Diary

This sounds great if I can forget

1) graphics

2) budgets (NO, you can't. But MTPF is the solution!)

3) transaction filing

4) checkwriting

First, read these books that talk about budgeting and see if I can really forget it.

7:15 But first, eat dinner

And then

Read Dow-Jones/Irwin guide to Personal FINANCIAL PLANNING. Good! Increase Net Worth. And they discuss budgets.

But even if I'd cut down on every category outside of:

Rent ($6442)

Fed Tax ($22.2K) + FICA ($2397)

Misc (8512)

by 20%, that is just 20% of $10K or $2000. But my NW has gone up by $24K so far this year. Is budgeting worth it?

Not for me! And even if I wanted to, almost all of those categories can't be reduced, or are so unpredictable that they defy budgeting.

What about reducing MISC? (I can't reduce Rent, Fed tax, FICA). It is 11.5% of my total income. If I reduced it by 20% of its value, it would be reduced to 9.2% So why scrimp + save? It's not worth it to me!

Do I believe in a budget? For people with cash flow problems, yes! Definitely. But once you've gotten to the point that you have enough discretionary income to afford a PC to run budgeting software on, you're beyond budgeting. Then it is important to spend money for value, but its not something where month-to-month budgets are relevant since the cash flows are so unpredictable (FOR CASH FLOWS, USE MTPF!)

THE PLAN IS:

1) Spread the extra bucks around evenly to achieve diversification

a) Gold

b) Commodities

c) Stocks

d) Bonds

e) Real Estate

f) Art

g) Furniture

h) Electronic Equipment

2) Make sure you have enough liquid assets to make any payments that come due (as planned) like taxes, etc.

*This is what MTPF is for.

3) Earn a big income, and use it to become a more intense person, living life to the max.

The point is: you don't need budgets/actuals reports and graphs. They are pointless since info is either certain or totally unpredictable.

THE BIGGEST POINT IS: AM I INTO IT? NO!

I won't use

check writing/automatic transaction

transactions on disk

budget vs actual comparisons

graphics (they're a frill)

ALL I WANT IS

a simple program to balance acct and print account percentages.

a complex program (MTPF) for cash flow planning

a notebook to hold transactions

GOOD

IF I'M NOT ELATED ABOUT THE PRODUCT, AVOID IT.

START "MONEY DYNAMICS"

SAT, DEC 2

Breakfast at Kirkland Denny's before 9:00 AM! Read about Atari in Infoworld. Great!!

Took MT "File" into office to put with other DBMS stuff on top shelf.

DBMS

'82 COBOL (Also put copy of IBM Cobol here as memento)

'78-79

COBOL

Then I read "Executive Computing" in my effort to get through all my reading + return stuff to Microsoft library

I'm so glad I've read most of that sort of stuff at HBS:

Decision (tree) analysis

Payback vs IRR vs NPV (WAY TO GO) vs Avg payback

Linear Programming

Inventory Control

Project Control (Gantt, CPM)

Budgeting

Simulation

Strategic Analysis

So I can forget that book. I've done all that. BUT IT IS A GOOD BOOK

So many times in the last few days I've thought how diverse the period this book covers is. I'm glad I'm writing it. I'm not sure how it'll turn out but I want to wrap up before long. By Jan 1.

Lunch at Pizza Haven + read more Infoworld. Home to Seattle, buy gas + card for Emily's birthday