Record breaking cold temperatures, Pho, and DRIP (Divident Reinvestment Plans)

It is 7 degrees right now. I haven't experienced this kind of cold weather in a while. I'm reading articles that this polar blast should be coming to an end. The next few days, the weather is supposed to increase dramatically. 55 degrees on Saturday? Looking forward to it. 

This may sound absurd, but I was thinking how cold weather affects your finances.

One of the biggest effects is that colder weather requires the use of more energy. Did you know that every degree your thermostat is raised, it increases your bill by 3%?




In any case, when it's this cold outside, the perfect lunch for me calls for Pho. I would say that this is one of my top 3 favorite dishes/foods right now. The other two would be Spanish food and Indian food. I'm Korean. Including tip, this lunch cost me $10.00 from our miscellaneous fund. I think we're having pasta with turkey meatballs for dinner tonight so I better brown bag lunch for tomorrow.

Vietnamese Noodle Dish - Pho

I've been thinking a lot about investing in DRIP's (Dividend Reinvestment Plans). You can learn more about Dividend Reinvestment Plans here. Basically, if you own stocks, ETF's, or mutual funds that pay out dividends, you can have it automatically reinvested to buy partial shares of what you already own. Most brokerage accounts offer this service for free. I am with eTrade and they offer this. The reinvesting along with the power of compounding interest will make a huge difference the earlier you start. In fact, I use to have a few funds in my ROTH IRA that paid dividends and had them enrolled in DRIP. I think once we become debt-free, this is definitely one of the investment vehicles I would like to will implement to create passive income. Other options may include peer-to-peer lending, interest from CD's and other money market account, and possible rental property. 

There's still a long way to go as you can see from my total debt chart at the right. Doesn't hurt to have these goals to keep me  motivated and focused on our journey to become debt-free.