Beating Broke was accepted to five carnivals last week:

Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #220 at Credit Cards Canada

The Wealth Builder Carnival #63 at My Wealth Builder

Yakezie Carnival at Little House in the Valley

Festival of Frugality #320 at Squirrelers

and

Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #17 at Young Adult Finances

Many thanks to the hosts for including my posts.

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of the best ways to break out of the daily grind, and do something that you really enjoy, is to start a business.  You’ll likely work twice as hard, but because it’s something that you love, you’ll enjoy every minute of it.  When my wife quit her job, she could have used a lot of the advice that is contained in the guide I’m about to share with you.  There were lots of questions about the structure and methods that are necessary to starting a small business.  Luckily, if you’re starting a new business, you can read the guide and cut through some of the learning process.

The guide I’m talking about is one that has been put together by my friend, Eric, from Narrow Bridge Finance.  It’s free.  All you have to do is have an email and sign up for his newsletter.  He’s a stand-up guy, so your email is safe with him, and all you’ll get is some really great information about starting a business and personal finance.

So, go over and sign up for the newsletter and get your copy of the Starting a Small Business guide.

The guide is 16 pages long, and covers everything from developing your idea into a business to increasing revenue and income, to the proper ways to exit a company you’ve started if that’s what you want to do.  It’s not all-inclusive (that would take a couple hundred pages), but it is a great start on your way to starting a small business.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Show of hands.  How many of you actively participate in recycling endeavors in your community?  You schlep around your empty cans, jugs, and bottles.  You pile them up with your used papers, then sort them all into bins so some poor schmoe down at the recycling center doesn’t have to.  All so your city can save a few dimes on an already expensive endeavor.

Let’s think about this honestly for a minute.  Because, I think we’ve got our terms confused.  What, exactly, is recycling?  It’s the taking of something that’s already been used, and putting it back through the manufacturing cycle so that the material can be used again.  That extra cycle is where the term recycling comes from!  But, what is the cost of that extra cycle.  Let’s break it down a bit.  We’ll ignore the first cycle, since it’s going to get used for the first cycle regardless.

Let’s consider a plastic bottle.  It’s been created, and used.  It’s empty, so has no further use in it’s first cycle.  You collect it with similar bottles, then submit it to the local recycling center.  We’ll discount the energy that you use in collecting the bottle, as it really isn’t that much more work than you would use in throwing the bottle away.  But, what about the energy that will be used in picking up or dropping off the bottle.  You’ve got to either have someone pick up the bottle, or you have to drop it off at the recycling center.  Once the bottle has been taken to the recycling center, it then has to be shipped to a factory where it can be broken down in a way that makes it recyclable.  More energy wasted in transportation.  Once it’s there, at the factory, it then has to be broken down.  Depending on the process, that could involve melting the plastic under heat.  It could mean squishing, cutting, and making the plastic into threads.  Even more energy wasted.  Once it’s been broken down, the resulting product must be taken to yet another factory that can then turn it into the “recycled” product.

By the time it’s recycled, it’s been through a manufacturing process three times.  Does the extra cost in energy, pollutants, and work make it worth our while?  I’m not sure that it does.  Want to take a deeper look at some of this?  Take a look at this video.  Now, arguably, the show is called “Bullshit”, and anyone who uses that as the name of their show (or as a title for an article) is out to be a bit sensationalist.  And, certainly, I don’t know that Penn and Teller count as experts.  But, I do think they make some interesting points.  There’s three parts to it, so it’s a bit long, but worth watching, I think. When you’re done, we’ll continue on below. P.S. as you can imagine, a show whose title is “Bullshit” has some NSFW language in it.

I admit, I like sensationalism. And, I’ll make another admission. I’m not entirely against recycling. But, I tend to think that the first two parts of the motto “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” are far more useful and important than the recycling. By reducing the amount of energy and products that we use, less needs to be made. By reusing the things that we can, we reduce the amount of products that will need to be recycled or thrown into a landfill.  Instead of expecting someone else to ease my conscious, and take away my trash to be converted into something usable, I’d rather reduce the amount of trash I make.  Less paper plates.  Less non-reusable water bottles.  Less stuff.

The one thing that I collect to send off to recycling is soda cans.  Mostly, because I can drop them off at the local Humane Society where they take them to a scrap metal yard and sell them for cash.  It’s an extra way to give to one of my favorite charities.  Here’s some more sensationalism for you.  The Humane Society is, essentially, a pet recycling center.  People take their unwanted and used pets there, so that they can be washed, fed, given their shots, and sent back out to a new family.

I’ve gone on about recycling long enough.  Now, it’s your turn.  Scroll down a few inches on the screen and leave a comment.  Do you agree that recycling might be bullshit?  Do you recycle religiously?  What steps do you take to reduce, reuse, and recycle?  Heck, you can let me have it in the comments too, if you like.  One small caveat in doing so, is that any excessive NSFW language will likely get edited out.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Consideration provided by Compare the Market One of the reasons that I dislike payday loans so very much is because of the terribly high interest rates that the payday loan companies get away with charging.  Couple that with the high fees, and it doesn’t take a genius to see why most people who know anything [...]

Beating Broke was included in five carnivals this week: Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Diva in Debt Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by My Wealth Builder Yakezie Carnival hosted by Prairie Eco Thrifter Canadian Finance Carnival #71 hosted by Canadian Finance Blog and Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #16 hosted by My University Money Thanks to all hosts for including [...]

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been taking 10% of my income from my online ventures and splitting it between my Lending Club account and my Sharebuilder account.  It’s been a bit of an experiment.  Nothing scientific, but a test to see if I drop the same amount of money into each account, [...]

A big ‘ol DIY welcome to the listeners of “The Down and Dirty” with Frank Fontana. If you want to read a bit more about the deck project that we spoke about today on the show, you can see it here: DIY Disaster, Or, Our New Deck. Since you’re into DIY, you can take a [...]

As I mentioned before, I’ve been taking the normal 10% contribution amount that most would be putting into their retirement accounts and splitting it between my lending club account, and a sharebuilder account.  It’s been a bit of an experiment.  I happen to think that lending club is a relatively safe investment option for a [...]

One of the biggest surprises about the whole Suze Orman “Approved Prepaid” Scam/Fiasco, to me, is that Suze Orman is a person who has been a role model, financially, for many people. She has been dispensing her brand of advice for many years, has multiple best-selling books on the subject, and regularly appears on news [...]

Beating Broke was included in three carnivals last week: Yakezie Carnival hosted by Broke Professionals Carnival of Financial Planning – Edition #218 hosted by The Skilled Investor and Canadian Finance Carnival #70 hosted by The Canadian Finance Blog Thanks to all hosts for including my posts!