Category Archives: general

cloudy days, and links

We’ve had a cloudy week in Florida: it’s been cold and gloomy, suffering from the trace remnants of the tropical storm. That – plus a visit from relatives – conspired to reduce my writing time to almost nothing.

I did attend a birthday party for a friend of my son’s on Saturday at the dreaded Chuck E. Cheese’s. We had told my son that no CEC existed in our city; until the birthday party he had assumed we were simply a backwards, uncivilized corner of the world. But since we got the invitation – for one of his best friends – we had to go. So we went.

My kids go to a Waldorf-inspired school. It’s focused on art, singing, creativity, etc. TV, computers and electronica in general are all strictly forbidden. We cheat, of course – at home we do watch TV, and I do let the kids play www.poissonrouge.com and similar sites. But when I get dropped into an environment like CEC I realize that there is a tidal wave of electronic media overpowering our kids today. A level of electronic stimulation almost unimaginable to Gen Xers like myself exists. I don’t know what the long term effect of such heavy duty electronic stimulation will be…but wow.

Links

I have to be honest – I didn’t get around to reading much on the internet over the past few days, so I don’t have much of a roundup to promote. But, such as it is, here you go:

minimalism, and links

One of the most difficult steps to organize your life - finances, relationships, etc. - is decluttering, I think. I’ve been thinking a lot more recently about the idea of decluttering and minimalism. I don’t consider myself a minimalist, but I have simple test that works: if I clean up, do I feel more relaxed? If I organize and remove unnecessary items, do I feel better? Yes, I do. It’s not a tough test; anyone can do it quickly. I don’t like clutter. I don’t even like auditory clutter; on a Waldorf-inspired binge a few months ago, I removed almost all of our childrens’ toys’ batteries so we wouldn’t have to subject ourselves to the bleeping and blooping.

Part of the decluttering is tough. I do enjoy having a lot of books in the house, but I wonder: will our children even appreciate books or will they just tote a Kindle or a Nook around with them? I don’t like junk lying around but I can’t bring myself to toss out pictures our children having painstakingly crafted.

Minimalism and/or decluttering are tough journeys, no doubt about it. I’m reading more and trying to get my own head straight about what I want out of my material possessions. Is it fair for me to deny my kids batteries in their noisy toys while keeping a DVD player for myself, for example? Food for thought.

On to the links:

try something new, and links

I’ve been working on something with my son. It’s “try something new”. I have made an effort to convince him that he should try something new, and if he likes it, great, if not, fine. I’m mostly applying this concept to food but it’s relevant to things like trying new sports or ideas or so on. I realized this morning - while I was talking to him about the concept of trying something new - that it should apply to all of us. None of us should ever settle for stopping learning, trying, tasting, etc. But it’s easy to do. I quit REALLY trying new things years ago. Hopefully I can shake myself out of that pattern soon…

Here are a few of my favorite reads this week:

A Frugal Daughter’s Guide to Back to School Shopping: Always interesting to get a different perspective - like a daughter’s, for example.

Should You Refinance Your Mortgage? Rates Are Low, But It Is Still a Tough Decision: I’m leaning towards doing a refi. I’ve got a good rate but the rates are so low now that the benefits to refinancing seem almost too good to believe.

To mini-retire or not to mini-retire? Escaping the Mundane: Great tips on how to break out from the “ordinary” life.

New UK Kindle a tax on literature?: Interesting take on the Kindle. My Dad LOVES his Kindle. I plan to get one soon - basically once the WiFi version hits $100.

7 Habits of Highly Frugal People: I’m working my way through this book for the second time (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). I didn’t like it so much the first time I went through but now I appreciate it more.

Why 99% Of Financial Advisors Should Be Shot Out Of A Cannon Need Extra Cash? There Are Only 4 Ways To Get It: The fours ways to make money are: * Start a business * Work more * Passive income * Spend less This is a great summary to clarify your thinking. Alternative income won’t just materialize. YOU have to DO something.

And a few more links that are worth reading:

spy story

There’s an interesting part of my career that I haven’t shared before on this blog, for what should be obvious reason. In April 1996, when President Clinton visited President Yeltsin in Moscow, I was approached at a business seminar by someone I’ll call Alex. I was surprised that Alex seemed to know who I was. After all, I was just a supervisor at a Western consulting firm. The only thing that set me apart from the other 300 or so expatriates at the firm was my command of Russian; at the time only 2-3 of us spoke anything close to passable Russian. But Alex eventually revealed why he was talking to me: to gauge my level of interest in joining the Central Intelligence Agency as a “commercial agent,” providing information on Russian enterprises I audited.

That may not sound like a critical matter of national security, but at the time most Russian enterprises were closed books to the rest of the world. My clients might appear, for example, to own a chain of grocery stores or hotels. On auditing the books, though, I would find evidence (for example) of subsidiaries who were satellite surveillance equipment makers. One client of mine was closely connected with the Russian mafia. Another was an advisor to a senior politician. I had access to a lot of information that helped untangle the scary mid-90s chaos.

I had a fairly lengthy and surreptitious interview and acceptance process. I wasn’t able to disclose my status to anyone, of course. I never visited an office, and other than Alex at first and my handler, who I’ll call Ben, I never met anyone who was outwardly identified as CIA. I didn’t get compensated much, but if you’ve seen the movie “The Russia House,” you’d understand when I say it wasn’t about money at all. It’s an odd thing when your country asks you for help: no matter how much of a cynic you may be, it’s a hard call to resist.

I don’t have any cool stories about being chased down a dark alley in a hail of gunfire. I never fired a gun. The biggest nervous moments were drops. I left coded notes for Ben folded into newspapers which I’d leave in a space behind a booth at a local diner (yes, there was a diner in Moscow). I’d have a small heart attack each time, and I did it about 12 times. I’d go have breakfast in the diner on weekends, leave the drop and shortly before I’d get up and leave Ben would walk in. I met him for conversation even fewer times. We’d have brief conversations of the “everything OK? No troubles at work?” type, but any agency-specific conversations were usually held in crowded, loud bars (for example, changes in my schedule due to travel). If I needed to speak to Ben, I moved a chair on my balcony from the right side to the left side.

When I left Russia, I left the agency - they didn’t need a New York-based operative, obviously (or legally). I haven’t been contacted in the last ten years except recently when I was released from my top-secret clearance. The only regret I had about my service was the fact I had to keep it secret for so long. My parents always noted that there were curious coincidences about my movements in Moscow; I attended far too many diplomatic events considering I was just a consultant with a private firm, for example. I laughed it off. My mom even made cracks about how I must be working for the CIA, which I guffawed away. Since she reads this blog, she’s probably stunned right about now.

So if you’ve ever wondered what a spy’s life is like, that’s it. Written reports. Paperwork. A tiny bit of thriller - drops and signals to meet. One of my clients was killed (the mafia-connected one) and that’s the one time I was truly nervous. What if they were trying to figure out where the information about his connections had gone? But nothing happened - I did my bit, and moved on. Maybe something I did helped someone in Washington get a foot up on the Russians, but most likely it didn’t. But I’m left with a good story, and that’s worth something. Maybe I can punch it up and option the movie rights 🙂

photo by Argenberg

linklings, sneezing leads to a CAT scan edition

I’m a bit late with this week’s link roundup (surprise) but I have an excuse. As I was driving to work for an early morning meeting on Tuesday, a heavy, driving rain broke out. The pitch black, heavy rain and early hour (about 6:30) would have been bad enough but my windshield wiper chose that moment to whip off the car. I had to go retrieve it in the pitch black, driving rain and 70 mile-per-hour traffic and then use a small pair of pliers to try to work it back on - all in cold weather with a light windbreaker on.

Needless to say I was soaked. Traffic accidents on I-95 extended my cold, shivering wait in the car to two hours. After spending 20 minutes in the gym locker at work with a hair dryer on me, I felt more or less OK. Then…. bam. About 24 hours later, I felt sick. I visited the urgent care clinic and got some help. 24 hours later, with my blood pressure soaring, severe sinus pain and serious weakness, I was off to the doctor. I had to get a CAT scan to rule out a stroke, but apparently it was just my body’s reaction to the infection. My blood pressure’s been normal for 7-8 years, and was just checked about 3 weeks ago so the surge was weird, and made the doctor double-check with the CAT scan. Not a fun experience. On the bright side, with some antibiotics and a brief course of blood pressure medicine I’m back to feeling more or less normal today (120 over 70 type blood pressure, and sinus pressure greatly reduced).

Too much information?

Well, just wait til you see the boatload of links I’ve got:

  • Running Up Debt: Never having been in debt other than mortgage debt in my life, I’m always slightly fascinated by other people’s stories of debt spiraling out of control.
  • Are Over Half of Workers Really Dissatisfied with Their Jobs?: Doesn’t surprise me, simply because most of us believe our job should pay a bit more, the boss should be a bit nicer or the guy in the next cubicle shouldn’t tap his pen all day long.
  • Do Something You Love, Before You Have To Do Something For Money: Amen - which is why you should go to an inexpensive college, preferably public, and get out of school without needing to go to work immediately to pay off $80,000 in student loans (or more).
  • Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe for Under $15 – Easy and Frugal: We just got a Crock Pot (actually the exact same one Jeremy has in this post) so I’m going to have to give this a shot. Nothing like pork for healthy eating!
  • To Succeed Financially, You Must Know Yourself and Know Thy (Financial) Self: Closely related articles, and both worth considering: you need to understand yourself before you attempt to change yourself.
  • What Happened to Patrick? A Few Thoughts About Blogging Anonymously: I’ve written about my struggle with anonymity before, and Ryan (who is the “real Patrick”) over at Cash Money Life finally gave up on anonymity, giving out his full name right there on the blog. Not a bad idea. You can find my real name without much trouble, but I still haven’t just slapped it up on the blog. Patrick Ryan’s probably right - anonymity won’t do much for furthering your online “brand.”
  • The Curse Of Making Too Much Money And Not Pursuing Your Dreams: I sympathize with Lyndon in this post. I make enough money that dropping my current lucrative career seems insane, even to follow my dreams (which aren’t that firmly defined, but that’s a separate question).

Some more good reads, but now I’ve run out of steam to comment…

americas-richest-counties: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance: And finally, a nice little bonus read on a statistic that always kills me. “Highest income” is a radically different concept from “richest.” I had a high income in New Jersey, but my expenses were proportionately higher. If you want to get a true look at “richest” you’d have to incorporate some sort of cost-of-living metric.

linklings, if it’s not one thing, it’s another edition

In case it hasn’t been obvious, I fell slightly behind on both the Wednesday link roundups (“the linklings”) and the blog in general. No one particular event caused it, but over the past week or so in the Blap household we:

  • …lost our high-speed internet connection for four days, unbearable in this day and age. Love ya, Comcast. Three separate long calls with customer service, in which they profusely promised that my system would come back on (1) “within 30 minutes” (2) “within an hour” and (3) “within a couple of hours” - all in succession - were are revealed to be lies. Even the advice that my Comcast-provided cable box was dead was false, and made me spend a couple of hours running around to buy a new one for $75 (which I will keep, to avoid paying the $5 per month “rent” on the Comcast cable modem). When the service tech guy came out to our house he said that each time I had called the customer service person simply noted “problem solved” in the case. They just put me off each time by telling me it was a bad modem. It wasn’t.
  • …watched my laptop lock up - for good. Thanks, Vista. After I did some research, it turns out Vista gets confused trying to launch an infrared driver and locks up the system. Funny thing is, I don’t have any infrared on my PC. Why that driver is there, and trying to launch, I don’t know. Fortunately frequent backups of all of the files on my laptop to my standalone hard drive made this more of an annoyance than a tragedy. But spending what little free time I have reinstalling Vista and then reinstalling everything - wireless drivers, software, hardware drivers, etc. - would have been bad enough, but I didn’t have access to the internet at home to get all of that stuff.
  • …kept unpacking, like Sisyphus. I believe (not joking) that we’ll still have unpacking to do for the rest of 2010. In a new house you have, at any given time, 50 things to do.
  • …got Roku. I had wanted one of these for a while and finally decided to splurge and see if it takes us one step closer to freedom from our cable provider (see item 1, above). It does. I hate to go all fanboy here, but the Roku is fantastic - simple to operate, minimal in controls and tiny. I had it up and running in less than 5 minutes. And it’s not just movies - we’ve enjoyed having Pandora stream through our TV and I even have Mediafly (my non-Apple iTunes equivalent) linked up so I can scan through my synched-up podcast list at any time. All that having been said, wasted some time on that. Did I say some? Netflix increases the quality of TV viewing (you watch what you WANT to watch) but if you aren’t careful it can increase the quantity, too. And trust me, I appreciate the irony of buying a Roku after my last post…

Throw in starting back to work at my client, clearing up our rental house to turn it back over to our landlords and making a ton of calls for this service/that service and voila…no posting.

And yes, I WOULD like some cheese with my whine.

But I am grateful, as I often try to remind myself to be, that these are what pass for “problems” in Chez Blap. Many people, including people I know, have infinitely greater burdens to bear. I’m grateful that the most painful problem I have to deal with is a connectivity issue.

  • Revive the Personal Boycott: Oh, I wish I had the fortitude to do this more often. I’d like to buy responsibly, but the following chain usually triumphs: buy good things, buy frugally, THEN buy socially conscious things. I still weigh cost and health before the environment or corporate governance, and I worry much more than is healthy that I shouldn’t.
  • The Value of an Elite College: I’ve said it before - the cost/benefit ratio is skewing worse every year. You can get more for your dollar at a state school. Private education is pointless unless you aspire to “mega-money careers.”
  • Access The Wall Street Journal for Free?: Nice workaround, if you don’t have a WSJ subscription.
  • Do You Have a Financial Problem? You Could Receive Professional Help and Become a Reality TV Star in the Process: Give it a shot. Look what reality TV’s done for Balloon Boy! And Jon Gosselin!
  • Workplace Culture Shock: Adjusting to a New Company Culture: This has never, ever bothered me - which is one of the reasons I’m well-suited to consulting. I can adjust within hours to a new company. I’m a chameleon, workplace-wise.
  • Get A Financial Education In Your Twenties: I wish I had done a better job. I did well, don’t get me wrong - but I could’ve socked away HUGE amounts of money that got frittered away (although, in all fairness, I was maxing out my 401(k) and putting as much as I could into IRAs while I was eligible to do so).
  • Maximize Strengths or Minimize Weaknesses? Maximize strengths, in my opinion - you can only minimize a weakness so much, but the potential to maximize strengths is limitless.
  • 35 Best Personal Finance Books: Didn’t see Rich Dad, Poor Dad here, but otherwise a solid list.
  • Your Spouse: Financial Teammate or Financial Enemy?: I couldn’t imagine remaining married to someone who didn’t share my goals. Doesn’t mean that the goals have to be 100% aligned, but an enemy? No thanks.
  • Get a New Job or Get a Promotion?: Get a new job. Easy question here in the 20-teens.
  • Handling Two Financial Houses: Glad I don’t have to deal with this.
  • You can be happier by reading this post: Not really, but an interesting take.
  • Review: The Slow Down Diet By Marc David: I have lost this altogether - with small kids, the act of eating often becomes “shovel it in and get back to feeding/cleaning/chasing them.” I have to recover this mentality at some point.
  • Best of Cash Money Life 2009 Edition: Patrick writes one of my (short list of) favorite blogs - if you haven’t kept up with his blog, this is a great place to start.

photo by fuzzcat

merry xmas 2009

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Hope your holidays have gone as well as mine. Our family celebrates a multitude of ethnic/cultural etc. traditions so we’re busy from mid-December through the first of the new year. It can be tiring, but it’s also fun. Enjoy 🙂

photo by pareeerica

linklings, apparently-I-read-a-lot-on-the-internet-this-week edition

brooklyn botanical garden 015.jpg

As the title of the post implies, apparently I read a lot of stuff on the internet this week. I’ve found that ditching Google Reader in favor of the desktop software FeedDemon has made it easier to scan through articles and pick out stuff I actually want to read. I’ve installed that and Raven (for blog editing) on my USB key, making it a bit easier to capture and write up items for the blog. I am definitely not moving in the “cloud computing” direction - sometimes it helps to have desktop software.

The Entrepreneur Fund: One Year of Projected Expenses: I think most books/posts/etc. I’ve read on the subject say that you must have, at a minimum, one year of expenses saved up before launching a business. It sounds daunting, but I think it’s doable. We could live for more than a year off our savings if we ratcheted down our lifestyle (got rid of cable, etc.)

Trick or Treat: Creating a Frugal Halloween: Some good tips - I like the PlayDoh idea. I have noticed that Halloween seems to be exploding in popularity, probably because marketers see that there is much, much more to be sold than for Thanksgiving.

Poll: 47% of Households Will Not Owe Taxes in 2009 - Is That Fair?: Are taxes SUPPOSED to be fair? I think the concept is largely unfair. A large portion of my taxes go to support things I don’t support - wars, certain social programs, pork, etc. So if you get past that, then you can worry about people who don’t pay. But I can’t get past the fact that taxes are almost inherently unfair.

SEP-IRA Retirement Plan for the Self-Employed: Part of a longer series about retirement plans for the self-employed: some good info on something that I, at least, don’t know very much about.

Don’t drop that egg!: I just recently started listening to Dan Miller’s podcast and reading his blog. This was an enjoyable post on the idea that sometimes you fear things so much you can’t even see other opportunities.

Quizzle Offers Free Credit Score and Report: It’s nice to see that you can obtain your credit score in more and more places. It used to be such an (expensive) hassle to find out your score.

Price-Placebo Effect: Are You a Victim, Too?: Yep, if I tell you a bottle of wine costs $250, you’re probably going to think it tastes better - just as most people would tell you a store-brand cereal tastes worse than Kellogg’s. The mind is a weird thing.

PayPal Discourages Use of Credit Cards: Seems reasonable enough - I’m surprised sometimes that they don’t ban them altogether. Surely the fees eat into PayPal’s profit margin.

Results, Results, Results: My resume isn’t as strong with “action” words as it should be. Another to-do item.

Family Finances: How Is Your Financial Status?: There’s a link to an interesting tool that judges your financial health. Our family comes out A+ in every category except retirement savings - mostly because this year we haven’t put aside our savings yet. I decided it would be prudent to wait until we’ve closed on the house purchase to make sure we have plenty of cash on hand.

Accidental Frugality - Can You Live on Half of Your Income?: Yep, you can. Will it be enjoyable? Maybe not. Having been part of a DINK (dual income, no kids), moving to SI-DK (single income, dual kids - sorry, no very catchy), I can attest that you can. You may THINK you can’t, but in reality you can adjust to any income level, up or down.

Finding Affordable Self Employed Health Insurance: I’m working on this right now, actually - I’m on a mission to find an affordable plan. My current thinking is a high-deductible plan in association with an HSA, which would allow us more control over expenses (and perhaps a tax benefit), but even that remains awfully expensive. I just have a dream that someday I can get a health care plan that is completely unattached to my employer/clients/etc. I understand it’s expensive, but I’m tired of being in a constant state of flux (changing employers) or dread (contract work without benefits).

How Often Do You Check Your Portfolio?: Be oblivious. I just checked my portfolio for the first time in a few months as we started the mortgage process. I’m a long term investor - other than rebalancing my funds, I’m just not worried about it.

The Neutral Fallacy: There is No Sideways in Life: I’ve heard variations on this before, but the basic idea is this: in almost anything you do you are either progressing or declining. There is no real stasis. You are either moving forward OR you are not. You are either staying fit OR you are not. You are either getting richer OR you are not. There is no “well, I’m hanging in there, wealth-wise”. Continual improvement is an exhausting idea, but in most parts of life improvement is the only positive choice.

Self control. Willpower. I Need Me Some of That!: Ugh. Sounded too much like me. I have the ability to focus - like anyone else, I can get “in the zone” on tasks and hammer away at them single mindedly. Sometimes. But far too often I’m not really “into it” and can easily spend hours flitting from one thing to another. “Oh hey, look, I need to do the dishes. Let’s check for glasses in the living room. Oh hey there’s that book I was looking for. I’d better put it up. Hey, there are my juggling balls on the bookshelf. Haven’t done that in a while, wonder how my juggling is? Oops, dropped one, oh, rolled over to the patio door. Hey, there’s a beach towel out there. Oh, shoot, I need to turn the dryer on in the laundry room.” You get the picture. Online I’m even worse, sometimes.

10 Scary-but-Exciting Reasons to Work for Yourself: I know, I know, I am an e-myth dope, I confuse my skills with my abilities to be an entrepreneur (i.e. just because you can cook doesn’t mean you’ll be successful owning a restaurant) but I do enjoy thinking about being Mr. Work-for-Meself-Man. And see, I continue thinking about this by reading articles like this one: 5 Steps to Optimize Your Freelance Job Search

linklings, frozen in Florida edition

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Four totally unrelated observations before getting on to the link roundups:

One of the best parts of the stimulus package - the best, at least in terms of my own personal situation - was the COBRA premium reduction. As long as I’ve been paying the reduced premium, I’ve felt like I’ve had affordable coverage with a reputable company that’s not tied to my employer. I’ve been able to move from one contract to another without switching doctors or learning a new set of copayment rules. It gave me a glimpse of how I’d like health care to look: not related to my employer, and pricey but not so expensive that it would cripple an average family budget.

The temperatures have dropped slightly in Florida but the high-rise I work in continues to blast - literally - freezing cold air out into the work area. I will need a sweater soon. It’s in the 80s outside. I shudder to think of (a) the cost, (b) the environmental impact and (c) the illnesses it seems to cause - half of the office is sniffling and the other half are coughing. It’s unpleasant in the extreme.

I have been writing two ebooks (slowly) and I found a tool to do so that really surprised me. I am no fan of Microsoft Office, preferring Open Office, but MS Office has some nice formatting tools and I’ve been able to put together what are - to me - pleasing “Webby” looking documents. I am trying to use the e-book writing to spur my own creative thinking for this blog.

Finding writing subjects for the blog has continued to be a struggle for me, but I’m trying to broaden my reading a bit to shake up my brain. I blame, recently, Stephen King and football. King is one of my favorite writers, but for some reason my brain seems to get distracted from other subjects. Same goes for football - if you’re a fan it’s easy in the internet age to do nothing but read football ALL DAY LONG. Reading stats and game analysis crushes a lot of creativity. So less pop culture, more esoteric stuff (new blogs, non-fiction books and more notebooking of my own ideas).

On to some links. I will actually have a second linklings post tomorrow - otherwise this would have been the War and Peace of roundups.

Saving For Retirement? Best Move For Your Retirement Plan: I have put off rolling my 401(k) into an IRA for about six months, and I just started moving it this week. I have no idea why I didn’t go ahead and do this sooner - I can think of no possible benefit to having a dormant 401(k) sitting in a separate account when I have my TD Ameritrade rollover IRA ready to go - plus, they have a bonus if you start a new IRA before December 31st.

Did Mortgage Rates Just Hit Rock Bottom?: Surely rates can’t go much lower, although I’d like to have a 2% mortgage if someone would give it to me.

How We Saved Money when Moving: Having just been through this, I liked these tips (actually this is a post linking to the post on the Quicken blog).

Career Planning Saved My Life: While I’m not as optimistic, I do think getting out of corporate employee life and into corporate contract consultant life was a step in the right direction. That having been said, it was only one step, and I probably have another 5 or 6 steps before I’ll be in a role I actually like.

TFSAs, Self Control and Your Future Self: While this article talks about Canadian retirement funds, the point holds just as true for Americans. I know people might think that the tax penalties imposed on early withdrawals from IRAs, etc. might just be the government once again taking a shot at citizens, but it’s one of the few cases where the taxes are good. If penalties keep people from cashing out their retirement accounts at the first sign of adversity, all to the better.

Stop Feeling Sorry For Me - I’m Frugal, Not Broke: Amen. I feel sorry for myself sometimes, too. I have the money to buy a lot of the things that I feel I want in moments of weakness. I’d like a new Prius or BMW. We could afford it. We could afford a lot of things, and although I get a great deal of satisfaction from driving two paid-off vehicles, just once in a while I wish I could yell at people “I drive a nine-year-old Pontiac but I’m not broke you idiots! It’s just not WORTH buying a new car if this one runs and is comfortable and reliable!”

50% Of Poll Respondents Chose Wal-Mart As Best Symbol Of America.: At least they didn’t choose McDonald’s. I don’t like Wal-Mart, but it’s another case where my values collide with my checkbook and my free time. If I need some pasta, some printer paper and some athletic socks, Wal-Mart is a cheap one-stop solution. I know I shouldn’t go there, but I do, because it’s cheap and convenient. I know that by doing so I’m killing other businesses that sell these products, so it’s a vicious circle. The solution? Maybe amazon.com? I don’t know.

Happier: Another great article from J.D., but I have to pick on one thing. I am getting weary of hearing that money doesn’t increase happiness:

“I’ve also come to understand that part of the problem was that I expected money to solve my problems. I expected money to make me happy. Money and happiness, however, are mostly unrelated. That’s just not how it works.” (emphasis mine - Steve)

I have to say that “mostly” is the key word. Money does solve problems. Having money has allowed our family to weather a long bout of no income with almost no long-term impact on our finances. Having money kept the health insurance going when I wasn’t working. Money lets us eat organic foods and send our son to a fantastic Waldorf preschool (and next year, Pumpkin, our daughter, will go, too). So JD’s point is valid - money and happiness are mostly unrelated - but I think having money helps a lot. Not just in the sense of being able to buy a Kindle, but simply to be able to live a lifestyle (good food, health care, freedom to travel, etc.) that allows all those other “happiness boosters” to mean something.

Plus a few more good articles, but I’m tired of typing…

photo by audreyjm529

linklings, jimmy buffett and being there edition

moscow, Saint Basil's Cathedral with effects

I have long disliked Jimmy Buffett. He didn’t really work with my worky-worky aesthetic. He sang stupid, silly songs about drinking in the afternoon and swinging in a hammock. But here’s a good example of lifestyle reeingineering: I moved to Florida and suddenly songs about drinking in the afternoon and watching the waves at sunset didn’t seem so stupid. They seemed, well, topical. I checked a couple of Buffet CDs out of the local library and - to my surprise - enjoyed them. Songs about gumbo and margaritas suddenly make sense. I felt what he was singing in a way I never had before. An artist I’d dismissed suddenly seemed, well, relevant.

Silly stuff. But I thought about moving to Russia, and about how at that time I suddenly started appreciating and really understanding the stuff I studied in school. You can read about the Russian Revolution or Stalingrad but until you see the monuments and walk over the bloody ground you can’t really FEEL it. I love the idea that you can travel the world through words; travel writers have taken me to far distant corners I have never visited myself. I have been in some distant, random parts of this beautiful world, but other writers have gone further afield, and I count on them to take me where they went. But sometimes nothing substitutes for the real thing. Standing in the shadow of Ivan the Terrible’s insane cathedral late at night, with snow falling all around me, couldn’t be replaced with a thousand books.

And now for the links…

Training A Child About Money – Online: This is a great resource post for a parent of children about, oh, 5 and under. I worry about money training more and more each day now that my son (3) sees and understands the transactions that go on at stores - I don’t want him to believe in the magic credit card, obviously.

What Works For Me: The one-thing-at-a-time mindset is the goal we all need to strive for, I think.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Even Save Some Money – Equipment: Mmmmmm, beer.

What If There Was No Tomorrow: A good word of advice about personal finance. Imagine you got hit by a car tomorrow. What about your planning would be pointless and what would be unfinished? I still don’t have a decent will and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about planning for my 60s…

Financial Advisor Websites With Blogs: Interesting idea - if you really want financial advice, seek out a financial advisor’s blog.

Case Study: Financial Priorities: Me, I don’t see it. Pay off ALL debt. Then invest. My 6-word solution, free of charge.

Where To Save Birthday Money For Kids: I have a few months before the rounds start again, but it never hurts to start planning.

Great Stock Market Performace, But Will Dow 9,200 Hold?: Me, I don’t think it will. I’m a Dow 6000 (or lower) guy. I think that we’re overvalued, even now - but time will tell.

How to Survive and Thrive During a Recession: Interesting ideas, although I just don’t look at broadband internet as a luxury anymore.

Federal Minimum Wage at $7.25/Hour – Chart of the Day: Don’t get me started on a rant about the unfinished choice between capitalism and socialism in America. Either abolish the minimum wage or make it reasonable. As of now it’s barely reasonable, so either get rid of it and tell everyone to work for whatever they can get OR assure everyone a decent living wage. Make a philosophical choice. $7.25 is a living wage in some states; in others it isn’t.

Best Free Essential Software For Windows: Great list; I am building a computer on free software and paid DOS, although with the announcement of Google’s OS that may change soon. So far, I haven’t noticed a glitch using Open Office and Gimp and Picasa - great tools at the very, very right price.

Put The Squeeze On SpongeBob: If you have kids, though stuff to think about. I hate thinking about TV - it is my guilt and my pleasure when it comes to my kids. It gives me peace and gives me anxiousness…

use Your Citi Card for $5 tickets to blink-182 and some other cool music


I don’t know if I’ve ever made it very obvious, but I’m a big fan of the goth-rock group The Cure (yes, I was, and yes, I am, stop judging me!) and more specifically of the lead singer, Robert Smith. I’ve also always liked blink-182’s music, and when I heard the blink-182 duet with Robert Smith I decided that blink-182 could move into the “approved by the Cure and therefore by me” category. Citi and Live Nation are offering some good deals for concerts - including blink-182 and a few other great groups - this year. Throughout July and August, Citi credit and debit cardmembers have access to $5 Lawn Tickets to tours like blink-182, Crue Fest 2 (another favorite of mine - back in high school I loved AC/DC and Motley Crue), and Nickelback, among others. Starting today, cardmembers can visit www.citiprivatepass.com to get a special access code that will allow them to view information and purchase tickets to all participating $5 Lawn Ticket concerts.

how much emergency fund is enough?

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The term “emergency fund” is misleading. Is a new tire for the car an emergency? Is a new TV, when your last good one dies? Most of us have a good idea what an emergency means when we consider the extreme case: a sick child, a roof with a gigantic hole allowing the rain to come in, a car that won’t start. When you get to the more “iffy” emergencies it gets a bit tougher. Is it an emergency when you need a new dryer? I mean, you COULD hang clothes out to dry for a while.

I’ve read many times that you should have $1000 in an emergency fund, or that you should establish a three month or six month or eight month emergency fund before investing. Should you start thinking about Roths versus traditional IRAs as soon as you have $1000 in an emergency fund? Should you even be thinking about paying down your credit card debt that quickly?

We just went through seven months of a “zero-income” household, although we did have a few sources of alternative income. Neither my wife nor I were working jobs or earning money in our fields, and although we had to tighten our belts to a small extent, we were able to live more or less normally the entire time. Why? Because we had an enormous “emergency fund”, equal to more than a year of expenses.

I know there are people who can live on the razor’s edge, dancing around on margin and leveraging their next income-generating venture. If you’re that type of person, more power to you. I’m not. I’ve been able to rest easy and take my “mini-retirement” thanks to saving whenever we could in our emergency fund. It’s a lifestyle choice, but I’d argue that if you’re the type of person who gets nervous when the money runs out, you’re better off having an adequate stash laid by when times are good. When times are bad, you won’t be sorry you have enough - or even more than enough - saved up.

The argument against this might be that you can’t build wealth by keeping your money in cash (or “almost cash”). You need to put that money to work. True - but nothing is more of an impediment to building wealth than hitting a hard patch that causes you to go back into debt. In this economy it can happen quickly, and the length of time without income can be extensive. Nothing would derail your future prosperity worse than going into debt during a sudden but protracted unemployment.

So think twice before accepting the idea that a three-month or six-month emergency fund is enough. It’s never really enough. I’d love to have a three or four YEAR emergency fund. Cash in the bank is, well, cash in the bank.

photo by Paul Keleher
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