Posted by Canadian Dream on March 18, 2011
Well yesterday was St. Patrick’s day which of course required the ritual of drinking a Guinness, but I sometimes feel I should use the word ‘eat’ a Guinness since the beer is so filling you could almost use a few as a meal replacement. So needless to say I enjoyed myself even if I decided to just stay home and relax while watching the last disc of season 1.5 of Caprica.
Now onto the links:
So with the risk of flooding around my city I found reading this article, What Your Home Insurance May Not Cover, from Thicken My Wallet a nice reminder for me to review my policy.
Ok, even if you don’t have a small business, if you have kids you might appreciate this article: How to Increase Sales for Your Small Business by Potty Training Your Child.
The Financial Blogger talks about: Are You a Burnout? (I already tweeted this early in the week).
JD Roth talks about How to Spend Your Money…it is always a nice change to talk about spending instead of savings once in while.
An interesting piece over at the Globe and Mail related to my post from yesterday.
Here is a good two part series on Estate Sales and getting someone else to do the work. Interesting business idea.
Then to end your weekend reading I will point out I’m having a big announcement on Monday (which shouldn’t surprise long time readers, but have fun guessing in the comments if you like).
Posted by Canadian Dream on March 17, 2011
Last week Ross asked the following question:
How do I go about getting my wife to start reading this blog or some of the articles above? She is already great at budgeting but isn’t as motivated or excited by the thought of early retirement as I am. I think if I could get her reading some of these blog posts it would give us something more to talk about as well. Thanks.
Well I’m not an expert on this one, but I do understand your problem since I had the exact same issue for a number of years and to some degree I still do. You see my wife initially was good about not spending too much and knowing the value of saving, but she didn’t have any interest in my early retirement plans either. To her the idea was a bit too far out there to really care about.
So how did I get her interested in my plans? Well to be honest I think her curiosity got to her about what I was writing about on the blog and she realized if she wanted to know what I was thinking about she would have to read it. So after writing this blog for a few years she finally started reading it. She then also developed an interest into the family profiles they do in Moneysense which I leave around the house. Then finally she developed her own interest in the meltdown of 2008 and frankly has read more books on that than I have.
On one hand this is great, but on the other she still not that particularly interested in my early retirement plans, she likes the idea, but doesn’t want to discuss it too much since it is still so far away.
So how did all of that happen? Well first off remember you can’t force people to do anything, all you can do if make the conditions right for them to want to do it. So to support an interest in these things here are a few ideas:
- Leave a few magazines about money around the house or even print off a few of your favorite articles from blogs. That way they are an invitation to learn without forcing it on her.
- Talk about money in a more general sense that she is interested in. For example, saving for your next vacation or perhaps expand that idea to wouldn’t it be nice to take a year off and see the world or perhaps it would be nice to able to work at something she enjoys but doesn’t pay that well all the time. Start slow and work your conversations up to early retirement.
- Lay the groundwork for early retirement, but cultivating interests outside of work for both of you. Also make sure to encourage her to have her own interests and activities. You don’t need to spend every second together.
- Talk about how nice it is to have the security of an emergency fund. Then just keep building the fund way past the usually six months expenses. At some point the idea of having a four year fund starts to get interesting.
Regardless of how you approach the topic do not force the issue. Keep the conversations interesting and useful for now if you have to. If you get pushed off, so be it. Let it the issue lie for a while than slip it in again for a different angle. You might have to approach the topic for various angles to find what will eventually draw in your spouse to talk about it.
So do you have Ross’s problem as well? If so, what worked for you?
Posted by Dave on March 15, 2011
This is a guest post by Dave, who is also looking to retire no later than 45, but unlike Tim has no kids and doesn’t want any. Dave is from Ontario and is working towards his CGA certification.
I generally don’t do things just because that’s the way that it’s always been done. If I can find a better way of doing something or a method that makes more sense to me, I will make a switch in what I’m doing rather than continuing down the path I am on. There are a few areas where I think I do things drastically differently than most people (perhaps not most people here, but most people that I interact with):
Early Retirement: This is an obvious one, being a writer for this site but I think it differentiates me from most people. My goal is to exit the workforce as soon as possible, hopefully by the time I’m 45. I have no disdain for people working past this point, but generally they are doing it not by choice but because they have bought so much “stuff” over the years that they are unable to afford to retire. By the time I am in my early 40s, I hope that I am able to choose whether I want to work or not. Most people don’t really think this way or have a real exit plan from the workforce.
How I eat: In the past year or so, my diet has changed significantly. I have eliminated everything from my diet but fruits, vegetables and meat. Conventional wisdom (at least in the past couple of decades) generally states that a diet that is high in saturated fats or cholesterol is the next thing to eating poison (as I did a year ago). Reading study after study showing positives of eating fat I feel comfortable with the dietary changes I have made, and altering my diet to contain only things that can be grown will hopefully allow me to live a longer, healthier life.
No kids: I wrote about this in my first post on this site and haven’t really revisited it on this blog since. My stance on having children hasn’t changed in the past year or two – my wife and I still don’t have children or have any plans to in the future. Not having children really goes against convention, and it has taken a while for my wife’s and my families to realize that we really aren’t going to have children. I think we would be great parents, but we really have no interest in giving up approximately 20 years (or more) of our life, it just really doesn’t seem worth the time or resources for us.
Those are three areas (of many) where I don’t necessarily follow the conventional way things are done. I am happy with the choices that I have made, but at times these choices create some very interesting discussions. I generally don’t start these discussions with other people and tend to avoid talking about my choices, as people seem to get very defensive when questioned about why they’re doing what they’re doing (mostly because they haven’t really thought about it).
What do you do that is contrary to the “normal”?
