Benevolent Manipulation

At our school we have a tradition each fall of giving another member of our community a "gift of words," celebrating who they are and what they mean to us. I've been gifted with a few excellent titles over the years, including  Papa Hawk, Space-flying Peregrine Falcon, and Keeper of Potlatch who Breaks its Spirit, among others. Typically, along with giving you a new name, the giver will write a poem of some sort. Several years back, another teacher made this cool little leather bag and filled it with different words. She called it my "bag of tricks." It was a pretty neat gift.

A "gift of words" 

I was a bit flattered as I read them, one by one. Creative. Leader. Inquisitive. Flattered, until I got to looking at it in more detail... Cunning. Calculating. Unpredictable. Manipulative. 

Yikes. Am I really manipulative? Am I viewed that way by other folks? Well, I suppose that teacher added least one data point for that question. And, yes, I suppose that I've been known to pressure friends into coming out to have a great time when they "needed to work." And, yes, I suppose that I can enthrall a cabin full of campers with stupid stories and build team unity using chants and nicknames. It's something I do on purpose; and at its root I think it really is manipulative.

Which got me to thinking. Manipulation is simply getting people to do what you want them to do. As a teacher, I manipulate my students into behaving respectfully in the classroom and learning the skills that I'm presenting, through a combination of carrots and sticks. As a parent, I'm trying to raise my kids to be responsible, contributing, intelligent, kind, productive adults. I do this through a mixture of praise and corrective action, through benevolent manipulation.

After my last post, I had a chance to discuss allowances/chores with several other parents. We all have many of the same goals. We want to teach our children to be good stewards of their resources. We want our children to learn to value hard work. Perhaps most especially we don't want to have to follow behind them or nag them to get their work done. We want them to take initiative.

 

With those goals in mind, I put together a chore chart in Google Drive in order to benevolently manipulate my kids. Each day the kids have until just before dinner to take care of their responsibilities and check them off on their sheet. We do a quick walk through and verify that they've taken care of them. For any chores that got done without our input, the child gets a check. If they haven't gotten the job done, they have to do it after dinner, but without earning a check. At the end of the month, we will tally up their checks and pay them accordingly. If you do 80% of your work without needing to be told to do it, you'll get your standard allowance. 95%+ will get you a $5 bonus. Less than 70% will mean you don't get paid. We are only about a week into this, and there are already some disparities between our kids becoming really clear.

One of our kids is a real self-starter. She has only missed a single check so far and is on par to his the 95%, and will likely earn a $5 bonus for her excellent work.

Another kiddo is hitting at about 50%. At this point, she's on par to not earn any allowance this month. I think there will be some tears on September 30th. Maybe there will be a change in her effort in October.

Our final girl is probably at the 75-80% mark. She will likely earn her standard allowance. I hope to see this system encourage her to mature a bit and develop the good habit of working first, playing later. We'll see!

If you're interested in trying something like this out, here's a link to the file. Feel free to customize, and let me know how it goes! Maybe someone out there can Pinterest it up a little bit and make it look like something kids would like instead of a dad's spreadsheet. =)

Kids: What is your money worth?

The family and I took a trip up to the mountains to an apple orchard last weekend. It was a welcome respite from the stress of the hybrid hell that is online and in-person teaching and learning with different schedules for our family. We picked in-season honeycrisp apples, which as far as I'm concerned is one of God's greatest gifts to mankind. There is not much that compares to a slice of aged sharp cheddar and a hand-picked apple. I love this time of year!

Before we headed up, our kids stuffed their princess purses and wallets to the gills with wads of singles and change saved up from lost teeth. As we stood in a loosely socially-distanced line to buy apple cider donuts, my oldest asked if she could buy another dozen with her own money. I steered her clear of that purchase, given that a dozen donuts was worth about two weeks of her labor, and knowing that the donuts are not nearly as good after they've sat for a day or two. And what kid needs a dozen donuts? That being said, their money was burning holes in their little pockets. The girls have saved for months now without much opportunity to spend, so when it came time to check out, they wanted something special.

Cue the questions. How much is a candied apple? How much for a slushy? How much is the fudge? My oldest child priced things out carefully and decided that the $2 cider slushy would be a better use of her money than the $6 candied apple (highway robbery!). We were proud of her for deciding how to minimize her expenditures on depreciating assets.

Katie understood that whatever she bought would be fleeting and decided to keep the difference for something that would be a little more permanent. It was awesome to see her wrestle with that decision and encouraging to see the decision she made.

Our middle daughter had her eye on the fudge. She had been talking that fudge up all week, knowing that we were going apple picking over the weekend. When she saw the candied apples, that was a must-have as well. So she picked up $10 worth of consumables, an entire month's worth of her income. Julie and I were both a little put out by her "impulse" buy. However, on the car ride home, she was just glowing. By saving up her money, she had enough money to pick up this treat. "It's just like the Berenstain Bears!" she said to us. Apparently at some point she'd read a book in which Brother and Sister Bear get candied apples, and she was psyched to enjoy the same thing that she'd read about. "It's totally worth a whole month of my money." Our seven-year-old weighed her choices and decided that the experience was worth it.

Although that's not how Julie and I would have spent Rachel's money for her, it was illuminating for us to see that she's thinking about money in terms of choice. She is learning the value of money. That's exciting.

There are different opinions out there regarding whether a child should get an allowance. Should kids get paid to do what they should already be doing without incentive? Framed that way, I would say "no." Children ought to contribute to the family just because they benefit from being a part of it. But, if we want to raise fiscally aware and responsible children, they have to have experience handling it. Making decisions how to spend and save. Rachel learned that she was able to have the experience of a candied apple because she'd been saving; Katie reinforced that she could deny herself and have money available later for another choice in the future. Without an allowance, the whole experience turns into "Can I have this...?" with a benevolent parental "yes" or a dismissive "no." With an allowance, our kids are learning how to manage their funds. It's worth the investment as far as we're concerned!

Grow Your Savings

My daughters have recently gotten into a savings kick. While out hiking with some family friends, we found out that the son was saving towards a dirt bike by socking away any gift money he received. He was also looking around for toys he had either outgrown or no longer played with to sell online. He was up to a couple hundred dollars! As soon as we got back home, old toys started flowing out of the kids' rooms and onto Facebook marketplace. The girls staged the photos, chose their price point, and we listed them. Sure enough, within the hour we had several offers on toys that hadn't seen the light of day for months.

The kids' rooms became a little cleaner. They learned a little something about the free market. And when they finally have enough saved to get that American Girl dress or that new Wellie Wisher, they will have a sense of accomplishment and see that small, disciplined actions add up over time.

As for Julie and I, we've sold old power tools, a washing machine, a dog crate, a dining room table, etc. It gives that item a longer lifespan (delaying its journey to the landfill), and we get a few extra dollars towards a replacement.

Something else that has really helped grow our savings is incremental increases to our savings rate. Both Julie and I take full advantage of our employer's 403b match. After that, each year we have increased our savings by a percentage point or two. Like the proverbial frog in the pot, we just never notice that little bit of money being siphoned out of our paycheck. People tend to expand their lifestyle to fit their income, but we circumnavigate ourselves this way. If we never see the money, we never miss it.

Another way to increase your savings is by picking up a side gig. I do math tutoring on the side and as much as possible try to stick that money in mutual funds. A friend of mine is looking into Doordashing a few hours per week and put that towards her mortgage. Another friend is using Zoom to meet with his clients to provide life insurance. With Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, teleconferencing opportunities, etc., there are ways for you to leverage your skills and time to make progress towards your financial goals.

A little extra saved over a long times becomes a lot. What ways have you found to save a little bit extra?

Investing 102 with Phil Zema

Today's post is written by Dr. Phil Zema, a friend of mine from high school. We spent many long nights around the gaming table, and over the years I have come to appreciate his keen mind and thoughtful analysis. He's been investing with Vanguard since 2014.

Investing can be overwhelming, scary, and confusing. There are legions of ways you can invest, and if you aren’t paying close attention, you’ll never know if the financial advisor or investment platform that promises hefty financial returns is a shark or legitimate. For example, we’ve heard about financial institutions who charge hefty fees to manage your portfolio. Such fees shred whatever you've gained during bull markets. Moreover, scary events such as the financial crisis of 2008 or the current COVID-19 pandemic can lead to long-standing recessions and sudden drastic drops in the stock market. With all the bad things that could happen and given all the uncertainty in the world, isn’t it just better to avoid investing and put one’s money in super-safe savings accounts? In the long run, the answer is likely no, especially if you consider inflation’s impact on your wealth.

There’s a safe, honest, and reliable platform through which one can invest. It’s called Vanguard. Vanguard is focused around mutual funds (more precisely, they are Index mutual funds, but I’ll save this nuance for another post). Mutual funds are sets of certain types of investments. For instance, an S&P 500 mutual fund is basically a stock portfolio of each company in the current S&P 500. Accordingly, if you have money invested in this mutual fund, you own a tiny bit of shares in each of these companies.You will own a piece of Google, Amazon, some pharmaceutical company you’ve never heard of, and 497 other companies. Vanguard has scores of these mutual funds, and each is designed to track various types of investments including both American and international markets, industry types (e.g., energy, healthcare, and technology), bonds, real estate (specifically, REITs), and money markets.

Vanguard has two primary virtues: First, it makes investing incredibly easy. For example, if you just want to start an IRA (and you should want to do this) and plan to retire in 30 years, easy-peasy: go to Vanguard, create an account, and select the retirement fund that you think best suits your needs. Note: Vanguard also creates mutual funds according to when you think you’ll retire. So if you think you’ll retire around 2050, Vanguard has a 2050 retirement plan.

Why does the year matter? Basically, on average you make more money if your money is invested in stocks rather than bonds. However, events like the 2008 recession or the 2020 pandemic happen, which can substantially lower the value of your retirement nest egg. However, if you’re young, you have time to recover. Considering that the stock market increases on average between 6 and 10% (depends on who you ask and if inflation is factored into the equation), in the long-run you’ll likely end up doing quite well yourself. What makes Vanguard awesome is that, as time passes and you slowly move towards retirement, they invest your money in significantly safer bond funds. While bond funds tend to make less money, they are less susceptible to economic downturns. Moreover, by the time you retire, since your investments have paid off, you no longer need the added gains and risks of investing in stock market mutual funds. Thus, a few clicks and your retirement plan is taken care of.

The second advantage of Vanguard is that it is incredibly cheap for investors. Typical financial advisory firms charge anywhere between 1%-2% (maybe even more) of your portfolio’s value. Accordingly, for every $100 your portfolio is worth, your financial advisory firm gets anywhere between $1-$2 per year (and perhaps more--see Jeremy’s last post where he links John Oliver’s take on such firms). The fee for Vanguard’s 2050 lifecycle fund is .16%. Which means you pay $16 for every $10,000 in your portfolio. On the other hand, firms could take anywhere between $100 and $200 of your portfolio.

$100 to $200 may not seem like much, but it adds up over the long haul especially when you consider its toll on the compounding interest you’ll receive from long-term investing. Let’s put this in perspective: Imagine you start investing in an IRA today with $5,000. And let’s suppose you invest $1000 per month for the next 30 years. Let’s also be modest and suppose that, with inflation factored, your mutual fund increases roughly 6% each year (there is a ton of literature about the amount of stock market returns, but I’ll leave this for another time. Many say 8-10%, but I’ll lean more conservatively). The bottom line is that if you go with Vanguard, you’ll keep most of this 6% increase.

However, if you stick with the investment firm , they could take as much as 2% of your portfolio leaving you with around a 4% net gain on your investments. Accordingly, if you go with Vanguard, in 30 years you’ll have $1,003,230.43. Yup, you’ll be a millionaire. If you go with the firm: $701,487.55. This is not to say that all financial advisors are sharks. Some are undoubtedly reasonable, honest, and caring (e.g., those with the fiduciary label). This is just to paint a scenario about what could very well happen to your investment money if either it’s managed by the wrong hands or you’re not paying attention.

You don’t need a degree in business or economics to be a good investor. My gut is that if you just go with Vanguard low cost index funds, in the long-run you’ll likely be just as good as many investors (Warren Buffet is of similar opinion -see page 20, paragraph 6). Ultimately, your money is in good hands with Vanguard, and they are incredibly friendly and helpful to work with. When it comes to investing, Vanguard is da bomb.

Investing 101

More than half of Americans are invested in the stock market in some form or another, whether through a retirement account (IRA, 401k, 403b, etc.) or through individual stocks or mutual funds. For our family, investing was something that we knew we needed to do if we ever want to retire (or be financially independent), but the concept was pretty intimidating.

Thinking tactically, we invested up to our employer's match from year one, earning a 100% return on our investment immediately. If your employer offers a match, you really have to find the money in your budget to take advantage of it. You're getting an immediate raise when you do. The FIRE community calls this "paying yourself first."

How that money is allocated, however, can make a big difference in the long-term value of your portfolio. We have an account manager with our school’s retirement account who has helped us choose our investments based on risk tolerance, income goals, and time left until retirement. Investment into your retirement should be automatic, but the allocations should not be. Ask questions and get educated about the fees associated with your funds. Know what you are getting yourself into. This video from John Oliver is insightful. I am not at all qualified to recommend how you should be saving for retirement, but I can confidently say that you should be doing it if you're not already. Do it.

In addition to our automatic retirement savings, we have also started using credit card cash back to our advantage with this fairly easy two-step process.

1. We have this American Express card. It gives us 6% cash back on streaming services and groceries, two categories that we already spend money in every month. We then pay our balance down to zero every month. Do not get this card unless you can keep it without carrying a balance.

2. Then we redeem our cash back and use it to invest in stocks/mutual funds using Robinhood, an app with zero commissions/fees for trading. In this way, we aren't spending any extra money each month, but we are beginning to develop a little pile of money. I've invested in dividend-paying mutual funds. They're on the conservative side.

If you sign up using the links above, you'll get a pretty decent sign-up bonus from AmEx and a paltry little stock from Robinhood.

This extra pot of "free money" gives me the flexibility to learn about investing without taking money from my family's monthly coffers to learn how to invest without touching our retirement savings (that is OFF LIMITS for me). I have friends that do options trading; that's something that I'm beginning to look into as we have more to work with.

What are some lessons that you have learned over time as you have invested?

Vacationing on a Budget: Beach Edition

The first time I saw the beach, I was 17. I spent my formative years in central Texas and Montana. There was no way that we could get to the beach easily. I finally saw my first beach on a band trip to Florida. The experience of having waves toss me around was thrilling; water stretching to the horizon was stunning. And swimming out to where you can't touch is just a little horrifying. It touches something Lovecraftian in my psyche.

Early in our marriage, Julie’s family hosted our annual beach trips, which was really kind. We didn’t have much in the way of “disposable” income. But once we started vacationing on our own, we had to figure out how to pay for it.

A day trip from Greenville is a lot of driving; it’s about 3 hours each way. However, if you pack your snacks and meals, the only expense you have is gas. Kids get to play in the waves, build sand castles, get burned when you don’t realize that antibiotics somehow negate sunscreen, and have a quintessential beach trip. Total cost for the day: around $100. We’ve done this a couple of times now, and each time we have had a great time. There is something special about packing up in the car in the early morning light and then having your headlights swing into the driveway late that same night, then carrying your kids into bed after they’ve passed out from a long day.

Now that we have a bit more income after teaching for more than a decade (closer to two!), we have upgraded to staying at a house within a few miles of the beach. 

A small property within walking distance to the beach we are going to is $541/night, including taxes and fees. That is simply out of reach. This year we opted to rent a 2-bedroom house that is a 10 minute drive away from the beach. That choice alone saved us over $2000! 

Another place that money usually trickles away (or floods out) is in dining out during vacations. We try to eat in-house most nights, opting for a seafood dinner one night (I’m the only person in the family who likes it anyway). We stock up our cooler with frozen Costco meals, and our meals cost about $8-10 on average. That’s significant savings compared to eating out.

Just for kicks and giggles, we looked the house we are staying at on Zillow. The owners are the real Cash Tacticians! It’s a duplex, and they live on one side and rent out the other side. Conservative estimates put their rental income at about $40k/year. On a $450k property, that should cover their mortgage and pocket them $8k on top of it, easily paying for itself. We are nowhere near having rental properties, but it always amazes me when I see how it works for other people.

We currently save $450/month for a big summer vacation each year. We book our trip using a cash rewards card, then pay it off immediately, scoring a few extra dollars along the way. This year we over-saved and under-spent so that next year, Costa Rica might be possible! Jungles, volcanoes, some of the most diverse ecology, and the Spanish language mean that next summer’s vacation should be amazing!

Don't Be Surprised by Unsurprising Things

One of my favorite board games is Agricola, a complex worker-placement euro game in which you have to build a farm starting with two people and a plot of land. You till fields, build fences, plant crops, raise livestock, and eventually grow to a large estate. I’m sure it’s much more fun on a board than in real life. At the end of the game, the player with the largest and most diverse farm wins. But there’s this one other factor that crops up throughout the course of the game. Every so often you need to have enough food on hand to feed your family. And, without proper planning, it’s really difficult to do. Many novice players either miss this or forget about it, and when it comes up, it’s devastating. They are surprised by something that is not really surprising. Or, at least it’s unsurprising once you’ve had it happen to you once.

A much more succinct example would be this: Don’t be surprised when I, as your Dungeon Master, drop a fireball on your closely clustered party. You should have seen it coming.

In personal finance, there are a few ways to handle what could be (or should be) unsurprising expenses. It all comes down to planning. We budget for short-term expenses, save for long-term expenses, and insure against potential expenses.

Some expenses are certain to be incurred and are possible to predict. They WILL happen, and it’s foolish to be surprised when they come around. Some expenses that fit in this category are annual (like property taxes or your termite plan) and others are monthly (mortgage/rent, utilities, auto insurance, etc). Instead of being surprised when they happen, plan for them and set aside money from each paycheck for them. This process is called budgeting. That has a generally negative connotation, but it’s really just having enough food to feed your family when that phase of the game takes place.

Other expenses are likely to be incurred, and less possible to predict. This would be expenses like your car breaking down, your water heater going out, a speeding ticket, a storm taking a tree down, yada yada yada. Each of these events can cause serious financial stress, in addition to the regular stress that comes along with them. I’ve been on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck that I couldn’t afford, but couldn’t afford not to have either. It’s not a pleasant experience. The way to handle that is to set aside money into a separate account and never touching it. This is called an emergency fund. Several personal finance gurus (Ramsey and Howard Dayton among others) recommend getting a $1k emergency fund saved up as soon as you can, and more as it becomes possible. This will cover you in case of some of these semi-major emergencies. Saving money and keeping it separate from your checking account is just spreading your party out so the Dungeon Master can’t TPK you with a single fireball.

Lastly, there are catastrophic expenses that may or may not be incurred. Your house may burn down. Your car may be involved in a major collision. Your spouse (or you, or both) may die. These are usually too large of an expense to be covered personally. Unless you are vastly wealthy and can self-insure against those expenses, you should purchase insurance. Auto insurance is mandated, as is homeowners if you hold a mortgage. Life insurance is completely optional, but it’s a responsible purchase if you have dependents. For this, I’d recommend a term-life policy with a term that covers the needs of your family until you can either self-insure and/or your dependents are moved out, through college, and on their own. Some people use whole-life insurance as an investment vehicle. There are better ways to invest, for sure.

Of course, there are surprising things that will surprise you. Like, Costco is STILL out of toilet paper. What on Earth is going on? And how can we possibly be pregnant after having unprotected sex?! (We're not actually pregnant, but "surprise" kids always crack me up. We all know how this works.)

I tried coming up with a boardgame equivalent to insurance. No luck. Any ideas? Leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Background and Biases

I find myself thinking about personal finance alot these days. I spend my morning commute listening to financial podcasts. My personal conversations tend to slide into finances, cost/benefit analysis, etc. I've been going to bed with visions of spreadsheets dancing through my head.

As a boardgames enthusiast, I enjoy min/maxing, developing optimal strategies, and playing to win. I think personal finance tickles the same part of my brain as boardgames do. Managing finite resources to accomplish goals, leveling up my skill tree, looking up obscure errata to make sure that I'm "playing the game" correctly.

I grew up without a great role model for handling money. Mom did the best she could for us, to be sure, but there was nothing in the piggy bank at the end of each month. For years, Mom drove an old red beater hatchback that she picked up for $180. It burned oil, the vinyl was peeling off the seats, and it broke down occasionally during the cold Montana winters. My family qualified for free lunch at school, which guaranteed at least one solid meal each day during the week. We did not go hungry, but occasionally Mom did, making sure that we were fed. Rice was a staple at our dinner table. Mom also got taken for a ride by a con-artist boyfriend. Over the years, she had thousands of dollars stolen through deceptive schemes, forgery, etc. All that to say that when it came to handling money, there wasn't much to handle.

Through Mom's deep sacrifice, scholarships, grants, and loans, I graduated from college, moved to South Carolina, and shortly thereafter married Julie, my college sweetheart. Life was full of potential. I had a bachelor's degree in math; my wife was a double major (Spanish and secondary education). I had a great little gig at a local photography studio, learning how to use Photoshop to remove everyone's wrinkles and brighten their eyes. It wasn't mind-blowing money, but it paid much more than the dishwashing work study program at school, and at the end of each month there was a little spending money. Not a bad gig. Upon return from our honeymoon, I was laid off. We had less than $400 to our name and we were both unemployed. Financially, things looked pretty bleak.

We got through those first few months by going to the food closet, applying for every job we were barely qualified for, and with some generous help from Julie's grandmother (that was a ding to my pride for sure). Just before I finally landed another job, I remember that our rent and food situation was balanced on a knife-edge. The Eagles song "Take it Easy" came on the radio, and Glenn Frey sang to us. "We may lose, and we may win, but we will never be here again." Our life was going to get better, or worse, but it couldn't stay the same. The situation felt familiar.

I finally got a job waiting tables at lunchtime in a nearby hotel (spoiler alert: there's not much money in that) and took a second job tutoring math in the afternoons at Sylvan. Julie got on as a substitute teacher for the school district. For the first time in my life, there was positive cashflow. Neither one of us had ever seriously dealt with money before; we had no idea how to handle things. Thankfully, Julie is a planner. Her new plan: learn how to handle money.

We picked up a couple of books to help us navigate this new season of life wherein there was enough money to cover all of our expenses if we used it wisely. Howard Dayton's Your Money Map and The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke by Suze Orman. These books don't agree on many things, but they do have this in common: control your money. You shouldn't let your money wander around and spend itself. This was new to me, since there was never any money left to spend anyway. So together, my wife and I sat down and put our monthly income, monthly expenses, and account balances into Excel. And that is where our money journey begins.

So, here are my biases:

1. I grew up without much extra money. I was envious of wealthy people and thought they were selfish.

2. Math, optimization, graphs, and spreadsheets are fun.

3. I have a great spouse who pushes for open communication and sets goals.

4. I'm writing this blog to help others learn how to control their money. In "real life" I am a teacher, so helping people learn is kind of in my blood at this point.

5. We are not "self-made." We are fortunate and #blessed.

Feel free to leave me a comment, question, or encouragement. =)