Over the past three years, I’ve had countless opportunities to reflect not only on my own personal finance and life journey, but that of thousands of readers who have contacted me over the years with questions and stories.

Along the way, quite a few principles for personal and financial success began to appear. These same features pop up again and again in people’s stories and comments – and I find them to be deeply true in my own life as well.

The single most important part of personal finance is truly knowing yourself.
Why do you buy the things that you do? Why are you worried about this situation? Why do you feel this way about this product? Why do you respond to guilt in this way?

The answer to all of these questions lies with introspection. The answer to all of these questions is also a tremendous boost when it comes to personal finance. If you understand fully the internal reasons why you desire something, you can work through those reasons, validate them or throw them aside, and then make a clear, enlightened, and rational decision about whether to acquire it.

The more introspection you do, the more naturally the true answers to those questions become and the easier it becomes to recognize your more dangerous and frivolous impulses for what they are. This leads not only to tremendous financial success, but great personal success as well.

The second most important part of personal finance is setting clear, concrete goals.
This covers everything from daily to-do lists to a lifetime plan – and everything in between.

You can’t go anywhere if you don’t know where you are headed. The more specific and clear your goal, the easier it is to head in that direction. The more concrete your goal – in other words, a goal that has clear and realistic steps to get there and has a clear definition of achievement – the easier it is to achieve it.

I spend some time every week defining and re-defining my own goals. Doing this helps me keep in mind where I want to go and what I need to be doing today to get to that point. Over the last few years, this process really has served me very well.

The most valuable resource in the world isn’t money, it’s time.
Money is an infinite resource – you can always acquire more money. Time is a finite resource – you can never acquire more time.

We earn money through how we use our time. The more money we can earn in a given amount of time, the better off we are. Of course, the contrary is true – we spend our money making the remaining time we have more pleasurable.

The question that often entangles people is defining what exactly pleasurable time is. The definition is different for everyone, but I can say for certain that one thing is true: there are many people and marketers out there attempting to muddy the water for you. Advertising tries to make it seem as though using their product will make the time you have more pleasurable, even when it often won’t.

Again, it comes back to knowing yourself. What is your idea of pleasurable time? For me, my time isn’t made more enjoyable by having a name-brand household product. My time is made more enjoyable by having a product that gets the job done well at the lowest possible cost, freeing up my money to create more pleasure in other areas that matter to me.

Money is just a mechanism to improve the quality of our time. The question is whether or not we understand ourselves well enough to do that.

The more supportive people you have in your life, the better off you are.
Supportive people in your life make countless good things possible. They provide connections. They open doors. They provide advice. They provide help for your challenges. They support you in whatever you choose to do. They help build your self-esteem. They’re not necessarily just yes-men, though – a good supportive person can provide fierce criticism when it’s warranted.

The more you migrate towards supportive people in your life, the better you’ll feel about yourself and the more capable you will be to handle the challenges that life throws at you.

The fewer unsupportive people you have in your life, the better off you are.
On the flip side of that coin, removing unsupportive people from your life also improves the quality of your life.

Unsupportive people criticize you and damage your self-esteem. They take from you without replenishing. They aren’t there for you when you need them, but they expect you to be there for them when they need you.

These relationships devour the energy and passion and resources from your life without providing anything of value in return. Ending such relationships – and, ideally, replacing them with more positive ones – is a net positive in your life.

Blaming others for your problems is a dead-end road.
It’s incredibly easy to blame others when something goes wrong. It’s someone else’s fault that you lost your job. It’s the fault of the marketers that you’re in debt. It’s the fault of the lender that you can’t make your mortgage payment.

In each case, though, the blame often falls much closer to home. The willingness to accept that you’re often at fault when things go wrong is a major step towards being in control of your finances and your life. Analyzing those faults and figuring out what you can do differently so you’re not susceptible to such problems is vital.

Yes, sometimes it really isn’t your fault. Yet you did put yourself in the position so that you could be damaged by the ineptitude of others. Was there not actions you could have taken to prevent such things from happening? What can you learn from that the next time you try?

The more time you spend improving and educating yourself, the better your personal and financial life will be.
Virtually every successful person I know has a hobby that improves them in some way. They’re either passionate about reading and learning or some other area of specific interest. Quite often, they have a variety of interests, each of which leads to some degree of personal improvement.

What do you do in your spare time that also improves you? Are you exercising your body? Are you exercising your mind? Are you exercising your soul? Are you exercising your skills and talents?

Time spent engaged in activities that don’t push us to grow leads to one thing: atrophy. Falling behind.

Karma always comes around.
People who act in negative ways have negative things happen to them. People who act in positive ways have positive things happen to them.

It happens over and over again. Why? I think it’s because humans are better at reading each other than many people think. On a very basic level, people can sense what kind of person you are. Are you the kind of person who is constructive and seeks to help and support others? Or are you destructive – one who seeks to attack and bring down others? Which side of the coin do you enjoy – the success story or the failure story?

Your actions define you, even the ones that you think are hidden from everyone around you. Those choices affect your personality – they alter who you are. Choose good acts and you become a better person, one others are more likely to help. Choose negative acts and you become a worse person, one that drives others away. It’s up to you, with every little action you take.

There are very few aspects of your life that cannot be changed.
Most aspects of who you are – your financial situation, your skill set, your appearance, your social circle, even your personality – can change and improve with focused work in those areas. Don’t accept the things about yourself that you don’t like – work to change them.

Yes, some aspects cannot be changed. Some people have medical conditions that are difficult to overcome. Others may struggle with psychological issues. However, these are often burdens to fight through that can make you stronger as you overcome them, like ankle weights on a figure skater.

You don’t have to be content with your lot in life. Recognize that the place you’re at can merely be a stepping stone, and strive to step above it.

Reliability and functionality worth a premium.
Whenever I choose to make a purchase, I expect that the item I buy will be able to do the job I want it to do with minimum effort and fuss. I purchase items with a particular task in mind – chopping vegetables, keeping my food cold, keeping track of my exercise routine. When I use the item, I expect that it will accomplish that task as easily as possible – or else I wasted my hard-earned money on it.

Thus, I tend to gravitate towards spending more on well-made items that are reliable and do the job I want them to do. I want a trash bag that I can fill to the brim without worrying about breakage, so I don’t buy the cheap ones – I buy the ones recommended in Consumer Reports. I want a knife that will stay sharp through all of the chopping needed for vegetarian chili, so I invest in a high-quality chef’s knife that will last forever.

Time is the one truly finite resource we have and I don’t want to waste it trying to make do with a poorly-made product. I’m far better off owning fewer things, but being sure that the things I do own work well and do what they’re supposed to do.

Three years ago today, I officially launched The Simple Dollar. It’s been a crazy ride.

Each year, on the anniversary of the launch, I’ve highlighted my 25 favorite articles from the previous twelve months of entries. These aren’t necessarily the best articles, just the ones I enjoyed writing the most. Here’s the list from the first year and the list from the second year.

Without further ado, here are my twenty five favorite articles from the third year of The Simple Dollar. (I also have some extra thoughts that will be appearing later today.)

Christmas Inspiration from a Stick and a Cardboard Box When writing this, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the many wonderful Christmases I had when I was a child. Christmas isn’t about things at all – it’s about experiences and people.

Seven Tactics for Turning Short-Term Intensity Into Long-Term Intensity You can’t start a fire without a spark, but unless you tend to that fire carefully, it can burn itself out and you’re left with nothing at all.

Fifteen Tactics for Maximizing Your Investment in Reading for Personal Growth Reading is one of the best ways to make yourself grow as a person, but often that growth isn’t found in speed-reading the latest Stephen King novel. Here are some tactics to make an enjoyable, lazy afternoon curled up with a book into something that can genuinely help you to grow as a person. I think my love of reading really comes through here.

The Limits of Frugality: What’s Next When You Can’t Cut Any More? I usually find that people haven’t cut very much at all when they believe they’ve cut to the bone, but sometimes people really have trimmed away all the fat they can. When you’re living off ramen, beans, and rice and still need a boost, here are some things to try.

When Your Financial State Improves, Do Your Frugal Standards Change? I think they do. What actually seems to happen is that the value of your time goes up. Instead of filling your spare time with something that earns a return of $5 an hour, you’re more likely to want to spend that time with family, doing something fulfilling like a family game night.

How I Look at Economic News: Beyond the Talking Heads I felt that the apocalyptic economic paranoia of late 2008 and early 2009 was completely overblown and I took the entire idea to task several times. This was perhaps my favorite article about the situation because of how it ties to the real world so directly.

The Bills Your Parents Didn’t Have When you compare the financial situation of a recent college graduate today to one from thirty years ago, things look vastly different. That new graduate is often buried in debt and is facing a big pile of monthly bills, neither of which were faced by a college graduate thirty years ago. I riff on that idea here.

The Giving Pocket Quite often, while stumbling through life, we’ll find a situation where immediate charity can really make a difference. I have a giving pocket for just those situations. The story I tell here, about the poor boy and the dumpster and the food, really tears me up.

Some Thoughts on Building a Successful Marriage A successful marriage requires a few key ingredients. Without them, marital success will be incredibly difficult. I find that I often rely on my wife almost as though she were a part of me. Without a lot of trust and a well-built relationship, that would be impossible.

Personal Finance and 1,000 True Fans I went down an interesting philosophical road here, one that has been on my mind a lot as of late. What does it really mean to give of yourself to others? What do we really have of value to give? What can we fairly and reasonably expect in return – or should we expect anything at all?

A Step-By-Step Guide to Building a Big, Healthy Emergency Fund For many people, the idea of having several months’ worth of cash in a savings account seems like an impossible and unrealistic goal. It doesn’t have to be. Here, I walk through how to build one, focusing more on the psychology than offering just another how-to list.

A Guide to Making Inexpensive and Delicious Homemade Pizza This is one of my favorite food posts. Pizza night is a tradition at our house (often on Friday nights, but not always) and it’s something we all enjoy and treasure.

Is Suze Right? Do Emergency Funds Now Trump Debt Repayment? Suze Orman made a seemingly sensible argument that people should focus on their emergency funds during a down economy. However, I felt the opposite case needed addressing – that by the time we recognize that the economy is down, it’s too late to build any sort of large emergency fund.

A Tour of My Messenger Bag My messenger bag is my mobile office (in fact, I’m using the laptop I carry in that bag to compose this very post). Here’s a guided tour through it, exposing every little nook and cranny. I think such things are a very intimate way to look at a person’s life.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating a Deal-Finding Homepage I don’t like deals for the sake of deals. Instead, I prefer to quickly sift them, looking only at offers that will directly be useful to me. To do this, I’ve set up a deal-finding homepage that enables me to automatically find just the deals I want from all over the ‘net by just loading a single web page.

The Reliability Bell Curve: What Does “More Reliability” Actually Mean? Buying something that’s more reliable than something else isn’t a guarantee that it will last longer. Instead, you’re merely playing the odds – the more reliable item has better odds of living a long life. Thus, when you hear of cases of typically-reliable items not lasting long or of typically-unreliable items lasting forever, they’re usually just the outliers.

12 Ways My Wife Quietly Makes Our Life Work Without Sarah, The Simple Dollar simply wouldn’t be sustainable. She might not contribute directly, but her indirect contributions are constant and bountiful.

Personal Finance 101: Why Do I Need Credit At All? Dave Ramsey often preaches a credit-free lifestyle. What he leaves out is that one’s credit report is often automatically scanned by all kinds of places to get a quick thumbnail sketch of your reliability. If you don’t have that, it can result in higher insurance rates, among other things.

Ten Great Ways to Make Powerful Visual Reminders of Your Personal Finance (and Other) Goals Writing down and specifying your goals is a powerful way to get started on a better path, but how do you prolong the magic? Here are ten really good ways to keep those goals in mind all the time as you work towards something better.

Can You Actually Earn Reasonable Money from Mechanical Turk? This was just a very fun post to write, from beginning to end. Playing around with Mechanical Turk and then trying to determine if it was actually worthwhile was a great exercise.

Are You a Money Victim? Victimhood is an incredibly dangerous trap to fall into. When you blame others for your problems, you’re avoiding looking within to find solutions.

How Low Can You Go? Vegetarian Burrito Bowls This was my favorite entry in the summer “How Low Can You Go?” food series, mostly because I thought it provided the most intimate view of how we live our life.

Helicopter Parenting, Baby Boomers, and Financial Dependence Here, I make the case for why “helicopter parenting” puts both parent and child on an extremely dangerous personal finance track. I would rather my child be independent and need nothing from me than friendship and occasional advice when they reach adulthood. And maybe a helping hand with the grandchildren, of course.

The Essential Bookshelf 2009: The Eleven Books That Rise Above the Rest These are the books that influence my personal finance thinking more than any others. In other words, if you are looking for some books to read, this is probably a great list to start with.

Mirror Neurons: Why Watching Others Succeed Won’t Help You Succeed I find areas where other fields of science and human knowledge border on personal finance and personal behavior to be endlessly fascinating. Plus, this is as good an argument as any to turn off the television and do something.

Three recent emails from readers have made me focus lately on how much preparation for disasters we should be doing. First, from “Adam”:

Do you think it’s reasonable to take some of the money I use to invest each month and buy gold bullion coins to keep in my safe? I’m worried about the dollar collapsing.

And from “Eve”:

My husband and I have always used a spare room in our basement for storage of extra bulk supplies we’ve purchased, like toilet paper and the like. Recently, my husband has started talking about using that room for dehydrated meals and water storage in case of a major disaster. Do you think this is a good idea?

And from “Noah”:

Do you think non-hybrid seeds are a good investment?

These three readers all have something in common. They all are at least somewhat under the belief that a major calamity of some sort is on the verge of occurring – either a natural disaster, the fall of the government, the extreme devaluation of the dollar, or some other event that will radically alter our day-to-day way of life.

My general answer to all three of these people is the same. None of the ways of utilizing their extra money is an inherently bad way of using extra money. These items won’t necessarily earn a great return on the investment, but they aren’t worthless, either. Instead, I would encourage them to find ways to make these choices compatible with the way they live their lives today.

To Adam, who wants to buy gold coins: by all means, add gold coins as a small part of your overall investment strategy. I would not invest in nothing but gold. If I were you, I’d simply buy them at a slow rate – perhaps saving $100-200 a month (or more, if you’re able) and buying a coin whenever I could afford one. Then, I’d just sit on those coins, using them only as a last resort. This is particularly true if you have heirs to which you can pass those coins onto.

To Eve, who wants to begin storing food and water: instead of storing a bunch of dehydrated food packets that you may or may not ever utilize, I’d start a garden and teach myself how to can vegetables. Then, over time, eat some of the vegetables you can to maintain a steady supply in storage. For example, you might can a summer’s worth of vegetables the first summer, leave them alone that winter, can a second summer’s worth of vegetables, then eat the first summer’s worth the following winter. My parents used exactly this strategy growing up and it worked just fine.

To Noah, who wants to start buying seeds: I’d invest in a greenhouse setup (grow lights in your basement, if nothing else) so that the seeds don’t go to waste. After all, in most home storage situations, seeds will eventually go bad. Within that greenhouse, I’d replenish the seeds each year and also grow myself plenty of food. A greenhouse makes it much easier to actually protect non-hybridized seeds and plants from diseases and predators, since the advantage of hybridization is that the final plant is much more sturdy than many non-hybridized plants. One good way to get involved in this is to get in touch with the Seed Savers Exchange, a group dedicated to preserving and passing on heirloom plant varieties.

While investing like this will likely not produce a great financial return, it does offer another kind of return. For many people, such preparedness offers peace of mind – a sense of protection against the unknown. That has real value, particularly if you find the state of the world to be a stressor in your life. If having some gold in your safe or food supplies in your basement causes you to feel more at peace, then it’s providing a non-financial return that has significant value in your life.

What sort of preparation do we do along these lines? At home, we have about a month’s worth of food on hand along with about twenty gallons of potable water. A good portion of the potable water is actually in gallon jugs in the freezer, helping to fill the freezer and thus reduce the maintenance energy needed to keep the contents of the freezer cold. We do not own any gold bullion, though I’ve considered buying a coin or two at a very slow rate.

Investing is more than just pure dollars and cents. Investment provides psychological security and peace of mind as well, which can be tremendously important for some people. If you’re in a position where you’re worried about the state of the world, I see no reason not to invest some of your time and energy into securing your position as best you can. After all, that’s what investment really is, at its core.

FMF pointed me to this article from the Washington Post on the sad end of Bud Post, a lottery winner from Pennsylvania:

William “Bud” Post III, 66, whose $16.2 million in lottery winnings brought him debt, despair and heartache, causing the kind of trouble often recounted in country-western songs, died of respiratory failure Jan. 15 at a Pittsburgh area hospital.

“Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems,” he said in 1993, five years after winning the Pennsylvania lottery.

His problems included a brother who tried to hire a contract murderer to kill him and his sixth wife; a landlady who forced him to give her one-third of the jackpot; and a conviction on an assault charge, after Mr. Post fired a shotgun at a man trying to collect a debt at his deteriorating dream house in northwestern Pennsylvania. He went bankrupt, came out of it with $1 million free and clear and spent most of that windfall, too.

Obviously, Mr. Post made a number of poor decisions along the way – divorcing at least five times and associating with criminals, for two.

However, there’s a deeper thread here. Mr. Post’s “deteriorating dream home” is mentioned, as is “bankruptcy” and spending most of a second windfall. It’s fairly easy to conclude from this story that Mr. Post spent his money buying stuff that was beyond him to maintain.

Money buys you three things: it buys fun, it buys security, and it buys time. The only problem is that if you neglect one of these three things at the expense of the others, you lose them all.

Mr. Post, as many people who win the lottery, focused on buying the fun. He bought his dream house and tons of other material items – the article mentions a twin-engine plane (even though he didn’t have a pilot’s license), two additional homes, another truck, three cars, two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, two 62-inch Sony televisions, a luxury camper, computers and a $260,000 sailboat, among other items.

The only problem is that when you focus entirely on the fun, you miss out on both security and time. If you load your life with fun things, you no longer have the time to actually enjoy each fun thing – instead, they go to waste, falling apart and neglected. Similarly, if you avoid proper spending on securing your future, you wind up right back where you started – in Mr. Post’s case, on a $475 a month disability check.

This idea is true for any income we bring in. After all, earning $50,000 a year for 30 years amounts to a $1.5 million windfall.

Instead of spending all of your money on every little thing you imagine you might enjoy, you’re far better off putting some of your money into a small handful of things you truly care about and will enjoy over a long period of time and putting the rest into ensuring that your situation will be provided for over the long haul.

In other words, when you bring in money, it’s fine to spend some of it on something fun. However, you’re usually better off buying or experiencing one or two high quality things – things that really mean something deeply to you or will provide many, many hours of enjoyment – than lots of things, because if you own lots of things, the time you spend on each one is lessened and the time you spend maintaining your things goes up, reducing your overall enjoyment by quite a bit. The rest of the money is usually best spent securing the things that you do have, so that you don’t wind up without any resources when luck eventually turns against you.

Fun, time, and security – keeping them in balance is the best way to maximize the money you bring in, whether it’s a big windfall or an ordinary paycheck.

“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdowns is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”
- Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

When I worked at my previous job, I always felt like the things I was doing were vitally important to the success of the project. In one way, this was good – it kept me focused on making sure that things wouldn’t fail. Yet it created several additional problems.

For one, I was often really stressed out. I felt hugely responsible for everything that went on, even for things that I couldn’t actually control. Eventually, I became quite proficient at solving the technical crises that others were responsible for, often because they were completely oblivious to the disasters.

At the same time, I became afraid to push myself to try new things. Since I felt so strongly responsible for everything, I became deeply afraid of change. I already felt the stress of managing all of the things that were already in place – the idea of changing things or adding new things stressed me even more. As a result, I would often subtly resist such changes.

On top of that, the birth of my children caused my priorities to change, adding further stress. A big part of my job involved traveling to meetings and conferences and other such things. After my children were born, the travel responsibilities gradually went from an enjoyable part of the job to a burden. Instead of going out on the town with colleagues, I’d spend the evening calling home to see what my kids were up to and would often feel as though I was missing them grow up.

The real message underlining all of this? I was so caught up in how important my job was that it was stressing me out, affecting my personal life, and keeping me from innovating and taking chances at work. That’s a terrible mix for success.

Looking back, a much more appropriate perspective would have been to realize what my role was – to develop data interfaces – and do that to the best of my ability, ignoring the other things that were going on. If the database went down… well, I shouldn’t have seen it as my responsibility. Instead, my responsibility should have been to simply push the envelope and find new and clever ways to get people the data they needed. It wasn’t “important” work – it was creative work, work that should have been purely fun.

What did I learn from this experience? The moment you begin to think of your job as “important,” you become more stressed and less innovative in your career. Your health and energy fail you due to the stress. Your job becomes less enjoyable because you’re focused on maintaining the status quo instead of doing the best job you can. In the end, you simply become less vital than you were before you began to see your job – and yourself – as “important.”

This is an issue I see popping up even now with my writing career. When I begin to view what I do as “important,” I begin to be less effective. I write less interesting pieces that essentially just reiterate core points. It becomes dull – and I can feel that just as much as you, the reader, can.

Instead, I try to remind myself that what I do really isn’t all that important at all. When I feel that way, I tend to write more from the heart, no matter the consequences. I often get attacked when I do things this way because I’ll express things that are different than what’s “expected” of me, but it’s more enjoyable.

Here’s the truth: your job is likely nowhere near as important as you think it is. Sometimes, employers will try to convince you that you’re more important than you actually are because it’ll scare you into being a good worker – but it will, at the same time, prevent you from being a great one. In the end, most managers – who also think of themselves as more important than they actually are – prefer a workplace full of good workers who are afraid to step outside the box than an office full of a mix of great workers and bad ones who are constantly trying to innovate. After all, that same sense of inflated importance guides them, too.

Here are three things I often do to keep my sense of importance at appropriately low levels.

First, I imagine worst case scenarios in terms of the greater world. For me, that would probably be a lack of ability to continue updating The Simple Dollar. What would happen to the greater world? For the most part, very little. The Simple Dollar often adds a little “positive” to people’s lives on a regular basis, but if it went away, their lives would continue. They might find another web site that provides a similar boost – or they might not. Either way, it’s not a major crisis for the world if the worst case scenario happens.

Most jobs, if you peel them back to their true impact on the world, have very little real impact. Yes, there are a few captains of industry and top political leaders who really can affect a lot of lives. Outside of them, though, the worst case scenario of most jobs has little impact.

Second, I imagine the positive impact of just not worrying about it. That type of scenario frees me to try new things. If I realize that the worst case scenario really isn’t that bad, it becomes a lot easier to imagine best case scenarios for taking pretty significant risks. What if I write articles that are seriously outside the box on The Simple Dollar? I might chase away a reader or two, sure. But I also have the potential to grab the imagination and attention of a lot of people by doing that.

Again, the same holds true for most jobs. When you consider the absolute worst case result of a certain choice, then compare that to the potential positive results of making that same choice, you’ll often find you’re better off just letting go of the status quo and trying new things. Completely re-do your filing system. Do a presentation that completely bucks the rules of what typically goes on in your workplace. Write some interesting utility code that helps everyone by making some common tasks faster.

Finally, I try things that are way outside the norm. Sometimes I’ll end up using these things that I create. Other times I won’t. In either case, I usually find something worthwhile.

What really makes this stand out, though, is that it’s fun. Trying something completely new and different adds an element of fun to my work that simply isn’t there if I’m overly careful and just follow the status quo. That sense of fun keeps my work in the area of things in my life that make me happy instead of things in my life that drain me.

In the end, my advice is simple: let go of the sense of importance you have about your work. It’ll be the best career move you’ll ever make.

One final note: if you have your financial ducks in a row, it’s even easier. Paying off your debts helps your career because it reduces the importance of your job. Your need for a salary is much less if you have your ducks in a row, which in turn opens the door to greater success because you’re no longer tied to such a sense of importance.

I’m pleased to announce that we’re expecting our third child. The baby is due in late April. And, of course, when the child is born, you can expect pictures.

This is the “news” I alluded to on Monday that was affecting my wife’s health – she’s had a big case of the first trimester “tiredness” which has made our home even more hectic lately.

Here are some personal finance articles of interest to keep you busy.

Even Good Debt Can Be Bad All debt can be bad. I don’t necessarily believe in the “good debt versus bad debt” dichotomy, which is basically the argument of this article. (@ moolanomy)

Be Your Own Part-Time Boss: The Pros & Cons This is one of the best guides I’ve read on starting your own small side business. My favorite point: start now and work out the kinks along the way. (@ man vs. debt)

Paradox Of Financial Choices: Maximizing vs. Satisficing Some people seek to maximize – to squeeze every nickel out of a situation that they can. Other people seek satisfaction – a level of completeness that balances their time and happiness. I think I’m more of the latter. (@ my money blog)

What is Simple Living and Why Should I Care? I think the real value of living simple is that it gives you the time to explore the things you’re interested in and passionate about. (@ wise bread)

Which Comes First: The House or the Nest Egg? The nest egg, in my opinion. Given that renting is often the better financial position as compared to home ownership, I think many people over-fetishize owning a home (myself included) and push themselves into a financially sub-optimal situation. (@ get rich slowly)

Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law Dunbar’s Number – 150 – is the number of meaningful friendships/relationships that a person can actually sustain. Although some argue that that number is growing due to internet technologies, I argue that it’s just allowing us to keep tabs on a larger group of people more easily, not to build meaningful relationships with them. (@ seth godin)

Separation This is a fascinating story of a divorce. It does seem like a better outcome than the typical “I’m calling a lawyer” breakdown in marriage, though. (@ steve pavlina)

Melinda writes in:

You constantly write about how having a notebook in your pocket all the time helps you in life and saves you money. I get that you can write down your ideas in it all the time, but I’m not a creative type. I don’t see how having a notebook on me at all times can save me money at all.

Aside from the fact that I’m able to use the notebook to write down my ideas – my career’s bread and butter – a pocket notebook constantly comes in handy for many other financial reasons as well. (FYI, I usually just keep a simple small Mead reporter’s notebook in my pocket, along with a good pen that doesn’t run out of ink.) Here are fourteen ways I use that notebook to directly save money.

1. Write down sale prices. If you spy an item on sale but you’re not really sure how good of a sale it is, jot down the item and the sale price. Later, you can research that price and find out if it really is a great bargain. This is particularly useful when shopping for gifts or for specific expensive purchases.

2. Make ongoing grocery lists. During a given week, I’ll make efforts to prepare several meals at home. As I’m doing this, I’ll often come across items that we need to replenish in our pantry – for example, last night I discovered we were nearly out of extra virgin olive oil. Similarly, I was down in the basement over the weekend and noticed that we were out of furnace filters – something that was very easy to immediately note. If I have a notepad with me at all times, I can add that item easily no matter where I’m at. Then, since my shopping list is complete, I don’t have to do any “wandering” at the store, helping me save time and drastically reduce impulse buys.

3. Do warehouse club price comparisons. My family often shops at Sam’s Club for many household staples, like toilet paper. Whenever we’re considering making a purchase in bulk, we’ll jot down the Sam’s Club price, then compare it to the normal price we pay at our usual grocery store. Quite often, Sam’s Club is less expensive, but not always. Checking the price lets us know whether or not this item should be purchased at the warehouse club or not.

4. Record great gift ideas. When I’m interacting with a friend or a family member, they’ll often drop a hint of some kind indicating a Christmas or birthday gift they’d like to receive. If I note that idea immediately, I can often give myself plenty of time to bargain-hunt for that specific item, enabling me to get that person a gift they’d really like for the lowest possible price for me.

5. Record contact info for potential clients or new acquaintances. Whenever I’m at a community event, I almost always meet someone interesting who wants to see my website, has a website of their own to share, or wants to keep in touch for some reason. Having a handy notebook makes this easy – I can either jot down my own information and share it (if I don’t have a business card, of course) or jot down their information and keep it.

6. Write down recipes or other food ideas. My parents and in-laws subscribe to tons of magazines and also have extensive cookbook collections. Sometimes, I’ll be browsing through them and see something really intriguing that I might want to prepare in my own kitchen. With my notebook at the ready, I can jot down this recipe, often giving me a great idea for a low-cost meal to prepare at home.

7. Leave a note for someone. Ever stopped by someone’s house when they’re not home and wanted to leave a reminder for them? If you have a notebook in hand, it’s easy to just slip a note under the door, turning a useless trip into a useful one and often helping you salvage a poor situation.

8. Make a simple price book. If you’re trying out a new store, record the prices of some of the items you buy most frequently – milk, eggs, bread, vegetables, fruit, and so on. Then, use that information to compare the prices of this new store to the one you regularly shop at. Is this new store offering better value for the things you buy? Finding the store that offers the best prices on your staples can make a huge difference in your routine food spending.

9. Exchange insurance information. In a fender bender, it’s often vital to exchange insurance information with the other person in an accident. I’ve been in accidents before where the other person was attempting to get off the hook because they didn’t have paper with which to exchange such information. With a notebook right in hand, such excuses won’t matter – information can easily be exchanged and repairs can commence as quickly as possible.

10. Write down a phone number on a “for sale” item. Perhaps you see someone selling their car (or some other large item) themselves with a phone number in the window. If you’ve got a notebook, it’s really easy to jot down the necessary information so you can call the person up later when you have appropriate additional research in hand to ensure that you’re getting a good deal.

11. Keep a “master list” of preferred brands. Consumer Reports often ranks the quality of various household items – toothpaste, shampoo, trash bags, paper towels, etc. – as well as the “best buys” for each one. Having this information in hand can help you easily get the best bang for your buck when you’re standing in the store trying to decide which item to buy.

12. Write down things you want instead of buying them, as per the “thirty day rule.” The “thirty day rule” is pretty simple. Whenever you’re tempted to make a major purchase, instead of buying, just remember the item, put it back on the shelf, and walk out of the store. Give yourself full permission to buy the item in thirty days if you’re still actively wanting it or thinking about it. I actually suggest jotting down the item if you want. Later, you can research the item a bit, figure out if it’s what you really want, and if the thirty days go by and you still want it, you can carefully comparison shop and get the best bargain you can find for it.

13. Keep a detailed errand list. There are always errands that need to be run, ones that are often important to good financial health. By keeping an ongoing errand list in your notebook, you can kill two birds with one stone – for one, you don’t forget them, and for two, you have access to that list all the time, particularly when you’re actually out and about.

14. Make an omnipresent “big goal” reminder. Since I use my pocket notebook all the time, one great technique I’ve found for keeping my mind in the right place is to start off the notebook by writing my big goal on every single page of the notebook. At the bottom, I write “Are you helping yourself get the country house today?” Writing it on every page of the notebook takes a while, but that action alone pounds the message into my head. Then, whenever I look at the notebook, I see that reminder in my own handwriting and it keeps me on a better path.

To put it simply, I couldn’t live without that pocket notebook. It’s an essential part of my personal and financial life.

Whenever I mention a company on The Simple Dollar – Apple, Dell, Nintendo, Williams-Sonoma, etc. etc. – I usually receive an email or two from a reader telling me how absolutely horrible the company in question is. They tell a long story about how their customer service from that company was nightmarish and that they tell everyone they know how awful the company is.

Here’s an example, from “Monica,” relaying a bad experience with Apple’s customer service:

In December, my iPod started acting really weird. Since it was still under warranty, I called Apple and got the runaround. I had to call their customer service line three times and ended up yelling at a supervisor. Finally they gave me an address to send it to and it took them a month or two to send it back.

Here’s the thing, though. If a large company deals with a million customer service issues in a given year, some small percentage of them will turn out badly. Simple human miscommunication, an overly demanding customer, unreasonable expectations from both sides, a customer service rep on a bad day – all of these can turn a routine customer service situation into a nightmarish one.

As a result, any sufficiently large company will have bad customer service stories floating around out there. Many of them are likely true and, if you believe that to be the norm of a customer service department, you’d likely be scared to ever use that company.

But it’s not the norm – far from it, actually. To put it simply, I ignore most horror stories about customer service when evaluating a company.

So how can you know if a company has decent customer service or not? I usually look at three things.

First, I look for stories of exceptional service. A company that goes the extra mile to stand out from the crowd enough that people will publicly talk about their service usually has very strong customer service. For some reason, as I write this, Land’s End comes to mind.

Second, I look at customer service awards. Such awards are typically done as a result of examining typical user experiences with customer service, often through extensive surveying that averages out the rare awful experiences.

Finally, I look at the company’s policies. If I can’t quickly figure out how to return a product, how to handle obvious customer service issues, or how to contact the company and get a live person quickly to address my questions, that’s a bad sign. The easier a company makes it to interact with them, the better, and one can usually tell this with a short trip to a company’s web site.

To me, there is significant value in good customer service. I will pay more for a product backed up with a solid customer service reputation than one that’s backed up with a poor customer service reputation.

One final note – local always trumps international. In other words, I’m willing to spend 20% more to buy a homebrew computer from a local store than one from Dell, for example. Why? The local store has stellar service – I can just go drop off a piece of equipment there any time I want and they’ll repair it quite inexpensively. They also dispense advice and information whenever I need it. The same goes for many products that can benefit greatly from good customer service, like a game store that offers free game nights or bookstores that facilitate book clubs and the like.

When we, as a customer, immediately boil a transaction down to the minimal dollar, we usually lose in the long run. The company that shaves a few dollars off the price at the expense of good service will end up leaving you high and dry when the product fails.