Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

I’m 34 years old; live and work in Washingon, DC for a non-profit organization I’ve been with for 10 years. My salary is quite good, and the benefits are great. Those benefits include a current 13.5% contribution to a 403b (they start at 7.5, then add a point for every two years of service, add a couple of points when you cross each decade threshold, etc) without needing an employee match. So, confession: I don’t contribute to it on my own at all. In the early years, I was wasteful, and now I’ve been focusing my money on getting out of debt first and foremost, and rebuilding my emergency fund (which has gotten tapped to pay for mother’s funeral, emergency veterinarian bills, etc in the last year).

Am I making a mistake not contributing some of my own cash as well? I feel like 13.5% of my salary puts me in good stead over the long-term, and that there will be time enough to contribute more in a couple of years when I am out of debt. My parents both died long before retirement age, too, and I am not planning on having kids who can inherit the retirement money if I have the same fate…).
- Karen

First of all, your benefits are stellar. There’s simply no other word for an organization that puts 13.5% into your 403(b) for you without you having to contribute to it. That’s a benefit most of us would kill for.

At this point, you need to step back and look at the big picture. Are you on pace for the type of retirement you want? I’d take a look at a good retirement calculator.

Two key questions worth thinking about: when do you intend to “retire” from your current career, and at that point, how much of your salary will you need? If you like to work, your intended retirement age will probably be higher than it would be if you can’t wait to retire. If you want to try a second career in your retirement years, your percentage will be lower than if you want to spend your retirement traveling.

Many will argue that you can’t know this. My belief is that the truth is somewhere in the middle – people usually know if they’re of the type who’s happier working and being productive and who’s happier with pure leisure time, but the specifics of your life can change.

Run some appropriate numbers through that calculator and aim a little on the high side. Of course, with 13.5% already being saved, you’re probably fine no matter what you do.

My question, which is prompted by your fall cleaning post, is whether people have been able to find a market for their stuff in this economy, or, to put it a little more optimistically and pragmatically, what strategies have people used to sell their stuff? My neighbor and I have a yard sale in late spring every year, but this year, for the first time ever, we hardly sold anything, making the whole event seem like a waste of time. Along the same lines, I am wondering whether people have found it harder to sell stuff on EBAY, or whether they have had to change their strategies for such sales.
- Barb

My experience in buying and selling on eBay and Amazon auctions, as well as a semi-frequent thrift store visitor, is that the secondhand and discount marketplaces are thriving right now and that it’s a perfectly good time to sell used goods. Most of the economic downturn is coming at the expense of more upscale retailers.

People tend to focus more on bargain-hunting when the economy is down, but rarely do they make true changes to their behavior. They might choose to shop for the thing they want on eBay or Craigslist or at a thrift store, but they’re still going to buy an item if they want it. A retail economic downturn usually means only a 10-15% drop in sales, which means 85-90% of the items they were selling before are still selling.

In short, if anything, now’s a better time than usual to dive into selling used stuff, because there are plenty of buyers out there.

My boyfriend and I are traveling to Prague in the Czech Republic over Thanksgiving weekend and are trying to figure out the best way to exchange money. Is it best to a) change cash in the US to travelers’ checks, b) change US cash in Prague to Czech crowns, or c) take out cash in the form of Czech crowns from local ATMs while there? I also have about 40 Euro left from my last trip to Europe that hasn’t been changed back to US dollars.
- Valerie

Your best bet is to look at your various conversion options before you leave and choose the one that gives you the most crowns for your dollar now. Your best option depends heavily on the policies of the bank you use compared to other options.

Depending on your credit and personal responsibility, it might make the most sense to simply make most of your purchases on a credit card. Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted in Czechoslovakia and you are simply billed for the amount. Be sure to tell your credit card company that you’re traveling before you leave. Assuming that you pay the bill in full when you return, this is a safer option than traveler’s cheques.

One guaranteed piece of advice: avoid currency exchanges at the airport. Their rates are atrocious. I would also probably advise doing the currency exchange there because your options are more limited than they are here in the States.

You’ve talked before about how you don’t like consumerism. How does that affect how you buy Christmas presents for your children?
- Ed

I’m more of the philosophy that you get children a small number of quality presents instead of piles of unnecessary stuff. I also am a big fan of gifting experiences to people.

So, for example, I would have no problem wrapping up a picture of Disney World or of Yellowstone and giving that as a gift along with a promise of a family vacation there. That would be one of, say, three gifts they would receive.

I have no problem with giving gifts or receiving them. However, I’m not a big fan of giving gifts or receiving gifts that are unwanted and just result in more “stuff” for people to manage that they don’t really value.

So, for all of my friends and family reading this, if I ever give you a gift that you don’t want, absolutely feel free to take it back or re-gift it. Please don’t keep unnecessary stuff in your home.

I’m a public school teacher, and as you can imagine, this was a bad year for our union to be re-negotiating the contract. Bottom line is, I’ll be bringing home less money per week next year than I am this year, and I’ll be getting fewer benefits. Though many teachers are well-paid for their efforts, young teachers like me typically start out very low on the pay scale. Next year will be tough.

Could you give me the lowdown on HSAs? I understand the basics. What would be the risks in going with an HSA plan? What would be the benefits? Who would you see as the optimal candidate for HSA, and who would be a person that should stay with a PPO?
- CT

In a nutshell, HSAs are just savings accounts that your employer deposits money in that you can withdraw solely for health-related expenses. This is usually done through a reimbursement system or via a debit card that accesses the account which can only be used at health-related businesses.

In general, HSAs are a solid option for younger workers who are in good health. The older you get – and the more known conditions you have or know you will develop – the better off you are sticking with the PPO.

Given that you’re young and healthy, it’s likely that the HSA is a reasonable option for you. However, it does carry a risk. You’re basically betting against a very expensive medical emergency in the next year or two. While that’s potentially a good bet for you, it becomes a much worse bet for people with pre-existing conditions and people who are older.

When you just close your eyes and let yourself dream, what do you dream about? If everything goes perfectly for you, where will you be in ten years?
- Adrian

I dream of being a best-selling fiction writer. I dream of having a house out in the country with a large office for writing, a small barn in the back, and some woodlands there. I dream of happy, healthy, and curious children.

More than anything, though, I dream of not being afraid of what the future holds. Even with all of the positive changes in my life over the past few years, I’m still afraid of what might come. I haven’t reached the level of financial security I’d like to reach.

My husband and I put aside money into a few mutual funds to save for a house shortly after we were married (about 6ish years ago). The money is in 3 Vanguard index funds: an S&P 500, a long-term bond fund, and a European fund. We are getting closer to buying a house (probably 3-4 years away now). How do I decide when to take the money out and put it in something more safe. Honestly, with the rocky stock market, I don’t think we’ve made any money at all on our investment. It’d be nice to get some more stock market gains seeing how low money market accounts are now, but I don’t want the money to be too volatile, as we would really like to put down a large downpayment on a house once my husband finally gets a real job (i.e. finishes his postdoctoral training and gets onto the academic market).
- Amanda

The real question to ask yourself when deciding whether to move money into something more conservative is to ask yourself whether you can tolerate the worst possible outcome.

For some situations, like retirement, the worst possible outcome – losing 20-30% of the investment over the next few years – is intolerable. For others – perhaps yours – it’s not nearly as vital.

If losing some of that money you have now would really hamper your plans for the future, move it into something more conservative. If that house you’re talking about isn’t an absolute requirement within four years and you’d be fine if it didn’t happen right then, leave it there.

My biggest problem during my workday seems to be uneven energy. I seem to run out of steam at about eleven and so I go eat lunch with some people. After that, I feel almost exhausted for a big part of the afternoon.

I know the solution to this is eating breakfast, but I can’t get into a routine of eating breakfast. I don’t like most breakfast food. What is your breakfast routine like?
- Payton

I usually eat breakfast with my kids each morning. We usually eat something different every day. One day, it might be oatmeal; another day, it might be scrambled eggs. We might have a bagel or toast for breakfast along with some fruit.

Don’t worry about tying yourself into a “traditional” breakfast food. Eat whatever sounds good to you that’s reasonably healthy and provides some energy. If it’s fruit, great. If it’s a salad, great. If it’s a beef and bean burrito, great. Just find a food that works for you in the morning.

I need to have surgery on my left jaw joint. I’ve had various appliances and procedures over the years, all of which have helped (or not) to some degree, but now things have degraded to the point of constant pain and not being able to eat more than pudding (and even that hurts, believe it or not). However, I just found out (literally on Friday, three days ago) that my employer’s health insurance has a specific all-encompassing exclusion for jaw-related treatments of any kind (I have paid for the smaller procedures and appliances out of pocket in the past, so I didn’t realize there was such a total exclusion that would zap me now), and this surgery will be $11,200 minimum. My oral surgeon already sent off an impassioned plea to the insurance company, which was met with a total denial because of the exclusion. I’ve been told there’s no point in appealing, again, because of that exclusion. The dental plan also will not touch it. I can get along awhile longer without the surgery, but the pain and inability to eat much will only get worse, so at some point I pretty much have to have the surgery. I refuse to go the narcotics route.

Short of quitting my job, divorcing my husband, giving away all my assets and applying for medicare/caid, is there any other option I’m not seeing? Or any other way to handle the finances that might make it less painful in the wallet?
- Cindy

You’re likely far more informed about your options in this situation than I am. However, three things pop into my mind.

First, have you sought out multiple opinions on the subject? If you have not sought a second opinion on your jaw, you might be missing out on a treatment option that drastically reduces your costs and gives you the results you want. Your oral surgeon could be one of the best in the world, but he still might be missing some detail.

Second, have you simply tried negotiating? Tell your oral surgeon that it would be difficult to pay for the procedure. Offer to barter what skills or time you have in exchange for some part of the payment. See what’s possible.

Finally, have you looked at any form of third-party dental insurance? There may be forms of insurance that will cover your procedure. It might not be a bad idea given your spouse has also had oral issues.

Whatever happens, good luck!

Peyton Manning or Tom Brady?
- Evan

Drew Brees.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in a future mailbag.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

What is your take on the cost and necessity of supplemental insurance (disability, cancer, et al) from companies such as AFLAC?

I purchased cancer insurance through AFLAC when I first started at my job because cancer is very prevalent in my family’s medical history, but today I realized that I’m spending $358.80/year on it and wondered if it’s actually worth it. That’s $358.80/year I could be putting towards my debt and/or emergency fund.
- Joshua

In situations like these, I think the real question to ask yourself is what the insurance is actually buying you. Insurance buys you two things.

First, it buys you financial protection against a certain situation – in this case, cancer. The odds of such situations are known to the insurance company and calculated into an actuarial table. That basically means that they believe, on the whole, if thousands upon thousands of people exactly like you paid $358 per year for the insurance, the company would expect to make a profit. You can use that information (and the approximate value of your payout) to make a reasonable guess as to the odds they have calculated for your likelihood of the condition. That’s what you’re protecting against.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it buys you peace of mind. This has more power than you realize. People with certain psychological profiles are very open to worrying – perhaps excessively – about potential bad scenarios, and knowing that a scenario is protected against can be an enormous peace of mind and stress reducer to those folks.

For me personally, part of the equation revolves around one’s financial state. If you’re very secure and have a lifestyle well below your means, insurance becomes substantially less important.

What I’m trying to say is I can’t give you an answer to your question. That answer comes from you – what kind of person you are, what the real odds are of cancer, and so on.

Foods prices fluctuate so rapidly these days. What are your suggestions for keeping a pricebook for when store prices change so much?
- McKella

I’ve largely given up, to tell the truth.

What I do is about once a year or so, I’ll spend an afternoon in the grocery stores. I just mark down the regular prices on 25 or so of the staples we buy most frequently. Whichever store has the cheapest total for those staples is the one I shop at. The only exception to that is if I notice an enormous sale in a flyer or something to that effect.

For us, that means we do almost all of our food shopping at Fareway, with occasional stops for specialty items at other stores. Jumping from store to store based on price book entries that are outdated in a month just isn’t worth it to me.

Trent’s comments were less than PC but they don’t bother me. Very few people are really PC all the time and at least a large minority are not PC at all any of the time! We just don’t talk about those people any more because it’s not PC to do so!
- Shevy

You know what, I’ll say it.

People are different. People who grew up in different parts of the world see the world in a completely different way. They have different cultures, different behavioral norms, different thoughts, and different ideas. They’re treated differently due to their physical appearance (as much as you might want to wish it away, it’s still true).

There are good traits and bad traits in everyone. There are prevalent traits – both good and bad – in almost every possible slice of the demographic pie.

And that’s awesome. The world benefits from this kind of diversity. I want to get to know everyone I meet because we all see the world so differently. It’s beautiful.

But it’s different when I consider where I want to live – the place where I put my head down on a pillow. I want an environment where I’m not afraid to leave my door unlocked for a half an hour while I go to the hardware store. I want an environment where people will simply leave me alone to do my own things and think my own thoughts. I want an environment where I’m not concerned about random acts of violence beyond an occasional playground fight. I want an environment where I can breathe clean, fresh air. I want to live in an area where politeness and courtesy towards others is a cultural norm. I want to live in a place where neighbors bake each other loaves of bread and don’t mind if they erect a compost bin. I want an environment that has strong winters and hot summers, as I love weather variety. I want to live in a state that has a high standard of education and funds its schools well. This is what I want – it may or may not reflect what you want and, in fact, it probably does not.

Whether you like it or not, that pretty much prescribes that I live in parts of the world that are dominated by certain demographics and underrepresented by other demographics. In the United States, the only place where I’ve found this environment is the rural upper Midwest – a part of the nation that’s pretty accurately described by “A Prairie Home Companion.” Some other regions have come close – the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state is nice, as are some rural areas in New England, but nothing captures it quite like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Guess what? The rural upper Midwest tends to have a lot of people of Scandinavian descent. Immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark chose this part of the country to settle in because it reminded them of their home country. I’m not of Scandinavian descent at all – I’m part German, part English, part French, and part American Indian – but the places where I most want to live tend to have a large Scandinavian demographic. I recognize that and I’m not afraid to say so. The area near Decorah, Iowa is where I would most want to live – for the reasons described above – and Decorah prides itself on having an event called “Nordic Fest.”

I’ve alluded to this in a variety of ways over the years and been called racist for it. If that is racism, then I’m racist.

If you want someone to be perfectly PC all the time, go to another blog. I speak my mind and my heart here and I don’t waste time mincing words and worrying about whether some group of people will be mildly offended by some comment. Political correctness hurts diversity because it suppresses raw, fresh thoughts and encourages people to filter what they say and think, spitting out milquetoast that destroys the diversity that political correctness is supposed to preserve in the first place.

If you had the option to get a refund on your social security taxes, in exchange for not recieveing SS benifits when you retire, would you take that deal?
- John

Absolutely. I’m already assuming I won’t get a dime from Social Security when I retire, so if I could get a refund of the money I’ve paid in, I’d happily take it.

In fact, I think that’s a good policy for anyone planning for retirement, especially when they’re young. Ignore Social Security. If you do end up getting it, view it as a pure bonus.

Why do I feel that way? Given the skyrocketing budget deficit since 1980 and the huge flood of people Social Security will get in the next twenty years or so, there will come a point when the math doesn’t add up. When that happens, there will have to be major changes. I see that point happening well before I’m old enough to even sniff benefits.

My Wife and I bought a home recently and have determined that we do qualify for the $8K tax rebate on our 2009 taxes. This will likely mean a significant tax refund this year, we’re thinking in the neighborhood of $10K as we always overpay to get a refund (I know, blastphemy to some), and are wondering if you think it is best to put it on the mortgage (5%) or pay off our credit cards completely (11 to 19%)? This seems a no-brainer to me, but it has started a healthy debate at my house and I was curious as to what you had to say on the subject.
- Paul

Credit cards, without a doubt. It comes down to the interest rates above all else, and the interest rates in this case aren’t even comparable.

I can’t think of a case in which someone would think it was better to put the money into the mortgage. Is the logic that one could then borrow from it – via a HELOC – much more cheaply? Or maybe it’s a lock-and-key philosophy – they believe if you pay off cards, you’ll just charge ‘em up again.

Whatever the reason, you’ll be much better off if you just pay off some cards and, if you’re having control issues, cut them up.

Do you have any books you’d recommend on motivation? Particularly on motivating others?
- Kellie

I think perhaps you’re looking too specifically for a solution.

From what I’ve seen, people tend to fall into one of two camps when it comes to personal motivation. Either they have a major well of self-motivation that they can draw from, or they’re motivated by the presence of a great leader or someone else in a position of authority who can tell them what to do.

There’s not a whole lot you can do to help the self-motivated except give them the tools they need and some encouragement. The real value in motivation comes from the other group, and the best way to do that … is to be the best leader you can be. Almost all jobs where you help others revolve around these two roles – giving the self-motivated space and tools, and giving everyone else leadership, direction, and inspiration.

So, I’d look for books on leadership. The one book that’s been recommended to me over and over again on leadership is On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis. This is a book I’ve strongly considered reviewing on The Simple Dollar and may yet do so. Why? The skills described in that book are universally helpful in improving your career and your position in society.

What movies and television shows do you allow your children to watch?
- Ellen

Unless there’s a major news event, we pretty much never watch live TV. Instead, we have a DVR and use it to record programs so that we have a large selection of quality stuff on demand instead of having to channel surf.

Most of the stuff we record comes from PBS – Sesame Street, Sid the Science Kid, Caillou, and a few others. I really wish Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was still showing – that would be an auto-add. So, when we decide to watch television, we choose one of those.

Our DVD collection is mostly Pixar and Miyazaki, with a few of the older Disney films mixed in.

Our one “splurge” outside of this realm is for our older son, who is a huge fan of Spider-Man. We DVR The Spectacular Spider-Man – which is actually quite good, as it focuses a lot on Peter Parker’s internal struggles with right and wrong – and let him watch an episode as a treat every once in a while.

Along those same lines…

What kinds of educational games do you play with your kids?
- Eldon

We play a lot of Memory – that’s the most played game with the children around here.

My daughter just turned two and has a difficult time comprehending games with any level of complexity. With her, we focus on games that are mostly about mastering the idea of a bit of patience and taking turns, with maybe just a touch of cooperation. The big hits with her are Go Away, Monster and hide and seek with highly restricted hiding rules if she’s seeking.

Our son, who is almost four, plays a lot of games and even participates in the games that adults play, at least a little. His favorites seem to be The Kids of Carcassonne, Blokus, and Ingenious.

Do you ever feel like you’re running out of ideas?
- SueB

Not really, and I don’t think I will unless I stop changing as a person and my family stops changing around me.

Most of my ideas come from the things I do in my own life, and those things change over time. I’m becoming better and better in the kitchen. My kids are getting older. My parents are getting older. I’m getting older. I read new things. I push myself into better habits. People come and go in the context of my life. I join different groups. All of these are fodder for ideas.

Beyond that, readers are constantly sending me ideas and suggestions for posts, many of which are angles that I’ve never considered.

Plus, I’m often anxious to tackle topics I’ve already covered in a new way to help out a different group of people – retirees, twentysomethings, parents, teenagers, college students, mid-career professionals, stay at home moms, and so on.

Add that all together and I have mountains of ideas. The trick is often filtering them and figuring out which is the wheat and which is the chaff.

Do you feel guilty when you give erroneous advice?
- Shane

I strive to write accurate stuff, but I don’t feel strongly guilty when I make a mistake. I get called out enough on the tiniest things by commenters on here that it serves as a constant reminder that I’m far, far from perfect – or even good.

If I got bogged down in that, I would pretty much just quit writing – and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

So, no, I don’t really feel guilty about it. I just try to learn something from my mistakes and move on.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

How about combining your frugality and kitchen skills by giving us some recipes and tips on cooking Beans and Rice and Rice and Beans?
- Marcia

A long time ago, I wrote an ode to the bean, which may be my favorite item to use in cooking. It’s inexpensive and it’s a protein-rich backbone to countless different kinds of meals, from tacos and chili to curries and soups.

What I usually tell people to do is very simple. Just take whatever staple ingredient leftovers you have – vegetables, meats, and so on. Add some rice or some beans to it. Season appropriately. There, you have a killer meal.

You almost can’t mess it up.

For giggles, I’ll reprint five of my favorite bean-oriented recipes here.

Beans and Eggs
Easy as pie. Just crack four eggs, add half a teaspoon of milk and some pepper, and beat them rapidly until they’re consistent in texture. Pour the egg mixture into a skillet and add half a cup of cooked black beans (or a bean mix, if you prefer). Scramble the eggs by repeatedly moving the eggs around in the skillet as it cooks until it’s nice and fluffy and full of beans. Put some cheese and salsa on top and you have one of my favorite breakfasts in the world – plus it’s an ovo-vegetarian dish.

Balsamic Vinaigrette Bean Salad
Take two pounds of cooked beans, any variety you’d like, and add in a diced medium red onion. To this, add two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, four finely chopped garlic cloves, a quarter of a cup of extra virgin olive oil, and mix everything together. Add some ground black pepper to taste. This makes a very big batch of the salad, which is a great thing to take to a potluck dinner – for home use, you should probably halve the entire recipe (one pound of beans, a small diced onion, one tablespoon of vinegar, two garlic cloves, and an eighth of a cup of olive oil).

Beef and Bean Burritos
Cook a pound of ground beef. As the meat is cooking, add half a cup of chopped onion and a minced garlic clove. Stir the meat often to break it up, then when it’s well cooked, drain it, and add to it two teaspoons of chili powder, one teaspoon of oregano, half a teaspoon of cumin, half a teaspoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of brown pepper. Mix it all together and you have the beef part of the recipe. Just fill a large tortilla with this meat, some lettuce, and whatever beans you like – I prefer black beans or pinto beans or even refried beans.

Sixteen Bean Soup
Just follow the cooking directions above with your favorite multi-bean mix, except add half a pound of leftover meat to the soup as it’s cooking. I like to add cubed ham myself, but you can add other meats. Also, add a small minced onion to the soup, too, just as it begins to boil, and also add salt and pepper to taste.

Bean, Ham, and Tomato Casserole
Basically, take the soup you made with the sixteen bean soup recipe and drain off all but a cup of the liquid. Mix into the soup two diced tomatoes, put a bit more pepper on top, and (optionally) put a thin layer of finely ground Cheddar cheese on top (the cheese is highly optional). Bake it at 350 F (160 C) for about ten minutes and it turns out surprisingly well and often very distinct in flavor from the sixteen bean soup.

I recently got a flyer for ING’s Orange Mortgage. They offer incredibly low interest rates. But the structure looks surprisingly like a ARM. What am I missing here?
- Pankaj

It is an adjustable rate mortgage – you’re not missing anything.

An ARM worth its salt starts off with an unbelievably good rate – often 2% below what a comparable fixed rate would be. That gets your attention, of course.

The catch is that in so many years, the rate adjusts upwards, and it often has a ceiling higher than a comparable fixed rate mortgage.

Many people got ARMs because they were seduced by that low rate and they believed their future situation would easily be able to handle the adjustment. Quite often, they were wrong.

Avoid adjustable rate loans. Never believe your future self will be able to handle it.

I find it ironic that a guy who writes a blog that (probably) reaches millions thinks having kids is the best way to advance their cause.
- Kevin

If no one had children, we would all be candles in the wind. In one hundred years, there would be no human race. We would pass nothing on to the future, any of us.

Thus, anyone that chooses not to take on the burden of raising a child is themselves a candle in the wind. They’re relying on others to continue the flame by making the candles. Any flame that they can pass on is passed on to a candle made by someone else, a candle that’s already formed and given flame by the parents of that child (most of the time, of course). Sure, they might make the flame stronger, but they didn’t start the fire. (Yes, I’m using Billy Joel and Elton John metaphors to illustrate the point).

My feeling towards anyone who calls a parent a “breeder” is that they’re completely comfortable with the complete extinguishment of the human race. And that, frankly, makes me personally uncomfortable. If they were not comfortable with this, they would not denigrate those who take on the often thankless work of raising that next generation of people.

For all the good I’ve done in this blog, it does not compare to the impact I have by raising a child to adulthood. I have the unique position to mold that candle so that the flame burns bright, an opportunity I simply don’t have in other avenues in life. No matter how great of a writer I am, it simply pales in comparison to the continued impact and influence I have on the mental, emotional, spiritual, and psychological growth of the two little children in my home. I gave them their genes and now, perhaps more importantly, I’m responsible for the nurture side of the coin.

If I do it right, I can turn out a child that has the potential to cure cancer or breed a better crop that can feed starving children or create art that can truly uplift the human race or, perhaps best of all, find authentic joy in the world and find ways to share it with others. If I do it wrong, I turn out a sociopath.

I’m not saying that others do not have influence. But no matter how enormous that influence, it doesn’t compare to the thousands of hours parents spend with their children, passing on language, beliefs, customs, personality traits, perspectives on the world, personal skills, and countless other little things.

Everyone thinks of Mr. Holland lighting a child’s flame, but forgotten in that shuffle are the parents that drove kids to countless band contests, urged them to practice at night, provided feedback on their play, bought new reeds and dropped them in the instrument case without being asked, showed up for all of the recitals, bought sheet music and audio CDs to help fuel the passion, and all without a dime of compensation. Mr. Holland showed up for work and waved a baton – yes, it was important and it caused a child to change their direction a bit, but that flame rarely takes off without quite a lot of prep work from a good parent.

And, remember, Mr. Holland was a parent, too. One can do both.

What benefit is a child going to get out of having a tutor?
- Johanna

It depends on the child. Some children thrive on individual one-on-one teaching, where they’re much less afraid to ask the “stupid” questions that are plaguing them. I know several kids like this – they didn’t understand the topic in the classroom because they were afraid, for various reasons, to ask, so it was up to a tutor (in this case, me) to help them out.

For other children, it may be that they just have little interest in learning and a tutor is a waste of time and resources.

Often, for a parent, it’s hard to tell which one is the case, especially if they have little confidence in their ability to teach classroom-type lessons. So they’ll hire a tutor or a tutoring service and let them figure it out.

For me, I’d prefer to give my own child my best crack at tutoring so I could at least understand where he or she is coming from.

Would you share with us your recipe for that wonderful sounding au gratin?
- Mike

Take four russet potatoes and slice them into 1/4 inch slices. Slice one onion into rings. Then, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly butter a one and a half to two quart casserole dish.

Put half of the potato slices into the casserole, then the sliced onions, then the rest of the potatoes. Put some salt and pepper on top.

After that, melt three tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add three tablespoons of all purpose flour and stir until it’s a very thick paste, about one minute. Then, stir in two cups of milk. Cook it for about two minutes until it just begins to thicken, stirring regularly. Then, add one and a half cups of grated cheese to the hot milk mixture quickly, stirring it in until you have about four cups of a thick, delicious liquid cheese mixture.

Pour that cheese mixture over the potatoes, breathe in the wonderful aroma deeply, then cover it with aluminum foil and pop it in the oven for one and a half hours. Yum!

What do you think about bankruptcy? While I realize there are sometimes extraordinary circumstances, it seems like many people who declare bankruptcy could handle their debt like you did: by scaling back their lifestyles, living within their means, and committing to debt reduction. Would you ever recommend that someone declare bankruptcy instead of trying to repay their debt?
- Sara

While I understand society’s need for some sort of resolution to a person who is in far too much debt, I feel like society’s penalty for this is actually too lenient today.

Do I advocate a return to debtor’s prisons? No. However, if you’ve mismanaged your finances to the point that you need a court to straighten everything out – and in the process, you escape some of your debt – there needs to be a steeper penalty than just a court-enforced payment plan and a bad credit history.

I’m not sure what that balance is, but I do feel that bankruptcy, even with the recent tougher changes, is still too easy.

You’ve said you’ve used iTunes for years to listen to music. What’s your most listened-to song? Album?
- Kate

My most listened to song since somewhere in mid 2004 is Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley – a cover of the classic Leonard Cohen song for all of you older folks like my friend Heidi, who was slackjawed recently when I identified Hallelujah as a Jeff Buckley song.

I had a harder time actually figuring out which album was the most listened to, but from the best I can determine, that album is Bachelor #2 by Aimee Mann.

If I were guessing without looking, I would have guessed the album right, but I would have guessed the #3 song for most listened – Rangers by A Fine Frenzy.

When you and Ramit had a big “debate” a while back about frugality, was that whole thing a set up or do you guys actually have a personal issue?
- Fred Mac

My father spends $5 every week on lottery tickets. I tell him all the time that it’s a waste of money, but he shrugs it off. What do you think? How should I get him to stop this stupid behavior?
- Carlos

Do you feel that other bloggers are rivals of yours? Do you compete with them?
- Amanda

Not at all. My only rival in blogging – seriously – is myself. My own laziness and willingness to go off the tracks following my own whims and muses is my biggest obstacle.

Almost every blogger out there is not a rival, but a peer. Those people know better than anyone else how difficult – and how rewarding – it can be to blog for a living. They share ideas and thoughts. They link to each other. They support each other. They help each other.

If we were rivals, we would stab each other in the back, not encourage our readers to read those other sites.

The only exception to this are bloggers who never seem to link out or ever mention others. However, I don’t view them as rivals – they’re just loners.

To put it simply, I simply don’t have rivals. I have peers and friends.

Except for J.D., of course. He’s going down.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

Can you tell me a little more about how banks like ING work? If they don’t have a physical branch how do I get my money? Do I need to keep my current bank and just transfer the money around? I generally have several different saving account that I use for saving for specific purchases or vacations. Once I meet my savings goal I simply switch to whatever I’d like to save for next. My current problem is this: my bank has recently switched from a $100 minimum for penalty to $250. This means I now need to save $250 over my goal or close my account each time I reach a goal to avoid a service fee. I feel like I never actually have all of my money. I’m under the impression that online banks such as ING have much smaller fees. Any advice?
- Dana

ING Direct – and other such online banks – basically provide all of the services of a typical bank without a brick-and-mortar location. Typically, at least some of that savings is passed back to the user in the form of better service in other areas and high interest rates.

So how do you bank with them? Most of the interaction with such banks is done online. They all have a very full featured online bill pay service, for starters. Many online banks issue paper checks (not all – ING’s Electric Orange doesn’t) and if they do not, they allow you to fill out a check online and have it sent to a business for free.

When you’re out and about, most such banks have an enormous ATM network that allows you to get at your money without a fee at many, many ATMs.

I found that, for me, I was happy enough with ING’s service that I switched to using it as my primary bank, even without a teller window available to me. We did eventually decide to open a free checking account at a local bank for emergency reasons and so we would have access to a paper checkbook, which made it easier to do things like order a magazine subscription from the neighbor’s kid for a school sale.

would you consider making another blog or on occasion posting a few short stories? I enjoy reading short stories a lot and I’m sure many of your readers would be interested in reading a few of them.
- Alexandra

I’ve been debating whether or not to post some of these stories online or not – I’m actually fairly torn on it. If I did, I would put them on my personal blog.

Why am I torn? A big part of me would like to succeed as a fiction writer on my own merits, without the success of The Simple Dollar influencing it. I feel as though I might be able to “get away” with substandard fiction if publishers believe I can bring a built-in audience to the table.

On the other hand, I know that sharing what I write here on The Simple Dollar has led to a lot of great feedback – both negative and positive – and it’d be great to open up my fiction writing.

I still haven’t made up my mind, to tell the truth.

Can’t Laurenly also build her credit score by having an apartment lease, utilities, internet, etc. in her name? Does paying for those things not factor into a person’s credit score as much as a credit card?
- Chelsea

Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t.

Different utilities and rental companies have different practices on how often and how much information they provide to reporting agencies. Many of them – perhaps most of them – only report delinquent accounts and don’t report positive payment. Others do full file reporting, which means they report everything, good or bad.

You can ask your utilities which method they use and they may or may not tell you. Either way, though, I wouldn’t expect a utility payment to be the source of financial recovery.

I know the local library is one of your favorite resources — it’s one of mine, too! However, I live in Philadelphia, where, if the economic situation doesn’t get better *fast*, the libraries and recreation centers will all be closed as of the beginning of October, which means we’ll lose all the great free resources the libraries ofer, as well as the free or cheap resources offered by the rec centers.

Short of personally balancing the state and city budgets (I’m no economist), what can the people in Philadelphia (and any other city or town in this situation) do in the absence of these resources until they re-open (assuming they do!)?
- Laura

Utilize used book stores. Trade the books they have with their neighbors. Use services like PaperBackSwap.

People who want to read can usually find a low cost way of doing just that. A library is a tremendous service, but lack of a library is only a small obstacle in the face of a focused and resourceful reader.

For other community services, just get together with your neighbors that miss those services and co-op them. Start your own basketball league and enroll people in the neighborhood to coach and referee. You don’t need a bureaucracy to make this happen – it’s not like they’re ripping up the basketball courts.

I vaguely remember you answering this question elsewhere, if so, please remind me. If not, will you please tell me the pros and cons and differences between copper, stainless steel, and non-stick cookware? I am at the point where my first purchased pots (purchased in one of those large sets that you abhore) are starting to crack on the handles. Over the past year I have become relatively proficient in the kitchen and want to upgrade some of my cookware as it breaks or needs replacing. I’d like to replace it with something high quality, but is the mark up on copper really worth it?
- Gwen

Most lower-cost nonstick cookware is covered with a nonstick coating – Teflon is a common one. This coating usually lasts for a few years, but begins to peel – and when it begins to peel, you shouldn’t use the pan any more, as Teflon isn’t something you want in your food.

Alternately, high-cost nonstick items are covered in a baked enamel or porcelain finish. These are usually quite expensive, but they won’t peel and can last for a very, very long time if cared for.

Now, about copper versus stainless steel. Copper has much better heat conduction and heats more evenly, which means that things will cook a bit faster with it and the stuff cooked inside will heat evenly. However, stainless steel is cheaper and looks pretty – it’s all shiny! Many pots and pans can be found that are made of copper with a stainless steel lining, which kind of gives the best of both worlds. Some cooking mavens will grumble about tin-iined pans, but they’re hard to clean and they occasionally have to be re-tinned, which is a real pain.

The best thing you could get, in my opinion, is copper with a stainless steel lining – but these can be breathtakingly expensive. From there, you can kind of go down the scale. I’m not sure what you’re looking to spend, but that’s my thumbnail guide.

Also, if you’re used to cooking with nonstick, cooking on stainless steel is very different – you have to heat it first with nothing in it, then add the oil and other ingredients.

What percentage of your readers are from outside U.S? When you write a blog, have you ever stopped to consider whether certain US centric references that you make may not be familiar for readers outside US?
- Prasanth

My readership is roughly 85% within the United States.

I typically don’t worry too much about focusing on issues that are strictly within the United States. I believe I talk about universal concerns often enough that when I do dig into U.S.-specific issues, it’s appropriate for my audience.

To put it simply, I really don’t worry about it too much. I just focus on being me.

I have a firm grasp on my finances and would like to start helping other people get their finances in order. Do you have any suggestions on how to get a personal finance consulting gig going?
- Austin

If you actually want to get into a career of financial planning, be very, very careful. Such industries are incredibly highly regulated and you should have proper certifications and such before embarking in it.

Sometimes people think, “Well, he can do this website, so why can’t I throw out my shingle and consult?” Well, on every single page of The Simple Dollar, I make it clear that this site is for entertainment purposes only and any information or suggestions taken should be followed up with one’s own research. On top of that, this is a free website – I’m not charging for services as a consultant would be.

If the idea of being a planner interests you, look into proper education for it. Start off by digging deep into what it means to be a certified financial planner.

Is it worthwhile to invest in art?
- Shanya

If you’re investing in art because you believe it will return aesthetic appeal and enjoyment to you over a long period of time, by all means, invest.

If you’re investing in art for a financial return, don’t waste your time unless you’re treating it as tantamount to gambling. The art world is fickle – and an art purchase for investment assumes that someone will want to buy the art in the future, which is far, far from guaranteed.

Yes, by all means, if you have art that appeals to you and you can easily afford it, buy it. It will add true enrichment to your life.

But if you’re looking to turn a buck, stay away from the art world unless you’re working for Sotheby’s.

You mentioned attending SXSW recently. I also know you’re really into playing board games with your family and friends. Have you ever gone to GenCon? It’s not that far from Iowa.
- Ron

I confess – I am strongly considering a trip to GenCon in 2010. My wife is planning a short trip next spring or summer to visit her sisters, leaving me with the kids – and also with a ticket to have my own fun solo trip. GenCon is likely that destination.

I have several friends in the area that are considering going, so I will likely pool up with them at least for the trip.

If I do decide to go, I’ll let people know on The Simple Dollar so we can meet up if readers wish to.

How do you discover the personal finance books and other books you write about?
- Gil

I usually carefully follow the new releases and sales rankings on Amazon to see what’s new in the genres I follow.

If a major release is coming down the line, I’ll try to request it at my library. if that doesn’t work, I’ll attempt to request a review copy, but I don’t particularly like doing that as I feel slightly obligated to give a positive review.

I also listen carefully to reader recommendations. Sometimes – more than once, actually – I’ve suspected that an author of a book is posing as a reader and trying to pitch me on reviewing their book. If I get that vibe, I’ll usually blacklist it. I don’t like those games.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

I especially like the fact that your website has minimal ads. However, I’ve noticed for the past few days that Crate and Barrel has advertisements on your home page. I live in the Atlanta area so I don’t know if the ads are specific to regional differences/popularity, etc. I was surprised to see the Crate and Barrel ad on your website. I think while the quality of what they sell is much better than average, the prices are astronomical. I have a good job, money in the bank, but I could not afford even, what I consider their knick knacks, unless they are on clearance. Also, I would imagine that many of your other readers might feel the same way. Anyway, this is just my perspective. I’m wondering if you’ve heard from anyone else on this?
- Tasneem

The good is the enemy of the perfect.

If I accepted only ads that absolutely, unequivocally met my definition of a perfectly ethical, great customer value organization, I wouldn’t have any ads on the site and The Simple Dollar would cease to function.

That’s not a good solution.

Instead, I just try to focus on a few key things. Is the company reputable? Are they producing a product of reasonable quality that’s at least worthy of consideration for use or purchase? If it passes these litmus tests, I’ll happily place the ad, even if it’s not something I would always purchase for myself.

Crate and Barrel have good items. Many of them are pretty highly priced. You might be able to find equivalent items elsewhere. But if you buy an item there, I don’t think you’d get ripped off – you’d be getting a good item. To me, that’s enough – they’re in the conversation when considering a particular type of purchase and they’re not scamming you.

Sure, I’d be a bigger fan if their prices were lower. But if I designed my “perfect” company from a consumer perspective – high quality items, environmentally sound, very low prices – the company couldn’t afford to stay in business. They wouldn’t turn a profit.

In the end, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and Crate and Barrel (and similar shops) are good enough, even if they don’t represent the best possible bargain out there.

Going into my senior year in college, I had minor surgery. I assumed that my mom and dad (divorced) would handle the medical bills the way they always had. A year later, in grad school, I started getting collections calls. I called my parents and found out that they had been fighting over the bills, which were in my name, and nothing had been paid. If I had known, I would have taken out more money in student loans to pay the hospital. I paid settlements to the two agencies that contacted me. I am now out of grad school, ran a free credit report from annualcreditreport, and see that I have a third account in collections that I never knew about. I’m pretty sure it’s my debt and not an error (my medical insurance was an 80/20 plan and I pieced together that our share was about $5000).

My question now is: do I contact them and try to work out a settlement for this last $1200 or do I wait for the debt to disappear from my report in 2 years? I have some ability to repay but I hate the thought of parting with money that I worked so hard to save and the hospital (which did an excellent job!) doesn’t get any of it.
- Kelli

The ethical thing to do is to always repay our debts. If you borrowed money from someone, it’s the right thing to do to pay it back.

Things get hazier in the real world, though, and it sounds like you’re in a mess. My suggestion here is to contact the holder of the debt and negotiate. Ask them what they would take to have the debt marked as paid on your credit report.

The real world is sometimes a sticky place. This sounds like it could be very close to a “he said, she said” kind of battle. In those cases, everyone involved is better off if someone just steps up and solves it – the mature person in the mix. It sounds like here, Kelli, that’s you.

Along those same lines…

I’m curious if you’re familiar with do-it-yourself credit repair, particularly for low dollar delinquencies (less than $500). I’ve read that with collection agencies you can write “pay to delete” letters where you agree to pay the entire amount in exchange for them removing it from your credit reports. Have you or any readers had success in removing negative items from your credit report?
- Christine

Let’s be clear: paying someone to remove accurate info from your credit report is illegal. It constitutes fraud.

Now, it’s always a good idea, if you owe money to a collection agency, to negotiate with them. What kind of payment will they accept in exchange for marking the debt as paid?

This is completely ethical and legal – it’s a negotiation between two parties over a debt. When you come to such an agreement and your report is updated, it won’t undo a long period of delinquent payment, but it will begin to immediately heal your credit history and credit score. And, as time passes and the debt fades into your past, your credit score and history will greatly improve over time.

Either way, you need to address this. An open wound like this on your credit report is doing you no favors at all.

I don’t understand the Idiocracy theory. If you have children, you have to devote a lot of resources (time and money) to raising them – resources that you could otherwise use to influence other people to take up your cause. On the other hand, if your cause is such that the only way you can persuade someone to take it up is to brainwash them with it from birth, then what kind of cause is that?
- Johanna

Look at it through demographics, Johanna. These statistics from the Russell Sage Foundation indicate that the more financial success a family has, the less likely they are to have children. Instead, they devote their time to developing skills, pushing forward causes, and growing their knowledge.

Sage’s statistics show that the poorest quintile of America – the group that has, on the whole, the worst set of behaviors for financial and professional success (I’m not saying they can’t succeed, I’m merely saying that the results of their efforts is the worst) – has, on average, 10% more children than the richest quintile.

So, let’s do the math on this. Let’s say you have five couples, one in each quintile. The couple in the lowest quintile produces 2.0 children, while the couple in the highest quintile produces 1.8 children. Thus, the number of people that would define the lowest quintile today will grow in the next generation, while the highest quintile will shrink. Some of the people with the traits of the lowest quintile will now find themselves in the next highest quintile simply because of sheer numbers. Thus, all higher quintiles – in other words, all of society – see a slight reduction in traits that gear towards success.

Over many generations, you see a large reduction in the traits of people that made up the highest quintile and an increase in the traits of people that made up the lowest quintile, whether those traits come from nature or from nurture. If this gap in child bearing continues, the behavioral and cultural norms of the lowest income people will become the cultural and behavioral norms of all of society.

Is that a good thing, a bad thing, or an indifferent thing? It’s something that could be endlessly debated. However, the effect itself is clearly happening – whether or not you can trace that back to cultural and social changes is another question altogether.

My belief is that, from the pure perspective of diversity, it’s a bad thing and that people who are successful in life can do their part to help the world by having children of their own and raising them with the care and compassion they show in other aspects of their lives, the aspects that brought them success.

Has Sarah ever commented on any of your articles just to keep you on your toes?
- Mol

Sarah (my wife) usually “comments” to me face to face about my articles. Usually, her comments revolve around some of the choices I make to protect privacy – I’ll leave out details about people, change their first names, or somehow alter them in an inconsequential way to protect their privacy.

Sometimes, she’ll get really aggravated with commenters, who read one article and immediately leave a flaming comment about a decision we puzzled over for months. I usually remind her that (a) these people are likely trolls and (b) if they’re not, they don’t have the full view or the time invested in studying our situation. A single post cannot possibly reveal all facets of a complex choice.

Every once in a while, she’ll harangue me for an inaccuracy somewhere, usually related to my juxtaposing elements of a remembered situation. “That never happened like that!” she’ll tell me, and then she’ll inform me how she remembers it. Likely, the actual story is somewhere in the middle – or maybe I’m right, or maybe she’s right. To me, it’s inconsequential – the important part of it is always the positive outcome.

I recently graduated college and have 2 student loans to pay off:
Loan 1: about $4,000 left on it with a 6.8% rate
Loan 2, Part 1: about $3,000 left with a 6.8% rate
Loan 2, Part 2: about $7,000 with a 4% rate
Loan 2, Part 3: about $6,000 with a 5.3% rate
The kicker on loan 2: I was ‘automatically selected’ to pay off both part 2 and 3 before I can even start paying off part 1 (with the crazy high rate).

I have asked around and done a bit of research on my own. Really the only thing that I keep coming back to is Ramsey’s idea of paying off the smallest loan first, while still making minimum payments on the other loan (so I don’t default). I have already built up an emergency fund and am trying to decide how to tackle these loans that would be the most profitable in the long run.
- AReynolds

Loan #1 should go first regardless of how you calculate it.

The way I calculate segmented loans like loan #2 is by figuring out the average interest rate. Just multiply the interest rate of each segment by the amount of that segment, add the totals of each segment together, then divide by the cash total of the loan. In this case, the average rate is 6.0125%. Over time, it’ll inch upwards, as the balance of the first segment will go up faster than the second and third, but the rate will never equal the rate of the first one.

I’d just think of loan #2 as a single loan with an interest rate of 6.0125%. That means you’re choosing between a loan with $4.000 on it at 6.8% or a loan with $16,000 on it at 6.0125%. Almost every method under the sun for debt repayment will tell you to go with the $4,000 loan first.

How much does it cost a company to maintain the record of your debt? Given that they have to pay someone to call you, have to pay for postage to contact you with documents, and any other costs they have to soak to keep your debt on file, at what point would it become less than worthwhile to keep your debt on the books?

To use an extreme case, suppose I had an outstanding balance of $.01 in debt, and maintained it at that level, it would be more cost-effective for the company to write that off than collect, wouldn’t it?
- prufock

Companies that have sensible bookkeeping procedures usually do forgive tiny amounts due. Bills for $0.01 are largely a thing of the past as companies have realized that there is a cost to bill a customer and that forgiving the remaining amount is the best route if the balance is lower than the cost of billing.

What’s that cost of billing? It largely determines on the internals of a company. I’ve received bills for $4 in the last few years, but I can’t recall anything lower.

From my back-of-the-envelope chicken scratches, I would guess that for most companies, billing amounts under a dollar or two are probably better off left unbilled. Instead, they often just sit there and are added to larger bills if a customer has a new charge in the future.

At the same time, though, it’s usually a good move for a company to issue a refund or a payment for any amount, even if it’s just $0.01. The cheapest way to do that is usually to just treat it like any other payment and issue a check. While it might be cheaper for them to just hold it and apply it as a credit to your next bill, it’s often not allowed – and they’re far better off following the rules to the letter.

If you were forced into a short-term debt situation right now, would you rather borrow money from a friend or a family member or go into credit card debt?
- Andy

I’d rather get into credit card debt if those were my only choices.

I very rarely see a situation that involves a family loan that doesn’t end up with hard feelings or resentment on one side of the coin or another. If this is just a short term debt small enough to be put on a credit card, I’d rather pay a hundred dollars in finance charges than jeopardize a valuable family relationship.

To me, the value in my life isn’t measured in dollars and cents. It’s measured in people. The risk I would add to such a relationship is worth the extra money a credit card debt would cost me.

What is a typical work day like for you?
- DeLa

I wake up around 6 AM and usually check my email. My office is right next door to the kids’ bedroom, so I hear them when they begin to awaken, usually around 6:30.

After that, it’s time for getting dressed, brushing hair, eating breakfast, a bit of horseplay, getting shoes on, getting any winter clothes on, and getting out the door to daycare. I’m usually more interested in just spending good time with the kids, so this isn’t rushed in any way unless I have something URGENT for work. Most days, my workday proper doesn’t start until 8:45 AM.

I usually spend the morning in three separate hourlong focus sessions, where I turn off the phone and focus on an article. I’ll usually try to finish a good draft in that timeframe. Between the sessions, I’ll take a break or do things like approve comments.

After that comes lunch and often another hourlong focus session. Then I’ll spend time editing the posts and setting them up for public display. I then usually do a big email session. After that, I’ll usually work on some other large project – a book manuscript, a post for my personal site, or something along those lines.

That gets me to about 3:30 in the afternoon, at which point I wind things down for the day. I’ll usually keep working on whatever the biggest “fire” is until my wife and kids arrive home around five.

About two days a week or so, I’ll spend the afternoon out and about. Sometimes, I’ll do something like grocery shopping with my notepad open to jot down ideas. Other times, I’ll go out to lunch with someone. Sometimes, I’ll spend an afternoon at the library.

To continue that train of thought…

If you work at home alone all day, how do you combat loneliness?
- Emerson

I don’t feel loneliness if I can consistently get myself into a creative zone – and most days, I can. It’s the days when I can’t that are the trickiest.

On those days, I usually go do something social. I’ll go eat lunch with someone I know. I’ll go to a coffee shop and work. I’ll try to pencil in an interview with someone. I’ve even sat in on a class at a local university.

There are always people doing something out and about in the community and it’s not hard to meet up with them. I’ve found that, for me, that’s enough.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

How do you minimize distractions while you’re working? I also work from home and find that many people are not respectful of this. Even if I choose not to answer the phone, sometimes the ringing proves to be enough to cause a break in concentration, which results in lost time. Is it rude to leave an outgoing message on our answering machine, to the effect of “…we can’t answer the phone right now as we are unavailable or working….”? Even then I don’t think it would get the message across.
- Kristine

I usually just turn the ringers off on my telephones and allow messages to go straight to voicemail or an answering machine. I also shut down my email and log off of any messaging services I’m on.

My feeling on this is simple. The real meat of my work is best done in focused chunks. When I have a two hour period of time where I can just sit down and block out the world, I’m ridiculously productive in my writing.

On the other hand, if I allow myself to be interrupted, my writing slows to an absolute crawl and, in the end, there’s little benefit from the things I was able to immediately handle.

There’s almost nothing on this earth that’s worth interrupting those focused sessions. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.

So when you are bad at budgeting, and the money is going willy nilly do you think it is wise to sit down with an accountant to help come up with a plan? I find that people like Dave Ramsey just want you to make a budget and use cash only but if you could do that you would not be in the problem you are already are in! I am meeting with an accountant to help me set up a plan because obviously I can’t do it right. What are your thoughts on this? The accountant also said every time he spends money he thinks how many hours will I need to work to get this, he told me he is a tight wad!
- Tamara

If you’re having difficulty with the structure and numbers of a budget, an accountant can help, but that’s usually not the problem.

A budget is a piece of paper that does nothing more than represent a promise to yourself to get your spending under control. For the most part, we can’t make choices about how much we spend in many required areas, like our rent or our sewer bill. Our choices come in areas like food, entertainment, our automobile, and the like.

The key to controlling spending in those areas is mindfulness and impulse control, not having a piece of paper.

A budget is useful – particularly at first – because it lets you see what you’re really spending in those various areas. It says, “Hey, you’re spending a ridiculous amount on entertainment and it’s hurting you. Cut back.”

In the end, though, you have to make the behavior changes. A budget can’t do it for you.

So, yes, if you’re having difficulty with the structure and the numbers, have an accountant help you. But don’t expect the presence of a budget on paper to magically change your situation.

$350,000, divided out by 18 years, is only $53/day or so.

Counting up food, clothes, field trips, housing, etc. that you pay for your children, would $53 a day sound like an unreasonable number?
- A.J.

A.J.’s comment refers to some estimates that the average cost of raising a child born today into adulthood is $350,000 by some calculations.

First of all, it’s worth noting that such a number is an average. You’re including kids with full-time nannies. You’re including kids that go to private school. You’re including kids whose parents write checks to their Ivy League institutions. You’re including the kid whose parents bought him or her a brand new Lexus for their sixteenth birthday.

In short, most of us will actually spend less than that total raising our children. What is that less number? It depends a lot on the choices you make.

Are you going to buy them a car when they’re sixteen? Are you going to pay for college? Are you going to hire tutors? Are you going to get them into a better school? Are you going to buy them a top-of-the-line instrument for band? Are you going to dress them in new trendy clothes or go shopping first at thrift stores? Are you feeding them organics from day one? Are you going to travel extensively with them as they grow up? Are you going to move into a larger house to accommodate them?

All of these choices will make a radical shift in your total expenditures for your child, either up or down. Parents that make all of the low-cost choices will spend significantly less than that $350,000 total – perhaps half, or even less. Other parents who make different choices will spend more.

It really depends on your parenting style and what you value. For me, I’m more willing to invest on what’s in the inside – educational opportunities, food – than what’s on the outside – clothes, a new car.

I am becoming increasingly aware of the inhumane treatment to livestock in the food industry. Do you have any recommendations for websites or books to learn more on where to buy organic food and what resteraunts offer it?
- Mol

I tend to think that the best solution, if you’re worried about big agri-producers, is not to buy organic, but to buy local. Buying local means you can actually visit the farms where the items are produced and see for yourself how they’re treated.

In our case, for example, we buy milk and other dairy products from Picket Fence Creamery in Woodward. We can drive by the farm any time we like and they have very regular open houses and tours. I don’t care if it has an organic label on it or not, that’s a level of trust you just can’t get from buying an anonymous product in the store.

One great place to start with this approach is http://www.localharvest.org/, which has tons of information on eating from local sources.

Obviously, you can’t get all of your food this way, especially if you live in a colder climate, but it’s a big step in the right direction.

Due to reasons too complicated to explain, we have a mortgage where the only ones really keeping track of the balance are ourselves. (In other words, when we make an extra payment, it doesn’t necessarily get recorded unless we keep track of it.)

We have been adding roughly $165 a month to the payment with the goal of paying the loan off early. In the future that amount may go up. But we paid on the loan for a year + before adding additional money. I haven’t found a mortgage calculator that works for us. It is very important to keep track of this (it would be for anyone, but even more so for us). Have you any suggestions for something workable to track these payments?
- Kathryn

It sounds extremely shaky to me that you’re making payments to the bank and they’re not registering. If my lender had this kind of policy, I would make every effort to refinance, because the whole thing sounds really questionable.

In terms of personal financial records, the best thing a person can do is learn how to use a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet is so free-form that you can basically track your information in whatever way is most convenient for you. Spend the time to know how to use one.

Beyond that, your best step is probably to find a way through the complicated situation to ensure that your payments are being recorded correctly. There’s little reason for a company to have such sloppy records.

Trent, do you ever enjoy a good cigar?
- Mike

No, I do not. I have had several relatives have a miserable end to their lives due to emphysema (let alone lung cancer) and I’m beginning to watch a few more begin to head down that road. It’s a very painful thing to watch and experience.

This experience has put me firmly in the “not going to smoke” camp. I’m not an anti-smoking zealot by any means, but I do avoid businesses and private clubs that allow smoking and I’m extremely hesitant to visit the home of a smoker.

Many people respond with comments along the lines of “an occasional cigar is no big deal.” Maybe that’s true, but watching my grandmother spend the last few years of her life struggling for every single breath puts me firmly on the side of prudence in this case.

Trent, you mention that you keep your computer on because it automatically collects data at certain times. I was wondering if you are trolling for news articles or something similar to keep up to date on specific topics. I’m interested in doing that myself and was hoping you could suggest the easiest way to “troll” for news or blogger posts using keywords or something. Not sure if this is what you do, but if you have any pointers, it would be much appreciated.
- Victoria Vargas

I collect articles in an offline RSS reader that automatically checks hourly for updates. I save them locally so that, in the event that a blog disappears from the face of the earth, I still have a personal archive of the writings. It also enables me to read such writings when the internet is unavailable, which happens every few months or so here for a day or so.

Beyond that, I also run Folding@Home, which utilizes unused processing power of our home’s computers to analyze proteins, the results of which can be used in biomedical research to cure diseases. I have these programs set to automatically return results as soon as they’re finished and retrieve new ones, which means that Folding@Home sometimes runs in the middle of the night or on weekend afternoons.

Beyond that, my local computer also stores automatic backups of The Simple Dollar.

Between all of these automated things, I’m better off just leaving the computer running. It performs several important tasks, even when I’m not there to manage it.

I’ve been following you on Goodreads and you read a lot! Are you going to make a “best of 2009″ list for books so people might have some interesting Christmas gift ideas?
- Kelly

I will probably have a “best of 2009″ article or two on my irregularly-updated personal blog (right now, with my book crunch, I don’t have time for such updates, sadly). But I know that a lot of my readers are avid book readers who also often gift books to friends and relatives, so for you all, here’s my current “top ten books of 2009″ list. I’m including only books published in the last 24 months that I read for the first time in 2009.

1. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2. Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford
3. Supermarket: A Novel by Satoshi Azuchi (new in English)
4. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
5. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
6. Satchel by Larry Tye
7. Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad
8. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
9. Sunnyside by Glenn David Gold
… and, honestly, I don’t have a tenth that fits into this group quite yet.

What do you do with the personal finance books you review but don’t keep?
- Millie

Many of the books I review come straight from the library, and that’s where I return them. By now, I must be one of the best customers of the Ames Public Library in Ames, Iowa.

Aside from that, though, I do pick up a few books for my own use. When I have one of those, I either give it away to a reader randomly (I just pick a commenter that tickles my fancy) or I ship it away via PaperBackSwap for something I’ll find more worthwhile.

On a rare occasion, I’ll keep it because it seems like a good reference or has potential for inspiration in the future.

If you had sufficient money, would you choose to send your children to a private school?
- Charles

No. Instead, I’d choose to live in an area that put a high value on public education, a town where the citizens were willing to pay local taxes to have an incredibly strong local school district. There, I’d send them to the public school.

To me, private school is a good solution for affluent parents who are focused on education but required to live in an area with really poor public education. Since parents often don’t have the choice to simply raise taxes and improve the district with a wave of their hand, private school is a logical solution for them.

What about homeschooling? For one, I don’t believe in my own skills as an educator enough to follow this path. I suppose I would consider an appropriate tutor if money were no object and I was strongly opposed to the public school and I couldn’t move for some reason, but that seems like a pretty narrow situation.

I also often feel as though children are homeschooled to protect those children from certain kinds of knowledge or strongly reinforce particular ideas. However, the purpose of an education is to gain exposure to all kinds of knowledge and build up the tools to interpret and make sense of that knowledge. I want my children to face challenging decisions and ideas, and part of that means being exposed to children and families with different ideas and perspectives and values.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

I recently graduated college and have 2 student loans to pay off:
Loan 1: about $4,000 left on it with a 6.8% rate
Loan 2, Part 1: about $3,000 left with a 6.8% rate
Loan 2, Part 2: about $7,000 with a 4% rate
Loan 2, Part 3: about $6,000 with a 5.3% rate
The kicker on loan 2: I was ‘automatically selected’ to pay off both part 2 and 3 before I can even start paying off part 1 (with the crazy high rate).

Any and all advice will be welcomed. Please and thank you in advance!!
- AReynolds42

The first thing you need to do is figure out the true interest rate on that second loan. Effectively, you need to treat loan #2 as one loan – ignore the separate “parts.”

It’s easy – multiply $3,000 by 6.8%, $7,000 by 4%, and $6,000 by 5.3%, then divide all of it by $16,000. You get 5.0125%. Then, compare that interest rate to the other loans and start paying off either the one with the smallest total (the first loan) or the one with the lowest interest rate (again, the first loan), depending on whether you’re using the Dave Ramsey plan or the mathematically superior plan.

The answer’s easy for you – pay off the first loan first and just wait on the second one.

What is your process of reviewing books? Do you read the whole book and then do the review? Do you have any advice for writing good book reviews?
- Jules

I usually read the book chapter-by-chapter or section-by-section and jot down my impressions afterwards. Sometimes, I focus in on the big point of the section – at other times, I end up jotting down the individual point that sticks with me the best.

Once the book is done, I write down a few final notes on it and ask myself whether it was a worthwhile read.

From those scribblings, a book review comes together pretty easily. The real time investment is in the reading. I tend to put two hours a day aside for just that purpose – reading for the purpose of learning more about personal finance, careers, and so forth and writing reviews of those books.

Uh…you think emergency funds should have no limits? So, if I was a college kid with a $50,000 emergency fund in a savings account, you wouldn’t suggest I do something with that money?

One should never stop replenishing an emergency fund, yes, but that’s because emergencies keep using it up.
- Michael

Michael, it might be useful to put away your “jumping to conclusions” mat that you like to pull out all the time.

Yes, I think an emergency fund should have no limit. No, it doesn’t necessarily need to all sit in a savings account. Put some of it into CDs or bonds or short term treasuries.

An emergency fund shouldn’t just be used for negative emergencies. Life often throws us opportunities (or positive emergencies), and our emergency fund should be there to easily help us with those, too. That means the typical “six month emergency fund” – intended to just help with negative emergencies – isn’t enough. You need more. And given the number of opportunities we have in life, the more the better. If you keep your ears and eyes open, life is full of great opportunities.

In the past five years, three of my grandparents have passed away, having had the usual run of health issues, and having been helped tremendously (at near-sainthood levels) by their respective children – my parents, aunt and uncle. My sister is on the verge of getting married, and we’ve been debating the merits of having children. I love children, and hope to have several of my own. My sister doesn’t much like children, and doesn’t consider herself good “mom” material. But we both agree there are lots of times in life when having family support is necessary, and old age/failing health is the biggest. We always expected that the grown children would take care of the parents. But what if there are no children? Seeing the number of families where the kids grow up and are completely estranged, unwilling to help take care of aging parents, there’s no guarantee they’ll take up the task either.

My sister says raising kids and paying for college is expensive, and that amount of money invested wisely could pay for a great deal of home health care when the time comes. Does that work? We have a family friend in her 90’s, never married, who has had a home health care aide (let’s call her Jane) for years, who does all the cooking, cleaning, personal care and PT. How do you estimate how much to save for that? I suppose it’s like planning for retirement, but sadder.
- TheOtherKathi

If you have children and raise them in a loving and supportive environment, they’re often there for you in your dotage. I’ve seen it time and time again in my own family and in my wife’s family as well.

If you don’t have children at all, you simply don’t have that support. You don’t have children popping in to check on you or calling you every day. All you have is you (and perhaps your spouse).

That’s not a reason to have a child. If you’re not capable of being a good parent, your children won’t be capable of being good children. Don’t have children unless you want to have children.

Another caveat: it’s a bad idea to plan on your children helping you. Instead, you should focus on not being a burden to them in your final years – they’ll often still help you, but it’s impossible to predict how much they’ll help you.

Do you dream in color or black and white? Do you remember your dreams?
- Ashley

I dream in frighteningly vivid color. Sometimes, I have dreams that remind me of Yellow Submarine, actually – I don’t know how else to describe them. Many of my dreams are more reality-based, though.

I tend to remember one dream a night or so and I usually write them down in as much detail as possible in my journal. For example, last night I had a dream that my wife and two kids passed away and I wound up remarrying a very short woman – I never did see the woman’s face. She had also lost her husband in an accident and we found each other in a support group. She had a teenage son (that I do remember) who practically demanded that we get married.

I usually write these dreams down because they become the basis for short stories later on. I read through these recollected dreams and every once in a while, one will become the source of a piece of fiction.

Me and my partner are planning to go to live in Southeast Asia for up to a year (or longer – it’s very open-ended). We both have roots there, and think it would be one of those life-enriching experiences that we’d never forget and would thank ourselves for later on in our lives. We’re planning to use about 20k in savings to pay for basic things, and then try to start a little business (English tutoring, guest house, or online service). However, we’re both concerned that when (if?) we get back to the US, we’ll have to resort to office/other drudgery again. Also, our parents are getting to that age where they need more of our financial and emotional support. Being in a traditional family, they’d like to see us buy a home to which they’d most likely move to as well. Do you think it makes sense to travel now or to hold it off until we save more?
- Ty

Travel now.

Here’s why. The older you get, the more likely you’re going to be entangled in many different demands in your life. Your parents will be in worse health. You may wind up with children whether you intend to or not. You’ll become a part of a community and more attached to the people around you.

And travel will seem less realistic than it does now. It’ll be harder to take such a leap.

The best time to do such a thing is when your entanglements are few, and they’ll never be fewer than they are now.

If you’re dreading returning to “drudgery” when you return, you should consider a different career. What do you consider to not be “drudgery”? Think about that and try to find work in that direction.

Do you ever write fiction?
- John

I try to write a short story a week. I’d love to be able to write more than that, but fiction writing is harder to find success with today than nonfiction and memoir writing (which is what The Simple Dollar is, for example).

I’d love to be able to primarily write fiction at my own pace, but that’s a future that seems a long way off. My plate is happily full at the moment, so I mostly work on fiction to keep myself from getting completely rusty.

I haven’t written anything that I feel is publishable yet, but I may be too hard on myself.

May I know what you consider as the best personal finance book for people in their 30s that you have read so far?
- Joy

It depends on what you’re looking for.

If you want a book that focuses on the nuts and bolts of investing and money management, I’d probably vote for Get a Financial Life by Beth Kobliner.

If you’re re-evaluating your whole relationship with money, nothing beats Your Money or Your Life.

If you’re at a career crossroads, look at something like Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields.

Those all speak well to thirtysomethings, I think.

How much money does a person have to have before you consider them rich?
- Kelly

There’s no set dollar amount.

For me, a person is rich if they can wake up each morning and do whatever they want to do. It might be some kind of work or it might not, but the person has the freedom to choose between work and play and define entirely for themselves what work is and what play is.

That, to me, is what it means to be rich. It doesn’t mean a huge number of investments or a fleet of expensive cars. It just means freedom.

Did you enjoy Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box? You tweeted about it a few times.
- Kathy

It’s just as good as the first Professor Layton game, if not better.

For those unaware, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is the second in a series of games for the Nintendo DS. The games are simple adventure games (with amazing graphics and voice work) that involve solving a huge number of puzzles – 150 directly in the game and a few very engrossing puzzle-based side quests.

Both games are well worth playing. They only have between five and ten hours of gameplay in each one, but it’s some of the most enjoyable gameplay around. It’s great to pick up for fifteen minutes, solve a few puzzles, dig a bit deeper into the story, and then put it down.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

Do you really believe it’s better for the earth to have more children?
- Kelly

I’m a big believer in what I call the “Idiocracy” theory, so dubbed because of the very eloquent and humorous explanation of the idea at the start of the film Idiocracy.

To put it simply, if you believe strongly in a cause to the point of taking action to push your cause forward, the best thing you can possibly do is have children, raise them to think and be independent, and get them involved in the cause, too.

Many people who are driven to success in life or push themselves toward a cause eschew the idea of having children – they don’t have time, or they’ve convinced themselves it’s a moral wrong. Instead, people who are not driven and not committed to a cause tend to have more children – they do have time and they haven’t convinced themselves it’s a moral wrong.

Thus, the next generation has a higher proportion of people who aren’t driven towards causes, towards self-improvement, or towards improving the world.

If smart and driven people want to make the world a better place, they should consider having children, who will often also be smart and driven. The more smart and driven people there are in the world, the better off the world will be.

If you’re smart and driven and have chosen to not have children, you’re much like a candle in the wind that’s not lighting any other ones.

The only way I can stop using credit cards is to not have them at all. I have balances on my cards though. I just want to close the account & pay down the balance. However, I read that will hurt my score. What is going to hurt more – high balances on maxed out cards or closing the account and paying it off? This really is my only option. I would love to hear your opinion!! Thanks!
- Allie

Your best bet is to leave the accounts open for now, destroy the cards, and pay off the debt as quickly as you can without missing a payment.

In terms of your credit score, one big factor is the percentage of your credit limit that you’re utilizing. The way to do that is to leave your total credit limit alone – not canceling anything for now – and simply keep yourself from using it while paying down the debt. Over time, your percent of utilization will go down and your credit rating will go up.

You don’t have to cancel the account – just destroy the cards themselves (and erase the numbers from any online accounts)!

I was wondering if you have looked into “lifetime webhosting” – how do ensure that your content lives on (i.e. your blog keeps being hosted) without your active renewal, for example, 75 years from now?
- chessiq

For one, I don’t believe the web as we know it will exist in seventy five years. And for another, The Simple Dollar is being archived in several ways – archive.org, for starters.

My intent is to maintain The Simple Dollar as is for a long time, but inevitably, the period of the World Wide Web will wane and be supplanted by other forms of media. When that happens, I may move it to another format if it’s still relevant.

I’m considering some other options for maintaining the content, including a print anthology of the best timeless articles from The Simple Dollar.

Do you ever feel that you have many things pulling at you at once, frugality being just one of them? When purchasing food for dinner, I like to eat some protein (meat), as I go to the gym a lot. I like to eat healthy, so that meat should probably chicken or fish. And, I’m not a big fan of fish, so I find myself eating grilled chicken 5+ nights a week. (I’ll vary rice/pasta and veggies on the side). Without limiting the quantity of chicken, I can’t really get the price down, although it’s usually around $2 a meal. I’d like to be more frugal, but I don’t want to sacrifice my health to save $1/lb on meat, or make my effort in the gym worthless, by eating a protein-free dinner. I don’t too much mind the monotony (although I am open to suggestions), but was more curious if you ever feel the same way?
- Dave

Eating the right foods is an investment in your health. I have no objections whatsoever to spending more on food to get higher quality food.

Think of it this way: most foods that enable you to get a very cheap meal aren’t healthy for you. Over the long term, they’ll cost you in the form of lost energy, health care costs, and other effects.

$2 per meal is completely reasonable in my eyes if you’re eating healthy, high quality foods and eating such foods is one of your key values in life (as it clearly is for you).

One note, though: consider eating more beans. Beans have quite a bit of protein, can be prepared tons of different ways, and are incredibly cheap. I’m a big fan of beans.

When the Security and Exchange Commission fines a business or individual for an infraction or violation of the rules, usually the fine is pretty hefty – sometimes in the millions of dollars. What does the commission do with the fines they receive?
- Steven

SEC fines are rolled back into the SEC’s annual budget, but it’s only a small part of their budget. The rest is funded directly with taxpayer money.

If the SEC grew a backbone and started cracking down hard on some of the grey area securities tactics that many companies use, they could bring in a boatload of money and make the market more open to individuals.

However, they have no real incentive to do that, especially since many people at the SEC are heavily connected in the securities industry. So much for regulation.

My son-in-law has all but given up on his favorite sport, golfing, because of the cost. What is the best place to look for golfing coupons?
- Barbie

My best source for golfing coupons has always been the Entertaiment Book, which is often sold as a fundraiser for community organizations. Most of them offer quite a few pretty nice discounts at area golf courses, as well as discounts and free buckets of balls at local driving ranges.

Since I rarely golf any more, that pretty much takes care of my needs. The only thing the Des Moines-area Entertainment Book doesn’t cover for me is a once-a-year (at most) golfing outing in my hometown with my in-laws.

I haven’t found any other really reliable solutions. Perhaps the readers have some ideas.

We had a company wide re-structuring and everyone got to know their new job title. would it be an acceptable code of conduct to ask people what their new job title is? (Just to know where we stand in the company).
- RU

I think that’s completely appropriate. In fact, I think if such a thing happens in a company, they should require name tags with everyone’s new job description on it and have everyone wear them for a month or so just so everyone can figure things out and get on the same page.

Perhaps you can suggest this. It would be useful for everyone in the company as they become used to the new corporate structure.

One big thing: you need to be completely willing to answer the question if you’re going to ask it. If you ask someone and then don’t respond to their query (or to the query of someone else), it will NOT reflect well on you.

I am a college student, just starting my final year. I was lucky enough to be able to pay for college with scholarships and the help of my parents, so I have absolutely no student debt. I’ve had a checking account for several years, but I have never opened any kind of credit card account as the idea of that much financial room has always intimidated me.

I was wondering what I could be doing to responsibly build my credit/ credit score so that it will be at the optimum point when I look into making significant purchases (house, car) in the future. I am worried about going down the wrong path if I’m not even sure where to start.
- laurenly

Your best bet – the simplest way to start – is to get a credit card. Use that credit card for ONLY one kind of purchase, one you make regularly. For example, if you commute, get a BP card and use it only for buying gas at the BP. If you’re in college, get an Amazon Visa and use it only for buying textbooks. Then, pay off the full balance each month and don’t use the card for anything else.

Doing this will help your credit score immensely. The trick is to not decide that using a credit card is “easy” and start using the card for other purchases – that’s where people get into trouble.

Get a card, use it for one type of purchase, and pay it off in full each month. Not only will it help your credit, but you’ll likely get a bit of a reward out of the card, too.

How can you make phone calls with Skype on your iPod Touch? I’ve heard you can’t use it on there because it doesn’t have an internal mic. Do you only use the messaging feature on your iPod touch?
- ema002

When I first got my iPod Touch, I didn’t realize it was possible to use a mic for it. Then I damaged my ear buds (I cut the cord, actually) and had to go get a replacement pair.

That’s when I discovered the Apple earphones with remote and mic. These plug into the headphone jack on an iPod Touch and function as a microphone on any apps that require it. I can sit there with my headphones on and use my iPod Touch as a Skype client.

I can also use the Voice Recorder and add voice notes to Evernote as well using these things. They’re great.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
- Larry

First of all, I’m going to exclude any places I’ve never actually visited. It’s completely unfair to fetishize some place I’ve never been to and claim I want to live there. Instead, those are places I’d love to visit some day. On that list: rural France, Turkey, and Norway.

But what about living? I’ve visited two places that have really sung to me in a certain way, making me wish I lived there.

One was northeastern Iowa/southeastern Minnesota/southwestern Wisconsin, along the southern edge of where the glaciers reached during the last ice age. It’s very hilly there, with lots of old forests. The people are mostly Norwegian and Swedish, which means lots of calm and friendly temperaments. The weather rotates wonderfully through the seasons, having very nice and distinct summers, winters, falls, and springs. It’s just wonderful.

The other place is Washington state, out near the coast. Here, the temperature and weather is pretty stable throughout the year and the people seem to be very libertarian – in other words, they let you do your own thing without much snooping or prying. Mostly, though, it was the weather and vegetation – the large forests, the great access to Olympia National Forest, and so on.

The only large city I’ve visited that I would consider living in is San Diego. Again, the people are a big factor – it often felt like the sleepiest large city I’ve ever been in, which is a good thing, and the weather was beautiful during almost every season.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.