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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Jewish Economics - Misconception #1

Somehow, my last post turned into politics. It was supposed to be about economics.

One of the most difficult issues with trying to 'fix' problems is that people don't relate to them the same way. This causes two problems: Those who are trying to think of solutions don't leave much room for error, where that room is needed, and younger couples - especially those from more comfortable families - run into problems when they get surprised.

Since that was incredibly confusing, here's an example: Most people have some money in the bank. If for whatever reason, someone spends a bit more money or writes out an extra check, there's no harm done - their bank account balance shrinks a bit, and that's it. They'll bring it back up at some point, and there's no harm done. Or, more common, someone forgets to enter a check into their register right away, and their balance is lower than they think - odds are, this won't cause a problem. Their extra money in the bank will keep the check from bouncing.

Now, take the same situation, but imagine it's a young couple. This young couple generally has to toe the line a bit on their bank account. Now, say they write out a check and forget to enter it right away. Or, maybe they have deposited a check, and it's been two days, and they assume it has cleared already - but for some reason it's held up and it hasn't. Now, they write a check, and it bounces. Or they buy something on their debit card, and it goes through - only their bank nails them with a fee for spending money that wasn't there. The latter is worse, because they don't even find out about it right away. Their bank account has been lowered without their knowledge, and they then write a check - which bounces. They get charged more fees. Maybe, they've written out checks to a bunch of places - and even though there's enough for all but one of them, the largest one gets deposited first, so all the other ones bounce.

If you're paying $27 for each bounced check, that adds up really fast (not to mention the embarrassment of having to send out a second check). Not only that, the person who deposited the bounced check may have gotten charged $10 or so as well, so you need to pay for that too. What may have been a $35 check is now costing you $72, or $37 extra. Say that happened to five checks at once, and you've just lost $160.

Now, here's the problem: Many people simply don't get it. They don't understand that putting $10 on your account doesn't just cost you $10. They don't understand that you don't have a buffer to keep you from going over your account balance. They don't understand that while you may be able to afford the $10 easily in a week when your next paycheck comes, right now you can't. Worse, some people still don't get it when it's *them* living on the edge like that - and they drive themselves into debt. Worse still, some of them have parents who bail them out - now wanting their child to be able to buy what they want - and they never learn. Meanwhile, the parents are now losing money, the child is losing money, and nobody is learning how to fix the problems.

So, misconception #1:
Stop living as if there's a buffer. Especially now, there is no buffer! There's no room for error, no room for buying 'just a little something special', no money for that extra shwarma from Massov, no matter how good it is.
And we haven't even touched credit cards yet. Or budgeting. Thank God for Orthonomics, or I'd be writing forever. :)

9 comments:

  1. I better start my series on the three budgeting tools I think are a must (1. Monthly budget tracking and budget summary, 2. Cash Flow Analysis, 3. Assets and liabilities monitor).

    But, in the meantime I will just say how important it is to record every transaction, reconcile your accounts, and plan ahead for the month. Like you said, don't assume there is a buffer.

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  2. I see that your "no blogging at work" rule has really stuck ;)

    I think what you are saying is extremely important for everyone to learn, right from the beginning. Too many people don't pay any attention to their account balance, and expect mommy and daddy to take up the slack. And many times that happens, which doesn't teach anyone any lessons. People need to learn that you should only spend what you have.

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  3. I see that your "no blogging at work" rule has really stuck ;)

    Only when I don't have work. :)

    I think what you are saying is extremely important for everyone to learn, right from the beginning.

    That's why it's first! :P

    I better start my series on the three budgeting tools I think are a must (1. Monthly budget tracking and budget summary, 2. Cash Flow Analysis, 3. Assets and liabilities monitor).

    Looking forward.

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  4. It's especially scary because so many frum kids (and I mean KIDS) get married and have kids of their own so young! The rest of us have a chance to screw up after college without having to worry about supporting a family.

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  5. JA - True. However, I don't think that the problem is so much the kids as the mismanagement of money. Remember, college kids are constantly being written about regarding their allowing their spending to get out of control. Married people tend to be forced into learning responsibility, which is good - they don't pick up that debt. They pick up 'kid debt' or whatever instead, maybe - but they can learn to get out of it, if they TRY to AND if people don't bail them out.

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  6. Sarah - Yep. Most good advice is common sense.

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  7. These notions take on an Alice-in-Wonderland quality when one moves to Israel.

    Israelis have been conditioned by years of socialist "funny-money" policy, more years of galloping inflation, and the inherent instability of living and earning in a small, volatile country's small, volatile currency. They are inured to the notion of living in debt - it's a commonplace.

    In addition, there is enormous social pressure to keep up with others, and to be generous with family (two things which drive the money problems of the diaspora frum world as well).

    Even Americans like us eventually drift into the mentality of running a constant "minus" (overdraft) - which is automatically provided, and how the banks make their money.

    Three illustrative vignettes from our own experience, followed by our solution - for the edification of your Israeli readers, or those considering Aliyah:

    1) A coworker in my hi-tech firm - an engineer, in fact - spent almost half an hour trying to explain to me how he "saves" money by running an overdraft (at high interest rates) while simultaneously having money automatically deposited in a CD/money market type instrument (at lower interest).

    Israeli's don't even figure the interest on the overdraft - it's just written off as a living expense.

    2) When we went to buy our house, we gave the mortgage banker our pay stubs and other asset info. She made a quick calculation and said, we'll lend you X amount based on this income.

    Our jaws dropped - and she smiled and said, yes I know you are Americans, you would never take on such a debt based on this income, but we Israelis do.

    3) We meet a friend in front of the bank, as he prints out his monthly statement from the ATM. Half-jokingly, we ask "nu, did you have a good month?"

    His answer: I had a very good month - I almost got back up to zero (kim'at higati l'efess)!

    Our strategy:

    1) Don't go near the big commercial banks. Use the Postal Bank - there is no such thing as going below zero, no automatic overdraft coverage to lull you into the habit. They even offer a nice, plain debit card for shopping convenience.

    If you're enmeshed with an overdraft, pay it down and get out of the commercial banking system.

    2) Drastically reduce "hora'ot keva" - the standing orders to the bank that authorize payments out of your account. These are used for everything from school tuition to municipal taxes - and they make it very difficult to keep track of your balance.

    OTOH, when the monthly payment is fixed - this is a better way to handle it than post-dated checks, because the amount is deducted on the same date every month.

    3) Shop around for every financial service and instrument - there is wide variety of fees and performance. Being independent of the big banks will encourage this mindset.

    Shop around for credit cards, short and long-term interest-bearing deposits, mutual funds, and even retirement funds.

    That last item is especially important, since the Israeli government is reforming the mutual/pension fund arena, and consumers will soon be able to transfer their investments between funds over their working life. Until now, many Israelis have been forced to accept a patchwork of pension plans - one from each employer they've worked for - or to accept low-performing plans that their employer offers. Find out your rights and become more proactive - this is a long-term investment and small differences in a fund's performance can have a big impact.

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  8. Ben-David - Great post. Do you mind if I repost some of that later on sometime?

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