This past week, I was fairly irked by a tweet by a high-profile Twitter denizen that basically said “you’re a loser if you’ve ever cut your own hair.”

Simply put, it’s another perpetuation of the idea that somehow frugality is uncool.

So, let’s start out with a confession.

Hi. My name is Trent. I have a wife and three children. I live a pretty normal life. Over the past fifteen years or so, I’ve cut my own hair at least a few dozen times. Really.

I don’t really think it’s “cool” to go to a salon or a barbershop and wait for long periods. I don’t think it’s particularly “awesome” to spend $15 minimum to have someone else use a pair of scissors when I’m fully capable of doing it myself.

As a fully functional human being, I’m quite capable of standing in front of the bathroom mirror and using hair clippers and scissors to make my hair look decent.

Yeah, I’ve had others cut my hair sometimes, usually when I want it to look well-styled for family pictures or a wedding. I can see needing such treatment if you’re a model and there’s financial benefit in having a stunning hairstyle.

Me? Last I checked, I’m not a model. I want to look good and presentable each day, but you know what? I can easily accomplish that with clippers and scissors and five minutes in front of a mirror.

If handing my cash and my time to someone else to do something I can easily do myself makes me “uncool,” then that’s a badge I don’t mind wearing.

That’s not to say that I think haircuts are useless. Many people get a self-esteem boost from a nice haircut. Others deeply enjoy the tactile sensation of a good haircut. If that’s the case for you and you have some disposable income, sure, enjoy yourself!

Me? I don’t really feel better after a haircut save for the sensation of not having hair in my eyes. I’m actually not much of a fan at all of people prodding and poking on my head or using sharp scissors near my ear while they’re watching television or chatting with someone. I’ll do that myself, thank you.

Let me step back and make a grander statement.

If your reason for doing something – anything at all in your life – largely ends with “that’s what people do” or “that’s what people I look up to do,” that’s an awful reason for doing it.

If you use that philosophy honestly in evaluating your life, you’re going to end up leading a great life by anyone’s standards because you’re living by what’s actually important to you rather than by the offhand comments of someone you don’t even know.

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.

1. Sarah
This past week, my wife Sarah gave so much of herself that I was simply amazed, even though it’s just par for the course for her. She gave me a long hug and a pep talk when I felt down. She played a seemingly endless game with Dragonball action figures with our son. She scheduled an entire day to spend with a person who wanted to “shadow” her at work to learn more about teaching. She calmed our infant son in the middle of the night when he had an earache. She prepared an amazing meal plan for two different sets of houseguests. She picked out a perfect faucet to replace our broken one in the children’s bathroom. She held our daughter after the little one woke up from a bad dream.

She’s a whirlwind of energy and ideas and wonder in my life, every single week, and most of them involve giving of herself to others. It’s a daily inspiration just to try to keep up with her.

2. Egyptian protests
Regardless of the long term outcome of what happens in Egypt, I am always awed by the power of a large group of people who work together with a common voice. Something needed to change, and the people there have certainly caused change. I hope that the future holds a positive outcome for the people and nation of Egypt, but regardless of what happens, the determination of the people in Cairo is impressive.

3. S. W. Straus on thrift and character
Thrift is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character. – S. W. Straus

Straus was a Chicago investment banker in the early twentieth century who was an enormous proponent of being thrifty as a tool to improve your financial state. Here, he sums up something I’ve been feeling about frugality for a long time, that it has more to do with your character than anything. If a person has enough backbone to avoid all of the temptations of modern life and spend significantly less than they bring in, then that person is probably worthy of attention.

4. Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie
Mondrian’s art is something that I never really “got.” I would see it in art galleries and art books, look at it, shrug my shoulders, and move on.

One of my old friends, though, is a huge fan of Mondrian’s work, using it as her avatar on various social networking sites. Recently, she switched her avatar to this one and, for some reason, it just clicked with me.

There’s something about this painting that seems very alive to me, like there’s a huge amount of energy right under the surface, like I almost expect the lines to start moving because they’re holding back so much energy. Given the title – which I didn’t even realize until recently – I think that’s what the painter intended.

5. A good night’s sleep
In my opinion, the single biggest challenge of being the parents of young children is the lack of sleep. Between our five year old, our three year old, and our baby (who currently has an ear infection), most nights are interrupted by crying, a bad dream, a wet bed, or something similar.

This, of course, can result in some awfully tired parents during the day. I’ve truly come to appreciate good nights of sleep and I know that on days after I sleep well, I tend to amp up the productivity, focusing on getting things done above all else.

A good night’s sleep makes all the difference.

6. Michelangelo on hard work
If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

It’s worth noting that every person we think of as being great at something alomst always had to work what we would consider to be an insane amount at it to become great. Malcolm Gladwell estimates that the time investment for greatness is 10,000 hours of practice.

The thing that always comes to mind for me is that Kobe Bryant’s offseason workouts require him to make 1,000 baskets. Not attempt. Make. Every day. That’s why I’ll never be as good at basketball as Kobe, but I can certainly be inspired to work harder at the things that do matter to me.

7. Simone Dinnerstein on … many things
Simone Dinnerstein is the pianist who recorded one of my favorite albums of the last several years. This short interview of her (mixed with pieces of her playing) covers a lot of interesting topics at once.

My favorite part was her noting that becoming a parent caused her to wake up in regards to figuring out how to use her musical gifts and passions as the basis for a career. I strongly identify with that sentiment, though there are many other interesting elements going on here.

8. Chess videos on YouTube
Over the past week, I’ve started the first baby steps of teaching my five year old how to play chess. This has been a very enjoyable experience thus far, but I’ve been grasping for ways to teach anything beyond just how the pieces move.

So I went to Youtube, and I found the wonderful videos of chessvideos.

This is exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for when teaching my son some of the nuances of chess. He largely understands how the pieces move around. My challenge is to keep him interested via enthusiasm and also help him to feel like he’s improving but do that in a way that he understands.

Many of the concepts of this video are still over my son’s head, but such videos have helped me greatly as I teach my son and keep him excited about using his mind.

9. Peter Lynch summarizes my feelings on investment advisors
“In this business if you’re good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right nine times out of ten.” – Peter Lynch

For those of you who don’t know who Peter Lynch is, he had perhaps the single best run as a mutual fund manager of anyone ever during the 1980s. He managed Fidelity’s Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, earning a 29.2% average annual return during that period. Simply put, he’s probably the best stock picker of the modern period.

Lynch directly says that the best stock pickers get only six out of ten picks right, and that much better than that is flatly impossible. To find someone even that good – good enough to get six out of ten right – you have to search, have a lot of money to invest, and have some luck, too.

On the other hand, you could just easily get five out of ten by investing in an index fund – and pay a lot less in fees, to boot.

I love how the best stock picker of them all makes a pretty solid case for not putting your money with stock pickers.

10. Piano solo of “Clocks” by Coldplay
My great piano teacher, Diana Helmer (who really needs a website of her own!), helped me make several breakthroughs on my piano solo of this song. Over the last few days, I’ve just been returning to the keyboard over and over to master the parts I now understand.

Each week, I’ll present a low-cost meal (or a meal that demonstrates a lot of options for cutting costs) that my family eats for dinner and enjoys. Many of the recipes will be vegan or vegetarian, with options to add other ingredients for non-vegetarians.

We live in Iowa. This winter has been a long one and, for the past week or two, incredibly cold. Of course, that means we’ve been cooking a lot of warm, hearty winter meals recently.

One of my favorites among these is what we call “anything” soup. Simply put, it’s a simple soup where we add “anything” we have on hand to make it more delicious. We have, on occasion, made it with a stone in the pot, which is a very fun thing to do with children in the tradition of the classic children’s book Stone Soup.

This recipe is stunningly easy.

What You Need
You don’t really need anything other than what you find in your cupboard. If you have an extra tomato left over, perfect. Extra potatoes? Perfect! Spices in the cupboard? Perfect? An extra carrot or stalk of celery? Perfect! Onions? Perfect! Spinach? Perfect! Beans? Perfect!

Here’s some of the stuff we had on hand.

We had barley, rice, and some dried split peas in the cupboard.

We have a leftover onion, a leftover tomato, and some carrots and celery for other recipes that won’t require all of those vegetables.

We also had some soy sauce in the fridge. Interestingly, we’ve discovered that many kinds of beef bullion are just spice mixes, containing no meat at all, so we’re using a bit of that, too.

The Night Before (or Early That Day)
The only thing you might need to do is that if you’re using dry beans, you could put them in water and allow them to soak overnight and throughout the next day.

Preparing the Meal
We started off by getting the liquid hot. In our case, the base of the soup is our homemade vegetable stock, which we’ve frozen and are now quickly thawing (hence the large stock “ice cubes” floating in this picture).

For your liquid, you can use pretty much anything – beef broth, water with some bullion in it, chicken broth, whatever you’ve got on hand or can find for cheap.

Next, once the soup is up to a boil, we just add ingredients according to their cooking times. Usually, this means starting with beans, adding barley and such a bit later, and eventually putting in vegetables. Check the boiling time for vegetables online using Google if you’re unsure – follow the directions on the package for beans, barley, macaroni, and the like.

Once it’s done, toss some crackers in it and enjoy!

What I’ve found is that as long as you stick to vegetables you like, you can almost never go wrong with this soup. It’s pretty much impossible to really mess this up. Whatever you come up with will be good – sometimes it will be great, and other times sublime.

Optional Ingredients
It’s “anything” soup, so you can put anything in it. Chicken, ground beef, leftover steak pieces, sausage – all of it is just fine for “anything” soup.

This is a spectacular way to use “miscellaneous” leftovers on a cold winter day.

In October, due to some medical results and the encouragement of a dietitian, I made the choice to switch to a vegan diet (with the minor exception of occasional fish consumption) for the time being. A vegan diet simply means that I avoid meat and all animal products, which would include milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, and so forth. In fact, this dietary change (and the subsequent questions from readers) led to my ongoing Friday afternoon series on what to have for a frugal and healthy dinner.

The big question that I often get from readers (besides the inevitable “what do you eat, then?”) is whether or not my diet is inexpensive. There seems to be a perception out there that eating such a diet would be quite pricy.

So, let’s address these questions.

What do I eat?
The best way to do this is to just summarize what types of things I consume at each meal.

Breakfast items include: fruit, oatmeal, cold cereal (with almond milk), a fruit smoothie, a breakfast burrito (made with beans and really finely diced tofu), toast, and bagels.

Lunch items usually include: leftovers, bean and rice burritos, salads of all kinds, sandwiches, and lots of different kinds of soups. Honestly, it’s usually just leftovers.

Supper items usually include: a starter salad, pasta with various tomato-based sauces, stir fry, curry, ratatouille, grilled portobello mushrooms, chilis or other thick and heavy soups and stews (one of which I’ll post this afternoon), and usually some sort of vegetable on the side and fruit on the side.

Snacks include nuts (lots of nuts, actually), pieces of fruit, date bars, fruit smoothies, pita chips, hummus, and salsa.

These items just scratch the surface. There’s a ton of variety out there once you start exploring what kinds of vegan foods are available.

I should note that I often eat four smaller meals a day now rather than three, and I snack a bit in between them. I usually eat a mid-afternoon meal at about three or four (often with a cup of tea… perhaps I’m secretly British).

At first, this diet was very hard to adjust to. Rather than focusing on what I could have, I kept thinking about what I couldn’t have. I thought about cheese. I thought about steak. I thought about milk.

Over time, though, I moved to thinking about all of the stuff I could have and sought out things within that group that I enjoyed. Salsa. Beans. Grilled mushrooms. Fruit smoothies.

That mental shift made this entire diet easier. I grew to really appreciate the things that I enjoyed and could eat freely.

What does it cost?
One of the biggest knocks against this type of diet is the perception that it’s expensive. Doesn’t it cost a lot more than a “typical” American diet?

After having eaten this diet for four months, I can say from experience that the financial cost of my current diet is the same as, if not a bit lower than, my normal diet in the past. Our family food budget has dropped about 15% since I started this diet, on average.

At the same time, though, the time invested in food preparation has gone up significantly. Why? This diet has made it much harder to go out to eat, so we go out to eat much less often. This diet has made it much harder to rely on prepackaged foods, so we make things from scratch much more often.

The end result is that we eat more meals at home than before, plus our meals at home are more likely made from raw ingredients instead of premade items. Because of that, our financial costs for the meals has gone down, but the time investment has gone up.

We’ve counteracted this, to some degree, by essentially making our own “premade” items. For example, I’ll make large batches of cooked beans at once, using them for recipes over the next day or two. I’ll make large piles of burritos, freezing the remainder for future use. We’ll save all vegetable scraps, then I’ll toss them in a slow cooker and turn them into vegetable stock for use in soups and stews.

What does this mean?
My conclusion throughout all of this is that eating a diet that’s both healthy and flavorful doesn’t have to be expensive, but you’re going to have to invest time into it.

I think there are really four key factors to any person’s diet. Is it healthy? Is it tasty? Is it cheap? Is it time consuming?

Over a period of time, you can hit at most three of those four things. You can have a diet that’s healthy, tasty, and cheap, but you’re going to have to invest time in it.

The problem is that many people do not wish to consider the “time consuming” part of the equation. That means that they’re left with choosing two out of three with the healthy, tasty, and cheap options. Healthy and cheap means eating raw fruits and vegetables all the time – it’ll lose the “tasty” factor quickly. Healthy and tasty (while still being fast, remember) is going to be very expensive. Tasty and cheap can easily be done – there are countless options for this, and that’s what many people go for.

Healthy, tasty, cheap, and quick – choose three out of four. For a lasting diet, that’s basically the choice you’re going to have to make. Today, a lot of people choose tasty, cheap, and quick and leave the healthy out to dry. Right now, I’m trying to choose the healthy, tasty, and cheap, and just hope that quick comes along for the ride sometimes.

The biggest mistake I’ve made in my adult life was convincing myself that I needed a lot of things.

Sure, some of you might laugh at the notion that I ever convinced myself that I needed a mountain of video games or a big collection of trading cards or a pile of DVDs.

Those things were just the tip of the iceberg.

I convinced myself I needed the latest and greatest cell phone.

I convinced myself I needed to eat out regularly.

I convinced myself I needed new shoes all the time.

I convinced myself I needed nice clothes.

I convinced myself I needed anything beyond a minimal roof over my head, minimal clothes on my back, water, and food.

Really, in the end, that’s all I need. Water, basic food, basic clothing, and a roof to keep the rain and cold away for myself and my family. Everything else beyond that is want.

When I finally realized that the things I actually needed were incredibly minimal, I began to see how amazingly abundant my life was.

I had friends. I had a wife that loved me. I had reasonably good health. I had wonderful children. I had a good sense of humor. I had a solid work ethic. I had the ability to entertain myself. On top of that, I had a staggering abundance of material things, from decent clothes on my back to a decent used car in the driveway.

With all of this wealth in my life, why do I need more? Why do I want more?

A few months ago, I wrote about the scarcity and abundance mentalities on The Simple Dollar. In that article, I defined what they were…

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. The also have a a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flow out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

… but, for the most part, I stuck to the pattern of defining the mentalities through what other people have:

To me, the biggest difference between the scarcity mentality and the abundance mentality is that the scarcity mentality cares what other people have, while the abundance mentality doesn’t.

After some reflection, I think I would go even further than the above statement. Simply put, the abundance mentality finds value in what one already has, while ths scarcity mentality is always seeking more.

(That’s not to say the abundance mentality doesn’t seek out success – it certainly does. The success it seeks, though, is on its own terms. It’s about achievement for the sake of achievement, not achievement for the sake of reward.)

The more I look at my own life, the more I realize that I don’t need very much at all. Then, when I look at all of the things I do have, I’m stunned by all that I have in my life and I don’t really feel a need to have any more. In fact, if anything, I feel like having more would be almost overwhelming.

Some people see that statement as some sort of deprivation. There is always more out there. Why not acquire it?

My feeling is that instead of just acquiring more, lately, I’m driven to maximize all of the relationships, possessions, and other things my life already has going for it. People. Things. Places. Memories. Ideas. Experiences.

That’s a full life, and it’s one that over and over again ensures that I keep my wallet firmly in my pocket while also enjoying the multitude of great things I already have.

Step back and look at your life. Remove just what you need from that picture – water, basic food, a few changes of basic clothing, minimal shelter. Look at all that’s left – all of the possessions, relationships, experiences, thoughts, and other things. That’s an abundance, one that can provide you with more than you can ever explore and enjoy.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Student loans or savings?
2. Best use for tax refund
3. Jumping into entrepreneurship
4. Replacing a car after accident
5. On radio or television?
6. Are FHA loans dangerous?
7. Future Simple Dollar plans
8. Love, marriage, and credit cards
9. How to start selling stuff
10. 529s for textbooks

Ever had one of those days where nothing goes right?

Yesterday, I woke up to find that the faucet on one of the bathroom sinks had broken bad enough that it was leaking water all over the place – under the sink, on the floor, out of the bathroom, and onto the carpet.

As I’m trying to figure out why that’s broken, our life insurance company called to tell us that we had failed to pay our life insurance bill on time. Of course, we had paid it, but it took a long time to get that straightened out.

During all this, I forgot to take the trash out to the curb.

While trying to fix the sink, I smashed my head onto a metal pipe, giving myself a pretty significant bruise and bump just above the hairline.

One of those days…

Q1: Student loans or savings?
My husband and I take home about $8000/month after contributing 10-15% in our 403b accounts. We have approx $7500 in savings and no credit card debit. We are also already contributing $5500/year in a Roth IRA account with Vanguard. We are also saving approx $100/month for each of our two children (ages 3 1/2 and 16 months). Our only debt besides our mortgage is my husbands’ student loan debt which is at a below 4% interest rate but at a balance of about $35,000. I am thinking we should use all of our excess monthly cash ($3000 a month if we are good) and pay down that last debt so we can be free to further invest in other areas in the future. He thinks we should take that money and invest in other areas (while paying a little extra on his loans each month) since the interest rate on his loan is so low. I just feel like the balance is barely going anywhere despite him presently paying $350/month. So basically should we use our extra monthly income to pay off low interest student loan debt or invest it elsewhere?
- Angie

To me, the answer depends on whether that 3.5% rate is locked in or whether it’s variable.

If that rate is locked in and can never be adjusted upwards, the rate is so low that you’re probably going to get a better return investing in other things. If that rate isn’t locked in and can adjust upwards, then extra payments right now are a great way to eliminate balance that might start costing you more interest if not paid off early.

Basically, look at the student loans as, at worst, an investment that earns a 3.5% annual return guaranteed. If the rate adjusts, then it’s an investment that earns a 3.5% return right now but might go up in the future if you lock in today by making extra payments.

The question really is what else would you be doing with that money? Is it better than a guaranteed 3.5% return on your money (or better)?

Q2: Best use for tax refund
What is the best move for me to make with my tax refund of $985. A little background, I’ll be 26 in about a month, work as a critical care RN, no children, and not currently married, but in a steady relationship for 8 years.

What should i do with the $985?? Put half in savings and the other half towards credit? all towards credit? all towards yoga? all in savings???
- Niyah

I would pay off the credit card debt, as high interest debt will have a huge negative impact if left unpaid. You really don’t want to start accruing 20% interest on that credit card debt.

You do have a $1,200 emergency fund, which is good enough for the time being. I would focus on raising that level once you’ve eliminated the debt.

As for the yoga teaching certification, if you ever reach a point where you can’t pay for it, that’s what the emergency fund is for.

Q3: Jumping into entrepreneurship
I am a young entrepreneur (29). I currently am an medical office clerk and make about 38k. I own two duplex rentals and recently opened a bridal boutique. I am still at the point where my personal income greatly subsidizes my business ventures. My goal is to one day quit my job, but I want to be realistic about it. I know that the businesses should be standing on their own, but I am wondering how much I need to save. Should I have a different savings account for each entity (personal, rental property, and store)?? And how much should be in them before I take the big leap??
- Althea

What you need to do is sit down and come up with a genuine business plan for your businesses.

Visit your local library and check out some basic books on small business plans. Read them, then invest the time and care it takes to come up with a plan for your business that includes contingencies, worst case scenarios, and real planning for the future.

It is only through such a process that you can reveal whether or not you’re going to be able to make these businesses provide a lasting income for yourself. It will also help you figure out how much capital you need for those businesses to keep them secure.

Q4: Replacing a car after accident
My wife and I were in a recent car wreck and our vehicle was totaled. It was a luxury vehicle that we could afford and still maintain a nice savings account as well as do other things but I hated writing that car note check every month. Now that the the person that hit us insurance is paying off the vehicle my spouse and I are at a cross roads. I want to downgrade to a normal sedan(i.e. a cash car or something off craigslist) and my wife would like to try and find the same year make and model of the vehicle we owned but at a lower price or maybe even putting a larger down payment and therefore having a significantly lower car note payment than before. I always reference your name and say things like “What would Trent think” (I am a long time reader so sue me) but she feels like we should be able to enjoy our money if we are still able to aggressively save for retirement and other areas. What are your thoughts?
- Marvin

With two exceptions (mortgages and student loans), I’m opposed to going into debt for personal purchases, and a car that goes beyond the bare minimum needed to go from point A to point B is a personal purchase.

Your best approach here is to buy a sedan that you can pay cash for, then start banking the amount you were using for payments each month. Put them in a separate savings account and then wait until you have enough cash in that account to just write a check for the car you want.

That way, interest works for you (by accruing in your savings account) rather than against you (the interest portion of your car payments).

Marvin actually sent a pretty long email with lots of different questions and thoughts in it, so I broke off a few of his additional questions and statements below.

Q5: On radio or TV?
I have been subscribed to your blog for years now and you have an “everyman” air about yourself. Very relate-able without sounding disingenuous. Have you been asked to be involved in television/radio in any aspect. MSNBC, Dave Ramsey,Suze Orman,Etc. Because I feel people need to hear what you have to say.
- Marvin

I have appeared on a handful of local radio and television programs. For a while, I did a podcast, but I didn’t enjoy the “back end” work of keeping a podcast going (the technical issues with recording audio). For one, my hearing was bad enough that I couldn’t hear background noises that others were complaining about.

I have no objection to appearing in such forums. I just don’t actively seek them out.

Typically, people talking about personal finance is not a big ratings grabber. That’s why very few wholly personal finance programs appear anywhere at all, particularly outside of CNBC.

Q6: Are FHA loans dangerous?
I was watching the Suze Orman show last week and she stated that she feels FHA loans are going to put America back in the same mess it was in a few years ago as far as the housing market crash. I agree that a person should not get more home than they can afford but she feels like FHA is in and of itself not evil but that people should be able to put 20% down on a home or not buy one at all. I feel like most moderate income people will never be able to get into a home using that reasoning. What are your thoughts?
- Marvin

Your feeling is right, in my opinion: current home prices mean that if people wait until they have 20% of the house value saved for a down payment, many people will never own a house of their own.

The big reason for that, in my opinion, is that home prices continue to be ridiculously overinflated. Except for the recent downturn, the price of a home has grown faster than inflation for decades – and recently, it grew far faster than inflation for a while. Meanwhile, the average American’s wages haven’t even grown as fast as inflation.

What that means is that housing prices are going up at a much faster rate than people’s paychecks are, and thus housing is eating a bigger and bigger portion of people’s incomes.

There is no good solution for that, unfortunately. For historical rates of home ownership to continue, the FHA is going to have to continue to push a lot of people into homes that they couldn’t otherwise afford. If rates of home ownership go down, then more and more houses will sit on the market unowned and that means everyone will see the value of their home drop. This will convince more people to walk away from their mortgages, for one. It’s a huge mess without an easy resolution.

Q7: Future Simple Dollar plans
What are your business plans for the site for 2011 and beyond?
- Marvin

I don’t have any big plans.

I’ve been working on a site redesign for a while. It’s more of a subtle change – nothing too drastic. The site will still look green and white, the logo will still basically look the same, and email subscribers won’t see any change at all.

I’ve been working with banks in order to come up with ways for me to link to their savings accounts, CDs, and other such offerings in a way that’s mutually beneficial. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t talk about such things, so I’d like to find a way to build a relationship with some banks that I trust. This is still a work in progress.

I’m working on an independent project that involves internet publishing that might be of interest to some of you. Basically, I’m writing a book/multimedia project solely for internet release that’s really targeting people who aren’t really what I would call Simple Dollar readers, though many readers of the site may get some value from it.

Q8: Love, marriage, and credit cards
I am getting married in November. My fiance and I have very good credit (both in the 7s), modest paying jobs, and a healthy outlook on our spending goals. As we continue to plan for the future and discussing what accounts will merge, remain seperate, disappear, etc, one of the decisions to make is what credit cards we will keep/use.

Why? Well, I figure at the end of the day, everything is the same, but we have the extra bonus “startup” points on each card. Am I overthinking? Is there any other risk? I don’t see much of a credit issue here as we’re both just opening new cards and we both have only a couple to begin with. Since the accounts would be merged after the wedding (or after the wait period for the rewards to post), I believe we can avid annual fees on both cards because of the “first year free” offer…
- Dave

This plan seems okay, though I’m not entirely sure you’re getting positive value for your effort and thought. If you feel that you are, go for it.

My concern more comes with your desire to add each other to all of your credit cards. I would actually avoid doing that. If you end up in a situation where you fail to make a credit card payment, a missed payment will negatively affect both of your credit ratings. I would encourage you to keep those separate if at all possible.

Now, for things like checking accounts and the like, co-ownership is a great idea. I just would avoid it for things like credit cards that can have negative impact on your credit but give no real positive benefit from co-ownership.

Q9: How to start selling stuff?
Ok, we are leaving our house, job and everything to relocate, and we are taking the opportunity to get rid of all this stuff that has been sneaking up on us. How do we start? We just opened an EBay acct to sell stuff and I already use the consignment shop. There is always a garage sale this spring or summer, but what about the 11 foot high gilded mirror? The books that are academic not recreational? I’m trying to avoid the “give it all away” desire that is building!

Might I just say that having all your bills gone (excepting a mortgage), your cars owned and an emergency fund in place is an awesome way to survive an actual emergency. Good insurance and a well stocked pantry is a help, too. Without all of that, we would not be contemplating a move for contentment, but a move because we would have lost everything. Good decisions last forever!
- Greg

I’d get rid of everything that doesn’t have personal value for you. If it has significant personal value, take it; otherwise, sell it and bank that cash. You can get cheap glasses anywhere – it’s probably cheaper to get a small amount out of the ones you have at a sale than to ship them across the country.

For items like your mirror, I’d take pictures of them and go to a consignment shop, asking them if they’re willing to take the items into their store to sell.

For niche items like the academic books, a yard sale might work. You might also want to use eBay or something that will offer your goods to a broader audience.

Things like glasses and such are perfect for selling at a yard sale.

Q10: 529s for textbooks
I just started working for the State of Indiana today. During benefits orientation, they were explaining the benefits of 529 plans–specifically one through Sallie Mae that puts my contributions into a high yield savings account with no exposure to market risk. I’m planning to go back to graduate school to work on a Ph.D. (in my field, Ph.D.s are funded) within the next year and a half, hopefully even this fall, so it seemed like it might be a good idea to open the 529 and contribute whatever money I’m going to need for textbooks to it.

This idea seems way too good for nobody to have thought of it before, which makes me suspicious that I’m missing something.
- Will

I’m not sure how you see this as getting a ~20% return. It will be better than what you’re getting from a savings account, but it won’t suddenly be a mountain of cash.

If you contribute money to a 529 account, you’ll essentially be investing it, likely in some sort of diversified index fund. I would never assume an investment like that would return more than 7 or 8% in a year. Some years, it might. Other years, like 2008, it’ll give you a negative return.

In a normal savings account or investment account, you’ll have to pay taxes on what you earn. So, if you’re in the 15% income tax bracket, you’ll be paying 15% of what you earn in interest to Uncle Sam. A 529′s advantage is that if you use the earnings in the account for educational purposes, you won’t have to pay those taxes.

Still, don’t go into this expecting a 20% return. A 7% annual return is much more realistic – but that’s still pretty good.

Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

I originally intended to include this email in tomorrow’s reader mailbag, but my response to this woman went on for so long that I felt it deserved a post of its own.

Julie writes in:

I’m 26 years old, single, and I have an entry level graphic design job that I love. On the side, I do some freelance painting work for local grocery stores, painting their windows with various designs to attract customers. I love what I do even though it’s not going to make me rich for the foreseeable future.

My parents constantly put down what I’m doing and tell me to start “earning a living.” They point to my older brother who is a systems analyst who makes $80K a year working for [the state] and they ask why I can’t be more like him.

I’m so tired of all of this. Every time I see them I wind up feeling horrible about my career choices and kind of depressed and I think about quitting what I have and doing something else. I know I should go back to school and get a different degree that would qualify me for something better [...] so I’ve decided to do that.

Julie’s email was pretty long and even in the excerpt above, I edited it a bit to remove some familial details that really don’t need to be aired in a public forum.

Suffice it to say, Julie’s stuck in a challenging position. She’s sitting at a crossroads in her life and is about to make a very major decision, not because it makes her happy, but because it makes her parents happy.

My advice to Julie is simple: do what you love. This is your life to live, not your parents. You are the one that has to wake up each morning and face your day. You’re the one that has to deal with the balance of income and enjoyment of your work. You’re the one that has to navigate whatever career path you choose.

Whenever you are forced to choose between making yourself happy and making someone else happy with a major life decision, choose yourself. Don’t have a child if you don’t want to have one. Don’t choose a career path to make someone else happy. Don’t fill your life with something you don’t want, or you’re signing yourself up for a miserable life.

This isn’t to say that relationships don’t sometimes require compromise, but those compromises are usually done so that all members of the compromise end up ahead over the long run. I’m constantly compromising with my wife, but almost always I end up gaining (on the whole) more than I give, as does she.

Giving up your dreams to please someone else in an abstract way (meaning your choice doesn’t really affect their life) is not a compromise. It’s willingly giving up your dreams for almost nothing in return.

In this situation, if she makes the career switch, Julie is highly unlikely to wind up ahead – and, frankly, I’m not sure her parents really will, either. They might gain some benefits from having a child with more income, but they’re also certainly gaining some resentment and loss of trust from their daughter. That, on the whole, is a net loss in my eyes.

What about Julie? Won’t she earn more income? She might, in the short run, but you’re much more likely to excel in a career path that you love and are passionate about than in a career path that you have no passion for at all. I don’t care what the career paths are, I’ll bet on the person with passion and excitement every single time, because they’ll always go the extra mile to succeed. Julie is not only filling her days with design work, she’s doing it as a side gig, too, and she still wants to do more. That’s passion and excitement. That’s a person who’s going to keep improving their skills, keep making connections, and eventually start getting ahead.

Julie, don’t give up on the artistic work you’re doing. You’re in a career path you love and that you’re passionate about. That will carry you a long way and leave you happy in the end.

Over the next week, I’m going to be making several tiny changes to the site. There’s a good chance you won’t notice them at all, but if you see something that looks completely wrong, don’t be afraid to let me know.

Why the changes? Mostly, I’m trying to find ways to improve income from the site, mostly by improving the availability of links to good banking services. After all, if I’m going to talk about savings accounts (which I do anyway on a daily basis), I might as well link directly to bank comparisons and earn a bit of a referral for people signing up for savings accounts.

Making a Million Bucks is So Simple – But Why Can Most Only Dream About It? The actual steps to getting your financial life under control and getting ahead are simple. So why isn’t everyone rich? It’s because actually executing those simple steps requires a lot of virtues that many people have in short supply. (@ free money finance)

Craft the Life You Want: Creating a Blueprint for Your Future The more you think about the future you want – and the more you tie it to the choices you’re making right now – the more likely you are to see lasting success in your own life and achievement of your goals. (@ art of manliness)

How to Cope with Budget Blow-Ups My usual method of coping is by trying to figure out what went wrong. Why did this blowup happen? (@ get rich slowly)

Five Things That Were Given to Me for Nothing Love is the best gift of all, but there are lots of good thoughts here. (@ pick the brain)

Seven Secrets for Maximizing Your Concentration Skills My number one secret is killing distractions. For me, it’s the distractions that always hold me back. (@ dumb little man)