Archives for Personal category
11
Jun
Posted in Personal by Roger |
I try to share as much of my personal life with those of you who read this blog as I possibly can, particularly when it comes to my finances. Besides being useful in illustrating the broader points I try to make, it also helps, I like to think, in building a connection with you, my readers.
With that in mind, there’s something I haven’t been sharing which I feel I should: I have credit card debt. Not just ‘a few charges on the card, which I will pay off at the end of the month, allowing me to collect bonuses from the credit card companies for free’ debt, but an unpaid (if still relatively small) debt that is accumulating interest as we speak.
How Did This Happen?
If you’re a long term reader of this blog, you might remember that I lost my job back in November; that was the starting event. Given my extended period of unemployment before that point and the short time I was employed, I hadn’t managed to accumulate much of an emergency fund to that point. Luckily for me, Pennsylvania has a pretty generous employment program, which, thanks in part to the numerous extensions passed by the federal government, I was still eligible to receive benefits, which provided me with an income stream roughly half the size I was previously receiving.
Unluckily, or more accurately, unwisely, I was still spending money as if I was getting my previous full income. In fact, I actually ended up spending more, in large part because upon losing my job, I soon moved out to live with my fiancee. While I adore being able to see her everyday and spend time with her, it did make a major dent in my bank account. Besides the increased number of date nights that we went on (thanks to no longer living 330 miles apart), I went from living essentially for free in my mother’s basement to contributing a sizable amount of my unemployment to bills and food expenses. (The trip to Philadelphia for NCECA, while fun, was probably also ill advised given the state of my employment and finances.)
What happened shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s done much reading in the personal finance sphere. I started dipping into my savings accounts to cover the credit card bills; when those funds were gone, I was dependent on getting my unemployment benefits in a timely manner to cover the expenses. Before long, trying to beat the clock caught up with me; as of May, I didn’t have enough to pay off the bill in full when it came due, so I paid the minimum and starting floating the balance on the card.
The bane of my existence
I was still pretty confident, though; by that point, I had gotten my current job at Wal-Mart, and with that income combined with the continued unemployment benefits, I was sure that I could quickly wipe out the remaining debt and even start to accumulate savings again. (Since I’m not working full time at Wal-Mart, Pennsylvania’s unemployment system allows me to keep drawing unemployment benefits in addition to collecting my pay from work.) It was working pretty well for a while there, too; only about $150 of last month’s bill needs to be paid (although, the charges for my spending in May are due soon, as well).
Unfortunately the bottom has fallen out of that plan; while filing for my latest set of benefits, I discovered that I’ve exhausted what the Pennsylvania unemployment system is willing to provide for me. I’ve gotten my last unemployment check, which was much smaller than I was expecting, to boot. My Wal-Mart income, about one quarter what I was earning at my previous job, will not allow me to pay off my debt for at least a few months. In other words, all my attempts to keep unemployment from interfering with my fun and enjoyment have blown up in my face, leading to a hunk of money sitting on my credit card bill, just taunting me.
The Lesson
I’m not sharing all this to win any pity; given that most of the people who comment on my blog are fellow personal finance bloggers, I’d expect more recrimination and ‘What were you thinking?’ comments than pity, anyway. I’m sharing this because I hope it can serve as a warning; it’s easy to delude ourselves into thinking that we have everything under control, even as it starts to get out of hand. Had I stopped to notice what was going on, or had the courage to really take myself to task for my increasingly bad money habits, I might not be in this situation now.
Here’s my advice to all those who find themselves in similar situations to the one I was in since November: Be realistic, even pessimistic, about how long it will take to get a new job, how much you earn from that new job, and how much you can really afford to spend. It’s easy to tell yourself that you’ll get a job soon, that unemployment will see you through, that you don’t need to make any changes to your lifestyle now that you have less money coming. If you fall into that trap, though, you’re just going to end up hurting yourself. A much better, although admittedly less fun, method is to treat unemployment or any other bad situation with all the seriousness it deserves, and act accordingly: decrease your spending, cut out any vacations or other large, optional expenses, and do your best to keep your costs under control.
As for me, I’m doing my best to take care of this credit card debt as fast as I possibly can, and then a bit faster. I’m doing most of my spending with cash, rather than cards, and am closely monitoring that to ensure I have plenty of money left over to cut down my debt. (I haven’t gone as far as cutting up my credit cards, at least not yet; if I don’t see enough improvement on my debt in a few months, though, it’s into the shredder (or at least, into a huge block of ice in the freezer) for them!) I’ll have that debt gone in no time, you can count on that; and then it’s back to more personal finance goodness in the coming weeks!
Related Websites
27
Oct
Posted in Personal, milestones by Roger |
Well, well, well, it’s that time of year again. Yes, I am another year older, and presumably, another year wiser. Certainly, I’ve been learning a lot about personal finance, investing, and money management over this past year. One advantage of writing a blog is that you tend to do lots of research into your subject matter, and as a result, I’ve had the opportunity to read more about personal finance in the past year than I did in my previous twenty-six (which makes me 27 now, in case you were wondering).
Of course, aging does have problems of its own. One of my biggest problems with birthdays as I’ve been getting older is that I no longer know what presents I should request. There isn’t too much I want, and frankly, what I do want, I can easily afford on my own. I didn’t have any good suggestions for possible presents from my family, although it would be nice to go out to dinner. (It’s official; I’m the father in an old sitcom, a fate I always figured would happen eventually.) Admittedly, this isn’t exactly a horrifyingly devastating problem, but that’s all I’ve really been worrying about this birthday.
So, in lieu of expensive presents or doodads I’ll play with for a little bit and then forget, all I really want for my birthday is to learn a bit more about my fellow bloggers. Please feel free to leave a comment listing your birthday, so I can add it to this post and have a reminder for when it rolls around next year. Hopefully, all your birthdays in the upcoming year will be as happy as mine (and less busy; I had to work last night and I’m working again tonight, even coming in early for a monthly meeting). Have a great October 27th, everyone!
Related Websites
13
Oct
Posted in Personal by Roger |
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, I wasn’t always a mildly crazed, mid-twenties geek; at one point, I was actually an eleven or twelve year-old, mildly crazed geek. Even then, though, I was learning some of the basics of economics, whether I realized it at the time or not. After all, even as a child, you still have to deal with things like supply, demand, and distribution of goods, even if you don’t fully realize it at the time. Here’s one story of what I gleaned from a Christmas decoration project during my elementary years.
First, a little background. I was part of the gifted program during my school career, from the time I was in elementary school on. In my school district, the gifted program focused on providing us ‘gifted’ students with added challenges and opportunities in school, to help us learn and grow. In junior high and high school, this meant primarily getting extra assignments that we were expected to finish in order to graduate (not exactly the most rewarding situation for a young person), but back in elementary school, the gifted program was fun. We’d get out of class early on Wednesday afternoons, meet in the art room, and do fun activities that ranged from solving puzzles to making a short film (which, back in the pre-webcam and YouTube days when I was an elementary student, was a much bigger deal than it might be now).
One of the activities we did was to make and sell Christmas ornaments. As an introduction to marketing, manufacturing, and sales, it served pretty well. We got to see some of what goes into creating a quality product and how to sell it to other students. I gained quite a bit of knowledge about how to make Christmas ornaments, and learned that young students spending their parents’ money were willing to buy home-made ornaments.
A Well-Decorated Tree
One of my biggest coups during my ornament creation career was when one of the other students left school before the sale. I was able to acquire his inventory (and just look at some of the vocabulary I picked up) for the cost of the supplies, and thus was able to sell more ornaments than I would have been able to make on my own. I learned that increasing your supply of salable materials can increase your profits. (Although, had my sales been worse than I expected, I would have been deeper in the hole than most of the others in the program, so it wasn’t a risk-free transaction. That’s an even more important lesson: taking added risks with the anticipation of higher rewards can sometimes back fire on you.)
One of my bigger regrets, looking back on the opportunity I was given, is that I did not attempt to advance my entrepreneurial ambitions beyond these yearly sales. I didn’t try to set up my own business or create a product to sell. If I had gotten an earlier start thinking about my money, and how to make more of it, perhaps I could have gotten in on the first internet bubble. Alas, I didn’t think to create this site ten years ago and make a fortune before I turned twenty, but it’s never too late to relearn old lessons. Especially those that involve brightly colored ornaments.
Related Websites
28
Aug
Posted in Personal by Roger |
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take Care, TCB”
-Respect, by Aretha Franklin
As you might guess from today’s opening lyrics, today we’re going to talk about, well, respect. That is, holding the people and things around you in esteem, treating them as if they have intrinsic value, and showing courtesy and good behaviour to the people around you.
What does this have to do with personal finance, you ask? Well, on the surface, perhaps not much; but respect really underlies every aspect of the monetary system. If you don’t respect the companies that issue stock, why should they expect to get any of your money? If your investment advisors don’t respect you, what’s to stop them from taking your money and running (a la Bernie Madoff)? And of course, if other countries stop respecting America and trusting in our ability to pay our bills, just think of what will happen to our currency and standing in the world. In short, respect is an important part of lives, and there are many people and things of which we should be respectful.
Whom Should I Show Respect?
Your Family – Treating the members of your immediate and extended family as valuable, important people is an excellent place to start. If you genuinely respect your relatives, regardless of their choices in life, you help to form stronger, more durable connections to them and have them much more willing to help you in future, should the need arise. (Not that such an ‘emergency plan’ should be your primary motivation for respecting them, of course; it’s just a nice bonus.)
Your Coworkers – If you want a work environment where your stapler doesn’t suddenly disappear on you or your lunch gets eaten right out of the company fridge, it all comes down to respect. Do your best to treat those around you respectfully, and hopefully, your sentiments will easily be returned. While strict enforcement of company policies can help to decrease the problems of a workplace with disrespectful people, there’s no substitute for having coworkers that return your courtesy towards them.
Your Company – By the same token, you should treat your company and the area you work with respect. Don’t make a mess, behave inappropriately, or treat your boss shoddily. You’re just going to make things less pleasant for your coworkers, and possibly bring your boss’s wrath down upon yourself.
Your Significant Other – I wish I didn’t have to say this, but here goes: if you don’t respect your partner, things will not go well in your relationship. If you are just using your significant other to meet your own needs, whether physically, emotionally, or financially, the best case is that they will quickly tire of you and move on. The worst case ends with a huge court proceeding that drags on foever, and makes you seem like a massive jerk. Just avoid either one by showing respect to your romantic counterparts.
Yourself – Lastly, but perhaps most important, respect yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody else is going to, either. Then, since you aren’t getting respect, you’re not going to give it to anyone else either. Break this circle, find out what about you is good and deserving of respect, and treat others with the respect you now feel. (But don’t go too far in the other direction; there’s a surprisingly thin line between healthy respect for yourself and egotism.)
That’s all I have to say on the concept of respect. Remember, respect yourself, respect others, and respect will come back to you. Now, be safe and respectful to each other, all of you out in reader land!
Related Websites
