- "The best way to spend your money is to spend it on time, not on stuff." http://su.pr/2tr5iP #
- First bonus by stock options today. Not sure I'm impressed. #
- RT @chrisguillebeau: US border control just walked the train asking "Are you a US citizen?" Native American guy says: "One of the originals" #
- @FARNOOSH My credit score is A measure of my integrity not THE measure. in reply to FARNOOSH #
- I'm listening to a grunge/metal cover of "You are my sunshine" #
- There's something funny about a guy on reality TV whining about how private he is. #LAInk #
Charity is Selfish
I try to give 10% of my income to charity. I don’t succeed every year, but I do try.
I don’t give because I’m generous. I give because I’m selfish.
If you give to charity, you are too.
I’m not talking about people who give to charity strictly for the tax deduction, though that is selfish too. I’m referring specifically to the people who give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
If I give a thousand dollars worth of clothes to a homeless shelter, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I helped people stay warm.
If I send $100 to the Red Cross for whatever terrible disaster happened shortly before I made the donation, it makes me feel good to have contributed to saving those lives.
The put-the-inner-city-kids-on-a-horse thing we do? Makes me happy to get those kids into a positive situation.
Donating blood? Yay, me! I’m saving lives!
While it’s nice to help other people, that’s not the ultimate reason I’m doing it. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself to help other people, particularly people who–for whatever reason–can’t help themselves.
That’s the basis of altruism. It’s not about helping others, it’s about feeling good about helping others.
The truly selfish, the evil dogooders, are the ones who want to raise taxes to give it away as “charity”. They get to feel like they are doing something and helping others while not actually contributing themselves and, at the same time, stealing that warm fuzzy feeling from the people who are providing the money to start with.
Evil.
Charity has to be done at a personal, local level or the benefits to the giver are eliminated while the benefits to the receiver are lessened. Bureaucracy doesn’t create efficiency.
For the record, if it’s taken by force, by tax, it isn’t charity. Charity cannot be forced. Forcing charity is, at best, a fraudulent way for petty politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists to feel they have power over others.
Again, evil.
Crying is for Winners
Have you ever seen a kid come off a wrestling mat, crying his eyes out because he lost?
Often, that kid will get told to be tough and stop crying.
That’s wrong.
I’m not opposed to teaching kids not to cry under most circumstances, but just after an intense competition, I love it. It’s the best possible sign that the kids was pouring his soul into winning. It means he was trying with everything he had.
It means he is–or will be–a winner.
When a kid, particularly a boy in a tough sport, is crying, you know he’s going to try harder and do better next time.
For all of the “tough guy” ability it takes to succeed as a wrestler, I’ve never seen another wrestler teasing the crier. They’ve all been there. Wrestling is a team sport, but you win or lose a match on your own. When you step out in front of hundreds of people and spend 3 to 6 minutes giving every ounce of everything you have to give, only to find it’s not good enough, you’ll often find you don’t have the final reserve necessary to control your emotions.
This is different than a kid crying because he lost a game, just because he lost. Some kids feel entitled to win anything they do, regardless of the effort they put it. That’s also wrong.
Crying at a loss is okay after putting in maximum effort and full energy, not because the dice went the wrong way.
You’re Gonna Die, Part 2
You know that, at some point, you’re going to shuffle off of this mortal coil.
You will die.
Hopefully, you’ll have lived your life is such a way that the even won’t be easy for your heirs, but you can do a bit to make the process less painful for them. Do you want them gutting your house trying to find out if you have a will, or does the idea of a treasure hunt for a life insurance policy make you smile?
Assuming you don’t intend to sit in the afterlife giggling about how difficult you’ve made life for your offspring, the first thing you need to do is find a spot to put your important paperwork. This should, ideally, be a fireproof safe, which you can get for under $50. You’re looking for something big enough to hold the things that matter, while being able to withstand a bit of fire, in case the part of “Grim Reaper” is being played by an arsonist.
The next thing you need to do is put your important papers in the safe. Seriously, this beats both filing your insurance papers in a telephone book stacked in the corner and wrapping an envelope full of cash in a 10 year old newspaper and storing it with your recycling. It’s also superior to tucking an insurance policy in a coupon mailer and losing it the cracks of a chair.*
Important papers include:
- Your will
- Life insurance policies, including accidental death policies
- Bank account information, but don’t forget to remove these if you close an account
- Safe deposit box information
- Car titles and lien releases, if applicable
- The deed to your house
- Investment accounts
- Retirement accounts
Things that are not important papers for your heirs:
- The last 30 years of your monthly gas bill
- The last 30 years of your electric bill
- Home Shopping Network receipts
- Child support filings for your 33 year old daughter who has 3 kids of her own
- Coupon mailers
- Credit card offers
- 10 year old angry letters to the police department about that guy in the silver car who ran a stop sign in the grocery store parking lot
The final thing you need to do to make this all work is tell someone about it. Don’t hope somebody will find a book that has “In case of death, my will is here” scrawled inside the cover, buried in your kitchen. Really. And if that is your plan, don’t move the will later, without updating the book.
Your homework over the weekend is to gather up your important papers and put them in a box. Then tell someone about the box.
*I wish I was making this up.
Failed Side Hustle: Scrapping
Last week, the washing machine in our rental house died. It was older than I am, so this wasn’t really a surprise. It was one of just two appliances we didn’t replace before we moved the renters in.
My wife–bargain shopper that she is–found a replacement on Craigslist. We got it in, then left the dead washing machine next to the replacement, as a warning to any other appliance that thinks it can shirk its assigned work.
This morning, we went over to pull the corpse of our washing machine out of the basement.
Now, I am an out-of-shape desk jockey, my wife is considerably weaker than I am, and a 40 year old washing machine weighs more than 200 pounds.
In the basement.
I’m Superman. Although at one point, I did trade 10 years of the useful life of my right knee in exchange for not letting that thing tumble down the stairs on top of me.
What do you do with a dead washing machine?We could have the garbage company pick it up for $25. Or we could leave it on the curb and wait for some stinking scrapper to take it.
Or…we could join the dark side and scrap it ourselves.
For the uninitiated, scrappers are the people who drive around looking for fence-posts to steal out of other people’s yards, or cut the catalytic converters out of cars parked at park-and-ride bus stops, or steal all of the copper pipes out of your house while your on vacation. Sometimes, they get scrap metal from legitimate sources, I’ve heard.
We decided to go the legitimate route and take the washing machine to the scrap metal dealer in the next town over.
It was pretty easy. We pulled in with the washer in the trailer. A guy on a forklift pulled up and took it, then handed us a receipt to bring to the cashier. She paid us in cash, and we were on our way.
$7.50 richer.
200 pounds of steel, and we made less than $10.
There are people who pay their bills by recycling scrap metal, but I have no idea how. Driving around looking for things to scrap would seem to burn more gas than you’d make turning it in.
Some people scour Craigslist looking for metal things in the free section.
Some people have an arrangement with mechanics to remove their garbage car parts.
Some people are only looking to supplement their government handout checks enough to pay for cigarettes.
Us? We’re going to leave scrapping to the scavengers.
Not the Center of the Universe
On Sunday, I dropped Punk #3 off at a birthday party. She walked into the yard, saw her friends and took off running. I confirmed times with the birthday girl’s mother and left. I went home and had Punk #2 help me with repairs to Coffin #1. It is Halloween season, after all.
When I came back two hours later, they had just finished eating cake and were about to open up presents, so I got to hang around for a while.
I noticed some amazing things:
- Fully 75% of this family’s living room was devoted to play space for the kid. As you walk in the front door, you get to see a giant pile of toys and kid-craft crap. Most of what is traditionally a gathering area was taken over by kid.
- Of the dozen or so children who came to the party, close to half of the parents stayed. Really, is your precious little snowflake so endangered by her friends that you can’t come up with something better to do that watch her play with her friends and ignore you for two hours while under the supervision of the resident parent?
- Clowns. Ok, it wasn’t technically a clown, but a guy named Mr. Fun who hands out whoopie cushions and entertains kids while wearing odd clothes counts as a clown, to me. I get it, you want your special little snowflake to have a memorable birthday, but if every party is big and over-the-top, which one will she remember? Maybe she’ll only remember a sense of entitlement.
I very firmly believe that children should not be raised to feel like they are the center of the universe. Not even to Mom & Dad. They need to know that we have lives and interests that aren’t them.
Mothers and fathers NEED to have lives and interests that are entirely separate from their children. If your entire focus for 20+years is on the lives of your little brats, what is going to happen to you when they move out? Are you prepared to abandon two decades of self-training and suddenly become your own person again?
Husbands and wives need to have time to themselves that excludes the children. When the monsters finally leave, you need to be able to have a relationship that doesn’t revolve around who spilled what where and who’s turn is it to clean it up.
Children are not–and should not be–the focal point of a household. Leave them at a birthday party. Let them find a way to entertain themselves for a few hours. Go on a date.
I promise you, letting your kids see their parents happily doing things together–even if it’s gleefully leaving them with a sitter–will do more for their long-term well-being than knowing you’re standing in the corner at a birthday party watching her fake a fart with a 25 cent toy.
Let her be independent. Let her know that other priorities do exist for other people. Let her fall down and scrape her knees. Let her figure out how things work for herself.
That is life, after all. Let her live it and don’t forget to live it for yourself.
