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Haven't posted an update about my Yakezie situation in a long while, so here it is…

Last time we broached this subject, Go Be Rich was sitting at 425,542. The awesome thing here is that today, July 3rd, Go Be Rich has jumped 135,239 spots lower to a cool 290,303. The not so awesome thing is that the only reason it seems like it's going so well is because it was a full 3 weeks ago since I posted the last update. Hey, if you're gonna manipulate the numbers, at least do it in your favor right?

I should probably explain why my posting schedule has changed a bit and why there's not quite as much content up lately as there has been in the past. Work has got really busy as of late, online classes have started back up, and I was getting just a bit burnt out with all the writing I was doing… it wasn't quite as enjoyable as it had been. So, I'm simply backing off a slight bit. No big deal, when I get some more free time I'll pick back up with the content creation and whatnot.

Recent Go Be Rich Postings:

• Prosperity Plan #7: Don't Fight Yourself
• Introduction to Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich: Book Review
• 5 Reasons This Economy Rocks
• The SCAM Series: Total Cost of the Best Videogames
• Interview with Bob from ChristianPF.com
• Does the Constitution Still Matter?
• The CraigBay Technique

Posts From Around the Blogosphere

Before we get started, I just want to give a shout-out to the newest member of The MoneyStreet Network, Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. We're all pretty excited to have her on board, and we're sure she'll be an awesome addition to the group. By the way, if you're wondering what the MoneyStreet Network is, since I've never mentioned it before, I'll tell you: it's a new, exclusive blogging network of like-minded personal finance bloggers, including Money Talks Coaching, Money Spruce, and Financially Consumed. Much more to come on this topic later.

Jeffery at Money Spruce writes about why he loves airline fees. I know, I know, sounds a little crazy, but his reason is actually sound. And there's a shout-out to NPR within his post, which makes it all worth it.

Ashley at Money Talks Coaching shares her $35 total room makeover. It was her daughter's room, which would explain the Justin Bieber poster on the wall that made me puke a little. These young girls nowadays…

Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff writes about a $24,000 loss (actually, the sequel to the original $24,000 post, but whatever). I suddenly don't feel so bad about spending as much money on videogames as I do…

Hunter over at Financially Consumed writes about how Networking Saves Money and Your Health. There's a favorable mention to the impending Obamacare in the first sentence. In fact, the first word is Obamacare… sorry Hunter, but I gotta say, I can't see ANYTHING good coming out of Obamacare.  

Brad from Enemy of Debt writes about the perfect Father's Day. Okay, so Father's Day is sooooo last week… or two weeks ago… whatever, but he's been out of town and unplugged visiting his 15-year-old daughter, so you'll have to make due.

Len  over at Len Penzo.com  tackles the most serious and incredibly important  issue of our day. The one issue that will affect millions upon millions of poor, innocent souls this holiday weekend, forcing them to each make a personal choice that could potentially affect the course of not only their entire lives, but history itself. That choice is (dramatic pause…………………. wait for it……..), ketchup or no ketchup on your hotdog????

Until next time!

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Another successful week gone, with another one on it's way. Let's get started with the updates from this past week.

Yakezie Challenge Update

The progress is certainly slowing down the lower my ranking gets, but nonetheless it's still dropping. 474,155 is where we were at last Sunday, the 5th of June. Today, the 11th of June, we're sitting at a pretty number of 425,542. That's a drop of 48,613, which is only a third of what it dropped by last time, but it's still getting lower. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

 Go Be Rich's Posts of The Week

1. Prosperity Plan #6: I Understand Excuses Now!
2. Perspective on The National Debt
3. My Financial Situation Update: Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
4. Rich = Sexy?
5. Introduction to Index Funds
6. Let's Clear Something Up…

Posts From Around the Blogosphere

• Money Talks Coaching has been on vacation, and as such, she lined up several guest posts from various bloggers (yes, one of them was myself). All are of high quality, and are worth checking out (especially mine, of course).
• The Wisdom Journal wants to know if you've considered Hard Drive Insurance. They're talking about using a service called Carbonite to back up all of the important data on your computer that you just can't stand to lose (ya know, like all those ultra-important family reunion pics of Aunt Edna terrorizing all the kids with her never-ending hugs of doom). As an IT guy though, I do have to recommend using any method to back up your info.
• Financially Consumed writes about the iCloud, Apple's new service that will allow easier access and uploading of content to the cloud (the cloud is kind of like online storage accessible from anywhere. Instead of having that one song you really want to listen to be stuck on your home computer when you're at work, simply upload it to the cloud and access it from any computer). The case is made for how this new service can save you money and time.
• Continuing the tech-ish trend, Financial Highway outlines the top 9 apps that can save you money on gas. Of course, you'll have to buy a smartphone to use them.
• Staff Writer Crystal over at Money in The 20s wonders How Much House is Enough House. Considering I live in a 1-bedroom apartment, any bit of a house is enough house for me.
• Yes, I Am Cheap (that's the website, not an affirmation of my behavior), has a list of The Best Frugal People to Follow on Twitter. Did you make the list? If you did, is it really a compliment?
• Don't Think it Can't Happen to You? Well guess what, it can, and it's probably going to…in fact probably very, very soon… any minute now even… Okay, just head over to Money is The Root to see what I mean.
• The Dinks (Dual Income No Kids) over at Dinks Finance discuss a Day in The Life of an Intern. I have a feeling there's a lot of Lattes involved…
• Money Spruce discusses an alternative, cheaper way to travel the country- by train. I've never ridden a train myself, unless the Metro in DC counts.

Well, that pretty much covers it, except for this thing I have to throw in a new post so that Technorati will believe that I actually own this blog: 8W7V7GTRCKQY

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Okay, so I've given up and resorted to posting these updates sometime in between Friday and Sunday… so there, now I can't be held accountable for laziness… unless this update starts coming in on Mondays or Tuesdays…

Anyway, let's get started.

Yakezie Challenge Update

Last time, May 28th, Go Be Rich was ranked at 649,465. This week, it's at 474,155. That's a drop of 175,310. Things are starting to slow down, and the competition is getting fierce. I thinking I'm nearing the end of the "honeymoon" phase of my blog, that phase where everything seems like amazing progress simply because your blog is so new and has no past to be compared to. It probably hasn't helped that I've been a little more removed from my blog than usual this week, but don't worry, Go Be Rich isn't going anywhere, I'm still truckin' along, fightin' the good fight, stickin' it to the man, standing up for the little guy, etc, etc, etc.

Go Be Rich's Posts of The Week

1. I'm Going on a Trip! Week 4 Reflections

2. Prosperity Plan # 5: Forget Your Weaknesses

3. Carnival of Personal Finance 311: I'm In!

4. Happy Memorial Day!

5. $5 to $20 Giveaway!

6. Knowing your 401(k) Rollover Options

7. Painful Passion

 Read them. They're good. I mean, I wrote them, come on… also, 4 out of 7 of my posts have exclamation marks in the title… apparently I was excited this past week.

Posts From Around the Blogosphere

1. Check out Money Talks Coaching's Post on Taxpayer Fraud. You're pretty much required to click on this link, as this involves a grown man in a diaper. He sleeps in a crib. Yup, uses a bottle too.

2. Financially Consumed writes about the deep, dark underbelly of Keeping Financial Secrets From the Spouse. Gritty. Edgy. Dangerous. See for yourself.

3. Money in the 20s tackles the issue of Juggling Multiple Job Offers. Good problem to have in this economy.

4. Money is The Root get sacrilegious on our butts this week with a post about Why you Should Quit Paying Down Your Debt. Way to challenge the status quo, you rebel you.

5. Money Spruce discusses ways to spruce up your living space (haha, a pun), By Getting Rid of Clutter.  Oddly enough, there's a Smoky The Bear reference at the end.  

6. Shannyn posts about her new life in Chicago, the challenges along the way, and how She'll. Never. Settle (read it, you'll understand). Inspirational actually. The Katy Perry reference is…entertaining, but then again the blog itself does  have the word "beautiful" in it…

7. Enemy of Debt says doing it conservatively, responsibly, and realistically will bring you success. Concerning retirement. Planning for retirement, that is. No, no, not– ah, whatever, just go read it.

8. Len Penzo writes about Good Personal Finance Practices Gone Wild (my title). Hope he doesn't mind me comparing his post to Girls Gone Wild.

9. Over at Moolanomy, you can find 5 tips for Quitting Your Job on Good Terms. Filling your boss's desk and briefcase to the brim with aerosol cheese is NOT one of the tips.

And there it is. Until Next Time.

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Here I am, back at home after an almost 2-week long business trip and a day-and-a-half at the lake (yes, I'm writing this post right now with a slight hangover… I do have some other hobbies besides Go Be Rich).

I had a good time, but boy oh boy am I glad to be home again, and more than eager to get back to work on Go Be Rich. So to delay the instant gratification that is GBR no longer, below you'll find a Yakezie Challenge update, some of the recent Go Be Rich articles you may have missed, and links to some of the best personal finance stuff out there.

By the way, considering it's Memorial Day weekend, I just want to give a shout-out to all those men and women in our military that work and fight everyday and sacrifice much of what they love in order to protect this great American Country. Without you all, I wouldn't have the freedom to create an amazing, award-winning, incredibly successful blog (okay, future-award-winning blog).

Yakezie Challenge update

It's getting closer and closer, that far-off goal of Go Be Rich ranking at or below 200,000 in this crazy messed-up blogosphere. Kinda like that star that you're pretty sure you saw out of the corner of your eye but when you look directly at it, it disappears… yes, I just compared my blog to a celestial object… that's how awesome this blog is.

1,198,313 is where we were at as of the 20th of May, last Friday. Today I'm proud to say that Go Be Rich is ranked at 649,465 as of Saturday, May 28th. That's a drop of 548,848! Thank you to everyone who stopped by, commented, shared, talked about, tweeted, "liked", or did anything else that had and/or has anything to do with Go Be Rich! Without you readers there would be no blog!

Go Be Rich's Posts of the Week

Not as many as usual for the past week or so, due to my trip. Oh, and for those who actually pay attention to what I write and when I say I'm going to posts certain stuff (like, all 2 of you out there), I didn't forget about the whole Prosperity Plan postings, I just didn't have time to write any more. The follow-up article to Prosperity Plan #4: I'm Going on a Trip, and week 5's concept will be up as soon as possible.

1. Peaks and Valleys: a Review, which is what it sounds like, a review of the book Peaks and Valleys written by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

2. Founding Principle #3: Virtuous and Moral Leaders (and their salaries). Ever wanted to simply give yourself a raise? These guys can, and do so more often than not.

3. A World Without Money. Terrifying, I know… In fact, after writing this post I went to bed, had feverish nightmares, and abruptly awoke in a cold sweat… okay, not really.

Posts From Around the Blogosphere

1. Ashley over at Money Talks Coaching shares with us her $12,000 Costco bill. Also, Ashley was chosen as #1 Editor pick in the Carnival of Personal Finance held over at My Personal Finance Journey. Congrats Ashley!
2. Jeffrey asks his readers what they think are the best Online Personal Finance Tools over at Money Spruce. Also, you still have time left to get his free E-Book, "Money After College".
3. Hunter from Financially Consumed has a post concerning two of the world's largest driving forces, SEX and MONEY. Okay, so it's a post about the different approaches to investing between the sexes… got your attention though right?
4. Moving on to Money in the 20s, Dave has a post about the benefits and disadvantages of Health Savings Accounts. Pretty informative post, as I didn't really know a lot about these things, just that they had something to do with not paying taxes. Also, be sure to check out his $25 PayPal giveaway. All you have to do is pick one single stock, and if it out-performs the stocks chosen by the other participants, you win!  
5. Justin from Money is the Root also has an awesome $25 giveaway going on now. This one's a gift card from Amazon, which means it's good for just about anything. You can also read about why he Bewares Those who Bear Gifts. There's also a little talk about the world ending thrown in for good measure.
6. Frugal Beautiful has a post about how to Whiten your Teeth for $20 or Less. Yup, there's a reference to Suze Orman's ridiculously blinding-white teeth here to chuckle over.
7. In case you need some sugar to rot out those pearly-whites, JT McGee writes about how to buy 56 ounces of Hershey's chocolate for $24 shipped, using this fact as a way to tie in a study done about how waiters and waitresses get more tips when they give out chocolates, which in turn may prevent his pet peeve from from emerging: food service people who complain about their pay.
8. David over at Money Under 30 writes about a reader's issue with not being able to bring himself to spend money. Complete with hand-drawn pictures (the best kind, right?).

That's about it for this week. So go chew on a few of these links, keep checking back with Go Be Rich for even more awesome content, and stay in school kids.

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Yakezie Challenge Update

As you'll recall, last Friday I posted the first Yakezie Challenge update. At that time, Go Be Rich had a ranking of 2,490,411.

Now, I'm glad to say that as of this Friday, March 20th, Go Be Rich is currently at a ranking of 1,198,313. That's down by 1,292,098 places in one week!

Remember, the goal is to reach 200,000 or under, so we've still got 918,313 spots to go, but we're getting there! Below is a summary of the events at Go Be Rich throughout the past week in case you missed anything, as well as some links to noteworthy articles from around the personal finance blogosphere.

And be sure to check out Go Be Rich's guest post over at PT Money to find out how I got fired!

Go Be Rich's Posts of The Week

1. The reflections on week 3 of the 52-Week Prosperity Plan, titled the Long-Reaching Effects of Kindness: Week 3 Reflections

2. The 4th post in the 52-Week Prosperity Plan, titled Prosperity Plan #4: I'm Going on a Trip!

3. A book review on the book titled A Million Bucks by 30

4. It's About Time! A post about Go Be Rich's Official Logo and Header!

5. I'm Trying to Give You Money! All about how difficult my Best Buy experience was

6. The next step in creating an awesome, accurate budget, The Next Budget Step.

Posts from around the Blogosphere

1. Over at Financially Consumed we find a post outlining the Six Steps to 401(k) Success, a to-the-point post outlining what to do with a 401(k).

2. At Money Talks Coaching, we find Ashley discussing How She Chose a Property Manager, which is good info for those with, or thinking about purchasing, any rental property.

3. Read about 8 Frugal Ideas the owner of Money Spruce hates, most of which I absolutely agree with.

4. This week, Money in The 20's mixes fitness updates about his New Exercise Regimen with tips for appropriate work attire for women. Unless you're a woman, check out the fitness updates. And guys, don't bother, there's no pictures of said female attire… or females for that matter.

5. Financial Success for Young Adults writes about the balance between Fun and Frugality and asks for your input.

6. Money Cone shares with readers the 15 Stocks to Survive Another Lost Decade… let's just all agree we're not going to have another one of those, okay?

And there it is…

Lot's going on out there, so be sure to check out any articles you may have missed here at Go Be Rich, as well as the outstanding posts from the other blogs in this wonderful blogosphere of personal finance. Again, I thank each and every one of you that have read and commented on anything here at Go Be Rich… without your help, I'd still be in the 2,490,411th place!

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After many worrisome days, sleepless nights, and deep, involved soul-searching (or just an E-mail or two saying "I want that one"), Go Be Rich finally has it's very own official header and logo!

below (and above… in the header… the whole thing this post is about…) you'll find the official finished product.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Also, just because I want to, here's an update on the Yakezie Challenge: Go Be Rich is at 1,588,097.

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Okay, so I know it's only been 2 days since I posted my initial Yakezie Challenge announcement (and I've only posted one other thing since then), but it's Friday, and I did say I would post an update every single Friday. That, and darnit, I'm just kind of excited about, so here we go.

The ranking of Go Be Rich,according to my fabulous Alexa toolbar, is a low, low number of…

2,490,411.

Two days ago I was at 3,654,851. That means in two days I've dropped by 1,164,440. Pretty good for two day's worth of work.

Now only 2,290,411 more slots to go to get to 200,000. Again, thanks to everyone who frequents Go Be Rich and participates in discussions and such, because without you readers I don't get anywhere.

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It's official. As of May 11th, 2011, at 7:40 Central time, Go Be Rich became an official member of the Yakezi challenge.

With an amazingly high ranking of 3,654,851.

Don't get too excited yet though. The lower that number gets the better, not the other way around. For example, Facebook.com is ranked the #2 website on the internet by the same standards. Go Be Rich is in the millions… but not for long.

The goal is to go from 3,654,851 to 200,000 or lower within the time frame of 6 months. To get there, I'll need your help. Every time you read one of my posts, you help. Every time you leave a comment, you help. Every time you tell someone about Go Be Rich or recommend that they check it out, you help. Basically, any interest or traffic generated by Go Be Rich will help that number drop.

Every Friday you'll get the chance to see how much your efforts are paying off when I post my current ranking, and a description of how I got there for that week.

As for now though, I just want to let each and every one of you that have visited my site and read my content know that I appreciate it all very much, and that I couldn't have got to 3,654,851 without you!