Who Moved My Cheese?

My Dad emailed me this snapshot from the video version of the book Who Moved My Cheese? in response to my post from yesterday. It's a cute little book (Mick Foley complained there should be a separate bestseller list for pamphlets when this book was ahead of his thousand-some-odd page behemoth on the NYT lists) about learning not to waste time focusing on where you were happy, and finding new happiness.

On a related note, I got off the road today and drove up around the other side of the sign so I could see behind the tree.

It was an ad for an auto detailer.

If your answer to that question was "Detail my car!" then we need to talk.

The Billboard

There's a billboard up in Rubidoux with the following quote:

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

I have no idea what this billboard is advertising. If there's a logo or something on the billboard, I can't see it. There are some trees blocking the lower right hand corner--maybe that's where the logo is.

I googled the quote, and it's usually attributed to Robert Schuller, although occasionally they credit it to Tony Robbins.

But since it's been bugging me, it's caused me to really ponder the quote. It coincides with the things in this week's Artists Way stuff--recovering a sense of power.

In that book, she argues that some unbelievers use their unbelief as a crutch. Yes, my life stinks, they say, and nothing I want ever happens, but that's because the universe is cold and merciless and cruel. Belief--be it in a god, or in positive energy, or in moral absolutes--belief in anything would force them into a situation where they would have to accept responsibility for their own actions and for their own circumstances. Anything you believe in opens up possibility, and possibility is dangerously, intimidatingly freeing.

For one of the exercises in that book, you were supposed to list who, if you found yourself in the afterlife, you would want to meet. Then, you were to list who you would want to hang out with. Comparing the lists was supposed to be insightful.

I began to imagine in. Me, there in the afterlife. Everybody who ever lived was there, somewhere. After tracking down a couple of people I knew personally, I imagined my treks to go find the people I just had to talk to.

I hope I can explain the insight I got in a way that makes it clear what an epiphany it was for me.

As I was pondering my journeys in this place, marveling at my ability to move freely among all of humanity that ever had been, it occurred to me that I currently live in the same world as all of humanity that now is. Every place that now exists is there to be seen. I'm as free to move about this world as I was to move about the one I fantasized about.

I don't think I've ever fully comprehended that before. The reality that anything is possible. When I was a child, I didn't possess the financial or logistical means of doing such things. When I got older, work and other responsibilities always made me feel anchored down in a similar way.

But ultimately, if I can obtain the means to make it happen, anywhere in the world is open to me. Every person in the world exists to be met and learned from. Every opportunity afforded anyone, anywhere, is mine to have.

That's a terrifying proposition. Suddenly, I am no longer bound by circumstance. I'm no longer "just" my job or my title or my current station. I'm a creature of incredible potential, who is either moving towards it, moving away from it, or, worst of all, spinning his wheels, allowing himself to be borne down by the weight of a thousand yesterdays recycling themselves endlessly into today.

Please, please--not any more.

Good Fortune At My Own Expense.

Never get the warranty. It's usually a rip-off. The salesman will try to convince you that the second you walk out the door, the product is going to explode in your hands, and the only recourse you'll have is that warranty.

(Whenever they're doing this, I can't help but wonder if they really think their product is so bad they really, really need to sell me on a promise to fix it.)

Well, four years ago, I got the warranty for my video camera. I don't know why did it, except that I was stupid. If my four-years-younger self wasn't stupid, there wouldn't be a need for a turnaround.

So for about the last year, this video camera hasn't worked right. It works fine if it's plugged in, but if you try to run it off the battery, you get nothing. I kind of need a video camera, so I figured that would be one of my first purchases once this debt payoff thing's done.

Except as I was going through my desk looking for index cards, I discovered this fortuitous gift from my stupid past--a full, four year warranty from Best Buy from November of 2001--two months after my first daughter was born, and she was starting to do cute stuff I figured I'd want to see years and years later.

Apparently I wasn't a total moron--based on the last four digits of the card on the receipt, I didn't go into debt for the camera--I just let the guy bully me into an $80 warranty. Which means I now don't have to pay for a new battery that probably doesn't cost half that.

Either way, it was a nice bit of luck. Look for some of the results of my working camera to pop up soon over at mildlyamusing.com.

Now if I can just discover I left $5,000 in a good growth stock mutual fund and forgot about it.

Friday Mythbustin': Gatorade Is A Diet Drink

Myth: Gatorade is a good drink to have if you're trying to lose weight, because it's for healthy people.

Truth: Gatorade is sugar water.

Yup. You read that right. Gatorade is specially formulated Kool-Aid.

I'm not saying Gatorade is bad. It works. It does exactly what it's meant to do. But it's not meant to make a person healthy.

What it's meant to do is give you energy, and Gatorade does this really well.

There are several kinds of sugar, each of which your body processes at a different speed. Some can be absorbed into the bloodstream directly from your stomach. Some have to be processed by your kidneys first.

Gatorade contains a special mix of these sugars. By giving you some of each, it creates a "time release" effect, where by the time your body has finished processing one set of sugars, the others are starting kick in.

Now, as with all energy, if your body doesn't use it, it stores it. Which means if you aren't running around or working hard or somehow giving your body things to do with that energy, it's going to store it--and to your body, stored energy means fat.

So if you aren't up and moving when you have It in you, it will stay in you, on your waistline.

Which leaves you with two options. Either stop drinking it or go out and give yourself a reason to need it. Both should help a lot.

And it's not just Gatorade, by the way. Lots of so-called "healthy" drinks are basically sugar water, and just as bad as soda. I stopped drinking Sobes when I noticed the ingredients list was exactly the same as Mountain Dew, except the water wasn't carbonated.

Be careful when the first ingredient in your juice says "High Fructose Corn Syrup." Fructose is the sugar your body processes instantly. That means it spikes your blood sugar levels, and unless you're doing something to burn it, your body will instantly start pulling that stuff out of the blood and storing it as fat in order to get your levels back to normal. Not even Gatorade, the stuff designed for athletes who are giving 110% every moment, tries to pump that much sugar into the body right away.

3 Miles A Day

So somewhere a few days ago I got the idea I should start moving 3 miles a day. At this point, I don't care if I walk it or run it or crawl it, just as long as I locomote, under my own power, three miles every day.

This was due in part to watching Supersize Me. In that, the guy tries real hard not to move much. Not moving much is one of the secrets to gaining weight.

So I'm thinking, if this guy can create a "perfect storm" for weight gain, why not work a little harder to create a "perfect storm" for weight loss?

In essence, that's what I've been doing, but I knew if there was one category I was lacking in, it was the cardio. So I decided to give myself this goal of three miles to get me going on cardio.

So I've been doing it. It's been entirely walking, so far. Yesterday it was at the mall. Today it was just around a neighborhood. And you know what? It feels great. One of the coolest part was seeing how loose my clothes fit--I don't realize sitting around the office or driving my car all day that even with my belt on the tightest loop, it's not hugging my hips very well. That's really encouraging.

(There's a tip for you: If you want to feel good while you're walking, put on some of your "bigger" clothes, so you can feel like you've shrunk inside them as you walk. "Weren't these tight when I left the house?")

Of course, I blew my shot at a "perfect" storm--tonight was my brother's birthday, and once we busted out the meat at my folk's house, I didn't eat so hot. But at least it was grilled and smoked, even if it was pork and sausage. As penance, I passed on the cake.

Tomorrow, we shall make it all come together. Weightlifting in the morning, perfect eating all day long, and walking in the--well, walking sometime. Once I can fit it in.

And all shall be amazed at my powers of self-diminishment.

We won? Maybe?

A while back I mentioned "Dumb Stuff I'm Trying To Get Out Of Debt," or something like that. I said that in addition to all the smart things I'm doing, like coupon clipping and budgeting and debt snowballing, I was also trying some not-so-effective things like entering lots of contests.

Not the lottery, mind you. Not Vegas or online casinos. Just the free stuff. I use iwon.com for all my searches, that sort of thing. The way I saw it, at the end of the year, I'd be able to say, "Total raised by me: $____.__. Total raised by contests: $0.00."

Well, it looks like that may be wrong. But I say that with a caveat.

Over at the website of a local radio station, there's a contest page that shows all the contests Clear Channel has going on right now, and for the last few months there's been a contest for free Lasik, one free surgery a month, and I've entered my wife's name each month.

(While we both have vision problems, hers are far worse than mine. To get her Lasik has been a goal of mine for a while now, hence why I kept entering her in this contest.)

Well, she won. To be specific, she won a $2,000 gift certificate to Custom Laser Center in Los Angeles.

Now marketing is part of my job, too. So I have this underlying suspicion that while the ad says "contest" for "free" Lasik, this is really some kind of bait-and-switch technique, where it turns out surgery really costs $3,200 and they bring you all the way down there and butter you up and convince you to fork over the other $1,200.

When we asked them about it on the phone, they said procedures run from $800-$5,000, depending on your vision problems.

So I am extremely interested to see how this goes, and I will definitely be making a full report here. We're meeting the guy with the letters after his name a couple of weekends from now, so watch this space for exciting developments.

Erik on Supersize Me

I just saw Supersize Me for the first time. Yeah, I know that it would seem like the fitness-savvy half of this website would have been there on opening day, but the budget-savvy half of this side waits for most stuff to come out on DVD (the longer you wait, the cheaper, and all that).

Here's some of my thoughts. If you've seen it, you'll probably remember all the stuff I'm talking about. If you haven't, keep these in mind when you do check it out.

First, the biggest culprit in his weight gain and health problems wasn't the Big Mac, nor was it the Filet o' Fish he kept calling the "worst thing on the menu."

The burgers aren't health food, obviously, but if you remember the guy who's been eating two Big Macs a day since before he was married, the Big Macs weren't the problem. He was skinny, and his cholesterol was fine.

Plain and simple, it was the fries and the soda.

The guy knew this in the film. That's part of why it's called Supersize Me--he's paroding the company's willingness to give you a half a pound of fries and a tub of soda with your sandwich.

However, to claim that the company had an insidious plot motivating them do this is just crazy. In fact, it was Americans who were trying to be smart who motivated the whole "giant food" craze. They weren't trying to be smart about their health, though. They were trying to be smart about their money. Getting a ton of food for little money felt like a great value.

Fast food places were actually behind the curve on this one--they were copying gas stations. I remember when I was a kid, and you could get a 44oz soda at 7-Eleven or AM-PM for under a buck. You never got your soda at the fast food place. You got your burger there, and then headed over to the gas station for your tasty beverage. I would guess fast food places knew this was happening and chasing those dollars. The syrup for the extra soda probably only cost them a dime, and they got the business back.

Even in the movie, when they needed the really big soda, they headed to 7-Eleven.

So let's stop vilifying everybody. Let's stop saying it's the government's fault for letting McDonald's sell people a product they really wanted to buy. Let's stop saying it's McDonald's fault for producing a product that people enjoyed. Let's even stop saying it's the public's fault for trying to be smart about their money or their convenience or whatever motivates them.

Instead, let's take advantage of the new knowledge we have. Let's make smarter food choices and smarter reading choices (Googling "365 day turnaround" instead of "gossip about Justin Timberlake" is a good start, so I'm delighted you're here).

As is oh-so-briefly mentioned in the film, often times we don't care as much about health care as we do about "sick care." We notice our bodies only insofar as they stop working, and only then are we dragged kicking and screaming to see a physician. We don't live healthy, we "diet." We don't live healthy, we get gym memberships we never use.

That's part of why this website talks about a "365 day turnaround." I'm not looking to toss some pounds off and then go back to what I was doing. I'm trying to completely modify my lifestyle into one that makes my body healthier and healthier and my finances more and more solvent, rather than slowly getting fatter and fatter and getting myself into a deeper and deeper financial mess.

So I'm grateful for the movie, mostly because I think it imparts a whole bunch of really good knowledge, and knowledge is always power.

But as far as singling out McDonald's specifically--he also wasn't exercising (wasn't moving much at all), wasn't drinking water outside of what he got from them, wasn't monitoring his calorie intake--he was creating a perfect storm of physical neglect that went beyond just the food he was eating. I could probably get similar effects if I did all that stuff and ate his wife's vegan menus.

Okay, maybe not. But you get the idea.

Healthy is a lifestyle, not a boxed product from a fast food place.

Alton Brown On Supersize me

Here's what Alton Brown, host of TV's Good Eats--the show that got me interested in cooking--had to say after he saw Supersize Me.

I just saw the movie “Supersize Me” and I have to say that I liked it. It was fun, irreverent film making on a shoestring and it’s good to know that filmmakers can still pull that sort of thing off.

What shocked me about the movie wasn’t what it said, or. Heck I already new most of that stuff. What shocked me were the gasps I heard from the audience, most of whom seemed generally surprised that big business could be so…well…business like.

Here’s what it comes down to kids. Ronald McDonald doesn’t give a damn about you. Neither does that little minx Wendy or any of the other icons of drivethroughdom. And you know what, they’re not supposed to. They’re businesses doing what businesses do. They don’t love you. They are not going to laugh with you on your birthdays, or hold you when you’re sick and sad. They won’t be with you when you graduate, when your children are born or when you die. You will be with you and your family and friends will be with you. And, if you’re any kind of human being, you will be there for them. And you know what, you and your family and friends are supposed to provide you with nourishment too. That’s right folks, feeding someone is an act of caring. We will always be fed best by those that care, be it ourselves or the aforementioned friends and family.

We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. We hand our lives over to big companies and then drag them to court when the deal goes bad. This is insanity.

Feed yourselves.
Feed your loved ones.
And for God’s sake feed your children.

Don’t trust anyone else to do it…not anyone. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out to dinner every now and then…that is after all one of the great joys of life…but it isn’t life itself and that’s what I’m talking about.

Is MacDonalds food bad for you? What do you think? Does that mean you shouldn’t eat it? No, it just means you shouldn’t live on it or anything else made by someone you wouldn’t hug.

Burgers don’t kill people.
People kill people.
Don’t be one of them.

A

More on The Artist's Way

This isn't really a review, since I'm only 1/6th of the way through this book, but I have to say, I absolutely love it.

The book's subtitle is "A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity," but honestly, it is neither as New Age or as artist-centric as the title might make it sound. In reality, it's a book for people who are, for some reason, finding themselves unable to do something they really, really want to do. Maybe it's the mythical "writer's block," or maybe it's taking up a hobby you've missed for years, or maybe it's quitting your job for one you actually enjoy.

Whatever it is, if you're blocked--especially if you're painfully blocked, I recommend The Artist's Way.

It's certainly not for everybody. As you can see in the reviews, people either love this book or they absolutely loathe it.

Some may find Cameron's tone too dreamy and poetic--if you are such a get-down-to-business type, you probably just get-down-to-business and do it anyway, and don't need the book. But if, perhaps, you know you should get-down-to-business, but can't bring yourself to do so, this book might help restore some of the sense of "play" that is, in the end, what makes any "serious" business worthwhile.

The book--at least so far--could be summed up as the counter to the worldly idea in this quote, taken from the book's margin:

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic. -- Susan Jeffers

This book strives to restore the position of the "positive" as not only realistic, but, ultimately, the only thing worth bothering with.

It's set up as a twelve week course, apparently mirroring an actual twelve week class the author used to teach. The two primary features of the course are "Morning Pages"--three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing about anything you do each morning--and "The Artist's Date"--a date with one's proverbial "inner child" each week, where you do something you know you would enjoy but wouldn't normally have the chance (or allow yourself!) to do.

If all of this seems too "group therapy" for you, you might want to steer clear. But if it sounds intriguing at all, go do a "Look Inside This Book!" thing over at Amazon and see what you think.

Anybody reading ever finish it?

Friday Mythbustin': I'll Just Have The Salad

Myth: It's good to order "just" a salad if you're trying to eat healthy or lose weight.

Truth: Salads are sometimes the most fattening thing on the menu.

I had to throw this in here today after listening to an office full of people discussing lunches, and hearing how often the phrase "just a salad" or even the word "salad" came up.

The idea behind salads is a decent one. Since vegetables are high-fiber and low-calorie, a nice little mix of them adds fiber and some minerals without adding very many unwanted calories. Hence the "salad" portion of the meal. Some lettuce and tomatoes and things to balance the straight carbs and protein, like bread and steak.

But when you make the salad the center of attention, it seems kind of dull. It needs spruced up a little, badly, to become a complete meal. In fact, it needs carbs and protein--all the stuff you used to eat on the plate next to the salad plate.

So that's what restaurants did. They started adding bells and whistles to the salads to the point where all those fiber-filled vegetables have become a bed, a nest, a holding center for lots and lots of calorie filled stuff.

Think about the stuff people put on salads:

Dressing: By far, the worst offender. Two tablespoons of bleu cheese dressing contain 118 calories. That glob of dressing on top of that tomato slice has more calories than the whole tomato (which had about 22 calories whole).

Ah, but!, you say. Bleu cheese is 100% fat! I will go with the fat-free dressing! Well you're on the right track--you've probably gone from 118 calories per two tablespoons to around 50. Still more than twice the original tomato, and chances are the restaurant's globbed more than two tablespoons on your lettuce.

Your best bet is to go with as low-cal a dressing as you enjoy the taste of, and then try to spread it as thinly as you can throughout the salad. Some people say to get the dressing on the side, then dip your fork in the dressing, then take a forkfull of salad. If that works for you, great, but I've never really dug it.

Croutons, Chips-strips, Noodles, etc.: Would you eat straight white bread or chips if you were dieting? So then why is it suddenly a "diet" food when it's on a salad?

It's not, plain and simple. Lots of that stuff is fried, lots of that stuff is stuffed with calories, and lots of that stuff has zero nutritional value.

Unfortunately, it's also my favorite part of most salads.

(Okay, little confession. There was a time where I'd use Lucky Charms on my salads. Yes, the breakfast cereal. The crunchy part acted like croutons, and the marshmallows gave a nice sweet flavor, like raisins.)

It's probably the realization that I can't have croutons with it that turns me most off to salads now.

(To give you an idea of the difference the above two make--the Caesar side salad at Wendy's, without the dressing and croutons, is 90 calories. That's including the cheese and the "bacon pieces." With the dressing and croutons, it shoots up to 290 calories. Those two have twice the calories of the rest of the salad.)

Meats: "Ah, that's a fine cut of meat. Put it in the salad."

Not high up on the list of things you're going to hear at most of the restaurants you and I can afford. Chances are that's not the leanest stuff in the house.

Plus, lots of salads feature "hard" meats, full of saturated fats and other calorie-laden stuff that's really yummy but not all that healthy. Even if it's chicken, it's often the same fried "finger" chicken they serve in appetizers, with all the added calories of deep-frying.

Cheese: Cheese is another make-or-break. Piles of shredded cheese add on saturated fat calories. A a lot less of a flavorful hard cheese, like Parmesan, can do the same thing for fewer calories.

How big a difference in calories can we find in what constitutes a "salad?"

Well, at Jack In The Box, if you get a Chicken Caesar Salad, you're looking at around 220 calories, without the dressing. But if you get the Chicken Club Salad, that's a plate of 825 calories, before the dressing. The Bacon Bacon Cheeseburger has less than that. That's about the same as a Jumbo Jack and medium fries.

Over at Wendy's, that Mandarin Chicken Salad might seem tempting, with only 170 calories. But that's only before the noodles, almonds, and dressing. Those kick you up to 610 calories, giving you more calories than the Big Bacon Classic sandwich.

So "salad" might be a good starting word, but it's not enough to guarantee healthy eating. Some good words to tack on there would be "grilled" (as in the meat), "low-cal" (as in the dressing), "sensible" (as in the portion size), and fresh (as in the ingredients, because fresh vegetables are quite the opposite of bland).

Commemorating An End To Procrastination

I think I'll do today's blog entry tommorrow.

Do It Now! Do It Today!

I am a master procrastinator. The champ. If there were any area of life where procrastination triumphed, mine would be a Rocky-level success story.

Unfortunately, this is planet Earth, and here, procrastination is debilitating. Today I re-read some things I wrote several years ago, around the same time my daughters were born.

Guess what I was talking about?

Yup. My weight issues. My money issues. My job issues. My school (or lack thereof) issues. The same nonsense I'm still dealing with. The same problems I blog about here day after day.

My younger self actually wrote, "Even if I got back in school today, I wouldn't be ready for a masters program until I was 30. 30! My life would be nearly half over."

I want to throttle that kid. You're barreling down on 30 now, man! It came even though you weren't in school. What were you waiting for?

He probably deserves some slack. Though he didn't know it, he was only a couple of months away from doctors finding a tumor in his newborn daughter's leg and having some of the hardest decisions of his life.

The guy that needs throttled is me--the one who came through all that and still hasn't learned. Who still can't do today what he can put off 'till tomorrow.

So part of my turnaround will be transforming from Erik, Royal High King of Postponement into Erik, Guy Who Does It As Soon As It Needs Done.

I'm going to change a couple of habits that, while I realize are only symptoms of the problem, will help me remember this change and give my positive self-talk some back-up.

From now on I will:

1. Refill the gas tank on half a tank, rather than waiting for it to empty.

2. I will take out the trash before the rim is reached, not once the pile above the rim is no longer architecturally capable of supporting more trash.

3. I will get anything that must be done before the end of the month done by the 17th of that month.

Down Another Pound

Well, I'm down another pound. I have about 10 weeks to go until my birthday, and about 16 pounds to reach my goal of 220 by my birthday. Will I be able to pull it off? Will I shed this excess weight and rise above my yo-yo past, or will I crash and burn, brought down in a blaze of deep-fried foods and oversized portions?

Stay tuned, true believers, as the saga continues . . .

Testing A New Posting Feature

Yet another attempt to try and facilitate my publishing this blog easier,
leaving me more time to write my fiction and other things.

Hopefully, this experiment will not go as freakishly wrong as it went on my
other blog, leaving my entire page looking like portions of another blog had
been cut and pasted into mine. We will have to see.

In the meantime, the 365-day-turnaround continues, and new weight
information should be up tomorrow in the new tale of the tape.

Also, just like I've used Dave Ramsey's baby steps to try to control my
finances, and Bill Phillips' Body-For-Life to get going on fitness,
I'm once again giving Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way a shot at
re-energizing my creativity. It was a birthday gift from my dad shortly
before the birth of my first daughter, and I started the 12 weeks, but never
finished them. This time, I'm giving it another go. We'll see if this
makes any sparks, and any sparks will be duly reported.

Changing The Cardio

For the last four months, I have been very faithfully lifting weights. My brother and I have only missed a couple of days--once, because his wife had a baby, and once, because my daughter had an earache.

I haven't been nearly so faithful with my cardio. Because we both figured we could do cardio without needing a spotter, we didn't get together to do it.

Well, that's changing this week.

Starting Teusday, we will also be doing cardio together. I don't mean side-by-side (that boy could probably run me into the ground) but we will meet each morning, like we do with weightlifting, so we both feel the positive peer pressure to get up and do it.

I hope to see this push me to the proverbial "next level," fitness wise.

I'll let you know.

Friday Mythbustin': "Right Way" vs. "Wrong Way"

Myth: There is one right "way" to eat, and once you discover it, you're going to be slim, happy and healthy.

Truth: Because people's bodies and goals are different, "right" and "wrong" can be completely different for different people.

So there are diets that say to eat no carbs.

And then there's diets that say that to eat carbs, but only when you balance them with protein.

And then there's diets that say to eat carbs and protein, but never at the same time.

What's going on here? Why can't anybody agree?

What you have to remember is that different diets have different purposes. They're each trying to make your body do different things.

For example, a lot of the "no-carb" diets are trying to trigger a specific reaction in your body--a thing called ketosis. The entire goal of this type of diet is that one single thing. Dieticians disagree about whether ketosis is a good thing or a bad thing, but they all agree a no- or low-carb diet will get you there.

The types of diet that require you don't eat combinations of food--they usually say to eat nothing but fruit until noon, and then make sure time passes between when you have carbs and when you have protein--are actually less about weight loss, and more about keeping your system clean. Since different chemicals are required to digest carbs than protein, your body can process them faster if you only throw one of them at a time into your system.

On the other hand, diets that ask you to eat foods in combination are trying to do the opposite--since digestion burns calories, the longer the digestion process takes, the better. Combinations of food slow the rate of absorption into your body, giving you the chance to burn that energy before it gets stored.

So if it seems like two food statements are in conflict (This article says I should eat broccoli, but this one says I shouldn't) stop and look at what the reasoning for each statement is. A difference in recommendation is usually because of a difference in goal.

Good-Bye Cheap Internet

Well, I just got word that what has been one of the nicest budget items I have--my dial-up internet access--is going away.

Access4less.net is going to discontinue doing dial-up on May 9th. I've been getting dial-up service from them for $5.95 a month for some time now, and have not had any complaints about their service.

I'm a no-frills internet kind of guy anyway--spare me your special browsers and your nifty chat features and your special dialers. Just give me the settings to plug into my dialer, don't hassle me, and I won't hassle you. Access4less was internet service that worked for me.

If I don't do anything, they're going to bump me over to Earthlink for $9.95 a month, which only represents a $4.00 increase in my budget, and while $4.00 doesn't bother me so much any more, six months ago, that would have been a pretty big deal to me, and so there's still a little voice in my head that's upset about it now.

Either way, I'm going to miss my silent ISP. I have a suspicion this is going to be like when my neighbor upstairs moved away and the new people moved in--it's not that I missed seeing and hearing the folks upstairs, it's that I miss not seeing and hearing them.

On Budgets--An Analogy or Two (or Six)

I've been using an analogy lately when talking to people about budgets. People seem to think using a budget is like tying up your hands and feet before jumping into shark-infested waters. If the month is going to be tough, financially, why limit yourself? Why not leave yourself completely free to use the money the way it's needed?

I'd say that's like a major-league center fielder looking at his glove and saying, "You know, this thing is really limiting me. It's got two positions--open and close. If I took this thing off, my hand would really be free to catch that ball that's hurling at me through space."

Or a carpenter who says, "You know, I keep using this hammer, and the end of this hammer is really small. I'm even missing the nails sometimes. But look at the size of the palm of my hand! I bet I'd never miss if I used that. What am I using this tiny little hammer for?"

The fact is, the budget is a tool, and like most tools, it gives you more freedom than if you didn't use it, because it gives you more power.

Budget represents your money saddled and bridled, with you firmly in control. No budget is when your money running wild and free, dragging you to all sorts of places you never expected (or really needed) to go.

I never plan to go a month of my life without a budget again. I'll never trap myself, hold myself back like that again.

Missing the Update

I should get the Tale of the Tape updated by Thursday. I'm sure it doesn't bother other people as much as me when I don't do it on Mondays, but the first half of this week is a little hectic, and I haven't been able to get to Official Government Scale I use to weigh myself each Monday.

I did bring the finance portion down a bit, but it will come down a little more when I do the update. However, because of debt snowballing, a $300 mileage check, and a reimbursment check for work expenses, I was able to make a $750 car payment this month, and I had to post that. My car payment is usually $170.

I'll tell ya'--it was a great feeling. I'm so far ahead of where I was just four months ago. I couldn't be gladder that I've been doing this.

Between that and the fact that I'm starting to get some real shoulders, I'd say things are going pretty well.

More On Separate Checking Accounts

My friend Becky makes the case that, rather than pooling all their money, it's a good idea for couples to pool some of their money, and leave the rest separate--the idea being, more or less, that the money that's together will help avoid the conflicts that come from having all your money separate, and the money that's separate will avoid the conflicts that come from all your money together.

I really feel that the opposite is true--keeping some money together and some money separate opens up the door for both types of problems.

I'm reminded of a buddy of mine who was a missionary. Normally, missionaries serving together keep their finances separate, for the only real good reason to do so: They're going to be leaving each other eventually, and it will make the separation easier.

However, one missionary he was living with convinced him it would be a good idea to pool part of their money for food and other expenses.

What do you think happened? The other missionary ate all the food, even though they'd gone in halvsies on it. The other missionary spent all his personal money at the start of the month, so when unexpected expenses came up my friend had to pay for all of them. At the time I met him, this missionary had a bunch of "rainy day" money saved. When I saw him again after he served with this guy, that was entirely gone.

Same thing in a relationship. Let's say Marci and I did this. What I got in an accident, and I had to use Marci's car? Would I then pay for the gas and oil changes for Marci's car, since I'm the one using it? But I still have to pay for the deductible for my car.

And what about when we're doing something together that only one of us wants to do? If we go to a comic book convention on my day, would I pay for both of us, since I'm the only one who really likes that? And if we go see a chick flick on her day, should she pay, since it's a movie she wants to see?

The problem with the above examples is how independent they both try to be. My car. Her car. My night. Her night. If we really are in this together, that's our car. It's our night. It's the separatedness that makes conflict inherent in each of the interactions above.

A couple of points--

First, I am not saying multiple checking accounts are a bad idea. I'm going to be opening up another account here eventually, when the first check for ad revenue for this site comes in. What promotes conflict is separate checking accounts--accounts where expenses are, in effect, "hidden" from the partner.

Also, I'm not saying complete unification of finances is going to be conflict free. I'm saying that pooling all the money creates a sense of unity with both partners that makes the conflicts easier to handle. Even if my wife and I are at odds about whether me buying printer toner is more important than her buying a sewing machine part because we don't have the money for both, the fact that we're arguing about our money and what's best for us puts us a step ahead of those couples who are arguing about "my" and "yours" and "you" and "I."

And because we've taken that attitude about everything--even our debt--that puts us at a full advantage. She came into the marriage with a lot of debt, and a lot of conflict came from her continuing to think of that debt as "hers." She didn't feel I should have to pay it. Now, by fully relinquishing "her" debt to "us," we're able to pay it off a lot more effectively than if we were still fretting about whose was whose. The second we decided to become an "us," the debt had to, had to, become "ours."

Would it have made sense, financially, if I was investing "my" extra money and getting a 10% return, while "her" debt was still costing 18% a year? It might have made sense for me, but it wouldn't have made sense for us.

I'm not saying we won't eventually budget each other a few dollars. We aren't doing that right now, because we're paying down debt so aggressively--right now the sewing machine is still broken and the printer still has no toner--but we'll eventually reach a point where we can budget out for a few of our "own" purchases.

I am saying that since money is directly linked to emotion, fully "investing" in a relationship by contributing your entire salary allows and creates a more complete emotional commitment. Failing to fully commit financially may represent that a person hasn't fully committed emotionally.

And, since partners know this too, a complete surrendering of one's finances to the relationship will be perceived as one of those actions that speak so loud it's hard to hear what you're saying. So will failing to make that commitment.

So again--I'm not saying completely pooling finances will eliminate all conflicts. It won't. I can testify to that.

I am saying it can create a sense of relationship security, of unity, that cannot be had otherwise.