Monday, October 6, Money

Post 1289, Day 279 of 2014
- 1,375 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I've begun my preparations for an Alex visit. This one is a day shorter than usual, which worked out well because it saves me money and September and October are heavy spending months.

Since I changed my mind about leaving the States when I retire, I've spent an unusual large amount of money, and, with the expense of a week-plus-long vacation, cash flow is a little tight. No complaining, I usually get good value when I purchase anything, but lately there has been some waste on things that didn't live up to my expectations.

When I was younger (let's say, younger than thirty-two years old) I had a very difficult time managing money. It had to do with what I wanted materially, and working a corporate job that paid less than what I needed for the lifestyle I imagined I deserved. This is a stupid sense of entitlement. Poor judgment, blame it on youth.

So, I got myself in trouble. Luckily for me, the company I worked for at the time did an amazing thing: They sponsored a company-wide tour by the financial writer Andrew Tobias, who had a money-management personal finance software program, Dollar$ and $ense he was promoting.

I attended the lecture, which was very interesting. I think that many of the ideas I heard, ideas new to me at the time, have become common knowledge, and I know they weren't original with Mr. Tobias back in 1982. But they also weren't as well-known as they are now.

One of the things I learned about was debt. The two big takeaways were to not to take out loans on depreciating assets or on anything temporary. The overall impression I got was that personal debt was bad. As such, I made it my mission to get out of debt. I had a student loan, a car loan and credit card debt (I didn't own a home at the time, I was renting).

I went on an aggressive plan of loan payback (the interest rates were very high back then), per Mr. Tobias' advice. It took more than a year from that date, and, except for a mortgage, I never had any debt for the rest of my adult life, at least until my catastrophic second marriage.

At that time, I ended up homeless, jobless, and, for the first time in forty-five years, deep in debt. As soon as I had a job, I made a commitment to erase my debt. Again, it took more than a year, nearly two, but I turned it around, got out of debt, and managed to save some money while I did.

I was brought up with a sense of scarcity, a sense of my family never being as well-off as my friends' families. It is a destructive mind-set. It took me thirty-two years to begin to make a dent, and a lot longer to turn it around than it did to remove the traps that kind of scarcity thinking inevitably leads you into.

As an aside, I bought the software package. To this day, I think Dollar$ and $ense is the best personal finance software I've ever used. Unfortunately, it didn't have a graphical interface, and was a best-selling program in its heyday, it didn't survive the onslaught of Quicken, an inferior program I've used to understand the ebb and flow of my personal economy since the late 80s.

Here's what I've learned from using personal finance software: If you pay attention to your finances, consistently, and know what your income and outflow are, your money doesn't have to be an emotional issue. You can see it for what it is, and not the overwhelming powerful and controlling 'force' that it is always portrayed as.

I think I manage money well. I have been practicing for decades. I don't get emotional over money matters any more, even though sometimes things indirectly connected to money can still - briefly - push my buttons.

It was never that easy when I had a lot more money, but was just as easy, or easier, when I was broke.

Go figure.

Food and Diet Section

2014 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:          206.8 lbs

Previous Weight*:        206.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:       + 0.6 lbs
                           * Friday, Oct 3
Diet Comment

Minimal weekend damage - that's a good thing, considering that, especially Sunday night, I did not behave well. Without Sunday, I might have lost weight on the weekend. Because I am going out to LA Friday on vacation, I have only four days of meals to eat, and I find myself with an empty pantry and fridge. It's hard for a single guy to buy just three days worth of meals when shopping, because almost everything is packaged for families.

Food Log 

Breakfast

A Quest bar.

Lunch

Roasted turkey breast on baby kale, baby spinach, chard, black beans and cole slaw mix with balsamic vinaigrette. Not shown: A Quest bar.

Snack
Quest bars. 

Dinner
Ezekiel 4:9 Flax bread with guacamole.
 

Snack

Quest bars.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 128+ oz.

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