The PaidTwice.com blog asks an important question: what else could one save money on for seeking businesses to change their billing, interest making and the like. She’s after Saturn to help pay for expensive vehicle repairs. Go read the article and offer up a word of encouragement.
Archive for the ‘Lesson Learned’ category
What Else Can You Save On By Negotiating?
January 10th, 2008Inefficiency Costs More Than Money
January 3rd, 2008From the Manager-Tools.com podcast:
“Our inefficiency during the day hurts our family and makes us ineffective because we waist time during the day that had we used that time wisely we would have been much for effective focusing on doing the right things.”
- Mark Horstmann
This quote hit home with me. When I have an inefficient day (and today has started out as one), it effects not only my clients, but it effects my family and the focus I want to have in my life. Good stuff.
Three Reasons I Pulled a Princess Out of My Toilet
December 2nd, 2007Last weekend before I headed out on yet another business trip my two year old dropped a toy into the toy-let. I mean toilet. My wife was in the bathroom and attempted to reach into the toilet before the princess drowned, flushed and caused blockage that only mouse-produced royalty could cause. After washing her hands like she had an OCD disorder she came downstairs and alerted me to the problem at hand. I went to the hardware store later that evening and picked up an auger (also called a snake) but had no luck getting the princess to come out of her cave. Apparently the dragons had gotten to her and she was going to need a knight to rescue her. I was thinking a hired knight that charged $45.00 an hour or more.
It turns out that I’m cheap because after some searching on the interwebs I figured that I had a chance at disassembling my toilet/floor connection and getting the princess out myself. So I went to the hardware store and purchased a new wax ring to re-seal the toilet upon successfully removing it from the floor, some caulk (to reseal the grout that was attaching the toilet to the floor as well), and a large plastic drop cloth to put the toilet on so that extra water could be prevented from getting all over our tile floor. As it turned out the drop cloth was not as effective as it could have been but we’ll ignore that problem because this story is less concerned with my failure to contain all of the water.
I had the help of my brother-in-law who kindly used my utility knife to separate the grout from the toilet’s base and then helped me power-lift the toilet from the grout, caulk and wax ring that were underneath the already heavy toilet. The toilet came up, off onto the plastic, and I took an auger to the drain pipe in the floor hoping to retrieve the damsel in distress. No luck, the number-two ogres must have her trapped somewhere else. I rocked the toilet backwards and to my pleasant surprise the “princess of poop” was wedged sideways just inside the mouth of the toilet! I removed her from the ‘can’ and threw her away. I may be cheap, but my daughters don’t get a second chance with girls who hang out in such low class establishments.
I placed a new wax ring down on the floor making sure the sticky wax surface was facing upwards and the gasket was facing down into the floor pipe. I then lined up the bolts that hold the toilet to the collar in the floor so that they would be parallel with one another and hopefully lined up with the toilet’s holes. The most important next step was to take some scrap wood and place it on either end of the toilet’s home and give myself time to line up the bolts and toilet’s fastening holes before removing the wood (with the help of the brother-in-law again) and seating the toilet on the wax ring – you don’t want to mess that up or you could have biological gunk all over your bathroom floor or a waxy mess that you have to replace. We got the bolts and toilet lined up and then removed the wood slowly and positioned the toilet so that the grout matched up just right.
Mission accomplished! In about an hour the princess was saved (and then trashed) and the toilet was cleared – flushing like it was brand new. I had saved money, practiced something mechanical and out of my comfort zone, and got to feel the pride of having done something myself where before I was going to hire it out. There is nothing quite like taking care of your family to bring out an enjoyment of things as mundane as a toilet. Plus now I can tell stories and have G-rated potty humor.
Teens and Personal Finance Interview One: Caity
November 27th, 2007This is the first of a multi-part series on teens and personal finance. The first part of the series is interview oriented, later episodes will be focused on answering some of the questions posed in the interviews. The recording quality isn’t what I’d like due to the fact that I had my MacBook Pro and that was it for recording so there is some background noise.
Questions for listeners and readers:
What is the number one source you would recommend learning about personal finance from? Blogs, books, videos or mentors?
What is the number one mistake you see over and over from people (and maybe yourself) that keeps people from financial growth?
If You Are Employed You’ll Want to Read This Post
November 14th, 2007
If you have ever managed people then the manager-tools.com podcast series is for you. Why does this relate to money management? Because if you’re looking to get ahead to increase your income then you will need to be a better communicator and more than likely a manager of people as well as finances. The advice on that site is free (with for-money advice also available), the advice is practical, and it is sure to at least begin to prepare you for life in the wide-weird-world of management.
If you’re currently just an employee then you’ll want to listen to this stuff simply to learn how your manager may be trying to communicate to you. Sometimes managers don’t know that they’re doing a bad job of communicating and you may learn from these audio lessons how to help your manager manage better – heck, you may even want to pass them along to your manager.
If you’re a parent these are valuable because they even apply some things to rearing a child. And let me tell you: rears of children should always be managed. If you’re a manager you should listen to these because odds are you’ve never been trained to be a manager, you’ve just been thrown into it. I have recently been chucked in front of the wheels of an oncoming management train myself and this sort of thing is going to be handy.
I would recommend starting at the bottom of the page and working your way up so that you can get a feel for their methodology. Its not difficult to listen to and you’ll want to keep a pencil & paper or a word processor open to take notes. I have a page of notes from one podcast already and am just starting my second. This stuff is dynamite strapped to the body of a dead manager – go ahead and light the fuse… its attached to you.
Eye on the Prize
November 1st, 2007So we’re going to play the credit hard ‘price shopping’ trick around here for a while. We’re working aggressively to pay off all of our debts and rather than use a credit counseling service (which others recommend and I don’t have a problem with in principle) we’re going to attempt to just get aggressive about paying things off and attempt to dump this debt for a life of freedom. Right. Freedom is a great concept, but I’m not naive enough to think we’ll get there in two days.
That being said, there’s lots to be free from in the world of finance and I want to set my mind on those goals for the short term and on financial independence in the longer term. I’m reading a book right now (a review will more than likely be forthcoming) called Seven Years to Seven Figures. In the first chapter it has a quote that I really want to share with you my readership:
“[Dale Carnegie] …said that while it is true that most people don’t succeed because they don’t have clearly defind goals, some people fail to make progress because they have too many.”
So we’re trimming down the goals that we have. They’re distractions. They’re the things that illusionists use to keep you from seeing how their tricks work. They cause you to fail to understand what is happening and instead keep you in a suspended state of mediocrity. This requires me to set my goals out in a list and hone them down into the one thing I’m going to focus on. I’m not going to worry about anything but nailing my debt down to zero for the next several months. Like Trent at the Simple Dollar I’m going to restrain myself and live with as few expenditures as possible so that November shines as the first month of focus [that conclusion was independent of Trent's but nearly exact in timing]. This is the first step in the race.
Bang – the gun sounds – I’m off!
October’s Envelope System Almost Happened
October 27th, 2007One of my favorite lyrics from a band called “Model Engine” are from a song called “Scarred but Smarter”
If its all true
the only time you fail is the last time you try
if I concede defeat will I
be complete in this failure
am I incomplete and a complete failure
As the of the song indicates the ‘failure’ was a lesson learned. As the title of this post indicates we didn’t quite get our envelope system off the ground. The failure to complete the process fell completely on my shoulders. I simply didn’t push through my busy schedule and get things set up like they should have been. This post contains some lessons learned from my failure so that I don’t do it again and so that you don’t have to go what I went through should you choose to adopt the envelope system for your own household.
Banks Limit ATM Withdrawals – Part of why I didn’t complete my envelope system was the realization that I couldn’t withdraw as much from the ATM as I had planned and therefore my scheduled envelope stuffing wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t take time out from being busy to step into a branch and withdraw the amount we needed to fulfill this role. There is very little work that can be done from the envelopes if the envelopes are empty.
Almost isn’t good if you’re on the receiving end of a handgrenade or a horseshoe – Almost going to the bank and almost withdrawing the cash almost worked. If you’re on the receiving end of failure then being so close to safety (the envelope system) isn’t going to help you. You want to have completed the system setup rather than have bombed out of the system by blowing it.
Debit Cards can at least Track Spending, sort of – The upside of this is that we still came really close with groceries and we can track things using our debit card. It didn’t work like the envelope system but it did at least show us where we blew it. I could have started in after the beginning of the month and used the recorded expenditures to help me pick up from the post-first starting point.
I’m a Lazy Bum - I am not lazy in some areas, but for some reason this simple task of going to the bank and into the bank and getting the money out put my brain into a delayed shift where I could come up with any number of things to do before getting the money out. I could have gone to the bank on the way to another errand. I could have withdrawn money several days in a row after my banks regular hours to achieve the same amount withdrawn. Other options existed by I was simply lazy.
So, now November will be the first envelope system and we’ll get it done because I’m determined to not let this be the last time I try. Failure is not an option.
Change Your Future, Make a Decision
October 25th, 2007I was just thinking about something: Much of my financial goals are based on the idea that I have lots of time until I retire. Some of them are rational, some of them are just pipe dreams. I need to let go of the dream mentality and focus in on actual and practical solutions to the goals and the problems that might get in the way. For example, if I want to become a millionaire before I retire (which will be required for me to retire) I have to make a decision: how much will I save to attempt a guaranteed millionaire goal?
If you make a goal to be a millionaire and you’re starting at 25 with a projected interest rate of 8% it will take you $8,000.00 a year and 31 years to reach that goal. But if you’re in my shoes and starting later than that you will have to save $20,000.00 for 20 years to reach that number. The fortunate part is that in ten more years (reaching sixty-five), without adding any more money to it, you will become a 2.3 millionaire.
However, you have to decide that you’re going to reach your goal and that you’re willing to set aside the money required to reach that goal! You can’t sit around hoping it comes to you – you have to call the shots, execute the plan, and stay focused. The consequences for my actions are long term – each $5.00 trip to the coffee house, each $20.00 quick lunch for myself and my wife and kids is a cut into that future life I have as a goal. I need to make those decisions now and follow through.
Everything else is just dreams, dumb luck and tom-foolery.
Things I’ve Learned from Trent at the Simple Dollar
October 15th, 2007The first personal finance blog I had ever read earlier this year was The Simple Dollar. In fact I would go so far as to say that the reason I started this blog was because of Trent’s work there. I don’t pretend, after having said that, that I write like him, have the same blogging purpose as him, but I do hope to have as positive an influence as he has had on the world of people who have money. That’s most everyone except for the poorest of poor (who still might learn a thing or two from Trent). The Simple Dollar (TSD) is a practical, well written, blog that delivers information, opinions, tips and personality to its readers. Trent’s passion for the subject matter is obvious and his desire to see the site grow to more than being just a ‘blog’ but not lose that personality is something that impresses me.
Since I’ve not read TSD since its inception (apparently on BlogSpot) I’m going to pick out some of my favorite articles so far. Since Trent posts links to past articles I’ve read some of his older writing and I’ve enjoyed them just as much.
Some of the things I’ve learned include:
Enough is Enough – Trent reached what he called Armageddon where he had had enough. If you want to take action with your finances you have to have a moment where you’ve just determined that you’re not going to take it any more and you’re not sitting down to watch life and money pass you by. Trent’s enunciation of this issue is definitely worth reading and contemplation.
Money Isn’t Just Math – The Simple Dollar is a great blog because its content is well written. Trent brings emotion, stories, practical concepts and, yes, math to the equation. There isn’t just math though, and that’s where the power of this blog lies.
Consistency is Key - The Simple Dollar has at least one post a day. I try to write one post a day, but the truth of the matter is that I’m not as consistent as I could be. The Simple Dollar is well written, and written every day. This principle applies to finances, relationships, and daily life. Trent is consistent and I’m inspired by that.
If you read the Simple Dollar, what things do you gain from it or what post has influenced you the most?
Declutter When You Retire
October 7th, 2007Today after church I got the opportunity to talk to another fellow at church who is older than me and I asked what he was up to. He said he was cleaning out his house before he dies. This was a little disconcerting in that you usually don’t hear of people preparing to die. However, as he went on to explain his thinking I was both impressed and I thought, “I will need to do that, and I want to tell others about this great mindset.” You see my friend has had to clean up after three older relatives who died.
He had to go into the houses of people who have collected things their whole lives and, with the help of others who were appropriately involved, attempt to throw out the unwanted, pass out the sentimental things, and give away or sell things of value that are still not wanted by others. He said he’s just trying to do some of these things before he gets so old that he can’t do them. He’s thinking of his son and daughter who are not in need of that burden, but would much rather go through the grieving process being able to focus on the good memories of their parents rather than sifting through stuff.
If you have parents who are getting old take a moment to discuss this idea with them. You might choose to pick up the book ‘It’s All Too Much!‘ so that they have some good motivation. The idea is not to get rid of everything, but to get rid of any clutter or excess items that are not going to be valuable to family members. I recently had another friend tell me that they moved their parents across town and they had several weeks of garage sales to get rid of stuff as well as finding things like fifty gallon drums that were empty but there because at some point in time they’d been ‘left’ there… nobody needed them, nobody wanted them, but they’d been collected and forgotten. Take the time now to go through those things while everyone is hopefully cognizant, and get ahead of the potential stress. You may enjoy the memories reminisced now together rather than having more reminders of past times later, but diminished by the distraction of ‘junk.’
