Beating Broke

Are You Rationalizing Your Way Into Debt?

May 16, 2012 By Shane Ede 18 Comments

Staying out of debt is difficult. Terribly difficult. It isn’t made any easier if you rationalize yourself into debt, either. Many of us spend a good deal of our time and energy trying to get out of debt, and stay out of debt. We do that through so many devices, and each have our own system that helps us along the way. Budgeting is obviously a big tool that many of us use to make sure that we have enough money to pay the bills, and ourselves at the end of the month. We figure out how many months it will take to pay off this debt, or that debt, and then budget out that amount over that many months.

Many years ago, I spent a few years working as a salesperson at a retail store where bigger ticket items were popular. Computers, televisions, and cell phones were big sellers, and good for commissions. As part of our training for our jobs, we were trained on the many ways to sell a customer on the item they were looking at, and even how to convince the customer that they needed the upgraded item. One of those sales tactics was to help them rationalize the purchase. And, chief among the ways to do that was to take the price of the item, break it up over a set amount of months (24, 36, 48, 60) and tell them how much they’d be spending “a month” for the item. Suddenly, that $2000 computer (it was that long ago) becomes a $25 a month purchase. Psychologically, people are more likely to purchase something if it’s under $100. Even if that “under $100” is in the form of a monthly payment for several years.

Salespeople are the only ones we have to watch out for when it comes to this tactic in particular. Pay special attention the next time you’re looking at purchasing something. See how many times over the next month, you attempt to rationalize a purchase based on what it will cost per month on credit over what the total price will be. I think you’ll be surprised just how often you use that same sales tactic on yourself.

Don’t rationalize your way into debt. Fight back, and stick to your guns. That purchase has a total price. And if you’re buying it on credit, that price will be far larger than if you had purchased it with cash. More importantly, don’t saddle yourself with more debt just because the “monthly” price is more palatable.

The Work Revolution

May 7, 2012 By Shane Ede 6 Comments

The Work Revolution

By: Dr. Julie Clow

There are so many gurus and life coaches out there that are telling everyone that they can that the only way to truly be happy with work, is to leave work, and get on an entrepreneurial journey. There’s books, seminars, and more than enough websites that are dedicated to helping you find a way to escape the daily grind that is your work. Dr. Clow thinks there’s a better way to go about it. In The Work Revolution, Dr. Clow lays down the argument that it isn’t that you need to find an escape from work, but that work as we know it is in need of a revolution.

The 9-5 workday has it’s roots deep in the factories and assembly lines of the industrial revolution. Dr. Clow posits that we are deep into the throws of a new revolution. An information revolution. No longer are we constrained by the physical localities that we work, and often find ourselves working with others within our company that are in entirely different timezones, and even different continents, than we are. Work needs to change, she says, and we have to help it.

Of course, the book isn’t all about just the hours we work. And, it’s not just about what we as the employees and workers can do to change work. Each of the sections has a dedicated section for employers and leaders on how they too can help change the way we work, and make our companies better.

If you aren’t ready to make the jump to self-employment and entrepreneurship, or just don’t want to, but aren’t satisfied with the work environment that you are in, take the time to read this book. It’s full of lots of information and new ideas on how work can be given a push in the right direction towards change.

On a more personal note, it’s interesting to me that I ended up with this book for review at almost the exact same time that I was making a decision on returning to the workforce. Many of the points that Dr. Clow makes on how work is broken, and how companies are dysfunctional stuck out to me as things that I had become unhappy with in my old job. At the same time, I saw many of the things that she suggests as ways to make a move towards a work revolution that were already happening at what would become my new job. Just that fact alone has made me much more comfortable with making the decision to take the job. Proof positive that The Work Revolution is a good book to read even if you’re currently looking for a job!

I Quit My Job: Back to Work

May 3, 2012 By Shane Ede 27 Comments

This is a bit of a hard post to write. If you’ve been following the I Quit My Job series, you’ll know that I quit my full-time job back in November 2011 and have been working a part-time job and running my websites ever since. With any journey that entails so much change, things are always changing. Several weeks ago, I made the decision that it was about time to start looking for a new full time job.

Why, you ask? Do you want the simple answer, or the complicated one? The simplest answer is that I’m running out of money, and need to earn more. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but that reason is the largest of the bunch. In truth, it’s less of a reason as it is a symptom for a few other reasons. One of the biggest of those reasons is a lack of preparedness. When I quit my job, it wasn’t after months of planning and saving. It was a decision that I came to after a week and was based far more on an unhappiness with the position I was in. I don’t regret having made that decision, and I truly feel like I’m in a better situation now than I was there. The fit of the position and I had fallen out of sync, and it was time for me to go. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the soundest decision financially.

When I quit, I decided to give the new situation of blogging and a part-time job 6 months to see where it went. While the part-time job remained fairly stable, the blogging income has been anything but. My income on that front has fluctuated by several hundred dollars from month to month, and hasn’t grown at the rate that I had hoped it would. Because of that, and the fact that I was operating on limited funds to cover any differences between my income and what we needed to pay bills, I’ve got to make the right move here and get a job.

In a way, I feel like I’ve failed. But, sometimes, you have to fail in order to move ahead. I’ve failed in that I wasn’t able to grow the income from this and other sites at a rate that would allow me to continue doing what I’ve been doing for the last 7 months. I’ve failed in that I wasn’t able to see that lack of growth in time to find better (other) ways to increase my income.

I’ll be in a better place. The new job is at a company that I feel is much more in-line with what I want in an employer. They’ve got a very progressive business model that I feel is very unique in North Dakota, and was key in my making the decision to accept their offer. While looks can be deceiving sometimes, I don’t think that they’re that far off. Many of the issues that I had with my previous employer don’t exist at my new employer from what I can tell. Time will tell, but I truly believe that I’ll like and enjoy my new job.

I’ve struggled a bit over the last few weeks, after I accepted the position, as to what it meant for the direction of this site as well as my other sites. What I’ve decided is that Beating Broke isn’t going anywhere. I really, really enjoy the interactions with you, and the writing that I do here. I may have to scale a few of my other sites back a lot, and will likely get rid of a few of them as well. I may even scale back how often I write here, but at the moment, I plan on continuing the 3 a week schedule that I’ve been keeping.

That decision is two-fold. I enjoy Beating Broke as a creative outlet. I also am not giving up on my dream to do this on a more full-time basis. I want to continue to grow the site as best I can so that I might, someday, be able to come back to what I’ve been doing the last 7 months. But, hopefully, next time, I’ll do it right and do a lot more planning and saving in order to do that.

What would you have done in my position? What other thoughts do you have? How about questions?