Tag: income

yo soy español, and links

Spain won! Oh. Well, fine, Bubelah and I spent half of our honeymoon in Spain - and it was a lovely place - so fine. I can’t say I got “into” the World Cup this time around, but I’m moderately happy Spain won. I’ve been to the Netherlands more times than I can count and I have only vague recollections of it. Nothing against it - I actually quite liked it - but it was just blah, like Germany or France, in a hazy “Euro” kind of way. Much like parts of America, it’s had many of the things that make it a pleasant country “blanded out” into a smooth, beige Europeanism. Spain still has a bit of individuality. So great that they won, and kudos to the Netherlands for keeping it close til the last second. So there are my vague touristy-and-business-travel-y impressions of a few countries.

Once again, I managed to get a bit behind on the links post, but for good reason. My parents have been visiting while Bubelah visited New York briefly to check on a sick relative. Once she returned, we also had a fun visit with my aunt and uncle, so it’s been busy! One of the things that I love about short-term unemployment is the freedom to spend time with people. Just for the record, the thing I hate about short-term unemployment is the lack of income. Even though we have a healthy go-to-hell fund, I hate seeing it eaten down.

Read this:

One miscellaneous announcement: I’d like to put up a series of posts from people talking about their takes on careers or entrepreneurship or anything like that, centered around the theme “why my work makes sense to me.” I don’t know if I’ll get a lot of response, but if you love what you do and want to write about it on brip blap, I’d love to share it. It’s part of a larger project I’m working towards (an e-book, I’m certain that’s a shock).

the dead end of home ownership

the American dream

I’ve known more than one guy with the following life story: working at a corporate job as a middle manager, married with young-ish kids and settled in normal sized house in an acceptable neighborhood. Maybe the kids are really young, even though he’s in his forties; like me, a lot of men (and women) are waiting until later in life to have kids. The house is comfortable but small. The job is OK but if the guy’s honest with himself he knows he’s not likely to soar to the CEO floor in the 15 or so years of working life he has left to him.

So here’s the question: if you make X dollars at age 40, say, and 40% of your income goes to your mortgage that you took out at age 38 - a 30 year fixed mortgage - and you’re expecting a 5% raise every year (if you’re lucky) - when will you reach the finish line?

I know the common perception is that if you own instead of renting there will come a blissful moment when you burn the mortgage documents and skip off into sunset worry-free. In my mind, two things will be happening in 30 years when my mortgage is paid off that will throw a big monkey wrench in those plans.

Property taxes

Perhaps you live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. If so, your property taxes are the lowest (on average) in America, probably around $1000 per year. That’s $83 per month, a doable figure. However, if you live in places like Garden City, New York, your taxes run closer to $9000 per year, or $750 per month. One thing I can guarantee about both Cheyenne and Garden City that holds equally true for both is that 30 years from now, those taxes will be higher. Will they have grown at a rate faster or slower than your annual raises at work? With the strains looming on the US economy - an enormous national debt, rapidly ageing population, and so on, I’d be willing to bet those taxes will eat up a big chunk of your post-retirement income after you’ve paid off the mortgage.

Shoddy construction

On this point I only have my own limited experience to go on, but I remember laughing out loud every time someone asked me in New Jersey if I expected to pay off my mortgage on my townhouse in 30 years. I laughed because I really didn’t expect my townhouse to last 30 years. We moved in while construction was going on in the community, and I saw how these homes were built: pressboard and 2 by 4s. Not stone, not metal. K. Hovnanian put them up fast, using what (ahem) APPEARED to be workers who might not have been entirely legal citizens. These were not structures built to last. These were not cheap places, either; it was a very expensive gated neighborhood with fancy homes (think elevators installed in the homes, riverfront views, etc.) Most American homes will need substantial and continuous maintenance and repair work in 30 years. So think about that mid-70s guy dealing with a crumbling home. Again, no mortgage, maybe, but those bills can mount up quickly.

…the dead end

I still think you ought to own if you want to own, and you ought to work for a corporation if that’s what twirls your pigtails, but this scenario just looks like a dead end to me. This house I’m in now needs to be my last one, or else I’m going to need to move into a place where I can pay off the mortgage substantially sooner than 30 years or I’ll be working to pay the mortgage (and other costs) into my 80s. If you don’t think that’s a dead end, I don’t know what is. I for one don’t want to be struggling away at age 75 to finally pay off my mortgage just to get stuck in a crumbling house paying exorbitant property taxes. Figuring out how to stay out of this dead end ought to be a high priority for anyone who looks to buy a home in their late 30s or later.

job junkie

Dr. Drew - the famous radio/TV addiction-specialist doctor of Loveline, Sober House and Celebrity Rehab fame - has a layman’s definition of addiction: it’s any activity that you continue engaging in despite adverse conditions. Hits it right on the head, I think. If you keep drinking after a DUI, you’re addicted. If you keep doing drugs after going to jail, obsessively playing online bingo after your spouse has threatened to leave you, eating sweets after developing diabetes or smoking while you have a cold, you’ve got a problem. You don’t have to experience the adverse condition to be addicted, of course, but the adverse event is the proof, if you will.

I like this definition because you can apply it to many other areas of life. For example, if you keep charging crap on your credit card after you’ve started being charged interest for past purchases, you’re continuing in the face of an obvious adverse event. The interest is a fine, a continuing adverse event that would cause a normal, non-addicted-to-credit person to stop using the product. And many, many people have a far more severe addiction: the addiction to their job.

Just to prove I’m not preaching, I’ll use myself as an example. I have a good job - although, strictly speaking, it’s not a job. I do contract consulting and I am able to charge substantial rates for my work. I flatter myself sometimes that it’s because I’m just that good, but the real reason is that I offer my services to giant corporations for whom my fee is a footnote to a footnote to a rounding error. They don’t mind flinging some cash in my direction to avoid the hassle of hiring a permanent employee to finish their projects; they don’t have to train me, give me benefits and then file endless mounds of paperwork before they let me go. I can come in, do the work with a minimum of supervision, and leave with no fuss. So I get paid at a premium.

And because of that I’m addicted to my job. I’ve continued doing it for years, despite many adverse events and conditions, some obvious, some not. The job is stressful due to boredom, physically uncomfortable working conditions, long commutes, inflexible working hours and sometimes unpleasant coworkers (overworked, underpaid, and overstressed themselves). Audit often results in uncovering illegal, unethical or simply incompetent work by other employees. Stress comes easily when others around you are constantly suspicious, frightened or hostile that you are “out to get them.” And despite being freer than the the average employee to direct my work, I still have the adverse work conditions that arise from a direct exchange of my time for the client’s money: my income increases and decreases directly in proportion to the hours I work. Stress if I work too much and stress if I earn too little. Could you pass some cheese, by the way? I need it to go with my whine.

But how many people are addicted to their jobs? I know the argument is always that a job is a job in this economy. Fine. I am sure all of the people who stuck with their “good jobs” at now-shuttered assembly lines throughout Michigan are patting themselves on the back that they stuck with a good job instead of getting out and getting training in a new field before GM and Chrysler imploded. I’m sure that all of the finance guys who were putting in 80 hour weeks at my Wall Street clients are happy they put in all that unpaid time doing a job they hate before being laid off in 2008. Sometimes clinging to a job to the bitter end is a bad thing, even if it provides some temporary financial security.

It’s not just financial security; that job addiction can impact your long-term health. Many of us are happy to be moderately fit, moderately overweight and to have a job that doesn’t make us throw up before going to work every morning. Whitman’s quote about most men living lives of quiet desperation is not any less true for being massively over-quoted by people like me. I don’t think any parents dream for their kids to grow up to slog through life delivered in two-week increments when a paycheck arrives. Nobody wants to have a slow trickle of stress poured down their throat for 40 years. Your health - physical and mental - will inevitably suffer. True health is being free of addiction to any behavior that hurts you - be it alcohol, gambling, drugs, violence, TV, a bad job, on and on. It’s not enough to be fit and hate your job, either. It’s not enough to hate your job but endure it simply to make money. Whether you’re literally prostituting yourself for another puff off the crack pipe or figuratively prostituting yourself to break your spirit for 40 years so you can visit the beach twice a year for a week, you’re a junkie.

photo by Dominic’s pics
http://www.drdrew.com/

networking is not about quid-pro-quo

rome

Quid-pro-quo means “something for something” and in a capitalist society we’re trained to think about this rule governing almost all transactions, both commerce and personal. Just as we expect to hand over $1 for a pack of gum, the guy selling the gum expects to receive that $1. Most people say “I love you” with the expectation that it will be returned with “I love you, too.” Very few transactions escape the quid-pro-quo “law”: maybe doing things for your children, or working overtime for your employer (but even there, you might argue you’re hoping to keep your job in exchange for unpaid work).

But networking isn’t (exactly) like that. You can’t expect someone to return something of equal or greater value every time you help someone through networking. If someone puts you in touch with a new client that generates six figures of income for you, do you owe that person a six-figure client? Do you owe them anything? No, you don’t, but you do owe someone something. At the risk of sounding like I’m using a movie to establish my point, you have to pay it forward.

If all networks operated on a quid-pro-quo basis, many people would find large networks a full-time job. The advantages to helping out newer members of an industry or smaller businesses would be minimal, because you couldn’t count on them to return your help quickly or easily. That’s not how a network should work, though. You’ll often read in career advice books/blogs/columns that you should give help in a network (or on Twitter or whatever the social media darling of the day is) without expecting an automatic equal return of the favor. That’s true to a point: you should give help without expecting a return of the favor from that person, but you do have every right to expect a return of the favor from the network as a whole. It may not be immediate - and it certainly may not be obvious - but that return over time has to occur to make the network worthwhile.

Look at how you help people in your network, be it social, professional, educational - whatever. If you aren’t receiving at least equal value back out of your network compared to what you put in, your network is broken. There will always be those who take more than they give, but on whole the network has to provide more value to you than you put into it. If it doesn’t, get out.

Of course value can be companionship or fun, not something as quantifiable as clients or services. But value has to be there. If you find yourself putting more of yourself into any of your networks - and I’m including ‘social media’ such as Facebook or Twitter as well as traditional networks like professional associations, churches or friends - then maybe you should consider finding a new way to spend your time and effort. If it doesn’t make you money, then it should be fun. If it doesn’t make you money and it’s not fun, why are you doing it? There are many other activities you could be doing that make you money or let you have fun instead. Go do them.

photo by ** Maurice **

work-life balance is a false choice


Creative Commons License photo credit: pshutterbug

Everyone understands that being engaged in your work, life, family and self is key to a happy life. Nobody thinks that you’ll be perfectly fulfilled without a balance - everyone needs to be happy with their family, but you also need outside interests. Everyone needs to feel like they are a contributing member of both a family and a society. It’s not an easy balance for most of us.

I struggle with it - I make good money but I still have less free time during the week than I’d like. Bubelah struggles with it, too - she spends a lot of time devoted to child care now that we have two kids, although having my son in preschool has helped. This imbalance is something many single-income families face, because the roles end up being so sharply divided.

Yet at the same time most of us feel that we have to struggle with work/life balance. You will not gain financial independence quickly as an employee. Employees are performing a straight-up swap of their time for money; the possibility to increase the money-to-time ratio is at the employer’s discretion, never the employee’s. If you want to be rich and therefore gain some measure of independence in your financial choices - and therefore in your life, you have to start a business or buy real estate or become a person who understands the market in its current sickly state. Alternative income is key to building wealth. But I am not just talking about figuring out a way to get rich.

Why is it that we view work/life balance as a struggle, a conflict to be resolved? I worry about it more than I worry about most things in my life - and I’m a worrier by nature - but I am trying increasingly to focus not so much on work/life balance but on how to move towards integrating work and life together in the future. I don’t think balance is truly possible. If you work a long commute away from home, most of your waking time is spent away from “life.” If you spend all of your time at home, it’s hard to develop your career or interests. Again, figuring out a way to get away from selling your time for money is key. The key is not to strive for balance, but to find work you enjoy and can integrate with your “life,” instead of working hard then retiring early, or thinking that working an eight-hour day with a three-hour commute and having a few hours at home is balance. Figuring out a way to do it in a blended way is better than trying to figure out a balanced way - because if you sell your time for money, there will never be balance.

what’s the point of net worth?

Having been involved in several conversations about the calculation of net worth over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that net worth isn’t that important. The reason? Net worth is a difficult number to analyze, and the difficulty in analyzing it makes it a worthless tool for measuring progress in your financial life.

1. You don’t know how it’s calculated. A lot of people include home equity in that calculation, for example (value of the home less mortgages/loans against it). I don’t include it, because I believe that it’s not a value you can “cash in.” If you cash it in, you still have to buy a new place to live. The only way to “cash it out” is to sell and then move into a rental or downsize, which is not a typical move most people make these days. The counterpoint is that it is an asset that you can borrow against; a bank will give you a loan against that value. Regardless, you just can’t know if people include it or not.

2. A net worth of $200,000 means different things in a small town in Texas and in La Jolla, California. In one place it’s a substantial amount that could generate a sustainable income. In the other place it’s lunch and a tip. Many of us may know that we’re staying put our whole lives, but many of us might be living practically anywhere in 20 years. Knowing whether you’ll be living in Smallville or Gotham would make a big difference. Since I moved from New York City to a small town in Florida I’ve understood this statistic better than ever.

3. Net worth doesn’t accurately measure cash flow generation. If you have an asset (a rental property, etc.) that generates cash flow, is that worth the same as one that doesn’t (like bricks of gold or a non-dividend paying stock)? In the long run, of course, that cash flow adds to net worth, but the potential future accumulation of cash isn’t really represented in a snapshot view of net worth. That’s not the purpose of a net worth calculation, but it is a problem with analyzing it.

4. Net worth also doesn’t show risk. If I have $500,000 invested in equities, is that the same as $500,000 invested in a money market? Again, for a snapshot in time, yes, but one of them is substantially riskier than the other. If you could apply some sort of risk calculation to your holdings it might make a difference in how you look at the overall picture, as well.

I don’t think it’s all that important to know your net worth. If you use it for motivation or simply feel better knowing what it is, by all means do so. But just like knowing that Harold weighs 200 pounds isn’t that helpful in getting a picture of him unless you also know whether he’s 5 foot 3 inches or 6 foot 8 inches, or whether he’s solid muscle or flabby, knowing your net worth doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about your financial position. It’s part of the picture, but definitely a small part.

after the hacking, and links

I have had a week. Obviously the site got hacked this week, and without the help of one of my fellow Money Writers I would have been sunk, since I didn’t have the technical expertise to deal with the attack. I’d like to think I’ve acquired some basic coding skills, but I quickly realized that I’m not even vaguely capable of dealing with serious coding problems.

I’m overwhelmed with projects right now - landscaping, house, blog, personal finance, etc. One of the things I’ve come to realize is that you can’t allow the to-do list to grow too large or you become overwhelmed and shut down. I’m close to that point now - I have so much to do I just don’t feel like doing anything, which is clearly unproductive.

Well, on to the links:

Cash for Caulkers: A great program I hope to take advantage of…

Why We Blog – Part 1 and Part 2 (I really enjoyed these two posts).

Jacob, always interesting, has How I got out of consumerism: I don’t know if it works for everyone but it’s something I would like to think I could embrace… eventually, right after I buy some junk I don’t REALLY need…

Looks like somebody is closer than ever to moving to Portugal: We are selling our house, for definite this time!

And more…

how to find disability insurance

Disability insurance is something everyone should have, yet some employers simply don’t offer this important kind of coverage that takes care of you financially in the event you become disabled. Privately purchased disability insurance isn’t cheap, but if you ever need it, its definitely worth the initial outlay. Even if your employer does offer disability coverage, make sure it provides adequate coverage. If it doesn’t you can ask your employer to upgrade to a higher level of coverage, with you paying the difference. If they don’t provide coverage at all, begin to research the popular health and life insurance coverage companies.

Buying private disability insurance does provide some advantages over an employer’s disability. Probably the best advantage is that you can carry your disability insurance anywhere you go, including if you choose to be self-employed. Also, private disability benefits are provided to you tax free, giving you a bit more income than if you had used employer’s insurance. Finally, if you have a specialty or premium skill such as a surgeon, you can choose to purchase disability insurance that provides a comparable income level if you should find yourself disabled.

When shopping for disability insurance, there are several things you should keep in mind. Make sure you won’t find yourself without coverage by making sure the policy you choose states that it is non-cancellable. Choosing this type of policy also locks in your premium at a set cost. Most non-cancellable policies will cover you up to the age of 65, but check before you sign into the policy. Also avoid policies that only provide accident coverage or limited term coverage. these kinds of coverage are simply too specific to provide you with peace of mind.

Gap benefit coverage, also known as residual coverage is also important. Just as with health insurance gap coverage, residual coverage fills the gap in your salary during employment and the salary you will receive on disability. This will keep you and your family from scrambling to adjust expenditures in the event of disability, allowing them and you, to focus on your health. Similarly, you can add a rider to your policy that will maintain your disability benefits at the cost of inflation. Otherwise, you will only receive a disability benefit equal to the salary you received when you signed the policy.

Disability insurance can be purchased through almost any of the major insurance carriers. The costs vary widely, so its a good idea to shop around and ask questions before deciding on a carrier. Keep in mind, just as with other types of insurance, there will be a certain amount of time you will have to wait before receiving your disability payments after you have applied. This is a good reason to always have at least a few months of salary saved, so that the waiting period doesn’t leave you with unpaid bills.

the question that can only be answered one way

Both Bubelah and I have one surviving grandparent apiece. Until I was a young adult, I had all four; three of her grandparents had died either before she was born or when she was much younger. But now we both have a single grandmother left. It’s tough, of course, to lose relatives or friends but I think there’s something to watch the people whose genetic makeup pumps through your own veins pass away. The loss of health is sad; the loss of mental health is despair-inducing.

My own grandmother, though, will be one of the last people to see her way through retirement with the following: her pension; Social Security; survivor benefits from my grandfather’s pension; and finally, the remnants of my grandfather’s aggressive and carefully planned investment strategy. He began investing as a young man and was still studying stocks and monitoring his portfolio until the end of his life in his eighties. My grandmother was typical for those days, too - she understood very little about their financial situation. Like many women of the Greatest Generation, she focused on the expenses, not the income.

Once my grandfather passed, my parents took over my grandmother’s finances. I gave some advice but not much more than that. Nonetheless, my grandmother has continued to rely on my opinion simply because I do work in a field related to finance and (vaguely) economics. Speaking to her the other night, she asked a question which began to haunt me as a young man and these days has started to keep me up at nights.

“Do I still have enough to last until I die?”

A gambler or a credit card addict doesn’t think about that question. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Somebody will be there to help: daddy, adult children, the government, the market, the bank, Batman… but there is no scenario for most people that involves lying in the street freezing. I imagine that in the worst case most people imagine being stuck in a government nursing home, but consider what a safety net even that is: people expect the government to guarantee old age care. Yet the same people complain about communists like me who’d like to see government-provided health care for all ages.

That question can only be answered one way: yes. The question has two levels: will I have enough for basic cable and fresh milk and the occasional new sweater on one level, and ‘is there a future where I am aged, infirm, helpless, cold and hungry’?

I don’t spend enough time around the elderly in general - I think we have a lot to learn, good and bad, from them - but I have spent enough time to realize that the question ‘do I still have enough to last until I die’ is going to be a scarier and scarier question in the years ahead. I used to worry about the first part: would I have enough for me (at first), and then later, for my family: enough to do a little traveling with Bubelah, send my grandkids a Transformers XIII action figure and so on. But in my darker moods, watching the slow steady decline of the middle classes’ standard of living, the second part of that question creeps in, latches its claws into my lizard brain and stays. That’s when I remind myself that there’s only one possible answer to that question; I have to make sure that answer is ‘yes.’

photo by Eleaf

draft, drift and dreft - and links

I had a sudden inspiration on that title and realized that these words summoned up my past few days in a nutshell. The draft - the NFL draft consumed a good piece of my attention for a few days. My Jets didn’t need much current-year help, so I wasn’t too worried about their picks, but the draft was interesting overall. Here in Florida the Tebow watch was unbelievable. The drift? I managed to spend another week - in a long series of weeks - without really managing to do anything about the increasingly-likely-to-end consulting contract I’m working on. This blog provides minimal income, and my other business ventures are a victim (sob story) of the poor economy. I’d like to start a landscaping design business, but it’s hard to set aside the six-figure consulting gig. And Dreft? We were up to our ears in baby-and-kid tasks this weekend; cleaning up the house, running kid-related errands and simply serving the needs of The Kids. Exhausting. Very fun, at points, don’t get me wrong: I loved chasing down a soccer field with my 2-year old daughter who has shown an amazing ability to kick and direct an adult-sized soccer ball; she caught me with a crossover misdirection that had me dreaming of MLS contract money (hah). It’s all good, but it’s all tiring!

Some links. Someday I’ll start summarizing them again, but for now, just pick a couple at random and go there!

What is the Point of Saving, the World May End Tomorrow?

“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.” -Benjamin Franklin

More than 200 years ago, this great statesman, inventor, and philosopher was well aware of the power of saving. He knew that without attending to spending and expenses, saving won’t happen.

Live for today or save for tomorrow?

I have a friend named Judy (not her real name) who truly lives for today because the future is unknown. She thinks, “I may get hit by a bus, or get struck with a disease so why should I focus on saving?” But Judy isn’t stupid, she realizes there is some fallacy in this thinking as there is also a chance that she may live to a ripe old age. So, Judy struggles with the question, “how do I reconcile these competing beliefs”? She confides, “I don’t want to live my life totally focused on the future, and miss out on the fun of today. But I also don’t want to live only in the present and have no money saved if I live a long life.” Consequently, Judy has some really great stuff, a huge house, lots of beautiful furniture, but not much in the bank.

Now that she has all this stuff, the initial newness and excitement of her purchases has worn off!

Judy is also beginning to worry about the future a bit. This is a real philosophical question and a difficult one at that. “Live in the Moment,” is a wonderful tactic for enjoying the present.

But, how does one reconcile the practicality of living in the moment with the fact that we all need some money for future emergencies and spending?

For Judy and the rest of us grappling with this issue, how do you figure out how much to save? I confess that I have been struggling with this issue for many many years. It was very confronting to me last year when my husband and I went to a Monte Carlo night fund raiser. In exchange for our entrance fee we were given $10,000 worth of pretend money to gamble with all night. I was so terrified of running out of money that I only made very small bets. Consequently, I didn’t win too much………… although I didn’t lose too much either, and at the end of the night I had preserved a lot of pretend money. But the down side of my conservatism was that I FELT VERY ANXIOUS AND WORRIED ABOUT RUNNING OUT OF MONEY pretend gambling chips.

So why am I telling you this? Because at one point my husband admonished me, “Why don’t you stop worrying about running out of chips and have some fun? You know this isn’t real money!” For me, that was a wake up call, I was sacrificing the enjoyment of pretend gambling due to a fear that I would run out of PLAY money. I certainly would have been better off and had more fun if I had made some bigger bets and let go of my fear of “running out of pretend money.” Obviously, I couldn’t spend the pretend money I had at the end of the event as it was WORTHLESS! I had gone to the extreme at a party and even at this fun event; I missed the opportunity to live in the moment.

In sum, there is a fine balance between overspending and spending an appropriate amount to allow for today and tomorrow.

Practical Application

Your personal challenge is to find the best balance between spending now and saving for the future. Start simple and try saving 10% of your income. You can’t go wrong with saving 10%! And if you find it’s too much or too little, you can always adjust in the future.

Do not despair if you can’t save 10%; save as much as you can now, even if it’s just 2% of your income! In fact, it’s better to save something NOW, no matter how small an amount rather than give up and save nothing.

If you want to get a bit more specific, there are lots of calculators to help figure out how much to save for certain situations; down payment on a home, retirement, college etc. My favorite site for savings calculators is here at bankrate.com.

Assume that the world will go on…….. and not end tomorrow. Of course, fun and enjoyment are important and you need cash for the present, but to have a satisfying life, keep some cash stored away for future expenses. Don’t stress out about being really technical and calculating!

Start a saving HABIT! The amount of money is less important than beginning the habit.

Action Steps:

  • Get a notebook and label it: “(your name) Personal Finance” and keep it by the computer. Use it to keep all of your personal finance goals, thoughts, activities, and plans.
  • Tomorrow visit your personnel office at work and your bank. Follow their instructions to set up an automatic payroll transfer from your paycheck to your savings account.
  • If you can’t transfer cash directly from your paycheck, then set up a regular automatic transfer from your checking to your savings account.

Today’s guest post was from Barbara Friedberg. Get more saving and goal setting motivation and information from her blog; a good post to get started on is “How to Get what you Want Out of Life and Have the Cash to Pay for it“.

a farmers’ market is just an outdoor mall sometimes, and links

I wrote this post Saturday noonish, after returning from a morning out at the farmers’ market. I’ve noticed that far too often the term “farmers’ market” is thrown around when the event is actually more of an arts-and-crafts fair. This one today certainly was. I only saw two booths actually selling produce. Most of the vendors were selling seashell earrings, craft breads, birdhouses made out of salvaged wood, and so on. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s enjoyable for the kids (lots of music, balloons and this weekend, Easter Eggs). But going to one of these so-called “farmers’ markets” is no more than a trip to a mall. It’s outdoors, and it’s more pleasant, handcrafted stuff than the plastic-and-polyester junk at a mall, but it’s still people trying to get you to drop money on junk you don’t need.

Links of the week:

Defense Beats Offense: I agree, for the most part, but to use a football analogy all the defense in the world isn’t going to help you when you’re losing. If you’re deeply in debt - I’m talking six figures - you may need to play some offense and increase your earnings, or you’ll spend a long time waiting for coupon clipping to save you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but if you start a side business and establish a new wealth stream, you’re going to pay it off faster than you can by pennypinching alone.

Seth’s Blog: First and never: I don’t link to Seth much - he doesn’t need MY help - but this was insightful, I thought.

Use Less Soap and Detergent in the Washing Machine: Referencing an article in the NY Times, this caused some habit changes in my household, too.

Know your limitations when you do it yourself: Definitely. It took me as long to put crown molding in one room in our old house in Jersey as it took a skilled craftsman to do the rest of the house.

Postpone College In Order to Pay For It With Cash?: Maybe not postpone, but if you have to take out more than $40,000 or so in today’s dollars, you would be better off either (a) going somewhere less expensive or (b) postponing college and working instead. Incurring more debt than your expected first year’s salary is, frankly, stupid.

6 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Your Next Car: I hate buying cars, to be honest - I dread the whole process. Part of my problem is that I seldom manage to pay attention to tips…

Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss Reviewed: I’ve reviewed the Four-Hour Work Week too (see “the four(ty) hour workweek | brip blap“), and it’s a book worth reading. Whether you agree with it, or aspire to that lifestyle, is up to you. I aspire to it but I don’t work enough to achieve it.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Transitioning Well from One Job to Another | Million Dollar Journey

How to Make Extra Money with Your Brain: Your brain is, of course, the main instrument of wealth-building unless you’re a pro athlete, and even then I’d argue that the difference between a run-of-the-mill pro athlete and a star athlete is probably linked more to the brain than to pure physical prowess.

Should You Do a Roth Conversion?: I’ve been debating this, but my conspiracy theory brain always kicks in: I do not believe that in the 2040s, when I’d be withdrawing from a Roth, that they will still be tax-free. I think our brilliant leaders will find a way to penalize “rich people” who have bothered to save money in their “fancy tax shelters” and we’ll see means-based withdrawal taxes. You just wait and see. It’s coming, sooner or later, for ALL retirement savings. The middle class “rich” who relied on the honesty of the government (seldom see those four words in a row, do you?) will see that all of these promised benefits will be jettisoned to take care of a war with Canada or Myanmar or whoever’s playing Eastasia that year (we have always been at war with Eurasia, Winston). End rant.

Thoughts on Tipping Etiquette: Why Should I Tip?: Because it’s expected. Why should you hold open the door for able-bodied women, or speak quietly on your cell phone on the bus? Just cause.

Is Your Budget Making You Bitter?: I don’t budget, although I probably should, but I live a frugal enough lifestyle combined with making a fair amount of income. I try never to let myself regret things like a nice evening out. If you have the ability to enjoy a pleasant evening out, enjoy it at least once in a while. It’s like dieting - once or twice a year you can have a piece of chocolate cake. It’s not like having a heroin addiction where you need to swear off cake (or eating out) forever.

Highest Paying College Degrees: I’m always surprised that engineering hangs in there at the top in various forms. Having spent the last six years on Wall Street and seeing the wild salaries there, I’d assume finance would be at the top, but I guess for every Gordon Gecko there are 2,000 Johnny Banktellers who make $30,000 a year. I’ll tell you one thing: I wouldn’t bet against an accounting degree for a money maker, though.

photo by NatalieMaynor

1 2 3 4 … 13