Introspection Found in a Suit

Over the weekend I was honored to be an usher at the wedding of two great friends.  We had a really great time celebrating, and I got that warm fuzzy feeling that you get at a wedding when you know that the couple is truly meant for each other.  I also had to Dress to Impress and wear a suit.  I hate dressing up.

I've reached the point in my life where I can no longer get away with khaki pants and a button-up shirt at formal gatherings.  This was very apparent when I under-dressed for my cousin's wedding last summer.  It was an outdoor wedding on a hot summer day and I thought comfort and practicality would prevail in the wardrobe choices of the guests.  I was wrong.  While I hate dressing up, I learned that I hate under-dressing even more.  Who wants to stick out and look like a schmuck in front of the whole family by being the only guy not wearing a blazer?  I felt like a lightening rod for the biting wit of my judgmental family.  Ugh.

I own a nice suit that I bought three years ago to wear to my job interviews as graduation approached and I had to secure a "real job."  Unfortunately, a sedentary job and diminished athletic activity has taken its toll on my physic.  Thus, in order to avoid any hushed Chris Farley jokes at my expense I needed a new suit jacket.  The marketing machine of the local mens formal store was kind enough to sucker me into buying more that I intended by offering the evil and manipulative "free" bonus.  With the purchase of a $99 blazer I was awarded a pair of free matching pants.  The sales person also convinced my wife that I needed a new tie to complete the package.

I planned to buy a $79 blazer and instead got a $99 blazer, matching pants, and a tie.  After alterations and taxes the total bill was $160.00.  I'm a sucker, BUT at least I didn't look like a schmuck at the wedding.  I also took solace in the fact that this entire package is exactly half of what I paid for my last suit.  Yep, my last suit that was worn about a half dozen times and outgrown in three years cost $320.  

The way I look at it today is that I've made progress.  I've realized that the way I dress does matter from time to time.  I've realized the direct costs of being in bad physical shape, and since January I've been at the gym 3-4 times every week.   I've grown more frugal and spent half as much to buy a suit, simply by ignoring the brand name.  Finally, I've realized that I am not a financial robot and that slips and compromises are a part of the process. 

Who knew that buying a suit could be such an introspective process.  Thanks for reading.

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Wedding Season Has Arrived

Today I got my fourth wedding invitation in the mail today. Three of my friends and one of my wife's are getting married this Spring and early Summer. I have responsibility to be an usher at one, but so far I don't have any mandatory tux rentals. Still, the travel is certainly going to add up and we aren't going to have very many free weekends once this starts. I think it might be a bit much.

Going back to my post a few days ago, Gift Spending: Am I Cheap?, there will also be lots of gifts to buy. Some of these friends have been out on their own for several years now, so they don't necessarily need the basics like pots, pans, and kitchen appliances. I don't like to buy gifts that never get used either. I think this may be an occasion where a $30 gift card for each lucky couple is useful and appropriate. Sound reasonable?

I also need to get my out of shape self to straighten up my diet. My suit was a tad tight last time I tried it on, and that was probably 15 pounds ago. It is a nice $300 suit and I certainly can't afford to buy a new 'fat man' suit. A financial incentive should keep my going to the gym 3-4 days a week but I'm not sure if it will be enough to keep me out of the chocolate chip pie my wife baked last night. Yum!

The next task is to fit these costs into the budget so I can save up for them right? I'll let you know in a few months how successful I am with that task. Love is in the air, but dollars don't grow on trees.

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My Money Decisions: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Like everyone else in our consumer culture, I have made financial decisions that make me cringe. My bad decisions have helped me pile up a sizable amount of consumer debt. My good decisions have put me on a path to become wealthy. Today I'll share some of the highlights of my financial past that have brought me to where I am today.

Here are some of The Good decisions I have made:

• Education - I always worked hard in school and kept a high GPA. This led to me get into engineering school at several colleges (some prestigious and some not as much), and it allowed me to choose a school that fit my budget (State U). I worked even harder in college to graduate with better than a 3.5 GPA in Computer Engineering. That performance gave me a number of competitive employment options, but I selected the one that paid for my entire Masters Degree and permitted me to take courses by teleconference during my work hours. While job paid only 75% of what my peers got, it covered grad school expenses and that more than made up for the lower pay. Again I excelled and earned a 3.9 GPA in my graduate studies. Now, after proving myself on the job and in the classroom my salary has nearly doubled from what it was when I was hired (and is significantly higher than any of my old classmates).
• Entrepreneurship - I started my first business when I was 11 years old. I ran a neighborhood recycling service to collect the paper, glass, and plastic from my subscribers and take them to the county recycling center each Tuesday. We did not have curb-side pickup of recyclables. I saw an opportunity that my upper middle class neighbors needed to have filled and made it work for me. I charged $100 per year to subscribe or I would bill my clients $10 per month. My dad made sure I learned to use a computer (back in 1994) to make fliers in Word Perfect, invoices in a spreadsheet, and budgets in Quicken. When I wanted to travel to Europe on a school trip at 15, I paid my own way from the earnings of my business. I spent my money to buy for myself the things other parents gave to their kids, and I learned what it means to earn a dollar (with guidance and help from my parents).
• Work - I got my first real job when my business no longer was viable because sanitation department sponsored curb-side recycling made my business model obsolete. The first job I took was washing dishes at a little hole in the wall restaurant where some of my friends worked. I hated it. I learned after only six weeks working there that working hard is not nearly as rewarding as working smart. After talking to my dad about this, he suggested I find something I love and work in that industry. We came up with a plan for me to take an internship at a computer repair shop. I pitched my services free of charge to every shop in town in exchange for them teaching me how to fix computers. After a number of rejections I finally found a shop that would take me. My conditions were that I would work for three months free of charge, and if I met expectations I would be hired as a full computer tech. I learned quickly and was soon building new systems and diagnosing botched Windows 98 installations. I was hired on at $10 per hour at age 17. I've worked in the computer industry making at least that much per hour ever since.
• Investing - I got my first taste of investing in middle school when, on a whim, I joined the Stock Market Club. I was a nerd who was a member of the math team, the science quiz bowl team, the chess team, and the band. Stock market club seemed fun and exciting to me (plus my other friends were talking about joining too). We each managed a hypothetical $10k portfolio and checked it each day using the news paper. I selected three stocks for my portfolio: Disney, Dollar General, and Maytag. I picked Disney because I had just gone to Disney World for the first time and Dad said the place, "took all your money and convinced you it was your idea." I picked Dollar General because they had just opened a new store in my town and it was a bargain at only $1 a share. I picked Maytag because that's the company my dad worked for at the time and it seemed safe. I hit the jackpot when Dollar General doubled during our semester long competition, and I easily won. I never forgot the fun and money making power of the stock market. Today my approach is a little more rational, using my 401(k) and Roth IRA to buy index funds in diversified asset classes.

Here are some of The Bad decisions I have made:

• Consumer Debt - Gradually over the last six years I have built up a sizable pile of consumer debt. Frequently it is for unplanned expenses like dental bills, car repairs, and sporadic taxes. These types of expenses should have been paid by my emergency fund which at the time I had yet to set up. I also used debt to buy home furnishings, a flat panel TV, and a car. Thankfully these things were generally financed at below market interest rates (often 0%) and will outlast the length of the loan, but they still have added up to a significant amount hanging over my head.
  
• Bad Business Venture (MLM) - My wife and I tried a Multi-Level Marketing (aka pyramid scheme) home business. We tried unsuccessfully to sell beauty products and health supplements. I let my normally cynical business sense be swayed by the Mercedes and gorgeous home that our "up line" (my wife's aunt) bought with the business. I wrote a business plan and tried to do everything right, but what I missed was that the target demographic for the products is wealthy, vain older women, and I was a young, overweight man and my wife is introverted and shy. We had trouble finding clients in our sphere of influence and had terrible sales results when we did manage to get a captive audience. The $2,000 in 'initial' inventory is sitting in a closet while I pay off the loan the hard way.

Here are some The Ugly decisions I have made:

• Weight Gain - I have been overweight my whole life. It has varied from just being a slightly chunky kid to being flat-out-fat at the end of high school. I have never enjoyed team sports much because I'm not very good at them, and I always caught flack from the jock types at school. I also hate running more than about anything else in the world. M7y lifestyle is sedentary because working as a computer engineer (and now blogger) means I sit in front of a computer terminal about 90% of my waking hours. During the last two years of college I took up racquetball and managed to loose a LOT of weight and reach a BMI within the 'normal' category. I was at my target weight and felt great. All of that progress was lost two years ago when I tore my ACL while I playing and needed knee surgery . Since then I have sat on my butt making excuses while I've gain a ton of weight back. I can feel it sapping my energy away. Being overweight is terrible for my pocketbook in a number of ways and poor health later in life may my limit my ability to enjoy the wealth I am working so hard to build now. This is my worst personal finance decision that I intend to fix ASAP.

Check out these other great personal finance blogs that have also recently posted about their Best and Worst Personal Finance Decisions.

6 Financial Lessons - Don't Learn The Hard Way - from Gather Little by Little

My Least Bad and Least Good Financial Decisions - from Plonkee Money

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions - from Moolanomy

Best and Worst Financial Decisions: From the Trenches - from I've Paid for this Twice Already

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions: They Might Surprise You - from Being Frugal

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions - from ChristianPF

My Best and Worst Financial Decisions - from The Dough Roller

One good financial decision and a whole lotta bad - from DebtFREE Revolution

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