Oh, everyone just go read my Friends Page, so you can learn about the job opportunities at Fantasy Magazine from ktempest and a meditation on class & narration in YA from shakennstirred, check out larbalestier's new site design, let quirkybird introduce you to a cool new comic, mock my frequent use of CAPS along with libba_bray, whose favorite T-shirt slogans include

EVERY TIME YOU POST WITH CAP LOCKS ON,
ee cummings kills a kitten.

. . . and properly adore squidflakes at last as the author of the immortal My Darling's Buttocks are Pleasingly Round (known to the Vulgar as "Milady Got Back").

My work here is done.

This is the book I have been listening to in the car. Since we are trying not to drive as much, it has taken me a little longer than usual. In some respects, this is a good thing.




This audio is not the "last lecture" Randy gave. It is, instead, an extension of that lecture and several other discussions he had over the course of a month or so. However, it is still riveting to listen to. For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Randy Pausch has terminal cancer. As he stepped down from his teaching position, he gave a "last lecture" one that has made the rounds of the TV shows and You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3PubKXu-04). His wit, his courage, his humanity struck a resonant chord in so many. Thus, the video, the book, and the audio. Randy is the narrator, naturally, and while that sometimes causes problems with audiobooks, his "reading" is calm and understated. I think it needs to be just that given the situation. It is not at all maudlin or morose though it is incredibly bittersweet.

Since I have some experience with losing folks to cancer, it does affect me in some ways that actually surprise me, catch me off guard. I am curious to see how the residents of the back room react. My only criticism is that I would have preferred to listen to the lecture live and not from the confines of the recording studio. I felt the same way with Ann Patchett's WHAT NEXT?

My postings about books have been erratic of late as I have been trying to spend more time writing. Somehow I felt out of balance, so I picked up a book today vowing to finish it off. Ta-da!




Margo Lanagan's TENDER MORSELS (Knopf, October 2008) certainly has a provocative and evocative cover. Ditto the opening chapter. Ditto the rest of the book. Liga is repeatedly raped by her father and forced to drink herbs that cause her to abort the babies. She is hiding her most recent pregnancy though she is not certain what will happen. Luckily for Liga, her father meets his fate beneath the wheels of a cart one night. Liga begins to put her life back together with her daughter Branza only to be brutally assaulted by some young man out carousing on the town. Urdda is the issue of this violent rape. After such incredible violence, Liga and her daughters are given their own personal heaven in which to live peacefully and happily. However, the real world does intrude and Liga and her daughters are confronted with severe choices. Can Liga and Urdda and Branza find some version of heaven on earth?

Tough book to annotate. Tough book to read. As a reader, I railed against the unspeakable acts visited upon Liga and her daughters. However, I see also in the story the unbreakable spirit that sometimes arises from the ashes of lives shattered. I also am taken aback at Lanagan's ability to build this story that is at once grounded in reality and also heavy with myth. Evil, magic, myth, woman: a winning combination for readers willing to take the risky journey.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/getrichslowly/~3/aA5ukwZ9TEQ/

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/?p=1949

It’s been months since I did any public housekeeping. I have several items that could use some feedback, however. Now’s a good time to discuss them.

Feed transition
First of all, my RSS feed is in the process of being moved from the old Feedburner site to the new Google-based Feedburner site. There may be some glitches during this process. The subscriber number may swing wildly. (I’ve seen 51,000 and 62,000 today, and right now it doesn’t show at all.)

There may be trouble with the e-mail newsletter. Some bloggers report 150 copies of their e-mail being sent out this morning. My subscribers saw zero copies in their inboxes. I’d rather have the zero than the 150. Things should settle down as the team at Google works the glitches out of the system.

Public relations
I used to share a lot of cool tools and sites I found as I poked around the internet reading about money. I’ve done that less in the past few months, largely because I’m inundated with e-mail from public relations firms pimping their articles and applications. I’m reluctant to post about something that I first heard about via a PR e-mail. It feels too close to selling content (which I choose not to do).

On the other hand, some of these look genuinely useful. Should I refrain from mentioning Qvisory simply because two PR people contacted me? I’m beginning to believe it doesn’t matter how I hear about cool money stuff — I should share it with you, anyhow. What do you think?

(On a side note: I just about died when a PR person contacted me today to give me info about the company I worked for in the story about the worst job I ever had. Uh, no thanks.)

Repeat material
I’ve mostly tried to refrain from covering topics that I’ve explored in the past. There are several articles about buying a new car in the archives, for example. However, most of these articles are months (or years) old. Get Rich Slowly has seen a lot of new readers since then, and most of them haven’t gone back through to look at the old articles.

It’s time to cover some of these topics again, and to do so, I’ll reuse certain key passages from old posts. (Why reinvent the wheel, right?) In an article about buying a new car, I might reuse a bullet-point list, for example, updating it with new information. If you have suggestions on how to approach “repeat” material, I’d love to hear them.

The sidebar
I haven’t monkeyed with the sidebar in nearly a year. It’s woefully out of date. I plan to make some changes to it soon, and I welcome your feedback. Are there features you’d like to see? Features you want removed? How many of you ever use the “recent comments” to track ongoing discussions? How would you feel about a weekly poll?

Guest posts
I’ve has a number of people write lately asking for my policy on guest posts. I’m happy to consider all submissions. I tend to post guest articles on “Wednesdays and weekends”. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but I try to share two items from other writers every week.

If you have something to share about personal finance or productivity, feel free to send it to me. But please be warned I’m becoming much choosier lately. Guest posts must be well-written and informative. I’ve actually begun to reject submissions that will require too much editing on my part.

(Also, if you have favorite guest posts or guest authors from the past, please let me know. If there are some clear favorites, I’ll ask them if they’d like to contribute again.)

Reader requests
This seems like a good time to ask for reader requests, too. Are there topics you’d like to see covered? Topics you’re tired of hearing about? For example, one reader yesterday mentioned that my focus has been too much on rural stuff lately and not enough on city stuff. Excellent point, and one I’ll try to consider over the next few weeks.

Would you like to see more “ask the readers” columns? How do you feel about the current posting pace (which has remained essentially unchanged for eighteen months)? More daily links (or “twice weekly links”, as the case may be)? Fewer? More book reviews? Contests?

Also, I’ve had some people mention that the articles seem to be getting longer, and they’d prefer shorter posts. Thoughts?

Thanks
Thanks, as always, to all the Get Rich Slowly readers. You folks are awesome. The discussions around here never cease to amaze me. I’ve learned a lot over the past two years, not just from my reading, but from your stories and advice. This site would not be what it is without your contributions. Thank you.

---
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Money Hacks Now at Get Rich Slowly
• Reader Requests: Shape the Future of Get Rich Slowly
• How to Subscribe to Get Rich Slowly
• Behind the Scenes
• How Can I Improve Get Rich Slowly?

There was a sound this morning coming from outside. And not my fave outside sound of mourning doves, either. It was more like someone was hacking down tree branches or something. But when I looked outside, I saw a fire. My building looks out onto the roof of schmancy restaurant One If By Land, Two If By Sea, with its loud ventilation system and maze of suspicious pipes. A flame kept sparking on the outside of a pipe. I made one of those freaked out 911 calls (I guess they're all freaked out, duh) where you can't even hear what you're saying because the terror is taking over your senses.

While I was waiting for the fire engine, I tried to ignore my biggest fear (well, definitely on the Top Five All Time Fears list) of having everything destroyed in a fire. But it wasn't working. This annoying vision of the pipe exploding and projectile metal parts crashing through my window followed by a tremendous woosh of flames wouldn't go away. I reviewed the terrorist attack plan that SP and I established in case we need a meeting place. I couldn't remember our third backup location. And then I tried to remember the list of stuff I want to take with me that I put together after September 11. All I could remember was:

1. iBook
2. Wallet
3. Scrapbook

But then I was like, Which scrapbook? The one from growing up to age 30? Or the one from age 30 to now? And should I also bring water? Won't my bag be crazy heavy?

Luckily, I didn't have to worry about any of that. The FDNY neighbors got here in about ten minutes and saved the day. Good thing I work at home and made the call. What if no one saw? There would have been a raging fire! We could have lost our whole building! But I calmed down because negative What Ifs are a waste of time. Here's what the roof looked like when the FDNY neighbors were done:



My fluffy mourning doves came to say hi later, all puffed out and ruffled feathers:





They always know when I need some company.

I'm not sure that I've ever mentioned this, but I have a second job. Really, it's a part-part-part time thing. I take minutes for a grant fund associated with Harvard and Agassiz, and I've been doing it since 2006. I go to meetings (where I am fed lunch), take minutes, write 'em up, keep 'em on file, and do some other, not terribly time consuming tasks, like making a call or two, emailing people, and mailing letters.

I don't make a lot of money at this, of course, but whatever I make goes straight into my travel savings account. As I have two - three BIG trips coming up -Oregon next summer, maybe Uruguay in January, and Leipzig again as soon as I can afford it- I need to find more ways to increase the moolah going into my travel account.

Thus, I've decided to ask for -no, really, request a raise. I'm thinking $2 more, but it occurs to me that I don't really know how much people get paid for this type of work -when they do get paid.

Anyone want to hazard a guess? I know copy-editors can ask for around 25 per hour, but that's all I know.

http://www.hbook.com/blog/2008/07/and-listen-to-me-and-martha-and-kitty.html

. . . as we talk about some of our favorite new summer reads for kids. A list of the books we discuss on the podcast can be found here.

I'm trying to come up with a clever way to say that I have nothing to say. I thought about doing a blog that mimicked the form of an email away message. (I'm away from my blog right now....) But the concept lacked punch. I thought about a terse note of the "gone fishing" sort. That didn't seem right, either. I even considered going with he truth. I'm on vacation and just don't feel like blogging, even though I'll be consumed by guilt at the thought of disappointing the two or three readers who expect a steady output. Besides, the truth is no fun. I guess I'll just have to admit that I have no clever way of saying that I don't feel like blogging this week.

Favorite t-shirts spotted this week:

Let the Wookie win.

I'm no longer with stupid.

EVERY TIME YOU POST WITH CAP LOCKS ON,
ee cummings kills a kitten.

Also, lots of people have asked about what's happening with the AGATB movie. So here's your answer: not so much yet.

The script is being hammered out. That's where things stand. So, just to clarify: There has been no casting, no production start date, no secret Hollywood cabal meetings (or none that I was invited to and asked to bring snacks). As soon as I hear anything more, I'll post it. Promise.

And now, back to BOVINE. Five more days of deadline. And I've promised myself if I work hard today, I will go see DARK KNIGHT as my reward and I will mix the M&M's into the popcorn.

It was nice to sleep in until almost 7 this morning. I like getting time to write before the residents of the back room are up and functioning. Chapter Four is coming along nicely, I think. I managed to hack away and come up with about 500 words. I am still not sure where Chapter 5 will end up but I am trying to focus on the one in front of me and not worry too much about the one ahead. We have had a nice soaking rain this morning courtesy of TS Dolly 400 miles south of us. So, the A/C is getting a much needed break and the sun is still mostly behind clouds.

Here is Scout in all his laid back glory. Nice to see he has not a care in the world. No one will come along and mess with him, especially when he is sleeping all sprawled on the sofa.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/getrichslowly/~3/w35S9UonbJw/

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/?p=1948

Smart personal finance is all about balance.

You work while you’re young to provide for the day when you may not be able (or willing) to work any longer. If you don’t save enough, you may find yourself unable to lead the life you want in retirement.

But if you save too much when you’re young, you risk sacrificing years of youth and vigor for an uncertain future. In a worst case scenario, you may not even live long enough to enjoy the money you’ve saved.

The key is to find some sort of balance: to save enough for retirement, but to also use money to enjoy life while you can.

Die Broke
In his 1997 bestseller Die Broke, Stephen Pollan offered a controversial approach to retirement. Instead of focusing on the future, he encouraged readers to put as much emphasis on today as tomorrow. He offered a four step prescription for making the most of your money:

• Quit today. Use your job to generate income to pursue your personal goals rather than using the job itself to fulfill those goals.
• Pay cash. Live frugally. Wait to buy things until you can pay with cash.
• Don’t retire. Plan to be productive all your life. You’ll earn more money and be more satisfied.
• Die broke. Forget about leaving an estate. Use the money you’ve saved. Make the most of what you’ve earned.

“By choosing to die broke,” writes Pollan, “you turn the future from something to fear to something to embrace and rejoice over. Dying broke offers a way out of your current misery and into a place of joy and happiness.” His message is to enjoy tomorrow and today.

Spend ’til the End
In the newly-published Spend ’til the End, Scott Burns and Larry Kotlikoff offer similar advice, but they place more emphasis to the details. Burns and Kotlikoff analyze dozens of hypothetical scenarios as they seek to discover which choices provide the greatest “lifetime living standard per adult”.

The authors believe that in order to obtain a balance between today and tomorrow, you must:

• Maximize your spending power.
• Smooth your standard of living.
• Price your passion.

Burns and Kotlikoff draw on research into economics and behavioral finance. They cover big concepts and small, all while keeping the information accessible to the average reader. Most of all, they stress that you are just as capable as a financial professional to research and choose the best course for your life.

Maximize your spending power
To maximize your spending power, you must make the most of big life choices. Where will you live? What will you do for work? How much will you spend on a mortgage? How will you invest for retirement?

The authors suggest that it’s okay to choose a job that you love, but that you should be realistic about how much income you can generate. They also note that where you live can make a huge difference to your standard of living. Whether you should buy or rent is a complicated question, but if you do buy a home, Burns and Kotlikoff urge readers to prepay the mortgage. “Paying off your mortgage is one of the smartest and safest investments you can make,” they write.

Finally, the authors believe that the best way to maximize investment returns is to fire your broker and to invest the money yourself in low-cost index funds. (Their philosophy is very similar to that found in The Four Pillars of Investing, which I reviewed two weeks ago.)

Smooth your standard of living
It may not make sense for everyone to save for retirement. If your financial situation leaves you pinched, you should find a way to make your present circumstances more comfortable and then worry about the future. In fact, the authors note, for young people it sometimes makes sense to borrow. If done sensibly, borrowing money can help smooth your standard of living:

Consumption smoothing is a balancing act. It’s about balancing future and current spending, but it’s also about balancing safety with opportunity.

In economics-speak, consumption smoothing means maintaining a balanced standard of living over the course of your entire life.

• Rather than oversaving today to live rich tomorrow, consumption smoothing means giving yourself permission to enjoy today, as well.
• But it also means that instead of overspending today and being broke tomorrow, you recognize when it makes sense to save.

This is difficult to do, of course. There are many variables: income, life expectancy, unexpected emergencies. Much of Spend ’til the End is devoted to exploring specific techniques for consumption smoothing.

For example, the authors stress that diversification — not just of investments, but of all your economic resources — is crucial to maintaining a balanced lifetime standard of living. This is why it’s critical to not invest in your employer’s stock. It’s foolish to draw your paycheck and your investment income from the same source. It’s also the reason that many financial planners believe it’s good to have both a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA — it diversifies your retirement resources.

Consumption smoothing is all about providing a constant lifestyle.

Price your passions
Life is about more than money. Money helps ease the way, but it does not give us meaning. Instead, we derive pleasure from our passions: our relationships, our hobbies, our beliefs. But each of our passions carries a financial consequence.

In some cases — such as living with a partner — doing what we love can actually increase our standard of living. Because a couple can share expenses, living together is a financial net gain. It’s more difficult to evaluate our leisure activities:

We’re constantly trying to figure which is worth more: money or leisure. And guess what? Most people choose leisure. Even as the financial services industry puts out warning after warning tell us that we’re all going to be eating cat food unless we save and invest more money while working more years, any examination of the choices people age fifty-five and over make leads to only one conclusion: we like leisure more than we like money.

But, the authors argue, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If we’re able to pursue the things we love at a price we can afford, it’s worth it.

Conclusion
Spend ’til the End is primarily about little tweaks you can make to the way you manage your money in order to improve your lifetime standard of living. It’s about consumption smoothing. For example, there’s a short chapter on tax-efficient investing. This may seem like an esoteric topic, but optimizations like this make a difference to your future comfort. Much of the book’s advice is geared toward those nearing retirement, but there’s still plenty for readers of every age.

Spend ’til the End was the perfect book for me to read at this place in my life. Still, it’s not a great book. In fact, I had several problems with it:

• Some examples are too detailed, too specific.
• The book seems to lack cohesiveness. (Perhaps because there are two authors?)
• The writing style can be simultaneously glib and dry (no mean feat).
• Though I can’t say this about many books, this one seems poorly edited. The copy-editing is particularly poor.

The real problem is that many of the choices this book asks readers to make require intricate knowledge of tax code and an understanding of myriad variables. There’s no way for the average person to calculate these numbers by hand. Indeed, the authors rely heavily on a piece of software developed by Kotlikoff. ESPlanner can analyze these variables, and it’s used for many of the examples in the book. Because of this, Spend ’til the End occasionally reads like an advertisement for a piece of $150 retirement planning software.

I don’t want to sound too harsh. I like Spend ’til the End. It’s thought-provoking. And any personal finance book that name-drops Scrooge McDuck and The Big Lebowski is a winner with me.

I recently had a chance to spend a couple hours on the phone with Scott Burns, one of the authors of Spend ’til the End. Look for highlights from our conversation next Thursday.

---
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Feeling Broke: Little Things Add Up
• Ask the Readers: Help for a Broke New Yorker?
• links for 2006-08-10
• Daily Roundup: Cars, Cars, Cars
• Ask the Readers: So Much Debt, So Little Time?

Hey I'm new here so I'll start by saying hello! Okay anyways, I was wondering if anyone on here is a fan of Garth Nix. I'm going to be needing a new book to read soon and I was thinking about the Abhorsen trilogy by him, so I was wondering if anyone who's read it could tell me if they liked it or not. Okay thanks!!!

"I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution.

At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so they can add their voices to proclaim "never again". And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit."

-Senator Barack Obama




image published on The Huffington Post, July 24, 2008

For the record, I've been to Yad Vashem. I saw names of lost family members recorded in their database. I've cried many times in my life, but never quite like that day at Yad Vashem.

Retro, straight out of the Ronnie Spector Sound of Music era. Rhythm and soul music hitting the wall. Makes me want to put go-go boots and let go.

Truth be told: I've lost my groove, I've lost my mojo in these last few months of wandering through the desert of life. Something about this song sets my feet a-tapping and my heart a-thwapping. It doesn't change things but it makes me feel as if I'll be dancing again one day. Soon. {} There's an unrequited love theme going on here but I've added my own twist to the words; whereas it sounds as if she is telling someone else "you do it well," I'm thinking "Yes, Pamela, shaddup already 'cos you do it well." Shaddup and write and stop your crying. Get up offa that thing and write.



Another take on this song tonight as offered by two hot tamale dancers from this summer's SO YOU CAN THINK YOU CAN DANCE program. Here's Twitch and Katee's interpretation of MERCY. Somewhat misogynist and old school (why was it always women begging for their men to come back? Me? I'd open the door and wish him the life he deserved) but... this is show business and story-telling and you have to tell the story the choreographer creates. Katee and Twitch did it exceedingly well. Angry and raw and... so over-the-top that it's almost funny. These two can SO dance.

Maybe I'm just waiting for the right moment to kick my own set of blues out the door. It's like learning to read and right now the letters are not making sense. If I push myself hard enough, there has to be that moment where the light bulb goes off and I will see the way out of the land mine I call Life Right Now. Walk slowly. Tread carefully. Seek mercy from oneself because no matter how many people tell you life is going to be better, the only person I need to hear say it is myself.

Alright, all ye craftily inclined, here is one of the coolest online knitting/craft/etc blogs/publications I have ever found: ¡The AntiCraft!

Enjoy.

. . . to the first person to shout "Book, ho!" when they sight the new paperback of Delia Sherman's Changeling in an actual bookstore! I hear it's out and everything, but have yet to see one myself.

Actually, last time I called deliasherman's cell phone, she was signing copies to leave for customers of Porter Square Books in Cambridge. So I guess she's seen it.

But then, she's the author. What about the rest of us??

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/getrichslowly/~3/8Z8N2iho9_k/

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/?p=1947

My wife isn’t a big blog reader. She reads my sites and the sites of our friends, but that’s about it. Recently, though, she’s become hooked on two new blogs: This Garden is Illegal (which I’ve mentioned before) and Orangette. (These blogs are new to us, not new to the world.)

Orangette is an amazing blog about amazing food. One recent entry contained euphoric praise for a recent New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe. Spurred to action, Kris baked a batch over the weekend. Oh my. These are very good.

But did you really come here for dessert? No. You came here for personal finance links. I have a few of those, too:

First, Flexo at Consumerism Commentary has a great article about net worth. Net worth is an internal metric, he says — it’s useful to track your own progress. It’s not meant for comparing to other people. I don’t write much about net worth at Get Rich Slowly. In part that’s because I don’t find it particularly useful. But it’s also because I think discussions of net worth too often become competitive. Flexo’s post is one of the best I’ve seen on the subject.

“You have to own a credit card,” people always say, “if you ever want to rent a car.” But is it true? Jim at Blueprint Financial Prosperity decided to find out. He recently posted a roundup of major company’s policies for renting a car with a debit card. His conclusion? It’s not impossible to rent a car without a credit card, but it’s kind of a pain.

Samir sent me a story from Yahoo! and Investopedia featuring five signs you’re living beyond your means. Is your credit score less than 600? Do you save less than 5% of your salary? Are your credit card balances rising? Does more than 28% of your income go toward housing? Are your bills spiraling out of control? If you answered yes to any of these, author Glenn Curtis suggests it’s time to reevaluate your spending and your long-term financial plan.

Finally, David forward a story from Success Soul outlining Warren Buffett’s 7 secrets for living a happy and simple life.

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Use Your Hobbies to Bring You Wealth
• Five Fantastic Frugal Tips for Christmas
• How to Get Rid of Ants (Without Calling an Exterminator)
• A Cheaper Cup of Coffee
• links for 2006-09-12

Coming soon to a Publishers Marketplace near you:

Audio Rights: David Macinnis Gill's SOUL ENCHILADA to Tim Ditlow at Brilliance Audio, at auction by Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio.

After I sold SOUL ENCHILADA, the one thing I hoped for, thought would be totally, completely, awesomely awesome would be to hear the voice of my characters coming through the earbuds of my iPod.

And now...

I just finished my first post-marathon run!  It was a three miler in the park, nothing out of the ordinary, but still wonderful.  (The marathon was June 29th, so that's...24 days sans running.  I was traveling around and not in the best running areas, so I thought I'd let it wait.)

It felt great to get out again!  My energy levels seemed to jump with the mere anticipation of a run, and even though there were a few creaky bits (that callus on my toe had gone away, ouch, needs to be rebuilt!), I can't wait to work towards my next goal.  Problem is, I'm not sure what that should be.  I really love being involved in races...but the next one that I have access to isn't until April!  So, I guess I need to find some maintenance program...

Anyways, just wanted to say I'm happy to be back at it!