Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist - The F.S.A.

HT: Bad Astronomy Blog

There is a time magazine article entitled: Why We Worry About The Things We Shouldn't... ...And Ignore The Things We Should. It mentions how people have a fear of flying but don't think twice about driving recklessly. We sh*t our pants about bird flu (number killed in USA: 0), but how many still haven't gotten a flu shot (annual number killed: 36,000).

We do the same thing with our finances. We have life insurance, but neglect disability insurance even though we are more likely to be disabled from a job than die.

To put it bluntly, we don't have a very good perception of risk. Whether it's the stock market, our finances, or bird flu human beings are susceptible to errors of judgement.

Read the article, it might change your thinking.

Tags: personal finance

Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. I can safely say that I no longer want to play one of the ps3's we have. Why? I read a three part series over at violent acres. You might remember her from the You can learn a lot from a rich girl post people were linking to a while back. For those who don't know, she is an acerbic mommyblogger. Curse words fly, and insults abound about other mommyblogger's and their kids. In short, you're either going to love her or hate her. Me, I'm kind of ambivalent. However, she gives solid financial advice, which is why so many were linking to her before.

One particular piece of advice that resonated with me in part 2 was this:

1. Having Children Before You’re Financially Secure
...
make[s] it harder for you to take risks. How can you start a business of your own if you’re worried about losing the health insurance for the kids? How can you put a little extra money into your stocks when your youngest needs braces? How can you move around a lot as your acquire real estate if you have to worry about uprooting the kids? When my husband and I first started out, we rented out both of our spare bedrooms so we’d have extra money to put into our investments. That wouldn’t have been feasible with children living in the house.
...
If you’ve already fucked up and had children too soon, you can still work your way out of the hole. But you’ll have to work 10 times as hard while at the same time having every choice you make come under the scrutiny of your friends and family. Get used to hearing, “I cannot BELIEVE you guys put $1,000 towards precious metals when you could have sent Sally to summer camp!”

Oh no, I'm fucked...well, not quite. While she generalizes a bit much, she does have a point. It has not been easy for my wife and me. Sometimes I stop and think about some "What if" scenarios. Would I be in a better situation financially if I haven't had kids/met my wife/etc? I think about this sometimes when I need to leave before everyone else or can't finish up something. But I can't go back in time and try out different scenarios, and I've been feeling like less of a fuck-up now that I'm done with college, so I try not to dwell on "what if's" too much.

Instead, I try to focus on what I can do now to secure our financial future and provide for my kids the best I can. I am proud of the fact that we will have a positive net worth with zero consumer credit card debt at the end of the year. We are pretty frugal, but we have yet to work out our imperfections.

Now, I'm going to get rid of all those ps3s, and get back on track for the coming year. Thank you violent acres, whoever you are, for a much needed kick in the ass.

Tags: personal finance

As I've mentioned before, we are currently selling our inventory of PS3s, Elmos, and Wiis. I could be a pretty hardcore gamer, but lack of time and money (well, extra money) prevents me from being too hardcore. However, now that these PS3s have been passing through our household, I am extremely tempted to open one up and start playing it. Especially this game. Not only that, but my wife (who is usually the person keeping me grounded in reality) wants to play it too!

Oh, what are we going to do? Maybe we can test it out before we sell it on ebay. Yea, that's it. We'll sell a slightly used system! I mean people are paying almost $1,000 just to get their hands on one of these things, and I had/have 10 of them. My wife wanted to try out the Wii, but we've already sold all four of those, so now we're stuck with a plethora of ps3s to sell.

We better get rid of them fast, or we might find ourselves up all night playing FFXIII when it comes out in 2007 2008 whenever.

Tags: ps3

HT: Ed over at Dispatches

I posted before about the NJ high school history teacher, David Paszkiewicz, who was abusing his position of authority to proselytize to his students.

Matt LaClair, a courageous young man and a student of said teacher, requested a meeting with the principal of the school to discuss the illegal proselytizing in the classroom. Paszkiewicz lied about it, denying the allegations and the principal believed him until young LaClair provided him with audio evidence to the contrary. At that point Paszkiewicz refused to speak without a union representative.

By initially denying the allegations, it is obvious that Paszkiewicz knew what he was doing was illegal/wrong. That much should be clear to anyone. No matter how popular a teacher he was, he knew that he wasn't suppose to be doing that in the classroom or he wouldn't have lied about it.

Unfortunately, it looks like the school is being slow to act and have yet to punish Paszkiewicz for his actions. Not only that, but it looks like Matt has faced hostility from other students for doing the right thing.

From Jews On First:

The citizens of Kearny are not lauding Matthew LaClair for revealing Paszkiewicz's proselytizing. "Response in this town has been terrible," he told JewsOnFirst. "A decent majority of the town is angry at me." He termed the public anger "upsetting" and said he has had a few threats.
When the Jersey Journal went to interview LaClair outside the high school, its reporter witnessed students taunting Matthew and glaring at him.
Matthew LaClair told JewsOnFirst that people in Kearny are "trying to defend Paszkiewicz, but there's nothing to defend." He added that it was encouraging to hear from supportive out-of-town people.

Fortunately, this hasn't deterred Matt. When asked if he would do it again, he responded: "Oh definitely...In a heartbeat."

I hope that one day, my own children can show the same courage to do the right thing, even if it makes them unpopular. Go get 'em Matt.

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As the year closes, many are thinking about giving to different charities both financially and otherwise. I wanted to highlight a pertinent comment from Jim Lippard. In response to my post on charitable giving he had this to say:

As a fellow atheist who is also a regular contributor to charitable causes of various kinds, I agree with your point #1. I would add that it is worth researching what charities to give to in the same way you would research a company to invest in. Read their Form 990s at GuideStar or Charity Navigator. How much are they spending on fundraising and administrative overhead, and how much are they spending on actual program services? How does the charity measure their results and effectiveness? Is the charity actually helping to improve the underlying conditions that cause the effect they are trying to remedy, or are they just treating the symptom?

There are a lot of ineffective and bogus charities out there, so it's worth doing some research to make sure your contributions are actually doing some good.

And you can always take the Buffett route of contributing to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, because they are doing this kind of research, and making continued gifts on the basis of performance in achieving specific goals.

He also left this second comment:

BTW, churches don't file Form 990s--nor does the American Humanist Association, since it's a 501(c)(3) religious organization. IMHO, a financially responsible church would make its financials available to all members.

Also, regarding the mention of Habitat for Humanity--some specific chapters score very highly (four stars) with Charity Navigator, while others do relatively poorly (two stars, a few only get one star, like Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia). Habitat for Humanity International gets 3 stars.

Thanks Jim. You've raised some excellent points that I (and hopefully some of my readers) will consider when looking to expand my charitable giving beyind it's current scope.

Tags: personal finance atheism

And just like that, another grand leaks out of our wallet. It couldn't be helped. We lost our hot water earlier last week and the plumber came today. Installed a brand new one for the low, low cost of $1,000 (approximately). Oh well. I guess that will come out of our profits from our ebay excursion. Not how I wanted to spend some of that money, but it does make me realize once again the importance of having an emergency fund for...what else...emergencies.

So go fund your emergency fund. It's really necessary after all.

Tags: personal finance

Last night during dinner I was drinking some Arbor Mist. Now, we do not drink very often and I think I was getting a little bubbly so to speak (Which is pretty pathetic, Arbor Mist is only 6% alcohol by volume). As a result, I remembered a joke from college that I just had to get across both my wife and our au pair. The following is a partial transcript:

Mr. FSA: Hey honey, ask me what's up.

Mrs. FSA: Why?

Mr. FSA: Just do it, come on.

Mrs. FSA: (Pretty sure she isn't going to like what's coming next) What's up honey?

Mr. FSA: X cross Y

Mrs. FSA: (Rolls her eyes) Oh honey.

At this point I'm practically on the floor laughing my ass off. My wife is trying not to look at me and our au pair is a little confused. So I try my best to explain to our au pair between fits of giggling. Something tells me I didn't do a good job.

Either way, it's a great joke, one that chicks totally dig. Trust me ;).

Tags: cross product math

For those who are curious, here's our little inventory for our ebay excursion.

So that's four ps3s, three wiis, and seven god-damn elmos. I hate that furry red bastard. So there you have it...someone help me.

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Assets Part I
Assets Part II
Assets Part III
Liabilities

I've finished going through and now I stand at an estimated net worth of $2.4 million, a far cry from the $4.5 million that I wanted to obtain. Man, this looks like it's going to be harder than I thought. So I said to myself, "what will it take to get to that level". Since I have my spreadsheet set up, it was easy to tweak the variables, but still disappointing. Here's what I did:
- Ratcheted down salary growth so that my CAGR is now 4.49%.
- Increased my 401(k) contribution to 20%
- 401(k) and Roth IRA return of 10%
- Taxable Brokerage Account return of 10%
- 5% Real Estate Appreciation
- Other Misc Assets stayed the same
- Liabilities stayed the same

After all that, I had $4,680,764.29 in assets, and a net worth of $3,700,096.81. I'm still only 82% of the way there god damn it! I would need two more rental properties in order to get just shy of the $4.5 million mark (it would be $4.43 million). And that's with assumptions that I wouldn't be comfortable with. This is just great.

Key Takeaways
$4.5 million is an aggressive net worth goal. A more realistic goal would be $2 million, but it's been done :P. I think we will realistically strive for a net worth goal of $2.5 million with one rental property.

That being said, I will still keep that $4.5 million goal in the back of my mind, but I will keep it in perspective. In order to realistically achieve that goal, it will require one of many things:
- another source of income (no more god damn elmos or ps3s though)
- leverage (stock option strategies, here I come)
- starting my own business (hellooo hedge fund 2/20 baby)
- luck/chance/rich relative that passes away and bequeaths most of their fortune to us (a series of highly unlikely events)

I'm trying to keep this humorous because while I am disappointed, I'm not all that bummed out. As I've recently learned, money isn't everything in life. So trust me, I won't be losing sleep over the matter anytime soon. Plus, it was a helpful analysis to go through.

Thanks to Enough Wealth and LAMoneyGuy for prompting this analysis. Thanks also to everyone that left comments on the individual posts themselves. I appreciate the feedback and thoughtful criticisms.

Tags: personal finance retirement

So who wants to help me get rid of these damn ps3s that I have? Anyone, anyone. Send me an email frankyj009 at google mail. Name me a price. We can use paypal and stuff.

Help me get rid of these banes of my existence. You can help me. Thanks. Alright, as you were.

Oh, I can provide photographic evidence that I actually have them. Alright, thanks people.

Tags: playstation 3 ps3

I am currently in possesion of 9 playstation 3s. I've sold two already and I have two more coming in the mail in the next few days. "Wow" I can hear you say. "That means you're going to make a tidy sum of money on Ebay". Indeed, we will. But here's the thing. Given the opportunity, I would NEVER do this again. I became pretty obsessive compulsive about getting the damn things. I had programs monitoring different websites that would text message me when the sites became "live". It consumed my every waking moment (and sometimes my sleeping ones as well). I camped out in front of Toys R Us for a day in the cold rain. I told myself it would be worth it because we would make so much money and we'll be able to do X, Y, and Z. I thought about my post lamenting the fact that we had limited options because money was tight right now. I thought it would be great to come back and say we were able to find a solution by being entrepreneurial! How cool is that! Hooraay for me!

But now we're just planning on banking any and all money we make and just saving it for our emergency fund/house downpayment. To top it off, I'm exhausted. It was a tiring week, and now I have a deep seated hatred for the PS3. I really do. I would rather have spent that time with my wife and kids. Reconnecting with my wife and bonding with the kids would have been infinitely more fulfilling than running to the damn computer everytime my phone went off.

So what's the point of this rambling post? It's one of the first concrete examples in my life where I learned that, "Money isn't everything". It really fucking isn't. So you better learn that too, or you're going to regret it. Thankfully, this was a temporary situation, and I'll recover and do more and better things.



PS I also really hate Elmo TMX too. I've already sold 5 of those furry red bastards and now I'm getting another 7 in the mail. Aaarrrgg. Die you laughing scumbag.

Tags: personal finance ps3 elmo tmx

Assets Part I
Assets Part II
Assets Part III

At last blush we have amassed a total of $3.3 million in assets. But this is about our net worth, and so I need to take a look at the liabilities as well.

Extra Credit Card Debt
I'm going to go out on a limb and say we no longer have any "extra" credit card debt. Before everyone starts ranting and raving at me, bear in mind that right now we have approximately $5,000 in "extra" credit card debt. This will be paid off with my year-end bonus. We shouldn't be accumulating cc debt other than monthly purchases, so we'll be ok. Of course, a lot of things can happen between now and then, but for the sake of this analysis, let's keep it simple shall we.

Auto Loans
I do not anticipate having auto loan debt. Unless I happen to go through a mid-life crisis and feel the need to splurge on a $100,000 jaguar, I think I should be ok ;).

Our Student Loan Debt
Once again, a big fat zero for this one. I'm currently slated to pay off my loans in another 12 years, and once my wife starts paying hers I would assume a similar term as well.

Kid's Student Loans
I assume that we finance 1/3 of their college costs. So that's $566,666 in parental student loans

Mortgages
When I was discussing real estate in part II of the assets, I mentioned that we planned on getting one rental property. Using my trusty excel amortization table, I can find out how much we'll owe on both properties, given the following assumptions.
- 20% Down
- 7% interest rate on primary home
- 8% interest rate on rental property
- 360 months amortization term
- no prepayments on either mortgage

That gives me a total mortgage liability of $314,001.

Misc
What the hell, let's tack on an extra $100,000 just for kicks.

Grand Fictitious Net Worth
Given those assumptions, that brings our grand total fictitious net worth to:

$2,354,251
This represents 52% of our original goal of $4.5 million. Wow, so close...actually, not close at all!
Tomorrow, I'll wrap this up with some thoughts on the matter. Thanks for the comments from everyone, including the criticisms. Even though I've been feeling old lately, it just reminds me that I still have so much to learn and experience.

Tags: personal finance retirement

No, that line wasn't from some preacher in church. It was from a public school teacher in Kearny, New Jersey. Here's the story. David Paszkiewicz is a high school history teacher and youth pastor for a Baptist church. He was using his position as a teacher to proselytize to his students.

Among his many assertions (God created the universe, dinosaurs were on Noah's ark) he also blatantly told his class that if they don't accept Jesus, well, "you belong in hell". He was also kind enough to lament the fate of a Muslim student, but left it open for her to convert. How thoughtful of him.

One of Paszkiewicz's students, Matthew LaClair, realized that what he was doing was illegal. He requested a meeting with the principal and Paszkiewicz.

What do you think a good Christian like Paszkiewicz did when he was ratted out? He lied of course, what else! Unfortunately for Paszkiewicz, LaClair had audio evidence and gave the principal two audio cds. Paszkiewicz then refused to answer anymore questions without his union representative.

Let's be clear about something. It's is perfectly fine that Paszkiewicz holds these beliefs. This is America and we have freedom of religion. He is also free to shout them from a soapbox on the side of the street, because we also have freedom of speech.

It is clearly illegal for him to use his post as a teacher in a public school, a position of authority, to try and convert students. Our Constitution allows us all freedom of religion, and requires the separation of church and state. He was clearly stepping beyond those boundaries.

Also, it was illegal for him to lie about what he did in the classroom. He should be severely reprimanded if not fired for these unethical/illegal actions.

Matthew LaClair did a great job. For our system of goverment to work, it will take the eternal vigilance of it's citizens like the young LaClair to prevent such abuses of power. Nice job Matt.

Sources: Lippard Blog Caught on Tape More on it here Much more eloquent here

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Matt over at Crazy Money posted his Consumption Footprint and I decided to calculate the FSA family's consumption footprint. Wow. We are expensive. We are a family of 3 kids under 4 and 3 adults above 23. I'm trying to tell myself that I probably double-counted some things in the number. However, I have a strong feeling that I left out more than I actually double-counted. I have next week off, so I might have time to delve deeper into the numbers and see where all our money is going. It should be a humbling experience to say the least.

On a positive note, 95% of our interest payments on loans are tax-deductible and all of our loans have interest rates under 5% (the exception to this is my wife's loan, which are mostly subsidized and deferred).

Besides interest payments, other large categories of spending included child care and food. Can't complain too much about those I guess. The kids need to eat and be taken care of on a daily basis!

Still, it seems like such a large number. So enough stalling, here is the FSA family's Consumption Footprint:

$49,108

*Gulp*

That is a big number. Maybe I'll revise it next week after some creative accounting.

So what's your consumption footprint?

Tags: personal finance

Dear Frank,

Please make sure to complete these following items before the end of the year. You have been procrastinating and they are long overdue.

1. Need to purchase property insurance for our personal property. Already have property insurance on the house itself. Utilize company group rate to get a more competitive rate. Should get discount from same company as auto insurance. Don't have that much stuff, so should cost about $400.

2. Need a will and a living will for both me and my wife. Lawyer too expensive and not that much in assest, so planning on using legalzoom. Expected cost, about $200.

3. Need to fund emergency fund and start saving for downpayment on final (hopefully) home. 3 months emergency fund is close to $10,000. For emergencies, plan on using credit union visa card. Current Interest Rate 9.90%. Not bad, thank you alma mater. Still would like to have a cash cushion and would like to start saving for that downpayment as well.

That's all for now Frank, 1 and 2 should be all taken care of in December. 3 is going to be a little squishy, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Don't forget to be a good father, husband, and corporate drone at the same time.

Sincerely,

Self.


Tags: personal finance

See Part I
See Part II

Ok, so to summarize, we've gotten two major asset classes out of the way already. Retirement accounts and real estate which brought us to a fictitious $2,438,629 in assets. I was somewhat discouraged that we were only 54% of the way there in terms of our goal, but will continue to plow ahead to finish up the analysis.

The last asset(s) I will be taking a look at is just the plain old miscellaneous category. That includes cars, checking, savings, emergency fund, 529 plan, taxable brokerage accts, and etc. I've posted before about what I expect the total college cost for all three of my kids will be ($1.7 million), but I'm still on the fence about how to fund that potential cost. Will we take out loans for the kids? Have them take out expensive private loans? Try to amass $1.7 million in their 529 plans?

Assumptions
For the purposes of this analysis, I'm just going to assume that we saved 1/3 of the total cost, we're paying for another 1/3 with income, and we are financing the last 1/3. That's how most experts say to try to fund college.

So that means we have $566,000 in their 529 plans.

A squishy $254,623 for our taxable brokerage account. This is assuming a 5.90% return and a $10,000 annual contribution starting when we are 31 years old.

Assuming a fully funded EFUND of $60,000 (how much are we going to need in 23 years, I dunno it's just a round number).

Then just a squishy $15,000 for the rest of our assets. That brings the misc category to $641,666.

Therefore our grand total of fictitious assets 23 years from now is: $3,334,919.

So without taking into account any liabilities, that means we are 74% of the way to our goal. Wow, I didn't realize how aggressive $4.5 million in 23 years really is. I just said, "Starting from $6,000, what % growth gets us to $4.5 million. Ok, 33.6%. Sounds good!". Nary a thought of how feasible or realistic that growth rate was. It wasn't until Enough Wealth mentioned it and then LAMoneyGuy's suggested to expand on my initial analysis that I decided to do this exercise.

In either case, I will wrap up next time with a look at the liabilities side of the equation. At least our net worth should be positive!

Tags: personal finance retirement net worth

See The Assets Part I.

So we've already amassed $1.4 fictitious millions in the last post. Several people have left some very good comments. The overriding theme in each comment is that I'm being too optimistic with my salary increases and also my 401(k) matching assumptions. In my defense, I've only been out of undergrad for a little over a year now, and I am naive in the workings of the world. That being said, I appreciate the reality check from others who are more knowledgeable than myself. I will, however, strive to make that growth number a reality which will require hard work and dedication on my part. Possibly a little bit of luck as well :).

Now, on to the other major asset: real estate. This one was really tricky. I've simplified it immensely, and tried to once again be conservative in my estimates (although, I thought I was being conservative in my last post). Here are the assumptions:
- We stay with our current home until we are 25/26 and then move to our second and final home. After a number of years, buy a modest rental property.

Appreciation Assumptions
I assume a flat real estate market for the next five years and then an immediate reversion to a historical mean appreciatiation of approximately 3.1%.

Here's what the table looks like:

Age	Primary Home Value	Rental Value
23	$220,000	$0
24	$220,000	$0
25	$220,000	$0
26	$350,000	$0
27	$350,000	$0
28	$360,850	$0
29	$372,036	$0
30	$383,569	$0
31	$395,460	$250,000
32	$407,719	$257,750
32	$420,359	$265,740
34	$433,390	$273,978
35	$446,825	$282,472
36	$460,676	$291,228
37	$474,957	$300,256
38	$489,681	$309,256
39	$504,861	$319,161
40	$520,512	$329,055
41	$536,648	$339,255
42	$553,284	$349,772
43	$570,436	$360,615
44	$588,284	$371,794
45	$606,351	$383,320
46	$625,148	$395,203

So that brings the real estate side of the equation to $1,020,351 which also means that our total assets so far stand at: $2,438,629. Hmmmm, two major assets out of the way and we're only 54% of the way there not counting liabilities. I must say I am a tad bit disappointed. It looks like our net worth goal is quite aggressive and we might need to rethink them.

Next time, we'll wrap up the assets with the large miscellaneous category and then off to the liabilities.

Tags: personal finance net worth retirement

HT: Long Or Short Capital.

So in my last post it looks like my wife and I are going to be millionaires by the time we're in our 40s. Well screw that, I want to be a BILLIONAIRE. All I need to do is follow these four steps:
1. Take outrageous risks with extremely high upside.
2. Be the 1 out of 500 million for whom it pans out. This one is key so focus on it.
3. Attribute your wealth creation to your own hard work, your own genius and the power of your business plan. Be sure to stress how your wealth was singularly made possible by your unique endowment of elbow grease, street smarts, common sense, all of which your competitors obviously lacked (proven by how poor they are compared to you).
4. Buy a mega yacht and/or athletic team.

It's just that simple! Hehe.

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I've decided to take a cold hard look at our net worth goal of $4.5 million by the time my wife and I are 45/46. After taking another simplistic look at the goal, I've decided to take LAMoneyguy's advice and try to expand on the initial spreadsheet.
Today, I'm going to be looking at the retirement account accounts side of the equation. First I had to develop some assumptions about our salaries. I'm in an industry that pays well, so I spent more time trying to project my salary growth because it's going to be relatively more important. Without going into specifics about base salary vs. bonus, here is what my salary growth looks like under my assumptions:

Salary Growth	Age
#NA	23
8.39%	24
8.28%	25
8.18%	26
8.09%	27
8.00%	28
7.92%	29
7.84%	30
7.76%	31
7.69%	32
7.63%	33
7.56%	34
7.50%	35
7.44%	36
7.39%	37
7.33%	38
7.28%	39
7.23%	40
7.19%	41
7.14%	42
7.10%	43
7.06%	44
7.02%	45
6.98%	46

For my wife, I assume that she starts working in one year and that her salary increases at a flat 3% a year. More or less in line with inflation.

Contribution Assumptions
For my 401(k) contributions, I assume that I contribute the same % every year (which is only a little bit more than my current contributions) and I max out my contributions at $15,000 in any given year. I assume that my employer continues to match the same amount as they are currently matching, and I also max them out at $15,000.

For my wife, I assume a 3% contribution and an employer match on top of that for a total contribution of 6% of her salary. I leave that static, and max out her contributions at $15,000 in any given year as well.

Roth IRA contributions are $4,000, $8,000, $8,000, and then $0 after that (that way I don't have to calculate AGI, I don't want to get that complicated).

Return Assumptions
I assume a flat rate of 7% per annum for both the 401k and the ROTH IRA. Nothing too aggressive like 10%, but nothing too conservative, like 5%.

The Number
After crunching the numbers, that gives me an estimated total retirement account balance of (drum roll please): $1,418,279. That brings us almost 1/3 of the way there (assuming ZERO liabilities, yea right)!

This is heartening, but it's only one part of one side of the equation. I was actually hoping that it would be more than this, because I want our retirement assets to be a greater portion of our net worth. Too many people have so much of their net worth tied up in real estate, and I would prefer something more liquid.

Then again, so much could happen in 20+ years that could possibly derail or benefit our retirement accounts. I would like to think that this is the average scenario over many different simulation paths of a Monte Carlo simulation, but I do not know.

Next time I'll look at some of the other assets, most notably real estate. Then it's on to the liabilities! Are we having fun yet?

Tags: personal finance net worth retirement

I know, I know. I'm only 23. What right does that give me to claim that I'm getting old already? While I am certainly not wise for my years, I have been feeling old for my years. Allow me to illuminate 3 reasons why:

• Music on the radio: Is it me, or is there nothing but unbelievable dreck on the radio nowadays. On my way into work, I generally listen to the classical station. On the way home, I try to unwind with the "popular" station. Everytime I turn it on it's BOOTY, BOOTY, BOOTY, BOOTY or SEXYBACK...YEA. Jesus tap-dancing Christ people, give me something else to listen to


• Listening to my coworkers talk about this-that-and-the-other. I just cannot relate. Example:
  W1: "Man, I think my girlfriend is like not interested anymore."
  W2: "Dude, that's too bad...you should go clubbing and try to meet some honeys. There's this really expensive place near who-the-hell-cares. It's like mad expensive, but totally worth it. The chicks are totally hot man"
  W1: "I dunno man..."
  Aaaaarrggg. Shut up, please, shut up. I just don't care.


• Coworkers and money: Nobody seems to care about saving for retirement. One guy said: "saving is overrated". Another bought a $30,000 Audi...and is already thinking of turning it in to buy another car! He's straight out of college too! I feel like banging my head up against a wall.

So there you have it. Musings and ruminations from an "old" 23-year old.

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The Boondocks is one of my favorite television shows. Here is the infamous MLK episode which posits a world where Martin Luther King survived his assasination attempt.

This was the episode that prompted that moron Al Sharpton to demand an apology because MLK was using the 'n' word (I've blogged about it before). View it for yourself, and remember to vote today.

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Matt over at Crazy Money has a post about his consumption footprint otherwise known as OpEx for a business. It's a neat idea and I want to take a look at the FSA family's consumption footprint later this week. I'd like to encourage others to do the same (as Matt has already done). It looks to be a fruitful endeavor. Excellent idea Matt, and thanks for sharing.

Tags: personal finance

This was originally going to be a comment, but it was too ranty, so I'm making it into a post

See original post here.

Someone by the name of D, left this comment:

You know, sometimes it seems the non-believers force their views more than the believers.

My question is - if God doesn't exist and you are not working towards a goal of eternal life, what do you care??

As I see it a non-believer has nothing to lose. While the believer has EVERYTHING to lose.

"You know, sometimes it seems the non-believers force their views more than the believers. "

Incorrect. If unbelievers were trying to force a change of the motto to "In NO gods we trust" then there would be merit to your argument. However, what we "unbelievers" are trying to do is make the government neutral on religious matters, which is how we interpret the separation of church and state. Granted, some go further than others (i.e. godless money and trying to remove "Under God" from the pledge) but the underlying theme is not to "force" our views but to enforce neutrality of religion.

Ironically, when Single Ma was joking about having the mark of beast on money [in the comments]: "Now when we're forced to accept the mark of the beast in order to buy necessities and function in society, then I'll say HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM! " she highlighted what's wrong with putting religious statements on our national currency in the first place. I am sure that many would not want to put "In no gods we trust" or "In Allah we trust" or "In 666/616 we trust" on our national currency because it would be offensive. But if the atheists wants to complain about the current motto, then it becomes, why can't we all just get along? Why can't we respect each other's beliefs? What they're really saying is, we're the majority and we don't care about your un-belief. It's that simiple.

"My question is - if God doesn't exist and you are not working towards a goal of eternal life, what do you care??"
And what if there were groups of people that believed that in order to achieve eternal life, the best way was to blow themselves up and kill unbelievers. That's why we care. Because there are people like that, and while suicide bombing is an extreme example, there are many other recent examples as well where unbelievers whether they are atheist, jewish, or etc have faced physical harm, intimidation, or job loss as a result.

The majority of people in the USA are Christian, and we "unbelivers" are trying our best not to get trampled under the foot of the majority. Thankfully, we have a Constitution that protects the rights of the minority against the "tyranny of the majority".

[/rant]

Tags: atheism

ow here's a funny but sad retirement plan: rob a bank, turn yourself in, go to jail, and you'll be all set! I know, it's funny...in a sad kind of way. Read about it yourself: Pre-Social Security plan: Rob bank, go to prison.

Tags: personal finance

End of 2006 goal: $6,000
Goal by 45: $4.5 mill

Enough Wealth left a comment about our net worth goal. In the 2006 year-end post, I mentioned that we needed to grow our net worth by about 33.6% every year to reach the $4.5 million mark by the time we are 45. He rightly criticized that number as unrealistic and I've been meaning to respond after taking a more realistic look at how to reach that goal, rather than just starting with a base of $6,000 and solving for the correct growth rate :P.

EW made a very good point. Initially that 33.6% is ok (33% growth of $6,000 is only $8,000 after all) , but later on it's going to be more difficult. So I think that means I need to re-evaluate how we're going to get there. I can't just assume, 33.6% year over year, it's going to be trickier than that. I mean, I am projecting that in 2007 we'll be able to grow our next worth over 100% just from the 401(k) contributions (assuming a flat market). That's great, but is by no means sustainable.

So essentially, what I need is to front-load my net worth, so that I have a few years where I double or almost double my net worth. Then it's going to tail off, possibly rather dramatically to a more sustainable rate.

I tried to model that in Excel and it didn't look promising.

But then I had an ephiphany. My wife isn't working yet!

Granted, that's going to help in the early years, but it still looks pretty daunting. Here is what I came up with:

I assume that we can double our net worth for about 3 years, and then things tail off dramatically. You can see the equation on the bottom of the sheet.

So I'm not really sure what to take away from my brief analysis. Maybe it means I need to take massive amounts of risks? Maybe that goal is too aggressive? Maybe once my wife starts working we'll be so flush with cash that we won't have any issues at all (highly dubious)? Maybe we need some more windfalls to get to that level? Maybe we need to sell more playstation 3s, 4s, 5s, ....20s on Ebay to get to that level? All-in-all, I've generated more questions than answers.

Tags: personal finance

I know it's been almost two months, but we are almost in the green! The number is coming in at approximately $-600. Woohooo. Talk about psychologically beneficial. Go FSA family, it's our birthday. It's our birthday...ahem.

Next month (Dec) is bonus month, so I am confident that we'll hit our target of $6,000. We're also going to be selling some PS3's on ebay. That should provide a very nice boost as well. Matching for the 401(k) combined with positive market action has also helped tremendously.

For this month we need to pay off a couple 0% bal transfer that finally expire in December. Net-net, that will be a wash as we'll be taking cash out and paying debt down. However, I don't want to do it too quickly as Emigrant Direct is still paying 5.05% APY. Thanks to those credit cards, we had another month of earning > $100 in interest.

I'm thinking of moving from ED to ELOANS new savings account. Might make the move next month. Not much else going on right now. Trying to get stuff done at work, while being tired as heck. Will keep you people posted. I know you wait with abated breathe :P

Tags: personal finance