Designer Stefan Sagmeister did another TEDtalk titled Happiness by design where the best part was when he shared the list below of “Things I have learned in my life so far” (which later became a book of typographic artwork).

• Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
• Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
• Being not truthful works against me.
• Helping other people helps me.
• Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
• Everything I do always comes back to me.
• Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
• Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.
• Money does not make me happy.
• Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
• Assuming is stifling.
• Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
• Trying to look good limits my life.
• Worrying solves nothing.
• Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
• Having guts always works out for me.

By Jonathan Ping | Book Reviews, Inspirational | 5/21 | No Comments »

NPR Morning Edition featured a story today about non-traditional retirements: Seeing The (Northern) Light: A Temporary Arctic Retirement. Instead of waiting until 65, Winston Chen decided to stop working for an entire year mid-career and moved his family to a small Norwegian island in the Arctic Circle with only 180 residents.

The whole family got to do many things they’d never do otherwise. Financially, they offset their mortgage by renting out their Boston home completely as-is for a year to another family on a temporary work assignment. His wife Kristin was able to get a job teaching elementary school in Norway for a year, as it was a remote area that needed teachers. They could keep expenses low as the tiny village had no need for a car, no malls, and no restaurants. One of his pursuits ended up being an iPhone app that took off and now supports their entire family, although that wasn’t the goal.

The inspiration came from the TEDtalk “The power of time off” by designer Stefan Sagmeister. Here’s a screenshot (sorry for the poor quality) illustrating the traditional working timeline: learn for 25 years, work for 40 years, then retire for 25 years.

A commenter pointed out that this shows that our society seems to feel that education is for the young, work is for the middle-aged, and leisure is for the elderly. But what if you decided to snip 5 years from those retirement years and sprinkle them between your working years? This is essentially the idea of sabbaticals, usually associated with tenured professors taking a paid year off from their usual teaching and research duties. Every 7 years, Sagmeister completely shuts down his popular design shop for an entire year.

Both Sagmeister and Winston Chen add that if you do this, you shouldn’t just give yourself a year of nothing and expect to figure it out along the way. At the minimum, you should make a list of all the things that you want to try and/or accomplish (Chen’s included oil painting, photography, reading, learning Norwegian, and learning how to play the ukulele). Both broke it down into a daily schedule as well (Chen’s is below).

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By Jonathan Ping | Inspirational, Retirement | 5/20 | 4 Comments »

The Georgia Institute of Technology and Udacity.com are partnering together to offer an accredited master of science degree in computer science (press release). What makes it special is that this MSCS will be from a top-tier university, 100% online, and the full tuition cost for all coursework will be under $7,000. Georgia Tech believes that it can pull this off due to advances in technology and the resulting ability to maintain an instructor:student ratio of 1:100 rather than 1:10.

Anyone can take the courses online, but if you want the accredited degree and grades you’ll still need to gain admission into the program. As AT&T is funding the 2014 pilot program, it appears that most initial students will be from AT&T and other corporations affiliated with Georgia Tech, with enrollment hopefully ramping up in future years. Still, this is a big step in the evolution of online education, and especially good news for those looking to get further education but can’t afford to be a full-time on-campus student.

More news coverage: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Forbes, WSJ

If this is successful, it’d be natural to wonder about a cheap, 100% online bachelor’s degree from a major public university (not some regionally accredited/for-profit diploma mill). I can’t help but keep recall this excerpt from Is College a Lousy Investment? by Megan McArdle:

In Academically Adrift, their recent study of undergraduate learning, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa find that at least a third of students gain no measurable skills during their four years in college. For the remainder who do, the gains are usually minimal. For many students, college is less about providing an education than a credential—a certificate testifying that they are smart enough to get into college, conformist enough to go, and compliant enough to stay there for four years.

Will such online degrees maintain the same prestige just with a lower price tag, or will it just devalue the entire concept of having a degree even further? Or will an on-campus degree always be seen as better?

By Jonathan Ping | College & Education | 5/20 | 6 Comments »

I just started reading a biography of Charles Munger, Damn Right! Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe, originally published in 2000.

Charles Munger is best known as Warren Buffett’s long-time friend, business partner, and vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. I find him fascinating on many levels – as a thinker, investor, philanthropist, and even philosopher. One of my favorite tips from him is to Work For Yourself An Hour Each Day, something I found in Warren Buffett’s biography The Snowball.

Here’s a memorable quote from the book dealing with his childhood:

Like Warren Buffett, Munger inherited no wealth. [...]

“While no real money came down, my family gave me a good education and a marvelous example of how people should behave, and in the end that was more valuable than money,” explained Munger. “Being surrounded by the right values from the beginning is an immense treasure. Warren had that. It even has a financial advantage.”

Right now, there is a lot of focus on teaching “financial literacy” – which is good – but if you’re a parent of young children I feel that you have to think differently. It’s not critical to give your kid some fancy allowance iPhone app or online savings account to teach them how to manage money. What you should really be conscious of is how you act around them. Positive character traits like self-discipline, being dependable (keeping your promises), and frugality (not being wasteful) are often best taught by example. Watching you and learning such traits will help them to avoid credit card debt more than showing them how APR works. If only I could just buy them a book or something.

By Jonathan Ping | Family | 5/17 | 5 Comments »

Shoprunner is similar to Amazon Prime in that it offers unlimited free 2-day shipping with no minimum order amount from a variety of online merchants including Newegg, Babies R Us, Blue Nile, Sports Authority, Drugstore.com, and GNC. It also allows you free return shipping and the ability to ship to any address, making it handy for gifts.

If you have an American Express card, you can now get a free 1-year membership at Shoprunner or a 1-year extension on an existing membership by going to shoprunner.com/americanexpress. You’ll need a consumer or business American Express card issued by an AmEx-affiliated bank (Starwood Preferred yes, Blue Cash Preferred yes, Business Gold yes, Costco yes, FIA/Fidelity no, Citibank no, prepaid versions no).

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By Jonathan Ping | Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 5/15 | 11 Comments »

(Update: Doh! The original version of this post contained a basic mathematical error. I have corrected the rankings.)

When I wrote about What are the Cheapest Vegetables Per Pound?, reader Brady kindly pointed out the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) as a measure of relative nutritional value. Which got me to thinking, which vegetable or fruits provide the most nutrients per dollar? I decided to start with fruits first.

The ranking calculation is detailed below, but here are the top 15 fruits ranked by nutritional units per dollar:

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By Jonathan Ping | Frugal Living | 5/14 | 12 Comments »

People tend to assume that getting a college education is a good financial investment. But a new Brookings report Should Everyone go to College? [pdf] finds that the actual value of a 4-year bachelor’s degree can vary dramatically depending on factors such as field of study, type of college, graduation rate, and future occupation. As usual, I’m just plucking out the charts that I like from the study. As you read all this, remember that correlation does not mean causation.

The more selective the school, the higher the return on investment (ROI) as calculated by Payscale. Here the annualized ROI seems to average around 10%, while other studies have found it closer to 16%. Public schools tend have a higher ROI than private schools (remember that ROI isn’t in absolute dollars). The bad schools are pretty bad, as Payscale found that 1 in 5 have a negative ROI over 30 years.

The lifetime earnings of a graduate also varies widely with the type of major and subsequent occupation:

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By Jonathan Ping | College & Education | 5/14 | 19 Comments »

Much of the discussion around The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) aka Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare has been about politics. But it’s the law, it’s constitutional, and a lot of things are happening soon. For most full-time workers that wish to keep their employer-provided health insurance, little will change. However, things will be very different for the self-employed, unemployed, uninsured, and those seeking semi-retirement or retirement before age 65 and Medicare. You can use it even if you already have employer-provided insurance, although you may become ineligible for certain tax credits. There’s way too much information to cover everything, but here’s my summary of the developments.

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By Jonathan Ping | Insurance | 5/13 | 26 Comments »

Graduation season is here again, making it the perfect time for The Glossary to create a short film out of a great commencement speech by the late writer David Foster Wallace. It has great application to life, and thus great application to those seeking financial freedom.

Consciousness. Conscious living. Conscious spending. All things that sound simple but are so hard to actually do on a daily basis.

The speech is abridged above, I enjoyed reading the full version.

By Jonathan Ping | Inspirational | 5/10 | 5 Comments »

Review updated to add gift card discount information (5% to 10% off) and Jot business expense feature (snap and tag pics of business receipts).

The Ink Bold® Business Card is a premium small business being offered by Chase, directly competing with the biz cards from American Express. If you have a small business including freelance or online eBay/Etsy sales, using a business card allows you to separate your personal and business expenses as well as get some nice rewards in the process. Just to get you to try it out, Chase is offering 500 bucks in the form of 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open.

50,000 Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed for $500 cash (real money, via statement credit or check) or 25% extra = $625 when used towards airfare, split up however you like into multiple tickets. If your total is more than $625, you simply pay the difference. I’ve used this feature and it’s very easy and flexible to book airfare using their points (system and prices are like Expedia, Travelocity, etc). Here’s an example of combining cash and points:

If you prefer, you can also transfer points to British Airways Avios miles, United Airlines miles, Hyatt hotel points, and Marriott hotel points. 1 Chase point = 1 mile/hotel point for these transfers, so that’s 50,000 miles.

Until 6/30/13, Chase is offering a special 10% discount on gift cards from the following retailers: Kohl’s, Land’s End, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, and Regal Movie Theatres. This means that 9,000 points = $100 gift card, a savings of 1,000 points off the usual prices. This means you can get over $550 in gift cards using 50,000 points.

You’ll also earn up to 5 points per $1 spent on the first $50,000 spent annually on eligible business purchases:

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By Jonathan Ping | Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 5/7 | 36 Comments »

(See also: Vanguard Total Stock Index Fund Review)

The Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund is available both as a mutual fund (VGTSX, VTIAX) and an ETF (VXUS). Across all shares classes, there is currently around $90 billion dollars invested in this fund, making it one of the top 10 largest funds in the world. As the name suggests, this fund attempts to include all the investable companies from every single country in the world outside the US. From Indonesia to Morocco, from Luxembourg to Hong Kong. It also includes small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies, unlike many other “total international” index funds. Such a wide coverage area makes this fund very fascinating. Let’s take a look inside.

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By Jonathan Ping | Investing, Reviews | 5/6 | 10 Comments »

Last week I successfully completed the Live Below the Line challenge along with thousands of other people around the country, eating for 5 days on just $1.50 a day. Here are my takeaways from the week:

My challenge experience. In terms of doing the challenge itself, it wasn’t all that difficult. I planned my menu carefully to make sure I got at least 2,000 calories so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by hunger. My food was bland, but relatively nutritious. I usually drink mostly tap water anyway. To satisfy the somewhat arbitrary rule of only buying entire containers, I bought most of my ingredients from bulk bins and markets by the pound. If I was allowed to buy in bulk, I would have been able to eat even better.

I did feel a low-level hunger, which grew gradually as the week went on. I think this meant I was running a small caloric deficit as I kept up my usual light exercise routine. I lost roughly a pound. By the 5th day, the repetition of eating the same thing over and over was starting to grind on me. In other words: 5 days was fine, but 50 days would have been incredibly difficult.

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By Jonathan Ping | Frugal Living, Giving Back | 5/6 | 6 Comments »