It just never seems to end, these holidays where we have to exchange gifts with our loved ones. Don’t get me wrong, I like giving gifts, particularly to my fiancee, and I’ve been known to give gifts with no occasion behind the giving at all. But it’s different when the gift is expected, all but required, as on Christmas or the upcoming Valentine’s Day.
Yes, Valentine’s Day. My fiancee called me this afternoon to let me know that she’s purchased a gift for me for Valentine’s Day, meaning that I need to get on the ball and find her a gift as well. The fact that a celebration of love and the life of a Catholic saint has turned into a major gift giving holiday just seems a little bit wrong, as does the fact that relationships can rise or fall based on what’s purchased and received February 14th. I’m all for the abolishing of Valentine’s as a holiday…if I could only get my fiancee to agree.
Oh, well, perhaps next year. For now, it’s time to consider some of the good posts this past week:
Posts The Amateur Financier Liked This Week:
Be Sloth and Don’t Roth! – A contrarian post from the Financial Samurai that challenges one of the most commonly held pieces of personal finance advice, that a Roth IRA is better than a traditional one. The arguments he presents, as well as the discussion that developed in the comments, debate the argument back and forth, with one of the best arguments being one that I reviewed earlier this week (the part about marginal tax rates). If you’ve been considering Roth accounts a retirement slam dunk, please have a read so you aren’t (unpleasantly) surprised come retirement.
How to Help Haiti – Given that Haiti is still in the news for all the wrong reasons (aftershocks and continuing problems getting people and supplies where they need to go), Baker’s advice on how to help Haiti and its people in their time of need seems quite timely. Be sure to read the suggestions he and the commentators have on giving, and give to the worthy causes trying to help Haiti.
It’s More Environmentally Friendly to Pay With Plastic – An intriguing thought, especially since I have an interest in environmentalism as well as personal finance. If you need an excuse to switch from using cash to using a credit card (or debit, if you prefer not to even risk building up credit card debt), consider Mrs. Money’s argument that using cash creates a lot of waste (in its creation, shipping, use and eventual destruction) that comes nowhere near the pollution generated from creating a plastic card. Reasonable and logical, as far as it goes; just make sure you use your plastic wisely (especially with a credit card), and everything should be alright.
Maximize Strengths or Minimize Weaknesses? – There’s only so much time we can put into improving ourselves, so Lazy Man and Money asks, do we try to build up our greatest abilities or decrease the problems we have? Personally, I think there are personal skills that are useful no matter what you do (like good personal finance and time management), where you should minimize your weaknesses, and specific skills useful for your job or other source of money (like being good at chemical testing, to use me as an example), where you can probably, but not always, make yourself more valuable by maximizing your strengths.
Invest? Borrow? Why Not Both? – Frank Curmudgeon wonders about the human psychology quirks that cause us to discount debt until we pull money from savings to pay it off. It’s one of the many parts of being human and dealing with money that make little sense, and yet they still persist. Personally, I think we just aren’t built to understand concepts more nebulous than ‘I have two coconuts, enough to last for two days’ in the course of evolution, but that’s just my view.
Where The Amateur Financier Was Featured This Week
The Carnival of Money Stories hosted by Funny About Money featured my article Fifteen Things to Tell a Younger Me (which is likely going to go down as one of my favorite articles this year)
Related Websites
Mrs. Money
on January 22 2010
Thanks so much for the link!
xoxo
Roger
on January 23 2010
You’re very welcome; I’m always happy to share the love
Financial Samurai
on January 24 2010
Hey Rog, thnx for highlighting and sharing your thoughts on my site. Great comments! Also, I see your official post argument now. Pretty balanced view. Just tweeted this post. Cheers, Sam
Roger
on January 26 2010
You’re welcome, FS; I’m always happy to share my thoughts, especially when there’s such an interesting argument to consider. Keep up the good, thought provoking work.