Merry Christmas — iwillteachyoutoberich readers get a discount on pens

November 29 17 Comments latest by JP

I know, I’m a weirdo, but I love pens. I was thinking of what I could get iwillteachyoutoberich readers for Christmas, and the first thing that popped to mind was PENS. So I asked my friend Lily (a former Friday Entrepreneur) at JetPens.com to hook you up.

Go to JetPens.com and enter code “BERICH” for 10% off. Valid until December 5, 2007.

To put things in perspective, when my favorite pen was discontinued in the U.S., JetPens was the only store that could find it and put in a special order from I-don’t-know-where. Thanks, Lily.

I’ll be in Hawaii for a few days, so posting will be slow.

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17 Comments latest by JP

Why doesn’t someone make politics accessible?

November 26 43 Comments latest by Can Better Branding Make Politics More Accessible?

No, this isn’t a stupid frat-boy business idea. I previously wrote about how voting is a failure of the last mile and a simple way to dramatically increase voter turnout among young people.

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, I read this article about how young people still don’t know how democracy works. I know I don’t completely understand it.

This seems like a ripe opportunity for someone to create an easy source of trusted information on politics and voting for young people. Whether it’s a blog or a series of YouTube videos, imagine if you could take a complicated subject like politics and distill it down to actionable items that young people care about. What kind of maneuvers do politicians use to get a vote passed? How does lobbying work? Where do I go to vote?

It would be…almost exactly like personal finance.

Unfortunately, this won’t be a quick win. It will probably take years to get exposure. But if you’re in it for the long term, I’ll give you advice, introductions, and maybe even a little seed funding.

This is more than a little selfish, since I’ve been looking for an unbiased, engaging source to teach me more about politics — only to be disappointed by more of the same. But I have to believe that someone reading this site can do it. If you’re interested, send me a proposal.

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43 Comments latest by Can Better Branding Make Politics More Accessible?

Here’s a chat transcript of my friend and me talking about investing and asset allocation

November 21 14 Comments latest by 2million's personal finance blog

A Friend and I had an online chat yesterday and I thought it’d be interesting to paste below. It was a real chat, so most of it is unedited. Below, we cover:

• Setting up sub-accounts
• Why my friend makes me mad for being dumb
• Options for getting higher interest
• Setting up an asset allocation
• Why I think stock-trading fees are overrated
• The barriers that stopped my Friend from getting started
• Funds vs. specific stocks in asset allocation
• Why my asset allocation is not perfect

SETTING UP SUB-ACCOUNTS
Friend: yo, you said you could set up sub-accounts at ING? how? is this for standard Orange Savings?
Me: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/07/18/how-to-set-up-multiple-savings-account-funds-within-ing/
Friend: oh shit, it’s a real full-on account
is there anything bad about having several of these?
Me: i havent heard anything bad
lots of praise
Friend: like credit-wise or anything else?
Me: no, search ING sub-accounts
Friend: now if only ING had slightly higher interest

FRIEND MAKES ME MAD
Me: dont make me mad. INVEST THAT SHIT
Me: ps if you read my upcoming book it has this in it
Friend: i have too much cash
Friend: i know

OPTIONS FOR GETTING HIGHER INTEREST (Kiva, Prosper, etc)
Me: 0.5% is bs, who cares
even lend it at prosper
kiva
lendingclub
12-16%
Friend: really?
what’s the risk?
Me: you can choose your risk
grade A to “very risky”
Friend: but meaning what/
Me: prosper
http://www.prosper.com/lend/rates.aspx
Friend: jeebus
would you be comfortable dumping $10k++ in there?
Me: no, i am gonna start with 1-3k, gently — like a CD, ladder that
Friend: yeah, that’s what i would have figured
Me: but honestly i prefer to get my money away and working for me, invested. 12% part time is too much time-intensive for me to keep track of
Friend: i agree, i do have a regular investment plan (couple)
Friend: i just significantly overshot the basic auto savings, a LOT, over the past 18 months. and I have shitloads of cash, like, insane amounts
Me: a good problem to have
Me: are you trying to hit on me? do you want to be my sugar daddy
Friend: as jeff said, i could buy a beach house in brazil

SETTING UP AN ASSET ALLOCATION
Me: have you done a proper asset allocation, aka abroad, large-cap, etc
Friend: no
Me: ok, do this: delicious.com/ramitsethi/asset-allocation
start with the david swensen stuff
adjust as necessary (he’s too conservative)
then — research the funds. if you want to shortcut it, use all vanguard. if you are really lazy, i can send you mine
then set up an auto-investing account and allocate it every month, dollar-cost averaging in
Friend: yeah, that’s what’s been blocked
1. finding a reasonable set of funds
2. setting up dollar-cost averaging, since huge up-front buy-in seems stupid
Me: it takes about 3-5 hrs
usually between 1k to 2.5k for buy-in on funds
luckily you have the cash
Friend: i was actually leaning towards ETFs at Zecco lately
Me: those are fine too
Friend: they make lots of sense at Zecco specifically because of the $0 stock trades

RAMIT SAYS STOCK TRADING FEES ARE OVERRATED
Me: well, hopefully you arent trading too much. $20 or $50/month in stock trades is not much if youre putting in a significant enough amount of $. my perspective: people overweight stock $ trading, but whatever gets you going, good

THE BARRIERS THAT STOPPED MY FRIEND FROM INVESTING
Friend: yeah, i have been retarded on this for too long. since i turned off my E*TRADE S&P auto-investing with the concrete intention to switch to something else immediately, i have spun my wheels way too long
Friend: i’ll do this over thanksgiving and report back
Me: YES
I LOVE IT
TURKEY AND INVESTING
AMERICANA AT ITS FINEST
or, in your case, vegan alfalfa
Friend: just needed an ass-kicking on what a sane stupid/automatic setup would be
yes

FUNDS VS. SPECIFIC STOCKS IN ASSET ALLOCATIONS
Friend: question: how do you factor specific personal stock plays into this? do you do those separately or count them against the allocation in your auto-investment pool? like presuming they’re large-cap US companies, do you subtract from your S&P
Me: i have individual stocks and count them towards my allocation. i started by investing in direct stocks and so am waiting for my $ amount to catch up before i round out more in allocation

WHY MY ASSET ALLOCATION IS NOT PERFECT
Friend: do you use this allocation directly in your monthly auto-investment, or do you look at your holdings and have a more exaggerated monthly distribution to try to drive your overall total towards this allocation?
Me: if i were perfect, the allocation i set would be perfect and take certain percentages out of my $
BUT
nobody’s situation is perfect. in my case, i already had investments that are throwing off my allocation, so i’m investing more heavily in other parts.
it will take me about 2 yrs to get to the ideal allocation
Friend: makes sense — that’s roughly what i would have assumed (compensate in the monthly plan, but not TOO strongly)
i will let you know how it goes

I’m away for the holidays but if you’re looking for something to read, here are my 4,168 del.icio.us links, including the following tags: future (money-related stuff), entrepreneurship, stupid, , interesting, writing, stories, funny, and psychology.

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