be addressed. I was having constant stomach problems and weight loss over the last year or so which was progressively getting worse. I was finally diagnosed with Celiac disease about a month ago and have had to make some lifestyle changes to accommodate this.

What Is Celiac Disease?

Basically Celiac is an allergy to Gluten which causes damage to the small intestines and in turn creates stomach problems. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, and rye.

Many foods contain gluten including pasta, bread, cereals, and pastries among numerous other products.

How Has It Affected Me?

I am feeling better since switching my diet to gluten free which is obviously the most important thing. Financially it has increased our grocery bills quite a bit. Gluten free products I have found to generally be about 3x as expensive as their gluten equivalent. Things like rice pasta cost about $2.50 a pound versus 88 cents for regular pasta. Bread is about the same, and does not taste as good as regular bread.

It has cut back our eating out though, as it can be difficult to find gluten free items on many menus. Fast food is generally out as is pizza, sandwiches, most soups, fried foods… you get pretty sick of salad quick.

It’s been a tough adjustment but you gotta do what you gotta do for your health.

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Back to reality. I’ve returned from my very relaxing honeymoon and once I get everything at home back in order will start up some new writing.

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The wedding went very well this weekend. We were married here in upstate New York in front of 130 members of our family and friends. The party was a blast and we had a wonderful time.

Unfortunately a good friend of mine gets married this coming weekend, and then my wifes sister (man it feels so weird to say wife… and also I guess thats also my sister in law now) so we aren’t going on our honeymoon for a few weeks. I guess its a good thing, gives us some time to get our affairs in order before we rush away. I can’t imagine the rush if we had done so the day after the wedding. For the curious we are going to the island of St. Lucia in the southern Caribbean.

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After a long and gruling process, the site has moved from its blogger beginnings to its new Wordpress home at http://www.thefinancejourney.com!

The RSS Feed will remain the same (http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheFinanceJourney) but check out the design and let me know what you think.

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Well, currently I am 25 years old living in upstate New York. I’m working as a computer analyst for a mid-size company (we broke off from an extremely large company about 4 years ago).

I graduated in 2002 from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) with a B.S. in Information Technology. Maybe someday I will go back to school for my MBA, but have no such plans in the near future.

I live with my fiance in a house we purchased together this year. This is actually our second real estate venture… we first lived together in a townhouse we purchased in 2004. This was probably my best financial investment ever with the townhouse appreciating about 50% from where we purchased it at over 2 years. Yay housing boom.

The goal of this blog is to post everything finance – both saving and spending. I am a notorious deal sleuth who scours the internet for good deals and uses coupons for everything. I like to play the stock market with mixed success.

Well, enjoy!

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