Heh. Some finger pointing at fantasy budgets showed up on Basshook:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/budget-breakdown-of-a-25-year-old-who-makes-100000-dollars-a-year.html
(Thank you, Carlos.)
Yeah, it struck a harsh chord. Lots of posts ridiculing CNBC for publishing that as a budget of a young person who is "Excellent with Money". (Ahem.)
But I think I've learned my lesson about just sharing without thinking. So I went searching for and read the actual article. And now I realize just how ridiculous most financial advice is. And how truly ridiculous CNBC is for posting this kind of garbage. (The information is not ridiculous. The analysis and conclusion are pure fluff -- not even decent fantasy.)
The chord it struck was harsh enough for me to not just share, but to write this webrant.
This guy is doing what they tell you to do. Charge what the market will bear. Spend less than you earn. Save as much as is comfortable. Give some to charity.
He estimates his income this year at USD 100,000. Thats 8 1/3 K average a month, calculated naively. (The naive calculation is a necessary first step when you don't have a company and management to shield you from the vicissitudes.)
Last year was $80,000. The year before, he doesn't say.
Let's look at some of the things not mentioned in the pie chart:
He mentioned having "about $43,000" in savings, part in Roth, about $20,000 of it "liquid".
Uhm, liquid is not really savings. It's business capital and emergency funds. Necessary to have, but not really savings.
Okay, for doing what he's doing, he's on a fairly decent course. All the finger-pointing and general gossip on FB tends to miss a lot of important stuff.
(Well, CNBC could clean up their analysis significantly. This topic is not perfectly justifiable, but it really shouldn't be so criticized, either. Just, CNBC bloggers, clean up the analysis in your webrants!
Other news linked from that page is the sort of thing that can really suck people's productive time and thinking energy down the drain. It shouldn't be suppressed, but it shouldn't be so actively promoted.)
Back to this guy's budget.
I would have trouble doing things his way. Why? I am not fond of teaching the test. (I need to put up a better rant on that subject, but not today.)
One of the reasons I haven't started "teaching English" independently here in Japan is that the parts of that I think are valuable have nothing to do with tests, and the parents who want their children to "study English", and the individuals who want to "study English", aren't really interested in learning English. They are interested in test scores. "Better schools." "Better jobs." More pay.
I am, however, interested in teaching people how to communicate in English.
My wife would laugh at this. She says I don't know how to communicate. She sort-of has a point. I haven't bothered learning how to sell my opinions so that people will be interested in paying me money for them. Like this webrant, too long, and too much time thinking about things no one seems to want to think about.
Part of communication is, in fact, raising the signal that something needs to be communicated, showing that the message has value. Part of it is communicating things others need to talk about. These are things I need to work on.
But teaching the tests, themselves, No!
Tests are necessarily performed only in a single dimension, or, at best, in unit vectors of two or three dimensions.
Linear.
Linear.
Linear!
(Yes, whoever uses "random" as an epithet, I'm answering you: Linear!)
Focusing on tests gets in the way of real communication. The tests themselves become the reason the average graduate of the Japanese school system studies English for six years and then feels like he or she can't actually "speak English".
They cannot tell us if the test taker knows the subject or does not. They can't even tell us whether the student studied for the test, because the test is supposed to be devised so that it can't be specifically studied for.
(Supposed to be. If the guy whose attempts at budgeting inspired this rant is not aware that he has essentially embarked on a game of strategy where his opponents are the testing companies, he needs to get his head around that. Studying for, and taking, the advanced tests is not just for a degree for him, it's a necessary business expense for him. And it may not be good enough -- unless he is already planning to retire from this game within a few years.)
And they do not teach how to communicate.
The only good thing about standardized tests is when the student lets the test motivate him or her to actually study the whole messy package. And doesn't get tangled up in the grade, as long as it's good enough to allow moving forward in school or the profession.
Please, can't we, as a society, graduate from one-dimensional views of knowledge, of the market, of politics, of economics, of life itself?
(Well, I should try to make my point here, but I really didn't have time to sit down and write this. Lots of other, more important projects waiting for me to work on. On the other hand, thinking about it might help me get the inspiration I need to solve my own problems, so ... . Well, I hope reading it wasn't wasting your time.)
(Thank you, Carlos.)
Yeah, it struck a harsh chord. Lots of posts ridiculing CNBC for publishing that as a budget of a young person who is "Excellent with Money". (Ahem.)
But I think I've learned my lesson about just sharing without thinking. So I went searching for and read the actual article. And now I realize just how ridiculous most financial advice is. And how truly ridiculous CNBC is for posting this kind of garbage. (The information is not ridiculous. The analysis and conclusion are pure fluff -- not even decent fantasy.)
The chord it struck was harsh enough for me to not just share, but to write this webrant.
This guy is doing what they tell you to do. Charge what the market will bear. Spend less than you earn. Save as much as is comfortable. Give some to charity.
He estimates his income this year at USD 100,000. Thats 8 1/3 K average a month, calculated naively. (The naive calculation is a necessary first step when you don't have a company and management to shield you from the vicissitudes.)
Last year was $80,000. The year before, he doesn't say.
| Item | : | Amt (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | : | 825 | Four roommates |
| Groceries | : | 400 | Trader Joes, etc. |
| Health insurance | : | 270 | No explanation |
| Utilities | : | 195 | Shared |
| Transportation | : | 130 | Public and Lyft |
| House cleaner | : | 30 | Shared |
| Internet | : | 20 | Shared |
| Cell phone | : | 40 | Family plan |
| Dining out | : | 250 | Girl friend (No movies?) |
| Donations | : | 615 | Good for him. |
Let's look at some of the things not mentioned in the pie chart:
| Item | : | Amt (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coworking space | : | 350 | Sometimes he needs an office ... |
| Office (irreg.) | : | 1000~2000 | ... only when he's really busy. |
| Google Sheet | : | ??? | A "financial app he's developing. |
| MCAT studies | : | ???? | What comes around goes around. |
| Video games | : | ??? | "Sometimes." |
| Roth | : | (400?) | (My estimate.) Good thinking. |
| Savings | : | (400?) | (My estimate.) Good thinking. |
| Other dating | : | ??? | I doubt they just dine out. Maybe Netflix? That might be a shared expense. Video games? That's their business, but he hasn't really budgeted it. (And is not budgeting it a bad thing?) Actually, I approve of not telling how much. That's between the two of them, really. Heh. Never mind. |
| Miscellaneous business | : | ???? | Some of these were mentioned in the article, but if you add up the math there were likely quite a few. |
He mentioned having "about $43,000" in savings, part in Roth, about $20,000 of it "liquid".
Uhm, liquid is not really savings. It's business capital and emergency funds. Necessary to have, but not really savings.
Okay, for doing what he's doing, he's on a fairly decent course. All the finger-pointing and general gossip on FB tends to miss a lot of important stuff.
(Well, CNBC could clean up their analysis significantly. This topic is not perfectly justifiable, but it really shouldn't be so criticized, either. Just, CNBC bloggers, clean up the analysis in your webrants!
Other news linked from that page is the sort of thing that can really suck people's productive time and thinking energy down the drain. It shouldn't be suppressed, but it shouldn't be so actively promoted.)
Back to this guy's budget.
I would have trouble doing things his way. Why? I am not fond of teaching the test. (I need to put up a better rant on that subject, but not today.)
One of the reasons I haven't started "teaching English" independently here in Japan is that the parts of that I think are valuable have nothing to do with tests, and the parents who want their children to "study English", and the individuals who want to "study English", aren't really interested in learning English. They are interested in test scores. "Better schools." "Better jobs." More pay.
I am, however, interested in teaching people how to communicate in English.
My wife would laugh at this. She says I don't know how to communicate. She sort-of has a point. I haven't bothered learning how to sell my opinions so that people will be interested in paying me money for them. Like this webrant, too long, and too much time thinking about things no one seems to want to think about.
Part of communication is, in fact, raising the signal that something needs to be communicated, showing that the message has value. Part of it is communicating things others need to talk about. These are things I need to work on.
But teaching the tests, themselves, No!
Tests are necessarily performed only in a single dimension, or, at best, in unit vectors of two or three dimensions.
Linear.
Linear.
Linear!
(Yes, whoever uses "random" as an epithet, I'm answering you: Linear!)
Focusing on tests gets in the way of real communication. The tests themselves become the reason the average graduate of the Japanese school system studies English for six years and then feels like he or she can't actually "speak English".
They cannot tell us if the test taker knows the subject or does not. They can't even tell us whether the student studied for the test, because the test is supposed to be devised so that it can't be specifically studied for.
(Supposed to be. If the guy whose attempts at budgeting inspired this rant is not aware that he has essentially embarked on a game of strategy where his opponents are the testing companies, he needs to get his head around that. Studying for, and taking, the advanced tests is not just for a degree for him, it's a necessary business expense for him. And it may not be good enough -- unless he is already planning to retire from this game within a few years.)
And they do not teach how to communicate.
The only good thing about standardized tests is when the student lets the test motivate him or her to actually study the whole messy package. And doesn't get tangled up in the grade, as long as it's good enough to allow moving forward in school or the profession.
Please, can't we, as a society, graduate from one-dimensional views of knowledge, of the market, of politics, of economics, of life itself?
(Well, I should try to make my point here, but I really didn't have time to sit down and write this. Lots of other, more important projects waiting for me to work on. On the other hand, thinking about it might help me get the inspiration I need to solve my own problems, so ... . Well, I hope reading it wasn't wasting your time.)
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