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The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

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Saturday Roundup

Misc

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Last weekend, we had 2 birthday parties.  In two weeks we are having our biggest party of the year.   I’m going to try to get our yard done this weekend, while my wife and a couple of her friends decorate inside the house.  October is still nuts at Casa del Myhouse.

Today, I found out that I accidentally made a huge extra payment to my car.   $650 too much.   I thought I had deleted the auto-payment series from the bank’s site, but I only deleted September’s payment.   Hopefully, I can find enough slack in the bills to make up the difference, instead of hitting the emergency fund.

Don’t miss a thing! Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email.

The best posts of the week:

J. Money’s doing a series on side hustles.  The latest one is about chicken farming.  If I lived in a more reasonable city, I’d have some chickens of my own.

Self-improvement is always good for you, kind of by definition.  Here are a few ways to pick up some interesting certifications.

Lifehacker posted on Squaretrade.  I can tell you that, without a doubt, I’ll never again get an extended warranty in-store.

Negotiating Superstar

Finance, Parenting, Recipe

Recently my son asked me for some money.

This isn’t rare.

He asks me for money on a regular basis.  He’s kind of greedy some days.

This time, however, he asked what he can do to earn some money.  Now, since I live in Minnesota and have the dog and we had the sixth snowiest winter ever this year, all my dogs little shoe-bombs have been buried for the last six months. It started snowing in early November and  as of this writing, on March 25, I still see two inches of  snow covering every thing. Last week, we had a thaw and got to see the grass.  We also got to see the dog’s business all over the yard.

I told him that I would give him $10 to clean up the yard.  He asked if a friend could help.  I said yes.  Then he asked if they would have to split the money or if I would be paying them $10 each.  I said that I’d be getting the same amount of work done, so they should split the $10.

He didn’t like the plan, so he negotiated his way up to getting seven dollars each.  Originally,  I was planning to pay $20, but got talked down by a friend.  I’d still be willing to pay $20.  What I’m trying to do is encourage him to start negotiating.  I am a lousy negotiator.  I want my kids to have better financial skills than I do.  I want them to grow up knowing how to negotiate and being comfortable negotiating.  That will make him a better financial adult.

So I encourage him. Sometimes I offer a lowball number and if he gets so upset walks away I ask him why he didn’t give a counter-offer.  If he just accepts a number that’s way too low,  or if his grandma offers him a shiny nickel to mow her yard, I tell him no. I tell him to reject it and offer something that he feels is more in line with what he would actually be doing.

Now, if I’m going to keep up these lessons I need to work on my negotiating skills too, so this is also a self-improvement game.

How do you teach a kid to negotiate? What resources are out there to teach yourself?

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Sunday Roundup

Misc

Bugatti Veyron
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I just realized that I screwed up on Friday’s post and accidentally scheduled it for July 31 instead of July 1.   Sorry about that.

I am pretty excited about tomorrow’s post.   I’m going to…well, that should wait for tomorrow.   It’ll be fun, though.

Best Posts

It’s a basic economic principle:  If you want to sell less of something, charge more for it.   That works for labor costs, too.  Raising the minimum wage, especially when there is a recession, will only cause less employment.

This is a neat business idea.   Sometimes, a small business wants a mailing address that isn’t the owner’s home address.

Foreign CDs seem tempting.  You can make a decent return in India.   Just make sure it’s a legit bank, instead of the “Cayman Island” banks that exist just to collect wire transfers from the US.

In a high-tax, high-regulation environment, the underground economy will thrive, every time.   Working for cash and no paperwork can be tempting.

Here’s a sample email to help you buy a car.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Shattering Taboos was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.   I’ve been slacking off on carnival submissions lately.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Sunday Roundup: U2 Edition

Misc

Friday night, a friend came to pick me up so I could help him move heavy stuff.

U2 Stage
U2 Stage

He lied.

As soon as we pulled away from my house, he told me we were going to check out the stage they were building for Saturday’s U2 concert.  Now, I’ve never been a fan, but he is, so what the heck, right?

We got to TCF Stadium and geez, that stage is big.  It looks like an invading alien in the middle of the field.   As we were walking up to the gate, we saw two security guards catching a smoke by a rear entrance.    The next thing I know, my buddy’s slipping them some cash and we’re sneaking in the side door to get a closer look.

Our illicit visit lasted about 5 minutes.   The second we made it the the stands, the cleaning crew called security.  Thankfully, we got kicked out by the guys who let us in to start with.

It made a memorable evening.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

Making Extra Money: Niche Selection was included in the Best of Money Carnival and the Carnival of Wealth.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Don’t Be A Dick

Life

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Integrity is what you do when nobody is looking.

Do you cheat at solitaire, steal from an untended garage sale, or keep something a store forgets to charge you for?   If so, integrity may not be your strongest trait.

Similarly, if you let the actions of others dictate your behavior, you may be integrity impaired.

If you get cut off in traffic, do suddenly feel justified in cutting off the next guy?

If you have a dollar stolen from your desk, does that make it okay to take a candy bar from the honor-system candy box?

If the last guy left the water cooler empty, are you going to refuse to refill it the next time you are the one to drink the last drop?

If you’re answering yes to these questions, it may be time to examine your moral code.   Doing the right thing means doing the right thing all of the time.    You can’t be an honorable person if you resort to dishonorable behavior whenever you dislike what someone else does, especially if your actions are hurting an entirely uninvolved 3rd party.

You know the proper behavior.  You know what the ethical choice is.  The fact that someone else made an unethical choice doesn’t give you a license to be a dick.

If it’s your turn to clean the community refrigerator, do it and do it well, even if the last guy did a poor job.

If the last mom driving the car pool showed up late, don’t deliberately forget her kid.

If someone forgot to pay at a group lunch and you covered it, that doesn’t mean you can skip out on the bill next time.

Even if everything else is taken from you, no one can ever steal your ethics, your integrity, or your honor.   Those things are up to you to destroy, and they nearly impossible to replace.

In all cases, in all things, do the right thing.   You won’t be sorry.

Resurrected from the archives.

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Financial Blogger Conference

Finance, Misc

Three days, 800 miles, and 18 sessions later, I am back from the Financial Blogger Conference.

Here’s the breakdown of my spending:

The conference itself: $67

Breakfast on Friday: $8

Lunch on Friday: $19

Lunch on Sunday: $10

Gas: About $160

Hotel: $182

Tips to the bartender: About $10

That brings the total to $456.    The hotel cost is really an opportunity cost, because my rewards card will be reimbursing from my accrued miles.  Actual out-of-pocket cost: $274.

What did that money get me?

First, I got to meet a lot of the bloggers I read every day, including a lot of my fellow Yakezie members.   That’s invaluable.   

I got to spend three days meeting other bloggers, and learning how they operate.  I got to hear how they manage Twitter, how often they post, what they do, and how they do it.  Phenomenally valuable.

I got to spend 2 days learning better ways to do this whole blogging thing, by listening to some of the biggest names in the personal finance blogging world.   That’s a value that you’ll have to judge for yourselves over the next few months as Live Real, Now evolves.

From a purely financial perspective, was this a good spend?  Probably not.  I spent $274 to get intangibles that won’t pay my bills or put food on the table.  There is certainly an argument to be made that this was a waste of money.   However, I strongly believe that those intangibles will prove far more valuable than any other way I could have spent that money.   Using simple math, I may have wasted that money.   Looking at the long-term value, it was definitely worth the time and money.

I will be going back next year.

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