Goals Twenty-Ten

I welcome 2010. I'm going to own 2010. I think it's going to be a good year.

Like so many others at this time of year, I'm putting together some goals for the future. Goals have been a popular subject on the Dave Ramsey show recently. You can read/listen to a recent call about goal setting here. It was a good call. Dave identified several categories for goal setting: Career, Financial, Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, and Family. I've given these some thought and here's my initial list. I'll leave them open to ongoing review.

Career

• Do something with those picture books I've written. Write that cover letter. Send it out. That fits under Career, right?.

Financial

• Tweak our envelope system. Already done.
• Bump up college savings.
• Replenish our savings (just bought a new HVAC system for the house...ouch).
• Work on long range savings (vacation, car, etc).

Spiritual

• Finish this read-through of the Bible.

Intellectual

• Dig into my non-fiction reading list. At least one per month. Probably two with some fiction thrown in.

Physical

• Run a local 5k trail run in the spring.
• Put on another 10-15 pounds.

Family

• Family/Couples Devotions. Also falls under Spiritual
• Family Vacation!

A less tangible goal for the year would be to pursue my strengths. That is, spend less time worrying about my weaknesses and, instead, invest more into what I do well. That doesn't mean I'll slack off on things I don't enjoy activities where I don't feel gifted. I just not worry about it as much. God gave me my strengths for a reason.

The real question, of course, is whether I'll follow through with this goals.

Cash for Clunkers

The Cash for Clunkers program is old news now. Some consider it a success but I'm not sold. I was never really a fan of it. Actually, my first thought when I heard about it was "But I already own a clunker. Why should my tax money buy more?"

I don't like that so many semi-decent cars were pulled off the road and destroyed. As someone that refuses to finance a car, I like the cash car. A lot of those inexpensive cars are no longer on the road. No, they weren't going to win beauty contests. No, they may not have gotten great mileage. But they worked, they were affordable, and, if purchased right, were interest-free.

There are also a lot of people that don't have any kind of transportation. A so-called clunker may have been very much appreciated. They could really have used a low priced Ford Explorer to safely carry their kids, commute to work, or even start their own business. Now that Ford Explorer has been destroyed. Was it green? No. But sometimes dirty brown is better than clean green.

While I can't blame people for taking advantage of the program, I hate to think about how many car loans were issued during the program. Did we not learn we couldn't loan/borrow our way out of the economic mess? From what I've read, I'm not the only one expressing remorse about the program. According to this article, the levels of buyer remorse for those using Cash 4 Clunkers is about twice the normal rate. Yikes!

Here's what really hurts me. The other day I heard about the actual cars that were turned in. Overwhelmingly, the list includes the expected SUVs, trucks, etc. But that's not all. AutoBlog offers a staggering lists of other vehicles. Here are a few that, when I read about them, made me feel like I'd been kicked in the stomach:

373 Mazda RX-7s
327 Toyota Supras
6 Porsche 928s
61 Pontiac Fieros -- based upon the mpg requires, I'm guessing these were the GT model
A GMC Typhoon
A 1989 20th Anniversary Pontiac Trans Am
A 1987 Buick Grand National

A TYPHOON?! AN ANNIVERSARY TRANS AM?! A GRAND NATIONAL?! Are you kidding me?!

I previously said I couldn't blame people for taking advantage of the program. I was wrong. I blame the person that traded that Buick. I blame the person that traded that TA. What were they thinking? That's wrong. So very wrong. I wonder if they traded these in for Ford Focuses? I wonder if they realize that, with immediate depreciation, their new car may now be worth less than what they traded in (even in crummy, but running condition). And that without considered the sheer awesomeness they gave up. Ugg.

Breathe, Brett. Breathe. I need to look at a Grand National. Here's one from Auburn a couple years back.

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream
by Adam Shepard
Harper
ISBN: 0061714364

The premise of Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream is an experiment. The author, recently out of college, took $25, his journal, and an empty gym bag and set out to see if he could make it in a new town. His goals were pretty simple. After one year, he hoped to have $2500 in cash, a furnished place to live (with or without a roommate), and a functioning car. The book chronicles the author's journey through living in a shelter, searching for a jobs, working with social workers, and all the highs and lows in between.

To some extent, the book is a response to Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. I have not read Nickel and Dimed. Maybe I should but I doubt that I will. I've read some excerpts on Amazon and my impression was that the author's goal was to complain and, ultimately, fail in making it. That just didn't feel right. I apologize if I'm off on that. Again, I haven't read it. Neither is this a review of Nickel and Dimed.

In any case, I enjoyed Scratch Beginnings. It was obvious Shepard, the author of Scratch Beginnings, set out to succeed and that appealed to me. He did got lucky on several things. He landed a particular job that went a long way to helping him pursue his goals. He also stumbled into a homeless shelter with a lot of useful programs to help the residents. As life goes, things did not always go his way. Through it all, he was focused, he sacrificed for his goals, and he went after it.

The friends Shepard makes during his journey are an eclectic group. There are those with similar goals and work ethic and there are those content to let the world happen to them. The point at which Shepard explained his experiment (at the end, of course) to his friends was interesting. In particular, explaining it to the guy that, well, had already succeeded in the same experiment. The only difference was that the experiment was his life.

About the only complaints I had about the book concerned the writing style. Some of it was preachy. Some was a little egotistical. Then again, it was autobiographical. If I wrote a book about me, it would almost certainly seem egotistical.

So, will Scratch Beginnings change anyone's mind about the American Dream? Probably not. Those (like me) that believe you can make it with focus, determination, and hard work will find the book appealing and fitting into their ideals. Those that don't will complain that Shepard was far more privileged than many others. He had youth, education, health, and no family to support. All are maybe valid complaints--Shepard actually points several out--though they'd still be missing the point. Either way, previously held ideas won't be swayed. My guess is that Nickel and Dimed is similar...making good points that will be lauded by those that agree and dismissed by those that don't.

Months!

It's been months since I've posted anything. Not really sure why. I think I've just been distracted by...well...a lot of stuff. Maybe I was testing to see who noticed my absence and said something. If that were the case, every single one of you failed. Miserably. Not that I'm keeping track.

Some quick updates:

1. The boys are growing like crazy. Jonah has passed through crawling to cruising in a blink. He's a determined little guy. Jonah's first birthday as well as his dedication at church is in just a couple weeks. Jesse is full of questions and curiosity. He's sleeping in a big boy bed and even memorizing Bible verses. Amazing!

2. I banged up my Honda Civic on my commute home in February. Poor Rhonda ended up totaled. She was a loyal friend (not that you would know anything about loyalty) and I miss her. This prompted me to buy another car. The new ride is another Civic EX. It's pretty close to what I had...just black and with 2-doors instead of 4. We'll call it the (semi) sporty version of Rhonda. I got a great deal on it. I haven't named it yet. Maybe Coop. Or Cooper.

3. Worked on and completed another sculpture. I'll get pictures and details posted shortly.

4. We refinanced our mortgage and started college funds for the boys. We've been meaning to do both for awhile. With rates low and investments on sale, it seemed like prime time to get going. I think this put us working on Dave Ramsey's Baby Step #6 (Payoff home).

5. More reading. I finished the last of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. I love Lewis. Good stuff. I also read Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer. This book was a look behind the creation of Veggie Tales. And interesting story of a man pursuing his mission. I think that's it. Currently, I'm reading Story by Robert McKee and Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message by Ravi Zacharias. both are pretty intense.

6. Pondering my next creative endeavor. Sculpture? Graphic Novel? Not sure.

Sorry I don't have more pictures. Here's a start.

Giving up

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker the other day. It began with a discussion about debt and the desire to get out and keep out of debt. My anti-debt feelings should be no surprise to the readers of my blog. Anyway, the discussion eventually transitioned to things less tangible than family budgets. Most notably, we discussed how the handling of our resources reflected our faith, our general view of the world, and our feelings about our place in the world. It was an appropriate conversation with the with the holidays and holiday gift-giving/receiving coming up. That conversation also introduced me to the Junky Car Club. Check that out sometime.

Anyway, I shared part of my gradually developing story. Over the last two years, my wife and I have worked hard to clean house. Now I won't go into the anti-debt-speech as I've done that several times before. Beyond that, though, I've been working to run a tighter ship. That sounds vague, I know. What I mean is that I've been trying to concentrate my time, money, and effort on those things that mean most to me. What am I passionate about? It's really been an exercise in saying no. As a result, there have been a few hobbies like woodworking, sculpting, and Flash animation that haven't received a lot of attention lately. On the other hand, I've been able to focus my attention on other things like drawing. I miss those things and do expect to get back to them but it might not be for awhile. As it was, keeping everything on the plate meant that I couldn't really focus on anything.

I read an article quite awhile ago (it's been on my to-blog list for a long time) . Essentially, it discusses how we, as humans, tend to place a higher value on things simply because those things are ours. That is, once something is in our possession, we're suddenly more zealous in keeping it that we ever were to get it. It's probably best to use a for instance. I have a old Huffy banana-seat bicycle. It's metallic green, has a sparkly green vinyl seat, sparkly hand grips, and is, overall, flippin' sweet. I picked it up at Goodwill several years ago. Here's the thing...I really can't ride it. Seriously, the wheels are 20". It's made for a kid and it's downright painful for my 6'+ frame to ride it. I could sell it for more money than I'd realistically pay for it now. But I keep it around because it's mine and it's cool. Well, I was keeping it around. Its up for sale now. I'm saying no to cluttering up the garage. It'll be sad to see it go but I really won't miss it.


Wow. Talk about a lack of focus...

Payment Plan

Retro Brett is a decent blog. I know there are things I could do to make it better. Probably the the best thing would be for me to write shorter, more focused posts. Rather than one horrifically long post, several shorter posts would certainly be more readable. That's one of my top goals for the blog. I think my reworking of my categories was a help. They're less fun but they're also a little less cryptic.

Another goal...making blogging worth my while. I like blogging but, let's face it, it's not exactly paying any bills. I have several friends that have been working with services in which they actually get paid to blog. While I enjoy blogging, I also enjoy getting paid. Why not try to combine these two things? Well, I did some (not a lot...but some) research and, of the various blog advertising services, I opted to try out Smorty. Here's why:

1. I liked their website. It was clear, easy to use, and easy to navigate.
2. I liked the idea of accepting assignments rather than feeling like I had to post about something of which I had little to say.
3. The pay is decent. More importantly, there seems to be opportunity, as I continue, that the pay will increase.
4. Their rules regarding qualification and posting seemed more in keeping with the nature of my blogging.
5. Smorty seemed on the ball with regards to communication (i.e. "you'll hear back from us within 72 hours...").

This chance to get paid for blogging should be interesting. I'll let you know how it goes.

The H-Bomb is ours!

Well, we've finally done it. My wife dropped the very last of our car payments off at the bank the other day. As of now, our 2005 Hyundai Tucson, the car I affectionately call "The H-Bomb" is ours. That last payment was a doozy, covering probably a couple years of monthly payments but, boy howdy, does it feel good to have it done. Now, all we have to do is wait for the title. And, from now on, NO MORE CAR PAYMENTS! At least not if we can help it.

As for the debt situation, all we have left is the house. That puts us through the first 3 steps of Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to financial peace:

	$1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
	Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
	3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
	Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
	College funding for children
	Pay off home early
	Build wealth and give!
	Invest in mutual funds and real estate

We got steps 2 and 3 out of order but, hey, works for us. Step 4 should be cleared once we get to our annual opportunity to adjust our 401(k) account.

I have to admit, though, that I'm disappointed not to find "Purchase Ferrari 308 GTS" on the list. These are just guidelines, right?

Count to Five

A few random things:

1. Jesse is crawling! And standing up at the table! The little guy's on the move.


2. I happened upon this article about another fun thing that's fallen victim to the latest streak of recalled items. It's an arm wrestling video game that, apparently, has resulted in a several actual broken arms. Ouch. I especially like the distributor's comments about how "The machine isn't that strong...". Kind of adding insult to injury.

3. I sold my first round of comic books the other day. I posted them on Craigslist here in Indianapolis as a last step before putting them on eBay and, amazingly, someone in Maryland wanted them. Anyway, they were issues 1-5 and 9-12 of the 1986/1987 Watchmen series. They went for my asking price which was probably low but I'm happy with the result.

4. Several weeks ago I was reading through the list of the Top 100 Sci Fi movies on the Rotten Tomatoes site. It was an interesting look at an extremely varied genre and I found many films that I had never seen and several that I would like to see. I started by watching Westworld (see it on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes) and was duly impressed. Definitely Michael Crichton's precursor to Jurassic Park. I followed that by watching Futureworld, the sequel to Westworld. Well, there's a good reason why Futureworld is NOT in the Top 100 movies. That reason...it's awful. Seriously, the worst movie I've ever seen that didn't involve Crow or Tom Servo. Consider yourself warned.

5. Moving Day is tomorrow! Wish us luck.

Goodbye De-Luxe Apartment

Alright! We found a house! Barring some kind of extreme unforeseen circumstances, we should be moving to Fishers within the next month. Interestingly, the place isn’t really what we were looking for. Initially (and throughout most of the house search), we had been looking for an older house. Something with swank. Something with a good sized yard. Most likely a ranch.

What we found, instead, is a newer 2-story house, smack in the middle of a housing addition. We walked through it last weekend and liked it a lot. It worked for us. The price was right. And, even though it didn’t “look” like what we wanted, it “did” everything we needed. We liked it even more after the nearly flawless inspection last week. Specifically, here’s how the place weighed in:

1. It has a tiny yard but there are two parks (one provided by the housing addition and one by the town of Fishers) just a short walk away. We’re minutes away from playgrounds, a place to picnic, and even baseball diamonds. All without me having to mow a baseball field-sized yard. Maybe I'll even check out a reel-style mower.

2. It’s smaller than the house we had before but that’s actually a good thing. We wanted less wasted space and we’re hoping it to keep our family close…physically, at least. Even still, it’s big enough for us, our hobbies (sewing machine, drawing table, workbench), and our friends when they visit. Besides, it’s less space to heat, cool, and clean.

3. It’s newer than we wanted but it’s also more efficient than most of the things we looked at. Newer windows. Newer furnace.

4. It’s on a slab. No worries about a crawlspace infested with mold, mice, or C.H.U.D.

5. It’s in a great neighborhood. There’s a family we’re close with from church whose house we can actually see from our driveway. They truly know their neighbors and, from what we understand, the neighbors are awesome…a real community. They even vacation together. Amazing. We’ve already got planned babysitting nights set up.

6. It’s a reasonable commute for me to go to work. And it’s only minutes from my wife’s job…close enough that, on the weekends she works, I can drop her off or she can ride her bike without our trading cars.

7. The public library is a bike ride away.

8. Close to church.

9. Close to everything else we actually care about…HamCo’s Recycling center, Super Target, Hardware stores, Greek’s Pizzeria, etc.

10. The price was right where we wanted it. The savings puts us a few years ahead in our saving for college and retirement. Enough so that more having more kids is not a financial question. It also frees us to pursue other things that weren’t previously quite as feasible...a lower paying/more fulfilling job for me, maybe more school, adoption, more charity, or even a big project like the restoration of an old car. Add to that the lower utility bills, and it’s a score.

11. The house has been well maintained. The water heater is only a couple years old. The roof was new with last year’s hail storms.

All this adds up to a house that’s move in ready and doesn’t consume either a) all our money or b) all our time. We’re pumped!

Farewell, Speedwagon

Speedwagon is gone. I just handed the keys to my Pontiac Vibe over to the new owner. I feel like there’s a station wagon shaped void in my soul. I’ll miss the car…it was my first new car and it is still an excellent vehicle. Seriously, I think it was a good decision on my part. I found it a good home and the new buyers were very excited to find the car. I think they were even more excited than I was when I first bought it.

What do I do now? Well, several transportation options are under consideration. A small pickup? Some kind of sporty, fuel efficient, Econobox? There’s a certain Fiero nearby that, despite being completely impractical, I’m finding difficult NOT to consider. In any case, I will not be purchasing another new vehicle…probably ever. And whatever I do get will be cheap…cheap enough to allow plenty leftover from the sale of Speedwagon to make a good dent in our upcoming house down payment and/or what we still owe on The H-Bomb, my wife’s car,.

In the meantime, I’m hitching rides with my wife. Maybe I’ll bum transportation off of my coworkers. If the weather is decent, I can ride my bike to work. It’ll actually be kind of fun. Mayby not as much fun as building the Lego Vibe above but, still, fun.

Financial Pieces

Friends have recently gotten me reading and listening to the advice of financial counselor Dave Ramsey. Essentially, his philosophy is that debt is bad...GET OUT OF IT AND STAY OUT OF IT. It shouldn't have been anything all that shocking but reading his book, Financial Peace Revisited, and regularly listening to his radio show over the past couple weeks has been an eye opening experience. His reasoning is financially sound as well as Biblical and, like the Bible, his teaching is honest and challenging but always, at its core, loving and compassionate.

Anyway, I think we've been aware that we needed to review our finances for some time. Having recently added a family member and subtracted an income, the need for such financial review has grown all the more clear. We're not broke and we're not necessarily going broke but we certainly do not have financial peace. What to do about it? Well, that's a great question?

The good news is that I believe we've already made the needed changes to our mindset. As for actions, we're strongly considering a move to a smaller, more affordable home. I wouldn't mind selling my car, buying something cheaper, and using the proceeds for said home and/or investment. We could stick it out in our current home but it would be 5 years of pretty dramatic skimping and saving to get out of two cars and a home equity loan and, honestly, I'm not sure we love our house that much. Plus, that puts us 5 years behind in saving for Jesse's college, 5 years behind in more intense retirement planning, 5 years behind in vacations and other "fun" money spending, 5 years deeper in commitment the paycheck from a career I don't necessarily love, and 5 more years of worrying about "the next big expense" whether it be some home repair, medical bills, or even child #2.

We have been continually praying for God's guidance in our finances and we're confident He will guide us. He has already blessed us greatly and I hope we can use those blessings wisely.