Here’s a quick plug for my fitness blog, Get Fit Slowly. A bunch of us started the one hundred pushup challenge today. Our goal is to be able to do one hundred pushups by the end of July. This seems nearly impossible to me right now — I can’t even do ten pushups. I’ll be posting daily reminders to prompt participants to do their exercise. If you’d like to join us, swing on over to Get Fit Slowly.
But you come here to read about fiscal fitness, not physical fitness. Here are some recent articles that could help you get rich slowly:
First, the May/June 2008 issue of Orion Magazine includes an article entitled “The Gospel of Consumption”. “We we could work and spend a lot less and still live quite comfortably,” writes Jeff Kaplan as he describes the 30-hour workweeks that Kellogg Company once employed. Workers loved them. This is a long piece, but it’s interesting.
Several people sent a link to a recent Time magazine article about people who want to live with just 100 things. The first hurdle is deciding what counts as a “thing”. But a bigger problem is finding the willpower to actually get things down to that number. This isn’t necessarily something I advocate, but it’s fun to read about. (And I found the article by Lisa McLaughlin amusing.)
Saturday’s New York Times features a primer for young people starting their first job. Ron Lieber provides an overview of three key concepts: health insurance, taxes, and retirement plans. If you’re fresh out of school and starting a new job, this article is a good intro to important concepts.
Finally, No Credit Needed crunched some numbers this morning in an attempt to encourage young adults to fund their Roth IRAs. He points out that a fully-funded Roth IRA at age 18 could net you $3.5 million in retirement. From a one-time contribution. (This is assuming a very generous 13% annualize return, however.) He also provides a chart demonstrating how much a person could save by putting $5,000 a year into a Roth IRA from age 18 to age 72.
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Are there any other sites out there like hundredpushups.com that have similar programs for other parts of the body, such as abs or legs?
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That Gospel of Consumption article is fantastic! I don’t think the title is misleading at all. The diversions into history might be a little convoluted, but in the end they tie beautifully back into the description of what our problem is today. Consumption is only part of it. The private life of the worker is considered unimportant, even though it underpins the society that gives the economic machine space to flourish. My field, health care, follows the math that says “longer hours mean fewer jobs”, so my colleagues and I have to figure out how to keep our lives going while cramming a full week of work into 3 days. Eventually retention falls off; witness the current nursing shortage. I think most hospitals (and most other workplaces) don’t consider the cost of keeping a current worker satisfied relative to hiring and training a new one; and it costs a lot to hire a new nurse.
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I’m thinking of launching the 100 credit card swipe challenge. Start slow and build up over a period of weeks. Before you know it, you’ll be in debt up to your eyeballs.
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@credit addict
My wife is ready for your challenge…
@Mason
My abs are ready for the challenge
http://www.weightladder.com
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@westy
Oops. That part about the title being misleading was a remnant from a previous sentence. In other words, I did a poor job editing. No joke. I’ve fixed the sentence…
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Wow 100 push-ups is admirable. I fire off about 40 a day and that’s enough for me!
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sign me up for pushups, thanks JD
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It’s not all about how many, but the quality. For example, doing pushups with 10 seconds down and 10 seconds up is a totally different thing than exploding push-up after push-up.
Lots of strength and other benefits can be gained by total time under tension, as well. You don’t need to do 100 – you just need to go to failure and then a few negatives.
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I’ve been doing my push-ups in Wii Fit. The game somehow “knows” if you take a break and don’t complete each push-up. The trainer then scolds you for it. Say what you will of “video game fitness,” but I’ve put in my 30 minutes of exercise at least every other day (and sometimes more often) since I got the game.
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From the NCN article:
“Wow. Even at a conservative return of 9%, your ending balance would be over 6 million dollars.”
Yabbut you’d be 72. What the heck am I going to do with $6 million when I’m 72? Bling out my walker? Get a set of chrome spinners for my wheelchair? I want to retire WAAAY earlier than 72.
Also, 9% is not a “conservative” rate of return. 7% is. Also, the article completely ignores inflation. From 18 to 72 is 54 years. Assuming 3% inflation, that $6 million at age 72 will have the same buying power as $1.2 million does today. Sure, that still sounds like a lot, but at a 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate, that will only produce $48,000 per year.
While I respect the role articles like this play in motivating people to get moving, I think it does a disservice to youths to only give them half the picture, and fill their minds with unrealistic expectations, like the idea that 9% is a “conservative” rate of return to expect, or that $6 million will still be worth $6 million, half a century from now.
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I often wonder how much damage high estimates do to peoples savings habits. The “if you save x at x% you’ll have $XXXXXX” is a pretty common formula, what happens when you try this and you don’t see the growth promised? For some people I could see this as quite discouraging and lead them to saving less rather than saving more. I always wish for real life examples. It means more to me to have someone write about how they saved $50 a month and saved up $10,000 in 15 years than saving a million by plugging in an overly optimistic interest rate.
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Luke — absolutely, I agree with you 100%. One of the posts I’ve been working on is a “how much does the stock market really return” post. There are so many factors that people don’t usually consider…
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I thought the NCN article was interesting in that it made me want to run out and open a Roth IRA. But I don’t expect to get a terribly high interest rate and I plan on putting more than $5,000 in it once.
I just get excited when I get $1 and some change in interest on my 3% or so savings account! It’s free money and that’s all I care about.
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phew…100???? How old are you folks? (giggle)
I DO basic pilates and walk a lot. not bad for a middleagedfogey.
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If you are looking for 9% interest, good luck. And, with the possible exception of fairly ‘shaky’ commercial notes, I’m not certain where on the planet I might legally get 13% interest. But 9% -growth- is an entirely reasonable figure.
It is, after all, less than the long term historical average for all stocks combined.
One hundred pushups, eh? What style? When I was a kid, I could easily do 500+ in an hour. I could have kept going, but gym class was over.
Now, meh … maybe 2 or 3.
Per week.
Any points for the “over 50″ age division? I might be up for the challenge. After all, that only amounts to starting with ten and adding 3 each day. I’m going to head on over to that thread and see what’s the skinny on fat guys.
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The Gospel of Consumption article is fantastic! It may be long, but it just goes to show that the author spent considerable time and research to produce a well-written and thought provoking article so different from the majority of online articles nowadays. Thanks for sharing the link!
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100 pushups by the end of July? I can do that … it’s less than three a day!!!
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I got over to the onehundredpushups.com site and signed up (it’s free … even -I- can afford free). I did 7 for my first “to-collapse” test. That’s pretty bad, but much better than I expected to do.
I am 56 years old with a BMI of 29.5, bad back and beer belly.
Today, I did the suggested sets of 7,7,5,4 and then 8 for the test set.
Hmmm … maybe I’m not dead after all. It’s been a long time since I did 31 push ups in the same MONTH.
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