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Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse
Whenever I push myself into a strict diet or a strict exercise regime or a strict set of personal finance rules, I find that I thrive in the short term.
For the first week or so, I’ll hit every benchmark I have within those strict rules. I’ll exercise. I’ll eat incredibly well. I’ll avoid spending an unnecessary dime.
Then, at some point, I fail. Usually, it’s out of thoughtlessness – I just backslide into a bad routine for a moment. I’ll eat something way outside the bounds of what I should be eating. I’ll tell myself I’m going to exercise later today – then I’ll get distracted by playing with the kids. I’ll buy something small on a whim.
Soon after, I’ll realize that failure, and I’ll beat myself up over it. I’ll think really negative thoughts about how I’m hopeless for a little while, then I’ll resolve to get everything back on track. I’ll have a few more days of success, then I’ll fail again.
Reader Mailbag: Working Ahead
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Renting or buying musical instruments
2. Inflation and mortgage length
3. Why so much to retire?
4. Disabled daughter worries
5. Parents moving in
6. Paranoid
7. Saving for child’s college
8. Free toothbrushes?
9. Amazon Prime problems
A Lifetime of Choices
Once in a Lifetime
Stephen writes in:
“I am struggling with continuing to save because of the fragility of my life. Both of my parents and my older sister died in their 50s. I turned 50 last year and there are so many things I still want to do in life. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how it won’t matter how much money I have in the bank if I die in the next few years, but just spending it all doesn’t seem smart, either. I am stuck and I hope you can help.“
This is a scenario that I’ve thought about many times. I have had several friends and relatives die younger than they should, and each time their passing has made me reflect on my own mortality.
Over time, I’ve come to several conclusions with regards to balancing my own mortality and the logical desire to secure a potential longer-term future.
Some Advice for Investing in Collectibles
Right now, I have a collection of sports cards and other trading cards that is easily valued at $10,000 – and, depending on how sales went, it could add up to as much as $20,000. In fact, if I had not sold off a large number of my cards when we were first in financial trouble, my collection would be worth $30,000 to $40,000.
Over the years, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to buying and investing in collectibles. Here’s a summary of what I’ve learned that’s worked well for me in the past.
Invest only in collectibles for which you know the market well. Let’s say you walk into a store or a booth that deals in the kinds of collectibles you’re interested in investing in. If that dealer removed the prices from everything they were selling, could you come close to naming the price for most of what was on offer there? If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be investing in the collectibles over the long term.
Building an Electronic Price Book
When Sarah and I were reassessing our finances, we looked around for as many tips as possible on how to save money. One of the best resources we discovered was The Complete Tightwad Gazette.
One of the best suggestions that we found in the book was to use a logical system to determine where the best prices were on the grocery items that you commonly buy. Dacyczyn’s process for doing this was to create a listing of those goods along with columns that indicated the price of those goods at local grocers. She called this a price book, and it wasn’t long before Sarah and I implemented a price book ourselves.
Ten Pieces of Inspiration #163
Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.
1. Bob Moawad on the best day of your life
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.” – Bob Moawad
No matter your situation, you’re the one responsible for making the best of it – or the worst of it.
2. Yves Morieux on six rules to simplify work
Shopping and Tunnel Vision
One feature that Sarah and I have decided to add to our dream home is a “den” of sorts. This den would serve as a game room and a party room of sorts, plus it would be a place to house our board game collection, our book collection, and our remaining movie collection.
As I’ve mentioned before, we have a pretty detailed idea of what kind of house we’re going to build, so we’ve actually been thinking about details like how to furnish the house. What will we take from our current home? What will we need to add to the new home?
Any game room / party room will need at least one solid table and we currently don’t have any that will work well for that purpose (we could use our main dining table, but we intend to continue to use that for dining and if we repurposed it, we’d be buying a new dining table). So, this has left me looking for a good table for a game room.
Parents, Children, and Loans
I have very few fundamental rules of personal finance that I follow. Spend less than you earn is a big one, but once you get past that, there tend to be exceptions to most rules in life.
However, there is one principle that I’ve followed for a long time that has never guided me wrong. I do not lend money to friends or to family.
The reason is simple. I don’t want a friendship or a familial relationship to become a lender-borrower relationship.
First of all, no one likes making debt payments. If you owe someone money, you now have the obligation to make debt payments to that person. Some people may be able to constrain negative feelings here, but others may not.
Best Credit Cards for Students in 2014
Updated: February 5, 2014
The best credit cards for college students hold one major advantage over the other sources of funding that can be used to pay for college expenses: Student credit cards help students establish credit while other methods of funding do not.
Sure, you can give your kid a prepaid debit card and fill it up occasionally, but they won’t learn the responsibility of paying bills on time. They will have no understanding of credit because it will have no impact on them. They’re certainly not going to earn many (if any) rewards or cash back for purchases, like they would if they owned one of the best student credit cards. Imagine coming out of college with zero credit history. Renting an apartment, buying a car, or even getting a normal rewards credit card would be nearly impossible.
Does the “$4 Per Gallon Savings Plan” Really Work?
Dana writes in:
“I loved your recent article on the 52 week savings plan. I shared it with my friends on Facebook. Lately several of my friends have been sharing a “$4 a gallon savings plan” lately and I was wondering if you could look at this plan too! Thanks!“
Dana’s talking about a savings plan I’ve seen on Facebook a few times recently that’s called the “$4 a Gallon Savings Plan.” As with the other plan, I have no idea what the original source is, as it’s usually been shared as an image file with no source and I’ve been unable to track down a true source for the idea.
Anyway, here’s how the plan works.
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