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Your Take: Your Best Career Tip?

Jim — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:02:14 +0000

I hope you got as much out of reading and commenting about the posts in Career Week as I did writing them. While the posts themselves were written to speak to those who are currently unemployed, I think the ideas and tips I shared are applicable to anyone looking for a job. If you have employed and are looking for a better job, you can use the tips from Career Week to get to the next level. If you are employed and looking to change your career path, you can use the ideas from some of these posts to help you make that change.

For this week’s Your Take, I wanted to ask you to share your best career tip. It can be anything related to career advice from looking for a job to preparing your resume, from interviewing preparation tips to salary negotiation. There are many many topics I didn’t cover in the series, so feel free to cover them here in your best career tips.

I’m eager to hear the great ideas you have! (feel free to leave two or three or five, don’t feel like you need to limit it to just one)

(Photo: krishnade)

Your Take: Your Best Career Tip? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Your Favorite Meal

Jim — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:24:35 +0000

As I mentioned last week, my lovely wife and I have started cooking more because it’s fun, healthier, and easier on the wallet. We’ve documented some of our creations on Bargaineering, from pork and shrimp dumplings to pizza to to homemade apple pie. We’ve even gone super high class and cooked up a Provençal rack of lamb earlier this year.

How do we pick what we want to cook? It’s a mixture of what’s on sale that week at our local grocery store and the meals we absolutely love. We both loved dumplings so we thought it would be fun to make our own filling and “make” dumplings. My wife always had homemade apple pie on the first day of school and so I made her a pie when she started her new graduate program.

In the end, part of the fun is taking a recipe, adding your own touches and tailoring it to match your tastes. Each time you make it, you get closer and closer to the perfect dish. We’ve tried our hand at replicating dishes from our favorite restaurants, sometimes we get it right and sometimes we are very very off. Either way, it’s been a fun challenge.

For today’s Your Take, I wanted to learn what your favorite meals or dishes were. We’ve shared some of ours and shown how easy many of them are to make, I was hoping you all could share your favorites. It doesn’t have to be fancy or anything like that, in fact I would prefer if it wasn’t so we could make it easily and often, but it has to be something you absolutely love. It can be a homemade dish or one you order from a restaurant – whatever is the first and favorite in your mind.

I look forward to reading what your favorite meal is!

(Photo: liberato)

Your Take: Your Favorite Meal from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Will Your Recession Changes Stick?

Jim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:38:15 +0000

While most of us don’t believe we’re out of the recession, no matter what the statistics say, we can all agree that we made a few sacrifices over the last year and a half. Some have made a lot of sacrifices. One of the things my wife and I cut back on was dining out. We would go out to restaurants several times a week, not counting weekend festivities with our friends. For a dual income, no kid household, it’s not uncommon because our other expenses are generally low. However, with the uncertainty of the recession and my wife starting a PhD program, we thought that cutting back on one of our largest expenses was a smart idea and we believe the changes will stick even after the economy truly recovers.

We decided to cut back for health reasons too. We weren’t eating at unhealthy places (our favorite was a local Vietnamese noodle Pho restaurant) but anytime you eat out, you are almost guaranteed to eat far more calories than at home. By cooking at home, you control what goes into your food and you’re more likely to serve more reasonable portions.

A side benefit of cooking more at home is that we’ve experimented more with some fun recipes. Some highlights include our Homemade Provençal Rack of Lamb earlier this year and the occasional homemade dumpling (by the way, I’m getting hungry writing this… so don’t click through unless you’ve eaten!), but more importantly we’ve added a lot of recipes to our “list of dishes we liked that we can make from memory.” I think it’s crucial for you to build up that portfolio of dishes because you’re less likely to go to a restaurant if you have a few things you can make yourself.

Finally, we found that cooking together is fun. We get to experiment, make mistakes, substitute ingredients we think we’d like more, and otherwise just have a great time spending time together working towards a fairly simple goal. We made the Provençal Rack of Lamb on a whim and lucked out that we didn’t mess it up on the first try. But had we screwed it up, no worries, we can always try again! (if you love eating out, you can always try to make it at home using what are known as “copy cat recipes,” just do a Google search)

Because of all those reasons, I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to cook more and eat out less even after the recession ends. It’s morphed from a “save money, save calories” decision to a “wow this is a lot of fun.”

Has something like that happened with you? Maybe you cut off cable television service for financial reasons and found a plethora of alternatives you liked better? Or maybe you went from two cars to one and found you liked that arrangement better? I’d love to hear it because then we could all give it a try.

(Photo: avlxyz)

Your Take: Will Your Recession Changes Stick? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Are We Out Of The Recession?

Jim — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:05:25 +0000

Yesterday, the Department of Commerce reported that the annualized GDP (gross domestic product) grew to 3.5% in third quarter. This is significant because, by definition, a recession is two straight quarters of shrinking GDP. A 3.5% increase in GDP would mean, at least technically, the recession was over. Four straight quarters of negative GDP growth, the worst of which was the first quarter of 2009 (-6.4%), has finally come to an end.

Hooray! Right?

Unfortunately, no one living in the real world cares much for technicalities. Millions of jobs have been lost, with hundreds of thousands more each month, and so I don’t think many people feel like the recession is over even if the bean counters say so. One positive sign is that the growth beat expectations by 0.3%, which isn’t a bad thing.

Two things worry me:

How much of the recovery was the result of various government programs meant to stimulate consumption? We had all the bailouts, cash for clunkers, first time home buyer credit, and several other programs that cost billions. People are still being laid off at the rate of hundreds of thousands a month, unemployment for September 2009 was 9.5% (not seasonally adjusted), and people without jobs tend to spend less (duh). Is this sustainable?
Check out the 2nd quarter of 2008. In the 1st quarter of 2008, we saw a negative GDP growth figure. Then we “pulled out” of a potential recession in the 2nd quarter only to fall back into the trenches for a full year.

So, while we’re technically out of the recession, does it feel like we’re out of the recession? What do you think?

(Source: CNN Money)

Your Take: Are We Out Of The Recession? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Married Women Outearning Husbands

Jim — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:21:51 +0000

An MSNBC article this week discussed how women are increasingly earning more than their husbands. Twenty years ago, 17.8% of women outearned their husbands. In 2007, 25.9% outearned their husbands if they both worked and 33.5% of married women outearned their husbands period. It’s estimated that the percentage bas probably jumped because of all the jobs lost in the recession, it’s estimated that nearly 75% were held by men.

The Shriver Report conducted a survey and found that 65.3% of women and 61.2% of men were comfortable with women earning more than men. I want to know, what do you think?

I’m totally comfortable with married women earning more than their husbands. The key question is whether I’d be comfortable with my wife outearning me. I’d like to say I’m pragmatic and I’d be OK with it, but I have no idea and wouldn’t know until the situation presented itself. My guess is that I would be OK with it because I view our relationship as a partnership, an “us against the world” rather than a race only one of us can win. I’m never going to secretly hope she fails, that’s just stupid.

However, I also have a lot of pride. I fully recognize it’s sexist to think that the breadwinner of the family is the man, but part of how I was raised was that I am responsible for my family. If I was out of work and Martha were the sole breadwinner, it would bother me not because she’s outearning me, but because I’m not earning. When I think about it that way, it really has nothing to do with her earning more… so I imagine I’d be fine with it.

One thing I do know, it’s about time we eliminated the income tax marriage penalty. The income tax marriage penalty is the name given to the fact that the income tax brackets for Married Filing Jointly aren’t twice that of the income tax brackets for Single filers. If men and women are equal, why don’t the tax brackets reflect that? The MFJ bracket stops being double the Single filer bracket starting in the 25% bracket. I think it’s about time we adjust that to reflect both reality and equality.

What are you thoughts on married women outearning men?

(Photo: alexik)

Your Take: Married Women Outearning Husbands from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: What is Your Money Vice?

Jim — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:17:58 +0000

We all have one. We all have that hobby we know we spend too much money on. Maybe you drop a paycheck or two every time you walk into Williams Sonoma because of some gadget you have to have. Or your spending goes unchecked on vacation, picking up trinkets and souvenirs from your getaways. Perhaps you’re a gadget hound and are the first on your block to get the latest electronic gizmo.

Whatever it is… you know you have one and I want to know what it is.

My vice, without a doubt, is on vacations. My wife and I love going on vacations (hence our new labor of love, travel blog Wanderlust Journey!) and when we do, we like to eat at nice restaurants, visit all the nice sights, and buy a few souvenirs along the way. We aren’t the knick knack types, but my wife loves sending postcards and I love making sure she actually gets around to sending them from the country on the face of the card!

One caveat, we do budget (a little) on our trips. We set a total trip budget that is usually very large, divide it up by the number of days, and then run with it. This keeps up a little grounded while we’re in a totally fun and foreign place. Trip budgets, in general, are usually high because they include things you don’t normally think about in a budget, like your lodging and all of your meals. I like to set our trip budgets high because I know I like to spend. If you’re going to pay so much for a flight somewhere, you might as well maximize the fun while you’re there!

So out with it… what’s your money vice?

(Photo: Wanderlust Journey)

Your Take: What is Your Money Vice? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: What Are Your Rules of Thumb?

Jim — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:08:45 +0000

There are a lot of “rules of thumb” in the personal finance world. We all know the classic ones: you should save at least 10% of your income, you should have 6 – 12 months of expenses saved into an emergency fund, and you should X% of your portfolio invested in stocks where X is 120 minus your age. In fact, rules of thumb are so ubiquitous in personal finance that I took a look at four rules of thumb in need of some refreshing.

However, those are publicly known rules of thumb that experts have repeated over and over again. What I’d like to know is whether you have any personal rules of thumb that you live by? It doesn’t have to be strictly personal finance related, it just has to have served you well over the years.

I ask because in my post about the best car for students, Financial Samurai offered up a great rule:

I use the 1/10th rule we coined. Essentially, the car you buy should cost no more than 1/10th your gross income. I’ve used this rule to a T, and it works well.

I think that it might be a little on the low side, especially if you only have one income, but you wouldn’t be wrong to use a similar rule.

Do you have any personal rules of thumb that have worked well for you?

Your Take: What Are Your Rules of Thumb? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: What Stresses You The Most?

Jim — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:15:45 +0000

Reader’s Digest conducted a poll of 150 people from 16 countries to find out what stresses them out the most. Voters could choose family, health, money, and the state of the world. First, I’d like you to vote on what stresses you out the most, then I’ll write about the results of that study. I’m curious to see how the results of Bargaineering Nation compare with the 16 other real nations.

Sorry, the poll seems to be broken so leave your answer in the comments below.

The results of the Reader’s Digest report showed that money stressed people out the most. 58% of people in Malaysia and 55% of people in China and Singapore voted for money. In the United States, 48% of respondents gave money. Not surprising given the state of the world economy, right?

It’s an interesting study, I can’t wait to see how it compares with us.

Poll: Money worries world’s greatest cause of stress [CNN Money]

Your Take: What Stresses You The Most? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Is The Recession Over?

Jim — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:05:20 +0000

Earlier this week, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the recession was “very likely over” but that the unemployment rate would likely still go up. There’s a lot of talk about a “jobless” recovery, that is a recovery in which new jobs aren’t created, with the unemployment rate not falling back to the normal 5% for at least another four years. Bernanke specifically said that the recession was likely over from a technical perspective, which is to say that we’ll probably still feel like a recession even if we don’t have two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

So I wanted to know from you – do you think the recession is over? It’s one thing to look at “statistics” and declare victory, it’s another to look people in the eye and tell them that the recession is over.

Personally, I think that you can throw technical out the window because regular people don’t really care. Until people stop being afraid they’ll lose their jobs because of the economy, the recession isn’t going to be over. There have been a lot of positive things about this recession – Americans are repaying debt and saving more, frugality has made a resurgence, and there’s been a greater emphasis on emergency funds.

So… is the recession over?

(Photo: arvindgrover)

Your Take: Is The Recession Over? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Your First Job?

Jim — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:45:25 +0000

You never forget your first job, right? At the age of 15, you can’t legally work in New York yet unless you jumped through all these hoops to get a work permit. It was this stupid little green card that said you would only work during certain hours of the day, the total number of hours per week couldn’t exceed some number, and was a really big pain in the butt to get.

I wanted the card because I needed one to work the cushiest job I knew about, the library. I heard librarians were making ridiculous money putting books away in a nice, air conditioned building. After getting the card, I soon learned that everyone else had the same bright idea and some crazy people were doing it for free! The wait-list for a summer job at the library was months.

So we went to option two and my first job ended being at a Chinese takeout restaurant. I answered phones, prepared people’s take out orders, and banked a lovely $5 an hour tax free. Turns out the stupid card was completely unnecessary if they just handed me cash at the end of the day. I think I worked there for a year or so, getting a couple raises in the process (I think I ended at like $6.50 an hour), and getting a good lesson in life. All in all, I think it was a great first job experience.

What was your first job?

(Photo: rhoran)

Your Take: Your First Job? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Legalize Organ Trafficking?

Jim — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:26:45 +0000

There’s been a lot of buzz in the news lately on the issue of organ trafficking. While this CNN story wasn’t the first time I heard Nick Rosen’s story of selling a kidney for $20,000, it is certainly a sign that the discussion of selling organs is coming back into the spotlight.

The story of Rosen probably isn’t all that different from other people who have sold organs. They saw an ad, answered it, duped the hospital doing the transplant, and got paid. The difference was that he then bragged about it in a “documentary” about how easy it was to do (I say brag because the video supposedly has him lying on a bed covered in cash).

What do you think about organ trafficking? I’m against the idea. I believe someone should be able to sell an organ if they want to but I think that making organ trafficking legal opens up a whole host of legal, economic, and moral issues we can’t answer.

For example, if the market price of an organ is $20,000 then anyone who can’t possibly pay that amount would simply die. Any “rational” person, in the economic sense, who would freely donate a kidney to a stranger would now demand $20,000 because that’s the market price of a kidney. What if the person is mentally unstable? What if they aren’t considered emotionally fit enough to make the decision?

It just seems like once you put a price on something like that, you introduce a lot more headaches than you’re probably prepared to deal with.

What do you think?

(PHoto: myklroventine)

Your Take: Legalize Organ Trafficking? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Is Five Days of Mail Delivery OK?

Jim — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:07:26 +0000

Did you know that that the United States Postal Service is slated to lose $6 billion or more this year? It lost $2.8 billion last year.

With all the outrage over lending billions to financial institutions, you’d think more people would be fired up about running an operation that lost $2.8 billion last year and could lose $6 billion this year. No one is sending packages on credit for people without jobs. There aren’t multi-million dollar bonuses for anyone at the post office. It’s just a business that is spending more than it earns because mail volume is dropping.

In reading more about it, some people argue that delivery days is a red herring and that the USPS can save money in other areas. While I can appreciate that to a degree, sometimes it comes down to an argument of “less filling” or “great taste.” The reality is that the post office is losing money and we’re paying for it, with taxes and with higher postage stamp prices, and they need to stop arguing and start fixing.

I am perfectly fine with getting mail five days a week.

What do you think?

(Photo by icanchangethisright)

Your Take: Is Five Days of Mail Delivery OK? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Your Favorite Vacation?

Jim — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:21:36 +0000

We’ve all shared our dream vacations, but what is your favorite vacation? What’s a place you absolutely love going to?

For me, my favorite vacation has to be to Hawaii (one of the reasons I’m a huge fan of my friend Sheila’s GoVisitHawaii.com blog, it’s an almost daily reminder of how beautiful and awesome the 50th state is). My wife and I went there for our honeymoon a year and a half ago. We spent a week on Kauai, half a week on the Big Island, and half a week on Oahu, and sometimes I feel as though our hearts never left.

If you’ve never been, Hawaii is gorgeous. Kauai is the least developed and least touristy of the main islands and we were big fans of that. We went whale watching and snorkeling near Poipu with Captain Tara (Kauai Sea Riders), who was a friend of a family friend, we went ATV riding, took a helicopter ride around the island, and did all sorts of hiking. On the Big Island, we stayed a couple days in Hilo (the verdant and more rainy side) and then a couple in Kona (the drier side); enjoying the beach, snorkeling, and such. Finally on Oahu, we visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial, where you could easily spend an entire day seeing the memorial, Bowfin submarine, and the Battleship Missouri.

What’s your favorite vacation?

Your Take: Your Favorite Vacation? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: Your Favorite Personal Finance Book

Jim — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:17:14 +0000

Every year, hundreds of personal finance books are published. Every year, personal finance bloggers, experts, and columnists always refer back to a handful of books that have stood the test of time. Many bloggers are fans of Your Money or Your Life and the Richest Man in Babylon, many investors call The Intelligent Investor their Bible, and lots of people look up to the books of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and Robert Kiyosaki.

I want to know, what is your favorite personal finance book ever? It can be the book that has had the most impact on your life, the book that you most enjoy reading, or the book you’d most likely recommend to a friend.

I’ve listed my must read personal finance books and even written one sentence summaries of ten personal finance books, but have I ever told you my absolute favorite?

The Motley Fool’s Money Guide by Selena Maranjian. As they say, you never forget your first. This book was the first personal finance book I ever read, back in 2003 when I started my first job, and it gave me all the tools to help me succeed. The best thing about the book was how broad it was. It gave me a sense of the landscape and enough of a vocabulary that I could learn anything Maranjian missed by researching it on my own. Is it the best book? That I can’t say, but I do know it’s my favorite.

So what’s yours?

Your Take: Your Favorite Personal Finance Book from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Your Take: What Would You Like to Accomplish in Ten Years?

Jim — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:02:24 +0000

Last week, I asked you what you’d tell yourself ten years ago. Today, I’m flipping the script… if you were visited by your future self, say ten years into the future, what would you like your future self to say about what you’ve accomplished the last ten years?

I would like my future self to tell me that I had started a family, started holding annual charitable events (much like my friend Scott and his very successful twice-annual Ghent Bar Tour), and built up Bargaineering to be a premier personal finance resource on the web. I’ve always measured success as a mixture of family, community, and career so to have reached those successes within ten years would be pretty exciting to hear. To top it all off, I’d like to know that I did it with hard work and determination mixed in with a little bit of luck, to help solidify what I learned the last ten years.

What would you like to accomplish in ten?

(Photo: bitterjug)

Your Take: What Would You Like to Accomplish in Ten Years? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.