- Dora the Explorer is singing about cocaine. Is that why my kids have so much energy? #
- RT @prosperousfool: Be the Friendly Financial “Stop” Sign http://bit.ly/67NZFH #
- RT @tferriss: Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ in a one-page cartoon: http://su.pr/2PAuup #
- RT @BSimple: Shallow men believe in Luck, Strong men believe in cause and effect. Ralph Waldo Emerson #
- 5am finally pays off. 800 word post finished. Reading to the kids has been more consistent,too. Not req’ing bedtime, just reading daily. #
- Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse: morbid story from my childhood. Still enthralling. #
- RT @MoneyCrashers: Money Crashers 2010 New Year Giveaway Bash – $7,400 in Cash and Amazing Prizes http://bt.io/DDPy #
- [Read more…] about Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-16
Insurance
On Tuesday, a potential customer took my business partner and I out for sushi.
The sushi bar was fun. There was a little canal going around the bar. The canal had little boats. The boats had little plates. The plates had sushi. Lots and lots of sushi. When you wanted something, you just reached out and took it.
Yum.
My only complaint with the place is the width of the chairs. If you’re going to use narrow chairs, you really shouldn’t choose chairs with armrests.
Between the narrow chairs, the armrests, and my fat butt, my cell phone got knocked off of my belt.
Crap.
I normally check my money clip, car keys, pocket knife, and cell phone every time I stand up, but didn’t this time.
I noticed it was missing 15 miles later.
Of course, when I called, no one answered my phone.
The restaurant hadn’t seen my phone.
When we went back to retrace our steps, my phone was nowhere to be found. Some busboy got a nice tip that night.
Now, I don’t carry insurance on my cell phone. I still have every cell phone I’ve ever owned, in working condition. Well, minus one, now. At $5/month, that has saved me more than $1000 over the years.
Of course, it’s a bit painful this week.
Thankfully, I sock a bit of money away every month to cover things that break. It’s my warranty fund. That, combined with a good(hopefully) find on eBay, means that losing my phone, while irritating, isn’t going to break my budget. It won’t actually touch my budget in any way.
On a side note, a parking ramp with a flat, “all night” charge and a lost ticket fee makes me angry.
It’s My Fault So Stop Me Now
One of my biggest problems with maintaining a goal is follow-through. Three weeks or six months into pursuing a goal, it becomes incredibly easy to rationalize setbacks. If my back hurts, it’s easy to skip some sit-ups. If a custom knife maker offers me a good deal, it’s easy to drop a significant part of my discretionary budget on a really nice knife. The rationalizations come pouring in when I see a good deal on Amazon. “I need to read that book” or “I’ve been waiting for the move forever.” The excuses don’t matter. As long as they are coming in, I will eventually cave to my inner impulse demon. How do I avoid that?
I try to make myself accountable to as many people as possible. At the beginning of the year, I posted my 30 Day Projects here, for the world to see. I post updates on a regular basis. Admitting my failure with the sit-ups was surprisingly difficult. I made myself accountable and fell short. That’s hard. Thankfully, none of you came around with a sjambok to make me regret my slip-up. When I was doing push-ups, my wife was more than willing to let me know when I slipped into bad form to try to squeeze out a few more before I collapsed. I count on that.
I count on my wife to help me stay on the right path. Eliminating our debt is easily the longest goal either of us have ever set for ourselves. Mutual support and mutual accountability are our main methods to maintain that goal. It is, after all, a marathon, not a sprint. When I want to buy more cookware, she reminds me that we already have something to serve the purpose. When she wants to buy the kids new jammies, I remind her that they have more than can fit in their dressers already. Neither of us are afraid to tell the other to return bad purchases to the store if it’s not in our budget. When we go shopping, we go through everything in the cart before we get to the checkout, to decide if we really need everything we picked up. We support each other.
If I couldn’t make myself accountable to my wife, my family, my friends, and–last, but certainly not least–the three people reading this, I would fold in the face of my marshaled rationalizations and leave my goals in the oft-regretted gutter. Thanks for that.
How do you keep yourself on track?
Update: This post has been included in the Money Hackers Carnival.
The Value of Hiding Money From Your Spouse
I have a confession, but it’s probably not going to be a big shocker if you read the title of this post.
I hide money from my wife.
Some of you just started screaming at your monitor that I’m a horrible person.
That’s cool.
You’re wrong, but the fact that I got that reaction out of you makes me smile.
Ok, I might be a little bit horrible, but not because I hide money.
My wife has an admitted shopping problem. If she thinks we’re broke, she shops less. That’s a win and allows me to save up for our long-term goals and provide for our financial security.
I don’t lie about it. If she asks how we’re doing, I tell her. At least in general terms.
But I didn’t tell her about my annual bonus, until we had a bunch of car repairs come up that would have swamped our emergency fund.
I also haven’t told her about the cash I’ve been stockpiling.
A couple of years ago, the power went out here for four days. It wasn’t just our house, it was 75% of everything within 5 miles of our house.
When the power came on in some places after a day or two, the phone lines were still down, which meant gas stations couldn’t process credit cards.
Quick, look in your wallet and tell me how much cash you have on you….
Most people live on their credit or debit cards.
Could you buy food or water if your plastic was gone?
I could that week, but not for long, so I started taking the cash payments from my side hustle and putting it aside. I’d come home, give my wife a little cash, keep a little cash for myself, and put at least 80% of it away. I absolutely refuse to touch that money for anything.
Part of the “set it aside and forget about” means not revealing its existence. It would be too easy to dip into it to pay the pizza guy or when we go to Rennfest.
So I don’t talk about, and it gets to sit all by itself in the safe, comfy and warm. It’s my security blanket, and nobody gets to touch my binky.
Why do you need a trailer?
As I mentioned before, we recently bought a Chevy Tahoe. When we bought it, we had a Ford F150 and a Dodge Caliber that we could have traded in, but decided to sell on our own, instead.
About a month ago, we sold the truck. If you’ve never owned a truck, you probably don’t realize how handy they are to have. From hauling brush to moving furniture to donating large amount of crap to Goodwill, we used our truck.
We’ve also been on a mission to replace all of our old crappy stuff with nicer things, without spending a ton to make that happen. We’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, then taking that money to buy other stuff we’re finding good deals on.
We found a 4×8 utility trailer for $300. It came home with us. The first thing I heard was “Why do you need a trailer?”
Now, we could have made do with delivery fees or rental trucks, but that seemed silly to me.
- We recently replaced our living room couches. One of our cats had mistaken one of them for a litter box. No amount of enzyme cleaner gets that smell out of a couch cushion. Shortly after that, my fat a** popped two of the springs out of the bottom. Bad couch. We found a good deal on brand new replacements, but the delivery fee would have been $80.
- My wife found a beautiful entertainment center last week that matched the corner entertainment center we already have. We don’t need another entertainment center, but after convincing the seller to sell us the side units without the center unit, we have glass-doored bookshelves that exactly match the largest piece of furniture we own. Without the trailer, we would have had to rent a truck to get them home.
- Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the last load of stuff out of my mother-in-law’s house. Without the trailer, that would be several trips in the car.
We’ve had the thing for 3 weeks and it has almost paid for itself in time and money. I think that makes for a good investment. I don’t expect to buy a new living room set every month, but it’s nice to be able to deal with large things when the need arises.
Making Up Stories
Saturday night, as I was walking out of the pizza place, I saw a beautiful young brunette standing on the sidewalk talking on her cell phone.
As I walked past, I heard, “I could pay my rent if they’d just give me my last paycheck! They owe me like $200.”
That’s it.
Have you ever heard a tiny piece of a conversation and used that to build a back story in your own mind?
I do that all of the time.
In fact, I’m going to do that now.
First, what can I know from those two sentences?
- She was unemployed. She was more worried about her last paycheck than her next one.
- She had worked for a scummy, fly-by-night, something-or-other. Good companies don’t withhold paychecks.
- She had no emergency fund. If she had one, $200 would be an inconvenience, not a disaster.
- She rented, and had roommates. This conversation occurred in the parking lot of a pizza place in a reasonably affluent suburb. For $200, she wasn’t living alone. Whether she rented a room or shared an apartment would be a mere guess.
Those items can–I believe–be taken as fact, given the evidence at hand.
Now for the conjecture:
- She was a waitress. A $200 final paycheck probably means her hourly wage was low. Besides, pretty, young, unskilled girls often become waitresses. It’s one of the few ways to make good money without a degree of any kind.
- The restaurant wasn’t a chain. Chain stores have lawyers and procedures. They don’t withhold final paychecks.
- She invites drama into her life. When you work for a company that makes a habit of shady practices, like withholding final paychecks out of spite, you know it happens. It’s not a surprise. If you continue working there, you are just waiting in line for your turn to have problems.
- She wasn’t close to her family. In an emergency, $200 from Mom & Dad is nothing. In my mind, she only has one parent and isn’t close to that parent, but that’s purely invention.
- Her friends are in the same boat. Short-term planning, no reserve cash, no room to let a friend couch-surf for a couple of weeks.
- Next month, she’ll be having the same problems, but she’ll find someone else to blame. Her ex owes her money, or her roommate stole the last of her cash.
That’s my entirely unsupported guess of a young stranger’s life story. My opinion isn’t flattering, but how could it be, when $200 is enough to make the young woman panic?
Have you ever played this game?
