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Don’t Screw Future-You

Finance, Life

A conversation between me and my temporally displaced self.
Future Me: Excuse me, Jason?
Me: Yes?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: May I ask what that was for?
FMe: Of course.
Me: What was that for, jerk?
FMe: That was payback for all of the hell you have put me through.
Me: What?!?  I’ve never even met you, before.
FMe: Of course you have.  I am future-you, and I’m sick of getting screwed by past-me, that is, you.
Me: Huh?
FMe: Listen close.  You’re not  the sharpest brick in the box and I don’t want to explain this twice.
Me: ???
FMe: A long time ago, when you first met our wife, you were dumb.
Me: I don’t appreciate….
FMe: Shut up.  I was dumb then, too.  Remember?  You…err…we bought a new truck, built an addition on our…err…your…err…whomever’s house, got married in the same year.  On top of many other expensive decisions.  Do your recall?
Me: Yes, I do.  So what?
FMe: If that wasn’t enough, you and your smoking-hot bride are still shopping like you’re rich. You drive a new car.  Your kids wear new clothes.  You’ve got a house full of new furniture.  How did you pay for all of that?
Me: Naturally, I charged it.  Zero payments, zero interest for a year!  Pretty smart, huh?
FMe: What happens in a year?
Me: I don’t know.  I’ve got a full year to figure that out.
FMe: <Slap!>  I’ll tell you what happens!  Future-you, that’s me, gets screwed!   Your raise didn’t come through.  You had a baby. The truck broke down.  Your wife took maternity leave.  A roommate moved out.  You took a loss in the stock market.  You didn’t plan!  You had no savings to cover any of those problems because you were too busy servicing debt to pay for your current life.
Me: How was I to know?
FMe: <Slap!>  Life happens!  You never know what is coming next.  You need to plan and save for what might happen.  Otherwise, you’ll just accumulate more debt to be serviced by yours-truly.  That is not acceptable.
Me:  So?  What are you going to do about it?
FMe: <Slap!>
Me: Really?  Again?
FMe: <Slap!>  I’m struggling to pay your debt. Your son starts college next year, but you’ve left me completely unable to help.  Your daughter wants to get married in a couple of years, but the Father-of-the-Bride can’t afford a tux.  My wife, your beatiful bride, wants a vacation that I can’t afford.   You’ve screwed me, dude.
Me: I’m sorry.  What can I do to fix it?
FMe: Buy me dinner, first.
Me: Huh?!?!?
FMe: Stop the excess spending. Spend less than you make, for a change.  No credit.
Me: None?
FMe: None.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Only spend what you can afford. Budget.  Pay off those nasty bills.  Don’t leave me hanging.
Me: So, what you’re saying is that, if I don’t have the money, I shouldn’t buy it?
FMe: Exactly.  That’s the path to wealth, freedom, and financial independence.  Live in the real world.
Me: Gee, thanks, Future-Me!  Now I know.
FMe: And knowing is half the battle.

What would your future-you have to say to you?

 

Priorities

Business

I once saw a sign on the wall in a junkyard that said, “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

Another good one: “If everything is top priority, nothing is top priority.”

Once a week, I meet with my boss to discuss my progress for the previous week and my priorities for the coming week.   This is supposed to make sure that my productivity stays in line with the company’s goals.

Great.

Once a day, my boss comes into my office to change my top priority based on whichever account manager has most recently asked for a status update for their customer.

Not so great.

At least twice a week, he asks for a status update on my highest priority items.   Each time, he could mean the items we prioritized in the weekly meeting, or the items he chose to escalate later.   Somehow, getting a new task escalated doesn’t deescalate an existing task.

Everything is a top priority.

To compensate, I’ve been working a few 12 hour days each week, and occasionally coming in on the weekends.

I’m dedicated and still behind.

Prioritizing is treated as an art, or in the case I just mentioned, a juggling act.  It should be considered a science.  It’s usually pretty simple.

  • Is the problem costing you money? +1
  • Is the problem costing your customer money? +2
  • Is the problem going to hurt your reputation? +1
  • Is there a deadline? +1
  • Is it soon? +2
  • Is it urgent? +1
  • Is it important? +2
  • Are there absolutely no real consequences for anyone if it doesn’t get completed? -500

That’s it.    Too many times, we get hung up on urgent-but-not-important items and neglect the important things.

The hard part comes when it’s someone else setting your priorities, particularly when that person doesn’t rate things on urgency, importance, and cost but rather “Who has bitched the loudest recently?”

Can I tell my boss that I’m not going to do things the way he told me too?  No.  A former coworker very recently found out what happens when you do this.

Can I remind him that I’m busting my butt as hard as I can?  Yes, but it will just earn me a request to come in on the weekend, too.

Can I ignore the official priorities part of the time, and work on what I feel is most important to keeping our customers happy?  Yes, but it’s easy to go too far.  “Boss, I ignored what you said, but this customer is happy, now!” won’t score me any points if it happens every week.

Priorities are simple, but not always easy.  How do you balance your priorities?

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Horseback Riding Lessons

Finance, Parenting

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.Bought a Pony

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.

 

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10 Tips to Help Parents Stay Out of Debt

Finance, Parenting

Cobbler shaker (right), jigger, and a bar spoon.
Image via Wikipedia

People say that when you have a baby, your world gets flipped upside down.    That’s not true.  Your world gets dropped in a martini shaker and left to the whims of a sadistic bartender with a shaking fetish.  Everything changes.    That sounds like an exaggeration and nobody believes it until it happens, but it’s true.

When you find out you are about to reproduce, you will experience a phenomenon called “nesting”.   Nesting is the idea that, if you take your credit cards and beat them against the curb until they bleed and VISA calls you asking for mercy, you will be transformed into the best parent ever, regardless of what you may actually screw up.   It’s the way parents calm their fears by spending money, often on things that aren’t needed.

Q.  How do you avoid becoming a debt-ridden, worried mess of an over-protective, over-extended new parent?

A. What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros?

I can’t help with the rest, but here’s 10 ways you can avoid the debt problems.

  1. Have a budget.   I may have said this before.   It’s possible this counts as a recurring theme here.  If you don’t have a budget, you aren’t in control of your money.  If you aren’t in control, then how do you know where it has gone or where it is supposed to go?
  2. Budget for baby crap.    This will be a recurring expense for years, so get used to it.   A friend of mine is on the cusp of having everyone out of diapers for the first time since 1993.   Do you think they plan that expense?  Diapers.com has $10 off and free shipping on orders over $49.  Use code “ LiveReal” during checkout.
  3. Double the number you have in #2.  Seriously.  It will cost you more than you think, but it doesn’t have to cost you as much as you fear.  It’s far better to have too much budgeted and find yourself with extra money than it is to budget too little and be forced to make up the difference at the feet of Master Card.
  4. Only take the advice of people you know and trust. Every random jerkface on the street has (usually) well-intentioned advice for new and expecting parents.   Ignore them all.  If they aren’t your doctor, your mother(assuming she did her job right), or friends with children, they are clueless and their advice should be immediately round-filed.   Ditto for parenting magazines.   The writers don’t know better than you do.   Read the magazines for six months and watch for conflicting advice, not only in the same magazine, but often from the same writer!   Don’t add the stress of bad advice from strangers to what is already a stressful time.
  5. Don’t get every gadget designed to cushion the baby. A wipe warmer is a waste of money.   Do you want your baby to be scared of a little chill forever?  Cold wipes build character.    If that isn’t good enough, hold the wipe in your hand for a few seconds before using it.   There are a million other gadgets to keep your little one from ever feeling a moment of discomfort.   Don’t waste your cash.  It may only be 10 pounds, but it’s tougher than you think.
  6. Don’t get every gadget designed to cushion the parent. They make ergonomic bottles, braces to hold your arms in the right position to feed, fancy cloths to catch baby vomit.   Tough it up. Support your baby yourself.  Build some muscle and some character.   Use cloth diapers to catch various treasures your little brat will spit up on you.   Spending more doesn’t always make it better.  The ergonomic bottles that make it easier to feed a baby, make it harder for the baby to hold the bottle.   This is actually making your life more difficult.
  7. Focus on the necessities. Yes, the fancy formula with the pre-digested proteins has a nicer label.   It doesn’t make a difference.    The generic brand at the warehouse store usually has the exact same ingredients in the exact same ratios as the brand name at the baby store–for half the price.   There is nothing special about the blankets in the baby section–except the price.    The fancy bottle warmer doesn’t do anything that a cup of warm water on the counter won’t handle.   You need:  A crib, unless you are doing a family bed; a easy-to-clean mat to change diapers(on the floor works!); and a diaper bag(back-to-school backpacks are more ergonomic and easy to organize than anything in the baby store!).  Everything else is a luxury.
  8. Time counts more than stuff. No matter what else you hear, no matter how old your child gets, time with you counts more than anything else you could do or buy.   Be there for your kids and the rest is gravy.
  9. Brand-name and designer labels are not status symbols. The opinions of the other soccer mommies do not matter.   The opinions of the random jerkfaces on the street do not matter.   Designer labels do not make you a better parent and are not an indicator of a happy baby.
  10. Always remember:  Babies bounce and have short memories. While I don’t recommend bouncing your baby on the floor, they are surprisingly resilient.   They don’t hold grudges, either.   There is room to make mistakes without screwing up your kid.

For a hundred thousand years, people raised babies with nothing more than a scrap of hide to alternately chew on or wipe with.  You can probably get buy with just a bit more.   Relax and enjoy the process of raising your kids.   Money doesn’t matter nearly as much as your presence.

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2010 Budget Changes

Misc

We’re making some changes to how we manage our finances this year.   Our destination isn’t changing, but the trip is.

  • All of the cards are going away. Not necessarily destroyed, but certainly inconvenient.   There’s a $7000 overdraft protection account attached to our debit cards.  There’s no need for an “emergency” card.  If it’s truly an emergency, we are covered.   We are going to destroy some and ice the rest.
  • We’re going to go “cash only”. We’ve going to the envelope system.  There will be an envelope for grocery money, gas money, discretionary money, and baby crap.  If there isn’t enough money in an envelope, it will have to come out of another envelope.  If we don’t have enough money, we’ll have to do without, instead of spending imaginary money at 10% interest.   Gas will be the exception, so we don’t have to bundle the kids up to pay for gas.   No money, no spendy. We tried a “virtual envelope”, with every purchase tracked by category in a spreadsheet, but it didn’t work.  Real cash, real empty envelopes.  Discretionary money covers school activities, miscellaneous household item, and anything else that pops up.
  • We’re going to start the “30 day list”.  If we want something, we’ll put it on a list.  If we still want it 30 days later, it will be okay, provided there’s money for it.  This is part of what the discretionary budget is for.
  • My wife is getting $50/month “blow money”.  Absolutely unaccountable.  If she doesn’t have this vent, the whole system will fall apart.

This is all stuff my wife and I have talked about and agreed to, but now, it’s organized and laid out. We HAVE to do it or something similar.  We are both on board with this plan.   We should see our debt management plan skyrocket, without feeling like we are missing out on life.


Make Extra Money Part 2: Niche Selection

Business, Finance

If you want to make money, help someone get healthy, wealthy or laid.

This section was quick.

Seriously, those three topics have been making people rich since the invention of rich.   Knowing that isn’t enough. If you want to make some money in the health niche, are you going to help people lose weight, add muscle, relieve stress, or reduce the symptoms of some unpleasant medical condition?   Those are called “sub-niches”.  (Side question: Viagra is a sub-niche of which topic?)

Still not enough.

If you’re going to offer a product to help lose weight, does it revolve around diet, exercise, or both?   For medical conditions, is it a way to soothe eczema, instructions for a diabetic diet, a cure for boils, or help with acne?  Those are micro-niches.

That’s where you want to be.  The “make money” niche is far too broad for anyone to effectively compete.  The “make money online” sub-niche is still crazy.  When you get to the “make money buying and selling websites” micro-niche, you’re in a territory that leaves room for competition, without costing thousands of dollars to get involved.

Remember that:  The more narrowly you define your niche market, the easier it is to compete. You can take that too far.  The “lose weight by eating nothing but onions, alfalfa, and imitation caramel sauce” micro-niche is probably too narrowly defined to have a market worth pursuing.  You need a micro-niche with buyers, preferably a lot of them.

Now the hard part.

How do you find a niche with a lot of potential customers?  Big companies pay millions of dollars every year to do that kind of market research.

Naturally, I recommend you spend millions of dollars on market research.

No?

Here’s the part where I make this entire series worth every penny you’ve paid.  Times 10.

Steal the research.

My favorite source of niche market research to steal is http://www.dummies.com/.    Click the link and notice all of the wonderful niches at the top of the page.  Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc. spends millions of dollars to know what topics will be good sellers.  They’ve been doing this a long time. Trust their work.

Niche Research
Click for full-size image

You don’t have to concentrate on the topics I’ve helpfully highlighted, but they will make it easier for you.  Other niches can be profitable, too.

Golf is a great example.  Golfers spend money to play the game.  You don’t become a golfer without having some discretionary money to spend on it.   I’d recommend against consumer electronics.  There is a lot of competition for anything popular, and most of that is available for free.   If you choose to promote some high-end gear using your Amazon affiliate link, you’re still only looking at a 3% commission.

I like to stick to topics that people “need” an answer for, and can find that answer in ebook form, since I will be promoting a specific product.

With that in mind, pick a topic, then click one of the links to the actual titles for sale.   The “best selling titles” links are a gold mine. You can jump straight to the dummies store, if you’d like.

Of the topics above, here’s how I would narrow it down:

1.  Business and Careers. The bestsellers here are Quickbooks and home buying.  I’m not interested in either topic, so I’ll go into “More titles”.   Here, the “urgent” niches look like job hunting and dealing with horrible coworkers.  I’m also going to throw “writing copy” into the list because it’s something I have a hard time with.

Bestsellers
Bestsellers

2.  Health and Fitness. My first thought was to do a site on diabetic cooking, but the cooking niche is too competitive.  Childhood obesity, detox diets and back pain remedies strike me as worth pursuing.  I’m leaning towards back pain, because I have a bad back.  When you’ve thrown your back out, you’ve got nothing to do but lie on the couch and look for ways to make the pain stop.  That’s urgency.

3.  Personal Finance. The topics that look like good bets are foreclosures and bankruptcies.    These are topics that can cost thousands of dollars if you get them wrong.  I hate to promote a bankruptcy, but some people are out of choices.    Foreclosure defense seems like a good choice.   Losing your home comes with a sense of urgency, and helping people stay in their home makes me feel good.

4.  Relationships and Family. Of these topics, divorce is probably a good seller.  Dating advice definitely is.   I’m not going to detail either one of those niches here.  Divorce is depressing and sex, while fun, isn’t a topic I’m going to get into here.   I try to be family friendly, most of the time.    Weddings are great topic.  Brides are planning to spend money and there’s no shortage of resources to promote.

So, the niches I’ve chosen are:

  • Back pain
  • Bankruptcy
  • Conflict resolution at work
  • Detox diets
  • Fat kids
  • Foreclosure avoidance
  • Job hunting
  • Weddings
  • Writing copy

I won’t be building 9 niche sites in this series.    From here, I’m going to explore effective keywords/search terms and good products to support.  There’s no guarantee I’ll find a good product with an affiliate program for a niche I’ve chosen that has keywords that are both highly searched and low competition, so I’m giving myself alternatives.

For those of you following along at home, take some time to find 5-10 niches you’d be willing to promote.

The important things to consider are:

1. Does it make me feel dirty to promote it?

2. Will there be customers willing to spend money on it?

3.  Will those customers have an urgent need to solve a problem?

I’ve built sites that ignore #3, and they don’t perform nearly as well as those that consider it.  When I do niche sites, I promote a specific product.  It’s pure affiliate marketing, so customers willing to spend money are necessarily my target audience.