When I woke up this morning, the biggest thing I wanted to do was to just curl up in a comfortable chair somewhere and finish the novel that I’ve been reading for the past several days (A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, for those of you who enjoy knowing what other people are reading … like I do).

As I sat down to work this morning, a little voice in my head kept whispering Don’t you want to find out what happens next? You’ve only got a few chapters left. Just go take a break, kick back in that chair, and finish off that book.

It would have been very easy to do just that, to just walk away from my responsibilities for the day and just read. It would have been easy to give in to those voices in my head.

Something inside me said “no,” and instead I worked on a reader mailbag column and answered some emails.

Ten years ago, when I was still a college student who thought it was a badge of honor to get an A in sociology by only showing up five times during the whole semester, I would have absolutely put aside what I was supposed to be doing to read something purely fun. It’ll get done in the future, I’d tell myself. I’d let those little voices in my head have their way and I’d find myself doing something that was really fun in the short term.

Those little voices drove me for most of my life.
Sitting in the basement playing Mario Kart all afternoon sounds a lot better than mowing the yard.
I’m still a few hundred dollars away from my credit limit, so let’s go out to that expensive steakhouse.
I’ll toss these slides together real quick and then go golfing.
I could work on that novel I’ve been dreaming of writing… or I could go to the bookstore and buy three of them.

Every single time, those ideas would drive me away from the thing that would benefit me in the long term and drive me straight toward the short term pleasure.

Every single time, I had a brief blip of fun.

Every single time, I wound up with a plate full of regret. I had let another chance to do something great slip by me. I had a bigger stack of papers in my inbox. I had a larger pile of debt to face. I had people around me that were quietly disappointed in me because they knew I was capable of more than that.

My wife. My parents. My boss. And, most importantly, me.

Over time, I started to shift my choices. The existence of The Simple Dollar is owed to two of those shifts. My shift toward long term thinking in terms of my finances created the source material for the site, and my shift toward long term thinking about my writing created the site itself.

Instead of looking at the short term – at the thing I would enjoy most right now – I started looking at the long term. That shift transformed my life. It gave me a new career. It gave me countless amazing opportunities. It gave me a sense of freedom I’ve never had before.

Ten years ago, when I had a choice between a short-term pleasure and a long-term one, I virtually always chose the short-term one. Now, when I have that same choice, I virtually always choose the long-term one.

A great example of this is the spring cleaning project in our garage. I really didn’t want to do it at all, but I knew a cleaned-out garage would be incredibly useful and enjoyable on a daily basis for the rest of the spring and summer. In other words, a hard day’s work would transform into some steady enjoyment over the next several months. On the other hand, I could have just skipped out on it, read a book or played a game, and let the garage go. That single day would have been more enjoyable, but each subsequent day for the rest of the year would have been worse because of the disastrous state of the garage.

I chose to clean it, and what I found was that not only was I glad the garage was cleaned, I felt quite good afterwards. I had that great physical sense of true tiredness that comes after a day of physical work. When I went to bed that night, I felt as though I’d genuinely accomplished something that day, and I slept really deeply. The next day – and every day after it – I got to enjoy the clean garage.

As is almost always the case, the long-term choice wins again.

That’s not to say, of course, that there isn’t joy and value in making the “short term” choice. Even then, though, there’s no reason not to keep an eye on the long term.

When you’re going to hang out with friends, hang out with people that you think will be a part of your life for the long haul, not the people who will drop you at the first chance.

When you choose to spend some money frivolously, do it when you’re aware that you’re not sacrificing your future by going into further debt for that spending – and try to spend it on something memorable or something that will provide value consistently to you.

A final note: <if you make enough long-term choices, you eventually find that your entire life has a higher quality than before. You don’t have debt stressing you out. You have a series of great relationships, not hangers-on that you don’t really like all that well. You have possessions that have real meaning and real use to you. You have a job that you actually enjoy.

All of this comes from making the long-term choice consistently. Sure, it won’t maximize your fun today, but it will make every day better on down the road.

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. Fundraising for starting a nonprofit
2. Thoughts on tiny homes
3. Financial benefits of marriage
4. Cell phone options
5. Student loan question
6. College savings
7. How I make money
8. High cost of living advice
9. Learning about investments
10. Books at library

The old tradition of summer has begun. Our calendar slowly fills in with events and guests and short trips and other things. Before long, our summer becomes more intense than the other seasons because of all of the events.

It’s better to be busy than to not have anyone who wants to see you, I guess, but it often feels like there’s no chance for even a lazy afternoon at home during the entire summer.

Q1: Fundraising for starting a nonprofit
I have been a pastor for the past 16 years. Started right out of college at age 20 and have been loving it. I am currently looking to start a new ministry working with parents with at risk/strong-willed children and starting a new church. The ministry to parents will one day earn it’s own income, since parents will pay for those services.

I was wondering if you have any advice on ways to fundraise or even to starting up a business that come generate income so I can focus what I am really passionate about. I am currently reading 4-hour work week and have read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Just looking for more info and advice.
- Jesse

My initial suggestion is to go to the people that you’ve made contacts with throughout your pastoral career and see if any of them will help you to get started, either through donation or investment. Since you have a lengthy pastoral career to draw on, you hopefully have some people to contact.

I would also look for places to speak to people who might be interested in investing or contributing. Look for Christian or homeschooling parent groups and talk to them about your plans.

If you want people to invest, you have to go to the people who would be interested in what you’re doing. In your case, you’re talking about Christians and parents (ideally, people who are both).

Q2: Thoughts on tiny homes
This is an interesting take on cutting back: Dump Your Mortgage for a 320 Square Foot Home. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
- Marilyn

If I were single or just married without children, this would be fantastic. Such a home would be inexpensive, easy to maintain, and still serve all of our needs.

However, with children, I’d be hesitant to live in a home that small. Children need some room and some privacy, particularly as they grow older. That home affords little of either.

Six years ago, I would have loved that house (it’s not terribly different than the apartment Sarah and I lived in at the time). Now, I wouldn’t be able to live there.

Q3: Financial benefits of marriage
I’m sure you may have fielded this question before, but is there a financial benefit to getting married? I’m in one of those modern long-term relationships; I’ve lived with my boyfriend for a couple years now, and we’ve been together for several before that. We’re in it till the end. We both individually fall in the 25% tax bracket ($34,500 – $83,600), and it will be a long time coming before we individually (or combined: $69,000- $139,500) make enough money to exceed those income levels to keep our taxes as low as possible. We’re not going to have kids, so forget any of those financial benefits. Personally, we’re both apathetic about the legal contract that comes with marriage, but my hyper-pragmatic self wants to make sure I’m not missing out on something that could help me add more to my Roth IRA each year. I know there’s probably some legal details that might present obstacles…like leaving money behind to your partner or maybe having access to each other’s financial information (or something?) that we’re losing out on, but I’m not very concerned about those. I guess what I’m wondering about is the cash-money aspect. We are not particularly for or against going to court and getting that signed paper that makes us married. A good, tangible financial impact, though, would be a good fact to know.
- Debbie

Several benefits come with marriage, but you’ve said you’re not interested in some of them (issues dealing with leaving things behind for a partner).

The biggest benefit in your situation for marriage is that many employers make it very difficult to share benefits with anyone other than an actual spouse. This is vital if either one of you loses your job or chooses to switch jobs.

There’s also the legal recourse if one of you does something harmful to the other. If you’re married, you both have more rights during a split than if you’re not married.

There are other minor benefits, but you’re already enjoying many of them due to cohabitation.

Q4: Cell phone options
Do you own a cell phone? I have a cell phone but hardly ever use it. I was thinking about getting rid of it (I have met my contract obligations therefore no fees would be incurred). My plan is around $50 per month. My husband feels that I should keep it in case of emergencies. What’s your take on cell phones? By the way, I live in the country and don’t have cell service at my home so I really only turn my phone on during my commute to work, doing errands.
- Sarah

I don’t use mine much, either, unless we’re traveling. My wife uses hers quite a lot, however, so it makes sense for me to have a second line rather than having a separate phone, at least in our case. We just have a shared minutes plan and she uses most of the minutes.

I think there’s a lot of value in having one for emergency used – a charged phone in the glove compartment can be a real help. However, the day-to-day usefulness of a cell phone depends heavily on how you live. It’s useful for some, not useful for others.

If you don’t find it useful, get a pay-as-you-go phone. You have to use quite a few minutes to get up to the $50 a month level. If you use just a handful, there are many such phones out there that are a better deal for you.

Q5: Student loan question
Currently I have about $30K in private grad school loans at a variable rate (now at around 4.5%, but has been as high as 9%) and about $65K in federal loans (fixed at 5%). During grad school I consolidated several times, not even really knowing what that was, but just doing it when everyone else did. Now that I’m out of school, it seems that many people I know have significantly better interest rates than I do. I’m not sure if this is tied to credit, but I have a great credit score and always have. Anyway, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do at this point. Can I “consolidate” to a better rate? Are the federal and private loans always going to be separate, or can I consolidate them together? I get tons of offers to refinance my mortgage and tons of credit card offers, but no offers relating to my student loans, so I guess I wasn’t sure if there was anything that could be done at this point.
- Shelly

Generally, public and private loans can’t be consolidated together at a rate that makes such consolidation worthwhile. Some private consolidations do exist, but they generally don’t offer strong rates.

Your best bet is to simply snowball your debts. If I were you, I’d focus on making extra payments on whichever debt has the highest interest rate at the moment. This may switch in the future if rates adjust.

With rates that low, you won’t gain much from consolidation anyway, so I wouldn’t stress out about it.

Q6: College savings
I have two kids — 2 1/2 and 9 months. I would love to start a college fund for them, but we have very little to spare right now. I think we could swing about $50 a month for this. So I’m wondering — should we set up two separate accounts and put $25 in each? Or just one account? At this point, of course, it’s impossible to tell if either or both of them will even want to go to college. I would love your advice on this.
- Jane

I would set up two separate accounts, one for each child. You would be the trustee on both accounts and each child would be a beneficiary on one account.

It’s important to remember that many such 529 plans allow you to use the money for any educational purpose, at any point in life. They might not want to go to college straight out of high school, but many people choose to return to school when they’re older and that money would still be there for them.

I think setting up a 529 is one of the best things a parent can do for a child. I’d highly recommend it, even if you can only contribute a bit each month.

Q7: How I make money
I ran across your website today and enjoyed reading it so much. I read how you got started and it seemed to simple yet genuine. I subscribed and will enjoy reading every day. I just have one question and please pardon me for not really being computer literate, but, how did you make money from your website, “The Simple Dollar”? I understand that the articles are free but from reading how you got started and had your bills paid withing a short time I am very anxious to learn how you earned money from the website. I am in the same situation that you were and you can shed a little more light for me.
- Carolyn

I make money in a wide variety of ways. The biggest one is from the display ads that appear on the right hand column of the site. I do not earn very much from each page that people view – a fraction of a cent – but I have a lot of readers which makes it work.

I earn bits of money from various income streams. My books – 365 Ways to Live Cheap and The Simple Dollar – give me small royalty checks every few months. I sell PDFs that are collections of posts, too. I also earn a bit from Amazon from book sale referrals.

It adds up to enough for me and my family and it enables me to share all of my writings at no direct cost to the reader. It only works, though, because I have a lot of readers.

Q8: High cost of living advice
In Canada cost of living is extremely high, you should check out house prices on Vancouver Island (where we live). If it were you, and you wanted to buy a house and you had the choice, would you stay here or move to Texas? (Our goal is to buy a house.)
- Beth

Is your goal merely to buy any house or does your quality of life have anything to do with it? I’m not sure from your question.

If you’re just looking for inexpensive housing, there are many, many places that are far less expensive than Vancouver – and less expensive than Texas, too. Do some searching about cost of living in various places and you’ll find a wide variety of information.

However, if quality of life is important to you, I’d filter places you might move based on those factors first. What exactly are your requirements for moving to a particular place? What must they have for you to move there? Settle that, then use that as a filter to decide where to move.

I would probably choose Texas over Vancouver, myself. I’d probably enjoy Vancouver more from a cultural perspective, but the weather and the fact that relatives live there would point me toward Texas.

Q9: Learning about investing
I am looking to learn more about investing in the stock market using all types of investment strategies (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, short selling etc.). I have a BA and post-graduate from Simon Fraser in Business Administration and don’t plan to gain any formal certification as the ultimate goal of my studies, but I would like to gain a greater understanding of investment strategies I can apply for my personal finances. What would you recommend for a good online course or very good investment book?
- Matthew

The best one-shot book on investing I’ve ever read is The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing by LeBoeuf, Larimore, and Lindauer. It’s reasonably entertaining, packs a lot of great information into one book, and presents a healthy moderate worldview about investments.

If you’d like something more course-oriented, I’d visit the iTunes site and dig around in the iTunes U section. There’s a ton of audio in there from courses on investing at various universities. This course on financial markets by Robert Shiller is a good example.

Few things beat a real course (if you actually use it and engage with it), but those resources are a great start.

Q10: Books at library
I enjoy reading your blog – very interesting content! I would love to read your books, but I can’t seem to find them at my local library.
- Carmen

My books – 365 Ways to Live Cheap and The Simple Dollar – are carried at a lot of libraries. I’ve seen them on the shelves at several libraries (what can I say? I often check if I’m at a library).

However, if 365 Ways to Live Cheap and The Simple Dollar aren’t at your local library, don’t hesitate to request them. Simply ask the librarian about how a book can be requested. They’ll happily help you.

I get books via library loan quite often, and sometimes libraries actually end up ordering books based on regular requests.

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.

Rarely does a day go by when I’m not contacted by a reader who is alarmed about some economic fear or another. What about inflation? What about deflation? What about precious metals? What about national bankruptcy? The list goes on and on.

Right off the bat, let’s make it clear that I don’t buy such apocalyptic feelings. I believe that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, with perhaps a slight addition of fearing the consequences of our own personal mistakes.

Most of the time, these individuals ask me for what they can do with their money to protect it against the calamity they most fear. Should they buy gold? Should they put it in an overseas bank that’s based in euros? What should they do?

I usually offer these concerned people the same advice over and over, so I’ll just summarize it here. (I’m often amazed how many posts I write so that I can simply send a link in response to a common question.)

First of all, don’t panic. Never, ever make a quick and hasty decision about your money, especially based on information that comes just from a source or two. If you’re going to make a major shift with what you’re doing with your money,

Second of all, be strongly suspicious of any news or information coupled with a sales pitch for an investment. Never, ever trust the word of a salesman completely. Take the information provided and do your own research, every single time.

Still, that doesn’t address specific investment advice. Here’s what I would do if I were worried about such things.

First, I would eliminate all debts. Regardless of what happens to the economy, it’s never a good idea to be financially beholden to a lending institution. Get yourself completely out of debt. Start with your highest interest debt and pay it down rapidly, then move down the list. If a debt is adjustable, give it a bit of priority (say, a percent or two).

Second, invest in yourself. Make sure you have a well-rounded education. Also, make sure that you have a skill set that will come in handy no matter what happens. Time management skills. Information management skills. Leadership skills. Basic home and auto maintenance skills. These things always come in handy, both personally and professionally.

Third, invest in the short-term future. Buy items in bulk, particularly when they’re on sale. Make sure you have supplies on hand to deal with many personal emergencies. Keep an emergency fund at a local bank.

If you have all of these on hand, you’re in far better shape than most people. The best thing you can do with your remaining investment money is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Don’t put all of your money into one pot, ever. Own some domestic stocks and some international stocks via index funds. Own a bit of land. Have money invested purely in cash (like a savings account), and there’s no reason not to own a bit of some foreign currencies, too. The key is to diversify widely so that if one market or one economy or one particular company has a crisis, you won’t lose everything. Sure, you won’t be able to ride the rocketship that is a wildly accelerating stock, but you gain a great deal of security from your diversity.

Here’s the kicker, though. This is the same exact advice I’d give to anyone, whether they were worried about financial apocalypse or not. That’s because sound personal finance principles work when the economy is booming or when it’s faltering. They work when things look great and when they look desperate. People only get into scary situations when they abandon basic principles.

One area I’ve been reading about quite a bit lately is leadership. How does a person who is a bit on the introverted side and is scared of leading a social group actually leap across that chasm and lead a community organization?

I’ve been reading a pile of books by John Maxwell and other such authors and I’ve mostly come to three conclusions. First, candor is almost always the best route and always the way you should go when in doubt. Second, never do anything that you wouldn’t want the people you’re leading to do. Third, never make a decision that you can’t explain (although there are situations where there is private information involved, you still should be able to completely explain why you’re making a decision).

Why leadership? It’s a personal frontier I feel like I still have difficulty crossing at times. I feel as though I’m a weak leader in group situations and I’d like to amend that.

Future Financial Literacy Is In The Hands Of Parents Exactly. Financial literacy is in my hands, because the schools don’t really teach it and, also, my children use me as their biggest source for learning life skills. If you’re a parent, it’s up to you to teach your kids how to manage their money. (@ canadian finance blog)

Is It Better to Learn About Money the Hard Way? I tend to think that people who are good with their money fall into two camps. Either it was taught to them all throughout their childhood or they learned it after some sort of financial “bottoming out.” (@ totally money)

The hard part (one of them) “I did the reading.” In other words, success is really all about the hard work. (@ seth godin)

Why I Hate “New, Unique” Money Tips I don’t like them, either. Whenever a reporter asks me for one, I usually just respond with “save money on HOT_NEW_ITEM by buying VERY_SIMILAR_BUT_LESS_EXPENSIVE_ITEM,” inserting any two appropriate items that you might think of. (@ get rich slowly)