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Plus and minus...
Jul. 31st, 2002 09:42 pmClient M called with a short document, due tomorrow. It's done and sent back. It caps the "worst" month for booked revenue this year, but I'm not really complaining. I got a lot of other stuff accomplished, and was able to work on relaxing a little (and hey! isn't that what July's all about?).
* * * In response to my question on the PHProjekt forum about displaying the calendar with Sunday as the "first" day of the week (instead of Monday), one of the developers (I presume) responded with a statement to the effect of "We intend to stick to the ISO 8601 standard." My grazing familiarity with that standard didn't seem to include having Monday in the left column of a calendar display, though I was familiar with (and actually quite often use) the "YYYY-MM-DD" notation that appears to have made minimal inroads in the U.S.
Well, it turns out that Monday is the first day of the week, according to the standard, but as far as I can see (and I have not read the whole thing, nor do I intend to) that's really only for the purpose of calculating ISO-standard week numbers (a concept wholly alien to calendar users in the U.S.). From hearing the grousing of various NASA types when confronted with Russian calendars, which follow the ISO model, I would imagine that getting enthusiastic and complete metrification of the country is an eminently feasible no-brainer when compared to having people live with Monday-first calendars.
Me, I can live with it. 'nuf said.
* * * Mirabile dictu! One of the books I've put up for sale on Amazon has sold!
* * * While waiting for the translation to arrive, I sat down and seriously attacked the problem of compiling a personal financial statement. I used the OpenOffice Calc program and ran down the list of payments from my bank, calling each creditor to find out how much Galina and I owe as of today. I got all but two of them and have yet to latch onto a couple of minor Schwab accounts on the asset side, but I figure I got about 90% of the job done today.
An interesting sidelight to this was seeing just how easy it is to get some of the consumer credit types to drop their interest rates. One account dropped its rate by more than half; another dropped 6 percent. I am amazed.
Normally, I just ignore my 401(k) accounts and let them "do their thing." Today, however, I was appalled to see how the one that's invested in the market has shrunk. Obviously, staying in or out depends on where you think the market is headed, but the path pursued by one amateur talking head on a news report a few nights ago - to the effect of "Man, I lost so much money in the market, I'm getting out and never investing in stocks again" - eerily echoes some of what Robert Kiyosaki writes about in his book, where he says that most people are inclined to buy at market peaks and sell at market lows.
I also did some noodling around to see how fast some of the consumer credit accounts we have can be paid off. The idea here is that once you pay one credit card off, you take that payment and apply it (along with your usual payment) to your "next" credit card. As a result, you pay that card off faster. Then you take the combined payment and apply it (again, with the usual payment) to the next card, and so on.
* * * This brings me to a conscious realization of something that popped up while playing CashFlow:
All things being equal, financial "progress" is achieved in small steps.
(It sounds pretty obvious, but if so, then I have to ask myself: why haven't I been taking those steps?)
The game presents players with an overly simplified view of life. Money borrowed from the bank, for example, costs the borrower 10% of the remaininig balance as interest on each "payday." If you borrow $20,000 to buy a property that provides a passive income of, say, $2700, you make a $700 positive cash flow from the deal.
Unfortunately, you also incur a $2,000 interest expense. Since the initial object of the game is to get your passive income to exceed your expenses (so that, in effect, you no longer have to work for a living), acquiring this property doesn't help get you where you want to go.
Assume, unrealistically, that you have no other expenses. To meet the game's initial "victory condition," you'd have to pay off some portion of that $20,000, to the point where the income exceeds the interest on the balance. What portion? Well, here we see a (semi-)practical application of algebra...
Let x denote the number of "thousands" to be paid off. For each thousand paid off, the $2,000 interest goes down by $100 and the income goes up by $100. So, the equation we need to solve is:
2000 - 100x < 700 + 100x.
Let's make life easy. Divide each side by 100 and do the proper manipulations:
20 - x < 7 + x
20 - x + x < 7 + x + x
20 < 7 + 2x
20 - 7 < 7 - 7 + 2x
13 < 2x
13/2 < (2/2)x
6.5 < x.
Since x has to be some whole number of thousands, the answer x = 7 does the trick. If we pay off $7,000 of the $20,000 loan, our income exceeds our expenses.
My, I can be nerdy sometimes, can't I? (Forgive my prolixity; I may use this example in a book that's in the planning stage, in the back of my mind.)
* * * Physical (as in fitness) "progress," by the way, is achieved pretty much in exactly the same way: slowly. You cannot lose 20 pounds in a weekend; you better not start an exercise program after a multi-year layoff with a 5-mile run. I remember listening to some Zig Ziglar tapes where he recounted how he regained his fitness: the first day he jogged 20 yards or so; the next day, he did 25, and so on. Eventually he worked up to multi-mile jogs, and achieved a level of fitness that, he says, saved his life when his gall bladder became inflamed and had to be removed. If I'm not mistaken, the old gent is still alive and well.
Cheers...
Well, it turns out that Monday is the first day of the week, according to the standard, but as far as I can see (and I have not read the whole thing, nor do I intend to) that's really only for the purpose of calculating ISO-standard week numbers (a concept wholly alien to calendar users in the U.S.). From hearing the grousing of various NASA types when confronted with Russian calendars, which follow the ISO model, I would imagine that getting enthusiastic and complete metrification of the country is an eminently feasible no-brainer when compared to having people live with Monday-first calendars.
Me, I can live with it. 'nuf said.
An interesting sidelight to this was seeing just how easy it is to get some of the consumer credit types to drop their interest rates. One account dropped its rate by more than half; another dropped 6 percent. I am amazed.
Normally, I just ignore my 401(k) accounts and let them "do their thing." Today, however, I was appalled to see how the one that's invested in the market has shrunk. Obviously, staying in or out depends on where you think the market is headed, but the path pursued by one amateur talking head on a news report a few nights ago - to the effect of "Man, I lost so much money in the market, I'm getting out and never investing in stocks again" - eerily echoes some of what Robert Kiyosaki writes about in his book, where he says that most people are inclined to buy at market peaks and sell at market lows.
I also did some noodling around to see how fast some of the consumer credit accounts we have can be paid off. The idea here is that once you pay one credit card off, you take that payment and apply it (along with your usual payment) to your "next" credit card. As a result, you pay that card off faster. Then you take the combined payment and apply it (again, with the usual payment) to the next card, and so on.
All things being equal, financial "progress" is achieved in small steps.
(It sounds pretty obvious, but if so, then I have to ask myself: why haven't I been taking those steps?)
The game presents players with an overly simplified view of life. Money borrowed from the bank, for example, costs the borrower 10% of the remaininig balance as interest on each "payday." If you borrow $20,000 to buy a property that provides a passive income of, say, $2700, you make a $700 positive cash flow from the deal.
Unfortunately, you also incur a $2,000 interest expense. Since the initial object of the game is to get your passive income to exceed your expenses (so that, in effect, you no longer have to work for a living), acquiring this property doesn't help get you where you want to go.
Assume, unrealistically, that you have no other expenses. To meet the game's initial "victory condition," you'd have to pay off some portion of that $20,000, to the point where the income exceeds the interest on the balance. What portion? Well, here we see a (semi-)practical application of algebra...
Let x denote the number of "thousands" to be paid off. For each thousand paid off, the $2,000 interest goes down by $100 and the income goes up by $100. So, the equation we need to solve is:
2000 - 100x < 700 + 100x.
Let's make life easy. Divide each side by 100 and do the proper manipulations:
20 - x < 7 + x
20 - x + x < 7 + x + x
20 < 7 + 2x
20 - 7 < 7 - 7 + 2x
13 < 2x
13/2 < (2/2)x
6.5 < x.
Since x has to be some whole number of thousands, the answer x = 7 does the trick. If we pay off $7,000 of the $20,000 loan, our income exceeds our expenses.
My, I can be nerdy sometimes, can't I? (Forgive my prolixity; I may use this example in a book that's in the planning stage, in the back of my mind.)
Cheers...
