Lazy Man and Money

Shopping for the End of the World (as we know it)

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Today’s article comes from regular contributor, Kosmo.

My family is at near-lockdown stage at this point.  A week ago, the kids were in school, my wife and I were both working from the office, and we were set to go on a long weekend trip to a local indoor waterpark.  The trip was the first to get scuttled.  Late on Thursday, my company gave us the option to work from home for two weeks (which has since been changed to indefinitely).  My kids aren’t going to have school for at least a month.  My wife is hoping that her group’s work from home request, currently mired in red tape, approved today.  If not, she’s going to burn vacation waiting for the approval.  At that point, none of us are leaving the house/yard for a while.  The vast majority of Iowa’s cases are in my county (thanks to an Egyptian cruise), so we’re being cautious with our human interactions.

We usually have a good supply of food on hand, but enough to last 4-8 weeks?  Probably not.  Over the weekend, I made a trip to the grocery store.  What did I get?

Non-perishables

  • Canned tuna – I hate tuna (and pretty much all seafood), but the rest of the family likes it.  The stuff’s good for a couple of years.  I also bought a couple of jars of Miracle Whip to mix with it
  • Other canned meat – I bought some canned chicken and ham.  There aren’t going to be anyone’s favorites, so I’ll push them to the back of the pile.  But if we need protein, they’ll serve nicely.  Easy recipe: make Stove Top per the recipe on the box.  Then add canned chicken, cheese, and a splash of A-1.  Not everyone likes the resulting casserole, but I do – and it’s very quick and easy to make.
  • Peanut butter and jelly – A couple of larger containers of both.  While peanut butter doesn’t have as much protein as the meats, it does have some.  We’re going to run out of bread before too long, so I also bought crackers to spread it on.
  • Dinty Moore beef stew – My wife likes the stuff, so I bought several cans.
  • Beef vegetable soup
  • Hormel Compleats pot roast – I eat these pretty often for a lunch at work, so I grabbed several of them.  Should keep things feeling fairly normal for me.
  • Summer sausage – It’s good for about six months and doesn’t require refrigeration until opened.  My daughter and I both it quite a bit
  • Chef Boyardee for the kids.
  • Pop – I’d go crazy without my sugar and caffeine
  • Spaghetti (unprepared)
  • Tomato soup – To make spaghetti
  • Microwave Mac and Cheese – Velveeta shells and cheese
  • Ramen noodle – I’m not sure these things ever expire
  • Fruit cups – The store was a bit picked over, but there were still some peaches
  • Raisins – Fresh fruit that lasts virtually forever
  • Applesauce
  • Pudding – Name brand stuff was gone, but Hy-Vee (grocery chain) will be fine.

Perishables

  • Bread – It won’t last long, but it’ll keep things feeling normal for a bit
  • Hamburger – The most versatile of meats.
  • Hot dogs and brats – immediately threw them in the fridge to stall the clock
  • Cheese – We like cheese a lot.  Blocks of cheese had expiration dates a few months out, so I bought a half dozen blocks.  Colby jack for the rest of the family; non-jacked Colby for me.
  • Deli meats – Bought some Hillshire Farms 9oz tubs of ham and turkey.  The expiration dates are a couple of months out.  They’re good for about a week after you crack the seal.
  • Bananas and apples

As you can see, there was a lot of focus on protein-rich non-perishables.

Note that we already had a stocked freezer before this whole situation started.  So we already had plenty of frozen pizzas, pot pies, hot pockets, TV dinners, as well as several pounds of hamburger.

We’re also stressing food conservation to the kids

  • We WILL eat leftovers.  Eat yesterday’s leftovers today, so that you don’t have to dip into the reserves.
  • Avoid waste by taking only what you know you will be able to eat.  If you’re still hungry, have some more.  But avoid having uneaten food on your plate at the end of the meal.
  • Be wary of expiration dates on perishables.  Once you’ve started the clock ticking (opening the deli meat, for example), focus on that item for the next several days until it is gone.  Don’t allow food to spoil.

The food conservation tips are always a good practice, but we’re not always as diligent about them, especially when something even more tasty is just around the corner at the grocery store or restaurant.  There’s no longer such a thing as a quick trip to the grocery store.  Every outside interaction is a potential exposure.  While we should avoid panic, we should also make smart choices and minimize outside contact as much as possible.

Job Search Journey: Management Potential?

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This is a continuation of Kosmo’s Job Search Journey, but you can read it as a standalone article.

The Whole Job Search Series:
1. You’re Fired
2. Assessing the Situation
3. Networking
4. Learn
5. The Interview
6. Frustration
7. Success
8. Sink or Swim
9. Search for Stability
10. Job Search Journey: The Interview the Lasted for Seven Months
11. Advice

Two years ago, I was facing the impending loss of my job.  I was nearly three months into my job search, and barely three months from the point where I would no longer have a job.  Panic had begun to set in – I was wondering how long we might have to survive on one salary, and how I would avoid getting bored while unemployed.  For that matter, what was the process for filing unemployment?

Happily, it never came to that.  I ended up finding a job about six weeks before the clocked stopped.  I coordinated my start date with the termination date for my old job, so that I’d qualify for my severance. After eight months as a contract employee, I transitioned to permanent employee status.  My employer is one of the most prestigious companies in the area.  Overall, things worked out really well.

Now, I’m looking to take the next step in my career.  My boss left for another job.  I applied for his job, interviewed for the position, and am awaiting the decision.  My interview wasn’t perfect, but went well.  I was able to make most of my key points.  I think I have a decent shot at the job.  If not now, I think it’s just a matter of time.

Why become a manager?

I was a regular employee at my previous job for more than twenty years.  During that time, I never had an interest in becoming a manager.  Why not?  Mostly because I was always surrounded by very experienced teams members on autonomous teams.  Honestly, as a manager, if you have a twenty year employee with a track record of success, you should have a fairly hands-off approach.  Be available for guidance, make them aware of any new information (changes in policy, etc), help remove roadblocks, but don’t micro-manage.  Stay out of their way and let them get work done.

At my current company, there are a lot of people who are less experienced.  Many of these people are bright, but they simply don’t have the experience to have learned some life lessons.  You learn a lot by making mistakes – and often times, they haven’t yet made those mistakes.  They may need explanations of why things are done one way and not another.  Many times, the answer is that the approved way has more safeguards and exposes the company to less risk.  They may also be unsure of what their career path will be, and may need someone to show them the options, and help them take the next steps.

I’ve spent my career helping to build IT systems for people.  This work is akin to picking the fruit from a tree.  When you retire, your legacy disappears fairly quickly.  I want to become Johnny Appleseed (Johnny Careerseed), helping employees become productive and happy (akin to planting fruit trees instead of merely picking up the fruit).  The legacy of Johnny Careerseed will live on after Johnny has retired.

How to become a manager

Obviously, you can’t simply decided to become a manager and have your wish granted.  You have to take some steps to prepare.  Here are a few of those steps.

Be good at your current job

If you have a reputation as a poor performer in your current job, you’re not going to be seriously considered, even if the jobs are completely different.  If you’re a mediocre performer at your current job, focus on improving your performance, before applying for manager positions.

Initiative

The analyst I replaced wasn’t someone who showed a lot of initiative.  I was able to make an immediate positive impression by jumping in and taking some initiative to move my project forward.  At this point, I am the project lead, and I do many of the task which typically fall to a project manager.

Interpersonal skills

You don’t need to become best friends with everyone you work with, but it’s helpful to at least have a positive or neutral working relationship with everyone.  In your current role, you might be able to avoid interacting with certain co-workers.  As a manager, you won’t have that ability.  You’ll need to interact with all of your employees in a fair, non-partial way.

My boss also “volunteered” me to work on a committee for his boss.  This ended up being a good opportunity to have face time with his boss – the guy who happens to be the hiring manager for the job I applied for.

Interview experience

If you become a manager, you’ll have the opportunity to hire new employees at some point.  Interviews look very difference from the other side of the table.  If possible, gain some experience on an interview panel.  Be an active participant, but also pay attention to the other people in the interview.  If you hear an insightful question steal borrow it for future use.

In the past year, I’ve been involved in about a dozen interviews.  Recently, my project manager asked if I’d be interested in being on the panel for a position she was trying to fill.  It’s not even a position on my team, so it helps bolster my reputation as a team player, while also gaining me valuable experience.

One thing I always try to do is smile and nod a lot during the meeting, to help put the interviewee at ease.  The goal of an interview is to determine if the applicant can do the job; often, nervousness during the interview makes it more difficult to determine how well the person can do the job.

Fun fact: the project manager was initially interested in poaching me for the position, until it became apparent that she couldn’t afford me.  That made me feel better about my negotiating skills – I’m apparently doing quite compared to others in my role.

Training

Take advantage of any training your company offers.  I was able to take a course on “difficult conversations” that I found useful.  Historically, I haven’t been great at confrontation, but I’ve improved pretty dramatically in recent years.

Advice

Finally, look around you and get advice from family or friends.  I have several friends who are IT managers, serving in similar roles to the position I’m seeking.  I’ve reached out for them for their thoughts and advice, and I’ll continue to do that in the future.  Shared information makes everyone stronger.

How to Bribe Your Coworkers

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I have long subscribed to the adage that “you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”  If you’re nice to people, they’re more willing to work with you in the future.  Keeping them happy makes your own job easier.  It’s not fun going to work when you have to pull teeth to get information from people.

Toward this goal, I make efforts to be flexible, and to be available for any questions.

I’m also the guy who occasionally brings in donuts.  Not every week, but probably once every 4-6 weeks.  It’s not terribly expensive, but you can buy a lot of goodwill for the cost of a donut.  Recently, when our business partners (accountants) were in the middle of their month end processing, I brought them a box of donuts, too.  These people aren’t actually on my team, but on a team we interact with frequently.  Imagine if someone in an adjoining department brought in donuts for your team.  My small gesture was very well received – even the second level manager thanked me.

Was there an ulterior motive?  Sort of.  I knew that those people would be testing our new system soon.  My company is in the middle of changing a lot of processes, and software deployment is currently not a smooth process.  So I was giving them a positive impression of my team weeks before they got to the point of testing.  In hindsight, this was a great idea, because the deployment is taking forever.

I also have candy at my desk.  Most of the time, I’ll go to Costco and buy big containers of M&Ms, but I’ll occasionally mix things up a little bit.  I recently found a great post-Halloween deal on Reese’s mini peanut butter cups.  I bought six pounds.  On a couple of occasions, I’ve handed out ice cream bars in the afternoon.  Once, my boss’s boss was talking to my boss, and I handed an ice cream bar to both of them.

[Author’s note: I also have an incredible sweet tooth, so this is not entirely altruistic.  So I end up consuming a lot of donuts and candy.  I’ve been gaining a few pounds, but managing to still stay on the slender side of the spectrum.]

The end result of all this bribery is that when I have a question, others members of the team are always willing to drop by my desk and help resolve the problem.  Chocolate has become the lubricant of productivity.

In the next few months, I will begin pursuing a position in management.  There are many management styles.  I’m more of a mentoring type of manager.  My overall philosophy is that happy employees will be productive employees.

There are many ways to help an employee have job satisfaction.  Donuts, chocolate, and pizza are definitely the easiest.  But it’s also important to work with them to upskill and gain expertise in their areas of interest.  I firmly believe that there is an art to finding the balance between what an employee wants and what is best for the organization.  There will be time when an employee just needs to suck it up, because every job has tasks that aren’t fun.  But it’s also important to work with the employee to identify that work they enjoy doing – or want to learn – and finding where they intersect with the company’s goals.  Sometimes overall productivity might take a dip in the short term, but this may be necessary to build a base for higher long term productivity.

Because happy employees are productive employees.

McEconomics!

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This article is from occasional contributor, Kosmo. At the end, I’ll tack on some of my own McDonalds economics thoughts.

McDonalds Economics

Several weeks ago, I was at McDonalds with my 9 year old.  It blew his mind that I was able to put together a package that included more food at a lower price than the standard option.  I’ve turned this into a personal finance lesson for him and his 11 year old sister.

They like McNuggets.  A lot.  Typically, they’ve had the six piece Happy Meal, but they’ve reached the point where they (usually) don’t care about the toy anymore, and they want more food.

What do they want?  Between the two of them, they want 18-20 nuggets, some fries, and two bottles of chocolate milk.

The standard six piece happy meal contains:

  • 6 nuggets
  • Small fries
  • Apple slices or Go-gurt
  • Drink (chocolate milk)

The cost is $4.18 each, for a total cost of $8.36 for two.  They end up with fewer nuggets than they want, but two Go-gurts (which they’re somewhat ambivalent about).  Realistically, they’d need three Happy Meals to get the right number of nuggets.

So I went comparison shopping to see how else I might accomplish the goal.

A ten piece nugget value meal is $7.49.  To get twenty nuggets, I’d have to spend $14.98!  I’d end up with

  • Twenty nuggets
  • Two medium fries
  • Two medium fountain drinks

I’d have to swap out the fountain drinks for the chocolate milk.  I’m not sure if there’s an upcharge for that, because this option was immediately discarded – because I found a better deal.

I went the a la carte option and took advantage of some special deals and coupons.

  • The ten piece nugget is part of a 2 for $5 deal.
  • I have a coupon for a large order of fries for $1.  This is a coupon I can use once per week via the McDonalds app.

Here’s what I ended up ordering:

  • Two ten piece nuggets @ 2/$5 = $5
  • One large order of of fries = $1
  • Two chocolate milk @ $1 = $2

Total cost: $8.  This is 8 more nuggets than the two Happy Meals, and more fries, since a large is more than twice as big as the small.  The cost is 36 cents less than the two Happy Meals!  You may have noticed the missing Go-gurt.  The good news is that you can buy a Go-Gurt or apple slices for 50 cents.  For the sake of argument, let’s say that I get two Go-Gurts.  That brings the total to $9.  I’ve gotten all the food the Happy Meals would have, plus eight extra nuggets, for 64 cents more than the cost of the Happy Meals.

For myself, I got two bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits.  Sticker price $3.39 or 2 for $4.  I would have slightly preferred one bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and one egg McMuffin, but I’m not going to pass up the 2 for $4 deal.

Later, I pulled out a piece of paper and walked them through the options and prices.  They were impressed at the price differences.

Is this post simply a way for me to brag about my ability to save money at McDonalds.  Well, sort of.  But mostly it’s to illustrate how simple it is to teach some basic personal finance lessons.

Unit pricing is another area where I try to teach the kids an occasional lesson.  Toilet paper is a good place to start, because there are so many options within a brand and style.  Which Charmin Ultra Soft Mega Roll is the best option – the 4 pack, the 8 pack, the 12 pack, or the 18 pack?  You’d expect the per unit price to drop as the quantity increases, but that’s not always the case in the real world.

My nine year old is starting to grasp the concept.  He can already determine which box of garbage bags we should buy.

I’m not necessarily a tightwad.  There are things I’ll spend money one (MLB.TV, for example).  But if I need 36 rolls of toilet paper, I don’t want to pay more per roll simply because I chose the wrong size package.  36 rolls is 36 rolls, regardless of how they are packaged.

I’ve also given the kids a thirty thousand foot exposure to concepts like bank accounts, credit accounts, pensions (and the difference between defined contribution and defined benefit), 401(k)s, 529s, and income taxes.  As they get older, I’ll go deeper into these topics, so that by the time the graduate from high school, they’ll have a solid understanding of personal finances.

Editor’s McDonalds Economics Thoughts

For a long time, we were able to escape the McDonalds Happy Meal trap. Our kids simply didn’t know they existed until Grandma spoiled the plan. They would have figured it out eventually, but I can still fondly look back on those days.

With my kids at age 5 and 6, the Happy Meal is still important to them. However, we use it a treat. Typically, we’d take advantage of the five dollar 20-piece nuggets in our area. That’s the equivalent deal as Kosmo’s (except for the bulk requirement). Since my kids are smaller, we don’t need too much more to feed 3 or 4 of us. A $1 Value Menu sandwich will usually do it.

Recently, we’ve revisited the value of the Big Breakfast with Hot Cakes which is an economical ~1350 calories. Everyone has their favorites and it just seems to work out for us. Once again, an extra $1 value menu sandwich or two can round out a hearty breakfast for the family. It’s been particularly handy at the Orlando airport terminal that we seem to visit a few times a year.

As for teaching unit pricing, my kids are a little young for that. I’m very good with unit pricing, but toilet paper is very, very difficult. The best I can do is look at square footage to avoid the differences in mega-rolls and regular rolls. Doing a dollar per square foot isn’t always easy though.

Instead, I’m going to turn to teaching unit pricing through something that I know my kids will pay attention to: Pokemon. Specifically Pokemon Go has items for sale at the shop. A single super egg incubator will run 200 PokeCoins. However, you can get 10 super egg incubators and a bunch of other useful stuff (lucky eggs, and star pieces) for 1480 PokeCoins in an Ultra Box.

We’ll go down this road in more detail over the next year or so. For now, I explain that I can get a lot more things if I save my PokeCoins and take advantage of the package deal. I have a suspicion that unit pricing will come up in more video games in the future.

Kosmo’s Midlife Financial Checkup

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Lazy Man often gives us a look into his financial life, so I decided to do the same.  I’ll be a little (a lot) more vague than Lazy Man, but will hopefully give you a slightly different viewpoint.

[Editor’s Note: The idea of a midlife financial checkup is an extremely good one. I need to do my own one of these.]

At 43 years old, I’m roughly halfway through what Sam Miller refers to as “this horrible, rotten slog toward rigor mortis”.  It seems like this might be a good time to see how I’m progressing.  Let’s take a look as some aspects of my financial life.

Employment

Employment is a big piece of the financial puzzle.  A year ago, when I found myself on the brink of being pushed out of a job I had been at for twenty years, I had my first real encounter with imposter syndrome.  What if I wasn’t worth what my current employer was paying me?  What if I was 10% overpaid?  Or 20%?  or 30%?  Or what if my particular role wasn’t in demand in my metro area?

A year later, I’m much more confident about my abilities and my future.  I went from being a somewhat above average employee at my previous job to being a substantially above average performer at my current gig.  Part of this is because the new job allows me to use more of my skills than the old one.  Another factor is that my old team had been in place for years and had many high performing veteran employees, whereas my new team was only established a couple of years ago, and is largely staffed with fairly inexperience employees.  In essence, I went from being a small fish in a big bowl to a big fish in a somewhat smaller bowl.

My boss is fairly young, and I think he could stay in this role for quite a few years.  That bodes well for me, because we have a good relationship, and I like the dynamic he brings to the team.  We’re both sports fans – something that really shouldn’t matter, but does allow for pleasant small talk.

There’s no such thing as a sure thing, but I think I’m as well positioned as I could be.  Additionally, the new position is allowing my to use my accounting knowledge (which I had never used in my old job), making me more marketable if I have to look for another job.

That’s only half the employment equation, though.  My wife is a CPA who works for a large university in the area.  She also has substantial experience in public accounting, so she has a lot of marketable experience.  Quite honestly, she’d have an easier time finding a job with comparable pay than I would, because while nearly every company needs accountants, not every company needs business analysts.

Immediate cash flow

How are we doing day to day?  Are we able to cover our immediate expenses with our income?  A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck.  Happily, that does not describe us.  Despite some heavy expenses (BASP, I’m talking about you), we’re creating positive cash flow – covering our immediate expenses and leaving some left over to invest.

We’ve also had a couple of infusions of cash in the last couple of years – an inheritance from my mom’s estate and then my severance payment from my older employer.  Combined, they were the equivalent of a year’s worth of salary for me.  Not enough to retire on, but enough to give us financial flexibility.  These were one-time blips on the financial radar, but very helpful.

Mortgage

We live on a quiet street in a quickly growing (but still quiet suburb).  Since we live in Iowa, this means that housing is more affordable than the coasts or major metro areas.  Our house is less than 15 years old, has almost 1500 square feet on the main floor, plus almost 1200 finished square feet in the basement.  Additionally, we have an unfinished storage area of about 200 square feet.

We have a 15 year mortgage that we’ll pay off just as the youngest kid graduates from college.  The mortgage, interest, and escrow are barely above 10% of our gross wages.

College

Our oldest kid is in fifth grade, and her brother is in third grade.  My wife and I are both first generation college students.  I worked myself through college, which allowed me to graduate with “only” $25,000 in student loans (in 1997 dollars).  My parents weren’t able to assist me financially.

Our kids will be more fortunate.  We been contributing to 529 plans for them for years, dumping a substantial chunk of change into the accounts each year.

There’s a strong chance the kids will go to the local university.  That will help us in a couple of ways – the tuition will be cheaper than a private school, and they could conceivably commute (15-20 minutes) to campus.  That would save us approximately seven billion dollars.

Additionally, both kids are excellent students, so I have my fingers crossed that they might land some merit-based scholarships.  The need-based financial aid I received as a student is unlikely, due to our presence in the middle class.

You might be wondering if this is the same university my wife works for, and whether there is a tuition waiver for the children of employees.  The first answer is yes (the university that is the in-state rival of my alma mater).  Unfortunately, the second answer is, at the moment, no.  There’s always the chance that things could change, but we’re definitely not counting on it.

Retirement

Which brings us to the elephant in the room – retirement planning.

First, I’ll openly admit that we’re not maxing out our contributions.  Honestly, kids are expensive, and we want to stay somewhat flexible with our current finances.

We each do contribute a pretty hefty amount each month, though.  My wife’s employer also kicks in about 10% of her salary to her retirement account.  My current employer puts some money into both a defined contribution pension and a 401K.  Currently, they contribute a total of 7% of my salary, and this will grow a bit over time.  I also have a defined benefit pension from my old employer than will pay me slightly more than 20% of my current salary when I reach age 62.

So, even though we aren’t maxing out our contributions, the total of our contributions, our employers’ contributions, and the pension from my old employer create a fairly sizeable next egg than will continue to grow in the two decades I have left in the work force.

One other thing to note is that when I’m 57, our expenses should drop dramatically, as our youngest kid will be graduating from college and our mortgage will be paid off.  That will give us the opportunity to dump extra money into our retirement plans in our final years in the workplace.  There’s a catch-up provision for many retirement plans (including 401K) that allow people 50 or older to contribute an extra $6000 beyond the normal limits.  If you’re in this age range and are in the position to make extra contributions, look into the catch-up provision.

Life Insurance

All these plans are great, but an untimely death of myself or my spouse could wreak havoc on the family, both emotionally and financially.  The emotional side would be awful to work through, but we’ve planned for the financial impacts.  We have enough term life insurance to effectively replace our income through the age of retirement.  So if one of us shuffles off this mortal coil earlier than expected, it shouldn’t completely derail the family’s financial train.

Keeping my eye on the ball

Another factor is that I’m keeping a close eye on things.  I track the growth our 529s against the projected costs of college.  I project the balances of our various accounts at the time of retirement, and estimate what our expenses will be.  I have a set of projections that include social security and another set that doesn’t – and rely more heavily on the projection that doesn’t include social security.

Overall, we’re in good shape.  If our salaries continue to move along their current paths and our investments follow historical trends, we should be able to live a comfortable, if not luxurious, retirement.

Have you done your own financial checkup?  How are you doing?

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