Lazy Man and Money

Links: Attack of Actress Amy Adams and E-mail Edition

by 4 Comments

amyadams.jpgI don’t know what it is about this weekend, but Amy Adams is invading my wife and my lives this weekend. Friday night, we went to the local DVD Play in an attempt to rent Juno. Since it’s so new we had to settle for a back-up. The only movie my wife and I could agree on was Enchanted – starring Amy Adams. We watched that Friday night. Saturday morning, I woke up early and put in the next movie in the Netflix queue, Talladega Nights – of which she has a sizable minor role. (My wife had already seen it on a plane which is why just didn’t watch that on Friday). Finished up Saturday by turning on Saturday Night Live and it’s a re-run with Amy Adams as the host. She could knock on the door ten minutes from now and I’d ask what took her so long. Take a look at the picture on the left and tell me she’s not plotting something devious.

Earlier this week, I slipped an “e-mail this!” option into the footer of every article (near the social bookmarking bar). I must have been slick with it because no one has used it yet. Or perhaps that’s a sign that I need write something worth e-mailing. In the off-chance that my hundred monkeys produce something you find interesting or entertaining, I would appreciate it if you’d please send it friend.

On to the links…

In case your wallet has been getting fat from nearly two years of reading Lazy Man and Money, you might want to get a thin wallet like I did – it was one of the biggest upgrades of my life this year. Let’s pretend that speaks about the quality of the wallet and not volumes about my life.

Brip Blap wonders about a world without monkeys. It was truly one of the best articles I’ve read in some time, despite the fact that he overlooked my aforementioned hundred monkeys.

Digerati Life writes about how to become a frugal capitalist. I like to think that’s me, but I’m not sure I’m making the most of my “capitalistic” opportunities.

Generation X Finance asks a question, I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, how do you envision your ideal retirement? I don’t have a solid plan, but part of think that’s the point.

The Sun’s Financial Diary reviews a Morningstar article about 529 plans. We each opted for the Ohio plan (me for my nephew) and I’m constantly surprised that magazines miss out on our plan. Then again, I read things like about their highly-ranked Virginia plan, “The plan charges $10 for opening an account as well as $10 annual account fee. The expense ratio of this plan ranges from .65% to 1.10%.” It makes me wonder if Virginia is using those fees to buy off Morningstar, because it doesn’t compete with Ohio’s.

Money Smart Life writes about how much being healthy saves you. It made me want to get out and do a little running.

Million Dollar Journey has a three part series on retiring early. I’ve linked you to the third part here – because the first two are in the introduction. If you think I’m not copying this in the upcoming weeks and adapting it to myself, you don’t know me that well.

My Dollar Plan asks if you are missing some money. It turns out that I am – and I’m in a lengthy, lengthy process to get it back.

I’d like to congratulate No Credit Needed on the birth of their third child.

Mighty Bargain Hunter is up to his 7th part in his making money with an Ebay store series. For me this is the most important part, I hate the process of shipping things.

The Carnival of Peer-to-Peer Lending was hosted at Rocket Finance. He picked a good one to host with a few Lending Club articles around. If you have a blog and would like to host, hit the contact button at the top of the page and send me an e-mail – I’ll put you on the schedule.

Photo credit: Vanity Fair

Frugalism vs. Capitalism III

by 4 Comments

Rich Slick over at Get Rich Slick has a rebuttal to my post yesterday. To continue the debate, here’s a rebuttal to his rebuttal…
1) By “that dollar will be taxed”, I mean that a dollar saved is dollar in your net worth. A dollar earned could be only 72 cents in your net worth. Trust me, I want to pay a ton of taxes. I’d like to pay 1M or more in taxes a year.

2) Yes there are risks to everything, but saving a dollar is not a risk. So the capitalist takes a risk, while the frugalist typically doesn’t. Yes, risk is a fact of life, but there are degrees of risk.

3) It’s the “without too much concern for the price or cost of an item” that leads to over-extending oneself. Yes, it’s not a guarantee, but it’s a risk of not concerning oneself with the costs of things. The frugalist doesn’t run this risk.

4) The “wasteful nature” that I was talking about was related to buying new cars with the idea of helping the economy. Meanwhile perfectly good cars go into landfills.

5) Yes we agree that a car isn’t an investment. I realize the phrase “depreciating investment” is an oxymoron, but it’s common vernacular to say, “I invested in new shoes today.” If this missed you then… (sigh and shrugs shoulders). Would you have preferred, “A frugualist doesn’t waste money on new cars and uses it to make more money?”

6) Do you want to teach me? Ben Franklin said a penny saved is a penny earned. Perhaps this could be a post in and of itself. I would really like to understand the math behind it.

7) For each Bill Gates how many people have filed for bankruptcy? Millions and millions? What if you just took $100 and played roulette hoping for black (or red) to come up 15 times in a row. I’m guessing you’d throw away a lot of $100 chips, but if you get it right you’ll have over $3M. Or you could just invest your life savings in some penny stocks. Do it wisely and you’ll join those names Rich Slick mentioned.

In the end, Rich Slick makes the perfect argument I was intending to make from the outset. Warren Buffet and Sam Walton were frugalists AND capitalists. Of course they didn’t make their billions by being frugal, but they are examples of how it is possible to be both.
Did I make a lot of assumptions about capitalists? Indeed. Did Rich Slick make a lot of assumptions about frugalists? Indeed.