Gas and oil prices are high. This is not news. What is news though, at least on PEI, is that people are complaining about how prices of home heating oil are so high that they can't afford to buy food. Say what?
Granted food prices are increasing as well, but what annoys me is that people are clamouring for government to help them out rather than looking at their own spending. The people that are complaining would likely be up in arms at the mere suggestion that they don't need cable television, a 3000 square foot home, or 3 vehicles.
"But we work hard and deserve those things" the masses might say. Listen up folks: beyond the needs of food, shelter, and clothing, anything else is a luxury item. You might not like to hear that, but that does not make it any less true. Thus, do not look to government to bail you out, but rather see what you can do to help yourself. Let's see if we can get an extra tank of oil per year by trimming some spending from the average household's expenditures. For the purposes of this calculation, I am using the average household size from the 2006 Census of 2.5 persons per household.
From this page, we'll assume the average tank of oil holds 300 gallons or 1137 L. Based on current home heating oil prices in PEI of 125.5 cents per litre, a tank of oil will cost $1427.
According to the 2006 Census, the average expenditures per 2.5 person household includes $1714 for tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. Hey! Look at that! There's our tank of oil right there!
Well, a lot of household might not have smokers and/or drinkers so what can the more health conscious household do?
Cut your cable. Chances are that on PEI, it is through Eastlink whose prices range from $24.72 to $54.95 for basic and full-tier cable respectively. What to go digital? Try $57.95-$85.85 per month. Eliminate this bill and save $296.64-$1030.20 per year.
Switch your lightbulbs to CFLs. Trent from The Simple Dollar shows that you can save about $100 per year by changing over to these more efficient bulbs. Due to the recent increase in energy prices in PEI, the savings would be about $138 per year based on $0.14/kWh.
What else could you do?
Stop eating out and make your meals at home. I spent upwards of $100 on dining out a few months ago and am now making most meals at home. As well, there is only about a $10 difference in grocery bills plus I am eating healthier. Yes, eating at home saves that much money. The Defense of Food sites that half of American spending on food is for dining out, but just using myself as an example, if you spend $100 on eating out and change to cooking at home, the net savings each month would be $60 since you spend an additional $10 each week on groceries. Annual savings: $720.
Avoid the coffee shop. Rather than spending $1.50 each morning on the way to work, why not drink some water and perform a few light aerobic exercises to get the same wake-up effect. Annual savings: $390.
Tallying these savings up we get an annual savings between $1544.64-$2278.20, more than enough for a tank of oil. These are only some of the options available to you to save money for heating oil. Here are some others:
- install a programable thermostat
- drive less, using gas savings for oil
- energy seal your home
- move to a smaller home, which would cost less to heat
- sell a vehicle if you have more than 1
- get a roomate to share energy bills
- make more money
- move into an apartment that pays for the heat
In closing, I think the assumptions made in this article are reasonable for the typical PEI household. I expect, there would be more challenges for people with very low or fixed incomes, but many of these strategies can be applied there as well.
Moral of the story: Suck it up and be personally responsible for your situation. Stop whining to the government for help when you can easily make small adjustments to your lifestyle in order to get the result you want.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The Debt-inator
In my last net worth update, I mentioned that my debt was completely wiped out. So how does one kill nearly $4000 worth of student loan debt in one fell swoop? The answer my friends is punctuality and the Canadian Millenium Scholarship Foundation.
During my tenure as a substitute teacher between January-June 2007, I was made aware of the scholarship by two pre-service teachers that were on their practicum at Kinkora Regional High School. They told me that you have to submit the application with some other information on the first day of your classes and that it was basically first come, first serve.
That day came and I marched myself to Student Financial Services located in the Sullivan building in downtown Charlottetown. I dropped off the submission form and proceeded to forget about the entire thing for seven months.
Therefore it was a complete surprise when I opened the mailbox to see that I was the recipient of a $4000 scholarship that would be applied to my student loan! How awesome is that?
I'm not trying to toot my own horn on this, but it was very comforting to know that I would essentially only be paying about one and a bit years worth of tuition for my education degree. This makes my repayment of the remaining debt (to be accrued in September 2008 and January 2009) a much easier task.
Speaking of which, I still plan on continuing to put $100 away each month as a bit of a head start to repaying the loan. I have all my remaining student loan money in the intrest-plus savings account through PC Financial and although I could likely make more money faster by investing that $100, I'm still not at an investing stage yet. As well, this method is very low risk and will give me the peace of mind of being able to pay off the debt in a reasonable time-frame.
Thus, my net worth updates might look a bit weird in the upcoming months since I now have negative debt. I'll figure out a way to meaningfully represent this somehow and discuss it more in the next update.
During my tenure as a substitute teacher between January-June 2007, I was made aware of the scholarship by two pre-service teachers that were on their practicum at Kinkora Regional High School. They told me that you have to submit the application with some other information on the first day of your classes and that it was basically first come, first serve.
That day came and I marched myself to Student Financial Services located in the Sullivan building in downtown Charlottetown. I dropped off the submission form and proceeded to forget about the entire thing for seven months.
Therefore it was a complete surprise when I opened the mailbox to see that I was the recipient of a $4000 scholarship that would be applied to my student loan! How awesome is that?
I'm not trying to toot my own horn on this, but it was very comforting to know that I would essentially only be paying about one and a bit years worth of tuition for my education degree. This makes my repayment of the remaining debt (to be accrued in September 2008 and January 2009) a much easier task.
Speaking of which, I still plan on continuing to put $100 away each month as a bit of a head start to repaying the loan. I have all my remaining student loan money in the intrest-plus savings account through PC Financial and although I could likely make more money faster by investing that $100, I'm still not at an investing stage yet. As well, this method is very low risk and will give me the peace of mind of being able to pay off the debt in a reasonable time-frame.
Thus, my net worth updates might look a bit weird in the upcoming months since I now have negative debt. I'll figure out a way to meaningfully represent this somehow and discuss it more in the next update.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
A Conundrum
In May of 2003 I purchased a Panasonic surround sound system that can be classified under the heading of a "home theatre in a box" as all the necessary components come in one convenient package: 5 speakers, sub-woofer, and 5-disk DVD player/receiver. This auditory wonder has served me well over the past 5 years, with only an easily fixed, over-heating problem to speak of. However there is now a problem:
It's dead.
About a week ago we noticed that after being turned on for several minutes, the unit would power down and go into standby mode. At this point, the unit can not be powered back on unless the power cord was unplugged.
Being the internet savy person that I am, I explored the wonders of Google to discover that this is a known issue with this, and other, surround sounds systems. Generically dubbed, "The F61 Error" has three possible causes: faulty cabling leading to the subwoofer, an amp being blown, or a power supply issue.
I removed all cabling from the device, yet the error persisted. I opened it up to see if there was any charring from something being blown, but nothing was evident. Thus I reach my conundrum: What is the best way to get this situation resolved?
My 2002 self would know what to do of course: go to futureshop and buy the coolest looking surround sound system they had. However, I'd like to think I've grown wiser in the intervening years and think I should investigate the following three options:
(NOTE: time frames and costs are estimates only as I have not done much research yet on options #2 and #3)
Option #1: Get it professionally repaired
Ideally, this option makes the most sense. However, there are a very limited supply of people that do consumer-level electronic repair work. I went through 6 places before I called one that could do it. The catch: they have a two month backlog because the main guy that would do it is always out repairing big-screen TVs since they make more bang per buck that way.
Estimated Option #1 Cost: $50 labour + parts
Estimated Option #1 Timeframe: 2+ months
Option #2: Purchase a new receiver w/o subwoofer and use current speakers
With this otion I would sell/get rid of the current 5-disk changer and subwoofer and get a new receiver which would hook-up to my current 5 speakers. I have to investigate whether any receiver can work for these speakers or it needs to have certain specifications. I'm wary about that since the instruction manual says not to hook different speakers to the subwoofer. Does anyone know if that works in reverse: hooking the speakers to a different receiver?
Estimated Option #2 Cost: $200-500
Estimated Option #2 Timeframe: 1-2 weeks as I need to research my concerns.
Option #3: Bite the bullet and get a brand new system
This option requires the least amount of thought and time yet will be the most expensive by far. It would be great to cave-in to my technolust and get a snazzy wireless suround sound system, but I can probably keep that crazy beast subdued in the back of my brain.
Estimated Option #3 Cost: $300-1500
Estimated Option #3 Timeframe: immediately
So looking at those options it's kind of neat to see the inverse correlation between cost and the time investment to resolve the situation.
However, despite all this, I have to ask the question: "Do I really need a working surround sound system at this point in my life?" It honestly does not get that much use as it is and if we want to watch a DVD we can always hook up the X-box to the tv in the living room. I'm more just pissed off that one of the constants in my life, my entertainment status-quo as it were, is effed up.
It's dead.
About a week ago we noticed that after being turned on for several minutes, the unit would power down and go into standby mode. At this point, the unit can not be powered back on unless the power cord was unplugged.
Being the internet savy person that I am, I explored the wonders of Google to discover that this is a known issue with this, and other, surround sounds systems. Generically dubbed, "The F61 Error" has three possible causes: faulty cabling leading to the subwoofer, an amp being blown, or a power supply issue.
I removed all cabling from the device, yet the error persisted. I opened it up to see if there was any charring from something being blown, but nothing was evident. Thus I reach my conundrum: What is the best way to get this situation resolved?
My 2002 self would know what to do of course: go to futureshop and buy the coolest looking surround sound system they had. However, I'd like to think I've grown wiser in the intervening years and think I should investigate the following three options:
(NOTE: time frames and costs are estimates only as I have not done much research yet on options #2 and #3)
Option #1: Get it professionally repaired
Ideally, this option makes the most sense. However, there are a very limited supply of people that do consumer-level electronic repair work. I went through 6 places before I called one that could do it. The catch: they have a two month backlog because the main guy that would do it is always out repairing big-screen TVs since they make more bang per buck that way.
Estimated Option #1 Cost: $50 labour + parts
Estimated Option #1 Timeframe: 2+ months
Option #2: Purchase a new receiver w/o subwoofer and use current speakers
With this otion I would sell/get rid of the current 5-disk changer and subwoofer and get a new receiver which would hook-up to my current 5 speakers. I have to investigate whether any receiver can work for these speakers or it needs to have certain specifications. I'm wary about that since the instruction manual says not to hook different speakers to the subwoofer. Does anyone know if that works in reverse: hooking the speakers to a different receiver?
Estimated Option #2 Cost: $200-500
Estimated Option #2 Timeframe: 1-2 weeks as I need to research my concerns.
Option #3: Bite the bullet and get a brand new system
This option requires the least amount of thought and time yet will be the most expensive by far. It would be great to cave-in to my technolust and get a snazzy wireless suround sound system, but I can probably keep that crazy beast subdued in the back of my brain.
Estimated Option #3 Cost: $300-1500
Estimated Option #3 Timeframe: immediately
So looking at those options it's kind of neat to see the inverse correlation between cost and the time investment to resolve the situation.
However, despite all this, I have to ask the question: "Do I really need a working surround sound system at this point in my life?" It honestly does not get that much use as it is and if we want to watch a DVD we can always hook up the X-box to the tv in the living room. I'm more just pissed off that one of the constants in my life, my entertainment status-quo as it were, is effed up.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Net Worth Update May 2008
A little later in the month than usual, but let's see if I reached my goals I set for May, shall we:
Assets - Up 4.7%
Goal set: +3.0% increase
A moderately higher asset increase than planned. I won't complain! This is due in part to keeping a reign on spending and you know, not purchasing $700 beds.
Goal for next month: I expect a nice bump in assets for next month since I'm getting a fair bit of subbing at island schools and I am back at Resolve full time. I am also going to try and unload some comics finally! As a bonus, I am resolving not to buy items that contribute to my "Latte Factor," such as chips, pop, coffee, muffins, etc... and really curbing my eating out at places like MacDonalds, Wendy's, and A&W. So let's go nuts and say a 5% increase.
Debt - Down 103.5%
Goal set: 2.0% decrease
Wow!!! WTF??? This month saw the total elimination of my current debt. How you might ask? Stay tuned...
Goal for next month: Well, this is interesting, isn't it? Since we aren't at the point where we are comfortable investing our savings yet, I may just keep adding to the bank account that will be used to fuel student loan payback as I will be accruing debt in September. This may be the topic of a future post. In terms of a goal, I think I will keep things simple and just focus on paying off the credit card consistently like I have been doing.
Overall Net Worth - Up 29.5%
That's certainly a hell of a bump. Next month should be back to more moderate increases.
Assets - Up 4.7%
Goal set: +3.0% increase
A moderately higher asset increase than planned. I won't complain! This is due in part to keeping a reign on spending and you know, not purchasing $700 beds.
Goal for next month: I expect a nice bump in assets for next month since I'm getting a fair bit of subbing at island schools and I am back at Resolve full time. I am also going to try and unload some comics finally! As a bonus, I am resolving not to buy items that contribute to my "Latte Factor," such as chips, pop, coffee, muffins, etc... and really curbing my eating out at places like MacDonalds, Wendy's, and A&W. So let's go nuts and say a 5% increase.
Debt - Down 103.5%
Goal set: 2.0% decrease
Wow!!! WTF??? This month saw the total elimination of my current debt. How you might ask? Stay tuned...
Goal for next month: Well, this is interesting, isn't it? Since we aren't at the point where we are comfortable investing our savings yet, I may just keep adding to the bank account that will be used to fuel student loan payback as I will be accruing debt in September. This may be the topic of a future post. In terms of a goal, I think I will keep things simple and just focus on paying off the credit card consistently like I have been doing.
Overall Net Worth - Up 29.5%
That's certainly a hell of a bump. Next month should be back to more moderate increases.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Foodery
One of my main vices for over spending is on eating out. Not nice sit -down, enjoy yourself, enjoy the atmosphere type meals, but rather the quick and dirty, often greasy take-out fast food variety. Those fatty deep fried morsels just taste so good on the tongue that it is often hard for me to resist the neon signs and 2 for $6 burger deals.
So I made a pact to myself: For the month of June I will not buy/eat this so-called food in the efforts to improve my health and also my wallet.
It shames me to say, but I spent over $100 on eating out last month. Not all of those dollars went towards fast food. No sir. Incldued in that 3-digit figure is a coffee here, a coffee there, here a pop, there a pop, a bag of chips sounds good type items. Those little things, which would be considered under the category of the Latte factor, really do add a significant drain on the pocketbook.
I would like to say that things are going very well thus far. I've cooked big batches of food including barley-chicken soup, chili, cornbread, and barley-lemon Tabbouleh (recipes and cost analysis to follow), so I don't have the often-used excuse that there is nothing to eat at home. So far for the month of June I have not indulged in any of my culinary vices.
I almost, possibly, kind-of slipped today though.
I didn't have a large lunch today and as I drove my fiance to work, I felt a familiar pain in my stomach saying "FEED ME". Rather than drive back home to get something to eat, my last month self would have swung into Wendy's or A&W and called it Good Eats. I was sorely tempted to purchase a premade $3.99 sandwich at Superstore today to feed my hunger. I know for a fact that if I did so, a $2 pop and a $1.50 bag of chips would have tagged along with it. This would have represented a $7.49 meal before any applicable taxes. I'm pretty sure that the chips would have been taxed and the pop price is with tax, but for the purposes of this analysis I think taxes will be inconsequential.
I did not take this option.
What I did instead was as follows:
1. I moseyed on over to the discount baked goods section and picked up a 50% off loaf of in-store baked European 12-grain bread. Cost after discount $1.25.
2. I sauntered to the produce section and took hold of an especially firm, medium sized tomato. Cost: $0.80.
3. I wandered to the deli counter and ordered 2 slices of Vermont style Ham and 2 slices of Roast Beef. Cost: $1.89 and $2.40 respectively.
4. I strolled to the condiment aisle and snatched a small bottle of mustard as the deli counter did not have small fast-food type packets. Cost: $0.89.
5. I side-stepped in the condiment aisle and secured a jar of deli-style bread and butter pickles. Cost $1.99.
Total price of the goods here: $9.22 and these items are tax-exempt.
I then drove to work, spent 5-10 minutes constructing two, 1 meat slice sandwiches, grabbed a free leftover bleuberry-bran muffin and a cup of free leftover Vanilla-Hazlenut coffee from the cafeteria, and had a delicious and nutritious meal.
Going the non-last-month-me-way provided the means to create 4 sandwiches with ample leftovers for other delicious things. Based on the total price of $9.22, this works out to be $2.31/sandwich. 42% cheaper than buying the premade one.
One could argue that since I had two sandwiches I really spent $4.62 on sandwich food, more than what would have been had with Superstore's convenience item. However, the calculation above ignores the fact that I have most of a tomato, a nearly full bottle of mustard, a jar packed with pickles, a good many future pieces of toast, and two more slices of meat leftover, all of which will be used. It also ignores that I had a free beverage and muffin rather than the pop and bag of chips. A deeper analysis could be performed to get the price of each pickle and slice of bread based on the number of each in the package/container, but that's a bit too anal even for me.
Thus ended my almost slip-up of not eating junk food. It was a good choice I think both for my health and my wallet and will think about options like this in the future if I feel myself craving those convenience foods.
[Edit 06/11/08: Turns out I am that anal. As a per item cost the breakdown is as follows:
1. The loaf of bread had 16 slices that were suitable for sandwiches. Unit cost:$0.078 per slice.
2. The jar of pickles had 16 large pickle slices. Unit cost: $0.124 per pickle.
3. I figure I could get 12 tomato slices out of the tomato I got. Unit cost: $0.067 per slice.
4. The bottle of mustard had 250 mL in it and I'm guessing that each sandwich can have 25 mL in it. Unit cost: $0.089 per 25 mL serving.
5. The ham was $0.945 per slice and the roast beef was $1.20 per slice.
Thus as a total cost for each sandwich:
Ham sandwich: $0.945 + $0.078x2 + $0.124 + $0.067 + $0.089 = $1.38 per ham sandwich.
Roast Beef sandwich: $1.20 + $0.078x2 + $0.124 + $0.067 + $0.089 = $1.64 per roast beef sandwich.
Total cost of sandwich goodness for this one meal: $3.02. Again, cheaper than the pre-made variety.]
So I made a pact to myself: For the month of June I will not buy/eat this so-called food in the efforts to improve my health and also my wallet.
It shames me to say, but I spent over $100 on eating out last month. Not all of those dollars went towards fast food. No sir. Incldued in that 3-digit figure is a coffee here, a coffee there, here a pop, there a pop, a bag of chips sounds good type items. Those little things, which would be considered under the category of the Latte factor, really do add a significant drain on the pocketbook.
I would like to say that things are going very well thus far. I've cooked big batches of food including barley-chicken soup, chili, cornbread, and barley-lemon Tabbouleh (recipes and cost analysis to follow), so I don't have the often-used excuse that there is nothing to eat at home. So far for the month of June I have not indulged in any of my culinary vices.
I almost, possibly, kind-of slipped today though.
I didn't have a large lunch today and as I drove my fiance to work, I felt a familiar pain in my stomach saying "FEED ME". Rather than drive back home to get something to eat, my last month self would have swung into Wendy's or A&W and called it Good Eats. I was sorely tempted to purchase a premade $3.99 sandwich at Superstore today to feed my hunger. I know for a fact that if I did so, a $2 pop and a $1.50 bag of chips would have tagged along with it. This would have represented a $7.49 meal before any applicable taxes. I'm pretty sure that the chips would have been taxed and the pop price is with tax, but for the purposes of this analysis I think taxes will be inconsequential.
I did not take this option.
What I did instead was as follows:
1. I moseyed on over to the discount baked goods section and picked up a 50% off loaf of in-store baked European 12-grain bread. Cost after discount $1.25.
2. I sauntered to the produce section and took hold of an especially firm, medium sized tomato. Cost: $0.80.
3. I wandered to the deli counter and ordered 2 slices of Vermont style Ham and 2 slices of Roast Beef. Cost: $1.89 and $2.40 respectively.
4. I strolled to the condiment aisle and snatched a small bottle of mustard as the deli counter did not have small fast-food type packets. Cost: $0.89.
5. I side-stepped in the condiment aisle and secured a jar of deli-style bread and butter pickles. Cost $1.99.
Total price of the goods here: $9.22 and these items are tax-exempt.
I then drove to work, spent 5-10 minutes constructing two, 1 meat slice sandwiches, grabbed a free leftover bleuberry-bran muffin and a cup of free leftover Vanilla-Hazlenut coffee from the cafeteria, and had a delicious and nutritious meal.
Going the non-last-month-me-way provided the means to create 4 sandwiches with ample leftovers for other delicious things. Based on the total price of $9.22, this works out to be $2.31/sandwich. 42% cheaper than buying the premade one.
One could argue that since I had two sandwiches I really spent $4.62 on sandwich food, more than what would have been had with Superstore's convenience item. However, the calculation above ignores the fact that I have most of a tomato, a nearly full bottle of mustard, a jar packed with pickles, a good many future pieces of toast, and two more slices of meat leftover, all of which will be used. It also ignores that I had a free beverage and muffin rather than the pop and bag of chips. A deeper analysis could be performed to get the price of each pickle and slice of bread based on the number of each in the package/container, but that's a bit too anal even for me.
Thus ended my almost slip-up of not eating junk food. It was a good choice I think both for my health and my wallet and will think about options like this in the future if I feel myself craving those convenience foods.
[Edit 06/11/08: Turns out I am that anal. As a per item cost the breakdown is as follows:
1. The loaf of bread had 16 slices that were suitable for sandwiches. Unit cost:$0.078 per slice.
2. The jar of pickles had 16 large pickle slices. Unit cost: $0.124 per pickle.
3. I figure I could get 12 tomato slices out of the tomato I got. Unit cost: $0.067 per slice.
4. The bottle of mustard had 250 mL in it and I'm guessing that each sandwich can have 25 mL in it. Unit cost: $0.089 per 25 mL serving.
5. The ham was $0.945 per slice and the roast beef was $1.20 per slice.
Thus as a total cost for each sandwich:
Ham sandwich: $0.945 + $0.078x2 + $0.124 + $0.067 + $0.089 = $1.38 per ham sandwich.
Roast Beef sandwich: $1.20 + $0.078x2 + $0.124 + $0.067 + $0.089 = $1.64 per roast beef sandwich.
Total cost of sandwich goodness for this one meal: $3.02. Again, cheaper than the pre-made variety.]
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Stigma of Success
While not directly related to personal finance, it does touch on the personal side of our lives that help us obtain said finances.
When did being successful or accomplishing things in your life become such a bad thing? I'm reflecting on this point as I recently made contact with a few high school aquaintances via Facebook. After the initial back and forth messages, eventually the questions were raised from both parties about what I've been up to. I take this as a query into the past 8 years of my life. Therefore I summarized my accomplishments and what I have done to get them up to speed. The list was as follows: I referred to myself as a school junkie: went to UPEI and obtained a BSc in Physics, met my fiance, moved to BC where I spent an amazing two years and obtained an MSc in astronomy, drove back to PEI, started substitute teaching and really enjoyed it, enrolled in the education program at UPEI of which I just finished my first year.
Does the above come off as arrogant or bragging? I am aware that it might given the non-emotional context of electronic communication. I ask because in both cases after sending the above and asking what those people have been up to, I have not heard back from them. Did I just come off as a prick or are they jealous because they don't think they have met with the same level of success?
It ties with something I've read recently that education in the eyes of others = success/accomplishment and is one of the biggest things. However, people don't see the downside to education at least in the short term. I can think of 3 big ones right away:
1. Opportunity cost: the 8 years I've been in post-secondary education could have been doing some job and earning income that could have been invested.
2. Debt: in the majority of cases, people continuing post-secondary studies take on a massive amount of debt that takes years to pay off. I've been blessed with very little debt accumulation during my education as I had a full-tuition scholarship during my undergraduate degree and the benefit of dual-incomes during my Masters and my current degree. However, many people are not as fortunate and put alot of their dreams on hold to pay back the burden of debt. Which leads to...
3. Non-education aspects of life become secondary: this won't apply to everyone, but it definately applies to me. I focus singularly on education tasks such as assignments ans such, often pushing other personal issues in my life to the wayside. It has caused problems in the past and is something I am constantly trying to improve on.
The three effects listed above are some of the downsides to education. What are some others?
On the flip side, those two people have situations in their lives that I would consider significant accomplishments/goals. One for sure is married right now, which is something we're still working on and the other is aspiring to enter the RCMP, a very noble profession.
The point is that we should all learn that success is not measured comparitively with others. You should only compare where you are now with where you were in the past. If you've made decisions that have made you happier now than you were or made poor decisions and learned from them, then that's a pretty successful life in my eyes.
When did being successful or accomplishing things in your life become such a bad thing? I'm reflecting on this point as I recently made contact with a few high school aquaintances via Facebook. After the initial back and forth messages, eventually the questions were raised from both parties about what I've been up to. I take this as a query into the past 8 years of my life. Therefore I summarized my accomplishments and what I have done to get them up to speed. The list was as follows: I referred to myself as a school junkie: went to UPEI and obtained a BSc in Physics, met my fiance, moved to BC where I spent an amazing two years and obtained an MSc in astronomy, drove back to PEI, started substitute teaching and really enjoyed it, enrolled in the education program at UPEI of which I just finished my first year.
Does the above come off as arrogant or bragging? I am aware that it might given the non-emotional context of electronic communication. I ask because in both cases after sending the above and asking what those people have been up to, I have not heard back from them. Did I just come off as a prick or are they jealous because they don't think they have met with the same level of success?
It ties with something I've read recently that education in the eyes of others = success/accomplishment and is one of the biggest things. However, people don't see the downside to education at least in the short term. I can think of 3 big ones right away:
1. Opportunity cost: the 8 years I've been in post-secondary education could have been doing some job and earning income that could have been invested.
2. Debt: in the majority of cases, people continuing post-secondary studies take on a massive amount of debt that takes years to pay off. I've been blessed with very little debt accumulation during my education as I had a full-tuition scholarship during my undergraduate degree and the benefit of dual-incomes during my Masters and my current degree. However, many people are not as fortunate and put alot of their dreams on hold to pay back the burden of debt. Which leads to...
3. Non-education aspects of life become secondary: this won't apply to everyone, but it definately applies to me. I focus singularly on education tasks such as assignments ans such, often pushing other personal issues in my life to the wayside. It has caused problems in the past and is something I am constantly trying to improve on.
The three effects listed above are some of the downsides to education. What are some others?
On the flip side, those two people have situations in their lives that I would consider significant accomplishments/goals. One for sure is married right now, which is something we're still working on and the other is aspiring to enter the RCMP, a very noble profession.
The point is that we should all learn that success is not measured comparitively with others. You should only compare where you are now with where you were in the past. If you've made decisions that have made you happier now than you were or made poor decisions and learned from them, then that's a pretty successful life in my eyes.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Net Worth Update April 2008
Let's see if I reached my goals I set for this month, shall we:
Assets - Down 2.6%
Goal set: +2.0% increase
A reversal of numbers here. Again, as I mentioned last time around, I didn't make as much income in April because of practice teaching and I think I underestimated exactly how much that would effect things. Next time I know of something like that, a more detailed look at the numbers should be in order. As well, we took advantage of a furniture sale at Dow's furniture here in Charlottetown and upgraded to a nicer bed and boxspring which depleted most of our "big-item" fund. This was an unplanned purchase, but we saw it as a good opportunity to get rid of the ole' spring poker. On the plus side, we sold the old mattress and boxspring combo for $75 dollars.
Goal for next month: We'll keep things simple at a 3.0% increase in assets while the income streams come back under control. I will hopefully get around to selling some stuff on EBay, but this bump might not show up until June's update.
Debt - Up 1.3%
Goal set: 2.0% decrease
I didn't quite make that as I didn't pay off the credit card balance in full prior to the end of the month, which I usually do.
Goal for next month: Keeping things modest here too, a 2.0% decrease should prove doable, but if things took place that should have, a significant drop will be shown here next month. The details of that will be the focus of another post.
Overall Net Worth - Down 3.4%
Since we are in this for the long haul, months where there is a slight dip in net worth is really worrying as the general trend is onwards and upwards!
Assets - Down 2.6%
Goal set: +2.0% increase
A reversal of numbers here. Again, as I mentioned last time around, I didn't make as much income in April because of practice teaching and I think I underestimated exactly how much that would effect things. Next time I know of something like that, a more detailed look at the numbers should be in order. As well, we took advantage of a furniture sale at Dow's furniture here in Charlottetown and upgraded to a nicer bed and boxspring which depleted most of our "big-item" fund. This was an unplanned purchase, but we saw it as a good opportunity to get rid of the ole' spring poker. On the plus side, we sold the old mattress and boxspring combo for $75 dollars.
Goal for next month: We'll keep things simple at a 3.0% increase in assets while the income streams come back under control. I will hopefully get around to selling some stuff on EBay, but this bump might not show up until June's update.
Debt - Up 1.3%
Goal set: 2.0% decrease
I didn't quite make that as I didn't pay off the credit card balance in full prior to the end of the month, which I usually do.
Goal for next month: Keeping things modest here too, a 2.0% decrease should prove doable, but if things took place that should have, a significant drop will be shown here next month. The details of that will be the focus of another post.
Overall Net Worth - Down 3.4%
Since we are in this for the long haul, months where there is a slight dip in net worth is really worrying as the general trend is onwards and upwards!
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