An ode to Jim Blomo

November 9 9 Comments latest by Jen L

Today I want to take a minute to write about my friend Jim. Here’s a guy who embodies what I talk about on this site: getting rich by identifying your priorities, being frugal on things you don’t care about and spending on the things you do, taking entrepreneurial risks, and realizing the difference between being sexy and being rich.

I went to junior high and high school with Jim, and now he’s one of my roommates. Man, as I write this, I realize we’ve known each other for over 10 years, making me simultaneously amazed and disgusted. Anyway, Jim graduated from Berkeley and now works at a great tech company as a software developer. He found a job he loves. He does entrepreneurial projects on the side. And he’s not fancy about managing his finances–he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, he just methodically handles his business.

I remember him calling me up a while ago, telling me he had just gotten another raise. “Awesome!” I said. Ironically, that was the same week he moved into an even cheaper place to live. Maybe it’s not actually that ironic. Whereas a lot of us take our new raises and spend it, really rich people take those raises, invest them, and continue living on the older wage that they’ve become accustomed to.

He makes conscious choices about what he spends his money on. Jim has told me over and over that he doesn’t care much about living in a fancy place, so he saves money on that. He cooks at home when he can instead of eating out every day. But he loves outdoor stuff–biking, camping, travel. And so he splurges on those things. He has a top-of-the-line bike. He just got back from a week-long trip to New York, just for fun. And he uses his coding skills to do cool things; he’s one of the guys I co-founded an education company with (more info), which we spent our own money on but ultimately failed. The downside was a few thousand dollars. The upside was the potential to have a big impact, learn a lot, and possibly make a lot of money (which we didn’t). He took the risk.

Too often, we think that our rich friends are the ones with the highest-paying jobs who have the nicest clothes, eat at the nicest places, and have the most glamorous lifestyle. No. Those are the people who spend the most. There’s a difference. And a lot of times we think rich means the person who talks about their finances all the time, shows off about the new stock they bought, and uses fancy words like derivatives and options.

Not true.

There’s a difference between being sexy and rich.

Jim is already rich (more: Why do you want to be rich?). He can live anywhere, but he lives beneath his means. Although he hates Suze Orman and mocks me for watching her (I love her), he’s spent the time to learn about growth and asset allocation and investing. However, if he doesn’t know something, he asks people who do. He saves and invests agressively. Best of all, he doesn’t live like a pauper: His frugality about the things he doesn’t care about allows him to spend a lot on the things he loves. There’s a difference between cheap and frugal.

A couple months ago, Jim jokingly asked me, “Why don’t you ever write about me on your site?” That surprised me and I thought about it for a while. Too often, personal-finance blogs berate people for failing to plan and manage every aspect of their financial future, or only focus on the outlier issues. It’s easy to spend every day writing about the things that we’re not doing, and I think I’ve fallen into that trap a little bit. But I want to celebrate the people who have taken the time to set up their accounts right, thought hard about investing and saving, and created an infrastructure so that it actually gets easier over time. That’s rich. Happy 25th Birthday, Jim.

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8 stupid frat-boy business ideas

May 19 110 Comments latest by Fan-Dabi-Dosi

First of all, let me say that I loved writing this.

See, when I was in college, I would walk by the Quad and see a poster for some new book-exchange service literally every week. “SCREW THE BOOKSTORE!!!” it would say. “TRADE YOUR USED BOOKS WITH THIS NEW SERVICE!” The idea is that bookstores charge too much, so why not give the power back to the students and let them trade books at the end of the quarter?

Perhaps one reason could be that this is one of the worst business ideas on Earth–yet it persists in thousands of colleges with many students pursuing the same dismal goal. Why?

Because it’s a stupid frat-boy business idea.

A stupid frat-boy business idea is an idea that sounds attractive on the surface, but ignores the graveyard of failures before it. It’s usually hatched when a few guys get together, drink a lot, and end up talking about stuff that “should” exist. Sometimes the discussion gets entrepreneurial and they talk about a few ideas, which one of the guys will pursue the next day (when everyone else forgets about it).

“No! Don’t do it!” I want to say. Do something else, but not that. It was a stupid frat-boy business idea. But I can’t, because this frat boy probably isn’t reading my blog (also, he is imaginary).

Now, a quick caveat: I totally admire people who take ideas and do something with them. It doesn’t matter if you make money or not for your first project; the biggest problem with doing anything entrepreneurial is getting started. I’ve written about this before (Chompz, On Greed and Speed). But frat-boy business ideas are expressly started to make money–they’re portrayed as “companies”–and they ignore the fact that these ideas hardly ever succeed. If you’re going to do something cool, why pick something that dooms yourself to failure?

Here are the worst stupid frat-boy business ideas:

• Book exchanges. Without fail, college students love to complain about textbook prices. Also without fail, some joker on every campus in America will start a book-exchange service this week. Saving money and screwing the bookstore sounds nice, except for a few problems: Book exchanges are worthless unless there are a lot of people on it; this chicken-and-egg problem is really hard. Developing a website for this isn’t trivial. And although the creators love to proclaim this a “company” instead of just a project, they usually forget to create a way to make money. Finally, one minor point: NO BOOK EXCHANGE HAS EVER REALLY SUCCEEDED. I HATE TO CRUSH DREAMS BUT PLEASE FORGET ABOUT THIS.

• T-shirt companies. We all love to think that our clever ideas will be so loved that thousands of people will buy t-shirts with them, but there are already millions of clever shirts out there. Seriously, search for funny t-shirts.

  Having started a t-shirt company myself (Bittershirts.com), I feel entitled to spend a little time on this. When I started mine, it was for one reason: To put some funny shirts out there and build my personal brand. 2 out of my 3 shirts were failures, but the 3rd one took off almost exclusively due to luck. THERE IS NO MONEY IN T-SHIRTS. It’s a hopeless business with no margins and horrible inventory problems. “But BustedTees does it!” you might say. Yeah, and I beat my friend Doug in H-O-R-S-E five years ago. That doesn’t mean I can be Michael Jordan.

  With all of that said, check out my famous dysentery shirt (I have girls’ designs/sizes too):

  

• Coffee shops / restaurants. Although few college students actually open coffee shops, many of the people who do are suffering from the same stupid frat-boy business syndrome. It goes something like this: “Oh, a coffee shop! How cute! We can make a cute little place where people come and drink espresso every day!” I would be more than a little hesitant to invest in a business based on cutey feelings–especially one with high fixed costs, labor costs, and customers who (1) won’t switch from their regular place and (2) if they do, they’ll sit at a table the entire day. Also, see one man’s story of how opening a coffee shop ruined his life. Basically, this coffee example consists of any business idea that centers around a romantic idea (independent bookstore, bed and breakfast, etc).
• Anything that is “the Netflix of ___,” “Flickr + ___,” or “MySpace + ___.” These companies had wild success, and now there are 50 million copycat companies. You are one of them. Also, maybe we’re just not ready for ideas like “the Netflix of furniture!” and “Flickr + Tic-tac-toe.” See this article for more: Startup Reality Distortion #4: Flickr, MySpace and Others Did It, So You Can Too.
• Ideas that compete on price. I was worried about putting this one down until I heard a friend of a friend say he was going to start a service to compete with Wal-mart on price. WAL-MART, THE WORLD’S MOST TECHNICALLY ADVANCED COMPANY IN LOGISTICS AND PRICING. Anyway, listen up: It seems like competing on price would be a good thing, until you realize that when you lower the price, you usually make less money. People are completely willing to spend more for other things like design (Target), service (Ritz-Carlton), hot people (Hooter’s), etc. Don’t compete on price. Once you factor in things like time and gas costs, it’s very hard to compete against the scale of bigger stores. Also, you’ll get the worst clients–the ones you’ll have to pry money from–frustrating you with your low cash flow.
• Discount cards. College students love to try connecting local merchants to their campus, negotiating deals, figuring out how to print a real laminated card, setting up a website, and more. They just forget one thing: customers. Hardly anybody buys these things, whether they save money or not. “But mine is the best because…” frat-boy creators say. Well, do they own a discount card?
• Yet another social network. After Facebook took off, you could stand in line at any Silicon Valley McDonald’s and hear 15 people talking about starting their own social networks. “It’s different because…_____” they would say. AND YET, THEY’RE NO DIFFERENT! The chicken-and-egg problem is pronounced here, with fickle users who go from one site to another like roving vikings. (Remember, just a few years ago we all thought that everyone would be on Friendster forever.) Also, it’s not popular until it’s popular. In other words, early growth doesn’t mean much for later growth, and there’s a lot of luck involved. Will there ever be another social network? Of course. But the chances any individual one will take off are infinitesimally small. Just ask yourself: Would you use another social network?
• Anything where you plan to make your money exclusively from ads. If your business consists of doing something and making money off ads, do some research and you’ll discover that for most situations, ads don’t pay very much. Really.

The point isn’t to mock these ideas. Well, yeah it is. If you’re going to do something entrepreneurial, DO IT!! Don’t let some guy’s blog post stop you. But don’t waste your own time. Learn from ideas that have failed and will continue to fail. Of course there will be exceptions, but you should try to get every edge to succeed you can. And if that means taking a few minutes to research your idea before you start, good. And don’t ever, ever start a book-exchange company.

Thanks to Chris Yeh and Noah Kagan for their thoughts on this article. Check out their blogs.

What now?
Read my section on personal entrepreneurship to learn about starting something cool.

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110 Comments latest by Fan-Dabi-Dosi

The World’s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts

May 5 75 Comments latest by Jakub

I want to be clear about something: I’m sincerely interested in doing less and less work as I go through my life. That’s why I’m always puzzled when I meet people on a career path that will have them working more, not less. That’s like being a real-life Mario Brother, where every progressive level you beat means your life gets harder. Why would you do it?

This is why retirement accounts are one of the best investment tools I’ll write about on this site. I’ll go into the details in a minute, but first let’s dispense with some of the reasons that most of us haven’t done anything about our retirement accounts yet:

• “Retirement is too far away”
• “I don’t have any extra money to save right now”
• “I don’t have time right now
• ” ” (haven’t thought about it at all)

I’m not going to preach, but I am going to call your ass out: All of those reasons are dumb. Retirement accounts let you do less work. All you have to do is start now, which I’ll show you how to do today. Now that we’ve acknowledged all these reasons, just read this entire post. At the end, if you’re not convinced…don’t do anything! Congratulations. But if you want to use one of the best ways to get rich, you’ll know what to do.

The magical benefits of retirement accounts
Many people think mistakenly think that retirement accounts are just places for you to save money until you’re 65. Actually, they offer you humongous benefits if you agree to save for a long-term horizon. Let’s compare regular (taxable) investing accounts with retirement accounts.

Regular investing accounts. When you open up an account at ETrade or whatever, you’re generally opening up a regular investing account, which is also called a taxable account. This means that when you sell your stocks, you’ll pay taxes on your gains–and if you sell your stocks in less than a year, you’ll pay a huge amount (regular income-tax rates, like 15% or 30%).

Let’s not get bogged down in the details, okay. As I’ve written on this site, buy-and-hold investing wins over the long term. And because of the way taxes are structured, you pay a penalty for trading too frequently. See how the pieces fit together? It’s paternalism at its best. But there’s an even stronger advantage to holding your money for longer–say, until retirement.

Retirement accounts. Retirement accounts, quite simply, give you huge tax/growth advantages in exchange for your promise to save and invest for the long term. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to hold the same stock for 30 years. You can buy and sell shares of almost anything as often as you want. But with a few exceptions, you have to leave the money in your account until you get near retirement age.

Here’s how the magical benefits work. In a retirement account, you get big tax benefits. While 10% or 20% may not seem like much in 1 year, when you compound that over 30 years, it becomes a gigantic amount. In fact, start a retirement account next week and two things will happen: (1) You will be more financially prepared than 99% of your peers, and (2) you will be rich. Yeah, I said it: If you start a retirement account in your early 20s and fund it regularly, you will be rich.

Let’s look at a simple comparison of investing in a retirement account vs. just investing in a regular, taxable account:

Image from Leggmason.com

Don’t worry about the exact amounts. Just notice the difference in how much you earn–especially at the end. A retirement account–whether it’s a Roth IRA, 401(k), or something else–lets your money grow at an accelerated rate with hardly any extra work from your end. Now let’s get into the details.

Your 401(k)
A 401(k) is a type of retirement account. If you work for a company, chances are you already have a 401(k) offered to you.

Here’s how a 401(k) works: You put pre-tax money into the account, meaning you haven’t paid taxes on it yet.

Let’s look at why that’s important. In regular, taxable investing accounts, you pay taxes on your income and then invest it. So for every $100 you make, you might actually only be able to invest $85 of it. 15% (or whatever, depending on your tax rate) goes to the tax man.

A 401(k) is different. You can invest the entire $100 and let it grow for about 30 years. That extra ~15% turns out to make a huge difference as it gets compounded more and more.

401(k) matches
There’s an extra benefit, too: Your company might offer a 401(k) match. For example, a 1:1 match up to $2,000 means that your company will match every dollar you invest up to $2,000; therefore, investing $2,000/year really means you’re investing $4,000/year. Woah. This is free money and you absolutely, positively need to participate if your employer offers a 401(k) match. It doesn’t matter what kind of debt or expenses or whatever you have–if your company offers a match, do it.

So what exactly happens when you contribute money to your 401(k)? Basically, it goes into an investing account where a professional investing company manages it. You can choose from a bunch of different investing options, like aggressive, mixed, international, etc. Honestly, it’s like McDonald’s for investors: anyone can do it. The hardest part is making the first phone call to HR to get it set up.

Summary of 401(k) advantages: There are a lot
We’ve covered the advantages of a 401(k) account: You get to put pre-tax money to work (i.e., money you haven’t paid taxes on yet, so there’s more of it to grow). Your company might offer an insanely lucrative 401(k) match, which you must take. And it’s not that hard to set up–your company does most of the work. In fact, you can instruct them to automatically withdraw a certain amount from every paycheck. Don’t worry about switching jobs; if you leave your company later, you can take your 401(k) with you. And be aggressive with how much you contribute to your 401(k) because every dollar you invest now is worth many more times that in the future.

Image from firsthandfunds.com

401(k) restrictions
The 401(k) isn’t tax-free, though. There are a few restrictions. First, the government has to get its tax revenue sometime, so you’ll pay ordinary income tax on the money you withdraw around retirement age. (Remember, though, that all that money has been growing “tax-deferred” for ~30 years.) Second, you’re currently (in 2008) limited to putting $15,500/year in your 401(k). Third, and this is important, you’ll be charged a big penalty of 10% if you withdraw your money before you’re 59.5 years old. This is intentional: This money is for your retirement, not to go out drinking on Saturday. Finally, there are some other esoteric restrictions, but you can read about them from some links I’ll give you later.

You can get around the restrictions!
Not to get too complicated, but there are also exceptions to some of the above restrictions that let you withdraw your 401(k) money penalty-free. For example, if you’re buying a house or a couple of other things, you can withdraw money penalty-free. But for all intents and purposes, this is money you’re putting away for 30 years.

401(k) summary
$15,000 annual limit
Pre-tax money (money isn’t taxed at the beginning; it grows until you withdraw and is taxed at the end)
Company matches supercharge growth even more–this is free money you must take

Let’s talk about dumb people and 401(k)s in general
A lot of people are dumb. Let’s just have a look at some recent findings:

• “One out of four workers simply fails to sign up.
• Only one in 10 contributes the maximum allowed.
• Nearly half don’t contribute enough to get the full company match.
• Many take too much or too little risk, and most fail to rebalance their accounts to manage their risk.
• About half cash out when they change jobs. (Admittedly, this is a squishy statistic. Hewitt Associates research says it’s 42%; Munnell’s research says 55%.)”

Your company wants you to invest in your 401(k)! Yet many people still don’t invest, or they invest poorly, or they invest too late in life. Sorry, but we all need to take responsibility for this stupidity.

But they’re not the only ones to blame. Your employers and the 401(k) companies make it insanely hard to understand what the hell a 401(k) is, or how to get started. Have you ever read one of their prospectuses? I have, and even though I do this stuff every day, I wanted to jump off a bridge while perusing the latest 401(k) literature so maybe I could try to cram in some more time of reading that incomprehensible garbage. You need all the help you can get with this stuff.

But there’s even more blame to go around. The stupid personal-finance media and pundits have overhyped everything money-related. Unfortunately, now we just tune it out–even when it’s good for us. When was the last time you heard something about retirement accounts? Probably pretty recently, but you tuned it out because most of what’s marketed to us is trash. Finally, the government is a dismal failure at properly educating us on personal finance and retirement issues–even though it’s in the government’s interest.

Opening your 401(k)
I have to tell you that blaming everyone has a very satisfying quality to it. I really enjoyed that. But realize one thing: Of all the parties I mentioned and want to scream at, the only one you can change is you. Call up your HR representative on Monday and get enrolled in your 401(k). Start an automatic-payment plan so money is taken directly from your paycheck. Trust me, you’ll learn to live without it. And if you have questions, leave a comment on this post.

401(k) links

• Fidelity: The basics of a 401(k) plan
• Motley Fool: Is Your 401(k) Foolish?

Your Roth IRA
A Roth IRA is another type of retirement account. Every person in their 20s should have a Roth IRA. It’s simply the best deal I’ve found for long-term investing.

Remember how your 401(k) uses pre-tax dollars and you pay income tax when you take the money out at retirement? Well, a Roth IRA is different than a 401(k). A Roth uses after-tax dollars to give you an even better deal. With a Roth, you put in already taxed income into stocks, bonds, index funds–whatever–and you don’t pay when you withdraw it.

Here’s how it works: When you make money every year, you have to pay taxes on it. With a Roth, you take this after-tax money, invest it, and pay no taxes when you withdraw it. If Roth IRAs had been around in 1970 and you’d invested $10,000 in Southwest Airlines, you’d only have had to pay taxes on the initial $10,000 income. When you withdrew the money 30 years later, you wouldn’t have had to pay any taxes on it. Oh, and by the way, your $10,000 would have turned into $10 million.

Think about it.

You pay taxes on the initial amount, but not the earnings. And over 30 years, that is a stunningly good deal.

Roth IRA restrictions
Again, you’re expected to treat this as a long-term investment vehicle. You are penalized if you withdraw your earnings before you’re 59.5 years old. (Exception: You can withdraw your principal, or the amount you actually invested from your pocket, at any time, penalty-free. Most people don’t know this.) There are also exceptions for down payments on a home, funding education for you/partner/children/grandchildren, and some other emergency reasons. And there’s a maximum income of $95,000 to make full contributions to a Roth. But you can read about those later.

What’s the big takeaway from all those restrictions and exceptions? I see 2 things:

• First, you can only get some of those exceptions if your Roth IRA has been open for 5 years. This reason alone is enough for you to open your Roth IRA on Monday. I want you to research it this weekend, and I want your Roth IRA opened by next week.
• Second, starting early is crucial. I’m not going to belabor the point, but every dollar you invest now is worth much, much more later. Even waiting two years can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Currently, the maximum you’re allowed to invest in your Roth IRA is $4,000/year $5,000 a year (updated in 2008). I don’t care where you get the money, but get it. Put it in your Roth and max it out this year. These early years are too important to be lazy.

Opening your Roth IRA
It’s easy. You can go through your current discount brokerage, like ETrade or Datek. You can also go through an independent service like Vanguard. Call them up, tell them you want to open a Roth IRA, and they’ll walk you through it. By the way, if you’re afraid of using the phone, you’re lame.

Special note: These places have minimum amounts for opening a Roth IRA, usually $3,000. Sometimes they’ll waive the minimums if you set up an automatic payment plan depositing, say, $100/month. Other times, you’re out of luck. Shop around.

Once your account is set up, your money will just be sitting there. You need to do things then: First, set up an automatic payment plan so you’re automatically depositing money into your Roth. How much? Try doing as much as you’re comfortable with, plus 10%. Second, decide where to invest your Roth money; it can be in stocks, index funds, mutual funds, whatever. Read my introductory articles for more on how to choose.

Here’s a quick illustration of the power of continually adding money to your investment account:

Image from hffo.cuna.org

Roth IRA links

• Wikipedia: Roth IRA
• Kiplinger’s:
  Why you need a Roth IRA
• Motley Fool: The Roth IRA (slightly more technical article)
• http://www.ira.com

401(k) or Roth IRA?
The simple answer is both: These accounts, while conceptually different, work together pretty well.

Here’s how I think about it. First, I would max out any 401(k) match that my company provides. Second, I’d max out the $4,000 $5,000 for my Roth IRA. Third, I’d max out the rest of my 401(k), up to $15,000. Finally–if your employer doesn’t offer a 401(k), you’re not employed yet, or you still have money left over–I’d open a regular, taxable investment account and put money there in stocks, index funds, etc.

Why max out your Roth before your 401(k)? Well, there’s a lot of dorky debate in the personal-finance world, but the basic reasons are taxes and tax policy: Assuming your career goes well, you’ll be in a higher tax bracket when you retire, meaning that you’d have to pay more taxes with a 401(k). Another common reason for the Roth is that tax rates are considered likely to increase. Remember: Your 401(k) money is taxed at the end, while Roth money is taxed right away and then grows tax-free.

What to do today
It’s Friday today. I want you to spend the weekend getting educated about 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. On Monday, I want you to open up your retirement accounts and start funding them. Call your HR department and get your 401(k) squared away. Call a few discount-brokerage firms to get a Roth account, too. Don’t worry about where to invest your money just yet. Take it one step at a time and just open your accounts.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: I already anticipate 1 billion comments debating fiscal policy, the effectiveness of Roth IRAs vs. 401(k) vs. Keogh plans vs. SEP IRAs vs. Simple IRAs, and other crap. Please don’t waste your time on this minutiae. The problem is not debating the tiny details. The problem is that most people don’t have retirement accounts. The problem is that most people don’t fund it as regularly as they should, even though $100/month makes a big difference. And the problem is that most people don’t open retirement accounts early enough.

So let the fools debate. For you, just get your accounts open.

Rich doesn’t happen by accident
Lots of people believe that they’ll just get rich somehow. In fact, “more than one in five Americans believe the best way to get rich is to win the lottery.

That’s not a joke.

You need to think ahead. And I don’t just mean to retirement. Are you going to need a car in a few years? A wedding? A honeymoon? A house? The money for that doesn’t just appear. Unfortunately, most people put off thinking about this stuff, which results in them wringing their hands, saying things like “We’re always struggling to make ends meet.” Some of them (not all, but some) got there because they didn’t plan for anything. So get over the initial excuses. Yes, it’s hard to pick up the phone. But think about what time you’re living in. Here you have a site with thousands of other readers who are in exactly the same boat as you–and even better, the experienced ones will help you through it.

Set up your retirement accounts now. Your future self will thank you.

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