This Just In.....

I just ran down to Costco (a big warehouse store if you are unfamiliar) to pick up some stuff (paid cash). I was listening to the radio and a commercial for a major banking outfit came on. I won't mentioned their name but they own a stagecoach. In the commercial a male voice is speculating about how great it would be to have all the money you needed or wanted. "You can," the narrator says. "It is possible with a Stagecoach Bank Home Equity Line-of-Credit (HELOC)." Gazooks!! All the money I ever wanted. How great is that? He goes on to say that you can use it to send the kids to college or add an energy- efficient room to the house. What responsible citizen of the planet wouldn't want to conserve energy or educate their kids? Why no one, that's who. It is practically your duty to borrow this money. Presumably, you could also use it to buy a Skidoo, boat, new car, or pay off the bazillions of dollars in credit card debt that has piled up on you. But who would do that? Would someone who has been irresponsible with debt risk the old homestead to buy some more cool stuff. No way I'm sure, and Stagecoach is pretty sure too, I think. The only people who get HELOCs are smart savvy responsible investor types, not spendthrifts and the broke, desperate and stupid, that's for sure. So here is the plan. First thing tomorrow we all go to the bank and get a HELOC for the whole shebang. That's right we borrow up to our eyeballs and we buy some energy-efficient and educational stuff asap. Are you with me? Anybody, anybody, anybody, Bueller, anybody? Don't borrow against your house, it is where you sleep.

My Eyes, My Eyes!

http://www.bigfoto.com I saw in the paper today that one of the fine dude ranches in my fair city is being redone as a clothing-optional resort, aka nudist colony. Not only that, it will be aimed at your 40 to 60 year-old nudist. Yikes! I shower every day with a 40 to 60 year-old naked guy and it is something you don't want to see. Heck, I don't even want to see most people in their summer attire. I prefer the Chicago in December look. You know the one where everyone is bundled up agains't the bitter wind blowing off Lake Michigan. It is the great equalizer. My solomn pledge to the world is this. I will not appear in public with any part of my torso visible. We wouldn't have to have this discussion if some people, and you know who you are, would use some restraint in their dress. Ladies, I don't wish to see your love handles sticking out over your low rider jeans. You may not know it but many times your butt crack shows when you sit. No thanks. As a side note, I saw a woman at the store wearing a top that tied around the back of the neck and was open in the back. She was wearing a standard model bra that was in plain sight, including the industrial-strenght hooks. May want to rethink that look. Men, I don't care to see your boxers because you are wearing pants that are too big for you. Hold off on the tank tops boys. If you insist upon shorts they should not be too short or too long. At all times no portion of your fat gut should hang out of your shirt. Folks I have enough issues myself without having to be embarrassed for you. Put a little thought into this, will ya?

Finding Your Inner Tree

I have spent big chunks of my life trying to be a better person. Sadly, I admit that my efforts have largely been a fool's errand. Normal people have empathy for their fellow man. Me? Not so much. I come from the "You shot it Tarzan, you eat it" school. As Earl Hickey would say, "Don't mess with Karma." For example, take the headline I saw in the paper today. It said Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones fell out of a palm tree. I seems that he has taken a much-needed respite from the Stones "Death Warmed Over Tour" by vacationing in Fiji and has fallen from a palm tree, suffering a concussion. Oh, I know what you are wondering, "What kind of palm tree was it?" No wait, that is what I wondered. I also wonder what a 62 year-old bozo is doing in a palm tree in the first place and what substance was he under the influence of and how much did he ingest? By the way, according to the news report, this is Richards second concussion of the week. Most people are sympathetic toward poor Keith and wish him the best. Senior citizen falls out of a palm tree? No sympathy from me. Oh, before I forget, it was a Coconut Palm. Then there are these knuckleheads the cops shoot because they are waving a gun around. For instance, there was a guy shot recently because when the cop showed up to break up the fight he and his girlfriend were having, he pointed a gun at the cop and refused to put it down. The knucklehead had already shot up her car, before taking the battle inside. Several people called 911 to report a man with a gun screaming at a woman in the parking lot. The girlfriend, bless her, tried the old "my dog didn't bite you defense". She said he didn't shoot the car, but if he did, he wasn't angry, and even if he was angry he didn't have the gun on him when the cops got there, and even if he did have the gun he never pulled it out, and if he did pull it out he wasn't going to shoot. Brilliant. But of course she loved him 'cause he was trying to stay off drugs and trying not to hang around criminals and trying not to be hostile toward the world. They were planning to get married as soon as he finished drug treatment. True love is so beautiful.

Is it me or is it hot in here?

I was headed to work today and a guy passes me in an older junker-type of car. The thing that I noticed was a computer-generated sign taped in the back window that said, "Like the Global Warming? Thank Bush and his friends". Well excuse me. Bush may do things I don't like and that you may hate, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't cause global warming in the past six years. Does the driver believe this or does he think I will? It seems that the climate was hunky-dorry until 2000. Belief that Bush managed to completely hose the environment in 6 short years invites the question, "Why did Al Gore write Earth in the Lurch or spend years of the Clinton administration demanding that the Kyoto Protocal be ratified if Bush caused global warming a year after Clinton left office?" It drives me crazy that people feel the need to bombard me with their messages. Most of the time these messages simplify issues to the point of absurdity. At my office there are two cars with competing bumper stickers. One says "Annoy a Liberal, work, succeed, enjoy", the other says, "Annoy a Conservative, Think, Understand, Explore." The problem is that both are rooted in nonsensical stereotypes. Geez, keep it to yourself.

Buying That Car, If You Insist

If the time has come where you just have to have a different car, these thoughts are for you. Car buying is a unique transaction because both buyer and seller are trying to stick it to the other side. The thing to remember is that car dealers are professionals at getting into your pocket. You are not. This is not the usual academic discussion about car buying. These are some tips from a guy who learned it the hard way before he wised up and figured this stuff out. These are in no particular order. 1. Do your research before hand. Find out about the cars you like by reading reviews and reports. Use sites like Edmunds.com or KBB.com to find out the fair market values. 2. Don't get all emotional over a stupid car. Don't get pressured because you think the car you are looking at is the only deal in the world. Car sales people try to convince you that you must buy now. Don't fall for it. When the PT Cruiser was a new model people bought the line that they were in short supply new and used and overpaid. Now they can't give them away. Time is your ally. 3. Don't make the deal at night. Go look at your dream car when the lot is closed. That way you can't be pressured. Never try to make a deal after dinner. Dealers tend to close at 9 pm and they will used the time pressure to their advantage. Remember, their worst fear is that you will walk off the lot. 4. Don't buy new. According to the experts and non-experts alike buying a new car is not too smart. New cars depreciate about 15% a year for the first 3 years and 7-10% for the next few. Buy a two year old car with 25,000 miles for 70-75% of the original price. If you are the average driver this car will last you another 10 years easy. You will get sick of it before then. 5. Have your financing worked out before hand. Don't let the dealer be your financial advisor on this deal. It is a conflict of interest big time. The dealer gets backend money for directing the loan on a car to lenders. You ought to be paying cash, but if you don't, get your financing in order beforehand. The bank will tell you what they will loan you based upon your situation. The dealer will get you a loan to cover whatever he can sell you. 6. Buy on price alone. Offer a price. Don't let them talk to you about monthly payment or loan length. Buying on monthly payment amounts is a disaster. Someone will loan you money to by a Hummer for $200 per month if you are willing to take a 20 year loan. Decide on a price that is fair and stick to your guns. Don't talk extended warranties or security crappola period. Extended warranties are mostly profit to the dealer. If you must have one get it yourself. 7. Keep your old car out of the deal. Your old car will bring you more if you just sell it yourself. Additionally, putting your trade into the deal opens up avenues for you to get screwed. If you have researched your old car and found that wholesale value (what the dealer will give if you are lucky) is $6000, you will quickly find out the dealer has a bunch of reason why he won't give that price for it. I had a knucklehead at a dealership tell me Kelly Blue Book didn't mean anything. They had their own book. 8. Be strong enough to walk away If the deal isn't exactly what you wanted, walk. I had a dealer friend who told me that the thing to remember is you can't hurt a salesman's feeling because this isn't personal to him. He is simply trying to get as much from you as he can. Walk away, there are cars and dealers everywhere. They need you to survive, you don't need them. No one ever died of automobile deprivation.

Gas Prices

Gas prices are up, way up, and we all know what that means. Yes, hairdos from news outlets across America are being dispatched to gas stations with two objectives, look serious while standing in front of the station and to find outraged drivers to interview. Taking these in reverse order I have the following observation. There is an inverse relationship between people who are willing to be interviewed and their fitness to offer an opinion. The dopier the subject the more likely they are to make the news. This is in part due to the sheer entertainment value in putting half-wits on the news and in part to the trend toward "no-fair" journalism. Victims are the cash cow of the news business. Intelligent people are not willing to get on the TV and whine about gas prices. They have better things to do. Moving along to the news readers. The average reporter, print or television, can't do math and will buy pretty much any story so long as it plays on the outrage of the citizens. In Hairdo Land everyone is entitled to everything. When they can't have it it is no damn fair. Some drivers are cash-strapped, some drive a bunch because they have to, cabbies, sales people, etc. and this is a real crisis for them. I get it. But most of us are not in that situation, so calm down. When gas was $2 per gallon the average driver who drove 12000 per year and got 20 miles per gallon spent $1200 per year on gas. At 3 bucks per, the same driver is going to spend $1800. That's not insignificant, but it is only $1.65 per day. What is a buck sixty five in the big scheme? Plenty to those who don't have, but not much compared to how many of us spend our money. For instance, I bought a cup of cheap coffee this morning for $1.28. 25% of American adults still smoke at $5.00 per pack. A Big Gulp at 7-11, $1.29. How about that lunch at McD's for $5 or 6 dollars? Don't even get me started on Starbucks or bottled water or Powerball tickets. Get some perspective for Pete's sake. The real deal though, is that this must be a conspiracy. That's the point the news folks are really trying to make. This is no fair and something is fishy. Chevron and Exxon are screwing consumers and we know it. Chuckie "I'm Outraged" Schummer rushed to the microphone to let us know that Bush sucks and he and his oil pals are screwing us. Plus the news people bring us stories about what folks are resorting to in order to get some gas. I saw where drivers in SoCal are purposely running out of gas on the freeway so that the courtesy patrol will rescue them. I don't get how this helps them. Someone else was selling his DVD collection to buy gas. Very sad, I feel very sad. The real deal is that a lot of people live on the financial edge because of their poor choices. Drivers all over the world pay far more that we do, but it has to be ChevBushon. Oil at $75 buck per barrel? Cheney. Forget China and its 18 bazillion cars. Forget its economy growing at 10% per year. Forget that America has relatively little oil and forget that guys like Chuckie Schummer won't let us drill for what we do have. Forget all that, because Goober at the corner station told Mindy from Channel 8 that something is fishy. It must be true. Look, I'm as unhappy about these prices as the next guy, but that is the way markets work. If you want to make a difference in your life in particular and the world in general, cut back on your driving. Walk somewhere, don't take that spur-of-the-moment trip to Target, ride the bus. Do something and stop complaining.

Doctor Visit and Other Updates

Well, I went to my doctor's appointment today. The good news is that they were expecting me this time. In fact Scrubs made a point to get in a little dig about yesterday's misunderstanding. I asked if the doctor was running 90 minutes late today and she feigned confusion. "Why no", she said, as though I had asked her the most ridiculous question ever. We took care of the copay and the copy of my insurance card and I was told to have a seat. At 3:20 pm, only 5 minutes late, my name was called. Now we are cooking I thought. I was escorted to an examining room, my vitals checked, I was weighed (fat!) and my medical history confirmed. I was told that the doctor would be right in. I waited. I read all the charts on the wall. I studied the posters of various bodily systems. I leafed through the same Reader's Digest as last visit. It was now 3:45. My daughter call my cell to say her water was out. That reminded me to turn off the ringer on my cell. I looked through Highlights for Kids and examined a coloring some kid gave the doctor. At 3:55 pm I called my daughter back about the water situation. "Main break," she said, "could be 48 hours to fix it." That sounds bad. I laid down on the examining table and studied the ceiling tiles. My son called to ask if I called him. I must have accidentally dialed his phone while laying on the table. I must not have cleared the directory function when I used it to call my daughter. At 4:05 pm the doctor came in. Scrubs was right. He wasn't 90 minutes behind, just 50 minutes. His cell rang and he left to take the call. When he came back we spent about 15 minutes some time going over my labs and my various ailments. I guess I will live. My doctor is just a nice guy. I need to check back for new labs in September. I also heard from my homeless son bugging me for money. I wouldn't give him any yesterday so he tried twice more today. I didn't answer the phone either time. Well, I'm off to bowling.

Ain't Healthcare Great?

I thought that I had a doctor's appointment today. More on that later. I am pretty sure that medical offices exist so that surly young women will have a place to wear scrubs and a pretend they are in the healing arts. Healing is just something that goes on in backroom, their true business is weilding power over the masses. I had a friend once who was a car dealer. He told me that the only reason dealers sell cars is so that the manufacturers will let them do warranty work. Selling the crap is the ticket to the really big dough, fixing it. Doctor's office? Same deal. The only reason they allow people like me into the building is so that the HMO lets them do warranty work. If they could get the diseases to come in alone, they would. Anyway, I sign in and wait to be summoned to the front desk to pay my copay. While waiting, I hear someone say my doctor is running 90 minutes behind. He is always 90 minutes behind. I onced asked why they didn't call me to advise that they were 90 minutes behind schedule? That way I could have spent a few more minutes at work, rather than racing across town. The scrub-wearer looked me in the eye and said, "We don't do that." Glad we cleared that up. They also ask me everytime if they have a copy of my insurance card. They have files and computers and computer files, you think they would know. I am tempted to say no to see how many copies they will make before they notice the bulging pile. Hark! I hear my name. I hurry to the desk and this woman that scares me asks, "Merle, do you have an appointment?" This can't be good. "Well, I'm pretty sure I do, 3:15 pm", I relpy. It turns out I don't. After some computer sleuthing she finds that I'm scheduled for tomorrow. This launchs a discussion about who's wrong. It must be me because, as you may recall, they don't do that. Forget the fact that I have some pretty strong, anecdotal evidence that I am here on the right day. I ask her if they can work me in somehow. She sends me to the scheduler, who calls the doctor's nurse, who says maybe. Maybe, maybe what? I seems that I am supposed to wait and see if it works out. Otherwise I can come back tomorrow. I explain that I left work early, drove an hour to get there and that I have an appointment at 5:30pm. If I wait I have to be done at 5:00. It is now 3:20pm. No promises. So I guess I have to leave work again tomorrow, drive an hour there and sit 90 minutes in the office. By the way, while I typed this post they called to remind me of my appointment tomorrow at 3:15. "Will the doctor be running late tomorrow?", I ask. "We never know until that day", she says. Great ain't it?

Nothing Left to Lose

According to the songwriter Kris Kristofferson, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Is it true that real freedom is hitching through life with the clothes on your back? Not an experiment I am going to try anytime soon. The reason I bring this up is to point out that we chart a course of emptiness when we accumulate a bunch of stuff, with money we don't have. A high consumption lifestyle makes us vulnerable to the vageries of life. Job loss, pay cuts, or illness seriously muck up the best laid plans. We work long hours at crappy jobs because we buy stuff we don't need. We miss our kid's games and events, the company of our loved ones. We trade our lives for a bunch of stuff. Bad deal folks. Across America there are hundreds of thousands of young mothers who trudge off to work, leaving a toddler or two in daycare so that the family can have a nice car. Not put food on the table or a roof over their heads, but a car or truck or a boat. Whatever it is, our choices about our stuff drive how we live our lives. It is not uncommon for a car payment to be $500 or more per month these days. Take that cost and add gas, insurance, daycare, work clothing, eating out, taxes, etc. and soon owning the car is really costing $1500 per month, forcing mom to stay workplace. If families would analyze their situation it would be plain that mom could stay home with the kids or if she wants to work, to sock away money for the family's future, if they would just stop buying stuff. Do we do work that gives us satisfaction or do we suffer through our worklives to support our stuff? It is our choice. For a lot of folks the stress of paying for stuff is tremendous. It feels okay to buy things but it is decidedly not fun to try to juggle the pile of bills that result from buying a bunch of stuff on credit. Do you suppose the zillion credit consolidation schemes are there because buying stuff is emotionally satisfying to folks? Stuff loses its power to satisy pretty quickly, but the demands for repayment are relentless. One morning I was strolling around the office before most people had arrived when I came upon a guy I know, sitting at his desk with a checkbook and a large pile of bills. I asked him what he was doing and he said getting his bills ready to mail on Friday when we get paid. He remarked that it would be great to have enough money to pay all his bills without worrying about it. I offered that each bill in the pile was a decision he made, trying to provoke a response. His response was to call me a miser and to tell me that you can't take it with you. Brilliant, you can't take it with you, but they sure can take it from you. This guy and his spouse make $100,000+ per year. Their three kids are grown and they have lived in the same house for over 25 years. I'll will bet they owe more on that house today than they paid for it 25 years ago. I know he refinanced once to redo the kitchen, and they openned a HELOC to pay off some bills. Yet they continue to buy stuff on credit. They like to go out to eat at every new restaurant that opens and I'll bet you that they charge it. I know for a fact that one of the bills he was paying was on a department store charge and he was not paying it in full. I know because the check and the statement were in plain sight while we spoke. Making payments on clothes. Go figure. My advice to people like my friend is that what is great is not having enough to juggle the bills, but instead not caring when payday is. Not buying a bunch of stuff makes this possible.

Beyond Hope?

I have been trying to help this homeless guy get his life turned around. I am beginning to think that it is a fool's errand. This isn't just a homeless guy, it is my son, the son we adopted at 6 years old, in the hope that we could give him a better life. I used to joke that if he reached adulthood without me being identified in the local news as "the father of the suspect" or as the "victim", I would considered myself a success. Well, he's an adult and I wasn't in the paper, but I definitely didn't succeed in making him a productive citizen. One of our biological children has a doctorate, another is working on a second master's degree and the third is an undergraduate so it seems nature won over nuture in his case. The trouble started early. He did poorly in school and socially. He made friends with kids who were in trouble and used drugs. In high school he rarely attended and finally dropped out. His girlfriend became pregnant once and then again. He worked low wage jobs, often two at a time to make ends meet. For awhile it seemed as though he might just make it. Then he didn't. The slide began with sporadic calls for help with the rent. Then it accelerated to every month. He would ask to borrow money, $500 or $600 at a time. Just until he got paid he would always say. He even called once to say he was on the way over with the money, but he never made it. He called at Christmas crying that they were about to be put out and the kids had no Christmas gifts. It was a lie to get drug money. It took me over $10,000 in "loans" to figure this out. The girlfriend covered up his drug use because she "loved him". The girlfriend and kids finally moved in with her mother. While living with her mother she managed to get pregnant by him for a third time. Three kids he doesn't support. We took him into our home for 9 months so that he could get a fresh start. He didn't pay a cent of rent even though he had several jobs during that time. All his cash, it seems, went to drugs. We finally got him to leave. He is never coming back here, that much I do know. Now flops where he can. He stays with people a few days until they put him out. Recently, he was staying with a couple of dopers until they got arrested and put in county lockup. He was abruptly back on the street with all his belongings locked in their apartment. He explained to me that this was just more of his bad luck. He doesn't see that if you flop with criminals it leads to bad stuff, not bad luck. I made an arrangement for him to get into a rehab program. He didn't go. I drove him to a homeless center last Monday morning. They offered him work and a place to live. He decided that he didn't want to work construction and left. Instead he got a job at a burger joint yesterday and is flopping with a friend. I tried to tell him that he would soon get asked to leave the apartment and will lose his job because he is homeless. He thinks he is smarter than me so he ignores me. He calls me every couple of days or so to ask for $5 or $10 bucks. He walks to where I work to get the cash. He calls from pay phones or a friend's cell to my cell phone. I don't recognize the number so I answer because it might be one of my customers. My dilemma is whether or not to keep giving him a few bucks. The money means nothing to me but am I allowing him to keep on keeping on? He is not beyond hope, but his is beyond my ability to help. I just don't know. I

The Way I See It

I am just an ordinary older guy. I am a working man, not a gifted writer or thinker. I didn't graduate from college until I was 46 years old. Along the way I was never out of work, even for one day. I am a plodder. I worry about having enough to retire. My net worth is substantial, but I don't feel secure. When is enough, enough? Do I need 100% of our working income to retire or 80%? Can we live on 4% or 5% or 10% of our retirement savings? Depends on who you ask. There are a bunch of differing opinions but in the end it is up to you to decide. So if the measure of financial security is individual, what do I really believe about money? I have been thinking about this alot lately? Here are some of the things I believe. Nothing here is new or original, but it has served me well. 1. Money can't buy happiness. It can make your life easier, but if you are miserable, money will not change that. I am a worrier. Having some money allowed me to stop worrying about the car breaking down, but I just found nonfinancial stuff to fret over. 2. Pay yourself first. My strategy is to create an atmosphere of scarcity. I take my saving target out of my pay before I do anything else by maxing out my 401K. Then I force myself to live on what's left. I never lower my 401K contribution to buy stuff. It is a good way to accumulate wealth over time. 3. Stuff is just stuff. It has utility and makes life easier but it doesn't change me for the better. My six-year-old paid for truck gets me to work just fine. A new Mercedes would get me there at the same, no more, no less. Those commercials that claim cars are the way to a better self or a statement of who you are, are bunk. If you have money and want a swell new car then buy it. If you are paycheck-to-paycheck and want the same, tough it out until you have some money. 4. The borrower makes himself a slave. I hear from folks all the time that they hate their job but can't quit because of their bills. "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go" is a sad cry. The day I have had it with my job, I'm gone. I am not staying because of a car or a boat or some other gadget. I might work to be able to afford something if I chose, but I will be darned if I will work because of something. Get out of debt and stay out. 5. Understand the risks you take with your money. Stretch your budget to the maximum at your own peril. If every dollar that comes in goes out then you are working a tightrope without a net. It only works while it works and then....yikes! Life is full of bumps. Plan accordingly. 6. People selling stuff rarely have your best interest in mind. Evaluate purchase deals with you in mind. The guy selling cars doesn't care what you can afford, he only cares about how much you can qualify to borrow. If you make a bad deal, you have to live with it, he doesn't. 7. Last and most important is that true wealth is not what you have but the absence of what you want. When you want nothing you have everything you need.