The sixth episode focuses on gaming, a surprisingly fun way to save money. Along the way, I highlight tons of my favorite games to play with others that maximize bang for the buck. Total time: 10:50.

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

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

0:00 – The theme song is a snippet of a Camper van Beethoven concert on October 25, 1986, shared via their very open taping policy. Listen to the concert in its entirety.
0:44 – We played Dominion multiple times, Ticket to Ride: Europe, and Torres (I think … I might be mixing it with the previous game night we had).
1:05 – Her family plays the card game 500, which is quite fun.
2:10 – Good card games with kids: slapjack, go fish, and war.
2:18 – Good card games with adults: bridge, gin, canasta, poker, spades, hearts, cribbage, pitch, euchre … a nearly infinite list.
2:44 – My family always plays four point pitch.
2:55 – Monopoly seems to never end – I played a game for more than twelve hours once. Even worse, many people seem to play it without the auction rule – when someone lands on a property and chooses not to buy it, it goes up for auction. Without that, the game really does never seem to end.
3:27 – Ticket to Ride is a great board game that revolves around connecting various cities to one another via train. You essentially play on a map of a continent, with major cities highlighted, and throughout the game you connect these cities. You only have a limited number of connections, though, and other players are trying to do the same thing (and thus sometimes block your connections). It’s incredibly fun.
3:39 – Puerto Rico is a board game in which you’re trying to build a successful Puerto Rican farm while competing against the other players for resources – workers, money, and space on ships to sell what your farm grows. It can be played in an hour and fits three or four people really well.
3:45 – Settlers of Catan is a board game where you’re simply trying to settle on an island by placing just a small handful of towns and roads. It’s really simple and incredibly fun – as I say on the podcast, we played our first copy until it looks…. grizzled is a good word for it.
4:20 – You want a great way to network with someone? Play a game with them. You’ll almost magically open up a bit during the game.
6:25 – I use Gamerz in Ames, Iowa for most of my video game trading.
6:55 – Yes, I know I “overlooked” the social aspect of XBox Live and many online RPGs, but unless you’re (a) willing to give a lot of time to it or (b) have a strong affinity for teenagers being “funny” by yelling racial epithets, I’d suggest skipping it.
8:35 – I turn walks outdoors into a scavenger hunt.
8:50 – Here are ten ways I save money golfing.
10:40 – A preview of next week’s topic.

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

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might be aware that two well-known fifty year old men passed away this past week.

Michael Jackson got most of the media coverage – and for good reason. He recorded the best-selling pop music album of all time and virtually everyone can recognize the beat of many of his songs. He was simply an amazing performer – here’s my favorite example, actually:

However, I was more shocked and psychically bothered by the passing of Billy Mays. If you don’t know him, he was the ubiquitous television pitch man for a huge diversity of products – most notably OxyClean. His beard, friendly demeanor, pure skill at promoting products, and often nearly over-the-top enthusiasm made him memorable:

Both of these men were fifty years old when they passed away.

Both of these men died of sudden cardiac arrest, a common outcome of heart disease.

Those facts together shook me quite a bit. Fifty years old? I’m thirty – twenty years away from that magic number. Both of my kids would merely be college age when I’m fifty. I have many things that I want to do in life, and the thought that my life could easily end – or my quality of life could rapidly fall – at such an early age made me think quite a bit about the future – and other things I can do now to protect it.

I’ve invested quite a bit of time and energy in my own life – and I’m sure you have in your own – building the foundation for a great later life. My retirement accounts are solid. I have a book in print that pays me royalties and another one on the way. I want to be able to enjoy the benefits of these things in my golden years as I play with my grandchildren. I want to protect my investment.

So I’ve decided to do something about it. For my family, for my health, for my finances, and for my long term future, I’m going to make a number of changes that directly reduce the chances of heart disease – and also help with preventing other diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.

I should note that I’ve already been doing these things in 2009. I made a resolution to improve my health and I’ve lost about forty pounds this year through a mix of more exercise and better eating and I hope to keep up the progress.

I simply started by asking my doctor what I could do to reduce my chances of heart disease as I grow older. He suggested eight things, all of them pretty simple.

First, don’t smoke. Nicotine raises your blood pressure (not good) and the tar reduces your lung capacity and makes exercise more difficult (not good). It also increases your risk of many other diseases, like emphysema.

Second. exercise. If you don’t exercise at all, start really slow. Make a commitment to just walk for thirty minutes each evening around your neighborhood. The goal is to raise your heart rate to a reasonably elevated level for a sustained period, and continuous movement (like walking) is an easy way to get there. If you want to go beyond that, that’s great, but take it slow – don’t dive in and try to run a 5K right off the bat. Just go for a walk.

Third, eat more green things. Eat broccoli, spinach, brussels sprouts, and leafy vegetables. You can start by having a side salad with dinner. I’ve found that spinach is a great ingredient in many, many dishes, for example – just add a bunch of spinach to lasagna, for example.

Fourth, eat fewer meats. Going vegetarian isn’t necessarily the best option, but reducing your meat intake is a good idea. For example, try eating no meats until your last meal of the day – for breakfast and lunch, eat vegetables and fruits and whole grains.

Fifth, eat some nuts. Seriously. Nuts contain fiber and also contain vitamin E, one vitamin that tends to be deficient in modern diets. One great way to do three, four, and five all at once is to make your own granola bars – something I’ll talk about in the future.

Sixth, cut down on your sodium intake. In other words, don’t dump table salt on your foods. Sodium directly raises blood pressure and we already get enough sodium in our normal foods without extra salting.

Seventh, try meditation or relaxation techniques. Stress elevates your blood pressure and causes all kinds of health issues. Take some time to calm down and psychologically deal with the stresses in your life. Here are some great beginning meditation and stress management techniques.

Finally, cut down on your caffeine. Caffeine also raises blood pressure. Many people say they can’t “live” without the caffeine, but coupling caffeine reduction with other diet improvements and a bit of exercise will make the transition easier.

Most of these changes are not very hard to do in your life. As with any behavior change, take it slow. Don’t go whole hog at first. Just start walking in the evening (I do it while listening to podcasts) and maybe substitute a food or two that you eat for something better for you, particularly at dinner. Put the salt shaker in the cupboard and put out granola bars and fruits for snacks instead of cookies.

It’s simple to protect your life’s investment with a few little changes. Today’s the day to get started.

Over the past several months, I’ve gradually come to use Evernote for all kinds of tasks, from managing my writing to jotting down grocery ideas to drafting articles. It’s free and it’s become my single most used application on every computer I use – my Mac (where I do most of my work), my laptop (remember the frugal laptop? I’m still using it!), and even my iPod Touch, which is constantly in my pocket. A big nod to Manny, a long-time Simple Dollar reader who introduced me to Evernote (see comment #5 on that thread).

Hold On… What Is Evernote?
Evernote is basically a note manager that synchronizes the notes across computers. You can create and edit notes on any machine with a web browser and several types of mobile phones. You can save pictures, web pages, voice recordings, text – anything you want.

The thing that I find really useful, though, is that if you take a picture of a handwritten note – if it’s legible at all – Evernote will automatically extract the text for you. So, let’s say I’m at a meeting and I’ve jotted down a few notes that I might want to write about later on. I can just take pictures of the notes with my camera, stick them on Evernote, and boom – I’ve got the text.

The best part? It’s free (well, not entirely – there’s some very high level of data beyond which you have to have a paid account (40 MB), but I’ve never reached it). I have upgraded to a premium account there, simply because I have a deep philosophy of supporting what I use, but you can use it to your heart’s content without paying a dime. They pay the bills with a small ad on the site.

Obviously, you wouldn’t want to store highly sensitive personal information on here, but for 99% of the notes you’ll take, Evernote simply works.

Seven Ways I Use Evernote to Improve My Finances
Given that Evernote makes text notes basically ubiquitous, this means I can update them pretty much wherever I’m at. This is perfect for little pieces of personal finance data that you’ll want to retrieve later on. Here are seven examples of how I’m using Evernote in that regard (note that you could also use a pad and pencil for these, but that having them in electronic form is almost always more convenient).

I use it to track my spending on the go. I keep a note going where I just record my expenses. A great example of this was on vacation, where my parents and I had agreed to split all expenses equally. During the vacation, whenever we simply paid for an activity or something else, I jotted it down in Evernote. Then, at the end of the trip, it was quite easy – I just copied the numbers into a spreadsheet and automatically totaled them, easy as pie.

I use it to jot down prices for comparison shopping. Evernote is incredibly useful as a price book. Whenever I’m in a store and I spot a great price on an item, I jot down that price and where I found it. Later, I’ll compare it to other prices, both online and off. If you’re shopping for a large purchase, like a piece of furniture or a television, this can be a great way to compare prices.

However, I’ve found it really useful for little things. Since we split a lot of our shopping for food and domestic items between Fareway (most food), Sam’s Club (some bulk purchases), Target (most household), and Hy-Vee (specialty foods), I find it really useful to keep track of what’s actually cheapest at each store and buy them there. Evernote makes this really easy – I now know that many deli cheeses are cheapest at Fareway, but some upscale cheeses are far cheaper at Sam’s Club thanks to using this technique, and that enables me to easily get the best price on the items that I buy.

I use it to take notes if someone lets me in on a bargain. Let’s say I’m chatting with my neighbor and he mentions that he saw that Lowes is having a sale on lawnmowers this weekend – and I’m in the market for a lawnmower. That can be a very valuable piece of information – and so I immediately jot it down. Later, when I see it electronically, I remember to visit the Lowes website, see what’s on sale, and do some comparison shopping.

Similarly, I overheard recently at the grocery store that one could find $1.50 off coupons for V8 Fusion online. I jotted that down quickly, went home, searched for it, and unfortunately came up short – but it’s easy to see how something like this could really pay off (if someone has a link to $1 off or more V8 Fusion coupons, I’d love ‘em!).

I use it to keep track of potential investments. On Sunday mornings, I’m usually found at the kitchen table reading the Sunday Des Moines Register – and while reading, I usually find out something interesting about some investment. I also find myself reading the Wall Street Journal sometimes at the library, and I always find some interesting businesses or investments in there.

Obviously, I want to follow up, so I just jot down that investment’s symbol on Evernote. Later, when I’m home, I just copy and paste that symbol into Google and into Yahoo! Finance and see what I find. This has helped me become more familiar with the business side – and the product side – of many companies and also led me to quite a few index funds that I’m watching for potential future investments.

I use it to jot down product research notes at the library. As I’ve mentioned many times, whenever we begin to look at a major purchase, I hit the library. I dig out piles of old issues of Consumer Reports and other consumer magazines and go through them, finding out what independent testers have to say about it.

Naturally, I take my laptop along on such journeys, and I find that jotting these things down in Evernote is quite helpful. I’ll type the interesting notes in quickly, take snapshots of anything interesting with my camera, and collect all the research electronically in one place. Later, when I’m at home, I can add to this research. Or maybe I’ll be at my parents’ house and I find something useful to add – I can just log on via the website and add to a note.

I use it to keep a convenient schedule of automated transactions. One note includes nothing more than a list of the automatic transactions that come out of our primary checking account every month – our children’s 529 accounts, my Roth IRA, our car payment, our mortgage payment, and a SmartyPig savings goal (for a better laptop sometime way down the road).

This has come in handy several times. Once, not too long ago, we were in Texas on vacation and I was trying to decide if I should pull some cash out of my checking account or my savings account. I pulled out my list of automatic transactions, did the math, and realized it wasn’t a problem at all to leave the savings alone – we had plenty of buffer.

The best part: if I make a change to the automatic transactions I have, I can just update one text file and I have the info everywhere. I don’t have to write a new note or make a bunch of scribbles on it. It’s clean and just works.

I use it to keep track of gift ideas for people. I keep a constantly running list of gift ideas for people. It’s actually quite easy – I just listen to what people talk about and if they mention anything they like or may want, I jot it down on this note. Then, every once in a while, I’ll go bargain hunting with this note – I’ll update my Amazon deal search filters with these items and I’ll search through several different bargain sites that I look at. Occasionally, I’ll find a hit – and when I do, I might turn a $70 idle wish someone has into a gift from me that only cost $20.

Not only that, this gift list comes in big handy when the holidays are actually close. I’ll get out this gift list just before Black Friday and browse through the circulars on Thanksgiving Day – and sometimes I’ll find an amazing match, connecting a great deal to a recipient who actually wants the item.

To put it simply, the sheer utility of Evernote gives me tons of opportunities to save money. The examples above just scratch the surface.

Over the years, many of you who read The Simple Dollar have come through time and time again when I’ve asked for a little bit of help. For that, I thank you very, very much – I really appreciate when you guys step up to the plate and offer a bit of a helping hand for tasks I can’t quite pull off myself and provide input when I need it. It’s really appreciated.

The only problem is that when I ask for such help, it clutters up the site a bit. Instead of posting about something interesting and useful to everyone, I wind up filling up site space with such requests. Most people don’t mind, but for people new to the site, that’s not really interesting. They’ve come to The Simple Dollar to learn more about their finances and their life, not to fill out a survey or do some other little thing that I need help with.

So, I’ve come up with a solution. Friends of The Simple Dollar.

Here’s how it works. “Friends of The Simple Dollar” is an email list that I’ve set up privately – I won’t share a single email address with anyone else.. Roughly once a month or so (or maybe a bit more often when I release a book or something similar), I’ll send out an email to everyone who has signed up for that list asking for help on something small – filling out a survey, helping me a bit with book promotion, or sharing something of interest. It shouldn’t take someone more than five minutes or so to do the little things I might ask. On occasion, I might send out something special to the list to show my appreciation for your help, too.

So, if you’re willing to give up five or ten minutes once a month to help out The Simple Dollar with such simple things, please sign up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar”.

If this isn’t your thing, no big deal – don’t sweat it. I won’t be sending out unique content to the list, just occasional requests for help. I’m just looking for people who enjoy the site, think it provides value, and are willing to offer a bit of a helping hand on occasion.

As always, thanks for your time and consideration!

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.

I’m getting married in September to a woman who just started a Master’s degree program. We have a fair amount in savings and have set some of it aside for the next 2 years of her college expenses. You’ve discussed 529 plans before, and that got me thinking about a possibility. Could I start maxxing a 529 plan and live out of that savings, then use the 529 to pay for her last year of college? I don’t like living out of savings, but that money has already been taxed. Say her last year of school costs $5,000; I’d be saving about $500 in federal taxes by utilizing a 529 plan. But can you put that much in a 529 in a year? Can you turn around and use the money that soon? We live in Missouri, if the state’s plan types are different.
- Michael the Dumb Tech Geek

There’s no limit to the amount you can contribute to a 529 for you or your spouse (provided you’re filing your taxes jointly). An aside: the only limit is that such contributions are seen as gifts in the eyes of the federal government and thus if anyone else contributes, their contribution must stay under the gift tax exclusion ($12,000 this year, $13,000 this year) or be a one-time gift that isn’t repeated over the next five years (allowing up to a $60,000 contribution). Anything over that would be taxable.

However, if you’re saving over that short of a term, putting your money into any sort of risky investment is extremely risky. You sure can contribute to a 529 as you suggest, but you should choose a really conservative option. In that situation, it basically becomes a bank account where you don’t have to pay taxes on the interest earned if you spend it all on schooling.

No matter what you do at this point, you’re not going to earn any major gains either way unless you’re extremely lucky or take on a large amount of risk.

I believe you owe it to your readers to point out that 529s are a big gamble because if your children get a full scholarship or decide not to go to college you could end up paying income tax on the 529 earnings PLUS sometimes a 10% penalty. Whereas the funds you choose to invest in the Roth IRA are guaranteed to retain all the benefits, tax breaks, and flexibility of the Roth no matter what happens with your child.
- Sophie

The only way that occurs is if you have a child that earns more than full tuition, room, and board scholarships for their undergraduate work, doesn’t attend graduate school, and is an only child. Read the details here. If any of those details are untrue, then the 529 works quite well.

On the other hand, when you use a Roth IRA for education expenses, you have to pay income tax on any gains used for education – using a Roth IRA for educational expenses only avoids the 10% penalty. On the other hand, for education expenses, a 529 is tax free.

So, a Roth IRA is preferable for education expenses if you have a child that earns more than full tuition, room, and board scholarships for their undergraduate work, doesn’t attend graduate school, and is an only child, because in that case, the child would have to pay income tax and a 10% penalty to get the money out of the account. Otherwise, the 529 is preferable, because you don’t have to pay income tax at all for education expenses.

I think, for my kids, I’ll stick with the 529.

*Everyone* told me that I would eventually grow apart from my high school friends when I was graduating high school.

I know it’s unusual, but it’s NOT a given that you will lose your high school friends. Maybe likely, but not guaranteed.
- Heather

Here’s a better way of stating it. There are two types of friends people have in life: friends based on the overlap of interests and experiences and friends based on true caring for each other.

Most friends people find in a high school environment are of the former type – you’re friends because you know the same people, go to the same school, attend the same classes, and so on. When those touchstones go away, so do most friendships.

Now, in some cases, those touchstones get replaced by other ones. You stay in the same town, live near each other, work in similar jobs, and stay in similar social circles. If that happens, you’re keeping those touchstone-based friends, it’s just that the touchstones have changed.

My oldest brother is a great example of this. After he graduated, he more or less stayed in the same area where he grew up, and at least some of the group of friends he had in high school did the same. Those guys remain friends to this day. If he moved away, would they remain friends? I’d bet against it – he might stay in touch with one or two of them, but he’d find a new social circle based on common interests wherever he moved.

It’s healthy to have both types of friends – some transient, some permanent. Disappointment comes in when one group is confused with the other.

In Your Money or Your Life long term treasury bonds are suggested as the ideal retirement investment. Their logic supporting that seems to make sense- the returns are predictable (which is important when you’re living off of them) and the principal investment is perfectly safe. Why do you find the stock market to be the better option? Is it just because of the higher rate of returns? Do you worry that the market will fall while you’re “living off the interest” and cut your income?
- Ariel

Your Money or Your Life offers great investment advice for when you’ve actually reached the point when you’re living off the interest – you want the money to be safe.

However, when you’re trying to reach that point, there’s no reason to restrict yourself to ultra-safe investment opportunities. If you’re still employed, you can afford some risk, particularly if the point of living off the interest is a long way off.

So, let’s say you need $25,000 in expenses a year to survive and you figure that your bond investments will return 3%. That means you need to own about $850,000 in bonds – and ideally more than that, so you have some protection against inflation. That’s a daunting number – it’ll take you many years to save it.

During those years, you may (depending on your risk tolerance) find it worthwhile to invest in higher risk, higher reward things. If they pay off, you’ll move that date a little closer. If they don’t, you just delay it a little longer. Over longer periods of time (ten years or more), the stock market tends to return around 7% a year – including dividends and increases in stock value. So, if you have that much time, it’s worthwhile to put some of your money into stocks.

Then, when you get closer, start investing your newer savings wholly into bonds and slowly start moving that stock investment into bonds as well. This way, if you’re getting close, a sudden market downturn won’t hurt you.

When you’ve finally made it, everything is safe and secure in bonds.

here’s a tip that really helped me and my family – RENTING BOOKS. We found the Netflix of books, Bookswim, and it’s been amazing to save money for required school reading in addition to my personal reading. we rent instead of buy – genius!
- Jennie

I hear you can also rent books at your local library! For free!

Okay, enough snark. Jennie does have a great point. Bookswim is basically Netflix for books, meaning you can keep them as long as you want and mail them back and forth for free, only paying the subscription. It’s a reasonable alternative to the library, especially if you’re a slow reader and find yourself always accruing late fees at the library.

However, there are some problems. If I find a book personally useful, I tend to write a lot in the margins – and that’s a big no-no with Bookswim and with the library. I tend to use PaperBackSwap for my book habits. No monthly fee at all. Roughly $2 to send out a book you’ve already read and get another book in exchange for it in your mailbox. If you want to keep a book – say, a copy of a business book that you’ve scribbled all over – you sure can, no problem, no cost.

I think Bookswim does hit a particular niche quite well, one that isn’t met by the library (late fees, long wait lists) or by PaperBackSwap (sometimes limited selection, cost-per-book instead of per month). If you’re an avid reader, it’s probably worth considering.

My high efficiency washer requires HE detergent, so I don’t know if I can use your recipe. What’s the difference?
- Richard Potts

I do not have any direct experience using my homemade laundry soap in a high-efficiency washer.

However, the laundry soap made in that recipe is a formula that does not produce excessive suds, which is the real danger with HE washing machines. It’s also pretty potent.

Thus, the general recommendation I have is to try half a cup of the homemade detergent in a HE load and see how that works for your clothes cleanliness needs.

Do “The Simple Dollar Artists” cater their work for your posts, or do they have a portfolio that always has what you are looking for? Or something else?
- Mol

“The Simple Dollar Artists” refers to a sidebar section on The Simple Dollar where I highlight two artists that contributed a lot of photography and other stock images to The Simple Dollar early on. I wanted some small, interesting items to use as accent pieces for posts – I wasn’t too picky – and so I asked for it. I wasn’t looking for commissioned stuff – I intended it as just a way for people to show off some of their portfolio work, stuff they’d already made that they wouldn’t mind being used on The Simple Dollar.

I was blasted for this and was roundly accused of trying to “rip off” artists, but two loyal readers – Daizy H. and David Herring – stepped up with contributions. All they did was help out a blog that they liked by digging through their collections of their own art, finding five little pieces, and allowing me to use them in posts. In exchange, they both received permanent thanks on the sidebar of The Simple Dollar.

For being kind and helpful, they’ve both had links to their sites that have generated several clicks a day for years, the Google boost that comes from being linked on every page of The Simple Dollar, and a page on The Simple Dollar highlighting their art contributions. Though David’s site is no longer updated, Daizy’s site is actually pretty interesting and I stop in regularly.

In fact, “Daizy” actually asked me to begin using a pseudonym for her because the link was attracting more attention than she wanted. If she’s still reading, I wonder if she considers the deal to be a “rip off”…

Just came across this article on LifeHacker – http://lifehacker.com/5280491/the-road-to-happiness-in-your-work-lies-in-the-hooray-zone – and couldn’t help but think that this is exactly what you’ve done with your writing. What are your thoughts on this diagram?
- Dave

I agree wholeheartedly with that image. With my current job, I think I’m firmly in the “Hooray!” part of the picture. I think I started off in the “what we want to do” circle, moved gradually into the “learn to do it better” part, and eventually moved into “Hooray!” (though I’m still learning).

With my former job, I think I started in the “Hooray!” part of the picture but gradually moved into the “Learn to say ‘no’” part and failed to escape from it. I found myself responsible for stuff that I simply didn’t want to be responsible for that ran contrary to what I loved about the job in the first place and that hurt my enthusiasm for the work quite a bit.

That’s a very good image – a great way of summing up a lot of the ideas I have about work.

Here’s a question for a future reader mailbag; what to do about failed frugal experiments? Or maybe stories of repurposing frugal moves that don’t work into stuff that does.

Tonight’s example: I have a $1.88 packages of noodles, cream of mushroom soup + lox casserole experiment in the crock pot that for various reasons, is not edible. I’m not out a lot of money as these were all pretty much on sale, but i feel the guilt of waste as I scraped stuff into the garbage.
- Betsy

I simply chalk those up to experience.

The way we look at meals is this: if it’s terrible, we’ve learned never to prepare it again. However, it’s still a meal, even if it’s one we didn’t enjoy. It still provided nutrition and sustenance, even if it didn’t provide enjoyment.

I look at it the same way if I try a generic version of a product. It’s a trial run at a low cost. If it works out, great – I’ve found a good long-term solution. If it doesn’t work out, I’m not out too much and I’ve usually been able to use at least some of the product.

Some experiments are going to succeed. Others are going to fail. But those are short term failures – and long term successes. If you have a bad meal or use a bad product, it doesn’t have to ever be repeated – you can go back to what worked before with only a small loss. If it works, though, you’ve found a new routine, likely one that requires less regular spending on your behalf.

One success – because it’s a long term success – is well worth ten failures, in my eyes.

One of our favorite restaurants is cafeteria-style, but they have bus-staff to clear the tables when done. Clearly they’re not providing the same level of service as a sit-down restaurant, but there’s some sort of service. We’d like to leave a little something, but don’t know an “appropriate” amount…something more than 0% but less than 15%. Do you or your other readers have a suggestion?
- Gumnos

I really don’t worry that much about “guidelines” for tipping. Tip whatever you feel like the service was worth.

By “service,” I do mean the whole package. Many people focus really heavily on the table service, but that’s only one part of the experience. If you get no table service but believe you’re getting exceptional value from the food, there’s no reason not to tip a little in any situation.

If you spend $7.95 at a cafeteria and the food was great, I see no problem tipping a dollar. Just make sure that you do it in such a way that it’s not accidentally thrown away – and also be aware that it’s likely to just vanish into the pocket of the first employee that finds it.

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

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, personal productivity, or other book of interest.

The New Global Student by Maya Frost is one of those books that takes what you think you know about a subject and flips it on its ear. This time around, it’s the standard route that most high schoolers take towards their education: take lots of AP classes, sweat about the ACT and SAT, apply to hyper-competitive colleges and hope you get in, apply for piles of scholarships, sweat out the FAFSA, then go on to college, where you’ll likely be buried in mountains of student loans.

This process is seen as so standard that many people don’t even question whether or not it makes sense to start pushing our fourteen and fifteen year olds through this woodchipper. The New Global Student argues that this path is not the only path – in fact, Frost argues that there is a much better way to help your children transition into the latter stages of their education. Hence the eye-catching subtitle: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education.

I fully expect that many people will immediately reject the central premise of this book – that the “traditional hypercompetitive SAT/AP/GPA path” can be easily dumped and a new path to educational success can be found. All I can say is this: time and time again, throughout my college career, the people that seemed to have the best grasp of what they needed to do to succeed and the value they could get out of college were people who came in from outside that treadmill.

Ready to dig in? Here are my impressions of and thoughts on The New Global Student.

One: Creative, Not Crazy – Our Family’s Story
In the summer of 2005, the Frost family sold everything and moved to Mexico for a year, then to Argentina. The family had four teenage daughters, including a high school freshman, a junior, and a senior, and they were unable to speak Spanish when they left. Not only that, the girls also spent years in other countries on yearlong exchanges. They did not worry too much about the perfect GPA and they also didn’t take the SAT. You might think that this would blow up all of the girls’ chances of getting into a good school, but instead it did the opposite – it painted very compelling pictures of young women who were experiencing the world, not just pumping up their numbers. Compelling enough to get them piles of scholarships and admissions to good schools.

Two: Beyond Math and Mandarin
Frost’s argument about why all of this works really boils down to two big factors. First, the diversity of experiences forced the children to learn how to be collaborative. They were constantly being put into cultural and intellectual situations where they had to learn to work well with others in order to get through it. In contrast, high school in America – with the SAT/GPA/AP milestones – are highly competitive without much focus on collaboration. The collaborative nature of their high school experience, in other words, was a huge advantage.

Second, the children were heavily ingrained throughout their lives with five key principles: flexibility (independent thinking, eagerness to explore new ideas and places), awareness (ability to intelligently discuss a wide variety of topics, compassion and respect for others), curiosity (an interest in a variety of areas and the ability to ask questions and investigate those areas), trustworthiness (realization of the vitality of being dependable, strong communication skills, complete things on time), and self-direction (establish and move towards goals, internalized work ethic and motivation).

These aspects combine together to make young people who are ready to tackle anything. In my eyes, it’s a great recipe for parenting in the modern world – I strive for all of these things with my own children, even at their young age.

Three: Fego: You’re Soaking in It!
What keeps our children from having these attributes? Frost points at two huge factors.

First, fear. We fear letting go of our kids. We fear not doing enough. We fear taking charge. We fear slowing down. We fear unstructured time and unstructured activities. We fear falling behind. These fears all lead us towards pushing our children hard down that typical path. Instead, we’re better off hammering in the big principles of independent thought and self-responsibility when they’re young and letting go as much as we can when they’re older.

Second, ego. We want to believe that we’re vital to the process of our children’s final steps towards adulthood. We’re not. Once puberty hits, we’re a support staff – we’re no longer absolutely vital to the process. Similarly, we tie our own sense of self-worth to the accomplishments of our children – if our kids get a high score on the SAT or get an A in an AP class, that’s proof that we’re great and something we can brag about to others, right? Wrong. It’s just ego fuel that actually hurts our kids.

Another interesting argument: our children have huge advantages with the advent of computers, the internet age, and the easy access to information. Shouldn’t this mean that they blow us away in terms of intellectual growth at a young age? The problem is that instead of focusing on actually raising intellectually curious and self-reliant kids, we focus on them getting A’s in classes that likely aren’t pushing them very hard at all. So why should they grow if all that matters is that A? Instead, the book suggests using local community colleges to put your child in genuinely challenging classes that really push them – a “B” in a class that really pushes their work ethic and intellect is much more valuable than a cruise-control “A” in every aspect other than the almighty GPA.

Four: AP, IB, & SAT – OMG!
So many students today stress themselves out over taking tons of AP classes and getting a great SAT score. Frost argues that both of these have less value in terms of getting into college than you might think.

First of all, she argues that so many students are taking AP courses that they’re becoming watered down. With B- students taking the courses and sometimes passing, the material may be at a somewhat lower level than before. On top of that, students are now taking three or four AP courses at once. As a result, many colleges are eliminating the credits they offer in exchange for AP courses. In the end, the value of an AP course is lower than it once was, both in terms of what’s learned and in terms of how colleges value it.

A similar phenomenon is happening with the SAT and ACT. High schools are now beginning to require the exams; meanwhile, community colleges don’t require the test at all and most colleges and universities are de-emphasizing the test in terms of admission criteria. In other words, instead of becoming a useful prep tool for college, it’s become so universalized that it no longer matters as much as it once did.

What does matter, then? How can a student stand out? Frost points towards the IB, which provides a rigorous plan of study available in many different nations that, upon completion, is accepted (and often considered quite valuable) for college admission. Plus, the IB de-emphasizes the pressure of AP classes and the SAT, instead focusing on teaching how to learn and how to collaborate, skills invaluable in a person’s career. Another approach: taking the GED as early as possible, skipping the high school “experience,” and moving on to college early.

Five: Meet the New A Student: Artful, Advanced, Atypical, and Adventurous
Frost argues (quite well, with a pile of anecdotes) that a well-balanced student is incredibly well served by spending time abroad during their high school experience. Such an experience provides a huge deal of personal growth, vastly improves personal awareness, and demonstrates on college applications that a student is committed to outside-the-box exploration.

Here’s the thing: people at this age are passionate and that passion floods in surprising directions. If you stifle that passion and attempt to channel it in a way you see fit, you’re likely to see the dam break and see passion flow in a terrible direction. Instead, offer your child as many positive channels as possible and see where their passion takes them. Putting a study abroad experience on the table certainly does that.

Six: The Boldest Advantage: A Yearlong High School Exchange
Almost all parents feel some strong reticence at the idea of sending their child abroad for a year to study. That’s the “fear and ego” mentioned earlier raising its head.

Instead, a study abroad program – if done with thought and planning – is probably the best move you could make for your child. It’ll help you deal with the “empty nest” problem in a cold turkey way, keeping you from being a helicopter parent when your child moves on. It’ll show your child in the clearest way possible that you respect their independence. Most importantly, though, it’ll give your child a huge dose of personal and intellectual growth as they learn about a different culture and different way of life while also continuing their education. Few things set up a student better for college than such an adventure.

How can you make the most of this? Go early (sophomore year is a good target), go long (a full year instead of a semester), and go challenging (a place with a different language and a different culture).

Seven: How to Save Thousands on College: Study Abroad
A similar philosophy applies in college – go early (sophomore year is a good target), go long (a full year instead of a semester), and go challenging (a place with a different language and a different culture). A study abroad program while in college also has an additional benefit: it’s cheap.

Many people scoff at this, pointing toward expensive study abroad packages offered by schools. The truth, though, is that those packages are often glorified travel packages – instead of immersing the student in another culture, it actually isolates them in a vacation-like bubble, housing them with other native English speakers and providing every possible accommodation. Very little actual value is gained.

Instead, consider applying directly to the university you desire to attend as an independent international student. You’ll live in the same housing as students there and will be fully immersed in the culture instead of isolated in a “submarine” of your own culture. Plus, the price is reasonable – often very reasonable. In many cases, it’s far less expensive than the price you’re paying for university at home.

Eight: The Full Family Deal: Sabbatical or Sell-It-All?
A third option – one that works well if you have multiple high-schoolers at once – is to simply spend a year abroad, enrolling your kids in school in that country for a year. This will be something we consider circa 2019, for example, when we have two children in early high school.

Obviously, this doesn’t work for everyone, but it does have certain advantages. If you can find a job in your career in another country, it’s a huge resume booster. If you’re engaged in a creative career, immersing yourself in a different culture can pay real dividends.

This is something that’s at least on the radar for us in several years. If my wife can get a job teaching English in another country for a year, we would be quite interested in pursuing this. I can in theory write from anywhere, too, so that also helps.

One good compromise – a summer-long sabbatical. Rent an apartment in a foreign nation for three months and see how things go. Engage in every activity you can while there – not tourist stops, but the way of life that people have there. Shop at their stores. Eat their food. Learn their language.

Nine: The Get-Real Guide for Bold Parents
The final chapter is something of a clean-up of the many issues brought up by this book. How do you handle the criticism from others who say you’re sinking your child’s chances because you’re not following the “normal” path? What about their safety?

Each of these questions has a very reasonable answer. As for the criticism, such study abroad programs actually vastly improve chances of college acceptance and of growing a student to the point where they can really take advantage of college. With the safety issue, high school students are often more safe abroad than at home – no drivers under the age of eighteen, students are protected from anti-American sentiments by their youth, and students are naturally more cautious because they’re in unfamiliar territory.

Is The New Global Student Worth Reading?
I’ll be honest with you: I’ve been questioning the absoluteness of the high school/SAT/college application/expensive college pipeline for a long time. I’m actually in favor of delaying college for a year or two after high school, allowing other life experiences to fill in the gap. Why not let a student spend a year working hard at a job or for a non-profit in between high school and college, learning what it actually means to earn a paycheck and make ends meet and what the value of a college education actually is. I know I certainly would have benefited from such a sojourn. I’ve also been thinking a lot about traveling abroad for an extended period when my children are older, perhaps spending a year in another country and allowing them to attend school there (Great Britain, perhaps, or maybe a nation where we don’t speak the language natively).

Reading The New Global Student actually knocked down the idea of the standard pipeline even more. It’s loaded with food for thought for any person with children school-aged or younger. Even if you consider the general idea to be nonsensical, there’s enough material in here about how to set the path for your child to excel in their educational and professional career and save money along the way that it’s at least worth a read for specific tips.

For us, it’s opened the door to a lot of discussion about what we can do as parents to prepare our children for this ever-shrinking world.

If you have kids, you owe it to yourself to read this one. It’ll really make you think about their education and how simply connecting the dots might not be the best route.

Over the last month, tons of readers have written to me asking me about Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. Can you actually earn reasonable money with it, or is it a scam?

What is it? For those unaware, Mechanical Turk is a service from Amazon where you can complete simple tasks in exchange for a tiny payment. For example, you might look at an image and describe it in ten words for $0.08. You might fill out a multiple-choice survey for $0.10. You might be asked to write a product review for $2.50. For the most part, the tasks available through Mechanical Turk are quick and very simple. The problem is that, individually, they’re not big earners. You have to do quite a few in an hour in order to earn anything of significance.

Well, can you? I decided to try it out for myself. I browsed around the Mechanical Turk website, signed up, and set aside an hour to try to earn some money there. Here’s a detailed log of my experience.

8:46 AM – Signed up for Mechanical Turk. It took roughly a minute to open an account there – no problem.
8:47 AM – Chose my first task – write a 350-500 word article on “email autoresponder marketing” for $4. I’m just going to churn it out off the top of my head.
9:02 AM – Done – if that type of “off the cuff” writing is accepted, maybe Mechanical Turk is a decent way to earn money. I basically just wrote in a nearly train-of-thought style, something I would consider a weak first draft for The Simple Dollar, but still readable. I’m going to try categorizing some images at a penny a pop for a bit.
9:08 AM – I managed to do six images in six minutes for a whopping six cents. Not a good use of time. Note to future self: stay away from the single-penny tasks.
9:09 AM – After browsing some tasks, I decided to try a series of really short questionnaires from MasterCard for $0.10 a pop.
9:18 AM – I was able to do five of the dime surveys in eight minutes – totaling out to just under $4 an hour. Not good, but it could definitely be worse.
9:19 AM – I decided to try some simple product categorization for a nickel a pop. It seems easy – just look at a picture of an item and come up with some short tags to describe it.
9:25 AM – I managed to complete two of them in six minutes. I actually completed three, but one was lost to the Turk’s horrible page design, which eliminated everything I had filled in because I hadn’t clicked on the “Accept HIT” button. Ten cents in six minutes is not a win.
9:26 AM – I take on a task that involves looking up addresses for wineries at $0.40 a pop.
9:32 AM – Should have read more carefully, as it requires entering a bunch of wines from each winery as well. Six minutes work for $0.40 is NOT a good deal.
9:36 AM – I notice that if I sort by dollar value, some higher-dollar entries will pop up and then disappear before I can accept them – $6 to $10 a pop. Chasing them might pay off, but it seems to be a time waster.
9:37 AM – I take a short test to “qualify” me to do some higher-value HITs. Apparently, they don’t want just anyone writing service reviews. You have to at least be aware of the company.
9:41 AM – I finish the test – but the ones I would be “qualified” to do are now gone.
9:45 AM – I spent five minutes looking at really awful HITs. If they pay a penny a piece, if you can’t do them FAST, they’re not worth it.
9:46 AM – A moment later, I found a service review, enabling me to describe a service I received for $2.55.
9:50 AM – I finished the review, earning $2.55 for four minutes’ work. That task was actually the one I was “qualified” for because of the earlier test, meaning I invested eight minutes to earn $2.55 – or $19.13 an hour. Not bad at all!

And here’s the outcome of that adventure. I spent a total of one hour and four minutes there and earned a total of $7.61 (assuming everything I did was accepted), giving an hourly wage of $7.11 for my effort. I probably could have done better than that if I weren’t logging what I was doing as I went along.

Some tips Here are several things I learned that can help someone interested in Mechanical Turk earn more for their time.

First, it pays to be able to write comprehensible stuff quickly. If you can be given a topic and immediately begin to write something readable on that topic, you can probably do pretty well at Mechanical Turk. The two biggest earners during that hour – the service review and the piece about email marketing – mostly involved me writing off the top of my head. Of course, if you were to focus that ability towards a passion, you could build a great blog on your own that would provide your own steady revenue stream.

Second, the extremely low-cost Turk tasks aren’t worth it. If it pays less than fifty cents and takes more than a couple mouse clicks to complete, it’s not worth it. If you can’t finish a fifty cent task in less than four minutes and move on to the next one, you’re earning less than minimum wage at this.

Third, most of the tasks fit well into short breaks. I can see someone who mans a customer support line or something similar actually using Mechanical Turk to earn a bit of cash during the delays between calls. If you work at a job that has lots of short periods of downtime throughout the day, Mechanical Turk might fit well into those gaps, since the tasks mostly just take a moment or two.

Fourth, tasks that require “tests” seem to pay off. Go ahead and take that test – it seemed to unlock quite a few tasks that paid well. Obviously, they were just trying to filter out people who just wanted to throw themselves at the next available task, enter junk, and move on as fast as possible.

Another big tip: if you do take on a task in the lower price range, look at it first. Are you really going to be able to do this in a time frame short enough that you’ll actually make a reasonable wage for your time? Take my experience with the winery – it seemed, at first glance, that I would just be looking up contact information for wineries – easy enough. What they wanted, though, was a ton of data entry about wines sold at that winery – not worth the forty cents they were paying.

Finally, be patient. If you don’t see anything worthwhile available – meaning nothing that earns more than $0.50 – just hit refresh a few times. Good opportunities seem to pop up all the time, but are devoured quickly. Hitting refresh helps you get your foot in the door with better Turk tasks.

Is it worthwhile? I was genuinely surprised by the experience. If you have the ability to throw down readable writing very quickly, you can earn minimum wage with the Turk – more than I ever expected. Given the short timeframe and the wide variety of tasks available, it’s something that you can sit down and do in short little bits when it’s convenient for you.

Having said that, you can do better than minimum wage with your time. Turk earns well enough that you might be able to fill in spare moments with it – or use it as a stopgap when you’re job hunting – but approximating minimum wage isn’t a good reason to just sit at your computer and click all day. If you have the abilities to earn minimum wage at Turk over an eight hour period, you’d be much better served using that mental energy building something for yourself – a blog on a topic you’re passionate about, a healthy network of people in your field, or something similar.

For me, at least, I don’t think I’ll be returning in the future, but I could see myself using it in the right situation – for example, if I did wind up doing customer service-type work or if I was really in a serious financial pinch. I also might use it if I was bored while watching a television program with my wife – but even then, I’d much more likely spend my time on Twitter or something like that. I value my mental energy at a rate higher than minimum wage.

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, as well as the five best posts from two years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.

One Year Ago (June 28-July 4, 2008)
The Minimalist Kitchen: What You Need (and Don’t Need) to Set Up Your First Workable Home Kitchen You don’t need tons of things to cook well at home. In fact, you just need a few items – and the desire to start preparing your own food. Here’s a guide.

No Time for Frugality: Cutting Financial Corners with No Time Investment Many people claim they don’t have time to do anything to save money. In truth, we already have the time, because the best ways to save money involve just slightly tweaking what we already do.

Finding Inspiration for Financial Change What’s your motivation for making good financial choices? For some people, it’s hard to dig up a central reason, but central reasons can be powerful. Here are some ways to find inspiration for real financial change in your own life.

A Clever Trick for Automatically Finding Deals You Want at Amazon Amazon has tons of bargains, but there are so many things going on that it’s easy to lose the deals you actually want in all the noise. Here’s how to filter through all of that and find the stuff you actually want.

The Net Worth Mentality: The Road Less Traveled I often don’t know exactly how much I make. Why? I don’t worry about my paycheck – I just worry about my net worth. Here’s exactly what I mean – and why such a shift in perspective can be life-altering.

Two Years Ago (June 28-July 4, 2007)
Musings On Spending $3 On A Candy Bar This was such a humble, little, simple post, relating an experience I had with my wife and son on a rainy day. Yet, somehow, this one really struck a chord with quite a few people – it probably got me more mainstream attention than anything I’d written up to that point.

SmartMoney Magazine’s “7 Money Mistakes” – And The Simple Dollar’s “7 More Money Mistakes” This was an excellent little article in SmartMoney that I thought deserved some expansion – so I stepped up to the plate and did it myself.

Defining Minimum Acceptable Housing – And How It Varies From Person To Person What might work for minimal housing for a 23 year old single male fresh out of college is going to be vastly different than what a family of four needs. Don’t substitute other’s needs for your own – if you’re 23 and single, you don’t need a four bedroom house.

When Frugality Is Fun I’m much more likely to dive into a frugal project if it looks fun for other reasons. Take my homemade laundry detergent, for example. My wife is a chemistry teacher, so the homemade detergent became a project that we were able to dive into with gusto.

How I Made Brown Bag Lunches Work For Me Eating leftovers for lunch is a great way to save money, but many people go “Ewww…. leftovers…” Here are some ways to get around that little problem.

If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.

Eight Ways to Get More out of The Simple Dollar
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are eight great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.

1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.

2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!

3. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.

4. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.

5. Follow me on Twitter. I post tons of interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.

6. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.

7. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!

8. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!