I WAS next door at the grocer’s buying a strong cup of coffee for $1.35 when I saw it: waste. The man in front of me, also stocking up on morning jet fuel, declined the $0.65 in change due him, saying “I don’t carry change.”
I sneered. “You don’t carry change?” I thought. “What do you do, then? Do you cradle it? Haul it? Schlepp it around? Shoulder its heavy burden?” My mind flew into a flurry of calculations. By the time I stepped up to the register, I told the cashier, “I’ll take my change, thanks. I’m not losing $8,600.”
In today’s economy, you’d be silly not to value any and all money that you either earned or found on the street. Just the other day, I picked up thirteen pennies, a €2 coin and a coin that didn’t look like money at all – it simply read “Freedom”.
Now that I read that back, it sounds like I made it up! The symbolism is too rich for non-fiction.
But it’s the truth. Whenever I see change on the street, I stop and pick it up. I won’t stop picking up loose change until I’m so rich and powerful that it’s my own face looking up at me from the ground. My brother says, “It’s the universe throwing money at you.” Don’t be impolite to the universe; pick up the bleeding money!
How could that man have used his $0.65 more appropriately? He could have taken the change and dumped it in the next tip jar he saw. He could have carried it in his pockets for the two minutes it would’ve taken to get out to his car. If he had, he could’ve left it there for coin-operated parking meters. He could’ve even taken it home and dropped it in a jar just to see it pile up.
That last example is interesting and it’s leading me to “thought experiment” time. There is an average of twenty-two working days each month. If you’ve ever caught yourself saying daft phrases such as “I’m addicted to coffee” or “I need my caffeine fix”, chances are you’ll be drinking coffee each of those mornings to get your day started.
$1.35 for coffee multiplied by 22 days = $29.70. If you pay with two one-dollar bills each time and decline to accept the change like our wasteful friend above, you’re losing $14.30 each month. After one year, you’ve said “No” to $171.60 simply because you can’t be bothered with change. That’s a one-hour couples’ massage waiting to happen.
As a Generation Y’er starting work at 25 in an era of increasing medical knowledge, I expect to work at least fifty years (age 75). How much money have I lost over the course of my working career just from the change off my morning coffee? $8,580.
Keep in mind that figure is based solely upon a single, regular transaction. Can you imagine how much money you’re throwing away if you don’t accept change on any of your purchases? Can you imagine what you could do with that money if you still had it?
Riding camels and camping in yurts in the Mongolian backcountry? The aurora borealis from the window of your Lapland ice hotel? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil? No thanks – “I don’t carry change.”
Live well, live well within your means, and remember –
that’s how the Solvency Shark seas it!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE MORE PRECIOUS TO ME THAN A BALANCED BUDGET. PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW.
Posted:
3/28/2011 8:17:00 AM by
Solvency Shark | with
3 comments
COL MUAMMAR Gaddafi hasn’t actually attacked any foreign oil refineries yet, but don’t be surprised if you see similar headlines in the coming months.
APM’s Marketplace Morning Report discussed the possibility of
retaliatory strikes on 21 March 2011. London Bureau Chief
Stephen Beard is quoted in the report, saying that Gaddafi may seek revenge for foreign airstrikes “by blowing up foreign owned oil facilities”.
So, how will we Americans feel the death grip of an ageing dictator 4,756 miles away? At the pumps, of course.
I gassed up yesterday at a petrol station just outside of Washington, DC. I paid $3.60 per gallon, up $0.75 from a
year ago. I imagine that figure still has some growing to do, what with the price of oil
jumping $2.00 after allied forces began their airstrike campaigns this past weekend.
I’ve learned enough about oil by now to know it’ll take a moment for that price spike to trickle down to the pumps, and I’m not looking forward to it when it does.
Every time I pull up to the petrol station and see $50 to $75 tabs for the car ahead of me, I thank my lucky stars I had the rare moment of insight in 2007 to ask for a Toyota Prius as a university graduation gift. Gasoline was $4.00 per gallon at the time and it looks as if it’ll be headed back to that number shortly.
Even with a 48-MPG hybrid vehicle in my corner, I’m still feeling the effects of global developments on my pocket. I’m in the middle of
rebudgeting as we speak and I’ve had to increase my monthly petrol budget by 20%. THAT HURTS!
It may not be as bad as we think, though; I heard today on the
BBC Newshour that the United Kingdom and United States don’t rely heavily on Libya for oil and natural gas. I’ve also heard that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (
OPEC) is easily pumping extra oil to make up for the Libyan deficit.
Italy, however, does rely on Libya; should Gaddafi strike foreign oil facilities, he may inadvertently loosen Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s strange and seemingly indefatigable grip on Italian politics.
If you were an alien visiting Earth and I told you we most commonly used a form of energy that was difficult to acquire, difficult to maintain and reliant upon the whims of either unstable maniacs or giant organizations content to parcel it out to keep profits up, would you believe me?
Meanwhile, solar rays and earth winds continue to quietly offer themselves at no cost…
Live well, live well within your means, and remember –
that’s how the Solvency Shark seas it!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE MORE PRECIOUS TO ME THAN A BALANCED BUDGET. PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW.
Posted:
3/25/2011 8:17:00 AM by
Solvency Shark | with
0 comments
A SMARTPHONE makes phone calls, surfs the web, takes pictures, sends e-mails, networks on Facebook and Twitter, tracks your appointments and even distracts you with music and video games (“
Angry Birds” is huge on the DC Metro right now). But smartphones also have a host of finance apps that can help you make a budget, monitor your spending and even calculate tips.
The financial app I use most is
Mint.com. I’ve talked about Mint.com’s website as a great way to track spending
in an earlier article; the app lets you watch your budget on the go. Imagine you’re taking the Metro home from work and want to pick up a bite to eat (because you’re exhausted and don’t feel like cooking) but don’t know if you have the money to cover it.
Whip out your smartphone and boot up your Mint.com app. After it takes a moment to refresh your accounts, you’ll see your cash, credit card debt and monthly budget displayed on the app’s home screen. Your income v expenses (or “cash flow”) and any alerts are also there to greet you. Here’s an example of an alert on my app: “This month, you spent $58.44 on Internet. This exceeds your budget of $55.00 by $3.44.” (I’ve since responded by increasing my monthly budget for internet and cable to the more accurate $60.00 mark.)
Tap the monthly budget tab and your categories slide onto the screen; mine include rent, groceries, auto insurance, &c. (I have 23 categories at the moment.) Swipe the screen with your finger, scroll down to your “Eating Out” budget and voilà! the remaining funds for eating out are clearly displayed. If you disagree with the number Mint.com shows, tap the “Eating Out” tab and it’ll display a list of your transactions.
“Damn, I shouldn’t have had that second beer at the pub last week! Now I haven’t the cash for sarney and crisps; guess it’s leftover bangers and mash for me tonight,” says an average consumer with a British accent.
Here comes the gigantic downside: you can’t set up or adjust your budgets through the app – you can only monitor your spending and recategorize transactions, e.g. snacks bought at a gas station that were mistakenly assigned to your monthly gasoline budget. Still, once you’ve gone online to get your budgets in motion, the app becomes very useful when out in the city.
Other finance apps include Tip Calculator, which is great for splitting the bill and calculating individual tips when in large groups, and
TurboTax (!). Can you imagine filing your taxes from your phone?! (1040EZ filers can.) Some larger banks have apps now, too, so check with yours if that’s something to which you’d like mobile access.
Your smartphone can and should help you stay on budget. If the idea is daunting, just start small with the most basic financial app you’ve got: the good ol’ “Calculator” app.
Live well, live well within your means, and remember –
that’s how the Solvency Shark seas it!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE MORE PRECIOUS TO ME THAN A BALANCED BUDGET. PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW.
Posted:
3/11/2011 8:17:00 AM by
Solvency Shark | with
0 comments
I’ve got an idea for a loan that’s always approved, never charges interest and always comes from a bank you can trust: yourself. All you need is some cash in your savings account and a bit of budgetary grace.
Imagine this scenario: married couple live frugally, build up $5,000 in savings. Married couple declare savings to be used for emergencies in the case of dual unemployment; $5,000 will cover two months’ living expenses should they scramble to find new employment.
Now imagine this: husband is given $10,000 raise. Our frugal couple feels they deserve a $2,000 clothes-shopping spree to celebrate new levels of professionalism. Should they swipe it onto a credit card? Take out a small loan from the bank?
Of course not; they should loan themselves money instead.
Married couple sit down to discuss. If they loan themselves the money, how much will they need to pay into their savings each month to be squared away in one year? When they divide the loan amount ($2,000) by the number of months (12), they see they’ll need to pay themselves roughly $167 each month to keep their spur-of-the-moment shopping spree from hurting them down the road.
Married couple go on their much-deserved shopping spree, dropping their emergency fund to $3,000. It isn’t ideal, but the recent raise and plans to refund the account help. After their first month, the emergency fund is up to $3,167; in six months it’s back up to $4,002; after one year, $5,004.
Our couple has spent one-fifth of their expected raise straightaway on nice, new clothes, then resumes their frugal mantle to keep prepared in a recovering economy.
Remember, our couple is able to do this because they’ve already proven their fiscal responsibility; any couple who can save $5,000 on two meagre salaries that barely amount to one proper one while taking care of rent, utilities, food, pets and school loans has demonstrated budgetary discipline. They can loan themselves $2,000 because they can trust themselves to repay the loan faithfully after the new clothes in their closet have lost their lustre.
Also, please keep in mind our couple expects to receive additional income that is five times as large as their loan payment. This ensures they won’t have any problems other than staying disciplined.
Although it’s helpful, you don’t even need a raise in this situation. Cash in your savings account that goes above and beyond your two-month emergency fund is eligible for self-loan. If you need $7,000 to stay comfortable during two months’ worth of unemployment but have saved $11,000… you may have stumbled upon a $4,000 loan for a small business or a life-enriching trip to the hot springs of wintertime Japan. Repayable in one year with monthly payments of $334 or in two with payments of $167.
Please be careful. This is an original idea for me – one I haven’t come across after one and a half years of researching finance. I am above-average at creating budgets and am using my family’s finances experimentally. Nevertheless, if you are a disciplined saver who has some extra savings, I encourage you to use a self-loan to do something you’ve wanted to do or buy something you’ve wanted to buy.
Personally, I think the self-loan could become an exhilarating way to get the most out of life and its spontaneity without shackling yourself to a line of credit or bank.
Live well, live well within your means, and remember –
that’s how the Solvency Shark seas it!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE MORE PRECIOUS TO ME THAN A BALANCED BUDGET. PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW.
Posted:
3/10/2011 8:17:00 AM by
Solvency Shark | with
0 comments
Mar 9th 2011, 08:17 by
Stewart Pelto | WASHINGTON, DC
FROM page A2 of the 25 Feb 2011 paper edition of
The Washington Post: Boeing beats Airbus for a $35bn deal to breathe new life into the US Government's ailing fleet of refueling tankers.
Boeing argued the weapons contract is a boon for America because it guarantees 50,000 jobs for workers in Washington State and Kansas; Airbus' parent company European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) countered they could generate an equal economic impact by working from a factory in Alabama.
This is great news for Boeing and those factory workers who stand to benefit, but I have a few questions.
First, the Post reports that since Boeing and EADS are equally capable of meeting the contract terms, the two companies were forced into a price war that saw Boeing scrape by on better value. I imagine at this point my father would champion American industry and the benevolent forces of the “market”.
But doesn't this mean Boeing is being paid the least it could possibly be paid to do the job? Boeing said they had to be competitive in the face of EADS unfair subsidization by the European governments; EADS countered that Boeing had unfairly profited from military business and tax breaks. Now that USA-based Boeing has snagged the USA-based contract, hasn't their accusations of unfair subsidization become irrelevant?
How expensive is it to rebuild a fleet of refueling tankers? How much profit does the top management skim off of a $35bn contract to only have enough money leftover to hire 50,000 workers? I'm not sure what this number means, but if you divide Boeing's contract by the number of workers it expects to hire, you get $700,000 per worker. I guarantee each worker is not being paid $700,000 each year.
That's an unfair point. The $35bn contract represents the cost of producing the refueling tanker fleet and maintaining them for over thirty years. The per-worker figure I dreamed up above is probably something more reasonable when you factor in the thirty-year cost of the above plus the salaries of fifty thousand workers, their health care, pensions and lawsuits.
It's tough for a CEO to turn a buck these days, isn't it?
Corruption is unfortunate. A deal for Boeing fell apart in 2003 and two were jailed, one in government and one in Boeing. Are they still in jail?
It is what it is and I shouldn't get too hung up on the way things are done on planet Earth – I need to channel the Dutch spirit of “gezellig”. But you know what irks me at the end of this? A note four paragraphs into the Post article that reads, “In the meantime, the Air Force's 500-strong tanker fleet has become dangerously decrepit.”
Dangerously decrepit? Those benevolent market forces my father champions run into the problem of evil. Why must our federal government wait ten to twenty years to upgrade their fleet of refueling tankers? So the benevolent market forces can wrestle the best contract from the competitors? The best contract for upgrading the American military is one that supports the American economy and happens when we want it to happen.
The Boeing deal gets the first bit right but trips up on the second. Granted, the economy is shaken enough to make me smile when I hear “50,000 new jobs in the States”, but an ailing fleet of refueling tankers is unacceptable. “Planet Earth Police” has the communications to watch stories break in the Maghreb and Middle East; “Planet Earth Police” should have had the flying range to reach these hotspots ten years ago.
Budget cuts in DC are literally changing the wind on Capitol Hill; trust me, I walked my dog in it and it was like I was leaning forward on a Moroccan dune during a sandstorm. I agree with the GOP that cuts must be made and I agree with what I heard Alan Simpson say on NPR (Alan Simpson is the co-chair of Obama's bi-partisan deficit committee. Erskine Bowles, former president of our UNC school system, was the Democratic co-chair). He told NPR in a radio interview that Defense and Medicare / Medicaid are the two most worthwhile targets.
So cut the Department of Defense. We don't need millions of tax dollars allocated to marching bands. But we do need a good military. China is training its men; there is unrest all throughout the Maghreb and Middle East; rogues states like North Korea shell South Korean islands.
To the federal government: whoever you choose to update your refueling tanker fleet, please award your contract to those who can fulfill it immediately next time, not the ones that have to battle it out until your military might becomes irrelevant.
Live well, live well within your means, and remember –
that’s how the Solvency Shark seas it!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE MORE PRECIOUS TO ME THAN A BALANCED BUDGET. PLEASE LEAVE THEM BELOW.
Posted:
3/9/2011 8:17:00 AM by
Solvency Shark | with
1 comments