Category: Money Management

Thank you for your patience with me, readers of this blog. In part because of my new job, in part because of my 40th birthday, in part because of my family from Chile visiting, I have taken a sabbatical of sorts this summer, and have not been posting as often. I hope to get back to a more regular writing schedule soon. I appreciate you reading!

Just about one year ago, on August 6th, 2018, we brought Lucy the dog home from the Amish farm.

Lucy is our labradoodle who we bought from an Amish breeder at a farm just an hour away from our house in Davidson, North Carolina.

I resisted getting a dog for years, and with good reason: a dog is a ton of work. Taking care of Lucy has felt like taking care of another child, in a lot of ways. We had to potty train her (housebreak her), sleep train her (crate train her), set up playdates (dog park outings), and find babysitters when we go out of town (pet sitters).

There has been no small amount of expense related to my furry white daughter, as Mr. ThreeYear calls her (as opposed to my hairless Latino sons, I suppose?).

And although I am very firm in my decision that she is the last family pet that we shall have (stating it on the internet makes it official), she has brought a lot of joy to our lives.

In this post, I’m going to outline allll the costs involved in taking care of Lucy for the last year. I will include all the direct costs, like vet visits, food, and toys. I won’t include all the indirect costs, like the cost of replacing my favorite pen that she chewed up, or replacing my sister-in-law’s slippers, etc. We’ll just call those bonus expenses.

Six months into the year already! Time for another money challenge, the monthly challenges I give myself or my household to improve our spending habits or make us better stewards of the planet’s resources.

Last month, I read that the third top way to mitigate global warming is to reduce food waste.

And the fourth top way is eating a plant rich diet.

So during the month of May, I paid attention to how much food we wasted, and worked to decrease what we threw away.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I’m guilty of asking this question to my kids. But the truth is, it’s hard to figure out what you want to be as a kid. As an eighteen-year-old entering college, it’s still pretty difficult. We share words of wisdom with freshmen in college like “follow your passion” but that is terrible advice, according to Cal Newport, author of How to Be a High School Superstar.

First of all, how many of us have passions? If we do, it’s obvious what we’ll major in. If we don’t, how are we supposed to develop said passions?

When we send our kids to college, we’re often making a huge financial investment in their futures, or asking them to take on massive amounts of debt. Yet we do so with very little forethought or planning into what, specifically, they’ll get out of the process.

Sure, we know that four years at a liberal arts university will teach the next generation higher thinking skills, give them writing skills, and generally expose them to thinking that will help them in the workplace (and maybe help them learn to hold their own at parties), but do we give enough thought and planning to how they’ll produce a return, in the form of a salary, on the investment of college?

The Chilean model

When I lived in Chile, where I moved shortly after I finished my own university education, I was surprised by how pragmatic Chileans were about their educations.

As many long-time readers of this blog know, I am a spender. I am not particularly frugal, or even somewhat frugal.

That’s hard to admit when you’re a personal finance blogger. So why am I a personal finance blogger? How have I managed to accumulate any assets as a spendthrift?

I believe that part of this blog’s purpose is to encourage people who aren’t particularly frugal that they, too, can create financial freedom in their lives.

I’m going to be honest: you will not create massive assets or be able to retire early without some sacrifice. You just cannot spend everything you have and save nothing and become financially independent. Not gonna happen.

HOWEVER, it is very possible to train yourself to stop going in to debt for the things you want to buy and trick yourself into saving. I know because I’ve done it. It’s not instantaneous and it takes persistence to develop some of the habits you’ll need, but it is very possible. Trust me because I’ve been there. Maybe it’ll take you a little longer to get to FI. But you can get there.

It’s Your Life and Your Spending, Yo

Here’s the thing: as cool as frugality is, and as useful as it is to rein in your spending and save more, it’s not for everybody. It’s YOUR life, and if you want to spend it regularly eating out and buying lattes at Starbucks, you can!

This philosophy is called values-based spending, and it’s the one I personally employ. Basically, you figure out what your values are, and you spend on them. Then, you save in areas that don’t mean as much to you.