About two weeks ago, I did something incredibly stupid. Without even really thinking about it, I let my wife down. I made one of those careless, thoughtless little mistakes that when you realize what you’ve done, you might want to slap yourself in the head about it, but a mistake can’t be undone.

My first temptation was to buy her some sort of gift to “make up” for my mistake. I know what sorts of things she likes, so I browsed through some sites and found a couple of great items that I could give her that would patch things over.

But then I came to my senses.

Buying my wife something won’t make up for a mistake I made. In fact, buying her something right now would just send a message to her that I view her love and respect as something that can be bought.

The only way to deal with a poor decision or with a marital rough patch is through communication. If your partner is upset with you, especially if you really can’t understand why, don’t get mad. Listen. Talk through the problem. Ask questions. Figure out what you can do so that the mistake doesn’t happen again. Let your partner know that you truly do love him or her, and that you aren’t a perfect person, and that you made a mistake. Then, try to take all of that into your own heart and make improvements within yourself.

Buying a gift and not talking about the problem? That just paints the wrong kind of picture. It merely shows that you view your issues as something that can be wiped away with money. And they can’t.

Fortunately, I’m a lucky enough man to have a wife who is very forgiving of my inequities. In fact, if she’s reading this right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were scratching her head, trying to remember what exactly I’m talking about. At least, I sincerely hope that’s the case.

Marriage isn’t easy. No relationship is truly easy. There are always going to be times when you do something stupid and rash and make someone else upset by your poorly-considered actions. What makes a relationship work isn’t how you avoid such mistakes, it’s how you handle them.

Whenever you’re in a situation where you’ve made a mistake and you’re trying to patch things up, don’t spend your time buying flowers or making grandiose promises about great things to come. Instead, remember just four words:

You can’t buy love.

Then head home, sit down, and have a real conversation. Instead of trying to buy away the problem, try to solve it with real understanding, love, and compassion instead.

My wife and I are both natural collectors. As a young boy, I carefully collected thousands of baseball cards, spending my allowance each week on Topps wax packs. Later, in my teen years, I collected Magic: the Gathering cards with a ferociousness. I come by this naturally – my father has been an avid coin collector, the type who will sift through large jars of pennies looking for rare ones and saving them in individual sleeves. Similarly, my wife has collected books her entire life and has amassed an amazing collection of them, filling multiple shelving units in our basement.

Collections are incredibly enjoyable hobbies to have. When you’re caught in the passionate fire of collecting, you can burn whole days organizing what you have, determining the holes you need to fill, and simply enjoying the items.

The only problem is that most collections cost a lot to get started and have a significant maintenance cost, too. Sports cards require a constant outflow of money for items that might never retain their value. Books? Once they’re bought, the best you can hope for is to sell them used (or trade them) at a huge loss – the same goes for almost any media collection. Most collectibles, like Beanie Babies, fall under the same conclusion – you’re often sinking a lot of value into something with very little financial return, just personal enjoyment.

If you have that collector itch, one approach to solving this problem is to switch your focus towards collecting things that have minimal acquisition cost – or better yet, no cost at all. The best place to start is to look at the nature around you and find the things you find beautiful. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Collecting Nature Samples

The most obvious way to begin a natural collection is to identify items in nature that you can easily collect. Some things to think about if you’re pondering such a collection.

What do you find beautiful? Think about the elements of nature that you genuinely find beautiful. Birds? Trees? Plants? Rocks? Don’t limit your mind to what’s easy and obvious – spend some time thinking about it. For example, I find geodes to be stunningly beautiful, and there’s also a family tradition to them as well – my aunt was one of the most avid geode collectors I’ve ever met, spending most of her spare time in her adult life wandering around in the woods and in creek bottoms finding them. I myself love collecting leaves – as diverse and as colorful as I possibly can find. I take a lot of pleasure in attempting to identify trees based on their leaves.

What is reasonably accessible to you on a regular basis? For example, geode collectors pretty much have to live in the Midwest, as geodes are somewhat common in this area but rare elsewhere. Many collections, such as tree leaf collections, can be started anywhere and expanded upon regularly when the opportunity strikes, but don’t start a collection that you’ll have difficulty expanding near your home.

What doesn’t take up much room? You’ll also want to start a collection that won’t overwhelm your living quarters with clutter. For example, bird feather collections, if done carefully, can be stored in a binder, but collecting tons of large rocks will quickly create a problem (and make moving a nightmare, too). My aunt’s geode collection dominated their front porch, standing on every rail, and at times spilled over onto an adjacent table or two.

Can I get the family involved? If you’ve got a family, find something to collect that everyone can get involved with. Talk to everyone about it, and come up with something that everyone can get involved with. One good idea is to collect rocks of a certain color that match your external decor, bird feathers, or distinctive leaves. This can be a great opportunity to have your entire family get more in touch with nature.

Collecting Natural Observations

Another way to enjoy collecting nature without having to store anything at all is to collect natural observations. If you decide to collect observations, the sky’s the limit – you can basically collect anything. Identify trees and native plants, view constellations, watch birds, identify rocks you find in nature, identify cloud formations – anything you can imagine.

Take careful notes when you observe things. Note where you were when you identified it, the date and time, and as many specifics as you can about the observation. Doing this will help you recall what you observed in the future – a nice collection of observations can be a real treat to go through on a day when you’re itching to go outside but the weather is an obstacle.

Get a good notebook to record your observations. Take notes on what you observed and when you observed it. If you have even minimal artistic skill, try sketching what you see. My wife and I each have sketchbooks – mine is a Moleskine reporter’s sketchbook, which works absolutely great for taking notes and making sketches of all kinds.

Consider a field guide, as well. Another useful tool if you get into natural observation is a field guide for your specific area of interest. For example, if you’re into night sky observations, try the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to the Night Sky (my wife has that one – it’s stellar) or, if you’re into rock hunting, look into the Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals. We own several National Audubon Society guides and have found them all to be excellent.

Nature Photography

Another option, if you have a digital camera, is to augment your natural observations with nature photography. Go out in the world and start taking pictures of the things that interest you – and build a nice collection of natural snapshots.

If you have a digital camera, take lots of shots. A large memory card can hold tons of pictures, so don’t hold off for the “perfect” shot. Start taking images right away. You can always toss the imperfect ones later on.

Record some notes, too. Note anything important about the pictures in your sketchbook for later reference, so that if you go back and look at the pictures, you’ll know what was depicted, where you took it, and when. Write down anything else of note as well.

Share your best nature photography with others. Join Flickr and share your best images. Add information about where the picture was taken and what’s depicted and tag it appropriately so others can easily find the pictures. Even better, allow them to be used widely via a Creative Commons license so that your images can be shared all over the place – you never know where your image might show up.

The natural world is amazingly beautiful, complex, and interesting, and it’s just sitting outside our doors, free to examine and explore. Take advantage of it to fuel your collecting urges and get in touch with the world around you.

I used Creative Commons images licensed for free commercial use in this post. Click on the images to view the beautiful originals at Flickr.

This week, I’m currently in the middle of crunch time for my book, with a strong deadline of July 1 to turn in a strong final manuscript (that will then go through their editing process). That means long hours at the keyboard, typing away, until I’m ready to flop into bed out of exhaustion. I really am on the home stretch, though, as the book is completely outlined down almost to the paragraph and I’m now just adding words to the framework and polishing things here and there.

So, for this week’s roundup, I went back to my big grab-bag of the best posts from a mountain of personal finance blogs and found ten more gems worth sharing.

Top 10 Reasons People Spend More Than They Earn A lot of these add up to self-esteem. If your self-esteem is based on the stuff you have, you’re going to always have a hard time getting ahead financially. (@ accumulating money)

Rich College Student: Emergency Fund 101 If you’re a college student who’s doing all right financially, this is a great article to read. (@ green panda treehouse)

38 Random Thoughts on Building Prosperity Here’s another thought for the pile: learn how to do something new every day. You’ll be shocked how often a simple skill you’ve learned comes up time and time again. (@ brip blap)

Reading (and Understanding) “The Fine Print” This is an excellent look at how fine print can get you. If this floated your boat, the book Gotcha Capitalism will probably be a wonderful read for you. (@ banker girl)

Confessions of a Car Salesman It’s all about salesman’s psychology tricks! (@ million dollar journey)

Do We Spend More When We Swipe Plastic? I keep in very careful tune with my spending on plastic – I pay the bill off in full every week. But I have in the past vastly overspent because of the plastic. (@ poorer than you)

Three Quick Ways to Get Out of Debt TCT is a very good plan, one that works best when repeated often. (@ fire finance)

Managing Our Debt – A Review Of How We Live With A Large Debt Burden If you have a ton of debt, this is some great advice. If you can just cut 2% off the interest rate of a $10,000 debt, that’s $200 a year. (@ make love, not debt)

Is Your But Too Big? Great title and a very good point, too. (@ millionaire mommy next door)

The Perfect Storm In a lot of ways, this sounds like my own financial meltdown. (@ rocket finance)

A typical central air conditioning unit uses 3,500 watts of energy when running. A typical ceiling fan uses 60 watts of energy, even when running on high. Thus, if you ran your ceiling fan all day and it managed to decrease your home air conditioner use by just thirty minutes in a twenty four hour period, you’ll end up saving significant money over the long run with a ceiling fan.

Of course, you can save a lot more energy if you do some careful planning and tinkering when it comes to ceiling fan use. Here are some tactics to try.

Set your home’s temperature higher in the summer If you’re going to run ceiling fans constantly in your home on a hot day, raise the temperature on your thermostat by a few degrees. Your ceiling fan doesn’t directly cool the air by itself, but what it does do is circulate air, creating a breeze effect that makes the room feel cooler than it actually is. Thus, accompany ceiling fan use with a rise in thermostat temperature and your central air conditioning unit will run less, but you’ll feel just as cool. I recommend trying a four degree increase if fans run on high as compared to the fans not running at all.

Run the fan on high in one direction (usually counterclockwise) in the summer Most fans have a “clockwise” setting and a “counterclockwise” setting, each appropriate for a different season. Stand beneath the fan and turn it on. If you immediately feel a breeze from the fan, then it’s set on the “summer” setting, usually counterclockwise. Otherwise, turn off the fan, climb up near the base of the fan, and look for a little button or switch that sets the fan to run in the opposite direction. During the summer, you should have your ceiling fans running on high with the air blowing down directly below the fan. This creates the most air movement in the center of the room, which is where you need it most for the “breeze” effect, which will feel cool on your skin.

Run the fan on low in the other direction (usually clockwise) on low in the winter In the winter, however, your fan should be running in the opposite direction (again, just flip the switch or push the button near the base of the fan). Blades running in this direction will pull air up in the center of the room and push it down again near the edges. This forces warm air and cool air to mix in the room, keeping the room at a steadier temperature (not allowing heat to build up at the top and coolness to settle on the floor) and making your heating unit not have to work quite as hard to keep the house warm. You’ll feel this effect if you stand near the wall in a room – a gentle, warm breeze will blow over you.

When you buy and install a new ceiling fan, keep these tips in mind Almost any home can be made more energy efficient by installing a ceiling fan. Here are a few suggestions for shopping for a new fan.

Basic physics – if your fan’s blade angle is less than twelve degrees, it’s a waste of energy Ideally, you want the blade to push air upwards or downwards. If your blades are at a low angle (meaning nearly flat), they won’t do either – instead, they’ll have much the same effect as an airplane wing. They’ll just cut through the air without pushing the air at all. The very first thing you should look at with a new ceiling fan is the blade angle. If the angle is below 12 degrees, the fan will be largely decorative and will just eat energy without significant air movement. 12 degrees should be the minimum angle you purchase, and ideally you’ll buy one with a higher degree angle. Blades with a 16 degree angle or above push a lot of air, feeling much like a box fan attached to your ceiling, and that might be overwhelming in some situations. Get a fan with blades between 12 and 14 degrees in a room where you might have papers out, etc., but in general use rooms, get a fan with blades having a 14 degree angle or above.

Unless your room is very well lit, go ahead and get the light assembly, too You might not think it’s necessary now, but if you’re installing the fan in a room without perfect lighting – or are replacing a light fixture with a ceiling fan – you’re going to want more lighting in the room. If in doubt, get the light assembly right now – it’ll save you consternation and money later on.

Install it yourself – it’s not that scary Many people blow the process of installing a ceiling fan out of proportion in their minds and just hire someone to install it. Don’t – installing a ceiling fan really isn’t that hard. Here’s a very humorous but informative guide on installing a ceiling fan and a video produced by Home Depot on how to replace a ceiling fan (useful even if you’re not replacing one, just installing a new one). Don’t pay the fee to have someone else do it – this is a perfect small home improvement project that anyone can tackle themselves.

All of these tactics can save you significant money on your heating and cooling bills. A ceiling fan can be a great investment, particularly if you live in an area where the temperature is frequently far too warm or too cold to open the windows on a regular basis, even for just a few months out of the year. Ceiling fans, when used properly, can be a massive energy savings.

In the reader mailbag yesterday, I alluded to the idea that I would only buy individual stocks from companies that I was strongly familiar with and whose products I used myself and not only trusted, but that I found enough value in that I would laud them to others. In other words, I’m a big believer in “buy what you know.”

Unsurprisingly, several people wrote to me asking what stocks I was referring to, and so I’ve decided to list out the seven-stock portfolio I’ve been keeping my eye on for the last several months. These are the seven stocks I would invest my money in if I were going to invest in individual stocks. At some point, I will pull the trigger and do this, likely using a buy and hold strategy and allowing all of the stocks together to comprise about 10% of my overall investments, but I’m going to assemble a strong index fund portfolio first.

Here are the seven single stocks I’d buy, likely in equal amounts. I’d buy and hold each of these unless something dramatically changed about the company – in particular, if I lost confidence in the company’s products. Together, the companies are a diverse portfolio (all are in different industries) with a few traits in common – all of them have strong products that provide value to me personally, all are financially stable and have clear plans for the future, and most of them are among the most ethical companies – three appear on Ethisphere’s list of the world’s most ethical companies in 2008.

This is not investing advice. I’m merely listing the companies I would invest in and why, in hopes that you might understand my decision-making process and perhaps add something to your own decision-making process when it comes to stock investing. I’m also not looking to day trade – I want to buy and hold over a long period of time. I also tend to lean more towards companies who behave ethically while producing products I believe in instead of the investment that will quickly maximize my buck.

Here goes.

Herman Miller (MLHR)
If I were to invest my stock in one company, it would be Herman Miller. Herman Miller is a furniture manufacturer that focuses on office chairs, and they do superb and environmentally friendly work. I own one of their Aeron chairs, and it’s simply one of the most elegantly and superbly constructed items I’ve ever owned. I was introduced to their chairs in the workplace and was so genuinely impressed that I eventually purchased one of my own – and I began carefully following the company as well. Their chairs are ecologically sound as is their factory and they’re one of the most admired companies in America, placing at the top of Fortune’s list of admired furniture companies for the past eighteen years. Their business model is stable and the business is steadily expanding, so I’m on board for the long haul.

ING Groep (ING)
For those of you who have heard me talk positively about both ING Direct and Sharebuilder on this site, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve used many different online banks and found ING Direct to be by far the most usable, and aside from Vanguard, I’ve had the easiest time with Sharebuilder for brokerage needs. The business is growing rapidly while their stock price has held largely steady, indicating to me that the company is on very solid ground financially for the long haul. A happy customer plus a solid financial standing equals a company I’ll bet on for the long haul.

Apple (AAPL)
If there’s a “bet” on this list, it’s on Apple, who produce computer products that I rely on every day. As I type this, I’m using a Mac and I’d hesitate to say that I’d ever want to go back to using a PC ever again. It’s stable, incredibly user friendly, and reliable. Their product design all around is impeccable and their sales are growing like gangbusters. The biggest reason this feels like a bet to me is that I feel like more than almost every other company, the strength of Apple is tied to its leader, Steve Jobs. I follow Apple pretty closely and I just don’t see anyone waiting in the wings, which is worrisome because of the “cult of personality” leadership at Apple. If Steve goes, I fear Apple may stumble, which is a worry over the long haul. But for now, I’m incredibly pleased with their product and their company is clearly on the right track.

Honda (HMC)
I have a lot of faith in both Honda and Toyota as car manufacturers, and all of my research has pointed me towards them as the source for my next car purchase and my experience with both companies as a driver has been very positive. I give Honda the nod over Toyota (since I don’t want to invest in two car manufacturers) because I generally believe they’re thinking more long term and their product lines are more diverse. Honda’s revenue is heading upwards and they’re recognized for their business ethics.

Costco (COST)
If there were a Costco fairly close to me (the nearest one is in West Des Moines, simply too far away), I would happily be a regular customer. I am a frequent customer of Sam’s Club in my area and I prefer Costco for product selection and employee treatment reasons. Warehouse shopping is a concept I strongly support, especially when it’s paired with ethical treatment of employees and strong prices. As with the other companies on this list, their profits and revenues are steadily marching upwards while maintaining the ethical standards they’ve become known for.

UPS (UPS)
I like UPS because they work. I’ve had dozens of packages delivered to my home without a missed delivery (as compared to FedEx, which has an atrocious 0-for-2 record since my move) and occasional earlier than expected deliveries, plus I’ve never had any issues with shipping with them, either. Given their role as a large-scale delivery company, they’re heavily involved in improving fuel economy and moving towards green solutions with their GreenFleet, plus they’re committed to high ethical standards as part of their business model. Couple that with their steadily improving financial success and it’s clear why I’d buy and hold this company.

General Mills (GIS)
My final pick is probably surprising to some given my commitment to fresh foods, but their commitment to health-conscious food production in that they’ve switched to whole grains for all of their cereals (plus my son’s incessant love for Cheerios) has slowly won me over, as has their commitment to ethical business practices. I’ve been satisfied with their products as a customer, and their financial record is strong, which all adds up to a strong picture of the company as a whole, strong enough for me to pick the stock for buying and holding.

Recently, a young child that lives nearby (age six or so) had a large birthday party at his home for all the children on the block that were approximately the same age (four year olds to eight year olds, roughly). The party was in the family’s fenced-in backyard and included a magician, two horses, and a barbecue with a folk music band for all of the adults. To top it all off, there was a giant tarp over something in the backyard, and when the tarp was lifted (after the birthday cake), it revealed a play/tree house that must have easily cost $5,000.

As a parent, I can understand the superficial appeal of having a massively over-the-top birthday party like this for my children. It would be incredibly fun to load up house and home with parents and children, make it a very fun day for everyone with little eye toward expense, and have an amazing present at the end that all of the kids would enjoy. The sheer joy of all of those children would be quite wonderful.

But it comes with a few steep prices.

First, it sets unrealistic expectations for your children. Unless you’re equipped to spend obscene amounts of money regularly, you’ve set them up to be disappointed on some level by future birthdays. It’s fun to have a birthday party, but when it stretches the limits of what’s reasonable (and what you can reasonably afford), then it begins to stretch their expectations, often to a threshold that you won’t be able to afford in the future.

Second, it encourages consumerism. A giant birthday party with a mountain of presents is a rush of acquisition of “stuff.” No matter how well thought out the gifts are, a huge pile of gifts translates to a huge pile of stuff, and a huge pile of stuff translates into an expectation of more stuff.

Third, a big investment in a birthday party is a big investment that’s not going towards college or other long term savings. This isn’t a big deal if you’re a multimillionaire that already has college in the bag, but it’s a huge deal if you’re not there. If you drop thousands of dollars now on a party or a toy that they’ll only play with for a little while and at the same time haven’t adequately covered that child’s future, you’re making a choice that puts their future at risk for a birthday party.

With those ideas in mind, here are some suggestions for planning a memorable (but reasonable) birthday party for your child without it transforming into an incredibly expensive spectacle.

Keep the invitation list reasonable. While it’s fun to have a lot of kids in your yard, keep the list short enough so that all of the children are comfortable with and familiar with each other. This makes the party more fun for everyone and also keeps the expenses under control, as it’s easier to feed and entertain eight children than thirty.

Put a strict cap on gifts from guests – or request no gifts at all. This helps fight the “mountain of gifts” that is prevalent at large birthday parties, which just gives a home a plethora of toys and clutter that’s not necessary. Tell the guests not to bring presents at all – or, if you feel that they should, ask that the presents be very small.

Children can entertain themselves. Just come up with a few games that require minimal equipment and everything will go great. No need for an entertainer or any sort of expensive entertainment spectacle.

Cut back on the food – only serve cake. I’ve been to many birthday parties where there was a meal served, and as a guest I thought it was overkill. Keep it simple – just have a small, homemade birthday cake and a big bucket of ice cream. Total cost: less than $10.

Consider a slumber party. This enables you to dramatically reduce the guest list and at the same time create a memorable party for the child. Just invite three or four of the child’s closest friends and have them spend the night as the party.

Consider a private party. In other words, the only people invited are the people who live in the house. This keeps the party extremely simple, but also quite intimate. Many of my birthday parties as a child were like this and I remember them quite fondly.

Utilize public resources. Have a birthday party at the park, using the shelter house as a place to manage the party. This makes cleanup easy and the park is natural entertainment for the children.

Ask your child what they want – and don’t plant any ideas. You’ll often be surprised at what your child comes up with for what they want to do on their birthday. One of my nephews only wanted one thing for one of their early birthdays: to ride on their cousin’s four wheeler. Another one wanted to pull weeds out of the flower patch in the front yard and redecorate it (seriously). You might be shocked at what they want to do for their birthday, and if it’s reasonable at all, let them do it.

Remember that this party isn’t for you, it’s for the child. The party should revolve around what your child wants, not what you want. If your child wants to just have his best friend over for a sleepover and have hot dogs for supper, go for it even if it’s not what you’d envision for a birthday celebration. Let it be your child’s day, but just keep it within reason.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently.
How much money does turning off the lights really save?
Ten books that changed my life
My thoughts on The 48 Laws of Power and how to ethically treat your friends and associates

And now for some great reader questions!

You mention doing research for some of your posts. How do you go about researching? The internet? The Library? Experimentation?
- Carrie

I usually spend an afternoon a week at the library researching material for posts and other written pieces, and significant additional time online doing research. To understand it, I should probably put into context my writing flow for a week’s worth of posts.

I usually spend some time Monday morning defining what I intend to get written over the next week. That’s usually about a week and a half’s worth of posts, a few guest posts, some freelance articles, and a good chunk of a book. Seriously, I write about 20-30K words per week.

Once I’ve decided the general idea of all of these articles, I usually spend some time outlining them a bit with several sentences worth of notes. This helps me identify which posts need significant research and which ones focus more on anecdotal ideas.

This usually gives me the framework I need to go to the library later on Monday and do what research I need for the week. I’ll check out books, photocopy a few things, and take notes on my laptop.

Most of the rest of a normal week is spent just filling out the facts and ideas with prose to support them so that they’re readable. If I’m lucky, I get everything done with some time to spare, during which I follow my muse and work on things that are completely unrelated, like short stories and video production and things like that.

My credit card bill says “Save a stamp, use online bill payment.” When I went online to pay, I read that if I used online payment it would charge a $9.95 online service fee per payment. Do you have an idea of how to find a card that charges no fee?
- arlen

If your credit card company is charging you $9.95 to pay online, don’t do it. It’s a scam. Use your bank’s online bill pay to do the same thing – it’s likely free (and if it’s not, you should be switching to a different bank that has the service).

If you have a service that charges you a “fee” to pay your bill, they’re just trying to make an easy buck from the gullible. I recommend always using your online banking service to pay your bills that way. It helps with budgeting and makes the whole process much easier over the long run.

You seem to have a fairly solid routine. I’m currently wanting to establish such a routine which allows for maintenance of all those steady to dos like cleaning the house, laundry, finances, etc. as well as cooking at home, a reasonable amount of exercise and time with my loved ones. I get frustrated, though, as there still doesn’t seem to be enough time. Were you ever in always-behind-mode and, if so, how did you get out?
- Joanna

I used to constantly feel behind on everything. I realized, in the end, that there were two root causes of it, and once I tackled those, things got easier.

Too many distractions Cell phone on? That’s a regular distraction, with calls and text messages. Email program open? Distraction. Door open? You’re begging for people to come in and distract you. Web browser open? Tons of distractions. Focus in on one task and cut out those distractions.

Figuring out what’s actually important How much time each day do you spend watching television? What would happen to your time if you ditched House and spent that hour cleaning or doing laundry each week? You’d have another hour to spend with your family or doing the core things important to you. Spend some time figuring out priorities, and ditch the ones that are at the bottom of the list.

Do these two things and stick to them tightly, and things will get easier.

How do you handle the quality versus cost issue with basic foods like orange juice? At the store, there’s usually a ton of different kinds of orange juice. The more expensive ones are delicious but the cheap ones taste like battery acid. How do you decide what’s worth buying?
- Ronald

I usually start with the cheapest and work my way up from there. The cheapest orange juice is foul, so what’s next up the line. When I find something I like, that’s my baseline. Then, I watch for sales. Are there more expensive brands that are on sale right now or that I have a coupon for? If so, I get the better kind.

I do this with almost every consumer product, from soap to dishwasher detergent. Take soap – my baseline is Ivory or Pure and Natural (whichever is cheaper), but there’s almost always a better soap on sale (or with coupon) that’s cheaper, and that’s why I’m using Old Spice Body Wash right now. The same with shampoo – my baseline is Pert, but I’m currently using giant containers of almost-free Herbal Essences. It’s sometimes good to try the cheap generic, but sometimes the quality of the generic is significantly lower than the name brand item, and that means you should try things out for yourself.

What sports do you follow?
- Philbert

Baseball, golf, and college basketball. That’s about it. Baseball is probably my top sport, with golf very closely behind. I am a Chicago Cubs fan nearly from birth.

I used to follow pro basketball, but with each passing year the NBA seems more and more rigged, with the referees outright controlling the outcome some of the games, and now with the recent revelations about Tim Donaghy and Dick Bavetta, that seems pretty much true. Yep, David Stern, your cheap attempts to control series lost me as a fan, especially starting with that absolutely horrendous series in 2002 between the Lakers and the Kings. The Kings were a better team by miles, but the refs handed both games six and seven to the Lakers, calling constant invisible fouls and other things.

Can cosmetic surgery ever be considered an investment? Or are the studies/rumors that ‘beautiful people make more money’ not stable enough to rely on recouping the surgery costs?
- leslie

I wrote about this topic a while back, but I think it’s fair to clarify my thoughts.

I think that, although cosmetic surgery does affect how others perceive you, it’s not nearly as important as who you are. You can be the most beautiful person in the world and that might help you get your foot in the door, but if you are a cancer, you will be ousted and disgraced. Your face might open the door, but your attitude and who you are inside will be the part that keeps it open – or slams it in your face.

That being said, cosmetic surgery can be a big benefit in some ways. It can improve your self-confidence and help you get your foot in the door in the first place. The only catch is that once you’re in the door, what really matters is who you are on the inside.

Have you had any experience with time tracking tools that measure productivity and the sort? I’ve recently downloaded Rescue Time and I think seeing my usage patterns has created a better awareness for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Thanks.
- Marcus

I used Rescue Time for a while and all it seemed to do for me was point out what was obvious. I have a small handful of time sucking websites – other than those, I’m pretty productive. So what I often do is just completely block those websites. From the Lifehacker book:

My biggest weaknesses when I should be working on The Simple Dollar are looking at my site stats, reading reddit, and playing Desktop Tower Defense. What’s my solution? When I sit down to work on The Simple Dollar, the first thing I do is open the file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\hosts with Notepad and add the line

127.0.0.1 reddit.com kongregate.com sitemeter.com mybloglog.com

Then I save the file and close it. When I’m done, I just open the file again and delete the line. What does it do? Whenever I try to visit the distracting web site, I just get a blank page. This keeps me from burning a few minutes here reading reddit or a few minutes there playing a game. Note that this only works on Windows XP and Vista, though – the book provides other ways to do it with other operating systems.

That file name works on PCs. On Macs, you’d want to open /private/etc/hosts and edit that file the same way. I’ve actually set up a cron job (a scheduled and automated task) to swap that file in and out at certain times each day, and then I can undo it myself if I want to.

The key is to block yourself from the time sucks. Make sure you can’t go near them, or at least make it difficult for yourself.

My son is a huge organic fan. I know it’s health benefits. I also know it is expensive too. How would you determine to eat organically or not if you lived in the city? Any thoughts you have on organic food would be appreciated.
- Joel

My philosophy with food is that the important part is to just eat better. The real key is to get on a diet with more vegetables in it. Organics are just icing on the cake. In fact, organic labeling actually doesn’t mean all that much.

If you’re really concerned about higher quality foods with lower environmental impact, your best bet is to buy local, not organic. Hit the local farmer’s market, especially local farmers that do small scale farming. Your purchase from these folks will do far more for the environment than buying produce that’s been shipped in from Chile.

Do you agree with this view : Nobody has actually figured out how the markets work, everyone is still studying heavily but has not actually figured how the machine works and much of the talk about the predictions about markets is just vain talk, and what turns out to be true is only by fluke or chance?
- WhirlMind

I think people figure out how the markets work in the short term, but then the landscape changes and all bets are off. New investors come in, with different perspectives. Old investors leave. Different sectors, based on different fundamentals, become hot and get a big market capitalization.

That’s why I think, over the long haul, the best bet for almost everyone – meaning everyone who doesn’t have the time to incessantly study the markets – is to diversify widely or only buy specific companies that you know very well. If you don’t have a reason for buying an individual stock – a clear, concrete reason – then don’t buy it.

What motivates you every day?
- j

My children. My wife. My incessant desire to write and the cool, calm feeling I get after a good day of writing. My desire to help the community, both locally and in a larger sense.

That’s pretty much my motivation every day when I wake up. In roughly that order, actually.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

One topic that doesn’t get nearly enough coverage on The Simple Dollar (or on other blogs as well) is entrepreneurship – the transformation of an idea and a passion into a full-fledged business. It can be a splendid way to make money, either as an individual or as a larger enterprise, but it comes with a lot of risk.

Because I’m now effectively self-employed, I’m becoming more interested in entrepreneurship as a topic, and so I’ve decided to start absorbing some books on the topic. I decided to start with this one, Ready, Fire, Aim, because I’ve read two other books (Automatic Wealth and Automatic Wealth for Grads) by Michael Masterson and found them both to be compelling reads.

This book is a relatively large volume, weighing in at just under 400 pages, and it covers each stage of the development of a business from an individual idea or passion into a large organization. Quite honestly, my interest is centered around the early stages – the place where people try to make side businesses work and eventually build that into self-employment or a very small business with just an employee or two. While the resulting path is worth looking at, my primary interest – both personally and as a personal finance blogger – is in those nascent steps.

Does this book have enough compelling meat on the bone to make it a worthwhile read? Or is it just overblown common sense fluff? Let’s take a look.

Digging Into Ready, Fire, Aim

As I mentioned above, the book is broken down into pieces that describe the growth of an idea into a side business, then into a small business, then into a large one. Masterson handles this progression chronologically, starting with the idea.

Part One – Being All That You Can Be

Introduction – The Very Best Job in the World
Masterson defines the best job in the world in very clear terms on page six: “I work when I want, where I want, and with whom I want, doing only what I want to do.” That’s why entrepreneurship is such a strong carrot to so many people – it really is a great job … if you can get there. That’s a mighty big if, however, and it’s a climb that many people fail to accomplish because they don’t put all of the pieces together. The purpose of Masterson’s book is to lay out most of the potential traps people fall into along the way and provide some advice on how to chart a path around them.

Ch. 1 – Getting to the Next Level
Masterson’s main idea for the book is that there are four levels in building a business. For me, the first level is the most fascinating – he calls it infancy, and it mostly revolves around making the first cost-effective sale, and the big challenge is that you really have no idea what you’re doing. I strongly identify with that feeling – I’ve felt that way about most of the endeavors I’ve been involved with. The other stages are business growth stages: childhood (developing more products quickly and becoming profitable – in other words, replicating the success that pushed you out of the first stage), adolescence (turning the chaotic growth into an orderly system – in other words, taking that replication process and making it orderly and refined so that it’s easier to do), and adulthood (continuing the growth and encouraging the business to run itself).

Ch. 2 – Why Employee Size Matters: A Different Way of Measuring the Four Stages
Another way to look at the growth of your business is in terms of the employee count, though this one has much blurrier lines. He uses the idea that you can only effectively delegate to and communicate with seven people at once, so he identifies the first stage as being you and up to seven employees, the second stage as being eight to forty nine employees (in other words, a maximum of two layers of delegation between you and any employee), the third stage as being between fifty and three hundred forty three employees (in other words, a maximum of three layers of delegation between you and any employee), and the fourth stage being anything larger than that. This also makes quite a bit of sense, in a sad way, because the more layers there are, the bigger your organization is, but the less control you have over it – it begins to run itself.

Ch. 3 – Becoming a Five-Star Business Genius
Masterson argues that to start a business and keep it going, a person must have five key skills: the ability to come up with new ideas, the ability to sell products, the ability to manage systems, the ability to develop superstar employees, and the ability to take action. Different skills matter at different levels of growth – early on, for example, the idea and the salesmanship are the central skills, while later on the ability to manage systems and develop quality employees is the difference maker.

Part Two – Stage One: Infancy

This is the area where most of my interest is, as I’m self-employed – effectively, a business with one employee.

Ch. 4 – The Supremacy of Selling
Without sales, it is very hard to sustain an ongoing business. This is the principal concept behind this chapter, and he’s right – if you can’t sell anything, you’re not going to make it. It’s true for any method a person might try to use to earn money. Take writing, for example. If I’m not able to sell pieces of writing to publications, I don’t earn anything. If I can’t “sell” what I’m writing for The Simple Dollar, readers will go away (in other words, if I start writing garbage, you’ll stop reading). It’s true for almost every business I can conceive of, from running a restaurant to repairing computers – if you can’t sell it, then it probably won’t function as a business.

Ch. 5 – Your Optimum Selling Strategy and the Four Fundamental Secrets of Selling Your First Product
Masterson argues here that there are four big questions you need to ask yourself to determine the optimum selling strategy for your business:

1. Where are you going to find your customers?
2. What product will you sell them first?
3. How much will you charge for it?
4. How will you convince them to buy it?

Obviously, different businesses have different strategies for answering these questions. For writers (like me), the goal really is to find an audience that’s willing to read what you write – the infamous “1,000 true fans” concept. In other words, the success of creative types is often entirely based on their audience. I truly have you guys to thank for making The Simple Dollar possible – thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart. (Along the same lines, I’m genuinely not impressed by artists and entertainers and educators who take their fan base for granted or actively work to alienate them.) The chapter goes on from there to discuss pricing strategies and other basics of how to make the sale of a product work – solid information for the beginning entrepreneur, all around.

Ch. 6 – Mastering the Copy Side of Selling
In order to sell something, you have to be able to describe it and pitch it in such a way that others will be intrigued enough to spend their money on the product. Masterson offers some solid advice here (focus on benefits instead of features, make the product seem like it fills a need and not a want, and make it better than – or at least seem better than the competition), but I found this chapter to be a mere faint echo of the truly excellent Ogilvy on Advertising, which I glowingly reviewed a while back. If you’re trying to sell something (which basically means if you’re trying to start a small business), read the Ogilvy book.

Ch. 7 – Secondary – Yet Important – Priorities for Stage One Businesses
There are really three tips in this chapter, all of which are useful in areas of life outside of a business. The first, have a mentor, means to find someone experienced in your area of interest and ask them routinely for advice and suggestions, so that you can learn from their world lessons. The second, be a mentor, means to pass on what you’ve learned to others who might follow in your footsteps. The last, set clearly defined goals, merely gives you a goal to reach for as you yearn to grow what you have.

Ch. 8 – The Problems, Challenges, and Opportunities Faced by the Stage One Entrepreneurship
This chapter largely reiterates the key points of the previous chapters in the section: go cheap on everything but directly selling the product, get a mentor or two and learn from them, and don’t overprice your product right off the bat (because right now you need sales and loyal customers). Solid material, but just several pages of reiterated filler.

Part Three – Stage Two: Childhood

There may perhaps be a point in the future where I’m able to develop a business that grows to this point, but as of yet, I’m not there. Still, it’s interesting to know what lies ahead.

Ch. 9 – From $1 Million to $10 Million and Beyond
The second stage occurs when you’ve figured out how to successfully sell one product. Now that you’ve achieved that one successful product, the time has come to start brainstorming and either add more products to the mix or significantly improve (and thus diversify) the existing product. Not only that, the strategy you came up with to sell the original product will eventually stop working, so you need to be ready to tweak your selling strategy and perhaps even devise a new one. That’s a lot of effort – why do it? With a stage one business, you’ll probably make enough money each year to match a good salaried position, but your business likely doesn’t have much equity in it yet – not much value for the long haul. Stage two is about building that equity value that will add up over the long haul – making your business actually worth something significant to others.

Ch. 10 – Innovation – the Key to Second Stage Growth
The key to stage two growth is innovation, period. You need ideas to develop new products and update old ones. What can you do that’s interesting, useful, and sellable? Stage two growth is all about the creativity, and that means you’ll likely benefit from getting some highly creative types involved with your business at this point. In fact, I actually know one business that has an individual whose chief job is to just come up with potential ideas and do the first level of massaging them. He basically pitches a new idea every week – most of them are failures, but a few are being grown into products as I type this.

Ch. 11 – Speed: Putting Ready, Fire, Aim into Your Business
The growth of your business in this stage is directly related to the speed of your ideas. The quicker you can come up with good ideas that can be developed into products you can sell, the faster your business will grow. Masterson’s big suggesting is testing the product – if it seems like a solid idea, make a simple version of it (or a small number of complete versions) and let your trusted customers test it and tell you what’s wrong. They’re loyal and will give you good feedback, which will allow you to fix any problems and improve the product for final release. So, let’s say you’re a writer of a personal finance blog, and you’re thinking of writing on a different topic (say, cooking). The best way to launch that cooking blog would be to mention it to the readers of your already-existing personal finance blog and let them help you hone the exact direction it should go in, making it much higher in quality.

Ch. 12 – Getting Ready
This is the ready portion of the title of the book, and it basically entails just getting a product up and ready to be launched as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about finding potential customers or anything like that, just get a new quality product ready to go and get it out there. Your initial sales of the product will come from your existing customers anyway, who don’t need a strong marketing push in order to be interested. The key isn’t developing some great marketing plan at this stage – the key is getting the product done and ready to go.

Ch. 13 – What Are You Waiting For? Start Firing Already!
Again, if you haven’t gotten the memo yet, get it done and get it out there. Don’t worry about developing the marketing initially. The key is speed – don’t worry about perfection and don’t let the little tasks bog you down. The absolute focus is getting the product itself ready to go and out the door, not with periphery issues.

Ch. 14 – Aiming the Product
Once the product is out the door, however, then you can worry about sharpening the product. Pay careful attention as to who likes the new product and see if you can identify any patterns in that. See if you can eliminate specific aspects of a product – like ingredients in a food product – to reduce cost without reducing quality. For example, one of my closest friends claims that his “secret barbecue” sauce went down from having originally eleven ingredients to currently having four (and I don’t know what they are). See if you can improve the little details, too – sharpen the packaging and the presentation.

Ch. 15 – Aiming the Marketing, Part 1: A Quick Crash Course
My favorite quote from the entire book comes from this section:

Despite your success at creating a million dollars’ worth of revenues so far, you may be harboring bad feelings about the selling process. You may still harbor negative ideas about the ethical validity of business. You may also be afraid of selling.

Don’t worry. These are the thoughts and feelings that anyone who has been educated in the United States is likely to have. Having them simply means you’re smart and sensitive.

Most of this chapter is devoted to the idea of whether or not marketing is needed at all, and if it is, what parts are ethical and which ones aren’t. For the most part, Masterson seems to encourage people to make up their own minds about things and not cross any personal ethical boundaries, almost implying that companies that do cross boundaries that you’re uncomfortable with might be companies you don’t want to buy products from. His advice: treat the customers the way you would like to be treated. That’s an ethical standard I wish all companies lived by.

Ch. 16 – Aiming the Marketing, Part 2: Understanding the Buying Frenzy
If you read nothing else in this book, read this chapter. If you’re at the library and browsing for books, grab Ready, Fire, Aim and just flip to this chapter, no matter whether you’re interested in being an entrepreneur or not. Over about thirty pages, Masterson provides the best description of consumerism and the ethics of the seller that I’ve ever read. Is it ethical for a person to sell a luxury item, and if it is, what’s an ethical way to market that item? Masterson’s argument is basically that a seller has only responsibility to the product. In other words, a seller should only be concerned about selling a quality product that does exactly what is promised, not in the financial situation of the customer. The customer should have the wisdom to decide whether they actually can reasonably afford the item. I agree with this perspective in a bubble, but I start to have a harder time with it when advertising and marketing intentionally manipulate people’s self-image and feelings, causing them to associate positive feelings with a product that aren’t based in reality. That makes me uncomfortable, and as a consumer and a writer about consumer issues, it’s something I write about a lot and try to combat effectively. Does that make the seller unethical? I generally don’t think the salespeople on the floor (unless they’re using cheesy high-pressure tactics – and those are doomed to failure over the long haul) are unethical – I usually blame the large-scale marketers who carefully plot how ads can tweak people’s emotions. Whew! Good stuff here.

Ch. 17 – Ready, Fire, Aim in Action
Here, Masterson just gives some specific examples of the whole “ready, fire, aim” idea in action, showing how businesses execute the entire plan from having one successful product to having another one. Masterson picks some compelling success stories that really show how this can work in vastly different genres (side businesses that grow up, producing an album, and making a movie, for starters), but it’s missing what I always like to see from examples – how people work through problems in the process.

Ch. 18 – The Problems, Challenges, and Opportunities Faced by the Stage Two Entrepreneur
As with the previous section, this is just a summary of the key points from the second stage of business growth. The key point here really is that ideas are paramount and ethics are starting to become important, too. In effect, this is a Cliff’s Notes for the whole section, so if you just want to grab this at the library and get the high points, go to these chapters.

Part Four – Stage Three: Adolescence

Similar to the previous section, this is a “look ahead” at some of the things to think about when it comes to the long term.

Ch. 19 – Making the Stage Three Transformation
The third stage is really all about structure. The second stage was about rapidly developing products and getting them out the door, but if multiple products become successful, then you have a major enterprise on your hands without a whole lot of structure around it. Your focus as an entrepreneur when your business begins to have multiple layers of leadership and more going on than you can keep track of is to build a reasonable structure to contain all of this growth. In effect, you have a locomotive flying down the tracks and not enough rails to run on – you need to get those rails laid, pronto.

Ch. 20 – Changing into a Corporate Leader
The surest sign that you’ve reached the adolescent stage of growth is that there’s simply too much information being thrown around for you to keep track of it all. You either can’t get the access to all of the data you want (meaning the data tubes are clogged) or the sheer volume of data is overflowing everything. At this point, you can no longer have your hands on every tiny decision at the company and that means it’s time to transition from being an entrepreneur to being a corporate leader. It’s your job not to make every quibbling decision, but to make sure that decisions can be appropriately made by the appropriate people. There are countless business books on how to do this, advocating all sorts of things – the key is to take the time and implement things that work for you. Another key is to remember that marketing is still your main job, but now you’re marketing to different people – potential great employees, investors, and often broad swaths of consumers at once.

Ch. 21 – Filling Your Stage Three Business with Stars and Superstars
Of course, doing that means hiring quality people that you trust – many business books refer to these people as “stars” and “superstars.” How do you get these people into your organization? Give them almost infinite upside – the better they do, the better off they are, almost without limit. Barriers and job descriptions aren’t important with people of this caliber – you just need to point them in a general direction and let them loose to show what they can do, and you can usually quickly tell if they’re up to it or not (if they’re constantly foundering, they might not be what you need). When you find these people, mentor them and cultivate them. Talk to the top people in your organization all the time, share your ideas, and listen to what they have to say and where they think you should go.

Ch. 22 – Bottlenecks, Bureaucracy, and Politics
Every organization begins to deal with these issues eventually, and Masterson offers one central cure. Make your company’s central mantra about the customers, period. Nothing else matters but the customers. If a situation arises that’s slowing things down or creating a distraction, ask everyone involved how this helps the customer. Have people prioritize their work based around that principle. Usually, that means letting other people do their thing – if someone sends out a memo specifying the exact formatting of a company memo, this should be shot down immediately. How does it help the customer? It doesn’t. When someone plays political gamesmanship to get ahead, ask the people involved directly how they’re helping the customer. They’re not. Cut through the nonsense by focusing on what really matters: the people you’re serving.

Ch. 23 – The Problems, Challenges, and Opportunities Faced by the Stage Three Entrepreneur
Again, this chapter provides a concise summary of the materials that came before: let go, build the necessary structures, hire good people that you can trust and let them do their thing, and focus entirely on making customers happy. Everything else just follows from those tactics.

Part Five – Stage Four: Adulthood

The closing section seems tacked on a bit, as it addresses huge businesses that are likely addressed much better by books for large businesses, like Built to Last.

Ch. 24 – The Last Big Change
If you’ve managed to get a lot of good people on board, developed some sensible flows of information, and the company’s products are still growing and you’re still adding new people, you have a real winner on your hands. Unfortunately, it also means that you’ll have to step back even further – the company is now out of your hands and effectively running itself. The best you can do now is guide it – find strong, ethical leaders that can keep pushing things forward and keep asking the right questions. It’s also the point where you’ve got a huge asset that you’ve built up – your business is worth a ton. What do you do with it? Take it public? Sell the company? Keep running things and eventually pass the business off to your handpicked successors? I know what I’d do.

Ch. 25 – Acting as Your Company’s Main Investor
In essence, your role now is that of an investor in the company. You’re likely the largest shareholder in the company – and perhaps the only shareholder. Your focus should be on building long term value for that share. Make choices that keep the business growing, but keep it ethical and healthy so that it will stay vibrant for a long time. In some ways, it’s still about the same things it was when you started: a reflection of what you consider ethical and right, and built on the backbone of your ideas. Keep that in mind – and make sure the people who will run your company in the future believe in the same things. That way, your investment will continue to pay dividends for a very long time – in both the literal and figurative sense.

Some Thoughts on Ready, Fire, Aim

I was left with several thoughts while reading Ready, Fire, Aim. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.

Ideas are simply the key to everything. If you are creative and can consistently generate workable ideas, you’ll always find success at something in life. This book basically boils down businesses to a series of creative endeavors, particularly in the early stages – how do I create one product, how do I sell that product, how do I create more products, how do I sell those products. I’d go so far as to say that creativity is the most powerful skill a person can have in the modern era.

I understand now why some people actively choose to “keep it small.” Many of the problems faced by businesses as they grow are ones that don’t interest me very much. Developing a corporate culture? Yawn. Developing procedures for others to follow? I’d rather not. I think if I ever grew something to that size, I’d sell it and go do something else with my life (likely volunteer work, because at that point I wouldn’t need to earn any income).

The key to making the stuff in this book work is drive. If all of this seems exciting to you and you can’t wait to try out some of these things, then you’re probably ready to be an entrepreneur. But that’s not everybody – if this stuff sounded as boring as can be, you’re probably cut out for a different path in life. You’ve got to have the drive to make all this stuff work – without it, things will fail.

Is Ready, Fire, Aim Worth Reading?

This is a solid introduction to the things a person needs to think about while growing a business. It made me think carefully about many of the choices I’m making as a self-employed writer and consider the choices I may be making in the future if I choose to develop some of the other possibilities I have floating on the back burner.

My biggest complaint about the book is that it almost feels like too much was jammed into this one book. Because of that, the portion I was most interested in – the infant stage – felt really compressed, even in a large book like this one. For me (and for many readers), a book focused in on the specific growth stage that we’re involved with as entrepreneurs would be quite insightful and useful – I’d happily read Masterson’s book on the infant stages of a business.

On the other hand, seeing the concepts that a large business has to deal with versus the concerns of a small business was insightful. There are a lot of things you can focus on when you’re making a nascent business work, but if you follow the “generic business book” advice, you’ll quite likely follow the wrong ones for what a small business needs.

Masterson makes that distinction quite well, and because of that, this book is a very solid read for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, from baby steps to building something big.