I Have Too Much Money

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Trying to shake off a recent downward spiral in my personal life I came to a rather strange conclusion earlier this afternoon:

I have too much money. Again.

I'M IN THE MONEY
If you recall, I drafted a preliminary budget about a year ago and decided to donate/give away any extra cash that I just didn't really need. At the time, I thought I was pretty conservative in assuming a decrease of 20% in my portfolio given the onset of what we are now calling the Great Recession. By the market lows of March/April 2009 I was down close to 40%, mostly because I'm all about long-term investing and wanted to catch the inevitable upside.

As of noon today my long-term investments are up close to 29% YTD and over 13% from my initial budget projections. This does not even take into account some pretty serious gains I made over the past couple of weeks buying short in the energy and financial sectors. In fact, I made enough mula over the past 10 days to pay for most of my upcoming trip through South America.

HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY BLOWS
Under normal circumstances this would actually be a good thing. After all, why would anyone bemoan having MORE money?

Fuck that. The truth is that having “too much” money corrupts the soul. It leads to unnecessary excess. It feeds the baser instincts of our nature. It certainly doesn't add substantally to our long-term “happiness.” The bottom line is that having “too much” money blows.

What's so beautiful about the simple living movement is the fact that “too much” is something that each one of us should decide for ourselves. My budget might be extravagant for some, inadequate for others. In fact, I have plenty of wealthy friends who currently lead a perfectly happy life on their own terms, but who would gag if they were forced to live on my budget for even a single day. Just as I would break out into a cold sweat if I was forced to live the life they seem to enjoy.

Don't ever feel guilty about having more money than others. But always be fearful that you might lose your soul if you have “too much.”

WHAT NOW
So, what now?

I don't know. I guess I could do another give-away. A couple of small donations to some VA hospitals and an animal rights organization might also do the trick.

On the other hand, maybe the thing to do is to keep investing and then dole out extra cash over time. I rather enjoy this investing racket and it would actually feel good to keep increasing the donation pie over the long term.

Ummm...maybe an Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity foundation is the way to go. :)

Thank You

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Lest anyone think that the feedback I receive from you guys is not taken seriously, listen to this:

As some of you might recall, in my last draft budget I allocated $70 a month for gym expenses. A couple of regular readers (Miss Scorpio, Nebula, several Anons) suggested that I cancel my gym membership and focus on alternative exercise methods. Now, you have to understand that I’ve always considered a gym membership to be an absolutely necessary expense. I assumed that I could only get a proper workout at a gym stocked with a variety of free weights and exercise machines. Boy was I wrong. I’ve since fallen in love with these nifty resistance bands:

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If used properly, these super cheap bands can give a person a truly awesome workout. And while I’ve already had one break on me, it only took about $12 to get it replaced. And, in the process, I have already cancelled my membership, something that will save me over $800 a year.

Note that I will probably have an updated budget to share sometime next month. It will reflect additional cuts following advice from many of you.

Bottom line, I wanted to thank all of you for your comments, thoughts, criticisms and assorted feedback. It continues to keep me on my toes and challenges me to seek additional simplification where it counts. Thanks everyone.

Budgeting (Part II)

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Now that I’ve had a couple of months to track my spending I’m finally getting a sense of how much I will really need to finance my post-Plan life. This is definitely an improvement from my first preliminary budget. The process has been quite straightforward:

1. Figure out what activities make me truly happy (as subjective and ephemeral as the term “happy” can be), and
   
2. Draft a conservative, long-term budget that incorporates these activities

You guys can view the working draft here. A couple of thoughts:

*Anything highlighted in yellow represents fixed costs

*The Housing line-item is my pride and joy. I don’t think I want to ever pay more than $800 a month for housing ever again.

*While I already consider an annual budget of approximately $32,000 a real accomplishment for someone who somehow managed to live off a gross annual income of >$300,000 (or $190K post-taxes), there is still a ton of places where I can economize further.

*The Personal Spending, Clothing and Gear line-items are ripe for additional cuts, depending on where I am and what I am doing. You can imagine how these expenses will change and shift depending on whether I am backpacking in Vietnam, bicycling in Patagonia or teaching English in Bolivia.

*On the other hand, I have yet to include a bike expense category. Need to really think about how to incorporate my bike riding expenses into this budget. Would definitely appreciate people like Jill, Nancy, Chris or anyone else with some knowledge to weigh in on this, particularly as to how long-term bike travel adds to the budget.

Any other thoughts, comments, and suggestions very much welcome.

LET'S START A REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!

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How about it, my dear reader? Do you feel like starting a little revolution? I’ve got nothing better to do and I figured it might be fun. :)

WHAT ARE WE REBELLING AGAINST?

So, what are we rebelling against, you ask? Materialism. Consumerism. Apathy. Injustice. The feeling that all the problems we face are impossible to solve. And, above all, our irrational reluctance to love our fellow man.

WHAT DO WE HAVE TO OFFER?

If you are on board, then I think the operative question becomes: what can we offer to this revolution? More to the point, what do we possess that might prove useful to changing our world? Some people bring their own particular strengths to bear when it comes to overthrowing the old order. Lenin had an overpowering intellect and a ruthless purpose of mind. Margaret Thatcher had experience, intelligence and a charm all her own. Clinton was the consummate technocrat. As for myself, at this point in my life, I just don’t have a fully-defined world view and/or the real-life experience that could prove useful in a revolution. Give me some time and maybe I will get there. For now, all I can contribute is this:

FIRST LET’S HAVE SOME FUN!

I always wanted to be in the Sopranos:

I am leaving my law firm. Maybe I should consider a career at Chip ‘n Dales:

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Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself:

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s start plotting our revolution!

THE PLOT

The plot is actually fairly straightforward: give away a sizable amount of money I don’t really need to random people. Here are the basics:

*Stuff blank envelopes with bills of random denominations.

*Include a note with the following narrative:

“To the person who finds this envelope,

I am a person who has enough. Take this money and use it as you wish. In return, I hope you can search within yourself and realize that all that matters in life is love. So, call your family. Help a friend. Lend a stranger a hand. In the end, all we have is each other.”

*Drop off the envelopes at random and not so random locations throughout the East Coast.

*Separately, send anonymous donations to (1) a variety of organizations and non-profits I support; as well as (2) certain bloggers chosen at random.

* Hope that in some small measure, these hundreds of random, anonymous, convention-upending acts of social rebellion spark something meaningful and essential in the collective unconscious of our world.

Unrealistic? Probably. Idealistic? Absolutely.

I CHALLENGE YOU

Why don’t YOU get in on the fun? I challenge you, my dear reader, to take the time this very day to express your love and kindness to (1) someone you care about, as well as (2) a total stranger. There are sooo many things you can choose from:

*Hug your kids and tell them you love them

*Call your grandparents

*Help a friend move

*Sign up to volunteer

*Donate to a local charity

The list is endless. If you take up this challenge do let me know what awesome, SIMPLE, things you decided to do.

Spread the word. Remember: a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.

ANTICIPATING QUESTIONS/COMMENTS

After the whole diploma burning thing, I came to the conclusion that it is a good idea to provide added context when it comes to some of my posts. I am still amazed how normal, rational people can have such intense, knee-jerk reactions to anything that appears out of the ordinary (have you seen some of the comments left on YouTube? Woa…). This time, I figured I would anticipate some of the questions/comments people might have. Here you go:

Come on, Jack, you must be insane!

Maybe a little. :)

If one of the prerequisites for insanity is the inability to reason then I think I’m in the clear. This didn’t happen out of the blue. I thought long and hard about how to do this the right way. I searched within myself to figure out what I want out of life, the kind of life I want to live and the kind of world I want to leave our children. I made a detailed budget that was realistic and incorporated contingencies, changing needs, and everything else that I felt I would need to live a simple, yet meaningful life for ME. After I finalized the budget I realized there was some money left over. This posed a quandary. Extra money meant that I had the following options: (1) leave the money in the bank to collect interest; (2) upgrade my lifestyle; or (3) give the money away. Leaving the money in the bank is certainly an attractive option, but I fail to see the point of keeping money stashed away for no reason. As for upgrading my lifestyle, that makes absolutely no sense to me. The budget I came up with, by definition, represents an opportunity to live the life I want to live without the need for anything but a steady, meaningful, super-low-paying job.

What’s crazier? Giving away money you don’t need OR voluntarily upgrading your lifestyle so that you are forced to spend MORE money, in order to have MORE stuff that would actually mean MORE headaches for myself and my family and putting MORE strain on our natural resources? I’ll let you, my dear reader, be the judge.

If people will find the money randomly, how can you be sure that people who need the money will actually get it?

I am, in fact, leaving some envelopes at certain targeted locations (missions, churches, shelters, etc…). Beyond that, I want to make something very clear: the focus of the Giveaway is NOT about giving people charity. My hope is that hundreds of small but meaningful surprises can lead to hundreds or even thousands of selfless, loving acts of kindness. The person who has nothing and finds an envelope with $50 dollars will, indeed, be ecstatic. The person who actually has something and finds an envelope with $20 dollars may be moved to give away $100 to several people who have nothing.

Why can’t you just give the money to family?

I’ve already made certain arrangements, particularly with respect to my mom. The budget I came up with takes this into account.

But, wait, if you are just giving cash away anonymously aren’t you missing out on 501.(c)(3)-type tax deductions?

Yeah. On the other hand, I’ve reviewed my tax situation for this year and as it turns out it will probably be a wash: I won’t owe anything AND will not be getting much of a refund. Ergo, declaring a charitable contribution won’t help me much. Besides, there is something about giving stuff away anonymously that may be lost if I had to declare it on my taxes.

Jack, you are nothing but a crazy lefty-hippie!

Far from it. I think most people would be surprised if they knew my political leanings. On the other hand, for any of you bona fide hippies out there keep in mind that I’m partial to free love and rock and roll. Specially the free love part…[Hint, Hint!].

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STATUS

As of today, the plot has essentially come to fruition. Only a couple of dozen more envelopes left to drop off. Expect additional pics and video later this week.

Budgeting

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This past week has been a swirl of list-making, planning, scheming and dealing with all sorts of practical minutiae that come with my new status as a “soon-to-be unemployed attorney.” With every errand done and call made, a whole new life is taking shape, one that I have been seeking, in one way or another, all of my adult life.

One of the first things I did this week is come up with a draft budget that I am hoping to put in place once the Plan is finalized. For the Excel nuts out there, you can view it here.

KEEP THIS IN MIND
As you review this budget keep this in mind: apart from generally trying to not buy big-ticket items, I have little to no sense of how to truly economize. I feel a little like Bush senior when he didn’t know the price of milk in the 1992 election. The fact is that when you work the hours I do you hardly have the time to really notice the price of things you buy. Your instinct is to go into a store and get what you need as quickly as possible, put it on a credit card, and not worry about it. Ahh, the insanity of yuppiedom...

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The truth is that I have been living in la la land for years and only now am I getting a taste of real life. I’m going to need some time to adjust and figure out how to get my bearings. So, please be kind. It’s not easy being a recovering yuppie:

[Cue the basement of the local community center]

Jack: “Hi. I’m Jack. I’m a Yuppie.”

Group: “HELLO JACK!”

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THE BUDGET

As for the budget itself, here are some observations:

*Two areas that I think I can work on right off the bat are Personal Spending and Groceries. The former, I am certain I can get down to the $300 and even the $200 range. I definitely hit a couple of bars every week with some of my buddies, but that’s not all that expensive. The amount of the latter is just a placeholder. I just don’t have any idea what I will need to spend until I start to take stock of what I buy every month.

*Miscellaneous is a catch-all category. I’ll probably expand this as I work on this budget going forward.

NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS

I am SO excited about some of things that I have planned for the next couple of weeks. One thing in particular makes me smile whenever I think about it. Stay tuned.