Search: aesthetics

Could You Be an Entrepreneur?

This article was written by Flexo in Career and Work. 14 comments.

Somehow over the past several years, I’ve been increasingly finding myself in the position of an entrepreneur. Throughout my life, I have been a bit of a self-starter with the ability to inspire others to join my causes, whatever they may be. I’ve never considered myself an entrepreneur, however. I never thought I’d be using my creative tendencies to run and manage a business.

Frankly, I’m not very good at it. I’m quite disorganized, and competing priorities always seem to be problems. And if my history of dead-end projects is any indication, while I may be a self-starter, I’m not always a self-finisher. To me, “entrepreneur” was a bad word, signaling a person whose specialty was business rather than the industry in which the business falls.

Nevertheless, here I am, an accidental entrepreneur running and trying to manage a successful business. I don’t admire many entrepreneurs, but I am a fan of Aaron Patzer — at least what I know of him from his public persona and our interviews on the Consumerism Commentary Podcast. Aaron created the popular web-based personal finance management and budgeting software Mint.com, which was recently purchased by software behemoth Intuit, the makers of Quicken.

This entrepreneur is a lecturer with The Founder Institute, a membership organization designed to support budding business-starters. He also recently wrote an article for CNN describing how the institute developed a test that can supposedly predict the success rate of an individual as an entrepreneur. The test is based on research that indicates that success is not correlated to traditional metrics like IQ, teamwork, and planning. Instead, the best entrepreneurs tend to be spontaneous, appreciative of aesthetics, passionate about art and literature, and older.

Read the article here or sign up to take the quiz that will predict your success as an entrepreneur.

Not everyone is destined to succeed as an entrepreneur, and that’s not a bad thing. A lot of people — and the programs they offer for sale — tend to treat entrepreneurship as the Holy Grail of personal finance or wealth-building, with complete control of your own financial destiny and the ability to create wealth rather quickly compared to buying and holding stocks for decades in order to become “rich.” But this lifestyle is not for everyone, and not everyone is interested in taking the entrepreneur’s path.

What are your thoughts on entrepreneurs?

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6 Items That Exemplify Conspicuous Spending

This article was written by Flexo in Consumer. 9 comments.

This post is part of the one day blog event “The Spectrum of Personal Finance.” In this event, comic book nerd Brian of My Next Buck, will discuss 8 different emotions (taken from the Green Lantern comic series) and relate them to personal finance. Here at Consumerism Commentary we will be looking at Avarice. To view the rest of the event look at the bottom of the page to see the other blogs hosting articles.

Conspicuous spending and greed have played a large role in bringing us to the current fledgling economy. People overextending themselves and buying things they don’t need (too much house, too much car) are stories that have been replayed over and over in the media and are nothing new. It’s the items which return almost no tangible value after purchase that we should be weary of.

There is nothing wrong with expensive items. I recognize the difference in value between a Ferrari and my Hyundai. However, regardless of your income, there are items which scream that they exist solely for someone to be seen owning them.

Today I’ll outline a few items that I have seen over the years that have enormous price tags and exemplify conspicuous spending but don’t bring much value to their owners – except for the fact that they like owning them.

I am Rich App – The $999.99 iPhone app entitled, “I am Rich” stirred up lots of controversy last year. The app itself flashes a computer designed ruby on the screen – and that’s it. The app is no longer for sale, but a similar one has been released just recently for $99.99 under the name “You are Rich.”
Diamond Studded Sauce Pan – One of the most expensive undertakings a homeowner can undertake is refurbishing their kitchen. If you are feeling the need to add a bit of glamor to your kitchen, check out this $78,000 saucepan. With about 2.0 lbs of gold and 200 diamonds, you can cook your way to retirement as gold slowly appreciates.
iPhone 3G King’s Button – I love my iPhone and wouldn’t want to live without it. I even think I should spend a bit more to get one that is a bit larger. However, I am not one of the ones that feels the need to carry around a jewelry store on my phone. While the gems and metals certainly add to the aesthetics of the phone, it seems overly extravagant to carry a $2.5 million phone that can become a small paperweight if you accidentally drop it into a puddle.
Amex Black Card – The Amex Centurion “Black” Card is maybe the one item on this list that does carry a significant amount of value beyond just having one. However, at $5,000 up front and a $2,500 annual fee, it’s an expensive card to whip out when shopping at Costco (a paradox in and of itself).
TRI Golf Ball Marker – Golf is one of the most expensive sports in existence. Even with such a high cost, it’s a very serene experience. Think of what this $10,000 ball marker could add to your day at the links. Even Tiger Woods doesn’t have this item, as he uses a plain old marker to mark his ball.
DualTow Watch – I think this watch is awesome. Without knowing much about watches I would venture a guess that the engineering is a true artistic masterpiece. I actually would love to see this on my wrist (even just to try it on) because of how cool it looks. Then again, for $300,000 you would hope that the watch would tell you the exact time instead of telling time in 5 minute intervals.

The devil’s advocate would say that people wanting to spend an exorbitant amounts of money on items like these would stimulate the economy. They would be correct. In fact, there are several stories of people who can afford luxury goods are altering their conspicuous spending because of the recession. This hesitation to purchase luxury goods is aiding in the slow recovery.

We see goods like these everyday. Some make us stop and shake our heads, and others make us stop and think “maybe someday.” What are the conspicuous goods you have seen others possess?

For further reading of the Spectrum of Personal Finance Event, please see:

To view a recap of the event, check out the Spectrum Roundup at My Next Buck.

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Seven Zen Principles to Guide Your Money and Your Life

This article was written by Flexo in Best Of, Personal Finance. 14 comments.

A few years ago, I visited the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Japanese gardens are designed precisely to appear natural, resulting in an interesting collision between nature and man. There is a set of principles or aesthetics that guide the creation of Japanese gardens, including the dry gardens commonly called “Zen gardens.”

The basis for these modern Japanese aesthetics has existed for thousands of years and is rooted in Buddhist writings and teachings. However, the full concept of aesthetics relating to these ancient ideas has been discussed only within the past two centuries, as the the traditional Japanese concepts have been infused with the Western idea of art and aesthetics.

These same Japanese aesthetics, the attributes that define a Japanese garden, can be further stretched by the Western mind to relate to other areas of thought. If you are particularly interested in personal finances, as we are here at Consumerism Commentary, you might attempt to apply these concepts to attitudes and behaviors surrounding interaction with money.

Here are seven aesthetics rooted in Japanese culture that can be drawn upon to make us think about the way we live with and deal with money, from personal expenses to investing.

kanso 簡素

Keep your finances simple. The extreme limit of necessity would be to have no other financial accounts but one checking account for paying your bills. Simplifying at this level may beyond the limit of practicality even if still possible. But there is no reason I should continue to have savings accounts at seven different banks, even if seven is an odd number, compliant with other aesthetics.

In addition to utilize as few banks as possible, simplify your investment accounts. Keep your investments in one account in one index fund or target retirement fund that matches your risk profile. This also makes it much easier to evaluate your asset allocation to ensure your investments on the whole match your tolerance for risk.

There is rarely a need to have more than one credit card for your personal matters. Zero is an even better number.

Simplicity in all financial matters is an attainable goal.

seijaku 静寂

Managers of actively managed mutual funds earn their pay by buying and selling investments frequently. Index funds take the opposite approach by matching a stock index, adding or removing stocks only when the index does, which is rarely. Index funds embody this concept of stillness. Unnecessary activity, like stock trading, makes the stock broker rich while you’re adding risk and decreasing your chance of beating an index fund’s performance.

Keeping your wealth still and motionless allows time to have a chance to cultivate it. The effect of compound interest increases when you let it work for decades.

If you’ve simplified your finances down to a small number of accounts, you can further keep your money motionless by removing the necessity of transferring funds from one place to another. The 0% balance transfer game or otherwise moving your credit card balances from one card to another is in direct conflict with this aesthetic.

datsuzoku 脱俗

Break free from your possessions. We buy things because they reflect who we are or who we want to be, but no thing can be a true reflection of a self. Not only do material possessions drain you of funds that could be spent on necessities, but you will have less money for sharing with others within and outside of your family.

Break free from conventional thought and following the bandwagon. You are free to be your own person and find your own path. You should never feel trapped in a job or a career. Even a steady bi-weekly paycheck is a pattern that could be broken without fear. With creativity, draw income to you through something unexpected.

Don’t confine yourself to your budget. The ultimate way to grow wealth is to spend less than you earn, so as long as that continues, you can break free from your budget and enjoy flexibility without too much worry.

koko 考古

Focus on the bare essentials. Add something to your life only if it has a functional purpose and fills a need. This concept is a nod to frugality and sparsity. For example, do you need three televisions, one for each large room in your house? Do you even need one television when you can find entertainment, including comedy, nature, and drama — possibly even crime-focused drama — for free, by sitting in a park and watching other people interact? Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling to visit a National Park than to sit on your couch and watch a documentary about it?

Decide what in your life is not essential and eliminate it. If something does not add value more than or equal to its expense, consider it a candidate for elimination. I think immediately of the interest that you pay on a credit card balance. Once you pay interest, you’ve paid more than the value of whatever you’ve purchased with the credit card. If you decide a $1,000 television brings $1,000 worth of value into your life, then it may be worthwhile. But if you put that on a credit card and pay the balance and interest over time, the new question is whether that $1,000 television added $2,000 worth of value into your life.

shizen 自然

You should represent yourself to the world truthfully and without pretense. There is no need to purchase expensive cars and houses when necessity allows for lesser purchases. Don’t concern yourself with “keeping up with the Joneses.” Without the need to show the world you have more money than you really have, you will lose the desire to buy more than you can afford. As a result, the chances of falling into the trap of debt from unnecessary spending will diminish.

My thoughts on this are drawn to people with public-facing careers. Real estate agents, for example, often want to project an aura of success. If clients believe that the agent is rich, the clients will then believe that they are successful agents. The natural conclusion is that these agents are successful because they represent clients fairly and offer quality houses. The same is true for lawyers whose business is representing clients in court trials. Lavish spending projects an image of wealth, which indicates to prospective customers a history of successful court appearances.

This is all show and all pretense. Anyone can look wealthy or successful thanks to the availability of credit. You can’t see what lurks beneath someone else’s surface.

Do not cover up all that is natural. Do not hide money or money-related problems from your partner or spouse. Finances should be part of a communication that is open and honest, not hidden beneath layers of creative stories.

fukinsei 不均整

Create a budget, a monthly spending plan that outlines your limits for expenses in a variety of categories that make sense for you. A budget by definition starts out the same each month but will look different by the month’s final day. Life’s asymmetry is natural, and your budget should reflect this asymmetry while maintaining balance. You spend more for gifts as the December holidays approach, so you might budget more for gifts in November and December than you might in June or July. In order for this asymmetry to be balanced, an increase in one category at one time should correspond with a decrease either in another category or at another time.

This flexibility is essential for creating a workable budget. A budget should free you, not trap you.

Balanced asymmetry appears elsewhere. “Work/life balance” is a relatively new concept that is based on this idea. When my employer talks about “work/life balance,” they are not trying to imply that we should spend an equal amount of hours in our life between our career and everything else we do. It is an asymmetrical approach to living a more fulfilled life.

yugen 幽玄

Whenever your personal financial issues are public rather than private, choose subtlety over directness. Do not brag about your successes. There is no need for you to have your latest business acquisition or marriage listed in your college’s alumni magazine. If you give charitably to an organization, you do not need to publicly list your name or the amount of money you donated.

In the business world, there is a movement towards personal branding. It is good for your career to find ways make yourself stand out among your colleagues or among a sea of job applicants. While I would agree that it’s important to protect your identity, particularly online, from anything that might damage your reputation, the best way to stand out is to be the best rather than to declare you are the best.

Let others declare it for you.

A guide, not a rule

While it would be great if all of the above could apply to our interactions with money all the time, I like to look at these aesthetic concepts as a guide. Just considering these ideas and allowing yourself to think about money in a different way can be enlightening. Perhaps you can strive to achieve several of these concepts in your own life, or perhaps you can appreciate this way of living even if you choose to relate with money in a different manner.

Simplifying my finances is one way I can start applying this approach to my life. As I mentioned above, I currently use seven accounts for my savings. Many of these I open so I can review them for Consumerism Commentary, but even the purely personal bank accounts number too many. Do you or would you apply any of these aesthetics to your finances?

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in Japanese philosophy or, for that matter, in personal finance. I drew the above concepts of Japanese aesthetics from a variety of sources.

Photo credits: semihundido, laRuth, DieselDemon, 田中十洋

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