Working on the weekend; and more push-ups

First let's get push-ups out of the way. Then I'm going to share some updates on my professional life.

Day	Sets	Total
...	...	...
9/12 Wednesday	15 10 20	45
9/13 Thursday	15 20	35
9/14 Friday	20 20	40
9/15 Saturday	20 20	40
9/16 Sunday	25 20	45
9/17 Monday	20 20	40
9/18 Tuesday	None	0
9/19 Wednesday	20 30	50
9/20 Thursday	30	30
9/21 Friday	25 20	45
9/22 Saturday	20	20
9/23 Sunday	20 30	50
9/24 Monday	25 30 15	70

That's 510 more since the last time I wrote, which puts me at 870 for the month. I have 130 push-ups left to do, and six days left in which to do them, for an average of 21 2/3 per day. Eminently do-able. I'm much stronger now than I was when I started. All it took was consistency in a routine that inexorably got me to where I wanted to be. Kind of like Mustachianism! A flavor of lifestyle design where we sow little habits that pay big dividends and compound until you've got a big ol' stash; in this case, of push-up prowess.

Yesterday marked a milestone in my professional life. Sunday was the first time I ever worked on a weekend. It was totally voluntary too: I wanted to get ahead. Long story short, I care about the project I'm on, and I want what's best for our customers. That said, the jury is still out on whether my boss recognizes the value I'm providing. But I'm optimistic that by doing my best and not settling into complacency, sooner or later the work I'm doing will pay dividends.

Sometimes I'm bullish on work, other times bearish, but I do know a couple of things: 1) I never love my job enough not to mind that I have to be doing it, and 2) I feel most effective when I feel least tied down to my job. I've been fantasizing about the day when the sole reason I'll go to work is because of the good I can do, and not because of the paycheck it provides. That will probably be a decade or more in coming, but with every paycheck I'm making progress toward that (and other) goal(s).

In student loan news, this month I've sent payments of $700 and $900 in that direction. It'll be enough to get my balance somewhere in the mid-$10k range. It's totally a habit at this point ("oh, got paid again, money sitting in my checking account; time to make a payment!"). I'm making progress even more quickly than I had hoped almost a year ago. Remember that I gave myself a little over two years to pay off a little under $32k in student loan debt. Now it's looking like I'll get there in 15 months at most.

And then I can start building my stash :)

Car ownership costs

Let's talk about how much my car really costs.

For those of you just tuning in, in June I bought a 2007 Honda Fit Sport from a private party, and paid $10,500 courtesy of an auto loan through my credit union. I know, I know, car loans are bad. But in my case my student loan interest rate is 6%, my auto loan interest rate is 2%, and I'm not badass enough to go completely carless just yet.

But the cost of a car is more than what you pay for it. First and most obviously there's the cost of gas. And then there's a whole host of other fees like title and registration, emissions and safety inspections, taxes, insurance, servicing, and unexpected repairs. It's easy to sweep those costs under the proverbial rug because they're generally not charged in neat monthly increments (well, maybe insurance is).

Gas is an easy win. Before my Fit I was driving a hand-me-down Land Rover LR2, where the gas tank was twice as big and I'm pretty sure I filled it up more often. I think the gas tank on my Fit is 12 gallons and when I'm only commuting it's three weeks between fill-ups. I can get this down even further the more I bike.

Then there's taxes. Where we live we pay an annual vehicle value tax. Let me break this out into a table so it's easier to compare:

Car	Fit	LR2
Tax months	6	5
Tax due	$74.61	$129.82
Total due	$91.11	$145.65
Monthly tax	$12.44	$25.96
Assessed value	$8,825	$18,425

The Fit costs less than half as much in taxes as did the LR2. Not at all coincidentally, the assessed value of the Fit is less than half. (Those numbers are almost exactly the same ratio. I checked.) Total due is more because they charge about $16 for a yearly registration.

Then there's maintenance. I've got one more pre-paid maintenance at the Honda dealer where the previous owner serviced the car. So I got the oil change for free, and it was $16 for a state emissions and safety inspection. But I let them talk me into other preventative stuff like changing the air filters, so it cost me $167.68. A lesson is learned: car dealerships are almost always a ripoff.

And that brings me to my final point, a question for my readership:
I'm considering purchasing the Helm service manual for my vehicle's model year. The down side is that it costs $56.50, maybe more with shipping. The upside is that 1) I'm sure I can perform a bunch of easy maintenance stuff myself, thus saving lots of money, and 2) it will teach me a whole lot about my car, thus increasing my general competence level and my automotive competence level specifically.

I'm pretty sure the service manual is worth it, but I'd really like a second opinion. Thoughts?

Mid-September update

The push-up challenge is coming along nicely. It's the end of day 11 and I have 360 under my belt. 640 more to go in 19 days, for an average of around 33 1/2 per day. I've averaged 32.7 per day so far, or 36 per day if you ignore the first day. So I feel pretty good about my progress.

Day	Sets	Total
9/1 Saturday	None	0
9/2 Sunday	20	20
9/3 Monday	15 10 15	40
9/4 Tuesday	15 20	35
9/5 Wednesday	15 15 15	45
9/6 Thursday	15	15
9/7 Friday	20 15	35
9/8 Saturday	15 10 15	40
9/9 Sunday	15 20	35
9/10 Monday	15 15 10 10	50
9/11 Tuesday	15 15 15	45

I can feel my badassity increasing daily. I've settled on sets of 15 for my "average" set; it feels like the right number. Not too many that my muscles burn afterward, but enough so I feel it. Each day it's a little easier to complete my sets. One day I'm going to gear up and just knock out as many as I can, though I'd like to get a bit ahead first.

In student loan news, my most recent payment of $500 cleared which puts my current loan balance at $11,954.27. My car loan is at $9,807.90 thanks to two extra erroneous payments (basically autopay was automatically set up and I made manual payments as well before I caught myself). I'm already planning some sort of celebration for when my student loan balance drops below my car loan balance. I want an excuse to mention my aggressive student loan payoff to friends and co-workers, basically as another voice in the dialogue to balance out pervasive consumerist talk that comes so naturally. More on that later.

Last, on to investment news, which consumes a good deal of my mindshare. A co-worker heard from my office mate about my interest in the stock market and we're going to discuss such awesome things as dividend growth investing tomorrow over lunch (leftovers, of course). He was excited about buying into Corning (GLW) because he felt it was undervalued. I'm hoping I've found someone at work who I can geek out with about the stock market.

I've also been reading up on options, specifically selling covered calls and (what I think is called) selling cash-covered puts. I think there's very little risk in these moves, especially if you're committing to an action you were planning on anyway (like buying shares if they drop to a certain price, or selling shares if they rise to a certain price). I plan on writing up these strategies in a later post.

September push-up challenge: rocky start but making progress

The title says it all.

Saturday was September 1st and thus the beginning of my 1000-pushups-in-a-month challenge. Unfortunately I was too distracted by playing video games to notice. So I actually started doing push-ups on the 2nd — a measley single set of 20 — and I've been ramping up since then.

Before I show my numbers let me go knock out another set of however many push-ups I feel like doing. (In case you can't tell, I love goals that I can complete at my own pace before some long-in-the-future deadline).

Okay that was another fifteen. Let's see all the numbers:

Day	Sets	Total
9/1 Saturday	None	0
9/2 Sunday	20	20
9/3 Monday	15 10 15	40
9/4 Tuesday	15 20	35
9/5 Wednesday	15 15 15	45

140 down, 860 to go. At the beginning of the month I needed to average 33.3 push-ups per day to hit my 1000 target. That's without any rest days. As of today that number is 34.4 per day.

After my disappointing Saturday, I overcompensated on Sunday. I realized as my shoulders started tightening up that I shouldn't push myself too hard at first. This challenge is eminently achievable as long as I'm consistent about completing sets. The strategy I've settled upon is completing more sets of fewer push-ups, both to give my body time to adapt and so I can get a feel for the right posture (i.e., one that won't kill my shoulders). That should warm me up over the first week or two, and then I can push myself for larger sets later in the month.

Remember that this challenge is mostly an excuse to get me to my 40-pushups-at-once goal, which I set to be completed by the end of 2012. As such, I do want to try for more push-ups per set, just not at the expense of doing too much too fast and burning out.

Other stuff

I'm in the middle of cooking as I'm writing this post. It's a dish that I can't believe I haven't blogged about yet: Pasta Lentils! I'm capitalizing it because it's its own thing, a recipe I invented all by myself, and one of my three favorite foods. I'm totally going to write another post devoted entirely to Pasta Lentils, but to give you a sneak peek: you basically cook a pound of lentils and use it as pasta sauce for a pound of pasta. Voila! All the protein and carbs a growing grad school student needs in convenient Mustachian form. It's easy to cook, easy to store, easy to reheat, and delicious. It's great with red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese. Dinner is going to be awesome tonight (and so will lunch for the rest of the week).

From skimming my old posts it looks like my last student loan update was over a month ago. I've been throwing money at my loans as it's been coming in — I have less than $400 in my primary checking account — and my balance is at $12,442.34. At around $2000 per month that puts my payoff date some time in the February to March 2013 time frame, well in advance of my end-of-2013 goal. And who knows, maybe I'll get a bonus at work and bring that date in even further.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how excited I am to see Dividend Mantra blogging again. I missed his clockwork updates while he was taking his summer vacation from blogging. I continue to find his slow-and-steady march toward financial independence inspiring. Every time I read one of his Dividend Income Updates or Freedom Fund Updates, it re-kindles my excitement for dividend growth investing. The day when I start building my own Freedom Fund will come soon enough, and until then I'll just be working on my student loans.

Non-financial goals review

I can't believe how late in the year it's gotten. I've been thinking about my New Year's Resolution goals I set all the way back in January. Unlike most people who abandon their resolutions in the February/March timeframe, I tend to put them out of my mind until the subconscious nagging becomes too much and I decide to face them head-on.

Sometimes I'll fall into the trap of writing only (or mostly) about financial matters. Let me reiterate that Mustachianism is only ostensibly about money and personal finance. It's much more about continual self-improvement: increasing one's badassity. That's where these non-financial goals come into play.

I have my goals listed for all to see on the "Goals" page up there on the navigation bar. To recap, by Jan 1, 2013 I want to: be able to do 40 consecutive push-ups, lose 10 pounds (be 158lb or less), and learn to cook five meals my girlfriend will enjoy.

To date I've made the most progress on my cooking goal. I think I've got three or four recipes that I've prepared that my girlfriend has found edible. For those just tuning in now, while I wouldn't necessarily describe my girlfriend as a picky eater, she's significantly pickier than I am. I'm the kind of guy who has lived off of Ramen noodles (occasionally with an egg or some frozen veggies added) and frozen microwave burritos (with melted pre-sliced processed cheese on top when I was feeling fancy) — and I loved every minute of it. To my girlfriend, things like food temperature and consistency play a large role. Learning to sense properties of food I never previously considered has been a challenge, but I'm making progress. I'll detail the meals that fulfill this goal once I sit down and put a list together.

I've made the least progress on my weight-loss goal. I weigh between 168lb and 172lb, depending on what time of day I weigh myself. That's about where I was when I started the year, or even a pound or two worse. Biking has basically been a wash as for how it affects my weight: I think I've lost some fat and gained an equal amount of muscle. The other side of the equation is consumption: in the past week or two I've started cooking beans and rice and lentils to bring to work for lunch. My hope is that these less calorically-dense foods will get me on the right track, and be an ally in my personal war against snacking. My company is nice enough to stock a snack cabinet full of all the high-carb high-sugar processed snacks that Costco sees fit to provide. It's all too easy for me to consume a few hundred extra calories than I was expecting in a day, and to reach my goal I'll have to run a deficit of the same amount for the rest of the year. Here's hoping vigilance and a new lunchtime diet pays off.

As for my push-up goal, I've flirted with tackling it from time to time. Every now and again when I'm bored I'll do a set of 20 or 25, which is just enough that it starts to burn. I'm guessing that with two weeks or so of concerted effort, I could hit the 40-consecutive mark.

This brings me to an idea I had: how about a month-long push-up challenge? I want to structure it as "do X push-ups in a month". That way I can make measurable progress toward my goal every day, and still take a day off now and again. I realized from playing World of Warcraft that I enjoy having long-running goals that I can spend short chunks of time making meaningful progress on. A push-up challenge gives me one such long-term goal in the fitness area of my life.

I think I can do 1000 push-ups in a month. It's awesome because it's a big round number and it seems like a ton, but it should still be do-able. 1000 push-ups in a month is a little more than 33 per day. Alternately it's two sets of 20 per day, with every sixth day as a rest day. That doesn't seem so bad! Then again my body might start breaking down around the third week, though that could be as much a feature as it is a bug. I think I want to go for it.

So, what do you guys think about my push-up challenge? Is this something I should look to tackle come September?

Eating right, exercise, and some other things

My last post was Sunday, but my second-to-last post was four weeks ago today. I want to explore the reason I dropped off the face of the earth, and then move into some idle musings.

The post was about killing my 401k loan. (It's dead now, by the way.) I did some pondering afterward and decided that the Toward Mustachianism pendulum had swung too far toward talking about money and debt, and not enough about frugality and spending. I made up my mind to go through all my spending since around May and do some analysis, maybe some descriptive statistics about spending per month across a few categories. I haven't been trusting Mint much for veracity — it feels like there are instances where Mint is mis-categorizing purchases, which may throw off my findings.

I went to the source of all my spending data: my credit card statements. Two cards (for my personal spending only, not counting joint expenses), and about six statements. I copied the tables into Excel and started doing some formatting. And after about 20 minutes I hit a mental block.

I kept those Excel documents open on my computer for weeks but I kept avoiding them. Something about the task was unappealing, I guess. And in avoiding the task of analyzing my spending, so too I avoided the task of writing consistently.

I don't like it when I'm not writing consistently. My goal going forward is to write at least something each week, even if I've got a mental block on the thing I ought to be writing about. And even if it's not perfectly on-topic.

Which brings me to my next point: I've started cooking lentils again. Meals over the past month have been characterized by a noticeable lack of planning. The monthly grocery spending numbers are still in the $200-$300 ball park, though I know we could be doing better if only we tried. Last week I started trying again.

I've made two batches of red lentils, 2 cups dry each time. The first time they were a bit mushy (which they say is common with red lentils). Here's the solution I found: 1.5c water per 1c lentils, season the water and bring to a boil (but don't add salt yet!), add lentils and bring to a boil again, but immediately turn the heat as low as possible after it boils again. And leave the cover on for the simmering. And keep your eye on them so they don't over-cook. Add salt at the end if you're into that sort of thing — I'm not sure what about the salt makes lentils mushy when cooking, but it does. That recipe is simple enough that I don't need to write it down to remember it, and that's the way I like recipes.

Those two batches of lentils made 6 lunches, if I recall; three included rice, from a 25lb bag from Costco. We've had the red lentils for months: a 5lb bag couldn't have cost more than $7 at our local international market. Including seasonings, each lunch couldn't have cost more than $0.50, though I'm totally guessing in case you can't tell. If I recall, the per-meal cost target is $1, so I've got a good safety margin for lunches at least.

I missed eating lentils. They're delicious, and the protein and fiber combination keeps me full longer than I'm used to. That cuts down on snacking on high-carb junk.

And I've gotten back into the swing of biking. I'm biking to work 2-3 times a week and I'm loving it. The weather has been even more beautiful, and avoiding the commute by car is becoming a bigger and bigger benefit in my mind. And I can't help but think of how much better I'm being to my heart by getting some moderate exercise a few times a week.

My company was awesome enough to host a CPR refresher course, which I took, and which got me thinking about cardiovascular health. Heart disease runs in my family and I think there's a reasonable chance I'll have a heart attack before I'm 60. Anything I can do to give me better odds is something I should be working on wholeheartedly, pun intended.

Just another bullet point to add to the "Reasons You Should Be Biking" column.

Blast from the past with EE-series government savings bonds

Hi again, and apologies for the unplanned hiatus. Rest assured I've been making steady progress on my financial goals even if I've not been reporting back.

I came into some money since my last post. My mom handed over a stack of savings bonds, 40 in total, that she'd been holding for me almost since I was born.

Series EE bonds are pretty cool — or, they were pretty cool. The idea is that you buy them for half of their face value, and over some set period of years they'll double in value. Actually, now that I'm looking into this, that's the way it used to be. Here is the TreasuryDirect website for series EE bonds. The government isn't selling paper bonds as of January 1, 2012, and you buy electronic EE bonds for their face value. I feel like that takes some of the fun out of it. Oh well.

I spent about an hour inputting the information (issue date, face value, etc.) on my bonds into TreasuryDirect's bond calculator. That gave me a spreadsheet with a whole bunch of information, like the issue price, the accrued interest, the final maturity, and the interest rate. From that I learned something interesting: before May 1995, the interest rate for EE bonds was 4% going back to March 1987 (the earliest-issued bond I have). Starting in May 1995, interest rates are much lower, from 0.76% to 1.19% up through my latest bond, issued in January 2002.

The total value of my bonds as of July 2012 was $5,110.49. Of that, $1,264.85 was earning a low interest rate, and the remaining $3,845.64 is earning 4%. I say "was earning" because I cashed all my low interest bonds. I've got 6% student loan debt to pay down, after all. I should mention here how easy it was to cash my bonds at my local bank. After signing the back of each, the teller handled the deposit for me, and the cash was in my account right away, available for withdrawal on the next business day. I thought I'd have to wait for something to clear. That was a pleasant surprise.

I figure I should talk about why I haven't cashed my remaining bonds (and why I plan on holding them to maturity). One consideration is that cashing bonds triggers a tax event. Interest income on federal savings bonds is taxed as regular income. If I cashed out all my bonds and paid down my debt, I wouldn't be reducing my debt by the sum total of my bonds' value: whatever tax refund I'd get (if any) would be reduced by some amount. (Since there's no way I'll be debt-free before tax day I plan on using my entire refund on debt paydown.) I'm not sure if it's irrational but that course of action seemed bad to me.

Here's the big reason I want to hold my 4% bonds for as long as possible: I consider it insanely awesome that the government has to pay me 4% interest. Interest rates have been low for over a decade, and for basically my entire adult life. Here I have these relics of a bygone financial era paying me a risk-free 4%. At the time of this writing my ING savings account rate is 0.8%. I would feel absolutely awful giving up a risk-free 4% return, even if it means eliminating debt at 6%. I might be able to justify this based on the difference in maturities for my student loans and the bonds — maybe not, I haven't thought about it too hard. I do know that if today a magical elf offered me an unlimited number of government-backed 30-year-maturity bonds at 4%, I would use all my available cash buying them.

So where does that put me? I've got the $1200 from my bonds, $1k in my checking from the last time I got paid, and another $1200 repaid from when I lent it on a short-term basis to a family member in need. Combine that cash with this week's impending pay day and an outstanding balance of a little over $16,600, and I'm planning on entering September with just over $12k in student loans.