Here is some of my Carnival reading from the Carnival of 20-something finance and the Carnival of Personal Finance:
f.f at Feminist Finance posted an article about the financial impact that effective and educated birth control can have on the finances of an individual or family. I think in large part she is dead on in this. I really disagree that abortion is a good form of birth control because I strongly disagree with the idea that we should kill a person to save money or make our lives easier (since I think that an unborn baby is a person). With that said, her article is still interesting if you are interested in thinking about gender, finances, or the impact of your choices on your financial health.
Though I was a little disappointed that this article from Biz Driven Life was more about your ability to handle risk and less about your ability to consume extremely large quantities of food or have a washboard stomach, I still liked how he mentioned “Fiddler on the Roof.” I’m off to marry Tevye’s eldest, Tzeitel. Not really, I am already married. And Tzeitel isn’t really real. But the movie is good, and so is being Jewish. But I’m not Jewish. Nor am I in a movie. I hope I am still good though.
Peter at Plan Your Escape posted at nice little article about how he and his wife organize their finances as a couple. I’m not sure I entirely agree with him on philosophical grounds (I’d probably have to see how his exact system plays out before a final judgment) but I like how his system fosters open communication about their financial life as a couple. I also like how he anticipates some potential changes to his system in case your financial health is not as robust as his is. It even has cool charts.
Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme posted some informative diagrams that explain to all the visual learners out there what cash flows look like at various stages of financial health. The goal would be to be like the last diagram, but still working to do something good for my fellow man - either by earning a wage and giving it away or by focusing my time and effort to personally benefit others. It sure would be great to eat and help others eat too!
Other News:
The Carnival of Cash Back will have its first edition next week on February 4. Amanda over at Me vs. Debt is the creator and first host of this nifty carnival idea. I am certainly going to head on over and check-out some of the great ideas on maximizing rewards programs. If you want to submit an article, you can check out her article or use the hyper link I stole from her.
The articles of mine that got included in various carnivals were:
The Magic of a Bloomin’ Onion
A Good Suckiness: Thoughts on the Nature of Work
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Posted in Rounding Out My Reading ~ 1 Comment
I have to admit that I am a pretty big mooch. Today we had some people from corporate come into the office for meetings with a recently acquired company to have one of those “where-do-we-go-from-here” discussions. In the past, when somebody comes from corporate it can sometimes mean a free lunch. These lunches are always good. I really like them.
I got all excited about the prospect of free lunch as I was introduced to all the new faces from our newest acquisition. I remember thinking, “Boy, it sure would be easier to remember this persons name over a steaming plate of Phad Thai.” I didn’t really think that, but it sure would have been a lot easier to remember their names if we had been! Instead I was coming back from the bathroom and everyone was already engaged in conversations. Since I’m not really an anybody, I was content for the simple introductions since I will probably never see these people again - but the prospect of eating with them was still taunting me with it’s illusive deliciousness. Almost as soon as they were introduced they were off to a secluded place of meeting to hash out strategies to destroy our competitors and leverage that big rock with that newfangled lever thingy that we just invented. I have neither leverage nor a lever to leverage anything, all I wanted was a free lunch.
I felt the hunger hit me at 11:12:13 AM - a full 0:47:47 away from the most probable time that a possible lunch might be announced. I squirmed and I squawked. I drank and I drooled. I hunger and I howled. Nearly a full hour had past and I had used up every trick in the book to take my mind of the hunger - I drank water, listened to music, did something interesting, worked, talked to a co-worker - but still the hunger pressed on. At around 12:30 PM my cubicle neighbor got up and made himself lunch, a casualty to hunger. Then my boss left the office to go get a bite. My spirits began to drop and I felt the hunger creep in anew.
I had to eat something - and here is the point where my moochness really kicks in. Since I had to eat, I quietly took out my peanut butter and honey sandwich from my lunch and proceed to eat it as covertly as I possibly could so that in the off chance that the guys from corporate came by I could quickly stash my sandwich so that it will look like I wasn’t eating. While eating my sandwich I actually stashed it twice! Both on false alarms. I still had hope.
That hope was soon dashed when somebody came by and I overheard that the people in the meeting had already eaten. Convinced that freeness was now impossible I made my way to the fridge and got out the rest of my lunch to eat. I am such a stinking mooch.
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Posted in Frugality ~ No Comments
Twice a year in San Diego we have a nice little thing called Restaurant Week. During the week you can attend any of the participating restaurants and get a three course meal for a flat rate of $30 or $40 depending on the restaurant. Now I am not one to go out to fancy pants restaurants that will probably end up burning over a $100 on a dinner for two, but I absolutely love Restaurant Week. Last year my wife (then fiance), dad, brother, and I went out to Bali Hai on Shelter Island and enjoyed the festivities. I a little foggy on the details of our meal, but I do remember having a lava cake that was absolutely stupendous. It was probably named something outlandish like Mount Get-Out-Of-Its-Path-Before-It-Kilauea-es-You Lava Cake - which is why is was so sinfully good.
Restaurant Week is running in San Diego right now (January 27 - February 1) so don’t miss out on this opportunity to take full advantage of the (relatively) cheap goodness at your disposal. My wife and I are definitely planning on trying to go again this year. We haven’t decided where yet, but in the next day or two we will doll up and check someplace out. If you want to know which restaurants are participating, check out this link - it categorizes all the different restaurants by region, price (either $30 or $40), or the plain old alphabetical listing. Be sure to set up a reservation in advance to ensure the best dinning experience - I can imagine that some of these restaurants get pretty crowded. If you can’t make it out because you got such late notice on the event don’t fret, make plans to hit up the next week scheduled for June 22-27, 2008.
Question: Anyone have any suggestions for a place to check out?
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Posted in Money Misc. ~ No Comments
It has been about three weeks since my wife talked to her boss about cutting back her hours so that she can focus on other things. Our fears about how the boss would react were groundless - everything turned out splendidly. My wife’s boss recognized my wife’s wishes without any fireworks and an agreement was easily and quickly struck. So starting next week my wife will only need to go into work four days a week for half of the day. Can you say awesome?
This development is going to change up some of our numbers. When I first calculated our 2008 expected income and expenses I anticipated that my wife would work a 20 hour work week instead of the 16 hour week she will be working now. This is changing our expected take home pay by about $1000 over the course of the year (given that she has worked at a full time clip over the course of this month). As a result, our short fall for desired savings goals is now estimated at -$3,830 from -$2,870. I am banking on the proposed economic stimulus package to make up the difference, but aside from that I don’t really see how finding and extra $4,000 dollars is any less possible than finding an extra $3,000. I know we will find a way to get it done. Here is the link to the updated post regarding our Annualized Expenses and Income.
Other Posts in this series (in order of appearance):
Jobs, Can’t Live With ‘em …
The Job Dilemma - The Numbers
The Job Dilemma - My Wife’s Potential Income
The Job Dilemma - The Decision
The Job Dilemma - The Resolution
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Posted in Work ~ No Comments
