HOW SAD IS IT THAT all of my recent financial windfalls get grouped, in my mental budget, in the "use this to pay for gasoline" category?
In appreciation of the work that we did getting the last published issue of the magazine out under heavy fire, my managing editor gave me and the artist a $50 money card. In principle, I could use it in Las Vegas, spend it on some decent vacation clothing, dedicate it toward a digital camera — anything.
In practice, my first thought was, "I can actually fill up my car's gas tank!" rather than taking $20 sips each week to spread the Pain across multiple visits.
Same thing today, when I lugged a milk bottle full of small change (the quarters are reserved for laundry) to the bank. The $56.25 this yielded? Sure, I could drop it in my emergency fund. I could consider it found money and go nuts at a fairly decent restaurant. I could add it to my poker bankroll ahead of the hold'em binge in Sin City. Or just split it down the middle for Mother's and Father's Day gifts come those two holidays.
Nope. The trek to the bank took me past my local "cheap" gas station. There, I will have the pleasure, at my next fill, of being keistered for $3.24 for each gallon I buy, which will top out at about six gallons for the usual double-sawbuck sip. I can only imagine the $56 will go into my tank in part or full. (The quarter I'm still saving for the damn wash.)
I feel like fuckin' Mad Max crossing post–nuclear holocaust Australia, searching wrecked vehicles along the dusty Outback highways for traces of the precious juice. Only this isn't a sunbeaten dead continent I'm inhabiting; this is the last remaining superpower . . . granted, a superpower with track marks up and down its arms from skin-popping Chinese money and Wah'habist oil, but still, more or less the scuffed hulk of what we used to consider the primus inter pares of the First World.
If I'd have known, pre-$3/gallon, that gas would continue to spike, I'd have bought a clutch of gas cans, filled them while gas was "cheap," then lined them up in my parents' garage. If airlines and delivery services can hedge against commodity speculators dry-humping the cost oil, so can I. Ideally, I'd make like an Eighties-style apocalypse cult and build my own massive underground tanks, but I think you need a few thousand follower-zombies to help fund such an endeavor. I'm lucky if I can get dogs to come near me. And they don't carry cash.
Showing posts with label finances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finances. Show all posts
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Plotting Fiscal Year 2008
THE EXCITEMENT IN MY LIFE continues at a rip-roaring pace with my creating, for the first time, a budget for the year. I've kept track of my spending for about a year and half, just to detect any leaks in my spending, but I want to anticipate my financial ups and downs a little more closely this year. I was lucky enough to know, last year at this time, that I would be laid off, but the next one might not offer so much warning.
I already know how much I plan to devote both to my IRA and 401(k) this year (max on both), so those expenses were already controlled while setting up the grid. I made a list during my time off of all the recurrent expenses I could fathom, adjusting some of them (like the vampires at my local utility) upwards. I have a fair guess on how much more rent I'll pay this year. Others I just left alone and figured my overestimates in some areas would cover for them. If I really wanted to be sharp, I'd refer back to this chart each time I paid a bill and decrement from my estimate the outgoing amount, just to see how wrong I was, in whichever direction, this time next year.
My financial way of being also anticipates an automatic withdrawal from my checking account into a money market fund, painlessly occurring every month, which queues up next year's IRA funds without my having to scramble to scratch them up. Although that money isn't truly "spent," I'm including it to reflect the true flow of cash through my checking account, as that money, once it gets into the money market, I consider untouchable except for emergencies.
I consider myself to have been exceptionally lucky with last year's layoff. My new job started just as the severance money ceased to arrive. I wasn't asked by New York State as to how my job hunt was going, so I didn't have to fear for the disruption of my unemployment money. Everything I didn't use from those two sources, I stashed in CDs. Should I have to find another job for whatever reason this year — and especially if I have to pay COBRA — I've got a cushion built up. (The severance given to those laid off a month ago was less generous than what I got at the salt mine, so hoarding as many nuts as possible is the key.)
I'm going to try and pay cash for as much as I can this year. I withdraw a set allowance each week. I'm bumping this to every two weeks but twice the amount, and using that, versus plastic, to pay for daily and weekly needs. (Gasoline, which is a less escapable evil than some of the impulse items I fight to avoid purchasing, I put on a rewards card. Short of stealing shit from Exxon, it's the only way I'm getting a kickback from those petro-bastards.) For a long time, I've been adding to an emergency fund with allowance leftovers and found money, so I have a system for saving anything that remains at the end of an allowance period. It will be interesting to see how being entirely open with my purchasing habits, rather than putting any of them on plastic and worrying about them later (uncommon for me, but still a temptation), is reflected in the amount of allowance that remains at the end of each fortnight.
Once I'm fairly certain I've got an accurate estimate of my yearly expenditures, I'll begin tracking how I eat into those budget items. No issuing supplemental funding bills for me, unlike the whores in Washington. The next step, coming in the very near future, is to decide the division of my IRA money across investment options, and whether I want to roll my old company 401(k) into a new IRA to give me total control over its allotment. All of this will require documentation in Excel so I can track things. After that — and not entirely unrelated — it's off to the resume to update it with the past 6 months of skills and achievements. You never know when it might be needed.
I already know how much I plan to devote both to my IRA and 401(k) this year (max on both), so those expenses were already controlled while setting up the grid. I made a list during my time off of all the recurrent expenses I could fathom, adjusting some of them (like the vampires at my local utility) upwards. I have a fair guess on how much more rent I'll pay this year. Others I just left alone and figured my overestimates in some areas would cover for them. If I really wanted to be sharp, I'd refer back to this chart each time I paid a bill and decrement from my estimate the outgoing amount, just to see how wrong I was, in whichever direction, this time next year.
My financial way of being also anticipates an automatic withdrawal from my checking account into a money market fund, painlessly occurring every month, which queues up next year's IRA funds without my having to scramble to scratch them up. Although that money isn't truly "spent," I'm including it to reflect the true flow of cash through my checking account, as that money, once it gets into the money market, I consider untouchable except for emergencies.
I consider myself to have been exceptionally lucky with last year's layoff. My new job started just as the severance money ceased to arrive. I wasn't asked by New York State as to how my job hunt was going, so I didn't have to fear for the disruption of my unemployment money. Everything I didn't use from those two sources, I stashed in CDs. Should I have to find another job for whatever reason this year — and especially if I have to pay COBRA — I've got a cushion built up. (The severance given to those laid off a month ago was less generous than what I got at the salt mine, so hoarding as many nuts as possible is the key.)
I'm going to try and pay cash for as much as I can this year. I withdraw a set allowance each week. I'm bumping this to every two weeks but twice the amount, and using that, versus plastic, to pay for daily and weekly needs. (Gasoline, which is a less escapable evil than some of the impulse items I fight to avoid purchasing, I put on a rewards card. Short of stealing shit from Exxon, it's the only way I'm getting a kickback from those petro-bastards.) For a long time, I've been adding to an emergency fund with allowance leftovers and found money, so I have a system for saving anything that remains at the end of an allowance period. It will be interesting to see how being entirely open with my purchasing habits, rather than putting any of them on plastic and worrying about them later (uncommon for me, but still a temptation), is reflected in the amount of allowance that remains at the end of each fortnight.
Once I'm fairly certain I've got an accurate estimate of my yearly expenditures, I'll begin tracking how I eat into those budget items. No issuing supplemental funding bills for me, unlike the whores in Washington. The next step, coming in the very near future, is to decide the division of my IRA money across investment options, and whether I want to roll my old company 401(k) into a new IRA to give me total control over its allotment. All of this will require documentation in Excel so I can track things. After that — and not entirely unrelated — it's off to the resume to update it with the past 6 months of skills and achievements. You never know when it might be needed.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Not Spending It All in One Place
MY SEVERANCE PAYMENTS FROM the salt mine ended some time ago. Or so I thought. When I checked my mailbox this Saturday, I was surprised to find a check mailer from my former employer.
Still mostly convinced the previous check to this one had been my last, I nonetheless shredded it open, never averse to free money in any amount . . .
. . . no matter how small.
That's right, folks. They couldn't have tacked this onto my last severance check. Instead, they had to run this through their payroll drones, stick a 41¢ stamp on it, and mail it out.
With this mentality, now you can see why the layoff didn't exactly cripple me with grief.
Still mostly convinced the previous check to this one had been my last, I nonetheless shredded it open, never averse to free money in any amount . . .
. . . no matter how small.That's right, folks. They couldn't have tacked this onto my last severance check. Instead, they had to run this through their payroll drones, stick a 41¢ stamp on it, and mail it out.
With this mentality, now you can see why the layoff didn't exactly cripple me with grief.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Peculiarly Informal Way to End Unemployment
I HAD THE PLEASURE of terminating my participation in the New York State Unemployment system this Sunday. What surprised me was the lack of any defined, emphatic way to let the system know you're done.
In the manual I received when I signed up for benefits, it merely says, "When you get a job, you should claim credit for the last days you were out of work, then simply stop claiming benefits."
There's no explicit "I'M DONE" button on the NYS Unemployment website. Rather, you need to submit a claim for the week, then, at the end of the survey, you answer "yes" to the question, "Have you returned to work full-time?" I did this, and the system let me know I was ineligible for benefits for that week, but because I had earned more than the claim payout maximum.
For something as important as closing out a financial record, I would imagine there to be a formal procedure, requiring you to sign off specifically for that purpose, to end the benefits relationship. Not that I feel it needs drama that befits the joy of getting a full-time gig again. If I were closing a bank account or switching 401(k) providers, I would expect to sign all manner of forms or click a variety of Web buttons, and have printed proof that the desired result was enacted in case it ever becomes an issue. Not here. All I need to do . . . is do nothing.
It does gall me that I will have to pay taxes on the unemployment cash, though. I'll use the remainder for my 2008 Roth IRA contribution. Tax that.
In the manual I received when I signed up for benefits, it merely says, "When you get a job, you should claim credit for the last days you were out of work, then simply stop claiming benefits."
There's no explicit "I'M DONE" button on the NYS Unemployment website. Rather, you need to submit a claim for the week, then, at the end of the survey, you answer "yes" to the question, "Have you returned to work full-time?" I did this, and the system let me know I was ineligible for benefits for that week, but because I had earned more than the claim payout maximum.
For something as important as closing out a financial record, I would imagine there to be a formal procedure, requiring you to sign off specifically for that purpose, to end the benefits relationship. Not that I feel it needs drama that befits the joy of getting a full-time gig again. If I were closing a bank account or switching 401(k) providers, I would expect to sign all manner of forms or click a variety of Web buttons, and have printed proof that the desired result was enacted in case it ever becomes an issue. Not here. All I need to do . . . is do nothing.
It does gall me that I will have to pay taxes on the unemployment cash, though. I'll use the remainder for my 2008 Roth IRA contribution. Tax that.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Stock Spaz Welcomed With Open Wallet
THE FINANCIAL MARKETS DID their best imitation of a sake-crazed kamikaze pilot today, with the Dow alone dropping 416 points. The other major indexes followed suit, with sellers outnumbering buyers on the order of 20:1. The folks gathered on the podium balcony at the NYSE looked distinctly relieved when the session was rung to a close.
Strangely, I am unworried. As a 401(k) investor, I have an interest in seeing my mutual funds grow. I certainly checked them when I returned home. But I wasn't panicked. This represents a reversal of demeanor from what I would have exhibited less than 10 years ago. Expensive lessons learned from the dot-com rollercoaster have given me a distinctly longer view, and a greater appreciation for index funds and diversification, than I had as a fledgling investor last decade.
In October, when I flipped my old 401(k) money into my current (and soon to be former) company's fund, I let it enter the money-market option. I then spent the rest of the year moving the lump sum into the specific mutual funds in preset chunks each week. I wanted to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging and buy lots of the funds at lower prices if I could. This way, if 2007 represented an end to the rally roaring along since July 2006 and, more broadly, the beginning of the Iraq War, I at least bought some of the lots more cheaply.
This worked well. The market ascended through the end of the year, so when 2007 hit and I was able to begin depositing new cash into my 401(k), I had already realized a gain. I have been contributing the maximum, to get as much of my remaining paychecks under the shelter of the tax-advantaged plan, and if I had had the option, I'd have deferred each paycheck between now and my layoff into the 401(k). Alas, they max out your per-check contribution at 50%. Pansies.
By coincidence, last Friday was a payday, and our 401(k) funds deposit after market close the following Tuesday. This means my purchases tonight will be at a significant discount to the fund prices I paid a fortnight ago. (Yes, I typed fortnight.) It says something about me that I went home smiling about this prospect.
After losing significant amounts of money in the tech crash, I finally accepted the wisdom of allowing index funds with low expense ratios represent the backbone of my portfolio. I do intend to fill out those larger indexes with exchange-traded funds that capture the Russell small-stock indexes. This is not to say ownership of individual stocks is wrong. I simply don't have the time to research, build, and monitor a properly diversified portfolio. With joblessness looming, what cash I have is best kept liquid. As for short-term ownership, I try to scotch those get-rich-quick urges by applied financial-probability research in the guise of my weekly poker game. Jim Cramer is absolutely right when he writes that, as emotional, impulsive human beings, we all need a speculative owning in our portfolio to satiate our urge to gamble. Mine would probably have the ticker symbol POKR.
This summer, I tested myself to see if I had the demeanor to own a single security and not monitor its progress all day. I bought a small amount of a large-cap tech stock shortly after it issued positive earnings. I kept checking the price via a Mac desktop stock widget, reading about it on the Web, and calculating how much I would make if I sold it at a certain point. I eventually decided enough was enough and sold for a small profit after 3 business days. As is typical for quick in-and-out buyers, the stock spent the next 4 months adding 6 more points, indicating that either I had to own multiple, diversified companies, or merely do what I was doing and let index funds and dollar-cost averaging do all the heavy lifting.
I don't intend to touch my 401(k) money for a good 30-odd years or so. The gyrations of the past 10 years have shown me how consistent, measured purchases across time are better suited to my attention level and temperament. I'm tickled pink to get more chunks of shares tonight at a discount price, because long term, these shares will go up with the indexes they track. Should I find myself with more time and a more comfortable cushion of cash, once my job situation stabilizes, perhaps then I will fill out my retirement income with some securities purchases. I'm in no rush, though. Treasury bonds are returning an annualized 5.268%. You cannot beat that with a stick. I believe I'll take that risk-free five points and let the market mayhem play itself out as it may. With, of course, my weekly nighttime daytrading in POKR shares.
Strangely, I am unworried. As a 401(k) investor, I have an interest in seeing my mutual funds grow. I certainly checked them when I returned home. But I wasn't panicked. This represents a reversal of demeanor from what I would have exhibited less than 10 years ago. Expensive lessons learned from the dot-com rollercoaster have given me a distinctly longer view, and a greater appreciation for index funds and diversification, than I had as a fledgling investor last decade.
In October, when I flipped my old 401(k) money into my current (and soon to be former) company's fund, I let it enter the money-market option. I then spent the rest of the year moving the lump sum into the specific mutual funds in preset chunks each week. I wanted to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging and buy lots of the funds at lower prices if I could. This way, if 2007 represented an end to the rally roaring along since July 2006 and, more broadly, the beginning of the Iraq War, I at least bought some of the lots more cheaply.
This worked well. The market ascended through the end of the year, so when 2007 hit and I was able to begin depositing new cash into my 401(k), I had already realized a gain. I have been contributing the maximum, to get as much of my remaining paychecks under the shelter of the tax-advantaged plan, and if I had had the option, I'd have deferred each paycheck between now and my layoff into the 401(k). Alas, they max out your per-check contribution at 50%. Pansies.
By coincidence, last Friday was a payday, and our 401(k) funds deposit after market close the following Tuesday. This means my purchases tonight will be at a significant discount to the fund prices I paid a fortnight ago. (Yes, I typed fortnight.) It says something about me that I went home smiling about this prospect.
After losing significant amounts of money in the tech crash, I finally accepted the wisdom of allowing index funds with low expense ratios represent the backbone of my portfolio. I do intend to fill out those larger indexes with exchange-traded funds that capture the Russell small-stock indexes. This is not to say ownership of individual stocks is wrong. I simply don't have the time to research, build, and monitor a properly diversified portfolio. With joblessness looming, what cash I have is best kept liquid. As for short-term ownership, I try to scotch those get-rich-quick urges by applied financial-probability research in the guise of my weekly poker game. Jim Cramer is absolutely right when he writes that, as emotional, impulsive human beings, we all need a speculative owning in our portfolio to satiate our urge to gamble. Mine would probably have the ticker symbol POKR.
This summer, I tested myself to see if I had the demeanor to own a single security and not monitor its progress all day. I bought a small amount of a large-cap tech stock shortly after it issued positive earnings. I kept checking the price via a Mac desktop stock widget, reading about it on the Web, and calculating how much I would make if I sold it at a certain point. I eventually decided enough was enough and sold for a small profit after 3 business days. As is typical for quick in-and-out buyers, the stock spent the next 4 months adding 6 more points, indicating that either I had to own multiple, diversified companies, or merely do what I was doing and let index funds and dollar-cost averaging do all the heavy lifting.
I don't intend to touch my 401(k) money for a good 30-odd years or so. The gyrations of the past 10 years have shown me how consistent, measured purchases across time are better suited to my attention level and temperament. I'm tickled pink to get more chunks of shares tonight at a discount price, because long term, these shares will go up with the indexes they track. Should I find myself with more time and a more comfortable cushion of cash, once my job situation stabilizes, perhaps then I will fill out my retirement income with some securities purchases. I'm in no rush, though. Treasury bonds are returning an annualized 5.268%. You cannot beat that with a stick. I believe I'll take that risk-free five points and let the market mayhem play itself out as it may. With, of course, my weekly nighttime daytrading in POKR shares.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Partitioning Resources
IN DISCUSSING THE UPCOMING WFMU fundraising Marathon with my mother yesterday, she inquired how much I planned to give. I gave her the figure I tend to write in the pledge-amount box each year, and she reacted with surprise. "Don't give that much! You're going to be out of a job!" she said.
It is advice I intend to ignore. My check to WFMU is the one check I enjoy writing all year. The amount for my annual pledge will be equivalent to what my parents pay for 4 months of cable TV service and AOL. They get a million channels they never even watch. By contrast, I listen to WFMU constantly. I don't usually place my pledge money in such terms, but dollar for dollar, I get unparalleled value.
Although nobody truly wants to be without a steady employment income, I have never been in as good shape as I am now to weather joblessness. Last year, I ruminated about reshuffling my 401(k) money into my current employer's account and redistributing it for better diversification. I did both. I also put my smallish cash hoard to work with fixed-income investments to earn a bit more than the cent per month my checking account pulls in. I was already maxing out my contribution to the 401(k) fund before I got the layoff news. Once that hit, I opened a new Excel table in my finance file to track my spending and eliminate any waste. I found there was little and minimized the rest. I am in no debt, I have a functional car, and I don't intend to move just yet.
At this point, I envision being at the job until the bitter end, taking my severance and retention bonus, and concentrating on the job hunt at home, where I won't be bailing water out of the sinking ship with my boss and craving the train ride home. Unemployment will offset my COBRA, and I'll bank as much of the severance as I can until I snag a job. Our mutual nightmare is that they ask us to stay later, say through April. (I have a couple of plans in mind to thwart this, most notably approaching those who would make such a decision and telling them, on March 15, I wish to sign the severance agreement then and there.) They've already tried to send my boss to the outsourcing firm in India so she can attempt to unfuck their problems firsthand. She refused, to her eternal credit, having her March and April occupied more with her graduate thesis than any desire to extricate the department from the quagmire it's already in. Dipping into unemployment is worth my escaping the dead-end, head-against-brick-wall frustration of training these fools in the basics of typesetting and print preflighting.
The last thing I am worried about is running through my savings during my job hunt. My parents are sweet people, and justly worry about my welfare, but as expenditures go, my investment in WFMU's future is an investment in my own present. From few aspects in my life do I derive as much enjoyment as I do from its programming, its voluminous archives, and its exemplary, widely linked blog. What money I devote to this cause comes back to me manifold. Unless I become a successful freelancer, nothing so directly "pays" me. That's a potential point of overlap; in describing my Wednesday visit to the station to volunteer, my boss and I agreed that contact with such a diverse pool of talented minds could also provide business opportunities. You never know who might need some Photoshop work or proofreading done.
I simply need to pick a direction and move there with power and confidence. If I can weather downturns in said confidence, especially once I'm out from under the cloud hanging over the tattered remnants of my department, I will eventually find something worth doing that generates income, both retirement and fluid. Regardless of when that happens, WFMU is welcome to a chunk of it in just a couple of weeks.
It is advice I intend to ignore. My check to WFMU is the one check I enjoy writing all year. The amount for my annual pledge will be equivalent to what my parents pay for 4 months of cable TV service and AOL. They get a million channels they never even watch. By contrast, I listen to WFMU constantly. I don't usually place my pledge money in such terms, but dollar for dollar, I get unparalleled value.
Although nobody truly wants to be without a steady employment income, I have never been in as good shape as I am now to weather joblessness. Last year, I ruminated about reshuffling my 401(k) money into my current employer's account and redistributing it for better diversification. I did both. I also put my smallish cash hoard to work with fixed-income investments to earn a bit more than the cent per month my checking account pulls in. I was already maxing out my contribution to the 401(k) fund before I got the layoff news. Once that hit, I opened a new Excel table in my finance file to track my spending and eliminate any waste. I found there was little and minimized the rest. I am in no debt, I have a functional car, and I don't intend to move just yet.
At this point, I envision being at the job until the bitter end, taking my severance and retention bonus, and concentrating on the job hunt at home, where I won't be bailing water out of the sinking ship with my boss and craving the train ride home. Unemployment will offset my COBRA, and I'll bank as much of the severance as I can until I snag a job. Our mutual nightmare is that they ask us to stay later, say through April. (I have a couple of plans in mind to thwart this, most notably approaching those who would make such a decision and telling them, on March 15, I wish to sign the severance agreement then and there.) They've already tried to send my boss to the outsourcing firm in India so she can attempt to unfuck their problems firsthand. She refused, to her eternal credit, having her March and April occupied more with her graduate thesis than any desire to extricate the department from the quagmire it's already in. Dipping into unemployment is worth my escaping the dead-end, head-against-brick-wall frustration of training these fools in the basics of typesetting and print preflighting.
The last thing I am worried about is running through my savings during my job hunt. My parents are sweet people, and justly worry about my welfare, but as expenditures go, my investment in WFMU's future is an investment in my own present. From few aspects in my life do I derive as much enjoyment as I do from its programming, its voluminous archives, and its exemplary, widely linked blog. What money I devote to this cause comes back to me manifold. Unless I become a successful freelancer, nothing so directly "pays" me. That's a potential point of overlap; in describing my Wednesday visit to the station to volunteer, my boss and I agreed that contact with such a diverse pool of talented minds could also provide business opportunities. You never know who might need some Photoshop work or proofreading done.
I simply need to pick a direction and move there with power and confidence. If I can weather downturns in said confidence, especially once I'm out from under the cloud hanging over the tattered remnants of my department, I will eventually find something worth doing that generates income, both retirement and fluid. Regardless of when that happens, WFMU is welcome to a chunk of it in just a couple of weeks.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 11/1/06
- WFMU RECORD FAIR BECKONS: Much like last year, I am lending a hand at the WFMU Record and Tape Fair, which should be a beacon of crate-digging and impulse buying for all fans of obscure vinyl and music oddities. All proceeds from table rental, admission, and sales from the cheapo record and FMU swag tables directly and 100% benefit the freeform station of the nation, WFMU 91.1. Get on out there and support one of the last places on the dial where noncommercial radio is still practiced and the wonder of the medium still holds sway.
- DICKED OUT OF A DOLLAR: Lovely for my bank to charge me a dollar for an unplanned use of a nonnetwork ATM, which by coincidence is more than I earned in interest on my checking account last month. I called the branch to try and get it revoked, but the assistant manager claimed that they were powerless to strike the charge barring mechanical failure of the nearest network ATM forcing me to another bank. I will move up the ladder and write them a note on their website, once my blood cools, to see if they will listen to calm reason. I can only imagine they spend considerably more than a buck a head to attract, sign up, and retain new depositors. Can't say I'll ever use any of their other financial services, though, regardless of whether my apostasy is forgiven. Yeah, maybe it's just a buck, but to them it's a rounding error and a fraction of the budget they allot for lobby candy for the tots . . . and why should I be a sheep and let them take it without a fight?
- TREASURE THIS TREASURY: Now, you want a satisfying financial experience — and no less, from a Federal Government website? Hit up the TreasuryDirect portal. The Treasury has been selling bonds online for some time, but until recently I hadn't seen their redesigned site. It is an attractive, easily navigable, ultra-secure interface through which you can handle all of your Federal fixed-income transactions. It is now as simple to buy the regularly auctioned Treasury bonds, bills, and notes, and the more traditional savings bonds, as it is to buy goodies from Amazon.com. Even more usefully, one can send paper bonds in for book-entry conversion, in my case saving me the effort of redeeming a bunch of savings bonds over the next few years . . . and also sparing me contact with the chiseling schmucks at my bank each time one comes due.
- HOCKEY SHOCKER: For the first time since around 1983, and only the second time in my life, I am going to a hockey game! My friend Jen sent up a signal flare for interest in an upcoming New Jersey Devils game, and she got quite a response, including yours truly. With the collapse of the Jets franchise, the mighty Felix hasn't been buying his father's season tickets, one of which I would occasionally grab if available . . . so my attendance at fall and winter sporting events has dropped to nil. The only remaining decision is whether I will be stomped for wearing my San Jose Sharks CHAINSAW jersey to the rink. I could always bring along a chainsaw in case anyone gets saucy. . . .
- POKER OCTOBER SURPRISE: Just when my faith in my poker abilities was beginning to waver, in the midst of a choppy late summer track record at the usual game, I was proud to rack up an October of straight wins. Of particular notice was a sweet win at the Showboat — a trip report that deserves a post here — that indicated to me I can still swim in the casino poker pool. I made many good reads at the local game that saved me money and that I would not have made a year ago. I consider our game to be of above-average skill, so when I — by no means the best player at that table — am able to string Ws across the month, I feel like I have actually learned just a little more about this crazy game.
- IF YOU BAN IT, THEY WILL COME: In a cowardly parliamentary trick, Congress tacked an anti–Internet gambling rider onto a safe ports act, which passed and was subsequently signed by Dear Leader on — fitting in the eyes of its critics — Friday, Oct. 13. I was never a dedicated or deep online poker player in the 6 months that I navigated the felt seas of the Full Tilt shark lagoon, barely clearing any of the incentive bonus with my low-limit and sporadic play. I yanked my funds months ago for the July Vegas trip and never reloaded. I barely thought about playing online until this push by the Congressional morality class over the late summer. Now that the mode of funding a poker account has been criminalized, I do think about playing, and somewhat miss it. So what has happened is exactly what transpired with the passage of the Volstead Act: Outlaw something, and folks will get curious about it. A piece in today's Wall Street Journal indicated that players are already sniffing about for ways around the funding ban. So are some of the guys in my game. I guarantee that if I rented the shuttered store across the street from my building, painted over the windows, bought three poker tables, hired and trained dealers, iced and greased the local cops and Mob, and put the word out, I could run games 7 nights a week with a waiting list out the door. To Congress I say, as we sarcastically say to the table sucker when he or she hits well: Nice hand.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 8/30/06*
- IN ONE DAY FLAT, the HR person at my previous place of employment sent me a fat sheaf of forms to use for swapping my retirement funds from there to the 401(k) at my current job. I haven't dealt directly with her, so I don't know if this typical of her speed on such requests, or radically atypical, but I'll take it. The paperwork is a bit daunting, so I think I'll call her and ensure, 100%, that I am checking off the right boxes. It all seems simple, but fucking this up can have significant tax consequences. I've had the funds there for so long, and I intend to nurture them for at least another 30 years, so taking a day or so to get everything right is absolutely justifiable.
- THE DEPARTMENT IS MINE. Well, not quite. My immediate supervisor is off to Europe to attend a destination wedding, along with one of the other designers, a guy she's know since high school and a mutual friend of the couple. In a storm of mounting tension and frantic multitasking, she eventually disappeared sometime midafternoon, without leaving me anything from her desk to worry about. I will be the contact person for the printer, our mutual bosses, and the department leads in the editorial realm, but it's only until next Wednesday, with Labor Day coming in the middle. My absent coworkers have the "honor" of paying their full freight for the flight to Europe and the lodgings, to say nothing of tux rental for one of them, and any incidentals, all of which need to be paid in the robust euro. You want to get married in the land of your ancestors? Do me a favor and tell me you were conceived in Central Park, because that's a lot more reasonable than a transatlantic jaunt through paranoid security that, at least in one Euro airport, is now disallowing pens. Pens, for fuck's sake!
- LABOR DAY'S SWEET SONG: No huge plans coming up. I'm slated to see Snakes on a Plane this Friday, which if I'm lucky will set the tone for the rest of the weekend. The weather is supposed to be subpar as Labor Days go, with the leading edge of Tropical Gender Dysphoria Ernesto verging on our area. (Meanwhile, in the Pacific, according to The Weather Channel, Wake Islanders are bracing for the arrival of what sounds like an anime or trading-card character: Super Typhoon Ioke!) I do welcome the official end of the summer season, which will help clear out the Garden State Parkway traffic for my eventual return to Atlantic City and my scheduled trip to visit my parents at the shore, much like last year. More importantly, the heat of summer will yield before the glorious approach of autumn.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Lifehacker's Been Reading My Mind!
HOT ON THE HEELS of my last post, I noticed a post on efficiency-tip trove setting up an emergency fund. This page also cites a similar story they previously linked, on About.com. I think both are worth a read, even if you have a fund set up or know the basics of how to build one.
Above and beyond the basic wisdom of maintaining such a fund if you can, what does it say that this topic is on more than one mind? Pessimism about the financial future of the country? Concern for one's ability to survive a calamity on the eve of the Katrina anniversary? Who knows.
Above and beyond the basic wisdom of maintaining such a fund if you can, what does it say that this topic is on more than one mind? Pessimism about the financial future of the country? Concern for one's ability to survive a calamity on the eve of the Katrina anniversary? Who knows.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Pass GO and Collect $75
A TAX REFUND RECENTLY spurred me into getting my financial house into better order. With any luck, this $75 check that I received earlier this month will pay generous dividends decades down the road as a result.
Unlike my Federal tax refund, which was used to fuel a trip to Atlantic City, this one was considerably smaller, being a rebate for New Jersey renters as part of our property-tax-rebate program. Still, at first thought, I filed it under "found money," and after cashing the check, displayed the cash to my parents and crowed about pissing it away on something fun.
Yet I never actually executed that plan. Initially, it was because I could think of nothing immediately on which to blow it. Yes, I have an iTunes account and an Amazon wish list and an eBay login, all three heads of the modern Internet-spending Cerberus. And I do work within walking distance of innumerable used bookstores, cafés, and knick-knack shops in Greenwich Village. I have a quirk of mind, however, that — after I have made a list of CDs, or books, or whatever, that I might want to buy — leads me to blank out on the items once at the destination store. If I don't actually commit the list to paper, I'll walk up and down the aisles entirely lost. Very frustrating, though perhaps a backhanded financial survival trait.
Instead, the $75 went into my emergency fund. On its origin: Back in the mid-Nineties, I tended to do my laundry at my parents' house rather than spend $5 a load in my apartment basement. I started setting aside $5 a week to represent the laundry moolah I wasn't spending. Also, in a (failed) effort to curb my videogame habits, I began dropping a quarter into a jar each time I started a new game, usually of Twisted Metal 2. Both stashes eventually totaled over $400, including around $170 in quarters. (Ever lift a Classico pasta-sauce jar full of quarters? Buy a truss first.)
I continued the laundry-cash tradition when I got my own apartment, but I also began a Friday ritual of throwing any extra money from my weekly allowance in as well. Basically, each week the larger of $5 or my allowance remainder had to go into that pot. If I ran through my allowance earlier than Friday evening, $10 went in; should I be foolish or pressed enough to return to the ATM a third time, $15; and so on. Taking a ten and a five out of the $60 that you need to last the week forces you to stop returning to the well so often, I can assure you. Soon, I started adding any sort of "found money": tax returns, appliance rebates, folding money from the coin-counting gadget at the bank, unused walking-around dough from vacations, even a couple of good blackjack scores. Two years later, in the wake of 9/11, I dubbed this now-substantial cache of cash my emergency fund, only to be tapped upon widespread failure of ATMs. (I assure you that this is as paranoid as I got after the attacks; none of the money went to a supply of plastic sheeting and duct tape.) Four years after that, I was able to use a big chunk of my emergency cash to fund fully my 2006 contribution to my Roth IRA. Automatic savings may be unconscious, but never are they mindless.
Now, when I have heard coworkers complain about never having enough money to fund a 401(k) or take part in the Section 125 health savings plan (or, more recently, the transit equivalent), I cite this as an example of how small amounts can make a big difference. I can understand how someone still paying for college or negotiating a mortgage would have debt reduction as their biggest priority, and it's smart to do so. (After watching a friend in college rack up four figures of credit card debt, I have since feared long-term debt like medieval townsfolk fleeing the return of the Black Death.) I can think of two coworkers, however, who definitely have leaks in their games, rivulets of money that could be diverted into a reservoir of effortless thrift. Even $10 a week into a mutual fund (to which my current employer does add a profit share), or to lend to Uncle Sam in order to pay uncovered medical expenses or a MetroCard, can reap big rewards.
In dropping this $75 into my emergency fund, I began to think seriously about the exact disposition of my retirement funds, and the market in general. I have no problems funding my 401(k) or my IRA (if I couldn't, no way would I be jetting out to Las Vegas at least once a year), but I am sure I could have the allocations more finely tuned for my needs. I therefore got some books out of the library, and reread one I've had for a couple of months, to address this. Also, I actually still have a fund open at my old employer, where a couple of the specific investment options were good performers. This will change. Sources inform me that the boss there is expanding the office. Nobody is suggesting he would fund this considerable expense with anyone's capital but his own. However, this is the sort of situation in which such shenanigans have been known to happen. Why even take the risk? So I have a phone call planned to the customer service of my current fund company to figure just what I need to do to move that money under my own more direct control. Then I need to sit down with the fat book of Morningstar ratings at the library (which I wish would open on summer weekends . . . another reason to hate this part of the year) and determine some better places to allocate this cash. Because when the time comes to retire, I suspect it will be all I receive.
I firmly believe that Social Security will fail my generation. I view the Trust Fund as something located between an IOU issued by a casual acquaintance and a Ponzi scheme. I do not trust the current gang of fuck-knuckles in Washington, nor any of their foreseeable successors, to exert the moral and political muscle to guarantee that the nation will return in full what it has taken from every paycheck I have received since high school — and without interest, might I add. Anything I spend at that time of my life will have to come either from my continued labors or what I can manage to conceal, via legal ERISA allowances, from Uncle Sam's withering reach.
So with any luck, and a little diligence in both my financial and writing lives, I hope to link to this post from 30 or more years in the future and tell you just how much that $75 rebate has grown into.
Unlike my Federal tax refund, which was used to fuel a trip to Atlantic City, this one was considerably smaller, being a rebate for New Jersey renters as part of our property-tax-rebate program. Still, at first thought, I filed it under "found money," and after cashing the check, displayed the cash to my parents and crowed about pissing it away on something fun.
Yet I never actually executed that plan. Initially, it was because I could think of nothing immediately on which to blow it. Yes, I have an iTunes account and an Amazon wish list and an eBay login, all three heads of the modern Internet-spending Cerberus. And I do work within walking distance of innumerable used bookstores, cafés, and knick-knack shops in Greenwich Village. I have a quirk of mind, however, that — after I have made a list of CDs, or books, or whatever, that I might want to buy — leads me to blank out on the items once at the destination store. If I don't actually commit the list to paper, I'll walk up and down the aisles entirely lost. Very frustrating, though perhaps a backhanded financial survival trait.
Instead, the $75 went into my emergency fund. On its origin: Back in the mid-Nineties, I tended to do my laundry at my parents' house rather than spend $5 a load in my apartment basement. I started setting aside $5 a week to represent the laundry moolah I wasn't spending. Also, in a (failed) effort to curb my videogame habits, I began dropping a quarter into a jar each time I started a new game, usually of Twisted Metal 2. Both stashes eventually totaled over $400, including around $170 in quarters. (Ever lift a Classico pasta-sauce jar full of quarters? Buy a truss first.)
I continued the laundry-cash tradition when I got my own apartment, but I also began a Friday ritual of throwing any extra money from my weekly allowance in as well. Basically, each week the larger of $5 or my allowance remainder had to go into that pot. If I ran through my allowance earlier than Friday evening, $10 went in; should I be foolish or pressed enough to return to the ATM a third time, $15; and so on. Taking a ten and a five out of the $60 that you need to last the week forces you to stop returning to the well so often, I can assure you. Soon, I started adding any sort of "found money": tax returns, appliance rebates, folding money from the coin-counting gadget at the bank, unused walking-around dough from vacations, even a couple of good blackjack scores. Two years later, in the wake of 9/11, I dubbed this now-substantial cache of cash my emergency fund, only to be tapped upon widespread failure of ATMs. (I assure you that this is as paranoid as I got after the attacks; none of the money went to a supply of plastic sheeting and duct tape.) Four years after that, I was able to use a big chunk of my emergency cash to fund fully my 2006 contribution to my Roth IRA. Automatic savings may be unconscious, but never are they mindless.
Now, when I have heard coworkers complain about never having enough money to fund a 401(k) or take part in the Section 125 health savings plan (or, more recently, the transit equivalent), I cite this as an example of how small amounts can make a big difference. I can understand how someone still paying for college or negotiating a mortgage would have debt reduction as their biggest priority, and it's smart to do so. (After watching a friend in college rack up four figures of credit card debt, I have since feared long-term debt like medieval townsfolk fleeing the return of the Black Death.) I can think of two coworkers, however, who definitely have leaks in their games, rivulets of money that could be diverted into a reservoir of effortless thrift. Even $10 a week into a mutual fund (to which my current employer does add a profit share), or to lend to Uncle Sam in order to pay uncovered medical expenses or a MetroCard, can reap big rewards.
In dropping this $75 into my emergency fund, I began to think seriously about the exact disposition of my retirement funds, and the market in general. I have no problems funding my 401(k) or my IRA (if I couldn't, no way would I be jetting out to Las Vegas at least once a year), but I am sure I could have the allocations more finely tuned for my needs. I therefore got some books out of the library, and reread one I've had for a couple of months, to address this. Also, I actually still have a fund open at my old employer, where a couple of the specific investment options were good performers. This will change. Sources inform me that the boss there is expanding the office. Nobody is suggesting he would fund this considerable expense with anyone's capital but his own. However, this is the sort of situation in which such shenanigans have been known to happen. Why even take the risk? So I have a phone call planned to the customer service of my current fund company to figure just what I need to do to move that money under my own more direct control. Then I need to sit down with the fat book of Morningstar ratings at the library (which I wish would open on summer weekends . . . another reason to hate this part of the year) and determine some better places to allocate this cash. Because when the time comes to retire, I suspect it will be all I receive.
I firmly believe that Social Security will fail my generation. I view the Trust Fund as something located between an IOU issued by a casual acquaintance and a Ponzi scheme. I do not trust the current gang of fuck-knuckles in Washington, nor any of their foreseeable successors, to exert the moral and political muscle to guarantee that the nation will return in full what it has taken from every paycheck I have received since high school — and without interest, might I add. Anything I spend at that time of my life will have to come either from my continued labors or what I can manage to conceal, via legal ERISA allowances, from Uncle Sam's withering reach.
So with any luck, and a little diligence in both my financial and writing lives, I hope to link to this post from 30 or more years in the future and tell you just how much that $75 rebate has grown into.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Leaks in Your Game
I'M SLOWLY COMPOSING MY Las Vegas adventures, but I've had some thoughts in the back of my head that I don't want to let slip away.
In poker, the term leak refers to a chronic flow of money due to unprofitable plays. For example, in no-limit hold'em, calling raises with suited connectors in a shorthanded ring game with aggressive flop betting is a leak. With few players seeing the flop, and the strong likelihood of a large flop bet destroying the pot odds, the right play (after having made the wrong play of staying in) on any flop that does not offer a four-flush with a gutshot straight or a made straight or flush is to fold. The fact that this player is still venturing capital into this situation, which rarely is going to give him or her the right price to continue with the hand, is a leak.
Online poker players often run software called PokerTracker during play. PokerTracker analyzes the hand histories (textfiles saved to the player's computer with all the details of the hands he or she plays) to reveal patterns of winning and losing plays, both by street and by individual starting hand. So for example, one can chart whether calling with T9 of hearts has been making or costing money, and from which positions on the table it's been doing the best.
For the disciplined player, this is a powerful tool that can eliminate leaks and raise one's profit. But what about leaks in life? Not just holes in one's financial boat, but other places where effort, energy, or talent is dissipated needlessly?
It's easiest to apply this analogy to money flow in life. I see this every day. You can buy a bag of perfectly serviceable coffee for anywhere from $6 to $10 per pound, grind the beans yourself in a gadget that sets you back $15 or so as a one-time expense, and brew yourself a tall one in a machine that could be as cheap as $30 or $40. Yet when I pass the Starbucks in my building in the morning, there's a line nearly to the door. In the afternoon too, I see coworkers walking slowly back to their desks with some $4 or $5 whipped-cream-topped concoction from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
This brings up another point in the health realm. Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer, amateur pilot, and blogger posted a series on how he lost 50 pounds with the assistance of an Excel table in which he tracked everything he ate. Like PokerTracker, this rigorous recordkeeping can help one isolate those bad food habits that, over time, add up to excess body fat. It's very simple math. With drinks that can add up, with whipped cream, to nearly 700 empty calories for the largest size, drinking Starbucks's fancier offerings over time without exercise or other limitations of intake, will make you obese. Minor leaks like this, when run together over days or months, add up to significant health problems.
For another exacta of behavioral leaks, consider smoking. A pack of butts will set you back at least $6 in New York City, with not much price relief in the rest of the state or in Jersey. Smokers rarely figure the monthly or even weekly cost of their habit, as long as prices remain stable — and even then, after a flurry of grousing over a hike in costs, they settle down and pay the increase. Even more neglected is the eventual health cost, both in physical performance and capital. Smokers pay a penalty for health insurance, lose workplace productivity or (for self-employed smokers) direct income from respiratory ailments made more frequent or worse in impact due to damaged lungs, suffer cardiac problems earlier in life, and often run afoul of long-term illnesses like cancer, emphysema, and congestive heart failure that sap their money for years.
Getting back to financial leaks, there are other areas where money flows pointlessly out of our pockets because of neglect or "convenience." Habitually patronizing ATMs outside of one's network. Buying the highest grade of gasoline for an old car. Getting the most inclusive cable package but failing to watch the vast majority of the channels. Loading up on books through Amazon rather than patronizing one's local used book store or library. Perceived in isolation, these don't seem like major diversions of cash. But it's like observing a single raindrop. Enough of them in one place can result in a devastating flood.
Although I have isolated my most costly leaks at the poker table, I am not free from leaks of lifestyle or habit. When short on time or foul in mood, I eat nonnutritious convenience or junk food. I have a three-can-a-day Diet Coke habit. The Internet is a seductive time-sink into which I frequently fall. And my sleep schedule varies wildly from one week to the next, which kills my productivity on the weekends when I sleep off the debt. Small leaks add up over time, but so do small efforts to plug these leaks and make the vessel, so to speak, even more leak resistant. I could plot a week's worth of meals over the weekend, even cooking or prepping a bunch of it ahead of time. I could replace one Diet Coke a day with tea, or — and this would be a Herculean effort — cut the habit completely, and watch the money I spent on soda flow into my coffers. I could set a literal timer for my recreational Web browsing, or find better things to do on the Net, like research investments or study poker strategy . . . or even post here! And that would directly influence my sleep habits.
Every massive cave system begins with dripping water, which over millennia erodes deep shafts and grand galleries of space and decorates it with intricate columns of mineral deposits. The Grand Canyon was sliced from the North American landmass by the rain and snowmelt that fueled the Colorado River millions of years ago. Each beach was once a balustrate of stone, which fought a slow, losing battle against relentless waves, yielding itself to sand. Over time, even the smallest leak can destroy a bankroll, a waistline, a talented soul's productivity. Leave the leaks to geology and make yourself watertight.
What are your leaks?
In poker, the term leak refers to a chronic flow of money due to unprofitable plays. For example, in no-limit hold'em, calling raises with suited connectors in a shorthanded ring game with aggressive flop betting is a leak. With few players seeing the flop, and the strong likelihood of a large flop bet destroying the pot odds, the right play (after having made the wrong play of staying in) on any flop that does not offer a four-flush with a gutshot straight or a made straight or flush is to fold. The fact that this player is still venturing capital into this situation, which rarely is going to give him or her the right price to continue with the hand, is a leak.
Online poker players often run software called PokerTracker during play. PokerTracker analyzes the hand histories (textfiles saved to the player's computer with all the details of the hands he or she plays) to reveal patterns of winning and losing plays, both by street and by individual starting hand. So for example, one can chart whether calling with T9 of hearts has been making or costing money, and from which positions on the table it's been doing the best.
For the disciplined player, this is a powerful tool that can eliminate leaks and raise one's profit. But what about leaks in life? Not just holes in one's financial boat, but other places where effort, energy, or talent is dissipated needlessly?
It's easiest to apply this analogy to money flow in life. I see this every day. You can buy a bag of perfectly serviceable coffee for anywhere from $6 to $10 per pound, grind the beans yourself in a gadget that sets you back $15 or so as a one-time expense, and brew yourself a tall one in a machine that could be as cheap as $30 or $40. Yet when I pass the Starbucks in my building in the morning, there's a line nearly to the door. In the afternoon too, I see coworkers walking slowly back to their desks with some $4 or $5 whipped-cream-topped concoction from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
This brings up another point in the health realm. Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer, amateur pilot, and blogger posted a series on how he lost 50 pounds with the assistance of an Excel table in which he tracked everything he ate. Like PokerTracker, this rigorous recordkeeping can help one isolate those bad food habits that, over time, add up to excess body fat. It's very simple math. With drinks that can add up, with whipped cream, to nearly 700 empty calories for the largest size, drinking Starbucks's fancier offerings over time without exercise or other limitations of intake, will make you obese. Minor leaks like this, when run together over days or months, add up to significant health problems.
For another exacta of behavioral leaks, consider smoking. A pack of butts will set you back at least $6 in New York City, with not much price relief in the rest of the state or in Jersey. Smokers rarely figure the monthly or even weekly cost of their habit, as long as prices remain stable — and even then, after a flurry of grousing over a hike in costs, they settle down and pay the increase. Even more neglected is the eventual health cost, both in physical performance and capital. Smokers pay a penalty for health insurance, lose workplace productivity or (for self-employed smokers) direct income from respiratory ailments made more frequent or worse in impact due to damaged lungs, suffer cardiac problems earlier in life, and often run afoul of long-term illnesses like cancer, emphysema, and congestive heart failure that sap their money for years.
Getting back to financial leaks, there are other areas where money flows pointlessly out of our pockets because of neglect or "convenience." Habitually patronizing ATMs outside of one's network. Buying the highest grade of gasoline for an old car. Getting the most inclusive cable package but failing to watch the vast majority of the channels. Loading up on books through Amazon rather than patronizing one's local used book store or library. Perceived in isolation, these don't seem like major diversions of cash. But it's like observing a single raindrop. Enough of them in one place can result in a devastating flood.
Although I have isolated my most costly leaks at the poker table, I am not free from leaks of lifestyle or habit. When short on time or foul in mood, I eat nonnutritious convenience or junk food. I have a three-can-a-day Diet Coke habit. The Internet is a seductive time-sink into which I frequently fall. And my sleep schedule varies wildly from one week to the next, which kills my productivity on the weekends when I sleep off the debt. Small leaks add up over time, but so do small efforts to plug these leaks and make the vessel, so to speak, even more leak resistant. I could plot a week's worth of meals over the weekend, even cooking or prepping a bunch of it ahead of time. I could replace one Diet Coke a day with tea, or — and this would be a Herculean effort — cut the habit completely, and watch the money I spent on soda flow into my coffers. I could set a literal timer for my recreational Web browsing, or find better things to do on the Net, like research investments or study poker strategy . . . or even post here! And that would directly influence my sleep habits.
Every massive cave system begins with dripping water, which over millennia erodes deep shafts and grand galleries of space and decorates it with intricate columns of mineral deposits. The Grand Canyon was sliced from the North American landmass by the rain and snowmelt that fueled the Colorado River millions of years ago. Each beach was once a balustrate of stone, which fought a slow, losing battle against relentless waves, yielding itself to sand. Over time, even the smallest leak can destroy a bankroll, a waistline, a talented soul's productivity. Leave the leaks to geology and make yourself watertight.
What are your leaks?
Friday, June 30, 2006
Make Way for Ducats
I MIGHT JUST BE the nerdiest person you know. No, seriously, even if you can look around your dwelling from a Star Wars poster to a rack of action figures and then down to a stack of comic-book longboxes, I've got you beat:
To step back a bit, you may recall my Word classes back in December. I really would have preferred to take Excel or Photoshop, the former a tool used by all of the managers at my workplace, the latter a key tool of my profession but not a package I know well. I figured if I at least got Excel at home, I could become familiar with the basics. What helps is the ability to copy or emulate functional formulae from existing spreadsheets and apply them in a new document. This is how I taught myself the absolute basics of HTML. So if every week I'm in Excel tabulating the slow drip of my bank account to my landlord and creditors, or racking up the odd win on the poker sheet, I ought to get more comfortable with the program, and eventually slide it onto my resume. Hell, why not? Should I crank the job hunt up again, I doubt it's gonna be for the sorts of positions in which candidates are pitted against one another in a spreadsheet-creating duel to the death. I think I only win that sort of contest if I use a sledgehammer on the other applicants' CPUs or metacarpals.
- I asked of my parents, and received, Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac for my birthday;
- I spent this Friday night setting up a consolidated group of financial sheets, including a check register and my poker results, the latter I typed in from the incompatible-with-Excel Word table in which I had been listing my wins and losses.
To step back a bit, you may recall my Word classes back in December. I really would have preferred to take Excel or Photoshop, the former a tool used by all of the managers at my workplace, the latter a key tool of my profession but not a package I know well. I figured if I at least got Excel at home, I could become familiar with the basics. What helps is the ability to copy or emulate functional formulae from existing spreadsheets and apply them in a new document. This is how I taught myself the absolute basics of HTML. So if every week I'm in Excel tabulating the slow drip of my bank account to my landlord and creditors, or racking up the odd win on the poker sheet, I ought to get more comfortable with the program, and eventually slide it onto my resume. Hell, why not? Should I crank the job hunt up again, I doubt it's gonna be for the sorts of positions in which candidates are pitted against one another in a spreadsheet-creating duel to the death. I think I only win that sort of contest if I use a sledgehammer on the other applicants' CPUs or metacarpals.
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