personal finance planning

Consider the Cost Per Use When Planning a New Purchase

When we purchase something and use it frequently we comment that we "got our money's worth" out of it, as the cost-per-use has plummeted. Weigh the frequency of use against the purchase price when considering if something is worth buying.

Photo by Joe Marinaro.

Financial blog Personal Finance by the Book highlights how cost-to-use analysis plays out in different situations. For example, when purchasing a new vehicle it makes little sense to pay extra for features that are infrequently used:

Should you pay an extra $5,000 for that 7 passenger car? It depends on how often you actually need those extra seats for the life of the vehicle. Obviously, if you have a family of seven you need all the seats you can get, but if you only use those extra seats one week a year for your annual vacation, you are paying $1,000 for each of those weeks (assuming you keep your vehicle five years). Because a seven passenger mini-van rents for about $500 a week at Enterprise, you may be better off saving your $5000 purchase price and renting that 7 passenger vehicle when you need it.

Check out the full article at the link below for more examples and tips for applying cost-per-use analysis to your purchases.

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

DEMOCRATS MORE LIKELY TO PERSONALLY ATTACK OPPONENTS IN ADVERTISEMENTS: According to a recent report by the Wesleyan Media Project, in 2010, �pro-Democratic ads focused on the personal characteristics of Republican candidates in 21 percent of their attack ads� compared to 11 percent of pro-Republican ads. This is up from the 12 percent of Democratic attack ads in 2008 that were focused on personal characteristics. 

The report cautions against claims that this election is unusually negative stating the proportion of negative to positive ads is comparable to 2008. However, the big difference is that among negative ads there is an increase among personal attack ads. Overall, that rate has gone up from 14 percent in 2008 to 20 percent in 2010. The report also mentions that attack ads �are far more likely than other ads to be sponsored by parties and/or interest groups� rather than by candidates themselves.

When making independent expenditures with overt messages in favor or opposition to federal candidates, political groups must tell the Federal Election Commission whether their expenditure is to �support� a candidate or �oppose� a candidate. A Center for Responsive Politics analysis of outside groups� expenditures �opposing� candidates compared to ads �supporting� candidates since October 1st shows �opposing ads� totaling $218 million and supporting ads totaling $42 million. These expenditures include TV ads, radio ads, web ads, fliers, mailings, canvassers, phone banks and other communications:

REPUBLICAN RANKING MEMBERS ARE THE COOL KIDS ON THE BLOCK AGAIN:
Ranking members of House committees are becoming the popular kids. If
the Republicans take over majority in the House, committee ranking
members like Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) will be the new chairmen. As the
New York Times reported Tuesday, Republicans in positions to become
chairmen of House committees are seeing an influx of cash and popularity
at fundraisers. Camp, the current ranking member of the tax-writing
House Ways and Means Committee is receiving more contributions as
lobbyists plan for the future.



Jennifer Bell, a former Senate Finance Committee aide and a current
health care lobbyist told the New York Times, �You don�t wait until Nov.
3 and say, �What is the plan?� Obviously, it is the majority that sets
the agenda.�



As OpenSecrets Blog reported yesterday, many industries have been
planning ahead and have started to shift contributions to Republicans.
This phenomenon is not unique to this election as contributions have
historically favored the majority party and have fluctuated accordingly.



Below is a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of contributions to
Camp that shows a sharp increase in contributions during the last three
months - through September 30th. The second chart shows the total contributions to all candidates
during the same period for a linear comparison:




U.S. FALLS OUT OF THE TOP 20 LEAST CORRUPT NATIONS LIST: Transparency International released their annual Corruption Perceptions Index on Tuesday revealing that the United States has dropped from the 19th least corrupt nation in 2009 to 22nd place this year. According to Reuters, Nancy Boswell, the President of TI in the United States stated that the United States has lost integrity and public faith about ethics in America due in part to the lending practices in the subprime crisis, �Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme and rows over political funding.�

On the bright side, the United States is perceived to be just less corrupt than Uruguay, France, Estonia and Slovenia.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

alpine payment systems scam

<b>News</b> Corp. iPad Venture Fishing In Wrong Pond | paidContent

Another day, another hire at News Corp.'s super-duper secret iPad venture dubbed The Daily—and another reason to question whether this is going to be yet another wobbly Rupert Murdoch digital-news enterprise. ...

Pharmaceutical <b>News</b> Roundup: Human Genome&#39;s Lupus Drug, Merck&#39;s <b>...</b>

Here's a roundup of some of Wednesday's major pharmaceutical news: An FDA panel gave Human Genome Sciences a boost with a thumbs-up for its lupus drug, Benlysta; Merck's experimental heart drug appears to work well without side effects; ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.

<b>News</b> Corp. iPad Venture Fishing In Wrong Pond | paidContent

Another day, another hire at News Corp.'s super-duper secret iPad venture dubbed The Daily—and another reason to question whether this is going to be yet another wobbly Rupert Murdoch digital-news enterprise. ...

Pharmaceutical <b>News</b> Roundup: Human Genome&#39;s Lupus Drug, Merck&#39;s <b>...</b>

Here's a roundup of some of Wednesday's major pharmaceutical news: An FDA panel gave Human Genome Sciences a boost with a thumbs-up for its lupus drug, Benlysta; Merck's experimental heart drug appears to work well without side effects; ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.

alpine payment systems scam

<b>News</b> Corp. iPad Venture Fishing In Wrong Pond | paidContent

Another day, another hire at News Corp.'s super-duper secret iPad venture dubbed The Daily—and another reason to question whether this is going to be yet another wobbly Rupert Murdoch digital-news enterprise. ...

Pharmaceutical <b>News</b> Roundup: Human Genome&#39;s Lupus Drug, Merck&#39;s <b>...</b>

Here's a roundup of some of Wednesday's major pharmaceutical news: An FDA panel gave Human Genome Sciences a boost with a thumbs-up for its lupus drug, Benlysta; Merck's experimental heart drug appears to work well without side effects; ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: &#39;Paranormal Activity 3&#39; Gets a Release Date <b>...</b>

This 'Toy Story' Engagement Ring Box is just too adorable. - It shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Oren Peli has confirmed that 'Paranormal.

tracking personal finances

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

big white booty chile

Eddie Fisher dies at 82 | EW.com - TV, movie and music <b>news</b> | <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Pop idol Eddie Fisher died on Wednesday due to complications from a recent hip surgery, his family announced on Thursday. He was 82. Fisher, father to actres...

Tax The Rich! (9pm Saturday on Fox <b>News</b> Channel) « John Stossel

In my weekend special, The Battle for the Future -- it airs Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 8 PM and.

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

Eddie Fisher dies at 82 | EW.com - TV, movie and music <b>news</b> | <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Pop idol Eddie Fisher died on Wednesday due to complications from a recent hip surgery, his family announced on Thursday. He was 82. Fisher, father to actres...

Tax The Rich! (9pm Saturday on Fox <b>News</b> Channel) « John Stossel

In my weekend special, The Battle for the Future -- it airs Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 8 PM and.

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

big white booty

Eddie Fisher dies at 82 | EW.com - TV, movie and music <b>news</b> | <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Pop idol Eddie Fisher died on Wednesday due to complications from a recent hip surgery, his family announced on Thursday. He was 82. Fisher, father to actres...

Tax The Rich! (9pm Saturday on Fox <b>News</b> Channel) « John Stossel

In my weekend special, The Battle for the Future -- it airs Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 8 PM and.

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

managing personal finances

Are you a fan of the GTD personal productivity system? Well if you like "Getting Things Done," here's GFD, Getting Finances Done, which shows you how to map David Allen's same principals to managing your personal finance and achieving your financial goals.

Applying GTD principles to your personal finances - Part 1 [Getting Finances Done]

Are you a fan of the GTD personal productivity system? Well if you like "Getting Things Done," here's GFD, Getting Finances Done, which shows you how to map David Allen's same principals to managing your personal finance and achieving your financial goals.

Applying GTD principles to your personal finances - Part 1 [Getting Finances Done]

mass big white booty

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod <b>...</b>

iLounge news discussing the Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod. Find more iPod Accessories news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Official Google Blog: Google <b>News</b> turns eight

Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod <b>...</b>

iLounge news discussing the Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod. Find more iPod Accessories news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Official Google Blog: Google <b>News</b> turns eight

Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

big white booty

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod <b>...</b>

iLounge news discussing the Libratone Beat offers wireless playback from iPad, iPhone, iPod. Find more iPod Accessories news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Official Google Blog: Google <b>News</b> turns eight

Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

manage personal finances

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

From Hotline (HT: Mataconis):

O'Donnell, a perennial conservative candidate in Delaware, is challenging moderate Rep. Mike Castle (R), the clear favorite of the GOP establishment. But she has come under fire recently for her personal financial problems. Reports have surfaced that she owed $10K in back taxes, defaulted on her mortgage and holds outstanding campaign debt.

Levi Russell, a spokesman for the group, told Hotline On Call that the group was not aware of O'Donnell's personal financial problems before it endorsed her.

"We don't know the exact situation," he said.

When asked if the group discussed the issues with O'Donnell, Russell responded: "No we haven't. We don't really have any contact with the campaign or the candidate."

We have blogged before reasons why we support Mike Castle over O'Donnell. But this report raises even more questions, such as:

1. If the Tea Party really stands for fiscal conservatism, why would they endorse somebody who can't even manage her personal finances?


2. Does it give you confidence in the Tea Party that they go around endorsing people without having any contact with the candidate? How do they know that this female version of Harold Stassen is really worthy of such an endorsement?


3. Christine O'Donnell has run for office 4 times. Her sole victory was an uncontested Republican primary.


4. In 2008, O'Donnell lost the Delaware senate race to Joe Biden by 65-35. She later falsely claimed to have won two counties in that race. Biden's percentage of the vote in 2008 was the largest of any of his senatorial campaigns.


5. In 2008, one of the great Democratic landslides, Mike Castle beat his Democratic challenger for Delaware's sole Congressional seat by 23 points. Castle has won 13 consecutive state-wide races as a candidate either for Governor or Congressman. He's way ahead of the Democrat in the polls while O'Donnell trails the Democrat by 10 points.

As a student of Delaware corporate governance, I am firmly convinced that Delaware needs quality representation in Congress if it is to fend off the creeping federalization of corporate law. As a big tent Republican, I'm inclined to support smart, electable, centrists like Mike Castle over someone like O'Donnell. The perfect must not be allowed to become the enemy of the good. Especially when the supposed perfect candidate is pretty seriously flawed and probably unelectable.

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Taxes on business (particularly manufacturing and energy) have to be dramatically reduced or eliminated. All areas of the United States, except those most highly sensitive, must be opened to oil and gas development, as well as other raw material exploration and development. Research and development has to be given the highest priority, and the products that are the result of this research must be manufactured in the United States. These changes will also have the beneficial side-effect of attracting foreign companies to invest and build manufacturing facilities in the country.

And almost universally, there are problems. While not every state is legally bound to meet budget shortfalls—and avoid carrying deficits year-over-year—virtually every state legislature is contemplating cuts, from arts to social-welfare programs. Most are falling short.

As in personal finance, debt is the pitfall that can come back to haunt states trying to meet their financial obligations. With that in mind, The Daily Beast ranked each state in order of its debt-to-GDP ratio—the higher the ratio, the more likely a state will remain mired in debt.

The debt numbers here are from the U.S. Census and usgovernmentspending.com, which extrapolates Census data based on past state debt increases or decreases to estimate current debt levels. Future deficit levels are based on an independent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which uses estimates of next year’s baseline budget spending compared to expected revenue. State GDP numbers are not yet available for 2009 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, but were adjusted from 2008 levels by the same minuscule percentage decrease in the estimated GDP for the entire country from 2008 to 2009.

Once tabulated, it’s clear that debt is far from a Washington problem, and it belongs to both parties, with “red” and “blue” states, in terms of presidential choice and current governor and legislature, counted among the worst offenders. Where does your state rank? Click here.

How does your state fare in our ranking of the indebtedness of all 50 states? Click here for our rankings, from worst to first.

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From Hotline (HT: Mataconis):

O'Donnell, a perennial conservative candidate in Delaware, is challenging moderate Rep. Mike Castle (R), the clear favorite of the GOP establishment. But she has come under fire recently for her personal financial problems. Reports have surfaced that she owed $10K in back taxes, defaulted on her mortgage and holds outstanding campaign debt.

Levi Russell, a spokesman for the group, told Hotline On Call that the group was not aware of O'Donnell's personal financial problems before it endorsed her.

"We don't know the exact situation," he said.

When asked if the group discussed the issues with O'Donnell, Russell responded: "No we haven't. We don't really have any contact with the campaign or the candidate."

We have blogged before reasons why we support Mike Castle over O'Donnell. But this report raises even more questions, such as:

1. If the Tea Party really stands for fiscal conservatism, why would they endorse somebody who can't even manage her personal finances?


2. Does it give you confidence in the Tea Party that they go around endorsing people without having any contact with the candidate? How do they know that this female version of Harold Stassen is really worthy of such an endorsement?


3. Christine O'Donnell has run for office 4 times. Her sole victory was an uncontested Republican primary.


4. In 2008, O'Donnell lost the Delaware senate race to Joe Biden by 65-35. She later falsely claimed to have won two counties in that race. Biden's percentage of the vote in 2008 was the largest of any of his senatorial campaigns.


5. In 2008, one of the great Democratic landslides, Mike Castle beat his Democratic challenger for Delaware's sole Congressional seat by 23 points. Castle has won 13 consecutive state-wide races as a candidate either for Governor or Congressman. He's way ahead of the Democrat in the polls while O'Donnell trails the Democrat by 10 points.

As a student of Delaware corporate governance, I am firmly convinced that Delaware needs quality representation in Congress if it is to fend off the creeping federalization of corporate law. As a big tent Republican, I'm inclined to support smart, electable, centrists like Mike Castle over someone like O'Donnell. The perfect must not be allowed to become the enemy of the good. Especially when the supposed perfect candidate is pretty seriously flawed and probably unelectable.

From Hotline (HT: Mataconis):

O'Donnell, a perennial conservative candidate in Delaware, is challenging moderate Rep. Mike Castle (R), the clear favorite of the GOP establishment. But she has come under fire recently for her personal financial problems. Reports have surfaced that she owed $10K in back taxes, defaulted on her mortgage and holds outstanding campaign debt.

Levi Russell, a spokesman for the group, told Hotline On Call that the group was not aware of O'Donnell's personal financial problems before it endorsed her.

"We don't know the exact situation," he said.

When asked if the group discussed the issues with O'Donnell, Russell responded: "No we haven't. We don't really have any contact with the campaign or the candidate."

We have blogged before reasons why we support Mike Castle over O'Donnell. But this report raises even more questions, such as:

1. If the Tea Party really stands for fiscal conservatism, why would they endorse somebody who can't even manage her personal finances?


2. Does it give you confidence in the Tea Party that they go around endorsing people without having any contact with the candidate? How do they know that this female version of Harold Stassen is really worthy of such an endorsement?


3. Christine O'Donnell has run for office 4 times. Her sole victory was an uncontested Republican primary.


4. In 2008, O'Donnell lost the Delaware senate race to Joe Biden by 65-35. She later falsely claimed to have won two counties in that race. Biden's percentage of the vote in 2008 was the largest of any of his senatorial campaigns.


5. In 2008, one of the great Democratic landslides, Mike Castle beat his Democratic challenger for Delaware's sole Congressional seat by 23 points. Castle has won 13 consecutive state-wide races as a candidate either for Governor or Congressman. He's way ahead of the Democrat in the polls while O'Donnell trails the Democrat by 10 points.

As a student of Delaware corporate governance, I am firmly convinced that Delaware needs quality representation in Congress if it is to fend off the creeping federalization of corporate law. As a big tent Republican, I'm inclined to support smart, electable, centrists like Mike Castle over someone like O'Donnell. The perfect must not be allowed to become the enemy of the good. Especially when the supposed perfect candidate is pretty seriously flawed and probably unelectable.

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People often ask me about the secret to this blog’s success. “How did you get so many readers?” they ask. “How can I do the same?”

My answer is similar to Anderson’s. There aren’t any secrets. Write and post great content on a regular basis for a long, long time. In short, you can’t just talk about building a great blog; you also have to put in the work. Simple, right? But it’s not easy.

(I appreciate the folks who come up to me and say, “You know, J.D., I don’t know how you do it. I tried to keep a blog for a few months. It was hard.” Yes, it is. It’s work, just like anything else.)

If there’s something you want to be or do, the best way to become that thing is to actually take steps toward it, to move in that direction. Don’t just talk about it, but do something. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Just take a small step in the right direction every single day.

If you want to get out of debt, take small steps toward becoming debt-free. If you want to save for a trip to Africa, save a little bit at a time. If you want to get a new job, make moves in that direction. But take action. That’s the most important step.

Action Not Words

Of course, there’s more to getting stuff than just taking action. It’s one thing to say you want to become a commercial airline pilot and another to actually do it. Here are some of the things I learned as I made the move from Talker do Doer:

• Make time for the things you want to do. One of the keys to getting things done is setting aside time for the things you want to accomplish. You have to make time to get stuff done. As the Kevin J. Anderson article I mentioned above demonstrates, you don’t just become a best-selling author or an Olympic athlete. Talking doesn’t make it so. You have to carve out time to do this stuff. You have to put your Big Rocks first and fit the small stuff in around them.




• Have a goal in mind. I truly believe that the biggest reason I used to struggle with getting stuff done is that I didn’t have any sort of plan. I had no goals. Goals give you purpose. It wasn’t until I became committed to digging out of debt that I was able to actually start moving in the right direction. Part of my current problem is that I’ve recently achieved a bunch of big goals, but now have nothing planned for the future.




• Don’t take on too much. While it’s important to set goals, don’t take on too many tasks at once. I try to set just one or two major goals at a time. Any more and I find I can’t pursue any of them effectively. This year, my one goal is to lose 50 pounds. I’m on pace to do that. Why? Because I don’t have anything else on my schedule competing for time. This is my Big Rock.




• Don’t let failures deter you. This is huge. One of the reasons I used to talk so much without acting is that I was afraid of failure. I’m not sure where I learned to be afraid of defeat, but that’s the way I was. And when I did try something but failed, I’d give up. This is no way to get stuff done. Talkers let fear of failure keep them on the sideline; Doers overcome fear and move on, and when they fail, they simply try again.




• Don’t find reasons that something can’t be done; instead, find ways that something can be done. This is a pet peeve of mine. I hate when people come to me for advice, but when I give it, they tell me all of the reasons it won’t work for their circumstances. (This often happens when I suggest people take a second job to boost their income, for example.) One of the biggest difference between successful people and those who aren’t is that the successful don’t make excuses. If something looks difficult or impossible, they find ways to make it happen anyhow.

In the past five years, I’ve learned that I can do anything I set my mind to. Get out of debt? After I stopped talking and started doing, I got out of debt quicker than I thought possible. Losing 50 pounds? Well, I’m not there yet, but I’ve lost over 30 pounds since January 1st — but it didn’t happen until I stopped talking about it and started working hard to make it happen. Learning French? Well, there’s one where my talk outpaces my action right now, and it’s a perfect example of what I mean when I say actions speak louder than words. I don’t study my French as much as I should, so basically all I can do is count and tell you what color my clothes are. (”J’ai deux chemise noir.”)

For five years, my doing slowly increased until this past winter it reached a frenzied pace. I was burning myself out. I was writing and speaking and working and exercising and…well, it seemed like I never had a spare moment. This was the dark side of doing, and it’s what triggered my desire to downshift. It’s what led the pendulum swinging too far in the direction of Starcraft II.

Finding a Solution

So what’s the solution to my current problem? How can I stop playing computer games so much? How can I stop just being a Talker and become a Doer again? Well, making this public confession is a first step. But the thing that I think will really help is the “decision tree” I came up with the other day. Whenever the urge to game strikes, I’m going to ask myself the following questions:

• Have I exercised today?


• Are the house and yard tidy?


• Have I run all of my errands?


• Have I written and/or edited at least two articles for Get Rich Slowly?


• Does my inbox have fewer than 20 messages?

If I can answer “yes” to these five questions, then it’s okay to play Starcraft II or Carcassonne. But if I answer “no” to even one of these questions, I need to have the discipline to let the gaming go. I believe this will help me strike a balance. It’ll help me return to the world of Doing again. Because you know what? Life is a lot more fun as a Doer than a Talker.

An Introduction to Insurance

Insurance is a way to manage risk. As you go through your life, there’s always a chance that you’ll be in a car accident, twist your knee, or that your home will burn down. The risk of these accidents is small, but if one of them were to happen, the effects could be catastrophic. Without insurance, you’d have to come up with the money on your own to repair your car, have knee surgery, or rebuild your home.

Although these things happen to some people, they don’t happen to everyone. With enough data, it’s possible to know roughly how many people are likely to experience these setbacks — and how much it will cost to recover from them. Using this info, an insurance company can spread the risk among all its customers.

An Elementary Example

Imagine Eastside Elementary, a school with 100 students. Every year for the past 25 years, one Eastside Elementary student has broken an arm in the schoolyard, resulting in about $5,000 in medical expenses. Without insurance, every family would have to save $5,000 to cope with the odds that their little tyke would be the one with the broken arm. At the end of the year, 99 families would have paid nothing (and have $5,000 left in savings), but one family would have paid $5,000 (and have nothing left).

With insurance, the Eastside Elementary families can join together to spread out the risk. If they created an insurance fund, all 100 families would pay $50 at the start of the school year. This $5,000 total would then go to the family of the child with the broken arm.

By spreading the risk, each family only has to save $50 instead of $5,000. Sure, that $5,000 is gone if it’s not your child who breaks her arm, but for most people, that’s an acceptable trade. Instead of having to scrape together the full $5,000, they’d rather risk losing $50 for a chance to avoid $5,000 in medical bills.

But is it really fair to have every family pay $50 into the insurance fund? Some kids go to the library at lunch to read Harry Potter and Mysterious Benedict Society books; others climb around on the jungle gym and throw stones at each other. The bookworms are much less likely to break an arm, aren’t they? And maybe the 25 years of data show that girls break their arms less often than boys. With enough info, the Eastside Elementary Insurance Fund could charge each family a different rate depending on how likely their child is to break an arm.

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Week after week, obsessive Mad Men fans call up retired advertising veterans, fashion historians, and businessmen to suss out what it was really like back in the sixites. But when Don Draper, the son of a prostitute, shockingly ended up getting slapped by an escort wearing a red bullet bra in the season-four premiere, did anyone think to call up a dominatrix and get her take on the scene's verisimilitude? Why yes, in fact: Vulture did. The scene raised so many questions: Does Don need a domme? And do dominatrices get to abuse guys as luscious and successful as Don Draper? On the eve of the prostitute's return in episode three, airing this Sunday, we asked professional dominatrix Mistress Pixie to help us understand some of what Don Draper may be in for. Now sit the fuck down and pay attention, slaves!!!

The slapping sex scene takes place on Thanksgiving day. Would you ever work on Thanksgiving?

Fuck yeah, could care less. Money is money.

This woman on the show, who is not a domme but an escort, mentions her family briefly. Do you ever offer any details of your personal life?

Not too much info in the beginning, but yes, after a few sessions, they like to talk; they become like friends, sort of. And they talk about themselves; it's like therapy.

This woman seems to be offering a little S&M along with sex. What do you think about that and do most dommes ever mix sex with domme work?

No, never. You never cross that line. A real domme never has sex with a client.



What if he's as adorable as Don Draper?

You never have sex, ever; you never cross that line. At least I don't — most don't. But it does annoy us when escorts also advertise themselves as dommes, because real dommes don't have sex. They should advertise themselves as escorts with fetish services. Real domme clients don't get off on sex, they get off on being dominated and humiliated: You give them nothing.

So having a client like Don doesn't turn you on?

No, but a gorgeous client is just an added bonus, a fun toy, more fun to torture.

Are your clients successful men like Don Draper?

Definitely. 90 percent of clients are powerful men: They are powerful at work, in their families, socially. They need a balance; S&M is a need. They need to feel weak and let go.

What kind of women are dommes?

Lots of very educated women, lawyers, woman with PhDs. We love what we do. We love to study psychology so we can fuck with their heads even more.

How's business been with the recession and all? Lots of these high-powered guys have lost their jobs. And Don's not doing great on the show: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is struggling and his finances are taking a hit because of the divorce.

Yeah, we got hit pretty hard two years ago when the recession started. You know, hiring a domme is a luxury. But business is back. You know, when times are so stressful, I guess the luxury becomes a necessity.

Personal finance site for women LearnVest has had a big year. Launched last fall at TechCrunch50, the startup raised its first round of funding from Accel Partners and seed investors a few months ago ($4.5 million to be exact).

LearnVest has a simple goal: to help women organize their finances and learn how to become financially savvy. It’s kind of like an online version of financial planner Suze Orman blended with personal finance site Mint.com.

Today, the startup is launching three online programs, called ‘bootcamps,’ to educate women on various financial subjects, including a Financial Basics Bootcamp, Cut Your Costs Bootcamp, and Investing Bootcamp. Instead of creating a book-like online experience, LearnVest is making email newsletters the foundation of the educational sessions.

For example, the Investing Bootcamp, which costs users $7.99, teaches women how to make smart investing decisions and properly allocate their portfolios. For three weeks, women will receive daily emails with advice and actionable items that they can perform on LearnVest, making the newsletter interactive. For example, for the Financial Basics bootcamp, one of the daily actionable items is ‘Get Your Credit Score.’ Cut Your Costs Bootcamp topic range from Bootcamp topics range from ways to save on energy bills to exactly how to negotiate a lower cable bill. Learnvest will incorporate all of the information users complete and input in bootcamps into their LearnVest account.

Alexa von Tobel, LearnVest’s CEO and founder, tells me that the idea is to encourage women to not only learn, but also motivate them to make actionable decisions about their accounts and finances at the same time. She chose a newsletter format because the ‘LearnVest woman’ simply doesn’t have time to read the same information in a book. Women are more inclined to read a daily tidbit in an email vs. sitting down with a book, says von Tobel.

LearnVest held a pilot bootcamp in January and saw impressive results—8,000 people signed up for the basic financial bootcamp. With the new additions LearnVest expects to sign up a total of 40,000 participants. LearnVest plans to launch additional bootcamps in the future, including sessions realted to how to get a mortgage for a home.

The integration between the bootcamp educational sessions and the user’s LearnVest profile is key to the success of the initiative. As we wrote in our initial review of LearnVest, the site will ask you a series of questions about your financial health (i.e. how much credit card debt do you have), you life stages (i.e. do you rent, are you planning a family soon, do you own a house) and your financial education level and will diagnose your financial health and give you a snapshot of what you need to learn and improve. LearnVest will create customized plans for you, depending on your goals, and allow you to chart off your improvements and achievements.

Von Tobel says that LearnVest is steadily adding more female users flock to its site and is currently seeing 500K uniques per month. The next step is to take the site mobile, says von Tobel, and help women access LearnVest on the go.

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J.D.: Parents tend not to like parenting advice from parents either. You really can’t win. It’s a war zone re: parenting choices out there, and all that tells me is that overall families with kids are not feeling well-accommodated in the current economic structure.

Glad the family factor finally got mentioned though. Similarly our first cutting area would have to be kids’ extracurriculars, second would be quality of nutrition, third would be heat, then we’d sell the house or take on a tenant rather than lending our basement apartment to a friend.

Parenthood has three-quartered our income and nearly quadrupled our expenses. We didn’t have a car, for example, before the kids started begging for us to please get out of the city sometimes. And how do you say no to that if you can afford it? “No, kid. Go play in the parking lot. Trees aren’t all they’re chalked up to be.” Our only financial fat is kids’ activities. With two kids and no consumer debt, we have very little to cut re: grownup expenses. (Um, we get takeout once a week so I can stop cooking for a minute?)

Etc. etc..

That said I’m constantly looking for ways to bring a little in here and there while I’m mostly at home. This will get easier when they’re both in full day school. Day care + summer camps would cost more than my salary as an arts professional, so I opted to stay mainly at home for seven years. Opted being a strong word. It was a financial no-brainer, and I personally felt I had no choice. On the other hand other parents I know feel compelled to work full time because in their particular situation that makes the most sense. Truly every situation is different, and no doubt everyone is doing what they can to provide as much as they can for their kids.

Financial factors aside, some people freely admit to not being able to handle the stresses of at-home parenting. Self-knowledge is key to this gig. Better the kids are in daycare than cared for by a no doubt loving but resentful and unhappy parent. Loving the act of parenting and loving your children are two very different things.

Governor Schwarzenegger has once again furloughed workers, declaring California is in a fiscal emergency. Excuse me for asking but when has California ever not been in a state of fiscal emergency?

Bloomberg reports Schwarzenegger Orders Furloughs Amid California Budget Impasse

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered more than 150,000 state workers to take three days of mandatory unpaid time off to conserve cash.

The executive order, effective Aug. 1, stipulates that the furloughs will end when a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 is enacted, the governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said in an e-mail. It comes after government workers endured furloughs over almost 12 months that ended June 30.

California began its fiscal year without a spending plan after Schwarzenegger and Democrats remained deadlocked over how to fill a $19.1 billion deficit. Controller John Chiang has warned he may again need to issue IOUs to pay bills if the impasse continues into September.

“Every day of delay brings California closer to a fiscal meltdown,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement today. “Our cash situation leaves me no choice but to once again furlough state workers until the Legislature produces a budget I can sign.”

Fiscal Emergency California Style

The Business Spectator reports California state of fiscal emergency: Schwarzenegger

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency over the state's finances yesterday, raising pressure on lawmakers to negotiate a state budget that is more than a month overdue and will need to close a $US19 billion ($A21.3 billion) shortfall.

The deficit is 22 per cent of the $US85 billion general fund budget the governor signed last July for the fiscal year that ended in June, highlighting how the steep drop in California's revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment have slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.

In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three days off without pay per month beginning in August for tens of thousands of state employees to preserve the state's cash to pay its debt, and for essential services.

California's budget is five weeks overdue, joining New York among big states with spending plans yet to be approved, and Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers are at an impasse over how to balance the state's books.

Analysts say it could be several more weeks before the Republican governor and leaders of the Democrat-led legislature reach an agreement, a delay that threatens to lower the state's already weak credit rating, now hovering just a few notches above "junk" status.

Schwarzenegger's new furlough order was instantly condemned by labor officials as a political ploy.

"To once again force state employees to take unpaid furloughs is just another punitive measure by Governor Schwarzenegger because he couldn't impose minimum wage," said Patty Velez, president of the California Association of Professional Scientists.

Political Ploy or Act of Sanity?

The unions accuse Schwarzenegger of playing politics. Here's the real story: He had 8 years to get rid of unions and failed to do so. He is not playing politics now, he played them before, being too spineless to take on the unions until recently.

Now he is a lame duck. Let's hope the next governor has more common sense. Don't count on it. After all we are talking about California where pandering to unions is the best way of getting elected.

By the way, can someone even tell me why California has an "Association of Professional Scientists"? Is there anything in California that is not unionized?

The solution is privatize everything, putting people like Patty Velez out on her ass where she has to do some real work instead of preying on taxpayers for more unjustified union benefits. The same applies to the prison guards and every other California union as well.

Common Sense in Fort Worth

Please consider Fort Worth council considers eliminating guaranteed pension for newer workers

City Council members are considering doing away with a guaranteed pension for newer employees as the council struggles to bring Fort Worth's spending in line with the drop in taxes.

No decisions have been made. And Assistant City Manager Karen Montgomery said the city would still have to deal with a big backlog in pension costs even if the council decides to cut benefits. But pensions have been a sacred cow among state and local governments, and few others have even discussed cutting them.

By law, the city can't change the benefits that it's already paying retirees or those that it has promised to employees who have worked long enough to be vested in the pension system. Also, police and firefighter pensions are guaranteed under labor contracts.

The city could be forced to pour tens of millions of dollars into the pension system over the next few years, and pension costs are a major contributor to Fort Worth's projected $73 million budget gap.

"This is the elephant in the room for not only this budget but all future budgets," Mayor Mike Moncrief said.

Montgomery suggested moving new employees and perhaps even unvested employees to a "defined contribution" plan. The specifics of the plan haven't been determined, but Montgomery suggested a range of options, including annuities or accounts similar to a private-sector 401(k).
That would be a game-changer for municipal employees, who often stay in their jobs because of the pension and other benefits.

"In our current pension, employees cannot outlive their benefit," Montgomery said. "In a defined contribution, that risk is on the employee to manage their money until they die."

Employees, including the police and firefighters associations, have argued to keep the pension system as it is. A committee made up mostly of employees recommended that the city contribute an additional 6 percent of payroll to the pension, which would fix the shortfall in a few years.

Finally!

At long last a major city in the US (Fort Worth has a population in excess of 600,000) is considering doing what desperately needs to be done: killing defined benefit pension plans for public workers.

Instead, the union suggests "an additional 6 percent of payroll to the pension, which would fix the shortfall in a few years". Where would that contribution come from? Taxpayers of course. Will it fix the system? No, it will not fix the shortfall because of insane pension plan assumptions.

The only solution is to kill these plans right here, right now. Unfortunately, such action will not fix the problem of unfunded plans for current vested employees, but it is a major step in preventing further buildup of a fiscally insane proposition.

If unions had any common sense they would embrace, not fight these decisions. The reason of course is the only other solution for cities would be to resolve these difficulties by declaring bankruptcy, putting accrued benefits at risk.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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J.D.: Parents tend not to like parenting advice from parents either. You really can’t win. It’s a war zone re: parenting choices out there, and all that tells me is that overall families with kids are not feeling well-accommodated in the current economic structure.

Glad the family factor finally got mentioned though. Similarly our first cutting area would have to be kids’ extracurriculars, second would be quality of nutrition, third would be heat, then we’d sell the house or take on a tenant rather than lending our basement apartment to a friend.

Parenthood has three-quartered our income and nearly quadrupled our expenses. We didn’t have a car, for example, before the kids started begging for us to please get out of the city sometimes. And how do you say no to that if you can afford it? “No, kid. Go play in the parking lot. Trees aren’t all they’re chalked up to be.” Our only financial fat is kids’ activities. With two kids and no consumer debt, we have very little to cut re: grownup expenses. (Um, we get takeout once a week so I can stop cooking for a minute?)

Etc. etc..

That said I’m constantly looking for ways to bring a little in here and there while I’m mostly at home. This will get easier when they’re both in full day school. Day care + summer camps would cost more than my salary as an arts professional, so I opted to stay mainly at home for seven years. Opted being a strong word. It was a financial no-brainer, and I personally felt I had no choice. On the other hand other parents I know feel compelled to work full time because in their particular situation that makes the most sense. Truly every situation is different, and no doubt everyone is doing what they can to provide as much as they can for their kids.

Financial factors aside, some people freely admit to not being able to handle the stresses of at-home parenting. Self-knowledge is key to this gig. Better the kids are in daycare than cared for by a no doubt loving but resentful and unhappy parent. Loving the act of parenting and loving your children are two very different things.

Governor Schwarzenegger has once again furloughed workers, declaring California is in a fiscal emergency. Excuse me for asking but when has California ever not been in a state of fiscal emergency?

Bloomberg reports Schwarzenegger Orders Furloughs Amid California Budget Impasse

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered more than 150,000 state workers to take three days of mandatory unpaid time off to conserve cash.

The executive order, effective Aug. 1, stipulates that the furloughs will end when a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 is enacted, the governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said in an e-mail. It comes after government workers endured furloughs over almost 12 months that ended June 30.

California began its fiscal year without a spending plan after Schwarzenegger and Democrats remained deadlocked over how to fill a $19.1 billion deficit. Controller John Chiang has warned he may again need to issue IOUs to pay bills if the impasse continues into September.

“Every day of delay brings California closer to a fiscal meltdown,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement today. “Our cash situation leaves me no choice but to once again furlough state workers until the Legislature produces a budget I can sign.”

Fiscal Emergency California Style

The Business Spectator reports California state of fiscal emergency: Schwarzenegger

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency over the state's finances yesterday, raising pressure on lawmakers to negotiate a state budget that is more than a month overdue and will need to close a $US19 billion ($A21.3 billion) shortfall.

The deficit is 22 per cent of the $US85 billion general fund budget the governor signed last July for the fiscal year that ended in June, highlighting how the steep drop in California's revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment have slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.

In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three days off without pay per month beginning in August for tens of thousands of state employees to preserve the state's cash to pay its debt, and for essential services.

California's budget is five weeks overdue, joining New York among big states with spending plans yet to be approved, and Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers are at an impasse over how to balance the state's books.

Analysts say it could be several more weeks before the Republican governor and leaders of the Democrat-led legislature reach an agreement, a delay that threatens to lower the state's already weak credit rating, now hovering just a few notches above "junk" status.

Schwarzenegger's new furlough order was instantly condemned by labor officials as a political ploy.

"To once again force state employees to take unpaid furloughs is just another punitive measure by Governor Schwarzenegger because he couldn't impose minimum wage," said Patty Velez, president of the California Association of Professional Scientists.

Political Ploy or Act of Sanity?

The unions accuse Schwarzenegger of playing politics. Here's the real story: He had 8 years to get rid of unions and failed to do so. He is not playing politics now, he played them before, being too spineless to take on the unions until recently.

Now he is a lame duck. Let's hope the next governor has more common sense. Don't count on it. After all we are talking about California where pandering to unions is the best way of getting elected.

By the way, can someone even tell me why California has an "Association of Professional Scientists"? Is there anything in California that is not unionized?

The solution is privatize everything, putting people like Patty Velez out on her ass where she has to do some real work instead of preying on taxpayers for more unjustified union benefits. The same applies to the prison guards and every other California union as well.

Common Sense in Fort Worth

Please consider Fort Worth council considers eliminating guaranteed pension for newer workers

City Council members are considering doing away with a guaranteed pension for newer employees as the council struggles to bring Fort Worth's spending in line with the drop in taxes.

No decisions have been made. And Assistant City Manager Karen Montgomery said the city would still have to deal with a big backlog in pension costs even if the council decides to cut benefits. But pensions have been a sacred cow among state and local governments, and few others have even discussed cutting them.

By law, the city can't change the benefits that it's already paying retirees or those that it has promised to employees who have worked long enough to be vested in the pension system. Also, police and firefighter pensions are guaranteed under labor contracts.

The city could be forced to pour tens of millions of dollars into the pension system over the next few years, and pension costs are a major contributor to Fort Worth's projected $73 million budget gap.

"This is the elephant in the room for not only this budget but all future budgets," Mayor Mike Moncrief said.

Montgomery suggested moving new employees and perhaps even unvested employees to a "defined contribution" plan. The specifics of the plan haven't been determined, but Montgomery suggested a range of options, including annuities or accounts similar to a private-sector 401(k).
That would be a game-changer for municipal employees, who often stay in their jobs because of the pension and other benefits.

"In our current pension, employees cannot outlive their benefit," Montgomery said. "In a defined contribution, that risk is on the employee to manage their money until they die."

Employees, including the police and firefighters associations, have argued to keep the pension system as it is. A committee made up mostly of employees recommended that the city contribute an additional 6 percent of payroll to the pension, which would fix the shortfall in a few years.

Finally!

At long last a major city in the US (Fort Worth has a population in excess of 600,000) is considering doing what desperately needs to be done: killing defined benefit pension plans for public workers.

Instead, the union suggests "an additional 6 percent of payroll to the pension, which would fix the shortfall in a few years". Where would that contribution come from? Taxpayers of course. Will it fix the system? No, it will not fix the shortfall because of insane pension plan assumptions.

The only solution is to kill these plans right here, right now. Unfortunately, such action will not fix the problem of unfunded plans for current vested employees, but it is a major step in preventing further buildup of a fiscally insane proposition.

If unions had any common sense they would embrace, not fight these decisions. The reason of course is the only other solution for cities would be to resolve these difficulties by declaring bankruptcy, putting accrued benefits at risk.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

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