Young and Frugal

I’ve been writing a blog for about 3 months now and am very pleased and surprised to have seen my readership grow exponentially.  All of this has occurred organically by my reading and participating on other bloggers websites, and the grace of google (although someone found the site by searching for “how to ask out a married woman” today…which is somewhat bothersome and comical.  I hope he learns to haggle). 

I’d like to think I’m a decent writer, I know some of my connections may be a stretch sometimes, and my ideas don’t always flow, but I try.  Some of my posts have been much bigger hits than others, but that’s the way it goes!  I’m just thankful that people have actually found me!

Eventually Ryan Paugh of Employee Evolution found the site and invited me to be a somewhat of a syndicated blogger at his new start-up Brazen Careerist, which he co-founded with Penelope Trunk (Author of Brazen Careerist, the book) and Ryan Healy, also from Employee Evolution.  So that is what the large B on the right is for.  Brazen Careerist is an awesome site with tons of Gen-Y Bloggers covering everything from life, to money, to careers.

Now I am honored to say that I have been listed as a top 10 Gen-Y Blog by people I have never met, nor do I have any connection.  Their goal was to include marketing related Gen-Y blogs, which I am not…but according to them:

“While you are not are a marketing blog, we both feel that you are sharing something unique with the millennials, and God knows our generation needs all the financial advice we can get.” 

Amen.  They are kind of harsh to Y&F on their website though, but I must admit, I’ve been in denial, I now must own up since someone actually wrote it…my site is ugly and is hard to read (not an issue if you are subscribed to an an RSS Feed or E-mail Feed).  I will be revamping my site in the relatively near future, so keep your fingers crossed.  And if anyone is good at that type of thing and would like to help please contact me (daniel [at] this website dot com).

Regardless, I am honored to have been included on the list, and I sincerely thank Jess Neill and Ryan Stephens for including me!

Also, if you feel so inclined, I’d appreciate a vote on their site!  Or if you like one of the other blogs there, feel free to vote for someone else, Employee Evolution is on their, and I almost voted for them, but I figured a little self promoting couldn’t hurt :).

Note: At the suggestion of a reader I am splitting the post into two separate pieces.  Stay tuned for 10 Steps to Haggling!

When I was younger I had very low self esteem, there was no reason for me to be shy and scared to talk to girls, but I was.  I was scared of them saying no, or even worse, laughing at me.  I’m not a bad looking guy, but this fear was very real.  My older brothers would try to help me with this by bribing me to go up to girls and ask them out, but I only successfully did this once…and by successfully I mean I actually asked the girl out; she said no.

The only reason I met my wife is because she had a mutual friend set us up on a blind date after seeing me in a picture.  I would have never “sacked up” and asked her out on my own, but considering I was put in a situation where it would have been very awkward, and quite frankly rude, for me not to, I asked for her number and waited the obligatory 3 days to call her.  Ladies- for an insight into a guys mind during this “waiting period” watch the movie Swingers.

When I first started to haggle I would get the same knots in my stomach as I would when I would be scared to ask a girl out or tell her that I liked her.  I was scared, scared that the salesman or manager might think less of me, scared they would say know, scared they would be offended.  Why was I scared?  I really don’t know, I never had a situation that scarred me, but I think it all stems from my historically low self esteem (now practically gone thanks to my wife!).

Today when I was haggling for a new pair of over-priced running shoes, I happen to be haggling with a cute woman, and it all clicked!  The nervous feeling I would get when wanting to ask a girl out is the same nervous feeling I get when haggling…except haggling is way easier.  Haggling is a confidence builder!

I rarely get turned down when I haggle, and when I do it’s never a big deal, I leave with my pride, and confidence still in tact that I tried, so I have no regrets.  This has built my confidence up greatly.  That is confidence that I could easily turn around into “technique” and confidence for picking up women (not that I ever would, I am very happily married).  I will have to find someone to try this technique on, but I’m positive it will work.  Haggling is the best confidence builder I’ve had…besides getting married.

I implore you all to at least try haggling, whether you get a discount or not it ends up being a rush so it feels good afterwards, but when it does work and you save some money, it builds your confidence, and you get that rush.  Also, as an added bonus, if the salesperson is a member of the opposite sex you can subtly flirt and complement the person to help you haggle!  Pretty soon, haggling will be no big deal, and you can turn that confidence and flirting into picking up members of the opposite sex!

Note: I sincerely apologize for the lack of posts over the last week.  It has been a very hectic week for Mary, Myself, and My family.

For the first time in my adult life I experienced positive peer pressure, and it made me glad to have the friends I have.  The other night I called one of my former roommates, who is a very good friend of mine and I caught him in the middle of a beer pong game with a fraternity brother of ours.  We all graduated at the same time, all with double degrees, all with finance as one of them.  We spoke about how things are going in life and our conversation came around to finances. 

My former roommate told me that he decided to splurge his tax refund on a new set of golf clubs to celebrate his year in the workforce and a recent promotion.  The conversation went something like this, I will use R for the roomate and G for my other friend (They have me I’m on speakerphone… mid beer pong game):

Me - Nice!  Congratulations…that’s a pretty big purchase!

R - I know, but I’ve already funded my 401(k) and started funding a Roth IRA for the year and I wanted to splurge on something nice as a reward.  Are you and Mary funding your 401(k)’s?

Me- Unfortunately we don’t get 401(k)’s until we have been at the company for a year because of high turnover in our industry.

R & G- THAT SUCKS!

Me- I know, BUT we have both fully funded our Roth IRA’s for 2007.

G- Very good.  So you’ve each got your 4 grand sacked away… that’s impressive.

Me- Thanks.  Have you been funding yours?

G- Absolutely, and I’m saving all the rest of my money for an engagement Ring…

Towards the end of our conversation we all agreed to peer pressure another friend into making sure he is saving and on a good track.

Maybe it’s just my circle of friends, but I’m starting to think that we might be getting it!  We have seen family members want to retire but not be able to, we have seen friends and family get in way over their heads in debt, and we don’t want it to happen to us!  The credit crunch/recession/whatever you want to call it may end up being a good thing for our generation because we are seeing first hand what can happen when your priorities are not in line, and we are learning from it!  We are learning from other people’s mistakes and enriching our own lives because of it. 

I am very proud of my friends for having their priorities in line by not getting caught up with excess, splurging when everthing else is taken care of, and still making time for fun by enjoying a good game of beer pong on a weeknight.  Way to go guys!

On second thought I may have gotten ahead of myself, I need to call them back and make sure they have emergency funds as well… I will update.

Update:  I checked back with R.  And I am pleased to say that he has quite a few separate funds set up.  He says that he has an Oh Shit fund (read: emergency fund), 401(k), Roth IRA, and a mid-life crisis fund (which apparently could double as a house down payment fund as well).  Wow…good job R!

Coming out of college and entering the working world wasn’t much different from the transition between high school and college. As a high school senior I was a big fish in a little pond, I was awesome…then I graduated and quickly became little fish in the big pond of college. Now as a freshman in the working world I am once again a little fish in a big pond. Being back in this situation was intimidating, until I realized that my coworkers encourage me to learn more, and most are more than willing to facilitate the process, which is a drastically different attitude than my classmates had in college.Most of my coworkers are at least 10 years older than I am, and that puts me at an advantage. You see many of them had somewhat written me off as not understanding everything that I was doing, and while this was true and I did need help (who doesn’t?), I was able to amaze them away with 2 little things I keep up with.

1. I read the Wall Street Journal everyday. It is, hands down, the best newspaper around, and no one expects someone in their early 20’s to be reading it. Reading the Journal daily allows me to stay up to date on a variety of issues ranging from business to politics. Mary and I frequently inform our co-workers and bosses of things that are occurring in the industry in which we work, from bankruptcy of competitors to new concepts, and we can do this because we read everyday. It makes us look good that we not only know this relevant information, but that we are the one’s informing our superiors of it. It also allows me to preface talking points with “there was a great article in the Wall Street Journal the other day…”

2. I Polish my work. In many cases presentation is more important than content. If you know how to make boring things look more appealing then you are less likely to get questioned. Case in point, I maintain many spreadsheets at work, I also hold all of the backup information for them. No one has questioned me for backup information on the spreadsheets that are well laid out, easy to read, and easy on the eyes. However, I have been questioned numerous times on spreadsheets where I have made a formatting error, or it just isn’t as pretty. After I provide the backup (which proves me correct) I am told to fix the formatting. The bottom line is that if it is ugly, the content matters more, and having something pretty creates the illusion of credibility. As I said in yesterday’s post, that illusion becomes reality.

These two little things are simple to do allow me to stay at the top of my game and continue impressing those who I work with.

Edit: JRandom pointed out that I made it look like I might be trying to put one over on my boss.  I would like to clarify by stating that I never submit anything unless I have double checked all of my work.  I definitely understand the concept that you can’t polish crap, and I don’t, but I was trying to state that appearance and polish seems to give an extra level of credibility.

Our society has a perception complex. We are raised to judge and compare ourselves against others and our perceptions of other people become our own reality. We are trained from an early age in this regard. In school it didn’t matter if I got a “C” on a project as long as it was in line with the other students in class. Even on a set scale where everyone knows that an “A” is the best, we judge ourselves against our peers, not the scale. It only mattered that I was considered as smart or smarter than the other kids in the class.

By no means do I consider myself to be smart, but the fact that I am a clean cut, in shape, nerdy looking guy, who can carry a conversation on just about any topic, has really helped me out in life. My image allows other people to come up with their own realities of who I am, and I have found that for the most part, people consider me to be a mature young guy with a good head on his shoulders, though if you read young and frugal you already knew that (I kid). And for the most part I work at my image because I want people to walk away feeling that way about me.

Whether we like it or not, image is important in our society, and our society sees the things we appear to possess as extensions of who we are. Our friend who drives the BMW must be rich, and the guy down the street who drives a ‘95 Civic with 225k miles on it must be poor (eww!).

Notice how I used the phrase “appear to possess,” I say this because if I’m leasing or I have financed a 3 series is it really mine? If it’s paid off like the ‘95 Civic then of course it is, otherwise…? I don’t know, can you claim half a BMW?

All of this perception is human nature. As kids, we know that rich people drive nice cars, live in nice houses, and watch huge HDTV’s. As we grow up, and learn about money and responsibility we learn that just because we appear to possess these items doesn’t mean we are rich.

Mary and I listened to NPR on the way home from work today and we heard an interview with Moby. Moby grew up very poor, and he and his mother were on welfare and food stamps until he was 18. He knows and understands the merits of frugality, and that perception isn’t everything. He said on the radio today that earning a great deal of money hasn’t changed him and that he still shops at the same grocery store and does his laundry at the same laundromat. He says he still even has a little 13 inch TV.

When talking about his spending habits and his TV, Moby said “will watching Family Guy on a 42 or 50 inch TV make it funnier?” This practically stopped me dead in my tracks. For months I’ve been salivating over flat panel TV’s that I can’t really rationalize purchasing, but I always end up salivating and coming back around to wanting one. Mary and I even went shopping with her mother for one yesterday. I have had my dream home theater in my head for months (with a mac mini at the helm), and this one prompt by Moby made me question my motivations. Yes, Family Guy is hilarious, but A TV won’t make it funnier because it’s bigger, nor would Davidson have beaten Kansas had I watched in HD.

Why do I feel compelled to make such a big purchase? I could definitely put $1500 to better use somewhere else like an IRA/401(k) or paying down our car loan even faster.

I really can’t come up with a good reason as to why I want a new TV. We have two 20″ TV’s and they both work perfectly. Plus, I don’t really watch TV anymore! Yet, for some reason I want one that is newer/better.

Maybe I feel that our new and incredibly nice house is an extension of us and the TV is an an extension of the house that makes it that much nicer. Maybe I want people to perceive that we have made it, when we drive in our nice and practical new car to our nice new house and watch Nightly Business Report our big new LCD. But at the end of the day image is only as deep as the debt you (can) get yourself into.

Here is the anomaly on all of this, I don’t want my friends looking at our house and our car and being jealous. Sure it makes everyone feel good when other people are jealous of them, but Mary and I are in a unique situation where we are starting out in our lives and careers together. We are a dual income family with no kids (ok we practically treat our dogs like kids…but I digress). It is easier for us to afford this lifestyle. I don’t want any of my friends jumping into our lifestyle too quickly and getting in over their heads, I want them to understand that yes, we have nice things, nicer than we deserve, but we also have car payments, mortgage payments, insurance payments, property tax payments, Homeowners Association Dues, and various other things factored in.

Hey, at least we have no credit card debt!