Today I have the pleasure of intro­ducing my friend Mike. He’s a deep thinker and a local sports writer (with regular posts on Yahoo! Sports and Nolan Writin). I always enjoy hearing his thoughts, and the topic of this one will certainly get you thinking! This is the second in a two-part series click here to check out part one.

This is why I don’t eat with Emile…

But that’s not all, my friends!

There’s more to this than the plus and the minus. In thinking about it for at least a couple of weeks now, I’ve come up with several more ways in which your diet and your budget mirror each other.

It Pays to Plan Accordingly

If you sit down in your kitchen at the end of the month, calculate what you’ll make in the next 30 days, and decide how you’re going to spend your money, what are you doing?

If you sit down in your kitchen at the end of the week, write down what you want to eat in the next 7 days, and then go to the store to buy the stuff from your list, what are you doing?

See my point?

Theo­ret­i­cally, if you do your homework and plan ahead, you should be able to control where and how your money is spent. In the same way, you can also plan out your diet beforehand.

There’s no reason that a smart, capable adult can’t avoid excessive amounts of sweets and junk food, espe­cially if you make your decisions before you even set foot in the grocery store.

You’re a Part of the Equation

How often does someone budget because someone else told them to? Almost never.

If you do sit down and do the work, it’s because you’ve decided that the way you were living your life no longer makes sense. Your prior­i­ties have changed and you’ve made the conscious choice to do things differently.

This applies to both your finances and your health. No one can nag you into improving yourself. It’s up to you to make that decision.

Do it for yourself and don’t blame anyone else if you fail. If you really want to change, you will.

Don’t Stop, Even When You’re Done

What do you do when you’ve finally paid off your credit card? Do you go apply for a new credit card and buy a bunch of stuff with it? Maybe you do, if you’re an idiot.

Unfor­tu­nately, this is what a lot of people do when they “go on a diet.” They eat right and exercise for a week or a month or 6 months; then they go back to doing exactly what got them into trouble in the first place.

Before long they’re right back where they started, but why does this happen?

Part of it, I think, is the way that our culture looks at dieting. If summer’s on its way and you want to look good in your swimsuit, then cutting out carbs for a few weeks is fine.

But a lot of people don’t need a sprint; they need a marathon.

For many people, it isn’t about quick fixes and “losing a few pounds.” It’s about deciding what your prior­i­ties are and then adopting a lifestyle that matches those priorities.

Crash diets generally don’t work long-term because they’re not supposed to work long-term. They don’t teach you how to eat better; they teach you how to cut corners without giving you the tools to live a better life.

If you really want to change, that change should be funda­mental, not temporary.

This Isn’t About John McClane

When you were born, were you already bad with money? Were you already a glut­to­nous slob?

Hopefully you answered “no” to both of the questions above because the way that you eat and the way that you spend your money are both learned practices. You might have gotten it from your parents or from the culture; maybe you developed some of it on your own.

Regard­less of where you learned it, you did learn it. If that’s the case, you can unlearn it too.

Habits aren’t impos­sible to break, but it takes time and effort and it won’t always be easy. Some of your habits may go back decades and you know what they say about old habits.

They die hard.

(See what I did there?)

Beware the Impulse Buy

Maybe this has happened to you before…

You go to Best Buy to get something that you need. Maybe your head­phones broke and you need a new pair of head­phones. You’re there with a purpose and you’ll be in and out in less than 5 minutes.

But then you see this sign over by the DVD section and it says that select movies are Buy 2, Get 1 Half Off. “Holy cow, what a steal!” you exclaim to yourself.

Before you know it, you’ve walked out of the store with 3 movies that you’d never intended to buy and, maybe, you were so excited about the unex­pected “bargain” that you even forgot about the head­phones that you came in for!

Maybe this has happened to you before…

You’re out eating with friends, having a good time. You’ve finished your meal and the waiter asks if any of you would like dessert.

You ponder for a moment because you did see the picture of the hot fudge sundae on the back of the menu and it looked really good and you’ve been really good on your diet for the last month and you’re an adult, so why shouldn’t you get a sundae if you want a sundae?!

Before you know it, you’re lying on the floor of your apartment in a sugar coma with hot fudge and shame smeared all over your face!

Generally you buy something impul­sively because you assume that it will make you happy. It isn’t planned, it just sort of happens, and it can completely derail both your diet and your budget.

It also rarely makes you happy because it doesn’t take long for you to realize that nobody really needs to own Monkey Bone on DVD, even if it seemed like a good idea when you bought it.

Even If You Get It, You Might Not Get It

Watching how you spend your money should be easy, shouldn’t it? Most people would agree that it makes sense to have an emergency fund and savings and to live within their means. In fact, what disad­van­tages are there to budgeting? Don’t the pros far outweigh the cons?

So it is with dieting and exercise. Nobody really wants to be unhealthy, but many of us don’t even bother trying to change ourselves, even if we know it’s for the best.

Why not? Is it worth trading a longer, more comfort­able life for the little bit of grat­i­fi­ca­tion that comes from an extra milkshake every couple of days?

Are you finally tired of rhetor­ical questions? Good, ‘cause I’m almost done.

One Final Thought

There’s more to the connec­tion between personal finance and health than what I listed above. The fact is that, if you’re 30 pounds over­weight, you’re costing yourself money down the road.

Being unhealthy takes its toll as you age. You might have knee problems later on in life, which could require surgery. You may also suffer from something more serious, like heart disease or stroke.

Some of those things may happen anyway, but some of it can be avoided. If you knowingly live an unhealthy lifestyle, you’re putting your life and your financial wellbeing at risk.

If you are going to put yourself at risk, don’t do it for an extra meat patty on your cheese­burger. Do it for something noble, like saving your ex-wife from German terrorists!

Are there other areas where finance and health inter­mingle? Are there other places in your life where the prin­ci­ples of budgeting can be applied? Let me know in the comments!

Today I have the pleasure of intro­ducing my friend Mike. He’s a deep thinker and a local sports writer (with regular posts on Yahoo! Sports and Nolan Writin). I always enjoy hearing his thoughts, and the topic of this one will certainly get you thinking! This is the first in a two-part series s0, come back Tuesday for part two!

Obesity is a serious problem in this country. Countless Americans are over­weight and many assume that they can’t do anything about it. They say that dieting doesn’t work for them, either because it’s too hard or they don’t have time or a hundred other reasons excuses.

But what if you started looking at it differ­ently? What if you applied the prin­ci­ples of personal finance to your eating habits? Would that change the way that you thought about dieting and losing weight?

The Numbers Game

Budgeting is simple, right?

You figure out how much money you make and then you spend less than that amount. There is more that goes into it, obviously, but that is the essence of budgeting. That is it at its core.

So, what exactly is dieting? It’s the same thing!

Everybody takes in calories when they eat, but they also burn calories. If you eat better food you can control caloric intake. If you exercise, you can increase burn.

To lose weight, all you have to do is burn more than you consume.

Math! That’s it!

My First Budget

I’ve heard Alex’s story of the first time that he tried to budget. If you’re a regular reader of Entre­pre­life, you’ve probably heard it too.

He sat down one night and guessti­mated all of his monthly expenses. He made a lot of assump­tions and, as it turned out, he was way off in some areas.

I decided to do the same thing a couple of weeks ago, but with my stomach instead of my bank account.

For 6 days I ate the way that I normally do and at the end of each day I added up the calories using myfitnesspal.com. I decided that 1600 calories per day was a good place to set my “budget.”

This is how it broke down:

• Monday +305
• Tuesday +104
• Wednesday +481
• Thursday –120
• Friday –73
• Saturday +392

All of these numbers are approx­i­ma­tions, mind you, but it was an inter­esting exper­i­ment nonetheless.

Just like Alex, when he reviewed his first budget, I started to see where I was going wrong. Things like pancakes (800 calories including the syrup) can dras­ti­cally affect your totals, though most of us wouldn’t think about it when we’re ordering a short stack at IHOP.

That’s really what this is about. If you stop and look at your finances, you’ll start to see that you’re not as good with your money as you thought you were.

Your diet is no different. Even if you’re pretty good, I’ll bet that you still have your trouble areas. I’ll bet that you can do better.

For instance, I drink too much sweet tea. It isn’t that I dislike unsweet tea. I actually really like it! I just like sweet tea better, even though I know it isn’t good for me.

Think about yourself for a moment. Are there parts of your diet that could be just a little bit better without much effort? Let me know in the comments!

I don’t read every personal finance book out there. In fact, I have only read a handful.

I don’t read every theology book ever written. But I have read several.

I don’t try every method I’ve ever seen. Sometimes, I purpose­fully ignore certain methods.

Why?

Because success doesn’t come from knowing every­thing, it comes from knowing what works.

It’s good to try and fail – failure breeds success; but after one or two failures it’s time to move on and try something else. This is how you succeed. This is how you win.

So don’t read every­thing that’s put in front of you – most if it is rubbish. Only read what works.

March has come and gone. Tomorrow, April will be upon us and tricks will appear. “April fools!” they’ll say.

10 Things to Do When You Win The Power Ball — these articles show up all the time, this one has some surpris­ingly good advice.

Spike Lee Acci­den­tally Tweeted The Address of an Elderly Couple — Even though the facts of the Trayvon case are unknown and there are a slew of conflicting stories, Spike Lee still thought it was a good idea to give out the shooters address. Too bad it was the wrong address…

The NSA is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center — Turns out, the NSA is trying to know every­thing about you. Once this thing is done, big brother really will be watching. So glad our govern­ment doesn’t have a Consti­tu­tion or anything to stop this nonsense…

I was planning on having a guest post for today, but that fell through a little bit (not on the fault of the poster, it was all me). So instead, he’s a bit of an update on what’s going on.

Grandma’s House is in that quiet stage where nothing is happening. At this point, we’re just waiting for the closing which will happen near the end of April. Until then, there are a few things the buyer has asked for, but nothing substan­tial. This seems to be going more smoothly than our previous sell and I can’t imagine anything coming up. If it does, I’ll let you know.

The blog hasn’t gotten a lot of attention from me lately. It’s because I’ve taken a step back from writing recently while I try to figure out what’s next. I thought two posts a week would be easy (honestly, they are), but with my attention other places it’s been more difficult than normal to come up with topics.

Besides that, not a lot has been going on. I’ve scrapped a few things that were “in devel­op­ment” because I don’t think the long-term payout is going to be worth it. In addition, I’ve started seeing a career coach who is helping me figure out what I should do next with my life. He’s been asking some hard questions and giving me homework to do. It’s a lot harder than I imagined. I sorta thought I’d sit down with him, tell him my story, and in an hour he’d give me advice on three or four jobs I should apply at. Boy was I wrong!

God Bless,
–Alex

I’ve been reading the book Predictably Irra­tional by Dan Ariely, and it’s got me thinking.

Ariely is a college professor at Duke Univer­sity who studies behavior – specif­i­cally, irra­tional behavior. He asks questions like, “why don’t we trust politi­cians?” and “Do nurses prefer to use proce­dures that are easier for them or less painful for the patient?” He studies how zero effects our buying habits and why we overvalue what we have.

But the thing I’ve been thinking about the most is his chapter, “The Power of Price”. Continue Reading…

This hasn’t been a partic­u­larly happy week in the news world. Innocent people died (both state side and inter­na­tion­ally), corrup­tion was mentioned in two of the biggest, most influ­en­tial, companies in the world, and to top it all off I saw a really sad video.

Here are the highlights:

Article 1, Section 4 — My friend Matt is contin­uing his series on the Consti­tu­tion. This is required reading for Americans. Ask lots of questions, this guy is an expert.

The Tragedy of Trayvon Martin — This could be the best thing I’ve read on the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It asks great questions and points out some harsh realities.

If I Had A Son, He’d Look Like Trayvon — Speaking of Trayvon Martin, President Obama offers some poignant and important thoughts on the situation. A fantastic response from the President.

Teen Killed At Project X Party — A teenager was killed at a party meant to replicate a crazy “project x” party from the movie of the same name. It’s one of many parties that have started popping up throughout the country in response to the movie. Does anyone really think movies don’t effect our decisions? It’s not just teens doing dumb things.

Why I Left Goldman Sachs — “To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important invest­ment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.”

Why I Left Google — People are quitting jobs all over the place! This one explains how Google + and the company’s shifting culture caused a prominent Google employee to leave.

This 3-Minute Anime Will Make You Cry — Even though I didn’t cry, it’s still a beautiful video that tells a compelling story in three short minutes.

Selling a house isn’t anything like this.

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

I was going to wait until next Tuesday to break the news, but it came so quickly I had to post today: we’ve got another full offer on the house.

Seriously.

The offer was in my email box Tuesday night and we’ve been working out the details since then. This new buyer isn’t asking for an inspec­tion clause and appears to be a fairly reputable home-buying company. Not sure what they want to do with the place, maybe flip it or rent it out to college students or something. Whatever the reason, they’ve put down a full offer on our home and we’re prepared to accept!

In the 24-hours since I’ve gotten that offer two more offers have come in. Neither of them have been full offers, but they were still very nice. With a little nego­ti­ating, I’m sure I could get them pretty close to what we asked for. If nothing else, they remind me that this house will sell, even if the first buyer backed out suddenly.

Unfor­tu­nately, the saga from the first buyer is far from over. Our case still has to be reviewed by the realtors asso­ci­a­tion in Florida and if it doesn’t pick a clear winner, we’ll have to start nego­ti­ating directly with the ex-buyer. It’s still a ways off, but it’s in the back of my mind as I’m working this other deal.

God has really blessed my family in this whole thing. We’ve gotten an amazing realtor who’s taken care of every­thing without complaint, we’ve found two buyers willing to pay full price for the house, and it’s likely we’ll get all our expenses returned to us by the end of this escrow dispute.

It’s an encour­aging reminder of who is in control.

And since I’ve been so bad at updating, let me assure you: there will be high­lights on Saturday and Tuesday will resume normal updates. Things got a bit rocky there for a few weeks but things are back to normal (or as normal as they can be, haha).

[Image credit]

No, the dog didn’t eat your contract…

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

We were set to close on Grandma’s house last Friday, but it didn’t happen.

At some point, the buyer decided she didn’t want my grandmother’s house anymore. There are a million possible reasons (she’s certainly not telling us the truth), but whatever her reason, last Monday she stopped talking to her realtor and a few days later sent us a certified letter saying her attorney looked over the contract and that we were in violation of it (we weren’t, and if an attorney did look at the contract, then he/she is inept because it’s obvious we weren’t).

After telling her that, she responded a few days later with another bogus attempt to make us look like the bad guys when we did every­thing she asked us to do and kept all our promises.

When closing day rolled around, the only thing she gave us was paperwork asking her for escrow back.

We are fighting for the escrow (since she is in breach of contract and we spent a good chunk of money responding to her requests even though we didn’t have to). So I’ll be learning more about realty than I ever imagined. It’s been frus­trating, but I’m not worried. We’ve already had a few people look at the house and I imagine offers will start coming in rela­tively soon.

Sadly, the whole thing is stressing my grand­mother out.

For now, we’re back at square one. The house is listed and we’re hoping for the best.

Fingers crossed!

You may have noticed I didn’t update yesterday; that wasn’t an accident. Starting this week I’m cutting my updates down to twice a week.

This has every­thing to do with all the stuff going on in my life that have nothing to do with the blog. I love writing, but between this site and the others I write for, three times a week was getting a bit rough. Cutting it down to twice a week should make things easier.

With that said, today’s post has nothing to do with money, but is still interesting.

While running some errands a few weeks ago, a local DJ announced the new Sim’s game featuring Katy Perry. When asked about it, Perry said,

“I always like to think of myself as a cartoon, and now I’m a Sim.”

I groaned inwardly at the thought of another ridicu­lous way to use fame to make money and tried to push the whole thing out of my mind.

But her words, “I always like to think of myself as a cartoon…” stuck with me. They rattled around inside my head and wouldn’t let me go.

I started to think about what they mean.

Maybe I’m taking her words too far, but the thought of Katy Perry thinking of herself as a cartoon made me deeply sad. I wondered what she saw when looking in the mirror. Does she see anything but the lie? Has “Katy Perry” taken over her life?

Is there a real Katy Perry left?

I think about her divorce, her lyrics, the way she dresses. It’s all a game — a lie.

Does she have anyone who knows her and not just the persona she’s created? Is there anyone in her life that wants something besides a cartoon?

I have no idea, and since I’ve never spoken to the girl I’m sure I’ll never find answers. But they still rattle around in my head; they still weigh on my heart.

How many young girls look up to Katy Perry? How many men dream of her? Do their dreams squash away what’s left of the person underneath?

Am I Any Different?

With all the sadness, also comes a bit of fear — and maybe some clarity.

Am I the same as her? I may not be exploited the way she is, but there is a persona I create to hide my inse­cu­ri­ties. There is a cartoon version of myself that I show to the world as the weight of the truth presses my heart.

Am I really so different from her? Are any of us?

I’m sure she’s dealing with issues I’ll never begin to consider and making choices I’ll never be offered. But still, in my sadness I find introspection.

Which parts of my life are cartoons? Which parts aren’t real? Those are the parts of life that need to be put to death. Those are the things I need to let go.

It’s never healthy to live as a lie.