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. Locking in student loan rates
2. Future of Roth IRAs
3. Handling a mini-windfall
4. Planning for the unpredictable
5. Time for fun hobbies?
6. Stay at home mom decision
7. Overseas trip planning
8. Personal threats
9. Giving up a hobby
10. Ten best books

As I’m writing this, it’s three in the morning. Why am I writing this at three in the morning? We have a baby who seems to be crying every hour or so with some incredibly painful teething.

A nap may be in my future later today.

Q1: Locking in student loan rates
My girlfriend has one private $25K student loan that has a pretty good interest rate (4.2%)….for now. It’s a variable interest rate, which concerns me. I’m certain that interest rates will start creeping back up soon and before that happens I want to know if there is any way possible to fix the interest rate. We tried calling the lender and asking them to fix it, but to no avail. Do you have any other suggestions? Would writing a letter help our cause? Can you consolidate just one private loan to get a fixed rate?
- Josh

If your current lender won’t cooperate with locking in a rate, I would shop around. Contact other lenders in the private student loan business and see about consolidation.

Yes, you can consolidate a single loan if you’re eligible for loan consolidation. In that situation, it’s more of a refinancing than a consolidation, of course, but the procedure is the same.

You may have some difficulty finding a lender, however, as many lenders would prefer to have a variable rate loan on the books with interest rates as low as they are.

Q2: Future of Roth IRAs
I agree that the way the Roth IRA rules currently exist make it an appealing investment vehicle. However, I am not confident that the rules will remain unchanged for the thirty years until I start withdrawing the money. Do you see ROTH IRA’s as an easy target for which politicians will try to reduce the tax effectiveness?
- Tim

It’s difficult to say that any aspect of the tax code will remain consistent over the next thirty years.

However, I don’t see Roth IRAs as being the easiest target for politicians who want to increase revenue. Roth IRAs tend to be used heavily by people making between $50,000 and $150,000 a year – a group that both political parties want to have supporting them at the ballot box.

There are many other tax targets that the government will aim for besides Roth IRAs that don’t come with the political liability of targeting Roths.

Q3:
Here’s my situation: My husband and I are at a point in our debt-reduction/financial turnaround where we are seeing encouraging results and feeling pretty positive about the do-ability of our dreams. Together we have *huge* student loans (about 2/3 federal, 1/3 private) that have recently entered repayment and we’ve got a handle on those payments for the time being – not really freaking out about it but sufficiently aware of the seriousness of this type of debt. We also have some credit card debt that we’ve been snowballing; we’re about a third of the way through that, estimating it’ll be gone in about 12-16 months. When that’s gone, the plan is to take the money that once went to cards every month and split it between savings and attacking student loans. We currently have two small savings accounts – only about a month’s salary in those, combined. We don’t own a car, we rent a small apartment in a major city, have good benefits thru work, and are generally getting by a little better every month, thank goodness.

So, in the coming weeks & months we expect some irregular bumps in our income due to some side work we are each taking on (about $5000 total, after putting away some for taxes since it’s freelance work). In addition, our rent for the month of June ($1200) will be free because of a promotional deal when we signed the lease. We’re debating how best to handle this surplus – really wipe out a huge chunk of cc debt, or put it toward the loans, or add it to savings, or somehow divide it up between the three? I realize I didn’t give you specific debt numbers to work with – but based on this, can you get a sense of what would be a wise use of this money? And for the record, we do plan to use about $100 on a train ride or car rental for a much-needed day trip out of the city (don’t worry, we’ll pack a picnic!).
- Angela

It is really hard to say what the best move is without specific numbers.

For starters, I would make sure that you’ve got a debt repayment plan in place, preferably ordered by the interest rates on the loans. Pay off the high interest rate loans first.

Where should a large emergency fund fit in there as a priority? There is no right answer. I usually encourage people to first have a $1,000 emergency fund, then pay off their high interest rate debts (anything over, say, 8% or 9%), then build a larger emergency fund (up to three months or so of living expenses), then pay off all remaining debts. I think this is a good general plan to follow.

Q4: Planning for the unpredictable
I am graduating from college this May and will immediately commission as an USAF Officer. Since childhood my parents have always been supportive of my interest in personal finance and are very open about their own financial situation. In particular, what struck me is that they were very regular about saving for retirement until ‘life’ happened in the ‘80s: my two older brothers and I were born in two year increments like clockwork. Since that time, for various reasons, they have saved very little for retirement and will have some tough decisions ahead.

My current situation: My service commitment is 10 years (pilot). I am single, will not buy a house for at least a decade (I PCS every 3 years to a new location), and I have just purchased (in cash) a nice used diesel Jeep that I plan to see through 300,000 miles. I have one $27,000 personal loan with a 5-year term @ 4.99% interest left over from school, no credit card debt, and I already have a 6-month emergency fund in place. I will have very predictable income, expenses, and pay increases during my service.

My plan: Fully fund Roth IRA to $5000/year, fully fund Thrift Savings Plan (Government 401K) to $16500/year, and make minimum monthly payments on the loan. Achieving this is as simple as not letting my lifestyle ‘inflate’ too much from college.

My rationale: While I don’t like the idea of debt, my logic is this: by not making additional payments on the loan, I am able to fully fund TSP – reducing my tax burden by more in a single year than I will pay in total interest on the loan over the course of 5 years. My pay will increase at the 2 year mark, and I can use the excess monthly income to pay down the loan rapidly. If my circumstances change (marriage, etc.) it is only a matter of reducing my contributions to TSP to put more money in my pocket each month. When the loan is paid off, I will have plenty of monthly income to start saving for other goals (like a house).

Is my logic sound? If I anticipate “life” happening at some point, but can’t predict when, is it not logical to take FULL advantage of the investment vehicles available to me while I am a bachelor with essentially no commitments?
- John

I absolutely think it makes sense to “front-load” your retirement savings with as much money as you can when you’re very young. Every dollar you contribute to your retirement in your twenties is the same as contributing several dollars in your forties and fifties.

My only suggestion to you would be to make sure you have something of an emergency fund in place – at least $1,000 in cash. This way, when small “life” events happen, you’re not forced to dip into debt to handle them. Replenish this fund as soon as possible every time you need to use it.

It is often very tempting to stop contributing to retirement when big “life” events happen, but try as hard as you can to avoid it. People never complain about having too much money in their retirement accounts.

Q5: Time for fun hobbies?
How do you find time for fun hobbies like boardgaming and still have time for your career and for your family and for any kind of self-improvement?
- Elliott

The biggest reason is that I don’t “waste” time. I don’t spend time idling in front of the television and I rarely do it in front of the computer.

If I have spare time, I usually try to engage in some activity that has real value to me. That means either engaging in something that needs to be done (a household or work task), some kind of self-improvement, or a clearly defined leisure task (such as playing a board game with someone).

I’m often amazed at how much time I wasted once upon a time.

Q6: Stay at home mom decision
My husband and I are 28 years old and recently found out we are pregnant (which we are THRILLED about and it was planned), and before this, we had done some inventory of our budget and have been saving pretty intensely. My husband makes about $3,200/month (after taxes) and we try our best each month to use only his salary for all of our bills, groceries, everyday expenses, etc. We usually come up at least $500 short. I make about $3,400/month after taxes, and of that we put just about $2,400 directly into savings, and the other $1,000 gets put into a separate checking account that we pull from to make up the difference in our monthly expenses that can’t be made using just my husband’s paycheck. We also decided we’ll try to use this checking account for most expenses when summer comes (my husband is a teacher and therefore doesn’t get paid in the summer). We’ve been exploring other ways of saving some money, which has included the possibility of getting rid of cable (this will be a tough one for the husband – huge sports fan. But we do have Netflix and a Roku box which would allow us to stream from amazon and hulu when we wanted), and we’ve gotten pretty good at planning meals at the beginning of each week and only going to the grocery store once per week (that alone as saved us up tp $75/week or more), and rarely going out to dinner. We currently have $14,000 in a savings account, plus a few stock accounts which probably add up to about $10,000. Our only debt other than our mortgage is my student loans (about $45,000 worth) which I pay the minimum payments on each month which ends up being about $350/month with a 6.125% interest rate).

I recently just started a new job (accepted the position and two weeks later found out I was pregnant!). We are struggling with the decision of whether or not I should stay home when the baby comes. This is something that means alot to BOTH of us. I’ve always wanted to be able to stay home, but I worry that it will put us in a tough financial situation if I do. Since I just started, I will not be eligible for any sort of extended leave with the Family Medical Leave Act, therefore the most I see myself being able to take off is about 8 weeks (6 weeks disability plus 2 weeks vacation time). This upsets me to even think about. I can’t imagine only staying home this long. While I know my husband is supportive of me staying home for a little while (we figure we can easily do this for one year or maybe a little more with what we have in savings), I worry that 1) I have no idea what the job market will be like when I decide its time to go back to work. The economy is so bad, and I work in public health (on grant projects no less). These types of programs are frequently the first to get cut when state budgets are struggling. 2) I worry that if I do stay home, we will be unable to save much of anything until I get back to work.

We’ve thought about how much we would save in childcare costs – which is substantial. We’ve also realized that I spend almost $200/month on gas, given my job is about 33 miles away from home. This is money saved if I were to stay home. BUT – we also have decided that we may want to trade my husband’s car which is a 2 door coupe for something more family friendly. This would add a car payment to the mix, which would easily replace the $200/month we’d be saving on gas.

I guess I’m just looking for advice. What do you think of our situation? Do you think its a stupid decision to leave a good paying job to stay home for a year or two, not knowing what the job climate will be when I’m ready to return? Any help is so appreciated!
- Kate

I don’t think it’s a stupid decision at all. My wife took FMLA leave (unpaid, without benefits) for almost a full year recently to be with our children when they were young. I changed my career path so that my time would be more flexible, too. The time that your children are young is a time that, once it’s passed, will never return.

I would not stress yourself out about what the job climate will look like in two years. It’s almost impossible to say what it will look like then. The job you have now might not exist, either, so staying in isn’t a guarantee that you’d be working in that field in two years.

It sounds like you’re in pretty good financial shape for making this move. If it’s something you feel compelled to do, then you should do it.

Q7: Overseas trip planning
I am taking an overseas trip towards the end of the summer this year. I will have the money for the trip saved up by then. I like to put all of my purchases on my credit card(s) and pay them month to month. I know both of my current credit cards charge a foreign exchange fee of 1% of each American dollar spent. One card is a Visa and one card is an American Express, which I have read is not accepted outside the country often. Do you have a recommendation for a card with a 0% foreign exchange fee? Or is there a better way to handle money/purchases overseas? Does the exchange rate make a difference in the choices I should make? Although, I suppose 1% is not very much money considering how frugal I am on trips; pictures and experiences, not souvenirs’, are what make a trip worthwhile to me.
- Daniel

Right now, there aren’t a ton of cards that offer a 0% foreign exchange fee. Most of those cards are pretty limited in terms of rewards, so if you’re an active rewards user, it’s probably not worth it.

If you are seeking such a card anyway, most of the major credit card issuers (Capital One, Chase, Citi, etc.) offer a few cards that have a 0% foreign exchange fee.

My experience with foreign travel was that my ATM card handled everything I needed quite well. I was able to easily use international ATMs after informing my bank that I was traveling abroad.

Q8: Personal threats
I started a blog like you suggested as a creative vent and to maybe earn a bit of money. It was going really well until yesterday, when someone sent me a very personal threat. Have you ever received such a thing? How do you handle it?
- Shanda

I receive two or three such disturbing messages a week. At one time, they really bothered me – in fact, I closed up my first successful blog (a parenting blog) because of them.

Now, I basically ignore them. The people who would send such things are people who are “internet brave,” meaning they’re willing to show their sadistic side only because the internet offers them some anonymity. They’re cowards, in other words.

I have been called almost every insult you can imagine. I’ve been sent Photoshopped pictures of my children. I’ve been sent a few emails that I would describe as being essentially “snuff.” Frankly, I don’t care any more.

The only drawback I’ve seen to such things is that it basically desensitizes me to some things that might be considered legitimate complaints. I often view people who come at me with negative tones as being the type of person who would send such stuff, and I’ll either just ignore them or respond with a “get a life” type of message.

Q9: Giving up a hobby
I used to play guitar and bass in a band through college. I put a lot of money into the equipment I have. I have 5 guitars/bass of various styles and 3 amps, which I probably spent $7,000 when all is said and done. Now that I am out of college the inevitable happened: I don’t play with a group anymore. While my finances are good (1 year out of college, no debt, own my car, $60k in income a year) part of me says just letting the equipment sit there is not doing me any good. The other part of me is in pain thinking about trying to sell them (memories of playing and thought of trying to sell all of it doesn’t exactly thrill me).
- Josh

The first question is whether any of this has significant re-sale value. Can you get much out of it used? I can’t tell you the answer to this because I don’t know the equipment and I’m not familiar with guitars. Does this type of equipment sell well used on, say, eBay?

If you can’t get a large return on it, I’d just keep it. You might yet have value from those instruments.

If there is significant value there, you have to ask yourself how much time you want to put into selling it. Generally, the more time you put into selling it, the more you’ll make from the sale because you can break the sale down into smaller pieces and try more approaches. If you just want to get rid of the lot, invent a fairly low price and list it all on Craigslist as one giant lot.

Q10: Ten best books
My question is what are 10 books recommended to read? I don’t mind financial, investing or leisure books and if you categorize them but what are you top 10 favorite/most read/most worth reading books.
- Samantha

That’s like asking a record collector what his ten favorite records are. I’ve read thousands of books over the years. Picking ten favorites is basically impossible.

I tried to come up with a list based on asking myself what ten books I’d keep if I could own only ten books. These would have to be books I could read and re-read and read again and find value in each time I read them, either from the content or the writing style or from something else entirely. This is what I came up with.

Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin
The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
The Complete Poems by Walt Whitman
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

This list is far from constant, and I might give you a drastically different list in a month.

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.

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance or other book of interest. Also available is a complete list of the hundreds of book reviews that have appeared on The Simple Dollar over the years.

Michael Masterson is one of my favorite personal finance and career writers. In the past, I’ve reviewed four of his books – Seven Years to Seven Figures, Automatic Wealth, Automatic Wealth for Grads, and Ready, Fire, Aim – and enjoyed them all, particularly the latter three.

The Pledge, on the other hand, has a more general approach to success in life than Masterson’s other books, which largely focus on personal finance and entrepreneurship. Here, Masterson’s focus is on creating a “master plan” for your life that will guide you to what you want in each area of your life. This falls much more into the Dale Carnegie/Stephen Covey “self-improvement” arena than strictly in personal finance.

For me, such books are either hit or miss. Sometimes, they’ll offer up some tremendous ideas for putting your life on the right path. At other times, they’ll re-hash what’s already out there or just offer up things you can’t really take action on.

Which camp does The Pledge fall into?

Your Master Plan for an Abundant Life
Masterson’s idea of a “master plan” is not altogether different than my own idea for a “five year plan” that I’ve proposed before on The Simple Dollar. In my idea of a five year plan, you simply describe in detail what you want your life to ideally look like in five years (or ten years), and then you focus on assembling a plan to get there and doing whatever it takes to make that happen. This is largely what Masterson describes to open the book.

How to Turn Your Biggest Dreams Into Reality
What’s the difference between a goal and a dream? Masterson identifies four factors that separate them: goals are specific, actionable, time-oriented, and realistic, while dreams are not. Another key factor that’s necessary for goals to become reality is to write them down and carefully plan out (in writing) how you’re going to get there, a step that many people fail to take (and a step that causes many people to fail at approaching their goals). Masterson moves from there to tying goals to your core life values through looking at what you’d like people to say about you at your funeral and through other exercises that seek to tease out real goals from your life.

Your Abundant Life, Day by Day
So, how can you make those goals and plans happen? Masterson encourages people to set aside at least an hour (and preferably more) each day to make forward progress on the goal most important in your life. For example, if your key goal is to get into shape, you should be spending an hour at the gym each day, period. If you can’t set aside this time, you’re ensuring that you’ll never move forward on any of the goals you have. Success takes time that’s consistently invested.

Creating a Richer, More Enjoyable Life
Every choice we have in life has three possible outcomes. It can either lead us to a better life, lead us to a worse life, or have little consequence on our life at all. Building a richer and more enjoyable life requires making more of our choices lead us to a better life and fewer of our choices leading us to a worse life. This takes time and it also takes a fair amount of self-analysis, as it’s often unclear whether our choices lead us to an improved life or not.

The Push You Need to Succeed
You can’t wait until your life is “perfect” to embark on such a plan. If you wait for a “perfect” life, you’ll never get started. Stop waiting on that relationship to resolve itself or for your job to get better. Overcoming those obstacles should be a part of your life’s master plan, not something to prevent you from ever getting started on it. Part of the plan is being honest in assessing yourself and recognizing that building up certain skills should be part of the plan.

Skills of the Most Successful
Successful people read. Successful people have strong memories. Successful people speak well. Successful people seek out mentors. Successful people avoid relationships that will drag them down. Successful people master time management that works for them. If you can really hammer down these skills (and a few other secondary ones that Masterson talks about), then you’ll find yourself in a better place almost by default.

The Obstacles to Your Success – and How to Defeat Them
Handling disasters well. Breaking your information addiction. Getting out of a life “rut.” Defeating depression. These are solutions that Masterson offers to the key problems that keep people from succeeding in their lives. I have to agree with him on the “information addiction” part of this – the more time I spend tracking down relatively unimportant information and reading it, the less time I have for things genuinely important to me.

Building Your Wealth
Masterson argues that the best way to improve your financial situation is to focus on doing whatever it takes to increase your hourly worth. Your hourly worth is the amount you make in a year, divided by 50 weeks, then divided by 40 hours. This is roughly how much an hour of your time spent on income-earning tasks is worth. Masterson then goes down several interesting paths based on that number, including things you can do to improve it.

Is The Pledge Worth Reading?
Like many books of this type, The Pledge is a giant collection of good ideas that reward the person who reads through them and digs out the diamonds. Also like many books of this type, the value of this book depends heavily on the reader, because if you’re not willing to dig out those diamonds and put them to work in your life, this book won’t have much value.

For me, almost every page had some sort of insight. The book on a whole wasn’t life changing, but many of the ideas in it fit right at home on the path of improving my life that I find myself on.

Check out additional reviews and notes of The Pledge on Amazon.com.

Over the last few years, I couldn’t help but notice that several churches in my local area have run personal finance programs of various kinds, such as Financial Peace University and so on. Having sat in on a few of them, I can certainly say that they’re often well-attended, with enthusiastic people taking notes and often asking good questions, too.

This left me wondering why churches are such a hotbed for personal finance education. I’m not so much interested in the reasons why churches would host such events, but why churches happen to be the place where such events find great success. More importantly, is there anything useful in that relationship that could be applied to those who seek financial success without such groups?

In order to figure this out, I’ve had conversations with a few different pastors and a lot of different church members over the past year along these lines. Why does your church host personal finance programs? Do you feel they’re successful? Why do you feel that they’re successful?

The answers were actually pretty consistent – and fairly insightful.

First of all, churches often host financial seminars because it is in their interest for their members to find financial success. That makes sense, of course. If your members are in poor financial shape, they’re less likely to donate. If they’re in good financial shape, they’re more likely to donate. Thus, a healthy church is going to want members that are in good financial shape.

That explains why the churches would host a seminar, but it doesn’t explain why I was witnessing seminars that seemed to be really successful.

One person attended these meetings because she knew it would provide a support network. She had tried executing a financial turnaround on her own, but she found it incredibly difficult and often failed at it. Going through the process with a group of supportive people that she knew made it easier to start making changes. If her friends were making these changes, it made it easier for her, too.

So how can you apply this independently? Find a money buddy. A “money buddy” is simply someone who has a roughly similar financial situation as you who is also trying to make positive financial changes. You basically agree to talk to each other about money and spending issues and agree to reinforce each other’s good choices in a positive fashion. Your spouse can be a very good money buddy, for example, as can your best friend or your sibling.

Another theme I heard is that when the ideas were presented in a Biblical context, they seemed to hit home much more powerfully. In other words, because the ideas were wrapped in a greater philosophical and spiritual tradition that the people had held for much of their lives, it was easier to digest the basic ideas of personal finance.

You can apply this independently by simply digging deeper into the things that you’ve valued during your life and looking at what aspects of them apply to personal finance. Many of the basic principles that govern personal finance – frugality, prudence, temperance – are universal virtues that can be found in many different places in life.

A final theme I heard is that by incorporating such learning with the church, the church itself became a reminder of the goals they were setting. Since they were attending services weekly (and often attending other programs and events more often than that), they would often be reminded of their personal finance learning and commitments simply by visiting the church or being near it.

In essence, the church is just a visual reminder for them. A visual reminder can be anything. Two of my most useful visual reminders have been a photo of my kids (wrapped around my credit cards for a long while) and a picture of the country home we dream of living in (taped to the rear view mirror in my truck). These were incredibly useful for constantly reminding me of my goals and, more importantly, why I was working so hard to achieve them.

There are often valuable lessons to be found from the simple act of the lessons themselves.

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” – Thomas Jefferson

The world is loaded with great little pieces of advice from people who have accomplished great things in their lives. Usually, these quotes point to some specific virtue that a person can have, and often to the same virtues: proactivity, frugality, temperance, focus, goal-orientation, industriousness.

I write about the virtue of such things on The Simple Dollar, often through times in my own life where I see the value of these virtues at work.

The question I have in mind is if these virtues are so worthwhile, why do I (and so many others) so often fail at achieving them?

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” – Confucius

Rather than handling a piece of correspondence right now, I’ll toss it off to the side to deal with later because it just doesn’t seem interesting at the moment.

Rather than making a homemade meal on Friday night, I’ll let the children talk me into eating out at their favorite restaurant.

Rather than spending a free afternoon focused on a personal goal, I’ll spend half of it reading a fun book and the other half debating people on a messageboard.

Rather than bearing down on the task at hand, I’ll drum my fingers and eventually find myself playing a game.

Rather than minimizing my grocery bill, I’ll end up buying a fresh pineapple, just because it looks tasty and I know it’ll be a big hit with the family.

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” – Benjamin Franklin

Even if I know that practicing a certain virtue will lead to a better life in the long run, why is it often so easy to go against that virtue in the short term?

We know frugality has great long term benefits, but we spend money foolishly in the short term.

We know that being proactive is incredibly valuable, yet we still choose to procrastinate.

We know that devoting time to goals can lead to great things, but we’ll still choose to blow off an afternoon.

I see this pattern over and over again, both in my own life and in the actions of others. Why does it happen?

I think it comes down to a handful of things.

First, most human beings are naturally short-term thinkers. The future is often hazy and uncertain to us. We might visualize the future, but when we’re making immediate choices, the present is often what really matters to us. What’s the best thing to do right now in terms of benefits and drawbacks?

In my own experience, the best solution to that problem is to simply practice looking ahead at the future more. I’ve witnessed in my own life where stopping for a moment and looking at future consequences of this decision not only helps with that decision in the moment, but it helps to make looking at the future for all decisions much more natural and much quicker, too. It takes practice and repetition, but it pays off.

Second, the poor choice is often the low-hanging fruit. Most of the time, humans look for the path of least resistance when it comes to which decision to make. Which choice is easier right now?

The best solution here is to make the more “virtuous” fruit hang a little lower. Set out your exercise gear or running shoes right by the door so that it’s easier to just go and do it. Cut up some fruit and wash it so that it’s a convenient finger food. Automate your savings through an automatic savings plan at your bank.

At the same time, strive to make the poorer choices a bit more difficult. Leave your credit and debit cards at home, and delete those numbers from online accounts. Throw away the junk food and alcohol in your cupboards. Delete your account on a messageboard or social networking site you visit too much.

Another factor is that we often put our personal immediate needs and desires first. Most of the virtues described above require us to put the needs of others – or the needs of our future self – first. That can be a very difficult thing to do consistently.

The solution to this problem is just like the first: practice. The more time you spend solely putting others first (yes, that includes your future self), the more natural it becomes. Time and time again, you’ll find that the rewards for not putting yourself first are quite abundant.

It’s hard to be the virtuous person we often want to be, but with preparation and practice, we can accomplish great things in life.

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. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
This is an awesome application of the internet. Composer Eric Whitacre collected a large number (in the thousands, at last count) of individual performances of choral pieces on YouTube and combined them into a single piece, utilizing the individual audio tracks as well as the videos of the people performing them. Here’s the most recent one, “Sleep.”

This is one where it’s worthwhile to just ignore the video, close your eyes, and listen. Here’s some more info about the virtual choir.

2. Emerson on persistence
The more you work at anything, the easier it becomes. Not because the task becomes easier, but because you get better at it.

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think this is true for frugal behavior, for example. It’s hard to establish a new normal, but once you do it, it becomes easier and easier.

3. The Inflation Calculator
I’ve been using this little tool for years to put inflation in perspective. All you have to do is drop in a dollar amount, put in the two years you want to compare, and it’ll show you the comparison. For example, I wanted to compare what $7.00 looks like in 1970 dollars and 2010 dollars. “What cost $7.00 in 1970 would cost $38.86 in 2010. Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2010 and 1970, they would cost you $7.00 and $1.21 respectively.”

Inflation is a harsh mistress.

4. Agesilaus on frugality and liberty
Frugality isn’t about restriction. It’s about freedom – freedom from want, freedom from reliance, freedom from being under the economic thumb of others.

“By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.” – Agesilaus of Sparta

I am frugal because I want freedom.

5. The Yellow House (The Street) (1888) by Vincent van Gogh
My three year old daughter’s favorite book is Vincent’s Colors, which depicts some of van Gogh’s paintings along with five or six word descriptions of the painting from van Gogh’s own pen.

My daughter often stops and looks at this one for a long time. Lately, I have, too.

6. Jaques’ soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It
What act are you in?

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Are you making the most of that act?

7. FDR on taxes
It’s easy to get very frustrated after paying taxes. FDR puts it in perspective.

“Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Taxes may be painful, but without them, we’d either be without roads or we’d be paying usage fees to use them. The same is true for police, hospitals, schools – the list goes on and on.

8. Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit
I get goosebumps every time I hear this.

9. Morels
It’s early spring in Iowa. Time to start hunting the woods for something wonderful.

Thanks to grongar for the wonderful pic.

10. Quote on love and games
My favorite opponent at games is my wife. Often, one of us loses and one of us wins. Not always.

Love is a game that two can play and both win. – Eva Gabor

It’s hard to really lose when you walk away from the table with your opponent’s hand in yours.

The usual Friday “dinner with my family” post is taking a one week hiatus.

I recently had what I consider to be a great idea that I thought I’d share with you while I’m still in the process of implementing it.

A few days ago, I was at a food co-op distribution point (I’m not in the food co-op but I’m hoping to sign up for one soon) where I noticed that they had lists of the available items on a big white dry erase board. Essentially, the board provided a list of all of the food items that were spread around the food co-op building so that you didn’t have to wander around searching for an item. Instead, you could just look at the board and make sure they actually have the item first.

It looked an awful lot like this board, found at another food co-op (thanks to krossbow for the pic):

As I looked at the board, an idea popped into my head.

Our pantry and deep freezer have a lot of food in there. Often, it’s hard to find food that’s located in the back, particularly when you’re browsing for something to have for dinner.

Let’s say, for example, that the kids are clamoring for macaroni and cheese. Do we have any elbow macaroni? It’s probably way in the back on one of the shelves in the pantry… but can I see it, especially when I’m not sure if we have any?

Let’s say we’re making a meal plan for the week. Well, what do we have in hand? We could dig through the freezer and the pantry, spending a good amount of time just putting down the basics of our meal plan.

Or, in both cases, we could just glance at a whiteboard in our kitchen that lists the contents of such food storage places.

Why do this?

First, it makes locating food items at home easier. I need rice vinegar. Where is it? I might have everything in the pantry memorized… but probably not. I might spend a bunch of time searching for it. Or I could just glance at a big board that tells me right where it is and quickly pull it out of the pantry.

Second, it makes meal planning much easier. I’m making next week’s meal plan. What should I make? I could dig through the pantry or the deep freezer to come up with ideas… or I could just look at a list on a whiteboard.

Both of these things greatly encourage cooking at home, which is far less expensive than eating out. Not only that, it encourages me to plan meals based more on what I have on hand than before, which means that our actual food bills will go down even further because we’re using materials we already have instead of buying more.

Today, I started on the first draft of this idea. I made a list on my laptop of all of the significant items in our pantry, printed off a couple pages, and taped them to the pantry door. However, I can quickly see how these pages will quickly be outdated with items used up and items added to the pantry.

So, one of the projects for this coming weekend is to pick up a dry erase board and install it on the pantry door. Will it work? To me, it seems like one of those big wins that saves both time and money. It does require some start-up work, but once that project is complete, the benefits seem tremendous.

Here’s a question for you. It’s more of a thought experiment – I’m not actually suggesting that you go out and do this.

Would you be comfortable showing your best friend your entire financial picture?

Or, what about your spouse? What about your parents?

Some of you will honestly answer this question with a resounding “Sure!” To those of you, I say congratulations. Your finances are in a situation that you’re happy with and that you’re proud enough of that you’re willing to let the sunshine in.

Now, what if you’re not comfortable revealing such information? Regardless of the reason, I think there’s almost always something valuable to find by digging into this question.

I’ll start off talking about my own situation. I’m comfortable revealing all of my financial picture to my spouse, and most of my financial picture to my parents and my closest friends.

What am I not willing to show? I’m mostly uncomfortable revealing my total income and a few specific elements of my spending. In terms of the salary, it’s mostly an issue of not wanting to create a sense of “this person makes more than me” or “this person makes less than me.” I don’t want to create a social conflict.

As for the spending, there are a few elements that I’m just not comfortable sharing. Why? Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s something that has certainly intrigued me over the past few days. I do know that there’s some element of that spending that I must be ashamed of or unwilling to share for some reason. Is it because, on some level, I recognize that it’s not a good way to spend my money?

I think there’s something to it, and it’s made me think seriously about how I’m spending my money in a few categories. If it’s something I’m uncomfortable sharing with the people I’m closest to in my life, then it’s probably very close to some distinct challenge in my own life.

What are your areas of discomfort?

Are you ashamed of some aspect of your finances? This might be a wake-up call to take charge of that aspect of your financial picture. Perhaps there are debts you need to focus on more intensely.

Are you uncomfortable revealing your specific spending habits? Perhaps those habits are pointing you to an aspect of your life or your personality that needs work or improvement. If there’s something that’s making you uncomfortable in the presence of those closest to you, that area may be one to really focus on.

You may also come to some conclusions about your relationships themselves. Why exactly are you uncomfortable about certain aspects of your finances with certain people? After some real consideration of this issue in my own life, I realized that, frankly, I would be willing to show everything to a very small group. Surprise! That small group happens to be my closest core of friends and family.

The glimpses you would allow others to have of your finances – or avoid allowing – can be very insightful, not just in terms of your own behavior, but in terms of your own relationships. As always, the better your relationship with money and the stronger your relationship with the key people around you, the better off you are in every aspect of life.

This morning, I sat at the keyboard in our basement, practicing a certain part of a song on the piano that I’d been working on for a while. I had attempted to play it during my last piano lesson, but my attempt at it had completely fallen flat and I was disappointed in myself. So, there I was, working on a few of the rough points in the song.

What I realized while I was practicing is that the real key to getting better wasn’t that I was practicing. That choice to practice was just the outcome of the real reason why I’m (slowly) improving as a piano player.

What’s the real reason? I realize that when I put out a poor performance, I’m the one to blame. It’s my own fault for not doing whatever it would take to maximize the chances of a good performance.

Every time we mess up, it is very easy to blame someone else. The lender was acting in a predatory fashion. The lawyer didn’t explain the contract very well. The boss didn’t understand how much work it would be. My friend didn’t show up in time to get me to work. My professors assigned too much homework for me to complete it all. The grocery store charged outrageous prices for the ingredients.

The truth is that in virtually every case, we as individuals could have done things to improve our performance – and our outcome. I could have asked for help in understanding the loan or the contract from another source. I could have managed my time better. I could have articulated the challenge to my supervisors. I could have created a backup plan. I could have shopped around. I could have planned for alternate ingredients.

When I apply the same filter to my own financial and professional mistakes, I see the same relationship between my blame and my own actions.

I could blame my old coworkers for creating a wedge in my family – or I could look at myself for not articulating this problem very well.

I could blame marketers and advertising for convincing me to spend money on stuff I didn’t need – or I could look at myself for not having willpower.

I could blame my parents and my school for not providing strong personal finance education – or I could look at myself for signing up for things and spending money on credit without understanding what I was doing and without educating myself.

Hand in hand with realizing that I’m the one to blame for poor performance comes the idea that realization pushes me to take whatever steps I need to ensure that I don’t have a poor performance in the future.

When I finally took charge of my career situation, I realized it was up to me to put myself in a position that I was happy with with regards to the balance of career and family. I put my nose to the grindstone and built The Simple Dollar (and some other opportunities) so that, above all, I would have the flexibility I needed to not miss any more of those big family moments. It was up to me – not my coworkers, not my boss, not society at large – to fix the problem.

When I finally took charge of my spending, I realized it was up to me to start making better choices. Yes, I might often be tempted by friends and family and by advertisements to spend money on things I didn’t need, but that choice was really up to me. I can only build a better financial future if I make choices every day that help me to build that future.

When I finally took charge of my own personal finance education, I buried myself in reading and putting things into practice because I recognized that I was very poorly educated when it came to money. I didn’t have all the answers, but I certainly knew that with work and focus, I could learn a lot of the answers I needed.

Right now, I face the same challenges in many other areas of my life. I’d like to be in better shape. Whose fault is it that I’m not? I’d like to be a better piano player. Whose fault is it that I’m not?

Whenever something in your life doesn’t work the way you want it to, don’t waste a second of energy blaming others. Don’t blame your boss. Don’t blame the government. Don’t blame Mother Nature. Don’t blame your friends. Instead, look at the problem you’re facing and focus entirely on what you can do differently to make that situation better.

The biggest thing holding you back is you.