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End of Your Rope? Tie a Knot and Hang on Tight.

August 10, 2020 by Lazy Man 13 Comments

If you ever feel like you’re at the end of your rope… tie a knot baby, and hold on tight!

– Steven Tyler, Aerosmith

It seems that the quote comes originally from Roosevelt, but I remember it from an Aerosmith concert in the mid-1990s. Google didn’t exist yet, so, to me, Steven Tyler owns the quote.

Livin’ on the Edge!

Yesterday I explained how I got an e-mail from a woman who lost her job and the feelings that I went through in a similar situation. Today, I’ll detail what I did about it then and what I’d do about it today.

(* This was originally written in 2007 but, with few edits, it is still applicable today. As COVID-19 continues to make 2020 terrible, this may help you or someone you love.)

First off, I’d break your plan of attack into three phases:

Phase 1 (Immediate Term) – Desperation mode

Before you even begin this phase, I hope you have an emergency fund.

Step 1 – Cut costs

Look around at everything that costs you money. Try to either eliminate it or bring the costs to a minimum.

  • Extras – I would quit most any subscription service… Netflix, Cable TV, Vogue Magazine… all gone. (In COVID-19 world, this advice may not be the best, it gets better.)
  • Food – I’m not entirely joking, but I’d go on the Survivor diet – lots of white rice and water. Perhaps some Ramen noodles if you want to splurge. I’d mix some beans in as they are a great source of protein and fiber and are relatively cheap. Eggs can be a good cheap option as well. Chicken is extremely cheap as well. We are lucky that food costs in 2020 are low if you are flexible on nutrition for the short term.
  • Insurance – Use COBRA to get health insurance unless you have a better option such as a spouse.
  • Housing – The woman in the email had a home and mortgage payments. If you own a home, can you get a roommate? Is AirBnb an option? Is it possible to sell it and downsize or rent?

Step 2 – Earn an income

It’s impossible to make payments on your home without money coming in.

  • Look into Unemployment – This is an obvious first step, I hope. When I was jobless, my unemployment benefit was quite large as I was downsized from a high paying job. The downside of this is that it discouraged me from looking for work. With unemployment, if you make $50 that week, you report it and then you get $50 less for the week. This extends your time on unemployment though, so if you are still unemployed when your unemployment would have run out, you’ll still have that $50 to get the following week. This was poor motivation for me to take any available work, which would normally be my instinct. For example, if I took a minimum wage job, I would be working 40 hours a week for literally no money. It’s a strange system in my opinion.
  • Make Extra Money – See if there some ways you can make an buck on the side. There’s another great example at Get Rich Slowly.
  • Think about small jobs – Don’t be afraid to work double shifts at McDonald’s or some other fast food place. I used to work at a fast food place and I actually thought it was fun (in high school at least). The bonus is that if you work the night shift, you can often bring some leftover food home. It wasn’t uncommon for me to bring home 12 calzones a night that would have otherwise been thrown out. They went into the freezer and our family had food for months.

    Focus on what skills you have. Maybe you can teach a class on something better than most people. Maybe you can create logos on Fiverr. One benefit of 2020 over 2007 is that we have a robust gig economy. I make money dog sitting.

  • Talk to Friends – Tap your social network and see if you can find a job there. I once found a job for a friend through another friend… and none of it happened through a social network. It was talking to people in real life.
  • Look for Jobs Online – Look online at Monster, CareerBuilder, and Indeed. LinkedIn is an obvious way to go.
  • Blogging – Blogging for money is possible, but expect to earn somewhere around 5 to 10 cents per hour spent for the first 5 months. It took me a year of 2 hours a night (on average) to make a thousand dollars a month… but it was much, much easier in 2007. Most people spend their time on social networks, not independent blogs. Thirteen years later and it’s a struggle to grow beyond a thousand a month… and I know a lot of bloggers who would love to make a couple of hundred dollars a month.

    Nonetheless, if you are looking into blogging as a longer-term solution here are ten reasons to be a personal finance blogger. And here is a little guide to being a successful blogger. (Note: These articles are in need of updating. They are good motivation, but there is better practical advice out there.)

  • Consider selling things you have of value – This is a tough decision and must be made on an item by item basis. You may have a few hundred dollars in stuff from eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or a garage sale.

Step 3 – Take Care of Yourself

It’s more important now than ever. I originally meant that because losing a job or dealing with any kind of financial hardship is tough. Coronavirus turns it up a couple of notches.

  • Pay Attention to Your Health – It’s easy to get depressed when in this desperation mode.
  • Be Social – When I was laid off in 2001, I was lucky enough to live with roommates. They pushed me to be social when I worried about the expense of the restaurant meal or drinks at a bar.
  • Exercise – My apartment building also had a gym, so I scheduled a block time there every day. If you are on the cheap diet I mentioned above, you should be working out. Exercising releases endorphins which will make you feel better. Studies show exercise works as well as (or even better than) some anti-depressants.

Phase 2 – Recovery

Hopefully, you won’t be without a steady income for a long time. I had to go for two years until software engineering jobs came back. That’s a long time to try to get by on emergency fund.

If you took my advice and ended up getting two minimum wage jobs, chances are you are going to burn out before too long. It’s almost like treading water, you just want to prevent yourself from sinking. Once you’ve stopped the bleeding, it’s time to begin the recovery phase. The recovery phase is where you will need to spend any spare time looking for one job that used to pay like the one you previously had. That means making a huge effort to apply for new jobs in your industry. You may find that you need to learn new skills or require additional education. It will be hard to do this while you are working two jobs, but it’s necessary to get back to where you were.

Phase 3 – Prevention

If you’ve been able to secure a salary near what you had before the job loss, you are ready to enter the third phase – prevention.

You want to prevent this situation from happening again. You want to build back up that emergency fund. I prevented a total loss of income by building passive income streams. That way if I lose one, the others can keep me afloat. Looking back at this 13 years later, my wife and I have a very solid net worth, great retirement income, some rental properties, equities, side hustles (blogging, dog sitting). We can be financially independent in a couple of weeks by eliminating extra education costs.

Originally published May 15-16, 2007

For fun here are a couple of the outdated references I removed:

– Vonage’s cheap per minute VOIP home line instead of a traditional landline
– Advice of getting rid of your cell phone. Now just get a cheaper phone and a cheaper plan.
– Use HotJobs as a source to find new jobs

Filed Under: Reader Email Tagged With: emergency fund, job loss

Saving Money on Food While Traveling?

August 20, 2015 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

I don’t like to do back-to-back “Ask the Readers”, but today I’m going to break the (unwritten) rules.

Our family is going on road-trip vacation soon. We are hopping from hotel to hotel bringing the kids to Sesame Place, Hershey Park, Crayola World, and the Philadephia children’s museum.

We are looking to be frugal on this vacation. The idea is to avoid spending a hundred dollars a day on food at restaurants. I’m sure we are going to spend some money on them, but we don’t need to eat all three meals at them.

So the question is, “What can we buy in advance and bring with us to make meals?”

I’m going with the assumption that either a refrigerator or microwave would be a nice surprise at the hotels. We tried to research it, but got conflicting information from the pictures on the web and the TripAdvisor reviews. So we’ll bring some canned food (it can’t hurt), but we can’t rely on being able to heat it up. Also, I’m years removed from my college days of microwaving canned green beans as a snack.

Let’s also assume that for a week we aren’t too concerned about eating healthy. Bringing fruit is a no-brainer, but beyond that everything is in play… even Chef Boyardee. The only thing I’m taking off the table is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’m just not a fan.

So far I’ve been focusing on drinks. It’s low-lying fruit. We don’t need to pay $2 for a soda when we can bring them. I hit our local warehouse store (BJ’s) and found Horizon Milk and Honest Kids juice boxes. It’s perfect for the kids as neither require refrigeration.

I also set aside some nutrition bars and peanuts. They are good snacks, but it is hard to build a meal around them.

So what do you think? Any suggestions?

P.S. Road Trip was a greatly underrated movie. I miss those kind of American Pie genre movies.

Filed Under: Ask the Readers Tagged With: Food, travel

Ask the Readers: Umbilical Cord as a Form of Health/Life Insurance?

June 5, 2012 by Lazy Man 17 Comments

I have mentioned it a couple of times previously, but in a few months, if all goes well, I’ll be the father to a baby boy. This brings a bunch of difficult questions like whether to get a Patriots or Red Sox diaper bag and what is the proper age to introduce him to Firefly/Serenity and Buffy the Vampire Slayer? (It was Patriots in a landslide and the Joss Whedon masterpieces is still open for debate.)

However, there’s one question that I never anticipated… should I save and freeze the umbilical cord for later? My wife and I didn’t even freeze our wedding cake for our anniversary and now people are asking us about freezing human flesh? Fortunately, they won’t be using my freezer. I don’t need that mess getting in my ice cream.

I’m new to this, but the idea seems to be that you freeze the umbilical cord and giving you access to stem cells in the event that they help you later should you develop a medical condition. I haven’t done much research on the topic. I have only a small knowledge of stem cells and I couldn’t tell you what they’ve been shown to help or where it is headed. What I do know is that the stem cells “could” be helpful not only to our baby, but for me and/or my wife as well. It’s not like health insurance in the form of covering medical expenses, but it has the potential ensure you live a longer life.

The price of this protection is around two to three thousand dollars upfront and anywhere from $125 to $250 a year for maintaining this umbilical cord in a frozen state. Perhaps there are cheaper prices if I shop around, but I’m quoting the place that contacted us.

It’s very rare that I instinctively don’t know which way I’m leaning on an issue. This is one of those cases. Perhaps when I get more information the decision will be easier. I know that a majority of society pokes fun at those who have their heads or bodies frozen with the hopes of being thawed out later. However, I think George Carlin had it right:

“I want to live. I don’t want to die. That’s the whole secret of life…not dying! I figured that [expletive] out alone in third grade…

Leave my plug alone. Get an extension cord for my plug. I want everything you got, tubes, cords, plugs, probes, electrodes, IVs. You got something (click), stick it in me man. You find out I got a hole I didn’t know I had, put a [expletive] plug in it.”

With that in mind, maybe I am leaning towards doing it. Give me your thoughts in the comments.

Filed Under: Ask the Readers, Health, Insurance Tagged With: stem cells

Ask the Readers: What’s Your Take on Paid Book Reviews?

January 28, 2010 by Lazy Man 21 Comments

I got a request a couple of weeks ago from a company to see if I wanted to review a business book. I get a lot of these as my email address seems to have gotten out on some public relations circles. Usually, the pitch goes something like:

PR Person: Would you like a copy of [Insert Writer X]’s [Insert Book Title]?
Me: Sure, but I must warn you, I get a lot of books and have little time to read between a full-time job, this blog, and other side projects.
PR Person: It’s okay, we’ll ship you out a book and if you get to it, you get to it.

They are almost always happy to send out the book. They figure that if they get 100 potential maybes, it’s worth it. Anyone who subscribes to Paperback Swap knows that media mail is fairly cheap and the physical cost of the book is cheap. If a few influencers write about the book it is likely to generate more sales and thus be more successful. (I feel like Malcolm Gladwell in the Tipping Point)

The request, I got recently was a little different. It was still a request if I wanted a book. However, the company wanted me to read it and review it within a certain time in a “book tour” with other bloggers. Out of curiosity I decided to visit this company’s website as they didn’t seem to be the usual PR folk. The company had a “Services” tab, which always draws my attention. This is where I learned that this company is basically the middle man between the author and bloggers. They charge authors around $40-45 (depending on bulk pricing) to get bloggers to review their books.

This left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. However, before I go down that road, I will lift a curtain and let you see a little behind the scenes at Lazy Man and Money. I get dozens of requests a day and it’s not possible for me to service them all. When that happens, one of the first things you get really good at is asking two questions 1) “What’s in it for me and my readers?” and 2) “How much time/effort is this going to take from me?” If it’s giving away tax software to readers, that benefits you and indirectly benefits me (hopefully you become slightly more engaged or loyal readers and spread the word of how you won terrific tax software from this awesome blog). It’s also easy to give away tax software. It’s difficult for me to review books. It will often take me 8-10 hours to read a book and then another couple of hours to write the review. In those 10-12 hours, I can write about 7-8 posts. Unless it’s a book that I’m really excited about reading such as The 4-Hour Workweek and Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw, it’s not a really efficient use of my time and doesn’t (IMO) maximize value of the content for the reader. You, the reader, get one post on a book that you may or may not like, versus 7-8 posts on other topics that you may or may not like… at the odds are more likely you’ll find something useful in those posts.

So back to the bad taste in my mouth. I see what’s in it for the author (more promotion). I see what in it for the company organizing the bloggers. They get paid for their time and effort. However, at the end of the day, the product provided is the blogger review… so isn’t it natural to ask what’s in it for the blogger? It seems to me like there should be. I posed this question back to company organizing the bloggers.

Their take was that they can’t offer to pay bloggers, because then their reviews would be likely be biased and thus not honest. That seemed to be a very reasonable explanation. For instance, if you knew that an author paid for a review in a book review column in the NY Times wouldn’t that cloud your judgment a bit? I think it might cloud mine.

I’ve gone back and forth on this a few times. If I was watching Siskel and Ebert (assumes I have access to a working time machine), I would have expected that they aren’t paid by the movies themselves for their movie reviews. I think there’s a difference between my website and Siskel and Ebert. (Well, there are a pile of difference, but one important, relevant one). If Siskel and Ebert weren’t reviewing movies they’d have no sponsorships and no show, right? No one seems to care if I don’t do book reviews. I still tend to get advertisements and have content (at least at times) for the “show.”

So I went back and thought about it some more. Here was the workable solution I proposed… knowing full well that it wasn’t going to happen as it’s against the public relations’ business model. I suggested that they paid bloggers a reasonable fee for their time to read to the book… not for a positive review. Any blogger looking to attract an audience is not generally selling their opinion for a reasonable price anyway. Bloggers would have to disclose that they’ve been paid for their time to read to the book. I figured this payment is a bit like bumping the book to top of my priority list. If you don’t want to pay it, then you are free to give me the book anyway, but I make no promises on where it will fall with the dozens of other books that I received last year (which again fall after the books that I actually WANT to read).

As expected the company balked at that proposal and simply said that there are hundreds of other bloggers that would be happy to review it if I didn’t want to. That kind of response seemed a little Grapes of Wrath-like, but it was truthful. With probably more than 100 active personal finance blogs out there, there should be no problems in finding 10 or 15 that will accept the terms.

So I ask the readers… what do you think? Was my proposal fair… on a scale 1 (completely off-base) to 10 (dead-on) where would you rank it?

Filed Under: Ask the Readers

Readers: Ask Jean Chatzky a Personal Finance Question

May 6, 2009 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

While I know you believe that I’m the best personal finance guru on the planet, I’m going to let you in on a secret… There are some people out there who are also pretty good at person finance. One of those people is Jean Chatzky. Here’s a brief list of some of places you might have seen her:

  • SmartMoney
  • Money Magazine
  • Live With Regis and Kelly
  • NBC’s Today Show
  • Oprah’s “Debt Diet”

I’ve been in contact with Jean and she’s agreed to do an e-mail interview with me. While I could come up with questions myself, why not get everyone involved? Submit your personal finance question in the comments below. If I like it, I’ll add it to my interview.

P.S.
Congrats to Jean on her recent marriage. (Yet another reason why I love Wikipedia.)

Filed Under: Ask the Readers Tagged With: interview, Jean Chatzky

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