Charlotte writes in:

I just wanted to suggest that you write about MMOs. My husband and I have been playing World of Warcraft since we were in college for about five years. We play about two hours each evening and maybe three or four hours on raid nights (two nights a week). We don’t have a television or cable or anything and we mostly read or go on walks when we’re not working or playing or sleeping and stuff. For us, it’s pretty cheap entertainment. It costs about $70 for the initial software and then $13 a month for the subscription. Considering the time spent and the deep enjoyment we get out of it, it’s a pretty nice bargain.

I’ve played World of Warcraft off and on myself since its release (for those who play, I have a level 80 hunter on Galakrond and a few other characters here and there). Much like Charlotte and her husband, when I’m actively playing, I’ll play a bit each day (to do daily quests) and then maybe one longer spell once a week (to participate in a large group raid).

It’s cost-effective. I agree that, in terms of bang for the buck, World of Warcraft is a pretty dollar-effective hobby. Let’s say a person plays for an average of one hour a day. That means the cost per hour for software and for subscription fees over the course of, say, two years is about forty cents an hour. That’s a pretty cheap hobby, any way you slice it.

It’s also an inherently social activity. In the past, World of Warcraft has enabled me to maintain friendships with people from college (one of my old friends has even called it “Facebook for fantasy geeks”) and helped me to build a few new friendships, too. A MMO like World of Warcraft is built on the idea of being social – there are lots of people playing at the same time and the players communicate with each other, often building amazingly complex social constructs.

It’s also addictive. When the most recent expansion came out, I spent several hours a day playing it for a few weeks, often staying up until late into the night playing. That’s an extremely mild case of it.

I have had friends who literally do nothing else besides work, eat, sleep, and play World of Warcraft. They’ve played ten hours a day for month after month earning achievements, building up characters, and so forth. I know one person who has lost a job and a girlfriend because of his addiction to the game. (Here’s a long thread filled with World of Warcraft addiction stories).

Why is it addictive? I think the biggest thing is that it does a great job of doling out microgoals and microrewards for those goals. If you can complete some objective that takes an hour or two, you’re given some reward – a stronger character, a better horse to ride on in the game, and so on. Since the game is inherently social, there’s also a big “keeping up with the Joneses” element to it – you want to have a character with weapons and armor and a mount and achievements that top your friends. Not only that, such games offer up engaging storylines that keep you interested in the story.

In moderation… The solution, thus, is in moderation. When played in reasonable amounts, MMOs like World of Warcraft can be a great way to relax and be social at a very inexpensive price. The problem comes in when this relaxing social activity begins to interfere with other aspects of your life – your personal relationships, your other activities and interests, your work, and so forth.

For me, I pretty strictly cap my World of Warcraft play time. I’ll go for months without playing at all (usually during the summer months when I’d rather be outside) and play more in the winter, but during those winter months I balance my gameplay with other activities. For me, the surest sign that things are out of balance is if I find myself making little progress in other areas of my life.

If you can’t keep things in balance, you have an addiction. If you find yourself spending the majority of your free time playing, you have an addiction. You are far better off just deleting the game from your computer and walking away from it than letting your life’s energy be sucked away into a computer game. Don’t let it happen. Check out WoW Detox, uninstall the game, and find something else to do with your life’s energy.

Right now, I’m looking outside at the nice weather and at the books on my bedside table. I think I’ll uninstall World of Warcraft for the summer while I finish up this post and re-install it again in the late fall, maybe when the next game expansion comes out. It’s an inexpensive, fun hobby, but it’s just that – one little element in a well-balanced life.

One of the fun things about being a parent is introducing your child to some of the things that built your own fondest memories of a child. Sometimes they react with indifference. Sometimes with a smile.

And sometimes, like with the old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie, they react with pure delight.

Busting the Myths: Why Coupons Are a Valuable Part of Your Financial Arsenal I’m a big believer in food coupons, particularly non-food ones. They really help with saving money, particularly if you hold onto them and make them overlap with store sales. (@ get rich slowly)

Focus and self control at the heart of uncluttering and productivity A few days ago on Twitter, I said “Only one thing really determines success at anything in life: control over your thoughts and impulses.” The more control and focus you have, the more likely you are to succeed at anything. (@ unclutterer)

Four Huge Pitfalls of “Lifestyle Design” I think the idea of “lifestyle design” as it is commonly bandied about is a bit over the top. The life that’s really worth designing isn’t one where you have some vague business that mints money for you – that almost never happens. Instead, just find things in your work and in your life that bring you joy regardless of the “rules” others put out for you. That’s lifestyle design. (@ erica douglass)

Suggestions For Women Seeking a Raise This is another problem that will gradually go by the wayside as more and more people enter the workforce and see that gender doesn’t really mean too much when it comes to doing pretty much anything in the modern workplace. (@ consumerism commentary)

The Ten Worst Money Mistakes Anyone Can Make This is one of those excellent “primer” personal finance pieces that pop up everyon once in a while. (@ free money finance)

Over the years, I’ve made a strong case for abandoning television watching as a good move for financial and career success. Not only does television offer up a lot of advertisements glorifying unnecessary material stuff and rampant consumerism, but many programs glorify it through product placement within the programs. Many programs solely exist to promote an expensive materialist lifestyle as well. Add on top of that the amount of otherwise productive time devoured by television watching and you have a strong case for doing without.

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly been paring down my television watching. I’ve stopped channel surfing, only turning on the television to watch specific programs. I’ve gradually pared down the number of programs I regularly watch.

As of May 1, I have ceased all television watching at home (excepting Lost, which ends for good this Sunday). This coincided pretty conveniently with the birth of our third child.

What exactly does this mean? Here are a few of the consequences of doing this.

I have plenty of time for other projects. Of course, I’m not directly seeing the time benefit yet as I’m spending a lot of time holding the baby and also playing with our two older children. The biggest impact I’ve seen is that I’ve managed to add this third child to my life without really reducing time spent on other hobbies and activities.

I don’t want “stuff” at all. I have no interest in new cars. I have no interest in whatever new food product is out there. I have no interest in great new home decor or furnishings or countless other things like this. The only things I can think of that I even want at all right now are a couple of items for the kitchen to aid with cooking, a few books, and eventually some sort of tablet computer to aid with notetaking in a wide variety of situations. That’s it. The absence of television leads to the near-absence of want.

I might not be culturally “up to date” – but I really don’t care. I don’t feel bad that I’m unaware who won Survivor or who’s still left on American Idol. Yes, conversations have come up that I’m clueless about, but I’ve still been able to participate. How? I simply say, “I don’t watch that program, but…” and then I ask a question about it. The person I ask almost always is very happy to answer the question and enjoys being the expert on the topic. My ignorance is a conversation builder.

Our cable bill won’t drop as much as it might seem on the surface. Our cable provider advertises our package as costing $55 a month. However, we get a package that includes high speed internet, phone service, and cable all together. Downgrading to the internet and phone package only drops our monthly bill by about $20 a month, so the savings isn’t that much. Even if we just keep the internet (which is a work-related need for me), the drop is only about $45 a month.

In short, I’m happy with the choice, even if it won’t save me as much directly as it might have seemed. I’m happy because of the secondary effects – the lack of cultural awareness wasn’t the hindrance I expected while the extra time has been wonderful.

Archie writes in:

In our marriage, my wife and I have agreed not to open financial statements addressed to each other. We supposedly did this so that we would be able to hide things like gift purchases from each other. Whenever we talked about our finances, we just talked about balances on accounts and didn’t worry about individual items on each other’s bills.

Over the last few years, I’d noticed more and more bills from various banks sent to my wife, but I hadn’t really thought too much about it. Yesterday, we received a call from someone from Citi who wanted to speak to my wife about her account and made it clear that the account was overdrawn and past due.

I was frustrated and worried, so I dug through the mail and found her most recent statement from Citi, which was unopened. I opened it. She had a balance of over $7,500 on it. I was just shocked, so I opened some of the other statements with her name on it that I could find. From just what I could gather in a few minutes, I found that she has $30,000 at least in credit card debt.

I put all of the statements in my bedside table for now. I don’t know what to do next. We certainly don’t have $30,000 to pay these off right now and even the minimum payments are difficult. It looks like my wife has been juggling accounts a lot because there aren’t many payments on our recent bank statements.

What do I do next? I don’t know what to do and I’m afraid of the big fight we’re going to have.

I originally included Archie’s note in my reader mailbag for this week, but I had enough to say about his situation (and I figured readers would, too) that I decided to devote a whole article to it.

First of all, this isn’t just about your discovery of the credit card debt. There has been a long history of dishonesty here – and that’s what I would call it, dishonesty. Marriage is a union based on trust and $30,000 in credit card debt is a pretty strong violation of that trust. It is going to take a lot of work to dig out of that debt.

In short, my suggestion would be that you seek marriage counseling, first and foremost. You’re in a situation now where you’ve both violated the trust in the marriage – your wife has been hiding tens of thousands of dollars in debt and you’ve opened up private correspondence to her. You have a perfectly good reason to feel that your trust has been violated and to feel upset. So does your wife.

This means your marriage has some very serious trust issues that you need to work through in order to be able to move forward successfully with a financial plan.

Why? A financial plan in a marriage only works if you can fully trust one another. You need to be able to trust that your partner is actually working towards the same goals with the same methods as you are and that if either of you run into trouble, you’ll work it out together. If you can’t trust each other, then a financial plan cannot work.

The first order of action, then, is to re-establish the trust.

If you’ve reached a point where you feel that you can trust each other again, then turn your eyes to your financial situation. View the past as water under the bridge; instead, focus on where you’re at now and how you can make your situation better from your current position. What-ifs don’t help with the here and now.

The first step to recovery would be a mutual commitment to spend less than you earn. Remember, of course, that part of your required spending is the debt repayment and also remember that you (as a couple) are spending far beyond your means (witness the $30,000 in credit card debts). Thus, this will be a lot harder than you might think. This step will take some serious work on its own. You’ll both have to face your spending head-on and make some difficult choices. But you have to get that spending under control.

Second, you need to create a debt repayment plan. A debt repayment plan is easy to set up and helps you develop an orderly method for paying your debts down.

Finally, and most importantly, the two of you need to discuss goals together. What do you want for your mutual future? Where do you see yourselves in five years or ten years or twenty years? What exactly will it take to get there? Obviously, getting control over your spending and getting rid of your debts are two big steps, but those are just two steps. You need to work together to figure out what comes next and how to get there.

Good luck.

A comment I saw recently on the Bucks blog over at the New York Times really stuck in my head. In a post about Americans spending less and less time shopping for a mortgage, CG said:

Why is this a surprise to anyone? You USE a car. You USE a house. That’s what you spend the time shopping for. You don’t USE a mortgage. The mortgage or the car financing is just the means to get it. You can’t put the top down on the mortgage and drive it around.

He’s got a very good point. In our day-to-day life, we don’t see debt itself. We see a house. We see a car. We see a meal. We see a job. The only time we interact with our debt is that time once a month when we pay our bills – and sometimes, when the billing is automatic, we don’t even do that.

Instead, every single day, we see the effects of debt. We go to work at the highest-paying job, which is often not the job we would enjoy the most. We live in a location that isn’t where we would necessarily choose. We’re stressed out over our work and our social life and our appearance.

The problem is that many people don’t recognize – or don’t want to recognize – the effects of their debt.

We don’t connect job stress to overspending, even though they’re deeply connected.

We don’t connect the little painful choices we have to make each day to our overspending and debt in other areas.

We don’t connect our distance from family and old friends to our need for financial success.

A person who has made the “hard” choice to be debt free and to conserve some of their money has many, many more options available to them than the person who doesn’t.

How do they get there?

They USE a car, but that car is a used one, usually paid for in cash saved up from making lots of little financial choices.

They USE a home, but that home doesn’t have to be shiny and new. It’s also got a smaller mortgage, one that can be paid off much more quickly.

They USE their kitchen using functional low-cost equipment to make great meals at home instead of using it as a decorative element in their house and going out to eat all the time.

They actually use their stuff instead of admiring it or luxuriating in it. For that, they avoid debt and have freedoms in life that most people just dream of.

When you look at the stuff around you, think about what you can actually do with it, and also think about the cost of it. The more critical thought you actually apply to your world, the more likely it is that you’ll start looking the right way and wind up building the life you want.

I’m in a pretty competitive fantasy baseball league this year. During our draft, I made the most controversial pick, drafting Stephen Strasburg (who has yet to make his major league debut) with my fifth pick in the draft.

He has been utterly unhittable in the minors. Every day, I get up and look at the sports news, wondering if the Nationals have called Strasburg up yet. Every day, so far, I’m disappointed.

My team is solid without him, riding in fifth place in a sixteen team league. But it’s painful to know that my fifth pick is that good, but he’s not helping me at all yet.

Please, Washington, bring him up!

I’m in a bind. I’m twenty years old and had a plan to spend the summer studying in Jordan but a lack of preparation on my part left me with no way to pay for it–so, I’m spending the summer with my parents. I seem to have literally all the time in the world–with no worries about room and board, how can i improve my life in three months? What would you do to focus and improve your existence with so much time and so little pressing responsibility?
- Fernando

If I were you, I’d spend the summer focused on completing a large, high-quality project of your own choosing in whatever your field of interest is. Devote fifty or sixty hours a week (at least) to it, building your skills up along the way.

Spend a week or so figuring out exactly what you want to do so you can clearly state what you want to complete and develop a plan for getting there. Plus, you’ll want to also know if it’s something that you can bring that much passion to.

It could be anything from producing a creative work to starting a charity – or countless other things. Just focus on bringing it to completion and make sure it’s something that’s going to really stretch you and make you work to get there.

When you’re finished, share it! Make a website about it and put it online. Add it to your resume.

I was hoping for your advice regarding the topic. I am an attorney. Should I blog about something I am interested in (sports) or something I may know more about (the law). Of course, I am also interested in various legal topics as well, but I have a greater interest in sports, although I have no expertise in that area.
- Bruce

The best topic for a blog has three elements: you’re interested in it, you have some particular knowledge or experience to share about it, and other people will want to read it. The last one varies a lot in importance depending on your goal with blogging.

If I were you, I’d start with a topic you’re passionate about – probably the sports one. I’d try writing some blog posts, then I’d read them and ask yourself whether you, as a reader, would have any reason to read this instead of, say, Deadspin.

Basically, what you’ll be doing is cultivating a voice – a unique perspective on the topic at hand that others will be interested enough to read. I have a “voice” on The Simple Dollar – it’s very earnest and conversational and family-oriented and speaks heavily from personal experience.

I am 74 years old and have been a nurse for 40 years I have been employed. I have had a business – small assisted living for elderly. My husband and I have had 3 business devistating things happen to us thus took our nest egg and now find ourselves living from social security check to social security check. We are still paying a home mortgage and had borrowed equity on that. We have only $16,000 left in a mutual fund, with a $75,000 mortgage to pay and $1400 in SS income. My husband will be 80 and still works at a job 2 days a week simply because he has to. I have become disabled. We do not know how to manage this situation. Do you have any ideas?
- Norma

You have to immediately get your monthly spending below your monthly income. If that means selling your home, that’s what you’re going to have to do.

Find a small apartment, perhaps in low-income housing. Start using services like the local food pantry for your food needs. Sell your car – there are often services that will help you get to any medical appointments if you need it.

What you’re sadly facing is the reality of a society that chooses to neither take care of the elderly nor make it possible for lower-income folks to build security in their golden years.

I found a federal credit union (Aspire Federal Credit Union) that pays 3.5 % on checking, and 2.5 % on your linked savings. You have to make 12 debit cards transactions a month to get the rate, which putting gas in each car, and buying grocerries, I can easily do. You have to make one automatic payment and get e-statements. It has the NCUA seal, but what other way can I verify this bank, before I open an account?

I thought about opening both, but keeping most of the money in checking for the higher rate. We are debt free, and finally have an emergency fund and cash saved for taxes. We’re now starting to save for our next car. I track savings with an excel spreadsheet. I love the idea of smarty pig, but this higher interest rate is very attractive! Any thoughts?
- Cheryl

Aspire Federal Credit Union is a closed union, meaning you have to be an employee of one of the organizations that participate in that union (or a partner of an employee).

This is one of the reasons why “rate hopping” can be really time consuming. A lot of the offers are limited or restricted in some way, so you often have to look at several offers before you find one you’re eligible for and isn’t restricted in some way that makes it difficult for you to earn the rate.

As for the “you have to use the debit card X times to get the rate,” I simply don’t like it. It puts a behavioral requirement on my spending – I have to spend enough times each month using that card in order to make it worthwhile. I don’t want to waste my time keeping track of it or have to remind myself to use it to buy a pack of gum I don’t really need to make sure I hit my number of transactions for the month.

I have tried to do some careful calculations about buying used vs new … but one of the difficult factors is that buying the used car saves (purchase price) money in the short run — but you have to buy a replacement sooner; so how do we deal with the money saved by buying used? I’m really thinking about total value of my investments: if I spend $25 k for a car, that is gone, forever. If I spend only $20k, I keep $5 k in the money pot, but I have to draw out another $20 k sooner than I would have if I’d bought a new car.
- Tony

The general belief is that after buying new, there’s a rapid depreciation period right after the purchase. In other words, a new $20,000 car immediately depreciates to $15,000 (or so) as soon as you drive it off the lot.

Because of that quick initial depreciation, the argument usually is that the best bang for the buck is in late model used cars, where the actual wear on the car hasn’t caught up to that huge initial depreciation yet.

Now, whether that belief is entirely true is a long source of argument. Many cars – Hondas, for example – simply don’t depreciate much when they’re driven off the lot.

Another factor that pushes people towards used is that it’s a lot easier to come up with the cash to buy an $8,000 used car than it is to pay cash for a $25,000 new car. If you have to take out a loan on a car, that’s a losing proposition no matter whether it’s new or used.

My belief is that if you have the cash in hand and have done the research, you should simply buy what’s best for you based on the factors you’re looking for.

What are your thoughts on the Move Your Money project?
- Justin

Move Your Money is a political group encouraging people to move their money out of the large “too big to fail” banks and into smaller community banks and credit unions.

I’m completely fine with this type of protest against the actions of large businesses. It’s a great form of protest and protest is an important part of a thriving society.

Would I participate in it? No. The banks are just doing what they should be doing to survive and thrive. If their behavior is seen as detrimental to the public, then there needs to be more banking regulations. Thus, if I were outraged, I would be putting my effort towards getting people in office who will truly work for better banking regulations.

I expect a business to operate within the law and within their agreements with customers. The banks did that. The problem is that the law and their customer agreements made for behavior by the banks that, viewed on the whole, many people find distasteful. The solution there is to change the law and/or to change the customer agreements. Since I have the power to choose whether to sign such an agreement, I think the real place for activism is changing the law.

About a year and a half ago my husband (45 y.o.) was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition that will require him to take a medication daily for the rest of his life that is astronomically expensive….around $8,000.00 per month. Due to his health insurance, we just pay a co-pay of $50–yes, we feel incredibly blessed! His prognosis is good as long as this medication continues to work as well as it has been. My question is this: is he “stuck” at his current job for the rest of his life (assuming they want to keep him)? For a multitude of reasons, he would like to look around for some other job but we’re not sure how the insurance thing would play out. He is the sole breadwinner and being without his salary and insurance for even a short amount of time is really not an option. We realize that given the current state of our health care/insurance system, you may not know the answer to this, but thought it was worth it to ask your advice. We really don’t who else to ask about this as he obviously can’t go in to his HR person at work and ask her!
- Laurie

Obviously, a major criteria for any job change would be insurance. Would you be guaranteed entry into the insurance program at the new workplace? If he’s applying elsewhere, he needs to figure out the exact insurance benefits before moving (and maybe even before interviewing or applying).

The question you need to be asking isn’t at your current workplace, but at the workplace that you might move to.

Again, as mentioned above, this situation points to some societal problems that could be solved if people of lots of different political stripes would actually sit down at the table and solve problems together.

As a U.S. citizen, if I live abroad, and do not work for a u.s. company or
hold property in the u.s. do I still have to pay taxes to the U.S.
government?
- Parth

As a citizen, you do need to file your taxes. However, you probably don’t have to pay any taxes.

The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion basically is meant for people like you. It basically says that money earned in your situation is excluded from federal income tax.

Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t file your taxes – you still have to do that as a citizen. Instead, you basically file with an enormous deduction that reduces your tax bill to zero.

I’m a 20 year old college student, and I still have a piggy bank full of coins from when I was much younger. So far I’ve really only kept it for some sort of sentimental value, but I feel like I should be able to do something better than just having it sit there at this point (even though it’s only about $10). What would you suggest doing with the money?

Also I have some coins saved from when they were doing the 50 states quarters and $1 Sacajawea gold coins. Will these increase in value in the years to come or are these only for coin collectors (a related question: is a “two dollar” bill worth more than $2 since it’s now rare)? My dad is the coin collector in the family and although I sometimes find it nice to look at all the different coins, I’m not sure it’s worth it to keep them just for the sake of having them. What would you suggest? Again, in all I probably only have around $10 from these coins.
- Alaina

You’re talking about very small sums of money in both cases. With the change, putting it in a savings account that earns 1% means you’ll earn a dime for every year it sits in the account. That’s not a stellar return, but it’s a better return than it would earn sitting in your piggy bank.

The same largely holds true for the other money. The state quarters may have a small premium value if you can find a buyer, but there are so many sets in circulation that their premium value is extremely limited. The $2 bills aren’t nearly as rare as people think – they’re still being actively printed, but people often snatch them up and hoard them under the false impression they’re rare. You’ll likely only be able to sell them for more than $2 if you find a mark.

In short, you’ve basically got the cash value you see. With that small amount, I’d just put it in a savings account and let it be.

This year I got serious about punching out my debt. I have (gulp) a nearly 24 percent car note with a balance of $12,700. My car payment is $486 and starting June 1, I will be putting an extra $390 or $800 per month (depending on the pay period) towards reducing this debt. This debt is my number one priority as the interest rate is appalling!

What suggestions do you have regarding my plan?
- Tara

I would absolutely not do your consolidation – you’ll regret it big time over the long run. Right now, the effective interest rate on your two student loans is 3.51%. With every extra payment you make on the higher interest loan, your effective interest rate goes down. Compared to the 3.85% interest rate on your consolidated loan, your consolidation is a bad deal. The only reason to consolidate is if you can’t make your current monthly payments (which doesn’t sound true) or you’re concerned that your rate is going up in the next couple years (not very likely, either). If I were you, I wouldn’t consolidate.

As for your retirement, if your employer doesn’t offer any matching, you’re better off putting money into a Roth IRA than into that 401(k). A Roth IRA uses after-tax money, which means you won’t have to pay taxes on any withdrawals come retirement age. Better yet, you have the choice of which company you want to manage your Roth – you’re not just stuck with your employer’s choice for a 401(k) partner. I use Vanguard for my Roth and I love it.

If I were you, I’d just pay down all of your debts in order of their current interest rate, throwing as much cash into them as possible. If a rate adjusts, that might adjust your priority for payment, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag. However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

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

Contemporary culture constantly seems to push us to blame others. It’s the Republicans’ fault! It’s the liberals’ fault! It’s the art department’s fault! It’s your brother’s fault!

Guess what? Casting blame on others doesn’t solve any problems. It’s simply the path of least resistance – when there’s a complex problem, it’s easier to sit back and blame others than to do the hard work of trying to actually solve the problem or, even more painful, look at ourselves as the source of the problem.

That’s pretty much the idea behind QBQ by John Miller. QBQ is short for the Question Behind the Question. The book’s subtitle spells things out: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life.

The idea behind the book is that if you take every negative aspect of your life and reformulate it into a question or statement with you as the subject that describes what you did or didn’t do to lead to that negative situation, then you’re taking a big first step towards identifying what you can actually do to make the situation better. It puts the action imperative on you, which is good because, in the end, you’re the only person who can control what you do.

This book is divided into a lot of small chapters, so rather than reviewing each one, I’m just going to pull out some of the big, useful principles from this book.

Modeling is the most powerful of all teachers. Finding a mentor and modeling yourself after that mentor is simply the best way to improve yourself in your preferred field. Look for the person that is both liked and respected by everyone around him or her while also producing amazing work and then make an effort to emulate what they do. Don’t be afraid to ask them for ideas or suggestions or how exactly their workflow goes.

Stop trying to change others – change yourself, instead. It is extremely ineffective to make your peers change. If you want change to happen in the workplace or in your personal life, you have to take those steps yourself. End some relationships. Take the initiative. Start some new relationships. You have to make the change.

Accountable, successful people blame no one – not even themselves. When something goes wrong, it’s easy to start tossing out blame. Someone else messed up, right, so let’s blame them! In truth, placing blame is usually a waste of time. Instead, you’re much more likely to get the resolution you want by contributing to the solution to the problem.

Whenever you’re faced with a situation, question it by asking “what” or “how,” not “why,” “when,” or “who.” Saying “why,” “when,” and “who” simply lead to placing blame, not to solving the problem. Instead, when you’re faced with a challenging situation, ask questions that start with “what” or “how.” The answers to these questions actually provide useful information that lead to the resolution of the problem.

Contain an “I” in that question (not “they,” “them,” “we,” or “you”). “What can I do to help?” is almost always a great question to ask when you run into a problem. It leads directly to solving that problem without casting blame on the people around you.

Focus on action above all else. Passing along blame is passive – it doesn’t lead to any sort of resolution to the problem at hand. Instead, focus on action – what is it that you can actually do to solve this problem? The more directly you come to anwering that question, the better off you’ll be.

Don’t be a victim. If things are constantly going wrong in your life “because of other people,” you may need to step back and re-evaluate the situation. Is it the other people, or is it because you allow yourself to be a victim. Take charge of the situations around you. Work hard on what you need to work on and don’t worry about whether other people are doing their job. Don’t be a victim – don’t waste your energy blaming other people for your problems.

Communicate better – if you don’t understand them, it’s likely they don’t understand you. If a message is not being made clear, you may need to look at yourself instead of at the people around you. You can always improve your own communication by working to make your message more clear and making sure that you understand the messages you’re receiving.

The referee doesn’t win or lose the game. Blaming the rules of the situation isn’t a good choice, either. Your reaction shouldn’t be to blame the rules and then withdraw. You should instead try to figure out the best strategy to success within the rules then take action to make sure you follow through on that strategy.

Is QBQ! Worth Reading?
This is an excellent book for someone who is “in transition” to read. I think that if you’re a person who naturally blames others for all of their problems, this book won’t be of much help to you. Similarly, if you’re a person who naturally looks for ways to personally solve problems that occur and better yourself through those solutions, this book won’t teach you anything new.

It’s those people in the middle that really should read this one, people who have begun a journey of introspection and personal growth after realizing that the world is not out to get them and that they have the ability to create their own destiny instead of just blaming others and waiting for their ship to come in.

If you’re in that middle group, this is a fantastic read. It does a great job of discussing specific ways of interpreting situations around you and determining what you can do to make them better. Such processes benefit your professional, financial, and personal lives in countless ways every day.

I have three kids under the age of five at home. I have a fairly demanding writing career, a marriage to maintain, a home to maintain, several community responsibilities, and a handful of personal hobbies that are very important to me.

Where do I find the time and energy?

Over the last few years, I’ve found that doing a handful of little things each day – usually early in the day – make a dramatic difference in how my day goes, from my physical energy level to my ability to focus, think, and cope with unexpected problems. When I made a list of them, I wound up with nine ideas that just simply work for me in terms of making each day simply work.

I found these ideas from a variety of sources – suggestions from friends, books, magazine articles, blogs. I don’t know where each one came from originally; I just know they work for me.

I don’t lounge in bed. When my eyes open up, I don’t stay in bed, no matter how much I might want to. Lounging in bed makes me very lethargic in the morning. Instead, I usually sit up, stretch, and immediately go do something.

I do a very short but very intense exercise routine. I do three sets of pushups and three sets of squats. For each exercise, I do as many as I can as quickly as I can until they become difficult – I’m breathing hard or my muscles are sore. I stop for thirty seconds, then I do a second set. Thirty seconds, then a third set. It takes eight to ten minutes, but I feel fantastic after a cooldown.

I read something challenging early in the morning. For me, some strong mental activity as early as possible in the day really gets my wheels spinning for the many things I’ll be tackling throughout the day. I usually read something really challenging; sometimes, I’ll do logic puzzles or crosswords as well.

When I take a mental break, I go on a walk of decent length. This literally gets my juices flowing. Getting up and moving around almost always causes my mind to start working faster as well and when I return to my desk, I’m ready to tackle something new.

I often jump to something completely different several times during the day. If I do the same exact task for hours and hours, my performance starts to drop at about the three hour mark. Because of that, I just switch tasks to something completely different a few times a day. I’ll stop writing and do some piano practice. I’ll spend an hour making an elegant meal in advance of supper. I’ll go to the library. These shifts in activity bring my mind back to focus.

I play with my children, not just watch them as I do other things. I spend at least an hour a day playing directly with my kids, down on the floor with them. Not only is this great for them and great for parent-child bonding, it’s also great for me because few things refresh my mental capacities than an hour spent building castles or playing hide and seek without any self-consciousness at all.

I consciously tell myself to be happy when I feel less than happy. If I start to feel down about myself or about something in my environment, I focus intensely on feeling happier about my life. I look at the positives, listen to happy music, and make myself put on the appearance of being happy for others. It almost always lifts my mood after a while.

I take a long shower and vigorously scrub. Few things genuinely make me feel better and more prepared for the world than a long shower in which I vigorously scrub myself down. I think this effect is strongly related to the known psychological responses to hand washing – it makes you more decisive and creates more of a “clean slate” for your decisions.

I unitask. Unless I’m doing something that really doesn’t require much focus at all (like playing a computer game while listening to NPR), multitasking is a net negative for me. The total time spent multitasking usually winds up being greater than the time spent doing each task individually and sequentially. Even more important, though, the results are much better if I single-task instead of multi-tasking. Shut off the distractions and win.