Send Troubles to the Ditch: Preparing Before They Get There

President Calvin Coolidge once said: "If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." One of the surest ways of sending troubles into the ditch is setting up roadblocks before they reach you. Underestimating the impact of planning for the future can have huge implications for the direction your life will take. It is amazing to me how many people act as if life will just come on its own and sweep them off to good fortune and fulfilled goals, not realizing the effort it takes to acheive anything more than mediocrity.


Retirement. Education. Marriage. Buying a house. Having children. The majority of us will have a number of life events for which we can be easily plan and prepare - and most are not purely financial. Marriage, while certainly not devoid of financial aspects (one of the largest reasons for divorce is finances), involves at least as much preparation on the emotional, relational, and spiritual levels. At some point, the day of decision on these matters will come - waiting until that day to begin planning is far to late to make a real impact on the outcome.

Take retirement for example - waiting until you are sixty to start preparing for retirement is woefully inadequate to meet the majority of people's needs. The earlier you start to plan and prepare, the more leverage and control you will have over the outcome. There really are only two solutions for under-planning: Postpone or reduce the size of your goals.


Failing to plan for foreseeable life events is a lot like waiting until the day before your vacation to start preparing for the trip. Suddenly, you realize that you need to pack, get tickets, accomodations, transportation. Typically, you'll spend more. You'll forget items. You'll waste time figuring out what you want to do. You'll add stress. And in the end, even if you manage to go, you won't have nearly as fun or relaxing a time as if you had taken the effort to project into the future a bit.

So start packing your bags: figure out what decisions you are going to need to make in the next 5, 10, or 20 years. Next, figure out what kind of tools or skills you'll need. Maybe it will be a budget. Maybe it will be something like setting aside an evening for a family activity each week. Maybe it means taking some extra classes to improve your job skills. Whatever it is, look ahead, start planning, and send those future troubles into the ditch!

Lesson 8: Spending More to Buy Nicer Things

Being married means that I spend more on nicer things than I would have otherwise. Case in point: The two pictures show the relative differene in my perception of a "dream house" at this point in our lives. The first one is offered for a grand total of $7000, the second, for something like 2.1 mil. While I somewhat jest at the extent of our differences (who wouldn't want house #2?), the fact of the matter remains that as a single individual, I would probably have no problem living in a $7000 hovel. (In some ways, the contrarian glamor of it is rather appealing). Nevertheless, I wouldn't ever want my wife to have to live in a roach infested shack. (See Lesson 9: Living a happier, healthier life). Before I got married, I slept on a $50 futon, which was great for me, but I deemed unacceptable for married folk. We went out and got curtains and rods for the windows (which were perfectly fine bare).

But the real difference is the attitude of buying - not for an immediate need - but for something that is going to last. As opposed to buying furniture made of particle board that will disintigrate at the first sign of moisture, I've bought furniture that hopefully will last for years. Instead of buying tools for a project based on "what's the least expensive", I've bought tools that will last a lifetime (or at least have a guarantee for that long).

Many people buy for "now". They want the DVD/VCR combo, so they buy the Cheap-mart version for $50, as opposed to spending $90 for a version that will last more than twice as long (prices quoted are fictitious with no knowledge of actual prices). Such tradeoffs on price and quality are often difficult to quantify, but can be key to saving big bucks in the future. The way I was raised, if something is worth getting, its worth spending the extra time and asking the extra questions to make sure you're getting the best value. This really is the key, whether you are buying an air mattress, or a house. Having the right information allows you to make a good decision on the tradeoffs between price and quality - sometimes there isn't any difference, sometimes 5-10 dollars can make a big deal. So sure, I do spend more on things now that I'm married. But I'm confident that the extra money I spend has bought me quality, functionality, and value that more than makes up for the dollars of extra price.

The Economics of a High School Student

It's that time of year for high school students to finish up and start having summer fun. Even better, some students are out (or are "encouraged" by their parents) there looking for a summer job. The benefits seem good - even though it doesn't pay much, it still gives you some extra spending money, or even save a little for college. In addition, it may instill some responsibility - getting to work on time, dealing with customers, and employers, your first brush with W-4's etc.

But my family was a little different. I didn't ever have a "real" summer job. Neither did my brothers. Nor did they really want me to get a summer job - even if I had one, I probably would have worked at my dad's business as an electric motor repairman - I'm sure I'll talk more about that in the future.

Why wouldn't my frugal, money-saving parents not encourage their high school students to get jobs? The reason is that we were involved in projects and competitions and community service through church and school that they felt were better uses for our time. In their view, school, and the extra-curricular activities along with it, were my "job". For example, in the summer of my junior year, I worked on a Science fair project that I spent over 200 hrs on. A couple of summers I helped out with my church's VBS camp with over 300 little kids. During the school year, I was involved in competitions from Social Studies fairs to Bible quizzing. Other than the benefits personally, when it came time to apply for colleges and scholarships, I had a resume full of academic and community activities - and folks like to give scholarships to students with full resumes.

So as opposed to a couple of summer jobs that I might have made 3000 or 4000 dollars each, I got scholarships worth $40,000, and $70,000 in addition to a number of other smaller scholarships. It's hard to beat "making" that kind of money for a high school student.

LazymanandMoney had a post with 15 things he would tell himself when he was back in high school. You should check it out!

Lesson 9: A Healthier, Happier Lifestyle

Ahh..... the days of warmed up hot dogs, and ramen noodles! Ok, really, I don't really miss them very much. Lets face it, as a married person, its a lot more worth it for me to take care of myself, if only because I have someone else around that I want to take care of. I eat better, I sleep more, I would say I probably have less stress, and being married gives me a reason to go out and do more things.

Its proven: Married people live longer! Numerous studies have shown that there are a lot of benefits to one's overall well being and quality of life. While there may not be a direct quantifiable financial benefit, there are definitely improvements to everyone's productivity when they are happier and healthier. Overall, there is probably a slight (at least initial) cost to healthier living - more on this tomorrow. But the improvement in well-being is something that money can't buy, nor something that should have a price associated with it. Maybe in a strict dollars and cents calculations you'd come out a little ahead, maybe a little behind - in the end, who cares?

I've seen a number of posts elsewhere where people question whether financially it makes sense to get married. I would say that the question really misses the point of marriage in the first place. Saving, discussing and planning should be part of the marriage, but shouldn't be the reason for it. I'm thankful that in getting married, I have a life partner that I can share the rest of my life with. That is worth more to me than all the money in the world.

Lesson 10: Travel Costs are Less

This lesson is a pretty obvious one, since my wife and I now live only from one side of the bed to the other (most nights anyway....), as opposed to almost six hours driving. Trying to see her once a month was certainly no picnic on the car miles, gas bill and number of hours taken out of a weekend (but of course it was worth it, honey!).


However, what I want to talk about is making the decision to fly rather than drive. AAA has a calculator that shows the fuel cost for a given trip, but it's pretty simplistic in my opinion. Although the decision can be boiled down to just the cost of gas vs the cost of a ticket, there really is a lot more to try to model into the equation -some of which is difficult to quantify.

For instance, trying to go from Indiana to West Virginia was close to 6 hours of driving. A direct flight could have been only an hour and a half or less, but there aren't any direct flights, and there aren't really any major airports within an hour of either end of the destination. Adding up the total time would have been just about 5-6 hours - not significantly different than the driving time.

There are other costs to flying too - do you have to get a rental car once you are there? Are you carrying more than one passenger? But the decision isn't all weighted in favor of driving - there is additional wear and tear on the vehicle, (arguably) more stress, and the consideration of emissions (if that's your thing).


For major venues that are more than 5 hours away, are only one traveller, and don't need a rental car, flying often is the cheapest way to go. Over Christmas, I was able to get my wife a ticket for back home 10hrs away by car for just under $100. For other situations, especially when there is more than one person travelling, taking the car is usually the cheapest method.

I was highly disappointed that I wasn't able to find a halfway decent comparison calculator that would be able to show the driving time + cost as well as a flying time + cost based on starting/ending points, whether you needed a rental, and number of travellers. I guess I'll have to leave it up to someone else to develop it!

10 Lessons Learned from a Year of Marriage

1) Marriage should be built on a lot more than financial expectations (hence the phrase in marriage vows "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer...")
2) Marriage will not solve money problems - keys to successful money management work whether you are married or not
3) But some of the best memories are from doing activities that require little to no money
4) Its important to talk about financial goals and expectations
5) But FAFSA rules are against getting married
6) Taxes are a lot less
7) But you also spend less in total on housing, food, utilities, etc.
8) You also spend more than you would have to buy nicer things
9) As a male, you take a lot better care of yourself than when you were single
10) You spend a lot less on gas to go visit your fiancee six hours away

Over the next couple of days, I hope to talk about each one of these lessons - so be sure to tune back in!