The Amateur Financier

So, you might have been wondering what has been going on with me the past few days.  It’s been a rather rough time for me; I actually suffered from a grand mal seizure on Thursday, which (when combined with a few follow up seizures Thursday night into Friday) put me out of commission for the rest of Thursday, all of Friday, and all of Saturday.  It’s only been in the past twenty-four hours that I’ve even been able to get on the computer and write.

What does all of this mean for my blog?  Well, I am hoping to get back into my blog writing now that my life is returning to normal, focusing primarily on getting ahead of the writing curve (by publishing articles for the coming week).  I do enjoy writing, and think doing so will help me get back into the habit of meeting deadlines and creating written content.  It’s going to be a tough couple of months, which will not be helped at all as I try to take it easier than otherwise in the coming period of time.

It’s going to take me a while to get back into the spirit of things.  Thanks for bearing with me as I try to get my life back into order.

Hello, My Appreciated Readers,

I’m going to make this short and sweet, particularly as you may not be able to see it until tonight when things wrap up.  If you spend much time online, as I do as a personal finance blogger, you might have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States House of Representatives (and its companion bill in the Senate, Protect IP Act (PIPA)).  In case you haven’t, or want more information about what these bills are and why they have so many people riled up, check out this story to determine just what is happening.

To protest these bills, numerous sites are going to be blacked out today, from Wikipedia and Reddit, massive sites that dominate the internet, to much smaller sites, including, well, me.  Yes, I will going offline at eight a.m. EST today, and will not be coming back until eight p.m. tonight (assuming that my sometimes not the best understanding of my blog allows me to do so successfully…).  My participation is because, well, I can see how these laws, although I believe they are well-intentioned as laws tend to be, could be misused by future (or even present) Justice Department officials to censor parts of the Internet, regardless of whether they are directly doing anything wrong, opening up the possibility of wide-spread censoring and legal actions that could drive new websites out of business.

So, for the next twelve hours, my blog will be down.  Hold back your tears, I will be coming back soon, and when I do, here’s hoping that it will be to a world that is more willing to consider the side effects of legislation being considered.  Have a safe SOPA blackout day!

Roger Raby

Let me start out by saying that for the most part, I am happy to be a grad student.  I like being able to learn more on a daily basis, being able to expand my mind and add more knowledge to the ol’ noggin.  I like the classes I’m taking, I love being able to teach students, and as frustrating as my research has been at times (if I had a dollar for every time I’ve run into some sort of problem with my research, I’d probably double my grad student income), I do enjoy being able to add to the sum of human knowledge, if only in some small way.  All in all, I like my position as a grad student.

That said, it does have its downsides, as well.  Research alone could be a full time job, as I frequently have to stay late to get everything done.  My studying and teaching duties, which add up to more than twenty hours a week, even a slow week, mean that I’m frequently putting in sixty hour weeks.  When it’s time for tests to come around, as they have this week (I am only taking two classes (one with a six hour a week lab session included), but they have their tests only a day or two apart), I can frequently find myself with barely enough time to sleep, let alone finishing all of my ‘side hack’ work here on this very blog, amongst other places.

All of this is my roundabout way of saying, at the moment, I’m finding myself more than a little bit stretched on time.  I have no intention of stopping publication here on The Amateur Financier, but for the next eight months or so, until I graduate with a shiny new Masters’ Degree, I am likely to be (even more) scattershot in my publication than ever before.  I ask that you please bear with me, as I am quite devoted to rebuilding (and building up) my blog, and I hope that you are willing to stick it out with me.  As the expression goes, the best is yet to come.  Thank you to all my loyal readers, and here’s to a fine future together!

P.S. If you’d to learn more about the pain in the rump that is the life of a grad student (and have a good laugh at those of us who do this voluntarily), please check out PhD Comics.  While I’m not technically a PhD student, trust me when I say that the comic is more correct than incorrect, even for us humble Masters’ students.  (I’m particularly struck by how well Jorge articulates the joy of the days spent in research, going from before sun up to after sunset.  I have gone days without seeing the sun, I’m sad to say.)

I like to think of myself as pretty knowledgeable about money.  After two and half years writing this blog, and even more time spent following other blogs, reading personal finance books and magazines, and generally keeping myself pretty well educated in the ways of money, I think my financial knowledge level is well above that of the typical American (given how little the average American seems to know about money, that’s not saying much, but I’ll still take it).

The problem is that, no matter how much you THINK you know, it’s still possible to make some foolish money decisions.  This has been the case for me throughout this summer.  If you check my Net Worth Updates for the past several months (as I just did), you can see a rather depressing pattern.

Yes, this blog entry's only going to get sadder from here.

In May, I was doing pretty good, cutting down my credit card debt and generally doing pretty well financially.  June was less successful, as I started to add on more credit card debt, and July was more of the same, as I added nearly five thousand dollars in credit card debt.  By the start of this August, I had nearly maxed out both of my credit cards, and have been doing pretty badly at cutting down the amount owed.

How Did This Happen?

Well, I’ve mentioned at various points (usually during the above mentioned Net Worth Updates), it’s been a surprisingly expensive summer; between helping my fiancee pay for her dental work and trying to get the air conditioning in my car back in working order, I’ve spent thousands more than I would have otherwise.  Add in the lower pay I’ve been making over the summer months (and graduate student pay rates aren’t exactly fantastic in the first place), and it’s been tough to keep my head above water, let alone make progress in getting my finances in order.

But the real fault lies with me.  While there were plenty of unavoidable expenses (or at least expenses that were quite tricky), there were also plenty of spending that I could have gotten under control if I wanted.  I have gone out to dinner quite often this summer, I’ve taken several trips (even if most were only for a night or two), and I haven’t been very frugal with my food and other general spending.  I told myself, ‘Well, I’m adding to my credit card debt, but I will be getting student loans at the end of the summer (August 19th, to be exact), and then I can pay off most of my (student-related) credit card debt.  Everything will be fine in the end.’

As I’m sure most of my regular readers are probably already assuming, the 19th has come and gone, and I still do not have any student loan money.  You see, the faculty at YSU (my graduate school) are in discussions about their pay (and may strike), and until the university knows for certain whether there will be a Fall 2011 semester (or at least, when it will start), they maintain that the US Department of Education won’t allow them to release the student loan money to me, or any other students.  (I will admit, I do wonder whether that’s really the case, or whether the university is withholding student loans as a way of adding pressure to the professors in the form of students begging them to resolve their issues.  Since I’m not getting student loan funds until the issue is resolved, regardless, I suppose it’s a moot point, though.)

The Lesson

I’m not writing all of this to get pity.  I’m not writing it to pull at your heartstrings.  And I’m definitely not writing it to try to get you to send me money, or anything of that nature.  No, I’m simply writing it to note that sometimes the best laid plans get thrown off for reasons well outside your control, and that it’s important to consider such events, and try to prepare for them.

How could I have prepared for this strike?  Well, I could have saved more money from my last set of student loans, so I’d have something available in an emergency fund for this situation (or any other situation where my expected cash flow was lower than I had planned).  I could have controlled my spending, particularly my credit card spending, so that I would have some credit available now.  I could have done more work in building alternate income sources (my blog is nice, but all the money I’ve earned through it to date would barely cover my expenses for a month).  Most of all, I could have made contingency plans so I wasn’t caught so off guard by this situation, and didn’t have to depend so heavily on others for my own financial needs.

All of this is to say, sometimes, life will get the best of you.  The best way to get the best out of life is to be prepared for the negatives that might affect you.