JerseySmarts.com

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #4, Edition #1

Joe — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 20:00:24 +0000

For the first Start the Weekend Right Link Series of 2016 – and nearly one year since the last edition of this series – I decided to post some of the oldest articles that I have saved in my Feedly reader. The articles below are years old, but they are very good and I highly encourage you to read them.

As always, though, before we get to this week’s links I again want to strongly recommend signing up for a free Feedly account. I get absolutely no kickback for promoting Feedly, but I am so appreciative of their product being the best RSS reader on the internet and I encourage everyone to use it. If you are using another RSS aggregator, please consider following JerseySmarts.com at http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/. If you are already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here. Thanks!

Your Chair Is Giving You Cancer, Men’s Health
Admittedly, I am one of those folks who dislikes these types of misleading headlines. No, your chair is not giving you cancer. Yes, sitting in one position and living a sedentary lifestyle can lead to increased risk factors related to catastrophic health concerns like cancer. There are some good, quick tips in this article to get up out of your chair and improve your overall health.

Frugality Advice from Millionaires, Get Rich Slowly
Is there a better source to get information on money from than millionaires? Many of the tips in this article are those that you should already know: avoid debt, do not accumulate lots of stuff, put money away for later, etc. For those of you who are looking for financial independence, you might enjoy reading these tips from people who have achieved your dream.

My Primal Transformation: Discovering the Art of Fit, Mark’s Daily Apply
I really enjoy reading dramatic weight loss stories that have accompanying pictures to show the person’s actual weight loss. This is a story from back in 2011 that tells the story of Frank Sabia, Jr. and how he went from 255 pounds down to 167 pounds. Granted, losing 88 pounds is not what I would typically categorize as a dramatic weight loss (I usually reserve that categorization for 100+ pound weight loss stories). However, I think Sabia has a good story and one that is worth reading.

Outfitting a Manly Kitchen, Danger & Play
One of the most important things that all of us can do to be healthier human beings is eat better. In this short, but potent, men can learn about how to outfit their kitchens to improve their overall health. After re-reading this article, I went out and purchased a vegetable steamer on Amazon.

How to Whistle With Your Fingers, Art of Manliness
Even after reading this article, I still cannot whistle with my fingers. I can whistle loudly and just fine without using my fingers, so I am okay with not being able to use this technique. Maybe you will have better success that I did in trying to whistle with my fingers. Good luck!

The 38 Best Methods of Successful Exercisers, Zen Habits
Everyone on the internet seems to have an opinion on how best to lose weight and get into shape. Good for them and their opinions. This article is less about a single person’s opinion and more about what worked for other people. These are the type of weight loss posts that I like to scan through from time to time just to see what worked for people who have actually lost weight (there are a lot of hucksters out there on the internet).

How to fix Final Fantasy, Engadget
You did not think that we would go through one of these link series without some video game fun, right? Even though this article is more than four years old, I still think that there is a gem of relevance in what the author writes in this piece. And since I did not see a comments section on this article, my addition to the discussion on how to improve the Final Fantasy games is to… (wait for it)… make the games about fantasy again! Too many of the recent incarnations of this series have been focused on creating an ultra realistic approach to the classic fantasy role playing game. Stop it. Give us black mages, warriors, and a guy named Cid and we will be happy with Final Fantasy again!

The Pain of the Daily Commute, New York Times: Well Blog
In the “no big surprise” category, this 2011 entry on the awesome Well blog on the New York Times website notes a study from IBM talking about how commuting is actually painful. The pain that most commuters report is increased stress and anger levels. With the pending transit strike here in New Jersey, I thought now was a good time to bring out this link. If this transit strike actually takes place, then it is going to be a stressful time for New Jersey commuters until a resolution is reached.

How Widespread is Student Indoctrination?, National Association of Scholars
I am a critic of any unfair treatment of any student on any campus in the country. I do not care about the color, gender, age, background, etc. of the student – if they are being treated unfairly, then I want to see that unfair treatment stop. One of the biggest criticisms of higher education is that students are being indoctrinated, but is that really true? The author of this piece suggests that perhaps students are not being indoctrinated because, frankly, students just do not have an opinion on the “controversial” issue being discussed. This article is a quick, interesting take on student indoctrination on college campuses and I think you will enjoy reading it.

The Chilly World of Campus Males, Minding the Campus
We are in an interesting time in higher education. On the one hand you have the media, political extremists, and willfully uninformed campus-based employees promoting the false narrative that there are rapists preying on young college women. While every meaningful study absolutely destroys the false statistics being promoted by those with an agenda, there are other folks – like Dr. Warren Farrell, the author of this article – who are concerned about the anti-male environment that colleges have now created for young men. College men are taught that they are dangerous just because they are male – and that is about as inappropriate and unacceptable as it gets. We certainly would not accept that dictum if it was peddled about young women, gays and lesbians, students of certain ethnicities, etc. Why is such a reductive, biased perspective allowed to be propagated against young men who have done nothing wrong besides enroll in an institute of higher education?

One more time before you go – for those of you who love reading online articles, I strongly recommend considering a free Feedly account. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Book Review: Stop Acting Rich …And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire

Joe — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:30:59 +0000

Oddly enough, I scheduled this entry to be automatically uploaded back when I was in Chicago, but something must have screwed up in the back end system because it never appeared on the blog. No worries, though, because the content wasn’t lost and if you’re reading this, then the entry uploaded as planned!

If you’ve been reading JerseySmarts.com or Joe’s Journal for a while now, then you know that I like reading books about self-improvement including eating better, understanding the human body better, and using money better. Stop Acting Rich …And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley falls into the latter category as this book focuses on how real millionaires spend their money. Sure, we all think that we know who a real millionaire is (the flashy people you see on television and maybe one or two families in your community that live in a bigger house and have nicer cars), but the truth is that some of these folks are only what Dr. Stanley terms the “glittering rich.”

In other words, these are the people who want to live the rich lifestyle without actually having the dollars to back it up! I prefer to call these folks idiots.

What I found most interesting about reading this book is that as you go through each chapter and Dr. Stanley writes about how real millionaires live versus how people who want the prestige and status associated with being rich live, I was amazed at how many people in my own life popped into my head. For example, did you know that most millionaires drive Fords, Chevrolets, and Toyotas? And I’m not talking about the “high end” brands that are associated with each of these companies, either. True, you might expect most millionaires to be riding around in Mercedes-Benz automobiles or BMWs, but the scientifically-researched data proves those assumptions false.

And that is another thing that is great about this book, namely that Dr. Stanley uses scientifically-compiled data to make the points for him. He doesn’t approach this subject with a predetermined mindset where he is attempting to prove that millionaires spend their money in a certain manner (frugality) versus a different manner (splurging). All he does is compile the research and explain what the data mean. Frankly, it’s refreshing to read a book about money that isn’t pushing a certain agenda or method of using one’s scarce financial resources. This book just simply tells the read how real millionaires choose to spend their money in their daily lives.

Again, though, I was struck by how many people came to mind as I read through the book. Using the car example above – how many of us know people that are driving around in cars that cost upwards of $50 thousand? The research shows that there is a strong chance that those individuals are not only not millionaires, but likely struggling to put away any funds for retirement. Think of another example – how many of us know someone who has a “fascination” with certain inanimate objects like watches? Did you know that most millionaires spend less than $150 for their watch? And they usually own one or two at the most. But don’t we all know someone who has to have that thousand dollar Rolex? Talk about a waste of money.

Getting Back to De-Cluttering Through An Early Spring Cleaning

Joe — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:30:11 +0000

There are some websites that I frequent where I can just get lost in their awesome content. One of these websites is Get Rich Slowly which (surprise, surprise) focuses on how everyday people can accumulate wealth through a variety of slow, logical, reasoned processes. GRS is written in a blog format and the authors add new content that directly relates to how readers can make changes in their everyday life to really begin reducing their debt and expenses while finding real world solutions to increasing wealth.

While I managed to get my financial situation under control without the help of GRS, I do like heading over there every once in a while to see what the authors are posting about. Most of the time I find a string of entries that date back a few years as they chronicle how the authors attacked a particular situation and how/if they managed to win the battle. The other day I went over to their site and the first entry on the page had to do with “stuff.” You know what stuff is – it’s all of your crap. The stuff laying around your house, the stuff sitting in storage, the clothes in your closet that you never wear, the DVDs near your entertainment center that you’ve never watched, the books that you purchased and never opened…

You get the point.

I read through the author’s chain of entries on how he and his wife were trying to eliminate their useless stuff and increase their feeling of liberation in the process. I found this entry to be most interesting, because I could relate to portions of it such as:

When I go on vacation, I tend to overpack. I usually take a big suitcase crammed with extra clothing, electronic gadgets, and, most of all, books. I take lots of books. This time, despite being gone for three weeks, I limited myself to a single carry-on sized suitcase and one daypack. This seemed like a triumph, but after just a few days, I wished I had packed even less. Did I really need half a dozen personal finance books? Did I really need my laptop computer? Did I really need two sweaters? Though I didn’t take much, it still felt like too much Stuff.

More importantly, I discovered that I could live without. I lived without my books, without my comics, without my CD collection. I lived without my fancy digital SLR camera, or my Nintendo Wii, or my DVDs. This Stuff never entered my mind. I didn’t miss any of it. If I could live without these things for nearly a month — and feel liberated doing so — what might it be like to give up some of this Stuff permanently?

Have you ever done that? Have you ever packed so much stuff for a vacation or business trip that you have to pay the extra fees because your bag is too heavy? I do it on a regular basis and it’s not cheap. I have a business trip coming up one weekend in April and I’m going to attempt to get everything I need in a carry-on bag. The total trip will last only about 36 hours and of those 36 hours I’ll spend about 8 of them sleeping, 6 of them flying, 4 of them waiting in airports, and the rest of the time in meetings or in social situations with some of my colleagues. Why the heck do I need to pack a full bag of stuff for that type of whirlwind, quickie trip? Further, why should I have to pay the extra fee to Continental to bring luggage on the flight, period?!

I can relate to what the author writes in his entry quoted above. I’ve left my home for extended periods of time and specifically opted not to bring my laptop with me because I didn’t want the burden. And you know what? I felt that same feeling of liberation and it’s a great feeling. To a growing degree, I think that the folks in my generation are tethered to their gadgets, laptops, and internet connections. Lord knows that I need to be “hooked in” for my job and small business as well as my teaching gigs. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not fun.

To get back to the point, though, what this accumulation of “stuff” really boils down to is clutter. I began, slowly, de-cluttering my life a few years ago. I’m not sure if it has been raging success yet because my efforts to de-clutter really amount to not buying more stuff (which is actually a great strategy). Sure, I’ve donated some clothing and books to charities over the last few years, but I have so much more stuff that I should be getting rid of instead of sitting on. A few years ago I traded in about 50 of my DVDs because I never watched them – that was a good start. Over the last year I’ve been selling some textbooks on eBay that I will never use again; I’ve also been donating some of my older, insignificant books to a charity in Seattle. Those have both been double whammies on the positive chart because I’m bringing in new dollars with the eBay sales while getting a tax break with the donated books. Not bad.

Yet, I still have a closet full of clothes in which I only wear maybe 25% – 35% of the items that are actually in there. Granted, I bought a lot of these clothing items when I was 80 and 90 pounds lighter than I am now (when they actually fit), but that was a few years ago and now I’m stuck with a closet packed with clothing that I don’t wear because it doesn’t fit.

What’s a guy to do?

Well, I think that it might be time to start de-cluttering my stuff again. I have a bunch of clothing stuck under my bed in plastic totes. I might go through and donate some of those clothing items and replace them with some of the stuff in my closet that I don’t wear/can’t fit into any more. Hey, it’s a good way to get started de-cluttering again and I do believe that spring cleaning is right around the corner, right?