…enjoy the ride…

In the old days, you got a bank statement once a month.  This was simply a written report of every credit and every debit applied to your account over the preceding period.  This was the only information you were given, so it was neccessary to maintain your own records and then compare (reconcile) your records to theirs.  This helped save you from errors and helped isolate possible errors that the bank might have inadvertently committed.  When you only got one report a month, this was a valuable use of time.

Today, we have internet banking, and almost any bank has this available.  You can simply log into your account, at will, and examine your credits and debits for virtually any time period you like.  You can download this information in a variety of formats, as well, to suit whatever financial management system you might choose to use to keep your own records.  Now, if you chose, you could still maintain your own, independent record and then spend the time once per month reconciling it to theirs.  But I don’t feel like that’s necessary anymore.

Why not let their record be yours?  It’s available 24-7- 365.  You can download it so you retain a copy.  If you spot an error, it’s usually a lot more recent than sometime in the last month, and probably a lot easier to remember what happened and get it corrected.

The budgeting tool I use contains a checkbook register.  It uses that data to track your actual spending to compare against what you set up when you planned your budget for the month.  I used to spend hours typing in every single transaction, then it hit me.  Download the transactions from the bank!  I just import those into the software, then all I have to spend time doing is attaching each transaction to a specific budget category.  In the process, I am automatically reviewing every transaction and have ample opportunity to spot errors.

Since I believe that it’s not about the destination but about the journey, and therefore it’s not about the money itself but rather what it does for me, I would prefer to spend hours cooking, playing with my kids, cleaning the house or whatever else I enjoy doing.  Utilizing online banking reduces the time I have to spend on my money by about two-thirds.

…enjoy the ride…

• Budgeting and Financial Management
  For this I haven’t found a single piece of computer software better than YNAB.  That peculiarly-sounding acronym stands for You Need A Budget, a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.  The system is offered in two forms: Spreadsheet and Standalone.  The Spreadsheet is available fully functional for either Microsoft Office or OpenOffice formats, so it conceivably can be used regardless of what kind of computer you own.  The Standalone is a Microsoft Windows XP application exclusively.  I’ve used both, am currently using the Windows Standalone version, and would not go back to Microsoft Money or Quicken if they paid me.  YNAB works because it focuses on the PROCESS, not the outcomes.  What I mean by that is that most financial software focuses more on recording what happens, not on controlling what happens.  YNAB records, sure enough, but you begin by creating budgets and then YNAB shows you on-the-fly how you are doing, exactly how much you have remaining to spend in each category, and so forth.  The budget, not the register, is the central focus of YNAB.  It starts at $19.95 US and is a bargain at twice that price.
• KDE PIM/PI: Possibly the single best calendar and contacts manager ever created.  The same software works on virtually any computing platform capable of running Windows or Linux (and possibly Mac as well, although I’ve not verified that).  The system supports syncing calendars and contact lists to multiple computers at once, so you can sync a whole slew of individual users to one calendar by using either a file that can be downloaded or a direct IP connection.  All the usual calendar features are supported including a visual display of allotted time for appointments, to-do lists with unlimited subcategorization and deadlines that display in the calendar, recurring tasks and appointments, detailed notes attached to tasks or appointments, views by day, 3 day, work week (5 day), week, month, or year.  The real kicker is the “What’s Next” view, which displays all appointments and to-do’s in plain text organized by Today, tomorrow, and so forth.  You can configure how far in the future this what’s next view extends.  All to-do’s are clickable through the What’s Next view so you can update the status of tasks on the fly without having to switch views.  The software has a little bit of a learning curve but the how-to docs that come with it, although minimalist, can get you through that.  The price is not a doggone dime.  Free software!
• Your email application should absolutely be Mozilla Thunderbird.  Outlook is fine, and indeed is my second choice since I like how it integrates smoothly with contacts and calendar.  However, that’s a convenience feature for me and not worth the hefty price tag associated with Outlook.  If you have the money and want to spend it, go for it.  I don’t, and I don’t, and so I choose the free Thunderbird instead of the $100 Outlook.  (apologies to Microsoft but that’s my opinion).  I’ve found nothing I could do with Outlook as far as email is concerned that I couldn’t do with Thunderbird, and since I am using PIM/PI for contacts and calendar I am fine with those features not being part of Thunderbird.

These three things can REALLY help you get things organized.  I’ll post in more depth another time on specific uses of these tools and really tweaking things on the organizational front.

…enjoy the ride…

The bottom line to all of this is that there is no such thing as necessity! I hear howls of protest. Yes, I said it, and I would do so again. Necessity is a myth. It’s based solely in the expectations of others. How can you follow your own path if you are constantly trying to navigate paths set for you by countless others? Every single thing you consider a necessity is, instead, a desire.

Still howling? Understandable. I hear the person typing, “Food is a necessity!” No, it isn’t. You could instead choose to starve. The universe will not come to a screeching halt if you did so. Yes, it would be a little less rich, a little less interesting, without your presence, but it would continue.

“What about shelter?” Same answer. You could choose to live under an overpass or mooch off of family or friends or sleep in your car. I’m not saying you should choose these things. I wouldn’t. I am just saying that you could. The fact that you don’t choose to do those things means that your desires include not starving, not being homeless, not being a burden to family or friends. That’s completely ok. Just recognize the fact that these are choices, not necessities.

What’s the difference? Simple. A choice is something you control. A necessity is something imposed upon you that you cannot control. Simple, yet elegant. And the whole crux of the Tao revolves around this wheel of logic. If you accept the logic that you cannot walk anyone’s path but your own, then you must also reject the concept of necessity. And once you have freed yourself from that notion, you are prepared to look at all the things on your “list of desires” (that’s how I see my budget) far more critically, objectively, and frugally than you ever could before!

…enjoy the ride…

…enjoy the ride…

Way, way back at the beginning of things you had the Hunter.  He was the guy who left the cave, went out and killed something, dragged it home, and ate it.  Eventually, along the way, he learned that certain kinds of leaves, roots and berries were nice to have also, so he collected them and brought them home as well.  Pretty simple life.  No need to interact with others unless you wanted to kill something really big.

At some point, some other person, probably the Hunter’s wife, decided it would be a lot easier if we could get these leaves, roots, and berries to grow closer to the cave.  I expect she probably experimented for a bit and finally figured out how to plant these things and what they needed to grow and so on and so forth.  It was probably at this stage she sat Mr. Hunter down on a big rock and explained to him how nice it would be if we could get the animals to hang around closer to home also.  After some trial and error, Mr. Hunter suddenly found himself turned into Mr. Farmer.

So now we have agriculture.  The thing is, you need a lot more stuff to do agriculture than you did to just go hunting.  All Mr. Hunter really needed was a nice sharp piece of rock on the end of a stick and maybe some kind of ropes or vines to help with all that dragging.  Now Mrs. Farmer has come along and invented all this agriculture stuff, and suddenly we need bigger sharp rocks to help break up the soil, some kind of bucket or something to move water around, and probably a whole lot of other stuff.  Some Farmers probably figured out better ways to make tools than others.  Also, some Farmers probably liked certain kinds of animals, leaves, roots, and berries, while different Farmers liked different kinds.  I expect some sort of loose bartering system eventually formed out of all this.  “I’ll trade you a pig and five pounds of turnip greens for those fish and a few of your REALLY sharp rocks,” or something along those lines.

Now you’ve evolved the thing into an Agricultural Economy.  The trouble with a barter system is that you have to have a Juxtaposition of Need as well as an Agreement of Equity before you can make a trade.  In plain english the other guy needs to want what you’ve got, and you need to want what he’s got.  Then you both have to haggle around to agree to what everything is worth to arrive at a “fair” trade.  Lots of “ifs” in that system.  Suppose you really need those sharp rocks but the other guy already has all  the pigs he needs?  Eventually, at some point, someone came up with the idea of MONEY.

Now money started out as just plain sticks of iron or something.  It was quite a bit later that money started being made out of “valuable” stuff like gold or silver.  It was only then that the idea of money as a Store Of Value could have come into being.  Well, maybe not, since in the early stages of iron age technology I expect iron was probably pretty valuable itself.  Still, people got to thinking that the money was valuable for what it really was made of, which is a simple way of defining “store of value”.

Later on, someone came up with the idea of governments.  And these governments, then as now, love to mess around with the money supply.  They would have set up specific rules regarding the value of coins and stuff like that.  People would have gone along with all this because look!  Now we’ve got a big brother (the king) with a bunch of friends (the army) who will protect us and stop bad people from hurting us or cheating us and taking our stuff!  From that thought process evolves the idea of money as a Symbol Of Value.

What I mean when I say Symbol Of Value is simply that money’s value comes from the social agreement that says it’s worth what is printed or stamped on the face of it.  It’s pure symbolism.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s take a look at today’s Mr. Worker and how things work for him.

Mr. Worker goes to his job and works all week long at whatever job it is he’s got.  Payday rolls around and Mr. Boss presents Mr. Worker with a PAYCHECK.  This is a fancy piece of paper that Mr. Boss has made up and signed that has some numbers printed on it that represent how much money Mr. Boss is paying Mr. Worker for the week of work.  Mr. Worker takes this Paycheck to his Bank, where he deposits it into his Account.  Now, Mr. Worker can go home, log into the internet website of his Bank and see that he has $11,325.38.  Now, what Mr. Worker really, tangibly has is a dollar sign, a couple of 1’s, a couple of 3’s, a 2, a 5 and an 8 with a funny dot in there somewhere, all of which is electronically stored someplace in one of the Bank’s big computer systems.  Now, if that’s not pure symbolism, it’ll do until the real thing comes along!

I believe it’s a crucial step along the journey of money that we understand exactly what money is, because the money in and of itself has no value whatsoever!  The only value of money lies in what it represents symbolically.  Or put another way, it’s value lies in what it can do for us.  That means the journey isn’t about the money, it’s about the journey.  Money is just the fuel that makes the vehicle go.

…enjoy the ride…

…enjoy the ride…

…enjoy the ride…

Since money is the symbolic representation of the work we do, and is the means of obtaining the stuff and services and luxuries and necessities we desire, I was astonished to think that he had no interest in it’s management. This young man is a conscientious and diligent team member who does the right thing, all-day-every-day, because it’s the right thing to do. He clearly takes great pride in the quality of the work he does. And yet he spurns consideration of how he handles the symbolic representation of all that hard work. I found that somewhat disturbing. At the same time, it’s a shining example of how most of us think about money.

The conventional wisdom, as handed down to us by “Madison Avenue”, is not to worry about money. Now as a matter of basic philosophy I agree with that statement, but not in the way the advertisers would like for me to do. Modern advertising advises us to ignore financial considerations, because there are simply so many ways to shortcut the money issue. 90 days same as cash, No payments for 6 months, Zero-percent financing. We’ve all heard the mantra. Do the kitchen and the bathrooms and use your card! Well, you can pretend you don’t have a cobra in your bed if you want to. But until you call the animal control people to come remove it, sleeping through the night is going to be an interesting experience.

I also want to be able to stop worrying about money. I want money to be the last thing I think about when I am considering any action. But I think just ignoring the money consideration is foolhardy. Far better, I believe, to plan ahead so that when you reach that point in your journey, you’ve already mapped out a course to avoid that particular shoal or rapid instead of ignoring it and perhaps getting stuck or taking a wild, unexpected ride.

…enjoy the ride…