by eubie

Get Rich Slowly blogger goes full-time

Get Rich Slowly is a personal finance blog started in 2005 as a part-time venture, This month, the main writer of the blog, JD, quit his day job and will blog full time. It’s not a surprise — he’s been blogging about it for awhile.

After his first week, he mentions the anxieties he’s having, such as higher utility bills (<em>It’s fine for us to leave the thermostat set at 54 degrees when nobody’s home, but when I’m trying to write, that’s too cold.</em>), income worries, work schedule and worries over health insurance. Reading his concerns and how he has prepared for them is great advice for anyone considering a free-lance, consutant or similar self-employed job.

<blockquote>I’m excited to be pursuing my dreams, and I’m committed to making Get Rich Slowly a fantastic place to find personal finance information. I just need to make some mental adjustments to my new reality.</blockquote>

Another interesting blog written by a small business person is A Thought Over Coffee, written by a coffee shop/catering entrepreneur.

by eubie

Does DST really save energy?

The first Monday after the switch to Daylight Savings Time is the hardest. It feels like you’re getting up an hour early. But the afternoons are better.

With this year’s early switch to DST, some are saying that switching actually uses more energy, A study led by University of California at Santa Barbara says that electricity usage goes up as we spend more on cooling and heating. The basis of the study was electric bills in Indiana, where only part of the state makes the switch. The increase in electric use was between 1 percent and 4 percent, reports USA Today.

The study has led Congress to agree review the decision, after a federal Department of Energy audit of the impact, reports Earth2Tech.

USA Today: Study: Daylight saving boosts energy use</a>
Earth2Tech: Does Daylight Savings Time Save Energy?
Buzzworthy: Saving daylight, wasting power

by eubie

‘Scratch Beginnings’ looks at difficutly of crawling out of poverty

Adam Shepard wanted to see if being homeless meant it was impossible to get out of poverty. He left his middle-classe family in Raleigh, N.C., and became a homeless person in Charleston, S.C.

Within 10 months, he was able to move out of a homeless shelter, buy a pick-up truck and save $5,000. He wrote a book of his experience Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25 and the Search for the American Dream. He says that it is possible and he has witnessed others who were able to become self-sufficient.

Shepard’s books contrast’s Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed, where the author spent a year working at low-paying jobs. She argued that those jobs foster a system where a person cannot crawl out of that hole.

“Nickel and Dimed” has been required reading at several universities. Shepard’s book hasn’t been out long enough yet to be added to required reading lists.

Get Rich Slowly interviewed Shepard, and included the recent Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility findings that indicate Shepard’s ability to get out poverty was aided by advantages such as being a college graduate and family background (Shepard’s family was comfortable economically), which are strong predictors on whether a person will be able to become self sufficient.

Christian Science Monitor: Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?
Get Rich Slowly: Scratch Beginnings: An Interview with Adam Shepard

by eubie

Advice from Yale’s top endowment advisor

Unless you can afford the cost to get all the great advice of the Yale endowment fund, it’s best to keep your investing strategy simple, sayd David F. Swenson, who oversees the Yale fund, which has $22.5 billion in assets and earned 28 percent last fiscal year.

Swenson is profiled in NY Times and published a book of similar advice in 2005 — Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment.

His portfolio would be 30 percent domestic stocks, 15 percent foreign stocks, 5 percent emerging-market stocks, 20 percent real estate and 15 percent each of Treasury Bnds and TIPS (Treasury inflation-protected securities). His ratio of domestic stocks is much lower than I’ve seen others recommend.

He says it is fruitless for individual investors to pick stocks. “There is no way that an individual can go out there and compete with all these highly qualified and compensated professionals.”

OK, maybe it is good advice, but if can earn 28 percent at Yale, many will try to actively manage to that, rather than the more auto-pilot approach.

by eubie

Internet kills BBC English shortwave

The BBC has ended its English-language shortwave broadcasts this week, the NY Times reports.

I stopped listening to shortwave years ago, so I did not know that BBC broadcasts to the U.S. and Australia ended in 2001. If I do listen to BBC or Radio Australia, I listen through internet streaming. So do most others.

But modern modes of communication have been squeezing out shortwave services in Western countries, where programming is available on FM radio, on the Internet and on iPods with wireless connections.

Broadcasts in other languages in Africa and Asia continue.

by eubie

San Jose’s entrepreneurial drive

Michael Arrington writes in TechCrunch of the difference in the entrepreneurial drive in Silicon Valley compared with Seattle.

If you want a well balanced life, Silicon Valley is not for you. But if you want to change the world and are willing to do absolutely anything to achieve your dreams, there is no better place to be than here.

The debate is over the quality of life in San Jose vs. Seattle.

Making lifestyle choices is fine, but don’t delude yourself into thinking those choices are anything but a tradeoff. If staring at lakes and skiing after work are important to you, don’t pretend to be surprised when your startup doesn’t cut it.

And here’s something for anyone considering a business, regardless of where they live.

And if you aren’t willing to take advantage of every possible advantage to make your crazy startup idea work, perhaps you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.

by eubie

Wilson Farm may be next old farm to disappear

The Tennessean identified the farm I photographed in The old farms are disappearing.

It’s called The Wilson Farm, but it may not be around much longer. Sumner tries to save piece of is rural past.

Local historian Walter Durham said there’s little historic value in the old Comer House itself; it was built in the 1950s.

But the surrounding farmland, known locally as the Wilson Farm, includes several barns — including a unique stone barn just off Nashville Pike that may hold more historical significance than any other building on the property.

“When it was built, it was one of the early sites for breeding (Tennessee) Walking Horses,” he said.