A long time ago, I wrote a brief article about creating a visual debt reminder, something that will help motivate you towards getting rid of debt. Since then, I’ve found myself using such reminders all the time for keeping my finances in order.

The Psychology of the Reminder
A reminder? If a goal is really important to us, why would we need a reminder?

It’s simple. Most of us have really busy lives, and in order to actually make those lives work, we have to adopt some serious routines. If you have only thirty minutes after you wake up and before you’re leaving for work, those thirty minutes are going to have to involve some serious routine - showering, brushing your teeth, eating a quick breakfast, doing one or two other little things, then bolting out the door.

Similarly, any person with children knows how many routines have to go into their life in order to prevent complete chaos from breaking out. There’s a meal routine, a nap routine, a bedtime routine, and so on.

Even our lives out and about are filled with routines - we shop at certain places, get gas at certain places, use the same routes to get places, and so on.

The real kicker is that breaking these routines is hard. Often, it’s not so much the individual act that’s the problem - it’s remembering that individual act and finding a place for it in that busy routine.

For example, I’m trying to find space in my daily routine to (slowly) work up to being able to run a 5K. The problem is, with a thriving writing career, two young children, a marriage that needs care and feeding, a number of other commitments, and personal interests as well, it’s hard to find space for the training.

So I’m using a reminder. I have a single bright note right on my desktop where I can’t miss it that says, “Have you worked towards the 5K today?” I look at it several times a day and, usually the first time I see it, it motivates me to get up and do something to get myself in better shape.

Ten Great Reminders
Different reminders work well for different people and different situations, though. Here are ten things you might want to use in your own situation.

1. The Progress Bar
This works great if you have a specific numerical goal in mind - for example, you have a certain dollar amount that you’re wanting to save, a certain amount of debt that you’re looking to repay, or a certain weight that you’d like to reach.

It’s simple: just bust out a piece of graph paper (like this one). Figure out what number you’re targeting and what number you’re at now. Then, break the difference between the two down into equal pieces. So, let’s say you have $17,000 in debt and want to pay it all off. You might break it into 17 pieces - $1,000 each - or 34 pieces - $500 each - or 85 pieces - $200 each. Let’s say you want to go from 214 pounds to 180 pounds. You might break that into 34 pieces - 1 pound each. You get the idea.

Then count out a line of that many squares in the middle of the paper, then draw a big box around those squares, similar to what you see on the right here. Write the starting number on the left or bottom of the bar, then the finishing number on the top or right of the bar. You can even write in the increments if you want, or just note what each square is worth.

Then put this reminder somewhere where you’ll see it all the time - on the fridge, for example. It’ll serve as a reminder of your progress - plus, it’ll be quite fun when you make some forward progress and get to fill in a square on that bar.

2. The Pointed Note
This is the technique I’m using for my 5K goal. Just write yourself a very pointed note - “What have you done today to move forward on X?” and put it somewhere where you’re going to bump into it over and over again.

This is perfect for a goal where you need to make a bit of active effort each day - like athletic training. It might be easy at first to simply forget about it during a busy day, but that note forces it into the forefront of your mind.

The key is to make the note pointed - it needs to prod you into taking action - and put it in a place where you’ll be reminded of it with ease every day - or at least each day that you’ll need the reminder.

Some ideas for this kind of reminder: a reminder to network, a reminder to engage in athletic activity, a reminder to take another discrete step on a big project.

3. The Big Picture
One of my biggest goals in life is to own a house out in the country on a few acres. I’d like a good-sized yard with plenty of room for a vegetable and herb garden and a small barn in the back somewhere to effectively function as a large shed. I might even raise a few chickens on it - who knows!

To keep this in mind, my desktop wallpaper is an image of a nice house in the country with a small barn and a windmill. Whenever I see it, I know what my big goal is.

This can work for any big goal that requires continual multi-dimensional effort to reach. It might be a country home, or it might be any number of other things - a great career, an amazing car, or a happy marriage. Find a picture that signifies exactly what you want, then put it in places where you’ll be reminded of it time and time again.

That little boost will push you, more often than not, just when you need it.

4. The Effort Tracker
As I start jogging more and more, I find that keeping careful track of my efforts and recording them somewhere is very powerful. I have a Nike+ iPod setup that makes it very easy to record my efforts, keeping track of each run in very careful detail, as well as my best mile and my overall averages.

This type of data is incredibly psychologically powerful. When I finish a jog, I can’t wait to go look at my data. Did I get a new “best mile”? Did my average go up (it usually does)? Did I manage to maintain a steady pace?

Putting this “effort tracker” front and center makes it easy to keep up with my goal. The same is true for any such tracker. Perhaps you use Quicken to monitor your money? Have it start when you start up your computer. Maybe you use a spreadsheet to keep track of your weight? Have that spreadsheet appear on startup. That way, you’re faced with all of that data and all of that forward progress - and psychologically, you want to keep it going.

5. The Public Notice
Constant peer pressure can be a very effective reminder of your goals. If everyone around you knows that you’re attempting to quit smoking, they themselves will become reminders, encouraging you to quit, complimenting you on your good choices, and so on.

Thus, one way to create some powerful reminders around you for your goal is to simply email as many people as you can and tell them in detail about your goal. Tell them what you want to achieve and ask them for their help in getting you there. Ask them to steer you straight if they see you having problems, and apologize in advance if you don’t handle their help well (since such goals can be psychologically stressing).

Once you’ve done this, everyone knows about your goal and you’ve given them all permission to be your reminders. Thus, their mere presence becomes a reminder of what you want to achieve.

You can take this another step and combine the goal tracking with your public notice. Create a blog or a Twitter account to talk about your goal in detail, mentioning your progress with specific data, then ship the URL for that blog or Twitter account to your friends so they can keep tab on your progress (and leave positive comments).

6. The Pestering Email
Another way to keep you on focus is to have an automatic email service pester you with reminders by email of your goals. I do this myself, with Google Calendar. I set various target dates in my calendar, then order the calendar to remind me by email of these goals. Sure enough, they pop right into my email inbox, reminding me quite clearly to keep up with a particular project.

For example, let’s say you want to really grow your professional network. Go into Google Calendar, schedule an entry on Friday to “send an email to an old work associate,” then add a reminder 4 days, 3 days, 2 days, one day, and one hour in advance. Then, schedule it to repeat. Each day, you’ll have a reminder telling you to send an email to a work associate - and when you follow through, you’re achieving your big goal.

For people who live out of their email inbox (as I often do), this can be a great way to keep your goal in mind - and keep moving forward on it, bit by bit.

7. The Buddy
Having a buddy who is also trying to move forward with a similar goal as yours can be a wonderful constant reminder of your own personal goal.

Let’s say you’re attempting to eliminate all of your credit card debt. You announce it to a few friends and you learn that one of your friends is actually attempting to do the same thing. Suggest to that person that you buddy up to motivate each other, share tips, and share your progress along the way.

When you hang out together, you can swap stories about how you’re moving forward. You can give each other tips on how to better accomplish that big goal. You can actually engage in the activities together - jogging in the evening, for example, or going to free events together instead of spending money.

That buddy becomes a walking, talking reminder of your goal and, in a fun way, pushes you to achieving more than you thought possible.

8. The Inspirational Picture
My family inspires me to make almost every good choice I make in my life. They inspired me to take charge of my money. They inspired me to start getting in better shape. They inspired me to take a real swing at writing for a career.

Keeping a simple photograph of my wife and children with me helps keep me motivated to continue making good choices. I have three photographs of them on my desk and I often look at them when I’m having some trouble getting motivated to write. Their faces always help.

Some people get their inspiration from motivational posters. For me, all I really need to do is look at my family and suddenly I’ve got my eye back on the prize.

9. The Repetitive Post-It
When I first made a serious effort to cut my spending, I found it was very hard to break my old routines. I would simply wheel into the bookstore without thinking about it at all and the next thing I knew, I’d be standing in line holding some books.

What really helped was repetitive reminders, which took the form of Post-It notes. I wrote on each one: “Don’t spend anything.” I put them all over. I put one on my dash and one on my rear view mirror. I put one on my computer monitor. I put one on my wallet so I’d see it when I got started in the morning.

Those constant reminders kept the big picture firmly in my head, mostly because the message was nearly inescapable. I saw it all the time and that meant it bubbled up to the top of my mind when I needed it much more often than before. Before long, that reminder was burned into my brain - and the Post-Its had done their job.

10. The Tool Disfigurement
There were times when I would still fall short and find myself on the verge of spending anyway. I’d have an item up there to buy. I’d reach for my wallet, pull out my credit card, and ….

Right there in front of me was all I really needed to see. I’d put the item back and walk out of the store.

What was there? Wrapped around my credit cards was a picture of my son. Yes, the inspirational picture had found its way directly to the tools I used to undermine that inspiration. Seeing my little boy - and reflecting for just a second on him and the good choices I needed to make as a parent - made me step back just long enough for sense to take hold of me.

If you find yourself constantly turning to a tool of some sort to continue a habit you’re trying to break - a bong, a credit card, anything like that - put an inspirational picture there. Put that picture of your kid right on that item and attach it firmly. Make it so that you have to give that reminder a look before you commit that act - and you’ll likely find yourself turning away at the last minute.

Now get out there and achieve something great.

As I’ve mentioned before on here, my family did not have a lot of money growing up. My parents were always able to make ends meet and keep dinner on the table, but there was never really a sense of getting ahead. Instead, there was always a sense of just barely enough.

That’s not to say that I had a deprived childhood, though - I didn’t. My parents - my mother in particular - found lots of little ways to get me the things I wanted or needed. We went to the library all the time. I was always allowed to get a book or two from the book order. And when there were windfalls, I would often get something very nice - a new video game, typically, or a few new books all at once.

One thing my parents often did, though, was make Christmas and my birthday into very big events. They would ask me what I wanted months in advance and encourage me to make lists. Since my birthday was in the middle of summer, by the middle of most springs, I was already puzzling over my birthday list, letting it often consume my thoughts. Similarly, I was already getting started on my Christmas list by Labor Day.

My parents did this for what seems like a very good reason. Since there weren’t a lot of resources around to give me a healthy allowance or to buy me lots of things, they would instead channel my childhood desires towards two big days. Then, they would save up their nickels and dimes and try very hard to make my birthdays and Christmases memorable.

This was really effective in my childhood years. Instead of nagging my parents for things I wanted, I’d stew on them. I’d write down a wish list, revise it, and start over again a few times. I’d pore over the Christmas catalogs like a researcher in the library of Alexandria.

What really happened, though, is that these things that I wanted consumed my thoughts for a big part of the year. I’d spend my time stewing over that list, thinking about the things I wanted, and as I grew older, I began to dream about other ways to get them. I started an aluminum can collecting project - one that actually ended quite sadly, I started doing lots of piecework for my father’s fishing business, and I tried several other small-scale entrepreneurial tasks.

But the problem signs were already in place. As soon as I earned anything, I was already plotting about buying one of those things I had wanted and stewed about for so long. I’d take the $50 from aluminum can sales and rush straight to the local department store (Jacks, a now-defunct chain) to buy a video game.

This only escalated throughout my college years, and by the time I was a young adult, I was still focused heavily on the material things I wanted. Of course, then, with a nice income and access to credit cards, it became very easy to just simply go get all of those things I wanted.

And I did.

I bought multiple DVDs and multiple CDs and a video game pretty much every week. I went out to eat all the time. I went to London and stayed in a hotel room overlooking Hyde Park.

In short, I no longer had a wish list. Instead, I just did these things as they came to mind. All that stewing about the things I wanted finally came to fruition.

How I Fixed This
So what did I do to fix this problem?

The biggest realization - for me - was that this was a never-ending road. There would always be something else to want, no matter what I purchased for myself. I would always be wanting something more.

Thus, if that’s true, isn’t all the money spent trying to sate those desires just money wasted? Even worse, wasting all that money meant that I wasn’t achieving the big things I dreamed for in my life - becoming a writer, providing a safe financial foundation for my wife and my kids, owning a nice house in the country.

What I found was that if I cut back big time on my discretionary spending, I didn’t really lose much at all. Sure, there were still many things that I wanted - and there still are - but that would be true regardless of how much I spent. Instead, now I’m actually using and enjoying the things that I buy. On the occasions when I do choose to buy something for myself, I take my time both on the purchase (researching it and choosing the best deal) and on the enjoyment of the item (reading the book, playing through the video game, and so on).

The “wants” are still there, but they no longer run the show in terms of my spending, simply because I realized that no matter how much I spent, the “wants” would still be there - a ghost I could never catch.

The Parenting Hat
So what can we do to help my children out with this issue?

Our first tactic is to simply strongly de-emphasize wants. We don’t ask for birthday lists or Christmas lists. Instead, we just listen to them and note down anything they might mention.

During the lead-up to the holidays, our gift-related conversations revolve around giving. We talk about good, reasonably-priced items that people would particularly like. Instead of focusing on what we want, we focus on what Luke or Brittany might want - and how we can make them happy for a reasonable cost.

Second, we don’t watch many commercials - and we talk about the ones we do. If my son sees a commercial for a toy or a type of junk food that makes him want the item, even though he’s three, we talk about it a bit. I usually point out how only the good side is shown - and how we already have similar things.

A great example happened a few evenings ago. My son saw a commercial for some type of Batman action figure - he wanted one, and he told me loudly. First, I suggested that he instead play with the action figures he does have (mostly leftovers from my own childhood, honestly). He said he didn’t want them - instead, he wanted Batman. So, then, I suggested if he didn’t want them any more, why don’t we give them away to kids who might want them? He didn’t like that suggestion at all, at which point I suggested that he pull out his favorites and we’d get down to business. By that point, he had completely forgotten about Batman and instead found himself excited to pull out the action figures he already had.

I really believe this is the key. Instead of focusing happiness on things he doesn’t have, I strive to focus his immediate joy on the things he already has. That way, he doesn’t have that burning desire for more things.

This is the first of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This first entry covers the preface and the first two chapters, finishing on page 16. The next entry, covering the third chapter, will appear on Saturday.

Let’s get this straight right off the bat. I like what Dave Ramsey has to say when it comes to personal finance. I find much of his material makes a lot of sense and he does a great job of balancing a “coaching” attitude without going too over the top a la Larry Winget.

That being said, I don’t care much at all about his political commentary. I know that his relationship with Fox News pretty much requires a conservative bent, but his political perspectives feel very much out in right field to me with only a tenuous connection at best to his personal finance talk.

Given that, I’m going to completely ignore his politics for this discussion. If it’s not inside The Total Money Makeover, which is an excellent book on debt reduction and focus, I’m not going to talk about it.

Ahem.

So what exactly is The Total Money Makeover all about? It’s just a very straightforward plan for getting in control of your finances, particularly in terms of overcoming a heavy load of debt. Many people have “turned the corner” - meaning they’ve realized that debt is dangerous and are actually committed to spending less - but the mountain of debt they’ve incurred makes it almost impossible to move forward. That’s exactly who the book is written for.

‘80% Behavior, 20% Head Knowledge’
Right off the bat, on the first page of the introduction, the basic idea is made clear:

I am positive that personal finance is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. Our concentration on behavior - realizing that most folks have a good idea of what to do with money but not how to do it - has led us to a different view of personal finance. Most financial people make the mistake of trying to show you the number, thinking that you just don’t get the math. I am sure that the problem with my money is the guy in the mirror.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. All of us know that it’s important to save and can see the numbers on how useful it really is. The trick is actually doing it - and that’s all psychology.

If you don’t truly make up your mind to achieve financial success, you’ll hold back. You won’t save - or you won’t save much. You’ll keep telling yourself that “later” is the right time to do it.

And then you’ll find yourself in ten years having not made any progress on your big goals in life.

The choice to start spending less than you earn is a hard one, but it’s the most important one. That choice has nothing to do with math, with running the numbers, or anything else. It’s inside your head.

If You Will Live Like No One Else, Later You Can Live Like No One Else
That phrase is found at the bottom of virtually every page in the book - it’s basically the book’s mantra. Dave’s take on it is clear: live hard now and you’ll live easy later. My take is a little bit different.

I agree with him largely on the first part: it’s incredibly important to tighten up that spending and get rid of the debt. Doing that requires learning how to spend less - and also not allowing yourself to use that extra money for anything but getting rid of debt and building a future. That requires living “different” in a way - your goals shift from the shiny new car and the shiny vacation to the removal of all of your debt.

On my block, I can certainly say I see a lot of shiny cars - my truck is the oldest vehicle on the block, by far. In the end, though, my truck works - and that’s all I can really ask of it. It gets the kids to daycare and gets me to the library, which is really all I need. As long as it keeps running, we’ll keep it. And that’s living quite different when we’re surrounded by vehicles more than ten years newer than my truck.

It’s the other part that’s tricky. I don’t view the “later you can live like no one else” as meaning I can afford that shiny new car. Instead, I take a perspective closer to Your Money or Your Life - the “live like no one else” in the future for me is complete financial independence, meaning I don’t have to work for money.

That, to me, is “living like no one else.” I won’t have to factor in money at all when it comes to choosing how to spend my time, and that’s my real dream.

A 12% Rate of Return?
One big flashing question mark comes on page xv in the preface:

Sadly, many intelligent but ignorant people seem to think that making a 12 percent rate of return on your money in a long term investment is impossible. And that if I state that there is a 12 percent rate of return available, then I have lied to you or misled you. [...] The S&P 500 is the 500 largest companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange, sometimes called “The Big Board.” So it is widely accepted to be the best average of the market. The S&P 500 has averaged 11.3 percent per year for the last seventy-plus years, as of this writing.

So, I immediately flip to the front and discover that this revision was published in 2007. Something tells me that 2008 hurt those numbers quite a bit.

Here’s the point, though: The Total Money Makeover tends towards the optimistic when it comes to investment returns. While there are certainly long-term stretches (more than ten years) where the market as a whole - or certain pieces of the market - have returned more than 12% annually, the truth is that there is no guarantee that any 10 year, 20 year, 30 year, or any year period will return any percent. Surely, 2008 taught us all that, loud and clear.

Instead of relying on that extremely optimistic forecast, I’ve come to use Warren Buffett’s more realistic (perhaps even a bit pessimistic) forecast that in the future we should expect 7% returns on average. This might be slightly on the pessimistic side, but when you’re making calculations for your future and banking on them, you’re better off being pessimistic (and having more money than you need when the day comes) than optimistic (and having to work for the rest of your life).

Calculating with 12% returns gets people really excited - and it might happen. But my perspective is that using such hugely optimistic numbers puts your future at risk. Better to finish with more than you expect than with less.

Tapes and Books Aren’t the Solution
On page 4, a certain quote really caught my eye:

So my Total Money Makeover begins with a challenge. The challenge is you. You are the problem with your money. The financial channel and some tape sets aren’t your answer; you are.

All the blogs, all the books, all the “tape sets,” all the financial products in the world won’t help if you’re not committed to sucking it up and making it work.

If you’re not willing to look at your behaviors, step up to the plate, and make some changes in your life, nothing is going to change.

This kind of talk generates three kinds of reactions. It makes some people angry - they want to believe that they can suddenly get rich without changing a thing, even though it hasn’t happened yet. It makes some people stick their fingers in their ears and sing “lalalala” - they know it’s true, but they’d rather keep the sinking ship they’re on than try to change anything. And then others embrace it and work hard for something better.

I was in the “lalalala” group for years. I knew very well what I needed to do, I just didn’t want to hear it. I knew on some level that what I was doing wasn’t working, I just didn’t want to think about it.

My epiphany threw me on a new track - the “embrace change” track. I finally woke up and realized that if I didn’t take charge of my situation, I was going to keep sinking slowly. This one choice led to tons of things - I paid off four credit cards, two vehicles, three student debts, totaling $30,000 or so in debt; I bought a house; and, finally, I switched careers, earning less but doing what I love.

All of the moves I made were simply the aftermath of that one choice to really make a change. That choice is up to you - no blog or book or podcast can make that happen (well, except for MY blog or book or podcast … just kidding).

King of Denial
The second chapter of the book focuses on denial - simply ignoring that there are problems. Like I said, I did this myself for far too long. One quote from the chapter took my breath away, though:

For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don’t back down.

Powerful stuff, and exactly right. If you’re not going to take charge of things, who is?

The Pain of Change
Another interesting piece comes in on page 15:

Change is painful. Few people have the courage to seek out change. Most people won’t change until the pain of where they are exceeds the pain of change.

I strongly believe that for many people in a routine of spending more than they own, there’s a “bottoming out” effect, not too different than a junkie. At some point, the problems that have been building for a long while explode - you can’t pay the bills any more (which happened to me), you’re forced into bankruptcy, your family splits apart.

For many people, that final point is painful enough that it tips the scales. Suddenly, in comparison, the big change doesn’t seem so painful any more.

I like to think of it like the Mississippi River flood of 1993, which destroyed my hometown. It kept raining and raining and raining throughout the months of June and July, like debt building up. The river kept rising, pushing against the levees, until that fateful day when the levee broke. Chaos ensued and new patterns were rapidly discovered in countless lives.

Soon, we found that the actual path of the river had changed - in many places, it had found a new channel to flow through. The new patterns of life began to settle in place and soon things began to return to normal - but with some big changes. Levees were rebuilt stronger than ever. People prepared their homes for future flooding.

In short, life took on a new, better, safer routine. When you’re recovering from a financial meltdown and discovering new ways to live, this happens - you begin to discover new, better, safer routines.

And you begin to live like no one else.

Do you have any other thoughts on the first two chapters of The Total Money Makeover? Please share them in the comments - and feel free to respond to any of my impressions as well. After all, a good book club is all about discussion!

On Saturday, we’ll tackle the third chapter - Debt Myths: Debt Is (Not) A Tool.

For Father’s Day, my children gave me a copy of the game Dominion, and it would be an understatement to say that it’s a big hit around here. It’s actually a card game that two, three, or four people can play and you can get a game in in about half an hour, but it’s the creative thinking that really makes it stand out.

My wife and I have played it quite a bit on random, and we played it over and over again on our game night. In fact, I’m not ashamed to admit, my wife is quite good at the game and she figured out the first “killer strategy” (if you have the game, that strategy was taking tons of Villages as fast as possible) and then has figured out how to stay ahead of everyone else figuring out how to thump that strategy (our first counter-strategy was lots of Militias, and the response to that was lots of Moats).

It’s a blast - if you like games like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, it’s well worth trying.

Anyway, here are some great personal finance articles from the past week.

Inside the ‘Circle of Competence’: Buy What You Know Peter Lynch, Benjamin Graham, and Warren Buffett all subscribe to one basic idea: buy what you know. These individuals surrounded themselves with competent information and competent people and if they didn’t know an investment top to bottom, they didn’t invest. Seemed to work for them… (@ newsweek via seth’s blog)

The Benefits of a Gap Year A “gap year” - or a year of following other activities and interests between high school and college - is something I really believe in, and this article sets the case strongly for it. I think a year or two of real-world experience makes college much more worthwhile for many students. (@ art of manliness)

Your Locus of Control Who’s in control in your life? Are you? Or do you jump to attention when someone else hollers? Hint: it’s a lot easier to find personal finance success if you have an internal locus of control. (@ productivity 501)

Sold! Sales Tricks to Help You Land Your Next Job The tricks of a salesman are also similar to the tricks that a person can use to net themselves a sweet job. This article outlines the parallels. (@ yahoo hotjobs via free money finance)

7 Reasons to Stop Tracking Your Finances I don’t track my finances with the detail and fervor that I once did. I find that it’s useful for teaching good habits, but after a while, those good habits are so ingrained that you don’t need the teacher as much any more. (@ saving for serenity)

Be Prepared This is a heart-wrenching story and one that really outlines the need to get your estate planning in order sooner rather than later. (@ gather little by little)

‘Certified Organic’ May Not Be 100% No certification program is perfect, but the “certified organic” label may be further than most. I’m tending more and more towards buying local than just trusting the “organic” label for quality foods. Vive la Picket Fence Creamery! (@ sfgate via bitten)

Ten Things You Should Do When You Get Laid Off This is an excellent checklist to follow if you’ve recently lost your job. (@ consumerism commentary)

The fifth episode focuses on talking to parents about money and their estate planning as they get older. Along the way, I mention my own challenges in figuring out how to handle this as my parents age. Total time: 16:25.

Listen In!

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Though I hope you do subscribe using one of the above methods, don’t worry - each episode will be featured in its own post, much like this one, on Tuesday afternoons. The podcast itself may appear earlier than that, however, if you subscribe using one of the above forms, but the notes won’t appear until I post about it here on The Simple Dollar.

Episode Notes
Here are some additional notes that go alongside the comments in the podcast. Approximate times for the corresponding links and notes are listed.

0:00 - The theme song is a snippet of a Camper van Beethoven concert on October 25, 1986, shared via their very open taping policy. Listen to the concert in its entirety.
0:22 - Some useful reading on this topic.
1:41 - The frugality lessons my parents taught me.
2:38 - Here are some of the ways they managed to juggle all of these things.
3:27 - The book It Pays to Talk by Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz and Charles Schwab was really helpful - here are my detailed notes on the book.
4:31 - Honesty is absolutely vital when talking about these issues.
6:02 - When I’m trying to calm myself down, I often sing to myself. I usually choose a very calm song - usually, it’s Crash by Dave Matthews Band.
8:58 - It might be worthwhile to get your parents a copy of Start Late Finish Rich by David Bach - here are my notes on the book.
11:30 - Estate planning 101
12:07 - A master information document is unbelievably useful in such situations.
15:22 - A semi-preview of next week’s podcast.

One thing I’d like to do in a future episode is have an audio reader’s mailbag. If you have a microphone on your computer and can record an MP3 of a simple, short question you might have on personal finance, careers, pop culture, or anything else you’d like me to answer, record it as an MP3 and send it to me. Keep the total recording under 15 seconds, please. Also, if you use Skype, feel free to ask your question that way - my username is trenttsd.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

About a week ago, I challenged my followers on Twitter to give me their best single piece of money advice in ten words or less.

I was flooded with responses.

After spending quite a bit of time sifting through them, here are the fifty best pieces of advice that came my way (out of well over a hundred - I actually used a spreadsheet to help me figure out the best ones to include). All of these are stellar money tips - and all of them come in with ten words or less. Enjoy.

writealvaro: Don’t invest in what you don’t understand.
mmmeg: I only need one word! ASK!
The_Weakonomist: index emergency fund to unemployment. 9% = 9 months.
MichaelBRubin: Spend more time, less money.
fiscalgeek: The secret to money management is learning to be content.
pearbudget: Know what really matters. Don’t spend money on other stuff.
creditgoddess: Don’t borrow more than you can repay.
dgstinner: A fool and his money are soon parted
jacobmlee: Be mindful of how you spend money.
JoeTaxpayerBlog: Don’t walk away from 401(k) match, regardless of debt situation.
EdenJaeger: Live below your means and save all you can.
tonyblacknyc: Better to sell a little early than a little late.
Kplavcan13: Pay yourself first, you can’t give yourself a bill.
dweliver: Be content with what’s yours and you’ll always have plenty.
centsiblelife: Spend less than you earn. Earn more.
MoneyEnergy: Don’t save at 2% when you’ve got debt at 10%.
thefinancialqb: If you try to get rich quickly, you will go broke fast.
ObliviousInvest: Diversify. Minimize costs. Stay the course.
Matt_SF: Borrowing money for a depreciating asset is a fool’s errand.
benburleson: If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
mapgirlsfc: Save regularly and spend less than you earn.
jj_observations: Learn to love left-overs!
tusharm: Don’t spend money that you don’t have.
danielckoontz: Never reach for yield.
randypeterman: “Where will you & your stuff be in 100 years?”
Cat8040: Don’t take on debt.
KasyAllen: Don’t be afraid to ask for the savings!
nhldigest: Best money advice “Don’t Spend More Than You Earn”.
Green_Panda: My advice: Change one money habit at a time.
MoneyEnergy: Don’t count all your chickens before they’ve hatched.
fcn: Save and invest for the long term.
MyLifeROI: If it depreciates, don’t pay interest on it!
jessw61: Save/invest as much as you can.
Lisa_S_47: working hard doesn’t mean you deserve anything you can’t afford.
mtswartz: I’ll do it in two: Spend Less!
GlennLucas: Prevent your government from bankrupting your nation.
myfindependence: Be thrifty but don’t forget to enjoy yourself
spendingsmart: You can’t outearn dumb spending.
randallkirsch: A penny saved is more than a penny earned.
Grumpicus: Use credit cards, NOT debit cards.
flexo: The only one who cares about your money is you.
ceetastic: Before purchasing, I ask myself, “Can you justify the expense?”
moneyhighway: Money comes and goes the memories stay
robertsm85: If you don’t have the money then don’t spend it.
roryboy: if you need to use plastic, you can’t afford it!
msimonkey: Keeping up with the Jones’s is plain stupid.
maverickstruth: Know what comes in, and what goes out.
crazy_eddy: Let your assets buy your toys.
sfordinarygirl: Buy generics/private label because it’s way cheaper
jasonbob7: One word: leftovers!

Now, how about you? What’s the best money advice you can give in ten words or less? Leave yours in the comments!

One common question I’m asked a lot is how we actually balance our work lives and our family lives. Barb sums it up best:

How do you do it? You write tons and tons of stuff for The Simple Dollar, your wife works a full time job, you seem to have tons of time available for your kids, you read quite a bit, and you also seem to have a somewhat active social life. How do you do it? Do you not sleep?

There are a handful of tricks to making this all work. I’ll outline several, but I’ll start with the big one.

The line between work and family is pretty blurry at our house.
As I’ve mentioned before, I set aside a block of time each day to spend with the kids - and my wife does the same. This block usually goes from about 5:30 in the evening until 8:30 in the evening, with the last half-hour or so involving one of us putting the kids to bed while the other one does something else.

Outside of that, the lines between work and family are really blurry at our home. We’ll engage in family activities and in the middle, I’ll yank out my pocket notebook and jot down some notes. I’ll read books for review for The Simple Dollar in the late evenings when my wife is enjoying a piece of meaty fiction. My wife (who is a teacher) will grade papers on the way to an activity while I’m driving, or I’ll gather notes while she’s driving. Sometimes she even helps out with background tasks for The Simple Dollar, brainstorming ideas, correcting posts, and even helping with writing tasks here and there.

It’s not uncommon for us to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon watching a movie in the family room. The kids will choose a Pixar movie we’ve seen a dozen times and my wife and I will fire up our laptops, hers to record some grades and mine to answer some emails.

It doesn’t feel intrusive - at least not to me - because I enjoy the work so much. I love to write. I love to communicate with readers (in fact, I love it so much that I often get behind simply because I want to respond to as many emails as I can). It just feels - most of the time - like just another enjoyable thing to do in my life.

During the school year, the kids do go to daycare, a decision we put a lot of thought into before we chose it. The biggest reason, actually, was for the kids themselves - there are cognitive benefits and health benefits to such attendance. That doesn’t mean that we dump them at the door and run - I often spend days with them, taking them to the Science Center of Iowa or to the library or to the park - but I do try to maximize the time they’re at daycare, doing tasks that they can’t participate in (my work) or would greatly hinder.

The end result of all of this is that my children get my undivided attention vastly more than they did when I was working a full time job. When I had work intruding on my life then, I was either out of the house or mentally distracted when I should have been spending time with them. Now, when they need me and something work-related is on my mind, I have the freedom to slam the door on work whenever I choose. Plus, because I enjoy my work, I also have the freedom to pick it up whenever time allows without hating how it’s interfering with what I want to do - it is what I want to do.

We own one television - and it’s rarely on.
In the last month, the television’s primary use has been twofold. It’s kept us up to date with local storm coverage (since we’ve had some awful weather as of late) and it’s provided the source of our “family movie night,” where all four of us (once a week or so) watch a movie together. Other than that, I think it’s been on roughly two hours (to watch True Blood).

That’s it. The only television we own is down in the basement, and we simply don’t go down there that often. We’re too busy doing other things that we enjoy - activities that often involve active interaction with our children (like drawing pictures or building a giant model railroad).

We do lots of household chores together as a family.
We cook meals together. We clean together. We work on art projects together. We wrap presents together. We do dishes together.

Virtually any task that the children can possibly participate in is done in a social fashion. Everyone gets more out of it if we work together. Sure, there might be minor setbacks when the children get involved, but they offer a lot of help, too. Even our twenty one month old daughter can scrape plates and put them in the dishwasher (seriously) and our three year old loves stirring cookie batter.

The more things like this that we do together as a family, the tighter we bond and the more real world skills our kids have. Doing things this way turns household chores into opportunities for family bonding - and often gets things done just as fast, if not faster.

Many of our friends are also parents.
If you’re friends with parents that have children of a similar age, they’re much more understanding about things like taking kids to the bathroom or washing their hands. They’re also much more likely to be helpful when you need a hand, and you have a lot of experiences and advice worth sharing.

Here’s a perfect example. My wife had four bridesmaids at our wedding - two of them were her sisters and the other two were long-time friends. Today, one of those friends has a son that’s literally one day younger than our own, while the other has a daughter in between the ages of our kids and an infant son. The children have become part of the social bonds tying them all together.

Thus, our roles as parents and as social creatures overlap.

We choose enriching things for our relaxation time.
So when do we relax? Almost every evening, my wife and I spend some time unwinding. That time, though, is often spent reading or playing a game that requires some thinking. Last night, we both read for an hour and a half, side by side, before bed. The night before that, we played Dominion over a bottle of wine.

In short, we make an effort to keep our minds “on” as much as possible during the day.

Turning my mind “off” is done in a very focused way.
Obviously, though, being “on” all the time isn’t the best thing, so I have what I think of as an extremely focused “off” time each day. I meditate/pray for about twenty minutes - I clear my mind and do a few very basic relaxation techniques. Often, if I do this later in the day, I find myself hugely mentally refreshed for the evening instead of burnt out after a lot of work.

I used to try to do something like this during my commute, but it never really worked well, so eventually I settled on meditating/praying right when I got home. It’s a late afternoon tradition for me that I’ve used ever since - and it makes a huge difference in my energy and alertness in the evenings.

Doing these things - blending work and parenting and play, meditating, socializing with other parents, and engaging in activities that are usually mentally enriching - has been invaluable for juggling all the roles we have without needing to shell out the cash to bring in extra help (like a housecleaner, for example).

The things that stick in your head after reading a book are often interesting. For example, just yesterday I posted a detailed review of Miserly Moms that outlined a ton of useful tips for cutting domestic spending.

Yet, the thing that stuck in my head for days after reading the book was an offhand comment she made about buying garbage bags. She pointed out that these were an item that one could easily switch to generic, since the low-cost garbage bags are a great way to save money.

My response to that? Not in my world, it isn’t.

We bought low-end garbage bags once. Of the first nine bags we used, two of them ripped and dumped their contents all over our kitchen floor on the way to the trash can. Each mess took at least ten minutes to clean up - one mess was almost entirely dry stuff, so it was fairly easy, but the other mess involved some sticky items, including a glass bottle that cracked and leaked some maple syrup on the floor.

The time lost cleaning up these messes almost immediately ate up the “value” we got in buying the low-end brand versus the price we would pay buying better bags in bulk.

Since then, we’ve stuck to the brand we trust - Glad Forceflex tall kitchen bags - which have won garbage bag comparisons in both Real Simple and Consumer Reports. We can get these bags in bulk for about eighteen cents a bag, compared to roughly fifteen cents a bag for generic. Given that we have, in three years, only had one breakage of our preferred kind of bag, we’ll stick to our preferred brand, thank you.

Whenever I make a comment along these lines, people almost always suggest not filling the bags as much. “If you only filled the generics 80% full, then you wouldn’t have the breakage!” Well, let’s look at that scenario. If I have five 13 gallon bags and I fill each of them 80% full, I’ve got 52 gallons of trash. On the other hand, if I have four 13 gallon bags and I fill each of them to the brim, I have the same amount of trash - 52 gallons.

So, I can either use five generic bags (which cost fifteen cents a pop), empty the trash 25% more often, put more plastic into the environment, and spend a total of 75 cents, or I can use four of our preferred bags (which cost eighteen cents a pop), put less plastic into the environment, and only spend 72 cents.

In the end, though, the take-home message has nothing to do with grocery bags. Instead, it has to do with finding your own maximum value. For us, the best value in garbage bags doesn’t come from buying the generic bags - in fact, with most of our household supplies, we’ve found that simply sticking with the Consumer Reports Best Buy provides us with an item that’s not much more expensive than the low end option (and sometimes cheaper if we can find a coupon) and doesn’t have usability problems like not getting the dishes in the dishwasher clean or dumping garbage all over our kitchen floor.

For us, a product that does its job well without such crises has a greater tangible value than one that tends to fail on occasion. We’re willing to pay a little more for easier use and fewer failures because of the time factor - cleaning garbage off the floor because we bought the cheap bags is time that we don’t get to spend with our kids.

Even better, when we start evaluating the situation as a whole, incorporating some of the costs incurred by poorly-working products (like the bad dishwashing detergent, which causes us to run another load of the same dishes, eating up water and another batch of detergent), we often find that the “cheap” item actually ends up being the expensive one.

Our perspective? Find the best price you can on quality items that actually do their job well. Over the long haul, the convenience of items that actually work all the time will add up to enough to make the difference between the prices, even if you don’t see that factor directly in play.

If you think I’m giving the generics a bad rap, let me make it clear: by all means, try the low-end items. Find out for yourself if they really add up to the total value that you want.

For us, it’s rarely worth it.