- Time to steal my son’s Wii. RT @fcn: Dang, watch Hulu on your Wii… http://bit.ly/9c0U8F #
- RT @FrugalDad: 29 Semi-Productive Things I Do Online When I’m Trying to Avoid Real Work: http://bit.ly/a4mcEI via @marcandangel #
- With marriage, if winning is your goal you will always lose. via @ChristianPF http://su.pr/2luvrz #
- RT @hughdeburgh: “There is no worse death than a life spent in fear of pursuing what you love.” ~ from http://FamiliesWithoutLimits.com #
- @chrisguillebeau The continental US can be done in 6 days on a motorcycle, but it’s not much of a visit. in reply to chrisguillebeau #
- Ugh. Google’s a twitter competitor now. #
- Took this morning off. Just did 45 pushups in 1 set/135 total. #30DatProject #
- RT @Moneymonk: To solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-4 cars be allowed to use the highways. W Rogers #
- RT @SimpleMarriage Valentine’s Week of Giveaways: A Private Affair http://ow.ly/1oolpT #
- Your baseless fears do not trump my inalienable rights. — Roberta X http://su.pr/2qBR3P #
- RT @WellHeeledBlog: Couple married for 86 years(!!) will give love advice via Twitter on Valentine’s day: http://tinyurl.com/ybuqqtu #bp Wow #
- 193 pushups today, including1 set of 60. Well on my way to a set of 100. #30DayProject #
- @prosperousfool Linksys makes wireless repeater to extend the range of a router. in reply to prosperousfool #
- RT @MyLifeROI: Is anyone else unimpressed with Google Buzz? #
100 Push-ups in 22 Days
One from the vault:
Last month, I set a goal to do one hundred push-ups in a single set by the end of the month. Before I started working on this, I hadn’t done a single pushup in at least 10 years. At the beginning, I didn’t know if it would be possible, or how much it would hurt. I knew it would be a challenge, and I was looking for a challenge.
Three days before the start of the month, I did one set of pushups. I wanted to find my baseline, so I could see the progress I was making, and I wanted a chance to recover, so I’d be starting from scratch on the first of the month. That day, I did 20 pushups. I pushed, but 21 wasn’t going to happen. That’s not an impressive number, but I ride a desk all day and had spent 10 years lazy. It could have been worse.
My initial plan was to do two sessions per day, morning and night. I’d be doing a total of 56 sessions. Each session would consist of 5 sets of my baseline, progressing to 100 push-ups in a set for the 56th session. That would mean I’d have to add 1.5 pushups to my sets each session. I decided to add 1 to each set in the morning and 2 in the evening sessions. My planned progression was 20, 22, 23, 25…95, 97, 98, 100 over the course of the month.
That lasted one day. February 1st, I did 100 push-ups in 5 sets of 20. That night I did 110 push-ups in 5 sets of 22. The next morning, I hurt so much I couldn’t do 10. I did something like 8/5/5/5/cry-like-a-baby. My abs were cramping and my shoulders burned. I ended the session in the fetal position, hoping all of the screaming muscles wouldn’t cramp up at the same time. If pain is weakness leaving the body, then I was making a significant contribution to the the problem of homeless weakness particles.
Plan A failed. As I waited for the pain to end, I had some time to think. In between “Please don’t cramp! Please don’t cramp! Please don’t cramp!”, I developed Plan B.
I decided to base everything on the previous session’s largest set. The largest set would set my baseline for the next session. The first set in the session would be half of the baseline. The next three sets would be 3/4 of the baseline, and the final set would be pushed until I couldn’t go any further, establishing the next session’s baseline. Starting from my newly established baseline of eight push-ups, my next session was 4/6/6/6/15. The session after that was 7/11/11/11/16, then 8/12/12/12/16.
Plan B became an aggressive, self-correcting progression. If I pushed too hard, the next session was done at a lower level, allowing me time to recover.
The first week hurt. Going from little-to-no real exercise to an aggressive exercise regimen is painful. I was stiff and sore, but I was progressing. One of the best things about Plan B: Set #1 is a good warm-up. Warming up is important.
By the end of week one, I was back to where I started, doing sets of 20. I wasn’t sure I’d make it. I had a few days in a row that didn’t improve my baseline at all. Then I skipped a day. When I came back, but baseline jumped by 10 push-ups. I had hit a small wall, gave myself a day to recover and had a 50% improvement. Guess what got incorporated into Plan B? If I had two days in a row without improvement over the four sessions, I skipped a day.
By the end of week two, my baseline was up to 60. I stopped increasing the warm-up set, so it would still be a warm-up and not create strain. I only went above 20 for the warm-up set once before I created this rule. At this point, my session was 20/45/45/45/60. That’s progress.
At the end of week three, my baseline was at 80. I took the weekend off.
On Monday, February 22nd, I decided to see where my absolute max was. I did a set of 20 to warm up. I followed up with a set of 30, to make sure I was ready. Set #3 was 100 push-ups, a full week early. I’m not going to lie and say push-up #100 was perfect, but it was done. I went from barely being able to do 20 push-ups to successfully doing 100 push-ups in 22 days. I spent the rest of the week perfecting my form. After 75-80 push-ups, it’s hard to tell exactly how straight your body is and how low you are going, without a spotter or a mirror.
Next, I’m applying Plan B to sit-ups.
Link Roundup
What has happened to this week? It’s already Friday afternoon, and I’m short a post today. Since I skipped the link roundup last week while I was off with family, I’ll do it early this week and cheat you out of a real post today.
Finance links:
I enjoy trying new foods and eating out. Christian PF provides tips on doing that frugally.
Trent talks about “Family Dinner Night”. Invite a bunch of friends over to help prep and eat a buffet-style meal. Good time for everyone on the cheap.
Free Money Finance shares his 14 Money Principles.
MoneyNing shares how to buy school supplies for less.
Miscellaneous links:
Netflix just volunteered to shaft its customers again. There’s a 28 day wait to get most new releases, now. If I didn’t have almost 500 movies in my queue, I’d be royally ticked.
Mother Earth News has plans for a smoker/grill/stove/oven. I’d love to build a brick oven with a grill and smoker. A complete, wood-fired cooking center would be perfect for my house.
Major kitchen cleaning on Lifehacker. We’re doing this tomorrow, as part of our April Declutter.
That’s the highlight of my trip around the internet this week.
Evil Interest
Everybody with a savings account or almost any form of debt has at least a passing familiarity with interest. How many of you actually know what it is, or even how much you are actually paying?
First, some definitions.
Principal is the term used for the amount of money you have borrowed.
Interest is the rent you pay to have that money. Interest is money-rent, expressed as a percentage of the principal. If you borrow $100 at 10%, you pay approximately $10 in interest. I say “approximately” because it’s just not that simple.
There are two kinds of interest: simple and compound.
Simple interest is called that because it is just that: simple. It’s easy to understand and it’s what most people mistakenly assume they are paying. With simple interest, the interest rate is only applied to the principal, never to the accumulated, or accrued, interest.
For example, if you have borrowed $100 at 10% annual interest, this is what your balance will look like:
- At the time of borrowing the money, you owe $100.
- After 1 year, you owe 10% of the $100, in addition to the original $100: $110.
- After 2 years, you owe 10% of the $100, in addition to the original $100 and year one’s interest: $120.
- After 10 years, you will owe a total of $200.
That’s simple.
On the other hand, in addition to five more fingers, you have compound interest. Compound interest complicates things considerably. With compound interest, interest is applied to the entire balance of what you owe; both the principal and the accrued interest are included in the calculation.
For example, with $100 at 10% compounded annually:
- Year 1: You will owe $100 + 10% of the original $100, or $110
- Year 2: You will owe $110 + 10% of the $110, or $121
- Year 3: You will owe $121 + 10% of the $110, or $133.10
- Year 4: You will owe $131.10 + 10% of the $110, or $144.41
- Year 5: You will owe $144.41 + 10% of the $110, or $158.85
- Year 6: You will owe $158.85+ 10% of the $110, or $174.74
- Year 7: You will owe $174.74 + 10% of the $110, or $192.21
- Year 8: You will owe $192.21 + 10% of the $110, or $211.43
- Year 9: You will owe $211.43 + 10% of the $110, or $232.57
- Year 10: You will owe $232.57 + 10% of the $110, or $255.83
That is a total of $155.83 in interest paid over 10 years, or $15.58 per year, for an effective interest rate of 15.583%.
To throw another twist into the mix, interest is rarely compounded annually. Monthly, or even daily, is much more common. With monthly compounded interest, the annual rate, or APR, is divided by 12 and recalculated every month.
For example, using the same $100 at 10% APR, compounded monthly:
Since the interest rate is compounded monthly, we will be using the monthly periodic rate, which is 10% / 12, or .83%
- Month 1: $100 + .83% of $100 = $100.83
- Month 2: $100.83 + .83% = $101.67
- Month 3: $101.67 + .83% = $102.51
- Month 4: $102.51 + .83% = $103.36
- Month 5: $103.36 + .83% = $104.22
- Month 6: $104.22 + .83% = $105.08
- Month 7: $105.08 + .83% = $105.95
- Month 8: $105.95 + .83% = $106.83
- Month 9: $106.83 + .83% = $107.72
- Month 10: $107.72 + .83% = $108.61
- Month 11: $108.61 + .83% = $109.51
- Month 12: $109.51 + .83% = $110.42
That’s $0.42 more interest paid the first year, and that number will continue to climb each year the interest is compounded.
It gets worse if interest is compounded daily, like most credit cards. If you see “Daily Periodic Rate” anywhere in your agreement, you are getting compounded daily. This same loan, compounded daily instead of monthly will yield $110.51 owed the first year. That $0.51 might not seem like much, but imagine it on a $10,000 credit card, or a $100,000 house! And that’s just the first year. Every year after, the disparity gets bigger.
Edit: The formula for calculating compounding interest is Principal x (1 + rate as a decimal / compounding term)compounding term. So, for $100 at 10% compounded monthly, the formula is 100 x (1 + 0.1 / 12)12
That’s the downside to compounding interest. There is an upside, if you have investments or interest-bearing accounts. If that’s the case, compounding interest is working in your favor.
If you save $100 per week, and manage to get a 10% return on your investment, you will have $331,911 after 20 years(with $104,000 contributed) and $2,784,424 after 40(with $208,000 contributed). That mean you will have tripled your money in 20 years, or vingtupled* it in 40 years.
That’s how you get rich. $100 per week for the rest of your life will leave you with a comfortable retirement, without missing out on life now.
—
* Yes, it’s a real word**. It means a twenty-fold increase.
** No, I did not know that yesterday.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-17
- RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
- @bargainr What weeks do you need a FoF host for? in reply to bargainr #
- Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
- A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
- RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #
It’s Better to Buy a House than Rent
This guest post is brought to you by Lender411.com.
The debate is ongoing about whether it’s better to rent a home or buy one. Which is best?
To start, identify your goals. This includes short-term goals and long-term goals—anything relevant to your living situation or your finances. Are you someone who likes to move around and explore new areas, or have you put down strong roots in a specific location? Are you planning to raise a family? Is that family going to grow over the years? Do you plan to build up wealth? Are you aiming to retire a few years early? Work these things out as best you can. You need to know where you’re headed.
Beyond these life considerations, there are some specific facts about homeownership that typically make buying a house a better choice than renting one indefinitely. Specifically, you’ll save money in the long run if you buy a house. Studies have shown that if you plan to remain in a residence longer than five years, you’re better off buying than renting. Here’s why.
Equity. When you own a house, every dollar you put toward paying off the principal of your mortgage is actually going right back to your pocket in the long run. A house itself is an investment—it is a thing that holds value and, in fact, often gains value over time. It’s almost like a savings account. When you put money into a savings account, it stays there. Sure, you don’t exactly have access to the money, but it’s still there and, in the long run, it’s still yours. You don’t gain this value when you’re renting a piece of property. The money you pay out is simply gone.
Value. As mentioned above, a house, like any other financial instrument or investment, can actually increase in value over time without any effort on your part. Sometime property values just go up. Historically, in fact, just about all property gains value in the long run—often significant value. Real estate is a very popular form of investment even separate from the fact that it provides your family with a place to live. Even with a mortgage, the ultimate return you can get for your money is typically very good, especially if you’re able to find the best mortgage rates when you enter the loan. Renting doesn’t give you this opportunity to someday capture increasing property value.
Stability. One of the most appealing perks of home ownership is the consistency of payments month to month. If you have a fixed rate mortgage, your monthly payment is locked in at a certain amount for the next thirty years or so. This can be extremely comforting for some people and extremely helpful when it comes to budgeting long-term. When renting, prices may fluctuate from lease to lease, or you may move from one place to another and constantly have to readjust your budget and lifestyle. Also, mortgage payments on a house will, at some point, end. When those thirty years are up, chances are you won’t need to make any payments toward your house beyond property taxes from then on. Renting, however, never ends. You’ll never truly have a place of your own.
Despite the strength of these three facts in favor of home ownership over renting, the choice is ultimately one that must be made by individuals and families. Everyone has different long-term goals, and those goals must be identified first. But make the decision wisely. From a financial perspective, home ownership is the better of the two options long-term.
Update: I just realized I didn’t include the link to the Festival of Frugality that included this post. That’s fixed.