This gave me the giggles, especially since this dance style seems so utterly familiar (I know too many people who move this way…. ). The music used in the video was playing non-stop at my kids’ school yesterday, where I spent a lot of the afternoon, attending their Halloween party. So now it’s engraved in my head (arrrgh).

Have a great Halloween! I’m going to be manning the house today, handing out the treats while the rest of the family goes on the prowl with the rest of the neighborhood.

 
By the way, it’s too late for this year, but I’m getting this bubble fogger machine for next year’s occasion. It’s easily the most awesome Halloween item (toy?) I’ve seen in action in a while. It works like a bubble machine, except when the opaque bubbles burst, they release a mist.

Happy Halloween! This Pumpkin Dance Is Classic

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Our Halloween will not suck this year.

Are you doing anything special for Halloween? We already visited our local pumpkin patch and got ourselves some nice cheap pumpkins. By checking Yelp, we found a patch that sells pumpkins for half the price its next door neighbors sell them for. Part of our family tradition is to visit these pumpkin farms where they have all sorts of fun events for the kids, including pony rides (cute!), a spooky haunted barn (actually funny), a petting zoo, plus a choo choo train.

Halloween Activities: Pumpkins, A Hay Maze and Family Traditions

This year, we found a place that offered a cool hay maze, which I admired for the architecture. The thing was nicely labyrinthine, an enclosure with stacks and stacks of hay; good thing we don’t have hay fever!

Here’s the hay labyrinth we enjoyed for hide and seek play.

Complete with minotaur sentinel to add to the atmosphere. I enjoy these home spun, back road attractions right in your neighborhood which you can take in on a relaxing, casual, fun family day out.

On Cheap Halloween Costumes

The kids are going to be Buzz Lightyear and Dracula this year. If you’re thinking of dressing up this year and haven’t figured out what to do yet, how about checking out these DIY cheap halloween costumes? Personally, I think the best costumes are the ones you make from scratch. I’ve tried shopping for costumes at the usual places you find them, but have always thought them to be expensive for the one time (or once a year) use; on top of it, the outfits are usually pretty flimsy. And for $30? Way off the budget! I found some friendly reminders about how to save on Halloween from Money Talks News, a neat financial site I newly discovered (and who shares well produced embedded videos like this):

Their advice? Make your own graveyard signs with cardboard. Do costume swaps and hand me downs. Use cotton for your cobwebs. Be creative.

One thing I won’t do anymore though: I used to go to Craigslist to try to pick up ultra cheap costumes from people who wanted to unload their old, used costumes online. One time, I drove 30 miles to pick up a $5 outfit for one of my kids. It turned out to be way too old, too small and too worn out to be useful. I was too embarrassed to make the trip and not buy the thing for $5, so I ended up making the transaction. I basically wasted my money, time and gas just to try to save a few bucks. My tip here? Be prepared to face any kind of consequence when you buy stuff online.

Have a great Halloween!

Halloween Activities: Pumpkins, A Hay Maze and Family Traditions

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Today is Blog Action Day 2009, and I have been a little late with my entry for this year. That’s okay, because I revived my 2007 article (on 10 Simple Ways To Save Money and the Environment) as a featured post and hopefully, it shared in the spirit of what this day is all about. As I recall, Blog Action Day’s theme in 2007 was about the environment, which has a lot of bearing on this year’s theme, which is on climate change.

I want to say a few words about this year’s focus — climate change. It’s a topic that’s highly apropos, and which has been receiving great attention lately. I can’t remember another year when I thought about this more, and here’s why. I’ve got family and friends in South East Asia who’ve seen more than their share of weather-based disasters recently. Nature has been particularly rough on the Pacific region lately, hitting tropical countries with a vengeance.

Image from advocacy.britannica.com

I described their plight in my article discussing how an emergency plan may not necessarily help out when we’re hit by a once-in-a-blue-moon catastrophe. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but these unusual typhoons and hurricanes we’re seeing in recent years, which are described to have rare magnitude and strength, seem to be happening more frequently of late. Could these all be caused by climate change?

Regardless of what causes the crazy weather we’ve been seeing — El Nino, climate change, ordinary pattern shifts — the aftermath has been tough. My family and friends living in Asia have been impacted directly by it, pretty much in the same way that people in the Gulf coast here in the U.S. have been affected by the huge calamity that was Hurricane Katrina. When we talk about preparing for emergencies, our priorities should really be focused on large scale preparedness, such as improving infrastructure and community systems that can prevent the severe devastation of a community. And much of this sort of thing is rooted in people’s awareness of their environment, in a long term vision for community and care about what happens around us.

So how well is the world listening to Mother Nature’s sobering wake up calls?

Other News: It’s Our Birthday

I’m going to change the subject here and share with you other, more sanguine news: The Digerati Life turned THREE today. Woot! I’ve dug up its birth announcement from exactly 3 years ago. Can’t believe we (e.g. you, me and the blog) have lasted this long together. To be honest, I can’t believe all this time has flown past, since it sure doesn’t feel like it. And the cool thing? We’re still having fun, right? Thanks so much to all the readers, visitors and subscribers of this blog for allowing this to be such a wonderful ride. We owe our longevity to all of you!

Reflecting On Climate Change on Blog Action Day

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Every year, we hear about yet another place that has suffered some kind of disaster or another: from terrorist attacks to tornadoes, wild hurricanes and earthquakes, we face the wrath of both nature and man, and accept this as part of our existence. For me, I worry about dry summers and the possibility of wildfires in the region where I live. I’ve put together a list of fire safety tips for those of us who are vulnerable to fires or who just want to stay safe. And for an even bigger list on how to get ready for a disaster, here’s what FEMA says about planning for emergencies.

I was compelled to write this post because over the last week, I was reminded once more of just how ruthless Mother Nature can get, when she hit close to home for me. You see, my roots are in Manila, Philippines, where many of my family and friends live (and a place I often visit), and last week, the region experienced a strong rain (typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana) and flash floods the likes it’s never seen before (or I’ve seen before). The country is used to this kind of weather but this was just unbelievable. When the floods took over, the place was 80% underwater, much like how it happened in New Orleans some years ago. I’ve been through some bad floods before, but this is just crazy:

Some of these videos are surreal and frightening: they remind me of how I felt when watching Hurricane Katrina barrel down upon the Gulf coast and when I viewed the destruction of Thailand’s huge tsunami in the news (or even when I read about the floods in Georgia recently). Some people I know are still missing their loved ones; with communication cut off in certain places, it’s hard to know what’s going on over there.

What About An Emergency Plan?

The tough thing is that in a developing country, an emergency plan isn’t much of a priority. Most people don’t even have personal property insurance to cover losses — it’s all about surviving day to day, with many living a hand-to-mouth existence. Infrastructure is weak, which has certainly contributed to the severity of the floods that Manila has experienced. So what can we do in this kind of situation?

Some disasters are so far-reaching that it’s hard to prepare for them. And at other times, your emergency plan is something you aren’t really able to put into action because it can be too late. I believe that no matter how prepared we are, when a calamity of massive proportions enters the picture, all bets are off. If we survive the disaster, then we have to face the aftermath and that’s when most of the world hopes that when it happens to them, that aid, government assistance and donations can help with rescue and relief efforts.

For help or donations, you can visit the Philippine National Red Cross.

Do You Have An Emergency Plan When Disaster Strikes?

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Now for something a little different. I thought to bring your attention to a fun event that just transpired at one of the sexiest and most entertaining PF blogs out there — at Budgets Are Sexy of course! J Money from BAS invited me to participate in his showdown series which involves him pitting up 2 bloggers against each other. He gives us a bunch of questions and he puts up our answers side by side, and you get to vote for who “wins” the showdown.

He’s done a few of these already, among them are these interesting pair ups:

Showdown #1: Get Rich Slowly vs The Simple Dollar
Showdown #2: Poorer Than You vs Squawkfox

And well, I got swept into Showdown #3 with one of my favorite online buddies, Lazy Man! This awesome graphic was designed and created by no other than J Money himself to mark the occasion:

I think the match up is perfect. Lazy Man and I are both from Silicon Valley, both with past careers as Java software engineers who started our PF blogs at roughly the same time (circa 2006!). Then I found out that he lives where I used to live so I know his neighborhood quite well. In fact, Lazy Man lives only 20 minutes from where I currently reside, so from time to time, we hang out (with Cap from Stop Buying Crap) to play our favorite board game of the hour: Settlers of Catan.

Anyway, the showdown questions that we were given reveal a little more about who we are, along with some of our basic philosophies on money. It was a fun match up between two former software engineers (in the same field, practically) who share the same interests in blogging, finance and nerd (read: strategy) games. To read more, do hop on over to J Money’s corner to meet more bloggers.

Personal Finance Blogger Showdown at Budgets Are Sexy

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Have you started to teach your children about money?

As a parent of school-aged kids, one thing I’ve wondered about was when and how to introduce the concept of money to my kids. Many parents start early, explaining the whole process of earning, saving and spending to their children as soon as they understand that their cool piggy banks aren’t just toys, but are also great financial tools.

I could tell, however, that the concept of money wasn’t something my kids could grasp early on, so I deferred the money lessons until recently. I think it’s time to let them know what all those coins and bills are all about.

Lots of you believe that the best way to teach your children about money is by giving them an allowance and by allowing the kids to learn through practice and application. My neighbor has a child in middle school who’s already fully aware about the concepts of saving and investing; he’s even bragging about how much he’s made on his Disney stock — and he’s only 10! Plus he’s extremely enterprising, often going door to door to sell his services to families (e.g. babysitting, petsitting, gardening, etc.). His parents sure did a great job of granting him an early financial education.

Your Kid’s Allowance: How Much To Give Your Child

I’d actually like to know how much of an allowance to give my kids. Apparently, the rule of thumb is to give a child $1 a week for each year of age. So a 6 year old is supposed to get $6 a week. To me, this seems like quite a lot (and for such a young age), or maybe I’m just out of touch? I got these results from this allowance calculator.

If you want more information about how to teach kids the value of money and how to manage it well, check out TheMint.org, an educational site that offers resources for grown ups and kids alike. For fun, I took a look at one of the studies they conducted, which was taken by 2,000 respondents. The study was on the subject of allowances, and provided these cool graphics:

Some of the findings in this study:

• Men are 3 times more likely to say “NO” to an allowance (compared to women).
• But those men who decide to give out allowances at all are actually more generous than women.
• Parents from the Midwest are cheapest about allowances. Those in the South and Northeast give three times more (for allowances) than their Midwestern counterparts.
• 70% of parents agree that a 10 year old should receive between $1 to $10 a week as an allowance.
• 65% say that the best age for a child to begin receiving an allowance is between 6 and 11 years of age.

While I learned some really interesting things from this survey, I do still have more questions on this matter: should you pay your children to do chores? And should you reward them with money for other good behavior (such as getting good grades, not getting into trouble, etc.)? There seems to be some debate about this, but I’m of the mind to give a kid a flat allowance to help the child understand the basics of saving and spending; I’m also open to having him/her “earn” extra bucks for going “above and beyond”.

Now for some parents, “above and beyond” includes chores and good grades, while for others, such good actions won’t count toward rewards since this behavior is what they already expect from their child. And there are those families that have the “earn your own allowance” policy. Whichever way you go would depend on your parenting style. So what do you think? Please free to share your ideas with us!

Your Kid’s Allowance: How Much To Give Your Child

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Going on a very short break with some family and friends.

Russian River, Sonoma. Image by Ingrid Taylar

The next few days, I’m taking a short family break and will be away from the office (and computer!) for a bit. With the new school year just around the corner, the kids will be back in school soon enough, so we’re hopping on the opportunity to have that last bit of summer fun. I don’t remember summers flying by as quickly as this one has! Anyway, I’ll try to keep it moving along here on the site as best as I can, but there may be just a slight interruption in the post schedule for a few days. Or maybe not. We’ll see (there’s always the laptop which I find cumbersome to use, so I’ll play it by ear).

We’re going to visit the Russian River and just hang out with friends and family. We may do some kayaking (maybe — we’ve got our life vests!), nature walks and hopefully a few rounds of fierce Settlers of Catan game play. Oh yeah, we’re having Cap from Stop Buying Crap along on this family trip.

Nothing better than to have a fellow financial blogger along on a vacation.

Visiting The Russian River With Family and Friends

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I just love this kind of thing: have you seen the interactive graphic from the NY Times that details how different demographic groups spend their day? Since time is money (or so they say), actually seeing a visual of how we spend our most precious resource is truly enlightening. This colorful graphic is based on the American Time Use Survey which pooled together the information gathered from thousands of Americans. Here’s a little sample of how the graphic looks (you can click on the image below to check out details of the survey and to see how the interactive graphic works):

Time Is Money: How Do You Spend Your Day?

The emphasis here is on how the nearly 1 in 10 unemployed people in America are spending their days compared to everyone else. But behind the colorful presentation, there are a few other interesting findings you’ll garner from this study:

• The unemployed catch up on more sleep than those who are employed (one more hour of sleep at night — that’s a lot!). As expected, they’ve got more time to spend on other activities to fill the vacuum abandoned by “work”.
• Relative to women, men devote more time to work but also dedicate more of their day to eating, drinking and entertainment by watching movies and television.
• People of different racial backgrounds also show differences in their daily schedules.
• Not surprisingly, people under the age of 24 spend more time sleeping than everyone else, while people over 65 trade in their work hours for TV and movie watching, thinking, relaxing and other leisure activities. And you may or may not find this surprising: younger people travel more than older folks (those over 65) — I thought retired folks lived for travel!
• There’s not much difference between how a college graduate and someone with an advanced degree spends their time.
• There’s not that much difference between a one child family and a family with two (or more) kids. But going from no kids to one kid will require bigger adjustments to your lifestyle. Also, people with bigger families work more hours and have fewer leisure activities than those without kids. Well, that’s expected!

So how much of your time is spent at work? At play? Or asleep? If I plot my time, I think the orange work area will occupy quite a huge chunk of my daily chart.

Announcements

Speaking of leisure activities, let me talk about traveling for a moment.

There are quite a number of bloggers who are flexing their talent by getting into book publishing. The latest blogging colleague I have who has joined the ranks of such book publishers is David from MoneyNing, who has put together a book called The Little Budget Travel Book. This 90 page book retails for $14.35 and covers the frugal secrets of a self-described frequent traveler.

A few things to note about the book: it is admittedly slim and small and presumably meant to be taken along with you when you travel so you can easily partake of the cost cutting guidance and valuable advice that it offers. Clearly, David put a lot of himself in this book, even sharing his back story with us. Here is what he says you can expect from his offering: the book is small on purpose, so it’s easy to bring along with you. It’s packed with content and has a mission: it is meant to save you some dough! You can find it listed on Amazon.

Time now to tour the blogosphere!

Personal Finance Articles

• Len Penzo: Use a Ledger to Teach Kids Money Management Skills
• The Money Maniac: Graham’s Mr. Market Allegory
• How To Fix: How to Fix a Leaky Faucet in a Few Simple Steps
• Squawkfox: 4 Swiffer Cleaning Hacks for Cheaper Dust-Free Living
• Gather Little By Little: Your Financial Upbringing and Your Stewardship
• Lazy Man and Money: Dog Day Care or Not Dog Day Care…
• Million Dollar Journey: Case Study: Financial Priorities
• Money Smart Life: Money Tunes: Songs About or Involving Money
• Frugal Dad: Overweight And In Debt
• The Sun’s Financial Diary: House and Rent Update
• Gen X Finance: How to Brew Your Own Beer: The Brewing Process
• Brip Blap: Low Brow Inspiration
• Get Money Energy: What Nature Can Teach Us About Personal Finance

Recent Carnivals

• Carnival of Debt Reduction
• Festival of Frugality
• Money Hacks Carnival
• Festival of Stocks
• Carnival of Personal Finance

Time Is Money, So How Do You Spend Your Day?

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Remember the cheapest family in the nation? Well this family has got them BEAT!

Can you live a totally “FREE” life? Apparently you can. And this story can attest to that. This is cheap living at its finest. Let me introduce to you one of the cheapest families in the world (they’re the cheapest, by choice). I’d like to tell you the story of a special family who lives in the Pacific who decided to throw away all the trappings of modern civilization in order to isolate themselves in the remote boondocks of New Zealand.

Homesteading In The Wilderness

I guess you can call them true “back to nature” frugalists. In fact, they’re a step beyond that — they are homesteaders (survivalists?) and hermits who live in one of the most beautiful and natural settings we have on this earth. This Kiwi family is comprised of a father (from New Zealand) named Robert Long, and a mother, originally from Australia, named Catherine. Their kids are Christian (age 16) and Robin (age 13).

Here’s their story: Robert Long at the age of 24 was an aspiring doctor, 3 years into medical school and right at the cusp of becoming the doctor his father had always wanted him to be. Aside from being highly educated, he was also a champion athlete. His wife, Catherine, is a former microbiologist. In their 20’s, they suddenly made the decision to eschew civilization and move into an isolated part of their country, surrounded by wilderness. On one side of their home is the sea, on the other, mountains. They live with the bare minimum there is to live, grow their food, have no electricity (well, maybe they do now), and live a completely rustic life catching possums, washing their clothes in the river and swatting away sand flies.

Imagine yourself 2 days walk away from the nearest town without any form of transportation except your legs to take you anywhere (what if you get sick?). Imagine seeing nobody else over a span of months. Groceries come from a supply plane that only visits once a month, and your emergency radio is broken. Guess what. They are living it! Kids are homeschooled, parents don’t need any jobs and they are a completely self-sustaining entity in the middle of nowhere. This is the genuinely rustic life of homesteaders handed down from one gutsy generation to the next.

They live on public land “lent” to them by the government, which agreed to keep Robert on as a “caretaker”. They have no mortgage or rent to ever worry about. A bottle of milk is a luxury, but man, the catch of the day (fresh lobster!) must be typical food fare. Take a look at where they live — 50 km from Haast, the nearest town (yay for Google maps! Click image to enlarge.):

And following is a fascinating video documentary about them — hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Click this link or the image below to watch the video.

This Is True Frugal Living

I think there are some solid takeaways from this family’s story. It tells us that if we want to live with less, we can. There are people who live in small houses and love it. There are people who sleep on cardboard furniture and don’t mind. There are people who borrow, barter and buy used, and live very simply as a way of life. These are all true lifestyle choices that don’t require much money or any money (in the Longs’ case). Though the story of the Long family is extreme, I find them incredibly inspiring, for these are the people whom you’ll find standing and surviving even if the world ever wipes itself out.

But I do wonder about one thing. I wonder about the kids who’ve been raised to know only this kind of life. I’m curious about how they’re experiencing life as growing adolescents in such a peculiar, unique and incredible environment. I’m not so sure how kids can take to this kind of isolation for so long. Just how healthy can this be? The children want lives that require them to mix with society: they’ve clearly expressed their ambitions and aspirations. I hope they’ll find ways to adjust. Still, from what you can see in the video, those kids seem pretty well-adjusted.

Oh and one more thing. These people are actually part of my extended family. They are far flung relatives of mine through affinity — my spouse is the second cousin of Catherine. Just last month, Catherine’s mother visited us here and we shared nifty stories about sand flies and vegetable gardens and the rest of the family in Australia and New Zealand. Maybe one day, I’ll get to visit the Longs…. or maybe not. I’d rather they come and visit me instead!

True Frugal Living: Homesteading In The Wilderness

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As one of California’s denizens who also has school-aged children, I was quite interested to learn about a site called Next10, through Lazy Man’s post called “Can You Fix California’s Budget”? Next10 asks you questions about how you stand on certain issues that have an impact on the California budget, and based on your responses, comes up with a new, proposed budget. Their questionnaire is aimed to determine how you’d prioritize issues for the sake of resolving the budget crisis.

The California Budget Crisis: How Do We Close The Budget Gap?

Here’s a sampling of the issues which received the most responses:

• 40.7% of respondents want to reduce spending for K-12 pupils in California. The consequence here is that spending will fall below 28% the national average. Unfortunately, schools are already hurting with many resources and programs being cut each year, and are relying more and more on volunteers and fundraising to cover gaps in services.
• 52.5% want to reduce Medi-Cal eligibility for undocumented and new immigrants and are open to eliminating some health care programs for low income people.
• 40.8% want big reductions in human services programs (is this what is called welfare?). This will of course, affect the aged, disabled and poor children and families.
• 50% (including Lazy Man, by his own admission) are willing to release less dangerous inmates and those who end up violating parole.
• 55.4% want to keep unemployment and training benefits as they are.
• 48.3% want income taxes to be raised for the wealthy. There’s a recommendation here for reinstating higher tax brackets for those earning $300,000 a year and above.
• 53.3% want to increase the corporation tax rate. With taxes growing more slowly than corporate profits, increasing taxes in this case makes sense to me.
• 42.8% are for limiting tax breaks.

Let’s cap this with an image of the California Budget projections over the coming years (numbers are in billions). Click the image for a larger picture:

It’s going to be interesting to see how this budget situation will be addressed. Our family will be feeling the effects of this crisis for years to come, with fewer services in our schools. We’ve already experienced some of the fallout firsthand; for instance, just this past school year, our public school lost its principal when she unexpectedly retired (rumored to be because of financial reasons). On top of this, my child’s class ended up with a substitute teacher for most of the year. To add insult to injury, how about this: our school district happened to be invested in Lehman stock last year, and was part of an investment pool that lost a reported $150 million after the Lehman bankruptcy!

For more of my thoughts on this, check out the article: Coping With The Recession In Silicon Valley.

Site News

On to more pleasant news….! We are honored to be chosen as one of the nominees for the Best of the Money Blogs contest by The Globe And Mail, which is Canada’s largest financial publication. You may want to vote for your favorite blog here (you can select multiple blogs)!

Personal Finance Articles

And finally, some great reads this week:

• Free Money Finance: The King of Debt
• Five Cent Nickel: Four Ways To Ruin Your Investments – Guaranteed
• Get Money Energy: More Stress, Less Money?
• Generation X Finance: Can I Use Unused Credit as an Emergency Fund?
• Million Dollar Journey: Budgeting Simplified
• The Sun’s Financial Diary: What Can You Expect to See on Your Credit Reports?
• Brip Blap: Time Travel Writing
• Frugal Dad: If You Could Only Take Three Things From Your Home, What Would They Be?
• Money Smart Life: Money and Your Health
• My Dollar Plan: Student Loan Rates Will Drop To All Time Low

California Budget Crisis: Can We Close The Budget Gap?

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