Posted by Tim Stobbs on August 18, 2011
Some times you read the right book just at the right point in your life and then interesting things start to happen to you. I recently had this occur to me when I borrowed The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. Chris’s name might be familiar as he has written the online manifesto “A Brief Guide to World Domination” which is the inspiration for the book.
The subtitle of the book is “set your own rules, live the life you want and change the world.” Basically Chris is trying to teach people that you don’t have to just live a conventional life of: get some post secondary, get a job you don’t really like and buy crap you really don’t need and save for a distant retirement.
We far too often in life settle for what we want. We settle for our jobs, what we do with our time, or how much of a difference we can make in the world. Chris is trying to teach people in this book how to live a different way where you point your compass to your dream life and actually get there. He also deals with the common issues that are going to come up from doing this: fear of the change, people saying ‘no’ and generally people not understanding how you really do want to change the world.
He also rightly points out that most people really don’t want to ‘do nothing’, but we often actually done something that we love so we don’t understand how ‘work’ can be an enjoyable thing. Would you ever really get tired of doing something you love to help others? Likely a lot more slowly than your current job.
In a nut shell it is basically required reading in my mind for anyone wishing to be retired early as the book might change how you view your current goal of early retirement. I know it did for me. You see I have always had this idea that once I’m financially independent that I could then write as much as I want. Now I realize that I’m approaching the problem in the wrong way. By aiming to be financially independent first I’m basically making the assumption that I can’t make a living writing, which is really what I’m after. The problem is that is an assumption that I have made. What if I can making a modest living at writing? Would I need to be fully financially independent? No, I could instead aim for being partly financially independent from my investments and the rest from self-employment income.
So overall I enjoyed the book which was fairly short so you can read through it rather quickly, but working some of the ideas through your mind afterwards might take a little bit longer.
So what’s your dream and why are you not doing it?
Posted by Tim Stobbs on July 6, 2011
So what happens when you apply economic principles to your marriage? Well beyond getting a fun book to read, like Spousonomics (by:Paula Szchman and Jenny Anderson), you also get some surprising answers to some of the most common areas of conflict in a marriage. So regardless if you just want to have more sex, argue less over the dishes or finally get your spouse to fix something that they promised six months ago you need to read this book.
I will confess here, that my wife found this book and laughed so much while reading it I had to pick it up after she had finished. While the book didn’t provide any earth shattering insights into my own marriage I never the less learned a few new tricks and approaches on how to deal with issues in a more proactive approach.
I personally like the advice on sex…you need to consult your standard negative sloping demand curve. Pardon? In a nut shell, sex always has a cost with it. You don’t pay in cash for it with your spouse, but depending on the amount of energy discussing it, debating it or planning for it. For example, are the kids in bed? Did you have to buy a gift to finally have some? Or do you only get some on a vacation without the kids? So the higher the energy cost associated with sex the less likely you are do it. So to have more sex, you need to make having it easier and reduce the cost. Rather simple when you think about it, so next time you want some more sex with your spouse make it easy to do.
Perhaps the one theme that comes up over and over in the book is you have to communicate with your spouse. Yes, talking to your spouse about your life and keeping them informed can prevent hurt feelings and misunderstandings. I suspect this is why I’m still with my wife after 10 years. We always talk about everything: the funny, the frustrating, and even the ‘I don’t really care about this, but you do, so I will listen.’
So why is a blog about personal finance and happiness talking about marriage? Well in a nut shell if you are married (or even common law) let’s face the facts: your odds of getting a divorce is high and it is expensive as hell to do. Also a lot of your happiness will likely flow from a good relationship with your spouse. In a nut shell: staying married is good for your wallet and your heart if you can make it work and it is a good risk management tactic. I’m not saying all relationships should stay together, but you should give it an honest try.
Overall I do recommend reading Spousonomics as I found it funny and an enjoyable read while managing to teach me a few new tricks.
Posted by Tim Stobbs on March 24, 2011
Here is an interesting thought: can you go an entire day without money? Not earning any, or spending any. Given how often we use or make money that would be difficult, but possible. Now, can you do the same thing for a weekend, a month, or how about… a year? If you are like me, the first thought you have is you would have to be insane, which granted is what many people though when Mark Boyle did the same thing for an entire year. He then wrote about the experience in a book called The Moneyless Man.
As social experiment goes this one was definitely on the fringe, but like any experiment there has to be some ground rules. For example, Mark could barter for things, that he could accept things in any normal context (like dinner at a friend’s house, but not every day). He would also try to reduce his fossil fuel usage to nothing and try to help others where possible. That last point is rather critical to Mark’s theory about the experiment.
You see Mark makes the argument that money has left us disconnected from the world around us. We have little idea of where the products we use come from and the difficulty in making them or the society costs we pay in pollution. Money also changes the game from cooperation to competition. People prior to money were just in the habit of helping each other: for example you help me with my harvest and I will help with yours. Now days we typically expect to be paid for a similar arrangement. So the heart of Mark’s experiment would do two things: one bring him back into difficulty of having to either make, borrow or trade for everything he needs to live. The second part would be to try and get into the habit of helping others with no expectation of getting something back.
The second point might not seem all that important until you realize prior to the invention of money our economy worked on the idea of you give support to others and receive support in return. Typically these daily exchanges weren’t kept track of like money so by giving freely Mark hoped to get back to that concept just a little bit.
Now the majority of the book is the strange tale of how Mark spends his year without money and how it works out. Overall the entire thing comes together fairly well for him. He gets a free trailer from someone who does want theirs anymore and sets it up on an organic farm in exchange for working at the farm three days a week, so that was his shelter. For food he grew some of his own on the land near the farm or he bartered for some, forged for wild food or hit a dumpster or two for perfectly acceptable food that was still in its packaging (just one day past its expiry date). Then transportation was with a bike and he did buy a small solar panel prior the experiment to charge a cellphone (incoming calls only or 911) and his laptop (so he could write about his experience on his blog or email others).
Overall the book was an entertaining read and it reminded me of a fact a lot of people forget: there is no one right way to live. While Mark’s lifestyle would be a completely not for you, it doesn’t invalidate that it might work for him or others. What’s struck me as interesting about the experiment was basically a large part of it was based on the fact of using what other didn’t want anymore. We waste so much as a society that in moderate climates, like England, it is possible to live off that waste stream. Obviously it can’t work for anyone since you need a certain amount of waste to sustain those that choose this way to live that way, but if it turns your crank have fun.
If nothing else I enjoyed reading this book as a reminder. We often talk about needing so much money to hit early retirement, but the fact is if you just want out of the system you don’t even need a dime to do that (depending on where you live). It may not be for you, but it is an interesting reminder of you can get buy on less than you think.
So would you ever try something like this? Or at what point in your life did you live on the lowest amount of money? I personally recall right after university and prior to my first career job, my wife and I both made about $6 or $7/hour and we managed to do fairly good. We were broke, but happy.
