Comments on: Devil’s Advocate First Five Recap and Requests

By: mbhunter

mbhunter — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:55:05 +0000

The “college is a bad deal” one is interesting. I’m not so sure this one is the clear-cut “loser” that FMF makes it out to be. It’s usually a good deal, but not always.

How about “Do the opposite of what Money magazine tells you to do?”

By: ISPF

ISPF — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 02:59:13 +0000

[...] Then, of course there is the Devil’s Advocate Series by Jim @ The Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. I love looking at an issue from as many different angles as I possibly can (and confusing the crap out of myself ). And, I enjoy argument against conventional wisdom. So, I find this series of posts by Jim to be just awesome. So far Jim has argued against buying a house, optimizing payroll deductions, Index funds & Roth IRA’s, 0% BT arbitrage and buying a car (in favor of leasing it!). I don’t know if Jim plans to continue posting in this series, but I sure hope he does. Either ways, check out the archives for some great posts! [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:44:50 +0000

Why you should invest all of your money in your employer’s stock.

By: jim

jim — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:31:20 +0000

Rob – I knew I wrote a lease vs. buy article, thanks for suggesting it so I could dig it out!

By: Rob Carlson

Rob Carlson — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:06:53 +0000

Lease a new car, don’t buy a used car that’ll just break quicker.

Eat out regularly, save money on dish washing.

Always charge your groceries.

By: Foobarista

Foobarista — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:10:17 +0000

My fave: you should aggressively pay down your mortgage. This is where you get a very interesting “head versus gut” argument and a discussion between the finance-centric types and the zero-debt fanatics. Only bad thing: it’s been talked to death elsewhere.

The college one is interesting in that there _are_ many people who shouldn’t go to college, and would be better off, financially and otherwise, in the skilled trades. Would you rather be button-pushing clerk after getting a degree in trans-slobovian studies or an HVAC tech making $90K/year?

Why you should buy extended warranty insurance on electronics and appliances.

Why you should buy “house warranty” insurance (look, my neighbor got their furnace fixed for “free”)

Why you don’t need medical insurance – after all, there’s always the county free clinic…

By: plonkee

plonkee — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:37:50 +0000

Why you should have whole life insurance (not term).

Why you should have life insurance on your children.

Why you shouldn’t invest in the stock market.

Why you should only have a savings account at your local bank.

Why having lots of children will save you money.

Why you shouldn’t donate money to charity.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:16:48 +0000

I think it would be cool to see something on the tradeoff between community college and traditional 4-year colleges for education and how the savings work out in the long run and short run.

And maybe something arguing why you should (or should not?) pay off ‘low-interest debt’ – debt that has an interest rate below the current online savings rate. For example, argue that I should pay off my car now even though I only pay 4% interest on the loan and can get 5% interest on my money at Emigrant. Or the opposite, whichever one is the devil – I don’t know.

No emergency fund would be nice to see as well. It may already cover it, but something that explains why you should ‘splurge’ now and not save, particularly on certain big ticket items. Get that 1080p HD television!

By: Debt Hater

Debt Hater — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:42:37 +0000

I vote for a no budget DA post and no EMF post. I’d love to see the flip side of those topics!

By: John R

John R — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:38:14 +0000

I definately vote for the no EF article. I’d argue that you can manage risks without one. I currely have a liquidity ratio of 0.25 (as opposed to the 3-9 thatfinancial planners would suggest)

By: Miller

Miller — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:19:28 +0000

Jim, here’s a good one. I’m biting off FMF here (sorry…) but how about instead of “not going to college” you cold explore the trade off between getting a masters (fine… OR an MBA!) before working versus getting one while working. I think me and you might have an opinion or two on this one. Hell, we’re both going to have both versions under our belts soon enough…

By: LivingAlmostLarge

LivingAlmostLarge — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:37:10 +0000

Don’t need and EF, instead invest all the money. Also why it’s better to not ever pay off the house but keep Refinancing to put more money into the market if rates are low and you keep getting 6%.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:12:59 +0000

Hmmmm…. those look tricky…

By: FMF

FMF — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:14:43 +0000

How about:

1. Why you shouldn’t worry about your career and try to maximize your earnings.

2. Why college is a bad deal.

3. Why you should not save for college.

4. Why you don’t need an emergency fund.

5. Why it’s a good idea to hold a lot of credit card debt.

Personally, I’d LOVE to see you argue in favor of these “losers.”

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:19:51 +0000

It might be interesting to discuss why not having a budget is better than having one (live in the now, having a budget is restrictive, making good decisions is better than fitting into a pre-determined mold).

You could also write about why diversification is not a good idea (missed opportunity to hit the BIG one, transaction costs, much more difficult to stay organized).

Finally, while not necessarily a “devil’s advocate post” because the line is not as clearly drawn but still very weighted to one side, you could argue that saving for your children’s education is more important than saving for retirement (if your children are educated, they’ll take care of you, the expense of not being able to afford the best college for your children outweighs your potential hardship during your retirement).