To say that work is stressful for most people is sort of like talking about the weather. Its way overdone. Well, in my case unfortunately when my day job gets stressful and resumes its ridiculous hours The Penny Saved suffers, my health suffers, and Im moodier than Don Rickles delivering a monologue. Luckily I have a cure for all three. For #s 2 and 3, I have to exercise, its the only thing that can really effectively improve both. As for the first thing, my temporary solution for today is to write about 2 and 3.

The biggest problem with exercising during stressful times is staying motivated. So here are 10 tips that I came up with to stay motivated that I use religiously

1) Buy a bunch of protein
The first thing I do when I decide to start lifting and running again is to buy a bunch of protein powder. Not only is it great for building muscle but protein shakes WILL help you lose fat.

2) Get a portable MP3 player (if you dont have one)
How often do you see people running along the road without one? Not very often huh? Yeah, thats cause music is a motivator. It works.

3) Do a fat pinch
On your midsection, pinch between your belly button and your waistline. Thats all fat. That is enough to keep me running.

4) Join an organized sport
It gets you doing exercise without thinking of it as exercise.

5) Join a message board
There are a few that I liked. The ones I like are more geared toward weight lifting but there are message boards out there for just about every flavor of exercise. Seeing other people talk about fitness, and participating in those discussions can really motivate you. And hey, if you are reading this, you can read a message board, right?

6) Take pictures of yourself
I have historically yo-yoed a lot in my life. I have some terrible before pictures, and every time I have taken before pictures and then every month taken a new one I have stayed on course until I had great after pictures.

7) If you are dreading some workout, do another one
Why kill your motivation to do anything at all? If its not working, do something else. Running boring? Play some basketball or go swimming. You get the picture.

Plan out workout times in advance
Obviously if work is stressing you out and you are super busy, you need to schedule time. The problem is, if you are already crunched, the exercising will slip if you don’t explicitly schedule it in.

Its been a while since we’ve gotten back to basics here so I thought I would go over something really fundemental to anyone starting down the financial journey.  In order to turn things around you have to save money and you have to pay down debt.  I know it sounds like an overwhelming task for the uninitiated but it’s not.  I promise you can do it.  If you have been ignoring the problem, guess what?  Its not going to get better on its own.  Take control.

Pay Down Debt and then avoid it

• If you use credit cards, pay off the balances every month. If you don’t, you’re paying interest—often 20 percent or more a year—on everything you purchased.  If you already have balances pay more than the minimum payment.  Pay as much as you possibly can.
• Limit the number of credit cards you have. Use your lowest-interest credit card, and then only for emergencies.

• Set a monthly limit on charging, and keep a written record so you don’t exceed that amount.

• Pay bills on time to avoid late charges.

• Avoid using blank checks you receive from financial services. These checks are cash advances that may carry a higher interest rate than typical charges.

• Pay cash.

Monthly Steps to Saving Money

Most Americans do not have much in savings, and lets face it, unforeseen circumstances happen. To help you prepare for them, you should have at least three to six months of living expenses stashed in your rainy day savings account. You can take steps today to build an emergency fund, save for a home, save for an education, or save for retirement.  Heres a little chart I found and added to:

Finding Money to Save Every Month

Can you list at least five more things to do to save money?
Manage Loans to Save Money

Remember that loans are a liability that reduce your wealth, so choose yours carefully. By shopping for and negotiating the lowest interest rate, you can build wealth by investing what you saved on interest payments.

$15,000 Car Loan for 5 Years

How much money would you save if you chose Lender A vs Lender C?

You can also save interest expense by increasing your monthly payments or choosing a shorter payment term on your loan.

$15,000 Car Loan at 10 Percent Interest

You can choose a shorter payment term with higher payments. By budgeting enough money each month to make the higher payments, you will reduce the amount of interest you ultimately pay, which means – even more savings!

By making wise choices, you can develop strategies and take immediate steps to control debt and build a nest egg for yourself and your family.

Nothing changes in one day

Remember it is the little steps that eventually make the biggest difference.  Rome was not built in a day, and your financial situation will not change in one day so don’t despair and don’t give up.  With time anything can be fixed so get to it!

Of course, that is the question that people ask me every day.  “Why does gas cost so much?”  Its second only to “whats the fastest way to double my money?”  The answer to number #2 is of course “put it all on red.”  (Also a good way to lose 100% of your money the quickest).   The answer to the gas question is a little more complicated so lets dive in.

Ok so its not really that complicated on the surface:

Crude Oil + Taxes + Refining Costs + Distribution = Gas Price

so the culprit can be summed up in one major chunk: crude oil.  As you may have heard the prices of crude oil are at an all time high.

Ok thats nice and all but why is it so dang expensive!?

Simple: supply and demand.  Here is the basic definition of supply and demand:

Strictly speaking, the model of supply and demand applies to a type of market called perfect competition in which no single buyer or seller has much effect on prices, and prices are known. The quantity of a product supplied by the producer and the quantity demanded by the consumer are dependent on the market price of the product. The law of supply states that quantity supplied is related to price. It is often depicted as directly proportional to price: the higher the price of the product, the more the producer will supply, ceteris paribus (”all other things being equal”). The law of demand is normally depicted as an inverse relation of quantity demanded and price: the higher the price of the product, the less the consumer will demand, ceteris paribus. The respective relations are called the supply curve and demand curve, or supply and demand for short.

As of right now, supply is flat and demand is increasing.  They are not pumping any more gas then they were in the past few years, but demand has grown worldwide by large amounts.  China’s oil consumption has grown by roughly 7% per year.  Other places such as India are also demanding more oil.

US dollar inflation + low supply(and high demand) = high crude oil costs

Thats your culprit at the pump, not greedy oil companies (though, I do not disupute that they are profitable…but thats my entire goal too so I cant fault them for that).  Now lets all ride our bikes.

Before I get into anything I should put a small caveat on this:  laws vary from state to state.   That being said it has been quite the ordeal dealing with this whole car-is-now-expensive-1ton-paperweight thing.

1) If you are not at fault they need to give you a rental car equal or similar to your car
If you drive an SUV and they try to give you a tiny compact car (though right now gas costs you might prefer a tiny compact) push back on them.

2) They will lie to you
Esurance told me I HAD to take my car to one of their preferred shops.  This is a flat out lie.   Colorado, like most states, allows you to pick where you want your car taken to.   The shop then told me I couldn’t take it to another shop, which is akin to my car being taken hostage (and is very illegal) so I had a wrecking company get a flatbed, pick it up, and move it.

3) They will try to screw you - behind your back
Once I had my car moved, I gave the new repair shop all of the insurance information and called and left a message for the insurance agent that I had moved my car to the new shop.  I was out of town on business and missed one call from the insurance agent.  He called Enterprise (where my rental was with) and told them to cancel my rental because I wasn’t responding to him.  Luckily Enterprise called me and left me a message saying what the insurance agent was pulling and so I was able to call both of them and make sure that didnt happen.  Sleezy.

Ok so you probably knew those things already, but let me pound it into your head: beware when dealing with them, they have one thing in mind and surprise: its not your best interest.

As I have progressed from college, to post college, to whatever the this next stage is, there are quite a few things that Ive picked up that I thought “man, they sure don’t teach that in college, or high school, or anywhere.”  Things that would have been good to know YEARS ago.

1) Start saving for retirement yesterday
I don’t care how old you are, the earlier you start, the better off you will be.  I wish I had started when I got my first paper route.  I would have a huge amount saved if I had been putting away even 5-10% of what I was making.  The lovely thing I like to call “compound interest” is your friend. Trust me.

2) Go to work.  On time.
I skipped a lot of classes in college…and Im hardly abnormal in that regard.  The problem is, for many people, that attitude can carry over into the good ol real world.  I was lucky in that I have been working fulltime (hmmm is that lucky?) during college so I didn’t exactly hit a wall when I came into the real world, but its a shock for some.

3) You need health insurance
The one point in my life when I didn’t have health insurance is when I had a bad accident and racked up a ton of medical bills.  Health insurance (at least catastrophic) is not just about being healthy: accidents happen, and trust me, you don’t want tens of thousands in medical bills.

4) Get enough sleep
Ok I know, cramming for exams, playing video games until early hours and falling asleep in class is part of college for most people, but that kind of thing does not work out well in the business world.  Staying up late playing around makes for a miserable work day the next day, and the next day, and the next day.  Seriously, even one night of not sleeping can really wreck a week when you cant take a nap at 2 PM.

 5) Dont rack up debt
One of the most common themes is the idea of “well Ill buy this now, and then pay for it when I have a job after college.”  Thats the kind of thinking that has gotten the majority of us in America in debt.  This seems to continue after graduation too… “I will buy this now and pay it back when I get my bonus.”  Don’t.  In fact, heres a little trick: think about how many hours of work (post taxes) it will take you to pay for something.  That really puts it in perspective.

I want to have one million dollars. One million dollars is a lot of money. Many Americans would love to have $1 million sitting in their bank and brokerage accounts. A lot of Americans do have a million dollars…but many more do not.

Yet, do Americans really love money? For many, as soon as we get money in our hands, we spend it like it is on fire on some new toy, or on some new experience that, for a short while, distracts and entertains us. So, do we love money, or do we love what money enables us to possess and experience? It is probably more the latter, though you could debate that for hours.

Regardless, note what money gives us – freedom, opportunities, security, flexibility, and power – stems not from money’s quantity, but from its quality. It matters not how much money we possess or how impressive the rate at which we bring it home if our money steadily decreases in value over time.

So, is $1 million really a lot of money? It depends – how fast is the dollar decreasing in value? There’s one simple way to tell: price inflation. As consumer prices increase, a dollar buys less than it used to. Thanks to America’s average annual inflation rate of 2.7% over the past seven years, $1 million in 2000 was worth only $829,864 by the end of 2007. In 2008, inflation has jumped to 4.1%, degrading the dollar faster still.

What is causing price inflation today? It’s a two-fold problem. First, through deficit spending, the U.S. Congress spends today hundreds of billions of tax dollars borrowed from our future. This acceleration of future tax dollars into the present increases the supply of dollars sloshing around our economy in 2008, increasing demand for – and prices of – goods and services.

Second, the Federal Reserve swells the U.S. money supply with credit. By lowering short-term interest rates – as it has consistently over the past few months – the Fed encourages banks to loan money to borrowers looking to spend their future earnings today. The result is more dollars sloshing around the economy, further driving up prices of goods and services.

How can we stop the Federal government’s willful degradation of the U.S. dollar? Vote. Write. Call. Demand that your elected officials in Washington, D.C. practice sound fiscal and monetary policy: a balanced Federal budget each year; a lower Federal debt outstanding; and inflation-fighting (e.g., higher) short-term interest rates.

But aren’t they lowering rates to help us?

Unless you are the owner of a bank, the answer is no. Its a major misnomer that just because the fed lowers rates, the banks will lower rates. This just doesn’t hold: in times like these there is no promise that banks will lower their rates. They reap the reward of lower fed rates while keeping rates steady or even raising rates to help themselves out of the hole they dug themselves with bad lending practices.

Think rate cuts are to help you? Think again.

As you all know there has been all sorts of stuff going on lately.  I thought about writing about the crazy tornado that came through here, less than three blocks away this week but I will wait on that until we go take some pictures today.   In the meantime, there has been an ongoing effort to rent out my house.  Its been quite an experience, thats for sure.  Here is a collection of things I have learned:

1) If you go with a management company it may be easier on you but it may not be worth it.
The absolute cheapest I could find was 9% of rent per month, they hold $400 for “possible maintenance”  regardless of the fact that I will be doing all of the maintenance and they hold renter’s deposit for the entirety.  Considering I am renting my house out for about $1250 per month, add in the “bank charge” and that is approximately $115 per month in rent lost.  Now lets add $120 for lost interest on the $1650 they are holding.  That comes out to $1500 loss per year.  That was a lot for me to swallow.

2) Nothing is a done deal until its actually in writing
I have had 3 different renters so far that have been “sure” only to have things come up.  Nothing is a done deal until it really is a done deal.

3) Try to find people you know
The easiest tenants to find are those that you know need a place.  In my case I have been  attempting to go through my brother to get his friends into the house.   The jury is still out but hopefully the guys that are interested work out.

3) Advertise Advertise Advertise
I underestimated  what it would take to get people into my house…I figured “its a college town and my house is better than most” which is absolutely true…the problem is that most students are going through management companies so none know about my house. Sign out front, ads in the paper, ads on facebook, ads at the college, the list goes on and on.  If you’re not into the “property scene” you are facing bigger hurdles.

5) Keeping your house in showable condition is tough
Especially when there are people living in it.  Its a constant job to keep things in the proper condition.

Anyone else been through trying to do this?  Any additional tips? Thoughts?

While driving with Lauren to go see a property management company about my house someone turned out in front of me.  Here is what happened:

Here is how I handled it and I think so far its been very effective:

1) Call the police
I called the police right away since it was substantial.  Even in a wreck where there is not substantial damage it is still a good idea to get a police report because this will be vital later on as far as determining insurance coverage.  If it the other persons fault, such as in my case, you need to establish that the other party is officially the one at fault.

2) Call your insurance agent
As it turns out State Farm wants you to deal more directly with the other persons insurance but if you have an insurance agent that actually gets on top of things for you, you want to get them involved early on.  Insurance agents know how to deal with other insurance agents.

3) Take pictures of the damage
Having your own set of pictures is essential in case some sort of dispute comes up later.

4) Get the other drivers information
In this case I got it from police.

5) Call the other persons insurance
I called Esurance and sure enough he had reported the accident but he didn’t say it was his fault or give them any of my information.  My insurance had also not called them yet.  I got all of the correct information in to them and got them to set me up with a rental car.

This is as far as I have gotten, currently they are inspecting the damage and I am waiting to hear what they have to say.  I will, of course, add as things come.

If you are like me, when you get stressed its very hard to concentrate.  I have some sort of self destructive feedback loop where when I am stressed I am less able to be productive and get things done, and so I get more stressed.  Under pressure I do quite well, but when it is looming things that are sort of “distance” or “gradual” stressers I am terrible.

Lately I have been completely overwhelmed.  I am the technical lead on huge project at work and I have been working 12 hour+ days and traveling. Oh yeah and theres those little things of trying to rent out my house, selling Laurens house, selling my car, and trying to sleep at night…oh and still making sure I give you all decent content.  Here is what I have started doing to try and cope with everything at once.

1) Exercise
This is by far the most important thing.  I historically have been in really good shape and Ive really been slipping since I started this new job.  It was easy to get up and go work out when I worked 8 hour days and didnt have to be into work until 9 or 10.  Plus a lot of times if I got into work late I could go lift on my lunch break or take an afternoon break to do it.  The thing is,  exercise doesn’t just affect how good of shape Im in physically, but mentally as well so I have started exercising again and I feel much better.  Not only do I feel better and less stressed but I am much more alert now and I am sleeping better.

2) Focus on one thing at a time
When it comes to individual tasks, I am great at getting things done.  When you line them up into a whole set of tasks, I am basically paralyzed.  So whats the trick?  Thats right, separate them out and focus on them one at a time.

3) Be positive
I sort of cringed even writing “be positive” because its so cliche but I think its important.  Nothing pisses me off more than when people take a “this will never work” “life is terrible” kind of attitude.  If I had that attitude I honestly would cease to function completely.  Its difficult enough for me to focus on a wide variety of tasks or get motivated when Im overwhelmed as it is, if I had a negetive attitude I would not be able to do anything.  I also like the feeling of getting things over with, its a load off your back.

4) Find a way to relax
I haven’t been able to do this in a while, but something that has historically helped me is just sitting in a hot tub and listening to music.  Another thing is playing guitar.  Im sure everyone has their own thing that is their own preferred method, but if you don’t have one, find one.

5) Eat better
Its one of the tenants of personal training and fitness: eating better and more often (6 meals vs 3) increases your energy (and helps you lose weight incidentally) and makes you feel better overall.

Anyone else have any good methods they use?

I was having a conversation recently with a coworker of mine about how your professional life has such a major impact on your personal life but it kind of got me thinking, how about the other way around?  What are some things that have the ability to hurt your career that stem from your personal life? Think its completely separate? Well, back and relax, I am going to hand you a big steaming pile of context.  Here are some personal things that can rough up your career.

1) Living a truely deviant lifestyle and/or crime
Everyone has the ability to choose what they want to do with their lives and hey, more power to you.  But there are things that go too far, particularly if you want to have a successful career.  If you are spending time in jail, doing illegal things, or are even too far out on the fringe of social normals, like or not but your career will suffer.  “Uh boss, yeah I can’t make it into work for the next 30 days, I am uh well, there was an unexpected…uh, Im in jail.”  Yeah thats gonna go over like a porcupine in a balloon factory.  This is also the part where affairs, and other improprieties can really nail you.  Don’t believe me?  Ask our last president.

2) Taking care of personal things at work
So everyone makes a personal call at work every once in a while, its unavoidable.  Some people do more than that, much more.   Do not be one of those people, you will at some point run into something. At best, have some awkward moments.  At worst case you could be fired.  An example is, I never write any blog entries at work, aside from being unethical, it could also get me in trouble.  I will occaisonally post from work as far as just pressing the post button, but that is as far as it goes.

3) Myspace/Facebook
I know someone that I work with that I can promise you if senior management saw this person’s myspace page this person would be fired on the spot.  Yes I know its a place for self expression but guess what, its public domain.  If your employer or someone researching you finds this, its completely fair game for making judgments on character. And yes,they can discriminate based on what they find on your page.  You created a public record of yourself and things they could never ask you in an interview they are now finding out based on you offering it up.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t be proud of who you are, but think of recent cases of teachers being fired for drunk pics on their myspace pages.

4) Expressing views/beliefs in office
Bringing your personal views out in the office can cause a ton of tension and a lot of bitterness.  These parts of your personal life should stay way away from the office.  I like to count Tom Cruise in this category because though he wasn’t necessarily expressing his views on set, he make such a scene off camera that his studio dumped him.  Ouch.

Bucking the trend:
Office Romance - This one is obvious why there could be some serious problems having an office romance but considering Lauren and I met at work, I can’t really tell other people not to do it.  I will say if things hadn’t worked out between us it could have been very difficult.  If you are going to pursue someone that you work with make sure that it is really someone you are interested in for the long term, I think that is generally the litmus test.  In my case, I think wife counts as long term