|
|
|
October 25, 2010, at 6:00 am If you're new to BFS, please subscribe to my RSS feed. It shows me a vote of support and keeps me motivated to keep your attention. If you have any questions or comments for me, please contact me and I'll get back to you asap. Thanks for visiting! You can also check out my interview today at Modern Tightwad!
Sandy at First Gen American came up with this writing experiment to see what bloggers could come up with when asked to “write an article that ties monkeys or other primates to some personal finance lesson or topic.” This is what came to my mind when I sat down to write.
A few months ago, our friend took Mr. BFS and me on a personal tour of the zoo she works at. I met a bunch of amazing animals including Mukah the orangutan.
Mukah’s story is sad to me. He was raised as a pet but his owner completely ignored the diet an orangutan should get and didn’t invest in a proper living environment for him either. He was nice to Mukah but ignored the financial implications of owning a primate that gets VERY large and was finally reported for abuse since Mukah was living in a much-too-small cage and being fed cooked human food and beer instead of the diversified raw diet he needed. The owner refused to prepare for Mukah’s future.
This owner isn’t the only man to try to ignore what’s coming. As I’ve written before, only 69% of eligible workers participate in their 401(k) plans in 2010. That means 31% of eligible employees aren’t contributing anything at all!
Not only are millions of people passing up free money in the form of 401(k) matching, but as I mentioned here, according to a little side survey that was answered by almost 10,000 people, at least a third of the respondents aren’t saving anything at all for retirement and a further third are saving less than 6% a year!
How do they plan to survive? Even if you plan to work until you die, what happens if you just can’t? With age comes illness and frailty…you are not guaranteed employment forever.
Even if social security provides for them, they will have zero options. Money buys options. No money equals no options. That sounds like a depressing retirement to me.
If we don’t plan for our own futures and save for our own retirements, we will be as dependent on our government and the kindness of others as Mukah. I’m not speaking for all of you, but I want more control over my future than that poor primate has over his own.
If you are reading this and thinking, “it’s too hard to give up that income” - automate it! You will not miss it if you don’t see it. Even if you are saving, make sure it’s enough. Keep in mind your living expenses and inflation. I would think it would be better to have too much than too little when I no longer have the capability to make up the difference.
How much do you think is enough for retirement? Are you planning for your future so you don’t end up as dependent as Mukah?
October 24, 2010, at 6:00 am
BFS is a member of the Yakezie Alexa Ranking Challenge! My ranking last week was 53,893 and is now 51,783!
The original goal was to be in the top 200,000 by July 4, 2010 and you helped me blow that out of the water in 2 months…a whole month early! Then we were shooting for 100,000 by July 4th and we hit that goal too!!! After that we started a new goal of 75,000 by the end of August, and I thought there was no way, but we hit that out of the park by August 15!!!
Now we are shooting for 50,000 by Halloween! I know it’s a little insane, but we are so close! We had a fantastic week and have one week left to get through this last 1,783! One week! Let’s do this!
As always, I would like to sincerely thank all of my readers and the members of the Yakezie Challenge. Obviously, this would have been impossible without all of you. Thank you all so much! I repeat those words every week, but please understand that I mean it every time.
In case you didn’t know, Alexa traffic rankings are determined by the numbers of hits a site gets by people with the Alexa toolbar. If you want to be part of this ranking community, you can download the Alexa toolbar here. 
If you are a Yakezie member and don’t see yourself on my member list, please send me an email or leave a comment here to be added. I copied the list originally in early March and updated it in mid-June. Please let me know if you are still missing. Thanks!
If you are interested in seeing how I went from an 8 million plus Alexa rank to about 60,000 in less than 7 months, you can see My Blogging Schedule over at Crystal Clear Thoughts.
BTW, I am going to start posting blogging stat and income updates at the beginning of every month starting this Monday (11/1) since so many people, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, seem interested. This update will be posted on all 3 of my sites – Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Crystal Clear Thoughts, and Dog’s Life For Me. Each site will have it’s own stats and income listed. We’ll see whether blogging full time by 2012 is nutty or not!
October 23, 2010, at 6:00 am
My Favorite Posts this Week
Guest Posts on BFS
Thanks for the guest posts and the day off! I loved the fact you all covered so many subjects that I neglect. Thank you.
If you would like to guest post on BFS, please send me an email with your idea or post and I’d love to have you over for the day! If you are a business, please email me for more details. Thanks!
Blog Carnivals that Included BFS
Carnival hosts, please email me if BFS is included in your carnival so I don’t miss it in my roundup, thanks! I know how much time these things take, so as always, I am truly grateful!
Other Info
Top 5 Referring Sites to BFS
The top 25 of each month will be listed on the first Saturday of every month.
- Free Money Finance
- Wisebread
- Grumpy Rumblings of the Untenured
- Yakezie
- Len Penzo dot Com
Feel free to email me if you have any suggestions. I’d love to add a few more blogs to my regular reading list or at least give a shout-out for great posts or contests.
As always, thanks to all the bloggers that teach me something new every day. Thanks to all my commenters for making this blog the community I want it to be. Thanks to all my “lurkers” too.  I hope everybody is enjoying this as much as me!
If you haven’t already seen the new headers,
please also check out my other blogs,
Crystal Clear Thoughts and Dog’s Life For Me!
Ninja from Punch Debt in the Face created the headers from scratch since I just didn’t have any specific ideas.
Evan from My Journey to Millions placed them for me since FTP means nothing to me, lol.
Thanks guys!!!
If you would like to join an exercise-oriented group with weekly goals, consider joining the
Crystal Light Challenge!
October 22, 2010, at 6:00 am
Do you enjoy the thrill of the chase? How about Hide and Go Seek? Have a high pain tolerance? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, paintball is the sport for you!
I’ve been paintballing twice and ended up severely bruised both times. I will probably not go again since one of those bruises was in my mid-back and I felt like I was dying, but the activity itself was fun.
There were several courses and my coworkers split into 2 groups. On one course, one team had to defend a castle and the other team attacked and tried to make it inside. Another course consisted of capture the flag. Another one was trying to hold back a tide of people while 4 of us guarded a bunker. All in all, I think the capture the flag course was the most fun.
It’s hard to explain why it was fun, but I know adrenaline was involved. Hiding, attacking, shooting, crouching…it’s all just so much fun! The exercise and fake scary moments are simply a rush. If the paintballs didn’t bruise me up so much, I’d probably be an addict. Maybe I should take up laser tag…
Have you ever been paintballing? What did you think?
October 21, 2010, at 6:00 am
This Dear Wendy letter at CNN Living, I’m Afraid to Date Because I’m $190,000 in Debt, brought out my judgmental side. Here’s how I see it:
A 31-year-old guy has $190,000 in student loan debt but he’s not a doctor. He actually writes,
Aside from that scary number, I am financially responsible and have a promising career with a high income trajectory ahead of me. How I arrived at that $190,000 is moot, but what isn’t is the psychological handicap I’ve developed.
Blah, blah, blah – he’s scared to date because he scared of chasing women off with this OH-MY-SWEET-JESUS debt.
Well, DUH. I’m not even in the dating pool and $190,000 of student loan debt seems like a dang big hurdle to me. I almost choked on my sweet tea when he said “I am financially responsible” and “How I arrived at that $190,000 is moot”. Excuse me?
That kind of debt leads me to believe that he is definitely NOT financially responsible and I doubt any of his future dates would think the why to be moot. I sure don’t. WHY? WHY DO YOU HAVE $190,000 IN STUDENT LOANS?
I’ll just ponder on that for a second. My 4 year college education and living expenses cost about $70,000. About 50% – 60% of that and was covered by scholarships and my parents. I worked 2-3 part-time jobs at any given time to cover the rest.
That means he ran up almost 3 times as much debt as what my education cost in total. Did he not apply for any scholarships at all? Grants? Any jobs? What’s scary is that he might have and really spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars in college. That makes me slightly ill.
Maybe he really has some awesome reasons, but we’ll never know because he deems them moot. So yes, I am being judgy. But, I bet I am not alone. I also bet that he is very right and will have a limited dating pool. Women interested in dating big debt either have no plans on marrying big debt or don’t mind big debt for moot reasons of their own. Either way, I don’t see a lot of security in his future.
Am I being too harsh? What were your first thoughts?
October 20, 2010, at 6:00 am
If you have a chance, please check out my staff writer post, Expensive Furniture – Worth It?, at Sweating the Big Stuff today!
The following is a guest post from Brian at Until Debt Do Us Part, which he started as a good way to stay focused on his own budget and finances.
My wife and I have really been working on our budget and finances for a little over 4 months now. We have been educating ourselves by reading books, blogs, and keeping an open line of communication about all things money. One of the challenges has been getting our 3 kids on board with our changes in spending.
They have noticed the changes; making statements like “we have not been out to eat in awhile” or “we have not been to the movies in a few months”. We have begun to include all 3 in discussions about our finances. We have not gone as far as breaking out the monthly budget spreadsheet for them, but have broken it out in general terms to give them an overview.
At ages 11,11 (yes, twins), and 8, we want to start to giving them the foundation to build on as they get older. All three have had money units taught in school and have taken part in a number of front yard lemonade sales, so they are fully aware of how to handle money. One good example that we were able to use was about cell phones.
No, we have not taken the plunge yet for them, but it’s looming for our eleven year olds. This was a topic they were interested in discussing.
One night at dinner I asked all three “how much did they think a monthly cell phone bill cost?” Their answers ranged from $25-$150. I gave them the complete overview cost of an average monthly bill, cost of a phone, and how many hours someone would have to work to pay for each phone. They were all surprised at the amount one would have to work in order to pay for a phone. When we put it in terms of their weekly allowance, they were stunned.
After that discussion, the frequency I was asked for a cell phone by my older 2 has decreased. My wife and I have been discussing that this might be the perfect 12th birthday present for them. *Crystal’s comment: Suckers, lol. *
We continue to insert money talk where we can with the kids, not overwhelming them, just giving them little lessons here and there.
Ice cream is another good example when dealing with my kids. It’s their favorite dessert. We used to purchase it often from the local ice cream man or Baskin Robbins. For the 5 of us to get ice cream, it could cost $12-$20. I explained to the kids that for that same money we can buy 2 or 3 half gallons of their favorite flavors at the grocery store along with cones. Instead of eating ice cream just once, we can have it for a number of days. They all agreed that multiple days of ice cream is better than one. *Crystal’s comment: Surprise, surprise, lol…kids aren’t dumb, hehehe.*
We will continue to expand on budget topics as they get older, banking accounts, check books, credit cards, etc. For now the key for us is to keep it simple and keep it interesting.
How do you discuss money with your children?
October 19, 2010, at 6:00 am
The following is a guest post from Aloysa at The Kitchen Sink.
Our five year old pug got sick. He got an upset stomach and had some accidents at home which was completely out of his character. We immediately took him to our vet. And the financial adventure began…
The cost of walking into the clinic and getting a vet to examine a dog was $40. It did not guarantee any results or diagnosis. We had to pay an additional $48 to test our pug’s stool in order to determine if he had any parasites. Not to waste any time and get something done, we got a prescription for an antibiotic for another $37 and a probiotic for $25 to make sure that good bacteria would not be killed in our pug‘s stomach.
Total cost of the visit was around $150.
Results? A phone call from the vet’s office to tell us that no parasites were discovered and we needed to continue to give our dog the antibiotics.
Ten days later our little pug looked and behaved healthy. Five days later all the symptoms returned.
Another visit to the vet’s office, another exam, and this time a blood test for $138. What can you possibly test for this amount of money? Genes, DNA, genealogical tree? What did we find out? That our pug is healthy. Blood did not have any abnormalities. We, including our pug, were happy.
But I expected something more for the money we paid. I don’t know what I wanted to hear or see. Maybe I wanted a chart of our pug’s genealogical tree, his history with pictures. Maybe I expected someone to tell us that he is half pug, half human?
The day the blood test results came in, an internal medicine doctor showed up to give our pug a thorough exam and consultation. She found one small polyp, recommended to switch our pug to a prescription food. She spent with us about an hour talking in medical terms half of which neither I (English is my third language) nor my husband (who is American) could understand. Cost of medical talk $110. Results: we took home new food (cost $15) and a one-page report on our pug’s health.
Total cost for both visits and tests was a little over $400.
We are still clueless if our dog is going to get any better. When we were leaving, probably seeing our disappointed and frustrated faces, our vet suggested that we look into pet insurance.
We immediately did and this is what we discovered:
Advantages of having pet insurance (unfortunately not may):
1. Most of the plans cover vaccinations, spay, neuter, and in some cases flea medication;
2. You get reimbursed for some of the expensive procedures, depending on your coverage.
Disadvantages (unfortunately too many):
1. You have to pay a monthly fee even if you don’t have to take your pet to see the vet;
2. You still have to pay your vet the full amount and file an insurance claim on your own;
3. A pet insurance will hardly ever reimburse you 100%. Usually it pays only 80%. Some of the plans don’t cover surgeries and other expansive procedures.
4. Most of the comprehensive coverages are expensive especially if you are getting insurance for a pet who was sick within the last six months.
It is a tough decision. Do we want to get a cheap insurance with limited coverage options or should we just put away $40 (a cost of monthly pet insurance premium) in a savings account? So far, we choose the latter.
Crystal’s Question: What do you think of pet insurance?
If you want to see photos of Mr. Pug or Miss Doxie, my two dogs, head on over to Dog’s Life For Me.
|
|
DISCLAIMER I am not a professional or a financial advisor. BFS posts are informational opinions only. Please make your own financial decisions based on personal research or see a financial advisor.
Also, there are paid links on this site. There is no obligation on your part to purchase any products advertised on this website.
|
http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com/monkeys-and-retirement-planning/ http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com/monkeys-and-retirement-planning/trackback/
