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Listomania

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One thing that’s fast becoming clear: when your time is unstructured, lists have their uses. Now that I’ve attained Bumhood, it’s amazing how fast time goes by without much getting done!

In the past, long before Mary Kay Ash started teaching her acolytes to scribble their entrepreneurial tasks in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, I used to write to-do lists every day.  In my first job as a publication editor, I would end each day by making a list of the following day’s tasks and leave it on my desk, thereby jump-starting the next day. This pretty much guaranteed the work got done by deadline. Something about checking off accomplishments, no matter how minor, builds momentum.

Lately, though, I’ve found myself killing too much time in cruising the Web and not enough time living, so I decided to revive the list habit, at least in a sporadic way.

Yesterday this quirk gave a hint of its potential power.

Apparently I ate something that made me sick—it left me under the weather all day. I really didn’t feel like doing much. But I had a list. Even though I was dragging around, when the day ended I realized I’d done a surprising number of tasks. Didn’t get out for a long walk with the dog or spend time loafing at the fancy shopping center where Cassie likes to hold forth as the center of everyone’s attention. Never got back to pruning and fertilizing roses. But…

• Did the laundry
• Chlorinated the pool
• Reset the pool equipment
• Watered a few plants
• Wrote a blog post
• Updated Excel spreadsheets
• Set up online bill paying for the S-corp’s Visa card
• Paid the Visa bill online
• Paid the Cox bill online
• Wrote & posted three online quizzes for this spring’s students
• Learned how to use a new feature of BlackBoard, the online teaching software
• Posted syllabi
• Emptied out the binder I use as my mobile “office” for the community colleges
• Used heavy card stock to build new dividers, all printed out and nifty
• Organized binder to accommodate three new classes
• Started decluttering the stuffed file cabinet in the garage
• Cleaned the car windshield again, it not having turned out to be quite pristine the last time I washed the car
• Took the dog for a walk…sort of.

Doubt if I’d have done any of those without a list of things to check off.  Think of all the stuff that would’ve gotten done if I’d felt like moving!

You can, I think, get carried away with this strategy. When I was a little kid, a playmate’s parents used to stick a daily list on his bedroom wall—it filled an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and specified what he would be doing each moment of the day. Literally: they put down when he would brush his teeth and when he would go from the bathroom back to his bedroom to get dressed and when he would appear in the kitchen for breakfast. Poor  little guy…can you imagine having your life regimented like that?

It’s not necessary to map out every living, breathing minute to use listing to jump-start  your day. Often a rough list of ideas for things to do will get you going, so that once you’re started, you end up accomplishing a great deal more than you would have without the check-it-off impetus. Sometimes I’ll retroactively add to the list activities that I got sidetracked into doing and check them off, just to congratulate myself for getting something done that day. Yesterday, for example, though I never did make the bed, change out of my grubbies, trim the roses, or clean house, I did add things that didn’t require me to move far from the computer: uploaded syllabi as well as quizzes, cleaned last semester’s junk out of the teaching binder and organized it for next semester, and shoveled off the top of my desk.

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Entrepreneurs: Adirondack Chimney Sweep

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A chimney sweep in one of America’s warmest cities: Mark C. Keever is the second in Funny’s series of stories about entrepreneurs who find creative and unusual ways to jump off the treadmill.

I came across Mark and his business, Adirondack Chimney Sweep, in Angie’s List, where a long line of customers had left ecstatic reviews about his work. Not knowing whether the chimney in my 1971 house had ever been cleaned, about the beginning of December I gave him a call, hoping to have the job done before the big Christmas party.

Mais non! The man was booked into the beginning of January! A chimney sweep with personality, it develops, has more work than he can handle. When Mark dropped in the other day to apply his skills to my old fireplace, complete with his broom and old black stovepipe hat, I asked him a few questions.

FaM: Mark, how on earth did you get into the chimney-sweep business?

Keever: Well, I grew up in Queensbury, New York, a small town between Glens Falls and Lake George. Most people didn’t have much, and when you graduated from high school, your career choice was going to work in the paper mills or going to work in the local prison. Because people had to do for themselves, one of the things we learned in our shop class was how to clean potbellied stoves and chimneys.

In my senior year, I got in a motorcycle accident and was seriously hurt: broke my left foot in twelve places, broke my left leg, messed up my knees and elbows. That was the end of my future in the paper mill.

FaM: It must have kept you out of Vietnam, too.

Keever: That’s right. Couldn’t get into the military, either, because the damage to my foot made me unfit for combat.

FaM: So what did you do?

Keever: I came out to Arizona to recuperate and ended up going to work for the Greyhound Corporation. I worked for seven years, and then I went with the Southern Pacific Railroad. That was a good job, but after four years I was laid off—along with about 9,000 other people.

Not knowing what to do next, I looked around and found out that one in four houses in the Phoenix area has a fireplace. Well, that was a natural: I already knew how to sweep chimneys.

I started a business, but by the time we were up and running, it was out of season. Nobody thinks about their fireplaces on a 110-degree summer day. So I was really struggling.

To make ends meet, I decided I’d better take a full-time job with the City of Glendale. I was happy to get the job, but I kept the chimney-sweep business as a sideline.

And I also thought I’d better go to college to learn how to run a business, so I enrolled in a business course at Phoenix College. It only took me 25 years to finish my associate’s degree!

Meanwhile, I kept on working at the city and also kept sweeping chimneys as a side job.

FaM: It’s always a good idea to have a second income stream, isn’t it?

Keever: Yes. I was glad I had it, because last spring the city offered its employees a buy-out deal. I had only just earned the 80 “points” city and state workers need to retire, but there they were: I actually was in a position to retire. I thought it over for a while, and then finally I decided to take it.

So I got a good severance package and plenty of time to make a go of Adirondack.

FaM: That must have been a breathtaking moment!

Keever: I’ve never been happier! No more stress of a day job and a commute, no more working for a big bureaucracy. I’ve got all the work I can do, most of it in the wintertime while the weather’s nice, and the business has really taken off. All told, Adirondack Chimney Sweep  has had 2,187 customers.

* * *

Cleaning the fireplace, a two-and-a-half-hour project, entailed climbing on the roof to brush out the chimney and then engaging in some lengthy and vigorous cleanup with a large shop vac. By the time Mark finished, the firebox and the family room were spotless.

He sprinkled a handful of salt at the back of the firebox. “This brings good luck,” he said. Then he set a shiny copper penny in the front right corner of the fireplace. “A penny in the fireplace not only brings more good luck,” he continued, “but because it’s this year’s date, all you  have to do is look at it to remember what year you last had the chimney cleaned. This one should be cleaned about once every four or five years.”

After a short demonstration of how to lay a fire and how to use a newspaper torch to warm the cold air seeping down a chimney to make the flue draw better, he was off.

And the next time that thing needs to be cleaned, I know who I’m gonna call!

Funny is chosen for March Madness

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w00t! FMF e-mailed to say that Funny about Money’s rumination on “Truth, the Highest Thing that Man May Keep” has been selected for this year’s March Madness competition at Free Money Finance. Some excellent posts, many by eminent PF bloggers, are included, and so I feel very flattered to have made the cut.

FMF posted the competitors and their categories today. The contest starts January 18, so be sure and go there and vote for Funny!!!!

Vote early and vote often. 😉 Remember, March Madness goes through several rounds, so don’t slack off just because you’ve already voted in one round.

Winners have a donation of $100 to $500 made in their name to a charity of their choice. I’ve selected my church and, especially, the choir.

When the new pastor learned that I’d been laid off my job, he called on the phone, if you can imagine, to offer his sympathies and to say the church would do what it could to help me out. Then he talked me into making a pledge of one dollar. Would I ever love to do him five hundred better!

You can make that possible. As soon as the games start, join in the fun and support Funny every step of the way.

🙂

Mortgage loan modification strategy

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Just sent off a wad of paper to the loan officers at the credit union. My favorite spy there tells me that because I’ve been laid off my job, we have a shot at getting our mortgage payments reduced, at least for a while.

I’ve asked to have the principal cut, since the so-called “investment” house is now worth about $50,000 or $60,000 less than we owe on it. What a flicking fiasco!

What We’re Hoping For

Of course, they’re not going to do that. The credit union’s loan officer says they have been cutting the interest rate by reamortizing the loan over 40 years. This is a temporary arrangement, lasting at most two years. After the period is over, the customer may be given an opportunity to refinance, or simply to allow the rate to revert to what it was, with no detriment to credit rating.

Because the credit union has never been involved in federal loan programs, this is a private loan modification, not part of a government stimulus plan.

Rates are at 5.09 percent today, and so, since our rate is already down to 5.3 percent, I’m afraid this wouldn’t make much difference for us. However, if the loan were reamortized over 40 years, then our mortgage payment would drop by $141 a month for the next year or two. That would help a little. Not much, but some.

I’ve also asked them to change the terms from 30/15 to a straight traditional 30-year mortgage without zinging us for refinance costs. In a 30/15 mortgage, your payments are based on amortization over 30 years, but the payment comes due in 15 years. If you haven’t sold the house by then, you have to refinance. Because we thought we would own the house for five or at most ten years, this looked like a pretty good deal at the time.

Now, though, it’s beginning to appear that the house will not regain in its value in the 12 or 13 years remaining to run on the 15-year part of the present mortgage. And if history repeats itself, in another decade you can be sure that interest rates will be through the roof. Even if we  have paid down the principal some, we could end up with payments that are no less than what we’re paying now, which is WAY too much.

If the property value has not risen significantly after the initial 15 years ends, we’ll have to bring cash to the table to keep from losing the house, since we will not be able to refinance it at that time unless we add a chunk of money to the equity. And because I will never get another full-time job at my age, we will simply not have the cash to do that. Effectively, we will have been paying rent on that house at a rate far above the going rental rate in that neighborhood.

Nightmarish

M’hijito is feeling trapped. He’d thought we would be in a position to sell in five years, given that the market seemed to be at or near its lowest point at the time we bought. Because we failed to recognize that real estate was in free fall, we completely misjudged the actual value of the house, and now, along with 25 percent of the other mortgage payers in this state, we are nailed into an investment that is worth nothing like what we bargained for. Because you don’t realize a loss until you sell, we’re hanging on and hoping values will turn around. But realistically: it’s going to take a long, long time to break even on that place, and we certainly will never make a profit.

Meanwhile, he would like to go to graduate school (can’t, as long as he has to make that mortgage payment) and he would like to go back to San Francisco (can’t, as long as we have an albatross tied around our necks). Because we can’t rent the house for what we’re paying on it, our options are very limited.

What Else Can We Do?

There’s really only one option if he wants or needs to leave: I sell my house, use the proceeds to pay off the mortgage on that house, and move in there.

It’s a pretty little house, and the truth is, it’s a better size for me. It has no pool, so that would be one fewer cost and lots less work. It’s more centrally located—within walking distance (sort of) of the light rail line and my favorite upscale grocer (where I no longer can afford to shop…).

On the other hand, the summer utility bills are much higher than mine, and the neighborhood is not the best. Although my neighborhood also has some dangerous slums nearby, it at least doesn’t have a Walmart around the corner jacking up the crime rates, and I do have a very pleasant park less than two blocks from the front door.

Really, in terms of living conditions it probably would be a toss-up. I certainly could stand to live there. If that’s what we have to do to make it possible for him to get on to the next stage of his life, the world won’t end.

Pool a-filling

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So Paul from Swimming Pool Service and Repair dropped by the day before yesterday to drain the pool. It’s pretty simple: drop a pump in the bottom of the deep end, stick its hose in the property’s clean-out drain, and plug in the cord. The pump runs so quietly you can’t even tell it’s on, except for the quiet gurgling of water running down the drain.

Here’s the result:

Took about a day to arrive at this pass. Paul came by yesterday morning to retrieve the pump and start the hose running. It takes two or three days to refill a pool this size with a garden hose. By 11:00 p.m. it was about a third full. I turned the water off late last night, partly because the spigot makes a noise that you can hear everywhere in the house—the sound of money pouring through the plumbing is not conducive to sleep—and partly because I’d repaired a small crack in the tile grout and wanted the silicone stuff to fully cure before the water reaches the tile line. The gunk should be fine by mid-afternoon, and I’m sure the water will be nowhere near the tile line anytime before dark.

Otherwise, the thing seems to be in pretty good shape: no cracks, crazes, or chips in the plaster. Water has gotten into the light on the shallow end, which of course you can’t see in that snapshot. Doesn’t matter to me though: I never turn the light on. If I’m swimming at night, I want the pool to be dark…that’s the whole point of swimming at night! It’s quite lovely in the water late on a summer evening.

Financial Freedom: Education and training

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The other day, Funny about Money started a series on making your way toward financial freedom, the state where you find yourself independent of the day job and free to do what you want to do with your life. We identified several components in this project, all of them having to do with personal finance.

Today, let’s start with the first of those: Education

One issue we should bear in mind is the difference between true education and vocational training. A bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, or nursing (for example) may line you up to get a decent job, but it may not make you an educated person.

Education furnishes your mind. Broad reading, writing, thought, and discussion make you a wiser person and cultivate your ability to think logically, to recognize flim-flam, and to make good decisions. For that reason, a good undergraduate degree in the liberal arts is useful—maybe even indispensable—to anyone who hopes to take a leadership role in industry, government, education, and the  law. Those of us who aspire to high-powered careers in any of those need a strong undergraduate degree in the liberal arts followed by a graduate or professional degree in business, law, science, or technology.

Some graduate degrees are scams and should be avoided. A master of fine arts in writing, for example, will leave you fully unemployable while teaching you nothing that you wouldn’t have learned by spending the same amount of time applying your bottom to the seat of your desk chair. Graduate degrees in vague new pushmi-pullyu programs with no real entry requirements, such as Arizona State University’s “master of liberal studies,” are similarly suspect: if you want a degree in the liberal arts, take the GRE and get yourself into a solid program such as English, history, or mathematics.

Undergraduate technical degrees are useful in that they provide high-level vocational training for young people whose cast of mind is not especially academic. Often the resulting job opportunities are better paid, at least at the entry level, than a bachelor’s degree in the liberal or fine arts will generate. Over time, however, people with bachelor’s degrees in subjects like business, education, and technology may need master’s degrees or professional certifications to move up in their trades.

On the college level, vocational training—which defines a large number of undergraduate and graduate-level programs—will set you up to get a job, assuming jobs in your major are available by the time you graduate. Vocational education includes degree programs in business, nursing, medicine, engineering, computer sciences, graphic arts, education, and journalism, to name a few. It must be remembered that none of these guarantees high-paying work. To the contrary,  some, such as journalism and education, pretty much guarantee their graduates low pay. Some, such as accountancy, provide entrée to trades that make a good living but that may bore the pants off you.

Many people truly are not suited for higher education. Sometimes this has to do with the student’s level of maturity—some should delay college until they are focused enough to profit from it. Having to earn a living for a while speeds maturity and creates a much better college student. Others are more likely to succeed in the trades than in low-level white-collar jobs; in the case of young people who are not interested in school or who find study painfully difficult and discouraging, a short stint in a community college and a decent apprenticeship may be a smarter strategy. A person with skills in the trades is likely to earn as much as or more than an ill-educated college graduate. Remember that most millionaires in the United States are owners of businesses that provide services like pest control and plumbing. The beauty of the trades is that the work can’t easily be offshored. Even though some of these jobs pay little more than minimum wage, an ambitious young person can learn the trade well and then build his or her own business. Once you’re hiring someone else for minimum wage, you’re in a position to make a good living.

Choose wisely and choose well: consider first what you really want to do; then whether you want to do that for the rest of your life; and finally what you can earn with the credentials the degree provides.

None of this, as we all know, is likely to be cheap. A young person who’s savvy to personal finance or an older but wiser person who’s going back to school can find ways to minimize the damage. The idea should be to avoid a heavy burden of student loans, which can saddle a young person for years—even, possibly, for the rest of one’s life.

One obvious strategy that many people overlook is simply to take your first two years of undergraduate work at a community college. These schools are much cheaper than universities and are often close enough to home that you can live with your parents for an extra couple of years. Yeah, we know: what a drag! But have you priced apartments lately? Lower-division courses at community colleges are usually staffed with professionals who are dedicated to teaching, in contrast to universities, which often foist the scutwork courses onto exploited graduate students, underpaid junior faculty distracted by the grinding quest to attain tenure, or senior faculty more interested in their research than in teaching.

It’s important to be sure that courses you take in a community college will transfer to the university of your choice. Many state universities have articulation programs with local colleges, and some state legislatures have mandated that their universities accept credit from community colleges; however, these rules may not apply to out-of-state colleges.

If you’re an excellent student but can’t afford an expensive private college, seek “Ivy League public schools,” such as Michigan or Berkeley. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a state that hosts one of these institutions, by all means try to get in. Savings can be huge, and the quality of education is good. If you have to go out of state, consider living and working there for a year or two to establish residency before enrolling—most state schools require a local driver’s license and evidence that you or (if you’re still a minor) your parents have paid state taxes.

Whether you go to a community college or an in-state university, living at home can save a great deal of money, lightening the load of student loan debt by many thousands of dollars.

Working your way through school is a hard row to hoe, but the reward can be huge: freedom from student debt. The federal government has a work-study program designed for students in need. If your family’s relative affluence renders you ineligible for this program, most universities and colleges have their own work-study programs or part-time job opportunities that provide a small salary and enough flexibility to work around class hours.

Summers offer you the chance either to take on full-time work temporarily, racking up some savings for the following school year, or to speed your way toward graduation by taking coursework. Two summer sessions of six credits adds up to twelve credits, the equivalent of a full semester. In your lower-division years, consider a community college for summer school—just be sure, before you sign up, that your university will accept transfer credits for the classes you take.

An alternative to work-study is a regular 50% FTE job at a university or college. Most institutions provide a tuition waiver for employees. Pay, especially in public schools, is usually abysmal, but it should cover studenty lodging and help pay the other bills. Jobs not considered part of a work-study program may have rigid hours that preclude attending certain classes. However, schools are famously flexible (it’s part of political correctness), and so you often can obtain work on campus that will allow time to take your courses. Pay, though poor, is usually better than student work, and you get a full range of benefits.

Look for scholarships, fellowships, and grants to help underwrite the cost of college or vocational training. A surprising amount of free money goes unused, simply because people are unaware of the opportunities. Some are offered by local groups, service clubs, communities, and churches and are so specific that even candidates who qualify for them don’t think of looking for them. Check websites that aggregate information on scholarships, and ask at college and public library reference desks for leads to funding opportunities.

Some students come up with enterprises to help underwrite costs, such as the guy who realized he could make a profit buying back students’ used books for more than the bookstore paid for them and then reselling them for less than the bookstore charged. Find a need and fill it: this requires some ingenuity, but a microbusiness run out of a dorm room or an apartment can go a long way toward defraying the cost of education.

Speaking of dorm rooms and apartments, refrain from regular drinking, partying, or drug use. These cost a ton of money. You’re already spending enough to keep you in the traces for the rest of your life. Why make things harder on yourself?

Book publishers, seeing a captive audience, have turned textbook publishing into assembly-line fleecing of the sheep. Textbooks are so expensive that some colleges are seriously considering abandoning books altogether and having students use websites. This is a recipe for further dumbing-down of America’s already dumbed down educational system, but that’s another topic…  Consider ways to keep at least some of the wool on your back.

First and foremost: buy books anywhere but at the campus bookstore. Amazon.com is almost invariably cheaper than college bookstores. Try to get your books used, and sell them back through Amazon, using the bookstore’s repurchasing program as your last resort. Look online for sellers and buyers; some online outfits offer a better deal than either Amazon or the bookstore.

A cheaper but less convenient alternative is to use the library. Many texts are put on reserve and so can be accessed during library hours; others are available for check-out and often can be re-checked for the better part of a semester. If a course’s texts are not on reserve, ask the professor if she or he will put them in reserve.

I don’t recommend asking the professor if you really need to buy the book. It’s extremely annoying. Faculty know about and dislike the cost of textbooks. If the professor didn’t think you needed the book for the course, he or she wouldn’t have put it on the syllabus! This strategy flags you in the professor’s mind as someone who’s in school for a rubber-stamp degree and who doesn’t care about the course, its content, or its value. It starts you off on the wrong foot: avoid!

Starting off on the right foot, though, is what adequate education or vocational training will do for you. Even if you have to go back to school later in life to obtain the training you need, a degree, a certificate, or an apprenticeship will help you to earn enough to position yourself for your future of financial independence.

Financial Freedom

• An Overview
• Education
• Work
• Debt
• The health insurance hurdle
The roof over your head