Some things that have been going through my mind lately…

Blogging

• I wonder how readers will react to a whole post of random thoughts. Perhaps they’ll let me know with a comments.
• I have about 18 design changes and features that I’d like to implement on Lazy Man and Money – if I had the time.
• I should write a whole lot more for Lazy Man and Health. It has so much potential, but my time management just isn’t where it needs to be.

Finances

• I’ve been at my job for a year now. I expected to get some kind of recognition, but thus far there’s been nothing. I expected at least an inflation-level raise considering how hot the software engineer market is in Silicon Valley.
• My current job has two of the best perks I’ve heard of… free lunch and dinner, and a monthly cash bonus for living close to the office.
• Google contacted me about working for them this week. Things just got interesting.
• I inherited $131 from a very distant relative who I’ve never met. Who says life isn’t like Monopoly?

Life

• We’ve been thinking about getting a dog. I’m thinking it might be a good Christmas present to ourselves. I should read Free Money Finance about pet costs.
• Speaking of pets, Brip Blap indirectly reminded me how much I want a Sony Aibo. I’ll keep an eye out for an exceptional bargain on one – and then I’ll probably pass on it.
• My mother-in-law sent my wife a list of baby names this week. I guess that’s a not so subtle hint that she wants to be a grandmother.
• My wife and I are having an extremely difficult time figuring out where in the United States we should live. There are so many thoughts going through each of our minds that I could blog about it all next week – and I just might.

Boston Sports

• Red Sox pulled out a strong first game of the playoffs. The Yankees lost big. Life is good.
• My wife is going to the game in Anaheim on Sunday. If the Red Sox win today, I’m sending a broom with her.
• The Patriots continue to break records. There’s too much talk of going undefeated. It’s good to know that they eat humble pie. They still have won 21 games in a row before so maybe going undefeated isn’t impossible.
• Sunday is a huge day in Boston sports with a playoff baseball game and a football game. It would be nice to diversify the game on a couple of days. If things go bad, I could be catatonic on Sunday night.

Entertainment

• I love the Old Navy Sweater jingle. Check out the full version of the song on YouTube.

Like many people, I’m a member of LinkedIn. I think it’s a fabulous tool for keeping in touch with people and very well could help advance my career. Last week I logged into my account to accept a connection from a friend and I had a surprise waiting. My college freshman roommate’s title was listed as a vice president at a huge financial institution. I realize financial companies have a lot of vice presidents, but it is still an amazing job title – and certainly a salary to match. I was immediately jealous at his success. I flashed back towards college and remember the guy that could and would out-party everyone in the dorm.

I know I’m not the first person to feel this way. In fact most people probably experience at their high school reunions. I immediately left my desk at work and went for a short walk. I had to process what change of events could have occurred to make him so successful.

I didn’t dwell on that those thoughts too long, but quickly turned to my own situation. I’m not a big-wig at a company that everyone has heard of. In fact, the company I work for is so small few people in the local area have heard of it. I do make a salary that exceeds the average American’s by a wide margin. I have this blog, with great readers and commenters, that is far more successful than I ever imagined.

After thoughts about career status success, it occurred to me that there are many more areas to judge success. LinkedIn doesn’t tell me if Mr. VP spends twelve hours a day at work. It doesn’t tell me if he has a loving wife to come home to. It doesn’t say whether he has great friends or whether he’s happy with his life. Perhaps it’s time for another Self Appreciation Day – and perhaps I’m just as successful as Mr. Big-Wig VP after all.

The Digerati Life has tagged me to give my one piece of money advice. The meme was started by Moolanomy. He’s already had the popular suggestion of “spend less then you earn.” While that may be one of the best pieces of advice, I prefer to give some new or at least different advice. For No Credit Needed’s Best Money Saving Tips, a previous meme, I suggested that you “pay yourself first”. I’m not going to use either. I’m going to tap into one of my many sayings on the site. That advice is to simply, “save your pennies, while you strive to make more pennies.” It’s very close to “spend less than you earn”, but it focuses more on making money, something that often gets overlooked.

Instead of tagging other people and collect likely inbound links from them, I’m going to end this branch here. When you think about it one person tagging another 3 or 4 has a multi-level nature to it. Since we know that these multi-level nature things eventually leave the person on the end without anyone to pass the baton to, I will fall on the sword and be that end. Or perhaps I’m just too Lazy to tag people… umm yeah it’s probably the later…

We’ve all heard that money can’t buy happiness. Some proof can be found in the number of lottery winners who had come upon tough times. Other proof may be had with all the difficulties that celebrities have. Many of them are far from being happy.

It was this thought that occurred to me on the way to work the other day. If there are rich people who aren’t happy and poor people who are very happy, it is possible that there is no correlation between wealth and happiness. If that is the case perhaps I should be writing a blog about how to achieve happiness instead of a blog about money.

The more I thought about it, there’s really no particular reason why I can’t do both. The problem I would have with trying to write about achieving happiness is that it’s so general, abstract, and reader specific that I would be little more than a motivational writer. However, by writing about money, I can give you concrete ideas that can at least give you a tool to in your quest for happiness.

It was just last week, where this was born out in a conversation with my oldest friend. We used to play John Madden Football for hours on end. With the release of a new version coming out this past week, we reminisced about so of our legendary video game battles. I asked if he still plays, and he responded that he does not. He lamented that he could not afford a Wii because he was too house poor.

I think of money as buying me a level of freedom. Perhaps that includes a purchase of the Wii where I can spend quality time with my wife playing tennis. Perhaps that freedom is the ability to retire early and spend more time traveling the world. Perhaps that freedom will be getting our future children great education.

In the end, there are infinite possibilities of what we might do with enough money. Having those options may go a long way towards making us happy.

Trent from The Simple Dollar states why he loves the country life in Iowa. He goes into the detail about the financial advantages of Iowa.

I have always lived near the big city, usually about ten miles away at the most. The two big cities are Boston and San Francisco. Here are some financial advantages I’ve learned about the big city:

• There are a number of places where I can save money by being more frugal. Trent mentions that a 20 oz Coke may be $1.60 in San Francisco. That may be true, but I rarely even buy one on the fly. I usually go to Walmart and stock up on cans and 2-liters. As I drove across the nation, I noticed that the pricing was surprising the same – 58 cents for a 2-liter of Sam’s Choice – $3.98 for a 24 pack of cans.
• Looking at that previous bullet point again, I earn quite a big more in the city than I would elsewhere and I’m able to keep some of my costs the same. This gives me a greater surplus.
• The weather has been so good near San Francisco that most places don’t even have air conditioning. The mild winters (below 32 degrees is considered an emergency) means that I use a minimum of heat. Comparing this to most areas in the country and $70 a month for gas and electricity (including about 6 billion computers and gadgets) add up to big savings.
• The level of education in Boston and San Francisco is tremendous. In Boston, I would find myself in groups where everyone went to MIT or Harvard. In San Francisco, I’d say about 80% of my current company has a degree from Stanford. Smart people are contagious or to put it another way, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.
• Time and time again I hear that San Francisco has a very high “quality of life.” What that really entails differs on your preferences. However, it’s fairly quick and easy for me to watch, not one, but two major league baseball teams. I could even go to a museum in the day and a baseball game at night. The culture and diversity is amazing.
• Competition for software developers in the area has reached the point where salaries and benefits are experiencing a bubble effect. With Google offering a gourmet cafeteria and other great perks, other companies have started to join in to compete. My company offers free lunch and dinner from restaurants around town delivered every day. They are also looking to give a $500/month in housing allowance if you live within a certain distance of the office. These benefits completely flabbergast most of the people I talk to.
• I imagine that it is very hard for someone from Iowa to move to San Francisco to retire. However, the reverse, moving from San Francisco to Iowa to retire strikes me as something entirely possible.

The more I think about it, the more opportunities seem to be in the city. If something were to happen to the company I work for in the country, could I get another equivalent job? I think the odds are much better in city. It makes me think that the odds of me working for the next YouTube is much better. The odds are still small, but their headquarters are within a five mile radius.  You never know, perhaps I’ll be retiring in less than a year with a stroke of tremendous luck.