Dedicated Articles

This is an extremely challenging article for me to write because it hits very close to home. Guardianship. Who will take care of my children were my wife and I to both pass away suddenly? It’s a question that’s so painful to think about that many parents simply don’t think about it - and that can prove to be a huge mistake.

Why worry about it? In the most generic sense, you don’t have to. Each state has intestacy laws (intestacy refers to laws that determine what happens to your property in the absence of a will) that will determine, based on a simple set of rules, who would have the opportunity to claim custody of your children. Often, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are options, and in most loving families, the people will come together and find a solid and workable solution for your children.

The only problem with this is that you have no voice in the matter. Your extended family and the state will be making this decision, not you and your spouse. Given the deeply personal nature of the decision, you’ll likely want some input on that decision.

How to Pick a (Possible) Guardian for Your Children

There are many different guides available on this topic, with drastically different advice. What I’ll offer is the criteria we used in coming to this decision.

Does the potential guardian share your values? In other words, does the potential guardian believe in the same things that you believe in and have many of the same philosophies about raising children that you do? To borrow from Les Miserables, you don’t want your little Cosette put in the hands of the Thenardiers, even if you believe they have the means necessary to raise your child.

Do you believe the guardian will raise your child in accordance with those values? Is that potential guardian a good person? If you’re not confident of their character, then you might not want to have your child raised by that person. For example, the guardians we selected for our own child have vastly different interests than we do, but I know their character - our children will be in good hands with them.

Does that potential guardian have a strong family network around them to help with the burden of having unexpected (and likely traumatized) children? Likely, if you die suddenly, the lives of the guardians you selected will be turned upside down. Does your guardian have the appropriate network of support around them to ensure that your child’s life doesn’t quickly descend into chaos? It’s often a good idea that the potential guardian lives near your child’s grandparents (or perhaps are their grandparents).

Will that potential guardian teach your children the basics of success in life? In other words, you wouldn’t want to turn your children over to someone who would be incapable of teaching your child basic life skills. Can the guardian manage their own life effectively?

Does that guardian have the financial security to ensure that your child’s needs are met? In other words, if they’re struggling to make ends meet right now, dumping two children into the situation might not be good unless you’re adding your own financial support (in the form of large life insurance benefits, for example).

Will that guardian have an expected natural lifespan that will allow them to remain as guardian until your child enters adulthood? Your children have already gone through the trauma of losing both parents. Why would you want them to go through the trauma of losing a guardian as well?

The relative values of each of these questions will likely vary a lot depending on your personal values, but they’re all worth considering. These are the exact questions we used when determining who we wanted as a guardian.

When making our decision, we actually made a giant list of everyone who we would even consider as a guardian, then gradually eliminated people one at a time, eventually winding up with three strong candidates. After a lot of discussion, we decided to choose guardians that had the best access (by far) to grandparents for support in raising our kids - that was our “tiebreaker.”

Planning for the Situation

Likely, if there’s a scenario where you and your spouse have both passed on and your guardian gains custody of your children, you’ll want your estate to be used to ensure that your child has every success in life.

First of all, your will needs to specify your guardianship plan. You may even want to specify multiple guardians, so that if your first choice is somehow unable to take on the responsibility, your second choice is clearly stated. Consult a lawyer and ensure that your will is set up properly and legally so that your wishes will be carried out.

The most effective method of ensuring your children get their assets may be to set up a living trust right now, so that if you do pass away, your property is considered part of that trust and can be distributed by the trustee. Within that trust, you could specify rules for disbursement to your children at certain periods in your life. You’ll need to identify a trustee to handle this - someone you deeply trust that you are confident could handle this task with good faith.

If you don’t have significant assets and your primary gift to your children is your life insurance, you can specify in your will that these cash assets are placed into a trust for them. Again, you’ll need a trustee that you really trust, and again, you really should contact a lawyer to get the specifics worked out.

Your children are some of the most valuable things you’ll ever give to the world. Take the time right now to ensure they’re well taken care of if something happens to you.

In the past, I’ve mentioned a lot of disparate facts about how we collect and use coupons, so I thought it might be worthwhile to show off our entire coupon organization system so it’s clear how we do it. Because of this system, the only time we really invest in coupons is a bit of spare time during Sunday breakfasts, some late evening idle internet surfing, and a few extra minutes when assembling our grocery list, and we often save $30 at the store because of coupons. Our system is not one of those complex and obsessive ones that tries to squeeze out every nickel - it’s merely the methodology we’ve found that gives us the maximum bang for the buck.

Here’s how we maximize our coupon value, from top to bottom.

Meet Our Coupon Binder

The best place to start is the centerpiece of the system: our coupon binder.

It’s actually just a very cheap photo album with clear pockets and a binder that allows you to move pages around as you wish. Whenever we have a new coupon to add, we just toss it in the binder in the appropriate place.

Appropriate place? We sort our coupons by one criteria and one criteria alone: by expiration date. This makes it easy for us to quickly find and eliminate the expired coupons and also keep tabs on the coupons that are getting close to expiration.

Here’s a peek inside the binder.

As you can see, the coupons each have a pocket to themselves, so we can quickly flip through the book and find what we want. We keep multiples of the same coupon in the same pocket. Thumbing through reams of coupons is a giant waste of time and drastically reduces the cost-effectiveness of the coupon clipping time investment.

The Coupons We Clip

We have a pretty simple set of criteria for clipping a coupon.

First, is it something we’re sure we’ll use? If so, we’ll clip any coupon for that item.

Second, does the coupon have a face value of $1 or more? These are coupons that are usually used as part of a large marketing campaign for a specific product and are ones that are often paired with a sale in the store within the next month or two (the one month coupon strategy at work). If we might use the product (in other words, we use that type of product, but not necessarily that brand), we’ll clip it. It’s because of this that I’m currently using Herbal Essences shampoo and Old Spice body wash in the shower, for example - I wouldn’t normally buy those brands, but clipping big discount coupons and waiting for a sale made the items very cheap.

Third, is the coupon for an item that’s often cheap or on sale anyway? A good example here is breakfast cereals (which is why you see the Honey Nut Cheerios coupon in the binder above) - they’re usually low in price and regularly go on sale, too.

If a coupon hits one of these categories, we clip it. This means our binder is often close to full and we often toss about half of the coupons we clip, but the other half really save us a lot.

Where Do We Get Coupons?

On Sunday mornings, I usually clip coupons from the Sunday paper at the breakfast table while everyone’s eating breakfast. I’ll just quickly go through the coupon sections, cut the coupons we want, and save any store flyers I see (they’re important later). This is a minimal time investment, because we’d all be sitting there eating breakfast anyway, and it’s a good opportunity to teach the value of living frugally to the kids.

If the Sunday coupons are exceptionally good, I’ll go to the local convenience store really early on Monday morning and ask the cashier to let me pillage coupon sections out of the old Sunday papers. I’ll score ten papers’ worth of flyers and cut the goodies out of them the following Sunday.

On lazy evenings, my wife or I will do some web surfing, finding coupons at places like Coupons.com and Target.com. The latter is especially nice because you can use the Target.com coupons and manufacturer coupons at the same time on purchases at Target, so you can get stuff for free sometimes if you plan carefully.

If I identify some truly exceptional coupons (for example, not long ago I had coupons for $2 off a jug of V-8 Fusion - that’s the 100% juice V-8), I might hit up a coupon broker to send me a bunch of copies of that coupon. I just Google “coupon broker” and then pay someone else a few cents to dig through their flyers and clip the coupons for me.

That’s all we do. It takes very little time in a given week to collect all the coupons and toss them in the binder.

The Pre-Shopping Ritual

Each Friday evening (or sometimes Saturday evening), we’ll assemble a grocery list. We usually make up a meal plan for the next week, make sure we have everything we need for all of those meals, and then check on the status of our household staples (toiletries, milk, flour, etc.). This gives us the backbone of our list.

A note on the meal plan We usually base our meal plan on the flyer from the local Fareway - our preferred grocery store. We get the Fareway and Hy-Vee flyers (the two main local grocery chains) in the mail each week and then use them to prepare a meal plan, usually preferring the Fareway flyer (because it’s basically lower on almost everything, as we discovered after some careful pricebooking). We just identify the fresh items on sale in the flyer and then try to base meals around those fresh items.

We also go through the flyers and look for obvious loss leaders in the flyers. What items are on sale that are low enough to seem genuinely surprising? We try to match these up with coupons we have, so that if we add an extra item to the list, we’re adding something that’s only going to cost pennies and is sometimes free.

We then pull out all of the coupons that match up with items on our list and then put them in a few pages at the back of the binder for easy access when shopping.

The extra time added to our shopping planning by coupons is maybe ten minutes, tops. We put probably half an hour total into our shopping preparation, but our whole preparation plan saves us about $50 per grocery shopping trip, so it’s time well spent.

While In The Store

We take our coupon binder with us when grocery shopping, but we primarily just stick to our list. We do keep our eyes open for any unadvertised in-store specials - every once in a while, we’ll find one that matches up well with a coupon in our binder and thus we grab it immediately. Aside from this, we just follow the shopping list, then pull out all of our coupons from the back pages of the binder at the checkout aisle.

Our time actually in the store is vastly reduced compared to the time we’d spend without any preparation. The time savings here mitigates the time investment made with the extra planning.

Is It Worth It?

Two weeks ago (the last “normal” week around here that didn’t involve a weekend camping trip or other chaos), I kept track of the time spent with couponing. If you count the time spent at the breakfast table clipping coupons as time spent just couponing, we spent 23 minutes on coupons alone that week, and an extra 14 minutes on preparing a grocery list and meal plan, giving us a total of 37 minutes spent planning our weekly shopping trip. When in the store, we saved approximately fifteen minutes because we had a tight, clear shopping list to follow, so our total time lost to the coupons was roughly 22 minutes for the week.

The savings from the coupons alone was $21 on our final receipt, a slightly below average week. That means our “wage” for clipping coupons with this system was $57.27 an hour after taxes for the given sample week.

In reality, our savings from investing the time to properly plan our shopping was significantly higher than that, even. By sticking to a shopping list, we avoided many impulse buys. By planning our meals in advance in accordance with the fresh items on sale, we pocketed even more savings on our food purchases. These are additional savings that I’m not even attempting to quantify, but both are real and quite tangible.

Couponing is clearly worth it in our case. The relatively small time investment it adds to our shopping is well worth the real cash savings we realize from our system.

Let me address a few of the usual coupon complaints.

Couponing is stupid because you’re not buying fresh, healthy food. We rarely use food coupons at all, and when we do, they’re usually for breakfast cereals like Cheerios, frozen vegetables, yogurt, and occasionally ice cream. The vast majority of our coupon clipping is for hygiene items (like shampoo, soap, razors, etc.) and other household items (like dishwashing detergent, etc.).

For example, if you look at the picture of our coupon book above, you’ll see six coupons: one frozen yogurt coupon, one Cheerios coupon, one Ziploc baggie coupon, a toothpaste coupon, a body wash coupon, and a facial cleanser coupon. Not exactly a big pile of junk food - and we still save a lot at the store. Our actual meal planning is based around the fresh produce that’s on sale that week.

Couponing is stupid because it’s not cost effective and is a waste of my time. We get $57.27 an hour after taxes for something we can largely do in our pajamas at the Sunday morning breakfast table. If you think that’s a waste of your time, be my guest. I consider it a pretty effective use of my time.

Couponing is stupid because it’s all about consumerism. I don’t really care that much about consumerism if I can get soap for a quarter. I’m not seeking the latest products - I’m seeking cheap. If I can get cheaper quality items without the coupons, the coupons go in the trash. If you want to label that consumerism, feel free, but I consider it a pretty frugal methodology.

Life one day spontaneously retracted from Sarah Sophia Princeton. In the span of thirty seconds, twenty nine and a half years of feminine sexual energy compressed progressively downward into first the body of a sullen teenager with ripening breasts and hips that were waiting to catch up, a precocious young girl, toddler, baby sliding back up into her mother’s birth canal, fetus lodged snugly in the womb, and finally the egg and sperm of her biological parents uniting in one moment of cosmic bliss which neither partner ever actually felt for they were both long since dead at the moment of conception.

Sarah’s consciousness spit itself across the universe, coming to rest upon the sleeping figure of a man lying unconscious in a circular field of tall grass, his arms outstretched underneath a perfect dome of blue sky with its zenith directly above the soft rising and falling of his chest.

Each Friday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book of interest.

As I watch my nieces and nephews grow up and approach college age, I constantly see potential in them. Potential to live a great life where they’re in control of their own destiny. Potential to follow their dreams, no matter what those dreams might be.

A big part of that is having a good understanding of personal finances right off the bat, and that’s basically the idea behind Please Send Money. Written by Dara Duguay, the director of Citi’s Office of Financial Education, it focuses on the financial reality of young adults just starting out, particularly those who are currently in college.

Does Please Send Money pack a strong punch for younger people? Is it a better choice than other books targeting young adults, particularly Suze Orman’s The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke? Let’s dig in and find out.

A Deeper Look at Please Send Money

1. The Ostrich Syndrome
Right off the bat, Duguay hits upon what I consider to be the biggest danger that many people face when financial problems begin to strike: they stick their head in the sand. I did the same thing: I spent money like it was going out of style and pretty much ignored the consequences. The truth is you can’t do that - if you do, you’ll end up paying for it throughout your adult life. Duguay gets the point across by using many stories from people who ignored things - and the pain of those stories rang very true for me. Her advice? Pay attention. If you’re getting worried about your money, don’t just ignore it. Address it head on and find a solution now, not in five years when it’s disastrous.

2. Do You Run Out of Money Before You Run Out of Mouth?
Here, Duguay makes a very compelling case for spending less and addresses head-on most of the arguments that people throw up against living on the cheap. Why shouldn’t I spend everything I make? Because it puts you at the mercy of your boss and removes control from your life. Why should I even think about spending less than I do? Because if you’re spending more than you earn right now, a big bill will come home to roost, and the only way to keep yourself away from a financial disaster later on in life is to spend less now. But won’t I feel miserable if I downgrade my lifestyle? Maybe, but you’ll be a lot more miserable if your income drops or your bills come due - it’s much easier to downgrade a bit right now than to face complete disaster in a year or two.

3. Credit: It’s Not Your Money
When many people first become comfortable with using a credit card, they lose that connection between the credit card and the reality of money. If you can just give them the card and get the stuff, why not just keep doing it? When that disconnect happens, you’re on very dangerous ground. What’s the solution? Keep very careful tabs on your cards: know what the balance is, how much you actually can afford to charge, and also know how you’re going to be repaying anything you charge. If you don’t know, you shouldn’t be using the plastic.

4. I Need Wheels
Duguay mostly lays out useful basic information for buying a car. She focuses quite a bit on what I consider to be the most important piece in the car purchasing puzzle: the extra costs. Gas, oil changes, other maintenance, insurance, repair costs: they all add up, and many people don’t even consider it when they make a purchase. Even more compelling (for me) is the section in which Duguay really digs into the idea that many people buy cars based on image, not necessarily on reliability or value. In other words, they’ll pay a stunning premium just to appear “cool.” My neighbor down the road a bit has a Lexus and, frankly, I’m a bit jealous of it when I see it out in the driveway, but when I step back and think about his $500 car payments, I suddenly feel quite a bit better about my decision not to have one.

5. The Semester of Living Dangerously
The college experience is often filled with risky behavior, and financially risky behavior is no different. Not only is there a big credit card risk (as covered in the third chapter), but there’s also student loans, party expenses, and a huge variety of ways in which to gamble your money (day trading and card playing were two that I saw frequently in the dorms). Most risky behavior in college has no ill effects once you’ve moved on, but financially risky behavior often has huge consequences that dog you for years. If you feel like pushing the limits in college, that’s fine, but when you push the limits with your money (like one person I knew who took out a huge student loan and used the excess to day trade), you’re setting up a scenario where you’ll be literally paying for these moves for many years to come. So, go out and have fun, but don’t do stupid things with thousands of dollars unless you want huge debt bills to repay later on in life.

6. What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Determining what you want to do with your life is a challenge that almost everyone faces at some point in their life, and some people never really figure it out. Duguay offers some very strong encouragement (both financial and otherwise) for figuring this out as early as possible, and also offers some very basic tactics for figuring this out. Her ideas are enough to generally point a person in the right direction with their educational and career choices, but it’s not quite enough to push a person to the right answer. My suggestion? Read Richard Nelson Bolles’ excellent What Color Is Your Parachute? It’s the single best guide I’ve ever read on figuring out what you want to do with your life.

7. Returning to the Nest
Here, Duguay focuses on the challenges of a person who moves back in with their parents. For this chapter alone, Please Send Money is a book worth reading for kids who have returned to the nest. The basic idea? Create a plan. Plan right now for a move-out date, because without a target and a plan for working for that target, that move-out will keep slowly being pushed back. How can you plan for it? The best method is to come up with a very clear budget for what it will cost - and the parents should start charging rent. My own thought is that if parents are uncomfortable with taking that money, then still charge rent and put that paid rent into an account to give them back once they’re on their own two feet (for a car down payment or something). Excellent advice here.

8. Loaning Money? Call It a Gift
Duguay offers some general advice on loans here. First, if you’re lending money to anyone, Duguay recommends making it a gift or not lending at all, a stance I strongly agree with. Second, if you’re borrowing money, try to avoid borrowing it from friends or family, as you’ll often alter the relationship in a bad way just by asking. When you do borrow money, make sure you truly understand the entire agreement, because there can often be nasty consequences for not knowing the rules and thus not following them. Borrowing money is never a fun thing, no matter what.

9. Mind Over Money
Much of personal finance is rooted in psychology. Learning how our minds trick us into making poor buying decisions, understanding the influence marketing has on us, and knowing the techniques used by marketers to gain access to our wallets are all useful things to know, and they’re all rooted deeply in psychology. Duguay’s advice is to think deeply before you spend, no matter what you’re spending your money on. If you don’t really understand why you’re spending the money, don’t spend it! If you do know but the reason seems flimsy, don’t spend!

10. ‘Til Debt Do Us Part
Relationships aren’t easy, and finances make them even more difficult. Duguay offers the basics of what you need to know, but there really is only one key to making money and relationships mix well together: communication. Talk about everything you’re uncertain about. Every bill should be entirely open with your partner. You should be fully honest about what you’re thinking - and about what you’re spending. If you don’t do these things, you add mistrust to your relationship, and that mistrust can fester and eventually grow into something that can destroy the relationship. Excellent advice, in my opinion. If you’re really into the topic of relationship-based personal finance advice, The Big Payoff by Sharon Epperson is an excellent read.

11. “I’m Too Young to Start Saving” and Other Excuses
Duguay spends most of this chapter countering arguments people may want to make against financial responsibility, including that old chestnut in the chapter title. In a nutshell, if you’re old enough to start facing paying any kind of bill, you’re old enough to be financially responsible and start saving. I particularly like that she took on the tired old argument that “saving a little bit here and a little bit there is a waste of my time,” something I hear almost every time I write about frugality. If you can shave off $3 a day, that’s $1,100 a year - three or four car payments for most people. The little things add up - and they add up quick.

12. Easy Come, Easy Go
Duguay seems to address a lot of little things in this chapter, like keeping your spending down, hiring a financial advisor, and determining what your priorities are, but the real message boils down to just one word: goals. Set goals for yourself, ones that you can reach if you stretch yourself, and keep setting new ones as you reach old ones. You always need a carrot to strive for - without them, you’ll keep spending for the now and never have a great tomorrow to look forward to.

13. Wall Street Panic
This chapter covers the basics of investing, and for the most part it’s completely in line with my investing philosophy: buy diverse holdings and sit on them. For me, that means buying index funds. More importantly, Duguay encourages not “gambling” with the stock market - don’t buy the “hot” stock of the moment, because you’ll very likely just get burned by it. I generally agree with her: turn off CNBC if you’re tempted to put your cash into one of their talking heads’ hot pick of the moment.

14. Bankruptcy - Is There an Easy Way Out?
Dubuay closes by giving some serious consideration to the question of bankruptcy, something that many people bring up to me in questions. For the most part, she encourages people not to just hit the bankruptcy button as a way out, because it creates ten years of very difficult experiences as you find out what life with no credit at all is like. Think very high insurance rates, poor loan opportunities, and so on.

Some Thoughts About Please Send Money

After reading the book, I was left with several thoughts floating around in my head that were worth discussing. Here are a few.

The cost of “image” A big undertone of this book is the constant reveal of how much spending a person makes in order to maintain image. Clothing. Automobiles. Housing. Gadgets and electronics. Image is a big part of all of these purchases, and these purchases really add up. The thing that always bites me is that most of this “image” is the result of marketing, but even if you realize it, that doesn’t mean that others do. Thus, it becomes a difficult challenge for image-conscious people: how do you display the kind of personal image you want without spending too much? Image is a ridiculously costly thing - so costly, I’ve ceased to really care that much about it.

I think loaning money to a family member or a friend is a very bad idea. If you have someone close to you who has asked you for a loan, don’t do it. If you feel truly compelled to help, make it a gift, not a loan. If you loan money, you create a lender-borrower relationship - and can you name anyone who has warm and fuzzy feelings towards their banker? Imagine what might happen if that person doesn’t repay the money. I think this is a fine general philosophy to live by.

Why do we all make financial mistakes when we’re young? From the age of about eighteen to about twenty six, I made a ton of financial mistakes. There are times when I wish I could go back, grab myself by the ears, shake myself wildly, and say “Stop being STUPID!” But is that a necessary thing? I really believe that in the end, even though recovery was painful, it was the best thing that could happen to me.

Is Please Send Money Worth Reading?

This is the single best personal finance book I’ve read for people under 25. If you’re in that category, whether you’re 16 and just thinking about college or 24 and just getting started on a career, there’s a ton of meat in this book for you to think about.

Duguay hits a perfect balance between stories of how real college-age people are dealing with these issues and the concrete advice that’s needed. She also doesn’t speak down, either, something that many books targeting college-age people fall into. I often get the impression that she’s talking to her younger self, trying to sit down with her at a coffee shop and telling her the things she dearly wishes she knew back then, but doing it in a way so that her younger self might actually listen instead of tuning her out.

I thoroughly enjoyed Please Send Money and highly recommend it to others. If it seems applicable to you at all, go to the library immediately and check this one out. This book has now become my default high school graduation gift for friends and children of friends - it’s really that good. Bravo, Dara Duguay.

As regular readers know, I’m a very happy user of ING Direct. They provide my checking services, my savings services, and all of my online bill pay services. They even allow me to set up sub-accounts so that I can save for specific goals. In my opinion, ING Direct is the best of the full-service online banks, and I’m a happy customer of theirs.

Because they offer all of these useful tools, over time, I’ve begun to use ING Direct as my primary budgeting tool. I can set aside money in specific small pools, automatically transfer money back and forth, set up automatic bill payments, and so on. These tools allow me to effectively manage my money.

Here’s a walkthrough of how I do it.

Step Zero: Get An Account
You don’t necessarily have to have ING Direct as your bank to do the following. You merely have to have a bank that has online checking and savings access and online bill pay. Many banks offer this - Washington Mutual and E*Trade Financial are two well-known national banks that offer similar services, and your local bank may offer it as well.

Switching to a new checking account is easier than it might sound. I’ll quote the steps you need to take from an earlier post:

1. Open the new checking account. The first step is the most obvious one. Open the account and get the information you need: account number and routing number. Order checks if you need them. In other words, be prepared. Your new bank may also need the information for your old checking account so you can transfer money from the old account into the new.

2. Make a list and check it twice. Make a detailed list of all automated withdrawals and deposits from your current primary checking account. The best way to do this is to simply watch the account for a period of two to three months so that you pick up as many of these as possible.

3. Balance your checkbook. Make sure you’ve accounted for everything outstanding so there are no nasty surprises during the transition. Figure out what you have in the old account down to the cent so that you can avoid overdraft dangers.

4. Switch over all deposits and withdrawals at once. I find this is easiest to do by switching over the deposits a bit earlier than the withdrawals, so that there is money already in the new account when deposits begin to be set up. I’m also incredibly careful about such things.

5. Leave the old account open for a while with a balance in it to catch any missing deposits or withdrawals. Even though it might feel like the balance in the old account is just sitting there wasting time, it’s actually there to protect you against your own poor memory. Just be patient and give it several months; you might surprise yourself.

6. Close the old account. Be sure to leave a correct address behind. You might also want to end other services at that bank, such as a safety deposit box.

If you’re switching to ING’s Electric Orange checking, it may be useful to skip step #6 and leave the old account open, especially if there are no fees on it. I’ve kept my old checking account open for two conveniences - cashing checks with a teller and the ability to write paper checks (on the rare occasions when I do this any more, maybe once every three months).

Step One: Set Up Automatic Bill Payments For Monthly Bills
For every regular monthly bill you have, you can set up an automatic bill payment for that bill so you don’t have to worry about paying it on time. It’s quite simple.

First, click on the “Electric Orange” tab on the top, then click on “Free Bill Pay.”

Add a new business (with the name, address, and account number) by clicking on the appropriate link, then add that bill in below. You can specify the amount, the date to pay it, or the regular date to pay it.

Once you’ve done this, the next scheduled payment shows up in your basic checking account screen, so you can easily see what’s coming up and when.

Step Two: Set Up A Sub-Account For Each Irregular Bill and Savings Goal
What about the other bills, the ones that only come around every several months and seem to always crunch the budget, like homeowners’ insurance or car insurance? For those, it’s useful to set up a sub-account to slowly set aside money so that when the big bill comes, you’re ready. Here’s how.

Once you’re logged in, in the upper left, click on the “Open Account” option. You can see it clearly in the picture above.

Choose to open a new savings account on the next screen The “Open Now” link in the image above is where you should go.

From there, the process is really straightforward - you can call each account you create whatever nickname you like to identify it as a distinct fund: an emergency fund, a “house maintenance fund,” a “vehicle replacement” fund, a “house insurance” fund - whatever works for you.

After that, you should set up an automatic transfer into that account. You can do that by clicking on the Transfer Money tab along the top.

Then, fill out the information below. As with the automatic bill payments, these will appear on your default checking account view so you can quickly see the money that’s going to be automatically withdrawn from your checking account.

My recommendations? I leave the amounts for the regular but varying monthly bills in my main checking account - things like the cell phone bill and the electric bill just come straight out of the checking. Other bills, especially large ones with longer periods like car insurance and homeowners’ insurance, are handled by having a tiny weekly deduction from my checking account into a special fund just for that purpose. For example, our car insurance is about $400 every six months, so I transfer $15 a week into an account just for that. This way, I don’t really notice that $15 going away, but when the big bill comes, it’s not a panic time - the money’s just sitting there. So I transfer it back into my checking and pay the bill, all online.

Step Three: Pay Your Bills As They Come In
After this is all set up, your only real responsibility is to pay the bills as they come in. I usually pay all outstanding bills once a week, on Sunday afternoon. Keep on top of these bills, so that you’re not dinged with a late fee. With many of the bills handled now by automatic transfer, you won’t have that much to deal with - I usually just have one or two bills a week to pay attention to.

Step Four: Use Your Debit Card as a Mastercard and Use It For Regular Purchases Like Groceries
If you wish to completely centralize all of your spending until you get things under control, ING’s Electric Orange checking service will issue you a debit card that also functions as a Mastercard. If you’re just getting your budgeting under control, it may be useful to spend a few months just running all expenses through that card, so you can keep a careful eye on what you’re really spending. Once you have a strong grip on your spending, you can move on to using other mechanisms for your expenses, but sticking with a check card for a while is a great way to make sure your spending is under control.

These steps, all together, create a centralized view of your day-to-day finances and also form the basics of a budget. This is exactly how I do things right now in terms of day-to-day money management. I use ING Direct to do all of those things, and it’s done wonders for keeping my money in line.

This plan requires you to do some basic math with a calculator. Since you’re already at the computer, using the simple calculator tool on your computer for addition and subtraction should do the trick quite nicely. I tend to use Excel because I usually already have it open in order to update my net worth calculations.

Good luck!

One of the most common topics in personal finance writing is estate planning. Life insurance? A will? A living trust? These are always bandied about and readers are always encouraged to get on board with all of these things.

What’s often not asked is whether or not estate planning really even applies to you at all. Does it? Let’s take a look.

The first question you need to ask yourself is if you passed away tomorrow, would you leave anyone else behind in a financial pinch? Do you have dependents on your income tax? Are you helping out your parents as they get older? Look through your life and ask yourself if anyone would be in a significant bind if you suddenly vanished (and the people you work with professionally don’t count here).

If you can identify people who would need help (or may need your help in the near future, like a future spouse), then you should have some sort of life insurance. There are many tools online for estimating how much you’ll need - this MSN Money tool is particularly good.

If you can’t identify anyone, you probably don’t need life insurance at all. A tiny policy - just to cover your funeral expenses so you don’t burden your parents with the cost - might be appropriate, but if no one is left hanging by your passing, life insurance isn’t really a necessary expense for you.

Another worthwhile question to ask is do you have any specific sentimental property or small assets you want given to specific people when you pass? If you do, then a proper will is in order, so you can specify your wishes. If you don’t care what happens to your stuff for the most part, then you can either not have a will at all (and allow the court system to distribute your assets) or have a very will that assigns everything to one person.

What if you have a lot of assets you want to pass on to people? In that case, you’ll probably want to set up a living trust of some sort - consult a lawyer. You’ll probably also want to prepare a financial preparedness document for your survivors, so they know where everything is and can easily access it.

To put it simply, if you’re a young and unmarried professional without any kids or other challenges, you likely don’t need to worry about estate planning at all. Instead, focus your energy and your money on building a strong career and preparing yourself for the other challenges and goals in life, and revisit this question if you decide later to get married and/or have children.

If you’re young and are married (and/or have young children), but haven’t accumulated significant assets yet, you should have life insurance and a basic will. Life insurance will ensure that your surviving spouse and children are taken care of, and a will may specify any other specifics you may want to label, particularly in the event of the death of both you and your spouse with surviving children.

If you’re later on in life and have accumulated significant assets, that’s when a living will comes into play. Consult a lawyer and get one set up properly so that your wishes are clearly carried out after your passing.

Estate planning is a perfect example of how the same old financial advice doesn’t apply to everyone. People at different stages in life have different needs.

I’m finishing the last chapter of my book today (can’t wait for it to be done!) and so I thought I’d take a break and leave you with some of my favorite old articles, in case you missed them — the articles on simplicity.

As you might already know, living the simple life is one of my passions, and one of my greatest achievements. Sure, my life could probably get even simpler, but I’m happy with where I am. I hope that these articles can help you in your journey to a simpler life, should you choose such a path.

A quick note: There are a lot of articles below. You don’t have to read all of them. In fact, in the name of simplicity, please don’t. Choose a sample, and you’ll do just fine — there are some common themes that run through all of them anyway.

My Favorites:

• Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life
• Simple Living Simplified: 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life
• The Simple Life
• The First Rule of Simplifying: Identify the Essential (or, How to avoid the Void)
• The Four Laws of Simplicity, and How to Apply Them to Life
• 75 Simple Pleasures to Brighten Your Day

Edit Your Life Series:

• Edit Your Life, Part 1: Commitments
• Edit Your Life, Part 2: Your Rooms
• Edit Your Life, Part 3: Closets and Drawers
• Edit Your Life, Part 4: Your Work Space
• Edit Your Life, Part 5: Your Wardrobe
• Edit Your Life, Part 6: A Media Fast

On Decluttering:

• Zen Mind: How to Declutter
• 15 Great Decluttering Tips
• 21 Tips on Keeping a Simple Home with Kids

For Minimalists:

• A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home
• The Minimalist’s Guide to Simple Housework
• The Minimalist’s Guide to Fighting (and Beating) Clutter Entropy
• Cyber Minimalist: How to Work (Almost) Completely Online
• A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Workspace
• 10 Odd Little Minimalist Things I Do

And Even More:

• 36 Great Tips for Keeping Travel as Simple as Possible (and Two Poems)
• The Zen of Tech: 12 Powerful Ways to Keep Your Online Life Simple and Peaceful
• Eliminate All But the Absolute Essential Tasks
• Book review: Simplify Your Life
• Simplify Your Eating Habits and Meals
• How to Simplify Your Filing System; or, Why Stacking Just Doesn’t Work
• 25 Ways to Simplify Your Life with Kids

I love going out on the town with friends, but when I was a younger man, I found that going out every night with pals was a sure way to suck my wallet dry. I’d spend $30 before I blinked and doing that every night was a sure way to drain my wallet.

Over time, I gradually began to develop a toolset of skills that reduced the cost of going out on the town with friends. I’d just use one or two of these tactics each time - the ones that seemed the most appropriate - and would find myself saving 50% or more on one of these little after-work excursions.

With that being said, here are sixteen tactics you can use to save some cash while going out on the town with friends. When you go out, just choose one or two tactics to use - don’t be a cheapskate and try to do all of these at once. If you can save 30% of your normal spending and still have all the fun of going out, that’s a real start.

Do the research
Spend some time researching the options available to you and know where the good deals are. What places have stellar offers for the after-work crowd? Which places have no cover charge on Monday or Tuesday nights? What restaurant has a great deal on its website? Know what kinds of places are available and what some of the best deals are. That way, when you’re out and about, you’re equipped with some knowledge.

Be the one that makes a suggestion
With the group I used to hang out with, the first person that made a concrete suggestion about where to go that evening usually got their way, as everyone else just went along with the flow. Thus, if you know where the bargains are, suggest that place (and you don’t have to mention the bargains, either). That way, you’ll effortlessly save money when the rest of the crowd follows along.

Clip some coupons
My Sunday newspaper always contains tons of coupons for restaurants - things like “save $4 on two lunch entrees,” for example. Clip these coupons and then bust them out when a lunch opportunity comes along. Another great place to look: local “free” newspapers (like Cityview and Juice in the greater Des Moines, Iowa area).

Buy (and use) an “entertainment book”
Around here, “entertainment books” are a common item that you can buy to help a charitable organization with fundraising. These books are loaded with coupons for restaurants, golf courses, clubs, and so forth - in other words, entertainment coupons. If you go out with the gang on a very regular basis, these books can quickly pay for themselves - just take it along wherever you go and see if any coupons match up with what you’re doing.

Take advantage of special local events
Many communities offer interesting local events that can easily eat up a social excursion or two. See what the community festival is all about, or check out restaurants that are participating in any big cross-promotional events (like “restaurant week”, which some communities have).

Pay per drink - don’t start a tab
Never start a tab when you’re out at the local watering hole. A tab makes it incredibly easy to rack up purchases without really thinking about it, leaving you with a stunning bill at the end of the night. Instead, buy each drink with cash - and tip each one individually. If you take in only $10 or $20 in cash, you’ll be capped at spending that much and thus won’t be shocked at the end of the night with a huge bill.

Catch happy hour
Many dining and drinking establishments offer a “happy hour,” usually timed to catch the after-work crowd. These usually offer cheap drinks and usually very cheap (sometimes free) appetizers. If you know of a place that offers a great “happy hour,” offer up that place as a suggestion as to where to go after work, then eat up on the free appetizers (meaning you’ll only need a tiny supper you can easily fix at home for pennies, saving you even more).

Don’t be the only person buying rounds of drinks
It’s fine to buy a round of drinks for your friends, but only if everyone does it on a regular basis. Otherwise, you’re throwing money away needlessly. Don’t feel obligated to buy a round, especially if you’ve recently bought one.

Take advantage of any “members club” offers
At a few of the drinking establishments in Des Moines and other nearby towns, there are “members clubs” that offer deals if you buy so many drinks. For example, at one place, if you buy 10 different drinks, you get one free - they use a “wooden nickel” system to do this. Take advantage of it, especially if it coincides with other deals like cheap appetizers or a great happy hour.

Meet friends for lunch instead of dinner
If you’re looking to meet up with friends for a meal, consider going out for lunch instead of going out for dinner. The lunch menu is always cheaper and you can still have a great time together. Plus, there’s less temptation to drink heavily (and thus spend more than you should) over lunch than over dinner.

Eat plenty of the free appetizers
At many places (especially Mexican-themed restaurants), free appetizers are given to you before the meal. If they are, order a light meal and chow down on the appetizers - and if you feel bad about this, just tip strongly. There’s a Mexican restaurant I love near where we live that has $4 lunch specials with unlimited chips and salsa - I always leave $6 behind just because the meal is good, you can eat as much as you’d like, and the service is great.

Order a glass of water (if it’s free)
If you can, always order a glass of water before ordering food. Drink that glass of water quickly, then evaluate the menu. The glass of water will not only hydrate you (a real bonus), but will fill you up a bit and encourage you to order a smaller portion off the menu, thus saving you a bit of cash.

Split an entree with a friend
If you’re going to a place with large entrees, suggest splitting an entree with a friend and also splitting the cost. This is sometimes frowned upon with small parties, but with large parties, it’s fine. Choose a meal that’s easy to separate into equal portions (soup’s bad, sandwiches are good) and pay an equal portion of the bill.

Drink some beverages and eat a snack before you go
Another way to keep your eyes from overloading your wallet while studying the menu is to eat a snack or drink some beverages before you go. This way, when you arrive at the restaurant or club, you’ll already be partially full and won’t want to order as much food or as many beverages, thus saving you money.

Don’t be ashamed of the doggy bag
If you order an entree, focus on cleaning up the side dishes first. That way, if you start digging into the entree and can’t finish it, it’s very easy to package up into a doggy bag for lunch the next day. Don’t be ashamed of the doggy bag, either - it’s an incredibly smart (and non-wasteful) thing to do.

Join the group after dinner
Another clever strategy is to simply agree to meet up with the gang after their dinner. Just meet them outside the restaurant an hour or so after their reservation and then hang out with them afterwards. Meanwhile, you can either skip the meal or eat something inexpensive by yourself (likely something at home).

Using one or two of these tactics in an evening is not a social intrusion, it just ensures that you spend your money in a sensible fashion - and doing that over and over can mean many evenings of fun without many nights of worrying about making ends meet.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of this website, in its current form. Well, okay, that form has changed a bit over those past five or so years - from “occult investigator” to “Pop Occulture” to “[tmbchr]™” {View full history here} - but since June of 2003, I have been diligently working to share all the weird and interesting things I find during the course of my research and my life in general. For me, the two are inextricably intertwined - as is the sharing of what I find. I can’t imagine doing the things I’ve done over these past few years and seeing the things I’ve seen without the help and communication of the many many people who have walked through my life - whether online or off.

Without trying to butter you up too much, what I’m trying to do here is raise enough money so that I can continue on my current path uninterrupted. As is, advertising revenue from my website fully covers all of my bills, rent, etc for the month - and leaves me eating beans all month. I love beans, but I also love beer and meat and being able to reward myself for all the hard work I have put in already and which I continue to put in right now into this mysterious process of self-transformation.

My goal, I guess with all of it, is to inspire other people (by actually living it) to go out there and become what they’ve always meant to be, and to achieve what they know they’re capable of. If you feel like that has been your experience of my website and my work in general, then maybe you’d consider helping me out by donating a few bucks via PayPal {Yes, I’ve had some problems with that company, but I’m going back to it tentatively until I find some other way}. There is a widget via a site called ChipIn which you can donate through that makes a handy bar graph to show our progress, or you can use the PayPal donation button on my contact page (though it won’t impact our snazzy bar graph!).

Myself, I have as a goal to match whatever money I raise via this website (until July 4th - America’s Independence Day!), through busking or street performing around Baltimore. I have a long way to go in that department though, as I’ve made less than five bucks doing that so far. But I was thinking this might give me something to use as motivation.

If you’re new to this website, you might not realize why I’m so awesome. That’s okay. Here is the short list:

1. At the end of last year, I donated the entire contents of this website (6,350 WordPress posts, almost forty original songs, plus countless media files) to the Public Domain as a symbolic dedication of myself to others, and as proof that you can make a living as an artist and creative person without setting restrictive usage rights on your intellectual property.
2. I’ve released two Public Domain folk albums under the name Big Elk.
3. During the month of June, I’ll be publishing once every two days a previously unreleased chapter from my (uncompleted) sci-fi novel, REPERMANENT - begun a year and a half ago.
4. Last year, I stopped suffering, though I still go through hard times now and then. Becoming what you know you have to be isn’t necessarily easy…
5. Over the course of the past year, I have done an absurd amount of research into all things circus! I’ve put together an eight-part series about the history, symbolism and roots of traveling performers throughout the world and across the ages. At the intersection of that, I’ve also unveiled a rich tapestry connecting circuses and carnivals with humanity’s underlying nomadic roots (originally built around following herds of prey animals through seasonal migrations). This has brought my work and my writing into close touch with social justice issues for the homeless, and with the uniquely American tradition of “ramblers” and traveling minstrels as sources of wisdom in our modern mass-mediated era.
6. Maybe you can see what kind of person I am, and something about who I’m trying to be - and what just what it is you’re really supporting when you help me out - by checking out my heroes list.

The money’s obviously awesome, but it’s also just incredible to know that there are people out there who find the things I’m doing, the life I’m leading, the risks I’m taking as a human being to live an authentic life - of some sort - to be worthwhile. That’s what keeps me going.

Oh, and anyone who contributes at least $50USD will receive a complimentary episode of my personalized analog podcasts, Verbal Supplements - a unique historical artifact documenting my experience of this world (Each episode comes with a license granting you digital rights to reproduce the content as you see fit).

So there you go. Thanks everyone in the past who has helped me out, and thanks in advance to anyone who has the ability to do so this round. I love you guys! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back the the park and practice juggling clubs. I’m starting to get really good and will try to post some videos of that and of me street performing in the not-too-distant future. (PS. I can buy my own nice set of clubs - I have a loaner now - for around $100. Wink wink.)

Veronica DeMolay checked the connections again before vanishing into the stone wall. Everything was working properly. The miniaturized room beyond gleamed inside of a transparent sphere. Veronica rotated it gingerly to capture the look on his face as he entered.

A heavy thud indicated the arrival of Fisher Caldwell at the palatial estate of Athens DeMolay. Statues of triumphal warriors lined either side of the giant wooden door which swung open, allowing Fisher access within. He stepped into the vast hall – something right out of the dark mythology of a medieval Europe long since departed into the mists. Intricately carved wooden columns rose up and fused with enormous wooden rafters, as if holding up the vault of heaven itself. At the far side of the hall, an enormous fire raged inside a hearth.

Veronica stifled a laugh.

Fisher took another step into the great hall and stopped.

“Hello, is anyone home?” Fisher’s voice came out sounding puny in the mighty hall. “I’m here with TOTU. I – I have a work order.” Fisher tried to find it, but could not. Odd, he thought. Maybe the file is stuck to the van. Fisher took another step forward. And another until he was standing in the middle of the hall.

What’s going on here? Fisher wondered. It simply couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d been called to a job for an Athens DeMolay immediately after receiving a message from Veronica. Are they related?

At that moment, a sim of Athens appeared behind Fisher and greeted him warmly.

“Ah yes, thank you for coming.” Athens said. “Forgive me for not answering you at the door.”

Fisher turned on his heel. “Perfectly alright,” he said, mustering a tone of formality to match the place and the man. “What can we do for you today?”

Athens walked up, put a hand on Fisher’s shoulder and steered him gently towards the hearth. Fisher felt uneasy, though did his best to hide it.

“My wife has been having some trouble with our recording technology lately,” Athens said, pointing towards the fire.

Wife? Fisher gulped hard. He tried to play it cool. “What kind of trouble?” His voice squeaked.

“Well, I’m not quite sure…” Athens trailed off as he leaned closer to the fire. A glowing sphere gradually revealed itself. It quickly enlarged, revealing only wisps of smoke obscuring any view of its interior.

“Well, you’d know better than I would. Wouldn’t you?” Athens said it in such a tone that Fisher suspected he may not just be talking about the recording equipment. He decided to ignore any possible undertones though and to remain as professional as possible.

Fisher squinted into the glowing sphere in the hearth. “May I?” Fisher asked, holding out his hand expectantly for a world key.

“Oh, of course.” The simulation of Athens fumbled within his clothes, patting himself here and there in an effort to locate the orb. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it for you. Just a moment.” Athens turned and began walking briskly across the hall.

Fisher leaned closer to the sphere, trying to peer in through the smoke. Flames lapped around the glossy surface.

Fisher heard Athens footsteps returning behind him. “I think I have an idea of what the problem may be,” Fisher said. “Once I have access, it should be no problem to tweak a few things and-”

But Fisher did not finish the sentence. The air was pushed out of his lungs by a sharp blow from behind. Fisher staggered forward, nearly dashing his head on the hot stone around the hearth. Fisher turned, dazed, and tried to defend himself from…

“Veronica?” he gasped as she swung the iron poker at him again. His arm came up on its own and absorbed the blow with a sharp cracking sound. Fisher recoiled backward in blinding pain. Veronica rushed up, pushed him and he fell backwards into the fireplace.

Continuing that discussion about the $3,000 handbag from earlier this week, I wanted to clarify something. If your finances are in order, you’re putting money away for your future, and you’ve been planning and saving for that $3,000 handbag because it’s a high-quality one and it’s something you’ve wanted for a long time, that’s great! Go for it!

My problem comes in when you have a young professional loaded down with debt racking another $3,000 on the ol’ credit card because he or she wants it.

Take me, for example. My splurges are on high-quality kitchen implements. Do I really need to spend a hundred dollars on a chef’s knife? No, probably not. But I use my chef’s knife almost every day and I know quite well how useful a quality chef’s knife can be.

The big catch here is that I can afford it and I am planning for it. I’m not going out and blowing $5,000 on everything I could possibly want in my kitchen. I’m looking at what I actually need and use and replacing my low-quality pans and knives and implements a piece at a time with high-quality items.

I’d rather have one great knife than ten junk ones. The kicker is that I actually know what the difference is.

On with some personal finance articles.

Can Webkinz Teach Kids Personal Finance? I really wish Webkinz (and other such companies that target children) would think outside the box a bit like this. It’d certainly help to convert someone like me from a highly hesitant parent to one that might be more involved and supportive of this interest in my child. (@ clever dude)

Why “Buy One, Get One Free” Is Usually a Bad Deal As with any deal, evaluate it properly. Something that seems like a great bargain often isn’t. (@ wise bread)

Do Cars Stop Depreciating After 200K Miles? I’m curious about your take on this. I do agree that after a certain point, depreciation of a car’s value is minimal. You’ll take it in to a “push pull drag” sale and get the same amount for it, no matter what. (@ pro bargain hunter)

Hybrid vs. Gasoline Vehicle Comparison - Are Hybrids Worth it? The most efficient car in terms of carbon emission and fuel efficiency isn’t a hybrid. It’s driving an old Toyota or Honda into the ground. (@ million dollar journey)

A Nation in Debt This is a very long article, but well worth the time investment. (@ the american interest)

You Don’t Have to Be a Millionaire to Invest Like One Excellent advice for investors who don’t have much startup money. (@ usa today via free money finance)

A friend of mine just turned me onto this statue…

I was watching Season 6 of Celebrity Fit Factor today (I don’t watch much TV but kinda got caught up in this show) and as I was watching some of the antics by actor Dustin Diamond (better known as “Screech” on Saved By the Bell), I was struck over and over again by how little personal responsibility the guy takes for his situation.

I’d like to start a discussion about personal responsibility, because I think it’s a critical factor in whether you are living the life you want, or if you blame others for being in the situation you’re in.

Just as a little background, Celebrity Fit Factor is a show where 8 overweight celebrities sign up for an 8-week challenge to lose weight and get in shape. They go through all kinds of physical challenges, split into two teams.

Well, one of the worst competitors in Season 6 was Dustin, who really couldn’t complete any of the challenges because of various reasons — injuries, out of breath, just didn’t have it in him. One week, he didn’t even show up. Another week, he was calling his lawyer because the boot camp drill sargeant was calling him names.

And the whole time, Dustin went on and on about how he was being picked on, how nobody was backing him up, how everybody was against him.

I kept wanting to yell at the TV: “Wake up Dustin — you’re responsible for your situation! Nobody likes you because of your actions and attitude!”

But Dustin felt that it was everyone else’s fault.

Unfortunately, this attitude is not unique to Dustin. Many, many people have the same attitude — everyone else is responsible for their situation. And in fact, I would submit that most (if not all) of us do this at some time or another. We blame others, instead of taking responsibility.

And sometimes, other people did help cause the problem. But to that I say: “Then come up with a solution. Make a change. Take responsibility for fixing it, if someone else is causing the problem.”

I urge you to ask this of yourself, every time you find yourself blaming someone else for a problem: How could I have acted differently to prevent this problem? What should I do differently next time?

Let me give you an example. Perhaps you’re at work, and a co-worker is continually doing a bad job on a group project, causing your group to fail. At a meeting, your boss asks you, What happened? Why did you guys fail? And you respond, “So and so keeps messing up. He caused us to fail.” That’s a typical situation, and a typical response.

Instead, ask yourself this: What could I have done, given that so and so is doing such a bad job, to make this project succeed anyway? And there are many solutions: You could have somehow taught this person to do a better job, or motivated him to do better. You could have reassigned his work, or worked around him. You could have gotten him off the team.

Sure, it’s easy to say that in hindsight, but the true value in this solution is two-fold:

1) You learn from failures like this, so that next time you don’t fail (at least, not for the same reason).

2) You learn to stop blaming others for your failures, and to take responsibility for your own destiny.

The value of this second point is incalculable. If you start taking control of your destiny, and stop letting others control it, you will get to the life you want. You will achieve whatever you want.

If you continue to let others sabotage you, and continue to be satisfied with blaming them and telling yourself (and others) that it wasn’t your fault, you’ll have a much harder time.

So I ask you, my dear readers:

How can you take more personal responsibility? Even if you’re already good at this, where have you been blaming others, and what can you do to be the solution to the situation?

I’d love to hear your answers in the comments. If you’re totally honest in the comments, you’re a brave person. But the important thing is that you’re honest with yourself, even if you don’t leave a comment.

Hundreds of people have emailed me asking questions about the current flooding situation in Iowa. Has my home been affected? How bad is it really?

Well, I’ll let the front page of the Des Moines Register speak for itself.

Where I’m at (luckily), there’s been only minor ill effect. We’ve had some minor flash flooding in our back yard, but nothing disastrous (other than some depressing garden damage - I don’t think the rosemary and other herbs will recover). Our basement water pump has been running almost nonstop for the last two weeks. Many cornfields near my house (including the one I can see out of my back door to the east) are partially or entirely covered in water, however. Road travel in Des Moines is very challenging right now, with many, many roads closed.

I have family in northern Iowa that are being seriously affected by this flooding, and I have a lot of family in southern Iowa and western Illinois that are going to be affected by this in a week, when the high water that’s currently in northern Iowa will have reached them. Here’s the data I’m looking at that will be affecting them soon.

Part of the challenge for Iowa is that a large portion of the Iowa National Guard is stationed overseas, making it difficult for the remaining Guard to respond effectively to local emergencies like this.

What Can I Do To Protect Myself?

Know your flood risk Use floodsmart.gov to find out if the property you live in now (or a property you’re considering buying) is a significant flood risk. My area, unfortunately, isn’t covered by that web site (as of just a few years ago, my home was classified as farmland, so the data hasn’t been updated), so my next step was to contact the FEMA Map Service Center to find out my risk. I have a small risk for flash flooding, but minimal risk for river flooding, which was about what I expected.

Determine your need for flood insurance If you’re in an area with some degree of flood risk, consult your homeowner’s insurance policy to find out what coverage you have in the event of a flash flood or a separate significant flood event. If you live in a flood plain that has flooded in the last thirty years or so, you should definitely have flood insurance.

Be aware of the flood control plan in your neighborhood or town if you do live in a flood plain. Know what rivers you should be watching and what signs you should be looking for that a flooding situation may be occurring. Contact city hall and ask if there is a flood control plan for your town and ask for a copy of it, so you’ll have an idea of what the “concern” levels are for the flood protection in your area.

What Can I Do To Help If I’m Not Affected?

Volunteer, if you can Many towns near major rivers in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin could definitely use sandbagging help. If you’re a college student off for the summer and would like a way to use your time to help people in need, contact the city hall or town hall in some of the towns in southern Iowa and western Illinois that lie along the Des Moines, Skunk, and Mississippi Rivers and volunteer to help in exchange for shelter and food. They’ll be glad to quickly find you a host family.

Consider what’s happened here as a part of who you vote for in November. The candidate who is putting resources into FEMA and the National Guard is the candidate that’s really interested in helping America out. Draw your own conclusions on which candidate that is for each office, but keep it in mind when you vote.

Since quitting my “real” job to become a full-time writer, I’ve heard many rather negative comments from friends and family who seem absolutely shocked that I’d quit a stable, solid-paying full time job to hide in my home office every day. The comments went all over the place, ranging from a general idea that I just decided to start being a jobless derelict who is relying on my wife for income to anger that I would put my children at such financial risk.

In reality, this is actually a move towards being an entrepreneur, and I wasn’t surprised at all to find out that the biggest entrepreneurial inspiration in my life was one of the people most in favor of the move once I laid out all of my plans.

A sidebar: Is being a writer being an entrepreneur? Definitely. The modern era, especially with the advent of the internet, is changing the role of writer quite a bit. The internet gives writers a platform upon which to sink or swim themselves, based on their own merits. When I publish on The Simple Dollar, I’m using a platform I built myself, not just submitting a written piece to a publisher somewhere. This platform required me to have a lot of skills: technical skills, marketing skills, and so on.

Those skills, combined with a lot of passion and a lot of readers who support what I’m doing (and without that support, this wouldn’t work), have made it possible for me to swim, and also made it possible for me to open all sorts of interesting doors: writing a book, for starters, and several other very interesting things that hopefully will be coming down the pike soon. Even writing a book alone is much like any other form of entrepreneurship: I create a proposal, shop it around to publishing houses, and try to fish out a book deal.

So who is this entrepreneurial inspiration who gave me the thumbs-up to make the leap and actually gave me the inspiration to even think about it as a possibility?

I call him Dad.

My father was a born entrepreneur. He worked at a (somewhat) steady job for thirty five years, but that was just his regular income. He devoted much of his free time to other pursuits that earned money: small-scale commercial fishing, small-scale commercial gardening (growing what we needed, plus quite a bit more), welding, and other tasks that earned him a fairly steady side income through thick and thin.

When I was young, he was often laid off from his job - the company he worked for had serious economic problems in the 1980s and would often temporarily lay off large chunks of their work force. We persevered, mostly thanks to my father’s entrepreneurial bent. As soon as he was laid off, he’d throw himself heavily into the fishing and the gardening, employing me and my brothers as helpers in the activities. Thanks to my father, I know how to grow a garden, I can run a trot line, and I know how to hunt for deer and trap wild game.

These were activities that were self-directed, that led to us having the things we needed to survive as a family. But it went beyond that, too.

If a friend needed a helping hand or some food on their table, my father would make sure they had it. He’d stop in, see them, and leave behind what they needed. We never talked about it, but I saw him do it many, many times, and it left a lasting impression on me.

He would also take the time to befriend everyone he met, from the president of the local bank to the ragged jobless guy living in a shack down by the river. He knew them both by name and treated them both as friends. When the time came and he needed help, the guy at the bank would lend him money, no questions asked, and the guy down by the river would help him run trot lines, no questions asked. He spent his entire life building friendships and equity in other people, and that has paid off many times over.

In short, all of the elements I needed to know to be an entrepreneur, I learned from him. Do it yourself, because no one will do it for you. Follow something you’re passionate about, because that will make the work into play. Invest love and care into the people around you, because that care will pay dividends for the rest of your life. The more income streams you have available to you, the more likely you are to easily weather any storm.

I didn’t have all the things I wanted growing up, but I had most of the things that mattered: a loving home and a set of parents who genuinely cared for me and wanted me to succeed in life. When I look back on my childhood now, I realize that most of the tools I needed in life came from there.

Entrepreneurship isn’t about starting and building a giant corporation. It’s about the freedom to choose what you want to do - and when you’ve found it, chasing it yourself and building it into whatever you want it to be. My dream is the freedom to write whatever I want and earn enough from that endeavor to give my children a wonderful childhood and to grow old gracefully with my wonderful wife. Entrepreneurship means I’ll figure out the plans to make that happen, and my own father is my inspiration for doing just that.

Editor’s note: I’m thrilled to have this guest post from Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, and the subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer. An eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth, he is now a martial arts champion, holding a combined 21 National titles in addition to several World Championships.

I recently wrote an article about a heartbreaking new trend in our classrooms. In Universities throughout the US, students are surfing the internet, shopping online, Facebooking, and emailing while their professors speak to disengaged minds.

One can argue that kids have always passed notes, but this semester’s explosion of multi-tasking is on a terrifying scale and teachers nationwide are bereft. The Dean of the University of Chicago Law School just banned surfing during class. Harvard Business School was forced to cut off internet access. Columbia, Barnard and countless others are hustling for solutions, but students demand that their rights are not infringed upon.

You can read my account of this crisis and of the dangers of multitasking in this piece on Tim Ferriss’s blog. What I would like to do now is propose some actionable solutions to a cultural problem that extends far beyond our schools.

In my opinion, cutting off internet access in classrooms, while a good idea, is just addressing the symptom of a much broader disengagement. We have to get to the root of the problem by understanding why kids, and adults for that matter, are not deeply immersed in what they are doing.

What is getting in the way of presence? Alienation. From a very young age, kids are not being listened to and so they are turning off their minds. Horrible policies like No Child Left Behind, and the gauntlet of standardized tests our kids have to endure, are turning education into a forced march. Most of the professional world is an extension of the same problem. Everyone is being jammed into the same cookie cutter mold, and that is not how anyone will thrive. Below are some internal solutions to navigating an increasingly disconnected external environment.

1. Do what you love. This seems pretty obvious, but it’s incredible how few of us actually do it. Life is too short to bog ourselves down in a life that doesn’t inspire us. I believe that children, from a very young age, should be encouraged to pursue what they are passionate about. Most kids are drawn to something early—maybe it will be math, music, a sport, painting, dance, reading, chess, whatever. Once you see that spark of inspiration in your child’s eyes, encourage her to dive in. If we dig deeply into something, anything, at a young age, and we touch Quality, then that scent of Quality will be a beacon for us for the rest of our lives. We will know what it feels like. And we will know what it is like to love learning. Then, as adults, we should build our lives around what inspires us. It is common to box ourselves into a lucrative career that we hate, with the belief that the money will make us happy. Of course it will not. I have found that if we do what we love, and we do it passionately, the external will follow naturally.

2. Do it in a way you love and connect to. It is astonishing how this principle is ignored. All of us have different minds, and so our road to mastery will be unique. The art in the learning process emerges when we begin to tap into the unique nuance of our minds—when the walls are broken down between the conscious and unconscious minds, when creative inspiration directs our technical growth. There are some very simple questions we can ask ourselves to get moving in this direction. For example, am I primarily an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner? What about secondarily? I, for one, am a visual and kinesthetic processor. If I see ten phone numbers I can remember them, but if I hear one, it will be a challenge. Imagine if you have a teacher who is an auditory processor, speaking in his or her language to your child who has a visual mind. The disconnect will be huge. And your child might be incorrectly diagnosed with a learning disability.

But this is just one question. Are we charismatic, creative, aggressive, conservative, organized? Do we thrive in stormy conditions or when things are under control? Introspective sensitivity should be at the core of our learning process, so we can build games and loves around our strengths, and so we can address our weaknesses in a language that makes sense to us. This issue is very personal to me, as it precipitated the crisis that ended my chess career. I lost a life’s work because I did not listen to my gut, and it took me many years and a new discipline to return to my roots. We must be true to ourselves to thrive.

3. Give people a Choice and they become engaged. My mom told me a beautiful story a few nights ago. She learned to play chess from me and for the past fifteen years has run chess programs in schools in New York City and New Jersey. She’s the greatest teacher and mother I could ever dream of. In one of her kindergarten classes there is a little boy named Evan who drives all his teachers crazy. No matter what they are doing, he always wants to read a book. His school life has become defined by teachers taking books out of his hands, telling him to sit down and listen with the rest of the kids. This is unfortunately a typical response to an unusual mind.

So in my mom’s first few chess classes with Evan, she would be teaching a lesson on a demonstration board, or everyone would be playing chess games, and Evan would walk to the bookshelf, pick up a book, sit down and start reading. My mom’s solution: she smiled and gave Evan a chess book that covered similar material to what she was teaching. He immediately put down his other book, opened his eyes wide and started reading the chess book. The wonderful thing about the story is that after a few classes in which my mom embraced his mind and gave him a chess book to read, Evan started putting down the chess book and listening to her lessons. Then he started playing chess with the other kids instead of isolating himself. The next somewhat surprising step is that some other kids started asking for chess books too. The visual learners started to creep out of the woodwork, and the whole class now thrives because a teacher was willing to listen to them.

4. Release a fear of failure. This is a big issue. The constant testing in our schools, and the bottom-line language of our culture has kids terrified of failing. We’ve all heard the “I wasn’t trying” excuse. That is protecting the ego. And disengaging from any one thing by skipping along the surface of everything is another version of not trying. Many kids, by the way, have told me their attraction to video games is an escape from the pressures of the real world. They are safe from failing in that virtual reality. If we can relieve the fear of failure, then engagement will become a less terrifying experience.

Fortunately, this is not so difficult. Parents and teachers simply need to transition from result-oriented to process-oriented feedback. Tell a child you are proud of the work done instead of praising the result. Help them internalize what developmental psychologists call an incremental theory of intelligence—a perspective that associates the road to mastery with effort and overcoming adversity. The alternative, a fixed or entity theory associates success with an ingrained level of ability in a particular trait—thus the language “I’m smart at math.” This is a much more brittle approach because it does not embrace imperfection. Most valuable lessons come from learning from our errors, and if we associate messing up with being “dumb” then we can become paralyzed by a fear of failure. Think about it this way—if a well-intentioned parent tells a child that she is a winner, and that child associates success with being a winner, what happens when she inevitably loses? The winner becomes a loser. The developmental psychologist Carol Dweck has done very important research and writing in this field, and I have explored the dynamic in the context of my life in The Art of Learning.

5. Build positive routines.Cultivating new habits is the best way to get rid of bad ones. This is a simple truth with infinite application. We are creatures of habit, and so we should build positive routines into our lives. Exercise, honesty, process-oriented language, introspection, meditation, reading—anything we believe will help our growth can be put into a routine that will help us thrive. So if you are trying to get your child to stop playing video games, then I would suggest replacing the activity with something else that he or she loves to do but that is healthy—for example go outside and have a catch, read a book together, or go to a dance class during video game hours. Do this for 5 or 6 days in a row and the craving for reading or exercise will replace the craving for Nintendo.

Routines can also be built to help us enter states of deep concentration or connectedness. In my chess and martial arts careers, a moment without presence can have devastating effect, and building routines that I condense into triggers for the zone has been an integral part of my process.

6. Do one thing at a time. If we are tackling multi-tasking, we can replace the habit of doing 6 things at once with the routine of doing one thing at a time. Leo has written powerfully about the effectiveness of focusing on less, and I couldn’t agree more. Skipping along the surface will get us nowhere, and if we cultivate the muscle of digging deep, then it will grow. Not only will single-tasking increase effectiveness, but it will also open up our creativity in the learning process. We’ll start making connections we never dreamed of, because we’ll be touching the principles that operate everywhere.

Let’s take the martial arts as an example—most people want to start off by learning ten or fifteen fancy techniques that they’ve seen in movies or watched the advanced students apply. This will lead to years of wasted time and hollow learning. The more powerful approach is to spend days, weeks, even months on one relatively simple technique. What happens then is quite beautiful. You start to get a sense for what it feels like to do something well with your body. Your mechanics become unobstructed, you experience a smooth fluidity, you focus on subtle ripples of sensation. Once you reach this point of full body flow, you can turn your attention to other techniques and you will very quickly internalize them at a high level, because you know what Quality feels like—or in less abstract language, you have internalized axioms that govern all techniques. This same process applies to chess. Learn a principle deeply, and it will manifest everywhere. Whatever we are cultivating, depth beats breadth any day of the week.

7. Take Breaks. This is a terribly underappreciated tool, especially in the work place. When I begin to train a company, without exception I see too much linearity in the workday and creative process. People start the day buzzing with energy, but then after a few hours they are tired and perform at a much lower level. That’s when the hunt for coffee begins, there is a brief buzz, and the inevitable crash looms just around the corner.

There is no way we can focus intensely on something for many hours in a row without burning out. The human mind thrives in an oscillatory rhythm. We need to pulse between stress and recovery in order to think creatively over long periods of time. I learned this lesson in my chess career, trying to concentrate feverishly in world-class tournaments 8 hours a day for two weeks straight. After starting to train with the performance psychologists at the Human Performance Institute, I noticed that after an intense 13 minutes of thinking in a chess game, the quality of my process deteriorated slightly. So I started taking little breaks between chess moves or whenever my energy flagged—if extremely tired, I’d wash my face with cold water or even go outside and sprint 50 yards, which would flush my physiology and leave me energized. My endurance and creativity soared. A nap is a beautiful thing to fill up the tank. So is a quick 30 minute workout. A great way to improve mental recovery is with physical interval training. Have you or your child’s physical exercise follow the rhythm of stress and recovery, and your ability to take breaks and recover from mental strain will also improve dramatically.

A big obstacle in this battle against disengagement is guilt. We have so much to do and so little time, taking a break seems absurd—the same could be argued for doing what we love in a way we connect to, releasing perfectionism, giving ourselves some freedom to choose our way, building positive routines, and doing one thing at a time. Release the guilt! Four or six hours of high quality, inspired immersion will be infinitely more effective and satisfying than eight or ten hours of grinding your way through the day and getting locked into a mechanized, inside-the-box mode that ignores your true potential. For child and adult, learning or working should not be a forced march, and in order to engage deeply and creatively, we need to be as organic as possible by listening to our internal rhythms.

A note from Josh: Dear Teachers and Parents, I am researching the effect of video games on young minds. If you think it might be a healthy experience for your kids, please ask them to give up video games for two weeks, and write me about the experience at TheArtofLearning@gmail.com. Thank you! Josh Waitzkin

Josh is president of the JW Foundation, an educational nonprofit. He is currently training for the World Championships of his third discipline, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and lectures nationwide on the subjects of the learning process and performance psychology.

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In the comments of my recent review of You’re So Money, partgypsy left a very interesting comment:

My sister lusts after those kind of items, and spends all her disposable (and some non-disposable) income on clothes. She seeing eventually owning a home, or retirement as being out of her reach, but she can still buy some designer item which to her = success. There is almost this feeling of scarcity, well, I better buy this, because I might not have the money for it later, and besides this makes me happy and I might never be able to retire besides I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. The items are tied to happiness, fun, glamour, while life as seen in your money or your life is seen as a gulag-like abhorrent existence. It is too far to jump from there to here.

This comment, in one swoop, picks up several of the image problems that frugality has. Let’s look at some of them.

The Perception: Frugality is boring and the opposite of fun.
In that comment above, the phrase “while life as seen in Your Money or Your Life is seen as a gulag-like abhorrent existence” really stuck out at me, clearly delivering the sentiment that frugality is simply not fun.

I understand where the idea comes from. If you make a big list of frugal tactics and a big list of things to do where money is no object, the list of things to do where money is no object will appear to be more fun. What’s more fun: a camping trip to a state park or a trip to the Bahamas? What’s more fun: a fuel-efficient Honda or a Lexus? It’s pretty obvious which list will have the fun factor when you look at it just on the surface.

The Reality: If “fun” requires you to spend a lot of money and accumulate debt, is it really fun?
But it’s extremely superficial to just look at the surface. There’s much more to a purchase than just the excitement of getting that neat new item. As I wrote a while back, the total experience of a purchase involves not just the high of going on that trip or getting that nifty new gadget, but it also involves the realization that maybe you’re not getting as much value from that item as you might have thought, as well as that awful feeling in your gut when you get the credit card bill in the mail.

Frugality isn’t about cheap. It’s about maximizing value for the buck. If my wife can buy a $50 handbag and get 70% of the enjoyment and quality out of it than someone who buys a $3,000 handbag, she’ll do it. That leaves her $2,950 to do whatever she wants - save it for something big in the future, perhaps? That $2,950 can make a big difference when buying a car, for example.

The Perception: Frugality is all about living in the future instead of the present.
When you’re being cheap, you’re trying to scrape a few more pennies off the table to hoard in your pocket for the future. Why not live for today and spend big? After all, as the comment above says, “besides I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.” If you spend every day scrimping and saving, it won’t do you much good at all if you die young.

I see this sentiment echoed a lot in my peers. Shiny new cars, a bag full of brand new golf clubs, exquisite home furnishings - they have it “all.” Quite often, I’m jealous of it. I’d like to have that bag full of shiny golf clubs. I’d like to have some nifty gadgets. Undeniably, there’s a fun factor there.

The Reality: Frugality is all about living in the present instead of the future.
But then I look at a slightly bigger picture. Instead of having those golf clubs, I can sleep well at night without debt hanging over my head. Instead of having some of those nifty gadgets, I can afford to travel to visit friends and family without skipping a beat. Instead of having the snappiest clothes, I don’t have to have a lump in my throat every time I hear about retirement.

Frugality isn’t about denying yourself every pleasure. It’s about having good sense. It’s about realizing that buying a $3,000 handbag means that you have $3,000 less to spend on something else that’s important. It’s about realizing that when you buy something on your credit card, you’ll have some sleepless nights knowing a huge debt is breathing down your neck.

To me, frugality is simply peace of mind. I never feel guilty about anything I spend, and I never get a sick feeling in my stomach when a credit card bill comes in the mail. I have the freedom to do most of the things I want to do and have the sense to realize that some things simply don’t have enough “bang for the buck.” It’s also a realization that little choices, those that shave a little bit off the top here and there without any change in quality, are the ones that give you all the freedom you could ever want. Frugality is about the life you want today: do you want an expensive handbag stuffed with monster credit card bills, or a similar but far less expensive bag without any debt bills at all?

The Perception: A “big” expense like a house is out of reach, so why bother reaching for it?
When I first started seriously thinking about a house purchase, I was completely stunned at the numbers I was coming up with. More than a thousand dollars a month in house payments? Are you kidding me? I couldn’t help but think of all of the stuff I would have to give up for that, and I didn’t like it one bit.

Thus, for years I convinced myself that a house was really out of reach for me, and with that settled, I was free to bust out the cash to buy golf clubs and iPods and Magic: the Gathering cards and all sorts of other things. That “big” expense was simply out of reach, so why even bother to try for it when there’s so much fun stuff to be had?

The Reality: A “big” expense like a house is only out of reach if you want it to be out of reach.
What I chose not to see then is that I could have easily been enjoying most of that stuff while also building a financial foundation for myself. I could have just purchased better “bang for the buck” golf clubs and put that extra wad of cash up for a house down payment while still enjoying golf. I could have bought just one iPod and enjoyed it. I could have not demanded a room with a view overlooking Hyde Park for six days while on our honeymoon in London, but still enjoyed a great honeymoon in the United Kingdom with her. Instead of running to the bookstore to buy every book I wanted, I could have stopped by the library and just checked some of them out.

Just a handful of changes like these - ones that wouldn’t affect my life much at all - and I would have had my down payment years earlier. These big things are reachable - telling yourself that they’re not is just an excuse to enjoy little tchotchkes right now instead of a big dream down the road.

The Perception: Saving a dollar here and a dollar there gets you nowhere.
I often get ridiculed when I post lists of specific frugality tips. “I’m not wasting my time just to save $2,” I’ll hear.

$2 on the surface isn’t much money at all. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the real expenses in life, so why should one ever bother to worry about it? Focus on the hundred dollar bills and the one dollar bills will follow, many people believe.

The Reality: Saving a dollar here and a dollar there is the surest way to getting rich.
I don’t believe that at all. If I can save $2 with a minute’s effort, I’ll do it every time. Why? That minute is spent earning a wage of $120 an hour after taxes. If you could repeat that minute over and over again over a year’s worth of work, you’d earn $249,600 after taxes. That, to me, is a minute worth spending.

That one individual tip that saves you $2 won’t do the trick, but a dozen tips like it begin to make a difference. If you start following them by the dozen, doing things like installing more energy efficient lighting and a programmable thermostat, writing a grocery list and using a good coupon strategy and sticking to both, or buying items in bulk to save cash over the long haul, you find yourself saving that $2 again and again and again.

Soon, that $2 becomes $100, then that $100 becomes a paid-off credit card. Even better, all along the way these tactics don’t force you to make a ma