- RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
- RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
- Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
- @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- Personal inbox zero! #
- Work email inbox zero! #
- StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
- I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-22
- RT @MoneyMatters: Frugal teen buys house with 4-H winnings http://bit.ly/amVvkV #
- RT @MoneyNing: What You Need to Know About CSAs Before Joining: Getting the freshest produce available … http://bit.ly/dezbxu #
- RT @freefrombroke: Latest Money Hackers Carnival! http://bit.ly/davj5w #
- Geez. Kid just screamed like she'd been burned. She saw a woodtick. #
- "I can't sit on the couch. Ticks will come!" #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: U.S. Constitution: 4,543 words. Facebook's privacy policy: 5,830: http://nyti.ms/aphEW9 #
- RT @punchdebt: Why is it “okay” to be broke, but taboo to be rich? http://bit.ly/csJJaR #
- RT @ericabiz: New on erica.biz: How to Reach Executives at Large Corporations: Skip crappy "tech support"…read this: http://www.erica.biz/ #
How to Prioritize Your Spending
Don’t buy that.
At least take a few moments to decide if it’s really worth buying.
Too often, people go on auto-pilot and buy whatever catches their attention for a few moments. The end-caps at the store? Oh, boy, that’s impossible to resist. Everybody needs a 1000 pack of ShamWow’s, right? Who could live without a extra pair of kevlar boxer shorts?
Before you put the new tchotke in your cart, ask yourself some questions to see if it’s worth getting.
1. Is it a need or a want? Is this something you could live without? Some things are necessary. Soap, shampoo, and food are essentials. You have to buy those. Other things, like movies, most of the clothes people buy, or electronic gadgets are almost always optional. If you don’t need it, it may be a good idea to leave it in the store.
2. Does it serve a purpose? I bought a vase once that I thought was pretty and could hold candy or something, but it’s done nothing but collect dust in the meantime. It’s purpose is nothing more than hiding part of a flat surface. Useless.
3. Will you actually use it? A few years ago, my wife an cleaned out her mother’s house. She’s a hoarder. We found at least 50 shopping bags full of clothes with the tags still attached. I know, you’re thinking that you’d never do that, because you’re not a hoarder, but people do it all the time. Have you ever bought a book that you haven’t gotten around to reading, or a movie that went on the shelf, still wrapped in plastic? Do you own a treadmill that’s only being used to hang clothes, or a home liposuction machine that is not being used to make soap?
3. Is it a fad? Beanie babies, iPads, BetaMax, and bike helmets. All garbage that takes the world by storm for a few years then fades, leaving the distributors rich and the customers embarrassed.
4. Is it something you’re considering just to keep up with the Joneses? If you’re only buying it to compete with your neighbors, don’t buy it. You don’t need a Lexus, a Rolex, or that replacement kidney. Just put it back on the shelf and go home with your money. Chances are, your neighbors are only buying stuff so they can compete with you. It’s a vicious cycle. Break it.
5. Do you really, really want it? Sometimes, no matter how worthless something might be, whether it’s a fad, or a dust-collecting knick-knack, or an outfit you’ll never wear, you just want it more than you want your next breath of air. That’s ok. A bit disturbing, but ok. If you are meeting all of your other needs, it’s fine to indulge yourself on occasion.
How do you prioritize spending if you’re thinking about buying something questionable?
Jobs I’ve Had
I’ve always worked. From the time I was young, I knew that, if I wanted to feed my G.I. Joe addiction, I needed a way to make money.
So I got a job.
I was the only kid in first grade earning a steady paycheck.
In the years since, I’ve had a dozen or so jobs at 10 different companies. The question has been asked, so this post is my answer: these are all of the jobs I’ve ever held.
- Paper route. Starting at age 6, I split a paper route with my brother. Initially, I made about $6 per month, which was enough for 1 G.I. Joe.
- Farm hand. I spent a couple of summers in junior high and high school doing odd farm jobs outside of my home town.
- Dishwasher. Starting in 9th grade, I gave up a study hall to work in the school cafeteria, serving food and washing dishes. It paid minimum wage for 1 hour per school day.
- Construction. For a couple of summers, I worked for my dad’s construction company. He was easily the hardest boss I’ve ever had, which was great preparation for the rest of my working life. The drunk bar owner who didn’t allow his employees a lunch break and got upset if they sat down on a smoke break was nothing by comparison. Thanks, Dad. Every employer since has been astonished by my work ethic, even when I’m having an off day.
- Dishwasher, take 2. Sixteen years old, thumped by the wisdom of “If you want a car, get a job to pay for it.” So I did. It paid a bit over minimum wage and gave me my first “Who the heck is FICA and why is he robbing me?” moment. I eventually got promoted to cook, which came with better pay, worse hours, and more opportunities to flirt with waitresses. It was grand.
- Palletizer. This is a fancy way of saying I stood at the end of a conveyor belt, picked up the 50 pound bags of powder as they came down the line, and stacked them neatly on a pallet. Rinse and repeat. 1500 times per night. By the time I left this job, I had arms that would make Popeye cry.
- Cook, take 2. I held this job at the same time as the palletizer position. I’d work 8 hours stacking pallets, then head to job #2, 5 miles away. My car was broken at the time, so I rode my bike. In the winter. In Minnesota. I was working 14-16 hour days, lifting a total of 75,000 pounds, biking 10 miles per day. I was in great shape and tough. I wasn’t tough enough, though. I could only maintain this schedule for a couple of months.
- Machine operator. During my stint with this company, I’d put a little piece of metal into a great big machine, push a button, then spend 15-20 minutes listening to the great big machine carve the little piece of metal into something worth selling. This was about when I started shopping for books based primarily on thickness. One night, I read The Stand in my spare time. I’d also pass the night by burning scrap magnesium flakes in the parking lot. What can I say? Twelve hour graveyard shifts with 3 hours of actual work are boring. I left a few months after my son was born, because I was missing too much of my family time. I took a 30% pay-cut, before overtime, to be with my wife and kid.
- Debt collector. I worked my way through college by collecting on defaulted student loans. I firmly believe that we should all live up to our obligations and responsibilities, including paying your bills, so I didn’t have a moral dilemma with the work. There are some bad apples, but I don’t see collectors as pariahs.
- Systems Administrator. After I graduated college, I got promoted and spent the rest of my time there managing the collection and auto-dialer software and the hodge-podge of other applications we needed, some of which, I wrote.
- Software engineer. This is where I am now. I’ve written a medium-scale ecommerce application that handles the online sales for quite a few companies, mostly in the B2B arena. The job also includes a large chunk of training, management, and even sales. I don’t particularly enjoy sales, but a programmer geek who can manage other programmers, coordinate with sales & marketing, and talk to customers during a sales demo is a rare bird.
To recap: I’m 32 and I’ve had 1 month out of the last 26 years that didn’t come with a paycheck. I’ve worked for 10 different companies and I start the job before this one when I was 20.
How many jobs have you had? What was the most memorable, or the oddest?
The Obligatory Thanksgiving Post
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is also Thursday, and I don’t post on Thursdays, so I’ll be posting about Thanksgiving today.
Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful for–first and foremost–capitalism.
When the Pilgrims first landed, they set up a communal farming arrangement, figuring that a good Christian community could take care of its own. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, and all that. Everyone worked for the good of everyone else, so everyone benefited, right?
The Pilgrims, like every other group that has ever advocated communism, neglected to consider human nature. If you have no incentive to work, you don’t. If sleeping in and making babies still gets you fed and clothed, why work?
On the other side, if you work hard, only to see your hard work go to benefit your lazy neighbor, sleeping in and rattling the headboard, but never doing anything productive, why bother?
It didn’t take long for the Pilgrims to notice this tragedy of government wasn’t working.
The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails and cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc., with the meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignite and disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon the poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves in the like condition, and ove as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutuall respects that should be preserved amongst them.
It didn’t take long before nobody was working. Neighbors resented each other, because everyone had a right to the work of the other, with no need to compensate each other. That’s a case of “I’m starving because you aren’t working hard enough, but it’s not my fault you’re starving.”
At one point, the production of the colony was down so much that the colonists’ ration of corn was just 4 kernels per day. That’s how you kill a colony.
But they learned from their mistakes before they all died.
Yet notwithstanding all those reasons, which were not mine, but other mens wiser then my selfe, without answer to any one of them, here cometh over many quirimonies, and complaints against me, of lording it over my brethern, and making conditions fitter for theeves and bondslaves then honest men, and that of my owne head I did what I list. And at last a paper of reasons, framed against that clause in the conditions, which as they were delivered me open, so my answer is open to you all. And first, as they are no other but inconvenientes, such as a man might frame 20. as great on the other side, and yet prove nor disprove nothing by them, so they misse and mistake both the very ground of the article and nature of the project. For, first, it is said, that if ther had been no divission of houses and Lands, it had been better for the poore. True, and that showeth the inequalitie of the condition; we should more respecte him that ventureth both his money and his person, then him that ventureth but his person only.
The slavery of working for the benefit of others didn’t work, unless you were “theeves and bondslaves”. Then, it was great, living off of the sweat of others.
To make a long story short, the starvation ended when the Pilgrims were given parcels of land and told they could keep what they built from it. They went from the edge of extinction to being prosperous in a short time. The old and weak were cared for, not by the governor’s decree, but by the generosity of their neighbors.
Everybody in the colony won.
Optimized to Go, Part 1
Last weekend, we held a garage sale at my mother-in-law’s house. It was technically an estate sale, but we treated it exactly as a garage sale.
A week before we started, a friend’s mother came to buy all of the blankets and most of the dishes, pots, and non-sharp utensils so she could donate them all to a shelter she works with. She took at least 3 dozen comforters and blankets away.
Even after that truckload, we started with two double rows of tables through the living room and dining room. The tops of the tables were as absolutely full as we could get them, and the floor under the tables was also used for displaying merchandise.
Have you ever had to display 75 brand-new pairs of shoes in a minimal about of space? They claimed about 16 feet of under-table space all by themselves. Thankfully, the blankets weren’t there anymore.
We also had half of the driveway full of furniture, toys, and tools.
We had a lot of stuff.
Now, most people hold a sale to make some money. Not us. We held a sale to let other people pay us for the privilege of hauling away our crap. As such, it was all priced to move. The most expensive thing we sold was about $20, but I can’t remember what that was. Most things went for somewhere between 25 cents and $1.
At those prices, we sold at least 2000 items. That isn’t a typo. We ended the day with $1325. After taking out the initial seed cash, lunches we bought for the people helping us, and dinner we bought one night, we had a profit of $975.
At 25 cents per item.
We optimized to sell instead of optimizing for profit. At the end of a long summer of cleaning out a hoarding house, it all needed to go.
In the next part, I’ll explain exactly how we made it work.
