Keeping The Reins Tight….

Two of my favorite things bundled into one!

Coffee and Freebies, life doesn’t get much better. It’s not too late to get in on the action; just head over to Joffrey’s and sign up. I think the offer’s limited to the first 1,000 bloggers but it looks like there’s still plenty of room.

You’ll get a free bag of their new Jamaican Me Crazy coffee. While it is flavored, my highly refined (thanks Starbucks!) taste buds should be able to tune into the quality of the bean. If they can’t, I need to put the Coffee Master apron into storage. I have no clue what size we’ll all be receiving but I hope it’s more than a 4 cup serving.

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I’ve gone a little nuts in my freshman algebra class this week. This week’s standard has focused on exponential growth/decay and my students only need to know these five things:

1. In y = ab^x, if b > 1, then it’s growth.
2. In y = ab^x, if 0 < b < 1, then it's decay.
3. Exponential growth diverges. (shoots off to infinity)
4. Exponential decay approaches zero.
5. 3 and 4 hold true even if we reflect the graph over the x-axis.

If they’ve got those down, they can rock the state standardized test and make me look good.

However, we’ve spent 5 months slogging along on a lot of ancient algebra standards with little relevance. So when we hit exponential growth/decay, I jumped at the chance to finally do some meaningful application problems.

Since there’s so much in finance that uses the exponential model and my kids love to talk about money, I skipped a few courses and taught the magic of compound interest. (Algebra II Standard)

Most of my students handled the topic as expected, aka rather poorly. So as a bonus on today’s test, I gave the following questions:

1. Mr. ‘A’’s investment is now worth $650,000. 30 years ago, he invested some amount into an account that yielded 4% interest. How much was his initial investment?
2. You borrow $1000 from ‘A’ at 1 percent per day and pay nothing until the end of the year. At that point you pay off all of the money you owe. What is the size of your payment?

I had four of my all-stars get both problems correct.

If you’re ready to see if you can match a below basic ninth graders math skills, give the problems a whirl. Leave your answers in the comments, I’ll type up explanations and solutions over the weekend.

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Destination Weddings, who’s brilliant idea was that?

One of my future relatives is getting married later this year in a small coastal town. Sounds nice and romantic doesn’t it?

Ha!

Since neither my relative or the bride-to-be have any ties to the area, the whole idea is just plain silly. Now I know it’s not my wedding; but, why couldn’t they get married in a place that had meaning to one of them? They had not been to the town until they were looking for wedding locations! Of course, it’s better than the other locations they discussed, but they still had no concern for how it would affect their guests.

Yesterday, I received a wonderful email about the discounted hotel rate of $249.99 / night. Since I’m in the wedding party, that’s two nights I’ll have to pick up to the tune of $500.00. I have no clue what my relationship status will be, thus I don’t feel I can commit to sleeping on the floor of somebody else’s room. Who ever ends up being my date may not appreciate being told to bring a sleeping bag.

As if that wasn’t enough, another email from the groom shows up today. My tuxedo rental will be close to $200.00. For that price, it had better be fly. I’ll lose a personal day for traveling, so my lost wages will be about $180 dollars. I will need to board my dog for two nights ($36.00), buy gas to travel ($100.00), food/drink ($30.00), and buy a wedding present. ($20.00)

If I stick to the minimum budget, I’ll be spending close to $1,066. One of my friends recently spent four nights in Pairs (with airfare) for $1200.

Hmm, save another $144.00 and go to Pairs or attend a stupid wedding?

That’s a no brainer.

Am I out of line for being upset?

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Dearest Walgreens Cashier,

I don’t appreciate your dirty looks. I really don’t.

Being a well dressed, good looking, young man does not mean I’m excluded from using coupons. Last time I checked this was not in the fine print. But if it is, I would greatly appreciate it if you would point it out to me on my next transaction.

I can assure you that I’m not up to something sketchy when they won’t scan. My printer wobbles which messes up the barcodes. If I recall correctly, I told you this tidbit when I handed you the coupons, as well as what sequence of numbers you needed to punch in.

Did it work?

I believe so.

Do you really think I’d go through all the effort to figure out the coupon sequence and then photoshop it onto the coupons? I can get unlimited coupons by going to Arm & Hammer’s website and filling out a simple form.

You can enjoy the rest of your shift murmuring (underneath your breath) about how I’m being a tightwad. No need to murmur, I’ll shout it for you from the mountain tops.

Either way, I just walked out the door half a years supply of quality laundry detergent from $3.45 and a total savings of $7.09

Thanks for making it happen!

Sincerely,

A

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‘Only those who attempt the absurd…will achieve the impossible’
-M.C. Escher

Over at Early Retirement Extreme, Jacob compared ultrarunning to programming. Switch out programming with being an educator, and you can get the gist of why I love running really long distances so much.

I see some real similarities between in my own ultrarunning and the financial path I have embarked on. Both are mediums with immediate, intermediate, and long distance goals. It is the the journey of reaching these smaller goals that allow me to keep reaching for the carrot at the end of the stick.

The whole idea of a final goal is a foreign concept to most ultrarunners. While many people run marathons with the goal of completion or qualifying for Boston; ultrarunners are a different breed. We shoot for going past the stars. There’s always a longer course, a course with more elevation or different terrain, there are races of time instead of distance, and of course, there’s the race from hell. If that wasn’t enough, we can always choose to run across our native land, compete in fabled races or simply run past 26.2 on every continent. The possibilities are endless and it is up to each individual to dream big, push to the limits and see what we can accomplish.

Personally, I hope to run the historic Western States 100 before I reach the age of thirty. From there, I’d like to run Hardrock (with it’s 33,000 feet of elevation gain) and complete the 72 hour version of Across the Years. My preparation for those races started yesterday. Well not so much yesterday, but on that fateful day in high school when I laced up running shoes for the first time.

To reach those lofty goals, I have to take baby steps; for 2007 and 2008, my focus was / is on running 50k’s and laying down a solid foundation. Each ‘race’ is a training run for the next run, creating a cycle that will repeat itself over and over, snowballing into years worth of quality training that will help me achieve the next level of success. There are no shortcuts in running distances of this length. Days like today, when I’m running a 101 degree fever and mucus is free flowing out of my nose, I still hop out of bed at 4:00am ready to rumble. 3:05:41 and 21.6 miles later, I know I’ve hit an important training run for my next race, the race after that, and all the way to the fateful day when I WILL run Western States.

The most exciting part? I get to do this all again come next saturday. In fact, outside of regular race tapers, I’ll be running 15-35 miles every Saturday or Sunday morning for the rest of this year, the year after and so forth. The end result of this journey will be the personal satisfaction of continually pushing exceeding my limits.

This same pattern of goal perpetuation is evident in my very young financial journey. By developing a sense of thrift, frugality, and savings to be my core financial habits, there will be no limits to my success. Right now, my focus is getting the emergency fund funded. After that it will be time to move on to funding a down payment, then rental properties and developing a large nest egg. Each goal is a piece of my financial puzzle; they have to fit together, in proper order, to reveal the final picture.

Setbacks will happen. My ultrarunning career has already been delayed by injuries. Last February, I tibia cracked after it was hit by a line drive in fast-pitch softball. This put me on the sidelined for over three months. Rather than wallow in my misery or throw away my hard work, I maintained my aerobic base by swimming and rigging up a way to use the stationary bike that would have made McGyver proud. Still, it took over four months of solid training to build get back to my pre-injury training levels. Throughout the whole experience, I never failed to make the most of what I could control.

So far, I’ve managed to avoid any unfortunate financial events. Hopefully my luck will continue but should I experience car issues, unexpected health costs, or emergency vet bills; the manner in which I handle the situation will influence future successes. As long as I suck it up, try prepare in advance, and not deviate from my good habits, I can recover from any obstacle.

Within both journeys, there is a focus on the future. Goals are defined as an stepping stones to reach the final nirvana. Similar to infinity, the nirvana will never be reached and the process of continuation is what’s important.

As long as I stay the course, trucking on day by day, and set goals to act as stepping stones, I will experience success.

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