This sounds like an interesting business for college students... Stay tuned for the next "Best Posts for Frugal Scholars Contest". This post will probably be in it.
Unfortunately, the time to build an emergency fund of that size was a couple of years ago. As someone else noted, it takes a LONG time to do that. If you are afraid of losing your job, you don't have that much time. So while I agree that people should have more cash on hand and stop using credit cards as their EF, I hope people realize that they can't build one to weather this crisis, because they are looking at a process that will take a couple of years to do, assuming they can keep their job.
Thank you so much for this insight into selling books.
I have hundreds of books around that I used to get for free when my local library would set them out back for the taking.
I only took them out of interest at the time, but looking through them recently, I have found several first editions and some pretty interesting titles, a little more fiction than nonfiction, but either way, I've been considering trying to sell them, and this gives me the motivation and insight I needed.
I also love to go out book hunting at thrift shops and this seems like a good way to get some turnaround on your books after you read them.
Thanks for the post, very interesting side business idea.
We have kids, so I doubt we'll use this. Bringing our kids to a stranger's home doesn't seem like such a good idea. Maybe if I was a college kid again, though, I'd consider doing it. This is probably the only kind of travel I could have afforded, hehe.
It really hurt my head and eyes to read comment #86. GaBs, if you learned to write English better perhaps you would have a better chance at getting a job. Seriously, I hope you spellchecked your resume. Better yet, get some career counselor to edit your resume.
uuum about people being LESS motivated to find a job when they r gettin ui benefits...i think that would only be certain lazy asses that dont think dat at the end of the day...when there ui benefits r over they r not gonna have a job..or iu checks to use...whos gonna want to hire u after a year of not working???? i was laid off feb.15 2009...i statrted getting un employment in march....im going crazy trying to find a job...n i have not been called from ONE of all 25 jobs ive applied too...yes im keeping track of all the jobs ive applied too...this is depressing...i mean i dont have kids or a family to feed...but i have parents to help...it sad that u ASSUME all people who r receiving ui r like that...maybe if u were in that situation u wouldnt saay the same...besides some of that money is money we,ve worked for....our emplyers have a bank account were some of that money is taking from...
I think the problem everyone has with this is they apply it to themselves and it may not be applicable. A lot of credit card companies have overextended themselves are are lowering limits as people pay off cards to conserve cash. You also have to note that, some companies are using advanced algorithms based on spending habits to trigger higher interest rates and lower limits. So as soon as your your layed off and change your spending habits they change, your credit limits/interest rates change also.
Some people are carrying high debt loads and work at places considering layoffs. In this scenario its safer to save and pay the minimum till you know your secure. With the job market being so bleak there is a decent chance of a job search taking a year. To survive that, cash in hand is far more important then credit rating.
My in-laws took us to a state park near Sacramento where panning was allowed. We got instructions from a ranger, borrowed pans, and headed out to the river to do some panning. I even found a few flecks of gold.
The ranger who provided the instructions said that she'd actually made her living this way for years before becoming a state park ranger. She made only a few thousand dollars a year, but she lived frugally and got by. (She seemed happy to be working a regular job, though.)
According to her, the way to make a success of it is to find places where the natural ground formations form what amounts to a gold pan. Every storm washes gold out of the mountains, most of which will eventually end up in the stream bottoms. But, on its way there, it will pause wherever there's some structure that catches it--holes and ripples in the rock, etc. If you find a route that includes many such structures, and then walk that route after each storm, you'll find a lot more gold than if you just sift through the river sand.
I, like you, have 20 more years before retirement. I have left all but 10% of my portfolio alone during this downturn. I am thinking long term and do believe this time next year we will be at a whole lot better place.
Also don't take an insurance claims denial lying down. They are frequently mistakes or just hoping you will let it go and they do not have to pay it.
I had a run of these with one insurance company. I was tipped off by one doctor's insurance person that my insurance company had a really bad habit of "losing" the claims submissions repeatedly. I mentioned this to the insurance person at the other doctors office having the same problem with my insurance and they concurred. I was lucky that the insurance company office was in the same town and I had some time off. I drove to both doctors and picked up copies of the insurance claim forms from each. Then I hand delivered them to the front desk of the companies corporate office and politely refused to leave until I was given a receipt of some sort for each. I never had a claim get lost ever again, before this they were losing almost all of them. It was rather extreme but it worked.
I also recently found out that one health system in town is charging 30-50% (or more) than the other health system in town. A bill that would have easily cost me $500 out of pocket at the other place cost me $75 including my copay.
I would say that the two places to start are lernu.net (where you can learn over the internet) and your own country's national organization (which can put you in touch with any local group in your area and will probably have textbooks and other learning materials for sale).
There is also the international Esperanto organization UEA (Universala Esperanto-Asocio). Its website has links to the major national organizations organized by language--useful especially for finding the national organization of the country that you're in when it isn't your own country. (For example, it has this French-language page with Esperanto organizations in Belgium and this one with Esperanto organizations in France.)
To answer your other questions:
Yes, Esperanto is very easy to learn, compared with other national languages--its grammar is small and perfectly regular (no exceptions to learn) and its vocabulary is also small (but it includes a powerful system of word formation that lets you combine words and endings to say whatever you want to say).
In particular, Esperanto is so easy to learn, it's actually possible to learn it from a book. The pronunciation is straightforward--each letter has just one sound and is always pronounced. I learned Esperanto almost entirely from books and pronounce things pretty well (I've been told).
There is a great deal of literature in Esperanto, both translations from other languages and originally written in Esperanto--many thousands of novels, stories, essays, articles, plays, songs, poems, and so on. Of particular note is the "East-West Series" which since the 1960s has been alternately translating a great work of Eastern literature and Western literature each year, but the range of translations is both broad and deep. (For example, there are three different translations of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)
There has been a push to advance Esperanto as a language for the EU (which could save a fortune on translation costs). In my own experience, Esperantists are very friendly to people who show any interest in learning Esperanto. There are some who think that the best way to learn Esperanto is to actually use it (and will therefore jump right in using Esperanto from the very beginning), but they're not doing it to exclude people.)
I'd be very pleased to answer any further questions you've got about Esperanto, either hear or by email. (You can find my email address on the contact page of my personal website.) I'm always pleased to hear from people interested in Esperanto.
I wouldn't waste my time with these tricks. Try signing up with http://www.cdrefinishers.com. Every time I have a scratched disc, I send it to them. They send me back my disc resurfaced like it was brand new. It works much better and much longer than all the other stuff. It's about a dollar a disc with free shipping.
Setting an 8-month target size for the emergency fund is an interesting choice--and probably a reasonable one for our current economic situation. I wrote a post a while back on figuring the size of your emergency fund which talked about why 3-6 months is the standard size and when you'd want to adjust it.
I have some questions on Esperanto, and I´d be greatful if someone could give me some answers.... I´m not sure if this is the correct place to ask these questions but I´ll give it a try :-)
(I am passionate about languages and this one especially, just that I don´t have the time to learn one more- for the moment!)
I was wondering where can one learn esperanto if living in Brussels or in Paris, for instance? Or in other European countries? Is it easy? Are there schools where teachers give grammar lessons? And if you want to learn from books, how can you learn the correct pronounciation for words?
Are there books written in esperanto? And are there some famous classics that have been translated into esperanto?
I´ve heard the Esperantists´ (do you say that?) lobby in Brussels is quite strong, yet extremely selective... and by that I mean that they don´t easily accept "non-esperantists" among them. Is this true? How can one get more first-hand information on the Esperantists without first being kindly introduced to the ones who speak it?
Thanks for sharing your experiences, it's helpful to know what to look out for and how you dealt with it. And thanks for the link, Dawn.
I had coverage once denied because I had changed carriers to have the procedure covered, but it was diagnosed under my previous insurance, so it was considered a pre-existing condition. I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to pay for it, but after a lot of legwork, they finally did, saving me a couple of thousand dollars.
I've also been billed for things I'd never had done. When I lived in New York, there was a Fred Lee who shared my doctor, and they were billing me for his visits, after I'd moved out of New York. It was a total pain to deal with, but I resolved it.
I'm guessing these things happen a lot more than we even know, and a lot of it probably just gets paid without much thought. Too bad.
I work for an insurance company. Before you pay your medical bills compare them to the insurance company's explaination of benefits to the bill. The provider may have billed you for money they should have writen off according to their contract.
I think that every financial problem needs it's own custom answer, but I would think that generally it would be best to pay down on credit cards. You are still paying interest, you are still using more of your credit limit than you have to. Besides, you have to keep in mind too, credit card companies have to retain a majority of their customers to stay in business.
If someone has 2 or 3 credit cards, maybe it's a time to pay a little on the principle of ALL of them. If you pay on several, and one of them gets closed on you, you shouldn't be slammed so hard.
Medical biling advocates make the most sense for people with a chronic or ongoing illness, or for those who may have had a recent procedure done, such as a surgery.
Here's how you can find a medical billing advocate in your area, as well as additional info on how they work.
I heard this same advice from Suze and it threw me for a loop. I understand her point of view, but I'm not sure it applies to my situation. For starters, I'm carrying about $8,000 in credit card debit from a wedding. Since the wedding we've been paying it down at about $1,500 a month. So it won't take long to get that gone. At the same time we have very little in savings. But it's been my approach to have a single focus. In this case it's paying off dept. Once that's done, in 5 months or so, it will be a single focus on savings. Sure there's a risk to this, but there's risk everywhere.
I do have to wonder though about Suze's advice, for one reason. Her argument is based on the fact that credit card companies are taking away people's line's of credit, which many depend on for backup if they don't have savings. While I currently fit that model at the moment, as far as relying on credit, it doesn't apply to me in the sense of credit available. Right now I have about $60k available in credit. My interest rate on most is below 10%, and just a month ago one raised my limit another $5k.
Granted, this could all change tomorrow, but I doubt it will all change in the next 6 months. I would much rather enter into uncertainty with no debt, than savings that was simply the same amount as my debt, all the while gaining negative interest.
On top of that, I agree with some of the other posts in here about the 8 months savings. It will take us years to achieve that goal, and it will be much faster and more effective to do that without a credit card balance eating away at my bottom line.
Either way you go, if you lose your job, you're on your way to Painsville. In the end, I guess it all depends on what kind of pain you're like the least.
If someone is going to 'milk' the system for a measley $475 per week, they are considered losers. If someone plans of 'taking time off', re-evaluating what they want to do WHILE collecting $475 a week, they too are losers.
People that live with mommy and daddy and collect $475 from unemployment a week ARE indeed losers. Now, if someone is ACTUALLY TRYING to get a job while TEMPORARILY relying on unemployment, that's fine.
I'm a father of 2 and the sole breadwinner. I was earning nearly $200,000 annually and now would earn the same as someone that made $70,000 or $50,000 a year. $475 to me is a single car payment, or a single utility bill, and it does absolutely nothing to 'help' sustain (even within reason) my livlihood if things would change for the worst. This is why I have my OWN insurance plan that can carry me for an entire 2 year period WITHOUT touching savings. IF people had the same attitude, they would understand that NOTHING is guaranteed in this world, and they have to fend for themselves - plan ahead. Taking from your own 'stash' is greatly going to get you motivated, trust me....
IF you think that $475 is a lottery win, think again. For those of you that live with mommy and daddy and $475 IS a lot of money, you're a loser. GET A JOB!
Good one, Xin! I like the tip about nonfiction titles.
This sounds like an interesting business for college students... Stay tuned for the next "Best Posts for Frugal Scholars Contest". This post will probably be in it.
- Nate
Unfortunately, the time to build an emergency fund of that size was a couple of years ago. As someone else noted, it takes a LONG time to do that. If you are afraid of losing your job, you don't have that much time. So while I agree that people should have more cash on hand and stop using credit cards as their EF, I hope people realize that they can't build one to weather this crisis, because they are looking at a process that will take a couple of years to do, assuming they can keep their job.
Thank you so much for this insight into selling books.
I have hundreds of books around that I used to get for free when my local library would set them out back for the taking.
I only took them out of interest at the time, but looking through them recently, I have found several first editions and some pretty interesting titles, a little more fiction than nonfiction, but either way, I've been considering trying to sell them, and this gives me the motivation and insight I needed.
I also love to go out book hunting at thrift shops and this seems like a good way to get some turnaround on your books after you read them.
Thanks for the post, very interesting side business idea.
We have kids, so I doubt we'll use this. Bringing our kids to a stranger's home doesn't seem like such a good idea. Maybe if I was a college kid again, though, I'd consider doing it. This is probably the only kind of travel I could have afforded, hehe.
It really hurt my head and eyes to read comment #86. GaBs, if you learned to write English better perhaps you would have a better chance at getting a job. Seriously, I hope you spellchecked your resume. Better yet, get some career counselor to edit your resume.
subscribing again. I've loved your blog for a long time now and you have earned recognition from a major print publication. Congratulations!
uuum about people being LESS motivated to find a job when they r gettin ui benefits...i think that would only be certain lazy asses that dont think dat at the end of the day...when there ui benefits r over they r not gonna have a job..or iu checks to use...whos gonna want to hire u after a year of not working???? i was laid off feb.15 2009...i statrted getting un employment in march....im going crazy trying to find a job...n i have not been called from ONE of all 25 jobs ive applied too...yes im keeping track of all the jobs ive applied too...this is depressing...i mean i dont have kids or a family to feed...but i have parents to help...it sad that u ASSUME all people who r receiving ui r like that...maybe if u were in that situation u wouldnt saay the same...besides some of that money is money we,ve worked for....our emplyers have a bank account were some of that money is taking from...
I think the problem everyone has with this is they apply it to themselves and it may not be applicable. A lot of credit card companies have overextended themselves are are lowering limits as people pay off cards to conserve cash. You also have to note that, some companies are using advanced algorithms based on spending habits to trigger higher interest rates and lower limits. So as soon as your your layed off and change your spending habits they change, your credit limits/interest rates change also.
Some people are carrying high debt loads and work at places considering layoffs. In this scenario its safer to save and pay the minimum till you know your secure. With the job market being so bleak there is a decent chance of a job search taking a year. To survive that, cash in hand is far more important then credit rating.
My in-laws took us to a state park near Sacramento where panning was allowed. We got instructions from a ranger, borrowed pans, and headed out to the river to do some panning. I even found a few flecks of gold.
The ranger who provided the instructions said that she'd actually made her living this way for years before becoming a state park ranger. She made only a few thousand dollars a year, but she lived frugally and got by. (She seemed happy to be working a regular job, though.)
According to her, the way to make a success of it is to find places where the natural ground formations form what amounts to a gold pan. Every storm washes gold out of the mountains, most of which will eventually end up in the stream bottoms. But, on its way there, it will pause wherever there's some structure that catches it--holes and ripples in the rock, etc. If you find a route that includes many such structures, and then walk that route after each storm, you'll find a lot more gold than if you just sift through the river sand.
Nice article.
If there was only more coverage on how nobody knows where the market is headed. I think that would make for an interesting 30-minute show.
I, like you, have 20 more years before retirement. I have left all but 10% of my portfolio alone during this downturn. I am thinking long term and do believe this time next year we will be at a whole lot better place.
Also don't take an insurance claims denial lying down. They are frequently mistakes or just hoping you will let it go and they do not have to pay it.
I had a run of these with one insurance company. I was tipped off by one doctor's insurance person that my insurance company had a really bad habit of "losing" the claims submissions repeatedly. I mentioned this to the insurance person at the other doctors office having the same problem with my insurance and they concurred. I was lucky that the insurance company office was in the same town and I had some time off. I drove to both doctors and picked up copies of the insurance claim forms from each. Then I hand delivered them to the front desk of the companies corporate office and politely refused to leave until I was given a receipt of some sort for each. I never had a claim get lost ever again, before this they were losing almost all of them. It was rather extreme but it worked.
I also recently found out that one health system in town is charging 30-50% (or more) than the other health system in town. A bill that would have easily cost me $500 out of pocket at the other place cost me $75 including my copay.
Really appreciate the link love. Thanks a lot.
I can't see the movie which has a region code "3"
How to make a region free?
Your help will be appreciated.
Thank you!
I would say that the two places to start are lernu.net (where you can learn over the internet) and your own country's national organization (which can put you in touch with any local group in your area and will probably have textbooks and other learning materials for sale).
There is also the international Esperanto organization UEA (Universala Esperanto-Asocio). Its website has links to the major national organizations organized by language--useful especially for finding the national organization of the country that you're in when it isn't your own country. (For example, it has this French-language page with Esperanto organizations in Belgium and this one with Esperanto organizations in France.)
To answer your other questions:
Yes, Esperanto is very easy to learn, compared with other national languages--its grammar is small and perfectly regular (no exceptions to learn) and its vocabulary is also small (but it includes a powerful system of word formation that lets you combine words and endings to say whatever you want to say).
In particular, Esperanto is so easy to learn, it's actually possible to learn it from a book. The pronunciation is straightforward--each letter has just one sound and is always pronounced. I learned Esperanto almost entirely from books and pronounce things pretty well (I've been told).
There is a great deal of literature in Esperanto, both translations from other languages and originally written in Esperanto--many thousands of novels, stories, essays, articles, plays, songs, poems, and so on. Of particular note is the "East-West Series" which since the 1960s has been alternately translating a great work of Eastern literature and Western literature each year, but the range of translations is both broad and deep. (For example, there are three different translations of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)
There has been a push to advance Esperanto as a language for the EU (which could save a fortune on translation costs). In my own experience, Esperantists are very friendly to people who show any interest in learning Esperanto. There are some who think that the best way to learn Esperanto is to actually use it (and will therefore jump right in using Esperanto from the very beginning), but they're not doing it to exclude people.)
I'd be very pleased to answer any further questions you've got about Esperanto, either hear or by email. (You can find my email address on the contact page of my personal website.) I'm always pleased to hear from people interested in Esperanto.
I wouldn't waste my time with these tricks. Try signing up with http://www.cdrefinishers.com. Every time I have a scratched disc, I send it to them. They send me back my disc resurfaced like it was brand new. It works much better and much longer than all the other stuff. It's about a dollar a disc with free shipping.
Setting an 8-month target size for the emergency fund is an interesting choice--and probably a reasonable one for our current economic situation. I wrote a post a while back on figuring the size of your emergency fund which talked about why 3-6 months is the standard size and when you'd want to adjust it.
Hey everyone!
I have some questions on Esperanto, and I´d be greatful if someone could give me some answers.... I´m not sure if this is the correct place to ask these questions but I´ll give it a try :-)
(I am passionate about languages and this one especially, just that I don´t have the time to learn one more- for the moment!)
I was wondering where can one learn esperanto if living in Brussels or in Paris, for instance? Or in other European countries? Is it easy? Are there schools where teachers give grammar lessons? And if you want to learn from books, how can you learn the correct pronounciation for words?
Are there books written in esperanto? And are there some famous classics that have been translated into esperanto?
I´ve heard the Esperantists´ (do you say that?) lobby in Brussels is quite strong, yet extremely selective... and by that I mean that they don´t easily accept "non-esperantists" among them. Is this true? How can one get more first-hand information on the Esperantists without first being kindly introduced to the ones who speak it?
Thanks a lot! And happy Easter for everyone!
Thanks for sharing your experiences, it's helpful to know what to look out for and how you dealt with it. And thanks for the link, Dawn.
I had coverage once denied because I had changed carriers to have the procedure covered, but it was diagnosed under my previous insurance, so it was considered a pre-existing condition. I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to pay for it, but after a lot of legwork, they finally did, saving me a couple of thousand dollars.
I've also been billed for things I'd never had done. When I lived in New York, there was a Fred Lee who shared my doctor, and they were billing me for his visits, after I'd moved out of New York. It was a total pain to deal with, but I resolved it.
I'm guessing these things happen a lot more than we even know, and a lot of it probably just gets paid without much thought. Too bad.
I work for an insurance company. Before you pay your medical bills compare them to the insurance company's explaination of benefits to the bill. The provider may have billed you for money they should have writen off according to their contract.
I think that every financial problem needs it's own custom answer, but I would think that generally it would be best to pay down on credit cards. You are still paying interest, you are still using more of your credit limit than you have to. Besides, you have to keep in mind too, credit card companies have to retain a majority of their customers to stay in business.
If someone has 2 or 3 credit cards, maybe it's a time to pay a little on the principle of ALL of them. If you pay on several, and one of them gets closed on you, you shouldn't be slammed so hard.
Medical biling advocates make the most sense for people with a chronic or ongoing illness, or for those who may have had a recent procedure done, such as a surgery.
Here's how you can find a medical billing advocate in your area, as well as additional info on how they work.
http://www.creditfyi.com/Creditpedia/Manage-Your-Money/Medical-Billing-A...
I heard this same advice from Suze and it threw me for a loop. I understand her point of view, but I'm not sure it applies to my situation. For starters, I'm carrying about $8,000 in credit card debit from a wedding. Since the wedding we've been paying it down at about $1,500 a month. So it won't take long to get that gone. At the same time we have very little in savings. But it's been my approach to have a single focus. In this case it's paying off dept. Once that's done, in 5 months or so, it will be a single focus on savings. Sure there's a risk to this, but there's risk everywhere.
I do have to wonder though about Suze's advice, for one reason. Her argument is based on the fact that credit card companies are taking away people's line's of credit, which many depend on for backup if they don't have savings. While I currently fit that model at the moment, as far as relying on credit, it doesn't apply to me in the sense of credit available. Right now I have about $60k available in credit. My interest rate on most is below 10%, and just a month ago one raised my limit another $5k.
Granted, this could all change tomorrow, but I doubt it will all change in the next 6 months. I would much rather enter into uncertainty with no debt, than savings that was simply the same amount as my debt, all the while gaining negative interest.
On top of that, I agree with some of the other posts in here about the 8 months savings. It will take us years to achieve that goal, and it will be much faster and more effective to do that without a credit card balance eating away at my bottom line.
Either way you go, if you lose your job, you're on your way to Painsville. In the end, I guess it all depends on what kind of pain you're like the least.
If someone is going to 'milk' the system for a measley $475 per week, they are considered losers. If someone plans of 'taking time off', re-evaluating what they want to do WHILE collecting $475 a week, they too are losers.
People that live with mommy and daddy and collect $475 from unemployment a week ARE indeed losers. Now, if someone is ACTUALLY TRYING to get a job while TEMPORARILY relying on unemployment, that's fine.
I'm a father of 2 and the sole breadwinner. I was earning nearly $200,000 annually and now would earn the same as someone that made $70,000 or $50,000 a year. $475 to me is a single car payment, or a single utility bill, and it does absolutely nothing to 'help' sustain (even within reason) my livlihood if things would change for the worst. This is why I have my OWN insurance plan that can carry me for an entire 2 year period WITHOUT touching savings. IF people had the same attitude, they would understand that NOTHING is guaranteed in this world, and they have to fend for themselves - plan ahead. Taking from your own 'stash' is greatly going to get you motivated, trust me....
IF you think that $475 is a lottery win, think again. For those of you that live with mommy and daddy and $475 IS a lot of money, you're a loser. GET A JOB!