It’s time for a summary of the last month. I should post it yesterday, but the post about my Entrecard contest took a place.

April was really fast and, unfortunately, very expensive for me. I spent much more money than in March. After quick comparison of bills and expenditures from both months, I see that it is not easy task to keep spending on the similar level each month. Why? Because of irregular expenditures, that occurs for example once per three or four months. I had a lot of such spends in April like paying for medical services or buying some stuff in bulk. At least I know I will save more in May.

Last month was really severe for me at the stock market. I decided to invest more aggressively and I took a harsh lesson. Only one out of my seven picks sky-rocketed, while rest was slowly going down and down. I definitely kept the positions for too long, having a hope these stocks would go up. That didn’t happen. In the end I took about -3% loss.

After that experience I will definitely invest more cautiously. When there is no promising pick, I will simply keep my money on a saving account.

photo credit: masochismtango

Small, good news for the end of summary is that my blog income is higher than in March. It is slightly above 6$ combined from Google Adsense and Kontera. Great.

It is over two months since I wrote a first post on KacperWrzesniewski.com. I think it is a good moment to make a short summary of best content on my blog. Below is a short list of my Top 10 Posts based on the number of pageviews. If you are a new reader to KacperWrzesniewski.com it is a good place to start, if you are here already for a while, check out if you didn’t miss anything.

I also added a Top Posts page to the upper menu. I will update from time to time, so you will never miss my best content.

Enjoy my Top 10 Posts:

1. 33 food habits to improve your health and savings
2. My TODO list
3. 22 steps to have a better day at work
4. Technical Analysis: Three most important rules you must know
5. Book Review: Social Psychology
6. How to utilize time when stuck in traffic
7. Fundamental Analysis vs. Technical Analysis
8. Trend is your friend
9. Successful investing with Moving Averages
10. Diversification

What is your favorite one? Please, post an answer in comments.

Today is a Blogger Appreciation Day. Unofficial, declared by Darren Rowse from Problogger.

I like this idea very much, so I decided to join and appreciate my favorite bloggers by posting links to their blogs. Here we go:

StevePavlina.com
Zen Habits
Get Rich Slowly
The Simple Dollar
Problogger
John Chow dot Com
Dosh Dosh
Copyblogger
Dumb Little Man
Quick Sprout
How to Change the World

Check them out! These blogs are full of great and valuable content.

April Fools’ day, today. On most sites and blogs, on Twitter and in your inbox, all the time someone is trying to punk you.

Quite early I decided to mark as read all entries in my RSS reader and I really quickly went through my inbox, deleting most emails immediately. I’m not saying it is annoying, but I think a lot of people lack creativity and it is boring right after few attempts on fooling me. I’m also not so creative in this aspect; there is no joke or prank at my blog today.

March was a peaceful month. I was focused on decreasing expenditures. According to my saving plan, I ate a lot of fruit, especially at work (I will continue with this great habit) and I avoided unnecessary shopping. I must honestly admit I drunk alcohol twice, despite my resolution. Fortunately, it didn’t influence so much my result. I spend about 18% of my total income this month and it is much less than in February. Goal achieved.

March didn’t give me too much investing opportunities. Most time I stayed away from the market. Only during the last week I opened several positions. So far, I closed only one of them. So far they are giving me about 2,7% rate of return. I’m pretty satisfied, both from rate of return and from my patience. It was really tempting to trade on market even if could find well promising picks. Good for me I kept my emotions in check.

Meantime my blog made 3.44$. Not too much, but I’m not focused on monetizing it, yet. I submitted my posts to three Blog Carnivals:

• 145th Carnival of Personal Finance: The Baby Education Edition.
• Carnival of Personal Finance #146 - Online Broker Tips Edition.
• Carnival Of Tips - March 29, 2008

Check them, they consist a lot of interesting and valuable posts.

photo credit: minor9th

It’s spring; there is a lot of sun. I want to spend more time outdoor. Sometimes with my laptop in the garden; sometimes top-less (laptop less, of course), doing workout. Looks like a nice way how to spend free time in April.