- I tried to avoid it. I really did, but I’m still getting a much bigger refund than anticipated. #
- Did 100 pushups this morning–in 1 set. New goal: Perfect form by the end of the month. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: Carnival of Personal Finance is live 🙂 DOLLAR DOODLE theme: http://tinyurl.com/ykldt7q (haha…) #
- Hosting my first carnival tomorrow. Up too late tonight. #
- Woot! My boy won his wreslting match! Proud daddy. #
- The Get Home Card is a prepaid emergency transportation card. http://su.pr/329U6L #
- Real hourly wage calculator. http://su.pr/1jV4W6 #
- Took my envelope budget out in cash, including a stack of $2s. That shouldn’t fluster the bank teller. #
Halloween Decorations Ain’t Cheap
This year, Americans are expected to drop $5.8 billion on Halloween, with most people spending $66.28 per person. About 1/3 of that is candy.
The rest? Costumes and decorations. $4,000,000,000 on costumes and decorations. That’s a lot of freakin’ money.
Over the years, I have certainly spent more than my fair share on building that number. We are the Halloween house in our neighborhood. A few years ago, we were even featured on the evening news. Filling a yard with decorations is expensive. When money’s tight, or you just want to save some money, how can you decorate on the cheap?
1. Plan ahead. The best time to buy Halloween decorations is in the two weeks after Halloween. After that, all of the seasonal stores are closed. If you want the best selection, get up early on November 1st and hit all of the stores. Prices drop to 50% or lower the morning after the big day, but won’t drop below that, even when the seasonal stores are closing for the year. The goods will either be warehoused or bought back by the suppliers, so there’s no motivation to sell at cost.
2. Buy used. You can find some screaming deals on Craigslist, but always check the prices. I’ve seen cardboard and wooden coffins both going for $50. One is a good deal, one is a ripoff. Do some research and you can save a ton of money on some really neat pieces. Last year, a local haunt decided to close shop after Halloween and posted a “going out of business” sale on Craigslist. There were some excellent gory corpses for sale there.
3. DIY. When department stores close, you can buy mannequins for little-to-nothing. Throw some clothes and mask on that, and you’ve got a quick monster. Grave stones can be made by gluing two sheets of insulation styrofoam together and using a Dremel to shape it and add the epitaph. Make sure you brush paint it. Spraypaint will eat the foam away. Finally, if you can run a drill, you can cobble together some truly intense props with the aid of some monster mud and discarded lumber. Monster mud is made by mixing 1 gallon of latex paint with 5 gallons of sheetrock compound. I get a gallon of paint from the “oops” bin at the hardware store, preferably in a dark color. Dip some clothes in that, then put them on a a human-shaped frame built out of 2×2 lumber, and you have something not too disimilar from actual Hollywood props.
Over the years, I’ve managed to shrink my Halloween budget, while increasing the quality of my props. It just takes some time and research.
30 Day Project Update
My first 30 Day Project for the month of February has been to work my way up to doing 100 pushups in a single set. At the end of January, I did a test to find my baseline, my starting point. I could do 20 pushups, but there was no way 21 would happen.
My plan, based purely on the math, was to start from there, doing 5 sets in the morning and 5 more at night, adding a set number to each set every day. That lasted a day.
The problem with starting a new exercise routine at my max level and progressing from there is the pain. Holy wow, that hurt on the second day. I was doing sets of 5, then. Ow.
The new plan has worked much better. It is an aggressive, self-correcting progression that automatically correct for over-extending myself.
I do 5 sets. Each set is based on the maximum set in my previous session. My first set is half of my max. The next 3 sets are 3/4 of my max, and the final set ends when my abs are cramping and I want to cry, establishing my max for the next session. If I over-extended myself in the previous session, this set either shrinks or stays the same. If the final set stagnates for a couple of days, I take a day off to rest. When I come back, the sets improve drastically.
How well has this worked? Last night, at the halfway point for the month, I ended with a set of 75 pushups and noticable muscle growth. Next month, I’m doing situps and I will be using the same plan.
Plan #2 is also coming along well. Details in 2 weeks.
Bonding Relationships
People can’t be happy in a vacuum. We are social creatures. Even the most anti-social among us needs some human contact. How can you make that contact happen in a meaningful way? How can you connect with other people beyond some superficial meaningless chatter?
According to Keith Ferrazzi in his book, Who’s got your back, there are four mindsets necessary to build lifelong relationships.
1. Generosity. This is your promise to help others succeed. If have a skill that can help someone you know, why not give them a hand? when you help others, you are building social capital, which is a currency that cannot be bought. Since our lives are not ledger books, you can’t do favors with repayment in mind, but it is reasonable to assume that the people ou help will want to help you some day.
An often overlooked generosity strategy is to give away 90% of everything. I’m not suggesting you give away 90% of your wealth or possessions. I’m suggesting you give away 90% of your personal product. Plan to give away 9 times more than your receive. This will not only keep your from being disappointed, but it will also leave you feeling very fulfilled.
2. Vulnerability. It is important to let down your guard and let the world see your humanity. It’s almost impossible to truly connect with someone who’s shields are always up: the guy who seems to be invulnerable and unapproachable. The people you spend time with know your flaw anyway. If you pretend they don’t exist, you are only fooling yourself. I have a lot of problem with this one. Letting down my guard is incredibly difficult, in almost every circumstance. It is far easier to be strong than to let myself be vulnerable.
3. Candor. Total honesty is vital to establishing–and maintaining– lifelong relationships. Even the white lies can destroy your connections. If you can lie about the little things, you are planting doubts on everything else you do and say. Who can trust you then? Lying is inappropriate in almost all conceivable cases. I was raised that a man’s word is his bond. Almost everything you have can be taken away from you, but not your honor. That can only be destroyed by you. Without it, what do you really have?
4. Accountability. You need to follow through on your promises. Be Mr. Reliable(or Mrs!). If you say you will do something, do it! Nothing builds resentment faster than disappointing the people who are counting on you. If you can’t meet a commitment, let the soon-to-be-let-down know as early as possible, so other plans can be made. If you have a hard time keeping promises, then make fewer of them.
If you embrace these principles, you will be well on your way to building–and keeping–strong, satisfying relationships that benefit everyone.
How do you build your relationships?
Actions Have Consequences
- Image by reidmix via Flickr
Six months ago, my laptop quit charging. This particular model has a history of having the power jack come loose inside the laptop, so I ordered the part and waited. When it came, I disassembled the computer, carefully tracking where each screw went. I installed the part, the put it back together, with only a few extra pieces.
It didn’t work.
After spending the money and doing the work, I tested the external power cord. I could have saved myself a few hours of work if I would have done that first. It was trash, so I ordered a new one. That’s time and money down the drain due to my poor research.
As an adult, I know that I am responsible for my actions, even if the consequences aren’t readily apparent. If I tap another car in a parking lot, I am going to have to pay for the damages, even if I didn’t see the car. This has manifested itself in credit card statements I didn’t read, speed limits signs I didn’t notice(or ignored!), and–on occasion–my wife and I not communicating about how much money we’ve spent.
Kids have a much harder time grasping that concept.
My son enjoys playing games online. Some of the games are multiplayer games he plays online with his friends, others are flash games he plays at home while his friends watch. They like to take the laptop into the dining room where they can play without being in the way. A small herd of 10 and 11 year old kids hopping around expensive electronics can’t be a good idea.
Yesterday, we saw that the power cord was fraying at the computer end from being dragged all over the house and jerked by kids tripping on the cord. We got six months of life out of the cord because of kids who should have known better not acting appropriately around the cord and the computer. Not happy.
My son got grounded for a week and honored with the privilege of replacing the cord. Now he isn’t happy, but he understands that he needs to pay for the damage he causes, even if he didn’t know that what he was doing could cause the damage. If it was something he would have had no way of knowing, there would have been no punishment, but he should have known not to jerk on the cord of leave it where it can be tripped over.
What do you think?
Build a Bunker: How to make a vault without breaking the bank
In your home, you should be safe. When the crappy things happen and somebody decides they want what you have, how easy will it be for them to get it? Is your home a convenience store, or is it more trouble than it’s worth?
Some people will avoid making themselves safer because they think that will make them a “paranoid nut”. In reality, they are just making themselves easy victims. The sad fact is that evil exists and it does not care how you feel about it.
Other people think that it will be too expensive to fix up their home. While you can spend as much as you want on a security system, it’s possible to get started for little-to-no money and still be more effective than 95% of everyone else.
There are a few simple things you can do to make your house less attractive to thieves, and to protect what you have if they do decide to make your home a target.
- Lock your doors. This costs nothing, but gives you a first line of defense that can’t be beat. If someone is going to break into your house, make them work for it and force them to be noisy about getting in. Keep the door locked, even if you are awake and alert. It’s a simple thing that can make a huge difference. Most exterior doorknobs have a setting to stay locked at all times, so there’s nothing for you to remember.
- Reinforce your door. If you’ve ever installed a doorknob, you’ve seen the little screws they give you to attach the strike-plate. Those screws aren’t long enough to make it through the decorative trim. One swift kick and those screws will pop right out and let your door swing open. The $2 fix? Replace those cute little baby screws with 3 inch screws that can reach the studs in your wall. Do that where the hinges attach, too. Tada! You’ve made your house a bit more of a pain in the butt for a thief. Don’t forget to treat the door to an attached garage the same way.
- Install a motion-activated security light. When a thief is thinking about getting into your house, they don’t want the lights on, so install a light for them. If possibly, put it too high for someone to reach.
- Lock your screen door. If someone comes to your door, and you open your door, you are removing any protection a door would normally offer. If you have a screen door, and it’s locked, you are gaining precious seconds to shut and lock your main door if the person on the other side doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
- Lock your car in your driveway. If you have an attached garage, keep a garage door opener in your car, and don’t lock your car, you are giving every crook who passes by a free pass into your home. Lock your car and at least make life difficult for the little thug.
- Consider getting an alarm system. You can get an unmonitored wireless alarm system for about $100. It won’t call the cops, but it will let you know if someone comes into your house and it’s a snap to install.
- Put your cell-phone charger in your bedroom. If you need to call 911, you don’t want to have to run to the kitchen to get your phone. Keep it where you will be if and when you’ll need it.
There, seven tips that will cost you less than $150 to implement, but will go a long way towards keeping yourself safe.
