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Horseback Riding Lessons

For the past couple of years, my daughters have been riding in horse shows with a local saddle club. We’ve been lucky in that my wife’s cousin has let us borrow her horse for the shows, so costs have been minimal.

Unfortunately, that horse isn’t available this year. We knew that a few months ago, so the plan was to take a year off from the shows and focus on lessons, to get the girls some real skills. We found a great instructor at a stable about 30 miles from our house. Since we live less than two miles from the border of the biggest city in the state, that’s a comparatively short drive.

We pay her $200 per month for 1 lesson per week for both girls. They each get 30-45 minutes on the horse during each lesson.

Now that show season has started, the plan seems to have changed. The girls will be riding a different borrowed pony tomorrow. The shows cost about $50 for registration, lunch, and gas. Our club has 1 show per month, but my wife has assured me they’ll only be hitting three shows this season and limiting the number of events to keep the cost down.

The direct costs aren’t too bad, but there’s a problem with keeping-up-with-the-Joneses accessorizing. Vests and boots and helmets and belts and shirts, oh my.

I’d guess our costs for the summer will be $300 per month.

One thing we’ve been considering is buying a pony. We can get an older pony for around $500-1000. Older is good because they are calmer and slower. Boarding the thing will cost another $200 per month. We’ve been slowly accumulating the stuff to own a horse, so I’m guessing the “OMG, he let me buy a horse, now I need X” shopping bill will come to around $1500, but I’ll figure $2000 to be safe. We already have a trailer, a saddle, blankets, buddy-straps, combs, brushes, buckets, rakes, shovels, and I-bought-this-but-I-will-just-put-it-in-the-pile-of-horse-stuff-so-Jason-will-never-notice stuff. We’re certainly close to being ready to buy.

(FYI: If you’re starting from scratch, don’t think you’re going to get into horse ownership for less than $10,000 the first year, and that’s being a very efficient price-shopper.)

So we’re looking at $5400 for a horse, gear, and boarding the first year. If we cancel the lessons, by spring we’d have $2000 of that saved and most of the rest can be bought over time.

On the other hand, if we go that route, we’ll never save enough to buy the hobby farm we’re looking for.

Decisions, decisions. I should just buy a new motorcycle. Within a year, I win financially.

Power

Finance, Life

At 8PM Friday night, our power went out.

We had 70 MPH straight-line winds and horizontal rain. Trees came down all over the neighborhood. Two houses down, 3 tree played dominoes, creaming the house, the fence, and two cars.

How did we do?

The skeleton I keep hanging in my tree lost its right shin-bone and we lost power. So did 610,000 other people in the area.

It’s interesting to watch what happens when the power goes out.

I’m assuming every generator in the area sold out. I don’t know, because I already had one. I do know that most of the gas stations near me ran out of gas on Saturday. Most places were out of ice, too. Batteries were hard to scrounge.

The restaurants that either didn’t lose power or had backup generators were raking in money all weekend. Sunday morning, McDonald’s had a line of cars backed up an entire block.

Our power came back on Monday night. 74 hours of living in the dark ages. We had to read books on paper and cook all of our food on the grill.

We did okay. A few years ago, when the power went out for a day, I bought a generator. Saturday morning, I finally had a reason to take it out of the box.

The generator cost me $450. Over the weekend, we put about $40 worth of gas into it. That kept our refrigerator and freezer running, saving at least $5-600 worth of food. Two neighbors filled up our available freezer space, so that’s another $200 worth of food that didn’t die.

That’s a $500 investment to save nearly $800 worth of food.

Pure win.

The generator also allowed us to keep a couple of fans running, which is great when the power goes out when it’s 90 degrees outside. We also fired up the TV and DVD player at night to help the kids settle down for bed. This is one time I was glad to have an older TV, because cheap generators don’t push out a clean electricity that you can safely use to run nice electronics.

We have a couple of backup batteries for our cell phones, so we got to stay in touch with the world. We borrowed an outlet at our rental property to charge the batteries when they died.

We had about 5 gallons of gas on hand, which was convenient, but not enough. I’m going to grow that. A little fuel stabilizer and a couple of 5 gallon gas cans and we can be set for the next time gas runs out.

We cooked everything on the propane grill. I keep two spare propane tanks on hand, but we didn’t use them. Sunday night, my wife made spaghetti on the grill. The hard part was keeping the noodle from falling through. Nah, we threw the cast iron on the grill and cooked away. Had pancakes and bacon made the same way on Sunday.

We had to buy more lanterns. We had two nice big ones, but at one point, we had 9 people in our house. That’s a lot of games, books, and bathroom breaks to coordinate with only two main lights. This weekend did teach our daughters that the emergency flashlights are not toys. Two of them had dead batteries that needed to be replaced.

Going out to dinner Monday evening was a treat. We sat in a building with air-conditioning!

All said, we spent about $250 that we wouldn’t have if the power would have stayed on. That’s $40 for gas, $80 for dinner(you try feeding a family of 5 for less than that at a restaurant that doesn’t have a drive-through) and $130 on new lanterns. The lantern bill caught me by surprise, by a lot, but now we are set for next time.

How would you do without power for three days?

Carnival Roundup

Finance

Live Real, Now was included in the following carnivals recently:

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Does a Gay Marriage Cost more than a straight marriage?

News

The costs of a wedding will depend on what state you live in. For gay couples this is even more important as only a few states allow gay marriage. These states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland,

Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington D.C.

Recent political events have reduced some of these costs by revoking Proposition 8 and returning gay marriage to California. Additionally, by removing the Defense of Marriage Act federal benefits are now available to all married couples gay or straight.

The biggest difference in the cost of the essential part of the marriage (the license) and any travel costs for those who do not live in states that allow gay marriage. The most expensive is Maryland which costs $85. Most marriage licenses seem to cost about $50 such as California’s $68, and Delaware’s $50. However in Connecticut and Iowa the license is only $30.

If you do not live in a state that allows gay marriage, there may be options including domestic partnerships. These states are Oregon, Nevada, New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii. Be careful considering these states however, as many domestic partnership benefits do not apply when traveling out of state. These are also not eligible for over 1000 federal benefits of marriage. In fact, domestic partnerships can act differently from zip code to zip code. Carefully read any agreement, as some do not provide any legal rights or protections but are simply a written commitment of a couple.

Also some states may recognize same sex marriages performed in other states though they do not allow the marriage to take place there. If you live in one of these states it may be worth the travel costs to go to a nearby state that allows gay marriage.

According to market watch, average spending on a ceremony is $25,000 however it varies depending on personal preferences and resources. Costs can depend on what season you get married in, real simple reports venue costs being reduced up to 20% if a wedding is in the winter, and not on a Saturday (the most common day for a wedding). Brides and grooms can consider renting their outfit to reduce costs. You can also consider cheaper alternatives such as having a family member doing the catering, or decorating your cake yourself. Party favors can be made by family members who like crafts.

How Much Does It Cost to Fight the Yosemite Fire?

News

The summer of 2013 has proven to be a destructive one. Brush fires have engulfed much of the Western United States, consuming large forests and chasing citizens out of their homes. The fire known as the Rim Fire is closing in one the Yosemite National Forest, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country.

Managing forest fires in the Western United States has been a consistent struggle over the decades with budgets proving to be hard to navigate around for local, state, and federal firefighting forces. Around 32,000 individual brush fires across California and other western states has resulted in the destruction of 3 million acres of land. To battle these blazes, the U.S. Forest Service, a federal office, contracts with private, state, and local firefighting agencies by providing funding, equipment, resources, and the chemicals needed to stop the blazes. On August 19th, 2013, the U.S. Forest Service has used $967 million to fund the management of these fires. At that time, the U.S. Forest Service only had $50 million left in its budget.

Why is the budget so affected this year compared to other years? For example, in 2012, the total amount of forest fires the U.S. Forest Service answered to totaled to around 67,700 fires and the destruction of 9.3 million acres of land. However, budgetary choices made by the Congress over the decade have made available funds for the U.S. Forest Service hard to find. In addition, the budget sequester, which went into effect this budget year, subtracted $115 million from federal wildfire management programs.

In addition, individual states are seeing their state budgets affected. California had to declare a state of emergency on August 23rd, 2013. One example of a damaging effect to California included the Rim Fire destroying much of the infrastructure near the Hetch Hetchy Resovoir, which supplies water and hydroelectric power to much of San Francisco. As a result of the damage, the city of San Francisco and neighboring municipalities that use the same energy source, spent over $600,000 in replacement water and energy. Private costs are also immense; thousands of homes and private property have been destroyed across the west, including from the Rim Fire. The Rim Fire near Yosemite threatens the national park, the metropolitan San Francisco area’s water and energy supply, and the major municipalities near. By August 25th, 2013, 143,980 acres near Yosemite National Park have been engulfed by the Rim Fire with only 7% of the fire contained. The Rim Fire is approximately 20 miles away from Yosemite National Park and although Route 120 heading into the park is closed, park officials are hopeful that the park will not be affected by the fire thanks to its current distance. If the Rim Fire expands to the Yosemite National Park, the costs for the U.S. Forest Service from the fire damage and trying to contain the fire could catapult higher.

Breaking Bad: The Economics of Meth

Business

Breaking Bad's Walter White (Bryan Cranston) J... — Breaking Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston) Jack O’ Lantern (Photo credit: edwaado)

In AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” Walter White plays the role of chemistry teacher turned meth producer and drug kingpin. While it certainly makes for good television to think about the profits available to someone willing to trade in illegal drugs, the mountain of money that Walter makes by the end of the series is actually not that unrealistic. Meth has a street value that approaches $30,000 dollars per pound. Not only that, but Walter displays a deceptively keen business acumen, especially for a chemistry teacher. A number of keen decisions allowed Walter White to become as successful as he has.

Production Costs

As any business owner knows, merchandise costs are a major portion of any operating budget. Mr. White keeps his profit margins robust in a number of ways. The first of these is by managing his production costs. When he started out in the business, Walter simply stole the majority of the required chemicals from the high school where he worked. This allowed for the product to be sold at a substantial profit when compared to producers who are required to invest more upfront.

Location, Location, Location

On top of his discounted production, Walter was able to stay ahead of the competition both literally and figuratively by utilizing his RV for production. Typically, meth is produced in a laboratory environment, which requires a building. This adds an additional cost of rent to the typical business profile. Walter, on the other hand, produced out of his RV in the early stages of his business’ growth, further increasing his profit margin.

Distribution

On the production side of the economy, a major consideration is distribution costs. While most of Walter’s competition used pricey, established lines of distribution for their products, he cut out the middle man by distributing his product with his team. This caused major disruptions to his business when his competitors tried to kill him. However, while he was able to accomplish this model, Walter was the beneficiary of increased profits. Then, when he killed his competition, he was able to return to the healthy margin he enjoyed previously.

Advertising

Many new products are launched with a full blown media campaign. This is a costly proposition. Walter, instead, relied on the quality of his product to speak for itself. This competitive advantage reduced the need for an extensive advertising budget. Furthermore, after a period of time, his product became a preferred choice by consumers everywhere. While he was required to distribute a few loss leaders at times, Walter kept the advertising costs down and profited greatly.

So, while it may seem like Walter White was simply a chemistry teacher who got lucky, it’s clear that he actually had a specific plan for his upstart business. By following a few standard economic principles, he was able to increase his margins at the crucial beginning phase of his business, and had established himself as a leader in the market when he chose to expand

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