Lazy Man and Money

A Brief Net Worth Update

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For the past couple of years, I’ve been keeping track of my net worth and posting about gains and losses. I’ve started to realize that it’s typically a very boring post. I don’t know if readers really get too much value in reading that I’ve lost $800 due to stock market fluctuations. As such, I think I’ll just continue to weigh in with a brief post like this and give a couple of interesting details… if there are interesting details to give.

This month was a tough month. The stock market hasn’t been doing well and my retirement plans are taking it on the chin losing $8,000 in value. The other interesting piece of note is that I had more cash this month than last month. This is notable because I’m not making what many would consider a good income while I focus on building a few businesses.

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.

Net Worth Update – May 2008

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It’s the middle of the month, so it’s a time to calculate my net worth. For the last 5 months or so, I’ve been pretty much break even – spending almost exactly what I’ve earned. This is not a long-term recipe for success, but it’s a lot better than many people do when starting a business. Of course, I’m aided greatly in that this website makes some money, I do some contract work on the side, and my wife earns a very good income (my net worth doesn’t take her money into account).

Due to a small surge in stock prices, my net worth grew around $2,000 to $220,490. I could have done a couple of thousand dollars better, but one organization has been slow to pay some money they owe me. On the other hand, I’ve been slow to bill another organization for work done. There is no excuse for this other than laziness and possible stupidity. I am leaving interest on the table.

Net Worth Update – April 2008

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It’s the middle of the month, so it’s a time to reflect on my net worth. I’ve been very happy to break even lately as I focus on making my businesses grow – while trying to slow down from the rat race.

April came as a very pleasant surprise – the stock market rebound had boosted my net worth $10,000 – to $218,825. This is despite the value of my Boston property reaching an all-time low. If that returns to the norm, it would add another $20,000 to my net worth.

Last month, I had mentioned taking a part time job – around 20 hours a week. I haven’t been very good about my time sheets, so I’m leaving a little money on the table due to laziness. I am also doing contract work with another company which has been a little slow to cut checks. If I could get my act together and collect some of this money, I might see another $4,000 in net worth.

Links: Lending Club Interview

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Debtkid from Lending Club approached me about doing an interview for them. I’m generally very open to doing interviews for other sites and this was no exception. He came at me with some questions that required me to be more serious than I would normally be on Lazy Man and Money. If you are a regular reader and interested in a behind-the-scenes look at my life, I would suggest checking out the interview.

Articles from The Money Writers:

Brip Blap tells us how he gets things done. I need a system, but I can never stick with one.

The Digerati Life is outsourcing her finances. It must be nice having so much money that you can’t manage it all.

My Dollar Plan has joined Mint’s writing staff. Looks like Mint is doing a little bit what Prosper’s blog is doing.

Money Smart Life discusses international investing. I liked this quote, “further diversify our portfolio across geographic regions and markets.”

Sun discusses his net worth. I like how he breaks it out into a graph. I need to do that – and better focus on taxable and nontaxable accounts.

Million Dollar Journey also gives us his net worth. I’d take a 1.17% gain nowadays.

Generation X Finance reviews Rich by Thirty. At age 32, it seems that it’s a little late for me. Maybe I can be rich by 40.

Might Bargain Hunter asks if you are just doing the easy stuff. This is exactly what I’ve been doing lately. I need to put a lot more time into the difficult things that I’ve been putting off. Then again don’t we all?

Free Money Finance shows how you can a save a half million by controlling wedding costs. We did just about everything we could, but there’s only so much you can save when you have 175 people there.

No Credit Need writes about the difference between surviving and thriving. I get the impression that too many people are simply surviving nowadays.

Moolanomy hosted the carnival of peer-to-peer lending this week. I was happy to be included as he notes that the Fed’s rate cuts hit Prosper.