November 2009 Goal Review

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I didn’t do very well on my goals this month.

My first goal is to increase my passive income. I made some progress on this. I purchased an established website which should provide a nice boost to my online income. The purchase and transfer of the site should be finished by the end of the month and I’ll provide more details when the purchase is finished.

My second goal is to lose weight. No progress was made on this goal. It is now obvious that I am going to lose the $500 weight loss challenge. Tomorrow’s post will discuss how I will pay the $500.

My third goal is to increase the number of RSS subscribers to 500. No progress was made on this goal as my number of subscribers leveled off this month. With a big push in December I might still be able to meet this goal.

One out of three is not a very good result. It will soon be time to set new goals for next year. I need to come up with better plans for meeting my goals next year.

Buying a House for Four Figures

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If you have been reading this blog long then you probably already know that I am interested in the subject of cheap housing. Thus this Money magazine article about a $6900 home in Detroit caught my attention. The article describes the availability of cheap houses in Detroit and gives tips on how to find a good deal.

Detroit isn’t the only place you can find houses for four figures though. With a little searching I was able to find plenty of cheap houses here in Kansas City as well. A quick browse through the listings shows that none of the houses are in neighborhoods that I would want to live in. That isn’t too surprising considering the price. From just looking at the listings it isn’t easy to tell how much work would need to be done on the houses either although some are in obvious states of disrepair. I suppose these could make decent rental houses but I suspect it would be difficult to find quality tenants in these neighborhoods. I am going to pass on buying any four figure houses here in Kansas City.

Buying a cheap house in small town Missouri is still a possibility. I’ve never seen a house as cheap as four figures there other than mobile homes. The small town seems like a better option to me though because the worst neighborhood still isn’t too bad. I actually looked at some property earlier this month but decided to pass on it due to the extremely junky neighbors. I’m still looking and I’m hoping I will eventually find a place that I like.

On a side note my mom happened to find out that the buyer of the $15,000 small house I wanted to buy is an acquaintance of hers. He did very little work to the house and promptly rented it out. I don’t know what he is renting the house for but considering the extremely low purchase price I have to assume it is making a nice bit of cash flow each month. If only I would have found the house earlier it could have been me making that money. Oh well, I will get mine soon.

I Got a Job

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I managed to obtain a part-time job. It isn’t in the legal field and doesn’t make use of my degree in any way but it will at least cover my bills for now. And it will allow me plenty of free time to work on my online endeavors and look for another job. One plus is that the job is working for a non-profit. If I spend ten years working for a non-profit my student loans will be forgiven. I don’t see myself spending ten years working for this company but the time is cumulative so it could be added to any time spent working a public service job in the future. I am training this week and starting next weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes.

If You Need Stocks, You Can’t Afford Them

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According to economist Zvi Bodie. In a Money magazine article he says that if you need the high return of stocks to reach your goals then you can’t afford to invest in stocks. You should read the article to get all the details but this is a general summary of what he says. He states that stocks are too risky an investment for retirement investing and suggests a portfolio of TIPS instead; you should only invest in stocks what you can afford to lose. He also says that you should save 20%-30% of your income or more so you will accumulate enough money for retirement despite not having the higher returns from stocks.

This is an interesting point of view and I can agree with it somewhat. As he states when you are saving for retirement you can either sacrifice by having a lower standard of living now, working longer, or taking more risk in your portfolio. If you are able to maintain a low standard of living and save a large percentage of your income than the returns you receive are not as relevant as when you are saving only 10% of your income.

Personally, I am still going to be investing in stocks. They are risky but since I have started saving late in the game and don’t have much income I need the high returns of stocks to accumulate enough money to retire. Even if I were young and just starting out I don’t think I would put 100% of my money into TIPS though. That just seems too conservative to me. Once I have accumulated all the money I need then I might consider putting a large percentage of my investments in TIPS or some other form of guaranteed income but until then I will stay invested in stocks.

What do you think of Bodie’s advice?

The Infrared Heater Scam

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You can find out more about infrared heaters at Infrared Heater Scam.com

Now that it is getting colder the ads for the miracle heaters are coming out again.  They promise that their highly efficient heaters can save you 50-60% on your heating bills but do these wonders of Amish technology really work?

It is true that these heaters are highly efficient.  This is because all electrical heaters are approximately 100% efficient.  Any 1500 watt heater will produce roughly 5100 btus.  The ads are telling the truth here but they are being misleading.

Since electric heat is generally 3-5 times as expensive as other forms of heat it is unlikely they will save  you money on  your heating bill.  One possible way they could save you money is if you turned your furnace down and used a heater to keep the area you are in at a comfortable temperature.  I did this a couple years ago and it did save me some money.  I just used a $20 ceramic heater though.  There is no need to spend several hundred dollars on a heater to do this.  Again the ads are misleading.

Check out these Amazon affiliate links.  You can get a $20 heater
or a $400 heater.  They both put out the same amount of heat so which one would you get?