John D Schultz | auctioneer, runner, sports fan

Allergic to love

Am I allergic to love? Maybe. Maybe not. It all started with an off the cuff remark I made to a friend that I’m allergic to love, and evolved an interesting exchange about me. It ended with some deep thought on my part, and a long phone conversation with someone very close to me that night about the same topic.

I’ve been in many relationships throughout the years. Since I’m not married, you could say that they’ve all failed for various reasons. In the early days, it was a fear of commitment on my part. Heck, it wasn’t fear, it was that I was enjoying life way to much. Often this meant living life at the cost of others. Fast forward a few years down the road, and you’d find me out of relationships and into work. Really into work. In fact, my friendships started to drift away, and my work crept into those once friendly spaces.

Fast forward to today. I’ve begun to realize that I’ve lived in the extremes – either hot or cold, but rarely luke-warm. Over the last seven or eight years, I’ve sacrified relationships for my career. I love what I do, and most people know it. I’m not ashamed of it, but maybe I need to be ashamed at just how much I love my career. I’m now aware of this imbalance, and consciously think about and work on becoming more balance.

Lately I’ve become increasingly convicted that maybe I’m not allergic to love, but addicted to it. You see, I’m addicted to the love I get from my career. In most ways the rest of my world takes a back seat to that love. I get many of the same benefits from my love relationship with my career as I do from others. And, the benefits that I don’t get, I tend to find along the way in various close but not love relationships with others. Which, by the way, are easy to keep up for me, but difficult for the other person. Inevitably they want more, I think it sounds great, we move forward, but I don’t move my career love to second place behind the relationship. Needless to say, I can recall several conversations like “you’re a great guy, super nice, everything I want, except your career is way too important, and I won’t take second place to your career.” The relationship inevitably ends in an amicable manner, and we stay social.

I like to think that I’ve made progress. But, maybe all I’ve done is make a shift to a new extreme? From playing hard to working hard – all at the cost of relationships. First burning up relationships, and now stockpiling close relationships with a few sneaking in close only to eventually get burned by my first love.

This shift has created a new set of problems. I’ve grown very content and happy with my life. As such, I’m happy, outgoing, nice to others, and I tend to lookout for the needs of others before my needs, and that presents challenges – there are more than a few that equate my niceness with romantic interest; some who are attracted to me, know about my first love, and think they can change me; and some that think they can supplant my first love. So far, I’ve only found one that comes close to fully understanding me, and even my relationship with her has struggles related to my first love – but, it’s the healthiest relationship yet. Time will tell if it ends with the standard “you’re a great guy, super nice, everything I want, except I can’t take second place to your career.”

So, am I allergic to love? I don’t think so. But, at the moment, my first love is my career, and that’s a hard pill to swallow for most – including me at times.

March 13, 2011 3 Comments

Turning my financial life upside down

Last month, my church had a several part series on finance. It really got me thinking about how I manage my finances. I thought I’d share a bit of my experience, and some changes I’ve made to my life. Maybe they can help you. Or, maybe I need some guidance. Either way, let me know in the comments.

First off, I’ve always known this, and mostly agreed that where we spend our money is where our heart is. Admittedly, I’ve not always been proud of where my heart was, but when I honestly review my life, the saying has held true. My pastor brought up five areas where we spend money, and ranked them according to how we typically use our financial resources.

Spend
Debt Repayment
Pay Taxes
Save
Give

Interestingly enough, most of my life this has been how I use my resources. I first look to spend, then to pay debt, then my taxes, then maybe save, and then I give my leftovers (if there’s such a thing) to those in need. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten through life with this method, and am financially okay, but by no means am I sitting on a pile of cash. Also interesting to me was that three of the five areas on the list are about me (spend, debt, and save), one is about us (taxes), and one is about others (giving).

As I listened to the message that morning, I was struck with how the order is exactly opposite the way it should be prioritized. If I had to write the formula for financial success it would look different. At the end of the message, my pastor provided the same conclusion, and flipped the list.

Give
Save
Pay Taxes
Debt Repayment
Spend

I’ve been working on living my life this way for the current year, and I’m starting to notice some differences: I’m giving away at least 10% of my income each month to an assortment of non-profits; my retirement account has a balance that is steadily growing (in fact, it’s the first time that I’ve diligently set aside income to invest); I’ve got money set aside for taxes come tax season (as you may know, my primary source of income is typically reported to me on 1099s – which can be scary – while you’re probably getting a refund, I’m paying in over $3,000 this year); my debts are going down very steadily; and I’ve actually got money left over that I’m able to spend and even save more.

During the message, my pastor brought up an interesting point about living a life with this restructured look at finances. Our federal government allows us a tax deduction for giving and saving. So in effect, by making giving and saving a priority, I’m actually lowering my tax liability, which in turn frees up more money for debt repayment, spending, giving and saving. It’s a wonderful circle when it’s followed in the “flipped” order.

The first few months of this change were pretty difficult. However, it’s getting easier. I’ve taken a few steps to get on track, and make sure I’m sticking to my plan.

I listed all my necessary expenses for each month.
1. Debt
2. Utilities
3. Rent
4. Gas
5. Food
I figured those expenses needed to equal 70% of my income, and the remaining 30% should go to giving, saving and taxing (10% to each). So, I divided my necessary expenses by 0.7 and reached an income number that I needed to meet every month.
I opened a savings account at a different bank from where I normally bank, and deposit 10% of every check I receive that don’t have taxes withheld into that account for payment of my taxes. The accounts are actually linked electronically, so it’s really easy. Plus, it’s one of these online banks with a pretty decent interest rate. A double win for me.
I opened an IRA with a brokerage that enables me to directly transfer funds from my regular checking account. So each time I deposit a check in my regular checking account, I transfer 10% of the total to my IRA. I’m only allowed to make $5,000 per year in contributions to my IRA without penalty. But, that doesn’t happen until I exceed $50k in annual income, and when that happens, I’ll open a separate investment account that is not an IRA and continue to make contributions.
I identified several non-profit organizations which are important to me and that I want to support. Every time I get a check, I write them a check equal to 10%. I’ve also identified several friends that do various fund-raisers for causes they choose to support, and I’ve made a conscious effort to also support them above and beyond the 10%. So far this has been fantastic on so many levels.

Now, you’ll notice I didn’t calculate any funds for incidentals. Well, I took a step of faith, and felt that the incidentals would work themselves out if I stuck to this new plan. And, I’m happy to report that they have worked out – because my income has exceeded my budgeted income levels. Interestingly, when my income exceeds my budgeted goals, the amount that I save and give back increases. It’s a crazy win, win!

I wish I could say that this has been an easy transition for me. I can’t. In fact, it’s been a bit stressful at times. But, I know it’s the right thing to do, and I can already feel and more importantly see a difference in my long-term financial outlook.

March 7, 2011 Comments Off

I’m back… but where have I been?

It’s a good question. Here’s the quick and dirty answer: find me on twitter, if you’re looking to see what’s on my mind, and interact with me. I’m not as prolific as some people, but I’m definitely no slouch (just over 9,231 tweets). It’s there that I’ve met some amazing people. They’re all pretty awesome, and many keep up a blog in some fashion or another. I’ve added most of the links to the sidebar… although, it seems that I’m missing a few. I’ll update them as I come across them. In the meantime, happy reading. And if you know of a link that I should include, let me know in the comments.

~~Ohh, and watch for an exciting post coming from me this weekend… something about social media usage and advertising. I know, I know… such an exciting topic.~~ Actually, I wrote a post about turning finances upside down… it’ll post at 8am Central on Monday. I’m also working on a post that stirred up some discussion on Facebook in the last week about the concept of “the conflict of tradition vs. necessary future practices” into which it’ll be fun to delve. Who am I kidding? I wrote a post about being allergic to love… scheduled to post on the 14th at 8am Central.

March 4, 2011 Comments Off

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