Keep Cooking For Yourself, No Matter Where you are or what's going on in your house

Being able to cook for yourself unlocks a world of savings.

Eating away from home and paying other people to turn groceries into dishes is a fantastic way to spend more money than you really need to, and you don't necessarily need a lot of equipment to prepare food.

I've made fine dishes with only access to a microwave, refrigerator, and a set of dishes, but a camp stove or grill are great additions to makeshift kitchens.

Personally, as long as I have a way to make rice and cook meat, beans and vegetables I am happy, but I can also achieve massive savings over restaurant food by buying lunchmeats and bread at the deli counter and making sandwiches at home. I've gone the sandwich route twice in my life, and both times I thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace from my normal spoon and bowl cuisine to something that I could eat with my hands.

If you want to go the sandwich route, I recommend making a whole loaf of bread's worth of sandwiches at once and storing the individual portions in plastic wrap either under refrigeration or in the freezer.

The savings in this activity are considerable. Many people can easily spend 100 dollars per week eating cheap takeout, and if eating out for every meal are tempted to eat fast food or pre-prepared food from grocery stores and cafes. I have even observed 40 and 50  dollars per day of expenses on food alone! Making your own food is an easy way to save 1 or 2 thirds of this cost.

Cheap costs for Cheap Cars

This has been an expensive last few months for me.

Back in January, I made the call to purchase a cheap car for about 1600  dollars, a 2000 Mazda 626 sedan. It had pretty high mileage, and a possible motor mount issue resulting in a vibration at idle.

I didn't really need to do much to get the car in good condition, as it was running when I purchased the vehicle.

I paid for an oil change at a local superstore, and had the techs take a look for any unusual mechanical issues. That cost about 50 dollars for a multi-point inspection.

I also paid for a complete brake overhaul, so I had new front brake pads installed, my rotors resurfaced, and rear brake drums replaced for a grand total of 450 dollars. That was back in March.

This June I've decided to spring for a new set of tires, which were pretty reasonable at 50 dollars per tire. I bought four tires, and with installation, taxes and fees I spent 250 dollars overall.

At this point, I've spent 1600+50+450+250 on my cheap car in terms of parts and service, for a total of 2350 dollars on the car. I also paid 180 dollars for 6 months of insurance, and 200 dollars in licensing and registration fees. If I want to include the costs of gasoline, that is an extra 100 dollars monthly, for 500 dollars in gasoline. So far this year, therefore, that would be 2350+180+200+500 for 3230 dollars in transportation costs. Over six months, that works out to be 538 dollars per month, which is pretty hefty! I hope that my car will be a bit cheaper going forward, and my costs more closely approximate the costs of gasoline and insurance as opposed to brakes, tires and registration.

At the same time, I realize that the same costs that I faced on my cheap car come up on more expensive vehicles. 450 dollars of brake work on my car would easily be 1000 dollars of brake work for a luxury German vehicle, and 250 dollars would be the cost of a single tire on a luxury sedan, not a set of four on my Mazda. My insurance works out to be about 30 dollars per month, which would be unheard of if I was driving a luxury vehicle, and I'm comfortable carrying liability only coverage since I could walk away from the vehicle if necessary.

All in all, it could be much worse, and I'm still comfortably able to afford the 626, even if the costs have been higher than anticipated so far this year. I've still got 6 months left to go in the year, and if I only have to pay gas, insurance and possibly an additional oil change my average transportation expenditure should approach 150 dollars monthly.

A New Town, An Old Question: Where to live, and how to get around

I've recently relocated from my old home base to a new home base seveal thousand miles away, but I am presented yet again with the age old question of how to most efficiently and safely commute to work from where I live.

In the area I've moved to, it's quite common for people to ride bicycles everywhere, even moderate distances (which I consider to be 5 miles or more one way), or use ride sharing applications for trips that would usually require a bicycle trailer or car.

I located a place  to live within walking distance of my new office job, but I soon realized that the area that I had chosen was not very friendly to walk through at night, with many tales of crime, lots of gang activity, and a very large homeless population. It was impressed upon me that I did not want to walk much in my neighborhood, and lower rents were more attractive in other parts of town. So, I purchased a cheap, early model used car (2000 Mazda 626) for about 1600 dollars, paid some outstanding registration fees with the local state, and bought liability only car insurance.

After driving 3-5 miles per day for 3 months, I'm ready to move a little further from my workplace. I realize that this is likely to come at an additional commuting cost due to more driving, but I am at something of an impasse on this front. Even though my employer is willing to reimburse me for public transportation expenses, I would be unable to use public transit to go home from work due to my schedule, and living alone means that I would have no-one to pick me up if I took the bus or light rail to work. It is not really economically wise for me to take public transit to work, and then hire a ride share back home, not is it particularly wise for me to cycle in complete darkness to make my way back home. Thus, I will continue to car commute.

It's Tea Time

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter months carry many associated rituals, but among my most treasured is the preparation and consumption of warm beverages in copious amounts.

Something about the crisp chill and driven snow makes the diffuse heat of a cup of coffee, cocoa, broth, or tea a treasure. As an accompaniment into the cold or a warming welcome to the indoors, tea is particularly reminiscent of the winter months, and is built into many parts of my winter schedule.

For those of you more interested in the history of tea, there are more resources out there than I could name, but a great treatment has been prepared by a youtube China Scholar of the history of cultivation of Camellia sinensis, the tea tree.

Please enjoy the history of tea
In my opinion there is really nothing better than an on-demand water heater and a good supply of tea leaves. My personal preparation methods are a bit more mundane, involving a stove and saucepan, a liter flask, and a couple of cases of freeze dried ginseng and oolong tea.

Driving a Used Car makes me Hundreds of Dollars a year!

Driving a well-used car can sometimes be a pain. When looking over the costs of maintenance, the effort of repairs, and the inconvenience of arranging for the issues that can come with used cars, it can be tempting to think that it would possibly be cheaper just to buy a new car and not worry about maintenance or repairs.

However, driving a newer car comes with a requirement for comprehensive insurance if the car is financed, and if one chooses to drive with only liability insurance, exposes a more significant fraction of one's net worth than one might like to damage when driving around town, so even if owned outright comprehensive coverage is a good idea if the idea of replacing the car is unpalatable.

In my case, the purchase prices of used cars can be very low, but maintenance and repair expenses are higher, and the purchase price of a new car is much higher, and the cost of insurance is much greater as well.

I decided that, in the interests of personal finance, I would run the numbers with a few basic assumptions:
1. I will buy a used car and save money to repair or replace it on a monthly basis, which will be sufficient to repair or replace it.
2. If I were to buy a new car, I would get a $20,000 Honda Civic and either pay cash or finance it over 36 months
3. I am willing to invest the difference in price between the new car and the used car
4. Investments earn me 5% year over year, and I am able to invest the returns as well
5. If financed, I can pay 3,000 down and pay a rate of 3% compounded monthly
This last one isn't really an assumption, but it's important to note that I am not considering taxes or fuel efficiency

I looked at the costs to me over the course of 15 years of driving, and it was pretty clear that after 15 years or so I would have spent nearly the same amount buying, repairing, insuring and replacing used cars as I would have buying and insuring a new car, whether or not I financed it. The cumulative difference between buying used and new, regardless of financing, came out to be less than 2000 dollars after 15 years. However, the key in this case comes down to the opportunity costs of buying a new car. If invested, the difference in value of the new vs used cars would provide about 800 dollars of income (in the case of the cash purchase) or 696 dollars of income (in the case of the financed purchase) on average through all of this time. This means that the opportunity cost of buying a new car vs a used car is actually about $12,000 over the course of 15 years if one buys in cash, and $10,000 over 15 years if one financed.

Let me know if you guys are interested in seeing the actual charts and calculations, but I find that this is really compelling for me. Running the numbers really helps make things clear.

Every year that I keep on driving used cars and avoiding a new car, while sticking to my repair/replace budget, I can earn myself 690-800 dollars with the difference in price. In fact, my actual investing returns on about that much money were spot on in that range since this March, so I am really excited about this plan.

Used cars for the win!

The best part is, I can actually keep the majority of this amount in my IRA, and let the money grow tax free instead of paying taxes on the growth.

The only downside to this is that the concept doesn't work if you didn't have the ability to buy a new car in the first place. If the only money you have is enough to buy a used car, and you can't qualify for a loan for a new one, then you are going to be stuck with the higher maintenance and repair without the comfort of the income from the difference in new vs used.

Falling College Admissions is good for the economy?

I've been pretty tuned in to the news in recent days, and there are a lot of interesting headlines floating around right now July of 2016 has brought a number of troubling and controversial trends to light, from protests all across the United States, the declaration of political choices of the major parties for candidates for president, and all time highs in the US stock market to terrorist-style vehicle crashes in France. The most fascinating headline that floated over towards me in the past few days was the observation that college enrollment was declining in recent years, specifically at for-profit colleges, and specifically for programs focused on two year or shorter courses of study and tailored towards specific careers. Most of the students that had been attending these schools in pursuit of a new job had been on the whole older than the general college graduate, and had been motivated  to take additional coursework on because they were unable to progress in a rough job market without either additional training, certification, or potentially a complete re-training and a pivot into a different sector.

If the enrollments in these types of trade-focused schools is falling, this could mean that those careers are less attractive, which is a possibility, but it could also mean that there are many more opportunities available to people besides paying for two years of post high-school education to get a certificate.

I suppose that this would qualify as a curious case in macro-economics, as it is likely a net positive when people are going to school, getting extra skills, and then going out and applying those skills to help make the economy more efficient, but it is also a positive thing when there are opportunities available to people that allow them to earn a good income without the need for additional, lower efficiency educational programming right out of school, which would allow the people working at that for-profit college to go and produce work themselves.

What do you think? Should we consider falling enrollments a positive or negative sign for the economy? Is there an education bubble in the West right now?

Saving money on hot water is cool

Hot water is one of the luxuries of modern life, and it is also ridiculously expensive for a number of reasons.

Hot water requires heat, which usually comes from the combustion of fuel, and is constantly radiated away from the water into the surrounding structure, air, or ground. As a result, there is a great deal of waste involved in the process of making, and keeping water hot.

Not only that, once the water is heated it usually goes from a piping hot boiler to a series of copper or plastic pipes throughout a structure that allow the heat to dissipate once again, so it is frequently necessary to let the water run before it reaches warm enough temperatures to satisfy our demands.

Needless to say, the water waste from simply letting water run down the drain until warm enough is considerable, and the fuel waste in heating water over and over again is major as well.

A number of money and resource saving solutions to this problem exist, including point of use water heaters, insulated and high efficiency boilers, and much more, but the simplest and cheapest answer to this problem is insulation.

At a cost of less than 50 cents per foot, insulation for pipes is dirt cheap, and offers savings of approximately 50 dollars per year in utility costs for the average household in a temperate environment, and serves to reduce the likelihood of frozen pipes in the winter time.

But beyond finance, there is little better than having hot water immediately available when you turn on the tap.

Saving money is cool, but hot water is just so soothing that it's worth paying for, as my recent home depot receipts and electric bills will show.