Generosity Reciprocated

Nearly everyone except for the amazingly selfish will agree that generosity is an important quality to have. I believe this to be the case also, for two distinct reasons. First, being a Christian, I find that a generous spirit brings me closer to God through the imitation/emulation of Jesus. Second, I find that generosity towards others is often reciprocated in turn. While I find the first reason to be a more noble and selfless reason to have a generous spirit, the second reason is an inherently more selfish reason insofar as one is being generous to gain something in return. I would agree with Immanuel Kant that there is no tension between these two motivations as long as the second does not eclipse the first, making the recipients of generosity merely a means to one's own selfish ends.

Tonight I am being generous by taking my two teaching assistants out to dinner at 99 Bottles downtown to thank them for all their hard work this past quarter. The selfless reason for this is that I make more money than they do and can afford the expense; so being genuinely appreciative of their hard work for me I would like to do something nice for them. The selfish reason for picking up the dinner tab is that people who feel genuinely appreciated are that much more likely to go the extra mile and put in lots of hard work for you. The $100 expense for a three-person dinner is a significant chunk of my allotted summer funds, but the hard work these assistants have given me is well worth the expense.

The time I have saved by not having to do my own grading has allowed me to pursue my other activities more fully, such as writing my dissertation, blogging, writing articles for Associated Content, starting my new job, and spending time with my wife. So I consider the $100 dinner cost to be an investment that has already paid out several times over in terms of the time I have saved to dedicate to my other activities. So while my natural inclination as a saver/investor may be to be cheap and to skimp on the dinner, the $100 is a small price to pay for a generosity of spirit as well as to reward my TA's past hard work and to secure their future hard work and loyalty.

So while saving and investing money is important, remember that certain expenses are best thought of as investments. Even if no immediate monetary return is evident, sometimes the returns take other forms that are even more important than money. You need not live the life of Donald Trump, but you need not be cheap either. Generosity is the happy medium between frugality and extravagance.

Top 100 List and Front Page on Asscoiated Content

Would you believe that I made the list of the 100 Most Inspirational Personal Finance Turnaround Stories? The list can be found over at Credit Card Lowdown, and I am #56. (Only #56? Well, I suppose there has to be someone more inspirational than I....)

In other good news, I had an article make the front page of Associated Content for the first time a couple of days ago. Front page articles can get many thousands of page views, which adds up to thirty or thirty five dollars or so in page view bonus payments. Not too shabby for twenty minutes of my time writing the article. The article, on the difference between sin and hypocrisy in the church, can be found here: The Difference Between Hypocrisy and Sin in the Church. It is nice to finally be getting some exposure as a writer. Maybe I will succeed in becoming a freelance writer after all.

In even more good news, completely unrelated to personal finance (except for the associated costs), my wife and I are going to see "The Police" live in concert tonight for their reunion tour up at the Coliseum in Oakland. The tickets cost $150 and are basically nosebleed seats; but seeing The Police in concert is a once in a lifetime opportunity not to be missed. Full report is forthcoming on my Associated Content page after the concert.

Still Got It... My New/Old Job

I started work at my new/old summer job at Radio Shack yesterday. I was a little apprehensive about going back to Radio Shack having worked there for six years before from 1995 to 2001. I was afraid I would feel like I was moving backwards a bit after being a college instructor for the past several years. But most of all I was afraid I had lost my golden sales touch. I always considered myself a good salesperson, both in my ability to meet demanding sales goals and in my ability to do so while keeping the customers' interests at heart. But I was worried that I would not be able to jump right in to a retail environment and be able to perform like I could when I was younger (Sounds like a Viagra ad, doesn't it?).

The good news is that I have been back at Radio Shack for two days now and I had amazing sales both days. My theory is that having a mentally taxing job like teaching philosophy for so long has made me appreciate the virtues of having a job with relatively simple and straightforward daily goals. So today I was having a great time greeting customers, selling cellular phones and extended service plans, and generally enjoying the familiarity of being back in my old game.

In fact, teaching and selling are actually very similar skills, insofar as you have to explain things clearly to people of all sorts of intelligence levels, and like in philosophical argumentation you must respond to objections from customers. The process is very similar to the defenses I have done for my M.A. thesis and my Ph.D. qualifying exam prospectus. The ability to respond to critiques and objections serves one well in argumentation and in sales (not to mention other domains, like politics).

So in short, my thought for the evening is "I still got it." I was always one of the top sales associates in my former district when I was working my way through college, and I literally blew the sales numbers through the roof at work today. So I am looking forward to a fun summer of working at Radio Shack. It is like trying on an old sweater that fits really well and is well-broken-in. Radio Shack treated me well and paid me well enough to put myself through college, and hopefully it will again do the same thing with my Ph.D. when the teaching work is not forthcoming.

One thing I have learned is that you cannot be proud about what you do to earn a living. Yes, I am still a college professor, but I have built houses, been a Radio Shack sales associate, been a coffee shop barista, and been a professional dumpster diver to make ends meet. They each had their virtues and their drawbacks, and I wouldn't give up any of them for the other. So that is my advice to you, my readers, on this beautiful Saturday evening: do not be too proud about what you do for a living. A job is still a job, regardless of its prestige or position, and the same long-term investment strategy will apply regardless of your station in life or how you bring home the bacon. Keep saving and investing a percentage of each paycheck you bring home into long term investments. If you follow this advice, you too will someday be rich, even if it is from a job like Radio Shack.

Is Your Blog Making Money?

Is your blog making money? While I started this blog with the intention of keeping an online record of my foray into the world of investing (which is still its primary purpose), the blog itself has now become a source of secondary income to supplement my traditional income from employment. By linking SeeMeGetRich.com to my articles at AssociatedContent.com, I have found that I am able to fill two niches with one blog. SeeMeGetRich.com continues to be a source of inspiration and information for my readers who are interested in retirement investing, and I am able to generate income from my writing through referrals and page views through Associated Content through traffic generated by my SeeMeGetRich.com. The end result is that everyone is happy. My readers hopefully still find the same useful content to aid them in their own quest to become better off financially, and I am able to generate some income from my writing. I call this a match made in heaven.

If you are a blogger yourself and your blog is not yet generating money for you, try meshing your blog posting with articles and writing posted on AssociatedContent.com. Associated Content pays anywhere from $3 to $20 per content submission, including product reviews, restaurant reviews, how-to articles, news stories, etc. In addition, Associated Content will pay you a small commission for each page view your content generates. Meshing your blog with your Associated Content submissions will generate traffic and income, and your readers will still be able to find the same great content that they are looking for.

If you are not yet an Associated Content author, you can sign up for a free account here and get started earning money with your writing immediately. I myself am finding it very satisfying finally to be getting paid for my own writing, and I wish you all the same success with your writing and blogs!

Apartment Hunt is Over! Back to Getting Rich!

After a month of intense apartment hunting, I am happy to announce that we have signed the lease on a new apartment. The good news is that the the new apartment will be significantly cheaper than our current place because the new apartment includes all utilities in the rent, unlike the place we're in now.

The new apartment is the first floor of an old Victorian home downtown that has been converted to an apartment. The rent for the new place will be $1470/month including all utilities, and also including cable television and DSL service. I know that sounds like a lot for you non-California people, but the price is well below the going rate for a two bedroom apartment on California's Central Coast. I haven't even mentioned the best parts yet: the security deposit on the new apartment was just $500, which is nearly impossible to find in this area, and the apartment is cat friendly. So we really lucked out with this new place, and we will be moving in sometime between June 25 and July 5.

Due to the low deposit and not having to pay utilities, I will probably have more money for the summer than I had realized. Therefore hopefully many of my worries about being low on cash this summer will turn out to be unfounded, so I can get back to pumping up my Roth IRA this summer with money from my new/old job at Radio Shack. Our current complex is paying us a move-out bonus of $2000 once we move out as a courtesy for being dislocated due to the complex going condo. With that bonus and with the new job, I should be in the green again for the rest of the summer and able to keep my saving and investing moving forward. I hated to stall my get-rich progress after building up so much investment momentum, but it will not be much of a stall now that I have a decent emergency cash fund built up.