- RT @ramseyshow: RT @E_C_S_T_E_R_I_: "Stupid has a gravitational pull." -D Ramsey as heard n NPR. I know many who have not escaped its orbit. #
- @BudgetsAreSexy KISS is playing the MINUTE state fair in August. in reply to BudgetsAreSexy #
- 3 year old is "reading" to her sister: Goldilocks, complete with the voices I use. #
- RT @marcandangel: 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills http://bit.ly/b1tseW #
- Babies bounce! https://liverealnow.net/hKmc #
- While trying to pay for dinner recently, I was asked if other businesses accepted my $2 bills. #
- Lol RT @zappos: Art. on front page of USA Today is titled "Twitter Power". I diligently read the first 140 characters. http://bit.ly/9csCIG #
- Sweet! I am the number 1 hit on Ask.com for "I hate birthday parties" #
- RT @FinEngr: Money Hackers Carnival #117 Wedding & Marriage Edition http://bit.ly/cTO4FU #
- Nobody, but nobody walks sexy wearing flipflops. #
- @MonroeOnABudget Sandals are ok. Flipflops ruin a good sway. 🙂 in reply to MonroeOnABudget #
- RT @untemplater: RT @zappos: "Do one thing every day that scares you." -Eleanor Roosevelt #
Fighting Fair
This was a guest post on another site early last year.
Everyone, at times, has disagreements. How boring would life be if everyone agreed all of the time? How you handle those disagreements may mean disaster.
This is particularly true when you are arguing with your spouse. You spend most non-working moments with this one person, this wonderful, loving, infuriating person. Your emotions will naturally run high while discussing the things you care most about with the person you care most about. Arguments are not only natural, but inevitable.
How do you have an argument with someone you love without lasting resentment?
You have to argue fairly. There are a few principles to remember during an argument.
- When your partner is talking, your job is to listen with all of your energy. You are not interrupting. Your are not planning your rebuttal while waiting for your turn to talk. Your are listening, nothing else. If you don’t listen, you can’t understand. If you don’t understand, you can’t find a resolution.
- Remember that your partner cares. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t feel so strongly about the argument. This isn’t a war, just an argument. She still wants to spend the rest of her life with you. Keeping this in mind will change the entire tone of the argument into a positive interaction. You will still disagree, but you will be looking for a solution together, instead of finding a “win” at any cost.
- Search for the best intent. Remember #2? There is an incredibly good chance that, if there are two ways to interpret something your partner has said–a good way and a bad way–your partner probably meant the good way. Even if you are wrong, it is far better to err on the side of resolution than the side of antagonism.
- When your partner has finished speaking, it’s still not your turn to argue. Your job now is to repeat your understanding of the issue, without worrying about problem-solving. Before you can refute the argument–or even establish your disagreement–you have to know that you understand her position and she has to know that you do. Without understanding, there can be no path to resolution that doesn’t cause resentment. If you have too much resentment, you won’t have a marriage.
After all of this, it will finally be your turn to make your point. Hopefully, your partner will be following the same rules so you can solve your problems together, without learning to hate each other.
Arguments in your marriage aren’t–or shouldn’t be–intended to draw blood. Fights happen. If your goal is to win at any cost, you will both lose, possibly everything.
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.
A Problem With Life Insurance
It’s pretty common for someone to buy a life insurance policy and make a minor child or grandchild the beneficiary.
Bad idea.
The reasoning is usually something along the lines of making sure the money goes with the kid, no matter where he ends up, but that money is mostly worthless until the kids grows up. With the UGMA/UTMA (Universal Gift/Transfer to Minors Act) laws, depending on your state, it can be nearly impossible to access that money or use it for the support of the child.
- For example, in Minnesota, I would have to go through the following steps:
- Complete a Petition for Appointment of Guardian and Conservator with a $322 filing fee and request it be reviewed without a hearing.
- Notify any interested parties.
- Consent to and pay for a background study.
- Establish a custodial account at the bank and maintain separate accounting for the money.
That’s just to access the money. As a conservator, I’d be able to use the money for “support, maintenance, and education”, but that does not include investing in a 529 college fund. I could theoretically invest in ultra-conservative growth funds, but if the investments shrink, I could be on the hook for the difference. I’d be a “conservator”, charged with conserving the asset.
After all of that, when the kid turns 18 (or 21 depending on the setup), the money is his to do with as he pleases.
Have you ever met an 18 year old who made really good decisions about money? I had a friend who had a settlement trust pay her a lump sum at 18, 21, and 25. Each time, she bought a new car and partied with her friends for a month before the money was gone. That was nearly $100,000 down the drain.
It’s a much better idea to visit an attorney and set up a trust. Make the trust the beneficiary of your life insurance policies. Then, define who will be the trustee under what circumstances. That way, you can make sure your kids and grandkids can actually be supported by your money.
Debanking
I’m overbanked.
The National Bank, Oamaru, built 1871: a prostyle Palladian portico on a neoclassical facade (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I’ve mentioned that before.
I won’t give up my herd of CapitalOne 360 accounts. I use those to track my savings goals, all 17 of them. I can’t drop my business accounts, my kids’ savings accounts, or the personal accounts that I actually use to spend money.
I do, however, need to simplify a bit.
Last month, I went through the hassle of transferring my 401k from two jobs ago and my IRA from my last job. Now, I’m down to just two retirement accounts. One is for my current job, and the other is a self-managed IRA with Sharebuilder.
Two down.
A few months ago, I went to yet another bank to close an account. My last job offered crappy health insurance, but balanced it out with an HSA. It complicated things, but the actual costs came to almost the same as the previous plan that didn’t have a high deductible. When I left, my HSA just sat there.
Last year, my oldest got braces, so I cleaned out the HSA ahead of time so we could pay up front and save 5% without paying interest.
Another one down.
That’s three accounts down out of 34.
Thirty-four?
Crap. That’s retirement accounts, business accounts, and personal accounts for two adults and three kids.
Bank 1 has the checking account we use, plus two savings accounts, one of which is where we store the rent money until we take a payday.
Bank 2 has a checking account, 16 savings accounts, and stock-trading account, a CD, and two IRAs for my wife and I.
Bank 3 has a checking account, and savings account for each of two businesses I own, a spare set of personal accounts, a savings account for each of the kids, and a checking account for my teenager.
Bank 4 holds nothing but my current 401k.
The only thing I can simplify without sacrificing my organizational jungle is to combine the personal accounts from bank 1 and 3. The problem is that Bank 1 has all of my bill pay information and there is still an account open for my mother-in-law’s estate. We keep that open just in case we find any other checks we need to cash. Bank 3 has my business accounts tied to my personal account and is the bank that my business partner uses, so that’s convenient to move money around.
I may be stuck.
Phone Insurance
Thursday, at parent/teacher conferences, I sat on my phone and broke the screen.
Not just the glass, but the LCD.
Not a problem. I pay for Sprint’s repair plan.
Little did I know that Sprint–in their infinite #$!$%#$%–considers a phone unrepairable if there is more than one crack on the screen. That effectively means that any broken screen is a total loss.
It’s good to know my $4/month has been wasted.
Other than a phone I had stolen last year, I still own every phone I’ve ever owned. None have had water damage or anything catastrophic happen to them, so I didn’t get the replacement side of Sprint’s insurance plan.
To summarize:
- I broke my phone in a way that Sprint won’t fix, even though I pay for the fixit plan.
- My phone costs $600 when you aren’t signing a new contract.
- My phone has the most expensive LCD to replace at the moment.
The Total Equipment Protection program costs $11 per month. Given my history, that’s a waste of $11, though it would actually be a waste of $7, since I have been happy to pay $4 for the repair plan.
$7 per month since I got my first smartphone in about 2008, means I’ve saved $420 in insurance fees I haven’t used.
Today, I paid $298 to replace the LCD on my phone. That includes overnighting the part to the shop since it’s not stocked and I’m leaving town tomorrow.
An insurance claim from Sprint comes with a $150 deductible.
All told, I’m $270 to the good.
Would I get the insurance if I were signing papers today?
Probably not. A $7 monthly bill doesn’t hurt, while a $300 surprise does, but that’s why I have a repair fund.
Do you have insurance on your phone? Have you used it?