Lazy Man and Money

Are You Celebrating the Sex and the City Movie?

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Last week, I mentioned finding the drive-in a frugal experience. I don’t plan to be exploring that experience with the not-so-new-anymore movie, Sex and the City. (I meant to write this article a week or two ago.) Then again it’s not like the makers of the movie are targeting my chromosome pairing.

Before I go too much further, I should issue a warning. I’m probably going to upset some readers. In fact, recently I got in a heated discussion with a friend about this very topic (she doesn’t know about my personal finance blogging). Sometimes you have to take to a stand for what you believe in, even if it means stepping on some people’s toes.

I’m not a big fan of Sex and the City. I gave it a decent shot watching more than a dozen shows in my time, but I just don’t get it. I thought it might be because it’s about the lives of (mostly) single women, and I’m a married man. However, I’ve come to reject that notion as I’m a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – probably the biggest example of (mostly) single women and their empowerment in the media today.

I’m not a big fan of Sex and the City because of the consumerism of the main character, Carrie Bradshaw. How bad is it? Well Wikipedia currently has 550 words to say on just her wardrobe, including “…Carrie claims she has spent over $40,000 on shoes. Her pairs seem to average at least $400 a pop (according to Miranda), and it is implied that she has at least, if not more than, 100 unique pairs.” With just the two feet, I don’t see how that’s possible. If she doesn’t throw them out regularly (and I would think she’d keep $400 shoes for at least two decades), how does she store them all? I’ve seen the closets in New York City… they aren’t large. You can get large closets if you spend for a big apartment. You know what else is not cheap in New York City? Big apartments.

Also if you are going to spend $40,000 on something few people ever see (shoes), how much does she spend on purses or dresses? I would think that’s got to be triple, right?

According to that Wikipedia article, in one episode she “comes to the conclusion that it is okay to spend that much on oneself, specifically one’s shoes, to make the single girl’s walk through life a little more fun.”

This is precisely the thinking that gets people in huge debt.

In stark contrast, here is what Buffy has to say about her footwear:

“Well, I’m not exactly quaking in my stylish yet affordable boots, but there’s definitely something unnatural going on here.”

From this man’s point of view, I’d rather date someone like Buffy who is more concerned about saving the world than expensive name-brand shoes.

Have You Decided To Be Rich?

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Last week while on an airplane, I finally caught up on some reading. I brought three books with me… Millionaire By Thirty, You’re Broke Because You Want To Be, and 422 Tax Deductions for Businesses and Self Employed Individuals.

While reading You’re Broke Because You Want To Be, Larry Winget wrote something that stuck with me.  Loosely paraphrased it was “if you want to be rich, you need to make the decision to be rich.” I thought that it sounded pretty obvious, perhaps a little too obvious for the average person to think about. I tried to think back to when I was 24, and I clearly hadn’t decided to be rich. I was preoccupied with trying to woo the hot girl from my Spanish class, making my boss happy, drinking a little more than I should, and just about anything other than getting rich.

Flash forward to this plane ride… I could have brought the copy of the Buffy Season 8 Comic Book which my wife got me for Christmas. I have been looking forward to reading it for some time. However, here I was with three financial books… one being possibly the most dry topic off all-time… 422 Tax Deductions… and tax time is a good 10 months away!

I don’t know when I made the decision to be rich, but it seems that I clearly did.  I have no other explanation as to why I would bring those financial book vs. a book that I’ve been looking forward to.  I obviously still have a long way to go, but I think I might be moving in the right direction.

Have you made the decision to be rich?  If so, how has the decision impacted your finances?

Two Years of Lazy Man and Money

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Earlier this month, while you weren’t looking, Lazy Man and Money celebrated it’s two year birthday.

The Good and The Bad

The other day, I looked at some of my first posts and I laughed and cried about the roller coaster of good and bad ideas I’ve had when starting out. Two years ago, I was seriously considering buying a condo hotel in Las Vegas. Good thing I didn’t because a year later the W in Las Vegas was canceled. I rationalized my decision this way:

In the end, I feel that it’s probably pure speculation. Something that you buy to flip in the first year or so. I believe it would work out to be a gain, but giving the size of the risk (10% down would be around 1/3 of my net worth), it’s not something that I can get into.

When I read that recently, I wanted to set my nose-hairs on fire for even considering it. Looking back on it, the condo hotel example is precisely why I started this blog. I wanted to share ideas to sort out which are good and and which are not so good. I hoped that people would help me by keeping me grounded from bad ideas. Along the same lines, I wanted to help others where I can as well.

buffy-musical.jpg

Every single night the same arrangement, I go out and write and write

Recently, I’ve been feeling that Lazy Man and Money has run it’s course. The battle’s done and we kind of won. What started out as cookie dough had indeed become cookies… and much more cooking would have made them ashes. Three thoughts are leading down this path:

  • Can I really write about personal finance indefinitely and keep it interesting? I never want to write a post about 72t distributions and I’m hoping to you don’t to Lazy Man and Money to read about them.
  • Are we still learning on Lazy Man and Money? I can only speak for myself on this one, and I have to say that I’m learning less and less. This isn’t unexpected. Everyone always learns more in the beginning and, as they become more proficient, learning slows.
  • Am I really needed? – When I started Lazy Man and Money, I thought it was only me and three or four other sites writing about personal finance… I didn’t even know that the term “personal finance” existed. For the first 3-6 months, I was convinced that I was dispensing knowledge that couldn’t be gained elsewhere. Then I stumbled on the personal finance community and found out that many other people were writing about the same thing. Now when ING Direct changes it’s rates, you have 25 bloggers writing articles about it. Is there really a loss if it goes to 24?

I Will Walk Through The Fire

Given the above, you might be surprised by my decision to move forward and continue writing. I almost convinced myself there… In the end, I’ve come up with a couple of very good reasons to continue writing:

  • I am unique… as is every personal finance blogger. We each bring our own thoughts and experiences into the mix. The hope is that you find someone you can identify with. It seems that for some subset of you, I’m that person. It would hurt me if you stopped reading about personal finance all together because I stopped writing.
  • Perhaps I am needed – I’ve noticed that my article about the MonaVie scam is something that some Google search come across. Now I don’t know if MonaVie really is a scam or not (and the comments from both sides were really vocal), but hopefully someone looking into it will find my article and, if they decide it’s right for them, proceed with caution.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Personal finance education has never been more important. Between gas and food prices soaring and the sub-prime mess making credit more costly for the average individual, your wallet is facing one hell of a demon to slay. It’s time to make the tough financial choices… change our destiny. Are you ready to be strong?

Behind this post: Much of this post has been inspired by Buffy Musical – an hour of television so powerful that it’s been running seven years later in movie theaters and sell out across the nation at $10 a pop. It is my favorite piece of writing in any format (book, web, movie, or television) and, quite honestly, nothing else comes close. Other parts of this post were inspired by other episodes of Buffy.

Celebrities and Money: Sarah Michelle Gellar

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Today I thought I’d unveil a new series focused on celebrities and their money. It’s not going to be a regular series – I’ll only post when I find relevant articles. If you have a link to a celebrity and money, feel free to contact me.

The first feature comes from an unlikely source (at least for the Lazy Man)… Self magazine. My wife has subscribed to the magazine for the past couple of years. While doing a little re-organization of the junk that I’m too lazy to clean, I came across the October 2007 issue. It features Sarah Michelle Gellar on the cover. As an obsessed fan of the Buffy the Vampire series, I was curious what she’s up to nowadays. I lost track of her career when she started doing Scooby Doo and The Grudge.

Well it seems like Scooby Doo, The Grudge, and some cartoon voices were the big career things. The article focused more on her life outside of work. This is what people want to read anyway. While some magazines make headlines out of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, Self took Sarah (I’ve watched enough Buffy to pretend I’m on a first name basis with her) and her relatively boring life.

Here are the money related from the magazine:

  • Her transportation – For the first season of Buffy, it was a Chrysler LeBaron… “You hear about people… get their first pilot and get the Porsches…, but I just couldn’t do that.” Now she just uses a bike to get around New York City, “It’s bright pink, with the bell and streamers… it has Hello Kitty tires.” You can’t beat the frugality, but the image just made me throw up in my mouth a little.
  • Upbringing – “I was raised by a single mom. Finances were tight.” She took up acting at age 4 in an attempt to make a little extra money for private school. She notes, “100 commercials still doesn’t cover a private school education.”
  • Frugality – While she has birthday parties on two separate coasts (I suppose it’s tough to have half your friends in NYC and half in LA), she saves money just like us. “I take my reusable bag to Whole Foods, so I get a discount. I go to Bloomingdale’s on double-rewards days. I always print my dry cleaning coupons before I go.” I guess all of us can’t afford to shop at Whole Paycheck, but other than that, you have to commend her.
  • Charity – She chooses to support CARE whose main mission is to fight global poverty. The only way Sarah would do the interview is if she got to promote the charity which, of course, Self had no problems with.

One can never be sure if all the things said of stars are true. However, I believe there’s some truth to every story. I’m inclined to believe that Britney and Lindsay have “some issues”, while, in general, Sarah is a money-smart star.