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By Kevin M
 Can we be completely honest about something? We all deal with a lot of different businesses, but it’s only when we have a bad experience with one that we ever say anything substantial about them. And at that point, of course, what we say is completely negative.
There are a number of companies I do business with and some of them are actually excellent businesses to work with. One of these companies is AutoZone, the auto parts supply company.
I’ve been an AutoZone customer for several years. My wife and I have two older cars, and as we all know, the older a car gets the more repairs it needs. AutoZone has been like a “partner” for us, helping us to keep our debt-free cars a few years longer at lower cost.
Saving on car parts compared to parts at repair shops
Here’s something I’ve learned from working with independent mechanics and a little do-it-yourself—full service repair shops charge two to three times the actual cost of the parts they put into your car.
Continue reading How AutoZone Made Me a Customer For Life →
By Kevin M
 One of my regular readers left a couple of comments on my Easter post, The Promise of Easter, that were deep enough in scope that I thought it best to respond to it with a full post rather than with just a comment. The subject of her question is just that important.
One thing before we get started: this is a BIG topic, so this will be a LONG post. Anyway…
“What about doing some research to see how folks are using their FAITH to deal with the recession – whether they have an income or don’t…How to not give up when you get tired of stressing over income generation and feeling something is wrong with you…?”
Angela has been dealing with the unemployment issue for at least three years. Most people see unemployment as mostly a statistic—one the government confidently and regularly reports is getting better. Those statistics, I believe, mask much bigger issues. The number of people who are chronically unemployed, or chronically underemployed, is well in the millions and the options for these people appear slim.
The real story on unemployment
Continue reading What to do When You’re Unemployed Long-term →
By Kevin M
 Most people in Western Civilization are familiar with the Christmas story of the Bible (Luke 2:8-14). It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re a believing Christian, a cultural Christian, a member of some other faith, or even an atheist or agnostic.
Perhaps it’s the magnitude of Christmas itself—since the holiday is almost universally celebrated and on a level that dwarfs every other, there’s some understanding that the birth of Jesus Christ is somewhere in the origin of the holiday.
But to the believing Christian, Easter is the most significant holiday. Christmas is, after all, about the birth of Jesus Christ–not that that’s an insignificant event in itself, but all of us have been born and we have various holidays that mark the birth of many significant people in history.
Easter isn’t a day to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ either—that’s Good Friday, a day long on prayer and solemn reflection and virtually absent festive celebration of any kind. No, Easter is different.
Easter is a holiday unique among all holidays
The significance of Easter to the believing Christian is that it’s the day that commemorates and celebrates Christianity’s most outrageous claim—that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
Continue reading The Promise of Easter →
By Kevin M
 Last week yet another of those struggling-on-a-six-figure-income stories came out on the web, but this one was at least a little bit more tolerable than such accounts usually are. The writer provided some hard numbers that gave some credibility to the claim making it, I think, a decent point to debate.
An income of $100,000 per year puts a household in the top 17.6% of highest earning households nationwide, which is to say that earning that much money isn’t average, and it isn’t middle class. It’s somewhere in the upper tier. Not rich necessarily, but most definitely in the financially blessed region.
It’s hard to be sympathetic when you see such statistics, yet part of me understands this woman’s “dilemma”. Most of me, however, feels other factors are at play.
Continue reading Struggling on a Six-Figure Income →
By Kevin M
 If you’ve ever read any of my posts on the state of college education today, you know I’m not a big fan of using college as some sort of default option for young people who aren’t sure what else to do with their lives. That kind of strategy says less about a kid’s goals and ambitions in life than it does about the insecurities of his or her parents.
Sure a degree in something might increase their chance of finding post-graduate employment somewhere, but the type and duration of that job might not justify the massive cost of obtaining the education. And if junior changes his mind a year or two after graduation, the whole college investment just kind of goes poof!
There are at least three factors that might influence the decision to pursue a certain degree:
- Desire—does the student have a serious intent to apply himself to the rigors of the degree program?
- Aptitude—has the student demonstrated the ability and discipline required by the degree field? Some majors are more difficult than others.
- Is the major economically viable?
The first two points are unique to the student, but the last one is an economic issue that calls for some deep discussion.
Continue reading How Much Should You Invest in a College Education? →
Beyond Buy-and-Hold #78
By Rob Bennett
 It’s an economic crisis!
We all say that. We use that word. But we don’t really believe it applies.
Actions speak louder than words.
The Republicans are still yelling at the Democrats. The Democrats are still yelling at the Republicans. If we thought it were a genuine crisis, we would pull together and get about doing whatever it took to solve the crisis.
We have never made a serious effort to figure out what caused the crisis. Something to do with bankers. Or with mortgages.
Huh?
Do we seriously want to know the truth?
Continue reading The Crisis That Doesn’t Really Concern Anyone All That Much →
By Kevin M
 I realize that this question violates many, many people’s equilibriums—what ever the career issue, there’s a collective sense that a college education is the answer. That, I believe, is the exact reason why the question must be asked.
It’s no secret—the days of lifetime job security with a large employer are fast coming to an end. A job isn’t just harder to find, but it’s also increasingly hard to keep. Technology and off-shoring of jobs have turned this into a long term trend. A lot of people are clinging to the notion that as the economy improves the job market will “go back to normal”. Don’t be on it. Employers who survived the Great Recession have learned how to maintain and even grow their businesses with fewer employees.
The truly relevant question right now is what should we do in response. To default to what we know from the past could be a strategic error.
We have to create our own jobs
Continue reading Does College Prepare You for Self-Employment? →
By Kevin M
 My friend Jay and I were talking about jobs this past weekend and he pointed out something that I hadn’t thought about: There are no astronauts any more! That may not mean too much if you’re under 30, but when he and I were growing up being an astronaut was the ultimate “hero career”. It was, as the kids say today, “the shit” among careers.
Back then it seemed that all of humanity would eventually be going to space—to find resources, to conquer new worlds or at least to alleviate overpopulation here on earth—and astronauts would lead us there. High minded and exciting, yes, except that it never happened!
If a career as cutting edge as astronauts is no longer secure, what can we say about the far more ordinary fields most of us regular folks work in?
You’ve heard it and read it before, and perhaps you’ve even been a casualty of one of the biggest phenomena of our time–the end of job security.
We have to do something about that, but what? Individually, there’s little any of us can do to create job security, but we can gravitate toward it’s close cousin, income security. If we have income security we might not even notice or care that we no longer have job security.
Continue reading Income Security VS Job Security – Does it Matter? →
By Kevin M
The following is a reprint of my Christmas message from last year. I had thought to do a brand new one for this year, but could find no way to improve on the first effort.
I have a theory—I call it my “December theory”—and it goes something like this: every year, beginning about a week before Thanksgiving, and carrying through the entire month of December, the population triples. How else can we explain why the stores are so crowded, why we have to fight for parking spaces in places we usually don’t, why the lines at restaurants are so long and why the highways and airports are so crowded? Where are all these people the rest of the year?
The only logical explanation is that two-thirds of the world lives in some sort of seclusion all year, and only comes out as December approaches.
Every year it seems, Christmas gets more hectic. There’s more going on, more people to buy gifts for, more places to be, more things to do. We rush from place to place to compete with others for suddenly scarce resources and somewhere in that mess attitudes get a little lousy. Admit it–January feels SO good, doesn’t it?
Why to we do put up with all that stress, with all that busyness? And what do we get out of it anyway?
Continue reading What is the REAL Meaning of Christmas? →
By Kevin M
 Have you ever noticed that some people who have little money seem to live very well—they almost seem to be…rich? Have you also noticed that many people who are rich in terms of money seem to struggle? There are definite reasons for that, and it’s mostly a matter of personal choice. It’s not that money isn’t important; it’s more that we should never measure wealth solely in terms of money.
When we do we can sink ourselves into a Catch-22 that we can never win. After all, how much money will ever be enough? Being rich is more about the quality of a person’s life than it is a certain salary or portfolio level, but only if we dare to consider the alternatives.
I’ve come up with a list of 10 forms of wealth—all of them non-monetary in nature—that can lead to a rich life and require very little emphasis on having or earning a lot of money.
Continue reading 10 Ways to Be Rich without being Wealthy →
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How AutoZone Made Me a Customer For Life
By Kevin M
There are a number of companies I do business with and some of them are actually excellent businesses to work with. One of these companies is AutoZone, the auto parts supply company.
I’ve been an AutoZone customer for several years. My wife and I have two older cars, and as we all know, the older a car gets the more repairs it needs. AutoZone has been like a “partner” for us, helping us to keep our debt-free cars a few years longer at lower cost.
Saving on car parts compared to parts at repair shops
Here’s something I’ve learned from working with independent mechanics and a little do-it-yourself—full service repair shops charge two to three times the actual cost of the parts they put into your car.
Continue reading How AutoZone Made Me a Customer For Life →