My investment journey: The first $10,000

 I have been taking some time lately to go over my financial records, and I thought that it would be fun to look back and see how I actually got to a number of major financial milestones and what the time frames were.

Much like many people, I imagine, I spent a decent portion of young adulthood staring at the inside of very drab office walls for the duration of a relatively low paid shift. During my teens and early twenties, I held several jobs but my consumption dramatically outpaced my earnings, and I didn't save much.

Historically, my work philosophy was always that I would stay clear eyed about my relationship with an employer and the process of wage work as a whole. I am selling time and labor, but I have control over my conditions and I can and will leave if they aren't met. That often meant that I would do part time or casual work, or take a term limited full time job, depending on the overall compensation that the jobs could offer me in financial and intangible ways, like training and contacts.

I relocated several times and eventually got into a financial situation in my mid twenties where I could afford to aggressively invest, so I set up a budget to live off of and attempted to save or invest the remaining amount of my income.

I was actually able to invest my first $10,000 within 5 months of saving aggressively , even though there were some serious hiccups along the way. I had automatic payroll deductions set up for a retirement account through my employer, I set up direct deposit for my weekly wages, and I also put money into a few of the projects that I have detailed in the past, such as chasing bank account bonuses, collecting sign up rewards, and stacking discounts to minimize expenses and generate opportunity for resale profits.

With an average or slightly above average income, I was able to hit my milestone of $10,000 invested after five months of saving.

This included a generous 401k match of $2000, 401k contributions of $6000, and a cash balance of $2000 in a Roth IRA held at a now defunct investment platform that offered zero dollar maintenance fees and $7 trades.

What lessons did I take from this?

1. Sometimes you really do need to do different things to get different results. 

2. Riding a bike is nearly free, and cars cost money to buy, maintain, legally operate and insure.

3. Relocation can be a great way to reset your expenses, expectations and psyche.

4. Lower fixed expenses means higher discretionary income

5. Oftentimes the hardest things are the best for you.

6. Workplaces can assist you with your goals, but you need to set your priorities and monitor their progress or you could get sidetracked. 

A Round trip flight from California to Spain for $700? Google flights is great!

I've written at length in the past about my interest in getting the most out of my limited funds, and that often means shopping around for frugal options to accomplish my goals. 

As the Corona virus pandemic fades into the cosmic background of endemic respiratory diseases and many more people have been vaccinated against the disease, domestic and international travel has become more interesting to me and many others. 

In order to make every penny count, booking flights in advance and tracking prices can really pay off. 

As of the date of this article I was able to find a Round trip flight from Sacramento California in the United States to Seville, Spain, for only $709. I used Google Flights, a flight research, comparison, and booking tool to find this great deal. 

Not saying that I am going to, but I can lock in the price today, research any necessary visa requirements and make plans for future travel. 

If you have been looking for a way to get to your family and friends overseas for a more palatable price, I recommend exploring Google Flights. 

Here's a link to my example search, but feel free to do your own exploring with Google flights or your flight comparison site of choice. 

https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/YmrgSeM41KSZGrdk7

Sponges, dishcloths and Safety: Dodging pathogens while trying to keep things clean in the kitchen and bathroom

I am human, and like many of us, I make messes.

Lots of them.

Spilled milk, broken eggs, wet surfaces after processing organic materials, moist areas after hygiene activities, soiled cooking utensils and crusty dishes and cups all feature prominently in my assortment of surfaces requiring cleansing on a regular basis.

I even occasionally need to dry myself off after washing my hands or getting grease/oil soluble contaminants on me.

For all of the above reasons, I have been reaching over to a combination of paper towels, cloth towels, abrasive melamine sponges and plastic bristle brushes for decades to meet my cleaning needs, and I have often wondered whether I could potentially replace the environmentally questionable melamine sponges (that constantly degrade into small particles of plastic that enter our sewer systems and, likely, land in the ocean or sediments in our lakes, rivers and streams) and single use paper towels with something that would be easier on the environment.

I long ago abandoned the use of the standard dish sponge in favor of a plastic bristle brush in order to clean dishes and kitchen surfaces due to the tendency for sponges to harbor microbes, start to smell and eventually become unusable, but I still use paper towels quite often to do things that I wouldn't want to subject my cloth kitchen towels to: soaking up milk and oil, wrapping sandwiches, cleaning the inside of the microwave or the backs of appliances, or getting into nooks and crannies that might have organic material lodged into them (cobwebs, food bits, oil/grease, etc). As disposable items, paper towels represent little to no risk of cross contamination and offer supreme convenience at minimal cost.

I primarily use my cloth kitchen towels to dry clean hands and clean dishes, or brush crumbs out of dry bowls.

My melamine sponges (I use the Mr Clean Magic Eraser brand, but you can use any type) come into play in the kitchen and bathroom when my normal plastic scrubber hasn't managed to remove every bit of the gunk in the bathtub, shower or sink. I can use a multipurpose cleaner of choice (which is usually laundry or dish detergent liberally diluted in water) to help eat into the fats, oils, grease and proteins binding the gunk together and use moderate pressure and a few passes to get a silky smooth feeling surface that is back to it's original color. It takes more time than my standard plastic scrub brush since the contact footprint of a magic eraser is smaller and I need to apply more pressure, but the results can speak for themselves.

A new trend in home cleaning is the Swedish dishcloth; apparently these tools offer a compelling alternative to paper towels in home cleaning and are useful in dish washing, hand drying and the cleaning of small messes, with people apparently using them as direct substitutes for paper towels and rinsing them out or tossing them in the dishwasher to sterilize them. My primary concern when hearing about the widespread use of such tools would be the transmission of pathogens from person to person and source to source within the home.

While not specific to Swedish dishcloths, a statement from the Center for science in the public interest describes the results of a study that found household sponges and cloths often harbor coliform bacteria (normally present in fecal matter and the intestinal tracts of humans and other large mammals) and fungi in dangerous quantities, suggesting significant potential for the preparation of contaminated food and the sickening of individuals that consume items prepared in these home environments.

In addition, paper towel manufacturers are working to improve the sustainability of sourcing wood and other vegetable fiber to prepare paper towels, as described by Bounty in the linked site below.

In my case, I already have a pretty functional system and I don't want to create a closed loop in my cleaning routine, since I am already using more durable agents for tasks that I am comfortable having a durable tool for and I don't need to reuse cloths or towels for the tasks that I am using paper towels for.

Do you use paper towels for anything that you would use a Swedish dish cloth for? Would you want to use a reusable item for cleaning up, say, spilt milk or broken eggs if there was an easy way to clean it, or would you prefer to simply discard the tool along with the organic material/bacterial load and be done with it?

Sources and Useful links:

Sustainable Paper Towels - A Promise To Sustainability | Bounty (bountytowels.com)

Amazon.com: Mr Clean Magic Eraser Variety Pack, Includes Bath, Kitchen, & Extra Durable Cleaning Pads, 12 Count: Home & Kitchen

Amazon.com: Swedish Wholesale Swedish Dish Cloths - Pack of 10, Reusable, Absorbent Hand Towels for Kitchen, Bathroom and Cleaning Counters - Cellulose Sponge Cloth - Assorted: Home & Kitchen

The Dangers of Dirty Sponges and Dish Cloths | Center for Science in the Public Interest (cspinet.org)     

I was thinking about going to a Low Car lifestyle 3 years back, but I've changed my mind

Looking back at my situation about 3 years ago I was  in a low car situation. I put around 4000 miles on my car in the previous year and a half, including 3 300 mile round trips to neighboring cities, and repair costs were creeping up on me to the tune of about 100 dollars a month on average for a car that was purchased for a bit less than two thousand dollars. That was enough for me to seriously consider whether I was going to replace my car with an equivalent low value used car, a new(er) car with lower repair costs, a partial/full electric car, or just not having a car at all and going with a scooter for my various transportation related needs.

I could have also just done nothing, which would be to continue using my car, fixing it if it broke, and making no major changes.

That is actually pretty close to what I did. I kept that car, kept on driving it, and fixed it if it broke down for the past three years. At the same time, I purchased a similarly low value car (approximately 3000 dollars) to use when and if my primary car was broken down, which was necessary several times as the various parts of my original used car wore out and broke.

I continued to stack up about 4000 road miles per year between the two cars over the past three years, and continued to pay about 100 dollars per month in repairs on the older used car, 30 dollars per month on each vehicle for insurance, ~18 dollars per month on registration fees per vehicle, and on average $25 in maintenance per month on each vehicle. This wasn't really all that much in exchange for nearly seamless transportation and very little in the way of up front payments for each car, and I was able to make significant gains in the stock market and on a real estate purchase that I was able to make in the intervening time so I can't really say I lost out by buying cheaper cars in the beginning and preserving my savings.

If you have read any of my previous car related work, you probably recall that it isn't really the initial car payment(s) that will kill a younger man when purchasing a new(er) car, but rather the car insurance payments that make it a terrible decision to purchase a brand new car with financing. If you have a car payment of a couple of hundred dollars, it might even be more than the cost of paying for the car to pay for sufficient insurance to satisfy an automotive lender. I was, and am still, against financing a car against its own title as a young person since this kind of excessive insurance cost is really untenable.

Even so, in the summer of 2020 I decided to bite the bullet and use some of my savings and profits to purchase a new(er) car, and found a 2 year old car with pretty low miles for 14,000 dollars (plus fees). If I can keep this thing going for another 10 years with minimal repairs and the same amount of maintenance, I can afford to pay higher insurance costs, but since I paid cash instead of financing, I don't need to worry about the vicissitudes of the current lending environment influencing my insurance selections, and I also don't have to budget a car payment into my cash flow protocol. I just need to arrange for a private sale of my aging older cars, and I'll be in a good position to put my automotive concerns on the back burner for the next decade or so.

The best part about selling a heavily depreciated older vehicle is that the actual value of the car doesn't change much unless it is not serviceable. A 1600 dollar vehicle, after 4 years of use and regular maintenance, is probably still close to being a 1600 dollar vehicle, and a 3000 dollar vehicle can't really drop more than 3000 dollars in value. At worst, it has also become a 1600 dollar vehicle, and since both of them still run and drive I should be able to find someone in need of basic transportation willing to purchase them.

It's funny though, comparing my current concerns about transportation with those that I had several years ago. I was bike commuting at the time 4-5 days in the summer, and driving between the first and last frost of the year. These days I commute almost exclusively by car, and my bike has been relegated to a weekend/off day vehicle, exiled to the garage instead of always ready and waiting for me to hop on and take off in my living room.

I was seriously considering going car free and taking my chances in the rain, wind, dust and danger of the streets for my daily commute, and now really outside of potentially switching to a plug in hybrid or battery electric vehicle, I'm unlikely to completely remove the car from my daily routine.

Luckily, in the past few years I have also drastically relocated my primary dwelling, and now live 3 miles from my primary worksite. This means that my basic driving for work, mail and food consists of a 6-10 mile round trip 200 days per year, so I could maintain my annual mileage between 2 and 4 thousand miles even on the new car. Reducing my transportation needs and trying to bundle purchases with my commute, I could limit my personal carbon footprint while still preserving the convenience of an in-car commute. In consideration of the average North American driver that stacks 10,000 miles on their car in a year, I think that using 20 to 40% of that amount is still pretty good.

It's not as great as a no-car lifestyle, but a low-car lifestyle is still OK with me, and I can still ride my bicycle on my off days and when I don't need to cut through a ton of traffic.

It's important for all of us to think about the way that we are using our possessions in light of the ongoing climate crisis, and it's possible for all of us to be more efficient with our lives. I think that putting my two higher mileage used cars that are still fuel efficient at 25 miles per gallon on the market will hopefully take two more fuel inefficient cars off the road. Since my new car averages a 30mpg efficiency if I drive conservatively, I'm hoping to be incrementally kinder to the environment than I have been in the past.

How to salvage a jobless degree: A recipe for Millenial Success

It's unfortunate that so many people my age are facing a difficult job market and heightening living expenses without the benefit of a job that utilizes their hard earned college education, or pays them accordingly for it.

The plight of the Millennial generation is that there are so many different degree programs and so many requirements for jobs, and they rarely marry well enough to ensure that a job awaits each college graduate or certified worker.

If I were in the position that a lot of my peers are, working a "dead end" job with little promotion potential, I would try seeing which companies have hired people that do what I was trained to do. In the past, I'd call HR departments and ask what makes a good candidate, what sorts of things they were looking to see, and how to best display my experience, so I could tailor my resume to make sure that I described the most critical elements well. After enough years of college and freelance projects, most people have done a little bit of a lot of different things, and if a 1 day or 1 week project has the skills and competencies needed for a full time job at one of the big companies in your industry, that could be what gets you the job.

You could also consider positions in state, local, or federal government. They usually pay less, but sometimes go more by credentials than experience. As long as you fulfill basic requirements for a position in terms of education, they are happy to train you to the function at hand. Best of all, fresh eyes might discover something that needs to be reworked.

Be willing to move, long distances if necessary, for the right position. I more than doubled my income when I left my state, and you might too. Sure, your expenses might rise if you move from Kentucky to Texas, but if you get to make three times the money and gain experience in your field, you might want to consider it. Best of all, once you've cut your teeth you may be able to come back home to your state and either start something so productive that your industry flourishes in your home town, or get a job that you wouldn't have qualified for previously.

Another option is to just start making things. You can do independent project work that is really awesome and get attention from Mozilla, Google, or Microsoft once you've got a product running, like Notch did with Minecraft. Minecraft was eventually licensed by console game developers, and acquired by Microsoft for 2.5 Billion dollars, but the development costs were Notch's groceries and apartment costs since he pretty much just made Minecraft for a living once he started getting sales.

If you are able, doing contract work is a great way to go as well. You get your own business, great management and professional experience, and the kind of responsibilities that managers and executives love to see 5-10 years down the line. If you're lucky, you will get to become an "Internal Consultant" after a while, and stack up salary, benefits, and a cushy traveling job while sharing expertise site to site.

My biggest piece of advice is to be open to opportunities that might not seem too attractive at first. Don't turn your nose up at work, it's good for you and it helps to put food on the table. If your grandparents and great grandparents had the opportunities we had today, they wouldn't say that things were too hard or there were too few opportunities. They would buckle down and do what they could to feed their families, clothe their children, and care for each other.

I think that my generation definitely has a lot to struggle with, between broken homes and massive debt, but there is hope for the future. We just need to find a way to get there without melting the planet first.

Choose the Colors of your Roof Wisely, and you can save a bundle on utilities

Lot's of people disregard roof colors when shopping for a new home or apartment, but it can make a real difference in your costs for heating and cooling. In most stores and areas, different colors of shingles and roofing metal are virtually the same in price, but they have remarkably different thermal and reflective properties.

Light colored roofs offer reflective capacity, which helps to send solar energy back up into the atmosphere (possibly space) instead of absorbing it and turning it into heat.

Darker colored roofs, conversely, absorb more solar radiation and convert it to heat. In cooler climates, this can be a boon, and can even be used to augment home heating systems by heating water or other materials for use in the home, but in warmer climates this is usually undesireable.

Wouldn't it be nice if your house was 10 degrees cooler in the summer, or 10 degrees warmer in the winter, for no additional cost? Just remember that your roofing has an impact on your bills, and could save you $40 dollars or more in utilities. Even better, your utility provider might offer a rebate for solar efficient roofing!

Three ways to save money when purchasing a home

There are a ton of people out there talking about whether people should buy or rent, which neighborhoods are good and which are bad, and what the best way to pay back a mortgage is.

I'm going to focus on three key tips that I keep in mind when shopping for property, and that have worked to actually save me money.

1. Use your social network

Some of the best tips on new property listings,  realtors that charge lower to no fees, and self-advertised properties are available from people in the area. Letting people around you know that you are looking for a place and what is important to you can really magnify your access to opportunities. Be sure to investigate each of your recommendations, however. Even if you really like the person that is recommending the place to you, it could be right next door to a dog-fighting kennel.

2. Hire your own inspectors

In the modern age, it's necessary to have an appraisal prior to closing, but not all appraisals are created equal. For many banks and contracting agencies, it's too much work to do an interior inspection, and many important details or deficits can be missed. Paying a couple of hundred dollars for a home inspection is peanuts compared to getting thousands of dollars off of your sales price when you find issues that need to be addressed, or having to pay thousands over market for a structure with hidden damage.

3. Don't be afraid to walk away.

I have looked into properties in many different price ranges, starting at $4000 tax sale homes and topping out in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the most important rule that I have had going into every deal is that I wanted a house, but I didn't need "that" house. While it is easy to get emotional, and attached to a particular property, it's better to remain impartial and evaluate the facts of the market and the property. A cute paint scheme, a nice neighborhood, and a convenient floorplan pales in comparison to a home in your price range and a stable city government.

Best of luck to all of you out there looking at buying a home!

Do you have any experience using these tips?

Do you have any advice for other people considering a home purchase?

Share them in the comments below!