LRN got hacked this morning. Thankfully, I backup weekly and subscribe to my own RSS feed. 20 minutes to total restoration.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-26
- RT @ScottATaylor: The Guys on "Pickers" should just follow the "Hoarders" teams around- perfect mashup #
- PI/PNK test: http://su.pr/2umNRQ #
- RT @punchdebt: When I get married this will be my marital slogan "Unity through Nudity" #
- http://su.pr/79idLn #
- RT @jeffrosecfp: Wow! RT @DanielLiterary:Stats show 80% of Americns want to write a book yet only 57% have read at least 1 bk in the last yr #
- @jeffrosecfp That's because everyone thinks their lives are unique and interesting. in reply to jeffrosecfp #
- @CarrieCheap Congrats! #CPA in reply to CarrieCheap #
- @prosperousfool I subscribe to my own feed in google reader. Auto backup for in between routine backups. Saved me when I got hacked. in reply to prosperousfool #
- @SuzeOrmanShow No more benefits? I bet the real unemployment rate goes down shortly thereafter. in reply to SuzeOrmanShow #
- Losing power really make me appreciate living in the future. #
It’s My Fault So Stop Me Now
One of my biggest problems with maintaining a goal is follow-through. Three weeks or six months into pursuing a goal, it becomes incredibly easy to rationalize setbacks. If my back hurts, it’s easy to skip some sit-ups. If a custom knife maker offers me a good deal, it’s easy to drop a significant part of my discretionary budget on a really nice knife. The rationalizations come pouring in when I see a good deal on Amazon. “I need to read that book” or “I’ve been waiting for the move forever.” The excuses don’t matter. As long as they are coming in, I will eventually cave to my inner impulse demon. How do I avoid that?
I try to make myself accountable to as many people as possible. At the beginning of the year, I posted my 30 Day Projects here, for the world to see. I post updates on a regular basis. Admitting my failure with the sit-ups was surprisingly difficult. I made myself accountable and fell short. That’s hard. Thankfully, none of you came around with a sjambok to make me regret my slip-up. When I was doing push-ups, my wife was more than willing to let me know when I slipped into bad form to try to squeeze out a few more before I collapsed. I count on that.
I count on my wife to help me stay on the right path. Eliminating our debt is easily the longest goal either of us have ever set for ourselves. Mutual support and mutual accountability are our main methods to maintain that goal. It is, after all, a marathon, not a sprint. When I want to buy more cookware, she reminds me that we already have something to serve the purpose. When she wants to buy the kids new jammies, I remind her that they have more than can fit in their dressers already. Neither of us are afraid to tell the other to return bad purchases to the store if it’s not in our budget. When we go shopping, we go through everything in the cart before we get to the checkout, to decide if we really need everything we picked up. We support each other.
If I couldn’t make myself accountable to my wife, my family, my friends, and–last, but certainly not least–the three people reading this, I would fold in the face of my marshaled rationalizations and leave my goals in the oft-regretted gutter. Thanks for that.
How do you keep yourself on track?
Update: This post has been included in the Money Hackers Carnival.
Girls Don’t Fart
A few years ago, I was playing a game a friend was developing. As part of the setup he asked me to tell him something I believed as a child but now knew not to be true. My answer? Girls don’t fart.
When I was at summer camp one year, a camp counselor gave me that glorious and confusing bit of knowledge. He sounded serious and I was young, with no sisters. Naturally, this entered my personal Canon of Life’s Facts. Over the next few years, I’d get into arguments with my friends that went something like “I don’t care if you have 10 sisters! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Yes, I could be a little jerk. I don’t think that misconception was actually cleared up until high school. It’s not that I actively believed it, but I had no reason to think about it. That was just the way it was. Girls certainly didn’t fart around me.
I’m married with three kids, two of which are beautiful(and gassy!) little girls. A belief doesn’t get more shattered than this one.
Now, some 25 years later, I find myself occasionally running into other beliefs that I’ve seemingly always had, but have no reason to keep. These are–or were–part of my personal Canon. Once accepted, even if they were only accepted implicitly, they have been unexamined and unquestioned. It’s just the way it is.
For many years, I thought debt was normal. Everybody had payments. Everybody used credit cards. Everybody lived beyond their means. Right? No. The reality is that it’s not everybody, and the people who are living beyond their means are living a broken system. Normal is spending actual money for things you can actually afford. Normal is not paying for the use of someone else’s money. Everything else is dysfunctional.
Another Canonical Misconception was that money could take care of itself. I didn’t know anybody with a budget. The closest anybody came was the “balance available” line on an ATM receipt. Couple this with an unquestioning acceptance of debt, and it’s no wonder how I ended buried under my credit cards. Having a budget is important. Knowing where your money has gone and where it is supposed to go is important. Without this, you’ll never be in control of your finances.
I’ve often thought that you get what you pay for. Assuming that more money somehow causes something to be of better quality or utility is dangerously expensive. There is a level that means something is so cheap it can’t possibly be worthwhile, but there is a huge spectrum of quality above the garbage price point. There is also a line above which no manufacturing can improve the cost and you are paying strictly for the brand or the ego boost. In today’s world, with stores and manufactures all around the world just a click away, it’s easier than ever to find a good deal for a good price.
These are just a few of the ideas I’ve held without question until they were shattered suddenly. Now, I try to examine my beliefs and make sure they still make sense in the face of my current knowledge and experience.
What Canonical Misconceptions have you overcome?
This post is a blast from the past. It ran a couple of years ago and I think it’s worth reviving.
Saving Money: The Warranty Fund
Last weekend, my DVD player died.
No big deal, right? We watch a lot of movies. We get a lot of enjoyment out of watching a lot of movies. Movies are fun for us. We’ve got a projector and a movie screen in our living room. Movies are our biggest pastime. Naturally, losing the movie machine hurts.
The thing that hurts the most is that this hasn’t been a good month for us, financially. My wife gets paid hourly, with semi-monthly paychecks. This means that, in a short month(like February!), her second paycheck is small by a few hundred dollars. When her company switched to that nonsensical plan, I watched for a few months, then set our budget to match the smallest paycheck she received. They haven’t been using this ridiculous plan for a full year, yet.
February caught me by surprise.
I know, it shouldn’t have. According to my research, there has been a February in every single year since well before I was born. I should have been expecting it. Oops.
So, to recap: our favorite pastime was dead and money was a little bit tight. There was no money to shake out of the budget to cover a new DVD player and there was no way we’d hit our emergency fund for something as frivolous—if enjoyable—as movies.
What to do?
About a year ago, I decided to start a warranty fund. There are things we can’t easily afford to replace, so we pay for warranties on some of them. For example, our cell phones have a repair plan, and that plan has saved us more than it has cost us. We have a repair plan for some of our appliances, and that, too, has saved more than it has cost us. My goal was to self-warranty my stuff. I wanted an account that had money that served no purpoase but to help me avoid paying for warranties.
I set up another ING Direct savings account and scheduled an automatic deposit. It’s only set to deposit $25 per month, but over a year, it was enough to replace our home theater system, with some left over. It is, quite simply, money to use when our stuff breaks.
With no warning, and no time to prepare, we still had enough money socked aside to handle one of life’s little surprises, without wrecking our plans.
How do you prepare to replace the things that are going to break?
Karate Guess So
“Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, [makes squish gesture] get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do “yes”, or karate do “no”. You karate do “guess so”, [makes squish gesture] just like grape. Understand?” -Mr. Miyagi
It occurred to me that lately, I’ve changed my day-to-day cash flow plans a couple of times.
A year ago, I was running on a fairly strict cash-only plan.
A month ago, I was running on a strict budget, but doing it entirely out of my checking account.
Now, I’m loosening the budget reins, and moving all of my payments and day-to-day spending to a credit card, including a new balance that I can’t immediately pay off.
The thing is, changing plans too often scares me. Like the quote at the beginning of this post, I start worrying about being squished like a grape.
The simple fact is that any plan will work.
If you want to get out of debt, just pick a plan and run with it. If that means you follow Dave Ramsey and do the low-balance-first debt snowball, good for you. Do it. If you follow Suze Ormann and do a high-interest first repayment plan, great. Do it. If you follow Bach and pay based on a complicated DOLP formula to repay in the quickest manner, wonderful! Do it!
Just don’t switch plans every month. If you do that, you’ll lose momentum and motivation. Squish like grape! Just pick a plan and go. It really, truly does not matter which plan you are following as long as you are following through.
This applies to other parts of your life, too. For example, there are a thousand fad diets out there. Here’s a secret: they all work. Every single one of them, whether it’s Weight Watchers, slow carb, or the beer-only diet. The only thing that matters is that you stick to the diet. If you manage that, you will lose weight on any diet out there. Except for the jelly bean and lard diet. That one will make you extra soft.
Another secret: the productivity gurus are right. Every single one of them. David Allen, Stephen Covey, Steve Pavlina, and the rest. They all have the One True Secret to getting the most out of your day. Really. Pick a guru and go! But don’t try to Get Things Done in the morning and do 7 Habits at night. Changing systems, changing plans, changing your mind will make you sabotage yourself.
The real secret to accomplishing great things, whether it’s paying off $100,000 of debt, dropping 40 pounds in 3 months, or tripling your productivity is to do it. Just get started and, once you’ve started, don’t stop. If you keep going and stay consistent, you’ll accomplish more than anyone who hops from system to system every few weeks.
