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Kosmo’s Greatest Hits Volume 2

February 2, 2023 by Lazy Man Leave a Comment

The following article is the second part of Kosmo’s Greatest Hits. It’s his subtle grift of getting me to pay him twice for the content he’s already written – like a sitcom clip show. I appreciate the lazy factor, so I’m embracing it. You can read Kosmo Greatest Hits Volume 1 here.

Welcome to another installment in my walk down memory lane. Let’s take a look back at a few more of my favorite articles from the past.

The Great Baseball card regifting

The article details how I took a 1976 Topps baseball set that I was given, broke it into team sets, and sent them to fans of various teams.

Looking back at the article, it mentions that I set aside the Cardinals set for my son. That’s news to me. At some point, I’ll have to dig around in the storage closet to see if I can find it. I’m sure I put it somewhere safe. (Translation: I have no idea where it might be.)

The Expos set went to Jonah Keri. At the time, he was a prominent sports writer and author. He was one of the foremost fans of the Montreal Expos. Unfortunately, the only time he has been in print lately is as the subject of news articles detailing his abuse of his ex-wife. Sometimes people who seem like nice guys really aren’t.

When I wrote this article, Lazy Man sent me a 1983 Fleer card of my childhood idol, Ryne Sandberg. That card is in a prominent location at the top of my desk.

Pizzagate and financial fraud

Remember Pizzagate? The basic idea was that a pizza restaurant in DC was a front for a child trafficking ring. Proponents of the idea “discovered” coded language in emails. When an email said that Hillary Clinton needed ten large pepperoni pizzas delivered to an event, this was actually coded language for something far more nefarious.

As bizarre as this idea was, it actually got some traction in various groups.

Ultimately, a guy drove from North Carolina to DC to break up the “pedophilia ring” and fired several shots inside the pizzeria. He was sentenced to four years in prison in June 2017 and was released on May 28, 2020. In addition to traumatizing the employees at the pizzeria, the gunman threw away his future just because he got sucked into a conspiracy theory.

Sadly, this was just a single point in a journey toward an increasing frequency of conspiracy theories.

McEconomics

This article focused on paying attention to what you are buying to ensure you pay the lowest price for a bundle of items. The example in the article was piecing together items from a McDonald’s value menu to create the same food bundle was the McDonald’s value meals but for a lower price. While prices have escalated in McWorld lately, the basic premise remains valid. In the McDonald’s universe, the twenty-piece a la carte nuggets and the $1 any-size drinks are the foundations of an economical, albeit unhealthy, meal.

I’m ashamed to admit that I recently failed a McEconomics test. My wife wanted two McRibs. I ordered two McRibs for her and a drink ($1) for me. The cashier asked if I wanted the McRib meal plus a bonus McRib for $1. Since I didn’t want the fries, I said no. A few minutes later, I realized it would have been cheaper to do it this way and just tell them to keep the fries.

[Editor’s Note: Don’t forget to check the McDonalds app for free fast food.]

How to bribe your coworkers

What’s the best way to bribe your co-workers? With donuts and chocolate, of course.

At my current job, I have pivoted a bit. I still occasionally bring donuts, but I’m mostly known as the guy who keeps the ice cream stocked so that there are always some tasty treats in the freezer. It’s not particularly expensive and helps me maintain my image of being a nice guy.

What’s my angle? When I need a favor from a co-worker, they know that I have already done them a favor in the past by bringing in ice cream. It’s a reasonably cheap way to build some team chemistry.

A killer made me do it

This article is the first of two on the topic of stamp collecting. (The second was “what’s worth collecting“.)

I’m not spending quite as much time on my collection as I was in the early days. One reason is that we’re no longer in COVID lockdown, so there are other activities to consume my time. Another reason is that I don’t have too many gaps in my primary collection (New Zealand, 1855-1970). I have all the stamps from 1940-1970. Most of the stamps I’m missing are from pre-1920. These stamps are either expensive, ugly, or both (high-value fiscal stamps).

True to my frugal ways, I primarily collect canceled stamps, which are almost always cheaper than mint stamps. In addition to the fact that they are cheaper, I like the idea of owning stamps that actually served their intended purpose of getting a letter to its intended destination.

Job Search Journey

Job Search Journey was the most cathartic content I have written for Lazy Man and Money. It started with me losing the job I’d had for more than twenty years. The company simply decided to cut loose hundreds of remote workers, and they chose to focus on co-location of team members. Remember the old days, pre-COVID, when “remote worker” was a bad word?

This series of articles was written as I navigated a foreign process in an attempt to find another job. Although I had occasionally interviewed for other jobs, I hadn’t had a real job search since leaving college. It was a very frustrating process but ultimately became great for me professionally. I have upskilled considerably in the past five years.

If you’re currently a job seeker, this series may interest you.

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 that Lasted for Seven Months

11. Advice

Another job hunt

Three years after the job hunt chronicled in Job Search Journey, I decided to spread my wings and look for a different challenge. Another job hunt details the reasons for the job hunt, as well as the initial steps in the process. This was a different job hunt than my previous one because I wasn’t losing my current job – thus, it didn’t require the same level of urgency.

Although urgency wasn’t required, things unfolded very quickly. I launched my job hunt on December 12, interviewed on January 6, accepted an offer on January 8, and started the new job on January 25.

It ended up being a great move. Not only do I enjoy my current work, but a subsequent layoff at the previous job would have almost certainly affected me.

Kosmo’s Greatest Hits Volume 1

January 3, 2023 by Lazy Man 1 Comment

I love a good clip show. It’s the laziest form of television. Today, Kosmo turns the tables and shows me how lazy he can be. I’m working on a couple of new ideas for the new year (as well as setting new goals) and should be back with a new article on Thursday.

I’ve been writing off and on (mostly off) for Lazy Man for almost ten years. When I began writing for him, the power electricity had only very recently been harnessed, and now we have flying cars! Earlier today. I scrolled through the list of my previous articles in an effort to come up with ideas for a new article.

Then the idea struck me – what if I could get Lazy Man to pay me for writing a recap of some of the greatest articles in Kosmo history? Even better, what if I could get him to pay me for several volumes of greatest hits? Without further ado, here are a handful of my favorite articles from the past decade.

Did Jon Singleton make a bad decision?

Many of my articles touch on sports touch on sports. Baseball, in particular, pops up a lot. This particular article discussed the decision made by a member of the Houston Astros in 2014. The player, Jon Singleton, signed a contract that would pay him at least $10 million spread over five years and as much as $32 million spread over eight years. On one hand, he was locking in at least $10 million, which should give him a nice nest egg. On the other hand, if he became a superstar, the $32 million he’d earn over eight years would be far less than he’d earn on the open market.

Other players blasted Singleton’s decision. I tend to be risk averse and try to avoid the scenario where I’m forced to work as a Wal-Mart greeter to make ends meet.

How did it turn out? Singleton played in 119 games between 2014 and 2015. His OPS+ was 76. The average hitter is 100, which means that he was 24% worse than the average hitter. To compound the poor hitting, he played only first base and DH, a position that requires a player to be a very good hitter. Those positions contribute almost no defensive value – literally none in the case of the DH.

Since baseball contracts are guaranteed, Singleton got the entire $10 million. That’s about twenty times what he would have made on a standard MLB contract. Singleton clearly made the right choice.

That’s not to say that these deals are always good. For example, the Braves signed Ozzie Albies ($35 million over seven years) and Ronald Acuña ($100 million over 12 years) to long contracts at the beginning of their careers. Both of those players have outperformed their contracts.

We may hear from Jon Singleton again. After being released by the Astros, he dropped 75 pounds and found his hitting stroke in the Mexican League. He is in the Brewer organization now and was recently added to the 40-man roster.

Fantex: Buy a Share of athlete earnings

Fantex was a company that would buy a share of an athlete’s future earnings. This would allow an athlete to lock in several million dollars while still having the potential to keep a large share of their future earnings if they became a superstar.

The first article I wrote focused on football player Arian Foster selling 20% of his future earnings for $10 million. Foster would come out ahead if he had less than $50 million in career earnings. Given the relatively short career length for running backs, $50 million seemed pretty unlikely. Indeed, Foster earned “only” about $40 million in his career, making the FanTex deal a winner for him.

In 2015, I wrote another article about FanTex, this time when baseball player Andrew Heaney sold 10% of his future earnings for $3.34 million. The break-even point for Heaney would be $33.4 million in career earnings. (Note: this ignores the time value of money – actual break-even would be somewhat higher). Heaney has never emerged as a star and right now has career earnings of about $25 million. However, he recently signed a two-year contract at $12.5 million per year. That will bring his career earnings to $50 million.

(Editor’s Thought: Kosmo and I are in the same fantasy baseball league, and I drafted Heaney. He’s been injured a lot, but when he’s healthy, he flashes star power. Even at age 31, he could get to 80-100 million in career earnings.)

Coke and free wifi

In 2014, Coke announced that they would begin offering free WiFi to poor villages in South Africa. The WiFi hotspot would be a Coke machine. If the pilot was successful, they were going to expand to other areas of Africa and beyond.

I haven’t seen any articles about this since 2014, so I’m going to assume that this was a flop. I thought it was an interesting idea, but the one sticking point is that the villagers would have to be affluent enough to afford a WiFi-capable device. Additionally, enough people needed to buy a Coke from the machine to make the project worthwhile for the country.

Does anyone know if there are similar projects currently underway?

My $0 iPhone Data Plan

This article was about how I avoided having a data plan by using my wife’s old iPhone as a WiFi-only device. The downside was that I didn’t have access to the internet if I went into a WiFi dead spot. This is one of several articles that touch on my tendency to be a bit frugal. Cheap. Whatever. (Editor’s thought: I think most iPhone plans were over $100 at the time. There are much better plans today.)

Am I still on a $0 data plan? Unfortunately, no. I have a normal iPhone that is connected to the internet 24/7.

Does this mean that I no longer try to save a buck? Of course not. When I get a new iPhone, it’s typically a very low-end model. I really don’t need all the bells and whistles. I own a tablet – but it’s not an iPad. It’s a perfectly capable Lenovo Android tablet. It can handle video streaming apps and Kindle Reading, and that’s pretty much all I need. It’s a decent brand at a low price point.

Both of the kids have Chromebooks. True to my nature, we have bought them some of the cheapest Chromebooks on the market, although we stick to brands we know. We also stick to refurbished rather than new. This has been a wise decision, especially since my son doesn’t always treat them very gently. We recently had a screen replaced in his Chromebook. A friend of mine at work is very hardware-savvy and was able to quickly replace the screen. The screen was about $30, which my son paid for out of his pocket.

Editor’s Conclusion

Wow, I had forgotten about a lot of these articles from the past. (Who’s Jon Singleton?) The concepts are still useful today. I’m most curious about the Coke one. WiFi devices are a lot cheaper to make in 2023 than they were in 2013, so maybe the WiFi coke machine makes more sense. Looking more locally (the US), McDonalds’ WiFi became famous during the 2020 COVID shutdown – kids could get their school work done there if they lacked an internet connection at home.

I’m a fan of the Amazon Fire Tablets. I bought the kids them in 2019 and they ended up distance learning with them. During last year’s Amazon Prime Day, I upgraded them to the latest version. Even though the newer tablets do all the same functions, it’s much smoother with the hardware improvements. They love their tablets a lot more now. Of course, kids loving tablets has some drawbacks.

Stay tuned for Kosmo’s Greatest Hits Volume 2. (I wonder if my kids understand the “stay tuned” expression.)

Getting Fit with Oculus Virtual Reality

January 4, 2022 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

I’ve always been a fan of the idea of virtual reality. I watched VR5 and The Lawnmower Man in the early 1990s. I even bought a computer programming book on how to make your own Wolfenstein 3D game. Yep, 30 years ago virtual reality was virtually everywhere.

Then the web got popular and virtual reality was mostly pushed to the side. Virtual Reality has been on a comeback over the last 7 or 8 years since Google Cardboard came out. Google made a push for virtual reality on phones creating its “Daydream” platform but pulled the plug a couple of years ago. Phone VR never seemed to catch on, though my kids liked it. We didn’t do it too often because they’d be bouncing into walls and doors. It was great for the cost (the viewers were typically about $5 or $10), but it was a novelty – nothing that you’d consider useful.

About a month ago, I saw a deal on the Oculus Quest 2. A surprising number of people had upvoted it on the deal site. I clicked on it and learned that Oculus hardware is like Apple, it very rarely goes on sale. They weren’t having a sale this time either, but a lot of places were offering $50 of store credit with the purchase. So buying from Amazon was almost the same as $50 cashback, so I justified it as costing about $250. I usually research these deals, but this time I took a good friend’s recommendation from a few months before, “You gotta get this!”

He was 100% right!

The first time I put on the headset, it was shocking. There was no black like with the phone VR. Wherever you moved your head was all part of the virtual environment. The resolution was incredible and realistic. With the two handheld controllers, I had “hands” that can grab and throw stuff. This made me wonder why they don’t have feet cuffs that you could use to run and kick. Maybe they are leaving it as a reason to upgrade to a future Quest 3.

My (just turned) 8-year-old tried it next. I didn’t think much about it, but I had it start from the boot-up screen. There’s a lot of things flying around in the beginning and it freaked him out. He was much better once he was in a game and had control. My 9-year-old try was next with the demo app. He was throwing paper airplanes, hitting a ping pong ball with a paddle, and dancing with a robot in a minute or two. He immediately declared it as the best Christmas gift ever.

It took a while for my wife to give it a try. She’s not into technology and I think viewed it as another technology device that would sit on the shelves gathering dust. However, when she did, she was amazed. The opening room reminded her of the best parts of two of her favorite places, Arizona and Hawaii. She instantly said, “Do they use this for therapy? This would be awesome!” She next went to the same demo as my 9-year-old. Dancing with the robot was just as big of a hit with her.

I got a surprise when I bought and downloaded my first game, Thrill of the Fight, a boxing simulator. Oculus has been running a daily deal where a game is usually around 30% off. Everyone said it was a must-own game. The retail price of $10 was extremely reasonable compared to the $60 my kids spend on their Nintendo Switch games. Take another 30% off and I didn’t think too long before clicking purchase.

Nearly every reviewer mentioned that Thrill of the Fight was their new cardio routine… and it was kicking their butt. You can add me to that list of reviews. Boxing fitness is nothing new. A year ago, my wife signed up my son and me at a local BoxFit studio to do a class. They didn’t have enough kids interested for their own class, so they suggested we come to a regular class. The class itself would have been good if the music didn’t have 30 curses per song. The instructor was extremely embarrassed, but it was too late to switch out the music. In any case, there’s no problem when you are boxing at home.

The boxing game isn’t like real boxing, because you don’t wear gloves, don’t hit people (just air), and one more thing… you aren’t getting punched back. Still, I’m throwing hundreds of punches while dodging and blocking a virtual fighter that has endless energy. It’s one of the games that has helped this woman lose 40 pounds. I burn about 200 calories in a few rounds every day. I have to work up my stamina it seems.

A couple of days later, my 9-year-old mentioned that he would be interested in learning to golf. That’s great, except that golf isn’t popular in late December in New England. There’s an indoor golf place though, so we went there and got some details on who we could call to get some lessons. Afterward, I thought, “I wonder if they make a golf game for the Oculus?” After reading a few reviews, I bought Golf+, a $16 game developed by TopGolf, the company that makes the indoor golf virtual reality systems. Virtual Golf isn’t great for getting fit, but it seems like it could improve some hand-eye coordination. If nothing else, he’s going to get to know which clubs are the best fit for any particular situation.

Next up, drumming. The kids’ school music teacher was representing the state of Rhode Island in the Rose Bowl. He says my 9-year-old is the best drummer in the class and has emailed us a couple of times about how good he is. We’re looking to get him lessons, but once again, I thought, “I wonder if they make a drum game for the Oculus?” In less than 2 minutes, I had downloaded a demo version of Smash Drums. The demo is great and so far it’s challenging enough that I haven’t thought about spending the $20 to buy the full version. The irony is that my 8-year-old seems to be better than my 9-year-old. It’s not as much exercise as the boxing game, but it can burn some serious calories as well.

Finally, I bought a table tennis game. I actually haven’t played it yet, but it was one of those 30% off deals and it was another “must-have” game. Like with the golf game, people who play it competitively say that it is realistic and useful. I also hear that it can be great exercise as well.

I should mention one more thing. I haven’t done anything with the social settings. I made myself as private as I could and I don’t interact with real people. I may in the future, but I wanted to set things up in a way that would be most suitable for the kids.

I know, all of this sounds amazing. It is amazing. However, there are a couple of downsides too. For example:

1. Oculus is a Facebook company. Ugh, they’re selling data on my ability to throw a jab to someone. In the future, they say they’ll allow people to register without a Facebook account, but I’m guessing that it’s too late because they’ll be able to tie all the data together.

2. Oculus says that it isn’t for anyone under 13. This has to be because they can’t market to children. They give some excuses about kids having developing eyes and while that is true, it doesn’t mean that a few minutes a day is going to hurt them. Kids under 13 can’t get a Facebook account anyway, so they can’t have their own space. Of course, there are no parental controls. I found out about this weeks after I bought it and several hours after trying to set it up. It was a complete shock that my kids, at the age of four, could use Google Cardboard, but at the age of 9 can’t use an Oculus Quest. Additionally, the strap that fits the Quest 2 on your head doesn’t work well for kids. There are videos on YouTube about how people are buying an “Elite” strap – at an additional cost of $50, which works better for kids.

So, Can you Get Fit with Oculus Virtual Reality?

The jury is still out on whether I’m going to lose weight like the woman in that article. I think a good diet may have a lot to do with that. However, it does make me more active and I believe that it can augment anyone’s fitness plan.

I don’t see it replacing exercise in general. There’s no resistance or weight training (the handheld controllers are light). However, it’s 18°F outside today. I’d much rather do a few rounds of boxing indoors than go out.

Aside from getting fit, you may learn a few skills that could turn into real-life hobbies.

The Best Personal Finance/FIRE Book You’ve Never Heard Of

October 29, 2018 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

You probably know that I’m not a fan of clickbait titles. That’s why I didn’t use a clickbait title.

Let’s make a deal. If you’ve heard of this personal finance book, you stick around as a reader. If not, I’m okay if you click away angry and never come back.

Have you ever heard of If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz? It’s illustrated by Steven Kellogg who happens to have written and illustrated one of my wife’s favorite books, The Mysterious Tadpole. My wife read it when she was a little girl. Our own kids are very familiar with Alphonse.

By now you may have realized that If You Made a Million is not about helping adults understand money. It’s about helping children. But please don’t click away just yet. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 2 years, it’s that adults can learn quite a bit from children’s books.

Let’s dig into what makes If You Made a Million so special. (By the way, I was not paid to write this review. I simply saw it at the library. I will however make a small commission if you purchase the book from the above link.)

If You Made a Million

Before I get started with the review, let’s get a very important number out there: 1989. That’s when If You Made a Million was written. Yes, the book is as old as Taylor Swift. It is also three years older than Your Money or Your Life, which is often considered the first FIRE book. It was also written 6 years before Suze Orman wrote her first book.

Being old doesn’t make things good. (This blog is living proof of that.) Let’s get to the actual content.

Overall, the book takes a child on a journey of earning and spending money. It starts with feeding a fish a penny, which will allow you to buy one of a shyster’s pebbles. It continues to educate children about coins with increasingly more difficult jobs and ways to spend the money. These first few pages are fairly boring, but they go quickly since there’s only a sentence or two on each page. It’s an important to build that foundation.

Once you get into earning a dollar, the book tells the story of compound interest. Here’s the first one:

At ten dollars, the compound interest story gets a little more exciting:

At one thousand dollars, the idea of checks and how they work is introduced. It’s simply much easier than carrying around a wheelbarrow of coins or even a bunch of bills.

At fifty thousand dollars, we learn about how mortgages work:

There’s a little more to mortgages. Specifically it shows how you keep giving money to the bank year after year for 40 years. The illustrations show the old man still physically bringing his check to the bank for his castle payment. It also explains that, this time, you are the one paying interest to the bank.

Finally we get to the FIRE part of the book. It only takes six sentences. The first four are:

“If you have some very expensive plans, you may have to take on a tough job that pays well.
If you think ogre-taming would be an exciting challenge, you can have fun and make a great deal of money, too.
Of course, you may not enjoy taming obstreperous ogres or building bulky bridges or painting purple pots.
Enjoying your work is more important than money, so you should look for another job or make less expensive plans.”

Remember what I wrote before about adults learning from children’s books? That last sentence is “Exhibit A” of that.

I promised you six sentences. Here’s two more:

Did you catch the financial independence message there? Having that kind of passive income gives you the option to not work at all, but maybe you should choose the work that interests you because doing nothing could be boring.

There’s a quick concluding page after that to get children’s minds thinking about what they’d do if they made a million dollars.

Final Thoughts on If You Made a Million

I found it surprising how well the math from 1989 holds up today. Obviously the banks aren’t paying 5.25% interest like the examples. However, we often work with similar (or even larger) interest rates assuming more risk and different asset allocations.

Also, the one million number at the end might not seem like enough today. However, it is $2,034,157.94 in 2018 dollars. You’ll often see $2 million as the target number for FIRE, so the one million number from 1989 is solid.

After the story ends, there’s a significant section of “A Note from the Author.” Here you get about 1500 words on each of the themes in the book: why money?, how banks work, interest and compound interest, checks and checking accounts, loans, and income tax.

Finally there’s a huge explanation on how he calculated some of the amazing numbers used in the book. These are things like a million dollars in pennies will stack 95 miles high and a million dollars in quarters would way as much as a whale. If you love geeky math, this is fun, but you could choose to skip it and still get all the financial lessons.

Now that you have a good understanding of If You Made a Million, I have two questions:

1. Are you going to live up to the deal and stick around as a reader?
2. Did you think my title was clickbait or just spot-on analysis?

Let me know the answers in the comments.

My 2015 Financial Year in Review

January 20, 2016 by Lazy Man 2 Comments

I thought about reviewing my 2015 finances at the end of the year, but I decided against it. I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of all the other year-end reviews. Plus if you were anything like me, you were focused on the holidays. I didn’t have time to read too many article, much less in-depth ones covering a whole year.

Finally, I want to publish what I feel are my best articles when people are mostly likely around to read it. Now is a great time, because you can learn from my mistakes and have a terrific 2016, right?

I started to write this and realized that I had a ginormous amount to say on each area. It didn’t make a lot of sense to put it all in one article and lull you to sleep, so I divided it into a few different areas that I’ll cover over the next couple of weeks. (If you find this stuff boring, don’t worry, I’ll be working in other content as well.)

Here are the areas, I’m covering:

The first of the series will be posted in a few hours. I will update this post and link to the articles as they go live.

I’ve written most of the articles already and they have a common theme. They all start out with a challenging situation. In fact, the news on almost all fronts looks very bad. However, if you can make it to the end, you’ll find that overall each area has positives that may even outweigh the negatives.

It may sound trite to suggest that everyone should review their last financial year, but they really sound. If I didn’t have a personal finance blog, I doubt I would have sat down and wrote it out. I learned a lot by taking the time to put it on ~~paper~~ screen. I’m also a lot more optimistic on where my finances are going now that I’ve blasted through most of the challenges.