There is growing concern that affordable quality food will become scarce, not due to war, but due to the rising costs of both food and energy.  Of course, this is a problem around the world, but until this article, I hadn’t [...]]]> Over the weekend, I stumbled across this article:  Britain urging return to wartime food frugality.

There is growing concern that affordable quality food will become scarce, not due to war, but due to the rising costs of both food and energy.  Of course, this is a problem around the world, but until this article, I hadn’t thought about the fact that this will have a bigger effect on places like Britain, where so much of the food has to brought in on ships or planes, rather than simply by truck.

The article quotes a few people who vividly remember life during Britain’s wartime and post-wartime food scarcity, and it’s interesting to see their points of view.  I particularly like this quote: “I know it’s old fashioned, but some old fashioned things are worth doing.”  I think we’re really seeing a return to this with the rising prices of food and energy.  More people are growing their own food and learning how to can vegetables.

I had to laugh at the references to baked hedgehog and squirrel-tail soup.  I grew up in the rural midwest, and while I have never eaten hedgehog or squirrel, I do remember friends talking about the random animals that they had eaten, in stews or soups, because it didn’t matter if the meat came from a cow or from a possum – it was still protein to help feed a family.

At least, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten hedgehog or squirrel…

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $409,600
This would buy me a house in the D.C. area.  Nothing too huge, but depending on how far I went from D.C., I could probably get a little house with a bit of land, enough to make me happy.

According to the article, women live an average of 22 years after retirement, while men only live 19 years after retirement, and given the increase in medical costs, women therefore need to save 2% more than men every year for 30 years to [...]]]> Yesterday, an AP article discussed that “Women should factor longer life into retirement.”

According to the article, women live an average of 22 years after retirement, while men only live 19 years after retirement, and given the increase in medical costs, women therefore need to save 2% more than men every year for 30 years to maintain their standard of living.

Doesn’t sound too terrible, does it? But there’s more.

On average, women start saving later than men (by 2-4 years), invest less (7.3% rather than 8.1%) and are often in and out of the workforce more than men due to family reasons.

Ladies, we need to step up!

One thing that surprised me was that 25% of women don’t contribute enough to their employer’s retirement plan to take advantage of the company match. It’s free money! Of course, I do realize that many people are living at their means and really can’t afford to contribute more to their retirement accounts. But if you can, you absolutely should. If you make a few small sacrifices now, you will be rewarded for it in the future.

I was frustrated by one of the tips in a sidebar to this article. “Start investing two years earlier and increase your nest egg by 18%. Four years earlier boosts it by 23%.” I suppose this might spur into action people who haven’t started saving for retirement yet. But I wonder how many people who could start contributing to their retirement accounts today are thinking about retirement enough to have actually read this article.

One very scary point to the article: one expert recommends that workers will need to replace 126% of their salary after retirement to maintain their lifestyle due to inflation and rising medical costs. I wonder if that number factors in the expenses one does not have when not working (such as the contributions to retirement, for example). Either way, that’s a big number.

I don’t know when I’m planning to retire. If I stay with the government, I’ll be eligible to retire in 30 years at age 57. That’s 10 years before what the Social Security Administration calls full retirement age for someone born after 1959. That assumes fairly steady work, as I’d have to put in a full 30 years with the government first. While retiring at 57 seems appealing, it also seems a little scary. Given my family history, I hope to live at least another 30 years after that, maybe even longer. So I think the odds are good that I’ll be working past age 57, especially if I find myself in a job that I love.

Maybe I should be saving more money. With my Roth IRA and my TSP (government retirement plan), I’m putting away between 12% and 13% of my salary every year, plus a 5% match. Of course, both accounts have lost money over the past year, but I’m choosing to not think about that. I’m definitely not putting the limit into my TSP though. Depending what happens over the next few years with my job and my living situation, maybe I’ll think about bumping up my contributions. A few dollars here and there could make a world of difference in 30 years.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $102,400
These purchases are getting more and more random. But that’s the fun part, right? For today’s purchase, I would buy a Weebee and some really beautiful land to put it on.

First off, I don’t think that I knew that the dollar was considered “the leading international currency.” Given the recent American domination in many areas, I [...]]]> Earlier this week, I read this article about the current state of the American economy. I found the discussion of the dollar versus the Euro to be fascinating.

First off, I don’t think that I knew that the dollar was considered “the leading international currency.” Given the recent American domination in many areas, I suppose it makes sense, but I never thought of it as a leading currency. I knew that the dollar was often accepted in other countries, but I assumed that was mostly in tourist areas or in poorer countries. I would never expect the dollar to be dominant in Europe. I suppose the description is more in terms of banking currency, of course, and I can’t say that’s an area I’ve ever stopped to ponder.

The article discusses how the Euro may be taking the place of the dollar. Quite shocking to me was the fact that many Manhattan retailers are putting signs in their windows indicating that they accept Euros. This is an indication both that the dollar is losing its dominance and that European tourists are flocking to the U.S. to take advantage of the exchange rate.

I suppose it’s good for the economy that foreigners are taking advantage of the exchange rate and coming to the U.S. for vacation. I’m sure that many vacation destinations in the U.S. are struggling because of all the Americans who have decided to scale back this year and have a “staycation” instead, so an influx of foreign visitors will hopefully boost them back to their normal levels.

Unfortunately, it looks like the dollar may have a few more years of struggle ahead of it. Some believe that the dollar is at an unnatural low, others believe that in the 90′s, the dollar was overvalued and now things have started to normalize to where they should be. I can’t say that I know enough about international monetary policy to make an informed guess. But I do thing the next few years will be interesting.

And hey, if the exchange rates don’t improve, maybe this means I’ll be able to convince all my friends to take that trip to Yellowstone I’ve been hoping for, rather than the exotic foreign destination they seem to all crave.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $25,600
$25,600 will probably buy me a hybrid car. Not that I do a lot of driving as it is. But with gas prices as they are, it seems to make sense. Plus it’s just good to do the most green thing possible (even though I hear hybrid cars aren’t as green as they seem, what with the methods of disposal available for the batteries).

Well, actually, what happened [...]]]> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had purchased my tickets to fly to my hometown for Christmas. I’m flying American Airlines, and you may have noticed that this past week, they announced that they were canceling a number of flights. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.

Well, actually, what happened next was that my parents called me to tell me that their flights to come see me and go to a football game in November got changed. Changed in a very strange way. They booked their flights into BWI (Baltimore-Washington International, a perfectly lovely airport in Baltimore). Their flights got changed to bring them into Washington Reagan (another perfectly lovely airport, this time here in D.C.). Not a big deal, since their plans involved getting a rental car and driving to D.C.; the flight into BWI had simply been cheaper. This way, they can just borrow my car instead of renting one and save a bit of money.

So I wasn’t surprised to get an e-mail from American Airlines telling me that my flights for Christmas had changed. I skimmed the e-mail. At first glance, it just looked like the flight times had changed and that I was connecting through a different city on the way back.

And then I took a good look at it. I was flying out of Washington Reagan. But then, flying home, I was going into BWI. Significantly further away. Not really even in the same city. Or state, for that matter. On top of that, I flew into LaGuardia, and then had to somehow get from there to JFK to get my flight to BWI!

Obviously, this was unacceptable. I called the reservations line and the agent I got laughed when she saw what had happened to my itinerary. Not surprisingly, the whole thing is done by computer, and somehow the computer had thought this was a good idea. Fixing the problem took less than five minutes, and she managed to get me on a direct flight back rather than connecting through any city. Not a bad deal. She told me that this didn’t happen often, but when it did, calling the reservation line was the easiest way to deal with it.

Given all the hassles in air travel, I can’t say this was a big one all in all. But it is a good reminder to always check and recheck your itinerary to make sure some little subtle change, like an airport change, hasn’t been made.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $12,800
Like I said, this is getting tough. With $12,800 to toss in the air and dance around in, I would grab a group of my friends and go to Disney World. Sound silly? It’s been something that a group of us has discussed for years. We’ve talked about how it would be an incredibly fun trip, especially if we could go all out and eat in the fancy restaurants and stay in the fancy hotels. I think I could pay for everyone to fly in and go for $12,800. And then some!

Some things aren’t a surprise. Eggs up 28.32%. Milk up 15.37%. The price of meat hasn’t gone up as much as I thought though. Not that I buy much meat to begin with. [...]]]> Thanks to Diet Blog for pointing out this article over at The Cattle Network: The Price of Food: 2007-2008.

Some things aren’t a surprise. Eggs up 28.32%. Milk up 15.37%. The price of meat hasn’t gone up as much as I thought though. Not that I buy much meat to begin with. The price of celery has doubled, which seems surprising. Some things are down: tangerines, oranges, bacon, and other things. And bacon makes everything better, right?

(Side note – I was in college when McDonalds was having its “Make it bacon” promotion or whatever it was called where you paid an extra amount and they’d put bacon on whatever sandwich you got. A friend of mine convinced them to put bacon in his milkshake. I believe it was just stuck in, not blended. But he ate it anyway.)

Net Worth update to come. I’m a little afraid to see what’s happened to my retirement accounts this month.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $3200
This one was easy. MacBook Pro and all sorts of accompanying software. I’ve been a PC user all my life, but worked in a Mac lab in college and really would like to try out a Mac for my next computer. It’ll be a while before I have the cash saved up, and hopefully it will also be a while until I need to buy a new computer. But hey, if $3200 fell from the sky today, I’d be first in line at the Apple store.

There has been a lot of talk as of late as to [...]]]> At work, there has been an influx of fresh faced young employees over the past few weeks. Some just out of college, others just out of grad school. I’m enjoying meeting all these new people, and it’s always great to have new, enthusiastic employees.

There has been a lot of talk as of late as to what sort of personal finance information recent college grads and recent high school grads should know, and as I watched these new employees arrive, I started to think about what I did and didn’t know when I started my first job after college.

I was lucky in that I knew a fair bit about personal finance when I first started working. I had held a credit card for four years, I was good about paying my bills, and I understood the benefits of a 401(k) plan. I didn’t contribute to my employer’s 401(k) plan at my first job for a few reasons – I knew I was leaving in a year to go to grad school, and I needed every penny for grad school, and they didn’t start matching until you had worked there for over a year, so I knew I would never meet eligibility.

Perhaps not the best decision, but not a bad decision and not one I regret. The one thing I wish I had known though was that I could contribute to a Roth IRA. I really didn’t learn about Roth IRAs until I was 26. I could have made contributions to that instead. Sure, I did need money for grad school, but I could have contributed a few hundred dollars at least. I didn’t make much during grad school, and again, I needed that money to pay for fun things like textbooks, but I wonder how much a few hundred dollars might have grown over the years.

I’m not sure how I missed the boat on Roth IRAs. And I don’t think that not contributing for those few years really hurt, because the contributions wouldn’t have been huge. But I still suggest Roth IRAs whenever I get the chance.

Abundant Life Spending Spree – $1600

$1600 would go to a year long gym membership along with a bunch of personal training sessions. I’ve been sick the past few weeks and I can tell by how my clothes fit that I’m quickly falling out of shape. I could use someone to kick me into gear!