in the home stretch….

It’s the last week of class, and I’ve finals and papers to get through.  So things will be a little sparse this week.  In the meantime, enjoy this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance!

One that I highly recommend - eat local.

And a good explanation of good debt vs bad debt (because I don’t think all debt is bad).

seize the day, tomorrow is not yours

We all know that good things come to those who wait. But fortune also favors the bold. When it comes to personal finances, which road do you choose? I don’t see why you can’t have it both ways.

I am of the mindset that while thinking about tomorrow is smart, one should not forget about today. In personal finance, this has two ramifications:

1. The power of compounding. You can always have more money, but you can’t go back in time. Saving even a small amount when you are young will always trump saving a bit more when you are older. Savings earn interest, and then interest earns interest. Never put off til tomorrow what you can do today.

2. Live life to the fullest. Money exists to provide you the opportunity to experience life. So make the most of this tool while you have it, and use it for its intended purpose. You can’t take it with you when you die.

Some might argue that the responsible path is to live as frugally as possible now, save as much as possible, and retire early. But retire to do what? Enjoy life? Why not start now? Take a financial risk here or there. Maybe even take on a little debt, if the opportunity of your lifetime shows up. Be unconventional occaisonally. It is better to regret the things you did, than the things you didn’t do.

Save for the future, yes. Emergencies and the like come upon us like surprises. And too, there are the dreams and possibilities that we would like to one day experience. And even better, start saving today. But don’t make saving for the future your one and only goal.

I, for one, have no desire to retire early. I want to keep working as long as I can. Why? Because I love what I do, the field I’m in, the people with whom I interact. I am enjoying life. I have taken on debt in the past, and I will be paying be paying it off in the future. There is something to be said for being responsible (ie, having a debt repayment plan), but being a little reckless at times (ie, taking a leave of absence from your job for 4 months to travel) is good for you as well. Work hard. But play hard too.

wealth is not a material gain, but a state of mind

The idea of wealth, and building wealth, has come up a lot lately. I’ve talked to friends about building financial portfolios, read blogs about various ways to increase wealth, and thought a bit about my immediate and long-term goals.

Part of what I’ve been mulling over is what exactly we mean when we use terms like “wealth” and “wealthy”. For me, it’s not just about my net worth. Or rather, my “net worth” is not just about dollars. It’s also about being in line with my intentions. Sure, I could make a lot of money if I invested in Chinese petrochemical companies, but do I really want that on my conscience? Is that really what wealth is all about?

Not for me. I have one retirement account heavily invested in “social choice” funds, or what are also considered “socially conscious” funds. Historically, these funds don’t tend to perform as well as traditional funds (though in an ironic twist of fate, they are currently outperforming everything else I have). But while I might end up with 15-20% less than I might have earned, at least I can feel better knowing that I’m not getting ahead by stepping on the less fortunate.

Of course, I will clearly disclose, I do have my fair share of traditional funds, chosen for their expected gains. In fact, my other retirement account is completely invested in your typical tech fund options. I also own shares in a number of companies with whom I might not agree. Some amount of diversification is necessary and smart, unfortunately. But there is something to be said for wielding a small amount of power as a shareholder and a consumer, and my letter-writing skills have been duly sharpened.

So in my mind, wealth is not just about my financial assets, but it’s also about my quality of life… and that of those in my global community. It’s also about my state of mind. A man with little means can be wealthy if he believes himself to be - if he’s happy with his lot in life instead of being resentful of those things he doesn’t have. There will always be things out of reach for us, but there are also many things within reach that we often forget about.

But wealth is also about opportunity. A man who has cut himself off from growth is not wealthy. But a man who can dream of other possibilities has infinite room to expand and explore. He can enrich his life and the lives of those around him. Wealth is not just in the current, it’s also in the potential.

And I also think that building wealth requires a little risk and some unconventionality. I sometimes think that my life has been a series of unconventional decisions. In retrospect, some have been quite ridiculous, but in the end, I’m at the place where I’m happy (I’m also alive and I have full use of all my faculties). Can we really ask for more?

i have no candidate this year

There was a time when I was an ardent admirer of John McCain. Then he went a little nuts, though he seems to have recovered somewhat.

I thought Barack Obama was a breath of fresh air in his first senate run. It’s nice to get some fresh blood with ambition.

And while Hillary originally turned me off, I have grown to respect her. She has experience and she has drive (plus the Bill factor). Until recently, she had my vote.

But, now I’m done. Obama’s energy “policy” is full of hot air, and McCain and Clinton have demonstrated they don’t know a thing about sustainability. It’s a wacky, weird world when Thomas Friedman sums up my thoughts almost perfectly. And it’s a sign from the gods that our politicians are so out of touch with reality that we can’t get one decent candidate who isn’t completely ridiculous.

a new world order

The 50s were a period of conformity, and a celebration of all things America. After two devastating wars, we deserved the opportunity to live our American dreams. But in the 60s and 70s, as we hit an oil crisis and another involvement in a foreign war, our American idealism shrank, and the counterculture movement of the hippies took precedence. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius meant a critical rethinking of our values. We protested the war in Vietnam; we demanded equal rights for all.

And in the 80s, sick to death of starry-eyed idealism, we loosened economic restrictions and reveled in capitalism run amok. Yuppies bought cars and TVs and fancy vacations. And their kids followed in their footsteps, pushing us through the dotcom boom and bust, and into a new world of technological utopia. And underneath it all, lay the shadow of resource depletion, labor inequality, and the looming spectre of climate change.

So now we have the YAWNs, those of us in our 20s, 30s, and 40s, a generational overlap of collective whiplash. We’ve rejected the unbridled consumerism, stress, and corporate mismanagement of the past few decades. We don’t rely on stuff to reveal social status. We care about the environment in a very real way. We’ve returned to the grouplove of the hippie movement, except we aren’t angry revolutionaries - we’re idealistic technophiles. We’ll solve the problems of the world with our convictions… and our inventions.

We donate vast amounts of money to charity; we save for retirement. We take our financial cues from Bono and Warren Buffett, rather than Donald Trump and Ludacris. We’re sick of spending ourselves into debt; we’re tired of the 90/10 gap. We don’t want war and larger cars - we want real solutions to global poverty, lack of health care, mass consumer debt, and dwindling natural resources.

Looking back over the past 75 years, we see the icons that define generations. Pin-up girls, and Marlon Brando, McCarthy and Eisenhower, Cadillacs, Nixon and Vietnam War protesters, the Challenger and Coca-Cola and Wall Street. And now we have the Toyota Prius and Mohammed Yunus. Kiva. Facebook. Make Trade Fair. Freecycle. The One Campaign. The waning of Microsoft and the waxing of Google. Darfur. Melting ice caps.

In a few decades, we might cycle back to mass consumerism once again. I’d like to think we’ll break the cycle, because I can’t imagine our world can handle the 80s again (and this time with several times the population). But we are clever and inventive, and perhaps we’ll find a less consumerist way of consumerism (perhaps a recycled consumerism?). Only time can tell.

may goals

So April got derailed in terms of goals (I basically just gave up about 3 days in).  I’ve decided to repeat my goals for May.

1. Become an early riser. I’m actually doing quite well on this, but I need to turn my focus back to it for reinforcement.  I’ll measure this by aiming to wake up by 7 am every day.

2. Stop eating crap. This one needs more than 30 days to stick. I’ll measure this by the number of days in a row and out of the month that I don’t eat something overly processed or obviously unhealthy.

3. Develop my thesis topic. It’s the end of the school year, so I’ve got finals and all that to deal with currently.  So I’m hoping to at least have a topic for my thesis.

4. Go climbing 2-3x a week. It’s becoming easy for me to make excuses for why I can’t make it to the gym.

5. Crack down on my spending. I would like my spending to be 25% under budget for May. It’s a big challenge since my budget is pretty tight as it is. But we’ll see if I can do it.

pandas make you smile!

This should not be missed (sound on):

carnival of personal finance

My post doing good from the comfort of your own home: junk mail edition was included in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance over at Lazy Man and Money. Check it out! There are some others that I liked as well:

No Credit Needed’s $100-a-day rule

Living the Cheap Life knows what a penny is worth

Tight Fisted Miser is saving money by not having kids

One Frugal Girl is learning to check her billing statements

it’s a green world. we just live in it.

Lately, everyone’s caught the green bug.  I watched quite a bit of TV today, and I saw several interesting ads highlighting industry’s eco-friendly commitment. Of course, I’m a cynic, so I immediately dissected the ads and dismissed just about all of them.  Which might be a bit unfair, better 50% than 0%, yes?  And, corporations exist to make a profit. If they do so while being green, then hey, who am I to complain?

Of interest, Coke has a smart new t-shirt campaign.  This one will appeal to the tweens, who we know don’t care to reduce their spending in an economic downturn (unlike their parents).  The ad (brought to us by Target) explained to me (via 2 teenage girls) that the t-shirts are made of recycled Coke bottles, so if you buy it, you’ll be, like, saving the world, or something.  There’s some fabulous statistic, such as “if every Target customer, all 200 million of them, bought a t-shirt, that would be 5 million plastic bottles recycled”.  Ah, the logic of teenagers is impeccable.  Coke, here’s a thought - if every Target customer bought one less plastic bottle, that would be 200 million plastic bottles not consumed.

Another interesting ad came to me after a trip to the grocery store.  Apparently, Safeway is one of the largest users of wind/solar energy in the US.  They also support plastic bag recycling.  The trucks run on biodiesel. They are green and proud, dammit! And yet, everytime I go into one with my reusable bag, I get dirty/blank/confused looks and poor customer service.

Then there’s Toyota’s long-running ad about zero-waste production.  Ambitious, to be sure, considering that the production of cars is naturally a wasteful process.  This is rather promising, because Toyota is possibly at 100% success.  Subaru is not far behind, either. Of course, the best way to be zero-waste?  Buy a used car… or bike.

The new programs are certainly a welcome change from the past.  And zero-waste and wind power are certainly laudable achievements.  But there is still something really important that we’re missing here.  The true path to being “green” lies in reducing consumption, not just greening it.  This seems to be the point that everyone is missing.

poked and prodded

Right now, things are a little nuts around here.  I’m trying to get my health forms completed for my Fulbright, and it’s really a frustrating process.  I’ve had blood drawn twice, gotten a physical, gotten a gyn exam, gotten PPD, and now we’re going to look at my immunizations. No more needles! I’ve learned a few things though -

Test results freak me out. I don’t know why, but I get very anxious when I’m looking at them (even though I don’t expect anything but normal).  There were a few abnormal, but they’re up to interpretation.

I can’t stand the sight of my own blood.  I’m ok with wounds.  But I can’t watch my own blood filling up the vial.  It’s not scary or gross, it’s just surreal.

The health care industry is confusing.  If I didn’t already work in the field, I would be quite baffled.  What does “family history” really mean?  What’s the difference between an HPV test and a Pap test? How often should you update your immunizations? What does the “normal range” indicate?

Straight men should not do pap smears.  That is all I have to say about that.

I should be all done with this madness by Monday, at least until next January or so, when I have to get the immunization updates!