A Full Freezer

[If you already know me, you’ve probably heard this story already so you can skip this post]

We bought a 7.2ft³ chest freezer for $75 delivered. To see how much it costs to power the freezer, I borrowed a kill-a-watt from the library to check out how much energy it consumes. At current electricity prices, it’s going to cost $25 a year to keep it running. Probably less, since I measured it when it was mostly empty and full fridges/freezers run more efficiently.

To fill the freezer, some friends and I bought an entire cow. I read that buying meat by the cow instead of by the pound can save a family of 4 almost $500 a year, if they eat beef frequently. We only eat occasionally, but even if we save $100 this year, that pays for the freezer and the cost of running it. It came to $4/lb for all the various cuts of meat. (Where I live, a good cut of grass-fed beef can be $10/lb.) We split the meat 5 ways, and each of us got anywhere from 80 – 145 lbs.

The meat is amazing! If you live in the Pacific Northwest, I highly recommend getting some meat from 3 Sisters Farms.

What I’m thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Not sure what got into me, but I blurted this out at the beginning of the week:

“We’re going to start a new family tradition where you have to think of as many things you’re thankful for as you are years old”

The twins are proud of being “eight and a half” so I told them they actually had to think of an extra half thing. Here are their lists (printed without permission):

Isaac Aaron
  1. famaliy(esepacly arron and lilya)
  2. selter
  3. love
  4. water
  5. lifie
  6. air
  7. electtericctiy
  8. entertamement
  9. ocgen
  1. food
  2. air
  3. water
  4. shelter
  5. bed
  6. twin
  7. dad
  8. mom

Aaron isn’t getting dessert until he comes up with another half thing he’s thankful for!

I held up my end of the bargain and thought of 31 things:

  1. Venessa
  2. My health
  3. My family’s health
  4. A roof over our heads
  5. Having food on our table
  6. Being free to be Jewish
  7. Having meaningful work
  8. Being able to ride my bike
  9. Friends who stop by unexpectedly
  10. Supportive parents
  11. Shabbat
  12. Isaac, for his compassion
  13. Aaron, for his tenacity
  14. Lillia, for her love of discovering new things
  15. Local farms
  16. Freedom of speech
  17. Effie, for giving her life to save the rest of the flock
  18. Diz, for being my pet for 20+ years
  19. Scourge (our cat)
  20. Good music and books
  21. Candles, instead of lights, when the sun goes down
  22. Innovators, for new inventions to make our lives better
  23. The Science Center, for teaching us new things
  24. The changing seasons
  25. Biathlon, cyclocross and other friendly competition
  26. The state of Israel
  27. Technology that enables friends and family from afar to keep in touch
  28. Beer
  29. Self-improvement
  30. A good book
  31. Seattle

What are you thankful for?

Using the “Five Whys” to discover the desires behind our goals

My last post was about goals, and ironically I need to apologize for the lack of posting. I’m working on a goal myself, and it’s taking away all my free time. I’m trying to draw a 48-page graphic novel by the end of the month, for National Graphic Novel Writing Month.

While it’s important to have goals, it’s even more important to understand why you’ve chosen your goals, out of all the millions of goals in the world.

I found a really simple and effective tip, while reading this great business book, The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman. It’s called the “Five Whys”. Here’s how it works:

Whenever you set a goal, ask yourself why you want to achieve it. If you want to be a millionaire, ask yourself why you want a million dollars. When you think of an answer, ask “why?” again. Keep asking yourself why until you get into a loop where the answer is “because I want it”, which suggests you’ve gotten to the desire behind the goal.

Here’s Kaufman’s “millionaire” example:

  1. Why do I want a million dollars? Because I don’t want to be stressed about money.
  2. Why don’t I want to be stressed about money? So I don’t feel anxious.
  3. Why don’t I want to feel anxious? So I can feel secure.
  4. Why do I want to feel secure? So I feel free.
  5. Why do I want to feel free? Because I want to feel free!

The answer to each question may seem obvious, but look how we got from a run-of-the-mill money goal to a very deeply rooted human desire, in just five steps!

Once you know why you want to achieve a goal, you can sometimes figure out a more direct way to the desire behind the goal. If becoming a millionaire is really about freedom, look for changes you can make today that will get you there, like quitting a 9-to-5 and starting your own business.

Happy goal-setting!



Before and After





When: Saturday, November 12th, 2011
11am-2pm (or until they run out!)

Where: University Heights Center
5031 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105



Hope to see you there!

Your Money or Your Life, Step 3: Where Is It All Going?

[This is part 3 of a 9 part series on the book Your Money or Your Life. See my original post about the book.]

First, a confession: if anyone is even still reading these, I feel like I’ve lead you pretty far off into the weeds. Reading all this it seems like one chore after the next, with no payoff. Unfortunately, we have a bit more groundwork to do before starting to see results. I’m writing about a huge, fundamental change in the way you relate to money, so things might move slowly…

The path to Financial Independence can be scary

Today we’re going to dive a bit deeper into the spending/income data you’re collecting. You’re tracking every dollar you make and spend, right? Well here’s another homework assignment, but this only needs to be done once a month.

Block off about 30 minutes, and look at the spending/income entries for the past month. Try to group them into categories that make sense for you. Everyone’s will be different, depending on what they spend money on. Not every category will have expenses in it every month. To the left are many of my categories and sub-categories:

The penultimate step is to balance your income and expenses. If they don’t balance, figure out why. Sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find you have more money than you thought. Sometimes you’ll be bummed to find out you were burned by a service fee, but at least you’ll now be armed with info to maybe ask to have the fee reversed.

The final step is a weird one, but it’s what makes the Your Money or Your Life program so unique and effective. Next to the “dollar amount” column for each category, add one more column, called “hours of life energy.” Using your real hourly wage from Step 2, convert the dollars spent in each category to hours of life energy.

For instance, let’s say I spend $1500 on rent each month. Using the example from Step 2, my real hourly wage is $13.71, which means I trade almost 110 hours of my time for the roof over my head. That’s almost as many hours as I spend in the office each month! You’ll start to see the hours add up, and realize what you’re spending your time on, both literally and in the life energy sense of the word.

Why are we doing this? First off, balancing the books is a fundamental practice for any business, and you are a business. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but you are in the business of trading the most precious resource in existence: your life energy.

This monthly tabulation will be an accurate portrait of how you are actually living, and it provides a foundation for the subsequent steps of the program.

I’d be interested to see what other people come up with for their categories. I think it’s an interesting lens to peek into the lifestyle of another person. Please share yours if you feel comfortable.

Your Money or Your Life, Step 2: Being in the Present

[This is part 2 of a 9ish part series on the book Your Money or Your Life. See my original post about the book.]

This step is called “Being in the Present” because it helps you visualize how money currently comes into, and goes out of, your life. How much are you trading your life energy (time) for? In other words, how much do you really make per hour?

Did your morning commute look like this?

If you’re salaried, it’s a quick calculation (salary / hours worked each year). Or is it? Did you remember to factor in the time spent commuting? You wouldn’t be commuting if you weren’t working. Same goes for the cost of business lunches, dress clothes, and anything you only buy because you work.

Your real hourly wage is probably somewhat lower than you think, if you factor in everything you do and spend that’s related to work. Here’s how to figure it out:

  1. Deduct from your gross weekly income the costs of commuting and job clothes; the extra cost of at-work meals; amounts spent for decompressing and vacating from work; job-related and job-stress-related illness; and all other expenses associated with maintaining you on the job.
  2. Add to your workweek the hours spent in preparing yourself for work; commuting, decompressing, vacating, job-related shopping, and all the other hours that are linked to maintaining your job.
  3. Divide the new, reduced weekly dollar figure by the new, increased weekly hour figure; this is your real hourly wage.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say I make $25 an hour, or $1000 a week. But I spend some of that money on bus fare, dining out at work, and stress-related doctor bills. The $1000 a week is reduced to $850. I work 40 hours a week, but it takes me a total of 2 hours to get to and from work each week, and I spend time decompressing and surfing the web when I get home because my brain is tired. So my 40 hour work week is really 62 hours of work-related activity. Thus I spend 62 hours a week to earn $850, or a real hourly wage of $13.71. Ouch. Personally, I found my real wage to be less than half of my gross hourly wage.

At a wage of $13.71, every dollar takes about 4 minutes, 20 seconds to earn. So spending a dollar represents 4:20 of life energy gone. Conversely, I trade every minute of work for 23 cents. Makes you think twice about shelling out big bucks for some random purchase, doesn’t it?

You should try this. Be honest with yourself when you deduct from your wage and add to your work time. It’s potentially depressing but certainly eye opening. This number will become a vital ingredient in transforming your relationship with money. (I’ll get to this in subsequent steps)


Yes, you have homework now, in addition to the above. Even worse, this is a homework assignment that you might want to do for the rest of your life!

The last part of Step 2 is to keep track of every dollar that comes into or goes out of your life. You can go high tech with a site like mint.com or low tech with a notepad. Doesn’t matter, as long as you’re thorough, accurate, and consistant. I use mint.com. Every week I take a look at the last week’s transactions and categorize them into basic groups: car, kids, food, entertainment, etc.

The effort is worth it. Keeping close tabs on revenue and expenses is a fundamental practice for any business, and you are a business. In fact, you’re in the business of trading the most precious resource in existence: your time. The least you can do is keep track, in detail, of what you’re trading it for.

It never hurts to ask

I love asking for things because it never hurts to ask. As long as you’re polite, reasonable, and ethical, there’s no reason not to ask for what you want.

Lowering prices: I recently called my auto insurance company (Pemco) and asked them to lower my premium. They said no but it didn’t hurt. On the other hand, I asked my credit card company to remove my yearly fee and they said yes. The 5 minute call saved me $70.

Improving your credit score: Since having higher credit limits helps your credit score, it never hurts to call your credit card companies every year and ask them to raise your credit limits.¹ Say “I’ve been a loyal customer for X years and always paid off my balance in full. I’m planning on making some purchases in the near future. Can I have my credit limit raised to…?” Also ask if they’ll bypass the credit check, since that temporarily hurts your score.

Other requests: I emailed my Congressman to see if he’d fly a flag over the Capitol in honor of my Grandpa (a World War II veteran) and Venessa’s Grandma. It took a while to get a reply, but his staffer obliged and also offered to send me the flag for a reasonable price. Whenever I buy something on craigslist I ask if the seller is willing to deliver it to me, or at least meet me somewhere convenient. Failing that, I ask for a small reduction on the price.

On being asked: When it comes to the kids, I try to start answers with “No” as infrequently as possible. But when they make an especially outrageous demand, I’ll say, “No, but it didn’t hurt to ask.” I wonder if my folks said the same thing to me?²

I have a feeling that most children are reprimanded when they ask unreasonable questions, so by the time they’re adults they’re literally afraid to ask. It’s a shame, because that same part of the brain is also what drives curiosity. We should praise our children for asking all sorts of questions, everything from “Why is this the way it is?” to “Can I have …?”  It’s the latter type of question, when combined with a good work ethic, that leads to new inventions and discoveries:

Q: Can I have an iPod?

A: Yes. How do you plan to save up for it?


Q: Can I have an iPod that also plays 3D movies?

A: Yes but you’ll have to invent it first!

¹ Do not do this if you abuse credit cards. This is for people who pay in full each month and generally have their financial house in order.
² I definitely remember my parents doing this: if they bought something at the store and then saw it went on sale soon after, they’d bring the item back, along with their receipt and ask for the difference in cash. It must have worked or they wouldn’t have done it all the time.