While institutional investors are going bonkers over Wall Street and its constant switching between bull and bear markets, I’ve done pretty well so far. In fact, on Monday I hit a milestone with my investments – I reached over a 100% gain. For those of you who are not mathematically inclined, that means that (for example), I invested $10 into a company and now that investment is worth $20. And I think I’ve put together a decent strategy for this success.
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Update on Federal Tax Credit for Student Loan Interest
Any reader of this blog can tell you that I often put up notes and updates about my student loans. Well, there is more that I do in the student loan world besides complain about my lenders or celebrate small successes. In fact, one of the things that I try to be active about is advocating for better federal legislation to help those who are in serious student loan debt.
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Will the Economic Crisis Affect Fraternity Membership?
Back when I was the advisor for my local chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity, I signed up to be on a listserv for fraternity and sorority news. Every once in a while I get an e-mail with an article attached to it talking about something in the fraternity world (and since the media is sensationalistic these days, the articles are generally filled with bad news).
A few weeks ago, though, an article was sent out that talked about why some students are choosing to go Greek these days and why others aren’t. One paragraph, in particular, stuck with me:
The current economic crisis has changed the way students think about money, and Fouts acknowledges that perceptions about fraternity and sorority dues are no different. Chapters and student affairs offices, she said, will have to be “line-item specific” as to what these dues are for and how they will be spent to the benefit of the student. She argued that interested students should not be brought to think of their funds as “paying for friends,” as many an old cliché of fraternity life states.
Let me offer some comments. First, joining a fraternity is not paying for your friends any more than paying to go away to college is paying for a new social network or that joining any other organization that requires annual dues is paying for your friends. That’s a tired ass old argument that is so fundamentally flawed in both its view and application that it’s not even worth getting into extreme details here.
Second, I hope that students WILL begin to question where their dues are being applied – both locally and nationally. When I became the President of my local chapter many, many years ago one of the first things that I did was review where our money was flowing…and it wasn’t pretty. We were robbing one group of guys to pay for the next group of guys and creating a ridiculous cycle while accruing a massive amount of debt (it peaked at $9,000+ at one point). It was horrible. The guys who came before me either knew about the problem and didn’t fix it or didn’t know how to dig our chapter out of the hole.
To make a long story short, in the two years that I was in charge, we paid off the entire debt and reorganized our accounts in a more professional manner. Things went from very bad to very good (a little self-promotion, why not?).
When I began as a volunteer and began to dig more into where the money was going at the national level, while I understood the immediate needs and uses of the funds (which were all being used in a responsible manner), I began to worry about the future. My main concern was not with today’s financial issues, but with the financial issues of 2020 and 2050. With that in mind, I changed my main set of volunteer activities from assisting undergraduates (which is a lot of fun and the most rewarding experience in the fraternity) to focusing on how to build the financial future of our fraternity.
Can fraternities and sororities survive the current economic crisis? Yes – if they prove their worth. Fraternities and sororities need to be prepared to show the value that a new member gets for their dollars. If that “benefit” or value is the ability to attend fraternity-only parties, then the fraternity which is selling that product is likely going to find itself in dire straits. Any college student knows that there is always a party if they know where to look. Fraternity and sorority membership should provide lifelong benefits such as a built-in professional network and a built-in emotional support system.
Those fraternities that can prove their worth in the current economic climate will not only survive, but I expect them to thrive.
Lighting Up the Boardwalk in Asbury Park
A few weeks ago The Coaster ran an article reporting that this is the first year in the history of the Asbury Park boardwalk where the entire boardwalk would be open for the public. Some specific information about the Christmas festivities on the Asbury Park boardwalk from the article itself:
Pike said that the original, early pavilions along the boardwalk were wood and shuttered after the summer season was over.
She said the present pavilions were built during Mayor Clarence Hetrick’s tenure and later in the decades after the great hurricane of 1944 destroyed many of the older ones.
“They were modern for their time but weren’t open for the holiday season. Walter Reade even closed the Paramount theatre in the winter despite the pipe that ran underneath the boardwalk from the heating plant at the Casino,” Pike said.
It’s pretty cool that there are historians that study this type of stuff. I plan on getting over to the boardwalk at some point before Christmas to see what’s going on and how the shops are coming along. I know the last time I was down on Cookman Avenue (which was a few years ago), many of the shops were too pricey for my taste. I wonder if the current economic climate has had any impact on the prices down that way…
Christmas ceremonies are fun and I wish that I didn’t miss the Asbury Park tree-lighting this year. I have to remember to mark my calendar to head over there next year to see the lights turn on the tree.
What Keeps You Up At Night?
My Chief Operating Officer (former – she’s moved on to greener pastures) called a meeting last year and during the meeting our Chief Executive Officer asked my coworkers and I about what we saw for our market in the coming year. Specifically he asked, “What keeps you up at night?” I remember the question because I remember both my response and my thoughts about the question itself.
First, I thought that this was a weird question because it is the rare employee that brings their work home with them. Then I immediately thought that this might have been the CEO’s way of asking us about ourselves so he could ascertain what we were like outside of the office. I figured that this was too awkward of a question for him to ask in a personal sense so it must be directly related to the job. I remember my response, given in a typical brash, young, over-confident tone, “Nothing keeps me up at night. Once the day is over I drive the hour back home and either teach at the college, do work for my website company, spend time with friends, or enjoy some down time.”
Dope.
Here we are a year later and I find myself bringing more work home with me, engaging my company in their proposed plan to get us Blackberries (which I supported from the beginning) so that we can be connected on the road, and looking at a calendar that is overstuffed with events. I also find myself not pleased with the potential for upward mobility in my current position and coming to the realization that working for my current company will not help me achieve any of my financial goals in a respectable time frame. Finally, I find myself in a job market where it would be unwise to up and leave one’s current employment to look for a better deal; especially when you really enjoy the job that you currently perform (and I do enjoy my job and the work that I do). In some respects, it’s a paradoxical time to be someone young in their career.
To get back to the point, though, the question was an odd one. What really DOES keep you up at night? What things weigh on your mind so much that you actually miss sleep to ponder the issues? I thought about these questions and came up with an answer or two…
The biggest thing that keeps me up at night is my student loan debt. And frankly, if that’s the biggest thing that keeps me up at night, then I’m in good shape! It’s the sheer size of the loans that keeps me awake. At the end of last year I owed a little more than $110,000; by the end of this year I should owe a little bit more or a little bit less than $105,000. I’m making significant progress, but I need to make much more progress and much quicker progress if I’m ever going to be in a position to be financially free. Related to the student loan debt is my ability to secure a mortgage when I finally buy a house in a few years. My credit rating is through the roof (somewhere between a 750 and an 800), but who knows how long the tightening credit markets will impact the housing industry?
That’s really about it in terms of what keeps me up at night. Sometimes I wish I had more of an ability to slowdown and relax or travel, but I work in the time to do an adequate amount of that stuff. One thing that I am well aware of is that you can’t live above your means and there is nothing more financially disturbing than when people live a credit card lifestyle. You know, the people who need to borrower from one source of capital to pay another source of capital or those who use money from non-permanent sources to pay semi-permanent expenses (constantly asking parents for money to the rent or for groceries, for example). But those people generally get what they have coming to them – you can’t live through a market fluctuation like we’re currently seeing and not expect that you need to personally change your financial habits.
What keeps me up at night? Student loan debt. But I’m working my plan to pay it down and I’m making good progress… I’m hoping that I can kick the repayments into high gear in the next few months!
