Christmas 2008

This was probably our busiest Christmas season yet, though I’m certain we will go for the record next year. We had a flurry of Christmas parties (two work parties, one Sunday School party), two church musicals (Children and Adult), assorted school musicals (one for Skeeter, two for Scooter), two family get togethers, and a partridge in a pear tree.

We spent time with my brother Bartolo who is wrapping up his dissertation and looking for a job (in a stellar job market) and his bride Bonita, who continues to encourage him at every turn. We also got to see my other brother Miguelito who is eying college next Fall.

After the family party with them, I had a shocking return to the real world with our notice of budget cuts. These cuts kicked our department’s tail and led to the release of several adjuncts. The number would’ve been greater, but several of our full time faculty offered to teach an extra class (called an “overload”) without receiving additional compensation. We then had to reconstruct the Spring schedule based on all of these changes. I made my last call to an adjunct on Christmas Adam.

We then turned our attention to Christmas Day lunch. We had a house full for our Christmas meal. My parents and Kadie’s sister and her family were coming over, but somehow that didn’t seem enough. I hope that hospitality ranks among the treasure of traits they’ve passed on to myself and my brothers. Growing up, Mom and Dad always had an open house for the holidays, often including others who had no options. We decided to practice hospitality by inviting four families from our university who were from foreign countries and didn’t really have any family in our area.

So we had one couple from New Zealand, one from Canada, one from Taiwan and one from Hungary. The accents (including my brother-in-law’s rural drawl) were fascinating to hear. Factor in all of the kids and we had around 30 people under our roof. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, so we kicked most of the children outdoors to the trampoline and soccer field (a Christmas gift).

Not all of the families are Christians, so perhaps we can build some relationships that might bear fruit down the line. A different, but still an interesting, Christmas. I hope that you enjoyed Christmas with your family.

Book Review: Living Rich For Less (and a chance for free books!)

Readers will recall that personal finance greatly impacted our family a few years ago. Because of the financial peace of mind that came out of that experience, I remain interested in culling good ideas from other financial guides who may be out there. I’m reaching the conclusion that there are just a few excellent ideas of building and maintaining wealth. The only difference in many of these books is the packaging. Or to put it another way, we all know that we should save more and spend less, the question is how do we do it?

Recently I was asked to write a review of another personal finance book entitled Living Rich for Less: Create the Lifestyle you Want by Saving and Spending Smart by Ellie Kay. In this work, she shares a personal narrative of her and her family of seven going from $40,000 in debt to a surplus of savings in just a few years. She then offers you the reader the opportunity to do the same.

Kay’s work divides into three parts:

Part One: Giving Ten Percent

Part Two: Saving Ten Percent

Part Three: Spending Smart the Other 80 Percent (Yes, it should be smartly)

In Part One she addresses the concept of giving 10% of your income away. Giving is a tough sell in contemporary society. And although this book is from a Christian publisher, she (rightly I think) addresses the larger society as a whole. So while she mentions the tithe, she doesn’t end the discussion by simply saying “It’s in the Bible, so do it.” She takes a careful look at the value and benefits of giving away. She ends the section with a “Green” chapter in which she argues that green living (changing incandescent lights for CFL bulbs, recycling, etc)

In the second part of her work, Kay addresses the issue of saving 10% of your income. She looks at the various saving and investing options and includes chapters on debt, FICO score. She concludes this chapter with advice on how to put together a simple budget. There is some good advice here, but there is some tension I think between decrying debt and arguing that we should increase our FICO score.

In part three, Kay explores how we should spend 80% of the income. This is the strongest section of the book. In it, she offers practical guidance on how to save a great deal of money on insurance, shopping, vacations, and home ownership. Kay claims that if you follow her advice you could save $30,000.00 a year. (Which I suppose is technically true, though you'd have to be painfully clueless to be overspending in so many different ways).

Overall this is a helpful book. It hits the high notes of personal finance, but doesn’t offer much beyond the basic advice. For Kay (or anyone else) it is important to spend less than what you make, get out of debt, and save for emergencies, college, etc. Kay is a fun writer who includes in her advice numerous perconal anecdotes that flesh out her concepts.

The greatest strength is in its practical tips. She provides numerous websites, helpful hints on how to shave costs for gifts and many other examples of practical advice. This section alone makes the book well worth its cost. The college savings material is incredibly helpful. (Biggest hint: College savings starts in high school with good grades, AP classes, and dual enrollment).
If I could only buy one book on personal finance, I would still go with Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover . But Kay’s Living Rich for Less would be my number two purchase.

The biggest drawback for this book was the subtitle. It should be “create the lifestyle you want by giving, saving, and spending smartly”. There should be an adverb at the end. (Insert Kadie eyeroll right here.)

I tell you what. In these uncertain times, I would like to offer a couple of free copies of this book. The first person who posts to the comments the critical event that triggered our decision to begin Dave Ramsey’s plan will get a copy of this book. (I narrate our financial struggles here).

Then the next person who posts the last debt we paid off in our debt snowball will get the other book.

I’ll try to get it in the mail immediately and perhaps it will be at your doorstep by Christmas.

The Axe Falls

A tough few days all across our campus. In addition to the normal end of the semester shenanigans, we are operating under some pretty severe state imposed budget cuts. We have to implement these cuts mid-year and are in the process of prioritizing programs and (adjunct) faculty. Public universities are in a double bind when it comes to recessions. During most recessions, enrollment in state colleges and universities rises as parents can no longer afford to send little Johnny to more prestigious institutions. In addition, workers who have been laid off will return to college to gain additional skills as they retool for future employment. So at the time when enrollment swells, we have to cut back on the number of sections being offered. Irony abounds but money doesn’t.

Although our campus has been through difficulties like these before, it is my first time to experience them in a decision-making position. And it’s a much different perspective. I had to recommend a list of adjunct faculty to be cut for this semester. Part of the challenge is balancing needs. The needs of the students come first of course, but there are also the needs of some adjuncts to, you know, eat. And their regular income was supplemented by income from teaching that they were counting on. But we're not given any idea ahead of time how many positions we should cut. So, like Gideon sending men to the river, we will start whittling down until we are told to quit. We should find out over the next couple of days how this will pan out.

And apparently we have much company, including some colleagues in at least one of our Southern Baptist institutions.

It makes for a tough week before Christmas.

When Two Stories Collide

They had me at the headline:

Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup


HT: Andy McCarthy

Kilkelly

Sorry for the delay. The end of the semester approaches with the force of an oncoming tide. Making time an even scarcer commodity is my foolish decision to take on a thespian role in this year’s children’s choir Christmas musical. So as is often the case, a lack of blogging is due not to the fact that too little is going on, but rather to the fact that too much is going on.

Longtime readers (both of you) will recall that I’m a sucker for good narrative. One of the better stories I’ve heard in awhile was in a recent song. While listening to the Irish and Celtic podcast a few months ago, I had to slow my run to a walk and listened transfixed to a song called Kilkelly, Ireland. The song was written by Peter Jones, an American who discovered a series of letters that belonged to his great grandfather, an immigrant from Kilkelly, Ireland. His ancestor had left his childhood home of Kilkelly to travel across to the United States. Peter wrote the lines directly from his great grandfather's letters and composed a tune for them.

It is a haunting song, one that reminds the listener of the tremendous sacrifices that emigrants form every generation must undergo. Of course, as Believers, the notion of the immigrant is one of the most common themes in all of Scripture, ranging from Moses’ description of himself as a stranger in a strange land to (a different) Peter’s description of the church as strangers and aliens. It reminds us that our faith has made us landless and looking ahead to the far country, to the one place we can truly call Home.

But it also makes you want to hug your family a little tighter at Christmas.

Here’s the requisite Youtube embed of the song. I suggest you minimize the video and just listen to the music. The song is grand and tender. The video is neither.