Hey YMF readers,

Thanks so much for your support of the blog and I hope you’re as excited as I am about celebrating the 2 year anniversary! A quick technical apology, sorry about the video that I posted yesterday, apparently some readers viewed it horizontally instead of how it was meant to be seen, vertically! That was my first time posting a video and I’ll try to do better next time!

Today’s flashback post is the #4 most popular post of 2014: Living beyond the savings account. In this post, I attempted to convince my readers to become comfortable with the idea of investing. I pointed out that no one will be able to retire off of the interest in their savings account and that’s it’s basically an invest or die world. No risk, no reward!

Onto the good stuff: the GIVEAWAYS!!!! Throughout the week, I’ll have 3 giveaways. The contest starts tonight, and will run through next Monday evening (2/2/15). The winners will be announced (if they so choose to be announced) in a post Monday night.

Here are the details on both the items and how you can win them:

• Starbucks $25 gift card! Is there really anything better than starting your mornings with delicious coffee? Or how about a great afternoon pick-me-up? Despite bashing the $3 latte in my famous post, free Starbucks is certainly YMF approved.
  • This gift card will be sent to a person randomly selected from someone who either Tweets or shares an article on Facebook. To qualify, you just have to share an article, any of them, once. It could be your favorite post, a recent post, the last post you read, anything! Tag me in the post on Facebook or tweet me, to be sure I catch it. The winner will be randomly selected from a pool of everybody that shares an article between now, and next Monday at 7pm (EST).
• 10/10/80 Living: a phenomenal book on personal finance. Offers real advice for young professionals, and provides details on creating your own roadmap.
  • This book will be sent to a person randomly selected from one of our fans that have ‘liked’ us on Facebook.
• One hour personal finance checkup via Skpe: Got questions about your finances you’d like answered? Would you like to get some advice on a big financial decision and feedback on your budget? The lucky winner of this prize will get the chance to sit down with YMF and talk about their finances. I’ll come prepared with a basic check-list and we’ll help you get in a better place financially!
  • The winner of this prize will be chosen from our list of subscribers. You’ll notice a section over on the right side of your monitor where it says “subscribe to blog via email”. There isn’t an easier way to stay connected, as you’ll get the weekly posts delivered straight to your inbox! I’ll randomly select the winner for this prize from subscribers.

Well, there you have it. I hope it’ll be an exciting week! Yay personal finance!

*Short disclosure: Only 3 prizes to be given out, winners will be randomly selected using the above means. No purchase necessary, but to enter you must follow the steps above. Prizes will be mailed sometime next week to the address the winners provide me with. Standard shipping will be used, let’s not get too crazy with overnight shipping, I’m not Amazon Prime or anything.