Did Americans Really Overpay by $1B at Tax Time?

So I'm finding that watching commercials again isn't so bad, as I get to learn new things. For example, did you know that LL Cool J is hosting the Grammys this year? Which is awesome, as there's an outside chance we'll all get to see "Momma Said Knock You Out" on live television in 2014. This would be the highlight of my year. Also, I heard a statistic on a running commercial series that is so shocking that I don't want to believe it's true: H&R Block claims Americans overpaid by $1 billion in taxes last year. Apparently this is enough for a stack of five hundred dollars to be placed on every seat of every NFL stadium (one on each of 2 million seats in the thirty two professional football stadiums). Here is a video of the ad:

Should We Pay Personal Capital to Advise Us?

Late last year, we signed up for Personal Capital's free software. Their dashboard provides a quick, holistic view of all our investments, our spending, net worth, the whole shebang. And after a few days, Michelle from Personal Capital emailed me asking if we'd be interested in speaking about our portfolio. I figured there'd be no harm, so we spoke briefly about our goals and our investments. At the end of the call, she asked if we'd like to meet again, and to see a personalized recommendation from Personal Capital. It was free, so why not have a professional view our portfolio and give recommendations?

The Lottery: You Can't Win If You Don't Play

I have given up my quest to avoid advertisements, and I'm admitting defeat. After a few months of trying to avert my eyes when passing billboards, and changing channels every ten minutes in the middle of football games, I am throwing in the towel. I am one man against the thousands and millions of advertisers, and their millions and billions of advertising dollars. It was never a fair fight, so rather than continuing to aggravate myself, now I am just watching playoff football like a normal American, and watching the stupid commercials. And it's not a big deal.

Mindless Accumulation

Matt Richel wrote an excellent article in the New York Times about a term I've never heard of before, but now absolutely love: "mindless accumulation". Mindless accumulation refers to the human instinct to earn past the point of our needs, or even our wants, and to simply work until we cannot work any more. The article centers on research that notes that, because of new technologies and greater productivity, the current generation can work fewer hours or less diligently than the prior generation, but still achieve the same standard of living. But, typically, they do not. The theory is that humans have a desire to earn and acquire more than they possibly could use: leading to another great term, "overearning".

What's it Like in America?

A while back, Mrs. Done by Forty had lent a little money to a woman she's been working with in Peru. She's been working off the debt bit by bit, and this woman invited my wife to lunch at her house yesterday. They went to the market together and bought ingredients, including the meat, from the open air market. They were making lomo saltado together, and the total cost was seven Soles (about $2). To save money on housing, the woman lives with her family outside the city limits, where the city just turns to a desert and there aren't really permanent structures, per se. The houses are made of reed mat walls and reed roofs: kind of what we might describe as a shanty town, since the structures aren't permanent. But I don't mean that in any derogatory way. To them, it's just their homes.

Just Five Goals

Like most folks', I imagine, my goals were a bit hit or miss in 2013. I won't run through them all, but let's just say that some I missed by a bit, some I missed by a lot, and some I simply ignored. I fell prey to the normal problems: not making my goals public, not checking in on status regularly, and setting negative goals instead of positive goals. Stepping back a bit though, I can see that part of the problem is that there were just too many goals. So this year, starting anew like so many others this January, I decided to whittle my goals down to just a list of five.

The Irrationality of Fantasy Football

This past Sunday, instead of thinking about the birth of our Lord and Savior as I should have been, or even thinking about all the cool presents I would be getting later in the week, I was instead obsessed with half a dozen real football players collected on my not-real fantasy football team. Worse yet, I wasn't even concerned with how these half dozen players fared in the real games. I couldn't care less whether they won or lost. All I cared about was their stat lines: how many yards they ran, caught, or threw for. (For those who are luckily unfamiliar with the game, here is a primer.) If my fantasy team won, I'd go to the championship game next week and I'd be in the money. Both first and second place get paid ($500 for first, $100 for second). But if I lost, I'd play for a meaningless third place game that paid butkus.

Use Value and Exchange Value

These days, we are in a constant state of trying to get rid of things. I have too much crap. Our method, imperfect as it is, is to try to rid ourselves of one thing a day, thirty things per month. Most of the items are small and just get donated. But when an item we own actually turns out to be worth money (this is rarer than it should be), we have to decide whether to keep it or try to make some cash in a sale. This makes for some interesting decisions, as the ongoing process of selling and donating things requires a tricky first step: deciding how to value an item. Luckily, Adam Smith has given us two concepts that help make that decision easier: Use Value and Exchange Value.

A Case for Outsourcing

Like a lot of personal finance junkies, I am a big fan of Mr. Money Mustache. Latecomer that I am, he was the first blogger I found who was writing about early retirement through frugality. And one of my favorite early posts of his was on the subject of outsourcing housework and, more broadly, about outsourcing in general. The MMM approach is to "insource" everything: domestic chores, home improvement, car repairs...do everything yourself. His argument for insourcing states that, regardless of your hourly wage, you cannot work any job or freelance activity for all waking hours: you would burn out. The breaks taken to clean your house, maintain your property, cook your own food, and wash your own dishes provide variety, prevent burnout, and save money. In addition, insourcing larger tasks, like home improvement, builds your base of skills. What's not to love?

But is the approach to "insource everything" truly possible, or optimal?