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My favorite budgeting app is YNAB, which has an amazing desktop and iPhone version. The main idea behind YNAB is moving beyond paycheck-to-paycheck living, so they suggest spending last month’s salary this month so you can escape the rat race. This is enabled by subtracting any amount you went over by in any budgeted categories from your total salary for the next month. So, if you spend $50 more than you budgeted last month, this month you have $50 less dollars overall to budget. Pretty simple. ...

Coffee snobbery is easier than you think. This entire guide is basically brought to you by the fine folks at Sweet Maria’s, because they have a monopoly on teaching people how to cheaply roast their own coffee from home. You can check out their instructions for home roasting here. Also, you’ll be happy to know there’s a new episode of The Unpacked Podcast all about “Brewing Better Coffee” released today. Without further ado, here’s how you can get neck-deep in the fresh-coffee-roasting-at-home game. ...

The iPhone is my most frequently used computer. I use it dozens of times each day, and I’m a fan of the iOS 7 operating system. But, one huge step backwards was trying to discern whether the shift key is on (i.e. making the first letter a capital) or off. It was so bad, someone made a Twitter account mocking it. https://twitter.com/iOSShiftKey/status/444155263990657024 But, today I offer a solution for us all to know if shift is enabled or disabled. ...

I’ve been enjoying Wayne Grudem’s Politics – According to the Bible because I’m a generally unengaged and inactive political citizen in need of much reform. He discusses patriotism and how Christians should act in light of celebrating their nation–something I’ve wrestled with. Can I celebrate America while wanting to make disciples of all nations? I love America. I think it’s one of the greatest nations on the planet. We enjoy many freedoms, our enterprising nature has done boatloads of good for the world, we created the iPhone and we have the amazing convenience of Amazon Prime–and that’s just off the top of my head. ...

It’s easy to be overwhelmed the constant information churn on social networks. “Friends” and people we follow are continuously posting. Unfortunately, sometimes that content is worthless, but you don’t want to unfriend or unfollow someone for whatever reason. Here are 3 quick ways to clean up the clutter in your Twitter and Facebook timelines. 1. Turn off an individual user’s retweets on Twitter. Go to the users profile on Twitter.com, like <twitter.com/nshirkman> Click on the cog on the right side of their profile Click “Turn off Retweets” ...

If you’re not a Mac user, this post is unfortunately not for you. If you are, I’m sharing my favorite crop of new apps I’m using for your benefit and enjoyment. Bartender Even though I’m a P on the Myers-Briggs typology, [footnote]Which means I’m normally on the more chaotic end of the organizational spectrum[/footnote]I love having my digital world nicely organized. That’s where this one of a kind Mac app comes in. Bartender allows you to organize, move around, hide away, or push app icons in your menu bar. That’s it. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, right? Until you have 20+ apps open with all kinds of clutter in your menu bar. Especially on laptops, you bump up against the menus for the app you have open too. ...

You probably wouldn’t attend a peace talk from Vladimir Putin or a read a financial advice blog by Bernie Madoff. So why listen to a podcast from a technophile on being present and putting his phone down? Image provided by Death to the Stock Photo It’s a fair question. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to learn from my shortcomings. On the latest installment of The Unpacked Podcast Niki and I chat about the challenges of living in a constantly connected digital world and what we do to (try to) remain present. ...

This is a new segment of tips I’ll publish each Tuesday that only take a minute to read and implement. Kudos to one of my favorite websites, The Sweet Setup for their quick tips and inspiration for these posts. The Mac Dashboard (the screen to the left of all your other screens and has widgets you can add to it) has become a ghost town. I’ve almost seen a tumbleweed roll across mine. Since I have an affinity for getting rid of stuff I don’t need, I dug into how to nix the Dashboard. ...

Just over a month ago, I was the best man in my cousin’s wedding. It was the first time I was an official right-hand man. As far as I know, I didn’t completely blow it. The best man has two jobs on the wedding day. 1. Put out fires. 2. Give a good speech. In reality, it’s a pretty simple job description with high expectations. [footnote]We had no fires, so I had it easy.[/footnote] ...

When you write things and post them online, you become vulnerable. People may disagree with you. Tell you you’re wrong. Ignore you. The fear of how other people will respond can be paralyzing. So you have to decide: will I share things with the world or will I keep them to myself? As if the paralysis of human response wasn’t enough for a blog, I’ve started another project: a podcast. ...