Seth Godin say’s that “you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones,” and while I’ve generated a lot of bad ones, I’ve also had a few gems. The funny thing about those “gems” is that after many false starts, I’ve come to realize that that the concept or idea doesn’t matter, it’s all about how passionately the idea is pursued that makes it worthwhile.

For example: the Snuggie.

Generally speaking the Snuggie is not a brilliant or even original idea (it’s been in SkyMall under a different name for years); basically someone marketed a bathrobe being worn backwards. But it’s a hit, people love it to love it or they love it to mock it, either way it is selling like crazy! In fact, the only reason we all know about this lackluster idea is that someone was crazy enough to wear a bathrobe backwards and passionate enough to see his idea all the way through. (The marketing and pop culture phenomenon behind it is a completely different case study).

Back to my problem: I need something to look forward to entrepreneurially. I have a few fairly well thought out ideas, one of which is a complete revamp of this site to allow for “user generated content” (kind of), another would be very legally intensive because it borders on the line of legality (though everyone I’ve pitched it to loves it), and yet another is to start my own juice bar (I’m kind of obsessed with smoothies).

While I am confident all of the ideas would work, figuring out which concept to commit myself to is another question. Revamping this site would hands down be the easiest and least capital intensive, though the revenue model is questionable. At this stage it’s probably a tossup for the most capital intensive concept between the storefront and the legally questionable concept (which would obviously require a legal team.) The most exciting idea is legally questionable (would create incredible buzz…I already own the domain), the most promising is probably revamping the site, and the juice bar probably has a chance to do the best from a cash-flow standpoint.

My problem really comes down to me being horrible at making decisions. I hate making them; in fact, I’m horrible at it, the only way I cope in day to day life is that I force myself to make a quick last second decision because I know I will be fine either way (Soup or Salad?).

Currently I’m leaning towards revamping the site due to the fact that it is the easiest to moonlight. I still have a lawyer looking into some things for me to see if the waters are navigable for the other concept, but for capital purposes at least I should be able to see a relatively quick result on the website, as opposed to the other two.

I’m sure I’ll always be keeping my eyes open at various ventures, and coming up with random ideas that would work if I was passionate and pursued them, but for now, I’ve built what I feel is a pretty good brand and I’d like to follow it down the rabbit hole to see where it takes me.

After too long, a site revamp is coming. Stay tuned, and I may just need your help.

Thanks for listening.

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When I first started receiving an allowance, I did what any kid in my shoes would have done…I stole my brothers old velcro neon yellow wallet, and from then on I would walk around with my wallet just like I had seen my dad and brothers do. A wallet was like magic, you open it up and money comes out. “I’m a big kid now,” I thought to myself.

I went everywhere with my wallet, but I soon came to realize that my wallet was always empty. A couple years later, in an effort to make extra money, I began helping with my brother’s lawn business; but my problem remained…I never had any money for what I wanted and I was always broke. This especially hurt because I was now doing hard work with my brothers instead of the little made up chores my parents would pay me for to rationalize my “allowance.”

“I’m broke” is a funny thing for a 10 year old to say, and even though I still had full access to the ATM (Bank of Mom and Dad), I cherished being able to say that I bought stuff with my own money, so I had to figure out the problem. I remember looking around at all the stuff in my room and figuring out where all of my hard earned money went. I saw tons of crappy toys that I never played with, a pair of really cool sunglasses that I could never wear because I wore regular glasses, and a bunch of baseball cards in drawers. I realized that I had spent money on a ton of stuff that I never used and/or didn’t even like, and to make matters more ironic, I had bought most of it on impulse because I had my wallet with me and thought “Why not?”

After I came to this childish epiphany I began saving by hiding money around my room. Before I knew it, I had enough money to buy the new baseball glove I wanted, and when my parents realized I had started saving, they took me to the bank to open a savings account.

As children it’s easy to realize why we save. We set our savings goals for the short term in the form of the items we want. We save up, get our new toy, and set our eyes on the next savings goal, but as with everything in life, our perspective changes as we grow older.

I went a long time just making deposits to that savings account, in fact even at 16, when I finally did touch it, I managed to not waste all of it lifting my Jeep (OK, I did waste most of it). Soon after spending way too much money on my Jeep, I set my sights on homeownership. And for the next 6+ years I saved and invested with this end goal in mind; then when Mary and I got married, our combined savings allowed us to realize this goal.

As we grow older our financial goals change from being weeks away, to months away, to years away, to decades away. And now as I write this, financial goals are harder than ever to define. For us, goals are no longer defined by material things like a car or a house, but they are defined by ideals and the dreams of another generation that wanted to escape the workforce all together. Now these dreams that once seemed so defined are now obscure words that mean different things to different people. Words like entrepreneur, travel, and retirement.

To you retirement may mean leaving the workforce all together and escaping to some exotic beach. To me that sounds like an empty world of boredom because I don’t plan to retire in the traditional sense. I want to be just like my 89 year old grandfather who is still a highly sought after consultant; he doesn’t need to work but chooses to, and thus he remains the smartest and most quick witted person I know.

Saving without having an understanding of what you are saving for makes saving that much harder. You say you are saving for retirement but what does that mean to you? How much will it cost to live the lifestyle that you want for the number of years that you want? You want to start your own business? Awesome! How much does it cost to be an entrepreneur? You want to be able to drop everything and travel the world? How much will it cost, where will you go, what will you do? And most importantly, how long do you need to save to achieve your version of these goals?

Going through a series of questions like these either by yourself or with your spouse may be the most important time investment you make. Doing this allows you to define your goals and have a true understanding of why you save the way you do. Maybe you’ll find that in order to finance your goals you won’t need as much money as you thought so you can cut back on saving, or maybe you want to keep the same pace to achieve those goals earlier. Regardless, having a name to every dollar you save makes saving that much easier because it gives you a defined end goal.

Why do you save?

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In college I got a Tivo with lifetime service, which added fuel to the fire of my TV escapism. No longer did I have to plan my evenings around TV, my Tivo would allow me to be free from the agony of ads and timeslots, but my Tivo was smarter than  me. It started recommending new shows that I might like. Soon I was staying up until 1 or 2am every night just to finish my TV Shows. My schedule began to conform to the shows that Tivo recommended and now I was back in the same rut as before except I was watching more TV. 

Then something magical happened, something life altering, something fantastic… Hollywood writers went on strike. There were no new episodes for me to watch, and I found myself having <gasp> free time.

This concept of free time is something that I had never felt before, I had always consumed myself with TV because it gave me a false sense of accomplishment. What would I do with this free time? Well, I became productive. I started working out more, I finished the many half-finished projects from remodeling the house we were living in at the time, and I started writing this blog. But perhaps the most surprising thing about all of this is that the only thing I missed about TV was the ridiculous antics on The Office.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we don’t watch TV…truth be told the only shows I consistently watch are The Office and 30 Rock, and Mary swaps out 30 Rock for Private Practice; we just watch TV differently now. I have an antenna in the attic that picks up all of our local stations in HD, and I have a computer hooked up to the main TV. The computer enables us to watch whatever we want from the iTunes store or Hulu whenever we want, and we have our trusty Tivo set up in the bedroom.

Now Mary and I focus our time productively on being entrepreneurial. We each have business plans that we are working on, and we are working together to start selling some of our home baked bread at a local farmers market. Who knows, the lack of cable may not just save us money, it may make us money.

Have you ever thought about what you could do if you cut out TV? I bet it’d be pretty amazing.

The next paragraph is a bit of a rant, feel free to ignore:

I’m not against having cable entirely, I’m mainly against it’s pricing structure, much like gym memberships, cable companies take your money while giving little to nothing in return. In fact they don’t really give you anything except for the opportunity to spend your time watching TV. I would actually be willing to pay a premium per channel to be able to choose the channels I want, I don’t need 100 channels, I don’t even need 25, why not let me choose and make more on a per channel basis? But I digress…

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3. Why I Blogged a Tweet

This post will be continued over at the Entrepreneur Mentor Society of Dallas-Fort Worth Blog… Continue Reading

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1. Why Do You Save?
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When I began writing, I’m not quite sure if I had the knowledge of frugality that I do now, but after a year of writing and adapting my frugal lifestyle I think I’m finally able to give a good explaination of what frugality is.

First, in order to give a good view on frugality we need to remember that being frugal is not being cheap.  A cheap person refrains from purchasing until they absolutely have to, even then they might wait to buy.  When they do buy they buy the cheapest thing with no regard for quality.  A frugal person may hold off making a purchase, but it’s usually to make sure they get the best deal (not necessarily the cheapest).  Case in point: Would you rather spend $400 every two or three years on a piece of furniture from Ikea, or would you rather spend $1,000 on a nice good quality piece that will last you a decade or more?

Now we need to analyze the day to day lifestyle of someone who is frugal vs. someone who is cheap.  A cheap person tends to not buy things unless they absolutely have to, a frugal person makes calculated choices about what is important to them.  You may frequently see frugal people at starbucks or going out to dinner.  Cheap people typically don’t like to put money into maintaining what they have, they will use something until it is broken, and then might keep using it.  Frugal people put money into maintnence.  We take care of our vehicles by do regularly scheduled maintnence, and we take care of our bodies by staying fit and going to the doctor for checkups.  We keep our houses nice and frequently do minor improvement projects so that we don’t have to do major ones later.

Being frugal is about controlling your money and making choices so that you can allow yourself to splurge.  It’s about not doing X so that you can do or buy what you love.  In fact, you will frequently see people choose to give up Starbucks so they can afford a nicer car, or give up a nicer car so that they can afford a nicer house.  We all need to splurge, if you don’t you’re letting your money control you, and you will eventually lose.

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Gandhi once said “you must be the change you wish to see in the world,” and to effectively work with us you need to understand that we don’t expect businesses to change for us.  We expect businesses to change for everyone because of our questioning of the long standing staples in business culture.

For instance, the current structure of 9-5 American business dates back to the manufacturing era where the job was repetitive work on an assembly line, and showing up was actually work.  The world has changed and corporate structures haven’t adapted to reflect this. 

Gen-Y embodies the concept of “work smarter, not harder,” and we thrive on efficiency and automation.  We know how to use computers and the internet to accomplish our work in a fraction of the time, but we are still willing to put in more time when it’s necessary.  So when we get all of our work done, why shouldn’t we be able to leave, why should we sit around waiting?  Or worse, pretending to be busy?  Why is facetime still the standard when productivity should be king?

This is one of many questions that thousands of corporations need to answer in order to effectively recruit and retain Gen-Y.

Best Buy has already answered this question.  In 2006, Best Buy implemented what they call a Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE).  ROWE means that employees are evaluated on their results, not on how much or how “hard” they work.  Employees are encouraged to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as their work gets done.  It may sound absurd, but as a result of ROWE, Best Buy has increased productivity by at least 35%, and employee satisfaction is through the roof!  Now Best Buy is widely known as a “Gen-Y friendly employer,” but more than just Gen-Y flocks to work there.

This is a prime example of the change that Gen-Y works for, and it positively impacts everyone!  From the family man to the single mother, to the thousands of people who work a job to support their true passions.

Changes like ROWE are becoming more widespread, and if the corporate world does not jump on board with forward thinking like this, you will see Gen-Y turnover skyrocket because of another true trait about us; as we see the greener grass, we won’t hesitate to hop the fence.

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Dr. Chucky (as he preferred to be called) is one of the most peculiar people I have ever met.  And this is what you need to know about him… He probably smoked 2 packs a day, he sweated like a pig, and he spoke 6 languages.  He was a professor because it allowed him to play with his portfolio all day and use his summers to travel.  He is an incredibly smart person, but the type of smart person who didn’t relate very well to less smart people.  He has been on over 10 game shows and won a great deal of money from them.

I have previously written about things that should be mandatory for every college senior to learn (My Mandatory Class Proposal) and this series is about what Dr. Chucky rushed through on the last day of class when he handed out a sheet with many jumbled and incomplete sentences.  The thoughts were broken into 5 different categories.  We then talked about a 6th.  I will try and decode his thoughts in this series. 

Purchases:

1.  ”1 hour search/study for each $1000 purchase”       

 What I believe he is saying here is don’t sweat the small stuff.  I write a great deal about frugality, and how I’m a bargain hunter, but usually what happens to me is that I over-research items and I don’t value my time enough.  If you spend 8 hours trying to figure out how to save 10% on a $1000 purchase is it really worth the time?   On the other hand, if you spend 20 hours researching a car and how to buy one it is probably a better use of time.  Or if you are looking to buy a house, spend as much time as you can, I don’t know if it’s possible to over-research a $200+ thousand purchase.

2.  “Think of all purchases in annual terms”       

 We live in a society that looks at things as “how much per month” without looking at the entire picture.  Sometimes it’s easier to finance things (not recommended) but we need to look at a bigger picture than just monthly, so look at how much you’ll be paying every year.  That should open your eyes, especially if you start to think about how much of that is interest and how much is principal.  Then look at how much you’ll be paying over the life of the loan…is it worth it?

 3. “Autos: go to fleet manager or internet managers”       

 Car salesmen are the pawns of the dealerships, the more they get you to pay, the more money they get.  Fleet/Internet Managers run the show.  They don’t get paid based on how much you pay, they get paid based on inventory turnover.  They don’t like to deal with haggling, they just want to get you in a car and out the door.  Mary and I did this when we bought our Volvo, it was a great experience, we got it for a great price, and we didn’t even need to haggle.  The internet manager agreed on our price, though the sales manager was royally pissed off (we heard him yelling at the internet manager).

 4. “Insurance, higher deductibles will lower premium rates“       

This pretty much speaks for itself.  Some people may say “but then I have to pay more if something happens,” true, but if you took the difference between the more expensive monthly payment, and the less expensive monthly payment you could be adding that difference to your emergency fund and earning interest on it in the meantime.  Pretty soon you’ll have saved enough to pay a higher deductible if something were to happen, and the rest is just more money saved.

 5. “Live below your means, save on : yard, car wash, cable TV, tipping”       

In other words, live below your means and don’t mindlessly spend.  There are plenty of luxuries that most people consider staples, Cable TV being at the forefront.  If you look for places to make cuts, you will find them.  You can wash your own car, you can take care of your own yard, and you don’t have to be known as a “big tipper.”

 6. “House purchase: Multiple Listing Service add-ons”      

  While I normally probably wouldn’t be able to decode this, I did jot down what he was talking about.  Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the service that real estate agents use to search for houses.  What he meant by add-ons is to go to your real estate agents office early in the morning and map out which of the houses added to the list that morning you will go look at.  He was a big advocate of buy the cheapest/worst house on the best block, and he recommended that this was the only way to get it before someone trying to turn a profit by flipping it would.  Mary and I discovered that this really is the best way to do it.  When we were looking at houses we went by one that we really liked, on the day it was listed.  It was listed for what our agent believed was below market value, and the next day a contract was in on it for full asking price.  Two months later, it had been flipped and was back on the market for $100k more.

7.  “$1,000/month rent, buys a ~ $360,000 home after tax @ 5%”      

 This is one that I really can’t fully decode.  I believe he is essentially saying don’t throw away money on rent when you could be buying a house, but his math seems to be off.  By my math $1000/month buys a $225,000 house at 5% interest, if you put 20% down.  If you paid $1500 a month on mortgage you could do a $360,000 home after 20% down.  As someone in the process of buying/building a house, I’m still torn on the whole rent vs. buy thing.  There are tons of pros and cons to each, but I’m happy with our decision.  

As you can see, in Dr. Chucky’s list of incomplete sentences and thoughts on personal finances there is some great wealth of advice just waiting to be decoded and understood.  Stay tuned for more!

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I’ve always been a jack-of-all-trades, never afraid trying to do something on my own, and always watching and learning how to do things.  I can’t help it, was raised this way. 

From a young age I pushed a toy lawn mower behind my dad as he mowed the lawn, in elementary school I spent afternoons with my grandfather who taught me about woodworking and tools as we built (yet never finished) a rocking chair, in junior high I hung out with carpenters and contractors everyday after school as they remodeled both my grandparents and my parents houses.  I was an early adopter of HGTV, yet This Old House remains my favorite home improvement show.  In high school I, like most teens, was infatuated with cars, and as a result I can, and have done just about everything on a car, short of body work.  Through all of this, I learned and did even more as I became an Eagle Scout.  I watched, I learned, I did.

I loved these aspects of my childhood, and these aspects built a foundation for me to know how to do an extreme variety of things, and as much as I love (and Mary loves) this about me, it’s a curse.

I constantly have internal struggles as three aspects of my life make it nearly impossible for me to make a decision on any variety of things.  These three things that alone are great, seem to deeply conflict each other.

1. I’m a DIY type of guy, born and raised, for the sake of being constructive, and seeing a finished product that I created, saving money is just a bonus.
2. I’m Frugal.
3. I’m a perfectionist.

As the saying goes, “jack of all trades, master of none.”  I’m a perfectionist that can’t do any of the things I love to do perfectly, yet I hate the concept of paying someone when I can do it myself, but since I know how things should be done (even though I can’t do them perfectly) I monitor to make sure things are being done right.  As Fat Bastard in would say “It’s a vicious cycle.”

This internal struggle is one of the major reasons that Mary and I decided to build a new house instead of buying an older home and having projects.  We’d rather move into a house already done the way we want it than have to live with imperfect DIY project after project.

JD at Get Rich Slowly, posted an interview with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.  I have not read the book, but in the interview the concept of a “low information diet” is brought up.  Tim explains that the people who excel with this type of lifestyle don’t overload on information.  Instead they outsource what they can, and don’t feel the need to stay caught up.  Tim calls them “selectively ignorant,” not really knowing more than they need to.  In other words, they are the opposite of me.

I am going to try being selectively ignorant because in many aspects of my life I feel that because I know how something is done, I should do it myself.  As a result I have a handful of half finished projects, and quite a few that would look much better if I would have paid someone else to do it.

What it comes down to is focusing on the things that you truly thrive in.  If you can focus on these things, and outsource/outchore the rest to others, in theory you’ll be doing quite well in your career and in your life.  This concept is one that was first brought to my attention in the book Strengthsfinder 2.0, which has the reader take a personality test and then tells you the 5 things that you thrive in, and what type of people to surround yourself with in order to be most successful.  It is a great test/book and I highly recommend it, as it was the first publication that I read which focused on strengths and not weaknesses.

I have to begin accepting that just because I can do something myself, it doesn’t mean I should. I am excited that I won’t have any large or highly visible projects once we move, and I’m looking forward to being able to focus more on what I’m good at (like looking towards the future, advising, and teamwork), and getting better at a select few things I truly enjoy but am not great at (like writing). 

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In my pre-Tivo days I was a true slave to the TV, I would schedule my evenings around shows, and diligently watch the entire program. I wanted things that were advertised to me during the 8-20 minutes of commercials per show, I needed those items, and I would spend my money to buy them. Then one day, I impulse bought a Tivo with Lifetime Subscription, and I thought it would change my life. No more would I be a slave to timeslots and advertisements, I would watch my shows when I wanted to, and I wouldn’t have to worry about missing a show due to class (or occasionally missing a class due to a show). I would be free at last!   

Too bad that didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, my life didn’t change. Instead, I became a slave to the Tivo, and ended up watching more TV as a result. Wouldn’t you? The average 30 minute show has 8 minutes of commercials, so you could watch 2 shows in the amount of time it used to take me to watch one and a half. I could stay up a little later and watch 4 programs in the time it used to take me to watch 3!   

Soon I was staying up just so I could find time to watch all of the shows I needed to watch. It didn’t matter if I had never seen them, if it was a Tivo recommendation I’d need to watch it to see if I liked it. Of course I usually would enjoy it and would add yet another show to my season pass list. With Tivo, I would watch 1.5 to 2 hours of TV a day, but because of the strike I cut down my viewing to about 30 minutes before bed.

With that time not wasted, I’ve been reading, writing, and running; all things that I feel have enriched my life. Even more importantly, I am not being advertised to nearly as much as I was. I no-longer am forced to view targeted pop-ups during a show or convenient and overly blatant product placement (after all, every Office fanatic needs a Dwight bobble head doll).  But over all, giving up TV hasn’t been too hard.  It’s been much easier since all of my friends and coworkers aren’t talking about the shows the day after, because they simply aren’t on.   

I’m upset about the strike ending because everything I had grown to love, and now hate, will be back for me to learn to love again. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss Jim’s witty antics toward Dwight, but I’m going full force in trying to not watch TV.  Ok, I will watch The Office…and Heroes, but I want to maintain these things that have enriched my life and not fall back into my old ways.   

When we move Mary and I have decided that we will only have local channels, and we will hopefully keep it that way for many years to come. This will definitely help us out from a financial standpoint, because instead of spending $60+ a month on cable, we will be able to save that money.  Plus it will give us more time in the day for more important things, like each other, keeping fit, and working to achieve our goals.   

The bottom line is that being frugal isn’t about just finding ways to save money, it’s about finding ways to save time too.  This fits the bill for both!

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