Breaking Even, Inc.

DNTO and Freakonomics Tackle Money Vs. Time

The old money/time adage goes if you have one, you don't have the other. The money vs. time issue is one felt strongly about by many and can be debated for hours. I've seen a couple interesting and fresh takes on this seemingly-tired arguement recently, both on the New York Times Freakonomics blog and at DNTO, the CDC radio show.

At the Freaknomics blog, Daniel Hamermesh summarizes a paper that recently came out about money and well-being. (It's clever title: "Stressed Out On Four Continents: TIme Crunch Or Yuppie Kvetch?" The title is really all the creativity academics can have with a paper so might as well make it fun!) The major findings of the paper include that while American salaries have tripled since the 1950s, life expectancy has only increased by 10%. The reason is that higher wage workers are spending more time working and that additional wealth means taking more time to spend it (those goods don't acquire themselves!). If you want to read the whole paper, there is a link at the bottom of the post to it.

In related news, DNTO recently did an episode about outsorcing. Mostly, it was writers and contributors to the show experimenting with outsourcing everything from traditional chores like childcare and housework to non-traditional ones like arguing with their spouses and managing their love lives. I was surprised to find that the host of the show Sook-Yin was able to have a piece written that roughly takes up 3 minutes of the show for $20. As someone looking to make an eventual income from writing, I've calculated that I have to make roughly $50 an hour during my billable hours to maintain my standard living, meaning pay all my bills and buy myself health insurance. And those who know me know my lifestyle is far from extravagant. Yikes.

While it was sobering to know I couldn't compete in the global market, it was nice to see in the end the contributors realizing what they were missing in their lives by outsourcing things like reading to their kids. It made me realize how valuable my time is, even whan I am at the grocery store or paying bills.

While I've sometimes felt like a slacker for not climbing some kind of corporate ladder by now, these findings from Freakonomics and DNTO are encouraging. Maybe I've been subconciously avoiding doing the corporate thing for the very reasons of not wanting to be stressed out or lose my leisure time. And even if I was able to outsource the time I spend doing the dishes or answering my email, I know I'd be missing out on some subtlties that really do enrich my life.

In the time or money debate, now more than ever, I'm picking time. What about you?

Photo: I'd pick relaxing over an extra few bucks any day of the week. Photo taken by my friend Brad.

Independence Day

You know when you spend an hour wriitng something really good (in my case a blog post) and then your computer freezes and you lose everything?

Yeah, that just happened to me.

I can't bear to recreate it now; it's time to barbeque and remember the terms under which the country was founded, which were much more difficult then having to rewrite a blog post. Much more significant then my little blog.

If you want to read something cool today, check out The Declaration of Independence, and then think of having to come up with those ideas with a group of people (and having to write it all out neatly by hand).

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July.

Book Review: Nickeled And Dimed

"That's the kind of book that old people read." -12 year old girl I know

I finished Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America in a record time of five days. It was less then 250 pages and a remarkably quick read for the subject it was about: "case studies" of poverty in America.

When one of the middle school girls I work with saw my book, she immediately could not believe I was reading it. Maybe I seem too young and hip (my words, not hers) to be reading something that seems so boring. But to be honest, it was quite interesting. Heck, they even made this book into a play.

The premise is Barbara who spends a year trying to live on minimum wage jobs (or close to) in different parts of the US. I bought the book even before I knew part of it took place in Portland, Maine (she becomes a maid with an agency similar to Merry Maids). Her detailed accounts reminded me of people I know and made me look about the people who wash my dishes, serve my food, and cash me out at the grocery store in a different way.

The evaluation stopped me dead in my tracks. A study shows that the minimum wage to pay for a basic standard of living with a home, a reliable used car, childcare at a liscenced day care, etc. should be $14 an hour. And she was using numbers from 1998-2000. Those making $10 an hour or under are part of the "working poor". My salary translates to about $10 an hour, and it's 2008.

Now until this moment, I didn't think of myself as poor. I have three college degrees and work experience that would put me in the "professional" category. This book made me a little sad and a little inspired at the same time. And more importantly (and beyond looking at my own situation), it made me see the world in a different way then I was seeing it: as a bunch of hardworking people who will one day get to the point where they can't take it anymore and do something about it.

Just a reminder that I'm giving this book away as a prize to the winner of the June Blood Drive. So check out that page for details to enter (it's easy!).

Image from http://www.hoardedordinaries.wordpress.com.

June Blood Drive

You may remember a few months ago that I gave blood at the Red Cross and thought the whole thing was a pretty good use of my time. This month alone, I've gotten two phone calls and one postcard from the Red Cross asking for another donation.

I remember my Dad getting a lot of phone calls for blood donations because he was AB negative, which is fairly rare. But I do know the Red Cross needs blood of all types all the time. In light of recent events and due to the drop in blood donations during the critical summer months, I thought I'd launch a challenge with this blog: The June Blood Drive.

The goal is 50 pints of blood for the Red Cross by the end of June. Can you give a pint? 

To let me know you've donated, comment on the blog or email nicole @breakingeveninc.com and let me know that you have. If you want to take a picture of your "I Donated Blood" sticker or you showing Oreos in your mouth moments afterward to prove your story, go for it. I could always use cool blog art! I trust in your honesty because what sick person would lie about a blood donation?

The prize is a book I picked up in Boston, pre-windshield incident. "Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America". It's a fascinating read (I'm half way through in two days) and interesting from both a personal finance and anthropological perspective.

Ready, set, give! Contest ends June 30.

Nicole's State Of The Economy Address

I'll be the first to admit that I have little to no-pull in terms of making people think one thing or the other about the economy. I do, however, come to a point where I have collected some cool links that just need to be shared.

I'll cover the economy in seperate sectors of the agreed-upon needs of all people: Food, Water, Clothing, Shelter, and Love (and I'll throw in Government just for fun!).

Food

Food price inflation may not be as bad as we thought (check out inflation explained at Debt-Free Revolution). I also read a completely hilarious blog about media mass hysteria about food prices meanwhile the average barbeque meal only cost $1.65 more than last year... if you know who wrote this post let me know, because I lost the link! Even the Wall Street Journal has reported rice futures going down.

Water

My friend Sarah sent me this fabulous SIGG water bottle for my birthday. It is amazing. It keeps my water cold and crisp and does not leave a plastic aftertaste in my mouth...and, of course, it's refillable. I don't normally endorse products but here's the store if you want to buy one.

Clothing

Apparently, the New York Times is having a hard time believing that Sarah Jessica Parker's newish Bitten line of clothes is so wonderful. They seem to think that attraction towards inexpensive clothes is a phenomenon in these economic times. Those of us who love women's magazines though have seen a "Bitten" example in every issue for at least the past year. Ok slight exaggeration but SJP (and women wanting cute cheap clothes) is here to stay.

Feeling left out menfolk? Please don't: LL Cool J has got your back! (from USAToday.com)

Shelter

If you want to understand how this whole housing debaucle happened, listen to this hour-long program from This American Life. Great storytelling, which you can expect from TAL but makes this whole thing way more understandable.

And if you're a renter, feel free to get angry. Read this fabulous post by Baglady to see why this housing crisis will effect us all whether we rent or not.

Love

Ah, poor Anne Heche. She may love her kids but can't afford to pay child support. OK, if she can't afford it, I think that pretty much lets everyone else off the hook, too. (I have no sympathy for celebrities who make more money in one day then I have in five years then waste their money. Where I'm from we call that gaspilleuse!)(from People.com)

But in the good news bin about love, people apparently love and appreciate small businesses enough to actually pay in a pay-as-you-wish situation. (from Freakonomics blog)

And according to a recent Gallup poll,almost 50% of us are happy and thriving. How happy? People are working on an index for that! (from Freakonomics blog)

Government

Haven't spent your new government stimulus check on a new Wii or a crazy night in Vegas? Good for you! Here are some more productive things to do with it. (from Mighty Bargain Hunter)

And guess what? The government is doing something about credit card companies (from Debt-Free Revolution).

Need even more government fun? Now you can actually prove if you could do a better job then your Congress people. Balance the federal budget...it's a new game called Budget Hero. (Freakonomics blog)

To summarize: things may or may not be as awful as we thought, but we certianly can't control everything. Might as well smile and wave...

Image from www.shorpy.com.

 

Getting Up In My Business

SMBIZ4ME Governor's Regional Business Conference Was Interesting, Worth A Day Off

I took the day off work Wednesday to attend the SMBIZ4ME Conference for a few reasons: 1) It was only a half hour's drive away. 2) I heard it was going to be good from a few people. and 3) It only cost $25 and one day off to attend. As someone who has already heavily invested in my brain but knows little about business, I figured the price and the opportunity to network with people in the area would be invaluable. It was.

The vendors set up over breakfast and gave me something to do when I first walked in and was getting my bearings. (I can be social; I just sometimes need to ease into it). I made a few good connections with some Maine publications that were at least theoretically interested in my writing as well as met the guy behind Mainecreates.com. Mainecreates is a social networking site for Mainers involved in the creative economy. (I got on the site to set up a profile when I got home but I see I will be charged for it after a year, which I'm not really down with. But it is a good idea so I set up my own account there.)

In my first seminar, I met Melanie Brooks, who just got hired at MaineBusiness.com. It's a division of MaineToday (another newspaper) but it's focused on business content. She's a blogger, I'm a blogger. She suggested I crosspost on their site. So I'm trying that out to see if that'll be a good use of energy. (Really I want to end up as one of their featured bloggers, I'm competitive like that.) Melanie was fun, energetic, and into blogging; she seems like the kind of person I'd hang out with if I lived closer to Portland, though though the blogosphere can at least be a virtual friend.

All this happened in the first two hours. Did I mention there was all the free coffee I could drink and croissants I could eat? (Out of restraint, I had one croissant, ladies and gentlemen, with an apple chaser).

Meeting a lot of people who are all either thinking about or running their own businesses and having to give my "elevator speech" about my blogging consulting/web content creation business allowed me to not only realize that I actually did have a good, original idea but that I do really believe that I can do it.

As with any event of this nature, there is some golf clapping, boring speech listening, corporate sponsors to thank profusely, and a couple snotty people but that was all minor. (One PR woman in my last seminar seemed ridiculously jealous of me and conducted herself in such a way that I wondered, is she actually a PR person?)

Overall though, I met some wonderful people and got some great ideas. I left feeling energized, even though being nice and civil to people you barely know all day can be fairly exhausting.

Have you had a rockin' professional development day recently?

It's My Birthday

I'm taking off today from blogging to celebrate my turning 27. Feel free to use it as an excuse to celebrate!

I'll be back tomorrow for the usual fun. Have a great day.

Photo from istockphoto.

Happy Easter

Because it wouldn't be Easter without a few fun pictures (would love to give photo credits but these are out of emails I've gotten so I have no idea). Have a great day!

Depends On Where You Start From

Peep Show

Is It Getting Hot In Here Or Are We Playing The Stock Market?

I'm In A Couple That Knows The Meaning Of Romance

Some young couples buy their first piece of furniture together, or buy land to build a house. Sean and I have gone an even more romantic route and bought stock together as our first jointly owned item.

I've long wanted to enter the stock market game. But buying stock in some small unknown company or just a company I couldn't get excited about never seemed interesting to me. Yet that was precisely what I could afford.

I've talked about wanting to "own Google" frequently enough. At work, we use a lot of their software and I like that they are a company who treats their workers well. (I also think they are going to figure out television on the internet before anyone else but that’s just my hunch.)

When I inquired at dinner one night whether one could buy half a share of stock (GOOG was approaching $600 at that point), Sean offered to go in on it with me. We submitted money to eTrade and waited while it cleared. (Unlike their Superbowl commercials that promised instant stock purchasing, there is a nine business day waiting period on new funds.)

Meanwhile, Sean became interested in a company called Luminex that he likes and uses a lot at work.

As of two days ago, we are proud owners of 1 share of Google and 4 shares of Luminex (Sean has less expensive taste in stock than I do). We have a romantic dinner wager on which stock will do better, which we will evaluate six months from now.

And while I’ve always felt cheated that I couldn’t play the stock market game in high school economics class, I get to play it now.

Of course Google tanked and Luminex slightly tanked yesterday. I’ve decided for personal sanity reasons to take the little stock graphs that update every 15 minutes off my Google homepage. While I’d love to think I’m going to get rich off GOOG, I think this will just be a fun way to hopefully grow my money in the long run and allow me to learn more about markets firsthand.

I’d love to know how you’ve played the stock market game and how much you enjoyed or didn’t enjoy it.

Image from: http://btr.michaelkwan.com/2007/10/09/google-stock-breaks-600-will-anything-stunt-its-growth/

Happy Super Fat Tuesday From Ms. Frugality Burnout

I like to think that I coined the term Super Fat Tuesday early this morning. I thought I was so clever until a quick Google search proved my otherwise, as it usually does. Oh well.

As luck would have it, I won a Superbowl pool over the weekend for predicting the overall total score without going over. I know, I know, I know nothing about sports and just got lucky. But good for me, right? I am now $125 richer. As with unexpected cash flow in general, the question is save or spend. So what would you do with an extra hundred bucks if it just happened to you?

Reader Poll: What should Nicole do with her extra $125?
a) Pay her dentist bill from last month...what kind of budgeting guru are you?
b) Put the money towards a more extravagant birthday gift for the boyfriend; invest in love!
c) Save it for a fun excursion this spring. Wee!
d) Buy a material possession on her wish list as a reminder that she can still be fun.

Guess which I want to do?

Apparently "frugality burnout" is an actual thing to watch out for and cope with, especially as the New Year seems farther away. So here's a Super Fat Tuesday reminder from your Franco-American budgeter to go a little wild and Mardi Gras from time to time with your budget.

But please weigh in on what you'd actually do with extra cash. I'm curious!