Theory of Economic Relativity: The Cost of Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Over the last few weeks, our hot water heater has started acting up.  Some mornings we get water so hot you could cook an egg in the shower on the cool setting.  Other mornings, it's on the lukewarm side at best.

So this week we'll have someone out to look at it.  Could be just a sensor, could be the whole thing is on it's last legs.

I like to be proactive about these things, and not wait until it dies, which will inevitably be on a morning when I'm midway through the shower, with shampoo suds running down my back, and I'm going to be late to a meeting. They say that Alfred Hitchcock turned the water to freezing cold without warning Janet Leigh during the shower scene of Psycho in order to get the appropriate reaction from her, although Leigh denied it.  Still, I've no doubt it would be effective.  There's nothing like an icy blast of water to elicit a shriek.

Water heaters are pricey, but in the realm of home repair, not that big of a deal. Traditional heaters run about $600 plus installation.  Tankless heaters are more expensive, running about $1000 + installation, but much more energy efficient.  If you can afford it, tankless is the way to roll.

But then there is the commitment we made to 'go solar' the minute it became feasible.  A grid-tied solar heating system is really costly, and low on the priority list right now, as it falls behind other big projects that are a tad more urgent, like insulating and residing the house.  But solar hot water is another story.

Solar hot water systems are more expensive than traditional systems.  We haven't yet gotten a quote on one, but let's give a safe estimate of maybe $3000-$3500 to install.  Which is a bunch more than $1000 for a tankless heater.  Still, a recent post on my sister's blog put this into perspective - and I'll quote her quoting her friend:

My friend Pat Meadows, a very, very smart woman, has a wonderful idea she calls “The Theory of Anyway.” What it entails is this – she argues that 95% of what is needed to resolve the coming crises in energy depletion, or climate change, or most other global crises are the same sort of efforts. When in doubt about how to change, we should change our lives to reflect what we should be doing “Anyway.” Living more simply, more frugally, using less, leaving reserves for others, reconnecting with our food and our community, these are things we should be doing because they are the right thing to do on many levels. That they also have the potential to save our lives is merely a side benefit (a big one, though).

So in other words, if solar is the moral choice in our opinion - and it is - we have an obligation to look at implementing it.


Still, the difference (for argument's sake, let's go with a $3200 estimate) in cost is big.  If a tankless heater is $1000 + installation - let's call it $1500, and a solar system is $3200 + installation - let's call it $4k, then that's a $2500 difference in cost. 


Let's say we take advantage of the 30% tax credit that we'd get early next year when we file our taxes.  That brings the cost down to $2700.  Then lets say it saves us $30 on our electric bill for the next 10 years.  That means that at the end of 2020, we've come up with a net profit of $900. 


It's a long haul investment, to be sure.  And it's a bunch of dough out of the gate.  But it has the result of being both the 'anyway' choice and being an economic benefit over many years.  It is one of those places where our morals and our pocketbook get to come together, which is what I call 'economic relativity'. 


What will we do?  Not sure yet.  But I like the fit.

Radical Thinking in the Garden

If you have an extra 5 minutes today, go read this invitation to the Tea Party by Dar Williams. 
It's just brilliant, spot on, absolutely on target.  

If you are still here, here's a little bit to whet your appetite:

"As you might have guessed, I don't want to scrap what you might call big government. I distrust big business more than big government. But often enough the two entities have been bedfellows with silk sheets and matching toothbrushes, so I'm willing to meet you halfway. I'll meet you in a community garden. Community gardens close the loop, decentralize power, and let people help people, addressing issues that differ from region to region. They improve our physical health and increase self-reliance. With greater strength of the community mind and body, we're better able to deflect the buzz and hype of anyone that does not have our best interests at heart. We The People can do that."


Radical thinking at it's best. 

Oh, and if you thought my idea that keeping kids warm, well-fed and safe was a means to a brighter future was idealistic or simplistic, go read this.  Even the Washington Post agrees with me. 

Holidays are the Gateway to Seed Season

Back in the day when my husband and I were in the midst of planning our wedding, which, being a somewhat DIY affair, was a time-intensive undertaking, my older sister gave me some particularly sage advice. 

"The wedding", she said with a wise nod, having done the deed herself a few years back, "is the gateway to the honeymoon". 

And whenever wedding planning got overly time consuming, as fun as it was, we reminded ourselves that it was the ticket to the 11 days we were spending up in the Canadian Rockies hiking and having daily cocktail hours. 

I feel similarly as the holidays approach.  I love the winter holidays.  There's eating, there's parties, there's cutting down a Christmas tree, there's eggnog, and mulled cider, and cookies. Every gathering seems to involve mashed potatoes, and heck, you could invite me to a closet cleaning if you served me mashed potatoes.  Especially if they have cheese in them.

But I digress.

Still, the holidays can be a lot of work.  There's the shopping and wrapping and baking.  Our December weekends seem to book up by mid-June.   And so as the relative chaos grows, and my living room becomes buried under a pile of pine needles and ribbon scraps, I start to look forward to January.  A lot.

Because January is when the seed catalogs arrive.  And so while everyone else is complaining about the dark and the cold (I whine about it too, just with a 2-week lag while I drool over descriptions of pumpkins and tomatoes), I'm curled up on the couch making lists of things to plant, and with drafting paper, planning where the seeds will go.

I always buy too many.  I'm always far more ambitious with the seeds I start than the space I have.  But I love seed season - because it reminds me, in the dark and cold of winter, that soon the snowdrops will peek up over the crusts of snow in the yard, and the ice will, eventually, 4 months later, melt.  

Usually I'm in no rush though.   I'm content to tuck the yard and garden in every year and take the breather that is January-March.  No leaves to rake, no weeding to do, few social demands - it's respite from the endless business of planting, growing and harvesting, the start of every year.  Lots of soup and bread dinners in front of the woodstove.

But I still plot and plan about growing season again.   We all have to choose what we work for.  Some people build things in clay or brick.  I like to build in dirt.   

When the sun rises, I go to work.

When the sun goes down I take my rest,

I dig the well from which I drink,

I farm the soil which yields my food,

I share creation, Kings can do no more.

- Chinese Proverb, 2500 B.C.

Hobby Shopping

This past Saturday, my husband and I took a wine making class at Old Sturbridge Village.  We've been wanting to make wine for a long time, and so when news about the class popped up this summer, just as my parents were asking me what I wanted for my birthday, we jumped on it.

On the surface, wine making is pretty simple.  You can pretty much turn anything into wine - fruit, vegetables, stinky athletic socks, whatever.  All you need is water, sugar, fruit (I'm skipping the sweat socks myself, your mileage may vary) and yeast.  A food-grade plastic bucket to ferment it in, a few sterilized glass bottles to rack it in, and food-grade tubing to siphon it with. Listerine makes for a great sterilizing agent for your corks and tubing and that sort of thing.  Rubber gaskets and corks may be the most expensive part of the deal, and those can be reused, albeit carefully.  The bucket can be gotten for the asking from a local restaurant.  Glass bottles can be picked up at a recycling center.  If you plan to strain your ingredients, bleach an old pillow case. 

 Wine making can be dead cheap.  Well, okay, unless you want to make really good wine, then it can get more complicated, and potentially more expensive.  But you can make some pretty good stuff with a minimum of cost and effort.  After all, people have been making wine for thousands of years before you could have frozen grapes shipped from Napa or before a hydrometer was even invented. 

Which brings me to my philosophy around hobbies.  The modern approach to hobbying seems to be an expensive one.  Take biking, or skiing.  Buy expensive, brand-new bike or skis.  Buy matching gear and single-purpose footwear (bike shoes that clip in, say, or $300 ski boots).  Then go out and play, after an investment of considerable money.  By then, of course, playing is serious business.  After all, look at what you have spent!

My personal opinion is that approach is backwards.  First decide if you like to do something, having made the most minimal investment possible, then put your money into it.  Let's take that biking example again.  Borrow, buy on CraigsList, or find on sale an inexpensive bike.  Buy a helmet, since spending $30 is worth not spending your remaining days as a drooling vegetable.  Put on some old sneakers and go for a ride.  Enjoy.

Love it?  Fine, invest.  Padded bike shorts definitely make long rides more pleasant.  Better, lighter bikes are much faster and easier to lug around, and you'll offset the cost by reselling your old bike anyway.  Hate it?  Resell your cheap stuff and make your money back. 

You may not look as fancy, but that isn't the point of a hobby.  The point is to take up something you enjoy.  I can't tell you how many good sets of golf clubs I see at yard sales for a fraction of the cost, after spending a few years gathering dust in the owner's basement. 

Try it first.  Decide if you like it.  Then spend your money.  Chances are you'll make better decisions about what to buy anyway. 

Not Exactly E.M. Forster

Do you ever read something someone has written and think "That was perfect.  I might as well just hang up my keyboard right now."


That's how I feel about this blog: The Occasional CEO


I have nothing but admiration for good writing - something I hope someday someone will say about my writing (I'm not there yet and not fishing for compliments.  Really).  Really good writing?  Rare, even in the world of 100 million blogs.  


Eric's blog is simultaneously informative, witty, interesting, and smart.  Go read it.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200.00, skip a day of work if you have to.  Fortunately, reading The Marshmallow Test might only make you 5 minutes late to a meeting.  You might even leave the meeting with a promotion.


Why are you still here, anyway? 


And by the way, if you haven't read A Passage To India, by the man this blog post is named after, get thee to a library.  There are a lot of books out there.   Few are perfect.   This one is.

Are You Allowed To Enjoy Unemployment?

So, my husband is unemployed.   If you've been following along for the last few months, you know this.  

Next month he begins to fall into the category of Long Term Unemployed which has a whole host of negative connotations especially if you listen to certain individuals, who apparently think that those who can't find a job have a host of personal failings the rest of us are immune to, and perhaps should just float away on an ice floe, so as not to continue to bother the rest of us hardworking, morally superior Americans who are employed.

Huh.  I've never quite understood that particular line of thought, and I'm grateful that the people around me don't either.

Unemployment brings out a lot of different emotions during the course of it, especially the type of  unemployment that the current economy has brought about.  It's scary, it's overwhelming, it's filled with uncertainty, it can make people question their own self worth.

But it can also be a lot of fun.

I can hear the lynch mob screaming, even as I type.  "Unemployment should not be fun!  Unemployment is serious business.  These people are taking money from other hardworking Americans!   Unemployment is probably enjoyed only by those people who want a permanent government handout, and prefer to sit on their lazy asses all day!"

Let's ignore those moralizing basilisks for a moment though, while I make another, more important point.

More Important Point:  I do not mean to make light of unemployment.  At all.  It IS scary.  And it makes people who want nothing more than to go to work lose their homes, their savings, and creates food insecurity, which, in a country as bountiful and full of plenty as ours is - well, the fact that people around us can't be sure if they can feed themselves is shameful.  

But I'm a firm believer that you only get one life.   And that life is meant to be enjoyed as much as possible.  Even when money is tight and you don't know what is going to come next.

Money is important.   But when you get right down to it, money is not the value of a human being.

14.9 million people are unemployed. More are coming to join their ranks this December.  And walking around in a state of puritanical misery is neither good for the economy, their individual  job prospects, or their mental and physical health.  Adopting an unemployment hair shirt also teaches the children of said unemployed that money = happiness.

Let me repeat that, because I think it may be the most important thing I have ever written: It teaches their children that money = happiness and lack thereof should = unhappiness.  


Now really, is that the lesson we want the next generation to come away with? 

One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me is how to have fun on very little.  It's not a gift in the sense that being able to have fun without money is somehow morally superior to having fun with money.  Not at all.  In many ways, it's much easier to have fun with money.  And often I crave the type of fun that money brings.  As we all do.   Nothing wrong with that.

But.

To teach your kids - or yourself - to have fun, and to see adventure even when circumstances are less than ideal gives not only a sense of safety in an uncertain world, but it grants a level of resilience as well.  In other words, having fun is healthy.  Normal.  And really really important.  Let's quantify this - who would you rather hire, the person who is optimistic and hopeful, or the person who walks around pissing and moaning?

Yeah, I thought so.   


So here's the thing: Enjoying unemployment may be the best way to stop being unemployed. Heck, enjoying your life is probably the best way to have a good one under any circumstances.


That doesn't mean you stop looking for a job, or spend lots of money on unnecessary things, but it does mean that perhaps if you are unemployed, you consider doing some of the things you have never had time for - stuff around the house, volunteering, learning a new skill, that sort of thing.  


Life is uncertain by it's nature.  So have a little fun, will ya?


Here are some ways you might go about it.

The Best Of MoneyPenny

After almost 4 years of blogging erratically, I've written um, a decent number of posts.  Some were good.  Some were bad.  Some were even really really good.

Here's the best of the best, for your reading pleasure:

1. 7 Beliefs That Prevent Wealth
If you aren't accumulating assets, some of your beliefs might be in the way.

2. Poverty Of The Soul
I worry about a society that thinks the amount of money you have equals the quality of you as a person. 

3. About Those HENRYS
High Income, Not Rich Yet people are often confused with the weathy.  Here's my take on HENRYs

4. Peak Oil and Us (You, Me, Everyone) Part 1: What Is It, and Why Do I Care?
What is peak oil?  Why should I care? 

5. How To Prepare For The Apocalypse Part 1
What you need to know, just in case. 

6. To Be or Not To Be Mathematically Optimal
Money is not just about numbers.

7. How To Avoid a Descent Into Madness
What to do when life spins out of control.

8. 12 Goats, 2 Chickens, and a Camel
Negotiation is an art.

9. Plan For The Worst, Hope For The Best
It can keep you out of hot water.