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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.

Crying is for Winners

Finance

Have you ever seen a kid come off a wrestling mat, crying his eyes out because he lost?

Wrestling Sideways - Really (Photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton)

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.

Charity

Finance, Life

Charitable giving is down. Predictions have been that donations would be up this year, but the reality appears to be otherwise.

I have an admittedly low sample size; I don’t talk to many charities and the 2012 donation amounts aren’t out, yet. The one I do have access to says that donations this year are among the lowest in memory.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a bit busy cleaning out a hoader’s house. Last weekend, we tackled one of the stashes of toiletries. We came out with several cases of soap, shampoo, blankets, towels, and sleeping pads.

For the right charity, an unopened case of bar soap is better than gold.

When our new-found treasures were delivered to Mary’s Place, I’m told the nuns wept. Mary’s Place is a transitional housing complex attached to a homeless shelter. They were totally and completely out of hygiene products for the residents.

Something that means nothing to me meant the world to someone else. I was just looking for a useful place to dump the stuff we can’t use or don’t want to store, and I made a nun cry.*

People need so much, and so much of what they need is trivial to my family. A blanket? A bar of soap? That’s nothing…to me.

As we go through the rest of the stuff, our focus will be different. Instead of, “Can we sell this at a garage sale, or should we donate it?”, it’s going to be “Can someone get more value out of this than we’ll get by selling it?” We can sell a comforter for $5, or give it to someone who needs to stay warm in the winter.

I’ll forgo $5 for that warm fuzzy feeling.

*Check one off the bucket list.

Mortgage Race

Finance

I spent last week at the Financial Blogger Conference. Saturday night was the big debauch, a 90s themed hip-hop dance party.

Yeah.

Instead, Crystal, Suba, and I hosted a super-secret pizza party to let some of the less “dance party” inclined attendees discuss things like the sanitary concerns of group body shots, sex toys, and horror movies.

During the course of the party, Crystal and I decided to race to pay off our mortgages.

Her balance is just under $25,000.

My balance is $26,266.40.

We both technically have the cash to pay off the balances right now, but we are both dealing with secondary housing issues. She’s building a new one, and I’m updating an inherited house. Neither of us is willing to use our cash reserves to pay off the balance right this moment.

Now that my credit card is paid off, I’ve moved that money to an extra interest-only payment on my mortgage, effectively doubling my mortgage payment, which puts my projected payoff date as about the end of next year. Crystal’s aiming for June, so I’ll have to hurry.

We do have tenants lined up for February, and all of the non-expense related rent will go to the mortgage.

I think I can win.

Update:

I forgot to mention the terms of the bet. The loser has to go visit the winner. When I win, Crystal’s going to fly to Minnesota to experience snow.

Giving It All Away

Business, Life

Monday, I start a new job, but I wasn’t actively looking for a new job.

In fact, over the last month, while I wasn’t actively looking for a new job, I’ve had 5 job offers. Solid job offers. Some of them came after I announced I was leaving.

How does that happen?

First, I’m good at what I do. At my last job, the company that developed the software system I managed would refer other customers to me if they wanted to do something the software wasn’t designed to do. I had a reputation for doing the impossible.

Second, I give it away. When somebody asks me for help, I do. When I can, I try to share as much of my knowledge as possible. I don’t hoard what I know, scared that somebody will steal it. That has led to a number of people who make it a habit to call me before pitching an idea or moving forward on a new strategy. “Jason, is this possible? What would it take?” If I can, I answer those questions, even if I’m not going to be doing the work.

Third, I’m not afraid of my limits. If I don’t know the answer, I say so. If I don’t know how to find the answer, I say that, too. Admitting you don’t know something automatically makes everything else you say sound more credible.

In the case of the job I’ve accepted, I was available for my new supervisor for more than a year before he started with the company. I helped him plan the websites and social media strategies around his book. When he accepted his job, our next conversation progressed from “Let me ask you something” to “I’d like to hire you” over the course of a lunch because of the long foundation we had together. At every step of the interview process, I continued to share. As we discussed the website, the social media, the marketing plans, I gave my feedback as thoroughly as possible, before I had a job offer.

Giving away my knowledge and experience with no expectations has consistently helped me to improve myself and my situation. It helps that I enjoy being helpful. I kind of dig being treated like an expert, too.

How about you? Do you share selflessly, or do you keep what you know to yourself?

Sammy’s Story, Part 4

Business, Finance, Life

If you haven’t been following along with Sammy’s story, please take a few minutes to do so here, here, and here.

Photo of underside of electric lawn mover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We left off in September, with the yard done and the house almost ready to rent. Sammy and his guys worked their butts off getting the work done. It cost more than we had expected, but it got done.

Over the winter, we hired the crew to handle the snow at both of our properties. We paid Sammy a flat fee and he made sure the driveways and sidewalks were clear every time it snowed. We started paying him in November, and ran through until March, so he got a pretty good deal and we didn’t have to worry about the snow.

When spring came, Sammy told me he needed to take a break from his business. Putting a yard care business on hold when spring hits is a bad idea, but it happened. He was dealing with some problems with his housing and couldn’t focus on anything else, even though the money would have helped him a lot.

When he lost his apartment, we let him store some of his things in the extra garage stall at the rental. This stall was reserved in the lease for us to use, and was the base of operations for the yard care business, since he was using our lawn mower and snow blower anyway.

And that was the last we saw of him for a month.

When we started nagging him to take care of his stuff, he kept telling us that he wanted to keep his business going, but he couldn’t, yet.

Then he’d leave his stuff for another month.

By the end of the summer, he’d gotten most of his stuff out and we’d only hear from him if he thought he could borrow money from us, which didn’t happen.

Finally, my wife called him and told him to get his crap out by the end of September.

Or else.

A week into October, we found out that he’d spent September in jail. Supposedly, he broke up with his(literal) crackhead girlfriend and she called the police and made up stories. He got arrested and couldn’t make bail.

Last week, he came to borrow our trailer to get the last of his stuff out, then returned it in the evening without moving any of his stuff. He said he was moving the stuff he had stored elsewhere and he’d be back on Monday.

Monday? Nothing.

Our relationship with Sammy has gone from helping him launch a business that helps fatherless teens, recovering crackheads, and the homeless to lies and getting begged for money.

My wife is ready to put his stuff on the curb.

What would you do? Toss his stuff? Give him another chance?