Chris Wondra . com

Sometimes, having a blog seems like a lot of work. Sometimes it’s wicked fun. And every once in awhile something jumps up and bites you in the ass (er, I mean, surprises the heck out of you).
This was the case this fall when out of the blue, I got an email at my school address […]

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Living the good life–before primerica

I let Primerica into my home. I gave Primerica my trust. This is how Primerica responded.
In July of 2005, a Primerica rep sat at my kitchen table. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of a very interesting and challenging journey–for both of us.
It all started […]

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“A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes
This summer, my family and I had the opportunity to take a trip of a lifetime. The 1st of July, we packed the whole gang, along with Lisa’s parents, into a Scandinavia Airlines 747 and traveled for three and a half […]

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From a consumer’s perspective, a garage sale is a great way to save money. Over the years, we’ve easily saved thousands of dollars on clothes and children’s books and toys.
Hosting a garage sale yourself is a great way to earn some extra cash. It’s not uncommon for a good sale to rake in […]

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. . . and over $850 the second.

I really enjoy blogging. In fact, I remember saying to my wife one night before chriswondra.com was even a twinkle in my eye:
“I think I was born for this.”
Early on there were a number of things that made blogging attractive:

Control: you have total control over content, presentation, […]

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If you’ve read my About page, you know one of the major challenges we’ve had as a family has been money. I’ll never regret the decision we made to focus on our family. But I’m not going to lie to you. Transitioning from no kids with a dual income, to two kids […]

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What’s it called when a blogger starts to write about things that happen on his own blog? Most of the time it’s under a headline like, “How I got 100,000 visitors in 30 days,” or “My Google Adsense Figures,” or something like that. Heck, I’ve even done it once.
It’s like the blog takes on […]

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Direct Buy and the Magic of Lead Generation
I don’t know how many times I’d seen it. That chipper blond, the irritatingly giddy couples explaining how much money they’ve saved, the irrefutable logic of being able to purchase things directly from manufacturers, avoiding all those costly markups.
If you’ve seen the infomercial, you know what I’m […]

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The picture above is of my family (minus me, I’m taking the picture . . .duh) and Will Steger. It was taken at this year’s St. Paul Winter Carnival in January. The temperature that day was about 5 degrees and the wind was really kicking out of the north, so the wind chill was actually […]

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A couple of weeks ago, a colleague of mine received a very exciting email informing him that he’d won a huge amount of money from some odd (but very official sounding) oversees organization. They didn’t ask for any personal information so my friend replied, thanked them, and let them know he couldn’t […]

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