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

Over at Jewish Atheist he's posted an American "Family" Association youtube video entitled "The Day They Kicked God out of School". It goes down a whole list of religious right-wing bogey-men (abortion, condoms, etc), but let's concentrate on the very first part of the video: Kicking God out of public schools.

That's a flat out myth. It's designed to stir up powerful emotions in religious individuals who are otherwise perfectly reasonably people. If they would stop and think about it for a brief instant, they would realize that it's patently false.

Firstly, most definitions of god depict an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent being. How exactly do you "kick" such a being out of anything? By definition, that being is present everywhere and depending on who you ask at everytime because it is outside of time and space or some such thing.

Secondly, students have always been able to pray and read the bible in public schools. Heck, at my high school I use to get together with others to do just that. We sing songs, pray, have youth pastors come preach to us all on school property.

What's not allowed is for the school to unduly coerce students one way or another. That's why mandatory prayers and bible readings were outlawed. By making it mandatory, the courts ruled that this was a violation of establishment clause. However, this in no way prevents students from reading the bible or praying in schools across the United States.

Please, let's put that myth to bed now.

Part of the appeal of working at a hedge fund was the money. Yes, I know, that's quite obvious. Here I am barely two years out of college with an offer to make $200K a year. That's a lot of appeal right there. But it was not just the money, it was what that money represented. Allow me to try and explain.

As a young black male growing up, the "rich" black males oft potrayed in the media were either atheletes, musicians, or actors. In short, some sort of entertainer. The message was clear, the path to absurd amounts of wealth for black men lies in the entertainment industry. Try telling that to the nerdy, skinny, lanky black guy and it didn't sound promising (i.e. me).

Then I learned about hedge funds. Here were people making ridiculous amounts of money. The creme de la creme were making orders of magnitudes above Jordan, or Diddy, or any of the other black entertainers. Here was a chance for me to make it big. A chance to vet my worldview, that smart, nerdy, lanky black guys can amass huge fortunes without having to know how to get a stupid ball through a hoop. It seemed so perfect and true.

Yet I passed on the opporunity to work at those places. I passed on what may have been a chance to make seven figures in a little under 10 years (assuming they didn't blow up in the interim). Why? Because now I'm a family man. Amassing a huge fortune to buy mansions is not as appealing anymore. Yea, if I struck it rich through some amazing circumstance we might go out and buy a mansion, but that's not the point. The point is, I've determined what is important to me.
Our family has settled into a comfortable life and to uproot them and introduce such a large element of instability just was not worth it, not even for $200K a year (especially in NYC!).

Additionally, the circumstances at work have changed significantly and potentially to my benefit. Now I don't have to uproot the family and introduce instability into our daily lives, but I might still be able to make more money.

So we won't be moving anytime soon, but maybe in a year or so once my wife has finished her master degree we'll seriously consider moving again. We'll have to see what the future brings us.

Trying to get blogger updated and such.

We've decided that my wife will be attending Harvard for grad school. It's a positive NPV decision. Even if we financed all $40,000 (which we won't have to *whew*) it would still be a positive NPV. What's nice is that this is a one year program so she'd be able to start working soon. Additionally, she has a great amount of flexibility in scheduling her classes and she's allowed to take other graduate level classes as well (say at HBS, although she doesn't want to do that). This will allow her to schedule her classes in two separate days to ease her commuting time.

I will be the first to admit that this wasn't a completely rational decision. We didn't just say "Well, it's positive NPV, let's sign you up!" There were other irrational, subjective factors that went into our desicion making. That being said, the financial aid package was better than what we expected as well, so that helped.

In terms of the job search with the hedge funds. I interviewed with another company in MA and got an offer from them. The firm in NYC also gave me an offer and I'm still waiting on the CT firm.

I've already declined the MA firm (base+bonus = $150K), the NYC firm (base+bonus = $200K), and I expect to decline the CT firm as well unless the total comp is something absolutely ridiculous ($300K).

Why am I turning down the chance to make more than double my current salary? Well, as it turns out, I might be getting a nice pay bump again this coming June because an associate of mine accepted another offer and is leaving the firm. It came unexpectedly for the senior management so now they are scrambling a bit to keep things going. This could turn out very positive for me as they would not only be giving me a nice bump in pay, but also allow me to take on more responsibility in my current role and even set up something more permanent for me (instead of expecting me to shuffle of to B-school).

Not only that, but for the NYC firm, after taking into account higher state and federal income taxes, our take-home pay does not increase nearly as much as the $200K would seem. Plus, I don't really want to work in NYC and commute from NJ or wherever.

Sooooo, that leaves us here in NH for at least one more year. I expect that if things don't turn out as positive as I planned in June with my current employer then I will be seriously considering moving to another firm at that time. I'll try to avoid NYC though, as that doesn't seem to be the right fit for us. CT though, seems pretty good.

Until then, we'll just have to get use to having more student loan debt, but once my wife starts working we'll be able to funnel all of her money into either saving or debt reduction, whichever makes sense at the time.

[rant]
When you fuck up (a la Michael Richards and Imus) please do one thing for me, do not go to Jesse I'm-counseling-Clinton-during-his-affair-while-having-one-myself Jackson or Al Tawana-Brawley-Former-LoanMax-spokesman Sharpton. Both add absolutely zero to the public discourse on race relations in the United States. Each is struggling to remain relevant and will gleefully attach themselves to the next media circus/frenzy to further their own pitiful media careers/personalities.

Instead, just apologize and mean it and don't do it again next time. Thank you for your time and consideration.

-Frank the FSA
[/rant]
Tags: rant

Miserly Bastard has been on a tear lately, cranking out some good stuff. Looks like he's finally gotten his little girl to sleep. Here are some good posts to read.

A very good summary of 529 plans.
"...feel that surge of class warfare..."
Non-delegable duties
Where do you stand on taxes?

Now that's good reading.

Tags: personal finance

Oh man. I've forgotten how tiring the interview process can be. I interviewed with both hedge funds over the last two days. One in NYC, one in CT. Some initial thoughts:
- 1. I'm going to be making substantially more, that much is certain.
- 2. I'm going to be working substantially more, that much is also very certain.
- 3. Both firms are very different, and both represent a tremendous opportunity, both in terms of career growth and also monetarily.
- 4. My stress level will also be increasing, that is pretty much guaranteed.

Over all I'm still in a daze from the experience. I'm expecting to hear back from both next week. I think we might be moving in a month or so! More info to come later!
Tags: personal finance personal

First, a radically simple budget from Walter Updegrave. I know I've been hard on him in the past, but I like this advice.

Two, I saw the movie Jesus Camp this past weekend. Initial thoughts, Jesus God-Damn tap dancing Christ, that was the most disturbing movie I have ever seen. The children, won't someone think of the children. More rants and ravings to come on that topic.

Tags: personal finance atheism jesus camp

Creating a loan amortization table.

A reader wanted to know how to handle prepayments when creating an amortization table. If you recall what we did before in creating our amortization table, we said that our loan balance goes up by interest, and then the monthly payment decreases that balance. So prepayments decrease that balance further which leads to lower interest in later periods. Let's take a look at how that works.

Here is the setup.

Net worth is coming in at -$15,077. Assets dropped 154 bps, and liabilities dropped 74 bps. Now, on to the too much excitement part:

1. Wife got into Harvard grad school, waiting on financial aid packet before making an ultimate decision.

2. The hedge fund wants to interview me. Not only that, but another firm wants to interview me as well. Oh man, things are moving way too fast. I feel like I just started dating and I've already progressed to 5th base (yes, bad dating analogy since there are only 4 bases, I know).

3. Got my first compression raise at work! An almost 10% increase, woot. Still haven't heard anything about that all important bonus. Shucks.

4. I have been incredibly busy at work. Hence the lack of blog posts. Add to that the excitement from my wife's acceptance and potential new employment and things have been crazy around our house lateley. I'm such a simple guy, I don't know if I can handle all this craziness. Stay tuned for more.

Tags: personal finance