After listening to feedback and my own changing interests, I’ve decided to change how I do book reviews on The Simple Dollar. Instead of reviewing a personal finance book on Friday morning and a personal development book on Sunday afternoon, I’m going to just post one review a week on Sunday afternoon, alternating between a personal finance-themed book one week and a book on some related topic the following week.

The reason I’m doing this is based mostly on feedback, but also my desire to change what I’m reading (at least a little). Most readers seem to like the extensive archive of book reviews, but get bored by having two new ones each week - by knocking it down to one, it’s a little less intrusive.

Plus, I’m working on three pretty big projects that will appear over the next four months or so - and, no, I’m not talking about my book, which will be in bookstores this December 17. Three besides that one.

Here are some articles of interest.

How to Go Broke Being Frugal The “high startup cost” factor is something that is often debated. Is it better to spend $1,500 on a high-efficiency washer that will last two decades or $200 on a low-efficiency washer that’ll last eight years? All things equal, the former is the better option, but a $1,500 bill can really hurt. (@ frugal dad)

Starting an eBay Business - A Step by Step Guide I have one friend who makes his living selling trading cards on eBay from his home. He spends about six hours a day on it, and this is actually pretty close to how he got started. (@ christian pf)

Ads Are NOT the New Online Tip Jar I tend to think the new online tip jar is something like my “downloadables,” but what do I know? Let’s just say I’m going to experiment down this path in the future. (@ get rich slowly)

Am I Wasting My Time? I disagree with the idea that “you can’t teach money,” but the desire to learn has to come from within the learner. If they don’t have it, it’s like squeezing juice from a rock. (@ )

Tightwad Tuesday: Don’t Be Squeamish Over “Gently Used” When I read this, I think “baby clothes.” Most babies only wear an outfit two or three times, then it’s either handed down or sold at a yard sale. For me, this means buy baby clothes at yard sales. What do I care if someone else’s baby wore this outfit two or three times, especially if I give it a thorough cleaning? (@ being frugal)

40 Positive Effects of a TV Free Week For me, the biggest change was simply going to bed when I got tired instead of lounging in front of the television in a sleepy stupor. It added a lot of energy to my days. (@ marc and angel hack life)

For years, I’ve been on a closed email list with a group of like-minded people who enjoy sharing internet links with amusing comments (think of an email version of fark or reddit). Lately, though, the list has been completely overrun by a group of about two or three people who have become completely obsessed with bargain hunting for stuff.

On an individual basis, the messages are innocuous. For example, one recent email was for Heroes: Season 1 on DVD for $29.95, a pretty strong price. Given the people on the list, of which a large number are lifelong comic book fans, this seems like a worthwhile thing to mention since many of them are either fans of Heroes or are potential fans of the show. If you make a splurge purchase like this once a month, it’s not that big of a deal, and it’s something that many people on that list might enjoy.

The problem comes in when you read ten or more of these messages a day. The Watchmen for $8.99! Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for $19.99! A 50″ LED TV for $799! People were even linking to cheap eBay auctions.

It culminated (for me) with a recent email to the list (emphasis added):

Thanks for the emails guys! I saved so much money this week!

I realized, right then, that this had turned into a “deals” list, so I unsubscribed.

What’s Wrong With Finding Bargains?
A lot of people might read through those prices and think, “Wow! Nice deals!” For the most part, they are solid discounts on what you’d normally pay, and if you were already thinking of buying one of those items, it’s probably not a bad time to go ahead and pull the trigger.

The key part, though, is “if you were already thinking of buying one of those items.” When you go “bargain hunting,” you’re not seeking out a particular item that you need. You’re simply seeking out low prices and accumulating stuff for the sake of accumulating stuff. And, even though an individual item might be a bargain, buying a bunch of items is a sure way to empty out your pocketbook and make it difficult to make ends meet.

Doing that leaves you with a house full of stuff you didn’t really want and a nice big fat credit card bill.

Sensible Bargain Hunting
That’s not to say there isn’t a role for bargain hunting - there is. But when people snap to attention and pull out the wallet when they hear the word “sale” or see a big discount, they’re going at it completely in reverse.

The sensible way to bargain-hunt is to know exactly what you want before you even start looking. If you’ve decided, on your own, that you do in fact want Heroes: Season 1 for your own entertainment, great.

Now’s the time to bargain hunt, with the item you already have in mind. Utilize tools for finding it, like this clever trick for automatically bargain-hunting Amazon for specific items. Use price comparison tools to find the item at a steep discount. Set up saved searches on eBay and check them regularly. Check out retailers and see what their offerings are like.

The important part is to put on your blinders and ignore other items. A big sale on an item you don’t really want is still a waste of money.

Purposeful Bargain Hunting for Profit
One of my online acquaintances - a person I’ve mentioned a few times recently - makes his living selling trading cards online. He actually does very well at this. But he also bargain hunts quite often without any specific item in mind.

See, he happens to be a walking encyclopedia of trading card prices, and he’ll often go to different places simply canvassing for bargains. He has nothing in particular that he wants to buy, but there’s a chance he’ll stumble upon something that is genuinely mispriced. If he finds it, he’ll actually clean the store out of the item. He’s put more than $2,000 worth of trading cards on his credit card in one swoop when he didn’t intend to buy a single thing.

The difference here is that he’s not buying “stuff” to accumulate for personal use. He’s bargain hunting without anything specific in mind, sure, but when he’s buying the trading cards, he’s not actually buying trading cards. He’s buying goods to profit from - and he will profit from them.

In other words, using “well, I’ll make a profit” as a bargain hunting excuse only really means anything if you’re actually doing it. If you see an item you don’t need and didn’t really want, but you buy it because you think it’s actually worth more than the price, you’re still wasting money. The only way it’s actually worth more than the price is if you can actually sell it at a higher price.

Most Bargains Aren’t Bargains
The simple truth is this: if you’re buying something you don’t really need and didn’t really want before you saw it, you’re wasting your money (unless, as I mentioned, you’re going to directly profit from it). It doesn’t matter how good the “deal” is - if it’s something you weren’t planning to buy anyway, you’re just throwing away your money for stuff, and that’s a sure way to put yourself in a worse financial position.

By all means, buy some fun stuff for yourself. Just spend some time thinking about what you actually want - and then hunt for bargains on that item.

Lola had an interesting question about retirement:

I asked if, by calculating our monthly expenses, we could multiply that by 200, and if that would be enough to retire. So, if one’s expenses were about $24,000 a year, if having $480,000 would be enough. And you said - rightly so - that this figure doesn’t include inflation, and that a safer amount would be close to 2 million! That’s a lot of money, and I must agree with one of the readers who said very, very few people can afford to save that amount during a lifetime.

I strongly disagree with the statement that very, very few people can afford to save that amount during a lifetime. The combined powers of compound interest and inflation will easily push a person’s investment level higher and higher. Many young people today, if they get started, will have millions in the bank when they retire, even if they don’t have a top-paying job.

I’ll use Jeff as my example. Let’s say Jeff is 25 years old and currently makes $35,000 a year. He wants to retire at age 65. He decides to put 10% of his income away into a 401(k), earning a 5% match from his employer. If you assume he gets a 9% annual return on his investment over the long haul, that inflation is at 4.5% annually over that period, and that the only raises he gets are cost of living raises to match inflation, he’ll have $2.018 million in his account on his 65th birthday. There’s nothing unrealistic about any of the assumptions here.

The problem is that from today’s perspective, $2 million seems like an enormous amount of money. And it is, in today’s dollars.

Comparing 1968 to 2008
But let’s roll back the clock forty years and see how things have changed. I’ll use the CPI-A for my historical inflation numbers.

The CPI-A is a number you can use to compare prices from one year to another. It takes into account the changing prices of goods and services and comes up with a number that expresses that difference. For example, on January 1, 2006, the CPI-A was at 199.4, while on January 1, 2008, the CPI-A was at 212.516. This means that the goods you could buy for $199.40 on January 1, 2006 would cost you $212.52 on January 1, 2008.

Now, let’s say Jeff started saving in June 1968, when the CPI-A was 34.9. Then, he retired in June 2008, when the CPI-A was 219.181. This means that every $34.90 Jeff earned in 1968 was worth $219.18 in 2008.

Now, let’s translate those numbers a bit. Let’s say Jeff had $2 million in 2008 dollars. In 1968 dollars, it’s only $318,459.

On the flip side, let’s look at investments. On January 2, 1968, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 906.84. On December 31, 2007, forty years later, it stood at 13,264.82.

That means, in order to have $2 million in 2008, you would have had to only put $136,728.58 into the Dow Jones blue chips in 1968.

Comparing 2008 to 2048
Now, let’s say you’ve decided that you need $24,000 in today’s money as living expenses when you retire in 40 years. Let’s also assume the stock market and the CPI-A change remain the same over the next forty years as they were over the last forty (they won’t be, but we can use them as a yardstick).

First of all, your annual $24,000 today would have to be $150,276.19 in 2048. That would actually be $12,560.52 a month in that timeframe. Using Lois’s “monthly amount times 200″ equation, she’d actually have to have $2.5 million in the bank then.

If Lois set her retirement goal at $480,000, she would be starving in 2048.

But she’s forgetting that compound interest works more strongly in her favor overall. A person today, filing singly, who has $24,000 in income that they can spend actually has a salary of about $30,000 before income taxes.

So, let’s say Lois is actually just trying to keep her current standard of living. She’s 25, earns about $30,000 a year, and never has any interest in climbing the corporate ladder and earning more - she’ll just earn cost-of-living raises for the rest of her career (ideally, this isn’t true, but we’ll make a “worst case” scenario for Lois). Her employer matches 1% for every 2% Lois contributes to her retirement account.

All Lois has to contribute to her 401(k) to reach her goal (using the assumptions above) is 15% of her salary. That’s assuming no performance-based raises ever, no promotions ever, and no job changes ever. If Lois commits herself to building a career and gets a few promotions along the way, her contributions can easily be lower than that.

$2.5 million is a completely realistic retirement goal for a young person only earning $30,000 a year. They’re helped along by the power of compound interest.

Is Lois’s “200 Times Monthly” A Good Thumbnail?
It’s only a good thumbnail if you’re starting off with your estimated monthly costs in retirement. Even then, it’s a bit on the risky side, as it will require solid returns on the investments to keep up with the spending.

There are two big problems with using such easy thumbnails, though.

The first one is math based. If you figure everything in today’s dollars, you won’t make ends meet later on. You’ll have to estimate what you expect to spend then. Doing that in Excel is easy, actually. If you believe that inflation will be at 4.5% from here until retirement, enter something like =2400*1.045^25 where 25 is the number of years you think you’re away from retirement and $2,400 is the amount you expect you’ll need in today’s dollars each month (for those curious, it’s $7,213.04).

If you then take that number and multiply it by 200, then you’re starting to get a reasonable retirement figure. I think, actually, that 200 is a bit low, as it assumes a 6% annual return in retirement just to break even. Try using 240 (which assumes a 5% annual return) or 300 (which assumes a 4% annual return) for more safe and realistic thumbnail estimates.

The second one is psychological. The numbers you’ll come up with doing this math seem frighteningly large. Most people then react by ignoring the numbers, arguing that they’re false, or using some other form of psychological crutch to make the number seem more reasonable. But it already is reasonable. It’s important to remember that a 1968 dollar is worth $6.28 in today’s dollars. If your old man was earning $10 an hour at the factory in 1968, that’s like earning $62.80 today. In reverse, a dollar today can only buy what $0.16 bought in 1968. These trends will be (roughly) the same into the future. A dollar today will likely be worth somewhere between $5 and $10 in 2048.

It’s for those two reasons that I don’t find a “target” for retirement to be too useful, especially early on. It can play psychological tricks on you and it can trip you up if you’re not strong on the math.

Instead, just stick to a strong savings plan from your first day at work. Don’t even think about it - just start putting away 10% of your salary either into a 401(k) or a Roth IRA (or some combination thereof). If you do that and work hard at your career, your retirement will be in fine shape.

Yesterday, Carrie made a very interesting comment in response to my review of I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This:

if being happy is a matter of attitude […] then shouldn’t people be able to make anything work […] by simply changing their attitude?

Carrie’s question strikes right at the heart of a key question about personal development and success: is a positive attitude enough to succeed?

My answer? No, it’s not. It’s a piece of the puzzle, and quite often it can be the piece that turns failure into success, but alone, a positive attitude isn’t enough to make you succeed.

The Elements of Success
I don’t believe that there is any one recipe for success. Instead, I believe success is the result of a combination of a lot of different factors - and not all of them are needed for success. The more factors you have on your side, the more likely you are to succeed, and positive attitude is just one of those factors. Here are seven additional factors that are also important.

Knowledge A strong body of knowledge about the area in which you wish to succeed is often one of the key building blocks of success. You can build this by pushing yourself - read and try out the foundational materials and push yourself into challenging areas to build your knowledge.

Natural talent Some people are born with a predisposition to succeed in certain areas. Find this out for yourself by trying a lot of different activities and seeing what comes easy to you. The things you do with little or no effort that genuinely impress others are likely very near your natural talent, and natural talent combined with a lot of hard work leads to greatness.

Clear goals and planning Much like a trip, it’s a lot easier to get where you want to go if you know where you’re going and spend the time to plan the route you’ll take to get there. Think about what your definition of success exactly is, then identify some of the things that need to be done to help you move towards it.

Passion An intense, burning desire to dig deep into a particular area is often a sign that you’ll find success there. Much as with your natural talent, the way to find your passion is to touch on a lot of different areas and see what resonates for you.

Focus/consistent effort Hard work is another key to finding success. You don’t become a champion without practicing every day. If you want to succeed in a certain area, work hard in that area and go beyond what others are doing - deliberate practice is one big key.

Luck/opportunity Luck and opportunity also play an important role in success - sometimes things just click due to forces outside your control. You can improve your luck by making as many strong personal contacts as you can and sharing what you have to increase their “luck” and “opportunities.”

Cooperation/support Along with luck comes cooperation - the fact that others are working in small ways to help you succeed rather than hinder you. A spouse telling you that you can do this is going to go a lot further than a spouse telling you you’ll never make it.

The Value of a Positive Attitude
That’s not to say that a positive attitude isn’t a key part of the picture - it is. Believing you can succeed and treating the people around you with a positive attitude as well are both important to helping you find the success you want. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find success even if you have the most sunny optimism if you don’t focus in with some hard work, build your knowledge, plan for what you want, and build other foundational pieces of success.

Here are seven ways to build up your positive attitude.

Make lists of your own positive attributes. Better yet, see if you can get a friend to help you by making a list for you - I made a list like this for a friend once upon a time. Then, keep this list somewhere and look at it regularly. Remind yourself that you have a lot of positive attributes, and think about how you can do things so these attributes are accentuated.

Don’t dwell on your failures. We’re all going to fail sometimes. While it’s useful to reflect on them a bit, it’s not healthy to dwell on them. Identify mistakes made, figure out how to correct them, and then move on. You’re not defined by your failures.

Make lists of the successes and positive attributes of those around you - and remind them of those successes when you can. Make a list of all of your regular coworkers and contacts and list a few positive attributes about each one - their knowledge, their insight, their communication skills, their logical skills, and so on. Then, be sure to focus on those skills - the good things they bring to the table - with every interaction.

Avoid thinking negatively about others - if you find yourself going negative, look for their positive attributes. No one’s perfect. Sometimes people are going to rub you the wrong way. Other times, they’ll do something not up to snuff, or they’ll engage in behavior you don’t agree with. Don’t focus on that. Instead, think about their positive attributes - and let them know you see them in a positive way. Knowing that others see you as positive and look up to you is often a big push to get people to act in a positive fashion.

Never speak negatively of others. It’s often tempting in the lunchroom to engage in snarky talk and office politics. Avoid it at all costs if you can. You’re a lot better off interjecting with a “Hey, they’re not all that bad…” and a positive comment than to pile on the negativity. If you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything at all.

Surround yourself with positive people. If the people around you are constantly negative in their comments and actions towards others, it’s time to look for a different circle. Focus on building friendships with people that engage you (and others) in positive ways.

Reduce your time spent in activities that make you feel bad about yourself. Then, fill that time with activities that are positive. For example, if you spend hours each night watching television programs that make you feel bad about yourself at night when you climb into bed, look for other forms of entertainment - uplifting and educational programming. Or, turn off the television entirely and engage in exercise or other activities that increase a positive feeling about yourself.

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 to make your partner happy (for free)
Psychological tricks of department stores
How I deal with a cold on the cheap

And now for some great reader questions!

How can I get [my husband] to be more open with me about money? He is always telling me he’ll take care of it. That’s all well and good, but I need to be included in his plans. Do you have any tips?
- Emily

The issue here could be any number of things. It might be a lack of trust, it might be a need to be in control, or it might just be a genuine desire to prevent you from having to worry about it.

Here’s the tactic I’d use, Emily. I’d sit down with your husband and flat-out tell him that this situation makes you uncomfortable. Say that you feel like you’re driving down a highway in the dark with the lights off - you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know how far you’ve come. Because of that, you don’t know if you’re making a wrong turn or not - you can’t make an informed decision about whether you can afford certain items, when you need to cut back, and so on.

I usually think the best place to start is to talk about goals. What do you both want? What personal steps can you take to get there? What’s the threshold for success each week in working towards that goal?

Mmmm… cheese… I just can’t take most diet gurus seriously, because life without cheese? I’m not sure it’s worth living. I would give up so many other things in life before the simple, satisfying pleasure of cheese and wine.
- Sara

Cheese tends to be my dietary weakness as well. I love cheese. I love making homemade macaroni and cheese from scratch. I love grating cheese myself, taking little tastes, and including it in dishes.

In fact, my affinity for cheese is so strong that one of the highlights of a recent family vacation was a stop at a cheese factory. I got to look at some of the inner workings, taste a ton of cheese, and we wound up buying several different small pieces of cheese to take home with us. Deliciosu!

Trent, I would like to hear how being optimistic has has influenced your frugality. You seem very optimistic even in the face of criticism.
- Jessica

For me, optimism comes from seeing something work. I tend to start out pretty skeptical with something new, but when I actually do it and realize that it does in fact work really well, I tend to switch around and become a cheerleader for it.

Because I tend to talk more about the things that do work for me and less about the things that don’t work, I do come off sounding really optimistic most of the time.

On the rare occasion when I do talk about something I don’t like, I do tend to let it fly with both barrels, often almost to my own detriment. Things like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and freecreditreport.com tend to get me going.

Do you ever go camping? I think it’s one of the greatest frugal ways to have fun, especially with a family. I am camping this weekend and am really looking forward to fishing and making food over a fire or in a dutch oven. If you do camp, do you have any favorite camping recipes?
- Dave

When I go camping, most of the food is either just fish or a mix of fresh vegetables spiced and wrapped in aluminum foil with an ice cube and tossed on the fire. This actually works very well, forming a well-cooked meal that can have almost-infinite variations.

Try potatoes, onions, peppers, chili, beans, eggs, fish, hamburger, and carrots in any combination you can imagine (or desire), wrapped in aluminum foil with an ice cube. Toss that package on the coals, wait fifteen or twenty minutes, pull it off, and give it a taste. Quite tasty, quite easy, and quite distinctive.

Do you understand what two-cycle billing is? Can you explain it in terms that a financial dummy can understand? I’ve read explanations on a couple of websites but I am embarassed to admit that I just don’t get it.
- Kristina

Most credit cards use your average daily balance to calculate the finance charges they charge you for a given month. The difference between one-cycle and two-cycle billing is how they calculate their average daily balance.

An example On April 1 it has a $0 balance. On April 16, you charge $2,000 on the card. On May 1, you still have that same card with a $2,000 balance with a charge you put on it on April 16. You don’t touch the balance during the entire month, so at the end of the month, it’s still at $2,000.

Single cycle billing With single cycle billing, only the balance for the previous month is used to calculate your average daily balance. Since your balance from May 1 to May 31 is $2,000 every day, your average daily balance for the card under single cycle billing would be $2,000. The company will then multiply that by your daily periodic rate (the percent interest you’re charged each day, as stated in your credit card agreement) and multiply that by the number of days in the month. So, if your daily periodic rate is 0.05% and the days in the month is 31, you’ll have a finance charge of $2,000 times 0.05% times 31, or $31.

Double cycle billing With double cycle billing, the credit card companies use your last two months worth of balances to calculate your average daily balance. From April 1 to April 15, you had a $0 balance (15 days), then from April 16 to May 31, you had a $2,000 balance (46 days), your average balance would be ($2,000 * 46) / 61, or $1,508.20. If your daily periodic rate is 0.05% and the days in the month is 31, you’ll have a finance charge of $1,508.20 times 0.05% times 31, or $23.38.

Double cycle billing is cheaper when you continually add more charges to your card, but it works against you if you’re trying to pay off your card.

Another example On April 1, your card has a $2,000 balance. On April 16, you pay off the entire balance. What happens at the end of May?

Single cycle billing From May 1 to May 31, you never carried a balance, so your average daily balance is $0, and thus you don’t have any finance charges.

Double cycle billing With double cycle billing, the credit card companies use your last two months worth of balances to calculate your average daily balance. From April 1 to April 15, you had a $2,000 balance (15 days), then from April 16 to May 31, you had a $0 balance (46 days), your average balance would be ($2,000 * 15) / 61, or $491.80. If your daily periodic rate is 0.05% and the days in the month is 31, you’ll have a finance charge of $491.80 times 0.05% times 31, or $7.62.

If you have a tendency to charge up your cards and carry a high balance, it will be slightly harder to pay that balance down with two-cycle billing, but you’ll have an easier time of it on the way up. I tend to believe two-cycle billing slightly encourages people to keep a higher balance, so I tend to encourage people to avoid cards that do it, even though the real dollar difference isn’t much at all over the long haul.

Any ideas where someone might go to improve their public speaking skills?
- Nate

Practice is the key. The two best places I’ve found are my local church (doing the readings before the congregation is a great way to get in some practice before an audience that won’t heckle you if you are nervous) and the local Toastmasters.

Take every opportunity you can to speak in front of others. It’ll do nothing but improve your own skills and self-confidence. If you’re paranoid about failure, start with friendly audiences - wedding reception toasts, church readings, and so on.

If you do meet all of your financial goals, you’re almost certainly going to have a good chunk of cash until both you and your wife pass away. Have you thought about what you’d do with that? Would it be bequeathed to kids, or do you have other thoughts about how to use it?
- Steve

My wife and I currently plan to leave small fixed amounts to each of our children and then turn over the rest of our estate to a specified charity or two. We hope to have things arranged so that we do not become a financial burden on our children near the end of our lives.

By doing this, we hope to avoid any silly fighting over our estate that we’ve seen from other families. They’ll know what they’re getting up front, all of them, and it won’t change, no matter what.

What do you do for an exercise routine?
- Ed

I had a very steady exercise routine in the spring that consisted of a lot of Wii Fit and various other exercises, but several summer trips plus a very long cold completely destroyed the momentum I had.

Over the last week, I’ve started doing a morning jog again along with the lifetime fitness ladder, which I was using in the spring. Basically, 30 to 45 minutes worth of varied workouts, mostly with a focus on burning calories, five mornings a week.

Would adding my husband to one of my card accounts give his credit a boost, or would it be better to just get him his own card and start building that way?
- ama

It depends on the shape you’re in. If the card you would add him to already has a balance equal to 50% or more of the credit limit, you’re better off getting him a card on his own. If you have a low balance or don’t carry a balance at all, sharing a card is probably a better choice for raising his credit score (as it will have a higher limit than he’ll likely be able to get on his own).

Remember, the point of getting this card is simply to raise his credit score. Don’t start letting it become a buying crutch.

It’s interesting that the disdain GVR shows for video games is the same disdain you show for television shows. As you correctly pointed out, video games can actually help sharpen the mind and help in personal growth; similarly, the television can be very useful if used intelligently.

Just like people can waste hours on mind-numbing video games, people can waste hours on mind-numbing tv shows; it boils down to how you use the tv and video games. I would encourage you to be mindful of this fact.
- Joe

I don’t have any problem with television if it provides content that promotes intellectual growth. Most popular video games today do just that, from sudoku puzzles on the DS to complex adventures that develop problem-solving skills.

In comparison, here are the top seven regular television programs of the 2007-08 season: two different airings of American Idol, three (!) different airings of Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, then another airing of Dancing with the Stars. The first show that potentially provides intellectual growth comes in clear down at #8 (House). There are some worthwhile, educational, and inspirational programs on television, but that’s not what people watch.

In contrast, the large majority of 2007’s best-selling video games revolve around puzzle solving or problem solving, from Brain Age 2 (portable sudoku and puzzles) to Final Fantasy Tactics (a very complex strategy game) and Call of Duty 4 (a very complex action-strategy war game). Most modern video games, in moderation, encourage problem-solving and quick thinking skills. Even the games that could be described as “junk,” like Guitar Hero III, promote intense focus, concentration, and hand-eye coordination.

By all means, watch Nova or Planet Earth or even House, if it’s in moderation. But, frankly, that’s not what the audiences are tuned into. If the people watching 5+ hours of “mindless escapist” television turned it off and did anything else with their time - including sleeping - they’d find themselves in a better place. And that’s why I encourage people to turn off the television.

Television isn’t inherently evil. Television just used to fill time is, when people could be sleeping to become well-rested, enjoying time with their children or families, or improving themselves or their financial state. The same is true for any activity engaged in just to fill the hours that doesn’t leave you with any sort of intellectual, personal, spiritual, or social growth.

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.

I’m lucky in that I’ve never been truly dissatisfied with my job. I’ve yearned for different challenges before, and I’ve also wished for more flexibility in my schedule, but neither of those actually led me to dislike what I was doing.

But all I have to do is look around me a little bit to find people who are deeply dissatisfied with their jobs. One friend of mine is a father of three who has a job with the state that he deeply loathes in every way. He comes home each day physically and emotionally spent, often ready to simply drop into bed for several hours. He avoids talking about his job at all and when it does come up, you can obviously see that he loathes every little bit of it.

That’s where I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This (by Julie Jansen) steps in - it’s pretty much the perfect book for him. The subtitle pretty much sums it up: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Gratifying Work. But does the book itself work? Let’s find out.

Chapter 1 - Why Do You Want or Need to Change Your Work?
Negativity and inflexibility. Those are the two biggest problems in any workplace, according to Jansen. You can track almost any significant workplace problem back to one of these two general areas. Negativity is brought in by people doing tasks they don’t like or having conflicting personalities or other conflicts that aren’t properly handled. Inflexibility occurs when people are pushed into schedules that don’t match the other aspects of their life, creating work-life difficulties - their life is making them accept a job situation they may not like, usually because they need money. Many jobs, like a night shift at a factory, can bring about both problems.

Chapter 2 - What Is Your Work Situation?
Here, Jansen provides a lengthy self-test (lots of true-false questions) for you to take to chisel down to the exact problems you’re having with your job. She identifies six categories of job dissatisfaction (discussed individually in chapters five through ten); the test helps you identify which of the six you’re in. For me, though, the test was unnecessary - skimming chapters five through ten made it pretty clear which ones were relevant.

Chapter 3 - Values, Attitudes, and Change Readiness
Another series of short self-tests comes here, mostly clarifying what aspects of your personal and professional life you value the most, your attitude towards your current career and changing careers, and your readiness to make deep changes. Introspection is the key here - what attributes do you have that open the door to actually making the changes you’re dreaming about?

Chapter 4 - Personality Preferences, Interests, and Favorite Skills
Similar to the first two chapters, this one serves to hone in on your personality, skills, and interests. In other words, what do you enjoy doing that you’re also skillful at? I found this set of questions to be by far the most useful of the three question-oriented chapters, as this material largely pushes you towards the right kind of work for you. It came off much like a very brief nutshell version of What Color Is Your Parachute?, which is unquestionably the best “find the right career” guide I’ve ever read.

Chapter 5 - Where’s the Meaning?
What should you do if you feel like your job has no real meaning? While a job is a job, it can eventually become soul-numbing if you go to work day-in and day-out without believing in what you’re doing or knowing that you’re actually making any sort of positive change in the world. Jansen suggests spending some time focusing solely on what sort of meaning you’re seeking. Is it merely a sense of working for yourself? Or are you seeking work that makes the world a better place or provides social change? I think of this kind of journey as being much like using a tuning fork - when you find the right place, it will vibrate strongly inside of you. Just wait until you find the thing that makes your heart sing out.

Chapter 6 - Been There, Done That, but Still Need to Earn
The challenge of a new career is appealing, but your current job is tolerable and provides a nice steady income, so you’re hesitant to switch. Should you make that leap? Jansen addresses that question here and suggests that you plan what you might do otherwise down to the littlest detail. Once you’ve done that, consider the plan carefully and implement as many of the little details as you can before you make the leap.

Chapter 7 - Bruised and Gun-shy
If you’ve leapt for success in the past only to be knocked down again a few times, you’re probably a bit bruised and gun-shy and thus you’re strongly hesitant to make another leap. I felt this way about my own writing many times. I wrote a lot of short stories in college, but faced rejection letter after rejection letter. Even the two times I received a significant nibble, nothing ever came of it, and I had largely become rather gun-shy about writing. Jansen’s suggestions mostly revolve around training yourself in the basic skills you’ll need in your spare time - for example, if you’re like me, a blog updated on a regular schedule might be a strong move.

Chapter 8 - Bored and Plateaued
Perhaps your job used to be exciting, but has gradually changed over time into something that bores you. You just go through the motions, because there’s really no big goal any more - it’s all repetition and the same old thing. Jansen suggests thinking back to situations where you weren’t bored with what you’re doing and try to figure out what’s different between then and now. That difference is likely the key to what you should be doing, so seek out every opportunity to stretch those muscles in your current workplace.

Chapter 9 - Yearning to Be on Your Own
Some people simply have that entrepreneurial bent within them. They want to strike out on their own, achieving success by their own rules, and being “stuck” as a mere cog in a larger machine doesn’t satisfy them. The solution here is simple - start a side business and throw your heart and soul into making it click. If you have any interest in entrepreneurship at all, regardless of your situation, trying to start a side business will not only open that door for you, but it will show you what it takes to make things succeed.

Chapter 10 - One Toe in the Retirement Pond
You’re near the end of your career and you don’t want to rock the boat, but you’re terribly unhappy at work. What do you do? Jansen finds the answer here in careful financial planning - cut back on the spending hard, start socking away the money big time, and pull retirement closer and closer with every dollar saved.

Chapter 11 - The Ten Keys to Success
Making this kind of big switch requires a lot from you, and Jansen boils it down to ten primary keys: curiosity, decisiveness, perseverance, empathy, flexibility, follow-through, humor, intelligence, optimism, and respect. All of those tools are key when you’re stepping up to the plate to make a career change. Jansen tackles each one with quite a bit of detail and thought. I was particularly intrigued by the “humor” one - I’ve found that time and time again, laughing things off and taking them with a grain of salt has made things work for me.

Chapter 12 - Job Search - the Nuts and Bolts
The closing chapter focuses on the mechanics of an actual job search. In other words, how do you find this new job that meets your needs? This chapter actually pairs very well with chapters three and four, as together they provide the basic introspection and tools you need to find the right job for you. Still, if I were looking simply at a career-hunting guide, I’d stick with What Color Is Your Parachute?.

Some Thoughts on I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This
This book has a strong workbook feel. Roughly a third of the book is done in workbook format, encouraging you to actually write your thoughts on the internal pages. If you get into this book, buying a used copy somewhere (preferably one without any writing in it) would be quite useful. At the very least, get some paper and a pen ready before you start digging in.

How intense would one’s job dissatisfaction have to be before this book becomes appealing? I picked it up mostly because I thought of my aforementioned friend. I think most people do feel some level of unhappiness with their work, but I can’t help but wonder what percentage of people truly want to do something completely different from what they’re doing. I know such people are out there - but how many?

I really like that each chapter has a few suggested books to expand upon the specific topics covered there. Recommended additional reading is always something I like in books, so that I know where to go if a particular topic really tweaks my interest. It’s surprisingly rare in books like this, but I really value it when I find it.

Is I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This Worth Reading?
The title alone should tell you if I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This is right for you. Does the title sound like a good description of the way you feel about your current job? Does one of the above chapters (particularly chapters five through ten) really sum up where you find yourself? If so, I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This is definitely worth a read.

That being said, this book is really only useful if you’re seriously pondering a drastic career change. If you’re just thinking about hopping to a new job, this book doesn’t help much with that. Instead, it focuses on people who are caught in a career that they’ve found does not work for them. Jansen’s advice is spot-on and it focuses heavily on introspection - figuring out what’s exactly wrong in your own personal situation and figuring out where you need to go from here.

I’d happily give a copy of this to my friend if I thought he’d read it, but he’s not much for reading books. Instead, I’ll try to reflect on what this book says and see if I can guide his thinking a bit when I can.

Kathleen writes in with a good question:

A lot of personal finance books I read suggest putting your savings - especially stuff like emergency funds - in money market accounts. I’ve looked into them but I can’t figure out what the difference is between a money market account and a savings account. Why is a money market account preferable? What’s the difference?

First of all, let’s get some terminology straight. Most of the time, when a personal finance book refers to a “money market account,” they’re talking about a money market deposit account. A money market deposit account is a specific variation on a savings account that many banks offer. Sometimes, the term “money market” is used to describe money market funds, which are an investment vehicle not insured or backed by the FDIC and thus not a place you want to put your liquid cash savings.

Normally, when you deposit money in a savings account, the bank is extremely limited on what they can do with that money. For the most part, the only thing they’re allowed to do with normal savings account deposits is loan that money out to people who need to borrow money, charge the person borrowing a solid rate, and then pay you a part of that rate when it’s paid back. For example, the bank gets deposits that they charge 1% interest on, lend that money out at a 6% interest rate, then keep the 5% difference as their own income (gotta pay the bills, after all).

A money market deposit account is a bit different. The restrictions on what a bank can do with that money are somewhat looser - they can often invest that money in things such as treasury notes, certificates of deposit, municipal bonds, and so on in addition to the tight restrictions of a normal savings accounts. In other words, the bank can take your money and invest it in other investments that are very safe.

For you, the consumer, the differences aren’t that big. Both a normal savings account and a money market account are FDIC insured, meaning the federal government guarantees your deposits up to $100,000. Both types of accounts have some basic restrictions on how often you can withdraw from them, set by a mix of government regulations and bank policies, but for the most part, you’re limited to six withdrawals a month from either type of account.

Commonly, savings accounts at your local brick-and-mortar bank have a pretty low interest rate, but online-only banks (such as my bank, ING Direct) offer rates between 3 and 4% on deposits, with introductory rates sometimes higher than that. Money market accounts offer a rather wide range of rates and these rates often go up and down pretty regularly depending on the investments available to the bank.

Also, money market deposit accounts often have a few additional restrictions and benefits. Some may require a minimum balance; others require you to wait a few days (up to seven) for withdrawals. Some money market accounts, however, allow you to write checks from the account - often up to three a month. Consult the specific policies of any money market account you’re considering to see whether these restrictions and features are present.

In the end, for most people, a money market deposit account is essentially equivalent to a savings account. At your local bank, the money market account is probably a substantially better deal, as local brick-and-mortar savings accounts offer atrociously low interest rates. If you’re comparing with online offerings, though, quite often normal savings accounts offer rates very competitive with money market accounts and offer solid rate stability with no minimums.

Either way you go, savings accounts and money market accounts are the place you should keep your savings, especially if the money is for an emergency fund or another short term goal.

One of the common nuggets of financial “wisdom” tossed out there by personal finance writers is the idea of downgrading one’s car insurance to save money. “Cut your collision or comprehensive coverage or raise your deductibles and save a mint!” they’ll say, but such comments don’t take into account the current status of the car in question, nor does it account for your own personal financial state.

How do you know when the time is right to downgrade your car insurance? First, let’s look at the insurance variables we’re looking at, then let’s move through the thought process of figuring it out.

Types of Auto Insurance and Basic Terminology
… just so we’re all on the same page here.

Most states require that you carry at least liability insurance on your automobile as a minimum, so we’ll assume that in all cases you’ll continue to carry liability coverage. Liability coverage takes care of any costs or damage you may do to other people and property during the course of driving, including both bodily injury to others and property damage. These insurances are usually pretty cheap - the only thing you might want to be concerned about is that your coverage limit is quite high.

What we’re mostly concerned about is comprehensive and collision insurance. Collision insurance covers damage to your car when your car hits or is hit by another object, while comprehensive insurance covers losses resulting from incidents other than collision - floods, damage caused by external forces, and so on.

For more specific details on these definitions, check out this very useful definition page from CarInsurance.com.

For each type of insurance, you’ll have a deductible, which is the portion of any bill that you will be responsible for. So, if you have a $1,000 deductible and you’re facing $2,500 in damages, you’ll pay $1,000 and the insurance company will pay $1,500. You also have a premium, which is the amount you have to pay the insurance company to maintain the insurance.

What Do You Need?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear and straightforward answer to this question, and it’s because of that lack of clarity that people tend to over-insure - and personal finance writers can get away with simple statements like “eliminate your insurance and raise your deductible to save cash!”

First, should you raise your deductible? From my perspective, your deductible amount should always be directly related to your emergency fund. A single car incident shouldn’t be able to entirely deplete your emergency fund - if it does, you put yourself quickly at risk of something else happening. In fact, I often encourage people to have an emergency fund at least as twice as large as your deductible.

Given that, you can quickly figure out how much deductible you need based on your emergency fund. If you have an enormous emergency fund, for example, you may not even need comprehensive or collision insurance at all, as you have enough cash to just pay for the repairs or the replacement yourself out of pocket.

The way I see it, if you have enough emergency fund that you could pay for an entire replacement car in cash and only reduce your fund by half or less, you don’t need collision or comprehensive insurance. Liability insurance should be all you need. But, of course, most people aren’t in that situation, as it demands a much larger cash emergency fund than most people have access to.

Similarly, at what point should you entirely cut collision and comprehensive insurance on an older car? It’s not an easy question to answer.

I’m currently in this situation with my pickup truck, which is more than a decade old and is approaching the 200,000 mile mark - it has a pretty low Blue Book value at this point. It’s reached a point where my family feels uncomfortable driving it any significant distance at all, so I mostly just use it for local travel within fifty miles of my home (going to the library, getting groceries, and so on). We intend to replace it by early next summer.

Given that, it may in fact make sense for us to drop down to just liability coverage on the vehicle. This would save us several hundred dollars over the winter, and if something severe went wrong with it again, we’d simply go ahead and sell it.

Ask yourself this honest question: if a significant repair needed to be done to your current vehicle, would that be the final push you need to replace it? If that’s the case, do you need collision or comprehensive coverage on that vehicle at all?

Between these two perspectives, you may find that comprehensive and collision insurance aren’t worth it to you. But you may find yourself also feeling unprotected without that insurance. Insurance does have a psychological benefit beyond any directly financial benefits - you can be confident in knowing that even if something bad happens, you’re covered.

If your signs are pointing away from needing collision and comprehensive insurance, but your gut is telling you it’s a bad idea, I recommend just raising your deductible nice and high. That way, you’ve got the security of the insurance while saving money as well. This may be the best option of all for people with used cars and a nice hefty emergency fund, but find that comprehensive and collision insurance makes them feel better about their car.

I look forward to hearing the comments of readers on this topic.