Lazy Man and Money

Personal Finance Links (“Big Sign” Edition)

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Whenever I’m driving, I hand my wife navigating duty. I’m directionally challenged and I know it. Well, she’ll make a comment that there’s a “big sign” coming up for me to follow and I look for the physically large sign. It took me a long time to catch on that I need to interpet that “big sign” as important. Well, I was going to say that this was a big week, but to avoid any confusion, I’ll clarify that as being an important week.

Before I get on to the important parts for me, I’d like to take a minute to recognize Ted Kennedy. Though I grew up in Massachusetts, I never followed politics growing up. Even in my 20’s, I figure that I’m better off focusing on getting my own house in order (getting a good job, finding love, etc.) before I think about the rest of the nation. So it’s now, that I’m learning all the things that Ted Kennedy did even before I was born. I found that his amazing work had been obscured by all the jokes in the morning shows of the local radio stations. Even here in San Francisco, on the day his death was announced, a radio station played one of their old Ted Kennedy jokes. Sad.

With his passing this week, I feel like a heel to realize all the acts he did for the less fortunate: the eldery, the disabled – all can say that their life was improved by Ted Kennedy. And that’s nothing that morning radio stations should be joking about.

Getting into the important parts of this week, I’d go with these (not in any obvious order):

  • Being sick all week made me lethargic enough. Add that to the heat wave in Silicon Valley and I think I set new standards in Laziness. I feel like I got nowhere.
  • I was told that the contracting job that I’ve been on for 6 months now, is coming to close Sept. 11th. Creepy that it’s the second time I was due to get the ax due to budget cuts on Sept 11th. The first was in 2001. Considering the amount of work left to be done, I think this might be delayed as well.
  • MonaVie is Threatening to Sue Me – That’s enough to double my workload as I look to A) Fight it and B) Capitalize on any publicity opportunity I can. (As it’s it a good news story for a one person shop standing up to a company.)

All this means that I was a little behind on my budgeting week last week, so you are likely to get a few more budgeting weeks there.

In the meantime, let me get to the links:

Money Writers:

Best Financial Posts:

How Worried Are You About Being Laid-Off?

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Yesterday, I saw that more than 70,000 people lost their jobs. Using the data on the side panel of that report (and some rough math), that’s 33% of the jobs lost year to date in a single day. Okay, you caught me, it’s still early this year, but that’s still quite a lot for one day.

The news doesn’t get any better. The consumer confidence index was revised down to a 37.7 mark for January. That looks to be a record low since the stat have been compiled (1967). It’s probably because I was so involved in the Internet economy in 2001, but it just seemed a lot worse to me.

Lastly, the economy has hit home. While my mother still has her job, she is turning 65 this year. She has seen a lot of her retirement savings disappear with the market losses. A little more removed, Bible Money Matter’s wife is facing a possible lay-off today (update: seems she kept her job with reduced hours). If you are in a similar situation, I highly suggest you read that article. He has a lot of great information about dealing with all phases of job loss: from prevention to finding a new job.

As I write this I feel a bit of survivor syndrome. Sure, my business here (and elsewhere) is impacted by the economy, but thus far it hasn’t been a big impact. One might even claim that recession is good for people who write about responsible spending – more people should be looking for personal finance information. My wife has the equivalent of tenure at her government/military job, something that has her and her co-workers quite happy the last few days.

Are you worried about being laid-off? Sound off in the comments.