The Writers Coin

A while back, I asked myself a question: why do we do things for the money when we know that’s not what’s going to give us the fulfillment we supposedly want? We always pick the money, and the reason I wound up giving was security. Money does a lot and has the power to do a lot in our lives.

OK—fine. But putting aside why we do the things we do, what about the opposite? What is it that keeps us from doing the things we really want to do?

Let’s Make This About Myself

I would love to become a Michael Lewis/Bill Simmons hybrid: a guy that writes passionate stories about being a big-time Cubs/baseball fan and gets paid for it. I would also love to become a best-selling novelist that writes a book every 3–5 years and spends most of his time researching, delving into characters’ psyches, and doing all that other cool shit that established writers get to do.

But I’m not doing anything that would make those goals a reality right now, and there’s a reason for it: I’m afraid.

Fear is keeping me from doing the obvious, which is writing a blog about baseball and the Cubs. Fear is keeping me from writing short stories (again) and sending them out to be rejected (again). It’s all about the fear of failure.

But it’s the way that I’m judging failure that bothers me.

What if I don’t make any money at the end of it? What if I write a goofy blog about baseball stuff that no one winds up reading and no one cares about? What if it doesn’t lead to anything greater? What if it doesn’t get me a job writing for ESPN or Sports Illustrated?

Then what? Did I just wast all that time and effort?

At the core of all these confused thoughts and insecurities is one thing: fear.

Fear of really going for what you’re passionate about in life and trying to make it come true. And then failing.

That’s why I write about money on this site. I put some AdSense ads up and sell some links here and there and a trickle of money comes in. Is that success? Am I failing? I don’t know…it’s hard to say. But I can see the numbers. I can see money coming in. Month after month, I see it pile up into more and more substantial amounts.

The money tells me I’m doing something right.

I had been submitting fiction stories for a long time and have $300 and a stack of rejection letters to show for it.

So I decided to start a new site: Applied Analytics. Why? Because I saw there was a need for people to learn how to read what Google Analytics spits out and I think I can help those people. And I think that, down the line, I can make some money off of it.

Let’s be honest though: money is the main motivation. I like helping people and when I get comments and emails from people saying “thank you,” I feed off of that like nothing else. Including money.

But I wouldn’t do Applied Analytics if someone told me today that I wouldn’t make any money off of it in the long term. I just wouldn’t.

And something about that seems wrong. You should be doing what you love to do. What you’re passionate about. What you would do for free if that’s what it came to.

I should be writing about baseball for free.

I should be writing fiction for free.

And I should be loving every minute of it.

But there is the fear. It’s all powerful and all encompassing. The fear is what keeps me from really going after these things. Throw in a baby for good measure and the fear grows and grows.

Day care. Diapers. Strollers. Toys. Nannies. Doctor visits. College fund.

Fear, fear, fear.

That’s why we love money so much. That’s why we chase it around at all costs.

It’s not because we’re greedy or heartless or materialistic. The truth is much simpler: we’re just afraid.

Image by kevindooley

This post was included in the Carnival of Money Stories over at Funny About Money and the Best of Money Carnival at Scordo.

Yesterday I wrote out my first check to make my first payment on the mortgage to our new place. It’s a big check—bigger than any rent check I’ve ever had to write. And I started to think about whether or not it was a little too much higher than my rent used to be.

Doesn’t everyone always say that you should try to pay less than your rent when you buy?

But this place we’re in now is nicer, bigger, and has amenities we didn’t have before—so we moved up in the world by moving here. Which means we should expect to pay more. I did a little digging around and found that I’d probably be paying around the same amount if I rented a place just like this one. So that made me feel better.

Then I read an interesting piece in the NY Times about this very debate: is it better to rent or buy? Usually articles like these try to go against the grain to show people that renting offers more flexibility for less money. This article does the opposite, making the point that in most markets buying is probably the way to go.

And they have a fancy calculator to prove it.

As analytics as I like to think of myself, this is a decision that considers so many other life factors that a cool calculator can’t really do the math on why you’d want to buy.

• By buying we are putting our money towards something for the future
• Renting gives us flexibility to move whenever we want, but I hate moving
• Buying got us a bigger, nicer place
• Renting usually means you’re not living in as nice a place, unless you’re paying a premium
• Buying gives me that unmeasurable feeling of ownership that is hard to describe
• Renting made me feel like I was still in college

These feel things are hard to quantify, especially with so many money ratios out there that we’re “supposed” to follow. And that’s probably whey there’s so much debate about buying vs. renting—you just can’t properly weigh all the pros and cons when you don’t know that feeling of walking in the door, looking around, and going “this is my place.”

I know it’s cheesy and probably very unhelpful, but it’s true.

Image by helloturkeytoe

I apologize to everyone who checks the site regularly expecting another brilliant, entertaining romp through the madness that is personal finance. I have been busy lately and haven’t been posting. For that, I apologize. Here’s what’s been going on:

• M and I moved into our new place
• Work
• Side projects

So while it’s all very exciting (except for #2), that’s no excuse for not posting. After all, I have ideas, it’s just time that I need more of. Maybe I’ll try to read Getting Things Done again. I will say one thing—the more stuff I want to get done, the more productive I am with the same amount of time I have. So my post on getting things done by having less time seems to be holding true.

Anyway, today I want to talk about moving because that’s the big thing that’s going on in my life.

Moving SUCKS

We all know this—it’s what we call “a truism.” It’s also one of those things you forget about after some time passes. Your mind starts to forget how horrible it really was. You start to say things like “It wasn’t that bad” or “it could’ve been worse.” Let me set the record straight: I hate moving so much that I would rather spend more money than I have to to avoid it.

This is not a trivial thing for me to say. We’re talking about the guy who eats the same sandwich every day to save $2,000/year. I hate spending money.

But moving is my kryptonite—I give in to it’s powerful will. I am no match for the destruction and havoc it brings on us humans. Here is a list of things that happened thanks to our recent move:

• Our sofa got torn up and now needs to be replaced (not cheap)
• It was raining and me and the two guys that helped out got soaked
• I was very ornery
• My arms are still black and blue from the bruises
• My arms have cuts on them from carrying things that were too heavy
• There were four flights of stairs
• The stairs were in the back…outside…in the rain.
• One of the guys helping me out fell off the truck (slipped actually, because of the rain) and hurt his back.

And this is all with help! M and I paid around $250 for two guys to help us move things for four hours. Which is a pretty good deal when you count the only other expense: $39 for the U Haul. That’s a total of less than $300!

In case you’re wondering—that’s a steal! But I won’t be looking for a bargain next time I move. I have learned my lesson. I would rather pay $1,000 and not lift a finger—I was so anxious the night before and so defeated for the two days it took to move that I don’t want to ever feel that way again.

This is another one of those times where money helps. It’s one of the good reasons we have for wanting to have more of it. This is a perfect example of how money helps.

Anyway, I’m convinced—paying a premium for movers to do all the work is worth the money. But I took this thought to the GetRichSlowly forums and a lot of people disagreed. They still think the best way to go about it is still the “friends, pizza, and beer” recipe. Good for you. Go save your money for something that really matters to you.

As for me, I’ll keep eating the same sandwich so that next time I won’t feel what I felt during this past move. For more of my whining on how moving kicked my ass, check out this post.

This post was included in the Best of Money Carnival over at Fiscal Fizzle, the Personal Finance Carnival, and the Carnival of Money Stories at Buxr.

Image by Katie Tegtemeyer

Last night M and I were anxiously awaiting to hear the phone ring. We were expecting to hear back from the sellers to see if they would accept our latest counter offer. The phone sat there on the table, quietly, not ringing.

For the last couple of days, we had all kinds of thoughts swirling through our heads: is this the right place? Can we afford it and still go out to the movies every now and then? Oh my god this is a lot of money.

That kind of stuff.

Now we sat there, almost two years into our house-buying search, waiting for the stupid phone to ring.

But nothing happened.

So I picked it up and checked my email…again. A lot of the back and forth with our broker had been via email, and I decided to check it just for kicks.

New email from our broker…subject line: “YEAH”

And in this day and age of constant electronic communication, when we found our place online and passed it off to our broker, when we relied so heavily on the Internet to learn about the history of the place and the area around it—how appropriate was it that we heard about it via email instead of with the phone call we expected?

Very appropriate I would say.

We are still reeling from this whole process and now comes the hard part: parting with our money and signing a whole bunch of paperwork. This week we’ll have an inspection, we’re meeting with an attorney, and we’re starting to write checks for all the smorgasbord of fees that come with a mortgage.

And we are extremely nervous, excited, and anxious.

It doesn’t matter how much or how long you prepare—buying your first place is scary.

But we will get the first-time home buyer credit, rates are at historic lows, prices have been coming down since we began looking, we got a very good deal, and this place has everything we wanted.

Everything.

We had some rocky times with our broker (including a place we almost bought), but as we were on the verge of closing on this place he and I had a frank talk about the whole process. And he told us we did very well in waiting despite his advice to just buy a place already. We waited and waited and waited.

We saw around 80 places total in a wide spectrum of price ranges and the whole time we knew we’d have to compromise on something. The perfect place simple doesn’t exist. We were wondering if we’d ever find a place we could afford that we both walked in and knew right away was the place.

And it’s true: no place is perfect. But this place is by far the nicest and most complete package. We are pumped we found it.

I’ll obviously be writing a ton about this in the future, but right now I’m still trying to process it all so forgive me if I’m a little incoherent.

Woooo!

Image by Steve Snodgrass