I’m a Mac user now, but when I had a PC I used Microsoft Money. I used it for a couple of years, keeping track of all my incomes and outgoes. Sometimes I typed the entries, sometimes I downloaded them from my bank’s website, but each transaction always included the date, the payee, the amount, and a category I assigned it to. I prided myself on managing all the data so well and keeping it all clean — e.g. no derivative spellings such as Walmart, Wal-mart, etc. At the end of the year I found it fascinating to see how much I had spent at Wendy’s, or on shoes, or how many of the transactions were for the same exact amount.
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Cape Fear film But I’m not sure if all that data helped me much. I don’t believe complicated or even interesting reports made me a better steward of my money. I had tons of information but not much wisdom. That was the natural outcome of what I believe is a common practice for many people — copying their bank statements to a computer program.
What we need is wisdom, and it would probably help if there weren’t so much information to get in the way.
Do you pay yourself — putting aside a portion to savings or investment — each paycheck? Do you live within your means? Do you live frugally? Wisdom is to live these principles.
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Get-rich-quick schemes are everywhere, but they haven’t prevented us from reaching an all time high in consumer debt and personal bankruptcies. While every retailer, car dealer, and credit card company makes it easy to get into debt, no one has made it easy to manage or get out of. We want to fix that.
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Getting out of debt is the baseline. Once you’re living within your means (outgo < income) and have paid off all your debts, you'll need to plan for your future. That includes both "rainy day" emergency funds and your formal retirement. Expect that you are the only person who will be responsible for your retirement. You'll need to set aside savings now to get there.
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But then for some, retiring comfortably at 65 isn’t ambitious enough. Many people want financial independence and the resulting freedom, and they want it soon. That’s unlikely to happen from savings alone. To really become financially free, you’ll need to make calculated risks, whether by investing in yourself (entrepreneurship) or by investing in other avenues you’ve studied out.
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Like other aspects of life, we can learn to be masters of our finances and free ourselves from them. Then we’ll have time and energy for more important things.
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March 5th, 2006
MIT has started a research program called SIMPLICITY Awake film One Night at McCools
. Their focus is “developing technologies for design—designs that are simpler to understand, easier to use, and, ultimately, more enjoyable.” Their vision of simplicity in design is right in tune with our goals for Firevalt, the financial managment web app we’re creating. Here’s an excerpt from MIT’s SIMPLICITY vision statement:
“[SIMPLICITY] is a radical reexamination of ways to break free from the intimidating complexity of today’s technology and the frustration of information overload. It is about inventing a future where less is more.”
“The vision of SIMPLICITY is one in which “simple†is not cheap or single-function, but rather elegant and easy to use. Think, for instance, of the beautiful iPod, which has less performance at a higher price than most if its competitors, yet still dominates the market.”
Read the rest of their vision statement here.
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“Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours. . . . Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” — J. Reuben Clark, namesake of the Brigham Young University Law School
February 26th, 2006
Many people believe that the ambitious pursuit of wealth is evil and greedy. I believe that wealth creation is inherently good and improves our society. It’s important to distinguish, however, between the desire to create wealth and the craving for more money. Paul Graham
explains the distinction between wealth and money:
“Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money… Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.â€
Seeking and creating wealth is the process of growing the whole economic pie, not taking pie from others so our portion is bigger. Making money is the by-product
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Wealth is not evil. The desire to accumulate and add to your wealth is not wrong if your motives are correct. America’s free market capitalism makes it possible for everyone to increase their wealth at no one else’s expense. The key is to seek that wealth by delivering value to the economy and by being responsible stewards of the money we earn. By responsibly managing our money we’ll be even more enabled to grow the economic pie and help others add to their wealth.
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February 16th, 2006
One of the principles that seems to be common across many personal finance books is to “pay yourself first”. That is, you should set aside a specific percentage of your income for saving, investing, or debt reduction. It should be a constant percentage that you stick to each month. For example, if you decide to set aside 10% each month to “pay yourself first”, — whether to savings, investment, or debt reduction — you have to simply learn to live off of the other 90%. Contrast that with the attitude “I’ll save whatever is left at the end of the month.” Nothing is ever left at the end of the month!
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If you don’t make paying yourself a priority, it won’t happen. (By the way, buying yourself a new pair of jeans or taking a trip is not paying yourself.) If you *do* make paying yourself a priority, you’ll learn to live on less and the income you set aside can work in your favor.
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February 13th, 2006
We’ve been receiving a lot of questions about what Firevalt will do and what features it will have. I think the best way to explain that would be to first give you a little more insight into our beliefs of what a web app should be. We agree with the team at 37signals My Friends Tigger & Pooh’s Friendly Tails rip that a simple and intuitive app that solves one or two problems really well
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is better than a bloated program doing a mediocre job at solving several problems. We know many people prefer the “do-all†apps with a billion features, but we hope to be a pleasing alternative for those wanting improved usability from their financial management software. We feel that Money and Quicken are just glorified bank statements that replicate much of the same data you can find by just logging into your online bank. Firevalt, on the other hand, will present your finances in a way that will motivate you to improve your financial habits. Its design will make your experience simple and enjoyable.
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What are your feelings about simple vs. feature-laden apps?
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February 3rd, 2006
Welcome to the Firevalt blog! We are two entrepreneurs who want to improve personal finance!
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We believe that money is inherently good. It represents time, hard work, and freedom. If you can escape the grind of worrying about it, and not having much of it, you can spend more time enjoying the things you like — your family, your business, your hobbies, etc.
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Along these lines, we are creating a web application to help you manage your personal finances. The web app is called Firevalt. It will be powerful, yet simple and intuitive, an appealing alternative to the bloated programs that seem to litter the market today. Firevalt will attract those who want less complexity and more utility. We believe Firevalt will help you consistently apply the principles of wealth accumulation.
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