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Helpful Self-Help Books

I recently asked myself a question: If self-help books actually help people then why are there so many of them? I believe that there are two main reasons why there is a never ending stream of self-help books dealing with finance, fitness, relationships, spirituality and so on. The first reason is that what these books actually are is one person's personal experience with something that worked for them and depending on the reader's circumstances and/or personality the advice given might not produce any favorable results. The authors of these books of course claim that anyone can be successful in exactly the same way they were.

The second reason I think that self-help books are often ineffectual is that the reader simply does not follow through with the good advice being given. Self-help books are often littered with various simple exercises to try and get the reader to put into practice the things that are being discussed. I know for myself personally I tend to read non-fiction books in the same way that I would read fiction books, straight through. I often make mental notes along the way and tell myself that I will go back to that exercise later and then never do.

So I encourage you to slow down when reading self-help books and actually do the things that they advocate. You may be surprised at the results. What if that book you're reading actually changed your life for the better? What if you put into practice everything that the book you are reading is advocating? Supposing that the book you are reading is of any value then your life would be richer because of it and you could stop spending all that money on self-help books and actually get out and live life. Now that I've preached at you it's time that I go practice it myself.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I can't count the number of times that I've had customers ask me to give them my employee discount. I find this request to be quite rude for a number of reasons. One being that it implies that there is some level of kinship between myself and the customer when in fact their request has pretty much ensured that there will be no such thing. The second reason is that for me to take my employee discount and give it to whomever I please would be completely unethical. It's called an employee discount for a reason. At my previous job where I slaved away for more than five years they didn't give us employee discounts so the response to this request was a simple one, "Sorry, I don't get a discount.'" I guess there are a few good things about working for a company that doesn't value their employees at all.

But there are times in life when simply asking to get something cheaper or for free can be quite beneficial and easy to obtain. Before I go any further I should quantify this by saying that I am not advocating haggling or berating business owners or employees to try and get something for nothing. People who do that are generally lowlifes and not to be associated with. But what is possible is to simply ask for something for free. Try it out and see what happens. You might very well get turned down but the results might also surprise you. Ninety percent of this blog is written on a bluetooth keyboard that is paired with my Motorola q9m phone from Verizon. Verizon wanted me to pay $200 for the phone even with a two year contract. I simply asked to get it for free because at the time Amazon.com was giving it away for free. They put me on hold for 15 minutes but in the end readily agreed to give it to me for free, no hassle at all. Recently my wife decided that she wanted to try and get into the business of breeding fish. The only really way to test the market is to actually have fish to sell and not wanting to spend a fortune on an untested business idea, we went on craigslist and simply asked for free aquariums and equipment. We said that that they could be dirty and not even hold water. Two days later we had everything we needed to start our little business (minus the fish) and it didn't cost us anything.

I have no problem paying a fair price for things but I also have no problem getting things for free. Don't be afraid to ask but don't be rude to the people you are asking either. That won't get you anywhere.

Spring Planting

Well the time has finally come for us to do our spring planting and it's not a moment too soon. I think we started our plants indoors a week or two earlier than we should have. They've gotten quite large in their little peat pellets. The picture I'm posting below is to show that our lasagna gardening that I had mentioned in a previous post doesn't appear to be working quite as planned. We've got weeds poking up in several places. I think that this is mostly due to us not doing it properly more than a problem with the basic premise of the idea. It appears that most of the weeds are simply poking up through gaps in the cardboard. We probably should have overlapped it a bit.


On a better note our peach tree appears to be poised to give us a quite a few peaches this years. Sadly our raspberry crop looks like it will be a bit smaller due to recent construction around the house. Here's a tip for expanding your yield of raspberries exponentially: If you've ever made raspberry jelly then you know that after you are done you have thousands of seeds leftover. Raspberries have a knack for growing pretty easily wherever birds normally deposit the seeds. You however can easily take your seeds and cast them wherever you please.

Playing with Time Optimization

Something that I keep running into in financial books and self-help books and also on a few websites is the idea of limiting the amount of time you spend checking email each day. Specifically the book I'm reading at this moment suggests limiting time spent on email to twice a day and then cut back to once a day if possible. So this morning at work I decided I was going to give it a shot. I don't know if I've ever specifically stated on here what industry I work in but I work as a logistics manager in retail. Lately I've been finding that the amount of work expected from me is piling up and I lose the first couple of hours each morning just dealing with the "have-to" items of each day.

So this morning when I went into work I didn't even check the store email at all. Recently the district manager has been chastising store managers for spending too much time in the office reading emails (that she sends out) and my boss typically relays anything specifically pertinent to my job by printing out the emails and putting it in my inbox. So I decided that I won't waste my time anymore. I also decided to eliminate some extra work I was putting on my self each morning. They were small programs that I had started running that I felt helped the store out but were ultimately not my responsibility to be tackling.

By eliminating just these two areas I was able to cut about 20 minutes out of my morning workload. Ultimately I want to be getting my work done as efficiently as possible so I can then devote more of my brain power to thinking about things that I actually care about. And no, retail is definitely not something I care about. It's just a job, a way of providing for my family until I can find some other means. It doesn't matter that I'm actually pretty good at what I do and at most aspects of retail, that's just further evidence that I'm smart enough to be doing something more worthwhile with my life.

So today I've seen some early successes of this plan at work. Now the real trick will be applying these principals at home. It's one thing to willingly ignore corporate emails but I actually care about the content of my personal emails. It's going to require more discipline I'm sure but I'm hopeful for positive results.

Evildoers of the Internet

I've written a post on this topic once before but apparently it needs reiterating because someone most of America missed the message. Last year Internet scammers took in more than $247 million dollars.

I want to be self-employed, I want to work at home, I want to have more time to spend with my family but these scam companies that promise you the world will never give you anything and in almost every case take something from you. Several months ago I decided to research the "work from home" arena on the Internet. I spent about 5 hours one day browsing and digging and trying discern something legitimate in this industry. After all of my searching the best that I could come up with was that 99% are harmful and the other 1% are a waste of your time at best. The most insidious of these websites are the ones that claim to be debunkers of the fraudulent sites and then they usually recommend "the one trustworthy site they've found", which in the end is just another scam site.

It probably doesn't need to be said but if something is too good to be true it almost always is. The part about the Internet fraud industry that angers me the most I think is that the people who are most susceptible to this kind of thing are generally those who are down on their luck or feel desperately stuck in a soul crushing job and by losing money to these scammers they have only tied themselves to their current job a little more.

Surely, I thought to myself of all these opportunities a couple of them must actually be legitimate. Lies, all lies.

If you truly want to be financially sound, if you truly want to work from home then please stay away from these "opportunities" at all costs.

Bowing to the Oil gods

As I become increasingly interested in the idea of self-sufficiency I am taking an ever closer look at where my money goes. I came to a startling realization today when I realized just how much of my money ends up in the hands of the oil companies.

Between what it costs me to heat my house and what I spend on gas throughout the year I am probably spending about 20% of my yearly income on oil! And that is just what I spend directly on it, that's not even beginning to scratch the surface of indirect costs from other goods and services.

Like millions of others I am definitely feeling the need to begin to look elsewhere for energy. Nevermind the fact that the US has more than enough of its own oil but we can't have it because the politicians are afraid of the environmentalists.

There are a few other options out there that I am researching. I'll let you know what I find out.

PRODUCTIVITY UPDATE: Well this week I ended with 19 points out of 33 on my Productivity Points System. That's not in the 20s like I had hoped but 19 is still my best score yet. Perhaps this week I will finally break that 20 mark?

Finding Your Inner-MacGyver

I admit it, I'm a big fan of MacGyver. I grew up watching the reruns on cable and recently purchased the first two seasons on dvd. I always appreciated his resourcefulness in the face of danger. Well when it comes to self-sufficiency hopefully you can find a little bit of MacGyver inside yourself. Sure you may not be outwitting East Germans or "state of the art" computer systems from the mid-eighties but I'm sure there are plenty of things in your daily life that you could be tackling yourself if you tried.

Just this morning my the metal frame around one of the lenses on my glasses broke. I went to the store and ordered new glasses but I won't have them for a week. So I decided to try sodering them back together. I've never sodered anything in my life but for some reason had a cheap soder gun and some electrical soder. I was able to successfully put my glasses together with what is at least a temporary fix. This little MacGyverism didn't save me any money but it did save me some inconvenience.

The Housing "Crisis"

Okay so a whole bunch of homeowners signed mortgages without really looking at the details and now they are finding out that they really can't afford the payments and they are all losing their houses...I feel bad for their kids and maybe a little bit for them too but really it's their own fault for not spending within their means.

Thank goodness big government is here to rescue us. The democratic candidates in this presidential election are making all sorts of financial promises pledging billions to this and billions to that and there are millions of people sitting there saying "yeah, that's great give us lots of money." Well where is that money coming from?? Obama has pledged $30 billion in aid to homeowners, and people are so dumb not to think about the fact that that money is just coming out of their pockets in the form of taxes anyway. And what about those of us aren't in this situation? Why are we paying for their financial mistakes? The democrats have already promised to raise taxes and they are gonna need to if they are going to deliver on all of financial promises. They are essentially buying votes if you think about it.

I don't normally stray into politics on here but it seemed appropriate.

Deflating Your Income

As inflation increases and the value of the dollar continues to tumble the amount of money that the company you are working for is paying you is worth less and less. This reality hit me for the first time last month when after recently starting a new job I realized that the money I agreed to get paid to work for them for was now worth less than when I had started only a month previous.

At times like these when inflation runs rampant, companies raise prices on goods and services to ensure that they aren't losing anything. What they do not do however is raise the wages of their employees accordingly. So these big corporations end up making even more profit than before while people like you and I only grow poorer and have less buying power.

Don't expect it to ever be a reality but a if any nation were ever to have a fair wage system it would include wages that fluctuate with the value of whatever the currency of that nation is.

PRODUCTIVITY UPDATE: Well last week I again ended with 18 points again out of 33 on my Productivity Points chart, with similar scores in the same categories. I'm really gonna shoot for at least the low 20's this week.

Money Management

Something I haven't really touched on so far in this ongoing blog journey of mine is the topic of money management. Every day you hear news reports about America's growing debt and people being tens of thousands of dollars in debt to credit card companies and not being able to pay their mortgage and now expecting the government to help them out. The majority of the people that fall into the categories that I just mentioned obviously have no concept of managing their money and spending within their means. To achieve independence from the rat race and independence from relying on others to do everything for you, you must take care of your money. You must know where its coming from and where its going. Make a balanced budget and stick to it. Utilize the budget to explore areas of excess spending that can be trimmed back or areas to potentially make some extra money.

At my previous job my boss, who made two to three times what I was and his wife brought in a good deal of money too, was always complaining about money issues and not being gable to pay the bills. Between the two of them they were both bringing in more than 100k! There's no excuse for this kind of poor fiscal planning. I've seen so many examples of people who make a great deal more than I do but have nothing to show for it simply because of their spending habits.

If you find yourself in this kind of situation then read these next few lines very carefully. You can change course. You can turn your fortunes around but you have to be willing to do the work that gets you financially fit again. The best advice I can give you is to got buy a copy of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. The book will impart wisdom to you that you may be lacking and help you find a way to get back on your feet.

Preparing the Garden

Okay we are bad gardeners, I admit it. But we can change really we can. This year we are trying the concept of Lasagna Gardening. Wherein you lay wet cardboard down over the area you are planning to use for your garden and then you cover that in layers of organic material such as compost and other things. This in turn smothers all the grass and weeds underneath and leaves you with a rich medium to plant in on top. That's the idea anyway. We'll see how it works.

This year we are planting a lot more variety than previous years. All part of my pursuit of self-sufficiency.

Productivity Update

Well last week was my most successful yet with the Productivity Points project. I had a total of 18 points out of 33 (I added two more possible points through the course of the week). It may not sound like a very good score but my previous high was only 13 so it was a vast improvement.

There are still areas though that I haven't been scoring any points in that need some more attention to try to change that but overall it was a very good week. I'm gonna shoot for 20 this week.

Bluetooth keyboard works like a charm.

Well unlike the lackluster experience I've had with my MiniSD Wi-Fi card, my bluetooth keyboard from iGo is really a great addition to my smartphone. I can spend my lunch breaks typing blog posts or working on my novels. Not having much else to do on lunch, other than eat anyway, gives me an amount of focus on writing that I don't often find time for at home. In fact this blog post was typed up on my phone in a few minutes and now I'm able to move onto other things.

This is the start of something good I think.

Wi-Fi Not So Cool

Well I finally received the Spectec SDW-822 wi-fi card for my phone and it's not as good as I had hoped. Mainly because of the SDW-822's limited range being that it is only 802.11B standard. I could have gotten the SDW-825 which uses the G wireless standard but that was $90 and a bit more than I was willing to pay for internet on my phone. The reason the range is such an issue is because I had planned on using it on my lunch breaks at work and the company wi-fi doesn't reach the break room at all (atleast not with a B card).

The other issue is that the card sticks out from the phone about a quarter of an inch, which I knew it would ahead of time but I think I could have looked past that if the card had better range. And the few times I was able to connect to a wireless network I really struggled to find a way that it was going to help my productivity. If I was selling a lot of stuff on ebay then yeah but I'm not doing anything like that.

So hopefully I can return it. And for right now just be without wi-fi on my phone.

Where Productivity Begins

Well I managed to find my file that contained my Productivity Points spreadsheet. So this week I am planning on getting started with it again. I've found after not doing it for 2 months that it really does make a difference in what I get accomplished around the house.

Quick recap for those of you new to my blog: The idea of Productivity Points is that you make a list of everything you want/need to get done in the course of a week and then assign how many times during the week you think that thing should be done. Items on the list should ideally be done that many times (some tweaking may be necessary) and no more than the number you have assigned it, because then you are taking away time from something else on the list that might need done. I use this project for things outside of my normal real world job. For example I have a total of 31 available points on my list and 10 of those are taken up with Chores around the house. The other 21 things are split up between things that could potentially aid me in my pursuit of self-employment/self-sufficiency. Historically when I've been working on this Productivity project, the chores get done and just a few other things, which is what I was dealing with before even trying to do this. So the real challenge is finding a way to use my time at home for more than just doing chores.

Self-Sufficiency

An area that I've been looking at more and more lately is the idea of self-sufficiency. Before global trade became so readily available, nations were forced to be self-sufficient. Now everything is outsourced to someone else. America depends on terrorist nations for oil and communist nations for food and goods. And look at the messes it makes?

The same concept applies to individuals and families. If you depend on other people for all of your goods and services then you are at the mercy of whatever the market conditions are. I don't plan on being able to be entirely self-sufficient but getting away from being TOTALLY dependent is a good goal to have I think.

Something that we are getting into is growing our own fruits and vegetables as much as possible. And from that making our own jellies and preserves. This past year we made enough jelly to not have to buy any for a year. We did have to buy some of the fruit from local growers though because our own production hasnt matured enough yet. I say if it tastes better, is better for you, and is cheaper, why not do it? If you have kids it can also be a great thing to teach them agricultural principles.

Another way I've been pushing a little more towards self-sufficiency is doing minor car repairs. I've done some minor stuff in the last year or so that didn't take very long to do and cost a lot less than taking my car to a mechanic.

The flip side to this issue is how much of your time is all this taking up? And could that time be better put to use elsewhere? These are questions that the individual needs to answer for themselves. Timothy Ferriss, the author of The 4 Hour Work Week, advocates outsourcing everything to better free up your time. And this idea does have some merit but if you can do more for yourself at less cost than having people do things for you then you don't need as much income to support yourself.

Take for example someone who is making $40,000 a year working 50 hours a week for some big corporation. Now what if that person took a job making $30,000 a year at 40 hours a week but spent ten hours a week doing things for himself that he previously paid someone else to do? It could be growing some food yourself, walking your own dog instead of paying someone, your own home and car repairs, or any number of things that you pay someone else to do because you simply don't have the time. I submit to you that taking care of your own life instead of expecting someone else to take care of it for you is much more fulfilling than working yourself to death in order to make millions for someone else.

New Phone / New Tool

I found a solution (i hope) to using my time wisely during my hour long lunch break at work. I bought a Motorola Q9m through Verizon. It's a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone that has all kinds of capabilities. One of which is a mini-version of Microsoft Office which allows you to edit and create Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files. It can also view PDF files but so far I've found this function to be a bit annoying as you have to zoom in on files to read anything and then you have to scroll around a lot to see the whole page.

So far I've been enjoying reading eBooks but to truly make this phone into a productive tool I am going to buy a couple of accessories. One of them is the iGo Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard. It's a fullsize keyboard that folds up and connects to your phone using Bluetooth. The phone has a full keyboard on it but the keys are so tiny that I have difficulty doing anything beyond simple text edits with it.

The other accessory I plan to buy very soon is a Spectec miniSD Wi-Fi adapter. It will give me wi-fi capabilities without paying for Verizon's over priced data packages.

Productivity Points

One thing that didn't survive the computer crash was my Excel file that contained my Productivity Points system. If you are unfamiliar with what I'm talking about read some of my previous entries. So I am remaking the file in a very similar way but I'm working on some improvements as well. Perhaps when it's done I will upload it so others can bask in my productive lifestyle.

So in light of that and being away for a month I obviously got away from tracking my productivity progress. But I will return to it soon because I do feel that it will be a helpful tool if I stick to it.

Job Training

As I said in my previous entry there was a secondary reason why I hadn't been around for quite some time. With my new job I was in a different state for a month doing job training. After searching for and applying to and interviewing for new jobs for an entire year I finally got hired. I had been trying to get a promotion in the company I was working for for quite some time and the lousy district manager kept promoting guys that were younger than me, single and still living with their parents. Apparently being in your mid-twenties and having a family to feed didn't fit into their idea of a manager. Oh well...


The new company I'm working for is a bit smaller but it is in the same industry as the previous one. I am actually enjoying it quite a bit more, though I still long for the day when I can just work from home.


So this doesn't exactly help me in my pursuit of self-employment because now I am working more hours. But on the other hand I am also making a bit more money so I can fund other projects better and I have an hour lunch now so I'm planning on ways to be productive during that hour. We shall see.

A Major Computer Failure

So it's been quite sometime since I've posted again. But this time I've got a good excuse. Well actually a couple good excuses but I'll get to the other one in the next post. The first reason was that back in January I had a major computer failure and through many trials and tribulations I decided to just cut my losses and buy a new computer. Luckily I'm smart enough to have everything backed up on a second hard drive so I didnt actually lose any information but it did take awhile until I got the new computer and got all of my files back.

None of this was condusive to my pursuit of leaving the rat race behind. But neither was what I'm going to tell you about in my next entry...

A New Job

Well it really doesn't have too much to do with my pursuit of self-employment but I got a new job. Finally after 5 and a half years at a soul-sucking job I have found a new better paying job. But along with better pay comes working more hours. Working more hours could definitely hinder my self-employed pursuits but making more money helps me take care of my family better which is what is important right now. And making more money can also aid in funding self-employed pursuits like my music. I start on Monday so it's gonna be a new adventure.

In other news my tracking of my Productivity Points kind of fell by the wayside during the past couple weeks because of a major computer failure and subsequent computer replacement. I still don't have my tracking file back but 2 weeks ago I think I scored around 13 and then last week I scored at least 16. So things were improving but this week doesn't appear to be going as well though I'm still guessing until I have my tracking file back. I'm still seeing a trend towards getting things done that are always easy for me to get done and continuing to not get to some of the things that have been typically hard for me to get to.