Cancel That Card!

I went through the roof when I saw the headline, "Don't Cancel That Card!" on the Motley Fool.

The article didn't turn out to be nearly as adamant as the headline, and, buried deep in the article, the truth is there, but almost dismissively.

The fact is, mortgage lenders tend to view open, zero balance credit cards very negatively--they know how many additional expenses you're going to incur during a move--ordering pizza for the gang who helped you move, replacing stuff the gang broke while they moved you, buying new stuff because your old stuff seems out of place in the new place, etc, etc, etc.

Where are you going to put that extra expense? On all those open, zero balance cards. Any home loan officer worth his salt knows that.

There's some good links in the article, but man--those Motley Fool guys can sometimes be more foolish than Foolish. Ever since I got a call the other night offering me a "Motley Fool Credit Card," I knew a little conflict of interest had cropped up that would keep them from dispensing the best possible financial advice.

The Lymphatic System -- More Reason To Move

Just in case this blog hadn't provided you with enough reasons to get up and move yet, now we present to you your lymphatic system.

What in the world is that?

Well, you know all about your circulatory system, right? Heart pumps blood through your body, carries oxygen and nutrients to all your cells?

See, there's another system in your body that's sort of like that, that carries a clear fluid called lymph all through your body. Lymph helps remove unwanted stuff that's hanging out inside your body, and is an important part of the immune system. Lymph isn't something a lot of people know they have, but it's important to staying healthy.

Lymph has a disadvantage compared to blood, though--there's no heart for the lymphatic system. The heart will keep the blood moving around no matter if you're lying down, running around, or sitting on the couch watching Dr. Phil. There's nothing that keeps the lymph moving, unless you move.

Any movement helps--just taking a few deep breaths can get it flowing, although some people recommend sharp, quick breaths--but as you've probably guessed, nothing gets your lymph flowing and flushing out your system like exercise.

So, not only will exercise bring down your weight, help your heart, and release endorphins, but it will also help prevent sickness and cancer.

How many more reasons do you need?

Intensity

This is a word I keep hearing bandied about. Dave Ramsey talks about gazelle intensity. Bill Phillips talks about intensity. I think George McFly says something to Lorraine about intensity. Everywhere I turn, intensity, intensity, intensity.

They keep saying it's the secret. The secret doesn't seem to be a pill or a "program." It's also not a "system"--not a weight management system, not a card-counting system, not even a life planning system.

It's intensity.

So I go and look it up in the dictionary.

in·ten·si·ty
n. pl. in·ten·si·ties

Exceptionally great concentration, power, or force.

Wow. That's speaking to me. So you do something with intensity, and it works--you're putting an exceptionally great amount of effort into something, and you start seeing results. That makes sense to me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw exceptionally great results.

You get out of any program what you're willing to put into it. If you're not intense, no program can make up for that. If you are intense, just about any program will do.

The casual problem solver looks to the program to solve his problems for him. The intense problem solver uses the program to solve his problems himself.

That's the sad, cold truth of it. If you're not giving it all you've got, you just ain't going to see the same results as if you were.

But that's also the happy, warm truth of it. If you're absolutely fed up, if you're driven, if you're willing to do what it takes--well, that energy's not going to be wasted. Let that intensity take control, and let desire move you.

Tale Of The Tape

Well, it looks like my belly and my chest are almost reaching the same circumference, despite my weight staying the same. I'm glad I'm measuring.

Sunday Book Review: The Richest Man In Babylon

If you read thirty reviews of this book, odds are 29 of them will use the word "simple." What they really mean is "short and clear." If people want to mistake brevity and clarity for simplicity, that is their choice, however I fear it keeps people from taking the book as seriously as they ought.

The Richest Man In Babylon was written in 1926 by George S. Clason. It's told as fiction, although the book does little to try to actually be a narrative. The main character is Bansir, a chariot builder, who wonders why the wealthy have gold and he does not.

As he seeks an answer to this question from Arkad, an old friend who has become the wealthiest man he knows, he discovers the principles that brought Arkad wealth are not out of his own reach, humble chariot builder though he may be.

Naturally, the book's principles also turn out to apply to you and me. They are not, believe it or not, principles of luck or craftiness or brazenness or any of the other things people think they need in order to succeed. They are actually solid, practicable principles that guarantee success.

If you went back and looked at those same 30 reviews I mentioned above, you'd probably see another phrase a lot--"common sense." This book is full of that as well, although in a world where most people receive more than one offer of credit a day and still count it a compliment that so many people are willing to lend them money, this type of sense has become far too uncommon.

Some examples:

Start thy purse to fattening - Part of what you make is yours to keep. Start keeping it. At least 10% of your income.

Control thy expenditures - If you don't have it don't spend it. In fact, don't even spend all you have.

Make thy gold multiply - Put your money where it will make you more money.

Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment - Own your own home. Get it paid off.

Increase thy ability to earn - Never stop learning. Not about money, nor about the things you need to know to provide yourself an income.

Again, this isn't innovative. The book was written in 1926. These are the tried-and-true, time-tested answers.

Those late-night infomercials you see that promise wealth in minutes, those ads you see promising great incomes for three hours a week worth of work--those are all attempted shortcuts. We all know about shortcuts, and how lost they can get you and how much time they can lose you.

This is the regular path. This is the way that you get there, the straight-line route that takes you from point A to point B. And while the book may be clear and short and straightforward, I think if you really read it, and believe it, and apply it from day to day, you'll discover the right word to describe this book isn't simple after all.

It's powerful.

For More Information . . .

I know the information I provide about actual investing is a little ambiguous. This is partly due to the format of this blog.

This year, I'm mostly trying to get out of debt, and this blog's goal is to convince other people why they want to get out of debt. So when I talk about investing or saving, it's mostly in terms of why you should get out of debt in order to do them.

My plan is to continue this blog into next year. This year's 365-Day-Turnaround is about going from debt-laden to even. Next year's 365-Day-Turnaround will be about starting to build wealth.

But I realize some of this blog's readers are ahead of me. To them, I offer some resources.

First, I like the Vanguard PlainTalk investment guides. You can either read them online or ask them to mail you a copy. There are other guides as well.

I do not know this company and I have not read this book, but if you request information from American Century, you get a free copy of the book The Automatic Millionaire. At least one reader of this blog reccomended this book to me, and hey, if it's free, what the heck.

Spin That Wheel!--Gambling: Roulette

Roulette's simple. There's a wheel with 38 numbers on it--1-36, 0, and 00. Some numbers are black and some are red. The zeros are green. They spin the wheel, drop in a little ball, and it lands below one of those numbers.

They let you bet any way you want. You can bet on an individual number, and if you're right, you get 35 bucks back for every one you bet. You can bet on odd or even, red or black, 1-18 or 19-36 and get a buck back for even money. They even have "groups" of numbers you can bet on.

I usually talk about the house PC--the "Percent to Casino." On this game, it's 5 5/19 percent on every bet but one.

How's that possible? If you can bet on red or black, your odds are as good as the casino's, right?

Nope. Those two little green spots with the zeros on them are where the casino makes all their money. Those zeros aren't red, aren't black, aren't odd, and aren't even. They're the sinkhole that makes sure that one out of every 18 spins doesn't pay off on any of those bets. Sure, you can bet on one of them as an individual bet, same as any other number, but that would only pay off 1 out of every 38 spins. And you'd only be making 35 bucks back--leaving you three bucks shy of breaking even. Betting on both would bring it back down to 1 in every 18 spins, but since two number bets only pay at 17 to 1, you'd still come up a buck short.

But wait! What about the bigger group? Those two green squares are also in one of the groups--0, 00, 1, 2, and 3. Should we bet here? Would that plug the loop?

Actually, this is that one bet that has a different house PC than all the others. For this bet, the house PC actually goes up to 7 17/19.

Like last week, there's a moral to the story. Will you win? You betcha. Especially on those even money bets, you can hit them. Will you walk away from the table with more than you started with?

Nope. To win any real money, you have to make single number bets, and the single number bets will swallow your money faster than a hungry rattlesnake landing on a crippled bunny. And by the time your number finally comes up, you've already put down as much as you win.

If, even worse, you chase the numbers, your odds get even worse.

Is there any strategy at all to roulette?

Sure. First, if you can find a European wheel, the house percentage goes down to 2.7%. This is because it only has one 0.

Second, like all machines, roulette wheels are sometimes imperfect. Watch a wheel for a while before you start betting, to see if its favoring one area of the wheel. Betting in that area might slightly increase your chances.

Is either of these strategies going to make you rich?

Does making a hole in your gas tank smaller make it fill itself back up?

Eating Healthy On The Cheap

Checked out the cookbooks at the library yesterday, looking for a book with a title along the lines of the title of this post. Didn't find any. Seems every book at the library is about making cooking easy.

I don't expect cheap, healthy cooking to be easy. There's an expression in marketing--you can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick any two. I know that's going to be true for cooking as well--you can have it fast, cheap or good-for-your, pick any two.

If you want to eat cheap and healthy, I'm sure it means soaking beans overnight and marinating cheap cuts of beef for hours.

Although I don't know yet, because I still haven't found the book.

I'll let you know when I find it.

Willpower Is Not Enough (Erik Gets All Mr. Miyagi)

I read a really fantastic book recently called Willpower Is Not Enough. Although the book was published by a religious press, it was written by two psychologists and teaches some fascinating principles.

The basic premise goes something like this:

If you're having to use "willpower" to do something, if you have to grit your teeth and make a fist and force yourself, you're not only likely to fail at it, but you're working harder than you need to.

Most often, willpower is a function of the mind. The mind intellectually understands something, and wants us to do it (or stop doing it) even if we don't want to. It's as if there's two people inside us, the one who understands what he should and should not do, and the one who doesn't want to be bothered with such restrictions.

The book identifies this other creature as your heart. Willpower issues, it says, come from times when your mind and your heart are in conflict. When you force yourself to do something, the opposition comes from your own feelings. Our culture devalues feelings, focusing instead on intellect and logic. Even most of our religions claim our passions are evil and must be suppressed. "Mind over matter," we say. "Put your mind to it."

Eastern philosophies are not so lopsided. They're all about balance. The real trick isn't so much finding a way to overpower your heart as it is to work with your heart. Involve your heart.

What do I mean by this? Well, you can take it a couple of ways.

First, let's say you want to begin a new behavior. Your brain knows it's a good behavior, but your heart doesn't want any part of it.

Your brain might know you should exercise more, but you can't get fired up about it. Stop and think about the things that do get you fired up. Maybe you're a social butterfly, and you love to be around people. If you make your exercise program into a group activity, your heart and your brain could get behind it.

The book tells of one young man who had terrible study habits. He'd study hard, cramming for a week, but then he'd burn out and ditch class for a week to hang with friends. Then, out of guilt, he'd go back to cramming and burn himself out again. As he started looking at this from a heart/mind perspective, he realized his heart wasn't in his major. By changing majors to something that excited his heart, studying was no longer a chore for him. No more real discipline was required.

Think about it. Does it take discipline for a kid to wake up on the day when she's going to Disneyland? Does it take discipline to call a radio station when they're offering those incredible tickets?

When the heart and the mind are behind things, they become far easier.

So what about the opposite? What if you want to stop a behavior?

First off, you stop assuming the desires of your heart are bad and need to be suppressed. While the means you may pursue to achieve those desires might be unhealthy, the desire itself is probably perfectly normal and important. It becomes a matter of fulfilling that need in a non-harmful way.

For instance, the next time you want to indulge in the behavior, stop and do a self assessment. Ask questions like: What am I feeling right now? What will indulging in this behavior accomplish? What need am I trying to satisfy? Is there another way I can fulfill that need?

It may sound like psychobabble, but you might be surprised to find that a tendency to overeat is actually because of a desire for affection (It's not called comfort food for nothing!). A drug problem might come from a desire to feel important.

You don't overcome those by gritting your teeth, trying to be tough, and forcing your way through it.

If I tell you for the next thirty seconds not to think of a pink elephant, pink elephants will flood your thoughts.

If instead, I tell you to try to picture a white tiger, nary a pink elephant will enter your brain.

You overcome a negative behavior by indulging those decent, honest feelings in more wholesome and positive ways.

That's not to say that there won't be times where you'll need to rely on willpower alone, nor that your heart can always be trusted.

But it is far less stressful (and more Zen) to try to bring the heart and mind together, rather than pitting them against each other.

Like a judo master can use his opponent's strength against him, by using his opponent's momentum to bring him down, so you can bring your heart into submission not through overpowering it, but through letting its powerful desires pull you into the behaviors that will bring you true joy.

Tale Of The Tape: Down Six Pounds

I attribute it all to a "lifestyle change."

I went from being a guy who mostly sat around at a desk and in his car to a guy who spends his days bailing buckets of water from flooded offices and running a wet-dry vac.

I think it's my bedtime.

Why Teenagers Should Read This Blog

When I was a child, I was really interested in time travel. My boyhood journal contains entries like:

Erik, if you're reading this in the future, if you have a time machine and some money, you can send it to me.

I was very interested in getting hooked up by my future self.

Well, now that I'm older, I know that traveling back in time is probably impossible. However, I also know something that never occurred to little Erik.

It was possible for him to hook me up.

How is that possible? What did little Erik have that big Erik doesn't?

Time. Time, as the song goes, was on his side.

If you're a teenager, it's on your side, too.

When you invest money, it earns interest. Once that money earns interest, the interest and the money start to earn interest. Then the money and the interest and the interest all earn interest together. This can snowball into bigger and bigger savings.

Let's say little five-year-old Erik had got his hands on $100. It would have been tough, but if he scraped together allowance, birthday money, Christmas money, maybe everything he got that year, he could have done it. And let's say instead of spending it, he put it away somewhere where it would earn 12% interest, compounded annually.

If that money was destined for me, 30 year old Erik, his $100 would have given me just shy of $2,000. Pretty generous of that little boy.

Of course, if the money didn't go to me, if it went to 65-year-old Erik, getting ready to retire, it wouldn't be $2,000. It would be worth over $100,000. All it cost him to do that was that $100. I don't even know what he really spent it on.

So what does this mean to you, the sixteen-year-old who's just starting his part time job? It means you have a huge advantage over me to give your future self that gift.

Guess how much it would cost you to become a millionaire? What could you do, right now, that would place a million dollars in a little box with a bow on it, labeled To: Me From: Me?

The answer is: $2,000 a year, for two years.

For $4,000, you can retire a millionaire.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "That's a lot of money. I want a stereo. I want CDs. And I really want a car. When I'm older, I'll have more money for stuff like savings. I'll have lots of time to save for retirement later."

What you don't understand, though, is that time is what you're giving up if you wait. If you wait just a little, if you wait until you're twenty, you won't be able to do it in two years any more. You'll have to put in $2,000 a month for four years if you want to retire with a million dollars. Instead of costing you $4,000, it will cost you $8,000. Those four years cost you $4,000.

But hey, that's still not so bad. $8,000 to retire a millionaire? Maybe I can do it when I'm twenty, you say.

But you know what'll happen when you're twenty? You'll be going to college, and then starting a family, and then wanting a house. Pretty soon you're going to be thirty, like me, and you're going to finally get around to starting your investing.

Guess how many years I would have to save $2,000 a year if I wanted to have a million dollars when I retired? Ten? Fifteen?

Well, technically I could stop in twenty years, when I turned 50. But I would still have about a hundred thousand less than you'd end up with from your $4,000. In fact, I could put away $2,000 a year every year, from now until I retired, and I still wouldn't have as much money as if you invested as a teenager. I wouldn't even have as much as if I'd invested at 20, and stopped at 24. I would never catch up.

So who's the wisest?

The guy who does all three. The one who leaves himself a million dollar present as a teenager, leaves himself a million dollar present as a twenty-something, and then leaves himself another million dollar present from thirty on.

Now, if you're a particularly sharp teenager, you noticed a little something on that paycheck you got. You didn't get it all. The government gets a good share in taxes. So you're probably worried that when you save that million, the government's going to take a huge chunk of it away. Up until just a few years ago, you'd have been right.

But a few years ago, a guy named Roth came up with a tiny little change in the way Individual Retirement Accounts work. Instead of paying with pre-tax dollars, and then taxing retirees when they withdraw money, what if they pay with after-tax dollars, and the money grows tax-free?

In other words, there is a place you can put your money where the Government cannot tax it, where it will grow free, and every penny of it is yours when you're done.

It's called a Roth IRA, after that Roth guy, but you may call it your little patch of heaven. Because it's sheltered, the government limits the amount you can put in it, but don't worry. The limit is exactly $2,000 a year. And there's no age limit on when you can start contributing.

Even if you can't do the full $2,000 this year, do $1,000. If you do $1,000 a year in a Roth IRA, you'd only have to pay until you were 20--an extra $1,000--to hit the million. A $5,000 total cost.

The real point--beyond the security you'll be giving yourself--is that you'll learn something about your money. As you put it in that account and watch it grow, you'll be slower to give your money away for "stuff." I'm not saying you can't get some "stuff." Stuff's fun, and having fun is part of what teenagerhood is for. But there's this powerful ability you have right now to turn that one dollar into many, many more.

Because if you did it consistently, do you know how much you would have, if you invested $2,000 a year from age 16 until retirement in an IRA, earning around 12% interest in some good growth stock mutual funds?

Over 5.3 million dollars.

Wait two years. Go ahead. Start when you're 18. The number drops to 4.2 million.

Still sound okay? Sounds like you can wait?

Well if you wait any longer, say until after college, and start saving for retirement at 25, the number drops to 1.9 million.

Wait until you're thirty, like me, and you'll barely clear a million.

But please, don't put it off any longer than that. Do you know what the number drops to if you wait until you're 40? Take a guess.

$300,000.

Wait until you're fifty, and it's not even $100,000.

Time is money. That's not just an expression; that's the mathematical truth.

The little boy me eventually grew up to understand the laws of physics that prevented future me from shooting those dollars back to him, so he forgave me, I think. After all, it just wasn't possible.

But I wonder about future me, waiting there at the end of my career, knowing full well that I had it in my power to leave him a wonderful gift of security and peace of mind. I wonder about my wife's future self, who may have to be without me for a time, who also understands the power our younger selves had to launch this gift forward to them.

Will they forgive us, because they remember how pressing the purchases of today seemed to us? Or will the purchases she and I are making, the stuff we put on credit cards, the money we spent paying interest instead of earning it all be as inconsequential to them as the purchases little Erik made are to me?

Sunday Book Review: Financial Peace Revisited

Dave Ramsey's story goes something like this:

Back in the day, Dave was into "creative real estate." You know the kind--it's the kind that you see advertised on late-night TV, where you try to buy real estate you can't afford by financing it for "nothing down." He did other types of real estate as well, but he was caught up in the get-rich-quick mentality that dominates a lot of wealth-building videos and seminars. Before too long, he was an on-paper millionaire.

Of course, it wasn't too much longer before bad market conditions, some changes in real estate law, and a whole bunch of debt caught up with him, and he was right back to being, not stone cold broke, but drowned in debt he couldn't afford.

So he dumped the "Get Rich Quick" mindset and adopted a bunch of tried and true, no-risk ways of getting out of debt and building wealth. As he likes to say, "It's the kind of financial advice your Grandma would give you."

As some of his old associates started seeing how well he was doing and as some of the pastors at his local churches asked him to help people in financial dire straits, he decided there might be a market for a book about simple financial principles.

He wrote it, called it Financial Peace, and self-published 1,000 copies. Around the same time, he started doing a little show on a local radio station.

Now, his books are bestsellers, and the radio show is nationally syndicated. Seems people are hungry to hear no-risk, simple, common sense financial talk.
This is an expanded version of that original manuscript, with a few new chapters and additional commentary by his wife Sharon. This is basic, nuts-and-bolts commentary on debt and finance. If you only buy one book on money (and why would you only want one book on a topic like money?) this would probably be the one.

It gives simple explanations about everything from how to pick a mutual fund to what all the "alphabet soup" (529? 401K? IRA? 403B?) savings plans are all about.

But most importantly, this book seeks to give you the emotional drive to do all of this, not just the logic. After all, when was the last time you saw somebody running down the street like a mad man, screaming, "ARRRGH! I have come to a logical conclusion!!"

The truth is, until we get emotional about something, we flat-out don't do it. Hopefully, this will give you some of what you need to get going. Like the title states, it isn't so much about getting rich (although it certainly tells you how to do that by retirement) as it is about peace. Not staying up at night, worrying about how sick your daughter might be, and where you would get the co-pay from if had to take her to the emergency room the next day.

I've been there, and I'll tell you, I'm not going back.

Fame!

Thanks to Jarle at Poundfighter for the link. Jarle is Norwegian, but living in Sweden, and running a very interesting weight loss blog.

About Upromise

So for about the last year, my wife and I have been using Upromise. You've probably seen their little logo on things at the store at wondered what the deal was. Here you go.

See, Upromise works together with a bunch of products and restaurants and gas stations and other places, and every time you purchase one of those products or dine at one of those restaurants or fill up at one of those gas stations, a percentage of what you spent goes to a "savings" account for your child (or children) or a child (or children) you know.

The savings percentage varies depending on the product or service you buy, anywhere from 3-10%.

The ads say this is a way to "invest" in the child's future, but that's a little misleading. The nickels and dimes that various companies put into your account do not actually go straight into any type of "investment" account. The site does give you the option of setting up a 529 account through Vanguard, but the minimum contribution is $50 a month. At 3% savings per item, you would have to buy $1,666.67 worth of groceries to qualify. If you eat out a lot, and went to restaurants that gave you back 10%, you could get that $50 by spending $500 a month eating out.

Of course, you could just come up with the fifty bucks. Before you think, "Oh, that's too expensive," remember--it's not a fee. It's really an investment. It stays your money. It's fifty bucks a month you're setting aside to pay for your child's education. It's a special savings account that has certain tax advantages. Fifty bucks a month, invested for ten years at 11% interest would give you $11,000 when it came time to send Junior to school, even though you only paid $6,000 in.

Even if you don't have the fifty bucks a month to save yet, you may as well join one of these places. There is no cost and there's some free money.

How much?

Well, I've been doing it for around a year now. Prior to today, I have never once checked my balance. I have also never once made a purchase based on what would get me Upromise money and what wouldn't. In fact, I am partial to one brand of gasoline that does not work with Upromise.

So, how much was in that account when I checked it today, after all this time?

$4.22. Divided equally between my two daughters, that works out to $2.11 each.

About half of that was made in the last 120 days. Now that my wife has begun coupon shopping, we're buying more of the brand-name products that participate. However, since they pay you as a percentage of the price you paid, and we're using coupons and double coupons to not pay much at all . . . well, you see the number.

Although 75 cents of that came from one trip to Red Brick Pizza I took last year, dining alone, so if you eat out much it may be more worth it to you.

Either way, it's money to my name (or my kid's names) I wouldn't have had if I didn't join up. Joining didn't cost me anything, so why not?

As long as I don't make stupid purchases just because I think I'm getting something out of it in Upromise dollars, there's no possible pain, and a little gain.

Okay, very little.

Gambling: The Worst Odds On The Strip

Casino gambling works like this:

A whole bunch of people show up each day and give a bunch of money to the casino. The casino gives part of it back. Then, people give that to the casino, too. The casino gives part of that back.

People still keep giving more and more of that back to the casino, though. Know why? Because they think that once they won, they're playing with casino money. It becomes play money to them, and so they don't feel it so much when they give it back, a little at a time, to the casino.

The amount that the house gets to keep (this is called the P.C., or the "Percent to Casino") is often regulated by law. In Atlantic City, it's required that all slot machines have a maximum P.C. of 17%. This means that for every 100 dollars that gets put into the machine, it has to give back 83.

So which game has the highest P.C. of any game on the strip? Which game does the house keep the most money on? Poker? Blackjack? Slots?

Nope. It's Keno.

On Keno, the house keeps 25%. In other words, for every dollar that's played, the house keeps a quarter.

Keno works like this: You get a little paper with numbers on it from 1 to 80. You pick a bunch of numbers, the casino picks a bunch of numbers. If picking numbers is too much of a mathematical stretch for you, the casino will often pick your numbers for you, too. The casino pays you based on how high a percentage of your numbers match with their numbers.

Keno winnings are often called "Miracle Money," by gamblers, who know that's what it would take to get it in any great quantity.

Please note--I'm not saying you won't get any of it. You will. What you won't do is win big. If you play enough, the casino will graciously give you back about 3/4 of what you put into it, and they'll call it "winnings."

Keno is a game with no strategy, no luck, no skill involved.

Does it have any redeeming qualities? Sure. Because the game takes longer than most other casino games (figure about 10 minutes to get all the cards and pick the house numbers, versus having the cards tossed down right then) you lose your money more slowly.

However, in this busy, fast-paced world of ours, it may be more efficient to follow Harry Anderson's advice to would-be Keno players: "I'd suggest simply asking for the manager of the casino and handing over a quarter of the money in your wallet, sucker!"

Want further proof of the difficulty of winning big in Keno?

Iwon.com has a keno-like game they run daily called "Pick 7." They've been running this game daily for years. Everybody who goes to the site can pick seven numbers, click an ad, and have a shot at $70,000.

Guess how many times, in the last five years, they've had to pay out a winner? 10 times? Five?

Twice. Once April of last year, and once back in 2001. That's it.

If you're looking for something to do at a casino while you're eating lunch that involves numbers, try this instead:

1. Get a keno form for you and a friend. Or two sheets of notebook paper. Even a couple napkins will work fine.
2. Each of you pick a bunch of numbers.
3. Give each other a buck for each one you match.
4. Repeat as often as you wish.

You get the same effect without losing any money! I'm sure this game will be all the rage at lunch appointments all over the nation by the end of the week.

I mean, if people are willing to pay to play it, how much more exciting will it be to get to play for free!

Squirm Yourself Skinny

My Dad shot me a copy of this press release on an elaborate study done by the Mayo clinic. They had obese and non-obese people wear special underclothing with elaborate motion sensors (The kind they use in fighter jets? How fast did they think these folks would be moving?) and then monitored their "NEAT" rating.

"NEAT" stands for "non-exercise activity thermogenesis," or in other words, how many calories you burn doing stuff other than exercising.

Guess what they found? That the non-exercise movement was a bigger factor in keeping you thin than regular, regimented exercise. "Obese persons sit, on average, 150 minutes more each day than their naturally lean counterparts."

But could that be because they're heavier? The study checked that, too.

For the next phase of the study, the researchers overfed the lean people by 1,000 calories a day to make them gain weight, and underfed the obese people by 1,000 calories a day to replicate an intense diet. Researchers then monitored their movements every half second for 10 days and compared the results. Even after losing weight, the naturally obese group sat more and moved less. And even after gaining weight, the naturally lean group stood, walked and even fidgeted more than the other group.

The moral of the story? Don't sit still. If you are sitting still (like watching TV) do something else at the same time. Iron. Sort laundry. I used to practice card tricks--guess I'll get to again.

I knew a girl who would crochet bandages for a hospital every time she was sitting down anywhere--even at church. It didn't require much thought, so she could still pay attention to what was going on, but she was always doing something.

So fidget your way fit. Wiggle down your weight. Squirm yourself skinny. And when your Mom says, "Can't you sit still?" just say, "Nope. The Mayo clinic said it's good for me."

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Month

Well, today was bill paying day.

Bill paying day is officially my favorite day of the month now.

Paying off my bills isn't like weight loss. It isn't as disconnected. With weight loss, you eat less, and you exercise, and you hope in some vague, ambiguous way, it will show up on the scale.

When I pay bills, I pay, and I immediately see the numbers go down.

Today I finished paying off the first one--a Chase Visa with a $400 limit. Which, of course, frees up more money to go to the next bill, which is Dell Financial services.

Although the total payoff for Dell is a number remarkably close to the amount I'm getting back in my tax refund. So that bill may be paid off next month.

Which will leave me free to start paying off my car early.

It also means I'll be getting to the point where the fact that my bills were so high will work for me. Because the bills that are paid off will give me greater power to pay down on the ones that are still outstanding.

It doesn't mean life is easier in other areas. We're counting our blessings that February is a short month, so we can make the $100 we have left in our food budget last for the next twelve days.

It does mean we probably won't be ordering out for pizza any time soon.

And of course, it will be discouraging to get the bills in the mail next month and see the balances creeping back up as interest inches the "amount owed" a little higher each time (Did I mention that, of my $40 monthly "amount due" on my Dell account, a full thirty dollars was going towards interest? Do you know that I'll probably mention it again?).

But I'll get to knock that down with greater and greater vigor.

Now, I get to do it all again on the 16th of next month.

Start a budget, if you haven't already. Dave Ramsey says, "A budget is people telling their money where to go instead of wondering where it went." If you can't do a budget yet, at least track your finances. Keep a log of how much went where. How much are you really spending on eating out? How much are you really spending on those magazines you pick up at the check out counter?

I was shocked--shocked--to read an article a guy wrote where he advised people not to balance their checkbooks. "You have better things to do with your time," the article said. "You always have a pretty good idea what's in there."

Pretty good, nothing. I remember when I first got my check card. I worked at the bank, got a snazzy little card with my picture on it, and I had a "pretty good idea" what was in there right into repeated overdraft dips into my savings account.

Keep a checkbook. Yes, it's time consuming, but time is money, and if you don't have the money, than you have to be willing to give up the time.

Then track those purchases. See what money is going where. Even if you don't think you can do a budget now, tracking your finances will help you get an idea of what you would need to do to create one.

Because in reality, the more desperate your financial situation, the more desperately you need a budget.

As I Feared or Why I Only Weigh Myself Weekly

In an effort to prove to me that I cannot go a week without exercising and still lose weight, my body put two more pounds around me, pushing me back above that magical 250 pound mark. Yes, that's right--I'm back to 251.

I deserve it. This was not my finest week. Not for cardio, not for weightlifting, not for diet.

So, I will take this hapless occasion to explain one of the features of my blog: Why do I only weigh myself once a week? If I'm being scientific and precise and nerdy about all of this, shouldn't I weigh myself daily? Maybe even a couple of times a day? Track my moment-by-moment progress?

No. And neither should you.

If you're weighing yourself daily, stop it. Right now. Cut it out, I'm telling you. If, even worse, you're weighing yourself every time you walk into the bathroom, you may want to move the scale under the bathroom sink. Only bring it out for the weekly weigh-in.

Why in the world would this be true?

First, it doesn't pay to weigh yourself throughout the day. Your weight naturally fluctuates throughout the day. You eat, you drink, you go to the bathroom, and, if you're some people I know, you use several pounds of hair product. You wear varying amounts of clothing.

So you're going to weigh differently throughout the day, through no fault of your own and despite your not having lost or gained any body weight.

You probably will never weigh less than when you first wake up. That's probably the best time to weigh yourself.

If you absolutely, positively have to weigh yourself every day, just do it once, in the morning, after you go to the bathroom.

But I don't advise it. Why not?

Because if you're only looking to lose 1-4 pounds a week, you're not going to see a very large difference from day to day. Not seeing a very large difference can become discouraging. Even if you did really, really well, you're not going to see much movement, and you're going to think all that work was a waste of time.

On the other hand, you do want to weigh yourself at some point, so you can see how you're doing.

One week is a good compromise. It's long enough that you can see real progress, but short enough that if something isn't working you can fix it fairly early.

Some people say that if you're trying to maintain weight, you may want to weigh yourself more frequently--like two or three times a week--to watch for any uspwings.

But nearly everybody agrees, when you're trying to lose, weighing daily will discourage you.

Missin' The Measurements

Because of work stuff, I wasn't able to do my usual Monday weigh-in.

I have to admit, I'm scared of this one. I've lost weight every time so far. This time, if I gain anything, it's going to put me back at or above 250, a weight which I was delighted to get below.

It rained a lot, keeping me inside in my nice, warm bed during the cardio hour. My workout partner fell ill at the start of the week, preventing a couple of workouts. Plus, it doesn't help that his wife is going to have a baby any day now (possibly any hour now, based on my conversation with him a little bit ago).

Plus, last Friday, one of my offices flodded. I spent all day that day and part of the next bent over running a wet-dry vac and carrying heavy buckets of water around, which left me so sore I was nearly unable to move, let alone do my normal two Saturday workouts.

So I had one solid day of physical activity, and nearly nothing else.

As for eating, I tried really hard, but it was still probably my worst week yet.

But I've still got to get on that scale.

So tommorrow morning, I'm going to do more cardio. I'm going to work myself for that hour, and then I'm going to go weigh myself, and I'm going to accept whatever results I get, and I'm going to lose another three or four pounds next week, just like I've been doing.

Stay tuned.

Sunday Book Review: The Navy Seal Workout

I'll be honest with you--I only use this book for the ab routine.

Not to say the book isn't great. It's got three sections--one upper body workout, one ab workout, and a section on cardio.

It also divides each section into suggested workouts for the beginning, intermediate, and advanced training.

The upper body workout section is entirely "weightless." No dumbbells or barbells here, but lots of pull-ups and push-ups. Why didn't I ever use it? Well, I guess I just never got advanced enough to do pull-ups. Or a pull-up.

Let's change the subject.

The cardio routine also looks terrific, if you have access to a large flight of stairs and a pool (or the ocean). It sounds like a lot of fun, and I would like to do it eventually.

Which brings us back to the ab section. It's a series of nearly a dozen exercises meant to be done every other day. I didn't come anywhere near finishing even the "beginner" routine the first time I did this. I haven't even tried to start it again this time.

But it's still a good workout to aspire to. When I read a review over at Amazon that called this a good book for those just starting out, I had to laugh. I felt like it was only for people who'd been at it a while.