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.

Yep, burgers and fries! Here’s a peek at my wife’s plate (she was handling some of the picture taking while I was getting the children seated):

(I think she put some sort of barbecue sauce on them as a condiment.)

So, how exactly is that a healthy meal?

For starters, the burgers are made out of beans, not beef or pork. For another, the fries are fresh potatoes, sliced and dredged in a bit of olive oil, then baked in the oven.

Even better, this meal cost less than comparable options, and it’s pretty flexible for those of you who think that a purely bean burger sounds awful.

What You Need
The ingredient list is really simple.

For the burgers, you just need a cup and a half of dried beans or a can of cooked beans, plus whatever you wish to use for flavoring. I typically use about half of a minced onion, a couple teaspoons of minced garlic, plenty of pepper, and a few dashes of salt. I also used about a mouthful of beer. You’ll also want buns or bread.

For the fries, you just need a couple large potatoes, some olive oil, and some salt and pepper. You can, of course, use other seasonings, too.

All of these ingredients (using dried beans) added up to approximately four dollars and fed our family of four with two meals’ worth of leftovers.

The Night Before (or Early That Day)
If you’re using dry beans and don’t already have some cooked, put them on to soak for the night.

The exact type of beans doesn’t matter too much. I usually use a mix of red beans, black beans, and chickpeas, a half cup of each. Use whatever you like – if you’re using dry beans, though, figure a quarter of a cup of dry beans per burger you intend to make.

You might also wish to peel and slice the potatoes if you’re making oven fries.

Preparing the Meal
If you need to cook the beans, do so. They will be done after sixty to seventy five minutes at a low boil. You can boil them in advance if you’d like, but use them within a day or two.

You’re also going to want to preheat the oven to 400 F. Then, take a cookie sheet and spread parchment paper on it. Take a bowl, put half a cup of olive oil in it, then start dredging the fries through the oil and placing them on the parchment paper. When they’re all spread out, sprinkle some salt, pepper, and other seasonings you might like on top of them. We like to experiment, so we tried some chili powder on ours.

Bake these in the oven for about forty minutes or so and they’ll be delicious – crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

While they’re in the oven, take your beans and mash them.

I just use an old-fashioned handheld potato masher. It takes two minutes, tops.

When that’s done, take minced onions (if you’re using them) and cook in a skillet together with a couple drops of oil over medium high heat. Keep cooking them until they start to brown and have a wonderful smell, then add minced garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add all of this to the bean mash and stir thoroughly.

While the skillet is still hot, I put about a mouthful of beer into the skillet, causing it to boil and get some of the wonderful cooked pieces out of the skillet. I pour this right into the bean mash and keep stirring it.

Don’t be afraid to add plenty of whatever spices you like right to the mix. You almost can’t overdo it. The only way to go wrong is to add spices that clash in flavor.

If the mix is runny, add some bread crumbs or some ground oatmeal to thicken it. You’ll want it thick enough so that it easily forms very firm balls and patties.

At this point, just make small balls from the mix and form them into patties, then grill them or cook them in a skillet with just a bit of oil to help with sticking. Cook them over medium high heat, flipping regularly, until both sides are nice and browned.

Put it on a bun, top with condiments to your liking, and enjoy! Our family likes them, though we have been turned off in the past by awkward seasoning (but never by too much seasoning!).

Optional Ingredients
If you want to change this up a bit, the easiest way to do it is to combine unmashed beans with ground beef to make your own burgers. It reduces the cost, adds some texture to the burgers, and changes up the flavor a little bit as well.

You can also, of course, vary the flavorings. There are countless things you can put into the mix, from Worcestershire sauce to pineapple pieces. Never be afraid to experiment a little.

One common question I get from readers appears in this type of email:

Dear Trent,

My husband and I are finally on the path to financial freedom. We have only a debt or two remaining and have built up an emergency fund. We would like to start investing. Please tell us how.

Signed,
Sally Saver

When I read this email, I know what they’re looking for. They have money beyond what they feel that they need in an emergency fund that’s just sitting in a savings account and they’d like to feel as though they’re doing something more useful or productive with that cash.

The thing is, they’re overlooking the fact that they’re already investing that money. Simply having cash in a savings account is an investment!

Investing simply means that you’re utilizing a resource that you own or control with the intent of having that resource provide additional gains to you (or to someone else). Loaning $20 to a friend who is very thankful and promises to pay you back is an investment. You’re utilizing a resource you own or control (the $20) with the intent of having that resource provide additional gains to you or someone else (helping a friend through a pinch and perhaps accruing some social capital for yourself).

Money in a savings account is also an investment – you’re putting cash (something you won or control) in there with the intent of earning interest and keeping that money safe.

Most investments offer some amount of liquidity (the ease of which you can get back the resources you invested), some amount of risk (the likelihood that you’ll lose some portion of the amount you invested), and some amount of return (the resources you hope to gain from the investment).

Money in a savings account is an investment that’s very liquid (meaning you can withdraw and deposit largely at your heart’s content), very low risk (it’s FDIC insured and doesn’t put any of your balance at risk), and earns a very low return.

Because of this, when I see someone saying that they already have savings but that they want to invest, I have to assume that they’re seeking some form of diversification. They want an additional type of investment that’s in some way different than the savings they already have.

Usually, that means an increase in return, which usually comes with an increase in risk or a reduction in liquidity. Because they already have some amount of money in a low-risk form with low returns (that savings account), they want to add something with more risk to the equation in hopes of getting a greater return.

Thus, my answer to Sally Saver, after encouraging her to figure out why she’s wanting to invest, usually pushes her towards stocks or other higher-risk and higher-reward investments. In most economic conditions, I would include a suggestion to prepay on her mortgage as well, since that is also an investment from the perspective of someone who has already signed on the dotted line.

(Right now, though, a mortgage prepayment means that you’re only getting a bit better return (4% versus 1% or so in a savings account) for much worse liquidity (you’re only getting that money back at the end of the mortgage during those months when your house is paid off early or via a home equity loan). Although that’s still a solid deal, that’s not what people are often looking for.)

So, what’s the take home message here?

The fundamental act of saving is the key to all investing. By simply choosing to spend less than you earn, you wind up with a surplus. The more you choose to spend less, the greater your surplus.

As soon as you have a surplus, you’re now investing. What’s next? Goals. What are you investing for? Without that, investing is aimless – there’s no reason to choose stocks over a savings account because risk and reward have no real meaning if you’re not investing with purpose. You can only choose rationally and usefully among investment types if you know why you’re investing, when you’ll need that investment to come to fruition, and whether you can tolerate risk.

For example, if you’re saving for a summer home in ten years and your life won’t be a disaster if you have to put it off for a year, you’re probably well advised to invest in something with high risk and high return, like stocks or real estate. On the other hand, if you need to invest for your car replacement in 2012 and you know you’ll need a certain amount as a bare minimum by then, a savings account is the way to go so that you’re not risking what you’ve already got.

I think the idea of a savings account being a “default” investment is a good one. If you don’t have a goal but you do have a surplus, put it in savings – it’s low risk and highly liquid. This way, when you do figure out your goal, you know you can rely on what you’ve been saving and you know you can easily access it and put it to whatever ends you decide.

The fundamental pieces of investing are spending less than you earn and setting goals. Everything else is secondary.

Every night before I go to sleep, I go through a pretty straightforward routine. I start at the bottom of the house in the laundry room, the farthest place from our bedroom, and head upstairs slowly, doing lots of little things along the way.

This routine takes about three minutes. Most nights, I estimate that my actions during that routine save me about three dollars or so, all told. That’s $60 take home per hour of effort if you want to think of it in terms of wages. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

What does that routine encompass?

I check each faucet and showerhead to make sure it’s not dripping. This involves sticking my head into each bathroom and listening for a second for the sound of dripping or running water. If I hear it, I turn off whatever is dripping.

A faucet that drips one drop of water per second will waste two gallons of water overnight. Not only that, the continual dripping of the water is a noise in the house that can easily disturb sleep. Yes, it’s not a huge savings, but with the minimal effort required, it’s well worth turning the tap off.

I flip all switches that have electrical devices wired to them. For example, all of our entertainment center (save the DVR) is set to a single switch. Flipping that switch means that none of the devices are eating standby power, which is an energy savings.

If I have six devices hooked up to a single switch and each device eats twenty watts in standby mode, I save about ten cents during the overnight period by flipping that switch. Wouldn’t you happily take a dime in exchange for flipping a switch as you exited a room, particularly if it were a dime that magically just appeared in your checking account?

I turn off all lights. Yep, this is an obvious one, but it’s a vital one. Lights left on but unused are nothing but a financial drain; flipping them off when you’re leaving the room (especially when you’re leaving the room for many hours) is well worth it.

Every sixty watt light bulb that you turn off for an eight hour overnight period saves you about five cents in energy costs. So, if I’m standing in the kitchen and I go back to the laundry room, where there happens to be four light bulbs, and make sure the light is turned off, the savings is about twenty cents for about ten seconds of effort. That’s about $72 per hour in after tax money.

I check the thermostat and adjust the temperature if needed. Yes, we now have a programmable thermostat, but this became such a part of my routine that I still do it in the evenings. I make sure that in the winter, the thermostat is quite low. In the summer, I usually turn it up and make sure that the air conditioning is turned off.

Remember, when an electric furnace kicks on, it’s using somewhere around 15 to 20 thousand watts in a typical American home. That means for every hour that a furnace is running, it eats between $1.50 and $2. If your furnace kicks on every fifteen minutes and runs for fifteen minutes on a cool night, it’s running for four hours during an overnight period. If you can lower the temperature, you’ll not only give your furnace a period of not running, you’ll also reduce the frequency with which it needs to run. Then, the next day, when it’s warmer outside and there’s less temperature differential, the furnace won’t have to run as much to bring your home back up to the temperature you want. My estimates were that by lowering the thermostat five degrees Fahrenheit on a cold night, we were saving about $2 for the night and it didn’t make a whole lot of difference to us as we were cuddled under warm blankets.

I shut down my PC. The only service that might be useful to have on overnight is Skype and, to be frank, I don’t want to receive business-related calls in the middle of the night.

Shutting down the PC is just a pure energy saver. I have everything in my office hooked up to a “master-slave” power strip, which means that when the PC shuts down, everything else loses power, too. No phantom energy to my printer, my monitor, my speakers or anything else like that. Over a typical overnight period, this saves about thirty cents in energy, according to my math.

Yes, it does mean that I have to wait for it to boot up the next time I want to use it. But, as before, it’s on a power supply with the master controlling everything else. I just hit the button to power on the PC, then go downstairs with the kids. Then, when my work routine starts, everything is ready to go.

All of this takes about three minutes as I’m going to bed. It saves about three dollars. This means, over the course of a month, my bedtime routine takes about an hour, all told, and it results in about $60 in post-tax savings.

If $60 post-tax isn’t worth wandering through your house a few times, you’re a far richer man than I am.

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. Basic tax prep conundrum
2. Debt disaster and recovery
3. Capital gains and gifts
4. Mortgage less than rent
5. Frugal fatigue
6. Child discipline
7. Is “free” Tax Act good?
8. Solo games
9. Budgeting with fluctuating income
10. Sharing accounts with a spender

I’ve decided that once a month, I’ll take a step back and evaluate the goals I’ve set for myself in 2011.

Get fit This resolution started out very well, with regular gym visits early in the month. Since then, there hasn’t been a day where one of our children hasn’t been sick, making gym trips much more difficult. When we reached the end of the month and all three kids were suffering from a sinus infection, I gave up and developed an equipment-free home routine consisting of pushups, situps, squats, and yoga, which are all things I can do downstairs while the kids are resting. I’m still slowly losing weight, but that’s mostly thanks to diet.

Play music I’ve had the biggest success with this goal, as I’ve got sheet music for all four pieces I’m trying to learn to play this year. In the Hall of the Mountain King and Clocks are both coming along well enough that I’m very happy with my progress.

Read 100 unread books I’ve knocked only two books off my list, though I’m more than halfway through two more on the list. Thankfully, one of the thickest ones on the list – Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson – is one of the ones nearing completion. I expect February to be a very good month in terms of knocking books off of my list.

Q1: Basic tax prep conundrum
I have a question about your opinion on the different tax preparation options out there. For the last several years, I have used TurboTax Online. I am always somewhat disappointed in the amount of my refund when compared to what other acquaintances are getting.

I am married with a mortgage, etc. I have a son but switch off every other year with his father as to who gets to claim him (for 2010, I do not get to claim him). Our combined income is slightly over $100k. Do you think it is worth it to spend the money for a professional tax preparation or should I have faith that TurboTax is sufficient?
- Nicole

I’ve used TurboTax almost every year for my personal and business taxes without any sort of problems.

When you take your taxes to a preparer like H&R Block, they’re essentially just using a computer program much like Turbo Tax to prepare your taxes for you. You just get a human face and a handshake and some reassurance to go along with the package, plus you don’t have to spend your time typing. For those services, you pay extra.

If you’re comfortable using computer software, I’d encourage you to use TurboTax.

Q2: Debt disaster and recovery
I am 32 and got out of a 5 year relationship two years ago. Since that time, I have racked up credit card debt to the tune of about $10,000 on various credit cards and have been ignoring it for two years. I have no good excuse other than between student loans, car lease payment and rent, I simply cannot stretch my money to pay all my bills. I have ignored all of the collections calls and at this point, only get about one call a week. I ran my credit report to try and begin to get back on track and plan ahead for what to do when my car lease is up in December since I have completely ruined my credit score, but I honestly do not even know where to begin. Is bankruptcy my only option or can I negotiate a payment schedule with collections agencies? And if so, how do I even find out where my accounts are now? I have reached out to credit counseling three times and never heard anything back so at this point I am incredibly frustrated and not sure what to do.
- Hayley

I’m not sure what you mean by “reached out to credit counseling three times and never heard anything back”. How did you contact them? Was it just an email? Did you call them? I’m mostly trying to figure out if you actually had anyone at a credit counseling service review your situation or whether it was just an email that went into a black hole somewhere.

In either case, I think you have a big overall decision to make. You can try to repay your debts, which is the honorable thing to do. It will require some footwork and some negotiation on your behalf, but it will likely result in a better credit rating if you can negotiate that the agencies mark the debts as paid in full on your credit report. Of course, if you don’t have the means to pay those debts, this avenue will likely be worse than doing nothing at all.

On the other hand, doing nothing means that your credit will be in the tank for a few more years, then those unpaid debts will disappear and you’ll go back to having good credit. Of course, this is the dishonest thing to do.

What’s really warped about the way credit reports and credit scores are handled is that it encourages people who get behind on their bills to just walk away from them and never pay them. If you try to get a handle on your old debts, it causes new entries to appear on your credit report, which means that these old debts stick around for a lot longer than if you’ve never paid them at all. That’s frankly wrong – it rewards dishonesty when it comes to debt. Unfortunately, that’s the way the game is played.

Q3: Capital gains and gifts
For a wedding gift, and for the birth of each of our children, we have been given one company’s stock as a gift (around 100 shares for each of the 4 accounts). While the stock has done well and pays dividends, we are looking to diversify and simplify. You have me convinced on index funds, I just have no idea where to start, or what the tax implications are. The stock is currently with the bank (BNY Mellon) that issues the stock – we’d like to use half of it to buy index funds and keep the other half in the company stock, and ideally we’d like to have them in the same place for convenience. Do you have any advice on how to go about doing this, and if there would be any capital gains tax we would need to budget for? The total investment is around $30,000 or so.
- Kenny

When you sell the stock, you’ll most likely have a capital gains of some sort. The capital gains is the difference in value between what they were worth when you received them compared to the value they’re worth when you sell them. So, if you received $20,000 in stock and then sold them for $30,000, you’re facing $10,000 worth of capital gains. You have to pay capital gains taxes on that amount. Since this is a long term capital gains (meaning you held it more than a year), the tax rate would be 15%, so you’d owe $1,500 in taxes from that sale. Ideally, you’ll be able to pay those taxes out of pocket.

Some people might respond with, “Well, then I just won’t sell” because they don’t want to deal with the capital gains. The problem there is that eventually you will have to deal with those capital gains – and you’re better off having the investment in whatever form will give you the best or safest returns in the future. If you move it now, you’ll pay some capital gains now, but you won’t pay as much later on when you cash in for good.

So, how should you invest what you sell? I’d probably put it in a 529 if it’s for your children. A 529 offers tax benefits if you use the money in the account for educational purposes – other than that, it’s largely a normal investment account. I use College Savings Iowa (which is actually open nationwide, though only Iowans get the state tax benefits) for our children’s 529 accounts, which is managed by Vanguard.

Q4: Mortgage less than rent
My current lease is getting ready to end and I wanted to move somewhere closer to where I work? I currently pay $650 and found a place to rent (condo). I was browsing houses and condos and found a unit in the exact same development I was looking to rent that was selling for $32,000. I did a few calculations and the mortgage would be significantly less ($200-300/month) than what I would be paying to rent. Does it make sense to move forward buying the condo with my financial picture?
- Aaron

Are there any costs besides the mortgage? Are you going to have to pay more utilities, association fees, and things like that for the condo?

My opinion is that after you calculate in such additional costs and the numbers are still comparable, I’d make the move. However, those extra costs might be more than you realize. If you’re suddenly now covering your energy bill and your garbage bill and your water bill and you’re also paying some new property management bill, the condo could easily be more expensive than your apartment. Plus, you’ll now be responsible for your own maintenance, as there won’t be a landlord to call.

It’s not just like moving into another apartment. Owning your own without a landlord can be really expensive.

Q5: Frugal fatigue
I’m currious about your thoughts on “frugal fatigue” as discussed in this newspaper article.
- Patty

Frugal fatigue happens when the “honeymoon period” wears off. It happens with any new thing that requires some significant change in personal behavior.

At first, it’s a fun adventure and it seems exciting. After a while, the new wears off and you begin to miss your old routines and habits. Many people’s great new initiatives die in that period, because that’s the hard period.

If you can push through that hard period, these new habits start to become routine. They become the new normal in your life. This can take months, but I generally find that about a month in, a single new routine becomes normal. The problem is that becoming “frugal” usually means lots of new routines at once, which means it can take longer and be harder to adjust to.

Q6: Child discipline
Do you believe in spanking your children?
- Laurie

Not really. I think back to my own childhood and my memory of spanking is that the actual spanking didn’t really mean anything at all. It was just something painful that you shed a few quick tears over and then moved on with life. The same was true with yelling that was never really followed up with any lasting discipline – I learned to ignore it.

What really drove me to be a better child was when my parents or my teachers were obviously disappointed in me, and it was the longer-term punishments (like when the Nintendo would be disconnected and put away for a week) that would really bother me, as they served as continual reminders of the mistakes I had made. The problem as a parent with such punishments is that they require significant involvement in your child’s life as well as parental willpower to leave the Nintendo

Now, am I going to call someone a child abuser because they choose to spank their children? No, not for just giving them a whack or two on the behind for a seriously bad choice. It’s a different discipline philosophy than I have, but that’s not child abuse. Child abuse is a desire to hurt your child; a spanking is a desire to raise your children to better behavioral standards. I just don’t think it’s a choice that works really well.

Q7: Is “free” Tax Act good?
My husband and I have been married for 4 years and I am the “CFO” of the household. Each year I do our taxes by hand. Literally with a pencil, calculator and the printed forms. In the past, I tried using TurboTax, but it didn’t seem to work out right when I got to the state forms. There would always be a hiccup since I was working New York and living in New Jersey. Then I began to appreciate learning so much about the tax system and have stuck with it (even though I now live in New York and don’t have the dual state issue). I also have an issue paying for a service to figure out how much I owe the government! Anyhow, my husband is self-employed so we have deductions to deal with. We also own our home. I just saw a commercial for TaxAct.com and was wondering if you were familiar with it. If so, what are your thoughts on it? Can it handle itemized deductions? It is advertised as free so it peeked my interest.
- Sandra

For starters, both TaxAct and Turbo Tax offer free federal tax returns in most cases. The vast majority of people doing their taxes will have no problems using either offering to file their federal tax returns for free. Of course, both go on to charge you for your state income tax filing.

Last year, as I was preparing a post on tax software, I tried both and found Turbo Tax to be easier to use. I got my taxes done quicker with Turbo Tax than with TaxAct and the tax forms, in the end, were virtually identical.

If you’re doing a simple filing, then I’d just use the free filing at either TaxAct or Turbo Tax. Both are going to work for you.

If you’re in that 5% of the populace that has a fairly complicated tax situation (with lots of income streams, business income, etc.), then I’d just pick up a full copy of Turbo Tax.

Q8: Solo games
You’ve mentioned that sometimes you play board games solo when others are asleep. Are you serious?!!?
- Kelly

Absolutely.

For starters, think about solitaire card games – Klondike, FreeCell, Forty Thieves, whatever one(s) you enjoy. Many people have played the free Solitaire and FreeCell that come with their computers, and many others have played those types of games with decks of cards.

There are many board games that have similar solitaire options, creating a puzzle-like situation that provides a good hour or two of entertainment.

My personal favorites of this type include At the Gates of Loyang, Space Alert, Race for the Galaxy, and Le Havre. Each of these lasts from 20 minutes to an hour as a solo game. Each one makes you stretch your mind in different ways. Each one also improves your understanding of how to play the multiplayer game, which means that I’ll often learn how to play a game solo before playing it with and/or teaching it to others.

It’s a great way to eke more value out of a board game collection, and it can certainly be a good way to burn a winter evening.

Q9: Budgeting with fluctuating income
I have recently started a minimum wage job ($8.25) where I earn tips. I have only been working there 2 weeks and have ranged between bringing in $70-$110 a night. My co-workers say that the busy season is coming up and we should be making really good tips. I am not sure what they mean by really good tips though. So I am not sure exactly how to budget with numbers that fluctuate. I have $2,000 in credit card debt that I want to pay off ASAP. $400 in rent and $60 utilities as monthly payments. My car is payed off but I also need to start getting aggressive on saving for a more reliable ride. I would like to be able to save enough so I can put a huge down payment, or buy something outright and not be strapped down with payments for years on end. I just am having a really hard time trying to figure out the best way to plan with such a fluctuating income.
- Amanda

What I would do is budget as though you’re not getting any tips at all. Survive on that. Make your bill payments on that.

Then, when the tips do come in, bundle all of those up and make big extra payments on your debts. If you’re debt free, take those tips and stick them right in a savings account and sit on them for the future, when you may want to buy a house, buy a new car, or something like that.

Survive day-to-day on your normal pay. Use your tips to clean up your debts and prepare for the future.

Q10: Sharing accounts with a spender
I am at my wits-end with my husband. I scrape and save to put $1000.00 in an emergency fund as a cushion (ala Dave Ramsey), but my husband uses it as his personal account, buying lavish gifts for me (his excuse is that he wants to buy me nice things) or for himself. We also have an account specifically to save up for large purchases like car replacement or Christmas. That is cleaned out regularly, too. He just completely shuts down when I ask him to stop and it is ruining our marriage! Is it wrong of me to open my own account to save up an emergency fund and sinking fund for a replacement car that he won’t know about? When he found out that there is an equity line on the house, he said we could just use that to buy what we wanted or to replace what he spent on stuff. I lied and told him the equity line was dried up. He has refused to go to counseling with me. At this point I am setting money aside in my sock drawer to pay for an attorney if it comes to that.
- Janet

First and foremost, you guys need to get some counseling. There are lies, destruction of financial plans, and threats of divorce on the table here. Your marriage is in real trouble.

Sit down with a counselor. Go through your marital issues and air all of the dirty laundry. If you can’t do that, you’re just asking for it to sit there and fester and make your lives together poisonous. Don’t let that happen.

Issue your husband an ultimatum about counseling. If he won’t go, you’ll walk.

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.

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon a great interview with Francis Ford Coppola over at the 99 percent. In this interview, Coppola talks about the past and future of people making money from their art, whether it be music, movies, or other things:

We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.

This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?

In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it.

Here’s an interesting question. How exactly did you first find The Simple Dollar? Maybe you discovered it from a Google search. Perhaps you found it because a friend sent you a link, or maybe you first spied it on some other website.

The fact of the matter is that regardless of how great my writing is (or how awful it is, depending on your position), you didn’t find it solely on its own merits. You discovered it through some other means – a friend, Google, someone’s website, whatever the case may be.

As much as I love being a writer, I don’t make money from writing. Writing is the fun part, but my income comes from the time I spend working on the software behind The Simple Dollar, marketing the stuff I write to other sites, making it easy for people to send links to their friends, negotiating with advertisers, and countless other mundane tasks like that.

Without those types of tasks, my writing wouldn’t earn me a single solitary cent.

Coppola’s point is exactly that: the fun creative stuff that so many of us do really doesn’t earn us much money at all, at least not most of the time. Yes, we just passed through a weird time in history where a handful of people benefited from an inefficient means to distribute media, but the internet is eroding those things incredibly quickly.

Soon, we’re going to be right back where artists started. They’ll either be doing their art via patronage (meaning people directly pay for them to continue producing) or they’ll do it in their spare time purely as a hobby.

Why am I writing about this?

A few times a week, I’ll get a passionate email from a reader who has some particular talent. They’ve written a novel. They’re really good on the piano. They can make gorgeous end tables. They can spin and flip with grace. How do they make money?

My painful response is that unless they are incredibly, incredibly lucky, these talents alone won’t earn them much money. In order to succeed, you either need to have the ability to get your talents right into the laps of the people who want to see it or have the means to hire someone who is able to do that (often with them getting a split of the proceeds).

In the recent past, the answer used to be a publishing contract, a music deal, a movie deal, or something along those lines. Today, that’s changed. Such businesses won’t take an interest in you until you’ve done something that attracts their attention because, frankly, more people are publishing and producing now than will ever get read or heard or seen or have their products purchased. The internet has created too much noise and no one is going to bother until you rise above it.

I’ve published two books, but neither of them would have ever been published without The Simple Dollar, and The Simple Dollar, regardless of how good of a writer I am, was built on my ability to convince people to link to it and to keep the site running.

If you have big dreams that revolve around some particular talent or skill that you’ve cultivated, I have some very serious suggestions for you.

Don’t assume your talent or skill will be your money maker for a long, long time. Your talent or skill is going to be your side job – treat it like such. If you go to work, come home tired, and convince yourself to not do anything with it today, you’re never going to make it. I spent years writing and learning how to program and learning about internet marketing in my spare time, failing over and over again, with nothing to show for it other than a gradually growing skill set.

Find some type of work that will help you spread your talent. Be an administrative assistant for someone who works in media distribution. Become a software developer. Get a marketing degree. Get your foot in the door, any way you can, in the path between where you are right now and where your audience is. Barring that, find a job that will provide minimal intrusion, such as a job as a gas station attendant.

Live frugally. The more money you have in the bank and the less expenditures you have, the easier it will be to make the leap into practicing your skill on a full time basis when the time comes.

Make friends and connections – lots of them. Spend at least some of your time cultivating relationships with people who can help you with spreading what skills you have. Seek out software developers, people with online followings that focus on your area of interest, and people who are involved with your skill on a professional level. Talk to them as peers, not as fans, and attempt to build a genuine friendship with them. You’d be surprised how “famous” or “important” people can react if you treat them as an equal and not as a superior.

Improve your own social skills, especially in gently promoting yourself. If you’re introverted, this is key. The ability to communicate successfully with others, particularly when talking about yourself while not coming off as a braggart, is an ability that’s vital if you want to get others interested in your skill.

If you want riches, find another career path. Art is wonderful, but it doesn’t channel human effort in a way that generates wealth. If you want wealth, put your guitar aside and start hitting the books.

Find patrons. Yep, patronage. I know of at least one person – a painter – who has a patron who covers an annual stipend and supplies in exchange for four original pieces a year, and the person can sell the rest that they produce. That person hangs some of the originals in their home and gives others to friends. Don’t be ashamed or afraid of this type of arrangement. It was the cultural norm for many, many years – up even until 100 years ago, most artists had patrons as that’s how the wealthy would support culture and the arts. Such arrangements still exist today, and I would not be surprised at all to see them become more prevalent. Don’t be afraid to take opportunities to show your skills to the wealthy.

The best thing you can do if you have talent and are passionate about that talent is to start packaging it up. Even the brightest gem can lay unnoticed in the mines if no one is able to see it. Shine a light on what you have and learn how to polish it and put it in the right hands.

The Midwest got absolutely hammered with snow the last few days. The job of moving this snow would seem almost insurmountable if it weren’t for our snowblower. Thank goodness for our Troy-Bilt.

Efficient-Market Hypothesis – Are You a Believer? The efficient market hypothesis essentially says that “markets and participants are at all times on a level playing field with respect to information. As such, no one person, trader, investor, speculator, whatever…has an edge over anyone else and thus, nobody should ever be able to “beat the market” over an extended period of time for any reason other than sheer luck.” I don’t agree with this. I think markets are inefficient quite often – that’s why there are bubbles. There are always large sources dipping their toes into markets, attempting to manipulate them for their own personal gain. My belief is that the only way the little guy can profit is by massive diversification. (@ darwin’s money)

Always Get Back Up: Lessons from Muhammad Ali “It’s hard to beat a guy when he’s got his mind made up that he’s going to win.” Words of wisdom there. (@ the art of nonconformity)

How to Lend Money to Friends (Without Ruining the Relationship) I don’t think there is a good way to do this. A friend of mine is lending money to his brother using a P2P lending site, though, which is an interesting approach to the situation. (@ get rich slowly)

The Simplest Diet for Lean Fitness I didn’t link to this because I think it’s some great diet solution. I linked to it because I think it clearly illustrates the one thing that works against any challenge in life: patience. You might get lucky and break a rock with a hammer, but if you give it enough time, I guarantee you the gentle lapping of waves on that rock will break it. Time and patience conquer all. (@ zen habits)

10 “Rules of Life” from Tolstoy. What Are Your Rules? Tolstoy’s rules are pretty straightforward:

Get up early (five o’clock)
Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock)
Eat little and avoid sweets
Try to do everything by yourself
Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for evry minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater
Keep away from women
Kill desire by work
Be good, but try to let no one know it
Always live less expensively than you might
Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer

Mine are similar, but more family oriented, though I find the “stay away from women” one to be somewhat amusing. I tend to think it’s more of a focus thing in that members of the opposite sex can be a distraction from a solitary goal. (@ the happiness project)

In a corner in my office on a single shelving unit rests a collection that I’ve been building for fifteen years, my board and card game collection.

The collection has been built from a lot of sources: gifts, trades, thrift store finds, ding-and-dent sales, and contest winnings make up a significant portion of what you see, as do more than a few of my own purchases.

Here’s the thing with this collection, though: when I look at it, I don’t see a collection of stuff.

I see a set of experiences: games played in the past, games yet to be played, and often, the choice of what game to play right now.

I see a lot of time spent with friends and family around the table, talking about life, pondering the game a bit, and simply enjoying each other’s company.

I see the friendships I’ve built over the years because of this collection – people I’ve played games with and used that opportunity to get to know them better and allow them to get to know me better.

In January 2011 alone, I played 28 games off of this shelf. By the time you read this, I will have already logged a game or two in February as I’m planning on having lunch and playing a card game with a friend. This is a collection that gets used. This is a collection of experiences.

Here’s the truth, though: it wasn’t always like that.

Let’s take a look at that picture again.

Do you see how there’s a second empty shelf on the right? Well, it’s nearly empty – there’s a single cardboard box on it that contains some stuff headed to Goodwill.

Once upon a time, that second shelf would have been loaded with gaming material, too.

You see, it wasn’t too long ago that I was more of a collector than anything. I would go into thrift stores and buy any board games I could find. I would receive a game, play it once, decide I didn’t like it, but then just add it to the growing mountain that was my collection. I was an avid collector of several types of trading cards, and I used to buy quite a few games, too.

At some point, it all became overwhelming. I had lots of games that sat around unplayed and instead of actually playing them, I would go hunting at thrift stores and other places for some great undiscovered item for my collection.

Why? I had completely lost touch with the reason why I had such a collection to begin with, which was to play with friends.

I finally begain to realize after a while that it had gone from a collection of great experiences to a collection of stuff. It had moved from a wonderful collection of shared experiences that I could indulge in quite frequently to being a self-absorbed chase for more accumulation that actually stood in the way of actually enjoying the games themselves.

Over the past few years, I’ve pared things down substantially, even as friends and family have gifted me new games. I’ve sold off quite a few games and traded many, many others for different games, ones that I picked up solely with the thought in mind of how likely they were to be played with the friends I have.

My reward, in the end, is a smaller volume of stuff, but what remains has value. I don’t have to dig through overstuffed shelves to find games – I can see everything I have at a glance. My focus is on playing the games rather than accumulating more. Perhaps best of all, it’s now quite accessible for everyone to just grab a game if they want to play rather than being crammed in with many of the games being trapped behind others.

It went from being a big pile of stuff to an easily-accessible grouping of experiences.

If I turn that type of perspective to everything in my home – the idea that something that isn’t accessible and isn’t being used with any regularity needs to go – I find myself quickly getting rid of things. In fact, this type of purging has become something of a routine around here. About every six months, I’ll purge a lot of things – clothes, the contents of closets, and so forth. I usually pick some specific type of item or specific area and go on a purging.

When I’m finished purging, I usually have a lot more space, a great pile of things to sell (or give away), and best of all, easy access (and less maintenace) of the stuff that I’m actually keeping. This gives me time to experience what I have instead of spending my time maintaining it or accumulating more.

What about your own collections and storage spaces? Can you easily retrieve any item of your collection that you wish? If you can’t, why do you still have that item if it’s difficult for you to reach? How are you gaining value from that item if you can’t utilize it and experience it?

Stuff gathers dust. Experiences live forever. Stuff costs money. Experiences just use what you already have.

Experiences trump stuff, every time.

Your reason for what? For pretty much everything you do in your life.

Let’s start with the immediate. Why are you reading this site right now (or, in the case of email recipients, this email)? Some of you are probably reading this because you desperately need some financial help. Others are reading it because they’re on a good financial path and reinforcement is a big help to them. Still others read the site for entertainment – many of my old friends seem to fall into this category.

The key thing is that you have a reason for reading. It might be a strong one or it might be a weak one, but there’s a reason that you’re choosing to read The Simple Dollar.

Now, start asking yourself the “reason” question for everything you do in life.

Why are you at work right now? Why do you have this current job?

Why did you do whatever you did this past weekend?

Why did you eat whatever you ate for breakfast this morning?

Think through some of the things going on in your life, big and little. Why? Why? Why?

Some of these answers will be fairly easy. For example, as I write this, I’m working for four very clear reasons. One, I love the art of writing. Two, writing about personal finance (and doing the needed research and self-evaluation) makes me focus on my own personal finance success. Three, it provides some level of income for my family. Finally, I simply enjoy helping people.

The nice thing about this is that it’s easy for me to see exactly why I work on The Simple Dollar. I have internal motivations (helping people, the sheer joy of writing) and external motivations (family financial success, assisting others). I don’t have to search for why I do it, thus it’s easy for me to get in the mindset needed to write all of this content. I have a reason.

Other answers will be fairly difficult. This morning, I had two bean-and-tofu-scramble burritos for breakfast, seasoned up like crazy with a bunch of hot sauce and garlic. It was reasonably healthy and fairly tasty (good reasons) but when I think about eating, say, a banana or an apple or a bowl of oatmeal in comparison, I start to have difficulty saying why I chose to eat the burritos.

A general rule of thumb is that the harder it is to come up with good reasons for what you’re doing, the more you should focus on finding a different path. If you can’t explain why you’re eating what you are beyond “it tastes good,” you may want to think heavily about your diet. If you can’t explain why you’re buying these items other than “I want them,” you may want to think heavily about your spending habits.

This is admittedly often hard to do on the spur of the moment. We often don’t have time to stop and ask ourselves these types of questions in the midst of a busy day – and, frankly, I wouldn’t even try to do so.

Instead, spend idle time reflecting on these kinds of things. Reflect on the choices you’re making in life – financially and otherwise – and see if you can figure out why you’re making those choices. Look around your environment for things to evaluate, such as the things you eat, the things you use to entertain yourself, and so on.

“It’s too small to worry about!” Some might find it to be a waste of time to reflect on tiny things, like the light bulbs in your home. What I often find is that reflection on the tiny things is a microcosm of reflecting on the bigger things in life. If I’m asking myself “why” with regards to my light bulbs, I’m really asking “why” with regards to my electricity bill each month, because my reasons involving energy use apply not only to light bulbs, but to lots of things. For example, if I know I bought this particular bulb because of the great lighting, I know that’s the reason for it and that it trumps low-cost lighting options. I’m spending more because I value the quality lighting here. But where is that reason true? Do you need different lighting in different areas? What about other energy use decisions in your home?

The more “whys” you ask, the more you transition to naturally thinking about the reasons for your choices and the consequences of them. The more naturally mindful you are, the more “bang for your buck” you’ll get for almost every financial choice you make, from what you buy to how you spend your time. Even better, you’ll quickly see that your life becomes more purposeful, more enjoyable, and even more exciting.

It’s a long journey – I can certainly say that I’m not there yet. But the rewards along the road as you grow are well worth the effort.