There are some pretty cool sites out there, with all kinds of quizzes and puzzles for you to test your vast intelligence with. But MindCipher is a clever little site that allows you to do so and get immediate answers if you want. I’ve spent the last ten minutes just hitting “Random” on the site to get different word problems generated.

By the way, I never thought I’d be happy to see word problems again!

Anyway, check out MindCipher right now and exercise your brain for a few minutes! Here’s one to get you started.

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Web site two hundred squats wants to eliminate as many excuses as possible from the list of reasons why you don’t work out. Picture the average Cooler Person and their quest for fitness: it often involves $50 per month to a gym membership that they don’t really go to, a closet full of sharp-looking workout clothes and other gear that doesn’t look used, and a stack of health and fitness magazines on the coffee table that they read on the couch or in the bathroom. If they go to the gym, they immediately go to the bench press or the elliptical machine.

Contrast that with two hundred squats (along with sister sites two hundred situps and hundred pushups), which aims to simplify the entire process and helps you get back to basic fitness: body weight exercises that increase your level of fitness with no cost to you. These workouts can be done at home with no equipment, and it’s exercise in its purest form – the point isn’t to bulk up or make yourself look incredible. It’s about your health, which is what fitness should be. The rest of it comes along with it, sure, but you need to focus on health, not vanity.

I’m considering trying this workout – they have a full plan and log for you to download, all you need to do is start! Have any of you tried any of these three, or do you have an at-home workout regimen you’d like to share? Drop it in the comments below!

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As the economy tanks and wages drop, people are finding it more and more difficult to make important financial decisions. Especially in the case of us younger folk, we need more advice and financial education, but we can’t afford some financial planner to work on our budgets for us. Thrive is our answer.

Just give Thrive your bank account information and it will pull together your personal finances and give you advice based on your saving and spending habits. You can add savings goals and Thrive can help you reach them. Want to pay off that credit card debt or start saving for retirement (which you should!)? Thrive can give you a leg up. Thrive is meant for those in their 20s and 30s: people who need to make important financial decisions while they are younger but don’t have enough facts to make those decisions. And unless you are actively searching for answers, you don’t know enough to make those decisions. Period.

The wonderful people at Wise Bread have this to say in their review of Thrive:

With a dedication towards growth and a constantly evolving financial planning engine, Thrive just may be a financial planning solution for a self-starter who is motivated to improve their finances but not yet ready to work with a full-on personal financial planner. In this world where it seems that the Internet can do everything except walk the dog (give it time), it seems logical that financial planning programs would wend their way to the Web. Thank goodness that the likes of the folks at Thrive are at the cyber-financial-planning helm.

And worried about security? I always look for logos like these:

And the Wise Bread guys interviewed the makers of Thrive, who had this to say:

When I pressed the security issue, the reply I received was: “Thrive doesn’t ask for your social security number, we don’t know your bank account numbers, and we can’t move your money around…in a worst-case scenario, you may leak some shopping information you aren’t ready for people to know.

Works for me. Look, your bank account information is online with banks. Take a few precautions, pick some good passwords, and you’ll be fine. I think Thrive is a great way for Cooler People to stop horrible spending habits for their “Look at me! Look at me!” lifestyles and start practicing some Practical Nerd-like financial habits. Oh, and I forgot the best part: Thrive is FREE. Check out Thrive today!

Have you tried Thrive? Do you have certain tools/services you use for financial planning? Share them in the comments!

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