If you want to start a business, the best $20 you’ll ever spend is to find successful entrepreneurs and take them out to lunch. They can be from your industry or other industries — it doesn’t matter. For example, if you’re interested in hospitality, you could pick up a hospitality magazine and see who’s doing interesting work. Then email them and ask to take them out to lunch.

Spend 90% of the time talking about them:

• Ask them how they did it.
• Ask them what mistakes they made along the way.
• In the final few minutes, you can ask about your idea. Is it crazy? What should you be thinking about?

After you meet two or three people, you’ll start to see patterns that you hadn’t recognized before. And that’s when you realize how powerful it can be to ask others for advice.

Yes, advice is cheap: Most people love talking about themselves. But entrepreneurs have a curious fascination with helping other entrepreneurs succeed. (At PBwiki, a Silicon Valley collaboration startup I co-founded, a bunch of us spend time each week meeting with first-time entrepreneurs and helping them brainstorm…and this is a common thing in Silicon Valley.)

People want to help you. All it takes is you reaching out.

J.D.’s note: This is a powerful technique, and not just for entrepreneurs. Over the past year, I’ve had lunch with several people I admire, and always come away feeling inspired and filled with ideas. If you have the guts to ask, the rewards can be enormous.

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I’m happy to leave. Ray and Tom, the Car Talk guys, drive me crazy. They’re like a couple of loud geese with Boston accents. Even I have to admit, however, they can be pretty funny, and they dish out good advice.

Car Talk isn’t just a radio program — the show actually has an excellent web site, too. Any time a GRS discussion turns to automotive repair, readers are sure to recommend the Mechanic Files, Car Talk’s “ultimate guide to finding a great mechanic”, where users can leave reviews of their favorite (or not-so-favorite) mechanics, or search for a place to take their vehicles.

The site also has tons of other great information, including:

• The auto advisor, which helps you decide which model might be right for you
• Secret tricks of car salesmen
• The Car Talk model survey lets you see what others think of your 2000 Ford Focus, for example
• The Car Talk do-it-yourself guide
• Car Talk’s guide to better fuel economy
• Click & Clack’s tips for selling your car

I love tools that let you enter desired qualities and then automagically provide a recommendation in return. Here are my results from the Car Talk auto advisor, which attempts to match cars to users:

Will you look at that? The Mini Cooper tops the list. I am not making this up. I didn’t do anything to steer the tool other than enter what I wanted in a car: good gas mileage, high reliability, excellent safety, etc.

I’m sad that Kris casts me out of the kitchen every Saturday morning, but since she’s spending her time listening to Car Talk, I guess I can forgive her.

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Speaking of personal finance, here are a few articles you folks have sent me recently:

First, Mark Cuban (owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks) has some thoughts on how to get rich. There’s some great advice here:

• “There are no shortcuts. NONE…Always remember this. If a deal is a great deal, they aren’t going to share it with you.”
• “Save your money. Save as much money as you possibly can. Every penny you can.”
• “The 2nd rule for getting rich is getting smart: Investing your time in yourself and becoming knowledgeable about the business of something you really love to do.
• “This is not a short term project. We aren’t talking days. We aren’t talking months. We are talking years.”

Cuban frowns on a “buy and hold” approach to the stock market (I disagree), and he’s big on certificates of deposit. I think each has its place, and plan to cover both next week.

Meanwhile, here’s an article from last fall that says giving makes your rich. “Emerging evidence—crunchy statistics from real data, not the mushy self-help stuff—supports the contention that giving stimulates prosperity, for both individuals and nations. Charity, it appears, can really make you rich.” Interesting stuff. (And, again, look for more on this subject next week.)

Next, here’s a lecture from Professor Elizabeth Warren on the coming collapse of the middle class. I haven’t watched this whole thing yet (though I will later in the weekend), but I’ve read through some of the comments — it’s a fascinating discussion. I’d be curious to hear what you folks think of Warren’s talk.

Finally, Blunt Money is looking for volunteers to participate in her Friday Inspiration interview series. Go take a look at past interviews, and if you’d like to participate, drop her a line.

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“I don’t know,” I said. “Somewhere between $40 and $100, I guess. That’s how much I take out of the ATM when I need it. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I read something the other day that said the average person keeps about $175 on hand. That seems like a lot.”

“That does seem like a lot,” Kris said. “I don’t keep much in my purse at all.”

“Some people do carry a lot of cash,” I said. “I know people who not only keep a lot in their wallet, but have stashes hidden around their house.”

Michael nodded. “When my mother died, we found $1500 tucked in various places around her place,” he said. “She didn’t have much money — she was on food stamps — yet she had all this cash hidden in her house.”

“Maybe it was her way of feeling wealthy,” suggested Michael’s wife, Laura.

“We’ve never kept cash around the house,” Kris said, “but now the economy makes me nervous. Maybe it’s irrational, but now I feel like I’d like to have some on hand. Just in case.”

“My father was a worrier,” I said. “Back in the 1980s, he was always worried about some looming economic disaster. He didn’t have much money, either, but somehow he found a way to hoard a few ounces of gold and silver. But he didn’t like having it in the house. He was afraid it might be stolen. Instead, he created a ’safe’ out of a short length of pipe and two caps.”

“It looks like a pipe bomb!” Kris said.

“It kind of does,” I agreed. “When we were cleaning mom’s house recently, I found Dad’s old pipe safe. It was in the pantry, behind the canned food, which was the same place he always kept it. He hid it in plain sight.”

“At first I thought there might still be some gold or silver in it,” I said wistfully, “but there was only a handful of dead spiders.”

“I wonder what’s normal,” Laura said. “I wonder if most people keep money around the house.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but now I’m curious. I’ll see what I can find out.”

Later that evening, I spent Too Much Time searching the internet and digging through personal finance books, looking for some facts on this subject. Finally, in a book called Are You Normal About Money?, I found the following stats:

• 96% of women carry a purse or a wallet.
• 61% of men carry a wallet, while 6% use a money clip, and about 20% carry cash loose in pockets.
• The average purse or wallet contains about $104.
• 13% of American adults use a piggy bank, while 28% collect change in a jar.
• Just over 15% of Americans keep a serious stash of cash around the house — about half of these hide it, while the other half keeps it someplace obvious.
• Another third of the population keeps a small amount of cash on hand for emergencies.
• More than half of us don’t keep any extra cash in the house at all.

I know this is kind of an awkward thing to ask, but I’m curious if you folks keep money stashed around your house in case of emergency. How do you decide how much to carry in your purse or wallet? Have recent bank woes affected your habits? How much cash do you keep on hand?

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My wife and I are both reading America’s Cheapest Family by Steve and Annette Economides. During his time as an ad salesman, Steve was “shocked to read in a food industry publication that grocers expect six of ten items consumers pick up in the store to be unplanned purchases.”

Steve and Annette discovered that scientific research backs up what grocers already knew. In their book, the Economides cite a study analyzing the decisions of 4,200 customers who made 30,000 purchases in fourteen different cities. Researchers found:

• “Shoppers making a ‘quick trip’ to the store to pick up a few specific items usually purchase 54 percent more than they planned.”
• “Forty-seven percent of shoppers go to the store three or four times each week.”
• “Consumers graze at the grocery store, with impulse buys making up between 50.8 and 67.7 percent of total purchase.”

When people shop more often, they buy more stuff.

What’s the solution? For the past 25 years, Steve and Annette, America’s cheapest family, have practiced once-a-month shopping. They only go grocery shopping 12 times a year. This boggles my mind; Kris and I shop every week. (Lately I’ve been making many supplementary grocery trips, and my food budget reflects that.)

Once-a-month shopping
How does shopping once a month work? First of all, it takes time. It also takes organization. Here’s how the Economides do it:

1. They make a list of the things they need, which they update continually. They also use meal plans.
2. They accumulate coupon and ads for the things they use and the stores they frequent. During the days before their monthly shopping trip, they match sales and discounts to the items on their list.
3. They divide and conquer. Steve tackles the perimeter of the stores (meat, produce, dairy, and baked goods) while Annette scours the center (processed food, household goods, baking supplies).
4. They leave younger children with a babysitter. The Economides have found that they save time and money by leaving younger children at home instead of letting them distract them from the task at hand. Older children, however, can actually help.
5. They hit multiple stores. Different stores have different strengths. If you shop every week, it may not make sense to drive all over town to save a few pennies. By shopping just once a month, however, travel costs are diminished.
6. When they have the food home, they prioritize perishables. Certain produce (grapes, bananas) need to be consumed earlier in the month. Other foods (milk, bread) may need to be frozen.

The Economides admit that each monthly shopping trip takes longer than a weekly shopping trip. But overall the process saves time and money. For one thing, it cuts down on the number of opportunities for impulse purchases.

Once-a-month shopping has worked so well for them that they’ve been doing it since 1984!

Putting the plan into practice
“This would never work for you,” Kris said when she and I discussed this concept. “You shop all the time.”

She’s right. Since I started working from home, I find myself at the grocery store several times each week. For example, I might crave a rotisserie chicken for dinner, so I head to the store to indulge my whim. While this sounds nice, it’s actually costing me more money.

• I’m indulging my whims, which tend toward more expensive foods.
• Each time I go to the store, I tend to buy extras. That rotisserie chicken turns into chicken and a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, for example.
• We’re wasting more food. I’m not eating leftovers, and sometimes (I’m ashamed to admit), I let other food expire.

Could Kris and I get by shopping just once a month? We’re willing to give it a try. She and I have agreed to start by cutting our trips to twice a month (with a supplemental weekly run for milk and eggs). If this works, we’ll make them even less often. The most difficult part, however, will be restraining myself from those quick trips for impulse meals.

Update: Many readers are concerned about how once-a-month shopping would affect their supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. Here’s what Steve and Annette say in their book:

Limiting our trips to the store means that certain fruits and vegetables must be eaten earlier in the month because they are more perishable. Grapes and bananas usually last a week. Once they’re gone, we move on to other fruits. Pears, lettuce, cucumbers, and peppers can last two weeks. Apples, cabbage, radishes, oranges, and celery can last a month.

We are often asked about storing bread, cheese, and milk. How could we possibly make those last a month? Well, we carefully freeze all three.

You should do what works for you. Kris and I are going to try twice-a-month shopping; the key idea is to reduce the number of trips to the supermarket.

Related note: At AskMetafilter recently, nitsuj asked, What’s your secret tip for saving money at the grocery store?”

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As a resident living fairly close to the Gulf Coast, I’m familiar with evacuating for a hurricane. There’s no way around it — evacuating for a natural disaster is a pain. But, there are things you do to make the process less stressful. Here’s a short list of the things I consider when evacuating.

The most important thing is to have a plan.

Where are you going to go?
My wife’s job requires her to be back to work as soon as the storm blows through, which makes it tricky for us to evacuate &madsh; we can’t go too far away. Our evacuation route is decided based on where we think the storm is going to go. For instance, when Hurricane Gustav came in well to our east, we headed west to my sister-in-law’s house. When Hurricane Ike came in to our southwest, we headed north.

During an emergency, your local government will have an evacuation route that they want everyone to follow, but if you leave early enough you can go pretty much wherever you want to go.

The most economical way to evacuate is to stay with friends or family. This is the best way to go because it’s hard to find an empty hotel when everyone else is evacuating. Just be sure you’re a good guest. Don’t overstay your welcome. If you don’t have friends or relatives that you can stay with and you don’t have money for a hotel, consider a shelter.

What are you going to pack?
For the most part you need to pack like you’re taking a vacation. If you need to evacuate for a natural disaster or other emergency, consider the following:

1. Clothes and toiletries. Be prepared to be away from home for at least a week — more likely two.
2. Important papers. I use one of those portable filing boxes to store our most important papers (insurance information, social security cards, birth certificates, employee benefits information, etc.). (Some of these documents may be stored in a safe deposit box.)
3. Pets. Don’t forget Fluffy. Be sure and take a bottle of water and some pet food. Also, if you have an outside pet, you might want to give a good scrubbing before you load it into the car. I don’t like traveling with a dirty, smelly dog. Washing the dog is my kids’ job.
4. Food and water. There’s no need to go overboard but it is a good idea to pack some bottled water and maybe a few canned goods.
5. Computer. This is easy if you own a laptop. It’s important to be able to go online to check in with your local news station and newspaper for important information.
6. Road atlas. Never leave home without one.
7. Money. It’s a good idea to have some cash on hand. I usually take $300, which isn’t a lot but is better than nothing.
8. Phone numbers to your neighbors. I have the cell phone numbers of most of my neighbors so that we can check in with each other to get status reports. One of my neighbors called me to tell me when our power was back on.

Finally, be sure and check on your older neighbors. Are they evacuating? If you have room, take them with you.

What are you going to do with the things you leave behind?
As important as the things you take with you is what you leave behind. Proper preparations can save hassle when you return.

1. Board up the house. For the first time ever, I boarded up some of the windows of my house. I never did this before because I thought it was too expensive to do. This year I bought six sheet of 1/2-inch plywood and one bag of clips and spent over $114. I then spent an afternoon cutting the pieces to fit my windows and marked each one for storage. When I boarded up for Ike, it only took me a few minutes to secure the boards. [J.D.'s note: Not every disaster requires boarding up, of course.]
2. Take an inventory of your stuff. My wife went room-by-room and took pictures of everything we owned. Chances are good that you won’t need to use these pictures but you never know. I also have an itemized list of my CD collection.
3. Unplug all your appliances and electronics. I do leave my answering machine plugged in so that I can check in to see if I have power (if the answering machine doesn’t pick up, I don’t have power).
4. Pick up loose items in the yard and empty out the shed. One of the biggest problems with hurricanes, tornadoes, and other wind storms is all the debris flying through the air. (And in the case of flooding, there’s plenty of debris in the water.) You can do your part by moving all your patio furniture other loose items into your garage. This is a great job for the kids. Don’t forget that portable basketball goal.
5. EMPTY THE REFRIGERATOR! For some crazy reason, we didn’t empty our refrigerators for Hurricane Rita. BIG MISTAKE! By the time we got to come back to check out our house, our power had been off a week. I can’t tell you how bad the smell was!
6. Lock the house. I usually lock the garage doors and unplug the garage door openers.

A little preparation before the disaster can save a lot of headache later.

What about AFTER the emergency?
This is a whole topic by itself but I will say that if your area is hit by a hurricane, tornado, or flood, it could be weeks before you get back power and drinkable water. You have to decide if you’re going to go back and rough it or if you are going to stay away.

Because I’m a big wimp, I always opt to stay away. I don’t have a generator and am not really interested in buying one. I realize that not everyone will have the option to stay away if their job requires them to be back as soon as possible.

You may also be interested in reading The Simple Dollar’s recent guide to surviving a natural disaster.

J.D.’s note: Kris and I don’t have any sort of emergency preparedness plan. Oregon isn’t subject to many disasters, but we do have the occasional flood or earthquake. JLP’s experience is a reminder that advance preparation beats future regret.

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I’ve found a lot of articles on similar topics around the web recently.

For example, USA Today has a piece about how average Americans are beginning to cut back. The $700 billion bailout for the financial system hasn’t trickled down to Main Street. Small businesses have been hit hard, but there’s no rescue in sight for them. Meanwhile, Americans seem to be embracing frugality.

On a similar note, Craig pointed me to an article at The Tacoma News Tribune. Susan Tompor writes that to create your own personal bailout plan, start by living within your means: Cut back on your use of credit, build up a cash reserve, cut unnecessary household expenses, and begin to track your spending. You can create your own financial rescue plan, and you don’t need the government’s help to do it.

I love “mind games” people use to encourage themselves to save more money. I’ve mentioned many of these in the past (the 30-day rule, the spending tax). Now Ron at The Wisdom Journal has compiled a list of 17 sneaky savings strategies, a collection of money games you can use to boost your savings. I like this article.

Finally, the current economy has a lot of folks worried. Some who though they could manage their money alone are now wondering if they should find help. AskMen.com has some advice for how to find a financial advisor if you do decide to go that route. I still believe most of us can learn to manage our own money, though; all it takes is a little time, and a willingness to read some of the excellent books on personal finance available at the public library.

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I am just starting the wedding planning process and have been really disheartened by the wedding industry and the realization that what to me is a lot to spend ($5000) is literally laughable by most involved in the industry.  I finally came across a blog that I feel fits with my vision of a simple, debt-free wedding: A Practical Wedding.

I’ve never been a big wedding type of guy (Kris and I were married by a justice of the peace in 1993, and then threw a $1000 party for our family and friends), and I love to see brides and grooms flex their frugality muscles and make their wedding unique. Meg at A Practical Wedding is all about “creative, thrifty, and sane” celebrations of love. Meg writes:

Why is every level of wedding planning fraught with so much judgment (perceived or real) and so much guilt? As a bride, there are days that I simultaneously feel guilty for not inviting more people to the wedding and not inviting less people to the wedding, for not spending more on my dress and for not spending less on my dress. The wedding world often leaves us between a rock and a hard place, feeling alone, and searching for options.

I started writing this blog to help myself feel less alone in the wedding planning process, and as it has grown, the best thing that has come out of it is watching a small community emerge of practical brides and grooms holding hands a bit for balance as they try to find their own way. So lets all keep holding hands, and remember, the grass is not actually greener at someone else’s wedding.

A Practical Wedding includes advice for budgeting, including “the best budget tip I know”. The site also features mediations on things like wedding sexism and how dumb it is to focus on details at the expense of the Big Picture. It even offers wedding-dress hacks!

My favorite section, however, is devoted to real weddings, examples of how real couples have thrown thrifty weddings. Some examples:

• Betty and Juan’s dance-filled NYC wedding (love it!)
• Emmy and Kirk’s laid-back wedding (love it!)
• Patty and Trent’s DIY picnic wedding (love it!)
• Christi and Trevor’s do-it-together wedding (really love it!)

It is unlikely that you will ever hear me utter these words again about a wedding-related site, but I could read A Practical Wedding for hours.

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Eight people from the wedding industry had gathered to swap hints, tips, and stories. They talked about networking, about wedding expos, and about dealing with problem customers. They also talked about some of the financial aspects of their business.

“I was really worried about how this economy was going to affect us,” said one woman. I think she was a wedding coordinator. “But it only seems to be hurting the venues.”

“Yeah,” said the guy across the table from her. “People are getting married in their parents’ back yard or on their grandparents’ farm. They’re spending less for the location, but not on anything else.”

“Do any of your clients ever try to dicker?” asked one man, a D.J..

“Dicker?” a woman asked.

“You know, try to bargain on the price,” he explained.

Everyone answered at once: “A few.” “Some do.” “Once in a while.” The consensus was that a small number of couples asked for discounts on wedding services.

“What do you do in that situation?” asked the D.J. Most of the people admitted they’d lower their prices to get the job.

“I say I’ll give them a discount, but only if they commit right now,” said the wedding co-ordinator. “I won’t do it if they’re just going to call around trying to play us off each other.”

“What about you?” she asked the D.J.

“Well, I normally charge $995, though I charge up to $1500 if they’re getting married someplace fancy,” he said. “I won’t come down if I think they have money. Otherwise, I’ll drop as low as $850.”

Think about that: If you’re spending a lot on other aspects of your wedding, this disc jockey will ask for more than he would normally. But if you ask for a discount, he’ll give you one. Basically, he’ll charge you as much as he thinks you can pay. And the other folks at the table would grant you discounts too — if you asked for them.

It never hurts to ask for a lower price.

via Indexed, used with permission

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Entropic
How did you find your passion?

How have you figured out what your passion(s) is/are in life, and how have you translated that into a successful career involving your passion(s)? I am intentionally not including details about myself and my situation because I don’t really want specific suggestions about what might be good career directions for myself or what interesting areas I might pursue. I’m looking more for concrete examples of what steps you’ve taken to find out what drives you, and how you were able to make a career out of that.

Grumblebee
Is there a difference between “discover your passion” and “discover what you want to do”?

I ask because I hear people talk about their Passion (with a capital P), as if everyone has one whether they know it or not. As if it’s a special glowing ball inside each of us. Yet I see no evidence that this ball necessarily exists.

Defining passion
To me, it’s more likely that we have things we like and things we dislike. A like becomes a passion when it repeats with regularity. For instance, I like peaches, but I don’t constantly crave them. So I wouldn’t call peaches a passion. On the other hand, whenever I see a book, I want to read it. I like reading… I like reading… I like reading… So I’d call reading a passion.

Is there anything like this for you, even if it’s something “stupid” (e.g. watching TV or eating poptarts)? If so, that’s a passion for you. If it repeats with great rapidity (and if the urge is very strong), then it’s an obsession. (I can’t keep my hands off my iPod. I think about it all the time. If I lose it, I panic.)

You don’t get to choose your passions. Since passions are just intense likings, choosing a passion would be like choosing to like eating eggplant. You either like eating eggplant or you don’t. Perhaps, if you don’t like it, you can learn to like it. But right now, you either like it or you don’t.

Finding and feeding passion
I’ve met some people who don’t seem to have any strong passions. Some admit to this. They certainly have likes and dislikes, but nothing specific crops up over and over. In fact, some people dislike anything that repeats too often (you could say such people have a passion for novelty). Other people do have passions (defined as I’ve done so, above), but they don’t think of them as such. For many people, their passion is other people: passion for their kids, passion for their families, passion for helping others in need, etc….

Many people think they’ve discovered a passion when if fact they’ve only found a surface activity that lays atop their real passion. For instance, I love working in the theatre. At the risk of sounding holier-than-thou, I believe my passion is pretty “pure.” In other words, my passion for theatre doesn’t hide a deeper passion. I love theatre because I’m fascinated by the specific mechanics of telling stories on stage. When I’m not rehearsing a play, I will choose to read a book about theatre mechanics just for fun (for another dose of my obsession).

I’ve met others like me, but I meet far more theatre people who seem to be using theatre to feed some deeper passion. (Please note that I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with this or that I’m better than these people. I believe neither of those things. And there are plenty of other activities — just not theatre — that I use as tools to feed deeper passions.)

Such people may be into theatre because they love attention and praise; they may love belonging to an open-minded group (many “misfits” find their way into theatre in high school and stay because they love belonging to such an accepting culture); they may even be operating on autopilot, doing theatre because for whatever reason, they got into it when they were younger and it never occurs to them to quit. (They probably enjoy having mastered something.)

Digging deeper
I think it’s useful to delve into your psychology and ask yourself why you like what you like. Sometimes (as with me and theatre), the answer might be “because I simply love the activity.”

How do you know if this is true? Try mentally removing orbiting aspects of the activity: Would I still want to direct plays if no one saw them? Would I still want to direct plays if I could only work with bad actors? Would I still want to direct plays if I hated the results? Would I still want to direct plays if I always got bad reviews? etc. For me, though I wouldn’t enjoy the activity as much in these cases, I’d still want to do it.

This is useful because if you learn what your true passion is (the underlying one, if there is one), you may be able to change your life for the better. You may be able to say, “Wow! It’s not theatre I like, it’s collaboration! Maybe I instead of continuing in theatre, I should look into all sorts of collaborative activities and get into the one that’s the most collaborative.”

Such psychological delving may also help you deal with a crisis: “Oh no! I’ve lost my voice. I can’t act anymore. Wait a minute: it’s not specifically theatre that I like, it’s storytelling! I could write a novel.”

There’s also nothing wrong (and a lot right) with realizing, “I love attention and praise, so theatre is a great activity for me.” In all of these cases, you’ll have learned something about yourself.

Turning passion into a career
Once you know your passion, you will be tempted to ask — as you did — “How can I turn this into a career?” I think that’s the wrong question. I don’t think it’s totally wrong. I just think it’s too specific. Instead, I recommend you ask yourself this: “How can I best arrange my life so that I can spend the most time engaging in my passion in its purest possible form and derive the least amount of pain doing non-passion activities?”

I am a director, but I’m not a working (as in “paid”) director. To pay my rent, I have a “day job.” I could work as a director, but I’d have to direct plays that I don’t want to direct. For some people, that would be fine. For me, it’s not a good trade off. I’ll be more happy with the day job and the ability to direct whatever I want — forgoing pay. It took me a while to come up with that “formula,” and it’s a personal one. Mine won’t necessarily work for you.

(If you realize you’re like me, find the least painful day job you can, getting yourself training if you have to. I actually like my day job. And I continually work to make it better and more interesting. The cliché of waiting tables to support your passion isn’t a necessity. If you commit to the idea of having a day job — I’ll likely have one for the rest of my life — it behooves you to make it a good one. Or at least the least painful one you can find.)

I see a lot of people working really hard to make their passion into a job, and — tragically — when they finally make it happen, they don’t enjoy the passion any more. (E.g. a lot of working actors, who got into the business to play Shakespeare or Chekhov, spend most of their time acting in commercials.) If this happens, it’s really worthwhile to do some soul searching. Would I be happier with a day job? Am I happy doing a compromised version of my passion? If I am happy doing a compromised version of my passion, does that (perhaps) mean that what I thought was my passion wasn’t really my passion? (”Hmm. I thought I wanted to act, but in order to do theatre for a living, I’ve had to become a producer. And — hey — I like it. Maybe acting isn’t my real passion. Maybe my real passion is being a key part of a big project.”)

I am not saying there’s anything wrong with figuring out a way to do your passion for pay. Often, that’s a great way to spend most of your time doing your passion. Just make sure that if you’re doing your passion as a job, it’s really your passion that you’re doing and not a perverted version of it that will fail to make you happy.

Putting it all together
So, go through this thought process:

1. I’ve identified my passion as X. I am now going to define X as fully as possible. For X to be X, it MUST include A and B. C is optional. It can’t include D.
2. I’ve realized that I won’t be happy unless I’m doing X for a living.
3. Are there any jobs that will allow me to do X as I’ve defined it? (Or that will let me gradually work towards a pure version of X?)
4. If not, then I need to either brainstorm other ways I could be happy (compromised X? doing X as a hobby?) or resign myself to unhappiness.
5. If so, then I need to make sure that I can live with non-X aspects of the job. (Wow! I can do full time, paid theatre, but I’d have to work with the dreaded Mr. Y!)

Finally: I’ve noticed that people (myself included) have a strong urge to classify themselves. People really want to be able to say, “I’m a director!” “I’m an engineer!” “My passion is gourmet cooking!”

There’s nothing wrong with that drive, but putting yourself in a category is not the same thing as actually being in that category. In fact, categorizing yourself — since it’s so final — is a good way to thwart any attempt to discover your actual passions. Once you say, “I’m a director,” it’s hard to think, “Wait a minute: is it actually directing that I like or some other activity that directing helps me achieve?” Which is why, at the start of this long post, I suggested you de-romanticize the whole thing and, instead, think about what you like and dislike, rather than trying to pin down your Passion.

Maybe you don’t have a Passion. Maybe you have many likes:

• You like playing in the sun
• You like watching movies
• You like hanging out with friends

If so, you’ll be much happier if you arrange your life to maximize your chances to do these activities than if you expend a ton of energy categorizing yourself.

I am fortunate to have been able to turn my passion — writing — into a career. But even so, some of what Grumblebee warns against is certainly present. As much as I love to write, I have a very different relationship to it now that it’s my job than I did when I simply did it for fun.

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• What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?
• links for 2007-03-06
• Turn Your Loose Change Into Lattes

Why did the crisis occur? Because all along the financial chain — from bankers to brokers to borrowers to investors — people deluded themselves. They thought they could throw out the old rules of money. They thought they could cut corners to make a quick buck. In short: they were trying to get rich quickly instead of to get rich slowly.

I’ll stick with the slow, boring path to wealth, thank you very much. (And hope my progress isn’t derailed by the greed of others.)

Today’s program was a follow-up, exploring the bailout bill passed into law on Friday. “Another Frightening Show About the Economy” again tries to demystify the current financial crisis, explaining why the bailout is needed, and what it intends to do. The show covers:

• Commercial paper
• Money market funds
• Credit default swaps
• The bailout bill and the ‘back-door’ bailout included in the bill as an option: “stock injection”
• And, most importantly, what this all means to you.

I know this stuff sounds boring, but it’s not — at least not in the hands of Ira Glass and the gang at This American Life. I encourage interested readers to set aside a couple hours to listen to these episodes.

For more info, check out NPR’s Planet Money blog.

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In reality, once you’ve spent your money, it’s gone. According to economists and psychologists, it’s a mistake to consider past expenses in deciding what to do with your investments, your home, or your Stuff. What’s important are future expenses and future happiness. To the extent that we can focus on the future instead of the past, the better off we’ll be financially (and mentally).

The example I used in that article was my desire to continue playing a computer game because I’d already pre-paid $80 for six months of service. Unfortunately, the example failed because people took me to mean that it was a “waste of money”, which wasn’t really what I meant.

Today I want to offer another real-life example. Maybe it’ll do a better job of conveying the concept of the sunk-cost fallacy.

Last March, I decided to tackle my physical fitness by setting some big goals for myself. One of those was to go from couch-potato to marathon runner in about six months. To goad myself into action, I paid about $100 (non-refundable, non-transferable) to sign up for the Portland Marathon (which is being run at this very moment).

For a while, this seemed like a brilliant idea. Having paid for the marathon in advance, I was motivated to train so that my money didn’t go to waste. I began to run with a group. I lost weight. I felt great.

At the end of May, however, I hurt myself. I took some time off. I didn’t worry too much, because there were still four months left before the marathon. But when I tried to return to running, the pain persisted. I went to see a physical therapist. June turned to July turned to August. Eventually I decided that maybe I could walk the marathon. I’d paid $100 for it, dammit, and I wasn’t going to let that money go to waste!

Over the last couple months, however, I’ve come to realize that I’m engaging in the sunk-cost fallacy again. The fact that I’ve already spent $100 for the marathon is meaningless. It’s a sunk cost. It’s not recoverable. What matters is the future cost in time and money. And, as it turns out, health.

I could have continued to push myself to prepare for the marathon, but the most likely result would have been additional doctor bills and physical therapy visits. I would be spending future money attempting to make past money “good” again.

Instead, I’ve changed my focus.

I’ve begun to prepare for the 2009 Portland Marathon. I’m running short distances (three miles) a couple times a week. I’m lifting weights to build my leg strength. Meanwhile, I’ve learned a lesson. In the future, I won’t sign up for the marathon until later in the summer, when I’m sure that I’m physically ready to go.

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• Behavioral Economics on Why We Buy What We Buy

• It doubles as a Costco card.
• It offers 5% cash back on gas.
• It offers 3% cash back on restaurants.
• It offers 2% cash back on travel.
• It offers 1% cash back on many other purchases.

Those all sound like great perks, but the card also comes with an added “bonus”: an eleven-page card agreement. And these aren’t ordinary pages, either.

Because I’m That Kind of Guy, I counted the number of words per line and the number of lines per column. I then compared these numbers to a couple of books at my desk. This eleven-page card agreement, if printed in book form, would be 63 pages long.

Ugh.

Yet because I believe I should never sign anything without reading it, I will not activate this card until I’ve read — and understood, and agreed to — the entire document.

Sixty-three pages of legalese. Can you imagine how painful this is going to be?

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• The Torn-Up Credit Card Application

September generally brings the largest harvests for our garden. That was true again this year, but not by as much as we hoped. The bad weather at the beginning of the season means that things just aren’t ripe yet. Kris has been encouraging her tomatoes for weeks. I’m dying for the grapes to be ready. (They’re almost there!)

Kris gives orders to her garden elves. Photo by Lisa.

We did harvest a lot last month, the bulk of which was tomatoes and tree fruit. We had so many tomatoes, in fact, that Kris was able to enlist the help of five-year-olds Albert and Annika to help harvest. They did an amazing job picking cherry tomatoes.

Like investing in fruit
September’s nice because there’s almost no garden maintenance. All we have to do is stroll out to pick the food we want. During the middle of the month, Kris and I had a mild misunderstanding. I thought she told me to go pick all of the apples from our trees, but she really told me to pick a few for some jam. I came back into the house with 19 pounds of apples, which was far more than she needed. We made an spontaneous batch of applesauce.

Actually, Kris did a lot of canning this month: marinara sauce, applesauce, salsa, pickled plums, and more. As usual, we supplemented our own harvest with free food from friends and neighbors (25 pound of pears here, 15 pounds of plums there), as well as things like onions and garlic from the produce stand.

Now, as the rains begin and the harvest draws to a close, our pantry and freezer are both packed full. When we make a blackberry cobbler in February, take pickled “dilly beans” to a potluck or pop open a jar of spicy salsa on a chilly afternoon, we’ll be extending the benefits of our garden year-round. Our home-canned goods will help defray food costs over the next eight months until we can expect another strawberry crop to kick off 2009’s garden bounty.

The fruits of our labor
Our total harvest in September yielded $152.75 in produce, largely from tomatoes. Here’s the complete tally for this month’s garden production.

• about 3 pints elderberries, for which I still have no value
• 1.95 pounds (0.886 kg, or 2.95 pints) caneberries (blackberries, boysenberries, and marionberries) @ $2.49/pint (~300g) = $7.35
• 2.82 pounds (1.276 kg) Italian plums @ $1.49/pound = $4.20
• 5.64 pounds (2.560 kg) pears @ $0.99/pound = $5.58
• 26.52 pounds (12.038 kg) apples @ $0.99/pound = $26.25
• 6 Anaheim chili peppers @ $0.30/each = $1.80
• 3 zucchini @ $0.49/each = $1.47
• 1 cucumbers @ $0.49/each = $0.49
• 4 measly ears of corn @ $0.50/each = $2.00
• 692 grams of Interlaken seedless grapes, which would sell for about $3 at the local farmers market
• 6.50 pounds (2.951 kg or nearly 10 pints) cherry tomatoes @ $2.49/pint = $24.49
• 51.09 pounds (23.195 kg) tomatoes @ 1.49/pound = $76.12

Note: For the purposes of this project, we’re using “best match” pricing. Based on GRS reader suggestions, we’re obtaining typical pricing from our local farmers market. In some cases, we use pricing from a local organic produce stand. In all cases, we’re trying to be fair, but this is more art than science.

A little bit of whining
I’ll be honest. I’m a little disappointed. Once it became clear that this garden was going to “make money”, I wanted it to kick ass. It hasn’t done that. Don’t get me wrong — we love having fresh produce outside our front door, and we enjoy the work with the plants, but I was hoping for more.

I think there are a few ways we can improve.

• For one, we can focus on plants that are more productive in our climate. (Look for a complete exploration of this topic in December or January.)
• For another, we can begin refining our gardening methods to emphasize frugality. As I noted at the start, we haven’t altered any of our normal habits for this project. In the future, it might be worth doing so.
• Finally, we can have better weather. Oregon’s Willamette Valley had a short summer this year. The rainy grey skies lingered an extra month, and now they seem to have arrived two weeks early. That loss of six weeks (and especially those first four weeks) has a huge impact. That means our tomato harvest is stunted, and that we only had four ears of corn come to maturity.

This year, we initially made a large financial outlay for two types of organic pest traps for the apple trees. They proved successful; our apples were practically worm-free! As the two trees mature and bear larger crops, the number and value of the apples will increase as the cost of the traps will drop (because some parts are reusable from year-to-year).

I almost want to repeat this entire project next year to see if we can spend less and harvest more! (Maybe we’ll do it behind the scenes, providing totals at the end of the summer.)

Summary
We spent nothing on the garden this month, and very little time. It doesn’t take long to harvest 19 pounds of apples or five pounds of tomatoes. September is the closest our garden will ever come to “pure profit”.

There is still food left to harvest. Though the rains have set in, we may have more tomatoes. (There are plenty on the plants, but the cool weather is likely to prevent them from ripening.) There are potatoes left to dig, and the acorn squash is ready to pick and dry for winter storage (to be tallied in October).

Most importantly, we have grapes to pick. We only have 20 feet of young grape vines, so we won’t have many from our yard. But the neighbor has vast swaths of Concords growing wild. I wanted to pick them last weekend, but he insisted they were two weeks away. I plan to pick them next Saturday. I just hope these rains don’t ruin the flavor. (Will rain do that to grapes?) There are few things I love more than fresh Concord grapes. (Especially fresh free Concord grapes.) They make amazing grape juice and Kris wants to put up some grape jelly.

Kris has made notes on her garden plan to help her organize her seed order for next year. Only a few short months until the seed catalogs arrive! And she has begun an experiment to grow a few herbs indoors this winter. Stay tuned on whether that is worthwhile.

Final word
Just to be clear on the purpose of this project: This isn’t a formal experiment. Kris and I are long-time hobby gardeners, and we have set ways that we do things. This year, we are not trying to do anything different than we have for more than a decade. We’re not trying to be 100% organic (though we are mostly organic through our normal practices).

Nor are we trying to be 100% frugal. Instead, we’re trying to see just what our garden costs and produces based on our normal habits. We hope the results of this experiment will help us find new ways to economize and to improve our crops.

You can read about my goals for this series in The year-long GRS project: How much does a garden really save?

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• The Year-Long GRS Project: How Much Does a Garden Really Save?
• The GRS Garden Project: February Update
• The GRS Garden Project: March Update
• The GRS Garden Project: June Update
• The GRS Garden Project: August Update

I wanted to ask your thoughts on the recent seizure and sale of Washington Mutual. All of my accounts are at WaMu, including my 3.75% APY online savings account, and my 4.5% APY 12-month CD. I think these are great rates for what I have, and in comparison with what other banks are offering.

Now that WaMu is part of JPMorgan Chase, should I look elsewhere for accounts with good interest rates? Frankly, what I’ve seen of Chase bank’s rates, I’m not very impressed. I also can’t find other banks with comparable rates, but I’ve only started looking. I’ve enjoyed having all of my accounts wrapped up conveniently in one bank — checking, savings, CDs, and we just opened our kids’ savings accounts there as well.

Are the days of doing all my banking and saving with one institution a thing of the past? How can I choose a good institution without fear that it, too, will fold in six months? Or should I just stay put?

I’ve been wondering the same thing recently. None of my money is with banks that are in trouble, but I do have it spread out in three different places: one bank has my business accounts, one bank has my long-term savings, and a credit union has my day-to-day accounts. This seems goofy, especially considering my quest for simpler, more automated finances. Still, this system works right now, and is mostly automated, so I’m happy with it.

I also talked with my cousin Nick earlier this week. He’s always had his money with Washington Mutual, but he wants to move it now — not because he’s worried about losing it, but to “vote” with his dollars, to show his disapproval. He, too, wants advice on where to put his money.

A couple of quick thoughts for Nick and Kristen:

• If you’re worried about the safety of your savings, familiarize yourself with FDIC protection. (Or NCUA protection, if your money is in a credit union.) To determine the stability of your financial institution, consult Bankrate’s Safe & Sound ratings.
• I’m no advocate of “rate-hopping”, but I do feel it’s a good idea to check once in a while to see what the current top rates are for high-yield savings accounts. My long-term savings are currently with ING Direct, and I don’t intend to move it without a compelling reason. (Though if ING Direct were in trouble and taken over by another bank, that might prompt me to move!)

Surely many Get Rich Slowly readers have faced similar decisions lately. What choices are you making? How do you pick a bank in the current financial environment? Is it something to even worry about if your deposits are less than the FDIC limits?

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• Will the Credit Crisis Cost YOU Money?
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• From Bank to Credit Union

Besides, sound personal finance skills are the same no matter what the condition of the economy. When times are rough, it’s even more important to focus on the basics: spend less than you earn, do what you can to avoid (or eliminate) debt, protect your job, etc. Also remember that investing is a long-term adventure; the time to make adjustments for low risk tolerance is before the market drops, not after.

Rather than ignore all the stories you folks have submitted, however, I thought I’d link to them all at once with only a minimum of comment.

• First, from last May, here’s my write-up of This American Life’s “The Giant Pool of Money”, which is an anatomy of the subprime mortgage mess. (Also at GRS: Will the subprime crisis turn the suburbs into slums?)
• Second, The Money Meltdown is a new site with a single aim: “pulling together useful, authoritative, and comprehensive information about our current financial crisis in an accessible way.” This is excellent. [via waxy]
• Next, The New York Times has an excellent chronology of recent events: “As Credit Crisis Spiraled, Alarm Led to Action“. [via brip blap]
• Also at The New York Times, Ron Lieber has a great piece called “‘Is My Money Safe?’ and Other Questions to Ask“. This is a fanastic summary of what’s happening and what you should do (or not do) about it.
• Vincent sent me The Subprime Primer, which does a good job of explaining the housing portion of this mess. (But, be warned, contains some foul language.)
• Harvard Business has an interactive history of recessions going back to 1948.
• The New York Times Magazine recently published an article about Nouriel Roubini, an economist who predicted this entire mess.

And, of course, many people are looking for (and offering) solutions. Here are a few:

• At Ask Metafilter, one user wants to know how to invest as if a depression is coming.
• GRS-reader John writes: “I have mixed feelings about Michael Moore. I agree with some of his stuff, but his suggestions for fixing the Wall Street Mess just make my brain hurt.” Like John, it’s difficult for me to take political extremism of any sort seriously. Attempts to blame any one person or group of people for our current crisis are, well, stupid.
• Matt writes: “Have you seen Dave Ramsey’s bailout plan? I like what he has to say normally, but I think his plan is awful.”
• Erica Douglas has some ideas on what you can do to help solve the credit crisis. Her solution? Stop borrowing and start saving.

Finally, though it’s only marginally related, Clusterstock has an August 22nd transcript from what it calls “that awesome Warren Buffett CNBC interview”. It’s full of classic Buffett bites — little nuggets of wisdom about the economy from the world’s richest man. “I don’t try to pick turns [in the market] in any kind of an industry in terms of buying stocks. I just like to buy them when I think they’re cheap relative to their long-term earning power.”

But what does this all mean? Who can tell? Everyone seems to be flailing wildly to blame homeowners, banks, hedge-fund managers, Democrats, Republicans, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan. I don’t think it’s the fault of any one person or group of people. This was systemic. And now the system is correcting itself.

The next few years will likely be painful for everyone, but less so for those who continue to practice basic smart personal finance skills.

Update: As I was composing this, Trent at The Simple Dollar published a great post in which he echoed FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Photo by Wonderlane.

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